17. hostage situation
they didn't like the smile on the bandit's face, there ahead of them. they didn't like the muddy unsteadiness of their own footing and the five-odd paces of uphill ground between them. but most of all, most of all, they didn't like the dull glint of the blade the bandit held, hovering at the throat of the man kneeling before him.
"looks like this one matters to you," said the bandit, smirk twisting the side of his mouth up. "enough to tell your squad to stand off and look the other way for a bit?"
their mouth was bone-dry, sweat slippery against the hilt of their sword.
"don't play this game," they said, "it won't end well."
they meant it as a threat. it sounded like a prophecy.
Caid's eyes found theirs, across the distance, across the steely blade; unflinching as always, tired from the battle, dried blood from a forehead scratch matting his eyelashes.
"I'm waiting."
there were other bandits behind their leader in the trees, their shadowy forms clear; the ones they'd scattered already weren't half the number. the villagers were depending on them, their fields sparse enough in the oncoming winter.
under their breastbone a sick knot of fear tightened. around them, the other soldiers were silent, waiting no doubt to see what they would do.
they opened their mouth: to lie, to conceal, to say whatever they needed to. to make promises they would break, as soon as Caid was out of reach and into safety. they hoped that their ruse would be enough, that the truth of their fear showed in their eyes.
five-odd paces above them, Caid smiled, just a touch; then, quick as thought, hooked his boot around the bandit leader's ankle.
for half a heartbeat everything seemed to stop in the world, but then their frozen panic released them, and they were up the hillside before the blood spray met the ground.
the next thing clear in their memory was their hands all slippery with crimson, the wadded mess of their scarf not enough to stem the bleeding from the long gash slicing between Caid's neck and shoulder. the clamor of fighting around them seemed altogether distant where they knelt in the chilly mud.
"I was - I was going to - why did you - " they couldn't seem to make their words go in a line.
Caid's smile was almost spent, his voice thready.
"seemed - wrong - to make - you choose - "
"oh - you!" the lump in their throat was too heavy to speak around, the quick tide of blood ominously warm on their fingers. they blinked the burning tears out of their eyes, with no hand free to wipe them away.
"oh - don't - cry." Caid spoke slower now, eyes slipping closed. "it's - all right - "
they'd scold him properly later. later, for certain.
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I just want to thank the person that made the executive decision to put levi in that fine ass grey shirt bc he looks so damn good idc idc its his best outfit and wee need more
season 3 was the best bc like 40% of it was levi in this outfit hi lynn
Im really feeling youthful rn guys this is really like throwback monday or smthn
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oh my god i'm so in love with all the fic ideas you talked about, but especially the last two with the castles kidnapping matt in like a friendly and well-meaning way. it's so funny to me and also the dynamic here would be absolutely excellent. never realised i needed a pro-crime hyper-competent maria castle in my life but apparently i do???
the dynamic in those, but especially the christmas one, is fucking hilarious. i love it so much. i'd write it tomorrow if i had the time
like the castles are treating this like one of those times where you pick up a puppy out of a cardboard box in a kmart parking lot and like, it's a little scrawny and underfed and feral and yeah, it probably would have been smarter to pick one out of the shelter where at least you know they've been checked out and have their shots and everything, but you know, the kids wanted one so bad and it's christmas, and it's cold and the poor thing's probably going to freeze to death in the cardboard box, so you bring it home, and suddenly it's in these new and unfamiliar surroundings and it keeps trying to skitter out the front door every time it opens, so maybe you have to keep it in a back room or tied up for a while and you hand feed it treats until it stops trying to run away and like, you know eventually the puppy's going to warm up to you as long as you treat it right and when that happens you'll have a happy new member of the family that you can probably shove felt reindeer antlers on for the family christmas card
meanwhile matt's treating this like a fucking kidnapping
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why are they all different creatures. why does will’s dragon look like a combination of the thesselhydra and the creature on the hellfire dnd board. what actually even IS that creature, because initially i thought it was a dragon but i can also see it as a kneeling demon holding something overhead, but it’s hard to tell because it’s so blurry and im not familiar with dnd figurines so im just ???
there’s a clearer version on the left, but it looks different too. like, as much as i can acknowledge there being production errors, that just looks like a different figure because of the wing that wasn’t there before, but the angle of the head doesn’t seem to have changed? maybe i’m just struggling with perception, but it just doesn’t seem the line up no matter how i look at it. the first looks like a demon, but the second looks a lot more like a dragon in my opinion
my brother made a point to me a while ago about how he thinks the thesselhydra was meant to represent the mind flayer because in S3, when part of it was cut off and trapped in the rightside up, it still manages to work, sort of like how when you cut off a hydra’s head two more grow back. something similar happens in S4 with the mind flayer still being active in russia even though it isn’t attached to the original being.
with the other creature, i just think it might be connected because of the possibility that it’s a dragon since we haven’t had any other proper dragon imagery since S2 with the dragon’s lair (i think that has more to do with max being the proud princess than the dragon itself, but the dragon is probably relevant too). there’s also the dragon imagery on one of dustin’s shirts this season, but that dragon doesn’t have multiple heads either so it’s not the same thing as will’s dragon. i think that will’s dragon and dustin/the hellfire dragon are different creatures because will’s dragon is red (mf storm colored) and has multiple heads whereas the other dragon is gold and only has one head
this is all a just saying that i think it’s possible that the final battle could be against a giant, dragon-like creature (one that possibly grows from something else we’ve seen?) that the mind flayer overtakes or something similar. this is mostly just a lot of thoughts, but it’s all very hmshxgdjedhakdvwhjVsgenVzjcmsjshdhljd y’know?
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It's contact sheet btw - if you want the nicer shots of that shoot you'll need hostage shirt though
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There might be some some old posts in the hostage shirt, but I'm fixing them as soon as I post this
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