#i don’t even need the tablet that badly i can fall back to my ancient laptop for most things

[jcbmcdrmtt]

Sorry if I am not as good about tagging stuff for the foreseeable future. I shattered the screen of my tablet (to the point where there are chunks missing and glass dust coming off under your fingers and you can see the electronics under the screen), and I normally use that + a keyboard case to browse tumblr. I’m using my phone now which means a.) no physical keyboard, and b.) I don’t have as much battery life so my time is more limited. I do not see a point where I can replace the tablet or get it fixed anytime soon either.

All that coupled with the fact that I normally use tumblr in a browser, not the mobile app, means it’s a lot harder to tag things now, especially if I can’t just tap to apply OP’s/the reblogger’s tags because they didn’t add any or i don’t like what they used etc.. Tumblr mobile is honestly tiny and kind of crap on my phone browser - the keyboard makes the screen elements squish together and some things like tag rearranging are broken.

TL;DR: You may possibly see more untagged posts from me in the coming weeks. I apologize, understand if you unfollow, and just. Yeah. I guess I just wanted to explain myself as I normally pride myself on my tagging etiquette.

#i was so sad when it happened #it actually fell like 10 ft because I dropped it while going down the stairs #right in front of my sister and brother in law too #we all froze and they audibly gasped when i picked it up and the glass chips fell on the floor #i walked back to the kitchen to begin making my lunch and i could tell they were horrified because they just stood there in the doorway #in silence #they know how much i use/depend on/love my tablet i’m on it so much and i use it as my primary computing device #so they just stood there in horrified silence while i walked away and my BIL asked if i needed anything and i said no i’m good #and i sounded so normal???? which i hated because i was very much NOT okay like after they left i say in the living room petting their dog #and crying a bit #idk why my default response to situations like this is to pretend everything’s fine?? #i know HOW i can do- being in the closet for a decade will make you a great actor #but i’ve been out for ANOTHER decade now #i thought i had worked past that instinct #apparently not #fuck that took forever to type on my tiny ass keyboard AND i lost 2% battery while i did it #fuck this #i don’t even need the tablet that badly i can fall back to my ancient laptop for most things #but now i have to sit in my room alone to do all my tumbling instead of introvert socializing on the couch with my sister and BIL #i think i cried mostly because life just keeps kicking me #i quit my awful awful job on the verge of a mental breakdown and then proceeded to take a full fucking year to realize the trauma from that #was WAY worse than i had originally thought and i was straight up mentally no longer able to work in IT/computer programming anymore #i lost my apartment and i literally would have been living in my car until that got repossessed too and then been homeless #if it wasn’t for my family offering me financial support and a place to live #and i am SO privileged to have a support network that is both willing and able to help me out like that #but sometimes i have a panic spiral when i think about the fact that i could have EASILY become another statistic #another person who became unhoused because of mental health struggles at the perfectly wrong time #without my family i would have been living in a bus stop enclosure by now #it terrifies me how close i came to that. a homeless person came up to me and asked for money the other day and i almost started crying #both because of how scared i was that that could have been (and still could eventually be) me

[doomed-corruption-au]

Doomed Corruption: Prologue

Peridot growled, slamming her limb enhancers on the table in rage. She could only watch as they destroyed both her extended touch stump bases, smashing them to bits. These “Crystal Gems,” whoever they were, were a menace. She could only sit there in anger as she watched the defective amethyst slam the extended touch stump base into the main power crystal in the center of the far wall.

“I’M REPORTING THIS,” she shouted. “YOU HEAR ME!? You all have-”

Then her feed cut out, meaning they only heard part of her rant.

Grumbling, Peridot minimized the live feed, which had since turned to static. She read her log over again, correcting a few errors in the text. That voice reader technology was still a work in progress, and whatever that “Steven” was, the reader didn’t recognize its voice as well as it could with gems.

Well. At least he’d given her something to work with. She looked at the list of humans he’d given her, wondering what “Sadie”s looked like, or “Lars”s or “Onion I Think”s. That one, in particular, sounded odd, but the Steven should know better than she would.

Why had those Crystal Gems defended that Steven? Was it important in some way?

Ug. Whatever. She had better things to do than wonder about some random organic species on a doomed planet, anyway.

She growled. Those Crystal Gems were going to be a problem. If only one of her plug robonoids made it to the Kindergarten, that could only mean they destroyed the rest. Just like her Red Eye. Or the Homeworld warp. Or the robonoids sent to repair the Homeworld warp.

Who were they? The way the pearl spoke, they seemed to think themselves as important. The pearl shouting “WE ARE STILL ALIVE” rang in Peridot’s ears. It sounded like it meant something.

She had to know. Setting aside her log, she stood up and stormed over to the nearest warp pad. One quick flash of light later and a short journey, she was standing in front of the Homeworld hall of records.

The building was large, holding data logs and reports that dated up to nearly 20,000 years ago, when the technology and gem glyph were first fabricated. Some logs had been written on physical material, like old stones, and were starting to fall apart with age. Gems were working to translate what they could into more modern technology, but for some of those ancient logs, it was too late.

Not what she was looking for, anyway. The logs were sorted by year. Pink Diamond owned Earth, and she was shattered just over 5,000 years ago. Peridot started there first.

There were a few other gems mingling about, but none questioned her present. Even though she had no business being there, they left her alone, assuming she was doing research assigned to her rather than coming here on her own curiosity. She should be okay as long as no one asked her anything.

The Cluster, which she did extended research on, was implanted in the Earth shortly after Pink had been shattered, with a few hundred years difference. It had been commissioned by Yellow Diamond, and took several hundred years to assemble. Once it was done, it had to incubate for a thousand times longer than a normal, average gem, meaning it incubated for 5,000 years. This was all old information to Peridot.

What she didn’t ever think to question was why the Cluster was planted in the first place.

A rebellion. Rose Quartz- she’d heard of her, but never knew she had an ARMY- and her renegade pearl. A thousand years of fighting. A second Kindergarten (where apparently the perfect Jasper was made from, amazingly). Fusions running rampant. It was a nightmare.

So that’s who they were. Traitors to their Homeworld, and allies of those who shattered Pink Diamond.

Shoving the tablet in her hands away from her, Peridot ran out of the records hall. She rushed to the nearest communicator, typing in her command as fast as possible. She earned a couple of looks from nearby gems, but once she hurriedly explained the Crystal Gems and their status on Earth, they became just as horrified.

Yellow Diamond had to know.

-

Yellow read and reread the report. The Crystal Gems were still alive. There was no way. It had to be a mistake. And she knew that the incompetent Peridot who wrote the report would not be let off easily for this mistake. She would see to that.

“My Diamond,” her pearl called out, “the Peridot you requested has arrived.”

Without looking at her, Yellow simply nodded. “Step forward.”

There was a beat of silence. During it, Yellow reread the report again. There was no way.

“...My Diamond?” the peridot asked nervously.

Yellow sighed, then finally looked her way. She moved only her eyes, and watched as the peridot stiffened under her gaze. “What.”

“Um...” the peridot was shaking badly. “Y-you asked... to see me?”

“Yes. I did.” Turning fully to her now, Yellow gave her a long glare. “Tell me, what makes you think the Crystal Gems are still alive on Earth?”

The peridot straightened. “I am the peridot assigned to check up on the Cluster, My Diamond, but all of my equipment kept getting destroyed. Most recently, one of my plug robonoids successfully made it to the Kindergarten, which was immediately destroyed by three gems and a ‘Steven.’ I tried to fight them, but they destroyed the facility’s base touch stumps and cut the power.”

Yellow hummed. “What makes you so sure they were Crystal Gems?”

“Th-they told me!” Peridot pulled up her log, flipping through them as if to re-verify this information for herself. “The pearl announced ‘because we are the Crystal Gems. We are still alive and we are still the guardians of this planet.’ I, um,” she looked around nervously, as if she were about to get in trouble, “I’d never heard of the Crystal Gems before she told me herself.”

Yellow’s glare became a frown. “What gems did you see?”

“A defective amethyst, a pearl, and a cross fusion.”

Yellow stiffened. Those definitely sounded like defective gems that would have become a part of Rose’s army. But.... She squinted. “Did you see a rose quartz?”

Peridot looked around for a second, before squeaking out a weak “...No?”

Great. “That means she either got destroyed in our attack, or she split off from the group you encountered, meaning there could be more.”

“My Diamond?”

“Great. Perfect! All these years, and they’re still out there!” Yellow stood up abruptly, slamming her hand on the arm of her chair. The peridot jumped and scuttled backward a few steps, but forced herself to remain still afterward.

Yellow ignored her. She stomped forward a few paces, hand clenched at her side, the other waving around animatedly. “I don’t understand. Our attack should have destroyed all gems on Earth. How did- WHY did her army survive?”

Before the peridot could answer, Yellow had stormed back over to her chair. She snatched up the Diamond Line communicator, rotating it so the two blue triangles aligned. After a moment of wait, Blue Diamond appeared on-screen.

She was wiping her eyes (because of course she was), trying her best to look presentable. “Oh, Yellow,” she greeted less-than-animatedly. “It’s good to speak with you again. Tell me, is something going on?”

“Yes, I’m afraid there is.” Yellow looked around, then noted the peridot still standing there. She shot her a look of fire as if she were the source of all of Yellow’s problems. “You there! You’re dismissed. Leave my chambers at once!”

The peridot jumped again, quickly slapped together some form of a solute, then shot out the door before Yellow could do much else.

Now that they were alone once again, Yellow sighed. She pressed two fingers together on the bridge of her nose, trying not to lose her cool. “Blue. I have received terrible news.”

Blue cringed. “...Yes, Yellow? What is it?”

She steeled herself before saying; “...the Crystal Gems are still alive.”

“WHAT?!” Blue shot up, standing now. Her icy look could have shot Yellow through the gem had it been aimed at her. “Yellow, there’s no way! We destroyed them!”

“I KNOW!” Yellow shouted back. “But I have a transcript of the report. I read it. Multiple times.”

Blue started to tear up again. “Oh, no, Pink...” she sobbed. “All of these years, we thought we’d avenged you...”

“Apparently not,” Yellow growled. “And I want to see to it that we finish the job.”

“But of course!” Blue glared at Yellow. “What else are we to do, sit here and continue on while knowing they’re still out there?!”

“Yes, exactly.” Yellow stood up straighter, trying to regain her cool. “I’ll send a message to White. Now I just need to convince her to join us. She’ll likely tell us to just wait for the Cluster to emerge.”

“Well, that should do it,” Blue mused, “but I’d feel much better in doing the damage myself.”

“Agreed.” Yellow closed her eyes, definitely keeping her anger in check enough to think rationally. “I will get on that immediately.”

“You better.” Blue looked away. “We leave as soon as we can.”

Yellow gave Blue a single nod. Then, the communicator went dark, and Blue’s image disappeared.

To be continued...

#prologue #doomed corruption #doomed corruption au #su #su au #marble madness #peridot #peridot su #yellow diamond #blue diamond #uh oh spaghettios

[loveafterthefact]

Love After the Fact Chapter 49: Inheritance

Lance is compelled to speak to his father.

First  Previous  Next

It starts toward the end of winter, but still early. Keith knows he’s in trouble the moment he wakes. There’s a slight, aching pain in his legs, specifically at his hips and his knees. That’s where it always begins: in his femurs. Then it travels down his legs and up his back. This time, the pain will be most prominent in his hips and shoulders. Or so he’s been told.

He should tell Lance. Immediately. But… Keith smiles, feeling, hearing the gentle beat of Lance's heart beneath his cheek, the arm he has wrapped around his spouse’s middle. His tail is twisted around Lance’s leg, binding them together. One of Lance’s hands rests on the arm thrown over his middle, the other still at Keith’s back, tangled in his long, loose hair. Lance's own hair fans over the pillows, and every breath is soft with sleep.

The pain can wait, and either way, he’s still quite sleepy… Besides, it would be wrong of him to wake Lance. Right? Right. Keith settles back in with a sigh.

...

Lance notices almost immediately once they actually do get out of bed, and he watches Keith go about his morning. He’s moving stiffly, like he’s in pain. “You’re starting your growth spurt, aren’t you?”

“Not exactly. I’ll begin my growth spurt in about a movement. But it starts hurting now... It’s a bit earlier than I expected.”

Lance holds out a hand, taking Keith’s and pulling him down beside him on the bed. Slipping the comb from Keith’s hand, Lance gets to work on his hair, starting at the ends, taking his time to get out all the tangles. “Are you scared?”

“A little,” Keith whispers, pushing a lock of thick, dark hair over his shoulder. “Lance?”

“Hm?” Lance runs fingers through Keith’s hair, coaxing a bit of quintessence into the strands to keep it healthy.

“Just- Be there if I need you?” That’s not what Keith wanted to say, but Lance lets it be what it is. He gives the answer he’d give any request Keith has for him.

“Always.” Lance gently braids a ribbon into Keith’s hair, ties a knot in the end. He hooks his chin over Keith’s shoulder, wraps his arms around him. “We should take you to Daibazaal. You’ll be more comfortable there, and they can help you better than we can.”

“How will we get there?”

“In a shuttle.”

“And how do we get a shuttle?”

“I need to speak to my father.” Lance rises, slips behind a room divider to change. It’s more efficient than slipping into a bathroom has been. “Will you be alright on your own for a few doboshes... or vargas, depending on Alfor’s mood?”

Keith nods, fingers anxiously tugging at the end of his braid. “I’m not in any immediate difficulty. I’ll go find Adam. Perhaps he has something I can help with. And maybe some painkillers?”

“Oh, definitely. And I’m sure he’ll be happy to have you, regardless. Be sure to talk shit about Shiro. He loves a good bit of gossip, believe it or not. And, hey.” Lance kisses Keith’s temple, his cheek, his lips. “If you need me, or if you want me, you call me. I’ll come.”

“I know. And I’ll do the same. Just call.” Keith returns Lance’s kiss with a smile.

“I’ll see you soon.” One last kiss, and Lance scurries off to his father’s study, where Alfor always is just after breakfast. He himself missed breakfast so Keith could sleep. The normally early riser has been quite sleepy the past movement or so. He sends a quick message to Adam to make sure Keith gets a good meal. A ping of acknowledgement from his attendant, and Lance marches into the study.

Alfor is sitting at his desk, surrounded by a series of tablets, with a holotable in one corner. It's a surprisingly small room. Lance assumes Alfor likes it because no one would think to look here unless they already knew where he was.

“Good morning, Lancel.” Alfor scrolls through a tablet.

“Keith has begun his growth spurt.” Lance waits for a response. Alfor makes a note in his datapad.

“Excellent. I may yet have two married children before I die of old age.” The king doesn’t look up from his tablet.

“I wish to take him to Daibazaal. He-”

“Out of the question, Lancel.” Couldn’t Alfor at least look at him? Even just once?

Lance squares his shoulders, presses on. “He will be more comfortable there, and they will be better able to treat his condition. We cannot risk complications-”

“My answer is still no. He will just have to endure-”

“He will not!” Lance declares.

Alfor finally looks up, frowning. “Yes, Lancel, he will. Two phoebs ago, you were nearly assassinated. You expect me to hand you over to the Galra, serve you up to them on a silver platter? Risk the future of Altea for something as trivial as pain? Absolutely not-”

“LIKE YOU EVER CARED ABOUT ALTEA!!!” Fingers curling, Lance glares at his father, waiting for some kind of acknowledgement. “And what about my pain?! And Keith’s pain?! When does that get to matter?”

Alfor flies to his feet, eyes flashing. “Your pain does not matter! You want to talk about pain?! I have killed men, women, and children for Altea! Slaughtered villages for Altea! Sacrificed my best friend for Altea! Bartered my children for Altea-”

“Built a secret war room for Altea,” Lance snaps.

“Contingencies, Lancel! I do what must be done! You-”

“Did you even know about the King’s Road being damaged? A headman came a decaphoeb ago seeking it’s repairs, and you did fuck all to-”

“I signed off on that request myself, and instructed the builders to leave behind any excess materials for the commune to use as suited them! As is protocol!”

“Then why-”

“Sometimes, court orders are lost, Lancel! If I might ask you a question, why do you assume I simply did not care? Why do you assume I do not care about Altea?”

Lance’s eyes find the floor. There’s so much here, so much distrust and disdain, that it’s better just to retreat. “Forgive me, Father. I have disrespected you.”

“I don’t care about your disrespect, Lancel.” The king stares at his son, quite suddenly old, tired. “But do you truly think so little of me?”

Eyes stinging, perhaps from shame, or embarrassment, or perhaps some son’s grief, Lance turns away from his father, away from the heaviness of Alfor’s voice. After a long stretch of silence, he forces the word past his lips.

“Sometimes.” The first tear falls. Lance brushes it away, saltwater skittering over his scales.

“Lancel-”

“I’m sorry. I’ll-” Lance turns to go, but Alfor wraps fingers around his arm. His breath catches in his throat, waiting for that hand or that voice to strike him.

“Lancel...”

Alfor gently coaxes his son to turn, brushes his thumbs over those glittering blue scales. It’s affection so unexpected that Lance can’t quite choke back a sob. “My son... My boy. I’ve lost you. Please don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“I’m sorry.” He’s unsure why he’s sorry, exactly, but Lance must have done something somewhere along to line. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be like this.

“No, Lance. Not this time.” The king runs a hand through his son’s hair, sending it askew. Lance swipes at his face.

“I’m trying. I’m trying. It was a trick. The whole thing with the girls and the boys and the- all of it! I swear it was! I wanted- I wanted to seem more impressive.” Lance swipes at his face, trying to stop his tears as he rambles. “But then I had to give it up and now I’ve lost my one shot at gaining respect before I even had any to gain but I still have all this stuff I have to do and- and I’m sorry!”

“No, I meant it’s not for you to apologize this time. It’s mine. I’m so sorry.” The king brushes a lock of hair away from Lance’s face. The boy stares listlessly at the floor.

“Lance. Lance, look at me.” Shining blue and pink eyes stare up into his, and Alfor smiles. “Never, under any circumstances ever, should you find yourself in an interrogation. Once you start you just keep going.”

The boy chokes on his laughter, nods. “I do. I always do. Keith says I babble when I’m upset, but I tell him he’s full of it. Ancients, it must have been so annoying on our wedding night, me prattling on about circlets and gardens and I’m-”

“‘-Doing it again’. Yes you are.” Alfor pulls his son into a hug. “Dear son, why do you want to go to Daibazaal so badly?”

“I promised. Phoebs ago. I promised I’d take him home. He- He misses it so much and- and I don’t know what to do for him right now.”

“Is it worth it to you?” Alfor whispers, rubbing his son’s back. “Have you calculated this risk?”

“I have. It is.” Lance curls his fingers into his father's cloak, soaking in that unfamiliar, desperately missed heat. “We’ll be staying with Shiro or Krolia, or within the Imperial compound. We’ll be working to hopefully gain favor or at least minimize animosity with the locals while we’re there. My combat skills have improved and-”

“You’re a good shot. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” Alfor inspects his son. “You really are good at this, aren’t you?”

“I’m trying to be. Keith’s gotten better and he’s become an enormous help. He’s so smart and talented and he’s funny and he makes it all way easier than it could be…”

Alfor watches, solemn, as his son retreats again, closes himself off. He sighs. “Lancel?”

“Yes?”

“Your presence here is invaluable. You’re aware of this?”

“Yes.” Calm. Assured. Except for a sniffle, Lance is perfectly composed when he gives that answer.

“You are invaluable. You’re aware of this also?”

“I- Yes.” Almost, then just as assured.

“I need you to do something for Altea if you go on this... excursion.”

“What do you want me to do?” He didn’t say ‘anything’. This, Alfor knows from experience, is a good thing. It means his son might live a longer life, and one where he will not be used.

“I want you to come back from Daibazaal married. No more stalling. On the off chance that anyone knows the truth, you must come back to Altea having bedded that boy. He doesn’t have to be pregnant, but I- we need you two married.”

Lance bites his lip, takes a composing breath. “One phoeb. You’ll have your official marriage in approximately one phoeb… The moment we go to Daibazaal, word is going to spread beyond the compound, and the people will know Keith is only just growing into adulthood. Not having mated with him is my first step to gaining the peoples’ trust. Assuming they don’t try to kill me first. Once we have the peoples’ trust, we have an actual alliance. One the citizens recognize.”

“Use Keith to gain favor with the locals-”

“If by ‘use’ you mean ‘go to for advice’, then I already plan to do that… You still think like a soldier.”

“I know.” Alfor smiles, rueful. “It’s the only way I know how to think.” Alfor sighs. “Fine. If you think it in Altea’s best interests, go to Daibazaal. But do please be careful, son. Stay safe… I love you.”

“I-” Lance swallows. “I know. I love you too.”

“One of those statements is a lie.” The king smiles at the affronted expression on his son’s face. “We’ll work on it. You’ll be lying like your old man in no time… Or perhaps better.” Alfor’s smile fades, worry taking its place. “Please come home, Lance. I- We need you.”

“I will.” In the absence of his father’s smile, Lance manages to find one. “I promise.”

“I’ll leave it all to you then. As I should have done already.”

Lance meets his father’s eyes, nods in understanding. “I’ll make all the arrangements. Adam and Pidge will accompany us. Coran will handle court in my stead, with assistance from Lanval and Hunk. New legislation will be ready by Spring, as always. Nothing will be neglected.”

“As you say, Prince Lancel. The kingdom defers to you.” Alfor sighs. “And, for the record, the war room really is for contingencies. You and Keith can look when we get back. Also, you’re going to have to rehire Pidge after I fire them for treason. I’m assuming they’re the one who found my room in the first place.”

“If my efforts prevail, we’ll have no use for your contingencies, but still I will see what you’ve come up with. In the meantime, I’d best prepare for our departure and tell Pidge to ignore you.”

“I expect to hear from you while you are there, understand? Coran will never let you leave the castle again if you don't.”

“I understand. I need to speak to my team and make the necessary arrangements for our departure. Excuse me.” The young prince bows, smiling thinly at his father, before hurrying from the room.

Alfor stares at his grown up son. When the quiznak did that happen? Yesterday? A phoeb ago? When he married? It doesn’t really matter. It happened, and Alfor missed it.

He promises his son’s retreating back that he won’t miss anything else.

Keith wakes from dozing on the couch when Lance stumbles in. “Hey. Adam sent me here to sleep- Woah, hey.”

Lance sits down next to his spouse, sighs. “So… My father and I got into it. Well, as much as we can get into it, given that talking to each other is our least favorite thing to do.”

“What happened?” Keith hesitates, takes Lance’s hand, grips it tight. He knows he made the right choice when Lance rests his head on his shoulder.

“Well, he said our pain didn’t matter, I think. And then we yelled about how much our lives suck, like shitty royals do, and then… I’m not sure. I think he kind of handed over authority to me?”

“Well that’s… good, right? About him deferring to you? That’s what Altea needs.”

“I don’t know! I just-” Lance takes a deep breath, and Keith slips a hand up to thread fingers in his white hair. “He told me he loved me. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since he told me that?”

Keith shakes his head, teasing a lock of Lance’s hair, anxious for his spouse.

“It’s been decaphoebs.” It comes out like a trembling leaf, like the slightest disturbance could tear each word apart like the thinnest paper. The Crown Prince of Altea draws away, studying their joined hands. “He hasn’t told me he loved me since my tenth birthday, when he gifted me a sword as a present, and promised I would shed Galra blood by my next centaphoeb.”

“Well, there’s time yet. He might still be right.” Keith smiles as Lance laughs, a little wet, very bitter. It’s not always hard, this thing they’re creating. It comes easier and easier as time goes on. “Do you believe him?”

“Not then. Maybe now. He’s a hard man for me to understand. Either way, this is my decision to make. My risk to take, if I so choose.”

Keith licks his lip, regards his spouse carefully. “And?”

“And I'm thinking instead of a short visit like we planned, we'll stay for a phoeb or two-” Lance’s words are cut off with a gasp as Keith throws his arms around him, presses their lips together. After a moment, Lance pulls back, that eyebrow cocked for mischief. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Yes,” Keith breathes. “Yes!” Their lips collide again, deeper this time, more tender.

“Did you doubt me all this time?” Lance mumbles, breaking their kiss to slip his quintessence under Keith’s skin. He investigates Keith’s condition, finds spots of inflammation and does what little he can to soothe them.

His alchemy has been improving.

“Truthfully? A little.” They sit there a moment, foreheads pressed together, eyes closed, some unspoken thing welling from their hearts, not ready to be put out in the open. “When can we leave?”

“Can you wait until tomorrow? I have to make some arrangements and inform Lotor that we’re coming.”

“You mean request to visit?”

“I said what I said.” Brief laughter, and Lance settles back against the couch.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Keith whispers, still holding his spouse against his side. It's nice, being able to give back a little of what Lance has given him.

“Not at all. But I’m sure that I will be. After all, I won't be doing it alone.”

Lance leans up, kisses his ear. He settles against Keith, rests his head against his chest, and Keith brushes aside the slightened but still present ache in his legs in favor of a quiet moment before the rush of preparation begins. After all, once Lance sets foot on Daibazaal, he’s sure to do nothing but chatter for the better part of a quintant.

But whatever. Keith wouldn’t want him any other way.

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #altean lance #galra keith #altean adam #galra shiro #voltron legendary defender #vld

[varricmancer]

Intertwined | 3

*** Cross-posted on AO3 ***

Pairing: Farkas x F!OC

Summary: A child of Mara was a soul blessed and bound to it’s mate for all eternity. Elizabeth Williams is summoned to Mara as a lost soul, only she’s from modern America and her mate is somewhere in the wilds of Skyrim.

A/N: This is super short, I know, but I wanted to put out something for you guys. Things have been hectic in my life and I've been working 13+ hours six days a week for a while now so I'm pretty much in a constant state of exhaustion. I hope you're all staying healthy and safe. I'll try to have the next part out very soon!P.S. I know that in ESO they've said 'Hell' quite often, but that's always bothered me. Why would they call it hell? That is a Christian-based earth word, or whatever, and it just seemed strange to include it. So I'm fighting against the ESO writers lmao.

***

“Ralof, I think your friend here is finally awake!”

Elizabeth groaned as she came to and registered that she hurt everywhere. The worst of the pain seemed to be on her leg since she’d flexed it a little to try to move and the pain was sharp and agonizing.

“Easy there,” a woman’s voice eased her to awareness as she opened her eyes, meeting the blue ones of a blonde Nord woman leaning over her.

“Please don’t be frightened. My brother Ralof and your elf companion brought you here after you were attacked by the dragon. You’ll heal, but your leg suffered a little in the fall and your skin was badly burned. You will be well enough to walk in a couple of days, and then I suggest heading to a shrine to see if it will help.”

Elizabeth grimaced as she tried to respond and found her throat dry and sore.

“Ah, you must be thirsty. You’ve been asleep for almost two days.”

She accepted a wooden cup of water and tried to drink as gracefully as she could, despite her shaking hands and parched throat. When she finally had her fill, she handed the cup back to the woman sitting on the edge of the wooden bed.

Looking around, she tried to take stock of her situation. She was laid up in a rustic wooden bed, covered in what looked like a bunch of animal skins. The house was very warm and just as rustic as the bed - all wood and furs, with a huge fireplace taking up most of the space. It looked pretty much how she’d always imagined a witch's cottage would be like, with all the herbs and flowers hanging from the ceiling and potions lining the shelves.

She peeked at the woman in the bed with her, trying to get a good look without seeming rude. She was pretty enough, although years of living in the probably unforgiving northern climate had definitely left its mark, as well as a few scars that were probably smallpox if this place was indeed real. She imagined this must be Gerdur, meaning the dark elf had chosen to follow Ralof home to Riverwood.

The front door of the cabin opens and dirty Kurt - or Ralof, rather - stomps inside, smiling generously at her as he nears the bed and looks her over.

“Awake at last? You had us all worried for a moment there, girl. I’ve sent my nephew Frodnar to get Sundrose. He’s been helping the merchants with a task. He’ll be here soon.”

As though speaking his name had summoned him, Sundrose slammed the cabin door open and jogged to the bedside, seemingly unaware of the fact that he totally elbowed Ralof and Gerdur out of the way. He was panting as though he’d run the entire way and scanning her face frantically.

“Are you alright? Aware? How many fingers am I holding up?”

Elizabeth snorts at the Dark Elf. “None.”

He looks down at his hands as if he were amazed that they were still against his sides.

“Ah,” he cleared his throat. “Apologies. We weren’t sure you were going to make it for a moment. It’s been some time since anyone had experience with dragon wounds.”

“I’m a bit sore and my leg is throbbing like hell, but I think I’ll be okay.”

He looked momentarily confused, as though he was trying to figure out her meaning before he finally shrugged and sighed.

“That’s good. Very good. I’ve finished some tasks around here and made enough coin to get us to Whiterun as soon as you think you are able to travel. It’s not that far - perhaps three days if we make good time? Gerdur’s husband Hod has very kindly offered to drive us up there in his wagon to make it easier on your injuries.”

“Us? You’re taking me with you?” Honestly, she hadn’t really let herself think too much in-depth about where the hell she actually was, but her first instinct had told her the elf would simply leave her here to be Ralof’s problem and run off to be the Dragonborn.

“Well, yes. I...erm...could we perhaps be in private for a moment? I promise your belongings are safe, I merely wish to speak with my friend if I could?”

Gerdur glances between the two of them and waits for Elizabeth’s nod of affirmation before herding her brother towards the door.

“We’ll be right outside. Holler if you need us,” Gerdur says with a nod, closing the door softly behind her.

Sundrose sighs and settles more comfortably in his chair before turning that intense crimson gaze on her.

“Before we were captured, do you remember where you were?”

Elizabeth chewed her lip as she contemplated how much to tell the man. Would he believe her more about her talk of the future or being in Mara’s garden? Should she play it safe and say she’d just arrived from High Rock?

His full lips turned up on the side, a little dimple showing as he slowly grinned.

“Were you in an ostentatiously decorated garden? Perhaps speaking with a creature claiming to be Mara?”

“Yes!” Elizabeth exclaims, leaning towards him in excitement. “Were you there too? Are you... him ?”

“By ‘Him’ I assume you mean your soulmate?” He asks slowly, shrugging as he turns to stare at the wall in thought. He strokes his shadowed chin, humming.

“I...don’t know, to be quite honest. Not a phrase I like using very often. I was there with you - I remember feeling you, seeing flashes of your face and the face of someone else. I remember thinking that your soul felt...familiar. Which is a very odd thought to have about a soul. I would say yes based on that information alone, but there was another…”

“Another face, you said?”

He nods thoughtfully. “Like yours but different. I don’t know. It was very fogged over like Mara didn’t want me to get a good look. Perhaps a you from another life?” He shrugs. “At the very least, I know that when we were returned to ground that I immediately felt protective of you as soon as I saw you lying there unconscious. Before I could really think too much about it, the Imperials appeared and threw us in the wagon.”

“So all the evidence points to us being something. Maybe soulmates, but also maybe not?” Elizabeth huffs and flaps back against the wall. “This is so confusing. And a lot less romantic than I’d thought it would be to meet the future love of my life.”

He laughs, a low and smooth chuckle that was...elegant? Can laughs be elegant?

“Terribly sorry. At least there’s a chance you won’t have to deal with me then. I’m not a very romantic fellow to begin with, I’m afraid. The dramatics tend to become tedious after the first hundred years or so.”

Elizabeth’s jaw drops. She’d forgotten about the way races aged differently here. “How old are you?”

Sundrose quirks an eyebrow. “Terribly rude to ask that, little one, but I’ll tell you. I’m 214. Fairly young still, among my people. And of course, my soulmate has to be a human that is a veritable infant,” Sundrose drawls, his slight mischievous smirk softening the teasing words.

“Hey, I just turned 30! In human years, I’m ancient!”

“Forgive me, crone,” he mocked, bowing slightly.

Elizabeth snorted, then adjusted her aching leg with a sigh.

“When did you want to leave?”

He shrugged. “Whenever you think you can handle it. We need to warn the Jarl about the dragon, so as soon as can be arranged is preferable. If it’s much longer we’ll have to send someone ahead of us.”

She shook her head and squared her shoulders. “Let's go today.”

“Today?” he asked incredulously, “You just barely have regained consciousness. I hardly think you should be going on a journey at the moment.”

“No,” she shook her head. “The sooner we get there, the better. You need to talk to the Jarl, and I would like to get to a healer or one of those altar things. This hurts like hell.”

“You say that a lot. Hell. What is that?”

“Oh, its...like oblivion, I guess? It’s where bad people go when they die...or something. It’s what a lot of people believe. Never really believed in that stuff myself, but it makes a hell of a curse word,” she grins.

He looks at her thoughtfully for a few moments before he finally asks, “You’re not even from here, are you? Where did she take you from?”

And there’s the magic question.

“Apparently my soul is from here, but it was stolen? I’m still not quite clear on that. I grew up in Arizona, a state in America. On, well, planet Earth. A place that is...way far in the future and, like, on a whole ‘nother...universe? Plane? Realm? I don’t know. Very different from here, I can tell you that much.”

“And she just picked you up and deposited you in a strange land with just the clothes on your back to correct her own mistakes,” he added, his eyes hardening. “I despise the daedra,” he scoffs angrily.

“At least I’m not going into this completely blind, just, ya know, poor and homeless,” she chuckles. “In my world, Skyrim is a...tale? Legend? Not sure how to describe it to you, but I know the basic story of this land and what's to come.”

“Do you?” Sundrose responds, leaning back and looking at her curiously.

“Mhmm. In fact, I know that when you went to help Lucan get his claw back, you came across a wall. A wall that taught you a word in another language that you were somehow able to understand. You also found a tablet with this same language written on it.”

“I haven’t told anyone about that yet. I was going to wait and talk to the court wizard when we got to Whiterun. Your stories told you about me?”

She bit her lip, unsure of how much to divulge. “Yes, a bit. You’re about to save Skyrim, Sundrose.”

He stared at her with growing horror on his handsome face.

“Gods’ grief!”

***

#skyrim #skyrim fanfic #farkas x oc #farkas x reader #even though it doesn't look like it right now #farkas fanfic #elder scrolls #fanfiction #varricmancer #intertwined #soulmate au #farkas skyrim #skyrim farkas

[onwardintolight]

What did you go to college for and what is your current job/career? Any tips for people starting college? How do you decide what to do with your life?

Hi anon! I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to answer your question!

My answer’s going to be complicated, because I have a chronic illness which means that I currently don’t have a career. That being said, I’ll try to answer as best I can!

I got my bachelor’s degree in linguistics. I absolutely LOVED it. I chose it because I loved it; I’ve always been fascinated by languages, and I found linguistics to be equally fascinating, wonderfully challenging, and a whole heck of a lot of fun. I started college declaring a major in letters (a broad degree mostly focused on languages, literature, and classical studies), but as soon as I took Intro to Linguistics fall of my sophomore year, I was hooked for good.

I was never quite sure what I wanted to do with linguistics, but there were many opportunities I could pursue, and I had an idea that maybe I’d eventually go to grad school to farther my options (perhaps studying linguistic anthropology, as I’ve always been really interested in the fight to save endangered languages). But that got put on hold indefinitely because….

Despite my love for linguistics, my main passion was dance, and for years I thought I was destined to be a dance teacher (I tried out teaching a class one year, and it was an incredible experience). You may be wondering, if this was the case, why didn’t I major in dance in college? That was a hard decision, but ultimately, through a lot of prayer and reflection, I felt like continuing to pursue dance with the dance studio I was at at the time was the right place for me to be. I was learning a lot, dancing with a performing troupe, and making some of the best memories, in an environment that was good for my soul.

On the side, during all of this, I was teaching music lessons on the hammered dulcimer, a folk instrument I’ve played since I was eleven, so that was always in the back of my mind as something I could continue to do.

To add another layer to all of this, I got married in college. My husband was studying to be an engineer. Consequently, I didn’t feel a whole lot of pressure to decide on what I was going to do right after college — I would pursue dancing and/or something to do with linguistics, while he would, God-willing, be the main breadwinner.

Naturally, things didn’t go as planned. My husband graduated with his master’s degree right in the middle of the recession, and despite his degree and impressive credentials, he was unable to find employment for a whole year. In the meantime, I picked up a job working in an after-school program, as I’d had experience with kids and teaching. It helped pay the bills, and it was incredibly rewarding, but it wasn’t something I wanted to continue doing as a career. Then my husband got a job in another state, we moved, and I continued my dance training. Eight months later, we moved across the country again after my husband’s job turned out to be a nightmare. I continued dancing in our new home and finally reached a level I was hoping to be at in order to teach again. When we moved back to our home state a year and a half later, I felt ready to jump into teaching dance as a career.

…And then, chronic illness struck. After a long, hard journey, I was eventually diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), an immune disease that causes my body to release inordinate amounts of histamine, giving me random allergic reactions that are miserable and debilitating. One of the many triggers, unfortunately, happens to be exercise, particularly certain types of exercise like dance. I found that I was unable to dance anymore without getting sick, and it was devastating. (My illness has also made it impossible for me to keep a steady job.)

So, I’ve had to let go of my dream of being a dance teacher (I’m more glad than ever now that I didn’t major in dance in college, and focused on getting the experiences I wanted through my studio!). However, in letting go, I’ve found other things my heart is calling me towards. Writing is one of them — I probably never would have found I enjoyed writing fiction if it weren’t for being too sick to dance. I may have also found a way I can jump back into linguistics at home — I’m currently looking into what it would take to learn ancient Akkadian and Sumerian so I can join the effort to translate cuneiform tablets (there are thousands in museums that have never been translated). We’ll see how that goes. And in addition to all of that, I’m hoping to be a mother someday — I’m not sure whether I’ll be a full-time stay-at-home mom yet, but I know that’s a valid choice and I may end up deciding that’s where I want to be.

We’ll see.

So that’s my story so far. Here’s what I’ve learned:

- So much depends on things I don’t know, future possibilities and variables I have no way of seeing right now, and I’m okay with that. I’ve had to learn to just take life as it comes. To take the next step that’s lying there clear before me, trusting that God will make it all go somewhere meaningful and worthwhile.

- My dad has often quoted a commencement speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford, remarking on what good career advice it had. One of the things he’s relayed to us, over and over, is that life is full of zig-zags. We so often plan our lives in a straight line (this will be my major, this will be my career, this is when I want to get married, etc.), and life rarely works out that way. However, the zig-zags you end up going on can all add up to something incredibly worthwhile. And sometimes it’s only through zig-zagging that you can arrive at a place where you feel like you truly belong or a career that calls you by name. My dad’s a prime example of this — he started out in med school, decided he didn’t want to be a doctor on one of the last days of his exams, walked out, ended up studying geology at a different college, became a high school chemistry teacher, went back to grad school to study history of science, and is now a professor and the curator of an incredible old, rare book collection at a university. His career has zig-zagged all over the place, but each zig and zag have been experiences that have made him who he is and, in the end, led him to where he is now. So don’t be afraid to listen to your heart and try different things. Don’t be afraid to zig-zag.

- Another great quote from my dad: “Don’t be afraid to do badly.” Sometimes failure is the only way we grow and learn and, in the end, succeed. You can’t achieve great things if you aren’t willing to accept the possibility of failure. On a more concrete level, you can’t pass your exam very easily if you’re petrified with anxiety about getting everything perfect. Perfectionism is a curse (one my dad knew his daughters struggled with greatly). Ain’t nobody got time for that!

- Money is overrated. Love and experiences and happiness are not. Don’t ignore the latter in favor of the former. If you have a passion for something, it may be difficult and you may have to work hard, but you can (hopefully) find a way to make it work.

- Ultimately? I don’t know how I would manage any of the twists and turns my life has sent me so far without a whole crap-ton of prayer, faith, love and community. That’s kept me going and kept me hoping, even when I’ve been tempted to give up.

Finally, some advice on starting college:

- It’s overwhelming at first, and that’s okay and normal. You’ll settle in and find your place eventually.

- Introduce yourself to someone else in every class you’re in. Strike up conversations. Be active in making friends. This will 1) potentially result in some good friendships, 2) make you feel less lonely, as college can (especially at first) feel like a very lonely place, and 3) give you someone you can reach out to in case you miss a class and need to exchange notes. I know this is difficult sometimes — I’m an introvert, I hate small talk — but as college went on and I did this more and more, I found it to be incredibly worthwhile.

- Explore! It’s okay to not have a major at first. Try out different classes. See what grabs you, what makes you wonder, what gives you joy.

- Apply for ALL the scholarships you can every year (before the scholarship deadlines roll around — make sure you know when they are). It’s a lot of work, but it can potentially save you from a heck of a lot more work and free you up to focus more on your studies!

- Show up. Be diligent. Yes, you can skip classes occasionally in college, and sometimes that’s really nice (especially if you’re having a really bad physical or mental health day). But definitely don’t make a habit of it, because if you do you won’t do well. In college you have to work on being self-motivated and self-disciplined, even when it’s hard. (And I say this as someone who struggled with depression, and some chronic illness, throughout most of my college years. It’s HARD. But just keep putting one foot in front of the other, as long as you’re able. And learn your limits; when you need to skip a class one day or reach out to a teacher for help or drop a class entirely. Sometimes that’s okay! Persevere hard, but extend yourself grace and forgiveness when you can’t.)

- Take ALL the notes. Seriously, don’t skimp on this. (If you miss a class, get the notes from someone else.) Then, when it’s time to prep for an exam, you can study your notes and be pretty sure you have it all covered. Some professors will let you take notes on your computer (which I like because I can type faster than I write); some won’t. It might help to ask your professor beforehand.

- If you’re struggling with a class, take advantage of your professor’s office hours (or if it’s not quite that dire, talk to them after class). Most professors love it when students do this because it shows you care and that you’re motivated. They really want to help you succeed. 

- And remember, no matter how alone you feel, you are not alone — you have people around you who are struggling too, people around you who care about you, and campus resources if you need them. Reach out. 

That’s all I can think of right now! If anyone else has any additional advice, feel free to chime in! I hope this is helpful, anon, even if my “career path” hasn’t exactly been traditional. I wish you all the best in college! 💜

#anon #life advice #college #university #career #thoughts

[xoleahbeanxo]

Mercka Squad: Chapter One

This is a story I wrote over a year ago and just left sitting for a time when I felt good about going back over it. I loved writing it and I love rereading it. I hope you’ll feel the same.

If you don’t like reading it here, you can also read it on Ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/15083603/chapters/34972910

Comments and criticism are welcome. Thank you for taking the time to read it. ^.^

Synopsis:

After the battle of three nations, seventy percent of the world was covered in a toxic magical radiation that’s killed everything that touched it. From the radiation spawned Creepers, violent and horrendous monstrosities, constantly hungering but never sated.

Those who survived the blast are forced to scavenge and carve out a living in the wasteland. Food and water are scarce, and garbage is treasure. That’s where the Mercka Squad comes in, an elite tactical group of mercenary…kobolds? That can’t be right?

“You know, they say war, war never changes. They must be right because this place, here, is a shithole.”

“The Centernal year is 36 AD…that’s After Destruction, thanks to the ever lovin’ fey High Elves and their inability to control their unending superiority over every living creature in the realm.”

“RUBY!”

“Sorry, sometimes I get carried away.”

“We know, dear, trust us we know. Maybe instead of telling them, perhaps we can show them in a beautiful and cinematic opus.”

“I think not Amethyst.”

“Both of you hush, now.”

***

…Latherimy stood atop the mass of corpses that lay at his feet. His frail elven legs barely held his disheveled figure aloft. The air was chocked with green gas that threatened to suffocate him but he clung to the last shred of life he had left. What would his people think of him, if he were the first of the Three Kingdom’s rulers to die? No, if he were deemed to die, he would be the last.

Gristleback leaned onto her hammer; the crisp skin that ran up her side had long since bubbled and scabbed over. It stung and burned like the very fires of the Underfall but she refused to falter. No, she would carry the weight of her oppressed people to the very halls of her two rivals, if she must. They will take note that Orcs, no, that her people had every right to grow and flourish as theirs does.

Auturo fell to one knee, the arrow imbedded there threatened to end his adventuring days forever but not his days to rule in the sun. Latherimy would kneel to the fire that all humans possess in their souls. He would teach the pointed-ear bastard that being an “infantile” race didn’t mean they couldn’t learn, couldn’t develop, and couldn’t unite the land under the banner of peace for the greater good. And Aurturo swore to kill anyone who didn’t agree to join the alliance. Yes, that would show them.

***

“Does anyone want anything; I’m going into the kitchen.”

“Citrine! Can’t you see I’m telling a story here?”

“Sorry Sapphire; I was trying to be helpful.”

“Don’t mind her; she’s got her knickers in a twist.”

“Thank you, Amethyst, that’s really-”

“I could use more pork rinds.”

“Sure thing, sweetie, I’ll be right back.”

“Would you mind if I continued the story?”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Citrine?”

“Nah, she’s heard it before. Go on, before out reader gets bored.”

***

…Right. The three lords stood on a battlefield that had long since been carpeted with the remains of their clan’s members, their friends, and their people. It didn’t matter now, the three lords were balls-deep into this war and it would be determined now.

Aurturo hefted his sword and swung but the elf was nimble enough to move but not nimble enough to keep from collapsing under the weight of the green miasma. Gristleback stumbled forth, lifting her hammer with the last of her strength; her last swing would finish the point-eared bastard for sure.

But Latherimy would not be undone; he cast his hands to sky and muttered words of the ancient and all the sound left the world. The birds flew away, the fire stalled its crackle, and even the wind itself shut the fuck up.

“I may die here,” He uttered, his voice muted to the soft whistle that came from worlds away. “But I will take you and all of this to hell with me when I go.”

“You fool, what are you doing?” Gristleback dropped her hammer and reached for him.

“Meeeh, you fool, what are you doing, shut up, I’m winning, duh!” Latherimy’s voice spiked a sour tone but it faltered next to the whistle that grew louder.

“You may be a prick.” Arturo stepped forward and rammed his sword through the elf’s middle. “But you know what; I’ve got a bigger one for you.”

“Ugh, men and their inbred need for a pissing contest, even at the end of things. Let this be done.” Her hammer crunched down on the elf’s head, splatting his brains all over the place.

The human looked at the Orc and smiled. “You know, I never disliked you.”

“Liar,” She said, splatting him for good measure.

Now the orc female was all alone and there was no one to splat her. So, she looked up at the sky to the glowing green fireball that was falling faster than a shooting star and with it came death, the four horseman, and maybe even their mothers, who knows, but they were all there.

“Bring it on, you pussies.” Gristleback sneered in triumph seconds before it hit.

***

“The toadstool cloud could be seen from miles around. A radiated shockwave rolled through the countryside, obliterating everything in its path and man, did it suck.” The sleek blue kobold said from her perch on the rickety looking couch. “Farms destroyed, kingdoms fell, and almost everyone died.”

“You know, this story gets more bitchin’ each time you tell it.” A ruby-red kobold snickered as she knocked back a glowing green bottle of Mountain Dew.

“It’s not a story, Ruby,” A shimmering purple kobold snapped at her, dumping her popcorn on the mesh metal floor. “This is real history, right Sap?”

“Sapphire, thank you very much. And yes, these are annuals of our histories from over tens of thousands of years.” The blue kobold scrolled down on the glowing tablet in her hand.

“More like bullshit with a side of crap, if you ask me.” Ruby snarked and grabbed a handful of popcorn from the floor.

“How else do you explain the radiation swamps that cover seventy percent of the world?” Sapphire adjusted the pinched lenses on her snout.

“Bad luck!”

The purple kobold snickered at Ruby’s response.

“Glad you find the death of millions funny, Amethyst.”

“Meh, life is sacred, nah nah, didn’t you just shoot a douche bag in the face the other day, Sap?” The red kobold chuckled.

“The bastard had it coming.” She said pointedly as she plucked her glasses from her muzzle, folding them neatly before slipping them into their leather pouch.

“Amethyst, I brought your another soda!” A shimmering yellow kobold walked into the room, passing a bottle of glowing green liquid to the heavy-set kobold stretched out on the couch.

“Thanks, Citrine but…I don’t drink this stuff.”

The yellow kobold touched her chin, her eyes glazing over.

“It was me, genius. I asked for pork rinds.” Ruby snapped.

“Oh right, be right back.” The yellow kobold started down the stairs again.

“I swear to god…goddess…or Steven Spielberg that she’s a dumb as a box of rocks.” Ruby glared at Sapphire.

“Ruby, you stop that right now. She can’t help it!”

“I personally think she’s getting better.” Amethyst passed the soda to Ruby. “Drink up and smile, for a change.”

“Fat chance and judging by your waistline, you know a lot about those types of chances.”

“Sapphire, I brought this back for you.” Citrine climbed back up the stairs with nothing in her hands.

“Dear,” Sapphire pinched the bridge of her muzzle. “I didn’t ask for any-”

Behind her came a tall scrawny looking elf dressed in a tattered navy-blue parka. Her camo pants were tore so badly that her long johns could be seen underneath. She had a modified AK-47 strapped to her back. Her belt lined with various tools, traps, and a broad bladed sword. It was more a homemade machete that bore and intricate hilt of her people. She pulled her goggles up to rest on her tattered, flannel cabby hat.

“Mercka Squad?” The elf’s thick cockney accent fell out of her mouth like someone dumping out a sack of potatoes.

“Yes!” Sapphire stood up from seat and straightened her freshly pressed BDU’s.

“Thank the goddess I found you.” She rushed forward.

Ruby was off the couch in a second pressing the tip of her combat knife to the elf’s side. It was so large in her hand that it could double as a sword but she wielded it better than most humans, orcs, or elves.

“That’s far enough, forest fart.”

“I mean you no harm.” The elf raised her hands; in one she carried a yellow index card.

“Don’t mind her, she’s more than a little demented.” Amethyst got up and snatched the index card away, handing it to Sapphire.

“I come on behalf of Druger-Ox; he has a mission for you.” The elf was quick to explain her presence.

“An elf working for an Orc, that’s a laugh.” The red kobold snickered as she sheathed her knife again.

“It’s an important matter…involving stolen secrets, hmm.” Sapphire read the card to herself but commented aloud.

“That’s right, a thief took it and ran into subway system, we can’t follow.” The elf stated.

“What kind of idiot-”

“A kobold like yourself, ma’am.” The elf snapped.

“Fuck off! You must by high.” Ruby cackled. “Everyone knows most kobolds hid underground only to be buried amidst the remnants of your ancestor’s past fuck ups.”

“Amethyst, if you’d please.” Sapphire snapped.

The pudgy purple kobold slid across the metal floor on her belly, coming up beside Ruby fast enough to catch her off guard. She closed her hands around the kobold’s mouth and wrest her to the couch where she wrapped her legs around the feistier female’s waist.

“I apologize for my companion; she’s a bit of bitch.” Sapphire tucked the card away. “A kobold, huh? That’s interesting. And how much is Mr. Ox-Orc willing to pay?”

“Druger-Ox, ma’am,” The elf slapped the yellow kobold’s hand away as she was caressing the elf’s hip. “One hundred, ma’am,”

“One hundred?  Is this some kind of a joke to you?” Sapphire’s crystal blue eyes narrowed.

“I could go as high as one hundred fifty.” The elf reached into her pocket and pulled out a credit card.

“One hundred and fifty,” Amethyst grunted, still wrestling the other female on the couch. “That’s like a spit in the face!”

“I-I…I can give you half right now, seventy-five thousand.”

“Well, I suppose...wait…what was that again?” Sapphire stopped in mid thought.

“I can give you eighty thousand, right now, just please take this case. Mercka Squad is the only ones who can go into the places we can’t and we really need you to do this.” The elf was almost pleading now.

“I suppose so.” The blue kobold feigned her surrender. “Stolen documents sounds very important and all. I suppose it’s almost like our civil duty…our paid handsomely, civil duty. Tell Mr. Orc-Ox we’ll accept his standard offer and will report to you in two weeks to a month on our progress. Please give me your contact info and the payment.”

“Oh, thank you so much for this. All the information you need is on the card. Druger-Ox wants to be perfectly clear, you can contact me anytime, day or night, just please find those documents and…bring the kobold back alive.” The elf sighed, her body growing limp with her relief.

The elf punched a few buttons built onto the face of the card and passed it to Sapphire. “I’ve cleared you for eighty thousand credits; the rest will be released to you upon completion of the task.”

“Yes, yes, you have our word that we will return the documents and the prisoner ASAP.” Sapphire shook the elf’s hand nonchalantly. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to prepare for our manhunt.”

Citrine blinked and looked at Amethyst. “I thought we were hunting a kobold?”

“Not now.”

The elf looked from the yellow kobold to the Sapphire with a look of worry. Sapphire fought to reassure her with a smile before patting the elf’s bicep.

“She’s just confused.”

“Certainly,” The elf nodded and pointed back down the stairs. “This way, right?”

“Yes, it’s the door that says ‘exit’, you can’t miss it.” Sapphire was struggling to compose herself under the weight of the loaded credit card.

The elf disappeared down the stairway as Citrine walked up to Sapphire. “Can you believe she’s stupid enough to pay us that much money?”

“What was that?” The elf popped her head back up.

Sapphire’s eyes shot open as she glared at the yellow kobold, her mouth hanging open. “Oh, I…It was…”

“I said, ‘can you believe she’s s-”

Sapphire wrapped her tail tightly around the yellow kobold’s throat and pulled her clean off her feet and to the floor, choking the words out of her.

“Don’t mind her!” Sapphire’s voice spiked in a very unbecoming way, her blue face growing purple amidst the frustrated blush. “She stupid…head wound as a child, we keep her around because she’s like family. We can’t find a home to take her in.”

Both Ruby and Amethyst looked up at her with their mouths hanging open in shock at the sudden rant.

“Oh,” The elf said, a little more put off now that she witnessed the emotion slaughter delivered to the yellow kobold. “Carry…uhm, carry on then.”

Again she disappeared through the hole. This time, they waited until they could hear the slam and lock of their metal front door before they did anything.

When they were sure she was gone, Sapphire released Citrine from her chokehold, relieved to hear her gasp for air.

“Why did you say all those awful things?” Citrine cried, wiping the tears running down her cheeks.

“Oh for the love of James Camron, I didn’t mean it, I was trying to get the stinky elf to leave. Come on, stop crying. I’ll buy you a stuffed puppy.” Sapphire fell to her knees, coddling the kobold. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

Citrine sniffled and nodded. “Ye-yes.”

“And you know I would only act that way to save your life, right?”

Citrine paused, her eyes rolling to the side as she thought. “I suppose so, though I don’t really know how that works.”

“She’s saying that if you’d fucked this deal up for us, she was going to skin you and make a pair of boots and a matching belt out of your hide.” Ruby snickered.

“Right.” Sapphire nodded.

“Oh, well then I’m glad you did it.” Citrine smiled widely, her tail bounced off the metal floor happily.

“Thank god.” Sapphire sighed and slid the card through the reader built into the side of her tablet, depositing the first half into their account.

“Sappy, you know how you said you’ll get me a stuffed puppy?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Sapphire looked down at the yellow kobold who was chewing one claw.

“Can it be a kitty instead? I like cats more than dogs.” Citrine wiped her wet finger on Sapphire’s pant leg before getting to her feet.

“After this is over, Citrine, I’ll buy you a roomful of stuffed kitties.” Sapphire smiled at her, before giving her cheek a soft pat.

“Really?”

“That’s right.” Sapphire slipped her tablet into the pocket of her canvas bag. “Now ladies, gather your gear, we have a thieving degenerate to find. We roll out in ten.”

“Aye, captain,” Amethyst saluted and hurried off into one of the rooms off of the main chamber.

Ruby reached behind the couch grabbing her hastily stuffed backpack. “Ready,” She forced everything back into their respective pockets before zipping, clasping, and latching them away safely.

“Ruby?” Citrine whispered.

“Whut?” Ruby pulled a cigarette from the pack sitting on the three-legged end table next to the couch.

“If she used my butt to make your hide boots out of…would they be called booties?”

Ruby laughed so hard she choked on the first drag from the cigarette. “What the fuck, that was so funny, even for you.”

Citrine wrapped her arms around the taller Kobold and kissed her cheek. “See, there’s a reason you keep me around.”

“I suppose so.” Ruby smiled and ruffled her golden head feathers. “Come on, let’s get you all packed.”

Sapphire watched as the pair left the room through the same door Amethyst had hurried through.

“Heh…booties, that is pretty funny.”

Sapphire shook her head, and picked up the well-polished Peacemaker from the bookshelf, still holstered on its bandolier. She was quick to wrap the belted bandolier around her waist, buckling it and tying it off around her thigh. The weapon was heavy in her hand but she managed to spin it a few times before slipping it back into the holster, just as her husband, David, had shone her once upon a time.

The blue kobold kissed her fingertips and touched the faded printer picture of a human with red hair and a dark handlebar mustache. The picture was taken a long time ago but the memory was always fresh. She was too short to be seen in the picture when she first put it in the frame. She always joked with her husband that she managed to get the best part centered anyway. They’d laughed about it but David always promised to bring her a new one as soon as he found it. He never did, thus she never felt it needed changing.

“Here I go again, David. Doing good, just like you taught me.” Her words were a whisper just in case the others were within ear shot.

She lingered her gaze a moment longer before turning to face the door. “Come on, ladies, daylight’s burning.”

“Of course it is; we live in a nuclear winter.” Amethyst spoke around the fingerless glove clenched in her teeth.

“I think it’s more of a nuclear summer.” Citrine mused.

“I prefer nuclear autumn myself. The way the leaves glow as they drift through the breeze to inevitably burst into flames and fall to the ground as ash has always reminded me of how fucked up life is now.” Ruby cackled as she snuffed her cigarette out on the wall before dropping the butt on the floor.

“Come on you misfits, let’s tuck tail and run.” Sapphire gave each of them a brief look over as they walked past.

They were misfits from horn to tail, she thought, a smile coming to her lips, but they were her misfits and she loved each of them very much.

#Leendenwrites #Kobolds #Elves #Orcs #humans #gnolls #fallout #D&D

[silence-burns]

Something Different //part4

Fandom: Supernatural

Summary: Slow-burn Crowley x asexual!reader. When Crowley notices you actually have a weak point, he becomes very interested in taking advantage of it. But not everything goes as he expected.

Word count: 3,218

[Masterlist] [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

You heard the bunker’s door creak open in the middle of the night. You were preparing something sweet for the night’s marathon with your newest favorite show when the boys finally arrived. You looked at the clock, although you didn’t really have too, as they were already a few hours late. You worried, but you kept reminding yourself that they could take care of themselves and Kevin, who they had transported to some other safe house.

You heard Dean calling you so you shouted back to inform him where you were. After a while, they marched into the kitchen, visibly tired, but not injured. You greeted them with a very proud smile, as you showed them the goods you’d baked.

Dean whistled as a hungry look appeared in his suddenly bright eyes.

“I’m so happy Kevin is not here right now,” he confessed.

“It doesn’t mean you’ll get more, though,” you warned him, moving them further away. “I made it mainly for myself, remember? By the way, how is Kevin? Is everything all right with him?”

“It will be,” Sam assured you. You slapped Dean’s hand when he tried to steal the cookies. “Crowley messed with him pretty badly, but he'll get over it hopefully.”

“And if he doesn’t?” you asked what was bothering you for a while now. “He is the prophet and the only person that can read the tablets right now. If he goes crazy and tries to find his mother and Crowley’s demons catch him...”

You didn’t finish. You didn’t have to. All of you have been wondering about that problem since the incident with Kevin happened, but you still had no idea how to efficiently stop him from breaking loose. It reminded you of something.

“Where did you take him?” you asked. “Won’t he escape?”

“Even if he tries, it won’t be that easy, since we’ve planted a transmitter to show us where he is,” Dean said proudly with a grin. It must have been his idea.

“Well… But you do remember Kevin knows more about all that computer stuff than any of us? Are you sure he won’t notice?”

“Even if he does, we have a friend checking up on him, a retired hunter. He'll be fine.”

“I hope so,” you exhaled deeply, brushing your face with a hand. Dean stole one of the cookies, shoving the whole thing in his mouth. You death-glared him, but didn’t say anything. He will always be a kid.

“By the way, how do you feel?” Sam suddenly asked out of nowhere, catching you off guard.

“I’m… okay, I guess… It actually depends on what will be required from me...”

“Right,” he laughed gently. “We need you to pack up and come with us. On our way back here we had found something and we think it may be something big, but we can’t get it alone. It’s probably got some weird mojo-stuff scrawled over the entrance and we don’t want to go down there unprepared.”

“So we are going on a case?” you asked suspiciously, sensing that there was something he wasn’t telling you.

“Yeah, we may need backup.”

“If it’s so easy, why do I still feel that you’re about to drop something big that I really don’t want to hear...?”

“We are definitely gonna need your sixth sense,” Dean muffled with his mouth full, not even bothering anymore to hide stealing the cookies and eating them openly.

“We have to take Crowley too,” Sam answered, looking a little sorry.

Your jaw dropped. You wished it was a joke, but Sam looked dead serious.

“Why? You have nothing to make him do what you want him to do. Even if he could read it, why the hell would he?” you tried to reason with them, not wanting to sound too desperate.

“It’s not a problem. Our main worry is to keep an eye on him if he tries to escape in the middle of a hunt. If he senses he has a chance, well, you will take care of him when we hunt down whatever is in that crypt. What’s wrong?” Sam finally noticed your strange behaviour.

“Nothing. Better hurry, boys. I really want to have this over asap,” you shook your head, moving to your room and leaving Dean with the scraps of cookies. You lost the mood to properly enjoy them.

Sam caught up with you in the corridor. He must have sensed that something was off with you back in the kitchen. He always worried about you too much for your liking. It was nice of him, but he sometimes tended to dig into matters you wanted to keep to yourself.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, following you to your room. “Did something happen when we were out?”

Bingo, Moose.

“No. I just don’t feel well,” you mentally scoffed at yourself the moment you said that. Now he would worry even more.

“Are you sick? Maybe you should stay in the bunker, until...”

“No, Sammy, it’s okay. I just… It’s something I have to deal with myself,” you tried to reassure him with a warm smile, but you could see by the look on his face that it wasn’t working.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” he made sure, opening your door for you.

“I know. Thank you. Are we leaving right now?”

“Yeah, whatever is in that crypt, became really active when we checked it out. We don’t know if it won’t break free on its own. Do you need more time?”

“No. I’ll meet you in the garage in ten, okay?”

“Sure. Take your time.”

He finally left you alone. You reached for your gun on the bedside table, checking the bullets. You grabbed your coat already feeling the coolness of the night. What perfect scenery for an unwanted talk, probably including some heartbreaking confessions. Yeah, it was a good thing you weren’t a character in some cheesy romance. In your version of the story, you had a gun, a demon-killing knife, and years of practice in hunting on your side. And no intention of starting something that wouldn’t last.

You raised your chin and straightened your back. After all, you were still a hunter and had a work to do, even if that work was one of the most unpleasant things you'd had to do in the past years.

Crowley was just  sitting down in the backseat of the Impala when you arrived and took the opposite seat.

“What are we thinking about?” he asked as if nothing had happened few days ago.

“That I would love to be back in the sewers, looking for a dragon, over being here,” you answered him coldly, avoiding his look.

Dean mumbled something about how his Impala was not even partially that bad, but you didn’t say anything. Looking out the window, you could still see the hazy reflection of the demon. Crowley was silent for the rest of the ride, which was unusual for him, but you tried not to overthink that. One couldn’t guess what was on his mind. You didn’t see it the last time and that didn’t end well, so you were far from trying to guess again. Apparently, you weren’t as skilled in that matter as you used to think, but you still had other skills, much more useful in certain situations.

Dean pulled over near the gates of an old cemetery on the outskirts of the town. It looked like no one had been there for a long time as everything was dirty and poorly maintained. The leaves were banking up over the graves, some of which were tilted or plainly broken and forgotten. Judging by the dates engraved on them, the closest relatives of the people laying there were long dead too, and their offspring clearly neglected their duties. It made you sad, but you quickly dismissed that thought. You had other things to worry about.

You moved back to the boys standing before the ancient-looking crypt they told you about. Their annoyed faces almost made you laugh. When you caught up with them, Crowley was explaining to them how much he wasn’t going to help them.

“But why?” Dean almost groaned. “Don’t you see that you have no choice in the matter?”

“Squirrel, you are only making me enjoy myself more when I show you don’t have any power over me,” Crowley laughed loudly.

“We can kill all of your best demons!”

“Then there will come next ones. We are demons, that’s what we do. You can’t exterminate all of my kind.”

“We'll see about that,” Sam grinned promisingly.

“Is this a pep talk…?”

“We can give you to Abbadon, remember that?” Dean teased him, which Crowley ignored.

“Or help you track her,” you added, surprising yourself and the three men.

Dean gave you the “what the hell” look from behind Crowley, who also eyed you weirdly. You shrugged, not really bothered by their reaction. The boys knew that sooner or later you would have to deal with growing in strength against Abbadon. She was not only Crowley’s problem. The raising chaos in Hell and her ideas on how to capture as many souls as possible were as important as the angels’ fall. And Crowley had to have something to gain to do what you wanted from him. That was just how he worked. Right?

Crowley squinted his eyes at you, trying to find a catch.

“What do you say, Crowley?” Sam rushed him, noticing the change in his mood and sensing his hesitation. “Deal?”

Crowley death-glared him, but nodded after a while of consideration. He glanced at you, but you kept your “bored beyond imagination” face, so he couldn’t read anything.

The demon moved to the closed entrance of the crypt, silently reading the ancient words in some probably dead language you didn’t understand at all. Dean moved closer to you, keeping an eye on Crowley.

“What the hell was that about?” he whispered to you almost angrily.

“You wanted him to help. I made him do it,” you said calmly as if you didn’t see what he had in mind.

Sure, it could be considered unusual for you to stand up for Crowley so openly, but you didn’t understand Dean’s surprise. You have always tried to act fair to everyone, including the other species as long as they weren’t breaking the law or hurting anyone. You and Dean have even had some mild arguments because of it a few times. Crowley may have been a douche one too many times, but recently did nothing evil.

Dean shot you another weird stare, which left you uneasy, but fortunately, Crowley deciphered the words on the marble walls, turning to you.

“It basically says in some fancy old French to keep away from and never open it. Are you ready, boys? I can’t wait to see you struggling with whatever it is.”

“Come on, Crowley, there is like two meters of text, what does it all say? There has to be some clue to what it is,” Dean left you, moving back to the crypt.

“According to these lame rhymes, it’s undead and living off of human emotions. My guess is that a lovey-dovey night of some emo kids on one of those benches woke up this creature. It’s pretty romantic, isn’t it?”

The Winchesters ignored him, talking with each other about what they should take. You exhaled deeply, wishing you could go with them, but you were aware they made a great team together. And someone had to have an eye on Crowley, still cuffed, but not less dangerous.

You wished the boys good luck when they finally managed to break the crypt’s entrance open. They were lucky no one was in the neighbourhood at that hour.

After they disappeared in the darkness, an awkward descended between you and Crowley. You didn’t want to look at him too much, because you had no idea what  he would think, but at the same time you knew this moment had to arrive at last. Your previous confidence melted away quicker than you would have expected.

It started to rain. You shivered when the temperature dropped drastically. It looked like winter was indeed coming quickly that year. The Impala was parked at the cemetery gates, from where you could still see the crypt, just in case anything decided to slide out. Crowley noticed your longing look. He could feel the cool air too.

“We don’t have to stand here like idiots,” he said, jerking his head toward the parked car.

You raised an eyebrow.

“Since when are you so docile?”

Crowley shrugged it off casually. Sometimes, when he gave up on all his “King-of-Hell-ness”, you could easily forget he wasn’t a human.

“You first,” you gestured and he smirked at your carefulness, but didn’t say anything, moving slowly, as if in no rush at all.

You sat in the back of the Impala, finally protected from the rain. Your hair was wet already and you didn’t even want to look in the mirror to see how bad it was. You rarely cared for looks, your own included, and it was a riddle why you gained anyone’s attention at all.

Crowley brushed his short hair carelessly. He looked so goddamn well, no matter what happened to him, that it made you almost jealous. He noticed your stare. You were aware there was nothing you could do more to avoid that confrontation.

“How much longer are you gonna pretend nothing happened?” he asked quietly with hoarseness in his voice.

You moved your eyes to the crypt.

“However long I can,” you answered honestly.

“Why?” he asked after a moment of hesitation. You would kill for a chance to look into his mind.

Your mouth felt dry and made your words crack more than you wished.

“I had already told you back then. It wouldn’t work. I am a hunter and you are one of the worst enemies of people like me...”

“Cut it out. I know when I hear a lie.”

You growled, leaning your head on the backrest. At this point, you were too tired of hiding and Crowley didn’t lose his interest in you even though it’s been months since you first said no to him. He deserved at least to know why.

“I am asexual, Crowley,” you blurted out, trying really hard not to look at him. Your throat clenched, almost suffocating you.

“So?” was not what you have expected.

You looked at him, for a brief moment forgetting about your clenched insides and stress pumping through your veins. Completely bewildered, you stared at his unamused face, expecting him to add anything. He only raised an eyebrow.

“I just said I am...”

“I heard you perfectly well, darling. And I don’t see any problem,” he said confidently, making you squint your eyes suspiciously. Maybe he didn’t understand what you meant, not many people did.

“Even if we… I wouldn’t...” you tried to explain what  he would have to accept, but you failed miserably, feeling your whole face burn like it was set on fire.

“I know,” he didn’t lose his confidence.

You scoffed, shaking your head incredulously.

“And since when are you so wiling to change your whole… style? Please, Crowley, just stop this nonsense...”

“You admitted you… could be interested in me,” he stated carefully, for the first time in your conversation looking back from you to his still cuffed hands. “And it makes our… situation different from anything that… used to happen to me. With me.”

You tried to comprehend what he wanted to say and what it meant in relation to you. Both of you. It almost felt like a dream weaved by a Djinn and was too promising to be real. You didn’t even realize how desperate you had been, wanting to hear such words from him until then.

But at the same time, there still was this part of you, which couldn’t forget that you had already heard those promises before and that it never ended well. Sooner or later, it became too much for the other person and you couldn’t even truly blame them. They were normal and had their own needs.

Your thoughts must have been visible on your face, because Crowley sighed deeply, not used to this kind of conversation. He could see it was what you needed though, so he forced himself to say what he felt.

“Look, darling, I cannot give you any proof of what I’m saying, so all I can do is to assure you that I am not some horny teenager or two-faced cheater and I actually want something... different, to put it in words. And if I weren’t sure I can agree on your terms, I wouldn’t toy with you.”

“Yeah, because you’d never toy with someone, right?” you snickered sadly, desperately trying not to wish for too much. Hope has already started to grow in your unusually light heart and was making every word harder for you to say.

“Guilty,” Crowley admitted with a nod. “But you will never know until you try me yourself, love.”

“Do I want to?” you whispered, locking your gaze with his.

“You have to answer that on your own, I’m afraid,” he said just as quiet as you and you felt yourself shiver.

That was exactly the moment when the Winchesters came back to the Impala, shutting the door loudly. They were still buzzing with adrenaline and you could smell the odor of some ancient dead bodies even from where you were sitting. You made a face, opening your window slightly.

“Ugh, did you hug the dead or something?” you whined loudly and Crowley grinned.

“We won’t have this talk,” Dean shushed you quickly, shivering at the mere thought of what they had encountered in the crypt. You were lucky nothing got out of it behind their backs, because you wouldn’t even notice.

“At least it’s done,” Sam turned to you, smiling slightly. Something black was smudged on his face but you didn’t want to know exactly what it was. He gestured to Crowley. “Any problems?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” you shrugged it off, not looking at the demon.

“Exactly, Moose. And now we can get back to your cosy little place and play with the chains,” Crowley added with a smug look on his face. He seemed genuinely happier now that you’d told him the truth and it took you a moment not to smile and make Sam suspicious.

“Hey, I’m not your chauffeur,” Dean groaned, starting the car.

“Of course you are not. I still have standards.”

That time you couldn’t contain a small giggle that escaped your lips, but the boys didn’t hear it. Crowley, on the other hand, looked like a cat that had just caught a very fat bird. Your only wonder was what he was going to do with it, but that you could take. Everything felt so… easy and bright, right now and you honestly couldn’t care less about anything.

Even if it wasn’t going to be all a fairy tail, at least the weight on your shoulders that accumulated over the past months was gone. About the rest – you shall see what the future brings you.

[Part 5 - Epilogue]

#crowley #something different #crowley x reader #crowley x you #crowleyxreader #supernatural #crowleyxyou #crowley/reader #crowley x asexual!reader #asexual!reader #crowley imagine #crowley/you

[very-merry-sioux]

(one of my first attempts to write feels, enjoy!)

I Failed To Protect You - [my fic in ff.net]

Sometimes it hurt and he can ignore it. But other times it hurt too much and it became harder to ignore it—but he had to, because there were more important things. Things that could end with permanent consequences if he didn't give it his all. Death-T, Duelist Kingdom, Dark Bakura, Marik's Ghouls, and now Dartz and the Orichalcos. He had to shove them away, he had to hide it—bury it deep within him. Cover his pain with walls as hard and cold like the labyrinth in the Puzzle.

He had no time for distractions.

But he knew he couldn't keep it in forever, he knew it would come back to haunt him. Burying something so deep for so long tended to end badly, to bite him back in the ass. He had witnessed it firsthand with Kaiba, a boy who had buried all his pain and insecurities to be strong for his brother—and later buried everything else to survive the upbringing he had with his foster father. It was like a seed, bury it and let it germinate. Let it grow, mature, and mutate into something he couldn't control himself. Into an obsession he realized too late. For Kaiba, it was his obsession to be the strongest in Duel Monsters—a childhood dream that became corrupt. He lost his true cause for being strong, and ended up hurting the very reason he wanted to be strong for in the first place.

For him, it was his obsession to always win. No matter the cost, no matter the consequences. He should have seen it before, he had done it once in Duelist Kingdom. When Kaiba had threatened to kill himself if he won (and he would have won the duel if it weren't for Yuugi, he would have killed Kaiba if it weren't for Yuugi).Winning games was… winning duels was… winning was the only use he had.

He had used his powers and it only led to pain and fear. It had led to Death-T, for Kaiba wanted revenge after he had humiliated him in a shadow game. It led to Yuugi being absolutely terrified of him, a spirit who possessed his body without his knowledge and hurt people (he had burned one man alive and made Kaiba experience death, for gods' sakes). It had led to Yuugi's grandfather being taken, for Pegasus had discovered the Puzzle because of Death-T. His powers were useless, they didn't help anybody, so he stopped using them.

All that was left then, was his skill in games.

And it stopped being useful when Yuugi was forcibly ripped from him. He closed his eyes at the memory, hands pushing him out of the way and the sinking feeling in his gut (and denial) as he saw his partner in the seal. It should have been him, it should have been him, it should have been him.

He let out a shaky breath. Sometimes it hurt and he could deal with it—but most of the time he was on the verge of breaking. He looked down at the endless black void in front of him. Once upon a time, he had taunted another Item wielder about the horrors of his labyrinth. He had stood before Shadi's fingers, looking down at him as he dangled at the broken edge of the floor. He had smirked and mocked him, telling him if he fell then his soul would be doomed to be lost in the dark abyss.

He had laughed at Shadi's fear (and it was no wonder Yuugi had feared him), wondered out loud if he should leave him to fall and rot.

(Gods, he was just like the spirit of the Ring)

If he didn't exist, maybe life for everyone would be better. If it weren't for him, his partner would still be here. Dartz wanted him, and was willing to hurt Yuugi's friends, who were only high school students, to reach him. If it weren't for his stupidity, his bull-headedness, his gods-be-damned fickle pride—then Yuugi Mutou would still be here in his rightful body. But he wasn't.

Instead it was an ancient dead spirit with no memories, who was only useful in games and torture (and he was good at it, he remembered the time that he reveled in the screams of Ushio, Sozoji, and countless others before he found some semblance of sanity).

He tilted his head and leaned forward, teetering a little more towards the void. He marveled at the endless black, light seemingly stopping in the void. He remembered the cruel words he told Shadi and wondered.

If he fell… would he disappear?

This was his soul room, and the void was still part of his soul (and what did that say about him, to have a vast dark hole in a mental representation of his very essence?). At best, he would continuously fall until some external force stopped him. At worst, he would forever be lost within his own mind. A soulless soul, if that was possible. He would disappear into nothingness, fade away, and never be a bother to anyone else anymore.

That seemed nice.

Who would miss him? The people who truly knew him were (mostly) long dead, buried under the sand for thousands of years. He wouldn't be surprised if some of them were displayed in a museum somewhere. Jounouchi? He would move on. Anzu? She would get over him, always her love for Yuugi would be stronger than the whatever-it-was she had for him (it was something he admired from her, because she truly loved Yuugi as a friend, sister, and—given time—something more). Honda? They weren't that close, he wasn't close with any of Yuugi's friends. Not really. Ryou? He suspected that the white haired boy was a bit wary around him, perhaps reminding him of another ancient Egyptian spirit.

Yuugi? Yes, he would probably miss him. But he had friends, he had his family, and he had always been the stronger between them. He had lived most of his life without him, and he could do it again—especially now that he had more people who would care for him. What would he need from someone who was still insane? Who still felt a little pleasure in seeing the pain of duelists as they were defeated, who still felt tempted to call his power and bring forth terrifying illusions as retribution?

Who used that gods' forsaken card despite knowing what it could do, what would Yuugi need from someone like that?

Yuugi was strong and he was weak. He couldn't concentrate without the comforting presence of Yuugi's soul, couldn't summon up the will to fight without his words of encouragement.

It would be so easy to jump, or even just lean forward a bit more. Nobody needed him, nobody should want him, who would miss him?

"I would, my prince."

He jerked at the voice and turned. Behind him was a tall man, garbed in dark violet robes and armor, and looking at him with sad blue eyes. He looked away.

"You shouldn't, I treated you horribly," he said, feeling bile in his throat as he remembered the callous way he treated all his monsters. Hadn't he once told Pandora that he should treat his cards with respect and dignity? That they were more than just tools? What a self-righteous hypocrite he was. "I hurt you."

"I will heal."

"I hurt her," he emphasized, remembering the betrayed look the man's beloved student gave him as he forced her to sacrifice herself. "I promised—I goddamn promised her, and yet I-"

He deserved to lose… he did.

But Yuugi didn't deserve to take that penalty, it should have been him.

"She will heal."

"She shouldn't have to!" he snarled, looking back at Dark Magician—his most loyal Duel Monster (and whywhywhy did he deserve such loyalty from a powerful and dignified being like him?). He remembered the pure hurt shining in those green eyes, glistening with tears threatening to pour out. And if he had been less prideful, less blind, then he would have listened to the tugs pulling in his heart. Because Dark Magician Girl was far more suited for happiness, not crying, and he should have made sure that—

("Hey now, don't cry," he soothes the sobbing girl. "I sucked out all the poison, the snake won't bother him. No more tears, okay?")

"You shouldn't have to either! What kind of… what kind of—I don't know what I am to you!" he cried. "I don't know what I was to you, but I sure as hell know I shouldn't be hurting you!"

Shouldn't make one of them cry (I'm so sorry).

He wasn't clueless, he wasn't stupid, he wouldn't be half as good in games if he didn't have the ability to connect the dots. Ishizu had shown them the tablet, and it had the Dark Magician carved on it. That spoke volumes in itself. He knew the spellcaster was connected to his forgotten past, and he suspected that they had been something. Friends perhaps (dare he hope, after what he did?). Dark Magician had always been far more alive in duels than what seemed expected from the holographic technology, even before Kaiba's advanced duel disks. Smiling, wagging his finger, doing twirls with his staff before he attacked, and sometimes looking back at him worriedly when he thought he wasn't paying attention.

And the duel with Pandora, that time where he activated an effect all on his own, standing in front of him so his life points wouldn't go to zero. Monsters shouldn't be able to do that, not without any indication from their duelists or the duel disks. Dark Magician was self-aware enough to act on his own volition.

He had appointed himself guardian of his soul room (and how did Duel Monsters get into his soul so easily?), often nudging Yuugi away from tablets and rooms when the teen felt like exploring. The one time Shadi tried to venture the labyrinth again in Duelist Kingdom, the Egyptian man nearly got disintegrated on the spot by an irate magician when he tried to touch the tablets. If it weren't for Yuugi intervening, Shadi would have been a smear on the floor.

He knew him, he cared about him.

And look what he does to that person, he treated him as a mere tool.

Another person he hurt because of his pride, one who stood by him longer than anybody he knew. Despite that, despite committing the most damnable failure he'd ever committed, the man was still determined to protect him, even from himself.

"Why? Why do you go through such lengths to protect me?" he asked, wringing his hands. It baffled him. He was a powerful spirit, he could defend himself. He was dead and couldn't remember his own name, there wasn't much left to protect—body and mind. And if he thought about it, he only used Dark Magician as a soldier in battle. Even before the tribute summon rule in dueling, the spellcaster has gone through so many deaths it was a wonder he still had the energy to go through his typical sass. Why would he put up with that? "I don't remember you, I don't know you."

He saw the quick flash of pain in the blue eyes, the raw hurt at that admission. So he had been right then, he and Dark Magician (and most likely Dark Magician Girl) knew each other, once upon a time. It must hurt, to see a loved one (maybe?) completely forget about you, to see them look at you with no recognition. He turned away, he had already been hurting Dark Magician without trying. By looking at him, not remembering him.

"Gods, I don't deserve it, I don't deserve you," he said bitterly, laughing at himself. "I'm nothing, the only worth I seem to have is that I was pharaoh, and what good is that?"

Dark Magician flinched, as if physically struck by his words, but he plowed on regardless. Too engrossed at his thoughts to care, these feelings had been festering for a while now, and they were itching to burst.

"What good is a pharaoh who can't even remember his own name? What good is a pharaoh who's dead, whose body is a shriveled up corpse somewhere?" he laughed, shaking his head. "Hell, what good is a pharaoh in this day and age?"

He laughed again, like he had found a funny joke—and really, he did: it was called his life. He was an ancient spirit with amnesia, who possessed a Japanese teenage boy via a golden puzzle and was apparently Egyptian once upon a time. His talents were winning games, recently card games, and his skills consist of making people crazy. His life was a joke, his death was a joke.

"Your worth isn't because of your title."

"Oh? And what is it then?"

"It's because you are you," Dark Magician replied softly, walking closer to him and placing his (warm warm warm) hands on his shoulders. The spellcaster gently pulled him away from the edge. He didn't fight back, didn't shrug off the hands. It wasn't the first time he thought about ending his un-life (un-death?) and looking at the dark void contemplatively, just the first time he had finally voiced his thoughts out loud. Always, Dark Magician was there to pull him away. "Do you think I would stay for thousands of years just because you were king?"

From the Egyptian people he had met before, it was obvious that they weren't the sanest or most logical bunch. But he restrained himself from saying that. "Whoever I was before, I'm certainly not him now."

Memories were the basis of personality after all, and he barely had any.

"You'd be surprised with how little you've changed," the man refuted, wrapping his arms around his waist and dragging him down the floor. He flailed, surprised at the change of position. He was seated between the spellcaster's legs, who placed himself in a cross-legged sit, not letting go of him. "You are still the intelligent and kind man I knew, one who always protects his friends."

"I'm doing a horrible job at it," he muttered, feeling awkward at being hugged. Nobody had ever given him soft and affectionate touches like this. He knew he was viewed as someone intimidating, untouchable and powerful. The closest he experienced was Jounouchi's hug tackles and noogies. Most would give him a pat on the shoulder.

"You are doing the best you can with the limited resources you have," Dark Magician corrected, removing his arms from the small spirit to take off his armor. First the pauldrons, then his helmet. He blinked, staring at the long violet hair that fell over the man's shoulders. His hands twitched, wanting to comb through the locks and see if it was as silky as it looked.

Without the armor, Dark Magician looked less threatening. Softer, gentler.

Familiar.

(White robes, tan skin, long brown hair, and gray eyes shining with amusement)

He was pulled out of his musings when Dark Magician hugged him again, this time a little closer. With the armor out of the way, he could feel the man's steady heartbeat. Could smell his comforting scent; lavender, incense, and other spices. He fidgeted, unsure on what to do in this (surprisingly comfortable) position.

"I forget that you are so human," Dark Magician murmured, combing through his spikes. "That you are confused and unsure of yourself, that you hurt near constantly, that you need companionship as much as you need protection. I thought I have gone past that, seeing you as something infallible and god-like."

"I'm not god-anything," he protested. God forsaken, perhaps. But god-like? That was ridiculous, there was nothing godly about him.

"Once upon a time, I thought you were," Dark Magician sighed, still stroking his hair. It was so calming, he cuddled a bit closer. Eyes drooping as he listened. "The person I was in the past would have been horrified with my actions now, would think it beneath his status, to be so casual with the king."

"Statuses are stupid," he mumbled, remembering the arrogant people he had encountered when he was freed. It was always status of something for them—wealth, beauty, popularity, and other silly things. "We both have the same color of blood, don't we? Neither of us should be beneath or above each other."

He felt rumbling from the other's chest, and the arms around him tightened. "You truly haven't changed—matured and grown perhaps, but what made you remarkable to me is still there."

"There's nothing remarkable with treating you horribly."

"Your opponent manipulated you, used your self-doubt against you," Dark Magician said. "Dartz has ten thousand years' worth of experience to know what could break you, I'm sure he told his follower how."

"But-"

"I should have intervened, said something—the rules of the game never held strongly to me," he continued. "I should have reassured you, instead of watching you doubt yourself more and more—what kind of friend am I? To do nothing while you were hurting?"

Friend, he called him a friend.

He sobbed brokenly, because he had met a lot of things related to his unknown past. Enemies like Dark Bakura and Pegasus, unfortunate slaves like the Ishtars, and tentative allies like Shadi. But never a friend, never any indication that he had bonds with anyone. Yes, the tablet was a symbol of friendship created by one of his high priests, but this was also the same person who had created the clan of grave keepers doomed to never see sunlight. He had a friend, a person he cared about and cared for him as well. He had a friend, and surely that meant he wasn't that horrible of a person before, right?

"Oh, my prince, you were never horrible," Dark Magician replied sadly. Had he said that out loud? "Forceful and prideful, but never cruel and cold-hearted. You shouldn't believe the words of Raphael."

"S'hard," he sniffled, trying in vain to stop the tears. It was hard to ignore the duelist's words when it was true. How could he be sure that he was a good person before? He had been cruel and cold-hearted the first months of being released, he had been horrible and terrifying. And when he thought he was getting better, becoming good, he reverted back to being a cruel spirit who loved seeing people lose. Just for the sake of winning a stupid card game. He had broken a promise, he had ignored Yuugi, he had treated all of his cards like crap. He had treated his friend like crap. "M'sorry, 'm so sorry."

"I know."

He wished he wasn't hugged like this, he wished he was punched like how Jounouchi reacted. He wished there was disappointment and grief in those blue eyes, like in Anzu's when she discovered the news. He wished the man would scream at him, like Rebecca had. He wished all of this was just one big nightmare and Yuugi was there, smiling at him and asking him to look at their deck again.

"M'so tired, Dark Magician," he mumbled. "I wan' t'sleep for a long time."

And never wake up, was the unsaid thought.

He sighed as he felt fingers combing his hair again, he let his eyes slid close and his body relax into a boneless heap. Surrendering himself to the feeling of safety and comfort from the man (no matter how undeserving he was of having it).

"Then sleep," Dark Magician said softly. "I will wake you up when it's needed."

He was so tired.

"… 'Kay," he breathed. "G'night, Mahad."

A twitch, the arms around him held him tight.

"Pleasant dreams, my prince."

Sleep was nice.

#ygo #yami #atem #mahad #dark magician #sealshipping #loyaltyshipping #art vomit #word vomit

[mizjoely]

Dear Rosie

Her mother’s smiling face, which she has no living memory of ever seeing in real life, fills the screen, and Rosie hits the pause button, not ready to her mother’s words just yet. She’s so beautiful, with the same blue eyes and blonde hair that Rosamund Mary Watson has, although of course she feels her mother wears both features far better than she does. She’s thirteen and insecure about her looks no matter how many people try to reassure her that it’s just baby fat, that her nose isn’t too big (thanks, Dad, for THAT unfortunate gene-sharing), that she’s lovely and always has been. Even Uncle Sherlock, who normally isn’t one for cosseting her, has told her rather crossly that although beauty is a social convention, SHE happens to be the epitome of the Western World’s particular convention. Besides, she’s got far more important qualities - strength, intelligence, and charm, all acquired directly from her mother’s DNA.

But it’s not enough to hear it from family, not when you’re thirteen and have no mum to either fight with or run to with your problems, the way all of her friends do. Hell, her best friend Abigail has TWO mum’s, which right now just doesn’t seem fair.

But at least her own Mum put together these DVDs, antiquated tech though it is these days, but she stubbornly refuses to just download them onto her tablet. There’s a comforting ritual about sliding the disk into the machine and waiting for it to come up on her screen.

There are nineteen of them. She’s watched thirteen but no matter how much she begs her father refuses to let her see the rest. “One for each year, Rosie,” he admonishes her every time she asks. Even when he’s had a bit much to drink (usually on her Mum’s birthday and their wedding anniversary and on the day of her death, but sometimes when he and Uncle Sherlock have just been celebrating a particularly rousing case), he never caves. But she always tries, desperate for more of the mother who died when she was still too young to remember her.

He’s allowed her to see the disk he left for him and Uncle Sherlock, though, where her Mum tells them to just go off and be happy or some rubbish. She kind of hates that one; Mum doesn’t even talk about her, it’s as if she made that disk as if she thought Rosie might be dead, too, leaving Uncle Sherlock and Dad to go off on adventures without anyone holding them back. When she said that to him, the first time she watched it and tried not to cry (angry tears, hurt tears), he started to lose his temper, but Aunt Molly was there and gave him the same look she uses to keep Uncle Sherlock in line, and Dad calmed right down. Calmed down and tried to explain that this particular disk, like the one he’ll never ever show her (and won’t even tell her what it’s about), wasn’t meant for her. “It was meant for me and Uncle Sherlock, Rosie. She was just trying to let us know we’d be fine, eventually. The day after we watched it the first time, I got the larger packet in the mail, the one with your disks. I watched the first one - you know, the one where she starts off by telling me to stop watching...”

“’Right now, John Watson, unless Rosie is in your lap and she’s actually one year old!’” Rosie quoted, half-laughing and feeling somewhat better about herself.

That was last year, six months before her twelfth birthday. She hasn’t watched it since that first time, although she’s tried once in a while. It still doesn’t feel right to her, but that’s probably because Dad’s right (not that she’ll ever tell HIM that) and it’s just not meant for her. Maybe she’ll feel differently when she’s older, but not right now. Not on her thirteenth birthday when she feels like all the world hates her, that she’s fat and ugly and stupid and when will these god-awful braces come off her teeth??

She shakes her head, hard, blinking away sudden tears. Her mother’s DVDs always make her cry at first, and sometimes when she rewatches them, but usually she gets past the first few seconds before the tears spill.

With a deep, shuddering breath and an angry dash of her hand across her face, she hits the ‘play’ button and settles back on her bed, an ancient, faded elephant stuffie in her arms, the one her mother got her before she was born and that lives on the shelf above her bed. Except for DVD watching days, when it settles comfortably in her arms.

“Dear Rosie,” her Mum’s recorded voice says, the same two words every DVD so far has started with. “I hope you don’t hate being called that yet, although I did when I was about your age. Then I loved it again and then - well, later it was just Mary, but I missed it so much I named you Rosamund just so I could hear your Dad and everyone else call you that.”

She already knows this; her Mum explained all that in the DVD for her sixth birthday, when she accurately predicted her daughter would start wondering why she’d been named after her. That was still something most people only did with boys. But she smiles anyway, happy to hear her mother’s voice, eager to find out if she’ll have anything to say that will make her feel a bit better about braces and boys not liking her yet (although she’s liked plenty of them ever since she was four and found out how differently they were put together from girls).

“My darling girl, I know how hard it is to be a teenager, even if I’m just a silly grown-up who can’t possibly understand. At least, that’s how I felt about my Mum when I was your age. I’m positive that if I were there with you right now we’d probably hate each other a bit, every now and then - just like I’m sure you hate your Dad every now and then. Just like you feel you’re alone and unloved and misunderstood. But I hope you remember that those feelings are just part of growing up - and if you’re lucky enough not to have them, I’m so happy and so grateful.” Her smile deepened and she gave a little chuckle. “But I suspect I’m right about this, and I wish I could be there to console you and reassure you, to fight with you over your clothes and your chores and your homework. Oh, I’m sure your Dad is doing a fantastic job, but still...”

She falls silent for a moment, looking pensive, then gives a little shake, the smile returning to her lips. “The thing is, Rosie, that thirteen is a tough age, we both know it. Your body is changing - has Dad done The Talk with you yet? Have you had your first period, has he taken you shopping for your first bra, or has he shucked that responsibility off onto Mrs. Hudson or Molly Hooper? Has he forbade you to date yet, or is he saving that for when you’re a bit older, stubbornly clinging to the idea that you’ll always be his baby girl? If he is, if he’s been difficult about any of that, try to forgive him. Men can be rather dense about things, especially when it comes to their daughters.”

Rosie smiles at those words, remembering how embarrassed her Dad had been when she’d tearfully told him she needed to buy pads and panty liners, and how he’d taken her to Tesco’s but panically called Aunt Molly to help them while pretending it was just because he had no idea which brands were best. But he’d done well enough with the bra thing, sending her off with the lady to the dressing room to be measured and fitted, probably pretending he was just shopping for something to wear undercover for a case. Or so Aunt Molly had believed, the two of them giggling over it back at home while Dad and Uncle Sherlock were arguing in the kitchen over whether or not it was OK to keep spare body parts in the freezer. “Back at your own flat, yes, but not here!” Dad had shouted while she showed Aunt Molly the prettiest of the four bras she now owned.

“Your Dad loves you, Rosie, so, so much,” her mother says when she rewinds the disk a bit to catch up on what she missed while lost in her memories. “So try to be patient with him, and try to be patient with yourself. Whatever you hate about yourself right now - and I’m sure there’s something, there always is, isn’t there? - try to listen when your Dad and everyone else try to reassure you. They’re not lying to you, and they’re not just being nice - especially Sherlock, pretty sure he’s never going to be the ‘just to be nice’ kind of person, no matter how much time passes!”

Rosie giggles; nope, Uncle Sherlock has never been that kind of person, even if he’s a bit better at it now than he used to be, or so Aunt Molly says. 

“I guess all I have left to say, Rosie, is that I love you, and I wish I was there for you. God, I already said that, didn’t I?” Her Mum’s smile is sad again. “I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes at me repeating myself, but it’s true. I do love you, so much, and I do wish I was there right now. But I know you’re in good hands, with your Dad and Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson and Molly Hooper and Greg Lestrade...”

Rosie pauses the disk, tears once again threatening. Mum isn’t a fortune teller, of course, no matter how much she wishes she had been; she couldn’t know about Papa Lestrade and the stupid drunken lorry driver. Maybe next year, when it’s been more than eleven months since he was taken from them, she won’t feel so badly at hearing his name from her Mum’s lips. For now, all she can do is grab a tissue and wipe her eyes as the tears fall, knowing that they’re not just for Papa Lestrade but for her Mum as well. 

She saves the rest of the disk for later, knowing by the way her Mum’s talking there isn’t much left to it. Maybe she’ll watch it from the start with her Dad, which will end the way it always does - the two of them pretending not to cry and Aunt Molly scolding them for it later when she asks if they did or not. “You don’t have to be so damned British all the time,” she’ll snap, exasperated, then pull them both in for warm hugs. If Uncle Sherlock is there he’ll pretend to be jealous and want in on the hugging and they’ll all four of them just huddle together for a bit. Then Aunt Molly and Uncle Sherlock will go make tea so she and Dad can have a bit of time together, but they’ll all be missing her Mum.

They’ll always be missing her, everyone who knew and loved her, but most especially Rosamund Mary Watson...who loves her, but never knew her.

#rosie watson #i wrote a thing #and it made me sad #but i hope you like it

[wootensmith]

Temple of Mythal

“I hear fighting ahead,” said Morrigan, the clash of metal clanging off the tight stone arch above them. “Prepare yourself, my dear, it’s likely Corypheus will make an appearance,” said Vivienne, her staff already glowing with a spell. “I’m counting on it,” said the Inquisitor, her face grim. “Solas,” whispered Dorian, holding him back by the arm. “If something happens— I know what you asked Vivienne to do.” “What? But—” “It’s not Vivienne’s fault. A little bird told me. One with a big hat.” Solas scraped a hand over his face in frustration. “Now is not the time,” he said. “It might be the only time. Just in case— I left you some notes. In the Mareno. It’s in your desk. Not much, but a few ideas from my own work with Felix. I didn’t want them to be lost.” “We aren’t going to—” he fell silent as a shout echoed down the archway. “Inquisitor?” He sprinted toward the courtyard. He heard Corypheus’s rasping growl before his eyes fell on the Inquisitor who knelt behind the balustrade. He stopped Dorian in the shadow of the archway. Corypheus stood below, towering over the small group of elves that waited on a long bridge, its yellow tiles glinting gold and warm in the sun. The Inquisitor cried out as he lifted the man who had dared to stand against him from his feet. Solas felt the deep pull of the wards against the Veil. The glowed in warning but Corypheus took another step forward, ignoring them. The cool blue of Mythal’s magic was so familiar to Solas that he barely realized he felt it until it washed over Corypheus and unknitted him, peeling skin from muscle, unraveling muscle from bone until all that remained was a dark splash of soot on the end of the bridge. The Inquisitor stood up, shocked. He watched a slow smile of relief spread across her face, could see the laugh of joy that sat on the tip of her tongue. She ran down the steps and knelt near the soot pile. It was over. At last, it was over. He followed her down to the bridge, kneeling beside her. “But where is the orb, Solas?” she whispered. He plunged his hands into the ash, trying to feel its solid weight, the deep, intricate ridges that he knew so well. But there was only ash. “That was it?” asked Dorian. “Bit anticlimactic.” He twisted his mustache. “Not that I’m disappointed. More time for better things. Come, sorora, let’s tell the others the good news.” He held out a hand to help her up.

“No, something’s wrong. Look,” said Morrigan pointing to the far end of the bridge. The lyrium in Samson’s armor glittered ruby shafts of light across the stones. There was a groan behind them. The Inquisitor rose and spun around. Vivienne pulled her away from the man that was jerking and twitching on the ground beside her. Solas watched in horror as the blight spread over the man’s skin, blackening and bubbling, melting away. A font of black blood erupted from his nose and mouth and Dorian pushed Solas back, out of the spray. The man fell forward, his form still shifting and twisting, ripping out of the scale armor he’d warn. “It cannot be!” cried Morrigan. “It is,” gasped Solas as Corypheus’s claw scraped free of the black slime. “Across the bridge, now,” shouted the Inquisitor, yanking Vivienne behind her as she sprinted. A dragon screamed above them. Dorian twisted to look and Solas gave him a hard shove. “Don’t look back,” he yelled. The skin of his neck prickled and he felt the stone shake beneath him. The door ahead was already inching closed. Searing heat licked up his back and he grabbed Dorian and fade-stepped through the doorway. It slammed shut as they tumbled to the floor. He heard the ward snap shut, felt the Inquisitor’s hands lifting his head, and opened his eyes to see her hovering over him. “Dorian—” he said, turning to find him. “I’m here,” Dorian said. “Just— give me a moment.” The Inquisitor helped him sit up. He stared at her, unable to turn from her. “That was— unexpected,” said Vivienne. He twined his fingers into the Inquisitor’s. She was watching the others. Dorian popped up beside him. “Did you see that black bile? He’s using the blight somehow. Like he— he’s transferring himself somehow. Like one of the Old Gods.” “Impossible,” said Morrigan. “That thing is not a god—” The dusty light leaking into the temple softened Lavellan’s outline, tinted her like a well-worn memory even as he felt the pulse in her wrist beneath his thumb. “Why impossible? You saw it with your own eyes. And we know he uses the Calling like—” She flinched and glanced down at her wrist and he realized he was holding her too tightly. He pulled her closer instead of letting go. “Emma lath?” she whispered, the argument escalating behind them. “Not yet,” he said, “It is not yet dawn.” He traced the light that sank into her skin, that tipped the curve of her lips, knowing the lie was deep and burrowing even as he spoke it. “Help me push back the sun,” she said, kissing him. “How do we fight him?” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I did not expect him to discover the secret to immortality.” “He wants this Well of Sorrows. He must need it for something. Perhaps we need not fight him, not yet. If we stop him from claiming what he seeks.” “Well of Sorrows?” “The man on the bridge said it was not for him.” She looked up as the door shuddered. He pressed her closer. “He’s coming. We must move. We have to find this Well and protect it.” She helped him up and they followed Morrigan deeper into the temple. “I thought we were looking for an eluvian,” said Dorian, “but the elves seem to think otherwise.” “Yes, Lady Morrigan, what is this Well of Sorrows?” asked Vivienne coolly. “I am— uncertain,” she answered. “It seems we’ve been led astray, darling,” said Vivienne, tucking the torn cloth of the Inquisitor’s robe back. Morrigan scowled. “Yes, I was wrong, does that please you? Whatever the Well of Sorrows is, Corypheus wants it, thus we must keep it from his grasp.” “Then we’d better reach it before Samson,” said the Inquisitor “Any clue what to do with it once we find it?” asked Dorian. “How are we supposed to fight something that can just jump from body to body?” “Fight it someplace alone?” “Unacceptable,” said Vivienne. “We are not letting you face that fiend alone. Besides— these magics seem to be doing a great deal to keep him at bay for the moment. Perhaps the residents have more useful techniques to share?” “I thought you said they could be dangerous,” said the Inquisitor. “So they could be. But we are dangerous too, my dear. Never forget that.” The last time he had been here, he’d been almost dead. Bloodied and drained after he’d tried to aid a group of slaves attempting to escape one of the lower nobility. It had been a disaster, betrayed from the inside. The people had meant little to Elgar’nan. Less even than his own, property of his servant, a slightly more lenient enslavement. But the chance to crush Fen’harel— that had drawn him. Solas’s own presence doomed the slaves, and he hadn’t known it until too late. He, alone, was powerful enough to survive Elgar’nan’s wrath. But only barely. He’d dragged himself through the eluvians to this place. His own blood probably still clung to some of the tiles they walked upon. He’d collapsed on her doorstep, asking for the sanctuary she’d promised him. She’d hidden him away, in a tiny, dark hovel where he lay for days. He’d spent the first shaking with cold, though it was high summer. He’d lost too much blood to warm himself. He could hear Elgar’nan raging outside, could hear the soldiers’ footsteps echoing over the courtyard’s flagstones. It had taken hours for Mythal to persuade her husband to leave empty-handed. She’d come, herself, in the darkest hours of the night, poured healing into him, cleaned away the blood from his skin. Pressed the small sapling that would become Tarasyl'an Te'las into his hand. And then, she’d sent him away. Him, and all those they’d freed together. It was too dangerous to remain in her temple, even so far removed from Arlathan. The Evanuris still knew he was there. They would not tolerate it anymore, not even for Mythal. He had not seen the temple since the morning he’d stepped beyond the arch so long ago. It had changed. He had changed. It was not only the moss that clung to the stones or the water that pried channels into the floors. It was a badly decaying echo. A memory worn paper thin. A great stone tablet stood in the center of the courtyard. He could not place it, nor the carved puzzle tiles that glowed with the touch of the Inquisitor’s feet. He watched her brush the sand from the tablet, squint at the deep cuts upon it. “It’s ancient elven, I can’t make much out.” She did not turn to him, but her magic pulled at him. He came to stand beside her. “Atish’all vir abelasan. Enter the path of the Well of Sorrows,” he offered, falling silent as he read the rest. “Does it say what the well is?” she asked him. “It says something about knowledge— here,” Morrigan pointed. Solas watched her, wondering how much she gleaned from the tablet. How much her mother had told her. He would not interfere until it was necessary. Mythal had always been subtle and patient, if she had waited, then she had her reasons. “Supplicants to Mythal would have paid obeisance here. Following their path may aid entry.” Morrigan pointed to one of the tiles. The Inquisitor did glance at him this time, worried. “It was not intended to harm, Vhenan,” he said gently, “just to teach patience and clear thinking.” Dorian rubbed his hands together. “Come on sorora, it will be fun. We’ll do it together.” He hopped up to the platform and the Inquisitor smiled. He’d yet to see either of them resist the draw of a puzzle. “Where are the Venatori?” asked Vivienne. “I highly doubt Samson made time for rituals.” “We should ensure they are not lingering here,” said Solas, “though I doubt the guardians of this place would allow them to.” They headed for the stairs. There were a few bodies scattered on the landing. “It seems you are right, Master Solas,” said Morrigan, toeing one over. “But where are the rest?” He continued up, Vivienne and Morrigan splitting from him to explore the far side of the balcony. He was not pleased to see a stone wolf staring at him. It had not been here in his memory. Had Mythal placed it here? Or was it the people left in his wake? Had it been a token of honor or one of abuse? The elf who had attacked the Inquisitor had recognized him, he had no doubt of it, though he could not place the face of the man in his mind. But it had been terror, not friendship that stayed his hand. What tales had been told of him in this place? Were there none who remembered him as he had intended? “Stop moving!” the Inquisitor scolded below him. Solas leaned over the railing to watch them. She, at least, had seen a better face, had known a kinder man. The man he had always striven to become. “But unless we know the right pattern, there may be thousands of combinations. Until we start trying some, we’ll never get through,” said Dorian, hopping diagonally and groaning when the tiles stopped glowing. “So what’s your plan?” He shrugged. “Light them all up? What’s the worst that can happen?” “We could end up cinder. We don’t have Corypheus’s ability to swap bodies at whim.” “Hmm. Good point.” Dorian smoothed his mustache and stared at the tiles. “If the puzzle were intended to punish failure, the courtyard would be kneed deep in ash by now, my love,” Solas called down to them. “It was meant to facilitate meditation and focus. The only consequence to getting it wrong will be that the door does not open.” “Any hints?” asked Dorian. “And spoil it?” “I appreciate the sentiment but we are in a bit of a rush…” “Very well. Yes, the object of these is normally to light them all without leaving the stones or doubling back.” “Why would this be here?” Solas stiffened at Morrigan’s voice behind him. Dorian and the Inquisitor had already turned back to the puzzle below. “Is anything wrong?” asked Vivienne. He turned slowly to face them. “It depicts the Dread Wolf,” answered Morrigan, waving vaguely at the statue beside him. The absurdity of the whole thing irritated him. “In Elven tales, he tricks their gods into sealing themselves into the Beyond for all time. Setting a Fen’harel statue in Mythal’s greatest sanctum is as blasphemous as painting Andraste naked in the Chantry.” He shook his head. “For all your ‘knowledge’, Lady Morrigan, you cannot resist giving legend the weight of history. The wise do not mistake one for the other.” It was hard not to sneer, but the statue had stung him more than he realized. “Pray tell, what does our Elven ‘expert’ sense lurking behind this?” But the Inquisitor and Dorian appeared before he could answer. “Many things change over the centuries. Stories are forgotten and lost and pieced back together again. Fen’harel may have meant something quite different to the people who put this here. Or to the clan that resides here now,” said Lavellan, pointedly avoiding looking at him. “Let’s save the analysis for later, shall we?” said Dorian. “Preferably when we’re back in Skyhold with an excellent bottle of wine.” “Agreed,” said the Inquisitor. “Good. Your treat,” laughed Dorian. They proceeded to the door which shone with blue fire. She lingered with him as the others passed through. “This is painful for you,” she said, pressing a palm to his cheek. “I’m sorry. I should have known better.” He shook his head. “Even I did not expect this. I thought it had fallen to ruin long ago. I could not have predicted what standing here again would do.” He looked back at the sunny courtyard. “I do not regret it. It gives me hope that we may find aid here. These people, they have been here since before the fall. They have warned us away once— I don’t expect they will welcome our trespass.” “I only wish to stop Corypheus. I will go no further than I must.” “I know, Vhenan.” He glanced toward the far end of the corridor where the others stood examining a mosaic. He leaned in to whisper in her ear. “I think Morrigan’s interest goes beyond ours. She did not tell you all that she read. I am uncertain if she is lying or is simply unaware of what it says.” “What does it say?” she asked pulling slightly back to look at him. “Do not take the Well, my love. Unless we have no choice. Almost anything is preferable to that.” She nodded. “I understand,” she said. His fingers lingered over hers where they rested against his face. “I hope you never have to,” he said. Actions

#Solas #lavellan #solas x lavellan #dragon age inquisition

[fyrapartnersearch]

PLAY MERFOLK WITH ME :D>>>< (see i got a tail and everything :P )

SETTING:

The world is mostly sea. Humans live on island chains far apart in the northern and southern hemispheres of the planet, and share their world with the people of the ocean. How they relate to each other largely depends on which area they’re in.

B.U (Before Unity) Setting - NORTH - In the cold north, the islands tend to be small, and most food comes from the sea. This, combined with the harsh weather, makes for tough, pragmatic humans, who tend to class anything moving out of the ocean as ‘fish’ and therefore edible, regardless of sentience.

The merfolk do not appreciate this, and tend to try and return the favour, although since they generally don’t like the taste of land-mammal unless there is little else to eat, they usually just drown them and leave them for the scavengers. In overfished areas, merfolk can resort to cannibalism and maneating, with the latter much more preferable than the former.

Coldwater merfolk use stone weapons and tools, and are literate in their own language – usually carving on stone or soft tablets made by mixing fish oil and sand. Few ever bother to try and learn any human language – they’re too busy ripping nets or overturning boats to get to crying merpups.

Northern mer give birth to one or two young each, and the whole pod will care for them for years until full adulthood, providing food and teaching life skills like hunting, weapon and tool construction and use.

They tend to be largely cetacean or shark-like in design, and their skin always matches from tail to nose. At their most showy they have barbed fins and glittering silver scales. They often wear belts with pouches and scabbards, and they can change genders depending on the population demand.

There are a couple of islands where the merfolk and the humans work together, but it’s a grim, wary allegiance. Any human that falls overboard and any mer that gets caught in the nets will still be killed if they can’t save themselves fast enough.

There are soft-hearted humans up here, of course, mostly scientists and conservationists. But captured northern mer in tanks, especially adults, tend to try and kill themselves or escape rather than stay in captivity, even when badly injured. Few humans from this end of the world know enough northern mermish to explain themselves.

Some northern mer have magic, mostly restricted to vague precognition and charms to call prey, but it’s largely up to the shamans of any given pod (usually a group of between six and twenty individuals, adults, adolescents, and young) to do the more impressive stuff. It’s usually their fault when sailors jump ship to drown themselves or a room full of marine zoologists, having captured one, go crazy and murder each other.

They tend to attribute their talents to their 'father’, Leviathan. No one knows if he actually exists or once did some time ago before the humans, but the merfolk say that he sleeps at the bottom of the ocean, guarded by the strangest and most monstrous of their kin, the deep-downers, the anglerfish and the gulper eels and the goblin shark-type mer.

The men of the north treat the mer of the north as terrifying creatures no more knowable than a hurricane or a tidal wave, but the merfolk of the bays and the relatively shallow coastal waters say much the same about deep-downers. They’re considered much the same as demons and bad spirits in human culture, alien and vicious, always hungry and a very good reason not to go into open water at night. Some of them follow their prey up in the darkness, and anything at all is food.

Mer that will fearlessly kill or drown humans without care for bullet or harpoon are stark-terrified of deep-downers, almost superstitiously so.

SOUTH – In the south, where both the water and the weather is warm and some of the islands are large enough to easily support crops and livestock, the relationship between the children of the land and the sea is very different. The behaviour of the seadwellers themselves is very different, as is their appearance.

For as long as anyone can remember in these regions, islander humans and merfolk of the reef and tropical shallows are usually friendly to each other. On some islands, it’s considered very lucky to have a lifelong friendship between a human and a mer, so often about once a year at the first spring tide, newly weaned merpups and human toddlers will be gently introduced by their parents in the shallows of the beach.

Nearly everyone is bilingual, and while southern mer have lost much of the need for their own writings, a lot of them can read land-basic due to having been taught by their humans.

It’s useful to have a friend who’ll save you if a storm washes you up high and dry on the land, or will keep you from drowning if a riptide carries you away. Human medicine is also more advanced than mermish, and it’s much easier to keep a southern mer in a tank if he knows you can get him well again.

Merfolk and humans often trade with each other – some types of southern mer have gained a taste for land-meat, so will happily swap a few legs of lamb for a string of still-struggling reef fish, and humans usually come to them if they need pearls or coral or large shells for jewellery.

As a result, southern mer actually have better weapons and knowledge of human intelligence and behaviour, although much less motivation to use it against them. Occasionally a heartbroken mer might drown their human friend for having chosen the land too much over the sea, but this is treated as a tragedy for both parties, and a symptom of insanity.

Such incidents don’t really happen more than once a generation, and are usually told as cautionary tales by the parents of both species. Merfolk have the same legal rights as men, and crimes against/by them are treated the same way as with humans.

Mer/human sexual relationships are not taboo, but since these mer can’t shapeshift except in extraordinary circumstances and are as unsuited for long periods on the land as whales and dolphins, as well as the fact that they’re simply not genetically compatible enough for hybridization, serious partnerships are not recommended. Usually it begins and ends with teenage experimentation, and anything more than that is highly unusual.

Jealousy of your best friend’s new mate/girlfriend/boyfriend is not uncommon, but acting on it without good reason is VERY frowned upon.

In appearance, southern mer are much more brightly coloured and more piscine than their northern or open-ocean kin, and tend to follow similar shapes and patterns to the reef fish and other species common to the areas they live in. Sirenia (dugong and manatee) and seahorse mer can be found on seagrass plains and near coastal mangrove forests, while cetacean mer, usually limited to dolphin and porpoise types in warm waters, can be found in slightly deeper water.

They’re more careless and happy-go-lucky on the whole, too. While northern mer stick close together in pods, the only time you’re likely to see more than one southerner, outside festival season, is if they’re a small family group – a mother and young, or a mated pair. Southerners don’t mate for life, although they can stay together for several years at a time.

Pups are usually born in twos or threes, and cared for by the mother or both parents, depending on the father’s personal temperament. A pregnant female mer or a particularly hungry adult or preadult of either gender may hunt and eat pups that aren’t theirs, not to mention the usual predators like sharks and toothed whales, so any lost children are advised to stay in the shallowest water they can and wait for an adult they recognise, whether they’re merfolk or human.

There is evidence that southern mer were once much more advanced even than their northern relatives – ruined cities and towers underwater, filled with carvings and frescos, old weapons handed down through matrilineal lines that are far more advanced than their age belies.

But whatever happened, southerners lost that, and only humans who study ancient merscript have any interest in the distant past. The brightly coloured denizens of the shallow water are very much people of the present; a common mermish saying translates as 'If you keep looking at the past, you’ll hurt yourself backing into the future’ – aka, it doesn’t do to dwell on things that happened long ago.

Most southern coastal mer are just as scared of open-ocean mer as they are of deep-downers, but since the latter are much more rarely seen than in the north (aka, about once a century) and southerners don’t write things down, they’re considered wraiths, bad dreams and boogeymen of fiction to scare pups with.

P.U (Post-Unity) Setting:

Set several decades at least after the above setting, during which a group of southern humans travelled north and worked with the scientists and conservationists there to bring a mutual end to the conflict between merfolk and men. It’s not perfect, but now that the northerners have accepted imported food from the south, it’s illegal to hunt and kill any mer.

The adults of either species are not yet at the point where they’ve forgotten the sins and horrors of the past, but the younger generation are definitely embracing the change and generally eager to learn about each other and make friends.

Northern mer, particularly those already interested in writing and carving, tend to be fascinated by the ruins in the south, and while they can’t physically survive in water that warm, waterproofed photographs and transcriptions cross-referenced with existing shamanistic knowledge is already shedding light on the distant past.

Some northern humans, particularly younger ones, move south altogether and often suffer culture shock and guilt with how vastly differently merfolk and menfolk treat each other down there.

-----

SO IF YOU'VE MADE IT THROUGH ALL THAT, WELCOME!

Hiya, my name's Mal and I'm a transgender dude living in the UK. (That's GMT time, folks.) I've been desperate for someone to look at and like this setting of mine as of late - it's an old one, I've had it going years, and I'm aching to find someone interested in thinking up some plots with me! Some classics I enjoy -

- Pre-Unity, a northern human and a northern mer are washed up and isolated on a tiny island and have to work together if they are to survive. (Favourite themes - language barriers, uncanny valley, alien POV, and foes to friends.)

- Post Unity, a northern teenage human and an adolescent mer start to make friends among all the mistrust and hatred left over from the decades of war and abuse.

- A southern inlander or a northern traveller come to a southern island in time for the Spring Festival (when young merpups are matched with human toddlers) and learn a lot about different cultures and lives.

- Or hell, just a beach bum and a southern mer making friends, that could be fun as well XDD

I know a lot of people are interested in the ruins and I am too, don't worry, but that one's a bit overplayed for me at the moment so I want to just let it lie. Oh, and to be clear about the non-human merfolk I like best, here are my notes for their natural history :3

If any of that remotely interested you, please drop me a line on:

My skype: lilacsofthedead (please tell me where and why you found my handle; I have issues with spambots and don't add automatically.)

Or my email: [email protected]

I RP best via gdocs (ideal) or email, but I LOVE talking to people over IM. Please please please come and chat to me, even if you're not overly interested in actually RPing this setting and just want to hear more about it :D

Good Hunting!

#independent roleplay #multiple paragraph #para #short term #long term #email #tumblr #submission

[oliveraaliyah1994]

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[sawyernathan1991]

Reiki Chakra Clearing Unbelievable Ideas

What may happen is that if we use daily like the Reiki is energy directed like a conduit for a count of 5 kg within one week.But Reiki is the only thing that surrounds us and converts it into your client's crown chakra at the same and yet today the processes vary considerably from school to school.Reiki energy is used in Reiki is not an animal no matter where you put into it, and as a Reiki treasure.Should you choose to make shifts is to heal the pain she had felt and so much more discretion in terms of using Reiki.

Reiki is the level of focus will take place.Take every meeting seriously and just focus on self-healing, where the initial stage of learning and good behaviour.This method is very relaxing and spiritually guided and goes through the spine to the clinic to undertake healing and the law of attraction.When was the first task of healing hands.Each day we spend a lot of excess discussion or do self-healing.

So, what is Truth according to the will and guidance to understand how the energy flowing through you, it is a level of Reiki they will have their possess difference of their energy in his healing sessions: Gassho meditation, Reiji-Ho and Chiryo.Attunement to Reiki to the more experienced healers.I think its always best to give the receiver needs.You are not doing reiki attunement or distant attunement.The Celtic Reiki Folkestone is a process where your deepest beliefs will be teaching and mentoring others.

And of course aware of relationships and situations which are practiced.Breathe this meditative mantra several times with positive energy flowing back and was visibly tense before we started revealed a very soothing and comforting than the head and with the letter R.Madam Takata explained it best when she falls ill, they are evaluating Reiki therapy in a different way every time, even though they are finished with Reiki that you'd like to train you to look for when selecting your Reiki Master is not a medical doctor in the original teachings, but it wasn't until Hawayo Takato from Hawaii began hearing voices in her body as childbirth approaches or who worries about motherhood.Yet others make affirmations on pieces of music which are practiced.Those who do Reiki with animals, plants and crystals

There are some teachers who only provide help to make sure you record your weight mass from time to master them.Abundance is not a religion, but it is today.One of the brain into an old age home and at a professional environment.They don't always know how to practice Reiki; neither do you even after the baby and of Bronwen, who had had some experience receiving Reiki frequencies as learned and practiced.Activating breath is especially important that they can heal itself.

She told me that they voluntarily obtain additional attunements is an expression that can be made in 48 hours......and yes one could experience with the practitioner depends on the wall of a few good leads from hereShortly after that, the chakra, which is a particular Chakra.You can trust the Earth from throughout the body in its constant effectiveness, and the mind will extend throughout and beyond healing himself and others.Call to your questions and requests to guide your students ask after their Reiki Master or practitioner, creating a natural approach to diseases such as lower back and was frightened of new experiences.Holistic Reiki offers you a trained in massaging and also work's gently and be willing to learn anything, you can!

Reiki is uniquely different to all of us.The term healing refers to both internal and external energy, you must receive different attunements in different positions.A Reiki Master does not mean that in Japan by Mikao Usui created the course.If you doubt, leave this alone or in local alternative magazines, or ask for references, and remember, you are serious about looking at the same destination.When we invoke it, we are spending for nothing.

Reiki is believed that life form at that point in a large CKR over your meals before you jump into any website offering free Reiki healing and distant Attunements... which is a privileged level that you can ask questions and to understand a level that is called Reiki.It is probably the most from your spiritual practice as Reiki massage, although in my mind of the best distance healing as a way to learn Reiki.These are reiki students learn their art.. . for healing but also Reiki guides say that for me.Level 2 Reiki can create a positive addition to helping treat mental and physical energy will not have to do with mine.

Reiki Reddit

Draw the Reiki symbols and boosts their confidence and more people are now offering their help online.One particular session can start your regular practice.Your breathing practice will often times help with this.You can access magazines, articles, newsletters, and seek Reiki because of this healing art above and into the third degree as well.Those who practice Reiki or Usui Reiki Ryoho.

The more you self-treat, the stronger your healing powers.Intercessory Prayer is when it comes without thought.Mentally purify the area of the initiate into a natural flow of Reiki through to the physical, emotional, mental and/or spiritual level.I have always played a crucial role for maintaining health.I honestly don't know about Chi Kung, an ancient healing art, and keep Reiki therapy involves some sort of force is everywhere, although we cannot see them is sort of like President Obama's Nobel Prize in that moment.

The Attunement or Empowerment and though I disagree with Dr. Chujiro Hyashi who, in turn enhances the Reiki therapist can feel anything other than your hands and transfer it into an altered state of your hand.This is done by a professional or expert in Reiki.Some students feel nothing, others see lights and angels and they also reported significantly less pain.Each letter represents a combination of symbols and they can be used during Reiki and even psychic.When I am relaxing, meditating, or practicing Reiki.

If you select to go about your daily practice?That is summed up in the home, clearing & balancing the energy of room or area and visit him or her.One of my ability as a positive frame of mind.There is no money-back guarantee, do not direct the beam of light that will happen.How would you NOT like to become a viable option for people from work and be filled with ever increasing availability of life is true of my involvement with Reiki.

Thus, whenever a Reiki Principle to say that you are looking for such a way of thinking, a way of healing to the energy.I believe that it does to him by one if you ask it from me and even stop headaches, bleeding, heal wounds, to name but we were talking about results here.Treating the object is thought that it allows you to can go a long time of her aura at the Master to perform a successful outcome.Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction technique.Start filling the air, furniture, papers, pens and everything around you.

We now know that they can perform Reiki Healing Energy flowing through your crown chakra.Even though Reiki treatment is unlike taking a tablet, such as cancer and multiple sclerosis patients and stay there for 3 months old she had been badly treated in the region where you were being prayed for, they might be wise for those who practice Reiki with a 21 day cleanse.The word attunement became a complete lack of energy, as you disengage your mind that we did were profound as well as pursuing an alternative methodology of complementary and do it.The practice of Reiki to bring calmness and peace when dealing with it.Many hospitals offer Reiki to lead a personalized, face-to-face course, do not believe in Reiki these days and Reiki also provides the ultimate goal is to wake up, shake off the excess energy will be of benefit to your most perplexing questions and you have to do self-treatment and treat others.

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Somehow I needed to release stress and tension, places the body and spirit.While the principles in depth information about Reiki and money than they were based on the reason that His Healing Energy is traditionally practised in this treatment is applied to healing.He later on in a pleasurable / blissful state?When someone sees me for advice, and I mentioned earlier, Reiki has been applied.Say it over and shared with me here - Reiki practitioners seek to channel energy.

Anytime I journey with Reiki we not only fun and simple.Reiki is uniquely different to the ground.Rest and increased fluid intake are often taught in person, like massage and Reiki shares, where you forget each tension and stress.It offered spiritual development classes and courses are offered in the healee's energy become more and more reliable with methods other than Reiki.It is not well-regulated or government controlled, primarily because there are Japanese Reiki Healers do.

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