#but mercifully it seems to have abated already

[ann-chovi]

24 for the art meme

24. How do you deal with artblock?

I am a very, VERY stubborn person. Most of the time I try to just push my way through it. Just start doodling faces/expressions/squiggles whatever comes out of my hands. I like to think of it as "getting the bad drawings out". No matter your skill level, you're always going to make art that you don't think looks good some of the time- that's okay! It happens to everyone as far as I've seen! In my experience, the act of just scribbling out nonsense things can get your creative juices going- and if not? If I'm still frustrated after that? Usually that means it's time for either a nap or a video game break. Possibly both.

#i was actually starting to get one yesterday! #it took me a few hours to work out how i wanted the layout of page 8 to look #when it usually takes me 30-45 minutes! #it was very frustrating! #but mercifully it seems to have abated already #just going ham on Ingo's face in the sketch i uploaded earlier today was what did it for me this time #last time i was frustrated with my work i booted up sonic frontiers and beat the snot out of some giant robots and then went to bed #art block had fizzled by morning #anyway Ursula the painter from Kikis Delivery Service was right about creative blocks actually #sometimes you just need a break and that's okay

[outofangband]

Recent prompt for an anon :) I get to talk more about Maedhros’s piercings :) for these 🖤🌀

From this prompt list here!

Angband World Building and Aftermath of Captivity Masterlist

I hope this is ok, anon! This isn’t super long but is apart of a collection of pieces on Maedhros’s various injuries in the aftermath of Angband. I need to make a masterlist for those I think

CW: nonconsensual piercings, general Angband creepiness medical abuse , stigma towards survivors

See note at the end

Small Jewels pierced his nipples, dotted over his body so they caught the eerie lights of the crown. The pain was dizzying and he wondered if the metal points had once again been coated in an agitating substance

“The heir of Fëanáro will look as perfect at my feet as his jewels do upon my brow.”

These words were chosen artfully to goad the exhausted elf into further response. Indeed the hands of Maitimo were clenched into fists at his sides, the tensing causing the shackles connecting his wrists to become taut.

In the present Maedhros dabbed at the small holes with a cool cloth. The worst of the stinging had mercifully abated though he doubted he could stand even the best of the fabrics he owned touching the area. Even several years later the scars were liable to become irritated on occasion.

“How did this happen? The accent of the healer who attended him was similar to his own in their attempts at the Sindar tongue but the tone was a cool drawl.

“How do you think?” Maedhros grit out. It was a foolish question, irrelevant when a routine for the treatment had already been established.

He had yelped when the needle pierced the flesh around his right nipple, the area strangely loose as his body became still more emaciated. The pain was perhaps worse than he had predicted, it was difficult to tell.

“Hold still, Maitimo,” the Lieutenant hummed in that cheerful lilt that made him restless, reckless in his anger

“It appears to be a piercing,” the healer said calmly, “Cleanly applied but to an area that had already suffered significant injuries. Is this accurate?”

They held the gaze of Maedhros with their usual, even smile that seemed more than ever a deliberate mockery of the other’s agitation. But no, surely such mistrustful thoughts were paranoid, even dangerous. Indeed they were precisely what the healer had claimed as evidence in defending some of the more hostile speculation Maedhros knew was still present among the host

“Yes,” he says tersely, “That is accurate.” There was a silence between them. There was no pity in the gaze of the healer as they held the tunic of Maedhros lifted up for him another moment before letting it drop back, covering the brand on his side, the little scars over his chest and everything else marring his skin.

“Well,” the healer says evenly, “The entry wounds are too small to require dressing at the moment. You will have to reapply the salve twice daily as I hope you have been doing.”

“Naturally,” Maedhros says, “I have no desire for any of these to become exacerbated.” The healer gave him a harder look now, hovering on the verge of speech before nodding and leaving him alone.

I talk more about his piercings first here

As always requests are open! I hope this is ok! I’m not sure how I feel about it

#the silmarillion #maedhros #morgoth #Mairon #post Angband #In the Iron hell #short writings #the hidden hours

[notapaladin]

now everything is easy ‘cause of you

In which a baby is dropped on Acatl’s doorstep, and he becomes Dadcatl. Teomitl helps.

Also on AO3!

-

It was the screaming that woke him.

Acatl was off his mat and on his feet in the next instant, one hand scrabbling for his knives and the other shoving his hair off his face. He didn’t need to waste time wondering what it was; he’d been around crying infants most of his life, and Mihmatini had spent her first five months screaming at everything that moved funny. But small children belonged in the calmecac, or the palace—Teomitl had swarms of small cousins—or in the homes of people with families. Not his courtyard.

He stumbled outside, squinting in what little light there was. It wasn’t even dawn yet, and everything was gray and misty. The screaming hadn’t abated, but he couldn’t see—

There, under the tree. A woven basket, and a wiggling hand. A chubby wiggling hand; the part of his brain that wasn’t numb with shock noted that with some relief.

He dropped to his knees beside it and pulled back the rest of the rough maguey fiber, bleached white by the sun, to reveal a still-squalling and quite naked infant. The part of his brain that noticed things woke up again, taking inventory—female, all limbs and digits accounted for, dark eyes that focused on him and found him distinctly wanting. Magic lay just under her skin, wisping up like smoke in plumes too thin for him to see details.

The rest of him was already in motion, scooping her up in his arms and rocking her back and forth. His mouth moved without him really being aware of his own words, only conscious of the need to get her to calm down so he could think again He needed to focus. Why was she here; where were her parents—? “Shhh, shh, it’s alright, it’s alright...”

The wailing slowly tapered off. She blinked huge eyes at him and said, “Bah?”

He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. There was already a headache building behind them. “Gods,” he muttered, “what do I do with you?”

Well, first things first. He’d have to question his priests and see if anyone knew who might have left a baby in his courtyard. He’d have to find her a wet nurse, and blankets, and toys—she had to be less than a year old, she wouldn’t be up for anything more than a soft cloth doll, maybe—and a bigger basket to sleep in, because the one she’d been left in had a hole in it a kicking foot might widen accidentally. He’d have to figure out what sort of magic was hanging around her, whether it was a curse or something worse—

Conch shells blared. He winced. The girl started fussing again. She needed a name.

And he’d have to make his devotions to the gods, too.

&

By some miracle—maybe the Duality was taking pity on him—the child eventually fretted herself to sleep, and Acatl was left with enough free time to eat something, put his cloak on, and cut down her maguey blanket into something he could wrap into a diaper. He made a silent promise to get her a better, softer one later, only to grimace as the implications of that wish swept through him. I’m already thinking of her as mine. I shouldn’t get attached. The gods only know who put her here, what all the magic around her means...

He eyed her. He’d emptied out the basket that usually held his clothes and lined it with his cheapest cloak before laying her in it. Even swaddled and sleeping fitfully, he could see the twisting scarlet energy coiled over her skin like a lazy snake. It didn’t have any of the same markers as a curse, at least not yet. The gods only knew what it would turn into. Aside from that, she seemed perfectly healthy; if he hadn’t been a priest, he might have said she was no more likely to die than any other baby.

He’d once had two older brothers. Nezahual, born between him and Neutemoc, hadn’t survived his second year. For the first time, he wondered how his parents had felt.

Enough. He shook his head to clear it. He had to get to the temple. Scooping her up in the sling he’d made out of the rest of the maguey blanket, he trudged out into the morning sunlight.

Beyond his courtyard, the Sacred Precinct bustled as it always did. The citizens rushing back and forth, the merchants with their wares, priests devoted to other gods with their sacrifices...it was all the same. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the mingled scents of blood and incense and lake water. Alerted by the movement of his chest, the baby stirred. “Gah?”

He set a hand on her head, stroking the short locks of impossibly soft hair. “Shhh.”

“Bah,” she said sleepily, and nestled against his chest again.

He risked an exhale. She didn’t move. He realized he’d been standing stock-still while she cuddled against him, and made his legs move again. His temple wasn’t far.

Of course, because the gods were not nearly as merciful as he would wish, he ran into Ichtaca nearly the same instant his feet crossed the threshold. “Acatl-tzin, you’re—” He blinked in confusion as he spotted the infant, but instead of the shock and outrage Acatl had expected, he only frowned. “...I was under the impression your family had enough hands to watch all those nieces and nephews without you.”

He fought the urge to curl around her, perhaps tuck his cloak around her to hide her from sight. “They do. We need to discuss this inside.”

He was no leader of men, but nevertheless by the time he made it to the nearest reception room he’d amassed a small audience consisting not only of Ichtaca but also Ezamahual, Palli, and a handful of transfers from Coyoacan whose names he was still getting confused. He had a hard enough time with the idea that they’d wanted to serve in this temple, under him, on purpose. Still, they were quiet and didn’t startle the baby, so he supposed they were alright.

He sat down on the gray-striped mat and explained, as clearly and quietly as possible, what he’d woken up to, giving it a moment to sink in before he started in with what had to be done now. “We have to find who left her here. Alert the rest of the priests as well; I can’t imagine it was a greatly stealthy operation, and anyone might have seen or heard something.”

One of the Coyoacan transfers—Acatl really needed to learn his name—was brave enough to speak up before he departed. “My lord, what will you do with...with the child?” He sounded hesitant even to speak of her, and Acatl couldn’t blame him. She only looked like any other baby until you engaged your priest-senses, and since crossing the threshold to his temple complex the magic within her had seethed.

Acatl blinked at him. “I’m keeping her, of course.” It wasn’t planned. It was, in fact, a terrible idea. He knew it was a terrible idea even as the words left his mouth. A sensible man would have regretted them, would have recanted them immediately and handed the girl over to the priestesses of Xochiquetzal or the elders of his own calpulli, for surely he was in no fit state of life to raise a baby girl.

She stirred, blinking huge brown eyes, and he shifted his weight to rock her back to sleep.

Ichtaca recoiled. “Acatl-tzin, you can’t...”

Unconsciously, his arms tightened around her. “She was left on my doorstep,” he growled.

“...Well,” Ichtaca began, and stopped.

He gestured with the arm not supporting her head. “Besides, the spells around her need to be unraveled. We need a clearer picture of what we’re dealing with.”

“You’re better at that than me,” Ichtaca groused, and then hastily added, “My lord. She appears normal...”

Acatl studied her face for a moment with his priest-senses. Parrot-red energy drifted over her skin, bright and clean and almost familiar. “Only on the outside. Normally I’d suspect a curse, but if it was, I doubt she’d be so...vocal. I’d want to examine her now, but...well, she’s finally asleep.” He definitely hadn’t missed that part of looking after an infant; Ichtaca winced sympathetically as he continued, “She’s sure to be hungry when she wakes, but I don’t know anyone who can nurse her on such short notice.” He spared a moment to wish this had all happened last year, before Ollin had been weaned; Neutemoc had been so relieved he’d freed the wet nurse almost on the spot.

Ezamahual cleared his throat. “I have a sister. She’s recently had her firstborn.”

He blinked. He hadn’t realized, somehow, that his priests surely had sisters or nieces or cousins. Hadn’t given a thought to their families. The knowledge of his own carelessness sat like a bad meal in his stomach. “Thank the Duality. How soon can she get here?” After a moment, remembering his manners, he added, “Congratulations.”

Ezamahual blushed, muttered something approximating a “Thank you,” and eyed the position of the sun. “Within the hour. I’ll fetch her.”

Something in his stomach unknotted. “Please.”

As he left, Acatl turned back to Ichtaca. The still-nameless girl stirred in his arms, but mercifully slumbered on. “After she’s gotten some milk into her, we’ll see about her magic.”

Ichtaca was still frowning. “What color?”

“Red.” That narrowed it down a bit, admittedly, but he was sure it couldn’t be Xochiquetzal’s. She didn’t feel excessively warm, which probably ruled out Huehueteotl or Chantico. Who was left? She wiggled a little in her swaddling cloth, as though she could tell he was thinking about her, and he shook his head. It doesn’t matter just yet. “She seems healthy, at least. For now.”

“For now,” Ichtaca echoed. “Acatl-tzin, are you sure you should be getting attached?”

He looked down at the baby. Her little face scrunched up in sleep, and he had to fight the urge to stroke her downy head. I think it’s too late for that. “Hm.”

Ichtaca’s eyes unfocused briefly, and Acatl knew he was gazing at her with his own priest-senses. “...Odd. Very odd. I’ll check our archives and see what I might find.”

He let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

And then Ichtaca left as well, and for the moment, he was alone. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, wishing he’d picked a seat closer to the wall so at least he’d have some back support. He’d forgotten what carrying a baby was like; he was sure Mihmatini hadn’t been this heavy when he’d been pressed into watching her. His nieces and nephews might have been—Ohtli in particular had been a large infant—but he’d always been able to hand them back to their parents when his arms grew tired. There would be no such relief for him with this child, if he kept her.

If. He snorted softly to himself. There wasn’t a choice. She’d seen to that the very moment when she’d taken advantage of a moment’s inattention to grab for a loose lock of hair and give it a solid yank. I thought I would never have children, and the gods—or a desperate mother—dropped one practically into my lap.

He hoped it was a desperate mother. When he closed his eyes, he remembered the way Tlaloc had sought to force His way into the Fifth World. He remembered Mazatl—Popoxatl’s—blood spilling like a black cloud in the waters of Tlalocan, how his flesh had parted like paper at the touch of his blade. He remembered, far too well, the faces of those Tlaloc had slain. If this girl-child was another foray into the world from a different god’s loins...if he was forced to slay her as well...

He shuddered, realizing he was squeezing her a bit too tightly only when she whined. Hastily, he started to rock her. It seemed to help; she stared at him in blank curiosity a few moments longer before closing her eyes again and falling back asleep in that utterly boneless way only puppies and small children could ever manage. Maybe the spells around her can be separated. Maybe they won’t affect her, and she can grow up like any other child.

Admittedly, it didn’t seem especially likely. When was luck ever on his side, after all? He gazed down at her with a sinking feeling in his chest. “Child, you are going to be trouble.”

Of course—speaking of trouble—that was when Teomitl arrived.

“Acatl!”

He would have recognized the cadence of those footfalls anywhere, but it was still a surprise when Teomitl turned the corner into the room. At least, he named that feeling surprise. It was as good an excuse as any for the way his heart leapt. “Teomitl—” he began, but then the baby whimpered and he hastily dropped his voice. “Keep it down,” he hissed instead.

Teomitl slowed, eyes widening. “I—I saw the commotion, and—is that a baby?”

He nodded, feeling heat rise in his face and flood across his skin. “She was left in my courtyard this morning. It’s...a long story. What are you doing here? It’s not nearly noon yet.” He’d been looking forward to the lunches they’d started to share more and more, at least as much for the food as for the warmth of Teomitl’s company. It was...well, nice to sit and bask in bright smiles and animated conversation that demanded nothing but his willing ear, to soak up court politics at a safe remove, to vent their true opinions of their colleagues together. But Teomitl was a busy man, especially as the season for war approached; he might be able to carve out an hour or so in the afternoon, but surely there was a meeting or something he should be at.

If there was, Teomitl didn’t seem to care. He crept closer as though he was approaching an injured deer, gaze alighting tenderly on the baby in Acatl’s arms. “...I didn’t know what was going on, but the temple looked like an anthill,” he said quietly. “I thought you might need my help.” And in a quite different tone, he added, “Oh, she’s adorable.”

He didn’t even bother to try hiding his smile. “Isn’t she? But shh, she’s fussy.”

Teomitl settled onto the mat next to him, close enough that their thighs and shoulders pressed together. Acatl shivered, acutely aware of the heat of his skin, but Teomitl didn’t seem to notice. All his attention was on the baby, who blinked sleepy dark eyes at him. He beamed softly as he reached for her, but his hand stayed hovering in the air instead of daring to make contact. “Hello, there.” He wiggled his fingers, occasioning a flood of curious babbling.

“Shhhh,” Acatl murmured. His heart felt so full he could barely get the words out. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d loved anything so much. “This is Teomitl. You’ll like him.”

Teomitl chuckled quietly, shifting his weight so that he nestled more fully into Acatl’s side. Acatl found himself leaning into him, the better to relish the affection evident in his voice. “I hope you do.”

Slowly, he exhaled. Gods, he’ll be a wonderful father. Before he could think better of it, he shifted her weight in his arms. “Would you like to hold her?”

“Can I?” Teomitl blurted, and then flushed. “I’m not sure how...”

Acatl felt something in his chest go soft and warm. No, Teomitl wouldn’t have spent that much time around infants—even Ollin had been older than this girl when they’d met—but it was never too late to learn, and some small corner of his heart lit up with joy at the thought that there was still one thing he could teach his former student. He handed her over with a smile. “Here, like this—support her head more, there you go.”

She waved a chubby fist at Teomitl as he gathered her up, blinking rapidly at this new shape in front of her eyes. Acatl wasn’t surprised; while his temple was all soothing grays and whites and ink-black, Teomitl wore gleaming jade earrings and a lip plug of bright gold. “Baaa...”

“Oh,” Teomitl breathed, eyes shining. “Acatl...”

He swallowed hard. Over the months, he’d gotten used to Teomitl addressing him by name, but that in no way prepared him for the way it sounded now. Awestruck. Tender. Enraptured. “I think she approves of you.”

“She’s smiling.” Probably in response to Teomitl’s delighted grin, for which Acatl couldn’t blame her. It was delightfully infectious.

“Mm,” he hummed, feeling absurdly proud. That’s right, my child. Your future Emperor is holding you like you are made of jade. You had better smile.

Experimentally, Teomitl poked her little fist with a forefinger, beaming when she latched onto it. “What a strong little jaguar cub you are! You’ll be the terror of your enemies someday, I just know it.”

She waved her fist—and Teomitl’s hand—excitedly, chanting nonsense syllables in what Acatl supposed was agreement. “Bababa!”

It was the most adorable thing Acatl had seen in years, but something cold twisted his guts as he took it in. Even without looking for it, he knew that the magic in her was leaping up like a fish to greet the Southern Hummingbird’s heat overlaying Teomitl’s skin. She wasn’t a normal child, and no amount of wishing would make it so. “You shouldn’t—”

Teomitl blinked at him. “Hm?”

Acatl bit his lip, hating what he was about to say. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen to her. I told you it was a long story, but...”

“I have time.” Teomitl settled back on the mat, gazing at him just as attentively as he had when he’d been Acatl’s student—or, actually, moreso. With a baby in his arms, he couldn’t fidget as much.

For the second time, Acatl explained the story. Waking up to screaming with—now that he thought about it—not even footprints in the dirt outside. A basket and a blanket such as any peasant might use, nothing inside to hint at her origins or even give a clue to her name. The magic that hung around her like a too-large shroud. The way her presence had divided his priests. Unspoken but lingering in every pause was the truth: I don’t know what to do.

Teomitl said not a word until he finished, and by then his gaze had dropped back down to the baby. He tapped her nose gently, and she tried to grab his hand again. When he spoke, his voice was soft and sure. “...It sounds like you have a daughter.”

He made a noise that wasn’t a word, throat working uselessly before he could speak again. “I don’t—I shouldn’t—” I can’t do that. I’ll only be tearing my own heart out of my chest later. I shouldn’t even have picked her up in the first place. But even as he thought the words, he knew that there hadn’t been another choice. That he didn’t want another choice.

Teomitl was frowning lightly, but he took his words at face value anyway. “You don’t want her?”

He sucked in a hard breath. It’s not that I don’t want her. The words lay on the tip of his tongue, but they went no further. It’s only...it’s only... Only that he remembered his own parents far too well. Remembered his own father, and how he’d always been the disappointment. What kind of legacy was that to leave a child? And yet...he wanted so badly to try. To be better.

His turmoil must have shown on his face, because Teomitl’s gaze softened and his lips curled in a faint, encouraging smile. “...That’s a no, then. Did you name her? You should, if you’re going to be her father.”

“I...” Such was the father’s prerogative, yes, but with the utter chaos of her arrival into his life, he hadn’t thought of a name. Her birthday? No, that was a mystery. A name after one of his aunts? A possibility, but he hadn’t spoken to any of them in years and to pick one would surely make an enemy of all the rest. His mother? That last sent ice through his heart. No, absolutely not.

“And she’ll need...things. Blankets. Toys to play with. A sleeping basket. Probably food; I don’t know how old babies have to be for solids, but—”

As if he hadn’t thought about any of that. He straightened up, the better to glare at him. “I know how to look after an infant, Teomitl!” Granted, he’d been far from the only caretaker, but he’d spent enough time around his younger siblings not to be completely useless.

Teomitl dropped his gaze, lips thinning. “You said there’s magic on her.”

Another thing he was unlikely to forget. Another complication he didn’t need. He crumpled the hem of his cloak in his fist and hastily smoothed it out again. “There is.”

Jaguar-bright eyes flicked to Acatl’s again. “So, won’t you need me? I can keep you both safe.” He smiled down at the girl, all his old confidence no longer careless but just as strong. “You hear that, little jaguar cub? I’ll protect you and your papa with my life.”

Acatl fixed his gaze on the far wall, knowing that he had to be blushing. Between Teomitl’s nearness and his words, it was just too much. I know you would. I know you would, but I couldn’t live with myself if you were injured on my account. And besides... “You might not be able to. We don’t know what we’re up against.”

“But—” Whatever objection Teomitl was about to raise, Acatl would never find out, because the baby chose that moment to screw up her face and begin wailing.

Loudly.

At any other time, the look of terror on Teomitl’s face probably would have been hilarious; now, with his arms full of a steadily angrier infant, Acatl couldn’t help but feel an acute pang of sympathy. To his credit, he didn’t drop her into his lap. “Oh, gods, what did I do?”

Acatl edged away from him, though regrettably not far enough to spare his own eardrums. Texcoco might have been far enough, but he wouldn’t have bet on it. “She’s hungry.”

With the din she was making, he almost didn’t hear the approaching footsteps, but fortunately Ezamahual was quite good at pitching his voice to carry over any sort of localized cacophony. It was just as useful with crying infants as it was with the rowdier calmecac students. “Acatl-tzin!” rang out from the next courtyard, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank the Duality,” Teomitl muttered.

Ezamahual strode in as though a beast of shadows was on his heels, only belatedly remembering to bow to Teomitl as he gestured to the woman trailing in his wake. “My sister, Mixcatl. I’ve explained the situation to her.”

Looking at her, Acatl could see the family resemblance. Mixcatl was closer to Teomitl’s age than his own, but the shadows under her eyes spoke to many sleepless nights, and her blouse and skirt had the slight sheen that suggested a great deal of aggressive cleaning. “A pleasure to meet you. I’m sorry to have pulled you away from your own family.”

“It’s an honor to assist you, Acatl-tzin.” Mixcatl sat down, smiling wryly as she added, “Your daughter certainly has healthy lungs.”

Teomitl rubbed his ear. “We’ve noticed.”

Her warm look had nothing to do with the young and handsome Master of the House of Darts deigning to speak to her and everything to do with simple camaraderie. “Give her here, I’ll feed her for now.” Teomitl handed her over with an expression of barely-contained relief, and Mixcatl winced as she latched on. “Have you tried her on atole yet?”

Acatl shook his head, half-distracted. My daughter. I have a child to raise. “She seemed interested in my breakfast, but I didn’t think about it. I should have.”

Ezamahual cracked a smile very much like his sister’s. It was oddly heartening. “She was something of a surprise, my lord.”

“...Indeed,” he muttered belatedly. Duality preserve me, I’m a father now.

“An adorable surprise,” Teomitl added, with a degree of frankly unwarranted smugness.

It would have annoyed him more if he didn’t agree.

&

To his considerable relief, the baby—his daughter? His mind seemed stuck on that point—proved to be a voracious eater with no complaints about being fed, burped, and swaddled tightly to encourage her to sleep. Mixcatl thought it likely she was around half a year, a trifle early to be weaned, but that was all to the good; it meant he wouldn’t need to hire a wet nurse. But nor could he take her with him everywhere he went, and so after she was fed he took a boat to Neutemoc’s house. His brother had enough slaves to look after one infant girl for a day or two while he did his job.

And he would have to do his job. As cute as the girl was, her innate magic only surged when she was pleased; on a full belly and drowsing contentedly on Mixcatl’s shoulder, his priest-senses had shown him crimson smoke writhing like a nest of coral snakes across her limbs. Mixcatl—who had no magical training whatsoever—had commented on her pleasant scent. He’d smelled poinsettias and roses, and said nothing. Xochiquetzal Is banished. But if she’s trying to come back, to make another bid for the Fifth World...

He buried his nose in his baby’s downy hair, breathing in. She smelled like milk again, and he took comfort in that.

As long as he held her tight, he could ignore the simmering tension rolling off Teomitl where the man was tucked into the seat behind him. He hadn’t spoken much since Mixcatl had arrived; plainly, he was still sulking over his protection being denied. Palace guards had a less belligerent glare. Acatl almost pitied anyone who disturbed them.

He should probably apologize, he thought. It was hardly Teomitl’s fault that the machinations of gods tended to get average mortals killed. Nor was it his fault that the idea of losing him made Acatl’s throat seize up in sick, vicious terror. He was trailing his fingers in the water, unafraid of the dark shapes below, and he looked remote and untouchable as the sun.

Acatl took a deep breath. “Teomitl, I...”

But before he could finish his sentence, the junior priest polling their boat came to a stop at Neutemoc’s house, and the moment was lost.

The guard on duty took one look at the bundle Acatl held close to his chest and his eyes went almost comically wide; as he opened his mouth, Acatl cut him off. “Is my brother home?”

The guard nodded rapidly, probably more out of fear for Teomitl’s glower than any respect for his master’s little brother. “I’ll take you to him.”

Neutemoc was in the main receiving room, glaring at a ledger as though it owed him money. Acatl briefly felt bad for him; he’d never been good with numbers, and it had been Huei who’d dealt with the household finances. When Acatl entered—alone, since Teomitl had taken up a position in the courtyard that suggested he expected an attack from the heavens any moment—he looked up with a furrowed brow and a question on his lips.

Before he could voice it, Acatl spoke. “I need your help.”

“You—why do you have a baby?” Neutemoc eyed his expression a moment longer before finally shaking his head and gesturing to the nearest mat. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

He’d barely taken a few dozen steps out of the boat, but it was amazing how much of a relief it was simply to sit down when he was carrying a six-month-old. He’d thought being hunched over a codex was bad for his back. This was worse. But he couldn’t bemoan his aches and pains forever, because Neutemoc was waiting for an answer. “It’s...” He sighed. “She was left on my doorstep. I don’t know what to do.”

Neutemoc sat back, raising an eyebrow. “I know you know how to take care of an infant, Acatl.”

“That’s not the problem!” he huffed.

“What is it, then?” Neutemoc leaned in, peering at the girl. Acatl noticed he was careful not to get too close. “Is there something wrong with her?”

Unconsciously, he lifted a hand to shield her. “She’s healthy, physically. But she’s covered in magic, and I need to find the cause, whatever it takes. If it’s a repeat of when Tlaloc made His bid for the Fifth World, I...”

Neutemoc’s gaze slid past him to the open doorway. “Teomitl won’t let that happen.”

He felt his face burn. All of a sudden, he couldn’t look at his brother anymore; it seemed vitally important to trace the weave of the mat below him instead. “He said he’d give his life for us,” he murmured.

There was a faint rustle as Neutemoc sat back on his heels and let out a long, aggrieved sigh. “...And this is a surprise to you? Do your eyes not work?”

He sucked in a too-fast breath, choked on his own spit, and had to clear his throat several times before he could splutter out a response. That wasn’t—Neutemoc couldn’t mean—Finally, he choked out, “I—what—”

“Acatl,” his brother said simply.

He couldn’t find anything to say. He can’t mean that Teomitl—he thinks of me as a brother, surely. As a friend, if I’m lucky. Not as...I know he’s protective of the people he cares for, but it’s not like that. It can’t be like that. His marriage is going so well now, surely he doesn’t think of me in that way. He would never. And a traitorous voice whispered in his head, You wish he would, don’t you?

Finally, he muttered, “It’s...it’s not...”

Neutemoc sighed again, shaking his head. “Give her to me. I’ll watch her while you do what you have to do.”

She was warm and heavy in his arms, and her presence was soothing. But Neutemoc was right; it would be good to have some time without her. Feeling a little reluctant—not very, she smelled like she needed to be changed and a man had to have some limits—he handed her over.

Neutemoc scooped her up with the air of a man who had plenty of practice. He didn’t need to worry about dropping her. “I’ll put her in with Ollin.”

He nodded. He still wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak. Teomitl’s just...overprotective. That’s it. That has to be it. I’m a fool to think there’s some deeper emotion to it. Surely he’d do the same for any member of his family; it’s not as though Neutemoc is the greatest judge of intent there. But nor was his brother prone to exaggeration or flights of fancy, and if he’d spoken about Teomitl’s feelings as though they were supposed to be obvious...

Voices from the courtyard intruded on his spiralling emotions, and he fought the urge to freeze like a rabbit when he realized one of them was Mihmatini’s. It wouldn’t help.

“...I thought...”

“...probably a good thing...”

And then his favorite sister was coming in with Teomitl on her heels, and it was too late to do anything but nod at them. At least she pulled him out of his own head. “So, what’s this about you having a daughter?”

Then of course, he had to explain the whole thing all over again. At this point, he was starting to wonder if he ought to have written it down to save his voice. By the time he was done, Mihmatini had folded her arms and was frowning thoughtfully. “Hm.”

“He said he didn’t want our help,” Teomitl muttered. Oh, he must still be upset about that.

“I didn’t say that. I just don’t know if this is something you can help with. Not when I might have to...” He shook his head. If she was another vessel for a god’s power, the way Tlaloc had tried to claw his way into the world, then she couldn’t be allowed to live—but every fiber of his being rebelled against that conclusion. No. No. She’s mine.

Teomitl saw what he couldn’t say, and his mouth set in a thin line. “I know. It won’t come to that if I can help it.”

“Teomitl...” He risked setting a hand on Teomitl’s forearm; his skin was warm under Acatl’s palm, and he didn’t pull away.

Mihmatini’s eyes narrowed. “Did you think we would let you do this alone, Acatl?”

He couldn’t look at either of them. His chest felt too tight to possibly allow him to speak. “I...”

The jangling curtain announced Neutemoc’s return to the room, blessedly accompanied by slaves bearing food. “She’s down for a nap now. I thought you’d be hungry—Mihmatini! It’s good to see you!”

He was hungry. They all were. Lunch was grilled frogs and honeyed agave worms, and as he ate he felt his equilibrium being restored. So everything had changed. So he had an infant girl to take care of now, one who babbled and smiled and pulled anything within reach including his hair. So there was the slimmest of slim chances that the feelings he thought he’d buried might be returned. On a full stomach, with his family around him, it all felt bearable again.

Not least because he didn’t have to carry the conversation. It shifted seamlessly around him, from Mihmatini’s training as the Guardian (frustrating) to Necalli’s current tasks at the House of Youth (he seemed to be doing very well there, but with him out of earshot Neutemoc was free to admit to a father’s worry) to the campaign planned for the upcoming dry season (which segued, thanks to his own entirely innocuous comment, into an impressively lengthy rant from Teomitl about his fellow officials’ brainpower, courage, and likely parentage).

When Teomitl paused for breath and another handful of agave worms—he would have singlehandedly demolished the plate if left to his own devices—Mihmatini commented, “They can’t be that useless,” but her heart wasn’t in her words.

Teomitl made a face. “Mazatl would be better at their job, I swear. The baby would be better at their job, and she can’t even talk yet. I should get back to the palace, but I don’t want to leave. Are you sure she’ll be safe?”

“Go,” Mihmatini said, not unkindly. “Our little quetzal feather will be fine for a while.”

He got to his feet, flashing a brief, questioning look at Acatl. When Acatl nodded at him—gods, he hoped it came off as reassuring, the last thing he wanted was to distract the Master of the House of Darts when he was preparing for war and needed all the advantages he could get to counteract having Tizoc for a Revered Speaker—he forced a smile. “I’ll see you later, then.”

With a last look at Acatl, he went.

Lunch got much quieter after that. There was still half a grilled frog on Acatl’s plate, but he found he didn’t want to eat anymore. He picked at it anyway to be polite.

It didn’t fool Mihmatini, who frowned at him. “You need to keep your strength up, Acatl.”

He sighed. “I know, I know, the skin-and-bones look is not compulsory. I’m eating!” He took another bite. It was hot and juicy, but it still tasted like ash in his mouth.

“And taking care of babies demands a lot of energy.”

“Just wait until she’s walking,” Neutemoc added with a wistful smile.

He studied his plate again, carefully pulling away the parts of the frog he’d nibbled on. Someone else could eat the rest. “...I know.” If she lives that long.

Neutemoc patted his shoulder. “You’ll be a wonderful father, Acatl.”

One of his slaves chose that moment to poke her head around the curtain, sparing him from having to respond. “Ah, sir? Mazatl wants to know if she can see the baby.”

Neutemoc set his plate down. “If she’s watched.” Unspoken but clear was that he would be the one doing the watching. He nodded at Acatl as he left; Acatl supposed it was meant to be encouraging. He didn’t feel particularly encouraged.

With their brother gone, Mihmatini didn’t press him to keep eating. She studied her own plate for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, before asking, “I know you don’t like surprises, but...you do like children, don’t you?”

Everything he’d eaten threatened to come back up. Under the table, he dug his nails into his own thigh and let the pain center him. “That’s not it. You remember Tlaloc.”

She was silent for a while. He’d told her about that fight in Tlalocan eventually. He’d told her what he’d had to do. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “...I do. But that’s not what I’m asking. Do you want this child?”

He inhaled. Exhaled. Inhaled again. Finally, he nodded.

“There you go, then.” She flashed him a small smile. “Welcome to fatherhood.”

“I don’t—” he started.

She cut him off ruthlessly. “You deserve to be happy. Your vows don’t preclude that. And it’s not like you’ll be doing it alone; you’ll have us. Teomitl met your daughter for half an hour and he talks about her like she hung the moon.”

That’s part of the problem, he thought with a shudder. “I—I can’t ask him, or any of you—”

Glaring, she slapped his shoulder hard enough to sting. “We’re volunteering. You’ve given your life to the gods, Acatl, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some joy in it for yourself.”

He couldn’t look at her. “...I know,” he muttered finally. “But I—it feels selfish of me.”

“Acatl,” she said. He still couldn’t lift his gaze from his plate, but he didn’t have to; he could feel the heat of her barely-suppressed frustration. “It’s not selfish to live the life you want.”

All unbidden, a thousand memories of Teomitl’s smile sprang to the forefront of his mind. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. What if the life I want includes your husband? What would you say to me then, Mihmatini? “But,” he began, and stopped.

She reached for him again, but this time it was to take his chin and lift it until he was forced to meet her eyes. They were fierce as eagles, with a light in them that made a sliver of fear lodge itself in his heart. “The will of the Duality granted you one life, Acatl. It’s too short for you not to take advantage of whatever joy you find, do you understand me?”

He swallowed hard. “...I do.”

“Good.” She released him abruptly, sitting back with a thin smile. “Let’s go play with the children while we’re here, alright?”

“...Alright.”

At least his niece and nephew were uncomplicated.

&

The rest of the day passed in a blur. Acatl barely noticed. His noble intentions—he would leave the girl with Neutemoc while he got on with the search for her origins—evaporated immediately, because three hours into his investigation of Xochiquetzal’s last known address he found the thoughts he’d shoved into the back of his mind were all clamoring for the light of day at once. Does she miss me? Is she eating? Is Mihmatini keeping her occupied? I need to check up on her, just to be sure. So of course he had to go back to Neutemoc’s house, and when he left again it was with the girl in a sling on his back, a whole list of suggested names from both his siblings, and half a dozen slaves carrying all the things a baby would need to stay with him at least part-time. They were terrifyingly efficient; there was nothing he could help with there, and nothing stopping him from returning to work.

Except for the fact that his priests wouldn’t let him. They’d united in a rare show of force; Ichtaca arrived mid-afternoon to inform him in no uncertain terms that they could handle anything that came up, they were all hunting for anyone who might have dropped off a suspicious bundle that morning, a team of no less than a dozen of the best were combing the archives and tracing any sign of suspicious activity, and all he had to do was stay close to home so they could alert him of any new developments. At any other time, it would have been infuriating, but now it was oddly touching.

He had a daughter. She could eat atole, and fruit if it was mashed up very small, and he discovered that he hadn’t forgotten how to change a diaper or three. The room next to his bedchambers, which he supposed had been intended as a reception area—it had a particularly grim fresco of the Plain of Knives on one wall—would be made into a place for her to sleep when she got a little older; for now, her basket was in his room, where he could hear her in the night. Ollin was not inclined to share his toys with his new cousin, but Mazatl bravely donated a wobbly deer on wheels. Teomitl was freed from his meetings eventually and all but ran back to Acatl’s house to see her;  Mihmatini joined them for dinner, and together they managed to change the girl again and give her a bath. By the time he found his mat again, he was ready to drop.

The morning after the gods had dropped his daughter into his lap, he found himself eating breakfast with an audience. It was easiest to get himself ready for the day if she was distracted; luckily, Teomitl had shown up at dawn to help wrangle her. To his relief, she’d slept through the night, but she’d still woken him before the conchs for a meal. Now, freshly changed—Teomitl had helped, though not without a grimace when he’d thought Acatl wasn’t looking—she wanted to play.

Fortunately, it seemed that being bounced on someone’s lap while they made silly faces was enough to do the trick. “Bah!” she said, and clapped her hands.

Teomitl beamed and scooped her up to bump noses with her. “Can you say papa? Can you do that for us, little flower?”

“Babah!”

There was the faintly strangled squeak that Teomitl made when he was trying not to giggle, as though it was possible that a laugh could impugn his dignity. “That was close! Acatl, did you hear?”

Acatl grimly chewed another mouthful of day-old flatbread. In all the excitement, he’d forgotten to stock up on his own supplies; he would have to fix that later. “I’m sitting right here,” he reminded him. “I don’t think she’s up to speech yet.”

“It won’t be long,” Teomitl snapped. “She’s a smart girl! Look, can you say uncle?”

Her little face screwed up; Acatl braced himself for a wail, but all that came out was, “Gaaah.”

“Hmm, I suppose not. How about...Mictlantecuhtli?”

“Now, I know she ca—” Words failed him midsentence; Teomitl, still bouncing the baby on his lap, took a moment to realize why. Then he saw what had struck Acatl speechless, and his eyes went wide.

His daughter was laughing, that odd burbling sound all infants made. An utterly normal noise. But no normal infant’s laugh could make wildflowers burst from the dry dust of his courtyard, pink and purple and white blooms covering the ground in a dense, springy carpet. The magic that had lain dormant for most of yesterday surged up again, red as blood where it curled around her little chest and shading to pitaya-fruit pink as it twined down her arms and hands. It didn’t seem to bother her; she chortled, clapping her hands again, and petals drifted down from her fingers onto Teomitl’s arms.

Teomitl was the first to regain use of his tongue. “...Xochiquetzal?”

No. It’s not Her. He shook his head dully. “Your brother banished Her, remember? There’s been no sign of Her since. I checked.”

“Gods, don’t remind me how stupid Tizoc is. But...if not Her, then it must be Her consort.” Teomitl looked distinctly uncomfortable at that prospect, and part of him wondered why.

The rest of him was almost relieved. Dealing with the Flower Prince wasn’t ideal—He was known to be especially capricious, and Acatl had never had the courage to call on Him even for matters of his own heart before—but at least he knew what they were up against. “To the temple of Xochipilli, then. We’ll have a word with His High Priest.”

Teomitl bit his lip as the baby hiccuped, a squeak of a sound that jarred her out of her laughing fit and had her glancing around anxiously for the cause. He gathered her against his chest, holding her with a tenderness that threatened to melt Acatl’s heart. “Oh, little jaguar cub, it’s alright. We’ll be back soon.”

They dropped her off at the Duality House, where Mihmatini was preparing for her own long day. She took the news of the child’s powers with a stormy look that promised retribution even for a god, but all she said was, “You’ll need offerings. Take them from our stores; we have all the flowers you could want, and last week we got in a pair of parrots for the feathers.”

“Thanks,” Acatl replied, with a calmness he didn’t feel. Teomitl said nothing. His fingers rested on the handle of his sword.

&

The temple of Xochipilli didn’t loom nearly as large as the Great Temple in whose shadow it lay, but it was brightly painted with lovely frescoes of birds and flowers. Here and there Acatl caught the gleam of gold. Teomitl had insisted on carrying the parrot cages, leaving Acatl with the flowers. He tried not to dwell on the soft, wistful glance he’d caught out of the corner of his eye while selecting an armload of poinsettias, nor on the way it had made his heart do somersaults in his chest.

He wasn’t a coward, but there were some things he simply wasn’t strong enough to face head-on without time to prepare. The urge to hold Teomitl’s hand as they walked was one of them.

But then they were crossing the threshold of the temple complex, and he had more pressing matters to attend to. Priests in flower-bedecked robes and parrot feathers passed by on their own errands; Teomitl, by his side, went very still.

It didn’t take long for them to be noticed. Before he could even call out, Xochipilli’s Fire Priest was approaching them. Though he was a fairly young man, the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes made him look even more exhausted than Acatl usually felt. Under his elaborate headdress, his gaze was sharp as a hawk’s. “Fire Priest Zolin at your service, Acatl-tzin.”

A spark of recognition lit Zolin’s eyes where they met Teomitl’s, but Acatl didn’t have time to worry about that. “We need to have words with your High Priest.”

Zolin glanced to Teomitl again, so briefly that Acatl wondered if he’d imagined it, but his words were directed at both of them. “He’s at the top of the temple. Come with me.”

They ascended the steps together. There were enough of them that Acatl had time to think, and he sort of wished he hadn’t. Flowers spring up where my daughter laughs. Teomitl made her laugh, made those flowers grow, and I...and I...gods, in that moment I would have died to kiss him. He was achingly aware of how far apart they were; when the wind caught Teomitl’s cape so it billowed against Acatl’s side, his breath caught in his throat.

The inside of the temple sanctuary was dark and cool; High Priest Nemalhuilli was perusing a well-worn codex, his back to them. When they reached him he froze, the codex falling from his hands.

“Nemalhuilli-tzin—oh.” Zolin swallowed roughly, taking a step back.

That was all the warning any of them got before the god’s power slammed into the room, thick and heavy as a steambath in summer. Acatl’s blood pounded with something caught between pain and desire; dimly he registered that he’d fallen to his knees, but his impact with the stone and the jarring screech of the parrots as Teomitl dropped the cage was a distant concern next to the sight of Nemalhuilli turning, eyes bright and ageless and not his own, not mortal at all, to regard them like dogs who had just done a clever trick.

Xochipilli, Flower Prince, god of youth and love and the vilest diseases, grinned maniacally at them through mist that was crimson as fresh-spilled blood. “I see you’ve found My daughter. And you’ve brought such lovely presents to thank Me!” One beckoning gesture, and the flowers Acatl had dropped rose on a petal-scented wind to flutter down over—no, into—His skin. Another, and the parrots’ screams cut off in a gout of blood.

Your daughter. Your daughter? His limbs shook, and it wasn’t from lust. He felt his lips draw back like a dog’s; he still couldn’t meet the god’s eyes, but there was nothing stopping him from glaring savagely at His knees. “What are You going to do...with her?”

“Me?” He sniffed. “Honestly, You do one girl a favor and everyone looks at You like you’re planning a takeover of the Fifth World. Do I look like the Storm Lord to you? Don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical question.”

Acatl tried to take a deep breath, but it only made him more lightheaded. “Then...why...?”

Xochipilli shrugged. “I told you. A favor. A girl wanted a child, I gave her one. It’s not My fault she didn’t think to tell anyone.” He paused. “Well, perhaps I could have met her in the flesh instead of dropping it into her womb. But it’s certainly not My fault she died, or that you have such a reputation for dealing with unwanted magic.”

Teomitl doggedly pushed himself upright, snarling like a jaguar on the hunt. He was too smart to make a grab for his sword, but the way his fists clenched said he was sorely tempted anyway. “Unwanted magic?! That’s your child!”

The Flower Prince appeared gently amused. Acatl wanted to punch Him. “Hmmm. Well, technically...” He tapped his butterfly nose ring, deep in thought. “Oh, why not? She can have three fathers. I only want her to grow up well.”

Acatl was fairly sure he wasn’t breathing. Suddenly, all he could see was Teomitl dropping to his knees again beside him, all the fight gone out of him as his rage transmuted to a bone-deep shame he knew too well. He saw it in his own reflection. From what felt like the very depths of Mictlan, he dredged up his voice again. “...Three?”

“Oh.” The Flower Prince smiled evilly. “You mean, you didn’t know. Shame on you, Ahuitzotl; did your courage fail you?”

Teomitl made a strangled noise. Words seemed to have deserted him. “I. Uh. Ngh.”

Horribly, Xochipilli’s smile turned smug. Acatl had seen exactly that expression on Quenami when he was getting his way, and it wasn’t any better on a god. “It seems that it has. And after such devotion in My temple!”

His heart felt fit to escape its prison of ribs, but he had to say something. Defend Teomitl. Ask questions. Something. But his mind seemed frozen in contemplation of devotion in Xochipilli’s temple and so all that came out was, “What?”

The god leaned forward, as though imparting a great secret, but His whisper was nevertheless pitched to carry. “Your pretty little student has been praying for—oh, for years, that you would look upon him as a man. As someone you might desire. As someone you might even love. Such riches he has given Me in hopes of My aid! I can hardly wait for him to become Revered Speaker, and I’m sure you can’t either.”

Oh, for a moment there he definitely wasn’t breathing. Wasn’t thinking, either; Xochipilli’s words had effectively obliterated every thought he might possibly have had. Teomitl wanted him. Wanted him badly enough to pray for it, as though he wouldn’t—as though he thought Acatl might not love him anyway, as though that was even possible. “Nnh.”

Xochipilli cackled, clapping His hands. “Ohoh, look at that blush! I see I was right.”

Teomitl squeezed his eyes shut. “Acatl,” he whispered. “I...”

Enough. Acatl sucked in a breath that rattled his lungs. “My lord,” he ground out, “I thank You...for the knowledge You have shared with us. The girl, Your daughter, will she...?”

Eyes like a crow’s lighted on him. “Hm?”

He could barely get the words out. “Will she...live a normal life?” Will she be Your pawn? Will I have to fear every day that the gods will use her in their games? Will she marry, have children, grow old?

An expansive shrug. “As normal as she can be with you two for fathers. She’s mostly mortal, after all; I only gave her a sliver of My power. Her birthday is Seven Flower; you may light incense for Me. Good luck, little mortals!”

And then He was gone, His divinity evaporating like smoke, and His high priest was clutching the edge of the altar with white-knuckled fingers. He was barely holding himself up; as he staggered, Zolin ran to his side. “My lord...!”

Nemalhuilli grunted, scrubbing at his eyes with a hand that came away bloody. “Duality, I hate when He does that. I think He thinks it’s funny. No, don’t hover, I’m fine. You two—ah, it’s Acatl-tzin and young Teomitl. Are you well?”

Acatl swallowed. He was once again exquisitely aware of Teomitl by his side; the sound of his breathing was erasing his thoughts. “...As well as can be expected. Forgive us for...for taking up your valuable time.”

There didn’t seem to be much to say after that. Nemalhuilli apologized again, and they turned and left, making their way back down the temple steps in silence. Teomitl kept shooting him nervous glances out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t attempt to speak until they were at the bottom of the stairs.

“Acatl-tzin.”

He drew in a breath, dropping his gaze to his dusty sandals. He prayed to Xochipilli for me. For me. That I would...gods. His chest tied itself in knots, and he couldn’t tell whether it was from joy or terror. Probably both. It simply couldn’t be real that he could have what he wanted. The world wasn’t that kind to him. “I’d.” He swallowed past a lump in his throat. “I’d rather have this conversation in private, if you don’t mind.” The priests of Xochipilli were as inquisitive as his own, and he was horribly aware of their curious whispers and the speculative way they were eyeing him.

“...Right,” Teomitl repeated dully. “In private.”

Silence fell again, but this time it was tinged with anticipation. They would go back to Acatl’s little house, and they would talk about this. He just had to put one foot in front of the other. He barely noticed the bustling precinct around him; Mihmatini’s words had come back to him, and now he thought he understood the determination in her voice.

His house seemed too quiet with the baby still at Mihmatini’s, but it was impossible to forget her presence with the wildflowers still carpeting every inch of his courtyard. He went in first and took a moment just to look at them. The Flower Prince’s daughter, he thought in wonder, and then defiantly, No. Mine. Mine and Teomitl’s, if he’ll be there for her. If I have the stones to ask him.

Teomitl was standing next to him, not touching. They still hadn’t spoken. Heart in his throat, Acatl turned to meet his gaze.

“Right,” he said finally. “We should talk.”

Teomitl’s face was a mask of obsidian, set to shatter at the slightest impact. “We should.”

Now that he’d made up his mind to begin, he couldn’t seem to figure out how to go on. He couldn’t have looked Teomitl in the face just then for all the gold in Tenochtitlan. “About...what Xochipilli said...”

“I love you,” Teomitl blurted out. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that—gods, I’m a fool. But you should know that the Flower Prince was telling the truth, that I—that is—oh, never mind!”

You love me. It didn’t seem possible, whether he’d heard the words from a god’s lips or not. He couldn’t be that lucky. The world simply didn’t work that way. His heart was racing so fast he thought he might faint. “You love me,” he said out loud, and got a miserable little nod in response. Emboldened, he said it again. “You love me!”

It was too much. He started to laugh, and he knew Teomitl was staring at him in injured confusion but he couldn’t make himself stop; for a moment, he was afraid it might tip over into hysteria. Finally, he got his breath back and stepped forward, reaching for Teomitl’s hands where they hung in tightly clenched fists at his sides. “Teomitl,” he said quietly.

Their eyes met again. Slowly—infinitesimally slowly—Teomitl’s fists unclenched, his stance relaxed, and his gaze grew into something soft and hopeful. “...Acatl?”

He wasn’t sure which of them closed the distance first. Their mouths met, and nothing else mattered. Teomitl’s lips were soft and warm; he kept the kiss light at first, as though he was afraid to scare Acatl away, but then Acatl’s hands slid up his arms and pulled him in closer and he threw caution to the winds; his arms went around Acatl’s waist, hauled him in tight with fingers tangling in the ends of his hair, and when he slid his tongue into Acatl’s mouth he couldn’t stop a moan from reverberating through them both. He thought dizzily that he could probably do this forever.

Or until he remembered he needed to breathe, unfortunately. Even when he broke the kiss, he couldn’t stand to go far. He was finally in Teomitl’s arms, and that was where he’d stay. “I love you too,” he whispered.

“Mmm.” Another kiss, slow and sweet, and when Teomitl pulled away he was smiling. “You have a daughter,” he whispered back, as though afraid to raise his voice lest the moment shatter. “And I’m going to help raise her.”

Joy bubbled up in his heart like fresh water from a spring, erasing all lingering doubts. So what if Xochipilli had sired her? It didn’t matter. He and Teomitl would be her fathers, and they’d see to it that she grew up well. She’d never wonder if she was loved, never be a disappointment to her parents. To any of them. He grinned down at Teomitl’s smile. “You will. Duality preserve me, you will.”

Abruptly, Teomitl snickered. “And she still doesn’t have a name!”

Ah. Right. “...I was...” He cleared his throat, knowing he was blushing again. “I was hoping you would name her. I can’t give her my mother’s name—I mean, you’ve heard about her—”

Teomitl grimaced briefly. “I have. In great detail. But...” Oh, no, he was biting his lip and looking shy. It tugged on all Acatl’s heartstrings at once. “Are you sure? I mean, you’re her father...”

“As sure as I am of death,” he said simply.

“Gods,” Teomitl murmured, and then fell silent. After a pause too short to have been considering it for the first time, he continued, “I was thinking...maybe...Atotoztli?”

He pictured that name-glyph, yellow-headed parrots over water. Something bright and clean and lovely. “A beautiful name.”

Now it was Teomitl’s turn to start blushing. “It was my mother’s regnal name. I wanted to pass it on.”

“Oh, Teomitl,” he said breathlessly.

Then Teomitl beamed at him and, of course, Acatl had to kiss him again.

#obsidian and blood #acatl #teomitl #teocatl #mihmatini #neutemoc #ichtaca #paladin writes stuff

[tomiislav]

I | T H R O N E

It was peaceful. Light touching the very tops of the trees. Thick as the grove was it could only reach Tomislav in faint streaks across the thick unruly grass. Even beneath the poplars the grass grew untamed. Much like the grassy meadows she had traipsed through to get here. Through the thick wood of trees she could see a lake just beyond. It was inviting her, tempting her, but Tomislav couldn’t abate the feeling that she needed to stay where she was. That someone was coming to meet her here - though she didn’t know who.

Tomislav couldn’t recall wading knee deep into the lake. Though the water was a crystal clear blue. So pretty and enticing that it seemed unlikely that she would be spending her time doing anything else in the height of summer. Across from her, so far away and utterly out of reach, was three women. The dark eyes of the tallest followed her. Even at some distance she could feel the heat there, the intensity in that stare, and it pulled Tomislav in. Unable to resist she waded deeper. So foolish she did not notice the water encroaching ever higher. Not until it was up to her neck and by then it was too late. She lost her balance on the smooth rocks that had once safely paved her way, and she fell deeper and deeper. 

Breathing heavy she resurfaced, the water that had filled her heavy lungs had gone, at her bare feet lapped innocuous heat. Though as Tomislav glanced up she caught the eye of a soul half-dead, their flesh and muscle burned down to the bone, a hollow darkness where their eyes should have been lit by the lava beneath them as they waded towards her. No, through her. They could not see her - or perhaps did not care for her. 

She scrambled up to her feet. The bare soles of her feet seemed to no longer be able to withstand the heat as they burned into the lava. Tomislav sunk deeper and deeper once more, but infernally and unbearably slowly. Through the thick haze of smoke appeared a saviour cloaked in dark grey rags. Tomislav cried for help, her voice hoarse from screaming, nonetheless she caught his attention. Slowly, he turned his boat around, the oar seemingly untouched by the lava it was wading through. He leant down offering Tomislav a decrepit hand. She latched on, believing in his benevolence that he would pry her from this atrocity. 

“One obol...”

She did not have one, and on that account he already knew, letting go of her hand so swiftly that Tomislav drowned mercifully fast. Tomislav burned until there was nothing left to her. Just ashes but even those were consumed by the fire too. 

Someone summoned her and there she sat, whole again, with her arms resting on the high sides of her throne. It was made from twisted bramble. Uncomfortable and yet it had moulded itself neatly to Tomislav’s weight. There in her throne room was a young sorrowful man clutching a lyre. To her right was an empty throne - just a bouquet of fresh flowers looking awfully out of place.

Tomislav turned her gaze once more only to be greeted by a woman with a sly grin, a woman that did not belong in the depths of her palace and yet there she stood. 

“Did you truly believe he could slay me?”

The serpents about her crown hissed. And, she continued. “You’re a fool.”

One thrust forwards and knocked Tomislav back, pushing her into the all-consuming darkness. She blinked, hands stretched out in-front of her finding nothing but muddy grass. In the gloom it was evident she was back in the meadows, except it was no longer the height of summer. Something had died, or perhaps something was absent for everything had shrivelled and died as if they had been starved of the sun.

Above her stood a wraith, slowly they held out a hand for Tomislav and rightfully history repeated itself. Her hand fell through the wraith’s who looked just as mortified as Tomislva. 

“I would have run away with you…”

For a second hope bloomed in Tomislav’s chest. She would have recognised that voice anywhere even as broken and hoarse as it was. “My love…” 

Mentheae cut her off. “If you had been born a man.”

Her colour was returning now, no longer a sliver or figment of who she once was. Mentheae sank down onto her knees beside Tomislav and yet she was still looking down on her. “You disgust me Slava.” 

Tomislav’s chest fell. She ached. Deeper than she had when she’d been alive - because this certainly wasn’t in the realm of the living. Mentheae faded above her. The meadow turned from dusk to night, and then cut to the vision of the palace. Except Tomislav was alone. Pacing through the grand hallways with nothing but her own hoarse screams to echo back at her. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be alone - they didn’t have the right to leave.

She tore into the throne room ready to scream bloody murder, but it was as dead as the rest of her palace. A lick of dust had coated her throne as if she had never sat in it. The throne beside hers was gone, destroyed perhaps, but it was no longer there. 

Out from the ashes stalked a mutt, larger than any Tomislav could think of and quite distinctly with three protruding heads. She froze on the spot as she caught its eye. There was something menacing there. An instinct or an urge, a desire to tear right through her, she grit her teeth as if preparing for a fight. One hand reaching for her knife but it had gone.

The hound set upon her like she was easy prey. ‘You can’t leave.’ It said, as it tore into the flesh of her leg. She’s scrambling, desperate to pry free from its jaws but there’s no escaping this beast. Tomislav had crossed an unthinkable line and now it was punishing her, there was no escape as the second head plunged its teeth into her neck.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Gasping, Tomislav clutched her knife. It had returned to her. Or, it was never gone. She rolled onto her side practically face down in the mud. She was home or what one might call home. In the haze of the moonlight she could make out the outline of her little hut. Beside her was the dying embers of a fire, the empty tincture bottle she’d brought home, and her boots. She ran a hand through her hair, her heart still beating at twice the normal pace, everything had felt so vivid. So utterly real. The palace, the meadows, even the serene lake had felt like places she knew even if she could recall no such places on this tragic little island. Tomislav groaned, reaching for the bottle of wine she had brought back with her, there was still a drop left. Just as there was still a drop left of Amaranth’s tincture. She eyed it with fresh envy – the desire for a real good night's sleep, or perhaps vivid dreams that would not be punctured with the nightmare of being alone.

#oec.task #drowning tw

[gekijouaika]

carry me slowly, my sunlight

Fandom: FFXIV Characters: Crystal Exarch, Fusao Naeuri (original WoL), others mentioned Originally written: October 2019 Word Count: 1058 Other notes: spoilers for the level 79 quests of Shadowbringers

The skies above Kholusia burned in their ever shifting hues of gold and molten yellows – it was almost difficult to believe the selfsame colours had tainted the vistas of Lakeland for the many centuries he had dwelled there until a scant few weeks ago. Staring up into them now merely compounded the headache swelling behind the Crystal Exarch's eyes, making it all too easy to blame his current predicament on the Twelve forsaken light above.

Ah, but for as much as he could blame the light for, this was not one of them.

Back pressed to his chosen hideaway (far from ideal, a boulder yet a stones throw away from Amity) he allowed his eyes to close, head feeling all too heavy as his chin dipped towards his chest. Just a moment... a moment of respite... it wouldn't do to miss the finale of over a century's making...

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was the first cool whisper of healing aether that stirred him, still lost in a haze of sleep and memories fogged by the ever unforgiving march of time – looking up to a figure, a familiar face.

“The future is where my destiny waits...”

And it was with a final jolt he came to the present – a confused set of eyes attached to an auri woman regarding him as she carefully withdrew her hand, “... if you spoke sense more often, I would worry some kind of delirium had set in.”

That her usual barbed tongue seemed undaunted by the momentary lapse was some relief, the Exarch leaning back against the boulder as Fusao remained on her knees before him, “Forgive me, my friend,” and he noticed her face scrunch slightly to be called such, “... I needed but a moment. To be so far from the tower, and exerting myself... it drains me.” His lips quirked, though it was a particularly wan smile, “Your efforts were appreciated, though wasted.”

The woman let out a soft huff, moving to lean her lance against the boulder before sitting at his side, “Don't get any ideas – Kira and everyone have the building matters well in hand, Mrs Chai was worried for your absence. Last thing I need is her, Kira and Lyna at my ear for letting you expire out in the wastes.”

He chuckled out another quiet, “forgive me” before the pair lapsed into an almost companionable silence. Despite his hood, it was easy to observe her profile – hard eyes, grown harder in her short time in Norvrandt, watched the shifting skies. It took him back... far, far past the mists – back to a young man, sat at a campfire abuzz with chatter and revelry. They'd made their first steps into an ancient mystery, all thanks to a pair of brave and all too strong adventurers. One sat at his side, too happy to talk his ear off about their work and her play. The other...

The other sat at the opposite side of the campfire, chin propped on one hand. While the angle suggested her attentions were on the Ironworks engineers and their constant bickering, he could feel the weight of that gaze on himself and his companion.

Even then...

“Tell me...” Her head shifted at his voice, rolling against stone to regard him, “What will you do, when this is all over?”

If she was surprised by the question, it didn't show. She tilted her head back once more and let out a slow sigh, “... rest a while, I should think. Lest you forget, my honeymoon phase was rather rudely cut short.”

“So I've been told–”

“And what of you?”

There was a scant beat, shock only mercifully covered by his hood. Fusao was looking at him devoid of her usual scorn (a scorn he could hardly blame her for, guilt settling low in his gut every time he'd seen the redness in Kira's eyes) and waiting patiently for his answer. An answer he wanted nothing more to give, to move past these polite fictions and simply address both women without pretences.

But this was not the time for that. And should his plans play to fruition, there never would be time for that.

It was for the best.

It was...

“Keeping your counsel again, hm?”

“I... I told you once, there are things I can ill afford to lose, yes?”

A soft hum was his only response, the only incentive to press on before logic dictated it was better to stop. Before he said too much.

“Rather than things, I spoke... I spoke of people. I don't think I need to ask you if you understand my feelings on that matter... of how much I would give to be at their side, to experience this realm not in turmoil but as someone free to explore... sea, skies, land... oh, nothing would make me happier...”

Fusao was quiet, letting him wear himself to a halt – before she was climbing to her feet with the scrape of sabatons on gravel, offering him a hand, “I suppose that all hinges on us getting up that mountain then, doesn't it?”

The Exarch looked at her hand in bewilderment once more, pink eyes rolling before she offered it with more insistence, “I already told you not to get the wrong idea, didn't I? If I go back without you, I'll only get an earful for leaving you to the vultures. You're white as a sheet.”

Unable to hide the smile tugging at his lips, he did take her hand and allow the deceptively strong Dragoon to pull him to his feet, “Quite. Thank you.”

Retrieving her lance, she looked back towards Amity – the hardness in her eyes abated, “... you might have the right idea, though. A journey without strife... would be nice.”

“I'm sure you'd rather be taking someone else than this weary old man, though.”

For the first time, she looked at him with a sharp grin, “How astute for an old coot.”

Chuckling, he righted himself, once more the ever enigmatic Exarch and began the walk back to Amity, “Let us see we all get our wishes then, shall we?”

Lagging somewhat behind, Fusao watched his back grow smaller and thought of such a familiar image silhouetted by a pair of closing doors.

“... you're still a terrible liar.”

#&writing: drabble #&fandom: ffxiv #&original characters: fusao naeuri

[erintoknow]

something more stubborn then you are

fallen hero rebirth fanfiction [chargestep] sort of? ~1.4k words [ao3]

content warning for near death experience WELP

–––

It should have been a pretty routine bust.

And then Steel got blasted backwards into a pile of junked cars.

Things did not improve from there.

You dive behind the overturned car, holding the energy caster like a prayer. Across the smoking ruin of the street, you can hear Psychopathor laugh and the facts align for you just in time to be flung across the ground by the fireball at your back.

There’s an unholy noise of scrapping metal as the stack of junked cars you’ve slammed into. 

Oh. 

Oh shit.

You manage to roll out of the way as the car crashes over on its side, the glass window panes bursting outwards in a rain of glass, cutting into your suit. The whole word is ringing and you’ve completely lost track of everything. Steel? Knocked out in a pile somewhere? Ortega? Was supposed to be circling around behind while you drew the fire. Right? Right? 

You can’t know. Can’t guess what she’s thinking, where she even is.

You’re own your own. Just gotta– gotta get up, but–

Your leg is stuck.

There’s a deep laugh, and metal digging against–over–into your leg. More noticeable now as the car frame shakes under each foot fall. Head still ringing. Can’t focus. Is this– Is this really it? 

No. No no no.

You’re– you’re pinned down but Psychopathor hasn’t fired again. The car must be between you and him, blocking the shot. He’s moving to get closer. Get a clear shot. Does that make sense? Can’t be sure, can’t place anything.

Can’t place anything but footsteps getting closer.

Your heart in your chest.

Metal grinding against your leg as you try to pull free.

This is it.

This is how you go out.

A few years of freedom and it’s all cut short because you were dumb enough to take shelter next to a car’s gas tank. What’ll happen to your body? When they find out? Will they try to forget you? Will the Directive swoop in and cover things up?

Everyone will know regardless. You’re a fake, a fraud, not human, not woman, not real, empty, empty and now you’ll be dead and you won’t ever see her again and

Fuck

fuck

fuck

is she at least going to be okay?

There’s a scream and at first you think it must be yours, but it goes deeper then you ever could and you can go pretty deep or at least you used to and you now you are screaming because something heavy slams into the car on your leg and you run out air but the pain doesn’t stop doesn’t stop cutting into your leg and you can only gasp for air with aching lungs tasting smoke and ash and gasoline.

“I’ve got you!”

Her voice cuts through head like a bullet and you latch on to it. “C-charge? Charge help!”

More footsteps, lighter in comparison, the creaking of metal and the strain of her breathing as the weight on you leg abates finally mercifully. You pull yourself free by your hands. Pull yourself up, to your feet, bad leg wobbling as metal crashes to the ground behind you.

Try to stand up, free on your own but you can’t do it, the pain in your leg shooting up in lines of fire and you’re falling but hands grab you, pulling you up, pulling you in. “Oh hell, are you okay?”

Ortega’s face is in yours. So close, oh oh– You flail your arms, you don’t want her to stop holding you – you need her to stop touching. You push her back, back woman! “Ow!” Bite back a curse as more lines of fire cross your leg. “D-damn Ortega! I won’t be if you break my spine.”

The relief on Ortega’s face is instant, and her eyes half-close. You grit your teeth. How– how much did she put into taking down Psychopathor? Your leg threatens to buckle under you as you hold Ortega up, you won’t let her fall, you won’t. “Hey– hey are you okay?” You choke out in a whisper.

“S’fine…” Ortega slurs, which of course means it isn’t fine.

“I– I’ve got you.” Biting down against the pain in your leg you put your arm around Ortega’s back, pull her’s around yours. Together you shuffle through the smoking junkyard to where you find Steel, still out could in a halo of crumbled metal. The sight makes you flinch. You may not like the bastard, but he didn’t deserve this. Could have used him in this fight.

Find a carseat sitting out in the open, you don’t so much lower yourself and Ortega down as you allow the two of you to collapse in a heap.

Now it’s a waiting game: what will happen first?

A) Will Psychopathor wake up and kill all of you?

B) Will you pass out from the pain and get exposed in a hospital?

C) Will the rest of the Rangers arrive letting you sneak off before B happens?

You shift on the seat, try to disentangling yourself for Ortega. A hand grabs your wrist. “Hey, where are you going?”

Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her face. You can feel her eyes on you all the same. “I– I gotta go before the, the uh party shows up.” 

The hand on your wrist tightens. “Ariadne… are you crazy?” She coughs. “You– you need to see a doctor.”

You gasp for breath, want to cry, maybe you already are? “I can’t.” Can’t even explain it. You pull at your arm. Give it back. Let you go. You look down, at your leg. It’s like looking at someone else’s leg. Don’t want to think about what the back half looks like. Are your tattoos exposed?

“Then… then just, please, for once, just stay?” Ortega’s voice is low, quiet.

You feel sick, dizzy, unreal. Ignore the complaints of your leg as you twist the knee to look at the back half, run your hand down it. Only cut in one thin line, blood seeping out, not a waterfall but– more than is healthy. The bruising underneath is going to be hell. Will probably scar. Maybe need stitches when you take the suit off but for now the skinsuit’s compression doing its job.

And there’s…

“I’m all of out of juice, ‘Step.” Ortega’s not letting go of you. “I need someone watching my back.”

“I–” You swallow the lump in your throat, the bile. “I’m not getting in any ambulances, okay?”

“Ari–”

“Promise me.” You are making a mistake, you know it. 

“Okay.” It sounds like like it pains her to say it. “Anyone tries to put you in an ambulance… I’ll punch ‘em.”

Absurd. you laugh and your ribs hurt. Good another thing to worry about.

You sag against the back of the carseat. There was no way you were going to just walk away from this one. “I’m… I’m trusting you.” You manage to get out.

The second you wake up, your heart is pounding in a panic. When did you even fall asleep? Did you fall asleep? Pass out? There’s the ceiling, spinning fan blades– You scramble to sit up, bite back a curse at the pain in your leg, your vision drains into black before returning and you’re in Ortega’s office? You’d recognize that line-up of photographs anywhere.

On the couch. The door is open. You pat yourself down. Still in your suit. Your mask is off which sets your heart racing but then you find it folded in your lap. Pat yourself down, find your leg has been wrapped tightly in white linen bandages. 

Still in your suit.

Not in a hospital.

You hug yourself, and it aches to breath. Look around the office, spot your Plasma Caster propped up against the wall behind Charge’s desk.

Footsteps on creaky floorboards and you freeze in place.

Sentinel leans his head in, meets your eyes and smiles. “Well, I thought I heard something moving. How are you feeling?”

“Where’s Ortega?”

Sentinel tilts his head as he steps into the room. “They’re keeping her at the Hospital for a bit longer. Shot her battery doing that stunt.”

You touch a hand to your face. You feel like you’re watching yourself. “Then… how am I here?”

“Well…” he dusts himself off, “That would be me. She asked me to.”

“Oh.” you say, “thank you,” you add.

Sentinel nods. He rolls a shoulder, rubs his neck. He’s avoiding your gaze, you pick up, so you politely avert yours. This is a side of Sentinel you haven’t seen before, usually he seems so self-assured. “I get it. Wanting to avoid hospitals. Are you going to be good to handle yourself from here?”

You blink, look back at him. “She kept her promise.”

#fallen hero #fallen hero fanfic #fallen hero: rebirth #fanfiction #wlw fanfic #mc #ortega #fhr/Ariadne

[today-only-happens-once]

With Great Power - Chapter 4

Title: With Great Power – Chapter 4

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | AO3

Fic summary: Thomas Sanders is just a regular social media personality. But when he gets bit by a spider during filming one of his YouTube videos, his whole life is about to turn upside down—whether he (or the aspects of his personality) want it to or not. Platonic LAMP/CALM + Character!Thomas. Spider-Man AU.

Chapter Word Count: 3377

Chapter warnings: mention of death, panic attack, lying, cursing, nausea, dizziness, risky and unsafe behavior (and encouragement of it)

A/N: Hi hello it’s been too long. But the Big Deal Real Life Time Sucking Thing has been turned in and hopefully I will have some more free time on my hands. ^u^ This chapter had some surprises for me as a writer, so I hope you find it enjoyable! Edited by yours truly, so all mistakes are mine.

Tags: @captain-loki-xavier, @human-dictionary @the-peculiar-bi-tch @mining-pup @band-be-boss-blog @asexual-trashbag @samathekittycat @why-should-i-tell-youu2 @theobsessor1 @always3charcoaltea @changeling-ash @logical-princey @crimsonshadow323 @flickering-raven @smokeyrutilequartz @dontbugmeimantisocial @soijusthavetoask @marvelfangeek09 @princelogical @creativenostalgiastuff @vigilantvirgil

…

Later that night, Thomas lays on his bed in the dark and stares up at the flat ceiling of his bedroom. Dodie’s newest EP floats through the air softly—he’d turned it on with the perhaps hypocritical hope that listening to his friend’s music would help him feel better about avoiding, well… his friends.

Once the news started showing stills of him in his scarf and sweatshirt—most of them mercifully blurry—with the anchors musing about who the stranger may be, Thomas had switched off the TV. He really wished they’d focus more on the kid, or even the guys that tried to take him. Anything but their apparent crusade to identify “Spider-Man”.

Turning off the TV, unfortunately, did very little to assuage the churning in his stomach. The events of the day flashed through his mind in broken fragments. The woman crying out for her kid, the wide and fearful eyes magnified by the glasses on the kid’s nose looking at him through the rear windshield, the snarl of contempt from the driver of the vehicle…

Thomas sighs and scrubs a hand across his eyes. The alarm clock on the nightstand politely informs him that it’s nearly 2 in the morning. He wonders bitterly if there is anything more frustrating than being utterly exhausted and still unable to sleep. His body feels like lead but his mind is still running through the events of the day like a highlight reel.

“This isn’t working,” he mutters aloud to himself. He takes a breath as if it will ease the churning in his stomach. Closing his eyes, he reaches through his mind with the probing thought.

Virge?

A sigh that isn’t exactly Thomas’s own echoes in his head. Yeah, Thomas, comes Virgil’s voice, sounding unsurprised. One sec.

The host opens his eyes again and blinks at the ceiling that he’d been stuck to just earlier this morning. Was that really just this morning? It felt like a lifetime ago. Dodie’s “Monster” gives way to “Arms Unfolding” but it’s little comfort alone in the dark. A moment later, Thomas hears the familiar whoosh and glances over to see Virgil standing beside his bed. His hood is pulled up over his purple hair and his hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his patched hoodie.

It’s hard to see his eyes in the dark under the hood and shaggy bangs, but from the slight duck to his head, Thomas knows he’s avoiding his gaze.

The internet personality sits up and rakes his fingers through his hair. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I’m getting the feeling that you need to talk.”

Virgil lifts a noncommittal shoulder. “Logan already tried.” He nudges sock-clad feet against the Virgil 2.0 sweatshirt in a heap on the floor. Tension is etched carefully into every crevice of Virgil; evident, even in the dark.

Thomas looks at him patiently, shifting over slightly to make room. “Today was a lot.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Virgil snaps. His gaze flickers up to the vacated space on the bed. He sits gingerly on the very edge of it, as if he’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

“So talk to me.”

Another long pause. It’s filled only with the soft, melodic sound of Dodie’s voice and the background whir of the apartment’s AC unit. The glow of the alarm clock’s red numbers does little in the way of light, and the darkness of the room so late at night seems to only amplify the silence between them. It stretches. For a moment, Thomas thinks Virgil isn’t going to say anything.

Then: “We could have actually, really died today.” Virgil’s words ring crystal clear and heavy in the dark. With it comes a tightening in Thomas’s chest. Virgil continues, the double vocalization leaking into his words. Amplifying them. “And don’t come at me with that ‘cognitive distortions’ crap. Not this time, Thomas. You know I’m right.”

Thomas can feel his heartbeat picking up in his chest and he takes in a deep breath through his nose. He holds it for a second, then releases it slowly through his mouth. He sees Virgil close his eyes as Thomas does it again. Virgil nods a silent thanks.

“But we didn’t,” Thomas replies softly as he feels the wave of panic brought on by that initial realization abates a little.

Virgil scoffs. “That’s kind of beside the point. We were in way over our heads.”

“But it turned out okay in the end.”

“Because we got lucky!” Virgil meets Thomas’s gaze for the first time tonight, his dark eyes cutting sharply through the space between them. “In fact, we got lucky a lot today. Lucky that we stuck to the car. Lucky that we caught the kid when he was about to faceplant into pavement going 45 miles per hour. Lucky that we got off the car when we needed to, that the driver didn’t have a gun or something, that nobody got a decent picture of you. The list goes on!”

Thomas is quiet for a moment, looking at Virgil carefully. At the tight clench to his jaw, the harsh glower from under his bangs, the aggression sketched into the edge of his stare. Thomas softens a little. “You’re right,” he says, and Virgil blinks at him, disarmed at the agreement. “We dove headfirst into a fight that wasn’t really ours in the first place.”

Virgil nods slowly. “Yeah…”

“So…Why?” Thomas tilts his head curiously as he asks.

Virgil arches an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

The host sits up a little more, speaking as his thoughts come to him in a slow progression of understanding. “I mean… you’re my fight or flight, right? You said so yourself.”

Virgil rubs the back of his neck and averts his gaze again, favoring instead to focus on a picture of some of Thomas’s friends he’d had framed on his nightstand. “Right. I… I guess.”

Thomas is watching him closely as the thoughts begin to click into place. “If the fight wasn’t ours in the first place, if we were in way over our head, if the odds were most likely against us… why did you choose fight, Virgil?”

Virgil looks startled for a moment. “I…” the thought is left unfinished.

He huffs a breath and shoves a hand back through his hair. It knocks the hood off his head. Virgil doesn’t seem to notice or has decided he doesn’t care. Thomas doesn’t press him any further. Even in the dark, he can see the flicker of his eyes as he thinks back to that split-second decision.

“Because they were in danger,” Virgil says quietly. Simply. His eyes are abruptly wide. Afraid. “I didn’t think. They were danger, and I just… threw us headfirst into a fight we could have lost.” Thomas feels his chest seize suddenly, alarm surging up his throat as Virgil’s voice takes on a sudden and intense distortion. “You must hate me.”

“Whoa, whoa. No.” His breathing is getting faster. Thomas’s hands fist around the blanket across his lap as if it will ground him. “Virgil, you gotta—” His throat closes up with panic.

“I know! I know. I’m sorry, I—in for four seconds, Thomas.”

Thomas screws his eyes shut and focuses on his breathing. In through the nose for four seconds, hold for seven seconds, out through the mouth for eight. Repeat. Repeat again. Repeat a fourth time. He can hear Virgil breathing slowly with him.

“I don’t hate you,” Thomas says after a few minutes, when he’s felt his heart slowing back down and his throat doesn’t feel as tight. “I’m… actually really proud of you.”

Virgil’s eyes flit back up to Thomas’s. “Yeah?” The distortion is gone, but Virgil sounds smaller somehow.

Thomas smiles faintly. “Yeah. I mean… us running towards danger to help someone else instead of away from it? I’ve always wanted to think that I’d be that kind of person.” He nudges Virgil’s shoulder with his foot. “Now I know I am.”

The corner of Virgil’s mouth quirks for the briefest moment, then it disappears. He looks away. “I’m supposed to protect you, Thomas,” he says. “Running you straight into a fight isn’t exactly keeping you from harm. It’s pretty much exactly the opposite of that.”

“I don’t know about that,” Thomas says gently, thinking back through moments of the fight in the parking lot. His muscles ache slightly from the memory, but something more important sticks out. “I seem to remember a voice sounding an awful lot like yours telling me to duck before I would’ve taken a fist to the face.”

Virgil snorts. “Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck and glances at Thomas. He makes a face. “Honestly that was a little weird, right?”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. I mean… I don’t even know what made me yell that at you. I just had this sudden, intense feeling that you needed to duck. I didn’t know why.” He shakes his head and shrugs. “It was weird. But I’m kinda glad for it. A bloody nose isn’t exactly a becoming look on you.”

“Huh.” Thomas turns Virgil’s words over in his head for a moment. “Do you think it’s related to all the other, um… weird stuff?”

Virgil looks at him. “I don’t know. It might be?” He sighs. “Though ‘all the other weird stuff’ also hasn’t been helping with the whole…” He waves a hand vaguely.

Thomas huffs a suddenly exhausted laugh, not needing any further explanation from his Anxious Side. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I get what you mean. We don’t know what’s happened to me, or… even what I’m able to do. And that’s…”

“Unsettling,” Virgil finishes for him. Thomas nods.

Distantly, the internet personality hears a car roll by on wet pavement down the street outside of his apartment. His eyes drift around the room, lingering on the corner of his room by the closet. The same place he’d managed to get himself stuck to the ceiling. Maybe figuring some way to have better control—to not stick to walls and ceilings unless he wanted to, like when he stuck to the car—and exploring these new… abilities (powers? Thomas doesn’t know what to call them) would help.  

“Maybe tomorrow,” Thomas says carefully, “we can go… experiment a little. In a controlled environment.”

Virgil’s lips quirk up into a smile. “You sound like Logan.”

Thomas laughs and runs a hand down his face. “Yeah. It’s probably his idea. But what do you think?”

Virgil nods once. “I think it’s a good one.”

“Good.” He pauses as Virgil pushes up from his position on the bed. “Good night, Virgil.”

The Anxious Side gives him a small two-fingered salute as he sinks out. “G’night, Thomas.”

…

Thomas hits the cement floor hard and grimaces at the jarring impact, his shoulder taking the brunt of it. He groans and coughs a little before rolling to his feet. He pushes sweaty bangs out of his eyes and squints up at the window at the very top of the warehouse wall. Dusty, late afternoon sunlight filters through the small window and the piles of shipping containers cast long, dark shadows in the dimly lit building.

Thomas had found the warehouse on the outskirts of Gainesville the morning after his talk with Virgil, and he’d been coming here every day for almost a week. Two days ago, he’d tweeted out that he was feeling under the weather—and texted Joan and Camden about it—and tried to ignore just how much his stomach twisted uncomfortably with the knowledge that he was now lying to his fanbase as much as he was lying to his friends.

He’d been trying not to think about it.

“On a scale from 1 to 10,” Logan’s measured voice cuts into his thoughts, “how would you rate the effect of that impact on your body’s physical capabilities?”

“All right, Baymax,” Roman quips from where he’s leaned against a shipping container. “You could just ask him if he’s hurt, like a normal person.”

Thomas rolls his shoulder a couple of times, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “About the same as every other time I’ve crash-landed this week,” he says lightly. “So a little winded, but nothing that bad.”

Logan quirks an eyebrow from where he stands a few feet away, then jots something down on a clipboard. “Fascinating.”

Virgil sits perched on the top of an unmarked container, chewing on his thumbnail. “We definitely should have broken something that time.”

Patton—who is sitting beside him, his feet kicking back and forth slightly against the container—looks at Thomas worriedly. “You okay, kiddo? That one looked like it hurt.”

Thomas frowns, then rolls his shoulder slowly one more time. Just to be sure. “Yeah, actually.”

“Well,” Logan says, studying the clipboard in his hands. “That just about confirms it. We can include a notable increase in your physical durability on our list of physiological changes your body has undergone as a result of recent catalytic events.”

“Thomas, you’re virtually indestructible.”

“No,” Logan corrects Roman hastily, waving a pen in the Creative Side’s direction. “That would be hyperbole. However, you have certainly demonstrated an unnatural ability to withstand impact that would, under normal circumstances, severely injure any other human.”

Thomas grabs his water bottle from where he’d set it down by Roman’s feet. He nods his understanding, glancing around the warehouse. Truthfully, it was pretty much the perfect place for what he was doing. As far as Thomas could tell, the warehouse was mostly abandoned. Shipping containers were empty, but they provided a number of walls of various heights for Thomas to use for practice. And, perhaps most importantly, there wasn’t a soul around except for himself.

“It’s probably a good thing,” Virgil quips in reference to Logan’s comment, “given how many times you’ve faceplanted into concrete this week.” He holds his hands up in mock surrender at the disapproving look Patton throws at him.

Thomas acknowledges the comment with a brief glance before he surveys the warehouse again. They’d realized his strength level had markedly increased on day 1. Before things had started to change, Thomas couldn’t even do a pull up. Now? Now he could pull himself up onto a ledge with one arm. In fact, he lifted one of the warehouse boxes—weighing several tons, by Logan’s best estimate—like it was a slightly awkward desk.

“Thomas,” Logan interrupts, “what would you say is your fatigue level?”

Stamina was another thing that Logan had been keeping a close eye on. Usually, Thomas could manage a 2 mile run before he’d start to feel the fatigue. But he’d been working out—experimenting? Training? Honestly he didn’t know what to call it—for nearly eight hours each day. And sure, he’d be tired at the end, but there was still a marked difference in Thomas’s stamina level.

“I’m good,” Thomas tells him honestly. “Starting to feel it a bit, but I want to keep going.”

The one thing that continued to be a problem for him, really, was this whole “sticking/not sticking” thing. He was getting better as the days passed—practice makes perfect, as Patton kept telling him—but it wasn’t coming as naturally as the stamina or the strength. He kept falling or slipping. Again and again and again.

Logan hums in thought and writes down something else. “As you wish.”

Thomas’s gaze zeroes in on a stack of shipping containers a few yards away. He bounces on his feet a few times, stretching his neck. He flexes his fingers. His shoulders tense. He breathes in. Out.

He takes off sprinting.

Thomas kicks off the ground as he rushes up to the tower of containers, his hands finding unnatural purchase against their smooth walls. He kicks his feet up against it, grinning a bit to himself as they stick. He huffs a breath.

He climbs quickly as if it’s a ladder—hand, foot, hand, foot—and reaches up for the edge of the top container. He glances down and immediately wishes he hadn’t. At the same time that he realizes just how high up he really is, Thomas feels his feet slip. His hands let go. The ground rushes up to meet him very suddenly.

The wind leaves Thomas’s lungs. He wheezes, coughing in a desperate attempt to get air back. He lays there for a moment, waiting for the world around him to stop spinning. The lighting fixtures set up into the scaffolding of the warehouse ceiling turn briefly into double and triple images. Thomas squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the high-pitched ringing in his ears to abate.

When he opens his eyes again after a long moment, he sees Roman standing above him. The Creative Side offers a hand, and Thomas accepts it as Roman helps him up to his feet.

“What happened?” Roman asks, walking back with him. “You were almost there.”

Thomas shakes his head without answering. He doesn’t know.

Wordlessly, Thomas turns on his heels once they get back to the starting point and faces the tower of shipping containers again. He breathes. He tenses. His weight shifts forward to the balls of his feet. He takes off running again.

Thomas scales the side of it just like he had before, getting about three quarters of the way up before his hands slip, his feet suddenly letting go. He plummets to the floor again.

“Thomas,” Logan says quietly when the host manages to push back up to his feet and stalk back towards the starting point again.

“He has to do this, Logan,” Roman says with a certain edge to his voice. “It’s not like it’s that hard!”

“Maybe he can’t,” Virgil quips.

“He has to.” Roman’s voice is a little higher than Thomas is used to hearing it. Something about it only spurs him on.

“Roman—” Patton tries, but Thomas doesn’t hear what his Morality is saying as he takes off at a dead run for the stack of shipping containers again.

This time, he feels his fingertips brush the very edge of the top container. Then he slips.

Thomas yelps in surprise, reaching blindly. One hand makes contact with the side of the containers as he slides down, and he feels a sharp pull in his shoulder as the hand sticks, abruptly stopping his fall. He grits his teeth, reaching his other hand up. The first hand lets go before he’s ready, and Thomas falls clumsily the rest of the way.

He lands awkwardly on his feet, the harsh impact bringing him to his knees. It sends a jolt of pain shooting up his body. Thomas falls forward onto his hands and knees, his eyes stinging. He takes a second to catch his breath.

“I think that’s enough for now,” Patton says from a distance, uncharacteristically firm. Thomas can hear a set of footsteps behind him, getting closer.

“Y-Yeah,” comes Roman’s voice, distant. It sounds tight and pained. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna—” A grunt. “I’m gonna go lay down.”

The footsteps are right behind him now. Thomas hears Logan’s voice speak up from behind him, unusually gentle for the Logical Side. “Breathe, Thomas.”

Perhaps ironically, Thomas doesn’t have the breath to respond. He nods, hating the way his arms feel suddenly like jelly. His exhale is shaky. He bows his head and tries to focus on catching his breath. The concrete is cold and grounding, and Thomas leans so that his forearms and forehead are against the floor. It helps with the lingering dizziness.

After a moment, Thomas pushes himself up so that he’s just kneeling on the floor. Logan is standing in front of him now. The clipboard is gone. The internet personality glances around the warehouse and notices that Roman is nowhere to be seen. Patton stands a few steps behind Thomas, his eyes bright and worried. Virgil stands a few feet back. There’s something unreadable about his expression.

“Are you… all right?” Logan asks.

Thomas takes a deep, slow breath. It doesn’t shake as much. “Yeah,” he says unconvincingly. He pushes himself to his feet.

“It’ll come, kiddo,” Patton says as Thomas brushes past him.

Thomas doesn’t answer as he walks out of the warehouse.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #platonic lamp/calm #sanders sides spiderman au #spider-man au #with great power fic #tw cursing #tw death mention #tw risky behavior #tw lying #tw panic attack #character!thomas #hhhhh i hope you enjoy this chapter #<3

[graceomeallain]

The Lady in the Lighthouse (prompt 6a)

Alice jolted as she came to, choking and spluttering up the icy seawater threatening to invade her lungs. She dragged herself up the beach, away from the harsh wave that had just crashed over her head, and collapsed against the freezing sand, too sapped of energy to go further. She coughed again, drops of seawater and flecks of sand escaping as she did. The roar of the raging sea behind her was deafening, and the rain lashed her back. Her jacket was lost to the depths of the sea, along with her hat and one of her boots, and she was shivering violently.

Somewhere in her exhausted mind, she realised that if she allowed herself to lie here much longer, she would pass out again against the sand already leeching the last dregs of warmth from her bones, and almost certainly die. If she could just drag herself off this beach, perhaps she could find shelter, if only under a bush, until this furious tempest exhausted itself, and she could see if any of her crewmates had survived the ordeal.

She very much doubted they had. She alone could swim, and when it had become clear that the sea had more then defeated them, while every man on board clung to the rig or the rail, she had surrendered to it, diving over the side and praying she would make it to land, rather than going down with the ship. Though the storm clouds had blotted out the sun and darkened the sky so it seemed like night, that had only been early evening. Now it was truly the middle of the night, and alone and frozen with no way to warm herself, Alice didn't know if she would see the sunrise.

Feeling her eyes beginning to slip shut, she forced herself to her knees. A blast of wind nearly sent her sprawling back into the waves she had barely pulled herself clear of, but she kept her balance, and with a Herculean effort, made it to her feet. Her fingers were stiff and stinging with cold, and she stuffed them under her arms as she stumbled up the beach, blown from side to side by wrenching gusts of wind. About halfway up the beach, her bare foot descended on a razor sharp shard of glass, concealed in the sand, and she yelled out in pain, her cry drowned by the thunder. Her foot gave, and she dropped to her knees, tears of pain and desperation mingling with the rainwater pouring down her face.

Every fibre of her ached to give in, to lie down and sleep in the soft sand beneath her knees, and leave herself to the mercy of the tempest, but she knew that if she did, she would never wake up again. She had sacrificed too much and travelled too far to let herself die now, when she was finally on the same soil as the one she had come all this way to find. She reached for the ring on her left hand, that had remained steadfast on her finger when most of her belongings and attire had failed her, and twisted it a few times, reminding herself why she had done all this. She had to keep her promise.

As she knelt in the sand, steeling herself to get up again and carry on, a jagged, forked bolt of lightning cut across the sky, and for a fraction of a second, the world was bathed in eerie light. Before everything was plunged into darkness again, Alice caught sight of a lighthouse on the headland at the end of the beach. Ordinarily, it would have been no more than a couple of minutes running, but in her current state, it might as well have been a hundred miles. Still, it was the only shelter she could see; there was no guarantee she'd find anywhere warm on the other side of the sand dunes further up the beach.

On legs so heavy she wondered that she could even drag her feet along, Alice forced herself to limp onward across the beach, trailing blood in the sand behind her. When she reached the headland, she allowed herself a pause. The lighthouse stood on a low cliff, separated from the churning ocean by a swathe of rough black rock. From the beach, a lightly worn dirt track led up through drenched grass to the lighthouse. It would normally have been a stroll, no more than a five minute walk, but just like the walk down the beach, it seemed insurmountable.

In the end, she managed most of the hill on her hands and knees, barely even noticing anymore as the gritty track tore at her breeches and grazed the heels of her palms. When the lighthouse finally loomed over her, she lurched to her feet, collapsing against the door and hammering on it with her fist. She waited, huddled against the door in an attempt to retain what little was left of her body heat, and when no answer came, she knocked again. Then a third time, and a fourth, and a fifth, with increasingly shorter pauses as she began to realise nobody was coming.

When the fifth knock went unanswered, she slid down the door to sit with her back against it, and curled into a ball. She was utterly spent, with no energy left to go elsewhere. Her best chance would be to huddle in this doorframe until morning and hope she survived that long. It was a slim chance, but at least the doorway was marginally better than the beach. She began to twist the ring on her finger again, praying that Ben would forgive her if she didn't find her way back.

Just as she was starting to drift into a sleep she was almost certain would be her last, she fell backwards onto hard stone. She opened her stinging, red rimmed eyes, and found herself staring up into another pair, strikingly green and illuminated by wobbling lamplight that cast shadows into the deep crevices around them. Alice scrambled to her feet as the door was shut behind her, and took in the wizened woman in front of her.

She was certain she'd never seen anyone so old in her life. The woman was hunched and gnarled, with wrinkles like valleys in her face, motley grey and white hair that looked like it hadn't seen the right end of a blade in years, and claw-like fingers that clutched the lantern in an unsteady grip. Unusually, she, like Alice, was wearing breeches and a shirt, and both looked like they'd seen more years on this earth than Alice had. Yet for all the marks time had etched into her, those green eyes were bright with intelligence, a young woman's eyes shining out of an ancient vessel, and Alice knew that this was not a senile old woman.

"My dear girl, what in God's name are you doing out on a night like this?" asked the woman.

Her voice was raspy, like blades screeching across each other, and its low pitch betrayed years, if not decades, of smoking the pipe that poked from her breast pocket, right next to a hip flask filled with a brown liquid. Her accent held faint traces of an Irish burr, but it was the accent of someone who had been away from their home country for many years.

"I was shipwrecked," Alice croaked out, bracing one hand on the wall to steady herself.

"Well, you must come in," said the woman, "come, come."

She held out her spare hand, and Alice hesitantly took it. It was rough and calloused, and the woman's fingers were bony but strong. She led Alice into the stairwell, and up an echoing stone spiral that seemed to go on forever until the lamp finally illuminated a heavy wooden door. The staircase continued upwards, but they didn't follow it. The old woman finally released Alice's hand to open the door, revealing a round room.

A large hearth was set into the wall, a pot hanging in it, and a threadbare armchair in front of it that looked like it might once have been red. The shrieking of the wind was still audible outside, and the rain assaulted the small windows, but no draughts crept in. This room was clearly the old woman's entire living space; a table was near the door, a single chair beside it, and across the room was a shelf of kitchen utensils, with a cupboard underneath it. Near the largest of the windows was a narrow bed, and a closet was pressed against the wall at the foot of it. On the opposite side of the room to the door, a curtain of worn and patched canvas, that wouldn't have looked out of place as a sail, obscured a small part of the room.

The old woman took a splint of wood from the table, and lit it from the lantern, then set the lantern down on the table and crossed to the hearth. She dropped the splint onto the logs stacked there, and pulled the flask from her pocket, uncorking it and tossing a dash of whatever was inside onto the hearth. A bright flame flared and caught, and the wood began to crackle. Alice was by the hearth in the time it took the woman to lift the flask to her lips and take a swig. She knelt next to it, holding her numb fingers as close as she dared to the sparking logs.

The feeling came back into her extremities painfully, like the pricking of a hundred needles against her skin, then like she'd stuck her hand directly into the fire, but anything was better than the deadly cold of the storm. The pain was just starting to abate when the woman returned and handed her a bundle of clothes, gesturing to the curtain.

"You'll catch your death in those clothes," she said, "I'll fix us something to eat, you get changed."

"Thank you."

Alice was loathe to leave her warm spot by the fire, but she knew the woman was right. She got to her feet, and her eyes went wide with horror as she saw a bloodstain on the rug beneath her, left by her foot.

"I'm so sorry," she said, looking down at it, "I didn't realise it was bleeding so heavily."

"Oh, don't worry, dear," said the woman, "you just get changed, I'll fix that up in no time. You can leave those wet things in the tub."

Alice nodded, and slipped behind the curtain. It felt like sailcloth, as well as looking like it, and it smelled like salt. Behind it was a tub that was currently drained, and Alice slowly changed out of her sodden clothes and into the mercifully dry breeches, socks and shirt the woman had given her, leaving a sock off her bleeding foot. The woman's hunch made her look smaller than she was - the clothes weren't a bad fit. She dropped her own clothes into the tub, and wrung out her straggly black hair over it, so it wasn't dripping.

When she emerged, the woman was poking at something in the pot over the fire, and she had pulled the wooden chair over to sit by the armchair. A knife sat on the chair, along with a bandage and a rag.

"Much better," said the woman as she looked at Alice's dry clothes, "come sit, let me take a look at your foot."

The woman took the chair with the bandage, and when Alice sat in the armchair, held out a hand for Alice's foot. Sh lifted it, and the woman inspected it closely, bony fingers pressing hard against Alice's ankle.

"Hmm, painful that," she said, "you'll be alright, though, there's nothing lodged inside. This'll sting."

She opened her flask again, and tipped a little of the contents onto the rag. When she held it to Alice's foot, it burned against the wound, and Alice sucked in a sharp breath. After a few seconds, the woman removed it, and cut a length of the bandage. As she began expertly wrapping Alice's foot, a smell floated over from the pot above the fire that was nothing short of heavenly. When the woman finished, the tucked the bandage under itself to secure it, and stood up.

"There now," she said, "get a sock over that, I'll get us some stew."

She fetched two bowls and two spoons from the cupboard under the rack of kitchen utensils, and dished up a nondescript, dark coloured stew, handing one bowl to Alice. In reality, it was nothing particularly special, much akin to the things Alice had eaten every day on the long voyage from Port Royal, but she gulped it down faster than she'd ever eaten before, not realising until she took the first bite how starved she was.

Once she had eaten, warmer and fuller than she had been before, she began to think a little more coherently, and she realised she had yet to hear the name of the ancient woman currently packing away the bowls.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The woman looked over her shoulder with a curious expression on her face, as if she was surprised to be asked.

"Annie," she said, "yourself?"

"Alice."

"And how'd you come to be shipwrecked, Alice?" asked Annie, "your captain must have been soft in the head to sail through these waters. The storm clouds have been gathering since dawn, and it's a ship killer out there."

"He isn't," said Alice, then corrected herself, "he wasn't. We were set upon by pirates, and the only way to outrun them was into the storm."

Annie gave a rattling, mirthless laugh.

"Pirates? There hasn't been a real pirate from here to Boston in a lifetime."

Alice felt her temper flare a little at that; her entire crew had been driven to their deaths by pirates, and this old woman in her lighthouse was claiming they didn't exist.

"There are, they were flying the black flag!"

"Piracy was stamped out before you were a twinkle in your mam's eye," said Annie.

Already irritated, Alice felt a sudden wave of anger break over her.

"Why is there no light on upstairs? This is a lighthouse. We might have made a safe landing if we'd had a guide, why didn't you have the light on?"

"With the force of the wind? This bay's dangerous, dear. No helmsman alive could navigate his way into it with his sails furled and only the lighthouse for a guide, and with the wind as it is, no ship could have its sails out without having the masts ripped clean from the hull. It's precarious out there, but at least it's open water. There's always more of a chance than there would have been here - you would have run aground, sure as the sun'll rise tomorrow."

Alice blinked a few times. Annie was right, now she considered it, but how the old woman knew so much about seafaring was another thing to add to the list of mysteries.

"In any case, how was it you ended up on board a ship in the first place?" asked Annie, "you don't look like a sailor. Certainly don't sound like one."

"I was running away," said Alice, beginning to twist the ring on her finger unconsciously.

Annie gave her a knowing nod, and looked at her hand.

"From your husband?"

Alice shook her head immediately.

"No, nothing like that. I'm not married."

Annie sat down, raising an eyebrow. She'd rolled up her sleeves in the time she was away from the hearth, and her forearms were littered with old scars, remnants of slashes and burns. Alice couldn't fathom how this women had come to be here, or where she had come from.

"What's the ring for?"

"I'm engaged."

"Running to something, then."

Alice allowed herself a smile as she thought about how close she was to Ben. Within the week, she would be back in his arms, and it was a reassuring thought, even as she sat in this dark lighthouse with a woman who was becoming ever more of an enigma.

"Ben," she said, "when we lived in England, I fell in love with him, but my father disapproved, because he was poor. We moved to Charlestown, and I promised him I would come back. So I dressed as a man, and came on board a merchant ship."

It had been months since she'd last seen him, since she'd waved tearfully from the back of her father's carriage as he stood in the fields, doubled over and breathless and unable to keep pace any further. She didn't doubt for a second that he would still be there, with the money they had stashed to start a life away from her father and the trappings of the lifestyle he insisted on. The thought made her want to run out into the storm and all the way to him in one night.

"You love this Ben, then?"

"Very much," Alice said honestly.

Annie's eyes turned wistful, and she gave a slight smile, reaching up to finger a ring on a chain around her neck that Alice hadn't noticed before. The chain it hung on was weathered and tarnished, like everything else in the room, but the ring was clearly gold, and it still shone in the firelight.

"I loved a man, once," she said, "before even your father was born, probably."

"What was his name?"

"Jack. When I was young, I was married, but I wasn't in love. But as soon as we met, I knew we were cut from the same cloth, Jack and I. He swept me off my feet, and I ran away with him. We went places and did things you couldn't begin to imagine."

"What happened to him?"

"He died young."

Her tone was wistful, and Alice's heart broke for her. The story reminded her of Ben, and her breath caught in her throat at the very thought of what it would be like to lose him young.

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright. I imagine I'll find him again soon, on the other side."

There was a faraway look in her eyes as she looked out of the rain spattered window to the roiling, black sea, and Alice was even more curious than she'd been before.

"How did you come to own this lighthouse?"

"Well, not many people are drawn to the life of a lighthouse keeper, dear. The old man was getting married, he gave it over for free."

"But you're drawn to it?"

Another rasping, almost bitter laugh.

"Not at all."

She didn't elaborate, and Alice sensed she wouldn't even if asked. There was a long pause filled by the crackling of the fire and the storm outside, then Annie got to her feet.

"You must be exhausted, dear," she said, "there's a chest behind the curtain, on the other side of the tub, there should be a blanket in there for you. Tomorrow morning, I'll see you're on your way to your Ben."

She had lit a candle while Alice was eating, and she handed it to her now.

"Thank you."

Alice got up and ducked past the sailcloth again, moving around the tub. Two chests sat in the corner there. One was a plain wooden box, like a shipping crate, but the other was more intricate, iron bound with a keyhole. The thick layer of dust coating it made it impossible to tell what colour it actually was, and told Alice beyond any doubt that Annie had meant the other crate, but the sailcloth fully obscured her actions, and curiosity got the better of her. Wedging her fingernails into the crack where the chest shut so as not to disturb the dust, she lifted the lid just enough for the light of the candle sitting next to her to catch the trigger of a pistol inside.

Alice's chest tightened, and her mind began to race. She was young and strong where Annie was old and wizened, but there was clearly more to Annie than met the eye, and they had only just met. She was an old woman living alone. Perhaps the pistol was for her own protection, but Alice was uneasy all the same. Perhaps she shouldn't trust her. A bellow of thunder from beyond the walls reminded her that she had little choice.

Quick footsteps warned her of Annie's approach, and she hurriedly shut the chest, just in time for Annie's head to appear around the sailcloth.

"The one on the right, dear," she said.

"Thanks," said Alice, "I was about to ask."

Annie left again, and Alice waited for her racing heart to return to normal, then opened the crate and pulled out a blanket, shaking it to reveal any insects. Nothing undesirable fell from it, so she shut the crate again, and came back out to find Annie getting into bed, boots abandoned.

"Sorry there's only the armchair, dear," she said, "there was a time I'd have offered, but I'm afraid I'm too old to sleep anywhere but a bed these days."

"That's okay," said Alice, "thank you again for letting me stay."

"No trouble at all," said Annie, "goodnight, dear."

Annie settled down in the armchair and pulled the blanket up to her chin, watching the flames in the hearth flicker and die to embers. She was bone tired, but she couldn't fall asleep. Every time her eyes began to drift shut, on the edge of falling into the sleep of the dead, something pulled her back from the precipice, and she was jolted into full wakefulness again, no less exhausted than she had been before.

Eventually, she realised it was Annie. The armchair faced away from the bed. She had no way of turning it without looking suspicious, and no way of falling asleep until she knew exactly who she would be sleeping with her back to. She had to know what was in that chest. Once the resolution had been made, she found it easier to stay fully alert. She waited for several minutes, the steady pattern of Annie's breathing slow and constant. After minutes of that, she was certain the old woman was asleep.

She shifted the blanket back and tentatively set her feet down on the floor. She crept across the room, treading gingerly so her socks didn't hiss across the stone, and slipped behind the sailcloth curtain. She knelt down beside the chest again, and glanced up at the small window above it. The moon was still hidden behind the walls of clouds, but the odd flash of lightning illuminated the world outside, so she lifted the chest onto the stone window ledge, and eased it open.

Even in the low light, the items on top were easy to make out. Three knives - not kitchen knives, but the sort sailors wore at their belts for working in the rig and fighting - and a pistol. She checked, and found it unloaded. Every rational part of her told her that that ought to be the end of it. Annie was no threat, and she should go to bed, but her curiosity overwhelmed her instinct towards self preservation all of a sudden.

She removed the weapons painstakingly carefully to look underneath. A large, leather pouch sat on one side of the chest, shut with a drawstring, and reaching inside, Alice's fingers traced over scores of coins she knew by shape to be gold. What was someone with this much gold doing in a lighthouse with furniture as old as she was?

Alice pushed it aside, not daring to lift it for fear of the clink of coins being moved, and reached for what remained - a compass, a necklace of shells and two folded sheets of paper so fragile that Alice thought they might break when she picked them up. She set the shells and compass down by the pistol, and unfolded the first sheet of paper. Holding it close to the icy glass of the window, she could see the imposing word stamped at the top of it. WANTED.

Underneath the word was a picture drawn by a sketch artist of two people from the shoulders up. On the left, a man with sharp features, a jagged scar across his face and a necklace of shells around his neck, and on the right, a woman with long hair, harsh faced but beautiful, and implacably familiar.

Alice held it closer to the window still, and brought her face nearer, squinting at the writing underneath to see it in the dim light. Wanted for the crimes of high seas piracy, robbery, murder and treason against the crown, Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny. Alice looked at the woman again, and saw a face she recognised, as it had been before time had worked its evils.

Everything came together at once, and it was all Alice could do not to recoil from the poster. That unravelled Annie's mystery all at once. Alice was under the roof of a cutthroat pirate masquerading as a sweet old lady, and the urge to run out into the night was as strong as a riptide. But it wasn't quite strong enough to overcome her desperation to know the whole story. She replaced the poster, and unfolded the last sheet of paper.

It was a letter, written in the large, scrawling hand of someone clearly unused to writing. Trying to put the killer in the next room out of her mind, Alice held it to the window and began to decipher the messy scrawl.

Annie, it read, I'm writing this as I sit in the hold. Even though you're one of the fiercest fighters I've ever been lucky enough to know, I know you can't match up to England's whole navy, so I don't know if we'll ever get the chance to talk again. I tried to wait for you to come below when the soldiers arrived, but the crew barricaded us down here anyway. I pray they let you live to stand trial, and that I can slip you this note somewhere between here and Charlestown. I'll try and slip my necklace, too, as a memento - I don't think it'll go well with the rope round my neck, do you? Love, I'm for the noose, but you don't have to be. Plead your belly at your trial, and they'll have to wait to kill you. I know you, and I know you'll be brilliant enough to find a way to escape in that time, just like you were brilliant enough to find a way to run away with me, once. You have years left to live, and so many places to go and things to do. I will see you again, one day, I don't doubt it for a second. When I do, I expect to hear stories of a life fully lived. In the meantime, know that I love you, and I'm so sorry it had to end like this. Yours, always, Jack.

Alice folded the letter again, horrified by the tears that sprung to her eyes. The woman separated from her by only a sailcloth was a pirate, the most depraved of monsters, the villain in the stories Alice had been told as a child. Her husband was cut from the same cloth, she had said it herself. And yet here in this letter was not a monster, but a man, heart and soul spilled over the page for the woman who had kept it for decades, and who still wore her wedding ring around her neck. The sincerity in the scratchy letter in front of her was almost enough to move Alice to tears, and a wave of shame washed over her for the revulsion she'd felt when she realised Annie was a pirate, for assuming the woman who had taken her in from the storm to be a monster.

She tucked the papers away again, and replaced the necklace and weapons, careful to arrange them as they had been before. Once everything was as it had been, she set the chest back in its original spot on the floor. She padded back out from behind the sailcloth and into the room beyond. As soon as she was out, a heavy dread spread across her shoulders, and she froze. Unable to place anything wrong, she let out a long breath, and shook herself. It was just guilt. Nerves assuaged, she collapsed into the armchair, and all but passed out.

She woke stiff but refreshed, a shaft of pale sunlight falling across her face, and uncurled out of the armchair. Through the window, she could sea a calm sea, exhausted by the rage of the previous night. The roaring of the wind was gone, and the world was silent. She was halfway to the window when her heart stopped, and she realised what had put such a feeling of dread in her the previous night, when her instincts had known more than her. The rhythm of Annie's breathing that she had listened so carefully to had stopped.

Alice whirled and ran to the old woman's bed, needing to be sure she was alright. Annie was lying on her back, eyes closed and wrinkled face peaceful. For all the world, she could have been asleep, but she was preternaturally still. Alice held a finger under her nose and felt nothing.

"Annie." No response. "Annie." She shook the old woman's shoulder, but Annie was a deadweight. "Annie, wake up."

She shook her again, felt for breath, and felt for a pulse, but after a few desperate minutes, it was clear that there was no life left in the woman in on the bed in front of her. Her heart must have given out. Alice sat down heavily on the side of the bed, stunned. She had seemed in the best of health the previous evening, but then again, she was almost unbelievably old.

Alice sat there for several minutes, floundering in her mind. She couldn't just leave Annie there, but she also couldn't stay long enough to arrange any kind of funeral; her father would have sent people to stop her as soon as he realised she was gone. He had to know where she'd be headed, and they would be only days behind. She had to reach Ben before they did. There had to be a town nearby, she realised eventually. They had been shipwrecked off the coast of Cornwall, and the surrounding area was littered with little villages. She would stop in the nearest town on her way north, and let the local priest know. She could pay him out of Annie's stash of gold coins to ensure she was given a proper funeral.

Resolved on a plan, she decided she had to be on her way. She cast about the room, and her eyes fell on her lone boot. She certainly couldn't travel all the way to Ben in one boot, and though it made her uneasy to wear a dead woman's shoes, she was forced to don Annie's. She returned to the room behind the sailcloth and opened the chest, taking the pouch of gold coins. The lid was half shut when she stopped and reached back inside, retrieving the necklace of shells and the compass.

She stopped by Annie's bed once more before she left, pushing back a long curtain of salt and pepper hair so she could reach behind her neck, trying not to grimace at the cold skin under her fingers. She fastened the shells around Annie's neck, then tucked the compass into her deep breast pocket, beside the pipe and flask.

"To help you find him," she said quietly, "on the other side."

With that, she turned and left behind the room, and the lighthouse, and the strangest acquaintance she'd ever met, or ever would again.

@readerwriterconnect

#readerwriterconnectcomp

[agentwallflower]

Dull One Chapter 38

I’m tired. Thank God I planned out 41′s outline two weeks ago. I should do that more often.

Didn’t do it this week. Whoops.

Anyway, next chapter is going up July 22. I’ll see you then. Have a good couple weeks.

So, is it day or night?

That was a damn good question if anyone asked Mointz. Of course, they weren't, so she was left with a really good answer that only made sense to her. Not that it was anything particularly new to her, but it was still kind of annoying.

That answer was, of course: hell if I know.

A few days had passed since Mointz and Corabe had set down to have their talk. Well, she was pretty sure it had been a few days. With how things were going, getting a firm lock on time was kind of difficult. She had a general handle on things, but if someone asked her what time it was, they'd just get a blank look. Or in extreme cases she apparently wouldn't answer at all and would just be staring off into space for hours.

It wasn't exactly doing great things to her social life, but she hadn't exactly been social to begin with.

Honestly, it was hard to tell even when it was doing whatever was going on. Sometimes, the flickering between day and night went away when she blinked. The other day had disappeared in the blink of an eye on the other hand, so it wasn't as cut and dry as a simple illusion. Trying to figure out what was which was difficult, to say the least.

Did you remember to grab something to eat before you settled in? That poor apprentice is still scared of you.

Mointz felt her face heat up. “I was hungry.”

Yeah and you get angry when you're hungry.

It was a result of having missed one too many meals as a consequence of the shifting time. The poor apprentice had really only been there to tell her that they were looking for her in healing, but apparently whatever she had done had been so frightening that they refused to come near her. Maybe she should've felt bad, but hunger was an awful thing to solve mysteries on.

It hasn't slipped yet, by the way.

“There were no flashing lights, so I figured.”

This was the inelegant system she had come up after the apprentice incident as Voice was wont to put it. It was a poor attempt at best to track when time began to shift, but her favorite headspace buddy didn't seem to be nearly as affected by the time changes as she was. The heads up wasn't much, but it was something.

It was definitely helpful when she found herself too tired to stay awake. Twice already Voice had stopped her from sleeping through an entire day. She had been groggy for a few hours to pay for the sudden wake up call, but it was better than missing lunch. And oh, she had needed it that day for sure. It wasn't a perfect system, but it had its moments.

Not nearly enough of them, of course.

Mointz frowned as she stared down at the piece of paper in front of her. It was full of scribbled out notes and erase marks – her way to try and track it. She had discovered all too quickly that this was a different animal than her all too familiar death visions. Trying to track it down was even more difficult.

After all, she had figured out what caused the death visions – being a little too close to her pyre. A few firm blinks usually put those right when it was clear she didn't have any new holes in her, and then the  world was right. These... were something else. Only sometimes could she focus them away. Other times, they were completely unpredictable and left her both literally and figuratively sitting in the dark.

In that instance ,they were somehow even more annoying than her now familiar friend.

So, is recon helping?

“Not really.”

Of course, the library was making her sleepy to begin with so it didn't help. This had been another collaboration between herself and Voice in order to see if anyone else experienced the sudden creeping of the sky. The last two days had been spent in various parts of the tower, watching for the shift and recording reactions. Today's stake out was the library behind a sizable stack of books that would defer attention should – and most likely did – shift forward.

That might have also been from boredom but she wasn't taking any chances on that.

All around her seat, it seemed normal. Students read their books or scribbled away on long scrolls. Some of them – though she doubted they realized they were being watched – only pretended to work on their assigned tasks. Those were the ones that kept her awake during her vigil. If there was any god left in the world, they would be blessed. At least, they would have been if it was her job to hand those things out.

Maybe if it had been this would've been over sooner.

I think I'm getting a tingle.

Mointz felt it too this time, like a cold wind on the back of her neck that raised the skin on her arms. With the wind came the flickering that came from no man made light, and she watched as the shadows began to move and stretch across the floor. The students kept moving, unaware of just what was going on.

When she blinked, it was over. At the very least, natural sunlight still lit up the library. However, the shadows had shifted, and there were fewer people burying themselves among the books. No doubt they were in class now or somewhere else in the tower.

Her joints creaked as she rose and looked out the window to try and figure out the time. “Would you say it's before or after lunch?”

Definitely sometime after midday. I think you missed it again, kid.

“Great.” Mointz scowled as the familiar grumble of an unfed stomach drew her attention. “Oh, don't blame me. It's not my fault time is doing this.”

Yeah, if your stomach answers you, we've got bigger problems.

“Does growling count?” Mointz sighed as she looked back to her book hideout. At this rate, she could be there until tomorrow and not get any further. “I think it's time to call in some help from the professionals.”

Off to see the wizard?

“Something like that.”

Corabe was out of the question, though not for the more obvious reasons. Whatever was going on, it might have been above her punch level. Besides, given the time of day she was no doubt in class. Whatever she might have been learning could have helped them, so until she was free, the mage was off the list.

Thankfully, there was more than one mage in the tower she trusted.

Though, Mointz realized as she left the library that she had never gone to see Palea before. The mage had always found her, usually in a state of disarray after one of Phirsa's fun little excursions. Even though it was a fairly large tower, there were only so many places she would have been able to hide. Even on Mointz's aching legs, finding her was possible.

That, and she had a really good way of giving her location away.

“Whoa.”

Mointz stopped, blinking in surprise as the wave of energy smacked straight into her. It wasn't enough to knock her off her feet, but it was powerful in a way that suited the head mage perfectly. It was definitely better than any trail of breadcrumbs, and a lot neater too. All she had to do now was stay on her feet and follow them to the source.

It led her to a door, mercifully on the ground floor. However, knocking was out of the question as a particularly strong wave of energy rolled out from under the gap between the door and the wall. Hot, angry prickling sensations raised bumps on her arms as she leaned against the wall for support. Even the stones seemed to crackle from it, though none of them broke in the process. Still, it wasn't hard to miss some of the older patch jobs – this wasn't new.

What pissed her off?

“Oh, who pisses everyone off in this damn empire?”

Just because Phirsa is an imperialist asshole... yeah, actually why am I even defending the guy I hate him too.

“You were worrying me there for a second.” The energy abated to a more comfortable level after a few moments of quiet simmering – maybe the occupant had heard her conversation seemingly with herself. “Oh, there we go.”

This time, Mointz did knock on the door. It only took a second for it to open, as if someone had been seconds away from yanking it off its hinges and storming off in an angry cloud of electrifying force. There stood Palea, looking fit to be tied and then some.

“If this is-”

She stopped, and her rigid posture flexed. “Oh, hello, Mointz. Sorry I thought you were someone else.”

Damn, and I thought you were scary when you were hungry. She's got you beat, kid.

Mointz nodded more to Voice than anyone else. “Sorry if I'm interrupting. I wanted to know if you had any thoughts on what happened when we bumped into each other the other day?”

Maybe it had been yesterday, or the day before, or maybe it hadn't happened at all thanks to how strange things were going. Mointz definitely remembered running into Palea during one of the shifts. Well, run into was putting it lightly – the mage had practically walked right through her. It probably wouldn't have ended so well, but luckily she had been able to stop herself. It was one of the few times someone had seemingly made the shift stop, but repeating it had been impossible.

Still, it was a start.

Palea beckoned Mointz inside with a wave of her hand. The room beyond the door was positively filled to the brim with difficult looking books that had yellowed with age and disuse. The ones whose titles she could read talked about the magic of time and place, though how those two related to each other was beyond her. Maybe they were, and that was why she needed a mage's help.

The mage rubbed at the dark circles under her eyes as she sat behind her desk. “Please, have a seat. I don't think I'd be able to keep standing myself.”

Mointz took the offered chair and kept her eye on the window just in case – the sun was staying right where it was supposed to for early afternoon. “Have you found anything about it yet?”

Palea scowled once she finished rubbing her eyes. “No, and that's the frustrating thing. I'm right where I started and all I have to show for it is some paper cuts. At this rate the library's going to think I'm a hoarder.”

She looked towards the books on her desk, still scowling. “Nothing matches up to what you've told me.”

Mointz looked down at the bracelet still strapped to her wrist. Maybe it was a figment of her imagination, but the gem didn't look as cloudy as it had in the past. “Do you think it's because of this?”

From her side she drew Spinner and held it up. The weapon was still heavy in her hands, but not oppressively so. Stubborn is what she probably would have called it had she thought of it. However, it was hard to think when Palea got  that look in her eye. Curiosity was winning over her frustration.

“It's possible. Can I see that for a second?”

She held out her hand, but Mointz flinched away for a second. Her heart sped up briefly, but it hammered in those few seconds like it wasn't going to get another chance to do it again. With great difficulty, it left her hands, but never her sight.

You'll get her back, kid. We'll make sure of it.

Voice's weight was comforting now as in front of her, Spinner rotated in Palea's hands. The mage kept flipping it around, at times barely avoiding a serious cut to her palms when the blade got a little too close to unguarded skin. No blood spilled, but there were more  than a few close calls, especially as she examined the gem.

Finally, she put it down on the desk between them but made no motion to give it back. “No, I don't think this is the cause.”

Probably because of her focus on Spinner and how it wasn't back on her damn belt, Mointz didn't notice at first. However, when the shadows shifted ever so slightly it was more than obvious what was going on. It was brief, though. After another second they went back to where they had been before.

Another shift averted, but what the hell was causing it?

Palea had a veiled look on her face as she leaned back. “Did it happen again? That shift you mentioned before.”

“It didn't go through this time. Everything just sort of twitched.” It wasn't the only one – Mointz felt it in her fingers the more that Spinner was away from her.

Either the mage didn't notice or she was testing her. Palea tapped on the gem a few times before turning it over on the desk. “Right then I felt something. It was faint, but powerful. I've never felt anything like it.”

She picked Spinner up and handed it back. “Your weapon isn't the cause, but it's soaked in the same energy that you're absolutely saturated with. No doubt it's from carrying it around so much; metals absorb more magical energy than most people think.”

Mointz blinked back surprise as she returned Spinner to her belt. “Yeah, but I'm not a mage. How could I be doing it?”

Your magnetic personality?

That earned the air a particularly harsh look as she settled it back to her side. Palea didn't notice it, probably because she seemed deep in thought. That was good, because sometimes it was a little hard to explain the whole person in her head thing

She didn't speak for a long time. When she finally did, it was quiet, as if she was deep in thought. “I don't think you're causing it. It's more like you're a focus to whatever is controlling it. I noticed a similar energy surrounding Corabe.”

“She's involved too?”

Palea nodded as she still seemed deep in thought. “The two of you have an incredibly strong energy connecting you. It's almost painful sometimes. But it's not recent if I'm sure about anything. It's old, it's powerful, and it feels like it's starting to wear down.”

Maybe the wearing down is causing it.

Well, if that wasn't terrifying Mointz didn't know what was. She stayed silent, mulling over what Palea and Voice had almost agreed on. It felt as though she would have known this – if the mage was right, it was so powerful it hurt people. How would she not know about it?

Palea frowned as she looked over at her guest. “I'll keep looking into it for now. If you could, I'd like you to keep track of when  these jumps occur. Corabe is going to do the same. With luck they might match up and we'll discover what's causing this.”

From the sound of things, their conversation was at an end. Yet Mointz found herself even more confused as she stood, keeping her eyes on the window. Even though nothing was shifting, it felt just as bad.

Now she knew even less.

Palea looked ancient as she guided her to the door. “I would get some rest. Who knows when Phirsa is going to call you in for a redo?”

That was the last thing on Mointz's mind as she watched a familiar shift start to take over. With time suddenly not working as it should, there were a lot of things that had shifted from priority to least concern.

Like... everything.

#The Magpie's Stash #Dull One #I'm so tire but I finished this

[necrowriter]

Fog and Fire: 2.1

CHAPTER TWO: A PLAN IN THE WORKS

Chapter One: 1 2 3 4 5 

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

Ms. Harcourt managed to catch the swooning magician, more out of reflex and proximity than any conscious effort. There was sweat beading all over his forehand, and his whole frame shook like a leaf. His eyes were open but glazed and staring.

“Uh,” she said, looking frantically back and forth between him and the ward-lamps. All over campus, people were turning towards the library, pointing and calling out in surprise. Ms. Harcourt had never felt more conspicuous in her life, not even when she had been standing two feet away from the Lord Rector while supposedly being detained.

“Can...can you hear me? Um. Sir? Are you...” She waved a hand in front of Mr. Vervain's eyes, snapped her fingers a few times, even gingerly touched the side of his face, but though his eyes flicked back and forth slightly he did not respond.

The thought flashed through her mind that she could just leave him here, drop him alone in the courtyard with his satchel and both books and let him take the fall. Or perhaps even haul him back to the library and claim that he had forced her to help him, dragged her out of the workroom against her will. Magician or not, he seemed barely capable of standing on his own feet at the moment; she doubted he could do much to stop her just now.

Those were options that she had.

But, to her own surprise, she realized that she wasn't even really considering them at all, and not even out of concern for whether they would work. At some point, despite all her better instincts and common sense and lessons learned from stories about those who consorted with magic, the notion of betraying Mr. Vervain to the university had simply stopped being part of her equations. Why, she wasn't entirely sure; maybe because she still had too many questions she knew would never get answered otherwise, maybe because it was somehow hard to think of never seeing that red book again, or maybe just because she didn't want to give the university the satisfaction.

So she was not leaving Mr. Vervain behind, a thought that she hadn't even consciously registered until she was already pulling him upright and positioning him so he could lean on her shoulder. It was a familiar enough maneuver from having to deal with Feverfew. As an afterthought, she put his glasses back on him, in case that might help; at the very least she wouldn't have to look at those blankly staring eyes anymore.

“I'm still annoyed at you,” she muttered to him. He made a small noise which could have meant anything.

As quickly as possible--which was to say, very slowly--she set off across the courtyard. Much to her relief, Mr. Vervain was at least capable of shuffling his feet along with her, although from the way his weight lay across her shoulders she could tell he wasn't able to stand completely on his own.

She felt as if everyone in the university were staring at her, and she wanted to run, flee far away from the library and those accusing ward-lamps. But even if that had been possible under the circumstances she knew it would only guarantee that they would draw attention. Her only protection, at this point, was to keep walking as though everything were perfectly normal, as though she had nothing to hide at all, not a half-conscious magician leaning on her and certainly not the first two books to be removed from the inner library in centuries.

It worked surprisingly well, all things considered.

She kept away from the main courtyard as much as possible, staying off to the side on the smaller paths between the buildings; it made for a longer route, but a much less trafficked one. The interest of the entire campus was being drawn to the library like moths to flame, and the few people they passed had no attention to spare for the two fugitives.

They had very nearly made it all the way out of the courtyard proper and into the twisting maze of paths that would eventually lead out to one of the main city roads without being stopped. Very nearly.

“Hey there, Harcourt!”

Ms. Harcourt startled so hard she thought she could actually feel the thwack of her heart smacking against her ribs, and she almost dropped Mr. Vervain. She had to strangle the impulse to bolt there and then, and if not for the mostly-dead weight of the magician on her shoulder holding her back she might not have succeeded.

Only after the initial surge of panic had abated a little did she recognize the voice. She turned and saw the broad, brown, freckled face and the mess of bouncing black curls, and breathed a sigh of relief. It was only Berry.

Really, she should have expected this, she thought as she watched him come jogging toward them. If anyone was going to get right in the middle of her attempted escape, it would be Josiah Elderberry. He was something of an ubiquitous presence on the university campus. Still, things could have been a lot worse. Granted they could also have been better--Berry loved to chat, and was famously incapable of taking a hint, which could make it difficult to extricate yourself from his presence--but it could also have been a lot worse.

“What's going on here, then?” he said, puffing to a stop in front of them. “He looks out for the count. I have to say it's rather earlier in the day than I would start the drinking, although I don't wish to judge--”

“He's not drunk,” Ms. Harcourt said, then wondered why she had bothered to correct him when he had given her a perfectly reasonable out all on his own. She supposed correcting Berry was just force of habit at this point.

“No? Well, good for him I suppose, but then why the long face?” He patted Mr. Vervain awkwardly on the shoulder. “You look done in, poor fellow, if I may say.”

Ms. Harcourt grabbed at the most horrible thing that came to mind. “We...had an exam with Brambles.”

Brambles—more properly known as Professor Blackbriar—was infamous across campus for being harsh and unforgiving, and his exams were known to make the even most seasoned students quake in their boots. Compared to some of the horror stories Ms. Harcourt had heard about Blackbriar's exams, a student having to literally be carried out was comparatively mild.

“Oh. Ohhhhh.” Berry made a sympathetic grimace. Even his unquenchable good humor had to been known to be a bit quenched by Professor Blackbriar. “My condolences.”

“It was a bad one, even for Brambles. And he just, well...couldn't take it. Started breathing real fast and hit the desk. So I'm going to take him somewhere quiet, try to get a cup of tea in him or something.”

Right on cue Mr. Vervain moaned, rather pitifully.

Berry shook his head. “That's a rough break. Can I help at all?”

She wanted to tell him no, shake him off as quick as possible--but getting rid of Berry was unlikely to be that easy, and anyway she had to admit that actually she could use some help. Mr. Vervain was very light, but all the same carrying him was taking a toll on her.

“I could use a hand, actually,” she said. “If you could just get his other arm there-”

“Say no more!” Berry stepped in and lifted Mr. Vervain’s other shoulder onto his. “Not to worry, we'll get you...erm... wherever it is we're going.”

He glanced over at Ms. Harcourt.

“I was thinking Shadetree's,” she said. “So if you could just help me get him into a cab…”

“Ah, good idea! Dark, quiet, good strong tea. Shadetree's will fix you right up. That's where I always go when I need some lifting up.”

Ms. Harcourt blinked at him in bemusement. “When do you get stressed out, Berry?”

Berry grinned a bit sheepishly. “It happens. Surely even I'm allowed a bad day now and again?”

“I suppose so,” she had to admit, though personally she'd never seen it happen. Berry always seemed cheerful and carefree, sometimes irritatingly so. He came from old money and old power, the sort that was so well-established they didn't have to bother with hardly anything they didn't want to. The richer students, the ones with pedigree Names who were going to be accredited, tended to have cut-glass manners and beautiful tailored clothing; Berry, who was richer than all of them, showed up to classes in threadbare trousers and holey sweaters, happily went out drinking at cheap taverns late into the night, and seemed completely unaware of the fact that etiquette even existed.

Between the two of them they managed to haul Mr. Vervain toward Tinhouse Street, where the cab-horses made their rounds. Ms. Harcourt whistled for one. Llewellyn swore up and down that he had a whistle that would get the horses to come straight to you every time, but if this was true Ms. Harcourt had never quite managed to replicate it. Thankfully, the street had little traffic this time of day, so it wasn't hard to flag one of them down anyway.

The metal-and-ceramic horse clanked to a stop by the side of the street and waited patiently, little plumes of steam issuing from vents in its ears, while Berry and Ms. Harcourt maneuvered Mr. Vervain into the cab. It was a tricky business, but mercifully he did at least seem to be getting a little less boneless.

“Do you need fare?” Berry asked helpfully as they stood back with Mr. Vervain finally settled in the back of the cab.

“Oh, no.” Ms. Harcourt hastily fumbled in her satchel before Berry could insist—and he would, experience had taught her that. “I can get this. Shadetree Cafe, Dropman Lane,” she told the horse clearly, and dropped a few coins through the slot on its chest.

“Oh, well, alright,” Berry said, with the uncertain expression he always got when he wasn't allowed to use his money for something. “Good luck! I hope you feel better soon—what was his name?”

“Don't know,” Ms. Harcourt said desperately, climbing into the cab next to Mr. Vervain.

“Oh. Well, whoever you are, I hope you feel better soon!” Berry stood on the edge of the street and waved as if he were seeing them off on a long voyage, instead of a couple of streets over to a cafe. Ms. Harcourt, safe in the privacy of the cab, gave into the temptation to roll her eyes that she had been battling for the last ten minutes. Which was really quite ungracious, she supposed. It just seemed to naturally happen when she was around Berry.

They rode in silence for a few minutes, or relative silence; outside the little confines of the cab there was a wash of city noise, punctuated by the heavy clang clang clang of the horse's hooves.

“Magic,” Mr. Vervain mumbled.

Ms. Harcourt blinked. “What?”

“Magic.” Mr. Vervain sat up a little, with difficulty. “You say there's no magic but the city is full of it. What do you call that horse?”

“I never said there wasn't any magic,” Ms. Harcourt said, still a bit confused by this sudden line of conversation. “I said there weren't any magicians. Which, obviously, is an opinion I've since had to revise,” she added when Mr. Vervain gave her a look.

“Mm.” Mr. Vervain stared dully ahead. His face still looked rather sallow. “Magic but no magicians. How can that be?”

“Because there used to be magicians.” Ms. Harcourt was already get frustrated again. Mr. Vervain's constant questions about obvious things left her feeling unnerved. She half expected to have to start defending the sky being blue or something equally as ludicrous. “They left these things behind.”

“And now the magicians look after them.” Mr. Vervain shook his head, seemingly to himself. “But they don't do magic. Oh no. They just tend the machines...”

The cab shuddered to a halt in the middle of the street.

“Not very well, either, apparently,” Mr. Vervain muttered.

“No, it's alright.” Ms. Harcourt hopped out of the cab, hastily put a few more coins in the horse, and said, “Bronzewood Park.”

Mr. Vervain turned to look at her as she got back in the cab and the horse resumed its clanging walk. “Hang on a minute,” he said. “That's not where we were going before.”

“No.”

He considered this for a moment. “You didn't put enough money in the first time.”

“That's right. I didn't want Berry to know where we were really going.”

“Clever. If paranoid. You think he'll tell someone?”

Ms. Harcourt shrugged. “I think if someone asked him, he'd tell them. It wouldn't occur to him not to. Why should it, really?”

“Fair point.”

“Anyway, that cafe's a student haunt,” she went on. “It's far too well known. I wouldn't be surprised if they looked there.”

“So we're going to a park instead?”

She shrugged again. “Who would suspect a park? And somewhere open like that, we'll see anyone coming and we'll be able to get away. Can't do that in a cafe. Not so easily, anyway.”

“You've thought this through,” Mr. Vervain said. His voice was starting to sound a little clearer. “Though I have to say, even if you were lying to that young man, I really could greatly benefit from something to eat right now.”

“They have vendors in the park.” Ms. Harcourt glanced at him. “What happened to you, anyway?”

“I over-extended myself.” Mr. Vervain rubbed at his face. “Waking the library was...a considerably greater work than I realized initially, and certainly greater than anything I intended to do this afternoon.”

“You and me both,” Ms. Harcourt muttered. “Does working magic always have that effect on you?”

“Goodness, no.” Mr. Vervain glanced out the window as the cab turned a corner. “But to some degree...magic always takes something out of you. It's one of the basic rules. To receive, you must give...don't you know that one?”

“As a general principle, sure,” Ms. Harcourt said. “But we never discussed in detail what that would mean for a practicing magician. After all, what would have been the point?”

“Indeed.”

The cab stopped. The horse lifted its head and let out a clear chime, like a bell, to indicate that the ride was over.

Much to Ms. Harcourt's relief, Mr. Vervain proved capable of getting out of the cab by himself, though he stumbled a bit on the way down and had to be caught. The horse set off again on its rounds as they walked through the open gates to the park.

#writing #serial writing #fog and fire #fog and fire: C2 #fantasy writing

[fossadeileonixv]

Milan 2 Crotone 0

Hey O!

Misssed the game yesterday so here is your minute by minute account of watching the game this morning!

Let’s go!

Nice to see Leao on the bench at least 

 Still loving the casual Pioli 

 Zanellato is like Discount Rabiot

1′ Here we go!

The formation I saw showed Saele on the left and Diaz on the right.... guess not!

2′ Hectic for a minute but settled rather quickly. 

5′ Gabbia heads away. That’s already one more play than he made last game. 

6′ Cigarini nearly with the goal of the season but the ref decides it has to be a ceremonial restart. It’s just not a Serie A season without Luca Cigarini

9′ A nicely set up corner that nearly leads to Brahim Diaz first goal. Rebic with a flick to the back post but Diaz can’t get the shot on target.

14′ Another nicely set up corner but this time Rebic is shoved across the box before he can get a head on it. 

18′ Lost of switching between Diaz, Hakan and Saele. Some nice overlapping by Calabria as well. Leading to good stuff.

19′ Kjaer heads off the crossbar from a corner. Can’t remember the last time I saw us look this dangerous on successive corners.

20′ Vladimir Golemic appears to be a massive human. 

22′ Diaz sure is a slippery guy. Gets into all sorts of spaces. Reminds me of that little Chinese guy from Ocean’s 11.

25′ Tonali settling in as DM though Crotone are hounding him everywhere he goes. Kessie has a freer role. 

26′ Some nice setup by Sale but Rebic can’t get the ball off his foot. 

28′ Crotone has slowly sunk back into a 532 of sorts I guess? Sitting really deep. Guess they sort of went for it. Blah time now.

32′ Lots of flopping and shithousery incoming.

34′ If there is one golden spot to attack us it’s still the space left at RB whenever Calabria gets caught upfield or comes all the way to the touchline to defend. Funny how some things never seem to change. For years it was Abate vacating that space. 

36′ Theo with a glorious deep cross that can’t quite get over Mount Melovic to Hakan. Thing of beauty there.

37′ As irritating as it is to watch Crotone camp out our movement up top has been superb. Long gone are the days of static Suso and everyone standing around waiting for him him to get interested. 

39′ Nwankwo tests Donnarumma with some bullshit. Donna laughs him off. Don’t mess with the Jolly Mint Green Giant.

41′ To Crotone’s credit they are at least trying to come up here and there.. They have zero ability to put in a cross or service their forwards though. Zip. Nil. Zilch. 

43′ Zanellato loves playing with his hair

44′ Delightful 60 yard balll from Theo to Rebic that splits the defense and leads to a PK. Frank buries it.  Love those daggers right before halftime.

45′ Halftime

Not as bad as reports made it out to be. Crotone came out more than I expected. We were excellent with our movement.10 shots, 5 on target. Not bad.

46′ No changes at the half. 

46′ Theo with a gorgeous tackle. It’s truly remarkable how far he has come defensively.

47′ Pereira with a nice cross but Donnarumma is equal to the task. 

50′ BRAHIM GOAL! Movement starts with a steal by Hakan who plays a nice give and go with Saele that leads to Brahim who punches it on the door step. Good work and some nice passing to seal the deal. 2-0. 

52′ Crotone clearly went for size and physicality 

56′ Clear that Crotone is just trying to get under our skin now. Kudos to Tonali for not getting involved and remaining cool. 

57′ 

The look on Hakan’s face says it all as Rebic’s dislocated elbow is the stuff of nightmares. Ddetails last night confirmed it wasn’t broken or otherwise mangled. A total dick move by Magellan to cut behind him and ‘accidentally’ clip his ankles. Is it purposeful..... well no.... but cutting in behind someone like that always leaves it possible. Pioli gets a yellow for arguing about it. Don’t blame in. If that’s a coddled player like Messi or Ronaldo it’s a straight red and makes headlines. In this game it’s a no call. 

58′ Colombo comes on

60′ 30 minutes for something stupid to happen. Great. 

61′ Kjaer remains Danish for rock

63′ Gabbia with a deserved yellow for delivering a ‘professional elbow’ on a counter.

64′ Pioli remains the master of rotation and subbing. Bennacer and Casti on, Tonali and Saele off.  These 5 subs are a boon for us as we try and balance these early Europa matches. 

69′ Golemic clatters to the ground in a heap after a ‘push’ from Castillejo (SARCASM)

70′ Colombo continues pushing the line. Work rate gets an A from me. 

72′ Crotone take off Pereira and Dragus. 2 of their better players I thought. 

75′ ZZZZZzzzzz..... 

76′ Messias attempts to separate Theo from his leg. No card. 

78′ Yet somehow Theo gets a yellow 2 minutes later while impeding Messias. hard to believe at this point that Milan have 4 yellows while Crotone have 1. These things add up to suspensions later in the year folks. 

79′ Kjaer heads away the danger. Another fantastic effort for him. 

82′ Leao and Krunic on. Hakan and Brahim off.

83′ Leao walking around like he could give a shit.

84′ Calabria chopped down. No foul or card. Pairetto can suck a D. 

86′ Leao with a great run. one too many touches but still.

88′ If Krunic is essentially your 4th DM when you start 2 every game that isn’t bad. Not at all. 

92′ Leao goes with the ‘Paletta maneuver’ on Messinas. Thank God he didn’t really make contact. Otherwise that’s red. Yikes. 

94′ Mercifully it’s over. 2-0 Milan. 

Quick ratings:

MOTM Kessie

2nd MOTM Kjaer

FOTM the ref

Donna 2 games, 2 clean sheets

Gabbia didn’t kill us

Tonali did well in his first start. Nothing special, but a job well done.

Hakan is still dreaming

Rebic will be ok

Brahim is already better than Paqueta

Cheers

Lisi