#and animation too okay okay it's just the rendering itself i am not sure of | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ladyyatexel · 3 years

Text

I Went On A Manga Binge

So you don't have to

For those of you who have wisely avoided the shreds of it I've left around the blog thus-far, I had some weird notion to go re-experience Yu-Gi-Oh uuuuuh a week ago? We'll go with that. Time is meaningless.

I'd been able to read a good portion of the early manga at the end of highschool, and somewhere in my stacks and stacks of paper is fanart from this dark time, so you know I cared. I also still own a Dark Magician action figure somehow, so. I'd also watched a large portion of the anime with my brother because it had been laced with some kind of crack and we couldn't look away? I remember when we both were just like shit, wait, don't change the channel, I can't stop looking at it. And the next thing we knew we were waiting for new episodes and I was doing research on the Japanese original because I was that kid.

Anyway, unnecessary backstory out of the way, here are some... let's call them Observations and Consequences of having read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 chapters (and growing) of a manga primarily hinged on card games from a spectrum of sources ranging from boringly lawful to sketchy as fuck.

Surprise actual character that develops in typical shounen fashion being Jounouchi. My limited experiences with the 4Kids dub and only early manga had not painted him in a particularly good light. I don't know if episodes were being aired out of order or if I had just missed the ones that established that he was making shit up as he was going along, but Wow I liked him a lot more going through the manga than I ever did watching the (dubbed, heavily edited and censored and thrown into a slurry machine) anime. I'd managed to come out with the impression that he was just as reasonably experienced with the game as Yugi back in the day. Wild.

I'm now reading every single comic-style post on Tumblr backwards.

Striking inverse to first point, wow, I don't like Seto Kaiba. Though he gets points for his general philosophy of the future, and the line I read in my sketchy online combo of scans and scanlations in which he said, "If God is in your way, you run him down," was Metal As Fuck. I somewhat shame-facedly admit to enjoying him a lot more as an Abridged Series character. (I watched Abridged as it came out back in the day! The experience of watching the anime with my brother had been so fresh that I got all the in jokes about the way things were edited and dubbed, it was great. Series remains influential part of my life to this day, which is hella weird.)

I almost understand how Duel Monsters works now. I don't want this.

That said, wow a lot of the decisions made in the anime made everything a lot more ridiculous than the admittedly already ridiculous original. I got the distinct feeling in the manga that the Duelist Kingdom stuff we were seeing was designed to be used and exploited in ways that don't make sense in an actual cardgame just played on a table like a normal person and this was part of testing everyone to think higher, differently. Maybe this is obvious to everyone already, I don't know. I had always liked that it was very, 'Not so fast, I'm going to blow up the moon to change the tides,' but I'm not really sure the anime gave enough explanation that this was an extra layer added to things for that event? You can see people actively getting used to it in the books, and people who aren't considering the real or 3D nature of it getting owned, but my memory of anime version is everyone just like, 'oh, shucks, fuck me, I forgot to consider the phase of the moon before i played this card, can't believe I forgot.' No one calls Yugi on any of this stuff because it's valid play in that situation. Plus Yami Yugi had mad trickster energy in the beginning and it suited him to think of ways to do things inside these little simulation boxes the way it suited him to set perverts on fire. I imagine the real card game trying to emulate this element as something that would be to its detriment, but I neither know nor particular care haha

Ryou Bakura.

Really, though. I think he became kind of casualty of 'wow, we have a lot of characters who really aren't able to do anything in this story anymore,' despite the fact that his whole inner life could have been as interesting as Yugi's. I always like thinking about the possibilities of stories in which main character falls into magical world and is given magical item and told they're the hero and then they find out they've been the bad guy the whole time. The first several volumes of manga were about the quiet weirdo kid that no one talked to who was always blacking out and turning into a fucked up version of himsef because he was so attached to his ancient Egyptian jewelry, so like, Bakura could have much the same shit going on. I want to know what's happening with him so much. He clearly doesn't love being possessed, but he's also so drawn to the ring. Despite it having stabbed him at least twice and him knowing it's a danger to him and his friends, he keeps being pulled back into it. You see so much more of him being like, 'Oooh, a creepy thing, I love that! :D' in the manga than ever in the anime, which I'm all about. Also more blood. I'm very about that as well. Though my memory of the anime also made it look very much like normal regular daily Bakura was just a weird facade in places before he ever would have been. I think that was it trying to compensate for what people didn't see from the Toei anime, but okay whatever, that I love everything about this guy is not news, I don't need to talk about Bakura excessively here, I'm pretty sure that's gonna show up on my blog by itself

On a related note though, damn, more of these people need to talk to each other. Can we have some existential crisis support clubs or something. Can we get like some apologies or something? "I respect you as a duelist." "Cool, but you literally built a tower designed to specifically assassinate me and my friends? You were supposed to get Better after I retaliated by putting you in a coma, but you kinda didn't." "Why would the coma have made it better" "I just told you it didn't" ---- "Sorry I went along with the plan of your evil parasite stabbing you, misled you, and then also jumped in and took up some real estate in your head too." "I understand, I also have an evil thing inside me that does things while I'm blacked out." "...no, I was conscious for all of that." "Oh." "..." "..." "..." "Do you like Ouija Boards?" "sure okay" ETC. Like damn we are reading shounen manga because no one is talking extensively about their feelings here and I'm tapping my foot angrily.

Holy shit there are so many mythologies happening at once. The ancient family guarding the Egyptian Pharaoh has a surname that's a Mesopotamian goddess. None of the god cards make any Egyptian sense except Ra, and just like. Baaarrrrely. Somewhere either Evil Ring Bakura or Mar/lik makes a reference to cremation and spirits being taken to heaven with smoke which several things, but definitely not Ancient Egyptian. Marik/Malik meanwhile is clearly trying to head Arabic, along with Rishid, but then, hey, our sister is just Isis. Goddess McGoddess. Sometimes they're the same goddess! Her name could be Isis Isis or Ishtar Ishtar. Meanwhile, all the obviously 'occult because Christians think it is freaky' stuff. ~ancient egyptian pentagrams~~~This isn't a complaint, I guess so much as a 'Wow, I can kind of see the cultural spot the author was coming from and where he was aiming' kind of thing.

Wonder where things would have gone if the card games had not been latched onto the way they were.

Managed to forget how gross the pre-cardgames stuff was on the sexual harassment front. I'm glad there was a sort of explanation of everyone drifting away from being dick heads and that that decision was made. It got way more comfortable to read after no one was bringing Yugi p*rn on VHS.

Yugi looks better with a nose, glad we got that upgrade.

Interesting to watch the series style shift as it goes away from being horror to being over the top cardgames and friendship (with blood!). The first picture of Mokuba is fucking Jarring. Also noticed that the nicer a character is, the less their teeth are defined.

Glad manga did not go as completely off the fucking the rails about Marik's face. I never got as far as seeing him back in the day because college occurred, but I remember seeing pictures and stuff and being like, "what in the Fuck happened to that dude, I think the house style has collapsed in on itself"

Things the author Really Likes: motorcycles, belts, SHOES, holy shit the shoes. These are some of the most lovingly rendered sneakers I've ever seen. All the detail on his characters goes straight to their feet and then it's stretched upward until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in 3000 years of trauma and bake face down in a crumb coat of scattered mythology. Remove when you roll two zeros.

Where the fuck am I going to put the extremely large omnibus volumes of this comic I purchased in order to balance out how much I would be reading for free on the internet. I should have grasped that a three in one edition would be Thick and yet somehow I was still :O when it arrived. Have I strategically purchased volumes that contain my favorite parts, maybe, what's it to you will i eventually get the whole thing because incomplete book series gnaw on my soul? yes

Wish the transition from "I've murdered several people in delightfully karmic ways" to "all you need is friendship in your heart and cards in your hand" Yami Yugi/Pharaoh had been discussed more/transitioned better. Buddy, where did you get this approved for television high horse? Please go back to strangling people with yo-yos or at least tell me why you stopped.

I still can't tell anything that looks like a big robotic monster apart from any other big robotic monster. My dude, I can't tell cars apart, all these monsters look the same.

Yami Yugi fascinated me way more in highschool? Maybe because it was still super early and the anime was like 'we need to torture you about his origins WeEkLy. Now I'm just like 'wait hold on, can we go back to Bakura and Marik for a minute, there's some extreme unpacking to do here?' Those two are paying so much more in baggage fees here my guy wow

Violently uninterested in any of the spinoff media

#yugioh #yu gi oh #ygo #there you go i can't imagine any other way you would decide was necessary to tag this #perhaps now that i have thrown this up i can #something #i don't know how i was going to finish that sentence #shut up lady

35 notes · View notes

itstheendofthegoddamnworld · 4 years

Text

Lamia Boyfriend: Xanthorus

Anon Ask: Hi There! I have a small request too, if I may! Maybe a story about a jungle researcher and a Naga/Lamia. Maybe the researcher stumbled into the den.

Male monster x human reader [Gender Neutral] - Modern Au

Death-or-Glory

"Are you sure?" Your closest worker and friend, Sebastian had placed his concern, "We don't even know where it will take us."

The caves acted like crypts within a cavernous descent, the rocks had been slicked in a substance that didn't even seem from a bacteria from this world, the descent meant to be hidden from all from the outside world.

"Which is why I think discovering for ourselves will be a revolutionary discovery." You had smiled, the hard helmet you were strapping over your short locks, the drops of water fell and trickled down like teardrops from your eyes.

Your decision to down was meant for research: as light decreases the further you go down, the size and complexity of plant life also reduces. The research into finding in three regions of the caves where plants have developed and adapted to allow them to live in low-light conditions were remarkable, and that was where you found yourself most often.

Your small team usually came down with you, but for the first time, you had decided that for the best, it would be easier to descent with rope and climbing equipment first.

You had given the man reassurance with a smile, "If I get scared, you know the drill."

"Pull you up before you chicken out? That isn't like you, chère." He had grinned, gathering the rope as you attached yourself to it, hauling yourself to hover just over the ledge.

When you looked down, the drop below seemed maybe 40ft, the walls had stretched and opened in the shape of a twisted mouth, filled with jagged teeth that littered around the bottom and around the edges.

You gave Sebastian the thumbs up as he and the others of your travels kept an eye on the rope in the pulley system as you slowly made your way over the ledge until your legs were below and couldn't reach for the end.

The rush of cold air hit you square in the face, your dangling body swayed as you recoiled to a harsh halt, a shuffle of feet above you raced closer to you when you looked up.

"You good?" Your voice bounced over the high mighty walls with its many teeth, your fear bubbling slowly like you were being hovered a boiling pot.

"The line got stuck, hang tight." Seb's head popped over the edge as he disappeared quickly over. "Cool, I'll just... you know, stay here." You joked sourly, your eyes roaming as your beacon gave little to no light in helping you see.

The cave to the bottom narrowed into a hole, but what that lied below was concealed with darkness. Another jolt came as the ring of the pulley lunged you to drop a few inches, your voice coming out in a yelp, your grip on the rope shaking. "Seb!"

"Merde—shit, are you okay? You're not hurt?" Sebastian rambled instantly in distress.

"No, apart from giving me a heart attack, I’m fine." You muttered, trying to calm your nerves as you calmed your breathing as best as you could. I'm not dying here today, no, I will not.

The cold rush of air that came out through the jagged opening brought you to swing over the opening, your nerves seeming to never simmer down. "Anything?"

"The line may get stuck again, but it's been free so you can go down further- just, be careful."

"Of course, thanks for letting me know." You replied, and bit by bit, you inched yourself further down, the bottom seemed to never want to reach you. The cold was harsh and your skin prickled up with your hairs, the realisation of knowing that if you were to get stuck again, you wouldn't be any closer to them but closer to the bottom, making it harder to get back up.

"Stop." Your fear bubbled over when you shouted out, the rope had halted a second later but quivered as you dropped further down compared to the first time. "What's wrong?" Seb questioned concerned.

"I... I'm sorry, it's-- I can't do this. Pull me up, I'm getting bad vibes from this."

"But you're almost halfway." Sebastian called back through the abyss, "Are you sure?"

"Please, I-- for crying out loud, please Seb!"

He didn't have to reply further from that, the screeching of the metal was deafening as you were pulled just an inch higher until there was a brash outcry of the pulley that made you realise something was wrong. Your body fell as you screamed out in a shriek, your body jolted to a harsh stop as your body was still swinging, your body - like a ragdoll - hit the side of the wall, your helmet almost fell out you as you could hear the cries of panic at your name being shouted out along the rock walls.

Your head was stinging as if your mind had been a bell and was being rung, the mild reaction to adrenaline-pumping too late as you braced yourself as you swung into the other wall, your limp body spinning.

"The rope!-- the fucking rope!" Your name was called over and over as you registered something was off, the terror in Sebastian's voice could be heard as he kept trying to get you to answer with the call of your name.

I don't want to die, please, no, not like this, oh, God. You shook yourself with some and sense as you looked up just in time, the dwindling amount of time to react brought you to come to a grim realisation as you found yourself not being able to save yourself or be saved. The rope you had been held up from snapped when the pulley couldn't rewind it back up, taking it down with you.

The last thing you remembered was how the void engulfed you and all left was endless darkness.

You could only imagine how you landed wouldn’t be safe for you when you came around, the startling lack of light made you panic in believing you had been taken to a completely different place. I am not dead, and I do not know how I am still breathing. Your head pounded but your body was in overdrive to keep you alive and conscious, where you stabilised yourself as best as you could.

The four corners of the walls were oily and sodden in a substance, you couldn’t imagine what it was, and when you rummaged through your bag to find a torch, something was dripping heavily down your helmet that wasn’t water.

The flashlight fluttered to life and in front of you, you lurched back with a startled yelp, looking into the sunken sockets of a long-dead skeleton. It wasn’t anything you could recognise that could’ve been an animal from the surface - with its long body and head as big as a coach - you questioned what could’ve killed something so big.

You touched at its large skull, looking over the spiked and blackened teeth were what you imagined a dragon would look if they had existed. Whatever killed this thing could still be around, lurking.

Your flashlight picked up something along the back of the large ribs of the skeleton, the flash of merlot that slunk heavily in the shadows, where you caught the back of its body; slicked and deeply scaled.

��Oh shit.” You braced yourself against the wall behind you, or what you had believed had been the wall, your back coming into contact with something smooth and oddly cold. You jumped back in your spot, twisting to come face to face with a tall towering silhouette standing so close behind you; its eyes the only thing you could see through the shadows.

You dared not shine your torch of the creature as you were stiff with fear as to what it could’ve been. What had rendered you speechless was the disembodied voice that had suddenly declared out to you. “Leave this place. Now.”

“Fucking— holy shit… how’d—oh, God, no, please! I’m not a threat, don’t hurt me!” You panicked, spinning around to try and hide behind the skeleton’s ribs, thinking that whatever and wherever they were, they couldn’t see you. “Please, I beg you.”

“You’re one of them, how do I know you won’t hurt me?” Their voice was laced heavily in an accentuated drawl that you could just about understand, shuddering at how their voice travelled through and everyone around you at once.

You squinted in the darkness, rubbing your eyes in disbelief. “What?”

Whatever was standing in front of you, leant backwards away from you, it’s height still unsure to you. “You’re not the first human to travel down here and you won’t be the last. Leave, I warn you.”

You tried to look up, but even when you tried to find the cavern you fell through was a nightmare- it seemingly disappeared out of your sight when you shone your torch upwards.

The creature let out a low growl, pushing itself off on the rock, scratching it hauntingly. “What is that thing? It’s too bright. Turn it off.”

You looked back down to your torch, pointing to the base of their figure, unexpectantly taken back when you saw the thick deep red coiled scales appear once more when they hit your light. “What are you?”

The voice didn’t respond to you, and you took the initiative and bravery to lift the torch upwards, where you had nearly dropped it. The coils of a red-burnt copper came into your view, and in the light, they shone like hundreds of lit candles, the summerish hue that burnt so bright. The scales continued to travel up and were connected drastically with a human torso, blended from hard smooth scales to rough skin, the head of a man with a large triangular head in view.

His face and features resembled more of a snake than man, the forked tongue that flickered and tasted the air was long and sharp so were his eyes, the embers of bright emeralds.

He was hairless on top of his head and on the rest of his body: the sleek physique of him was everything and nothing you had ever seen in your life, the cogs in your head spinning at the possibilities of research and questions that were spurting through your mind at a 100mph.

“Woah—I,” you stuttered over your words, careful yet excited like a wide-eyed child to not know when to shut up, “you’re… you’re-“

He hissed at you lowly, slinking back as he tried to hide as much of him from your flashlight, his cat-like eyes dilating with growing frustration. ”This place does not belong to you and I will not tell you again. Leave at once.”

“I would, but I can’t. My line was caught and I fell down here.” You took a sudden step back when he looked to lunge at you, your fears of him sticking his fangs into you and feasting on you were not as bad when a long claw came to touch at the top of your helmet, mesmerised by how it clanked with his long nail. You flinched when you saw his nails, trying to keep your eyes off of them. “What are you then?”

“You humans like to call us Lamias, but it has been a long while since I saw one of my kind.” He shrugged indifferently as if not fazed by it, but you couldn’t help but see the grim smile that enhanced his curved face. “Xanthorus is my name. You may as well know it as you’ll be here for a while.”

You told you his, with the Lamia seemingly not showing any attention in acknowledging it.

His long nimble fingers came to touch at the top of your head once more, gazing at it with some curiosity. “That fall, if it didn’t knock any sense out of you, may have hurt you, I will have a look at you to make sure you’re not injured.”

You nodded, slowly trailing behind the slinking Lamia as he took the course through the narrow and darkened cave passages with ease, you were having more trouble trying to keep up with him. When you finally got to a clearing that seemed to be the area he slept in, he was shifting through things that he kept, his attention narrowly concentrated with the serious look on his face.

You thought it was rather cute with how he stuck his tongue out when he concentrated, but that was all gone when he finally pulled out some gauzes and unnecessary salves. He signalled you to remove your helmet, your protests soon bubbling over. “I’m not that injured.”

“Maybe that fall did knock some sense out of you,” Xanthorus rolled his eyes indifferently as if he was dealing with a child than a grown adult, “remove that, so we can be done with this.”

You grumbled your last complaints but complied silently, throwing your helmet to your lap as he inspected any bumps or bruises all over your head, keeping the pressure light and gentle. Although for his serious nature, he was rather tender and delicate when it came to working at you, as if he enjoyed treating people.

“You have a talent for this kind of stuff?” You asked after some time, mainly quietly watching him work as discreetly as possible. You met his prying gaze, his eyes wavering to look off. “I have been rather unlucky to meet some rather grumbly Lamia in my time.”

“I thought you said it had been a while since you last saw one?”

“I did,” he coolly replied, “but for my own siblings? They were all bigger and brutish than me, my brothers mainly, but they were always getting me into fights.”

“Ah, the diplomat rather than brute, I see.” You murmured, earning a low rumble from his chest, a chortle, to say the least. “What about humans? Do they always enjoy seeking misfortune in dark caves?”

“It’s part of my job,” You responded with a playful snort, earning an interesting look from him, absorbed by your career and words. “I check to see how plant life changes the further you go down in caves.”

The Lamia snorted wryly. “You enjoy looking at plants? I thought humans would enjoy more boorish things.”

“Some of us, maybe. But we’re not all alike, I’m afraid.” You smiled to him nervously, the small laugh you let out not helping when you were under his intense stare. “Guess the labels aren’t true.”

“No, I’d assume not, most of you are more intent in having things that aren’t yours.” Xanthorus calmly spoke, and when you looked to the back of his arm, you couldn’t help but gape at the long fading scar that was as long as your leg. Your hand came to impulsively trace at the raised skin, feeling how he practically jumped out of his skin, but he didn’t withdraw from you. “Did a human do that to you?”

He didn’t answer at first, his own hand coming to hover over the skin as he looked at his with a frown from his face, his eyes fixated on it. “Sometimes, people hate something they cannot understand.”

You stared at him as he finally wrapped the gauze around your head, packing and tidying his things away. “I’m sorry that they did that to you, some of us can be real dicks.”

Xanthorus’ body rumbled with the soft unnoticeable snort come from his flat nose, rolling his eyes as he looked away from you momentarily before you had seen. “Not all of them.”

He had gestured to the rest of his cave, the area was tightly packed now with the two of you inside, but the walls seemed cooling and it brought in a decent draft as you settled in the place you would have to get used to for a couple of days. “Pick your side to sleep on, don’t change your mind last second either.”

“What if I get cold?” You pouted.

“Then I pray to whatever Gods are out there that they have blessed you with thick skin.” He retorted: his jape light and not as rude as you thought he would be to you. He seemed sulkier and mildly bothered at some situations, but he was harmless overall.

I would rather be in the arms of a harmless Lamia than one who would want me dead in a flash. You gulped, settling in for the rest of what you could believe was the day, speaking as much as you could to Xanthorus about his life and get as many answers from him before he got too irritated.

By night, he was coiled around himself with his tail wrapped tightly around him, leaving you to tend to yourself as you froze to death, your teeth chattering nonstop.

That might’ve been the beginning of it all, as halfway through the night, the Lamia had unravelled himself and silently wrapped his tail like a high crimson wall around you, keeping his distance whilst his eyes remained close.

You wanted to believe that it had been an accident, but in your mind, you believed he knew he had done it to get you to shut up.

The next few days were gruelling at first, and it left you more frustrated and down at your situation, never believing you would be rescued by your team no matter how much you told Xanthorus they would come and get you. The first week rolled past and you finally accepted that your fate was sealed to remain here with no way in knowing whether you would get out and see the surface ever again.

Your flashlight died after two days, leaving you to fend with natural firelight or flares you had spare in your bag you carried. The water bottle and bars you had would last but thankfully there was natural water lying around where you could refill, and Xanthorus always hunted at night – on creatures you weren’t sure on, but it would suffice you enough.

By the fifth day, you grew bored with doing nothing, finally using your skills in navigating and climbing to use to try and get around the caves, having to keep telling Xanthorus that you wouldn’t injure yourself, even though he was adamant in knowing you would do. It took a few quarrels and japes for him to quieten and after having courage and confidence pumped into you, you used the little equipment you had on you to travel around and climb.

It took that second day of climbing to finally get you seriously hurt.

“Do I seriously need to tell you why I thought this was a stupid idea?” The Lamia was situated in slithering back and forth in what a human would see as pacing, his mouth trained in spitting out the frustrations he had to endure whilst you were sat on the rock opposite him, watching him in silence, collecting at the blood dripping down your arm with a spare t-shirt.

The cut was practically a clean slice though the back of your arm when you had accidentally slipped and got it scraped against a rough part of the rock, getting the Lamia to scurry up it to collect you before you could even call for him, where he carried you in the crook of his arm back to the main part of his cave to patch you up, not before ranting and lecturing you in your recklessness.

“I mean, I knew humans could be reckless, but never before, have I seen a clumsy fall like yours.” His words were mean and honestly cruel, but he was spitting up facts to you. You had dealt with falls before, all because in the past you hadn’t been paying attention and pushed your body into overdoing something and thus, hurting yourself, but not as bad as this. You were lucky you hadn’t taken your arm clean off, or worse, struck a nerve.

That nerve mixed in with having to practically babysit you must’ve been frustrating Xanthorus more and more until finally, he had to snap at your lack of responsibility and irresponsibility. You had to deal with the ramblings of Sebastian before, and it was suddenly dwelling on you that it was making you look incompetent to even know how to survive without being a complete idiot.

He was mid-rant as your recklessness when a wrack of a warbled sob cut him off, his large head twisting to see you with your head in your hands, guarding your eyes as you soaked your palms with your bloody fingers and tears, your sobs seemingly getting louder the more you let out a choked snivel.

You were expecting to hear a scoff and ramble for your tears, instead, being surprised by the feel of two hands coming to wrap at your wrists and pulling your hands away for you to open your eyes.

When you did, Xanthorus was stooped before you but still at a high enough height to only come up to his shoulders, his face in a constant look of guilt. When he said your name, it was softly spoken, delicate like he was dealing with fragile glass.

He didn’t say much else as he collected the dampened t-shirt stained with your blood and dabbed at your wound, holding it there to stem the flow, silently working as you continued to cry softly to yourself before it was only small sniffles.

When you looked up when he had done his best in stitching you up and bandaging everything, his green eyes were trained on you, the guilt still present. “I’m sorry, ‘Thorus.” You mumbled pitifully, wiping at your eyes. “I am useless.”

“No, you’re not. You’re far from it, just… please, watch out for things before you do anything? You’re capable, but I don’t want things like this happening again.” He slowly replied, stroking his fingers up and down over your bandages, drawling, “I’m sorry I made you cry, I just want you to not harm yourself again. You’re so small, delicate, and I want to make sure you don’t do anything rash.”

You silently listened to his words in marvel, watching how his composure seemingly crumpled before you. “I’m sorry--- you’re smart enough to not need to listen to a stupid old thing like me, you should be up there.” He chuckled musical, the curves of his mouth lifting upwards, and it was truly beautiful to see.

“I’ll try,” you promised sheepishly, twiddling your thumbs timidly, your cheeks darkening. “I’ll try not going into places like a boorish man.”

“No, you’re far too comely than boorish.” He smiled softly, coughing awkwardly to collect himself. “Just promise me you’ll be a bit more careful?”

You nodded, leaning up to kiss the smooth curve of his cheek, watching how his face lit up and his face insincerely tried to lean forward closer to you before he had the chance when you leant back. “Just for you, Xanthorus.”

Support me on Ko-fi!~

175 notes · View notes

fanfalc-616 · 3 years

Text

The Rights Of A Nindroid

This is chapter Two

(Chapter one can be found here.)

Enjoy! (:<

Kai paces around the kitchen, checking the clock again. “Zane said shortly after our normal breakfast time, which is at eight. It’s ten! Why is he not here yet?!”

He knows it’s unlikely that something is wrong, but he can’t help but worry. This isn’t something that normally happens with Zane…

“I’m sure he’s fine.” Nya assures, confirming his logical side. “Something probably came up. He’ll be back soon.”

“He’s never late!” Jay argues from his spot on the table, sitting on the ledge rather than in a chair- and action that Zane would scold him for, if he was home.

“If something came up, he would’ve told us.” Cole agrees as he sits down, staring at his watch. “We haven’t heard a thing.”

Lloyd chews on his lip, kicking out his legs from where he sits on the counter to occasionally mess with Kai’s pacing- something that he would normally be annoyed with, but is too concerned at the moment to actually complain. “Can we track him?”

Jay blinks a few times. “That’s… actually a good idea.” He admits, tapping at his BorgWatch. Then his eyes widen. “His signature’s gone.” He breathes out. “Why is his signature gone?!”

Kai feels himself snap to attention. “It’s gone? What could do that?” He demands, rushing over to his ginger boyfriend.

Nya taps at her own watch. “A lot of things- and none of them good.” She admits, glancing over at Lloyd.

Cole stands up from his seat. “Okay, so we know that something is wrong. We need to find Zane. How can we do that?”

Lloyd also gets up. “Jay, Nya- see if you can find any cameras that show what happened to him.” He instructs, then turns to Kai and Cole. “The three of us will go out and see if we can find any clues.” He decides.

Kai nods, practically vibrating with his worry. They need to find Zane, and they need to find him now.

With his signature missing, who knows where he is…

{ { { { { { { { { { ~ } } } } } } } } } }

Zane is instantly alert as footsteps come closer, and he tenses, preparing to make an escape. He may only get one chance, so he must use it wisely.

When the door opens, he surges forward, using his cuffed hands as a form of bludgeoning weapon.

Much to his dismay, the guards seem to have been expecting that, and no one is there- they had opened the door while standing to the side, leaving the direct forward empty. This results in him stumbling, as there is no force opposing his attack.

This stumble allows the guards to catch him once again, rendering him once again helpless to the whims of his captors.

Despite the way he struggles, they still manage to bring him into a new section of the facility, and-

Zane feels his eyes widen as he comes to a realization of what this room is likely meant for, given the things inside.

A workshop. This in itself would not normally be a cause for alarm, but given the specific tools and the way the work table has restraints…

He picks up his struggling once again, this time finding it within himself to speak.

“Stop! Let- let go of me!” He demands, unable to hide the quiver in his voice. The tools themselves are not inherently threatening; Jay has used many of them in his repairs. However, these circumstances are vastly different from the way his boyfriend would fix him after a mission.

“Stop, I said! Release me!” His pleas fall on deaf ears, it seems, because he is still taken to the table, his handcuffs hooked on a piece of metal and clamped in place, forcing his arms above his head. He attempts to kick the guards, but his legs are restrained just as quickly, leaving him helpless to whatever fate awaits him.

Without any words, the guards leave the room, save for two, one at each of the doorways that could have served as escapes if not for the way he had been bound to the table.

A new man comes up to him, dressed differently from the officials or guards, instead wearing an outfit more suited to a mechanic.

The man comes up to Zane, pulling apart the top of his gi to get to his chest plate.

“Wait!” Zane shouts, struggling in his bonds. “You can’t-“ He fumbles for words, too panicked to figure them out. “Please, stop!”

The man doesn’t listen, instead choosing to open up Zane’s chest plate the rest of the way. Unfortunately, it seems that they had thought this through- he’s almost completely immobilized.

“This isn’t- stop it! Let go of me!” Zane demands, despite knowing that if they’ve come this far, there is only an infinitesimally small chance that they would genuinely listen.

“Please!”

In a surprising but very relieving turn of events, the man does pause in his work, turning and calling out to one of the nearby guards.

“Should I mute its vocals?” He asks.

Zane closes his mouth fast enough that there’s an audible click. Mute him? They- no, they couldn’t do that! He- no, they… they can’t…

He’s not an it, either. He is capable of conscious thought, the same way a human would be. Where did they get the idea that he’s lesser? Despite being mechanical, he’s always been on par with the intelligence of humankind. Why would they think otherwise? There isn’t any evidence to support the idea that-

A wire being tugged on draws him from his thoughts, warnings popping up in his vision to emphasize the issue- though it’s not as though he didn’t notice himself.

“Stop it!” Zane snaps, straining against the bonds that hold him once again. They may attempt to harm him all they wish, but he will not allow this to happen so easily.

His words are ignored. “Give me that scanner, yeah?” The man calls towards the other doorway; the one that Zane had not entered through. “I’m gonna need it; its system’s more complex than we thought.”

A loud sigh comes from a young woman as she steps into the workshop. “I’m going to need it back.” She warns, handing the brunet the device.

The man turns back to Zane. “Yeah, I’ll give it back after this shift.” He confirms.

With a nod, the woman heads back into the side room.

The man returns to examining his wiring in such a way that makes Zane feel almost as though he’s some form of lab rat; a lesser being used for experimenting on.

It is not a pleasant feeling.

No matter how he strains and attempts to resist, no progress is gained, and he remains quite firmly trapped.

Eventually the man seems to grow tired of him, and roughly clangs a tool against one of his sensors, tearing a cry from him.

“Behave, nindroid.” He snarls. “I don’t have time for your delusions.”

“I am beginning to grow tired of this assumption that I am lesser.” Zane snaps. “I am just as sentient as any human, and I expect to be treated as such!”

A wrench is used to hit him across the face, hard enough that his head is roughly forced to the side, slamming into the side of the table.

Zane clenches his teeth and turns back to the man, preparing to unleash a rant- but something peculiar happens.

The man turns to a guard. “Yeah, this one will need training too.” He sighs. “Was kinda hoping it’d behave.”

“Training?” Zane questions. “What is that supposed to mean?” An edge of unease has crept into him. Something is telling him that the ‘training’ he’s referring to will not be pleasant.

No matter what he does, he’s ignored for the rest of the time- his words and attempts at resisting aren’t even acknowledged.

That is quite odd, but Zane would not put it past them to be finding enjoyment in his suffering- he’s found that some humans have the disturbing habits of putting salt on snails and squashing bugs solely because they have power over what is considered a lesser being.

They have blatantly stated that they view him as worth less than humankind- that point was quite firmly driven home by the use of the pronoun ‘it’ to refer to him. Due to the circumstances, it seems that all he can do is hope that they treat him with at least the dignity given to most kinds of laboratory animals- there are laws in place that allow the majority of non-human living beings that are tested to be treated humanely.

Yet even that seems unlikely. Such laws only apply to vertebrate animals, and while not explicitly stated in the legal documents, it is quite heavily implied that this only applies to organic life forms.

This is… less than ideal. Even so, he will do his best to power through until the others come for him- he had informed them that he would only be slightly late. It will not take long for them to realize that something is wrong.

They will come for him. He will just have to be patient… and pray that his captors do not plan to disassemble him fully in the meantime.

#zane julien #zangst #ninjago zangst #fanfiction #ninjago fanfiction #the rights of a nindroid #psychological torture #torture #trauma

38 notes · View notes

blankdblank · 3 years

Text

Ash Pt 10

Barks in the middle of a deep dream stirred you to another guest inside your bedroom. One peek however brought the small burrowing Prince to your focus who curled up with hold of one of your dog dolls then was burrowing more in his nest of a hiding spot to the roll of thunder that had you close your eyes and settle back into sleep again. The pair of guards however from the nursery now outside your apartment doors were the only sign for any who would come looking as to where the Prince was now hidden. By the time your breakfast wake up call came the boy was gone with just a folded paper crown that was left on the head of the dog doll he wasn’t clutching the night before.

Softly to yourself you chuckled and imagined next you’d be finding the boy trying to sneak into your library in a means to help himself to some new fairy tales as he had taken a fondness to your stuffed animals. Perhaps you might ask when his birthday was then try to find a pattern to stitch him up a set of his own stuffed animals to keep him safe at night since through the days he seemed to render so many of the Elf Lords helpless when he would go missing. Forest green pants were tucked inside your tall grey boots and socks to prep for anything possible, a grey sweater that hung past your hips with ties in cinched sections to separate the front and back longer sections to help digs into pockets when necessary. Loose down your back your freshly combed curls that held the freshly re-snapped gem beads were returned to their former locations.

“Today Ada?” Thranduil turned to find his son in his closet doorway with two robes in hand locked in choosing between them at the replay of the goodnight you had shared. “Left one, wear the mint for your offer intent of courtship.” Thranduil sighed and Legolas said, “Twice, I saw, twice the both of you kissed again.”

“Little Leaf,” he tried to plea in a shrug into the mint robe over his white tunic and crème pants and boots.

“No other reason for your head to bend that low otherwise.”

“I will offer.”

That had Legolas smile and extend his list, “Now, our ideas for a surprise courtship presentation. I will start with my favorites and one from Glorfindel then name the rest.”

Thranduil sighed feeling a tad bit lost as for how to impress you with this offer, or at least convey that this is a necessary step between the actual start of the public courtship in a system he was more than certain was vastly different to the one you had grown up with. He wanted to be your choice, not to be another obligation by means of wine laced intimacies, of which clearly he now had little control of displaying publicly. And now he merely had to convince you to let him clip in the feather accented chain decorations adorned with traditional small round bells and pendants of protection that also bore your sigils upon them. White, orange and dark grey were the colors chosen for his feathers, each significant and to mark his intentions for a future union paired with polka dotted grey feathers to pay homage in a playful way to your statement of weakness for freckled creatures.

So very badly he wanted this to work. He merely had to ask. Eat, rather, then wait and ask when you would arrive. For now he listened to the jumble of ideas on how to make the begin stage of a courtship with you a memorable one that you might be appreciative and find as memorable for its adoring nature. He just wanted to prove that he would love and cherish you as you ought to be or ought to have been by both family and former spouse. Surely you trusted him, he was your personal secretary and confidant and best friend here. Deeper trust would be gained upon consideration of courtship as far as physical contact would be concerned, but you had to know even in talks of children in the future that would never be rushed, merely near to the end of the courtship steps that followed the marriage ceremony itself. Consummation was never timed out, and the very last thing he would ever consider was to harm you by impatience or enabling a step too far should he imagine you uncertain at all.

He did love you, you are his One yet even before that just brief glimpses of who you truly were had him smitten beyond belief to himself. Intimacies had been made, and now to sustain his honor in your eyes an offer must be made. There would be no time limit, however long you wished to consider him he would proudly wait and then wait some more. He missed you, even just in a break for sleep should you agree to allow him to be yours perhaps at least an agreed upon joint breakfast or daily lunch cold be arranged in alternating schedules surrounding any possible meetings for him or shifts for yourself.

Anxious fidgets to the glasses settled on the table for the clock ended to the sound of the bell above the door that gave a chime to the obvious announcement of the very same woman the Prince had ceased speaking about to say through a wide grin. “I will let our Queen in. Just relax. She will not refuse the offer.”

To the door he went and left his father to listen the greeting at the door which ended to his stating of, “No, I am needed at the archery grounds. Prince Estel requires extra supervision for his lessons.”

“Oh, okay,” was his response and the timid ease of his front door shut left the King in a downward glance mid adoring chuckle to the careful approach of his One. Rather impatiently his feet however carried him from the spot he swore to himself he would wait, “Oh,” you murmured. And against a chance to memorize the adorably wide eyed moment when you saw him in front of you his body drooped to snap right back to how he hoped to say good morning to you.

Promptly to a hand in a short glide along your cheek his lips met yours. No chance to take hold of anything on his chest the brief kiss ended and left you in a silent moment of panic as to how to claim another moment like it. Your fingers however did tangle in his hair and lowly in a chuckle of relief to the tug that halted his retraction again inwards he melted to meet you halfway on a toe top rise and lingered there. And even when your lips did part still blind and tenderly he claimed the chance to hold his forehead to yours for a deliciously close step to the day he could brazenly take you up in his arms without reason of fear or by rules of a dance. He meant to pull back, well his head did and managed enough space to open his eyes with the beginnings of a smirk to the hand from his hair now in a slide up his wrist to melt his hand back to your cheek. What he hoped for as a sign of another plea for a kiss was enough to have him on the cusp of gasping.

To the pool of tears in your eyes and quiver of your lips his eyes took in every inch of the losing battle that just swept on top of you at once, “I like this,” you managed to squeak out in the fall of the first tear. Instantly your eyes clenched and in a momentary lean into his palm and open mouthed it hit him what you must have been repressing all this time. Surely you must have lived amongst creatures like the mortals here who are much more physically expressive of affections and to the sudden drop of three more tears and shake of your head his eyes met yours in their open. Forcefully you breathed out a half hearted chuckle and whispered, “I don’t know why I’m crying…”

One single sniffle broke the dam and from your cheek into your hair his hand moved in his step forward to hold you firmly while the sobs began to flood out. Timid at first in his hold soon enough your arms had laced around his middle and hands fisted in the cloth on his back as if he would dare to let go. He wouldn’t. Not until you had calmed. You didn’t know why you were crying. But in his embrace and the press of his cheek to the top of your head with his eyes clamped shut he felt that same ever present pain, though lessened, still there and breathing gasps that flooded you entirely in its try to overtake you again and spoil your future. The curse was gone but those scars still bled and he knew that battle all too well, the loneliness, the fear, the numbness when the climax of the pain threshold had been topped and doubts. He wouldn’t let go of you, not in this. This was why he wanted to wait, and now this was exactly why he couldn’t for just an offer of intent. For what felt like forever in his arms you wept and wept until the pain subsided and still in tears of embarrassment he held you still cursing each and every person who might have or had harmed you along with each and every year that had been spent inside that prison.

Behind your back your hand moved in his eventual ease back, in full sight of his inquisitive stare that watched a handkerchief be pulled from your back pocket that dabbed across your cheeks. “No apologies,” he said to cut you off. Words that had your eyes on him and he shook his head, “We all have pain. And sudden traps from such. No apologies.”

“I got your shirt wet.” You said and he shook his head. “You can’t say I didn’t. I saw you perfectly dry when I came in.”

“That is a matter of perspective.” Simply to a sniffle you shook your head and folded your handkerchief again in a glance around the hall then up to him again and his offered hand, “I have a question for you, might we sit?”

You nodded in the ease of your hand onto his palm for the stroll into his sitting room, right to your usual chair that he eased out and faced towards his after pocketing the handkerchief again. Curiously you took the seat offered and watched his motion to ease and turn his own chair that he brought in closer to yours to smile and settle into then scoop up your hands off of your lap to cradle and caress to calm his nerves in this. “Our cultures differ, of that we are certain.” You nodded lost for words. “Today however prior to our clock session and the unearthing of the mystery gift from Lord Girion of Dale I wished to express something to you.” You nodded again to the sense he was waiting for a reaction of some sort to keep going in his courage building pause. “I wished to request your consideration to an offer of intent for courtship between yourself and I.”

“So, you, you want to court me?”

“Yes. There are certain steps for our kin, and pray do take to consideration you have all the time in the world to consider my offer. This is how it is done, day to day everything will be to your comfort and upon notice from you of acceptance or refusal matters of custom amongst our courtship can discussed in further detail. Merely,” hastily he wet his lips, “I wish for you to feel safe, and confident in this choice, and this choice is yours. I will always be your One, no matter the choice and I shall always be devoted to your comfort and safety. As long as you need you have it for this weighty period of internal pondering for my placement in your heart and domestic days.” His eyes quickly darted over your face to take in your reaction when your brows scrunched up.

“You think I would turn you down?”

“You have every right to refuse my offer and any other presented to you. All I have is my offer, the power of choice belongs to you and no other. With my offer does come a second request, there is a token of pondering our kin adorn themselves with I might ask if you would accept the chance to display that you are in pondering of an offer of intent?”

“What, sort of token?” you asked and with a grin he brought out a box from beside his drink glass and revealed the feather accented hair decoration. “Oh that’s incredible,”

“Thank you, we craft them ourselves. Normally it is added to the hair. Would you accept it?” You nodded and again he smiled in a lean forward to gently find the right fold of curls to clip and weave the addition into. Eventually on the right side of your head it was secured and to your thanks he said, “No, thank you, I am eternally honored that you would display my token. For now, our clock is waiting.” Again you nodded and he rose to help you turn your chair to face the table then sit in his own rotated chair eager to get back to this test of your pairing that together was being bested and showed to be near completion.

Together all of the loose pieces had worked into small clumps now that at the clear sign from the clock to stop would have to be worked together possibly the following day. “Do you have more meetings?” you asked to break the silence of the topic of what to do next.

“No, oh, your gifts from Dale.” He said in a pop up to his feet for a stroll across the room to a trunk along the wall you didn’t notice earlier. Beside you he settled the trunk and undid the locks to ease the lip open revealing a duo of bound portraits and some more gifts underneath a sealed letter. To your approving nod he broke the seal of the letter and read the eloquent apology dripping with hopes to have a friendship in the future while you choose to humor that forgiveness you rightly had the choice to refuse him.

All the same from the first wrapped portrait your eyes fell on what would be revealed to be the black outline of a tree in the center of a sea of multicolored leaves in hues of red, orange, yellow and few pops of green. “Oh that’s pretty,” you said making the King grin in his own relief that the first of the gifts seemed to please you.

The second portrait of the upper half of an upright bear in a forest with some glowing butterflies, “That’s pretty too.” You said in looking the portrait over he set aside to reach into the trunk and bring out a wrapped bundle that upon unwrapping was a supply of various silks with odd color patterns that had you glance at the King, “Silk?”

“This is Gondorian silk. Quite a gift. Our Seamstresses could layer this for some rather elegant wraps if you wished. Are you pleased with the gifts?”

“They are all rather beautiful. An interesting mix, but I suppose what would you give to a stranger?” Lowly he chuckled and folded the silks back into their wrapping and settled them with the paintings back into the trunk.

“True, I shall gather some parchment and ink to pen your response.” Onto his feet he rose and while he moved you followed for a smirk once he saw that you were at his side upon reach of his desk in his study now stunningly devoid of any papers on the floor. Seated at his desk with quill ready he word for word copied in the bits that you chose and added more to fill in the blanks and fluff up what would be the first draft of the letter.

Amusingly enough for him in this joint venture of aid in a proper answer for such fine gifts on top of the task the simple place you had chosen to sit had him smiling ear to ear. With leg bent on top of the arm of the chair draped against his back to rest with arms settled on his shoulders and one down his chest to point out possible changes then tap anxiously on the pin at his neck. Absently you had found this position and without a word on a request to find this perch he relaxed to the feel of your chin on his shoulder and hair that fell down your side and over the end of his elbow now propped on top of your bent thigh that supported your weight. It wasn’t until the reach for his seal that inside the wooden box that in his lean the position became noticeable when you had to sit up to let his body give the slight lean necessary to reach said wax seal kit. His free hand however halted an entire flight from the spot in its place on your forearm that had slid back to his shoulder and guided in his lean back upright again you back against his back. “Stay comfortable. I shall copy this draft and you may inspect your new seal.”

“I have a seal?” He grinned and from the box removed the silver seal that reminded you in shape of a chess piece for the body that on the bottom you inspected the swan and pear accents tucked into the design. It wasn’t until his fingers had come into your view that you realized he had copied the draft already and required the stamp you brought into their reach. Quite deliberately each fingertip brushed along yours in the trade and once he was certain the ink was dried the presentation of the quill to you had you glance between the letter and his eyes before it clicked and you murmured, “Right, sign.” To himself he smiled and in an easy swivel in his seat the arm that blocked you was now around your hips to help keep you stable in the lean you took forward to sign the bottom of the letter underneath his copy of the runes for your title in their tongue.

Timidly post blow on the signature to dry it back in its stand you left the quill and with ease his hand once you were upright again moved to help its twin fold the letter which using the wax block from the open seal kit was marked from you by the simple press of the seal. Once pulled from the wax however he showed its path back to the box stating, “As your personal secretary for ease I shall keep your seal beside mine in case you might ever have need of it then it shall be found with ease.” You nodded and in the sink of your eyes to the pin on the neck of his robe you had been tapping he asked, “Is something troubling you?”

Promptly you shook your head and said, “That’s quite a, well I don’t know what to call that stone. The pale green one,” you said in a tap of his pin that had his grin ease out again.

“Green quartz, rather rare for this region. A gift from Celebrimbor upon my name day when he first awoke.”

You nodded and asked, “Have you ever seen an opal? Or a pearl? A good bit of my novels mention them, but I’ve never seen one in person.”

“How would you like a trip to our treasury? There we have a full array of gemstones for you to inspect.”

“Well, I can go there? Wouldn’t it be guarded?”

“There is no thievery here. Any gemstones within the treasury are itemized and up for request to any citizen who wishes use of them by inquiry to the Crown Treasurers. The gemstones from your effect on that Dragon however would be requested only to you should any dream to have use of your unique fortune.” You nodded and carefully he rose and helped you up to your feet to join him on the stroll to the distant Treasury in one of the lowest levels of the Palace. Past several respectfully nodding Elves who all once behind you smiled to one another at notice of the accessory in your hair that from a side view had their excited Prince hug Lord Glorfindel tightly to keep him from interfering on whatever activity the King was taking you on.

The shimmer was first what locked you in place and to the feel of fingertips that eased across your back from the torch and crystal lantern lit treasury that could make a dragon weep for joy your eyes flinched to Thranduil who simply gave you a kind grin after himself having come from meager roots to now being the Regal Charge of this vast hoard of all his peoples. “The glimmer free stones are kept closer to the doors, as they are used more commonly in pieces.” From section to section each divided nook of the hoard situated around the supporting pillars and archways gave off a different hue as they housed all of the stones of that kind within the area from which he brought a few choice pieces nearer for your inspection.

Though a section specifically for pearls was divided into the variations of styles and shades they were found in. “Wait,” you said in lifting a silver pearl, “This looks like the beads on my grey velvet dress.”

“It was adorned with silver pearls.”

“I wore pearls? I would have been more careful in it had I known.” You said eyeing the gem to the deepening of his sentimental grin in notice of the approach of Celebrimbor who had heard in the forges that you had come down here. His own grin spreading to curiosity for what reason could be behind the visit. “Don’t you have to kill the animals that make these?”

Thranduil shook his head in a hope to dispel the image surely that played in your head to how they might have been gathered. “No, not at all. Quite gently these can be removed from the clams that grow them. Even on occasion these misshapen ones can be found to be spat out by the younger ones. These come from Lothlorien and the Hobbits there are quite adept at farming these gems for our kin. Celebrimbor can attest to their care, can you not?”

His lifted gaze turned your head to the Lord who nodded his head to you and grinned wider than he thought possible to the sight of the hair ornament you were wearing. “Why yes, quite skilled and caring farmers Hobbits. Even though they have little use of Pearls beyond spoon displays or pen knives we craft here for them still the craft and care of their prized clams are passed from generation to generation.”

“That’s good, they live in a shell, doesn’t seem fair to split them open for what they can grow, or even to eat them. Even lobsters and crabs I could barely tolerate the sight of those fishermen returning with their wagons parading through town like heroes.”

Celebrimbor, “A sentiment shared by many Elves here in Middle Earth. Fish are a different story when caught on rod and reel or very mild nets in overpopulated seasons.” His eyes looked you over and he asked, “You have need of pearls, Your Highness?”

“I, um, sort of.” That had Thranduil’s brow twitch up a moment. “Yesterday on our ride Legolas shared that there’s a Necromancer in your old territory, and I’ve consulted one of my books and I think I might have just the trick to clear them and the spiders and such out.”

Thranduil, “Involving pearls?”

“Yes, I need a pearl in rouge, and a fire opal for the potion.”

Celebrimbor, “Is this a complicated potion?”

“It takes four days to brew, so, yes. Fairly complicated in a degree of time. Most prefer quick potions and effects but to my research those are almost always faulty and require a backup plan to the backup plan when they fail.”

Thranduil said, “Well, as long as you will face no harm we will continue the lesson on gemstones along the way once you have chosen your proper pearl.”

“Well the closer to a gourd shape the better. All my notes confirm gourd over lumps would be best.” You said in a lean forward to the red section of pearls that between shift of your fingers the divided crystal boxes eased closer to you and way for each shape variation until you found what must have been the oddest shaped one in the bunch by the duo’s reckoning. “This should give it a reasonable kick.”

Gestured along the tour continued until in a wide loop of the room to end at the opal section where you chose a half raw uncut fire opal that Thranduil nodded in approval of the choice. “Choose what you require. Might we aid in any other ingredients?”

In a glance up to Celebrimbor you asked, “Is there a metal with tree rings?”

“Yes,” he said in a turn to guide you to the other end of the treasury. There he led you into another hall on the way to another maze of metal hoards where he came to a stop in front of a stack of metal blocks, each with rings and wave patterns on each beside tiered trays of coins and unshaped clumps. “Damascus steel. Is this what you require?”

You nodded and said, “I think, one of these coins, not the bigger ones,” you muttered in a shift of your fingers in the toe top stance through the box of various sized coins until you found one that matched up with the size of the end of your thumb. “This one?”

Thranduil again nodded when your eyes met his, “Anything you require.”

You nodded and eyed the coin and Celebrimbor asked, “Does it require shaping?”

“Needs a hole,” his palm within an instant was offered and once the coin was settled there the both of you followed him into the forges. Just the noise alone would have been enough to make you flinch by the Smiths forging new swords and shields and yet after being tucked into Thranduil’s side the first slam of the heavy mallets and tools to shape the sweltering metal the new noises were tolerated.

To his usual forge the Master Smith moved and eased out of his outer robe to be in just his tunic that once the sleeves were rolled up tools were gathered and once the coin was clamped in place a super heated metal press that to his skill with the task melted right through it like butter. Up from the coin he asked, “Big enough?”

With a nod you flinched out a quick grin, “Yes, thank you.”

Thranduil, “Do you require aid the forming of this potion?”

“I have the rest of the ingredients, though I will have to start it tomorrow morning after breakfast. It will need some air, would it be okay if I use one of the empty wing walkways for it?”

“Yes, whatever you need. Is it harmful for others?” Celebrimbor asked.

“To touch, it just needs some ventilation or it can be overpowering.”

Pt 11

All –

@sherala007, @mariannetora, @jesgisborne, @knitastically, @catthefearless, @theincaprincess, ggbbhehe4455, @lilith15000,

Not nsfw(smut) - @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore

Ash - @devilishminx328, @fandomsstolemylife00, @lilith15000

#Thranduil x OC #Tears #Touch Starved #Token #Personal Secretary #Gifts from Lord Girion #Trip to the Treasury #Celebrimbor #Glorfindel #Legolas #Prep for the Potion

16 notes · View notes

slasherkisss · 4 years

Note

Hey! Omg requests are open! Okay I've had this one in my head for ages so here it is! Could I request like a one shot or headcanons on how your of Emry met his s/o? I love him a lot and really need more content for him lol. As always I love your writing!

[I am so flattered that you enjoy Emry so much! It means so much to me that he has a few fans lol. I wrote way too much for thiS SO I HOPE YOU LIKE LONG ONESHOTS-]

Feral

“Fucking pieces of shit,” You cursed to yourself as you kicked a stray rock somewhere into the foggy void of the forest around you, “Why is it always me who has to go ‘find help’? If they had just stopped at the last gas station and filled the air in our tires they wouldn’t be bitching about anything because they wouldn’t be stranded!”

It was supposed to be you and your friend’s last road trip together and, now, it was simply you in the forest as you wandered along a path one of the guys had noticed hidden tight against the edges of the overgrown Louisiana brush. A drawing of straws and a few more rock, paper, scissors matches later had determined that you were the unfortunate soul to explore the singular dirt road in hopes that the end would find you either at a small town or a home with a working phone that could be used to call for a tow truck back to the town that was now far too many miles away for you to walk.

Not that this was any fucking better.

Your body shuddered, not only because of the humid chill that seemed to set itself into the mossy earth, but because of a... sensation of some sorts. A strange feeling that burned into your stomach as your eyes became all too aware of how dark it was getting. Of how heavy the air felt and how thick the world around you grew on your back as your shirt stuck to your body with the sweat of walking for as long as you had been.

A snap of a twig echoed somewhere behind you and birds cawed angrily into the background, making you stop and turn your head with wide eyes. Your heartbeat echoed in your ears as you gazed against the thick trees and shrubs that obfuscated your vision from any possible danger. Your breath shook as you promised yourself that it was just the wind. Just an animal moving through the underbrush and minding its own business as it foraged.

Peter told you about how pigs were the most intrusive species in the south nowadays. That was probably all it was, right?

You stood in the forest, debating whether to keep moving or step back as you moved your feet back and forth with an unsure bite of your lip. You didn’t like this. It was like you were being watched... no... more than that, maybe?

Maybe you were being hunted.

Your feet moved then, but you were unsure of what direction other than forward. Forward and away from the beady nothingness that seemed to overcome your senses and rage at the instincts in the pits of your stomach as you moved. Your walk had slowly turned into a jog and now that was beginning to turn into a run as the mist nipped at your heels like hungry hunting dogs, barking and baring misty teeth at your skin as you hurried with hot, ragged breaths into the night.

Your foot caught on a loose branch, sending you tumbling forward as your ankle made a disgustingly loud cracking noise under the pressure of the sudden juxtaposition. You cried out, catching yourself on the palms of your hands and letting the rocks and twigs dig into the tender flesh as you lay there, breathing heavily as the world around you spun with adrenaline. The silence was deafening around you and you saw a single drip of sweat fall from the tip of your nose down to the floor, where the earth soaked it up with greedy desire.

A crack and a growl echoed around you, the heavy snort of something inhuman shuffling in the dirt made your stomach curdle like spoiled milk and you dared to look upwards with a swallow.

The boar standing before you was massive. You had seen pigs at the petting zoo before but this was not one of those cute, domesticated little things you fawned over so much as a child certainly. Its tusks curled in on itself, sharp and fierce to match the drool along the rest of its teeth. They were stained with what looked to be the trace remains of blood against dirt and your hands dug into the foliage beneath you as you tried to move your feet. The warnings about the aggressive wild hogs eating human flesh made your blood run still as you winced in pain against your clearly broken bone.

The pig shuffled and snorted, its drool increasing as it caught your scent. Its squeal was painful on your ear drums as tears welled in your eyes. Was this how you were going to die? Your mind raced as you stepped back in terror, shuffling on your stomach in hopes that it, somehow, wouldn’t see you.

You didn’t have to.

There was an additional crack in the brush and a growl far more terrifying than the one the pig had squealed out reverberated in the depths of your mind. The shuffling of the earth increased at a fervent pace, as if matching your heart, and you barely registered the blur of a form that broke itself out into the clearing with you and your swiney captor.

The sound of the struggle would haunt you for the rest of your life, just as the sight would. A blur of a human had tackled the menacing creature down to the floor, wrestling vehemently as the pig squealed with anger and surprise. Matching that noise was a set of chattering teeth and snarling growls as the being raised a large, curved hook into the air and sunk its end into the pig’s flesh, making it scream louder as blood spurted out of an artery that the cool metal hit.

It took you a moment of staring to taste the blood on your lips. To register the blurry vision of your gaze. To understand that the blood had spattered on you as the pig’s tusks gnashed and clawed with its own fight of frustration. The struggle lasted for longer than you could understand, time blurring together in your shock until you watched the creature - no, you corrected, the man - reach down with two hands and wrench the creature’s jaws apart, snapping them and its head with a sickening break of bones and rendering it limp in the darkness.

All was quiet then, save for the sound of the man’s breathing as he gazed down at the prey he had killed.

Shirtless and with long, tangled brown hair that molded with grit and blood at its ends, the being stood well over six feet tall. Though you could only see his back, you would be fool not to notice the definition of muscle in the shape of his back, each shape curved with years of athletic exercise and unstoppable power. Scars littered the back and curled around his side to the front, where a chain wrapped itself sturdily against his body. You guessed it was attached to the hook. You didn’t move. You didn’t breath.

The being lifted something off of his face and leaned down. You caught the faintest glimmer of a hungry, wide, and drooling mouth in the moonlight before he descended downwards.

Fangs pulled greedily at raw flesh. They broke through the thick skin and gristle of the dead boar and pulled at the tendons with a fierce movement of his jaw. More blood splattered across the being and he spit out the hunk of useless fur and unchewable skin before reaching down with a free hand and spreading the new wound open to gain more access to the meat beneath it, like a treasure trove.

Handfuls of that sickly copper scented flesh was scooped open and thrust into his waiting mouth. The forest echoed with the heavy, disgusting chews of something you were now sure was just as monstrous as the pig it had killed.

What could you do? What should you do? Your mind panicked.

Slowly you shifted your body, seeing if you could at least crawl a decent length away from the sight before you. To somehow get back to your friends and the safety of your car and-

A twig snapped and his head snapped with it, his gaze forward as he finished a mouthful of raw flesh. You cursed under your breath as you tried to sit up.

The man slid something down his face this time before turning to face you, chest heaving with an out of breath echo as he grabbed your gaze with his own.

It was a mask he was wearing, the design hand crafted and messy to say the least, with one eye hole that watched you with the careful deduction of a predator. Your stomach twisted and you didn’t move again, gazing into his eyes as well as the two of you sat there for a long, endless moment of quiet in the world.

“Um... I think it was... going to eat me,” You whispered out awkwardly as you pointed to the pig, “I... Um... thanks for... eating it instead?”

Another scalding silence. The man tilted his head, some of his messy strands of hair falling into his masked face as he did so. The action would have looked cute on a being that wasn’t holding a giant hook and dripping with fresh pig’s blood. You simply stared back into that bright, curious green eye that held your gaze like a serpent’s might its seductor. You felt like, if your mind would panic less, you might be able to have a telepathic conversation with this guy.

Then he started to crawl towards you.

His fingertips dug into the earth beneath them, his limbs suddenly far too long for his body as he made his way over on all fours like some sort of feral animal. Your fight or flight reflexes echoed again and you scrambled away, only to cry out in pain as your ankle reminded you of its painfully broken sections of bone. The scream did not make him pause in his movements. He did not stop until he was in front of you, the nose of his mask touching your own and his hot breath filtering around the edges of his mask and hitting you with humid gusts. You held your own breath, fearful of its effect as the scent of blood and gore overpowered your mind.

A hand reached out, touching the ankle that was broken and giving it a squeeze. You cried out again as his hand tightened and then let go, as if experimenting. He tilted his head again.

“I... I broke it.” You whimpered out, shutting your eyes tight, fearing that your fate might be one shared with the pig’s who had made you run so fast.

Instead you were suddenly weightless. Your gaze snapped open to find yourself above the ground, in the arms of the masked man who had previously terrified you. His hands smeared blood on your arms and gore soaked into your clothes as his entire form overwhelmed your own with its mere presence. You felt the cold of the chain and the hook dig into your flesh, giving you goosebumps as the edges of his bloody hair tickled your face and made you gag with its rotting scent.

And suddenly you were carried off into the darkness of the woods with nothing but apprehension to keep you from screaming in terror in the grip of such a feral monster.

#Anonymous #emry desteele #emry desteele imagine #emry desteele x reader #slasher oc #slasher x reader #slasher imagines

76 notes · View notes

drangues · 3 years

Note

I’m excited too!!! He’s a nice guy, he’s really helped me a lot and I think I’ve gotten better? That feels conceited to say but I wouldn’t like, have a job or be learning to drive or have gotten an associate’s without him. And I’ll do my best not to brush anything off but sometimes I just Forget stuff whoops. Therapy aside, that’s fair! Sometimes anime just takes what they think is funny and runs with it. To be fair, the two of them can get pretty funny. (Nyanon, 1/7)

They just have a dynamic that plays off of itself really well, I think??? ADKJNAUDJIAU AND I KNOW IVE HAD SHIT LUCK, I still don’t like anything being wrapped around my neck??? Even super loose necklaces, I get anxious and it sucks because jewelry is very pretty. (Admittedly it’s also a bit of a sensory thing but I’d still like to wear necklaces sometimes you know?) I’m doing my best to not let it affect me too much, it was a decent amount of time ago. (Nyanon, 2/7)

But I’m also just super awkward so it’d be slow going regardless??? Social cues suck. I appreciate the faith, though!!! Also I feel your brain having too many tabs open painfully well, it’s like an awful, off-key symphony up here and I Hate It. It’s especially annoying when it’s children’s songs. No I don’t want a song about math in my head. Please turn it off. And listen I’m always here for Atsushi and Kunikida commiserating over their coworkers being weird. (Nyanon, 3/7)

Like, Dazai is causing Mischief one day and Yosano and Ranpo are Encouraging Him and the Tanizaki siblings are. Doing their thing. And Kyouka and Kenji are probably at school? So they just say fuck it and do their work while drinking tea in the cafe or something where they bitch about their dumb peers with Lucy. Also possible new BrOT3??? Because I feel like Lucy and Kunikida would get along like a house on fire, which is to say terribly or terrifyingly well. (Nyanon, 4/7)

That aside, yeah he’d probably be like “what” at first, if only because the orphanage was probably full of bigoted assholes on top of abusive ones, but with the support of his baby sis and the ADA! He’ll be able to put that behind him and wear skirts and swish them. I just want him to be enamored with the swishing okay. Also it’d be like, ten times more convenient than pangs with his ability??? Moving on though, YES that’d be great, I love the fluffy ones. (Nyanon, 5/7)

I wanna see the Atsushi experimenting with his new phone and getting happier as he learns new stuff. Like Dazai shows him emojis and emoticons and he takes great joy in using them, that kinda thing. And YEAH arcs can be draining so sometimes you just really want the fluff and humor??? And there’s nothing wrong with that, obviously, chat fics are just a good way to go about it, since it’s allows for multiple characters and less need for action. (Nyanon, 6/7)

Anyways, I am in a Very sappy mood, so have a sappy Scenario Concept: Dazai and Atsushi having moments where they’re completely full of Love for their boyfriend. Like, they shoot up in the middle of the night, only half-awake and with no impulse control and their only thought is “wow, I love my boyfriend a lot. I’ll tell him. Right now,” and then they slams each other’s phone with a constant stream of affection. (Nyanon, 7/7)

hey it’s not conceited to admit youre doing better than before, you should pride yourself in that and im sure he’ll agree as well!! AND WITH THE NECK THING S A M E THATS WHY I CANT DEAL WEARING SCARVES OR TURTLE NECKS OR A NECKLINE THATS TOO CLOSE TO THE NECK I PULL AT IT SO MANY TIMES IT FEELS LIKE IM GETTING SUFFOCATED. ill always have faith in you!! never forget that!! and i agree, social cues suck A S S

kyouka and kenji would do their homework together on the couch which renders dazai to having to sit at his desk and work u cant convince me otherwise, it’s the number one reason dazai agrees that homework shouldnt Exist but owowowo lucy and kunikida getting along well?? now thats a new headcanon, would you mind elaborating on that? or is it just a Feeling

and!! yes!!! atsushi fighting in a skirt!! he would wear shorts underneath tho, since he doesnt wanna flash his underwear accidentally but other than that is gucci!!! and yes i agree, chatfics are perfect for fluff and humour and the thought of atsushi being taught Texting 101 by dazai is sO ADORABLE (i feel like kyouka would be surprisingly Good at it despite being sheltered in the mafia, she just Knows)

IM IN A SAPPY MOOD AS WELL AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IM SURE THERE WOULD BE MOMENTS WHERE THEYRE JUST SCR E A M I N G AT EACH OTHER HOW MUCH LOVE THEY POSSESS AND THEM JUST KISSING EACH OTHER AND AAGEHJKESHDJS

#anon #ask #ask anon #anon ask #bsd #nyanon #nyatsushi anon

5 notes · View notes

mackwritess · 3 years

Text

Westwood Road (Part 2)

A/N: I’m back with a second part! This was another commission, I didn’t think people liked the first part enough to want more of these two, but I guess I was wrong! My commissions are still open, with three slots available currently, so if you like what I do feel free to hit me with your own requests!

Summary: It’s been years since the incident on Westwood Road, and the two of them have long since gone their separate ways. But when an opprotunity to be reunited presents itself, will the risks be worth the reward?

Word count: 5.8k

Part 1

He doesn’t know how long he sits in the dark.

For all he knows, the dark is all he’s ever known. He sits there, waiting. Waiting for what exactly, he doesn’t know for sure. He just feels like this is the calm before the storm. Though he feels, upon thinking about it a bit longer, that this is more like the eye of the storm.

After all, he was just killed by someone he loved.

No, that doesn’t quite sound right either. He does still love her. He knows he probably shouldn’t, given the way she had just ripped him apart like a rabid animal, but he can’t bring herself to harbor any negative feelings about her. His only regret is not asking how she’d ended up in such a tragic situation. If the tears that streamed down her face as she finished him off were anything to go by, it must have been devastating.

He continues to just sit there in the all encompassing darkness. He wonders if he’ll ever be reunited with her again. He wonders if he’ll ever get to see her smile again, or hear her voice.

While he’s lost in thought, memories drifting in and out of his mind, he doesn’t notice the way things are beginning to grow brighter around him. He doesn’t notice until the light is near blinding, and he finds himself losing consciousness again.

It’s been years since she did what she did.

She’d convinced herself that she would move on and, in a way, she has. She continues to feed, preying on men and women alike as she sustains herself on their souls. In all this time, none of them had the same effect on her. She was able to do the same process that she had done with him with very little trouble. She was so certain this meant she had moved on.

Deep down she knew she hadn’t.

Even after all this time, the way he had looked at her before she took his life sits at the back of her mind, coming forward at the worst possible moment without fail.

Sometimes it comes to her just before she falls asleep, rendering her unable to do so for several hours, if she gets to at all. Other times, it comes when she’s about to feed, when she’s already planning where she’ll go to catch her next one. Suddenly, her prey becomes the predator, looking back at her with his forgiving eyes rather than the terrified ones they’d replaced. She’s taken back to the moment before she committed what she considers to be her greatest sin. Though he wasn’t fully composed, the fear of death as paralyzing as ever, his eyes told a different story. It was one of forgiveness, of acceptance.

It was one of love.

Sometimes she wonders if she’ll ever see him again. Perhaps he’d be traveling the world as a spirit, unable to move on from his mortal dwelling. Though she figures he’s likely become an angel by now. Helping others where he can, protecting them from things that may come to harm them. Protecting them from beings like her.

She knows he couldn’t have become something like her. It’s not in his nature.

While he had been able to accept his end, remembering all their moments together with fondness rather than regret, she hadn’t been able to do the same. Instead of remembering any good that had happened between her and the man that had ended her life, she found herself thinking about all the red flags that she had looked past. The way she had ultimately pushed away her friends and family who tried to warn her floated through her mind. She wished she’d listened to them.

Now she was doomed, her soul tainted with spite and vengefulness. She was to wander the earth, inflicting the same pain tht had been done unto her, only able to survive by causing heartbreak that could rival her own.

She wonders if the man who killed her had wanted to do the same. Reveling in the damage he had done to her, for fun rather than for survival. She thinks he was her first encounter with a demon. No person could be that evil without corruption. Though she fears she’s become like him.

She wonders if the cycle will ever break. If she’ll ever be free of her curse.

When he wakes up again, he’s disoriented.

The room is covered in a blinding white. The white curtains that hang in front of the window move slightly, a light breeze flowing into the room. There’s not a single sound coming from inside or outside of the room. He takes in his minimal surroundings, noting the chair sitting at the edge of the bed. The walls are as bare as the rest of the room, save for a rather intricate painting of clouds that rests near the door. It’s redundant, he thinks. It’s as if whoever was responsible for designing this pace felt it was too plain, but decided any sort of color would disturb the flow of the room.

He continues scanning the room, searching for something, anything, that could tell him where he is, when there’s a knock at the door. He freezes. Should he be hiding right now? Would making any sounds alert whoever, or whatever was on the other side of the door?

As if able to sense his apprehensiveness, the door opens slightly. It continues slowly, and he doesn’t dare move an inch. When it does open, he’s met with a young woman. She wears a simple white dress, and carries a clipboard with a few sheets of paper attached to the front of it.

“There’s no need to be alarmed,” she says. “You’re safe now.”

“Where am I?” He asks immediately. He can’t quite explain it, but her presence soothes him instantly. He finds any worries he has have melted away, and now he only has questions that need answers.

“Heaven, of course. You do know that you’re dead, right?” He nods. “Well, you’re certainly handling this better than most people your age do.”

“I didn’t think heaven would be so… clinical.”

“We’ve tried modernizing the way we welcome new angels.”

“It’s a little…”

“Plain?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no real reason for that. Just how it is.” He nods again. “Were those all your questions?”

“What’s the clipboard for?”

“Oh! That’s actually what I’m here to go over with you. You see, once you die, the place you end up after assigns a job to you.”

“So we don’t just get to enjoy the afterlife?”

“You do, just as long as you’re on top of assignments. It’s just so we can keep things running smoothly. Gives the people here a purpose.”

“So it’s like having a job.”

“Exactly! Only the payment is living in paradise.”

He considers this for a moment. Everything he’d been told about what Heaven is like has been a little misleading, it would seem. Though, he guesses that angels who visited humans in all the stories he’d heard were just doing their job. He tries not to think too hard about what that implies.

“So how do I choose my job?”

“Oh, you don’t choose. Your assignment is chosen when it’s decided where you’ll go after you die. Easier to get both of those examinations done in one go. Much faster that way.”

“But what if someone gets a job they aren’t happy with?”

“They learn to be happy with it eventually. Each job is rewarding in its own way.”

“I guess so.”

“You’ll understand more the longer you stay.” The woman clears her throat. “Now then! Let’s talk about your job. Your file says that you tend to go out of your way to help people. You were fairly popular in high school. A shame that you died so young. You really didn’t get to live much of your life.”

“I’d rather not think about that too much.”

“Your manner of death, though, that’s what really interests us.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Oh, this is a great thing. It’s the reason you’re getting the job you’re getting. We’ve been trying to deal with this type of demon for a while now. So many souls, unable to be saved.”

“Why?”

“Well, we don’t really base where you’ll go on your whole life. We base it on your emotions during your final moments. Really says a lot about you as a person. Much more than you realize.”

“So the people who died the way I did? What were they feeling?”

“Rage. Vengeance. Bloodlust. They wanted the person who had betrayed them to pay for what they’d done. They wanted them to suffer as they had.”

“But isn’t that normal? Isn’t it reasonable to be angry that someone you loved would hurt you?”

“Maybe. But forgiveness should follow. That’s what we’ve all been taught. And that’s why you’re the only one who’s been saved.”

“The only one?”

“Understanding. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Those were the last things you felt before your death. We’d never seen that before. More interesting, though, you felt love. You were still under the spell of that demon.”

“A spell?” His voice raises slightly at the mention of her. “She never used any spell on me. I love her.”

The woman eyes him for a moment, mild concern written on her features.

“You poor boy. One day you’ll be free.”

“From what?”

“Nothing. Now, your job is similar to a guardian angel, albeit a bit more dangerous. You’ll be helping more people free themselves from these demons. Or, at the very least, you can warn them by telling them what will happen if their emotions lean too negatively when the time finally comes.”

“Okay. I think I can do that. But why is it so dangerous?”

“In doing your job you're essentially taking away a demon’s source of food. Much like a wild animal, this will make them more dangerous. We usually leave a job like this to our more experienced angels, but seeing as you know first hand how these demons work, you should be just fine.”

He’s silent for a moment. He didn’t think there were very many demons who operated the way she did. Certainly not enough to cause such a problem that it would be considered dangerous. His heart hurts at the thought of so many people suffering the way she had. He wonders if there’s a way for him to help the demons themselves as well as their prey.

“Will I ever find her again?” He opts to ask.

“I doubt that. None of us know her name?”

“What? But-”

“Demon’s names hold power. If someone knows the true name of a demon, then they’re basically owned by that person. They usually go by cover names.”

“And you don’t know hers?”

“No, I do. But you can’t know that information. You could end up going rogue, and we can’t have an asset as valuable as you doing something like that.”

“Rogue?”

“You know them as fallen angels. You’d essentially become a powerful demon. I’m sure you can understand why we wouldn’t want such a thing.”

“Could a demon become an angel?”

“That’s not possible. Their place was already decided. There is no way for them to rise in status, no matter how much they believe they have redeemed themselves.”

“But that’s-”

“I know. It seems harsh, judging someone based on a single moment. But that’s the way things are here.”

He’s speechless. He wamts to do this job, that much is for sure. He wants to save people from having everything taken from them the way he had. He’s got all the motive he needs to do the tasks given, not really afraid of the potential danger of this new proffession.

He just wishes there was a way from him to save her.

This is probably the worst attempt at feeding she’s had to suffer through in a long time.

It seemed easy enough when she first stumbled across him. A strange man who’d never even been in a relationship. He would be quick work, she’d thought. He’d fall for her in a week, three at the most. That’s what she’d assumed.

It’s been about four weeks now, and she can’t lure the guy away from his house for long enough to finish the job.

It wouldn’t be as bad, all things considered, if the guys weren't also a total freak. He’s definitely not someone she feels any sympathy for. He’d started pressuring her into sleeping with him a week into the relationship, which would’ve been the first red flag to anyone who knew how to spot them. She’d managed to convince him that she wanted to wait, and he agreed, deciding that her reluctance made her more “worthy” of him when the time came.

She thinks he’s full of shit.

She’s tried everything to lure him away, from telling him that she wanted to take him out to dinner to telling him that she had some sort of surprise for him that needed to happen outside the city. Just her luck she’d find prey that was essentially a hermit. She’d only come across him when he was out buying computer parts. Today, though, she was at her limit.

It was when he’d berated her for her choice in clothing, a simple tank top and jeans combination, that she’d decided that she’d let his pathetic existence go on for much longer than what was necessary.

It takes finally giving in to his request of hooking up with her to pull him away from the basement he was living in. She imagines his soul won’t be particularly tasty, but at this point, she’s more worried about having someone like him taking up valuable space on earth than anything else.

She brings him to the outskirts of the city, his greasy hands finding their way all over her body on the way. She can’t wait to be done with him. He’s so focused on trying to make her focus on him that he doesn’t notice the way her eyes flash red with every press to her skin.

She’s so focused on trying not to kill the man right then and there that she doesn’t notice she’s being watched.

She managed to convince him that allowing him to tie her up would be a good idea, and he agreed, noticing that the building they’re in is run down, but too concerned with what he thinks is about to happen to interrupt her.

“C’mon, Miranda, when do we get started? I’ve gotta be back home for this tournament.”

She flinches at the use of her name, or at least what he thinks is her name. Somehow it doesn’t make her feel any less dirty.

“Oh, you poor soul, you don’t realize the danger you’re in. Not that it matters.”

“What danger? Does this building have asbestos or something? Why would you bring us here, are you really that stupid?”

Her eye twitches at the comment, but she makes the decision to ignore it. He’s the fool here, after all.

“It’s not that you should be worried about, though you’re probably right about the chemicals. This building has been around for centuries. Great place to harvest a soul.” The man lets out a nervous chuckle.

“What are you, like, one of those fake vampire people?”

“A vampire? You don’t even know enough to know what it is they do? The most explored mythical creature in existence?”

“I don’t need the likes of you telling me what I do and don’t know. Let me go, you’ve ruined the mood. Maybe I’ll let you try again in a week.”

“You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what? Let me out of here!”

“Ah, you’re another one that doesn’t get it. Frankly, I’ve wasted enough time on you, so I’ll just spell it out for you. I’m a demon and I’m here to consume your soul.” His eyes widen, but he says nothing. She continues. “Ideally I would’ve been done with you a week ago. But you’re such a pathetic waste of a person that I couldn’t even get you out for long enough.”

“So this is what you do? Trick men so you can eat us?”

“Yup. You made the hard part easy, too. You were wrapped around my finger the second I rejected you. Strange behavior, if you ask me.”

“You bitch, you won’t get away with this!”

“You’re not even that original. A misogynist named Kyle? Give me a break”

Her eyes begin to change from their warm brown to a harsh crimson. She opens her mouth, rows of inhumanly sharp teeth appearing seemingly out of nowhere. When she does, she can feel her body begin regaining energy, his soul draining from his body and entering hers. She watches as the life drains from his eyes, growing duller the more of his soul he loses. When the light is gone, she reverts back to her human form, and breathes a sigh of relief.

“Wow, that was exhausting. Never going after one of these types ever again.”

“That’s a good idea. I didn’t like the way he treated you.”

She freezes. It’s happening again. She hasn’t imagined his voice in such a long time. It hasn’t crossed her mind in months. Why now? Why after all this time?

“I know you’re not real,” She says. “I’m just hearing things again. Go away.”

“Again? So you’ve heard me before?”

“You know I have.”

“How could I know that? I haven’t seen you since the day I lost you.”

“Since you lost me... You don’t talk like that. Where’s the ‘you did this to me’ speech?”

“Turn around. I’m real.”

She’s unconvinced. She knows this is her mind playing a dirty trick on her. A simple rewording of what it usually tells her won’t get her hopes up. Still, she decides to play along. She turns, slowly, like a model on a runway showing off their every angle. She figures that she’s already on the edge of her sanity as it is, and she closes her eyes too, making it a bit of a game. Her turning comes to a stop.

“Alrighty, go ahead and tell me when I can open my eyes. Really make me look even more unhinged than I feel. Let’s have fun with this.”

He can’t believe that after all this time, she’s right in front of him.

She’s just as beautiful as he remembered. He’d just watched her consume a soul, a soul which he’d been sent to save, but he can’t find himself feeling anything other than pure joy at the sight of her. He thanks his lucky stars that he was assigned to this case, he was starting to lose hope that he would ever see her again.

He’s thinking about what she said. She’d been hearing his voice before he found her. Killing him really had taken a toll on her, it would seem. At this realization, he thinks back to what he had been told so long ago.

“Her kind don’t form connections to the people they kill,” the woman says. “They’re heartless creatures. It’s best that you accept that now rather than finding out later.”

“Is it just something that doesn’t happen often? Or is it difficult for them to do it?”

“No. It’s impossible. You really need to let that girl go. She’s out there right now forming the same type of relationship with other people as she did with you. You were nothing but something for her to use.”

“Right. A food source.”

“Exactly. You’ll feel better once you move on. For now, just focus on your work.”

He did exactly that. He’d managed to save many people in the time since he'd begun his job. Luckily, he’s been able to avoid every demon he’s managed to swindle out of a meal. Until now, that is.

This is the first mission he’s ever failed. Surely, he would be questioned about what happened, and he knew he would have to make something up. But seeing the way this particular person acted, especially after he found out it was her he was talking about in such a disrespectful way, he decided he had no qualms about letting him die, taking advantage of his luck so that he could get the answers to his questions. He needed to know if he really should be moving on, or if he should be looking for a cure.

“You can open your eyes. It really is me,” He says. She scoffs.

“You better leave me alone for good after this.” She wastes no time in letting her eyes fly open. When she does, she looks unimpressed. “Oh, you haven’t done this little trick in a while. I suppose you expected me to run forward only for you to turn to dust, right?”

“You can touch me. I’m real. I came to see you.”

“Prove it then. Walk forward. All the way over here to me. I’m just dying to see what you’ll do when you get here.”

He obeys immediately, making his way over and resisting the urge to run over to keep from alarming her. He stands right in front of her now, and she continues to give him the same unimpressed gaze. She still doesn’t believe what she’s seeing.

It’s when he makes the bold move to wrap his arms around her that she goes quiet.

This isn’t real. It can’t be real. This is just an intense delusion of hers.

He’s warm, that’s the first thing she takes note of. He’s got a tight hold on her, almost as if he’s afraid that he’ll leave him again. Against her better judgement, she leans into his embrace, taking in his scent.

“You’re real,” she says. “You’re really here.”

“I’m real,” he confirms. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“But why?” She asks. “I’m the reason you ended up this way. You’re supposed to hate me.”

“I could never hate you. Not when I understand why you do what you do. I won’t punish you for doing something out of your control.”

She finds herself relaxing in his hold. She hasn’t been able to relax in such a long time. It’s not what she was made to do. It’s entirely out of her nature to do such a thing. She’s never been able to stick to her own rules when it comes to him, though. Still, she pushes him away.

“You shouldn’t be here. Not with me. You could get in trouble.”

“You’re worried about me?”

“Of course I am, don’t be ridiculous.”

He seems to consider her words for a moment.

“I need you to listen to me, okay?” She thinks a moment before nodding. “There’s a way for me to cure you, I know there is, but I need to know that this is what you want.”

“What? That’s not possible.”

“No, there’s a way. I just need time. I’m not gonna let them keep us apart like this. I just need you to trust me.”

She already trusts him, though. She doesn’t need any convincing. She only worries about what will happen to him if he’s caught.

“You can’t help me. It’s against your rules. You could get in serious trouble.”

“I don’t care. As long as your burden is lifted, I’ll be happy.” She says nothing. “I’m going to get you out of this. But we’ll need to be apart again for some time. Stay safe until that day.”

She doesn’t bother arguing with him. He’s always been this way, setting his mind to something and not stopping until he gets what he wants. It’s a trait of his that she always admired. She’s afraid that this time, it may be his downfall. He’s challenging forces he’s only just begun to understand.

But she’s tired of them too. She doesn’t care what happens to her, but if this is something that can cause a change, she’ll do it.

“Okay,” she says. “I want this. I trust you.”

He grabs her by the waist and pulls her close to him again, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead, before backing away again.

“I’ll see you soon. I promise.” With the flash of a bright light, he disappears, leaving her alone with nothing but her thoughts, and the shell of the soul she had eaten.

For the first time since she lost him, she breaks down.

When he returns home, the first thing he does is report what happened to him.

Not all of it, of course, he can’t mention that he’d finally found her. That would only anger them. They would likely restrict his activities, making his mission more difficult than it likely already will be. The people in charge tell him that because of his great work in other cases, one failed case was nothing to worry about, so he could just go about his day until he received his next assignment.

While he waited, he went to visit the person who would help him to do what he needed to do. He knocks lightly on the door, and upon hearing the quiet “come in” on the other side of the door, he lets himself in

“Oh, it’s you again. Don’t tell me you’re here to find more ways around the curse.” The woman says.

After being here for several years now, he’s met tons of people. Though, he’s never bonded with someone the way he has with Kora, an elderly woman whose death came to her in her sleep. In her life she had been a witch doctor, dabbling in spells that could transform things into different objects, cause misfortune for others, and yes, lift curses.

“I don’t need to do that.”

“Sure,” Kora says. “I just made tea, come have some.”

He sits down at her kitchen table, and she turns to pour him a cup, placing it in front of him before pouring one for herself and taking a seat.

“I really don’t need to find a way around the curse, Kora. I found her today. She wants to do this.”

Kora looks up at him, expecting him to tell her he was just joking. But when she sees the way his eyes sparkle, unbridled hope written in them, she knows he’s serious. She lets out a sigh.

“Well, I did say I’d help you. I’m a woman of my word.” He smiles. “But you’re risking a lot here. If it doesn’t work, you could risk everything. Not just for you, but for both of you.”

“That’s fine. Whatever it is, we can handle it.”

“So, it’s not the procedure that takes much effort. It’s the aftermath. The main step is finding the man who killed her, in order for her vengeance to be achieved. Lucky for you, he’s still alive.”

“Sounds easy enough. It didn’t take much for her to tear me up,” he says with a chuckle.

“However, once she does this, she’ll be reborn. This would separate the two of you, leaving you behind to deal with the consequences, on top of defeating the purpose of you doing this.”

“I can’t accept us getting separated from each other. Not again.”

“There is a way for the two of you to be reborn together. But it is difficult. You’ll have to have bonded to her. Seeing as she’s a demon, the only way for you to do that is for you to get her name.”

“She didn’t even tell me that when we were alive.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. In the end, will she have trusted you enough to give you this information? Will she love you enough to make herself so vulnerable?” He says nothing. “Even so, there’s no guarantee that in your next life the two of you will meet. That will also depend on how strong your bond is. You could end up in entirely different countries, even.”

He thinks about this. Now that he knows what will be required, he’s hit with the weight of what exactly it is he’s risking here. If he’s unsuccessful, he'll have to face the wrath of the angels he’d betrayed. If he succeeds, he doesn’t even know if he’ll get the result he’s really after.

But then he thinks of her. No matter the outcome, she’ll be freed from her curse. She’ll get to live the life she didn’t get to before. More than his desire to be with her, he wants her to have the life she deserves.

“I’ll do it. I don’t care about the risks. I’m going to do it.” Kora sighs.

“Alright, then. I’ll tell you where the man is, but the rest is up to you.” He rises from his seat and makes his way over to her, wrapping her in a tight hug.

“I’ll be okay, Kora. Everything will be fine.”

He makes his way out of her home after talking a bit more with her. He knows that regardless of what happens, he won’t see her again after this.

She watches him leave, and for his sake, she hopes that if she is to hear about him again, it won’t be a story of a young man who risked everything for the wrong person.

When they arrive at their destination, she feels a chill run up her spine.

It’s late. They wanted to be certain that no one would be around when they did what they came to do. Things would be less messy that way.

“He’s in a church?” He asks, confused. She rolls her eyes.

“I expect nothing less from him. He always did hide behind a facade. This is the best one yet.”

The two of them head in, and hide amongst a few churchgoers that linger inside. She assumes that there was a late night church service being held here. They must’ve come at the end, and she’s thankful. The thought of having to actually listen to him pretend to be a good man makes her sick to her stomach.

They linger until the church is empty, and she sees him head to the back, leading to the basement that she knows all too well. She grabs his hand and leads him in that direction, bringing him to the door that leads deeper into the church.

“Are you sure you’re ready to face him again?’

“I’m sure. It’s about time I see him again. This is long overdue.” Her eyes flash red for a moment, and he decides to stop asking questions.

She pushes the door open, and makes her way down the stairs with him following close behind her. She sees the man at the back of the room, rifling through boxes, and wastes no time in letting him know she’s here.

“Well, well, well.” The man freezes. “Been a while since we were down here, huh? Sure brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

“You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real,” the man mutters to himself.

“Oh, so you do feel guilty about what you did to me? Could’ve fooled me. Your little holy man cosplay is quite interesting.”

“Why are you here?”

“Look me in the eye, coward.” Afraid of provoking her, he turns to face her, slowly. “Much better.”

“How are you here? What are you?”

“This question gets more annoying the more i hear it, you know. Figure it out yourself, holy man.”

“What do you want from me? Please go away.”

“Oh no. Not yet. See him?” she points to where he stands, standing a little distance behind her. “I want you to tell him what you did to me.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Tell him why you thought my life needed to end.”

“I had to. You know what would have happened.” the man turns to him. “She knew what she was doing.”

“You didn’t have to do anything.”

“They would have disowned me!”

“So a little premarital sex is an issue, but murder is cool? Got it. Anything to keep your dirty little secret, right?”

The room is silent. Now that the truth is out there, now that he knows what happened to her, he understands why no one knows her name.

“I guess I should’ve expected this, right?” She continues, “After getting involved with the preacher’s son? And you got to go on, right? Continued living? Taking up after your dad? And what did I get? Cursed. Dooming people to the same fate you forced me into. But today, that changes.”

“You dare to claim that what I did wasn’t justified? You wanted to ruin me!”

“I wanted to be with you. In public. I didn’t wanna be a secret.”

“You convinced me to commit a sin. You haven’t earned the right to love, I could’ve been great. Instead, I’m stuck in this town, in the middle of nowhere, trying to make up for something that you did.”

“You did this to yourself.” she says. Her eyes quickly change to that harsh red he had seen before, and he knows what’s about to happen before the man does. “I don’t need to prove my worth. To you, or to anyone. You were nothing in life, and now, you’ll be nothing in death.”

Before he can even get a word in, she’s latched onto him, ripping him apart in the very same room where her existence was cut short.

A few moments of silence go by before she begins to glow slightly.

“It’s happening. I did it, I broke the curse.”

“You did. You’re free now.”

“But what about you? Why aren’t you glowing too?”

“We haven’t bonded enough. It’s okay though, I wouldn’t have wanted you forced into doing something. You’ve been through enough.”

“No! No, tell me. I’ll do it.” He knows she won’t, but she won’t remember him when she’s reborn anyway.

“I needed your name.”

She looks at him. She’s so close, so close to being free from that person. She can’t be bound to her again. She can’t say her name.

Taking note of her silence, He grabs the sides of the face, and pulls her in for a kiss, putting everything he has into it, as he knows it’ll be the last time. He whispers an “I love you” before looking her in the eyes to be sure she knows.

It’s at this moment, as her glow is becoming blinding, that she realizes this is a decision she can make herself. Finally, she’s the one who gets to make a choice. Instead of misery, this time, she chooses happiness. She just hopes it isn’t too late.

“My real name is..”

Somewhere, in another part of the world, a baby girl is born to a family that had been trying to conceive a child for years. They know this is the most precious gift they’ll ever receive.

Minutes later, in that same hospital, a baby boy is born.

#short fiction #short story #commission #commisions open #writers on tumblr #writing #writing commissions #support black creators #support black authors #support black writers #demons #demon #angels #angel #my work #my writing #horror #short horror story

1 note · View note

hexlikesramennoodles · 5 years

Note

If you’re still doing kissing prompts? #4

4. An accidental brush of lips followed by a pause and going back for another, on purpose.

Author’s note: this is rated M for suggestive content and violence. Inspired by this beautiful work of art by @kelpie-earnest.

“It’s my brother. He can’t know I’m here,” Max said. “He’ll kill me. He’ll kill us.”

Steve gazed through the gap in Joyce Byers’ curtains, out to where the Camaro was tucked in the driveway like some gigantic waiting spider. The noise generated by the engine was tremendous, a powerful, vibrating thrum of tectonic force that could be felt through the walls. Right through to the marrow.

“Lock yourselves in,” he said.

Four pairs of disbelieving eyes swiveled around to stare at him. Steve felt the strange urge to laugh. Before he could, though, they all started arguing at once:

“Steve, no—”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? He’ll kill you—”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Steve said in a loud voice, clapping his hands. “Did I stutter, you boneheads? Lock yourselves in, I said. Don’t open the door until you hear me say so.” He gestured vaguely to the window. “If it goes south—”

He heard Dustin’s intake of breath, registered Lucas’ eyes growing large and round in their sockets, but couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge them both, lest he start thinking too hard about what it was he meant to do—

“You run like hell, okay?”

It was fine, he told himself. He had survived the Demodogs. He could survive this, too. One carrier was chump change compared to what lurked in Hawkins’ cavernous underbelly. He was going to be completely fine.

It wasn’t until he stepped out onto the porch that he realized he’d forgotten to bring his bat.

“Am I dreaming, or is that you, Harrington?”

As always, the cherry of Billy’s lit cigarette preceded the rest of him. Steve watched its slow orbit in the gloom, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. Something made him uncross them, straighten his spine. A mnemonic echo. Billy’s fangs jutting wetly from the bed of his mouth, his hand held out. Plant your feet.

“I didn’t know carriers could dream,” he said evenly.

Billy lowered his hand. The cherry descended like a miniature comet, trailing embers and smoke. “I’m looking for my step-sister,” he said. The words were casual, almost friendly. They didn’t match his eyes. “Little birdie told me she was here.”

“I haven’t seen her, man. Sorry.”

A sudden explosion of glass made him jump: a beer bottle, flung from Billy’s hand into the gutter. Foam bubbled sluggishly from its broken neck, spreading across the blacktop in jagged white lines.

“You know,” Billy said. The driver’s door slammed shut, but the headlights stayed on; they cut a bright, glaring swath through the trees. “I was meant to be goin’ on a date tonight, amigo. I had it all planned out. Sure, his face wasn’t much to look at, but his neck? A whole meal. He had his own donor card, too. Certified and everything. But then what happens? Maxine goes missing, and I get told—I get told that I have to find her sorry ass, because she’s my responsibility. Which means my night—all that hard work—is down the toilet. Fucked.”

He smiled, then. Or snarled. The cherry of his cigarette rose, a wandering red star, a demon’s eye that kept lazily opening and closing on each inhale. Billy opened his mouth, still smiling, and doused the cigarette on his tongue. There was an angry hss of cooking flesh, like animal fat rendering over an open flame.

“As far as I’m concerned, you took my fuckin’ food, Harrington,” Billy continued, dropping the butt under his boot. “Are you gonna pay for it?”

“Will you leave them alone if I do?”

He could tell by the way Billy paused that whatever he’d been expecting when he stepped out of the Camaro, it hadn’t been that. Steve watched him flick his tongue over his teeth, telling himself that he was used to the sight by now. It was generally considered to be bad etiquette for carriers to flaunt their fangs in public, the same way it was considered indecent for non-carrier women to breastfeed in shopping malls. Billy was either unaware of the unspoken social laws of his kind, or he considered himself to be above them. Steve would bet all the money in his wallet on the latter; whether it was on the court or in class, the locker rooms or at house parties, Billy always had his fangs out.

“If the price is right,” Billy said. He was silent for another moment, his tongue between his teeth, studying Steve with an expression that was difficult to read. Sizing up the merchandise, Steve thought. “Have you been tested?”

He nodded. “When I was with Nancy, I—”

“Oh, that’s right,” Billy exclaimed, his smile turning into a sneer, “you were her blood bag.”

Steve gritted his teeth through the mockery. “I was her donor.”

“Please. We both know what you were, Harrington. What you still are. There’s no use denying it.” Billy moved with frightening agility; one moment he was on the other side of the road, the next he was breathing down Steve’s neck, his teeth—both incisors, each at least an inch long—hot and hard against Steve’s pulse. His pupils were two scorch marks, deepest obsidian ringed in flaming red and orange. “You and everybody else in that house, you’re all just meat. Prey. And I’m the hunter.”

“Not tonight,” Steve said. He turned his head, willing himself to stare into the darkest center of the red. The rage and hunger there. “Not ever. You can have me. But you can’t have them. They’re off limits from now on, you understand?”

Billy’s lips peeled apart. “Like I said. If the price is right.” He jerked his head in the direction of the Camaro. “Let’s have a taste.”

“Don’t you wanna take this elsewhere?”

“Why? I’m already dressed up for it.” In the blink of an eye, Billy was standing on the opposite sidewalk, holding the passenger door open. “Get in the car, blood bag.”

The inside of the Camaro was surprisingly clean, save for the smell: hot ash and hot blood. Visceral and vital. It was the smell of a fever that had yet to burn itself out, cloying and oppressive; the smell of a cancer ward. The word vampire was outdated. Vampire was for old Christopher Lee movies, for actors with powdered faces and plastic fangs smeared with sticky, ketchup-looking fake blood. Carrier was treatable; vampire wasn’t. Carrier made it sound akin to plague; carrier and medical emergency and regressive behavior. Carriers—not vampires—still retained their humanity somewhere inside, despite their monstrous symptoms. Steve knew better. Billy, like Nancy before him, was nothing human.

“Where did Wheeler like to have her fill?” Billy asked. “From your neck?”

“No. From my thumb.”

“Your—seriously?” Billy threw back his head, letting out a quick, yipping laugh. Steve followed the needlepoint gleam of his incisors with nauseated fascination. “How fuckin’ chaste. And you—you were okay with that, pretty boy?”

“You know, they don’t recommend you drink from the neck, typically,” Steve said. “Because it’s so close to the artery—”

“That’s what makes it feel so fuckin’ good, though. Like, really good.” Billy caught his eye in the rearview mirror and smirked, then leaned across to squeeze his knee. “Better than getting your finger sucked by some prissy bitch in her daddy’s pillbox McMansion.”

Steve pushed his knee out of Billy’s grip. “Don’t call her a bitch.”

“I’ll call her whatever the fuck I want, Harrington. She deprived you, and she did it on purpose. I bet she knew that if you had it elsewhere, you’d leave her in the dust.”

Something about Billy’s eyes, this close—how the red surrounding his pupils fluctuated as he spoke, shifting and dancing like real flames—had loosened Steve’s tongue, made him less aware of himself and his surroundings. Hadn’t there been a warning in the pamphlets about looking directly into carriers’ eyes? He couldn’t remember.

“It doesn’t matter,” he heard himself say. “She left me in the dust first.”

(Why not? Steve thought. Underneath the blood and ash and sickroom smell, he could just make out Billy’s cologne, a hint of sweetness to offset the bitter. The world was going to hell in a handbasket, but Billy looked like the closest thing to a model from a Calvin Klein magazine spread. Pretty. Hair spilling down his shoulders in soft, stylized waves, his muscled arms sitting snugly in the sleeves of his maroon shirt; Steve had always envied him for his arms. Why the fuck not?)

“She did, didn’t she?” Billy made a soft, sympathetic noise that was as bogus as it was scathing. “Oh, and she hurt you, too. She really hurt. But it’s okay now, though, because you’ve got me. And I can show you what you’ve been missing out on.”

He leaned across, so abruptly Steve didn’t have time to parse what was happening; panicking, he blurted out: “Is it gonna hurt?”

Billy’s smile paused inches from his neck. “It will, and then it won’t,” he said, “but you gotta relax first.”

Steve thought of Nancy. Billy’s hand was creeping up his arm, over his shoulder. Pulling the collar of his jacket and T-shirt to one side. Moving slow, like he wanted to savor it. Steve fixed his eyes straight ahead, on the outline of the driveway just outside the reach of the Camaro’s headlights. The engine growled and shuddered underneath his feet like an animal that wanted to throw him off. He thought of Nancy, or he tried to. Every time he pictured her smile, he came up short.

Billy let out a shaky breath. “Beautiful,” he said.

“What?” Steve said, distracted.

“Nothing, Harrington. Just relax.”

With Nancy, it had been like getting a flu shot. A quick jab, minimal pain, no mess. If Steve became lightheaded, she would stop. If he told her to stop, she would stop.

He didn’t know if Billy would extend him the same courtesy.

Minimal pain, no mess. Billy’s thumb caressed his neck, soothing the hoofbeat clatter of his heart. He was no longer smiling. Steve closed his eyes.

It was quick, he’d give Billy that—the initial pain. Steve shifted in the passenger seat, tilting his head as far back as the headrest would allow; Billy moved with him, cupping his jaw. He bit down lightly, suckling on Steve’s neck. Pain blossomed like a flare in the dark. Fading as Billy’s teeth probed deeper. He made a noise against Steve’s skin. It might have been a sigh of relief. A moan. Steve couldn’t tell.

“Let me know when you see the colors,” Billy said thickly. He sounded drunk. His hand was back on Steve’s knee, massaging the bone, anchoring them both.

“The—”

Billy bit down again and Steve cried out, shocked, his spine bowing. Not from pain. The pain had subsided entirely, morphed into a distant, warm prickling. It was actually kind of nice. Steve let the tension in his shoulders slacken, giving Billy’s mouth more leeway to rove over his skin. He was sucking hard, lapping at Steve’s neck like a dog with a bowl of water, his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed, paused to breathe.

“Knew you’d taste good.”

Billy’s voice, faint. Prickling like pins and needles. Steve was starting to feel as though he’d fallen asleep with his arm trapped underneath his body; the tingling, pins and needles sensation had spread from his neck down to his wrist. Numb and blissful. The heat from Billy’s mouth was building, tightening into a stranglehold. The car was getting warmer.

“I’d think about it,” Billy’s voice said. Still faint, still distant and removed. Steve fought to open his eyes; he was dimly aware of someone watching him, the hand on his knee parting his legs to run up the inseam of his jeans. He was too warm to do anything about it. “You know, when we were in the showers together and you’d … you’d just stand there, ignoring everybody else, I’d look at you, and think about what it would be like if I just …”

“Tore my throat out?” Steve slurred.

The prickling had turned into an itch, restless, fierce. Billy latched onto his neck, sucking with a junkie’s greed for his next fix, like he would die if he didn’t have it, like there was nothing in the world that mattered more. “No,” he said, laughing. Pulling off his neck with an obscene, theatrical pop that should have made Steve retch. Instead, it sent desire licking down his spine. “Hey, I’ve never killed anybody. Ask Laurie. Ask Tina. They both came to me begging for it. You know, I’ve always thought there was somethin’ in the water here that drove people crazy horny. Maybe you’re all just bored. Too wimpy to turn to meth. I was doing them a favor, man. There are worse things to get hooked on.”

“You were doing them a favor, huh? Wow. What a hero you are.”

“It was a mutually beneficial partnership,” Billy insisted. “You can feel it, right? It’s like … fuck, it’s like we’re fucking, almost. Or doing poppers. Except there’s no come down, no limit to how high you can get … you just keep flying … and flying …”

“Uh,” was all Steve could say. It did sort of feel like he was flying. He could no longer feel his arm, or his leg; the left side of his body seemed to have dissolved, become incorporeal. He didn’t have any sense of where the roof of the Camaro had gone; he was rising, being steadily submerged into the night sky. There came another moan. Billy’s teeth were thumb tacks pressing into the grooves of his palms, pins and needles, prickling and itching and stoking the fire between them.

“Can you feel it, Steve?” he was panting. His hand clutched at Steve’s leg in ecstasy and desperation. “Can you see me?”

“I—I can see you,” Steve mumbled. He was hot all over, floating in an ozone layer of swirling blues and greens and pinks. Each color was its own self-contained galaxy; each color reminded him of Billy’s eyes, ever-changing. Rings hot with lust. “God, the colors, Billy … I didn’t know …”

“It’s called a glamour,” Billy said. “I told you, baby. It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Good? It’s—it’s incredible. God, I’m—”

“Yeah?” Somewhere back on Earth, Billy’s smile had returned, wide and cannibalistic. “Yeah, baby? Are you close?”

“I’m—” Steve said, swallowing. His hands flapped at Billy’s chest like maimed birds. “I’m—I’m—”

It came at him out of nowhere, all at once. When it did, his mouth was still straining to form the words that he could no longer speak, pleasure robbing him of all ability to do so: I’m, I’m, ohmyGod, Billy, Billy, I’m gonna. Something soft brushed his cheek and he automatically turned towards it, his mouth opening, searching for comfort like a newborn’s rooting reflex searched for the nipple. He met the soft something halfway, and tasted himself.

Billy kissed him hard, his mouth tasting of Steve’s blood. The kiss was without fangs, without hunger or violence. His hand caressed Steve’s neck, played with his hair. His grip was lax and boneless.

He was well fed.

“Like we’re fucking,” Steve repeated. His voice sounded husky and raw, his vocal chords crippled. He was still coming, still high; his wrists trembled through the ghostly aftershocks. “Did you dream about that, too?”

He knew Billy was watching him. The prickling in his neck was all but gone; the wound had already sutured itself closed, and it would only reopen the next time Billy came for him. And he would come, Steve thought, with an odd sense of pride. Billy was the one who needed him, now. He wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere else. Not the way Steve tasted.

Billy reached for the steering wheel. He turned the key, and the headlights stuttered. Then, like a candleflame guttering out, they went dark.

#harringrove #billy hargrove #steve harrington #vampire!billy #blood drinking #my writing #writing prompts #it has just occurred to me that i could have done this for the neck kisses one and it would've made more sense #i only realised i wanted to write vampire!billy like 2 days ago so

343 notes · View notes

darkestwolfx · 4 years

Text

Up from the Depths P.1 - Re-Review #32

Now, just to stick my personal opinion in here... we’re about to get to two of my all time favourite episodes. The amount of references to Jeff, and the purpose for IR - there’s just golden moments everywhere you look. So let’s have a look at some of them.

“What is it, John?”

“You’re gonna’ want to see this.”

“The TV-21! No, it can’t be...”

Well, it is (or we wouldn’t have an episode)!

“Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s the TV-21!”

“Is anyone gonna’ clue me in here?”

“It’s the TV-21!”

“That is not helping!”

Don’t worry, Alan, I’ll try and catch you up. But that just serves as another well-placed reminder of all the things Alan (and Kayo) is too young to remember about IR.

The fact Jeff etched his name onto the ship does not surprise me. It goes towards showing how proud he was of it, and completely fits in with everything we are told about him by Grandma (once again, wonderfully well placed comments).

Now, the TV-21, is given to us as “the first Thunderbird”, the fastest ship (at the moment), and Jeff’s pride and joy. There’s a nice little reference to Jeff’s previous careers as well, with the fact they’ve added the ‘Colonel’. Nice touch.

But of course, of all the places to crash land, it had to be in the Mariana’s Trench. I mean, there is a reason why it’s “the world’s last unmapped ocean”, according to the crew. It’s a pretty dangerous place. If you want to read about it, feel free, National Geographic have some incredibly interesting articles on what they theorise could be down there based on their limited exploration. But what we do know, is that it’s actually a very hostile seascape, and that the marine life which inhabits it seems to have evolved drastically to cope. I think that if we are ever able to understand it, we will know a lot more towards global warming and the mutations of animals. But I hate swimming. Water’s not my area. I prefer to research land mammals and leave my colleagues with the wet-weather adventures.

Anyhow, I think it’s totally awesome that Virgil was playing the piano and that Scott was sat at Jeff’s desk in the opening for this episode too. It’s always nice to see little throwbacks to this very human family.

So let’s discuss the origins of TV-21 for a moment. Before it was a Thunderbird, it was a comic series! And it’s original name was ‘TV Century 21′ which was eventually shortened to TV21. It had various mergers, which featured additions to the name, but TV21 stuck for the majority of issues. It was a weekly comic published by City Magazines, beginning around 1965. It’s content was... drum roll... the sci-fi TV series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s company: Century 21 Productions - thus where the comics name originated from, the TV being added to clarify where the material was coming from and hopefully encourage people to watch and read both in tandem.

The comic often had newspaper front pages, dedicated to the fictional news stories of the multiple Anderson worlds, e.g. Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Stingray.

Some really well known artists of the time worked on the comics, which only serves to increase their value. In our current day, the original ‘TV Century 21′ editions (Issues 1 - 154) are really hard to find, and so they sell/auction for incredibly high prices when one can be found - like much of the Anderson’s work which made it’s way into print. It does also mean that the first half of this great comic series is practically lost to the world.

Which is a big shame, because it was in many of these first issues (with their print time colliding with the original air slot of ‘Thunderbirds’) featured many episode-story related additions. For instance;

The supposed capture of ‘The Hood’ - which might have gone someway to explaining his disappearance during Series 2 of the show.

An addition to the US Army’s story line from ‘Pit of Peril’.

An addition to the events of ‘Sun Probe’, as well as an in-depth story on Thunderbird Three investigating the connection between the sun and natural disasters (better known now as global warming). My dad still has his copy of this edition, and I have no plans on selling it. It’s ironic that it features the only story line relevant to my current career. Hey, maybe there is such a thing as fate over coincidence (as ‘Doctor Who’ does suggest).

A special story for Thunderbirds Two and Four, upon which it is rumoured that the opening rescue of the ‘Thunderbirds’ (2004 film) was based upon. I personally think this was one of the best stories for the pair, and I’m disappointed it never appeared in an episode (as such). There were also rumours that this story was an expansion of the TOS episode ‘Atlantic Inferno’, but those were never confirmed and all suggestions ever made pointed towards it being a completely separate idea. There are interesting similarities in places though, so it’s worth consideration.

An expansion to Thunderbird Two’s ‘disappearance’, after the events of ‘Terror in New York City’, which covered the rumours spiraling during the time Thunderbird Two was out of operation, and some of the missions which were undertaken during said time.

And one of the few Fireflash related stories to feature outside of the TOS TV episodes. It was also one of the comic editions which fans come to know as ‘Thunderbirds meets Doctor Who’. At the time, both shows were scoring some of the highest viewings, and so I suppose these crossover editions only made sense. Many of the early editions featured such crossovers, including 2 other issues which I’ve posted above.

When we actually get to 2065, there’s going to be a bit of confusion over dates - the comics (set still in the futurist time - ever encroaching for us) were released on the corresponding dates, but with the year still set a hundred forward, e.g. 1965 was 2065, but the 13th March was the 13th March.

Right, enough of my geek-worthy knowledge on comics, and back to the episode. I mean, look at Scott’s face. He’s definitely had enough of my comic-based ramblings.

“Begging your forgiveness, Your Mongrel-ship.”

I think the fact that Parker serves Sherbet tea (with one sugar) it’s just classic.

“I believe ‘wild goose chase’ were the words they used.”

“Well, as it happens, Parker loves a good chase. Parker, bring the car around would you? That’s right Sherbet. ‘On the double’.”

“hOn the double, hit his. Taking horders from ha mut, never though hI’d see the day.”

He does it anyway though - dedication right there,

Well now, time to visit the ocean. Did anyone else think the Deep Ocean Surveyor looked a bit... wrong? I had bad feelings about that thing from the start.

“This ship sure is a weird looking thing.”

Yeah, thanks for the back up there Gordon. Should have kept a closer eye on that one, although I do completely understand why they got so distracted and don’t blame them for it.

I love how Scott - Mr in command and always right - turns straight towards the TV-21 as soon as he knows they’re no injuries to worry about and that the DOS is all okay. Wasn’t he the one saying there was a rescue to prioritise only minutes ago?

“Gordon, what about the TV-21? Have they found part of the wreck?”

“Stand by, Scott, I’ll take a closer look. Just gotta’ clear some debris. It’s not just part of the wreck, it’s the whole thing!”

That is actually quite surprising! You know, something surviving like that. Good craftsmanship is all I can say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvltZMDOK5g

I can’t describe this scene any better than the scene itself, so I’m just gonna’ leave it there for you to re-watch at your own leisure. The faces are pictures!

“Why’s everyone making such a big deal about a wrecked plane? I don’t even remember it!”

“The TV-21 was Dad’s baby. The first ever super Mach-20 ship. It was the prototype to Thunderbird One. Dad invested everything into, but The Hood sabotaged it in flight. Dad had to abandon the plane somewhere over the Maraina Trench rather than let The Hood get his hands on it. I remember it broke Dad’s heart. I always thought it was smashed and lost in the deep.”

And there we have a link to that Hood-Jeff backstory (which the writer’s then conveniently shoved into a like ten-fifteen second explanation of ‘I am a bad guy because’, but hey, we’re not quite there yet!) that kinda gets forgotten.

“Cor!”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is Bingo. Well done Bertie.”

“Very smart of you to track that signal John.”

“We got lucky.”

You don’t have to be so modest you know John.

“It seems The Hood may be up to his old tricks.”

“I’ve seen engineering like this before. It’s the work of The Mechanic.”

“Oh no! That’s The Mechanic’s ship! Thunderbird Four, get out of there!”

“Too late.”

Yeah... it might have been good to notice that a little bit sooner.

Now, someone has some serious anger issues! I mean, I now he wants them out of the way (and later on that’s he’s being controlled), but that was seriously uncalled for!

“You better come up with something fast. Thunderbird Four’s hull integrity is failing. You’re getting crushed!”

Thanks Virgil, we can see that, unfortunately. This is another of those moments where - even though I know how it ends - I have a little panic.

“Hull integrity at 28%. Gordon what are you doing?”

“The airlock’s jammed. I can’t get the door open.”

“Then make a new door! But do it fast, you don’t have long. Hull at 7%. Gordon, get out now! Thunderbird Four is offline.”

“What happened?”

“Thunderbird Four's been rendered in operative.”

“Gordon!”

“I’m here. I’m okay. But Thunderbird Four’s a little... ur... beat up.”

This is a little like that moment in ‘EOS’, where I think our collective hearts stopped.

I know Gordon left the sub to try and free it, but it was actually a good thing that he did, else he probably would have been crushed, which wouldn't have been good. He was caught a little in the blast anyway, so I’m surprised he was a well-able to continue as he was.

But back to those serious anger issues - The Mechanic, you need to learn that once you have damaged someone’s ship past the piloting level, you don’t need to then snap it in two - that is just downright mean, not to mention unnecessary!

Poor Thunderbird Four. I seriously thought at the time that it wasn’t going to be recoverable. Look at Gordon’s poor little face.

The determination to get the TV-21 back as well was just wonderful.

“Not possible, only Thunderbird Four can survive the pressure. We need to come up with something extraordinary and fast.”

“We can use the TV-21!”

“It’s been sitting on the bottom of the ocean for years. Do you think it will still work?”

“Absolutely. I build things to last.”

“Gordon, we need you to get on board the TV-21.”

“I always wanted to fly Dad’s plane.”

Of course he did.

Now this was a sight to behold. Look at him!

“I can’t believe we used to wear these things.”

This was such a lovely little throw back moment.

“You could try the Jeff Tracy fix. After all, it is Dad’s plane.”

“FAB. This is TV-21. We have lift off.”

And hell did that work!

Rescue count: 35

I mean, let’s just momentarily forget that this part ends with The Mechanic making a grand come back and stealing it.

“To The Mechanic, let me tell you who you’re dealing with. We’re International Rescue; you can’t push us around, you cant tell us what to do, and you absolutely, positively can’t take our stuff!”

“No, let me tell you who you’re dealing with. I’m The Mechanic. I take what I want, from who I want, whenever I want it.”

Yeah... shivers.

Let’s just remember Gordon’s great moment getting to pilot it.

“So tell me, what is it like flying Dad’s plane?”

“It was awesome.”

See, that’s a nicer ending.

26 notes · View notes

satanschild01 · 4 years

Text

No All Might? That’s Alright

Izuku Midoriya Fanfiction

A/N: I started to re-watch the bnha anime, and it came to me what if All Might said no and left, and what might happen after that. I added a few twists to this one to make it a bit more pow! Hope you like this new series, because I have more ideas for later on! ~ Em

Tags for more feedback😘: @trashys-things @pink-imagines @marvelmymarvel @shikigami-the-paper-spirit @spaced-out-imagines @marvelmymarvelmain @writingfreakk

Trigger Warnings: suicide baiting and suicide

Word Count: 2110

Part 1 Part 2

______________

At the young age of 4, Izuku Midoriya learnt that not all men were made equal. He was pronounced quirkless. He thought that that would be the worst of it...but no. It was just the calm before the storm

“If you wanna be a hero that badly, there’s a quick way to do it…”

Why did it have to be this way? Please...just leave me alone Kacchan...

“Just hope that you’ll be born with a quirk in your next and life”

What have I ever done to deserve this? Why does it have to be this way?

“and take a swan-dive off the roof!”

What if I did? What if someone found out you were the reason for jumping! You could never become a hero if that got out!

Inflamed with despondency that Kacchan would even think of saying something so cruel, Izuku turned around on his heels. His shoulders were tense, he was going to say something back. But it seemed like Kacchan wasn’t worried about Izuku’s upcoming comeback as he raised his hand. Smoke and heat radiated from his palm as he gave Izuku a sharp-edged smirk. “Something wrong?”

Izuku just wilted where he stood. His fight earlier with the boy left him deflated and he was left alone standing in the junior high classroom. Consumed with all his thoughts. Izuku dragged his heavy feet out of the classroom walking down to the fountain to retrieve his burned and drenched notebook.

My dreams will be eaten away just like the koi eat at my book…

Izuku turned around and started walking. Kacchan’s words flooding through his mind.

______________________

Izuku didn’t remember carrying his body up to the roof of the school. All he knew was that his feet were cold and that he was staring over the edge, looking down at the hard concrete below. He remembered taking off his red shoes and neatly placing them next to the ledge.

Should I leave a note?

He decided not to write a note, besides, the burned and soaked notebook gave all the proof it needed to. He stared at the spot where he would most likely hit the ground and took in a calming breath…

Would it hurt?

Who would be the person to find him?

Would anyone care?

What would Kacchan think?

Izuku felt a freezing chill go down his spine. What was he doing? He would jump because Kacchan told him to? This is wrong. The boy stepped off the ledge, disgusted in himself that he would fall to Kacchan’s will. He shoved his feet back into his shoes, walking back down to the ground safely through the stairs. He would show everyone that he could become a hero and get into U.A without a lousy quirk. He probably won’t be the next #1 hero. But he’ll do his best to reach the top. No matter what it takes.

Forcing a smile onto his face, Izuku started to slowly make his way back home. It probably looked more like the grimace face emoji than a smile, but he didn’t care, he was going to keep smiling. That’s what All Might did.

He stopped smiling, turning into gasps for air as a sludge monster grabbed him and tried to force itself into his body. Slowly cutting his airways off. Trying to fight off the villain, moving around his limbs to try and save himself from what it felt like, molasses. Trying to move the sludge away from his mouth but to no prevail. The monster called him a hero...But he wasn’t a hero! Not yet. He wanted to be... he couldn’t be a hero if he let this villain take control of his body and use him as a puppet! But...But his sight was already getting spotty...The fight in his limbs was getting weaker…

I...I think I’m dying…

I-I don’t wanna die like this! I want to die on my own terms! Not forced to!

It hurts...so...so much and slow...

Someone, please help me!

A deep metallic ping rang noticeable all around, however, Midoriya scarcely saw it as he did whatever it took not to cry.

“It’s alright now young man.” A voice...where have I heard it before?- “Because I am here!”All Might! The villain tried to fight back, but All Might easily dodged and went in for a single punch. The force was so powerful it forced the sludge villain to disperse. The villain said something, but Izuku couldn’t tell. When the sludge was defeated, Izuku fell back onto the pavement and it was either the oxygen deprivation or the impact that rendered him unconscious.

______________________

“Hey! Hey!” Izuku heard as his body woke up, feeling rapid but gentle taps on his left cheek. He didn’t want to wake up. He just wanted to sleep. To go home and wallow in his own pity. There’s no way his bad day could get any worse. Either way, he must have given some sign that he was awake as the voice continued.

“Oh good, your awake!” Wait…Izuku’s eyes jolted open, sitting up quickly as he was trying to process what he was seeing

“Sorry ‘bout getting you caught in my villain fighting!” That voice...that’s All Might! “I don’t usually make mistakes like this”

He needed an autograph. Looking frantically around for his journal he was shocked to realize it’s being held towards him. The boy’s eyes widened as he took his journal back from his hero and opened it up to be already signed! All Might’s signature took up the whole spread of his notebook!

“It was the least I could do for getting you all mixed up in this mess!” All Might told him before patting his pocket. It was only then that Izuku noticed the soda bottle containing the villain that had just previously been choking the life out of him. “Now then, I have to get this guy to the police. See you on the other side of the screen!”

All Might turns around stretching out his legs and going into a crouched position about to jump away. Izuku found this as the best opportunity to ask his idol if he could pursue his dream, which was slowly going away after all the years of tormenting. “Wait...t-there is something I need to ask!” he shouted, rushing towards the hero.

Which led to the worst decision Izuku has ever made in his life. He grabbed onto the hero’s leg as he took off, way up high into the sky. This was also one of the scariest moments of his life, as he held on for dear life. But he needed an answer. “Let go of me! Your fanaticism is too much!”

“If I...let go…I’ll die!”

“That’s true,” All Might said and landed on a nearby rooftop. “Well then,” And Izuku was ashamed to hear the annoyance in his voice, “I guess I have time to answer your question.”

Izuku nodded, as he tried to push out the 10 words he needed “Can I...become a hero...even though I’m quirkless?”

All Might half turned towards Izuku. The silence is painful as he waits anxiously for an answer from the hero.

“Without a quirk?”

All Might started to slightly shake and steam started to roll off hin large muscular body, but Izuku didn’t seem to notice as he was looking down at his shoes. When the steam vanished a man who looks very malnourished appeared. His hair, merely a poor mimic of All Might, was stringy and limp...He looked sickly and…

“Y-y-your deflating..!” Izuku shouted, shooting his head around looking for the 7ft tall hero he was just talking to a minute ago “A fake?! You’re so skinny!”

“I am All Might. It’s like how those people constantly flexing their muscles at the pool,” he said nonchalantly as he wiped dripping blood from his mouth. “And I’m counting on you to keep your mouth shut about this. That includes your friends.”

“I s-sorta don’t have-”

His thought comes to a halt as he saw the deformed red and purple patchy scar marking All Might’s skin. It was layers upon layers of scars from stitches and Izuku felt his own side start to burn at the thought of the immense pain he must have felt. It worsened as All Might explained the fight that wrecked his body and put a timer on his hero time. “Symbol of peace. Always smiling...I smile to show the pressure of heroes...and to trick the fear inside me. Pros are always risking their lives.” The man spoke with conviction and anger, a pantomime of All Might.

“So the answer to your question is no.” Izuku froze. He had almost forgotten about his question in the showing of his identity, and past. But now that he remembered he just stood there with slumped shoulders trying to make himself smaller. “Heroing is a dangerous job and most villains can’t be beaten without the use of quirks. So no, I don’t think you could become a hero without a quirk. If you want to help others, then you can become a police officer. They’re ofter teased because they get villains delivered to thor doorstep but that is also a fine occupation”

“B-but my dream-” Izuku started as tears welled up in his eyes.

“It’s okay to have dreams. Just make sure those dreams are realistic.” All Might told him as he opened the door on the building and headed inside. The door slammed signifying the end...the end of the conversation and the end of Izuku’s dreams of being a hero. How could he continue on when his idol, the one he looked up to since he could walk, told him to stop trying. All because he didn’t have a quirk

After his idol, his all-time favourite hero broke his already breaking heart Izuku found no other way to continue on. His dreams he held so tightly were more than shattered. It was like someone completely shattered his dreams and breaking them more than all that was left was dust. Not even Kacchan could fully shatter his dreams, but by the hero, he looked up to his whole life. He was useless without a quirk. He was a stupid Deku like what Kacchan had always been telling him all those times before.

Izuku should have listened to him when they were little. He should have given up on his foolish dream of going to UA or becoming one of the greatest heroes. He could see now that the regulation change to allow quirkless people like him to apply to U.A was for publicity’s sake. After all, no quirkless person could actually pass the entrance exams.

“Just hope that you’ll be born with a quirk in your next and life...and take a swan-dive off the roof!”

The laughter of Bakugou's friends rang in Izuku's ear telling him how stupid he was for thinking he ever had a chance in such an unfair world.

Before he could decipher what he was doing, Izuku had kicked his faded red shoes off, once again placing them neatly on the ground and he was standing on the edge of the roof that All Might had so casually left him on after breaking his dreams. His breath short and rasping. But besides his breaths, Izuku was calmer than he’s been in years. He was starting to feel free.

"You have so much to live for-"

No, I don't.

Izuku quickly shut down his line of thought as fast as it had come. He had nothing to live for. He knew that now. Not without a quirk. Even the police academy would expect him to have a quirk.

The world has no place for me anymore.

As true the thought may be it was still scary. But it was true...

There's no point in delaying the inevitable.

Izuku took one last deep breath, stretching his arms out beside him.

It'll be over fast.

Thought in mind, Izuku fell. The wind rushed passed him faster than ever. Faster than bullet trains. It almost felt like he was flying. A small smile spread across his lips. Flying. That would be a fun quirk to have. It wouldn’t be useless. He wouldn’t be useless.

Izuku didn't process the moment when he had hit the ground. It was only when he looked over and down that he saw himself lying limp on the pavement. His deed was done. But wasn't there supposed to be a bright light? Angels? No light? Flames of hell? Why was he still here?

12 notes · View notes

audi-famas-illiorum · 4 years

Text

Why I WILL NOT buy Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

Yes, you read that headline right. The only chance of me buying this game is if it will be at a discounted price and I’m going to tell you why.

1. My worry that the beat mechanic will be half-assed.

The Kingdom Hearts series has a track record of having bad beat-based minigames in the past, and this is one of the main complaints of the entire series. People begged that Atlantica not be included or at least not a required music section in Kingdom Hearts III. This is simply because it sucked. The music wasn’t good, and the mechanic itself wasn’t that great or engaging either.

Some Kingdom Hearts music is really good, don’t get me wrong, but there are some songs that simply don’t care enough of a solid tune or beat in order to make a beat game out of it. The Agrabah theme has a nice tune, but to me, it almost sounds wrong out of the context of casual exploration.

I will give that I haven’t played the game, but based on my past experiences with this type of game in KH in past, I would be going in with expectations of something much greater than what they’ve done in the past.

2. Most of the content in the game is already in other games.

A friend said to be that it was nice that there would be a theater section where you can review all of the cutscenes from all of the games. Okay, maybe that’s cool, but every Final Mix game now has a theater where you can do the same exact thing. Plus, many of these ‘scenes’ don’t include all of the scenes in the games. The main complain about the 358/2 Days cinematic is that it didn’t include many small but important events. Sure, it’s a good review, but unless this is your first Kingdom Hearts game, you both already own and have the theater.

On top of this, there are cutscenes that play in the background while you play the game. All of these cutscenes are likely going to be snippets of previous games which means, all they have to do is render the scene, plug it into Melody of Memory for a given song, and put an overlay for the actual gameplay over it.

The only content actually being created is animation for the new chapter of story, the tracks for the game (as in, placing the notes for the mechanic), key art, and a new UI.

While this game may also have new versions of the music we know and love, 90% of these tracks have already been made and recorded for previous games. Once again, this is a case of them just plugging it into the game.

3. Console only.

I love playing on my PS4. I love it so much more than playing it on my ipad or my phone because it’s a bigger screen and generally better quality. However, every rhythm/beat game I’ve played is on mobile besides Rock Band. I personally find beat games better with a touch screen instead hoping that your input delay isn’t so bad where it ruins the entire game.

I could possibly get behind a beat console game, but I worry about what the control scheme is going to look like and that it will feel unnatural. This is another thing that could seem bad in theory but okay in practice, and I’ll give that I haven’t play it, but I still have my doubts.

4. Minimal story.

As far as we know, this is only a chapter of the story. This is going to be a very non-traditional Kingdom Hearts game where they expect every previous fan to play because... story.

We’ve been told in the past that Kingdom Hearts Union Cross won’t be that big of an impact on the story, and yet look at the end cutscene of KH3. Without seeing Back Cover or playing a Pay To Win mobile game, you would have pretty much no idea what’s going on. This brings me to my final main point.

5. $60. A full price console game.

We are paying for content we have already seen and heard, but they feel it is okay to give us full price because it’s being presented in a fun, new way. Which it isn’t even a new way because we’ve had previous rhythm games before! It’s just a different style now.

This especially peeves me because we paid $30 for ReMind for content that should have been in the final game, and ReMind itself was also a rework of scenes that we already in the game, just from a slightly different perspective.

And another thing...

I am very disappointed with the creative story decisions that have been made thus far in the series. Sure, Sora’s “disappearance” has brought about an interesting arc, but Kairi’s sacrifice was ultimately meaningless with Sora eventually sacrificing himself for Kairi. She was portrayed at the damsel in order to give Sora his arc, not necessarily showing how strong Kairi has become through all of her training.

I’d also like to note that Riku is Sora’s other best friend is getting brushed off to the side in order to build a relationship for Sora and Kairi. Luckily, we’ll get to see a bit of Kairi and Riku interacting which has been desperately needed, because it’s been seeming like they’ve been fighting for screen time with Sora instead of with each other or all together.

tl;dr

The game costs far too much for mostly content we’ve already seen and I feel so robbed of my money that I don’t want to pay to see one chapter of story that I can see just as easily on youtube.

#outoflegends #kh #kingdom hearts #I have feelings okay #opinion #drama #?

3 notes · View notes

deltaengineering · 5 years

Text

Fall Anime 2019 Part 4: also, he has a gun for a head

Beastars

So here’s the CG anime that everyone for some reason decided way in advance would be the best show of the season, more or less by default. I was very skeptical of this for a multitude of reasons. First of all, that is a bad name for a show and you can’t convince me otherwise. It’s actually even worse because you’re supposed to write it in all caps, but I refuse. Second, it has a terribly on the nose conceit in which all sorts of animals live together in a high school setting and it’s all metaphorical ‘n shit. The main character is a wolf but get this, he’s actually all sensitive and quiet! Yeah, this is definitely rated D for Deep. And finally it’s by Orange, the CG studio that got an inordinate amount of acclaim for making Houseki no Kuni, the show that everyone thinks looks great and finally made CG anime worthwhile (actual real fact: HnK does not look great most of the time and CG anime was worthwhile well before it).

But enough about my preconceptions since Beastars is... pretty good, actually. If you ignore the setting, which is indeed terribly on the nose. And there’s not much else to say about the story so far besides it. However, it looks significantly better than Houseki no Kuni because it actually has really good character animation throughout instead of a one-minute action scene with flashy spinny camera tricks every other episode. The directing’s strong too, even if the show conspicuously mainly consists of obvious manga panels. I’m still not too hot on the animal stuff but the general writing seems to be sufficiently competent it would work simply on a character level. So I don’t love it, but it seems solid enough to see if it goes somewhere with its “Zootopia but also Beverly Hills 90210 but also they eat each other sometimes″ plot.

Rifle is Beautiful

Remember the whole “anime about some assorted anime girls joining a club doing an oddly specific activity” thing? This is another one of those, and now it’s about air rifle sports shooting. Except it’s not about air rifle sports shooting because that’s apparently way too violent, so they use rifles that look like exactly like air rifles but are actually based on lasers or really bright flashlights (they can’t keep their bullshit straight between scenes, sorry) instead. I just don’t think “girls doing activities” anime should blatantly misrepresent their subject matter like that, you know? With the possible exception of idol anime that is, ain’t nobody who wants to hear about that shit. Apart from that it’s nothing special, so if you are really into air rifles and wish to watch an anime that’s not about those, knock yourself out. It goes through a whole “club needs 5 members” arc in the first half of the first episode, so I really can’t say where it goes next. Nowhere much, I would guess.

Oh right, there’s one more thing: They frequently render the bodies in CG and the heads in traditional drawings, and they do it every time when they’d actually have to draw a rifle otherwise. It’s a weird effect that I think I haven’t seen anywhere else before, and it’s not great but also not terrible. And it’s the most interesting thing about the entire show.

Kabukicho Sherlock

“Let’s take a bunch of public domain characters and put them into a hip modern setting” seems to be its own genre at the moment, and not only because the BBC did that with S. Holmes, Esq. already. Obviously this show is influenced by that (besides other public domain namedroppers like Bungou Stray Dogs), mostly in Watson and his relationship with Sherlock, but Sherlock-san is rather different here; he’s neither the classic Victorian bohemian nor the abrasive sociopath of the BBC version, and tends more towards a bumbling 90s pop culture version of autism and/or general wackiness here. These two are surrounded by a bunch of campy transvestites for some reason, and I’m not quite sure whether I’m supposed to find this particular stereotype offensive or empowering this week, but it sure is annoying. And it has the same character designer as Joker Game, so if you like chiseled, angular anime men, you’re in for a treat here - even if they tend to wear a lot of makeup and dresses sometimes. I don’t know man, it seems sort of okay-ish for the most part but it’s neither as funny as they think, nor as weird as they think, nor is the murder of the week intriguing at all. Oh yeah, he’s hunting noted public domain character Jack the Ripper. Because of course he is.

Shin Chuuka Ichiban!

I am told this is the sequel to episode 19 of a 52-episode anime TV show from 1997. Okay. I am also told to not dare watch this without the important setup therein, which makes me think I should pay less attention to what I’m told because understanding Shin Chuuka Ichiban and its backstory is not hard at all. Kid is superawesome cooking champion in ancient China and goes around clowning on lesser cooks, got it. It’s not a complicated setup and it’s not a complicated genre either: This seems to be mostly about sick shounen cooking duels. Besides the setting, the main difference between this and Shokugeki no Soma seems to be that SnS goes for ridiculous and Chuuka Ichiban goes for epic - which is to say that it fancies itself emotional as well. Apart from that it’s what you’d expect from a cooking shounen, big moves, big reactions, huge twists and so on. One notable thing is that this show looks really, really nice. Production I.G seems to be establishing a sideline in taking stuff from the 90s and updating it with smoother animation and shinier lighting, while keeping the overall look intact; They did it for Mahoujin Guru Guru, and this looks much the same. Still, I’m just fundamentally not really interested in what appears to be a very straightforward cooking shounen from the 90s.

Assassins Pride

Straight from the Department of Chuuni, we have this light novel masterpiece about a cool as fuck teenage assassin who teleports behind u and nothin personells fools all day. He then meets a princess he’s supposed to off but just kinda decides not to, probably because she seems to be smitten by his m’lady act. Now he has to use his sick skillz to keep them both alive. It’s awful and terrible and no good and also kind of adorable. This truly is the most 13 AND A HALF MOM years old anime in a while, and it’s not even isekai! The writing’s just so amateurish and corny you can’t help but smile when princesses exposit their backstory for no reason while being accosted by pumpkin monsters (without knowing that Awessassin McCooldude happens to be listening in, which is certainly convenient). Or when the episode ends with the man just reading the synopsis of the show out again, in case you were too fascinated by this plot to pay attention to what it’s about. Yeah I’m not going to watch this in a thousand years, but it sure made me chuckle. Your mileage may vary.

Mugen no Juunin - Immortal

Speaking of 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔡𝔤𝔢, another anime adaptation of Blade of the Immortal appeared! You know, the manga for the cultured and historically minded guro fan. The first episode of Blade of the Immortal runs with this and is an arthouse production that someone most definitely directed the shit out of. I don’t think I’ve seen this much directing since, well, Sarazanmai, but “Ikuhara amounts of directing” is pretty much the idea here. And most of the time it even works! The quickly edited, disorienting style gives episode 1 a feeling closer to horror than to a cool swordmen action show, and that really brings out the best in the material, which is grotesque splatter bordering on the comical - It’s somehow a better Junji Ito anime than the actual Junji Ito anime. I think it tries too hard in a few places, but at least it does try.

But then I watched the second episode and that one’s a fairly conventional splatter-comedy swordin’ anime. I am not at all pleased with this development. The third episode was better again and seemed to split the difference between 1 and 2, even if it mostly uses the tricky editing to save on effort in the action – I would much prefer actually readable fights and the wacky mannerisms in the more psychological stuff, thank you very much. Based on episode 1 I thought we might have something special here, but as of episode 3 I’d already merely call it pretty decent. I guess I’ll still stick with it but man, that’s a real bummer.

No Guns Life

No Guns Life is a neo-noir thriller about a guy who has a gun for a head. That’s fuckin rad and exactly the kind of silliness I am totally down for. He also has a gun for a hand, and there’s also some battle nun’s who carry revolvers with two cylinders, so in short I think the title is false advertising. This sounds very wacky (and it is), but it also takes its noir very seriously, down to details more wannabe neo-noirs tend to neglect (like being set right after a big war). The look and feel is pretty excellent, with sharp design and high-contrast artwork, and the music goes all in on the moody saxophone as you’d expect. And there’s some really adorable “look mom, I’m writing” stuff about how Man With Gun For A Head really “needs someone to pull his trigger” and so on (which is, as the astute reader might remember, at the back of his head). It feels like a throwback but then I can’t really think of many 80s/90s shows like this, so it’s actually more like the sort of faux-retro idea Trigger/Imaishi would come up with on a lark. Trigger/Imaishi would, of course, make a far worse anime out of it, so it’s all good. Well, it has some pacing problems and as always it’s a fine line between amusingly camp and not so amusingly camp anymore, but No Guns Life seems to have enough real qualities that it can probably stand on its own even when its conceptual gimmick eventually doesn’t suffice anymore. I give it a two gun’s up.

Hoshiai no Sora / Stars Align

And finally, here’s an anime about middle schooler softboys playing a tennis just as soft as themselves, while being henpecked by the elites on the girl’s team. This is not an “actual” sports anime though: for starters, it’s not based on some shounen manga and is an anime original with quite some staff pedigree instead. It’s also more of a character drama that already goes to some surprisingly real places by the end of episode 1, reminiscent of the recent and quite good Run with the Wind. Furthermore, it looks delicious, with minimalist but distinctive and varied character designs and animation that’s both extremely detailed for a TV anime and also not trying to shove that fact into your face with flashy stunt cuts. In short, this show seems very simple at first glance but every aspect of it just oozes quality. If nothing else, it’s already worth watching just for the excellent ending sequence where the characters show off their “best” dance moves and the chunky student council president dunks on everyone. This one caught me by surprise and it’s an easy pick for most promising show of the season.

#anime #impressions #Beastars #Rifle is Beautiful #Kabukicho Sherlock #Shin Chuuka Ichiban!#Assassins Pride #Mugen no Juunin - Immortal #No Guns Life #Hoshiai no Sora #stars align

63 notes · View notes

rockingbrooklyn · 5 years

Text

The Kings of Paradise Guys as Dads! (FLUFF) [KOP-headcanon]

Based on Anonymous request: Whenever you have time, could you do the KOP guys as fathers/or when the MC is pregnant?

I decided to combine both these scenarios and write this headcanon, albeit a bit lengthy and kinda detailed. I've written this with the basic idea of the guys having a daughter, because it really appealed to me. Hope you like it!❤

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~☆~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taki:

When MC first told him about the pregnancy, he had been over the moon. He had dreamt of having a family with her ever since high school. He hugged her tight and the first words out of his mouth were "Thank you MC, I love you so much, I can't even express how happy I am". And he sounded choked.

He started reading a lot. If not working or pampering MC, he would read various Internet articles regarding pregnancy.

He pampered MC much much more than usual. From bringing her mindful gifts to giving her a fragrant bath or a back massage, he would go that extra mile to make sure she was happy and comfortable. It was almost daily that he brought little gifts for MC when he came home from work, much to her chagrin.

Taki is incredibly mature and that showed in his ability to handle any situation- from MC's mood swings to her cravings.

On those nights when the baby would be extra kicky and render MC sleepless, he would sing to MC's belly and rub it to soothe the baby. It was the most tender version of Taki MC had ever seen.

He had kept all the funds that they would ever require for the baby ready beforehand. He has also secretly kept money in various bank accounts for MC. Not that he'd ever mention this to her because she tends to worry, but this is his precaution to ensure that MC has enough to provide for herself and their baby god forbid something horrible ever happened to him. His biggest fear is not being able to take care of his family and watching them suffer in dangerous situations like he did when young, so he has taken every possible measure to ensure that nothing would ever separate him from them.

He has the best health insurances for himself, MC and also for their coming baby.

He has all big mergers and business deals done before the arrival of the baby so that he wouldn't miss out on the initial few years of it's life. He has everything meticulously planned, it's almost like an OCD for him.

Taki and MC decorated the nursery and baby-proofed the house together. The nursery has several momentos from their journey together from high school uptil that moment, and it is something very sentimental for both of them.

He drove MC to the hospital about 2 days prior to the due date, just to avoid any last minute stress. Whenever MC would feel stressed, he would be there to hug her and make her feel at ease.

He held her shoulders and encouraged her to push when she went into labour. It was difficult for him to see her in pain, but in order to support her, he had to remain composed.

He could barely hold his tears back when he first saw their baby daughter. Her face was more like MC, save for her eyes which were an exact copy of his. One look into her eyes, and he swore that he would do anything and everything in his power to ensure that his family would long for nothing. "MC, she's perfect" he said, looking at his wife in admiration.

The only thing MC does after coming home from the hospital is resting. Taki keeps her away from housework. He also takes care of the baby when MC is asleep. MC admonishes him at times because all that waking up late at night will definitely make him fall asleep on his desk (he did once, and he didn't tell MC this, but she knows better).

He strives to come home early so that he can play with his baby girl. MC loves to see Taki giggling and singing with the baby, and she swears she's never seen anything so adorable.

Taki is yet to get used to the diaper changing and upchucking, but he tries his best. He agrees that MC is so many times better than him at all the baby jobs.

Another reason that he comes home early is to keep the other guys away from his daughter. She doesn't need those immature problematic men with horrible gifting sense.

He's lost count of the number of times he's scolded Yosuke and the others for bringing those extravagant gifts for his daughter, but her 3 more than generous uncles refuse to listen. MC and Taki are confused as to what they are going to do with that mini-Mercedes.

Taki and MC sit together with Sydney and gently introduce her to her new baby sister. Sydney takes her role very seriously- she's even more aggressive towards Yosuke when he comes to see the baby.

Taki death-glared Shun hard when he said that he's going to be baby girl's boyfriend. His annoyance level reached maximum when his daughter giggled back in agreement. MC could barely hold back her laughter.

Taki's lockscreen is a picture of MC with their baby girl in her arms, while MC's lockscreen is a picture of a sleeping Taki with their baby girl sound asleep on his chest.

Yosuke:

Yosuke was really excited but also scared when MC told him she was pregnant. He had a less than pleasant experience with his own family, so he doubted his capabilities as a father.

Although he did not let MC in on it, he had been extremely unsure fir the first few weeks. Did he want a baby? Could he handle that responsibility? But the next moment, he thought about how enriched his life had become since MC, and another little MC wouldn't hurt at all. It was then he firmly decided, he was going to do this, by hook or by crook.

He was very excited, albeit a bit nervous about the first ultrasound. When he saw the tiny little bean- their tiny little bean on the screen, he was filled with an array of emotions all which told him that he dearly wanted this human in his life. That was the day when all of his inhibitions were put to rest.

Since the day MC revealed her pregnancy, Yosuke became extremely protective of her- he personally took care of her meals, even hired a nutritionist and a cook for her, got in the best of doctors and obstetricians and made sure he attended each gynaec visit. MC thought it was fun to see Yosuke so excited (and extra) about something.

He easily gets concerned by morning sickness and MC's mood swings. He cannot handle seeing her crying, he gets panicky and ends up doing weird things. Once when he saw MC crying watching an animal documentary, he went into a panic and came back dressed in a bunny onesie- complete with the whiskers and button nose. He was extremely embarrassed because he had no clue what to do, but that made MC smile so it was worth everything.

He's an compulsive Googler. He Googles practically everything that he is unsure about, and gets antsy when Google doesn't have an answer to his question. Honestly, the last thing he Googled was 'How to raise a baby?' If Google were a person, it would have gotten Yosuke arrested.

When the labour pains first started, he was genuinely more scared than MC herself. His hands were sweaty, and MC, through the pain, had to make sure her husband was okay. Inspite of being panicked, he refused to leave the delivery room so the doctors had to unwillingly keep him.

He watched the entire birth with fearful eyes, ready to collapse anytime with the amount of tension.

Throughout the course of her pregnancy, MC seriously wondered if Yosuke was her eldest forgotten child.

When the doctors handed him their crying daughter, there was an overflow of emotions inside him. He cried, cried a lot- his daughter, wet, kicking and wailing, was the loveliest thing he had ever seen. He couldn't believe this little one was theirs. "Thank you so much MC, I love you baby"

He made sure MC was comfortable in the hospital, and that she had her favourite foods- much to the annoyance of all doctors and nurses.

He spent the first 2 nights awake, looking at his new favourite girl. She had his exact mischievous face and eyes too, but her hair and skin colour matched MC.

SPOILER ALERT: Daddy's baby girl gets whatever she wants, and she isn't even 2 days old yet. He wants to bring her up like a princess, although MC is quite adamant that she doesn't want her daughter growing up to become a spoilt, rich brat. But Yosuke also promised her that he won't let their daughter go the wrong way, and he'll make damn sure of it.

He works from home quite often, so that he can take care of MC and play a lot with the baby. He treats both his girls with utmost care, and gives them all his attention. He does not want either of them feel what he did as a child.

Compulsive photographer. Clicks innumerable baby pictures daily, and most of them look the same, but he wouldn't delete them.

The first time his daughter threw up on him, he was like "Honey, why would you do this to me?" while MC tried hard not to laugh at the scene, making Yosuke pout. She replied, "Don't worry Yosuke, I still love you, even if you're covered in baby vomit"

Yosuke cannot see baby girl crying. The first wail itself is too much for him to take, and her tear streaked little face and desperate cries bring him to his knees.

He won't let the other guys hold her until he's made sure they've had a shower and are clean enough. He won't even let them hold her for more than a minute, and ofcourse Shun or even Taki for that matter, wouldn't listen to that which makes Yosuke really sulky.

When MC once joked about their daughter growing up and getting home a boyfriend just like Yosuke, boy he freakeddddd out. No, she's his baby girl, she doesn't need any other boy in her life except him!

Kiyohito:

When MC revealed the news to him, he teared up. He isn't really an emotional person, so seeing him react that way did worry MC a little bit. But he made it clear that he was happy and those were the happy kind of tears.

For his young age, he was a bit anxious at the aspect of fatherhood. But a mini him-&-MC? He couldn't wait to see that one!

He made sure of being not only physically, but also emotionally available for MC because it was the time for the most drastic changes for her, and he didn't want her to go through that alone. He makes it a point to be more vocal towards MC and tell her how he feels.

He also makes sure he's always there to listen to what MC has to say. He pays utmost attention to all her needs. He insists that MC speak out everything on her mind and he very religiously does the same- fears and inhibitions included. Communication is the key to a healthy pregnancy and relationship and noone knows that better than Kiyo.

He tries to be home early, but if he can't, he calls from time to time to check on MC, if she's had her meals, her vitamins and medications, if she's feeling okay and stuff like that. He has tried to attend as many check-ups as he could.

He always offers MC a soothing body massage whenever she's sore or tired.

He talks to MC's belly a lot. He'll whisper sweet things and rub it affectionately wishing that his baby recognizes him.

He's honestly scared when doctors rushed MC to the delivery room. He could not bear her screams and the nurse had to push him out.

When MC urged him to finally hold their baby girl- her stared at her long and hard, not being able to believe that she was here with them. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen besides MC, and she had his exact angelic eyes.

When MC is sent home, Kiyohito usually manages the night duties, and it was then that MC realised: he had a horrible singing voice- it sounded like a constipated alien. But it soothes their daughter nonetheless (that poor baby girl), so MC has never told him that it sucks.

Kiyohito designs many cute onesies, frocks and clothes of a variety of styles for his baby girl. Even at that very tender age, she has a massive closet of her own. MC and Kiyo love dressing her up. He even tries various hairstyles on her baby hair. The other guys find it really adorable and it becomes difficult for Kiyo to get her back once he gives her to them.

He just cannot stand baby poop and vomit. The first time he smelt it, he threw up, no kidding. MC has to do all the dirty work herself.

Kiyohito has hired bodyguards for MC and the baby. He strictly keeps their daughter away from paparazzi. He also keeps her away from his social media. He wants her to have a normal private life. He is also particularly hesitant about his daughter entering into the entertainment or fashion industry because of all the bad politics involved in it.

Kiyo and MC have lost track of the number of diamond studded hairclips their daughter owns, thanks to Yosuke and Shun. And thanks to Taki for getting her that crocodile plush that she really adores. She wouldn't sleep without it and Kiyo is a bit annoyed at the fact that she won't take any of the soft toys he bought for her, to sleep.

Shun:

Shun and MC had been trying for a baby since quite sometime so when MC finally gave him the big news, he was incredibly happy.

He surprisingly cut down on his drinking without being told by anyone. Yosuke teases him a lot about it.

He meticulously tries to adjust his schedule so that he returns home on time for his wife and their new member. He also attends all ultrasound sessions and birthing classes with MC.

Takes MC on a babymoon to some exotic place so that she can relax and unwind.

Is the type to get MC a lot of treats while returning home. He picks up clothes, shoes, food for MC and toys for the baby on an impulse. If he's walking on the street, and he sees something in a shop that he likes, he's sure to bring it home.

He's really romantic towards MC because for the second time in his life, she's made him feel truly alive from the inside.

He wishes that their baby is a girl, because he wants a little girl just like MC. He regularly prays to God for that.

Shun often surprises MC with a bouquet of flowers, a shower of kisses, cuddles, a candlelight dinner or a bubble bath with her favourite bath bombs.

Shun personally gets into the baby-proofing stuff. He does not want to leave any corner of the house untouched.

Just before going to sleep, Shun spends some time on self-introspection and thinks how he can be a better husband and father. Unknown to him, MC hasn't missed the changes in his behaviour and she's thankful to have him in her life.

For all the time he spent carefully managing his schedule, the baby chose to arrive at that exact moment when he wasn't home. Taki, Yosuke and Kiyohito rushed MC to the hospital for an early delivery. Shun at that time was filming the last scene for his last film of the season in another town. So when Taki could finally reach him and tell him about the news, he drove to the hospital as fast as he could. But through the traffic and distance, it took him more than an hour to come. By the time he reached, MC had already delivered their daughter and was tiredly waiting for him.

"Look at our princess Shun, exactly like the one you wanted" MC had barely said the words when he wrapped her in a tight hug and cried to his hearts content. He was happy more than words could express, but also emotional at the aspect of not being able to witness their daughter's birth.

He held his daughter in his arms all night and thanked god for granting his wish. She has taken his dark hair and lip-shape, but the rest of her looks like MC. Once they return home, he has every plan ready to spoil the two of them.

Shun likes to soothe his daughter by playing the piano. When she's fussy, she won't settle for anyone but daddy. Since he's taken a short hiatus from filming, he is almost always at home. He doesn't want to miss anymore of his daughter's milestones.

He's surprisingly a pro at changing diapers, cleaning baby vomit and handling the teething. The other guys were surprised to see him do all the work without even scrunching his nose. They think he must have some sort of superpower.

Shun thinks that the guys are a bad influence for his daughter, and had plans to keep them away from her, but MC told him not to. The baby girl needs to have some entertainment in her life too. It still worries Shun as to what that entertainment might be. He also really hopes that Yosuke doesn't become her favourite uncle.

His daughter is his new muse, his new inspiration. He pens down poems and stories for her and she listens to him with all the attention that she can give at that age- eyes wide, saliva dribbling onto his shirt and hands in her mouth. It is an adorable sight to witness.

Shun has a really good singing voice and it moves MC to tears whenever she sees him singing to their daughter, her head on his chest and her little hand clasped in his- like a protector. His world revolves around his wife and daughter, he's proud of them, for he knows that they're his forever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~☆~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link to Masterpost

113 notes · View notes

spackeets-written-madness · 4 years

Text

Of Monsters and Men

The Kingdom of Fife was quiet, so Ser Proletius and his Knights of Crail spread throughout the kingdom to help the people more directly. Proletius had gone to the town of Enest, surrounded by thick forest to see if they had any problems. Turned out that they had a monster problem that needed solving.

On Ao3!

Warning ahead: I got slightly discriptive with describing corpses, and battle

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ser Proletius and his Knights of Crail had been out in the Kingdom to patrol some of the towns and villages to secure then as well as the cities since everything had been a bit quiet. Since they were only patrolling towns, they didn’t need many knights to secure them and had chosen to go in pairs of two or three; except if you’re the Grandmaster who went to the forest town of Enest on his own with only his unicorn as his companion. He would’ve brought Farcry, but the eagle was simply too big to land in the tightly packed forest that surrounded Enest.

He had been on the road to Enest for a few days now and could now see it in the distance, his unicorn had seen it too for e quickened eir’s pace so that they could get to the town before nightfall as the sky began to darken. As they cantered along the road, they passed a portion of the forest that was felled, a good half-acre, in fact, was simply, gone. It stunned both Proletius and the unicorn enough that e slowed eir’s canter to a trot, walk then full stop to take in the damage.

Normally seeing felled trees or plains isn’t too odd especially near farming towns, but this area is very heavily forested (and he didn’t know that there had been approved logging in this area) so this had been odd to Proletius. What was odder still were the corpses suspended and intertwined in tree roots that pushed their way through the earth, the bodies crushed and pierced. The eyes and faces of the corpses were picked away by ravens and other carrion feeders. In Proletius’s line of work, seeing corpses isn’t rare nor is adding to the corpse count, what was odd about this was the fact it looked like nature itself fought back against the carnage.

The Grandmaster made a ‘hmm’ noise in the back of his throat as he surveyed what happened. He then looked to his right towards Enest a few kilometres in the distance. “I suppose we’ll find out more in the town,” he said aloud.

The unicorn snorted in agreement, turned around and started back up towards the town in a faster canter, but not quite a gallop. With the unicorn’s pace, they got to the town quickly and entered it, heading straight for the inn and had stopped in front of it.

Proletius barely managed to dismount from his unicorn when he heard wheezing and puffing from behind him. He finished getting off the unicorn, turned around to be met with a rather rotund and overweight man with auburn hair, dressed plainly, with a blue cloak and doubled over to catch his breath. Waddling up to stand next to the man was a mastiff-sized wingless dragon: a drake-hound, and a green one at that. The Grandmaster waited for the man to catch his breath.

The man caught his breath and stood straight, he took the time to brush himself off and gather his nerves before he spoke to Ser Proletius. “Evening Ser Knight! I am Munroe, the local logger overseer, that came down to this town about a little over a week ago to clear out some of this wood,” he started to explain.

The Grandmaster had interrupted whatever Munroe was going to say next. “Enest supplies the kingdom with mushrooms and truffles, not wood,” he said.

Munroe blinked and floundered. “Well, Uhm, not yet the town won’t be. I came to change that and brought some men with me from my village to help out, locals haven’t been helping us, which isn’t a problem, the problem is that three days ago a monster that slaughtered half my men and rendered the rest too afraid to work!” the man finished, a bit flustered.

“A monster? See anything that would make you think that?” Proletius asked. Something had seemed off about this man.

“Oh, I wasn’t there, but I heard it from the surviving men - in the midst of fearful babbling mind you - that they were attacked by wolves and ravens, the men ran, and the ones that apparently didn’t get away in time were crushed by tree roots that had risen from the ground. I went down to the location awhile ago. So yes, it was a monster,” Munroe expanded as he patted the drake-hound at his side.

Proletius thought back to the sight he saw back before the village, the empty forest floor with the corpses of lumberjacks crushed in intertwining roots, their bodies covered in wolf bites and their eyes pecked out by ravens. It did look like a monster had attacked them, but why would it attack now? Proletius decided not to ask Munroe, he only arrived a few weeks ago, he wouldn’t know. “Thank you, Munroe, I’ll look into it,” the Knight said respectfully to the man.

“Please try to hurry, Ser, I don’t mean to rush a distinguished knight such as yourself, but I fear that the rest of the men may leave the town if the threat of this monster keeps up,” the overseer said.

Proletius gave a curt nod and Munroe waddled off with his drake-hound hot on his heels. The Grandmaster turned back around to face the inn that was his original objective and looked at the squat wooden building that sat upon a foundation of carved stone, the sign to this inn had a goblet with a crack in it and words that read ‘The Cracked Chalice’. He checked to make sure that his unicorn was alright and walked up the three steps to get inside. The barkeep will have more information he figured.

When the Grandmaster walked through the door, he was met with a remarkably clean establishment, the tables were well taken care of, the chairs and stools had some furs on the seats to add a bit of comfort and it was well lit with candles. There were a few patrons already seated at some of the tables and bar that turned to look at Proletius when he came through the door, all a bit in awe that the Grandmaster himself had come to their village. He walked up to the bar and sat down at one of the stools in front of it, his armour clanking and rubbing against itself as he sat down, his sword on his hip bumped slightly against the bar.

The barkeep saw Proletius walk in and had waited for him to get situated before he spoke to the Grandmaster. “Evening, Ser, what brings you to Enest?” he greeted.

“Making sure that everything is alright in the kingdom. Now I heard from a man called Munroe that you have a monster problem?” Proletius said.

The barkeep and several of the patrons grumbled about Munroe under their breath. The barkeep then spoke up. “We never used to have a problem with nature before Munroe and his men came to fell our woods,” the barkeep began, “but they didn’t listen to our druid when she told them to clear the woods she marked, because of animal homes and the like, and they didn’t listen, felled some trees not where she marked and got what was coming to them.”

“So even you don’t know anything about this monster?”

The barkeep shrugged his thick shoulders. “Nope. Though I saw it’s carnage, everyone did. Some kind of nature beast or spirit that they pissed off. Best to talk to Alina about it.”

“Alina?”

“The druid I mentioned earlier. She knows nature. Though it’s best you go visit her in the morning, she doesn’t like visitors this late,” the barkeep advised.

Proletius turned around to look out the window and sure enough, the sky was a lot darker than earlier. Well, he should probably sleep then. “I’ll grab a room for the night, then. As well as something to eat and drink,” the Grandmaster said.

“Sure thing, what would you like to drink?”

“Mead.” came the Grandmaster’s answer. He figured it’d be okay to have one drink.

The barkeep turned around to the counter behind him and grabbed a cup and a bottle of mead poured it into the cup, and set it down in front of the Grandmaster. “Something to eat? The cook has prepared a nice steak with some mushroom gravy for the day,” the barkeep offered for something to eat.

One of the things Proletius liked when he travelled the kingdom is trying the different foods of the villages and towns. “That sounds perfect, I’ll have that,” the Grandmaster said as he sipped at his drink.

The barkeep nodded and walked to the back to give Proletius’s order to the cook. The barkeep stuck his head out to check on the front before ducking back to attend to something else. This left Proletius alone, which he didn’t mind of course.

While he waited for his meal, he thought about the things he saw and started to pile the evidence about what this ‘monster’ might be. Admittedly he wasn’t sure, monster hunting wasn’t his expertise. Now, goblin and chaos wizard hunting, on the other hand, was in his expertise. He was brought out of his thoughts by his food being placed in front of him, that brought his focus to enjoying some food.

The barkeep stood back behind the bar and looked at Proletius as the Grandmaster ate. “So, what are you going to do when you talk with Alina?” he asked. He sounded concerned for the druid’s well-being.

“Callum, let the knight finish his food,” someone else at the bar scolded the barkeep.

Proletius simply chewed his mouthful and swallowed before he answered. “Talk to her. Listen to her, see if she spoke and negotiated with Munroe, try to help negotiations. This monster issue sounds like a relatively easy fix,” he said. At least, he hoped that it was an easy fix.

“Ah, I see. Sorry, she’s been a big help here ever since she moved here five years ago. Helping us fell the right trees and not change the landscape drastically in the process. She’s not like most other druids,” Callum - the barkeep - said.

Proletius had been quietly eating his food while Callum talked. He swallowed his last mouthful. “What do you mean ‘not like other druids’?” he questioned.

“You’ll see.”

“Is it that hard to explain?” Proletius asked in a slightly joking tone.

Callum chuckled. “Well, no, it’s just easier to see what I mean when you actually meet her.”

“I see.” Proletius went back to his food in silence and Callum left him alone to finish the meal and sleep. The Grandmaster ate his food, paid for both the meal and the room and left to the said room after the keys were given to him.

***

The Grandmaster slept well that night and awoke to the sun shining in his face, which, for a knight is not unusual but no less annoying. He got up and got ready for the day, washed his face a bit, got dressed and donned in his armour, that kind of thing. After he did that, he went to the bar to grab a quick bite to eat before he went to talk to Alina. Callum talked to him a bit while he had eaten.

After that, the Grandmaster asked Callum where Alina lived and went on a nice walk to the druid’s house to go talk to her. When he approached the house (which was five minutes off the outskirts of the village) it looked like many of the other houses in the village: squat, wooden and small. The differences to this house where the garden beds, the many ground-bird coops and feeding stations. Yep, this was a druid’s house. Proletius walked up to the door and gave it a good loud knock since he heard something fall inside the house.

“Just come inside!” came a feminine voice in answer to the knock.

Proletius nudged open the door and stepped inside to be met with a lot of red birds and a bit of chaos. There were birds on the rafters, the sills, everywhere and they looked very similar to ravens in size and shape though were a brilliant shade of red with the tail and wingtips gradient to blue, all the feathers had an iridescent sheen with the beaks and feet of the birds being yellow.

A young-looking woman wearing a plain beige shirt, brown pants and slippers came into view carrying a box with what looked to be yarn-nests in her slender yet lithe arms. Her build wasn't small or terribly thin, but it wasn't muscular either. Her long blonde hair was haphazardly brushed and pulled into a loose tail, her green eyes focused on the birds and not her guest. She set the box down and began to hand each bird pair a nest from the box, the pair flying off through the window and the next pair stepped up. They were queueing.

Proletius could see that she was immediately busy and stood near the door to wait for her to finish her job. He looked around the room he stood in, there was a small round table to his left, a desk near the table with piles of loose paper scattered on it, herbs, a mortar and pestle, other plants, a few loose feathers and quills. Above the desk were a couple of shelves that held books and a few potted plants.

“Here, Big Miss Muffet wants to go outside,” the lady said as she passed briefly by Proletius and shoved something into his hands to no doubt put outside. She still didn’t seem to notice him as she disappeared behind a corner in the back to get something. (Probably more nests, since she ran out of the ones in the box she got out.)

Proletius looked down at his hands to see a decently sized tarantula in them that the druid gave him. The Grandmaster stared at it for a few moments before he leaned down and let the spider crawl outside the open door. When he stood back up, he saw the woman standing in the opening she went into, staring at him. “Alina, I presume?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yes… Sorry for pushing a spider into your hands, I thought you were someone else,” she apologised. She held a box with more nests in her arms.

Proletius waved a hand dismissively, “It’s alright, I’m alright with spiders. I’m Ser Proletius, Grandmaster of the Knights of Crail. I wanted to ask you a few questions about the apparent nature spirit or monster that attacked some of Munroe’s men,” he said, getting to the point.

Alina looked pissed at the mention of Munroe’s name. She set the box that was in her arms on the countertop with a bit more force than what was necessary. “I told him and his men not to cut down that area, I even showed and marked an area for them to fell because those trees were all old. But no, he chose the young trees that a critically endangered bird species were nesting in, or rather, managed to adapt to nesting in,” she said with annoyance.

Proletius looked at the red ravens that helped each other get the nests out of the box. “Are those the critically endangered birds?” he asked for clarification.

“Yeah, Pheonix Ravens, thought to have been pushed to extinction fifty years ago but I found two dwindling and barely surviving flocks. I’ve been trying to help them adapt to living in a different area, but it’s not easy. Nature often tends to be stubborn,” she said exasperated. “I’ve spent the last three days trying to help them after Munroe felled the trees that they managed to call home.”

The Grandmaster looked at the red birds in surprise. Even he thought that the Phoenix Ravens went extinct. It made him consider telling the King about it. “Even I thought these birds went extinct, I’m glad they didn’t. I can help you talk to Munroe to work something out and I can even talk with the king to make them protected to help them,” Proletius said.

Alina’s tired face suddenly lit up. “You will?” at his nod, she couldn’t hold back a smile. “Thank you! If you let me tidy myself up a bit more, we can go talk to the man now?” she asked.

“Sooner is better. I can wait outside for you,” Proletius offered.

“Oh no, it’s alright, you can wait in here if you want. I should have some biscuits if the birds didn’t eat them all that is,” she said off-handed and reached for a jar on the counter next to the nest box. She opened the ceramic jar to check inside it. “Oh nope, they didn’t eat all of them,” she commented as she set the jar down on the table and put the lid back on before a Phoenix Raven tried to take a biscuit.

Ser Proletius shook his head at her offer for him to stay in her house. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll wait outside for you. I do want a biscuit though,” he said. The Grandmaster picked up the jar to get a biscuit, upon doing that, he felt a weight descend on his right shoulder and twisted his head to see a phoenix raven looking at him. “I get the feeling that if I open this, this one with dive for it.”

Alina looked a bit done with the antics of the phoenix ravens. “Yes, she will.”

Proletius had an idea. He put the jar down, reached into his pocket and brought out a bit of jerky (a treat he normally gave to Farcry), broke a decent sized bit off the strip and gave that to the raven. The piece was a bit too large for the raven to swallow whole which gave the Grandmaster enough time to take a biscuit out of the jar and eat it. He managed to do all that while the raven was trying to break the jerky upon his shoulder in order to eat its snack.

When the raven realised that the Grandmaster tricked it into eating a healthier snack and not the sugar biscuit it wanted, it looked at him very offended. Alina had laughed at the Grandmaster tricking one of the phoenix ravens. After the raven had gotten off Proletius, the Grandmaster went to wait outside while Alina made herself more presentable.

Proletius didn’t have to wait long for the druid to make herself more presentable since she had come outside wearing the same things as before, but her hair was neatly brushed and braided, laying against her neck. She also had a staff that was made of simple wood, the top of the staff was gnarled and twisted like a dead tree. "Are you ready?" the Grandmaster asked just to be sure.

She nodded. "Yes, I am, let's go find Munroe and talk to him. The nature spirit should stop killing his men if we manage to negotiate with him," she said. Alina did not mention what would happen if they didn’t.

Proletius nodded and both set off back to the village side by side to talk to Munroe. They walked in silence for the first half of the trip while they looked for Munroe after they got into the village.

"So what brings the Grandmaster to this little town?" Alina asked.

"The kingdom has been quiet. No problems from the neighbours, no chaos wizards, no goblin issues. So I told the knights to secure the kingdom by assisting the people with their problems, and I myself went out as well," Proletius answered.

"I see. Oh, there he is!" Alina pointed towards Munroe, the man's figure had set him apart from the norm.

Both the Grandmaster and the druid made their way to the overseer, who had turned to face them. When he saw that Alina was with Proletius his whole body seemed to huff in annoyance.

"I see that you went to talk with the druid…" Munroe said when they got closer.

"The monster that attacked your men was a nature spirit, defending the loss of habitat of critically endangered birds," Proletius started. "She tells me that she talked to you and even showed you a place to log. Why did you choose to cut down the trees in the unmarked area?"

Munroe huffed. "Those trees were old, young trees are better."

"For what? Older trees have a lot more wood in them to be used for everything!" Alina argued.

"Furniture requires the delicacy and lightness of the young wood!" he countered.

Alina's features hardened. "And why so picky? Wood is wood, older trees have already lived their lives. They are suited for home building or furniture!"

Proletius could see that this would only escalate and so interrupted the pair before they continued. "Enough! We came to you, Munroe to reach an agreement. You want wood, Alina has already shown that she is willing to help as long as you listen to her," he said with a slightly commanding tone.

Proletius's command caused both to shut up and listen to him. They both shared a glance with each other.

"Well, now that you say it like that, I suppose that I can agree with the druid and will go remove the trees she marked herself," Munroe relented. "And the birds?"

"They will be fine. I'm headed back to the capital and will tell the King about the surviving Phoenix Raven flocks. They will be protected," Proletius said to Munro's concern.

Munroe faced Alina and held out a hand to shake on it. "I suppose that we have come to a deal?" he asked. He had a kind smile while he took the deal. The drake-hound that was always at his side, wandered off.

Alina took his hand in her own and shook it. "Yes, we have a deal," she said, something felt off to her though.

Proletius nodded, outwardly glad that they had gotten along, but he felt like something would go wrong. "Glad that this will be solved and no more monster or nature spirit problems for you, Munroe," he said.

"Of course! I will deal with selling older wood, but I'll live. Now, Ser, you're probably going to head off soon, aren't you?" Munroe asked.

The Grandmaster nodded. "If there's not much more for me to do now, I was going to head back now."

"Of course! I won't keep you any longer, Ser," Munroe said, letting the knight know that he can head off.

"There is nothing more I need from you, either, thank you," Alina said.

"Well, farewell to you both and I hope all will be well," Proletius said, then called for his unicorn. The unicorn was quick to answer the whistle and stood next to the Grandmaster to allow him to get on. He climbed onto the unicorn's back, and both headed off to the exit of the village.

***

Proletius and the unicorn had been three hours away from the village when the Grandmaster’s gut feeling got worse, even his unicorn slowed eir’s walk and tilted e’s ears to listen to the forest. Ser Proletius scanned the bushes and drew out his blade just in case.

Both had heard a tree suddenly snap and fall. It crashed and shattered where the pair had been. They were no longer there because the unicorn had leapt forward when they heard the suspicious crack.

An arrow flew out from the bushes but was deflected by Proletius’s sword just as several people, armed with swords jumped out of the bushes and rushed the pair. Both the unicorn and the Grandmaster focused on the people that attacked them.

A green blur tackled Proletius of his unicorn and onto the ground. The knight lost grip on his sword when he fell but managed to use his armoured bracers to stop the drake-hound’s powerful jaws from going around his neck. It still hurt like hell when the jaws snapped down on the metal around his arm and he punched the animal’s nose to get it to let go. Hang on, he recognised this green and the drake, this was the same animal that was at Munroe’s side. The bastard had staged an ambush. He knew something had felt off.

He managed to throw the drake-hound off after he had stunned it and got up, retrieved his sword and went to help his unicorn battle the men that crowded around it. The Grandmaster struck the men down, even as a few more had come from the bushes.

A howl echoed from the forest in a radius and suddenly a pack of wolves, as well as a flock of ravens, exploded from the foilage to attack the men that assaulted the Grandmaster. That made the remaining men focus on the animals as well as flushing out the rest - including Munroe - from the bushes. There had been a lot of screaming from the men as they got attacked by the wolves and ravens.

Munroe fired his crossbow at a few of the ravens - which killed them - then took aim at Proletius and fired, but the bolt was deflected into one of his men. “No hard feelings Ser, but I can’t let you go report to the king on this,” he said with his familiar smile and good-natured attitude.

Proletius was not pleased. “I will still go to the king about this and will now include how you had attacked a Knight and the Grandmaster. Death will not be easy for you, Munroe,” the Grandmaster warned.

Munroe took aim again in answer and prepared to fire. Proletius closed the gap quickly, disarmed the crossbow from the man’s arms and prepared to engage the man as the overseer brought out a dagger. The drake-hound also bounded towards the pair and leapt at Proletius again, though the Grandmaster dodged it.

Roots broke from the dirt and entangled the men, crushing and piercing them - or in Munroe’s case, simply restrained him - which caused the battle to die down as a woman wearing leather armour, a staff, familiar braid, hair colour and eyes walked out from some roots herself. Alina faced Munroe. “I knew you were up to something, Munroe,” she said bitterly.

Proletius looked at the roots, the birds and wolves while he checked on his unicorn. He thought back to the scenery he had seen yesterday. So that was her. She was a powerful druid that’s for certain.

Munroe had a mixture of fear and frustration written on his face. “Surprised that you didn’t call me a rat, monster!” he insulted.

“That’d be an insult to rats,” she countered back.

“You’re a powerful druid, Alina,” Proletius complimented, ignoring Munroe.

She turned to him and smiled. “Thank you. Thank you for also not listening to Munroe,” she said.

Proletius nodded. “It’s no problem, something didn’t feel right about it and I did what I had to,” he said.

“So what about him?” Alina pointed her staff at Munroe who glared daggers at both the druid and the knight.

“Well, I don’t have the necessary equipment needed to arrest him, so I’ll need to get back to the capital for that,” he mentioned, then looked around at the roots. “Think you can hold him in someplace temporary until I get back?”

“Of course I can.”

Proletius turned towards his unicorn and got back onto eir’s back. He looked at Alina. “Thank you. Also, next time something like this happens again, get us,” he advised.

Alina grinned. “Certainly, but come quicker next time so I don’t have too,” she countered. The druid then remembered something, “wait, Ser, did Bush’s teeth break your armour and skin?” she asked, the green drake-hound sat obediently at her side. The drake then snorted.

Proletius checked the bracer that faced the brunt of the bite, while it was malformed a bit and punctured in places, he didn’t feel any skin broken. “It didn’t get past my armour enough to break the skin, why?” he asked.

“Forest drake-hounds have deadly venom, they use it for defence,” she answered, relieved.

The Grandmaster made an ‘ah’ sound, glad that he dodged that arrow. “Thank you for the information. What will you do with the drake-hound?”

“I’m going to keep him,” she said proudly. “And rename him, he needs a better name than ‘Bush’. Probably Surthian.” She gave the drake a few good scratches while Munroe vocalised his annoyance at that. He was left ignored.

The Grandmaster shrugged. “Fair enough. Farewell, Alina, I’ll be back later to pick up Munroe.”

Alina nodded. “Yes, see you then, Ser Proletius.”

Both then parted ways, more permanently this time, Alina took Munroe back to the town and Proletius went back to Dundee to report to Angus McFife I about what had happened at Enest.

#gloryhammer #ser proletius #angus mcfife i (mentioned)#keiran writes

2 notes · View notes