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windtooth-plane · 3 months

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{Hey there!}

{I'll just get right into the rules and notes. Below said rules and notes will be lore, extra stuff and reference sheets.}

{1. Uploading may vary from time to time as my motivation is rather silly if you want to put it that way. Please do not expect updates in small periods of time, and please do not pressure me to upload anything.}

{2. This blog is run by @nixii-sabre , however, multiple other characters belong to @chaoticgoober and chickenboi on discord- and non-frequently a few other folk. If you have any technical questions or other questions feel free to ask me.}

{3. Suggestiveness is occasionally allowed, however please do not overdo it. No complete NSFW. Most heavier suggestive asks will be deleted or answered if the ask belongs to one of my closer friends who actually know the lore as well as various other inside jokes.}

{4. If your question specifically takes place at a different time of the story, please say if it does. If you don't say, I will immediately assume where it is in the timeline.}

{5. Please do not antagonize me or other askers. Anonymous is always allowed however please do not send any negative stuff or hate.}

{6. Some asks will be answered with simple text, some drawings or doodles here and there, or sometimes full illustrations and/or comics. Please do not expect absolute top-notch with every ask.}

{7. Fanart and giftart is completely always allowed. If you can. @ me (the moderator) whenever you make it! I'd love to see it. However please do not claim any of the characters here as yours, do not copy designs or trace any artwork shone. Just simple art rules n' stuff.}

{And finally, for lore and reference sheets, read under the cut!}

Endless Moving Nights He/They 3rd Gen Endless Moving Nights is usually referred to as "Nights" or more commonly "Endless" as for short. He majors in Biological mechanics and his facility status is currently collapsed after Hidden Niche of Pearls sent a large squad of scavengers and used highly reactive explosives. Before the collapse, Endless had severe insomnia and tended to stay up late into the cycle to work on finding the solution to The Great Problem. He (somewhat) found the solution to, but it was far too dangerous without testing. He had contacted his friend, Witch of Twin Stars to test it out for him- as it was technically a way to save her from the immense rot in her superstructure. She was dying, and what Endless was offering was a body switch into a slugcat subspecies. The subspecies being the only bipedal smart enough in Endless' facility that could be rewired to comprehend the ability to bodyswitch- Bottomfeeders. He sent one of his Bottomfeeders to Witch's can- in which Witch enacted on the instructions Endless had given to her. It was a success, however due to the 'solution' being far too close to being against the self-destruct taboo itself- they both kept it a secret. One of Endless' personal logs stored in a data pearl was 'accidentally' delivered to Hidden Niche of pearls- the iterator being extremely lawful. After the collapse, Endless' half-dead puppet was brought to Pines' can where he was hooked up to an emergency port for an umbilical.

Clock of the North She/Her 3rd Gen Clock of the North- formally known as Clock that Forever Points to the Northern Sky or a simpler short name just being Clock. She used to frequently learn more and more about botany and alchemy- however one time, her potion created The Rot in her superstructure. It spread, and she eventually soon collapsed. The rot had gotten partially cleaned up by a squad of slugcats sent by Green Pines, however, when Clock was kidnapped it simply invited itself back in. A large prehistoric slugcat named Memory had taken Clock to an iterator's facility from another local group, which has since been resolved. She was taken to Pines' can for a short amount of time before deciding to leave to beeline from there, to Chime's can, to her own can to finally get back to. She's close friends with Green Pines and Endless Moving Nights.

One Last Chime He/They 2nd Gen One Last Chime, commonly known as Chime or Chimes. One Last Chime is best friends with Endless Moving Nights, WAS friends with Howling Winds, and is either neutral to everybody else or hates everybody else. Ever since Clock of the North was created, it was rather obvious Chime had a big fat crush on her. He talked to her almost every cycle trying to engage her in conversation, frequently showing that he cared about her and just liked talking to her in general. That was until he accused Pines of simply wanting to use clock and claiming he was untrustworthy- and also accidentally slipped out that he loved her. Clock cut off all communication with him for many cycles. They only started talking again- just as friends- when Clock was transported to Pines' can. Chime still has often arguments with Pines, however, he is beginning to become good friends nowadays. Chime is now beginning to realize he has a crush on Endless now which is gonna end fine and dandy! (it's not)

Hidden Niche of Pearls She/They 2nd Gen Hidden Niche of Pearls- normally known as Pearls or more commonly as Niche. Niche is an extremely lawful neutral iterator with a high sense of regal and betterness. She understands her place in situations, however enjoys being formal- especially with other iterators. Niche likes to indulge in cultural study from the ancients to her own scavenger colony. Her colony of scavengers respect her and see her as their caretaker and leader, however, there's one particular scavenger- Cookie- she has a direct bond with. Cookie is a young scavenger working to become an elite with her siblings Sylvester and Natalie, and she occasionally pays Niche a visit. They'll talk a lot and Niche lets her guard down whenever with the little scavenger. She feels like a mother figure to Cookie, and Cookie feels like a child figure to Niche. Pearls is slightly antisocial as she would rather spend her time studying or talking to Cookie- and she also has mild paranoia due to a certain fallacy from another iterator which had lead to her breaking her morals.

Green Pines He/Him 2nd Gen Green Pines- almost always referred to as Pines. Pines is an authoritive yet layed back iterator with a set of his own code and morals. He frequently got into heavy arguments with the iterator Howling Winds- one day Winds sent him a file that was supposed to help him find the solution. Pines was grateful but suspicious of the hospitality- and rightfully so. The file contracted rot that quickly spread through Pines' superstructure. He was silent for a long time, however in that time had been readying a slugcat colony. The slugcats had cleared out almost all of his rot, and 40-50 of them had been sent to take out Winds for what he had done. Only one of them came back alive, however the mission was successful. After word was out that Pines had murdered Winds, most iterators banned him from chats and/or simply resented him. However Clock of the North believed his intentions were good. She didn't have a good relationship with Winds either, as he tended to be rather hostile. Later on in time, Pines began to rebuild his reputation back up and became friends with most iterators in his local group. He cares dearly for his colony of slugcats and hopes for them to continue advancing without the constant threat of rain above the clouds on his superstructure.

Witch of Twin Stars He/Her 2nd Gen Witch of Twin Stars- the slugcat now encompanying her puppet is referred to as Kasume, however the iterator who body switched with the slugcat is simply reffered to as The Witch or just Witch. After being body switched, Witch set off to head to the Void Sea where she would then attempt to ascend and see if the solution was truly plausible. Along the way, she met a fluffy yellow slugcat named Sunny- and the pup they took care of, Junior. While travelling, Witch had not told Sunny about her intentions, nor was she sure if the slugcat friend could comprehend it. She began growing a close bond with Sunny, and when it came time to dip into the void sea, she came back up. She couldn't do it. She couldn't leave what she had behind. She headed to Endless' can without telling Sunny or Junior where she was going only to find he had since collapsed. Witch found a pup of her own that she treats as her son- Smoky. They have since been living in Pines' colony.

Karmic Obnoxious Inaccuracy She/It 1st Gen Karmic Obnoxious Inaccuracy, almost always referred to as Koi. She isn't technically a part of Windtooth Plane as she's a bit farther away with no local group of her own, though was originally created to be a part of it. She has no communications with the local group, however she does have communications (occasionally) with her brother Endless. Her facility is submerged underwater, so her arrays and different parts of the superstructure constantly get flooded- making communications somewhat unreliable a lot of the time. She's a bit of an aggressively caring iterator with a strong protectiveness over her brother. She doesn't talk to many other people, however, she has had a word or two with One Last Chime.

Howling Winds He/Him 2nd Gen Howling Winds, sometimes referred to as just Winds. Winds is a highly 'lawful' iterator who frequently antagonizes most others. Despite having administrator privileges before he was murdered, he worked in illegal arsenal manufacturing- weaponry, essentially. Most iterators were neutral toward him, however he had a personal vendetta against Green Pines. The only two people he conversed with as friends were Endless Moving Nights and One Last Chime, however Chime moreso tolerated him than not.

(FYI, the second and third image are NOT alternate outfits. The second one is what's underneath the cloak.)

Angel of Dominance She/Her 3rd Gen An iterator who was kidnapped by an iterator of her own local group. She had many experiments done on her and eventually was found dead by Pines' slugcats. She was brought to the facility and temporarily revived but due to a large surgical cut from her hips to her chest, she was in constant pain. The temporary revival was taken away as they did not have the resources to keep her puppet maintained. Eventually, her puppet was rehooked up to the structure when Endless effectively left. She hopes to one day go back to her can in Loveless Meije, however with it being left unattended for some time there's a chance it'll collapse soon.

OTHER ITERATORS (the one's without reference sheets)

Eight Islands Under Storm Clouds He/Him 2nd Gen An iterator in Windtooth Plane who's extremely antisocial. They haven't said a word to the local group other than Niche. He was created for the purpose of making explosives.

Two Rocks Eroding He/Him 2nd Gen Another iterator who's not necessarily in Windtooth plane, but is in the area. They haven't spoken to anybody.

Pristine Snow, Twisted Mountains She/They 2nd Gen An iterator who was previously conceived as dead from a power surge. Their facility was built on top of a snowy mountain that has heavy snowfalls. They have spoken to the local group a few times here or there but has mostly talked to Green Pines. Their 'death' was soon discovered as faked. She has broken many taboos- almost all of them, to be exact.

Misguided Information Any/All 3rd Gen INFORMATION CLASSIFIED

{ Clock of the North and One Last Chime both belong to @chaoticgoober . Green Pines, Howling Winds and Pristine Snow, Twisted Mountains all belong to chickenboi on discord. Two Rocks Eroding belongs to King STAZE on all platforms (mostly). Eight Islands Under Storm Clouds belongs to my brother, SomethingUnusual (on all platforms). Everyone else belongs to me. }

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phoenixisnthere · 5 months

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List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers ♡

Thanks!

1. Video games

2. Kitty cat

3. Hubby

4. Weed

5. Mac and cheese

#witch-of-snow-and-stars #asks

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esther-dot · 5 months

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Beauty and the Beast

Tokens of Life (give me) 9k WIP by @ihaveastorminme

Jon thought of his mother's family often. But he never heard a whisper from them. Not once. Until the day the northern wind howled through the ancestral halls of the dragon Queens, bringing with it snow and wolves’ cries at its tail. Five hundred different deities in that hall, and nobody whispered when she walked in, tall and forbidding, the skirts of her dress swirling about her like mist and snow glittering unmelted in her flame hair. She looked at him... and everything changed.

No Rose Without a Thorn 24k

Ten years ago, the Others were defeated, the Starks took back the North, the Targaryens reclaimed the Iron Throne, and the Old Gods transformed Sansa Stark into a dread and dangerous beast. Now, winter is coming, the beast remains, and the family would really like Sansa to be a full time human again.

The Beast, the Beauty, and the Bastard 3k

It is a reworking of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, but with a bit of a twist. Hope you enjoy!

Certain As the Sun 22k, incomplete

Sansa is bright, beautiful, and out of place in her little town. After her father is captured in a forgotten castle, she moves to take his place with the cursed prince.

Gifset by @dcbicki and Gifset by @yenstarkofrivia

Rapunzel

From Tower to Tower 10k incomplete

Locked away in a tower for eighteen years by a witch claiming to be her Mother, long-haired Sansa seeks freedom and a chance to regain her crown as Princess of the kingdom. But the tower is high as she has no means to get down, aside from her incredibly long hair, and no guarantee of safety in the outside world she has been warned about. One night, when the witch is out, and a thief who climbs the tower seeking refuge happens upon her, she stuns herself by taking a chance and asking him to help her escape. Assuring him that she will have all charges against him dropped when he returns her to her rightful parents, she embarks on a series of first discoveries with her new bandit friend Jon.

I'll not be climbin' up, I'll only be calling good morning 13k @violetcoloredglasses

Princess Sansa, the rightful queen, has been trapped in a tower by her usurping step-mother for nigh on three years now. Between the benevolent interference of a local woods-witch, the seemingly random appearance of a dashing young man on a horse, and a magical book that Sansa uses to turn a man into a crow, she may have found a way to change her stars.

flower shaped heart 25k, incomplete @missfaber

Alayne Stone has lived her whole life in her hidden tower, forbidden by Mother to leave. But she yearns for an adventure like the ones in the songs, so when a man named Jon Snow crashes into her tower and into her life, she seizes the chance. They travel to King's Landing where the floating lanterns shine each year on her nameday. The new world is exciting and frightening, but Jon Snow is there to guide her every step. He is not nearly as terrible as Mother said men are, though the rest of the world might be. Danger, betrayals, and lies form the steps of their journey as Alayne uncovers terrible secrets. corresponding moodboard

Let Down Your Red Hair .6k

A Jonsa Rapunzel story told in verse. With her father beheaded and her brother marching against the king, the last thing Sansa expects is for her hair to never stop growing. She is soon locked away in the tallest tower of the Red Keep, withdrawn from court as the War of the Five Kings rages on. Elsewhere, rumors of her magical hair have spread to the Wildlings, who see her fiery strands as their last hope against the coming winter.

Tangled edit by @kitten1618x, Tangled edit by @queen-sans-in-the-north, Tangled edit by @sardoniyx

Tangled gifset by @dcbicki

Sleeping Beauty

La Belle au bois dormant 4k

When The North celebrates the birth of Lady Sansa, all the realm is invited to celebrate with them. Each Lady of a Great House bestows a gift upon the little lady, including Cersei Lannister, whose presence at the celebration is both unexpected and unnerving.

Once upon a Dream 1k by @azulaahai

Sansa is under a curse - fallen into a magical sleep, she, according to the prophecy, can only be awoken by a kiss from a dragon. Arya rides south to ask for help from the dragon king Aegon, but the king’s grumpy half brother Jon might prove to be an obstacle.

Visions are Seldom All They Seem 14k

Sansa Stark is sure her life is a great song. She's a beautiful princess. She's been cursed. And the only way it will be broken is to sleep for a hundred years and be awoken by true love's kiss, given by a king's son. She's more then happy to prick her finger if it means getting her happily ever after with a handsome prince all the sooner. But a hundred years is a long time. To be fair to Sansa, Jon did not realize how long it would be either.

Sleeping Beauty Gifset

East of the Sun and West of the Moon

you are my sun, my moon (and all of my stars) 133k

When the white wolf came, the Lord of Winterfell had no choice but to give him his eldest daughter. Eddard Stark had grown up on legends of wolves, on the stories of bargains made by the First Men, on the knowledge of the price that he and his family might one day be forced to pay. His father had explained the reason their house had taken a wolf as its heraldry and “Winter is Coming” as its motto, a reminder of a promise to honor, a recognition of a debt owed that would need, one day, to be paid. Ned had breathed a sigh of relief when his sister’s twentieth winter arrived and the beast had not. And he had watched the dawn sky for the first signs of the snow that would mark that his daughter, too, might also be spared, might escape the fate that had been handed down by their ancestors. But no man could be so lucky. Sansa, too, had been born with the North in her blood, had been raised on the stories of white wolves, had lived her life with the knowledge that one might come for her.

this is the map of my heart, the landscape after cruelty 22k by @dialux

“I fell,” Sansa says softly. “I flew.” [When a strange, hooded man appears out of nowhere, demanding a woman in return for keeping the Others and dead out of Westeros, Sansa goes with him. It’s the best and worst decision of her life.]

PRE CANON - WESTERN - REGENCY - LITTLE WOMEN - HOLIDAY - SEASON 6

#jonsa #jonsa fic #fairytale au #there will be a part 2 #there are a lot of fairytale fics 😅#beauty and the beast au #rapunzel au #tangled au #sleeping beauty au #east of the sun and west of the moon au #dot fic list

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demigoddessqueens · 5 months

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masterlist 9

Assassin’s Creed - Eivor bf headcanons // shay hurt & comfort // protective Haytham // Ezio, Connor headcanons // Altair + novice // yearning (horny) Haytham // chaotic good + Altair and Haytham // shay and his fierce s/o // dom Evie // brat + Evie // Haytham bday picnic // toy maker type // NSFW Haytham // ASMR fluff // pegging + bondage headcanons // their lover is kidnapped // Basim fluff 💕 // massages // cyberpunk AU // Haytham morning domestic fluff // Ezio + secret child // Basim smut + fluff // cirque de soleil // Basim post-Mirage // star-crossed 💕lovers 💞// cuddling Shay // sick Haytham // sibling figure to Evie //friends with your birds 🦅 // Basim angst // guilty pleasures // punch 🤜 Birch //

AC fics - bath fluff

Codexmonthly - January “climb” //

Writing prompts - Yusuf + kiss // Basim + kiss //

Call of Duty - holiday headcanons //

Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss 🔥 - orange 🍊 peel + others //

Blood of Zeus ⚡️ - fluff headcanons // Altar for them //

Spiderverse - valentines 💝 with Miguel //

Marvel - sibling of Carol Danvers //

Hunger Games/TBoSAS - snow “love” language //

Critical Role

Combined parties asks - beauty and the beast!Reader // music 🎶 ask // music batch ask 2 //

music album ask

Vox Machina - cuddling in your sleep // have something of theirs // time traveler reader // Feywild antics (again) // their crush wears armor // wanna go on a date? 💞 // fighting the spirit of revenge // musical joints // 8ft and full of fluff // ranger + a dragon // Percy + reviving you // party fluff headcanons //

➡️↪️ writing prompt + keyleth //

Mighty Nein - song(s) fic + Caleb // ghostrider!reader // song fic(s) + Mollymauk/Kingsley //

Bell’s Hells/Crown Keepers - song fic + Ashton // song fic(s) + Orym //

➡️↪️ writing prompt + Ashton //

Song 🎵 🎶 fics - batch 1 (Vax) // batch 2 - Dorian // batch 3 -Essek // batch 4 - caleb & Cadeuces //

Castlevania - Dracula nsfw headcanons // Alucard, Isaac, Trevor + witch & familiar // Alucard and demigod child //

Castlevania Nocturne - fending off rude family member //

Exophlia - deer-satyr + “fun times” in the snow //

Baldur’s Gate - astarion w/ mute!Tav // Gale taking care of you // remember what they say // Rolan fluff (feat. human!tav) // Karlach + angst prompt + cuddles // Tav + animal menagerie // Astarion + predator and prey // mistletoe headcanons // late Halloween 🎃 ask // Astarion + owl curse reader // rolan + human tav kiss // tieflings + you remembered what they said // Wyll + tiefling // giving them a shy kiss //

One Piece - Mihawk holiday headcanons //

Genshin Impact - soft Neuv headcanons //

Stardew 💫 Valley - holiday headcanons //

Arcane/League of Legends - you got them a gift //

DC - sibling of Diana Prince (WW) ft trans reader //

Dragon 🐉 Age - Anders & Sebastian + writing prompt //

The Last of Us/Overwatch/Red Dead Resmeption - valentines 💘

Cowboy 🪐 Bebop 💫 - valentines 💘 headcanons //

Star 💫 Wars - coming out to them //

The Arcana ✨ - Lucio + blood kink // giving the boys head 👅 //

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starshinedragon · 4 months

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SSO: WINTERDALE Fan written main storyline

The Map of Winterdale:

The Life Warden Trees of Winterdale:

Story design:

-> This is the updated version of an old post, taking into account the new main story quests and describing the quests in much more detail. -> It takes place after aging Concorde up and escaping Devil's Gap, after all of the main story quests up to 2023 December. -> Part of SSO Rewritten (my writing project of the whole story of SSO until defeating Garnok). You can find the story related posts with the tag "sso rewritten" -> Phases 1-2-3 is the main story so far, here I wrote phases 4-5-6 which are the main story quests connected to Winterdale.

-> The area of Winterdale was established in the Star Stable Winter Riders game and I added elements from SSO (kallters, rangers, druids) to fill in the empty places. The focus characters of the Winterdale main storyline are going to be Katja (as the main opponent), Linda (as she is her rival), Mr Sands (redemption arc) and the kallters. The setup for them is already in the game with the extremely effective hook when the MC spots them in Dino Valley leaving. The thematic guide for the Winterdale story is the rumor of the Ice Witch, already suspected to be Katja. The final confrontation of this phase is tied to Garnok and Pandoria.

So saddle up and get ready for the adventure!

PHASE 4 – Entering and exploring Winterdale

PART 1: Icestorm

Unlocking Winterdale:

-> MC is called to Valedale. At the runestones before the portal spiral leading to the Secret Stone circle, we meet with Avalon, Evergray and the druids who arrived from Winterdale. The leader of the Winterdale druids is Cairn Stevenson (middle aged, but younger than Evergray, white beard, blue and brown robes) and his horse is a white Percheron wearing new brown and light blue druid tack, called Ossian. They came to ask for help, since the storm in Winterdale has gotten worse. Last night a huge blizzard hit the valley and they think it is magical and suspect the hand of the Ice Witch might be in it. They are unable to dispel it and ask for the help of the Soul Riders.

-> We ride with them through Dino valley and they give us some exposition about Winterdale. They say Pine Hill ruled over most of the valley historically. They tell us about the cold micro climate, when the kallters migrated from Dino Valley to Winterdale, and that the current persisting winter storm started many years ago. The storm is sometimes weaker, sometimes stronger, but always present. It cut them off from the other parts of Jorvik as the Frostfire pass leading to Ashland and the Seaview pass leading to Marchenghast froze over and the blizzard halted the works on Northlink tunnel. The Lord of Pine Hill mansion, who has the strongest voice in how Winterdale runs itself does not seem to care anymore. Avalon asks them how did they leave and intend to go back to Winterdale then if there is no way open.

-> MC, the Soul Riders, Avalon, Evergray and Cairn arrive at the Icengate where Nanook and Sedna (kallters) wait for us on horseback. They perform a ritual and open the magical lock on the passage. The team is escorted through the tunnel of ice and rock, made of a similar design as Stonecutter’s vault. Halfway through it Magnus Steinar’s ghost appears as he guards this tunnel. Sedna tells him everyone here is a friend and they are to have safe passage through the Icengate whenever they please. The team exits the tunnel high in the mountains and looks over the snow covered Winterdale valley ravaged by the blizzard.

Fighting the Storm:

-> The team descends on the steep Meander trail (from the Winter Rider game) and arrives in Meander Stables, where the druids set up camp. You are greeted by Eric Lowe, the owner or Meander stables. There you are introduced to the other druid characters of Winterdale by Cairn. They tell you of the situation: the magical storm started some days ago and won’t stop. Katja’s frost powers wreaks havoc, flash freezes sweep across the valley every other minute and the winds, snow and raining icicles destroy houses, stables and threaten to freeze everyone to death. The team is asked to help the valley. MC agrees to help, while the druids try to figure out a solution to stop the storm.

-> MC is sent on four different missions in four consecutive days with the Soul Riders to introduce you to the layout of Winterdale. For each mission, you go to a location in Winterdale to help the people fight the storm by dispelling frost, gathering firewood, saving the animals, etc. To get anywhere, you have to ride through the storm. Each time a flash freeze is coming you have to take cover. Icicles rain on the way indicated by the circles appearing in front of your horse that you have to dodge. You and your Soul Rider partner get there, help out and return to Meander. First, you go with Lisa to Cape Point village, next with Anne to Icewind Station, then with Linda to Pine Hill village and finally with Alex to Anvil Woods Druid Village and back to Meander.

Dispelling the Storm:

-> In the meantime, Evergray and the druids tried everything and figured out that they can’t dispel the storm alone and need help from Fripp. MC is sent to ride back to Valedale through the Meander trail, Icengate passage and Dino valley (there is not an available trailer in Meander yet- not until you open Northlink). You ride to the spiral portal in Valedale and fail to open the way.

-> Katja appears on horseback, cornering MC, tells you that they have blocked your access to the Secret Stone Circle. MC vows to stop her terror of Winterdale, but she just laughs and tells you not if I stop you first – forever! She sends fer frigid powers after you. You race back to Meander the way you came, dodging icicles and also Ice Spectres, that are like shadow seekers, but made of mist and frost and are controlled by Katja. You get back to Meander and tell the druids that Katja blocked you from opening the portal. Evergray is unusually cheerful about this and when they ask him why is this a good thing, he tell you that he figured it out. Katja blocked you from going to the Secret Stone Circle, because the solution lies there. By uniting the power of MC, the Soul Riders, druids and kallters and Fripp, you will be able to stop the storm. Avalon, the forever optimist points out the only problem is getting there.

-> You can actually get to the Secret Stone Circle on foot, however, there is one problem besides the storm, and that is the cursed Nightmare Forest. You have avoided it so far, taking the paths next to the Meander river, but now you have to go through it. As only the Soul Horses are strong enough to go through the storm and the dark forest, Alex, Anne, Lisa and Linda are riding double with Cairn, Avalon, Sedna and Uyarak (the other magic user of the kallters beside Sedna) and MC takes Evergray. You ride through the storm, hiding from the flash freezes and ride into the dark forest. The Nightmare Woods in covered in snow and ice, shadow seekers patrol and dark blue and purple wisp-like spirits drift amidst the gloomy trees. The team takes the path through the abandoned Crescent Lake Ranger Station up to the Aurora pass and then the western road leading up to Starshine Mountain. You ride up the steep mountain path (design based on the Starshine Legacy games) and get to the broken bridge.

-> Katja appears behind you sending an army of Ice Spectres. You run through the narrow path and jump the broken bridge. She stops before the jump and her horse rears, not being able to come closer to the Secret Stone Circle. Fripp awaits you in the circle and tells you don’t worry, no servant of darkness can come into the circle again, because he woke up the guardian tree of the Circle: Astral Crown. You see the formerly leafless big tree towering over the circle now covered in azure and lilac leaves, that shine like stars. The riders dismount and form a magic circle, everyone positioning themselves in front of each runestone. They perform a ritual and dispel Katja’s Icestorm from Winterdale.

PART 2: Exploring the valley

The Roads to Winterdale: Marchenghast and Northlink

-> Now that the storm is gone, MC can properly explore the valley. The Secret Stone Circle’s portal to Valedale is open again. A cutscene takes you back to Meander so you don’t have to ride through Dino valley again. Eric, the owner of Meander stables thanks you for saving the stables and the village and promises to put in a good word for you for each place in Winterdale. The Meander Championship is unlocked, it runs through the Coldstone forest and Frostbitten fields.

-> After the full introduction to the Meander area, it is time to open Winterdale properly for people and the horse trailers. Eric sends you to Cape Point to meet a ranger friend of his (Aiobhinn, the leader of the Winterdale rangers) who will lead you through the Seaside pass up to the Marchenghast Castle. Eric apparently knows everyone in Winterdale.

-> At the Marchenghast Castle they open the gate for you. There are very few people and servants there and MC meets the lord of the castle. He was told that you stopped the storm and asks how. As you can’t say magic, can choose from different stupid options to try to explain scientifically how you stopped a whole blizzard. Whatever you choose, Lord Marchenghast laughs and says he know about magic in Jorvik, don’t worry he just thought you would be better at lying. He opens the gates and grants you safe passage through the castle and estate and sends you on your way. The rocks have been removed from the road in Goldenhills and cars can now access it, opening the trailer options in Winterdale.

-> MC rides to the Baroness and tells her that the storm is over and the work on the Northlink tunnel can continue. You are sent to tell this to the workers. While the main story calls you back to Meander, the tunnel dailies are now unlocked, requiring you to help in the work for seven days to build the tunnel.

Rangers and Pine Hill:

-> Eric tells you Aiobhinn liked you and is willing to properly show you Winterdale, now that the storm is gone. You are led though Coldstone forest with the blue crystals and trail riding pathways and arrive in Explorer’s Rest Ranger Station. You are going with Aiobhinn as she checks on all of her rangers throughout the valley. You help the rangers clear the paths covered by the snowstorm, unlock races. They show you the path leading to Frostfire pass, but it is not accessible, until it melts.

-> Next, you ride north, and he shows you Pine Hill village and tells the gossip about the lord of the mansion, Mr Sands. You meet the people of the village and stables, unlocking many side quests. The ranger shows you the Rimefang woods, but you only ride on the path next to Meander river, because the forest is infested with wolves. Frosted mammoth pine trees, fallen trunks, misty woods. If you go too close to a wolf, it will start to chase you and you need to gallop to lose it. If it catches you, you are teleported out of the woods with the message: “Your horse got you out, but be careful, next time you might not be this lucky!” She tells you there is a hidden kallter village in the middle, but you can’t reach it, unless they invite you.

-> You ride to Icewind station. You meet Henry Stevenson(the old guy from the Winter Riders game), second in command to Aiobhinn and brother of Cairn who is the leader of the rangers at Icewind station. He reports to Aiobhinn and tells you the rumors about the Nightmare Woods and that there are two abandoned stations there. They plan to man them again one day, but not until the woods are haunted. You unlock side quests and races in the Icewind Woods.

Druids and Cape Point:

-> Aiobhinn remains in Icewind and Henry offers to guide you through Anvil Woods to meet the druids and his brother. You ride to Anvil Woods and are introduced to their Life Warden Tree, Wise Leaf. They built their village around it. The tree is a gigantic oak who talks in verses, metaphors and talks like an old wizard and is generally whimsical and wholesome. In the side quests, you help the druids fight against Dark Core, as the corporation wants to cut down the forest. The Anvil Bay Championship is unlocked (joint project of the druids and rangers, organized by Henry and Cairn, running through Anvil and Icewind).

-> The druids tell you of their brothers and sisters in the other druid village of Winterdale: Jorwatch. You go there and meet them, unlock quests. They tell you that they guard the path leading to Jorcrater, since noone is allowed to enter as it is too dangerous. Finally, MC is asked to meet Fripp and Cairn in the Secret Stone Circle and you are rewarded with 100 Star Coins (just like at the end of each phase).

PHASE 5- The Kallters and Mr Sands

PART 1: The Redemption of Mr Sands

Secrets of Pine Hill Mansion:

-> Meeting at the Secret Stone Circle. The dark side have been awfully quiet lately and the Soul Riders suspect they are up to something. With Pine Hill Mansion so close, Linda proposes a plan for she and MC to sneak into Pine Hill Mansion (like she did in Starshine Legacy 2) and gather information. MC meets Linda in Pine Hill Village and they wait for nightfall.

-> The hole in the wall Lisa made back in SSL 2 is still there, hidden by a bush, but Linda knows where to find it. It is dark now and you have to find your way through the maze. You do, but there are some guards and dogs outside the house, you have to sneak past them. This time, unlike in the game, you get in through the greenhouse after finding an open glass panel. Linda tells you of the adventure they had here back in high school with Lisa, when she got stuck up in a scaffolding. Luckily, the house itself is empty so you are free to wander.

-> In the main hall, Linda shows you the pictures of the Soul Riders she saw last time here. However, there are four new pictures on the walls, paintings of the Dark Riders (Sabine, Katja and Jessica) similar in style, wearing similar ceremonial dresses. The fourth picture is still covered with a tarp, high on the wall, so you can’t see. MC and Linda get into the library and start looking for clues. Linda finds Sands’ journal. They find out about Rosalind, who was burned at the stake hundreds of years ago for being a suspected witch. She was in fact, a druid and Sands hates the druids because they didn’t save her. He himself turned to dark magics trying to bring her back, but only managed to reach Garnok, who offered him immortality and Rosalind back if he helps the forces of darkness achieve victory.

-> Mr Sands appears and captures them, trapping them in two magic circles. Linda and MC focus their powers (playing a slider-click mini game), but cannot bring his spell. Linda asks him about Rosalind and tells him she understands why he did it, but this is not the way. She manages to upset Mr Sands enough to break his concentration and MC breaks the magic circles. Linda makes a moonlight flash and they run away, escape through the main entrance. Meteor and MC’s horse wait for them there and they escape Pine Hill Mansion.

Saving Justin (again):

-> Katja makes a plan to lure the Soul Riders into a trap. Just like she kidnapped James in Starshine Legacy 4, she now plans to kidnap Justin. Justin has discovered his druid powers since meeting the Singing Yew in South Hoof and has been training. Justin was to meet MC for training in Silverglade, but he doesn’t arrive. After waiting a bit, you get up to investigate. MC finds signs of struggle and uses moon vision to see what happened. You see Katja surprising Justin and even though he tries to fight back, Katja charms and mind controls him, like she did to James. You call the Soul Riders to tell them Justin was kidnapped, but they say Katja already called and gave them an ultimatum: she wants MC to come to Dark Core Platform and bring their Soul Horse.

-> It is an obvious trap, but you have to go. No sneaking this time: you are to meet the goons at the DC ferry in Moorland. MC and their horse are brought to the platform and led in front of the portal, where Katja, Jess, Sabine and Mr Sands wait for you. Katja is keeping Justin in a magic circle at the edge of the platform where he last fell and Mr Sands is not happy about this situation at all.

-> Katja says get on with it, sacrifice MC’s horse to bring Garnok into this world. MC uses her powers to make a shield around them. Katja says fine, then I will push Justin off the platform and time you can’t save him. MC asks Sands if he is going to let this happen? What would Rosalind think of him now? She would surely not want a kid to die so she can live again? Mr Sands hesitates, doesn’t know if he is willing to sacrifice Justin for a promise of Rosalind. MC says Garnok is a force of destruction, not life and he is lying to Sands and cannot bring back Rosa, but Justin lives and he is his family. Katja is waiting for permission from Sands and she is getting more impatient by the minute. She yells at Sands to give the order and he can’t.

-> Katja pushes Justin off the platform and MC can’t do anything from the shield. The Dark Riders laugh, but Justin levitates back up. He says he has been practicing and just like his mother, Catherine, he is also very talented. He didn’t like almost dying the last time and prepared for this case. Katja is furious, and raises her hand at him, saying, cute, but cheap tricks won’t save you from the true power of darkness. She shoots dark energy at him, but a shield appears around Justin, cast by Mr Sands and it reflects the power back to hit Katja. The explosion also dazes Sabine and Jess.

-> Sands shouts at MC to flee and take Justin while they are dazed. Justin jumps on your horse and you also want to take Sands. Before he can react, a blast of dark energy hits him from behind, cast as a joint spell of Jess and Sabine. Jessica says I have always wanted to do that. You have to flee and leave Sands there.

-> You escape the platform and leave with the little boat to Goldenhills. You ride to Jasper’s farm with Justin and meet the Soul Riders there. Jasper is scolding you for getting Justin into trouble, doesn’t like this druid business that took his Catherine from him. You tell the others what happened. Linda speaks up, says I am fine with being the one to say it, but we need to save Mr Sands now. Justin agrees.

Saving Mr Sands:

-> Meeting at the Valedale spiral, going to the Secret Stone Circle, Justin is also there. Reporting what happened to the druids. All druids from Harvestlands and Winterdale met to debate whether to save Mr Sands. The conclusion is that we need allies and intel so we are going to rescue him from Dark Core. The others say we cannot be even sure that he is alive, so Linda and MC conjure up a moon vision to look for him. It shows that he lives, but barely, kept captive in some unknown Dark Core facility. You have to find out where.

-> Spying on DC with Derek. As a government agent, he knows where and how to get the information to find Sands. MC, Justin and Derek go to every possible Dark Core location and follow a trail. Finally we end up at the station above Valedale and manage to find a photo validating that Sands have arrived to the location of his imprisonment. It is not written where as DC is very secretive about him.

-> We meet up at the Valedale spiral and show the picture to the others saying that is all we have found, ready to give up. Lisa looks at the picture and recognizes the place: it is the DC Barricade, where she freed Starshine from is SSL 1. It is located just north from Anvil Woods, but the road is closed so we need a boat again.

-> Going to Cape Point to find someone willing to ferry us there. The Soul Riders and MC all plan to go and we manage to convince Justin to stay in Cape West as it is too dangerous for him to come. With the guidance of Lisa, we sneak into the DC Barricade at night. Linda conjures a vision and now that we are closer, is able to find Sands. He is held in the main building where Starshine was also held. MC, Lisa and Linda are going on foot, trying to find Sands, while Alex and Anne take the horses to a point where we can get on to escape.

-> We go through the Barricade and see many weird Dark Core projects, shipments of drakonium, artifacts, pandorian creatures in cages and imprisoned in a runic circle there is a massive, formless shadow monster. We can only see its glowing six eyes and huge clawed hand. We manage to sneak into the main building and find Sands in the same cage where Starshine was imprisoned. He spots them, but someone is coming. MC, Lisa and Linda hide and see Katja is there to taunt Sands.

-> She laughs. Oh look, how the mighty fall. Held captive in the very cage where you imprisoned the first soul horse. Another failed quest of yours. You could not get anything done even back then. Maybe I am going to be the new general of Garnok now. Sands tells her no, she isn’t going to be as she is nothing compared to Elise. You are weak, Ice Witch. You compensate well with your smarts, but you always were and will always be weak. And you know Garnok only values raw power. You are nothing to him.

-> He knows this will make her lose her cool. Linda realizes this is an opening and attacks Katja. They duel and Katja is too angry to concentrate. MC and Lisa get the cage open and get Sands. Katja wants to shoot him with dark power again, but Sands throws it back at her, weakening her a great deal. Katja uses an illusion spell, but Linda had enough of her magic. She counterspells, makes Katja lost in her own illusion labyrinth. The team runs and gets on the horses. Alex has stolen the remote opening the gates as Lisa instructed and we escape. We get to the shore and the ferry takes us back to Cape Point. Justin meets him and Sands says sorry for everything.

-> Mr Sands reconciles with Justin and the Baroness and moves back to Pine Hill Mansion. The Pine Hill Championship is unlocked. He becomes our ally, gives the Soul Riders important information about Dark Core and the Dark Riders. He promises to help us against Garnok.

-> MC has a vision: Darko has been stuck in the realm between worlds ever since Elisabeth’s sacrifice. Now Garnok needs a new general, so he rescues Darko. MC tells this to the others and Sands warns them that Darko is unpredictable, dangerous, very power-hungry and not to be underestimated.

PART 2: Cleansing Starshade Woods

Gathering intel:

-> The Nightmare Woods are still inaccessible, infested with darkness and shadow seekers. Team meets up in Meander, Linda’s idea is to check on Mr Sands and ask him for help in cleansing the Starshade Woods. MC and the Soul Riders ride up to Pine Hill Mansion and knock. A very grumpy Mr Sands opens the door and tries to send you away. You convince him to let you in, but he continues to be extremely grumpy. He leads you to the library.

-> You ask him what he knows about the Nightmare Woods. He tells you it is was the dark side’s plan to stop you from accessing the Secret Stone Circle, Darko, Jess, Katja and Sabine all kept throwing their worst dark magics to corrupt the forest. Over the years, the Starshade woods got so dark, the druids had to leave, the rangers had to leave and now noone dares to go into the haunted forest. Sands doesn’t remember all the monsters and magic that was thrown in there, so the Soul Riders keep investigating and find lists of them.

-> Sands also tells you, that the forest has a dark secret, but even he doesn’t know what it is. You have to find out if you want to cleanse the forest. Going around Winterdale, asking to people about the Nightmare Woods. Long investigation, eventually you go to Lord Marchenghast, but he only gives you cryptic answers. You investigate the Baroness’ and Fort Maria’s library too to find out more about Lord Marchenghast.

-> You find out what happened in the Starshade Woods hundreds of years ago: that was where the witches (druids) were burned. You and Linda go to Marchenghast Castle to confront the lord about it, but you cannot find him. You go into the castle and get lost in it, realizing it is cursed. You keep wandering and see the pieces of history as it was basically a tragic misunderstanding and the then young and gullible Lord Marchenghast was pressured into ordering the burning of witches. He and the castle was then cursed by one of the dying druids to suffer misfortune until he admits the truth. You and Linda finally find him in the „throne room” of the castle. Linda realizes using her powers, that the visions were not the complete truth, the castle shows you the lies of Marchenghast. You get him to admit he is not blameless in the tragedy and it is his fault as well. When the truth comes out the curse of misfortune is lifted. Marchenghast gives you a diary of the events.

-> The main story continues as you prepare for the Battle for Starshade Woods, but the Matchenghast Castle side quests are now opened. Lord Marchenghast wants to open the castle as a museum for the public and host an equestrian championship. MC is tasked to try to convince people that the curse is gone. You get merchants and horse people to come and organize the first Marchenghast championship. As the name roughly means „dark fairy tale” new magic horse breeds will be available to buy here after you do the introductory fairy tale quest line for them.

Preparation:

-> MC and the Soul Riders make a plan for the Battle for Starshade Woods. Now you know the druid ghosts, that originally haunted the place and the dark creatures the forces of evil put there. You have to find ways to neutralize each. Linda briefs you on the plan: come back every day to decrease the darkness of the woods to a manageable level until we can finally go in to cleanse the forest. You get a progression bar and have to complete daily quests for some weeks like with the Rune Runner grind.

-> You get multiple, various dailies every day. One quest is always soul riding, where you are sent into the edge of the forest to close a portal, vanquish a dark creature, etc. The other two are coop quests with one of the Soul Riders. With Lisa, you sneak in, avoiding the hostile creatures and heal and cleanse plants and animals from the darkness. With Alex, it is basically a sniper mission, you ride to a high point and shoot Shadow Seekers with lightning. With Anne, you use your light powers to dispel the dark wisps, collect their light and use it to cleanse a patch of forest from the darkness. With Linda, you ride to certain points in the forest and dispel Katja’s illusions by playing various mini games.

-> Every time you reach a milestone in the progression bar, you get a quest about the druid ghosts that died or were burned in the forest. The druids were five in total: Nimue, Moria, Lucius, Einar and Rosalind. You have to help the ghosts find peace. First, you find them in the forest, then you solve their murder (for example one was frozen to death by Katja), you make their last wish happen (e.g. take their bones out of the forest and to the place where they want to rest eternally) or bring their descendants to meet them (convincing people to come meet a ghost in the haunted forest is tricky). Lucius was Marchenghast’s friend and now wants revenge on him. MC convinces him to just talk and maybe tell him to go to hell, but Lucius ends up forgiving him and from now on lives in the castle.

-> Rosalind is the last one, who wants to meet Sands when you tell her he is alive to make sure he is okay. You bring Mr Sands to the Nightmare Woods and Rosalind says goodbye and tells you all that now she can rest in peace. The progress bar is completed and the Battle for Starshade Woods can begin.

Battle for Starshade Woods:

-> Druids, Soul Riders and MC gathering in Meander again. As the darkness decreased in the woods, Sabine and Jessica appeared attempting to restore it. You cannot let them undo your work, so it is now or never. The plan is to sweep through the forest, dispelling the final remnants of darkness and cleanse the Starshade Woods for good. The battle takes three days.

-> On the first day, you go into the part east of Crescent Lake station and disperse the remaining Shadow Seekers and dark wisps with the soul riders. The druids march behind you, cleansing the trees and animals. You get to Crescent Lake station, but Jessica is waiting for you there, defending it. Boss fight: she stands in the middle with a magic shield around her, powered by Shadow Seekers she summoned. You have to charge your lightning powers with the „catch a runner” soul riding mechanic and shoot the shadow seekers. After that you can hit her shield and defeat her. If the timer runs out she releases a dark explosion that knocks you out and you have to start again. When you defeat her, she retreats into the dark woods. You have taken the eastern part of the woods back.

-> The next day, you meet up in Cape Point village and do the same dance. You cleanse the part of the forest west of Storm Hill with the druids coming behind you. Sabine is waiting for you at the top of Storm Hill, promising she won’t go easy on you like Jess and makes a circle of fire around her and MC. Her bossfight works similarly to the Mr Anvir fight in Pandoria, except she is the monster chasing you. You have to dodge waves of fire, falling firebolts, gather sparks of power the Soul Riders summon to charge your attack and then run into her. She flees and you have Storm Hill Station.

-> The third day, you help Lisa and Anne first in pushing the front in Crescent Lake, then you fight with Linda and Alex in Storm Hill. In the middle you find Darko who is ready to unleash a massive dark creature he borrowed from Garnok. The thing is standing behind him in a cloud of darkness and you can only see its glowing evil eyes. Darko says if the forest can’t be theirs then it will be noone’s and the creature will have it. Mr Sands appears and taunts Darko. He says maybe you got what you wanted but it is not as easy being Garnok’s general as he thinks. Mr Sands counterspells Darko and the creature attacks its master. Darko teleports them both away in a panic and we win. Linda asks Sands if Darko is dead, but Sands says probably not, he has proven quite difficult to get rid of. -> The Nightmare Woods are cleansed and it returns to its original state: the Starshade Woods. It looks similar to the Hollow Woods, but with blue wisps flying around and also has a mother runestone and quests. Now we can get to the Secret Stone Circle on foot and the Winterdale rangers send people to the Crescent lake and Storm Hill Stations. The Starshade Championship is unlocked.

PART 3: The Kallters

The Blizzard:

-> Katja appears once again and unleashes a blizzard, but only on the Rimefang Woods. MC and the druids want to help, but noone can reach the kallter village unless they are invited. MC goes into the blizzard into Rimefang Woods anyways, trying to dodge the wolves. They start chasing MC and you run, but end up cornered in a gorge. A kallter girl Erika and her wolf Idun appear and save you. She leads MC to their village.

-> You meet the kallters: the council of leaders are Takuraq, Sedna, the high priestess and Uyarak, the spiritual leader (kind of a druid) whom you already met in a previous quest. Erika is the daughter of Takuraq. You have already met Nanook, who is a horse breeder. Malina and Anniq are the twins of Sedna, girl with golden hair, boy with silver and they do a little moon and sun circle magic. Kauyar is the main wolf trainer and Nasami is his wife.

-> MC is led into the communal hall and the council of elders accept your help against the wolves and Katja, but you have to gather reputation before progressing with the main story. Erika introduces you to the kallter village. It is in the middle of the Rimefang woods, next to a small lake. You have fishing dailies here. All of the kallters have their own tame wolves that keep the wild ones away from the village.

Gaining their trust:

-> In order to be able to properly help them and move around in the forest, you need a wolf. MC is sent to speak with Kauyar, who helps you bond with a wolf. They will run next to you in the Rimefang Woods and keep the wild wolves away so now MC can go wherever in the Rimefang Woods. You name it like you name a new horse you buy.

-> MC gathers firewood in the forest, helps repair the village walls, lights fires that the storm estinguished. In the forest, you have to hide from the flash freezes and dodge icicles, like in the first storm when you entered Winterdale. You have chores in Nanook’s stables for the fjords. You are introduced to Silver Runebark, the kallters’ Life Warden tree, that keeps Katja’s storm from destroying the village. When running around in the Rimefang Woods, you can sometimes see a wolf bigger and meaner than the others watching you. The kallters tell you it is called Amarok, but are strangely secretive and refuse to tell you more.

Fall of the Ice Witch:

-> Once you gathered enough reputation, the main storyline continues. The wolf pack of Amarok attacks and MC helps Nanook protect the kallters’ fjord horses. Katja is there, helping the wolves wreak havoc and using her ice powers. She says she has finally come to have revenge. MC helps stop her from freezing the village, but Nanook is cornered by the wolves. He turns into a bear and fights Amarok. The wolves are driven back and Katja flees.

-> Sedna and Nanook tell MC, that Katja is half kallter and hates them, wants to destroy the village. Nanook and his brother were cursed by Katja into a form of a bear and a wolf. MC agrees to help break the curse. The brothers have to trust each other again to break it (Amarok thinks Nanook betrayed him). Sedna and the twins help MC.

-> You have to find clues on how to break the curse. With Erika, you sneak into the den of the wolf pack using your magic. You find the writings of Amarok that he wrote before going crazy and permanently becoming a wolf. It tells you the full story of how Katja became like this. For looking different, having strong powers and being only half kallter the villagers treated her like an outsider and blamed her for every bad thing happening. She eventually got recruited by Garnok and destroyed the kallters’ previous village in Dino valley, making them leave for Winterdale to find a Life Warden Tree, that can protect them from the monster they created.

-> You confront Sedna and Nanook with this and they admit it is the truth. Nanook also chose the village over Amarok at one point and he is bitter. Amarok in turn used his wolf form to hurt Nanook’s horses and the cycle goes on. Erika says this is stupid we cannot be like this or the village is done for. Katja appears in front of the gates. She says now you see MC, I have a good reason for doing this. Help me get justice. MC says no and Katja unleashes the strom, blasting open the gates and the wolves pour in. Nanook changes into a polar bear and fights Amarok again, wins. Katja wants him to give in to hatred and strike Amarok down. This way he would complete the curse and stay as a bear forever because of his hatred. MC shouts to him not to and Nanook realizes. He changes back into a human and holds out a hand, saying i forgive you brother and hope you can forgive me as well. Amarok has managed to change back to human as well and takes his hand. The curse is broken. Katja shrieks impossible, but she cannot do anything. MC and Sedna unite their power and dispel the storm and Katja flees. Amarok returns to the village and the wolves of the Rimefang woods are no longer hostile.

-> Unlocking the Kallter Championship. You are rewarded with 100 Star Coins as it is the end of a big main story phase. The Wintersoul grind: the second "free" horse, like the Rune Runner. Now that you have completed the kallter questlines, you can start the soul riding-like grind and reputation collection with Uyarak. The Wintersoul is a special silvery-gray kallter fjord horse with ice blue kallter markings and it wanders in the Rimefang Woods. It was created when the a remnants of katja’s evil storm was trapped in a horse that ran away from Nanook’s stable. It has part of Katja’s power, freezing parts of the forest around it, needs to be tamed and who better to take care of it than MC.

PHASE 6 – Apocalypse

PART 1: Ashland and Sabine

Frostfire:

-> The dark side is properly angry now, that you have defeated every one of them again. They gather more dark power and openly attack Winterdale, sending Sabine to wreak havoc with her fire powers. Sabine always wanted to prove herself as best- now she wants to prove herself to Garnok, drunk with power.

-> The siege lasts a week, Sabine attacks different magical parts of the valley each day, until she depletes the powers she got. Every day MC gets called to a location and has to stop her. She brags about showing you all, that she is better, stronger, than Katja, who failed, just like Sands. Once the week is over she leaves and noone like the calm before the storm. The Soul Riders decide you have to figure out where she went, but before you could get on with it the earth shakes and there is a plume of smoke rising from Ashland.

Ashland:

-> This is bad. You have to get there to stop whatever Sabine is doing before she makes the volcano erupt and destroys half of Jorvik. First, you five are taking Avalon, Evergray and a Winterdale druid and ride to Explorer’s Rest and a ranger escorts you to Frostfire pass, but it is still frozen over. The druid says there is another way into Ashland. You ride to Dino Valley, but of course the path is still frozen.

-> The druid directs us to go talk to the Life Warden Tree of Dino Valley in the summit. Glacier Heart is peacefully slumbering still and we debate how to wake her. Before the team decides on anything, the ground shakes again and she wakes. At first she gets angry at you, but you manage to explain to her, that this is not your doing and you want to go to Ashland to stop it, but the path is frozen. Glacier Heart sighs: Do I really have to talk to her? Can’t you people just melt the ice of the road? The druid tells her respectfully that we are in a hurry, trying to stop the volcano from erupting and covering half of Jorvik in ash. That does it, because Glacier absolutely does not want warmth in her valley.

-> You can hear the telepathic communication between the trees. Glacier Heart calls out to her sister, Fire Glory in Ashland. She is very chatty and very ADHD and very excited about everything. It takes some tries for Glacier to explain to her that people want to go to Ashland, but the road is frozen. Fire Glory is very excited that she will get visitors and says hold on one second. She uses her fire powers to melt the ice on the road and the path to Ashland is finally open.

-> The team rides to Ashland and arrives in Ashfall village. There is a small community living there, some families and druids. The people grow extraordinary fruits and plants in the volcanic soil and the druids are stationed there to watch the volcano. Ever since the first quake, ash is falling from the sky like snow and the ground shakes here even more often. You ask about Sabine, but they didn’t see anything as they had to hide. You leave your druids in the village and go to ask Fire Glory about her.

Firefall:

-> Meeting Fire Glory, who is on one of the surrounding peaks, overlooking a valley. She likes the warmth in here, can’t image living in a cold place like like Dino and won’t shut up about how much she finds the fires beautiful. Linda politely shuts her up saying surely she would not want the valley to burn tho. She says no and we ask her is she saw Sabine. She did see her.

-> First, Sabine went to the caldera, and tried to control the fires to empower herself, but could not. Glory then saw her running around in the valley looking for something. We ask if she knows what, and the tree tells us about the Firestones. Hundreds of years ago, then the mysterious meteor shower rained pandoric stones, many landed in Ashland. Along the years they collected the fire energy of Ashland, and their pink glow turning to orange, they have become Firestones. Sabine is probably looking for these.

-> The Soul Riders and MC run around Ashland to collect the stones before Sabine does. Two progression bars show your and Sabine’s stones collected. When you found all you can, you return to Ashfall village as the druids found some more firestone locations. You go out, get them and now you have more stones, than Sabine.

-> When you return to the village however, you find the Soul Riders locked in anti-magic nullification circles. They tell you Sabine came and she was stronger than the four of them and she kidnapped Avalon. Alex tells MC that you are the only one still strong enough to defeat her, that’s why she attacked them separately. Sabine called you all to the volcano to surrender or she throws Avalon into the volcano.

-> You five ride up to the caldera. Sabine is at the edge, holding Avalon with magic over the lava. She’d drawn five more anti-magic circles and orders you to stand in it and surrender. Your lives for Avalon’s. The Soul Riders and MC all do, their powers are useless now.

-> MC has a plan to play on Sabine’s weakness. You kneel before her and admit defeat, saying she was right, she achieved what Sands could not, succeeded where Katja failed and Dark Rider Malumi is really the strongest opponent. The Soul Riders look at you like you’ve lost your mind and their reaction sells it to Sabine, who lowers her guard. Then you push Sabine and blast her with lightning and reach out for Avalon, barely catching him. Sabine falls into the lava and as her concentration is broken so are her magic circles and the Soul Riders help you pull Avalon up. Alex says nobody tell Fire Glory, but I fripping hate this place.

-> You collect Sabine’s firestones and go back to the village. As you have no use for them, you take them all to Fire Glory. She is very happy and melts the ice blocking Frostfire pass, opening the final blocked path to Winterdale. You ride back there.

PART 2: The Fall of Pandoria

Spying:

-> With Sabine gone, Katja weakened and Darko hurt by his darkness creature the Keepers of Aideen decide it is the perfect time to strike. Council meeting in the Secret Stone Circle, making a plan for how to defeat Garnok. Fripp tells us that he found the weakest point of Garnok’s prison: the Pools of Pandemonium in Devil’s Gap. He tells us that as of right now, he is imprisoned between the dimensions, that’s how he is able to access both Earth and Pandoria and that is how he was able to get Darko out of there. We debate different plans, but no decision yet.

-> The Soul Riders gather in Fripp’s rooms below and say that Linda and MC should scout DC using visions. You sit down to meditate and a series of cutscenes take place. First you see Darko standing in front of the portal, talking to a shadowy figure in it. They talk about Garnok’s return approaching, but the plans have been set back, since Sabine fell. The dark figure says my return also nears, you just have to buy some time. Darko asks what strategy you suggest and the dark figure says: They are so trusting in each other, it is disgusting. Time for some doubt. Conquer and divide, sow discord, make them make a mistake.

-> Darko’s evil plan, what we don’t see, is to make the Soul Riders send Garnok to Pandoria, where he will gather even more energy, will be stronger than ever and will be able to finally anchor himself to Earth. Darko knows MC is spying in a vision and he stages a scene. MC and Linda see him and Jess talk about how they must stop the Soul Riders from banishing Garnok to Pandoria.

-> We tell what we have seen to Fripp, not knowing this is a trap. Fripp thinks it makes sense. We have to sacrifice one world to save the other. We tell this to the druids and they agree to the plan, believing Garnok will be powerless and unable to reach Earth anymore if we manage to banish him to Pandoria. However this decision really divides the good guys, as a lot of druids believe Pandoria is not evil, there are creatures living there and the Keepers swore to protect all life. Evergray doesn’t like it either: How would you feel if someone decided Earth has to go, just so your world can live?

-> Ydris appears: How indeed. I believe one would feel quite resentful towards said people and would swore never no help them with anything ever again. Some druids ask him how did he get in here, but he just point at the runestones. I am pandorian you imbeciles. Typical humans. You surround yourselves with the magic of my world, take what you want and let the rest rot. Don’t count on my help when Garnok comes to destroy you all. Zee rears and they vanish.

-> The druids still go ahead with the plan. MC and the Soul Riders are piecing together the ritual that they will use to imprison Garnok in Pandoria. You go to the libraries of Silverglade, Fort Maria and Pine Hill with Linda to study magic circles. You gather magical herbs with Lisa, practice portals with Anne and go to Pandoria with Alex to gather crystals.

-> Now you only need to go to Devil’s Gap and convince Sive to let you do this. Linda stresses the whole way how will you convince Sive to give up the ancestral home of the vala (even if they drew power from Garnok’s prison), but when you get there she’s nowhere to be found. The Chaos Vortex is worse, than ever, a storm is raging above the gorge and lightning strikes. MC goes well that was easy, but Linda says easy never meant anything good for the Soul Riders. You go back to Fripp to report that you are good to go. Your final quest is going with Anne to close all of the portals to Pandoria.

Devil’s Gap:

-> Arriving at Devil’s Gap: the team still debates wheater they should do this, but settle for yes, they won’t have another chance like this. Using the many narrow, winding stone pathways of the valley you draw the lines of the magic circle. At certain points you carve pandorian runes into the rock walls as makeshift runestones. You make the whole valley into a big magic circle to open the gate of the prison for a moment, then banish him to Pandoria. The success of your mission relies on the fact that he is technically still sleeping.

-> Once the magic circle is done, however, Garnok stirs. MC has to ride with each Soul Rider to four different points of the valley and help them activate a rune, before riding to the middle. While riding through the pathways Garnok’s tentacles appear (like in SSL 4 and when you escaped Pandoria after finding Anne). You activate the four runes and manage to ride to the middle to complete the ritual. Garnok roars, a portal opens and the dark presence leaves the Pools of Pandemonium and is sent to Pandoria.

-> The good guys think they have won, but trouble hits immediately. Darko appears on one of the rocks above you, laughing at how you fell right into his trap. He meddles with the spell. Linda and MC have a vision of Garnok turning Pandoria dark blue and purple, breaking the islands and laughing, deep as an earthquake rumbles through the doomed world.

-> You have to act immediately. MC and Anne open a portal to Pandoria and the Soul Riders go there to stop him from destroying all of Pandoria. Once he’s done, he will also come for Earth, your only luck is that he is too busy breaking Pandoria. Linda directs you to make a binding rune, similar to what you did in Devil’s Gap. Riding around, dodging his powers. You manage to contain Garnok in Pandoria, but the realm now answers to Garnok and tries to kill you. Escape from Pandoria, the portal is collapsing. Some sun circle druids sacrifice themselves, staying behind to stabilize the portal, while we escape.

PART 3: The Hope of Pandoria

War effort:

-> Pandoria is off-limits now. All the portals are closed and the locations are guarded by druids to alert us if anything tries to come through. Garnok is empowered by Pandoria and even through he cannot come to Earth, his evil magic can reach it. Garnok-effect appearing everywhere in Jorvik, the sieges led by Katja, Jess, or Darko. MC has to fight it with soul riding quests.

-> Chaos in Ashland, a fiery entity terrorizes the valley. The Soul Riders are sent there to investigate. Sabine returns as a flying fire-ghost entity(the ghost model is like in the picture in SSL 3's Pandoria) and she is really pissed at you. She joins the sieges.

-> This cannot go on, we need a plan. MC suggests to use Jessica. We need information, have to find out how to defeat this kind of void power and how to seal Garnok back to sleep. Jess has a rivalry with Katja and still wants to outdo her to show Garnok she is the stronger one. We organize an ambush: Anne is the bait. When she attacks her, all of us appear and say we just want to talk. We manage to strike a deal with her- in exchange for information, she will have a victory over us that Katja did not. Some druids and Anne are against this plan, but they have to make a sacrifice to have a chance.

-> Jess tells the info we need right away. Anne is suspicious, says she must be lying, why not wait until we fulfilled our promise? Jess says because she can count on the good guys being disgustingly honorable and if she told something useful, they will surely make good on their promise. Jess reveals that Pandoria can be saved if we bring Garnok back to Earth to his prison. The prison ship also used the dimension between world to keep him imprisoned. If we manage to do this, his generals will lose a good deal of power also. Linda still uses moon power to see the truth and announces that she’s not lying.

-> Agreeing on the plan: the Soul Riders are to attack the DC Barricade, pretending that we are trying to free the creatures and get the artifacts. Now we cause all kinds of havoc in DC territory. Katja and Jess arrive to protect it. MC and the Soul Riders have set a trap for Katja and we imprison her in a circle. As Darko arrives Jessica attacks us and we pretend to fall back to put on a show for him. Jess got a good point from Darko for defending the barricade, while Katja failed again.

-> We tell the information we got from Jess to Fripp and he agrees to the plan. We need to try and save Pandoria even if it means endangering Earth, as we cannot let another world be destroyed by Garnok. We just need to convince the druids of it when we get the chance.

Shadowfrost

-> Evergray calls us to meet in Valedale. Why hasn’t Sabine come back to her human form? Evergray suggests the Dark Riders can be defeated by the combination of their own power and their opposite Soul Rider’s. For Sabine it was fire and lightning. Jess must be defeated by darkness (in Pi’s swamp) and Anne, Katja by ice (in Dino vale) and Linda. We plan to make these happen. We split up: MC helps Anne and Lisa defeat Jess first, while Alex and Linda prepare to defeat Katja. If we manage they too will turn into elemental ghosts (shadow and frost), like Sabine. They will still be able to fight us, but without human consciousness, just as primordial powers. Until they get their bodies back, this will leave Darko alone in fighting us.

-> Anne and Lisa lure Jessica into Pi’s Cauldron Swamp, playing on her pride. Anne can go all in, make it seem like she gave in to hatred, then when Jess is sure she will win, Anne reveals Jess has walked into a trap pursuing Anne. She stepped in the darkness seal made by Pi, which draws power from Jess’s magic. Lisa, Anne, and MC focus their powers on Jess, she disappears, a dark ghost flies away from the swamp. This was the easy part.

-> MC, Alex and Linda go to Dino Valley, but Katja knows already what happened to Jess, she is angrier than ever. Finding her at the Ice Witch portal, she attacks us. 1st race through Dino: to lure her to the frozen lake, where we can fight her. 1st phase: Soul-riding-like bossfight in the frozen lake, Katja has a frost shield. Dodging icicles, Linda helps see where K’s magic will hit, so MC can dodge it, Alex shoots her shield with lightning. MC has to keep them ice-free, free them if they are iceblocked. Without Linda, MC can’t see where the ice will hit and without Alex it is only her shooting the shield. After removing half of her shield here, Katja starts breaking the ice on the lake.

-> 2nd race: to the higher valley, through the pine forest. The 2nd phase of the fight takes place amidst the ice columns, same fight, lightning strike her, remove her shield. She is defeated, but with the last of her power, summons illusions of many characters, hides herself as one of them. Linda and MC is find the one and point at it for Alex to blast it with lightning. When Alex turns, the illusion wears the body of James. Katja begs Alex as James not to hurt him, but Alex collects the storm from above the valley and lightning strikes her. A frosty ghost flies away. Cutscene: Darko roars and curses before the portal of DC platform as the three elemental ghosts hover before him silently.

Saving Pandoria

-> Soulriding stuff all over Jorvik, fighting the three Dark Rider entities. The Keepers try to agree on the plan. The options: A, Fully sever G’s connection to Earth and get rid of hom for now (he still may find a way back later) and let Pandoria die, or B, Save Pandoria by bringing Garnok’s full consciousness back to his Earth prison, just like Jess said. The alliance finally decides to try to heal Pandoria, sever Garnok’s link to it and defeat the monster on Jorvik for good.

-> MC and the Soul Riders are going to the Garnok-ruled Pandoria: instead of pink, it is dark blue now. We are trying to stay hidden and set up a base camp. Anne really hates being here, we have to talk her into not breaking We have to avoid Shadow Seekers and corrupted creatures. We manage to heal a small bit of Pandoria.

-> Darko notices this and comes to confront us. He siphons power from corrupted Pandoria and gives the Dark Riders their human bodies back. They are so empowered, they are just toying with us. We take part in the three bossfights for each of them, losing in each. Our Soul Rider partner magics us to safety every time, but ultimately, it seems like we have lost. Our Aideen magics start to weaken as Garnok gets stronger. His giant silhouette appears on the horizon in the distance in an epic shot.

-> MC still wants to try and fight Darko, but he blocks all your pathetic attempts at magic. The Soul Riders are on the ground, giving up. Even Lisa says all hope is lost. Then, Ydris appears with the Hope of Pandoria to save the day. For him it transforms from a fridge into a pink and golden blazing Sun and flies up to the sky its searing rays of light burning away garnok’s darkness. The low roar or a kraken reverberates from the distance.

-> Ydris combines his power with the Soul Riders’ and MC's, but Anne is still on the ground. He shouts at Anne: Stand up Sun of Pandoria and help us send him back to his prison! Concorde walks to her and holding onto Concorde, Anne is pulled to her feet. She guides the spell, and we banish Garnok from Pandoria completely, back on his prison ship on Earth, fully anchoring him to Jorvik. Darko and the Dark Riders are also sent back to Earth.

-> Linda walks up to Ydris to thank him, but he says he is still angry at them for doing this to Pandoria. He only helped the world, but still won’t ever help us again. Pandoria is accessible again, but parts are still corrupted and in ruins. Garnok is banished from Devil’s Gap and the Chaos Vortex disappears.

-> Victory, end of main storyline in Winterdale. You get a reward of the final 100 Star Coins upon returning to the Secret Stone Circle and the druids talk about possibly soon heading north to meet their brothers and sisters in Spring Valley.

TO BE CONTINUED!

THE OTHER PARTS:

SSO Rewritten 2nd Part: Springvalley https://www.tumblr.com/starshinedragon/716459529087401984/sso-rewritten-springvalley?source=share

SSO Rewritten 3rd Part: Summerplains https://www.tumblr.com/starshinedragon/726343248992419840/sso-rewritten-full-story-series-summerplains?source=share

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ithaqualovers · 10 months

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Hanging Out With Ithaqua

Angst... Maybe??? plus comfort? UhHh (Sorry for not posting a while y'all tsk tsk) SHORT!! //Please tell me if theres a few grammar and error mistakes '^'`// I MADE THIS AT 2 AM

Tonight, there was a lot of snow falling. Then suddenly, a snowball hit your window that got your attention. You got up to see what was happening. When you opened the window and the wind blew inside, a gust of air filled your room, and then you saw Ithaqua. "Oh, that silly bastard. What does he want?" You thought.

“Psssst, hey!” Ithaqua called “I want to go out and have fun with you.” His cloak swayed against the cold breeze of the wind.

“You want to see a secret beneath these woods? Come on! I know you're going to say yes to me...” “How did you know that I will agree with you?” You chuckled at your words and looked at the male.

“No need to sound surprised. Come on, we are wasting a night for you to stay in your room!” He insisted. “It'll be more fun for me too!” At your hesitation, Ithaqua's voice grew more irritated. “... Ithaqua's getting impatient here!” He grunted. You knew you couldn't just stay in this situation. “Fine! Fine!” You grabbed your cloak and put it on. “Just.. help me get out of this... window—” Ithaqua put his hand to you. “You should have just... used your door... But anyway, grab my hand first.” He gave you a small helping gesture and pulled you out of the window. “Now follow me!” He whispered silently. There was a small trail near that spot and Ithaqua began walking fast as his stilts were making clacking sounds against the snow-covered ground. “Wait up! where are we actually going?” You raised a brow as you asked him a question as you two walked through the forest. Ithaqua glanced back to make sure you were still following him. As you two were walking, Ithaqua got a small stick in the snow. “We are near a big spot that I want to show you.” Ithaqua took your hand secretly and continued walking on a small trail.

“You know I never told you why me and my mother live in these woods? Do you wonder why we live here?”

“Why?” You raised a brow and you never really wondered for a long time why Ithaqua and his mother lived together in these woods. “This is a long story, but do not worry...” He stopped at a certain place, turned to you, and put his free hand on the back of your neck. “My mother found me near this place. It was the darkest night, and she was running from the law. As she was running, she saw a lifeless body like mine—I was like a pale corpse without any signs of life. And she made me live again.” The area was filled with trees and silence. You listened to him, and you were a bit shocked.

“... How do you still remember your past...?”

“If you only knew the things Mother taught me. I'll never forget it.” Ithaqua chuckled and continued walking. “Anyway, that's why Mother took care of me and why we live in these woods.” The woods were getting darker. You slowly nodded and looked up at the night sky. A single star twinkled in the darkness, and in that moment, you felt a sense of peace. You turned to Ithaqua. “Far away from civilization, am I correct?” Ithaqua nodded. “Yes. I was taught by Mother that civilization is... dangerous.” He was still walking with you towards one destination.

“Mother isn't very fond of people...” Ithaqua said. You narrowed your eyes at Ithaqua. “Yes, because the people will suspect her of being a witch.” You spoke. Then suddenly Ithaqua glared at you. “... What did you just say?” Ithaqua's eyes furrowed, as he put his free hand on the back of your neck and tilted your chin toward him. His face was now near yours. “Where did you hear that from, Y/N?” You hesitated, unsure of what to say. You knew you couldn't lie to Ithaqua, he could always tell. Taking a deep breath, you finally replied, “I heard people talking about it in town...”

“So... People think Mother is a witch. And you believed in those things they said...? Witches are not real, Y/N.” Ithaqua said sarcastically. His free hand now gently squeezed your chin softly. "Those are just made from their stupidity." The corners of his lips were curled down, and he was frowning at your hesitation. “Mother has been nice to me. She's kind and gentle.” Your e/c eyes stared into his blue eyes beneath the almond-shaped eyeholes mask. “Ithaqua... Of course, I do not believe them.” You tried to calm him down. “I do not believe what the town said, Ithaqua... I am very sorry, and I did not mean to say that... I am sorry.” You said in a nervous tone. Ithaqua let go of your chin and looked down. His face suddenly cleared from any expression. No smile, no frown, no anger. He was just staring at you. “Oh,” He muttered and turned away. After a while, Ithaqua held your hand and continued walking to a place. “You know, despite Mother's worries, I never felt a chill near her. I am always feeling the warm presence of a mother next to me.” Ithaqua said in a serious tone. You looked at Ithaqua in disbelief, not sure what to make of his words. You were about to say something but forget about it. After a while, the two arrived at the right spot. It was a small clearing in the woods with a single, giant tree in the middle. Ithaqua took your hand and made you stand close to him, in the spot.

“Look up.”

“Huh?” You looked up at the large tree that Ithaqua was talking about a while ago. Then you noticed something in the snow under the tree. It was a bunch of snowmen with two leaves on their heads that looked like ears and most of them looked oddly the same. “I made them for you, Y/N.” He said softly. You smiled at him, understanding his gesture. He had made all these snowmen for you, to show how much he cared. “... Thank you, Ithaqua.” You smiled warmly. “They are... adorable. They are very nice.” He smiled back at you, feeling content that you liked his gift. “Ah, you are welcome.” He gave you his cute smile again behind the mask. “The night isn't over yet.” He held your hand again.

“I wanted to show you something else, too...”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Just follow me.” He walked again with you holding his hand. Soon, the two of you climbed to the top of the large tree branch. "Take a look over there." He whispered and pointed in a specific direction. “Huh, where?” You were a bit confused as you looked around. Ithaqua chuckled softly then his voice grew intense, and he looked at you, making sure you followed his instructions by looking in the same direction. “Just... take a look. You'll see something interesting. That spot where I pointed, right there.” The spot was very close to where you two were. You suddenly saw a light and it was the town. It was beautiful from afar, the colours of the light of the place blending together in the night sky. “Oh... The town...?” Ithaqua's face seemed serious while staring at it. He let go of your hand. His cold breath was now fogging up. His eyes were filled with some sort of disappointment. He seemed to be lost in thought for what seemed like a long time. What happened to him? After Ithaqua let out a deep sigh, he snapped back to the reality. “Do you think they'll ever welcome Mother in that civilization, Y/N?” He finally asked you. You looked at Ithaqua with a shock expression, you already felt how much he was struggling. Due to the few years ago when the incident happened... You didn't know what to say. You felt like you wanted to say the right thing, but you couldn't find the words. Suddenly he looked away, his gaze now fixed on the horizon. His voice was hollow when he whispered, “Never mind... Forget about it, it was just.. a silly thought.” Ithaqua chuckled nervously and breath heavily. You could see the disappointment in his eyes. He sighed again and leaned against the trunk. “So much snow fell tonight. The cold wind seems to remind me of something...” He sounded deep. “It feels... peaceful here.” He mumbled. He looked back at your face. You looked at him, unsure of what to say.

“Y/N...” Ithaqua hesitated.

“Huh?” You raised a brow.

“You know... I really trust you because you are my only best friend, right?”

“Yeah?”

“And I... do not mean to be... intrusive, but...” His face turned serious and his eyes seemed deep.

“Could you help me with one thing?”

“Sure, what is it?”

Ithaqua hesitated for a moment. “Can you... hug me? And stay with me for a while?” He finally spoke up. But he sounded a tiny bit desperate... You let out a sigh and smiled warmly, then you opened your arms and immediately hugged him tightly. You held him close and you could feel him shaking in your arms. Ithaqua felt a sudden calmness when you hugged him. He put his free hand behind your collar to pull you closer. His cold hands, but they still felt welcoming. “Thank you.” he said softly as he put his head down on top of your head, breathing slowly. “You are welcome, Ithaqua.” You saw him close his eyes. A peaceful, silent night, full of falling snow, and a feeling of peace. You felt so comfortable while hugging Ithaqua. You never felt this welcome somewhere else, even in your home. But it was different with Ithaqua.

“You are the only person I have... Y/N. Do not ever leave me...”

#identity v ithaqua #idv night watch #ithaqua idv #ithaqua x reader #idv x you #identity v night watch #idv angst #Ithaqua x !childhoodbestfriend reader

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loggiepj · 1 year

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FORBIDDEN

Part 6 | Part 7

Part 8

Winter finally came. Temperature dropped down degrees below zero. The lake solidified in two days; the eerie sound under the waters filled the silent hours of the night as it turned into ice.

Most of the population anywhere in the world would stay indoors at a time like this. But the Avengers' camp wasn't like any other normal village.

The pavilion and other facilities of the camp remained tolerable, even warmer, enchanted by numerous spells to keep the cold away. Most of the campers carried on with their daily tasks as if it was any normal day, as if it wasn't just snowing an hour ago.

Winter would mean less attacks from Deviants. It was as if the two divisions had agreed on a temporary truce, a festival, an occasion even, to celebrate the entire season without touching any weapon, without unnecessarily shedding more blood.

The snow was already ankle deep, yet it didn't stop the children from starting snowball fights against each other. The sun had now begun to set; the night sky more visible like a mirror magnifying a painting of an entire universe. The stars even looked like salt accidentally sprinkled on a dark veil.

The older ones stayed comfortable in their seats, watching the young have the time of their lives while drinking hot cocoa served by Bruce.

"This doesn't even taste that good," Vision said, catching Y/n's attention. She looked at where said witch was sitting, irritatingly close to the beautiful witch who had occupied most of her thoughts.

Y/n's grip around her mug tightened as she witnessed the scene before her, immediately looking down once Vision seemed to chase Wanda's lips with his own, not seeing how Wanda aggressively shoved him away.

Y/n was too stupid to think that whatever was going on between her and Wanda would end up to be something more.

Who wouldn't? Ever since that night the two had shared under the stars, they became fast friends. Y/n entertained the witch with myths, fables and even folklores about the universe every night and Wanda would savor every second of it. The barrier between them was completely broken. Wanda even built Y/n an archway without a door to give the human a grand welcome.

Y/n had taught Wanda some of the constellations she knew and how to find them. Wanda was a good listener. She had never been attentive to any of her classes when she was a kid. But with Y/n as the teacher, it would be impossible to stray her focus away from the human.

"What's your favorite?" Wanda asked in a whisper, face so close to Y/n as they laid on the cool grass. It was still nearing Winter that time, and the perfect weather made the stars more visible like a clear painting in full display.

Wanda had performed a spell around them to keep them both warm. Y/n had never been more grateful, even though she didn’t need warming up. The lack of distance between the two of them was already heating up Y/n's entire body, heart skipping a beat whenever their gazes met. And their gazes would always meet.

"Orion," Y/n answered. She gently pulled and held the witch's hand as she drew the constellations up above. These were the times Wanda love the most. The human's touch ignited a spark within her that no amount of magic could ever explain. "Those three bright stars in the middle are its belt." Y/n held Wanda's fingers, tracing the constellation in the air. "Orion is known as the Hunter, with the way the stars are perfectly aligned like someone ready to attack with a bow and arrow."

Their heads pressed together so their eyes would be looking at the same thing. Wanda's scent infiltrated Y/n's nostrils and she couldn't get enough. Y/n could breathe her in forever.

"Like you," Wanda muttered. A small smile crept unto Y/n's face, blushing.

"I doubt that. I'm not much good of an Avenger compared to anyone here. And my archery skills would be far in comparison to Orion," Y/n replied, putting both of their hands down on the ground where they laid.

Wanda smiled, knowing the human was being modest. "I find that hard to believe. You know, campers here look up to you."

Y/n swallowed a lump in her throat before she gave a nervous laugh.

Before the normie could respond, Wanda went on. "How did Orion end up in the sky?"

"There are stories in Greek mythology, where Orion the Hunter was killed by Artemis, a goddess, daughter of Zeus. Zeus, being the king of all gods, immortalized Orion by putting him in the sky and maybe to honor him. . . ."

Y/n then began to tell a story about the goddess Artemis and other gods she could remember. All the time, Wanda listened. Her eyes focused at the way the color of Y/n's eyes change when her gaze travelled between the witch and the sky.

Wanda suddenly found herself praying the human wouldn't let her hand go, skins molding as one as if Y/n was a part of her. And Y/n didn't let go the entire night they spent together.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into a month.

Both of them, unconscious of what the other was concerned, always looked forward to the end of the day, where they could spend time together talking about the moon and the stars and everything else. Even Pietro grew wary of this sudden change of behavior, wondering what his sister was up to.

And when Y/n thought about seeing Wanda during the day, she'd always stopped on her tracks because of the other man's presence. Vision.

Y/n needed reminding that Wanda wasn't a free soul. She was promised to be married to that awful man Y/n had only encountered seldom times.

Vision never apologized for his behavior. Y/n thought he should had been grateful at least for getting sanctuary when he needed it the most. What Y/n couldn't understand though was what Wanda had ever seen in that man.

Y/n had considered the possibility that Wanda could like a woman like her. But if that possibility didn't exist, she was sure there were other far better men than Vision out there in the world, better and worthy for someone like Wanda.

Most times, Y/n would understand. She'd tell herself that maybe underneath all those arrogance Vision was showing off, was a kindhearted sensible person only Wanda knew.

But one night, Y/n had enough. That night was the time Vision made fun of Bruce's hot cocoa, making the anger in the human's body boil, which brought her back to the present.

"This doesn't even taste that good," Vision said.

The scene made Y/n retire early for the night, not even waiting for supper.

The human was oblivious to Wanda waiting for almost an hour in their spot after dinner, wondering if Y/n forgot about their nightly rituals, if Y/n forgot about how they were going to talk more about Aurora Borealis.

The Aurora Borealis was the most beautiful thing Wanda had ever witnessed in her entire life. It only appeared during Winter. Green strings danced into the night sky, giving light and wonderful aura to everyone looking.

Wanda kept thinking about that night Y/n told her the beauty of it wouldn't compare to the green wonders found in the witch's eyes, making her blush the entire night even as they parted their separate ways.

When Wanda found out some time later, that Y/n had already gone to bed without even telling her, the witch cursed to the silent night and to the ugly sky above. Damn her heart for trusting humans!

BACK WERE the days the two had begun ignoring each other. It was only until they were sent to a mission together with Yelena and others, which was to meet with Steve, the leader of a neighboring camp bordering along the town of Wakanda where the latest attacks had happened, when Y/n and Wanda finally spoke a word to each other.

They met at one of the distinct taverns across town, one where Deviants seldom visited. It was a safe place for both normies and witches alike. But witches preferred to hide or pretend, just to avoid any casualties. The place was known to serve the best ale in town. The Avengers conducted some of their meetings in the place, known for its atmosphere of not minding every drinker's own business.

Steve also talked about the recent developments of the weapon they were making. Yelena took note of the chemicals to use. They even exchanged supplies under the table, slipping inside the satchel Yelena had beside her foot.

When the conversations turned to somewhat light, what with the amount of alcohol involved, they began talking about the female witches Steve and his team had rescued and how they were a master of seduction and love spells on certain nights. Yelena laughed at this, asking whether she could visit some time.

Wanda, on the other hand, was fuming, when Steve suggested to bring Y/n along with her too, for Y/n might find the women exhilarating and fun to be around with.

Y/n only shook her head, laughing, before turning to look at Wanda, who had not even touched her pint of ale.

"Do you want to drink something else?" Y/n asked, ignoring the ongoing conversations beside her.

"I'm fine. I don't drink intoxicating liquors," Wanda complained. "Need I also remind you that we shouldn't be even drinking right now."

"Wanda, relax. You deserve to have a little bit of fun. And their ale is the best, aged perfectly well," Y/n retorted. "A bit malty and strong but sweeter than lager—"

"I said I'm fine."

"Oooh, lovers' quarrel?" Yelena asked, hearing their heated exchanges. Y/n and Wanda only glared back at her.

"Did you know that ale is more flavorful than lager?" Y/n went on to convince the witch to start drinking. "They tend to be fruitier and aromatic, whereas lager is just plain and dry."

But the information only sent Wanda into spiral.

"Why can't you stop being a know-it-all?"

Yelena erupted in laughter, while Y/n scoffed. But they abruptly stopped talking when the conversation in front of them became louder.

"It's completely barbaric," the bartender, an old bald man with a protruding belly, said in a low yet noticeable voice. He placed the half-empty pint glass of ale hard on the table. "They capture and burn these innocent witches as if they're nothing. I know they're scum in the earth. But burning them until they turn to ashes is a bit beyond the works of the devil, don't you think?"

The other customers he was talking to in the tavern agreed in murmurs. Y/n turned to look at Wanda beside her, who was trembling in rage.

Wanda couldn't bear to listen anymore to the outrageous cruelty being done by Deviants to her own kind. Burning witches? What did they ever do to them? Why couldn't they accept witches as equals?

The witch's heart thudded so loud in her chest, heated blood surging through her veins as her mind almost lost it. No. She can't get out of control. No.

Her sight began to appear blurry; noises surrounding her echoed inside her head like low pitched maniacal sounds.

And then she could hear the helpless cries and agonies of those hunted, of her own kind, mercilessly tortured by heartless humans.

Help! They cried, children, women and wounded men. Wanda felt she'd explode any moment now as the screams grew louder.

And then it was gone all of a sudden. As if someone blew the flame of a lit candle. Wanda could see clearly again, the voices gone, replaced by the noise inside the tavern.

Wanda wondered what happened, as if someone miraculously performed a magic to calm down the wild beast in her. Then her eyes travelled to her lap, where a hand was enclosed hers. Y/n's hand.

Y/n gave her another squeeze before linking their fingers together. When she looked at Y/n, the human's eyes were filled with concern and sincerity that warmed the witch's heart. Relief flooded into Wanda, hoping it would be enough to keep her uncontrollable power at bay.

Wanda survived the entire night, listening to other updates that she couldn't bear to listen, trying to remember that they're good humans too. Not just the evil Deviants.

It was a hard task.

WHEN THEY got back to their camp, Y/n broke the silence. "Are you okay?"

Yelena had already left the two to give some of the supplies she received from Steve to Pepper.

Wanda shrugged her shoulders. "Why wouldn't I be? Witches around the world are being slaughtered every second."

"I'm sorry," Y/n said. She didn't know what to say to make the witch feel better.

"Why can't you save everybody?"

"Wanda—"

"Never mind," Wanda scoffed, walking past the human.

"Look, we're doing the best we can—"

The witch stopped as she turned back to face Y/n. "Well, it's not good enough! We shouldn't be even sleeping peacefully right now if witches out there won't witness another day in their lives."

Wanda broke into a sob. She was trying too hard to stay silent so as not to wake the sleeping campers, but she found it difficult to breathe without making a noise.

Y/n slowly approached her, wrapping her arms around the shivering body. The witch calmed down, letting herself be hugged as she buried her face into her chest.

"We're going to save them, Wanda," Y/n promised. "All of them. Day by day. I swear to you."

Eventually, Wanda's arms slithered around Y/n's body, underneath the coat the latter was wearing, feeling the human's heat as the source of life she needed to breath. The hug tightened. Wanda could hear Y/n's heartbeat, the sound calming the storm brewing inside of her.

"It will be okay," Y/n said. And Wanda believed her.

Taglist:

@bibliophilicbi @swiftie1-0-1 @whitewidowsbite @aliherreraaa @smromanoff @wandanats-goodgirl @supaheroine @eliii1sblog @bananasplits-world

Author's note:

Follow me on my social media accounts. Thank you. ❤ Facebook : loggiepj | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089779552892&mibextid=ZbWKwL Instagram : loggiepj | https://instagram.com/loggiepj?igshid=NDk5N2NlZjQ= Twitter : loggiepj | https://twitter.com/loggiepj?t=EiFoKQyY1L-HCAMkBV2qCg&s=09

#wanda maximoff x reader #elizabeth olsen x reader #wanda maximoff #wanda x reader #wanda #wanda angst #enemies to lovers #elizabeth olsen

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bullet-prooflove · 1 year

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Prove It - Frankie 'Catfish' Morales x Reader (NSFW)

Tagging: @aaronhtchnrs @mysoulisasunflower @kabloswrld @xoxabs88xox @whoreforhondo @crazy4chickennuggets @kimm471 @justreblogginfics @blackleatherjacketz @witches-unruly-heart @robin-bring-the-snow @infinity-mars @pimosworld @vannabanana1995 @beardedbarba @xmoonknightlyx

"I can tell when you’re pretending to be asleep." You informed Frankie as you closed the book you had been reading and turned you attention to the problem that had been brimming between the two of you for the past thirty minutes.

By the time you had gotten in, it had been late in the evening, and you had arrived home to find Frankie already tucked up in bed. At first you thought he was sleeping, the rise and fall of his chest seemed peaceful and he hadn't responded when you flicked the bedside lamp on nor when you crawled in beside him.

It was only when you had been reading 'Portrait of a Thief' that had you realized that something was distracting you, it had taken you a few moments to realize what it was. His shoulders were tense, you could see the way his muscles were furled as if they were waiting for some sort of deadly assault. His body was curled away from you.

"Francisco are you sulking?" You asked incredulously, setting the book on the nightstand and propping your head up on your hand.

"No." he responded grumpily; his eyes screwed up.

"You are." You proclaimed, your warm form curling around his.

Your knees were tucked behind his and your arm threaded around his waist, so you were taut against him as your breath ghosted lightly on his neck. He loved being wrapped up by you, you were so generous with your love, and he could sense your confusion in regards to his behaviour.

He knew you weren’t leaving him forever, and the logical side of his mind was constantly reminding him of that but the emotional needed reassurance and patience.

You could sense his distress under the surface, it pricked at Frankie's skin like a twisted barb wrenching and gnawing at his insides. You buried her face into the crook of his neck inhaling his clean masculine scent. Your hand sought out his, fingers entwining.

"I don't have to go." You whispered into his ear. "I can stay here with you if that's what you want."

It meant something to Frankie to hear you say those words and he knew it was a concession he would never allow you to make. To ask you to stay would make him a hypocrite.

"No, you have to go." Frankie said turning around in your arms and clutching you close to his firm body. "You wouldn't be you if you didn't."

Frankie gathered you up, holding you against him. You fit him like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, hearts, bodies, souls. Every inch of him belonged to you and it killed him to let you go.

"Promise you’re not leaving because of me." Frankie uttered against your skin.

"You know better than that." You said quietly as your fingers combed through his untidy brown hair. "I love you Frankie, I would never walk away like that."

"I just needed to hear you say it." Frankie told you as his hot fingertips traced along the trail of your spine though your loose Star Wars T-shirt.

Your hips bumped as Frankie's mouth fastened on your throat. His kisses were tender and loving as his hands descended down to your ass gripping it tightly in his hands as he ground against your moist panties.

"Let me make love to you." Frankie breathed in your ear as his fingertips enclosed on the black material. "Let me commit every single inch of you to memory so when I'm thinking about you it feels like you’re right here with me."

"Show me." You murmured against his rough skin as his nimble fingers drew your underwear down just over your legs. "Show me how much you love me."

"Always." Frankie whispered as he starred into your eyes.

His thumb trailed over your parted pink lips causing you breathing to hitch at the sensations that coursed through your flesh. Frankie’s lips trailed along the shape of yours. His tongue dipped into the molten hot confines of your mouth. You tasted divine, like heaven on his tongue.

His hands were running through your hair as the kiss deepened. Frankie could feel himself drowning in you as your hands began to explore his form. He ached for you, his cock already leaking.

"I love you." he muttered removing your shirt.

You looked so glorious naked. You were a goddess in his eyes and so astoundingly responsive to every single ministration he inflicted. Your kisses were growing more heated and passionate, your hands removing Frankie's T-shirt from his shoulders. He growled out loud at the brief seconds that you were out of his grasp. The moment the top was gone, his mouth covered your once more, his hands gently grasped your wrists, tipping you onto your back so his almost naked form covered your own. You fit against him perfectly, the two of you made for one another.

Your teeth grazed the skin of his throat as his hands slid down to your ass, gripping it as he thrust against her moist core teasingly. Your nails raked across his back causing him to grunt as the pain mingled with the intense pleasure that was prickling under his firm flesh.

"You make me so damn hot when you’re like this." You groaned, your palms slipping under the waistband of his black boxers and cupping his bare ass dragging him closer. "It turns me on knowing how much you want me."

Frankie stifled your words with long drawn-out kisses as his underwear was stripped from his pelvis. He groaned out loud in delight as your slim fingers wrapped around his hard, throbbing erection, guiding it to your soaking wet core. You wanted him so badly it was burning you up, your skin was flushed with desire as Frankie held himself at bay, the leaking tip of his cock pressing against your slick folds.

"I'll always want you." Frankie told you, his voice rough with the emotion. "I'll always love you, always need you."

"Prove it." You dared him. "Make love to me and prove it."

Frankie dipped his head to capture your lips as he sunk into your sensual form. You arched up under his body, his arm grasped you around the waist and holding you close as he buried himself all the way to the hilt. His free hand was supporting his upper body so he could look into your eyes as the two of you made rampant, sweet love.

He knew you by touch alone, and he could feel you fingertips ghosting all over his skin as you memorised every single muscular contour of his body. It never ceased to amaze Frankie how strong their connection was, he could feel you love and adoration for him welling up inside of you as you moved together towards completion. Every single moan and cry that tore from your lips was fuel to his addiction. He craved you like the most potent of drugs.

You were close, he could feel the implosion in your body building up as his spine began tingle at the height of your ecstasy. Your walls were already beginning to tighten around his cock in that distinct blissful way. His name was on your lips like a beautiful mantra as you climaxed, your head tipping back into the pillow, hair fanning around your intricate features.

Your knees clenched around his hips as the moan tore from his throat. He was drowning in the euphoria as he came inside of you, his hands on your hips, pinning you in place. He fucked even deeper, driving himself in all the way to the hilt and staying there as you writhed around him. His lips descended on yours, sweeping you up once more in the most tender of kisses.

You were his soulmate and Frankie knew there wasn't a chance in hell he was ever going to let you go.

Enjoying my work with Frankie? Add yourself to his taglist!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

#frankie catfish morales #frankie morales #frankie morales x you #frankie morales x reader #triple frontier fic #triple frontier fanfic #triple frontier #triple frontier fanfiction

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liaromancewriter · 6 months

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Halloween Kisses

Premise: Cassie has a holiday-themed proposition for Ethan, only it’s the wrong holiday.

Book: Open Heart (post series) Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 875

A/N: This fic is based on a prompt sent by @jerzwriter. It's set during Max & Si's Halloween Bash. Submission to @choicesprompts Flufftober and @choicesholidays Halloween. I'm also using @choicesflashfics week 55, prompt 3.

The penthouse apartment in DC’s Georgetown had transformed into a witch’s lair, or maybe a warlock, starting from the grim backdrop in the entryway, harkening guests inside to a dark fairytale land with its forbidding lighting, red potions and gruesome nibbles.

Those lucky enough to be invited tonight paid homage to the Dark Prince and his Snow White. A tip of the proverbial hat, a deferential nod, a brief bow of the head. They sparkled in the center of the room, bestowing their company upon friends, family and acquaintances. Two people who looked opposites but were, in fact, a perfect fit.

Absently sipping her cocktail, Cassie Valentine watched her twin brother, Max, and her best friend, Sienna, from a vantage point on the far side of the living room. She felt a pang in her heart at the sight of them, a unit already. She was happy their stars had finally aligned and also bittersweet at the end of an era.

Seeing them in the home they were making together, hosting what would become their annual Halloween Bash, she couldn’t help but feel emotionally adrift. Knowing Max’s plans, she consoled herself that she wasn’t losing her brother but gaining a sister.

Still, their family and life would never be what it was before.

She couldn’t expect it to, she thought with a glance at her engagement ring and wedding band. She wondered if Max had felt this way when she got married this summer.

Speaking of, she stretched on her toes to scan the room for her one and only. He was probably lurking in a corner, watching the party with a whiskey in one hand and a sardonic twist of his lips.

Cassie almost fell off her perch when she spied Ethan Ramsey, standing in the middle of the room, shooting back a red vial and laughing. He appeared to having a good time, at a party, no less.

Cassie zigzagged her way across the room, exchanging air kisses and quick hellos with friends and acquaintances she hadn’t seen in years. As she approached Ethan, her eyes softened at the sight of him chatting amiably with Michael Perry, one of her oldest friends.

Mike saw her first and flashed his signature smile. He leaned in to kiss her upturned cheek as she slipped her arm through Ethan’s.

“Looking absolutely witchy, babe,” Mike commented, taking in her witch’s robes. “Did you and Max plan matching costumes?”

“Completely coincidental,” Ethan drawled, shooting her an amused look, “or so they claim.”

“It was a coincidence,” Cassie protested. “Max told me he and Sienna were doing Snow White. How was I supposed to know he wouldn’t dress up as Prince Charming?”

“Don’t you two swear by twin telepathy?” Mike teased, grinning widely when Ethan rolled his eyes.

“Don’t get her started,” Ethan warned.

“Did I see you doing tequila shots?” Cassie asked, quickly changing the subject.

Her earlier misgivings about Max and Sienna still lingered in the back of her mind. Ethan and Mike were both good at reading her, and she wasn’t ready to analyze her thoughts yet.

“Your ex is a bad influence on me,” Ethan smirked.

“With this smile, I can get away with anything,” Mike quipped unrepentant. “Including daring your husband to do shots.”

Ethan shook his head, amused. “I could make a cutting remark about lawyers and delusions, Perry, but it was damn good tequila.”

Cassie’s heart melted at the sight of Ethan fitting into her world and getting along with her friends. She worried at times that he would hold himself back, but she needn’t have. He might not want to dress up for Halloween, but he wasn’t a wallflower either. He was trying, and she was happy.

Her eyes fell on the decorations, and an idea popped into her head.

“Not to interrupt this bromance, but,” Cassie said, nudging Ethan. "Look up.”

"Okay?" he said, following her gaze.

"We're under a fake spiderweb together,” she said keenly.

"And?" Ethan’s brows furrowed in confusion.

"And legend says that now, we have to kiss,” she huffed in frustration at how obtuse he could be.

"It's not mistletoe, Cassie,” he said, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Wrong holiday, love.”

“Legends are serious business,” Cassie countered stubbornly, hands on her hips.

“But it’s for Christmas,” Ethan argued in a reasonable tone.

“Just kiss her already, Ethan,” Mike remarked affably. “I recognize that look in her eyes from debate club, and you’re not winning this argument.”

Cassie watched Ethan triumphantly and tapped an index finger against her lips in invitation. She expected a light kiss, given the crowded party, but Ethan surprised her when he hooked one arm around her waist and hauled her up against him. She braced her hands on his arms as his blue eyes glittered in challenge.

And then he was kissing her, deeply, passionately, making her head spin. She fell into the kiss, loving this free-spirited side of him and uncaring of Mike and the other guests hooting and hollering around them.

Cassie tasted the tequila on his lips, and she smiled inwardly. Just when she thought she knew him inside and out, Ethan did something that made her see him in a new light. Life with him would never be predictable.

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

All Fics & Edits: @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @genevievemd @headoverheelsforramsey @lucy-268 @jamespotterthefirst @jerzwriter @lady-calypso @mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16 @rookiemartin @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @hopelessromantic1352 @mrs-ramsey @youlookappropriate @zealouscanonindeer

#open heart #ethan ramsey #open heart choices #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart fanfics #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfics #choices fanfiction #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine

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witch-of-snow-and-stars · 7 months

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If you want a free reading or want to chat, now is the time!

Basically I have the house to myself for a good chunk of the week and I can basically do whatever I want in that period. Anyone who wants to get a reading or do an exchange is going to get priority and a response quick. Otherwise I'm going to be cooking and writing the next installment of this series. The latest post of Tarot Notes Musings has a poll on it (please vote) and whatever has the votes will be started up.

My rules still apply, but if you want a reading or to do a reading exchange I have some new decks that I want to work with. If you want to hang out or anything I'll be around too💜

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addamvelaryon · 1 year

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DEAD THINGS IN THE WOODS. DEAD THINGS IN THE WATER.

I was once again thinking about how Patchface has a tendency to say some rather odd things, and if you view the phrase "under the sea" as an indication of death/afterlife, the things he says take on a more sinister connotation:

Patchface rang his bells. “It is always summer under the sea,” he intoned. “The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”

— A Clash of Kings, Prologue

Patchface was capering about as the maester made his slow way around the table to Davos Seaworth. “Here we eat fish,” the fool declared happily, waving a cod about like a scepter. “Under the sea, the fish eat us. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”

— A Clash of Kings, Prologue

“Under the sea the old fish eat the young fish,” the fool muttered at Davos. He bobbed his head, and his bells clanged and chimed and sang. “I know, I know, oh oh oh.”

— A Storm of Swords, Davos V

They found Her Grace sewing by the fire, whilst her fool danced about to music only he could hear, the cowbells on his antlers clanging. “The crow, the crow,” Patchface cried when he saw Jon. “Under the sea the crows are white as snow, I know, I know, oh, oh, oh.”

— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XI

Patchface jumped up. “I will lead it!” His bells rang merrily. “We will march into the sea and out again. Under the waves we will ride seahorses, and mermaids will blow seashells to announce our coming, oh, oh, oh.”

— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XIII

“Under the sea, men marry fishes.” Patchface did a little dance step, jingling his bells. “They do, they do, they do.”

— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XIII

Patchface drowned but survived under mysterious circumstances:

The boy washed up on the third day. Maester Cressen had come down with the rest, to help put names to the dead. When they found the fool he was naked, his skin white and wrinkled and powdered with wet sand. Cressen had thought him another corpse, but when Jommy grabbed his ankles to drag him off to the burial wagon, the boy coughed water and sat up. To his dying day, Jommy had sworn that Patchface’s flesh was clammy cold.

No one ever explained those two days the fool had been lost in the sea. The fisherfolk liked to say a mermaid had taught him to breathe water in return for his seed.

— A Clash of Kings, Prologue

The previous passage almost seems to echo the following:

He had been the thirteenth man to lead the Night’s Watch, she said; a warrior who knew no fear. “And that was the fault in him,” she would add, “for all men must know fear.” A woman was his downfall; a woman glimpsed from atop the Wall, with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars. Fearing nothing, he chased her and caught her and loved her, though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

— A Storm of Swords, Bran IV

That's not the only connection that exists between the merlings and the white walkers:

Mormont was deaf to the edge in his voice. “The fisherfolk near Eastwatch have glimpsed white walkers on the shore.”

This time Tyrion could not hold his tongue. “The fisherfolk of Lannisport often glimpse merlings.”

— A Game of Thrones, Tyrion III

Which of course reminds me of Cotter Pyke's ominous letter to Jon Snow:

At Hardhome, with six ships. Wild seas. Blackbird lost with all hands, two Lyseni ships driven aground on Skane, Talon taking water. Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods. Braavosi captains will only take women, children on their ships. Witch women call us slavers. Attempt to take Storm Crow defeated, six crew dead, many wildlings. Eight ravens left. Dead things in the water. Send help by land, seas wracked by storms. From Talon, by hand of Maester Harmune.

Cotter Pyke had made his angry mark below.

“Is it grievous, my lord?” asked Clydas.

“Grievous enough.” Dead things in the wood. Dead things in the water. Six ships left, of the eleven that set sail. Jon Snow rolled up the parchment, frowning. Night falls, he thought, and now my war begins.

— A Dance With Dragons, Jon XI

Dead things in the woods. Dead things in the water. Here's the description of the white walkers and the merlings:

Will saw movement from the corner of his eye. Pale shapes gliding through the wood. He turned his head, glimpsed a white shadow in the darkness. Then it was gone. Branches stirred gently in the wind, scratching at one another with wooden fingers. Will opened his mouth to call down a warning, and the words seemed to freeze in his throat.

[...]

A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. Tall, it was, and gaunt and hard as old bones, with flesh pale as milk. Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees. The patterns ran like moonlight on water with every step it took.

— A Game of Thrones, Prologue

They tell of pale blue mists that move across the waters, mists so cold that any ship they pass over is frozen instantly; of drowned spirits who rise at night to drag the living down into the grey-green depths; of mermaids pale of flesh with black-scaled tails, far more malign than their sisters of the south.

— The World of Ice and Fire, The Shivering Sea

Pale and black and grey-green. All frozen.

There is also this similarity of both being said to lay with human women to sire terrible offsprings:

He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.

— A Game of Thrones, Bran I

An even more fanciful possibility was put forth a century ago by Maester Theron. Born a bastard on the Iron Islands, Theron noted a certain likeness between the black stone of the ancient fortress and that of the Seastone Chair, the high seat of House Greyjoy of Pyke, whose origins are similarly ancient and mysterious. Theron’s rather inchoate manuscript Strange Stone postulates that both fortress and seat might be the work of a queer, misshapen race of half men sired by creatures of the salt seas upon human women. These Deep Ones, as he names them, are the seed from which our legends of merlings have grown, he argues, whilst their terrible fathers are the truth behind the Drowned God of the ironborn.

— The World of Ice and Fire, The Reach

We know the dragons are contrasted against the white walkers, but perhaps the merlings are too:

The big man looked out toward the terrace. “I knew it would rain,” he said in a gloomy tone. “My bones were aching last night. They always ache before it rains. The dragons won’t like this. Fire and water don’t mix, and that’s a fact.”

— A Dance With Dragons, The Dragontamer

Although no one can say for certain exactly what kind of creatures Euron (who, while not exactly THE NIGHT KING, is still very Night King coded) plans on summoning from the sea, but perhaps the merlings are part of his plan.

#valyrianscrolls #asoiaf #dragons #merlings #white walkers #the others #patchface #euron greyjoy #meta #asoiaf meta #text #I would say I'm back on my bullshit but I never did leave it #though this time I'm writing out my thoughts on this a bit more comprehensively #honestly if the merlings are the white walkers of the sea it would confirm quite a few theories of mine #also grrm is a genius but we all knew that #can't believe this idea came to me because I was originally thinking about 2 very unrelated (but actually still very related 🤭) characters

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candiedspit · 4 months

Text

Chocolate Cherries

Toddy was talking his shit again. As we were fucking reversed missionary style, I might as well have been a microphone. Above us, I knew there were those cheesy plastic stars splayed across the ceiling. Toddy’s idea. I watched the freckle on his chin bounce up and down as he spoke. The only way to keep myself sane.

And then, we’ll go to Cuba and smoke some fat cigars, get twisted on the fumes. And a thousand shots. And billiards. And hot women for me, hunks for you. I want to fuck you on the beach. I want to drive a cadillac.

I stopped moving and simply laid on top of him. Once he started, there was no stopping him. I could hear the vibrations of his voice rumble through his chest. I loved Toddy; silly little man. He was sweet though he tried to act tough for reasons I still can’t wrap my head around. Maybe he thinks that’s what men do. I got off him after a while and put my clothes back on and went to piss and sat in the love seat, reading from the Bible.

What are you reading that thing for? Toddy asked, wiping himself with a towel. It’s full of ghosts and lies. It’s basically a fairy tale.

That’s why I like it, I said. Who thinks of this stuff? I wanna be Christ, with my magic powers and wine and healing people, dressed in white like a baker. He’s like a rockstar; the first rockstar.

Toddy turned on the television, arranged the antennas so the picture showed up clearly. Then, took a seat on the floor and worked at his thousand piece puzzle. A lion covered in roses.

Around seven, the phone rang. I picked it up then regretteted it when I realized it was my mother calling. I answered the customary questions. Yes, we were fine. Yes, not too bad. Yes, we had pizza. Yes, I’d like to. When I hung up, I put the phone back on the receiver and rubbed Toddy’s head.

My mother wants to take us out to lunch next week.

That’s alright.

As the evening settled in, I did a little. I stuck the needle into my elbow and Toddy watched.

A little more at an angle, he said with a hand on my back.

I nodded and he pulled the needle out as the black magic hit me. As though a witch had wrapped a nest around my head. I couldn’t see.

Are we in Antartica? I asked, crumbling to the carpet. Toddy rubbed my head.

No, we’re in America. It’s beautiful here. I love you. And there is chocolate cake in the fridge. Not too sweet. Just how you like it.

I looked at the window and began to cry.

Outside, It was starting to snow.

#my poetry #fiction

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deapax · 5 months

Note

hey :3 so happy that you are accepting requests ~ can you please do one of Agatha Harkness who use her magic to brainwash you (a normal neighbor in Westview) and became you in her perfect partner?

Baby it’s cold outside

Characters: Agatha Harkness x fem!reader

Summary: Agatha put an eye on you before you knew it, now you’re decorating your shared house for Christmas.

Warnings: 18+ smut, brainwashing, oral (both), boot riding

A/N: It’s now Christmas time so I paired it with that haha. Enjoy!

You didn’t know that your entire life would be changed when you moved to the beautiful town called Westview. It was small, calm, a perfect place for you to relax and work at. You had an ordinary life to say the least, most people would’ve called it boring but you liked the slowness it brought along with it, giving you the opportunity to focus on the important things of life. Such as your neighbour, Agnes. She didn’t know where she came from, in fact you didn’t know much about her at all but you enjoyed spending time with her, going shopping, eating ice cream, roller skating. Any possible activity Westview had to offer.

After a few weeks you kept going like that, you noticed the changed look that the older woman gave you, yet you couldn’t quite wrap your head around what was going on. Then Christmas came around, clearing things up. She came up with the idea to move in together, as she thought of both of you being too lonely and also too attractive to stay alone forever. When you kindly declined, everything went downhill very quickly. The witch didn’t take rejection very well. So instead of simply accepting your decision she wiggled her wicked fingers, wrapping the house in purple mist, brainwashing you to bend to her will, turning you into her beloved housewife just like she’d always wanted.

There you were, standing on a ladder at the door, dressed in the ugly Christmas sweater you loved so much. “Agatha, dear, could you hand me the plastic snowflakes please? Oh and the mistletoe too. Did you manage to get the tree yet?” You asked, smiling when she handed you the things you’d requested, putting them over the door. The entire house was ahead covered in sparkling lights and candles, and the scent of freshly made cookies was lingering in the air. Agatha laughed softly as she helped you off the ladder and then gently placed her finger on your nose. “Honey it barely turning December, if I got the tree now it’d be dry as hell on Christmas Eve.” Even though her magic could definitely fix that problem, she chose to not tell you about her powers, scared you might discover the secrets she was hiding. “You’re right with that, I’m just too excited for Christmas. You know it’s my favourite holiday. So I was thinking we could go with silver and reddish Christmas balls and tinsels for our tree this year?” You suggested, your arms wrapping around your wife’s waist as she leaned down to plant a soft kiss on your red lips. “That sounds wonderfully my love.” She replied with a soft smile on her lips, an honest smile this time. The witch finally had what she wanted and she wouldn’t risk anything to let anyone ruin that for her. She deserved a happy ending after everything she’d been through, she thought.

You didn’t catch a glimpse of what was going on, you simply enjoyed the time you spent with your lover and were relieved that she obviously felt the same way. While the witch admired you with loving eyes, you made your way back to the box with Christmas decorations, taking out a few ceramic reindeer and stars before walking around the house to set them on the shelves while swaying to the Christmas music that was playing on the radio. Even though you weren’t the best singer Westview had ever seen you still didn’t hold back, singing along ‘Last Christmas’ as you finished up decorating the living room. When you noticed that you were missing the fake snow you quickly started putting on your shoes and reached for the door knob.

“Where are you going?” You could hear the panic in Agatha’s voice, something you very rarely heard from her so it caught you off guard, just like the hand that was taking yours off the door knob. “I just wanted to get some more decorations from the shop down the street. I’ll be back before you know it, I promise.” You gently cupped her cheek, reaching for the door knob again but Agatha just pulled you closer by your waist, pointing at the snow storm outside the window. You were certain that there were only little snowflakes falling from the sky when you checked the last time. “There’s no way I’m letting you go out there, I can’t risk letting anything happen to you, I’m sure you understand.” She tried to reason with you but you just smiled, leaned up and kissed her. “Then come with me. You can take care of me, you always do.” But your wife just shook her head, she wasn’t going to risk anything. “Baby it’s cold outside. I’m sure we got something we can do inside here no? Something to take your mind off things and heat you up.” The witch pointed up at the ceiling, the mistletoe dangling over your heads as she hummed, leaning down to kiss you before she lifted you up, your legs wrapping around her waist as she carried you to the couch in the living room, putting you down there to make you watch as she started stripping very slowly and teasingly, taking her purple blouse off first before her pants came off, leaving her in some black boots and her purple matching lingerie that you’d never seen before but damn did it look amazing on her. Once she’d gotten rid of her own clothes she proceeded to strip you out of your pants and panties as well, throwing them behind the couch, out of the way. She chuckled wickedly at how easily she could make you forget about your original plans, no matter how wrong it was.

Hungrily you dropped on your knees in front of her, looking up at her like the obedient girl you were for her, waiting for any sign of approval. “That’s my good girl. Come on angel, go ahead, I know you can do it.”Those words alone made your cheeks turn redder than the Christmas balls you planned on putting on the table. Your fingertips moved up the legs, gripping her thigh to pull her a little closer before your finger hooked under the waistband of her panties and slowly dragged them down. Your heartbeat quickened at the sight of her glistening pussy and you could barely hold back from just diving right into it but you knew better than that as you didn’t want to be punished.

The older witch’s hand moved to tangle in your hair pulling your head closer, her eyes were dark from lust when you looked up at her for a last time before you wrapped both of your hands on either of her full thighs, spreading them open so you could lick a line through her folds, collecting the sweet juice with your tongue, humming at the divine taste of it. The way she moaned out your name made your own core tingle, causing you to press your legs together. When Agatha noticed your reaction she tilted her head, smirking at how desperately you tried to get the tiniest bit of satisfaction out of pressing your thighs together. As your lips wrapped around the sensitive clit, switching between swirling your tongue through it and sucking on it, causing Agatha’s hips to buckle more into you face, her hand holding you so close that you thought you were suffocating even though being suffocated by this goddess of a woman would certainly be the most acceptable death you could think of. Noticing your little whimpers, the witch decided to make a move to help you out at least a little bit.

She brought her right boot under you, making squeal in surprise as the cold leather hit your heated cunt. Yet the sensation all this sent through you made you grind down on it, your moans stifled by Agatha’s folds. “Nuh uh, baby. Simply because I decided to show a bit for mercy doesn’t mean you can stop. Come on now, keep up the good work and you might get rewarded. Sounds good?” You couldn’t remember the last time you nodded your head so quickly. You dipped your tongue into your lover’s hole, making her pant softly as your nose brushed against her clit while you kept grinding down on her boot, covering it in your wetness as you felt the knot in your stomach tightening slowly. “Don’t you dare to cum, my darling, you wouldn’t want me to punish you do you? Just… just keep going I- ugh.” Her monologue was interrupted by your tongue doing its talented work inside her, accompanied by your fingers now rubbing her clit that soon made her throw her head back, moaning your name as her eyes shut. “Fuck, baby you’re gonna make me cum! God who knew you had such a talented mouth?” At the last comment you frowned, you remember sleeping with her several times during your marriage so she should know, right? Your doubts came to a sudden end when you heard Agatha crying out, pulling your hair as she did, filling your mouth with her divine fluids. As she looked down and saw your lips covered in her cum she pulled you up, kissing her deeply, moaning out softly as she tasted herself on your lips. “Oh baby, look at the mess you made on my boot. Eating me out got you going hm? Do you want mommy take care of your aches?” With big begging eyes you locked eyes with the witch, nodding at the proposal. “Please, it aches so bad! Need you so badly!”

You didn’t know how you ended up on the table, your legs spread widely with your witch’s head buried between your legs, your mind was foggy, like you had chugged an entire glass of strong alcohol which seemed very unlike you. As Agatha noticed the concerned expression on your face she felt her heart skipping a beat. Had you caught on her? “Focus on me baby, come on, look at me. Be a good girl and take what mommy gives you. That’s what you wanted didn’t you?” You brought your hand down to hold onto the witch’s hair while your other hand gripped the edge of the table as your wife’s tongue dove deeper into you, her fingers pinching your clit causing you to squirm under her touch. The way she kept locking eyes with you as she ate you out like it was her last meal made you feel things you didn’t know existed. The talented tongue and the stunning sight, as well as the fact that you had been riding her boots for what seemed like an eternity, caused you to cry out her name which was music in Agatha’s ears. The woman swallowed every single drop of your cum before she moved up to lean over you, kissing you passionately to make you taste yourself while her hand creeped underneath your ugly Christmas sweater, kneading your breasts as she kissed you once again, your tongues fighting for dominance.

“Now did I convince you to stay inside with me?” She asked, panting from the previous actions, silently hoping that she didn’t have to play with your mind again and that this convinced you. “Only if you stay inside me.” You winked pulling her closer for another kiss.

#agatha harkness #agatha x reader #agatha: darkhold diaries #coven of chaos #marvel #smut #x reader

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gothdaddyissues · 7 months

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The Devil Came to a Small Town

A Ghost AU Fanfic - Cardinal Copia/Female OC

The Satanic Church of Emeritus moves into an old Abbey on the outskirts of a bougie small town. Sister Imperator and the shy Cardinal Copia strike up a business relationship with Isabelle, the local witchy shop owner. This sets in motion a series of events that uncovers long-hidden secrets, solves mysteries, and unites the town and Church against a common enemy. And also: two lonely people fall in love...

TAGS: Glacially-slow slow burn. Lots of OCs. Romantic fluff. Mutual pining. Sex. Violence. Humor and melancholy in equal measure. Ghoul hijinx. All the Papas are alive and well, and very silly. Small-town weirdness. Drug and alcohol use. Bad language. Marginally accurate witchcraft. Very-likely-inaccurate religious imagery and practices. Magic, psychic abilities, and prophetic visions. Intolerance and discrimination. A happy ending will happen...

Chapter 7 is now up!

Read on Ao3 or below the cut... (~5100 words)

October 7

She ran, her feet pounding the frozen ground. The light dusting of snow on the forest floor was illuminated by the moon above, bathing everything in an iridescent blue glow. The trees soared high into the clear night sky, cradling the stars in their bare, spindly branches. It had been a night of celebration and reverence - a night of worship under the full moon - quickly transformed into a night of terror when they came looking for her.

So she ran, deep as she could into the woods, hoping they would not follow, hoping they would never find her. She could barely catch her breath, her heart slamming in her chest, but she dared not stop. She was running for her life.

The chill air bit at her cheeks, her ears, her fingers. She was so, so cold. She was further into the forest than she had ever been. Nothing familiar here, no bearings. And still, she ran. It was her only option.

"Bella...."

It was his voice. Whispered, drifting through the trees on the wind, meant only for her to hear.

"Bella!" More urgent this time.

He was close. She slowed herself as she came to a small clearing. Gasping, frigid air searing her lungs, she leaned against a tree trunk to hold herself up. She couldn't see him, but she sensed his presence, surrounding her like an embrace. Calm. Safe.

"How did you find me?" she asked, breathless.

"We are connected, you and I," he replied from the emptiness, "I'm with you always."

"Copia, help me."

He stepped out of the darkness — majestic in his long, black and gold military jacket, his skull paint crisp and pristine. Gloved hands reached for her, pulling her close. She melted into his strength, his warmth... his love. He wrapped her in his arms, resting his chin upon the top of her head, stroking his fingers through her tousled, wind-blown hair. The steady thrum of his heartbeat soothed her as she lay her cheek against his chest.

"Mia ragazza coraggiosa," he whispered, "Mia bella principessa. We cannot stay long. They are coming."

She could see the congregation far off through the trees. Their white robes shone in the moonlight, the orange flames from their torches shimmering pinpricks of light in the distance. They were chanting, their combined voices a dull, incomprehensible drone that grew louder and louder the closer they came. Like a poorly edited film, they were suddenly closer. Glitching again, closer still.

"Slut. Witch. Whore. Slut. Witch. Whore."

Copia took her hand tightly. "Come, my love. We must go. Rapidamente."

Together, they sprinted through the trees, but no matter how fast they ran, their pursuers were always right behind. Their voices were amplified by the wind, filling her with panic: "SLUT. WITCH. WHORE. BURN!"

She sensed another presence in the woods. Something animalistic. Demonic. A dozen shadowy figures paced in the darkness just beyond her vision, claws scraping against trees and frozen earth. Gurgling and growling. Angry. But they were not her enemies - they were guardians. They were at Copia's command, and he was leading their pursuers right to them.

Copia let go of her hand and pushed her ahead. "Go!" he ordered as he came to a stop. "Keep running. I will find you."

She turned back, reaching for him. The men in the white robes were almost on him, their faces covered with Venetian Bauta masks, their torches held high. "Copia, please!" she cried.

The demons emerged from the shadows around her, ready to protect their master and his lover. A pack of horned beasts with fangs and talons and long pointed tails. Their eyes and skin glowed incandescent in the pale light, various shades of purple, blue, orange, and green. They flew past her, tearing into the flesh of the white-robed men, snarling and vicious. There was blood. There were screams. She heard Copia again telling her to run, and this time, she obeyed.

She ran for what seemed like forever, but the screams still rang in her ears, the demon guardians chasing down every last villain who took after her. The forest grew dense as she sped blindly through the underbrush, branches scratching at her skin. Even without leaves, the trees blocked out most of the sky, with only thin slivers of moonlight cutting through here and there. She could barely see her hand in front of her face, lost in the darkness. She had to trust in Copia's promise that he would find her and return her to safety.

Finally, the screaming stopped. She slowed her pace somewhat, taking the opportunity to look back behind her. Nothing but pitch black night.

A sudden thump sent her flying backward, hard onto the ground with the wind knocked out of her. She had run headlong into something solid concealed in the dark. Dazed, she pulled herself onto her hands and knees, and reached out her hand; it brushed against hard stone. She slid her hand up to feel more stones, bricked together and covered with fuzzy moss. A solid mass in front of her. A wall? She had no idea how high it rose or how wide it spanned. She’d reached a dead end.

Her entire body ached and she was shivering in the cold. All around her was silence, save for her shuddering breaths. Terrified, disoriented, she wanted to cry out for Copia but thought better than to draw attention to herself. Instead, she wrapped her shaky arms around her torso in a feeble attempt to keep warm.

Then she heard the footsteps. The soft crunch of boots on the snow behind her. Copia? She scrambled to her feet and spun around. Her stomach dropped. A lone man, clad in a hooded white cassock, his face hidden behind a masquerade mask, had found her. "Slut. Witch. Whore." She tried to scream, but the man was on her, his hands around her throat. "Slut. Witch. Whore."

She clawed futilely at his wrists as she gasped for breath, and when that didn't work, went for his face with fists. She punched at him hard, dislodging the mask and sending it to the ground. The hood of his cassock obscured his eyes, but she could just make out his dark skin and white beard. "Slut! Witch! Whore!" he roared.

She was dizzy, losing consciousness, going limp under the man's grip. But his chokehold suddenly loosened, distracted by the sound of branches breaking, pounding footfalls, and beastly growling getting closer fast. The burliest demon yet, its skin pearly grey, burst through the brush and tackled the robed man, dragging him to the ground and tearing into him with its razor-sharp claws. Screams filled her ears again, and she was falling, faint, spatters of blood wetting her face from the carnage beside her.

Before she hit the ground, Copia caught her, lifting her into his arms. He cradled her against him, his hand on her cheek. "Bella? Wake up. Wake up!"

Isabelle's eyes shot open to see Poe sitting on her chest, licking and pawing at her face. The cell phone on her bedside table was ringing and vibrating, the 'old phone' ringtone blaring at full volume. The cat meowed angrily, annoyed by the shrill sound.

"Okay, okay," she grumbled, fumbling for the device in her half-awake state, the dream still clinging to her. She was bleary-eyed, couldn't make out the number on the call display, wasn't quite sure what time or even what day it was. But she managed to answer, her voice hoarse and barely working. "Hello?"

"Uh, Izzy?" There was a man's voice on the other end, "Hi, it's Alex, across the street. I woke you up, didn't I? I'm so sorry. I tried calling you a little while ago but there was no answer."

As he spoke, she nudged Poe off of her, struggling to sit up and look at the clock. The sun was up - it was morning. Her first thought was that maybe she overslept. But Ari would have called her if that was the case, not the man who owned the antique shop opposite her. She blinked a few times to clear her vision and saw it was just after 8 a.m. "Oh... uh, hi Alex. Yeah, it's okay, no worries. I'd be getting up soon anyways." She rubbed at her face, willing herself to wake up faster. "What's up?"

"I guess that means you haven't been outside yet?"

His words broke sleep's spell hard and fast, hitting her like a bucket of cold water. Something was wrong. 'Good news sleeps 'til noon,' her mom always said. "No. Oh no... what happened?" She shuffled out of bed and to the window. It faced Main Street and Alex's shop. All seemed normal outside from her vantage point; she could see Alex standing outside his door, his cell phone pressed to his ear as he looked across the street.

"You got hit with some vandalism overnight," he said, his voice soft and apologetic.

"Shit," Izzy muttered, "Again? Is it bad?" She raked her fingers through her hair to tame the bedhead and grabbed a zip-up hoodie off of the chair nearby. She needed to see the damage. At least her pajama pants were somewhat respectable.

"Well," Alex began, "You've had worse, but it's definitely not good."

In the living room now, she stuffed her feet into the closest pair of shoes and took her keys off the hook by the door. "I'm on my way down. I'll see you in a sec," she told him, ending the call.

It was a chilly morning, and thankfully the streets were mostly quiet. She hoped that not too many people had gone by and seen the aftermath; she'd already suffered enough public embarrassment at the coffee shop the week prior. By the time she got down the stairs and around the front of the building, Alex was on her side of the street, giving her a sympathetic look as she took it all in.

An entire carton of eggs had been thrown at the storefront. The metal gate did its job of protecting the windows - nothing broken that she could see. Eggshells and gooey debris splayed across the glass, in the crevices of the gate, and all over the sidewalk. But more distressing were the slurs spraypainted over the gate itself, in giant letters: slut, witch, whore.

Slut. Witch. Whore.

"Oh..." Izzy whispered, her voice trembling, "Oh my god..." Panic, confusion, and anger all welled up inside her, and she put a shaky hand over her mouth. A nasty mess. Plus the words from her dream plastered on her storefront, distressing her more than anything else. What the fuck…? But it wasn't like she could tell this to the nice man across the street without making herself sound completely unhinged.

She felt Alex’s hand on her shoulder. "This is awful Izzy, I know. I'm so sorry. I just got to the shop and saw it. Not a great way to start your day. But I thought it better to let you know as soon as possible. I hate having to be the one to tell you about it."

"No, hey, don't apologize. Thank you for letting me know, I do appreciate it. Really."

"I can help you clean up if you need a hand," he offered, "I know you don't open for a couple of hours yet."

She was grateful for his invitation but was reluctant to accept it. Alex was a kind soul, a bow-tie-wearing, nerdy, goody-two-shoes type, always ready with a dad joke or some historical trivia. The string of expletives she wanted to unleash over this situation would likely shock him to his very core. Probably best for their acquaintance if she saved him from witnessing it.

"Alex, you're so sweet," she began, "But I know you open soon and I don't want to keep you. Let me call Ari and get him over here... if we need any extra help, I'll let you know."

"You sure? I don't mind, really!"

"Yes, I'm sure. I really do appreciate the offer though. If I get stuck, I'll call you." She didn't want to sound rude... but fuck, she needed some time to scream into the void before she could even begin thinking about cleaning up. "And I should probably call and make a police report first too, in case there’s anything they can do." It would be a futile, useless endeavor - chances are they wouldn't even show up when they found out it was her shop - but it did buy her a little more time to calm down.

"Oh yeah, good idea," he agreed, before giving her a nudge with his elbow, "Good luck with that, eh?" He knew as well as she did how the entire police force was bought and paid for by a certain group of people in this town. "I'm right across the street if you need anything - anything at all - okay?"

"Okay. Thank you again." She managed a wave and a feeble smile as he returned to his shop. With a sigh, she turned back to the disaster on her doorstep. "Fuck," she muttered under her breath, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." I bet it was those fucking punks that harassed the Sisters yesterday, thinking they were getting me back for giving them shit.

She scanned the area, looking for signs of anything she could use to prove who did this - footprints or something left behind. Nothing. She took out her phone and snapped a few pictures up close, then backed onto the street to capture the whole storefront at once. From there, she could see Poe sitting in the bedroom window upstairs, looking down at her with the disdain of a cat whose breakfast was late. It unsettled her to realize this happened right underneath her while she slept - with the windows open, even - and she didn't hear a damn thing...

Before she stepped back onto the sidewalk, she noticed the security camera on the nearby light post. The previous year, the town council had convinced residents that installing cameras all along Main Street was needed to discourage petty crimes and keep businesses safe. She’d been skeptical, considering the ineffectual Police were the ones doing the monitoring, and also because the company hired to do the installation was a subcontractor of Andrew Francis' land development company. And Andrew Francis was best buddies with the town's mayor - it was all blatant cronyism.

Regardless of her feelings on the matter, there was a camera every 15 feet or so on both sides of the street, and the one closest to her was aimed right at the corner of Main and Richmond, directly in front of her shop. That was the best chance to prove who had vandalized her property. But it was going to mean getting the police involved.

She made her way back upstairs and dialed the non-emergency number. An extremely disinterested woman answered the phone: "Police."

"Yes, hi," Izzy began, "I'm calling to report some vandalism that occurred at my shop overnight. There were slurs spray painted onto my storefront."

"Okay." Izzy heard her begin typing. "Address?"

"The corner of Main and Richmond. Shadow and Light Metaphysical Boutique."

The typing stopped. "I see," the woman replied. "Were any other businesses affected?"

"No, just mine."

"Hmm.... so you were targeted. Sounds like something personal," the dispatcher said, the hint of a sneer in her voice.

Izzy figured the call would go this way, but she persisted as calmly as possible. "Be that as it may, it was still an act of vandalism. Will you be sending someone out to investigate?"

"All of our officers are currently dealing with other matters. I can pass your information along when someone becomes available."

"Any idea when that might be?" Izzy asked through gritted teeth.

"It will be when someone becomes available," the dispatcher repeated.

Izzy squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to quell a rapidly blossoming headache. "What about the cameras?" she asked, "One of the town's security cameras is aimed right at the front of my shop. Would you be able to pull the footage off that and see if we can identify who did this?"

"That would be up to the officer who investigates the incident. Who is yet to be determined. I will pass the information along..."

"...when someone becomes available, yeah, I got that part." Izzy interrupted. "I've taken pictures of the damage. Can I start cleaning it up, or do I have to wait for Officer Yet-To-Be-Determined to come?" Oh, she was so close to losing it.

"Suit yourself," the woman replied, "And mind your tone, ma'am."

Mind MY tone?? "Oh, I do apologize," Izzy said sarcastically. "Thank you ever so much for your help. Your assistance has been invaluable, ma'am." She stabbed the phone with her finger to hang up the call and flung it down on the couch beside her with an exasperated growl. She instantly regretted being so snarky. But being nice wouldn't have mattered - the dispatcher’s attitude was set the moment she heard the shop name. FUCK.

The stress had her head throbbing. She reached for the joint she’d left in the coffee table ashtray the night before, a calming blend she enjoyed when she needed to settle her mind after a long day. She lit it, closed her eyes, and took a few small hits; not enough to get high, but just enough to take the edge off. Would it help? Maybe. Definitely wouldn’t hurt.

She heard the pitter-pat of paws, Poe jumping up on the coffee table and plopping himself down, blinking his big green eyes at her. Then a soft 'tap-tap' on her knee, the cat trying to get her attention. When she opened her eyes, she was met with an inquisitive "Mmrrrow?"

"Yes, yes baby, I know. Let's get your breakfast," she sighed, scratching his head. For now, she could focus on something else: getting the cat fed, brushing her teeth, putting her hair in a ponytail, and finding some clothes. An old pair of paint-stained jeans and a worse-for-wear Metallica t-shirt was her standard uniform for grunt work like this. And she needed to call Ari and start the cleanup before the whole town saw the debacle.

Izzy dialed his number and it rang at least five times before he finally answered. "Hrgrarlo?" he croaked sleepily.

She was pacing her living room, back and forth in front of her altar space. His awakening was about to be as rude as hers. "Ari?"

He groaned. "Iz? What time is it?"

"8:30-ish. I need..."

"Too early," he slurred, "Call later."

"Aristotle! Wake up!" she snapped. "The store got vandalized last night. I need your help to clean up."

"Wha...?" He cleared his throat, finally rousing now, "What happened? You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. But it's a fucking mess. We got egged, and the gate got spray painted."

Slut. Witch. Whore. It echoed in her brain, filling her with dread.

"Shit, okay. I'll be there as soon as I can. Give me 20 minutes.”

"Okay, I'll meet you out front. Thanks."

She hung up the phone and continued to pace, images from the dream consuming her. The white-robed men chasing her down with torches, wanting to burn her. Demons protecting her, killing for her. And Copia in his skull paint, right in the middle of it all, infiltrating her dreams again.

Slut. Witch. Whore.

"Why is this happening?" she asked out loud. "I still don't understand." She looked at the statue of Lilith on her altar as she paced, rolling the anxious thoughts around and around in her head. Things were going so well. Things were calm, people were finally leaving us be. Then I met Sister Imperator and everything's been fucked up since then! The weird dreams. The coffee shop last week, the Sisters yesterday, now this… I'm trying to be kind. Friendly. The people from the Church seem like good people. I want to help them. And Copia. I want… Ugh! How much shit will I have to eat? Is it worth it? Why am I putting myself through this?

As she passed the altar again, Izzy saw movement out of the corner of her eye, something falling from the top of it to the floor. A piece of paper. She stopped, bending down to pick it up.

It was the Cardinal's business card.

She’d placed it under Lilith's statue the week before - completely underneath the statue, she was sure of it. His familiar energy danced around her as she held the card, the same frisson of pleasure she felt when in his presence. That feeling of calm and safety she’d felt in her dream when he embraced her…

Or maybe it was the weed kicking in.

"I'm with you always.”

She wanted a reason why this was happening, and Lilith answered: Copia.

“Okay then,” she mumbled, sliding the card back underneath the statue’s base. If her goddess was conspiring to bring her and Copia together, she wasn’t about to argue. But she hoped it was worth it… “Message received,” she kissed the tips of her fingers and touched them to Lilith’s feet, “Thank you.”

With a resigned sigh, Isabelle put on her work boots and made her way downstairs to begin dealing with the mess. She unlocked the shop’s back door, turned off the alarm system, and went to the storage closet for cleaning supplies: gloves, rags, scrub brushes, garbage bags, and spray paint remover. She also needed a bucket full of hot, soapy water to wash away all the dried-up egg gunk. The buckets were under the sink in the tiny kitchenette, and as she crossed the length of the back of the shop, she glanced through the doorway that led to the shop floor. People were outside the front windows, on the other side of the gate. She did a double take, thinking it was a crowd of gawkers.

But no. Six Ghouls in their shiny silver masks were there, scrubbing and scraping, hard at work cleaning on her behalf. The Church of Emeritus had come to her rescue.

Incredulous, Isabelle went out the back door and made her way around to the front of the shop. They turned to her when she came around the corner. “Uh, hi,” she said tentatively.

She recognized Aether right away. He put down the rag he was using and greeted her with a happy wave. The five others joined in. They’d brought their own cleaning supplies, including a heavy-duty paint remover far superior to the kind she used.

“What the heck are you guys doing here? I mean… I appreciate you coming to help, but how did you even know this happened?” she asked.

Aether pulled his phone out of his pocket, typing quickly before turning the screen to her.

“One of us saw the mess this morning,” it said, “And so we came to help clean up. We’ve had to deal with this sort of thing before too, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately,” Izzy sighed. They had already made great progress, doing a faster and more thorough job than she and Ari could have done on their own. After all the stress and anxiety of the morning, this simple act of kindness brought all her emotions to the surface. “You guys,” she said, her voice breaking, “You didn’t have to… this is so wonderful of you. I don’t know what to say.”

Aether typed again: “You don’t have to say anything, Miss Izzy. It’s our pleasure to help! You’ve already done SO MUCH for us, we’re just paying it back. Like you told the Cardinal, we take care of each other.”

She blinked back tears. “Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? And I meant it.” Aether gave her a gentle touch on the shoulder and she felt relief for the first time today. “Thank you so much, Aether, and all of you, for the help.”

“Let me introduce you to everyone,” Aether typed. He went down the line of Ghouls, giving her the names of each: “Rain, Mountain, Sunshine, Cirrus, and Dewdrop. But you can call him Dew.”

“Hello,” Izzy greeted. “I think I recognize you, Dew. And Cirrus too. I met you both in the coffee shop last week, didn’t I?”

The mention of the word “coffee” made Dew hang his head and cover his face with his hands. Aether gave him a playful nudge on the shoulder. “We don’t talk about coffee around Dew anymore,” he typed, “It doesn’t agree with him.”

Izzy nodded, sympathetic. “Honestly, I understand… Since that day, coffee hasn’t agreed with me either. But I still want to thank you for your kindness.”

Dew placed his hands over his heart and bowed, the same gesture that Aether often used, acknowledging her thanks.

“I had no idea there were so many of you,” Izzy remarked.

“There are 15 of us all together, for now at least,” Aether told her, “More wanted to come and help but Sister Imperator needed some of us to stay behind this morning.”

“I hope the Cardinal is managing alright without you,” she teased. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought of him, wondering if maybe he had encouraged Aether to go as a way of checking up on her…

The sound of hurried footsteps approached from around the side of the building, and Izzy saw each of the Ghouls perk up, on alert. Aether stepped in front of her, shielding her from whomever it was, while the others surrounded her protectively. She felt the tension radiating off them as they stood guard, and the faint rumble of… growling?

Ari burst around the corner, still disheveled from sleep, and skidded to a stop, face-to-face with Aether. “Jesus fucking…” he gasped, startled, “What the fuck?”

The Ghouls closed in around her. None of them, save for Aether, knew who Ari was or that he was her friend. She saw Aether touch Ari’s arm to steady him before he waved off the other Ghouls, showing them there was no threat. Aether pointed to Ari, made motions with his hands like he was drawing in the air, and then mimed pinning something up on a wall. He then pointed back and forth between Ari and Izzy and brought his hands together to make the shape of a heart. The others nodded, backing off as their wariness eased.

“I ask again: what the fuck?” Ari looked at Izzy, confused.

“It’s okay, Ari, it’s okay. They came here to help clean up. They’re just being extra protective because of what happened and because they don’t know you. Aether told them you’re the artist that made the poster we gave him, and that you’re my friend. Right?” Aether nodded, happy that Izzy interpreted him correctly.

Ari was in disbelief. “You understood all that?”

“Yes, of course,” Izzy said, unsure as to why he didn’t. “You just have to pay attention.” She grabbed Ari’s wrist and pulled him closer as she turned back to the Ghouls. “So this is Ari, he’s my best friend and he works here with me. He’s cool, okay? No need to worry. Ari, this is Rain, Mountain, Sunshine, Cirrus, and Dew. And you already know Aether.” She nudged him in the side and whispered, “Say hi.”

“Uh, hello,” Ari said with an awkward wave. “Nice to meet you.”

Aether typed quickly and showed his phone to Ari: “They like your art!”

“Oh… well, thank you!” he replied, “And thank you for coming to help, we appreciate it.”

“Listen,” Izzy began, “I’m going to go inside and get some soap and water to help clean all this off. We’ll be right back, alright?”

Aether and the Ghouls all gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up and returned to their work as she ushered Ari to the back of the building. Before she could say anything to him, he pulled her into a tight hug.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he swore as he embraced her, “You’re okay, right? I can’t believe this happened *again* Iz.”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay,” she replied, hugging him back just as hard, “I’m pretty sure it was those rotten teenagers that messed with the Sisters yesterday, trying to get back at me. But I’ll never be able to prove it, though.”

“Did you call the cops?”

“Yeah…”

“And?”

Izzy pulled away then and gave him a telling look before opening the back door for him. “It went about as well as you’d think. They’re doing jack shit. Even though there’s a camera right outside the shop. I may as well not’ve bothered. But, at least we’ve got some help cleaning up…” She motioned to the front window where the Ghouls were working away. “If I had known they were coming, I would’ve let you keep sleeping. Sorry…”

Ari seemed as stunned as she had been. “So they just showed up on their own?”

“Yep, and they’re doing an awesome job.” She squirted some soap into the bottom of a bucket and turned on the hot water, watching them through the doorway while waiting for it to fill.

“Getting by with a little help from our friends, huh?” Ari observed.

Isabelle nodded. She was so grateful for their kindness. But now she had to worry about what sort of repercussions this would bring. If word got around town that the Satanic Church was at her service, would her haters be less inclined to hassle her, or would they double down on their hostility? How was she going to play this?

A fleeting recognition, familiarity, prickled down her spine as she observed the Ghouls. The protectiveness they’d had over her? She recognized it, felt it before. Images from her dream - those demon things saving her from the torch-wielding mob - flashed through her mind, her brain attempting to connect the dots while ignoring the rapidly filling bucket. Ari reaching around her to shut off the kitchen faucet jolted her back into reality.

“I’ll take this outside,” he said, not noticing she had spaced out, “You bring the sponges and stuff, okay?”

Oh, uh… yeah, okay,” she stammered, “I’ll be right there.”

Isabelle took a moment to collect herself. It was almost nine o’clock. The town was coming to life. People would see her and Ari outside with the Ghouls. People would talk. Her association with the Church of Emeritus would be indisputable. This was the tipping point; she’d have to choose her allegiance…

She recalled the feelings of safety and calm that enveloped her in Copia’s presence. The Ghouls had gone out of their way to come to her aid. Even her Goddess had given her a definitive sign. It all felt decided on her behalf.

I guess I’m on Team Dark Side. I wonder if they like cookies?

#ghost #the band ghost #ghost fanfic #my fanfic #ghost fanfiction #my fanfiction

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ultra-violet-heart · 1 year

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86 -Eighty Six- Magical Girl Regina ☆ Lena ~Fight! Galactic Cruise Battleship San Magnolia Ep. 1

This is the fan translation for the 86 -Eighty Six- Magical Girl Regina ☆ Lena ~Fight! Galactic Cruise Battleship San Magnolia side stories!

(They are original bonus side stories from the 86--EIGHTY-SIX Blu-Ray DVDs, written by Asato Asato and are illustrated by Suzume Somemiya). Will be translating all of these side stories soon. If you can, please support the full manga adaptation of these side stories (published by Comic Alive and are also illustrated by Somemiya as well here!)

Catalogue / Next Chapter (to be up soon)

Please ask my permission and credit me+this post if you will be retranslating this to other languages. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST THIS TO OTHER SITES. Please take the fan translations here with a grain of salt. If anyone is feeling generous, feel free to buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi!

Episode 1:

The catapult started to light up.

“Spell activated! Magical Girl Battle Dress: Juggernaut [1], on!”

A beam of light emanated from the launcher’s magic circle, just like a trail of footprints left by lovers on the sands of a beach, or like railroad tracks from the distant past. As if pointing the way forward, Lena stepped into that path of light stretching into the starry darkness of outer space, and her Battle Dress fluttered, woven from particles of light.

The chiffon frills of the dress overlapped each other like rose petals. It has ribbons like a kaleidoscope of butterflies, and the full-on set of this Battle Dress has various trinkets imbued with magical protection: a tiara, a brooch, bracelets, a pair of earrings, and a necklace. It resembled a beautiful fairy in a fairy tale, or something akin to a luxurious bridal dress.

The dress’s hues were all sky-blue, the color of the heavens as seen from the ground on a long-distant home planet. To Lena, who was born and was raised in a Galactic Cruise Battleship, it is a color she feels distant with, having only seen it in videos.

“Setting up the Guardian Spirit Control System. All units, Wehrwolf, Gunslinger, Sirius, Kirschblüte, stand by.”

Particles of light started to gather at the four vertices of the star-shaped brooch above her chest, materializing and fitting themselves in form of four small gems with various colors: a strong iron-blue, a clear gold, a burning-flame white, a gentle cherry blossom pink.

My four precious Guardian Spirits [2].

The space traffic controller then announced: “Launch path clear! Magical Girl, Handler [3] Regina ☆ Lena, prepare for take-off!”

The light from the launcher’s magic circle brightened, changing from a warning signal of red to a go signal of clear blue.

Taking a deep breath, she answered loudly: “Vladilena Milizé, Regina☆Lena, rolling out!”

Casting propulsion magic on her back, she soared through the vacuum of outer space. She took another deep breath after passing by the Fleet’s final defense unit. The Magical Girl Battle Dress’ barrier maintains such airtightness as a space suit, and said barrier also protects the Magical Girl from everything, including the enemies’ low-level attack magic.

Looking back, their mothership, the Galactic Cruise Battleship San Magnolia still lied in all its majesty over the sea of stars. The extremely gigantic immigrant battleship, which contained a single country inside of it, still looked large on her point of view, despite her being away from a considerable distance because of the launching and propulsion magic casted on her earlier. Even if she passed by the final defense Fleet’s barrier, she was still within range of the space traffic control communication magic from the mothership. Thus, she could directly hear the controller’s comms as well as the voices of the other Magical Girls responding to it.

“Setting up FCS [4]. Laughing Fox, Black Dog, Snow Witch, Falke, stand by.”

“Handler Owlette☆Annette [5], prepare for take-off!”

“Yeah, yeah. Henrietta von Penrose, Owlette☆Annette, rolling out!”

A figure clad in mint-green got launched from the now-pinhole-looking Magical Girl launcher catapult. Said figure stops next to Lena after the launch, shaking off dusts of light left from the propulsion magic. It is Annette, a Magical Girl around Lena’s age, and she has short silver hair and almond-shaped silver eyes.

By the way, Annette’s Battle Dress has a mint-green color, and the color of the dresses are determined by the wavelength of the Magical Girl’s innate magical power. However, for some reason, these colors are rather biased towards cutesy-looking colors like cherry pink, cream yellow, or orchid purple, so the Battle Dress colors are very, very unpopular with male Magical Girls.

Anyways.

“Owlette☆Annette, to think we share the same sortie shift!”

“For now, seems like we’ll have the same shift this whole month, Regina☆Lena!”

It is mandatory for Magical Girls to address each other by their callsigns, not their real names, when on duty. Having the ☆ on their callsigns is also mandatory. Neither Lena nor Annette knows the reason why though.

Far out of their line of sight, Annette’s eyes narrowed as she looked at a corner of their first line of defense.

“As predicted, the first offensive barrier’s been broken through… they even got the fleet of Fidos on our second line of defense.”

Their current automatic defensive system consists of the first defense line, the offensive barrier Gran Mur, and the second defense line, the Fido Fleet of automatic fighter machines, but depending on the enemy’s strength, both lines can be broken through.

In case something like this happens, Lena and the other Magical Girls are responsible for intercepting the enemy.

Lena reacted by listening clearly to the unfolding situation on the great barrier. Fortunately, it seemed.

“Looks like there’s only a few which broke through.”

“Yes… let’s finish this quickly.”

“Right.”

As the enemy’s vanguard unit came into sight, both chanted at the same time.

“Snow Witch, Activate!”

“Wehrwolf, Activate! Enchant, Sirius!”

On the brooch on Annette’s chest, a snow-white gem flashed and vanished, but at the same time a missile pod appeared above her outraised right palm.

From Lena’s brooch, the iron-blue gem and the burning-flame white gem also sparkled and vanished, and then suddenly beside it, a Gatling gun with six barrels appeared, and blazing white flames swayed from its muzzle.

Snow Witch, Wehrwolf, Sirius: these are the Personal Names of the Eighty-Six, the Guardian Spirits who materialized as weapons to protect their Fleet.

“FIRE!!!”

The pod then aimed and fired a group of missiles at the enemy.

The Gatling gun fired a rain of bullets wrapped in flames.

Far away in outer space, all bullets and missiles pierced through the enemy vanguard.

***

In search for a habitable planet to move into, the Galactic Cruise Battleship San Magnolia continues to navigate a faraway galaxy. The battleship, sailing on a sea of stars, has been embroiled in a long war that has spanned more than 100 years.

***

After taking off the Juggernaut in the dressing room, Lena then headed back to the waiting room, where she saw Annette (who returned earlier) raising a hand.

“Good job today, Lena.”

“You too, Annette… and everyone as well.”

She smiled at them while everyone rested on the table, murmuring in response while munching on magic-replenishing cookie-like Ether Crystals like a human munching on a whole apple.

“Good work, Lena. Raiden and Kurena, too.”

“Thanks for your hard work, too, Kaie, Kujo.”

As Lena pulled a chair and sat down, the Eighty-Six resting on her shoulders or head slid down to join the others lounging at the table.

“Want some?” Annette handed out some of the Ether Crystal to Lena, but the latter raised her hand to say it wasn’t necessary. Annette tilted her head in response.

“Don’t you want these cookies as snacks, then? It’s my new recipe, made with real eggs!”

“It’s not like… those that taste like cheese when they don’t have cheese in them, or those which look like black smoke coming out of them… right?”

Before Annette could reply, however, someone from the table answered.

“Sadly, those cookies seem like the type that has black smoke coming out of them…”

The reply came from one of the Guardian Spirits on the table. With the height of less than 30 cm, they have large heads, short limbs, and bodies the size of infants or probably stuffed toys.

For some reason, they are clad in desert camouflage combat fatigues and have silver ear cuffs attached to them. They also have fluffy triangular ears and bushy tails like those of puppies, though overall they have a human-like appearance.

They are the Eighty-Six.

They are human-like magical weapons, partnered with the Magical Girls, also called as Handlers, who protect the Galactic Cruise Fleet. These Guardian Spirits have protected the battleship and its people throughout this long war spanning more than 100 years.

“By the way, Annette, why are these little ones called Eighty-Six?”

Annette nodded.

“It’s said there were 1,010,110 Guardian Spirits in total from the beginning.”

“Huh?”

She didn’t get what that meant.

“The binary number of 86 is 1,010,110.”

“I see…”

“Well, to be honest that’s rather a stretch…”

Annette’s Eighty-Six, Snow Witch, Anju, smiled wryly. She has the appearance of a young girl with silvery-blue hair, and the fur on her ears has the same color.

Returning to the topic, Theo continued to speak. He has golden-brownish hair, jade eyes, and golden-brownish ears. His Personal Name [6] is Laughing Fox, and he is one of Annette’s Eighty-Six.

“Rather than seem to be, those cookies now have black smoke coming out of them, so don’t eat them, Haruto, Daiya.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

Black smoke, however, continued to puff out of the mouths of Haruto, who has copper-brown ears, and Daiya, who has golden ears.

Lena froze with a vague smile. Those two of Annette’s Guardian Spirits usually like making noise, so them being oddly silent for today… maybe that’s why.

“BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Lena’s Eighty-Six, Kujo, whose Personal Name is Sirius, pointed his fingers at the two and continued to laugh loudly, so Lena pinched his ebony-colored dog ears to rebuke him.

“Hey!”

“Do-wah!”

Kujo rolled his eyes, then fainted. The Eighty-Six’s ears and tails are very sensitive, and touching their tails and ears weaken them.

Lena’s Guardian Spirit, Raiden, whose Personal Name is Wehrwolf, gave Annette a side-eye and said, “Can’t you just give up on making sweets, Annette? They always end up as charcoal anyways.”

“DON’T WANT TO.”

“I mean, isn’t that your Curse in the first place?”

“Since that Curse makes things impossible, it’s kinda stupid to fight that, you know?”

As Lena’s Guardian Spirits, Kaie and Kurena, continued the current talk, Annette went fuming.

The price Handlers pay for in exchange for them to use the powers of the Eighty-Six is always having a minor inconvenience in their lives, or what’s known as a Curse.

In Annette’s case, it is “to always fail at making sweets.” For Annette, this is a very painful Curse, as making sweets is her hobby.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to pass on the cookies, Annette.”

She really didn’t want to breathe out black smoke, too…

“Ugh…” Annette looked even more angry.

She pouted at Lena sullenly and then pointed a finger at her accusingly.

“Hold on… so you dare say that after you see people now spouting black smoke. When it comes to cooking, you don’t even know how to crack an egg open!”

Lena averted her eyes away.

“Mother won’t let me do housework as she said it would roughen my hands, and the kitchen is off-limits as it’s the cook’s territory…”

As said, Lena is someone who hasn’t cracked an egg open, nor does she know how to.

“I know you’re a young lady from an aristocratic lineage, so I don’t blame you for not knowing how to. Still, you don’t have the right to talk about me like that!”

“Well, if the cookies are a little burnt, that’s fine, but I think people will complain if you make them eat something that’s completely charred…” Daiya said this while coughing black smoke, but Annette ignored him.

With a bit of surprise in his voice, Theo chimed in. “For some reason, I knew you’re a rich young lady.”

“Lena, you’re really some sort of a princess, huh.”

“Don’t say that!”

Lena swallowed her words, trying to ask if Raiden and the others can crack an egg open. She didn’t think the Eighty-Six’s tiny hands can break eggs open, and it might be wrong of her to say so. She did hear eggshells are tough and hard. However, the Eighty-Six coolly nodded at her.

“We do know how to, though.”

“We know how to crack an egg open.”

“I mean, I can still do it, maybe?”

“You can’t really crack an egg open with one hand.”

“If we have two people doing that, then maybe…”

“Wait. With just one hand…?”

Lena groaned in surprise, while the Eighty-Six just nodded at her.

Not that it mattered much, but a stuffed-toy-sized Eighty-Six cracking an egg open looked like a very fairy-tale-like image, or the stuff out of picture books, Annette thought.

***

After parting ways with Annette, who said she'll go shopping, Lena was walking alone in the defense area corridor when the enemy’s second unit launched an attack.

She heard the space traffic controller’s comms again: “Course, clear. Handlers Drunken☆Sanders, Gluttonous☆John, Super Cool☆Tom, prepare for take-off!”

Said Mr. Sanders, Mr. John, and Mr. Tom could be heard replying. They sounded… heartbroken.

“Enough with these Magical Girl names! Can’t we change these to sound more like Magical Warriors or something?!”

“Can’t you also change the Juggernauts’ design to something more military-like?! We’re soldiers, too, after all!”

“My callsign sounds way too half-assed!”

Instead of the controller, however, girlish, high-pitched tones responded to the complaints.

Lecca, Mikuri and Myna respectively are the Guardian Spirits for Mr. Sanders and the others.

“Can’t be helped, it’s tradition!”

“The whole Dress, including the frills, the ribbons and even the gems are part of the magical defense schtick, you know.”

“Yeah, Super Cool sounds really half-assed.”

The space traffic controller replied coolly.

“It’s fine! Prepare for take-off. Forced launching activated. Bye!”

“DAMMIT ALL!!!”

The three then left a trail of different colors of flight magic as they faded from sight in the sea of stars.

Seeing this happen on and then off screen from beyond the spaceship’s window, Lena smiled strangely. By the way, as one may have guessed, Mr. Sanders, Mr. John, and Mr. Tom are all adult men, contrary to the Magical Girl moniker.

Or rather, the moniker was derived from the first Magical Girl, Handler Saint☆Magnolia, who first fought with the Eighty-Six more than 100 years ago, and there is no particular age or gender restrictions to become a Magical Girl.

It doesn’t mean that not everyone is not dissatisfied with being called a Magical Girl, having such excessively decorated Battle Dresses, or their rather-embarrassing-to-use-even-in-ordinary-times callsigns (to repeat, having the ☆ is mandatory).

The demand to revise the names continues to be rejected, the authorities being adamant about this being tradition. And “Super Cool☆Tom” truly sounds way too half-assed.

Well, that’s what Lena thought while walking.

“Ah!”

Lena felt her toe got caught in something, but she actually fell in the middle of nowhere.

In the technologically advanced Galactic Cruise Battleship, while walking in the seamlessly constructed spotless corridor of the defense area, Lena fell with a loud thud, though the ship didn’t even so much shake after.

“Ugh… it hurts…”

She did quickly get her hands and elbows together to shield her face, but then her hands, elbows and both knees hurt… it was pain she had grown accustomed to even if she’s not exactly happy about it.

That’s the nature of Lena’s Curse, “to often fall down at random.”

She never gets too injured, and it does hurt and not hurt at times, but it’s rather embarrassing when her Curse activates on public. Also, the reason why Lena has never set foot in the kitchen is partly because her mother is afraid the Curse might activate when Lena uses a knife or fire while cooking.

Lena stood up, sighing as she did so. Brushing her knees, she then saw something that certainly was not there before she fell.

From an arm’s length, there appeared to be a cardboard box.

“Farm-fresh oranges” was printed on the label of the box’s side, and it looked like someone from the public used the frayed box as some kind of container just lying around their home or something. On top of that, for some reason, rain started to fall, soaking Lena and the box in a blink of an eye.

Since this is just some kind of activating magic, please refrain from thinking how rain managed to pour inside the corridors of the Galactic Cruise Battleship, much less inside the corridors of both the defense area and near the residential area. [7]

However, in front of Lena, who was silent…

Triangular, black furry ears popped out from inside of the box as the lid opened.

A small head then followed.

Then her silver eyes met his blood-red eyes.

***

Freshly laundered bath towels and face towels are always available at all the captains’ rooms of the Galactic Cruise Fleet. This is because the manifestation of the Eighty-Six randomly happens by a cardboard box having one inside appearing in front of a randomly picked Handler while it randomly rains coldly on top of them. And since supervising Magical Girls are among the captain’s duties…

At once… the captain’s secretary placed a bath towel on Lena’s shoulders, but she didn’t bother using it to wipe her wet hair and clothes. One can see the Eighty-Six wiping his hair using the towel given to Lena while she lifted him with both hands and hugging him tightly close to her chest.

“Uncle!!! Can I take this little one with me?”

“Um…”

For the time being, Captain Jerome Karlstahl of the Galactic Cruise Battleship San Magnolia wondered if he could change this stupid manifestation ritual, which seemed to be like that common trope of a child adopting a stray dog.

His best friend’s beloved daughter, who he helped raised to be honest, is rather a little too honest… The Eighty-Six boy with black hair and crimson eyes, who was still wiping his hair, perked up as he was suddenly picked up, his pitch-black furry ears now flat and his bushy black tail wagging from side to side. Karlstahl thought it was like a dog’s tail when said dog is not growling, barking, or biting anyone, but didn’t mean the dog is on a pleasant mood, either. That Eighty-Six boy wasn’t a dog, but judging from his narrowed eyes and the crease between his eyebrows, he did resemble one…

Perhaps the boy noticed Karlstahl’s gaze, so he implored with a look that said Help me! but Karlstahl pretended he didn’t notice and nodded with a very sociable-looking smile. The crease between the boy’s eyebrows went deeper and it was a sorry sight, but Karlstahl didn’t care at all.

The girl he helped raised was just too honest. If he even tried to suddenly tear out that Eighty-Six boy out of her arms, she would probably say, “I hate you so much, Uncle!”, which made him depressed. Even thinking about it made him depressed. Compared to that, being resented by an Eighty-Six was nothing. He then put that aside and then gently pointed out an important fact.

“Lena, you already have four Eighty-Six with you. While it’s true the maximum number of Guardian Spirits a single Handler can possibly possess is up to five, it doesn’t mean there’s no consequences to reaching that maximum. You’re well aware that a shortage of magical power can end in disaster, both for the Handler and the Eighty-Six they possess.”

“I’m well aware, but… our eyes happened to meet in the rain!!!”

That was not exactly an answer to what Karlstahl pointed out.

“I’ll take good care of him! And if it’s about my magical power capacity, it’s been previously measured I’m capable to possess up to five Eighty-Six, so this is favorable chance!” Or so she said.

The Guardian Spirits, magical beings who don’t have a physical body, have enormous amounts of magical power themselves, but they also require a supply of magical power from their Handlers in order to recover said power they spent in battle or during their materialization. Insufficient magical power, especially during battle, can lead to destruction of the Eighty-Six, or worst, the death of the Handler. Therefore, the number of Eighty-Six possessed by each Handler is strictly and carefully determined based on the Handler’s magical power.

And as she claimed, Lena’s magical power has been determined to be exceptionally enormous that it was certified she could possess even up to five Eighty-Six with plenty of power to spare.

However, Karlstahl was rather eager to say what many parents would have usually said to their children who picked up stray dogs: Return it to where it came from.

The Eighty-Six can be returned to the temple in the innermost part of the Fleet’s Battleship, and afterwards there is no way to return them to the captain, not to mention the Magical Girl, but that aside…

After all…

Karlstahl couldn’t care less if the Eighty-Six was a girl, but this was a boy they’re talking about.

He was like a pest [8], and Karlstahl didn’t like that at all.

Uncle! Lena pleaded earnestly while looking at him with the eyes of a puppy about to be thrown away, and Karlstahl let out a sigh.

“Lena.”

At the firm mention of her name, Lena held her tongue.

“You really are like your father, Vaclav.”

Lena smiled at Karlstahl.

“Even if you want to sidetrack this issue at hand by suddenly mentioning Father, you can’t fool me like that, Uncle.”

Karlstahl raised his hands in defeat. I can’t fool her any longer like this, huh.

Anyways.

“To begin with, which part of this conversation brought out that part about her being like her father?” retorted the Eighty-Six boy, who had been silent until now.

Lena then answered. “Even though he is posted away due to a work transfer, Father is also a Magical Girl. Guardian Spirits tend to choose him, and since he just can’t refuse every time he gets chosen, he ended up possessing the maximum limit of five Eighty-Six.”

“Oh, so he’s still alive.”

Why did this past tense reference sound similar to earlier? [9]

In any case, Lena faced her new Eighty-Six. She placed him, standing, on a low table in the captain’s lounge suite, and then she crouched down so he could see her at his eye level. She took his little hands after, smiling, the gesture somehow resembling wedding vows.

“My name is Vladilena Milizé, and I am a Handler. Please call me Lena. From now on, I’ll be counting on you.”

“……….”

The Eighty-Six boy lowered his eyes and let out a small sigh. For now…

“Handler, can you please change your clothes?”

Underneath Lena’s now-sticky-and-wet blouse, the sight of navy-blue cloth and the white frills [from her undergarment] asserted itself so fiercely, the boy looked troubled as he averted his eyes.

***

The Eighty-Six boy called himself Shinei Nouzen.

“So, your Personal Name is Undertaker, right? Is it all right if I call you Shin?”

“If you like that, Handler.”

They left the defense area, walking onto the residential area of the battleship. An image of the sky was projected onto the high ceiling, and Lena walked along the green-looking boulevard with Shin in her arms.

Shin looked like he had given up on Lena trying to hold him like a puppy or a stuffed toy and has stopped resisting the way he was being held.

On the other hand, Lena raised her eyebrows at his curt responses. She didn’t mind if he was gruff as he might be that kind of person, but the way he called her…

“It’s Lena, Shin.”

“… Lena, then. Excuse me for saying so, but you’re rather strange.”

“Is that so?”

Shin glanced up at Lena, who tilted her head.

Such red eyes.

“The Eighty-Six serve as weapons to defend the Fleet. I thought it was common practice for Magical Girls to leave them dormant except in battle to reduce magical power consumption.”

Lena blinked.

It is true that most Magical Girls are capable of possessing only one Eighty-Six, and the Guardians who are not possessed are usually put to sleep [11] in order for them to be able to keep up in battle. However, for that matter, Lena and Annette are exceptions.

“I don’t need for my Spirits to be put to sleep. It’s more fun if they’re awake and they can materialize and do a lot of things.”

Even if the Eighty-Six are magical beings without bodies, they still have feelings and wills, just like humans. If she didn’t need to put them to sleep, she wanted them to do whatever they want, and let them do so if they’re not in battle.

“That’s why the little ones with me are usually up and about and they just play around.”

“I see… Come to think of it, I heard you already have four Spirits.”

Lena slightly smiled.

“Yes. They’re really good kids. I can introduce them to you on our way back.”

***

She didn’t even need to introduce everyone.

“Ah, Shin!”

“Thought you’re someone else, but it’s Shin. Long time no see!”

As soon as he entered the room, Kurena and Raiden’s voices greeted him. Shin’s eyes widened a little, and Lena was surprised.

“Kurena… Raiden… Kaie, even Kujo?”

“Yeah, here I am, Shin. Long time no see.”

“I mean… you’re here…. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Why is that the headless Reaper of the Eastern Front here and brought out like a stuffed toy BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Kaie raised her hand and pointed at Shin being held by Lena, causing Kujo to burst out laughing. Shin silently twisted his body to escape Lena’s grasp, jumped on the table where the four were located, grabbed an Ether Crystal from a pot there, and then threw it. It hit Kujo’s forehead directly, causing it to split open. Kujo, who fell flat on his back, managed to catch the Ether Crystal with his mouth and then munched on it. Lena saw that he seemed to be joking around, and turned her attention to Shin, Raiden and the others.

“You all know each other?”

“Well, we do, for quite some time now.”

“We’ve worked several times under other Magical Girls.”

Now that it’s mentioned, the Eighty-Six have been fighting for more than 100 years, protecting the Galactic Cruise Fleet alongside successive generations of Magical Girls.

In those 100 years, they must have had at least stood on the same battlefield and had materialized under the same Magical Girl, even once.

Suddenly, Lena realized something, and she just had to ask. What if…?

“If that’s the case…, have you all been acquainted with the first Magical Girl, Handler Saint☆Magnolia?”

She was then greeted by a faint silence. Not an “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember”. The gesture was peculiar to those who were being asked something they didn’t want to remember.

They all responded while averting their eyes away from her.

“No.”

“I’ve never met her.”

“I don’t know her.”

“Me neither.”

“Me neither, I guess?”

They were lying.

She wondered what happened… or rather.

Lena wondered what kind of person the first Handler was.

As a sense of dread enveloped her, she was about to speak and ask further questions—

Suddenly, the alarm for a sortie request rang from the mobile terminal comms.

***

“Geez, two sorties in one day? And this time it’s the enemy’s main force attacking, Regina☆Lena.”

“Right, Owlette☆Annette. Seems like the Legion we dealt with earlier wasn’t just the enemy’s vanguard unit and then the main force, but all of them were just the vanguard.”

This keeps being repeated a lot, but it is mandatory for Magical Girls to address each other by their callsigns, not their real names, when on duty, and the ☆ on their callsigns is also mandatory.

Anyhow, they passed through the first defense line, the offensive barrier, and then the second defense line of the automatic fighter machines.

Hordes of the enemy then rushed in.

They are hostile beings dubbed as the Legion, in testament to their vast numbers. They are the never-ending enemy forces fighting against the Galactic Cruise Fleet in this hundred-year-war.

They are the enemy of all Magical Girls and Guardian Spirits.

Looking at the enemy, Lena held the brooch above her heart, where her Eighty-Six currently were contained in. The star-shaped brooch now has five small gems on all its vertices: iron-blue, gold, burning-flame white, cherry blossom pink.

And then a deep, transparent, blood-red crimson gem.

Annette sniffled.

“It’s rather a blessing in disguise the enemy looks like… Sheep.”

The enemies’ shape, as the name suggests, do resemble sheep. Kind of like pressing twisted wire, or a collection of lines drawn by children using crayons, with different colors, thickness, and length. One could say they’re a caricature of a large flock of sheep.

The Sheep were strangely flat, visible to the eye but weren’t substantial enough, and they gathered in unison as far as the eye can see, rushing immediately like ants.

Their name is their army, of which there are many.

The countless lines that made up those countless Sheep suddenly untangled themselves.

They then gathered again in one place and swirled in a circle, and in a flash, the innumerable lines suddenly weaved themselves into a large, complex-looking shape. Each of said line is a Legion, making up the body of a large, united Legion unit.

They are said to be similar to the Eighty-Six, except these magical beings cannot communicate, though each and every one of them also possess enormous magical power.

Countless Legion then assembled, interweaving as they formed a magic circle, which shone brightly as it got activated. It was bombardment magic, aiming at everyone and everything in their line of sight.

Which included Annette.

“Laughing Fox, Activate! I’m counting on you, Theo!”

“You don’t need to tell me twice. Don’t bite your tongue, Owlette☆Annette!”

The Legion’s bombardment magic circle blasted out a large, bright star beam.

Just moments earlier, Annette barely succeeded getting out of the bombardment magic’s range using Theo’s Laughing Fox magic, a materialized virtual wire anchor that shoots a wire that gets fixed at any coordinate, and the wire hoisting the caster away to said coordinates at high speed.

At the same time, Lena completed chanting.

“Gunslinger, Activate! Enchant, Kirschblüte!”

“Copy that, Regina☆Lena!”

“Leave it to me, Regina☆Lena!”

The gold gem and the cherry-blossom pink gem flickered like bubbles of light, materializing a steel-blue sniper rifle on Lena’s hand. Kurena’s Gunslinger magic is a sniper with magic bullets that aim perfectly at its targets, and this time it has the added effect of Kaie’s Kirschblüte enchantment.

“FIRE!!!”

They shot at the Legion. The golden light beam rushed out, piercing through the center of the Legion’s bombardment magic circle, causing it to crack. As Kirschblüte’s enchantment was in effect, myriads of small blades of light resembling cherry blossom petals then appeared, slashing through the Legion which made up that magic circle.

“Switch now! Black Dog, Activate! Enchant, Falke!”

Annette’s double-hit blow struck after: Daiya’s Black Dog magic materialized as a rain of high-explosive projectiles, and in effect, Haruto’s Falke enchantment appeared after as a shower of falcon-plume-like blades attacking the enemy.

As the explosions and slashes blasted the Legion away, the bombardment magic circle shattered completely, vanishing without a trace.

“What a pain in the neck… Regina☆Lena and I have to blast those away one by one…!”

Annette possessed four Eighty-Six while Lena has five, and they have enough magical power to keep them materialized even when not in battle. If a Handler has two or more Eighty-Six, they can double their power by enchanting one with the magic of the other.

It took the doubled offensive magic of both Lena and Annette just to take down the bombardment magic circle of such a large scale. The Legion’s number is that vast. And yet… even after destroying said magic circle, the majority of the Sheep in the main Legion force were still active and moving.

“We need to reduce their numbers first, even just a little…!”

Lena took a deep breath, trying to materialize a wide-range machine gun using Raiden’s Werhwolf magic.

Out of the blue, Shin spoke.

“Handler.”

Her callsign, Regina☆Lena, seemed to be something he didn’t want to say.

“With those vast numbers, it would be better for you to use me.”

“That’s…”

Since it hadn’t been long since they met and the sortie they were in was rather abrupt, Lena wasn’t able to confirm what kind of magic Shin’s Undertaker would be, how much magical power it consumed, and how powerful it might be. It was why she hadn’t planned to use it yet.

Lena’s lips tightened. He went out of his way to tell me he thought he would be useful in this battle. How could I, a Magical Girl, not believe in that?

“All right, then. Undertaker, Activate!”

The blood-red gem on her chest glowed.

Like an ephemeral bubble of light, it diffused, with the same blood-red light placing itself on Lena’s hand, materializing…

What appeared was a long hilt, as tall as Lena, with the color of dry bone. Its curved blade was dyed red, the color of frozen flames. The weapon looked sharp and gave the impression of danger, like it was some kind of ominous threat.

It was a scythe.

A melee type of weapon, huh? In this case…

“Enchant—”

She was about to enchant the scythe with Kujo’s Sirius flames when Raiden interrupted her.

“Don’t, Regina☆Lena. Use that one alone… No matter how much magical power you have, it will run out if you use him.”

“Huh…?”

Scarlet lines then ran across her field of vision [11]. Then there it appeared: a visible trail of how to cleave through the Legion’s main unit, as if the trail is whispering: Here. Cleave.

She was still doubtful about this, but her body moved on its own, as if fascinated by the weapon. As if impelled by the scythe’s will, she swung it wide, and cleaved.

In the blink of an eye.

The Legion’s main force, comprised majority of those countless Sheep, were obliterated in an instant.

“Wha—?”

Lena, who swung the scythe, and Annette, who was beside her, just stood there, stunned into silence.

They had never seen such an enormous amount of magical power; one could describe it as a violent, overpowering destructive force. Her magical power, however, got so depleted quickly that Lena, who possessed an unparalleled amount, even felt dizzy, but this was expected with such destructive power from such a weapon.

It is no exaggeration to say that this is a trump card in humanity’s fight against the Legion—a very powerful one.

The other Magical Girls deployed to other coordinates to clean up the Legion’s main force were far away from the activation of Undertaker, and so were less likely to be shaken by the event. The Legion’s numbers decreased so much one could see that these Magical Girls would be fine without Lena or Annette there helping them.

In a daze, Lena stood there, shuddering. As if she was shot by some divine force out there, she whispered. This is…

“Undertaker…”

***

The other Magical Girls took care of the Legion remnants Shin missed, and their numbers seemed to have decreased to a level even the automatic fighter machines could clean them up. A somewhat cheerful battle then ensued, the window-like monitor showing how the dog-like Fido automatic fighter machines chomped up the floating Legion debris and the remaining surviving Sheep.

Even with her vast magical power, Lena was exhausted from using such an enormous amount all at once. After going back to her room, she went straight to bed, with her five Eighty-Six resting in the adjacent lounge. Although the five can materialize and remain active outside of battle due to Lena’s magic supply, it is more efficient for them to sleep for a certain amount of time and focus on their own magical recovery.

The Eighty-Six have their own egg-shaped crystal pods where they can sleep. Shin has been allocated a pod of his own, but as he crawled into it, he opened his eyes as he heard someone. Hey.

From the pod next to Shin’s, Raiden turned his iron-colored eyes at the former.

“Now that you’ve come here, it means that is coming soon, too, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Those that are close echo each other. Because… they call out to each other.

“Brother. He’s calling out to me.”

To be continued…

Translator’s Notes:

Some of the images posted here are taken from the Regina Lena manga. This SS covers Chapter 1 of said manga as well as part of Chapter 2.

[1] Yes, the 魔法少女舞闘衣装 (literally rendered as “Magical Girl Battle Dress” in English), is read as ジャガーノート (Juggernaut) in katakana. I honestly don’t know what ran through Asato’s mind naming said mahou shoujo outfits…

[2] The 守護精霊 (Guardian Spirits), besides being written as “Eighty-Six” in katakana, are also written in an alternative kanji as 精霊, which means “spirits of the deceased”. This will be significant in the other Regina Lena SS.

[3] The 魔法少女 (Magical Girls) are called ハンドラー (“Handlers”) in katakana in this SS.

[4] FCS = flight control system

[5] Annette’s Personal Name as a Handler is アウレット☆アネット, and the katakana of アウレット can be interpreted into three: “outlet”, “aureate” (which means “golden”) or “Owlette/owlet”. I chose the third one due to the PJ Masks reference and this referencing to LN canon in Annette’s Legion-designated callsign of “Minerva”, the name being the Roman version of the Greek goddess of wisdom Athena, and Athena’s symbol being an owl. This personal translation of mine is obviously subject to change depending on if we get an official translation of Regina Lena.

[6] Personal Names in the Regina Lena SS are written as 術式発動名 in kanji, and this can be alternatively translated as “Summon Chant”.

[7] Asato said this, not me. DON’T ASK ME WHY, I FIND IT ABSURD, TOO 😞

[8] 悪い虫 literally means “bad bug” or “pest” in Japanese, but it is an idiom for “undesirable lover”. Why do all Lena’s father figures hate Shin LMAOOOOOOO

[9] This has two references, one referencing to Karlstahl’s talk of Magical Girls being in danger due to lack of magical power, the other is on… Regina Lena Side Story 4 (I will translate all Regina Lena SS if Yen Press has not, which I kind of doubt they would as of the moment.)

[10] The Eighty-Six here are usually put to sleep (like literally just SLEEP, nothing else). This is a phrase that’s a double-edged sword in future Regina Lena chapters LOL

[11] Based on how I read Regina Lena so far, this very description reminded me of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, if anyone here is familiar with Tsukihime or Kara no Kyoukai. (Another in-line reference, Lena’s Japanese VA, Ikumi Hasegawa, also voiced one of the pivotal characters/love interest, the True Ancestor, Arcueid Brunestud, in the Tsukihime remake made by Ufotable/Type-Moon. ARCUEID BEST GIRL btw)

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