#ITS NOT FUCKING ALIENS ANCIENT HUMANS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE FUCKING DOING!

[mosscrab]

every time i think abt those stupid theories à la ancient aliens I get so mad I hate them fucking so much

#ITS NOT FUCKING ALIENS ANCIENT HUMANS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE FUCKING DOING! #i can’t even think of examples that aren’t the fucking dendera light #and those theories or the theorist at the very least is always racist too it’s just horrible all around #.txt

[razieltwelve]

Alien Trolling

It is the greatest mistake of mankind to believe the present era the most advanced. That we see no towering monuments and have found no ancient relics leads many to think that our predecessors built no such monuments and crafted no such relics.

Tell me, then, if I was to leave my house, with all its modern accoutrements, unattended for ten centuries, what would be left? Very little, I imagine. What, then, would remain if my house was left to the ravages of weather, time, and nature for a hundred centuries? What about a thousand centuries?

Time is a cruel foe that has never known defeat. We may stand atop the bones of ancient civilisations so advanced that their science would appear to us as little more than magic. Yet we would never know it because those bones have been ground to less than dust by the endless passage of the years.

X     X     X

The alien looked at his fellow. “Why are you building giant pyramids on this planet?”

The other alien snickered. “The locals here seem pretty smart. Give them ten thousands years or so, and they might even come up with their own proper civilisation.”

“And?”

“How do you think they’ll react when they find the pyramids? They’re going to freak out. They’ll wrack their minds trying to work out how their ancestors built them. Some of them might even say that aliens did it, but who’s going to believe them?”

“...” The first alien reached over and then slapped the other alien over the back of the head with one tentacle. “You’re a fucking troll, you know that, right?”

“Hey, if you can think of something funner to do, then you’re welcome to suggest it. And, yeah, this prank might take millennia to pay off, but it’s not like we haven’t got the time.”

“I guess...” The first alien sighed. “You know, why not build some stuff that can only be seen from space? That’ll drive people crazy in the future.”

“Heh. I knew you’d come around.”

X     X     X

There are those who speak of the endless cycles of infinity, of how the relentless passage of the years leaves us blind to the wonders of the past.

But sometimes that blindness is a mercy.

Because sometimes, the glories of the past are not built by our ancestors and their lost wisdom but by aliens with far too much time on their hands.

Fucking aliens.

X     X     X

Author’s Notes

As a kid, I was fascinated by all of the theories about how the pyramids were built, not to mention all of the legends of lost cities and continents like Atlantis. Now that I’m a bit older, I can’t help but imagine a world where a bunch of overly powerful aliens built all those things as a prank with a payoff that would take millennia to eventuate.

I can see it now. They show up for First Contact, and they’re all:

“Surprise, motherfuckers! We built the pyramids! Take that, humans!”

#original fiction #humor #humour #satire #musings

[poptod]

hello! i'd like to make an ahkmenrah x reader request! maybe present-day reader gets teleported back in time to when ahkmenrah was alive and they eventually get to the palace and stuff happens? maybe they tell him about modern life? and maybe reader is unnaturally beautiful to the ancient egyptians because humans evolve to be more attractive as time goes on so a person from our time would be hot shit 4,000 years ago? this is long lmao. thanks!

Notes: god ive always wanted to do this kind of storyline but i was worried about like,, logic and stuff getting in the way of the storyline. anyway! i was so fucking elated to receive this request. i got a bit carried away so apologies! WC: 3.2k

+

Okay. It isn't that bad.

Would you ever see your family again? Probably not, but you weren't ruling the possibility out.

Would you ever get to have sour patch kids again? Probably not. But even during the time you lived in 2020, you had eaten more concentrated sour patch kids flavor than all of the people around you combined.

This little village on the outskirts of ancient Thebes is hardly L.A.––though that's probably a good thing––and is small enough for you to know every inhabitant. Your shop there is small to suit the town, and well known ever since your arrival in this time.

They found you beside the river, thought you to be a gift from the Gods. You were hazy, though––whatever had so forcefully pushed you back in time had made your head spin, making you sick and unbalanced. So, when they asked if you did in fact come from the Gods, you had no way of defending yourself either way. Generally you've been denying it––they think you are a god, and the only way you've convinced them you're not a god is by saying you're a gift from them. It explains the way you look, unnaturally beautiful and alien amongst the more pure genetics of earlier humans.

Your shop is pretty simple. You make portraits from paint, more realistic than anything else that exists, and it only affirms their belief in your god-like status. Fortunately word seems to not have gotten out––the village has remained small, and no one from Thebes has run into you. Every now and then you get unreasonably anxious that a noble will find you and turn you into a slave. It's a worry most people around you have, so you find comfort in the fact that you're not the only one. Still, you're not quite accustomed to such an atmosphere––the thought of nobles and Kings noticing you still sends terrified aches into your stomach.

It's about two weeks in that it gets bad. People start to pass by the village, more than you would've thought, and they're all looking to trade goods, food, and information. The people of the village talk about you––you're something interesting, you can't deny that, but they don't know just how worried you are. Whenever you see someone you don't recognize outside your home, you refuse to come out.

Five days later and there's soldiers in your home, looking over your paintings on their way back to Memphis from conquering the realm of Kush. You hold a deep contempt for them––you don't know all that much about history, but you know how Egyptian soldiers and Pharaohs reigned power over the people of Kush.

The soldiers aren't all that worrying. What really gets your heart pounding is the final man to enter your hut; a man bearing a crown and a long sword, with golden braces around his wrists and a chest plated in green scales. Your fingers dig into the wood of your counter when he notices you. The crown on his head––it's the crown of both upper and lower Egypt.

This is a Royal.

"Where did you learn this skill?" He asks you, eyes trained on one of your bigger drawings. It's just on papyrus––not for sale––and hung on the wall as a display of your talent.

"I spent a little while travelling the world," you answer. Technically, growing up in the modern world was a bit like travelling the world; you got to see the cultures and practices of many, many people. "The rest of it's practice."

"The peasants here, they... they claim you came from the Nile. Is that true?"

"Well... that is where I was found," you say carefully, but you can already tell you've fucked up. The look on his face is indescribable beyond the fact that he's pleased.

"How would you feel coming back to the capital with me?" He offers to you, setting his hands on the counter and leaning forward. "I think my father would much like to meet you."

"I – I don't think I'm really cut out for -"

"Nonsense," he dismisses with a smile, taking your hand from its' spot on the wood. "We shall teach you proper writing skills, give you a beautiful home, and the salary isn't horrid either."

You can't just say no. If you do, he's going to ask questions––he's going to get confused, and he's going to get suspicious. No one would turn down an opportunity like this; free schooling, free housing, and much more money for something you already do.

"Well... alright," you say quietly, looking to the home around you that you built with the help of the other villagers.

"Wonderful. My name is Kamun."

He's not a very nice person, you come to find. Or perhaps he's just not your tastes––the soldiers seem to like him well enough, at least the ones who aren't completely subordinate to him, but his attitude towards women and poor people is scathing to say the least. Otherwise he's very amusing, with a good sense of humor and quite generous with his food and wine as long as he gets his fill of it first.

The boat back to Memphis, where the royal family currently stays, is a long ride filled with various entertainments. It's clear these are not soldiers accustomed to rough conditions––the dancing women and flowing beer is enough to tell you that. Instead, you surmise these are faux war-heroes; people adored in their hometown for doing nothing but intimidating others in a foreign country. They try to get cushy with you, soften you up to their words and touches. It doesn't work.

He keeps you close to him. You let him do it, sort of––it's better than telling him no. Better than starting a ruckus. Then again, avoiding a ruckus is what got you here in the first place, standing before the doors of the courtroom where a false God on earth rules the Nile.

"Father, I bring you a gift from Thebes," says Kamun, pushing you forward by the small of your back. You can't bring yourself to meet the Pharoah's eye, so you fall to your knees and bow.

Everyone is staring at you. You don't look normal, and they all know it, and you know it. You could cry from the heat of their eyes on your back.

One of Kamun's soldiers steps forwards, handing the Pharaoh and his wife several of the drawings they'd taken from you. Silence passes as the two scan your work.

"How did you achieve such a mirror of the human face?" The Pharaoh asks in a slow, deep voice that sounds as he looks––old, weathered, wise.

"They came from the Nile," Kamun answers for you, and murmurs take the crowd by storm. You, on the other hand, feel your heartbeat increase in massive increments, speeding your already uneven breath. "A gift from the Gods, the locals said."

"I can't – I am not magic," you rush out, hoping your clarification clears you of any responsibility to the Pharaoh. You know he rules everything––if he says you are to stay here, you have no choice, and you don't like it here. Too many people. "I cannot give you anything, my King."

"I think you're lying," says a voice, its' tone soft and a velvet low. It catches you off guard, brings you to raise your head and meet the eyes of someone you don't know; a young man dressed in gold beside the Pharaoh's throne.

You almost lose your breakfast as your eyes bulge, your mind instantly recognizing him and connecting the dots. You were, by far, not a historian, but you knew a fair amount of Egyptian history––namely a family in the Old Kingdom who was headed by the Pharaoh Merenkahre. The remaining statues and busts of the King and his son are astonishingly accurate, and there can be no doubt in your head.

That being said, there also can't be any reaction on your face. You try your best to reign your expression in.

"I..."

Actually, you do have something to offer now. You know the names––memorized the history, committed each event to memory, and now you can pull their lifestory off from the top of your head. Wouldn't that be valuable to a King; a seer of the future, to predict the rise and fall of the economy and the coming armies. Besides, you can't just say he's wrong. That'd be treasonous to them. So you have to agree you're hiding something, come up with an excuse as to why you hid it, and it proves harder than you thought. You're quickwitted, though––it got you away from the villager's wrath, and it will promote you to noble living now.

You hide a smirk beneath a calm expression as you address the younger prince.

"They gifted me foresight," you say quietly, pretending as though it hurts you to tell the truth, "but told me to never inform others."

"You are in the presence of Ra once more," the Pharaoh reminds you.

"And others," you point out. "I would... it would be better to discuss such matters.. in private."

Detailed information about already-past events is enough to sway him to believe you. The Pharaoh is surprisingly easy to convince, and with a few, meaningless predictions of the future, he gives you housing in his own palace. Kamun looks proud of himself––puffs his chest out in front of his father and earns no compliment. Ire laces his glare as it falls upon his brother, Ahkmen, praised for his ability to see through your obvious lie.

The Pharaoh asks his younger son to guide you to your room. Apparently it's closer to his room than it is to Kamun's, and evening is approaching fast. The walk there, while short, is marked by a conversation composed mainly of Ahkmen's questions and your answers. When the two of you reach your room, he doesn't leave––actually, he follows you in and locks the door.

There's nothing more terrifying than a man with unchecked power, and there is no one watching you.

No fail safe.

You gulp.

"I know you're still not telling the truth," he says, and though it dismisses several of your worries it still begs the question; how did he notice? "Just thought I'd spare you the embarrassment in front of my father, but my generosity ends there. Now I won't hurt you, and I won't tell anyone––I'm just curious."

Oh thank fuck. He's not going to rape you.

"I'm not Egyptian," you blurt out.

"Obviously," he interrupts, but you glare him into raising his hands defensively.

"I'm from the future."

He stares at you. For a minute. You know this because you count it––he just pauses right in his stance, doesn't move, and stares at you for a whole minute like you just told him you're made of gold.

"I'm sorry, what?" He says, laughter suddenly wracking his body.

"It's how I know what's going to happen to your family," you say, hoping he'll believe you. Otherwise this handsome, seemingly-nice man is going to think you're insane for the rest of time. "I studied your family for years as a side-hobby, I don't know how to predict the future for anything but you and your father."

His laughing pauses, or lightens at least; enough for him to say, "actually?"

"Yes," you say, completely serious. This seems to gain his interest once more. "You have to help me. I know at some point people are going to ask me questions about other things and I'm not going to have an answer."

"Just do what all our priests do," he says with a chuckle.

"What do they do?"

"Lie," he says. You can't stop the grin that spreads across your face from the stupid joke, and when he sees that a shit-eating grin spreads across his own face, delighted he could make you laugh.

"Yes, well... I guess I could do that," you mumble in a laugh.

"There's no need for you to worry. Now that I know the truth, I can help you," he says, offering you something that takes nearly all the anxiety out of your brain. After two days travel with a prince, it feels like it took 50 pounds off your shoulders.

"Thank you, so much," you chuckle in relief.

"Of course. I do have questions though, and I want you to answer them."

"Anything."

These questions of his, they come at all times––almost at a constant rate when he takes you on long walks, which he does often. He passes it off to his father as an interest in your beauty, and it apparently works. This little lie also helps you enormously in avoiding the romantic advances of many of the people you come into contact with. You're still not quite sure how it works, since Egyptians supposedly had a strong sense of patriotism, but you look rare and they idolize it. Every eye that falls upon you sees something beautiful, and you can't understand it.

At least Ahkmen is normal. He doesn't talk about you being beautiful. Ever.

And it kind of makes you sad.

"Would you say people on the whole are happier in the future or in the past?" He asks you, his words surrounded by the warmth of a summer day in Egypt.

Birds chatter loudly in the trees around you, singing in the humid air that marks the mating season for many of them. The flowers that surround you are already familiar––you thought it would take longer for you to commit the shapes and colors to memory, but here you are. Dressed in gold-laced silk and turquoise necklaces.

"I think the happiness of a population is dependent entirely on the circumstances surrounding it," you say. Sometimes your answers relate more to the human condition than the progress of time on the human race; he likes these answers, too, so you tell him exactly what you think. "Six thousand years from now, there are times of great misery. One is even called the Great Depression, but five years before that were some of the most prosperous times my country had ever seen. The same cycle is evident here."

"So.. great misery and great happiness come in waves?" He asks, pace slowing as he tries to understand what you're saying. You pause along the pathway, allowing him space to think.

"It's a pattern, actually. When the economy goes up, it will always come down. Recessions happen right after economical booms. And yes," you say before he can ask, "a time of unease will follow the prosperity of the current years. But it won't be for a time yet."

"Will it happen in my lifetime?"

He's murdered about three years from now. You think you might be able to stop it, but if you do, it'll alter history quite a lot. Either way, he wouldn't live long enough to see the recession the building of the great pyramids caused.

"No," you say. "But I'd prepare for it anyway, if only to keep your citizens safe."

"Of course. You... you are a great scholar," he tells you, resuming the slow walk down the shore of the Nile.

"Oh. Uh, thank you," you mumble as a blush fills your cheeks.

"What did you do in your time?"

"I was an artist, but I spent a lot of time giving lectures on the role of autistic people in ancient Egypt. Autistic people are often timekeepers," you say, and you know he'll figure out what you mean. Autistic isn't a term here, but many timekeepers of these ancient times were autistic, and considered highly by their societies.

"You might be able to give lectures again, if you'd like," he suggests. "People would come from far and wide to hear you speak. And you've got things to say that I know many scholars will find interesting."

"Mmm," you wince, "I kind of want to stay away from altering history too much."

"Oh, yes. My apologies," he says in a softer voice.

"It's alright," you say. "I'm glad you think I would be a good choice for that kind of thing, though."

He chuckles bashfully as he turns to the ground, scuffing his sandals as he walks.

Ahkmen is sweet––much sweeter than any of his family members, and you find yourself appreciating that every time you pass by his room. You pass his door often, always stopping a second to contemplate the tall, wooden doors. He's on the pathway between your room and the library.

Most of the time he's not in his room. Actually, you can usually find him in the library––there or outside in the markets or near the stalls. Today is different; he's been missing all day, and only when you walk the path back to your room do you hear his voice, talking to himself in his bedroom.

"They're bombarded with just such compliments, though. I can't – I can't stand out!"

"Or maybe you should, because you still haven't said a single thing yet and they probably think you're completely uninterested and that's why they aren't noticing you?"

"You and your... logic," Ahkmen spits.

"Come complaining when you kiss them under my advice."

As you attempt to peek through the crack in the door you stumble, knocking your hand against the wood. You barely hesitate before knocking again––cool and collected, smooth to slip into another lie.

"Oh! Hello, um – hi," he says awkwardly, slipping out of the room when he sees you. He quickly closes the door behind him, careful to keep you from seeing the other person in his room, but you can't bring yourself to care about the stranger.

Think of an excuse, why am I here?

"Oh, that's... I like your flower," he comments softly, eyes flickering between your eyes and the flower tucked into your hair. You'd forgotten about it, but raised your hand to touch the petals as you smiled. The perfect excuse

"Thank you. I thought you might like it, so I," you take it out of your hair and grab his hand, holding his palm upwards, "wanted to show you.. um, here."

Setting the flower in his hand, you curl his fingers around its' stem and push his hands back into his chest. He stares at you for a moment, confused by your strange behavior, but accepting of your gift anyway. You know him well enough now––he'd never decline a gift from you.

"A white iris," he tells you in a lofty tone. "A symbol of the dead. Funny it looks so lively on you."

You need to get out of here before your chest combusts.

"I need to go now, but I'll see you this evening, yes?" You ask, stepping instinctively closer. He doesn't back away.

"Of course. And, um," he takes your hands, keeps you where you stand as he slips the flower back behind your ear, "keep it. I want to see it on you at dinner."

He's close to you––close enough that it gets hard to distinguish his breath from your own, when you started holding his hand. When his other came up to your face. When he leans in and kisses your forehead. It's barely there, just barely, but there's no mistaking the soft plush, the affection clear behind gentle, precise movements.

You rush away the second he lets your hands go.

#ahkmenrah x reader #rami malek

[valeriethepussycats]

Inside Out

Chapter 1

Pairing- Loki x Reader

Warning- cursing

Your thoughts and other characters are in italics. Flashbacks are in bold.

“Long before the birth of light there was darkness, and from that darkness, came the Dark Elves. Millennia ago, the most ruthless of their kind, Malekith, sought to transform our universe back into one of eternal night”

Malekith is looking up at the Convergence

“Such evil was possible through the power of the Aether, an ancient force of infinite destruction.”

The Aether.

“The noble armies of Asgard, led by my father, King Bor, waged a mighty war against these creatures.”

The Dark Elves and Asgardians fighting.

Kurse walks up to Malekith. “Malekith! Asgard's forces are upon us.”

The Bifrost opens, and bor steps out with Asgardian reinforcements.

“Send the Kursed.” Malekith told Kurse.

Some soldiers crush objects in their hands and become giant hulk-like creatures. Malekith looks up at the Convergence again.

“As the Nine Worlds converged above him, Malekith could at last unleash the Aether...”

Malekith and Kurse walk up to the Aether.

However, the Bifrost opens and Asgardian warriors attack Malekith, whom he kills. The Bifrost disappears, just as Malekith tries to get the Aether, but it is no longer there.

“But Asgard ripped the weapon from his grasp. Without it, the Dark Elves fell. With the battle all but lost, Malekith sacrificed his own people in a desperate attempt to lay waste to Asgard's army.”

Malekith watches as his forces are slaughtered. “Their deaths will mean our survival. This war is far from over.” He and Kurse get onto his ship and escape without notice, while destroying the other ships in the process.

The ships kill some of the Asgardians.

“Malekith was vanquished, and the Aether was no more. Or so we were led to believe.”

“Sire, the Aether. Shall we destroy it?”

“If only we could. But its power is too great. Bury it deep. Somewhere no one

will ever find it.”

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Earth, New York City

Wow! A lot has happened in the past couple of years for Y/n. She met an Alien/God, saved New York from an alien invasion, found out she has a soulmate who caused said invasion, and last but not least finding Gambit. Even though these last years had its up and downs. Y/n hadn’t been this happy in a long time, and spending time with Gambit is the cause of that. Spending time with him just make everything better it makes her miss Loki less (even though she didn’t get to spend that much time him). Now She was now walking down the street with Gambit eating ice cream in the middle of November.

“You met my mother. How that happened?” Y/n said taking a spoon full of her ice cream.

“The good professor wanted information on you.” Gambit answered.

“Charles Xavier knew about me and my where abounds this entire time.” Y/n said with an eye roll. “Apparently him and my father have an understanding with each other.”

“Your mother...she didn’t know you existed.” Gambit stated.

Of course she didn’t Charles fucked with her mind too what a big surprise

“Well that still doesn’t change the fact that she abandon me.” She said in a dry tone.

“You gave me a chance....you trusted me to protect you and I couldn’t.” Gambit said with a sad grimace.

Y/n to turns and looks at Gambit. “You did your best. You didn’t abandon me. Ya you could’ve call to let me know you weren’t dead but I wasn’t your responsibility. Those people were after her, and she didn’t want to get caught so she left me behind.” Y/n stated. “You gave me to my father so I could be safe so I wouldn’t be used by The Thieves Guild like you was. You protective me. You’ll always be my hero.....no matter what you say.”

Y/n turns away from Gambit and started to walk away. As she approaches the cross walk she hears a voice being broadcasted in her mind.

Please no!

“Someone is in trouble.” Y/n claimed.

“What?” Gambit mumbled.

Where are you

Oh my god

Where are you

In the alleyway behind the Barbecue Restaurants just off Main Street

Y/n takes off running to Ray’s bbq leaving Gambit in her dust. When she arrives in the alleyway and doesn’t see anyone.

Hello are you here

“Thank you for coming.”

Y/n turns around and see five Einherjar Guards. “Ummmm.Hello.”

“We are the Einherjar Guards of Asgard and our king wishes to speak with you on the behalf of Prince Loki Odinson.”

“What?”

“The king would like-“

“No no I get that but why.” Y/n said to herself.

Gambit catches up to Y/n and see her with a group of guards. “Petit? What’s happening.”

“I’m being summoned by the king of Asgard.” Y/n said with a small smile.

“A king!! The king of Asgard.” Gambit finished with a gaping jaw.

I get to go to Asgard!

“Look I have no problem coming but I’m kind of in the middle of something.” Y/n voiced.

“This is important the fate of Prince Loki rest in your hands.” Einherjar Guard said not trying to be pushy.

“Fate.....I thought Loki would have been went to trial.” Y/n turns and looks at Gambit.

“l..l hav-“

“No...no it’s find go I know how important he is to you.” Gambit said with a smile.

“But just find your way back Ya.”

Y/n is about to walks over to them when a thought runs though her mind. “How about you come with me?”

“Invitation is only for you.” Einherjar Guard chimed in.

“I see that but I’m just a mere mortal I wouldn’t be comfortable being on a world without someone who can relate to me.” Y/n said artfully. “Would you want to be on a world all by yourself?”

Einherjar Guards look at each other in confusion

“Or someone is going to have to tell the king that they could get a mere mortal to comply.” Y/n said with a smirk.

“He can come but he will be watched.” Einherjar Guard agreed.

“You heard em lets go.” Y/n said as she pulls Gambit and they stand next to the guards.

“Uhhh. What’s happening??” Gambit said with a curious tone.

“Heimdall open the Bi-Frost!” Einherjar Guard shouted.

“This is going to be fun!!” Y/n said In a giggling way.

Gambit looks over at her and could see the excitement in Y/n’s eyes. “What is about-“

Suddenly Bifrost opens! A portal surrounds them In an instant, they're gone.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Upon emerge from the Bifrost, Y/n and Gambit looks around at the Observatory.

“Woo-hoo...let’s do that again.” Y/n proclaimed.

“No I’m gonna need a bucket.” Gambit grunted.

“Y/n L. Munroe and....Remy E. LeBeau I am Heimdall The gatekeeper of Asgard.” Heimdall announced.

“Hi....” Gambit and Y/n said in-sink.

“You are a friend of Thor. He has told me much about you.”

“I wish I can say the same.” Y/n said with a smile.

“If you follow the guards they will lead you to the Castle.”

“Thanks.” Gambit said walks with the guard.

“Heimdall...I was hoping I could come back here.”

“What for?” Heimdall asked.

“Well I would love to hear all your stories, being able to see everything in the universe....thats kind of wicked.” Y/n answered.

“Of course you can.”

Y/n smiles at Heimdall then catches up Gambit and whispered. “Do you think I look ok to meet a king.” Y/n was wearing a Navy blue crewneck cable knit with some light blue jeans and white air force 1.

“Petit, you look fine don’t worry about it.”

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Throne Room

Loki is in chains, as he gets brought to Odin.

“Loki.” Frigga said in a began.

“Hello, mother. Have I made you proud?” Loki asked

“Please, don't make this worse.” Frigga said with a calm voice.

“Define worse.” Loki said in a casual tone.

“Enough! I will speak to the prisoner alone.” Odin proclaimed.

With one last look Frigga walks out the throne Room.

Loki looks up at Odin and laughs. “I really don't see what all the fuss is about.”

“Do you not truly feel the gravity of your crimes? Wherever you go there is war, ruin and death.” Odin voiced.

“I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god. Just like you.” Loki expressed with a shrugged.

“We are not gods. We are born, we live, we die. Just as humans do.” Odin specified.

“Give or take 5000 years.” Loki sarcastically remarked.

Odin: “All this because Loki desires a throne.” Odin put forth.

“It is my birthright.” Loki voiced.

“Your birthright was to die!!!....” Odin shouted. “.....As a child. Cast out onto a frozen rock. If I had not taken you in you would not be here now to hate me.”

“If I am for the axe, then for mercy's sake, just swing it. It's not that I don't love our little talks, it's just ... I don't love them.” Loki said perpetually tired voice.

Odin tap the Gungnir on the ground and the doors open. Loki looks back back at the doors to see who could possibly coming in.

“Are we to wait on Thor?” Loki questioned.

“No Thor has nothing to do with this......” Odin started. “This is about someone else. That you are not worthy of.”

Wow this place looks so amazing

“Do you still want the Axe?” Odin wondered.

Loki looks over at Odin with wide eye then turns around and see Robin she looks just as he remembered her. Breathtaking.

“Loki!!” Y/n called out.

Loki can tell she’s happy to see him, she had a broad grin on her face despite him being in chains. “Y/n.” Loki said with darted a suspicious glance at Odin. “What is the meaning of this!?

When Y/n reached Loki she stands next to him and looks up at Odin.

Should I bow

You Bow to no one

Y/n looks over at Loki with a quizzical smile and all she gets back is a coy smile.

She turns back to Odin smiling to herself.

“I brought Y/n here to say goodbye to you.” Odin said in A calm voice.

“Goodbye..why would I need to say goodbye.....is he getting-“ Y/n said in rapid blinking and shaking her head ‘no’.

“You brought Y/n here to spite me......how do you even-“ Loki fumed.

“Frigga told me a long time ago, when you was just a boy.” Odin explained. “And Frigga is the only reason you are still alive and you will never see her again. You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeons.”

“I thought he was going to die.” Y/n said like a weight was lifted off her shoulders, but then a relief is quickly replaced by anguish. “If you were going to do this then why do you bring me here? You should’ve left me on earth, instead of bringing me here when you’re just going to but him in the dungeons for the rest of his life.”

My life

Loki looks over at Y/n with knitted brows. “Y/n....”

“I know what Loki did on earth is unforgivable but-“ Y/n started.

“Did he or did he not kill someone close to you?” Odin asked.

“Yes he did and I kick his ass and my father brought him back.” Y/n answered.

“Your father.” Loki looks over at Y/n with his brows pulled together in a frown.

“Ant....Boot.” Y/n said teasing Loki softly.

“Oh.” Loki said with a blank stare and a paled face.

“Does he deserves punishment or not ?” Odin chimed in.

“Yes but-“

“Then it’s decided-“

“No. No. This can’t be the last time I’ll see him.”

Loki looks over at Y/n and see that black veins slowly starting to appear on the side of her neck.

Y/n, what is the matter

Nothing, I’m fine

“Let me have two weeks with him here on Asgard.” Y/n said not wanting to sound pushy.

“Giving you two weeks with Loki would give him happiness-“

“I’ll be in the dungeons with him.” Y/n said meaning the words more seriously than they sounded.

“You would do that.....” Odin said in curious tone. “.....for Loki?”

“Yes I would.” Y/n said firm persistence.

“Hmm.” With tap of the Gungnir, the doors open.

As the Einherjar Guards come in the throne room and takes Loki and they struggle to get him to leave.

“And what of Thor? You'll make that witless oaf king while I rot in chains?” Loki said with a rigid expression.

“Thor must strife to undo the damage you have done. He will bring order to the nine realms and then, yes. He will be king. “ Odin answered.

Loki looks at Odin and then Y/n as he gets drag away, then Odin looks over at Y/n.

“You can have your two weeks.” Odin announced. “You do not have to be in the dungeons with him.”

Y/n turns her head quickly to look at Odin. “What? why would you just-“

“Do you not want it?” Odin snapped.

Yes..yes I do thank you.” Y/n said sincerely.

“Frigga” Odin calls out for his wife.

Frigga walks into the throne. “Well if it isn’t Y/n Munroe, l am Frigga Queen of Asgard.”

Y/n turns around and see the Queen of Asgard. “Hello.”

Wow she is so beautiful

Frigga approached and took Y/n’s hand in hers and looks at her with a sweet smile. “We have so much to talk about.” Frigga said as she led Y/n away out.

“You are even more beautiful then I thought.” Frigga said with a voice soft with affection.

“No you are.” Y/n said with out missing a beat.

Frigga laughs. “Is this Midgard attire.” Frigga said with one hand spin Y/n around to see her full outfit.

“Oh yes it is.”

“It’s lovely your practically glowing like the morning sun my dear.” Frigga said with a smile.

“Thank you.” Y/n said returning he smile.

“Come dear there’s much we must do.”

Meanwhile Loki watches Frigga and Y/n walking and talking, unaware of the horrors that were occurring several stories below his feet.

“I can’t remember the last time Loki or Thor brought a friend home to meet us,” Frigga said to Y/n . “When a young man brings a young woman home to meet his parents…” Frigga began, implying a possible marriage between Y/n and Loki.

“Technically, I think we have only known each other for a month.” Y/n said, surprised to be having this conversation so soon.

“And if it were three million years, would that change how you feel?” Frigga asked.

Y/n thought on this.

It wouldn’t change one thing.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

“Beautiful golden sunlight shined down through the lush, vibrant forests of Vanaheim. Unlike Svartalfheim, the realm of Vanaheim was much more pleasant an environment. It was home to beautiful lakes and mountains, with vast fields of green spread out as far as the eye could see. But today, it was filled with danger and destruction.

The people of Vanaheim—known throughout the Nine Realms as the Vanir—raced through the forests as fast as they could. They were being chased by the Marauders, a race of space pirates—brutal invaders who were armed to the teeth and out for blood. Their sole purpose in life was to take what was not theirs, and destroy anything—and anyone—that stood in their way.

A frightened Vanir woman ran for her life but stumbled, falling down a riverbank just as a Marauder fired a massive fireball. It streaked above her head, impacting a nearby tree and causing it to burst into flames. As the woman regained her footing, she was confronted by a towering Marauder. He raised his razor-sharp ax, ready to strike, when suddenly a steel mace smashed the villain in the face, knocking him down, and knocking him out.

“Standing over the frightened woman was her savior—Hogun the Grim, of the famous Warriors Three. Hogun did not wait for a thank you, nor did he want one. The Marauders were running rampant across his home world, and Hogun was determined to stop them.

As more Vanir ran to safety, Hogun stood his ground—the only barrier between the fierce oncoming Marauders and the peaceful Vanir. The Asgardian warrior gripped his mace tightly and steeled himself, ready for what just might be the last battle of his life. With a skull-shattering roar, the Marauders charged, determined to crush Hogun and the rest of the Vanir people.

The lead Marauder raised his broadsword and swung, but his blade was deflected by another sword—the sword belonging to Fandral the Dashing, the second member of the mighty Warriors Three! Fandral, still handsome as ever despite the battle, rode through the charging Marauders on his white horse, knocking down one intruder after another until he was able to make his way to Hogun, flashing a smile the entire way.

“Do we have a plan?” Fandral asked his fellow Warrior as he flipped the lead Marauder off his horse and tossed.

“We stand and fight!” Hogun the Grim yelled.

Fandral rolled his eyes at his friend’s single-minded determination to fight. Then a loud Boom, Boom, Boom echoed throughout the trees. Fandral, Hogun, and the rest of the Vanir stopped in their tracks and turned their attention toward the deafening noise. It was coming from beyond the woods, and whatever was making the noise was big. Very big. The ground shook and trees fell with each sound as the unseen threat got closer and closer.

The Vanir did not follow Hogun’s orders to stay and fight, but instead quickly retreated into the woods. The idea also crossed Fandral’s mind.

“Have you considered ‘turn and run’?” Fandral asked, but Hogun only frowned in response. Then the grim warrior looked up and over the tree line and began to back away as well. Finding a Marauder’s horse without its rider, Hogun swung up into the saddle and galloped away. Fandral was close behind as explosions rang out throughout the woods. There would be time enough to fight later.

The two warriors quickly rode their horses into a clearing where the Marauders were fighting with a few of Asgard’s elite guards, the Einherjar, who had come to help the Vanir. Hogun and Fandral stopped before one of their Asgardian compatriots, the strong and beautiful Lady Sif, who was just as brave and tough as the Warriors Three.

Sif was on horseback, locked in furious battle with a dozen or so Marauders. Sif spun her bladed spear high over her head, taking down several of the barbarians, then split the spear in two, forming a magnificent blade for each hand.

Sif fought with fierce determination against the horde, but despite her resolve, she was gravely outnumbered. With all her might, she flipped off of her horse and delivered a powerful kick to one of the Marauders, sending him flying back past the third member of the Warriors Three, Volstagg the Voluminous.

“Volstagg—on your left!” Sif cried.

Without missing a beat, Volstagg swung his battle-ax at his attacker, striking him down with one fell swoop. And when another Marauder tried to attack him with a club, the voluminous one merely took the hit, then turned, broke the club in two, and backhanded the Marauder, sending him flying through the air. But all of this nonstop battling was beginning to take its toll on the excessively large warrior. Now out of breath, Volstagg made his way to a giant pile of timber where he could take a momentary break.

“What are you doing?” Sif yelled. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Here they were in a heated battle with villains known for decimating anything in their path, and one of the legendary Warriors Three was taking a breather.

“Giving them a moment…to regroup…only fair…” Volstagg said between long, labored breaths.

But no sooner did Volstagg stop to catch his breath than another horde of Marauders set their sights on the large warrior. They ran at him with their weapons drawn, but Volstagg merely kicked out the timber, causing it to collapse on and crush the approaching horde.

Volstagg gave himself a congratulatory grin, but it was short-lived, for just as he did, he was slashed across the back by a Marauder. He wasn’t as unstoppable or impenetrable as he thought. Nearby, Lady Sif wasn’t faring too much better. She was surrounded, and a Marauder from across the battlefield was aiming his crossbow at her head.

Just as the snickering Marauder was about to squeeze the trigger, a huge thunderclap echoed throughout the land, and with a bright, blinding light, the Bifrost—the way in which Asgardians traveled between the realms—fired down from the heavens into the center of the battlefield—and directly on top of the Marauder with the crossbow. Lady Sif raised her arm to shield her eyes from the spectacular blinding light and was just barely able to make out two Einherjar on horseback bursting from the glowing white column and charging into battle.

One of the Marauders used this commotion to sneak up behind Volstagg. He raised his sword high above his head, preparing to strike down the warrior, when a whizzing sound echoed from within the Bifrost. As the light died down and the smoke began to clear, the sound intensified. Suddenly, an object rocketed out of the Bifrost, sliced across the battlefield at supersonic speed, and slammed into its target: the Marauder who was about to strike down Volstagg.

The Marauder flew through the air and kept on flying. And flying. Volstagg turned, and upon investigation made out the object that had saved his life. It was the most famous weapon in all the Nine Realms. It was Mjolnir.”

The powerful hammer, which was forged in the heart of a dying star and used by only he who is worthy, hovered in midair before speeding back across the battlefield to the hand of its wielder—the mighty Thor!

Thor, Prince of Asgard and son of Odin Allfather, emerged from the light of the Bifrost looking battle-worn but still majestic, and the sight of him instantly gave the Warriors Three, the Einherjar, and the Vanir a renewed sense of hope. Now that Thor was here, they were sure to defeat the Marauders. But Lady Sif felt that she didn’t need Thor’s help to win the day.

“Shouldn’t you be battling trolls in Nornheim?” Sif said with a scowl.

“I ran out of trolls,” Thor said with a charming smile. “Heimdall said these Marauders were giving you trouble,” he added.

“I have this completely under control,” Sif retorted.

Thor surveyed the battlefield. “Is that why everything is on fire?”

“You think you can do better?” Sif challenged with a smile.

“It would be a challenge to do worse,” Thor said dryly before being surprise-attacked by two extra-big and extra-tough Marauders. Sif rolled her eyes in response, then joined her friend in battle.

Soon, Thor and Sif were joined by Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg. As the battle raged on, Thor used Mjolnir to take out multiple Marauders at once. And when one Marauder thought he might be able to seize the hammer by grabbing on to it, the hammer simply pulled the invader through the air, right to Thor’s waiting fist.

Thor, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three fought bravely against the menacing Marauders, each one helping their fellow Asgardians. When one Marauder shot an arrow at Thor’s head, Sif jumped into the air and raised her shield to block the attack. And when another fired a rocket launcher–like device, Thor valiantly deflected the blast with his mighty hammer, the impact from which knocked them all to the ground—hard.

“As the Asgardians got back to their feet, they heard the same Boom, Boom, Boom sound that Fandral and Hogun had heard earlier. Whatever it was that was making that sound was much closer now. And the Marauders were getting ready for it. They parted the battlefield to make way, and the heroes looked up over the tree line and finally saw the cause of the sound.”

“A giant Kronan stone monster, made entirely of rock and standing fifteen feet tall, loomed before Thor and the Warriors Three. He held a massive metal club and looked down upon the Asgardians with contempt. The monster was about to crush their bones into dust.

“All yours,” Sif said to Thor as she and the Warriors Three began to back away. The Marauders cheered. This was the fight they had been waiting for! Surely nothing could stop their stone man, not even the Mighty Thor. The rock monster smashed his club into the ground and let out a thunderous roar, signaling the start of the battle.”

“I accept your surrender,” Thor said, but the monster only raised its club higher, preparing to strike. But Thor was ready. Holding Mjolnir by the strap, Thor began to spin his hammer. It spun faster and faster and faster until it was nothing but a blur and Thor was rocketed off the ground in flight. The monster roared again as Thor, flying with his arm outstretched and all the might of Mjolnir in front of him, launched himself directly at the great beast. There was a deafening Choom as the hammer connected with the creature, then a blinding explosion. The Marauders looked up in disbelief and their cheering stopped. Chunks of rock rained from the sky as the monster’s feet stumbled backward, disconnected from its body, which no longer existed. The upper half of the stone man had been completely obliterated by Thor.

“The Son of Odin gripped Mjolnir tightly and turned with a scowl toward the rest of the Marauders. Almost in union, the remaining Marauders dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender. The battle was over.

“Next time we should just start with the big one,” Fandral said with a smile.”

#loki x black reader #loki x y/n #loki x reader #loki x black!reader #thor x reader #thor x jane

[leahmovedagain]

Apparently HBO has a documentary about the unaired pilot and most of the cast and grrm commented about what was wrong with it and George said that he didn't like the Dany/Drogo bedding scene in episode one because in his books is not rape because Dany consented the act. I mean is he aware she's a 13 old girl with grow man???

Yeah I’d like to beat him with a stick for saying it was consensual. Just because she was flushed and her heart was pounding (aka her body responding to his touches), she didn’t want to marry him or consummate the marriage at all.

What’s confusing for me is that grrm makes it very very clear in Daenerys first two chapters that 1) she’s terrified of drogo 2) doesn’t want to marry him and 3) that this is not a simple betrothal, but she’s being sold to her new husband.

Dany could hear the singing of the red priests as they lit their night fires and the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future and no feast to attend at Khal Drogo’s manse.

[...]

The old woman washed her long, silver-pale hair and gently combed out the snags, all in silence. The girl scrubbed her back and her feet and told her how lucky she was. “Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars. A hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Dothrak has two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver.” There was more like that, so much more, what a handsome man the khal was, so tall and fierce, fearless in battle, the best rider ever to mount a horse, a demon archer. Daenerys said nothing. She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

When she was clean, the slaves helped her from the water and toweled her dry. The girl brushed her hair until it shone like molten silver, while the old woman anointed her with the spiceflower perfume of the Dothraki plains, a dab on each wrist, behind her ears, on the tips of her breasts, and one last one, cool on her lips, down there between her legs. They dressed her in the wisps that Magister Illyrio had sent up, and then the gown, a deep plum silk to bring out the violet in her eyes. The girl slid the gilded sandals onto her feet, while the old woman fixed the tiara in her hair, and slid golden bracelets crusted with amethysts around her wrists. Last of all came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs.

“Now you look all a princess,” the girl said breathlessly when they were done. Dany glanced at her image in the silvered looking glass that Illyrio had so thoughtfully provided. A princess, she thought, but she remembered what the girl had said, how Khal Drogo was so rich even his slaves wore golden collars. She felt a sudden chill, and gooseflesh pimpled her bare arms.

[...]

“She’s too skinny,” Viserys said. His hair, the same silver-blond as hers, had been pulled back tightly behind his head and fastened with a dragonbone brooch. It was a severe look that emphasized the hard, gaunt lines of his face. He rested his hand on the hilt of the sword that Illyrio had lent him, and said, “Are you sure that Khal Drogo likes his women this young?”

“She has had her blood. She is old enough for the khal,” Illyrio told him, not for the first time. “Look at her. That silver-gold hair, those purple eyes … she is the blood of old Valyria, no doubt, no doubt … and highborn, daughter of the old king, sister to the new, she cannot fail to entrance our Drogo.” When he released her hand, Daenerys found herself trembling.

[...]

She was still looking at this strange man from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder. “Over there, sweet princess,” he whispered, “there is the khal himself.”

Dany wanted to run and hide, but her brother was looking at her, and if she displeased him she knew she would wake the dragon. Anxiously, she turned and looked at the man Viserys hoped would ask to wed her before the night was done.

[...]

Dany looked at Khal Drogo. His face was hard and cruel, his eyes as cold and dark as onyx. Her brother hurt her sometimes, when she woke the dragon, but he did not frighten her the way this man frightened her. “I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I want to go home.”

“Home!” He kept his voice low, but she could hear the fury in his tone. “How are we to go home, sweet sister? They took our home from us!” He drew her into the shadows, out of sight, his fingers digging into her skin. “How are we to go home?” he repeated, meaning King’s Landing, and Dragonstone, and all the realm they had lost.

Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio’s estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him. His fingers dug hard into her arm, demanding an answer. “I don’t know …” she said at last, her voice breaking. Tears welled in her eyes.

“I do,” he said sharply. “We go home with an army, sweet sister. With Khal Drogo’s army, that is how we go home. And if you must wed him and bed him for that, you will.” He smiled at her. “I’d let his whole khalasar fuck you if need be, sweet sister, all forty thousand men, and their horses too if that was what it took to get my army. Be grateful it is only Drogo. In time you may even learn to like him. Now dry your eyes. Illyrio is bringing him over, and he will not see you crying.”

Dany turned and saw that it was true. Magister Illyrio, all smiles and bows, was escorting Khal Drogo over to where they stood. She brushed away unfallen tears with the back of her hand.

“Smile,” Viserys whispered nervously, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword. “And stand up straight. Let him see that you have breasts. Gods know, you have little enough as is.”

Daenerys smiled, and stood up straight.

[...]

Daenerys Targaryen wed Khal Drogo with fear and barbaric splendor in a field beyond the walls of Pentos, for the Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a man’s life must be done beneath the open sky.

[...]

Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her, hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She stumbled and fell. “You woke the dragon,” he screamed as he kicked her. “You woke the dragon, you woke the dragon.” Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous ripping sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again, Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly. When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid……until the day of her wedding came at last.

[...]

Dany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys would be if he saw her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might react. Food was brought to her, steaming joints of meat and thick black sausages and Dothraki blood pies, and later fruits and sweetgrass stews and delicate pastries from the kitchens of Pentos, but she waved it all away. Her stomach was a roil, and she knew she could keep none of it down.

There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language. Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were too far below to hear her.

So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine, afraid to eat, talking silently to herself. I am blood of the dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror.

[...]

As the hours passed, the terror grew in Dany, until it was all she could do not to scream. She was afraid of the Dothraki, whose ways seemed alien and monstrous, as if they were beasts in human skins and not true men at all. She was afraid of her brother, of what he might do if she failed him. Most of all, she was afraid of what would happen tonight under the stars, when her brother gave her up to the hulking giant who sat drinking beside her with a face as still and cruel as a bronze mask. I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself again.

[...]

And after the gifts, she knew, after the sun had gone down, it would be time for the first ride and the consummation of her marriage. Dany tried to put the thought aside, but it would not leave her. She hugged herself to try to keep from shaking.

[...]

The last sliver of sun vanished behind the high walls of Pentos to the west just then. Dany had lost all track of time. Khal Drogo commanded his bloodriders to bring forth his own horse, a lean red stallion. As the khal was saddling the horse, Viserys slid close to Dany on her silver, dug his fingers into her leg, and said, “Please him, sweet sister, or I swear, you will see the dragon wake as it has never woken before.”

The fear came back to her then, with her brother’s words. She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready for what was about to happen to her.

They rode out together as the stars came out, leaving the khalasar and the grass palaces behind. Khal Drogo spoke no word to her, but drove his stallion at a hard trot through the gathering dusk. The tiny silver bells in his long braid rang softly as he rode. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she whispered aloud as she followed, trying to keep her courage up. “I am the blood of the dragon. I am the blood of the dragon.” The dragon was never afraid.

Afterward she could not say how far or how long they had ridden, but it was full dark when they stopped at a grassy place beside a small stream. Drogo swung off his horse and lifted her down from hers. She felt as fragile as glass in his hands, her limbs as weak as water. She stood there helpless and trembling in her wedding silks while he secured the horses, and when he turned to look at her, she began to cry.

[...]

He removed her silks one by one, carefully, while Dany sat unmoving, silent, looking at his eyes. When he bared her small breasts, she could not help herself. She averted her eyes and covered herself with her hands. “No,” Drogo said. He pulled her hands away from her breasts, gently but firmly, then lifted her face again to make her look at him. “No,” he repeated.

It’s just gross and confusing to me. I don’t understand why if he wanted to make it come off as consensual, why did he write her to be absolutely terrified of drogo, have her tremble and cry, make it clear she’s a glorified slave for him, make it clear she doesn’t want to consummate the marriage, to just then turn around and say “Well it was consensual.”

Does he know that just because a persons body responds physically doesn’t mean they’re consenting to a sexual act? Does he know that a child cannot consent to a sexual act? It’s concerning and confusing for me.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #daenerys targaryen #khal drogo #abuse tw #rape tw #long post #Anonymous #love letters only

[frecklef0x]

Mass Effect 1: Playthrough Masterpost

At last, I have finished Mass Effect 1!

I have heard some mutuals say they wish they could play it again for the first time, and you kind of can--through me! I’ve been posting little “episodes” of live-tweet-stream-of-consciousness as I play, and now I’ve compiled them into one post to make my life easier.

Anyway, here’s the first one, the rest are under the cut. :)

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode one

My ass looks great in this uniform, first of all

Impaled robo zombies, yikes

Cheap shot, Saren, smh. How will I pass my spectre test now?!

Why does he have robot eyes? Is he like, Geth-Turian? Why? Is he a robo zombie also? Was it the beacon???

Cool beacon nightmares, I'm sure this is fine

This Kaiden guy has implants? ORTEGA?!??!?

"Call me princess again and you'll be picking your teeth up off the floor" lol obliterated

The citadel elevators are very realistic, five minutes of tense silence huh

Ya girl got a PROMOTION and a DOPE SQUAD time to catch a TRAITOR

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode two

First things first, gotta go find the blue scientist to join the gang

This galaxy is HUGE! How many of these places will I actually be able to go?!

Only two friends at a time????? D:

Ah, a distress signal, let's see wha--A DESERT CENTIPEDE NOPE ABORT ABORT

Robo aliens? In MY Theronian mining facility? Its more likely than you think

Running over dudes in my Mako is extremely satisfying tbh

*runs over geth troopers* *runs over geth armature* *runs over geth colossus* ... *backs over geth colossus*

Working elevators in the ancient ruins ✔

Oooooooh man hope this nerd is gay

Wrex, a friend of yours? Nope, not a friend, too murdery

"ShAaaAame about the ruins Shep, sOooOo much collatoral damage, SHEP" stfu Council, "ruthless" was in the resume when you promoted us, 10/10 would shoot lasers through archeological digs again

When Kaiden calls us "ma'am" I am, uh, into it

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode three

Time to talk to the gang! Gotta meet the fam proper

Oh dear seems we got a shmee of racism on board, compatriots

Wow Raina, good foot-in-mouth moment with Wrex there huh...sorry about the eventual extinction of your race, lost this round of Pain Olympics

OH SHIT OH SHIT BLUE HOTTIE BIGENDER? THIS IS NOT A DRILL???

“hi I’m Kaiden wanna hear about my last crush ;)” “hi I’m Liara wanna hear about Asari mating rituals? ;)))” damn we really slidin right into the DMs no chill

Garrus: fuck rules and red tape amiright Raina: oh u right ;)

Guess I’ll actually do a mission now LETS GO LESBIANS LETS GO

Honestly rolling out with Tali and Liara is a mood, squad goals

Raina @ every corporation on Noveria: I would sell you to satan for one(1) corn chip

This reactivation puzzle is some shit

I see some Mistakes were made

We already killing moms at this stage damn BioWare

FUCK FUCK BENEZIA KILLED ME AND I LOST A FUCKTON OF PLAYTIME

THERES LIKE NO AUTOSAVE IN THIS BITCH FUUUUUUUUU

fuck fuck fuck god damn it gotta shoot a bunch of deranged baby bug people again god DAMN IT

Okay we killed Liara’s mom in front of her hope that’s fine

And we let mama bug go free because after talking to Wrex, Raina’s like “this galaxy is a little trigger happy with the genocide, good luck out there bug mama ❤️ be cool please”

I have literally watched the scientist in the hot labs get killed three times now

So far the debreifs with the council have not gone very well

“You let bug mama go?! How many generations until they take over everything???” “My money’s on two :D Place your bets now assholes or stfu :DDD”

Asked Liara if she was okay and she seems pretty Cool With It

I hope to one day return to Noveria and Death Star it into oblivion

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode four

Talked with Tali and this situation with the Geth and the Quarians is giving me an existential crisis

You “inspect” my beautiful ship? You got somethin’ to say about my crew??? Talk shit get hit, bitch I will kill you

Yoooo my old earth gang, yeah what the hell, I’ll help ou—oh nope nvm he’s a xenophobe, you hang him and I’ll shoot his friend in the face, thx for your time

Went to the citadel to finish some assignments, left tasked with twice as many

“dOn’T cUt CoRneRs” fear not dear Kaiden, I have a permit: this piece of paper that says I do what I want

Still with the elevators, I really cannot with this

“You make it all sound so...dangerous...” ;) ;))))))

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode five

Headin’ to Virmire to rendezvous with the Salarian team

A cure for the genophase?!?!?! :D

Oh wait oh no are we for real gonna talk about destroying the cure like Wrex isn’t standing right here omg

SHIT GUYS NO NOT LIKE THIS WREX PLEASE

Phew for a conversation that basically started with guns drawn, it went pretty well... “What Saren has isn’t even a proper cure, he’s just fucking with the Krogans at this point. Are we gonna stand for that? Or are we gonna murder?” “Damn Shep, you right, we gon’ murder”

Okay Ashley, go join the aliens, try not to die

Shadow Team!🎵 tearing through the base 🎶 disabling all the     defenses 🎵 (you gotta sing it to the tune of the Trogdor song)

We free the prisoners!!! :)

We shoot the prisoners??? :(

“Raina? How can you shoot them where they stand?” So it’s more merciful to let them explode? NAH FAM

This scientist is responsible for the mind control stuff? For Benezia? Fine     I’ll let her go but I hope she explodes

We did not learn our lesson concerning beacons I see

Wait if even Saren is worried about his mind control ship does that mean there are larger forces involved here?

Oh. Oh fuck

Ugh Ashley I EXPLICITLY TOLD YOU NOT TO DIE

(so we really never found any info about that genophase cure huh? disappointing)

Oh Seren, you dumb dumb. You absolute fool. Clown man.

When Raina slings Kaiden over her shoulder to carry him to the ship—mmmmmmmmwoooow I am very bisexual

Bruh Raina takes every council call and she disconnects pissed off every time

WAIT I literally just hung up with the council, ASHLEY is DEAD, and Kaiden needs a DTR RIGHT NOW?!?!? Boy, NO, READ THE ROOM

This has been a stressful day

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode six

Shepard will avoid her feelings and go to Faros instead

Seeing Ashley’s figure greyed out and her locker inaccessible makes me sad

Wrex and Garrus, let’s go shoot some geth 💪 

A mind controlling planet—of course!

Shep gets all her renegade points shooting capitalists

Saved, uh, about half the colonists

If I have one more bad acid trip I stg

Oh nope here’s another one

Shep needs a nap

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode seven

Ah, the council. Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.

At least Liara is good at pep talks ;)

Joker, you cockblock

Haha DUDE we airborne, you THOUGHT

Now that I am exiled from the Citadel, guess I’ll run some galactic errands:

o   Killed corporate scientists who though we would rescue them lol

o   Destroyed a bunch of geth camps helping Tali on her pilgrimage

o   Disabled a nuke and killed some pirates

o   Shut down some evil Cerberus experiments

o   And illegally traded information!

Okay time to get back on track

So we may or may not be flying to our doom

OH GOD LIARA LOVES ME!!! RAINA, YOU DISASTER, YOU DID IT AAAAAH ❤️❤️❤️

frecklef0x plays mass effect: (ME1) episode eight

You know what I love? Being murdered by geth armatures

All these Ilos ruins be looking the same

Security panel is only kinda helpful

Oh, luckily I know Prothean now!

“CANNOT BE STOPPED” wow very encouraging, thanks

After that super motivating message and disabling security, its time to go down, down to goblin town

Vigil? Oh word?

My girlfriend is GEEKING out

I knew something what wrong with that fucking Citadel

Vigil: information is power. Also Vigil: What does it matter why they do what they do? All that matters is you stop them

“non-essential” personnel die first, huh? GROSS, VIGIL (gotta be honest that hits different in 2020)

Garrus gets it, I knew we liked that guy

Okay, find conduit, save galaxy, break millennium-old genocide cyle, nbd

Ugh Mako you gotta do me dirty one last time I see, I hate this thing

THE CONDUIT STRAIGHT YEETED MAKO

The citadel robot says we’re doomed : )

This shootout is SO fun, seriously

Saren get it toGETHER

Renegade Raina can kill with a conversation apparently, well done then

Concentrate on the Sovereign—why am I gonna save a council that hates my guts, sorry, but I have a JOB to DO that you ACTIVELY HINDERED

Great, zombie husk Saren, just what I needed as I mull over the possible consequences of my galaxy-altering decision

GO JOKER GO

Humanity-only council seems…questionable. Raina didn’t love the council but this sits wrong. Couldn’t we just appoint a more diverse council, including a human?

Anderson seems like a good enough dude, so…we’ll see.

TIME FOR WAR BOYS, GODDAMN WHAT A GAME

#thirteen years late to the party but boy i am HERE NOW #I crushed ME2 in a weekend so they are not in episodes but I will post that hot mess soon #I have so many feelings #if anyone wants to talk about their shepards message me because I am so down #I haven't played ME3 yet so no spoilers pls #raina shepard #mass effect 1 #frecklef0x plays mass effect #Mass Effect #mass effect trilogy #mass effect playthrough #mass effect shepard #frecklef0x #me1 #garrus vakarian #liara t'soni #tali'zorah #kaiden alenko #urdnot wrex #mass effect joker #the normandy

[seriouslyblacklikemysoul]

Until Forever - Sirius Black

Hey you beautiful people! Last chapter of Part I. 

MASTERLIST I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X |XI | XII | XIII

Chapter 14. 1978.

           Darkness was infinite and pain would linger on forever. There was no hope; hope was the biggest illusion human kind had manufactured in order to keep going when there was absolutely no fucking point. A black void was everything that ever was; nothing more that the absolute nothing. She felt weightless, as if the waves of the raging black sea could tear her to pieces, throw her to the rocks. Then, she felt as heavy as the universe – drowning in the mere thought of water. Her body felt tired, her mind was restless; not in a good way. She though that life went on but to her, that was the saddest part of it all.            It could end two ways, both equally tragic. Either she would die amongst the rest or she would live. She didn’t know what worse. Truly, never having the chance to see her family again or staying behind? Her entire body got goosebumps and her hands were trembling. She had tried to drink her problems away, just for a few hours, but it only made her sadder, lonelier.                Until she left. She wasn’t celebrating – she couldn’t celebrate the new year. Each passing second, fate was approaching them, faster than she had ever realized. Usually, it was the past that made people sad; well, she was the exception to that as well. She really wanted to go home, for this to be over, to give up Hogwarts and magic and the people. She just wanted her home back, her life, her choices – the ability to choose.                          She was making a run for it. After half an hour of pretending, she said her goodnight, only to few people – well, to the Potters. She couldn’t deal with questions and avoided them like bullets. Once the doors closed behind her, all the silence of the world crushed upon her; and it was louder than the loudest sound. It was suffocatingly loud. Refusing to go back inside, she climbed to her room, kicking her heels off, before even closing the door. A soft tune was stuck in her mind and the Greek poem that accompanied it – the moonlight sonata.              

Let me come with you.

This house can’t bear me anymore.

I cannot endure to bear it on my back.

You must always be careful, be careful,

to hold up the wall with the large buffet

to hold up the table with the chairs

to hold up the chairs with your hands

to place your shoulder under the hanging beam.

And the piano, like a closed black coffin. You do not dare to open it.

You have to be so careful, so careful, lest they fall, lest you fall. I cannot bear it.

Let me come with you.

This house, despite all its dead, has no intention of dying.

It insists on living with its dead

on living off its dead

on living off of the certainty of its death

and on still keeping house for its dead, the rotting beds and shelves.

Let me come with you.

Oh, are you going? Goodnight. No, I won’t come. Goodnight.

I’ll be going myself in a little. Thank you.

              She softly spoke the words to the still air as she was looking outside of her window, a wave of nostalgia crushing to her like a tsunami. She was deep into her thoughts, into her world of roses, poems, stardust and a serene chaos. She felt at peace in the midst of a hurricane, within dramatic lines, written by poets with elegant noses and strong beliefs. The music kept repeating memories, stirring them up as it went on. She didn’t want a happy ending, she sadly realized; she wanted tragedy, passion and catastrophe; she wanted everything and nothing. She wanted absolution. Just like every heroine in the ancient tragedies; it was in her nature.                      He didn’t dare to speak, to make a sound; he held his breath in fear of waking up from the tender dream he was having; a vision right before his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but he felt pulled towards her as if he had no other place to be; as if he was meant to be in her room. She knew that someone was watching her, and she already guessed who but took her time to face with him, with an all-knowing smile.               He was caught of guard, trying to retain his posture and temper or he would just turn around and run away for good. Feeling rather ashamed that he got caught, not that he was invading her privacy, he looked at the floor, blushing ever so slightly. She really didn’t mind. How could she?                    “Do you like it?” she airily asked him, as she remained by the window. He gulped. He knew she was talking about the poem he heard her recite but he couldn’t shake her image, entering the ballroom. Yes, he loved it.                        “I didn’t know that one” he admitted quite subtly. She wasn’t surprised; it was by a Greek poet and it was an intense portrayal of the subject of loneliness and alienation of the uncommitted individual. The lady in the poem represented that part of the old world, which the poet thought it was condemned to perish with its aristocratic past because of its aversion to adapt and participate in the process of change. She thought that if anyone understood that feeling, was him.              “I know” she melodiously informed him. She was enticing and it was hard for him to stay away. Not that he wanted to, in any case. No, he didn’t know which magical poem had stolen her heart but he did know that she was standing under the moonlight, her essence becoming ethereal. How evident it became? She didn’t believe in happiness and that scared him; he could feel for her but even he believed that there has to be a better way, it has to get better. She seemed to contradict him by simply suggesting that there was no point in … well, anything.              Such a hopeless wanderer’s soul, she had. She was made from a different material, a nihilist and an idealist, a desperate romantic and a catastrophic pragmatist. How wonderfully vague her outlines were. Maybe it was because she was wearing a gold waterfall for a dress, but he knew better – he just couldn’t stop gawking.; to be fair he was an 18-year-old boy.            “Why did you leave so soon?” he asked her without hesitation, as if al the barriers had collapsed under the moonlight. She solely focused on his eyes and he could not avert his gaze.                   “Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques - I believe it is” she quoted Verlaine and that, he did know. Sad beneath fantastic disguises. Why would she ever feel that way? He was only fooling himself. He was lying, pretending not to feel the way he did, pretending that there was nothing between them, pretending he was happy torturing Marlene, pretending everything was fine and the way they were supposed to be.         “Votre âme est un paysage choisi” he quoted back, letting her know that his French was so much better than hers and that he paid attention to the details. He truly did. It was almost inappropriate for her to like him or even to think about how his eyes shined liked spilled mercury under the moonlight. However, the biggest problem was that it was unrequited.                             He took one step towards her direction, fully aware of the fragile moment they shared. She saw the shift in his eyes and her entire mind was screaming to her to shut up. Everyone else was probably celebrating in the midst of an upcoming war but she was fighting another one all on her own. Keeping secrets from the people whom their fates were sealed and she could not do a thing was becoming heavier by the second and that broke her.        

           “What – what is really happening here, love?” he questioned her with a slight anger lingering on in his voice – anger that he didn’t know he was experiencing. She was surprised by the very thought of him being angry. He wasn’t angry at her per se, he was really shaken off about not being in the known, having blanks that he had to fill by himself when it should have been her answers instead of his imagination.              She wanted to tell him everything and then her mind went to the time he spent in prison for no reason at all, and she swallowed hard. How would she ever be able to come clean about that. Remus was a bit easier – yes, he was still very hurt and shocked and everything in the middle but Sirius… it was always different with him. It was always different when it came to him – she was …                  “I want to tell you but it’s too much. Please don’t ask me to be honest with you. Not on that level. Anything else, I will answer. Not that” she finally told him. At least, she was acknowledging all the hypocrisy and all the lying, he thought. He wasn’t looking for that answer though, he wanted the real reason behind her entire existence in his life, and so he closed the gap between them. His tall frame was towering over her, her back was pressed to the wall next to the window and his eyes were piercing her face for clues.                    “No. You don’t get to do that. I have been nothing but honest with you about everything. You don’t get to hide now” he pushed further, making her arch her eyebrow. As he realized that he had overstepped the boundaries, he tried to take a step back but her finger was already poking his chest through his unbuttoned shirt and undone tie.                  “You? Honest? Really? Is that what you tell yourself before you go to sleep? That you are honest with me? Or that you’re honest with yourself? Because neither -                        “Fine, what do you want me to say?” he cut her off, revealing his hot temper with a flush that appeared in his face – something she had never seen before and she had to remind herself that this Sirius was not the one from the books. He wasn’t a character anymore; he was a real person – breathing down on her.                            She closed her eyes, not wanting to create any more tension that what had already been created but he was not having it. He wanted answers, now more than ever, even if he knew that he, himself, had been lying all that time – this was not the same. He was lying about his feelings; she was lying about everything.                        “Who are you? Who could you possibly be to come here through the fucking sky? To come here and turn everything upside down. To make me question things that I thought I had figured out long ago. To make me jealous of my own best friend and to make me want to destroy every sound thing. Who are you?” he bombarded her with accusations that he wanted figured out now. And all it took was one hot second before she screamed the answers back to him, each hitting like a bullet to his heart, each being louder and louder only to finish off with a dead silence.                        “You think you are the one suffering? I have been trapped here for too long, I miss my home, my family, my life. I want out. I am done playing a stupid part in this scenario. I know everything. I know how are you going to end up, when, where, who dies, who lives, who fucking betrays – because I came from the sky. The fucking sky. I don’t know how or even who I am anymore. I thought you were a book character and every single thing was only real in my imagination and the pages of seven books. But no. I fucking live in the damn past – not mine. NO. A past from a different possibility. Twenty years before my birth date. And of course, out of every mistake I could possibly make, every choice gone mad, I had to - ”.

           Usually, there were two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When people were afraid, they tend to pull back from life, when in love, the open up to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement and acceptance. And while fear was easier, almost natural to them, they knew that they had to step outside their comfort zone.                  Not finishing off her sentence, leaving it there hanging in the middle of the thick air between them, was her way of giving him space to decide and her a breather. Her mind was yelling at her to stop and think about all those things that actually mattered but not every act was a result of sensibility. Her accusing finger was still on his chest; as a matter of fact, her entire palm was being pressed against his skin – not his shirt anymore. The information was not new to him; he knew, deep down he did.              Each night before he would fall asleep, he was trying to decode and figure her out, even just a bit. He was repeating the things she had said during the day, realizing just how much of an insight she had and wondering if it was just that or… It started of small, a few words of more than wisdom were spoken, a few things were said that she could not possibly know about… and the ever-present aura of secrecy. Her tattoos were one thing, her words were another. It wasn’t news to him and she noticed that. Her anger calmed down to a side smile.                “But you already knew” she concluded and her touch became gentler against his chest. Gentle as a fire. He looked at her with a desperate look, as if he wanted to do so much, to say so much but couldn’t. Sirius was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a cheater.             Instead of pushing her against the wall and kissing her like he had already pictured in his head about a million times, he stepped back and he sat on the bed, eyes always glued to her.              “I think I did” he agreed, more to his own mind than to her words. She took a deep breath and used the chair in front of the boudoir, to the left of the big window, facing him while at the same time keeping her distance.                          “I still don’t think I can tell you everything, Sirius” she softly apologized but he shook his head.                    “It’s okay. It’s okay if I am the one dying, love, or the one going mad. You will tell when or if you’re ready. I’m sorry for… this” he said, indicating the space between them but she brushed it off. How much longer would she able to keep it hidden from James and Peter, she didn’t know.                  “Sirius… it’s not that simple. I know what I know from the books. So, basically, from I come from, the dimension and the time period, you, the boys, Hogwarts… magic, everything is fiction and contained within seven books that are not even about you. While these books go on, you are older and have gone through a lot. I know that part. I don’t know if it will happen the way it was supposed to, since I am here and I wasn’t supposed to, I think, but I also can’t change much in this plot. Or even if I can, I don’t know if I should. Messing with time and history is not something I am looking forward to do. Although, if I could change some things, I would without blinking” she admitted, staying as close to the truth as she could, without revealing too much. How could she face him and tell him what was about to happen to him in a few years? He wouldn’t even get to turn her age before Azkaban… and that hit her differently.                        “I know that there is something dark in the things you are not saying. And I know that I am neither the one who dies nor the one who lives from the way your eyes never met mine when I said it. Maybe the one who goes crazy but not exactly. That’s okay. It would happen either you were here or not. It’s better that you are. I don’t know if it is for you… I cannot imagine the weight of all those things. I am sorry” he told her sincerely. They shared so many things; intuition, depth, passion. And a five-year gap.            “So you see, celebrating didn’t feel appropriate” she concluded airily. But he looked at her in a perplexed expression.                  “On the contrary. We should. Now more than ever. Because after all, we only have this moment, isn’t that so?” he proposed and she was astonished because he was right. He didn’t want to talk about it more, knowing that something bad happened to all of them, and that she didn’t want to say what. He understood her – it was cruel, such disastrous things being delivered by her. She held answers to questions they hadn’t even thought about yet. He could never blame her for not coming forward. Even though he wanted to be her confidant, the one she would spill her heart out he knew that she wouldn’t. Some things were better left unsaid… but…not forever.                      “You should go back to your friends” she suggested, as she felt worn out, wanting nothing more than to get out of the dress and makeup.                                  “I thought we were friends” he chuckled darkly, earing a fixed glance from her piercing eyes.            “Oh Sirius. You and I…we could never be friends” she admitted and there was not a single shy cell in her body. Her entire mind had shut up and every word coming out of her mouth was a sharp slap across his face, hitting him with the truest statement she could have said. He licked his lips and tamed his tongue not to respond the only way he truly wanted to as he got up and buttoned up again, to rejoin the party.                      “Remus knows?” he asked but it came out as a bold statement. He was jealous he wasn’t the first one to know this, or how her lips felt against his. He shook the image out of his head and focused his eyes one her. She was radiant but she wasn’t fooling anyone – she might have worn a gold dress but she was the moon, dark, secret and almost untouchable. Almost.                    “He does” she confirmed, realizing just how jealous he could get. She didn’t like possessiveness, mainly because she was the one being possessive in her previous relationships, but with Sirius…she could, perhaps, turn a blind eye. He was unexpected in every way, to her. He was biting his lip, deep in thought. It was tragically doomed and yet he found beauty among the disaster. It was fragile and soft, so tender but raw, catastrophe pouring down at everything. It was problematic – making homes out of people. But he had never felt more at home than with people; his best mates, his school, her.  His house never felt like a home and yet he was surrounded by it. And now, a strange feeling washed over his heart. What was he doing, letting her go?                He waned to kiss her, without a warning, with permission, without even deciding to do so but simply because he couldn’t think of anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. It belonged to him and he wanted it back. But there was that small voice, so ever faint, that told him it was not the time nor the place to do so. He had to physically stop from heading towards her rather than the door. And he didn’t know why he stopped.             “Love, I…” he started but she gave him a sharp look.                        “Don’t” she whispered and he left with a heartbreaking look on his delicate features.       

           She found an excuse not to return to the party. She would find an excuse to return to Hogwarts as soon as possible, otherwise her entire being would implode and no one would even notice. She would just collapse under the pressure of knowledge and no one would even understand how hard her life had suddenly become. She was the girl who wanted to know everything, who went looking for knowledge every place she visited and she had become the girl who wished she didn’t know the future, who was oblivious and blissful, who stayed silent and didn’t challenge the world.                It was too early. Too late maybe. No one was partying, no one was in the living room, no one was making any sound. She tiptoed around a bit. The fireplace was livid, calming and consuming at the same time as if it was calling to her. Everything will end up in flames. Not ice, but hellfire. It was the saddest thing she could have thought of. Protecting a breakable heart. What if she got the chance to leave?              “Would I?” she whispered to herself. No. And that feeling of knowing that she wouldn’t be able to leave even if she did find a way, that she wouldn’t go back to her own family and her own life, that very feeling made her realize that this was indeed her home, that the people in this reality were her family and that this was her now. And she had to fight for her home and her family. She had to at least try.              “We missed you at the party” a soft voice caught her off guard. She took a deep breath. This was it. This hide and seek had to end. Once she turned around, he saw how serious she was and immediately understood that something was off. His eyes were tired but alert, his whole body language was signaling that he was able to grasp the severity of whatever she had to say to him.                        “There is something I need to tell you but you’ll need to sit down, James”.

__ Taglist: @must-be-a-weasley-92​ @megalificent​ @fific7​ @maraudersangel​ @tb-ctn 

#harry potter imagine #sirius black imagine #remus lupin imagine #young sirius black #james potter imagine #young sirius black imagine #young remus lupin imagine #sirius black #young remus lupin #remus lupin #Sirius orion black #sirius black fanfiction #remus lupin fanfiction #the marauders #Marauders #marauders fanfiction #marauders era #james potter #lily evans #peter pettigrew

[umbrahighpriestofgiratina]

Divided I Fall

IT'S FINALLY DONE! I am so sorry this took so fucking long, it took me like a year to write because my art brain forcibly took over my body for a stupid amount of time but now it is DONE and you can SEE it with your EYEBALLS. Anyway... This, This is a project I have been planning for YEARS but took some stuff lining up just right for it to sift to the top of my oneshot backlog. It is, to keep it simple and not spoil too much, an origin story for a character that's shown up in my stuff before.

As one important note before I begin... This fic stars a character of a fakemon species known as Vahirom, created by @kynimdraws on Tumblr/kyleenim on Twitter, used with permission. If you steal it I will be offended on her behalf and personally boil your toes. Got it?

ANYWAY:

Divided I Fall

Zygarde had a dilemma.

Unova had too many humans and they had it too good. But there was nothing they could do to thwart them without letting the other Legends in on his game. What to do?

As they stewed on this, lurking on the edge of civilization, they looked up, and there they saw it.

A meteor, careening down toward the nearby hills. It crashed, sending out sparks of light and a shockwave, which Zygarde weathered easily. They were a god, after all.

"Lots of those since AZ broke the sky," they muttered.

They slithered through the earth until they got to the impact crater, emerging in its center to find, surprise surprise, a meteor. However, it was one they could tell was a Metionite, a kind made of an extremely rare, alien ore.

It was then they got an idea.

An awful idea.

Zygarde got a wonderful, awful idea.

They started burrowing their own cells into the Metionite, pumping it full of energy. Godly energy. Draconic energy. The Meteonite contracted and curved until it turned into a small gray orb.

Zygarde tapped it.

And it burst to life.

--------

What am I?

What is this place?

Those were my first thoughts as I gazed around, wide-eyed, until my eyes fell on a strange green and black titan.

"Who are you? Who am I?"

"I am Zygarde, the guardian of order, and you are my creation!" the titan said in a booming voice.

"You created me?"

"Yes! For one purpose!"

The titan pointred a claw to the southwest. "There's an infestation of these pests called humans around thataway. Deal with them for me."

I looked in that direction. Seemed simple enough.... But something didn't feel right.

"...Very well."

Tubes extended from my shoulders and attached to my tail as my wings flared. I took off.

-------

I arrived to find strange structures,domes, blocks and pyramids, and walking among them strange creatures. Were these the humans Zygarde mentioned? "Deal with them." What did that even mean?

I got closer and as I did they started acting strangely. They seemed... Afraid?

"You creatures! What are you?"

They were making loud screams now. They didn't seem less afraid. Maybe they couldn't understand me? How DO I talk to them then? Come on, think think think-

~-Think!~

Thehumans stopped, gazed up. I had communicated by... Thinking really hard?

~Uh... Humans! I mean you no harm! I just wish to... Deal with you!~

The humans started murmuring among each other before a more elaborate-looking human came forth.

"You, great dragon! What do you propose as a deal?"

Oh, I can understand THEM fine. But good question...

~Let me think.~

What do I even tell this person? I guess... If they were afraid of me, they had other things to be afraid of. That wasn't good. Maybe...

"If you give me shelter and a home, I will aid you however I can. Is that a satisfactory deal?"

The elaborate human slowly blinked several times slowly before rapidly nodding.

":We will accept your offer... B=but my warriors will keep an eye on you."

I looked to the "warrior" humans he spoke of. They were trembling. Everyone was looking at me with unease,

This would take some adjusting.

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

I was in my own corner of the city, surrounded by more of these warriors. They were taking shifts watching me, but they all seemed scared. Almost as if they felt if I tried anything they couldn't stop me.

I didn't feel like doing anything that needed stopping... but then I wasn't sure WHAT to do. I had made the deal with the humans but I wasn't sure how to enact i-

Just then I heard a roar, in the distance. The warriors looked to me, then to the source of the sound. They seemed confused that it wasn't me. Soon another warrior rushed up to them.

"T-there's a Scolipede trying to take over the farmland!"

"O-one of those? Why?"

"They're immensely territorial! It claimed the farms as its own!"

What was this beast? The humans needed help. But they wouldn't let me help...

...Then again they couldn't stop me.

I activated my tail turbine and lifted off as the warriors panicked, and I jetted off to where the other warrior had came from.

---------

When I arrived there was indeed a large, purple, insectoid Pokémon rampaging about. Several warriors and their Pokémon were trying to pierce its chitinous armor, to no avail. It was much bigger than the humans, that's for sure.

...But it was much smaller than me.

I flew ove4r to and landed right in front of it. It looked up but seemed unphased.

"What do YOU want?"

"I want you to stop bothering these humans."

"Why should I? This is MY turf." "No it's not. As far as I can tell the humans were here first." "Well it's mine now."

I narrowed my eyes. "Leave. Now."

The Scolipede scoffed. "Make me."

"If you insist."

I flicked him with a claw.

He went sailing back into a tree with a very loud thud and collapsed, unconscious.

Humans started gathering around, looking on in awe. Then they started cheering. It was only then I realized the magnitude of what I'd done.

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

Things changed after that rather quickly. Or, they did from my perspective anyway.

The humans, after that, regarded me as a protector. Not only that, they gave me authority. It wasn't much at first, I started as captain of the warrior, but as time went on and I helped the humans more and more I ascended to the right-hand mon of their rulers.

They called me Vahirom, or more commonly, the Iron Arbiter.

They adored me. And I grew to adore them. They cared for me and I cared for them back. And after time things changed. I learned how to alter my form to be like them.

It started simply, firsty with mimicking their speech, but then I started to learn how to alter my physical form, this way and that way, until I had come to resemble them in my own way. It was at that point the Iron Arbiter was both a dragon Pokémon and a human.

And someone didn't like that at all.

One day they returned, while I was alone, sitting on the throne the humans built for me. I looked up into their glowing green eyes as they glared down into mine.

"What is THIS? This isn't what you were supposed to be doing! And why do you LOOK like them?" They stomped a foot on the ground.

I sighed. "It is less intimidating to them than my natural draconic form. And why do YOU look like them? Don't you have forms that are oh so superior?" They winced, and in an instant cells swirled around them to return them to a more traditional serpentine form. "Only to subvert them, manipulate them. You do it for sick kicks! You were supposed to DESTROY them, not help them!"

"There is no need to destroy them. They are flawed yes, but have kindness and charity in their hearts if you know where to find it. I seek to bring that out in them. "You're wrong! All humans are a sin against the natural order! MY order! They need to be purged!"

"Your view is dangerous. And I will not have you threaten my people."

I grew and stretched and bent into my true, draconic form.

"You may have given me life, but I am not yours. They are not yours. Leave, or I will force you to."

Zygarde hesitated, then let out a long, pronounced hisss before disintegrating into cells and vanishing.

I sighed again, then resumed my post.

-----------

Decades passed, that turned into centuries. I saw many humans and their Pokémon come and go, and cherished them all dearly while they lasted.

But then one day two were born that would change my life forever, for better and for worse.

They were twins, born to the current queen and king. They were shown to me soon after they were born. They were lumpy and chubby as human babies were but they had fire and lightning in their eyes from the start.

And thus their parents named them Tentay and Pethakhon, Ancient Unova's words for fire and lightning. As usual, I was assigned to be their guardian. I did not realize then how special they would be to me - and how that would be my downfall.

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

The children grew quickly. Their tiny grasping hands grew inquisitive, groping for anything they could reach. At first, I let them pull and tug at my human form, but as they grew older and nimbler I allowed them to play on my dragon form as well.

Eventually they started to talk.

"Say mama!" "Say dada!" their parents clamored. But every time they both pointed at me and said "va va!"

They didn't care. They just laughed.

When they got old enough to learn, I was their teacher. I taught them.... Well, not everything I knew, I was too ancient and powerful for that, but I tried to teach them a good amount. And I definitely tried to answer their many questions.

"How old are you?" asked Tentay. "Older than you can comprehend."

"What's your favorite food?" asked Pethakhon.

"I do love corn cakes."

"Do your parents let you stay up past bedtime?" asked Tentay.

I had to pause and think about that one. My only "parents" were Zygarde and the stars, so...

"I don't listen to my parents. I do what I want."

The twins gasped and looked at each other eagerly. "You can DO that?" they said. I chuckled. "I can. You probably shouldn't until you get older."

The two visibly deflated.

"Not fair..." said Pethakhon.

"I guess we have to listen..." said Tentay.

"No way! We can't!" said Pethakhon. "But we gotta! Or we'll get in trouble!"

"Nuh-uh! We can do it!

I chuckled. By all means this was amusing.

And yet. Something deep inside felt off.

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

It came suddenly, swiftly.

The king and queen fell ill, from a terrible disease. They were isolated, only taken care of by a select few.

It was too little, too late.

A grand funeral was held, several ceremonies, a feast, a fitting sendoff. But none of it filled the hole in all our hearts.

Especially not the twins'.

I visited their room afterwards., They were huddled in a corner together, curled up, sitting only a few inches apart. In human form to fit in the room, I pulled them into an embrace.

"I know better than to say it's all right, but... I am here for you."

"But... Mom and dad... They're gone forever," said Tentay.

"They're never coming back... What's gonna happen to us?" said Pethakhon.

I sighed. "I have seen many leave forever just as they did. I can escape it, it is both a gift and a curse, but for your kind it is inevitable. But it is not truly the end. You two will grow to be great, and your children, and your children's children, and so on. I assure you of this. You can pick up the pieces and carry on in their stead. They would want you to."

"...Okay, Va." said Pethakon.

"...I guess so, Va," said Tentay.

They nestled into my arms further. I patted their heads.

We stayed that way a while.

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

The two started to near adulthood for their kind, and thus I started teaching them how to rule. . ~Now, you two, I have a question.~

They both shifted in their seats in the courtyard we were in. Teenagers were antsy about being taught. Especially when their teacher was an ancient and powerful dragon.

~Say that there is a famine. What are your main options for dealing with such a thing?~

"Simple," said Tentay. "You spend the royal budget on improving the crops."

~Ah, but such a solution would be expensive... And could be unsustainable."~

"Then we improve the harvest infrastructure over time!" said Pethakhon enthusiastically.

~Yet that could take a long time. Too long. People could starve.~

"Well my method is clearly better!" said Tentay. "It gets more immediate results!"

"You're wrong!" said Pethakhon. "MY plan won't doom us all later!" "It MIGHT not. It will definitely make people starve."

"We have to consider the future!" "The future is NOW, Pethakhon."

"Moron!"

"Imbecile!"

The two continued arguing like this until they finally noticed me waggling a claw mockingly.

~Now now now. Have you considered these solutions aren't mutually exclusive?"

The two of them stared at me. Then started sheepishly rubbing their heads.

"You have a point..." said Tentay. "That could work.." said Pethakhon.

~See?" I said. "If you work against each other nothing gets done. But if you work together...~

"Yes, we understand the moral, well done," said Pethakhon. "Why must we learn things we know already?" said Tentay.

~Because with you two it bears repeating.~

The two blinked and staredbefore rubbing their heads sheepishly again.

"...You have a point," said Tentay.

"We'll. We'll work on it.." said Pethakhon.

I simply smirked.

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

They quickly became adults, true kings of Unova, and soon their first test was upon them. The ruler of a desert kingdom smack dab in the middle of Unova was a Volcarona by the name of Heliana. Shee was called before them for a diplomatic meeting, and we all assembled on the border between the desert and greener land.

"Why hello there!" said Heliana, floating before us.

Tentay and Pethakhon stared then turned to me, each whispering.

"She, uh, is a little hard to--" Pethakhon started to say.

"She's a Pokémon, but she can't speak telepathically, so we can't understand her," said Tentay.

"...That." said Pethakhon.

I chuckled. ~Don't worry, I can translate. She just says hi.~

The two nodded and turned back to Heliana.

"Right, hello," said Pethakhon.

"Shall we get down to business?" said Tentay.

"Oh, yes, yes!" said Heliana. "There was a matter of grave importance I wished to speak of with you! It was... Oh, hm, what was it..."

"She isn't very professional," Tentay whispered.

"Shhh!" said Pethakhon, nudging him.

"Oh! I remember now! It was wood!" said Heliana.

"Wood?" said Pethakhon. "My kingdom doesn't exactly have many trees," said Heliana. "I want cedar in particular! I'll offer you our finest textiles and minerals in return!":

"Hmmm. But we need the cedar for-"

"Shhh!" said Pethakhon. "She's making us a great offer!"

"More like a ridiculous one. We can't give her all that cedar!" "But we need the minerals and textiles!"

"She hasn't even specified WHAT minerals and textiles! Think before you leap!" "Well ask her!"

"Fine!"

Tentay took a deep breath and looked Heliana straight in the compound eyes. "You're being awfully vague about what those "minerals" and "textiles" are... Could you be more specific?"

"Oh! Lots of iron, copper... and Silk! Me and my babies spun the silk ourselves!"

"Wait, the silk comes from-" Tentay started to say.

"Sounds great!" said Pethakhon. We'll-"

"No. We need that cedar."

~Now now you two.~ I said. ~Put your heads together. Your wants and needs aren't mutually exclusive.~

They stared. And blinked. And... Well they didn't literally put their heads together but they did start mutually putting their hands to their chins thinking.

"There's some places we could grow... Cedar groves?" said Tentay.

"Yes! And we could loan those groves out to you!" said Pethakhon.

"They would take a while to grow normally but our Grass-types can make them grow faster!" said Tentay.

"Excellent!" said Heliana. "It's a deal! And Hekla and Katla will get started on the silk straight away!"

"Hekla and Katla?" said Pethakhon.

"Who?" said Tentay.

It was then two Larvesta emerged from Heliana's fuzz and divetackled Tentay and Pethakhon each with cries of "Friend! Friend! Friend!"

"My children!" said Heliana. "They spin the finest silk in all the land!"

"Well they sure are cute," said Pethakhon, holding up Hekla to get a good look at her.

"Easy little one," said Tentay, cradling Katla.

I just smiled.

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

I was in my throne room, and human again. I was alone, and it was quiet... until I heard a telltale slithering again.

"...Hello Zygarde."

The serpent congeals in a flash from their cells before me.

"You're still doing this. Why are you still doing this."

"They appreciate my help. And they are clearly better in my hands than yours."

The snake withed, their form rippling.

"Look, if you can't stop yourself from messing MY order up, I WILL."

I scoffed. "How?"

"You're awfully fond of those two humans, aren't you?"

My eyes widened. I clenched my fingers on my seat. "...Petty threats will get you nowhere."

"Oooh, I struck a nerve, didn't I? Don't worry, I won't do anything to them... Physically anyway. Unless you try to warn them that is, in which case I can always arrange an accident...."

I shifted to dragon form, knocking several things over in the process. "What are you planning, Zygarde?"

"How does the saying go, something something for me to know and you to find out?"

I roared and slashed at them with a claw, but before I made contact they scattered into cells and disappeared from whence they came. Guards rushed into the room shortly after. "Arbiter! Is everything all right?"

I panted heavily, looking at where Zygarde had gone, before turning to the guard.

~It's... It's fine. Just spooked by a shadow.~

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

From there it became apparent something was very quickly going wrong.

It started small at first. The brothers being more snippy with each other than they were before. But it soon blew up into full-on arguments, and everything I had raised them to do was falling apart before my eyes.

I knew exactly why.

I stalked the halls of the castle until I found a hound, ducking and weaving through the corridors.

"You!"

The hound stopped, looking smug. "What is it?"

"What are you doing to them?"

"Oh nothing much. A lie about one here, a rumor about the other there, did you realize exactly how easy it is to turn them against each other?"

"How... How dare you!"

I fired a metallic burst, a small-scale version of my Origin Flare, but they were already gone, and the brilliant beams of light only sank into the corridor, reducing chunks of it to rubble.

It was then I panicked. As long as Zygarde could keep spreading their lies...

...There was nothing I could do.

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

Soon enough came a day that would come down in history as a fateful one.

The two of them were having a particularly heated, particularly philosophical argument about the future of the kingdom. Said argument was happening in the throne room, right in front of me, a dragon silently watching as their two human charges escalated to potential civil war right before their eyes.

"Do you really think your deluded visions would ever lead this kingdom to greatness?" said Tentay, "Your ideals will only bring ruin!"

"Your plan is built on a flawed foundation," said Pethakhon, "and faulty delusions of truth!"

It was becoming all too clear for me.

They would not reconcile this time.

I would have to choose one.

...But I couldn't.

I couldn't possibly-

One side of me wanted one. Another wanted the other.

But I couldn't choose.

I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't I couldn-

CRACK

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

When I awoke, I could not move. I had reverted to the God Stone I use to sleep and could not get out.

But I could see everything. I could see Tentay and Pethakhon beholding two dragons that I quickly realized had split off from me, by sheer will to leave neither one behind. I could also see I had rolled off to the side, where no one could see me.

But if those two pieces of me were out there... What was the rest of me doing in here?

As I wondered this I witnessed the argument between the two brothers escalate further, and eventually they stormed out of the room.

Time passed. Day turned into night. Then the serpent came.

"Well well well, that was an entertaining show. I knew your powers were unstable but I never expected them to do THAT. Oh well, it works out for me plenty - those two idiots you were so protective of will decimate humanity by their actions, and those bits of you that spawned for them will only help.

I wriggled in my prison, trying desperately to escape and put Zygarde in their place. They noticed and chuckled.

"Oh how foolish. Don't try too hard to escape dear. You don't know what schisming off so much of your power has done to you."

Their form rippled.

"And besides. It's too late for you. I've already won."

He gave a hearty, echoing laugh as he dissipated into cells and disappeared.

----------

Throughout the night, I continued to wriggle and squirm. I HAD to fix this, I HAD to prove Zygarde wrong, I HAD to-

And then I broke free.

And then I felt it.

I could tell I was not the being I used to be. I felt weak. I felt empty. There was a gnawing hunger and emptiness at the bottom of my soul that I could not overcome.

I staggered through the hallways of the castle, in confusion and pain, when I came upon two guards, who recoiled at my approach.

"H-Halt! What monstrous kind of P-Pokémon are you?" said one.

I looked at that guard. And I hungered. The emptiness gnawed at me as I yearned for something to fill it.

I lunged.

The other guard screamed as my fangs sunk into his compatriot. I started devouring him, purely by instinct, rending flesh from bones.

"M-Monster! Monster!"

It is then I snapped back to my senses and realized exactly what I was doing.

I tried to say, "Wait, no, you don't understand!" but all it came out as was staticky buzzing. Then the guard fled.

Overwhelmed with grief, shock, and horror, it was then I did the same, leaving the tall pyramid castle I had called my home for centuries and never turning back.

-----------

I holed up in the crater I had first crash-landed in from thereon out, never emerging. Still, I saw many things.

I saw Unova burnt by a deluge of fire and electricity.

I saw Unova rebuild, become more technologically advanced, more close totheir Pokémon, then further away, then closer again.

I saw people settle the area where I lived, and grow to fear me as others had.

I saw one bit of kindness from a boy from those people.

I saw the white dragon that split from me return, join with me once more, filling my emptiness but causing her unbearable pain that racked me with guilt.

I saw all this, but one thing remained the same, for the most part.

I was alone. And I was unsure if that would ever truly change.

So all I could do was mourn all I had lost.

***

Bit of a downer, huh. But I hope you enjoyed it! WILL Kyurem's situation get better? We'll have to find out later - I've got other shit I've really got to get to writing.

#pokemon #fanfiction #kyurem #reshiram #zekrom #zygarde #vahirom #divided i fall #yangverse

[werezmastarbucks]

amalfi

honeymoon masterlist

word count: 1751

They were probably going out of their minds with worry out there. Even Damon must have already started feeling guilty. God knows what that monster Kai Parker could do with you in the prison world, where he had no other thing to play with, but you.

The sea air was sweet and salty, warm, and your lungs were breathing slowly for you, as you took deep pockets of it through your nose. You knew you couldn’t get healthier even if you spent the whole time at Mar Tirreno. It was rather frustrating that all the time you spent in the sun, warming up and bathing in the lovely May rays, you wouldn’t change a bit because your whole organism was on the loop, too. 

You were going through the CDs again. There were very clear, understandable rules in this world: for instance, never run out of music. You couldn’t function without music. It soothed Kai well, and it made driving everywhere easier. He wasn’t joking when he said he wouldn’t get behind the wheel unless there was a dire need. For that, he cooked.

He cooked so well. All the dishes you didn’t know the names of, he was eager to show off his talent of many years of training. He made food so good you wondered how a heartless person is capable of putting so much soul into it. He even taught you how to cook something, which was a big achievement. 

“Trash. Trash. Trash”, you chanted to yourself, throwing them out of the window. It was such a satisfying feeling to throw something out of the window of a car, even when you weren’t moving. You had to remind yourself though, that, once you get out, it would be littering. Here, nobody gave a shit. The planet didn’t give a shit. It did not acknowledge your presence, it wasn’t aware of you two quietly moving around its surface. It was hybernating. 

Kai was pondering on something, standing on the edge of the cliff. The sights here were beyond words. All the way to the horizon line, the light turquoise sea was calm and looked like warm lemonade. The sky was matching color, and the bright green trees shuffled nonchalantly in the lightest breeze that filled your skin and lungs. 

You’ve been arguing a little, about this and that, adjusting. The Florence fiasco left you feeling a little helpless (Kai raided the local antique library and found a spell that supposedly was used earlier for escaping from places such as this one; you’ve tried it; it didn’t work. Apparently, Bennett blood was still needed), and he wasn’t very supportive. Kai grew lazy and delighted with life like a fat cat; he didn’t even pretend anymore to be stressed out about being here. He was playing his own game of wearing you out into sleeping with him. Ever since you got here, you haven’t even kissed a single time, the shock of change, and the fact of being locked away and all. There was a certain moment when you realized you’re unable to think about romance, because you’re hybernating, too. You were searching for the way out, and pushing Kai to do the same. Although he slept with you every night, and you got quite used to him lying next to you, the unmistakable comforting heat of his body lulling you into sleep, you felt like you wanted to freeze in that moment. You felt like you were restricted by something. 

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” you suddenly realized, and turned to him. Your mouth formed an O. “Oh my god, it’s your birthday every day”.

Kai looked at you with the same look he gave you every time he thought you were being slow. Given his hyperactivity, and his sharp psychopathic mind never resting a bitching second, anybody would seem a little slow to him.

“I’m an eternal birthday boy”, he confirmed, a little sleepily, “it’s high time you start treating me accordingly”.

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” you asked, starting the car. 

“You know it’s only us here, right? There’s no one to see you, or stop you, to judge you”, he said, cryptic as hell. The road was smooth, the asphalt glistened with heat, gliding car feeling its wheels like they were blades on ice. You went bananas and carjacked a 911 Carrera S for this place. This whole Italian vibe made you feel like you were incredibly rich. Life was sweet like shave ice with strawberry syrop soaking it through. You still waited for the other shoe to drop... looking at Kai, sometimes you thought, what if it never does? He’s crazy. His world is crazy. What if it’s not supposed to be bad here with him?

“I’m aware of that”, you replied.

“You don’t have to pretend”, Kai concluded, “you can admit whatever you feel for me. Sooner or later you’ll end up on my dick anyway. We like each other, it’s a fact”.

Your hands squeezed the wheel as you stared in front of you. Kai had a point. There was mutual attraction. 

There was mutual need, too.

“Maybe I do have to pretend”.

“What for?”

He tried to seem dispassionate, but you knew he was impatient. Kai Parker was a very impatient person. If he got to the car first, he’d always scream to make you move quicker. He knew there was no hurry whatsoever, but he hated to wait. He yelled at stoves. He cursed at traffic lights even though you obviously ignored them all. Just the sight of a red light pissed him off. 

Now, he had to be patient to get to the third base. He was somewhat cunning about it; his night embrace was a little more than just a cuddle. 

“We’re here less than a month. Who knows how long more it’s going to be? I mean, we can’t get bored at once, you know?”

Kaik blinked, processing.

“Right, princess. You want entertainment?”

You didn’t like the tone of that.

Perhaps the way he said it scared you enough to give you a nightmare.

You dreamt you walked down your street in Mystic Falls. It was so atypically dark your skin crawled. You didn’t hear them, but you could feel vampires were around you. They were not usual vampires, like Damon and Stefan - human, friendly, diverse and nice looking. They were monsters from 80s fantasy filled horrors, with long saliva dripping fangs, and, most importantly, demonic. An old feeling of supernatural presence, which startled you at night when Kai attempted to save you by killing you, once again made you freeze with horror. 

You walked faster, trying to get away, and praying for light. Not a single street light was on, you couldn’t even see it. The blackness was thick and absolute, and you knew you’d be attacked any second. Fear was physical in this one, stinging you, making it hard to move your feet. You tried running and stumbled upon something, falling on hard ground. Before you managed to get up, you felt somebody leaning over you, breathing down the back of your head. You were trapped. 

You woke up and stared into the darkness, expecting a painful bite. You’ve been bitten by vampires before. It was very painful, but you couldn’t imagine what it would feel like this time.

Trying to figure out where you are, just like always, you were afraid to move an inch not to produce a sound. Slowly, you moved your fingers, then your shoulders, and started feeling the weight of the blanket on you. You heard the sea. You exhaled through your nose and rolled on your back to see the empty bed. 

“Kai?” you whispered. You sat up and grouped, holding onto your knees. It’s always like that with nightmares; they go, and you stay in them. Brain knows the room is empty, but the mind is still captivated. You still expect them to jump out of the closet. And of all people, Kai Parker must be the one to save you. Why?

“Kai!” you called, irritated. Why the fuck, of all nights he pushes you almost off the bed with his invasive hugs, he’s not there exactly tonight, when you need human warmth to get your head straight. 

“KAI!”

The door opened slowly. He was standing in complete darkness, wide awake.

“What is it?”

You were silent for some time. Admitting your vulnerability to him would be about the last threshold. You’d have to completely love each other after this. You wouldn’t be able to let him go. It all now depended on how he’d react. 

“I had a nightmare”.

He walked towards the bed slowly, sat down and offered his shoulder. He always hugged you in this wide gesture, which he probably saw in a movie. It was a commercial dad hug, wide swing of an arm which then rested around your shoulder. The only times he felt humanly close was when he was clinging on you at night.

He settled on the pillows, bringing you close, and you finally let the air out with relief.

“You still get spooked?” he asked with surprise.

“Yes”.

“What was it about?”

“Vampires”.

He hummed. 

In this night calm, you were close enough to hear something beat in his chest. You asked yourself what curious chain of events made you end up together with this interesting individual. What comes out of it. 

His hand rested on your bare shoulder, fingers drawing uneven circles absently. He seemed a bit distant but he liked touching you. You could still smell your own perfume on his shirt from the day. You got that fragile desire to kiss him, to rub your face on his neck, to be close to him. 

“We’re really completely alone here”, you said.

“Yeah”.

“How did you know Bonnie and Damon came?”

“I felt it, I’m a witch after all”.

“How can you be sure there aren’t any beasts here? Something goes wrong, aliens slither into this dimension. Some chthonic monster. Some ancient spirits. Your own double, or demons. Or something”.

“It’s an empty place, Y/N, I just know it. I have been everywhere around, and I didn’t find anyone. I’d be happy to meet a chthonic monster even. But we are tremendously alone”.

At this moment the hug tightened because you brought him closer. 

“But I like it here with you”, he added, “it’s not that bad. People are boring anyway”.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries #vampire diaries imagine #tvd imagine

[hawksmagnolia]

The Depths Part 4

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1,184

Author’s Note: Sorry this is a day late! 

This is Part 4 - Links to Parts 1-3 are HERE.

THIS IS NOT ENDGAME CANON. Sorry, not sorry. It’s my world and I can do what I want. 

Please reblog and leave me some love. It really does mean the world to me! This has been an absolute labor of love and I can’t wait for next Friday. -xo- Allie

Despite Thor’s timely arrival, Bucky knew they were struggling. He’d long been out of ammunition and had taken to using the serum in his veins and the sharpest knife he’d been able to find. They’d learned Stark was battling Thanos somewhere in space so they had to defend Earth on their own. 

Suddenly the Outriders stopped. All of them. Every beast on the field locked in place.

They went from feral, violent beasts to near catatonic with their heads tilted. 

“What the fuck?” Bucky looked towards Steve who looked as confused as he felt. Around them, people were slowly getting to their feet and checking each other for injuries while warily watching as the sky to the west erupted into black boiling clouds and when everyone looked to Thor, he shook his head.

“That is not my doing.”

The crack of thunder was enough to make them all wince but the outriders continued their stillness but they slowly began to sway to some unheard music.

Bucky stared at them and then realization dawned over him. He turned back to the swirling mass of clouds that was over the area of his Wakandan home and the nearby village. 

And the lake.

The pearl on his wrist felt hot, throbbing like it was alive. 

He looked back at the hypnotic sway of the beasts and grabbed Steve’s arm. “This could be very good or very bad. We have to get over there. Keep everyone else here.”

“Buck…”

“Don’t ask. Not yet. I just need you to trust me.”

Steve stared at him for a moment and then nodded. The two of them took off towards the storm, Steve relaying for everyone to stay in place and on their guard while they investigated.

Bucky’s blue eyes never left the twisting clouds as they covered ground super soldier fast. 

“This is completely unsettling.” Steve glanced at Bucky as they passed another pack of non-moving outriders.

When they crested the hill that overlooked the valley where the village and lake were, Bucky grabbed Steve’s arm to stop him.

The grass beneath their feet had frozen and crunched under their boots. Both of them stared at the piles of bodies, some human but most were the frozen remains of the invading aliens. At the concentric circles that surrounded a tiny specter in white with her hands to the sky.

“Oh shit.”

I stood on the banks, a water wraith in all her glorious fury. I pulled down the clouds, draining them of their moisture until it filled my hands…and then filled the lungs of the monsters that dare attack the people I now consider mine. 

You don’t have to be in the water to drown, the water just has to be in you.

I made my way towards the heart of the village, each beast that attacked gave me more anger to use against the next. 

It was one of the smaller villages, only housed a dozen or so families. Those still alive were hiding in the largest home.

“Go.” My voice was soft but harsh, but I didn’t want risk raising it and accidentally using the power building up inside me. “Go to the water.”

They ran past me, filing to the lake’s edge. 

The lake shallows now filled with creatures of all shapes and sizes from friendly faced otters to massive ancient turtles. They waited patiently to ferry the survivors towards a small island towards the center of this side of the lake. The last one was the village elder, a soft spoken woman, bent with age. She stopped and put her hand on my arm. When I turned to face her, she tapped her ear. It was packed with bees wax and cloth. She smiled knowingly before she climbed onto the back of a turtle who began to slowly make his way away with her. 

Above me, the sky was an angry bruise, black as pitch as the power in my veins built. I closed my eyes and began to hum, just enough to still the creatures as they poured over the hill. When I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by them. They formed multiple ring around me, swaying hypnotically to the beat of my music. 

I shift my weight, still unused to the sensation of legs, of feet planted onto soil that is splattered with the blood of innocents mixed with the black blood of evil. I feel the air around me grow colder, my breath pants in plumes of steam. The creatures began to shiver, I raise my voice enough to hold them locked in my thrall. 

It doesn’t matter the species. If they have blood, they have liquid in their veins. 

And all liquids freeze.

“What the hell is that?” 

“It’s not a what. It’s a who.” Bucky clenched his fist as the temperature continued to drop. He was more than a little shocked at how fast it was plummeting around them. He could feel Steve’s eyes on him and when he met his gaze, Steve’s blond brows were almost at his hairline.

“Is…she?” Bucky nodded and Steve continued. “Is she on our side?”

Bucky’s gaze was back on the figure. “Yeah. She is. She’s fighting for us. Even though I told her to hide.”

“You know her?”

“She saved my life.” He glanced down at the pearl on his wrist, feeling it thump in tandem with his own pulse as her words echoed in his head.

“The world is not a safe place. I accept this. I am not running away scared. I can fight.”

My Tear begins to sing, its twin is near. Which means Bucky is far too close.

But I can’t stop now.

Tears begin to stream down my cheeks as I try to dam the coming tide within me. The tsunami of rage that will destroy all in its path.

Including him. I stagger, unbalanced on unsteady legs. Ice blooms like lace under my bare feet. To some it might be pretty.

People often forget that ice is also so very deadly. 

I drop to my knees, tilt my head back and lose myself in the song.

“Cover your ears!” Bucky shouts as soon as she begins to fall. “Warn the others!”

As they clap their hands over their ears, the sound hits them. Both of them drop to the ground as soldiers are trained, face down in the grass as the Outriders around them began to shriek followed by a wet, crunching sound. Over and over, each of them wincing at the muffled sounds until a silence so abrupt follows that it’s almost a physical ache in their heads.

Bucky tilts his face to the side. All he can see are the contorted carcasses of dead outriders. As  he sits up, he’s shocked to find that they’re all dead. They look as if something…someone had exploded them from the inside out. Each of their bodies is flayed open and the hollow cavities inside are white with frost. Both he and Steve are covered in gore and damp from the grass that is no longer frozen. 

Both of them sit on their heels, knees in the muck as their twin blue eyed gazes towards the village where the bodies have formed a gruesome fence for the tiny white figure who is curled on her side in the fetal position, white hair fanned away from her. 

It’s then he notices how silent, how still the pearl on his wrist is.

“Fuck. No!” Bucky lurched to his feet, boots sliding on the melting entrails as he dashes towards the village, Steve right on his heels.

As they vault and weave their way towards their hero, Sam’s voice comes across the coms.

“I don’t know what happened but half these guys exploded with ice and the other ones turned on each other…Stark just radioed in. They’ve got the stones. Guys?”

In the dark, I hear my mother’s voice.

“Do you want to know a secret? It’s not a song my sweet. It’s a scream, one that drives men to their deaths not because of it’s beauty, but because of the horror is causes. And you, my beautiful daughter, were doubly blessed with the touch of winter. You can command the flow, the sound even the shape of water as a siren. Little fish, you have the ability to wield it like a sword. Never forget you were made to be a warrior.”

I have never felt pain like this before. I feel as if my skin has been peeled from my bones.

My throat constricts as I try to cry out, the muscles spent from the rush of power. My lips are cracked and bleeding.

Sirens bleed red too.

I can hear the faint echo of a heartbeat and I wonder briefly if its mine.

I am so very tired. 

Bucky drops to his knees at her side. She looks so tiny like this. In her siren tail she’s almost double him including her tail but now she’s small, almost fragile. She’s lost the color she’d gained while here, her pearlescent ivory now back. The only color on her body is the scarlet stain of blood across her lips.

Scooping her up he strides towards the shore cradling her against his chest as he makes his way to deeper waters. When she is submerged to her neck, her head lolling against his shoulder. Her pale hair swirls around them like a lacy net and the wet fabric of his shirt clings to her body.

“Is she alive?”

Bucky turned and saw Steve standing on the muddy beach. His best friend looked exhausted, was covered in muck and blood but still his earnest face held questions.

“I’m not sure.”

“What…was that?”

Bucky shifts her in his arms. He isn’t sure if she’s alive. But her gills had flared open when he’d brought her here and then sealed shut. It gave him hope.

“She saved me. I fell into the Bering Sea, figured I was dead. Accepted my fate. And then she swims up. Steve, I thought I was back in cryo. She carried me to the life raft. When I asked to see her again, she gave me..

“The pearl.” Steve finished. “But how did she get here? We’re a long way from Alaska.”

“She followed the pearl. When they put me in cryo here, she thought I was dead. So she swam.”

“From Alaska?”

Bucky nods, continuing as he watches her face for any sign of life. “Eight weeks ago she shows up here. She’s been here ever since.”

Realization dawned on Steve’s face. “She’s the mermaid. The villagers were being serious when they said there was a mermaid in the lake.”

“Siren.”

“What?”

“She’s a siren, not a mermaid.” Bucky is able to hold her in one arm as he pushes wet strands of hair away from her face and behind her delicately pointed ears. He hadn’t even known they were pointed. 

“Whatever she is, she just gave us enough time to win. She’s got a lot of heart in that tiny body.”

Bucky swallowed a hard knot in his throat as he surveyed the wreckage that was the aftermath of a siren’s song. 

When he looked back into her face, he found her eyes the ones that were the exact same color as his own looking back up at him. 

Tag List : @nano–raptor @cchellacat @eurynome827 @jobean12-blog @book-dragon-13 @aesthetical-bucky @marvelgirl7 @sallycanwait68 @buckys-broody-muffin @softpeachbarnes @godofplumsandthunder @azurika-writes @ikaris-whore @this-kitten-is-smitten @randomfandompenguin @bucky-plums-barnes @bugsbucky @littleredstarfish @emilylyoness @hailmary-yramliah @daughterofsteven @crushedbyhyperbole @theycallmebecca @nomadicpixel @bluebell-24   @sevans-is-my-weakness @sebastiansloserclub @justvnash @worldofmarvelaficionado @undiscovered-misunderstood @throwmyheartawayagain @jewels2876 

#The Depths #Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes x reader #Mermaid AU #Not a Disney Princess #Badass women

[theres-no-protocol-for-this]

Hitching a Ride

I don’t know where this idea came from, and I have even less idea about where it’s going. A security construct is hitchhiking across the Corporation Rim. What could possibly go wrong? Part I.

The station's manifest listed the Traveler as a long-distance cargo hauler midway through its multi-month journey. The ship's destination was a freehold world somewhere outside of the Corporation Rim. The trip was slated to take at least twenty cycles. In other words, it sounded like an ideal scenario for a rogue construct trying to get as far from its owner company as physically possible while dealing with a minimal number of humans.

Assuming, of course, the transport would let me along for the ride. 

I approached its embarkation platform during a shift change. It seemed like a good bet. There were a lot of humans around; most of them were low-tech employees who babysat the bots that did most of the heavy lifting. No one paid much attention to a tall, weird stranger in heavy work boots. Probably because I was dressed pretty much identically to most of them. 

I lightly nudged the ship in the feed to see if its bot pilot was amenable to conversing. Directly communicating with vessels was still a novel experience for me. SecUnits have standard protocols for this sort of thing, and I guess I could've fallen back on those. But, I'd spoken to at least a few other bots recently and was learning that each one was different. I'd picked up a few tricks during those interactions and wanted to see if any of them might work.

I'd learned, for example, that most ships are programmed to protect themselves from theft. Sounds reasonable -- these are insured vessels, often with precious cargo inside -- and no one wants to pay for its loss. But most of the anti-theft measures assume some form of human involvement. So, odds were good that no one had told the Traveler to be wary of other friendly bots or constructs.

"Hello," I said via the feed when the ship didn't immediately disregard my ping. "May I ride with you to your next destination?" 

I used words and images to convey the message because most of the bots I'd met so far didn't speak like human beings. Also, I had nothing to offer the transport.  Then again, the bots I'd ridden with so far hadn't necessarily wanted anything. My last ride had been bored and seeking friendly company, and the ship before that had wanted to discuss star charts in depth. I now knew more about mapmaking than I ever wanted to. 

The Traveler, which had an unfamiliar logo on its hull, answered by opening the nearest airlock and sending a small drone to meet me. The floating cylinder with tiny mechanical arms beeped impatiently at me as it hovered in front of my face. It didn't stop until I came inside the airlock cycled shut behind me. 

Most of the ships I'd ridden so far mostly communicated with me in images and snippets of code. Only one had used spoken words, and that had been an uncomfortable experience all around. I'd gotten to know perhaps half a dozen ship-based machine intelligences since starting the journey, and none of them thought even remotely like me. Their minds were beautifully alien and utterly fascinating, a far cry from the humans I'd dealt with for most of my life.

The Traveler's drone stared at me with its single-lens camera. I looked away and scanned the room. 

It was barren but spotless and minimally furnished. Several space-capable evacuation suits hung in a locker to my left. Dim, diffuse lighting cast the corridor ahead of me in deep, dark shadows. A strip of bright illumination pointed the way deeper into the ship. 

The transport was running with only minimal life support, and it was chilly as I walked down the hall, following the drone. I shivered and slowed my breathing as much as possible. Without plenty of oxygen, I'd need to spend more time in stasis, but it was a small price to pay for a ride out of the Rim. 

I felt something large appear in the feed, a vast and complex presence, unlike anything I'd ever encountered before. It had the overall signature of the Traveler but didn't behave anything like the other bot pilots that I'd met. Its massive size reflecting some vast array of processing power, and I wondered what it worked on when not ferrying freight and passengers across the galaxy.

My risk assessment module advised caution. Anything that powerful could probably decimate the protective walls around my mind if it wanted to. That it let me in at all suggested it wasn't malicious. But, like with any sentient mind, you never know. 

"What are you?"  I asked.

"A better question might be what you are and what do you want."

This was new. None of the bots had spoken with me like this before. The one who had bothered with words had preferred quoting ancient poets. The intelligence behind these words sounded... curious, perhaps, and just as cautious as I was. I could understand its pressing questions; rogue constructs are unpredictable, and we're seen as catastrophically dangerous by most humans. I think the media plays up the dangerous part. Inviting one aboard could spell a lot of trouble for the Traveler.

"I'm a SecUnit. I'm trying to leave the Corporation Rim."

"Are you rogue?"

"I think so," I admitted hesitantly. "My governor malfunctioned several standard months ago."

"What happened to your arm? Do you require medical assistance?" Transport sounded concerned. Frowning sigils tumbled across the feed. 

Oh yeah, that. I looked down at my left arm. The long sleeve was tucked upward so it wouldn't get in the way. Underneath it, the appendage ended midway between shoulder assembly and elbow. The rest was gone. "I was injured and have not visited a repair cubicle since then."

Meanwhile, the drone I was following stopped in front of a door, which slid open. Inside was a well-furnished and well-stocked recreation room; I wondered at its purpose since the hauler had no passenger manifest. Who was supposed to be using this space?

A display screen took up most of an entire wall, and several couches stood opposite of it. There were also chairs and plush pillows on the floor. A small snack counter stood tucked into a corner, along with a recycler and a heating unit. 

Transport turned up the internal temperature and spun up its life support systems. I could hear the hum of air circulators kicking on. The drone beeped at me to come inside and then floated leisurely over to a cabinet. It grabbed a blanket and dropped it in front of my face. Out of pure reflex, I caught the soft material before it could fall. 

"I have some media we can watch," the ship informed me. "I also have a full medical suite. You could use it if you want." A moment later, it added, as an afterthought, "Captain Owens will come aboard in a few minutes, and we're slated for departure in a matter of hours."

The display came on, but I wasn't paying attention. "I need to leave."

"Why?" Transport asked, clearly puzzled.

"A human is going to ask questions. They might even return me to the bonding company." Also, I'm not good at dealing with people. 

"I already received verbal approval from the captain to provide transportation for you to our next destination." The ship's presence emanated its version of distress, and I didn't know why. "Stay."

"You what?"

"I followed the protocol. I knew that the captain was on her way, and I wanted you to ride with me. And the easiest way was to tell my captain. I think you should sit down and relax." Transport reminded me of a human child, a powerful and dangerous one at that. "Captain's nice. She doesn't get mad."

"Fuck you."

I stood in the middle of the rec room and stared straight ahead at an off-white wall. I wanted to leave -- up until this point, self-preservation had involved avoiding humans who might decide to return me to the corporation that still technically owned me. But, this human had supposedly already agreed to my continued presence, and this hauler was my best bet for leaving the station.

"You're mad."

"Yes. Yes, I am." I was also scared and shaking. I didn't want to go back.

"We can watch shows together. Captain Owens won't mind." The ship pulled back from the feed, giving me space to think, but it was still there—a black hole hiding in a corner. "I've downloaded some excellent ones." The little drone bobbed up and down and beeped sadly. "I've never talked to a construct before. I want to. You're more like me than like the captain. Or the crew."

"Same here," I admitted. 

"So, stay. It's safe here."

"It's not," I replied. "I don't like this. Your human could order you to hurt me, and you wouldn't have a choice."

My mind stuck on the word "safe." I'd never felt the need to seek out safety before, but the idea sounded... appealing. 

When my governor had been active, any mistake could potentially lead to painful punishment. If the transgression was particularly heinous, any human could order my termination. I don't fear dying, not how humans seem to interpret it, but I want to continue existing. 

Once my governor couldn't control me anymore, I had been terrified that someone would discover the malfunction. Without a functioning governor, they couldn't order me around, which made me -- in their eyes -- an unpredictable and dangerous weapon. I figured if the company knew, they would take me apart to see how the malfunction had occurred and then break me down for spare parts. 

I don't want that, either.

The door behind me slid open, and a deep, feminine voice said, "Trav only listens to me when it wants to. And maybe not even then. Welcome aboard the Traveler, stranger. My name's Skye, and it's a pleasure to have some company on this otherwise dull run."

I turned to face the newcomer as her information card popped into the feed. Transport also gave me access to the local communications array and some of the ship's internal cameras. 

One of the cameras was in the recreation room, so I connected to it and saw myself through its fisheye lens. I could also see Skye Owens, currently listed captain of this vessel and a doctor of biology. She was tall with light-brown skin, shoulder-length, curly hair, and pitch-black eyes. I'm not great at human ages, but I thought she might be older.

"You look lost," the captain added as she walked past me and sat down on one of the mauve couches. "I imagine this hasn't been easy, and I think the ship can be... a little overbearing when it wants something."

I checked the expression on my face through the camera. Yep, I was making a face -- one I couldn't even interpret.

"Am not!" Transport complained.

"Are too, and you know it." Skye looked up at the nearest camera and stuck out her tongue. "But seriously, you're welcome here, whoever you are."

"SecUnit," I said aloud automatically. 

I wondered about the relationship between the captain and her ship. It was apparent the two were friends, enough so that they bantered with one another; SecUnits weren't permitted this much camaraderie with other constructs. 

I had never encountered a situation like this before, where another human was aware of my status and still comfortable in my presence. Some of my previous clients had assumed that constructs can't speak, and others despised that we could. It was... weird.

Transport cast something onto the display, and an intro began to play in the background. The drone brought over snacks and set them on a low table between the couches. 

"A pleasure to meet you, SecUnit." Skye grabbed herself a pack of crunchy vegetables and then patted the seat next to her.

"She wants you to join her," Transport offered helpfully. "My crew does this thing where they're all together. They sit in front of the screen, eat snacks, and poke fun at whatever they're watching. It's entertaining."

The worst of the anxiety from earlier had passed, and I found that I didn't much care what the human chose to do. If she notified the authorities, which looked less likely with each passing moment, I'd deal with the consequences. Shrugging, I took a seat on the floor in front of the empty couch and leaned against it.

Setting the blanket aside, I turned my attention to the display. Entertainment media was still a new concept for me. I'd caught glimpses of it during various deployments, but most of it I hadn't understood until more recently. And I guess I wanted to see what the humans found so pleasing about the whole thing.

#fanfic #the murderbot diaries #SecUnit #we're all aliens here #into the unknown

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “The Empty Plate.”

Alright guys, here it is, the reason I haven't been positing for the last week. My first and only attempt at true horror. I have spent hours sitting in the dark pissing myself in order to write this, so I am begging you guys please read it. This is probably the most difficult thing I have ever written.

A couple tings before we get started. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

If you want the full affect of the horror, I suggest reading it in the same way I wrote it, In a dark room with scary ambient noises playing on headphones.

If you dislike horror, I still suggest reading at least parts of  it because it is relevant to the plot line. If you don’t want any issues read it in broad daylight in a crowded room. 

Seriously guys, I have never written something so difficult before please make it worth while :) 

A million hateful eyes glint their fury from the darkness, distant and cold caught up in spirals and clusters of ancient anger and the deepest most resounding quiet. They pull towards each other, spiraling, forever spiraling downwards and inwards into an unknown darkness where, if one were to be caught up, they would be suspended in a state trapped between death and life skewered on the descending claws of time.

We knew man was strange when we first met them, a consumer, one of flesh and of resources and of worlds powered, not by the laws that govern our existence, but by a strange and unknown entity glistening behind their eyes. Man is not man, but a shell powered by something strange, something eerie, something not of our plane. I have argued this many times over the years.

But why will no one here me. 

***

Dr. Krill floated quietly on the bridge in the sallow yellow light of an ambient star cluster. Commander Vir sat Stiff and rigid in his seat. His single green eyes glinting with a fine filmy layer of reflected mucus glinting with the pale sickly yellow of that pallid light. The rest of the bridge was unusually silent many silhouettes holding bated breath expressions dark as the unexpected transmission warbled over the line.

It came in  sibilat whispers, gurgles and and the distant sounds of guttural wailing crackling backwards into the maddening chatter of static. 

Krill examined in mild fascination as tiny hairs, like detached spider legs erupted upwards on the man’s skin. The delicate hairs glittered in response to the insipid, sensuous caress of waxen light down the man’s protruding spine delicate mounds and bumps of bone just visible through the back of his shirt.

The man’s skin had gone ashen like that of a bloated corpse decaying in a static pool of water.

“Can anyone understand any of that.” The man demanded, and despite its strength his voice fell flat crushed and squeezed with the weight of the air around them.

“I’ll try to clean it up sir.”

The transmission had begun without premonition. One moment they had been floating quietly through the vast nothingness of space, and next, they had been bedeviled by this Insidious cacophony of voices that seemed human, though individual words could not discerned.

Under the pressing weight of those horrific voices, the bridge remained hushed as the communications officer attempted to untangle the message.

A shadow fell over the Commander’s back, and a set of three tallenous fingers came slithering down over his shoulder to rest against his clammy skin. Sunny lingered at the Commander’s shoulder luminous golden eyes fixed upon the speakers which still crooned that gastly whispering.

“I think I have it, Sir.” The woman stammered 

“Alright then, let’s hear it.”

There was a long moment of silence, like the catatonia that follows psychosis.

“Help, please…. Anyone…. Please help. This is , colony transport…. 331…. Out of fuel….. Running low on food….. The lights… gone out….. eating ….. Can't stop… requesting help.” 

The chattering began again in earnest rising upwards upwards upwards until a crescendo, until the room was filled with it’s warbling madness, 

“STOP!” The transmission cut and the lascivious whispers died. Commander Vir stood from his chair, “That’s enough.” He finished softly, “Someone take a look in the database for a civilian transport with that flag ID.” He stabbed a finger at their radar technician, “Do you see anything.”

The woman stammered for a moment, spun in her seat and scanned wide unblinking eyes over her console, “Uh ... y-yes sir, I have something, not very far at all, its small, about the size of a colony transport.”

“Well what the hell would they be doing out here?” 

“I have no fucking clue.” The Commander muttered darkly glancing towards the eerie image looming over their pathetic tiny ship still thousands of miles away, psr b1509-58 (nicknamed the hand of god) metastasized into the sky less like the hand of god and more like some creeping eldritch horror. The strange, hand-shaped bluish dust cloud writhed from the blackness grasping upwards towards a ball of yellow red fire.

“ID tag confirmed, Sir. The ship has been missing for... Well over a year.”

Commander Vir blinked, “No, that can’t be right.” He shoved past his chair to peer over the shoulder of the technician his face bathed with a hellish red.

“Yes sir, Looks like they lost contact immediately following warp procedures. They did not arrive at their original destination.”

“”Well, I’ll be damned.” He mouthed standing, “Sunny, prep a shuttle and a landing party, get our suits ready. I want the rest of you to try and hail that ship. I don’t have much hope for these people, but done right, a ship can be stocked with enough food to last a year.”

“But…. Commander, what about….” The man’s voice shriveled and ebbed into silence.

Commander Vir nodded expression sombre, “It doesn’t matter. If there is even the slightest possibility that someone aboard that ship might still be alive, than we have to do what we have to do. Come on Sunny, let’s prep a team.”

***

The mood leading up to this mission had been one of inexorable unease, though none of the men or women could really have explained why. Only the Commander had heard the full recording, and as he sat in the pilot’s seat of that shuttle he felt the cold hand of dread slip around his chest, an icy choking feeling on his heart in a way that he had never experienced before, and wished never to experience again. Outside that shuttle window, the icy blue hand of god had beckoned them silently into the lap of eternal darkness.

The civilian transport appeared as a black cancerous spot on god’s wrist,swelling outwards in their vision sprouting sharp, black spines like charred bone pierced through skin. The entire ship, was like that, the mangled corpse of something that had once been now lurking in the shadow of space. But it was odd despite the feeling it gave him, other than the absence of lights, the ship appeared….. Mostly whole. It didn’t look broken down, dilapidated or in any way decommissioned.

It was just, Still, and silent.  

-

The airlock doors shuttered open with a protracted squeal. A wave of putrid humidity washed over them from the pitch black interior. That humid putrefaction slithered past them causing delicate crystal drops to form over the face of their visors foreshadowing nothing but a world of ceaseless decay from within.

And now they had come to stand before a bottomless pit of profound blackness, assaulted by a lurching humid wind that dragged her feted tentacles over his body. Commander Vir felt it, a presence like the weight of an unwanted lover pressing against him with putrid rotting flesh wet and slimy against his bare skin. Like a tongue caressing seductively up his neck, and towards his mouth.

A sensation so malevolent and vile, that began in his stomach, a tingling tightening sensation which wriggled up his throat bringing with it a horrific eruption of tingling beginning at the back of his thighs, trailing up his sides across his back and into his head.

His entire face erupted with that same tingling sensation. His nose and eyes prickled with unshed water, his throat constricted, his cheeks tingled, his teeth gritted. He felt as if he was about to scream, or weep. The impenetrable wall of darkness before him was not just a simple darkness….. It was a message.

GET OUT!

A warning.

Every human in that airlock, every marine, simultaneously erupted into a mass of animal panic. Lights flickered on wildly swinging towards the ceiling as if expecting to see a face come scuttling towards them from the darkness.

“Fuck this.” one marine whimpered crouching low to the ground his weapon raised towards the darkness. The aliens that accompanied them stared in abject terror at the response of their human counterparts. But they could not feel it, the creeping slithering, horror.

“What’s wrong.” Sunny demanded, her voice echoing out around them, thundering down the passageway, not making it very far before being consumed by the dark. 

And it was as if, all around them, the creeping malignancy went…. Silent.

Stopped as if holding its breath.

The humans shifted uneasily in their space weapons pointed into the darkness, though the beams of their flashlights seemed to terminate long before they should have. Despite waiting, the feeling from earlier did not return, though Commander Vir still felt…. Something. It was strange, like the buzzing of flies or a soft humming just out of range of hearing, or perhaps a sound just deep enough to be undetectable by humans, but still acknowledged by the unconscious parts of the brain. 

Whatever it was sent the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as tiny shutters ran up and down his spine.

The darkness stretched on before them.

One of the marines stepped back breathing loud over the intercom inside his helmet, “Commander, we shouldn’t be here.”

Adam agreed.

And he had never wanted anything more than to agree with the marine, and turn tail. But he knew that wasn’t an option, “Stand your ground marine, we have an obligation to these people.”

The group was somber, “I want two of you to stay back with the shutte. Make sure to keep in constant contact with the ship and update them on our progress, the rest of us are going to keep going. I am going to have our hazmat team meet us down here with body bags. With the way everything is looking ...” His voice fell flat on the dead air, and the marines stayed uncharacteristically mute.  

“I’ll take point.” He said lastly, and that seemed to at least galvanize them into action. Pulling his weapon more tightly to his shoulder, Adam faced down the halway following the cold steel line of the floor as it traced it’s way up into blackness, and then vanished. 

He took a step, and listened to it echo into the dark passageway down further and further along what seemed like an endless distance. 

His heart throbbed, and that same tingling sensation from earlier erupted over his cheeks, “Sunny.” he muttered quietly, Reassured when her voice came over the line distorted and warped, but otherwise familiar.

His team continued on softly, pushing back the reluctant darkness with the beam of his light. The floor ahead of him was bare and clean.

“Commander.”

Reluctantly, he turned to the side just slightly to get a look back at his marines, though his eyes still fixed upon that impenetrable blackness, “What is it marine.”

Ramirez’s face was gaunt in the yellow pallor of his helmet light giving him a sickly jaundiced appearance if not that, than the appearance of wax read to drip off a melting candle, “I can’t do this.” The man’s voice quivered with a strange hum that seemed to match that distant buzzing, “I have to go back.”

“What’s wrong marine?” The commander wondered, “We have to keep going.”

“If you can’t tell why than you’re a FUCKING IDIOT” The marines went absolutely still with shock. Staring at their companion in utter disbelief.

“Ramirez, what the hell.”

“Not cool.”

The man began to rock on his heels, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, “We shouldn’t be here.” The mareine was shaking his head erratically, “We have to go. We shouldn’t be here, we shouldn’t be here, we shouldn’t be here.” His voice once frantic, raising in pitch and desperation.

“MARINE, calm down!” Commander Vir snapped, “Get ahold of yourself!”and the man quieted, but continued to rock refusing to move one step more.

“Someone take him back to the shuttle.” The commander ordered, and one of the marines quickly volunteered, glared off by his companions. Commander Vir could see it in their eyes, what for a moment seemed like terrible…. Ravenous anger.

He shook it off and turned back to the darkness. Inside, his chest was suddenly  filled with the feeling of a thousand scuttling spiders digging their way into his lungs clambering through his alveoli, yet they continued onwards. The pale yellow gleam of their lights continued to show…. Nothing, nothing but the long, dark hallway stretching into blackness.

They came upon a few doors on their way down, which the marines cleared  in their usual fashion, but what they found was no more than storage rooms and offices. It all seemed well at first, stacks and stacks of boxes piled atop one another, a desk stacked with papers, the chair pulled out as if waiting for its occupant to return. The life support lights blinked a soft green to demonstrate that they were working.

Commander Vir stared into one of the storage spaces, and inside he felt a deep sense of dread and unease, but these were simply boxes, just stacks of boxes, nothing to worry him at all/ They even checked behind the crates out of a sense of paranoia, but there was nothing to be seen. Out in the hallway, Sunny, and a team of marines kept their eyes down the hall.

Commander Vir turned to position.

Why had those rooms bothered him so much.

It was just then that a deep, prolonged moan echoed down the hallway. The marines snapped into position facing down into the blackness guns raised. Commander Vir felt a rush of bubbles into his nose and throat. 

“The fuck was that.” Someone was saying

“Where did it come from?” Demanded another

“It came from behind us, I swear!” 

“Shut the hell up all of you!” The commander snarled, “Our ship makes noises like that all the time, it’s simply the beams settling, that's what happens when your ship is in a vacuum.” The marines went silent again. Inside his head the background buzzing intensified, like the static of a TV or the distant muble of a vacuum cleaner.

Inside his suit his hands had gone icy cold. Little eruptions of tingling rolled up and down his left side, like the response one gets when a sensual whisper caresses the ears. His palms and feet were horribly cold, his jaw locked, and his teeth gritted. His face felt as if that distant static had somehow made its way into his skin. Metal clattered and clanged vibrating up into the souls of his feet. The inside of his suit was hot while simultaneously being freezing cold. His only safety came from the reassuring weight of a weapon in his arms.

The floor fell away before him as the dying moan seeped into the metal below his feet and above his head. 

Above his head… he hadn’t thought about above his head, and the horrendous feeling of being watched.

Watched by something….. Something stretching down from the ceiling in long gelatinous strings, just inches from his head!

In a panic he dropped to one knee thrusting the muzzle of his weapon upwards images of wild eyes and rotting flesh burned into his mind. Behind him the marines cursed or screamed reacting as their Commander had.

His light fell upon the ceiling and saw…. Absolutely nothing.

Breathing heavily, Commander Vir cursed. His entire body was a mass of static tingling, like his very skin was infested with maggots. His heart beat so hard and so fast inside his chest, the only thing he could hear was it’s frantic beat, “F-false alarm.” he stammered, unable to shake the feeling that something HAD been reaching for him. There was no way a feeling that potent could have been so wrong.

They continued onward, and as he listened, the echoes branched outwards seeming to reach upwards filling a substantial space around them. The marines fanned out in a wide semicircle,  two facing back in the direction they had come. 

“Cargo bay. Alright marines, this is going to be basecamp. I want those portable floodlights set up, and a guard on any and all exits at all times. Once we have secured the area, I want our other teams to join us.” Honestly, they didn’t really need that may marines for this sort of operation, but Commander Vir was well and truly disquieted, and that trepidation made him eager for more guns.

***

“How��s he doing?” Commander Vir asked, standing at the center of a brightly lit cargo bay made that way by no less than twenty portable floodlights.

Krill’s voice came crackling over the line, “Ramirez… it’s strange, he says he’s feeling better, but he looks terrible, clammy skin pale, rapid pulse. I can’t find anything physically wrong, so I’ll probably get a consult down from psych. He wants me to tell you he’s sorry, says he doesn't know what came over him.”

“Tell him it’s alright, we were all sort of freaked.” easy for him to admit in the comforting light of over a dozen spotlights, but beyond that, where the radius of light gave way to the darkness…..

“Oh… and captain, there is probably something you should know. I wanted to tell you earlier, but you had already left.”

“Oh, go on.”

“It’s Conn.”

The commander stood straighter surprised, “Conn, has he woken up?”

Krill was silent for a moment, “Not exactly, but a few hours ago, he started moving around, mouthing things. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t seem to be registering anything. He seems aggressive agitated, and the uh…. Glados and the others seem very upset too. I have waffles taking care of them, but it’s only so much ...”

“Guess everyone aboard the ship is freaked out, eh, anyway, keep me posted.” He finished the conversation and motioned to a group of marines supervising the setup of the hazmat team, “Alright, you guys, on me, we are going to get this party started.”

Since boarding the ship, and seeing that the life support was still functional, they had chosen to take off their space suits, for gear that would be less cumbersome in close-quarters combat. Commander Vir was still not entirely sure that taking off their respirators had been a good idea. The instant he had pulled off his helmet, he had been nasally accosted by a sickly sweet, rotting pungence that permeated the air and wriggled itself into the very fibers of his soul. 

It was also a heavy smell, one that crawled deep into the nose and implanted itself at the back of his throat. So pungent were the smells, that, he felt like he could almost taste it, and was forced to fight bodily against his gag reflex as bile bubbled into his throat. He had quickly ordered better respirators from the med bay, and was currently sporting their crew’s newest fashion trend, a hard plastic mask that strapped around the back of his head but giving his full coverage over his mouth and nose.

Despite their heavy presence aboard the ship, going on almost half a day, no living being had appeared, that in itself did not bode well, considering the remaining options.

Either, no one was still alive to appear.

Or the living had chosen not to.

As for that feeling from earlier? Well here in the floodlit cargo bay, he could almost ignore the distant buzzing of static, and the chills had died down to a cold clamminess, but beneath all the bustling and movement, it was still there, like the ringing in one’s ears that establishes itself as a high pitched squeal, unheard when talking or working, but deafeningly loud when the quiet takes over.

A team of marines formed up around him, augmented by an extra woman to take the spot Ramirez had left. Somehow, she managed to seem surprisingly unphased while the rest of them were close to pissing themselves. Generally, at this point, he would have fallen back to direct from the rear, but left it up to one of the more experienced marines while making his way to the forward middle just behind the woman from earlier. 

He knew how to clear a room ,though this wasn’t his area of tactical expertise.

“Ready Commander?” The marine called form the back.

“Ready when you are, marine.”

“Tac lights on, we are going to do a slow sweep, pause the stick at every door keeping watch forward and rear, middle clearing rooms. Let’s go.”

Behind them, comforting glow of the floodlights faded. To their right, the marine on guard duty for the passaged looked at them with an expression of trepidation, her eyes wide and glinting wetly with the dull glow, “I’m not sure if it’s just the ship, Commander, but I… it sounds like there is something down there.”

He did not particularly appreciate her warning though it was taken into advisement.

Soon, the comforting cacophony of the cargo bay began to fade warping and melding into a strange distant hum. The light dimmed with it, leaving only the thin beams of their flashlights to cut through the murk. He could feel droplets of condensation beading onto his skin in hot, humid droplets. Beams of their flashlights cut down the hall moving and warping shadows across the hallway and floors. The distant buzzing from earlier grew louder and louder, until he was accompanied by a continual stream of static.

Their footsteps thudded loudly on the meta floors despite every attempt to stay quiet.

Halfway up the hall, a warm gust putrid wind blew past them carrying with it a soft, mournful moan. The marine at their head slowed casting her light over the distant hallway.

“Everything alright, marine?” The commander wondered.

“Yes….. I just, for a second I thought…” She trailed off shaking her head, “Nevermind.”

The hair rose down the back of his spine.

“Two doors, right and left.” The point marine called, coming to a stop just past that point. 

“Clear door.” The column stopped, and Commander Vir turned to assist a marine on the left, while another two took the door on the right. 

They found nothing more than abandoned storage rooms, stacks and stacks of crates illuminated in the light of their torches, and continued onwards.

Something plagued him at the back of his mind.

“Commander, the methane levels are climbing. Same with Hydrogen Sulfide.” The group remained quiet at the news.

The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, surrounding them in a dim bubble of light crowded on all sides by darkness. The hallway ahead was silent and empty but for the writhing of shadows. 

“Opening.”

They were directed into a quick fan pattern, one of their members facing backwards against the pursuing wall of darkness as they came into the room. The ambient glow of their torches provided just enough light to illuminate some sort of dining hall, or a kitchen. It was an eerie scene in the dark, chairs pulled form the sides of tables, waiting to be pushed back in abandoned plates left with moldering crumbs upon the counter. Cans and cartons were left abandoned to spoil, like whoever had been here had left in a  hurry and never bothered to return. A single lone chair sat isolated in a corner washed of all color transporting them into a dark, alternate dimension of black, grey eeriness. 

Long reaching shadows stretched grasping fingers into the darkness.

The illumination of their tac lights roved about the room in a thin nebulous columns showing nothing of great interest….. until

A hunched figure came into sharp relief against their lights. 

One of the marines cursed, lights quivered. The commander raised a hand.

Even from here, he could tell the man or woman was dead.

Slowly he motioned the others into the room approaching the corpse himself. Not so much a corpse anymore as grinning skeleton. As the light washed over it, the sockets of the eyes sunk into deep pools of blackness. Teeth, still white in comparison to the stained brown bone, grinned at them with a horrid gap-toothed smile just visible through a ragged tangle of drying hair which stick in vein-like trails over the moldering bone. 

The skeleton was undisturbed.

It sat at one of the tables slumped heavily against the wall. Dried brown stains coated the floor and wall around the corpse in a discolored puddle. The putrid discoloration had oozed onto the wall and slowly wormed its way into the minute seams leaving a cracked and drying crust behind it. The clothes, still somewhat intact, clung stiffly to the bone, rigid and brown with dried residue. 

But strangest of all was how the corpse sat, propped against the wall bony fingers still clutched loosely about an oxidized fork and knife, a pristine white plate sitting before him on the table. Aside from a small amount of dust, and residue shed from the hands, the plate was….. Clean.

The man looked as if he had died while sitting down for a meal, though there had been no food on his plate.

“Its like he just… sat down and died.” one of the marines whispered 

Just then a horrendous screech and crash shook quaked the room. A moment of sheer intense panic seized the commander, like the feeling of being constricted from all sides. The static in his ears roared to a crescendo as their lights sent shadows into a crazed and ghastly dance. Adam would have sworn he saw something large, and fleshy skitter away into the shadows just as his tac light fell on a pan still rolling and rattling against the floor. Frantically he panned his weapon in a tight arc, over the floor and across the walls. 

The sound of skittering, like the movement of a million bugs washed over him, so intense he felt as if he could feel the little creatures crawling up his body, burrowing into the fabric of his clothing, and crawling into his ears. His skin crawled and squirmed with a thousand maggots. They invaded his shoes, squelching between his does, filling his mouth and nose, worming their way down his throat.

He could feel them crawling on his insides carving tunnels just under the skin of his back. 

He gagged against the feeling batting at his arms and neck dropping his weapon on it tac sling to bounce against his upper thighs as he swatted at his face and skin spitting and gagging. 

Something grabbed him by the arm, “COMMANDER!”

The feeling vanished.

He stood in a cold sweat tingling like his entire body had fallen asleep quivering with the remembered feeling.

“Commander, are you alright.”

Adam dashed a hand across his mouth expecting to find bugs, but found nothing more than strings of saliva. He wiped his mouth again, “Shit, what the hell was that?”

“Nothing, sir. No one SAW anything, and we were guarding all the doors.”

His body trembled. So, either it had somehow snuck in, or it had been here the entire time….. If there was in fact anything there? Perhaps one of the marines had brushed the pot handle as they walked past causing it to slip and vibrate against the floor. 

He took a deep breath, unable to quell the urge to spit another gobit of phlegm onto the floor wetting his cracked lips with a raspy tongue, “Deploy the micro-drones. Have them get some samples and take pictures, then we will take care of the body.”

While his orders were being carried out, the rest of the marines busied themselves searching the room rummaging through cupboards and drawers though one marine had backed himself into a corner nervously sweeping his light across the floor and ceiling.

There were no more disturbances, and they found nothing but stacks of tins, boxes and packages. They came across a drawer full of pristine, dusty, coated utensils, but nothing remarkably out of the ordinary. 

Radio calls were made, and another team came to collect the body. Commander Vir watched from a pool of darkness as the yellow-suited hazmat team worked to peal the skeleton from it’s cracked juices. WIth enough urging the bones came apart, and the man was slowly disassembled into his component parts and crammed into a black bag whose surface glittered and shone like freshly pourn tar. 

His hands were the last to go, rusting metal utensils wrestled from the still clutching fingers, and left abandoned on the table next to the glittering white plate.

The sull, hunkered in a bed of its own bones, gave him one last knowing grin, before being zipped shut. 

The hazmat team retreated with their group of marines, taking with them the rustling of their suits, and the solemn comfort of their voices. Again they had been left in that dark colorless place surrounded on all sides by the ghost of an evening that would never come to pass. 

There was no knowing how long it had been stuck like this, though a thick mat of dust covered the floor. Nervously he glanced towards the fallen pot, but the ground was far to disturbed to determine what had actually happened.

But perhaps that was a hand-print?

No, it couldn’t be.

“I’ll take point,” He announced stepping in front of the female marine as they made their way into position. He wasn’t technically supposed to be here, but the fear…. The fear was starting to overcome him. That feeling, from the first moment they had stepped onto the ship, that cold icy sensation that licked slowly up his back to the point behind his ear. His skin crawled and his heart hammered as he tucked his weapon against his shoulder in a low-ready position. The only thing keeping him here was the desire to protect his marines.

Stepping into the hallway, his imagination wandered with him into the dark. His marines sitting silently on the floor of an abandoned back room, their bodies withering with the slow decay of time, their flesh dripping like candle wax from their bones forgotten in the slow progression of time as the cold darkness of space surrounded them, lost and entombed forever.

He shivered, “Door right.” He called, just before his light passed over a second door, “Door left.” He called out taking a few steps forward into the darkness and stopping while the marines readied themselves to breach the room. He kept his body at a slight angle head cocked towards the doors so he could hear, eyes looking off down the hallway. He heard the door open, and the marines entered. It must have been a larger room, for it required more than one marine to actually enter and make the sweep.

He heard them speaking, calling out to each other, and tilted his head just a little further in their direction eyes, momentarily, closer to the marines than it was to the hallway.

And that’s when the sensation came, a malicious presence  rushing headlong  from the darkness, a scuttling evil presence fed by spiteful purpose, carried by the slapping of wet feet, and hands upon cold metal. WIth a cry of alarm, he whipped around expecting to find the ravening beast leap at him from the darkness.

But, as before, there was nothing, nothing but the endless dark hallway stretching back into the gloom. Another sluggish breeze cut past him bringing with it a deep and tenuous moan. 

The commander felt sick to his stomach, his hands shook and his face tingled. Tears pricked at the corners of his vision, and inside every fiber of his being told him to turn back. There was something wrong about that presence, something more horrific than any monster or beast, though that’s what he had called it in his haste.

Though he had not seen it, he could feel it’s malicious intent, its hatred, its unholy evil.

An emotion no animal could comprehend, no alien reconstruct.

A human emotion.

-

He told no one what he had felt when they returned, though Sunny seemed suspicious. The rooms had been sleeping quarters at one point, all the beds put neatly away, dusty family photos left forgotten atop nightstands and laying about the floor. It seemed odd how deliberately the beds had been made though family photos were discarded upon the floor.

Though he wished for nothing more than to turn back, he forced himself to keep going reminding himself constantly of the companionship giving him by the marines, and Sunny. 

They cleared several more sleeping quarters, multiple offices and the occasional storage room, though all were left in similar states of, perfect tidiness or abandoned disarray. None of it had been touched in months. He was beginning to wonder if they would ever find the rest of the crew, when the buzzing began.

It was a distant sound, similar but not holy the same as that soft malefic buzzing that had plagued him through this journey. It was, somehow, more substantial, and as they moved down the hall, the sound swelled, louder and louder and louder until it was almost deafening. 

“Methane readings are extremely high commander.” 

In response, Commander Vir panned his weapon about the hallway causing a beam of light to cut upwards onto a set of doors as well as the ceiling and floor beneath, and stopped. The ground outside the door was coated in a glistening greenish-black sludge, the door itself was lacquered in, hot thick moisture, and, somehow, a trail of rotting putrid mold had begun festering upon the ceiling above the door.  The buzzing was louder now, louder than it had ever been, and inside Commander Vir knew what he was going to find.

And for that reason, he had chosen to switch spots with the female marine behind him. He didn’t want to do it, but he knew it had to be done.

He positioned himself to the side of the door, and motioned for a marine to open it.

The doors slid open with a sickening squelch. Commander Vir took one step in, and then stopped as his tac light fell on the opposing wall. The very room itself heaved a breath as the walls and floors around him pulsed and throbbed expanding and contracting like a writhing vat of putrid decay throbbing like the beating of the ship’s oversized heart.

And the sound a gelatinous high pitched squirming in time with deafening, droning buzz.

Behind him, a marine wretched.

“Not in your mask dammit!” one of the others yelled at him

Commander Vir, couldn’t move. He was frozen on the spot hands like ice knees locked. His stomach clawed its way first ito his pelvis, and then into his throat seeking escape. The feeling returned, maggots crawling through his skin chewing their way through his brain and out through his eyes. He could feel them, as real as anything slithering about his body. 

“Holly mother fuck!” one of the marines whispered, and he too turned away to gag. Finally, commander Vir was able to step away backing out of the door and ordering it closed behind him. 

“Call the hazmat team and get them down here. We have a lot of work to do.”

-

When all was said and done, a staggering sixty percent of the crew was recovered. Krill ,ordered over as the ship’s coroner, had been forced to use skulls to count bodies and determine at least sixty percent of the crew was present. Commander Vir tried not to look at the small skulls instead forced to face the reality that,  some of the crew were still in the active stages of decomposition, which, as Krill explained, meant they had died within the last month, some at least within the last weak. He felt his heart sink.

Perhaps, if they had been a couple days earlier….

The issue was, the bodies were in such a state that Krill was having a hard time figuring out what had been their cause of death. Another team of marines returned from the other end of the ship, towards engineering and reported that they had come upon a locked door. The door, they said had been marred with many strange scratches and dents. They were forced to open it with extreme force, and upon coming inside, they had been, again blocked by stacks and stacks of equipment apparently used to block the door. 

Another ten percent of the crew had been found inside….. 

Nothing was making sense, a least nothing except for what the engineers had found when they inspected the warp core. Whatever it was, it had been a catastrophic malfunction which had taken out all central power to the engines, and sent an emp burst which permanently fried their long-distance communications. The backup life support generator had survived though the main one had also been taken out in the blast. The transmission itself had come from a short-wave radio stored in a sort of faraday cage in engineering. In space, the signal would be practically useless, which is why they hadn’t picked up on it earlier. 

The message from earlier repeated on a loop. 

Those bodies were only just beginning to bloat, and Krill determined cause of death on all subjects to be asphyxiation characterized by petechial and subconjunctival hemorrhaging about the eyes and under the skin not to mention ligature abrasions about the neck. 

truthfully , having Krill here was simply a formality…. No one had been surprised about their cause of death…. Especially not after they had been found, alone, in the dark gently swaying side by side. Not alone…. Even in death.

The real question was…. Where was the other 20% of the crew? 

There was only one small section aboard the ship that they had yet to explore, and Commander Vir wagered to guess they would find their answers there, on the bridge.

-

Most of the ship had been explored by this time, flood lights had been set, and informal safe-zones had been set which included a small team of marines and three to four of the massive floodlights. They began the staging of their last push in the kitchen where the first corpse had been found. It was him, three marines, and Sunny, who with the other female marine had shown no great reaction to the strange eeriness of the ship. The other two had been with him since the beginning, and were damned if they weren’t going to see it through.

He adjusted the mask waiting for the other marines to ready themselves.

His eye was caught by a strange and unusual glint. Turning his head, his eyes were brought towards the darkest corner of the room, isolated from the floodlights and a wide ring of caution tape. The single, white ceramic plate from before glinted at him from the shadows it’s surface empty and glistening, though still coated in a layer of dust.

It seemed out of place, though how a plate could be out of place in  a kitchen remained a mystery. 

He turned his gaze away as the marines announced their readiness, and together, they began their trek down the hallway, now lit by a hundred pale orbs of light lining the path to that first door, which was now sealed off with caution tape, beyond that, the darkness began again. Despite the sealed door, the Buzzing was still there to remind him of what lay behind that door.

A fly landed on his cheek, its hairlike feet sending shivers up his skin, and he swatted it away in disgust knowing form where it had spawned.

He stepped over the greasy smear of brownish film and aimed his flashlight down the rest of the hallway, there were many doors here, though only this one seemed to show hints of what it contained. The bulb in his light flickered and dimmed before brightening again.  He moved forward with his team switching on and off the point position as he moved, sometimes waiting outside, and sometimes falling back to clear a room worried for what his marines would find.

He opened a small door himself, while the two others checked the hall and two more remained on watch. It was a small room no more than  a few feet wide with exposed piping and electrical circuits. He reached out attempting to flip on the main breaker, but other than a dull thud, the lock remained stuck and silent. He rolled his light over the floor and paused in confusion when he saw it resting against the far wall.

A can of what appeared to be brand-generic tomato soup. Head tilted to the side, he slowly crouched, and reached out a hand for the can.

His hearing exploded as the high pitched keening swelled in his ears. All sound dulled, and his vision went white fading slowly to black, the light of his flashlight had gone grey and white, tingles erupted down his back, crawling into his face and bringing water to his eyes. His very body trembled with a sense of terror so profound, it was as if the devil himself stood at his back. Even as he thought that, he could sense it, a hateful rabid demonic presence, crouched just behind him. He could feel its hot, rasping breath on his neck, could sense it’s soulless black eyes boring into his soul, and almost feel those slime-coated teeth chattering with anticipation. The sensation was one so deeply profound it was like being stared at by a thousand eyes. The buzzing static in his head became a hissing whisper, a maddened warbling.. The world around him was a slowed grey expanse of eternity, trapped in a state of indescribable panic. Darkness slowly rose up behind him, the presence lifting thin, elongated arms, too long for its body, fingers too long for its hands spreading outwards like he was sprouting an unholy set of wings.

Plunging downward

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he screamed with raw inhuman terror entire body contracting violently away from the touch.  Time around his was ruptured, and he clattered against the wall, sending the can of tomato soup spinning across the floor.

“Commander!.”

The marine stood over him with wide confused eyes.

Commander Vir gasped and panted against the gut-wrenching panic that still gripped his chest. His vision was tunneled into blackness, and all the shapes around him appeared indistinct, “How long…. Have you been there?” He stammered.

“I came to check on you sir, you'd been gone for like five minutes and we all got worried.

Five minutes…. That hadn’t been five minutes. He checked his watch, but the marine was right, 

“Are you alright, Commander. Do you need to head back?”

“No I…. I’m alright, just… let my paranoia overcome me is all.” The marine reached out a hand, and the Commander took it standing and trying to conceal the fact that his legs were shaking.

There were only a few more rooms left, after all. The door shut behind him closing on that can of tomato soup inside.

The next three rooms were clear, though unlike other places aboard the ship, they did show signs of recent use. Running a light obliquely over one of the surface walls, showed raised discoloration from an oily set of hand prints going all around the room, high onto the walls, and across the floor to meld with similar footprints.

Otherwise, the room was empty.

There was only one door left.

Sunny and the female marine set themselves to the side of the doors allowing Commander Vir and the other marine to breach the room. Commander Vir stepped in first sweeping his light from the nearest corner over and around the center of the room. The other marines took their corners, and together they moved inside.

The bridge, didn’t appear much like a bridge anymore, all the consuls and equipment had been unbolted and stripped from the floor. Stiff, brown fabric buzzing with flies had been strung up from the ceiling and down onto the floor giving the room a strange alien quality to it, like they had walked into a cave, or perhaps the throat of some virulent beast.

To add to the strangeness of it all, almost every available flat surface was piled with open containers, bottles and glasses and jars of water. Pillows lay discarded across the floor their generally white casings stained with filth. The jars themselves seemed to make a pathway through the room.

Sweeping his light forward, Commander Vir followed the trail of stained cloth up towards the end of the path, where a single, stained chair still remained bolted to the floor. It was a large chair sat atop a raised dais, though it was slightly tilted to one side.

The Captain’s chair.

All around it lay bodies, piled together in grotesque poses of death locked into place by rigor mortis 

A horrific amalgamation of naked flesh and rot. These people, they lay together in a mass pile before the seat, somehow reminding him of a thrown as if these people had been prostrated in ritual as they slowly expired.

“The fuck.” Whispered one of the marines

Commander Vir remained silent, his eyes roving over the scene before him. The bodies themselves were in a general state of decay, though in better preserved condition than the ones before. 

Slowly he moved up the aisle boots making a soft thud against the unseen metal below his feet, muffled by the crusted fabric. A single body atop that pile stood out to him, in the wan light of his torch, it’s skin glowed a sickly, pale grey, like the body of a decaying maggot. The thing, more creature than man, was horrifically thin it’s spine protruding like that of a rabid, starving dog, so thin and knobbly that it’s joints were thicker than the surrounding body parts.

Its fingernails were blackened.

Commander Vir paused to take a closer look at the body drawn in b some heinous curiosity. The other marines stood behind him examining the pile of corpses.

“No…. no no….”

Commander Vir leaned in further.

“What?”

A shuffling behind him and a soft, “They were EATING each other.” 

It was then, he realized many things at once…. The missing 20%, the blocaded door, the tomato soup, the clean plate, the storage rooms still full of boxes, the kitchen.

And the fact that this corpse was still chewing slowly, and rhythmically.

“COMMANDER RUN!”

The chewing stopped, and an eye flashed open, a delicate cerulean blue consumed by a black pupils and surrounded by jaundice yellow sclera.

He had no time to react.

He screamed falling backwards as the thing slammed into his chest. His tac light was thrown to the floor and sent spinning across the ground. The room erupted into chaos. He kicked out with one foot catching the creature in the chest and knocking it backwards. It skidded back across the floor on all fours, the greyness of it’s skin thrown into sharp relief, an amalgamation of bruising and torn open sores still weeping clear fluid and infection.

He scrambled backwards, and it scuttled after him. Light rolled around him like a strobe giving him only glimpses of the creature as it crawled towards him gnashing yellowed teeth overcome by bleeding, decaying gums. He scrambled for his sidearm running into something soft, and moist at his back. The lights flashed.

The creature plunged from the darkness, its ragged black nails scrambling for his neck.

He caught it by the arms pushed backwards into a putrid mass. Fabric tore and bone cracked desperately he strained against the creature flailing arms. It was inhumanly strong as it pushed them through the mass of corpses tumbling onto a field of open jars.

Glass shattered. 

Water erupted around them. The thing began to shreak so loud that his ears rang. His hand slipped, and the creature got one arm free, more glass shattered. He could see the gelatinous film coating the creature's eyes, watched strings of saliva drip from it’s open mouth. It pulled its hand back fingers curving into talons pressed close together.

“THE EYES.”

The hand came plunging downwards towards his face, and he scrambled back kicking and screaming. The hand came down, again and again and again stabbing down towards his eye. He tried to catch the creature’s hand, but was only able to block it.

It screamed.

Glass shattered as he deflected it to the side it’s fingers stabbing into the glass coming back bloody.

It straddled him by the hips fighting to gain both hands as it jabbed at him again. Greasy black fingernails rocketed towards his face, seeking his eyes.

Teeth gnashed and champed.

Screaming form around the room.

It grabbed him, and together they plunged through a tear in the fabric. Something sharp crunched beneath him, it grew darker, light dissipated by crusted fabric. 

He felt it coming towards his face catching the creature’s wrist. Light grew in his vision, withering black nails inches from his face. It pressed down with all its might quivering closer and closer to the surface of his eye.

Something glinted at him from the darkness.

A panic, and desperation the likes of which he had never felt overwhelmed him flooding his body with strength. He screamed, wrenching the creature’s arm from his face, grabbing it by the side of the head, and thrusting it bodily sideways.

The things scream was cut off by a sickening crunch.

The glinting, the tip of a jagged broken rib.

He lay there, on his side against a field of bones staring into the glassy face of this…. No… not a creature.

A man.

A man with shocked cerulean blue eyes faded in death strings of white-blond hair still clinging to his diseased scalp, and the ore he looked the more human the thing became. A man in his thirties emaciated diseased, probably in pain. Commander vir looked down and saw a jacket tied loosely around the man’s waist.

Pinned to the collar was a dull set of captain’s bars.

For a moment it was as if he could see his own face staring back at him.  This man, he could be any one of them.

He felt his body heave, and he scrambled away clawing his way through the opening and into a field of broken glass.

“Don’t shoot!” Someone screamed.

“Commander!.”

On hands and knees his body heaved violently again his nose tingled, his throat constricted. Tears leaped to his eyes. The heave turned into a sob, but he choked it back down, staggering to his feet his breath heavy and warm inside the mask. Someone rushed to help him, while another shined his light through the opening.

“Holy shit.”

“Commander, are you ok?”

He waved the marine off his ears ringing, “Order everyone back to the ship RIGHT NOW.”

His orders were not questioned. A radio went on somewhere, and two of the marines helped to support him as they walked down the hall. His body felt numb, it wasn’t that he couldn’t move, but he couldn’t feel his feet on the floor.

Eventually someone else took over for the marines. Two arms supported him from the side, in a strong inhuman embrace. Sunny tried to speak with him, but his mind was too focused to acknowledge her. They had to get out, he had to get them out. He refused to go forward unless he could see his marines checking constantly behind him as they went. Anyone they saw along the way was ordered back to the ship. Leave the equipment they could get more.

He stood in the cargo bay surrounded by bodies filtering through the doors calling out names and checking off crew manifest.  Shuttles were launched back to the ship, and he refused to leave until the last shuttle was opened.

Together with Sunny, and his original team of marines, he stepped onto the shuttle. The darkened hallways lined with cheap LEDs stretched back behind him. Something clattered sending echoes up the hall. A marine sealed the door with a sharp his, and with unwavering hands, Commander Vir piloted the ship into space eyes locked forward, body still feeling nothing.

The light that hit him upon returning to his ship was the most relieving sensation he had ever felt, like taking an elevator to heaven from the depths of hell. The crew waited in the cargo bay as they exited the shuttle waiting with fearful, wide eyes. The marines especially gathered around him, but at that moment he felt….. Nothing.

He looked at the marines. He had to make sure they were ok, “The lot of you, get yourself up to psych RIGHT NOW!”

“But captain.”

His voice dropped low, “Argue with me again marine, and it will be the last thing you do.” 

The group stepped back

He lifted his head, “THAT GOES FOR THE LOT OF YOU. Anyone who stepped foot on that ship or even listened to that transmission better have a psych referral to me by the end of the week on my desk in signed in TRIPLICATE from all three of our attending physicians psych and medical otherwise. NOW GET MOVING.”

No one questioned him, and standing there in the crowd, he felt his body go numb. Cold sweat rolled from his temples and down his collar, he began to shiver violently. His hearing still hadn't come back from earlier, and he was beginning to feel lightheaded his heart pounded even as a great sense of exhaustion came over him.

Before he knew it, he was sitting on the floor. Someone was speaking to him, though he couldn’t concentrate enough to make it out. Only that memory, of the repeated hand jabbing downwards towards his face.

More voices muttering, they elevated in shock, and a second later something cupped him gently about the face tilting his head back. The movement was gentle almost caring. Lights blinded him for a moment, but then a face resolved itself in his vision, paper white, humanoid and with wide black eyes.

“Conn.” He muttered.

“Sleep, Commander, and I will ease your fear.”

A sensation, like someone pouring clear warm water into his thoughts. His shivering died down, and he felt himself float away.

***

Humans don’t die easily.

And sometimes when they do, when they should leave, they linger.

#humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #HUMANS ARE WEIRD #earth is a deathworld #Earth is space Ausralia #horror #humans are spaceoddities

[dontcallmecarrie]

screw it, this “too many options that all sound appealing” thing is really messing with my rhythm so here, outlines for Endings 1-3. Major spoilers inbound, read at your own risk.

Ending 1: Stay With The Original Plan

canon ensues on Loki’s side, aka he falls right into Thanos’ clutches. [Un]fortunately for him, Thanos is even more pissy than in canon, since ‘his love’ is MIA and he’s hyperfocused on assembling the Infinity Gauntlet under the belief that this’ll be what finally gets her to say yes

somewhere in here, Loki realizes that this is the purple bastard Hela kept telling him about. Just to make this entire experience even more hellish, because having to listen to Thanos talk is more torture than the torture. 

optional, probably won't write: at some point, Thanos asks Loki for dating advice. Which’d go about as well as expected.

Meanwhile, Asgard, Earth, and just about everywhere in between has their hands full now that Helheim is empty and all of its demons are having a field day.

somewhere during the chaos, Fenrir breaks his binds and steals the Aether on the way out. 

cue potential alternate antagonist to make the Avengers assemble. Surtur, perhaps, for maximum irony because...

Jörmungandr wakes up just in time to see Hela bust out of Helheim, and immediately invites her to come with him. Fenrir joins the club when he gets out, too, and cue minor time skip as they all catch up and help each other reacclimatize to living outside of a glorified prison/the modern world. 

okay, from here, there’s two further endings I’d be having to pick between.

Option A:

shit goes down when Loki shows up.

The Avengers assemble, and get not one, not two, but five Asgardians crashing the party on the Helicarrier.

turns out one of them’s an ancient sorcerer who’s been camping out on Earth over the past thousand years and influencing some of their myths. Somehow, this isn’t the weirdest part.

a lot of dirty laundry gets aired in a very short period of time, aka the Avengers get a front-row seat to the shitshow that is the Asgardian royal family and Thor’s respect for his father tanks. 

The local sorcerer is the one who figures out Loki’s being mind-controlled, and Hela is royally pissed off when she finds out who’s responsible. 

well, actually, that’s not entirely accurate: when they find out Loki’s condition, nobody takes it well, and since some of the people in the room were basically used as living weapons for the better part of a millennia, well...

RIP, Thanos. 

[insert family reunion and happy ending here, probably]

Option B: 

[insert antagonist name here] shows up, Avengers assemble.

Cue confusion when an alien trio beats them to the punch, feat. a fuck-off huge wolf, a goth chick who keeps throwing swords [seriously, where is she even getting them from?], and a honest-to-goodness wizard. 

Cue even more confusion when Thor recognizes them as Loki’s friends, and then a lot of stuff goes down very fast when he finds out that they’re famous on Earth— because they’re prophesied to bring about Ragnarok, the fall of Asgard. 

[insert drama here]

Fenrir, Hela, and Jörmungandr quasi-joining the Avengers? Not as impossible as it sounds. 

Thanos shows up looking for the Infinity Stones. Hela oneshots him, and maybe brings him back to life just to kill him again when they find out what he did to Loki.

cue happy ending.

Ending 2: All The Angst And Dramatic Irony [feat. Major Character Death]

this one’d make it all a tragedy, and I hate making myself sad and also I didn’t tag for major character death, so that’s already two strikes against it but my brain can’t let it go so here goes:

Loki died when he fell from the Bifrost. 

Hela and Jörmungandr don’t know this, and don’t have much to compare notes because Jör last saw him when he fled and Hela’s last conversation was right before Thor’s coronation. However, they are aware that Loki succeeded in his mission of getting Hela free, and they know how happy Odin would’ve been when it happened— they’re operating under the assumption that he’s been imprisoned for treason, and gearing up to invade Asgard for the sole purpose of getting him out. 

The events of the first Avengers movie doesn’t happen/gets skipped.

Fenrir breaks out during the Convergence, scaring the crap out of Jane Foster and taking the Aether with him. 

The group has a reunion, and then all eyes turn to Asgard. 

Chaos ensues when the Dark Elves’ invasion is interrupted by a separate, entirely unrelated attack that somehow manages to do even more damage.

and incidentally end up fulfilling the prophecy along the way, because they have a bone to pick with Odin and everyone who helped him

Cue angst and sadness when the truth about Loki comes out. Because Thor enters the fight, and Fenrir/Hela/Jörmungandr would inevitably ask “where’s your brother?” and then out comes the story of what happened on the Bifrost

...and because I made myself sad, here, have an alternate ending:

Hela and the others categorically refuse to accept he died, and keep looking. 

Jörmungandr in particular points out that the Bifrost can result in wonky time-space shenanigans if not monitored closely, and considering the circumstances in which he fell, well...

Fenrir goes to town on Sakaar when they find Loki.

cue tearful reunion and happy ending.

Ending 3: CHAOS [the fun one that I’m honestly leaning towards]

aka taking all of MCU canon that I remember, and sticking it in a blender because timeline fuckery abounds and absolute no one knows wtf is going on anymore. 

Taking full advantage of the “Bifrost can result in accidental time travel” thing, and the fact that Thanos is distracted looking for Hela and the Infinity Stones which in turn affects when the events of the first Avengers movie happens, well...

after Loki falls, cue minor timeskip because of Reasons. Hela and Jörmungandr get the chance to start recovering from the whole “living on the run/being forced into this position” thing, and also start looking

then a lot of stuff goes down very very fast.

Loki shows up in Germany, catching the attention of not only the Avengers, but Hela and Jörmungandr. 

...the alien god talking about subjugation should’ve been the guy getting all the headlines, had it not been for the gigantic glowing wolf that showed up halfway through his speech. Or the aliens that followed him from gods-knew-where.

aka Fenrir breaks out during the Convergence, and the Dark Elves really, really, really want the Aether.

aka yes, this is the one where the events first Avengers movie and Thor: The Dark World happen concurrently.

SHIELD has their hands full, Erik Selvig and Jane Foster are working overtime to figure out wtf is going on, and Thor is less than helpful because all of other aliens can and will attack him on sight. 

Thor tries to drag Loki into custody.

Loki gets kidnapped on the way. By a wizard, because why the fuck not, things were already weird enough as is. 

Tracking down said wizard is an exercise in futility, but damn if they don’t try anyway. 

Having Clint Barton and his associates get portalled in with an honest-to-goodness apology note? Sure, just add it onto the pile. 

Everyone in SHIELD is confused, anyone who knows their myths has just been screaming this entire time because there’s also been sightings of an enormous snake in the oceans [Jörmungandr’s defense system was working overtime, sue him], and things just keep escalating.

Eventually there’s a team-up, and then a human wizard shows up too? Saying something about how their duty was to safeguard the Earth from extradimensional threats and obviously SHIELD was doing a shit job of it? Fine. Just...fine.

hi, Stephen Strange

aka the Avengers assemble and there’s more of them because all hands on deck

[insert snappy dialogue and interactions here]

Hela when she finds out what Thanos is up to: (ง'̀-'́)ง

[insert cinematic fight scene with all the drama and irony and Norse mythology references]

cue happy ending

#Ere The World Falls #thinking aloud #behind the scenes #spoilers #ETWF spoilers

[pact-mom-kyrie]

Hey after a year I wrote a thing. I called it “Brooding nerds“ because is about Alesso (sniper, priest of Grenth) being broody after the event of Hall of Chains. He got some weird powers because hey, he had been dead once before, in Queensdale. He feels alienated. Fron his brothers, from the guild, from everything. So his brother Enzo (mesmer, nerd) goes to talk to him.

Shout out to @disaster-bi-canach for always being there. I mention her main Sinéad here. Go and read all her stuff. Is really good.

Also HAPPY FANFIC DAY!!!

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

The nights on Istan were cold, or at least the wind blowing up Champion’s Dawn made him feel like it. The little town was gleaming under the moonlight, pretty like a painting with Churrhir cliffs beyond. 

This was the ancient homeland, thought Alesso. Or at least part of it. He was not knowledgeable enough about the story of Zephaniah, he has bearely heard the story of his ancestor, the man he had only known as Zephare. The only thing he knew for sure was what Koss had said to him: “Another touched by the gods?! By Dwayna, never knew a child of Zephaniah could get this pale, huh?”

Somehow it hurt. But he didn’t say anything. Koss seemed like the kind of nosy grandpa he had never known. Salva noticed though and glared at the old man. Somehow the judgmental gaze of sweet, kind Salvatore made him feel guilty, or at least act like it.

It felt nice, but it was not enough to make him feel better.

That was the reason behind him being sit down, brooding on his own in a cliff, reaper-forged rifle by his side. He had given the excuse of going up just to shoot any awakened that dared come close to the town. But there were none, otherwise, he would have seen them walking through the plains or the breach… that was kilometers away.

Such accuracy was unnatural.

“The eyes of a god” Maesta said while they were in the Priory. He only thought it was about the fact that now they shone like embers, but he realized soon enough that it was something more terrible than that.

When he shot an awakened soldier.

From the cliffs.

With his eyes closed.

“Now you’re just fuckin’ cheatin’ partner” Exclaimed Johnny, his voice a mixture of anger and excitement. 

Alesso knew that yeah, he was cheating. But he couldn’t stop it. He had been dead twice, and that allowed him to gain some weird boon, and it felt extremely weird. After all, who else could say they had held a tiny bit of that kind of power?

All of sudden, a portal appeared by his side, and from its glimmering depths, a figure appeared. Tall and aristocratic.

“Good evening, little brother, nice weather for alienated brooding isn’t it?” Lorenzo has managed, after all their years as adventurers, perfected the art of princely sneer. Alesso glared at him, but could only mumble a weak curse. Years ago, he would have said “Yeah, fuck you”, and close himself up. But not now. Not like before.

“Don’t you have an entire observatory to read? Or did you run out of paper for interviewing zombie grandpa?”

The mesmer almost laughed, but he just gasped as if scandalized “Don’t call Koss Dejarin like that, young man” he faked the intonation of a scolding mother “he is not your grandpa!”

Alesso snorted, his devilish laughter barely escaping his lips “So you’re accepting he is a zombie, right?”

“Well, to be honest...” Enzo got lost in thought for a second, half-joking, half-serious “Awakened have peculiar characteristics, and have different needs from other types of risen-type creature, so they belong to their own category in Howard’s classification of unde-”

“You fucking nerd” The sniper rolled his eyes, huffing slightly “Whatever, tell everyone I’m ok, just thinking of stuff and… stuff”

The redhead sighed deeply and sat down, looking slightly distraught. “Oh no, I came here because I am worried, you little twerp. You’ve been way too quiet and sullen. That is not normal”

“What is normal then?” Claimed Alesso, wiggling a bit far from his brother. He was slightly scared, not ready to face any of his siblings, and tried to mask his fear with annoyance.

It wasn’t working.

“You being with us, smiling when no one looks, competing with Johnny over shots, praying for the fallen of Elona, just...” Enzo looked down, into the town “not like this, not as if we still were the same idiots running around Queensdale”

Alesso winced. Queensdale. It had been five years, it used to feel like a month ago, and now it felt like yesterday.

“Gyro behaved the same when I came back this time. He checked my pulse, he looked at my pupils, almost asked me for a blood test, as if he believed I was… as if I am-”

“You are not dead, Alessandro Zeppeli” The voice of Enzo broke a bit as if he was trying not to sob “You re here, with us. Still the same fool that tried to wrestle a spider queen, still the same child that broke into the home of Thomas Silvertogue to learn how to be a spy”

Those words felt like a knife stabbing his heart. Lorenzo was not the kind of man who broke easily, even if his emotions were there for everyone to see. It was not simple nostalgia, but a sort of awed reminiscence, and Alesso could not help to feel it too. 

“I’m scared” He murmured. It would have been better if he didn’t remember the last time he had said that. The sight of the ashes of Commander Steinbrecher in an urn, the greatest hero of all Tyria, had sunken his heart into the abyss of terror.

“I know” Enzo replied softly “The letter you gave me. Maesta… she wrote about everything”

Alesso lowered his head, feeling smaller. Silent in his own uncertainty. He had a snarky comment ready, but he felt too tired to say it. He was tired of hiding his thoughts behind the words of an asshole.

His brother sighed “You didn’t read it” It was not a question “You had a letter from a noble of Kryta, an agent of the Shining Blade, and didn’t even peek under the seal, knowing it may have some valuable intel. Thank you”

“What? She is my friend. Besides I don’t know if she had enchanted it or something” the thief tried to explain, not ready to show how much he cared about their relationship “Also I don’t wanna read the correspondence of someone whom actually thinks you are hot enough to fuck”

Lorenzo scoffed, no doubt rolling his eyes. “There were no details of that kind if you are interested, dear brother. Actually...” His tone changed to a more solemn one “She was asking for an explanation about… the way I said goodbye in Lion’s Arch”

The sniper raised his gaze. That was not a good memory, if anything, it was extremely awkward to remember Enzo being a jerk towards anyone, more so the woman he loved. “Did she break up with you via letter? I mean you mocked her for being emotional...”

“I am perfectly aware of what I did and I am ready to face punishment for my actions” Once more, the princely manners return “but that is not the point, as a matter of fact, the letter made me realize that we have something in common”

“That we deserve a slap for being assholes in serious moments?” Alesso raised an eyebrow, cringe clawing his heart. Enzo looked surprised, not ready for such a display of painful self-awareness.

“No, not that. Maybe a bit of that, but this is something completely different. Something we cannot… solve, so to speak” Enzo looked above them, gazing at the starry sky, “She wrote you were given a portion of Grenth’s power. As well as she did, but since you’ve been to his realm twice, your abilities got… stronger”

The eyes of a god. The reason for his accuracy, his eyes changing, now gleaming in the darkness. 

“Here is the question, Alesso: do you think you’re the only one who has felt the power of a god running through his blood?” It was a serious question. Way too precise. He would have expected it from Salva, or from Commander Sirhasi, but not Lorenzo. Then again, he had the bad habit of underestimating Lorenzo.

“I think so. I am the only one who has been so close to the gods...” he stated with unnerving confidence “Damn now I feel like an arrogant little shit”

“Well you arrogant little shit!” the mesmer exclaimed joyfully, opening his arms “You are SO wrong I could write a whole treatise on how wrong you are. But since I love you so much, I will give you a short version: I have felt the power of a god too, and it was fucking awful”

And so, Alessandro Zeppeli, a descendant of the house of Zephaniah, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers, opened his mouth and gasped like a fish out of water. Because he had no idea what his brother was talking about.

“W- what? When? Why?!” He almost yelled, more confused than ever. He looked all around him, somehow waiting for someone to appear, to confirm it was all a joke at his expense.

“Do you remember the battle in Lion’s Arch against the minions of Zhaitan?” 

How would he forget that? He had spent days with Ihan and Joseph cleaning the city, trying to heal his sadness with risen’s blood. Until Commander Sirhasi asked if he was alright and he ended up crying like the child he was into the norn woman’s bosom.

“Yes, that face tells me that you do” Enzo whispered. Maybe lost in his own memories of those awful times. “Steward Gixx told Magisters Irene and Gialinn to help him with a relic of Balthazar. He thought that someone had to wield its power and since it was a human god...”

“It had to be a human, and there were no other nerds close to you” he muttered.

“Yes. I had to carry a part of the spirit of a god of fire, fury, and mass murder. As powerful as I felt, it was not a good experience. I thought nothing of it later, just a weird experience in an extremely hard time. Until Balthazar returned..” he lowered his head, while Alesso put the pieces together in his head.

“Whatever remained of the fucker within you, resonated with him, then” The sniper stated, only understanding the implications a second later “So your behavior, the fire that sometimes escaped from your illusions… that was Balthazar...”

Enzo nodded “Yes. One time I spat molten embers, one night I cried fire, and sometimes I just wanted to kill someone. Anyone. And I hid it all from everyone but my colleagues of the Priory”

“Well shit, even I didn’t saw that coming, except the part when you almost scared Cesare to death, of course,” Alesso looked at his brother, making him recoil slightly “Did you use your illusions to hide? Because you are good, but not that good”

“You rude prick. I happen to be that good” Lorenzo sneered “I was scared of any of you realizing it, I didn’t want you t think I was going to join the Zaishen or something like that”

Alesso moved closer to his brother “I get it... but if there was anyone of us who would have joined that prick, it would have been anyone but you” he saw the mesmer smiling, moved by his trust “After all, the stick in your ass wouldn’t let you bend the knee towards that monster”

“Fuck off” the strange laughter of Enzo pierced the night, sounding like a weird harpy in the cliffs “The point is: you are not alone, dumbass. Your god loved you. Maybe all that happened is sad, and I cannot imagine how you feel about it but...” He sighed and hugged Alesso from the side “You are still out little brother. The one who creeps us out because he looks a lot like dad. You’re part of the best and strongest guild in Tyria. The weirdest guy of the whole Pact...”

Now it was the turn of Alesso to laugh, like a tiny devil mocking Champion’s Dawn “I get it, you old cheesy geezer” He returned the hug, and felt his loneliness fading away “Thank you, really”

“I know, I am amazing. You are welcome” The fake pride of Lorenzo was even worse than his stupid smile, and he knew it “No, but in all seriousness, it is alright. You can tell me every time you feel bad about your existential crisis, at least regarding your godly issues. You’re my brother, and we are very similar....”

“Ew. Don’t remind me that. Makes me wanna hide under a rock” Alesso broke the hug, stood up, and took his rifle before looking up to the sky, smiling “Maybe Grenth is gone but... I feel I can still carry his will as long as I am with you, my family... bunch of losers” 

Lorenzo also stood up, stretching his back “You better. Without you, we wouldn’t be as good as we are. Also, I wouldn’t be able to fulfill my main familial obligation without you”

Knowing what kind of obligation he was talking about, Alesso sneered and said a single sentence. “To keep Cesare humble? Alright. Seems all this ‘Hero of Three Nations’ thing has started to go to his head, do you have a plan?”

The redhead smiled, malice covering his face “Oh yes, it includes portals. Lots of portals” he stated while opening one by their side.

“I may have an idea, but you lead the way”

The two brothers entered the shimmering pond of light, and for a moment there was nothing but peaceful silence in Istan.

Until the shriek of a heroic guardian pierced the night.

#Them Boys #Alessandro Zeppeli #Lorenzo Zeppeli #My writing

[miss-spooky-eyes]

OC Inspirations: Devinahl & Indy

I was (delightfully) tagged by @vespertine-legacy​ a while ago and I’ve hesitated to do this because I knew I was going to talk WAY too much - but it was weighing on me, so I decided to open up about the sources from which I stole, that is, drew inspiration for Devinahl and Indirae.

What three fictional characters is your OC a combination of?  

This doesn’t apply to every OC - not even mine - but its certainly true for a few : Many of our characters are, to an extent, inspired by characters we see in movies, books, games, TV shows, etc.

Does this apply to any of your OCs? Was it a conscious decision on your part or not? Is your OC a combination of three (or more) fictional characters?

If so - post some GIFs / pics and tell us about them! What does your OC draw from other characters?

Too much Devinahl & Indy chat after the cut.

DEVINAHL

The truth is that when I came to creating my Imperial Agent Devinahl, and in particular fleshing out her backstory in far, far too much detail, there were some sources that I went to extremely explicitly and deliberately. And chief among them was ...

1. Garak, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

That’s right. Garak from Deep Space Nine. Plain, simple Garak. Outcast. Exile. Spy. Addict. Perennial liar. Patriot. Terrorist. Would-be genocider. Very good tailor.

(If you haven’t seen DS9, then you need to. It’s like Star Trek, but if it was actually good? And Garak is a big part of what elevates it.) 

Is it weird to compare my ancient video game Barbie/gorgeous sex bomb badass assassin and seductress to a cold-blooded space lizard who spends his days hemming pants? Possibly. But there are aspects of Garak’s character that, consciously and unconsciously, I made parts of Devinahl’s DNA. 

Firstly, Garak is a patriot. He loves Cardassia so much that despite seeing its flaws with absolute clarity, despite having been exiled and reviled by it, he would die without question to serve it (of course, he’d much rather make someone else die). And while seeing that as a weakness, despite knowing that the Cardassia he has committed to serving is disappearing before his eyes, there is still a part of him that believes that that commitment - that neverending sacrifice - is noble. The only noble part of him. That’s central to Devinahl’s character (which is, in turn, the way I made sense of the IA storyline). That while hating and despising the Sith, she would nevertheless believe in the Empire - not so much believe that it is good (at best, I think she sees it as order and stability where the Republic is corruption and chaos) as believe that her commitment to it is the only redeeming thing available to her.

Secondly, the way that Garak will take his needs, vulnerabilities, sincere emotions and package them in ways which gets him what he has to have to keep going, without ever giving up full control? Particularly in the extraordinary episode The Wire, in which a dying Garak tells Dr Bashir a series of lies about himself in order to elicit Bashir’s forgiveness, because he needs to be sincerely forgiven but without ever telling the truth?

Out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren’t? My dear doctor, they’re all true. Even the lies?

That is everything I tried to do with Dev, particularly in my fic about her and SCORPIO, particularly when it comes to her and Arcann. To know what she needs, as Garak needs absolution from Bashir, and tell just enough truth - put herself into just vulnerable enough a position - to get it, but never without reserving something, holding something back, whether it’s the knowledge that she can maneouvre herself out of SCORPIO’s clutches at any time or her real name? That’s a fucking survivor.

Thirdly, the relationship between Devinahl and Sifter (the spymaster who finds her as a traumatised child and grooms her for Intelligence) and specifically, the deathbed scene I wrote in Riddle was directly inspired by Garak’s relationship with Enabran Tain and that death scene. 

Yes, Devinahl was not Sifter’s actual daughter, but in every real sense she was formed by Sifter - and had Sifter had just one day with Dev like Tain had with Garak, Dev would have been lost. She would have turned herself into a carbon copy of Sifter, and she would have died. But the bittersweetness? The acknowledgement that the parental figure you love will never, not even now that they’re dying, love you as you want them to?

‘I should have killed your mother before you were born. You have always been a weakness I can't afford.’ ‘So you've told me. Many times. ...’ ‘Elim, remember that day…in the country. You must've been almost five.’ ‘How can I forget it? It was the only day.’

(The love and infinite sadness with which Andrew Robinson says that line, ‘It was the only day’? I’m crying just thinking about it. Anyway, it was everything I was thinking about and wanted to achieve in that scene.)

Oh ... and Devinahl’s ambiguous relationship with her implants? Well, Garak also has an implant in his head. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

2. Oryx from Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood

A novel character rather than from TV or movies, I hope that’s OK. And I know that there are ... very problematic elements to the way Atwood writes about Oryx, her family, her culture, her background. But she was one of the strongest elements that went into creating Devinahl and her backstory.

There were specific aspects of the story Oryx tells to Jimmie - particularly the parts about being told to scream and make a fuss if a man tries to take you away to a hotel room, and then being told not to make a fuss when a man tries to take you away to a hotel room - that became part of Dev’s story. But there was also a general attitude and way of looking at life I wanted to capture and incorporate. Oryx’s philosophy of value?

Of course (said Oryx), having a money value was no substitute for love. Every child should have love, every person should have it. . . . but love was undependable, it came and then it went, so it was good to have a money value, because then at least those who wanted to make a profit from you would make sure you were fed enough and not damaged too much. Also there were many who had neither love nor a money value, and having one of these things was better than having nothing.

I wanted to create a character who could look at life and suffering and abuse, even her own, and view it in that dispassionate way which horrifies someone from my middle-class Western background - and then I wanted to test that idea, to bring it up against SCORPIO and have SCORPIO try to break it down with torture, to see if it was just a cool facade/necessary illusion. I wimped out of really testing that belief, instead having Dev always know that she could get out of her situation/having her find a way to be loved without truly having to sacrifice her protective patterns ... but if I was a little braver and better, I’d have tested it to breaking point. How far can a character go who thinks like that while still remaining, on some level, compassionate/human/likeable?

3. Saffron (Firefly)

I could have gone Black Widow (definitely the inspiration for Dev’s aesthetic in terms of outfit etc). But the plain truth is that I thought more about Saffron while dreaming up Devinahl/writing her backstory than I did about Black Widow (yes, Widow turned her weakness into strength in a manipulative fashion all the time, but Garak did it better, and other than that she mainly looked after boys in a way that I did not want Dev to be limited to). 

Firefly, for a show that had - what - 13 episodes? - exercises far too much of a hold on my imagination and Saffron, especially in the first episode in which she appeared, was such a tremendous character. The way that she found exactly the triggers to turn each member of the crew inside out? (And if she’d had more time, it absolutely would have worked on Wash and Inara, too - it only didn’t because she had to hurry.) Dev has that. I can’t write it, because I suck, but she has it. 

Oh, and nobody will ever know Devinahl’s real name (apart from you, if you read my fic about her backstory) and she’d die before letting you know it. That’s straight from Saffron. As is, I suppose, the man who would accept her just as she is without needing to push to know her secrets, except it worked out a little better for Dev and Arcann than it did for Yolanda and Durran Haymer because Dev and Arcann will always have pegging.

INDIRAE

(This will be a lot shorter than the section on Devinahl, I promise.)

1. Steve Rogers, Captain America (and whatever else)

I have never been super into the MCU, but the key reference I used to find a way into Indy’s character, back when she was nothing more than a cool-looking Cathar Bounty Hunter, was Steve Rogers. (November can attest to this)

Indy’s physical size - she’s six foot if she’s an inch, and big - is key to her personality, but equally key is the idea that she would always experience that size as uncomfortable and slightly alien to her. Like Steve Rogers, she started out as the scrawny kid always getting beat up by everybody ... And when she got her strength (with a hefty assist from the toxic waste run-off into what was her family’s only source of water) and suddenly got TALL and STRONG? She did not like bullies - which was what led her to help Coda out of a jam at the spacesport and started them on their road.

(If there’s a better way to play the BH storyline than as a stone-cold mercenary with an utterly unwilling heart of gold ... then I don’t know about it.)

2. Xena, Xena Warrior Princess

I’ll be completely fucking straight with anybody about this (so to speak): I love Xena, I had an obsession with it as a teenager I’m still unpacking, and the show tends to feed into my characters in an ... odd way.

Indy is physically imposing like Xena, is the main thing; and her dynamic with Coda owes a lot to Xena’s with Gabrielle (although Coda is as big and tough as Indy, she is the fast talker/smooth operator to Indy’s laconic strongman). I wanted Indy to dominate action scenes the way that Xena does, be that kind of a force of nature; and watch her struggle to find ways to channel that charisma, to need Coda’s help to understand how to do it.

3. Dottie Henson, A League of Their Own

OK, first of all, I do not want to hear any kind of mockery. This is, unironically, one of my favourite films of all time.

Again, we come back to the core theme of a character struggling with her own greatness/potential. That’s what is the most fascinating through-line of A League of Their Own: Dottie, this unbelievable baseball player/physical presence (yes, she’s very tall, just like Indy) who is so terrified to admit that she wants anything more than her smalltown life and dreadful husband, even while the evidence of her talent and passion for the game is burning up these ... fields? Diamonds? I don’t know baseball apart from this film.

Indy certainly hides behind not wanting to be a bounty hunter. She doesn’t believe in any Mandalorian nonsense about romanticising what is an unglamorous job. She’s just doing it for credits and afterwards, once she’s secured her family’s future, she’s totally going to go home and settle down in some acceptable, domestic way. Being on the Mantis with Coda, it’s absolutely just a means to an end. She doesn’t want to be there, she doesn’t care about it, it’s not who she is, she doesn’t need it. This life, the adventure, the freedom, the fighting for survival, it’s certainly not what gets inside her and what lights her up, no, not at all. 

Oh, and Dottie is also a reluctant leader. She doesn’t see why her talent should put her in the position of telling other people what to do - but then, on the other hand, she sees so clearly what they need to be doing, and when she says to do it, they listen. She doesn’t want to carry this team, but they’re only a team so long as she carries them.

(Don’t worry, Coda’s not going to let her lie to herself for too long.)

#swtor #excessively long answers to memes #oc: devinahl #oc: indirae

[theskyexists]

ive bought harrow the ninth and am now attempting to reread act 1 so that i may understand it better

ianthe clearly proposes that Harrow not get herself killed trying to bring Gideon back - reading it over again. instead to take the future and somehow?? be really powerful together and forget about their cavaliers. but harrow says no

im once again struck with how offhand this book introduces the concept that the empire goes out to deliberately kill planets over a couple of generations

now im not sure....there also seems to be an implication that there’s no aliens - because they say only humanity has a soul - but client planets were said to rebel - i guess the human colonisers rebel against central solar system command sometimes? but then what enemy does the Cohort fight? possibly it’s just bigotry that they think aliens dont have a soul

but like - they find LIVING PLANETS and then - kill them slowly. to the extent that they need to move the entire population. WHAT? why do they do that??? just so they can do some bone tricks???!

what the fuk

so how did the planets get murdered again? and which solar system planets could really have been said to have had enough life to have a soul?? cos like, only one of them is really known for that

why did God give Harrow the choice to go back home TWICE if he was never going to let her?

once again, why mess with the Hand candidates if God was always gonna come for Cytherea? just to mess with him more?

yeah - harrow keeps hearing and saying ortus ninegad but the rest of the world remembers gideon.

Harrow truly is totally mentally shattered AND time is totally fucked up

but sometimes in the fake-ish timeline Harrow remembers but doesn’t remember Gideon - like how she notes that there were two womb-bearing members of the Ninth who were the right age...but only elaborates on herself

for some reason - Harrowhark remembers Ianthe’s arm ripped from her by Cytherea - but now it’s whole. for some reason

that letter is still so what the fuck

‘like you did the last time’ - hm harrowhark sewed Ianthe’s lips shut? how did she come by the power?

is ianthe - calling Harrowhark God?

throughout the first act, they keep referring to time, having too much time, or not mastering time, or not having enough time, ‘this time’ etc.

the eggs you gave me all died - that’s DIRECTED at Harrow, is my theory

ok but the planet revenants come after Lyctors and also God (- God became God when? at the Resurrection) before the Lyctors happened - God was still at Canaan House - despite the Revenants already coming right...

is Teacher criticising god and lyctors for leaving Canaan House lol?

ok so yeah Canaan House WAS part of a ‘last sacrifice’

ok so - Harrowhark is a little resurrection miracle. This implies that God killed a lot to resurrect the Houses.

wow God is being a very dad to Harrow

Blood of Eden - BOE - they turned their back on the solar system. now they hate necromancy. in other words - when the solar system died, God resurrected it - but before that point some humans had fled - lived. and they can see what absolute fuckin horror necromancy is ACTUALLY

so what im getting is...maybe...god resurrected humanity by killing the planets...?

i just realised that Ianthe has taken Gideon’s place as the smartass in the room - the counterweight to Harrow’s portentousness

what the fuck do augustine’s comments to Mercy mean???? why is she unloveable? why would he say that God doesn’t need her? and why is it obscene that Augstine calls God John? What is the dangerous game she’s playing? What was the foul implication??

‘Then that is your downfall’ OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Harrow BURN!!!

what i don’t get is - the Cohort is an army - when they land they die because they’re being killed by an enemy at the front - NOT in pure sacrifice for thanergy. so why does only the death of humans and planets produce thanergy. why is the death of the enemy not good enough? they don’t have fuckin souls?? they MUST be complex life. and doesn’t a planet produce a constant stream of thanergy? but i guess it’s not dying enough - generally its life maintains itself in ecosystems.....unless a fuckin lyctor ‘makes the juice flow’ i guess!

sometime in the next book there IS gonna be a ‘are we the baddies’ meme. muir loves memes and she stuck skulls on absolutely EVERYTHIGN. Like WHY THE FUCK would you colonise planets if you gotta kill them for it? LOL????

huh? augustine just said that they can’t use necromancy when in the river - but mercy mocked harrow for having hypothermia ? implying her fundamental failure was not being able to necro while in the river? Harrow’s inability was what was wrong partly right?? oh no ok it’s how Harrow tried to compensate for her body going lights out while in the river. alright. that was written confusingly

how and why is this a completely different story???

The Sleeper.......is Harrowhark? the suit is too close to what she was wearing killing the asteroid. and the sleeper is lying on ‘something’. oh they just straight up say it lololol

ortus got into trouble 19 years ago...hhmmmmm wasn’t Gideon 19??? huh? which is why Mercy started at Harrow’s peculiar YELLOW eyes that Harrow can’t see herself i think

‘i do things face to face’ ortus says after stabbing harrow. HUH? why go for a stab if decapitating would have done the job? just to give her a small chance to fight back? (face to face?)

why not tell God that ‘his’ attack dog is trying to kill you?

why does Ortus the First want me dead? ‘who?’ ---uh. has she forgotten him completely (time shit) or is she saying the wrong name? mercy wouldnt reply like that then right?

she told him and he’s like - oh well guess you gotta just get through repeated almost-successful attacks on your life. ???? THANKS GOD!!!

‘you, with your unfortunate memory for poetry’ HA! i love how we are reminded that she knew all the fuckin damn books nearly by heart which is insane!

Teacher suggests his dying at least three times a day?? hahaha what?.........................is this purely a meme reference. is that meme the mental image im supposed to have of Teacher??????????? is this trying to say that this meme was preserved in the amalgamation of human life that is Teacher?? oh my god....

no.....palamedus and camilla....did old Harrow really kill them.....

seems like all the murders were consensual maybe?

it’s probably too straightforward that Harrow created and alternate timeline and made for a Harrow Lyctor without Gideon dying and kicked her to the original? maybe she took Ianthe and Coronabeth with her bc she needed Ianthe’s help

is this Cytherea or Dulcinea? Pro seems real this time. why does Dulcie call Pal and Cam strands and cords?

did muir put in a fuckin secondary school S - muir’s just like - im gonna put in all the memes as a nod to ancient human culture

still no idea what the messages are that Harrow is getting

This Harrow is so goddamn sick. I mean she was sick before, but at least she had Gideon. Really do feel that that helped her. now she didn’t have that -- AND she’s getting slapped with trauma another five times

if ortus can undo the thanergy of her own bone then why not simply crumble HARROW into dust? cos there’s a core of thanergy fusion in her that he can’t undo?

FLKJDFKLJSDLFSD fucking IANTHE ‘Wow! Not how I imagined this happening, at all.’  FUCKIN HELL

Harrow with her fucking fucked up dramatic inner monologues about weakness and Ianthe comes in with this shit. she really is doing Gideon proud here.

Did love Harrow’s musings about how only a truly idiotically obedient Cavalier would be the only one to keep to a vow of silence. HAH! nice one muir

‘have you taken the time to rest lately?’ asks God, YOUR FUCKING SAINT IS TRYING TO KILL HER IN THE FUCKING BATH YOU IDIOT AHAHAHAHA

JEZUS FUCKING CHRIST - try and be normal Harrow! try and make some soup and read a book! Harrow: *does and then hyperventilates hidden under her bed after 86 hours of zero sleep*

she was trying to remember what cutlery did. why is this so goddamn funny hahahaa. this book has ONLY been Harrow being in extreme states of misery ALL THE TIME both mentally and physically to the point of death

GOD IS HAPPY THAT SHE MADE SOUP AND DOESNT EVEN FUCKIN NOTICE SHE’S NOT SLEPT FOR A WEEK SOMEHOW THIS IS THE MOST HILARIOUS SHIT

thats what you fucking GET you piece of shit god! you push a prodigy teen to the brink and she fuckin explodes your lyctor and feeds you her fuckin marrow. maybe you shouldn’t have ignored her goddamn fucking understandable distress

SHE FUCKIN HITS HIM WITH THE FUCKIN TRUTH what an IDIOT of a God. he truly doesn’t understand mortality anymore huh

I LOVE HOW MERCYMORN CONTINUES TO MAKE HARROW YOUNGER IN HER HEAD AHAHAHAHAHAHA she’s only nine years old!!!hahahaha

naturally God focuses on how - wait- actually harrow is truly an INSANE necromancer - INSANE

still no idea what the fuck is going on in the not-past

aww. ianthe’s scent soothes harrow now. begrudgingly of course.

i thought this was gonna be lovely angsty harrow/gideon but naturally that did not happen

harrow is comfortable! first time in the whole book! one moment of comfort!!!

‘love my twin, also murder’ tridentarius pffjlfjdljf

‘how i crave your honeyed words’ hah

wow this scene sure is weirdly sexual with these similes lol ‘as though she had shyly undressed for you’ ok there Harrow you about to chop her arm off calm it probably sex repulsed thirsty teen

i do love how....there is this theme again that’s everybody underestimating the main character - who is actually a prodigy. Gideon had that with the sword and Harrow also has it with being a Lyctor now

it’s so telling that these Saints would rather be shits to these babies than help Ianthe grow a new fuckin arm

i dont see why Ianthe can’t work off this bone construct which is her own stuff and put some flesh on it since SHES A FLESH NECRO?

Ianthe that’s super gay

wow muir really never delivers on full gay does she??? i dont mind but i think it’s so striking hahaa

how are Harrow and Ianthe still hung up on the Saint of Duty? i mean, if they dont have him against the RB they’re dead anyway

why is the First going through rain and ice?

Harrow haunted? naawwww

i cant help but like mercymorn though - she cares. it’s soured ages ago but she cares.

awww Harrow needs Ianthe to sleep

Ianthe constantly poking Harrow for her prudishness is so goddamn funny.

‘It’s the type of energy i wish to take into my future’ AHAHAHAHAHAAH IANTHE MY GOD

‘i always forget you were an honest to go nun ... and six years old to boot if you listen to mercymorn’ HAHAHAHAHAHA

‘you look good enough that im proud of my handiwork but not so good that i’ll be consumed with lust and ravish you over the nut bowl’ fpdfjsdfkjsd this is what harrow means with crude japery and yet....

mercymorn has started to call harrow three years old. i will NEVER tire of this gag

all of the blood of eden stuff happened in the past 25 years??? god was on the erebos, but he also remembers ortus kicking the commander out of an airlock? that was in the last 25 years??

Ianthe‘s carressing the nape of Harrow’s neck. hmmhm

its honestly super weird if you think about it for more than 10 seconds that theyre talking about their cavaliers whom they murdered (im still not sure if all consensually) ten thousand years ago (!) and how hot they were that just seems.....fucked up

Harrow is like WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! basically all the time but especially now. yep well that was to be expected i guess lololol

Harrow being painfully frozenly fascinated by (god having) sex and deeply repulsed is very Harrow

oh nooooo well that was a perfect kiss between them really

the funny thing about Harrow is that though she is so completely fucked up - just like Gideon - she is fundamentally a helper.

why wouldn’t Harrow have thought of blood wards! she knew he could only bleed thanergy! it;s the first thing i thought - just use not bone wards then!

ortus thinks anastasia is in Harrow - which makes me think - why does he think that’s possible?

mercymorn now calls Harrow a two-year-old. i am waiting for embryonic genius

so did they use the river to get to the planets theyre killing?

Harrow feels the peace and pleasure of a stroll through nature that she has come to kill

oh my god - Harrow somehow saved Cam and Pal is still attached to the mortal plane!!

Harrow helps Cam risking herself entirely just like that. yknow as she does

i wonder if Pal has realised that Harrow is not who he remembers

i think he realised once he realised haz mat suit was Harrow also...

ianthe xo’d harrow.....lol

im sad that original harrow is definitely dead.... :( loved her. guess gideon’s not coming back either. not sure how the second adept survived. she didn’t survive in the original timeline either. but she was ‘killed’ in the other - just like coronabeth..so that means soemthing

this whole ‘flashback’ stuff to Canaan House is Harrow being in the River the whole time. the cold temperatures, the blood, the creatures theyre fishing from the sea that apparently abominations

after all, we’ve just learned about river bubbles and a haz!harrow that can change their parameters.

all the people ‘dead’ she’d not spoken to much or at all beforehand. like they’re NOT real, in the River. the only one not like that is Dyas...

the fact that the narrative keeps calling Dulcie, Dulcie means she’s really Dulcie.

there’s giant organs falling from the ceiling. this is definitely the river

they talk about time AGAIN

the Body is the devil who let herself be used to complete the work of Teacher and the Lyctors in his mythology....hmm. and when they realised the price (AFTER? the work was done?) they wanted her dead but he buried her....SHE allowed them to become Lyctors?? I still don’t understand why the heck that was necessary

the king is dead, long live the king. hmmmm

Harrow comes onto a hallucination of the devil who was her first crush with the voice of her parental figures and the eyes of a love interest she can no longer remember - which is actually not precisely a hallucination probably - and gets summarily rejected lol OUCH (the Body didn’t mean it that way ofc)

Harrow is so repressed on every single front but definitely sexually

I love Mercy

so there is death beyond death. does everybody go into the river and become a mad horrid ghost? like - is that everybody’s fate? how awful

ok so God DID resurrect the planets also. ? but like. then why are there resurrection beasts?

what does resurrection mean? and who killed the planets in the first place?

BECOMING NONE HOUSE, LEFT GRIEF

oh.....my god.

ARE YOU AND IANTHE BEING SAFE!!?!?!?! HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

HIS BODYGUARD IS THE DEVIL??

so the destruction of Earth somehow made God? as though it was something that simply followed from it

A.L. was destroyed in the first assault? Of an RB

so the RB’s were happily running off in the other direction until they decided to fuck around and kill their mates to become immortal and powerful - then the RB’s turned around and came towards them - which meant leaving the planets God had resurrected forever.

what the fuck god??? hahahahaa

God always seems so likeable goddamn.

Harrow is such a dramatic bitch. Affection??? JUST KILL ME!!! KILL ME!! LET ME SMASH THE GLASS SO I CAN KNEEL IN IT AND BLEED ALL OVER THE FLOOR!!!!

Harrow goes into her fun kid's game of not dying to traps.

But she instantly calls him father. OH MY GOD

HE DOESNT BELIEVE HER!!!

'then that will be your downfall' - is what Harrow said to Augustine AND IT WILL BECOME TRUE FOR THEM ALL

to be dismissed like that where it hurts most - to have God Dad dismiss her only slip of comfort her only pillar of truth in this crazy old world

'nobody had watched you leave'

SOMEBODY HAD - I love all the deliberate references to Gideon

Temporal lobe!!!! Again the temporal lobe!!!

So why was it again that Harrow refused to be locked in with the Emperor?

So isn't God gonna check out Harrow's temporal lobe? He's just gonna let that mystery go to its death?

WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKK

Muir what the fuck??!!!!!!!!

Oh it was.....a hallucination?

Always love how this dips into genuine horror sometimes

What's weird is that Lyctors seem made for the task of going into the river and killing Resurrection Beasts - instead of the other way around.

So say - that the sword somehow holds Gideon's soul (we've just learned that that's possible from Pal and also Ortus trying to get Pent to summon his grandma by his sword) - does it not make sense that Harrow 'for some reason' stabbing Cytherea's corpse with it transferred it to her? Or maybe it's SOMEHOW Anastasia if Ortus was macking on her. But Ortus thought HARROW had/was Anastasia.

IANTHE WANTS TO MARRY HARROW - HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA

Every fucking chapter doesn't make things any clearer. This is worse than Gideon the ninth

Hello???? Am I reading a canon alternate universe roleswap au??? What the FUCK is going on. This is like - if they hadn't gassed the 200 and her parents instead adopted Gideon for her clear necromantic gifts which nobody noticed somehow the other time round

I do love how Aiglamene was the sole source of slight comfort in Gideon's life. And Crux was Harrow's - apparently in any sequence of events.

Harrow is tumbling through timelines. But how can you do that just by messing with the lobe?

WHAT!! WHAT!!!

Is this...is this what I think it is??? Is thi

The fanfic roots are STRONG in this one. In fact I believe I've READ this fanfiction

Harrow's temporal fever dream (in the river?) HAD HER (Decidedly Not) VYING FOR 'HER DIVINE HIGHNESS' hand, which is either the Body or Gideon or both lololol. Seeing as the previous had Gideon as the main unnamed titled character - I bet it's Gideon ahahaaga

A fucking. COFFEESHOP AU. OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDD

We've had roleswap, 'ball' au, and coffee shop au populated by the ghosts of the dead LOLOL,

I knew it!! I knew that they were ghosts and that they were in the river!!

Ok so but when did Harrow shoddily create the bubble? When she adjusted her memories at the start? When is this. Ah Harrow has the same thought hahaa

So the stage is a - she was building her memories while sleeping?

Why is that she cannot access her lyctorhood like this...

I just realised that Harrow's mind made the party food taste like SALT based on Ianthe's cooking!!!! Hahahaha

THE NARRATOR IS GIDEON. But it doesn't sound like Gideon though

There's more to the work than simply preserving Gideon's soul though. There are next steps that Harrow prepared for that Harrow doesn't know about yet

Who was the sleeper and why was it in Harrows riverscape of memories that she ACCIDENTALLY??? made

Ok she sounds like Gideon NOW

Gideon no it's not because she didn't want you! It's because she wanted you to live!!!!!

And she succeeded....your soul is INTACT in her body!!!! You're protecting her with full consciousness!! How the fuck. And why didn't that happen before when she went to the bubble?

Are the ghosts of the contestants happy that they got pulled out of the River briefly? Or were they so briefly in there they couldn't remember?

She returned them to the RIVER???? is that really such a kind fate????

Something has gone wrong in the River - yeah because why r all these ghosts going insane and stoppering it up like slib

Do love how Muir has found a way to give these characters more screentime

I actually said 'oof' when Harrow screamed at Ortus - oof that really is embarrassing. GodDAMN Ortus you stepping up with the emotional support!

I've EVEN read the damn fanfic in which they switched bodies. My god.

A. L. apparently is thought to wander about still. I think she's the body....I do believe she's the body. That's why the Lyctors are scared of her

She thought - what. Mercy is talking about blood of Eden's commander. What is going onnnnn still!!!! Mercy is the traitor I guess. But how is blood of Eden connected to the ninth house and the body?

Why is Mercy awake on the mithraeum and not in the River anyways?

Gideon.... And the commander were in cahoots? So did A. L. and Anastasia an the body and the commander all have the same eyes?????

What the fuck is going on indeed.

Cytherea seems to have had a plan B for getting revenge on the Emperor. Or something had a plan B with her corpse as the main weapon.

If guns are so effective against people why aren't they still used.

The messages are from the commander. I.e. Gideon's mother. I.e. Anastasia? We never explicitly did learn how she met her end no? Gideon was convinced that Anastasia had taken the baby. It just seems incongruous how the Emperor spent like 80 years on the Erebos and the Lyctors were faffing about - meanwhile there was this drama going on in the last half century?

I love Abigail Pent. Love that I got to see more of her.

I'd honestly forgot that Judith was alive by the end of all of that shit

The sleeper is -the sleeper is Gideon's mother. Also. She's haunted by her mother. SOMEHOW. what the fuck? They couldn't drag her spirit back from the river they said!

'you wizards never learn' there's a whole modern regular sci fi world and culture out there! Or maybe it's just a. L.

Is it? Or is it Anastasia? Or is it the commander? Or are they the same thing?

The sleeper wants Harrow's body. Somehow invaded it - probably from the river? - which means its Anastasia or the commander. Which means that whatevers possessing Cytherea is someone else.

In retrospect - Harrow's coldness to Ianthe talking about - to what her - seemed nonsense at the time - in the very first part - doesn't quite fit.

Oh my fucking GOD Gideon is fighting Ianthe for messing around with her fucking girlfriend - who is HARROW, who actually, Ianthe wants to marry.

They just went from ramping up to a serious fight to Gideon dropping Corona's name and suddenly they're like - ah we got more important priorities actually.

Augustine's first thought at thinking a.l./the body (?) is in Harrow is John - and the Second is Joy!(mercy?)

'How I was gonna have to take showers with all your clothes on.' fuckin Gideon hahahaha

Wonder if Ianthe truly believes what she's saying - that Harrow was trying to rid hersel of Gideon. It's preposterous. It's just hurtful talk.

GIDEON REALLY THOUGHT THAT LOOK TO MEAN THAT HARROW DIDNT LOVE HER??? THIS IS A CONSTANT BARRAGE OF ALL THE ANGSTY DRAMATIC SHIT IVE BEEN YEARNING FOR

Oh my fucking god Gideon calling Ianthe out for being in love with Harrow in the most iconic way ufsojdjdodnd 'she wants the D - the D stands for dead'

Crazy brain-mutilated Harrow sure made it seem that way I can tell ya that!!

Hahahahahaha Ianthe remembering Harrows prudish Ortus/Cytherea shit. Amazing

Aw Gideon really went and fell right into the cavalier/bone mistress shit huh. And trying to shield Harrow - well as noted before - very necessary because harrow has been having a godawful miserable time - mostly because of herself.

Gideon appreciating Ianthe's pun xD

Love how neither of them position themselves as the love of Harrows life but instead as inexorably attached to her by the sheer role they play in her life - they don't dare aspire to what they think they can't get.

Muir realises this is gonna end up as a Gideon/Harrow(/theBody)/Ianthe ship right?

Oh WOW THIS IS AMAZING. nonius the legendary nonius!!! Come to protect Harrow!!!

For some reason the Sleeper can manipulate the rules of this River bubble and doesn't seem surprised about it

If all her cavaliers were this excited for death, she was definitely the problem.lololol. somehow Harrow, you inspired undying loyalty in even a person that you treated abominably

Yeah Harrow you slowpoke. If the Sleeper can adjust the rules - so can you

If the sleeper was not Harrow's invention - but planted itself - then they're very lucky it got to the ghosts that weren't actually there - first.

So it was the commander....a portrait in a shuttle of blood of eden - can only be the commander. And redhaired? There are too many red haired people in this book!!

It's nice how all these ghosts got to have lasting impact from beyond the grave

NONIUS KNEW ORTUS/GIDEON?

Ok so ....there's the bed of the River with stoma. But there might also be the other side.

Did Harrow really not account for steps beyond her plan to mutilate her brain?

Is this book really gonna go: fuck you Gideon will die anyway ?????

But.wait. the sleeper had a two-hander. Where did that go???

I don't get it. If they go into the river - won't they also go insane?

SO NYAH!!!!!???

Ok but - what? The Commander ALSO -somehow - took over Cytherea's body?

'did the ten billion give you that too' I KNEW CANAAN HOUSE HELD EVEN GRUESOMER EXPERIMENTS AND SACRIFICES THAN LYCTORHOOD. God is made of ten billion souls. I think they killed humanity on earth to spare it 'slow inexorable apocalypse' and used the power to make the Empire from the resurrected. There was an extremely vague implication by Teacher to the amount of souls violated in Canaan house in the first book.

So God knows the commander went for the ninth house? Firstly, how. I don't understand how Anastasia fits in here!!! It would explain though how the commander

So the commander found the ninth house - and she died right? They tried to call her spirit but couldn't. But she became a revenant?

Ah. God THREW the bomb.

A fuckin wake me up inside joke jskdjskdnd

So Mercy and Augustine ( not Gideon ?) had all turned against God? And they were working with the commander to -... Make a baby????? And then evacuate the houses???? (For when God dies - there being a risk that Dominicus would go out I guess)

Make a baby/body to lever the one who lies in the tomb into....?

Love how the book foreshadowed Mercy and Augustine manipulating and lying to God - and turns out they did that on much bigger scale

They....meant to kill the baby to break the blood ward?

'The woman who I was pretty sure was my mother, wearing the body of the woman I'd had a crush on, who in turn had been wearing the identity of a woman she'd murdered -' KSNFKDJDKFJJFC

So why did they want this consistently characterised as kindly and humane god dead?

GIDEON THOUGHT IT WAS HIS!!!! But he called Wake Anastasia then????

They really are the same???

Oh my god I know what they're gonna say. Gideon is the daughter of God. WHICH HARROWS FUCKIN ROYALTY AU FEVER RIVER DREAM FUCKING FORESHADOWED HAAHAHAHAHHAA

Isn't it fucking ironic that God told Harrow that - HE WANTED HER TO BE HIS??? WHILE GIDEON HIS ACTUAL DAUGHTER WAS SPINNING INSIDE HER CHEST LIKE A LITTLE NUCLEAR FUSION REACTOR

They've been trying to kill him for more than 500 years???? Did mercymorn actually genuinely learn the extremely fine knowledge of the body for THIS purpose? How many thousands of years ago did they decide to kill god?

A fucking DAD JOKE

GIDEON REMEMBERING HOW SHE USED TO TELL HARROW HOW HER OTHER PARENT MIGHT BE THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WORLD SO STOP PICKING ON HER

I am fucking DELIGHTED I AM SO GODDAMN OVERJOYED

It segues into a reminder of how shit their childhoods were and how their suffering had them lash out at each other endlessly and how it made Harrow suicidal and shit though - which is great

ALECTO'S EYES. THE A. FOR A. L.

A. L. The cavalier of God....but she walked. She had a body.

Ohhhhh. That's why they betrayed him. That age-old hurt. Ten thousand years old but still the bane of their existence, the seed of their madnesses. The loss of their cavaliers. Oh how did they manage to keep that from him?

I honestly thought - is Mercy saying she knows he killed humanity? But that's not what she couldn't have forgiven?

But why did he hide it? Why did he hide the perfect way? ('it would be easier' why???)

Ah. Yes. The expansion, why would the Emperor do that?

Uhhhhh. Couldn't Mercy have done that all along??????????????????????? Couldn't Mercy have killed God all along? That was both a trick and utterly sincere.

Augustine and Mercy were trying to do the right thing..... Mercy.... :'( Augustine was right. God is much less sentimental than he seems.

'im not even mad that you failed to either fix or put down Harrow' hm guess the constant kill quest HAD come from God after all. What a goddamn bitch of a man

What was the original plan? Unleash a. L. ? And then what? How would that help with the whole Dominicus going out problem?

Had God ever really thought to make up for all the bullshit he put his Lyctors through. He seems so affable and human but he's caused so much suffering. He's as good at manipulation at them - better!

The resurrection beast can't kill him, but he let his Lyctors die to them one by one anyway. So why??

Why are they punching each other in the River? They can use theorems right? God could blast Augustine to pieces same he did mercy?

Yes! It's true! Pyrrha and Gideon both exist in the same body - foreshadowed by his cavaliers build. There was something so fishy about it.

I love how Gideon has exactly the same response as me: what the fuck. Pyrrha??? Gideon??? What the fuck??? Why did they BOTH have an affair with their enemy??? So ok. Pyrrha stayed underground from Everybody for the thousand years. SOMEHOW their compartmentalisation let her pop up in his body regularly and not just when Gideon remembered her - because the hadn't fucked up his brain. But then how did THEY do that.

This absolutely galactic balsiness

The stoma thinks John is a resurrection beast. Might it be.....because he's..... A revenant. A 10 billion souled kinda- revenant ? A bit like.....Harrow is? Which is why he felt kin to her? Which is why he compared her creation to Resurrection?????I've really gotta reread those messages from commander wake.

A fucking jail for mother meme. Jail for one thousand years. Gideon how do you know this one????

I KNEW Ianthe would do that. Knew it. She doesn't want the system to die. Coronabeth is still out there. Well guess what - she's on the opposite side babe. Ok I realised that Gideon's mum apparently stuck to Gideon and then the sword? But also did Harrow manage to break the blood ward because of of her proximity to Gideon? Did Harrow uhhhh get put into a pocket in the river? But the emperor wasn't murdered!!! Fuckin chapters kept lying. They're on a hold planet. Finally - we meet the people. Alecto and Camilla and Corona? And Judith.? Did Alecto somehow do a time twisty around to come save Gideon at that moment in the river? Once again nothing much more is clear.

#my stuff #harrow the ninth #gtn #ninth