#flame and frost: the razing

[see-arcane]

Light

Summary:  Before Mina runs out to find her, Lucy sits with a stranger. They talk.

He meets her under the moon. She will not remember it. Not until after.

For now the world tilts in mystic marks of lunar white and midnight inks, she has to be here for him, has to sit with him, has to ignore that she does not know why. But they are here now, under the pale glow of the night, a pair of statues posed on the bench. If she looked up at him, she would have to strain her neck. He is a caricature of Bluebeard. A giant with embers for eyes and a wilderness of black for his hair and dress. She did not think men like him existed outside of books.

She doesn’t know yet that she is right. Men like him are not real.

They sit.

Her feet are nailed with fear and need, still for things she doesn’t know.

She must be asleep. Mina? Mina, she is dreaming. Please wake her up. Mina?

“This was not by chance,” the man says. His voice rolls the air flat and tolls like church bells in her head. “No matter what is thought of me, I am not a base animal in all things. I have my whims. Preferences.” His hand is on her shoulder, a weight like ice. “As ever, they seem to be wants the wider world profanes. It warms me,” the talon of a thumbnail draws against her skin, nearly cutting, “to know I have discovered one who wants the same.”

“What is it I want?” she asks. Does she ask? Does she know the answer?

“We want more than what the world claims is our share. Our right. The world lies, my love. You have felt so since before you ever bled as a woman.” His hand moves from her shoulder without leaving her skin. It travels. “Your poor heart is too big, too hungry. I feel it here, straining.”

She feels him feel it.

“I’m in love,” she tells him. “I’m getting married.” Her voice is a shadow of itself, the pitch only a trace of what it would be by day, before another man plucking up courage with flowers and fond glances. It stings enough to hurt someone smitten. It had felt like carving her heart out to turn away two of those she wanted badly, so badly, to accept their victorious brother in love. A heart already wounded when a different engagement was announced, the pain masked in smiles, smiles, so happy for you, my friend, my darling, my Mina.

She is spoiled. She knows it. But not in the things which matter.

“Love is a fine thing,” the man says, and his hand moves again. Knuckles on her neck. “But it is a wild thing when it is real. The world demands it be pruned. Love only certain paramours. Love only one. Have only one. No matter how much of yourself there is to share, how much they wish to share and be shared by you. Like razing a forest to leave only a single flower in the ashes. It is cruelty and no more.”

“Cruel,” she nods. “Stupid.” The word leaves her with the petulant edge of a child’s huff. Yet it is equal to the world and its orders. The world has given childish rules to those who would love wildly. Widely. And yet, “I am so stupid, so greedy to demand more. I feel so much like a glutton. What right have I to want them all? I shun Lotharios along with the world. But what makes me more than him?”

“I do not know this Lothario,” the man drones. Something like breath blows air like frost and carrion against the top of her head. “Yet I shall take him for a false lover. There are many such villains. Those who would pretend devotion to one, only to betray them with a dozen secret trysts. That is evil. That is not you. You are Helen.”

“Helen..?”

“All of my loves are Helen. That enchanted demigoddess, who drew a thousand ships after her, she was named for light. My loves are always the brightest lights among their villages, to which the moths of man,” a cold digit twists and untwists her hair, “and woman all fly. Such is your kind, my love, my Helen.”

“My name is Lucy.” Of this she is fairly certain.

“Ah!” he laughs, stroking her head. “Then it is destiny. Lucy is light as well. A flame among so many loves, a devoted throng. Yet only one—one!—poor Lucy may pick, though she has heart enough for all. Even those she fears can only love another. One who is friend alone and not what she wants most…”

Wet warmth rolls on her cheek. The cool pad of a thumb wipes it dry.

“Your friend, she is very lovely. Very dear to you. Yes?”

“Very,” she sighs. Why does her throat ache? Her heart? Her eyes? No, she need not ask. She knows the reason. Has known it every time the hot pain needles as she thinks, “I doubt she’ll ever learn how much, even when we are old ladies, our children playing by the sea as we once did.”

“Oh, my love, my poor Helen, no. Do not say such wretched things. My heart breaks to hear such ugly premonitions from your lips. You shall not grow old. You shall not waste your good heart on empty longing. I am here to deliver a gift that shall save you from such misery. You see, I refuse the world’s demands. I do not age. I do not deny myself any whom I love, and so they do not deny themselves to me. Can you guess the gift? It is most fitting.”

“What?” she asks. The single word lilts. Practiced song of a girl waiting on a surprise. What is it, Art? Show me, show me.

“A kiss. As the princess in the fairy tale wins her miracle, you shall receive yours. Your beauty, your light, it will blaze forever. You shall love all you wish, as you wish. They will never deny you. No more than you shall deny me.”

“Are you a prince?” she asks. It comes from a smile. Why does she hate this?

“I was. I am.” His hand is on her and so is its brother, yet the position is wrong. Blinking slow, she sees he is not sitting, but now stands and bends like a great ebony tree behind her. The moonlight has been sucked out of the air as a cloud pulls its cloak over the sky. His hands move in the new gloom, stroking, tucking the curtain of her hair away from her neck. “For you, fair Helen.”

The words break against her pulse.

His kiss lasts, lasts, lasts.

So shall she.

Ao3 link

#tw impaired consent #due to the whole sleepwalking/hypnotism angle #in future chapters of the book we get surprisingly little dialogue from the undead bastard man #but I think Mina was just too late to catch him indulging in the usual fucked up villain patter #I really don't think he could pass up the opportunity with Lucy #so...this #lucy westenra #dracula #dracula daily #my writing #horror

[dinrelsanddragons]

Parents and/or ancestors of the muses (at least, parents and ancestors who have been mentioned, not noting children of parents who are already muses)

Armok Ailbhe– Noted to have been raised by an aging Hylian couple, who have since passed. Bryn Llwyd– Said to have been raised by a poor family. Delphine Langlois– An isekai! We don't know SHIT about her parents, they're from Terra. Erdan Tiltathana– We know nothing of his parents. Gateni Yaeldrin– Her parents are Hylian nobles who hold land, but that's all we know. Gwyn Dubhscian– Came from an abusive family that she ran away from. Halcyon Nivard– Daughter of Reynard Nivard and Lisa Kuma. Reynard was an infamous pirate captain who was caught and hanged; Lisa took over as interim captain until Halcyon was ready to inherit the ship. Isaac Michaels – Son of Ralf Michaels and Emmeline (needsmaidenname), the former of whom died in war shortly after Isaac's younger sister Connie was born. Lambda Blackscale – Second born daughter of Naivara Scathaith and Sheezrar Faenorin, the latter of whom perished in the razing of the Faenorin manor. (Wondering if I should add Valanthe Faenorin, Lambda's elder sister, as a muse; she is, however, a psychopath and a villain.) Leonard Edwards– Noted to have been born to farmers. Lita Arcuna I – Daughter of Reim Arcuna and Gazenir (needslastname), a Gerudo noble and Hylian blacksmith who are both deceased. Has a deceased twin brother, Meritz, who died around the same time. Thorn Stanton – Son of Alexander Stanton and Abigail (needsmaidenname), a former Hyrulean royal guardsman and a Gerudo outlaw. Will keep his lineage secret at nearly any cost. Raithyon Blackscale – Son of Tarhun and Tatyan Blackscale, who perished when the Blackscales' home Sableflame was destroyed by monsters. Also has a deceased younger brother, Mugrunden, who died in the same. Raven Allaway – Son of Devin Allaway and Rowena (needsmaidenname). (Twilight Princess verse ONLY: Notably, Devin is the son of Link Allaway, the Hero of Time.) (Age of Calamity/Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom verses ONLY: Devin is deceased, killed in battle when Raven was a teenager.) Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule – Stated (by mun, this is headcanon) to have been born to a noble family in Lanayru. Sandalio Ferro – Born to a family of knights pledged to serve the Liuvigild family as retainers; Sandalio left that line of service because the Liuvigilds are shifty nobles. Shanz Dinrel – Another isekai! We don't know SHIT about his family, they're from Terra. Okay, well, in some verses he is adopted by the Dinrels of Floria– John Dinrel and Guinevere Murray, and becomes a younger brother to Bryant Dinrel, Raelynn Dinrel, and Jason Dinrel (who is usually deceased, but I'm playing with not having him killed). In yet other verses, he's born to them instead of Jason. Taunch Kimbatuul – Born to frost dragon father Madrash Kimbatuul and Hylian mother Caomh (needsmaidenname), the latter of whom died of illness despite Taunch's best efforts to find healthcare for her. Vair Bhelthir – Born to Gildas Bhelthir and Lavena Glynn, who were both killed by a flame dragon that destroyed their holdings. Notably, Vair has a younger sister, Cara, who lives. Wulf Arcuna – Born to Reim Arcuna and Gazenir (needslastname), as Lita's younger brother. Tragically, his parents and older brother died shortly after his birth. Wynne Mulrennan – Born to Diarmuid Mulrennan and Riona (needsmaidenname). Has a younger full sister, Aine Mulrennan, and a number of bastard half-siblings, courtesy of Diarmuid's indiscretions. Zehka Orokane – Known to have hatched to a family of wild sky dragons, and was disinherited for being clumsy and lacking in intelligence.

#muse lists #muse list #since that's basically everyone but the 2nd and 3rd gen Dinrels; Reownha; and Hubert. #I'm not tagging everyone here.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Character Study: Braham (Part 1: Retaking Cragstead)

Braham has been a major character in the Icebrood Saga, and due to the confusing ending, we're not exactly sure where Braham's at right now or how he'll be going forward. I want to take this opportunity to go back to the beginning and see how far we've come, and how our relationship has evolved over the years - we've had ups and downs, but I want to see what the core of our friendship is.

Part 1: Retaking Cragstead

~oOoOo~

We meet Braham in Season 1 as a worried sixteen-year-old with an insane hairstyle (according to Taimi), who barges into Rytlock's office demanding aid for his people, citing his relationship with Eir while also being averse to talking to her.

We had come in looking for a way to help, and this seems like a good place to start, so when he decides to go to Hoelbrak despite his mother being there, we decide to go with and back him up before Knut Whitebear.

There - after learning the dynamics between Eir and Braham are complex - Braham shows a bit of an attitude, a bit of fire, some bitterness - but at heart he just wants to save his friends. Whitebear and Eir can't help, so you offer to go with him. He thanks you profusely.

At Cragstead, he shows stunning positive character traits like loyalty to his people, determination, courage, and - to top it all off - an amazing amount of responsibility.

He fights with energy and intensity, the sort you only get from a sixteen-year-old whose life is crumbling around him. His weapon is the blunt-power mace and shield and he tends to charge in recklessly.

After liberating some prisoners, his love interest, Ottilia, is mentioned (who remembers Braham used to have a love interest?!?) - the dredge had taken her away somewhere, which would incite anyone's fury - and yet, we have this line:

Braham: I hate this. We have to help Ottilia - and her family — but first, I have to make sure these 'steaders are okay. Braham: I've got this under control.

Later, he even tempers his hotheaded teenager-ness a bit:

Braham: I want to tell Brimstone and Whitebear that we managed without their help. Rub it in their faces, you know? Tell you what. You go tell Brimstone. I hear he's in the middle of a big meeting in the Imperator's Core. Player: You going to inform Whitebear? Braham: First I have to get these people to Hoelbrak. Once they're safe and healed and fed, I'll find out how I can rescue those who were taken.

Everyone knows Braham is reckless! But here we see his self-control. He couldn't rush off and yell at Brimstone and Whitebear immediately, so he was able to cool off and focus on the important things. He's capable of setting aside instant personal gratification for his responsibilities.

He was the only one both willing and capable to come to the rescue of his friends. And he was capable, and he was willing - that says a lot about him.

Braham is a teenage norn, and yet he takes the time to write us a letter and tell us how things turned out after, even calling us legendary... and yet he also says "I hope you still want to come with me."

Braham, Braham, Braham. Of course we still want to come with you. And so we do! Six Molten weapons facilities, where Braham and Rox get to know each other (and Rox shows him caution and tempers his recklessness a bit).

Afterward, Braham sends us another letter containing the line "I owe him [Knut] nothing, but reporting what happened is the right thing to do." And, y'know, to rub their faces in it like he mentioned earlier.

But then - when Braham gets there - he's more furious about the people who died. The people he grew up with.

Braham: I thought you should know. They were almost all... by the time I got to Cragstead, a dozen of my friends... Braham: If we'd stood together... but no, it's every hunter for himself, right?

Afterward, Braham thanks you again for your help when you were a complete stranger who didn't have to. He's expressed his gratitude at least thrice by this point.

He's sixteen. The destruction of his whole hometown caused him to grow up fast - but he didn't grow responsibility just because of that. He had it all along. His dad trained him well.

Let's have some love for Braham! Spirits know he needs it.

~oOoOo~

Credit to the Guild Wars 2 Wiki for the dialogues from these story instances! (in the tags if you want to look them up yourself!)

Next (P2: Ottilia)

#braham eirsson #braham: help from the legions #braham - eirsson #braham: retake cragstead #molten facility #braham: avenger of the dispossessed #<- actual instance name #really cool imo #season 1 #flame and frost: the razing #flame and frost: retribution #eir stegalkin #rox #ottilia #knut whitebear #rytlock brimstone #norn #gw2

[wisteriashouse]

comfort.

pairing: rengoku kyoujurou x reader

genre: fluff, comfort

word count: 2243

You’re pacing the grounds of the Rengoku family home, absentmindedly adjusting your haori and ears on the alert for anything that could indicate a need for your intervention. Kyoujurou’s little brother, Senjuro, sits next to you with a nervous expression on his face as he fiddles with his fingers. You feel awful seeing him look like that, so you take a seat next to him without warning and rest a hand on his head. 

He glances up at you in surprise with those eyes that look so much like Kyoujurou’s.

“It’ll be okay.” You try to be as positive as possible, petting Senjuro’s hair reassuringly. “Your brother is a strong man. He won’t be too affected by whatever your father says. No matter what, as long as you’re proud of him, I think Kyoujurou would be happy.”

“Of course I’m proud of him! I really am!” Senjuro hesitates for a moment before continuing his sentence. “But... do you think Father will be pleased?”

You pause, weighing your replies. On one hand, you do want to cheer Senjuro up and give him hope, but on the other hand, you really don’t think Rengoku Shinjuro will have much excitement over Kyoujurou’s inauguration as the Flame Pillar.

After all, he’s the one who gave up that position willingly.

Before you’re forced to give a suitable answer, there’s the sound of the washi panel sliding open behind you. Both you and Senjuro whirl around with wide eyes, questions already forming on your lips, only to see Kyoujurou standing there with a slightly forlorn smile.

He’s holding the flame emblazoned haori in his hand, but although he’s wearing his usual cheery expression, he doesn’t look particularly joyful.

His eyes meet yours, and he shakes his head without a word.

You falter, and your words you had been about to say stay trapped in your throat. Senjuro, clearly picking up that it did not go as hoped, pipes up quietly with a crestfallen expression on his face. “Was Father... unhappy about it? If I become a Pillar too, do you think Father will feel better?”

Kyoujurou smiles at his younger brother, kneeling before him so that they can meet each others’ gazes at the same level, a gentle hand resting on his shoulder. He doesn’t look upset, but you can feel the anger welling up inside you at the unfairness of it all. Kyoujurou trained so hard, fought so many demons, all to get to this point - and yet he won’t even get to hear a word of congratulations from his own father. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Your fist itches for a Shinjuro shaped punching bag.

“I’ll be honest.” You hear Kyoujurou say as you remain quiet, staring at edges of your frost patterned haori to give the two of them some privacy. “Father isn’t happy at all. In fact, he said it was pointless.”

Senjuro sniffles up at him with shiny eyes, looking crushed. You wonder if Kyoujurou will hold you back if you decide to beat up his dad. He probably would, but you can let yourself indulge in some fantasies once in a while.

“But you worked so hard!” Senjuro wipes at his eyes, trying to keep the tears from falling and failing miserably. Each tear he brushes away are replaced by two more, and by the time he manages to get out the rest of his sentence, Kyoujurou is already patting his cheeks dry with his sleeves. “Your ears got so badly damaged, you always get injured, and you put in so much effort! Why won’t Father just see that?”

Exactly, you want to say aloud. Kyoujurou deserves so much more than this, he deserves people who will congratulate and celebrate with him, not that sorry excuse of a father who won’t get off his damn bed to wish his son good luck before he heads off on a mission.

“It’s alright!”

Both you and Senjuro blink at the sudden energetic shout from him, only to see him smiling brightly as the sun itself. He grins as he claps his brother on the shoulder encouragingly. “My passion will not die because of Father’s words! The flames in my heart will never disappear! I will never be disheartened!”

His smile is confident, but you wonder whether he’s saying all of this to convince Senjuro - or himself.

“And besides, you’re different from me, Senjuro!” Kyoujurou continues cheerfully. “You have an older brother, who believes in his younger brother! No matter the path you take, I am sure that you will be a wonderful person! With a burning passion in your hear that will not be extinguished!”

At his words, Senjuro begins to cry in earnest, big fat tears falling down his cheeks. Upon seeing his younger brother tearing up, Kyoujurou wraps his arms tightly around him, crushing the younger boy in a bear hug. “All you need to do is your best. Your big brother will always be supporting you!”

You turn away from this intimate moment that the two brothers are sharing, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at being privy to this, and look down at your hands quietly. 

Right now, you really wish you could give Kyoujurou a hug as well.

A few hours later, after you and Kyoujurou have left the Rengoku household, the two of you find yourselves at a small, pleasant restaurant with a private dining room for the two of you. Although Kyoujurou tries to pay, you insist on treating him to celebrate his inauguration as the Flame Pillar.

Throughout the entirety of the meal, Kyoujurou smiles, chatters and talks to you as he usually does between his shouts of umai, asking you about topics such as Pillar meetings and patrols, as if today’s incident with his father didn’t happen. But in the brief moments where silence interrupts, you see the lost, pained expression on Kyoujurou’s face, one he probably does not even know he’s making, mind clearly wandering somewhere other than here.

He still hasn’t put on the haori. It sits next to him on the floor, clean and neatly folded. You’re actually mildly surprised that Shinjuro didn’t raze it to ashes.

When the last piece of tempura disappears into the endless void that is Kyoujurou’s mouth, you take a moment to muster your courage to speak. The man opposite you doesn’t seem to notice your internal struggle, instead picking up crumbs of fried tempura batter with his chopsticks and tossing them into his mouth. Your hands fidget under the table, and you count down slowly from ten.

“Kyoujurou, I-”

“I would like to ask you a favour.” Kyoujurou says out of the blue, just as you’re about to speak up. He picks up the haori from the tatami mats, and holds it out with both hands reverently. Kyoujurou had told you once that it was an heirloom of the Rengoku family, passed down generations of Flame Pillars to eventually reach his father, and now him. You blink at him in surprise. 

“What do you need me to do?” You ask. Kyoujurou’s smile softens ever so slightly.

“This haori,” he looks down at it, fingertips gently brushing the flame patterns dancing across the fabric before his golden eyes meet yours once more. “Since my father will not put it on for me, will you do it in his stead?”

What?

Your jaw drops open at his request as you stare wide eyed at him, completely shocked. You, put on his haori for him? Seeing your panicked expression, Kyoujurou only laughs disarmingly, shaking his head. “No need to force yourself! I can always put it on on my own.” He begins to retract the haori, but before he can pull it away, you’re already by his side in the blink of the eye, gripping his hands tight.

“No, no! I want to put it on for you!” You say breathlessly, kneeling before him, his hands warm in yours. You can feel the callouses on his palms from years of unparalleled effort, and your throat feels thick. Kyoujurou looks up at you with gentle eyes, patient and understanding. You swallow heavily. “Of course I would want to put it on for you but...” You pause, hesitant. “Are you sure someone like me should be doing something as important as this? I mean-”

“The Rengoku family tradition is to have the Flame Pillar’s parents put the haori on for them in front of the rest of the family.” Kyoujurou informs you with a smile on his face, and you look down at the stiff white fabric between the two of you. “My mother is no longer around, and my father will not do it. I could think of no other person but you.”

Right, his mother and father both... You want to smack yourself over the head internally. Be a little more sensitive!

“It would be an honor to do this for you.” You say quietly, unfolding the haori in your lap. Kyoujurou sits up a little straighter, those pure golden eyes following every action your hands make. In place of a grand, lively ceremony, it’s just the two of you in this silent, empty room. Reaching around him, you set the white fabric around his shoulders, before your hands falter ever so slightly.

Kyoujurou blinks once and looks up at you, clearly confused about why you’ve stopped. “Is something the matter?”

“Kyo...” You say, unable to find the right words to convey your thoughts. “Kyoujurou... are you really... alright?”

 He smiles, because he’s Rengoku Kyoujurou, and Kyoujurou always smiles. He’s always been more of a parent to Senjuro than his father ever had, and now that he’s a Pillar, one of the foundations of the entire Demon Slayer Corps, he cannot afford to waver. 

“Of course I am alright!” His hand reaches up to clasp yours reassuringly, but doing that only makes you want to cry even more. “I said today that I would not let my Father’s words dampen my spirit, and I meant it! I-”

“I wasn’t asking about your resolve, Kyo.” Your hands fist into the fabric of his haori, and he stiffens when he feels your face press into the curve of his shoulder. “I was asking about you. You’re always a pillar of strength for someone else, but who do you have to rest against when you’re sad or weary? It’s so unfair.” The word tastes like salt on your tongue. “I’m angry because you deserve so much better.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Kyoujurou doesn’t reply. You almost worry that you’ve overstepped your boundaries, but before you can pull away and apologise, Kyoujurou sags beneath you, burying his face in your hair. You can feel his steady breaths against your skin.

“No.” His voice is small, fragile, fingers weaving with yours and gripping them tight. “I’m not alright. I want my father to acknowledge me. I want him to know that it matters, that if I can save just one life from a demon, all this training would have been worth it. I want him to treat Senjuro with kindness because he deserves it. I want my mother to put the haori on me.” There’s a shuddering intake of breath, and your heart aches for him. “But all those are things that I cannot change.”

You wrap your arms around him tightly, running a hand up and down his back as he collects himself. You don’t look at him, allowing him to pour out his own grief in silence, offering only comfort in the knowledge that you’re there for him. After a few moments, his breathing calms and he pulls away from your embrace to smile at you, a real smile this time.

“Instead,” he grips your hands tightly with his as he looks up at you. Your eyes are fixed on him, as if you’re trapped in the burning amber of his gaze. “I’ve decided to focus on the things that I do have now. So, no, I’m not alright now,” Kyoujurou grins. “But as long as I have you and Senjuro, I will be.”

You stare at him for a moment with tears in your eyes before you sniffle and hit him in the chest. He doesn’t flinch in the least. “How did it end up with me crying, you stupid man?”

Kyoujurou laughs and reaches up to wipe your tears gently with the pad of his thumb. “My apologies.” He says, not sounding very sorry at all. “Now, will you finish putting on the haori for me?”

Nodding, you lean forward to do the clasp, missing the way Kyoujurou looks so tenderly at you as you adjust the haori carefully around his shoulders. “There. The finest Flame Pillar since the feudal era.” 

“Surely you jest. I haven’t done anything as the Flame Pillar yet.”

You laugh. “You don’t need to, I already know.” You shift back to admire your work and the flickering candlelight dances across the flames patterned on his haori, making the man before you look as if he’s bathed in fire. His back is straight, and his eyes are proud and determined. “Kyoujurou.”

“Mmm?” He looks at you curiously, and you smile at your friend.

“Remember, no matter what your father says...” You grip his hands tight, trying to channel all your well wishes and hopes to him. “I believe in you.”

Kyoujurou’s smile is dazzling enough to light up the entire room.

“That’s enough for me.”

#rengoku #rengoku fanfic #rengoku kyojuro #kimetsu no yaiba #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #demon slayer #demon slayer fanfic #kyojuro #rengoku kyojuro x reader

[honourablejester]

In honour of the new dragon book coming out, and which I 100% plan to buy, here’s another pair of dragon NPCs for D&D 5e. As people may have gathered by now, I really love white dragons. I really, really love them. As heroes as well as villains. So. Here’s an unlikely pair, brought together by shared pain, and the unexpected mercy of a white dragon:

Hoarithandask & Yuidmivrak: Dragon NPCs (D&D)

In the lands in the shadow of the high, glacial peaks, there are legends of a pair of dragons known as Hoarithandask and Yuidmivrak. Mother Hoarfrost and the Grey Lady. Two dragons who should have been enemies, one white and one silver, save that fate, tragedy, and mercy unlooked-for intervened.

Once upon a time, the stories say, there was a beautiful town in the high valleys. No great city, no centre of learning or power, but a simple, well-loved and welcoming hamlet where any who travelled the mountains could find healing, rest and welcome. This town, though few knew it, was the beloved home and community of a silver dragon, Yuidmivrak, who had carefully nurtured and defended it over the course of several generations. She walked the town in several guises over the years, as visitors, travellers, and beloved aunties, and loved her little enclave with her whole heart. She had watched the growth of families, waved children of her town off as they ventured out to become adventurers, and mourned the passing of venerable grandfathers and grandmothers alongside her people. Though her lair was elsewhere, high in the glacial peaks, her heart lay in her little town, with the people who had become, in many ways, her children.

And so, when she returned one day from tending to her high lair, only to find her village massacred, razed and in flames, her children slaughtered or fled, her devastation was … unfathomable. Beyond her comprehension. She didn’t understand, at first, what had truly happened. She wandered the ruins for several days. Half in humanoid form, when she could remember to disguise herself, and half in dragon form, looming dazed and heartbroken over the ashen and smouldering houses. Rumour sprang up of her, then, of the grey, ghostly dragon seen haunting the razed valley. Stories began to spread of the ghost of a dragon’s vengeance.

But Yuidmivrak’s thoughts were not on vengeance. They couldn’t be. Not yet. Her devastation was too complete. Her chest felt hollowed. Crushed. Her heart carved from between her ribs. All she could feel was loss. Emptiness, hollowness. Grief. For a moment, touching blackened, crumbling wood with her claws, all she could picture was a vast eternity spreading out before her, all the lifespan of a dragon, empty and hollow, where all that she loved and might build over years and decades and centuries could vanish, taken in an instant, and only ashes remaining.

When she moved, finally, days or weeks later, it was not to hunt down those who had ravaged her home and her heart. It was, instead, towards the high peaks. Not her own home, the beautiful lair she had made for herself. She turned instead towards the far side of the mountain range. Towards the rumoured home of a much fiercer, much more unforgiving dragon.

Hoarithandask. Mother Hoarfrost. The white death of the high valleys.

She meant to die. It is … unequivocal. She meant for Hoarithandask to kill her. The white dragon was known to be territorial, ferocious, unforgiving in the extreme. An enemy as bitter as frost for which she named herself. Yuidmivrak, with the husk of her heart in her chest, flew blatantly into the other dragon’s territory. She made no attempt to hide herself. And, when Hoarithandask emerged, roaring fury and vengeance, no attempt to defend herself. Hoarithandask was her elder, but only by some few decades. Yuidmivrak could well have defeated her, if that was her aim. But it wasn’t. She fully intended to die at the white dragon’s claws, and follow her frailer children into death.

And Hoarithandask … realised this. Mid-battle, mid-blow. She realised that the silver dragon was not fighting her. She realised that the interloper had come, not to kill, but to die.

There were stories told of Hoarithandask too. Before ever Yuidmivrak went to her. There were stories of … a clutch of three eggs, grey-white and marbled, hidden in the ice. Of a young mother dragon, fiercely proud and fiercely protective, presiding over her three treasures as though they were all the diamonds in all the mines in all the world. She was Mother Hoarfrost, as fierce as winter storms in defense of her planned-for brood.

A brood that never emerged. A brood that never had the chance. A great scar marred Hoarithandask’s neck, savage and tearing, the legacy of the titanic fight she had offered up in defense of her eggs. It slashed straight across the underside of her neck, large and deep enough to have almost severed her throat. She almost died in their defense. Perhaps, for a long time, the fearsome dragon wished it had not been ‘almost’.

Perhaps she saw a similar, invisible wound on Yuidmivrak. Perhaps she scented the echo of her own ancient pain from the silver dragon. Perhaps she only knew a mother’s ravaged grieving and despair when she saw it. Whatever it was, she did not kill Yuidmivrak. She bowled her over. Struck her unconscious. And dragged the wounded, hollowed dragon back to her own lair.

And there, over the course of two decades, she slowly but surely nursed her back to health.

She fed her. Hunted for her. Listened to her stories of all she had lost. Ventured over the mountains to the now abandoned valley and ruins to bring back trinkets, mementos towards a salvaged mother’s hoard. Kept her safe, let her sleep through the worst of the despair. Then bullied her up, drove her out with claws and teeth to take the air again, to live and fly and fight. Protected her, from any who would come for her, as fiercely as she had protected her own children. And fought with her, as uncompromising as winter, until she regained her own strength and determination.

She offered to aid Yuidmivrak in her vengeance. All her claws and might for the silver dragon’s cause. Do they deserve to live, those who have slaughtered our children? To Hoarithandask, it was not a question. To Yuidmivrak, a little more of one, but perhaps not much so. As gentle a soul as she was, even silver dragons may own to a mother’s fury. There are some who consider that Hoarithandask’s corruption of her. Others point out that anyone who slaughters innocents under a silver dragon’s care, under any dragon’s care, may expect what is coming for them. The Grey Lady, the Ghost Dragon, visited her justice upon them in due course. With a white shadow, a life-stealing breath of winter, fast and ferocious at her side.

And now they travel together, the legends say. The length and breadth of their mountains. Two dragons own the high peaks, one white and one silver. They lair together, even still. Split time between Yuidmivrak’s high, elegant eyrie, and the carved comfort of Hoarithandask’s caves, where once they both regained themselves, painstakingly rebuilding the gutted hollows in their chests.

Yuidmivrak is still gentle. Travellers may call on her to guide them through treacherous passes, and there are villages and outposts in the high valleys who may see some blessings from her love and her guidance, though none as deeply and thoroughly as that long-lost village in that abandoned valley. Hoarithandask is still fierce, and proud, and territorial. None may pass unscathed through the highest, iciest valleys, for she will not tolerate trespass. Even less so now, when she has someone once more to protect. She is the wrath of winter, even still.

But perhaps they are a little different now as well. Perhaps Yuidmivrak is a little harder and quicker with her claws in defense of what she loves. Perhaps Hoarithandask is a little gentler, more likely to weigh the innocence and motives of an interloper. Perhaps.

Either way, they are together. Two broken hearts, joined together. Two dragons, bound by a shared grief, and a shared recovery, and the companionship born of unlikely mercy.

Yuidmivrak and Hoarithandask. The Grey Lady and Mother Hoarfrost.

#long post #d&d #dragons #dragon npcs #white dragons #silver dragons #vengeance #companionship

[darkpoisonouslove]

Win a Heart

Summary: Icy can fight Bloom. Fighting the strongest person in the universe is not something she is afraid of. What she can’t do is voice her true feelings for Bloom and earn the right to owning her own heart.

This is an AU but I’d like to keep the suspense so more information is at the end. You can go there if you feel confused about anything.

The flames rained on her ice shield – each like a rock melting away her magic instead of breaking through it. No matter how much power she put into fortifying her frost, Bloom's fire was eating it away one molecule at a time in pursuit of licking at her skin. Even if she did tap into her endless well of rage, she couldn't make ice at the rate Bloom was making her way through it. Her tactic would fail and she couldn't clear an opening for an attack.

She tilted her head back, gazing straight into the lake of fire spilling over the ice crust springing from her hands, and sent her magic down her hair. It was long enough to brush the floor and lead the ice where she intended it – freeing a path of escape for her. Bloom had no time to react when she glided backwards on the ice rink she'd made and away from the fiery downpour.

Frost encased Bloom into a cocoon she'd die in if she couldn't catch up. Bursting flames were not enough against the strategy Icy had devised just for her. The Dragon Fire gave Bloom an advantage but even it couldn't break through the layers of ice Icy had constructed to let her magic through to the inside. Every patch Bloom melted was freezing back against her body instantly to wrap her even tighter in her prison. The princess had challenged her and now the tables had turned.

Bloom writhed in her cage struggling to free herself with brute force but the ice was too thick even for her relentless stubbornness. There was no force or weapon she could use to crack Icy's victory.

Bloom locked eyes with her, having arrived at the same conclusion. The blue of her irises was still vibrant, though, like a boiling sea and her gaze reached into Icy's core melting through all her defenses. Ice shards dropped in her stomach as her heart shuddered to shake off the remnants of the cage she'd stuffed it in.

Bloom's eyes widened as if she'd seen the cracking walls inside her before she closed them in intense focus. Heat filled the atmosphere chasing away any shivers that could rock her concentration or Icy. The air trembled as Bloom's hair burst in flames dripping all over her body and Icy's cocoon.

The butterflies were in her stomach fluttering aggressively in their search of a way out. The warmth flooding her was inviting as she watched Bloom flaming her way out of her ice. The flaring fire wasn't threatening as it crawled through her handiwork to free the princess without a malicious intent. Bloom wasn't fighting to best her. She was overcoming herself and her own limits and she'd taken a page out of Icy's book to improve.

A block of ice shattered and crumbled to the floor where Bloom's chest expanded like she would swallow the whole world, and Icy, too. There was still something to do but it wasn't her turn. She would've skipped it anyway to see what else Bloom was up to.

Bloom answered her thoughts with the air she breathed out as it caught fire, too. She was a fire-breathing princess and Icy was captivated by the twirling flames as they wound around her cocoon and left it in a puddle on the floor. Everything was always so symbolic with Bloom, so... ethereal. Almost like they knew each other on an entirely different plane of existence.

"Don't count me out yet," Bloom held the fire retreating from her hair in her palms. A courtesy on her part to Icy who had drifted away like she never did in her own bed.

"I can say the same to you," Icy brushed away the smugness wafting from Bloom. It was deserved but it wouldn't last forever. Even if she didn't mind. All good things had an end. She just had to be grateful there'd been a beginning at all for her.

It was her turn to borrow and she crafted a blade of ice. Maybe brute force would work better combined with elegance. Maybe then she wouldn't break her neck.

She swallowed the thought like a lump of ice that would charge her magic and charged at Bloom with the weapon. Fire could take no solid form like that even if the streaks still flaming in Bloom's hair suggested otherwise. She had to try her hand at beating the most powerful person in the universe. Maybe then she would be able to outdo herself, too.

Swinging the blade was natural, the ice one with her as always despite her poor preparation with a sword. Bloom was an expert swordswoman but she had no way of conjuring a weapon from her magic. Icy had found the way to-

Bloom caught her ice blade with her bare hand unmoved by the sharp edges. She used her fire to leave the shape of her fingers in the wholeness of Icy's weapon. An imprint on her mind to join the one Bloom had been carving in her heart from the day they'd met.

Icy's breath caught but she let the ice take over. Gliding over it had been second nature her whole life. It was easy the same way dueling Bloom was effortless. Like a dance. Each move reciprocated with the due respect and desire to match it, raise the stakes until they were both engulfed in the flames of the intensity between them and the rest of the world couldn't reach them in their cocoon.

Bloom followed her movements intently, eyes on her frame like her gaze belonged there, like it was home. And there was the familiar pull. The invitation for Icy to spill into her but her spine couldn't bend that way without breaking. Her ice couldn't melt without drowning her. Perhaps it would kill Bloom, too. The risk was too great.

Stuck in her vicious circle, Icy faltered when her blade was stuck in Bloom's grip once again. Pulling did nothing with Bloom holding it as if her life depended on it and thrusting was impossible through the princess's strength. All she could do was supply more ice to restore the parts the flames coming out of Bloom's palms reshaped. They were caught in Bloom's will–like the rest of the universe except Icy's fate–and the moment stretched around them unbreakable. Whatever it was made of was stronger than Icy and she'd accept it if she didn't have to find her way to victory.

She willed the ice to grow, icicles with pointy edges reaching down from her blade through the fire eating it to pierce Bloom's chest. It had to free them from the spell she'd bound them in.

Air pushed Bloom's chest closer to the sharp tips aimed to stab through her heart but the heated burn of the flames inside her neutralized even that threat. Now it was water dripping from the icicles to soak Bloom's outfit and her heart. Icy had touched it – far more gently than she'd believed she could... with Bloom's help. The complimentary existence they led almost had her believing they were soulmates meant to be. Almost.

"You can't win this," Bloom let herself inside her head again, unafraid to roam even that space – the only one that did not belong to her. But Icy had given it. She'd given it away even if she had nothing left for herself. Just to see that smirk on Bloom's face. Was it worth it, though, if Bloom didn't know?

She couldn't win against the princess of Domino. She couldn't even win against the prince of Eraklyon who was younger than her but from a much more powerful kingdom than the measly royal of Dyamond that she was. She had to turn in and be his wife because she couldn't win. All her battles were meaningless, except the ones with Bloom. She always came out stronger, even in defeat. Maybe she was aiming for the wrong victory. Maybe it was Bloom's heart she was capable of winning.

"I've been in love with you for years." The crown meant for her head shattered from worlds away to let her draw in a warm breath. A free breath that her magic didn't attack to turn into a weapon of self-defense.

Shock slapped Bloom in the face like a wave she swallowed to a fail in her breathing. She had to shift to steady herself and slipped on the puddle they'd made on the floor. She tumbled down with the weapon Icy had to let go of so that she wouldn't fall on top of her with it and stab her.

A groan broke against Icy's ears to free her from her stupor. Bloom was alive and fine – more or less. Now it was her turn to get a verdict.

Bloom propped herself up on her elbows. "Good one," she muttered to make Icy's stomach flip. She was never that sparse with the due congratulations when Icy defeated her during sparring. It was the confession she hadn't bought and Icy couldn't blame her for looking everywhere but at her when she took the hand offered to her.

"I meant it." Icy held on to the warmth Bloom didn't pull away from her to compel her to catch her gaze. "I've been in love with you... ever since I learned how to love."

Bloom didn't let go after Icy helped her on her feet. "Why didn't you say something?" It was her turn to wait for Icy to return her gaze.

Because you would have saved me.

They'd become fast friends despite Icy's hatred for Domino and Eraklyon and anyone else who imposed their power over her. Bloom would've jumped in to the rescue. She would've pulled her from the arranged marriage with Sky and bound her to herself. She wouldn't have let her drown in feelings she couldn't freeze her way through. Even if it would've scalded both their skin off and razed their kingdoms to the ground. It wasn't Bloom's job to protect her. It should have been Icy's right to protect herself but Bloom was the only one who had given it to her, the only one who had believed in her enough to never hold back despite possessing the strongest magic in the universe. She'd let her be an equal. Maybe they were also equals in the way they felt.

Icy blew a touch of frost on her breath Bloom's way. It instantly turned into water in the heat of Bloom's lips. The ice couldn't even reach her. Bloom had never been hers to touch.

Bloom licked the water drops from her lip, her tongue frantic as if she was parched, before lunging herself at Icy and wrapping her in a kiss. Her breath was scorching and tickled through the cold Icy carried around with her. Bloom's fingers tangled in her hair like she wasn't afraid they would fall off if Icy sent the frost through her strands again. Bloom made it so easy to be strong, to be light and warm, so effortless to run her fingers through the red strands without fearing for her skin, nor for her magic within. She'd finally won the freedom to win the princess' heart.

This is an AU in which Bloom was raised by her parents on Domino after the Ancestral Witches were defeated. She became really close friends with Icy when they were little. Icy is arranged to be married to Sky in this. Bloom does not like Sky (and Sky doesn’t like Bloom) for a variety of reasons which I will not list because I will have to write a whole essay but not the least of which is his engagement to Icy. Icy is not a descendant of the Ancestral Witches and it has everything to do with Bloom but I will not explain it all because, again - a whole essay.

#winx club #winx icy #winx bloom #bloom x icy #blicy #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my writing #200fc

[birchbritches]

Haymaker

you who knew new, knew what you do, no covenant irreversible, no, no amendment you'd not unravel to do as you'd always and praise be you, raze and raise the past as lasting,

takebacksies haggling internally until one or another's emesis has something of interest to show,

the inherent threat of a lowing god stony and bovine, crackling eater over grasses

that no pasture is going to last us, no slow-said homily, no hominy or anomalous wonder we spend a decade at

decodes the hatching fires, the talkative nature of flame taking off,

the of and by and for and flora and fauna and fawning and worship and hoping after a story once heard, little resembling evidence,

little archaeological comeuppances tucking into the tales that rally us, the tally of us,

the gathered here as if enough garnering could stay the wayward night,

niceties and mice amongst relics, the long gnaw after minerals we knew nothing of slumped over the last known deal we'd made

and abided by, grew teeth exceedingly,

repeatedly, had to chew them down, knew additional materials would come by way of faith,

by way of whatever option ever was there, by happenstance

or standoff, by rancid need easing over the landscape like frost eking we winter, eking we winery, eking the eyeing of time untold, unrecallable, irreconcilable,

one being one season, another another, skewering each-other for what's remnant,

for what we could see in a fire, huddle around beyond the capacity of the crown, sound out syllables to pit against competitors; sun comes back, always unhappy with us 

- B B Pine 

#poem #poetry

[sareyen]

A Machine Without Feelings: A Jane Eyre AU (Part 10/11)

Read on ao3

Chapter 10

Charles kissed Jean and Ororo’s cheeks in that sequence, the women both squeezing his hands for good luck. Jean murmured that they would be waiting here for good news – because, they refused to believe that things would go badly. Charles was grateful for their positivity in a time when his stomach was tying itself up in knots.

Charles left Jean and Ororo at their hotel in the town just outside of Ironfield, the same town that Charles had been walking to when he met Erik for the first time.

It was now almost a year later that Charles has returned, and the day was bright and sunny, unlike the day he ran away. Many things had changed in that time; Charles was older and wearier, even if he did not look it. His soul, a soul that was as much Erik’s as it was his, was tired and withered. The string tied beneath his left ribs tugged painfully, but as the carriage had neared, he could feel it knotting itself back together.

People that loved each other would only part if one of them wished it. Charles had always been the one who, naively, thought that Heathcliff’s words had been beautiful. It was funny how he was the one to have caused the pain those words warned him about.

Charles had heard nothing from Erik, not that he had tried to contact him recently. Part of Charles held a fear that Erik had moved on. Unlike Charles, Erik had been in relationships with women before, and many more than one. What if Charles was just another one? One of his mistresses that he fleetingly loved because he abhorred his mad wife?

But Charles couldn’t bring himself to believe that, not when he knew Erik. Erik had withheld things from Charles, yes, but the parts of himself that he did let Charles see, they were real. Erik had shown Charles that he loved him, even when he hadn’t told him everything. While Charles still loved Erik, he was sure that Erik still loved him.

‘He’s still calling my name, I can hear it,’ Charles thought to himself, heart hammering as he hobbled out of the hotel with the aid of the walking stick Logan had made for him on his nineteenth birthday.   

The dirt roads leading up to Ironfield were impossible to traverse on his wheelchair, and Charles was resolved to get there on his own. Charles limped his way to hail a carriage from the front of the hotel, which soon dropped him off at the closest stop along the road to Ironfield. Charles paid them, before beginning the trek up to the grand house.

Charles had always enjoyed this walk, and remembered how he felt when he and Erik would walk it together in the light of dusk. Erik would sometimes tug him behind a stocky tree and press him up against its trunk, sealing Charles’s red lips with his own and kissing him until he couldn’t breathe.

Now, the walk was laborious, a little sweat building on Charles’s brow as he hobbled down the familiar road.

It was when he drew close enough to break through the veil of overlying trees that Charles stopped dead in his tracks, walking stick clattering to the ground.

Ironfield Hall, his home, was a ruin.

What had used to be battlements that stood tall and proud against the horizon were charred black and crumbled, revealing burnt exposed rafters that splintered into jagged pieces. Ironfield no longer had a roof, its walls now mere slabs of broken stone on the ground.

It looked like fire had razed Ironfield to the ground, and Charles suddenly couldn’t breathe.

Charles fumbled to pick up his discarded walking stick before hopping and dragging his maimed leg forwards and forwards, numb to the pain as he stared with wide eyes at the remains of the once-grand mansion.

Crows squawked around the caved-in roof, Charles pushing his way through the non-existent door, which had been reduced to black coal.

The inside was as bad as the exterior, if not worse. It looked like no furniture had been spared from the inferno, the wooden banisters of the staircase mere twigs on the ground. Charles wobbled forwards, heart growing more and more frantic as he realised that the estate, the estate where he had fallen in love and had his heart filled and broken, was a wasteland.

“Oh, God,” Charles choked out, falling into Erik’s downstairs study. It had also been touched by the fire, and was devoid of its books and souvenirs from abroad, his desk black and empty. It seemed like, apart from the fire, looters had ravaged the place bare.

‘Where is Erik? Moira? Alex? Where is everyone? What happened? Oh God, I’m toolatetoolatetoolate.’

“Who goes there?!” a sharp voice called out, Charles whirling around at the sound of the voice. Footsteps rushed forwards, before bursting into the study. The man who tore through the room skidded to a stop when he saw Charles, stumbling back with a double take that would have been comical in any other situation.

“Charles?!” Scott yelled, rubbing his eyes like he had seen a ghost. It was indeed Scott Summers, looking different but the same. While before he had always worn a coachman’s garb, he now donned a fine suit and spectacles. His hair was neatly styled, longer than it used to be – he no longer looked like a young coachman, but a wealthy lord. Like someone who finally married a wealthy woman like Emma Frost.

Charles was speechless and in shock, Scott recovering first and rushing towards him.

“Charles, is that really you?” Scott asked frantically, pulling at Charles’s cheeks, like he expected his hands to go right through him. When Charles yelped at the pain of having his cheeks pulled so harshly, Scott jumped, apologising profusely. “Charles, what are you- Why are you here? When did you return? We thought we would never see you again, we thought you had perished, we didn’t know…”

“Scott, what happened here?” Charles asked, hand holding his walking stick shaking desperately. “Scott, where is Erik? Is he… He can’t be…”

Charles’s mind reeled back to the night he had saved Erik from being consumed by flames in his bed. Erik had left that incident unscathed, healthy, safe and whole, but this time… If this time Erik had died in a fire, when Charles had left him…

Charles felt sick, and swayed on his feet.

Scott saw him begin to topple over, quickly rushing and catching the former tutor, snagging his arm before he fell to the ground.

“Charles! What happened… oh, your leg,” Scott said, noticing the walking stick and the way Charles didn’t put any weight on his left leg. “Never mind. Here, let’s go to another room. The drawing room is one of the only rooms that is still functional. Let’s sit there, and I will explain what happened.”

Charles weakly nodded, letting Scott help him down familiar yet broken halls to the drawing room he and Erik had shared many chess games together. When Scott led him through the doors, he could hear the clink of their glasses, the scrape of wood against wood as someone moved a chess piece, an occasional laugh, an impassioned voice as they argued, the soft press of Erik’s lips against his.

Scott lowered Charles into his old seat, which appeared to have remained in the same spot beside the chess set. There was no chess set in sight, though – it had been taken by looters some time ago as well.

Scott was about to take the seat opposite Charles – Erik’s seat – but he must have seen the pain cross Charles’s face, and stopped part way. Scott coughed, standing up to lean against a shelf instead.

“Where do you want me to start?” Scott asked, Charles licking his lips. He wanted to know if Erik was alive, but he was afraid to ask the question. If he asked, and Scott said that he had died…

“The beginning. From when I left,” Charles said, voice shaking. Scott nodded, rubbing his face and taking in a deep breath.

“We found out that you had left when we heard Erik scream out your name. He had gone to your rooms at around ten that morning, wanting to talk to you again, to try and explain himself. He had knocked on your door for a long time, until he felt like something was truly wrong, and that you weren’t just ignoring him. He burst down the door, and that was it. You were gone. He had screamed out name over and over, we could hear it from the other side of the mansion.”

‘He had been calling for me, and I had heard him.’

“Erik… Erik was beside himself, of course,” Scott said, Charles growing pale. “He ordered us to look for you, and took off on his horse himself – but by then, you were long gone. He locked himself in your chambers then, for two weeks straight. Moira had to bring him all his meals, and even then, he seemed to have no appetite. He began to eat more when we all… well, at that point, we weren’t afraid of losing our jobs anymore.”

“He recovered physically after that, and on the outside, he was the same Mr Lehnsherr. Maybe more bitter and snappy, but his mood had always been changeable. Inside… inside he wasn’t the same. We all know why you left, Charles. The master did, too. Before you ask, no, he never blamed you for leaving. He knew he had done you wrong, and he believed that he was paying for his mistake. He never stopped loving you or waiting for you, though. Moira caught him praying, every night – and you know that the master was no Christian.”

‘He never stopped loving you,’ Charles repeated, stomach twisting. Why does that make it sound like he…

“It was about a month after that. His wife… Creed’s sister, she escaped one night and took a candle from a sleeping Anna-Marie. She set fire to all the curtains, to the beds, to everything. She burnt Ironfield Hall down, Charles, but before it was completely destroyed she climbed onto the tallest battlement and threw herself off it.”

Charles gasped, somehow able to picture it clearly. The ghost – Clara Creed – with her long blonde hair and white night dress, bare footed and wild. He could see her leap through the air, thinking that she was a dove, and falling until she hit the hard stone below. She would have died instantly.

Scott paused, letting Charles stomach the news, only continuing when Charles nodded slowly.

“Moira and the other girls escaped in time, but…” Scott’s voice grew thick then, and Charles knew what was about to come. “Peter was trapped in his room, terrified. Alex and the master looked for him, and the master found him and got him out. But Alex… Alex became trapped when the rafters collapsed. He… my brother. He passed that night,” Scott coughed, overcome with emotion. “We held the funeral for him the week after.”

“I’m so sorry, Scott,” Charles said, voice shaking as he closed his eyes. Apart from Moira, Alex was the person Charles was closest with amongst the staff. Alex, the first person he had met when he arrived at Ironfield Hall. Alex, who had smiled at him and made him feel welcome, who had told him that ‘so you love a man? What is so wrong with that? Someone people never love at all in their life, and is that not worse?’

“Thank you. It was six months ago now, Charles,” Scott said, trying to give Charles a reassuring, thankful smile. “We have begun to heal. Alex… Alex considered you a close friend. Everyone did. After you left, we all missed you, and talked about you often. We all prayed for you to be safe, but we never knew where you had gone, even when Erik had hired investigators. It was like Charles Xavier had vanished off the face of the Earth. Where did you go, Charles?”

“Past the Moors, to a small parish there. I… I was taken in by the inhabitants at Eden House,” Charles said softly. “Two of them came here with me today.”

“We’d all be glad to know that you weren’t alone,” Scott said, stepping forward now to gently place his hand on Charles’s shoulder.

Charles had to ask the question now, unable to take it any longer.

“Scott, is he alive?” Charles asked, the man blinking.

“He? Oh. The master. Yes, Charles. Yes, he’s alive. I should have told you that from the start, I’m sorry,” Scott said quickly, Charles releasing a breath he did not know he had been holding, letting out a choked laugh.

“Oh, thank God,” Charles shook, folding over on himself, dropping his head into his hands and wiping his wet eyes before turning to Scott again. “Where is he then, Scott? I came back for him. I… I heard him calling for me.”

“When Ironfield burned down, we could no longer live here. He relocated to his second, smaller residence a little further into the country. It is called Genosha Manor,” Scott explained, and Charles’s legs, even maimed as one was, itched to run there immediately.

“It is small, and didn’t need many people to maintain it. Only Moira and Lorna went with him and Peter. Moira has written to me recently, though, and it appears that the master has sent Peter to school. Now, only Moira is there to tend to him. Angel found a new situation, and Anna-Marie… Anna felt guilty about not being able to stop Clara, and couldn’t bear to work for the master any more. She found new work a few shires over, for a family that lives at a place called Westchester.”

Scott jumped when Charles let out a shocked, incredulous laugh. Coincidence, or fate?

“How far is it to Genosha?” Charles asked, Scott beginning to smile now.

“Only a few hours by carriage. If you leave now, you can get there in the afternoon,” Scott said, Charles nodding, gripping his walking stick tightly with newfound determination.

“Thank you, Scott. For everything,” Charles said, Scott nodding and helping Charles to stand.

“I have to tell you though, Charles. The master, he is not the same man. When he went to save Peter from the fire, he did not come out unscathed,” Scott said, and Charles just shook his head, patting Scott’s arm.

“Neither am I. Neither of us are the same, now – and maybe, that’s why we will be fine this time.”

***

Scott did not accompany Charles to Genosha, since he had to return to his and Emma’s own home. Emma was currently with child, and Charles did not want to take him away from her side during such a critical time. He had only been at Ironfield to try and salvage what the looters missed, but found that he was too late. Scott had been too kind, still offering to escort Charles to Genosha when he saw how poorly his leg was. Scott only gave in when he met Jean and Ororo when he dropped Charles off at the hotel. Charles doubted that Scott would have left him in anyone else’s hands.

Charles told Jean and Ororo about what had happened, and they had held Charles’s hands the entire coach ride. When they arrived at Genosha Manor, within the boundaries of the afternoon as Scott had said, Charles was suddenly frozen in fear as he took in the unfamiliar building.

It was no Ironfield Hall, and was a simpler country house, though Charles knew that it would have costed a hefty price because of the sprawling lands that came with it. The manor itself, however, was small compared to the extravagant Ironfield.

The manor was made of a warm-toned stone, in contrast to the dark greys of Ironfield. Rustic glass windows spanned the walls covered with climbing ivy. The manor was not imposing compared to Ironfield, and in fact looked inviting and warm from the orange glow the early sunset was beginning to cast upon it.

Charles breathed in and out with every step Jean took as she wheeled him across the gravel walk way to the manor.

Ororo knocked on the door, before stepping to stand beside Charles, clutching his hand.

Charles’s breath quickened when he heard footsteps reach the door, the sound of a lock unlatching loud in Charles’s ears. The door soon swung open inwardly, revealing Moira, who was dressed in a dark black dress. Her hands froze mid-motion, the door only half open as she stared at Charles, like he was a phantom.

“Hello, Moira,” Charles said, Moira’s eyes immediately filling with tears as she opened the door fully, cupping Charles’s face with her hands and letting out a sob.

Moira opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by an achingly familiar, cold and brusque voice.

“MacTaggert! Send whoever they are away! I don’t want to be disturbed!”

“Erik,” Charles whispered, Moira letting out a quiet laugh, wiping her eyes.

“Charles, you’ve come back,” Moira said, taking all of him in. “I knew you were alive. Others thought that you maybe… But no, no. That doesn’t matter anymore. You’re here now.”

“Yes,” Charles said, Moira looking away from him then, finally noticing that he was not alone. “Moira, these are two of the people that cared for me while I was away. They are like sisters to me. This is Ororo, and behind me is Jean. And this is Mrs Moira MacTaggert, my dearest friend.”

Moira beamed, eyes a little wet again, and she smoothly curtseyed at Ororo and Jean.

“Charles’s family is considered my family,” Moira said, smiling at them warmly. “Come in. Charles, as you probably heard, Mr Lehnsherr is…”

“In one of his moods, like always?” Charles supplied, Moira letting out a laugh, a wondrous sound, like she still couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

“Yes, exactly. And I suspect, like always, you have a remedy to temper such a mood?” Moira said, eyes twinkling.

Charles nodded, mouth curving upwards.

“Of course, Moira. Now, where is Erik?”

***

Erik sat outside beneath a shaded tree with Magneto lying at his feet. He couldn’t see what the tree looked like, and didn’t know whether its leaves were whole and green or yellow and sparse. He could hear the wind run its threads through its branches, though, and the rustling was loud.

Whole and green then, he pictured in his mind’s eye.

It had been months since Charles had left; almost a year, now. Erik didn’t know exactly how long it had been, because the loss was still as raw as it was that first day. Erik could still feel the gaping hole in his chest when he had kicked down Charles’s locked door and seen the wide-open window and billowing curtains. The room had been so cold and so empty, so devoid of everything that was bright.

It was also hard to count the days when every day was cast in darkness. After his wife had burnt down Ironfield, Erik had gone blind. He no longer witnessed sunrises and sunsets, and simply spent his days sitting in the library or outside under this tree that he had never seen before.

Erik did not know why he spent so much time in a library full of books he could not see. Maybe it was because the room smelled like Charles, like ink and parchment, or books and dreams. Sometimes when he closed his eyes, his vision not changing at all, he could imagine that Charles was sitting next to him.

But Charles was not. If Charles was here, he would have let Erik rest his head on his thighs, gently brushing a hand across Erik’s eyelids, comforting his broken eyes. If he were here, he would clear his throat gently and read Erik passages from Brontë, or poems by Donne. He would read about Heathcliff, and Erik would have made a sarcastic comment about it. About how Heathcliff pined, and how Catherine left him.

Erik had never liked Heathcliff, but he could maybe understand him a bit more now.

Charles felt the breeze change, growing chilly. It would be around now that Moira would come to fetch him for supper, even though he was not hungry. She would offer him her arm, to guide him through thicket and the shrubbery, and he would snap at her for belittling him. She wouldn’t say anything, but would make sure her footsteps were loud enough so Erik could follow.

So, Erik sat there beneath a tree that he could not see, waiting for a person that he wished was someone else.

***

Charles saw Erik from afar, and his breath caught in his throat. Scott and Moira had told him – warned him – that he was not the same man that Charles remembered. That he was blind and hurting, much like Charles was.

But, when Charles saw him, he did not see a broken man. No, Erik was still beautiful to him, in every way. His hair was overgrown, falling over his eyes that could not see any way, and his beard was thick and messy. He did not bother wearing a neck tie these days, frustrated that it was difficult to tie without eyes, and he apparently always wore the same brown pants and the same white shirt. What did it matter, now that he couldn’t see it? What did it matter, when Moira was the only person to ever see Mr Lehnsherr, the fallen former master of Ironfield Hall?

Erik may have looked different, but the way he made Charles’s heart quicken and squeeze was very much the same. Charles still loved him, that had not changed.

Jean wheeled him as close as she could take the wheelchair, the contraption unable to weave between the bushes and thicket. Charles thanked her softly, and she gave Charles a smile, before retreating with his chair back into the manor with Moira and Ororo.

Charles gripped his walking stick, and began stumbling back to the man that he still loved, even when they were worlds apart. Even when the string between their left ribs was stretched, making their hearts bleed, it had not snapped.

No, it was still there, drawing the two closer and closer together, until Charles was standing before him.

Magneto smelled Charles before he saw him, and immediately recognised the man. Magneto rose to his feet immediately, letting out a happy bark, racing over. Charles smiled quietly, bending down to rub the dog’s head, the creature barking again.

Erik’s head snapped towards the noise, hearing his companion bark and the snapping of twigs under a human’s feet.

“Magneto, down. It’s just Moira, Christ,” Erik snapped, his dog’s barking too loud. Magneto listened to his master, but licked Charles’s hand once more, trotting with glee back to Erik’s side, sitting there with his tail wagging while looking at Charles.

Charles smiled a little at Erik’s snappish tone, glad that the man had not lost all of his fire and passion. Charles just hoped that, somewhere buried under all of that pain and hurt, there was still a man that could smile in that singular way of his that showed too many teeth.

Charles grew closer, and Erik’s unseeing pale eyes looked in his general direction. While his eyesight was no longer with him, his other senses had heightened. He heard the crunching of twigs and fallen leaves, but the steps were too heavy, the rhythm unlike Moira whom he heard every day. There was no swish of a skirt against the ground, and Erik tensed his muscles at the intruder.

“Who’s there?” Erik asked, Charles’s heart fluttering. When he didn’t answer, Erik’s eyes narrowed, the man shifting where he sat. “Who is that?”

Charles sucked in a breath, taking in the man in front of him, before finally speaking.

“Magneto knows me, Sir.”

Erik’s hand immediately flew out and grabbed at the phantom-like being, unseeing eyes widening. Erik’s hand slapped Charles’s wrist, making the man laugh a little, before reaching out to meet Erik’s touch half-way. Erik’s hands sought Charles’s, wrapping around his palm and his digits, running his fingers through them with an unmistakeable tremor.

“I know this hand,” Erik breathed out, pulling at Charles’s hand until it was close enough for him to press his mouth against, breath shuddering against Charles’s skin.

“I would hope so, Herr Lehnsherr.”

Erik let out a choked noise, kissing the hand in his before dropping his forehead to it, breathing heavily.

“Charles,” Erik whispered, the owner of the name letting out a sob-like laugh, falling to his knees, his legs unable to keep him upright any longer. Charles let his walking stick fall to the floor, using his free hand now to cup Erik’s cheek, feeling the unfamiliar beard beneath his fingers. Erik’s cheeks were wet.

“I am come back to you, Erik,” Charles murmured, craning his neck upwards to press his mouth against Erik’s. The kiss was not perfect, not in the slightest; Erik’s lips were shaking, and Charles couldn’t breathe. But, it was a kiss that was real, as real as it could be.

“Are you really here, Charles?” Erik demanded to know, letting go of Charles’s hand to grip his face, thumb smoothing over the familiar slope of his cheeks, nose, lips. These were Charles’s features, real and warm under his fingers. “I’ve imagined you like this so many times, but…”

“I am here, Erik. I’ve come back to you,” Charles assured him, kissing him again, and Erik finally kissed him back after loosing a wrecked sob.

“I thought I lost you,” Erik choked against his Charles’s mouth, Charles letting out a noise from the back of his throat. Charles shook his head, their noses bumping.

“Never, Erik,” Charles said, pressing his forehead against Erik’s. “I heard you calling for me. You never lost me. I’m here, and I’m not going to leave.”

Erik was too overcome with emotion to speak, his body, heart and soul filled to the brim with relief, thankfulness, disbelief, love, passion, everything.

So, Charles just kissed him again and again, before pulling back only a touch, to whisper;

“And don’t forget, my love – you still owe me wages.”

Erik laughed, for the first time in a long time.

And, for the first time in a new forever.

Next chapter (11/11 epilogue) →

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #charles x erik #xmen #xmen fic #x-men #marvel #jane eyre #jane eyre au #james mcavoy #michael fassbender #i just love cherik and jane eyre ok

[escherstrange-ffxiv]

(Picture by Lynn)

Combined writing prompts from the [Silver Valkyrie RP Discord]: 

Someone from your past unexpectedly reappears... who are they and how do you react to this surprise guest?

A place of calm and tranquility, of endless beauty, a place to remember... What view of the landscape is meaningful to you?

*

I first saw you again at Mhach.

I thought you were stationed at the front line but a search and rescue could be considered important, even if it is just sky pirates.

You keep running to keep up the pace. We have it tough, you and I. Time is wasted scouting for a vantage point, risking exposure as we cast our magic. You've never cared; you raise your rod to the sun as if drawing aether from the sky, launching the sun's wrath into a pack of charging voidsent. Before the fire has ripped flesh from bones, you've launched another, relentless and unceasing until the ground is littered with tiny pyres.

While the last pack closes, this cast takes longer. The gem on your rod blinks; a cue. I raise mine and charge, calling for strength to befoul the enemy and have them fall at our feet, but...nothing.

Hoist, and launch.

Again.

Hoist, and launch.

Again.

I can't see your face under your massive hat, but I know you're smiling the same smile you have when things don't work out. I call it your "It'll work out" face because it always does.

We head deeper into the city; I lose you in the crowd but I know you're near. "Black Mages always look out for each other," you said, and I take it to heart. Your hat bobs and weaves through the chaos but I never lose sight of you. I've always listened to your advice: stand close to the healers; limit your movement to a single side step.

Hoist, and launch. A spark lands on a limb, tearing through flesh, the voidsent's body shuddering as they drop the ground.

Hoist, and launch. A cold mist descends, chilling the enemy to the bone, a blanket of frost covers their corpses. 

Hoist, and launch. Mhachian fireballs are a warmth that devours you inside-out. The victim burns all they touch in their panicked rush. Our truest weapons.

Hoist, and launch. The befouling never comes. 

I have one more trick up my sleeve. The rod as my conduit, I use aether to hook a passing meteor and bring it to us. Everyone scrambles for cover as shields are hastily thrown up. When the dust settles, Calofisteri is no more, a crumpled heap in an empty chamber.

We celebrate by scouring for souvenirs and loot. A chest here, a clipping there. I crane my neck; you've left, but still close. I know. I hear your honeyed, silken baritone brushing past my ears. You weave theories of aether and spells into secret bonds between us and ours. I commit all to memory, notes to note as my adventure continues. 

The more I cast, the more you speak.

The more you speak, the clearer your words.

The clearer your words, the more they rise.

The more they rise, the longer they take to stop.

It overlaps and trips over each other: man woman solo duet trio chorus, chorus against chorus. Of magic long buried waiting for me to dig up. Behold my flames and despair. Do it, do it, they cheer; inject aether through your veins, let the land and seas and sky flow through you, this is how we burn harder, faster hotter, for Mhach for glory for Mhach's glory, burn it to the ground that we may dance and kick up bleached bones with our boots, raze the cursed city of white set the cobblestones alight let none pass put it to our flames to burn to burn to burn to burn to burn-

"Escherrr, you're sweating and mumbling to yourself. Breathe. What cake would you like?"

Silence.

A voice clear as glass. Not you. Him.

Just like that the flame is snuffed out. Where there was smoke and ash a breeze blows across a white plain under cloudless blue skies. The beating against my ribs slow until I can breathe again. Tia places his palm on my forehead, cooling my skin, melting all till I am empty once more.

Hush, Tia, hush. Stop squirming. Let me have this moment. Let me sink into the sands of your skin. Swallow me whole in your embrace. Pour white noise into my ears to drown out the cacophony in my head, my heart, my veins. Let this silence piece me together.

When the world is consumed by my hands, I shall carve this memory into my stone - by my teeth if I must. Do not burn it with me; press it into your hand and claim it, and I shall bequeath you this silence, this glassy tranquility, all the knowledge of eld and none of the smothering voices so that you can bring succor to the masses, for they will clamour for it once I am done.

Should we meet, you'll thank me for it.

I promise.

#ffxiv #ffxiv story #ffxiv character #story time #escher strange

[lapis-lazuli-block]

Flesh and Bone

A little fic for @ask-elementalhermitcraft based off of one of Joe’s poems, Like Your Enemy (from his s6 ep96, Puttering Around).

Length: 2784 words

I made war on the sea and became the waves

The night was damp and warm, but that was to be expected; they were, after all, in the middle of a swamp. The stagnant water covering the ground reflected the clear, crisp white light of the moon above. In the water, she watched Iskall and Stress a full bit away making a routine sweep of G Team’s territory.

She and Ren weren’t supposed to encounter them tonight, and certainly not in the middle of a swamp, where both Iskall and Stress’ powers would nearly be at full height. But it was night, and the moon was shining on the swamp water. False and Ren were at the height of their power, too.

Still, a skirmish was less than preferable. They would be too evenly matched. She needed to find Ren, wherever the reckless man had gone, before the opposing duo found him first. Without moving an inch, she shifted her attention to her partner for the night. She didn’t have to look far before Ren’s image stared back at her from the water. His expression was as tense as False felt; he could see the enemy.

False was off, bow in hand, fast as she was able while keeping the sound of her feet splashing in the water to a minimum. She kept an eye on the scene through the mirrored surface of the swamp but she could only watch as Ren backed further into the underbrush and Iskall and Stress continued to draw closer. She passed a massive ravine; that, perhaps, would prove useful.

She slowed to a crouching crawl and then hid behind a tree once the duo came into her line of sight. Their backs were still to her, but it was colder now and the slimy swamp water covering her feet clung to her diamond boots. Across a wide—too wide—span of water and hidden within dense forest, False saw the barely-visible shine of Ren’s eyes glowing silver in the power of the full moon. Behind him, a massive ravine marred the terrain.

The night was still. The air was thick. The firm grasp of her element was familiar as she summoned a shield to encase her body.

Iskall and Stress attacked with not so much as a passing glance exchanged between them.

The speeding line of ice that Stress sent her way just barely grazed False’s feet as she leapt backward onto dry land. Instinctive reactions and years of training had her sending an arrow in Stress’ direction before she landed. Her boots were frosted over, but there was no time to think about how cold her toes were while Stress was sprinting towards her.

Get Ren. Stay out of the water.

Stress threw her hands out and False danced away from an array of ice spikes. Stress and Iskall were most powerful when they and their opponents were surrounded by water. False lunged forward and slashed at Stress with her sword. It didn’t make contact. Of course this had to happen in a swamp.

“Stay still, love,” Stress snarled at her as False dodged yet another attack. The biting cold might have affected her if it weren’t for her skin-like shield she kept up. In her peripheral vision, she could see Ren and Iskall battling it out, slightly closer to the bank where Ren had been hiding. She shot an arrow, quick as lightning, and felt more sick than happy when it met its target.

Stress cried out. The arrow stuck out from her thigh as False leapt back. Water splashed outward as Stress fell. False’s instincts, honed after years of battle, told her to go for the kill as Stress looked up at her in shock. Her opponent was on the ground, at her mercy.

False hesitated a second too long, because a blade met her stomach before she could make another move.

Iskall’s sword shattered her shimmering shield and the impact knocked her to the ground as well. Her sword was in hand and raised for a second strike despite her fall, but she only caught a glimpse of Iskall’s face twisted in rage before Ren’s body slammed into the one-eyed man and the pair fell flailing to the ground.

Ren’s growl matched the look in Iskall’s sole eye in intensity, but his next move was to lunge toward Stress rather than continue to engage Iskall. Determined to protect his friend, Iskall leapt to his feet to intervene, but False swung her blade and stepped between him and the pair.

Iskall was a force to be reckoned with under normal conditions but this, with the water freezing and slime sticking the soles of her feet to the ground, plus his own increased speed in the swamp, this was simply unfair. False found herself fighting to keep her sword in hand and a magic shield in front of her only for it to break with one swing of his blade. Iskall was angry and, she had to admit, that was almost as terrifying as Doc angry.

>Rendog fell from a high place

False felt her blood turn icy, and she knew it had nothing to do with the ice elemental in her vicinity. Stress and Ren must have reached the ravine. Of course he’d been the one to fall. False was on her own now, against Iskall and Stress.

Iskall knew, too. False stumbled, the intensity of the moment finally getting to her. The Swede before her lunged and she fell once again, flat on her back, drenched in murky water.

They weren’t even supposed to engage tonight.

Iskall stalked forward. Behind her, False felt the chilly presence of Stress approaching, but she never took her eyes off of the imminent threat before her.

A plan formed in her mind; risky, deadly, but a plan. There was little choice but to attempt it. She’d exhausted all other options.

Iskall’s sword was coming down and False felt the tell-tale cold of ice rushing toward her back. She formed a small shield behind his legs and moved, quick as a whip, rolling forward and kicking outward to trip him and leap forward onto dry land in one smooth motion.

Iskall fell face-first into a foot-deep puddle of water that froze over immediately.

“Iskall!” Stress rushed forward, icicle already in hand to chip away at the ice covering him, but False wasn’t about to stick around to figure out if it would work.

She darted off, back towards her home base where Ren had surely respawned, leaving the pair behind her. She was out of the swamp with Team STAR’s base in view when the death message announced the result.

>Iskall85 drowned

I made war on the peaks and became the stone

There was a razed path of destruction through the world, a gruesome scar cut from the battleground of the two bases straight to the sea. The sun was rising over the water in the distance, though the fires all around burned bright enough that it might as well be day already.

Cleo stayed back, and perhaps that was cowardly, but her powers worked best from a distance. Jevin and Tango played tank, engaging in brutal, direct combat with Wels and Impulse, respectively. Cleo could barely see Mumbo through his cloud of redstone on the opposite side of the battlefield, identifiable as the source of dusty red waves that spawned deadly machines and weapons that activated on their own. The landscape was a mess of fire and iron, torn up by redstone machinery and levitated terrain.

Cleo’s undead army of zombies and pigmen, amassed from days of concentration next to a portal and an enormous glass containment pen, didn’t seem to be doing much harm to any of their three enemies but they did make decent targets for Mumbo’s machines. She could feel the dull aches all over her body as her forces were cut down by arrows and pistons and lava and for the first time in the fight that was lasting hours, the impacts were too difficult for her weary body to ignore.

The sun finally rose from the water. Cleo felt the uncomfortably warm sensation of her hundreds of mobs catching flame; with control of so many, she couldn’t stop them from burning. Lucky for her, Mumbo was tiring too, his cloud of red dispersing and thinning to the point where she could see his form kneeling on the ground. His machines were weaker and more sparse.

Cleo turned her attention to the continued fight between Wels and Jevin. The slime was no longer exhausting energy on freezing Wels’ arrows and the edges of his physical form were beginning to warp. Wels had dropped the swords that once circled him and his armor was no longer changing in response to Jevin’s attacks; it was simply spiked. They were beginning to tire. Anyone would be; this had to be the longest, most exhausting battle she’d been part of. They were too evenly matched. The sun had set and now risen again and yet not an inch of ground had been given or taken. The only result of their fighting was a stain on the surface of the world.

And yet, in the center of it all, burning the terrible path, two beacons of scorching heat clashed with what felt like a bottomless well of energy. It seemed as if Tango and Impulse were incapable of exhaustion. Cleo couldn’t even imagine it.

It hurt to watch. Literally—the brilliant light they were emitting burned her retinas—but in more ways than just physical; they were best friends. The sight of the two of them at each other’s throats was a horrible testament to how far out of hand the war had gotten. Hands burning, bodies glowing, the pair pulled apart and then rushed back in, an endless cycle every time they came face-to-face now. Flames licked Impulse’s mouth every time he opened it and the whip of fire in his hand lashed like a snake with a mind of its own. Tango’s hands were ablaze and the ground around his feet glowed red-hot with every step he took. The identical looks in their eyes were nothing less than ferocious.

As the sun rose behind her, Cleo allowed herself to take a step back and witness the battle. Her body shook with the toil of it; her armies ablaze, Mumbo all but motionless on the ground, Wels and Jevin locked in exhausted combat, Tango and Impulse forging a hideous inferno.

Joe, in all his infinite kindness and wisdom, had told her this was a mistake. Maybe they all had known that the whole time. And yet, even he had chosen a side. Whatever had caused this, even he wasn’t immune. She turned around; she needed a moment to collect herself.

There was a figure silhouetted by the sun in the distance, standing atop the highest mountain surrounding the scorched, upturned valley. Cold terror shot through Cleo like an icy knife stabbing her spine. Friend, or foe? Come to help the G Team or STAR? She didn’t know which option she feared more. It didn’t matter, she supposed; either way, it meant the end of this grueling battle.

The figure didn’t move. The mountain rumbled.

It was then that Cleo realized who it was. Neither friend nor foe, it was the reclusive Tinfoil Chef, emerging from beneath the earth for the first time in months.

She didn’t even have time to process that thought before the world went black. Her body crumpled and her lungs filled with filth as the surrounding mountains collapsed and the dirt beneath her feet gave way. A tidal wave of earth filled the valley, crushing the six hermits battling there.

>ZombieCleo suffocated >Mumbo suffocated >Tango suffocated >Welsknight suffocated >iJevin suffocated >ImpulseSV suffocated

I made war on the heavens and became the sky

In the month since the war had begun, every hermit had come to recognize when Doc and Grian were fighting. It wasn’t particularly hard to tell; the moment the two were in proximity and aware of each others’ presence, it was as if the sky itself was at war, as if the heavens were being ripped apart. A storm would hover low overhead, bolts of lightning streaking in jagged, violent paths from the clouds to the ground, accompanied by the crack of thunder and the wind howling angry ramblings as it sent rain sideways and upwards.

Doc stood on the roof of the ghast tower, trident in hand, eyes locked on the sky, searching for Grian’s faint form swooping through the clouds.

“Show yourself!” he roared, and the sky flashed white as a bolt of lightning arced through the clouds to hit the earth in the center of no-man’s land.

A winged man was silhouetted in the brief light. Doc lifted his trident, feeling its weight in his hand. It buzzed with energy that danced between the prongs and sent static running along his body. He aimed at the figure, knowing Grian was long gone, and shot into the air.

The feathers on Grian’s wings stood on end as a bold of pure electricity passed by where he’d been mere seconds before. His hand gripped tightly around his sword, his knuckles pale, his heart giddy as the man below shouted to the heavens:

“Face me, coward!”

Grian’s snicker was carried enough by the wind that Doc could hear it from where he stood down below. He grit his teeth, trying not to channel too much energy into his trident. Fights with Grian were more often than not long and painful, and pacing was key, especially because the man he was facing had far more stamina than him. At times, it seemed like Grian lived in the air. There had once been a time when Doc found his endless flight charming, but now he only felt a desire to ground the man with a vicious bolt of electricity.

Even from high above its source, Grian could feel the air tingling with electrical energy. It smelled of ozone and rain, and there was a sort of giddy thrill about him that he recognized as his element; the air was normally benevolent, if slightly reckless. Something about this war, though—perhaps the power that went along with fighting everyone—made his element more excited than normal.

He could feel it start circling before he commanded it to, but he paid no mind, and simply urged the forming tornado along. The sky lit up with another bolt of Doc’s lighting and Grian allowed himself to be illuminated by the blast. Below, Doc was alight with crackling energy on the roof of STAR’s ghast tower. The wind howled as Grian began his descent.

It was foolish to assume that any singular battle would end this war. It almost felt, at this point, that the entire thing would never end. At times like these, though, when it was one-on-one, and the conflict felt all the more personal and all the more deadly, it was easier to fall into the misguided hope that taking out the leader would stop the war.

Doc’s trident lit up with electricity, crackling and sparking, the scent of ozone pungent in the air. Wind swirled around Grian, a miniature hurricane surrounding him as he gained speed. Doc took aim as Grian swooped down, gaining momentum.

Doc’s eyes widened. At the last second, he sidestepped, and Grian sped straight down past him, grazing his wing on the corner of the ghast tower. The sting caught him by surprise, but the noise he made was nothing compared to the scream Doc let out. He caught the slightest glimpse of the man’s body alight with crackling energy before he was gone. It was far too late for Grian to try and stop himself; he simply closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable crash into the ground.

The energy surging through Doc was agonizing and brilliant. His entire being was electrified. Grian’s personal tornado had yanked his trident from his hand just as he was about to shoot the menace, and his own lightning had backfired on him. He could feel himself burning from the inside out, though he could hardly say the sensation was unfamiliar. He caught one final look at Grian’s falling form, and was filled with a sense of cruel satisfaction, knowing the other man would soon be dead, too.

>Grian experienced kinetic energy >Docm77 was struck by lightning

I made war on my neighbor and died, flesh and bone

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft fanfic #elemental hermitcraft #elemental hermitcraft au #ehau #my writing #im not tagging all these people I'm so sorry to whichever mod gets this and has to do that #its like everyone in the war except Joe and x and including TFC

[imagine-loki]

missed

TITLE: missed CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 4/14 AUTHOR: hiddlemediddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine being one of the few female frost giants left. As the race is dying out, you are expected to bear as many children as possible. You escape when Jotunheim is under attack, finding yourself on earth. Dr. Strange senses your arrival and takes you to the Avengers, where they are in awe of your appearance. Blue skin and crimson red eyes. When Loki sees you, he doesn’t quite know how to respond. RATING: M NOTES/WARNINGS: Loki arrives.. x - Loki expected to feel a curl of revulsion, but received nothing. He received the complete opposite. Never in his life had he beheld a Jotun female. From gazing into his eyes, all he could feel was the unexpected wave of admiration. He felt, also unexpectedly, connected to her. Yet, from the way she gazed at you, it felt so distant. In addition, the Parker boy was flanking her on her left, which was made rather more awkward by his own innocent looks jumping from the Jotun female and himself. “Loki! How are you? Rehabilitation treating you well?” Peter asked, not able to further bear the weight of the awkward silence. You barely heard his words. All you could see was Loki. 

Another set of footsteps was quickening down the hall. You were in for another surprise when it turned out to be Thor himself. Loki did not even turn to see his brother approaching. His eyes were firmly fixed on you. “Brother, I told you to wait. You are quite averse to listening.” Thor said, huffing out slightly from the exertion of running. “You must be Y/N.. I am Thor” he continued, rather awkwardly. “She knows who you are.” Loki said calmly, still locking eyes with you. “I did not wait because I could sense her presence.” “Y/N has a name, Loki” Peter said, quite firmly. “Quite rude.. I thought Asgardians were polite” “You were, then, clearly mistaken. Besides, I am Jotun by birth.” Loki said. You didn’t say a word. You walked towards Loki, but walked passed him in an attempt to avoid his gaze. It was too.. raw. Too painful after Raze. “Y/N, we have no hostility towards you. We hope that you harbour none towards us” Thor said from behind you. “I do not, Thor. I harbour no hostility. Despite the fact that my family is dead and likely the entirety of the Jotun race. You have seen the ruin, have you not?” Thor was suddenly quite silent. Loki turned to him suddenly. “What were you not telling me?” Loki asked his brother, pressing him firmly with his voice. “This isn’t the place to discuss it..” Thor said under his breath. “So be it” You said. “Where would be more appropriate?” Thor beckoned you both. Peter felt like the spare part, but felt a level of responsibility towards you. You all ended up in a room full of the Avengers anyway, which made little difference to who heard what. You were in the presence of what Peter termed ‘real powerful people’. He named them as Wanda, Vision, Black Widow.. so many names you knew that would slip your mind sooner or later. All you could discern was that they were all eyeing you very, very carefully. When they were all assured that you were not some hostile captive, they seemed to all loosen up considerably after that. Thor was the one to pull you aside and describe to you what he had left behind of Jotunheim. “Y/N.. there is no easy way of saying this.. but it is truly decimated” Thor said quietly. “The rebels.. latched onto a power source which we have identified and captured.. but not before they were able to unleash it on your realm. As far as I am aware, there is little to no life left on Jotunheim which we can detect. I am so sorry, Y/N.. we tried to save them.. but it was too late. The power source was made entirely of heat.” Your heart sunk to the depths of despair. You thought you would collapse. Your entire race.. gone in the flicker of an instant. You had accepted that you were all dying out.. but the suddenness of their extinction was too much for you to handle. The fact that you were not among the dead was the biggest shock of it all. You felt as though you should be amongst it all.  Loki stood up to go and wander to another part of the room. He ended up leaving the room altogether, clearly to process what he had just heard. “There may be more Jotuns around the galaxy.. having left your realm. You are not alone.” Thor said to you under his breath. “I am alone as far as I am concerned. Jotuns do not simply leave. They are not exiled, either.” “My brother is Jotun” “Your brother is Asgardian” You said firmly. “I mean.. by blood. He has reconciled himself with his heritage. He feels no disgust” “You cannot be so sure” You said firmly. “I would like to be left alone” - For the second time, you found yourself in that freezing vault. The tumult of emotions which captured you sent your mind into a frenzy. You wanted to join them. You wanted to join them, but your heart and mind and soul was willing you to live on. You couldn’t comprehend how people could be so evil as to use a power source.. to burn the people of Jotunheim alive. In the space of your solitude, Peter and Dr. Strange had both visited you to check up on you. After informing them that you would rather stay alone there in the vault, you did not see them again for what felt like hours. Eventually, you heard the vault being opened again. Guessing it was either Peter or Dr. Strange, you left your head hanging. You were staring blankly at the floor of the vault, tracing your eyes over the patterns of the ice. Your hands had made the patterns, yet the most prominent patterns which had been formed were formed from your tears. When you placed your hands on the sides of the box again, the ice was imprinted with your hand prints. When the vault was closed again, you raised your head again. You were, in truth, unsure if you were even prepared to make any more human interactions. The face you met was one of the most unexpected. Not because of who it was, but the form in which that person had taken. Loki stood before you, however his skin had turned to the deepest of blue. You couldn’t keep your eyes away from his eyes. They must have mirrored your own. They were as red as the core of a flame, as red as blood. Two flameless fires stood there, staring blankly forwards at your form. The patterns covering his blue skin were different to your own, likely identical to Laufey’s and his mother’s patterned skins. There were smaller things which were not easy to spot. At the surface, he would have been impassive, indifferent. Yet, from the way he clenched his jaw, the way it curved sharply beneath his ears, could only indicate the deep tension he was experiencing. If he were to clench his teeth tighter, you wondered if his jaw would snap off in two. Loki sat down beside you, not saying a word for a while. The silence was deafening enough for you, however. “I was disgusted with it. At one time, I could barely look at myself.. without seeing the monster which generations of Asgardians had painted.” “How did you reconcile yourself.. with yourself?” You asked silently after the silence. Silence seemed to be the only words which could be meaningfully communicated between the both of you. “I have not yet passed that hurdle fully. Yet, I find myself accepting the form that I was born within. I find myself accepting my heritage, though murdering my biological father in the past may not be testimony for that.” “It is.. as you say.. in the past” “How are you able to freely converse with me? You know what I intended to do.. almost did.. to Jotunheim in my youth.. do you not?” Loki’s words lacked the conviction of the God of Mischief and Lies. All you could hear were the tones of a truly broken, yet healing man. “You were blinded by rage.. hatred for a race which you were a part of. Hatred for yourself” Loki was silent again, absorbing the truth of your words. “I apologise for.. what happened to your people. To.. your brother, I heard..” “Seeing as it was no fault of your own, I do not see why you should apologise” “It is a mortal sentiment. They apologise to each other for the pain in which the other experiences.. though it is through, as you say, no fault of their own. Apologising for their pain, I suppose” You couldn’t believe the conversation you were having. A conversation with a man whom your people had sworn to hate.. a man whom your people had sworn to take their vengeance from. “I suppose your wishes were fulfilled. You and I may well be the only Jotuns left in the Nine Realms” “They are no longer my wishes” You stood up lightly. “Who am I to doubt that you may have been the one to have unleashed those rebels yourself?” Loki was instantly enraged. He stood up quickly, facing you. You were not afraid of him in the slightest. You regretted your words, however. “You think I would delve back into the depths of insanity? Just to wipe out a race to whom I would have no interest in wiping out?” You realised that you were being foolish, but your irritation was sparking your anger. Loki shook his head, acknowledging that, truthfully, he was not blaming you for your feelings. After all, you had lost your entire family and the entirety of your race.. therefore any remnants of what may have been a home. “Look, I’m not in the mood for arguing. I’ve lost everything I hold dear in my life, I feel at least entitled to solitude” “Trust me, Y/N, solitude is the last thing I would advise” “You would be mistaken to think that I would take your advice” Loki mentally commended the fire of your words. You sat down again, feeling like burying your face in your hands again and continuing to drown your sorrows in ice tears. “You will survive this” Before you could even raise your head to reply, the vault door closed again. Loki had granted to you the solitude that you had wanted. When experienced, you were unsure if it was truly what you had wanted. Perhaps the man had been right.

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #submission #hiddlemediddles #chapter 4 #missed

[scmewhereelse]

Laia of Serra is a smoldering ember turned licking flame turned blazing wildfire; barely contained, ready to set the world aflame, raze it to the ground. She is the flaming sky of the sunset and the first rays of the breaking dawn; the first bloom in spring and the pouring rain that comes with it. The embodiment of hope and change. 

Helene Aquilla is the biting frost of a snowstorm and the solace of a blazing fire in the hearth. She is her own opposite, her maker and her undo'er. An executioner dealing justice. She is fear and courage, understanding but not forgiveness. She is steel will and the timber from which the fire grows. She is family, unwavering and steadfast. 

Elias Veturius is the wind carrying snow and fueling the fire. He is the soil from which life grows, steady and unyielding. A spider caught in its own web of pure-spun silk and lies. He is a dreamer and a watcher, doomed to stand apart, to stand alone. The judge to the executioner, passing judgement on right and wrong, necessity and want. He is the changes and possibilites the turning season has brought.  

#an ember in the ashes #aeita #pondering #sabaa tahir #young adult #literature #writing #character study

[gabeswritingthingy]

A Front-Row Seat to the Twilight of the Gods (Sample Work, Short Story)

It shall begin soon. The harsh, long winter has foretold it.

This lengthy, drawn out season of frost has gone on for a while. Summer, autumn, and spring seem nothing more but a dream of the distant past. Siblings have turned against each other. Families are up at each other’s throats. War has ravaged the distant lands. It is an axe-age, a sword-age. This was made more evident by the events that I have experienced earlier.

I wake up early in the morning. I climb down the snow-covered mountain I live in, and go to the forest in search of firewood. I need them to help myself get through this seemingly apocalyptic season. I finish this arduous task without much trouble. But as I attempt to climb back to my cozy log cabin, trouble seemed to have found me.

As I reach the foot of the mountain, the sounds of shuffling feet muffled by snow assault my ears. I drop the load I am carrying and prepare my axe. I hear a lunging sound to my left, and swing my axe in that direction. After two more swings, the surroundings have finally gone silent. The snow parts for a moment, and I see what I have dreaded for so long.

It seems that men have tried to kill me. Dead men. Draugar, my late father called them. They are the bodies of the dead risen from the grave, although one can hardly tell they are human. I shall let these corpses be buried by the snow. Feeling relieved, I begin the journey home.

I quickly gather the firewood, and prepare a nice, cozy fire. I cook my meals and eat them by my hearth. As I consume my hurriedly-prepared food, I recall the distant past; the place that now seems so far away.

Before my family was taken by the cold, they told me stories. My parents would sit me and my siblings by the fire, and tell us wonderful tales about the gods. They told us how Odin and his brothers killed their grandfather, Ymir, and used his body to create Midgard, the Earth. They told us of the war between the gods, and how they came to peace. They told us of Yggdrasil, the tree that holds the Nine Worlds together. The tale that I loved the most is the tale of how everything will end. I cannot fully fathom why that is, but I think it is because it’s the most epic tale that has ever graced my ears, and the fact that I thought the stories they told me are not at all real.

First, they said, the world will be shrouded in white. If the winter lasts for more than a season, then it is no ordinary winter. It is Fimbulvetr, the great winter that will serve as the prelude to the end. This, in turn, will give rise to an age of war. Before I could recall the rest, the surroundings have suddenly gone dark. Everything came back to me, and I go outside so I can witness all of it.

My suspicions are confirmed. Ragnarök begins now.

I look up at the sky. The sun and the moon have been consumed by the great wolf Fenrir, the wolf-son of the trickster god Loki. I imagine he’ll turn up soon. The giant hound steps down to the earth, and the resulting shockwave knocks me down on my feet. I marvel in awe at the size of the wolf’s maw. I cower in fear when he opened his mouth, for I see teeth the size of mountains and stare down at his throat; an abyss that has consumed, and will consume, a great many things. I look to the west where the seas lie, and tears spring from my eyes as it slowly sinks in that Ragnarök is really under way.

The sea brings in Naglfar, the ship made from the untrimmed nails of the dead. Behind it, an army of the undead follows it. The jötunns, frost giants who live in Jötunheim, the world of frost, march alongside them. They are led by Hrym, with his shield raised high. It would seem that Nidhogg, the serpent living under Yggdrasil, has finished consuming its roots. The stories say that this will result in an earthquake powerful enough to break even the strongest of bonds. It broke the moorings of Naglfar; the thread that once bound Fenrir; and of course, Loki himself.

I see the trickster god upon the helm of the ship of the dead. The scars that resulted from him being bound by the entrails of his own sons under the earth are still visible. Red marks still appear on his arms and legs. His face is a scar-filled mess, the result of having a snake drip venom on him for millennia as his punishment. His eyes look cold and amused, as if he waited for this a long time.

I look to the south. My eyes see the fire giants of Muspelheim marching from there. They are led by Surtr, with his enormous flaming sword at the ready. The tales say that after everything ends, he will be the one to raze the entire world with fire, before a new one is reborn from the ashes.

Another earthquake shakes the surroundings. The waters suddenly swell and flood the land. The serpent Jörmungandr rose from its home under the ocean. Expecting something, I close my eyes, and I hear it. The sound of a war horn is heard everywhere.

The Bifröst, the rainbow bridge that connects Midgard to Asgard, has finally shown itself. The gods, both Aesir and Vanir, are seen marching on it, eager to join the battle. Odin the All-Father leads them. His son, the thunder god Thor, rides his goat-pulled chariot beside him.

While the gods run down the rainbow bridge, an enormous double door appears beside it. They are gargantuan enough for an army to go through, because they have to be. I recognize it at once; it is the door to Valhalla, the hall of Odin. They burst open, and einjerhar, the souls of warriors handpicked by the All-Father himself, run out and join the oncoming war with glee.

It is both a blessing and a curse to be able to witness all these. I just wish that my family is still here with me; here in Vigridr, the final battlefield where everything ends. Witnessing the end of the world just seems less painful when you have people to watch it with you. Still, I accept my fate, and wipe the tears from my eyes.

I go back inside. I prepare my drinking horn, and fill it with the sweetest mead I have. I take a chair, and place it just outside my home. I shall witness Ragnarök with my own eyes. I shall witness the universe be destroyed by bloodshed, content with the fact that a new one shall take its place. I shall embrace Death with a smile on my face, hoping that the beauty I witness will forever be burned into my memory, even in the afterlife.

#short story #writing

[cryptic-chrysalis]

On a summit where the winter never turns to spring but greets the sun with gleaming teeth as hard and white as towers made of ivory, I heard the ringing of an empty bell as though the singing of the sea inside a shell were drawn like water from a secret well to wash my windows, cleaning off the dust and frost that covered me like armor to protect me from the vacuum of eternity until the creeping rust began to eat away at all my shields and blades and hungry moths made holes in moldering and musty cloth by clinging like a flame until the tree became a cinder and the flesh decayed, a building razed to rubble in a single day, a bubble never meant to hold its shape for any longer than it takes to say goodbye and thanks for showing me the way in which the wind is blowing, cold and bitter, moving onward, never hindered even when a spindle pricks the finger of a rose among the briars, thus inspiring a primal urge to hibernate, a bite of poisoned apple which invites a kind of altered state that stains a slate as blank and white as snow with all the blood and pain that comes with menstruation, laying eggs, or slaying dragons like a saint, the taint of knowledge like a light that never fades away, the nakedness of gnosis, needing veils to provide some shade from mutagenic rays that burn the virgin skin which lacks the fur or feathers to protect it from the elements, so every spider spins its silk like straw becoming gold as if by magic, every chrysalis a crucible to make the transformation happen, cooking in a cauldron activated by a strange enchantment, softening like candle wax that's rendered from the fat of slaughtered cattle, sheep, and pigs who never left the garden dressed in garments made from leaves of figs, becoming salty pillars, tough and hardened, pharaohs being mummified to drift inside sarcophagi upon the raging waters of an unforgiving afterlife until the tomb is raided like a womb invaded by a surgeon's knife releasing surging tides of butterflies emerging for a fleeting week of flight before they curl their wings and die within the time it takes to blink an eye, without the mind to wonder why.

03/04/18

#poetry

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Rewards of Losing:  Chapter 14

It wasn’t enough. As hard as the people of Heartland City tried, their efforts to push back the invading forces of Fusion just weren’t enough. There was one simple reason for that – Fusion’s army had so many different decks and every monster, spell, and trap in those decks could take weight in the physical world in the way that the holograms that the people of Heartland used couldn’t.

Within the first hour of the invasion, a shimmering barrier circled all the way around the city. None of the defenders were certain which card this was but it prevented communications to the outside world. No one could pass through it from either side. Heartland was on its own.

There were other reasons as well. The armies that entered through the gateways weren’t the only ones there. At every center of defense – police stations, city hall, fire stations – it was later discovered that Fusion agents slipped into the area and on the signal, summoned their monsters and unleashed all manner of hell there.

Within days the rumors of what happened to those defeated spread. They became cards. Those cards were gathered up and no one knew what happened to them after that.

But what else happened was far, far worse. Carding happened to those who fought back and some who tried to flee. But for those who were in other positions…

Mizael crouched behind a pile of rubble. He wasn’t sure of what the rubble had been before but now it gave him a place to watch what was going on. The city train whooshed by on the tracks, packed to the brim with refugees from one of the wealthier areas of the city. Those areas weren’t so wealthy right now. A contingent of Fusion warriors rendered virtually every area there into wreckage and ruins.

Now Mizael waited for them to arrive to escort them to one of the safe areas. There weren’t a lot of those. He stayed at the Night Garden – the safest of those areas. They were running out of space there as well.

The young man next to him shifted, staring at the train as it drew closer to the battered stop. In days gone by it would have been full of people waiting to meet new arrivals or others waiting for their own ride to elsewhere. Now it was just the two of them, keeping hidden in the heart of a grove of trees.

Every tree, bush, and flower that still lived in Heartland wept in their own fashion for what happened. Mizael hadn’t touched every garden in the city but he could feel the ones that he had, and so many of them suffered now. Some of them were razed to the ground or pumped full of energy to the point they couldn’t survive. It made him sick just to exist near them right now.

Around his waist there now rested a red scarf. In the past few days it had become a symbol of the Resistance, as they referred to themselves. Even those who had never been inclined to wear accessories before now sported one. He’d picked his up out of some rubble. It hadn’t had any stains on it, aside from rock dust. Better than some he’d seen…

“They’re stopping,” his companion murmured. Mizael didn't remember his name. He’d been sent out with others who didn’t always make it back. It didn’t always seem worth it to try and remember them.

This one did seem tougher than most of them, or perhaps with the potential to be tougher. He stayed where he was, even as he watched the train, muscles tensed and ready to leap out at a moment's notice. Mizael put his age probably at thirteen or fourteen – tall for his age, with a shock of blue-green hair, and eyes that reminded him of those of raptors.

He didn’t deserve to be in this. None of them did, but children like this least of all.

The doors hissed open and someone serving the role of conductor – even if they weren’t actually one – stepped outside and started to wave everyone out. Mizael and his companion – Kurosaki, that was his name – rose up and took two steps forward.

That was all they had time to take before a far too familiar sound echoed – a duel disk opening up – and a thrilled voice spoke.

“I activate Fusion from my hand! Using Iron Tool and Burning Soldier, I Fusion Summon Bomb Phoenix, the Heavy Bombardment Bird!”

Above them all there suddenly rose a black-feathered bird larger than anything that Mizael had seen short of Jinlong. Wrapped in blazing fire, it screeched a challenge towards the train, claws stretched outward. Down below, the Fusion soldier who summoned it laughed.

“Destroy it! Wreck it all! Now!”

Again the bird shrieked in awful cadences of rage and hate, and Mizael could hardly breathe. Two things struck him harder than any other. Unlike most of the monsters summoned by Fusion, this one had a soul as well as mass – a soul as dedicated to destruction as the one who wielded it.

And the one who wielded it was a Firestarter.

Kurosaki’s own breath caught in his throat. Mizael tried to steady himself, his head spinning a little as the creature drew its head back and blasted a powerful spray of fire at the train. The shrieks and cries of pain blotted out everything for a breath before they were blotted out as well by the shrieks of Bomb Phoenix and the blast of fire-seared air as claws dug into the train and crushed it.

It didn’t just dig into the train, though. Mizael jerked his head away, shaking. Every instinct he owned demanded that he get over there and help them and he couldn’t. There wasn’t anyone left to help.

“Mom – Dad-” Kurosaki whispered two broken words as he stared at the wreckage. The Fusion soldier laughed before he turned and spied them. He blinked a little.

“Looks like I missed a few.” His smile spoke of a degree of madness that Mizael hadn’t ever seen before. He stared intently at Mizael, then all but licked his lips. “A Healer? Oh, this is going to be fun.”

Mizael started to take a step back. He’d never backed away from a duel in his entire life and he really didn’t want to now. But seeing this person sickened him, and he didn’t want to be any closer than he had to be.

“Not interested,” he managed to snap. He hadn’t met a Firestarter or Fire Cat that he wanted to bond to. He tried very hard to ignore the far too vivid memories of Marufuji Ryou. It had only been a week – maybe a bit more. Time blurred together after a while.

The Firestarter Fusion warrior stepped closer. “Well, I’m interested in you.”

Oh, no. This was not what he wanted at all. Before he could bring up so much as a branch in defense, another figure stepped before him. His shoulders shook with rage, his eyes blazed, and fire dripped from his fingertips.

“You killed my parents,” Kurosaki Shun whispered, fire lacing every word that he spoke. Something deeper and darker than flames moved behind those words as well. “You won’t get away with that.”

The Firestarter barely glanced at Shun, his attention all on Mizael. “Get over here.”

“Not a chance.” Mizael growled. Now more than ever he regretted what he’d learned too late – that those duel disks had a self-detruct option. When he’d fought that Fusion soldier on the first day and defeated him, his opponent made certain to set off the self-destrct before Mizael could claim the prize. He wanted one of those duel disks, wanted to be able to summon his creatures, especially right now. Jinlong fumed in his ear, using words Mizael didn’t understand and wondered about asking the meaning of later.

The Firestarter began to laugh. He didn’t have a chance to laugh for very long, not when a long, thick lash of fire spiraled outward from Kurosaki and slapped across his face. There wasn’t much fire that could hurt even the weakest of Firestarters, but this one fell backwards, shrieking in pain.

Kurosaki gave Mizael a look. “Get back to base,” he said, sounding a great deal older than he looked. “I’ll catch up later.”

Mizael wasn’t going to argue that point, not right now. He vanished deeper into the copse of trees, branches hiding him quickly, and hurried along. Jinlong floated along beside him.

“That’s a very good young Firestarter,” Jinlong declared. “But I think he’ll also need a strong Healer one of these days. He’s very close to frosting over.”

Oh. That was what else he’d sensed. It wasn’t surprising. The boy had just seen his parents and who knew how many others perish in front of him. Other people had fallen into the frost under far less traumatic circumstances. They were probably all lucky that the area hadn’t been frozen already.

Slowly he worked his way back to the Night Garden. It was a very different place from before. Now guards circled it, Firestarters and Healers, all of them duelists. Deep inside there were rows of tents, with those survivors who’d been gathered up living inside. The rescued Healers combined their powers and reworked which trees grew there, providing fruits and berries of many different kinds. A few animal herds – not many, there wasn’t nearly enough space for a lot – gathered there as well. Herds probably wasn’t the proper word; there were chickens, geese, a few ducks, and the odd quail. Mizael wasn’t sure where they’d all been before the invasion, but he was glad to see them now. They provided fresh eggs and occasionally meat, though everyone was cautious about killing them. Once killed, something could only be eaten once. Eggs could be provided every day.

There were other gardens kept safe that had other small collections of animals – becoming miniature farms in the ruins of the city. Until they could find a way to get in touch with the outside world, this would have to be how they fed themselves. The food stocks from the grocery stores that hadn’t been eradicated already weren’t going to last forever. There were also tiny enclaves of survivors near the ocean, who managed to fish what they could out and get it to the inner parts of the city.

Mizael came up to the guards at the entrance. They were older, probably had once been professional duelists, and now stood ready to give the alert if any of the Fusion warriors came closer. One of them eyed him.

“Well?” Was all that he asked. Mizael shook his head.

“Kurosaki will be coming back later,” he reported. “On his own.” Everyone knew that they’d been out to welcome the train in and bring in survivors. This guard’s lips thinned.

“No one else?”

“We were jumped while we were there. They destroyed the train,” Mizael told him. The guard turned away and Mizael tried not to think that he’d seen tears there briefly. With a wave of one hand, the guard allowed him entry. Mizael made his way inside as fast as he could. He didn’t know if anyone else was looking for anyone who might have been on the train. He just wanted to sit down and rest.

He had a little tent. It was just big enough for him and for Kei. The Cat raised his head as Mizael entered to flop down on the thin pile of blankets. There were too many people here who needed blankets for most people to have more than two, one to lay on, the other to lay under. At least it wasn’t cold weather yet and Kei would make an excellent heater when it was, even if he wasn’t a Fire Cat.

“Did you find out anything?” Kei wanted to know. Mizael sighed.

“I haven’t yet seen a Firestarter from Fusion I would want to spend five minutes with.” So far he included Ryou in that number. He hadn’t seen Ryou since the other vanished with Yuuri. Surely if he wanted to come back he would have found a way by now? Even if he’d been hit with Firedamp, it couldn’t last forever. Keeping a Firestarter drugged for too long would lead to very bad things. Yuuri had to know that.

Which was why if Ryou hadn’t come back, it meant that Ryou didn’t want to come back. Maybe he and Yuuri had already bonded and were in that blissful time post bonding. Maybe Mizael hadn’t ever really meant anything to him after all. There had been that one moment when he stood between Yuuri and Mizael but then nothing.

Kei brushed his head against Mizael’s hand, tail curling around his ankle. “We’ll find him soon.”

Mizael just made a bland noise. Kei continued to advocate that Ryou would want to return and just couldn’t for some reason. Mizael let him believe that. It hurt nothing.

“If he won’t come to us, then we’ll go to him,” Kei said. Mizael raised his head.

“What are you talking about?” That was new. Kei had never said anything to that effect before.

The Healer Cat stared at him with those bright gray eyes. “Just what I said. We can find a way to go to Fusion ourselves.”

Mizael shook his head. “What in the world do you men?” For all that Cats held the sapience of humans, they didn’t think like humans, and sometimes it really showed.

“The Fusion warriors jump back and forth with those duel disks of theirs. We capture one, find out how it works, and fit it into one of ours. Then we go there.” Kei said it as if it could be done in a single afternoon, perhaps just in a passing ten minutes.

Mizael rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t even sure of how hungry he was, only that it was a great deal. That had to be why he was hearing that. “Kei…”

Kei nudged him. “Go to sleep. I’ll take care of that part of it.”

Then he slipped out of the tent. Mizael stared after him, shook his head, and curled up under his blanket. He’d figure out what was going on with that Cat when he had some sleep and food, and the sleep came first.

Ogawa Nobutoshi watched as Dark Blaze Dragon amused himself tearing up on of the small gardens that the Resistance members had kept from them. He’d happened on this one by sheer chance, having just one guard there, and that one he’d managed to card when her back was turned. Now his favorite card burned everything in sight.

This has got to be what it’s like to be a Firestarter. Ogawa wished all of his lief that he’d been born a Firestarter, to have that special spark inside of himself. But he’d never been able to so much as light a match. Using the deck that he did was the next best thing.

“There are a lot of people who aren’t going to be very happy that you did this,” an unexpected voice said. Ogawa twitched around in time to see someone half-hidden in shadows, staring at him.

His first thought was that it was one of those Cats. He’d heard rumors about the Cats, how they could talk like people and had the powers of Healers and Firestarters. They even wanted to steal the bonds between true Healers and Firestarters. The Professor had said it, so it was true.

Then he got a better look at the shape and relaxed. Whoever it was, this was human.

“Well, I’m not going to be here when they see it. Once Dark Blaze Dragon is done, I’m going back home.” Ogawa had taken a few pictures of his handiwork and looked forward to showing them to his friends who hadn’t had the chance to get out on the field. They were going to be so envious of him!

The stranger in the shadows strolled closer, coming out into the light. His bright orange hair stuck up like a carrot and his eyes gleamed a very wicked violet shade. He wore casual clothes, at least as casual as a black leather jacket could be. When he smiled, Ogawa had the feeling that this guy was about to go for his throat.

“I don’t know. It depends on if I let you go home or not. And that depends on exactly what you can do for me.”

Dark Blaze Dragon swooped down to hover over Ogawa. The stranger didn’t so much as look worried. “I can do that, too,” he said, and slapped a card don on his duel disk. Ogawa recognized it as one of theirs almost at once. He started to shape the question of where this stranger got it from when the card’s monster appeared in front of him.

“I summon Gorgonic Cerberus! By its effect, I also summon Gorgonic Gargoyle!” His unexpected opponent grinned a feral grin. “And with the two of them together, I XYZ Summon Gorgonic Guardian!”

Now before him there appeared a monster that Ogawa hadn’t ever seen before. He didn’t even have the words to describe it – vaguely female, with an odd headdress possessed of two bright glowing eyes that focused on Dark Blaze Dragon.

“By removing one XYZ material, I can target one face-up monster on my opponent’s field. That would be you, in case you haven’t guessed. Your monster’s attack is now zero and any effects it has would be negated. But your little toothless dragon doesn’t have any effects, does it?” The smile was far too ferocious. “Now once per turn – I can target a monster that doesn’t have any attack and destroy it.” He raised one hand. “Gorgonic Guardian, take out that scaled lizard!”

Beams of light shot forward from the mismatched eyes, wrapping all the way around his suddenly stoned dragon. In a breath, Dark Blaze Dragon exploded, and Ogawa stumbled backward, breath choked in his throat. This might not have been a clearly specified duel, but damage coursed through him regardless. If he didn’t find a way to defend himself, then he didn’t want to find out what would happen.

“Now, that was just a demonstration. These disks of yours work just as well with our cards.” The stranger moved forward, one hand flashing forward to wrap around Ogawa’s throat and lift him up off the ground. “But I have something else I want and you’re going to make sure that I get it.” He laughed. “And in return, I might just let you live.” He leaned forward. “But don’t get attached to that.”

Ogawa clawed at the hand around his throat and managed to squeak out a couple of words. He couldn’t be sure that they made sense, but his attacker must have heard something.

“My name? Oh. It’s Vector.”

To Be Continued

Notes: Finally! I get Vector and Shun in the same chapter! Two of my favorite characters. How did Vector get a Fusion duel disk without it being self-destructed by the original owner? Chapter 18 will tell that tale!

#fanfic #higuchimon writes #ygobb2020 #ygo gx #ygo zexal #ygo arc-v #marufuji ryou #mizael #yuuri (Arc-V) #chapters: rewards of losing #au: healer firestarter

[lunaraen]

“Was that almost a compliment? Aw, I knew you liked me.” with ivor and anyone in the new order?

Ivor’s an odd one.

The same way monsters notappearing at night, or a creeper asking her to come in for tea instead ofblowing her to bits, would be odd.

Petra’s not really sure what tomake of him.

(He has a place in the temple, afully furnished lab and a room, and still he keeps a house of his own in town.

A home made by him, surrounded bypeople ready and fully capable of hating him.

He’s stubborn, and maybe dumberthan she thought, but she’s not complaining when it means a warm place to stopby on her way to the temple when he wants some help with his stock. He getshelps with the heavy lifting, she gets a warm drink, ideally everybody wins.

She never thought she’d ever bein any ideal situations with him.)

After what he did, what he’stried and never meant to do, it’s hard to imagine him doing anything but tryingto cause more trouble, or simply fading all together. He’s gotten his revenge,for better or worse, and part of her wonders what he has left to live for, withhow obsessed it sounds like he was. She knows that’s not how people work, butshe also doesn’t think he had any back up plan either. As if he never believedany plan of his would work, even if the Witherstorm still went horribly wrong.

(The wind outside is biting,snapping, cold and sharp and unrelenting.

The fire is warm and loud andcrackling, swaying and twisting flames soothing to work to and by.

No matter what Ivor likes to say,Petra’s not a fool. And he has tea.

She comes inside.)

If it wasn’t for Jesse, if Jessehadn’t insisted Ivor was welcome with them and they’d appreciate any advice ofhis, Petra doesn’t know where he’d be. She’s not sure if she can trust him halfthe time, and she knows it wouldn’t be a question if Jesse didn’t vouch for himthe way she does.

It doesn’t help that he seems sohuman, now that he isn’t trying to kill them or creating world ending monsters.

Part of her still firmly believeshe shouldn’t be able to try. The person who made her so sick, who ended upterrifying and scarring countless people and nearly razing the world to nothingbut bedrock through just an ‘accident’, shouldn’t be so easy to see as human.

Past all the grumbling, gruffwords, and snappiness, though, and even under the thicker, musty stench ofnether wart and clinging smoke, there’s still a person.

Maybe it’s bothering that heactually had a motive, that there was a genuine reason behind the wholedisaster that led to heartbreak and nightmares. Petra likes to think it wouldbe much worse if it had all been for nothing, but hasn’t it, in the end? Ivorgot his revenge, showed the world who had lied to them, but at the cost ofsomeone who had been his friend, never mind at the cost of Reuben, Jesse’sability to really be care-free and not always worry about everybody else first,and countess people’s senses of safety.

It’s easier to hate the personwho caused it all, accidentally or otherwise, than the already defeated anddestroyed monstrosity of a storm, but it was all just a horrible mistake on hispart.

(And how much would he have beenable to do without that third skull?)

Can she blame him, reallyhonestly blame him, when she knows what she knows, knows the part she playedherself, when she’s seen the lengths he’s gone through to make it up to people?She’d like to think so, but it’s hard to blame Ivor in the same way that itcould be easy to hate him.

Villains don’t just pop upout of nowhere.

And Ivor, unlike most easilyhate-able people, actually cleaned up his mess and helped them fix things up,and it’s not like she can fault his original motivation for doing what he did,even if trying to control a wither definitely wasn’t his smartest move.

He was part of the Order once.Until they cheated, lied, and kicked him out, erasing him from the story whilethey got famous and he got bitter.

The thought alone stings.

Petra’s new, to having a team tobe a part of.

But losing them? Being pushedaway not only from, but by her friends?

She doesn’t like how scared thethought makes her.

Being alone has never been anightmare before. It’s just been the way things have always been for her, andgetting used to being part of a group, a group of people she actually likes andbeing she’s friends with, not to mention used to the mere idea that she mightlike this so much more than she does always being a loner, changes that.

So it makes him relatable, in away that’s actually kind of scary to admit.

And all of that, every human bitand terrible thing and attempt at being a better person, is all wrapped up in acurmudgeon of an alchemist.

He’s definitely one of a kind.

Given that he’s also one of thehardest people to figure out, and Petra’s gotten as good at that as she is attrading, that’s a good thing. It’s unnerving, seeing so many sides to oneperson, especially somebody who’s done what he did, and while Petra knows it’sfor the better that he’s proven her suspicions wrong, it’s also not somethingshe’s used to.

She’s also less used torearranging chests at his ever picky whim, but at least that’s easier to takecare of once she realizes he’s not serious about half of his nitpicks and shegets time to enjoy her tea.

“There.” Petra’sfingers, skin a deep pink and scars red, ache as she sets the chest down flushagainst the netherbrick wall, shoulders relaxing as she does, due in equalparts to the lack of audibly cracking or shattering glass and being able tofinally put it down without having to worry about picking it back up.“Happy?”

Not that Ivor doesn’t take hissweet time inspecting it. Reformed or not, he can still be plenty evil.

“I suppose you didn’t entirely bungle it all up.” Hegives a noncommittal shrug as he steps away from the fireplace and closer tothe couch, fingers curling around his mug of tea, hiding the lightly nicked andchipped top. “I’ll admit, I expected far worse from you.”

He’s had his fun with her, nowit’s her turn.

“Was that almost acompliment?” Petra lets her teeth show as she grins, the grin itself showyand larger than it needs to be while still meeting her eyes, even as Ivor seemsto cut off his own groan as he huffs. “Aw, I knew you liked me.”

“Notch forbid. Get out ofhere before I change my mind.”

“And we’re back togrouchy.” Petra rolls her eyes as she tugs her gloves on, fiddling alittle longer with the more faded and frayed of the two, one finger strugglingto not somehow get caught on the wool. “You can’t expect to still betreated like some kind of villain when you’re being nice to people, Ivor.”

It might surprise everyone thathe’s on their side now, but she knows better than to argue with it.

“Feh.” She might justbe a bit jealous of how he can beat even her at eye rolls, though. The onlyperson she’s met before who’s come close to having that kind of level of snarkis Olivia on her bad days. “Yes I can.”

It doesn’t keep her from rollingher eyes right back at him, even if the small smile she gives with it takes hermore by surprise than she’ll ever admit.

“Doesn’t mean you’ll getit.”

Ivor raises an eyebrow as thewind pounds harder against the window, letting the cool air seep in but notdisturbing the slowly growing and ever intricate design of frost on the outsidealso creeping in.

“Don’t you have somewhere tobe?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’mgoing.” The glove stops being trouble just in time for Petra to zip up hercoat and snatch her hat from where she’d tossed it on the couch (which hadinitially been much to Ivor’s very petty, and quickly discovered as more forthe sake of grumbling than anything, frustration). The hat, sleeker on theoutside and perfectly fuzzy on the inside, goes on with considerably lesstrouble than the thick wool gloves could ever hope to. Still, Petra takes hertime adjusting it while she exits the room, glancing over her shoulder even asshe makes her way to the door. “I’m not exactly the sappiest, you know.With Jesse around, you’re going to have to learn to take affection.”

He grumbles something too low forher to hear and too quiet to have any hope of beating the demanding howl of thewind as she opens the door, but she gets the feeling she’s not meant to hearwhatever it is anyhow.

But that’s alright.

Petra doesn’t have to hear him toknow she’s right and they both know it. She might not understand everything hedoes or all the odd little things about him, but she can understand that.

#My Stuff #fanfiction #mcsm #minecraft story mode #anon