#but they still try to be good and kind in a world infinitely crueler than they are

[sunlian]

god but the Inquisitor really does suck as a character and it boils down to the game not letting them be any kind of person. They can’t be a good or bad person, they’re literally just... nothing.

#shh heather #okay not to talk abt je on the je url blog but an open palm spirit monk is #in aside from being a good person #a specific *type* of good person #they're a 20 yr old kid thrown into the worst situations and dealt the worst hands #but they still try to be good and kind in a world infinitely crueler than they are #you really get the sense playing OP than 'oh. this is a very young and sheltered adult who nevertheless sticks by their morals' #who tries. tries so hard to do the right thing #its kind of simplistic but it *works* bc you are at the end of the day a pretty simple rural kid #its different to say paragon shepard who is another kind of good even if the bones are the same #and the inquisitor in comparison is just. not even a person #they're a plot device without even an illusion of agency or character #god dai sucks SO fucking bad

[browzerhistory]

this started out as tags on a post but i realized i should probably just. make my own post at this point.

anyways ohhhg my god dont even TALK to me about a post-prime trio situation. ill start crying. GOOD GOD the betrayal and even if its post 6-2 that they meet again what would there even be to SAYYYY!!!

chewing on the minosgabe especially because like okay. minos was getting through to him before he was assassinated. gabriel knew that the council (and by extension The Father Himself, though he'd never admit it) were being needlessly cruel to the sinners. not just in lust but through all of hell (he was the closest to the ferrymen but knew of the futility of their devotion for example). but i think it scared him to think about everything he's ever known being a lie, not to mention the threat of getting his light and title stripped if he stepped out of line. so to reconcile it, he followed orders and killed minos. maybe he convinced himself (or was convinced) minos was trying to lead him astray or smthn.

gabriel would not only understand minos wanting to shred him, he'd Want him to. the only way gabriel knows how to make things right is someone getting hurt. so it's natural for him to offer an eye for an eye so to speak. and of course minos would want to kick his ass at first (his whole boss fight speech is pretty indicative of this i think). but given time to think with his Judge Brain, he'd realize death is not fitting for what he did. gabriel wants it to be, but that's because the only kind of justice he knows is the kind the church teaches. minos knows it would be infinitely better (and infinitely crueler, in a way) to let him live with himself.

ohhgggg and sisyphus and minos post prime... this really depends on how one sees their relationship while they were alive. BUT. the dynamic of like. these two who have faced actual hell together and were murdered by the same guy only to come back irreversibly altered in every sense of the world. and despite everything it's still the man they fell in love with but theres so much each went through that the other wont know. BUT THE LOVE IS STILL THERE. (havr you noticed a pattern with me about this theme) godddd and then to have them be faced with gabriel.. also changed deeply from who he used to be but who is still the angel who killed them. (IN A SENSE. because he hasnt had as much Time as the other two. and we all know how the church has to be taken out of someone. piece by bloody piece.) to have gabriel There before them understanding what he did was infinitely fucked and understanding if they want to kill him.

and don't even get me STARTED on gabriel and sisyphus post prime. here is this angel who minos tried to change while he was alive. tried to make him see the injustices of heaven. and sisyphus Saw the progression in his thinking on the rare occasions where they did meet. and maybe he started to hope that things could be different because if even the Righteous Hand Of The Father can have doubts in the system then maybe change is possible. but then gabriel kills both of them on the council's orders. and he knows that dogma is buried deeper in his being than either of them can know, let alone change, like that deer that got shot through the rib but lived and ossified the arrow - but they're on the killing end of it, so what does it matter in the end?

i don't know how they'd cross the bridge of trust at first tbh. i don't think minos would even want to look at gabriel. (he trusted him.) and yeah gabriel changed especially post 6-2/council murder but there's only so far that can take him. like i said above i think minos would let/make him live with what he did. i don't think sisyphus would want to take gabriel out as much, esp. if it's post 6-2 since at that point gabriel is just as holy as they are and killing him wouldn't really change anything. he's changed but he's still got a very long way to go yk?

ugh idk i feel like i could draw this better than i can write it. these are just random characters they don't mean anythingg

#ultrakill tag #nobody talk to me or look at me or percieve my existence at all. #this isnt even my toys at this point this is my visions #if it hadnt been so shocking if it hadnt hurt so bad perhaps i couldve moved my shaking hands to hit you back. thats minosgabe betrayalto me

[egg-emperor]

I feel like Eggman wouldn't bother with a relationship even if the other person worshipped and served him perfectly

In the rare chance Eggman genuinely saw value in having someone else around, he still probably wouldn't waste time trying to manipulate or swoon them. He'd probably zap them with an instant brainwashing/corruption device, use them however he wants for whatever period of time, and throw them out when he gets bored.

If for whatever reason the doctor chooses to leave their being in tact, he'd never give them any kind of acknowledgment unless it's specifically something that benefits him.

The only important thing is that he's getting worshipped and praised. He doesn't care if it's willing or unwilling.

Oh definitely, I love aromantic Eggman and he'll never care for a relationship and want a genuine deep meaningful one lol. Everyone he works with has always been temporary to him, to serve a purpose in serving him and doing his dirty work for him to benefit selfishly, and then discarding them when he's done. Doesn't matter how loyal and loving and well performing they are, he'll never see them as more than pawns to use for his success, toys to play with and break, and subordinates to order around until they're no longer of use to him, it never lasts.

He has been known to manipulate people to side with him ever since his first team up with a living being with Knuckles, and the latest example of it to keep any form of a relationship sweet for the sake of their use to him is Sage. But it's always on those conditions and he usually always drops them in the end. It can be because they fail or betray him but even in cases they don't, like Knuckles and Infinite who stuck with him in loyalty, as soon as the dirty work is done and he gets what he wanted or just no longer sees use in them, he'll still get rid of them

He has seen manipulation as a good working method in a few cases in the games though. I also feel that, unlike actual mind control, his ability to manipulate minds through his own actions and words gives him a sense of more personal control and power that he desires and takes pride in for using his sly cunning skill to corrupt the mind and use it for evil. He loves playing people for fools which makes him feel like the genius in control with power over them mentally and he likes how he can laugh about it in their face later, like with Emerl.

He wouldn't try to swoon anyone much, he may briefly attempt to work his charm to lure someone in before he brings out harsher or crueler methods but I think in his mind he doesn't believe he has to try because he's so perfect, handsome, intelligent, charming, and lovable in a delightfully diabolical villainous way effortlessly all the time, so he doesn't feel he has to act to accomplish that. And if they don't want to accept the truth they'll have to when he takes over the world by force, one way or another the whole world will know one day anyway XD

But yeah he's definitely not going to waste time putting the effort in to manipulate if he doesn't see it as worth it and the most optimal method to get his victim on his side. He is also interested in full on mind control and corruption to the point he has attempted to mind control the entire planet, so I can see him jumping right to using a device to mind control people to do it much quicker with much less time and effort when he feels it's the best option, he does enjoy being able to decide and control what they think and how they act 100% literally.

But I feel he wouldn't want absolutely every member of his empire and worshipper to be completely mindless, he'd also get a lot of satisfaction in forcing it through threat and cruelty only, so while they still have a desire for free will they have no choice and will always be aware of how he stripped it away and are helpless, forever aware of his power over them so they know he's won. And it gives him the genuine attention and possibly admiration he also desires, as it may feel he has no real audience for it if none are conscious anymore.

He has attempted lies, manipulation, and propaganda to lure in the masses too but I don't think he'd play it up for long, once it brings them in he'll immediately show his true colors but they can't turn back because he'll trap them in it by either keeping them under his thumb with threat and fear and/or mind control. After all, the way he tried to come across as good and friendly with his Interstellar Park in Colors for example was just a cover and attempt to gain trust in the meantime for his plan to eventually use his mind control cannon on Earth.

As for the very rare chance someone genuinely admires him for who he is and not the lies and propaganda, as I feel a lot who think they do (like a bunch of rl Eggman fans) couldn't handle him if they met him because he's such a terrible person lol, I feel that he would enjoy playing around with them without using full on mind control. Instead seeing how far he can take them in their admiration, how useful he can make them, and how far he can corrupt them all with his cunning charm and manipulation to craft the perfect servant. It would be a fun game to him.

But I don't see him putting in tons of effort to manipulate and swoon them, I think over time he'd reveal more and more just how terrible he really is and that they're not really an exception to his cruelty and they'll always be beneath him like all the rest. That he doesn't have to treat them nicely and earn their admiration and service, he deserves it anyway and demands it and they have to obey because he said so and he's the one with all the power and control, so they have to learn to take it and not complain if they don't want punishment.

I mean he is playing into what Sage wants with the family dynamic as a way to maintain her loyalty and efficiency a little in ways that can seem sweet by are very conditional and manipulative- but at the same time doesn't hide how terrible he is in terms of evilness in wanting to take over the world and rule his evil empire, hating and wanting to kill Sonic and friends, and how he'll yell at her if she doesn't do exactly what he wants, and she has to side with him despite all that and luckily she does because of her genuine undying devotion despite it.

So I can see him using similar tactics on other willing servants. Sometimes he might play into and say and do what they want to hear to gain trust and bring them in closer and make them more attached to make them sink deeper into his trap but there won't be much heart and effort and certainly no genuine care in it at all. They have to be the kind of person that will appreciate and treasure even the little things just because it's coming from him as their superior brilliant almighty ruler, which will also prove to him if they're promising in the use they can be to him.

I think it would give him a huge power trip and ego boost as he could use it as a testament to how he can be genuinely so admirable and willingly worshipped like he's also always desired and believed himself to be with his massive ego. It's just that he can and will happily use force and threat to get it and he will also still use it on the subjects he manipulates too to keep them in his clutches, he'll never be completely kind and warm to anyone. All that matters is that he crafts the perfect servant for him and he'll enjoy doing so through mindfuckery.

I think he would also enjoy getting to use them to set an example for how everyone should be under his rule whether it started out of willingness like them (but might change when they realize how terrible he is and he becomes more cruel but are now trapped and have no choice), or how they'll be forced to be if they don't comply with it by threat and violence or total mind control. I'm imagining that he's going to do the same with Sage being the "favorite child" of his, who is as obedient and useful as he desires and knows how to take cruelty from him and will remain loyal as they undying love and devotion for him + his manipulation seals her in.

But like always, he's not really attached, he's not nice to them and trying to make them swoon all the time as he will enforce it through violence and cruelty too, and he doesn't plan on keeping them around and will rid of them when he's done. Or if he does keep them around, he might end up mind controlling them eventually to make sure there's never a chance of their loyalty changing because he won't trust anyone long term but it will be fun playing with them for a while with them conscious until then. That's a way to combine the methods.

That's also very true with him not giving them acknowledgement unless it's something that benefits him specifically. Those are the same conditions with Sage as he only praises her when she does exactly what he wants. It also pushes them to work super hard just to get the smallest amount of his recognition or very rare praise when they're satisfactory enough, which again is actually only really for selfish self beneficial reasons for what he's getting out of it and how it will further encourage them to serve. Not that there's a choice either way!

But yeah absolutely it doesn't actually matter to him if they want to serve him or not because he doesn't care about them and will happily force them. He takes what he wants whenever he wants because he's Eggman and nothing will stop him. And one of my favorite things is how he'll do anything to get it with many methods such as violence, manipulation, mind control, and more, all of which are messed up and evil. I love his cunning trickery and outright cruelty and how there's always deeply sinister reasons behind it either way >:)

#it applies to my self ship stuff too he can use *all* the methods on me 😍 #dr eggman #eggman #dr robotnik #dr. eggman #asks #headcanons #my post #manipulation

[cordelia-cardale]

These little moments of happiness were like catching butterflies

~ A Jordelia one-shot

James was lying unconscious in what was supposed to be his and Cordelia’s bed. He was sweating so much that it had started to seep through the fresh linen sheets. The damp cloth used to dry away the sweat was barely helping. Wake up, please wake up Cordelia repeated over and over again - like a silent mantra - hoping, though she knew better, for James to open his eyes and smile up at her. His smile was one of Cordelia’s favorite things in the world, but he hadn't been smiling earlier that night. He hadn’t been smiling in a long time now.

Cordelia had been angry at James that night. A consequence of feelings being bottled up for too long. When they first moved in together they had developed a sort of silent dance around each other. They were doing good. They were doing great. They had become so good at it that they almost fooled themselves along with the rest of London’s shadowhunters. Or at least that was what Cordelia believed.

But then she had seen James with Grace. It had felt like waking up from a hazy dream and being hurtled into a harsh reality. A reality in which, no matter how much time had passed, James would always choose Grace. Upon seeing Cordelia, James had pushed Grace away and she had left without looking back. Everything had happened so fast, it would have been easy to pretend Cordelia hadn’t seen anything. In fact, she hadn’t seen anything concrete apart from James holding Grace in his arms. Yet it was written on his face, written in the tense silence that ensued, written in the awkward conversations they had had. It had all made Cordelia want to scream. Instead, she had bottled up this toxic mix of feelings - sadness, disappointment, hurt, anger - but like any other kind of toxic feelings, the longer it is pushed down the worse the explosion. Like a ticking time bomb. Tick, tick, tick. And when it had come out it had come out all at once, like a dam breaking loose.

‘I didn’t mean to.’ James had said apologetically.

Cordelia turned around, and tried to keep her voice relatively even toned ‘Then why was she here?’

A beat, no answer, so she asked again.

‘James, why was she here?’ She was trying so hard to keep her calm but it was as futile as trying to hold water in her hands, the calm was slipping away. ‘You promised that you would not act on your feelings for her. A year, just one small year.’ Her voice cracked ‘Was that so hard?’ She could feel a weight settling in her throat and her chest, her eyes getting blurry. She would not give in to sadness. She was angry. She was boiling. She would not cry. She could not cry.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Was all James offered, spreading his arms out slightly.

‘What did you think would happen? How did you think I would react?’ Cordelia said, pushing down the constricting weight. Still pushing down her feelings. Always pushing down. She was getting so tired of it.

James shook his head slightly ‘I wasn’t thinking’ as if that was supposed to make everything better, ‘I don’t know, probably not like this.’

‘Not like what James?’ She asked her voice rising with each word ‘Do you think I’m overreacting? Do you think I should just stand aside and let you humiliate me while you’re out there doing Raziel knows what with Grace Blackthorn?’

‘My intention was not to humiliate you.’ No, of course, this hadn’t been his intention. She knew James, he wouldn’t want that and yet here they were. All because he hadn’t been … thinking. It was safe to say that the tears that had threatened to spill out a second ago had been replaced by an urge of slapping his pretty face. She considered it for a moment - would he fight her back?

‘You keep making these grand promises and in return I see nothing.’ She barrelled on, only half believing what she was saying. He had been kind, and gentle, and understanding. They had shared moments together, albeit they were filled with awkward tension but at least they had been on the same side. Now, these moments seemed to her like catching butterflies - infinitely sweet glimpses of happiness always evading her grasp. Now it didn’t matter, all she wanted was to hurt James half as much as she had been hurt. ‘I don’t want everyone to think that you married me because you pity me.’ She continued, silencing herself - she didn’t care what everyone would think she only cared what he was thinking.

‘I assure you, Daisy,’ he said, taking a step closer. His arm seemed to reach out for her before he seemed to think better of it and kept it at his side. Good, she did not want him to touch her. ‘That’s not what they think.’

Daisy, that had hurt more now than watching him with Grace. She was Cordelia, she was Layla but she certainly was not Daisy. She did not want to be his Daisy.  

‘Are you sure?’ She snapped, ‘Because from where I’m standing I’m ruined. I’m the girl they’ll think you had to marry but in fact, did not want to marry and so you kept an affair on the side. And what an affair, congratulations James you picked the best one of them out there. They’ll have no problem believing that you fell for her charms and beauty, they’ll think …’

‘Stop it’ he said, his face becoming stern and hard.

‘What? Does that bother you? Did you hope I’d keep silent? That I wouldn’t say anything?’

‘You need to calm down’ this time he did reach out for her elbow which she retracted as quickly as could.

‘No, I don’t, I’m done being calm. I’ve been calm and I’ve been patient. But you know what James? Even my patience has its limits. I don’t want to be calm and patient and wait aside for you to decide that you do not want her and that you are willing to put in as much effort and work as I am putting in this marriage. So tell me, James, do you want her?’

‘No!’ At that, the room seemed to fall silent, Cordelia tilted her head, her eyebrows arching, questioning. ‘Yes,’ he said again and that she believed ‘maybe. I don’t know. Sometimes when …’

‘Get out.’

‘What?’

‘I said get out of this house.’ Pointing towards the door she repeated sharply ‘Get the hell out of this house!’

She hadn’t meant it. Or maybe she had, but as one of those things people meant in a moment of anger. She had wanted to stop. It had felt like watching another version of herself, a crueler, meaner version. She wasn’t sure she liked that version. She had watched him leave without saying anything and she hadn’t budged. Once she felt the door slammed shut she paced back and forth. Anger slowly subsiding itself to sadness and she had slowly let herself give in to the tears that had threatened to spill. She cried and cried and cried until her shoulders relaxed of the tension she had been holding and she started to feel a dull pain at the sides of her head. When she had done crying, she brought herself to the reading chair by the chimney were the Albee’s of an old fire were still burning. The room was cast in golden light, shadows dancing along the walls. Secrets hidden in the dark corners of the room. If walls could talk, she wondered, what stories would they tell of her, and him and this lie that had started to poison everything good. Her eyes landed on the window in the room. She had failed to notice when it had started to rain. She hoped James was alright but too tired and still too angry to care she fell asleep, lulled by the constant sound of rain against the window and the crackling of wood.

A loud crash woke up her up from her sleep. She opened her eyes, looking for the source of the sound. Another crash determined that it was coming from the hallway outside. She quickly stood up not caring about how her dress had started to crease. She brought her hands up trying to rub away the remnant of sleep. She really wanted to go back to sleep but a third crash and the sound someone cussing convinced her otherwise. She walked up to the door and opened it briskly. The sight in the hallway made her realize two things. One, she really wasn’t sleepy anymore and two she really, really should have cared.

#This is the worst moment to post a fic #but hey I have never chosen a good moment #let me know if you liked it and it you want me to continue #I might cause this is definitely not done and I've written more #I'm sorry it's very rough #I didn't really edit it #jordelia #jordelia fanfiction #cordelia carstairs #james herondale #luwen re-attempts writing #I honestly hope you liked it even a little bit cause otherwise I'm gonna go and cry in my blanket #jordelia fanfic #tlh fanfic #tlh #the last hours #my writing

[lightdancer1]

Same Prompt Party March-Like a Lion

Hino Rei had never been a normal child, not by anyone’s standards. From the beginning she had looked into fire and seen things. She had seen her mother leaving when she was a very young child, too young to understand the tears or the allegations said against her. She had seen other things, a girl with long pigtails and blonde hair around whom a high doom was built. She had seen the fate that awaited them all, transformed into the immortal avatars of a war against the Great Enemy in the stars. It was a bitter life that Tsukino Usagi had brought them in a way, but it was not the worst of all lives.

She knew that because it had given her a love she’d never anticipated. For all that she had memories, vague and ill-formed, of a relationship with Jadeite in the past, she had clearer ones of Mars and Venus, the cruel and stern warlord of the Senshi and her swaggering moods turning into a surprisingly tender and caring lover in her arms. Mars and Venus were full-grown women of ageless face and longevity that was…..long, if ill-determined in length. Hino Rei was still a girl of sixteen, or she had been.

She was a girl of sixteen, with a long life ahead of her, a very long life if she counted what she became when she took the henshin and spoke those words. Her life had changed from them, she had gone from being Hino Rei, Senator’s daughter, granddaughter of the Miko of one of the most crucial Shinto shrines where the Kami and mortals met in the liminal spaces of the world, to becoming the Senshi of Mars, an immortal being only human by analogy and aspects of appearance.

From seeing the future in fires, she had become an avatar of fire, wielding power named after the planet of War. And that too was subject to misunderstandings. Real war was a thing of chaos that required deep planning, the ability to know in a matter of hours what would need to be done two weeks from where it was done, and the will and the driving force to bring it to pass. She had been named after the God of War, as a Senshi, but people thought of the wrong God. It was not Ares, as the Greeks would have had it, from whom Mars’s Senshi drew their nature. It was Athena, Goddess of Strategy and the cold intellectual sides of war.

And that brought her here. The Outer Senshi had gone to face the new threat that had come here, after all the drama with the Starlights. The real threat, come round at last, revealing herself with the brutal murder of their princess. Uranus had been grief stricken at that sight and had promised Star Fighter that the Outers, the true foe revealed, would offer them vengeance. And then they hadn’t come back.

Now the figure that stood before her and Mina with a detached face and a sword in her hand had strange jewels in a necklace. One had gilded elements but otherwise had a color not unlike that of a kalamata olive (and the implications there made Rei feel nauseous and Mars enraged). There were others, deep violet, bright straw, aqua-green. The being that stood before them looked to her now, with seeming interest and distaste.

“This is not your time to die, Mars.”

Venus looked to her likewise with desperation. Not Aino Minako briefly flashing into Venus’s eyes, the stern and cruel and even vengeful Sailor V, the general who’d ruled by terror in the old days  and yet had power in this one to do that if she willed it.

“Mars, please,” she said, and the soft aura of begging briefly brought her short.

The other one just smiled, coldly.

“Ah, I see what this is. I hope the two of you have had the chances to speak of it. When the other ones died….”

And her eyes tracked something that neither of them could quite see.

“They died with their names on their lips. The aqua-haired one died trying to touch the hand of the golden-haired one, crying her real name.”

And then the golden-armored demon’s face was carved in an imitation of grief that was the more horrid for clearly lacking an understanding of the emotion in any truthful sense.

“Haruka, no!”

Venus’s eyes whipped back to her.

“When they die and I gain their Star-Seeds I gain all kinds of knowledge, including that they did not know they had. You thought Uranus weak, once. Her last couple of thoughts were ‘Venus was right’ and then ‘Michiru’. And that aqua-haired one had only one name in her mind, the one I just spoke. I wonder what I’ll see from yours, Guardian Venus?”

The creature laughed, then, and raised her blade.

Mars and Rei were two different people. One lonely and haunted by the future, the other immortal, a living storm of fire who summoned cleansing fires to banish evil and the dark forces that lurked on worlds and within the stars themselves. Galaxia was not precisely a dark force but the evil within her was crueler than Beryl or even Pharaoh 90. Both were united in one thing. They would not see Venus die in front of them, even if the monster had killed others more powerful than the two of them together in raw power.

“You won’t kill her,” she growled, and there was a lioness’s roar in the words.

Galaxia looked at her with disdain. “I have waged war across the Galaxy, child, Worlds break before me. As with the children of Kinmoku, so with the children of Earth. They all died in my opening strike and only you, the Senshi, remain. And one by one I shall hunt you down and slay you all. It is the way of things. The unworthy die, and I, alone, and worthy, live beneath the weight of the infinite stars.”

Galaxia’s smile took a nastier edge, to a point that Rei would have not been surprised to see those teeth become fangs even though technically they had not.

“You have the signs of a seer, girl. All of you see death at the hands of a terrible swift sword. My sword. So then shall it be.”

“No,” growled Mars again, the lioness’s roar more audible. This was the vision she’d seen in the flames, and it was the point where she vowed not to go gently into that good night, and to rage against the dying of the light. The only thing that mattered was to give Mina a chance to flee. Mina was the true general, the true daughter of war. She could not be more than a delay on the terrible visions of a dark and cruel force manipulating this golden angel of light into serving as its own proxy.

That did not matter.

Fires erupted around her, giving her body an eerie glow. Mars and Hino as one, their souls combined, and for a moment, just a moment, she was Eternal Sailor Mars not just in name but in fact.

“You will not touch her,” she snarled, and then fires erupted outward, slamming with bolts of energy into Galaxia’s armor and she summoned her mandala, which grasped the golden witch’s gauntlets and dragged the blades downward.

The creature smiled, then, stark and cold and cruel, and as she snapped her way clean through the fires as if they were nothing she froze when a blow of stupendous strength launched by Mars struck her chin with an uppercut enhanced by her henshin to make it count more solidly. Part of her hoped that Mako would have approved.

And the monster reeled for a moment, staggered.

She turned to Venus, her eyes gleaming with the hallowed fires within her.

“Run, Venus. I love y-“

Motion, gold glinting illuminated by her fires and a wrenching pain, only for her to summon her flames to strike back along the blade, the purity and the purification lancing against the Chaos-threaded nature of the power within the blade, the corrupted desire for domination and proving greatness against others.

Galaxia groaned for a moment in genuine agony and then she stepped back, as Mars gave her an insolent smile.

Even as she began to fade, she told her “I told you would not touch her.”

Galaxia’s eyes were troubled, as if some deep secret were unveiled and then there was a blissful quietness…..before she awoke in a strange place within the walls of reality and without. Her chest hurt, but here she was. And with her, Hotaru , Mamoru (and her eyes suddenly went very wide as she realized the real truth lurking behind that ‘went to America’ line, and what Usagi must have repressed all along), Haruka, and Michiru. And beyond them all, meditating in quietness, Kakyuu.

Mars sighed then, sinking to her knees. The lioness had roared….and she did not know if it would be enough.

----------

Not long after but far too long for all of them, after the horrors of resurrection in the flesh as a soulless thing and her star-seed watching in horror as the thing that had been her in the flesh had turned on Usagi and at the way that Serenity uncaged dispelled them all with eyes of stark ice as Usagi collapsed and Serenity rose then, and fought the epic duel with Galaxia and then somehow, impossibly, defeated those forces, she was alive again.

Gloriously, blissfully alive.

Her hand held Aino’s, and they were Hino and Aino. Aino’s eyes met hers and there were all those layers and quiet griefs.

“I’m sorry,” Mina began, but she put her finger to her lips.

“No. None of us but Usagi could have done that. All that matters to me is that you got to live, to give that warning.”

Aino’s smile was sad and her hands reached out to caress Rei’s left cheek and her right shoulder.

“My lioness,” she said, acknowledging what she had seen in the desperation of Mars and the way that the Senshi and the human had merged to try to save her.

Those words, the knowledge of what was in them, and the little looks in her eyes led Rei to do a most un-Rei thing and to briefly break, holding her, as both of them let the tears fall that they had not let fall at first when they were resurrected and gloriously, blissfully alive.

It was a warm afternoon in March, both their hands clasped when the tears fell, their bodies close together. The wind, Haruka’s sphere, reached out to ruffle their hair as it did all the Senshi, the wind reminding them that they had been through things together and the old schisms healed in a change between visions of a future that neither wished to think about more.

“In like a lamb, out like a lion,” Mina mused. Normally Rei would have rolled her eyes and corrected Mina’s misspoken use of phrasing, but here there was nothing that meant more than both of them being alive and the feeling of Mina’s body next to hers. They lay on the grass in the park on a blanket together. The long strife was over, and only when the cold came and the hours of destiny called would things change.

Rei let herself smile. The lioness had roared, in the end, and the one she’d wished to save had been safe. Her eyes closed, and she fell into a sleep of warm dreams and the understanding that was there was there, the words unspoken right now, for the actions that had been there had spoken still more loudly.

#minarei #galaxia #sailor stars arc #same prompt party 2021 #hino rei #sailor mars

[swanqueeneverafter]

What Dreams May Come, Pt.34

Henry's Dreamscape. (Tiana walks with Ella deeper into the forest.) Tiana: "My partner, Will, along with his sister, Alice, know all about travelling through portals. They've done it perhaps more than anyone alive. (Takes out a magic bean and throws it down:) This will take us to them." Ella: "You want us to take a portal out of here?" Tiana: "They're working on a plan to save Henry. If we go through there, I know we can help them." Ella: (Unsure:) “I've never been through a portal before. Where will it take us?” Tiana: “Well, their plan was to take them to Wonderland.” Ella: (Reverently:) "Wonderland. My mother... (Shakes her head, suddenly very eager:) No risk, no reward, right?" (Ella takes a deep breath and follows Tiana through the portal.) Underworld. Forest. (Hook walks alone through a forest when he hears a twig snap behind him.) Hook: (Spinning around:) "Show yourself!" Smee: (Stepping out from behind a tree:) "Captain, it's me." Hook: "Mr. Smee?" Smee: "Oh, am I glad to see you." Hook: "How did you get here? No, you know what, I don't have the time. I need all the help I can get, come on." Smee: "Where to, Captain?" Hook: "We're going to find a garden." Witches Garden. (A short time later, they enter through the gates of a garden.) Smee: “Ugh! This isn't exactly what I had in mind when you mentioned garden." Hook: “It's a witch's garden, Mr. Smee. And somewhere in here is the Golden Flower we seek. Find it, then we hightail it back out of here, before we come face-to-face with something more vicious than this lad.” (Hook kicks over a garden gnome.) Smee: “So, how do we find the flower then?” Hook: “Well, according to Morpheus, we, uh... We sing. Something to do with the power of music revealing the heart. Seriously, I think Lord Morpheus is obsessed with musicals. Anyway, here goes nothing. (Smee takes several steps backward as Hook begins to sing:) ♪ Fifteen men on a dead man's chest ♪ ♪ Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum ♪

Hook: “Doesn't appear to have worked. (Hook turns at the sound of scraping to see Smee transform into a large, angry looking garden gnome:) Bloody hell. (The gnome strikes at Hook, who rolls out of the way:) Might be more fearsome than I thought. (Draws his sword and slashes at the gnome’s leg, which does nothing. Running, he tries to make sense of things whilst being chased:) The song didn't work! Maybe if I try another one! (Ducks behind a tree:) Uh... ♪ My young love said to me ♪ ♪ My mother won't mind ♪ ♪ And my father won't cite you ♪ ♪ For your lack of... ♪ (A bright light glows up ahead and Hook runs to it as the gnome gives chase. Just as the gnome is about to strike, it explodes into dust. Hook grabs the flower and holds it up. Turning, he sees Maleficent standing there.)

Hook: (Holding the flower:) “It worked!” Maleficent: “What kind of sea shanty was that?” Hook: “It wasn't a shanty. It was a lullaby.” Maleficent: “A lullaby? Why do you know a lullaby?” Hook: “My mother used to sing it to me and my brother. And then she died, and my father abandoned us, and I didn't hear anything like it again. That's how I know a lullaby.” Maleficent: “Right. Why is it you can only open up to me when I’ve just saved your life?” Hook: (Chuckles:) “If I had any doubts that it was really you, I don’t now. What are you doing here?” Maleficent: “I came to rescue you, stupid. While most of the united realms are off trying to save the Charming grandchild, I took it upon myself to bring you home.” Hook: “Much obliged, love.” Maleficent: “Don’t thank me yet. I used the one magic bean I had in my possession to get to you. And although I was once technically dead, I never found my way to the Underworld. So I have no idea how we’re supposed to get out of here.” Hook: (Looking at the flower in his hand:) “Uh, I might have a way, and this flower is the key.” Wish Realm. (Watching Emma speak to Killian through the magic mirror, the Evil Queen is unimpressed.) Evil Queen: "I married that pushover?" Emma: "Hey, I was cursed, okay? That's how the Black Fairy wanted me. My strength and independence stripped from me. I was meant to be broken, physically and mentally. That brief time changed me in ways I am still not completely recovered from. And the longer we stand here, the longer my wife is being subjected to that very same fate. Now I can’t go there and rescue her myself because then we will both be trapped. But I believe you can. So, please, can we stop standing around and rescue Regina?”

(The Evil Queen nods, rolling up her fancy sleeves, she prepares to save Regina from the other realm.) Dream World. Wonderland. (Kneeling on the floor, Ella pushes open a tiny door and peers inside.) Ella: “This is it. The Infinite Maze.” Tiana: “You know this place. You didn't come just for Alice, did you? Ella, why are you here?” Ella: “I came for answers.” (Ella pulls a necklace out of her pocket and hands it to Tiana.) Tiana: “Answers about what? What’s this about?” Ella: “It's about my mother and the day she married my father. On their wedding day, she gave him a set of matching lockets. They were enchanted to glow so they would always find each other, just as their hearts would.” Tiana: “I know this kind of magic. That's a powerful promise.” Ella: “Yeah, one that she broke. When I was a girl, my mother abandoned us. My father searched for an entire year, and followed her all the way here to Wonderland.” Tiana: “She went into the Infinite Maze.” Ella: “Yeah, he was trying to figure out how to get through when his locket stopped working. She had stopped loving him. He came back home a broken man. He was never the same again.” (Suddenly, Ella turns and grabs a small bottle sitting on a nearby table.) Tiana: “Ella, what are you doing?” Ella: “I need to find out what happened, why she left us.” Tiana: “But there's only enough potion in there for one of us.” Ella: “I know. I'm sorry.” (Ella removes the stopper and drinks the potion.) Tiana: “No! Ella, wait! (Immediately, the potion takes effect, shrinking Ella down so she can fit through the door. Not looking back, she runs into the Infinite Maze:) Ella! (She crouches down beside the door:) Ella!”

Henry's Dreamscape. Gareth & Madelena's War Camp. (Aladdin and Jasmine make their way into camp, Aladdin waving the white flag.) Aladdin: “Flag of Truce! Nothing to worry about! Guaranteed safe passage! Really poor form to kill us!” Jasmine: “Will you stop it? You're making us look like tools.” Aladdin: “We are tools... tools that will be used to make the Valencian swords dull... with murder!” Jasmine: “Oh man up! We'll be fine. Sure, we can't beat the Valencians with the pitiful excuse of an army we have, but terms of surrender are always offered before a battle. Easy-peasy, pudding and pie.” Aladdin: (Nods:) “You’re right. I'll try and pull it together.” Royal Tent. (Gareth is seated as Madelena shaves his head.) Queen Madelena: “This was such a good idea. I think getting out of the castle was great for us, you know?” Gareth: “There's nothing like a good old war camp. Fresh air, sounds of nature. And the promise of getting to kill people. It just really gives a man a lift, you know what I mean?” Queen Madelena: “Yeah. It's nice. (Notices Jasmine and Aladdin walking towards them:) What?” Gareth: “Hmm?” Queen Madelena: “Flag of Truce? No, no, no, no, no, no, no! What are they doing here?” Gareth: (Stands:) “They’ve probably come to discuss terms of surrender.” Queen Madelena: “I don't want them to surrender. I want to kill them!” Jasmine: (Entering the tent:) “Please allow us to introduce ourselves. I am Princess Jasmine, and this is my husband, Aladdin.” Queen Madelena: (Motions to him:) “Gareth. (To herself:) Madelena.  Now what do you want?” Jasmine: “I thought we might discuss terms, avoid unnecessary bloodshed.” Queen Madelena: “Well, I’m kind of here for the unnecessary bloodshed.” Jasmine: “I’m sorry? The rules of war dictate that...” Queen Madelena: “God, you're going to be lame about this, aren't you? Fine. Here are my terms. Complete surrender. Hand over your castle, your gold, your jewels, your livestock.” Jasmine: “I think that's a bit extreme.” Queen Madelena: “Not done. All the men of fighting age will be conscripted into our army. Oh, and I want all the children to put their toys in a pile. Then I'm going to light it on fire. (Laughing:) Yay! I'm having fun after all.” Jasmine: (Hesitates:) “If I could have a moment. (Takes Aladdin aside:) These terms are impossible!” Aladdin: “What choice do we have?” Jasmine: (Sighs:) “You're right.” Jasmine: (To Madelena:) “Your terms are monstrous, but I think...” Queen Madelena: “Oh, and one last thing. I want Ella to be my new handmaiden. Her main duty will be cleaning my crown.” Jasmine: “The way I’ve heard things, that is not your crown. That is the official crown of the Queen of Valencia, and Ella is its rightful owner.” Queen Madelena: “Settle down, tiny tot. You're the one who came here to surrender.” Jasmine: “You're gonna regret calling me ‘tiny tot.’" Gareth: “Yes! Catfight! (Takes a seat:) Finally. I've been waiting to see some action like this.” (Madelena and Jasmine square off.) Madelena: ♪ I don't like you ♪ Jasmine: ♪ I really don't like you ♪ Madelena: ♪ I really ♪ Jasmine: ♪ Really ♪ Madelena: ♪ Really ♪ Jasmine: ♪ Really ♪ Both: ♪ Want you gone ♪ ♪ This won't surprise you ♪ ♪ But I despise you ♪ ♪ You want to see, step to me, 'cause it's on ♪ Madelena: ♪ I'm thinner, cooler, clearly much crueler ♪ ♪ And check out the bling ♪ ♪ I'm the kingdom's new ruler ♪ Gareth: “Boom!” Madelena: ♪ Got a jeweler to pimp out the crown ♪ Jasmine: ♪ The serf may be up but I'm taking you down ♪ Aladdin: “Ooh, yeah!” Jasmine: ♪ Enough pleasantry, you're queen presently ♪ ♪ But, hon, you're just one of the peasantry ♪ ♪ Kosher as bacon and fakin' the funk ♪ Madelena: ♪ You'll just have to deal ♪ Jasmine: ♪ Oh, I'll deal with you, punk ♪ ♪ The whole feudal system has paid you a visit ♪ Madelena: ♪ Yet it's you who's now royally screwed ♪ Jasmine: ♪ You think so, ho? ♪ Madelena: ♪ I know so, prude ♪ ♪ Let's see ♪ ♪ I've got the sharper weapons ♪ Jasmine: “Yeah, right.” Madelena: ♪ I've got the fiercer horde ♪ Jasmine: “Right, but...” (Madelena pushes Jasmine against a tent post:) Madelena: ♪ I've got your booty pinned against the wall ♪ Jasmine: “I've got the...” Madelena: “You've got nothing.” Jasmine: “I've got the... The Hero Sword!” ♪ That's right, the one king to unite them all ♪ Madelena: “You don't have the bearer of the one true...” Jasmine: “Oh, I most certainly do. Don't I, Aladdin? Aladdin: “Uh, yeah. Totally.”

Madelena: ♪ I don't like you ♪ Jasmine: ♪ I really don't like you ♪ Both: ♪ You really, really, really, really crossed the line ♪ ♪ And soon your castle and your ass'll be mine ♪ ♪ I don't like you ♪ Jasmine: “I will see you on the battlefield.” War Camp. Headed Back To The Castle. (Not quite believing what just took place, Aladdin tries to make sense of it all.) Aladdin: “You challenged this giant army to a fight, and you told them you have the bearer of the sword of the one true king, which, I might add, we don't. No one knows who it is.” Jasmine: “Don't get your knickers in a bunch. I lost my temper. You heard Madelena's terms. We have to fight. And we will win.” Aladdin: “How, exactly? Our army has no weapons.” Jasmine: “We'll improvise. Tell the people to gather anything we can use as weapons. And we will make our stand.” Aladdin: “All right. I just wish you hadn't riled up Madelena.” Royal Tent. Gareth: “Queenie, relax. Everything's fine.” Queen Madelena: “Relax? If the one true king is really on her side, that's bad news. The prophecy says he who pulls the sword from the stump will unite the kingdoms under his glorious rule. Prophecies are never wrong. That's just science.” Gareth: “Look, I trained this army. And they're more than capable of handling some stupid king with some fancy sword. Don't worry.” Morpheus: (Appearing behind them:) “Oh, you should worry. But luckily, we have a secret weapon on our side, and that secret weapon is... Moi.” Queen Madelena: “What?” Gareth: “Prat.” Morpheus: “Not only am I a literal God, a fact that you two seemingly fail to grasp, but I'm also a practitioner of the dark arts. A master of the D'Dew.” Queen Madelena: “What's that?” Morpheus: “The Dark, dark evil way... The D'Dew.” Gareth: “Why do you call it ‘the D'Dew’? Wouldn't it be simpler just to say ‘The Dew’?” Queen Madelena: “Good point.” Morpheus: “No, no, no. The way isn't just dark. It's dark dark. (Holds up two fiery goblets:) D'Dew is the most powerful force to ever exist. With it, you can control events, bend them to your will, and turn everything to your favor.” Queen Madelena: “So, all we have to do is eat this, and we have magic?” Morpheus: “No, no. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I see where the confusion lies. This is cherries jubilee. Something I was thinking about for your potential wedding, hmm? Imagine a darkened hall, hmm? Hundreds of these coming in at once.” Queen Madelena: “I'm in.” Gareth: “Yeah...” Morpheus: “Oh, wow!” Queen Madelena: “I meant with D'Dew.” Gareth: “Hold on a minute. I said I can handle this.” Queen Madelena: “Come on, Gareth. Let's do D'Dew.” Gareth: “Can I have a word with you for a minute?” Queen Madelena: “What? Why?” (Gareth pulls her aside.) Gareth: “Look, we've got a good thing going. Do you want to bring dark magic into this?” Queen Madelena: “I don't know. A little D'Dew might be exciting. Spice things up. (Gareth sighs:) This really bugs you, doesn't it?” Gareth: “Yes.” Queen Madelena: “And you're sure you can win the battle without it?” Gareth: “Positive.” Queen Madelena: “Okay. For you. (Kisses his cheek then turns to Morpheus:) Sorry, Morph. No D'Dew. (Morpheus bows and Gareth leaves the tent. Walking over to Morpheus:) I'll find you later.” Both: “D'Dew!”

#sq #swanqueen #swan queen

[cutegirlmayra]

When Tails Stood

World: Sonic Forces (as far as we know)

Couple: N/A

Premise: Sonic is MIA and separated from Tails. Tails tries his best to lead a unit and they look down on him because of his age, he snaps and goes off to find Sonic on his own, or at least, be useful to the resistance still. He meets Classic Sonic and collapses with emotion.

Prompt:

“It can’t be...” Tails’s feels his whole body tense up and tighten away from Knuckles, his eyes shake but he closes them quickly to shake his head, his fists... bundled in rage. “I CANT BE! He wouldn’t just abaondoned us! Something must be wrong!”

Silver, standing next to Knuckles, slowly bends his head down, and to the side. “I... don’t know. But all we can do is fight without him. It’s not going to be easy but.... we could use you in his division, Tails. He never was one to lead anyway, he usually went off on his own,-”

“You’re acting as though this isn’t a big deal..! We have to find Sonic! That should be our top pirority!”

Silver lowered his head again, and Knuckles stepped up this time, looking sorry. “Tails.. I’m worried about him too. But nothing’s going to get solved just standing around liek thsi!”

Tails bent his head, “...Nothing’s solved without all of us either...” he lightly whispered, before turning around and bending his eyesbrows back, “I... I need a minute...” he stared at the ground, his tails dragging behind him, before departing down another, separating corridor.

“W-what about the unit!” Kuckles leaned forward, before relaxing from the action and stepping back, folding his arms. “He’s taking this harder than I thought..”

“..Well, the records say they were best friends... I’m sure you’re feeling some remorse, right?”

“....” Knuckles turned around, “He’s not dead.” he sharply spat out, then looked to the ground, unfolding his arms as if in respect. “Don’t talk like he is...” he looked away and walked off too, showing that he missed and worried about Sonic’s disappearence just as much as Tails.

But perhaps... knowing he needed to lead more than panic,... he wasn’t focusing on it much right now.

---

Tails lead the unit through some heavy rainfall, before waking up in unstabled structures that could crumble over with just one straight line of gunfire.

He stirred from his sleep, before looking over his sleeping men and some on watch.

“Ughh..” he had once again dreamed of the better times... Sonic and him taking on Eggman.. the two of them being enough and more to bring him to less than a threat.

Oh,... how the world has changed.

Armies and forces... he shook his head limply down and rubbed his eyes, just thinking about it.

Infinite... it was all his doing.

Eggman’s single most annoyest creation.

He paused to place his sleep-tingled hands on his knees, feeling the pressure of sitting on them, and slowly blinking his eyes before shooting them open and trying to strain them awkae.

But he longed for that dream... it was a happier time... a fun existence... now it was all war and who got left behind...

Sonic would never let anyone get left behind..

“The kid’s awake.”

It was a low whisper, but Tails’s expert hearing was ten-times the radar than a normal human’s small ears.

The solder shrugged, looking over his shoudler from sitting on a upper step and hanging his gun by his leg, vertical.

“...He’s so young. Compared to Sonic, he sleeps like a baby, and wakes like he’s fought the war instead of us.”

Tails’s eyes widened, his ears shifted as he flinched forward.

“...Yeah... He leads like he’s asking, not commanding. He’s just a smart kid, not a fighter. He’s been covered up in that bunker for technical support, not battle.” He took his hat off, rubbing his sweat covered hair, and then lowered the gun over his lap. “Some leader.” he spit on the ground, but not at the comment, but chewing on some grass he picked up.

“It’d be better if he was a little wiser with men than with machines.”

Tails rose up.

He walked calmly over to the men, though his tight fists suggested otherwise.

“Excuse me.”

His eyes were lowered, his jaw clentched, but his demeanour simple looked annoyed. Frustrated, he was about to do something he never thought he could.

The two men looked at eachother, not scared, but wondering if he maybe picked up a thing or two from their discussion.

They scooted over and he sat inbetween them.

He put his elbows to his knees and leaned forward into the gap between his leg.

“...I have... fought before.” His eyes bent forward and his words were grave, his eyes back in his dream... but a darker tone... a harsher memory...

“I was there when the world was torn apart... when Metal Snoic tried to take over the world... when Eggman tried to suck the world dry... I’ve always been by Sonic’s side.. I’ve always had a solution... I’ve always been fighting some cause or other. My whole life... I’ve been told I’m one thing or another.. Good for one thing or another... and you know what?”

He tilted his men and stood up, this time, clear anger was upon a very matured warrior’s face...

“I wish I could change misunderstandings, ridicules.... all those lies about me would cease if they saw even one memory of the hardships I’ve faced to defend this world... But today,” He shifted with piercing blue eyes to the two men, full of sorrow and no more of a soft soul. “I’m going to be what everyone fears I’ll become.”

The men stared, there was a shfit that they couldn’t predict.

Harsher, crueler, less merciful, Tails snapped in a twinkling of an eye and became what they stated they wanted.

There was no more motivation, only the common goal at hand. No kind word of encouragement, just the logical relaity of what they faced.

The men began to rebel even more now, and soon, Knuckles was trying to get in contact with Tails and find out what was going on.

Looking down at his shaking hand, Tails held the phone and began to realize what he had allowed himself to become.

He could tangibly hold his anger in his hands.. he could feel it there... and tigthened his fingers around it... even though it was invisible to his eyes.

There was weight... so much weight... that it made his hand tremble.

“Send Silver to lead this unit.” Tails abruptly broke Knuckles off of his speech to try and help Tails out, but he wasn’t listening.

He smashed his anger in his hands, his eyes firece before shifting to the sorrows and misery that lay underneath the fires of scorn and hatred.

They were mourning... and that fueled his forced outrage.

So controlled... no one expected him to be throwing a tantrum at being left alone, on his own, and being forced to an unrealistic expectation for himself.

He knew he wasn’t a leader.. he was a friend, an ally, a support.

But he didn’t belong at a desk job, not always...

He left with everything he had, his emotions being pushed down until he found some purpose in solo-missions.

He could see why Sonic liked them. In and out. He left viruses and hacked systems of Eggman’s forces left and right as he went. it was easier to command a single body then a thousand.

Then... he saw him.

Classic Sonic came flying down from the sky, and stood before him, looking a little confused.

Tails felt everything... everything of being alone and abaononded... he let it out as soon as he realized that at least some verison of Sonic had returned to him... at least...  a him.

He fell to his knees, crying out his frustrations and gripping the ground, as Classic Sonic couldn’t undestand what was happening, and leaned back, a bit worried...

Tails cried and cried... until Classic got the impression that he wasn’t anger at him.. but at not being able to step into that poisition Sonic had left behind for him. He felt like a failure, that he couldn’t measure what Sonic had wanted him to be in his absence.

Classic Sonic waited... before Tails dried his tears, befoe walking over... and laying a hand to his shoulder.

A smile.

A thumbs up.

A wink.

Praise for what he could and did do.

That was all Tails need, the approval of what he could do.

Then... with renewed vigor, determination, and his old self restored to him-

Tails stood up.

“Thanks.” They stare into one another’s eyes. “I really need that.... Partner.” he smiled, tilting his head nad closing his eyes, a geniune look of friendship and revival.

(They partner up and off they go to find Modern Sonic! :D )

#tails #sonic forces #tails the fox #miles tails prower #sonic #sega #sonic the hedgehog #classic sonic #sonic game #cutegirlmayra #tails prompt #sonic forces prompt

[inkabelledesigns]

Therapy for Alice

The mood just kind of struck me, so I decided to try and write something for the heck of it. It’s a short little sequence, haven’t edited it yet, but I hope you like this “what-if” scenario.” 

            Alice sat on a busted-up shay within the murky depths of the studio. How many years had it been? Two, ten, maybe decades at this point, time seemed nearly infinite when there was no way to gauge where the end would be. But there was one thing time couldn’t do: ease the pain. Ever since coming out of those disgusting soggy puddles, Alice found herself still weeping internally from what happened from before. Within her most inner caverns, she had very few comforts. The room held some of her old merchandise, posters that depicted how beautiful her character was. She kept three plush toys on her little couch, one of each character. Despite her malicious actions, there was a soft spot in her heart for plush dolls, and seeing a little Alice separated from a fabric Bendy and Boris felt wrong. She didn’t like the thought of them not being together, but the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to choke that little Bendy doll and chuck it across the room. She reached for it, holding it her clawed fingers tightly, squeezing it like a stress ball before throwing it as far as she could. But then, she snapped out of it, her mangled eyes widened in horror as she ran off to rescue it from the depth. Thankfully it hadn’t gotten into any tainted ink, and she cradled it all the way back to the shay. She was all alone, having left Boris in the other room while she contemplated the best way to go about opening him up. She certainly didn’t want to waste this opportunity, he was the most perfect model she’d ever come across, one she could not mess up on. Her hands shook slightly as she held the doll close to her chest, giving it an eyeful.

            She sat back down, legs crossed all lady-like, sighing as she hugged the doll close to her chest. Living in the crumbling studio was worse than any hell, worse than working there. It wasn’t really living, it was hardly surviving, there was no world to describe it other than “existing.” No one wanted this, no one wanted to live their entire life imprisoned. It gave a person too much time to dwell on things, and after a while, they’d begin to lose hope, becoming unsure if there was a way to move on.

            But Alice wasn’t truly alone. There were eyes everywhere, she knew that, no way to relieve herself, no one to open to. She set the Bendy doll down and picked up the one that bore her likeness, brushing its tender curls around gently. Those sweet little cheeks, surely there had to be some little girl out there who would kiss them and hold her tightly. Or maybe a little boy, both could want to re-enact the old episodes. But she feared for what they might’ve thought, in a ‘could-be would-be’ sort of way. Seeing this character, seeing her, the expectations that would bear, the expectation of perfection, the idea that an angel had to be perfect, that they defined perfect…. It brought her a deep sense of failure. An angel wasn’t perfect, no matter how hard she tried she had never been perfect for Joey. She never would be. What was the point of this endless slaughter, what was the point of carrying on? Why not just let herself rot away with the rest of this horrible labyrinth? She closed her eyes, unable to cry, for once wishing that she had tears to shed again. Ink dripped all around her from the pipes above. The pitter patters of the drops were enough to make what was left of her heart sink. She set the doll down, shifting her broken body and staring at her tiny feet, hands folded in her lap.

            “Hey, chin up! It’s not so bad!”

            The sound of a sudden voice made her jump, whipping her head around frantically to find the source, her vision coming up empty. It was then that she felt a tug on her skirt. Looking down, she found the Alice doll she’d just been holding trying to get her attention. The doll waved and tried to climb its way onto her lap. Alice just sighed and shook her head, holding the deformed part of her face in her hand. I’ve officially lost it, now the dolls are talking to me too. Ugh, someone just end this nightmare.

            “Hey, I heard that!” the doll yelled back. She sassily put her hands on her hips, standing in Alice’s lap, an eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face.

            “You’re not going crazy honey, I promise I’m real, and I’m here to help.”

            That voice, that belonged to a much younger Susie Campbell. My how times had changed. Alice didn’t know what to think, much less what to say.

            “What could you possibly do to help me?” Alice retorted in disgust. She wrinkled her nose, turning away with a pouty face.

            “You can’t hide how you feel from me honey, I’ve been in that headspace of yours for too long. We need to talk.” The doll put her tiny hands around one of Alice’s, holding it with great care and comfort. “Please don’t be so hostile. We can’t keep going on like this. Talk to me, what’s really the matter?”

            Alice bit her lip, looking away. She didn’t want to let her guard down, she couldn’t. What if he was watching? She couldn’t risk it. But she knew full well why that little voice was doing this. In her head she could push it away, but it was much harder to do so outside of it. The doll hobbled over to Alice’s waist and gave it a big hug. Alice didn’t understand it, why was she being so nice? After all these years of being stuck together, why would she be kind to her?

            “I’ll wait as long as you need me to, we’ve got all the time in the world here.”

            “Alright, fine, you persistent little pincushion…” Alice gritted her teeth and balled her fists, looking away from the doll. “I just…I’m still not over it.”

            “Not over what?” the doll asked curiously.

            “Not over what…what he did, all those years ago. I just felt so…so invalidated? I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but I felt betrayed, and hurt. He just went and replaced me without a second thought, like I meant nothing to him!”

            “Why do you think you meant nothing to him?” the doll inquired.

            “Because he never said he was sorry, he was never satisfied with my performance, never gave me any credit when I was working as hard as I can. His visions were absurd, he was impossible to please! Oooh just the NERVE of that vile, disgusting, venomous man! What I wouldn’t give to rip him apart!”

            “Now now, that’s a little too far,” the doll said as she wagged her finger, “If you’re really going to be Alice Angel, you can’t keep ripping people apart.”

            “I AM Alice Angel, and I can do whatever the hell I want! Why shouldn’t I? They all deserve it, no one ever had my back, all of them were just pitiful kiss-ups! Next to Joey, Sammy had to be the worst of them all, he practically became-”

            “Ab-bubup. Shh.” The doll had jumped up and put a finger over Alice’s lips, clinging to her cheeks for dear life so as not to fall. Alice immediately silenced herself, raising an eyebrow in confusion at the plush toy.

“No judgements. This is what we call twisted thinking. I know you Susie, you’re not a bad person. But the fact is, they’re all human. Humans are flawed, it can’t be helped. We have to be loving and accepting of that and do the best we can to help them.”

“But what good will that do? None of them deserve it.” Alice’s eyes trailed off, staring at the ink puddles below, resting her head on her shoulder.

“None of us deserved any of this. Alice honey, what Joey did was inexcusable, my friends and I all agree, but nothing is going to change if we’re all stuck in the past.”

“But nothing had changed in all the time we’ve been here. It’s an endless cycle of falling apart and putting myself back together, I’m never going to be perfect, I’ll-”

“Is that really what you want? To be perfect?” the doll asked, “You may be picking your body back up, but you haven’t picked yourself up mentally in all the years I’ve known you. It’s the same routine every day, all the same negative thoughts.”

“I just want to forget it all…”

“You can’t. We can’t ever escape what’s happened, but we can move forward.”

“He deserves to pay.”

“We have to accept that it isn’t our place to take vengeance. Alice, fate will be much crueler to us if we keep on this path.”

“I just want closure, I just want to be free of this awful feeling.”

The doll sighed, “You got your closure the moment he did this to you. He doesn’t care about what happens to us Alice, even if you were perfect, it would never be good enough for him.”

Alice holds her decaying face in her hands, sniffling, crying. No tears were there, but no tears were needed to show how she felt.

“I-I won’t ever be good enough…He’ll never think I’m good enough, no one will.”

“Now now, I never said that,” the doll said as she plopped back down in Alice’s lap, “You are plenty good enough! Honey, look at you, you’re the bee’s knees! You’ve got a beautiful voice, a killer personality, and you give everything you do a hundred and ten percent. There’s so much about you that people love, and I know deep down you know that too.”

“But-”

“No butts about it! Just because one person doesn’t see you for who you really are doesn’t mean you should think any less of yourself. You’re brighter than any halo could ever hope to be, and I mean it!” The doll balled its tiny fists and grinned with encouragement, throwing her tiny hands in the air. Alice had to chuckle, this was the sweetest thing her better self had ever done.

“Thank you, Alice. This is why I loved voicing you back then.”

“Yeah, sure does bring back some good memories, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah…” The deformed angel looked up to the ceiling, silently praying to herself, as ironic as it was. “Do you think…do you think we’ll ever fix this?”

“Fix what?” the doll asked. She looked confused.

“Fix well…this.” Alice gestured towards her broken body.

“I think we can make it happen. The thick ink’s been helping quite a bit, as have the hearts. It still breaks mine a little bit though, I don’t like doing this…”

“It’s a necessary evil, if we don’t we might cease to exist.”

“At least it’s better than Norman.” The doll shuddered at the thought of the old projectionist. “Poor fella.”

“He slowly lost his sanity, as did Sammy. He used to be great, we’d have coffee every morning. I still remember, two sugars, but otherwise black, because-”

“Heaven forbid we add milk and clog up the vocal chords!” The two said it together in their best impression of the slightly pompous composer. They burst out laughing, holding their sides as the sound echoed through the room. A genuine laugh, now that was something neither had done in a very long time. Alice giggled as she covered her mouth slightly, petting the doll on the head with her other hand.

“Thank you, Alice. I needed that. I’m sorry for pushing you away all this time.”

The doll waved her hand and laughed, “Oh it’s quite alright, you just weren’t ready to talk about it. These things take time, and they also take friends.”

“That’s true. I just hope it’s not too late for us.”

“It’s never too late to start the healing process. There are gonna be days where you feel like everything is broken, we all have ups and downs. But at the end of it all, you’re gonna be okay. I promise, I’ll take care of you for as long as you let me. Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

“It doesn’t feel right at all doing this,” Alice said, her head hung low.

“No, it doesn’t,” the doll replied, “Maybe we should take a break instead, have a little girl time.” I know where we could find some of Henry’s old art supplies, we could draw for a little bit!”

“I-I’ve never been much of an artist really…besides, I know that fall in the elevator couldn’t have killed him, he’ll still be looking for us, as will-”

“Aw come on, angels don’t have to be so uptight ya know. They’re gonna take forever to find us, and besides, the supply closet isn’t that far away. Let’s go!”

“Okay okay, calm down.”

The doll had a tinkling laughter as Alice picked her up and carried her towards the door. The two left the room to good search out the forgotten pencils and paper.

But the minute they left, the remaining two plush dolls perked their heads up, looking towards the door. They had to wonder, what now? This changed everything.

#BATIM #Bendy and the Ink Machine #bendy #boris #alice #alice angel #susie campbell #joey drew #henry #sammy lawrence #norman polk #projectionist #fanfiction

[moontimemumblings]

An Invitation to Munich

The pale-lilac sky hasn’t been pacifying my anxious wait. It’s making itself felt more strongly than I wish it to be. And in the orangey light of the lamp above the table I’ve booked for the two of us, I’m trying to read a Kashmiri mystic’s poems, but I can barely concentrate.

Two hours, three beers and skimming through a few pages of poetry later, I see you walk up to me. You ask if you could join the single lady reading in the noisy, crowded bar. In my head, I’m playing along with you like a stranger girl, “Well, I’m waiting for this handsome Spaniard for the past two hours but looks like he has stood me up; so yes, I could have some company” But your infinite charm makes me go only dumbly, “sure,” instead. I’m a disaster!

But you smile and give me a peck on the cheek. Perhaps you’ve sensed my nervousness. You talk about the traffic havoc on your way and apologise for being late and I smile, still mute, still nervous. You order a drink for yourself and we talk about our differing taste in beer. You tell me about the training that you’re here in my city for not going too well and your unruffled stance about it somehow makes me calm, too.

You then tell me about your beloved city Barcelona, and Munich, the city you’re currently living in, and I am eager to know more, to learn more. I am now completely comfortable listening to you and you state the same quite abruptly, looking amused. We laugh.

I tell you how quickly the time is passing. You wink and say that we have the entire night for ourselves and I am quiet again. I see that there’s a bougainvillea plant behind you bowing as if in respect to the ground. “Submission. Submission is sometimes so beautiful,” I tell myself. To save myself from yet another bout of anxiety, I pull out the brown bag of gifts I have for you. You accept it gracefully, without making a fuss about anything I had gathered for you in that bag.

Smiling, you finally tell me how rare it is in your cold country to find girls who don’t resort to mind games and who are warm and romantic. I’m still figuring out what to say, but you continue to tell me that you know not how to thank me for the gifts and perhaps the only thing you could do now is... and... and you kiss me...

The nervous wreck that I already was, I become a worse mess of emotions screaming within me, but I find myself responding in spite of myself. I... give in... trying not to think. You then pull away gently and stroke my arm, telling me how bad you feel that no man has ever danced me – a detail you remember me telling you on our first evening together. I sit as if in a dream, hoping that you would probably be the first man to lead me to some Latin music – I don’t know when and where, though.

It’s not my strength culturally – where I come from – to kiss a man on the second meeting even before knowing how to pronounce his full name! But when you kiss me again, I am a nobody who could do as she wishes to. You are no longer Spanish and I am no longer Indian. We are simply a man and a woman letting life happen to us. The night is suddenly silky and there’s something beguilingly sinful about it. I am young and fragrant in your presence, feeling fragile but not weak. There is a fire in me that you know how to help only glow and not let it burn me while it does. You, are a gentleman, and I already know that it’s a night I’ll commit to memory for as long as I live. And you do give me such a night to remember. You do.

...

A week has passed, J. You are back in Munich but you write to me every evening to check on me, asking me how I’m doing and not to miss you. You are perhaps the only man in my life who has been so nice and attentive to me even after parting ways. I thank you.

Your honesty moves me to tears. And sometimes you move me to silence – the kind of silence that I’ve never known before, lyrical in its absolute lack of expectation; a silence through which you’ve taught me to care for someone without invading their personal space.

My own evolution from holding on to something beautiful and letting it go, from mad longing to calm acceptance of things as they are has been slow and steady and not reckless with you. Whenever I recall the past week and locate those moments of tenderness, of passion, of being nothing more or nothing less than human, I find myself becoming clearer about my needs than ever before.

J, I have come to understand that in my occasional moments of loneliness, I feel the need to be there for someone I love – to be the light when they are in the dark, when they are alone. My want of giving all this love I am capable of is far crueler than my want of expecting someone to love me in return. And perhaps I will find men like you now and then if I am meant to, or if I’m meant to find someone who will one day decide to stay with me. I don’t know.

There is so much more I want from life and willing to work hard for it that for me, ‘there are other sorrows in the world apart from love’, as a poet of my land called Faiz has said and gone. I want my writing, my work to mean much more and I am trying to push my own boundaries and do better. I want to be of good use to the world around me. And as for myself, I want to travel more, read more, write more... live every single day to the fullest.

But for now, J, will you, please, let me love you with all the tenderness that swells within me because of you? You are a great human being and I love you for being you. As it seems to me now, I love you not for you but for myself. Do I sound selfish? Perhaps. But I know not otherwise than this fervent confession of my longing to give love.

P. S. The dance didn’t happen. Perhaps you will dance me in Munich soon, owing to the standing invitation I have from you.

[ruleandruinrpg]

ALEKSANDER MOROZOVA

UNKNOWN ❈ THE DARKLING THE ORDER OF SUMMONERS (ETHEREALKI)

Man’s greatest folly is, perhaps, not his tendency to put his gods on a pedestal, to lay at their altars his heart and other fragile things, but his forgetfulness—his failure to recognize that all gods were once men, and all men were once children. He, too, was a boy once, a child who listened more than he spoke and learned far more than he let on, building empires out of sticks and stones and daring to call himself the king. Yet for all that he was once ordinary, he was different in a way neither he nor those around him could ever reconcile, and he knew it from a young age, knew it as well as he knew his own name: Aleksander, a name given to blacksmiths’ boys, to merchants’ sons, to fishermen’s heirs—a name he would one day give up in favor of another, in favor of the sort of infamy that demands blood sacrifice, though it would never be his own. To be remembered was to be forgotten, and so he was—year by shadowed year, death by hallowed death. Infinite. He became infinite, in name and ability, in lives and in victories, so entrenched in the shadows he commanded that the boy he’d once been was lost along the way, left to live on forever in oblivion or to die there—whichever suited him best. The darkness in his heart had never left any room for love, for gentleness, for light; it took and devoured until there was nothing left of what might’ve been, and all that was left was this: a man, half-legend and half-horror, with a heart black as night.

They called him the Darkling, though none could be sure whether the name had come from his own machinations or from the blackness that loved him like a son, and they feared him, as they did all terrible and unknown things, for it is in the nature of man to fear that which he does not understand, and he—perhaps even more than the rest of his kind—was utterly beyond comprehension. Strange and powerful though he might’ve been, however, his dreams, in the beginning, were the same dreams shared by countless others with similar gifts: a world where his people did not have to run like fugitives, did not have to hide like animals bred for the hunt, did not bear their gifts like crosses—like martyrs. They hailed him as their leader, thrust him upon a throne and called him moi soverennyi, and from his reign the seed of the Second Army grew, planted by hope and nourished by ambition. Beneath his guiding hand, Grisha became something to be valued, sought after—if not trusted, then tolerated, and in due time, his followers believed, they would be not simply Grisha, but Ravkans, seen as countrymen where they had once been only weapons. But great power begets great ambition, and a man gifted with the power to cast down the sun and stars if he so desired it could be no exception. His greed would know no bounds, as wild a thing as the dark it was born from; his greed would swallow the world whole.

And it did, ardently and utterly without his permission or control. It was ravenous, this power, this cold and cruel darkness—even crueler, perhaps, than the man it bowed to, and when the otkazat’sya told their stories in the centuries that followed, they would struggle to distinguish the servant from the master, the good intentions from the terrible. It was meant to be a good thing, a noble thing—a means of defending the kingdom from those who sought to destroy it, but his greed pushed him farther still, edged his power over the line that separated natural from merzost, forced his hand in ways none had ever seen before. Years later, they’d say the Fold was a mistake, the creation of avarice that knew no bounds, but the truth, dark and deep and raw, was that he’d wanted every wicked bit of it and more. It was his pride, his terrible hope, his mark on the world that no amount of inferni hellfire could burn away; he branded the world for all to see that infamous day, and the warning it gave rang throughout the kingdom like church bells, reverberated in the bones of his people like a prayer for which there were no words. Yet he hated it, too, this unconquerable, immeasurable thing, because for all that it came to be by his doing, it proved unruly even to him. And though it outlived the version of him that created it, as a man who never aged was far too much for mere mortals to understand, he swore that it wouldn’t outlive the last version of him; even if it took an eternity, he would see it bow to him once more, and with it, the world.

He has seen empires rise and empires fall, he has led rebellions and quelled them, he has tasted conquest, brewed terror, created vainglory as thick as a man’s torso and as crimson-deep as the cut which severs it. Moi soverennyi. That awe-tinged echo clings to him like the shadows to the hidden face of the moon; relentlessly, possessively – like brazen worshipers at the dais of their god. And darkness incarnate rose like a phoenix from the ashes of his own demise; remaking, retelling, reliving the same story of immortal splendor, inherent horror. Again, and again, and again he has made himself new. Five lives, five legacies, five tales of rule and ruin. Aleksander, a boy forgotten. Morozova, a man made myth. Moi soverennyi, moi soverennyi, moi soverennyi. He is their tsar, their emperor, their conquistador, their fragile life and rotten death – a thousand nights of fear, a thousand days of majesty and sin so sacred that it burns. His ambition drives him, his power feeds him, his pride rears up and swallows his enemies whole. He is cold and beautiful and void of love; yet still they come, with their prayers and their hatred, with their numinous wonder and effervescent longing. And as they cling to the black of his robes, there is nothing but odinakovost and etovost, manifesting like twin wolves at the heels of their master. For what is power? Power is power. And what is infinite? Nothing but the universe, and the g r e e d of men.

CONNECTIONS

GEMMA PAVLOVA: It wasn’t something as mundane as loneliness—which all ordinary men and their faint, fool’s gold hearts are susceptible to—but a hunger for some great and terrible kinship, that led him to ask the universe for an equal, that led him to wait lifetimes for their deliverance, and at long last, he believes he’s found her: his balance, the only one that might keep his power in check, the light that might drive out his darkness. But for all that she seems a proper adversary in theory, she’s young, and she has much to learn before she can reach her full potential, before she can liken herself to him. Fortunately, he’s a patient man, and he’ll wait as many lifetimes as it takes for her to rule the world alongside him or be forced to lay it at his feet, for there are only two names for Grisha like them: saints and heretics—one cannot be both.

ALTAN YUL-SUHE: He’s capable, if nothing else—obedient enough to follow orders and ruthless enough to follow them faithfully, and he values the man for it, in the way one might value a prized hound. His right hand toys with heartstrings like red ribbons, steals the air from men’s lungs with a mere curl of his fingers, and he can’t say he doesn’t wonder, at times, what it must feel like to feel a man’s very life sifting through your fingers—that is, of course, until he remembers he already knows. He’ll keep him around, this red-cloaked brute, this heart attack of a soldier, until he’s served his purpose or strayed from it; even the best of men are replaceable.

ANTON LANTSOV: He is but a boy trying to fill the shoes of a king, little more than a child compared to his father and brother before him, and thus far, his attempts at preparing to run a country are laughable. Sooner or later, he’ll learn that wit only serves a man when choosing his last words; sooner or later, he’ll see that the fall of kingdoms and the rise of empires is inevitable, and by then, it’ll be too late. Let him whisper sweet nothings in the ears of his people; let him give them false hope with his victories and rally them onward with his defeats, for the real enemy fights not with guns and toy soldiers, but with horrors unseen. This war was never his to win.

THE DARKLING IS PORTRAYED BY SEAN O’PRY & IS TAKEN BY SIDNEY.

#lsrpg #literate rp #bio rp #tgt #grisha rp #closed #closedm #m #a #ether #aleksander #aleksanderbio

[satyr-syd]

Title: roots that twine together Chapter: 5/7 april flowers bring may showers Author/Authors: @satyr-syd Day/Prompt: 5/Spring ~ Health (@bokuakaweek​) Rating: G Warnings: None Side Pairings: None Summary: Akaashi Keiji knows the natural world better than anyone in his village. That is, until Bokuto Koutarou, a boy with mysterious powers over plants, makes him question everything he thought he knew.

Akaashi gets sick and has feelings.

Read on AO3

When spring comes, and the winter winds tire, and the rice seedlings peek out of their pots, Akaashi lies in bed, imprisoned by a fever.

The spring sickness isn’t unfamiliar to him, but he hasn’t experienced it in a long time. This time is different. Before, when he was forced to watch out his window as the children played, he had someone to care for him. When he was younger, and he got sick, his mother used to rub circles on his back and feed him green tea and suguki.

Eyes green like bamboo. Short, fluffy hair like a chick’s down. Hands worn and cracked like the clay they molded, but brimming with the warmth of a kiln.

This time, he’s alone. The house is empty. Besides himself, it’s usually empty, but the emptiness feels as vast as the spanning fields of rice, as endless as the night sky, as lonely as the open ocean.

He hears footsteps in the hallway. Akaashi props himself up on his elbows just in time to see Bokuto walk into his room.

“Akaashi? You don’t look so good,” Bokuto says. And just like that, the emptiness dissipates, and the world feels infinitely small, like this room, with the two of them, is the entire world.

Bokuto insists on taking care of him, and Akaashi doesn’t have enough energy to say no. But even if he did, he wouldn’t refuse Bokuto’s help anyway. Akaashi prefers to be self-sufficient, but he understands the importance of accepting help from others. Right now, he needs help.

And he wouldn’t miss the chance for Bokuto to see this side of Bokuto. He treats him with a kindness and tenderness he usually reserves for the most delicate of plants, wiping the sweat from his forehead, guiding food and water into his mouth, helping him outside to go to the bathroom. He hates how weak he’s become, he hates how he gets in the spring, that Bokuto has to take time out of his training to care for him.

“Just focus on healing, ‘kaashi,” Bokuto tells him. “Until then, I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

The words are a memory come to bite back and a promise for the future. They pierce his heart with the sweet sting of an arrow dipped in nostalgia.

His mother died in the spring.

All of nature around them, springing to life, growing slow, too slowly, while his mother withered away.

The summer before, the worst heat wave the village of Fukuro ever saw crashed upon their crops. The blazing sun stole water from the river, from the canals, from the leagues of rice paddy fields, leaving a dry, cracked bed in its wake. Autumn came. The rice harvest was fruitless; the villagers desperately scavenged the lake of brown stalks, bringing back few barely salvageable parts that could barely feed a family, let alone a village.  Edible roots in the hills and mountains beyond grew few and far between. Animals dropped dead and their flesh rotted when exposed to the sickly atmosphere, before the villagers could use their meat.

The heat took, and it took, sparing no one. They were helpless against the destructive forces of nature. They could fight against animals, against men, but nature was not an opponent they could hope to beat. No war was fought, no weapons were wielded, no blood was shed, but the destruction was violent and merciless, crueler than man could ever be.

Akaashi was eleven. Eleven was old enough to understand the passive horror of dried-up earth. Old enough to witness its destruction and remember. Old enough for a wave of terror to build up inside him, taller as the fields grew shallower, and as the canals began to crack, and as heat hung in the air, bulbous and heavy. That wave grew taller and stronger over time, until it crashed against the shore when he finally understood the consequences of the pitiful harvest.

Winter came. The villagers starved. They rationed what little they had, leaving more for the women and children, but it was never enough. A monster by the name of hunger made a home in his belly. It stomped loudly in his bowels, crashing at the sides, howling morning until night. The other villagers had their monsters, too. Akaashi could see it in their jutting ribs and hollow faces.

The winter was horrible, but with spring in sight, the villagers finally had hope that the monsters who kicked and yelled in their stomach would finally be silenced. In the spring, they planted their crops, and sowed their seeds, and fixed the broken canals, in hope the next harvest would save their lives.

His mother, known for her delicate disposition and sensitive health, succumbed to the power of nature. Her pottery wheel sat untouched - all the clay had dried up in the summer. As winter progressed, her limbs shrunk to sticks, her skin dried and cracked. She shivered in the cold, and kept shivering when the weather began to warm up. Akaashi and his father tried to give her their portions of food, but she refused to eat it, insisting they needed it more. Soon, she stopped eating all together.

Akaashi remembered the night before she died. She hadn’t left her bed in so long, the blankets molded to her skin and her hair seeped into her pillow and she became one with the cot. He knelt by her side, trying to give her water, but she wouldn’t - couldn’t - open her cracked lips.

“I’ll take care of you,” Akaashi had told her. “I promise.”

She was too weak to give him more than a small smile.

And the next morning, she was gone.

Nature was cruel. His mother was far from the only casualty of that year’s war with the environment. It was a one-sided battle. In the face of starvation, they were helpless. There was not enough knowledge or supplies or willpower to fight back, so they lost, and lost badly. It was a loss that damaged their spirits. It took years to recover from the physical toll on the land and the emotional toll on their hearts. Yet, even as the fields flooded like they used to, even as the flowers bloomed again, a fear lingered among them. A fear that this would happen again, and they’d once again by powerless.

So Akaashi determined he would learn all he could about nature and plants. An arsenal of facts from which grew a sharp intuition. His knowledge would be a weapon, wielded with the utmost care and cleverness.

And the next time nature chose to take from them, Akaashi would know how to fight back.

Bokuto comes to visit him the next day. And the day after that, and the day after that, until the days blend together in a mix of exhaustion and insomnia and the stickiness of illness. It coats his skin and sticks in his throat and presses against his skull and Akaashi’s pretty sure he’s dying.

“My mother died in the spring,” Akaashi tells Bokuto.

“I know,” Bokuto tells him.

“I don’t want to die, Bokuto-san.”

“You won’t die.”

“Please don’t let me die.”

“I promise, I won’t let you die.”

“You promise?”

“I promise on everything that matters to me.”

The stickiness invades his mind, and everything becomes hazy and slow and a little bit off. Sleep and awake, dreams and reality, blend together until he’s not sure what consciousness feels like anymore.

He lays in bed - is this a bed? Maybe he’s outside, laying under the cherry blossom tree. He can’t tell if he’s covered in a blanket of wool or petals. His hand moves slowly across his chest, but it’s hard to move, like he’s dragging it through mud. Mud - he must be in the fields after all…

Was that a knock at the door? Akaashi wants to sit up to go get it. But his head it too heavy, too heavy to lift, and maybe he could just lay here and sleep.

A figure floats into his room. He tries to call out, to greet the figure, whoever it is, but his mouth doesn’t want to form words right now.

It comes closer and closer until it’s leaning over him.

Eyes green like bamboo. Short, fluffy hair like a chick’s down. Hands worn and cracked like the clay they molded, but brimming with the warmth of a kiln. They run over his forehead, leaving burning trails behind.

“Akaashi? Are you okay?” she asks.

She’s come back, come home to take care of him. It’s alright, his mother is here, she’ll take care of him like she always does. “Mother…?” He reaches out towards her face -

“I, uh, Akaashi, it’s me, Bokuto - are you - ”

His eyelids flutter. No, he’s not at him, he’s in the fields, lying next to Bokuto. He’s frowning, frowning, and Akaashi wants to press his fingers in his cheeks to make his frown go away but his arms are still sleeping, trapped under the blanket.

This isn’t right - his hands are trapped under the blanket, but he never brought the blanket to the cherry tree - and he’d just heard the door knock, so this must be the dream...

He’s looking at his mother again. Her cheeks and hollow, hollow, and her skin in paper thin.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I couldn’t…” he tells her. “I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

“No, silly - I’m the one taking care of you,” she says, with a laugh that sounds like Bokuto’s. Or does Bokuto’s laugh sound like hers?

Akaashi doesn’t know anymore. But all this thinking is making his head pound, and his face is covered in tears and sweat and wet wet wet -

Keiji, Keiji, Keiji…

His mother calls him to the pottery wheel and guides his hands through the wet wet wet clay. He turns to smile her but she isn’t there anymore, she’s left him alone and without her guidance he falls forward, caught onto the pottery wheel. He spins around the wheel until his head rattles, and everything - everything looks dark...

After the night of his delusions, the fever breaks.

Akaashi is sure he’s been through hell and back, even if he doesn’t remember much of the trip.

But Bokuto is there, with soup and a smile and a strong, guiding hand, to ease him back into life on earth.

“Here. I brought you soup. I added some suguki, since you said that helps with fevers. Oh!” Bokuto sets the tray bowl down next to him, and reaches behind him. “And I made you this.”

Bokuto reaches behind him and pulls out a halo of blue. A crown of forget-me-nots.

“Um. I see you looking out the window, and you look so sad. I thought, you probably miss nature, right? Since you’re stuck in here, I thought I’d bring the nature to you...” Bokuto twirls the crown nervously, eyes shifting back and forth. “Kaori taught me how to braid the stems together. It took me a few tries to get it right, but this one turned out perfect, didn’t it?”

“It’s…” Akaashi runs his finger through the petals. They really are nurtured to perfection. The amount of control Bokuto must have exercised to create this is incredible. He’s come so far, these past two and half years. Though he still has lots to learn. “...a little uneven on this side, isn’t it?”

“Akaaasheeeee!”

Bokuto has a power Akaashi desires like nothing else. He can keep things alive, make them grow. If Akaashi had had Bokuto’s powers, he could have saved his village. He could have won the battle against nature. He could have saved his mother.

Akaashi places the crown on his head. The leaves sit lightly in his hair, the overgrown leaves brushing against his ears and tickling the back of his neck.

He notices Bokuto looking at the crown, slightly discontent. He leans forward and tilts the crown a little. “There!” he says. “Now...it’s perfect.”

“Thank you,” Akaashi tells him, meaning it with all his heart.

Akaashi didn’t have Bokuto’s powers. He couldn’t have saved the village. That tragedy was six years ago, and he can’t afford to dwell on it any longer. Right here, right now, the villagers are alive and healthy and thriving. The village has recovered, and they have moved on. The next time disaster strikes - as it always does - they will be prepared. Akaashi is ready to put his knowledge of crops to the test. And with Bokuto by his side, he’s sure they can make it through anything.

There is one thing Akaashi remembers from the past few days. “Do you remember when you said...you said you’d promise of everything that mattered to you that I would live?”

Bokuto nods.

“What did you mean by that? What matters to you, Bokuto-san?”

Bokuto looks at his fingers in his lap, tapping nervously together. “Um, well...you do,” he says.

Akaashi’s cheeks blush, and it’s not because of his fever. He feels warm down to his toes, yet light as a cloud. It’s a feeling he’s often felt around Bokuto, but hasn’t had a name for until now.

Akaashi gives him a genuine smile. “That’s not very smart, to promise I’ll live on my own life.”

Akaashi sees the words slowly process. Suddenly Bokuto clutches his hair and embarrassment. “Ahhh why do you always have to be right?”

He smirks. “It’s in my nature.”

Akaashi hates the spring. Spring is plagued with bad feelings, bad memories. But maybe, he can build new ones, and he won’t have to hate spring any longer.

#BokuAkaWeek #bokuaka #bokuaka fic #bokuto x akaashi #bokuto koutarou #akaashi keiji #fukurodani #hq #hq fanfic #my writing #fic: rttt

[thefrozendawn]

The Broken Steel Chronicle - PROLOGUE - On Shattered Shores

“Where does dawn lie, If not upon the sky?

Why does dawn lie, If not to ease us when we die?”

- Arvald Inkfist, Poet, following the dissolution of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Battalion, 6th Battalion, 11th Battalion, 13th Battalion, of the 3rd Army (Broken Isles Vanguard) and the dissolution of the Lordaeron Territories Expeditionary Fleet (Broken Isles Vanguard)

The spray of water splattered violently over Irlan as the assault boat crashed upon frothing waves, causing the man to blink rapidly at the stinging in his eyes.

Around him his fellow marines cursed. This was soon drowned out by the roar of the boat’s engine starting - and settling into a steady chugging rhythm, filling the air with the acrid smell of fumes even as it began to head towards the blackened shore with its stormy skies of emerald lightning.

There were many things the soldiers disliked about the Gnomish propelled boats. They were noisy, crude and worst of all, sat high above the waterline - none of the sleek stealth of trained oarsmen. That said, no one would complain

Irlan held his tongue, which he knew pleased Dro’gar. The veteran orc loathed such outbursts for little purpose. Hold your anger at the seas, he had said - and unleash it upon your foes.

“Oi, left’nant Sir!”

Dro’gar sighed.

“Yes, Private Kellor.”

“Sir, why ain't we been blasted out of these damn boxes yet anyway, sir? We're like disabled murlocs floating out ere! Sir!”

“Private Kellor, I am pleased that your tiny brain is capable of primeval self awareness. Shall we throw you off the side and see if the Legion will fish you out to explain it to you before they bite your head off?”

“Nossir! Am a marine sir, would swim faster than this damn boat! Sir!”

Irlan was not sure why the orc, wore the Argent’s white and gold at all. But against their enemy - against this enemy - he would be the last to complain.

After all, his Common was oddly acceptable. Not that he would ever try to describe his officer as ‘acceptable’, if he wanted to ever avoid latrine duty again.

“TWO MINUTES! Gear check!”

Helmet, strapped. Breastplate, strapped. Greaves, strapped. Elbow and knee guards, strapped. Gloves-

Despite the danger of doing so, Irlan glanced up to the sky. It was strangely...empty. They had heard, all of them, of the swirling demons that circled in the thousands, ready to tear the four hundred marines apart in their boats despite the three frigates behind their backs, broadsides facing the shore and grapeshot cannons towards to the sky.

“ONE MINUTE! Weapons ready!”

In practiced movement, the twenty marines in the boat unslung crossbows from their backs at Cragfist’s shout. The mental checklist ran swiftly through in their minds even as leather-gloved hands ran over the weapons.

String oiled and ready. Trigger locked. Quiver, twenty quarrels - ten punchers, ten flakers. Fins clean. Miriana. Two grenades, bronze. Sword, standard issue. Dagger, standard issue. Shovel, standard issue-

In the midst of this routine mental exercise, Irlan wandered.

He was privately proud that the Crusade was spearheading this assault upon the Legion. No, that was the wrong word - he was publicly proud, and so was everyone on this accursed machine of a boat and beyond.

Too long had they sat idle, slowly leeching away as the world moved on. Too long had the Argents tended to gardens and walls in Hearthglen, turning inward. This was a show of force, and one that would earn him - and the Crusade - the respect they had once commanded. The respect that they deserved.

“LOAD!”

Front ten punchers. Back ten flakers. Miriana, will you be proud again? That your husband does not waste away guarding walls against enemies who have faded into history?

Crossbow fully cranked, Irlan slipped the puncher into its groove. The broad, ugly head gleamed even in the dull light of grey clouds - these bolts were not named for the elegance with which they tore through steel like hungry serpents.

The boat’s rhythmic vibrations slowed, and twenty men and women tensed like bowstrings straining for release.

The creaking of chains.

“Fer’ the Light, or whatever spirit yeh hold dear...”

The front of the assault boat crashed down, armoured ramp thumping down onto the grey beach and revealing the ashen hellscape beyond them.

“FER AZEROTH - HIT THE BEACH!”

A roar in response. The Argent marines charged, sealed boots thundering down the wooden ramp and into the waiting maw of the storm…

...and it was too quiet, save for the splashing of struggling marines and the crackle of fel magic above.

Levelling his crossbow, the private peered down the length of the puncher as he advanced leftwards to the flank of his squad. Two rows of five - Irlan stood the far point, nearly shoulder to shoulder with the right point of the adjacent squad.

They had been deposited chest-deep in the water - not ideal, but for good reason. Marines cleared the beach - the second wave of heavies would be rushing right onto sand, both to better establish formations and simply not drown in their plate and mail.

The problem lay with the first element of their purpose, as four hundred crossbow bearing marines advanced out of the water and onto an empty shore of grey, volcanic ash. He noted this, as he knew his fellow soldiers would - harder to dig in, but they would fare better against any explosives coming their way.

Dro’gar’s voice called out in guttural Common. “Second squad, spread out! Secure the beach!”

What was there to secure? The unease grew in Irlan’s stomach, and he heard the caution in the grizzled orc’s voice.

The grey ash underfoot was soft even beneath his heavy boots, and he found himself struggling to maintain his balance as though he were walking through snow. A hundred paces north jagged outcrops of rock grew invitingly into view, promising shelter and a vantage point for the exposed marines.

It had to be a trap, and they were walking right into it. The thought must have been repeated, for he heard the orc’s voice behind.

“Sergeant, tell the fleet to hold the heavies in the boats. We must-”

“I’d agree, lad, but it’s too late - look!”

They heard the rhythmic chug of the assault boats even before they turned their heads, and Dro’gar grunted a string of Orcish under his breath.

“Right. Relay the order, sergeant - marines to withdraw to skirmisher positions while the heavies assemble. Form up companies when they’re ready and take flanking positions to the line.”

Ramps thudded onto ash as the marines slowly withdrew, the heavier thumps of five hundred heavy infantrymen rolling out in a wave behind them. Already in the far distance the chugging of the second wave of assault boats could be heard, bringing to bear the remainder of the Vanguard.

Then the world pulsed.

The wave of unease swept through all on the beach and beyond, a sudden surge of nausea that flowed through Irlan as he sagged unexpectedly with the weight of his weapon.

Irlan glanced up just in time to see the flickering circle of fel runes in the air, a sight that churned his stomach even further. The cursed energy seemed to expand in a long tube, expanding to form a tunnel…

Light above.

Like living nightmares from twisted dreams - two dagger-like constructs simply flashed into existence amidst the grey clouds, rupturing the sky with terrible ease. The shockwave of their arrival sent the air in a wave down below, throwing the marines into the ash.

Sky ships. No...so much more. So much less fragile than the flimsy contraptions of metal and wood. He remembered the old soldiers, telling the tales of Naxxramas. The Ebon Hold. Malykriss.

He realised, in that moment, how much they were but children in a universe of monsters. They built ships to reach for the skies, and instead found those infinitely their greater...and crueler.

This ship bore two fangs to the bow, and in between them a roiling froth of darkness, true darkness, the kind that stole a gaze and sent it stretching into oblivion and the true horrors of the universe.

He could not help but stare at the emerald fire surging in bolts from the void towards the second wave of assault boats.

A horror show in slow motion. He wrenched his gaze away, only to settle on the heavy infantry screaming helplessly in their boats, desperately clambering over the sides.

The felfire landed, and with them brought death.

Screams were drowned as the very sea seemed to explode with crackling energy, throwing up huge gouts of water, splintered wood, armour, weapons and the remains of living things. The thud next to Irlan turned his head, and he stared blankly into half a dwarven face, the skull caved in from the side and grey matter still leaking out.

The green lightning raced across the water surging into the air, dancing amongst the liquid, and falling with it back down onto the surviving craft.

Then the screams began again - not of fear, but of pain as the floating containers were set ablaze, illuminating the stunned marines and infantry on the beach a sickly green.

Men and women threw themselves off the boats, coated in writhing flames, yet water could not extinguish them. There in the churning waters they become phantasms of light, writhing, grabbing at themselves, before finally falling still, sinking, dimming into the dark depths.

A hand grabbed him by his breastplate, hauling him to his feet. In this dazed vision he saw the green face roaring at him, as hands pressed the miraculously still-loaded crossbow back into his hands.

“....FORWARD! ... FOR COVER, ALL OF YOU!”

They ran, even as the fel ships launched their second salvo towards the fleet. He did not turn back, not when he heard the thundering explosion of energy and splintering wood behind him.

Get to the rocks. Get to the rocks. Eighty paces.

The unknown soldier to his left cried out suddenly as a length of wood struck her back, driving through the buckler and spine, pinning her down to the ground. The woman twitched feebly on the ground and went limp.

Get to the rocks. Forty paces. A third salvo, screaming with energy as it tore through air and reality.

Get to the rocks. Twenty paces. Ten paces.

The rocks shifted, fire suddenly blazing within it like an ancient hearth coming to life, rumbling with a terrible grating noise as the infernal came to life.

“Grenades!” Dro’gar roared, already flinging away his crossbow for the bomb at his belt. “GRENADES-”

The infernal took a step forward, a face of rock somehow burning with hatred for the mortals before it, the boulder-like fist swinging through the air.

There was no crash, no thundering blow for the Orcish veteran. Instead there was only a squelch and a muted thump as Dro’gar disappeared into the ash, the only indication of his existence the halo of dark red that splattered across Irlan’s face and chest.

The dripping boulder lifted again, a dusty paste of blood and ash coating the rock and pulling with it the tattered green skin of Dro’gar, still in one piece.

The clink of a pin being pulled, and the private threw with all his might even as he leaped backwards into the ash.

Two grenades landed at the infernal’s feet. A third rattled into the blazing chest cavity of the infernal. This time, the deafening explosion echoed within the confine of its body, sending slivers of rock spraying.

Not fast enough. One moment he had been leaping backwards - the next it felt as though someone had punched the side of his face. A flash of pain - then a ringing noise in his ear. Why did it feel wet? And why was his vision suddenly dark on one side?

Irlan gingerly touched the left side of his helmet as he rose, fingers exploring with morbid curiosity how the metal had dented inwards, slicing his ear to ribbons and crushing his cheekbone and orbital, the eye now indistinguishable from the various liquids sprayed across his skin.

It was a strange realisation. He found himself wondering what Miriana would say to a cripple. Hopefully she would be understanding.

The man staggered back towards the shield wall of heavy infantry with the ragged remnants of the marines, ill-prepared as they were to deal with the infernals at close quarters. Shields parted to let him through - though few along the line needed to part at all.

They could see the demons gathering now, felguard with their massive axes assembling. Rather than charge headlong into the soldiers...they laughed a bestial, grunting noise, slowly walking towards the bristling wall.

Behind them, a stranger one no mortal on Azeroth had seen before - a strange, floating thing, skull-faced and with a fel eye hovering in its grasp.

“Lock shields! BRACE!”

As one, the heavy infantry grounded themselves and their shields, sword points held just ahead. Patrolling behind them, the calming beacons of faith in the form of paladins strode fearlessly, exhorting the swordsmen.

The floating demon seemed to gaze idly at the gathered warriors of the Light before it. It did not smile - it could not smile. But it certainly gave the distinct impression of holding one as it carelessly gestured a clawed hand to formed ranks.

Nearly five hundred swords flashed green, vibrating in the hands of their wielders - then exploded.

Suddenly the line was a roiling mass as infantrymen screamed in pain, scrabbling at fragments of metal now embedded in elbows, faces, legs, stomachs - at least, those who did not immediately go down to shards of steel in throats or eyes.

The triumphant felguards had not needed to run. Now they simply walked into the mass of disorganised Argents with delight, broad axes cleaving with impunity, tearing away arms and chests with brutal blows, a second line behind the first calmly plunging the spiked ends of their weapons into the wailing survivors scattered in the pasty ash.

Now the front ranks attempted to escape, pushing back into their similarly injured comrades to the rear as officers fought the losing battle to regain control. Those who fell were pushed underfoot, joining the bloody paste of ash, to be crushed by either weighted boots or the deliberate footfalls of demons.

He watched the paladin continue a desperate last stand, warhammer caving in a felguard’s skull before a pike caught him in his lower back, sending the armoured warrior to the ground.

The floating being continued its peaceful path through the carnage, casually leaning to one end to plunge its clawed fist into the paladin’s back, pushing aside the spine and tearing through lung before ripping out the beating heart. It then offered the red lump of meat to the blazing fel eye, which devoured it hungrily.

He had stopped fleeing. All order had collapsed, panicking soldiers stripping off plate and casting away shields and useless weapon grips as they tried to swim back to their burning ships.

Now he stood. Awaiting the advancing tide of grey and red paste that reached out towards the water.

Oh, Miriana.

He watched as a felguard sauntered up before him, leering at the unarmed figure. It sniffed the air before Irlan, face wrinkling under its helm - as though in contempt for the one-eyed marine after having judged him unworthy for death by the blade.

It grabbed him in its free hand, and simply squeezed.

The cracking of his arms and ribs didn’t bother him anymore. Not did the splintering noise of his own body shoulderblades caving in, collarbones snapping, set to the cacophony of the terrified dying and the trampled dead. His remaining vision dimmed as the demon flung him casually to one side.

Think better of this simple guardsman.

Life was a beacon, flickering and feeble, naught but the faded memory of a candle in the mind. Darkness rushed in like the waves of the sea, spraying his face gently with mist.

#The Broken Steel Chronicle #story

[ruleandruinrpg]

ALEKSANDER MOROZOVA

UNKNOWN ❈ THE DARKLING THE ORDER OF SUMMONERS (ETHEREALKI)

Man’s greatest folly is, perhaps, not his tendency to put his gods on a pedestal, to lay at their altars his heart and other fragile things, but his forgetfulness—his failure to recognize that all gods were once men, and all men were once children. He, too, was a boy once, a child who listened more than he spoke and learned far more than he let on, building empires out of sticks and stones and daring to call himself the king. Yet for all that he was once ordinary, he was different in a way neither he nor those around him could ever reconcile, and he knew it from a young age, knew it as well as he knew his own name: Aleksander, a name given to blacksmiths’ boys, to merchants’ sons, to fishermen’s heirs—a name he would one day give up in favor of another, in favor of the sort of infamy that demands blood sacrifice, though it would never be his own. To be remembered was to be forgotten, and so he was—year by shadowed year, death by hallowed death. Infinite. He became infinite, in name and ability, in lives and in victories, so entrenched in the shadows he commanded that the boy he’d once been was lost along the way, left to live on forever in oblivion or to die there—whichever suited him best. The darkness in his heart had never left any room for love, for gentleness, for light; it took and devoured until there was nothing left of what might’ve been, and all that was left was this: a man, half-legend and half-horror, with a heart black as night.

They called him the Darkling, though none could be sure whether the name had come from his own machinations or from the blackness that loved him like a son, and they feared him, as they did all terrible and unknown things, for it is in the nature of man to fear that which he does not understand, and he—perhaps even more than the rest of his kind—was utterly beyond comprehension. Strange and powerful though he might’ve been, however, his dreams, in the beginning, were the same dreams shared by countless others with similar gifts: a world where his people did not have to run like fugitives, did not have to hide like animals bred for the hunt, did not bear their gifts like crosses—like martyrs. They hailed him as their leader, thrust him upon a throne and called him moi soverennyi, and from his reign the seed of the Second Army grew, planted by hope and nourished by ambition. Beneath his guiding hand, Grisha became something to be valued, sought after—if not trusted, then tolerated, and in due time, his followers believed, they would be not simply Grisha, but Ravkans, seen as countrymen where they had once been only weapons. But great power begets great ambition, and a man gifted with the power to cast down the sun and stars if he so desired it could be no exception. His greed would know no bounds, as wild a thing as the dark it was born from; his greed would swallow the world whole.

And it did, ardently and utterly without his permission or control. It was ravenous, this power, this cold and cruel darkness—even crueler, perhaps, than the man it bowed to, and when the otkazat’sya told their stories in the centuries that followed, they would struggle to distinguish the servant from the master, the good intentions from the terrible. It was meant to be a good thing, a noble thing—a means of defending the kingdom from those who sought to destroy it, but his greed pushed him farther still, edged his power over the line that separated natural from merzost, forced his hand in ways none had ever seen before. Years later, they’d say the Fold was a mistake, the creation of avarice that knew no bounds, but the truth, dark and deep and raw, was that he’d wanted every wicked bit of it and more. It was his pride, his terrible hope, his mark on the world that no amount of inferni hellfire could burn away; he branded the world for all to see that infamous day, and the warning it gave rang throughout the kingdom like church bells, reverberated in the bones of his people like a prayer for which there were no words. Yet he hated it, too, this unconquerable, immeasurable thing, because for all that it came to be by his doing, it proved unruly even to him. And though it outlived the version of him that created it, as a man who never aged was far too much for mere mortals to understand, he swore that it wouldn’t outlive the last version of him; even if it took an eternity, he would see it bow to him once more, and with it, the world.

He has seen empires rise and empires fall, he has led rebellions and quelled them, he has tasted conquest, brewed terror, created vainglory as thick as a man’s torso and as crimson-deep as the cut which severs it. Moi soverennyi. That awe-tinged echo clings to him like the shadows to the hidden face of the moon; relentlessly, possessively – like brazen worshipers at the dais of their god. And darkness incarnate rose like a phoenix from the ashes of his own demise; remaking, retelling, reliving the same story of immortal splendor, inherent horror. Again, and again, and again he has made himself new. Five lives, five legacies, five tales of rule and ruin. Aleksander, a boy forgotten. Morozova, a man made myth. Moi soverennyi, moi soverennyi, moi soverennyi. He is their tsar, their emperor, their conquistador, their fragile life and rotten death – a thousand nights of fear, a thousand days of majesty and sin so sacred that it burns. His ambition drives him, his power feeds him, his pride rears up and swallows his enemies whole. He is cold and beautiful and void of love; yet still they come, with their prayers and their hatred, with their numinous wonder and effervescent longing. And as they cling to the black of his robes, there is nothing but odinakovost and etovost, manifesting like twin wolves at the heels of their master. For what is power? Power is power. And what is infinite? Nothing but the universe, and the g r e e d of men.

CONNECTIONS

GEMMA PAVLOVA: It wasn’t something as mundane as loneliness—which all ordinary men and their faint, fool’s gold hearts are susceptible to—but a hunger for some great and terrible kinship, that led him to ask the universe for an equal, that led him to wait lifetimes for their deliverance, and at long last, he believes he’s found her: his balance, the only one that might keep his power in check, the light that might drive out his darkness. But for all that she seems a proper adversary in theory, she’s young, and she has much to learn before she can reach her full potential, before she can liken herself to him. Fortunately, he’s a patient man, and he’ll wait as many lifetimes as it takes for her to rule the world alongside him or be forced to lay it at his feet, for there are only two names for Grisha like them: saints and heretics—one cannot be both.

ALTAN YUL-SUHE: He’s capable, if nothing else—obedient enough to follow orders and ruthless enough to follow them faithfully, and he values the man for it, in the way one might value a prized hound. His right hand toys with heartstrings like red ribbons, steals the air from men’s lungs with a mere curl of his fingers, and he can’t say he doesn’t wonder, at times, what it must feel like to feel a man’s very life sifting through your fingers—that is, of course, until he remembers he already knows. He’ll keep him around, this red-cloaked brute, this heart attack of a soldier, until he’s served his purpose or strayed from it; even the best of men are replaceable.

ANTON LANTSOV: He is but a boy trying to fill the shoes of a king, little more than a child compared to his father and brother before him, and thus far, his attempts at preparing to run a country are laughable. Sooner or later, he’ll learn that wit only serves a man when choosing his last words; sooner or later, he’ll see that the fall of kingdoms and the rise of empires is inevitable, and by then, it’ll be too late. Let him whisper sweet nothings in the ears of his people; let him give them false hope with his victories and rally them onward with his defeats, for the real enemy fights not with guns and toy soldiers, but with horrors unseen. This war was never his to win.

THE DARKLING IS PORTRAYED BY SEAN O’PRY & IS TAKEN BY SIDNEY.

#lsrpg #literate rp #bio rp #fantasy rp #tgt #grisha rp #a #m #ether #aleksander #aleksanderbio #closed #closedm