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hargrove-mayfields · 2 months

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For ST Rarepair Roulette 💕 @st-rarepair-roulette

Word Count: ~5,000

Ships: Billy Hargrove x Chrissy Cunningham and Heather Holloway x Jason Carver.

Warnings: Implied/referenced child abuse, lots of arguing and misunderstandings, very mild references to sexual content.

~~~~~~

“No. Nope. I don’t believe that for one second.”

Gossip. That’s all it is. Heather and Chrissy laying on the former’s bed, legs up against the wall, long hair dangling over the opposite edge of the bed, exchanging silly gossip.

Never the mean kind, Chrissy won’t allow that, it’s mostly their respective crushes and fascinations from school they talk about.

Or specifically, lately how much Heather doesn’t like Chrissy’s taste in boys. Or anybody, for that matter. In her heart of hearts, she knows Heather is just protective.

Still, Chrissy tosses a little stuffed fuzzball of an animal at her friend for that comment, “Hetty! Rude!”

“Look I’m sorry, I just can’t believe that Hargrove has like, actual feelings. I don’t trust him.” Heather elaborates, through her laughter.

See, she’d say the same every time, they both know that. What matters is whether Chrissy is bold enough to go through with it. She never has been so far. It’s one thing to have a crush, but to have someone openly pining back, that’s something more rare.

An opportunity Chrissy wouldn’t like to lose just to please her best friend.

She’ll try to win her over, “One date won’t be bad.”

But Heather will make excuse after excuse, “Every girl says that before the worst night of her life.”

Chrissy rolls onto her front, sighing so heavily the weight of Heather’s mattress lifts up, like she’s turned to the most stressed little helium balloon and floated away. Maybe she did, off into her imagination, taking her common sense with her.

Maybe she’ll entertain Heather’s concerns, but only if they’re productive, “Well how did you know Jason was being genuine?”

Heather's boyfriend. Track and basketball star, high class social asshole. Chrissys has never been a fan, to be entirely honest. Her earliest memories of Jason Carver were of him shoving over smaller kids in their church group and treating every recess game as pro-level sports. She still doesn’t see what Heather finds so charming about him.

She hopes maybe he’d changed, assumes he’d have had to to win over a critical heart like the one guarded in Heather’s chest.

Oh but Heather gives no such benefit of the doubt to anybody else, “I /don’t/ know it. But /my/ boyfriend doesn’t run over innocent children in his free time.. or whatever the hell it is Billy Hargrove gets up to.”

Chrissy has to laugh at that, it's so absurd, “Oh- He does not! Billy’s /nice./”

“Prove it.” Heather challenges, popping a gum bubble between her teeth to assert her seriousness.

“Hetty.” Chrissy warns, uninterested in playing that game.

Her friend isn’t having it. Heather rolls her brown eyes with so much force she literally rolls over on the bed, sprawling out over top of Chrissy like a beloved golden retriever with no respect for sharing space. It’s always been comfortable with her, coexisting without regard to self consciousness and mothers opinions and Godly image. Probably why she lets Heather get away with being a little catty sometimes.

Like now, as she claims, “Oh come on. Make it a game, have some fun, but show me he’s genuine. Or else I’m kicking his ass.”

“Fine.” Chrissy wants to be stern, but she cracks a little smile, her real, bright one, “If I'm supposed to threaten to kick Jason’s butt, I don’t think I’d be able to.”

Heather hums in thought before presenting a solution, “I’ll do the ‘defending of our honor’ if you help me test Jay back.”

“Pinky promise you’ll be nicer to Billy once we get proof?”

“That’s /if/ we get proof, but you have my word.”

The deal is sealed. They lock pinky fingers, one soft pink nailed and one a flaming red shade. In the ten years they’d been friends since Heather joined their class in 1st grade, not a single pinky promise between them has been broken. It just isn’t done.

Admittedly, that’s a lot of pressure. Talking about cute boys doesn’t feel as fun anymore.

Chrissy’s fluttery feelings start to set in, fidgeting with her hands to hope to drive them off. If she had her bracelets on, she’d shake them and enjoy the way they ring from the hard plastics and metals banging together, but it’s late, she’s in her pjs without jewelry. She picks her nails instead.

Redirecting, Heather hands her a stuffed Winnie the Pooh, and asks a question she knows will catch her off guard, “Soooo. What are you gonna do?”

“Hetty, I haven’t had time to think!” Chrissy complains, squishing poor Pooh between her hands, choosing to abuse the stuffed toy with her anxiety instead of her own skin.

“Oh come on. What do boys care about? Cars, sex, and sports. Pick one and he’ll show his true colors.” Heather says it likes it’s all just so easy, and she already knows it all.

Chrissy isn’t as sure. She considers her options,

“Um, sports sounds the least dangerous.. maybe?”

“Until he tackles your little ass.” Heather points out.

There’s a moment where they both sort of stop moving. They both know what Heather is about to do, but Chrissy's defenses are useless to stop it. She scrunches her body up as tiny as can be, but Heather has pounced, poking her sides gently where she knows her friend is ticklish.

Chrissy used to get all self conscious when Heather would do things like that. Not just touching her skin, so close to where she feels her strongest insecurities, but even jokes, little digs that had nothing to do with Chrissy’s appearance would get her down.

They have Billy to thank for the change. Dating or not, William Hargrove isn’t one to hide his affections. Everyone knows he’s had a thing for Chrissy for a while. It’s deciphering whether he’s chasing tail, or chasing the sweet girl he’d shown enough interest in to replenish her view of herself, hung around and flirted and laughed with so freely it healed a part of her broken heart.

She thinks maybe repaying him a little would increase the chances of getting the ball rolling, and getting Heather’s trust. “What if I cheer special for him during one of his games?”

“Uh, no!” Heather shakes her head, rolled curls bouncing in their pillow curlers back and forth, ”That just makes /you/ public about it. And he can spin that if he’s being an ass for real.”

“But I don’t think-“ Chrissy starts to argue, brow knotted.

Heather holds one of her hands, showing she is doing this because she cares, even if she’s being a little harsh, “Honey, I know I’m a cynical bitch, but I don’t want to see you hurt. Save yourself the embarrassment.”

“I don’t- Heather, it’s not embarrassing to be in love!”

A gasp, slow realization dawning. “You’re right. Oh my god, Chrissy you’re so right!!”

Heather kicks her legs with glee, fuzzy slippers going flying. Right out of a movie, she squeals with delight, infecting Chrissy too with her sudden joy.

Chrissy giggles, going along with it, “I am?”

“Uh, yes! It’s perfect!” Heather scoots closer until they’re shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the ceiling together. She talks with her hands, like she’s painting the picture for her. “Don’t /cheer/ his name. /Wear/ it.”

Only, Chrissy doesn’t think she gets it, “...How?”

“His varsity jacket! If a boy gives you his varsity jacket, it’s serious business. They protect those damn things like a firstborn daughter. If you can get Billy to give you his jacket, you might as well be hitched!” Heather explains, a ball of enthusiasm.

Chrissy knows her longing heart starts racing, probably obvious to Heather too this close together, “You actually think that would work?”

Heather flips up so she’s sitting, burning some of her energy in her dramatic motions, “Duh! You show up to a game repping his varsity, baby, that deal is sealed. I’m talking a proposal at the end-zone. A wedding between quarters. I’m talkin’ baby-making under the bleachers-“

Chrissy, face as hot pink as her pj tank top, interrupts all that, “Okay! Okay. That’s… I get it.”

“Do I make you blush, fair lady?” Heather drawls, in an impression of a boy, eyebrow arched, chest puffed out, lips curled, her voiced dropped ridiculously deep-

Chrissy covers her face, trying desperately not to laugh at the ridiculous attempt, “Heatherrr!!”

Heather clutches her chest like she’s wounded, taking on a sort of accent almost from how badly she’s doing her impression, “Ah! My apologies, maiden. How ungentlemanly of me.”

“Nobody talks like that! /Billy/ doesn’t talk like that!!” Chrissy argues, though she giggles at the unseriousness of it all. So it took a while, but Heather always does know how to make her feel better.

They drop the boy talk for a while, choosing to sneak downstairs and grab some snacks at two in the morning once Heather’s parents were definitely asleep, coming back up with a strange homemade trail mix. Dark chocolate chips, raisins, pretzels, almonds and strawberries. Certainly nothing outside of Chrissy’s comfort zone, careful not to push the limits of her recovery, though it’ll probably give them both a stomachache in a few hours regardless.

Leaned against some bean bag chairs right under the open window, enjoying the birdsong and cricket chirps, they share their homemade creation, and better, more smiles and lighthearted stories. Like they used to, before highschool drama and all.

Nearing 4, Heather turns to her, uncharacteristically dead serious, and declares, “I hope he makes you this happy.”

The realness inspires Chrissy to do the prying now, switching roles, hoping her friend will open up to her in kind, “Does Jason make you happy?”

“/Jason/ does. Our parents practically arranging for us to be married from the time we were newborns, hm not so much.” Heather sighs, drawing her knees in. She doesn’t quite shut down, it’s more for comfort, self assurance, which Chrissy understands. She gives her space to collect her thoughts.

“He’s my guy best friend. And I love him. In more than the best friend way. It’d be stupid not to end up together. But god there’s so much pressure!”

“I think you should do the jacket thing too.” Chrissy offers carefully, “I’m doing it to prove /my/ date isn’t a one-hit creep. You can do it just to remind yourself why you love your boy. And that he loves you. ‘Cause I know he does, Heather. But I know you’re afraid he doesn’t.”

Heather has tears in her eyes and a sad smile when she looks at Chrissy, “What is with you quiet girls and secretly being psychics?”

Oh how Chrissy wished she truly were a psychic.

At the beginning, she wasn’t nervous at all. Her and Heather bullshitted all the time, it wasn’t anything serious. But they’re all four on a date, wandering downtown around the various second hand stores, a typical stop for one couple, and the complete opposite for the others.

Seemed as good a time as any to go through with their silly plan, it wasn’t like it would hurt anything. Except she’d tried all kinds of things to get Billy to give her his jacket, and so far, none of them worked even a little! Not browsing through a selection of jackets at the stores, not shivering dramatically, not clinging to his side either.

Chrissy felt a chip in her little heart every time, feeling like maybe Heather was right. All over a jacket. She’d have her heart broken for a little bit of wool and leather.

With her boyfriend's name on it. Her boyfriend who actually holds her hand, and tells her she’s pretty, and doesn’t creep his hands under his skirt constantly.

She doesn’t know if she could get over losing that.

Her gait down the strip is admittedly less spirited, lingering behind Heather and Jay, but Billy never leaves her behind. He engages her in conversation too, hair blowing all over the place around his face, “How the fuck do you go outside in this shit?”

Chrissy looks at him, wearing an amused little smile, “Like, ever?”

“Yeah /ever/, Princess.” Billy sarcastically, but lightheartedly bumps her shoulder lightly with his arm, “Jesus, I should take you to California. Gonna miss winters without tiny fucking knives falling from the sky.”

Heather doesn’t lose track of that comment for a minute. Excited for Chrissy, she tries to plant the seed for their plan,

“What’s the matter, Billy? You too cold?”

“Hell no. But I’m not a chick the size of a baby deer.” Billy remarks, taking the bait perfectly well, rubbing Chrissy’s arms and feeling how cold she is, “Shit, you’re fucking frozen, Chris. Here.”

And without even thinking he peels off his varsity jacket and starts to hand it over.

Used to the cold, and despite her excitement wanting to make sure Billy doesn’t get uncomfortable, Chrissy protests, “No, no, no. Keep it. I can’t let your California sunshine freeze over.”

Billy disregards that, slinging it over her shoulders anyways, “Yeah, well I’m not letting all the fuckin’ little pixies that fly around your head freeze to death either.”

Jason scoffs at him, turning around to walk backwards with the group, teasing, “Dude, what does that even mean?”

Without even looking Heather flicks his ear, getting his attention back, “Just because you don’t understand romance doesn’t mean nobody can.”

He looks at her like a kicked puppy, but Jason is nothing if not stubborn, “Pixies? Sunshine? What happened to- beautiful and charming and butterflies in the stomach?”

“I don’t know, Jason. Maybe you should fall in love again and find out.”

“Who would I fall in love with? Nobody can beat you, Holloway.”

Heather rolls her eyes, flicking her hair like an agitated horse would it’s tail, “Ah, see you almost got a couple points there. Almost. You’re in the negatives though for using my last name.”

He tries to recover it suavely, “I could call you Carver instead?”

But that isn’t Heather's way. She counters intensely, “No. I’m not being a child bride, thank you very much. Besides, who says I’m taking your name? Maybe I could call you Holloway.”

“The.. I- Okay.” Jason just sputters, turning pink up to his ears.

Behind them, still lingering a good ways back, Chrissy hums, warm and cozy in her boyfriend’s jacket, “What are they even arguing about?”

Billy laughs about that, shrugs his shoulders, “Hell if I know. They lost me a long time ago.”

“It’s funny. Heather didn’t think you were good for me, but she fights with Jason all the time.” Chrissy informs him.

Billy stops dead in his tracks. Gently uses his hold on Chrissy's hand to spin her around to face him as he fell behind,

“Hold on. Take a step back. Heather thinks /what/ about me?”

Chrissy’s nerves spike so quickly she gets a little dizzy, “Please don't take it personally. I want my two favorite people to like each other. Please.”

Her beau steadies her, instead of freaking out, “No problem. I just find it.. fuckin’ weird.”

“It’s because of the way you drive. And smoke. And act. She thinks it’s bad for me.” Chrissy blurts, knowing it’s unkind but needing him to believe that she had no part in it.

He doesn’t seem too phased by having Heather’s disapproval, apparently learning faster than most people do, “Big fucking deal. At least you know I love you, right?”

“Mhm.” Chrissy nods her assurance, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Billy’s cheek and seal the promise.

“Right. Tell her she’s the one making Jason cry his damn eyes out the second he gets tipsy on a sip of anything stronger than a fuckin’ soda pop. I’m tellin’ you, Holloway has ripped out his heart and shoved it up his own pansy ass.” Billy sounds bitter, but not overly mean.

It’s something he’s thought about before. Good to know the gossip street goes both ways.

It’s why Chrissy doesn’t feel too bad telling Billy now, “She doesn’t mean to. I think she’s scared.”

“Sacred of Carver?…. He hurt her?” His voice drops, as angry and mean as Heather warned her about.

They don’t talk much about serious things, serious isn’t their kind of fun, but Chrissy knows about Billy’s life at home. About the type of man Billy could’ve been destined to be.

She rushes to make sure he doesn’t turn on his own friend for thinking Jason was the same way, “Oh no! No, not at all. Never. It’s her mom and her daddy. They sort of forced her to date Jason. She wasn’t ready. I think she’s ready now and doesn’t want to admit it. ‘Cause that would be like taking their orders.”

“Fuckin’ parents.” Billy eventually grumbles, not knowing what else to say.

It seems to be a common theme in their group. A bonding experience for all four of them, whether or not they’re open about it.

Chrissy doesn’t really feel like talking about that stuff anymore, sort of just mumbling, “Yeah.”

Because Billy is perfect, and none of the things Heather says at all, and the actual bullies in their lives makes her want to just hide. Billy notices the drop in her mood, and silently slings an arm around her waist, pulling her into his side as they walk. Keeping her close. Safe.

Maybe someday things will work out beyond Hawkins. They have to. Winning the jacket was a silly, small victory, but it was a step.

Now Chrissy just wants, more than anything, her friends to be happy.

She holds onto Billy’s hand a little tighter.

The next time Heather and Jason get together, it’s for a study date at the end of that week. With Heather being a year above, the only class they have in common is the Biology two class Heather failed last year. There’s coloring sheets of bones and cells to be completed, so it’s not like they need each other’s help, but sitting on Heather’s bed coloring with colored pencils didn’t seem like a bad deal either way.

At some point, surrounded by all the color, Heather realizes something,

“Honey. We’re going shopping this weekend.”

Jason barely looks up from his work, focused on being neat close to the lines, “For?”

“Clothes. You’ve worn three white polos this week. I’m bringing some color into your life.” Heather pokes him with the flat end of the white pencil for emphasis.

Jason blinks, caught off his guard, “I wear green sometimes.”

“School colors don’t count. Yellow either.”

“I think I have, maybe, /one/ blue shirt.”

Heather digs in the pile for a turquoise-ish pencil, “Blue! Blue’s.. good! That’s definitely on God’s rainbow. Maybe a nice pair of blue jeans too, for once-“

That’s where Jason cuts it off. Because that’s where Heather went from playfully sharp to flat-out insulting, “Heather, please.”

She stays on the defensive, “I’m just saying. There’s nothing wrong with branching out from your choir boy uniform. That’s all.”

Sometimes it’s like she thinks if she pokes a bruise enough, it’ll make her seem like she’s strong enough to cause them. Like she’s all in charge and nothing can stop her.

Jason doesn’t want to stop her, he just wants her basic respect, “So what do you suggest?”

Not even sarcastic, just genuinely enthusiastic to share, Heather starts, “Pastels! Your hair is way too strawberry to be a dark dresser. Unless you go with emeralds, no more tacky green. Ooh, or even if you grow it out some! You know, actually-“

Jason runs his fingers over his neatly parted hair, protecting it, not hiding the concerned squeak to his voice, “No thank you, I happen to like my hair short.”

“Again, baby. Boring.” Heather just rolls her eyes, once again. Sometimes it’s like that’s all she knows how to do.

It stings.

“Look, if nothing I do is ever going to be good enough-“

Heather doesn't entertain that in the least. She slaps her hand over his homework page, making him look at her, “It’s not /you/. You know that it’s not you.”

No, he didn’t know that. Jason looks at her, confused, “What?”

“Just because you dress yourself, and you drive your stupid little station wagon around parading your image, doesn’t mean there’s not that voice in the back of your head. Maybe… maybe a tight fist too. Telling you what to do. You’re afraid.” Heather talks with her hands, just enough that Jason can see through it.

That she’s being showy to hide something.

Doesn’t mean he’s not been rendered self conscious and bare-souled all the same. He doesn’t like that, even after months with Heather not feeling safe showing her all his tender parts like that, “I don’t want to hear this from you.”

“Oh, so a girl can’t have opinions, huh? I should just spread my legs now and let something else do all the talking?” Heather heats the argument.

Jason just lets his head fall back, frustrated, “I don’t- You /know/ I don’t want that.”

“Oh please do enlighten me then, your graciousness.” Heather forces what Jason is thinking out of him.

So he lets it go, without regard to her feelings, even though he hadn’t wanted to, “Look, I’m not stupid. I know your parents are a problem, Heather. Everyone that’s read the paper knows Tom Holloway isn’t a kind man. You try to hide it, but you can’t keep it from me. And you can’t- just take it all out on me!”

“I wasn’t-“ Heather tries to backpedal.

He still doesn’t let her, “You were! You always have! Nobody has the key to the lock on your heart, but I’ve been trying anyways. And you just shut. me. down!”

“Jason…”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry we didn’t meet for real until high school. I’m sorry I can’t save you because I’ve got my own.. shit to deal with. But, and forgive me for using His name in vain, Jesus fucking Christ Heather!”

“Jason..” Heather repeats, clearly more misty eyed than before, and opens her arms. A hug is letting him in physically, letting him get close even when the words aren’t easy.

Mostly, she hadn’t realized Jason could read her as easily as she could read him.

He takes the vulnerability to mean it’s safe to say, “I love you.”

“I know.” Is Heather’s response. It’s not easy to say it back, not when she chokes on it every time she tries to say it to her ‘problems,’ let alone a highschool boyfriend she was never supposed to fall for, not in her own heart.

It’s enough. Jason keeps holding her, lips against her shoulder, “I’m sorry.”

Heather repeats herself, “I know.”

Nothing else felt right to say. Because she /was/ sorry too, but saying it second would feel ingenuine. At least, she’d read it that way.

She closes her eyes and feels exhausted. It’s not supposed to be this hard. Their school years are drawing to a close, and yet she can’t even admit her own parents treat her like shit.

Maybe a silent tear drop or two drips off the end of her nose behind Jason’s back. If he noticed, he didn’t say a word.

After a while, Heather needs to do something, sitting and thinking and regretting not doing anything to help, “Can we call Chrissy and Billy and go get some ice cream or something?”

“Sure. I think I owe that to you for keeping myself so.. alone.” Jason admits, bashful but genuine.

And isn’t that just the thing. Heather gives him a tiny smile back, “Ditto, baby.”

Ice cream ran into the evening, all of them itching for an excuse to stay out. Chrissy was the last to finish her bowl of two raspberry scoops with sprinkles, half of it melted into sludge by the last spoonful, and even that’s not a distraction enough.

It’s early spring, which means, as the group informed Billy, that the Hawkins drive-in theater was opening back up. Nobody even needed to discuss it to know that’s what they wanted to do. There were a variety of chick-flicks and even more horror sequels in the box office, which meant the two week delay at the drive-in would make for some good choices at least. Most Hawkins residents would take their trucks out there, not some prissy little station wagon, but it would do.

At least, it should, but Billy started getting impatient with cruising along under the speed limit out to the wooded hill where the drive-in is, “Can’t this piece of shit go faster?”

Heather turned around slightly to face and scold him, “Well, we coulda brought yours if you hadn’t decided to buy the extra tiny, no room for fun model.”

Billy just snorted humorlessly, “We could fit if there was any actual fun going on. Leaving room for the Lord or whatever is what fucks it up.”

For that comment, knowing their company, Chrissy pushed Billy’s arm gently. Still, she didn’t seem to disagree too harshly, since she smiled through when he kissed her next.

Heather seemed irritated, though that tends to be her default honestly, as she huffed, “Not everyone’s a sleaze like you, Hargrove. Get used to it.”

Billy hadn’t even justified it with a response, just waved her off and used the same arm to swing it over the seat behind Chrissy. She was wearing his jacket again, hadn’t taken it off all week, curled into his side and wearing his name. In that bubbly way she does, she was also wiggling her hands about, not nervous, but happy.

Content.

Heather and Jason still had a ways to go to reach contentment.

The pair stay in the car for the movie, their counterparts in a blanket on the grass instead. Cali boy is out there freezing his ass off, but he’d said anything would be better than being trapped with relationship drama.

Heather and Jason try to ignore him.

They fail.

Jason turns to her not even a full twenty minutes after that comment starts working it’s way under his skin, “Heather?”

“Hm?” She hums to show she’s listening, but doesn’t look his way.

That’s not enough for what needs to be said, so he repeats, “Heather.”

“Yeah, that’s me. You need something?”

“I wanted- I just…. I’m sorry.”

Her pretty features screw up in confusion, “For what?”

“For not being good enough.” Jason informs, like it was the most clear thing, “You’d be happier with a guy like Billy. Maybe you could call up Steve-“

“No, fuck you if you think I could ever leave you.” She spits.

And then she grabs Jason by the collar of his polo and kisses him.

It’s nothing chaste, nothing at all like their usual peck of the lips. This is roaming tongues and hands.

Heather reigns herself in when she feels Jason’s hands, holding her hips up under the back of her shirt, shaking.

“I’m not gonna make you do anything. Sex isn’t my endgame.”

He sort of freezes, like it hadn’t occurred to him that Heather wouldn’t mind helping him in his devotion to modesty, “So what is?”

“An apartment. Maybe get a cat. I want to share a space with you long before we do marriage shit.” Heather explains lightly, smile on her face.

Jason relaxes his shoulders, “Make it a dog and we’ll see. Dogs are better.”

“Oh, ha-ha. Make it one of each and I’ll forgive you for that comment.”

Heather kisses him again, without any heat or intensity this time, just gentle, soft affection. She even lets him touch her hair, despite usually slapping his hands away for that. It helps that she’d brushed it out to be restyled before bed tonight, but still, she would have let him even if her curls were laying perfect.

When they pull away, Heather lays her head on Jason’s shoulder. Instead of watching Cat’s Eye on the screen, her gaze falls to their friends huddled up outside, and she muses, “How much you wanna bet Chrissy and Billy run away into the sunset?”

“I hope they do. Hawkins is Hell on earth.” Jason asserts, clearly serious because he usually wouldn’t even mention a place like that.

Heather sighs slightly, “Literally. The kidnappings, the murders. I can’t take much more of it.”

Confident, Jason says, “I’m sure they’d make room for us then. If we wanted to go with them.”

That has Heather sitting up straighter, surprised, “You would live in California?”

Sunny skies, living free- it didn’t seem very much his pace. The order and the mundanity of Midwestern life seemed better for Jason.

He just shrugs for now, “Who knows? We’ll see when we get there.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Heather wonders aloud, as she knows it, finding that Jason prefers to have his entire life planned out.

He only sounds a little tense as he tries to sound brave and strong, “Getting there.”

The tension between them had to have been coming from there. She wanted nothing more than to rebel and escape, while he, even when he was feeling crushed by the weight of parental disapproval, was nothing short of desperate to be back in their graces.

If Heather could be more open to discussion when that made her uncomfortable, and Jason less complicit to begin with, the pair would probably be on the right path again.

She lays her head on him again, and this time, Jason takes his arm out of one sleeve of his varsity jacket, slinging it around her like a blanket. Her heart absolutely soars. The promise to Chrissy was fulfilled, she and her honey were working out just fine now, after she’d gotten Billy’s jacket.

That’s gotta be a sign that things will work out for Heather too.

“Hey, Jason?”

“Hm?”

She feels compelled to finally confess, “I love you.”

It’s Jason this time who, after a soft little kiss to her forehead, says, “I know.”

#strr2024 #billy hargrove #chrissy cunningham #calicheer #billy x chrissy #heather holloway #jason carver #choirguard #heathson #jason x heather #my writing #ej writer #st rarepairs

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heathenarmyimagines · 7 days

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Title: The Alliance

Summary: Princess (Y/N)'s hunt has finally come, and Ivar has more than a country to explore.

Pairing: Ivar x Reader

A/N: I know I haven't been uploading and I'm sorry, I've been working and this story in particular requires a LOT of research (like literally so much). That said please enjoy this chapter, remember if its bold that means it is spoken in the foreign language. This chapter does include a hunting scene so trigger warning if it applies.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Taglist:

The celebration of Princess (Y/N)’s homecoming was indeed an event that would be talked about in Tunisia for months, and the Norse travelers would never forget it. The beach, the dancing, the music, the food that was served was all breathtaking and bordering comfortably on the edge of overwhelming.

It was only when the feast was entirely eaten and the performers were physically unable to continue that everyone agreed to retreat to their own homes to rest.

Ivar found himself on the back of his father, he couldn’t fathom hauling his weight on his crutches after he had exhausted all his energy during the festivities. However; it seemed Ragnar had reserved just enough energy to help his youngest son to the palace.

He even carried Ivar’s crutches in his arms as Ivar clung to his back, and Ivar saw how his father’s grip on them left his knuckles pale white.

‘You do not like my crutches.’ he said, breaking the comfortable silence between the two of them as they lagged behind the royal party on the way back to the castle.

‘I do not like them.’ Ragnar confessed casually.

‘Why?’

‘You do not need them, Ivar; you move slower with them. I can tell it exhausts you and you break more bones by standing upright.’

‘I haven’t bro-’

‘You have.’ Ragnar interrupted the lie, his voice suddenly stern.

‘I am not your mother, I don’t need to see and hear you crying to know when you have pushed your body too far for its limitations. Every time I tried to hold you for the first year of your life I broke a bone in my rough handling.’

At his father’s confession Ivar was left speechless; how many times had his mother drunkenly rambled that as a babe Ivar cried whenever Ragnar picked him up? Of course Ivar had not known why he did this, he was too young, all he knew was his mother was telling the truth about it. Aslaug’s drunken complaining made up a large amount of Ivar’s childhood and sometimes her drunkenness made her dramatize the events but this was one of the few that never changed; Ragnar never spoke of it in front of him.

Not once in all his life.

‘Even the night I left you in the woods, it was your right ankle, it cracked as I tried to swaddle you. I hadn’t intended to leave you that night, I was just trying to hold you and I couldn’t do even that without hurting you.’ Ragnar continued.

‘You must not be used to the palm wine these Tunisians serve, mead has never made you drunk enough to tell me this before.’ Ivar tried weakly to joke.

He hadn’t been prepared to hear this, he had long ago come to accept that he would die without ever having had this conversation with his father.

‘I must not be.’ his father let out a humorless breath of laughter.

‘How do you know when I break a bone? Is it the blue in my eyes?’ Ivar asked.

‘No, son; it is not your eyes, it’s your nose.’

‘My nose?’

‘It scrunches up in a wince whenever a bone breaks, even as a baby before the cries could fall from your lips your nose would give you away. I also know because whenever I see you break a bone I feel it.’ his father confessed.

‘I feel the same sickness rise up in my throat, the same guilt. My guiltiness led me to abandon you, my guilt kept me from loving you. Guilt over how you were born, guilt that my impatience and disregard to your mother’s warning cost you your health.’

Ivar did not need any elaborations on what his father was referencing.

“His mother said he would be a monster.”

“Not even ten and already a killer.”

“There is something not human in him, I just know it.”

“She wasn’t even pregnant yet and she knew he’d be vile and twisted.”

“He even slithers around like the great serpent, he will bring Ragnarok to us all!”

Phrases like these were whispered around him all his life; his mother’s prophecy that if Ragnar had her too soon she would birth him a monster.

‘I do not blame you, or mother, I am not angry with you father. I never have been… I never could be. I-’ Ivar felt like he was physically choking on the words he was trying to say.

It was the first time he’d ever said them out loud before.

‘I love you Father, even if you broke my bones holding me I never wanted you to put me down.’ he said pressing his face into his father’s shoulder, and let Ragnar feel the tears soak into the fabric of his tunic.

‘You do not have to blame me, I will even allow you to be foolish enough to forgive me, but son, I will never forgive myself for the way I treated you. You and your brothers are one of the very few things that keep me in Midgard, and I do not deserve the love and respect you all show me. I have wronged you all, in unforgivable ways.’

‘I have never heard you admit to being wrong.’ Ivar said around the lump that had formed in his throat as he at last got a hold of his emotions.

‘Do not get used to it, it will never happen again and I will deny it if you tell any other living thing.’ his father said, his voice once again becoming lighthearted.

Their emotional conversation had ended, and he knew that neither he nor his father would ever mention it again. Not to each other or to anyone else.

Not even the Princess would hear of this, he would keep this moment selfishly to himself for the rest of his life.

A comfortable silence fell over the two men and lasted until they were finally in the palace, where Ragnar placed his son down and placed the crutches down, sending them a distasteful glance.

Ivar looked over at the others and saw that they were still raving over the festivities and their eagerness for sleep and he looked back to his father.

‘I know I do not need them, father, but I do want them. I want to stand tall among other men, I'm tired of looking up at those I know are beneath me.’ he whispered as he pulled himself up on his crutches.

‘I will not use them forever, I will improve them…and myself.’ he promised.

Ragnar sighed and placed a sudden, unexpected kiss on Ivar’s temple and whispered into his ear in confidence.

‘You will be a man to be feared one day, Ivar the Boneless. Your broken body will never be able to contain your mind and violence.’

With those last words Ragnar went back to the group and he along with Aslaug retired to their chambers.

His brothers and the Tunisians all quickly followed suit, and gave quick and polite goodbyes before going their own ways as well.

‘Let us also retire. I am absolutely exhausted.’ (Y/N) said and indeed she looked like her will alone was keeping her upright.

‘Yes, I’m sure that kind of dancing used up all your energy.’ Ivar agreed and soon they began their journey to their newly shared chamber.

‘I enjoyed dancing to your heart beat. It beats in alignment with my own.’ she remarked as they entered.

Inside they were met with their respective servants who must have brought in their things before joining the feast, as all their things were now properly in place in the chamber.

To Ivar’s surprise and delight the princess sent them both away.

Occasionally on the journey the princess would feel very affectionate and would like to undress Ivar herself; it was another thing he came to rely on while they shared space on the ship.

He would always eagerly offer to undress her in return, she would graciously accept and they would lie in each other’s arms as they slept through the night.

Tonight, however, she was more slow in removing his tunic than she usually did and he could tell by the distanced look in her eye as her hands moved that her mind was not truly in this moment.

‘I will not be at your side when you wake my love.’ she said as she discarded the clothing.

‘How long will your hunt last?’

‘As long as it takes, after the hunt is complete I will be taken to the Skinner's hut to fashion the cloak alone. Every three days a hunting party will be sent after me, if I were to forfeit, they would escort me back safely. In which case I will have failed, and we would not have the blessing of the Great and Many.’

‘Then we would not marry.’ Ivar concluded.

A pregnant silence set in over the two of them as they undressed and remained even as they lay in each other's arms.

‘Can I make a request for my cloak?’ Ivar said at last.

‘Of course.’

‘Something warm. I will want to wear it often and the weather back home is not as nice as this.’ he said with a smile.

He hoped she understood what he was saying between his words; prayed she understood that he had confidence she would succeed and they would marry.

Ivar only needed to meet her watering eyes to know she did understand him, and more than anything else she needed his confidence in her.

‘I’ve trained since the day Sven left with his party, and I am even bold enough to call myself a warrior, but I have never hunted alone.’ she confessed.

‘I had never known true combat until our Matrimonial Fight.’ Ivar returned.

He was surprised that she looked so surprised.

‘Are you trying to console me?’ the princess accused.

‘I am being truthful. Sure on occasion my brothers include me in a bit of roughhousing, or I may even initiate a scuffle but they are never actually aiming to overtake me. Our fights are never true.’ Ivar replied.

‘I knew when I fought with you there would be no holding back on your part, you fought me as an equal and you hit where it hurt.’

The princess’s accusing eyes softened before she hid her face in his chest.

‘I did apologize. ‘ she yawned sleepily.

‘Nothing to forgive, I loved it. I loved fighting you, watching how skilled you are, seeing that look in your eyes as you look for a new place to aim. And if you hunt as well as you fight I imagine I won’t be waiting a full week.’ Ivar encouraged.

Ivar whispered soft assurances and praises until he heard her soft snores, and even still he kept silently praising her, hoping that his Gods would hear his love for her and give her protection.

As he himself finally fell into slumber he even hoped the Great and Many would watch over her as well.

When Ivar woke up he had known (Y/N) wouldn’t be there, but he was still disappointed by her absence.

A small pebble was suddenly thrown into the room, noisily hitting the floor.

‘I am awake, Trya.’ Ivar sighed as he sat up to see his thrall entering the princess’s chamber holding a Tunisian shield.

‘My Prince, did you not sleep well? Should I call for the healers?’ the woman asked, the concern for his legs showing on her face.

‘My legs are no worse than I can handle, and my sleep was sound.’ he assured her as she began to dress him.

‘You have gotten used to her being there.’ Trya realized, but immediately she went red with embarrassment at her impulsive speaking.

‘I’m sorry Prince Ivar.’ she said quickly.

‘No need to apologize when you are right, if anything I should apologize in advance for my bad mood while she is away.’

‘If I may say, I think she will return sooner than you think and with a noble animal fur just for you. In the meantime there is a beautiful village to explore and such wonderful people to meet.’ Trya offered.

Ivar knew the old woman was simply trying to cheer him up, and she was even right; but he found little comfort in her words as he left the room on his crutches.

Just as he began to wonder where he should go without (Y/N) to guide him through the unfamiliar palace, one of her servants, Kya, rounded a corner and approached him.

‘Meal before.’ she mumbled in broken Norse.

‘We are in your homeland, no need to speak a foreign language for my sake.’ he said in perfect Derja.

The girl let out a sigh of relief and began speaking in her mother language.

‘It is time for first meal, I will take you to the great hall .’ she said, her tone very confident and proper in her own dialect, before leading him through the labyrinth of halls.

Ivar was led into a large room where both royal families were sitting on the floor in a circle, all of them eating some type of bread and dipping it into something steaming hot from their bowls.

‘Ivar you must try this porridge, their spices are so flavorful.’ Hvitserk said as Ivar lowered himself down as gracefully as he could.

‘I must agree, we will definitely be trading a great deal of spices in the near future.’ Ragnar agreed, his own bowl nearly empty before Ivar had even received his portion.

The flavor of the porridge was very strong and delicious, and the bread was more grainy than the bread back home.

‘It is delicious.’ Ivar complimented as he ate with a bit more vigor.

After all, he had a long journey on the ship and had drank far too much at the feast.

‘I’m sure if my future daughter in law were here she would be flattered.’ Aslaug said, surprising everyone.

‘(Y/N) made this meal?’ Ivar asked, truly questioning how his mother knew this.

His mother sat aside her now empty bowl and looked at him in earnest, as she always had. As if she hadn’t ignored him from the moment he decided to sail here.

‘I was unable to sleep through your father’s snoring so I had a servant show me around the palace. The princess was in the kitchens, helping the cooks as they prepared her rations and first meal. We had a talk.’ the Norse Queen answered.

Ivar sent a look to his brothers, who looked equally as stunned, even his father had wide eyes.

Every word she just said went against everything they knew about their mother. Aslaug was often so drunk she could sleep through the harshest winter storm, she despised watching thralls work, and in all their lives they had never seen her set foot in any kitchen.

It hadn’t been a convenient coincidence, Ivar was certain his mother had snuck out of bed in the wee hours to speak to (Y/N) privately before her departure.

However, if anyone was waiting on Aslaug to explain her conversation with the princess, they were disappointed when she went back to her wine in silence.

‘Well then, what will you all like to do today?’ King Akashi asked the Norse royals.

‘We would like to walk through your markets. Your daughter tells us it was her most important duty as a child. The concept is both foreign and intriguing to all of us, plus we are eager to see in person the beautiful kingdom that raised our new princess.’ Ragnar replied.

‘Excellent, I shall give them a tour.’ Prince Ayo beamed as he stood excitedly.

‘Sit down.’ the queen said in a quiet but stern tone, the kind that came only from mothers and queens; and considering that she was both, her tone was truly powerful.

The child prince sighed in his defeat and sat back down on the floor.

‘You are not old enough yet my son, and you are not far enough along in your studies to walk the village and converse with the people. Until then you will spend your day with your tutors.’ the king said, seeing the upset on his son’s face.

‘I will send a servant to escort you through the markets, she will meet you at the castle gate.’

‘If I may.’ Ivar spoke up, politely asking to speak directly to the royal family, something (Y/N) had informed him was considered extremely polite.

The queen looked at him with a raised eyebrow before nodding her approval.

‘As my father has said, we are all eager to see your markets and kingdom today, but may I join the young prince with his tutors tomorrow?’

Now the queen was downright studying him, her gaze alone making the cripple straighten up his posture.

‘You wish to study here?’ she asked.

‘I have a great thirst for knowledge, like our All Father Odin, who traded his eye for it. It seems I already traded my legs at birth.’Ivar smiled charmingly, making a humorous face at the prince, who let out a small breath of laughter.

The queen smiled, seemingly against her better judgment.

‘Yes you may join the lessons tomorrow, I will have Bintu accompany you both to the library together tomorrow. She seems to want to get acquainted with you better.’ Queen Aza agreed.

‘Are you close with Bintu as well?’ Sigurd asked.

‘Of course, I personally chose Bintu to protect my daughter. She was my closest friend as a girl, had I ever chosen to propose a Matrimonial Fight she would be my instructor.’

‘I must say, while there are so many fascinating customs in your country, the one that fascinates me the most is your approach to your inferiors.’ Aslaug confessed.

‘No no no. I have no inferiors, my Queen Sister. I am Queen and I am the highest authority, but there isn’t one subject in all my kingdom that is inferior to me. Do you know how most commoners address queens in this country?’ the Tunisian Queen questioned.

When none of the Norse answered she smiled to herself.

‘Queen Mother; that is how I am addressed by every single one of my subjects. Queen to show me their respect, and Mother to show their love. Of course now the title is more than fitting.’ she explained, rubbing the roundness of her belly.

‘I may not know you well, Queen Sister, but I feel that the title was well earned. For I have never seen so many happy commoners, and I have certainly never met a young woman more amazing than your daughter. Truly you are Queen Mother, if I may, I’d like to accompany you today. I have been a Queen almost as long as I have been a Mother, but I am not blind to my shortcomings. I would like to learn from you, Queen Aza.’ Aslaug requested, her eyes never leaving the other woman’s.

At this Ragnar had to cover his mouth to silence his own gasp; Ivar was happy they were already sitting on the floor, had they been in chairs he is certain his brothers would have all fallen out of them in shock.

Years and years, all their lives, they all sat watching their mother drink away her affections and love for anyone other than Ivar. They had stopped expecting her love before they had even gotten their armrings. They never in their wildest dreams thought she cared enough to notice their disappointment in her as a mother.

Ivar looked over at his brothers and surely enough each of them had different expressions of shock.

Ubbe looked as if he simply couldn’t process what he’d heard, Hvitserk had dropped the grainy bread into his nearly empty bowl, Sigurd was wide eyed and his face was becoming red.

‘I would love your company, Queen Aslaug. In fact, I am quite done with first meal. I will await you in the throne room. I will send for Kya to accompany the rest of you through the markets.’ Aza said before holding out her hand to her husband.

King Akashi, who had been silently eating the last of his own meal while observing his guest, set aside his empty bowl and helped the queen rise to her feet.

The Tunisians bid their farewells, instructed a servant girl to give them a tour of the markets and departed.

As soon as the retreating footsteps could no longer be heard all eyes fell on Queen Aslaug, who had met their eyes confidently.

‘Do not look so stunned, have you not all wished for a better mother? A better woman to sit beside your great father on the throne? As I have no intention of losing my status, I must improve; at least that is the advice I was given.’ she said in Norse.

‘Why did you seek her out? You have been spiteful to all of us since the fight; you ignored us all nearly completely since she suggested sailing here.’ Ubbe asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

The hint of accusation was still noticed by his mother.

‘I had no ill intention, my son, I only meant to see her before she left for her hunt. A servant led me to the kitchens and there she was gathering her rations, we spoke and she left.’

‘What did you say to her?’ Ivar asked, not bothering to hide his suspicion.

‘She spoke to me, and I saw what about her you love. She is intelligent, wise and almost annoyingly well spoken. Though she hasn’t seen one of your fits yet, Ivar, I’m sure she will be able to control even your rage.’

The princes all looked between each other, wondering if the others believed a word of this; even Ragnar had been studying his wife to see if there were any visible signs of deception.

‘Mother, she is going on a hunt, alone, I don’t even know what kind of animals they have here. I need you to tell me with conviction that you did not upset her before she left to do something so dangerous.’ he was pleading with his mother.

Aslaug stood from the floor and looked around at her family.

‘I do not know why I sought her out, I don’t know what I wanted to say to her. I know what she said to me. That she can see the weeds of hate growing in all of your eyes when you look my way. That your frowns deepen when I speak to you directly no matter what I say…and now I can see how right she was.’ Aslaug said with a truly hurt expression painting her face.

‘You think I would be so spiteful to try and sabotage her hunt Ivar? Even you? It seems I have been far worse a mother than I thought.’ she said, her voice beginning to shake as her eyes misted.

Before Ivar had a chance to let the guilt take hold of his heart fully his mother had turned and left the rest of them to their now unappealing bowls of porridge.

The room was quiet, everyone needed to digest more than the food; Aslaug’s words had left a bitter taste in their mouths.

‘Do you believe her?’ Hvitserk asked.

‘Of course not, she has been wretched since she birthed us, that doesn’t change after one talk.’ Sigurd dismissed with irritation.

‘She seemed upset, maybe she does regret the way she raised us.’ Ubbe said in her defense.

‘How could you think so, Ubbe? What raising did we get from her? It was while she was meant to be raising us that you and Hvitserk fell through ice and nearly died. In her “care” Bjorn lost his first daughter! The only time the truth comes out of her mouth is when she knows it will hurt.’ Sigurd spat angrily.

‘She is your mother, Sigurd. You owe her your life and respect.’ Ragnar said, a hint of a warning in his tone.

The circle was tense now, despite the fragility of their marriage Aslaug was still Ragnar’s wife and not many Viking men allow their wives to be insulted in their presence.

‘I had no say in who my mother was Father, did I? Even still you are right, I owe her respect…just as she owes us her love, but unfortunately for her I no longer want it.’ Sigurd replied just as stubborn as he had been as a child as he stood up.

‘I will wait at the gate for the escort.’ he said formally before leaving.

Ivar watched Sigurd in a mixture of annoyance and understanding, no one could deny that Sigurd had been the most hurt by Aslaug’s neglect growing up. He was always the one to interrupt their chess games to ask if they could have a walk all together, and he was always turned away.

‘I know your mother was…is a hard woman to understand and that it was hard growing up when I would sail away, but I know her. For better or worse I can read that woman’s heart like fresh carved runes, and I think she is being genuine. Now if you excuse me, I believe I need to have a private conversation with my son.’ Ragnar sighed tiredly before he followed Sigurd.

‘What do you think, Ivar?’ Ubbe asked his youngest brother.

‘I think…my betrothed did speak with her, and I think the conversation went more or less the same way she says it does. What I don’t know is if she is accepting that conversation as a friendly warning or a threat.’

‘You think she would sabotage (Y/N)’s hunt?’ Hvitserk asked in shock.

‘At first I will admit I did think her capable of it, but in my heart I know that isn’t like her. I know I should have no say in it seeing how she doted on me, but she has never gone out of her way to hurt any one of us. I don’t think she ever would.’ Ivar answered honestly.

‘He is right, Mother never cared enough to be cruel to us, sure she poured love onto Ivar, but Ivar is going to marry. Who will be there for her to pour on to? Ragnar?’ Ubbe said strategically, as if he were discussing a battle in a war room, not his own mother.

‘So she wants our love now that Ivar has his own woman.’ Hvitserk realized.

The room fell into one last long silence before Hvitserk noisily slurped down the very last of porridge in his bowl and stood up.

‘Well,I’m flattered to finally be worth her affections, however, what she does will have no true effect on me, but I will not discourage her efforts.’ The middle son declared before he too left.

‘What about you Ubbe? Do you still long for Mother’s love?’ Ivar asked.

‘You know, I remember the day we fell through the ice.’ Ubbe said, surprising Ivar.

Neither Ubbe or Hvitserk ever spoke about that terrible day, no matter how strategically he and Sigurd asked about it growing up; and they had asked quite often back then.

‘We had followed mother and Harbard, because why not, it was too cold for fishing obviously and we were too young to hunt back then. They went into a hut and we went to get a closer look but there was a noise…a calling so inviting and pleasant it carried us away.’

Ivar didn’t want to reply and pull his brother out of his sharing mood so he just listened and let Ubbe speak freely. He had never seen his eldest brother look so lost in his own mind while talking before, it seemed as if he was doing more than remembering. He was there all over again, a small boy out exploring with his brother on a winter's day.

‘It promised such fun and we were so excited we didn’t realize how far we had walked, but we did notice when the snowy grass became ice beneath our feet, but the call assured us and on we walked further out on the ice. Siggy, do you remember her?’ Ubbe asked.

‘Of course, Rollo’s wife.’ Ivar provided.

‘She was a kind woman to us, mother often left us in her care and she had seen us on the lake, she tried to call out for us but what was her small far away voice to a call only we could hear? A call that must have been from the Gods? She chased after us but it was too late, the ice cracked and the call stopped as soon as we fell into the freezing water.’

Ubbe seemed to not even see Ivar sitting across from him anymore, he was lost in the memory of coldness.

‘The water was so much colder than the ice had been, or at least that’s how it felt, cold all over my body, cold water in the lungs. In that cold do you know what I thought, Ivar?’

Ivar shook his head no, and waited eagerly for the answer.

‘I want my mother.’ Ubbe said softly, leaning in closer, as if this was his most precious secret.

‘I wanted to feel the warmth of her embrace and for her to whisper soothing words into my ear to assure me I would not be forced out of Midgard so soon. I even thought maybe she’d heard my silent cries and rescued us, but it was only Siggy pulling us out of the ice. Harbard was there, and she managed to give us to him before her own life was taken by that cold water. After Harbard had brought us to Mother she asked him to heal us and once he had she sent us off to bed for rest…without ever touching us.’

Ivar, who of course saw that his mother showed him more love than his brothers, was stunned by just how cold the woman had truly been to her other children.

As Ivar chewed over his rapid change in family dynamics his bride to be was walking vast dry hunting grounds.

She was brought some comfort in the fact she wasn’t in completely new territory. She had gone on at least a dozen hunts in this area. Of course those hunts had been with full hunting parties of at least ten.

Hunting in large groups was a common practice throughout the world because the simple fact was that there is power in numbers. More hunters mean more game can be caught, and the hunters had a stronger sense of security knowing that there would be more people able to watch their blind spots in case of predator attacks.

More than that, for (Y/N) at least, hunting in a group simply made the experience of hunting much more pleasant. She remembers talking with the others as they walked for hours to the waterhole where most game favored to drink and bathe.

Now she was alone and could not afford any such pleasantries. She had to keep her ears and eyes sharp, there was no one there to assist her in spotting anything that may be lying in wait.

Another benefit of hunting parties, she had come to understand quickly, was that it entailed more provisions. She had a large canteen of water that weighed heavily on her hip, but she knew it would be all she had until she reached the water hole.

And that was a half day’s journey and as heavy as it felt the canteen only had so much water inside. So she ignored the dryness of her mouth, resigned not to drink until the sun was fully in the sky.

Along with her water canteen she had a variety of tools and rope to make shelter, her father’s blade, an ax, twenty ready made arrows to go with the bow she carried by hand and a fortnight's worth of food in the pack she had on her back. One fortnight’s worth of food.

One fortnight worth of food.

One fortnight, that is two weeks.

Two weeks is fourteen days.

She repeated these things mentally every mile or so, she was determined to keep track of the time. If she allowed herself to lose her senses she could find herself out here alone with nothing to eat, no water and no choice but to wait for the rescue party.

No. Even if it did come to that she would refuse to return, and that would mean staying not only to hunt for a beast but also hunting to survive.

The thought of scavenging for berries in the dry lands was almost as discouraging as the thought of wasting arrows on smaller prey before finding her true target.

Whatever that target may be; she thought guiltily.

She had promised Ivar a grand cloak worthy of his Gods but she had no idea what that even meant yet alone what animal she would hunt. Luckily the water hole would be sure to have a variety of beasts to choose from.

After what she guessed had been four hours the sun was finally shining at its highest point in the sky. She took the canteen from her side and took a singular large swallow of cool water before closing it off again, but she held the container to her forehead to feel the coolness of the water inside.

It had to be at least noon now, that meant about six more hours until she was at the water hole, but that would mean arriving at by nightfall and that wasn’t wise. She would have to stop and make her shelter for the night.

A large cluster of boulders and a tiny cluster of palm oil trees in the distance told her she had in fact remembered the path from her previous hunts.

The rocks were where her hunting party usually sought shelter. The formation of the boulders created a sort of rocky valley and with wood and leaves from the trees a roof and walls can be fashioned.

(Y/N) took special care in looking around for any signs of a predator before she removed her pack and dug out some dried biltong and a piece of plantain bread.

She kept alert as she ate quickly, wanting to make sure she didn’t stay here long enough to be found by any thing, but she also wanted to savor the chewiness of the antelope meat, and the bread was so filling on her empty stomach it felt as warm as an embrace.

Once the last of the bread had been eaten (Y/N) picked up her pack again and continued on, still chewing the last bite of biltong, trying to extend the longevity of its flavor and the mere illusion of eating. After she had finally resigned to swallow the over chewed meat she again took a single drink from her canteen, this time only a sip as it was less about true thirst and more a desire to wash down her brief meal.

The further she walked the more she thought over her plans for when she reached the boulders.

First she would find the best spot in between the rocks that required the least amount of material to fortify. Then she would go and gather the wood and palm leaves to make the roofing and walls, after that she would go again to the trees for firewood to keep her warm once night fell.

She tried not to get too comfortable or confident but so far she was pleased with her progress. She had yet to come across so much as an antelope so far and if there were no prey animals near her that meant the chances of predators were much lower.

Of course that also meant if she did encounter a hungry meat eater it would probably be extremely eager to eat the first thing it found.

With that in mind she kept her grip firm on her bow as she pushed on.

It was when she was only about an hour away from her destination that she heard a rustling in the grass behind her that was too isolated and sudden to have been wind.

With an alarming quickness she pulled an arrow from her pack and raised her bow, aiming at the direction of the noise.

It was quiet again, but she was certain she’d heard something and she wasn’t going to turn around or move on until she found and killed whatever had made that sound.

She focused her gaze and scanned through the tall yellow grass for anything out of place. She kept a special look out for spots and stripes; this was big cat territory.

A final second of quiet passed before finally the grass rustled again, and this time she had seen exactly where the grass moved.

Without hesitation she released the arrow and several things seemed to happen all at once to her.

Of course things had happened one at a time, and they happened in this exact order.

First; the arrow flew like lightning into the tall grass, second; a loud pitiful roar cut through the air, and thirdly a lion had leapt out of its hiding place.

With no small amount of fear and an even larger amount of alarm the princess readied another arrow and began back stepping, she knew better than to turn her back to this beast.

Now that it was out of the tallest grass she could see it was a truly pathetic thing. Its mane was shaggy and matted, several scabby bald patches that had been licked raw from over grooming littered his back legs and it was so unsightly thin even in her panic she could see its protruding rib cage.

Her arrow stuck out of its left front leg in a vulgar way as it tried weakly to chase her down, but already her fear was subsiding.

Even as she backed away to put distance between her and the lion so that she could have a clear clean shot, (Y/N) could see that the arrow wasn’t the only thing slowing down her attacker.

Yes it limped on its injured front leg, but it made a huffing whimpering noise every time his right hind leg hit the ground. Clearly something had tussled with this frail thing before she had and it seemed that unknown creature had done her a great kindness.

Once she was confident in the distance between them she released the second arrow and watched it land true as it sunk into the lion's skull and the weak body fell into the dirt with a soft thud.

A final breath escaped its mouth and sent up a small cloud in the dry dirt it now laid lifelessly upon.

With the beast taken down she found herself breathing hard, her adrenaline still racing as she approached it.

Up close she could better inspect it to see if this had been it, if this could be THE beast.

However, no amount of optimism could allow her to overlook the matted shabby dark mane, the many bald patches she could see in the lion’s coat or the clearly visible bites they exposed.

No, this wouldn’t even be worth skinning, not for her husband's cloak, but still leaving it here was not an option, it would attract scavengers and most of those were pack animals. So she took out her ax and made quick work of dismembering the lion and then did her best to wrap the remains in the blanket she intended to sleep under.

It was too heavy to lift alone so she attached the sack to a rope and dragged it the rest of the way to the boulders. By the time she had reached her destination her legs and arms were more sore than they had ever been in all her years of training, but she didn't stop to rest.

Just as she had planned she found a small rectangular spot that was perfectly spaced between two boulders that stood twice as high as she did. There she sat the lion sack before she went to fetch the wood and palm leaves. The sun would be setting soon and she would not be out in the open with a fresh kill at her side when it happened.

She chopped and dragged long branches for one hour, then she fashioned two walls about one foot taller than herself using rope to tie the branches together, tying the leaves together to keep out the wind. She installed her walls by burying the branches in the dirt making sure they were firmly planted. The roof was easier to make since she had to leave a spot open for smoke to escape.

Finally, just as she had tied the last bit of rope securing the roof to the walls the sun was beginning to set. She made her final trip to the grove of trees for firewood and quickly returned to her newly built shelter.

Her fire was burning strong as the sun set, but she did not lay down, she sat beside the fire watching the flames as she thought one thing over and over.

What beast was worthy of Ivar the Boneless?

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unknownfaceless-ds9 · 29 days

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Tysess headcanons

(mentioned some or referenced some in my story, but still gonna keep them here)

I answered a question lately, in this post and got some more ideas, so I wrote some more and elaborated on some of them.

He's a soft lover:

I'm sorry, but he is. As stubborn and stoic and stern he can be and has quick tempered he definetly will be, he melts around his s/o and will do anything for them. Anything. Either in the andorian way, or any other way, whatever is more comfortable for them.

However duty is duty and duty comes first. He struggles a bit at first but he'll get the hang of it

On duty he tries to treat them as he does with everybody else, though there are those small subtle things like brief touch against the small of their back or fingers brushing against each other or just the smallest flick of his antennae…. You know what I mean

He is sometimes a bit hotheaded though he tries to keep it at bay, however he would never slash out on hi s/o. If he ever would, he would apologise profoundly and would feel guilty for weeks

He’s also a bit traditional. Not in the sense that he would enforce gender roles on his s/o, however he would do the classical things like, holding the door open, pay (if it’s a planet where he can) fort he fodd, ask for parents‘ permission for hand in marriage etc. etc.

(Though he would definetely declare ushaan if somebody, especially an andorian, disrespects his s/o. And he'll win)

Tysess trained himself to keep his antennae mostly still, because 1) it does confuse his coworkers and 2) he doesn’t like others knowing directly how he feels

He enjoys cooking:

He may not be a chef but cooking gives him the relaxation he needs after an exhausting day. And it's really good, like, Pike-level good.

In a relationship he would mostly likely be the one to cook. However, offer to cook with him and his heart is basically yours

In Starfleet academy he managed to somehow make a wonderful and mean meal from those tiny, weak student kitchens. Nobody knows why. However his entire floor tried to stay in his good grades

Speaking of Starfleet:

He prefered to keep to himself. He’s a bit of an introvert and is very good at pushing people away. Yet, as soon as you managed to befriend him, that man would die for you. Literally.

Like Picard for example was in the Science division before he switched to commando, I like to believe that Tysess was a security officer. I made a post about his stance in one frame and that just confirmed this with me. Along with another aspect, I’m gonna adress below.

Tysess struggled to connect to his fellow students, especially since he was one oft he few andorians in the fleet. He made some friends, however that’s just mostly because they were stubborn and decided to befriend that grumpy, blue man

Tysess is a really good singer. If he hadn't joined Starfleet you maybe would've been able to see him on the andorian Broadway.

He was part oft he andorian military[or at least the equivalent o fit]:

I don’t know how military/ task force etc. works on Andoria, that’s not my expertise

However I’d like tot hink that he comes from a family that’s been working in the „army“ for generations.

Tysess knew, that both his sister and his brother did not want to be there, so he kind of sacrificed himself top lease his family. After he few years he realised however that he really didn’t like this life for himself, and, after getting his family’s support, he joined Starfleet

Still, those years left some marks on him (physically and psychologically)

He has a weird enemies-to-friends relationship with Noum. They don’t like each other at all (which is partly due tot he andorian/tellarite relationships) however if there’s gossip, those two bicker faster than you can say „Engage“

He's on the ace spectrum:

Though I depicted him more as sex-repulsed asexual in my story „Body Language“, I more likely headcanon him different. This just fit the story better

I think, Tysess is a demisexual, with a very low libido and sex drive, maybe mixed with a bit of graysexual?

Like, he only is capable to expirience sexual attraction towards people he has a close emotional connection to, but even then it’s rarely

He is not on the arospec, yet it is still difficult for him to fall in love. Mostly because of personal issues

[btw got the idea from the lovely @zierzim]

He was a crew member of the Voyager when she got lost

This actually started off as a joke and „crack idea“ however the more I thought about it, the more I liked it, so I’m keeping it.

I already gave my ideas about it on this post

That's it for now. Feel free to add something :)

#star trek #star trek headcanons #headcanons #star trek prodigy #star trek pro #tysess #commander tysess #tysess star trek #tysess prodigy #tysess pro #andorians

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crystalflygeo · 4 months

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Long overdue final ebg post (lmao) bc I need to get this out of my system...

Tag for all the posts/storyline

Art by the amazing lovely precious cutie Aine @/ainescribe

First of all I want to thank @i23kazu immensely for allowing me to participate pls I was SO unsure at first haha and she absolutely killed it with the interactions, the lil side project, the prompts, the scores tally... it's just so much work, kudos to you Ying fr!! It was a super fun game.

Shoutout to my besties/mutuals

@silentmoths @ainescribe thank you for your lil asks I love seeing your characters aaaaaaaa 💕

@floraldresvi @moraxsthrone and all the anons I got, your sabotages here and in discord were brutal omg Vi you almost made my cry //pos bc I wanted to react/respond to Li's messages 🥺 EVERY SINGLE TIME ghgnhgnghgn and NOT KEL MAKING MY GIRL HAVE A WET DREAM/SPICY MEMORY TYVM 💕 the way I had to contain myself hELP I loved it svcgavscgvsjgacbkackl

@meimeimeirin you also sabotaged me a lot, meanie //pos I loved SO MUCH your asks/little stories aaaaaa thank you for engaging so much when I know you're super busy 🥺 it def made my day everytime, ty for bringing the girl home and solving my silly lil mystery hehe 💕

@kurikurikurisu GIIIIIRL it's so funny to me that we kinda started interacting more on the last ebg for Rin and then I was like "she's a cool person I wanna fren.... 👉🏻👈🏻 but I shy...." took my sweet time to invite you to the server and turns out THIS ebg got us closer (I think? ehe?//hit) we didn't interact much in tumblr with each other's plots but bOY were we emotional support in discord, we really were in this suffering together 🤝🏻 mhm //nods nods 🤣 thank you so much for being interested in my lil silly plot and my girl aaaaaa

As for the "plot" and other things... (this got so long I am so sorryy;;;)

Well at first I wanted to do kinda a normal ebg, no plot or anything bc I don't think I have the smarts to do an elaborate game/story lmao and I kinda wanted to have more established s/i lore?? And then I realized hey I can use the ebg to introduce my s/i!!!

See I'd been working SO hard on her names lately, researching and studying in-game adepti lore and stuff and I though why don't I make it a simple game where the goal is to guess her name (with me giving hints ofc) and at the very start I had the idea of her losing her memories so she could re-discover/remember things about herself alongside the "players" learning them. Whoever character I got as my bias would help her and get to know her too along the way, even npcs (or in the rare case of me getting Dottore/Pantalone, probs be the villain for her memory loss lmao)

And then I got Kazuha. And it was so SO perfect. I took inspiration from Spirited Away with the plot point of having your name/memories/identity stolen and for some reason I remembered the whole Ino-shika-cho koi-koi card combo from Summer Wars I just had this vivid mental image of a scene where Kazuha dropped the biggest hint by writing the Kanji for Butterfly (Chō) which doubles ofc as the Hanzi for Butterfly/Crystalfly (Dié) written the same pronounced (and romanized) differently :3c

I was very proud of myself//hit also

I did not end up making haiku bc they are complicated but I at least tried to loosely keep/emulate the 3 phrases, phonetic rhyme and sensory elements while referencing my lil plot lmao

✧˖Originally I was gonna blame it on a playful tanuki or smth but I don't think they're powerful enough youkai lmao it was probably a kitsune.... we may never know ✧˖She was technically never in any danger yeah but imagine being lost with no memories and no way to know if you could get them back even because every person she met kept telling her they didn't know ofc she'd break down, or at least me, I'm very crybaby and neurotic sometimes//HIT ✧˖Yes this entire thing was technically Zhongli's fault since he did write her a letter addressed 亲爱的晶蝶 ("My dear Crystalfly/Jingdie") and that IS her name woops on a random note I kinda imagine he also signs with something like 你的龙 "Your Dragon" and vice versa with Crys ("My dear Dragon/your Crystalfly") sgcvgajsvcjhacbajkca //squeals kicks feets

And all this started because I was stressing over the fact that "Crys" is not an appropriate name for a Liyue character lmao, I debated for so long giving her a chinese name, but I didn't want to further make her an OC I wanted her to represent me/my blog (also part of me was and still is immensely worried I somehow insult cn ppl by being as some sort of weeabo equivalent or that I am "appropriating culture" or idk I may be dumb but I try to do my research and I prommy it does not come from a place of malice or anything I genuinely love genshin and Li and it's got me interested in a culture/country I funnily enough have somehow interacted with and have friends in but never really paid that much attention to ig...) and then I just had the epiphany What if I just reverse engineer and name her Crystalfly in cn? Lore would be that either her name got accidentally translated in documents a long long time ago and ppl started calling ehr Crystalfly/Crys and she rolled with it or she simply adopted the translation/nickname as her name for international settings, keeping her true name more private (hidden in plain sight tbh) p sure the only ones who know are the elder adepti (Ganyu/Xiao included) and Neuvillette (once he told her his real/first name) (ironically Crys may be harder to pronounce i other languages lmaoooo rip Fontaine)

Anyway this got way too long lmao sorrryyyyyyyy thank you everyone kith kith love y'all bye!! 💕

#crys plays ebg #final post aaaaaa this was all so satisfyinga nd fun and such a roller coaster dshvhsjdbvhsbvks #crys lore #new tag aaayyyy//HIT #I will spam more in the future but not too much I prommy #I gotta go back to writing soon I'm itching hhhhhhh #ty everyone ilu all <3 #crys yaps

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ravixen · 1 year

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Hii, hope you are doing well and (if you celebrate) are having a good holidat season😊

I just jumped on here to let you know that I luuuv your werewolf!svt and I was wondering if you could elaborate on how you see werewolf Chan (like the scoups and wonwoo ones). If not, that is totally ok. Just absolutely love your work❣️

werewolf!chan

➔ au!ramble || request || werewolf!au

➔ warnings: none || 426 words ➔ notes: fluff ; thank you for the well wishes :) the winter season is going well. i had a performance for christmas, and it went well! my friend also bought me stardew and i've been playing that like 10 hours a day. hope you're doing okay, too. reblog if you liked! requests are still open :)

he tries not to act like the youngest, but he's totally the pack's baby and it shows when he's equally bullied and loved

when he was a pup, they just let him do whatever with the occasional nip here and there to keep him in line. he whined and rolled around, obviously, but was back to his shenanigans soon enough

loved following the older members and learning from them, though he was eager to jump in and try for himself

one of his favorite games was to chase and wrestle with everyone's tails, and jeonghan never lets him live it down

now that he's bigger and older, he pretends to be the brooding type, but it's so easy to make him break that facade by starting a play fight because he loses himself in it. next thing he knows, he's covered in dirt

he has a dark coat, probably a shade darker than seokmin's, but unlike seokmin's, it's still soft because of his baby years. it works in his favor because you love burying your face in it and you let him lay in your lap

i feel like he's a strong runner and has good endurance. he's not bulky like seungcheol or mingyu, not quite lean like wonwoo. his legs, though, rival seungcheol's — send him if you need something delivered

he still transforms in his sleep sometimes, and after the third time it happened, you decided to get a bigger bed because you're tired of having to fight him for the space. every time he woke up and saw you on the couch, he was so apologetic about it

(this is why he could never go on overnight trips with people, and it made him disappointed so seungcheol organized one eventually. had to convince the renters that they had a lot of dogs that came late and left early)

whenever he smells you coming, he brightens so instantly. the boys roll their eyes, unable to tamper down their endeared smiles. he latches onto you instantly, a hand on the small of your back or holding your hand

if he's transformed, his tail starts thumping against the ground and he literally doesn't realize he's doing it until someone tells him to shut up

referencing my long distance mate reaction, he'd love wearing your things all the time because it's so comforting to feel like you're around him, even when you're not

over time, he'll get used to you being gone, but in the beginning, he's definitely antsy, like "why can't we hang out all the time?"

#caratwritersclub #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fluff #svt fluff #dino fluff #chan scenarios #dino scenarios #g: svt #m: chan #t: auramble #s: request #anonymous #ravixen #werewolfau

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g-xix · 4 months

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does anyone else feel like a lot of youtubers are pivoting in making content that is way overproduced, just because they think its the more "serious"/"respectable" way to do youtube? kinda like mr beastification?

i dont mean overproduced as in putting a lot of effort (eg: chrismds videos are so much better now he has help organising/editing), but overproduced as in sterile and formulaic. i think sidemen are very aware of their fanbase preferring more simple concepts (eg holidays, personality based stuff) rather than the elaborate stuff so theyve stripped back the main channel concepts to make it more fun (but still doing the videos that go viral from non-sidemen fans watching from recommended), but some channels are doing the overproduced thing and its just boring to watch (willne's main channel, YAWN!!! callux for the past few years, i stopped watching betasquad bc it became so dull w only a few good moments sometimes)

sorry for the rant

hey bae, nws for ranting, love a good opinion

YES OMDS MR BEASTIFICATION! I never rly watched MrBeast so i was a bit confused when someone referenced that when i explained the sidemenification concept.... good to see they're the same concept regarding a similar shift in content on YouTube from homely and comforting "chill" style videos to (as you've said) overproduced vids which causes for added pressure making the atmosphere within these vids more serious and a less enjoyable watch

I'm not sure how much the Sidemen really understand the want for chill vids though, because they 100% started the year off with 2 MASSIVE shoots, and i haven't watched many of their other vids (tryna consume this recent sdmn sunday but fuck me i've been tired recently...)

And i lowkey highkey get you about Beta Squad falling down this trap of "big production = better value", my only disagreement here is that I think Will's high-budget videos are actually really well done, because regardless of the shoot quality he always brings the personality to back it up - like, the first "overproduced" vid of his that i can think of is the one he did w Mikey in Vietnam, and even my Dad loved watching that one

And strangely, thuogh everyone seems to hate Callux a bit, i think I really like Lux... Not because his contents good (tbh his content is stinky) but bc i feel like he went through a rapid mental decline and he's on that self-care grind whereby he's now trying to get back to a place of mental normality... And i hope he's managing, too. I like watching his videos and seeing that mental gearing and just how he reacts in certain situations - so whilst i can agree that his formulaic vids are forsure boring - i must say that i'll still always watch his crap <3

#WAFFLE!!#youtube #youtuber #youtubers #mrbeastification #willne #callux #sidemen #beta squad

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musashi · 1 year

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WAIT i just realized i have a platform on here i have a question for ppl who have keener understanding of a particular social thing

ok so im autistic and i am VERY competent socially like i pick up on social cues fine i just prefer to ignore them 'cause most of them are stupid as hell. but one thing i will never get is inside jokes. can someone who gets inside jokes. explain them to me.

what purpose does an inside joke serve in social situations? particularly, what purpose does flaunting it serve? this doesn't just apply to inside jokes themselves, but also topics that are "insider."

so for instance, theres a group of 5 people, and 3 of them are in on an inside joke. the 3 reference the joke and when the remaining 2 are confused, the 3 just say it's an inside joke and refuse to let them in on it/elaborate. why do they do this.

to elaborate on my second example: instead of the inside joke, the 3 are all watching the same TV show. they switch gears to reference the TV show and/or talk about the plot details, leaving the other 2 participants confused and excluded. why do they do this?

why don't they just... avoid referencing these "insider" topics? or why don't they keep the topic brief so that the other 2 ppl can participate? i don't understand this.

i have very particular trauma surrounding this phenomenon, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but for me there is no... non-sinister takeaway? when i see this happening, my nuance fails me. usually when i encounter something i don't understand i try to view it from all angles to come to a conclusion as to why it might be happening. but with this, i can't FIND another angle that makes sense. to me, when people linger on inside jokes or inside topics around others who are not privy, it just seems... cruel? as though they are purposefully putting up barriers to make the conversation inaccessible to the people who aren't lucky enough to be a part of their inner circle. not only that, but they are holding those people socially hostage as well. to me it's as though they're just like, sit here and listen to us exclude you.

online i usually just dissociate/mute the call/distract myself with something else, but irl i don't know what to do about this besides just looking at these people like they are freaks. is it acceptable to just walk the fuck away? how do i get out of these situations, i would rather step on heated glass than sit there being triggered.

i am asking for insight but please don't be condescending to me just because you have preconceived notions about the competence of autistic people. please talk to me like an adult human. i am fully independent and i vote and pay taxes and shit, i just sometimes do not understand allistic ppl and that does not justify infantilizing me.

#wordy wendy

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scumscuttlers · 3 months

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A really normal person who is just an asshole.

— @coralcalypso describing my character, 2024.

Inezra as a character has been around since 7/28/2014. She doesn't have a super long history though because most of what I did have was lost to hard drive failure. So, lol. I ended up reconstructing things pre-2018, and have been trying to flesh her out by interacting with more people.

If you're curious what writing I'm referencing, her writing tag is over here.

Personality

Inez is obsessive. This isn't always a negative.

Inez is too smart for her own good and frequently thinks herself into knots (as evidenced from some of the conversations and interactions in recent / old stories). She is absolutely yanking on people's chain when she pretends to not know or understand some things. Key word: Some. Somewhat at odds with the brawns over brains presentation she has. It's easier not to think about things. Imagine how happy you would be if you stopped thinking too. (She's still not happy.)

That said, she's also allergic to being honest about herself and her feelings. She doesn't lie out of habit. It's more likely she'll omit information or deflect by making a joke. This makes it easier to slip in actual requests for information. You just never know if she's fucking with you or not.

Rarely does she reconsider whatever she thinks the "best" option is. Gleaned from Dialus' perspective in old writing and conversations with my friend @sleepytrolls.

She has a kneejerk reaction to new information, but will also keep asking for details until she's satisfied that she knows enough about it. She's then incredibly likely to turn around and make fun of your character for their perspective. This makes her not fun to talk to. She knows this. She also doesn't care (most of the time).

Has a penchant for violence that's hereditary and probably in part caused by brain damage. From all the concussions, your honor. She has poor emotional regulation normally. She also does not have a moirail or very many trolls willing to put up with her, so this is just bad soup. She's gotten better but not better fast enough.

She has standards and a conscience even if she goes to great lengths to pretend she doesn't. There are absolutely lines she won't cross and she's sensitive to people not being receptive to her bitching, but that's new. Notably, times in the watch party chats when she's switched tack mid conversation based on someone's responses. You won't catch her apologizing though.

She tries to tone down her assholery depending on the person, or tailor it specificly to them to make their day worse. It depends.

Likes

Fighting. As 5lux put it, Inezra was hatched to hate. She doesn't need much reason to fight people and will go so far as to injure herself to get another lick in during those fights. There's something going on up there in her pan. Don't ask what it is.

Being a dick. This is just a precursor to fighting. She doesn't really do blackrom or she'd be in a quad with the whole world. If you hate her she likes you.

A cool cigarette to ease the pain.

Reading, but only sometimes, and she doesn't like most contemporary writing.

You'd think music would belong in this list but it doesn't. No I won't be elaborating on that right now.

Quirks

You can earn her honesty. Ways this has been done so far includes: fighting her and making it fun, having a spine, making her laugh, or being upfront about feelings (that last one doesn't always work). This is usually only for a limited time. You get one glimpse into her functioning troll brain. Just one.

She smokes. A lot. If she were normal she would probably have had two types of lung cancer by now, but she's suspiciously okay.

Whatever

Stuff that doesn't have a specific place to go yet.

Inezra doesn't relate to anyone in her age group. She finds it very strange how Sefoni & co (how she mentally refers to that entire extended friend group) seem wrapped up in other alien's cultures. It's somewhat alienating to be the only "real" troll, which as we all know is a feeling normal people react to with anger. 😀 (She's not actually normal.)

She actually did dodge the draft. That piece of trivia isn't punk posing and will probably catch up to her at some point.

The game doesn't exist in her universe. Every time she sees somebody talk about the game and adjacent topics she thinks they're taking FLARPing too far. It's the cognitive dissonance for me.

Thanks for making it this far. Maybe I'll vomit words again soon.

#OOC #[Character Info]#[Meta Post]#// Meta character stuff.#// I was initially aiming to answer the “why is she like that” question but there's no good outside looking in answer.#// She's just like that. She is what she is.#// Awful and probably going to die awful. 🥰#// Fixed the writing tag link!

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featherymuffinsis · 3 months

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Castlevania’s Death aka Oh God I Am Reaching: A character analysis

Preface: You may have seen this already a few years back. This is because I did in fact post this a few years back. However, that blog of mine is gone, so I am reposting it anew. I removed some fluff past me put in and I believe i should make sense without it, but please do shout if it does not and I will attempt to fix my mistakes. Thank you in advance.

Contents

A few useless fun facts

The sauce Core question Evidence Traits evidence Conclusion Traits and speech but wrapped in sauce (check „Hard“ data, „General“ section, for TLDR)

„Hard“ data (aka just a list of everything The Sauce covers. Think of the actual statistics in a research. The paper tells you about them in complex senteces but then provides you with the numbers.)

My personal shitty little observations

To make things easier, when referring to Death as a whole, I’ll be saying just Death. When referring specifically to the true form of Death, I’ll be saying „Death (true form).“

The Sauce (and my fruitless attempts at maintaining a coherent chain of thought)

Without further ado! Ladies, gentlemen, creatures of other titles and/or genders, I have asked myself the age-old question, my friends have asked themselves the age-old question: Is Death a theatre kid? Now, I come to you, bearing what you may choose to accept as an answer, or throw it out and beat me up behind an Albert.

I’d like to clarify that I employed both meta and in-universe thinking, but threw out chunks of meta thinking A) for convenience’s sake (depite my core principle never to give any author more potential credit than they are due) B) because my friend looked like they were about to beat me with a stick if I once more said the phrase „But this is probably just a mistake on the writers’ part and should be ignored.“ I will mention where I did this so you can decide for yourself if you desire to make a potential reach or discard it.

Core question

So, to start off bluntly: Is Death a theatre kid (and to what extent)? Lol. Lmao. No. Never (okay, that’s a lie). To elaborate: Death is not a theatre kid unless it is absolutely needed and even then he sucks at it.

What I am saying is that the disguises are both most likely manufactured by Death, and even if they aren’t, Death does not assume a role, or, in the case of The Alchemist, does not do it well.

„That is a bold statement, where is the evidence?“ I am glad you ask. Let us continue to:

The Evidence

Our first problem was the oddly common misconception that Death can only shapeshift into existing beings, even more specifically dead beings. Since this was a prevalent thought in our group, I am addressing it. It is, in fact, not even implied anywhere in canon. To be extra sure, I tried cross-referencing the game canon even though it is a completely different universe. Some aspects remain similar in those two universes after all. While the character of Death works a little different (and if the wiki is to be trusted it is unclear if game Death is supposed to be a Shinigami or the wester concept of Grim Reaper), the abilities seem to be the same, however, while there is an example of game Death shapeshifting, the wiki did not address nor specify whether or not the disguise (Zead) existed as a pre-established person before game Death took his form. If this is addressed in the games, I would like to know. With no further information, we decided that our common opinion was simply a bias most likely caused simply by the word „death.“ (and in one acquaintance’s case by DnD).

With that thrown out, we took a look at the designs of the disguises. This is where I am reaching and throwing out meta. If you wish to silence my tongue and accept meta as your god, that is completely understandable. As we all know, designs have both out of universe and in-universe implications. A design should convey a character’s role. However, this sometimes produces unintended implications in-universe (for example the ever classic question in JRPGs and anime: Who would wear bikini armour into battle?). Varney’s design is not really remarkable in this regard, its coat does have a scythe-like collar (as is stated to be intended in the art book), however, this could well enough be a coincidence in-universe. The odder one out of the bunch is The Alchemist. While the early designs in the art book have remarkably little to do with what most conceptualise as death (with the exception of the ever-present cape), the final design looks like what the average person might draw if you tell them to draw death – the colour scheme is cold, only brightened by the light blue, which could be considered a cold colour, it includes a cape reminiscent of the one the Grim Reaper is traditionally depicted wearing, and the gown is similar to the robe death tends to be depicted in as well. Out of universe, this makes complete sense, in-universe, it is a little odd but nothing major. Who’s to say that there couldn’t have been a random woman who looked like that? The thing that seals it for me in universe are her earrings. While the animators seemed to have taken some liberties with every frame, the general pattern actually mimics the patterns of Death’s (true form) rib cage. Again, out of universe? A normal design choice, a pretty cool one at that. In universe? Now where would you get a woman who has such earrings? Of course, there is also the possibility that Death can simply alter parts of the disguises. The mental image of Death adding specifically rib cage-patterned earrings is a hilarious one ngl.

Before we get to the next points, it is import to note that, as I mentioned, Death seems to have no interest in acting out a role and isn’t even good at it when he is. When posing as The Alchemist, the speech pattern is noticeably different (no swear words, more formal language in general), however, it very quickly starts shifting towards shortened verbs, and starts being formal again after a pause. Then it devolves into shortened verbs again. Varney and Death (true form) have a pretty much identical speech pattern, the only difference is that Death (true form) has a higher swear word percentage, but that may be due to the prevalence of pissed off scenes. All forms also pronounce words the same way (a fun tidbit that is not really meaningful is that The Alchemist never say can’t, only cannot). To add to that, Varney and Death (true form) sometimes speak in the exact same tone of voice as the other form. Out of universe, the usage of the same VA for Death (true form) and Varney might be some kind of indication as well („Oh dear author, that was most likely for budget reasons!“ Okay well I don’t see how that’s my problem.)

Now we can talk about a question that is related to this issue: Let’s say the disguises are pre-established people. Why would Death pick Varney as a disguise? There were, in general, two ideas. One mine and one was proposed by a guy on Discord, whom I thank for an outside perspective. He proposed that he may have been chosen because Death knew nobody knew him and as such could do fuck-all undetected. Although that makes sense, we must consider that Death repeatedly appears to be weirded out by the fact that nobody knows Varney, even in situations where acting in character (if Death even cared about acting in character in the first place, and he does not) is not necessary, which leads me to believe that Death genuinely didn’t expect that. Which is where my opinion comes into play. I believe that in this proposed scenario, Death would have chosen Varney as a disguise because he knew (or assumed) that Saint Germain knew who Varney was. Both this and the apparent expectation of Varney being known make me think that if this were the case, Death would have attempted to act in character as not to arouse suspicion. He, however, doesn’t act any different, not in general and not in front of people who were supposed to know Varney, and Saint Germain doesn’t get suspicious, implying that Death’s behaviour and mannerisms align with whatever Saint Germain knows about Varney (it is fair to note, however, that Saint Germain at this point probably wouldn’t notice even a brick flying straight at his face, so perhaps this is not the most reliable source.)

To add to that: I have noticed that the dates given by the show do not add up. What I will now be describing is another reach that is most easily explained by a simple mistake or lack of care for precision. If you desire to to disregard it, you may do so, however, I am bound by my friends’ annoyance at my too out-of-universe thinking and I must consider it as not to test their wrath. At this point, Castlevania takes place when? 1497? Saint Germain and maybe one more person (unsure, 100% certain only about Saint Germain) remark that Varney is 1000 years old. I do trust Saint Germain on this and take it as factual. When Varney gets annoyed that nobody knows him for like the third time, he asserts that he was mighty when London was a Roman ghost town. Except that London wouldn’t have been a Roman ghost town by the time Varney came into existence. Now, I did not have internet when I was making all my notes, but a source on the phone double checked the date when Romans definitely left London for me, because I had a feeling it was off but wasn’t sure due to the repeated migrations in and out of London. IF she is correct, the dates just don’t add up. If I bend to the will of my friend group, this effectively means that Death outed himself as not Varney, or at least admitted to being older than Varney should be. Might also imply that Death was in Londinium. What this says is that he definitely doesn’t care to be in character to the point of just straight up saying something that would immediately make anyone who knows history really suspicious. He says more things that could be taken as suspicious but not so much as this one, as the other lines could very well be interpreted metaphorically by everyone around („-you do not know what I am, but I tolerate you precisely because you’re good at death – it nourishes me.“) and some things that seem to align exclusively with Death’s (true form) goals and likely wouldn’t align with the average vampire mindset („He owes us death. Death in volumes unprecedented.“)

Now that we are past that: If Death doesn’t care about being in character and just does whatever unless it’s absolutely required for him to attempt to assume a role, why does he keep getting so weirdly offended when people don’t know Varney? Why does he keep asserting who his disguise is? I am of the opinion that a situation like that might happen only when you have a disguise for such a long time that it basically becomes you in a sense or when there was never a pre-established person in the first place.

And we arrive at one of my last points, this one ties in nicely with the first one. I, once again, cross-referenced the games’ canon because there was one thing that slightly confused me: During the 9th(?) episode, Trevor refers to Death (true form) exclusively as „it,“ but uses „he“ when remarking that Varney was likely a part of Dracula’s court. If taken as objective, this would draw a distinction between Varney and Death (true form). Plus the show says that Varney joined Dracula’s court one hundred years ago. I am unsure how reliable this piece of information is but considering that Varney does say that he’s of Dracula’s original cohort, I’ll believe it. Due to all of this, I wasn’t sure if I should be of the opinion that Death has been going around in this disguise for at least 100 years or if Varney himself was the one to join Dracula’s court. I decided to assume that the writers meant Death to be, in certain aspects, similar to the game’s canon (a factor in this decision was once again the uncertainty if game Death is the Grim Reaper or a Shinigami. A Shinigami could, in the realm of medieval fantasy that takes its artistic liberties, especially if it’s one made by someone with certain opinions, technically be described as an elemental spirit. Consdering that, one could argue that the Deaths are meant to be similar in at lest some aspects.). When I allowed myself to take this liberty, I then proceeded to take into account the fact that the game’s Death is second in command to Dracula and that it has been for quite some time. After doing so, I came to the conclusion that if the disguises were pre-established people, Death (true form) had to have been moonlighting as Varney for over 100 years, which would fall in line with the previous paragraph.

To take a break and enrich your reading experience, have a picture of the local ZOO’s echidna:

Traits Evidence

Let us move on to the even more subjective and questionable area: traits, speech patterns, movements.

The general traits of all forms are seemingly the same. All three forms are quick to take everything personally when questioned, are conceited, manipulative, arrogant and, in general, they’re pricks. All three use rhetorical questions (though The Alchemist uses them the most), and all three use similar hand gesticulation (specifically they orient their hand movements outwards. In other hand movement regards, there are some differences: The Alchemist moves both arms/hands outwards or keeps them both by her body; Varney usually has one hand by his body and the other oriented outwards, Death (true form) usually has both arms outwards). All three forms gravitate towards semi-formal language, using shortened forms of words with the occasional use of full forms (The Alchemist is a bit of an outlier in that, as mentioned, she starts with formal language and descends into a semi-formal one). All three forms also tend to start sentences with „and,“ with both Death (true form) and Varney using „well“ to start sentences as well. They all tend to end sentences with either the name + surname of the person they’re talking to, or their name + title, or „sir.“

There seems to be basically no line between Death (true form) and Varney. Obviously a lot of these things rely on the accuracy of general information provided by other characters though, as I am at the mercy of nothing if not accuracy. In addition to the common traits of all three forms, Death (true form) and Varney are both also entitled, power-hungry, often, they take a mocking tone and are loud even when it would be better to shut up. They are both cruel and have a peculiar vocabulary.

Varney and The Alchemist both also use the phrase „[somebody’s] Great Work,“ which would not be odd in my opinion if it was used for the same construct, as it might simply be the correct term for it, however, it is used in a different context each time.

(Author's 2024 note: Have a simple old as balls Varney doodle in these trying blocks of text)

Conclusion

All of this leads me to believe that The Alchemist and Varney are either forms fully made up by Death, or they are pre-established but Death has been disguising as Varney for a damn long time now. I personally do not think that either of those options is the more likely one, however, if you are of a diferent opinion, I would like to hear it. Personally, I choose to go with the first option, simply because I find the mental image of Death just making up a guy some 1000 years ago, the way you’d create some kind of -sona, incredibly hilarious.

Traits and speech but wrapped in sauce

After reaching this conclusion and choosing the option to go with, it came to the part that actually wasn’t originally planned but considering I got this far, I decided I might as well do it. It was time for using all three forms to determine the exact speech patterns (I actually don’t know why I did that. I think it’s a reflex because I usually only analyse a character when I need to write them, and when I wirte them, I obviously need o understand how they talk, preferably as perfectly as possible lest I commit the heresy of being out of character and then die out of shame), traits, and peculiar tidbits.

When he talks, Death seems to sometimes use rhetorical questions, the Alchemist form uses them the most but they are sparingly used elsewhere as well. When it comes to opening a sentence, there is a pattern of starting sentences with the words „and“ or „well,“ as I mentioned earlier. It is not too often that this happens but it isn’t rare enough for me not to write it down. When ending a sentence, a lot of the time, Death ends it with the name of the person he’s talking to, or with „sir.“ I found this a little unusual because, at least in my experience, that is not what people do when talking to someone 1 on 1. There is only one example of this, so take it with an even bigger grain of salt than the rest of this, but it also appears that when Death is angry, he starts putting the name in the middle of the sentence instead. Not sure why anyone would need to know this but like idk I feel like if I would need this if I weren’t me. Death also talks in an informal way most of the time, occasionally employing a more formal vocabulary. Interestingly enough, none of the forms actually ever use anything that I would consider to be an advanced word, making it entirely possible that Death wasn’t messing with Saint Germain when he (as Varney) told him that he was looking for a really big word but couldn’t find one. Which is useless but it’s funny. This is not mentioned in the “Hard” Data because I have it noted down in the line transcriptions in the form of various forms of underlining, but Varney specifically tends to stretch some words out, I can’t really describe it (author's 2024 note: I believe that what past me was attempting to describe was simply a British accent. I have analysed a lot of Brits since this analysis and am pretty confident that that is just how a lot of them talk). Instead of fair it’s more like faaaair, or instead of word, sometimes it sounds more like wrrrrrd. Useless as well but part of analysis nonetheless.

When it comes to the body, as I already said, all forms tend to make a fair share of hand and arm movements that are oriented outwards, with The Alchemist having her arms right by her body the majority of the time and emplyoing both of her arms and hands in those outwards oriented motions. Varney gesticulates a lot more than The Alchemist, however, he usually does so with one hand, the other tends to be by the body. Death (true form) nearly always holds both of his arms/hands in an outwards oriented gesture. The forms with eyes also appear not to have their eyes fully open, though I admit it is hard to tell in the case of The Alchemist if her eyes are just like that or if they are half closed.

Next, the emotional expressions. Death doesn’t really laugh/chuckle/etc whenever he is amused, instead, he seemingly does it when he is satisfied with himself, when he is nervous, or when someone does something he himself considers to be a fail of sorts. His amusement is more general: He seems amused whenever anyone says something seemingly stupid or nonsensical, when someone fails at something,… In general, he’s amused whenever your idea of a typical malicious person would be. He gets frustrated when he is challenged or questioned in any way, often appealing to his authority as a retort. However, when the person questioning him backs their words up with facts, he gets nervous instead.

I will leave the traits in the “Hard” data as I have no sauce to say about them. No, I will not elaborate on bulletpoint #2.

“Hard” Data

This is basically just a transcription of everything on the physical papers used for our notes, minus all the character lines transcriptions, which greatly reduces the numbers because most of those pages are just line transcriptions. I originally wanted to just scan the notes but I don’t think anyone could read my writing. Some of it is incomprehensible, especially because at the start we couldn’t really agree on what exactly certain things meant, as we just noted them down as they were to remember.

Small note: The notes make a distinction between a fight, conquest, war, and slaughter. This is further elaborated upon in „My personal shitty little observations"

My personal shitty little observations

1. Observation: There is a substantial difference between several types of „combat.“ There is war, then there is conquest, then there is battle/fight and then there is slaughter. To define what I mean, war is, ideally, a fair battle on a battlefield conducted under a moral code. Conquest is sometimes a consequence of war or planned when a war starts. It should also be conducted under a moral code. Both are mass battles. A fight is a, usually, one on one hands throwing. Or knife throwing. Or anything. A fight does not need to be fair but for it to be a fight, either party needs to have a chance at winning. Otherwise it’s just slaughter. Slaughter is a farmer culls a goat. Slaughter is when one party has practically no chance of winning, so much so that it cannot be called a fight anymore.

Death, for one reason or another, does not participate in a fight, any kind of fight, even when he has a high chance of winning. Death participates only when it’s slaughter, or at least when it appears to be a slaughter to him. Him and Ratko set a trap for Zamfir, when they could have likely demolished her and that one guard themselves. In the argument with Ratko, he mentions that he could easily obliterate him where he stands, yet he avoids any kind of confrontation even when it looks like Ratko might just resort to a good old hand-throwing (he says that he tolerates him because he’s good at death, which is understandable, but it’s odd that he doesn’t reiterate even when it comes close to blows.) When in the underground, Varney uses stealth to avoid a human guard, even though it would probably take the exact same amount of effort to one-show him in a way. He only murders an unarmed civilian and fights Trevor in his true form. That leads me to believe he only „fights“ when he considers the other party absolutely incapable of winning. I am not drawing any conclusion from this, I’m just saying. Draw whatever you want from that.

(nearly unreadable diagram to give you a break from the walls of text)

2. Observation: I find it absolutely hilarious that a character who is an inhuman being technically totally removed from humanity since its inception, probably closer to something like a rusalka or hejkal than a man, is ironically incredibly human in its traits and motivations.I mean, what are some traits beings like hejkal, rusalka or anything like that usually have? They tend to be more or less emotionless, soulless, cold but not in a mean way, they’re cold the way a stone is cold, impersonally, indifferently. They toy with humans but not to achieve anything, but the way a cat toys with a mouse, the way a kid toys with ants. These beings just…exist with nearly no emotions whatsoever, on a higher level, no anger or hatred or disgust. Would you be disgusted by an ant? In most depictions, they don’t even have the capacity. That makes them inhuman.

But he does behave in a typically human way., and is clearly not aware of this as he does attempt to separate concepts like need or greed from his existence by labeling them as “human.” He doesn’t label greed as just that, simply greed, a general concept anyone can experience, he labels greed as human. True, inhuman creatures in folklore and mythos usually do not experience greed, the exception to this rule being creatures like the gods of polytheistic cultures. Greek, Egyptian and Norse gods are, however, generally agreed to be pretty human. Ancient gods squabbled like humans, loved like humans, fought wars like humans. Which is where it comes back to showing very human behaviour. We have labeled greed as a human trait and we have established that ancient gods were, in a way, very human despite their higher standing (Most of them owned it though). Death does, in fact, experience this “human” greed and to a fairly big extent. Depending on the definition of experiencing need, one might also conclude that the character does experience need. Constructs do not experience need as is currently defined (the awareness of a lack/deficiency with the intention of changing that), I mean, fairies, rusalky, they just wait, they do their “job” and nothing more, nothing less, they don’t actively try to do anything about it.

It can also be safely said that Death does experience anger, frustration, disgust, amusement (possibly an inhuman emotion if treated as malice considering most inhuman creatures do in fact experience malice, although not personal malice, again, it’s the malice a child feels when emotionally torturing ants. Whether this character experiences personal or impersonal malice is unclear to me personally and I would have to consult this with my co-insane person and adopt their opinion as my own, for I have none on this matter), shock (do fairies feel shock? Do they give a shit if something unexpected happens? Is shock a human emotion?), nervousness, conceit (is that an emotion? I don’t know how to say that specific emotion when someone’s arrogance gets hurt, I know it IS a specific emotional state, I just don’t know what it’s called. Like when someone tells your grandpa that he’s wrong about something and he’s just super miffed about it the whole day and keeps trying to argue about it. I’m sure that’s a very specific emotion.), etc. Those are human emotions. Death, who should, in theory, be above the needless human squabbles and things, is very VERY human in behaviour, much like the gods of Ancient Greece. Which isn’t really odd or anything, I just think it’s interesting because the character himself separates himself from humanity and should be separate from it in theory. But he very much…isn’t. He thinks he’s on a high horse but he’s actually bonking people with a stick in the middle of a mud puddle like the rest of the polite society.

#castlevania #netflix castlevania #castlevania netflix #castlevania death #castlevania varney #varney castlevania #varney #i love when a tag is just me and me. funny every time and it just keeps happening. end my suffering.#anyway listen to me. i am older and wiser now and for one i need to rewrite this but mainly i want to say that i have since acquired like #3 more guys with the 'haha inhuman creature is more human than many humans' thing going on and i gotta say it slays every time #easily a great theme

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