#and once you really learn that deep in your bones you are a fundamentally changed person

[ohwhatagloomyshow]

I know & remember very little about RTD as a person but I do remember he left DW to care for his dying partner and that his partner has since died. And the way that this is so evident in his approach to 14 and 15, it’s phenomenal.

2005 Davies was interested in high drama, big stakes, the roughest heartbreak that could exist. And now he’s lived it, and it feels like his approach to the show has shifted as he has shifted!

14 getting to rest, Wilf alive off-screen, Donna’s memories returned - 15 leaving his trauma and his heartbreak and his pain with 14 in order to begin again fresh and new and ALIVE…it is all so meaningful to me!!!

#doctor who #15th doctor #I’m just THINKING about how the meaning of death and grief and mourning is LOVE #and once you really learn that deep in your bones you are a fundamentally changed person #and while I personally wanted 14 to be fully gone & fully regenerate #(I thought we were gonna see a shot of him like properly healing and then fade away in regeneration light) #the idea of him having a happy ending…. #just this once rose everyone lives! #it is so precious and tender to me #spoilers #doctor who spoilers

[cosmicjoke]

Levi and the Prevailing of Life

So I just wanted to add on to my last analysis post a little, working off of my initial points, and really delving a bit more into what I said about Levi being a hero, maybe the only true hero of the series.

I’ve seen some people make the claim that what happens between Levi and Zeke, with Levi getting caught and maimed in the thunder spear explosion that Zeke sets off, to be comeuppance for Levi’s violence, and then further complaints that this is never followed through on, as Levi never seems to “learn his lesson” about the horrors of violence, and why it’s “bad”.  This claim and complaint, though, once again, shows a fundamental lack of understanding Levi’s character.

The thing about Levi is, he’s maybe the only character in all of AoT who never deludes himself about the nature of violence, who never attempts to pass off his acts of violence as heroic or virtuous or good.  He tells Jean during the uprising arc that he doesn’t know whether his actions are right or wrong.  He makes no excuses for them, doesn’t try to downplay their seriousness or cast them in a better light, but only states with stark bluntness the reality of it, that once you’ve killed, there’s no coming back from that, there’s no washing your hands and returning to a state of innocence.  That if Armin hadn’t gotten his hands dirty, they all would likely be dead.  He doesn’t tell Jean that he’s wrong for thinking killing is bad, he doesn’t tell Armin that he’s a hero for killing that MP.  He simply states the facts.  

This lack of delusion about the nature of violence makes Levi one of the only, if not the only character who isn’t, in the end, made into a hypocrite.  The claim that Levi “never learns” from what happens between him and Zeke is fundamentally lacking because it supposes that Levi needs to learn something about the nature of violence in the first place.  He doesn’t.

If we look at Levi’s reactions during the final arc of AoT, and compare them to everyone else’, it speaks volumes.  

All of the other character’s are, one by one, forced to face the bleak reality that what they once thought of as their own acts of valor and heroism are now not so black and white in their morality.  Their being on the side of what’s right and good isn’t so clear cut, isn’t so simple.  Everyone is thrown into doubt as to what they’ve truly been fighting for all this time, everyone is shown gradually coming to terms with the complex and uncertain reality surrounding their ideals and where their good intentions have lead.  We see Hange change from a seemingly care-free, wild, positive personality, into an increasingly somber, dour, depressive character, weighed down by their own sense of guilt and failure, by the way their position and the circumstances surrounding it have turned their once idealistic views and beliefs into a grim acceptance of how they’ve been forced into a role which they previously condemned others for playing.  We see Connie have a mental breakdown over having to kill people whom he once considered his friends and comrades, questioning his and everyone else’ roles, wondering how it was they started out wanting to save lives, and ended up here, taking them instead.  There’s a shocked horror and sometimes paralysis seen with all of our main characters over the turn of events, over how they could have started out with such hopeful and idealistic goals, and ended up in such a terrible and brutal place where former comrades are at each others throats, killing one another.   Everyone, of course, except Levi.

Levi has a deeply resigned and exhausted expression on his face throughout the entire final arc.  In truth, it’s just a more extreme version of the expression he’s had since the beginning of the series.  A bone-deep tiredness and resignation over the violence around him, over the state of the world, over the inevitability of it all.  He knows, and he’s always known, that violence leads only to more violence.  Yelena makes a point to address Levi when she says “You can never remove the violence from humanity.  Right, Levi?”.   She addresses this statement and question to him specifically because she knows it’s Levi, above all of them, who understands the ugly truth, which is that violence and conflict are inherent to the human condition, and human nature, and that there’s no true glory or goodness to be found in it at all.

Levi doesn’t change from the beginning of the story to the end because he doesn’t NEED to.  There isn’t anything he needs to learn about the nature of violence, or the nature of conflict. There isn’t any fantastical, idealistic beliefs he holds from the start that need to be questioned or thrown into doubt.  Levi never needs to have his world view shaken, or his actions thrown into question, because he never believed from the beginning that he was in the absolute right, or that he was a hero, or a savior of humanity.  He never saw himself as fighting against any great evil, or soothed himself with self-affirming claims of his own righteousness.  Levi always knew that the things he was doing, killing other people, torturing people, letting his comrades sacrifice themselves, were ugly and brutal acts, and that there wasn’t any painting them to be something better or more palatable than that.  He knew he was acting as a “monster”, and while, yes, he did these things in the hopes of creating a better world, in the hopes of freeing humanity and ensuring a brighter future for the next generation, he never excused his actions or tried to justify them, either to himself or to anyone else. He never had any illusions about what getting to that better world and brighter future would entail.  I think Levi especially was aware of this when he found out that the titans were actually human.  He knew what conflict with other people was.  He knew it intimately from the life he had growing up, the violence he was born and bred in.  He knew the ugliness and moral uncertainty of it.  There was no pretending at that point that what they were fighting for was unquestionably good and that they could all claim to be hero’s unequivocally.  Levi knew it then and there, that they were all going to have blood on their hands by the end, and their moral foundations and integrity compromised.  When Jean tries to apologize for condemning Levi for his violence, or the townspeople in Trost berate him and the SC for failing them, or Sannes, when he accuses him and Hange of being monsters, etc...  Levi doesn’t try to defend himself against these accusations, he doesn’t try to convince any of them that they’re wrong, or paint himself in a more positive light.  He accepts their judgements, while at the same time, refusing to judge them in turn.  He doesn’t lambast or condemn them, or go out of his way to discredit them or convince them to his side.   In fact, the only person we ever see Levi truly judge in the whole series is Zeke, and it isn’t because of Zeke’s beliefs over what’s right or wrong, or a difference in ideological beliefs.  It’s because of Zeke’s total disregard for the value of life, because Zeke shows no remorse over the loss of the lives he took, because Zeke sees life as meaningless and treats it as such.  This speaks volumes about Levi’s character and what’s truly at his core, then, that the one time we see him judge another person, it’s over the way they treat the lives of others, not any sort of ideological path towards a greater good.   Levi knows and owns that he’s done terrible things in the name of an idealistic dream, and he doesn’t judge others for doing the same.  Levi hates Zeke because Zeke treats people’s lives as worthless, not because Zeke’s methods or path differs from his own.  

Again, Levi never claims to know what’s right or wrong.  He never claims to be on the right or morally superior side, even at the beginning.  He’s unique in that.  Everyone else, at some point in the story, believes that, or convinces themselves that, they’re the hero’s.  They’re the ones fighting for what’s right.  Levi never claims to believe that at all.   He’s never sure.  He doesn’t know anything with certainty.  He’s fighting for a dream which isn’t his own, but everyone else’, and his sole hope is that he’ll be able to give the sacrifices his friends and comrades make in striving for that dream meaning.  That’s his sole drive.  The belief that the lives of people matter, that they have value, and the one thing he can do in the cruel and unfair chaos of it all is to ensure that his friends and comrades making that ultimate sacrifice of dying for their dream isn’t done in vain.  The one thing he can do is to protect them as best he can, and fight on for them after they’re gone, to use their deaths as fuel to keep fighting for that better future they dreamed of.

That’s what makes Levi a hero.  In the end, he isn’t fighting for any sort of ideological belief, he isn’t fighting for “justice” or “righteousness”, he isn’t fighting for the prevailing of “good” over “evil”, for any sort of moral authority.  He’s fighting for the right to life.  He’s fighting for life in general, for the living, for the value and meaning inherent in being alive.  He just wants people to live, whatever that may entail.  He wants people to have the freedom to live, and for them to know that their lives had meaning, that their lives mattered, that they were important, regardless of the cruel reality of their world, and the unfairness of their circumstances.  It’s the purest and most selfless motivation of all the characters in AoT, this simple wish for others to live, and if they can’t, then for their sacrifices to matter as proof that their lives had value.  Levi tells his comrades over and over to “live” and “don’t die”.  That’s the core of Levi’s character right there.  He wants more than anything for everyone to simply make it out alive and to keep living.  Maybe that’s Levi’s dream, small and simple as it is.  He wants life to prevail.  And that’s what makes Levi a true hero.  

#Levi Ackerman #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #meta #commentary #SNK analysis

[the-silentium]

A story of shirts

Masterlist - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 -  The survivor - Part 4 - Epilogue

Pairing: Bad Batch x Reader, Hunter x Reader, Crosshair x Reader

Words: 2774 words

Warnings: TESTOSTERONE.

A/N: Reader’s native language is *roll drum* French! Really original, I know! Translations will be at the end of the chapter ~

Taglist: @haloangel391​

"You gonna eat that?" Wrecker asked from your right, his chubby pointer finger signaling to your half-eaten piece of bread. 

"Yeah." You confirmed, taking more of the ration pack, reaching for the bread to illustrate. 

"Too bad." He stole the piece before you got a hold of it, hurrying to stuff it in his mouth as soon as you reached forward to take it back. 

"Wreck! It was mine!" You whined, hitting his shoulder multiple times in retaliation. 

"Cut it out." Hunter called from his spot on the other side of the fire, shooting the both of you an unimpressed glance over his water canteen. 

"But he-!" You cut yourself, not wanting to pout like a baby, instead taking a deep breath in and planning your revenge like a petulant child. 

You've been with the Batchers for a good year, flying them around different systems, perfecting your flying skills as well as developing some basic medical ones to help them when needed. 

So far, no one from the GAR noticed that you were a fraud among the army, letting you enough time to read about the GAR and become more familiar with the whole system and chain of command. You had now all the knowledge necessary to keep the lie going without a hitch. Hell, even Cody never connected the dots. 

Over time the relationships between you and each of the boys improved to the point where Wrecker would call you his vod'ika and you'd call him your frangin. 

Tech exploited his extended knowledge to gain a serious advantage over his brothers once a month. He would generously share his secret stash of candies with you whenever the first day of your period started (you were sure he did that to stay in your good favors and keep your irritation away from himself - which was working, fortunately for him). 

Crosshair would share some of his precious secrets blackmails so you could use them when the others were being annoying shits and kindly taught you how to properly shoot with blasters so you could defend yourself better.

Hunter used you as his personal enhanced senses painkiller, meaning that he'd requisition you for an hour when his head felt like it was on the verge of exploding from overstimulation, sit on the floor facing you, lean his head on your chest and listen to you singing a soft lullaby in your native tongue. 

Out of the corner of your eyes, you noticed Wrecker getting up from his seat on the ground beside you to get to the ship, passing right behind you to get to his destination. Swiftly, you straightened your hand, turned around and pushed the back of his knee forward to bend it with ease. 

Smirking, you admired your handy work when Wrecker yelped in surprise that his knee just gave up underneath him and crashed to the ground. 

You laughed wholeheartedly, covering Crosshair's snickers who watched you the whole time because he knew you'd serve his brother a good payback for taking your precious food. 

"You want to fight vod'ika?" Wrecker asked jokingly from his kneeled position a few feet away. 

"Bring it on frangin!" You replied, pushing your dry rations down your throat with a big gulp of water. That was something else that took some time to get used to. Tasteless water meant good water. Don't spit the good water. 

"Here we go again." Sighed Tech, rolling his eyes at banter. 

"Don't be a grinch, Tech. That's Crosshair's role." You flicked his shoulder and ignored Cross glare to get up and meet the big man who instantly went to poke your side. 

He'd learned his lesson a while ago when he punched your shoulder playfully and let you a gigantic bruise on your skin that lasted for weeks. Hunter genuinely thought that he'd hit you hard (he did, but Wrecker was excited, so you weren't mad) leading to the 'no hitting your teammates' rule. Wrecker felt bad for a while but soon you got him to cheer up and instead of fake fights, you'd do poking fights. 

Jumping to the side, you moved your foot behind his knee to repeat your previous trick, effectively making him fall on one knee and pushed him on his back with all your strength. 

As soon as he was on his back you poked his stomach, not too hard to make him sick, he just ate after all, but enough to mark your point. 

"That's for my bread!" You laughed, dodging his hands trying to grasp yours to stop you from assaulting his abdomen. 

He finally got a grab of your wrists, joined them in one of his hands and attacked your sides with his free hand, poking to the right places to have you yelp and trash around. 

"Stop! Stop!" You shrieked, pulling on your arms to free them. 

"As you wish." He grinned, opening his hand when you pulled with all your might, your elbows hitting your own abdomen and emptying your lungs from their precious air. 

You groaned for a few seconds, recovering from the blow sprawled over Wrecker's chest unceremoniously. His laugh resonated through your body, the vibrations shaking your bones and making your teeth clash together. 

"Still wanna fight?" He teased, head lifted from the ground to meet your unimpressed gaze. 

"Enough for tonight." Hunter cut you off as you opened your mouth to sass him back. 

Closing your mouth without another word, you rolled your eyes and got to your feet, following Wrecker inside the ship to retrieve an extra layer to keep you comfortable under the stars. 

You walked past Wrecker who stopped at the fresher, to enter the barracks to rummage under your pillow for Hunter's top blacks he threw at you the night prior. 

He noticed that you often stole his blacks whenever you felt cold at night in the ship, sliding under the fabric only when you thought they were asleep. You always made sure to replace it before he woke up, always neatly folded like it never left. But he knew. Your scent lingered on the fabric, a fact you forgot to think about, not that he minded. After a couple of times, he started to simply throw the blacks at your face before laying down on his bed. He knew you never got used to the cold of space, your skin remembering the constant warmth of the jungle, letting you vulnerable to any change of temperature. 

You slipped the blacks over your head, the fabric covering your three-quarter sleeve shirt without a hitch and offering you the extra warmth needed for you to be able to find sleep instead of chattering teeth for the whole night. 

Now ready to go out and bury yourself under your blanket near the fire, you walked out with a pep in your step, eager to lay down and relax for the remaining hours before a new assignment arrived and forced you all away on some dangerous mission. 

"Acceptin' the markin'?" Wrecker appeared from the fresher, wiping his hands on his pants. 

"What?" You stopped, confused at his question. Did you have ink on your face or something? 

"He means this." Crosshair answered for his brother, walking further into the ship to pinch the shoulder of the blacks on his way to his bunk where he retrieved an extra blanket for himself. 

"What about it?" 

"You're only wearin' Hunter's." He remarked, toothpick dancing between his lips. 

"Wrecker's are way too big and you'd strangle me with the sleeves if I took yours." You pointed out, a hand moving to your hip. What was his point?

"Why not Tech's?" He approached closer, clearly trying to intimidate you. It may have worked in the beginning but this era was long gone. 

"Last time I did he started hiding them so I wouldn't do it again. What is this about?" The two of them shared a look and you knew they had information you didn't, and the mere idea of it made your heart speed up a bit. 

"It wasn't Tech who hid them." Crosshair faced you again, his arms crossing at his chest, the blanket folded over one of his arms. "It was Hunter." 

It took you seconds to connect the dot and make sense of everything. Hunter started throwing you his blacks the night after you borrowed Tech's and after that, you couldn't find his anywhere again. You'd accepted the gesture and never questioned it afterward, simply thinking that he cared about your sleeping habits or something. 

He did care. But for a totally different reason. 

"He's jealous." You whispered, eyes widening to Crosshair's delight. 

At the back of your mind, a part of you was melting, the sergeant's possessiveness flattering you to no end, although another part of you found it was stupid to be jealous of his brother. You noted to talk to him about that later, but you were sure that the subject would arise rather sooner than later if the mischievous glint in the sniper's eyes was anything to go by. 

"He is. So you'll wear this instead." He took a top of his blacks from within the blanket and shoved it onto your chest until you picked it up. 

"Your blacks? Wait. Are you angry at him or somethin'?" You eyed the fabric in your hands, rolling the hem between your fingers. This wasn't a good idea. There were ulterior motives to his actions. Always. 

"Just wanna see him boilin'." He replied, rolling his head on the side a bit. 

"You wanna call him on his bullshit." You pointed out, one eyebrow slowly lifting in the air, unimpressed.

He didn't respond but his smirk told you enough, and the longer he held your gaze, the wider the grin creeping its way onto your lips became. Yes, you had feelings for the dark-haired clone, but you were fundamentally a prankster. Always in for a good laugh. Plus, what problems can a shirt do? It's a shirt!

You removed Hunter's blacks, keeping a hold of your undershirt so you wouldn't show too much to your brothers and quickly slipped into the new shirt. Sadly, the sleeves were a bit tight so you had to adjust your undershirt sleeves but you manage to replace them easily. 

You rolled Hunter's black into a ball and throw it onto your bed. 

"Don't be mean." You threatened Crosshair with a finger under his chin.

"And you don't drool all over it." He took his toothpick from his lips to poke your fingers with it. You hissed and he threw it away. 

You walked out with Cross at your side, Wrecker choosing to walk before you so you would all be close enough to see the shift in Hunter's expression. If the boys were right, that is. 

Unfortunately, Hunter seemed too engrossed in his conversation with Tech to notice your shirt so as soon as you all sat onto your respective blankets, yours placed between Wrecker's and Tech's, you leaned slightly forward toward Crosshair. 

"Thanks for the shirt Cross!" You smiled at him. 

In the corner of your eyes, you noticed Hunter straighten, head moving to you despite Tech still addressing him. Cross grunted in acknowledgment, already watching Hunter and was clearly enjoying what he saw. 

Your eyes moved to the sergeant's, who was now deeply frowning, too concentrated on analyzing your shirt that he didn't notice the four pairs of eyes scrutinizing his face, three playful, one confused. 

"What's wrong?" Tech asked, head-turning to you to see what disturbed him that much. As soon as his eyes fell on you he knew. And you felt stupid for being the last one to notice that this was happening. "Ah." That you've been stupid enough to let yourself fall into a territorial fight. 

"Not to your liking, Sarge?" Crosshair sassed, enjoying the tightness in his brother's jaw.

You started to feal really bad. And confused. Was Crosshair really interested in you too? You knew Hunter cared about you, the kisses, the hugs, the moments of vulnerability shared with one another, they all told you that you meant something more. But Crosshair’s behavior really started to contradict everything you thought you knew about him.

"What's that?" He turned to confront his brother, catching on to the fact that he'd been played as soon as he registered the smugness coating Crosshair's face. 

"Cut the crap. 's just a shirt." He rolled his eyes at Hunter's barely concealed annoyance. But it wasn't just a shirt. Not to them. 

It started to dawn on you that this was a terrible idea and that you've been played and that- oh shit Hunter's fingers closed to form a fist entangled in his blanket.

"Stop right there." You hurried to cut Hunter's words that you just knew would start a bickering war. You had to stop it before it could deteriorate to something bad because you didn't trust Crosshair to not put oil on the fire and hit every single one of his brother's nerves. To top it all, he was the one right next to Hunter. This was getting dangerous.

" 'm not wearin' anyone's shirt." 

You removed the blacks, ignoring the concert of grumbles telling you not to, rolled it in a ball, switched the ball with Tech's and used it as your personal pillow. You laid down on your back and pulled the blanket tightly around yourself, eying the stars above like you used to on Fors. 

You seemed to have done the right thing, because the rest followed your example, Tech's head burying itself in his new pillow inches from yours. A yelp from Crosshair soon followed by a smack in retaliation made you sigh, effectively cutting short their childish behaviors. 

It took a couple of minutes until the sergeant heard what he was waiting for, a soft clattering muffled by the blanket covering your mouth, the sound of your hands moving up and down your arms in hope of creating warmth and your irregular breathing that you controlled enough to keep it down but not enough to keep it steady. 

The boys had fallen asleep, Wrecker's snores echoing between the trees around, Crosshair's and Tech's soft regular breathings were easy to distinguish. 

"Y/N." He called softly to not wake his brothers, his eyes already on your subtly shaking form. "I know you're cold." 

You turned your head in his direction, frowning. 

"So? I won't get the shirt back on." You whispered, gaze moving to Tech to make sure he was still sleeping. 

"Good. C'mere." He lifted the corner of his blanket, to which you raised an eyebrow. 

"Sharing your blanket to prove yourself better, now?" 

"Just…" He pointed to the spot next to him with his head. "C'mere." 

You huffed while sitting up to look around, the three remaining clones were still out, their peaceful face illuminated by the dying fire in the center of your circle. Carefully, you got up with the fabric tightly wrapped around your shoulders, stepping over Tech's hand and reached the offered spot. 

Immediately you felt the warmth radiating off him and like a moth to a flame, you wrapped yourself around him without shame because you needed this. And because it was so unfair that he could regulate his temperature while you couldn't, so you decided that he had to share. 

Clearly, he didn't mind, his arms sneaking around your waist to keep you close and offer you more of his body heat, his head leaning down a bit to breathe in your bewitching smell and place a kiss onto your hair just as you snuggled closer and leaned your head onto his chest, one of your legs sneaking between his to get more comfortable. 

"Better?" His chest rose and downed slowly, unlike the beating of his heart beneath your fingertips. This was the first time you had this much contact with each other, the feeling not lost on either of you. 

"Yeah." You moved your head to place a kiss under his jaw and reposition yourself. "Didn't know he even liked me." You whispered, finger moving in circles over his heart, asking yourself how did this happen?

"He liked you after our first time on Fors. He was a goner after the second time." He explained truthfully, the memory of the second trip onto this godforsaken planet made him shiver in dread. How people could live in this hell was beyond his comprehension. 

You noticed his reaction and automatically reached up to dissipate the trauma with a slow movement of your fingers over his cheeks. 

"But I was there first." He smirked, arms tightening around you somewhat.  

"Don't start." You smacked his chest softly to which he quietly laughed.

--

Frangin = Brother

Next part here: A story of having each other’s back

#bad batch x reader #crosshair x reader #hunter x reader #tech x reader #wrecker x reader #clone force 99 #star wars #clone wars #murphy day

[cake-writes]

making the beast beautiful (one)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (cheating); Steve x Reader (married)

Story Warnings: Mental Illness, Borderline Personality Disorder, Splitting, Clinical Depression, Suicidal Ideation, Anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Low Self-Esteem, Cheating, Angst, Drug Addiction / Abuse (Cigarettes, later Alcohol & Pills), Recovery, idk it’s gonna get depressing but we’ll have a happy ending!!!, Eventual Smut, 18+

Summary: Bucky knows the struggle, the pain, the emptiness. He understands. He can relate, because he knows. And some days, he still struggles – even told you once how low he’s been. But Steve? Your sweet, loving husband of a year and a half? No, Steve doesn’t understand. He can’t, no matter how hard he tries. So one day, you finally give up and give in to your most self-destructive temptation of all: your preoccupation with his best friend.

A/N: i know this is another wip SORRY but it’s literal word vomit because ya girl just really needed to yeet these sad bitch feels into outer space lmao 🤷 

Your addiction to him starts slow, like the creep of nicotine through your veins from the cigarettes that he offers you on the rooftop.

Not often enough to do any damage, you try to tell yourself about your smoking habit – or maybe what you actually mean is the amount of time you spend with him. Bucky Barnes. Your husband’s best friend. Your former teammate. Not that it matters, because from one night to the next it’s all you can do to cling to the one good thing you have left, the one ray of light– or maybe he’s the one last shred of hope you’re willing to bind yourself to like a lifeline.

And if it snaps, you’ll fall. 

Too bad the threads are already starting to fray.

And lucky, lucky you that you fall even sooner, because your reality has shifted to one shade off from normal, and you can hardly tell what’s right and what’s wrong anymore. You want to prioritize yourself because you know you should – maybe be a little selfish for once, to combat the awful feelings of self-hate that plague your mind, but you don’t know if that particular affirmation is driven by self-esteem or self-destruction.

You can’t tell anymore. You don’t know who you are.

You’re a mystery, a chameleon, borderline, and the only thing you do know is that Bucky makes you feel again – too much. He makes you feel things you shouldn’t, makes you obsess and overthink and daydream and wonder about what life could be like with him instead of Steve.

Because that’s what you do when you fall in love. You turn into that. A monster. A beast. A siren hell-bent on the destruction of yourself.

So, you fall. You fall deep. You fall hard. You fall fast, but it’s the savouring of the moment that always brings out the worst in you. It brings back the worst part of you that you’ve buried under layers and layers of trauma and depression – the clinginess and neediness and desperation at the center of it all, and every layer covering up the euphoria makes you cry because you have to hide it for fear of losing yourself all over again. Losing that feeling. Losing what makes you you.

You’re happy, now. Right? So why do things you shouldn’t do?

But you just can’t help yourself.

You shouldn’t have accepted that first cigarette.

You shouldn’t have texted him asking for another.

You shouldn’t have talked to him about personal things meant for your husband.

You shouldn’t have talked to him about the most personal of things: your husband. Your relationship. Your insecurities because of your illness.

You shouldn’t have – because Bucky knows. He understands. He’s been there.

He knows the struggle, the pain, the emptiness. He understands. He can relate, because he knows. He’s been there. He’s done that. And some days, he still struggles – even told you, once, how low he’s been. 

He might have a different slew of acronyms to define his own mental state, but they all spell out the same thing: FUBAR. And so do yours.

But Steve? Your sweet, loving husband of a year and a half? The man of your dreams, the one you’d married in the gown of your dreams, in the venue of your dreams? He’s resilient. And let’s not forget your wedding, with Bucky standing right there as his best man – the same Bucky who accidentally caught the bouquet you threw in his direction, because your aim was purposefully off to make him feel like he belonged for once.

Even before you got to know him, you always had a soft spot for him. 

And now? You’re fucked. Completely and utterly smitten.

No, Steve doesn’t understand. He absolutely, fundamentally cannot, through and through. Not for a lack of trying, though, or that’s what you keep trying to convince yourself. He supports you physically: makes dinner when you’re ‘tired’, runs errands when you’re ‘busy’, gives you love and affection just like he always has. You’re his wife; it’s his obligation. He has to.

That’s how you feel, anyway.

He treats you that way out of duty, not love, because Steve always has to put the greater good before himself. He puts your happiness before his own, you think. And he tries so hard – he does. And whenever he tells you he’s happy, you just can’t believe him because you think so poorly of yourself.

Why would anyone willingly want to be around you?

And emotionally? He tries so hard with that, too, but he just doesn’t know. He doesn’t get it. He never says the right things, only well-meaning insensitive ones because he hasn’t been there, he hasn’t done that, and he thinks it’s all in your head – that you’re just not trying hard enough, that you just don’t want to get better badly enough, because if you did then you’d be up and at ‘em already. Then you’d be healed. Then you’d be out of this funk and back in the field with him.

You’re not.

You won’t be for a long time.

You’re not the same girl he fell in love with. Not that he’s ever said that directly to you, but sometimes you think it’s how he feels. He signed up for a wife, not a child. He signed up for the you from a few years ago, now, not the shell of a person you’ve become because of your illness.

Ironic, considering what he was like as a kid, Bucky likes to remind you when you start to hate on yourself because of how you’ve changed – because you’re not normal anymore. He used to be so sick all the time. Then the serum made him right as rain. Don’t take it to heart.

Steve got better because of a miracle. Hard work and determination can only get a person so far, but it was pure luck that got him to the serum. You know that. Bucky knows that. Steve probably knows that deep down, too, but he doesn’t see it that way. All he sees is his hard work.

He lies to himself. He always has.

He probably lies to himself about his love for you, too.

So it’s hard to believe he’s happy. How can he be? You don’t bring anything to your relationship but self-pity and unhappiness. And how can you not take it to heart that Steve doesn’t understand? Your husband, the one who should be supporting you and validating you and making you feel like you’re seen, thinks you’re always throwing a pity party for yourself, thinks you’re just too lazy to get up and actually do the things you want to do, thinks you’re just not trying hard enough.

Come on, doll, he says. Let’s go for a walk.

To you it just sounds like, Walk it off.

Because he’s said that before, too. A hundred times. In the field, and out.

You’re not an agent anymore. You can’t handle it anymore. You can’t handle anything anymore.

Deep down, you’re convinced that Steve thinks because it’s not physical – that because there are no scrapes or bruises or broken bones to prove that you’re in pain – that your depression isn’t real. Not really. It’s an illness, same as any other, and he just doesn’t understand it because he can’t see any physical evidence of it.

Never mind the weight you’ve lost.

Never mind the bags under your eyes.

Never mind the crying spells, the dissociation – but then, you hide those from him the best you can these days. You don’t want him to see how bad you are anymore, because he just doesn’t get it. Because it hurts so much every time for him to look at you with those soft, confused baby blues and act like it’s not a big deal, like a little bit of sunshine’s a cure-all for your woes.

Ironic is right. The boy’s been to war and he hasn’t even processed his own trauma. Hasn’t even been to a shrink despite having two best friends poking and prodding for him to go. He’s in denial.

He refuses to believe that you just couldn’t get to the laundry today because you’re too exhausted from lying in bed all day. He refuses to believe that you couldn’t eat a bite because you didn’t even think to, too busy caught up in your own pain to remember, let alone care. He refuses to believe that you don’t even feel like you deserve to do anything good for yourself, so why even get up? Why bother? Why try to do anything anymore?

Just let the darkness take you away. Bit by bit. Piece by piece. And then, maybe one day you won’t have to feel anything anymore. Maybe you’ll just disappear.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

He refuses to get it, and some part of you feels like it’s because he doesn’t want to. Because he’s afraid to acknowledge that it’s true. That if he starts therapy like you did, then this could just as easily happen to him, too.

But hey, that’s his problem, not yours. You’re still learning to prioritize yourself – to break away from co-dependency and focus on your own needs for once. You’re barely keeping your head above water; why should you have to work on him, too, when he doesn’t offer you the same consideration? You’ve done what you can, and he just turns a blind eye because he doesn’t want to understand your issues. Or his.

So, you’ve given up.

You plaster on a happy face when he’s home – a painful, never-ending reminder that you’re not okay, and you keep your troubles to yourself. You’ve stopped sharing your struggles with the man you married because he doesn’t understand, and it hurts. You try so hard to act like nothing’s wrong that sometimes you dissociate, and you don’t come back to yourself until you have a cigarette hanging between your lips, lit by a Zippo engraved with a clever, If you want to make love, smile when you hand this lighter back.

Seeing the joke on Bucky’s lighter always brings you back, because it’s ridiculous. It’s a throwback to his army days; Steve found it awhile back with Bucky’s old personal effects. Makes you wonder what he must have been like back then.

Cigarette smoke and leather and sandalwood in the dead of night – and you always make a point to smile when you hand it back to him.

Temptation incarnate, now. What a dream he would have been back then.

Sometimes you text him when you and Steve have had another fight.

Sometimes he texts you when he needs you to ground him.

Sometimes the two of you just text each other for the hell of it. It’s usually related to someone’s mental health, usually yours, but occasionally not; after all, over the last few months he’s become your partner in misery and crime. The two of you have shared things to each other that you’ve never told another person, not even Steve; and in some ways, you feel like you’ve bared your soul to him.

It’s intimate.

In other ways, you’ve kept your guard up because you know you’re playing with fire.

It’s wrong.

You know you should really tell Steve about your midnight conversations – that you probably know his best friend almost as well as he does, now, but Bucky’s become a guilty sort of pleasure that you keep near and dear to your heart. He makes you feel things that you haven’t felt in a long time, but you’re not ready to acknowledge what that means. Not yet.

And neither is Bucky, evidently, because Steve’s still none the wiser.

Eight months of this and you still want more.

Your husband trusts you. He never asks who you’re texting or what you’re up to. You’ve given him no reason to believe otherwise. He feels safe and secure in your relationship, but maybe he’s turning a blind eye to that, too.

He shouldn’t. 

You wish he didn’t.

Some small part of you wants him to catch you, and that’s what you resent the most. You’re self-destructive – ready to destroy the one good, stable thing in your life in favour of an impossibility, but you can’t deny that Bucky gives your brain the dopamine it needs, it craves, it lacks.

He’s been gone on a mission the last week and a half, but you saw the Quinjet fly in the hangar earlier in the evening, around six, and you’ve been keen to text him since. You’ve held back for a little while, not wanting to appear to eager to message him – so you’re certainly not too proud of how quickly your resolve cracks.

You, 10:33pm Please don’t tell me you came home with Lucky Strikes again.

Bucky, 10:41pm Sorry, princess. Didn’t realize I was seeing royalty tonight.

And then he sends through a photo of a slightly crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes in his hand – an invitation to come to the rooftop. Judging by the setting, he’s already there.

Despite his choice in a particularly harsh smoke, you’re more focused on the pet name that has your face burning hot. It’s something he’s started to tack on recently – ‘princess’ being most common, particularly when he’s teasing you about being spoiled in some way, but when he slips it in during a real conversation is what really makes your heart pound.

You know you should tell him to stop. You know you should, but, you don’t.

You like how it feels to feel for once.

You’re married. It’s wrong. You need to stop, but you just can’t help yourself. You’re lonely.

Steve’s still away on a mission, which doesn’t bother you nearly as much as it used to – you hope he returns safely, of course you do, but you don’t really miss him. Not like you should. That’s happened more often than not as of late, and you can feel your attention shifting the longer you keep up this dangerous game with his best friend.

If it even is a game, that is. It’s probably not. How could he possibly be attracted to you? You’re depressed. You’re boring. And, to top it all off, you’re his best friend’s wife.

Of course you’re the only participant. Bucky’s just humouring you. That’s all.

And now, as you swipe on some deodorant and attempt to make something out of the rat’s nest that is your hair, you feel a particularly awful level of disdain for yourself. The self-loathing pairs nicely with your poor appearance; you haven’t slept well in days, and you’ve barely eaten in just as long.

It’s only when Steve is here keeping you on a regular schedule that you do. Otherwise it’s a free for all anymore.

Bucky never seems to mind – just encourages you to go do what needs to be done when the conversation’s over. And somehow, you listen. 

Sometimes he texts to ask if you’re doing okay while he’s away on a mission, too – and you always lie, because he can’t prove otherwise. He sends you a couple reminders anyway, because he just knows. He understands that you’d rather not burden him with the truth.

And then, when he comes back, he calls you out on your lie. He calls you out and reminds you how valuable you are – to Steve, mostly, and to the team. You’re irreplaceable. You’re needed.

He never says how important you are to him, but you always wish he would.

It’s stupid. It’s wrong.

You’re married.

Tonight will be no different. Despite your negative beliefs about yourself, he’ll tell you otherwise, but you won’t believe him. You never do, even though you desperately want to.

You’re a mess, so a beanie it is. You pull it over your tangled hair and somehow get your bangs looking presentable, at least; then you give your clothes the sniff test, spritz a little body spray just in case, and head out the door. You had a shower yesterday because even you couldn’t stand it anymore. 

That’ll do.

Fingers tap anxiously at your feed in the quiet elevator. There’s some mild jazz playing, just like usual, but your heart pounds inside your chest – only brings more attention to your nerves.

Bucky hasn’t been gone long, but you’ve missed him.

It’s stupid. It’s wrong.

You’re married.

After exiting the elevator, a short flight of stairs takes you to the roof. Once you start to push, the fire exit door blows open of its own accord; it’s windy up here due to the change of seasons, not that you’ve even noticed it considering you haven’t been outside in over a week. The fresh air shoots straight through your hoodie and sweatpants, and you briskly rub your arms to warm up, immediately wishing you’d checked the temperature before you came outside, maybe grabbed a jacket. You hadn’t even thought of it. Your mind’s a mess.

Hadn’t thought of dinner, either. Or lunch.

That’s when a heavy leather jacket is deposited ungracefully on your shoulders, and you glance up behind you to find Bucky standing there, giving you the look. It’s the one that pre-empts the lecture. “That help?”

You nod, basking in the smell of him – sandalwood and spice. Ah. “Yeah. Thanks.”

He knows.

He can tell with just one look that you’ve been lying to him – that you haven’t been taking care of yourself like you said you were. But he doesn’t reprimand you this time, or offer you platitudes; the disapproving look is enough.

Slippers on your feet, you pad over to the two lawn chairs he set up awhile back near the edge of the eastern wing; it’s got a nice view of the landing pad, but beyond that is the lake, and the two of you have come up here long enough to catch the sunrise once or twice. It’s nice.

“Good mission?” you ask, shoving your hands into your pockets as you collapse into your chair. It’s made of a terrible green fabric, seated low enough to the ground to let you curl your knees to your chest and cry when you want to. And you do. A lot.

This time, however, you’ve got your legs extended far ahead of you. You don’t want to talk about yourself tonight. You want to focus on him.

A distraction. That’s all. That’s what you try to tell yourself.

The other chair, woven blue and white, is where Bucky comes to rest just like always. You suspect that it was the cheapest one in the store, because it creaks and groans and you always think it’s going to break when he sits in it, but it never does. It’s also taller than yours, so you call him old man every now and then for it because that’s just hilarious.

It’s not flirting. It’s not.

Not even when you’ve nearly fallen into his lap on more than one occasion thanks to drinking beforehand.

“Well,” he starts hesitantly, pausing to consider his answer, “I made it back.”

His tone is soft – distant. Not a good mission, then.

“I’m glad you made it back,” you offer, giving him what you hope is a hopeful smile. It feels fake, but the intention behind it is real.

He studies your face for a moment or two, before he averts his eyes. “You’re probably the only one. I had to do some things on the mission that I—” He cuts himself off, then, and pulls the pack of Lucky Strikes out of his pocket to fiddle with. A crutch. “I don’t like to use my strength when I don’t have to. Makes people nervous.”

He’s told you about it before. By ‘people’ he means ‘agents’. Other agents. The ones he was working with, no doubt. As if his arm isn’t reminder enough, sometimes if he doesn’t hold back – well, they start to treat him a little differently after that. It’s a reminder that he’s not fully human.

You can empathize. “It’s a little shocking at first,” you remind him gently, “but you do get used to it. I did. It just takes some time.”

Of course, you also married a super soldier, so there’s that. You can’t really gauge what’s ‘normal’ anymore.

That’s when he cracks open the pack  of cigarettes – half full, which means he must have been smoking on the mission, too, something he doesn’t usually do – and when he meets your eyes, the dark, anxious look there turns your stomach to knots.

“Are you?” he asks, voice low and laced with an emotion you just can’t place – or maybe you’re too afraid to acknowledge that you can, and very easily feel the same way. “I could break you in thirty ways before you could even tell me to stop.”

Your brain halts like a record scratch when the clear implication of his words sends a jolt straight to your core. Not just because it’s true, the threat, but because of the dangerous way he’s staring at you, coupled with the casual authority in his voice.

He could hurt you so easily, but you know he wouldn’t. Not you.

He could do other things, too – something a lot less violent and a lot more pleasurable – but you don’t let yourself consider that. You can’t. Even if it’s what he’s implying.

Is it what he’s implying?

You’re married. He knows that.

There’s a long pause while you try to gather your thoughts, until you finally manage as evenly as you can, “Are you trying to scare me?”

Your voice is still a little hoarse despite how much you willed it not to be. He did scare you a little – not that you’d ever admit it, because he excited you a hell of a lot more, and you hate that, too. But you love it even more.

Your question makes his shoulders slump, just slightly, just enough to let you know that that’s exactly what it was – that Bucky was lashing out, in his own way. That he’s the one who’s scared. That he’s trying to push you away.

Why?

“I’m not afraid of you, Bucky,” you reassure him, because you aren’t. You could never be. Not like that. What you’re afraid of is so much worse than that – because it involves him and you, and you can’t make yourself stop wanting more of this. More of him. More of what he threatened to do to you – the underlying meaning you hope to god you’re not imagining, but you should never, ever want.

It’s wrong.

“You should be,” he responds, quiet, rolling the cigarette he’s half pulled out of the pack in between his fingers like he’s debating whether to light it, but he’s trying his hardest not to this time. “You shouldn’t be up here with me.”

The ball drops.

The truth that the two of you have been dancing around for months finally comes out, and you laugh – you laugh, because otherwise you’ll cry. “What are you talking about?”

“Darlin’, you’re—” he starts, and then lets out a frustrated sigh and shoves the cigarette right back in, shoves the pack shut too for good measure. Blue eyes burn into yours. “You know why.”

“We’re friends, Bucky,” you emphasize, lightly, but deep within your chest you can feel the anger, the anxiety start to burn and meld together into something entirely unrecognizable. It’s the tiniest ember now, but it won’t be if this keeps up. You know you’re married. You know that. You don’t need the reminder. “We’re just talking. What’s the problem?”

“Come on, sweetheart.” He’s calm, too calm, and it bothers you. “Don’t play dumb. You’re too smart for that.”

It’s just pretend. It’s not real. You’re happily married with Steve. You’re happy.

Right?

“That’s all it is,” you argue. “I’m married. You said so yourself. Steve and I are happily married.”

Saying it out loud is just another cold, brutal reminder that you aren’t. Just like the façade you’re forced to wear. 

“Yeah? You’re happy?” Bucky asks, pulling himself to his feet – and you suddenly realize how tall he is when he’s towering over you like this. You’re not scared, no, you love it. And that makes it worse, the way he makes your heart race like this. “Then there’s gotta be a reason why you haven’t told him about our little talks.”

Because they’re more than that. That’s the reason.

“Well, why haven’t you?” you shoot back, finally getting to your feet, too, feeling your face flush with anger. “You haven’t told him either. Why’s that, huh?”

Tense silence falls over the two of you as you glare at each other, the only light illuminating your features coming from the full moon. It’s a beautiful night, clear and chilly and bright, and you originally had hopes of maybe stargazing with him like you’ve done so many times before.

Not tonight.

He’s pushing you away. He wants to push you away. You know he is, it’s obvious – he tried one approach, and when that didn’t work, he went for the thing he knew would invoke a reaction. The thing that would hurt the most.

Steve. Your marriage. Your happiness, or lack thereof.

No matter how many times you try to tell that to the rational side of your brain, you just can’t handle it. It’s another rejection from someone you cared about – someone you felt yourself growing a potentially unhealthy attachment to – and he just had to hurt you like all the rest. He wanted to hurt you. He wanted to see you suffer.

You can’t stand him.

So you shrug off his jacket and shove it at him. “Take your fucking jacket,” you bite out. “You want me gone? Well, I’m going. Hope you’re happy.”

The way he takes it from you catches you off guard, blue eyes wide with hurt and surprise – but you don’t give him another second of your time. Instead you spin around on your heel and stomp your way back to the access door.

You’re not well enough for this. You’re depressed. You’re broken. You’re lonely.

And now, the only person who understands has thrown you away – discarded you like you’re nothing. Maybe because you are. You’re worthless.

Your fingertips just brush against the handle when you’re tugged back by the wrist, and then his arms are around you, his chest pressing into your back.

He’s warm.

It’s wrong.

But it feels right, and you hate how easily you melt into his touch, into the feeling of his lips at your ear.

“I don’t want you to go,” he whispers, and you’re done for.

The heat from your anger warps into something else – something that burns you up in a different way, and you swallow thickly at the feeling of his arms so snug around your waist. “What do you want, then?”

It’s barely audible, your question -- but he hears it just fine. Soft lips drag from your ear to your pulse, and you shiver, lulling your head back onto his shoulder.

“You tell me,” Bucky breathes against your skin. “I need to know what you want.”

The two of you are playing a dangerous game, and the stakes are only getting higher. You both have a lot to lose, but you’re the one taking the higher risk. Not him.

“I want—” His teeth gently nip at your neck and you can’t help yourself. “I want you—”

And then your back is pressed into the closed door, cold metal biting through your sweats but you don’t even notice, too focused on the feeling of his lips on yours. They’re soft and ever-so-slightly chapped, and his stubble scratches just a little, pleasantly, just enough to hurt in the best way.

It’s hot, too hot, god, you can’t handle the heat of his body against yours—

“Bucky,” you gasp against his lips, sliding your arms around his neck, fingers carding through his hair to pull him closer. You can taste with the barest bite of mint from his gum, along with the slightest hint of cigarette smoke, and you realize—

He must have been up here for awhile.

Overthinking. Wondering what to do. Lost in thoughts of you, perhaps.

The idea of it sends a rush of delirium through you, and you open your mouth just enough to let his tongue explore – or dominate, which you soon find you like very much when Bucky does it to you. His flesh hand cups the side of your face as he kisses the breath out of you, and his vibranium one snugly presses into your lower back – purposely, you soon find, because suddenly your knees go weak and your arms tighten around his neck to catch yourself from falling.

A breathy laugh escapes you. “Oh, wow. That’s never happened before.”

“First time for everything,” he teases, kissing your forehead as he steadies you back on both feet – and it’s then that the realness of the situation seems to sink in.

You’ve just cheated on your husband.

He’s just kissed his best friend’s wife.

There’s a prolonged silence as the two of you look at each other, watching, wondering, waiting, and then—

“We have to tell him,” you say, a little uneasily. “Just… not yet. Figure this out first.”

You can feel the desperation to see where this leads, no matter what a bad idea it is.

Bucky swallows. It’s clear that the prospect of lying to Steve bothers Bucky just as much as it bothers you, but you know he feels that same desperation when he suggests, “And if it turns out to be nothing, then…”

“Yeah. No harm, no foul.”

You won’t tell him. Because if it’s nothing, then it’s not worth worrying about. 

Even if it’s wrong.

Right?

two

and a moodboard I made because why not

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes

[art-gelato]

How the Heart Bends

Aaarrrgghh works through some personal issues while Blinky works through quite a lot of fur. [AO3]

Aaarrrgghh doubtfully eyed the bag slung over Blinky’s shoulder, as Blinky stood before the larger troll with all four of his palms facing up. “I promise this is a good idea,” Blinky said.

Backing up a little, Aaarrrgghh made a rumbling noise. It had been a week since the Battle of Killahead, and the former Gumm-Gumm was on edge. A lot had happened, and most of it felt too good to be true. The Dwoza trolls were wary of him, of course, and that was the only thing that was currently convincing him that the oversized bowl dropped on him hadn’t sent him into a deep dream. Otherwise, being free of Gunmar, being friends with Blinky… it was good. And Aaarrrgghh didn’t trust it when things seemed good. Too often, there was another shoe waiting to drop.

But it had been a week, and the scales hadn’t tipped for the worse.

It made him tense.

And now Blinky was proposing something that would require him to completely drop his guard, that would require vulnerability.

Aaarrrgghh shook his head.

Blinky’s lower hands clenched, before he took a deep breath to relax again. “Aaarrrgghh,” he said calmly. “Your mane is a mess. Please allow me to-”

Aaarrrgghh snorted, and Blinky squinted against the hot blast of air.

“At least tell me why you won’t,” Blinky pleaded, frustration creeping into his voice.

Aaarrrgghh ground his knuckles against the stone floor of Blinky’s dwelling. Blinky was between him and the exit, and though he could easily push the smaller troll aside, the thought of raising a hand to his new friend made him feel ill. Gunmar’s voice, ever present through his upbringing and not yet banished from his head, berated him for his weakness. “Can do it myself,” he grumbled.

“Clearly, you can’t!” Blinky snapped back, his patience running thin. He rubbed his face with his upper set of hands, while patting the air in a settling gesture with his lower set. “Apologies, my friend. I didn’t mean to take a harsh tone. But I can reach the places you cannot, and Gumm-Gumms aren’t especially known for their hygiene. No offense.”

Looking away, Aaarrrgghh hunched his shoulders. It was true, and no offense was taken. However, it just made him all the more aware of how he didn’t fit into this new setting. All the trolls here had different values, a whole different culture from him. He was already an adult—how could he ever hope to catch up with the rest of them? He might have shed his Gumm-Gumm armor, but maybe there were just some fundamental things about him that couldn’t be changed.

“Aaarrrgghh,” Blinky said softly, stepping closer. He held out a hand, but didn’t make contact. “You are safe in this place. You can be honest with me. What’s bothering you?”

Aaarrrgghh wanted to believe Blinky. He wanted to so badly. But trust and safety were antithetical to the world he’d been raised in, to every lesson he’d ever learned.

Well… almost every lesson. He was still learning, wasn’t he? Hesitantly, he moved his own hand forward so the knuckles pressed against Blinky’s palm. “Scared,” he admitted.

Blinky’s fingers folded over the hand that was so much larger than his own. “Who isn’t?” he said, his face creasing into a warm smile. “We live in a strange and frightening world. But that is what friends are for, yes? To make the world a little less so. To create our own pockets of comfort.”

Aaarrrgghh let out a shaky breath. Comfort. Slowly, he nodded. “Okay.”

“Excellent!” Blinky declared, stepping back and digging into his satchel. Aaarrrgghh felt an odd stab of disappointment at the loss of contact. “I’ll start with brushing your fur, to make it easier to wash. Then we can head to the springs, if you’re up for it, and I’ll teach you about proper grooming so you don’t have to rely on me.”

As Blinky rambled, Aaarrrgghh lowered himself to the floor, lying on his belly to give Blinky easy access. He was becoming very fond of listening to Blinky talk—which was fortunate, because the smaller troll never seemed to run out of things to say. Once Aaarrrgghh was comfortably settled, Blinky approached him with a wiry brush in one hand and scissors in another.

“If I tug too hard on a knot, or if you get overwhelmed and want to stop, just let me know, alright?” Blinky asked, waiting for an assenting nod before reaching for the back of Aaarrrgghh’s head.

Aaarrrgghh suppressed a flinch as Blinky’s hands entered his blind spot, focusing instead on keeping his breathing steady. Blinky was silent at first as he worked the brush through the tangles and knots of Aaarrrgghh’s shaggy mane, pausing occasionally to make sure Aaarrrgghh was still okay. Then, as he fell into a rhythm, he began to hum softly. It wasn’t a familiar tune to Aaarrrgghh, but it was a soothing one—somehow putting him in mind of warm summer evenings, of a gentle breeze in the trees and a chorus of crickets in the grass. Blinky did his work well, his many hands moving deftly down Aaarrrgghh’s neck and over his shoulders. Sometimes the humming would be interrupted by a muttered curse as Blinky discovered a mat of fur he couldn’t brush through, but even that was strangely relaxing.

Eventually, Aaarrrgghh became aware of a steady rumbling sound, and was surprised to realize that he was the source of it. He shifted subtly so one of his hands was under his chest, and marveled at the vibrations coming from deep within. “What-” he began, and the rumbling stopped.

“You have a wonderful purr,” Blinky remarked as he carefully freed a tangled twig. “Though a little rusty, it seems.”

“Didn’t know I could do that,” Aaarrrgghh mumbled, fighting the childish urge to hide his face in embarrassment.

Blinky’s hands stilled for a moment before continuing their task. He didn’t speak or hum, or make any sound at all for a little while. At last, he murmured, “Thank you.”

Aaarrrgghh wanted to look at Blinky, but that would require turning his head and upsetting the amiable peace they’d formed together. “What for?”

“Letting me help you with this,” Blinky replied. “For… letting me in at all.”

At first, Aaarrrgghh wasn’t really sure how to respond. He just let Blinky’s hands run through his fur, clearing away decades of neglect. “I trust you,” he finally replied.

Blinky let out a small chuckle. “It wasn’t so long ago that you hated me.”

True. Aaarrrgghh could still remember it with crystal clarity, how all his resentment at being captured by a bunch of gravel miners had channeled directly towards the one who was tasked with keeping an eye on him. “And you were scared of me,” he said. He remembered, too, Blinky’s concerned hand on his back, so soon after being so worried for his own wellbeing. Before that touch, physical contact had always been something to dread.

“What a start, eh?” Blinky said, and then the playfulness in his voice faded to weariness. “What a pair we are.” His hands slowed, and he took a shuddering breath before speaking again. “I’m going to have to climb on your back to reach some spots. Is that okay?”

Aaarrrgghh wished he knew what Blinky was thinking about, to sound so tired. He wondered if he was allowed to ask. “Yeah,” he said.

With a small grunt of effort, Blinky hoisted himself up Aaarrrgghh’s side and onto his broad back. It wasn’t long before Blinky was humming again as he worked, a new song that was just as relaxing as the last. He was small enough that his weight didn’t make Aaarrrgghh feel pinned or trapped, and so the big troll’s eyes slowly slipped shut as he began to purr again.

Aaarrrgghh must have drifted off at some point, because it felt like mere moments later that he was roused by two hands patting his arm. He blinked his eyes open to see Blinky standing before him, smiling.

“I hate to disturb you when you look so comfortable, but I have to get your front now,” Blinky said.

Aaarrrgghh made a rumbling noise that he hoped was agreeable as he sat up, shaking off the last shreds of drowsiness. Blinky stepped forward and got back to work, and Aaarrrgghh’s attention wandered around the cramped dwelling. There were tufts of fur scattered on the floor about him, along with twigs and some leaves. He was surprised to see a few bone fragments as well—while Gumm-Gumm cleanliness standards were lower than those of other trolls, they drew the line at leaving the remains of prey in one’s fur. Blood and gore left to fester could bring disease with it, and the stench could drive game away or reveal your position to an enemy.

Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising, though. No one had ever helped Aaarrrgghh clean himself up, and as Blinky had said, there were places he couldn’t reach.

His gaze slid back to Blinky. The smaller troll was lost in his mission, brow furrowed in concentration as his four hands worked through the mass of green fur. The tip of his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth.

Aaarrrgghh’s chest suddenly felt tight.

There must have been some telltale shift in his demeanor, because two of Blinky’s eyes looked upwards. “Are you quite alright?”

Aaarrrgghh didn’t know if those bones were animal or human. For so long, he’d never truly thought of them as two separate categories. In more recent years, he’d been noticing the differences, but hadn’t allowed himself to dwell too long on them. His throat worked a couple of times before he managed, “Still… scared of me?”

The other four eyes joined the first two, and Blinky flattened one of his palms against Aaarrrgghh’s chest. “No,” he said softly. “I’m not.”

For some reason, panic flooded through Aaarrrgghh at this answer. He knew it already, of course—Blinky wouldn’t be this close, wouldn’t be so relaxed if he was afraid. But, but- “You should be.”

“Why is that?” Blinky asked, corner of his mouth quirking up. “Are you going to hurt me?”

Aaarrrgghh’s nostrils flared. “I could.” It would be so easy. Blinky was full of openings and weak points, and he almost certainly hadn’t ever been in a proper fight before Killahead. He could barely hold off a few goblins. So why wasn’t he afraid of Aaarrrgghh?

Blinky sighed. “I know that,” he said. “But are you going to?”

Aaarrrgghh had never had a choice before. His purpose was to hurt others, and he was as much Gunmar’s weapon as the Decimaar Blade. But Gunmar was gone, and even before that, Aaarrrgghh had defected. He wasn’t a Gumm-Gumm anymore—he was just a troll taking up too much space in a home that hadn’t been designed for someone his size. He was a friend. “No,” he said.

Blinky smiled, warm enough to burn. “I know,” he said. “I trust you, too.”

Aaarrrgghh averted his gaze; looking in Blinky in the face right then felt akin to staring at the sun. He wanted to say, A week isn’t enough to know you can trust someone. A week is nothing. Trust is too precious to be given so easily. But would that make him a hypocrite? After all, he was the one who had admitted to trusting Blinky first.

That was different, though. Blinky couldn’t hurt him.

Well… not alone. But all it would take was one word from Blinky to turn the rest of Dwoza into a mob against Aaarrrgghh. His residence here was fragile, and Blinky was all that stood between Aaarrrgghh and life as a complete outcast. It was a terrifying thought. Here he was, living in a den of former enemies, and his sole guard was an undersized bookworm who brought a broom to a swordfight.

Worst of all, Aaarrrgghh didn’t think there was anyone better for the job. He trusted Blinky with his life—not just because he had no other choice, but because he knew Blinky would defend him. He’d already gotten proof of that, when Blinky had wasted precious time before an impending battle to free Aaarrrgghh from prison. Aaarrrgghh still didn’t really understand why, but no one had ever done anything like that for him before. Gunmar wouldn’t have even considered going out of his way to help, for all the centuries of loyalty Aaarrrgghh had provided him with.

“Thank you,” Aaarrrgghh said, his ears flattening in discomfort.

“Of course,” Blinky replied easily. He tugged the brush through Aaarrrgghh’s fur a few more times, then stepped back. “Well, we’re done this part. Would you like to move on?”

Right. Blinky had said something about springs. Aaarrrgghh nodded, and Blinky grinned. “Follow me, then!”

Aaarrrgghh trailed after Blinky as the smaller troll led him through the heart of Dwoza. The other trolls gave the pair a wide berth, and mutters dogged their heels through the caverns. Blinky’s expression remained pleasant and friendly as he rambled about the structures they passed—the history, the materials, the building techniques—but his ears occasionally twitched in the direction of the whispers. As they went deeper into the caves, the number of trolls dwindled.

“Does it bother you?” Aaarrrgghh asked when there was finally no one else around.

Blinky paused in the middle of explaining how this particular tunnel below Dwoza had been discovered. “Does what bother me?”

“What others say,” Aaarrrgghh said.

“Ah,” Blinky said, then let out a brief chuckle. “No. To be frank, I’ve never been especially popular here. They all think I’m… a bit odd, to put it mildly.”

Aaarrrgghh frowned.

“Not that I mind,” Blinky added with a shrug. “I am odd. And why should I care if they think ill of me for it? I’ve always had Dictatious. I-” He stopped walking so abruptly that he skidded on the gravel underfoot, and Aaarrrgghh grabbed him by the shoulders before he could fall.

This was the first time Blinky had said his brother’s name since the immediate aftermath of Killahead, seeming to do his best to avoid the subject of Dictatious entirely. Blinky looked shaken by the slip, both literal and metaphorical. “I never needed anyone else,” he finished vacantly.

Aaarrrgghh wanted to say something about how Blinky had him now, but the words caught in his throat. It wasn’t the same. They’d only known each other for a couple of weeks, and for half that time they’d been on opposite sides. He couldn’t replace a beloved brother, and he didn’t want to. He just… wanted Blinky to feel better.

Remembering how it had seemed to work before, Aaarrrgghh moved one of his hands and gently patted Blinky on the head. It was a clumsy and awkward gesture, speaking to centuries of inexperience in dealing with the more fragile emotions, but the tension drained from Blinky’s frame. His expression softened, and he put his hand over the one Aaarrrgghh had left on his shoulder. “Ah, forgive me,” Blinky said, giving Aaarrrgghh a rueful look. “I’m supposed to be assisting you today.”

“We help each other,” Aaarrrgghh replied. “Alone together.”

Blinky scrubbed at his face, then smiled weakly. “Quite right,” he said. “Though I find myself feeling less and less alone, the more we spend time with each other.”

“Me too.” Reluctantly, Aaarrrgghh let his hand slide off Blinky’s shoulder.

The loss of contact seemed to snap Blinky out of his thoughts, and he cleared his throat. “It’s not much further now,” he said, beginning to walk again. “Should be just around this corner.”

Aaarrrgghh trundled after Blinky as he followed the curve of the tunnel. Sure enough, after the bend, the tunnel opened up into a wide cavern. The floor was dotted with milky pools, many of which fed into each other. Steam rose from them, either venting through a few shafts in the ceiling or condensing against the vaulted rock, dripping back down along stalactites mirrored by stalagmites. It was a stunning view.

“Wow,” Aaarrrgghh said, at a loss for any other words.

“The springs!” Blinky announced grandly, spreading his arms out in presentation. “Fed by a water system much further below us and heated by magma, they’re full of minerals that are quite healthy for our living stone. And, due to the influence of our local Heartstone, they have some minor healing properties as well! Mainly, though, they make for an exceedingly relaxing soak.” He gestured towards the pools. “Take your pick.”

Aaarrrgghh hesitated, then wandered over to one of the larger pools. Blinky stood beside him as he dipped a finger in to test the temperature. If he weren’t made of stone it would be scalding, but the heat felt good. Something in the water fizzled pleasantly against his skin, and he could feel the faint, familiar thrum of Heartstone energy.

“Ah, before you get in… it will probably take that paint off, or at least fade it,” Blinky said, twisting the fingers of his top set of hands together. “I assume you don’t mind, but… just in case?”

Aaarrrgghh traced his thumb down the side of his chin, where he knew a stripe of white paint was. “Want it gone,” he said. It was warrior’s paint, and he wasn’t a warrior anymore. He eased into the water, careful not to splash too much liquid over the edge. Sinking until he was sitting at the bottom, he leaned back against the side of the spring. The waterline reached halfway up his chest, and he watched the cloudy-white surface ripple hypnotically around him.

Blinky picked up a bucket lying on its side beside a nearby stalagmite and passed it through the spring to fill it. He stepped behind Aaarrrgghh. “I am going to douse you now,” he said, so seriously that Aaarrrgghh couldn’t help a huff of laughter. “I just didn’t want to take you by surprise,” Blinky added, a touch defensively but still in good humor, and upended the bucket over Aaarrrgghh’s head.

Aaarrrgghh snorted to keep the water out of his nose, then pushed his fur back from his forehead. Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he saw one of Blinky’s hands beside his face, offering a lump of something that looked like thick mud. “It’s clay,” Blinky explained. “I’m using it to wash your fur. If you could get your front while I get your back…?”

“Clay,” Aaarrrgghh echoed, accepting the handful.

“It’s a mixture of minerals, many of which are found in these very waters,” Blinky said, and Aaarrrgghh felt him begin to work some of the substance into his fur, starting at the top of Aaarrrgghh’s head. “Make sure you work it in to the roots. That’ll get your mane clean all the way through, and it’s good for your skin as well.” He began to ramble about the ingredients and their various benefits.

Aaarrrgghh only half-listened. He didn’t understand all the words Blinky used, but he got the gist of it. After a moment of contemplation, he smeared the clay across the fur on his chest and began to do as Blinky instructed. The clay had a grainy texture that was surprisingly nice, like it was scratching an itch he hadn’t even known was there. Since his own hands were much bigger and he had less area to cover, he finished claying up the front part of his mane before Blinky was past his shoulders.

By then, Blinky had run out of things to say about clay and moved on to explaining how the spring system worked, which involved even more words Aaarrrgghh didn’t know. It seemed more interesting than the clay—at least, Blinky certainly got more excited while talking about it. Aaarrrgghh was kind of disappointed he couldn’t understand it better, but he didn’t want to annoy Blinky by asking questions. Still, one eventually slipped out. “Aquifer?”

Immediately, he winced. He’d interrupted Blinky mid-sentence. Under Gunmar’s command, that alone would have been enough to send the warlord into a rage, never mind the unnecessary questioning.

But he’d braced himself for a punishment that wasn’t coming.

Blinky immediately lit up and dove into an explanation about how water moved underground, and Aaarrrgghh started to understand. Not just about the springs and such, but about Blinky and about this new life.

There were no scales to tip, no other shoe to drop. Blinky wasn’t Gunmar, wasn’t constantly searching for new and creative ways to flex his power over others. Things were good, without condition, and they could stay good.

A weight he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying fell away from his shoulders, like an echo of the armor he’d left behind.

“Alright!” Blinky declared, patting Aaarrrgghh’s back. “Now, you can simply rinse off by submerging yourself in the water.”

Aaarrrgghh slid down until the water was at his chin, and he tilted his head back to look at Blinky.

The smaller troll was standing with his arms akimbo, the corner of his mouth quirked fondly upwards. “Enjoying yourself?” Blinky asked.

Humming an affirmative, Aaarrrgghh slid the rest of the way into the water. He swished around until the gritty, mucky feeling of the clay was gone, then resurfaced. Shaking his head free of excess water, he looked around and saw Blinky holding a rag and a brush that looked like the end of a broom. He gave Blinky a curious look.

“The paint,” Blinky said. “You said you wanted it gone?”

Aaarrrgghh nodded, so Blinky held out the rag to him. “Use this on your face. I’ll get your back.”

The cloth’s texture was coarse, just shy of true abrasiveness. Aaarrrgghh dipped it in the water and passed it over his face a few times, as Blinky scrubbed at his back. There were a couple of stripes on his chest as well, and he scoured them until only the faintest hint of white remained. It took Blinky considerably longer to finish Aaarrrgghh’s back, as that was where the majority of the paint was, but eventually he stepped back with a harrumph. “That should do it,” he said, cricking his neck.

Aaarrrgghh looked at him, and Blinky sighed.

“Here,” Blinky said, holding out his hand. “You missed some spots.”

“Sorry,” Aaarrrgghh replied, handing over the rag.

Blinky huffed. “No need to apologize,” he said. He gently took Aaarrrgghh’s face in his lower set of hands, guiding it towards him as he rubbed away the remaining paint.

Aaarrrgghh’s eyes closed. He really could get used to this. For a moment, it was a frightening thought—he was vulnerable, he was being weak—but then Blinky’s thumb brushed across his cheek. The gesture served no obvious purpose, but the soft scrape of Blinky’s stone against Aaarrrgghh’s was so deeply soothing that Aaarrrgghh couldn’t keep a content grumble from escaping his chest.

“There we go,” Blinky murmured, pulling the rag back but leaving his hands where they were. “Why, you look like a brand-new troll.”

“Good?” Aaarrrgghh asked.

Blinky patted the sides of Aaarrrgghh’s face. “Very good,” he said before withdrawing.

Feeling boneless, Aaarrrgghh sank back into the spring, letting out a long, low hum.

“I take it you’d like to soak a little longer,” Blinky said, and Aaarrrgghh could hear the smile in his voice. Aaarrrgghh just grunted an affirmative. “Mind if I join you?”

In lieu of a verbal response, Aaarrrgghh shifted his position so there would be room for both of them. Blinky undid his suspenders and stepped out of his trousers, taking a moment to fold them neatly by the spring before sliding into the water. He settled opposite Aaarrrgghh, rolling his shoulders with a sigh of satisfaction.

Aaarrrgghh wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so lucky, wasn’t even entirely sure he deserved it. Still, he wasn’t going to question it. Because for the first time in his life, he began to feel like he could truly believe in a happy future. It was a tentative spark of hope, one he wasn’t really familiar with—and so he tested it.

“Blinky?” he rumbled.

“Yes, Aaarrrgghh?”

“We’re going to be okay.”

Blinky lifted his head from where he’d been resting it against the edge of the spring, giving Aaarrrgghh a soft, searching look. “Yes,” he said after a moment, and Aaarrrgghh could see the same spark in his eyes. “We are.”

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters #blinkous galadrigal #aaarrrgghh #wizards toa #writing counts as art

[slytherinbarnes]

bright stars and black holes

pairing: Josephine Lightbourne x Clarke Griffin

word count: 5.6k

warnings: language, anxiety, some death, some angst, some fluff, a hint of smut if you squint your eyes. 

summary: Josephine Lightbourne is used to getting what she wants. everything changes when she meets Clarke Griffin.

a/n: this is my secret santa gift for @lovelessdyke​​! I know I went way over the 1k word limit, but when I was told the pairing, I got really excited and just couldn’t stop! thank you to my bff for helping me figure out the plot and work out the kinks, I love you the mostest! also thank you to @hyperion-moonbabe-art3mis​​ and @johnmurphyisqueer​​ for hosting this! it was so much fun, and a very good distraction from my holiday stress. okay, enough rambling, here’s the fic!

my masterlist

Josephine Lightbourne is used to getting what she wants. 

So when she is put into another host, one that fights back, it lights a fire in her that she hasn’t felt in decades. She loves Gabriel, she knows that for sure, but even things with him had become complacent. They’re in love, but they’re at odds, too fundamentally different in their approach to immortalhood to really be anything more than star crossed lovers. 

Everything changes for her when she meets Clarke Griffin.

Of course, she doesn’t meet Clarke in the traditional sense, not the way that most friends or lovers are introduced. Instead, Josephine is resurrected in Clarke’s body and meets her first through her friends, her family, her people. Forced to pretend to be the fallen Nightblood from Earth, John Murphy teaches her how to trick the people in Clarke’s life into believing that she’s still alive. But of course, it all goes to shit when Bellamy figures out her secret and threatens revenge. Luckily for her, she can be very persuasive. 

And because Josephine always gets what she wants, Bellamy and his people agree to put everything behind them, to forget that her parents gave her an unwilling host. But when Josephine goes to bed for the first time in her new body, aided by a sleeping pill, a smile of satisfaction on her face, she soon learns that Clarke is not one to give up easy, not even in death.

When she meets Clarke in her mindspace, surrounded by metal and the hum of an engine, the face of her original body reflected back to her in the pointed glare of Clarke’s blue eyes, she suddenly realizes that the feelings she has for her stolen body are deeper than an appreciation for Clarke’s form. Instead, Josephine finds herself enamored with another person, more interesting than Gabriel, maybe even more interesting than herself. She finds herself falling for the angry Wanheda, the Commander of Death, the girl who refuses to back down even when faced with love.

-

Clarke Griffin is tired. 

Tired of war and death and running for her life, tired of killing and bearing it so her people don’t have to. She is too young to be this tired, but she has shouldered a lifetime of burdens in just a few short years, and it’s finally worn her down. So after the initial sadness of not getting to tell Madi and her mother and her friends goodbye, she finally starts to feel at peace for the first time in years. She thinks that maybe she can live forever in the Shallow Valley in her head, surrounded by her sketched memories, the scent of her father’s cologne still hanging in the air. Something rare that her mother had found at the trade post, some relic from pre Praimfaya Earth. Clarke’s sure it must have cost thousands of ration points, or at least a really good bribe, but she’s thankful her mom found it, because the smell is comforting to her. She’s sure that if she was back on the Ark and went into her parents room, that scent would still linger, despite the years it’s been since her dad’s death.

But just as Clarke starts to settle in her new home, her sketchbook in hand, something starts to happen. 

A low rumble, a prickle of unease across her skin, and she finds herself on her feet and out the door before she even knows what’s happening. And as she stares at the red door at the end of the hall, anxiety heavy in her chest, it swings open, blinding her with light before a pretty blonde girl steps into her space. Clarke knows immediately that it’s Josephine, she remembers the pictures from the shrine, but she’s sure that even without the pictures, she would know the imposter in her body. And at the sight of her, Clarke’s earlier peace has faded, replaced now with anger and determination, because as Clarke stares at Josephine, a smirk on the girl’s face, she is reminded of who she is. 

Clarke Griffin, Wanheda, the Commander of Death. 

And the Commander of Death backs down for nobody. 

-

Josephine stalks down the halls of the unfamiliar Ark, searching the ship for a sign of the girl that she sent running, scared for her life. 

She can hear the thump of her dad’s footsteps nearby, but there’s no sign of Clarke, the hallways suspiciously clear of any sign of her. She shakes her head, determined to get this over with once and for all, to finally have control of the body that does not belong to her. But as she turns a corner, her eyes land on an airlock. Down the hall, another door closes, Clarke surely disappearing behind it, but Josephine doesn’t care about that right now. 

Right now, she just wants to know what’s behind door number one. 

She walks towards the airlock door and pushes the button, stepping inside, and the doors slide shut behind her. When she turns to look, she sees that she’s no longer in the airlock, but just outside of it, transported into Clarke’s memory with the push of a button. Josephine smiles, aware that this memory must be strong, traumatic, if it sits on its own, away from Clarke’s sketches. 

She looks around at the scene in front of her, through the dimmed lights of the Ark. She can see a man, and who appears to be his son, lingering in the room, a handful of guards, and a woman with a long braid that Josephine immediately identifies as Abby, Clarke’s mom. Another man is standing in front of Abby, tall, handsome, whispering quietly, and Josephine only has to wonder who he is for a second before Clarke comes tearing around the corner, screaming out, “Dad!”

She watches with intrigue as Clarke is held back by a pair of guards, released on the command of the other man in the room. Clarke runs across the room and into her father’s arms, both of them crying as he holds her tight. He presses a watch into his daughter’s hand, and the man from before suddenly announces, “Jake, it’s time.”

Jake says his final goodbyes before he crosses the room and stands in front of the airlock, waiting for the doors to slide open. When he does, he steps inside, turning around to face the small crowd, Josephine among them. And in a move that Josephine is unprepared for, the guard near the airlock hits the button, sending Clarke’s dad flying out into space. Josephine’s breath stutters in her throat despite herself, watching as a younger Clarke falls apart in her mother’s arms, and she suddenly understands why Clarke ran past this memory. 

And as Josephine steps out of the airlock and back into the Ark in Clarke’s mind, she gets a flash of understanding for the scared girl running from her, all too familiar with watching a parent die.

-

Clarke glares at the red door at the end of the hall, a wreath adorned on it. 

Josephine now knows exactly how to get her our of her own head. Something that Clarke revealed to her in a moment of weakness, reminded of the tiredness that weighs heavy in her bones. But then Monty showed up this morning and reminded her of her need to fight and her desire to protect others, which is why Clarke now stands in front of the door to Josephine’s head. 

Monty offered to go with her, but she shook her head, letting him know that this is something she needs to do alone. So she takes a deep breath to steady herself, and then she twists the knob and steps inside of Josephine’s mindspace. It’s organized, cleaner than her own, all of Josephine’s memories arranged into books and stacked onto row upon row of shelves. Clarke feels a rush of overwhelming anxiety, wondering how she’ll find anything to help her in a library this big, but then she remembers what her dad used to tell her when she got stuck on a particularly difficult word problem in school. Take a deep breath and start at the beginning. 

Clarke wanders to the first stack of books, her eyes roaming across the titles quickly, trying to find anything useful. She sees Josephine’s first date, her prom, her graduation from college. Training for the Eligius mission, journeying through space, her first few days on Sanctum. But suddenly, the books end and the next set of volumes begin, all labeled Josephine Ada Lightbourne II. Clarke backtracks a little, to the final copy of Josephine I, and she pulls the book out and flips it open. 

The library around her transforms into the chaotic landscape of Sanctum. There are trees on all sides of her, except for in the small clearing to her left, which houses a series of tents. Clarke steps into the clearing as two motorbikes drive up, and when they pull their helmets off, Clarke finds Josephine approaching with a guy. They’re talking quietly to each other, but Josephine seems to be in an excited rush, searching for her father. As she draws closer to a large tent in the center of the clearing, a woman lets out a wail from inside, and Josephine’s smile drops as she starts to slow down outside of the tent, trying to figure out what’s wrong. Clarke moves closer to the pretty blonde, starting to understand a little bit of the obsession that Josephine has for herself, but she shakes the thought free as a woman bursts out of the tent in front of them, clutching the side of her neck and chest. 

Josephine takes off running towards her, a worried cry ripping from her throat as she reaches the woman. “Mom! Mom!”

Clarke watches as Simone hits the ground, Josephine immediately sinking to her knees beside her. And before she can even truly process the loss of her mother, an older man stalks out of the tent, an axe in his hand. Josephine’s expression morphs into one of horror as her mind starts to put the pieces together, looking at him with fear. “Dad, what are you doing?”

Clarke has one second to take in Russell’s first body before he grinds out, “Sanctum is mine”, and slashes his daughter’s throat. Clarke can feel Josephine’s terror as she processes the idea that her father just killed her mother, and now her, and she can feel Josephine’s final wave of emotions as she struggles through her last few breaths. The last emotion Clarke feels surprises her, an emotion so strong it washes over her like a tidal wave: regret. She can feel it squeezing her chest as she watches Josephine take one final breath, the light behind her eyes now dead to the world.

Clarke snaps the book that is still in her hand closed, taking her back to Josephine’s mindspace. She starts to feel like she might be a little in over her head, because she can feel herself pitying the woman who snatched her body. She shakes her head and shoves the book back onto the shelf, stuffing the ounce of feeling she had for Josephine back down with it. 

And with another steadying breath, she opens her mouth and yells towards the open door, “Monty, I need your help!”

-

Josephine got really into meditation when she was in college.

Her mom swore up and down it would help her with her studies, but the only thing it ever did for her was give her a headache and piss her off. That is, until she started body snatching, and she found that sometimes, she could find memories that lingered in the brain, unreached by the mind wiping fluid. She got a sick sense of pleasure searching for these memories in each new host, watching the memories of someone else’s life unfold, that person now pushed out of their own body, and she always made sure to seek them out the first few nights in her new host. 

The exception, of course, is her current host. 

With Clarke still in her own mind, and Ryker now working to help rid her of the problem, Josephine hasn’t had a chance to search Clarke’s mind for these phantom memories. Not that she’d need to, because she could just waltz right into Clarke’s mindspace and start touching the sketches on the walls, but she’s starting to wonder if those phantom memories exist before a mind is completely gone. They must, if they remain even after the procedure. 

So as Ryker works in the shop downstairs, building her an EMP to rid Clarke of her neural mesh, she sits upstairs in the loft, cross legged, her eyes closed, her breathing slowed. She repeats a few mantras for a while, clearing her mind and peeling away the layers of this world until the only thing around her is her inner mind. She imagines herself pulling back the layers of her brain, Clarke’s brain, searching between the folds and around the corners for any memories hidden deep inside of her. 

Finally, after what feels like hours, Josephine finds one.

She pushes herself inside the memory, the blank space around her transforming to a cool brown stone. There’s a long hallway stretched in front of her, a door halfway through it, and she can hear soft murmurs from the other side. She walks towards it and pushes her away inside, unaffected by the locks on the thick metal door, and her eyes roam over a control room of sorts. In front of her, stretching from one wall to the next, are a series of cameras, chaos flickering across each one. She sees someone strapped down to a table, their mouth open in a silent scream, and it takes Josephine a second to realize that it’s Abby. On another video feed beside it, she can see Octavia, surrounded by a large group of people, guns pointed at her from every angle. As she takes in the videos in front of her, trying to piece together where she is, she hears a voice behind her mutter, “Together.”

Josephine spins around, her eyes landing on Bellamy and Clarke, unnoticed by her before this moment, their hands slowly pushing a lever forward. Josephine rolls her eyes, remembering John’s stories of Clarke’s genocide in Mount Weather, her eyes now privy to the moment in question. She can see the turmoil on Bellamy and Clarke’s faces, the heartbreak they’re now faced with as they kill hundreds of people in one swift motion. 

Josephine starts to walk towards the pair, but the scenery changes, and she realizes this must be a series of memories, hidden deep in her mind so Clarke can pretend they don’t exist. She sees now that they’re outside a settlement of some sort, a sign at the front labeled, “Camp Jaha”. Bellamy and Clarke stand just outside the gates as the rest of their people file inside, and Josephine can tell that this is a goodbye based on their body language alone. She’s always been good at reading people, especially in their most vulnerable moments, and right now the young leaders have heartbreak written all over their faces. 

She watches them hug before Clarke walks away, straight towards her, disappearing into the woods before the scene changes again. This time, Clarke is crouched low between a pair of trees, hidden in their shadows, the moon high overhead. Clarke’s hands are covering her face and her shoulders are shaking, and when her hands finally drop, her mouth is open in a silent sob. She’s trying to keep quiet, fearful of whatever may be lurking in the night, but every now and then a soft sob pushes past her lips and echoes in the space between them. 

Josephine finds herself wanting to comfort this girl, to reassure her that she made the right choice in Mount Weather, genocide or not, but she can’t. Because this is a memory and Clarke is her enemy, and she shouldn’t care at all for the young blonde breaking down in front of her. She starts to wonder if she should try to leave the memory, starting to feel like she’s overstepping, something unfamiliar to her, when she feels a hand push her shoulder, hard. 

Her eyes fly open and land on Ryker, a tired expression on his face, his hand pointing to the shop down below. “It’s nearly time.”

-

Clarke frantically steps into the library, looking around at the piles of discarded books. 

The barrier between their minds is breaking down and the clock for her body is ticking, making it easier for her to grasp bits and pieces of whatever is going on outside of her head. From what she can gather, she and Josephine are now with Bellamy, the EMP used to temporarily disable the shield instead of wipe her mind, and now Clarke is desperately trying to find anything that will save her life.

She is burning through memories as fast as she can, picking up books, exploring the contents inside, and then tossing them aside if they’re useless to her. 

And so far, they’ve all been useless. 

She’s been jumping around from version to version, too anxious to explore the memories chronologically, and she currently finds herself back at Josephine Lightbourne the First, her hand reaching for a book labeled, Long Nights. Clarke flips it open and feels herself get pulled into the memory, landing in an elevator, right beside Josephine. Her blonde hair is the longest she’s seen it at this point, falling over her shoulder in soft waves. A black, sparkly dress hugs her figure, and there’s glitter smeared around her eyes. Red lipstick is traced around the perfect curve of her lips, and Clarke feels a low tug in her stomach, a flutter of something she wants to ignore.

Because Josephine Lightbourne is standing in front of her, and she looks hot.

Clarke shakes her head and lets out a sigh of relief when the elevator dings, letting them off into some long hallway, and Clarke is thankful for the space she can now keep between her and her enemy. She’s hoping if she says it enough, she’ll start to believe it again. Josephine clicks down the hall on a pair of heels, confident and beautiful, finally stopping when she reaches a door at the end of the hall. She knocks twice and waits patiently for someone to answer the door.

The door swings open and Clarke has three seconds to take in one of the most incredible women she’s ever seen. She looks a lot like Lexa, her eyes bright green and her brown hair cascading down her back, and she greets Josephine with a pretty smile. 

They’re motioned inside and Clarke scrambles in after Josephine, even though the closing door will have no effect on her, and she watches as the two women greet each other softly. 

“Did anyone see you?”

“Only the doorman.”

The brunette smiles. “James is discreet.”

“Good, because I don’t think Eligius can handle another scandal. Not after losing the prisoner ship.”

“You and I both know that ship isn’t lost. Those prisoners were killed.”

Josephine shrugs, a slight lift of her right shoulder, uninterested in the conversation. “Maybe. But you and I both know that I don’t care.”

The brunette smirks again, cocking her head to the side, playing along. “And what do you care about, Josephine?”

“You.”

And then they collide in a kiss.

Clarke feels her breath stutter in her lungs, watching as the two women kiss passionately, unaware of her presence in this memory. They move from the doorway to the couch, kicking off their shoes as they move, and Clarke is frozen in her place by the door, unsure what to do. It’s only when she sees the woman slide Josephine’s dress straps down her arms does she slam the book closed, sending her back into the large library. 

She throws the book away as if it burned her, turning to lean against the shelves and catch her breath, willing away the butterflies in her stomach and the blush along her cheeks. She fans herself slightly, glad that no one is here to see her in this moment, unable to escape the memory as one single thought repeats in her mind on a loop:

Maybe the memories weren’t useless after all. 

-

Josephine looks away from Bellamy’s sleeping form, wondering how the hell anyone could get comfortable enough in a cave to get some sleep. 

But then she starts to think that he might have the right idea, because who knows what’s gonna happen to them tomorrow. Maybe she’ll need the strength to fight. Maybe she’ll need energy to run. So she closes her eyes, relying on some of her meditation tricks to clear her mind and lull her to sleep, the cave around her fading into a large stone tower. Josephine doesn’t recognize the building, which means that the pull of Clarke’s mind is getting stronger, and that the barrier between their minds is getting weaker. At this rate, they must only have a few hours left.

And Josephine knows that she should wake herself up, resist the pull of Clarke’s mind to her own and try to buy them a few more hours, but then she catches sight of her.

Lexa.

The woman that John told her all about before she saw her for herself in Clarke’s memories. Josephine usually skips any of Clarke’s memories that involve the dark haired Commander, something about her presence annoying the shit out of Josephine. But this time, she stays, catching an eyeful of blonde hair near the back of the room, curious about what is happening between Clarke and Lexa at this moment. 

Clarke’s hair is long, with streaks of pink and various braids, and she looks angry, hardened, different from the soft girl in the earlier memories. Josephine can’t decide if she loves or hates it, if she craves the quiet girl or the angry warrior, but she doesn't have long to think before Clarke opens her mouth and speaks to an approaching Lexa. “I stayed because it was the right thing to do for my people.”

“Our people.”

Clarke and Josephine both roll their eyes, not believing the warrior turned heda. Clarke closes the space between herself and Lexa, and Josephine moves closer to Clarke, subconsciously drawn to her at this point. She watches as the blonde narrows her eyes, her voice threatening. “If you betray me again, I-”

“I won’t.” Lexa takes a deep breath before dropping to her knees in front of Clarke, looking up at her with a serious expression. “I swear fealty to you, Clarke kom Skaikru. I vow to treat your needs as my own, and your people as my people.”

The energy in the room changes, and Josephine watches Clarke intently, willing her to turn away from the woman that left her to commit a genocide on her own. But instead, Clarke reaches out for Lexa, urging her to take her hand, and Josephine rolls her eyes, turning away. 

She forces herself awake, unable to stand the sight of the couple any longer, something akin to jealousy burning in her gut. Except that Josephine Lightbourne does not get jealous, because she always gets what she wants, and that Clarke Griffin is her enemy. Josephine feels nothing for her beyond a desire to have her body, and that’s. it. 

-

Clarke runs through the halls of the Ark, grabbing books and tossing them into the airlock, trying desperately to put space between her mind and Josephine’s. Right now, everything is blurring together, Josephine’s memories manifesting and moving all over Clarke’s space, and a warning message blares overhead. 

Clarke pushes the button to seal the airlock and send the books out into space before she opens the door and repeats the process, frantically tossing books into the gray coffin. As she picks up a particularly large stack of books, one of them tumbles off the top, the spine smacking loudly on the floor, the book falling open. And before Clarke can help it, she is sucked in, taken into one of Josephine’s memories, dropped right onto the stairs of Sanctum. 

Clarke picks the book up from its place at her feet, fully intending on closing it and getting back to dumping Josephine’s memories, when the woman in question runs past her, tears streaming down her face, expression distraught. Clarke can’t help the wave of curiosity that washes over her, and she turns to run after Josephine, following her down the steps, around the mountain, and through the fields around Sanctum. Josephine is quiet for a long time, just softly crying as she runs after a figure in the distance, and Clarke has no idea what’s going on until Josephine sees the figure near the edge of the shield, and she screams, “Gabriel!”

Gabriel stops and turns around, wearing a body unfamiliar to Clarke, and he looks at Josephine, clearly conflicted. Josephine closes the space between them as much as he will allow, stopping a few feet apart, just at the edge. She can hear guards in the distance heading their way, and Gabriel looks behind them warily, before looking back to his lover. “What you did was wrong, Josephine, and I can’t sit around and pretend like everything is okay anymore!”

“Gabriel, I’m sorry! Everything I did, I did for us. But if you want this to stop, we’ll stop, okay? These will be our last bodies, and when we die, we die for good. Just come back with me, okay? Let me fix this.”

“You can’t fix this.”

“Baby, yes I can. You know I can.”

Gabriel seems to be softening, until an angry expression crosses his features and he yells, “No! Stop it! I’m not gonna let you manipulate me anymore, okay? I’m done.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes. I do.' The guards start to sound closer now, and Gabriel confirms as much when he frantically looks over Clarke’s shoulder before turning back to Josephine, one last time. “I’ve loved you for over a century, but our love is not worth the price we are paying.”

Josephine’s distraught expression deepens, and she watches Gabriel back up towards the shield. “Gabriel, please!”

He mutters, “I’m sorry”, and then he runs through the shield, bursting out on the other side, unaffected by the radiation, thanks to his Nightblood. Josephine drops to her knees, a heartbroken cry ripping from her throat, no longer following Gabriel despite her ability to step through the shield too. The guards rush past her, waiting for the shield to drop so they can pursue the man she loves, but she doesn’t notice.

Josephine Lightbourne is too busy falling apart, learning for the first time what it feels like to lose.

Clarke is sucked out of the memory, pulled back into the Ark and plopped down in front of an angry looking Josephine. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Clarke rolls her eyes, faking a bravery she doesn't feel in the face of the angry woman. “Oh please, like you haven’t spent the last few days snooping through my memories?”

Josephine looks surprised that she noticed, as if she couldn’t, and she shakes her head, her expression softening. “That’s different.”

“Doubt it.”

Their argument is cut short by the warning system intensifying, and Clarke knows that if they don’t vent everything right now, they’re both dead. She sets the outer doors to remain open, and then she grabs Josephine’s hand, dragging her through the halls of the Ark, back to her room. She pulls the door shut tight, ignoring Josephine’s protests, and seconds later they hear all of her memories vent, sucked out into the space that is the rest of their shared brain. As soon as it’s done, Josephine disappears, returning to the real world and leaving Clarke alone in her head. 

-

She doesn’t see her again until her body is strapped up to a series of machines, and Clarke is sedated prior to her scheduled death, putting Josephine right back in her head. She smiles at Clarke as soon as she sees her, and it seems genuine, lighting up her eyes and making her look younger. It makes Clarke feel warm all over, despite everything, and she tries to push it away as Josephine closes the space between them. “All I ever wanted was immortality, but now I’m starting to think that I was wrong. The immortality was about something else, a way to keep me alive until I got what I really wanted.”

Clarke shakes her head, not understanding, and Josephine mutters, “You.”

Clarke thinks of the knife she slipped into her pants earlier, the one she pulled from her memory of killing Finn, tucking it into her waistband in case she needed it. Her fingers twitch a little as she tries to figure out the conversation, giving Josephine a hard look. “Me? Or my body?”

“You, Clarke. Just you.”

“So does that mean you’ll let me have my body back?” Josephine nods, and Clarke eyes her suspiciously. “Everything you put me through the last couple of days, and you’re choosing to just give up? I don’t buy it.”

“Not choosing to give up, choosing you. Don’t you get it, Clarke? We’re meant for each other. Your entire life was spent cycling through boring boy after boring girl, always in search of something better, greater. You thought you had it with Lexa, but even she would become nothing to you.”

“That’s not true.”

Josephine scoffs, “I’ve been inside your head, Clarke. I know what you want, even if you won’t admit it to yourself. Lexa was a star, one that would burn bright and hot until she dimmed and you eventually left her, bored. I’m a black hole, endless, an adversary, something you’re always trying to fight off, but eventually you’ll get sucked into. That’s what you want. You want the fight. Lexa was wrapped around your finger; she bent her entire rule as Commander to cater to your wishes. But I’ll never be that for you. I’m someone enamored by you, someone who wants to see what makes you tick, what gets you going. But I want to be the one that makes you tick. I want to crawl inside your head and break you down piece by piece until I have every part of you figured out.”

“How romantic. You’re really selling yourself here.”

“I don’t have to sell myself because you’ve already bought in. You, Clarke Griffin, you love a challenge. You love to save the broken, redeem the sinner. You want a love that swallows you up and keeps you wild, a love that challenges you and distracts you from the mess in your head. And you already know that I can give that to you, otherwise, you would have slit my throat with that knife already.”

Clarke’s eyes widen, her hand subconsciously hovering over the knife tucked into her waistband. Josephine raises a single brow, unconcerned. “I told you. I know you, Clarke.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Watching a few of my memories doesn’t mean that you know me.”

“Maybe not, but I know enough. Now put the knife down, and choose me. Choose me over everyone else, and your body is yours.”

“So I pick you and Gabriel boots you out of my head. Then what?”

“You find me a new host.”

Clarke scoffs, “And what makes you so sure that I will? Who’s to say I won’t agree to your terms right now, and then smash your mind drive once I get my body back?”

Josephine shakes her head, a smirk on her face. “You won’t.”

And Clarke sighs, because she knows she’s right. Because the second that Josephine mentioned a host, she started running through options in her head. Somehow, throughout this crazy fight to get her body back, she saw a new side of Josephine. She saw beyond the sarcasm and body snatching, down to the scared girl that was killed by her own father, that lost Gabriel despite everything she did for him, the girl who watched someone shoot themselves just because she ignored their advances. Somehow, throughout it all, Clarke Griffin started to fall in love.

Which is why she looks up at Josephine with a nod, grabbing the knife from her waistband and tossing it away. “Fine, I choose you.”

Josephine’s face splits into a grin, and Clarke swears she hears her let out a little breath, as if she was actually nervous that Clarke would refuse her offer. Still, she maintains her air of confidence as she looks at Clarke, scrunching her nose up a little when she says, “Good. Now kiss me the way you always wanted to be kissed. The way you dreamed about when you tried to imagine your future.”

Clarke shakes her head, ignoring the vague reference to a memory that Josephine has clearly seen, already reaching out to pull Josephine closer, her hands automatically tangling in her hair. She crashes her lips to Josephine’s, both of them clutching each other tight, afraid to let go, and Clarke suddenly realizes that Josephine was right. 

She is a black hole. 

Clarke can feel herself spinning, spiraling, being pulled in by the chaos of the woman in her arms, and for the first time in her life, instead of hanging on...

She lets go.

-

#HMA 2020 Secret Santa #clarke x josephine #fanfiction #josephine lightbourne #clarke griffin

[celestial-demonic-pacts]

hii 4, 11, 19, 33, 37, 44 !!

((uwu hi, i really went fanfic on this one)) 4 - Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?

Logan hadn’t witnessed it first hand but they had seen the aftermath of the Fall. They saw how things changed after the great war. It was strange to say the least to see how easily people turned and how it was taboo to speak their names or ask anything about them. The Realm learned to heal from it and changed to make sure something like that would never happen again, the higher up archangels got even stricter. For the first few years life was rough especially as Logan grew up and soon was seen to have archangel potential, another thing that has changed them.  Ace’s most fundamental change was one that started the snowball of the worst memory. The day Bast took joined the group of unwanted or abandoned demons, Ace was in as a child. That demon is what led to the shy always trying to hide demon that Ace starts out as, until you gain their trust. You would think it would be being thrown from their mother, but Ace can’t remember the events much just reaching out for silky black long hair. Yet the most defining thing was being the subject of such anger and hate for so long from Bast that turned Ace against themself and is what made it hard for the demon to trust and to repress so much.

11 - In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?

Logan doesn’t scare easily, it takes a lot to frazzle the angel. Yet there is one person that scares her, Michael. Now normally the archangel doesn’t bother her, they could care less other than making sure they follow orders. Yet as they spend more time in the Devildom and getting closer to the brothers, Logan beings to stray from their orders. She hesitates more with weekly updates to Michael. The lies don’t begin until she’s smitten with Lucifer. Fear ran threw he veins when she began to get feelings, but giving into them and entering a relationship.. She knew what she was doing and what she wanted publicly getting into the relationship, but still deep down fear began to grip at her heart. She was doing something horrible in Celestial eyes. Demon’s were scum and not to be trusted, yet here they were giving their heart willingly to one, and not just any demon Lucifer himself. While they didn’t let it bother them, living in the fact that they were with their lover and family now. They don’t keep in touch with Michael as much, getting hard to lie and cover things up.  Real fear runs through them when Michael shows up unannounced. They all had been with Diavolo for dinner, the demon lord insisted on it as his treat. So they went because they got the invite and Lucifer wasn’t going to say no to it. Gathering with the demons to being pulled aside as Barbatos tells them Michael is here for them, waiting in Diavolo’s office, made her freeze. She stopped breathing and broke the glass they were holding in their hand. Logan quickly fled towards the office, ignoring their name being called as they removed small pieces of glass from their hand as Logan went.  Heading into the office they were silent and their head was down, their wings coming out as angels always had to have their wings out in the Celestial Realm it was a sign of respect among archangels when visiting to show your wings. Logan coudln’t think straight only think of how much had Michael seen as he came down. Did he see how close she was standing? That her arm was around his? How she looked at him like he was the sun? Thoughts ran through her brain that she didn’t notice Michael yelling their name. Coming back to reality they jumped as Michael slammed the desk. “Are you even listening? Have you gone soft while being here? Logan get it together. You’ve been slacking and that isn’t going to fly. You’re here at his castle. Get closer to him and find out his secrets. I don’t care what you have to do, have to offer. I want you to know what Diavolo is thinking!” Michael yelled at them. Logan could only nod as the archangel sighed. “C’mon, be a good girl and get this mission over with so you can come home and get away from this filth.”  “Yes, sir. I understand.” Logan’s voice was small, as they looked up at him. Eyes said determined but on the inside they were shaking. They fucked up and this could have been prevented. They gave up on their mission long ago but now they had to get back to it. They would have to do what Michael wanted. “I’ll be waiting to here from you tonight.” Michael said before a flash of light filled the room and he was gone, back to the Celestial Realm.  Logan dropped to their knees, their wings coming to wrap around them. They let themself process the emotions that were running through them. Michael didn’t know anything. They were fine, no one knew. And the angels that did know would never tell. They’d never say a word. It took the angel a moment before collecting themself and heading back out. The explanation was awkward and forced, something they made up on the fly. Throughout the whole thing they forget about their injured hand, letting themself be doted on and taken care of. 

What Logan didn’t know is that night everything would come crumbling down. Ace might be a bit of a scary cat yet nothing comes close to their darkest moment. Its a memory that is burned into their mind, one that brought on frequent nightmares and now just every so often it will pop up. 

Getting beat up was something Ace was used to, as in their early teens they were used as one often enough. Bast would be angry and Ace was his favorite to hate so Ace got used to getting thrown around a little. Yet being beaten half to death that’s different. All Ace did was stick up for a younger demon, and they got their head bashed onto the hard ground below them. They went under punch after punch, kicks and slams. They felt bones being broken and things popping wrong. They struggled against it trying to stop it yet were no match in strength. They had to suffer every blow against them, coughing and spitting up blood multiple times. Their blood was everywhere on their face, their clothes, the ground, his fists. Ace remember shivering from pain, wincing at how their body moved, as they were thrown against a rock and left there. They choked on their blood until their vision faded to black. Ace figured this is what death feels like, pain and darkness.  That was when they were most afraid, being left alone with their blurring and fading vision. Bast hovering over them and beating them to death also plays into it but that their death would’ve gone uncared about and unnoticed also freaked them out. Ace is grateful to have been found and that it didn’t end that way but in the back of their head the thought plays, that they would’ve been alone and it wouldn’t have bothered anyone if they were gone..

19 - What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?

Logan’s walls. They are slow to trust and don’t open up easily. It has made a lot of people stop getting close to the angel and Logan doesn’t let it bother her.

Ace’s is similar to Logan but its more that they don’t let anyone close and are extremely shy with new people. They don’t give people a chance to even introduce themselves half the time.

33 - In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?

Logan is defensive at first, how dare you! They are used to high praises and getting things perfect. Yet once they overcome that they are willing to improve. The angel can be self-deprecating but only when they are criticizing themself, which is a lot but they try to keep it hidden.

Ace just nods and doesn’t let it bother them. They don’t really care. They will improve if its someone they care about telling them and something major, but mostly they just enjoy life not caring about others.

37 - Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status?

Logan falls under the sin of Pride. They hold themselves to very high standards, and higher than most others. They would protect their status. Honor does tie into it as well but its why they are hesitant about some things, and care so much about what Michael would think.

Ace wouldn’t be concerned with either. They only worry about what their family thinks about them and they know its of high value, so they don’t care about status or honor. They are a lower demon living with the highest of high, but they don’t care. They just see family and that’s all that matters to them.

44 - How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it? Logan and “I love you” are two things that don’t mesh well together. A platonic one is way easier to get out of them. Logan is very hard to get to open up and let you be close, so it takes a while for them to feel safe but once they do the words come fast. For the romantic version, it takes longer and with patience they will say the words. They don’t trust themselves to  believe their feelings so they hold back, not wanting to get hurt again. So the words come slowly but once they leave her lips for the first time and its returned, the words are said constantly. Ace takes a little time to be able to say it but once they turn you they say it until the words lose all meaning. They always say it to the brothers, since they feel like one of them basically the only one that is different is Lucifer as he’s sorta the father figure, but it’s easily tacked on. For a romantic “I love you” Ace wouldn’t realize the change but how they say it would be different. 

#ask the ocs #answered #Logan #Ace #Logan Lore #Ace Lore

[nancywheelxr]

Some brotherly fluff with Hela, Thor and Loki, pls?

Hi, hello, yes, Thor: Ragnarok was one of the best movies from the MCU and Loki is one of my favorite characters, so thank you for asking! Also, I’m sorry, I meant to keep this short, but somehow, this became a Ragnarok rewrite, so.

*

It begins to rain halfway into the play, a fine dripping of water that stubbornly refuses to pass, stays as a grey cloud above the palace and forces him to move the play inside the halls as soon as the first act is done. 

Perhaps, that should have been his first sign that his day would only decline from them on, but Loki had only frowned at the sky then– like he would tell Thor later on, he’s not a witch, he can’t see the future. 

If he hadn’t grown complacent in his deception, if he hadn’t settled on the boredom of his role, if he hadn’t believed himself safe in the stupidity of the court, then maybe he would have remembered what always follows the rain.

Thor is in a mood when he finds him in the throne room.

Surtur’s crown hangs from his hand, heavy and dusted with soot, and Loki knows at once that he’s been found out. And he wouldn’t even see his play past the first draft stages, oh well. 

Privately, Loki feels traitorously relieved to see his brother– never let it be said things are boring whenever Thor is around, if only because of his sheer inclination of seeking trouble whenever it fails to find him on its own, and for the past couple years, the taste of ruling has soured on his tongue, grown stale with the apathy of court life and the dullness of its interminable meetings over inane matters discussed by asinine people.

Still, for appearance’s sake and god forbid, to keep Thor from getting any ideas on his head, Loki calls for the guards, makes a show of calling his brother mad and crying treason.

It works about as well as expected and Loki admits he could have thought this a little more through. “Come on, brother,” Thor says, arm outstretched waiting for Mjolnir. If he pays attention, Loki can hear the sizzling of the hammer. 

“Fine, fine,” Loki easily wrenches himself away, less because he believes Thor would truly allow for Mjolnir to hit him and more to keep some sense of dignity and control over this quickly escalating situation, “I yield!”

A second later, Mjolnir is in his hand and thunder bounces off the walls.

It’s a testament of Thor’s temper and Loki should not push him further, not when he could be thrown into the dungeons for a lot more than treason now, but Loki has never been very good at making good life choices, now has he?

He grins, opening his arms, “surprise, brother, I am alive!”

Hurt and irritation flicker through Thor’s eyes and if he had been anyone else, perhaps Loki would feel guilt under his betrayed gaze. He’s not, though, he’s not anyone else and he’s not one for sentimentality, not since he learned how to survive, and besides, Thor has evolved to looking annoyed now. “Loki–”

His sentence is never finished.

The palace has stood true and tall for millennia, for thousands of years even before any of them were born, one could imagine it’s been there before Odin himself had been born, and it’s been subject of renovations many a time since then.

In none of those did anyone think of making sure it would withstand, well, Thor. 

The murals, old and brittle as they were, had not been made to survive indoor lightning or even the aftershocks. Before Thor can even start his undoubtedly riveting speech, they crack and crumble, falling to the floor like cherry blossoms in the spring.

“Did you know,” he starts and falls silent, unable to look away to the bloody horrors revealed underneath the idyllic portraits from before. While he has never considered himself squirmish, the sight fills him with cold dread, a nauseating sense of doom that permeates the air like dust particles.

“I think,” Thor says, his anger gone from his voice, replaced by a hesitant uncertainty as he, too, takes in the painting of a woman not much older than the both of them, leading an Asgardian army and placed at Odin’s right.

“We need to talk with the All-Father,” Loki concludes for him, too unease with this new-found revelations to wonder about the repercussions of his own actions.

In the face of what must be yet another dirty little secret of the All-Father, what is a little lie and mischief, anyway?

*

“I can’t believe you,” Thor says as they make their way to the room given to them by the girl at the front desk, sounding very much resigned in a way that makes it look like that yes, he could very well believe it. “Of all the places, this is where you imprisoned our father in?”

“Your father,” he counters reflexively, mind still preoccupied with frankly bigger things, “and it is not a prison, the humans leave their elders here as well. This house had glowing reviews, in fact.”

“You are impossible,” Thor continues as if not hearing his perfectly sound explanation, “yet again you survive the impossible and what is the first thing you do? Overthrow father and build yourself some ridiculous statues.”

“Now, you’re just being rude,” Loki begins to take offense, but then they are in front of the door and they will have to come in, face the Odin and all the complicated feelings he brings, and ask questions he doubts Thor knows how to word. 

The urge to flee is strong; Loki exhales, smoothes his hands pointedly not curled into fists.

“Well, go on, then,” he gestures for Thor to enter first, mockingly raising his eyebrows, and slips into careful indifference as he follows his brother into the room.

Odin is sitting by the window, watching the traffic outside with sunlight illuminating his face, warming the quilt he has thrown over his legs. It strikes Loki how very old he looks this way, how different from his memories. Maybe Midgard has this effect on their family, changing them fundamentally in places burrowed deep in their bones, impossible to shake off.

“My sons,” Odin says, and his voice, too, is frail, weary and worn thin, beckoning them closer with a wrinkled hand. It’s so jarring, Loki doesn’t have the presence of mind to correct him. “I am glad to see you while I still have some time left.”

Well, that’s just depressingly ominous. 

Thor makes a distressed sound, crouching in front of his father to look at him closer, and even Loki is not heartless enough not to look away from the grief on his eyes. “Father,” he says, “do not speak like that, it is not your time yet, it cannot be.”

His speech is closer to its original cadence, Loki notices, less infected with Midgardian terms and wordings, and wonders idly if he notices the difference at all. Unsure where to place himself in this reunion, Loki clears his throat, “we have questions, All-Father.”

Odin’s gaze settles on him, intense and unfairly melancholic, and Loki wishes he could muster his old anger as fiercely as before. “Loki,” Odin smiles, age and sadness pulling at the corners of his lips, he’d never been one inclined to have laughter lines, “I have failed you in many ways, but in this, I have failed you both. You come to ask of Hela, do you not?”

“Is that her name?” Thor asks, worry and curiosity briefly overthrowing his hesitation, “we have seen the murals underneath the paintings. Who is she, father? What is the meaning of those images?”

It seems, to Loki, pretty clear what the old murals seem to represent, or did Thor think Asgard came to rule the Nine Realms by asking politely? Still, he keeps quiet in the interest of knowing the heart of the matter all the sooner, not bothering to wonder how Odin knew why they were there– he supposes, after all, not many things could persuade them to work together, not anymore, not after everything.

And yet, as Odin speaks of their blood-soaked past, Loki finds himself hypocritically disgusted by the carnage and cruelty of their wars, and perhaps even more so, by this charade of peace and charity they had been playing in after Odin decided, in his oh-so-infinite wisdom, to abruptly change his ways.

“She has been secluded away since then,” Odin finishes with a miserable shake of his head, “and she will be released once I am gone.”

How very like him to discard his child like a broken toy, Loki thinks, bitter over a sister that isn’t even his, not by blood and certainly not by being raised together. If anything, the only thing they have in common is their failure to meet Odin’s standards. Did he even speak to her before making up his mind? Did he try to reason, to reach her before tossing her away into a barren realm, alone to stew on her anger?

Did mother know?

Distantly, Loki registers Odin speaking of preparing for war, meeting Hela with all the power they have on hand, even stooping so low as to ask for Thor’s little human friends for help. Something about it doesn’t settle right with him. 

Wasn’t this what started this mess in the first place?

Isn’t war the thing that has sent her spiraling?

Besides, if the Valkyrior couldn’t stop her, what hope have them of faring any better?

Faintly, in a voice that sounds so much like mother’s his chest aches with a familiar pain, he wonders what would have changed if Thor had not insisted on being stupidly stubborn on caring about him in Svartalfheim, even after New York, even after New Mexico. 

Irritatingly, he has been thinking of Thor as his brother for quite some time now, long enough for him to wonder if he had ever really stopped. His anger has dwindled, what once was a wildfire, has been muted into resigned fossilized coal. The ambers are still there, but it doesn’t burn him anymore, doesn’t feel like it’s going to overflow out of his body and spread to the world around him, doesn’t make him want the world to burn with him.

Even more so, he wonders how much of New York had been solely him and how much had been brought on by the Void, by– by Thanos. Falling from the Bifrost had been relieving, then terrifying, then lonely. It had not done any favors for his mind and it certainly had not left him yet.

What has this confinement been doing to their sister?

“We must talk to her first,” he finds himself saying, interrupting whatever battle plans Odin and Thor had been drawing, “if she has been cut off from all the realms for so long, how can we know anything at all?”

Thor looks at him as if he lost his head. In all fairness, there have been several opportunities where he could very well have. “Are you mad?”

“There is no talking with Hela,” Odin laments, in his most pious voice, most regretful, “she cannot be reasoned with, we must prepare for war and pray to the Norns.”

“Yes, because you have always been so successful at speaking with your children,” Loki tries not to sound bitter, not to sound like he’s counting himself into that lot, “forgive me if I don’t take you for your word entirely.”

“Loki,” Thor sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose like he does when he thinks Loki is being unfairly difficult. Strangely, when he speaks again, it is not to tell him off. “Father, he has a point. You have tried and you have failed, but you have also failed in that regard with both of us in the past and yet here we are. I have not tried to start any wars recently and surprisingly, neither has Loki. How can we be sure Hela can’t be brought around as well?”

Odin remains silent for a long time, lips pursed in his distaste, and Loki carefully does not show his surprise at Thor’s support. Begrudgingly, it warms him further than any of the All-Father platitudes. Then, finally, “I am old and weak in my age, I do not have the strength to argue much longer with you both. If your mind is set in this recklessness, I cannot stop you, but I will not aid you either. If you wish to pursue this course of action, seek Heimdall, he shall open a door to her realm with my aid if he so decides.”

Rising, Thor gives his father a solemn last look, gone is the blind worship that used to dwell there. “We shall. I don’t pretend to understand a time long past, but I have to say, father, I can’t see how sealing our sister away and writing her out of history has helped any.”

Once it’s clear no answer will be forthcoming, Thorn turns away to him, determination on his expression. “Brother, you know more of Asgard’s current situation than me– where can we find Heimdall?”

“Erm,” Loki hopes his smile is sheepish enough not to incur Thor’s wrath as he says, “about that, I might have exiled him for some time now. I never did try to give chase, so I cannot guess at his whereabouts now.”

Thor pinches the bridge of his nose again, sighs.

*

“My princes,” says Heimdall, placidly as ever, where he stands at his usual place with his sword as if he had never left at all, as if Loki had not stripped him of his job, as if he hadn’t needed to leave his homeland behind for the past two years. 

“Heimdall,” Thor smiles, and claps him on the back, his grin falling into a grimace not too long after, “do you know why we seek you?”

Just in case, Loki decides to silently take his place out of reach of Heimdall’s sword, just in case there are some hard feelings over his exile. 

“You wish to visit Hela in her prison,” he nods, stoic and grim, and his hands twitch on the hilt of his sword– surely a sign of overwhelming anxiety, coming from Heimdall. “I can take you there and I can bring you back, but I cannot promise what else might come with you, that is not the way gates work.”

“You think she might try to return with us,” Loki guesses. Unfortunately, it’s a very good point and a very real possibility, one they must never let come to pass, not if she is as mad as Odin paints her to be. “You will be watching us, will you not?”

Heimdall looks at him with his golden eyes and Loki has the uncomfortable feeling he’s being bared to his soul. “Aye, my prince, I will.”

“Then you’ll know if we succeed or not,” Thor catches on to his plan, nodding along, “if there’s even a chance she’ll come to lay waste to Asgard, do not bring us back.”

This could quite possibly become a suicide mission, he realizes, now that he has time away from Odin to go over his logic, separate it from the bitterness that unfailingly rises whenever the All-Father is around. What if Hela does not want to be reasoned with, not anymore? 

They could very well be too late.

One might wonder why he is still insisting on being a part of this at all, he is no Aesir and he is no Odinson, he has no obligation to fix Odin’s messes.

Thor’s pained voice murmurs over Heimdall’s as he explains their reasoning, their plan in not enough details and too much sentiment.

Loki curses himself in his head and loudly cuts in to point out exactly how wrong Thor is.

*

The realm is a wasteland in shades of grey.

Nothing on sight but dark sand for miles, dunes and dunes of it, black against the clouded sky, and the air smells faintly of smoke even though there’s no fire burning nearby.

It is a dead place made for dead people and it makes him wonder what it says about their sister that Odin thought fitting to send her here.

In but seconds, they no longer have to wonder: Hela stands before them, tall and regal, her dark hair and dark clothes and dark smile not unlike her prison. “Brothers,” she says, and her eyes sparkle with something– rage? Jealousy? Hate? Hurt? He cannot identify, it’s gone too quickly, replaced with an indifference too perfected not to be entirely false. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? I’d ask if father dearest is gone, but if that were the case, we would not be having this conversation here. Actually, we would not be having this conversation at all.”

The hatred in her voice is unmistakable, but so is the pain, the betrayal, and Loki trades a look with Thor– perhaps, if it still hurts, then she still cares, then there’s still hope. “We come not in the All-Father’s order,” he dares speak, keeping his own tone carefully neutral, “or his blessing, for that matter.”

“We have only learned of you today, sister,” Thor joins him, earnest as he is bound to ever be in the face of a sibling he can save, “that’s why we’re so late. If we had known, we would have come sooner.”

Despite Thor’s pitch having more information, it is on him that Hela focuses on, eyes calculating. “You call him All-Father. I thought you my brother as well since you were here with him, was I mistaken?”

Well, shove him under the bus, why don’t you.

“In a manner of speaking,” Loki decides on, settling for a more diplomatic answer, one that wouldn’t start Thor in one of his tirades and would perhaps gain him some favor in Hela’s eyes. “Odin stole me from my planet after his battle had ended and raised me alongside Thor. I can’t say I’m overly fond of him or inclined to call him father.”

“And why is that? Did he discard you after you were done being useful, that does seem to be his way.”

Loki smiles. It is not a nice smile and out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Thor send him nervous glances. “No, I cast myself away before he could.”

“Sister, we have come not to talk about the past–”

“Not now, brat,” she waves Thor off with one disinterested motion of her hand and it’s such a jarring sight, it does manage to shut him up. “I remember your insufferable wailing, few things change, I see. Now tell me, if you are not my brother, who are you?”

“I am Loki,” he says, pretends it does not sting to stop his introduction there, “and my brother and I have come to hear your side of the story.”

That throws her off, Loki can see in the way she cannot quite mask her surprise. Her eyebrows rise and her lips turn into a cruel smile, “is that so? And who says I want to tell it? Perhaps I would like it better to kill you both, watch your blood paint a little color in the sand. This place drains on my power, that is true, but I am still stronger than any of you.”

There’s a warning there, but there’s information, too. They hadn’t known how Odin kept her locked up, exactly. If she is weakened, then they are already safer than previously thought– not that there’s much comfort in that, they had not been safe at all before. 

Except, if she wanted them dead, she could have done it already. She didn’t have to show herself to them or even deign to listen to what they had to say. She didn’t have to ask questions or tell Thor to shut up.

If Hela is anything like them, like him, she must be bored out of her mind here.

They must be the most interesting to happen in thousands of years.

“You could,” Loki begins cautiously, “but then you would be back to the same state you have been for the past millennia. You are right, Odin is weakened,” at his side, Thor makes a noise. Loki ignores him, “but who is to say he won’t recover? He could be slipping into the Odinsleep as we speak and you of all people know from how much closer to death he has returned. Would you rather stay in your greying world– which, I can tell, is just bursting with entertainment– or take the opportunity to air your grievances with the All-Father?”

“You’re the worst,” Thor pinches the bridge of his nose once again, and Loki sees Hela cocking her head, eyeing them with amused curiosity, “why are you baiting her to kill us? We have just had a conversation about recklessness. Mainly, you complained about mine. I feel entitled to complain about yours now, considering you lump my life with yours on the line.”

“I was not baiting her,” he explains impatiently, they do not have this kind of time to be idling, “I was merely pointing out it is to her advantage to keep us alive. Forgive me for assuming she uses her brain, unlike you.”

“Are you ever going to come up with a better argument than calling me an idiot? It’s been centuries, brother, surely you must have a better comeback by now–”

“I will stab you–”

A sound, harsh and sharp, interrupts their bickering, and Loki is shocked to find it’s Hela laughing. It is not anywhere nice or reassuring, but he wouldn’t call it unpleasant. “I must admit, this is entertaining. Are you always this petty?”

“No,” says Loki while Thor says, “yes.”

“Delightful,” Hela grins, lips pulling back to reveal a row of white teeth that looks too sharp in this half-light, “I will refrain from killing you today, but know this, brothers, once I am out of this wretched place, I will destroy Asgard and everything in its wake.”

Loki looks at Thor. 

Thor looks back.

This is a good compromise for a first meeting, wouldn’t you say?

“Eh,” Thor shrugs, “we shall work out the details later. Now, tell us, sister, your tale and spare no detail.”

Taking in her seeming flair for the dramatics, Loki does not think it wise to ask her not to spare any details, but he only sighs, resigning himself to spend the rest of his day on this nightmarish desert.

*

Hela does not kill them on the first day and she does not try to follow them back when Heimdall opens the Bifrost, although Loki isn’t sure how much of that is because she cannot do so with her powers lessened.

Still, she gives them her side and it’s just as much of a frightening tale as Odin’s was, full of glorified victories and ruthless battles. Her words drip enough blood that he almost understands why Odin thought necessary to lock her and throw away the key.

Almost.

*

“Tell me, brother,” she says on the second visit, her voice sounding less like the clinking of swords in a battlefield, “how is my hammer?”

Thor pales. “Right, about that–”

They leave pretty quickly after that.

*

Days go by with the wind and Loki finds he is not as resentful to having Thor crowned king as he thought he would be, as he had been once upon a time. He wishes he could say it has all to do with his time as king himself, the boredom and the monotony, but he knows better. Unfortunately, he knows better.

It’s extremely annoying.

As for their sister, and it irritates him to no end that he is, in fact, thinking of Thor’s megalomaniac sister and his sister as well, she hasn’t tried to kill them yet, most likely because Odin’s magic has sealed her power for now. Of course, Thor likes to think they have been– building a rapport.

“She hasn’t threatened us this time,” Thor points out, “that’s progress.”

“Or maybe she thinks it is implied,” he sighs. This might have started as his idea, but he certainly did not think it would go this far. Or that he would have avoided the dungeons this far.

Or that he would still be there.

Maybe they are all surprising each other these days.

*

“So you have given up on killing him?” Hela asks, watching with bewildered eyes. Today, Loki has come alone, left Thor in one of his interminable meetings and endured Heimdall’s all-knowing gaze on his back, steady and unnerving. For some reason, Hela has taken this as an invitation to grill him about his story. “Why?”

She has a way of finding the heart of the matter and tearing it out into the open.

“It is complicated,” he says, sitting down in the newly conjured chair, “but blaming anyone else for Odin’s faults did not bring as much satisfaction. And this Thor is not the one who slighted me in our childhood, there is no fun there either.”

Hela hums. “Perhaps. But I think that is not why. You are a sentimental fool, brother.”

The tea he had brought with him warms his hands, but Loki still feels unsettled all the way back to the Observatory.

*

“I cannot believe you gave her a plant,” Loki says, shaking his head and feeling stupid just thinking of the stupid cactus in the stupid yellow vase, “what did you think that would accomplish?”

Thor shrugs. “Taking up hobbies is a good first step.”

*

Knitting, Thor decides, is a good second step. Predictably, he is wrong about that just like Loki imagined he would be. 

When Hela stabs his brother in the shoulder with the knitting needle, Loki laughs and notices she could have gone for much more fatal spots.

Perhaps this might truly be progress.

*

Odin is not getting any better.

They can only hope progress is enough when the seal is broken.

*

Of course, there are not only good days. If anything, most days end up with Hela raging over something or other and swearing vengeance on Asgard, and Loki tries not to think about it, but they are running out of time.

They have to make a decision soon– will they wait for Hela as a lost sister returning home or an enemy that could bring about the end of everything? Both choices are too dissonant from each other, two ends of a scale so far apart, they probably should not be part of the same scale at all. 

A few days after Thor found him in Asgard, he had cornered him in his room, his speech vastly different from before. Maybe you’ll always be the god of mischief, he had said, for once not sounding like anything at all, but you could be more. 

Then, he had not exiled him from Asgard but had made very clear that should Loki wish to leave, Thor would not stop him. He had seemed surprised to find Loki still there in the morning.

Decisions, decisions– it seems everything is about choosing lately. 

“There is a Midgardian saying,” he says now as they make the slow walk back to the palace, covered in the black sand of Hela’s prison, “that says the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Thor’s eyebrows rise. “Never thought I’d hear you quoting humans, brother.”

“In this case,” Loki shrugs, dusting himself off to keep himself casual, careful to betray as little as possible of how much thought he’s been giving this entire situation, “it has its merits.”

Thor hums agreeably, wholly unbothered by the sand. “True. Do you think we are making a mistake by trying to speak with Hela?”

What Loki really thinks is that he wishes people would stop asking him so many damn questions with complicated answers. “As a king, maybe. As her brother? I think you would not have forgiven yourself if you had not tried this first.”

For a long time, Thor doesn’t speak again. Then, “I really hope there are no more murals underneath those.”

*

As Odin weakens, Hela strengthens.

Or so they find out when they are greeted by inhuman growling as soon as the Bifrost fades. No more than a few steps away, a wolf larger than any horse snarls, hungry eyes trained on their throats. 

“Hm,” Thor clears his throat, “sister?”

Hela, who had been petting its head serenely until now, glances up lazily. “Yes?”

“There did not use to be a wolf in here yesterday,” Loki points out, “I am fairly sure I would have noticed if there were a wolf in here yesterday or any other day for that matter.”

“Oh,” she says, and for the first time since they learned of her, Hela smiles a smile that is not full of sharp teeth and hunger. She smiles and it’s just a smile, it’s nice, it’s almost happy. “I was able to call for Fenrir this morning.”

Thrown off by the jarring sight, Loki nods mutely, while Thor returns her grin with one of his won, bright and excited, “he is a mighty companion indeed! May I pet him?”

“Did you just ask to pet the giant wolf–”

“You may try,” Hela ignores him, waving Thor closer. With her track record, it really is a gamble whether she means for her pet wolf to eat him or not. “He will probably not bite.”

Approaching slowly, Thor reaches a hand, telegraphing his intentions loudly not to startle the animal, and to Loki’s utter disbelief, the wolf actually does cease its infernal snarling, ears dropping, and butts its head against his hand.

Absolutely ridiculous.

“Did you know, sister,” Thor says, and his voice takes a dangerous turn, teasing, which means Loki is probably not going to like whatever comes out of his mouth next, “that on Midgard, the humans think Loki is Fenrir’s mother?”

“And here we go again,” he rolls his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest, huffs.

“It’s true,” Thor continues, and Hela laughs, and it sounds less and less like broken glass and more and more like laughter. “They also blame him for Sleipnir and Jormungandr.”

“Yes, go on, laugh it up,” Loki glares but he has no hope it is not half-hearted at best. Oddly enough, it is now, dropping to one knee to card his fingers through grey fur softer than it should possibly be, that he first believes this might not end in flames yet. “But let us not forget what they did remember correctly– like the time you lost Mjolnir and had to pretend to be a giant’s bride.”

“You lost my hammer?”

Hela sounds mildly upset but her eyes are amused, no longer clouded over by the thousands of years of loneliness, by a madness not unlike his. Loki fell into the Void, but Hela had been trapped in a void of her own. Now, it will not be too long before she gets to be free once more, for better or for worse.

In any case, the future does not look entirely bleak if one looks from this moment. They are all together and there have been little to no violent threats. If he were anyone else, Loki might even call it nice.

And besides, in a thousand years from now, who knows gods of what they will be known as.

#loki laufeyson #thor #mcu #mcu hela #loki #thor ragnarok #loki odinson #look an ask #marvel tag #loki and thor brotp #loki and hela brotp #thor and hela brotp #asgardians tag #loki fanfic

[glasyasbutch]

Oh, do you want some angst this week? is that what you want? alright bud let's go!! 1, 3, 7, and 28 for whoever has the Most Interesting Answers!!

Thank you for sending this in!!! Under a read more both bc Prose Boy but also because the first question ended up becoming a short story with some themes of body horror in it so! look out!

1. What’s one experience your character had that made them very afraid?

I rolled amongst the characters I haven’t already discussed in depth later in this ask and got Roona. Lovely.

Being a person with near zero impulse control and a penchant for doing it just because someone said not to, I think at some point while barding alone on the road, she ended up in one of those small towns with a big secret that pop up in the thousands in D&D. 

One of those places where there’s a house on the outskirts of town with the windows all locked up and the front gate rusted shut, but it’s not dilapidated, and if you listen close enough there’s still voices drifting out through the cracks. And if you ask about it in the tavern, the room falls silent and no one’s gaze is meeting yours and after a tense few seconds the bartender slides you a too-full glass and tells you “You best be forgetting about that place, it won’t do you any good.”

And you want to know so badly what happened there and every answer you get is vague until the coin purse comes out, and then the hushed whispers come out too and you start to hear things about how the family that used to live there would collect all kinds of artifacts, and one day they imported something horribly cursed, and it’s probably still inside, it’s got to be, because no one’s ever been seen leaving with it, and anyone who goes to get it back walks away with blood-drained face and shut mouth. 

And so you try to sleep at night but you can’t, because you’re thinking about this fucked up house, and you’ve been to enough roadside tourist traps to know that the value’s in the show, and terror and wonder are almost the same emotion, and you’re pretty sure that this is just some long con publicity stunt that some recluse rich ass family is pulling, because rich people are fucking weird like that. And you’re not gonna call them on it, but you’d like to see for yourself, just to know if your hunch is right. 

So you sneak over there in the dark of night, and you hop the fence and press your eye to the shutters of the living room, and you curse your short legs that you don’t have the best of angles, but you’re still able to make out movement inside the place, and you can see the figures milling about in profile, but it’s hard to make out since the lights are off, which granted, is a little bit weird. 

But you squirm and shimmy and hoist yourself up by the window ledge and you’re still looking through the slats the whole time and you’re trying to see, you can almost get the right angle of your head and the moonlight to make out something of worth in the room, you just need to get a little bit higher and -

And you kick the side of the house and it reverberates much more than it has any right to, though that could just be the adrenaline pumping in your veins, but it really feels like the whole house has shaken, and the figures in the room all freeze in place, which is a bit worrying, but you don’t see them looking at you, which is almost a relief. 

But they are looking at you. The longer you sit and wait for them to go back to their business, the more you realize they’re waiting for you to leave. They can tell you’re here and you’re not supposed to be, so everything comes crashing to a halt, and they’re looking at you, so you know that you’re the disruption. 

But you didn’t realize until now that’s what they were doing, because they don’t have faces. It’s smooth skin, no sign even of eye sockets or cheek bones or nose bridges, just blank skin, like a mannequin come to life, but even with nothing there you can still feel them staring and you want to run away as fast as you can but you’re too scared too move. 

You become scared enough to move again once one of them begins to move towards the window that you’re at, and you hop the fence once more and high tail it back to the inn, hand on the hilt of your sword the whole while. And you slip back into your bed and wish you’d heeded the warnings to stay away, because even though you checked over your shoulder a thousand times to make sure they didn’t follow you, it still feels like the lack of eyes is staring right at you from the dark of every corner in your room. 

And you don’t sleep well again until you’re miles away from that town. 

3. Have they ever lost a loved one? What happened to them, and are they the same as before they lost them? 

These are d&d characters and I’m a tragedy slut so long answer short, yes, approximately half of my characters have key backstory moments revolving around the death/betrayal of a loved one.  Craving, Tov, Stella, Ezra are Supremely Emo, with Gildy and Nissy being lesser versions but still fitting the prompt.

Craving: Her entire life has been a series of deep losses that fundamentally changed the way she grew up. First person she lost was her mother, Kaissa, who died of a mysteriously incurable illness and whose public autopsy was revoked by the city for reasons no one could figure out. It broke her trust in authority, in public figures. The medical sector had refused to treat her mother and then hidden the evidence, it was as good as murder, and she figured every seat of government had as much blood on their hands.

The second to go was her father, Anvan, one of the first victims of a plague that devasted the tiefling population of their city far worse than any other race. He died before a vaccine was developed, but it wouldn’t have mattered any ways, because it was distributed in a horribly biased fashion by the producers which benefitted the human populous first. Not only did this break her trust in money, as a tool for growth and prosperity and caused her to see wealth as possessions as a tool for cruelty (which, you might ask, doesn’t she want wealth? doesn’t she steal impulsively? yes. she does it to be cruel right back at the world.) BUT it also was the moment at which she really lost her youth, because with the death of her father, she had to go into working full time.

The last to go was her brother, Sirris. He was stabbed and burned to death in a hate crime attack on their store. She went into the back room that day as a broken but loving woman, and crawled out of the ashes dragging her brother’s body behind her as a hell-bent, rage-blind servant of eye for an eye retribution. She was going to tear this world down from the inside, and she is still barely starting to learn that there are some things that don’t deserve to be crushed in the wreckage. 

Tov: He went to the Shadowfell to get some sorcery powers and when he walked back out he did a little attempted murder on his brother, who funnily enough Did Not Like It, and cast Tov out of his clan and his life, out of everything he’d ever known. Tov stood on the shores as his brother boarded the boat home alone and the second the ship was out of sight, he became a shell of a man that he’s still trying to fill back in.

Stella: Her entire community got burned to the ground and only a handful of survivors made it out, and she had to go from balance-oriented hippie kid to Literal Fucking Assassin to survive so uh. She got lost in a world where she had to become mean and cold and emotionless in order to stay living, and if she’s being honest, made it a lot easier to deal with the fact that Literally her Entire Life was irreparably gone. 

Ezra: His sister died on a quest for his God, after being promised saving by his God, and failing to be resurrected by clerics of his God. It made him stop believing in God. Like that one’s super duper straightforward.

Gildy: Not nearly as emo, but her spouse passing of old age and leaving her alone in the house made her finally realize that her life is. Hers. And that’s it. And kicked off her quest to do things that actually interest her and get into 3D art and forging and eventually a lifestyle of travel and adventure in the name of her art. She focused on herself for the first time in her life and maybe its just it being 1 am but I am a little bit soft about how that deep deep loss of a spouse was a catalyst for one of the most unabashedly happy times in this woman’s life because she finally didn’t have to care about pleasing anyone but herself! Nissy: He eloped with his girlfriend and then got dumped by her and he realized he kind of sucked shit on his own and decided to go adventuring to prove himself about it. At the time I played him he was fresh out of the breakup so he hadn’t changed much, but I feel like by the time he gets back home he will actually be much more sure of himself as a person who has value and worth and deserves a place at the table as he is, because that’s what being with Mavy had started to teach him, and after she left he was able to internalize it better bc there was no external source to pass it off onto. 

7. If your character was allowed to murder one person without any consequences, who would it be and why? 

Stella would kill Geran, the man who caught her assassinating and promised her a clean wipe of her criminal record in return for a year of SUPREMELY sketch and manipulative personal guard work. She knows she can’t do anything to him because if she fails he turns her in himself, and if she succeeds one of his lackeys does, but he’s also an absolute creep and a sleazeball and she hates his guts and the world would be better off without his freakness in it. Hey actually Rebekah this guy would make a great fourth character for Ludo. 

28. What is your character’s greatest strength?  Is it not the essence of a queer person’s D&D game that every character’s greatest strength boils down to a unfathomably deep love and devotion to whatever persons or tasks they deem worthy?

#roona #craving #tov #stella #gildy #ezra #nissy #asks

[ialwayscomewhenyoucall]

After All This Time (1/2)

twelve x rose - reunion!

~2.3k

The Doctor closes his eyes behind his dark glasses, enjoying the feel of guitar strings under his fingers and the sounds of rising and falling notes in his ears. He’d spent two days that had felt like a month chasing down an alien intent on wrecking havoc in London, so when the trouble was taken care of he’d needed to relax. He knows the guy who owns this pub, provides a little live music from time to time, because playing in the TARDIS isn’t the same as playing for people; even a small crowd gives something in return that can’t be found in an empty room. It’s not applause, it’s not even attention. It’s just energy, some inexplicable necessity that performers need along with food and water and air.

But there is a smattering of applause; his set is finished and he waves to the crowd. Someone actually shouts “Encore!” but he waves this off, a “maybe later” sort of wave.

Unhooking the strap of his guitar he settles it into the stand on the small stage then steps down to pick his way through the maze of tables to the bar itself. Pulling off his sunglasses he settles onto the only empty stool, next to a small blond woman wearing a long leather duster. It’s far too big for her; the sleeves are rolled several times to allow her hands access to the drink she’s staring into.

He fiddles with the sunglasses, unsure where to begin. Finally he says lightly, “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Her head whips around, hair flying in all directions. Her look is one of pure shock--eyes wide, mouth hanging open. Finally she whispers, “Doctor?”

She looks like she’s about to throw her arms around him, then she stops, a look somewhere near anger darkening her features. “Really, Doctor? All this time separatin’ us, and that’s all you’ve got? A cheesy little line like that? I’ve half a mind to--”

His palm gently cupping her cheek, thumb ghosting across her skin, stops her words. He looks at Rose--truly looks at her--and his breath catches in his throat. It’s not just the tears threatening to trace down her cheeks at any moment. It’s the depth he sees in her eyes. It’s something near to what he sees on rare occasions he looks into a mirror. All this time, she’d said. Suddenly the significance of the coat she’s wearing hits home. It’s not the blue leather jacket she’d worn when hopping through dimensions, looking for his former self. It’s the coat he himself had worn back then.

Or a fairly good copy, he tells himself. Probably the metacrisis found it in Pete’s World.

And then everything crashes down on him all at once.

He clutches at the bar, then at his hair, thankful that he’s sitting on a stool and not standing up, for surely he’d have fallen otherwise. Distantly he hears Rose saying, “Easy, Doctor. Easy,” reaching out to steady him. He manages to slip his sunglasses on, looks at Rose through them, and there it is, clear as day.

“Rose, you…” he starts, but for maybe the first time in his many lives his mind goes completely blank. He has no idea what to say to her.

“We didn’t notice at first,” Rose begins. She’s talking to him, but she’s somewhere else too, staring off into another universe. “We were happy, the human Doctor an’ me. John, he was called. John Noble. He wanted to be his own self, and he--well, he thought Donna would like that.”

“She would have done,” the Doctor says, a faint smile on his lips.

“It was a bit rocky, in the beginning. We had to learn how to live with each other again, and he had to learn how to be human, and we didn’t have other planets or times to escape to. We had to find adventure in the little things. But we always knew we fit together, and it was worth getting past the tough bits.” She smiles, remembering.

“And then, after a little more than three years, we had our own TARDIS. She looked almost just like yours, on the outside at least. Apparently she liked the police box look too.”

“It’s a good look,” interjects the Doctor, and Rose laughs.

“So we had human lives to live, but we could live them everywhere and everywhen. And even though we were growin’ older, you know how the TARDIS is. Filters out viruses and bacteria, heals broken bones, that sort of thing. Healthy as horses, we two. We’d galavant for a time, then go home and visit Tony and Mum and Pete, then go out into the universe again. Only one time Mum looked at us and said, ‘What’s goin’ on, Rose! You an’ Tony look like you could be twins, and John over there’s got bits of silver in his hair!’ I think my heart nearly stopped. I’d honestly never noticed. I laughed it off to Mum but later John and I started talkin’ about it. About what lookin’ into the heart of the TARDIS can do to a person. About how maybe she’d fundamentally changed me even though you took the brunt of it into yourself…”

“Oh Rose,” he whispers. He can’t help it. But he doesn’t think she even notices.

“And then,” she says, taking a deep breath, “I died.”

He goes completely still. Obviously she survived this death, but the thought of anything happening to his Rose makes his blood run cold.

“It was such a stupid thing. We were just playin’! We were runnin’ on a beach, chasin’ each other, just plain bein’ silly. I slipped in the sand, and there was a rock, and it hit me just so…” She points at the side of her head. There is no scar. “There was no time to get me back to the TARDIS, I died right there in the sand. But I didn’t really die, of course. I regenerated. John was cryin’, and I felt like my whole body was on fire, every cell screamin’ to just stop so I could rest. And then John carried me back to the TARDIS and I slept for two days and then…” She shrugs. “But I look just like I always did. It’s not fair, that crazy energy stuff could have at least made me a little taller.”

He laughs, but his laugh is tinged with pain, and a tiny bit of regret. His lovely Rose, what had he done to her?

As if reading his thoughts, she puts a hand over his and says, “It’s not your fault, Doctor. I don’t regret what I did. And I don’t regret becomin’...whatever it is I am now.”

He looks into her eyes, eyes filled with time and sadness. “Time Lady,” he says. “Or near as makes no nevermind.”

She nods, slow and even. “I thought as much. John never said the words, but I thought he probably knew, same as me. It seems so strange to hear it said out loud though, to really know.”

And then she grabs at the hand she’d been only gently touching. “He lived a long, happy life, Doctor. I didn’t leave him, I swear I didn’t. I couldn’t, I never--” The sobs overcome her body, and he pulls her into his arms, breathing in the sweetness he’s never forgotten. He’s been wanting this ever since he saw her walk into the bar; it had been a sweet torture to play the rest of the set knowing she was there, her back to him, staring into a glass of something golden and firey. But this--her tears wash hot against his skin, and his strong Rose feels like she could shatter apart at any moment.

His murmurs are almost incoherent, just comforting sounds really. But he means every word, even if she isn’t really hearing him. “Of course you couldn’t, love. I know. I know.”

And he does. He hates saying goodbye, hates watching short-lived humans die. Just a blink and they’re gone, really. But oh, what lives they live. And he loves every moment he has with them. Two hearts, too much love to give.

But it’s impossible to put into words, so he just holds her, allows her to cry.

It’s long minutes before she takes a few deep breaths and says, “Thank you. I…” For a breath he thinks she’s lost in her memories, but finally she finishes by saying again, “Thank you.”

Anything for you, my Rose, the Doctor doesn’t say. “Of course,” he says instead, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“John lived over a hundred years after we landed on Bad Wolf Bay. Near a hundred and two! Must have been the Time Lord half, giving him an extended lifespan. Not as long as a Time Lord, mind, but so, so long for a human, since we figure he was somewhere in his mid-30s when he was...well, born, I guess. Anyway, it was about ten years before that we stumbled upon the crack in the universe. John wouldn’t even call it a crack, said it was a micro fissure. Only molecules wide, he said, but he and the TARDIS worked for years on a way to get me through. Made me promise to go after, after…” A fresh tear trails down her already wet cheek.

“After he died,” says the Doctor, saying the words she cannot.

She nods, biting her lower lip.

“I didn’t do it right away. I wasn’t afraid,” her eyes flash defensively as she says this, “I just had to say a proper goodbye first. I never did get to say a proper goodbye to you; the first time I fell through the void, and then you disappeared before you could say you love me--and yes, I know that’s what you were sayin’, you can’t deny it now!--and then you just left me on the beach with John. I loved him so much, Doctor, and our life together was an incredible adventure, but you shouldn’t have done that.”

“Of course I love you, my Rose. Then and always.” His voice breaks when he says always. He doesn’t apologize for leaving her. He cannot. More than his voice would break.

She nods, just once, as if to say, “As it should be.”

“I buried him near Mum and Pete, and then I toured the universe. Visited all our favorite places. I didn’t even have to tell the TARDIS where to take me, she always knew the right place at the right time. She may've been young, but she knew me quite well. Even made me tea an’ biscuits when I was feelin’ blue.”

The Doctor found himself feeling inexplicably jealous.

“But after a few months of that, it was time. The TARDIS and I, we followed John’s instructions to the letter. It was a bumpy ride, and I’m honestly not sure how we survi--Doctor!”

She squeaks out his name because he’s suddenly holding her so tight; the logical part of his brain knows she clearly made it from the other universe to this one with no lasting harm, that the metacrisis--John, he corrects himself--would hardly put her in a truly dangerous situation--would he?--but thinking of her taking such a risk…

She’s stiff in his arms at first, clearly startled, but soon he feels her relax into his embrace. “I’m alright, Doctor. Truly. All here.” After a moment she threads her fingers into his hair and he decides that this is the best place in the universe and he’s never going to move again.

“Doctor,” Rose says, “quite a few people are lookin’ at us. Maybe we can go for a walk?” She smiles up at him through her lashes.

He starts. “I can’t! I’ve got to play again in…” He closes his eyes, thinking. His eyes snap open. “Three minutes! I didn’t even get a drink!” He gestures at the bartender. “Cliff! Could I get some water please?”

Rose is staring at him, eyes wide. Finally she says, “The guitar! That...that was you! I heard it from outside, and something about it called me in. But I couldn’t see the stage through the crowd, so I just sat down to listen…” She trails off, and they just smile at each other. He can feel how ridiculous his own smile looks, but it hardly matters. Rose is here, right in front of him. She’s real and she wants to go for a walk with him. And she came in to listen to him play his guitar, even when she didn’t know it was him.

It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes the universe gives him a gift.

“I know the owner, he lets me play sometimes. Always holds a table for me down front, in case I have any guests, which I never do.” The Doctor winks at Rose, then eases her forward with a hand on the small of her back. “Until tonight.”

She gives a soft giggle. “I’ll be your groupie!”

He takes a needed gulp of his water; even a Time Lord’s brain can go in too many directions at once, and Rose laughing can derail his thoughts any time.

Even after all these years.

She sits at the small table and he steps up onto the stage, trying to calm his jittery mind into performance mode for the next half hour or so. As he settles onto the waiting stool with his guitar resting on his thigh he looks at her again, looks at her eyes, and everything falls into place. The almost too long pauses, the heaviness in her gaze, the way she whispered his name when she first saw him. It’s right there, all of it.

“After my set we’ll go for that walk,” he says, his voice pitched low so only Rose can hear. “And you can tell me what you’ve been holding back.”

. + . + . + .

@doctorroseprompts

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#lirael writes #doctorroseprompts #twelve x rose #reunion fic #dw fic #tentoo #cw character death #(tentoo after a long and happy life!) #immortal rose tyler #emotional hurt/comfort #light angst #a wee bit of fluff #(more will be coming in the next chapter!) #doctor who

[alydiarackham]

(Cover by me)

Glass: Retelling the Snow Queen by Alydia Rackham

Chapter One

Once Upon A Time

                “Ow!”

               “What did you do now, Daisy?”

               “It bit me!”

               “Ha! It did not bite you.”

               “Yes, it did!” Daisy insisted. “I’m bleeding!”

               Rose snorted and pushed the brim of her straw hat up so she could see the dark-haired girl, across the rose-bed, pull off her glove and shake out her hand. Daisy knelt, her calico dress and cream-colored apron covered in dirt, in front of a particularly old, snarly rosebush. Rose sat back on her haunches and rested her own gloved hands, and spade, on her knees.

               “Well, were you talking nicely to it?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows.

               “Talking nicely to it?” Daisy repeated, shooting Rose a narrow look, her brown eyes flashing. “Why on earth would I talk nicely to something that bites me?”

               Rose smiled, bent forward and continued churning up the soil around the base of her own rosebush.

               They sat in the full, golden summer sunlight that bathed this side of the mountain, flooding the brilliant flower garden beside the walls of the thick, tall, ivy-draped fortress. She could practically taste the heady scent of roses on the air as she worked, the bees happily buzzing and bumbling through the branches just above her head. She wore her own calico dress and apron, her long, curly, honey-blonde braid tucked up underneath a wide-brimmed hat. And, as she churned up the soil around the roots of a great, ancient bush that bloomed roses the color of midwinter snow, she whispered to it.

Then, she paused. Waited. Listened.

The wind came up, and the rose bush rustled in reply—like an old woman laughing.

               “All right, what are you saying to yours, Rose?” Daisy huffed.

Rose’s secret smile grew, now.

               “Nothing.”

               “Right, nothing. I can hear you, you know,” Daisy protested.

Rose glanced over at the younger woman.

               “Really. It’s nothing. Just a little…extra gardening.”

“Magic?” Daisy demanded. “For what?”

“Just for encouragement,” Rose admitted, gesturing to the twisted plant. “This one is a grandmother, after all.” Rose reached into her bucket for the scoop of bone meal, and began scattering it around the roots. “She’s survived decades of frost, and the ice this past winter could have broken her graft.”

“You’re talking to the plant,” Daisy said flatly.

Rose stopped, and looked at Daisy.

“All right, madam—what kind of curses did you come here to learn how to break?”

“Dragon curses,” Daisy answered, glaring at the cut on her hand.

“Then you’ll need to learn the fundamentals,” Rose told her.

“I know the fundamentals,” Daisy replied, lifting her uninjured hand and counting off on her fingers. “Defy the nature of the curse; Deny it power over you; Design a sanctuary; Destroy darkness with that which was lost; Decide to do the impossible.”

“All right,” Rose said, stirring the soil over the bone meal. “So how are you going to decide to do the impossible if you can’t even talk to a plant?”

Daisy snorted.

“I think Effrain just put me out here because of my name,” she muttered.

Rose laughed out loud. The sound rang through the garden—and past it, the boughs of the pines chuckled.

Daisy heaved a sigh, tossed down her gloves and threw off her hat, then trudged round the corner of the bed toward Rose. She flopped down onto her back on the grassy path and closed her eyes against the sunlight.

“You’ll get more freckles if you don’t cover your face with your hat,” Rose remarked.

“Good.” Daisy grinned. “I like freckles.”

Rose returned her grin.

“How long have you been here?” Daisy asked, shifting her position.

“Twenty years. I was sent here when I was five,” Rose answered, finishing stirring the ground.

“And why did you come?” Daisy probed, playfully lowering her voice to secret-telling pitch. “So you can learn break the curse on your family castle? Wake your parents from an unwakeable sleep?”

Rose frowned at her.

“Who told you that?”

Daisy sat up on one elbow.

“You’re a princess.”

Rose let out another light laugh.

“I’m certain you are,” Daisy insisted, sitting up even further. “You look exactly like very princess in every story there is. Your amber eyes, and hair gold as the sunshine—”

“Clanahan’s been letting you read too many books,” Rose answered, taking off her gloves and sitting back onto the grass, stretching out her legs next to Daisy.

“I know you have royal blood,” Daisy said flatly. “Admit it.”

“I wish I did!” Rose stretched her back. “But unfortunately, no. And my family is un-cursed and unexciting. A lord and lady in a little valley, with three boys and four girls, all grown up.”

“I don’t believe you,” Daisy stated.

“Well, you will when they all come here next month to visit.”

Daisy leaned close to her, very low and very serious.

“Do you have any handsome brothers?”

“Oh, good grief!” Rose laughed, shoving her. Giggling, Daisy fell onto her back.

Just then, the bell in the fortress tower rang—a bright, merry peal that resounded over the mountaintops and down into the neighboring valley.

“Oh, no—I’m not nearly ready for dinner,” Rose realized, climbing to her feet and dusting off her skirt. “Quick, grab your hat!”

Daisy leaped up with the ease of an elf, darted over and snatched up her hat, and together the two young women hurried toward the open door in the mighty tower wall.

  Rose tied off her long braid after brushing out and plaiting her hair, fastening it with twine first and then a white ribbon. She had changed into a simple, flowing, long-sleeved pink dress with a sash, and donned a gold chain bearing a single ruby. She glanced around the room to see if she had forgotten to do anything—she’d gotten ready in such a rush.

Her room was in the second story of the castle, with a wide, northern facing window. In the spring and summer, she opened the shutters every morning and never closed them until evening had fallen. She set vases and planters of bright flowers to sun there, and often the bees and butterflies would enter as if they were quite welcome to do as they pleased. And indeed they were.

Her whole chamber had been made of dark wood, polished by centuries of feet and hands and cloth. Little playful faces had been carved into the posts and lintels ages ago by a forgotten artist with a definite sense of humor. A tall clock, made from the twisted, gnarled trunk of a tree, stood in the corner opposite her bed, and it gonged the hours at her in the deep, rusty tone of a grandfather. Faded woven tapestries bearing gallant figures chasing white stags and unicorns draped around her four-poster bed, and a scarlet-and-gold comforter lay across the mattress. A wardrobe and trunk set, fashioned to look like glowering mouths with glaring eyes, guarded her hand-made garments. Woven rugs, of floral pattern, spread out across the floor, bearing the marks of the footpaths Rose had tread into them over these past many years. Paintings of faraway landscapes hung from the few smooth places on the walls. Musical mobiles dripping with red, green and purple dragon scales glittered and jingled by the shutters. An exotic breed of ivy sprang from a large planter in one corner and crept up the wall and partway across the ceiling. Scented candles and lamps twinkled in fine crystal settings, and dried herbs and flowers hung in bunches from the beams, filling the air with earthy deliciousness. Through a low side door was another room with a window—this room filled with shelves of books, several armchairs, and a tattered bearskin lying before a small stone hearth.

All of this—except the tapestries, which had been given her by her father—had been gifts from the other Curse-Breakers. She had known so many, all of them vivid adventurers and hearty travelers. They came first as young, inexperienced thrill-seekers with an aptitude for magic, and learned for years from the masters, and even from her (though only about using plants for healing, and breaking thorn curses). Then, they would venture out, to the wildlands and the peaks and the forests, disappearing for months, even years.

But then, they returned—with the most fantastic stories, magical souvenirs, and tale-telling scars. And they were always eagerly delighted to share every detail of their travels with Rose.

A rap came at the bedroom door.

Rose left her dresser and hurried across the rug to the door, and opened it. Daisy stood there, wearing fitted green trousers and a loose blouse bound by a belt, her hair pinned up in loose braids atop her head.

“Are you ready?” Daisy asked, smiling.

“Yes, just,” Rose nodded, stepping out the door onto the landing and shutting it behind her.

Together the two young ladies trotted down the winding wooden staircase, each step squeaking like a different note on a harpsichord. They rounded three corners, and then the stairwell opened up to a wide, stone-floored room lit by dozens of hanging lamps. Long, weathered tables and benches marched down the center, and more tables and cabinets stood off to the left-hand side bearing baskets of apples, bread and cheese; and barrels of water and honey mead.

A dozen young men, and five young women, all sat already at the tables, eating and laughing. Rose and Daisy, however, made for a different table, close to the stairs, where sat two women and one man: Effrain, Reola, and Clanahan.

Effrain was willowy and strikingly-beautiful in a cool, dangerous way, with long, smooth, rose-gold hair—she was half-elvish, so she had pointed ears and aqua-colored, flashing eyes. She wore the colors of the earth, in flowing garments that never caught on anything.

Reola had black, glowing skin and white feathery hair that she kept bound in a long braid. She possessed a ready smile, brilliant eyes and a graceful posture—she was older than the fortress itself, but no one would ever suspect it. She always wore a simple, homespun white dress.

Clanahan, an old sea-farer from the east, had a faded red hair, and a beard he kept in two braids, and deep scars in his forearms from fighting sea monsters. He wore leather and fur, and had a laugh that could shake down the rafters.

“Hullo, hullo,” he bellowed, motioning to the two girls. “And what do the roses say today?”

“They say that they don’t much like Daisy Winderthorn,” Daisy replied, swinging her leg over and plopping down on a bench across from him. He laughed, and roughly patted her head, which made her giggle.

“What, did they bite you?” he asked.

“See?” Daisy said to Rose, pointing at Clanahan. “He understands.”

Rose suppressed a smile and easily sat down next to her, in front of an empty board and goblet.

“Roses merely defend themselves against foolishness,” Effrain said serenely, pouring herself some honey mead.

“Well, ours are too vain, if you ask me,” Reola remarked, cutting a piece of bread. “But can anyone blame them? Our Rosie spoils them constantly.”

“Aye!” Clanahan agreed, thumping the table. “I’ve never seen such gorgeous flowers in all my days—not even at a king’s garden. We could rival any of them—and in such dreadful weather as we have here, that’s saying a mite!”

Rose beamed at him.

“Do eat,” Effrain urged, meeting Rose’s eyes with her vibrant sea-colored ones. “We have plenty.”

So, both Rose and Daisy spread apple butter on thick slices of bread, tugged large bits of steamy, juicy meat from off a roasted country bird, carved slices of white cheese and snatched up the last of the sliced apple. Effrain poured them their own honey mead, which flooded Rose’s mouth with sweetness alongside Reola’s savory cooking. Soon, an animated Clanahan started in on another of his rollicking sea stories, and as his narration rushed and rolled and thundered, Rose grew warm all through her chest, down to her feet and her toes, as she smiled, ate, and listened. It didn’t matter if she’d heard this same story a dozen times. The rhythm and lilt of the tale beat alongside her heart, as familiar as the scent in her room, the sun upon the peaks, and the taste of mountain honey.

The front door banged open.

Clanahan stopped, his arms freezing in mid-gesture.

Rose spun around, along with everyone else…

To see Galahad Stormcrane stride through.

He was a young man, perhaps thirty, with black hair and a billowing grey cape. Rose had glimpsed him only a handful of times before—for he wandered the darkest and most perilous portions of the wildlands—but not once had she ever seen a smile cross his handsome, scarred face.

Reola immediately arose, slipped away from the table, and started toward him with a keen frown. Galahad stopped before her, and inclined his head.

“Stormcrane,” Reola watched him. “What is it?”

He straightened up, reached inside his cloak with a gloved hand, and withdrew a scroll, tied with a silvery ribbon.

“I have intercepted a message,” he declared. “From the kingdom of Spegel.”

               Startled murmurs rippled through the room. Rose, eyes wide, glanced at Daisy.

               “Spegel,” Reola repeated, eyes narrow. “Nothing has been heard from beyond those borders in thirty years.”                

               “Indeed, ma’am,” Galahad agreed. “Though many have tried to send messages past the borders and into that place, this is the first correspondence that has come from within—and even more: this comes from Glas.”

               “The palace?” Clanahan cried.

               “Yes,” Galahad nodded to him.

               “What is it?” Effrain asked, her voice low and precise. Galahad held it up.

               “It is a request for a doctor. Someone in the palace is complaining of terrible headaches,” he said. “But I don’t believe that is truly the case.”

               “And what is it you suspect?” Reola asked.

               Galahad regarded her gravely.

               “I believe the prince of Spegel is under a curse.”

Chapter Two

There Came a Message

               Rose paced back and forth in her room, her long skirt swishing around her bare feet, even as the candles burned down.

               Effrain, Clanahan, Reola and Galahad Stormcrane had been in private council together for hours now. She could hear their voices in the next room over, but the walls were so thick she couldn’t understand them—and she didn’t dare try to work any sort of listening charm for fear of being caught.

               A tiny rap came at the door.

               She jumped, then hurried quietly across the rugs and slipped the door open.

               Daisy stood on the other side, still dressed but wrapped around with a brown housecoat.

               “You’re still awake too?” Daisy whispered.

               “I can’t sleep with this going on!” Rose hissed, opening the door further so Daisy could slide inside.

               “So what is all the fuss about, do you know?” Daisy pressed, wrapping her arms around herself.

               “I’m not sure,” Rose shook her head. “Except they must be deciding who to send to break the curse.”

               “Surely Stormcrane will want to,” Daisy surmised. “Since he uncovered it.”

               “Yes…probably,” Rose hesitated. Daisy frowned at her.

               “What do you mean? He’s one of the most famous and experienced Curse-Breakers we have!”

               Footsteps outside the door.

               Both women froze, and stared at it.

               Knock, knock, knock.

               Rose gulped.

               “Yes?”

               The latch worked and the door swung open.

               Clanahan stood outside—his face set and grim.

               “Come with me, Rose.”

               A shiver slid down her spine. But she nodded, and started toward him. Daisy followed.

               “Just Rose,” Clanahan held up a hand. Daisy jerked to a stop. Rose gave her a helpless glance, but couldn’t do anything except follow Clanahan’s hulking form through the door and down the squeaky stairs.

               When they came to a door to their left hand, Clanahan led her through it, and then back up another flight of stairs—these were stone. They belonged to an older wing of the fortress. Very soon, he opened a door into a short hallway, and then they passed into a large, circular meeting chamber.

               A fire burned in the wide hearth to the right, and lit lamps hung from the ceiling. Shields and faded banners from all kingdoms hung in a row around the wall. Chairs surrounded a beaten round table that bore the Curse-Breakers’ crest: a central chalice, surrounded by stars.

               No one sat around this table, however. Instead, Reola sat in an armchair and Effrain on a bench by the fire, and Galahad Stormcrane stalked in the shadows behind them, his arms folded.

               The three already present looked up when Clanahan led Rose inside. And, to Rose’s shock, Stormcrane instantly scowled, and turned his head away.

               “Rose, please sit down,” Reola invited, gesturing to a chair across from her. “We’d like to hear your opinion on something.”

               Rose’s chest instantly relaxed.

“Oh! Of course,” she nodded quickly, smiling, and sat down where invited. Reola, her warm skin and features richened by the firelight, exchanged a glance with the ethereal Effrain, then sat forward and folded her elegant hands in her lap.

“I suppose you’ve heard of the kingdom of Spegel,” she said.

Rose nodded again.

“Yes. I’ve read about it.”

“What have you read?” Effrain wondered. Rose canted her head and considered.

“I read that magic is particularly at home in their woods,” she said. “So that the trees move, and speak—and the water sings. And that the craftsmen of the king contrived a way to make glass that cannot break.” Rose glanced at the others in the room. “In fact, they used to trade this glass throughout the world for all kinds of riches. One six-inch pane of simple, colorless glass half an inch thick was worth a pound of gold.”

“And so of course you’ve heard of the famous Palace of Glas,” Reola assumed.

“Yes,” Rose replied. “Made entirely from this glass, in thousands of colors.” Rose halfway smiled. “I have to admit, though, that it sounds like a fairy story. I don’t know of anyone who has actually seen it.”

“I have seen it,” Effrain said, her eyes downcast. “Long ago.”

Rose blinked, and stared at her. When an elf said “long ago…”

“Have you ever seen a piece of Spegel glass, Rosie?” Clanahan asked, coming around to face her, his arms folded.

She shook her head.

Clanahan took a deep breath.

“That is because, in the entirety of your lifetime, no one has come forth from the kingdom of Spegel—though many emissaries have ventured in.”

Rose frowned at him.

“Yes, I have gathered that,” she said. “But do any of you know why?”

“No,” Reola replied. “All we know is that no one who has entered…has ever come back out.”

A chill washed through Rose’s body.

“That is why you think it’s a curse,” she realized, hushed. “The message Galahad has brought—someone in the palace complaining of headaches. You believe it’s someone who has finally been able to get word to the outside world that they need help.”

“Possible,” Stormcrane finally spoke up. “Or it could be a lure of some kind.”

“From whom did you intercept this message?” Rose wondered.

“An owl,” Stormcrane answered. “I have brought it with me.”

Rose looked at him.

“Really,” she said quietly, her eyes narrowing. “And where was it headed?”

“South. Toward King Herrard’s lands.”

“The Halls of Healing lie directly beyond them,” Rose said, turning back to Reola. “They do want a doctor.”

“That is also what we have deduced,” Effrain said evenly—and Stormcrane turned away again.

“And if the message bears the royal seal,” Rose went on, her thoughts flying. “That must mean that someone is still living in the palace—someone very important that they can’t seem to assist themselves. Which is why they’ve broken their silence!”

“Indeed,” Reola nodded, watching her with something like cool satisfaction. “Would you like to hear the message?”

“Yes, very much,” Rose nodded, sitting forward in her chair. Reola held out her hand, and Stormcrane passed the scroll to her. She unrolled it, held it toward the firelight, and read aloud.

“‘His Royal Highness, Prince Nikolas, begs the indulgence of the High Healer of Oxforth and requests that a superior healer be sent immediately to the kingdom of Spegel to the capital of Glas. His Royal Highness suffers nightly from punishing headaches that disturb his sleep and plague his evenings. Payment for a cure for His Royal Highness shall be thirty pounds of Spegel glass, in any color requested. Respond by way of this owl upon receipt of Our message.’”

“Fascinating,” Rose whispered. “How old is the prince?”

“He is thirty years old,” Clanahan murmured. “And that…is the same length of time that the kingdom has been shut to the rest of the world.”

“Oh!” Rose gasped, her eyes flashing to him. “You—You think it’s he that’s cursed?”

Effrain and Reola nodded.

“We do,” Reola said.

“Cursed since birth?”  Rose kept on.

“Most likely,” Clanahan replied.

“You are forgetting the most important detail,” Stormcrane cut in, holding his hand expectantly out to Reola. Reola considered him a moment, then handed the scroll to him. Stormcrane stepped closer to Rose, and pointed to the two broken wax seals on its edge. One blue, one white.

“Do you recognize either of these seals?”

Rose frowned at them.

“No,” she admitted. “Neither of them belong to any heraldry I’ve studied.”

“This,” he pointed to the blue one. “Is the royal seal of Spegel, specifically the royal family at the Palace of Glas. Note the fire, and tongs for glassmaking. This…” he pointed gravely to the white one. “Can you distinguish the symbol?”

Rose squinted at it.

“It appears to be a snowflake.”

“Indeed it is,” Stormcrane crisply withdrew the parchment. “It is the royal seal of the kingdom of Iss.”

Rose stared at him.

“Iss?” she whispered. “I…I thought that was a myth!” She quickly looked to all the others. “A story our mothers told us when we misbehaved! Iss was a terrible country in the north where the Snow Queen lived—and if you were naughty she’d come and snatch you out of your bed—”

“It isn’t a myth,” Reola said, her voice low and solemn. “Except perhaps the bit about her snatching children from their beds.”

Rose couldn’t tear her eyes from her.

“The Snow Queen is real?”

“She is,” Effrain said, capturing Rose’s gaze. “And her name is Iskyla.”

“How do you know?” Rose breathed. “Have you seen her, too?”

“Yes, I have,” Effrain replied. “She is an ice fairy.”

“But…” Rose’s mind spun again. “Why would her seal be set upon a correspondence from Spegel?”

Silence fell. Rose glanced at all of her masters—and then her attention fell upon Stormcrane’s dark countenance.

“You think she’s there, don’t you, Galahad?” she said. “You think she’s captured the palace—that she’s put the prince under a curse.”

“I do,” Stormcrane stated, lifting his chin.

“And I do not,” Effrain countered.

Rose’s brow furrowed.

“Why not?”

“Because she’s your kin—that’s the only reason,” Stormcrane cut in.

“She is not kin—I am half elf,” Effrain shot back, her eyes flashing.

Stormcrane was unruffled.

“You are all fae creatures—ancient and lofty and set apart from mortals, even Curse-Breakers,” Stormcrane answered. “And even if fairies haven’t gone about stealing children from their cradles—which no one can say for certain that they haven’t—they have certainly laid curses upon them, and those children suffered all their lives. Why would Iskyla be above that?”

“It is not in her nature,” Effrain stated. “She is winter. Winter is hard, cold, unyielding, quiet and lone-some. But it is not evil in itself. Besides,” Effrain faced the fire, the flamelight shimmering against her pearly skin. “If she had cursed him, she would not have put her seal to a cry for help for him, and sent it in the direction of the most powerful magic-wielders aside from ourselves.”

“So you suspect that he is cursed, but that Queen Iskyla didn’t do it,” Rose surmised. “But instead, she has a vested interest in keeping him alive.”

“Perhaps she means to marry him,” Clanahan rumbled.

Effrain’s eyes flashed to him.

“She could not marry him,” she stated. “Not unless he had never loved anyone or anything in all his life.”

Terrible silence fell.

“What?” Rose gasped.

“Ice fairies cannot be bonded with warmth,” Effrain replied, turning to her. “And love, in its nature, is warmth. Such a binding covenant would destroy her.”

“Good heavens,” Rose breathed. “Surely you don’t believe that about the prince…do you?” She turned to Reola. “Do you, Reola?”

Reola took a breath, and sat back.

“At this point, even with all our experience and knowledge, we are merely speculating. But what we can all agree upon is that someone must go.”

“Yes,” Rose nodded firmly. “Yes, I agree also.” She lifted her head, and turned to the young man. “When do you plan to leave, Galahad?”

He glowered at her, then flashed his eyebrows and gave a crooked smile.

“Apparently…” he folded his arms. “Our masters have declared that I am not suited.”

Rose instantly frowned.

“Truly?” she said, then looked at the others. “Are you sure? This seems to be a very dangerous mission—since no one has ever returned from Spegel. Galahad has broken out of at least three unbreakable curses in the north—one of them was a dragon curse!”

“We don’t doubt Stormcrane’s prowess,” Clanahan said. “But the reason he’s not going is the same reason that I’m not going.”

“What do you mean?” Rose wondered.

“We don’t need someone to break out,” Effrain said smoothly, gazing at her. “We need someone to break in.”

“In,” Rose repeated.

“Yes,” Reola nodded. “But not in the way you’d expect.”

Rose frowned harder.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Based on the evidence, and what we have discussed,” Effrain said. “We do not believe that anyone in Spegel realizes that the prince is cursed. Which is why they sent for a healer rather than a Curse-Breaker.”

“But also,” Reola added. “If Queen Iskyla is present in Spegel and adding her seal to the prince’s, the political situation may be precarious. Nikolas is still referring to himself as ‘prince’—”

“Which means his father, King Alexei, is somehow incapacitated, or missing,” Clanahan finished. “All parties currently in power must certainly feel dangerously insecure. Especially since they have not risked trade, alliance or communication with any kingdom but Iss for three decades.”

“Meaning?” Rose prodded.

“We cannot send anyone threatening,” Reola said. “And we certainly cannot send a man.”

“Why not a man?” Rose wondered.

“Because all the greatest doctors in the Halls of Healing are women,” Effrain reminded her

“What—you’re going to send someone to pretend to be the doctor they asked for?” Rose realized.

“We are going to send you to pretend to be the doctor they asked for,” Reola said.

Rose went still.

Her mouth worked for a moment, but no sound came out.

Her hand flew to her chest.

“Me?” she cried. “I’ve…I’ve never been out in the wilds, I’ve never broken any curses on living people. I’ve never even left here!”

“Which is why no word of you as a Curse-Breaker would have reached Queen Iskyla,” Clanahan said. “And by the looks of you, neither she nor Prince Nikolas would have any reason to suspect you are anything powerful or disruptive.”

“Disruptive?” Rose said.

“Yes,” Effrain nodded. “If the prince is indeed under a curse, then breaking it could change the very fabric of the way the kingdom is ruled. And that change may or may not be welcome.”

“This is extremely important, Rose,” Reola leaned toward her. “We need you to act as the prince’s doctor, treating his headaches—which you are more than capable of doing—and also discover what has happened to King Alexei, find out Queen Iskyla’s motivation for being in Spegel with the prince—”

“And break a curse,” Rose whispered.

“Yes,” Effrain said simply. “Which is the most important task of all.”

Rose just sat there, her hands in her lap, searching the faces of her teachers. She squeezed her fingers.

“I have never done this before,” she murmured.

“But you know how,” Reola stated. “You’ve remained here, studying, almost a decade longer than any other Curse-Breaker. And our intuitions tell us that this particular task calls for someone who is not flashy, nor a fighter, nor someone with a temper. Someone quiet, who looks beneath, inside, who is a puzzle-solver; who will work through the inevitable trouble with a great deal of patience.” Reola smiled softly. “I don’t think any of us could conjure up someone who more closely fits that description than you.”

“We have full confidence in you, lass,” Clanahan assured her. “We know you can do this.”

Rose’s heart hammered against her ribs. She squeezed her fingers together even harder.

“Well,” she managed—her voice faint. “Then I…I ought to try.”

“Good girl,” Reola beamed.

               Effrain smiled too, and Clanahan chuckled.

               But Galahad stood like a silent storm, and stared into the fire.      

 Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Retelling-Queen-Alydia-Rackham-ebook/dp/B077H88YMH/ref=pd_sim_351_3/146-6363556-3395043?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B077H88YMH&pd_rd_r=73cc68cd-e5a6-4b32-9ce2-5d476d459ec0&pd_rd_w=cSRhm&pd_rd_wg=r83WI&pf_rd_p=5abf8658-0b5f-405c-b880-a6d1b558d4ea&pf_rd_r=G4FJJ3PR9KY6XPY34N76&psc=1&refRID=G4FJJ3PR9KY6XPY34N76

#snow queen #fairy tale #fairy tale retelling #retelling #fantasy #magic #curse #novel #book #fantasy book #story #fiction #romance #prince #princess #queen #castle #enchanted castle #cursed castle #cursed kingdom #cover design #book cover #book art #artwork #art #original art #tragedy #depression #self esteem #abuse

[breathe-smiles]

#WIMY

The thing about looking at stars, especially in a place where there aren’t many, is that once your eye manages to focus on one, you magically adjust your vision to see all the ones on its peripheral. Most days I look up just to see how many I can catch, and wonder who somewhere else in the world is staring at the same ones. For just a split second, I’m swept up by the sky and transported into the galaxies. I’m in tune with the universe and at peace.

Aside from these small moments of refuge, I find it difficult to truly feel at placidity. There’s always more work to do, more people to see, more places to go - and this constant state of having options is quite overwhelming. It’s no question that I’m still finding my place here, even though being in LA and at USC feels more than right in my gut. To wholeheartedly believe that I am where I’m meant to be - even if I’m still navigating it with a map - is something very comforting, reassuring, and powerful. I got so incredibly lucky that it worked out this way.

The culture of this city, though, is something I am still learning. Constant social media updates, men non-maliciously calling you sweetie, and driving literally everywhere, are all things I’m still getting accustomed to. These lifestyle aspects are still new and unfamiliar, but no longer foreign; I’m beginning to understand better. Fundamentally, psycho New York culture is crafted into my bones. But eventually, somewhere deep within my being, these new structures that are developing as I continue to live here will grow into permanance - and I think that growth is really beautiful.

I noticed today that leaving campus is something I need to do more consistently. I am most myself when I’m exploring: wide-eyed and curious, on my own in particular, with healing music or nature’s silence. These are the moments when I feel most alive. I’ll be more conscious from now on of my needs for revival. Thankfully Los Angeles is huge, so I have a lot to discover.

When I meet you, I hope my journey of discovery and yours will begin to run together, like our lives are graphs of the same equation. I’m skeptical about the boundaries between individuality and self-growth vs. mutual codependency, but I don’t question that you’ll prove my doubts to be inconsequential when it comes to us. Even though in the past I’ve experienced loss of individuality, inability to grow as a person, and a lack of codependency, I know that eventually I’ll get it all right (and I’m excited to do it with you). 

I hope that, when I meet you, I’ll be in the right place to give you a piece of me and to receive a piece of you. I hope you’re the one to become a part of my narrative, the one I get to incorporate into my universe. I’ve been shown love that’s innocent and genuine, hindering and all-consuming, and strengthening and self-destructive, but I hope you’re the one to show me that it’s everlasting and invincible. When I meet you, I hope you remind me that love can do anything, that love is unprecedentedly the realest and most powerful thing - and that I’m not naive for believing in it.

Along with my galaxies, I hope I get to share my sunsets with you. There’s a special kind of sunset that mesmerizes you so much and blinds you, so that the only thing you see when you look away is the bright leftover residue of the sun reflected in your lenses. These sunsets carry the rest of the sky; baby blues turn into lavenders and pinks, merging together like a Trix yogurt swirl, gradually mixing to form a new shade. When I meet you, I hope I get to see your favorite places and uncover why you love them so much. I hope I get to watch you get giddy about the intricacies of a neighborhood’s architecture or panoramic views of a cityscape. I hope I can share my spaces with you, too, and we end up stumbling upon new ones together. I hope, sharing a space, that we find pieces of places that make up us, forming ourselves a place to call home.

While this could take days, weeks, months, or years, I know I’ll feel something I’ve never felt before when I meet you. I might not know how to handle myself when you’re so astonishingly close to perfect and our love is as untouchable as I always hoped love could be. I don’t think I can handle letting something beautiful go again, but I’ll know, when I meet you, that you’ll be the one who won’t make me have to. Even though my heart is shaken up from loving time and time again, and my faith slightly wavers every time love fails, I know better than to stop choosing love. I’ll never stop giving it one more chance, every single time. This is engrained in me. I know you’ll be worth the trial and error; I know you’ll be worth the patience.

For the time being, I’ll create who I am using pieces that I find where I am. You heal me, LA. I promise to embrace you as a home even if the process isn’t immediate. You remind me to believe in and to hope for the best, to breathe deep breaths and to seek internal serenity, and to live embracing the fear that things are always changing. Thank you for this. 

I promise to be here and be present.

[galadhir]

Refuge Chapter 5

Hux’s plan finally comes into play. And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky kids...

Prior chapters on Ao3

Breathing drove a spike of pain through Hux's back from a point just beneath his left shoulderblade. It was familiar. Familiar too was the ache in his hands, the thin pain of his fingertips as they strove to stab through the leather of his gloves and sink into his palms. Familiar was the tremble beneath this, the loathsome weakness that threatened to make his voice shake, to turn him into a laughingstock, to bring him to his knees where he might be despised, yet again.

Unfamiliar was the memory of Poe calling him brave. The impact of it was like the impact of a blunt weapon. His bones had been jarred loose. Even his teeth ached. That there should be someone in the universe who saw something good in him! And that it should be this man!

Perhaps it wasn't so surprising, though. The man thought a Republic that left its children to starve on the streets was a thing worth fighting and dying for. It stood to reason that his morals were questionable and his values were loose.

He wished… he just wished the praise didn't open something in him with the heaviness and voraciousness of a black hole. Something he couldn't escape even if he wanted to. The fact that it came from such a fundamentally wrong-headed source didn't change the truth, that he wanted it. He wanted more of it. There was no upper limit on what he would do to have it.

Father was right all along. You really are weak.

Hux sneered privately at the voice of his conditioning. Sometimes it was Brendol's, sometimes it was his own, but he refused to believe it anyway. Weak men did not snuff out suns at their command.

And now was not the time.

The viewscreen flickered. By the sensor desk, Unamo reported “Shields at maximum,” just as Thannison flinched from his screen. “All cannons are trained on us, sir. Shall I launch fighters?”

“Not yet.”

Sceptical looks. Peavy, by his station, didn't trouble to conceal an eyeroll. But the shields would absorb a first barrage better than a smoke screen of vulnerable TIEs. And he hoped there would not be a second.

Pryde's figure loomed above the bridge, flickering blue, even to the shadowed hollows of his eyes. “I considered whether to allow you to surrender, Armitage,” he said. “But I've been quite lenient enough.”

“Sir!” Unamo's face was more skull than flesh as she looked up again. Outside the viewport another hyperspace window had bloomed and closed, disgorging a single black-winged shuttle. “It's the Supreme Leader.”

Ren and his knights had arrived early.

Hux's mouth dried and his lips tingled. Surely by now the agony that welled up in every vertebra of his neck must be imagined, but oh, he was imagining it vividly.

Pryde's smile widened. “Any last words?”

The timing was never meant to be this tight. The margins were unacceptable, but they were all he had.

“Actualize.”

His voice was too soft. He coughed, tried again, nerves strangling the sound, making it higher pitched and panicky. “Actualize!”

Had it worked? Or had Phasma done something in those long years where he had left her in charge? She'd easily had the intelligence, but whether she'd had the patience to learn the deep, encrypted coding of the--

“What?” Pryde's victorious grin faltered as Rey stepped up to Hux's right, her gaze fixed on the approaching shuttle. Poe followed, falling into place at Hux's left as though on parade.

“You're making no sense. Though I shouldn't be surprised considering the company you're keeping. Perhaps it's a good thing your father isn't here to see this. He would be so ashamed!”

The Subjugator's cannon warmed like pinpricks of infernal flame along her flanks. A second transmission came in and there was Ren. Masked once more, his rage only discernible in the way his heavy cloak rippled in an unseen storm, he stretched out his right hand toward Hux and clenched it hard.

All by itself, Hux's own hand rose as if he could get his fingers behind the garotte of Force and pry it away. Breath stuck in his throat, and then whistled though, as beside him Rey narrowed her dark-bright eyes. She was defending him, just as he'd hoped, as he'd bargained for. He'd hardly hoped she would hold up her end of the deal but here she was, actually following through!

“Hux, you traitor, I'm going to rip your bones out by inches. I'm going to make sure you take fifty years to die and you're sobbing with agony every day of them.”

He could breathe! Hux lowered his clutching hand and concentrated on slowing his thundering heart. And as he did, a cluster of cannon mouths went dark.

“Sir!” someone exclaimed on the Subjugator, voice full of alarm.

The Subjugator's bridge came into sharp focus, as Mitaka faded the signal on the Supreme Leader's threats. Pryde's holographic form turned away to peer down into his own technician's pit. “What's happening?”

“Reports of firefights--”

“Finalizer's launched fighters after all?”

“No sir. Internal firefights!”

And then a crackling noise behind Pryde turned him all the way, to face his bridge doors.

Hux watched with a welling of sweet honeyed satisfaction as the doors burst open and a dozen blaster bolts tore into Pryde's unsuspecting frame. Pryde fell messily, revealing the gleaming white ranks of a hundred troopers, pristine and clean behind the roaring fire and smoke of their weapons.

Pryde began to crawl for the door. The troop leader kicked him aside as they strode within, gunning down any officer who rose or made a move for their own blaster. Chaos ensued, briefly, glorious to watch.

“The other ships in the fleet?” Hux asked, confident now. No one had tampered with his troopers, and they had all received the command. Coded, in words he might pass as florid conversation, the first message had set the troops into readiness without alarming their supervisors—more importantly also without alarming any Force-users that might be present—so that when the final word was given, they were already primed to act. He'd never had to use his override before, and it was a joy to see it function without a flaw.

“They're all standing down, sir.” Mitaka's eyes were bright. The flex of his mouth could even be called a smile. “Yes, I'm getting their confirmation now...”

The last corpse was pulled from its seat on the Subjugator, Pryde no longer visible under the heaps of the dead. The few officers alive, surrendered, were on their knees, their hands bound in durasteel cuffs.

The troop leader's fist met their chest with a sharp, celebratory clatter. “General Hux, the ship is yours.”

“Sir?” Mitaka echoed. “The fleet is yours.”

“What have you done?” The growl of Kylo Ren's voice, harsh, inhuman beneath the helmet, mixed ashes in the cup of his victory. “You little schutta. How dare you imagine you can--”

Hux's trembling threatened to become visible. He ground his nails into his palms until he could feel blood seep out from under them, dampening the leather. He didn't know what he felt—some compound of singing terror and triumph like the taste of gore between his teeth, more furious, more primal than he had felt when Starkiller fired, but just as inhuman.

Now he ended it. Now, the last obstacle in his way was going to be obliterated in a ball of plasma, and he would re-watch it on the security footage and laugh and laugh and laugh.

“All ships, target--”

Kylo Ren's shuttle, he tried to say. But the words could not be forced past the gate of his mouth. He choked. He could breathe, but he couldn't-- what the--?

He opened his mouth again, really beginning to panic now, the terror drowning out the joy. The Sith-damn shuttle full of dark force users loomed in the viewscreen, tearing closer.

Blast them out of the sky!

But he couldn't--

His eyes fell on Rey. Her hand was outstretched toward him. She was gently, gently silencing him just like everyone in his life had ever done.

Betrayal! He should have expected it. He should have known better than to trust any of these kriffing overpowered freaks. They were all the same. All of them, he would kill them all!

But he wouldn't, would he? Because he'd made his play and he'd failed. He wasn't sure he would survive what happened next.

#my fic #refuge #hux

[eponymous-rose]

Fic: Changebringer [Mollymauk | T | 2400 words]

[FFN | AO3 | Campaign Two Stories | Campaign One Stories]

The past is a tyrant. Mollymauk Tealeaf, the fates, and change.

Changebringer

Luck favors the bold.

- First Commandment of Avandra

"It's New Dawn the day after tomorrow, is the thing," Gustav says, beaming a smile that's just a little too for-show, just a little too bright around the edges. He hasn't stopped talking since he and Molly started working three hours ago, which hasn't exactly come as a surprise. Gustav is the sort of man who fears silence the way cows fear going down a set of stairs: it's so fundamentally alien to his nature that getting into it means he'll likely never find his way out. "You know that much, surely."

Molly shugs and smiles, leaning on the signpost he's just hammered into the ground and shaking out his freshly blistered hands. Never worked a day in his life, technically, and now here he is playing 24-hour man with Gustav, plastering the roadside ahead of the carnival with signs promising the show of a lifetime. There's bound to be a couple of aches and pains.

"What do you think about papering the house?" Gustav isn't actually waiting for a response, but he pauses, politely, before launching back into his spiel. "Give away enough free seats to fill the house on night one, might be able to get some interest going on night two. Anyway, I doubt we'll pick up that much business straight away. Hasn't been much entertainment in these parts. People will be wary, I think, rather than excited, though I suppose it's always hard to tell which way it's going to swing."

Molly narrows his eyes, scrunching up his face. It takes Gustav a second, but once the penny drops, he laughs. "You're saying they might be suspicious? Yeah, that's a fair assessment. Someone shows up offering you something for nothing, you take a second look. Still, I'm thinking we seem harmless enough that nobody's going to be looking too hard. These folk are nothing if not good at making assumptions about people, so we'll just make sure we come across as simple, frivolous, fun-loving people. Which is, mind you, broadly accurate."

Stretching out the aches in his back with a yawn, Molly bends and scoops up the rest of the signposts, cocking an eyebrow at Gustav. "Yeah, two or three more down this way," Gustav says. "I'll show you the kinds of spots where the crownsguard won't notice soon enough to tear 'em down. You'll be able to do this yourself next time." He squints at Molly. "Hey, you get more ink since last week? I run a job for five days and everything changes."

Craning his neck, Molly shows off the peacock, the green even more vivid against the still-reddened edges of his lavender skin. It's one of the rare tattoos he's had that's actually going to look less impressive the longer he has it. Gustav whistles, soft and low. "Great work, that one. Mona introduce you to her artist? Lovely, lovely." He stops in his tracks. "What were we talking about? Oh! Yes, New Dawn. The Changebringer. You heard of her?"

Molly has, but he's found that not knowing things tends to lead to infinitely more interesting conversations than the alternative, so he shakes his head.

"Not an approved deity, mind you, but I've found that this close to the edge of the Empire people tend to be a little more relaxed. New Dawn's her holy day. Change and rebirth and the open road. People mostly just treat it as an excuse to get hammered, and enough of the locals are not-so-locals that they remember some of the old prayers and such. Good business for a traveling band of folks wanting to make some honest coin." He winks. "And we'll do pretty well, too."

Molly's been giving it some thought, actually. So far he's been operating on the principle of leaning into what feels right, but gods are, well. A lot. But there's something appealing about the paradox embedded in the notion of a changeless, immortal divine being dedicated to the concept of change. Doesn't make much sense at all, which feels right in a way that makes his heart race with excitement.

Experimentally, when Gustav has his back turned to resume monologuing, Molly glances up at the sky and sketches a quick bow. The flashy moment lingers a little longer than he'd expected, and he catches himself staring down at the dirt, at the tiny grains pounded by hundreds of feet and hooves and wheels into a path, a road, a thoroughfare formed by a communal desire to be elsewhere, to be in transition, to be transforming. After a moment's hesitation, he nudges off his ill-fitting boots and stands with the chill of the dirt soaking into the bottoms of his feet.

And then he laughs, loud and long and hoarse, and sprints past a bewildered Gustav down the wide-open roadway, moving forward, forward, forward.

Rise against tyranny.

- Second Commandment of Avandra

Molly's mouth is dry, his voice hoarse from yelling in Infernal. He's also got a weird pain in his back from sleeping wrong on his bedroll the night before, and, well, he's got a sword in his shoulder, which isn't exactly what he was going for when he woke up this morning, but he's aware that it's now a thing that he's going to have to deal with at some point.

The bandit who'd owned the sword is long-dead, Yasha having considerately separated his head from his body, but the battle's become frenzied enough that Molly's not sure he'll be able to snag any friendly attention without simultaneously broadcasting his position to someone who might be inclined to add another sharp, pointy object to his collection.

So he slumps back against a tree stump, dropping his own swords to get a more careful grip on the hilt of the blade, holding it steady as he sits down heavily in the grass and waits for the battle to turn one way or the other.

It's a new experience, bleeding this badly, being in this much pain. He keeps trying and failing to focus his eyes, which makes him think about the way his heart is slamming into his ribs, which makes him think about the throbbing in his shoulder, which makes it hard to focus again. This is new to him, absolutely and unambiguously not an experience he has had before, but he also knows that the person he's not, the one who lurks deep in his bones, knows this kind of pain all too well. He's breathing slowly and carefully in such a deliberate way that it had to have been learned somewhere.

His arms get a little tired holding up the sword, so he tries letting them slump to his sides, which makes the sword shift, which makes him draw in a muted hiss of breath that almost throws his rhythm off altogether. But he slips slowly, inevitably, back into the metronomic, almost hypnotic pace of breathing, in and out, in and out.

"Hey," Yasha says, staring down at him. Time must have passed, because she wasn't standing there before, and Ornna certainly wasn't crouched at his side, and, hey, no more sword, many more bloodied bandages, all good things.

"Hey yourself," he says, dreamily. "They gone? We win? That's nice."

Yasha blinks, looking nonplussed, then hesitates, as if searching for words. "You're pretty tough," she says, finally. "Looked like it hurt a lot. You didn't even yell when they pulled it out, but you were still mostly conscious for that part, I think."

He shifts, turning to meet Ornna's furrowed-brow scowl. "What did they want?"

She shrugs. "By the sorry state of their coinpurses, probably gold. Maybe some of the silks we picked up last stop. Maybe our tents. Maybe our horses. Assholes like that always feel owed the things they don't have." She sees the next question in his eyes and the hard lines of her face soften. "Nobody hurt, aside from you. Nothing serious, anyway." Apparently done with her quota for kindness for the day, she swats him on the bad shoulder, making him yelp, and walks off.

Yasha is watching him still, looming like a particularly stoic monolith. There's blood on her face that she hasn't bothered cleaning off, though her damp cloak has obviously just been scrubbed clean. "You fought really well, like you'd done it before. Scooped up those swords and just-" She motions with her hands. "-really went at it. You know?"

"Beginner's luck." Mollymauk winks. "Give me a minute to get used to not bleeding to death and I'll tell you all about how I learned that."

She snorts. "You mean, give you enough time to make up a story to fool me with." But he's pretty sure that's a smile cracking the solid wall of her face.

Unlike Gustav, Yasha appreciates the value of a good silence, so Molly lets himself fade out a bit, listening to the quiet murmur of voices, smelling the sharp tang of blood in the air, while Yasha just stands, watching him, like she's trying to make up her mind about something.

He snaps back to himself when she finally crouches down. Granted, she's still looming, but he appreciates that she's making the effort. "A friend of mine used to call the past a tyrant," she says, slowly, like she's testing each word. "That it rules cruelly when it doesn't even have the right."

Molly thinks of a half-dozen glib responses and swallows them all. "I think your friend and I would have got on well."

Yasha hesitates, then drops a heavy hand onto the top of his head, between his horns. She looks panicked for a moment, like she hadn't thought this far ahead, then clumsily ruffles his hair. "Keep the swords on the outside of you from now on," she says. "Just a suggestion."

Dazed, he watches her push to her feet and walk away.

Change is inevitable.

- Third Commandment of Avandra

Lying flat on his back some distance from the campsite, Molly cuts his deck of cards with one hand and traces new constellations in the sky with the other.

It's a habit he's been cultivating, reminiscent of children seeing familiar shapes in clouds: this little triad of stars is a stone, clearly, and the larger cluster that sprays from it is a gush of water meeting its unyielding surface. Probably deeply symbolic of standing fast in the face of overwhelming odds. Deeply symbolic of something, anyway. These things always are.

Jester, perched on a log beside him, is sketching something in her notebook, squinting to make out color in the flickering firelight, but the sounds of her scribblings are more careful and deliberate than usual, and he can feel her eyes on him. He blinks, then props himself up with one elbow, smiling. "Are you sketching me?"

"No," she says, "I'm on watch with you and doing a very good job of it and definitely not getting distracted. Definitely." She narrows her eyes. "Stop moving around."

Obediently, Molly drops back and stares at the sky again. The fog of his own breath in the cool night air is making it hard to pick out individual stars, so he has to imagine pinpricks of light in the spaces he's missing. "I wonder what it's like out there."

Jester pauses. "What, up in the stars, you mean? My momma used to tell me the night was a big blanket, but someone knew we were scared of the dark and poked some holes to let the light in."

Molly smiles, drawing back to shuffle his deck with both hands. "Thus the great theological quandary: who poked the holes?"

"I think it's different for everyone," Jester declares. "We all see the stars a little bit differently, probably. For me, it was definitely the Traveler."

"That's a nice thought," Molly says, and waits for her scribblings to slow again before sitting up. "All right, I've waited long enough. Let me see."

She grins, not a hint of shyness about her, and hands over her journal.

He was expecting something silly or obscene or both at the same time, and while there are admittedly a series of surprisingly lifelike dicks scribbled in one corner, the main subject of the painting is untouched by anything objectionable.

The figure on the page is prone, reaching up to the stars with one hand, but eclipsing even the vastness of the stellar landscape is the peacock tattoo. It runs from the side of the tiefling's face, down the shoulder, and bleeds into the earth behind and beneath, stretching outward in vivid greens and red-eyed circles that anchor the figure to the earth, with long, colorful feathers sprouting from the dirt all around like cattails.

"That's lovely, Jester," he says, softly, and hands it back to her.

"I think it's such a nice tattoo, I wanted to make it as big as your personality!" Jester frowns. "Don't you like it?"

Something of the chill down Molly's spine must have shown on his face, but he shakes it off, beaming wide. "Like it? I think it's genius. A fabulous work of art. We'll have to look for a place in town to see about converting it to a fully fledged mural or tapestry of some sort."

Jester's eyes go wide. "A tapestry? Do you think they'd do that?"

He makes a show of considering the painting. "Absolutely. Make sure they include the dicks, though. That's a vital part of the artistic oeuvre."

That sparks a genuine laugh from her. "Anyway, I think the Traveler liked it." She lowers her voice to a stage whisper. "He thinks you're weird."

Molly blinks. "He thinks I'm weird?"

"I know, right?" She winks at him, then stretches, pushes to her feet, and starts meandering in her usual first-watch circuit around the edge of the camp.

Molly stays where he is for a while longer, trying to recapture the complexity of the constellations in his mind, but all that comes to view now in the spray of stars is a set of parallel lines: long, thin feathers in the sky, planted firmly and immovably into the blackness of the void behind them, the unblinking red eyes of his tattoos drawing him down and down and down into the uncaring earth.

Rubbing some warmth back into his arms, he stands, casting an unsettled glance at the camp behind him, and stares out into the deep, dark woods, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

#critical role #critfic #critical role spoilers #eponymous fic 2018 #mollymauk tealeaf

[meditativeyoga]

The Shining

Like most meditators, I began my spiritual trip with a single, classic technique: counting my breaths. After 6 months, bored with checking, I occupied complying with the sensations of the breath and, a couple of years later on, 'simply resting'- the kicked back, concentrated, all-encompassing recognition thought about by numerous Zen masters to be the complete expression of knowledge itself.

Just sitting been successful in unwinding my body and soothing my mind, but it never ever brought the deep understandings I longed to experience. Sure, I can concentrate for extensive amount of times and also bend spoons with my laserlike focus (simply kidding!). Yet after five years of extensive hideaways, I hadn't yet accomplished kensho, the profound awakening that Zen individuals proclaim as the pinnacle of the spiritual path.

So I changed instructors and also used up the study of koans, those old training puzzles (like 'Exactly what is the audio of one hand slapping?') that aim to baffle the mind, force it to allow go of its restricted point of view, and also open it to a substantially new method of regarding truth. With the help of my teachers-who provided 'motivating' words like 'Pass away on your padding'- I succeeded over the years in producing acceptable responses to several hundred koans. I still hadn't experienced an innovation peek of my Buddha-nature. I returned to 'just sitting' as well as ultimately drifted away from Zen entirely.

After meditating periodically for a number of years, I came upon Jean Klein, a teacher of the Hindu Advaita (' non-dual') Vedanta tradition, his wisdom as well as visibility reminded me of the terrific Zen masters I 'd check out in publications. From Jean, I learned a basic concern that immediately recorded my creativity: 'Who am I?' A number of months later on, as I delicately asked, the answer I had been seeking for a lot of years was disclosed. For one reason or another, the quality as well as directness of the inquiry, along with the unwinded receptiveness of the query, permitted it to permeate deep inside and also reveal the key that lay covert there.

Both koan research as well as the inquiry 'That am I?' are conventional techniques of peeling back the layers that conceal the truth of our crucial nature the method clouds obscure the sun. Called kleshas by Buddhists and vasanas or samskaras by Hindus as well as yogis, these obscurations are the acquainted stories, feelings, self-images, beliefs, and responsive patterns that keep us understood our minimal, ego-based individuality and also seem to avoid us from open up to the nondual enormity of that we actually are: the timeless, silent, ever-present place of being, which Hindus as well as yogis call Self and Zen masters call true nature.

Most fundamental reflection methods, such as adhering to the breath or reciting a mantra, aim to relax the body, silent the mind, and grow conscious understanding of today moment. However these strategies do not urge 'the backward step' described by the popular Zen teacher Master Dogen, the one 'that turns your light inwardly to illuminate' your true nature. In regards to a standard metaphor, they soothe the pool of the mind as well as permit the debris to clear up, however they don't take us to the base where the dragon of fact lives. For this we require what the wonderful 20th-century Advaita sage Ramana Maharshi called atma vichara, or 'self-inquiry,' whether through probing inquiries like 'Who am I?' or intriguing Zen koans that plumb the midsts of our being.

Admittedly, self-inquiry is only for the mentally adventurous, those that are stressed with discovering the solutions to life's deepest questions-people like the Buddha, who sat down after years of asceticism and swore not to obtain up until he knew who he was, or Ramana Maharshi, that, when surpassed by the concern of fatality at age 16, fervently inquired right into who he was if not his physical body and also automatically awakened to his identification as the deathless, everlasting Self. Not everyone has profound as well as transformative experiences like these distinguished spiritual masters, yet each people in our very own means has the possible to capture a life-altering look of the radiant sun of real nature. Actually, just such peeks have the possible to free us from experiencing when as well as for all.

Traditionally, self-inquiry is an innovative technique usually scheduled for the spiritually mature. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, as an example, practitioners could spend years creating concentrated existence, referred to as shamatha, or 'calm abiding,' before continuing to the permeating method of vipashyana, or "insight."

In my experience, the twin practices of abiding (or relaxing) and asking job with each other like the left and also best foot in strolling. We rest in the peace and clearness of our basic sitting method, whatever it might be. After that, when the waters are relatively still, we make inquiries, and the inquiry could expose a new degree of understanding right into the silence and serenity of our crucial nature that permits us to relax much more deeply. And from this much deeper resting, we have the ability to make inquiries even further.

Ask and Receive

To begin the method of self-inquiry, sit for reflection as usual. If you do not currently have a routine practice, simply rest quietly and permit the mind to settle normally. Don't attempt to focus your mind or adjust your experience, simply remainder as awareness itself. (Your mind will not recognize what I'm talking around, however your being will.) After 10 or 15 mins, when the mind is fairly open and also existing, present the inquiry 'That am I?' The point of this question is not to involve the mind, since the mind inevitably nibbles on inquiries endlessly like a canine on a bone, with little dietary benefit. Rather, go down the question into the tranquility of your being like a pebble right into a still woodland pool. Let it send out surges through your meditation, however don't attempt to figure it out!

When the pond is serene once more, decrease in another stone and see just what takes place. Reserve any conceptual responses, such as 'I am a kid of God' or 'I am consciousness' or 'I am a soul of light,' as well as return to the concern. Real at a specific degree, these solutions will not please your appetite for spiritual nourishment. As you proceed your self-inquiry, you may see that the question starts to permeate your consciousness-you may discover yourself asking it not just throughout meditation but at unexpected times throughout the day.

Instead of 'That am I?' you may choose asking, 'Who is thinking this thought? Who is translucenting these eyes now?' These concerns guide your understanding inward, far from the external globe and towards the resource from which all experiences develop. Certainly, anything you can perceive, no issue just how intimate-including the cluster of pictures, memories, sensations, and also ideas you require you-is merely a things of perception. Yet who is the experiencer, the beholder, the supreme subject of all of those objects? This is the actual concern at the heart of 'Who am I?'

For the technique of self-inquiry to function its magic, you should already recognize at some level that words I, though superficially referring to the mind and body, in fact directs to something much further. When we state, 'I feel,' 'I see,' or 'I stroll,' we're speaking about the experiencer or doer we visualize to be inside. Yet exactly what does this 'I' appear like, as well as where is it situated? Certain, your mind believes, feels, and views, but do you really believe you reside in the mind? Otherwise, after that who are you actually? Let your query be earnest however easy, without tension or stress and anxiety. Below's a tip: You definitely won't find the response in the documents folders of spiritual beliefs you have actually collected throughout the years, so look somewhere else, in your actual, present experience. Ask on your own, 'Where is this 'I' right here and also now?'

Awake to the Present

Eventually, the question 'That am I?' discloses the answer, not as an idea or a certain experience but as a vibrant, ageless presence that underlies as well as instills every experience. When you stir up to this existence, you may be surprised to find that it has actually been there all along, as the unacknowledged context and area where life unfolds.

Both Zen as well as Advaita masters show that this awake, aware existence staring out via your eyes as well as my eyes today is the extremely same awareness that peered through the eyes of the sages and roshis of old. Though your awareness may not be as clear or as secure as theirs was, this timeless presence is really the Buddha-nature, or authentic Self, to which the wonderful bibles point.

Once you understand who you really are, you could never ever neglect it, though the mind will do its ideal to cover this truth with its immediate demands for your attention. As you keep going back to rest in the quiet presence you know on your own to be, your regular recognition with the body-mind will progressively launch, as well as you will begin to taste the tranquility and joy of real spiritual freedom. In the words of an additional terrific Indian sage, Nisargadatta Maharaj, 'You just have to discover your resource and use up your headquarters there.'

#meditating #meditation #Pranayama #spiritual #spiritually

[arrogance-is-my-middlename]

Walking the Old Paths (And Charting the New)

Ideas on the new subclasses, how each class reacts to it, what they mean, all that jazz.

 “The Light, you shape it, you tool it, that’s what a Hunter does y’know? Everything is about efficiency and necessity when you’re out in the wilds, and nobody knows that better than a Hunter.”

There was a time before the Dancers. Before Arc was remade to become a blade so sharp it hurt to touch, it was crutch to lean on. They say the Arc Light is Life, you know? Every living thing has a spark or two of Arc in it, even the Planets. And yes, the Planet lives you idiot, don’t question it. You’re still wet around the ears, stop asking questions and just listen, ok? Look, back in the old days, when we were all Risen and the Iron Lords were the only thing keeping people from slitting each other’s throats, we weren’t assassins. Traveler knows we had enough killers roaming wide, and subtlety wasn’t an art anyone but the Nightstalkers had any idea of. Naw see, back in the day we used to pull up these great big staffs, cross the field in a second and show the Fallen and their gimpy little spears what close quarters really meant. We would get refugees to towns with just the Arc light alone, just our staffs and that tingly pretty blue Light keeping the darkness at bay. And when the City was starting to come together? Take a hot guess who it was who brought in all them people. Cus it sure as shit wasn’t the Titans, they couldn’t move fast enough to get to the poor sops who were so far out into the Dead Zones they hadn’t seen anything but hostiles in generations. Warlocks were too busy trying to build every Golden Age defensive precaution back into action so we weren’t all killed before the Walls were built. So it came down to the Hunters. The Nightstalkers, especially Takanome and her Rangers, they would scout miles ahead and mark the safe paths with these flowers and tether anything that looked at ‘em funny. Gunslingers would walk in, talk the talk, get as many willing people on board as possible. When it was time to dust off and leave, the Arcstriders would pick up their staffs and lead the way. I remember one guy, he took one swing with his Arcstaff and sent 10 Fallen flying. Kid he saved held onto his cloak the entire way home. Imagine that huh? A kid clinging to an Arc Hunter. Yeah, those were some days, Greenhorn. After that though, wasn’t much need for the wandering protectors. There weren’t any crazy mass exoduses like that for centuries until… well, you know. Bladedancers came about right around then. Gunslingers and Nightstalkers have always walked the same path, probably always will. But Arcstriders were protectors of the travelers too weak and too tired to protect themselves. No more travelers, no more Arcstriders. The Dancers came in, and Arc Hunters get the big ol’ scary assassin title slapped on ‘em. Slip into the shadows, reappear halfway across the room with a knife full of arc and boom everyone’s dead and Zavala is calling it a wrap. Those were the Dancers. They knew all the dirty tricks that came with wet work. They could Blink better than half the Warlocks in the Tower, hide as well as any Nightstalker, and their knives made Strikers think twice in the Crucible. Different style for a different time, you know? But now the Red Legion is here making a fuss and you know…. I haven’t seen a Dancer since Ghaul reared his ugly mug. All them Arcstriders came right back, like they never left. Changing times, kid. Just remember, whatever you pull out of the light when you finally do figure it out, you’re a Hunter. Whether you fill a crowd with Solar bullets or tie em down with Void, or hell, if you’re full of Arc and pull our staff, just remember: it isn’t the stupid glowing ball in the sky you’re fighting for. You’re protecting all those people behind the Wall, and that is why we’re here. Don’t let the wilds make you forget that, Greenhorn.

 “Complacency is every strategist’s worst nightmare. You get lazy, you get stupid, and soon your impeccable strategy is crumbling to bits and the rug has been pulled out right underneath you.”

You understand why we have the Shield now, right? A lot of it has to do with the Firebreak Order. They had a single rule, the Firebreak Calculus. It asked, how much good would I do if I find the right place to fight and die? I’m sure you can see where this is going. It optimizes the efficiency of a Guardian, of a Titan, up until their dying breath. They were fearsome for it, moreso than any of the rest of us could ever hope to be. Even the Pilgrim Guard, with all their fire and fury for those outside the walls could not hold a candle to the Firebreak Order. It was why we failed so spectacularly when the Red Legion swept through our City, and it is why we carry a Shield now and forever. We thought ourselves safe in the City, on top of our walls with all our guns and a host of battle-tested Guardians who had held off so many invasions for centuries. If six of us could slay the Taken King in his own throne room, what could an army bring? Hubris. There is no other name for it. We fell to our own arrogance. Zavala himself sought to stand his ground and he faltered. Ask yourself this: why? Very few times have the Defenders ever let their dome of Light, the ever-present Ward of Dawn, fall. So how could it now? The very symbol and definition of a Guardian’s protection simply fell to pieces on that bloody day, and now we carry shields. The Defender Titans failed, we failed because we stood our ground instead of taking a step forward. We thought ourselves brave for standing upright against the Darkness, but we never once dared for a foothold beyond where we stood. Every single Titan Order failed and died that day because none of them did what the Firebreak Order truly dared to do: step forward and fight for what was ours. We had grown comfortable in our small corner of Earth. The Ward of Dawn, the Defender, never thought to step forward. The Sentinel does. We raise our shields and we step forward and we fight Guardian, we will fight till our dying ragged breath and then we will come back and fight some more. Sol is our home, and never again shall we make the mistake of simply watching our invaders step all over it. The only path to victory is to continue onward and refuse complacency at every turn. Learn this lesson well, Guardian. We all took the hard fall for failing to do so, and I pray you never see it repeat.

 “We told ourselves the Light wasn’t a tool, it wasn’t a weapon, it was a force unlike any other. Pure, unadulterated energy in its rawest and most primal form. We sought to be a conduit.”

There is no Guardian prouder than we Warlocks, and not without reason. Within our number hold some of the strongest Guardians to ever brave the Second Death, and of all the orders, only Warlocks thought to use Light as light and not as a tool. Hunters make bows and pistols and blades, they craft Light. Fitting, for a Hunter scavenges what he can get from the Wilds and never wastes what he finds. Titans create a point, a focus for their Light. They form a fist, a Shield, a Hammer, all with their indomitable will. A Titan makes her light a weapon and stands stronger for it, for she is never unarmed and never unprepared. Hunters are the blades that carve Light into a shape of their choosing, and Titans are the spear-tip that makes Light a weapon to defend any and all. Fearsome and cunning warriors both make, but they fundamentally fail to know the Light like we Warlocks do. We do not force or shape the Light, we become one with the Light. We are the conduits through which the Light flows, and from our fingertips we wield power like no other. Stormcallers were forces of nature, the epicenter of a storm without end. Voidwalkers saw beyond the veil, they walked with death and shadows and called both friend. And once, Sunsingers, did what no other could: they defied the Second Death. Even without a Ghost, a true Sunsinger could use the Solar light to form themselves from nothing and burn like the phoenix of old. We thought ourselves mages and scholars without equal, we fancied ourselves as dragons, especially after we faced true dragons that whispered deals and whose bones gave us strength. Knowledge and understanding was our gain, our true purpose, and Osiris and Toland both would agree wholeheartedly. We drank of strength and Light till we forgot who we were, and when Ghaul came we crashed back to earth and broke ourselves on the ground we thought ourselves too mighty to touch. And would you like to know how we recovered, young Guardian? We ­changed. Our songs of the sun turned to screams of vengeance, and we lit our blood on fire just to rise again. No Sunsinger will ever rise again, not in this life or the next. The Dawnblade has replaced that particular fantasy, and with good reason. A conduit cannot tear burning vengeance into he who stripped us of our home and friends. We thank him, for reminding us of our humanity. Our gift back to Ghaul was a blade of sun-fire buried deep in his chest, and a vow to never lose ourselves in the stars again. Our folly was pride, our lesson was loss, and our strength is bound in a blade of Light we would have once scorned. We learned the lesson that Titans and Hunters had already so long ago figured out: that Light is ours to use and wield to protect that which we love. The how matters very little when all the chips are down, only that you succeed. Of course, it helps that Hunters are jealous we can fly and don’t have to pull our sword from the hands of a dead Captain, but you didn’t hear that from me.

#Destiny2 #Destiny the game #subclasses #destiny hunter #destiny titan #destiny warlock #my writing #fanfic