#given that nine is a few years older than that and originally descended from a completely different video game woman dfbhd

[pythosblathers]

Nine again. She’s been on the mind for uhhh reasons

Godfrey got kicked out on a quest to kill a clone of his toxic mother in law and definitely not develop fatherly feelings about this living weapon who is also a clone of his mother in law

#my art #I need a blackwells tag #house blackwell #oc stuff #it's so funny how much nine resembles [other girl I've been drawing] in both appearance and personality #given that nine is a few years older than that and originally descended from a completely different video game woman dfbhd #anyway I'll write out more of their actual story some day. It lives in my brain #nine

[demonslayedher]

The Sound Pillar past, I have heard that explore a bit in databook about being ninja.

Also what happened his sibling that still remain.

Also what there react

Combining info from the fanbooks and Chapters 80, 87, and 90 we get the following narrative of Uzui Tengen and his family, as complete as I could fill it in. It's always possible the anime version will expand and give us more, but here's what I've got in chronological format.

Uzui Tengen's father was the leader of their clan, one of a few ninja clans who lived in close community. Ninja were regularly sent on missions, but it is not clear what those missions were. Women and children were also expected to undergo strict training and go on missions, but women were primarily only valued as baby-makers, and it was common for one man to take multiple wives. The wives, at least in the Uzui case, were chosen upon agreements between families. (For more commentary on the unusual and cult-like nature of the Uzui ninja clan, please see this post.) In Chapter 80, Makio recalls how she never used to be afraid of dying because she was so brainwashed to believe her only value as a kunoichi (female ninja) was to put her life on the line in support of the strong male ninja. Tengen is the oldest of nine children. Of note, Fanbook #2 states that he has a mother and father from whom the nine children came, but as multiple wives is the norm in this village and Uzui was 15 when they were forced to fight each other, I think it's reasonable to assume many of them were half-siblings (even if all with one very busy wife, that would make the youngest one only around 7~9 years old or so, by my guess. But, it doesn't seem unreasonable in this clan that an 8-year-old would be expected to take part in this fight.)

Tengen had his three wives by the time he was 15. Since he is 23 when canon takes place and Hinatsuru (from a ninja clan second in rank to the Uzui clan and who has a good balance of core ninja skills) is 21, Makio (physically a highly capable ninja but her short temper causes her to fail her missions and yes, she is Tengen's cousin, please restrain your knee-jerk reactions and accept the cultural difference and move one) is 20, and Suma is 19 (and yes, Fanbook #2 said she likes both men and women), that means his wives were respectively 13, 12, and 11 when they fled the village. As Suma's younger sister was originally the one being considered as a bride, this means they were willing to marry off girls even younger than that. See this post for more commentary on multiple wives in the Taisho period, and as an added note, the legal age for women to marry in Taisho was 16. The Uzui ninja clan was entirely counter-cultural in the first place, though, so this doesn't apply very directly to them. Furthermore, due to their curse, the Ubuyashiki clan had very usually early expectations for children to wed, and they always run a not officially recognized organization. Otherwise, most of the cast seems to follow more usual Meiji/Taisho family patterns. Of the nine siblings, three of them died before Tengen turned 15, simply due to the lifestyle. When Tengen was 15 (clarified according to Fanbook #1), Tengen's father pit the remaining six siblings against each other so that only the strong would remain. They were all concealing their identities and did not know they were fighting their own siblings. According to Fanbook #2, Tengen killed two of them, and his younger brother (second oldest) killed another two, and Tengen was pissed when he realized what was happening. He couldn't bring himself to kill his remaining brother, though that brother was just like their father when it came to his values that only the strong should survive, and he really didn't care about killing his own flesh and blood. This was when Tengen decided he didn't want to live like this, and he took his wives and fled. For a while (according to Fanbook #2), he often said he should go to hell, but this made Makio angry, it made Hinatsuru cry, and it made Suma bite him so he stopped saying that. He did continue to think that he should eliminate the rest of this evil Uzui clan, but he could never bring himself to kill his father and little brother. (So, fanfic writers, grab your pens, we can assume the Uzui clan is still active.) Anyway, once he was free of that lifestyle where he had to constantly hide his presence, he thoroughly rebelled and embraced the flamboyant.

It's unclear when and how Tengen learning Breathing technique. It's possible there was knowledge of this technique in some form or another among the ninja (though his wives don't seem to display it), and it's also possible he learned from a cultivator. Sound is an off-shoot of Thunder, but it's unclear whether Sound was established before he came along, or if he created this Breath to make extra use of his keen hearing. (What I would give to see Tengen/Kuwajima interactions, preferably arguing about which Breath is superior.) It's unclear how much time passed between fleeing the clan and joining the Demon Slayer Corps. Given his ninja skills, as soon as he found out about the Corps (and perhaps by extension, demons), passing the Final Selection was probably a breeze for him. It was either right after the Final Selection (and therefore still waiting for his uniform), or just as he had made up his mind to join the Corp that he declares his new rule to his wives: their lives are #1 priority. #2 priority is morally upright humans, and #3 is Tengen himself.

And they're like, "whaaaaaaaat."

But sure enough they all accept the demon slaying mission, and before long, Tengen and his wives meet Oyakata-sama one fine spring day, I assume upon attaining the rank of Sound Pillar. Oyakata-sama sympathizes with how hard it must had been for Tengen--for all of them--to go against what they were raised to believe, and to fight to protect people in what they've deemed a morally upright course of life. Tengen's like, "this guy gets it" and becomes as big a fanboy as any other Pillar is for Oyakata-sama. It's purely conjecture, but I'm guessing he and Oyakata-sama both were somewhere around age 15~17 at this meeting (again, we don't know how much time has passed since Tengen left the ninja. Due to Kanae and Tengen's shared presence at later flashbacks, he couldn't had been older than 18~19). Tengen goes on to be super popular. The most popular Pillar in the Corp, Taisho Rumor has it. His wives all help on missions too, but there's an agreement that they'll get out and live a happy domestic life once they've bagged an Upper Moon--enough of a contribution to, perhaps, to feel they've atoned for the sins they committed as ninja (or at least, this was how Hinatsuru proposed the idea). Once the arm gets chopped and the eye gets cut, Tengen gains a really good excuse for retiring, but it was just his luck to have declared three Tsuguko within hours of his forced retirement. (Like, I doubt this counts for anything. And if he ever calls them that again his trio of Tsuguko are probably going to be more confused than anybody else.) Anyway, Nezuko brings him back from the brink of poison-induced death and he basically walks home. While still involved in the Corp in training the rank and file members and guarding Kiriya upon his becoming Oyakata-sama (meaning he, like Himejima, was trusted with knowledge in advance about Kagaya's very flamboyant exit plan). After that he truly goes into domestic retirement mode and makes friends with a fellow lop-sided former Pillar, however drab he always thought that person was. He takes enough of a liking to said former Pillar that he brings him along on co-ed hot spring dips and lets him hold his first child. Which of the three wives birthed the first child, we don't know. And then one of his descendants goes on to be a flamboyant gymnast, but still gathers once a year under Ubuyashiki's leadership to perform the Sound Breath forms as a sacred Kagura dance. And we still don't know what became of Tengen's brother. For all we know, modern gymnast Uzui Tenma and his six other siblings regularly avoid explosive attacks on their life from a generations-held promise to eliminate them. PARKOUR---but more flamboyant. (I hope it's obvious that I am being silly here and have no canon basis for this.)

#no where in this did I mention the Muscle Mice #I am disappointed in my myself for I love the Muscle Mice #Uzui Tengen #kny references #kny reference #kny fandom theories and meta #Uzui Hinatsuru #Uzui Makio #Uzui Suma #Kimetsu no Yaiba #Demon Slayer

[gravityunforgiven]

Right Where You Left Me (Kakashi x OC)

Pairings: Kakashi x OC, Jiraiya x Tsunade, Dan Kato x Tsunade

Synopsis:

She was the daughter of a Legendary Sannin, He, a son of a disgraced shinobi. Fate brought them together but life tore them apart. Will they be able to take control of their destinies and find their way back to each other?

...Or will they be another victim of the cruel shinobi world they are both a part of?

Chapter Two

In the next few years, Akira proved herself to be a little firecracker. She had captured the hearts of those who surrounded her almost immediately. Tsunade’s days became a little brighter due to the presence of her little one, she became her world. But still, Dan’s death loomed over her like a shadow. She couldn’t stop thinking about how he was supposed to be here, how they should be raising their child together instead of on her own. She could see him in their child every single day especially in her eyes, the eyes that Dan gave her. It was so much like his that she could almost imagine Dan staring right back at her.

And even in her disposition she could see bits of Dan mixed with her own. Akira’s character was what a person could call a perfect combination of her parents. She was normally a calm and laidback personality and even as a child she was selfless and kind to others but she could also be impatient at times and prone to rule-breaking a little more than Tsunade wanted to admit.

Everyday Akira radiated happiness to the people around her. Tsunade had hoped that her daughter would remain a civillian. That she would have a normal life inside the walls of the village, never having to know the cruelness of the shinobi world. She wanted her daughter to be protected more than anything in the world. Even Jiraiya who remained put for the first year of Akira’s life, shared Tsunade’s wishes but their hopes were all too soon shattered.

Even at only a few months old, Akira’s abilities were already starting to show itself. At first, both Tsunade and Jiraiya were in denial. It was unheard to have a child of such age show that much capabilities. They shoved it at the back of their minds for the time being but when Akira’s first birthday neared, refusing the truth was no longer an option. When Tsunade entered Akira’s room full of daisies, the truth dawned on them like a bucket full of ice cold water.

She had inherited her great-grandfather’s kekkei genkai.

The Wood Release.

She was the first since the Shodai Hokage’s time to have this nature transformation and to think that when everyone finally came into terms that this Release was extinct, Akira came along, having acquired it naturally, after it skipped two full generations of her family and more than seventy years since her great-grandfather was born.

This brought fear in Tsunade’s mind. The safety of her daughter could be at risk after this discovery. It was not a secret that the Wood Release was one, if not the most, sought after kekkei genkai in the world. Not just because of its rarity but also the power and versatility it gives its wielder.

And the destruction it may cause once fallen in the wrong hands.

If that wasn’t already bad enough as it is, a shocking discovery from the Third Hokage’s wife became the final nail in the box that sealed Akira’s fate as a protector of the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

“ What is that?” Biwako asked looking at Akira’s right feet as Jiraiya lulled her for afternoon nap. The child was just about to turn one and after Tsunade’s distressed conversations with Hiruzen about the safety of her child, the Hokage together with his wife, decided to pay the child a visit.

“ It showed up a few days after she was born.” Tsunade answered. She caught the startled look that passed Biwako’s face from across the chubadai as the older woman looked at her husband.

“What?” Tsunade asked, looking at the two. She knew immediately that something was going on and if it had anything to do with her daughter then needed to know. She had to.

“ Could it be possible?” Biwako’s eyes remained fixated on the Hokage.

“It makes a lot of sense.” Hiruzen recalled how Tsunade came into his office a few months after Akira’s birth. He had never seen him so frantic as she told him ever growing abilities of Akira. She said it was just a couple of flowers in the beginning and how she thought they were just reacting to her chakra but then the incident with the daisies happened and she was so sure that there was something wrong with her. Most children do not show their affiliated chakra natures until well into their childhoods when they’ve mastered their chakra control. He did his best to calm the new mother that day and assured her that it was probably because of Akira’s genetics and heritage but it never truly left his mind. Yes, it was possible that it was because she was the great-grand daughter of the First Hokage and the daughter of the two of the most skilled shinobis that the Leaf Village had come across but he always suspected that there was more behind what was seen. Biwako’s suspicions was entirely plausible given the facts.

“Shut the doors.” He instructed in a manner he was the only one who was allowed to do so.

“Have you ever heard of The Okami?” Biwako asked as soon as the doors were closed shut and they were completely alone.

“The Wolf Spirit? Yeah, from the folktales and myths.” Jiraiya’s voice had a hint of apprehensiveness, he had a feeling that he won’t like what they were about to imply. He looked at the innocent child in his arms. It’s impossible.

“Not exactly.” And so, Biwako told the tale of the Okami to the two Sannin. She told how the wolf, believed to be once a human, protected the people in the shadows. It was known for its benevolence and truthfulness and was well-respected and honored during it’s time. And when it’s time came, the Okami vowed to its descendants that when the humankind is in dire need of protection, it will once again return to the world. Up until now, it is believed that the descendants of the Okami still remains in the heart of the Kiyoiyuki Mountains.

Biwako told them that there only has been two other people recorded in recent history to be believed as the reincarnation of the wolf. The latest was during the beginning of the Warring States Period nearly two centuries ago. They all had the same mark Akira now possessed.

“You’re saying she’s a reincarnation of this wolf-spirit that hasn’t been seen in decades?”

It was the Lord Third who answered the clearly terrified mother. “We can’t be sure for now, Tsuna. We’ll have to wait until she’s older but it would explain why she developed such abilities this early. She isn’t like the other children.”

Tsunade felt like she was going to puke. Not only were her dreams of Akira living as a simple civillian were shattered but her fate to die for the village seemed inevitable.

“So she’s like a jinchūriki?” Jiraiya’s question sounded more like a statement.

“Similar, but no. Jinchūrikis have a spirit of a tailed beast living inside of them, like a seperate being. She doesn’t have that because she the Okami is inside her very core. They are one.” Biwako explained.

In the end, the four of them decided that Akira’s true nature would remain as a secret. There will be no papers linking to her true nature, only that she is a prodigy if her own right which can be easily explained by her origins. This was necessary to ensure that she would remain safe until she was ready to defend herself from those who would want to use her for their own gain.

In the following years, she would be trained rigorously to prepare her for her role as a protector of Konohagakure. A number of both current and non-Jonin-senseis were handpicked by the Hokage together with her mother and godfather were chosen to be her teachers and senseis in the upcoming years.

Tsunade was against the idea at first. She wanted to give her daughter a normal childhood like everyone else but knowing that training her is the only way to protect her, she agreed to the plan with a heavy heart.

It wasn’t easy to raise Akira on her own especially with her still not being able to really move on with Dan’s death knowing that they should be raising Akira together and her depression that was constantly making her day even harder but she did her best, the best she could manage. She thought her medical ninjutsu for the next nine years and just as she expected, she was a natural at it. That made Tsunade smile.

Much to their relief, Akira had a somewhat normal childhood, at least for the first nine years. She trained with her sensei’s on the weekends, attended the academy (sometimes) on weekdays and played with the other kids during the afternoon. Her skills were already advanced for her rank as an academy student when she was five. It was already comparable with a newly promoted chūnin and sometimes she would even spar with kids in the higher ranks.

She wasn’t always compliant though. She would skip sessions with her senseis from time to time and would play with the other kid instead, her taijutsu needed some work and her kenjutsu could still be improved. The adults took that as a good sign. They didn’t want to take her personality away and turn her into some sort of killing machine just because her destiny demanded her to.

It was during her training with Inoichi Yamanaka, a former student of her father, Dan Katō, when her nature as the reincarnation of The Okami was once and for all, confirmed. Her eyes had turned a into a bright shade of yellow, her pupils constricted to a tiny speck in the sea of yellow and her chakra that was usually associated with the color blue, became white as a snow. It was neutral. And deadly. Akira fainted after the incident and Inoichi decided to volunteer as her future master.

She was nine when her mother left. Tsunade had taught her everything she could in terms of medical ninjutsu. The top medical-nins will supervise Akira’s training from then on.

It was just supposed to be a few months of sabbatical. She just wanted some time alone to deal with her grief and depression. She wanted to be better mother for her daughter. Tsunade even asked Akira if she wanted to come travel with her and she actually hope that she would agree. She hoped that she could just whisk Akira away from her responsibilities from this damned shinobi world, she would have done so of she said yes. But like any other nine year old kid, she didn’t want to leave the place she had called home or fall behind her friends. Akira refused and instead asked her mother to bring her a gift from every town she would come and visit until her return.

And Akira didn’t realize her childhood would soon come to an end soon after her mother crossed the front gates of Konohagakure and onto the world outside.

Next up: Lots of Kakashi and Akira history.

Ask or Reblog for a tag!

#kakashi #kakashi hatake #kakashi angst #kakashi x oc #naruto #jiraiya #naruto shippuden #dan x tsunade #jiraya x tsunade #tsunade #senju #kakashi x reader #kakashi fanfiction #anbu kakashi #angst #anime fanfiction #imagines #jiratsu #kakashi sensei #kakashi series #death #kakashi love #teamkakashi #kakashi x y/n #love #kakashi fluff #kakashi headcanons #naruto headcanons #hatake #kakashi imagines

[fictionbyafangirl]

Tundric Heart

//Hi, all! After becoming absolutely *obsessed* with the new Mortal Kombat movie, as well as being a fan since the games began, and being a fan of JoTa since I saw The Raid: Redemption when it first came out and since then, I decided my flagship fic shall involve Bi-Han/Sub-Zero. This takes place prior to the film, having nine tournaments been fought. This is a POV-shifter and involves our favorite chilly boi with an original character. Naturally, I own no rights to the franchised character and only write out of my own fun.  I hope you enjoy!\\

Nothing phased him anymore. Bi-Han had lived many centuries, each reinforcing his growing lack of humanity toward the world, whether it be Earthrealm or Outworld. Due to his “gifts”, Bi-Han had become a favorite champion for Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat tournaments, successful in more than not and ultimately becoming an attack dog at the sorcerer's will. Despite Bi-Han wanting the Lin Keui to be free-agents once again, himself, primarily, he obliged, knowing he owed Shang Tsung his fealty for the many favors he performed for him in the past. The Lin Keui had been an elite group of assassins for those who could afford them. Either born into the organization or kidnapped as a youngling for the cause, its numbers were always plentiful. Bi-Han and his brother, Kuai Liang, had served the clan well, rising through the ranks. Bi-Han, though, had become the face of the group. The fierce fighter had gained notoriety for defeating the one and only Hanzo Hasashi, as well as the Shirai Ryu, a noble competitor clan in their world of crime. Over four hundred years had passed, yet a looming whisper of a threat still hung in the air from the very fatality that put Bi-Han on the map. Ever the paranoid ruler, Tsung tasked Bi-Han with finding the last remaining Hasashi blood heir and executing them. To the cryomancer, there was simply no point in doing so. He had ended the lineage himself many lifetimes ago. The Hasashi family fell to his hand, and he knew it, first-hand. Still, the soul-eater feared the prophecy of the uprising of Earthrealm defenders to thwart the imminent takeover, if the last tournament should be victoriously won by the mortals with an arcana gift. Nine circuits had been finished in the favor of Tsung, only needing two more to claim supremacy over the mortals. Begrudgingly, Bi-Han found himself in his home-realm on a reconnaissance mission to find out if the myth was true. One thing the warrior loathed was to be undermined, especially by Tsung. His employer had a knack for sending in the reinforcements if the smallest of setbacks occurred. Bi-Han was more than confident in his skill and ability to successfully fulfill his duties. To send in those that were inferior to him was simply a slap in the face. Not a day went by that the assassin didn’t think of a world where he no longer served Tsung.

The man was ageless as he sat across from a run-down diner, concealed in darkness. Darkness had always been his friend, even in the glory days of the Lin Kuei and the chaos they inflicted on their world. Darkness cloaked him in secrecy. Darkness gave him advantage against his opponents. Darkness felt almost as familiar and second nature to him as the cold. It had been a rainy evening, the spray of dingy gutter water spraying up from beneath the tires of those driving muddled the sidewalk. Bi-Han, looking not a single day older than he had when he terminated Hasashi, watched the neon sign that indicated that the diner was “open” flicker against the night. Dressed in black athletic jogger pants, a black zipped-up windbreaker jacket and a black hat with the bill curved and pulled down low to conceal his other-worldly eyes, the man watched from outside an abandoned building that sat adjacent to the diner. Arguably, the only physical trait that had changed about him was the hue of his eyes, shifting from a deep brown to a starkly bright  blue so pale that it nearly looked like ice had formed in his irises. These were the attributes of a cryomancer, and bastard Edenians, alike. Those of Edenian nature aged much slower than humans, living so long that tens of thousands of years was still considered to be in one’s youth. His hair remained raven in color though his skin did grow more pallid as though encrusted in frost, but not. The cryomancers had been banished from Edenia long before Bi-Han’s birth, but the genes that descended from the gods still carried on through himself and his brother, Kuai. Down the block, a group of young men were approaching the corner door of the diner, rowdy and raucous as they walked before ducking into the establishment. Taped hands rose from Bi-Han’s sides to bring the hood of his skim jacket up and over the top of his head, further obscuring his identity. He waited a few minutes to allow them to settle into their normal places to not rouse suspicion before crossing the slick city street. In all of the years of Bi-Han’s life, he had tuned his tracking abilities to be imperceptible.

His intel told him that a group of men, one that bore the mark of the dragon, frequented the very location nightly, as though a ritual amongst the friends. Bi-Han’s head never lifted as the bell on the handle of the door jingled to alert a new customer, and luckily, neither did theirs. His gaze remained to the lower-half of the room to not allow his face to be seen. The fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling in panels glared harshly in contrast against the natural darkness of the night he had waited in. Slipping into a corner table, the plastic-covered stuffing of the seat gave out a subtle hissed as it depressed beneath his weight. The group of men continued their merry occasion, joking and talking with elevated volume. The more attention they brought to themselves and detracted from himself, the better. It didn't take long for the waitress on shift to approach them, seemingly having a report with them as she used their names, engaging in banter with them as they shamelessly flirted with her. Her kind and clever rebuffs and deflection to their order inquiries showed that this was an occasional thing they did. She clearly wasn’t in the business of seeing any of them casually, yet they pushed the envelope with hope. Their nonchalance toward her left little disgust in Bi-Han’s mouth, but still, he surveyed. The fighter spared a moment to take in the new environment. The faded color scheme and furniture showed that the restaurant had not updated in some time, clearly struggling financially to keep afloat to bother with aesthetics. The tables were uneven as they stood and the seating creaked under pressure. The artwork that laid scarcely among the walls were drab and unappealing. Virtually everything that had been a polished metal before now rusted with weak infrastructure. The location was dying out, most likely kept in business by the nightly patronage of the subjects he followed in. 

Bi-Han focused all of his senses on the men, discreetly, as to not be noticed. He eavesdropped on their conversations, watched as they removed their outer-layers for any sign of the marking. He even committed bits of things they said to memory in the off-chance that it would aid him in his mission. His focus was solely on the group and everything they did. His gaze, though hidden beneath the bill of a hat, was fixated without any breaks, that is, until the image of an apron filled with pens and order tablets slid into his view. Bi-Han held his breath as the tell-tale spiel was about to be given to him. 

“Hi, there! I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. My name’s Jill and I’ll be your waitress on duty tonight. What can I get you?” No matter where you went, every restaurant had the same, generic greeting. 

Holding his breath for a moment to consider his response, Bi-Han decided to play it cool, not wanting to garner any awareness of his existence. The woman was polite enough for him to not care about the disruption. While she had been tending to the object of his assignment he had been able to get a good look over on her. She was attractive with cream-like skin and smoky hazel eyes and hair the color of maple that sat in delicate, loose curls that cascaded down the sides of her face. She dressed semi-comfortably in a baggy button-up flannel shirt that she tucked into the waistband of her tapered jeans that clung to her ankles and simple shoes with her apron and a name badge in place. She kept her makeup natural and modest, which was a pleasant thing to come across with women. With an errant hand, Bi-Han, without tipping his face at all, flipped the menu on the table over to quickly peruse the refreshments section. Quickly, his eyes settled on his selection before speaking it aloud to her, though in a low, hushed tone.

“Green tea. Iced.” His tone was short and cold, as per usual with him, and he offered no opportunity to continue the conversation. He was there for a reason, after all.

With a curt nod, Jill fished a dense book of ordering tickets from her apron and a pen to scribble down the table number and order to keep her tabs in-line. Bi-Han could hear the sound of the ball-point pen against the paper, attuning himself to his surrounding once more.

“Iced green tea, coming right up. What’s uh… a name I can put on this order?” The waitress inquired with an arched brow as her teeth found the corner of her lips, nibbling gently in a nervous gesture. Bi-Han took another moment to contemplate his response. His true, given name was something that was well-known. Instead, he improvised.

“Brian.” He was blunt again, cutting to the chase without any inflection to invite casual conversation.

“Right. Iced green tea for Brian, coming right up.” Jill relayed before bouncing away from the table to fulfill his request. She caught on to his tone quickly and read it loud and clear.

Naturally his order was the first one to be completed. Jill returned with his drink in-hand, along with a wrapped straw and a saucer of potential add-ins for the beverage. Bi-Han offered a small nod to thank her, fixating his senses back on the group of men across the room. Absently, he unwrapped the straw and slipped it within the glass, taking absent sips through it to not reveal his face. The preparation in the States certainly didn’t do the authentic drink justice as it did in his native China, but still he managed to swallow it down as he kept his eyes on them. Although the drink had ice in it, it didn’t suit him. His hand reached around the cylinder, his fingers releasing their icy powers to chill it even further, finally making it satisfactory to his liking. Bi-Han sat with his back pressed against the glass window that separated himself from the outside world. The rain continued to fall, pelting against the window pane. He could just as easily end the waiting and watching. He could turn every plunging bead of water into a lethal bullet to litter all of the men in holes, taking care of every lead. Still, he blended into the foreground, motionless and silent.  He wasn’t sure how long the men would lounge in the diner but he would be observing for as long as they would be. Someone was bound to slip and reveal themselves, reveal their arcana… something. If Bi-Han was anything, he was patient.

#Tundric Heart #fanfiction #Mortal Kombat #Mortal Kombat 21 #Bi-Han #BiHan #Sub-Zero #Bi-Han x Original Character #Sub-Zero x Original Character #Bi-Han x OC #Sub-Zero x OC #MK21 #Chilly Boi #chapter 1 #Mortal Kombat Fanfiction #Mortal Kombat 2021 FanFiction

[wonderofwillows2]

The Training Part 1

There were no young men who came to the resort without a sponsor. Be it a wife, a girlfriend, a sister, mother, or aunt. No young man was allowed there without a sponsor and none were allowed without meeting certain very strict criterion. Some were specific and fit into neat categories that were known as the “basic minima of entry”. For the first basic minimum no more than one man could be there for every eight women which meant there was almost always a waiting list of sponsored young men up to a month. The second was that the young man be between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, though those over twenty were rarely taken. The third was aforementioned sponsorship and generally at least two sponsors known to the group were required though some more respected members of the group could bring another. The fourth was that the young man must be circumcised prior to getting to resort with enough time to heal and be ready for intercourse.

There were also the three more abstract criterion. The first of these was that a young man must be physically attractive both in the body and face and have hygiene befitting his qualities. He was to be judged by a panel and if they found his physical features attractive enough he could join, if he was deemed near enough, he would be given three months to correct whatever issue as best he could. Allowances were made for small things like acne that a young man might not perfectly control. Most often it was simply that a young man was expected to become more fit or to simply improves his grooming. There were generally few who fell into this category.

The second was that the young man should be of some intelligence, he had be able to understand instructions given and, he had to understand the deeper relevance of them. He would have to be able to understand the lessons and mantras repeated on a daily basis. There would be plenty to learn for those impressionable young men who were taken there and it was important to know the lessons would become ingrained though the indoctrination those young men would receive. Few young men who left would have said that it did not leave an impression on them.

The third was personality and more broadly speaking social skills. The young men had to posses those requisite social skills to at least avoid being boring to the women of the resort and to be able to pick up some minimum of the women’s emotions and desires. Of course this was not a hard thresh hold as young men were to be further educated in these skills. Indeed most of the women there were eager to teach the men who came there how to further anticipate a woman’s needs. Some even took it to the point of being like a sport or challenge. To see how much they could spur a young man to further development in this category. They would show off to one another how well their charges and students could read their body language and the inflections of their voices and how thoroughly and eagerly they responded.

The brings us to to Victor, a handsome young man of Russian-Canadian origin who lived Toronto where his father and mother had settled and become firmly middle class. He was tall, about 6’1” but perhaps just a bit more with a lithe frame and with some musculature though he was by no means one gifted to be a true athlete. His features were fine and sharp with a pale complexion and fine blond hair. He had a well sculpted face and though not at all feminine he was not what one would call overly masculine. He turned eighteen early in his senior year and this had bought him some initial popularity as he could buy alcohol but that soon waned. He had always been shy and so it surprised him one day when hi sister called him in the first week of October from university to tell him she had helped to arrange a surprise and that a friend of his, Priya, had set up the very idea. He was to travel with them in one week, to see small resort several hours north.

Priya and he had been friends since they met eight years prior when she came to his elementary school. She was outspoken and intelligent and the two had bonded immediately though they contrasted in many ways. Physically she was petite and feminine in every way with no androgyny to speak of. Her complexion a fine color like that of cinnamon. She was outspoken and vigorous about stating her opinions and able to talk to anyone with ease I contrast to Victor who was sometimes shy. Yet they were able to form a bond in terms of being older than their respective classmates, though not by much, as well as being from immigrant families and speaking different languages.

The idea came as a shock to Victor but he was certainly open to it. His sister, Any, had always been supportive of her younger brother and despite an age difference of four years he always felt that he could come to her for advice in comfort and ease. One would be hard pressed not to assume they were related by looking at them as they shared some physical features though Anna was the more practical and wished to be a researcher while victor pursued softer studies. He hoped one day to be a human rights lawyer and Anna was the only one in full support of this. His father and mother thought he ought to go for the highest paid position and not pursue lofty ambitions. After all this is how they had overcome their initial poverty.

The week passed an Victor was excited to see his older sister once more. He had asked Priya about the details of the trip though she had been reluctant to share too much. She had told he conservative parents she was going with a girlfriend and suggested that he find a suitable person to use as an alibi as well. It would be fun she was sure but she did not want to arouse suspicions in their school nor to raise alarms about the seemingly odd group going. Since unattached straight men are usually not invited on trips with women whom they are not seeing intimately. Nor was it at all usual that his older sister was going. However none of them were bothered by this, all of them knew each other too well for that. Sometimes the assumptions of others are off base. In this case though expectations would indeed conflict with reality.

When Friday night of the next weekend came Victor hugged his parents goodbye before descending the steps of the house to the waiting car below. Priya and his friend Paul were in front and Victor got in the back with his small backpack. His parents warned him to be aware of bears and be careful one last time and then they waved the small group off. It was not three blocks before they dropped off Paul and changed the GPS to the coordinates of his sister’s school. It would be an hour before they even got there and then another three to the cabin. It would be a remote place for certain and cold this time of year, there would likely be frost. Eventually they reached the apartment near his sister’s campus. The sun was beginning to set and the sky had turned a variety of beautiful and fiery colors. They would soon be in wild lands. They called and waited and in a few minutes Anna appeared closing the door with grace and nearly bounding down the steps with a smile on her pale face. She dropped her bag into the trunk and then took her place in the back seat. Pleasantries were exchanged and short laughs were had.

The group set off in the now near darkness. Victor was having one of the most pleasant times that he could remember as they chatted in the car and share old memories. Priya and Anna having many to share themselves with Anna being like an older sister to Priya as well in many ways. Priya was the oldest in her house too and of course was often in need of advice when she was younger, about boys, makeup, or the life in Canada her parents were reticent to teach her off. They knew each other well and their friendship had grown from a the role of mentor and student to a more genuine and equal footing.

It was past nine when they arrived at side road leading down a path which terminated in a large packed earth parking lot and a small set of beautiful and carefully made wooden buildings with a set of four small cabins. Priya steered the care to the left into the parking lot and then up to the main building. Stopping the car she turns the keys and stops the engine.

“I’ll just be a few minutes, I need to check us in and get the keys before we can go the cabin” Priya anounced with a small smile before opening the door and departing into the cold night.

“So in all seriousness, Anna, what prompted this trip?” Asked victor.

“In all seriousness I just felt the need to get away. We just had a round of exams and I wanted to let off some stress and see people I knew well. We all need comfort.

“That is true. I actually came along partly to see you, we haven’t talked in a while and I am sorry for that.”

“It’s ok, I am sure you are busy at school. Have you met any girls?”

“I know them all at this point I think. I really only talk to Priya.”

“Do you still mostly hang out with Paul, Kendrick, and Mit?”

“For the most part yes.”

“How are things with you and Vanessa, are you still fighting?”

“No, we patched...”

The car door opens interrupting and Priya returns with the keys.

“I’m back it’s cabin number four.” She presents the cabin key before starting the car and then engaging it. She backs out of the parking space and drive parallel to large main building before making a left and then a right and parking in front of raised wooden cabin with small windows and a propane tank beside it.

“We’re here she announces and turns off the car. The group exits, each stretching upon their immediate exit. Priya and Victor walk around to the trunk while Anna grabs her articles from the seat beside her in the rear of the car. Finished with unloading the group climbs the stairs and approaches a beautifully finished door made of thick planks of wood.

“I can’t believe we got this for such a price” Victor muses.

Priya unlocks the door and they enter the cabin. It is a cozy space but more than suitable for four and lightly decorated with the beauty and finish of the construction materials playing the main role in the aesthetic. There is a small wood stove on one side and s small gas stove next to it giving choice to the renters. On each side of the main room are two sets of beds with bunk pressed against the wall on the right where the wood stove allows more room. Past the gas stove on the left is a small bathroom with a toilet sink and shower. The general amenities of civilization all seem present in the small retreat. It’s warm inside as the heat was left on for them. They pick their beds and with the ample choice there is no difficulty, the women choose the beds on the left and Victor picks the right. They each take their turns bathing and changing into night clothes and Priya turns up the heat to allow for the light bedclothes she packed.

A bottle of wine is opened and shared among them while they talk of old times and laugh while reminiscing. They talk about the time Priya developed a deep crush on her math teacher. They talk about Victor’s infatuation with skateboarding when he was younger and his broken ankle. They finish with more pleasant stories as they finish the bottle and then brush their teeth and turn in to sleep. They all sleep soundly after being thoroughly exhausted by the day and the enjoyment of each other’s company. They awake in the morning and Priya announced that there is a free breakfast the first day. So they dress in the bathroom and depart to the main building, walking down the bumpy earthen path and ascend the flight of stairs opening the main door. A young woman in her twenties with a plump frame attends the desk. Priya talks to her and hands her some papers and the young woman directs them to the left hand hallways. They walk up a short amount of stair and see two rooms. Priya indicated that they should head to the send and they do. She claims they should be seated and make small talk while they wait. Suddenly they are interrupted by three women.

“Is this the one one?” A tall and strongly featured woman asks them.

“Yes it’s him. Victor my little brother.” Anna answers smiling from ear to ear. One of the women makes a note on a small clipboard.

“What is this?” asked the poor, confused victor.

“It’s just something we arranged for you.” said Priya with a smile.

“I don’t understand, is this like an intervention? You both know I never do anything.”

“We know Vic. But this isn’t about that, imagine it as a different kind of intervention. You see we both know the lessons you got from mom and dad growing up and we think that a bit of modernity might help you. It might help you loose your virginity too.”

“You tokd her?” Victor turns to Priya with a hurt expression.

“I knew Victor.” Anna assures him

“pleasure just trust us.”Priya assures him and places her hand on his shoulder.

“Is this a brothel did you hire a prostitute for me.” Victor asks.

Priya laughs and shakes her head at him and Anna smiles knowingly. The other women seem to be amused as well and one lets out a small giggle.

“No it’s not that.” Priya assures him.

“Just trust us. It’s more of a workshop on social skills” Anna assures him.

“Alright I’ll trust you for now.” Victor says, still nervous.

“Don’t worry your sister is mostly right.” The lead woman in the group assures him.

“Besides we have the car keys until tomorrow evening so why don’t you follow us?” She adds and turns to leave the room. Priya and Anna stand immediately to follow. Victor is reticent at first but Anna and Priya pull reassuringly on his arms and soon he stands and begins to follow.

The end of part one.

[carewyncromwell]

Ficlet: This’ll Be the Day that I Die [Part 3]

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YES! AT LONG LAST WE HAVE PART THREE! *collapses* Geezus, this took forever! Prepare for something long and stuffed to the brim with exposition and world-building...hopefully wrapped up in an entertaining package, but even so. I had a lot of fun trying to explore the characterization of the four Founders of Hogwarts -- although Slytherin is easily the worst of the batch as the resident blood purity nut, it was still fun to try to give him depth the same way I have Rakepick. It was also fun to give some spotlight to Carewyn and Jacob’s magical historian mother, Lane Cromwell! And my precious ghost boy Duncan. ^.^

I apologize in advance for my horrid Old English, Welsh, and Norse: take any translations I’ve done with a grain of salt, I profess no great knowledge of any of them. XD; I did do a good amount of historical research for this, though, so the pieces of that I integrated in should hopefully make the whole thing feel that bit more real, disregarding the magic and dangerous Dark creatures.

Thank you to those of you who reblogged/commented on the last part -- @samshogwarts @dat-silvers-girl @mizutoyama @ruby-and-opal-withers @missnight0wl @that-ravenpuff-witch @weasley-adoptee @cursebreakerelmswood @nightrhea-hphm​ and @wandsandrings​! If you haven’t read the first two parts, I’d highly suggest you do so, as I fear you might be completely and totally lost otherwise. XDD And...yeah, I hope you all enjoy it! Please consider liking/reblogging/commenting if you do, and hopefully part 4 (which will be the last part) will take MUCH less time than this one did to finish!! xoxo

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

While Patricia Rakepick had told her tale to Carewyn, Jacob, and the Circle of Khanna, the battle at the Black Lake had raged, with the Hogwarts professors – led by Heads of House Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Pomona Sprout, and Filius Flitwick – defending both the Lake and the castle from the forces of R. In the midst of the battle, Fawkes the phoenix was sent to the skies to track down his master, Albus Dumbledore, and bring him back to the school at once.

The reason Albus Dumbledore had left Hogwarts none of the teachers had known – for the night hadn't really gone as Dumbledore himself had originally foreseen either.

In the Fenlands of East Anglia, out of open night air, appeared two figures in the high grass surrounding a modest reservoir. One was very tall with a long, white beard, a pointed dark blue velvet hat, and flowing robes the color of a robin's egg and flecked with gold dust. The other was much smaller with shoulder-length blond hair, an off-white sweater with a chunky purple line zigzagged across the chest, and faded jeans tucked into a pair of scuffed-up black boots. This smaller figure released the taller wizard's arm as he glanced around.

“Quite deserted, as to be expected,” said Albus Dumbledore. Once he gave another look around at the stars twinkling over head, he indicated the skyline to his right. “If my navigation is correct, I'd say our destination should be about a hundred paces from here.”

The smaller woman nodded politely, before immediately setting off at a brisk walk. It was impressive that a man so much older than her was able to keep step, given how quickly she moved. As she walked, she kept her wand at her side in her right hand and a very worn scroll close to her chest in the other.

Within a few minutes the pair had reached what appeared to be an old brick warehouse. It was deserted – it was so late that anyone who worked there had no doubt already headed home for the day.

Dumbledore and his traveling companion approached the back of the warehouse, both raising their wands. They silently lit them, looking down at the muddy, wet marshland just underneath the stilts and platform holding the warehouse up and out of the water.

“I daresay Salazar Slytherin would seal any records in such a way that only a fellow Parselmouth could open it,” said Dumbledore airily.

The witch nodded.

“I haven't been able to study Parseltongue very thoroughly,” she spoke in a very soft, almost wispy sort of voice, and yet it was low enough in her throat that she clearly felt no fear or hesitation, “but I know what password Salazar would use – ”

Taking three striding steps forward, the blond-haired witch approached the edge of the marshland, the light from her wand creating dark shadows around her narrowed almond-shaped blue eyes. She opened her mouth and let out a messy cluster of hissing sounds.

At once, there was a rumbling under their feet. One by one, a set of stones burbled out of the murky water, pushing it aside, and formed a long set of cracked gray and black stairs that spiraled down in a wide spiral around and then under the brick warehouse and marshlands.

Dumbledore gave the witch a dewy smile. “Most impressive, Lane, my dear. What phrase was it that Slytherin chose, may I ask?”

“'As pure as the driven snow,'” answered Lane Cromwell, her soft voice sounding rather cool.

“Ah,” said Dumbledore, his own dreamy tone betraying some disgust despite himself, “for that was what Slytherin liked to think he was, in both blood and character. Very good.”

Holding his lit Elder wand aloft, the Hogwarts Headmaster led the way down the wet, cracked stone stairs, down into the depths of the shallow reservoir and then below it, under the ground. The murky water they passed was frozen in place almost as perfectly as the stone and earth under it.

At last they reached the base of the stairs and the small chamber it opened up into. Despite its modest size, it boasted a rather tall ceiling, as well as many completely filled bookcases full of dusty scrolls and books. In the far corner was a very old chair carved out of blackthorn wood, and in the very center of the room was a podium made out of marble, with beautifully intricate carvings of silvery, emerald-eyed serpents slithering up the base.

“Remarkable,” mused Dumbledore. “The library looks to be in very good condition, for its supposed age. This place likely hasn't seen a living soul since Slytherin first abandoned it, oh...nine hundred and fifty years ago, wouldn't you say?”

“Nine hundred and sixty-six,” said Lane gravely. “Since the day it was announced that Godric Gryffindor had passed away. But it's very possible Salazar's descendants may have come down here to check on this place over the years, to maintain it...at least until the last of them left the Fenlands, back in the seventeenth century...”

She tucked the scroll she was carrying in the waist of her jeans as she approached the podium. Bending down, the magical historian trailed a hand along the gleaming serpents carved into the podium.

“...This isn't silver,” she realized. “It's platinum.”

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “A rather rare stone to find here, in Britain.”

“Yes, but it's been well-documented that Salazar traveled to South and Central America in his young adulthood...the forests there are the only place he could have found the type of snakewood used to make his wand. And platinum would've been much more easily found in South America, during that period – the Spanish conquistadors found quite a bit of it themselves, when they arrived there in the eighteenth century searching for gold. But these stones...they weren't carved naturally. Judging by the angles here – and here, as well...it's clear that this was constructed with magic. There's even magic inlaid in the emeralds, judging by the slight discoloration around the edges – very true to magical artifacts of that time period...”

It was striking how Lane's volume never seemed to rise, even despite the passion in her voice. The magical historian's blue eyes narrowed as she rose to her feet again and frowned at the podium.

“Salazar clearly created this podium with a special purpose in mind,” she said slowly, “more than just decoration...but I'm not sure what that purpose would be.”

“Perhaps I might be able to discern that.”

With a little nod, Dumbledore took a step toward the podium; Lane politely moved aside so that the Headmaster could examine it himself. He trailed a hand over the marble, looking over the carvings himself; he tapped the podium with his wand in several places and cast several silent, experimental spells. At last, he trailed his wand along the snake carved into the right-hand side of the base.

In an instant, the carved snakes began to glow, silvery light rippling out of their platinum grooves. Short, almost pulsing flashes of green flickered out of their eyes, and a voice seemed to echo throughout the room.

“Secgan! Ic dôð rôf Salazar Slytherin, ûphêah orgilde duguð cýf ealdefæder orgilde Hogwarts Stellan râd Foretâc.”

The voice was low, almost like a hiss, but as fierce as a king giving an order. Lane also noted a unique, rather beautiful accent, though it was hard to place exactly what kind.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow curiously. “'Speak,' you say? Hmm...”

Trailing his wand along the carved serpent again, he spoke very firmly,

“I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore – Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

The serpents' emerald eyes stopped pulsing, their light locked in place. There was an ominous hissing, and then another voice bounded off the walls of the small room – it was Albus Dumbledore's voice, echoing back at them in perfect clarity, speaking words the Headmaster had never said.

“Speak! I am the great Salazar Slytherin, one of the four noble Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Lane couldn't hold back a gasp. Dumbledore beamed at Lane.

“It seems we have something of a translating magic here,” he said in an airy kind of amusement. “Upon hearing my response, the podium has repeated the phrase it greeted us with in my voice and language.”

Lane's eyes, identical in color and shape to her children Carewyn and Jacob's, lit up.

“Then this podium...would be able to translate anything written by Salazar Slytherin into Modern English?” she said excitedly, though again, her emotions couldn't manage to make her voice any louder.

“Yes,” said Dumbledore. “It seems that, for all of his faults, Salazar Slytherin was at least shrewd enough to discern that language changes rapidly over time. Any descendants of his might have difficulty understanding his writings, without such a measure.”

Lane immediately descended on the shelves of scrolls and books.

“His family history might also explain that,” she said as she opened several of them and skimmed their contents. “Salazar's family came from what is now modern Spain...evident by the name he was given, which had previously belonged to his maternal great-grandfather, Salazar Ordaño...and he was originally born near the coast of Ireland. People call him 'Slytherin from fen' – but in truth, the Fenlands, where we are now, are merely where Salazar settled in his later years, after he'd married and started a family.”

“Fascinating,” said Dumbledore mildly, as he settled himself down into the blackthorn chair in the corner. “I presume that explains the accent I noted in the first voice we heard – the one that must have been Slytherin's?”

“Yes. By the time Salazar was born, Ireland had transitioned into using early Middle Irish, as opposed to old Gaelic...but people living in England – where Salazar's family moved to, while Ireland faced off against the Norse Vikings – were still using what we today call Old English. That's the language Salazar would've used while speaking to the other three Founders. Early Middle English only started taking hold after Salazar died, after the Norman conquest in 1066 A.D. I daresay what we heard was something of a fusion between an Old Castillian and Middle Irish accent, speaking old English.”

“An interesting mix of cultures, indeed.”

Dumbledore's tone was very pleasant even if it wasn't even half as enthusiastic as Lane's soft-spoken, scholarly voice. He placed his wand back into his robin's-egg-blue robes at last, crossing his arms loosely over his chest and waiting patiently as Lane consulted the documents.

After about thirty minutes, Lane – an excited look in her eyes – brought a rather worn-looking leather portfolio containing a stack of parchment over to Dumbledore for him to look at.

“This looks like it might be a collection of letters...perhaps even a journal that hasn't been properly bound yet,” she said, her hushed voice rather eager. “See the dates there, in the corners?”

Dumbledore peered over his half-moon spectacles at the line of runes and sketched crescent moons in the upper corner of the top page, and then down at the written lines below.

“Yes, that is what this seems to be,” he said, and his light blue eyes twinkled. “Given that I can only read about half of it...I would guess that it contains both Old English and Middle Irish – making it more than probable that this was written in Slytherin's hand, wouldn't you say?”

Lane nodded, looking even more excited. “Yes. Would you say the dates match up too? Judging by the condition of these pages compared to everything else I've seen, I'd guess these would be the newest documents, in this library.”

“I believe you said that Salazar Slytherin left Hogwarts in July 1022, correct? Less than a year before Gryffindor's death? If so...”

Dumbledore turned several pieces of parchment over, consulting each of the dates, before settling on one near the bottom of the stack.

“...Then these moon runes match up perfectly.”

Lane's face was soon consumed by a wide, slightly crooked smile like the one her son Jacob often wore. She moved over to the platform with new confidence, removing the piece of parchment Dumbledore indicated from the stack and placing it down on top of the podium.

The podium gave another low hiss. The piece of parchment fluttered up off the marble as if trapped in a magical gust of wind, rotating in mid-air of its own accord as the podium created by Salazar Slytherin once again spoke in Albus Dumbledore's voice.

“Twentieth day of Harvest Month, 1022.

“Today marks the end of Hogwarts, as we know it.

“Despite all of my objections and disregarding all common sense, Rowena, Helga, and Godric remained obstinate in the decision to allow Mudblooded magical creatures to walk our hallowed halls in the upcoming school year. I urged them to reconsider, to the point that it bordered on pleading, and still, Godric absolutely refused to take heed. To my horror, not even the others would hear reason. I cannot fathom what virtue of theirs could possibly outweigh the safety of our school and our students – whether it is arrogance, ignorance, or just pure delusion – but whatever it was that fueled them to fight against me, it is a demonic magic that I cannot hope to exorcise.

“Although I can't stand by and let Hogwarts fall at the claws of treacherous rats that my friends would deign to call 'students'...I cannot halt my research, when I'm so close to tracking down the answer. Although we were able to petrify the Cetus, and no one should be able to access it without opening all of the Vaults in their proper order, the Beast will claw away at our enchantments the longer it takes for us to find a way to nullify its power. The magic of sacrificial love may indeed be our salvation – and yet a sacrifice made by one who has never feared Death – on the contrary, has frequently been tempted by it, like Odysseus before the Sirens – cannot possibly be powerful enough to destroy it. I only hope that the documents I'll find here in the Fen can help me track down the final answer. It may be the one thing I can still do, to protect my friends and the school we have created, now that they have fallen from grace. In the meantime, the safeguards I put in place should be able to protect the school, even in my absence, now that Garcea, Marvolo, and Amice have started their education – at least until I make my proper return, with the knowledge needed to finally slay the Cetus once and for all.”

The piece of parchment slowly stopped turning, fluttered back down onto the marble, and lay still.

Lane's eyes widened. Dumbledore's lips came together solemnly.

“I would say your hypothesis was correct, Lane,” the Headmaster said softly. “Slytherin was working on a method to destroy the artifact inside the Cursed Vaults.”

Still slightly stunned, Lane reached out to pick up the page of Slytherin's journal, holding it out and gazing down at the lines of Old English and Irish she could barely read herself.

“Even after he left the school,” she whispered, “even after he broke off from the other Founders and ended their friendship over his anti-Muggle-born bigotry...Salazar was still trying to find a way to prevent Godric from sacrificing himself.”

~*~

“Remind me again why it makes sense to unlock the inner door, if we don't want to open the column and set the Cetus free?” said Merula in an incredibly tart voice.

Duncan stuck his head back through the Vault's inner door to look down dully at Merula.

“Hey, you blokes said you wanted to find a way to stop that thing from possessing people and eating their magic, didn't you? Well, inside the inner Vault, there are four painted statues of the Founders. By common sense, those statues were carved and left there, rather than the ones out here, which were all people who got petrified. Plus there's this huge mosaic on the ceiling that sounds like the picture Carewyn saw in Rakepick's head, but there's different writing there than what Rakepick translated.”

“Therefore it's likely the Founders put those things there, as a hint of what to do when someone got inside,” said Bill logically, offering Merula an encouraging look.

“It's something we should investigate, at least,” said Rakepick in a very clipped sort of voice, her arms crossed over her chest, “considering it would take a lot longer for Duncan to jump back and forth through the door telling me each line so I can translate it.”

“You mean so we can translate it,” Jacob snarled.

“Ah yes, pardon me,” Rakepick couldn't help but scoff. “I apologize for not equating myself with a perfect amateur in reading Old English.”

“Don't bother,” Carewyn murmured dully when Jacob looked ready to snap back.

She turned to Rakepick coldly.

“Don't forget our terms, Rakepick – you'll stay under Jacob's and/or my watch at all times...so nothing you do will be just 'you.' It will be 'us.'”

“And for your information, Patty, the words on the mural aren't in Old English,” Duncan added rather coolly. “Otherwise I could've translated it just fine on my own, the Bloody Baron taught me more than enough to get by...”

Everyone turned to blink at Duncan. The ghost looked rather affronted.

“I've been dead for more than seven years, I had to fill that time somehow! Did you really think I just sulked about in the Prefect's Bathroom the whole time?!”

“Maybe not the whole time,” confessed Charlie sheepishly, “but...”

Duncan crossed his arms and gave a loud huff. “I came down to this Vault a lot after I died, I'll have you know. Deluded myself for a year or so that even if I was dead, maybe I could still find a way to break the curse...at least until I finally figured out that no, in fact, it's impossible to break much of anything when you have to give yourself a bloody migraine just to touch something...”

Jacob looked deeply ashamed and upset. The expression clearly bothered Duncan, for he rather gruffly said, “Well, come on, then!” and with a soft pop disappeared fully through the Vault's inner door.

Ben looked at Carewyn, his face betraying some doubt despite himself.

“Carewyn, are you sure we should do this? We're already going to have a hard enough time trying to keep R away from the Cetus as it is without the inner Vault being open.”

His eyes drifted over the rest of the Circle of Khanna, who were spread out over the rest of the glass-domed chamber. Diego, Talbott, Badeea, Jae, Liz, Tulip, and Tonks had started conjuring large Shield Charms around the hall. Meanwhile Beatrice, Penny, Ismelda, Andre, Cedric, and the twins had started levitating the dozens of stone statues off to the sides – as Beatrice had pointed out, it wouldn't be right to let a bunch of innocent people get smashed to pieces in their inevitable fight with R.

Carewyn bowed her head, her eyes resting solemnly on Ben's left shoulder instead of his face.

“I know...but we don't know how many members of R we'll be facing, or how long we'll be able to hold them off. If there's any chance we can destroy the Cetus's power so that no one can use it, R or otherwise – aside from Gryffindor's method, of course – we have to find out for sure.”

“Yeah...and well, just because we unlock the inner Vault now doesn't mean we can't lock it again later, right?” asked Barnaby, trying to be optimistic.

“Presumably yes,” said Rakepick. Her dark blue eyes flickered from the door to over at Carewyn. “Though I'd be hesitant to do it, considering we've come so close to the end...”

Jacob scowled, but he had to agree. He sighed and spared a reluctant nod. “...True. We don't want to take the chance that the Vault's Petrification Curse activates to protect itself, like it did last time. If that happened, we'd have to re-lock and unlock the other four Vaults all over again.”

Tulip, who'd been helping Jae seal any possible openings in the golden dome shield they'd created around the back wall, lowered her wand as she faced the others.

“Even if we don't unlock the door, R could just as easily try blasting it open like you tried to, when they get here,” she pointed out.

“Yeah,” said Jae dryly. “Then the Curse would activate, and we'd have to run for our lives – and anyone who wasn't suddenly a statue would have to go break the Vaults' curses all over again anyway.”

Bill nodded. “It is risky...but it'd be foolish not to try to find out everything we can.”

“Right!” Cedric agreed. He shot Ben a bright smile over his shoulder as he levitated a statue off of one of the stairs leading up to the Vault. “It's like my Dad says – 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.'”

With a sigh, Ben nodded, his eyes narrowing with fresh determination.

“All right, then – let's do this.”

Carewyn nodded too, her eyes just as firm as Ben's. “Merula...will you do the honors?”

Merula also gave a heavy sigh, but nonetheless strode forward, withdrew the coral key from the inside of her robes, and brought it up to the keyhole. Yet again it started to vibrate when it came within inches of the door, and the glowing white writing reappeared.

“Yeah, yeah, we know, 'don't let the Cetus out,'” Merula muttered irritably in the direction of the door.

She forced the key into the rusted keyhole and turned it. With a loud CLICK, the inner doors swung open, just as the outer doors had.

The inner Vault may have been a much smaller room, but that was only because the outer chamber was a hundred feet long with a mile-high green-tinted glass dome for a ceiling. The inner Vault was still almost as large as a standard Hogwarts classroom, though far more ornate and ancient. True to what Duncan had said, four limestone statues – two women and two men, all holding wands – stood in the four corners of the room on black zircon platforms, and on the ceiling was a gigantic, detailed mosaic identical to the picture Carewyn had seen in Rakepick's mind, made up of thousands of tiny colorful tiles. The only light in the room came from the magical blueish-white flames lashing out of the grooves cut into all four sides of the black zircon platforms, which left surreal, blue-tinted shadows on the statues' limestone faces. Even the air itself suddenly felt heavier, making them feel like a large weight had been lowered onto their shoulders, making the group all subconsciously shrink in the face of such a grand, imposing sanctuary. Strikingly, though, the gold-trimmed glass column housing the Cetus was nowhere to be seen – the statues surrounded nothing but an empty white-and-gold-tiled floor, marred by a large inky black stain that branched out like vines toward the walls and double doors.

When Carewyn moved toward the center of the room so as to try to get a better look at the mosaic, she was stopped abruptly by a terrible, booming voice.

“Gan ne latost!”

She whirled around.

The voice had come from the statue she'd just walked past – a large, broad-chested man of about 30 with a short red-painted beard and sparkling eyes made of blue-green agate. The left hand not holding his wand rested on a silver-painted sword hilt at his side.

Bill hurried over to Carewyn's side, crossing in front of the statue next to the first, only to halt in front of Carewyn and whirl around at the sound of a female voice, booming just as gravely down at him.

“FÆr sy hêore.”

The statue Bill had passed was that of a tall, willowy woman about the same age as the man with ebony-painted plaited hair so long it almost reached her feet. There was an odd-looking, silver-painted tiara resting low on her forehead and her eyes were made of smoky quartz.

Rakepick strode forward, not flinching at the sound of the woman's voice again booming“FÆr sy hêore” down at her, as she came up to stand beside Carewyn and Bill, her dark blue eyes narrowing upon the statues.

“Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw,” Rakepick murmured.

“I know,” said Carewyn. She glanced at Rakepick out the side of her eye. Despite knowing she was their ally now, it was hard not to still look at her with suspicion. “...What are they saying?”

“'Go no further,'” said Rakepick. “'There is danger here.'”

She also seemed to have trouble looking Carewyn in the face. Carewyn couldn't sense Rakepick's thoughts anymore, since the older woman was using her Occlumency again, but Carewyn could still surmise that Rakepick also had not expected to be working side by side with her again and was a bit uncomfortable about it.

'She should be uncomfortable,' Carewyn couldn't help but think resentfully. 'No matter what her motives were, I can't forgive her for what she did to Rowan.'

Jacob, Merula, Charlie, Barnaby, and Ben all slowly made their way into the inner Vault. All of them flinched as they walked past the two large statues of Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw, which once again boomed their warnings down at them.

Jacob, the one who was the least warded off by the voices, strode across the tile floor, stopping in front of the statue on the corner across from Gryffindor's – a weedy-looking gentleman of about 35 with a black-painted goatee, his left hand not holding his wand resting on a gold-painted locket resting around the high-collared neck of his robes, and striking eyes made out of grayish Blue John fluorite.

“Nanu, nanu, Slytherin, you old feck,” Jacob said coolly.

He waved an arm broadly in front of Salazar Slytherin's statue and – predictably – another booming, cold voice emanated from it.

“Linnan nû.”

“That'd be something like...'surrender now,'” Jacob translated slowly. Rakepick nodded.

With a determined look on her face, Merula approached the last statue – a round, beautiful woman a few years younger than the first two statues with long pink-painted ribbons braided into her mane of chocolate-painted curls and a pair of boulder opals for eyes, presenting a chalice in the right hand not holding her wand as if she planned to propose a toast. The so-called “Most Powerful Witch at Hogwarts” flinched when the Helga Hufflepuff statue spoke in an older, clearer voice than the rest, but she recovered very quickly.

“Beorgan!”

“'Beware,'” said Duncan idly.

He floated down from the ceiling, hovering next to Jacob's left shoulder.

“They've said those same things every other time I came in here,” he explained. “I figure there's some sort of Sensory Enchantment on them – though I gotta admit, I wouldn't have thought a spell like that could be so sensitive it could even sense a ghost's presence. But yeah...”

He floated up to the ceiling, pointing up at the mosaic.

“That's not Old English. Any guesses, Jacob?”

Jacob squinted up at the line of text. He mouthed something silently to himself, as if he were trying to imagine how the words might sound. Then his eyes lit up.

“Welsh!” he said eagerly. “Old Welsh! Helga Hufflepuff grew up in Wales – this inscription must have been written by her! And that there...”

He dashed right past Bill, Rakepick, and Carewyn to the other side of the room and pointed at another cluster of text near the bottom left corner of the mosaic.

“...That looks like some kind of early Germanic language – like Old Norse! Rowena Ravenclaw grew up in Scotland – I think the country was still only about half-formed by that point, so there would've been all sorts of languages floating around back then...”

“...One of which would've been Old Norse,” Carewyn surmised.

“Right!”

Jacob smiled almost wistfully up at the mosaic. “Aw, Mum would love this...”

Carewyn's eyes softened fondly at the thought of how thrilled magical historian Lane would be, seeing a written record by two of the Founders of Hogwarts.

“Can you read what Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw wrote, Jacob?” asked Bill.

Jacob frowned irritably. “Mm, perhaps...I haven't studied either language very thoroughly. But Old Norse, being a Germanic language, is distantly related to modern German and therefore to modern English, so it might be easy enough for me to suss out. And Welsh as a language fortunately hasn't drifted as far as English has, over the centuries – so even if Hufflepuff's is harder to read, I can always compare it to what I know of modern Welsh...”

His gaze settled on Ravenclaw's Old Norse text first.

“'Með imprisonmentrinn ór kreature'...'after the imprisonment of the creature' – no doubt the Cetus – 'we the Founders...created...a series of...false chambers.' The other Vaults, she means. 'Now that you...have opened these chambers...you can now meet it. Take heed – '”

He glanced at Carewyn, who'd come over to stand beside him and look up at the words too.

“' – Cetus...is a living thing. It eats magic to live. It will eat and eat...forever. Only the strongest...weapon – a spell...cast by selfless love...might be enough to...purify it.'”

“Then it's just like Rakepick said, after all,” muttered Charlie, sharing a glance with Carewyn out the side of his eye. “Sacrificial love is the only thing that can stop it...”

“It also means we learned absolutely nothing new, from reading that,” said Merula impatiently.

“That's not true,” said Barnaby softly. He glanced up at the picture of Ceto Annis on the mural. “It said...that the Cetus is alive. I mean, yeah, Rakepick said it's a parasite, but...from the way Ravenclaw was talking about it...it kind of sounds like a magical creature. Like a Puffskein!”

“I reckon it's a bit more like a Dementor, mate,” said Charlie darkly.

Jacob squinted up at one section of the Old Norse lines critically, frowning deeply in thought. He crossed his arms over his chest, his dark eyebrows knitting together tightly as his hollowed-out blue eyes bore into the ceiling.

“Jacob?” asked Carewyn.

Jacob shook his head. “There's something...weird, in the word choice. Ravenclaw uses the word 'ástir' in the final phrase, when discussing the magic of sacrificial love. The ending 'ir' makes it plural. A single act of love would probably use the form 'ásta' instead.”

“So does more than one person have to die, in order to kill that thing?” said Ben, his eyes narrowing.

“Let's not jump to that conclusion,” said Bill very firmly.

Carewyn nodded. “Maybe Hufflepuff wrote something that can help...”

Jacob strode back to where he started, raising his gaze to the two lines of Welsh in the upper right corner of the mosaic.

“Looks like Hufflepuff was a lot more succinct,” he said dryly.

He squinted a bit as he read the couplet several times.

“...'I gael mynediad i'r golofn'...'golofn' means column! It's talking about how to find the column! 'Mae'n rhaid...' Hmm...'you must...walk!' 'Walk'...either 'into' or 'through'...'the past?'”

“'Walk through the past?'” repeated Merula incredulously. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe we need to use a Time Turner!” suggested Barnaby.

“Doubtful,” scoffed Rakepick. “Anyone who uses a Time Turner ages the amount of years they've gone back on return trip – we'd all be dust, by the time we got back.”

Jacob rested a hand on his chin thoughtfully as he read and reread the second line several times.

“'Datgloi'r basn gyda phedwar ffrind fel allweddi,'” he murmured. His blue eyes drifted up and away, as it often did when he was thinking hard. “...'Unlock the' something...'basn,' 'basn'...”

He straightened up sharply, his whole face lighting up as if a Lumos charm had been cast behind it.

“Basin! 'Basn' means 'basin!' In order to walk through the past, we have to use what wizards in the Dark Ages used to call an 'ingemyndláu' – a 'memory dish' – ”

“A Pensieve,” realized Rakepick, her eyes growing very wide.

Duncan grinned down at Jacob. “That's it! Rather than waste space on the wall trying to write down everything she knew...Hufflepuff must've decided to leave her memories behind instead!”

“Including the memories of when she and the other Founders fought the Cetus in the past!” said Bill, his freckled face nearly as bright as Jacob's. “Brilliant!”

Carewyn looked at her brother with a new determined spark in her eyes. “How do we reach the Pensieve? What's the rest of the line, Jacob?”

“Let's see,” said Jacob, and it was clear he was getting excited too. “'Gyda phedwar'...we need four of something...four friends! 'Ffrind' is 'friends!' We need 'four friends as keys!'”

“Well, there's more than four of us in here,” said Charlie, gesturing widely around at himself and the others. “What are we supposed to do?”

Ben glanced up at the mural of the four Founders and Ceto Annis and then around at the four statues.

“Maybe we need only four people in here,” he said slowly.

He started to walk back toward the door frame. On his way, however, he passed in front of the Gryffindor statue – as soon as Ben's shadow passed over it, the Gryffindor statue's agate eyes flashed as it once again proclaimed, “Gan ne latost!”

“Ben!” said Carewyn.

Ben had noticed the flash too. He backtracked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. Then, slowly and deliberately, he stepped back in front of Gryffindor's statue. At once, two beams of dazzling blue-green light flared out of the statue's bejeweled eyes as it said again,“Gan ne latost!”

Duncan suddenly looked more excited than anyone had ever seen him – his shoulders were hunched up and both of his translucent fists were clenched over his chest. He whirled on Jacob standing to his right, his ghostly robes flaring as he spun around.

“Jacob! Take a step back so you're in front of Hufflepuff!”

Jacob did so. The Hufflepuff statue once again warned, “Beorgan!” – but her opal eyes didn't glow like Gryffindor's had.

Jacob stepped away from the Hufflepuff statue, shooting it something of a halfhearted glare. Rakepick considered the statue carefully, her white-gloved hand coming to rest over her lower lip in thought.

“It seems that Duncan is on the right track,” she muttered, “but Jacob's placement is wrong, somehow. I've seen rooms like this before, where you need several people to stand in certain places in order to unlock whatever treasure it's hiding. There's generally some sort of correlation between the person in question and where they're standing – such as eye color compared to the color of a platform, or height compared to certain notches on the wall. I would guess any such correlation here would be related to the statues themselves.”

The once-Head Cursebreaker's dark blue eyes narrowed to slits upon Ben and the Godric Gryffindor statue as she considered this.

“...Perhaps gender is the issue.”

Rakepick strode up to stand in front of Hufflepuff's statue herself. Once again, Hufflepuff's warning echoed throughout the room, but still the opal eyes did not light up.

“Apparently not,” said Carewyn.

“Well, duh,” scoffed Duncan. “Slytherin's statue didn't respond to Jacob when he was waving his arm in front of it earlier, did it? I thought it might be an issue of order, like you have to start with Gryffindor and end with Slytherin, but...”

He trailed off, his light-less eyes flickering between Rakepick stepping away from Hufflepuff's statue and Ben standing in front of Gryffindor's statue. Then he seemed to get an idea – with his mouth spread into such a wide grin, he almost resembled his friend, Peeves the poltergeist.

“Wait just a tick – ”

In a flash, the ghost flung himself right through both Ben and the Godric Gryffindor statue (making Ben shudder from the cold) and phased right through the wall back into the outer Vault. A moment later, Duncan had reentered the Vault, soaring back over toward the Hufflepuff statue. Running through the open double doors after him were Cedric and Tulip.

“You! Puffball!” Duncan shot at Cedric. “Stand right here!”

Looking thoroughly confused, Cedric nonetheless walked into the center of the room. He and Tulip both gave a start at the sound of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor's voices bellowing down at them.

“It's okay,” Carewyn reassured them, “it's just a Sensory Enchantment – ”

“Move it!” said Duncan, sweeping around Cedric impatiently and back around to point down at the black and gold tile floor in front of Hufflepuff's statue. “We don't have all day!”

Despite the hesitant look on his face, Cedric obeyed. His eyes still very wide as he looked around, drinking in the rest of the room, he strode over to stand on the spot Duncan indicated.

Once again, the Helga Hufflepuff statue said, “Beorgan!”, but this time the blue-streaked brown gemstones lit up, just as the Gryffindor statue's eyes had.

“Yes!” hissed Duncan.

He whirled on Tulip. “You! Red! In front of Ravenclaw's statue, over there!”

With a braver and much more determined face than Cedric's, Tulip very quickly turned on her heel and darted over to stand in front of the Rowena Ravenclaw statue. Its dark brown gemstone eyes began to glow too as Ravenclaw's “FÆr sy hêore” bounded off the walls.

Jacob's eyes widened, becoming almost over-bright.

“It's house placement!” he cried in delight. “Ashe, you're a genius!”

Duncan smirked. “'Bout time you finally acknowledged it!”

Merula's pink eyes were suddenly alight with a kind of exhilaration better suited to a child before a Little League game.

“Stand back, Cromwell,” she said with a broad, smug grin at Carewyn, “I've got this!”

She darted over to the final corner to stand in front of Salazar Slytherin's statue. Its fluorite eyes blazed grayish-white as it rumbled, “Linnan nû” once more.

All of a sudden, the floor began to quake. Carewyn threw up her arms protectively in front of the others, silently urging them back, as the black and gold tiles rippled apart like water after a stone was skipped across it. Then out of the rippling floor emerged a large, shallow silver dish that looked like it was carved out of pure moonlight. Runes were carved along the edge, and it was full of a strange, half-liquid and half-gas-like substance, almost like dry ice, except fuller-bodied and ethereally sparkling.

Carewyn took a step forward and approached the Pensieve. Bending down beside it, she brought up a hand to trail along the edge, her blue eyes running over the runes carved into the shimmering metal.

“It's beautiful,” she whispered.

Rakepick couldn't stop herself from bending down beside Carewyn, looking just as awed as she was. She brought her own gloved hand onto the other side of the dish, examining the runes.

“This Pensieve is different from any I've seen before,” Rakepick said slowly. “It's too shallow to place one's head in. Judging by the runes...” she rotated the dish a corner turn to the right, “...one would have to step into it, in order to access the memories contained.”

“I did some reading about this,” said Jacob casually, and he not-so-subtly bent down too so that he created a physical barrier between Rakepick and his sister. “Pensieves have actually gone through a lot of changes, over the centuries. The model we use today is considered safer, since it's easier to remove someone from inside the memories – just grab the person by the scruff of the neck and yank their head out of it, you know? The older models, like the kind from the medieval period, ran the risk of the person becoming trapped in someone else's memories.”

“Trapped?” said Cedric anxiously.

Carewyn's eyes narrowed upon the Pensieve. Then she took a deep breath.

“...It's a risk we'll have to take. I'll go.”

“No,” Ben said very harshly.

“No way, Carey!” snarled Charlie, his voice hard with anxiety. “If you get trapped – ”

“Then I'll need to come up with a way out, somehow,” said Carewyn, as she offered her fellow Fireball a small, reassuring smile. “Just like we always have.”

She glanced at Bill. Her best friend had gone very white and his eyes were even more stricken and full of anxiety than Charlie's, but he tried to put on a brave face all the same.

“Carey's right,” Bill said softly. “We have to find a way to stop the Cetus from hurting anyone. ...This might be our only chance.”

Ben and Charlie looked very upset, but they seemed to know in their hearts that Bill was right. Charlie bowed his head and looked away; Ben strode over to Carewyn, bent down, and grabbed her shoulder.

“I'm coming with you.”

“No, Ben – I need you here,” said Carewyn. Ben tried to argue, but she cut him off as kindly as she could, “If I'm going, then you, Merula, Charlie, and Bill will need to lead. There won't be any enemies to fight in the Pensieve, but there will be plenty of them here, if R arrives before I come out. You're better at Charms than anyone else I know, and one of the best duelists too. You need to be here.”

Ben's hand holding her shoulder had started to tremble. Carewyn's eyes softened as she brought up a hand to take his holding her shoulder and give it a light, supportive squeeze. Ben's eyes narrowed in frustration – then, exhaling through his nose, he moved forward to rest his forehead on the top of Carewyn's head in something of a quasi-hug.

“Promise that you'll come back alive,” he said very lowly.

Carewyn knew Ben was thinking of that terrible night in the Forest – the night he'd refused to let Carewyn go in there alone and tried to protect her and Merula, only for Rowan to jump in front of him and take the Killing Curse meant for him. Carewyn was forced to close her eyes to obscure the pain and raw emotion that had taken them over at the memory.

“I promise,” she whispered.

With a squeeze to Carewyn's hand, Ben lifted his head and pulled away, his dark eyes harder and more determined than ever as he slowly rose to his feet.

“What I will need with me, though,” said Carewyn more solemnly, “is someone who can translate. I don't think anyone in Hufflepuff's memories will be speaking modern English...”

She looked over Jacob's shoulder at Rakepick. Rakepick held Carewyn's gaze and nodded.

“I'll go with you, Miss Cromwell,” she said lowly.

Jacob whirled on Carewyn, his blue eyes flashing.

“There's no way in Hell I'm going to let you go somewhere alone with Rakepick, Pip,” he said fiercely. “Either we go together, or you don't go at all.”

Carewyn exhaled through her nose and nodded. “Fair enough.”

“I'm coming too,” said Duncan.

Carewyn blinked at him in surprise. The ghost crossed his translucent arms irritably.

“It's not like I have anything left to lose,” he said gruffly. “And I reckon I can speak Old English just as well as old Patty here can read it – probably better.”

His light-less eyes flickered beadily in Rakepick's direction. Despite his excuses, Carewyn thought she could sense some genuine suspicion from Duncan toward the ex-professor: he was likely feeling the same kind of protectiveness that Jacob was.

Carewyn gave her brother's best friend a small, soft smile. “Thank you.”

'I guess since Duncan can phase through anything, he'd be able to get out of the Pensieve more easily, if something goes wrong,' she thought to herself.

Duncan averted his eyes uncomfortably, a stubborn grayish flush clinging to his cheeks, as Carewyn turned to Bill.

“Take care of things here – we'll be back soon.”

Bill swallowed and nodded, his shoulders straight and strong even though his freckled face was so pale.

“Please be careful, Carewyn,” said Barnaby very quietly.

Carewyn faced the silver Pensieve on the floor. Her jaw set and her left fist clenched around her wand at her side, she inhaled slowly through her nose...and stepped into the basin.

Rather than touch the bottom, her foot fell right through it as if she'd tried and failed to walk on water. In an instant, Carewyn felt herself somersaulting in mid-air. Her feet were thrown up over her head as she was yanked down into the basin's swirling, misty contents.

~*~

“Something still troubles me, however,” said Dumbledore solemnly. “If Slytherin did, in fact, discover a way to destroy the Cetus artifact...then why is it that it still exists? If he had truly found the answer, would he not have returned to Hogwarts, to cast the proper counter-curses?”

Lane strode back across the small library over to the enchanted podium, ruffling through the loose pages of Slytherin's journal as she went.

“It's a troubling question...but it doesn't prove Salazar's research didn't come to anything,” she murmured, and her soft voice was hard with determination. “Salazar died only two months after Godric did. Plenty of historians theorize that Salazar had been struggling with an illness even while he was still at Hogwarts, given that his appearance aged so dramatically in the last ten years of his life...but whether he was or wasn't, I don't think it's far-fetched to think that there was a connection. Salazar and Godric knew each other the longest out of any of the Founders – it's well-documented by Salazar's descendants that the Slytherin family settled in the area of what would become Godric's Hollow, after they first left Ireland, and that Salazar tutored Godric in magic before they worked together as equals. I remember the Sorting Hat even loved to sing about what good friends Salazar and Godric were, no matter how different they were as people.”

“Indeed, the Hat does reference that rather frequently,” granted Dumbledore. “It is interesting how much good and evil can have in common, at first glance.”

“Yes, but I'm afraid none of the Founders can be boiled down to such shallow words as 'good' and 'evil,' Professor,” said Lane, and her voice actually sounded a bit cool. “Don't forget that it was Godric who stole a sword from a goblin craftsman and then slapped his name on it to claim it as his own.”

Returning the piece of parchment she'd put on the podium back to the stack in her hands, Lane then withdrew the next page and placed it down on the marble. The podium gave another low hiss, and the piece of parchment rotated in mid-air as Dumbledore's disembodied voice again filled the room.

“Autumnal Equinox, 1022.

“Thus far, my search near home has run dry. It's remarkable how a place like the Fen, which has always been so attuned to magic, can be so utterly devoid of the very magical knowledge I need!

“Fortunately, for all of my bitterness toward my sweet Fen, there are witches and wizards here with contacts elsewhere that appear promising. I shall set off for London tomorrow, in the hopes of meeting with Eadric Bald, a wizard who specializes in the study of rare and exotic magics.

“First day of Holy Month, 1022.

“The school year has started. It pains me beyond words that I shall not be present, to welcome the newest members of my house to our school. I thought of sending an owl to Helga, passing along my best wishes for our newest class to her and the others, but in order to do that, I would have to extend those well wishes to the rats that they've seen fit to dress in student robes. And I see no reason to poke the dragon of their ire by purposefully excluding those Mudblooded magic users.

“To my frustration, I am leaving London with no more knowledge than I started with. Bald is a talented wizard, it's true, but his mind is too focused on concrete magics that one can hold in one's hand and bend to their will. Considering love is perhaps one of the least tangible magics one could hope to find, I believe him to be thoroughly unhelpful, in such a situation. Fortunately he was able to provide a Wiggenweld Tonic for my return trip home to Fen.

“Full Moon, Holy Month, 1022. Helga's birthday.

“Followed up with my neighbor Kendrick Creed about a contact of his in Yorkshire who has recently boasted about his invincibility due to a spell of sacrificial love. Although Kendrick himself doubts that the wizard is as protected as he claims, I plan to pay him a visit to make absolutely sure.

“Feast of St. Matthew, 1022.

“Kendrick's contact apparently was rescued by his lover, who threw herself in front of him in order to protect him from another wizard's Killing Curse. The wizard in question was then able to ward off his assassin with the declaration that because the witch sacrificed her life for him, he was protected by her love, and that anyone who tried to hurt him would only be hurt themselves. This worked for about one month until yet another person who this wizard had wronged caught up with him and hurled a javelin through his chest. I might have found some dark humor in the situation were I not so utterly frustrated.

“Will spend the night here in York before returning home in the morning.”

~*~

Carewyn felt as if she was floating down to the bottom of a sparkling, silvery swimming pool, and yet, her loose red hair and her brown and red “Fakepick” robes weren't weighed down with water. Instead they floated upward as if they had no gravity at all, even though Carewyn herself was slowly falling.

'Is this what Alice felt like, when she fell down the rabbit hole?' she couldn't help but wonder, thinking back on one of the Muggle fiction books she'd liked reading as a little kid.

As she fell, murmured voices and broken words she didn't understand swept past her ears. The swirling mist around her took on colors that brightened and then grew, abruptly blooming into deeper, more radiant shades with shadows and highlights and depth and warmth –

Carewyn maneuvered her legs so that when she reached the newly created gray stone floor below, she could land on her feet. She looked around, and she couldn't stop herself from letting out a soft gasp.

'It's Hogwarts...'

It was remarkable how similar her surroundings looked to the castle she'd left earlier that evening. Perhaps some of the portraits were different and everything did look considerably newer, but the gray stone walls, lit torches, and high ceilings were nearly just the same. Even the sunlight pooled through the stained glass window panes and bounded tinted light across the marble floor in just the same way.

Rakepick landed on her feet to Carewyn's right. She brushed her strawberry-blond hair out of her face as her eyes glided around, taking in their new surroundings.

“This would be the fifth floor corridor,” she murmured, “the one that leads to Gryffindor Tower...”

“And Ravenclaw Tower.”

Jacob's feet had barely touched the ground before he'd barreled over to stand between Rakepick and Carewyn again, shooting Rakepick a dirty look. Rakepick's eyes narrowed on Jacob's face in return, but she didn't reply.

Duncan swirled down in leisurely spirals to join them, coming to a halt over Carewyn. He smirked around at the hallway around them – his crossed translucent arms rested on the top of Carewyn's head just enough that it felt like she was standing under a particularly cold air vent.

“Would you look at that, it's my corridor,” said the ghost, his face consumed by a huge, cheeky, over-bright smirk. He nodded to the door just past a portrait of oranges that led to the Prefect's Bathroom. “See, there's my digs – and just past it, the eagle door knocker that guards Ravenclaw Tower. Never did understand why Ravenclaw thought riddles were a better safety measure than passwords...”

“Anyone can regurgitate a password,” said Jacob coolly. “Only clever wizards can use their brains.”

“And get a bunch of clever wizards from other houses sneaking into your dormitory,” Duncan shot back just as coolly.

“We Eagles don't mind company – as long as it's intelligent company.”

“For goodness' sake, will you two focus?” Rakepick said with a roll of her eyes. “We're on a mission.”

Carewyn pointed up the hall. “Look over there.”

Coming up the hall were two figures – a beautiful dark-skinned woman even smaller than Carewyn with a round frame and dark brown curls held out of her face by sunny yellow ribbons, talking to a slightly older, weedy-looking gentleman with thin black hair, striking gray eyes, and a black goatee. They both were around Rakepick's age and wore dress robes, the woman in modest light blue, the man in more elegant black trimmed with white ermine fur.

“Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin, in the flesh,” breathed Jacob. “Well – not really, but...”

Hufflepuff was holding Slytherin's arm and talking very animatedly to him as they walked. Although the older man didn't look nearly as excited, his lips were still upturned slightly and his gray eyes were rather soft. Carewyn found it kind of weird to see her house founder – who she'd only ever seen as a haughty old man in his portraits and statues – with such a gentle, almost fond expression on his face.

Whatever they'd been talking about was cut abruptly short, however, by the sound of a loud CRASH outside. Both Founders stiffened, dashing over to the closest window to look out: Carewyn ran after them so she could look out too.

The Training Grounds below had been full of students dressed in black linen robes, but those students were suddenly screaming and running for cover as a horrible, inky darkness descended upon the Hogwarts grounds. It was massive – about the size of a whale – and although its consistency resembled an oddly full-bodied mist, long webbed claws, a long eel-like tail, and gnashing teeth lashed out of its smoky depths, tearing away at the school as it pursued the terrified students.

In alarm, Hufflepuff made as if to run down the hall, but Slytherin grabbed her by the arm. Looking almost more scared himself, but clenching his jaw in determination, he shoved open the window with his wand arm, climbed up onto the ledge, and then reached out a hand to Hufflepuff. She hesitated only for a second, before grabbing her comrade's hand. In an instant, Slytherin had transfigured himself and Hufflepuff into a strange kind of black and white fabric-like shape, which flapped through the air of its own accord down toward the ground.

Carewyn felt a bizarre yank in the area of her pelvis, and all at once, their surroundings had changed, becoming the grounds below. Hufflepuff and Slytherin had reached the ground and turned to face the blackness that awaited them. Hufflepuff looked very scared as she yelled something at Slytherin.

“She's asking what it is,” said Rakepick. She, Jacob, and Duncan had ended up right behind Carewyn, in the same positions they'd been in when they'd still been indoors.

Slytherin shouted something back, his gray eyes narrowing. The inky blackness turned on the two, and with the speed of a cobra, lashed out – Hufflepuff and Slytherin had to hurtle themselves out of the way before its large, fanged jaws clamped around the space they'd just been standing on.

“He called it an abomination,” Duncan said lightly. “Guess the Cetus didn't take kindly to that.”

Hufflepuff and Slytherin cast different spells in an attempt to force the creature back. Unfortunately thanks to its body's smoky consistency, the Cetus was able to twist and contort around their blasts. It once again lashed out, snapping jaws that seemed unnaturally large and grotesque even for how massive it already was. Before long, the Cetus had cornered the two, backing Hufflepuff and Slytherin into a corner. Slytherin conjured up a large gold-domed Shield Charm around himself and Hufflepuff, trying to use the barrier to shove the creature back away from them. But instead of keeping the Cetus back, the creature instead gnashed its teeth at the Shield, biting off chunks of golden light.

“It's eating Slytherin's Shield Charm!” said Carewyn, her eyes widening.

“It possesses witches and wizards in order to feed off of their magic and life force,” said Rakepick. “This must be why the Cetus is so difficult to destroy. It drains the life out of anything in its path, yet every spell you cast to try to defend yourself only strengthens it and makes it pursue you even more.”

“Magister Slytherin!”

A young witch, likely the same age as Beatrice, dashed out onto the grounds. Her curly blond hair had come loose of the hood she was wearing – Carewyn guessed the hood was the school's original variation on house ties, given that it was a bright Slytherin green with silver trim.

The Slytherin student began blasting Incendio charms at the Cetus's back. The smoky mass gave a startled, shrieking sound, but it didn't sound like it was hurt: if anything, it kind of reminded Carewyn of a dolphin...if the dolphin had somehow been turned into a vampire.

'She's trying to distract the Cetus,' Carewyn surmised. 'Make it chase after her, so that it'll back off of Slytherin and Hufflepuff...'

Slytherin shouted something at his student, but it was too late. In an instant, the Cetus had whirled around, violently slapping the air like a whip. The young witch was snatched up by the Cetus's flippered, eel-like tail and then, just as quickly, disappeared into its inky depths all together.

Hufflepuff screamed. Slytherin, his gray eyes wide with panic, ran forward, lashing out at the creature with fierce violet and black spells from his wand –

Suddenly, from out of the creature grew a large, golden dome, just like the Shield Charm Slytherin had cast mere moments ago. Slytherin's spells bounded off, right back at their owner, who had to leap out of the way once again to avoid them.

The black mist had largely dissipated to reveal the young Slytherin witch floating overhead. Her hair whipped at the air in much the same way as the Cetus's mist had and black mist trickled out of her mouth and nose and out of the corners of her pitch-black, pupil-less eyes. Her wand had fallen to the ground, discarded – the Shield Charm itself seemed to have come solely from her hands, which had grown a terrible set of black, claw-like nails.

“So that's what it looks like, when the Cetus possesses someone,” murmured Jacob.

Hufflepuff stared up at the young witch bleeding black smoke from her eyes, mouth, and nose, her hazel-brown eyes widening in horrified realization.

“Ceto?” she whispered.

Slytherin turned to look at Hufflepuff in confusion, but before he could say anything, the young witch raised a clawed hand and pointed at Slytherin. A flare of yellow burst from her finger like a blowtorch, and Hufflepuff was forced to hurl herself in front of Slytherin and conjure another Shield Charm to protect them from the blast.

“SALAZAR! HELGA!”

Gryffindor had arrived, his brown-fur-trimmed gold robes billowing behind him. His russet-colored beard was a little longer than the modest one worn by his statue back in the Vault, but his wide blue-green eyes were the exact same color as the agate gemstones inlaid into the limestone statue's eyes.

He unsheathed the silver sword at his side and charged at the person attacking his comrades. Carewyn couldn't stop herself from subconsciously lurching forward and raising her wand.

'Stop! You can't – !'

“Godric, BID!” screamed Hufflepuff.

The young witch turned around, and Gryffindor instantly froze up, his sword halting over his head – he must not have realized that it was one of their students, or that she was possessed. The Cetus, however, showed none of the hesitation Gryffindor had. As soon as he'd halted, the young witch brought up a hand to the older man's chest –

BANG.

In a large blast of white light, Gryffindor was blasted clean off his feet. He was thrown full-force into the closest wall back first, before he collapsed in a shuddering heap, the chest of his gold robes stained with scarlet.

His face blanching with terror and rage, Slytherin barreled forward. He conjured up thick black manacles that flung themselves at the young witch and lashed her to the ground. The witch threw back her head, shrieking in frustration as more black smoke leaked out of her mouth and eyes.

Slytherin and Hufflepuff both ran to Gryffindor's side. Hufflepuff immediately raised her wand and got to work trying to heal the damage to Gryffindor's chest. Slytherin appeared too scared to help; instead he was muttering something very quickly under his breath at Gryffindor.

“He's scolding Gryffindor for being so stupid,” said Duncan.

'Scolding – no,' thought Carewyn. 'That's only what it sounds like.'

Slytherin's expression was too upset and tense to truly be angry. It reminded Carewyn of when she'd disappeared for a whole 24 hours after Rowan's death and Duncan, after finding her curled up in a closet in the Astronomy Tower, yelled at her to the point of tears.

Within moments, however, the black mist trailing out of the young witch's eyes had effectively nibbled away at the chains binding her. With a loud SNAP, she broke the chains, turning on the three Founders once again. The young witch raised her hand and it lit up with violent light blue lightning –

WHAM. CRASH.

The Cetus's attack was blocked by a massive crystal ball that had abruptly materialized around Hufflepuff, Slytherin, and Gryffindor. The spell was strong enough to shatter the crystal and sent it flying, making Hufflepuff and Slytherin huddle over Gryffindor protectively to shield him from the falling shards.

Standing in front of the school with her bronze-painted wand pointed at the young witch was Rowena Ravenclaw. There were some age lines and shadows on her face that her statue didn't have, but otherwise she looked very much the same, from her floor-length black plait to her sparkling dark eyes. She was dressed in violet silk trimmed with sparkling silver embroidery the same color as the tiara resting over her brow.

As Ravenclaw rushed to confront the Cetus, Hufflepuff yelled over to her, her face very worried.

“'Rowena, look at her eyes!'” translated Duncan. “'Didn't Ceto's magic used to black out her eyes the same way, when she didn't have a wand?'”

Ravenclaw's eyes flickered with a strange, horrified light. As the young witch blasted another spell and Ravenclaw blocked it, the dark-haired Founder shouted up at her.

Rakepick and Duncan both looked oddly stricken.

“She's...appealing to it,” said Duncan.

“To her,” corrected Rakepick in a hushed voice. “She's appealing to Ceto Annis – saying she doesn't want to hurt her...”

Carewyn could tell why Rakepick and Duncan were so shocked. She could see it in Ravenclaw's face – this wasn't an act of mercy: it was a plea. It was desperation, worry, and caring, all rolled up into one.

The young witch possessed by the Cetus at first seemed to consider Ravenclaw, her posture very stiff and guarded as her pupil-less black eyes bore into her. The dark-haired Founder's face broke out into a very fragile, scared smile as she took several slow, cautious steps forward, still talking in as reassuring of a voice as she could muster.

Jacob's eyes widened too as he listened to Ravenclaw. “'Leorningcild' – did Ravenclaw just call Ceto one of her students?”

“Yeah,” breathed Duncan, his light-less eyes just as wide.

The young witch suddenly gave an abrupt lurch forward in mid-air. Her chest contorted like she was having trouble breathing.

“NE!” screamed Slytherin.

Ravenclaw just barely managed to grab hold of her comrade's arm to prevent him from attacking, but there was nothing any of them could do. In an instant, the young witch's mouth was almost ripped open by the Cetus's mass of black smoke as it left her body and returned to the air. The little Slytherin student was thrown to the ground in a motionless heap.

Slytherin tore out of Ravenclaw's grip and ran over to his student, turning her over. Her broken jaw was covered with blood, her veins were pitch black, and she was very pale and shaking from head to toe. Slytherin cradled the small girl in the crook of his left arm, murmuring as gently as he could despite the fear in his face as he trailed his wand along her arms, trying to heal the damage.

The Cetus, however, hadn't seemed to slow down at all. Ignoring Ravenclaw's continued pleas, it lurched through the air toward Hogwarts, slamming its tail against the side of the castle as it went.

“The Cetus must've taken all of the magic it could from that little girl,” said Jacob, his eyes narrowing upon the black smoke-like mass in hatred, “so it's looking for more victims to feed off of...”

Rakepick nodded grimly. “Ravenclaw's pleas were useless. The documents say that when Ceto Annis reduced herself down to her barest essence, all that was left was a parasitic shade. A monster, more than a human being. There was no point in appealing to Ceto's better instincts...because Ceto Annis the person no longer existed.”

Duncan and Carewyn exchanged a glance before they both looked up at the Cetus smashing stone off of one of Hogwarts' ramparts, shrieking that piercing, dolphin-like cry.

“Rakepick,” said Carewyn slowly, “you said that the Cetus was all that was left of Ceto's magic...and that it needs a host to strengthen and protect itself. And Ravenclaw, she said...that the Cetus eats magic to survive...”

Her almond-shaped blue eyes drifted over to Ravenclaw, who had started conjuring shields around the school to try to drive the Cetus back.

“...I think Ravenclaw must have realized...the Cetus wasn't doing any of this because it wanted to hurt people. It was made by Dark magic...but it lost any humanity or moral code when Ceto stripped herself down so much that she...well, lost 'herself' completely.”

Carewyn looked up at the Cetus. She tried to make out where its eel-like tail and sharp webbed claws were, inside the hulking smoke, but it was too opaque to see.

“Barnaby was right,” she said, her heart full of pity. “It's not a monster – it's a magical creature.”

~*~

“Fourth day of Winter Full Moon, 1022,” the podium read the next page of Slytherin's journal aloud in Dumbledore's voice, “Upon discussing the matter of sacrificial love with my dear Cyneburga, I've come to a thought I had not yet considered. There's nothing inherent in the word 'sacrifice' that slims it down to just the giving up of one's life. Is it not possible, therefore, that such magical love could be invoked by more means than dying? It's something I hope to examine further.

“Tomorrow I shall set off for Kent to follow up with the witch Merry Millard, who specializes in the study of love-centric spells and potions.

“Twentieth day of Winter Full Moon, 1022.

“Fie! My trip to Kent was a loss and a waste. I was forced to sleep in the woods outside Kent for the night before starting homeward, for all inns and residences in the area were owned by Muggles. I was able to conjure up a bluebell fire to keep me warm, but was unable to do much more for fear of drawing unwanted attention.

“All Saints Day, 1022.

“Thanks to my brother-in-law, Oswine, I was given access to the records owned by a wizard in Tamworth of a successful application of sacrificial love from the 9th century. The records testified to a young wizard who protected his younger brother during a Viking Raid. The boy was sick in bed, and the young wizard refused to leave his brother's side, no matter how the Norsemen urged him to get out of the way and let them take what they wanted. In the struggle, the young wizard was killed, and when the Norsemen made one step toward his brother's bed, they were thrown backward by a massive Shield Charm.

“I must confess that the account brought many things back to my mind that I wish it hadn't. The younger brother was even described as having bright scarlet hair.

“Full Moon, Month of Sacrifice, 1022.

“The flight home from Tamworth was delayed by heavy snow, which forced me to take shelter at the Peverell estate just outside London. My lateness greatly upset Cyneburga. She has grown very restless about my frequent traveling, expressing concerns for my health, but she needn't worry. Once the Cetus has been slain once and for all, there shall be much more time for us to enjoy each other's company.

“New Moon, Month of Sacrifice, 1022.

“The wizard I spoke to in Tamworth followed up with me by owl, forwarding me a copy of a passage from a book of White magic from the 5th century. The passage discusses another such instance of successfully applied sacrificial love, where a witch was imprisoned and later executed, only for her son to be magically shielded from harm when he was nearly killed in a duel several years later. I find it interesting that the spell she cast didn't manifest for so long – perhaps because the son's life hadn't been in life-threatening danger until that point? There are some details missing, but the question of whether or not the witch sacrificing her freedom or her life was what cast the spell would lend some credence to the idea that the sacrifice one makes does not have to be one's life.

“There has been a terrible chill in the air, as of late. I remember Godric once saying that the coldest winters exist so that you better appreciate the glory of summer – well, I certainly do long for summer, if only to thaw the ice that encases me every time I step out my door.

“Feast of St. Andrew, 1022.

“I have tracked down a promising lead just outside Oxford. Will write more, upon my return.”

~*~

Little by little, the memory of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw trying to beat the Cetus back away from Hogwarts began to blur. Carewyn watched as their surroundings melted and darkened – soon it was night, and the battle between the Founders and the Cetus raged on. There were several more students and teachers lying prone across the grounds, their veins pitch black and their bodies motionless. The four Founders had managed to steer the Cetus toward the Black Lake, encircling it in an attempt to keep it from escaping into the Forest or returning to the castle.

“Nûna!” cried Gryffindor.

At the same time, the two witches and two wizards shot blasts of blueish-white light from their wands. The light grew and grew, expanding and brightening, until it had completely enveloped the Cetus's mist. The creature shrieked in fury, its darkness lashing out; the light grew brighter still and more violent, like flames; Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin all hunched in on themselves as their wands began to quake in their hands – the blueish-white light began to crack through their wands, spilling out at both ends and lashing at their hands –

“The magic's so strong that they're having trouble controlling it,” said Jacob, his hollowed-out eyes narrowing tensely. “Wands are supposed to help you focus your magic – if what they're doing is so destructive that their wands can't channel it properly – ”

The blueish-white light attempted to suffocate the Cetus, pushing and shoving it into submission in the same way someone might try to shove some extra clothing into a suitcase. With every bit of force it used to trap the Cetus, however, that light also seemed to drain the Founders of their life and strength. Gryffindor had fallen to his knees, his wand arm visibly shaking; Ravenclaw was breathing very heavily and her eyes were so unfocused and glassy it was likely that she was barely conscious; Hufflepuff was holding her crackling, quaking wand with both hands and struggling not to collapse; Slytherin's hair and beard had turned gray and he clutched at his chest, gasping for air.

At long, long last, the Cetus was completely encased in light and began to shrink. With one last massive blue-tinted flare, the Cetus collided with the ground and fell still, encased in a thick stone shell that was about the size of an ostrich egg.

All four Founders collapsed, unable to stand and barely able to breathe. Carewyn couldn't help but walk up to them – she knew they were only memories that she couldn't touch, and in Slytherin's case, he was a blood purist bigot that she could never like as a person...but it didn't stop her from wanting to try to help them to their feet, when they were clearly in so much pain.

Jacob brought an arm around Carewyn and squeezed her against his side.

“It took that much out of them, just to imprison the Cetus,” he murmured.

“And even with that,” said Rakepick lowly, “the Cetus's power wasn't destroyed.”

She pointed to the egg-like artifact on the ground, which was already starting to form tiny black cracks.

~*~

“Sixth day of Old Yule, 1022. Godric's birthday.

“My research in Oxford has uncovered a story of a wizard who successfully applied the magic of sacrificial love in order to save his wife. The wife in question was a magic-less Muggle, so I hardly think he should have bothered – but nonetheless, the protective magic created something of a barrier around the deceased wizard's home, making it so that anyone who tried to attack the Muggle was instead injured with their own weapons. A local magical family was forced to intervene so that things didn't escalate. It's through that magical family that I acquired some interesting details –

“First, the wizard's Muggle wife was the target of the witch-hunters' wrath. Apparently it was a case of mistaken identity, where the Muggle townspeople saw some evidence of the wizard's magic and stupidly assigned blame to the one living thing in the house that wasn't able to cast magic.

“Second, the witch-hunters – since they presumed the wizard's innocence – gave him the chance to step aside, saying that he wouldn't be harmed if he bent to their will. The wizard, however, refused, and pleaded with the witch-hunters to take him in his wife's place. It was only after he refused to move that the witch-hunters attacked and killed him, and thus the protective enchantment was cast.

“These two facts reinforce what other successful cases have shown. In order to invoke the magic of sacrificial love, there must be a choice presented. Simply hurtling yourself in front of someone in the height of battle or dying with others in mind would not create that kind of postmortem shield. Therefore any sacrifice like the kind Godric has suggested would not invoke the magic needed to destroy the Cetus's power. Even if his emotions would no doubt be sincere, the Cetus would still have the power needed to eat away at the enchantments we've cast to contain it. Once it does that, it could theoretically turn our own Cursed Vaults against us and against Hogwarts itself. The Vaults we created to protect our students would attack them instead.

“Still looking into my second theory, regarding the nature of sacrifice. Hopefully I shall have a proper answer to that question, once I'm able to follow up with Johannes Eriugena.

“This winter has been colder than any I've ever seen. I may need to spend a few days in Oxford before setting off for home.”

~*~

The Black Lake dissolved, and suddenly Carewyn, Jacob, Rakepick and Duncan were inside the Cursed Vault they'd just left. It was devoid of the dozens of statues they'd seen when they arrived, so there was nothing halting Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw from running across the hall toward the Inner Vault. Both women looked a good ten years older than they'd been last, and they only looked about half-dressed, given that Hufflepuff's mane of brown curls and Ravenclaw's graying dark tresses flapped freely behind them and Ravenclaw wasn't even wearing her tiara.

Hufflepuff reached the inner doors first, taking out the same coral key Merula had used not too long ago – when the key came close to the keyhole, it began to vibrate, which alarmed Hufflepuff. She and Ravenclaw watched in horror as the silvery-white written warning appeared.

“Godric,” Hufflepuff breathed.

Ravenclaw turned to Hufflepuff, her face as white as a skull's as she frantically cried something else.

“She says he must have written that message, in case something went wrong,” said Duncan, and he actually looked rather troubled himself. He looked at Carewyn. “This was the day that...”

Carewyn nodded, her blue eyes welling up with pain as she watched Hufflepuff quickly unlock the door and the double doors swung open.

Lying in a heap on the floor beside a gold-trimmed glass column in the center of the Inner Vault's floor was the lifeless form of Godric Gryffindor. Like the two women, he looked a good ten years older than he had when he fought the Cetus, as well as quite a bit broader in the chest – but, Carewyn thought, he only looked a little older than Professor McGonagall. He was far too young to have died like this...

Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw both ran to their friend's side. Hufflepuff desperately pulled at Gryffindor's shoulders, talking rapidly as if she were begging him to wake up. Ravenclaw said nothing, instead staring down at Gryffindor helplessly through her tears. Her hands trembling, she rather quickly turned to look at the column – in a flash, she'd dashed over to it, before she raised her wand and silently lit it.

As Ravenclaw stared at the column, however, both she and Carewyn standing behind her could see a mass of inky black smoke throbbing dangerously just under the enchanted glass.

Ravenclaw's wand clattered to the floor. She covered her face in her hands and began to cry.

“She says that Gryffindor's spell failed,” said Rakepick. Her own face had lost most of its color as she stared at the inky darkness pulsing inside the column.

“'The Vaults...must remain locked,'” Duncan translated sadly.

Tears streaming down her face, Hufflepuff clutched the back of Gryffindor's red and white robes, hoisting him up and off the ground with as much strength as she could in a vain attempt to turn him over. When her strength failed her, she fell upon Gryffindor's back, and the room was filled with her scream of utter despair.

~*~

“Last Day of Yule, New Year 1023

“As expected, Johannes is a true philosopher among wizards! I think the answer to the Cetus dilemma may finally be within my grasp!

“Sacrificial love is, in truth, just that – a sacrifice, namely, anything that one would be hard pressed to lose, made solely out of the purest, most sincere love. Therefore, as you might presume, one needn't necessarily sacrifice their life in order to activate it, if there was something of equal or somehow greater value to give instead.

“The one problem this leaves us with, however, is how to purposefully cast such an enchantment – for now that I know the power that such a spell might have over the Cetus, my motivation for casting it would no longer be done out of selfless love, but for my own gain. One could always try to deceive another person into making such a sacrifice, but I would hesitate to try it, for deception is deathly poisonous to all forms of love. Nevertheless, it may be something to broach with Rowena, if she will accept my owl. Perhaps if I start with Helga, it will be easier – she knows the demons of despair Godric has faced over the years, and I know she cares for his safety as much as I.

“Will spend several more nights in London before starting the journey home. Hopefully the weather will have improved enough by then that the broom flight will be speedy.”

The last page of Slytherin's journal flapped back down onto the podium and fell still.

Lane picked it up, her blue eyes trailing helplessly over the Old English words, so much more shakily written than the ones written in the previous months. Dumbledore looked at Lane sadly.

“It looks like that's all he wrote,” he said softly.

Lane closed her eyes. “Godric's death was recorded on January 5th, 1023. Salazar would've learned of it either as soon as he got home, or en route.”

She bowed her head.

“...Salazar put in so much work, to try to save Godric's life. With Godric dead...he must have lost the will to keep fighting.”

~*~

Hufflepuff's scream echoed endlessly until it had faded away completely. Then the inner Vault's walls again began to quake, and molt, and change. The blueish-tinted darkness of the Vault was broken up by the warm, golden glow of firelight, and suddenly Jacob, Duncan, Rakepick, and Carewyn found themselves in the main room of a small cottage.

The ceilings were so much lower than back at Hogwarts – had this not been a memory, Carewyn thought that Bill and Ben would've probably hit their heads on it, were they standing at full height. The walls were made of dark red bricks and the low rafters, decorated with carvings of galloping unicorns and rearing dragons, were crafted out of warm cherry wood. There was a long table and stools set up on the far end by the sooty brick fireplace in the far right corner, while on the far left corner, there was a small library with two oak bookshelves full of well-worn books and two small, rounded Dante chairs with soft emerald green cushions.

Sitting in the Dante chair closest to the stained-glass window was Helga Hufflepuff, resting the Pensieve she'd left in the Cursed Vault for them down on a small table next to her. She looked far older now – her chocolate brown curls had gone gray, her dark skin was wrinkled and age-spotted, and she looked incredibly frail. And yet she smiled toward the empty Dante chair beside her and talked to herself with as much composure as she would at a fine feast.

Duncan and Rakepick both stiffened uncomfortably.

“What is it?” asked Carewyn.

“She said 'hello,' but...” said Duncan uneasily, “...there's nobody there.”

As Hufflepuff continued to speak, Rakepick's eyes narrowed upon her face.

“She's reassuring the chair that she's not mad,” she said, her eyebrows raised scornfully.

Her dark blue eyes then abruptly widened.

“...She knows we're listening.”

“What?” said Jacob, taken aback. “But she can't know that – this is just a memory!”

“Yes,” said Rakepick, her eyes still very wide upon Hufflepuff. “And she knows that, as well. Hufflepuff knows this memory of herself will go into the Pensieve – so she's talking as if the person who will find the Pensieve in the future is sitting with her in this room!”

Carewyn looked from Rakepick to Hufflepuff. The little old woman did indeed look like she was having a pleasant, but still serious conversation with an unseen person in the chair beside her.

With a purposeful stride, Carewyn crossed the room, settling herself down on the ground in front of the chair Hufflepuff was speaking to.

“Translate everything she's saying, to the word,” Carewyn told Rakepick firmly, keeping her eyes locked on the old woman's face.

Rakepick followed Carewyn across the room, slowly lowering herself to the ground so that she was bent down beside Carewyn, her eyes also on Hufflepuff.

“'You must have put in a lot of work, to end up here,'” Rakepick translated little by little. “'I applaud your courage – I can only hope that you either are or were one of my students.'”

Hufflepuff laughed softly, before growing much more serious.

“'The same day that Godric passed away, I received a letter from Salazar. Although he'd left the school, he'd continued his research into how to use sacrificial love – the strongest white magic there is – to purify the Cetus of its evil, parasitic power. Unfortunately his letter did not arrive soon enough to save Godric's life...and after the news of Godric's passing reached Salazar, his health declined very quickly. I never received another letter from him again.

“'Several years later, Rowena's health also started to fail. Like Salazar, she had trouble recovering from the Cetus's attack, thanks in no small part to her emotional attachment to Ceto, when she was still alive. Despite the animosity that grew between them in later years, Ceto was Rowena's first student and – I would think – something of a daughter to her, long before she gave birth to Helena. Sometimes I wonder if the reason Rowena had such difficulty relating to Helena all the way up until her death was that she never fully recovered from the heartbreak of Ceto embracing Dark magic and turning her back on Rowena's teachings.

“'This is why I am the only one who can give you this final piece of wisdom, in how best to defeat the Cetus. According to Salazar's research, a spell of sacrificial love requires that the spell's caster be given a choice of whether or not to make a sacrifice, and that they choose to make the sacrifice for someone else, for no other reason than pure, selfless love. The sacrifice needn't be one's life, but it must be something of equal or greater value that they would be hard-pressed to give up. There can also be no element of righteousness or self-gain in play. The reason Godric's sacrifice failed is not just because he struggled with whether or not to value his own life many times over the years...but because, in the end, he chose to die with the aim of defeating the Cetus and saving our school from evil – because he made the choice in order to live up to the code of honor and chivalry he aspired to, not solely to protect those he loved most and who loved him in return. Therefore he was not invoking sacrificial love, when he gave up his own life. It was a noble act – but it was not an expression of true love.'”

Rakepick's voice had become very quiet. Carewyn glanced at her out the side of her eye – she'd lowered her gaze to her gloved hand resting on her thigh.

Hufflepuff's hazel-brown eyes flickered with a bit more sadness.

“'This is, sadly, where Salazar noted a terrible paradox,'” Rakepick translated her once more. “'In your pursuit to discover a way to purify the Cetus so as to protect yourself and others, you've come seeking a way to invoke the magic of sacrificial love. But now that you know that sacrificial love could be strong enough to defeat the Cetus...any attempt you might make to use it will likely be tainted by your desire to defeat it, rather than simply being about expressing love for the people you cherish most. The magic you seek to invoke...you cannot...simply because you wish to purposefully invoke it.'”

Duncan lashed through the air down toward Hufflepuff, hovering over her with righteous anger. “WHAT?! So you're saying that even if we know what to do now, it won't even work!?”

Carewyn's face blanched. 'No – no, that can't be! There has to be some way we – !'

Hufflepuff's expression softened with a smile, but her eyes were still far too sad and full of regret to be anything happy.

“'It's possible that a third party could cast the spell of love in your place – making the sacrifice for you, without knowing that it would serve as the counter-curse you need...but for that to come true, you would have to keep the knowledge you've learned completely to yourself. The person would have to make a sacrifice...without knowing that it could save your life, or the lives of others.'”

Jacob glanced at Rakepick out the side of his eye warily.

“'I myself could never do such a thing, to anyone I truly loved...but perhaps this is why, in the end...I'll die before I can ensure the Cetus never harms my Hogwarts or my students again.'”

Hufflepuff's gaze drifted down to the seat of the chair. It almost looked like she was looking Carewyn right in the face, though of course her eyes never lit up in acknowledgment of her.

“'...You must be a very brave, clever, hard-working, and determined person to have made it this far. I almost wish I could see your face as clearly as you must see mine, in whatever future you live in. I wish I could give you all the answers – I wish I could tell you how best to protect yourself and the ones you love from the Cetus. And I'm sorry – so sorry – to leave this heavy burden on your shoulders. One thing I do know, however, is that love is most powerful when it's reciprocated. Even if you can't invoke the otherworldly protection of sacrificial love...I truly believe, with all of my heart and soul, in the power that comes from loving someone who loves you in return.'”

Hufflepuff's eyes had filled with tears as she raised her gaze back to the chair itself.

“'Cherish your friends. Embrace your differences. Think of their well-being before your own pride. Let their memory give you strength and their love give you courage.'”

Her lips spread into a soft smile as the tears trailed down her wrinkled face.

“ ...Now go. The column will be waiting for you, when you get back. The Pensieve might be a bit hard to navigate, but you should be able to pull yourself up and out with a proper Ascending Charm. It always worked well for Rowena, whenever she consulted her past memories.'”

And with one final smile, Helga Hufflepuff's old, wrinkled, tear-stained face slowly faded away and disappeared once again into endless, silvery mist.

~*~

All of a sudden, echoing through the walls of the underground library came a wonderful, otherworldly song. The sound made Lane's heart swell, despite never having heard anything quite so beautiful before in her life.

Dumbledore blinked up at the ceiling in surprise, but rose from the blackwood chair at once.

“Come, Lane – we should return to the surface, quickly.”

With a sweep of his robes, he climbed the stairs up and out of Slytherin's library, Lane at his heels.

When they reached solid ground once more, they found Fawkes the phoenix soaring down toward them. Dumbledore extended an arm for the scarlet bird to land on, taking the scroll from his shining beak and unrolling it. His light blue eyes narrowed upon each word.

“Lane, my dear,” he said very gravely, as he looked up at her, “it appears that Carewyn and Jacob have entered the final Cursed Vault.”

“Jacob?” gasped Lane. “He's...”

“He's alive,” said Dumbledore as kindly as he could. “My guess is that he seeks to atone for the mistakes he has made. Nonetheless...Hogwarts is under attack, by those who would seek to use the Cetus for their own evil ends – I must return at once – ”

Lane grabbed the older wizard by the sleeve of his robes.

“Professor, please, take me with you,” she urged him. Despite the frailness of her voice, her grip on his arm was very firm.

Dumbledore looked upon Lane with a rather concerned expression. “I understand your feelings. But I must warn you – you do not just have family on the side protecting Hogwarts.”

Lane's blue eyes narrowed upon Dumbledore's face. She clearly understood what he meant – her father and siblings were there too, trying to break into the Vault.

“This battle will be very dangerous,” said Dumbledore, “far more dangerous for you than most.”

“If I'm in danger, then so are my bairns,” Lane shot back, her soft, level voice low in the back of her throat with determination. “Please take me with you.”

The Headmaster inclined his head respectfully to Lane. “Very well. Hold on tightly.”

He raised his arm – Fawkes took flight, and Dumbledore seized hold of his pet's tail. In a flash of scarlet and gold flames, Lane and Dumbledore vanished. Mere moments later, the steps leading down to Slytherin's library melted away back into the reservoir from whence they came, leaving no trace that anyone had been there.

~*~

When Jacob and Rakepick both helped her out of the Pensieve, Carewyn soon found herself enveloped in a gigantic hug by Barnaby, Ben, Charlie, and Bill, all of whom looked very pale and relieved at the sight of her. True to Hufflepuff's words, just over Bill and Barnaby's arms, she could see a gold-trimmed glass column, identical to the ones in the other Vaults, waiting for her – Bill had said it appeared just before Duncan and Jacob first emerged from the Pensieve. Just like back in Helga’s memories, Carewyn could see a large shadow burbling behind the glass -- there were also more inky black stains covering the base of the column, not unlike the stain that spread across the white and gold tile floor.

“Not long after you left, there were these really bad rumbling sounds, coming from outside the Vault,” Charlie told Carewyn. “Liz and Tonks went to investigate, and they'd found the Giant Squid attacking what looked like four red-robed figures...”

“One had black trim around the hood of his robe,” said Bill solemnly. “Jae said he sounded like the Leader you saw at the meeting with R.”

Rakepick's shoulders straightened tensely.

“Charles Cromwell,” growled Jacob.

A chill ran down Carewyn's spine at the memory of Charles's cold, cruel face in Rakepick's mind, alongside her tortured screams and his heartless taunt.

“It's what you deserve, isn't it?”

Ben's eyes narrowed. “Badeea and I conjured up the strongest shields we could around the front doors and Talbott helped me Transfigure the doors into a wall, to keep them out, but...”

“If we don't do something soon, it could turn into a siege, Cromwell,” said Merula very solemnly. “What's the plan? How do we destroy the Cetus?”

Carewyn didn't reply for a long moment. Hufflepuff's words once again echoed in her ears.

“It's possible that a third party could cast the spell of love in your place – making the sacrifice for you, without knowing that it would serve as the counter-curse you need...'”

'I could lie to my friends, to save them,' she thought, 'just like I tried before, when I first decided to go after the last Vault alone...but...'

The memory of Rowan pushing Ben out of the way of Rakepick's Killing Curse – of her being tossed to the ground by the force, and her eyes staring unblinkingly and lifelessly up at Carewyn as she grabbed hold of her, screaming –

'Rowan's death couldn't even evoke the magic of sacrificial love because she wasn't given a choice,' thought Carewyn, and her clenched fists began to shake her sides. 'She loved us more than anyone – yet I would give just about anything, if it meant she could still be here – '

The leader of the Circle of Khanna closed her eyes. She was silent for a very long moment before she finally responded.

“We...can't destroy the Cetus, Merula.”

Everyone straightened up, startled. No one looked more surprised than Rakepick.

“Miss Cromwell – ” she started, her usually cool, haughty face betraying genuine concern.

“I will not lie to them, Rakepick!” Carewyn cut her off fiercely. Her voice lowered significantly as she regained control of her temper. “...Not this time.”

~*~

And so Carewyn gathered the entire Circle of Khanna together, just outside the inner doors of the Vault. She told them everything that she'd seen in the Pensieve. She told them about the Founders' battle with the Cetus, how much damage it had done to them, and what Helga Hufflepuff had said.

“The spell needed to destroy the Cetus's power requires an act of selfless love – something done with no thought of morality or self-gain,” said Carewyn. “But it's a spell I can't cast. Neither can Jacob. Neither can Rakepick. Because all of us are too focused on making sure that R is defeated and that the Cursed Vaults never hurt anyone again. If we tried to make that sacrifice, we'd just end up like Gryffindor – dead, with nothing to show for it.”

Carewyn bowed her head, unable to look any of her friends in the face.

“Hufflepuff said that if I kept the knowledge to myself...someone else could make the sacrifice instead, ignorant of the power it would have, and it could work...but...”

Her blue eyes welled up with pain – she closed them to try to keep her composure.

“...I cannot and will not lie to you, if it means I might lose you forever. I've already learned the cost of not trusting the ones you care for most. I do not intend to make that mistake again.”

She swallowed back the lump in her throat that made her want to cry.

“So all that's left to do...is to plan a proper evacuation.”

Everyone looked shocked.

“What?” said Talbott.

“Carewyn...” murmured Andre, looking stunned and horrified.

“Merula said it best – if we don't do something soon, this'll turn into a siege,” said Carewyn. “There's only one way in and out of this place – once R reaches those outer doors, there'll be no way out for any of us. And if my grandfather is leading the group on its way here...then he won't hesitate to kill every last person who stands between him and the Cetus.”

‘Jacob, Rakepick, and I...there is no going back for us,’ she thought. ‘We can’t run from this...but...’

Carewyn steadied her grip on her wand, forcing herself to raise her head and look up at her friends. Her blue eyes were swimming with tears, but she put on the bravest expression she could.

“I'm grateful to all of you...for everything you've done. But I don't want you becoming martyrs. So I'm disbanding the Circle of Khanna. Everyone is free to go. I'll cover your retreat. Go back to the castle. Go find the teachers and send them down here, if you want. You've all done more than I ever could've asked for or dreamed of, and...”

She choked. 

“...And...thank you.”

There was a resounding silence. Then Bill came up beside Carewyn, bringing an arm around her so that he could clutch her shoulder.

“We'll cover the retreat,” he corrected firmly, “of anyone who decides to go.”

Carewyn looked up at Bill, her eyes widening.

“Bill, it's suicide. If you stay here, you'll die!”

“I'm not afraid of dying, Carey,” Bill said sharply. “You know what my Boggart is – what it's always been. It's losing the ones who mean the most to me, and that includes you.”

He used the hand he'd anchored on her shoulder to pull her closer to him so he could take hold of her other shoulder too and look her straight-on in the face.

“Carey...we started this thing together,” he said, his brown eyes boring into her blue, “and I promised myself a long time ago that we'd finish it the same way. No matter what that 'finish' is – I'm with you.”

Carewyn stared at Bill, disbelieving and speechless. Charlie strode up behind Carewyn, wrapping his arms around her from behind and leaning his head on her shoulder.

“We're with you,” he said with a small smile. “Fireballs, remember? We fight together.”

Ben took Carewyn's hand on Bill's shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze, his dark eyes very hard and determined. “We'll fight together and fall together.”

“Right!” said Barnaby brightly. “And we'll kick R's tail real good, too!”

“Reckon they could use a good Dungbomb to the face too, while we're at it,” said George.

“Chuck it down their throats!” laughed Fred.

Talbott looked at Carewyn very seriously. “Whatever anyone else chooses to do, Carewyn...I'm staying right here.”

“Me too,” said Penny, her eyes full of tears.

“Both of us will,” agreed Beatrice.

“All of us will,” corrected Andre.

“You bet!” said Tonks, and Liz, Jae, Diego, Tulip, and Cedric all nodded.

“We love you, Carewyn,” said Chiara gently. “Even if we can't cast that spell...Hufflepuff said love is strongest when it's reciprocated. We're stronger together than we could ever be apart.”

“You said you didn't want us to be martyrs,” said Merula harshly. “Well, you haven't presented a better option, save us leaving you to fend for yourself.”

Her pink eyes bore into Carewyn's face with a kind of fire she'd never seen before.

“If it takes every last one of us to keep R's slimy mitts off the Cetus...then so be it.”

The flood of affection was too much for Carewyn to handle. She couldn't summon any words at all – all she could do was just stand there, wrapped up in Bill and Charlie's arms and holding Ben's hand, while trying to contain the trembling in her shoulders.

Carewyn caught Jacob's eye as he stood off to the side, Duncan floating just over his shoulder. The older Cromwell's eyes were also filled with tears, his expression touched by a very soft smile. He looked like he'd never been so proud of his sister in his life.

“Thank you,” Carewyn's voice came out as a very fragile, tear-soaked whisper, even though she managed not to actually cry. “...Thank you.”

~*~

Within moments, the entire Circle of Khanna had gotten into formation in front of the Vault's inner doors like an army prepared for war. The younger students – Fred, George, Cedric, and Beatrice – were scattered among the ranks so that they each had two sixth years on either side of them who could support and protect them. Carewyn stood toward the back of the formation on the top stair in front of the Vault, flanked by Rakepick and Bill on her left and Jacob and Merula on her right.

As the Circle stood tall and waited, listening to the rumbles and crashes of Charles Cromwell and his reinforcements fighting off the Giant Squid and barraging the outside of the Vault, an eerie stillness filled the air. It made time feel like it was moving very slowly – like every lone beat of your heart echoed over several times in your ear.

Despite being a ghost who wouldn't be able to do much fighting, Duncan had nonetheless also chosen to stay. He drifted up between Jacob and Carewyn, his light-less eyes likewise focused on the reinforced outer doors of the Vault in the distance.

“I didn't think I'd have to worry about you two dying,” he said quietly. “Especially you, Carewyn.”

Jacob gave Duncan a dark smile. “You mean you didn't really think I was going to get myself killed, all those times you got mad at me for doing something dangerous?”

“Piss off,” snapped Duncan.

Jacob tried to give a light “ha” of laughter, but it died before he could fully open his mouth. The smile slid off his face as easily as if it had been wiped off with a handkerchief.

“Just promise me one thing,” Duncan said lowly.

“What?” asked Carewyn.

“Promise me that you won't stay behind.”

Jacob looked up at Duncan, startled.

“I stayed behind because I was too much of a coward to die,” mumbled Duncan, his head falling noticeably. “Because I couldn't accept that I couldn't do all the great things I'd wanted to do – that nothing I'd done really mattered – that my life was so insignificant that...nobody would really care, after I was gone.”

“Ashe...” murmured Jacob, but Duncan shook his head and forcefully cut him off.

“But you...neither of you are like me. You're not cowardly. And...there are people who love you. So...so don't stay behind. Even if you're worried about me being lonely or something stupid like that – don't. Because if this is the day you die...”

Duncan's face cracked into a bittersweet smile.

“...I want you to let go! Be free. Sing and laugh and...rest. Not...linger.”

Jacob's blue eyes were full of pain as he stared up at the ghost of his best friend. Carewyn's eyes rested  on Duncan's ghostly hand instead of his face, feeling genuinely touched by the sentiment.

'You may have been hard to deal with sometimes, Duncan,' she thought, 'but I'm really glad that I got to be your friend, too...like Jacob did.'

She looked up, once again looking out at the outer doors in the distance.

'If this is the day I die...'

The thought hurt her too much to contemplate. If it was her last day, she'd never see Hogwarts again. She'd never play in Quidditch friendlies again, or challenge her friends to Wizard Duels, or sing to the creatures at the Magical Creature Preserve again. She'd never had the chance to tell Professor McGonagall how much she admired her or thank Professor Snape properly for teaching her Legilimency and Occlumency. She'd never see Orion fly with the Montrose Magpies. She'd never be able to visit Torvus again or to help Hagrid with his magical creatures. She’d never graduate school. She’d never join the Department of Magical Law Enforcement or help anyone with their legal problems, like she’d dreamed. She’d never be able to live the life she’d always wanted, free of the Cursed Vaults and R, with her brother beside her. ...She'd never see her mother again...never hug her tight again, never listen to any more of her historical lectures...never sing Christmas carols with her again.

Carewyn closed her eyes, exhaling heavily. Then she took a deep breath.

“A long, long time ago...

I can still remember how that music used to make me smile...”

On the other side of Bill, Rakepick stiffened visibly. Everyone else turned to glance at Carewyn. Her voice was very soft and low in her throat, to the point that it was almost a whisper – it was only because the Vault had been so very still and eerily quiet that her voice could've been heard at all.

“And I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance,

And maybe they'd be happy for a while...

But February made me shiver – with every paper I'd deliver,

Bad news on the doorstep...I couldn't take one more step...

I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride...

But something touched me deep inside...the day...the music...died...”

Carewyn's voice trailed off into silence. She brought her right hand not holding her wand up onto her shoulder, as if subconsciously wanting to shift the terrible invisible weight that rested there.

The unsettling quiet returned, settling down over everyone like a cold blanket. Then, abruptly, the silence was broken by Duncan, who had leaned backward in mid-air in a “lying down” sort of posture with his left leg crossed over his right and his arms behind his head.

“So bye, bye, Miss American Pie –

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry.

Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye – ”

His voice was less melancholy than Carewyn's had been, but no less quiet. He glanced at her out the side of his eye, and Carewyn couldn't help but smile at him as she again slipped in,

“ – Singing, 'this'll be the day that I die'...'this'll be the day that I die...'”

Another voice had joined Duncan and Carewyn's on the last word. They both turned to Jacob, whose face broke into a smile as he continued the song, picking up the tempo and lightening the tone.

“Did you write the book of love, and do you have faith in God above, If the Bible tells you so? Ahh, do you believe in rock and roll? Can music save your mortal soul, and Can you teach me how to dance real sloooow?”

It didn't take long for Jacob's enthusiasm to rub off on Duncan and Carewyn. Regardless of how strange it must have looked, the three sing the song a bit louder and cheerfully, in spite of the dark Vault they were in or how heavy the hopelessness of their situation weighed on their shoulders. Duncan swirled around Jacob in lackadaisical spirals, his translucent hands passing through Jacob's shoulder and hair a few times as the two danced around each other.

“Well, I know that you're in love with him, 'cause I saw you dancin' in the gym! You both kicked off your shoes... Man, I dig those rhythm and bluuUUUES!”

Jacob's high note was excellently pitched despite the flippancy with which he sang. Merula couldn't keep the huge, amused grin off her face.

“I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck with a pink carnation and a pickup truck, But I knew I was out of luck the day the music died...”

Soon everyone else was laughing and smiling – some of the half-bloods like Penny, Beatrice, Chiara and Badeea were starting to sing along, in places. Ben, the lone Muggle-born in the group, even sang along with the chorus when they reached it again.

“I started singing,

'Bye, bye Miss American Pie!' Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, Singing 'this'll be the day that I die'...'this'll be the day that I die!'”

Before long, this miserable, rag-tag band had devolved into a laughing, singing, dancing gaggle of teenagers. Duncan, Jacob, and Carewyn took turns singing different stanzas, passing the invisible “microphone” from one to the other with over-dramatic flourishes, as those who knew the words jumped in when they could and those who didn't danced and swayed along. Diego was dancing more passionately than anyone, of course, but Tulip was giving him a run for his money. Fred and George pretty consistently shoved themselves in front of whomever was dancing so as to hilariously upstage them. Diego was even able to somehow rope Ismelda into dancing with him for a stanza. Before long, even those students raised by wizards who'd never heard the song in their lives like Andre and the Weasleys were able to sing gleefully along to the chorus.

“Oh, and there we were all in one place, a generation lost in space, With no time left to start again...

So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick –

Jack Flash sat on a candlestick 'cause...fire is the devil's only frieeeend...

Oh, and as I watched him on the stage,

My hands were clenched in fists of rage – No angel born in Hell could break that Satan's spell!

And as the flames climbed high into the night to light the sacrificial rite, I saw Satan laughing with delight the day the music died... He was singing,

'Bye, bye, Miss American Pie!' Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, Singing, 'this'll be the day that I die' – 'this'll be the day that I – '”

BOOM.

Everyone came to an abrupt halt.

The rumbling, blasting sounds that had echoed over their heads previously hadn't been so close as the one they heard now. It came from the outer doors of the Vault – as if someone was ramming at the other side with a battering ram.

The entire Circle of Khanna stared at the doors once more, all cheer and laughter fading from their faces. All at once, the gravity of the situation had returned.

Any minute, R would be ramming down that door – and then they'd have to fight with everything they had, with no guarantee that they'd survive to see another day. It made them suddenly feel both incredibly stupid and so much, much younger than they'd felt just ten minutes ago.

Before the freezing cold silence could completely congeal, another lower, more resounding voice broke through.

“I met a girl who sang the blues, and I asked her for some happy news,

But she just smiled and turned away...”

It was Rakepick.

The entire Circle of Khanna turned to face the ex-professor. She'd not joined into any of their revelry, staying on the sidelines and silently watching – but in that moment, her dark blue eyes locked on the outer doors much the same way as everyone else’s had been earlier, she sang the next stanzas in a soft, crisp, untrained voice that reminded Carewyn of the crackling of autumn leaves.

“I went down to the sacred store where I'd heard the music years before, But the man there said the music wouldn't play...

And in the streets, the children screamed,

The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed, But not a word was spoken – The church bells all were broken...”

Carewyn walked over to stand beside Rakepick, watching her silently.

Was that pain in her eyes? Were there tears? Carewyn couldn't poke around in Rakepick's head – but she couldn't help but wonder how much of what Rakepick had told them, about her background with R and about all of the regrets she had about what had happened with Jacob and...well, Carewyn herself...was running through the ex-professor's mind, in that moment.

‘She learned all the words, in that time after she heard me singing American Pie, as a kid,’ thought Carewyn. ‘Even though before then, she’d turned her back on all things Muggle.’

Rakepick’s dark blue eyes grew a bit smaller, almost sadder, upon the far wall.

“And the three men I admire most – the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost – They caught the last train for the coast the day...the music...died...”

“And they were singing – ”

Rakepick looked up, startled, as Carewyn joined her, her almond-shaped eyes also resting on the outer doors on the far end as she sang a sweet harmony part over her.

“'Bye, bye, Miss American Pie...' Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, Singing, 'this'll be the day that I die'...'this'll be the day that I die'...”

In that moment, the Circle of Khanna seemed to have regained their posture.

Yes, it was silly – yes, it was stupid, to find any bit of comfort in something so insignificant and pointless – but no, in fact, it wasn't pointless. Perhaps things were hopeless. Perhaps they would fail. Perhaps they would die and never see their loved ones again. But they were together – and in that togetherness, they felt strong. In that community, they felt courageous – enough to sing about the specter of Death looming over them with optimism and heart rather than despair.

These children were, in truth, an army.

“They were singing, ‘Bye, bye, Miss American Pie...’ Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, Singing, 'this'll be the day that I die.'”

[To be concluded...]

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my writing #this'll be the day that i die #good!rakepick AU #patricia rakepick #carewyn cromwell #jacob cromwell #jacob's sibling #jacob #duncan ashe #ben copper #bill weasley #charlie weasley #helga hufflepuff #rowena ravenclaw #salazar slytherin #godric gryffindor #lane cromwell #albus dumbledore #barnaby lee #tulip karasu #cedric diggory #the circle of khanna #andre egwu #talbott winger #beatrice haywood #penny haywood

[marixx]

Title: have a bouquet made from my love

Words: 1177

Fluff!! Flower shop/Book shop Au + Modern Au

Warning: swearing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It's so fucking noisy out there, that construction has been going on for almost a week. Can't a guy just get some peace and quiet?"Ranpo whined, roughly placing down the arrangement of flowers and leaning on the counter, his emerald eyes glaring at the construction just across the street. His friend/coworker sighed at him, rolling her eyes.

Yosano places down the small vase on the display window. "Language, Ranpo,"She scolded. Fixing the curtains of his flower shop. Then leaving towards the back storage/hangout room.

The flower shop he owned—or well technically his fathers but he inherited the business about two years ago, was called Bouquet Agency, the shop itself was fairly small but not too much. It had a very homey vibe to it. The shop was like a small cottage, with nicely trimmed bushes on the side of the windows accompanied with arranged bouquet of flowers, some pots on the shelves that had small trees and cactuses on them, hanging flower pots filled with a wide variety of sinewy plants, a gentle scent always somehow filled the air, and soft Lofi music playing in the background. The color scheme of a few exposed brick and white accompanied with dark brown always made Ranpo feel so much at home, it made the shop have a small vintage look to it. Once in a while, the original owner, was named Fukuzawa Yukichi, would visit from time to time. Just to stay for maybe about twenty minutes or more to greet everyone, ask them about their day, and how the shop was doing then he would leave with a small smile on his face.

The workers there were, Yosano who was the one the customers would seek help to, Atsushi took charge in taking care of the plants, Kunikida was the one who kept the delivery's and their schedules in line, Ranpo on the counter, kenji would carry the heavy load to the back (once in awhile he would take the counter), and Dazai who....didn't really do much, but he helped out from time to time. Their frequent customers were the Tanizaki siblings, who owned a bakery just a few blocks down, they had heard about the flower shop from Atsushi (Ranpo made sure to have given him chazuke that day) and returned once or twice a week.

Dazai who always lounged on the small couch in the corner, putted away his favorite 'guide to suicide' book on the in table next to it. "Hey, did ya hear that construction site out there was gonna be a new shop?"Dazai grinned.

Ranpo looked at him appalled. "Where'd you hear that information?"He asked. Dazai simply shrugged, replying with 'chuuya' in a small voice. Of course. Chuuya, who was a worker at the tattoo shop next door (and was also the brunette's boyfriend) had always been one for gossip. Ranpo hummed, through the years he had been here, he hadn't seen a new shop open since the place they were in wasn't that crowded.

"A new shop, huh?"Ranpo grinned.

"Apparently it's gonna be a book store,"

"Hey look, it seems that their opening,"Dazai pointed out. Staring at the building from across the street.

The black haired male's grin only widened. "Hopefully they don't steal our customers,"he laughed. Suddenly, Yosano Imerged, pushing away the curtains that hung on the arched doorway. "Shouldn't you two be working instead of gossiping like two high-schoolers?"She glared.

The two males flinched. Muttering an apology, turning back to the flowers he was working on. He thought of an idea, his eyes trailed back outside, eyes squinting at the new shop from across the street. Seeing two people talking to each other.

"Ranpo, put these geranium and meadowsweets on that bouquet will you?"Yosano called out.

"Ah, figured it was missing something important,"Ranpo smiled. Taking the flowers from Yosano, and carefully started placing them in. "What's the bouquets for anyways?"Dazai asked. Sitting up from the couch, and leaning forward.

"Some girl wanted to send a bouquet to her best friend and ex,"Ranpo shrugged. "Don't geraniums mean stupidity, and don't meadowsweets mean uselessness?"Dazai tilted his head.

"The best friend hooked up with her ex,"

"Ah,"

Humming, Ranpo gazed at the two. "Hey, how about we give a welcome to the newly opened shopped across the street?"He suggested. Carefully placing down the bouquet of flowers.

Yosano scrunched up her nose, hands placed her hips. "Ranpo, if you want to give the newcomers a warm welcome. You should go over there and do it,"She shrugged, the black haired male gasped. "Moi? Why should I do it?"he huffed.

"You're the one who suggested it, Ranpo,"

"But I have to man the cashier,—,"He babbled. "Don't worry, we'll handle the rest!"Dazai smirked, a proud look on his face. "You hired us for a reason, Ranpo-san,"Yosano laughed.

Rolling his eyes. Ranpo went and got a pair of gardening scissors to make another bouquet. Roaming around the store, trying to find a good set of flowers, his emerald eyes fell on the forsythia in the corner, beaming he immediately strolled his way over there. Grabbing the flowers and cutting them one by one.

Yosano gave him an unpleasant look, "fine! I'll do it,"He groaned. Snatching papers and ribbons from a box, and stomping over to the counter. "Perfect, you can give that bouquet your working at for them!"She beamed. Clapping her hands together.

Despite the fact that Ranpo was the one who owned the flower shop, Yosano did most of the work, she was practically considered as the owner of Bouquet Agency as well. Which was the reason why she got away with bossing everyone around (and because she scared everyone). Snipping away the stems, Atsushi suddenly made an appearance from the front door, holding what seems to be the newly ordered soil.

"Atsushi, perfect timing, were just about to open—"Ranpo said but cut himself off mid-sentence. "Shouldn't kenji be the one doing the heavy load?"He questioned, his eyes trailing up and down the younger boy. "Ah, kenji's apparently sick! So I offered to take up his job for the day....I-If that doesn't bother you, Ranpo-san,"He relied, sheepishly.

Waving his hand. "Nah, it's fine. Just don't overwork yourself, kid,"He said. Adding daffodils to the bouquet in his hand, "there we go! All done!"He exclaimed, quite proud of his work.

Dazai came in, with a piece of paper. Placing it inside, it said 'we warmly welcome you to this small part of Yokohama! We hope you enjoy your time here, Bouquet Agency.'

"Now go, our dear Ranpo-san!"the brunette grinned, yanking the older male out and pushing him towards the front door.

Sulking, Ranpo begrudgingly walking towards the new shop. As he got closer, it seems that the bookstore was just as big as his flower store was, the outside color was black, and was accompanied a big window that gave off a good view of the inside. Opening the door and hearing the small bell jingle, he took a good look at it.

From the inside, the bookstore was a little larger than it looked outside. It didn't have many lamps but there were some (the big window gave the store a lot more natural light), the walls were decorated with shelves that had labels on them and small amounts of books. In the middle were more shelvings but unlike the ones on the walls, they were empty, in the left corner were some couches and a small coffee table. To his right had a little display section of notebooks with pens, then at the front was a counter and a back door. A coffee like aroma filled up his nostrils, the smell was very calming. Everything about the store was calming either way, it reminded him of his own store, but with a more cozy vibe to it.

"Um, excuse me....we, uh, were not open for business yet..."

A soft voice called out to him, suddenly a tall man came into his view.

And holy shit.

Ranpo felt like he descended to heaven. The taller male was adorable, handsome even. Though his hair was indeed a mess, and it did cover half of his face, though one eye was visible. Ranpo could stare at them for the rest of his life. They were a shade of dark violet, amethyst eyes glowing so brightly. eye-bags were underneath them, and they had such a soft look in them. It made him feel so warm inside, they had a sense of kindness in them. The guy's physical physique was tall and lanky, in his arms was a small box, and he wondered if he could perfectly fit in them if he were to just straight up run into him. Gosh how much he wanted to test that theory out. He was wearing a large gray sweater that went up his knees, black pants, and brown shoes.

"O-Oh! Sorry, I.....uh, I own the flower shop across the street. Me and my coworkers wanted to welcome you guys,"Ranpo stuttered. Still staring at the other man's eyes. "Uh...here! Take these,"He exclaimed, offering the bouquet in his hands.

"Oh thank you!"The other said, smiling brightly. Taking the flowers in his hands.

Holy fuck!! Ranpo screamed mentally. He was so adorable, and so pretty! He felt as if his heart had ran a marathon from how hard it was thumping.

"U-Uh, would you look at the time, it's almost nine already! I have to get back to my shop,"Ranpo stammered. Looking at his watch.

"Oh I see....."The other said, clearly disappointed. "But uh....if you don't mind,"He then said quickly.

"Yes....?"

"W-Would you like to go out f-for coffee sometime, maybe? As a thank you for the f-flowers?"The taller male mumbled, playing with his fingers. Suddenly, Ranpo's face turned red

"That sounds wonderful!"He said, happily. "By the way, my names Edogawa Ranpo,"He introduced himself. "Ah, my names Edgar Allan Poe.....y-you can just call me Poe,"Poe said. Sheepishly.

"Well then Poe, I'll pick you up this weekend, if your free?"

"Uh, sure! I'm free then,"Poe blushed. Giving a small smile.

"I'm looking forward to it then,"Ranpo smiled at him. Poe wasn't expecting to see such a beautiful smile. He was glad he had worked up the courage to ask him out. He absolutely could not wait for this weekend.

#mar says #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #ranpoe #anime #bsd fanfic #bsd ranpo #bsd poe

[trustsalvatorewriting]

wasteland, baby! || kol mikaelson - chapter two

Summary: Kol makes a deal with the Hollow to revive the first woman he ever loved. Unfortunately, things don’t turn out the way he expects them to.

Word Count: 1,485

Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten

-

❝ they say a woman's first blood doesn't come from between her legs, but from biting her tongue ❞

The first time Aniya met the Mikaelson siblings, she'd been running through the village, playing hide-and-seek with Vihaan. Their hut was only a few paces from Esther's home, and the smell of warm broth always hung in the autumn air.

    She found herself staring at the strings pendants by the window. Most of the men in the village were Vikings. They'd taken wives during their travels; beautiful, pale women with straw-blonde hair and icy blue eyes. Mikael's wife, Esther, had hair reminiscent of an orange sunset, and earthy brown eyes. She'd always worn a locket around her neck: the symbol of a powerful witch.

   From the window hung several herbs and necklaces, though Aniya found herself drawn to one in particular. A small, teal crystal hung from brown twine. Her own mother had refused to purchase jewelry, insisting that she wouldn't be worthy until she was reborn into her new life. She would've given anything for an earthly object she could call her own.

    It was Rebekah that greeted her at the door. She's stood behind Aniya and tapped her shoulder, a bright smile on her face. "Hi!"

    "Hello," Aniya nodded. Rebekah was seven, only two years younger than her.

    The Mikaelson girl smiled brightly, showing her missing front teeth. "My name's Rebekah! What's your name?"

    "Aniya." She gave the blonde a gentle smile. "Is this your home?"

    "Yeah. Do you wanna come in?"

    The little witch nodded lightly, and Rebekah took her wrist and pushed the door open, pulling her in. Immediately, the girls were greeted by broth warming over a fire, and Esther Mikaelson standing above the cauldron.

    She greeted the girls with a smile. "Rebekah. And you -- a descendant of the Grover coven, yes?" When Aniya nodded, she gave her a kind look and went to hug her. "It's lovely to meet you."

    "Come!" Rebekah pulled on the older girl's wrist, dragging her through a curtain and into another room. It was much smaller, with only only two windows and two boys sitting at opposite sides of the hut. The Mikaelson girl ignored them, instead bringing Aniya to a pillow and a blanket and fishing out a few wooden toys. "My brother made these for me."

    Rebekah put two of the figures into Aniya's hands, looking up with a smile on her face. Aniya grinned and held them up to the light: a soldier on a stallion, and a wolf. They were beautiful.

    Not two weeks later, Rebekah gifted the wolf to Aniya as a present. She hadn't given her a reason, but the young witch was thankful nevertheless. She'd hidden it for two years before Baba found it and tossed it into the fire.

    Ten minutes had passed before Vihaan came into the hovel, out of breath and exhausted. "There you are."

    "Is this your brother?" At the time she hadn't known it, but it had been Elijah that had spoken.

    "Yes." Aniya found herself staring down at her hands. The game was over. She would have to go home.

    "Come on," Vihaan insisted. "Mama said we have to practice."

    "Right," she whispered under her breath. Aniya lifted herself up from Rebekah's bedding, placing the toys back into her hands.

    The blonde looked up sadly. "Will you come back?"

    Aniya nodded mindlessly, following her brother out of the home. The nine-year-old boy gently took her hand, leading her back to their home as though she were a stray cat. It wasn't until that night, when she'd found a teal crystal on the inside of her pocket, that she'd decided she would visit the Mikaelsons again in the morning.

⚜

Three days after Aniya's encounter with Kol, Elijah found himself standing in the doorway of her bedroom, knocking on the open door. She was sat against the bedframe, holding herself in such a way that made her long no different than a scared child. Her eyes were trained on the afternoon sun that streamed in through her open windows, a sense of longing radiating from the young girl in front of him.

    Upon hearing his knock, her eyes toward him. She was expressionless in her greeting, though he supposed it should have been justified. "Elijah."

    He offered her a light smile. "I hope I'm not intruding."

    "It would have been intrusion four nights ago. Now, I appreciate the company." Her eyes seem to drift back to the outdoors. The dance music faded that once played at night, had transformed into trumpets and violins during the day. The music never seemed to fade. "I understand why you were so drawn to New Orleans."

    Elijah furrows his brows, taking a few steps into the room. He peeks theough the cremé curtains, eyes falling on the people below. He hums. "Yes, Niklaus is rather fond of this city. It was our home, once."

    "It must be beautiful." She whispered, and her chest began to ache. A thousand years chain to Death, and nothing to show for it but scars and the inside of a New Orleans home.

    "It is," he agreed. "I assume you're enjoying your stay?"

    She shrugged, watching as Elijah took a step toward the bookshelf at the corner of the room.

    "These books have been here for centuries." He pulled a red one out of the shelf, opening it to the first page. He smiled, tracing his fingers over something at the front before struttimg toward Aniya. "This was a collection of poems written by Emily Dickinson. I retrieved it from her descendants not long after her passing. She writes quite beautifully, though most of her themes do surround nature and the concept of death. I think you'll enjoy her work."

    Elijah handed the book to the girl, and nodded when she looked up for reassurance. The girl ran her fingers over the dried signature of Emily Dickinson, then flipped the page to begin reading. After a moment, she glanced up again.

    "I can't."

    "I insist," he pushed the book towards her.

    "No, I can't." Aniya shoved the book toward him, a flame seeming to ignite. "I don't understand these letters, Elijah. I can't read it."

    "Oh." He seemed to swallow his words then, nodding and closing the book in his hands. Her motor skills weren't something he'd paid much attention to. When she'd died, people had written in Elder Furthark, an old Germanic alphabet that has long since died with the Vikings. Modern-day writing was scribbled nonsense in her eyes.

    "I apologize," He murmured before clearing his throat. "If you'd like, I could find you a tutor. Someone to teach you the modern alphabet so you won't have so much trouble."

    "What I would like is to leave the Abattoir, Elijah." Aniya found herself raising her voice, frustrated that no one seemed to listen to her.

    "Aniya, you are wounded. You have scars littering your body in places where it would be physically impossible to survive. You cannot wander the streets of the French Quarter like a common citizen."

    "Why not?" Tears prickled her eyes, and she found herself fighting the burning sensation in her throat. This moment felt all too familiar. "Elijah, please."

    Looking into her eyes, he'd felt his brain go numb. There was a ringing in his ears that only grew louder with each passing second, and the scene in front of him grew blurry, until he could only see blobs of color. A strangled noise came from the back of his throat as he found himself consumed by the world around him.

    "Elijah."

    He blinked, and his vision had returned. As though nothing had ever happened. The Original gulped, wiping a bit of sweat from his forehead before turning towards a tray at other end of Aniya's bedroom. Elijah lifted a clean knife and tightly wrapped his hand around the blade.

    "What are you doing?"

    Without another thought, Elijah pulled, creating long slits in his palm and allowing his blood to pour into an empty glass. He winced, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and nodding in Aniya's direction.

    "If you wish to leave the compound, you are free to do so," He stated, "so long as you drink this and allow your wounds to heal. Do you understand?"

    A frustrated sigh left the witch's lips, and she nodded, mumbling, "I understand," beneath her breath. She understood she was a prisoner. She understood she had to leave.

    "I'll speak to Niklaus about obtaining a tutor. Until then, we'll retrieve some art supplies and perhaps a television. Hobbies make modern-day existence much more fathomable."

    He was dismissive, and she knew then that he wouldn't speak to her for another few days. Her eyes fell on the glass at her bedside, filled halfway with a thick, red liquid. It took every muscle in her body not to shatter it.

#kol mikaelson #kol mikaelson x reader #kol mikaelson imagine #kol mikaelson x oc #elijah mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson #freya mikaelson #niklaus mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson x reader #rebekah mikaelson fluff #nathaniel buzolic #nate buzz #the originals #the originals x reader #the originals imagine #the vampire diaries #the vampire diaries x reader #the vampire diaries imagine #kol smut #kol fluff #kol mikaelson fluff #angst #kol mikaelson angst #the vampire diaries angst #the originals angst #oc #esther mikaelson #fluff

[bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest]

The Untamed Pokémon AU

WEI WUXIAN Wei Wuxian was renowned for his talent in catching Pokémon.

Decidueye (Shiny) When Jiang Fengmian adopted Wei Wuxian, he gave him a Pokémon egg as a gift. After a while, the egg hatched into a shiny Rowlet, which trained and grew as an archer alongside its trainer, eventually evolving into a Decidueye. The Pokémon was freed by Wei Wuxian before his death and eventually returned to him upon learning the news of his resurrection.

Kartana

Since his childhoon, Wei Wuxian has cultivated the ability to temporarily summon Kartana from other universes and use their help to accomplish various tasks.

Lotad The Jiang family, by which Wei Wuxian was raised in Lotus Pier, owned a colony of Lotad. He used to play and train with the Pokémon during his childhood and youth, but was unable to visit them after his estrangement from the clan. 

Ninetales After being rescued from the cave on Dusk Creek Mountain in Qishan, Wei Wuxian was preparing to leave the region to return to Lotus Pier. That’s when a young Vulpix started following him, attracted by the yin energy of the sword he had found inside the cave. Wei Wuxian let the Vulpix attach its spirit to the sword, so that it could hide within the weapon at will. During Wei Wuxian’s three-month-long stay in the Burial Mounds, fighiting against the spirits led the Vulpix to evolve into a Ninetales. There, thanks to its affinity with revengeful souls, it helped its trainer to control the surrounding resentful energy and make the area hospitable for life. When the yin sword was disassembled to make use of its metal, part of the material was employed to create a spherical pokéartifact able to contain the Ninetales. The Pokémon was freed by Wei Wuxian before his death, but, instead of abandoning its master, it chose to reside in its pokéartifact and remain there hidden in the hope of his master’s return. The artifact was collected by Jin Guangyao, who kept it among the items of his personal collection, though he was never able to release the Pokémon. Years later, the artifact was found and stolen by Mo Xuanyu, who, being an admirer of the Yiling Patriarch, immediately recognized the object for its significance. After being kicked out of the Jin Sect, Mo Xuanyu even begun to wear a Ninetales mask and dye the hair at the top of his head with white power to resemble the Pokémon, in honor of the Yiling Patriarch. Upon sacrificing his own life to resurrect Wei Wuxian, Mo Xuanyu left him both the pokéartifact and the mask, so that the master and the Pokémon could be reunited. The Ninetales was feared for its Howl, with which it was known to often accompany the sound of Chenqing.

Shuppet During his three months in the Burial Mounds, Wei Wuxian caught several of the Shuppet which were infesting the territory in an attempt to survive in his stay and later used their help to increase his level of demonic cultivation. The Pokémon were freed by Wei Wuxian before his death. After his resurrection, some of the Shuppet returned to him and he even caught some new specimens.

Yin Yamask Wei Wuxian caught a Yamask during his three months in the Burial Mounds and attached to it the piece of Yin Metal that he had obtained from the sword he had found inside the the shell of the Gigamax Black Drednaw of Slaughter. This Pokémon was for a time considered his strongest attacker, until he freed it before destroying the piece of Yin Metal attached to it and dying.

Chimecho A Chimecho was given to Wei Wuxian by his sister when they met in secret during his time in the Burial Mounds. According to his sister, the Pokémon had been meant as a gift from the late Jiang Fengmian. Calm Mind is one of its strongest moves.  The Pokémon was freed by Wei Wuxian before his death.

Mudbray | Little Apple Wei Wuxian took a Mudbray in order to leave Mo Village after his resurrection and decided to keep it afterwards. It was named it Little Apple due to its fondness of apples.

Accessories To disguise himself as Mo Xuanyu, for a time he wore a Ninetales Mask.

Other While he formed strong bonds with many Pokémon, Wei Wuxian was at times known to capture them in order to eat them, a fate especially reserved to members of the Pidove evolutionary line.

LAN WANGJI The rules of the Lan Clan allowed its disciples to raise only one partner Pokémon and it was also forbidden to capture Pokémon inside Cloud Recesses. Due to these restrictions, Lan Wangji never possessed more than a few Pokémon.

Altaria As a child, Lan Wangji chose a young Swablu as a partner and they have remained together ever since. Now it has evolved into an Altaria. It can use its melodic voice to accompany Lan Wangji’s zither and it’s often used by its trainer as a mean of transportation. It’s ability Natural Cure helps it remove its status problems upon switching out of battle.

Togepi Lan Wangji briefly raised a Togepi to later give it to Lan Sizhui as a gift.

Aegislash’s spirit | Baxia For a time, Lan Wangji carried in a pouch the spirit of Baxia, the partner of the late Nie Mingjue.

WEI WUXIAN AND LAN WANGJI

Nidoran colony In their youth, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji fell into a cave where Lan Wangji’s ancestor, Lan Yi, had been residing in the hope of resealing the piece of Yin Metal which she had originally liberated. With her, they found a colony of Nidoran wearing the Lan clan’s headband. After the departure of Lan Yi’s spirit, they took the colony out of the cave and under their care.

(I have several headcanons for the secondary characters as well which I may write about as soon as I have the time and add under the read more. Also I think I’m going to draw some art about this AU in the future!)

LAN SECT

According to the rules of the Lan Sect: - Killing and capturing Pokémon is prohibited in Cloud Recesses; - Fighting Pokémon battles without permission is prohibited; - Disciples are only allowed to raise one Pokémon.

LAN YI

Nidoqueen Lan Yi was given a Nidoran♀ in her childhood, which eventually evolved into a Nidoqueen.

Nidoran colony Lan Yi illegally bread a colony of Nidoran from her partner Pokémon Nidoran♀. Both because they were easier to keep hidden and because she didn’t want them to loose the ability to breed, she never evolved any of the descendant Pokémon.

LAN QUIREN

Drampa As a very young child, Lan Quiren befriended a Drampa which later became his partner Pokémon. Due to his rarity and size, it was a very unusual Pokémon for young children to have, which made Lan Quiren feel quite old. As the Pokémon grew older, it was said to lose his naturally nice temperament.

LAN XICHEN

Altaria Lan Xichen was given a Swablu in childhood as his partner. As his younger brother was also given a Swablu some years later and both Pokémon evolved into Altaria, they came to be known as the Twin Jades of Lan. It is often used as a mean of transportation and it’s ability Cloud Nine eliminates weather effects. It has the capability to mega-evolve.

LAN SIZHUI

Togetic Lan Wangji has a Togepi especially breed for Lan Sizhui. It later evolved into a togetic.

Accessories Beautifly toys remind him of his childhood.

LAN JINGYI

Chatot Despite Chatot being normally considered to loud to reside in Cloud Recesses, Lan Jingyi was exceptionally allowed to keep one.

#the untamed #chen qing ling #cql #mdzs #pokemon

[agent-cupcake]

The Holy Kingdom of Faerghus: A History

Basically, this is a more coherent version of the Fódlan’s history document I’ve been spastically adding to for a while now as a reference for myself. I don’t know if anyone’s even interested in this sort of thing aside from me, but I had fun with it regardless. Potential spoilers if you haven’t completed the game, I suppose. 

Strap in, this one’s a doozy.

-

What was to become the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus was originally the northern part of the Adrestian Empire, a monolithic country covering all of Fódlan after the War of Heroes. 

In the Imperial Year 747, the nobles of the northern Empire acted upon their desire to gain independence. This movement was led by Loog, a descendant of Blaiddyd from the Ten Elites, his mysterious tactician Pan, and Kyphon of the Fraldarius line and Loog’s close friend. 

However, it doesn’t seem as if things were as simple as that. I’m going to use an excerpt from Burnt Remnants of a Report, a book found in the Abyss library. It’s unclear who the author is, but this document was very interesting while compiling Faerghus’s history together. 

Item 18, Part 5

… The Faerghus rebellion … I harbor doubts about the army Loog has raised. How did he recruit soldiers without raising suspicions in the Empire? How did he acquire those mysterious weapons, so like Heroes' Relics? What is the true identity of Pan, the tactician rumored to have been integral to Loog's victories? And Those Who Slither in Dark…

The first point of interest was that one of Edelgard’s reasons for beginning the war was that the Church had artificially segmented Fodlan for their own benefit, but this implies that it was actually Those Who Slither in the Dark. At this point in history, it makes sense that Slither’s would have a desire for a segmented Fódlan, as the Adrestian Empire was crafted at Seiros’s will. Moreover, this would be ideal in regards to causing malcontent and constructing war, doing what they lacked the strength to achieve on their own. 

This document also seems to imply that Pan was a member of Those Who Slither in the Dark - an Agarthan - which could make sense considering how little was recorded about him. Although that makes it especially funny that Ferdinand compares Byleth to Pan. 

The “mysterious weapons, so like the Heroes’ Relics” could be stolen Sacred Weapons, lost Crest Stone Weapons, or the copy weapons Slither’s was shown to be capable of making. The Sword of Moralta is a Sacred Weapon of Fraldarius, and there’s another document in the Abyss library that might relate to this connection and possibly that Slithers could have ownership of it... But I digress.

In 747, the War of the Eagle and Lion, the battle for the Kingdom’s independence from the Empire, began. It lasted four years until Faerghus’s victory in 751 on the Tailtean Plains. At this point, the Church of Seiros stepped in and helped to mediate peace between the two countries. House Charon was integral to these proceedings, seeing that the Kingdom’s independence was recognized by all parties and secured by the Empire and Church.

On the founding day - the twenty-first of the Red Wolf Moon in Imperial Year 751 - the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus became an official country, and Loog, King of Lions, ascended to the throne as king. Despite the potential involvement of Slithers in the rebellion, Faerghus’ identity was forged out of gratitude and respect towards the church for mediating their founding which created a culture with an emphasis on piety and support of the Church.

Soon after Faerghus’s independence was assured, the Empire constructed Arianrhod, the Fortress City occasionally referred to as the Silver Maiden. The city was built in Rowe territory on the border between the countries. Once construction was complete, Rowe changed allegiances and gifted the city to the Kingdom in exchange for the title of Count.

In Imperial Year 801, only a few decades after the founding of Faerghus, the nobles of the Leicester region also rebelled against the Empire. They found themselves unable to maintain control, however, and were commandeered by the opportunistic Kingdom who wished to establish their power as a young nation. 

With the Leicester territory still under Kingdom control, King Klaus I ruled until his death in 861. Details of his rule are seemingly unimportant, as his name is only notable due to the will he left after he died which laid out plans for his three sons to divide the Kingdom and rule as archdukes of the Eastern Kingdom, Western Kingdom, and Leicester territories. To return to the report from earlier:

Item 22, Part 2

The shadowed order of the Knights of Seiros believes that King Klaus I of Faerghus was assassinated. Everyone believes that his will, which demands the territory be divided among the three princes and fails to name a successor, is a fake. The purpose was likely to involve the Leicester region and display a greater military force than the Empire...

Once again, if this report is to be believed, the events that caused the involvement and subsequent fragmentation of the Leicester Alliance were orchestrated by Those Who Slither in the Dark.

Whoever created the will meant to undermine the power structure of the Kingdom, as failing to name a successor meant that when the Archduke of the Leicester territory died in 881, the nobles of that area were able to once again make a bid for independence. This time, they were led by the Duke of Riegan. This rebellion began the Crescent Moon War, which ended in 901 with a victory on the part of the Leicester territory, which formed their own country under the banner of the Leicester Alliance.

In Imperial year 1101, the Kingdom and Empire cooperated with the Alliance to construct Fodlan’s Locket as a safeguard from the Almyran threat to the east.

King Lambert ascended to the throne of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus sometime before 1162. Although he was the second child,  his older brother Rufus lacked a crest and thus wasn’t seen as fit to rule. Late in 1162, Prince Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd was born, the first and only child of King Lambert and his unnamed wife.

In 1168, King Lambert and Rodrigue set out to claim the southern half of the barren, tribal country of Sreng, likely because of the constant threat the warrior clans posed to the northern territories of Faerghus.

The fact that they stopped with only taking half the country leads me to believe that it was something like a scare tactic, a display of overwhelming dominance. It doesn’t seem as if the land had any real value, but King Lambert might have seen a dominating display of strength as the only way to deal with the warrior culture of Sreng. More than that, Faerghus’s own warrior culture might have prevented any other means of dealing with Sreng to be discussed.

Around 1169, a plague tore through Faerghus, claiming the life of the queen consort - Dimitri’s mother. The year isn’t explicitly stated, but in 1169 Dimitri would have been seven and Yuri (who got the plague and was subsequently cured by Aubin) was nine, so that date is late enough to match up with a reasonable timeline for Yuri but early enough that Dimitri’s lack of memories about his mother can make sense. 

Around this same time, a woman named Cornelia, a highly capable scholar and mage, managed to cure the plague as well as aid in fixing the unfavorable conditions of Faerghus and especially Fhirdiad. For her efforts, King Lambert gave her a court position and became reliant on her aid.

While I don’t subscribe to the idea that Cornelia was always a member of Those Who Slither in the Dark at first, there is an argument to be made about the nature of the plague and her appearing out of nowhere. It doesn’t make sense to me that the game would go out of its way to mention her major personality shift. I also don’t believe that Slither’s had very much sway in the Kingdom up to this point, not until the Tragedy of Duscur. Either way, if Cornelia was switched out with a member of Slithers it would have had to be soon after she cured the plague, as Hapi was kidnapped for Cornelia’s experiments in 1169.

In 1171, the Adrestian Empire was thrust into turmoil due to the Insurrection of the Seven. Despite his involvement in the event, Lord Volkhard Arundel - given a title by the marriage between his sister Anselma and the now powerless Emperor Ionius IX - helped his sister Anselma and niece Edelgard escape the Empire to the Kingdom. He trusted Cornelia with care of his sister - whose name was changed to Patricia - and settled elsewhere with his niece. Cornelia mediated the relationship and secret marriage between King Lambert and Patricia, becoming Patricia’s only outside contact aside from her new husband and step-son, Dimitri.

In 1173, Lambert and Dimitri visited Volkhard and Edelgard, presumably so the two heirs could get to know each other and arrangements between Lambert and Volkhard could be made. At this point, Volkhard’s situation was incredibly precarious, and Lambert was taking on a lot of risk with his interactions with Imperial nobility. Ignorant to all that, Edelgard and Dimitri spent the year becoming friends. Dimitri was not told that his step-mother was Edelgard’s mother, and Lambert did not allow his new wife to reunite with her brother or daughter. Aside from Dimitri, Edelgard was as isolated as Patricia, neither allowed contact with others. It is possible that Volkhard and Lambert planned to arrange a marriage between the heirs in an attempt to salvage the Imperial throne and bolster it with the Kingdom’s strength, although there was a risk of uprising or being attacked by doing something so drastic. In 1174, however, Volkhard’s identity was taken by Slither’s leader Thales and he and Edelgard abruptly left the Kingdom to return to the Empire.

Around this time, King Lambert began to build relations with Duscur. In 1176, Lambert made a bold display of peace - or a bold power play against the weaker country - by setting out with his family and all his best knights to Duscur so he could finalize relations between the two countries. This ended in the fiery deaths of nearly everyone who had gone on the trip, Prince Dimitri being one of the only survivors. This was, of course, the Tragedy of Duscur.

I’d like to go over some of my thoughts about this all. There’s a lot to unpack.

1) King Lambert’s treatment of Duscur was far more peaceful than the way Faerghus interacted with Sreng. I’m a bit of a cynic so my first thought was that Duscur’s resource-rich land was valuable enough that it was smarter to avoid a full-scale battle that could damage the area. Then again, his willingness to interact with Lord Arundel shows that he isn’t as separatist as others of Faerghus. Besides, the circumstances of both situations are different and we don’t know much about either... or King Lambert for that matter. Something to think about, King Lambert is an interesting character to me.

2) As I mentioned before, it seems to me that the involvement of Slithers in the Kingdom was minimal before the breaking point of the Tragedy of Duscur. Discontent wasn’t overt in the same way as the Empire, the rot hadn’t taken hold within the higher powers because the most powerful men in Faerghus were still loyal to King Lambert. There was displeasure in the hearts of men and lords who called themselves loyalists to Faerghus ideals, and there was major tampering with the Western Church, but no chance for something like the Insurrection of the Seven to take place. Slithers needed to wreak havoc upon the entirety of the Kingdom’s structure. It feels like there was something vindictive in this all. If King Lambert had truly been considering a marriage between Edelgard and Dimitri in order to consolidate power, that would have undermined all of Slither’s hard work of separating the countries to begin with and put a wrench in all their devious machinations within the Empire. Then Lambert made an attempt at peaceful interactions with another country, which is completely unheard of as far as Fodlan’s extreme aversion the outside world and could have weakened the hold Slithers had overall. So, ultimately, Slithers weaponized all of this against him. Maybe I’m way off base, but Cornelia seems like a petty gal.

3) A few thoughts about motives:

The Kingdom Lords: No matter what King Lambert’s reasons, to a loyal Faerghus lord or knight - a man living in a place characterized by its hatred of anything outside of their own people - the idea of having a relationship with or even peacefully folding another country into their way of life would be unthinkable. Radical. Combined with the possibility that there were rumors spread about Lambert’s relations with the Empire, it’s easy to see why rallying the soldiers against King Lambert would be doable. 

Anselma: Cornelia was her only friend. She had a husband who fell in love with her at first sight and a son that was not her own. Anselma, Patricia, was a woman - a mother - who had been isolated and living in a place where she was utterly powerless. And matter what her reasons or how far her involvement went in the plot, it seems pretty clear that she never even got what she was promised. 

The men of Duscur: There are always radicals, people who can be rallied into violence. Moreover, the people of Duscur had reason to fear and even hate the Kingdom. The noble king of Faerghus arrived with all his plated knights and shining weapons. They marched in a grand parade past their borders, speaking of peace but imbued with the unknown powers of their foreign goddess and trailed by the reputation of their country's war-hungry past. 

Bringing all of this discontent together was probably not as hard as it might have seemed, which is another reason why I think the Tragedy was the catalyst for Slither’s power in the Kingdom, not a result of it.

Continuing on, following the Tragedy of Duscur, the kingdom was thrust back into the Faerghus grand tradition of violence. Prince Dimitri was too young to take the throne, so King Lambert’s older brother, Rufus of Itha territory, took on the title of Regent to rule in his stead. After condemning them for the crime of Regicide, Faerghus destroyed and subjugated Duscur without the slightest bit of mercy, enacting absolute violence without further investigation into the causes of the Tragedy. The young Prince Dimitri was one of the few who actively disagreed with the treatment of Duscur, saving Dedue and taking him on as his vassal.

The previously small House Kleiman rose to prominence during this time, secretly taking part in the Tragedy and then receiving the noble title of Viscount as well as the land previously known as Duscur as rewards for his part in the vengeful conquest against the people.

Slither’s took this chance and distraction to take more complete control of the already weakened Western Church. Taking another passage from Burnt Remnants of a Report:

Item 49, Part 18 ...

The Tragedy of Duscur, after which more members of the Western Church are strongly criticizing the Central Church. Among them are those who claim the incident in Duscur was the work of the shadowed order of the Knights of Seiros. It seems a confrontation over the dogma's legitimacy is inevitable. Soon, the child of House Gaspard...

This note illustrates that while weakening the Kingdom was undoubtedly a priority for Slithers, taking control of the Western Church was the greater of the two goals as it gave them a chance to undermine the foundational control of the Central Church.

The line about the child of House Gaspard is in reference to Christophe, Lonato’s son and Ashe’s adopted brother. In the same year as the Tragedy of Duscur, 1176, he was killed on false charges regarding his involvement with the Tragedy. This was a lie, as Christophe was actually killed because of his plans to assassinate Archbishop Rhea. The use of the word “soon” could refer to the author’s knowledge of Christophe’s plans, or his execution. 

The lie the Church uses to misdirect panic from the idea of the Archbishop being assassinated is interesting, as it ties in with the way everyone else uses the Tragedy to their own ends - Faerghus blaming Duscur, the Western Church blaming the Knights of Seiros, and Dimitri blaming Edelgard.  

In 1178, Prince Dimitri joined in the campaign to quell the widespread rebellion in Western Faerghus, demonstrating his exceptional aptitude for battle. 

And, finally, two years later in 1180, he left Faerghus to attend Garreg Mach Officer’s Academy.

#fire emblem three houses #FE3H #fire emblem 16 #fe16 #faerghus #holy kingdom of faerghus #fire emblem three houses lore #i'm a historian guys #check it #my headcanons #my writing

[startledserpentwriting]

New WIP: Unknown Oath

Unknown Oath is my newest WIP. It is an urban fantasy.

Premise

Since ancient times, supernatural beings known as the Oathbound have lived alongside humanity. They have variously been friend and foe to humanity, though historically very few humans have known of their existence. Unknown to all, humanity and the Oathbound are part of a conspiracy that predates both their civilizations-a conspiracy whose endgame is quickly coming to fruition.

WORLDBUILDING

The Unknown Oath

The Unknown Oath is widely believed to be what created the beings known as the Oathbound. According to much of Oathbound mythology, a powerful being came to a group of desperate ancient humans and granted them great power, in exchange for a tribute of blood and flesh. Those that accepted the blood variant of the Oath became the Sanguine Oathbound, and those that accepted the flesh variant became the Morph Oathbound. The nature of the being that created the Oathbound is unknown, with texts describing it variously as deity, demon, trickster, fae, and more.

Those that originally took the Oath are long dead, and the being or beings that created the Unknown Oath, if they truly did exist, have not been seen since.

Interpretations of the Unknown Oath

While definitive knowledge of the Unknown Oath and the circumstances surrounding it is scarce, it is generally accepted by most modern scholars that someone or something did grant the Oathbound their power at roughly the same time stated by most texts. Due to the limited definitive information available on it, the Oath has inspired a large number of interpretations, some of which are listed below.

The Oathbound are Weapons

Some believe that the Oathbound were intended to replace humanity as Earth’s dominant species, for purposes unknown. Detractors to this theory make the case that this would make the Oathbound struggle to fulfill their requisites, as human blood and flesh is by far the most efficient source, and a paradigm shift or humanity’s extinction would make it much harder to come by. 

The Unknown Oath is a Tithe

Some believe that the Unknown Oath and its Requisites are a tithe of sorts to some ancient entity or power, possibly the same that created the oath itself. Of those with this belief, some further claim that, once a certain amount of Requisites have been fulfilled and thus power tithed, the being will return.

General Consensus

It is generally believed by the majority of both the Oathbound and humans who know of them that the Oathbound were initially meant to be weapons. Those that believe so cite that human blood and flesh are far more effective than animal, as well as the Oathbound generally being far superior to humans in physical and magical combat.

However, in an admittedly uplifting turn of events, the vast majority of Oathbound have refused to turn on their fellow people, even from the beginning. This carried through to the present; compare the millions of members of Ophidia to the mere thousands of the Towering Inferno (see below).

THE OATHBOUND

The Oathbound are variants of the human species who possess a number of supernatural abilities due to accepting the Unknown Oath. There are two subtypes, dictated by the Oath taken by the ancestors of the Oathbound in question. These subtypes are detailed below.

Sanguine Oathbound (Blood Requisite)

The Sanguine Oathbound resemble some interpretations of the vampire legend in many respects. They resemble humans in most respects, but possess far greater strength, speed, agility, durability, and endurance, as well as a number of other abilities. They also possess vastly increased lifespans, with older individuals having lifespans exceeding a millenium. As a notable example, the current Dragon Councilor of Ophidia is over nine hundred years old.

As subjects of the blood variant of the Unknown Oath, Sanguine Oathbound need to consume blood in order to survive, though the need is not quite as severe as it is generally made out to be by most interpretations of the vampire. The blood does not need to be human, but human blood is by far the most potent in feeding, with only a fraction of the amount needed as animal. 

A Sanguine Oathbound can last about a month without consuming blood. Their powers will begin to diminish after roughly ten days, until total loss roughly three weeks after and death four weeks after. 

Easily the most common type of Sanguine Oathbound in modern times is the Sharktooth. Sharktooths resemble humans in most respects, with the only visible differences being a mouthful of pointed teeth and occasional differences in the appearance of the eye. 

Most non-hostile Sanguine Oathbound make use of blood banks or donations from humans aware of their existence.

As with all Oathbound, Sanguine Oathbound possess a natural affinity for Strain 1 (Yzarin) magic.

Morph Oathbound (Flesh Requisite)

The Morph Oathbound closely resemble some interpretations of the werewolf myth.

The Morph Oathbound are those that accepted the flesh requisite of the Unknown Oath. They possess a number of supernatural abilities, the most prominent of which is the ability to transform into a large, wolflike form at will. They possess enhanced physical attributes and senses in both forms, but these are far more prominent when transformed.

As with the Sanguine, the Morph Oathbound have a requisite that must be fulfilled to keep them alive. However, theirs is arguably much more easy to fulfill, simply requiring them to consume large amounts of meat throughout their lives. This is expedited if they consume human flesh, but this is not done in modern times outside of extremist groups such as the Towering Inferno.

Like all Oathbound, the Morph Oathbound possess a natural affinity for Strain 1 (Yzarin) magic.

Hybrids

The Hybrids are an artificially-created third variant of Oathbound. They were initially created by a later Oathbound group known as the Fang’s Point as a weapon against opposing factions. After the Fang’s Point was disbanded, the remaining hybrids were scattered. Some died, some lived on in solitude, and some joined other factions (some actually defected before the dissolution, rejecting their extremely cruel treatment). Unfortunately, the majority would eventually come to be captured by the Towering Inferno.

The Hybrids are easily the most powerful Oathbound in terms of both physical attributes and magical capability. They are also capable of limited shapeshifting, able to take the form of a human or either baseline Oathbound subtype. In their base forms, Hybrids vary widely in appearance, appearing avian, insectoid, reptillian, mammalian and more.

The process used to create Hybrids was lost with the dissolution of the Fang’s Point. Any research into replicating the experiments used was outlawed by Ophidia and the Sentinels. Despite this, attempts have been made by the Towering Inferno in creating new Hybrids. 

From the moment of their birth (or capture in the case of those abducted from other groups), the majority of Hybrids have no say in any aspect of their lives. As most are created as weapons, they are shaped and molded into this role as early as possible. However, with the advent of artificial possession, there has been less of a focus on this. This by no means means that they are treated better; rather that they are forced to watch as their body slaughters untold innocents and are restrained for most of the rest of the time.

Several Hybrids were able to break free of their captors during the Outage (see below), as this disrupted their restraints and artificial possession. Many turned against their captors, setting decades of torture and imprisonments’ worth of anger upon those that implemented them.

Some of the escaped Hybrids have formed a small, rough faction of their own, banding together after escaping the Towering Inferno. Recently they have become a point of interest for the Inferno (who seek to recapture them for use as weapons) as well as the joint force formed by Ophidia and the Sentinels (who wish to both deny the Inferno a powerful weapon and give aid to innocent beings who have been through hellish experiences)

Groups and Factions

Throughout the history of humanity and the Oathbound, many factions have formed. The five most prominent in the modern day are Ophidia, the Sentinels, The Cull Hunters, the Towering Inferno, and The Acolytes of Illusion

Ophidia

Ophidia is the largest worldwide Oathbound community and organization. Governing itself for the most part, Ophidia remains a secret from most of humanity, keeping itself hidden through illusion spells and a widespread intelligence network.

Ophidia is generally a benevolent group, focusing on maintaining good terms with the humans aware of the existence of the Oathbound and rejecting the suspected original intention of the Unknown Oath. Their current long-term goal is formulating a way for the Oathbound to reveal themselves to wider humanity without causing mass panic or hostility.

Ophidia is led primarily by four councilors at any given time. Its current leaders are known as the Dragon Councilor, the Falcon Councilor, the Boar Councilor, and the Python Councilor.

The Sentinels

The Sentinels are an organization of humans dedicated to fighting off hostile supernatural entities. They are descended from a number of similar organizations; however, they are set apart by their willingness to work with non-hostile Oathbound and their desire to cooperate with them where possible. This has placed them at odds with more extremist or less tolerant groups such as the Cull Hunters, but has also allowed them to form joint operations with more benevolent groups.

In recent years, the Sentinels have been seeking a more official alliance with Ophidia, or a possible merging of the two organizations.

The Sentinels make use of supernatural tools or abilities quite often, notably teaching all members Strain 2 (Kyphal) magic.

The Cull Hunters

The Cull Hunters are an extremist group of humans with the intention of wiping out the Oathbound in their entirety. They are descended from some of the same groups that inspired the Sentinels, but went in the opposite direction: they show extreme hostility to Oathbound of any description or faction, and any that ally with them.

The Towering Inferno

The Towering Inferno is a sect of Oathbound who embrace the more violent interpretations of the Unknown Oath. Rejecting simpler or less brutal means of fulfilling their Requisites (blood banks, non-human meat or blood, etc), members of the Inferno actively seek out humans to cannibalize. They are extremely hostile to humans of any faction.

The Acolytes of Illusion

The Acolytes of Illusion are an enigmatic, highly secretive organization of supernatural entities. Information on their composition and origins is scarce, and the group seem to actively suppress information about themselves.

The Acolytes are apparently an extremely ancient order, with references to them dating back to some ancient Sumerian records. Some sources indicate they were formed even earlier with claims existing that they even predate human civilization itself.

This group is evidently extremely powerful and highly influential despite its small size and high levels of secrecy. They have in the past manipulated many powerful organizations, including the four factions listed above, always seeming to come out on top. While they appear to avoid violence whenever possible, when pressed the Acolytes have proven themselves incredibly powerful, skilled practitioners of Strain 3 magic. Notably, they seem to use this Strain exclusively, and are thought to be its original creators.

The species and nature of the Acolytes are unknown, but they are believed to be Oathbound due to their incredibly long lifespans.

The Acolytes are thought to be led by an entity known as the Mother of Illusion. This entity is thought to be Oathbound, as she has led the organization for, at the very least, several centuries. As with most information on the organization, however, this is unconfirmed. 

THE OUTAGE

The Outage is an event that took place on November 18th, 2021. It manifested as a complete inability to cast Strain 1 magic of any kind as well as an immediate cessation of any in-progress Strain 1 spells for exactly three minutes and eight seconds. The cause of the Outage is unknown, but is believed to be linked to a series of similar but smaller-scale events that have happened within the previous year. Curiously, the Outage did not effect Strain 1 Biomagic.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Jason

Jason is a Sentinel, and was born into the organization. He is a level 3 Agent, meaning he is cleared for medium-risk and some high-risk missions.

Jason is a somewhat experienced agent with a number of operations under his belt, and is a fairly powerful Strain 2 Mage.

Dave

Dave is a Sentinel, working as part of their intelligence network. He serves as mission control during many missions. He and Jason often work closely together, and have developed a close friendship.

While technically cleared for combat and a competent Strain 2 mage, Dave stays out of physical combat where possible, and will rely on his wits before he relies on his combat prowess.

Karina

Karina is a Sanguine Oathbound and a member of Ophidia. She serves as part of their paramilitary division. 

Karina chose to specialize in scouting and reconnaissance when she joined Ophidia’s combat forces, though in practice she has run just as many direct-combat missions. She is a highly competent combatant with firearms, melee weapons, and Strain 1 magic.

Karina is one of the mages who was affected by the Outage

Rachel

Rachel is a Morph Oathbound and a member of Ophidia. She is the best friend and roommate of Karina and serves alongside her in Ophidia’s paramilitary division.

Rachel chose to specialize in frontline combat, and is quite competent in the field. 

Rachel is one of the mages who was affected by the Outage.

Serita

Serita is the current Dragon Councilor of Ophidia. She has held this position for twenty years, and was chosen after the death of the previous Dragon Councilor. 

Serita is an experienced elder Sanguine Oathbound, and has lived a long and eventful life. As of the time the story’s beginning, she is 924 years old.

Serita is rarely seen without her companion, a River Dragon by the name of Ky’isem. She befriended Ky’isem several centuries previously, during her time as a mercenary. She was hired to drive out or kill the dragon, who had been stealing food from a large village. However, when she discovered that Ky’isem was in fact a domesticated dragon whose previous owner had died, she instead elected to take her in.

Amusingly, the Dragon Councilor actually owning a dragon is pure coincidence.

Tag List: @unnameablethings ​ @from-ashes-they-rise @midnightkitten @dawnuchiha @power-of-ages-writeblr @killer-badass @little-dipper-holds-the-world @bluenightfire @chaos-reign @fathington @ramblingsofabourbondrinker @minny-king @eyelessfatdragon @problematicauthors @strawberryspaceship ​ @thatpaperlife ​ @oceansbooks1 ​ @acottenwrites ​

#WIP #Writeblr #Unknown Oath

[peonypearls-muddled-musings]

King Rinwey - PDatSK

Rinwey was born on October 23rd some forty-nine years ago to Queen Ullawren of Gelleshire, which was built on the remains of what was known as Wales and part of England. His father was a king all the way from the territory in what was once called California. They met after his father sought technology from his mother because, fun fact, Rinwey’s father was one of the six human gatekeepers of Hell. 

Rinwey’s father, Malchus, sought out Queen Ullawren nearly halfway around the world, as her kingdom is one of the most advanced in creating technology. They met and ended up getting along far better than expected, because just a few short weeks after Malchus’ two month long visit ended, Ullawren was penning him a letter that she was expecting his child. It was pretty controversial, and both faced backlash which would have been much worse if they’d been married, but Malchus’ wife had already passed from an illness several years ago. He was older with an adult daughter who was already learning to take his place. Ullawren was younger, betrothed but unwed, and this lost her betrothed status and the aid of her prospective husband. Still, she carried out the pregnancy, and Prince Rinwey was born the bastard heir of Gelleshire. Malchus ensured to help raise Rinwey, and often brought him to his kingdom to be a father and teacher.

As a child, Rinwey is betrothed to Princess Gwinletta, and the two see each other at least once a year, but after Gwin’s parents are murdered and Lennidere reclaims the throne, those visits almost stop; but the two are still legally engaged, and Ullawren makes sure to remind Rinwey of that.

When Rinwey was older, Malchus brought him to the wall that helped divide Hell from the rest of the world. Over this wall is a moat, and another wall circles Hell, where Rinwey could still hear the goings on; screams and crowds made it sound like the true Hell he’d read about in his religion books. Malchus wasn’t the only king who oversaw the Gates of Hell. The area is massive, and takes six kingdoms to watch over it.

Malchus often makes visits INTO Hell. It’s an ordeal he’s used to, and he’s not too concerned, as he knows how to protect himself. It’s a monthly purge to make sure numbers aren’t getting out of hand.

But Rinwey can only watch on a camera as a Shifter who’d been spared death breaks out of his group, and attempts to stop him lead to him stabbing Malchus repeatedly until the older monarch falls to the ground; still and silent as his guards race to his side.

Rinwey is distraught and learns that the soldiers caught the Shifter who’d murdered his father, and he was made part of the purge. Rinwey’s mother attends Malchus’ funeral, more distraught than she expected, and both witness his older sister’s coronation.

Rinwey doesn’t return to his father’s kingdom for some time, as it takes him a while to recover from the trauma. As he’s becoming older, it’s time for him to step up and begin learning to be a king. He begins helping his mother, who falls into a depression after Malchus’ murder, to lead Gelleshire. When he’s older, he does visit his sister, especially on visits to make sure Gelleshire tech is keeping the wall safe and secure.

The year leading up to Rinwey’s official coronation is one of his worst. Lost time and lost connections are building; trauma and bottled up emotions, fear and bitterness are circulating like the very blood in his veins, but everyone is looking to HIM to lead. He must learn how to continue to put a stopper on his fear; in return, he becomes callous and cold.

The first and only Shifter outed in Gelleshire was brought to Rinwey; and when he saw their relief when he announced they would be exiled, he immediately revoked that ‘punishment’, and told his guards to prepare the Shifter for ‘a trip home to Hell’, which prompted the horror and pain he desired from the person, who had committed no crimes in his kingdom.

The feeling of power became a high for Rinwey.

Shortly after Rinwey became king, the Usurper War began, where descendants of the original royals of these territories before the Fall of Humanity are attempting to reclaim their status. Current royals are descendants of the leaders of different factions of rebellions against the shifters. This war rages for several years, and it’s during this war that Rinwey meets General Dargon, who serves King Floryndus of Olthandrynn: Ullawren’s distant cousin. Rinwey nearly blacks out upon seeing that General Dargon is a Shifter, and several other kings must hold him back from attacking the general. Rinwey spares no contempt for the man, even when Dargon saves Gwinletta from death at the hands of their foes.

Rinwey is happy to see Gwinletta again, and speaks with excitement for the first time in years; but he can tell that certain topics he discusses cause her discomfort. That’s okay, though; they’ll find common ground eventually, they have their whole lives ahead of them.

Through the war, Rinwey’s catharsis is often to lash out at prisoners or disarmed enemies; to the point where he must be torn away. His allies quickly learn he cannot be trusted with interrogations, as his patience is always at a breaking point.

The war is on the cusp of ending; and Floryndus falls ill and collapses at what’s left of their camp. Rinwey has readied himself to speak with his relative about the future of Olthandrynn, but when general Dargon is requested to enter the tent, he’s confused. Oh well; Floryndus is old and dying; he’s getting his last words across. But when Dargon exits and the officiator not only calls Floryndus’ death, but has announced with his dying breath that Dargon is now his inheritor and King of Olthandrynn, Rinwey feels everything crumble at his feet.

How? How could he be seen as second to this creature? And from his own relative?! The rage and inadequacy builds. He returns to Gelleshire not only a king, but a war hero to his people. But it’s not enough.

Visits from Gwinletta help; but he learns she’s also helping Dargon assume his role as king. It drives a wedge between them. Rinwey is bitter towards her most of the time; but he doesn’t think anything of it until Gwin comes to him a year later with a contract to null their betrothal. She’s adamant that she won’t marry Rinwey, as they don’t get along anymore. It guts him.

It’s not the last gutting he receives, because he has to watch his former betrothed go through with the choice she didn’t tell him about: She marries Dargon. She marries a Shifter over him.

This clicks Rinwey’s bitterness and jealousy into place. He puts all of his energy towards Gelleshire’s continued technological progress, even though he’s a mean, callous bastard. He does marry; he weds a younger queen who’s never had to come across the Shifters, and he’s able to imprint his anger onto her opinions, and she sides with him when he rants and raves.

But don’t think she’s a silver medal, because she knows Rinwey’s been betrothed before, and she refuses to think that of herself. Young Queen Pellnique is the confident, brash eye of the storm to Rinwey’s cold, poison tongue. She’s younger and less experienced in the world of royalty, but is learning how to lead on her own, and she can take Rinwey’s poison and make him stop and think and turn that around into something that can, instead, cause growth. Despite him able to be an influencer on her, she holds true to what she does know, and her her still-stalwart heart is able to sooth some bitterness of Rinwey’s, and he cares deeply about her. Pellnique brings forth Rinwey’s twin sons, and not even two years later a daughter. But it’s during this time that Gwinletta becomes pregnant with Dargon’s child, and barely out of her third trimester, it’s discovered the pregnancy is ectopic. Gwin nearly dies from sepsis, as the child, who has not made it, and her reproductive system are removed, and what little is left is preserved by her doctors.

Rinwey can’t help but feel some kind of justification. He’s in his study, laughing and crying at the same time, because Dargon is getting what he deserves, that filthy shifter! But Gwin... why did she choose this life? Oh darling, he could have given you what Pellnique has! The joy he would have felt with you as the mother of his children, his wife and confidant! But no, you chose this. Gwin, you should have had better!

He does, however, send a ‘mourning’ gift to Dargon of black roses and petunias, with a simple note saying ‘Long Live Olthandrynn’.

But their lives are made; he has Pellnique, his sons and daughter (and presumably a kid or two more by the time the story rolls around)

and then

and then it’s announced that Olthandrynn WILL have an heir. He scoffs. He turns on the program, waiting to hear what bullshit Dargon has to say. Why is he flanked by doctors? Who cares?

... wait

What did Dargon just say?

Rinwey’s reaction to Dargon announcing his own pregnancy via his shapeshifting with help from doctors and scientists, with Gwin happily standing at his side, supporting him and beaming... Rinwey becomes nauseous. He’s angry. He’s LIVID.

Shifting doesn’t bring life. It only brings death and despair! This isn’t a happy moment! This is death!

Rinwey cuts nearly all ties from Olthandrynn, save for when he and Dargon and/or Gwinletta are forced into close quarters by their connections of royal obligations, and when Dagney’s birth is announced in the late hours of October 22nd, he forbids any news outlet in Gelleshire to cover it.

Rinwey continues his years free from connections to Olthandrynn, as a content husband and proud father. His kingdom is everything to him, and he does not care that other royals find his company to be choking.

Gelleshire isn’t one of the foremost technological countries in the world because it was soft. It’s because they’re driven. And Rinwey makes sure everyone remembers that it’s because of Gelleshire that the Gates of Hell remain safe and secure because of his people.

#Rinwey #I went ahead and gave his background his own post bc it's p important info #PDatSK #my writing

[vampirescvrse]

BASICS

FULL NAME: JI BAI [ 姬白 ] » MEANING: Ji [(姬) was the ancestral name of the Zhou dynasty which ruled China between the 11th and 3rd centuries BC. Thirty-nine members of the family ruled China during this period while many others ruled as local lords, lords who eventually gained great autonomy during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Ji is a relatively uncommon surname in modern China, largely because its bearers often adopted the names of their states as new surnames.The character is composed of the radicals 女 (Old Chinese: nra, "woman") and 𦣞 (OC: ɢ(r)ə, "chin"). It is most likely a phono-semantic compound, with nra common in the earliest Zhou-era family names and ɢ(r)ə marking a rhyme of 姬 (OC: K(r)ə). The legendary and historical record shows the Zhou Ji clan closely entwined with the Jiang (姜), who seem to have provided many of the Ji lords' high-ranking spouses. A popular theory in recent Chinese scholarship has suggested that they represented two important clans – the Ji originally centered on the Fen River in Shanxi and the Jiang around the Wen River in Shaanxi – whose union produced the Zhou state ruled by Old Duke Danfu, although the theory remains problematic. In the family hymns recorded in the Classic of Poetry, the Ji (姬) family is traced from the miraculous birth of the Xia dynasty culture hero and court official Houji caused by his mother's stepping into a footprint left by the supreme god Shangdi. The Records of the Grand Historian instead make Houji the son of the Emperor Ku, descendant of Yellow Emperor.]; Bai [From Chinese 白 (bái) meaning "white, pure". Other Chinese characters can form this name as well. This name was borne in the 8th century by the Tang dynasty poet Li Bai, whose given was 白. ]

VERSE: Serendipity, Sanguine

NICKNAME(S): Bai

AGE: Appears Appears to be 24-years old but is actually more than 500-years old. 

DATE OF BIRTH: Bai was born during the Ming Dynasty; around 1500′s. 

PLACE OF BIRTH: Jiangsu Province, mainland China.

OCCUPATION: Businessman.

PERSONALITY

STRENGTHS: Curious, Passionate, Loving, Patient, Loyal, Determined

WEAKNESSES: Insecure, Passionate, Emotional, Loyal, Patient

APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: Li Wei/Lin Jing

HEIGHT: 5′10 ft. [179 cm.]

WEIGHT: 143 lbs. [65 kg.]

BUILD: Lean.

GAIT: TBA.

HAIR COLOR: Black.

EYE COLOR: Brown.

BIRTHMARK: TBA

OVERVIEW: » SCARS: Bai doesn’t have very many scars. He was born into a family of royal blood and was well taken-care of growing up. He didn’t get a lot chance to explore and play with other children. No chance of him getting into fights or dangerous adventure as well. Not until later in his vampire life. He was scared by a supernatural being. More details to be added. » TATTOOS: Bai doesn’t have any tattoos. 

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: Jiangsu Province, China.

RESIDENCES: Jiangsu Province, Beijing, 

NATIONALITY: Chinese.

ETHNICITY: Asian [Han]. 

FINANCIAL STATUS: Upper class.

EDUCATION LEVEL: Bai is well-educated. He learned about history, arts, and politics growing up, a privilege for males in the family. 

DEGREES: In modern age, his education is equivalent to a college degree.

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: Bai learned a few languages over the years; his first language is Mandarin. He is fluent in Cantonese, Hangul, Hihongo, and English. He can converse in French, German, and knew some other Asian languages.  

RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS: To be added.

SIBLINGS: Bai has older and younger siblings.

CHILDREN: None.

PETS: None at the moment. 

SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIPS: » Wei-yin; blood brother and long time friend. 

FAMILY HISTORY: Bai grew up in a very rich household. His father was part of the court at the palace during the Ming Dynasty. He was close to his siblings especially the younger ones. He is closer to his mother than his father. He never really agreed to the rule that only men in the family had the choice on how to live and navigate their life. It always bothered him that he got to study while his sisters are trained to be housewives. 

ROMANTIC HISTORY: Bai never truly fell in love until he was turned into a vampire and met a human that became his companion. The human he thought who returned his affection was in fact in love with another person, a fae soldier who was also a vampire hunter. 

PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS: Wei, in a way. But they had been physical in the past, most specifically in the beginning but they are more brothers and friends than anything. 

THOUGHTS ON LOVE: Bai used to believe in love but he realized that there was no such thing and that whatever good a person has is just a mask of what truly is in the background. Bai believes that those who believe in love are fools and deserved whatever pain they receive in the process. 

HEALTH

PHOBIA(S): None. *In reality, Bai has a hidden phobia of getting attached to another being and being left alone. He is unfeeling and detached and know nothing of pleasure or even pain and sadness. All he has is bitterness and anger.

HANDICAP(S): None.

MENTAL DISEASE(S): Depression. He also suffered anxiety when he was younger. 

PHYSICAL DISEASE(S): None.

PREDISPOSITION(S): Depression and anxiety.

#{ character sheet: bai } #{ hc: bai }

[foxofthedesert]

Arrow FanFic | Dinah x Laurel | A Christmas Miracle

Part 4 – The Miracle (AO3 Link)

A vicious chill threads through the alleyway outside the Carmine Kanigher Shelter, sending waste detritus of modern civilization skittering in every direction.  Mice and rats flee for cover as fat flakes of snow begin to fall.  Soon the entire area will be blanketed in a carpet of fluffy white powder.  A Christmas Miracle for Star City courtesy of a recently reunited father and daughter duo of certain...arctic talents who are in town for the first of what will become the annual Team Flarrowgirl – a universally reviled portmanteau courtesy of one Ralph Dibney – Christmas extravaganza.  

Pushing off the cinder block he’s occupied for the second time tonight over the past few minutes, Marv adopts a toothy grin.  He already worked his seasonal miracle, which if his best friend Nora’s spotty accounting of history unrelated to her dad can be trusted is taking place right about...now.  Nervously, he lifts the sleeve of his jacket to check the vitals monitor on the modular biometrically keyed device wrapped around his wrist, finding all readings back within ideal parameters whereas only hours before they were fluctuating wildly.  Just to be sure his efforts were indeed successful, he pinches himself in several places to ensure his central nervous system is still functioning correctly that he is still corporeal and has not disintegrated due to a seismic shift within the causal domino chain that will eventually result in his birth less than six years from his present location in spacetime.  

As a reward for a mission accomplished, he sifts through the menus on what Nora calls their Vibe-rators – bless the innocent, adorable, perpetual child that she is, Nora has yet to grasp why nicknaming the gadgets that in honor of their esteemed inventor, their beloved Uncle Cisco, was not quite the honor she thought it was – and quickly deactivates the artificial aging matrix produced by some seriously shway tech that, savvy as he is, even he doesn’t fully understand.  He also unilaterally decides to never adopt the pseudonym Marv ever again.  

Honestly, what was I thinking going with that? Quen shakes his head, chuckling ruefully as the answer dawns on him. There is a longstanding Christmas Eve tradition in his house of watching Christmas movies all evening until everyone is too tired to keep going, and this year they are breaking out amongst other titles both of Macaulay Culkin’s Home Alone films.  Double-dipping those gems before bed is, in his opinion, just about the perfect way to cap off a perfect Christmas Day with his family.  Which is why he has to get a move on or he’ll be late and his Moms will not be happy.  Nor will Aunt Sara and Aunt Ava, who are actually supposed to drop by this year instead of ducking his Mom’s invite with some lame explanation of a temporal anomaly that needed fixing like, pronto.  Come to think of it, Maya, his older sister by a year and a half, is coming back home from a work thing in National City for the annual Lance family Christmas and will almost certainly use his tardiness as another excuse to hit him.  And Quen can’t have that.  She has enough reasons as is without adding valid cause. Plus, his damn shoulder has been abused enough by his sibling’s iron fists, thank you very much!

Glancing back toward the street he’d watched a younger, more hardened version of his softer mother approach him from, the familiar tug of welcome memory pulls him under its sway. His Ma is still a knock-out according to all his friends, who often break out an ancient acronym he chooses to ignore so as to not require a bleaching of his brain, so the age difference was not that jarring.  But it was beyond weird to see her so restrained and world weary.  

Of his parents, his Ma is the positive one, the tactile huggy, kissy, slightly smothery mom who sings while she cooks, dances as she cleans, and who cried – on camera! – at his graduation...every last one of the four so far.  So many wonderful memories of her flash by that he can hardly sort through them all. Her singing him to sleep while he was little and really, really sick while his Mom cradled him close to her chest and rocked him in her favorite rocking chair.  The absurd, bonkers, overboard, birthday bashes she organized for both him and his sister every friggin’ year until they were old enough to insist she dial back the adorable insanity.  The way she would stand to the side giggling uncontrollably at his ultra-competitive Mom once he got old enough to regularly beat her at basketball or soccer or video games.  How a few stern words from her spoke volumes more than a profuse tirade from his Mom ever could amongst one of the many lectures he endured regarding the vital importance of taking responsibility for one’s own actions.  How she always smells like an amazing blend of vanilla and cinnamon and can with a single enveloping hug and a lingering forehead kiss banish every iota of hurt, confusion, pain, and fear plaguing her children, even when they are fully grown adults.  His Ma is a lionhearted woman who loves with every last ounce of her strength, and it was more than a little disconcerting to witness her holding that ferociousness ransom in the obviously fading hope that a rescuer might appear to set it free.  Thankfully, he is a devoted son who is willing to brave her wrath to secure her happiness, which he did by pushing her toward a certain irritatingly complicated blonde.  

The various images of his Ma, heartwarming as they are, mingle with one of his other mom as he watched her first set foot in the shelter.  Looking for all the world like she didn’t know what the hell she was doing there, all the while unwilling to surrender an inch to fear or doubt, she was yet so fragile he was afraid to even breath in her general direction lest she shatter into a million pieces.  He had to get to know her first before he risked ingratiating himself to the point she would grant him permission for one stilted hug.  

He’d like to say that it shocked him to see her so walled off, the woman who carried and nourished him inside her body for nine months and then endured unspeakable pain to deliver him safely into the world, but it didn’t.  His Mom has always had trouble letting people in, which in combination with her frightening dark side could make her a foreboding person to approach.  From his first memories, he can recall glimpsing fleeting specters of what he’d witnessed in earnest while on this escapade in the past: a simmering rage and innate cynicism fueled by pain that only his Ma can assuage.  Once or twice he was the unlucky target to bear the brunt of an outburst that scared him witless, and scared his Mom even more – so much so that she would sequester herself in the bedroom or the spare bathroom until she calmed down or his Ma intervened to soothe the offended beast back into her thick iron mental cage.  He never really understood why his Mom got that way sometimes until just last year, about five months after his eighteenth birthday, when he learned about Black Siren.  That wasn’t a happy time for him, or for his Mom.  He had always known she had a troubled past, but that...that shook the foundations of his essential being, made him doubt his own moral and ethic core, and worst of all caused him to doubt his Mom’s ability to love.  It took both his Ma and his Uncle Ollie teaming up to knock some sense into him for him to get his head out of his ass and to stop avoiding and start talking to his Mom again.  

And now?  Well, now he’s glad he knows about Black Siren, because if nothing else, this trip into the past has given him a reality check as to just how awful his Mom’s life was to have molded her into the hateful person she was before his Grandpa took a chance on her that his Ma later picked up and ran with.  Once, and fortuitously, she got to the shelter early enough to join in a group session with the therapist that visits the facility once per week.  He had to sit there silently and listen as she got roped into sharing, then grit his teeth through the empathetic agony of her divulging a lot more than she had originally intended.  The things she went through before she met his Ma...Quen shudders at the very thought.  The silver lining to that intolerable experience is that at least he has a reference to work with dealing with her occasional mood swings.  

Also, this foray has given him a new, unique perspective into how much his parents love each other.  To have overcome so much adversity just to be together is, quite frankly, astonishing.  Nora has told him so many times that his Moms’ love story rivals that of any epic parental romance within the group of kids belonging to the venerated members of the Justice League, but he never quite believed her.  How could he when they were competing with the likes of Superman and Lois Lane, the Green Arrow and his Overwatch, the Flash and Iris West, and Supergirl and her mysteriously broody governmental handler all the kids simply know as their favorite Aunt Alex.  But those precious hours surreptitiously watching them interact in the kitchen and during the post-dinner clean up operation afforded him a view that, while slightly biased, was able to recognize that same divine spark between them that he sensed whenever he was around his friends’ folks.  It was nice, so nice that his heart is still soaring high in the clouds above, to be given the immense privilege of bearing witness to the event that will begin an inevitable spiral into his – and his sister’s – future conception upon a recovered Kryptonian Genesis ship.  And come what may, be it unavoidable tragedy like Nora’s Uncle Wally getting imprisoned outside the timeline by Abra Kadabra, or some catastrophic event like Darkseid himself descending upon his Earth tomorrow, he won’t be forgetting this adventure any time soon.  It has ignited in him a flame of hope that cannot be quenched and solidified a belief that will endure until his death that love really can conquer all.

“Well, I guess you guys will see me in five years and twelve months on the dot” he says, his gaze turning instinctively to the apartment in which he knows his parents to be making the first baby steps toward a future they have both risked life and limb to protect multiple times.  “Good thing it’ll be sooner for me.  Just hope you guys don’t kill me when I tell you where I’ve been for the past month...”

And with the press of a button upon his Vibe-rator – he snickers at the thought of the name – Quentin Nicholas Lance disappears from view to join his best friend for their return trip to the future.  He is not seen again until many years later. Twenty-four years,  ten days, seven hours, and thirteen minutes to be precise, which is two minutes late and of no consequence to anyone but Maya, who uses that as an excuse to hit him.  

Damn that punchy brat.  

Quen rubs his sore arm, but the smile on his face remains until he is engulfed by two pairs of arms that officially ring in another Merry Christmas for the Lances.  To his unending delight, in addition to a new Quantum Tablet, his Moms pulled some really big strings to get him into the Air Force Academy.  He can’t wait to tell Nora!  And as he rushes to dial his bestie up on his Vibe-device, he gives them both the biggest hugs he can muster up.  He doesn’t see how their eyes catch over his shoulder, glowing with love for each other and pride for their child and happiness over his happiness, but then again he doesn’t really need to.  He sees it every single day.  Nor would it have registered even if he had caught it.  He is far too excited to think of little else than realizing his dream of becoming a pilot.

Merry Christmas to me! He thinks as he hears Nora’s voice chime through the tiny, nearly impervious subdermal implants designed by his Uncle Cisco that were wired into his ears after a childhood accident his Mom still hasn’t forgiven herself for rendered him deaf.

“Hey!  You’ll never guess what I got for Christmas!”

Nora does guess, the know-it-all brat, but his enthusiasm doesn’t diminish one iota. This is, after all, the best Christmas ever.  And not just because he got everything he wanted, but because he got to watch his parents take the final steps in their journey falling in love.  How many kids get to make that boast?  Not any he knows of besides Nora.  

Quen has an extended family that loves him, a bright future ahead of him, a sister that would fight the world for him, and Moms who love him – and each other – more than he could ever begin to describe.  And that makes him the luckiest kid alive.

THE END 

#dctv #arrow #arrow fanfic #dinah drake #laurel lance #dinah x laurel #laurel x dinah #aka Dinahmite! #or: #dinahsiren #merry christmas y'all!

[hereticaloracles]

Asteroid Files: Ariadne

Helios on Ariadne– Failure- Its a dirty word in our society. We are told to desire first place, and anything else is losing. Yet failure, loss and settling make us who we are- In tragedy we are revealed, not in success. This asteroid heroine knows that feeling well, and she has a lot to teach us….

The Astronomy– 43 Ariadne is a fairly large and bright main-belt asteroid. It is the second-largest member of the Flora asteroid family. It was discovered on April 15, 1857, and named after the ancient Greek heroine Ariadne (HEROINE, PEOPLE. Do you know how rare it is to have actual ancient Greek Heroines?) Ariadne is very elongate (almost twice as long as its smallest dimension) and probably bi-lobed or at least very angular. It is a retrograde rotator, although its pole points almost parallel to the ecliptic towards ecliptic coordinates (β, λ) = (-15°, 253°) with a 10° uncertainty. This gives an axial tilt of about 105°. Ariadne has an orbital period of 1195 days, or 3.27 years.

The Myth– Ariadne in Greek mythology was the daughter of Minos (the King of Crete and a son of Zeus) and Pasiphaë (Minos’ queen and a daughter of Helios [*coughs awkwardly*]) She is mostly associated with mazes and labyrinths because of her involvement in the myths of the Minotaur and Theseus. Her father put her in charge of the labyrinth where sacrifices were made as part of reparations (either to Poseidon or to Athena, depending on the version of the myth); later, she helped Theseus overcome the Minotaur and save the potential sacrificial victims. In other stories, she became the bride of the god Dionysus, with the question of her being mortal or a goddess varying in those accounts.

According to an Athenian version of the legend, Minos attacked Athens after his son was killed there. The Athenians asked for terms and were required to sacrifice seven young men and seven maidens to the Minotaur every seven or nine years. One year, the sacrificial party included Theseus, the son of King Aegeus, who volunteered to come and kill the Minotaur. Ariadne fell in love at first sight and helped him by giving him a sword and a ball of thread so that he could find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth.

She eloped with Theseus after he achieved his goal, but according to Homer “he had no joy of her, for ere that, Artemis slew her in seagirt Dia because of the witness of Dionysus”. Homer does not expand on the nature of Dionysus’s accusation, but the Oxford Classical Dictionary speculates that she was already married to Dionysus when she ran away with Theseus.

In Hesiod and most other accounts, Theseus abandoned Ariadne sleeping on Naxos, and Dionysus rediscovered and wedded her. In a few versions of the myth, Dionysus appeared to Theseus as they sailed away from Crete, saying that he had chosen Ariadne as his wife and demanding that Theseus leave her on Naxos for him; this has the effect of absolving the Athenian culture-hero of desertion. The vase-painters of Athens often showed Athena leading Theseus from the sleeping Ariadne to his ship. With Dionysus, she was the mother of Oenopion, the personification of wine, Staphylus (related to grapes), Thoas, Peparethus, Phanus, Eurymedon, Enyeus, Ceramus, Maron, Euanthes, Latramys and Tauropolis. Her wedding diadem was set in the heavens as the constellation Corona Borealis.

Ariadne remained faithful to Dionysus but was later killed by Perseus at Argos. In other myths she hanged herself from a tree, like Erigone and the hanging Artemis, a Mesopotamian theme. Some scholars have posited, due to her thread-spinning and winding associations, that she was a weaving goddess, like Arachne, supporting this theory with the mytheme of the Hanged Nymph. Dionysus descended into Hades and brought her and his mother Semele back. They then joined the gods in Olympus.

Karl Kerenyi and Robert Graves theorize that Ariadne (whose name they derive from Άδνον, a Cretan-Greek form for arihagne, “utterly pure”) was a Great Goddess of Crete, “the first divine personage of Greek mythology to be immediately recognized in Crete”, once archaeology had begun. Kerenyi observes that her name is merely an epithet and claims that she was originally the “Mistress of the Labyrinth”, both a winding dance-ground and in the Greek view a prison with the dreaded Minotaur at its centre. An ancient cult of Aphrodite-Ariadne was observed at Amathus, Cyprus. According to the myth that was current at Amathus, the second most important Cypriote cult centre of Aphrodite, Theseus’s ship was swept off course and the pregnant and suffering Ariadne put ashore in the storm. Theseus, attempting to secure the ship, was inadvertently swept out to sea, thus being absolved of abandonment. The Cypriote women cared for Ariadne, who died in childbirth and was memorialized in a shrine. Theseus, overcome with grief upon his return, left money for sacrifices to Ariadne and ordered two cult images, one of silver and one of bronze, set up. At the observation in her honor on the second day of the month Gorpiaeus, one of the young men lay on the ground vicariously experiencing the throes of labour. The sacred grove in which the shrine was located was called the grove of Aphrodite Ariadne. The primitive aspect of the cult at Amathus in this account would appear to be much older than the Athenian-sanctioned shrine of Aphrodite, who has assumed Ariadne (hagne, “sacred”) as an epithet at Amathus. Why She Matters– Okay so I really, really like Ariadne. She’s always been a badass to me. She’s smart, she’s tough, and she’s brave AF, but acts out of love to do the right thing; She’s basically Hermoine Granger, the capable character who the brave boy heroes would be utterly lost without- She’s great. Unfortunately, no matter how you unpack her, her story never ends happily. Whether its abandoned by Theseus or gutted by Perseus or trapped in her family’s machinations, Ariadne seems doomed no matter what (which is the final test of whether she truly is a hero or not- no greek hero ever has a happy ending until they die). So what the hell does she mean astrologically?

Well, one theme that really sticks out is a lesson its taking me a long time to learn, and for this we turn to the only Virgo I respect, the Queen herself:

This seems to be what Ariadne is trying to tell us. You can want something with all your heart, you can give it your all and give your absolute best… and it still doesn’t happen; Sometimes things just fail. Now, given her connection to Aphrodite, this rings especially true for relationships. Its impossible to ignore how much Ariadne was mistreated by the men in her life: First her father who made her take care of the Minotaur and the dank labyrinth, then Theseus who is just a colossal dick, and Perseus who is a douche. Dionysus is good, but he can’t completely protect her in the end, but he makes up for it by ensuring her final happy ending (and for his mother, who definitely deserved better than she got!) but man did she have it rough. I don’t want to lump her in with Dejanira for the abuse asteroids but man, its hard to not draw the comparison. She definitely rings true for the themes of settling, “second place” and consolation prize, with others not being able to see the worth you have to offer (or in some cases, you can’t see it!). Truly she is a complex asteroid with a lot to say!

To find out where she shows up in your chart, go to astro.com, put in your birth details and in the extended options, at the top of the next page, there will be a menu of additional objects. To the right of that is a blank space where you can enter the number 43, for Ariadne. Once you have it entered, generate the chart! Where does Ariadne affect your life? Let us know in the comments below!

Asteroid Files: Ariadne was originally published on Heretical Oracles

#43 Ariadne #asteroid ariadne in astrology #asteroid astrology #astrology #tarot #fuckstrology #bruja #brujeria

[captainpikeachu]

THE GRAVES FAMILY PORTRAIT || A Tale of America’s Wizarding First Family

The Graves Family trace their ancestry to the days of the founding of MACUSA. The family’s founder was Gondulphus Graves, who was the youngest person to join MACUSA’s first team of twelve aurors. Legend has it that he had a prodigious talent for wandless shield magic, which came in handy more than a few times in those dangerous days of early law enforcement. Gondulphus went on to build the Graves Family Manor in what is now Staten Island, New York, and the home has since seen generations of Graves come and go.

To be a Graves is to not only have great magical talent, but also a sense of duty and responsibility, for every Graves child is taught from a young age that it is their job to protect the wizarding world. The Graves bloodline runs heavily in MACUSA, for every generation has brought new aurors into the fold. Powerful, stoic, and composed, those are three words so often used to describe a Graves. They can always be spot out of a crowd with ease, for they carry themselves with a sort of presence that few could emulate. Their abilities are often unmatched, especially in matters of martial and wandless magic. A Graves or a Graves Family relative could often be found holding high office all across the country, making their power and control almost absolute.

The current main line of the Graves Family are the children and grandchildren of now-deceased auror super-couple Alexander and Elizabeth Graves.

Arthur Graves is the oldest of four and married to Rose Fontaine Graves, another descendant of an Original Twelve family. Arthur served as MACUSA’s President for five years before Seraphina Picquery, and Rose was MACUSA’s best curse-breaker. However, both have since retired from MACUSA due to illnesses following an attempted assassination gone wrong. The couple does have four children, and their eldest son, Magnus Graves, has followed the family legacy into MACUSA as a young auror. At age nineteen, Magnus already has amassed quite a reputation in the wizarding world, for everyone remembers his kidnapping as a boy and his subsequent recovery. Gifted with his ancestor Gondulphus’ talent for wandless shield magic when he was only six years old, Magnus had become a target for traffickers who wanted to sell his gift for riches. These days, they call him “The Shield of MACUSA”, a title once given to his ancestor Gondulphus, and no doubt soon he will rise within the organization like his ancestor before him. Arabella Graves is Arthur and Rose’s only daughter, and if rumors at Ilvermorny are to be believed, she is poised to become the President of MACUSA herself one day. At age fifteen, she has already become quite a leading voice of the Ilvermorny student body and her teachers say she is the brightest witch of her class. Arthur and Rose’s two youngest children, nine-year old Caleb and two-year old Evan, still live at the family manor on Staten Island for neither are within school-age. But sources close to the family say Caleb has a great affinity for martial magic, and Evan, who was adopted into the family after his auror-parents died during an operation, already exhibits abilities like levitation.

Lila Graves Johnson is the second oldest of four and married to Lucas Johnson. She is the head of the auror department for the state of Massachusetts and he is an investigative reporter for the Boston Glow. Lila rules her department with an iron fist and they have the best clearance record of any state auror team. She met her husband Lucas on a case they both were working on and married two years after. Their only two children, twin girls Maya and Sara are fifteen years old and attend Ilvermorny alongside their cousin Arabella. The twins are known in school as the “Wonder Twins” for their ability in conjuring charms and illusions.

Percival Graves is the middle child of the family but as MACUSA’s current Director of Magical Security, he stands highest in status since his older brother’s departure from MACUSA. Incredibly dedicated, though some say married, to his work, Director Graves leads an impressive auror team and is not known to tolerate incompetence in his line of work. Second only to President Seraphina Picquery in the power structure of MACUSA, Director Graves cuts a commanding figure who always remains the focus of attention when in a room. The most powerful duelist with wandless magic unmatched by anyone else, in his hands rests the safety of the American Wizarding community.

Amelia Graves is the youngest of four and the most elusive. Most history of her ends at her school years. What she has done since is shrouded in secrecy. It is only known that she works at MACUSA, like most of her family, but rumors abound that she is a spy or an assassin. They say she can easily change her appearance and take on another, and only those who are her targets have seen her true face before they die. The Graves Family has never given comments regarding these rumors, which has only heightened the mystique and interest of her occupation and whereabouts.

While many families can be linked to certain houses of Ilvermorny they favored, such as Rose’s family, the Fontaines, almost all were in Horned Serpent, the Graves are the hardest to pin down. For every generation of Graves could be found in all four houses. The current family follows that same trend:

Arthur was a Horned Serpent. Percival was a Wampus as is his niece Arabella. Amelia was a Thunderbird as are twins Maya and Sara. And Magnus and Lila were both Pukdwudgie. It is suspected that either Caleb or Evan of the younger generation will be a Horned Serpent.

#percival graves #graves family #american wizards #harry potter #fantastic beasts and where to find them #my edits #my graphics #just my headcanons of this family bc god knows jkr gave me nothing about the actual graves family #so now i make them up bc i can #and i want percival graves to have a family #a family who cares and will look for him #a family who will kick grindelwald's pasty ass