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k7l4d4 · 3 years

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Midnight Striga: Fairy Tail/Owl House Cross Fic Episode 5 Part 7

Once more, I arrive, with Midnight Striga in tow!! Everybody Clap Your Hands!!

Boyd was utterly bored. Groaning, he slung his knife, Radical Chop, over his shoulder, lightly kicking the twitching corpse next to him, one of Reticulus’ leftovers. Those were never fun to deal with, ‘cause they were already dead! What was the point of a killer guarding a corpse, instead of, you know, killing? Eh, maybe he could practice his mutilations, he had been getting a little rusty in that regard. Humming to himself, he slung the ragged body beneath his feet into an upright position; a girl from the looks of it, brown hair styled into three rings on the top of her head, her left eye gouged out, and missing her tongue. Glancing down he saw that her heart and stomach had been extracted. By his estimate, he’d say she was about 12, verging on 13. Ah man, he could’ve had such fun with her!

Sighing, he twirled his knife before pointing the tip towards her. The knife lengthened, stretched, and bent, contouring around the edges of her face, slowly and cleanly skinning off the layer of tissue. If only that eye wasn’t missing, then he could’ve added it to his collection! Ah well, better luck next time. While he was seemingly distracted, one of the nearby Witches decided to make a break for it, a boy whose hair covered his eyes and possessed rather bat-like ears. Without even glancing his way, Boyd’s knife shot out like a bullet, cleanly slicing through his throat in an instant. He didn’t even have a chance to scream, how boring!

“Stupid Witches, can’t even die properly.” He grumbles, flicking the boy’s blood off of his precious blade. “Stupid Reticulus, never leaving any good corpses to slice up.” He briefly wonders again as to why, exactly, he was being stuck with this stupid job. He was one of the Squadron’s best killers, so why were his talents being squandered? He mulled it over in his head, knife idly slicing through the girl’s corpse, when a creak drew his gaze forward. As the reason finally clicked, he deadpanned. He was being used as bait, and as a test; great.

Three kids stood in front of him, staring at him like he was some kind of fucking monster; to be fair, he was one, no doubt about that, but it was always so annoying when people looked at him like that. He briefly contemplated trying to figure out which one Reticulus wanted to test, but decided it would be more fun to just kill the little shits. Not like they really mattered anyway. The chunky girl with the glasses started doing that stupid circle thing they did to cast spells, can’t have that. His knife shot out, smoothly slicing through her wrist and across her face, stabbing through her eyes into the brain.

Before the other two could do more than widen their eyes, he struck again. His blade ripped through the neck of the Mint-headed girl, and wasn’t that a color, sending her head rolling. Before the smaller boy could even scream, the knife slammed through his skull, entering through one ear, and exiting out the other. Scowling, he called Radical Chop back to him. No trouble at all, not even worth the effort of being clean. He sighed, only for a familiar, sharp pain to rush through his body; he had been stabbed. Glancing down, he was both surprised and not to see a dagger driven into his gut, the angle allowing for it to be dragged into his other vital organs easily. He spoke up, perfectly calm in the face of his death. “You can drop the invisibility now.”

As the air next to him rippled and faded, he was pleasantly surprised to see another kid, her face carefully blank save the familiar rage in her eyes, the kind he saw in all the kids who saw him kill their friends. He smirked. “Gotta say, pretty cold of you to throw your friends into the grinder like that.”

The girl snorted, calling over her shoulder. “Gus! Drop the illusion.”

“Got it!” A young voice called out, the corpses of the kids fading along with the blood coating his precious blade, the kids from before shimmering into view, ready to pounce if things turned dicy for the kid stabbing him at the moment.

Boyd snorted. He had underestimated them. He gave the girl who had effectively killed him a smirk. “So, you’re the little rat Retic wants to test, eh?” He laughed at her furious expression. “If you’re looking for him, he should be up ahead, going over the latest batch of bodies. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Before they could blink, he whipped his blade, his beautiful Radical Chop, up to his head, driving it through his own skull.

Gus gagged, while Amity and Willow looked on stoically. It was certainly an improvement over Gus actively heaving and the girls shouting. It was to be expected, as this was the fifteenth kill by this point, though they had only gone for the stealth option when they saw how quickly he had killed that Witch trying to get past him.

Amity glanced down at the Witch the man had killed. She recognized him. “Hey, I think I know this one.”

Luz walked over, glancing down at the bat-eared boy, curious. “Really? Who is he?”

Amity shrugged. “I honestly don’t know him personally, but Skara was interested in him a little.” She sighed, knowing that she’d have to deliver the news to her friend. “I really hope she takes this well.” She glanced up at the feeling of a hand on her shoulder, seeing Willow giving her a comforting, if hesitant smile, which she returned.

Luz sighed. “Let’s go, we’ve still got to take down Retic if we want this to end.” The others nodded. Bracing themselves, they moved, ready for the fight to come, or so they thought.

Eda moved to Lily’s side, shaking her roughly. “Come on Sis, we don’t have time for this!” She cried, frantically gesturing to the crowd under attack. She bit her lip, tilting Lily’s head up. “Listen, Sis, I know we usually don’t see eye to eye, but if you can’t get out of your head, that crowd is going to die.” She thought she saw a flicker of light in her eyes. “You always said you wanted to be in Bonehead’s Coven to help people, well now’s your chance to prove it! Those people up there? They came here to see you, because they believe in you! Are you really going to let them down!?” She got down on her knees, pleading. “Sis, I need your help, as painful and ridiculous as it sounds, it’s the truth! Please!” She glanced back at Rudolph, who had paused, enjoying the show. The bastard was enjoying watching her beg for her sister’s help.

Rudolph snickered, and laughed. “It truly is amusing to see! Earlier, I had lamented your decision to keep the wretched thing alive, but I see now that I was wrong!!” He cackled, relishing the look of enraged confusion on Eda’s face, even as the crowd desperately fought to survive.

“What in hell are you talking about, you psycho!!” Eda growled, bracing herself to defend if necessary.

Rudolph gave her an ugly smirk, oozing amusement. “Simple. You may not have killed her body, but you certainly killed her spirit! She’s lost the will to live, I’d say!” He cackled, soaking in the look of dawning horror on Eda’s face, the soul-crushing realization of what her display had done, even if she couldn’t comprehend how.

“No.” Eda breathed out, slowly walking away from Lily. “That wouldn’t happen, not with her! She’s too strong for that to happen!”

“Is she?” Rudolph mused, genuinely curious. “Everything we’ve gathered has pointed to a woman with a rather fragile ego; seeing her baby sister showing her up once again must’ve been quite the shock.” He was amused at Eda’s denial; for all she claimed to be the strongest on the Isles, a statement not totally devoid of fact, she seemed to be a tad oblivious to the fortitude of those around her.

“Gathered…” Eda muttered, her eyes widening. “You’ve been spying on her!?”

“Oh her, the schools, the government, you, everyone really. We carefully staked this out ever since we arrived.” He placed his hands on his hips, looking pleased with himself. “I must say, we certainly displayed an impressive amount of restraint, building all of this up.” He shrugged. “Normally, we just come and kill everything and everyone we come across. It was quite the learning experience!”

“You…” Eda growled, pure hate coloring her voice. “Just who do you think you are!?”

“Why, my dear, I think I’m the one leading the attack on your people, at the moment at least.” Rudolph cheekily replied. “After all…

“... We are the ones who hold the power in this situation.”

Mattholomule silently cried behind a stand, the crazed laughter of the maniac out front still ringing in his ears. He had just seen a woman torn limb from limb by flying chains, her organs and blood splattered all about. Bria sat next to him, biting her lip, while Gavin and Angmar played Rock-Paper-Scissors to figure out what to do. That choice was taken from them, however, when a chain yanked Bria out of hiding, prompting the three to scream in fear.

“It is simply the way of the world, after all. The powerful thrive, the weak die. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Emira held in a curse, while Edric hyperventilated next to her. Two squads of the invaders had just finished corralling a group of kids into a corner. She closed her eyes, trying to tune out the screams, Edric silently crying next to her, as the Mages ripped the children apart in a hail of magic. Glaring daggers at the murderers, Emira paused, a plan coming to her. Whispering to Edric, who nodded firmly in agreement, the two slunk into the shadows.

“Why, it is only natural for those with power, namely us, to do with it as we- HURK!”

Reticulus loomed over a potential donor, their limbs spread by his veins, dislocated from his body and acting as ropes to bind and restrain his target. He licked his lips. It wouldn’t do for the fools to potentially damage his prize with unnecessary struggling, now would it? Just as he reeled back to rip his prizes from the worthless husk before him, his body registered the sensation of a blade digging into his arm.

“Just shut your fucking mouth.” Eda warned, the butt of her staff slammed into the sadist’s gut. Seeing his hands take on that icy glow, she raised her leg, slamming him back with a kick to the chest. “You don’t know anything about the people of the Isles!” She shouted, her eyes spotting Bump summoning some Abominations in the stands, directing them at Rudolph’s troops.

“You think just because you’ve got a lot of power, you get to throw it around, and we’ll just take it?” She countered his frost with a fireball, landing a cracking blow across his jaw. When Rudolph slammed his hands against the ground, summoning an encroaching sheet of frost, she ripped it away with a shockwave of magical force.

“Your resistance to the inevitable is growing irksome!” He yelled, forming a fang of ice around his hand, lashing out at Eda. She blocked his blow with her staff, grunting as he forced her back. Spines of ice formed along his arms, stabbing towards Eda. “Your people are a pack of sheep, blindly following the words of a false prophet in their inane desire for safety!!” He encased her wrists in ice, preventing her from casting, before slamming his forehead into her eyes. “You may well be the strongest on the Isles, but that title is as hollow as their leader’s words!” He slashed his blades at Eda’s sides, a cry of pain ripping from her throat. Unbeknownst to either combatants, Lilith twitched at Eda’s cries.

“I…! Have stood on my own two feet… my entire life!” Eda choked out, hands grabbing at the claws currently pinning her in place.

“I do what I want to do, nothing more… nothing less…!”

Bria screamed, feeling the skin of her arms and legs stretching from the chains pulling her in either direction. The pain was like nothing she had felt before. Angmar and Gavin were being pinned in place, metal blades pushing into their hands to keep them from casting. She was… she was going to die here. Tears came to her eyes at the thought.

The maniac tormenting her gave a demented giggle, gesturing for the chains to rip her apart, once and for all.

“Stay away from Bria!” A young voice shouted. The agent turned in shock, his casting forgotten, as a fist as large as his torso careened towards him, pulping his skull. Standing defiantly, was Matty, tears of rage in his eyes.

“But for all that I hate Bonehead… I love the Isles… and the people who call it home…!”

With the plan prepped and ready to go, Emira glanced towards Edric. Grimly, she nodded, with him flashing a thumbs up in response. In perfect sync, the two yanked on the cords they had set up, releasing a colossal explosion of smoke into the groups of killers. Working in concert, the twins cast a spell onto the two groups. When their vision cleared, both groups saw the other as a squad of Coven Guards. Reacting to the apparent enemy, the two sets of invaders unleashed their magic upon each other, and in a matter of moments, all were dead. The twins dropped the spell, clutching each other in relief.

“So if you think I’m just going to stand back… and let you kill people because you feel like it… then you’re even crazier than you look!!”

With a scream of rage, Luz drove her blades into Reticulus’ eyes, while Willow used her vines to rip free the near-victim, Amity conjuring up her Abomination to cushion the fall, Gus using his Illusions to guide the way to the exit. Using his broad back as leverage, Luz pushed herself off of his body, landing in a crouch near the others, eyes glaring daggers at the hulking monster before them.

Rudolph scoffed, his humor long gone. “And did you forget that my magical frost builds up and hampers you further the more of it you are exposed to? Hmm?” He accused, eyes narrowed in contempt.

“Nope!” Eda gamely replied. “I just decided I hated the look of you more than I was afraid of dying against you.” Her cheeky grin turned daring, eyes bright with challenge. “Even if I die, I’ll have died fighting for my freedom. Give me your best shot, you two-bit bully.”

With a roar of rage, Rudolph reared back his arm, fully intending to skewer the arrogant Witch who dared to challenge his might! His eyes widened in surprise, however, when his attack clashed against a raised staff, brilliant aquamarine eyes glaring at him.

“Stay. Away. From my sister.” Lilith hissed.

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aniimvs · 4 years

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"plots please" !!! cause yessss

subject plots please // accepting : :

i'll respond with three or more potential relationships // connections // plots between our muses. a creative exercise with no pressure to follow up, but we can if you'd like!

𝐢. fairytale

i see you, i see you liking that fairytale verse post and yessss. look, imagine if you will:

jaina couldn't give a toss about courtly life. not her thing, not her jam, not her cuppa tea. and expectations on what she'll do with her life are slim pickings. become an advisor for her brother? eh. become an ambassador? meh. a political marriage to ensure peace between nations? bleh.

responsibilities of the state are her brother's problems. his book is filled with expectations, but jaina has a lot of blank pages just waiting for her. she's got her eyes on the horizon and, much to leia's dismay, she follows it. jaina decides to find her adventure and maybe even a ship called the falcon whose captain might the estranged consort, mhm.

but then tragedy strikes and suddenly, jaina is heir to throne. leia sends out riders to bring her home but she isn't the only one looking for jaina though. the black knight kylo ren is on the hunt and unlike the couriers, he doesn't stop till he gets what he wants.

i imagine when he finds jaina, she doesn't know who she is. she wasn't there to witness her brother's fall and while on the road, it's hard to keep track on the current happenings across the world. but maybe there was a rider who found her first, told her a blip of the bad news that her brother was dead and that jaina was expected to take his place. tells her all this right before he's struck dead by the violent arrival of kylo ren.

from there i can see it becoming a fight/capture arc that kylo ren most likely ends up winning. so now poor jaina is not only a prisoner but by the man she believes may have/did kill her brother. and then what if on the way back to snoke's domain or wherever it is that kylo wants to take her, something far more frightening than the black knight of the fae seeks to slake its thirst.

𝐢𝐢. carnival row

critch hunter kylo and critch smuggler jaina? they're at complete odds with each other. her brother is a ruthless killer who uses the powers his hybrid lineage gave him to kill others exactly like him. and his sister uses the airship she inherited from their father to not only transport refugees but supplies to the row.

anytime they see each other ─── which most of the time is right when jaina sails off with ren's quarry ─── it's all glowers and growls. but for all the animosity, neither of them will betray each other's secret: they're half-bloods. jaina doesn't want her to see her brother dead or imprisoned by the very people he works for and kylo doesn't want to see his sister treated like...well, how critch are treated. even in the burgue, if it were to slip that she wasn't fully human despite her appearance? they wouldn't let her keep her ship or the government would surely give her a hard time about it. she'd be under constant threat of losing all she's worked for, she be under such scrutiny that she'd become an ineffective smuggler and then what? as much as her brother hates what she does, he won't put her at risk no matter how tempting it might be to be rid of such a persistent nuisance. he doesn't want to see his sister in the row or anywhere that'll punish her for being strongwilled.

i'd assume the feeling is mutual. kylo's line of work has made plenty of enemies that would pounce on even a hint of his lineage. he's crafty, like his sister, and while they both use the magic in their blood to their benefit ─── it's not kylo's freedom that's threatened, but his life. and for all the bitterness that might stew between them, a dead brother's not on her wishlist.

as for the plot? i feel like there's a lot of interactions they could have. a fighty, cat-and-mouse thread of kylo ren chasing after his sister as she tries to guide a group of refugees to her ship. i can see them meeting in the burgue, her wondering why her brother is there and him trying to avoid her finding anything out at all cost. jaina would be much more the aggressor in that scenario. not in a violent way, but i can see her tailing after him, demanding answers, tracking him down, spying on him, and kylo just incoherently screaming in his head about it. playing off that, how the events of the first season would affect them during their hide-and-go-seek on steroids. especially since their mother is an augur and they've inherited her gifts.

fortunately and unfortunately, carnival row doesn't have any source material beyond a screenplay for a movie from a decade or so ago. so while that means we don't have any canon to that replicates what force-sensitivity would best translate as and what otherkin that would be, it does leave room for our own speculation. a human-passing witch-like otherkin with telekinetic abilities isn't a reach for what we've seen in the show so far. and even if leia isn't full otherkin either, and their powers are from an ancestor, that doesn't change the targets between their eyes if anyone ever found out because "blood impurity" of any kind is enough to turn society against you.

𝐢𝐢𝐢. tolkien

i've been speculating about this one for a looooooooooong damn time because frankly it feels sacrilegious to change anything about middle-earth. i need to reread at least the silmarillion and the children of húrin or at least dig into the deepest, darkest pits of my mythology notes to sparknotes myself. i'm not entirely sure where to place it at the moment but i imagine alderaan is a small, very beautiful and very cursed kingdom of men. the ruling bloodline has been thoroughly plagued by internal conflict with their alliances flip-flopping every generation or so. and it's because of that there's inherited weakness to the call of the dark and a very young ben would've been susceptible to the whispers of a servant of sauron.

i'm sure ben is good at hiding it but it's only a matter of time before someone hears him mumbling to himself in the dark tongue and wondering where the fuck he picked that trick up.

but yes! this verse is very theoretical at the moment because there's a lot of events to work around, especially with the specific placement of alderaan. i do fancy the idea of them being within the sights of angmar though and leia having screaming matches with the witch-king since the day she was born. it would also lend to just how corrupted their lands are and why there's a strong influence of evil bleeding into its heirs. but i'm also digging the idea of having them border ithilien, so they get to have that look of "the prettiest in the westlands" look but the corruption of the morgulduin seeps into their soil.

that latter idea is what i'm really focusing on because the idea of rebellious scamp royals ben and jaina sneaking off to go adventuring and seeing minas morgul is a such a morbid mood because just imagine feeling the evil radiating around them. ben, of course, wants a closer look. he's drawn to it and jaina's just like "haha we're in danger."

𝐢𝐯. time period horror

i'm not entirely sure on what time period because i'm very drawn to a colonial setting for the vvitch and sleepy hollow oomph but also early 1900s is a such a fantastic gothic period that would put them through the gauntlet. it's modern, but with still a lot of untouched wilderness for them to get dragged through by a pair of clawed hands attached to gnashing teeth. but either way, something that mixes american horror classics like witchcraft + washington irving + lovecraft + edgar allan poe.

i don't have a solid idea for an over-arc plot but i imagine something episodic. like different mysteries and hunts that they go on and experiencing the strife that goes along with the real world events happening as they get dunked on by cryptids. plus, i doubt they'd be fully human themselves.

i think in this verse, we would get to see what they'd be like as brother and sister without corruption physically taking jaina's brother away from her, but i do think ben would still have dark tendencies and the deeper they go into an unseen world of monsters and magic... *cue maniacal coffee sipping*

𝐯. the children of indi-han-a jones

a verse with indiana jones and the mummy vibes? mhm. yes please. also gives the solo sibs to be their solo-iest because i don't think ben would be evil. he might be morally grey with that good old hollywood american ability of getting himself into completely avoidable trouble, but an heir of darkness he is not. he might be prone to dark influences/curses but s'little different. anyway, this in the late 1800s to the early 1900s setting? gimme.

#⋞ answered ⋟ // the voices never stop.#yunharlaquin #*projectile word vomit*

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elucubrare · 7 years

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vestisferrea replied to your post: Morgoth, Treebeard, and Tom Bombadil

I also like Tom Bombadil. He’s enigmatic, as he should be. Not everything requires an explanation.

Congratulations, you've unlocked My Thoughts on Tom Bombadil!

First, let's get this out of the way: the movies were absolutely right to cut him; he wouldn't have transferred well.

Now: Tom Bombadil is the perfect bridge between the world of the Shire and the world outside, which is full of peril. He's apparently a jolly old man, taking part in the world of The Hobbit, which is a children's book; but of course he's also got one of my favorite passages in the whole trilogy:

Suddenly Tom's talk left the woods and went leaping up the young stream, over bubbling waterfalls, over pebbles and worn rocks, and among small flowers in close grass and wet crannies, wandering at last up on to the Downs. They heard of the Great Barrows, and the green mounds, and the stone-rings upon the hills and in the hollows among the hills. Sheep were bleating in flocks. Green walls and white walls rose. There were fortresses on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all. Sheep walked for a while biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again. A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers, and gold chains in the wind." Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moonlight.

It prefigures all the beauty and terror of the rest of the series, as well as reaching back into the history of Middle Earth; he was there, he knows all the stories, but he's not quite part of it, as shown by the fact that the Ring has no power over him.

He's both absolutely canny, providing the first sanctuary on the hobbits' journey, and completely uncanny:

"When the Elves passed westward, Tom was here already, before the seas were bent. He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside."

So, he's a good encounter for the hobbits and for the reader: a proof that not everything is perilous - and a proof that everything is. To quote Sam: "It strikes me that folk takes their peril with them into Lórien, and finds it there because they’ve brought it. But perhaps you could call her perilous, because she’s so strong in herself."

Tom Bombadil is also strong in himself, and perfectly contained; he has his domain and doesn't venture out of it. And yet, he is part of the world - the hobbits carry the daggers from the Barrow-Downs for the whole trilogy; Merry strikes the Witch-King of Angmar with one of them.

And everything he says is beautifully rhythmic, a song in prose:

"What?" shouted Tom Bombadil, leaping up in the air. "Old Man Willow? Naught worse than that, eh? That can soon be mended. I know the tune for him. Old grey Willow-man! I'll freeze his marrow cold, if he don't behave himself. I'll sing his roots off. I'll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. Old Man Willow!"

It's lovely to read, either out loud or to yourself.

All that is to say: I think it's both a necessary and a beautiful section of the book.

#vestisferrea #he knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless is gorgeous #you never forget your first #my thoughts on...#long posts

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