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angryschnauzer · 3 years

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Moonlight On The Sand

Summary: Stationed to the desert for a short mission, you are on terrain inspection when the full moon emerges from behind the clouds. However little do you know there’s something about the Captain accompanying you that may change things forever. Based on this ask from @fairndsquare

Pairing; Captain Syverson x Female Reader (no race or size mentioned) Fandom: Henry Cavill, Sand Castle (Movie) Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Werewolves, Werewolf!Sy, Oral Sex (Female Receiving), Unprotected Sex, Ovulation, Breeding, Outdoor Sex/Car Sex. This is NOT an ABO story.

I do not run a tag list, but please go follow @angryschnauzerwrites and put that blog onto notifications. You’ll then get an alert every time i post a new story. Masterlist got too big for Tumblr, so past works can be found at @angryschnauzerwrites or on my AO3

Only the finest, free range, organic typos for me, allowed to run wild and free.

Sy fumed silently as he drove the truck through the abandoned desert. He was furious that he had been overruled, but the general had finally done a site visit and his word was final; Sy had to show the new logistics planner the area, and there was no avoiding it.

What the General didn’t know was what Sy had been through during his posting in the dry and barren landscape. That mythical creatures didn’t always originate from leafy green valleys, or snow capped mountains, sometimes they dwelled in dry arid plains and rocky outcrops.

The truck hit a particularly proud rock on the dirt track and leapt into the air, your hands flying as you grasped for something to steady yourself on, one on the dash and one on the particularly meaty thigh of your commanding officer.

“Sorry” the gruff man uttered through gritted teeth.

“S’okay… the moon’ll be up soon and we’ll be able to see better as its full tonight” you casually replied, looking out over the desert surrounding you, surprised as the truck slowed down a little.

“The moon?”

“Yes, you know the big round rock orbiting the earth?”

“I know what the moon is darlin’, been cloudy the last ten days so hadn’t been keeping track…” he muttered to himself.

You used the small penstick flashlight to glance over the map;

“I need to see this valley, and get an idea of what it’ll be like to bring the trailers in with water tanks on”

The Captain glanced where you were pointing and nodded once, letting the truck veer to the right to follow the camel route up through the hills.

As the truck gained elevation Sy could feel his mouth watering. He could not only smell you, he could sense how you had grown wet in his presence. It was like a sickly sweet coating of pollen at the back of his throat on a spring day back home. Halfway through the day he’d been in a conference call as you stood in the corner of the room, observing as he updated his superiors back in Washington, when he’d picked up another sense, the only way to describe it was as if something had suddenly ripened in the room. It’d taken him until the end of the call to realise it was you and your body had just reached its most fertile point in the month. You were ripe and ready, you just didn’t know it.

That single thought had plagued Sy for the rest of the day, something in the pit of his belly was just telling him to flee, to get as far away from you as possible… for your safety. But then his military training had kicked in and he’d followed orders, and that’s how he found himself pulling the truck onto a rocky pullout on the curved track as it skirted around the hill, the view over the valley spectacular as the moon finally emerged from behind the clouds and illuminated the earth below.

Stepping out of the truck you used your night vision goggles to scan over the plateau in front of you, looking out over the wide vista. You felt the heat of his body first, standing behind you, the hairs on the back of your neck prickling up. You knew what he was wanting.

24 hours earlier.

Scrolling your phone you checked the calendar, relieved that the mission to the desert would be there and back in the space of two weeks, back in time before your monthly bleed would start again. If there’s one thing you didn’t want to have to deal with, it would be tampons and sand. It would mean you’d be ovulating whilst there, but you had enough sugary snacks packed to keep the hormones subdued, and this wasn’t your first time being overseas, although normally you were confined to a small base north of Washington DC.

The flight had been long and bumpy, little more than a glorified cargo hold, so by the time you arrived at the compound and finally got to meet the infamous Captain Syverson, you were tingling with anticipation for what the next two weeks would involve.

When he finally spoke, it was low and deep, resonating through your spine;

“You need to get in that truck, and drive it far from here…”

You went to turn but his hand caught your arm, keeping you looking out over the valley;

“Captain?”

“Private, do as i tell you… there are things in these hills, that you don’t know of and don’t need to know of…”

It was then that you sensed it: the connection. It was like a spark shot up your spine, and in a moment of foolhardy courage you turned, the air being sucked from your lungs when you saw him. The Captain stood before you, his eyes burning into your soul, the ring of fire in his irises and his canine teeth just a little more prominent. Your chest heaved with a shaky breath, and his nostrils flared;

“Private…” he warned one last time.

But rather than running in the opposite direction, you slowly took a step forward, holding your hand to his cheek and for a moment your touch soothed him. You took in how his hair had grown longer, his shoulders even broader, he was virile and potent. That’s when he felt it, his senses clouded as the moon took hold, but finally he realised; you weren’t afraid.

His body slammed yours against the side of the truck, his lips on yours as his tongue pushed into your mouth; tasting you, devouring you. Your hands clung to the sides of his weather beaten uniform, pulling him ever closer so you could feel every inch of his body pressing against yours until suddenly his hands were on your hips and he was lifting you onto the still warm hood of the truck. With expert skill he had quickly shed you of your cargo pants and sensible undergarments, his face between your thighs and you watched with fascination as he inhaled deeply, humming as your scent hit his brain before he dived in.

His tongue was everywhere; licking and tasting you, running firm circles over your clit before descending and pushing the thick muscle into your velvet channel, his sharp teeth pressed against your soaked folds as he tasted you from within. When you came you screamed into the night sky, your legs shaking as the feral beast between your thighs growled in satisfaction, his eyes glowing.

He pulled you from the hood and carried you to the rear of the vehicle, opening the tailgate before sitting you on the edge as he made quick work of his cargo pants, his thigh holster holding them up as his thick cock unfurled from the worn in cotton. You swallowed nervously; you were far from a virgin but the thought of the thick gnarled girth splitting your insides apart had you pulling away for a moment. That was until he gently cupped the back of your neck, pulling your face to his as he rested his forehead on yours and you instantly felt calmer and relaxed. The first touch of his hot flesh against your soaked core had you trembling with anticipation, before he paused, one massive hand resting over your stomach, and he growled as the warmth of your womb almost burnt into his palm;

“Mine...” he muttered, before those feral eyes met yours; “...ours”

“Captain… now, please…” you whined, knowing that what he knew about you, and you were ready.

With a roar he surged forward, your ripened walls parting for him as if welcoming him home. With his palm still pressed to your stomach he could feel himself inside you, the thickness pushing out your belly as he moved slowly and carefully, working to get just the right angle until he paused and you saw that ring of fire in his irises again burn bright.

It was then that he moved faster, the pull and push hitting every spot inside you, feral and wanting, an urgent need to to fill you with his seed, to breed you took over. Faster and faster he pounded into your soft body, drawing orgasms out of you quicker than you could process them, before he slowed and pulled you up so you were sitting, your bodies still connected. In that moment it was when the connection, the bond was finally fully formed, and as he pressed his forehead to your and started to fuck you again, you felt your spirit joining with his. His thrusts got faster, harder, his breath hot on your skin. The angle of his pelvis meant it took just a couple more thrusts and you were coming again, this time he threw his head back and let out a cry-come-howl as he released into your womb, his seed flooding into you as your body eagerly milked him of it.

You stayed joined in the most intimate of ways until the cool night air made a shiver run down your back, the movement of your body making you realise the Captain was still hard and nestled deep within you;

“So… are we stuck?”

“No… but this is the first time i’ve done… this… whilst i’ve been like… this…” he let out a huff of air; “I’m not exactly sure how long i’m gonna stay hard Darlin’... we could be here a while…”

“All night?” you said, a hint of hope in your voice

“I’m yours until the moon goes down Darlin’”

“And after the moon goes down?”

He Captain paused;

“What would a girl like you want with a beast like me come daybreak?”

Running your hand over his beard your thumb caressed the skin of his cheek;

“Everything Captain… i want all of you...” It was only in that moment that Sy saw it, the ring of fire in your own eyes. He had found his mate and you had found yours; “Breed me Captain…”

#captain syverson #captain syverson smut #captain sy x reader #captain syverson x reader #henry cavill

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bukojuiice · 3 years

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fix you.

ೃ pairing: (village prince! katsuki bakugo x princess mononoke! reader)

ೃ tags: princess mononoke au! studio ghibli au!

ೃ warnings: mild use of weapons and strong language

ೃ part 1/2 of the princess mononoke! au

ೃ word count 4.119 words

ೃ 2/??? of @bukojuiice’s studio ghibli au

ೃ my nav → my mha writing masterlist → my katsuki bakugo x reader smau

ೃ Loosely based off of Princess Mononoke! Not necessarily a word for word retelling/alternate universe. You can read on without any prior knowledge of this beautiful Studio Ghibli film. Hope you enjoy!

ೃ if you want to be part of this studio ghibli au taglist, send me an ask! or if you want to be a part of my mha taglist in general, send me an ask indicating whichever you want to be a part of!

ೃ please do reblog if you enjoyed!! (feel free to add tags too because i love reading them and my heart swells with happiness when people love my work!)

ೃ shoto todoroki’s fic (howl’s moving castle au) for those of you who want to read the first in this series!

ೃ taglist: @chibishae34 @sparkykatsuki @ramunegoddess

ೃ Katsuki Bakugo is the righteous yet arrogant village prince of the east. The entire village relies on him for protection and for guidance, further inflating his ego. however, after a cursed boar attacks him and the curse is passed on to him as a poisonous mark on his arm, slowly consuming him until he becomes a demon himself. he is exiled without hesitance from his village and is to go on a journey to look for a cure, a journey he might never come back from. With the help of two of his most trusted allies, he embarks on a journey to look for the gods of the forest in where he meets a girl (just as striking as him) who brings him back down to earth, saves him and make him experience a true life worth living.

“Damn this life.” Katsuki curses under his breath, rolling up his sleeves, and collecting clear water from the riverbend and transferring it into his jar.

“Hey! This isn’t that bad!” Eijiro Kirishima, son of the second in command to Katsuki’s mother, his most trusted ally and #2 most annoying fucker on this planet, cheekily grins, patting the blonde on the back. “We’ve gone through worse things in the past. And yet here we are! We’re still alive! Aren’t we?”

“Yea! We’ll find the forest gods soon! Offer food for them and hopefully they give us a cure! This is going to be easy!” Denki Kaminari, another one of his most trusted allies, grandson of one of the wise elders, and #1 most annoying fucker on this planet, reassures his friend whilst aimlessly fixing the saddle on his elk.

Why did life have to be like this?

Who did Katsuki Bakugo infuriate from high above to have this tremendous bad luck and fate be put upon him? All he wanted was to live a noble life as a village prince, have his mother pass down her position of power onto him, become the new village chief, live a life of prosperity, help his people, and then pass away with no regrets. But life just had to do this to him no?

After an unexpected attack of a raging cursed boar consumed by black slithering enigmas in the hills of Mustafu village, the handsome village prince was the only one able of combat who was around the vicinity at the time. He had no choice but to hurl himself in front of the boar, shooting one of his famed arrows, sharper than most and one of the best in his arsenal. The boar had met its demise by his hands. However, not without getting revenge at Katsuki, by passing its curse onto him. The black ooze slithering onto his arm before the animal had fully perished.

That was the worst day of his life.

As the son of the village chief and as one of the most well-known individuals in his tribe, how was he supposed to react?

Katsuki had always been number one. Never once slipping to loss or to failure. Never getting injured. Never letting his guard down. Never disappointing his parents. Never losing his pride nor his mighty personality.

He was the paragon of success.

But, sometimes, the best people feel lost and useless too.

The fact that his mother had easily let go of him, have the wise villager elders speak ill of him and banish him, having to leave everything he had loved and worked hard for, lose his position as a prince, and have the people of his village look at him in abhorrence and disgust, had ended up becoming the most painful experiences he ever had to go through in his entire life.

Leaving quietly at the dead of the night with no proper goodbyes but a brief hug, gift of a good luck charm from his mother, and the willing accompaniment of his two most trusted friends (although he would not like to admit the appreciation he has for them, he was very grateful) on this fruitless journey… He could never have it any other way.

What kind of life was he even going to lead from here on forth?

He didn’t want to stop believing. He didn’t want to lose hope. This wasn’t like him. Katsuki Bakugo knew who he was. He knows how headstrong he is, how prideful, persevering, and how much of a smart-ass he is. He had no time to sulk and contemplate about his demise and what fate had in store for him.

Although, it would be nice if he could release all these pent-up emotions and frustrations at least once. Just once.

He just has no idea how to and who to open up to.

Putting his vulnerable emotions aside, he is going to defy his destiny and take down whatever may come his way.

Making sure no one was going to stop him from doing so.

“Let’s go.” Katsuki jerks his head, gesturing his party members to start walking to the other side of the forest.

“Wait… haven’t we gone there already?” Kaminari protests, not raising his voice nor overreacting because even he knew that Katsuki was on a bad mood as per usual. (With this being the second afternoon of their journey and because they have to leave their animal companions by the river due to how unstable the geographical and terrestrial properties of the forest were.)

Katsuki shoots him a glare, the other blonde clearing the lump in his throat in response. “Okay okay! Let’s go then!”

They quietly navigate through the forest, hearing nothing but the sound of their own feet stepping on the grass, crickets chirping, fireflies flying about, the towering trees swaying with the wind, and the calming yet lonely atmosphere of the woodlands to accompany them.

“Kirishima.” Bakugo calls out coldly. “Are you sure that this is the same forest depicted in the legends?”

“Positive.” Kirishima replies, nodding aimlessly whilst turning his head and taking in their surroundings. “If we spot some Kodama, that means we’re near the tree that stands alone.”

“Tree that stands alone?” Denki asks, tilting his head and sparking a discussion. “Also, what even is a Kodama?”

“You’re the grandson of a village elder yet you’re asking me?” Eijiro narrows his eyes at his other blonde friend. “Kodama are the little white spirits who live in trees. They don’t necessarily guide travelers but instead watch them. They only intervene if ever anything bad happens. If we see them appear then that means we’re close to the spiritual core of the forest. The tree that gives life.”

Yakushima Forest. Located in the southern region, is the settlement of the forest gods and the place where the oldest trees of Japan and those known to man stand strongly. The power and the spiritual energy stored in this wonderous and enchanting forest could only be seen and could only be discovered by heroes and travelers with a pure of heart as the forest was welcoming only to visitors with pure and selfless intentions. However, to those who wish to exploit it and to ruin its beauty will be punished heavily by the gods in the most gruesome ways possible.

Katsuki breathes out a hefty sigh, leading his two other friends who were happily following him from behind. There was this bizarre feeling of anxiety welling up inside him. He was not himself and he couldn’t tell why. All he could do was pretend to remain calm and collected…

He will find that cure.

He will be able to save himself and he will be able to come back to his village, victorious and free of the curse.

Bakugo stops in his tracks when they encounter another streaming river. His two companions almost bump into him with how abrupt he halted in his steps.

There was something amiss in the river.

It wasn’t a bad spirit nor was it some bad energy, but Katsuki could feel something.

There was someone else there.

And he felt that they weren’t exactly the friendly type who would help them.

“Bakugo-sama, why did we stop-“ Kaminari is hushed by his blonde friend before he could even have the chance to utter another word. Kirishima quickly picked up what Katsuki is trying to motion to them and proceeds to quietly scout around the area. “There’s a girl? Wolves too.” He whispers from behind a bush not far from where his friends were standing.

“Let’s go back to the nearby village. Stay at the inn there.” Bakugo whispers sternly, as if not wanting to hear any other remarks from his friends.

“Wait! Bakugo, I know we’re near the tree. Why stop now!?” Kirishima fussed. He knew something was up. “We’re pretty close. We can just set up a fire here then-“

“I said let’s head back. Damn it.” Katsuki repeated his words. This time, in a sort of a growl. “If you don’t want to go back, feel free to die here if you want.” He starts treading back to the path where they came from. Denki looks at his red-headed friend worriedly, even he, of all people, had finally noticed that there was something wrong with their most beloved village prince. Kirishima nods at him cautiously, the two of them walking together behind Bakugo.

They quickly got back to the small village near the forest with no interruption, as the chit-chatter and the energy radiating between both Kirishima and Kaminari were low as Katsuki was in a even terrible mood, refusing to talk to any of them nor humoring their antics and small jokes.

They continue to spend the rest of their day in silence. With, Katsuki, immediately heading back to his quarters to rest whilst his two other companions remained outside to help some village folk and prepare dinner.

The village chieftain of the quaint settlement had a good relationship with Katsuki’s mother. They were good trade partners and the village chief wanted to do everything in their power to help Katsuki be free of the curse by the means of giving him a private inn to stay in and come back to whenever he and his friends would like to. It wasn’t much, but Katsuki needed all the help he could get on this otherwise hopeless quest. Even if he refused the said offers at first.

After another awfully quiet bonding time with Bakugo at dinner, the convivial duo had to break the silence. Denki had thought of the most wonderful idea of bringing up the topic of the girl who was accompanied by wolves in the forest. Because, hey, it’s a girl in the forest! What could possibly be weird about that?

“Hey! So about that girl that we saw…” Kaminari suddenly speaks up, nudging Kirishima in the arm, signaling him to answer his query. Bakugo barely looks up at the sound of his friend’s yapping, continuing to play with the food on his bowl. “Who do you think was she?”

“She’s most probably the wolf princess.” Eijiro shrugs casually, biting on a roasted corncob. “Yakushima forest is protected by the three animal gods whom we know by now as the forest gods. The Wolf goddess, The Gorilla king, and The Deer god. The Deer god being the most powerful of them all. There have been rumors and reports going around that the goddess had taken in an abandoned human girl, and was treated as one of their kin years ago. The girl holds pure resentment for her own kind and chooses to live in the Yakushima forest, taking down every single human who has negative intentions and evil plans for the land she lives in.”

“Well, if she’s that badass, then you shouldn’t call her a princess. She’s a queen!” Kaminari remarks, biting on his newly roasted corncob, listening eagerly to Kirishima’s tale. Bakugo looks up at Denki and the goofy blonde could have sworn he saw a small smile form on Katsuki’s face.

Kirishima laughs at his friend’s little quip, “You’re right. She’s amazing, isn’t she?”

“You weirdos should get to sleep. We go back to the forest first thing in the morning.” Katsuki stands up from his seat, his hands in his pockets, grumpily trotting away to the inn.

“Oh.” Denki blinks. “That was faster than I thought. I didn’t expect him to be convinced so easily. Did you pull that story from your ass Kirishima-kun?”

The red-haired teen shook his head. “Nope. All of that was real.”

“For real? You’re not joking?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, that’s cool. Goodnight then!” The other blonde leaves his seat, patting Eijiro in the arm before leaving and going back to his quarters.

Kirishima looks up at the glistening night sky, a few stars present in the sky to greet him a wonderful night, the boy hoping he would find an answer amongst the stars. “May the gods help us in our adventure.” He breathes a hefty sigh, closing his eyes. After a few more minutes of praying for guidance, he puts out the fire and retreats back to his room.

The night passes by quickly, another day of their adventure waiting to unfold.

“Don’t you dare come back here you disgusting prince.”

“No one wants him here! Got it? Let him go on this adventure and never come back!”

“He’s just a burden. To be cursed by an animal as simple as a boar? Pathetic.”

“Useless vermin.”

“Banished forever? How sad.”

“A prince falling from grace? Predictable.”

The voices of the village people echo in his head.

These were words from them that he was not meant to hear. Ones that he accidentally heard before leaving that same night. These were the words that will haunt him forever.

He, Katsuki Bakugo, of all people, would let all these horrid, vile, and false words get to him?

These were the same words with the same meaning that he’s heard hundreds and hundreds of times from different people, yet it never got to him. He chose to ignore them.

But, why now? What was going on? Why was he feeling this way?

Katsuki awakens at the dead of the night. Beads of sweat falling from his temples, his breath hitched and his body aching. He was not himself right now and this intense feeling of uneasiness and torment confirmed it. Although, he wanted to keep this to himself. He didn’t want anybody else to know what he was feeling. He could overcome this on his own. He could do this all on his own.

“I’ll show them.” He continues to breathe at a fast pace, still a bit shocked by the nightmare he had just seen. “I’ll fucking show them that I am the prince of the Mustafu tribe.” He props himself up from his sleeping mat, reaching for his neatly folded clothes beside him. “And nothing’s going to change that.”

Katsuki begins to get dressed, feeling nothing but anger and determination running through his veins. He puts on his grey vest and wraps his red cape onto his back. He continues to put on his ensemble when a sudden rush of pain begins to throb in his arm. Bakugo’s immediate reaction is to curl up, holding his stomach to try and ease the pain.

The curse was acting up again, reacting to the anger and negative emotions that Katsuki was feeling right now. The blonde winces in pain, kneeling down on the floor to take a hold of his arm that was manifesting a glowing blue and black aura. His muscle continues to throb and he could do nothing but hold it down and take in all the pain until it eventually goes away.

After several minutes of resisting and trying to ease the pain by thinking of more positive and enlightening thoughts, the throbbing suddenly stops. Bakugo goes back to breathing at a normal pace. He rests for a few minutes, making sure that his body was functioning properly once more before he quickly heads out of his private room to head to back to Yakushima forest, searching for answers. He didn’t have time to wait for Kirishima and Kaminari anymore. He was growing impatient, and hearing the haunting words of his village people circling in his head fueled his will power to get this whole ordeal done and head back home.

It was finally the end of another day protecting the forest.

You were about on your daily patrol with the wolf goddess and your wolf siblings, when you encounter three young men who looked like they were lost in the woods. You immediately assumed that they were looking for the tree of life. But they weren’t like the others. They weren’t finding it for selfish reasons. They were looking for it in hopes to find a cure for a curse. That’s what their auras were trying to show at least.

One of those men particularly piqued your interest.

He was… handsome? Was that the word that humans used?

He had ash blonde hair that spiked upwards at all angles, passionate red orbs that gave him such a striking appearance, as if he could hold up the world in his hands. Calloused hands that had taken a part in many battles, a muscular build like that of a noble warrior, a shining sword just as big as him and an arrow that he looked like he was adept at using.

Yet despite your observations, there was this mysterious air around him that you just couldn’t understand.

“(Y/N)? Dear? Is anything wrong?” The elegant white wolf goddess, Moro, calls out to her human daughter, with a worried look.

“I saw 3 dorks by the riverbend on our patrol a while ago.” You say rather jokingly, trying to remember their faces. “I should have struck them down when I had the chance.” You shake your head, reaching for the knife in your skirt and grasping it.

“How so?” The goddess twitches her ear, as if raising an eyebrow at you. “Did you feel any bad spirits within them? Any emotional aura? I told you to do that before attempting to attack anyone remember?”

“There was this particular man among them who had strong energy. He was radiating a gloomy yet aggressive energy. Like that of a person hiding their true emotions to remain strong and brave to the outside world. I kind of felt sorry for him.” Your voice trails off as you nestle your body next to the wolf goddess, along with your siblings who were cuddled up next to you too.

“Why don’t you go check up on him then?” Moro replies casually, as if teasing you. You raise your head up, feeling a tint shade of pink appear on your cheeks.

“W-what do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

A shrieking noise began to ring in your ears, signaling that a human has entered the forest. You quickly rise up from the bed of leaves you were sleeping in. Running out of the cave, you gallop down a slope and sprint your way to the foot of the forest. The spirits guiding you to where you needed to go.

You feel the hostile energy yet again.

Could it be the young man from earlier?

When he enters your field of vision, you climb up the nearest tree to get a clearer look at him from above and from afar.

He still had the same expression plastered upon his face since this afternoon. An irritated and scornful look, yet there was kindness in his eyes that you couldn’t describe.

It wasn’t the kindness that you would see from the eyes of a regular person but it was a kindness that was combined with a desire to protect the people around him. It was different and oddly comforting.

You continue to observe his every move, waiting for him to mess up or try to hurt the magical properties of the forest before you confront him to ask why the hell was he even roaming around in the forest, in the middle of night like a fluffy dog.

Katsuki noticed you standing on the tree-tops.

You weren’t exactly the greatest hide and seek player.

However, he chose to shrug you off and ignore you as he continues to look for traces of spiritual energy that could lead him to the tree of life.

Based on the stories that Kirishima had told, he was actually a bit surprised by your appearance. He couldn’t make out your face with the mask that you were wearing but he noticed your mildly disheveled hair, the ragged clothes you had on, a cape made of white fur and a necklace adorned with three fangs hanging on your neck. From that alone, he knew you were a princess. Not your conventional princess per se with all the jewelry, intricate headpieces and beautiful dresses but, the presence that you have has sort of a dignified feel to it. You might not look like the part but you embodied everything that a princess should be. Headstrong, intelligent, confident in her beliefs, and never afraid to stand her ground.

That’s what Katsuki thinks at least.

With all the stories that Kirishima had recited about the Yakushima forest, you were one of the most interesting bits.

Katsuki Bakugo was enthralled by you in more ways than one.

You were a mysterious enigma that he had to unravel.

You were getting a bit tired of watching him aimlessly roam around the forest. He was absolutely going nowhere which is funny because he didn’t strike you as a person who had no sense of direction. In an alternate universe, he’d probably be kidnapped by some villain or bad guy if he continued to be reckless like this, just walking around without a care in the world.

You spoke too soon.

You barely dodge a sharp arrow that pierces through a tree. It wasn’t from the young man you were watching but from someone else. Thieves. two of them.

You forgot that you weren’t able to sense other humans entering the forest if you focus on a particular one. It completely slipped your mind that there would still be sick individuals who would try and attempt to find the riches of the forest despite the many incidents happening time and time again warning humans to not enter the Yakushima Forest if they want to explore it for their own selfish desires.

You hastily jump down onto the ground, releasing a flurry of punches and kicks at the thieves, knocking 2 of them unconscious. You thought that the fight was over until you hear agonizing screams from the other side of the forest.

You quickly sprint your way there, hoping nothing serious had happened and no one was hurt in the process.

You arrived in a secluded area, tall trees covering the sun or the moon for the light to seep into, resulting in a dark and gloomy atmosphere.

You stop in your tracks when you notice six thieves unconscious on the ground too. You were about to breathe a sigh of relief when you notice that the boy was panting heavily, injuries and deep wounds were present all around his body. He was terribly injured. He stares at you for a few seconds before collapsing onto the ground.

You grit your teeth, approaching him with a scornful look. “You’ve wasted your life by getting in my way!” You sheathe his blade from it’s scabbard, pointing it directly to his chest. Katsuki’s chest rises up and down, a sign showing that he was breathing normally but was at the brink of unconsciousness.

“I’ll cut your throat! That will shut you up!”

“You’re beautiful…”

He mumbles, his eyes fluttering open, making intense eye contact with yours.

You suddenly feel your heart race, thumping loudly. You pull the sword away and jump away from him. You were taken aback by his words because of how he caught you off guard just like that. Who gave him the right to do this to you? Who was he in the first place?

Why did he make you feel all these soft and mushy feelings right now?

Who gave him the right to do this to you?

A human being?

A feeling sparking in your chest...

Is this what humans call love?

- To be continued.

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nagisa-cchi · 3 years

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thank you for the tag Ana @gojosattoru, Liza @mazusu & Rose @rivaillerose ♥

favorite anime: Ahhh I have so many! But if I had to narrow it down it would be Shingeki no Kyojin & Free! Both just hold such a special place in my heart and I can’t believe both have been around for 7 years already! 😳 least favorite anime: Amnesia. I watched it ages ago but all i can remember is hating the heroine. I really dislike harem animes where the mc is dumb and pretty yet all the guys fall for her. I’m pretty sure it was based off a game and honestly it should have stayed that way. Really appreciate the shows that have badass female characters! last anime you watched: I’ve been watching a lot of anime movies lately but the most recent would be Kimetsu no Yaiba Mugen Train & Umibe no Etranger!

Mugen train was absolutely amazing and I actually went twice to watch it in cinemas 🤗just seeing anime on the big screen definitely hits different. Umibe no Etranger is such a wonderful film that I highly recommend! It tackles such important topics regarding homosexuality within a Japanese environment. It’s one of my absolute favourite mangas that I have read many times and I even own the hard copy! Was so happy to see it get an anime adaption! 🥰

favorite anime movie: Definitely Ghibli movies! Spirited Away is one I grew up with and never get tired of watching no matter how old I get! Other favourites would be Howl’s Moving Castle & Laputa! anime you cried hardest at: I’m a cry baby in general so I will cry at anything, but I think it would be Violet Evergarden! I think I basically cried in every episode 😭 your comfort anime: Definitely Free! as seen in my tumblr theme 😋It’s such a feel good show and I absolutely fell in love with all the characters. I’m a sucker for stories about friendship and growth and where relationship between characters are really strong. favorite anime character: Nagisa Hazuki from Free! is best boy! He’s just so energetic and cute I love him to bits! 💓Other favourites would be Armin Arlert from snk & Momiji Sohma from Furuba! shoujo or shonen: I prefer watching shounen animes but when it comes to manga I can only read romance. I just can’t seem to read something with a lot of action because I can’t imagine how the scene plays out well. if you could shift into an anime universe, which one: ohhh this is so hard! But if I had to pick I choose Free! again. It’s such an unproblematic universe, which doesn’t really differ to our world but it comes with the bonus of getting to meet all my Free! babies 😌I definitely sign up to be a manager for Iwatobi swim club 😚 I tag: @tanchirou, @itsyuurikatsuki, @osamusmiya, @baskrvilles, @krshima ♥

#tag game #thank you for tagging me this was so fun!

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the-phoenix-heart · 4 years

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10 Favorite Characters

oh no i’ve been noticed @wisteria-lodge tagged me so let’s do this!

(this isn’t in a particular order, also I decided to do one character per fandom.

10. Sophie Hatter (from the Howl’s Movie Castle film, not the book. idk why but I just never got into her like I did her film counterpart)

Oh Sophie my love, crippled by anxiety and insecurity only to be freed of them and show just how spunky and cunning and full of life you are. Honestly my favorite scene in the movie is just when she’s cleaning the whole house because she has so much character and she just makes me feel great. Honestly this whole movie gives me those warm, fuzzy feelings.

(Sidenote, recently rewatched it and damn there are so many details you can miss. Like, Sophie is already starting to throw off the curse and get younger by the time she’s at Howl’s door!)

((Sidenote sidenote, after watching Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Princess Mononoke all in the span of two days I realized in Ghibli movies they tend to have side characters state outright that the main leads are in love with each other which? Idk if it actually is a trend but it’s something I just picked up on)

9. Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson Series & Heroes of Olympus...I never could get into Trials of Apollo)

My. First. Love. For a fandom, for a book series that was slightly more adult, for a character. Percy is so badass and also so so loyal and amazing and I love him. I’m hardpressed to actually talk about him because just thinking about him makes me a little incoherent since I’ve loved him for so long.

8. Marinette Dupain-Cheng (Miraculous Ladybug)

For all my beef with Miraculous right now I still love my beautiful daughter. She’s so intelligent and good and badass. Oh my god some of her plans are so smart you wonder why she’s stuck with everyone around her. I’d die for Marinette even if she’d die for me. She’s my girl and I’d follow her to the ends of the earth. I have so many fics for her planned that I will never write. Also I freaking relate to every anxiety attack she ever has and she needs to be appreciated more and treated better. Not by the fandom, by the creators.

7. Lucifer (Lucifer)

A CHARACTER! THAT GOES TO THERAPY! Not just that lol. He’s just so charismatic and nice for all his devilish (literally) qualities. And also I know this shouldn’t factor in but SWEET JESUS TOM ELLIS IS HOT! His face, his body, his hair, his voice, his ass. Also I love every moment he sings and plays the piano. And HE NEEDS TO COME BACK RIGHT NOW! I DON’T CARE THAT DEMONS ARE STUPID AND NEED A KING HE NEEDS TO COME BACK! CHLOE FINALLY SAID SHE LOVES YOU!

6. Crowley (Good Omens)

The facts are I love me my sinnamon rolls. I love Crowley because he’s just so damn badass. He’s so smart and resourceful and I LOVE HIS PLANTS! Also I support all the headcanons about all the people over the centuries he inspired. ALSO ALSO I FUCKING RELATE! My best friend/crush rebuffs me and says we aren’t friends and my immediate reaction is to sleep until he needs me to save his dumbass. And he’s David Tennant how can you not love anyone David Tennant.

5. Kenny McCormick (South Park)

I don’t care that I put South Park here it’s my list and I can do what I want! Kenny is frankly just so dynamic and good. Like, Mysterion saving his sister from bullies or getting a job so he buy a doll for her??? And the fact he actually hates dying and the creators actually acknowledge it several times??? Even though it was just supposed to be a funny joke??? And holy crap he’s just a good, pervy, boy.

4. Hermione Granger (The Harry Potter BOOKS not the movies)

I almost didn’t put Hermione because recently I’ve been having very mixed and complicated thoughts on the franchise as a whole but it doesn’t change the fact that Hermione is sharp and ruthless and brilliant. Hermione could kick my ass and I would not thank her but I would tell her she has a mean right hook and that she was very badass. Part of the reason I like her I think is because I literally am Hermione.

(Sidenote don’t you miss when they had Hermione’s hair actually curly and frizzy back in the movies)

((Sidenote Sidenote, in case you’re wondering I was going to put Jareth from The Labyrinth originally))

3. Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean-except for Dead Men Tell No Tales that wasn’t Jack Sparrow that was the writers deciding to write Jack Sparrow as nothing but drunk and washed up because they had no idea how to make the new characters shine without dulling Jack Sparrow even though they did it just fine in the first three-)

As this list falls down (reference to Labyrinth ;)) I find myself more hard pressed to find favorite characters. I’m not so good at this as I thought. I either overthink them or just can’t decide. And Jack might be here only because I recently watched all the movies for the first time finally but whatever-I love him. He’s smart, cunning, a badass, and he just gives me feelings whenever he looks out to the sea or at Elizabeth or Will. AND ALSO ALSO he gives me feelings when in Stranger Tides even if I don’t like that movie because he shows he has a heart when he saves the crew and won’t let them die. But also fuck everything with him and Angelica, I didn’t believe for one second there were and had been stirrings between them ESPECIALLY when it all leads up to him leaving her on the island and never seeing her again!

I had...A lot of feelings with those last two movies.

2. Catra (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

OKAY I SAY I HAD TROUBLE BUT REALLY THESE LAST TWO I KNEW IMMEDIATELY I WOULD PUT THEM DOWN. I just wanted to put them as 2nd 1st. Catra is a character who makes cry every time she’s on screen. She never fails to send me spiraling and I love her because she’s so complex and amazing. Catra trying so hard to be bad when really she is a better person than she gives herself credit for moves me and hurts me. I love her

1. Bakugou Katsuki (Boku No Hero Academia)

Anyone who knows me knows he would top this list. My favorite boy. Who ALSO sends me spiraling without fail. My thing for characters who make me spiral might be an indication of my self destructive tendencies. But I love him, he makes me laugh, he makes me cry, he makes me go doki-doki. He’s such a badass and so smart and legit he’s so hot. I have so many fucking headcanons about him and so many fic ideas which I will never post-I just can’t get over him.

(Sidenote there are legit so many good Bakugou gifs...Like I can’t get over how pretty he is!!)

I’m tagging... @queenofthefaces @fiddler-unroofed @bipolarchick18 @apollosukulele @bestprincesslys aaaaand anyone else who sees this!!!

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howdoyousayghibli · 5 years

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Howl’s Moving Castle Shines Technically, But Strains Against Ghibli’s Narrative Style

To my knowledge, Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) was Studio Ghibli’s first time adapting an existing book into a movie. For those unfamiliar, the film is based on a novel of the same name by the inimitable Diana Wynne Jones. If you haven’t read any of her books, what are you even doing reading my dumb blog?? Go read The Dark Lord of Derkholm right now. I’ll wait. The summary doesn’t do it justice, just read it.

Anyway, Howl’s Moving Castle (the novel) is excellent as well, although I have to admit I haven’t read it in at least a decade. For those of you who have read the novel, it’s best to know going in that the film is a very loose adaptation. For those of you who haven’t read it, the movie tells the story of Sophie, a young, timid hatmaker who happens to run afoul of a very powerful witch. Sophie is cursed with immediate old age, and it seems her only hope of breaking the curse lies with the powerful, enigmatic, and extremely vain Wizard Howl — and his captive fire demon, Calcifer.

Howl’s Moving Castle is, of course, beautiful. The vaguely European landscapes from Kiki’s Delivery Service are back and more beautiful than ever, and it seems that by 2005 Studio Ghibli has finally nailed down the integration of CGI with their more traditional animation. The titular castle is a technical achievement, and a certain flashback sequence is particularly stunning. Also making a return is delicious Ghibli food — don’t even think about watching the breakfast scene if you don’t have bacon and eggs in your fridge right this second. (Also don’t think about how long Howl’s bacon had been sitting out.) Based solely on the animation, I would say that this was Studio Ghibli’s greatest work yet — an extremely high bar.

The casting also deserves attention. Possibly spurred on by Spirited Away’s Oscar win, Howl’s Moving Castle secured some big names for its English dub — principally, Christain Bale as Howl and Billy Crystal as Calcifer. At first, Bale’s gravelly tones sound a bit odd coming from the somewhat foppish Howl, but his performance grows more natural as we see more of Howl. If you were feeling charitable, you could even posit that this was intentional, reflecting the way Howl puts on less of a facade as he gets closer to Sophie.

In contrast, Billy Crystal’s Calcifer is an immediate success. Crystal easily manages the fast-talking fire demon’s habit of switching from sassy confidence to pitiful pleading, proving more than a match for the delightful character design and animation.

The rest of the cast is less famous (to me, at least) but no less capable; a pre-Peeta Melark Josh Hutcherson voices Howl’s adorable young apprentice, and acclaimed Golden Age actress Lauren Bacall brings gooey disdain to fantastically animated Witch of the Wastes. Sophie’s voice acting is divided between Emily Mortimer (young Sophie) and Jean Simmons (old Sophie) (that’s Jean, not Gene). As with Howl, young Sophie’s voice is a little stilted at first, but quickly grows more comfortable — and both actresses do an admirable job of selling themselves as older and younger versions of the same character.

So, the casting is great, and the animation and character design are great. What about the story? Let’s ease in to that one.

If you know me, you probably know that I’m a big fan of Brandon Sanderson’s novels. I used to think that a Ghibli adaptation of Mistborn or The Way of Kings would be the best-case scenario. While I’m sure it would produce some stunning imagery, I’ve realized that I don’t actually think they would be a good fit for each other.

Where Brandon Sanderson excels at build-up and payoff, Studio Ghibli is generally uninterested in that specific kind of Hollywood-style catharsis. The mysteries in Howl’s Moving Castle aren’t tied up in neat bows, the villains don’t get satisfying take-downs, and some questions are left unanswered. This can be frustrating, but it also is what makes so many of Studio Ghibli’s movies stick with you after you watch them.

Now, this style works better in some circumstances than in others; for example, the ambiguity of Princess Mononoke is essential to the film, and it would be lesser without it. In Howl’s Moving Castle, the subversion of our expectations is most effective when it comes to the Witch of the Wilds. The ending of her story isn’t what we expect, or indeed, what we want. It left me frustrated at first, but the more I thought about it — well, the more I thought about it. Why did the characters treat her that way, and why did it bother me so much? I still haven’t come to an answer, but that’s exactly the point: it’s about the thinking, not the conclusion.

This kind of non-payoff is less effective, however, in the case of this movie’s capital-m Mystery: what is the nature of Calcifer and Howl’s bond? We are told that this is the crux of removing Sophie’s curse, setting it up as the central plot point aside from Howl and Sophie’s relationship. The issue isn’t necessarily that we don’t get answers — we do, they just don’t feel particularly consequential when they come. It’s the same kind of subversion as the Witch of the Waste’s story, except it doesn’t feel like it serves a purpose. For more detail on this, catch me in the Spoiler Zone.

Howl’s Moving Castle is an extraordinary work of animation, pushed even higher by an excellent cast. Even if the movie stumbles a bit with the denouement, it’s well worth watching — you’d be hard-pressed to find another movie with this much … heart.

Up Next: Tales of Earthsea, another adaptation of a book I read over a decade ago. I don’t know much about the movie, but the whispers I’ve heard haven’t been particularly encouraging. Let’s hope they’re wrong!

Alternate Titles:

Howl’s Computer-Generated Castle

The Curious Case That’s Cute as a Button

~SPOILER ZONE~

Okay, so: Howl gave Calcifer his heart! Wow! Now, if only that had … any consequences. At all.

I hear you already — “Howl not having a heart is the reason he acts the way he does!” Sure, but then why is he already changing his ways before Sophie puts his heart back inside him? Maybe there’s more to this that I could pick up on watching it a second or third time, but as it stands right now, it just fell a bit flat.

The other thing that fell flat: Turnip Head’s surprise ending. For a mute scarecrow, he’s incredibly endearing throughout the movie — which goes to show just how talented Studio Ghibli is — but then is turned back into a prince who gets about 3 seconds of screentime before the credits roll. It only adds insult to injury that the movie uses those three seconds to have him resolve the Big War, just like that.

Put together, the way these two threads were wrapped up feels like when a TV show is cancelled and the writers suddenly have to finish the show three seasons ahead of schedule. This is even more exasperating when you take into account that Howl’s Moving Castle is two hours long; there’s no reason the ending had to feel so rushed.

#howl's moving castle #hauru no ugoku shiro #ghibli #studio ghibli #ghibli movie

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wackygoofball · 5 years

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Love the positively because it's all we have sometimes. I just have one request could do a howl moving castle mood board for Jaime and Brienne. I love the book and movie think Jaime fits Howl perfectly while Brienne fits Sopie. It would make my day.

Hi anon, sorry it took me a while to get back to you with the awesome suggestion, but since I never watched the movie as a whole (I know, shame on me), I had to do some more research before I could get it done. I hope this helps you stay as positive as I am. :D

The plot bunnies to go along with it look like as follows:

Brienne of Tarth lives an ordinary life, well, howeverordinary a life one can have as one of the few female smiths King’s Landing hasever seen. However, it was her late father’s dying wish that she would continuethe family business in his spirit. When the ongoing war between King’s Landingand Winterfell drove many people out of her father’s company, Brienne foundherself more often working in the forge herself. And so, she became a smith,producing materials for the military as well as finest metalwork she sells toeager customers.

Born ugly and mannish, Brienne resigned herself to herfate long time ago, only ever keeping her long braid as her father always lovedthe look on her, as he said.

Rumors start to spread that the mysterious movingcastle of the sorcerer Jaime was seen around the area of King’s Landing. Thehandsome wizard is rumored to steal the hearts of young, beautiful women, whichis why Brienne gives nothing much on the rumors. He certainly wouldn’t want tosteal her heart!

After hours of labor on a special request, Briennemakes her way to Lady Olenna, who ordered a brooch from her to wear to hergranddaughter’s engagement party. As she makes her way through the city, sheruns into a group of soldiers, and not of the honorable kind like her fatherused to be back in the day. First they address her as a man, and once theyrealize that she is, in fact, a woman, they laugh so hard they nearly toppleover. Brienne wants to brush past them, but they won’t let her. It is duringmoments such as these that she wished she had been born a man, because then shewould be a soldier, too, and could roughen them up without having to fear forconsequences otherwise sure to await her since the soldiers are underprotection of the Queen. Just as they provoke her enough to make her lash out,Brienne suddenly feels a strong hand on her shoulder. A wickedly handsome manbeams at her, acting as though they were a couple, arguing that he’s beenlooking for her everywhere.

Before Brienne knows what’s happening, she comes torealize that the man is no one other than the sorcerer Jaime, who, with the aidof his magic, makes sure that the soldiers get lost fast.

“I didn’t need your help.”

“Which does not hinder you from thanking me for myservices regardless of the fact.”

“Why did you help me?”

“I only rescue maidens.”

Brienne and he are on the verge of getting into anargument when they are suddenly chased by a bunch of shadowy creatures. Theyoung woman is shocked when the wizard just grabs her and flies with her overthe city. Just what is happening? Why does he care about her? Why is he here?What would he want with a woman like her?

But before Brienne can ask any questions, he drops heroff at Olenna’s, telling her that it’s not safe for her anymore. He wishes herfarewell before disappearing without a trace. A very excited Margaery andOlenna welcome Brienne, on their balcony no less, poking her for all kinds ofinformation about the ominous man who must have been the infamous JaimeLannister. Brienne plays it all down, arguing that even if it was him by somewink of fate, he certainly wasn’t there to steal her heart.

No one wants to steal that thing because no one wantsto keep it. She learned that lesson long time ago during a party, after all.

Brienne delivers the brooch and is quick to excuseherself before Olenna and Margaery manage to force her to attend the party. Briennereturns to the shop, deciding she may work on her secret passion, forgingswords, to put her heart at ease. Late at night, someone enters the shop.Brienne is irritated when an elegant woman in a black dress comes inside,demanding her services, all the while complaining about the poor conditions ofthe shop. Politely, the young woman informs her that the shop is closed andthat she will have to return tomorrow to place her order. The older woman doesnot take no for an answer, though, and instead continues to venture throughBrienne’s shop.

Frustration gets the better of her and she curses atthe woman to leave her shop. Infuriated, the woman with short hair walks up toher – and then right through Brienne. She gasps, only now starting tounderstand that this is not an ordinary woman but a witch. However, that shockis shortlived as she soon has to realize that the witch did something to her.With horror Brienne observes as her hands turn wrinkly and her bones start toache. A look into the mirror reveals the horrid truth: she was turned into anold woman!

“That’s what you get for daring to speak like that tothe Witch of the Waste.”

“Witch of the Waste… you invaded my shop! I didn’t doanything! Turn me back! What did you do to me?! Take it back!”

“I can’t take it back. I can only curse not undo it…sorry about that, I suppose. I will be on my way.”

“You can’t just leave me like this!”

But the woman is gone before Brienne can demandanother thing. Brienne is petrified. How is she supposed to keep her father’spromise if she is suddenly of old age? How is she supposed to work the forge?How is any of this possible? Brienne breaks down in tears and falls asleepeventually, only to be roused by Margaery’s voice echoing through her workshop.Brienne hides behind the forge since she doesn’t want to be seen like this.Margaery wants to pick up the diadem she had ordered. Brienne quickly tells herwhere to find it. Margaery is overjoyed at the jewel’s beauty, but Brienne isquick to send her out of the shop, telling her that she must have caught a coldand wouldn’t want the future bride to get sick.

Once the young, beautiful woman is gone to find herluck, Brienne realizes that she cannot stay in King’s Landing. Thus, she packsher things and leaves everything behind – until she found a way to break thewitch’s curse. She travels the outskirts of the city, only to run into a mutebut alive scarecrow. At first she is scared, but Brienne realizes that thedark-clad figure means her no harm and in fact shows her a way through theworld she yet has to get to know.

She is shocked to discover that the scarecrow leadsher to the moving castle the people talked about so much. Brienne enters whenno one answers the door, only to run into a dark-haired boy who can transformhimself at will. He introduces himself as Jaime’s apprentice, Podrick, or Podas he prefers to be called. Brienne also gets to meet a talking flame namedTyrion who is the source of the castle’s magic.

The fire reveals itself as quite clever, sensinginstantly that Brienne is under the influence of a curse, though Tyrion notesthat it will be tough to dispel.

“And can you lift the curse?”

“Only if you make a deal with me. I lift your curseand for that you let me be free.”

“And you are sure you can keep such a promise?”

“I know for a fact that I don’t. I am an evil thing,after all.”

“Well, then I certainly won’t be making any deals withyou.”

“You should, though. Because I always pay my debtsonce they are due. So if you break me free, I shall break the curse for you.”

“What would I have to do?”

“Find out and say aloud the secret behind Jaime andme.”

“You… don’t know?”

“I seem to have forgotten. It is tough to remember thefuture.”

“Remember the future? What?”

“He’s cryptic like that a lot, m’lady.”

“You know what? Fine, deal.”

What does she have to lose, right? Brienne alreadylost everything and that means, in fact, that she has everything to gain.

Though Brienne must say, adapting to this new lifewon’t be easy. The magic castle is truly… magical. Doors may lead just outsidethe countryside she came from one time, but with the twist of a knob, it maylead right into the heart of King’s Landing, only a few miles away from whereher shop is… or used to be. Stranger things keep occurring as people come tothe house again and again, requesting “the Kingslayer” here or “the goldenlion” elsewhere, though always with the same message which they give to Pod,namely that he is to be of “service” to a King here, a Queen there.

Once that show is done, silence starts to spread inthe house, and Brienne dares to venture around and ask some necessaryquestions, such as the sorcery behind the door. Pod tells her that there is onefield painted black on the navigation that only Master Jaime knows to where itleads and that they are forbidden from travelling there.

Brienne busies herself around the house, reckoning shehas to make herself appear useful somehow, starts to clean, surprised to findmany antique weapons around the house, though most are rusty and blunt,something that nearly makes her mad. Who dares to leave such fine weaponry insuch poor condition? Once she is done with the look around the house, Briennefixes up breakfast for the inhabitants, though she is soon dissatisfied withthe poor condition of the stove, too. And if there is one thing she learned asa smith, then it is to keep your fire going. If she can’t fix the weapons, thestove should be within her capacities.

“Leave that alone! I don’t want to labor that hard.Not until you have given me some wine.”

“Since when do fires need wine?”

“I’m a magical flame. I need wine!”

“You need no such thing. You need to focus and getworking. You are complacent, are you not?”

“Pod, make her stop!”

“I don’t think I can, Master Tyrion.”

“Ugh.”

As Brienne is in the middle of sparking up biggerflames in the stove, someone enters, and it is the same man she ran into in thestreets the other day. Shocked, she scrambles to her feet.

“Welcome back, Master Jaime! You got a letter from theQueen. And the Kingslayer got one from the King!”

“How wonderful!” Jaime huffs, rolling his eyes as hewalks inside. He looks at Tyrion in the stove. “Since when do you burn so much?You didn’t even have any wine just yet to fuel the flames.”

“I was forced into action by this lady here. Shebullies me!”

“Not many can do that now. Quite impressive. Who areyou?” he looks at Brienne curiously, obviously not recognizing the woman hehelped out in King’s Landing.

“My name is Brienne. I am… I’m the new maid.”

“Who decided that we needed a maid and that you wouldget the job?”

“… I did. By myself. And you won’t find anyone morehardworking than me, rest assured, Master Jaime.”

“Jaime, just Jaime,” he tells her in a soft voice thatbrings heat to Brienne’s wrinkly cheeks, though she is quick to gather herself.“… Jaime. The point is… I alsocouldn’t help but notice that you have a great deal of blunt weapons lyingaround.”

“Memories of many other lives, yes. Why is that ofinterest to you?”

“I can fix them for you. And I bet no other maid youmay find to do the duty can do that for you, too.”

“I mean no offense, m’lady, but aren’t you past theage to be a smith?” he argues.

“… give me the weapon you love the least and give me afire worth a forge and you can see for yourself.”

“I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“I’m not afraid of pain. I’m not afraid of anything!”she insists.

He laughs. “You seem quite serious.”

“I keep my promises. Do you?”

“Is that a challenge? I quite like that. Fine, youshall have it, Miss Brienne.”

Before she knows what’s happening, the stovetransforms into a fully heated forge. Tyrion jumps into a metal bin beside it,succumbing to the small flame the alcohol in the wine within with a satisfiedsigh.

Jaime hands Brienne a rusty blade. “If you break it,it won’t be a great loss. This one was never quite my favorite, actually.”

Brienne only now notices that the handsome man wears agolden hand on his right as he nervously stuffs it away with a forced smile.She takes the blade from him and sets out to work, finding all that she needslying beside the forge. She is irritated that the handsome man keeps watchingher, though he insists he does so for her own safety. He wouldn’t want her todrop the hammer on her head.

“Bad reputation.”

She won’t let that stop her, so Brienne gathers all ofher strengths and starts to labor, no matter how tough it proves to be on hernow old body. However, there is still might in her body and years of work atthe forge taught her the moves her body won’t forget in a lifetime. Jaimewatches intently, all the more shocked when the old woman presents him aperfectly redone arakh, though arguably, she even improved it as she madeembellishments visible again where they had long since faded.

“I am a wizard myself but I never saw such magic.”

“It’s not magic. It’s craft,” Brienne argues, feelingquite embarrassed by his compliments. She had people in awe with her handicraftbefore, but never quite so. The way his eyes beam up… it’s something, well, magical.

“And magic is another kind of craft. This ismarvelous, Brienne, truly. Well, it appears I have to keep my promise to younow, which is why you are now welcome into my castle as our new maid… and mypersonal smith.”

“… Thank you.”

“Oh no, I thank you,” he smiles, carrying the arakhaway to put it back in place.

For a while, Brienne is more than pleased with her newmaster, but he soon reveals himself as quite an arrogant brat. Not only does hespend too much time in the bathroom to fix himself up in her humble opinion,but he goes nearly insane when he ends up using some strange mix of potions,blaming Brienne for messing up the order thanks to her cleaning. Brienne isshocked when the man emerges from the bath with no more than a towel wrappedaround his waist, complaining about how ugly he is now, his blond hair nowshort and he grew a beard, too!

“I might just as well die!” he declares.

“You are being overly dramatic.”

“Last time this happened, he summoned a dark spirit,”Tyrion warns her, which prompts Brienne into action despite her growingdiscomfort for the sake of being so close to a barely clothed handsome man thelikes of this sorcerer. “Jaime, now look. Nothing gets better by doing this.And anyway, you are a wizard, are you not? You can change your hair and beardback, can’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter. It happened.”

“What, by the Seven, even happened to begin with toupset you so?”

“I look like the self I want to forget!” Jaime cries.“I banished that ugly bastard to where he belonged! And now he is back.”

“Ugly? Ugly!You don’t even know what that means, do you? You are as handsome as ever,perchance even more! Look at you! I mean… I mean… what I am trying to say isthat whatever part of your past haunts you, you are living in the present now.And in the present, you are complaining about your beautiful looks, saying youare ugly, when you don’t even know what ugly is. I've never been beautiful forall my life! Do you see me complain all day long?! No! Right, because thisdoesn’t matter! It shouldn’t matter!”

Brienne storms out of the castle as rain starts topour from the sky. She allows the tears to come this time.

“I don’t want to stay here anymore!” she whimpers,surprised when the scarecrow offers her an umbrella as a small consolation,though that shock is nothing compared to Jaime approaching her all of a sudden,though now more properly dressed.

“What do you want?”

“I came to apologize,” he answers, much to hersurprise. “That was… unworthy of me, please forgive me.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see thesorcerer Jaime, I saw Jaime Lannister, the man who had his hand cut off by adark wizard in times of war.” He points at his golden hand. “And there is no magicto fix that ever again. That part of me is gone. And I swore to myself to buryit. I never wanted to be this man again.”

“Just because you look like that doesn’t mean you are this,”she points out to him.

“I see that now, too.”

Brienne stares at him. “You do?”

She did not expect Jaime to admit to much of anything,let alone show any kind of humbleness.

“… Yes,” he says, looking down at the puddles fed bythe rain. “Because I realized it when I looked at you instead.”

“At me?”

“You look like an old woman but you have the heart andstrength of a knight.”

Brienne blushes furiously at that, not knowing what tomake of any of this. Just what is her heart doing, beating so fast over such acompliment? He means nothing more but to make it up to her, doesn’t he?

“… I am sorry. Can we… can we agree on a truce?”

“You need trust to have a truce.”

“I trust you.”

“… Then… then we have a truce, I suppose.”

He smiles at her. “So you won’t leave?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go anyway.”

“Then let’s go back home, shall we?” he holds out hishand to her and Brienne allows Jaime to lead her back into his moving castle,no, their home. And for a moment,however brief, Brienne feels like a young girl all of a sudden.

Over time, Brienne finds herself accustoming to thisnew life faster than she ever would have imagined. In fact, she starts to feelhappiness when she thought all was lost the moment she had to run away fromhome. She is shocked when Jaime discovers a secret note the wretched Witch ofthe Waste attached to her.

“Old magic, very powerful, too,” Jaime commentspensively.

“Don’t tell me that’s from her!” Tyrion pouts.

“It appears so.”

“I need more wine.”

“You don’t.”

“What… what is the matter with you and her?” Brienne wantsto know.

“We have a… history going back… an old tale, nearlyforgotten. And now you seem to have a story of your own, do you not, Brienne?”

She says nothing, not knowing how to explain herself.

“He, the one whograsped a shooting star… such a mindless man, your heart shall forever be mine.No one walks away from me… She is still as unoriginal as I remember her tobe,” Jaime scoffs before setting the letter magically on fire.

“You can’t lift her curse either, can you?” Brienneasks hesitantly.

“I’m afraid I can’t. She’s always had a fancy forparticularly wretched curses. And this one, it seems, can only be lifted byyourself, Brienne. Thus, on this, I am afraid, I cannot help you with mymagic.”

“Lift my own curse… well, that means it’s a lostcause,” Brienne mutters to herself, feeling at least ten years older. Sheremains inconsolable for a time, but Pod and Jaime manage to cheer her back upand Brienne starts to feel younger again. Particularly in Jaime’s presence, shetends to forget time and time again that she is an ugly old hag no one couldpossibly enjoy to have in his or her company. Though those moments don’t lastlong, because deep down, Brienne knows that one simple truth, that he may enjoyher company but that he could never fancy or Gods forbid love her. No one evercan, not in that way.

New trouble is not far away as it is revealed that theletters that came to them the first day she came to stay at the moving castlemay force Jaime to help either the King or the Queen who have been at war eversince the Prince that was Promised went missing. Jaime, like any othersorcerer, is obliged to fulfill that duty, though Jaime tended to escape byusing aliases to keep himself hidden.

“It appears we are running out of options, that isunless…,” Jaime ponders.

“Unless…?”Brienne frowns.

“Unless you volunteered to help me.”

“What would you want me to do?”

He smiles. “Oh, since you offered your services, Brienne,you would only have to pretend to be the Kingslayer’s mother and tell the Kingthat his powers are no good and that he would do best searching for someoneelse to do the deed for him.”

“The King?Isn’t he at Winterfell after he took the former stronghold of the Starks fromthe Boltons?”

“No more. He’s travelled to King’s Landing fornegotiations meant to fail. The Dragon Queen won’t budge, that’s for sure, andneither will that stubborn idiot Stannis. All you’d have to do is tell him thatI am no good follower of R’hllor, which is true enough, and that my serviceswould only ever bring him great disadvantage. I’m no longer the fighter I usedto be, tell him that. I lost a hand, after all!”

“You lost that before, Jaime!” Tyrion argues.

“He doesn’t have to know that!”

“You ask me to lie for you?”

“You volunteered!”

“I did not!”

However, in the end, Brienne feels obliged to go asJaime showed kindness to her when likely no one else ever would, consideringthat she is a now old, ugly, mannish woman who struggles working a forge,entirely alone in the world. Thus, she decides to do Jaime the favor and speakto Stannis Baratheon. She is shocked when Jaime puts a ring on her finger,telling her that it’s a magical jewel that will guide her the way back homeeach time.

“Why would you give me that?” she asks.

“To keep you safe, of course.”

Brienne huffs. “I don’t need anyone’s protection.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t use it.” He winks at herbefore they part ways.

Brienne heads out to meet the King’s advisor andJaime’s former mentor, the powerful witch Melisandre of Asshai. Just as she isabout to come face-to-face with the woman, Brienne runs into no one other thanthe Witch of the Waste. Furious, she demands retribution for her act, but thewitch has little care to give, arguing that she has any intention to get toMelisandre before Brienne can to finally gain more power.

“Only power is power, after all,” as the witch tellsher.

The two women start to race, but the closer they cometo Melisandre the older the Witch of the Waste looks. Brienne is in shock. Sheis the one to reach Melisandre first, who seems all the more amused byBrienne’s presence. The sorceress greets her, all the more interested inBrienne posing as the Kingslayer’s mother.

“He was my last apprentice, did you know? So talented,so gifted. I thought about leaving my position to him,” she tells Brienne,nodding at her necklace with a beaming red stone at its center. “I would haveliked for him to continue to teach the next generations about the Red God. Afterall, he once ridded the world of a great evil, the Mad King. He proved himselfworthy that day, even if that meant his reputation was forever ruined. However,his heart was stolen by darkness, and he left before the Lord of Light couldcleanse him of it. Such a pity.”

Jaime’s heart – stolen? What does she mean? Briennehas so many questions, but she doesn’t get to ask them yet again.

When the Witch of the Waste arrives, or rather dragsherself into the room, Melisandre can’t hold back her laughter.

“What happened to her?” Brienne wants to know.

“She got a taste, a taste of the real world. Becauseour dear Witch of the Waste seems to have forgotten.”

“The real world?”

“She is drained of her powers, no more than a harmlessold woman, devoid of all power,” Melisandre explains. The other witch isfurious, but so out of breath and short before passing out that she can’t domuch to protest. “That is what happens to all sorcerers who let themselves beconsumed by selfish desires. She made deals with darkness and that is now thepayback for it. And if your son does not watch it, he’ll end up just like her,as something that is… anything but human, powerless, meaningless. The onlything that may save him would be Lightbringer, then.”

“Lightbringer?”

“The sword of legend that can purge the world ofdarkness.”

“And where would one find that magical sword?” Brienneasks.

“It isn’t found, it’s made, but no one ever did.”

Brienne, despite her misgivings for the witch, findsherself speaking on her behalf as she finds such treatment more than cruel andunjustified. For a moment, she is on the verge of turning young, but onceMelisandre mentions it, Brienne quickly turns back to her old self.

“So… you, Mother of the Kingslayer, came here to tellus what?” Melisandre wants to know.

“That my son is unfit of fighting the King’s war. Helost a hand, you must know, and his belief in the Lord of Light has since beenshaken. He will only cause King Stannis trouble, I am sure.”

“And why couldn’t he come here himself to tell me so?”the witch questions, obviously not really buying it, which makes Brienne feellike failure already, but before she can grow older again, she gathers herself.

She has to do this, for Jaime.

“You ask me?” Brienne huffs, putting on the best actshe can. “I am merely doing what all mothers do, to protect the dear children.”

“Is that so?”

“You say he has no heart, right? I suppose that, in away… that is not entirely untrue. You are right that he can be selfish andarrogant, and sometimes I can’t see what he’s thinking because he is good to dohide his sadness behind his smiles. But of that one thing I am sure: He is notevil and isn’t ever going to be.”

“What gives you that confidence?”

“… I trust him,” Brienne answers resolutely, ifshocked by the apparent force of truth coming with that message.

“The Kingslayer’s Mother… You are in love with him,are you not?”

Brienne blushes, but doesn’t get to ponder the wordsas suddenly the Witch of the Waste means to intervene loudly: “Lies! All lies!”she wheezes all of a sudden.

“Shut your mouth already!” Brienne hisses.

“You are not his mother! That’d make you my mother,too! That can’t be! She’s dead! Dead! Dead!”

“What did I just tell you?!” Brienne curses, only forher eyes to widen once realization dawns on her. “And what was that???”

Brienne doesn’t get to ponder this much as Melisandretells her that Jaime will suffer the same destiny as the Witch of the Waste,being bereft of all power and turned into a shadow of himself, if he does notfollow the call of duty every sorcerer has to abide by. Just as Melisandremeans to question her about her true identity, Jaime appears in disguise andsnatches Brienne away. Melisandre gives them chase, but they manage to escape,though they end up rescuing the Witch of the Waste as well, something Jaime isnot at all pleased about.

“I didn’t recognize you. Otherwise I would have leftyou there,” Jaime scoffs.

“I would have left you there, too, brother dear.”

“Good that we agree on something at last.”

“What is it with you two?” Brienne asks.

“What? I thought you made my sister’s acquaintancealready.”

“Your sister???”

“Twin sister.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” Brienne pouts.

“I didn’t find that detail important.”

“Detail?! This is no detail. Why would I not find thatimportant to your mind?!”

“I walked away from her long time ago,” Jaime explains.

“And yet here we are, brother dear.”

“Thanks to you, not me.”

Cersei narrows her eyes at him. “How’s the littlemonster doing?”

“Better than you, apparently.”

“Pity.”

Jaime is tempted to throw her off the carriage andleave her, but Brienne tells him that it would be without honor to do such athing. However, their escape and Brienne’s safety foremost, takes priority forJaime soon enough, which is why he instructs her to use the ring to guide herback to the castle while he will distract Melisandre’s shadow creaturesfollowing them. Brienne urges him to stay by her side, but Jaime tells her thathe found his courage back thanks to her and it’s time to use it. They part andBrienne alongside Cersei nearly crash into the castle, though Brienne does notcare much as her mind is focused on Jaime, who has not yet returned.

Tyrion and Cersei instantly get into a fight, whichalso reveals that Tyrion is another brother of hers, and Brienne feels all themore tempted to throw them both out of the house, and if Tyrion wasn’tnecessary for the house, she would. However, her frustration ends when she canhear noises upstairs.

“That must be Jaime!” she concludes. Brienne wants torun upstairs to check on him, but when she reaches the staircase, she findsbloodied black feathers spread all around.

“What happened here?” she gasps.

“He transformed into his not-human self, to protectyou,” Pod informs her.

“So… so that is what he would turn into if he went toofar?”

“He can turn back for now, but it gets more difficulteach time. I wouldn’t go up there, though, m’lady,” Pod warns her. “It’sdangerous and Master Jaime wants to be alone when he turns.”

“He needs help,” Brienne argues and proceeds up thestairs, not letting her fright get the better of her. She finds Jaime, and itis just as Pod said, he is a man in bird’s shape with a feral, dark energysurrounding him that she can feel her skin crawl.

“Jaime! You are back! Are you alright? I saw blood.”

“Stay away from me,” he wheezes, trying his best tohide himself from her view. He doesn’t want her to see him like this, no one issupposed to see what he is on the verge of becoming, but he can’t bear thethought to be like this in front of Brienne. He can’t fail her like that.

“But you need help!” she insists. “I want to set youfree from the curse put on you!”

“You should think about your own, Brienne. Why would youtry to do that for a monster like me anyway?”

“Because I… I…,” she stutters. “I… care about you andI don’t want to lose you. We have a truce, don’t you remember?”

“It's too late!”

“It’s not. Just let me help you.”

“Leave me now, Brienne.”

Before she can say anything more, Jaime retreated to apart of the castle she can’t get to. Brienne walks back downstairs to get moreinformation from Pod, Tyrion, and Cersei. While Tyrion in particular cannot saymuch without breaking the magical contract that is part of his and Jaime’sshared curse, he can confirm that this ominous sword named Lightbringer may haveto do with it.

“We spent many, many years searching for it, but nosuch luck. Why do you think do we have that many around the house?” Tyriontells her.

“Melisandre said that you can’t find it but that youhave to make it.”

“So?”

“Well, maybe I can make it?” she suggests uncertainly.“I am a smith, after all.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy,” Cersei scoffs. “Youare just an old hag.”

“Rich coming from you now, sister,” Tyrion huffs. “Andno one asked for your opinion anyway… Why is she here again? I thought we all decidednot to like her, you included, Brienne. She put that curse on you.”

“She’s an old woman and in need of help, that is why,”Brienne answers.

“Ugh. Honorable people all around. Then I rather am anevil fire, fueled by wine. That’s fun at least.”

“Back to the sword… it may not be easy, and perhaps it’sfor nothing, but I have to try at least, don’t you think?” Brienne argues – andTyrion can’t tell her no this time.

The next day, Jaime emerges, looking like his usualself. Brienne is glad to see that he is alright, though she can also spot theworry behind the thin veil of his smile. All the same, the group now has todeal with the fact that the Witch of the Waste, Cersei Lannister, is nowstaying there as she would be absolutely helpless without their support. Tyrionis furious, Jaime is irritated, and Podrick is confused. Brienne, for her part,is only interested in finding out more about the magical sword named Lightbringer.Jaime tells her all that he knows of the blade, that it is made of Valyriansteel, the Song of Ice and Fire. Brienne asks him if he is in possession ofsuch a blade, and he says there is one, the ancestral sword of House Stark.

“Something… my father took without asking, really.”

“Your family is odd. To say the least.”

He snorts, amused. “We are all kinds of terrible, Iknow.”

“What happened between you anyway?” Brienne askscautiously.

“I loved too much, she loved too little, and Tyrion… hesought love he could not get and turned to someone whose love did him littlegood.”

“I suppose you can’t tell me more?”

“Not without ending up dead by breaking my contract, I’mafraid.”

“Be it as it may… will you let me have that sword?”

“You want to forge Lightbringer?” He frowns.

“If I’m not mistaken, this sword is called Ice. If itis exposed to fire… perhaps that will do the trick. This sword is so big, I canmake two out of it. That will give me at least one blade to experiment with tosee what works best. It’s worth the try.”

“I don’t want you to overexert yourself,” Jaime argueswith concern heavy in his voice.

“Nonsense,” she scoffs. “Remember our truce? Now it’stime that you trust me to forge that sword.”

“But Brienne, I really don’t want you to…”

“I will forge that sword… for you.”

“I won’t convince you otherwise, will I?”

“I always keep my promises.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

And so, Brienne begins the difficult task, if notimpossible task, to forge a sword she doesn’t know the shape or exact materialsof, and that as an old woman no less. However, that won’t stop her from trying.She has to give it a shot, at least. Because she can’t bear the thought to loseJaime to the darkness without a fight.

But the clock is ticking as the war comes closer andcloser, and with two monarchs demanding of Jaime to fight their wars, to thepoint of forgetting regret itself and losing his last shreds of humanity,things look more than dire.

And while Brienne focuses all of her efforts onforging that sword to save Jaime, the sorcerer is more concerned with forging ahome for her within the castle.

As much as both try to hold on to those little hopesand big promises of a future, the ongoing war between Queen Daenerys and KingStannis keep raging, forcing Jaime out of the safety of the castle into thedarkness that will consume him soon enough unless Brienne manages to forgeLightbringer.

How this tale concludes, though, only the sorcerersknow the answers…

#jaime x brienne #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #game of thrones #got moodboard #got aesthetic #moodboard #aesthetic #wacky tries gimp #fanfic #in smol #wacky writes fanfic #anon #thanks anon #this was such a lovely suggestion #weeeeeeeee

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komorebirei · 5 years

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The Water Was Never Afraid - Chapter 20: Kettle

(AO3)

“I was wondering if you’d come by.” Marinette closed her sketchbook and straightened up, crossing her legs like a pretzel in her lawn chair.

Chat Noir found it incredibly cute how she could still fit comfortably in the chair, sitting in such a childish way.

“We’re becoming good friends now, aren’t we, Chaton?” Marinette grinned.

“The best of friends.” He winked and flashed a winning smile, hoping to make her blush… she didn’t. Ah well, worth a try. “By the way, how’s learning the piano going?”

“Heh… not going, really. I’ve been busy with work lately, so I haven’t had time to practice. And I’m not taking lessons or anything, so… still as lame as ever.”

“Don’t sweat it, Princess.” He perked up as an idea hit him. “Hey, how about I play for you?” That was a friendly, non-flirty thing to do. His guilty conscience could be okay with that.

Marinette quirked an eyebrow. “Didn’t you say you couldn’t?”

“Not while transformed.” Chat tilted his head, chasing a wink with his cutest kitty smile as he let the implication set in.

“Chat Noir…” She leveled him with a warning look that reminded him of the way Ladybug got when he pushed the line with their identities.

Chat laughed off her seriousness. “C’mon, Princess, don’t be like that. You think I’m trying to reveal myself to you? I know better than to play with fire. We’ve got eyelids for a reason. Go ahead, make yourself comfortable on the couch and close your eyes.”

She tapped her lips with a finger and hummed, feigning deep deliberation. “I don’t know, Chat… seems a little risky.”

“What’s risky about it? You’ll be nice and safe on the couch, temptation-free. Unless I’m so good that you can’t resist taking a peek.” He grinned his trademark Chat Noir grin, more wolfish than catlike.

Marinette shot him a look that could curdle milk.

Chat deflated. “Okay, you’re a warrior princess—I respect you. I know you’d never cave and look. That’s why I trust you!”

Marinette’s expression was still dubious, but her lips quirked up at the corners, showing that her resolve was crumbling.

Chat gave another push. “Don’t you want to hear me play? I’m willing to bet you will love these songs I have in store for you.”

“… All right, fine, you win. I really do want to hear you play.” With a smile, she stood up and unlatched the door, holding it open for him. “After you, Minou. No funny business.”

“Thank you, Princess!” He bounded inside excitedly. He knew Marinette would be squealing in minutes. He slid into the piano bench as Marinette followed him in and settled into the couch. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

“Ready—Wait, hold on. Let me heat water for tea.”

“Go ahead.”

While Marinette put on the kettle, Chat Noir ghosted his fingers on the keys, brushing up his memory.

“Okay, you can detransform.”

Chat glanced over and took in a side-view of Marinette curled up on the couch, sunken into the cushions, her lips peacefully upturned.

“Don’t do anything shocking,” she warned. “I might accidentally look.”

“The only thing that would shock you is how stunningly handsome I am,” Chat joked.

“Don’t make this hard for me,” Marinette teased back.

He blushed, abandoning the sinking ship.

He realized he felt very nervous. He was about to detransform in front of Marinette. There would be nothing but two paper-thin layers of skin separating this moment from the utter chaos of Marinette finding out it had been Adrien Agreste, her boss’s son and a taken man, visiting her home all along.

Terror clawed at his chest, and he was about to call it off, when Marinette called out quietly, “Minou?”

He took a deep breath and glanced at her, waiting patiently with her eyes closed, her forehead furrowed with concern due to his lack of response. She had felt reservations about doing this, but she trusted him enough to let him. He decided that he trusted her.

“Claws in.”

As the magic left him, materializing in the form of a tiny floating cat beside him, and the world didn’t implode, a mad grin swept across Adrien’s face.

Plagg shot a questioning look between him and Marinette.

“All in good fun,” Adrien assured him quietly. Yes—this was fun, not terrifying. “Marinette knows about kwamis, so you don’t have to be too subtle.”

Letting a momentary silence clear the air in preparation for the music, Adrien pressed the opening jazz chords of the first number, butter-smooth. Since the style was different from the original arrangement, it took a moment for Marinette to recognize what he was playing, but her reaction betrayed the exact moment when she did.

“Oh my gosh, Minou!!!” Marinette squealed, sitting up in excitement with her eyes still closed.

Adrien smirked. He had expected this reaction. He knew her favorite Ghibli films and which songs she played on repeat while stitching for hours.

“Merry Go Round of Life—a jazz version? I love it!! You’ve watched Howl’s Moving Castle, Chat?”

“Of course, Princess,” Adrien answered without stopping. I’m the one who recommended it to you, after all. “It’s my favorite. Don’t you think I’m as charming as Howl?”

“Much more charming,” Marinette replied slyly, and Adrien’s heart skipped a beat. “If by charming, you mean over-the-top and ridiculously dramatic.”

He chuckled. “Ah, but Princess, you’re far too kind.”

Marinette snorted and settled back into listening. “The jazz style sounds so cool! You’re really good, Chaton.”

He soaked up the praise, feeling on top of the world. Plagg jumped on the keys, dodging Adrien’s fingers, a game he often played to make his chosen’s practice sessions more fun. Adrien laughed when Plagg was too slow and he felt the odd sensation of his finger going through his kwami.

“Ouch, speared me, kid!” Plagg teased and fell dramatically onto the keyboard, letting the keys buffet his little body, tossing him here and there.

Adrien laughed again at Plagg’s antics.

“Is that your kwami?” Marinette asked. “You guys are cute.”

Plagg flew over to say hello.

The kettle started to whistle.

“Chat,” Marinette nudged.

Right, she couldn’t get up and walk around while he was detransformed.

He stopped playing. “Got it.”

“The tea bags are in the top drawer to the left of the stove… take your pick.”

Adrien switched off the kettle and opened the drawer to find a variety of colorful boxes neatly nestled together like a Tetris board. “And for the Princess?”

“Plum for me, please!”

“And cheese for me!” Plagg piped up.

He found the box labeled ‘Plum Tea’ in Chinese.

“It’s the pink box in the front,” Marinette guided him unnecessarily.

“Found it.” He knew where she kept the mugs, so he took two out of the cabinet, selecting for her the red one he’d seen her use before.

“Ah, and there’s cheese in the fridge.”

There was only Gruyère, but Plagg liked it well enough.

“Just to let you know, my favorite’s Camembert,” Adrien heard Plagg tell Marinette in a stage-whisper. Funny how well they seemed to be getting along. Nothing seemed to faze Marinette. What an admirable girl.

“Which tea did you pick, Chaton?” Marinette asked curiously.

“Plum.” He smiled to himself. “So we can share the experience, to make up for the fact that you can’t see me.”

Marinette snorted. “What a sap.”

Once the tea had finished steeping, he brought the mugs over and placed Marinette’s on the coffee table by her knees. “Careful with your fingers—it’s hot.” He set his own on a round mini-table by the piano, beside a photo of Marinette posing in the bakery with her parents. He missed the bakery.

“Any requests?”

“Finish Howl’s first. It’s my favorite!” Marinette gave him a pleading smile, eyes squeezed shut adorably. “Actually, could you start over? Please?”

“Anything for you, Princess.” He started over.

She listened in contented silence, and Plagg came to dance on the keys some more.

After finishing, she gave him enthusiastic applause. He moved on to another Ghibli jazz number, this time from Spirited Away, smiling at the appreciative noises she made.

In the middle of playing, she stopped him. “Okay, pause.”

“Hmm?”

“Your tea’s getting cold! Why don’t you drink some before you continue?”

“As the Princess wishes.”

He stopped and took a sip. It was pleasantly warm, instead of hot—the perfect temperature to drink. She must have known because hers was that temperature right now, too. Adrien smiled, savoring their shared experience more than the tea.

“How did you know I would like this music?” she asked.

“Just a hunch.”

The transient perfection of this moment—drinking tea with Marinette, the memory of Ghibli jazz lingering in the air like a fragrance—made his heart ache. It was like freshly fallen cherry blossom petals on their last breath before decay. He sighed, watching her eyelids tremble with the effort to stay shut.

This moment didn’t belong to him, Adrien Agreste. It belonged to Chat Noir. Chat Noir, who could be anybody. Or nobody.

He could run into Marinette at the office tomorrow. Unlikely, but possible. If he did, she’d give him her usual professional greeting, and the same smile she gave everyone.

That thought felt like a punch to the stomach.

He placed his hands on the keys and started to play again, shifting his mind away from these distressing thoughts. The chill, whimsical notes that filled the air seemed laced with melancholy this time. Maybe only in his own ears, though.

As he played, he watched her longingly. She and Plagg were talking in voices too low for him to overhear over the piano. A sad smile tugged his lips when she doubled over, giggling. The pain settled deeper into his chest, the longer the moment wore on.

“Want to watch one together when you’re done, Chat?” Marinette asked in a small voice.

“‘Watch one’?” He stopped playing and stared at her incredulously. “A Ghibli film?”

“Yeah, whichever one you want—I have the collection. You put me in the mood.”

His chest warmed. Marinette hadn’t watched any Ghibli films before he introduced them to her, and now she loved them enough that she had the whole collection? He counted this as a conquest, as proof that they were two peas in a pod.

There was work waiting for him at home, but nothing he minded losing sleep over if it meant a couple more hours basking in Marinette’s presence. “I’d love to, Princess. How about now?”

“One more song, please?”

“How could I refuse?”

He played one last, an upbeat, jazzy version of the Totoro opening theme song. Marinette wiggled her shoulders in a playful accompanying dance, Plagg doing the same in the airspace around her.

Cute.

Smiling at her fondly, he beckoned Plagg and called his transformation back on.

“Open your eyes, Princess.”

When Marinette opened her eyes, she was bursting with glee and enthusiasm to convince Chat Noir of his talents. “Chat, you’re amazing! I can’t believe you play so well.”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “Only because a beautiful girl was listening.”

This time, she did blush, which did something to soothe the ache in Chat Noir’s chest.

“Want to watch Howl’s Moving Castle?” Marinette asked. “You said it’s your favorite, right? Or—whichever one you want.”

“Sure. But next time, Kiki’s Delivery Service. It’s about you and me.” He winked. “Though, honestly, Jiji acts more like Plagg.”

Marinette laughed. “You got it, Minou.”

Next time—the words echoed in Chat Noir’s mind like a dangerously enticing promise.

How had they fallen into this?

—

In the middle of the film, Marinette suddenly slid an arm behind Chat’s back and draped her other arm across his stomach, nestling her head in the dip between his shoulder and chest.

Melting against her, Chat wrapped his arm around her. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for my charms, Princess,” he joked, the line falling from his lips as naturally as an exhalation. He barely even felt guilty for flirting with her anymore. It was inevitable. She was irresistible.

“This is your hug of the day.” Her voice sounded more serious than he would have expected. “I can tell when you’re sad, Minou.”

“Wow, Princess. Are you sure you don’t have super powers?” He tightened his grip and rested the corner of his mouth on her head, inhaling her scent—rose shampoo and something sweetly Marinette—wishing to press a kiss to her hair if that weren’t crossing the line.

Marinette didn’t answer, but she hugged him tighter, taking his response as confirmation that he was feeling down.

They stayed like that for the rest of the movie, then Chat Noir went home, feeling like a moth whose wings had been crippled by the flame.

#Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #Marichat #Adrienette #Adrigami #The Water Was Never Afraid #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Chat Noir #Cat Noir

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mikauzoran · 5 years

Text

Adrienette Drabble Seventeen: Dad

“It’s a Saturday, and you’re eighteen. Shouldn’t you be…I’m sure I don’t know…doing something? Perhaps with friends?” Gabriel peered over the back of the couch down at Adrien.

Adrien closed volume fourteen of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and set it on top of the stack of manga on the coffee table. He’d spent the morning binge reading.

“Nino and Alya are on a date,” Adrien sighed, sitting up. “Nino offered to cancel and hang out with me or let me come with them, but…”

Gabriel nodded. “Right. Well, what are your other friends doing?”

Adrien’s cheeks turned red, and he dropped his eyes to avoid Gabriel’s gaze as he muttered, “Marinette doesn’t seem to be talking to me again yet.”

Gabriel winced. “Sorry…. But what about everyone else?”

Adrien looked up, quirking an eyebrow. “What about everyone else who?”

Gabriel’s brow slowly began to form trenches. “Your other friends. What are they doing? The other people you spend time with.”

Adrien shrugged. “I don’t really spend time with other people. I mean, I’m friendly with everybody else in my class and a couple of others at school, but we’re not the kind of friends that make plans together or anything.”

Gabriel’s frown deepened. “What about Miss Bourgeois? Miss Tsurugi?”

Adrien grimaced. “It’s been a while since Chloé and I were really friends. We’ve kind of grown apart, and Kagami is great, but…things have been kind of awkward since I started dating. She used to like me, and I think I disappointed her and destroyed the mental image she had of me, so…she’s kind of not talking to me unless it’s about how she’s kicking my butt at fencing. Besides, we were never really the kind of friends who, I don’t know, went bowling or went to an exhibition.”

Gabriel’s lips pressed into a thin line. “What about that Elise girl you were spending time with for a while? The other model. You two seemed close. You haven’t done anything with her in almost a month.”

Adrien cringed. “Elise was my girlfriend.”

“Ah.” Gabriel wilted slightly. “That’s right…. So…you don’t have anyone to do something with.”

Adrien shrugged. “There’s Plagg.”

Gabriel was silent for a moment. “…Perhaps we need to get you some new friends.”

A small smile tugged gently at Adrien’s lips. “Dad, you don’t get new friends like you get a new car. Don’t worry. I’ll probably make more friends in university.”

“But that doesn’t help you now,” Gabriel reasoned.

“Are you…sad that you don’t have anyone to do something with?” It was at times like this that Gabriel missed his Miraculous. He had never been adept at reading others’ emotions, and the brooch had helped immensely.

Adrien shrugged. “I spent the first thirteen years of my life with a grand total of one friend. I’m used to being alone, so it doesn’t really bother me too much. I’m fine spending the day reading manga. I’m reading it in Japanese too, so it’s not like I’m just lying around reading comics; I’m doing language study. It’s fine, Dad. The thing that I’m sad about is the fact that I’ve single-handedly wrecked my friend group.”

“I’m sure you haven’t,” Gabriel insisted, his grip on the back of the couch tightening.

Adrien shrugged again. “Nino and Alya are stuck having to divide their time between Marinette and me, and it’s my fault.”

“No. That’s Miss Dupain-Cheng’s doing,” Gabriel corrected with a hint of annoyance.

Adrien shook his head slowly. “I know you love me, Dad, but don’t give me a free pass because of it. I’ve spent enough time trying to make excuses for myself. It’s time I finally accept some of the blame. Sure, it’s Marinette’s wishes keeping us apart, but I’m the root cause of the problem.”

Gabriel sighed, reaching out to smooth Adrien’s hair. “Listen. I have a project I need to get done, but I can work off my tablet if you maybe want to watch a movie together. I can at least listen to the audio if you pick something in French, English, or Italian. Is that something you’d want to do?”

Adrien blinked in stunned silence for a beat before he could compose himself enough to react. “Really? You’d want to watch a movie with me?”

“Sure. Of course,” Gabriel assured with as much authenticity as he could manage despite feeling out of his depth and off balance. “I like spending time with you…. I need to work on making time to do that more often.”

Adrien’s grin rivaled exploding stars with its brilliance, and Gabriel decided that feeling awkward and off balance was worth it to see his son smile like that.

“I like spending time with you too…. Can we watch a Studio Ghibli film?” Adrien was practically bouncing in his seat.

“Whatever you want. I’ll go get my materials while you set it up.”

Gabriel returned ten minutes later to find Adrien all ready with a bowl of popcorn.

“I want to watch Howl’s Moving Castle. Is that okay?” He wriggled in excitement.

“Certainly.” Gabriel took a seat on the couch, grabbing a handful of popcorn and powering on his tablet.

Adrien bit his lip. “Would you prefer French or English audio?”

Gabriel shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. Which do you usually watch in?”

Adrien blushed, smiling sheepishly. “Japanese?”

With an eyeroll, Gabriel chuckled, “Of course you do. English, then.”

Adrien nodded, going into the settings menu and adjusting the audio options.

“Emilie really liked these movies,” Gabriel remarked offhandedly.

“We used to watch them together,” Adrien added quietly, fond yet wistful.

“Her favourite was…something about a valley and the wind.”

Adrien raised an eyebrow. “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.” He nodded. “That’s a good one.”

“Do you have a favourite?” Gabriel prompted.

“Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke.” Adrien smiled.

“I liked The Cat Returns or Whisper of the Heart,” Gabriel replied softly. “She used to make me watch these with her. Before you. …Félix…”

Adrien whipped around to stare in bewilderment at his father.

“…never liked cartoons. He wouldn’t watch anime with Emilie. It made her sad. Félix was an odd child,” Gabriel concluded.

“He…He was always an adult, even when we were little,” Adrien tentatively chuckled, unsure if he were allowed to talk about his brother now too or if only Gabriel could.

Gabriel nodded.

Apparently, everything was okay. The world hadn’t imploded.

“I think he had to be,” Gabriel sighed. “God knows neither Emilie nor I were. Your brother had a bumpy childhood.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Adrien whispered.

The Agreste family had already been established when Adrien was born. Adrien couldn’t even begin to fathom living hand to mouth, financial instability, moving around a lot, small apartments on the outskirts of Paris…

“I spoke with your brother’s wife the other day,” Gabriel announced down at his screen.

“Bridgette didn’t mention it,” Adrien replied in confusion. “She called me last night.”

“Does she call you often? Nathalie mentioned that you talked, but…” Gabriel tentatively peeked up.

Adrien shrugged. “Usually once a week. More often when Noëlle is being a brat,” he snickered. “Sometimes Noëlle refuses to go to sleep unless Bridgette calls and has me sing Noëlle a lullaby.”

Gabriel nodded slowly. “I’d like to meet Noëlle. I told Bridgette that. It’s my understanding that you’ve never met her in person?”

Adrien shook his head. “Just through FaceTime.”

“I told Bridgette that they should come visit sometime…that I’d cover expenses if they would like to come visit for a week or two.” Gabriel watched as Adrien’s face lit up with tentative hope. “Félix didn’t want to talk to me, though.”

Adrien grimaced. “Félix doesn’t talk to me either. Apparently, he feels like he doesn’t have the right to speak with me after he quote, unquote ‘abandoned’ me. He passes on messages through Bridgette, though.”

“I have the feeling he simply did not want to speak to me,” Gabriel chuckled. “Bridgette seemed interested in visiting, though. I told her she and Noëlle could come without Félix. She said she hasn’t been back in Paris since they moved to Marseille, so…maybe she and Noëlle will come.”

“I’d love to see them,” Adrien chuckled giddily.

“Yes,” Gabriel affirmed tentatively, betraying his apprehension. “That would be nice.”

Gabriel noted, as the movie came to a close, that Adrien looked sad. “What are you thinking about?”

Adrien blushed, a sheepish smile overtaking his face. “Marinette.”

Gabriel nodded knowingly.

“I was just wondering where she is and what she’s doing. I haven’t talked to her in a week, and before that I’d spent a week and a half avoiding her because of the kiss with Chat Noir, so…” Adrien sighed miserably.

“I miss her so much,” he mumbled. “At school she can’t even look at me, and I just…I want to see her. Even if we can’t talk or hang out, I want to see her. I want to make sure she’s doing okay because this is hard on her too.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “She’s the one making things difficult. No one would have to feel wretched if she would just stop this nonsense and date you already.”

Adrien smiled softly, reaching up to rub at his slightly faded bruises. “Dad, I am an emotional black hole at this point, and I’m in no shape to date anyone. She was right to say no…even though I wish she had said yes. Please don’t be mad at Marinette for doing what she thought was best. She’s usually right…. She’s more level-headed than I am.”

Gabriel snorted. “She’s brainwashed you…but as you wish. I do, however, reserve the right to bring this episode up later once you are better and you two are married.”

“I’ll look forward to that glorious day…. Right now, it seems so far off.” Adrien sighed longingly. “God, I miss her so much. I wish I could just text her.”

Adrien looked questioningly at his father. “Do you think she’s had enough ‘space’? Have I waited a reasonable amount of time where I could ask her if we could start talking again? I don’t want to be annoying or violate the boundaries she’s set, but…she’s gotta be missing me too at this point…right? She probably misses me and wants to see me too, doesn’t she?”

Gabriel sighed, averting his eyes. He couldn’t take the sadness and desperation on his son’s face. “I don’t know, Adrien.”

Adrien slumped back into the couch, pulling his knees into his chest. He blew out a long sigh. “I hate this so much.” His voice strained through building tears that burned the back of his throat.

Gabriel rested his hand on Adrien’s head and began to rub gently as Plagg had suggested.

Adrien closed his eyes and leaned into his father’s touch. “Th-Thanks.”

“Mmhm. Just calm down, okay?” Gabriel coaxed. “Focus on your breathing.”

Gabriel had to admit that the book Nathalie had gotten him on anxiety and depression had been a valuable acquisition.

Adrien took steady, even breaths as Gabriel continued to massage.

“Would it help or hurt you to actually know what Miss Dupain-Cheng was doing, do you think?” Gabriel asked after a few minutes.

Adrien shrugged. “Help…so long as she’s not on a date with some stupid emotionally healthy guy.”

“She’s supposed to be at work,” Gabriel informed. “She’s helping with a photoshoot, managing the models, double-checking the looks before they’re photographed. I’ve actually assigned her a little more than I think she can handle. I’m hoping she surprises me. She seems to do well in the face of adversity. She thinks quickly on her feet.”

“You have no idea,” Adrien sighed affectionately. “I’d forgotten she was interning with Gabriel. You’re not being hard on her because of me, are you?”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, giving Adrien’s head a pat before withdrawing his hand. “I’m being hard on her because I expect great things from her and I want to give her opportunities to grow.”

“Oddly generous of you to take it upon yourself to mentor her,” Plagg snickered. “I sense an ulterior motive.”

“Perhaps.” Gabriel shrugged, lips curling into a faint smirk.

“What kind of photoshoot is it?” Adrien inquired, feigning interest in the smaller details in order to get the information he truly wanted.

“A feature article for one of the usual magazines. They’re modeling sundresses,” Gabriel answered offhandedly.

“Anything you designed yourself, or are they pieces you oversaw and signed off on?”

“Mostly pieces I oversaw, but there is one dress that I did completely on my own. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out,” Gabriel reported with a hint of pride.

“Is it blue?” Adrien snickered.

Gabriel’s eyebrow arched. “Yes. How did you guess?”

Adrien shrugged, shifting so that one of his legs stretched out in front of him while the other leg was still pulled into his chest. “Nathalie looks good in blue. You’ve been designing in blue a lot lately.”

Gabriel cleared his throat and looked away. “Well. This particular dress is a peacock pattern, so…predominantly blue with greens and browns as well.”

Adrien nodded. “It sounds lovely…. So, where are they having the photoshoot today?”

Gabriel opened his mouth to respond but then closed it before he could divulge the location. “Why do you ask?”

Adrien shrugged, trying to play it as nonchalant as possible. “Just curious. I bet the Jardin du Palais Royal would be a good backdrop for summer dresses. Over by the fountain?”

Gabriel didn’t answer as Adrien studied his father’s face intently for any kind of tell.

“Or…maybe the Jardin de Luxembourg? Posing with the statues?” Adrien tried.

Gabriel’s brow creased.

“Parc Morceau?” Adrien asked when no hints were forthcoming. “Bois de Boulogne? …Or are you doing an indoor shoot?” He was acutely aware of the fact that he had begun to sound desperate.

“Adrien, I am not telling you where Miss Dupain-Cheng is. You need to leave her alone,” Gabriel instructed.

Adrien deflated with a heavy sigh. “I just want to see her.”

“Yes,” Gabriel snorted. “And then once you do, you’ll just want to say hi, and if you do, she’ll say something that unintentionally hurts you, and we’ll be back at square one. Adrien, no. Do you really want her to break your heart in every park in Paris?”

Adrien instantly perked up. “So she is at a park.”

Gabriel groaned. “Adrien.”

“If she’s at a park, I can just check them systematically,” Adrien strategized, bouncing in excitement.

“Not if I forbid Victor to drive you anywhere,” Gabriel interjected.

Adrien rolled his eyes. “Well, it’s a good thing that I don’t need a car to get around, isn’t it? Plagg, transform me.”

Gabriel glared intently at a smirking Chat Noir. “Adrien, this is a bad idea.”

“I kind of know that, Dad,” Chat sighed, shrugging in resignation. “Ladybug is the one with the good ideas. I just destroy everything…but I want to see her.”

Gabriel exhaled slowly, carding a hand through his hair. “Very well. Just don’t go like that. I don’t want you parkouring off of rooftops after she’s upset you. I’d rather let you go as Adrien and have a safe way to get you home. Detransform and go and get your phone from Nathalie. I’ll have Victor take you to the Place des Vosges.”

Adrien’s face brightened as he caught Gabriel in a hug. “Thanks, Dad.”

“I know I’m going to regret this,” Gabriel muttered, patting his son gently on the back.

#Adrienette #Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #Adrien Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Adrien Agreste #Gabriel Agreste #Mikau's Writings #There's a Daisy

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eviesmyspiritanimal · 4 years

Text

Genevieve Labrador Part 2

Summary: Evie and Mal are looking for Mal's spell book that Celia has stolen again when a certain mishap occurs... A hairy mishap that Mal and Evie very unfortunately have to deal with. Bal, Huma, Jaudrey, Jarlos, and Core Four feels with a special emphasis on Evie and Mal's sisterly/best friend relationship.

“I have a whole mental list of things that I needed to say during the time that I couldn’t talk!” Evie excitedly cried, and in the midst of her happiness, she jumped for Mal’s face, her long dog tongue lolling from her mouth cheerily. As soon as it met Mal’s cheek, however, they both froze, staring at each other awkwardly.

“Okay, yikes… That’s new,” Evie couldn’t help but notice as Mal wiped dog slobber from her face.

“Yeah… I certainly don’t remember the human Evie doing that,” Mal trailed off, furrowing her brow as she realized the slimy spit was not removing itself from her so easily.

“Evie, let me ask you before you do that again, what happened?” Mal questioned finally, raising an eyebrow as she watched Evie’s snout carefully in case she needed to dodge.

“Well, the truth gummy let me talk again! Which I am super hyped about!!!” Mal’s eyes went wide as Evie suddenly started to spin in circles in the midst of her pure enthrallment at the fact that she was actually able to speak once again. Mal shook her head, recollecting herself as she proceeded to repeat her inquiry.

“No, how did this whole turning into a dog thing happen?” Mal asked, and Evie quickly stilled as her ears suddenly laid back firmly as her head drooped low.

“Um… It’s actually a funny story,” Evie grinned, her perfectly white teeth showing in a guilty expression. Mal crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for Evie to explain, getting a suspicious feeling that Evie must have done something that she shouldn’t have.

And so, Evie launched into her tale, pun not intended.

∞

Evie had decided to search for Celia in her room as a first resort. However, before she could get very far, she realized that she actually needed to know where it was so she could find it.

So, after asking five passersby of the AK student body and finally spotting Dizzy in the midst of the crowd, Evie at long last discovered where the girl was staying. Evie couldn’t help but be really surprised at the small amount of people that knew where Celia was living.

Evie approached the girl’s door and knocked on it carefully.

“Hey, Celia? Are you home?” Evie questioned, and she heard quite a bit of rustling around before she received a response.

“Yeah! Come on in!” the girl cried in a much too cheerily and out of breath sort of manner to keep Evie’s suspicions at bay. The bluenette entered the room with her brow furrowed disappointedly, preparing to guilt trip the girl into returning the book.

For her part, Celia was sitting there on the bed as innocently as she could manage, leaned back against a barrage of pillows on her bed. Evie immediately conjectured where she felt that the spell book likely was, and she tilted her head as she looked at the Facilier.

“Celia, I think you’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you,” Evie started, and Celia’s eyes imperceptibly widened as she obviously tried to maintain all semblances of innocence that she possibly could.

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. I’m just… Very disappointed in whoever did do it,” Evie expressed, sighing and pretending that she was just terribly distressed. Out of the corner of her vision, she watched as Celia lost a considerable amount of her façade.

“M’s worried sick about it, scared that some misunderstood, angry villain kid could have gotten his or her hands on it and could make a rash decision that could affect Auradon terribly,” Evie continued to try to draw Celia into her trap. Evie shook her head sadly.

“I just hope that we can find it before trouble strikes or before Mal has an aneurism,” Evie concluded, starting to leave out the door and mentally counting the moments before Celia would most assuredly admit her guilt.

“Evie, wait!” Celia called, and Evie turned around, her soulful brown eyes penetrating that of the other girl’s. Celia bit her lip and sighed before reaching under the pillow pile just behind her. She extended her arm, and Evie spotted Mal’s spell book.

Evie smiled her famous one-thousand-watt grin as she hurried over to Celia.

“Oh, thank you!” Evie cried out almost theatrically as she hugged the girl tightly, before pulling back to look her in the eye. “Now Mal won’t have to die of a heart attack.”

Celia giggled, rolling her eyes as Evie started out the door.

“Seriously, thank you, Celia, for doing the right thing,” Evie smiled sweetly, and Celia nodded to her. Evie winked before leaving out, shutting the door behind her.

Now she had to find Mal. Her first instinct was to reach for her phone to text the other girl, but it quickly occurred to her that she had left her phone at Mal’s castle because it had a low battery charge. Evie sighed, but started through the school in search of her best friend.

Before long, however, Evie found that curiosity was prickling at the edges of her mind, pushing her to open the infamous spell book that was so revered. Evie at first dismissed this thought. After all, something bad could happen. However, she was not magical, and therefore there should theoretically be no dangers to just looking through the book. So, Evie tentatively opened it, and she started to look through the pages.

“Huh, a potion for speaking foreign languages… A spell for photographic memory… These sound like something that someone would use if they were a really bad student,” Evie muttered to herself, giggling at the thought of such a dangerous book being utilized for such harmless activities.

Evie flipped to another section of the book, hoping to read something that was at least a little more interesting. She read several more spells before finally finding one that sounded absolutely ridiculous.

“My goodness, who in the world would use that? That is just silly!” Evie rolled her eyes. She looked around, ensuring that no one was nearby, before poising herself in a Mal-like position where she held her hand in that familiar posture and read the spell aloud to herself.

“Let your word become a howl, snarl, or bark, spirit animal, make your mark,” Evie waved her hand, giggling at the ridiculous sound of the spell. However, she suddenly felt an odd tingle in her head, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she fell to the ground hard.

After a few moments, or a few minutes, or a few hours- Evie honestly wasn’t sure how long it had been- Evie’s eyelids fluttered open, and her muscles felt exceedingly sore as she gathered herself so that she was resting on all fours. Evie blinked hard, looking down at her hands. Or at least, where her hands would have been. Instead of hands, there were two charcoal-shaded paws there in front of her.

The girl yelped in pure surprise, sitting on her behind as she tried to raise her arms to look at them. However, she couldn’t keep her balance, and she fell on her back. Evie looked down her chest to see hairy back legs and a long tail tucked between her legs fearfully. Evie’s eyes went wide as it suddenly occurred to her that she was certainly no human any longer.

She was a dog.

∞

“And then I went to find you, because I was kind of lowkey freaking out, and I knew you could fix it,” Evie panted happily, her pride and trust in her sister overshadowing all of the other negative emotions surrounding the situation.

“What happened to the spell book?” Mal questioned desperately, and Evie gaped at the other girl, her mouth hanging slightly ajar as she considered the inquiry.

“Well… I don’t know. I completely forgot about it in the middle of all this,” Evie whined, and Mal instinctively reached out to the other girl, placing a hand on her thickly furred neck carefully as the faerie resisted the urge to be very frustrated and irritated at the bluenette.

“Why did you play with the spell book?” Mal asked her finally as she tried to keep her voice controlled and attempted to keep any signs of anger out of it so she wouldn’t make Evie feel any worse than she already did. But Evie obviously picked up on it, and the dog immediately moved closer to the slightly younger girl.

“I don’t know! I thought it’d be cool to pretend to be magical like you, and I didn’t think it’d work really. I have no magic at all,” Evie told the faerie, resting her chin on Mal’s knee.

“Please don’t be mad at me,” Evie whimpered, looking up at Mal with those big brown eyes that so successfully got anyone to do almost anything that Evie wanted. The effects of Evie’s puppy-dog eyes seemed to be tenfold now that Evie had actually transformed into a dog.

Mal stared at her for a moment, and finally groaned with a smile, patting the back of Evie’s neck gently as she pushed away all of the negative feelings.

“I’m not mad,” Mal assured her, and Evie immediately perked up, her ears alert as she panted happily.

“Oh, good!” Evie lunged forward, licking Mal’s face before she could stop herself. Mal winced in disgust and Evie pulled back quickly.

“But I really wish you’d stop doing that,” Mal admitted, wiping furiously at her cheek with her sleeve.

“I’m so sorry, M! I don’t know what keeps getting into me! It’s almost like I’m fused with an actual dog,” Evie explained somewhat worriedly. Mal furrowed her brow, tilting her head as she considered the thought.

“Maybe you are, Evie. Maybe you’re thinking like a human, but given that you’re in a dog body, you’re getting certain dog urges,” Mal suggested, finding that thought rather interesting.

Almost as if she were accentuating Mal’s statement, Evie raised one of her hind legs to scratch behind her ear thoroughly. However, mid-scratch, she regained control of herself and she stopped quickly, bringing her foot back down to the floor.

“Well, that’s embarrassing,” Evie announced to the fae, ducking her head as she looked away. Mal hummed in response, considering Evie’s actions and newfound behaviors.

“As long as you don’t go licking your butt in public, I guess it’ll be okay,” Mal joked, and Evie’s eyes widened in horror as she considered the thought.

“I do not plan to do that!” Evie emphatically expressed, and Mal stood up carefully, her lips pursed as her thoughts slightly shifted from the dog at hand.

“We’re going to need to find that spell book so we can change you back,” Mal proclaimed, and Evie nodded her head.

“C’mon, we need to inform the squad about this,” Mal angled her head to cue Evie to follow her. Of course, it was quite needless because Evie was already practically glued to her side.

“We should probably go see Carlos first,” Evie suggested, and Mal nodded. “After all, he’s still going to Auradon Prep, and he’ll have more opportunities to look for the spell book.”

And so they headed out in hopes of quickly resolving this issue of dogdom. Little did they know, this fix was not going to be found nearly as quickly as they hoped.

#evie #dog #mal #descendants #D3 #mal bertha #descendants mal bertha #descendants mal #descendants evie #descendants evie grimhilde #evie grimhilde #bertha #grimhilde

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beneaththetangles · 5 years

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A New Perspective on Howl’s Moving Castle

I decided to watch a Studio Ghibli film I hadn’t seen yet and give my first impressions of it. So I watched Howl’s Moving Castle, which had the misfortune of being released at a time when my interest in anime (and movies and television in general) were at a low ebb. It also had the misfortune of being the Hayao Miyazaki film that followed after Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. I’ve long internalized the idea that people found Howl to be vaguely disappointing, and perhaps if I’d seen it back in 2004, I’d have agreed: compared to its immediate predecessors, it is a disappointment. But those movies were arguably two of the greatest ever made. Howl is merely a good movie, but appreciated on those terms it is quite good (maybe even great).

Anyhow, the movie is set in a fantasy world reminiscent of late 19th century Europe. A lot of hubbub is made about an impending war between two vaguely defined nations. Our hero is Sophie, a somewhat withdrawn milliner who happens to briefly cross paths with the wizard Howl. This leads to her running afoul of the jealousies of someone known as the Witch of the Waste; she puts a curse on Sophie that ages her into an old woman and prevents her from disclosing what has happened. Ashamed, Sophie flees her home and is eventually picked up by the eponymous castle, which also includes Howl’s apprentice, Markl and a fire spirit named Calcifer who keeps the engines running. Howl turns out to be a vain and selfish man, and his castle is enough of a sty that Sophie appoints herself as its cleaner. Of course it’s also up to Sophie to thaw Howl’s heart and fall in love with him.

The central flaw of the movie is in its overlap of somewhat contradictory narrative impulses. Princess Mononoke, for all its fantasy, was fundamentally grounded in a central geopolitical conflict; Spirited Away, on the other hand, gave itself entirely away to surreal, fairy tale logic. Howl tries to do both: we’re given to believe that the aforementioned war is central to the story, but it feels like it belongs to an entirely different movie than the more intimate one which is concerned with the whimsical goings on at Howl’s castle. It’s hard for Miyazaki’s anti-war themes to stick when the stakes are so abstract and ill-defined that we have trouble caring (I suspect that Diane Wynne Jones’ original novel has more space to flesh these things out).

But inasmuch as it centers around Sophie, I think the film acquits itself rather well. The “true love overcomes all obstacles” aspect of it may not be the most original or daring thing for a children’s movie to do, but it’s nevertheless heartfelt.

More interesting is the movie’s treatment of old age, which is far more nuanced than the setup suggests. It creates problems for Sophie, but also seems to grant her a curious freedom, no longer feeling bound by the societal pressures put upon her as a young person. It also creates a bit of an inversion of gender stereotypes seen in pop romances: Howl is the beautiful one (and admittedly his fashionista ways are more than a little relatable to me, as is his seeming inability to keep his home sanely organized), while Sophie is given the allowance to be less than stunning.

Anyway it’s rare in pop culture, which is often so youth-obsessed, to have an elderly protagonist (even if by way of a magic curse). It makes perfect sense to want to tackle it in the context of a children’s movie: childhood and old age are the phases in life where we are more vulnerable and at some removed from the norm (though as someone who is only in his early thirties, I speak somewhat more speculatively here). As adults, we don’t always like to be reminded of these things, and we sometimes place such a high importance on being useful, productive and autonomous that we can even actively resent those that aren’t.

But I digress. Howl’s Moving Castle may underline the transitory nature of youth, but it has quite a pretty face. I don’t think even Spirited Away quite matches its visual splendour. The castle itself is a marvel of animation, and everything from the ornately designed backdrops to the variety of surreal and at times grotesque supernatural beings has such a stunning attention to detail. Even the war scenes are almost perversely beautiful in their striking ember colours. I’ve heard some complaints about the movie’s languid pace, but when it looks this good, I can appreciate the extra running time.

I’m glad I watched it. Part of me regrets not giving it the time when it was new, but I feel that visiting it now, with different expectations and a different perspective, has afforded me more enjoyment than it would have in my teenage years. I already want to watch it again and see how my thoughts on it deepen.

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Howl’s Moving Castle is available for purchase on Amazon. Featured illustration by ハラダミユキ (reprinted w/permission).

#Anime #Howl no Ugoku Shiro #Howl's Moving Castle #Studio Ghibli #Ghibli Month #Age #Old age #Youth #Articles #Author: Josh W

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mathiaskillmaster · 5 years

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My GOT Ending: The Battle of King’s Landing (Episode 5 Season 8) Part 4

Although having lost his rider, Drogon remains galvanized by the fury of the fight against his dragon brother. Viserion closes his mouth on the left wing of Drogon and the two flying creatures start an aerial balet and fall faster and faster, towards the red dungeon. From the throne room, Brienne, Bronn, and Sandor, through a window, perceive with horror the imminent arrival of the two dragons towards them, and hasten to leave the throne room, while carrying with them the body of Jaime. In the anarchic melee, Drogon in a momentum manages to bite and close his jaws on the neck of Viserion, and tightening more and more, literally tries to tear his brother's head off. Seeing the impact more and more imminent, the Night King jumps from Viserion and lands on his feet on the cobblestones of a street, in the middle of the carnage orchestrated by his own troops. Biting each other, Drogon and Viserion, in a last breath of common flames, collide with the roof of the throne room and destroy a large part of it. In the impact, Drogon managed to pull off Viserion's head, killing him once and for all, but the big dragon suffered terribly from the shock and moans weakly in the middle of the rubble. ********* Daenerys survived her fall, dampened by the providencial presence of a big canvas from a shopkeeper's stall in a commercial street. Yet sounded, she watched helplessly and horrified the fall of the two dragons in the red dungeon, which plunges her back a brief moment in her vision of the hall of the destroyed iron throne room. Slightly limping, the queen of dragons roam among the streets, contemplating the chaos around her. In order to better protect herself, she seizes an abandoned sword on the ground. In the midst of cries, she suddenly hears a familiar voice. _ "Khaleesi!" Jorah appears, repeling a few wights in his path, and ends up joining the young queen, more than happy to see him. A wight, however, disrupts the reunion by jumping on Jorah, but Daenerys kills him by piercing his skull with the weapon picked up earlier. Jorah thanks Daenerys and brings her in the direction of the port. On his side, the Night King makes his way in the streets and armed with his sword of ice, massacres all the inhabitants and the soldiers within his reach, while continuing to raise the dead with his terrible power. That's when he comes face to face with Ser Jorah and Daenerys. Immediately, Jorah works to protect his queen and blocks the first sword's blow of the terrible ice king. Jorah in turn tries a riposte, but is easily countered by the monster. Daenerys refuses to see her friend risk his life alone and tries to attack the Night King by the side with her sword. But by his superhuman reflexes, the king of the walkers blocks with one hand the blade of the young queen and looks at her with his sharp blue eye. With a simple gesture, he pushes her back with incredible violence, making her fall to the ground. Seeing this, Jorah tries a final stab, but the Night King avoids it again, passing behind Jorah and with his ice sword, strikes the Andal knight's back all the way up and down, leaving him a deep bloody slash. Daenerys lets out a scream as Jorah, hit hard, falls to one knee on the ground, under the impassive gaze of the Night King. Daenerys rushes to Ser Jorah, and with the energy of desperation, manages to raise him up and take him with her in the opposite direction. The Night King begins to follow them to finish them, but soon he seems to give up and turns his cold eyes towards the partially destroyed red dungeon. Drogon does not seem to have recovered from the fall. The Night King then begins his decided march towards the red dungeon to finish Drogon himself and make him his new undead dragon. ********* For their part, Daenerys, supporting her friend knight as much as possible, continues to advance as fast as possible in the middle of the chaotic streets. Everywhere around them, the cries of the living and the howling of zombies resound, as do the incessant sounds of slaughter. Daenerys and Jorah are forced to make a detour through an alleyway to find the street in front of them suddenly being invaded by the undead, raging on the Lannister soldiers and the inhabitants present. A giant, with a huge wooden mass, hammered relentlessly in front of him, striking and throwing several Lannister soldiers into the air or against the walls of the houses. Daenerys and Jorah manage to sneak into the alley without the giant noticing their presence and the latter, uttering a bestial roar, continues his slaughter. _ "Khaleesi ..." manages to articulate Jorah in an impetus of conscience "... I am only slowing you down ... leave me here ... save your life ..." _ "That's out of the question ..." Daenerys answers firmly, close to tears "... what kind of queen would I be if I don't defend my friends?!" But at the exit of the alley, the young khaleesi is suddenly seized to the throat by the white and cold hand of a white walker, who lifts her off the ground like a feather and stares at her his monstrous blue eyes. Paralyzed by the monster's iron grip, Daenerys can only shake her legs. _ "Khaleesi!" screams Jorah in despair and despite the serious wound and blood loss, rushes to the white walker to hit him with his sword. But the white walker also catches the Andal knight by the throat, and slowly begins to strangle his two victims with his cold hands. Feeling his throat tightly, Jorah can not move. Feeling her breath cut, Daenerys looks at Jorah's sword, still in his hand. With great effort, Daenerys manages to take her friend's Valyrian steel sword, and with a desperate blow, pierces the belly of the white walker with it. The monster freezes, collapsing into thousands of pieces of ice that spread on the ground while Daenerys and Jorah fall to the ground, coughing hard and rubbing their throats. After being able to get up, Daenerys returns her sword to Jorah and continues to support him to walk. ********* From the Dragonpit, Bran enters a new trance and his spirit takes possession of Drogon. For him, out of the question that another dragon does not become the slave of the Night King. Now possessed by the spirit of the three-eyed raven, Drogon stands up and flies away from the ruins of the castle. The Night King seeing this, seizes another of his javelins of ice and throws it with all his might towards the dragon, but the latter manages to avoid it justly. From the sky, Bran can see the gigantic shadow that he spreads over the streets of King's Landing, bringing him back to another vision he had had before. In the skin of the dragon, Bran begins to blow the fire, to kill as many wights as possible. Unfortunately, many civilians and living soldiers are also carried away in the torrents of fire, the sensibility having become a foreign feeling for Bran. ********* In the streets of the capital in total chaos, Jon, Arya and Gendry continue to run as far as possible, making their way between the wights trying to catch them. Jon is once again using Longclaw, shooting down three wights one after the other, while Arya uses her agility to take down the undead backwards and Gendry, armed with his hammer, deals with hitting those who are trying to grip his friends back. But suddenly, a wight, larger than the others catches Arya, stayed further back, by surprise and his hands comes to seize her by the throat and lift. Arya is horrified to the highest degree. Hodor! It's Hodor, blue-eyed and grunting like an animal that just catched her and tries to strangle her. How can that be? What is he doing here? Arya struggles, and is forced to pierce Hodor's eye with her dagger, killing him instantly and finally allowing him to find eternal rest. She ends up joining Jon and Gendry, taking a last look over her shoulder. ********* For their part, Tyrion and Davos, followed by a large number of civilians, finally cross the path of Daenerys and Jorah at the corner of a street. Davos comes to help Daenerys to bring the Andal knight in a bad state and having lost a lot of blood. They manage to reach the port, where are already the ships of the ironborn fleet, now under the control of Yara, open their doors and allow the first survivors to get on board. Once on board, Jorah is taken care of and Daenerys finds Yara. _ "It's a pleasure to meet you again, my queen ..... what are we doing now?" asks the ironborn lady. _ "Take all the survivors to Dragonstone, they will be safe there." the Queen of the Dragon answers without hesitation, which Yara accepts and continues to give orders to the sailors. From the ships, the archers cover the embarkation of the refugees by firing on the wights that are trying to approach. ********** Always in the streets of the ravaged city, but approaching more and more of the port, Sandor, Bronn and Brienne end up being joined by Jon, Arya and Gendry, and the two groups only forming one continues its frantic race for their survival. Behind them, a horde of more and more wights is formed and chases them. Unfortunately, following a leg injury inflicted by a creature, Gendry is lagging behind and begins to weaken dangerously. Sandor then lifts him and puts him like a potato bag on his shoulder and starts running again. Gendry thanks him, what Sandor responds with a "raah shut up, otherwise I leave you here!" But more than the wights, white walkers also begin to appear from nearby streets and head towards the group of fugitives. Even worse, Jon sees the Night King in person among them. In the sky, Drogon, still under the influence of Bran, is forced to stay at a distance so as not to wipe another javelin throw that could work this time. In the city, the last troops of Lannister soldiers finally give way under the immeasurable pressure of the undead. In order to gain precious seconds for their king in the north, the North soldiers who accompanied the commando form a small dam against the wights, but are quickly submerged and massacred by the creatures, under the eyes of Jon, helpless. In the background, the Night King continues to advance confidently, darting his gaze on the young king of the north. Jon's group finally reached the port, under the reassured eyes of their friends to see them arrive, but also the horror of seeing the hordes of dead approaching them. Under Yara's command, the iron-born archers, from the ships, continue to rain their arrows at the nearest undead to give the survivors time to board. Tyrion turned pale with terror at the sight of Brienne carrying Jaime's inert body, which she carefully placed on the deck, and turning her desolate look towards the dwarf, shakes her head nonchalantly, confirming the death of the knight to her little one brother, who could not help but burst into tears. Once on board, Jon sees Daenerys, herself near Ser Jorah seriously injured. The young king from the north joins his beloved and both share a strong embrace and a short kiss. Once the entire group boarded safely, the bridges are immediately removed, blocking access to the dead. A visibly more stubborn wight, however, manages to pounce and cling to the ship's rail, trying to get on board. Yara advances and with a violent blow of ax, decapses the undead which falls then with the water. Without further ado, the order is given and the ships begin to move progressively away from the wharves, under the observation of the Night King and his troops. ********* After having invaded almost all the districts of the capital, the army of the dead had advanced towards the doors of the red dungeon. Two giants knocked down the gates forcefully, allowing the dead troops to now spread through the high walled quarters of King's Landing. ********** Under the city, in the secret warehouse, Varys slices his veins with a knife, letting his blood flow freely and full with the powerful magic he once received from R'hllor himself through the ritual. The blood flows on the ground while the master spy collapses little by little, feeling the life leaving him. Putting her hands in the still fresh blood, Melisandre draws a new source of power. Fixing her gaze on the hundreds of jars of wildfire, she begins to recite an incantation in old Valyrian. With the blood of Varys and the presence of a dragon above King's Landing, the strength of wildfire is increased tenfold. Following the incantation, all the jars simultaneously detonate, triggering a cataclysmic explosion, pulverizing the priestess and the master spy who die together in this magic fire. The explosion is spreading rapidly through the underground and is dangerously close to the surface. At the Dragonpit, Drogon, still possessed by Bran, flies away and moves as far as possible, carrying Samwell on his back, himself holding the body of Bran still in trance, to shelter them. From the ships now far away from the city, all watch with astonishment and horror the devastating explosion, like a volcano erupting, swallowing the entire city in its envelope of green flames. The red dungeon, the city, the dragonpit, everything is covered by the flames, as well as the inhabitants and soldiers who could not escape in time, but also the entire army of the dead, the white walkers, and of course, the Night King. On the deck of the flagship commanded by Yara, the survivors: Daenerys, Jon, Arya, Sandor, Brienne, Gendry, Davos, Tyrion, Bronn and Jorah, the latter being very hurt and unable to stand without help, contemplate powerless the total destruction of the capital of the seven kingdoms, the giant column of flames rising to the sky. But in the middle of the steaming ruins of the capital, a pile of rubble shakes slightly and a pale blue hand emerges, attached to an arm and a body surrounded by an icy blue halo, slowly emerging and standing on his feet ..... in his monstrous blue eyes are reflected the silhouettes of the ships fleeing off .... the eyes of the sole survivor of the explosion .... The Night King.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #daenerys targaryen #fanfiction #deviation #jon snow #arya stark #white walkers #Night's King #dragons

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markandthemorons · 5 years

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The party are at the bounty list and find one that interests them.

‘Wolf Den needs clearing out, ask for Plinn at the Celestial Peanut for more details. 100 Gold payment, no negotiation.’

“This seems like one we could actually do” states Baern while looking at the other entries including ‘Missing Child’, ‘Bodyguards needed’ and ‘Flowers needed for artist’.

A little bit more shopping is done as Lucian a wood elf hunter (Josh) is introduced as always having been there *cough*, finding that most weapons they wanted are far out of their 30 gold savings. They work out that ‘The Celestial Peanut’ is a tavern to the North of the city, through the slums and a forest and to the edge of the large farmlands of the City of Illmere.

The group start North and meet a small girl by the Northern gate. She is about 8 or 9 years old & is trying to sell small wooden pendants with a coin image carved into them. Absolutely no-one is paying any attention to her, or even looking at her, so when the party approach her she is overjoyed!

“One silver each” she asks. Lucian immediately buys 4 of them for 1 gold coin, before she sells the last couple she has to Nip (formerly ‘Tort’), Baern and Varsha. She is thankful, “I can eat today” she is heard uttering as she then walks away. The party watch is slight horror as she walks through a wall, apparently a spirit. This is almost immediately forgotten when informed that the pendants make a copper coin appear in their possession every morning (but in a non stacking manner so having 3 just means you get 1 coin). No-one noticed if she had been wearing one of her own pendants...

Unfazed, the group continue into the slums. Lots of people, the path changes from stone to mud, and eventually the group see something up. A woman is being held against a wall in a small alley, a group clearly after something. One of the group, though, is a guard.

A shout out and some squaring up later, the guard is called to action by a cry in the distance that totally wasn’t created by Nikolaj as a distraction. The group are happy, the woman however is not. This is mostly because she is dead, a knife wound in her stomach that happened while the entire party focused on the guard. The one thing of note, though, is that a dead rat that was missing its head was left on her corpse.

The long journey which takes from sun up to sun down to reach ‘The Celestial Peanut’ successfully ends with them reaching it, getting some drinks and a free room out of it. Turns out the Wolves aren’t far to the south in the remains of a windmill, but one of them is larger and white. Easier to hunt at day while the wolves are sleeping, but Plinn states to bring something back as proof and he’ll provide a signed letter to take to Guard Captain Foli for the reward.

The group wait til morning and head south, it isn’t hard to find the windmill and quickly set up to fight. A sudden source of water kills half of the pack before they even notice the group, and a fight starts.

Quickly, the normal wolves fall. The large white one is clearly un-natural as Baern charges into the building and suddenly finds he can’t move. The wolf moves to Lucian and Baern suddenly finds himself stuck on his own inside as Oriben runs up to the door, through a whole in the wall and is gone as fast as he appeared.

The wolf deals some damage and ends up magically restraining Nip and Varsha as well, before suddenly letting out a piercing howl. Another large white wolf shimmers into existence approximately 1/10th of an inch away from Nikolaj.

The first white wolf falls. The second wolf stays on Nikolaj as Baern gets desperate as he is still somehow stuck in one place. He throws everything, his hammer, his shield and he probably threatened to throw his undershirt as well. As this is going on Nikolaj flame grills the second into non-existence.

The group take trophies of pelts, heads, fangs and claws. Varshas backpack is then filled with wolf meat whether they like it or not.

Plinn is approached, he is overjoyed! He writes a letter for the reward, buys the meat and the group rest again having quite a few wounds to tend to. They even buy a meal of wolf meat to celebrate. Baern and Nip have an arm wrestling competition, loser cooks food from their homeland. Nip loses. Seafood meal for all?

Over the course of another day the group return to the capital and consider getting some armour and capes made from the pelts, but don’t in the end. They manage to sell the wolf head, though, so that’s something. They find the artist that wanted flowers on the bounty board, Song Flowers, brilliant white and in the shape of a Trumpets end. He wants it for a painting and they grow to the South East on hills. The group decide they might bother flower picking if they ever feel up to the highly difficult task before moving on.

They do come across a fellow performing on a flute, people joyously listening to him play outside of the main arena of the city, ‘The Ring’. They do notice however that as he finishes the people watching start placing reasonably expensive items into his bag for tips.

They approach and subtly hint that they noticed. He winks and the group simply laugh. He gives them a gold coin each, taps his nose and asks them to stay quiet. The group decide as they lost nothing they don’t care. So that’s magic induced theft to ignore as a plot point it seems!

Guard Captain Foli is the last order of the day. She is a warforged, literally built to be head of the royal guard 24/7. She has a thinner frame and exists not just to guard, but to be the main point of contact between people trying to speak to the King and/or Queen, as well as being in charge of things like bounties for the city. She was made to be more affable and pleasing to look at than her main underlings, also all warforged, hulking genderless humanoids patrolling the grounds and walls outside the Royal Castle (a.k.a. the Keep).

She is pleasant and her eyes flash green as she looks at Nip, stating she has never seen someone like them before. Then the letter from Plinn is handed over, her eyes change to white as she reads it and her left hand disappears into her arm for a moment before producing the 100 Gold reward. Nip asks if they ever go red, Foli responds that they do not want to see red. She asks that if they help with any others they come see her.

and then it got too cold and we called it.

#d&d #d&d 5e #dungeons and dragons #5e #d&d story

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howlingmoonrise · 6 years

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Dear Yuletide Author

thank you for signing up for yuletide, i hope you have fun!

i’ve put all my letters in one place so you don’t have to juggle links around, feel free to send me an anon (is that allowed?) if you’re in doubt as to whether i’d like a certain trope or not! (and so sorry about all the ranting oops)

things i like in general:

pining. TONS of pining. ALL the pining! i have a lot more fun reading about idiots in love that aren’t together yet than if they’re already in an established relationship

i’m good with either gen or romance if you’re not comfortable with shippy stuff! what really works for me is the relationship itself, platonic or not, the development of it, and the interactions/feelings regarding the other. when it comes to the characters i’ve picked, for me it makes sense for them to develop trust and fondness/affection for the other before they get into any sort of relationship so gen is all good!

i’m veeeeeery fond of enemies/rivals-to-friends-to-lovers, and bickering pairs overall (as you can see by all my choices in characters lmfao) since they’re so much fun and provide such an opportunity for character and relationship development :D

continuing from above, nothing kills me as much as characters that bicker all the time but in the end they rely on the other and go to each other before they go to anyone else

conceptual AUs are fine! by this i mean stuff like soulmate AUs, AUs where they met differently from canon, i’m-your-next-door-neighbour-and-i-had-to-break-into-your-flat-to-get-my-cat-back AUs, canon divergence, that kind of thing - AUs like that are super fun!

fun tropes (sorry, these are a bit romance-heavy): fake dating, “accidentally got roped into x thing and shenanigans are happening”, What Do You Mean We’re Not Dating?, “oh no there’s only one bed”, misunderstood confessions, trope subversion in general is also GREAT

i REALLY like the canon and characters for all the fandoms i picked, so sticking at least to their characterisations and the overall “tone” of canon are a huge plus!! “missing scenes” and “what if” canon-divergent situations are excellent but like i said, i also like conceptual AUs so don’t be afraid to mix up the scenario a bit if you enjoy it, because i do too!

things i don’t like a lot in general:

kidfics. unless it’s petshop of horrors - where Chris and the pets are an exception - next gen and stuff are a pass for me

far into the future fics in general, actually - what really does it for me is the development, so if we skip ahead to much later on i feel like we end up missing it all

i usually don’t like most angst stuff since it feels a bit gratuitous to me when it comes to most fandoms and characters. the one exception for this is psoh (see below if you’re picking this fandom) or when it’s introspection fic. as a result of this, i’d pass on most content with major character death, sexual abuse, self-harm, the like, though of course there are always exceptions to the rule and you’re free to write as you wish!

hard AUs are a bit ehhh to me - by this i mean world-heavy stuff like harry potter AUs, where the focus ends up more on the setting than the characters more often than not. i’d also pass on high school AUs (gsnk being the obvious exception) and ABO.

i heavily dislike things involving cheating/infidelity, and genderbending is a bit ehhhh for me

script-based or roleplay fic is not really my preferred format, i really enjoy prose instead of nearly all dialogue!

if you’re going for nsfw:

kinks: moderate sadism/masochism, bondage, choking/breathplay, xenophilia and tentacles (which only make sense here for like... 1.5 fandoms lmfao), moderate degradation, edging

squicks: scat, vomit, praise kink, daddy or baby kink, vore, forced feminization, pet play, gore

PETSHOP OF HORRORS

i’m usually not partial to angst AT ALL but psoh is the one fandom where i don’t mind it if you wanna go ahead - psoh is RIPE for angst. we got two people with abandonment and inadequacy issues: leon who decided to leave his whole life behind to chase someone who gave him life and left him after thinking that he didn’t care for him at all, and d who is supremely fucked up by his upbringing and had to push leon off the ark to continue his family’s mission and let drop one (1) single tear that he was not supposed to cry over a human.

THAT BEING SAID, i also!!!! love slice of life shit for them!!!!!!!! GODS i love how much they bicker but then they turn around and the other is the person they rely on the most and who they trust above all others and how they keep roping each other into ridiculous shenanigans. neither of them are particularly communicative with a few rare exceptions, so there’s also a lot of room for introspection there on both sides, which i LOVE. my son leon in particular is also super underestimated when it comes to his intelligence and tolerance for gay shit both in canon and fandom, and he performs ridiculous leaps of logic and instinct that somehow turn out to be right but that are super ???? for everyone else involved, and that’s always fun to see. hell, just another missing scene where leon brings d some cake and they banter fondly over tea is A++++ to me!!

nsfw???? bring it!!! this is the fandom amongst these three where you’re free to go super dark and kinky if you wanna, or if you wanna write tender loving reunion sex where d cries a little while leon cherishes every bit of him that’s also excellent!

psoh is the most excellent genre triangle where i’d be super happy to receive anything on the slice-of-life/angst/smut corners! (also, slash is 3249823% acceptable if you couldn’t tell by my ranting)

GEKKAN SHOUJO NOZAKI-KUN

yuzuki seo is my absolute favourite character on the series and i love her and how ridiculous she is! waka is also gr9, and i really love that little sadist streak he has going like when he kept teasing seo with his “confessions”, that was probably one of my favourite chapters!

for gnsk either canon-verse or a conceptual AU would be excellent - if you’re going AU, i’m very fond of those where seo is a siren/mermaid and possibly man-eating (because those are the best kind amirite??) canon-wise i LOVE their interactions and how waka keeps accidentally getting taken on lowkey dates while resolutely defending they’re not even friends and even more accidentally retributing those with thoughtful gifts and the like haha

another thing i love is when waka is capable of looking past appearances to see seo, like in the chapter where they gave her the “lorelei” makeover and no one recognized her but him. i also love how stupidly happy seo is whenever she sees waka, it’s so cute!!

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE

the thing i like the most in hmc are the characters’ flaws! i love the ghibli movie, don’t get me wrong, but they took away the bits i liked the most - sophie’s stubbornness and nosiness and temper and howl’s cowardice and vanity and his silver-tongue whenever he tries to slither around sophie, and all their banter and arguing.

there’s nothing quite like their stupid arguments where sophie pretends she didn’t mess around with things she shouldn’t and howl is torn between being amused and exasperated at her expense - even better if he’s trying to do something good sneakily behind her back so he won’t be accused of being a good person before he finds another excuse to justify it.

for this fandom i’d really prefer it if it were from anywhere from the beginning of the first book to before their marriage (i haven’t read the sequels and prefer non-established relationship anyway), but a conceptual AU would also be pretty nice! hmc in particular is very good for trope subverting, which i’m extremely fond of! for example, take a soulmate AU with the first words written on the skin thing: we could mess it up a bit since calcifer was in possession of howl’s heart and as such his first words would be on sophie instead of howl’s - cue shenanigans while sophie wonders how someone can have a soulmate bond with a sentient fire with no words of his own, howl panics internally about sophie not returning his mark, and so on!

another thing i love about the book is the writing style and that incredible sense of humour in the writing, so something lighthearted and in the spirit of canon would be great!

#howl rambles a lot #yuletide #yuletide 2018 #dear yuletide author

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