#i hate living in this house populated by so many ghosts

[monstercampus]

miss ellie I have a question about the lore. can the human reader go back into human society or are we shunned?

hehe what a spicy question!!!

In truth, it depends--partly on your attitude towards monsters and partly towards the circumstances that may or may not happen during your stay at MC. It would be quite easy for you to graduate, go home, and say "yeah monsters suck lol" forget about it all and go back to your human life. People would probably still give you odd looks at first knowing your situation, but leaning into your humanity hard means you're not gonna rock the boat too much and you'll largely get to go unscathed.

But the moment you start showing compassion for them, especially for the monster species that people consider "gross" or less palatable than werewolves or vampires, you'll encounter pushback. People in the human circles of society won't want to hire you. They'll think you're weird, that you have something wrong with you, and if you're with another monster romantically then you'll find people are openly hostile towards you and your love. Your mailbox might get smashed or your house broken into. People will send you hateful letters and emails online. Post your address. Move, and they'll find it again, and then you'll move again. The feeling of being exposed and unsafe in your own home will creep higher and higher until it gets to be too much to bear, and even if you desperately want to keep living in human society there will come a point where you just simply can't.

Because as many as there are people in the world that wish to close the gap between humans and monsters, as many politicians you see on tv advocating for monster-human connection, and celebrities posting about their support for monster-human advancement in society, those kind words won't help you in the face of people who just can't handle their lives being invaded by something they don't understand. Everyone in your society has a "well this monster killed my cousin" or "this monster is okay but those monsters are evil" story, and regardless of how you feel or how patient your monster friends and lovers may be, there will undoubtedly come a point where you're forced to accept that human society just doesn't want you there anymore. If you're too much like them, the bogeymen in all their human ghost stories and fairytales, then you just don't belong.

So to say you're "shunned" from your fellow humans might be too much and also not enough to describe it. Especially because although most humans will believe (or choose to believe) for a variety of reasons why MC's admissions chose you as a non-monster, there will be some that remain suspicious as to your real heritage. I'll be honest, many humans won't care too much about a little monster blood in your veins, so long as you look, sound, and act the part of human. But some take it seriously, some take it to a near heinous extent, and will crave the knowledge of your strange blood and what lies within it that even experts at the top monster colleges in the world have failed to identify. Because in their eyes, what in the world could make you so special that you're not only an anomaly in the human world, but also an anomaly in the world of monsters where everything is anomalous?

As scary and hostile as that all sounds, however, it's worth it to note that this is only one side of society in the world at large, and compared to the population that does accept you it's actually rather small, though the hostilities certainly make it feel rather isolating and dooming. While the place you might've grown up in or the cities and areas you're used to may turn their backs on you, there will always be safe haven for you and for monsters as a collective. Monster-exclusive conclaves exist but in much smaller array than their human counterparts; for the most part, monster cities are incredibly welcoming to humans, mixed human-monster species, and mixed families and couples of all species.

One such area is Rünerhea, one of the largest monster-built cities on this side of the sea, and home to thousands upon thousands of monsters, humans, and everyone you can find between. The city itself has survived countless invasions, sieges, plagues, and famine, and is one of the only capital cities in the world to be entirely monster-driven for the entirety of its existence. Not far from Monster Campus itself, it's one of the safest and most pragmatic places to settle into an integrated life, where you will never fear judgement, prejudice, or harm from the greater human body. The people are lively, the jobs are plentiful, the food and ale are to die for, and whether you settle into a cozy two-story home on Lilac Street with your lover or a single room in The Drunken Druid while you wander to find an apartment with a view you like, Rünerhea feels like home from the moment you open your eyes in the morning to the second your head hits the pillow at night. No soul in their right mind would come to Rünerhea to protest their freedom of monster-human contact, not in a solo venture nor as an army, because despite humans far outnumbering monsters on this earth there is no denying the strength the latter has when on a united front. The Rünerhea guard are themselves trained to a terrifyingly strict discipline, but despite even their builds and the weapons they carry there are few things more frightening than an angry tiefling defending their half-human children, or a group of pixies retaliating when the family of their human neighbor try to drag them back home. Even when the rest of the world turns their back on you, the city of Rünerhea, its citizens, and others all over the continent will welcome you with open arms, and never again will you have to look over your shoulder out of fear that someone will take their hatred of monsterkind out on you.

#monster campus #monster campus lore #ellie writes #anons

[apartments4rent]

Apartments For Rent: TEN-YEAR RETROSPECTIVE

Ooooohhhh man, this… This is fucking me way up, big time… I don’t even know where to begin with this… I should definitely be using this free time I have today doing my homework, you know, the thing with a hard deadline? That was technically due yesterday?? Well, how about instead of that, I take a walk down memory lane…

Do you remember the 21st night of September? 

Picture this: It’s 2013. It is your sophomore year of high school. You have more friends than you ever have in your life and they are all so wonderful to you (this wouldn’t always be the case and they all wouldn’t stick around but you didn't know that yet). One of you proposes the question: If you were a monster, what would you be? A witch. A vampire. A werewolf. A mermaid. A ghost. A selkie. A dullahan. (You had to look those last two up.) You are so inspired by this that you want to make a story for these ideas to live in. You create a fantasy. Where all your best friends get to live together under one roof. A slice of a life you know you’ll never have. It’s actually the 20th night of September that you created the tumblr blog where most of what comes out of this will live (your first post says “why do i do this to myself”) but it is the 21st night that your creations get their names. Their genders don’t all stay the same but their cores haven’t really changed. “a very dramatic/theatrical witch who loves animals and sass master. a bubbly and happy mermaid who gets really scary when u cross her. a passive, nerdy vampire who isnt so out spoken. a moody selkie who loves to learn and lost her seal skin. a strong beautiful fairy girl who doesnt take shit from no one but is v nice to her friends. a strong beautiful fairy girl who doesnt take shit from no one but is v nice to her friends. a ghost girl from the 1920s who is forgetful and not really confident but really likes her new friends.” You put a disclaimer at the bottom of the post, clarifying that these descriptions shouldn’t be taken as a description of your friends but separate characters entirely. This is also the birth of Marvin, the human man created to navigate this world of chaos, not based on anyone you know in real life. The straight man in this goofball circus. Your Original Character. (Who, you now realize, was designed as the boring main male character in the harem anime.) This was the genesis. And you would never know peace in your life ever since. 

And then what happened?

Bro, so much. A lot can happen in 10 years. You develop the characters further. You make a small town for them to live in (even though you’ve never even been to a small town in your life). You make (bad) art. You make sims because you hate the way you draw but you need a physical version of them to exist outside your head, as you see them. You apparently make a rule where no one outside of your little group is supposed to know about these characters (because you “had an experience” and “don’t wanna repeat it”). You make Alternate Universes for these Alternate Universe selves to populate, again and again. (As of right now, your “AU of an AU” list stands at 26 but there are probably more dumb ones not yet counted on the doc you made.) You try to make a one-shot comic collaboration with all your friends but no one seems to agree on how it should go so nothing but a script and panel formatting ends up getting made. (You know that your script was worse with many unnecessary details but you were bad at killing your darlings and stubborn about your ideas being the best. You’ll learn eventually.) You love and appreciate all the things your friends make for this story you start to feel full ownership of. (You haven’t noticed yet how much of a control freak you are.) Their writing and art give you life, especially considering they are doing The Most while you mostly just come up with ideas. The setting goes from apartment building to boarding house and back again before a year has passed. The first anniversary is a blast! You actually wrote something! And drew something you were proud of! Others wrote and drew and it was great. (How would you know it would never be like this again?) 

And the years go by and by… 

After the first year, you decided you wanted to make a dating sim with these silly characters because you just loved them so much. You shipped the characters (not realizing that your friends did it as a way to express they had crushes on each other, conveniently shipping your self-insert with the only man/only character not based on a friend.) There were still a lot of headcanons being made and posts being shared. But noticeably less and less. Then the second anniversary hit. Not much fanfare. After the second year, more characters started popping up based on more friends you make. Some of the friends that were there in the beginning weren’t anymore and you try not to think about it. After all, these characters aren’t your friends, they are separate and distinct from them. So it’s still OK to play with them, right? (The answer must be yes; ten years later you still do.) Then the third anniversary happens, with 4 posts between them. It was understandable. That was your senior year of high school. Everyone was getting ready to go their separate ways. You were moving clear across the country. Your friend group was getting smaller still and this big shake-up would prove who would stick around to still be a part of this thing and who would remain a memory for you to look back on in ten years. 2017, though, was a big year for the blog. You were unemployed and not yet going to college so you had A LOT of free time on your hands. It was probably the most number of posts you made since the first year of the blog. It was magic. Then you got a job. There have been 16 posts in the last 6 years. 2019 had none. 2020 and 2021 had one each. They were all made by you. There has certainly been less activity on the blog but that doesn’t mean these kids have been lying dormant all this time. You haven’t stopped thinking about them since they first popped up into your head. In 2019, you rewrote the story you had written for one of those anniversaries; the first chronological beat. (You haven’t read it since then; You have no idea if it’s good or not.)  In 2020, you attempted to write the actual story (like fr fr) for NaNoWriMo -- you didn’t get very far but it’s the thought that counts? 2021 was a quiet year as far as actual writing goes - as was 2022 - but trust that your brain definitely didn’t forget about them. 

The Retro part of the Spective 

Alright, enough second-person POV. 

Ten years.

Ten years. 

Talk about hard pills to swallow (thanks FOB). 

I’ve had this “story”, these characters, banging around in my head for ten years and what do I have to show for it? A couple thousand words and a blog full of half-thought ideas? Around this time last year, I was excited about this anniversary. I made a new Twitter for it (before that died) and was planning on actually publishing something to do this story justice… and I chickened out. I convinced myself, once again, that I wasn’t ready. That other things were more important, they took precedence. Do I have even that much to prove I was right? No, I don’t because I really haven’t changed all that much in ten years, if you can believe it. I know, a real shocker. (I still like all the same things I liked back in high school for crying out fucking loud!) I wanted to reach out to the people I used to do this with, to see if they still wanted to be part of it. (I’m sure that wouldn’tve been at all hard, I wonder why I didn’t follow through?) I wanted to have something so I would be able to say, “I did it.” So that maybe, I could finally move on. But that’s the thing, isn’t it… I don’t want to move on. I’m stuck in this arrested development because I refuse to change, to give up any past part of myself. Because if I don’t have that, I don’t know who I am. 

So now what? What’s all this for? One big, sad diary entry reflecting on the parts of myself that I already know very well? 

Honestly, I don’t know. I was hoping I could come to some sort of conclusion by writing this but as it turns out, it only made me want to cry. 

I wanted this to end on a good note.

I spent all day writing this, I can’t end it like this.

So let’s instead talk about all the things that have changed about these goofballs over the years:

Mystic Cove is a city in a Northern California town. It started out in Florida, it almost ended up as a mountain town. I also briefly considered straight up placing it in San Diego because there are some nice, beautiful, old-ass buildings downtown that juxtapose the cold, sleek skyrises in such a way that I thought about writing something about being lonely in a city and finding your own family. 

Vast Acres has been an apartment building, a boarding house, Mediterranean Revival, Victorian, Queen Anne, even briefly considered a Bed and Breakfast. All I know is it has to be the place where this family gets together. At one point under the ownership and operation of Marvin’s dad Alejandro, it is now bequeathed to Marvin by a mysterious, freshly dead uncle/great uncle. 

Marvin is a wholeass person to me, in that he’s not completely knowable to even me anymore. Marvin is probably the person in Mystic Cove I know the BEST and that like doesn’t mean anything to me. Like yeah, I’ve written pages and pages and answered so many pointless questions about him but… I don’t know how else to describe him other than, “He’s an enigma.” The most significant thing about him that’s changed is I’m considering undeading his mom? Just because I feel like we’ve had enough dead mom media and it’s not something I can speak to truthfully. Briefly considered making her a runaway mom? But we’re still thinking about it. I think her name is Lily? 

Mel’s name went from Melinda to Melody because I decided Melinda was a weird name? And Mel likes music so I thought I would be clever. She went from “Marv’s sister” and side character to basically co-lead. Mel was even almost briefly considered as the real main character for a time when I thought to lean into its roots as a product of a high schooler’s imagination and go full YA coming-of-age adventure. It was actually the subject of my 2020 NaNo attempt. I decided against it because I loved Marv too much to push him to “supporting character” and if there’s something about me that’s developed, it’s that I don’t much care for YA books anymore. 

Amber is unsurprisingly my favorite because I’m a Leo. I think I finally decided on a backstory for her that I like and she’s not white anymore? Like, not fully anyway lmao. Before she was like, from someplace in England with like Spanish parents so like tan? But now we’ve decided that she’s from colonized Mexico and her father is a white devil. :) I’ll let you figure that one out. Over these ten years, I’ve grappled with the fact that an immortal is almost impossible to understand. I’ve gone back and forth on whether her immortality is on purpose or by accident or a curse or what. Honestly, I’m still thinking about it, I don’t know for sure what I’ll end up picking. Right now though, it is an involuntary immortality with her life being tied to her sister’s (yes, the cat). Details are fuzzy. I’d have to finish the main story first but if I were to make a spin-off, I would make a prequel story about Amber’s life because it is QUITE eventful. 

Lucas is a man now lmao. And so is Will. And they r gay. For each other. But that’s been that way from the beginning lol. I think Luc’s story had to do with self-worth and Will… Will didn’t have much going on in my mind. My instinct was to make him a himbo but Will has always been very smart in my head so I don’t think that will work? Dude’s beefy asf and mad respectful so perfect man tbh? No notes. 

Jenny’s been my way to try to break down the trope “Born Sexy Yesterday” because that’s just the kinda guy I am. No, but fr I think I was making a very infantilized version of Jenny initially and that’s why I shipped her with Mel in so many AUs?? I’m not against skewing Jenny younger to make that ship viable in canon but I don’t know if that’s the story I want to tell. I don’t think Jenny ever had a goal beyond “Get to the surface” which she gets when she makes her appearance in the story so?? Where do we go from here? Things to think about…

Rohen was fat (like a proper seal should be) before they lost their skin on the beach to some snot-nosed kid and became depressed. When they start healing on their depression journey, they start to gain weight again and it's a good thing. :) 

Everyone else I haven’t mentioned yet hasn’t changed much (ie. I haven’t thought about them much). It’s not that I have favorites (even though I just said that I did), it’s just that I basically go down a list whenever I think about these guys, and, due to my short attention span, I never make it all the way down the list. AND honestly, it’s probably for the best because looking back… there were WAAAY too many characters to keep track of ngl… Like it’s a slice-of-life thing, I know. Not every character has to be involved in every storyline but like… At some point, you have to draw a line at, “How many named characters with their own plotlines can I insert into this story?” YKWIM? Especially because at one point there was a whole roster of other people who lived in the apartment building when there were like 20 units. That was (rightly) reduced back down to just the core cast. 

You can pry Jonesy from my cold, dead hands, tho. He’s perfect. He can stay.

This post took me literally all day. 

I’m tired.

I don’t really expect anyone to read all this but if you are not me and you made it to the bottom, congratulations! You now know me on a much deeper level! :) I hope I can convince myself to buckle down and write, straight up. Maybe NaNo this year? No promises. I’m trying to apply for university this year and living situation issues might take precedence but such is life, right? 

Thank you.

I love you all.

For giving me this gift.

Even if you never intended to give it fully to me.

It’s mine now, bitches. >:) 

Here’s to 10 years! And many (but hopefully not too many) more…

Cheers. 🥂🍾

❤️

#camacho speaks #happy anniversary

[aardvaark]

oh i found what it’s called! the domestic horror subgenre. it’s a subgenre of horror, maybe a bit psychological thriller too, and it focuses on mundane things being horrifying and familial relationships and haunted houses that are also haunted by trauma or the past. the writers tend to be women

some key themes i’m seeing:

parent-child relationships: especially mother-daughter relationships that are either complicated or outright abusive or some mix of those.

family: how difficult it can be, how trauma gets passed through generations, how family can be suffocating or they can be your support but they’re usually unfortunately both.

haunted houses: or paranormal forces inside the home. sometimes it might be the kind of seemingly supernatural stuff that actually has an explanation or it’s from an unreliable narrator, but often there’s also just actual ghosts.

insular communities: often rural/regional, small towns, a lot of southern gothic or american gothic or australian gothic or [insert place here] gothic.

domestic abuse: whether in relationships or witnessed/experienced by a child.

conservatism as horror: many stories about religious trauma, purity culture, misogyny, mental illness stigma, persecuting or hateful communities, etc.

suburban life/suburbophobia: in these stories, the nuclear families hide abuse, the suburban communities are suffocating, the mundane home-to-work-to-home routine drives you mad with boredom, behind the rich white picket fences are traitors and murderers with fake smiles, and money and status often comes from crime and abuse.

i like horror and i have childhood trauma so it. it makes sense i would like this lol.

under the cut is examples in popular media. warning: since they have an explanation about what the elements of domestic horror are, it’s pretty long. whoops. also trigger warnings for mentions of: abuse, SA, death/murder, pregnancy, horror in general.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. i love Jackson’s other stories, and i’d say a lot of them fit this subgenre. it has the POV of a very strange, probably unreliable narrator, whose entire family - besides herself, her sister and her uncle - died of poisoning. the uneasiness and fears of the community, her agoraphobic sister, her mentally ill uncle, her duty to her remaining family members as the only one who can really go out for supplies, and her own peculiar personality, keep her mostly trapped in this house of death and horror. probably the best example there is of domestic horror… just everything from the gossiping town to the suffocating house to the major family problems, it’s very clearly part of the subgenre.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (and the tv show loosely adapted from this novel). the tv show is not exactly like the actual novel, but it’s still really good. the novel focuses on one woman going back to her very haunted childhood home as part of a paranormal investigation. the tv show focuses on four siblings reuniting for the funeral of their youngest sister, who has died mysteriously at their very haunted childhood home, despite them not living there for a decade or two. both focus on the haunting of a house being the haunting of a family, too, and ghosts not always being quite what they seem.

in fact The Haunting of Bly Manor (tv show), the other part of that anthology, also seems to fit. it’s about a woman who goes to work at a really fucked up and very haunted manor as a nanny for two kids whose parents have died. the horror, however, is not so much the ghosts as a concept, but what people - ghost or no - can do. and trauma and history as a ghostly influence.

also Midnight Mass. another tv show with some of the same people involved as the Haunting anthology. a strange new pastor arrives on an island with a small, insular population. they each have their own problems and more metaphorical hauntings, but this weird dude is about to introduce some much less metaphorical monsters.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. okay, maybe this isn’t totally horror, but i’m counting it because so much of it is horrifying. it’s a bit thriller, a bit crime fiction, a bit drama, a bit american gothic. a journalist returns to her hometown to pursue a story: teenage girls have been murdered in this otherwise pretty standard, apparently happy community. our protagonist is not exactly happy about coming home because her mother is abusive and her childhood home is full of memories of her sister, who died when they were both kids. plus, the town’s been gossiping about her for ages - some think she’s troubled, some just feel she’s a bad influence. now she has to deal with a community that never welcomed her, a mother who never liked her, a step father and teenage half-sister she hasn’t seen in years, her own past and mental illness, and of course the grisly murders that brought her here. the southern gothic/american gothic and purity culture really add to the suffocating atmosphere of the novel.

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (and the film version) a woman has a baby. the devil is involved. the idea of a woman trapped in an abusive relationship, sexually assaulted, experiencing body horror related to pregnancy, and basically being told by everyone that she’s overreacting and being hysterical… domestic horror. it’s the mundane but usually ultimately beautiful experience of having a child, put in a new light as a horror, not just due to the paranormal forces but also the horror that can come out of everyday things.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. this short story was written in 1892. the narrator is an unnamed woman suffering postpartum depression whose husband and doctor decide she just needs rest, so they trap her in a small nursery in an old mansion. soon, the patterns in the room’s yellow wallpaper start to move, she has strange dreams, and becomes convinced that there’s a woman in there who wants to get out. the story focuses on abuse in the psychiatric and medical systems, mental health stigma, sexism in general and in the medical system particularly, and domestic abuse. unfortunately, 230 years later, too much of this is still relevant.

#this is about the post from deep water writing prompts btw #domestic horror #horror genre #wren speaks #tw sa mention #tw ableism #tw pregnancy #tw murder #tw death #horror

[zucchini888]

And another one.

Would you rather visit The Eiffel Tower or the Egyptian Pyramids? I desperately want my mom to take me to Egpyt to ride horses in the sands by the pyramids.

Would you be surprised if your most recent ex called you tonight? I’d be shocked but thankful.

Do you need to lose or gain weight? I need to lose a lot of weight. ^ Then he’ll be calling.

Do you think you have a disorder but haven’t been properly diagnosed yet? I know I got misdiagnosed..

What is the population of the city you live in? “Over 200,000 drunks on a sandbar.” ~ Xavier E.

How many pairs of jeans do you own? An entire boxful.

When did you last vacuum your room? Last week.

Have you ever put on or lost a significant amount of weight? I sadly put on a lot of weight.

On a scale of 1-5, how often do you curse? I’d say a 5.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever smelled? Dead animal.

What’s your favorite social media platform? Youtube.

Name someone with brown eyes. One of my eyes is brown.

Do you know what your next injection will be? Whenever I go back to the doctor in July and they ask me to get a flu shot.

Does anyone call you darling? If so who? My ex Matt D. did.

If you had to have a cartoon character tattooed to you what would it be? Probably Grumpy Bear.

You have to dye your hair two colours, what do you choose? Gold and black.

If you could would you look at your future self? Yes, I think it gets better.

Who was your first serious relationship? Matt D.

If you had to cut a parent out of your life who would you cut out? I already lost my dad so...

If you had to get a piercing right now what would you get done? I’d like to get a high nose piercing.

Who is the #1 person/thing in your life? My mom and my guinea pig Peeps.

What are two things you wish you never did? Neglecting my health and getting into debt...Maybe being hospitalized... Also I’m kind of scared somebody is remotely monitoring my network bc I keep seeing a ghost window pop up.

Would you rather have three personal wishes or world peace? Three personal wishes, there’s nothing wrong with being selfish.

What were/is your high school colors? Light blue and white.

When someone sneezes, do you say “Bless you,” or “God Bless you?” Bless you or that German phrase I can’t spell.

Do you ever look at someone cute, and automatically make a move? I have once before.

What are two things you are excited to do in the near future?

Learning to Bbq chicken and Skyping my mom.

Do you live in a house, apartment, or another type of arrangement? I live in a house.

  Are you one of those people who like to spell out numbers? Depends on the formality required.

Who was the last person (if anyone) you said Happy Birthday to? Lara B. or Sam K.

Do you have Photoshop? If so, how often a day do you use it? Not in a looooong time since 2010 or so with Bryan C.

. Do you watch any shows that you know your parents wouldn’t approve of? Why should she care?

 Leggings with denim shorts; yes or no? Only if you’re super skinny otherwise it looks terrible.

Do you plan your meals in any way? I pretty much eat the same stuff. 

Were you in the scouts when you were young? Yes, I was a Brownie Scout for a short period of time with Victoria.

How many people could sleep in your home? (Not counting floor space; beds and couches only).

2.

 Have you ever made a hole-in-one at mini-golf? Yes at Jungle Rapids. I think its rigged, physics-wise. 

What genre was the last song you listened to? Who provided the vocals? Industrial, Rammstein.

 If an ex said they hated you, what would you say? I would ask why, it really depends on which ex, because I might not care.

What would you do if you found out your most recent ex was in a relationship? I’d be happy for him.

Truthfully, is there someone you used to date that you miss? I miss a certain somebody and I get sad to this day that it didn’t work out in my favor and that my mother didn’t approve. 

If you could go forward in time and see your life 5 years from now, what would you hope to see? My ideal life.

Are you more comfortable with men or women? It depends on the person because I don’t get along with everybody.

Who came over last? Dk.

Has one of your friends ever tried to “hook you up?”

Yikes yeah it was terrible.

What is your card game of choice?

Uno or Cards Against Humanity.

What is your favourite books series? I just like Stephen King books.

 If you eat oatmeal, do you add water or milk to it and what’s your favorite flavor? I add soy milk to create over night oats and peanut butter and chia seeds.

Was the last video you watched on YouTube a music video and if not, what was it of? Rammstein synched to clips of Domino. Has anyone you know personally ever won the lottery and if so, how much did they win and would you or have you ever played the lottery? Dk won small amounts of money on scratch off tickets.

What was the last thing someone has sincerely thanked you for? Being kindly or giving them used things of mine.

What band, celebrity, etc. do you know the most information about and who would you like to learn more about? Metallica or Maci Bookout’s husband because he’s cute.

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #094

(taken december 28th last year; uploading surveys taken while gone)

Do you prefer light-coloured eyes or dark-coloured eyes? In general, light.

Are you similar to your sibling(s), personality-wise? How so? Not really, except my mom's oldest daughter Katie. We are VERY similar and I really wish I got to see her way more than I do; she lives in Kentucky. We're both bipolar and deal with a lot of emotional stuff, and we both have a calm, quiet external personality.

Do you watch amateur song covers on YouTube? No. I like some cover artists, but I wouldn't call them "amateurs" by this point in their YouTube careers.

Has someone ever told you that you didn’t have a backbone? How did you react? Been called spineless, yes, and it hurt, but not nearly as much as other shit she said. In some ways I can see her perspective about that in how I handled the situation and I wish I had carried out our split differently, however I absolutely had my reasons, like I genuinely thought we'd both be better off with how I did it.

Do you know who the members of your favourite band are dating? Well Ozzy is obviously married to Sharon, but I don't know most of the Rammstein guys' current partners because really most of them are private with their personal and family lives and the info isn't really public.

What is the longest time you’ve gone without brushing your teeth? I'm not comfortable sharing this because hygiene neglect is a very legitimate problem I've been through because of depression and self-worth and stuff, and I'm finally paying for it with so much dental work in the process. Take care of your teeth, people, you've got ONE pair of adult teeth and your neglect will inevitably eventually show.

Are there any songs that got you through tough times? Which one(s)? Oh my lord in heaven, I could list probably near 50 that played very deep roles in keeping me going, but I'll try to pick out a few super strong ones. "It's Alright" by Mother Mother is one of my absolute go-tos for comfort and reassurance, "The Ghost of You" by My Chemical Romance is a song I JUST became able to listen to again because I binged the shit out of it and sobbed my eyes out to it after Jason's mom died, "Lost It All" by Black Veil Brides was a significant piece in my worst depression, "Another Life" by Motionless In White (along with a metric shitload of over songs, mainly BY MiW) was SUPER significant as I grieved Jason... There's just so so so so SO many, dude.

Would you be interested in going to see a psychic? Absolutely not, I don't give money to scam artists.

What is the most recent band you’ve started listening to? I'm kinda getting into Ghost.

Did you have a lot of role models as a kid? Uh, maybe not "a lot," idk. There was mostly Steve Irwin, Jane Goodall, Jeff Corwin, Jack Hanna... Mostly animal lovers and educators.

Do you feel like anyone looks up to you? Why or why not? Absolutely not. Because I'm, y'know, *gestures at self*

What are three things you hate about your country? Our healthcare system and how human wellfare is handled in general, how incredibly poorly we "take care" of our homeless (it's NOT a worldwide thing where homeless people are treated like fucking roaches in a gourmet restaurant, but America is wonderful at doing just that), and how could I NOT mention how fucking arrogant and "superior" an alarming chunk of our population think this country is, NA imperialism is a massive problem and makes this country look like a fucking joke.

What are three things you love about your country? I mean in general it's a strong place for various opportunities, it's advanced in many areas like proper and safe housing, very impressive medical capabilities, etc., and it has an incredible amount of environment diversity.

If you had to study abroad for a semester, where would you like to go? GERMANY. Spending a year there and therefore inevitably being regularly exposed to the language would help me learn SO much, I'm sure.

If you had to study in another state for a year, where would you go? Somewhere to the west, with plenty of forests and just be surrounded by nature. OR Michigan. I want to visit Arizona, but a year might be too much for me because of the heat.

Who is the nicest person you know? Probably Mazzy, honestly.

Do you act fake on Facebook? lol hell no, I am very open about things like political, religious, and ethical stuff and I know it pisses off family and probably disappoints old teachers, I just don't care.

Do you feel comfortable sharing opinions online? For the most part, yeah. I'm way more comfortable doing it online than in person, and as I get older the more willing I am to share regardless of environment.

[TW: GENERAL ABUSE, SEXUAL ABUSE] Have you ever been abused, kidnapped, molested, or harassed by a cop? I consider myself immensely lucky that I have not been, but I absolutely was harassed as a child by two male peers.

Do you feel safe where you live? For the most part, yes. No one cares about this little shitty section of North Carolina, lol. We're not on anybody's radar. However, I do sometimes think about how if DC got hit by an atomic bomb or something similar, I'm pretty damn sure we would be within pretty damn close impact and be wiped out. I don't think about it a lot though at all, it's a total chance situation that I have absolutely zero control over, so whatever.

Where have you considered moving to? Western NC. That's where one day I want Girt and me to be, in the mountains.

Do you want to move? Desperately. Both Mom and I absolutely loathe this place.

Are there any good churches in your town? I don't believe in "good" churches.

Have you been falsely diagnosed with something by a bad doctor? Yep. Can y'all believe I have ADHD? I did NOT stay with that psychiatrist long, the therapist that worked with her was fuckin weird too.

Have you ever had a doctor refuse to treat you? Uh I don't think so at all.

Who has isolated you and refused to speak to you? Well, Jason, but by this point I don't want to talk to/associate with him either.

Do you have a Nintendo Switch? No.

Have you played Breath of the Wild? No, I'm not a Zelda fan.

Has anyone ever specifically painted you a painting? I remember Juan gave me a Pikachu painting he did in art class once, but idk if he made it FOR me.

Do you feel a connection to the moon? Not really, but also yes. I'm one of those "everything is ultimately connected/as above, so below" people and believe in our very, very core, we all originate from one specific starting point, and that technically connects us to the moon, but I don't feel some like, spiritual connection to it and the connection that DOES exist is so so SO very strained by time.

What are some fall activities you would do with your kids? If I ever have kids, fall will definitely be something I look forward to. I'd seriously decorate the house for Halloween for sure, maybe a bit for Thanksgiving too, and I think I'd wanna make crafts with leaves and stuff with them. At LEAST once I'd absolutely wanna let them jump in a big ol' raked leaf pile. Decorating pumpkins is a must, and I'd definitely wanna pass down my love of Hocus Pocus and other Halloween movies. We will ABSOLUTELY go trick-or-treating, I will drive far to ensure my kids experience a fun, safe, traditional Halloween instead of just that trunk-or-treat garbage. :( As they got older I'd be willing to let them have access to more spooky stuff, like I would without a fuckin DOUBT get the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books, let them go on haunted hayrides and visit haunted house attraction-type stuff, etc. I think it'd be a total fuckin blast to go ghost hunting with my teen kids, lol. YEESH there's more stuff I would want to do but this is already long AND the topic of kids kinda stresses me out now so moving on.

Have you ever seen a fox? Yes, but they're disappointingly rare to see here. :( I actually saw a pretty damn rare sight the other day, a roadkilled red fox, and I was so sad to see it dead. You never see the red and white ones around here.

What color are the squirrels where you live? We have gray squirrels (basically a dull brown with white-ish highlights) around here.

Do you find museums boring or interesting? I LOVE museums, especially science ones. It's a total fucking DREAM for me to visit one with a fossil display, I've never seen one. :(

What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? Uh, most likely Spice Girls.

Who is the last person you cut out of your life? Mini, once and for all. I don't support transphobic, pro-life bigots.

Name ONE good memory about your last ex? It was just a very new experience, dating a girl. I also felt just extremely connected to her in a friendship sort of way, like one of the tightest friendships I've ever felt, pretty much right when I met her in real life. I was immediately so very comfortable in her presence.

What are you superstitious about? Nothing.

Have you ever had feelings for two people at the same time? Yes. Not like insanely deep ones, but crushes.

Do you study better with or without music? Without.

How many kids do you want to have? I will probably have none, but if I do decide I want children, I absolutely will not have more than two.

Who’s the last person you smoked weed with? I've never smoked.

Who is the person you have hurt the most? Maybe my mom? Or Jason? Sara, maybe? Idk.

Who is the person that has hurt you the most? Jason.

Have you purposely flirted with a friend's crush? As a pre-teen, yes. THAT was an event.

Do you have any siblings that moved away to college? Ashley did when she was in college; she lived in a dorm with friends.

Who’s the last guy to give you roses? Tyler.

What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? Cali, a boxer mix.

Could you possibly write a successful novel? I think I could, but I won't.

If you had to get a portrait tattoo, who would it be of? My dog Teddy. I still might do that, but I also may revise his tribute tattoo, idk yet.

Did you get carded the last time you ordered an alcoholic drink? No.

Would you ever consider moving to another country for your career? No. That's the primary reason I never pursued being a meerkat biologist.

Do you own a Kindle? No, I strongly favor physical books. Digital ones just aren't the same at all to me.

Have you ever made a sex tape? No, and that's not something I'm ever willing to do.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “Monday”? In this instance Orgy's cover of "Blue Monday" came to mind, lol.

What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries. I also really enjoy kiwi too, though.

What was the last photograph you took? I took some photos of the Christmas tree a few days back!

What was the first sport you learned how to play? I feel like it was soccer... but I absolutely hated it. It may have been t-ball, which I did enjoy as a kiddo.

Do you like to hold hands? If you're my s/o, yes.

Is shyness cute? It can be. Historically it seems like I'm more attracted to outgoing people, I guess as a sort of balance for me, and I find it ESPECIALLY cute when a typically more socially confident person acts shy around me. It's something that sometimes happens with Girt and I adore it, lol.

Have you ever snuck around to be with a guy? Nope.

Why do some guys lie about not being virgins? I feel like they're like, "expected" to not be, especially at a certain age, way more than women. It's insane how virgin women tend to be seen as so pure, but a man being a virgin is hilarious and/or embarrassing.

Would you ever stay with a cheater? NO. Absolutely not. I'm out, immediately.

Have you ever been pregnant? No, let's keep it that way for my foreseeable future.

Do you or have you ever had a fake ID? Nope.

Do you think earrings are attractive or unattractive on guys? I'd say it depends on the guy, but I'm generally attracted to piercings on anyone. Regardless though, my personal opinion doesn't mean shit, guys can adorn their bodies however the hell they want.

Have you ever walked in on somebody doing something… questionable? I FEEL like I once walked into my parents' room to my dad maybe watching porn. I was never sure, but I do remember what was on the TV was sus and that he changed it after I walked in there.

What is the most disturbing movie you’ve ever watched? Probably Paranormal Entity. The ending was A LOT.

Who is the FIRST person you thought of this morning? Probably Jason because I actually had a dream featuring him last night.

If your best friend needed somewhere to stay, could they live with you? Of course, my mom nor I would need to think about it for even a heartbeat.

What were you doing at 12:00am last night? Uh pretty sure I was finishing up my Flickr, since I decided to revamp that last night.

What are you listening to right now? "Mary On A Cross" by Ghost.

#survey #surveys #random questions #personal questions

[heretherebedork]

Are there any specific BL shows you would recommend to someone just getting into the genre?

Hmmm. This is always a hard one for me! Because there are so amazing ones but so many of them should come with warning and also if I start on the really good ones what happens when you finish those and realize the rest aren't that great?

Also, how do I give advice without knowing who I'm advising and their taste? That's the biggest issue for me with an 'intro course' because you never know what people like and don't like. There are people who hate every. single. show. I've recommended here.

Now, to clarify, I started on what I call the Netflix route. I watch The Untamed and then SOTUS and then found Viki and watched Love By Chance and that got me into the fandom. Would that work for everyone? Not a chance. But it just goes to show you that anything can get someone into a fandom if that's what they like.

So this is a list of BL shows i feel show the best of the industry... and a few on the list that are there because they show you what MOST of the industry is like as well. Take a sampling. Try a few shows. Don't limit yourself to any single country or genre. Sample.

There's SO much out there. You never know where your taste may take you. Search BL on My Drama List. Ask multiple people for where to get started. Look at gifsets on here and see what appeals. My taste may not be your taste, my idea of amazing may not be yours, my idea of the best of the best may not fit in with what you like.

So... ANYWAY. Disclaimer out of the way! Here's my list of where to start based on what I think is a good intro to BL itself through amazing shows and also trope-filled shows.

1. A Tale of A Thousand Stars: The story of a rich young man who needs a heart transplant, gets it from a young woman who was a volunteer teacher in a poor village and falls in love with one of the soldiers in the village. Absolutely lovely. Just fantastic. Gorgeous characters, amazing setting, fantastic story. Seriously. This will spoil you for a lot of lesser shows but if you start with it you'll know how good the genre can get.

2. Cherry Magic: Adachi is an office worker who considers himself awkward and boring and not very good at anything... until he turns 30, gains the power to read minds from being a virgin and discovers that the top worker at his office, Kurosawa, has a huge crush on him. The softest, sweetest, most gentle BL and just fantastic. Highest of the high recommendations. Seriously. A great place to start.

3. He's Coming to Me: Mes is a ghost. He's been dead for a long time. And Thun has been visiting, and seeing him, since he was a child. When Thun is going to University, he ends up taking Mes with him and their real adventure begins. Warning for death but holy shit is this one good. So good. Absolutely amazing and wonderful, plot-driven, a need to watch show.

4. Until We Me Again: WARNING: SUICIDE AND DEATH. In and Korn were forbidden lovers 30 years ago. Dean and Pharm dream of them every night and recognize each other on sight. Fate brings them together but can fate really lead to true love? An amazing show, absolutely beautiful, deep characters, deep plot, filled to the brim with emotion and highly recommended but heed the warning, okay?

5. Be Loved In House: I Do: When Shi Lei's new boss, Yu Zhen, takes over the jewelry store and introduces a rule that everyone working there must be single, Shi Lei is ready to throw hands for his friends. So what happens when he slowly finds himself falling in love with that strange man? This is just such a soft little show, filled with joy and softness and idiots. Absolutely a great place to start yourself on Taiwen BL.

6. All the Korean BL movies: I know that this is just a label but, like, literally all of these are soft and short and a great place to start to just get a feel for the shows coming out of Korea. Not as trope-y but just generally... good. ALWAYS watch the movie version.

Wish You: Tiny musician catches the eye of someone working for a record label

Where Your Eyes Linger: Bodyguard and the boy he guards

To My Star: Puppy movie star (who's more neurotic than he lets on) meets stiff chef (who's softer than he lets on)

Color Rush: In a world where a portion of the population can only see in shades of grey until they meet the person that lets them see in color... and are considered dangerous for this... a mono meet a probe. The best of the bunch!

Mr Heart: A marathon runner has stopped winning and another young man is hired to help him get back to winning. Honestly the weakest of these in my humble opinion.

Nobleman Ryu's Wedding: Historical Idiots being historically soft and historically stupid. That's is. Young man dresses as a woman to cover up that his sister ran away from an important marriage but the groom ends up loving him regardless.

7. Light on Me: A student who's never had a friend is convinced to at least give it a try and joins the student council where he meets a sweet young man, a jokester and an awkward and confrontational young man... and there's a lover triangle because what else would there be? Oh, this one is SO good and so soft and very emotional and sweet and has a fantastic love triangle and introduces you to tropes very smartly. Definitely a good place to slip into the genre and see how the tropes get played.

8. Ingredients: A chef lives with a musician and takes care of him every turn. Yes, it's an extended ad series. But it's also soft BL filled with every trope imaginable and it's a good place to just let yourself get used to Thai BL and how it feels.

9. Oxygen: When a rich young man who can't sleep finds himself at a coffee shop in the middle of the night, there's no way he expected to meet the love of his life. But when the barista offers him warm milk to help him sleep? He's lost. I put this one on here with a few reservations because there's a side pairing that is just horrible (skip all scenes with the doctors and the coffee shop coworker for your own good, okay?) but the rest of the show is just so good and so soft and I love it so much.

10. My Engineer: A sassy freshman meets a senior engineering student who is SERIOUSLY into getting sassed. A quiet introvert meets an extrovert who refuses to give up. One friend has been pining for years and has decided friendship is good enough. This one, again, goes on with reservations. It's a good start for getting into most of the more typical Thai BLs. Gives you the regular tropes, gives you the more typical relationship and friendship things... This is a good place to start if you want to be prepared for most of what you're going to watch, frankly.

There. I'll stop there. I think that's a good set. @absolutebl may have some more ideas? I kinda went basic on this list, no denials. And maybe a bit weird as well. No denials.

#bl recommendation #bl recs #bl rec #bl drama #bl series #a tale of a thousand stars #cherry magic #he's coming to me #until we meet again #light on me #be loved in house: i do #ingredients bl #oxygen bl #my engineer the series #thaibl #thai bl #koreanbl #korean bl #taiwanese bl #taiwanesebl #asianbl #asian lgbtq dramas #asianlgbtqdramas #asian bl #asian bl drama

[rezzyromance]

I told you you'd do great. (Moreau x GN!Reader)

Summary: The reader finds a baby in the village whos family was killed by lycans and takes it home with them and Moreau to give it a new home.

(This is the story that was requested and I accidentally deleted it. I hope the og anon finds this.) TW: Mentions of gore, violence, and death.

The door to Moreau's shack had been broken for weeks now. You had spent a lot of time and energy trying to fix it yourself, but had to give up as your frustration grew too overwhelming. With no where else to go, you had to result to asking, nearly begging, for assistance from the only person who you knew could help: Karl Heisenberg. He refused at first, claiming he didn't have enough time to be everyone's handyman. But, you had annoyed him enough for him to agree to build you a completely new door if you were able to gather the supplies.

So, that's what you were doing today. You were trekking through the woods from the reservoir to the village, hoping to gather enough spare wood for Heisenberg to build a new door for the shack you lived in along side Moreau. You've been pushing a wheelbarrow for what feels like forever, hoping it could aid in carrying your gathered wood back to the factory where Heisenberg stayed. You want to give up and give your sore arms a break, but the village is so close that you can't just take a break. Plus, there had been a lycan attack last night. They managed to wipe out what little population was left of the village, so the journey isn't a very safe one. You had a shotgun on your back which you barely knew how to use, but kept close just in case.

Finally, you made it to the village which was now a ghost town. You let go of the wheel barrow and sat down on the ground to rest. Your period of recovery didn't last long you heard a growling noise grow closer. Even though the lycans had massacred every last soul in the villiage the night before, a few decided to stay in the are. And now, they were all eyes on you. One was on a roof while two others began to approach you from the left. You scatter to your feet and run towards a house with a gaping door, hoping you'll have enough time to prepare your gun.

You get inside the house and shut the door. The inside of the house was a wreck. Broken glass covered the floor along with flipped furniture and blood splatters all over the walls, floors, and even ceiling. It was a horrific sight that only caused your adrenaline to rush more. The door began to shake and you could see them from outside the window. You rush to the room farthest in the back and lock the door behind you.

It was a bedroom. And inside you could hear the muffled sounds of crying. You shake your head, thinking that you're hearing things in your panicked state. But the crying never ceased. Instead, it grew louder. "How can there be any sign of life here?" you think as you tremble, attempting to hold your gun straight. "Where is it? What is it? A baby? How? Where?", these questions flooded your brain. The crying grew louder as you looked around, still no baby in sight.

Then, you saw something. A piece of paper on the floor, slightly wedged between a loose wooden floor board.

"Please, for the love of Mother Miranda, if anyone is to find my sweet Daniel, care for him. Keep him safe."

- it read. You looked at the loose floor boards from which the paper came from. "It's in the floor", you think. Suddenly, your own thoughts are silenced by the banging of the bedroom door. A grey and grotesque hand managed to forces it's way through the wood, clawing mercilessly as the horrific growls of the lycans fill the room. You grab the gun and stick it through the new hole, pulling the trigger. The hand recedes from the hole and a new one takes its place. This time, one of the beasts sticks its disgusting face through the gap. You cock the gun and pull the trigger once more, blowing bits of the lycans face in all directions before it's lifeless body falls on top of the previous one. The last one is only angrier now, pulling at the hole and causing it to grow. High on adrenaline, you don't budge from where you're standing as you prep your gun and shoot at the beast once more.

After the last gunshot, the only noise in the room is the crying from under the floor that had now turned into screams. You gather your thoughts and focus once more on the loose floor boards. You stick your fingers in the gap of one of the wooden plants, pulling it from the floor easily. You do that to a few more before the screaming child is revealed to you. There was a secret hole under the floor that the wooden planks covered which is where the baby was placed, wrapped up in a blue blanket. You can only imagine the fear and heart break the person must have felt as they saw their baby's face for the last time before hiding it underneath the wooden floors.

You hold the crying baby close, rocking it gently and attempting to make soothing sounds in hopes to calm the both of you down. There's no telling how many more lycans may be roaming the village, so you understand that you don't have time to waste. You hold the baby close to your chest and make a run for it towards the reservoir, leaving the original mission of gathering supplies behind.

You made it back to the resevoir with no other lycan encounters. Your running had caused the baby to continue to cry on the way though. When you were close enough to Moreaus shack for him to hear it in the distance, he staired out the window. He was shocked and confused to see you so panicked with a crying baby in your arms. "What happened?! Who's baby is that?!", he rushes out of the building towards you. "I'm not sure. His name is Daniel, I think, and his family had hidden him under the floor during the lycan attack last night. I saved him and had to kill some lycans and...", you stopped to catch your breath and gather your thoughts. "Moreau we have to help him.", you hold the crying child close, rocking it gently. Its crying grew quieter, but didn't stop. You looked over to Moreau. His hands were on his head and he was stunned.

"N-no! I-I-I-I can't! I can't take care of a child!", he blurts out. "We'll do it. We'll do it together.", you put a hand on his shoulder in attempt to calm him down. "I'll scare it! It'll hate me!", he grew more and more panicked. "Sal, please calm down love. Here' hold it.", you begin to hand the baby to him. He steps back. "I can't!" "I won't be able to do this on my own. We're this babies only hope. Heisenberg and Donna won't be able to handle it and Alcina wouldn't want to raise a boy." He knew you were right and couldn't argue. "I don't have anything to help! No food and and an- no baby clothes!", he says. "I'm sure the Duke will have something. He's got everything! And he's never hard to find. I'm sure if I left now to go look for him, I wouldn't be gone for 10 minutes and I'd come back with everything the baby needs and more!" He grew silent as he anxiously fiddled with his hands. "Here, you take the baby while I go looking for the Duke. I won't be long. You'll do great.", you begin to hand the baby to him again.

He turns around. "I don't want it to see me, (Y/N)!", he refuses. "Fine.", you sigh. "I'll set him down on the couch. You can watch him and make sure he doesn't fall while I'm gone.", you place the baby on the couch and give Moreau a kiss on his head. "You'll do great, honey. I won't be long.", you give him one last kiss before leaving. He was left alone with the baby who was now crying loudly, wiggling on the couch.

"Please don't cry! Please calm down! I-it's okay!", he quickly makes his way over to the baby, unsure of what to do. "Please..calm down..", he gently places a hand on it's stomach. It grips onto one of his fingers and pulls it closer. It's crying quits down into whimpers. "Are you okay?", he begins to wiggle his finger that the baby is gripping onto. It responds with a giggle that brightens up the room. Moreau's heart is left fluttering with excitement. He smiles and wiggles his finger more. The baby lets go and claps in excitement. Moeau begins to laugh to, excited by the fact he was able to make the baby laugh.

The baby began to wiggle and rock, attempting to move. Moreau watched it, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, the baby put all of the power in it's little body into rocking it's body to the side, attempting to roll over onto it's stomach. Instead, it began to roll off the couch. Moreau screams as he grabs the baby before it hits the ground. "You can't do that! You're gonna get hurt! (Y/N) will be so mad if something happens to you!", he held the baby close to his chest, cradling it in his arms protectively. A smile stretched across its face. He reached a hand up and began to tug at Moreau's hood. He looked down at it, confused on why it wasn't screaming at the sight of him. 'Are you.. not afraid of me?", he put his hands under the babies arms and lifted it up to where it can see him face to face. It continued to smile and reach for him. Tears began to form in his eyes. This innocent little life viewed him as a friend, not a monster.

You returned home from visiting the Duke. Just as you suspected, he provided you with a large selection of baby essentials. Formula, clothes, diapers, and even a few toys. You pushed open the broken door and gaze upon the sight in front of you. Moreau was holding the baby in front of his face. Tears of joy slowly washed over his face as the baby giggled. "I told you you'd do great.", you smiled.

#re8 #resident evil village #resident evil 8 #salvator moreau headcanon #moreau x reader #salvatore moreau

[mrslittletall]

saw your whump post, honestly the "I'm fine" screams Hornet to me, so it'd be cool to see that! - dooblebugs

Title: The Idol Fandom: Hollow Knight Characters: Hornet & Little Ghost Word Count: 2.825 AO3-Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30941981

Summary: After the Hollow Knight is freed from the temple, Hornet does her best to take care of the ones that are still left in Hallownest. Everything should be fine... until it isn't.

(Author's note:  @dooblebugs

I thought about using canon verse with “Almost everyone lives AU” or your Mer AU. But ultimately, canon verse won, because I still miss some context for the Mer AU. I hope you enjoy.)

Hornet opened her eyes and jumped on her feet right away. Her day would always start with hunting and gathering food, preferably before Hollow woke up and tried to move, and it was a whole other problem trying to haul a bug their size back into bed, especially when they rigorously ignored their wounds.

While Hornet trusted Quirrel and Cloth enough to leave Hollow in their care for a while, she always felt better if she could look over them personally. However, the longer she hesitated with leaving, the longer she would need to come back, so Hornet left the house in Dirtmouth they had inhabited for Hollow's recovery and went towards the crossroads.

The little pitter-patter of tiny feet next to her prompted Hornet to look down. Ghost had decided to accompany her again. They always would. She could tell them a hundred times to stay behind, they would never listen. For a vessel meant to be void of mind, Ghost was one of the bugs with the strongest will that Hornet ever had seen.

“You will still come with me, even if I say no, right, little Ghost?”, Hornet said, shouldering her needle. Ghost didn't nod or sign at her, they simply stared, with their unblinking, never changing expression. It was enough for Hornet to know that they wouldn't leave.

“Alright, but don't get into my way.”, Hornet said. At this, Ghost swung their nail and jumped in front of Hornet in a pose that depicted a challenge, then their nail went down on the ground in a strike, the swing of it breaking through the calmness of the morning.

“I know! I know! You've beaten me twice, but... I have gone easy on you.”, Hornet half hissed. It was a blatant lie and she knew it. The first time she had simply underestimated them (or she simply had become tired of fighting) and the second time... she had given it her all and they still had remained victorious. In a sense, Ghost was the new king of Hallownest, but they didn't seem to put any mind on the title. They didn't even seem to be wanting to be celebrated for being the saviour of Hallownest. They simply joined Hornet every morning for hunting and went off on their own afterwards, always coming back to play with their friends in Dirtmouth.

As the both of them jumped down the well, Hornet couldn't help but think about that there wasn't much to rule anymore. This kingdom was in shambles. It had been two weeks and the dried off infection still crusted the crossroads, too little bugs alive to care much about cleaning the place up. It was becoming more and more difficult to get food, because so many of the infected had simply been reanimated husks, without any meat left in them.

They surely would have to wander to Greenpath again, hopefully finding a few vengeflies and mosscreeps to bring home.

Hornet was used being alone. She had been alone for a very long time. She had managed. She never was lonely... well, maybe a little lonely and now there was a bunch of strangers up in Dirtmouth who relied on her. Hornet never wanted for anyone to rely on her. She had seen what happened when bugs relied on someone and... there wasn't a solution.

She looked down on Ghost again, they had their nail on the ready and stared vigilantly in front of them. They must have crossed this crossroads a dozen times on their journey, still expecting to be attacked by the infected every given minute. Hornet could understand that it was hard for them to let go of old habits.

She was the same. She never let go of her needle as well. Even with the infection never being able to come back, she had to remain vigilant. She would protect her siblings, no matter what. She wouldn't, no she couldn't, let anyone down.

“We are nearing Greenpath.”, she said, only to cut through the silence between them. She knew it wasn't Ghost's fault that they didn't have a voice, but after years of not being able to talk to anyone, Hornet barely could stand the silence, when there was someone she could talk to. “Remember, when we hunt the mosscreeps, take their leaves as well, for the herbivores.”

While Hornet was able to eat plant matter as well, it never had been satisfying to her. She was the daughter of a spider and a wyrm, both predators, and therefore she usually would hunt for food. She was unsure about what kind of diet Ghost and Hollow needed, but they seemed to be content with the prey she brought back, so she wouldn't change anything about it.

“And remember, we can't hunt too much. The population needs a chance to recover.”, she said as well. The infection had done a number on the whole of Hallownest... it wasn't a surprise that there was such a food shortage. In fact, Hornet had cut her own food intake in favour of her siblings and anyone who couldn't hunt or still needed to recover. That bug, Tiso, came to mind. Had a far too big stomach for having been utterly destroyed by the colloseum of fools. Why Ghost had dragged him back to Dirthmouth, she would never understand.

Ghost showed that they understood with a little nod of their head and the both of them entered Greenpath. It was a MUCH nicer place without the infection, but they still had to pay attention, the fool eater plants were easy to overlook (not that Hornet had ever overlooked them, but Ghost tended to forget...) and there were some predators still around, though they were no match for her needle. The problem was to avoid them to not hunt too much. Like she had said to Ghost, they needed to give the population time to recover, if they wouldn't want all to starve beforehand.

“We get only enough for everyone back in Dirtmouth.”, Hornet said again. “Then we leave again. Let's search for some mosscreeps first.”

The both of them jumped and slashed their way through the vegetation of Greenpath. While Hornet preferred to use her needle, Ghost had found a lot of new ways to move around since the first time they fought and they dashed (literally leaving their shell behind and somehow phasing through time and space) and jumped with wings that reminded Hornet of her father... and she got a bad feeling in her guts every time she saw them.

After a bit of time, they had managed to hunt two vengeflies to bring back, Hornet keeping them cocooned up for transportation and were now searching through the vegetation for some mosscreeps. Finally, Hornet found one and struck it down with her needle, preparing a cocoon for it again, when Ghost picked something up from the grass.

“Ghost, what do you have there?”, Hornet asked. The item was too small to be prey and they tended to hoard stuff they found. It probably was just something that was completely worthless nowadays, only generating Geo when given to this historian in the City of Tears. She still wanted to know.

Ghost came over and laid the thing they had picked up in her outstretched hand. When she looked down on it, she froze.

It was a King's Idol, the item that the citizens of Hallownest had crafted to worship her reclusive father. Each of them looked different, but they all shared the general shape and depicted his most salient feature: The horns that resembled a crown.

Staring down at it, something in Hornet broke. It might have been the stress she felt since Ghost had arrived. Or the fact that Hollow recovered from years of abuse from both the gods of Hallownest. Or that she was running on an empty stomach most of the time. But once she saw that thing, all her frustration crashed down on her at once.

You!”, she hissed. “It was all your fault! You knew that the plan wouldn't work! You knew that they would suffer and you still have let it happen! The teacher, the watcher, my mother, all sacrificed for nothing! And then, in the moment you were needed the most, you vanished, you damn coward! We needed you! I needed you! I hate you. I hate you and I can't even say it to your face anymore!”

Hornet threw the king's idol on the ground with so much force that it skipped on the ground and then fell on her knees, slowly getting aware of the tears on her face and the presence of little ice cold hands patting her arm.

“I am fine.”, she said, wiping the tears away. Just a moment of weakness, nothing else. Even though she could feel the judgemental stare of Ghost, she was fine. She had to be. “Seriously, I am fine.”, she continued once more. “Let's continue hunting.”

As Hornet was putting her composure back together, she didn't notice how Ghost continued to stare at her, picking up the idol from the ground, and only starting to move again once she called out for them.

The hunt had been more or less successful. At least they had found enough prey that nobody should go terribly hungry (at least when Hornet halved her own portion again). As usual, hunting had taken the better part of the day. Hornet would have liked to go hunt at some different locations, but the Old Stag from the stag ways wasn't around lately, apparently he was taking care of some personal business. With him not being around, it was just too far to walk to the Fungal Wastes or Deepnest, at least not when she wanted to come back the same day.

Currently Hornet took in her meal in Hollow's room with Ghost present as well. She was busy thinking about if there was another route that would make sure she could hunt elsewhere but Greenpath for once, when she felt a nudge. When she looked down, she saw how Ghost offered them a half of their mosscreep, holding the prey up in their little hands, seemingly eagerly awaiting for her to take it.

“I can't take this, Ghost.”, Hornet said. “You need all the food you can get, you are still growing.”

Ghost cocked their head and for once their eternal deadpan expression was on point. Hornet knew how ridiculous her argument was. Ghost had been born before her. They hadn't grown in years. Their body had been unable to grow because they didn't had access to void. “You know what I mean.”, she defended herself. There was the possibility that Ghost would start to grow as long as they stayed in Hallownest.

Ghost offered their meal a little while longer and then gave up with a little frustrated stomp of their foot. It was then when Hornet felt another nudge... this time it was Hollow, who had simply watched the scene unfold in front of them, offering their part of their meal.

“Oh no, not you too, Hollow.”, Hornet sighed. “You need the food much more than me, you are still recovering. I won't accept anything from you.”

The both vessels shared a look and once again Hornet asked herself if they could talk to each with some kind of void telepathy, before both of them looked at the ground in defeat.

“I am fine.”, Hornet repeated herself, she knew that. “Really, I am fine...”

Hornet awoke the next morning... not because her stomach cramped and she had trouble sleeping because of it, but because someone nudged her. She cracked one eye open and murmured: “It's barely morning...” She just craved to go back to sleep, to forget about the day in front of her for a few minutes longer, but the nudging got more and more intense, until she shouted: “Fine! I am getting up! Stop bothering me!”

It was Ghost in front of her and immediately Hornet stopped being annoyed. What if something had happened? “Is something the matter with Hollow? Or is a threat approaching the village?”, she asked, already fumbling for her needle, once again forgetting that Ghost was more than capable of defending the village themselves. They just looked too much like a little, defenseless child, even though Hornet had experienced otherwise.

Gladly, Ghost shook their head, though this put Hornet right back into annoyance. “Then why have you woken me up?”, she said, falling back down in her pillows, ignoring the urge to close her eyes and looking at Ghost again, making sure to give them a judgemental stare.

Ghost did grip something under their cloak (wings? Hornet never knew what this thing around the vessels was) and after a bit of struggling, they produced a jar... a jar filled with honey. The smell actually made Hornet's mouth water. Honey was one of the few things she liked to eat that wasn't meat, mostly because she had trained in the Hive in her youth.

Though, as lucky as she felt about having more food, she couldn't help but scold Ghost. “Ghost, did you get this on your own? The Hive is dangerous, even without the infection! What if the Hive Knight would have found you?”

Ghost shook their head and then outstretched their hand, showing Hornet a shiny little charm. A charm she remembered. The charm of the Hive. “Wait, you have been there and challenged him already?” Hornet wanted to be surprised, but Ghost couldn't really surprise her anymore. When they could surprise her somehow, then it was that they were full of surprises.

“Anyway... I guess I have to thank you, though I don't approve that you sneak out at night into the Hive.”, Hornet murmured. “At least we have more food for the group now..”

Ghost rigorously shook their head and pressed the jar in her hands. “For me?”, Hornet asked and Ghost nodded.

“But... Ghost, I appreciate it, but I don't need.. the others need the food much more than...”

Another shook of their head and a stomp of their foot along with crossed arms and a slight turn around. Hornet suddenly felt very small, she had never seen them that upset.

“Alright, alright...”, she said. “Maybe I have eaten insufficient lately...”

Ghost nodded again and gave the jar of honey another press, so that she had to hold it firmly in her hands.

“Alright alright...”, Hornet finally gave in. “I will take your offer, Ghost.”

As she opened the jar, her hunger became more and more apparent and soon she dug in and had finished the whole jar in what felt like no time and finally, for once, she didn't feel overly hungry. Satisfied even.

She then saw Ghost holding up something. A little rock with a few letters written on it. Lately Cornifer had given them writing lessons, though it still was a work in progress.

“Fine?”

That was the word they had painted on the rock (where did they even have the colours from?).

“I am fine.”, Hornet said. “This time for real. I am sorry, Ghost, I shouldn't have lied to you. I just feel so... responsible for everyone. I can't show weakness in front of anyone.”

Ghost shook their head again and then got something out. Hornet recognized it as the King's Idol they had found in Greenpath. They tossed it at the ground, just as she had done and then hit it with their nail, leaving a notable crack in it.

“You as well don't have the best memories of him, right?”, Hornet said. Both of them had been left behind, though in a different kind of way. Ghost had been discarded and Hornet had been left with responsibility far too huge for her age.

Ghost nodded again and gave the King's Idol another smack, so that it landed in front of her. Hornet took it into her hands and stared at it. She did miss him, that she had to admit to herself, but she also knew that her anger and her disappointment were real and there was no reason to hide it in front of Ghost.

She squeezed the Idol until it cracked into two pieces and just watched as they fell down. “Thank you, Ghost.”, she said. “But make sure to not tell Hollow about this.”

The way Hollow idealized their father... it would break their heart seeing his image being defiled like that.

Another quick nod and then Ghost actually got another one out, their face clearly saying: “Wanna break another?”

A grin crept over Hornet's face. She would never get her mother back or escape her responsibilities, but at least she could vent out her frustrations, even though it took her sibling for her to realize.

“Oh you bet I want.” (Author's note: Little Ghost is kinda fun to write. I think they are a character mostly showing what they feel through body language and it was fun to come up with how they would act. I also like to think that they can stare very judgemental, even though their expression never changes, a stare of them can make anyone falter. Hornet's relationship to PK is... complicated. He hasn't actually been a bad father to her, but as the infection came back and depression took over, he left her alone more and more and she got angry about it... especially when he decided to just vanish. She felt utterly betrayed by it and it is a huge source of her frustration and anger. I put in some little references to the game in there, try to find them if you please.)

#hollow knight #fanfiction #hornet #little ghost #march of the whumps #request fill #hornet has issues #whump #emotional whump #ask answered #thx for the ask #littlewritesstuff #Anonymous

[destiniesfic]

132 Hours, Chapter 11

“Don’t speak for me, Duarte,” Cardan says.

“Don’t boss me around.”

Previous

Read chapter 11 on AO3 or read below:

“But, just, if I had the choice,” I say, “I would rather be apart from society.”

We’ve gone around and around a few different points by now. The latest one is the Ghost reminding me that, since betas are one in a thousand, there are only three hundred thousand in the United States, which is less than the population of Wyoming, and I don’t know anyone from Wyoming. They can and do seek each other out, but in a lot of ways, chemical and social, they’re separated from everyone else.

“Would you?” asks the Ghost.

“Well…” I trail off, thinking of the Bomb and the Roach and how they, very possibly, endured de-designation one way or another. I don’t think that’s something I want for myself, not seriously. Sure, I could do without all the complications of heat, but would I like to go through life with dulled senses, knowing most of the population was experiencing something I never would?

The problem isn’t really that I hate being an omega, it’s that I spent my whole life watching alphas, surviving alphas. Wishing I had what they had.

I look at Cardan, who’s been preoccupied with picking at dirt under his fingernails this entire time. He wears a mask of boredom. I know he’s listening, though. He’s good at playing dumb.

“I want to be like them,” I hear myself say. “No, I want to be better than them. That’s all. That’s what it is. And how am I supposed to be better when I’m—” I gesture at myself. I know I look better now than I did before, but I am far from my peak.

Regarding me steadily, the Ghost says, “There’s power in what you are right now, you know. There’s power in driving people crazy for you. A well-placed omega can ruin a political negotiation, a business merger, a marriage. Start wars.”

“Helen of Troy,” I interject. We all know how that went. “That’s soft power. But I don’t want—want…”

I shiver in my chair and hug my arms to my chest. Cardan’s voice is dark and low when he says, “I don’t think she’s up for this discussion.”

The Ghost gives him an odd look, and I say, “No, I’m fine. It’s fine.” I quash down panic; the meds shouldn’t be wearing off this soon, but there’s nothing I can do about it. “I don’t want soft power. I want to be taken seriously.”

“Well, you got us to take you pretty seriously,” the Ghost replies. “Cardan takes you seriously.”

I snort. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Don’t speak for me, Duarte,” Cardan says.

“Don’t boss me around.”

“I think that when you get to college, or at least out into the real world, you’ll find it’s very different,” the Ghost continues.

“I live in the real world,” I retort.

“No, you live in a bubble. A rich person bubble. When there aren’t as many expectations—when there are just normal people—alphas and omegas don’t have as much trouble with each other.”

I press my lips together so I can’t remind him that my mom married an alpha and it didn’t exactly end well. “But systems of oppression still exist. How many omega presidents have we had?”

The Ghost holds up a hand. “We’ve been over this. I’m not saying they don’t.” He pauses. “It wasn’t a kind thing Madoc did, sending you to Insmire.”

I blink at him. “How did you know—”

“Well, we did have to do our research on you.” He presses his lips together. “Cardan said you went to school together.”

“Oh, right.” I feel foolish, and also defensive. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cardan pick up his head. “Well, Madoc isn’t kind. I mean, he can be, but—he isn’t.”

“No,” the Ghost agrees. “If he was kind, he would have sent you to the best multi-designation or omega prep school there was. But he didn’t let you have it easy. From what I know of him, he wanted to teach you to fight, on all fronts. And from where I’m sitting, it worked. I bet your sister isn’t a pushover either. Your twin?”

I almost laugh, thinking about Taryn fistfighting anyone. But I guess we did both learn to lie pretty well. I shrug my shoulders.

“You’ve had the worst of it in high school with entitled rich kids. The real world is more balanced, and you’re more than ready for it.” He pauses. “And there is one more thing, but I don’t think you’ll appreciate me saying it.”

“Go on.”

“Mating.”

Cardan makes a choked sound.

“I don’t mean sex,” the Ghost says, with a glance at him. “I mean finding a mate. It’s something I’ve thought about, as someone who can’t have it. Sure, betas get to fall in love like everyone else, but we don’t get to have that… connection. That belonging.”

Neither Cardan nor I speak for a moment. We are both too busy looking at the ground. “It’s a lot of pressure,” I say slowly. “What if you pick the wrong person? How do you know?”

“You might.” The Ghost sits back in his chair, seeming to retreat back into himself. I have the feeling this is the most he’s spoken in one go for a long time. Then he says, “But what if you pick the right one?”

I open my mouth to reply when I am hit by another full-body shiver, and then my cramps return with a vengeance. I whimper and wrap my arms around my abdomen. “Ow.”

“She’s getting worse.” It’s Cardan who says it. He sounds newly panicked. “You have to help her. I can’t do it.”

The Ghost raises his eyebrows. “It’s okay for me to help her now?”

“Yeah, well, you were doing alright, keeping her distracted, so I guess you’re ready for more responsibility.”

I blink up at the Ghost, who’s already standing from his chair. “You were distracting me? How long has it been?”

“A good couple of hours. You like to argue.” He helps me out of my seat. “He’s not as stupid as he looks, is he?”

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “No, he isn’t.” Standing takes most of my concentration, but I look back over my shoulder at Cardan, who’s rigid like he’s grown roots. His hands have a white-knuckled grip on the side of the chair. He nods at me, and I nod back at him and let the Ghost lead me away.

The door to our cell-room had been left open while we were talking around the table, so it’s no longer as stuffy. I let out a groan of relief when I sink down onto the mattress. My gross, terrible mattress. My itchy blankets. I am so happy to be back in a visceral way that I don’t quite understand. Because it’s my “nest,” I guess. I want to wrap myself up in the blankets and curl up in a little ball, but the Ghost is still standing here.

“We have to lock Cardan in with you at night,” he says quietly. He sounds apologetic. “Especially if it’s only me on watch. There won’t always be eyes on him.”

I shrug. “He hates me. I’ll be fine.”

The Ghost’s mouth presses into a thin line.

“Oh, what?” I scoff. “You’re taking your eyes off him right now.”

“Yeah, because I can feel his eyes boring holes in my shirt.”

I snicker. I have decided that as far as people who’ve shot me go, the Ghost really isn’t so bad. “Hey,” I begin, wincing through another cramp, determined to keep distracting myself. “Why are you doing this? The Bomb said she’s sticking with whoever you work for because she owes them. Same for you?”

“No,” he says flatly. “I’m too far in to get out.”

“That can’t be true. I mean, if you go to the police, bargain for immunity in exchange for testimony…”

He gives me a dour look that says I’m being incredibly naive. “Ask me whose house this was.”

I blink at him, wondering if the connection should be obvious and the fever is slowing down my brain. “Whose house… was it?”

“It was being built as a weekend home for someone’s mistress. It was never finished.”

“Why? What happened to her?”

He looks me over, withdrawing further into himself. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll get you more medicine. You should rest. The second half is going to be harder than the first.”

“It is?” I ask, my voice sounding small and pathetic, but he has already left.

---

I don’t remember much about the next twenty-four hours. Just flashes, impressions, snippets of conversation. People are in and out of the room, making sure my water bottle is full, replacing it if it isn’t, giving me pills, for all the good they do. At first it’s the Ghost, but eventually it’s the Bomb, which means she’s come back. My ears, straining to pick out Cardan’s voice through the closed door, hear the Roach’s laugh, so he’s returned too.

It’s a bad day. It doesn’t take me long to sweat right through my dress, and it takes even less time for my shorts to soak through. The medicine can’t keep my temperature in check anymore, only drive it down to a balmy one hundred. I am miserable, and I am bored. There is nothing for me to do but stare at the wall, and even if there were, I probably couldn’t focus on it. My head feels like it’s being weighed down by a bag of rocks. The only thing that seems fully awake and alive is my libido, spiky and insistent. I didn’t know it was possible to feel this sick and this aroused. Masturbation doesn’t help. Nothing helps.

I am aware of Cardan coming back into the room, hours later. I am aware of his footsteps on the floor, the sound of him sitting heavily on the floor. I get a fresh waft of lavender; he showered again before coming in. Even though I had been dozing and wish again to be unconscious, I do pick up my head to look at him.

“Hi,” I say.

He raises one hand in greeting. “Hey.” He looks less like himself than ever, pale and drawn and wilting, and his brows are drawn. But he’s still handsome. Even the paleness benefits him, setting off his dark hair. Like a vampire. I have the urge to press my mouth to the column of his neck again.

Instead, I ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Aside from everything?” Cardan sighs. “I don’t know. The Bomb and the Roach came back, but something is weird. They wouldn’t talk about it in front of me.”

“Oh,” I say. That should mean something to me, but it doesn’t right now. I can’t fit the pieces together.

He sighs again, a longer sigh this time. “And I’m feeling like a pretty shitty alpha,” he says.

“Why?” I ask, drawing my knees in tighter to my chest. “Because you haven’t boned me yet?”

Another strangled noise escapes him. I’m getting used to those little squawks. “One, never say ‘boned’ again. And two, no.” He sounds sullen. He rakes his hand through his hair. “Because I’m not taking care of you.”

My brain short-circuits. “What?”

“I talked to the Roach about it.” He pauses. “I mean… if we were paired up, if we were doing this on purpose, it should be me. I should be helping you. Instead I have to let other people do it.”

“But we’re not paired up, and that is taking care of me. In these circumstances…”

I trail off, and he shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“It sucks,” I say, as if agreeing with him. “And it’s—I’m just scared.”

He tsks, tossing his hair out of his face. “Nothing scares you.”

I pull the blankets tighter around my shoulders. “That’s not true. I’m scared all the time. It’s why I’m so angry at everything, everyone. At myself.”

Cardan is quiet for a moment, then says, “I guess I get that.”

I wonder if he does. There is a lot I still don’t know about Cardan. “If the last year has shown me anything, it’s that I can’t control anybody else’s behavior. Locke. Taryn. Valerian.” I shift. “Just me. It’s just me. I’m the only thing in my control.”

He smiles, weakly. “Slow down, Hamilton.”

“It’s Burr. And that’s not the lyric.”

“Whatever. Nerd.”

My own smile is transient. “Anyway, now I’m not even in my control. Now I have to be afraid of myself. So that… it just sucks.”

“Yeah.” After another stretch of silence, Cardan asks, “Are you afraid of me?”

I don’t answer him right away. Because the answer, of course, is yes. Yes, I have been afraid of him for such a long time. Yes, I am afraid of what he represents, the power and the system set against me. Yes, I am afraid of the way he affects me, the things I want to do, the vulnerability in me.

But the answer, in some strange way, as we have languished in our cell, has also become no.

“I,” I begin, but then there is another urgent cramp, another painful jolt of arousal on its heels, and I groan. “Oh, god.”

Cardan’s eyes widen in alarm. “You don’t have to answer that,” he says quickly. “Just… just relax. Just chill. I’ll stay over here.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I manage through gritted teeth, clutching my stomach. It is, of course, worse.

Trying to get comfortable, I toss and turn for ages, but I must fall asleep through the pain because the next thing I know, Cardan is gone again, and I am holding a scrap of soft cloth in my arms. On instinct, I bring it to my nose. It smells like Cardan, that musky smell he’s taken on in the last couple of days. Warmth bursts in my chests like a firework. It’s his shirt. He left his shirt with me. What is he wearing now?

It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I nuzzle the fabric. It is not exactly soft, a little grimy from lack of washing, but saturated with his scent. I am amazed at how my brain calms just from this one, simple thing. My horniness problem is not solved, though, so I slide my hand into my shorts to take care of it, my face still pressed to Cardan’s shirt. It muffles my cries when I come, but I’m honestly too far gone to care if I am heard. After I am finished, I wriggle out of my dress, pull the shirt over my head, and promptly fall back asleep.

I doze fitfully. Someone comes to replace the water bottle, which briefly wakes me long enough that I roll around for a few minutes before I’m out again. I don’t mind that the mattress is lumpy or that the blankets scratch my skin; whenever something begins to bother me too much, I stick my nose in the collar of Cardan’s shirt and breathe in, which is usually enough to soothe me.

I’m not sure whether I’m dreaming or awake when I feel someone press the bottle to my lips and say, “Drink, Jude.” It sounds like the Roach, or maybe Madoc. I open my mouth and manage a couple of swallows of water before putting my head back down and dragging the blankets up over my shoulders.

“Is she still asleep?” I hear Cardan ask. His voice is hushed. The smell of him doesn’t bother me so much now that I have his shirt, but I do scent him and groan softly, pressing my face into the pillow.

“Mostly,” says probably-the-Roach.

There’s a pause, then Cardan asks, “Can I do it?”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I know, but I want to help.” Something shuffles, like he’s kicked at the floor. “She’s only like this because of me.”

The Roach sighs, then says, “All right. Come over, but be careful.”

I hear Cardan’s footsteps on the floor, and then a hand pushes some of my hair off of my sweaty face, dragging down to skim my cheek. I lean into his hand. It feels so good to be touched.

“Jude, hey,” he says quietly. “Can you pick your head up a little higher for me?”

There’s something beneath his voice, a dark undertow that pulls me down. I find that I want to do what he says, which isn’t a remotely comforting thought. But I pick up my head, and he keeps one hand against my jaw as he tips the jug against my mouth. A little water trickles down my neck, wetting the shirt he lent me, but I swallow most of it down.

“That’s good.” He takes the jug away and sets it back down on the floor. I can hear the strain in his words, like he’s fighting with himself. “Really good.”

His hand finds my hair again, and I would do anything for him to just keep running his fingers through it, but then the Roach says, “I think that’s enough.”

Cardan disentangles his fingers from my hair and stands; I hear him step back. “It’s just so weird,” he says. “It’s weird to see her like this. She hates—she never asks for help. I’ve never seen her vulnerable.”

“Well, her body’s treating it like a sickness,” the Roach says. “But we’re looking out for her. Another, what, day or so? Less than a day? And she should be free and clear. And hopefully by then this will all be over and we can let you guys out.”

“Yeah.” There’s a pause, and then, “Thanks.”

The Roach chuckles. “Don’t thank me, kid. We kidnapped you.”

“I know, but.” Cardan hesitates. “Is it weird that in some ways I’d rather be here than home?”

“Pretty weird, yeah.”

“Yeah.” Then, lowering his voice to a whisper, he asks, “Jude?”

I say nothing, do nothing. I want to keep eavesdropping. He wouldn’t be saying half of this if he thought I was awake. So I keep my breathing low and even, and let him say what he wants.

But he says nothing, and for a second I think he’s getting ready to leave me alone again. Then I hear him take a step—toward me—and his hand is briefly back in my hair. I feel warm lips against my forehead, soft and fleeting like the brush of a butterfly’s wings. I have to fight my every instinct not to lean up into the kiss and give myself away, but then his hand and lips are both gone. I hear the quick retreat of his footsteps, the closing of the door.

“It’s not fair,” I whisper to the empty cell. “You can’t just leave me with that.”

But he can, and he did, because he assumed I was asleep. He left me with the memory of a forehead kiss, with a whispered conversation to dissect, and a tingling feeling throughout my entire body.

“I hate you so much,” I say, curling closer around his shirt. There is no answer but my erratic heartbeat, drumming out a truth I am almost, but not quite, ready to hear.

Next

#jurdan #judecardan #jude x cardan #jurdan fanfic #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #tfota #the folk of the air #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #mine: fic #fic: 132 hours

[oriigami]

see hope rise with the tide

[In which Jinbe goes to check in on Arlong, and finds some things that need to be set right. Canon divergence. Read it on AO3 here.]

“It’s too quiet,” Aladine says, and he’s right. 

Cocoyashi Village is too quiet. 

It’s a port village on a midsized island. It should be bustling with life, or at least populated; there should be trading ships in the bay, citizens walking the streets. Instead, it may as well be a ghost town. The Sun Pirates’ ship is the only one visible all along the coastline, and only the occasional hints of movement visible through closed windows give away that anyone lives here at all. All the shades are drawn. 

There is something sinking, slow and heavy, in Jinbe’s chest.

“Are you sure you want to go alone?” Aladine asks, his voice unreadable. 

Jinbe hadn’t planned on coming here for a confrontation. He hadn’t planned on much of anything at all, really. He’d only come in the first place because he’d happened across Arlong’s latest wanted poster in the paper and been struck by- something. Curiosity? Concern? 

(Fear?)

Now, though, looking at the shuttered windows and the barren streets, he doesn’t know anymore. He doesn’t want to know what happened here, not really, but his life has rarely been a matter of what he wants. 

“I am,” he says, stepping down onto the shore, and it comes out as a sigh. “I shouldn’t be long.” 

Whatever he finds here, he knows, will be his responsibility. 

The walk through Cocoyashi’s silent streets feels longer than it is, and every footstep against the dirt roads is too loud in the dead quiet. He catches flickers of movement, now and then, through windows and doors. There are people in this town- many of them, even. And they’re all hiding. From him. 

JInbe’s visited many human cities and towns, all up and down the Grand Line. He’s been met with disgust, with scorn, with stony indifference, and weathered them all, but none hold a candle to the kind of frozen terror that grips this town. It’s a relief when he leaves the silent houses behind, even though he can still feel the eyes on his back. 

With every footstep he draws nearer to the too-familiar tower, looming over the landscape, and with every footstep he wonders. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting to find when he reaches the concrete walls that surround Arlong’s compound, doesn’t know what he’s expecting to find when he steps through the open gates. 

What he finds is a child. 

The girl is underfed and rangy, short orange hair unwashed and skirt torn. There’s a bruise rising over one of her eyes, livid and purple. She freezes when she notices him, and he sees her eyes flicker to the brand on his chest and linger there for a heartbeat before she smiles, horrible and empty, and he knows that smile. 

“If you’re looking for Arlong, he’s inside,” she says, pointing at the monstrous building. Jinbe doesn’t look away from her, from the bruise over her eye. She can’t be older than thirteen or fourteen. Her fingers are worn ragged and raw. As he watches, a drop of blood drips to the ground. 

A girl, with reddish hair and exhausted eyes and a ragged, forced smile, and it’s Koala but it’s not. 

“What happened to your hands?” he asks, and it comes out too loud, too angry.

She flinches almost unnoticeably, tucks her arms behind her back and takes a step back. The little spot of blood is still far too red against the flat grey concrete. “Nothing.” 

He swallows back the rage that wants to come (he’s not angry at her but she doesn’t know that, he has to remember she doesn’t know that). He tries to remember what had worked with Koala, instead: slow movements, soft words. 

He kneels down, slow as he can make it, bringing himself down to her level. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promises, and the words taste bitter and ashy in his mouth. “What’s your name?” 

“…Nami,” she says after a long beat. She’s watching him like she doesn’t know what to make of him, like she’s waiting for the trap. For the blow, he realizes after a moment, and something twists in his stomach. 

“Nami,” he says, “I’m Jinbe.” And again, “I’m not going to hurt you. How old are you?” 

“Thirteen,” she says, quieter. Younger than Koala must be, now. 

He nods. “And what’re you doing here?” 

She hesitates for a moment, and then she tugs her arm around to show him her shoulder, and the ground drops out from under him. The same sharp-edged sigil flying from Arlong’s tower is written on her skin in hard, cruel lines of ink, and Jinbe knows a brand when he sees one, and he is going to be sick. 

“I’m a member of Arlong’s crew,” she says, and she’s still smiling but her voice is shaky like she’s about to cry. “I’m his mapmaker.” 

It’s Koala but it’s not because it’s so much worse- 

“Oh,” he says. “Oh.” 

-because this is his fault. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s not nearly enough, it’ll never be enough- “I’m so sorry.” 

She’s still staring at him, but she isn’t smiling anymore, and that’s better, he thinks. 

“You’re safe now, alright?” he says, and tries to keep his voice gentle through the fury boiling in his chest, because she deserves that much at least. He’s never been good at gentle, not truly, but right now he cannot be anything less. “I promise. Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore.” 

“Is,” she says, and then swallows hard, and edges a step away from him. “That’s not fair.” 

It’s true, he knows, but not in the way she means it; she’s thirteen, and there’s a brand on her shoulder and her fingers are bleeding and her eyes are heavy with mistrust, and none of this is fair. “I’m not trying to trick you,” he says. “Arlong is my responsibility. I’m sorry I didn’t come here to put an end to this sooner.” 

There’s something breaking in her eyes, in the twist of her mouth. “You-?” 

“I’m sorry,” Jinbe says again, because there’s nothing else to say. 

“I- the village,” she says, voice sharpening, going half-desperate, throwing caution to the wind. “He’s gonna, he’s gonna hurt them, if he gets mad, he’s gonna hurt my sister-”

(Not me, not a single thought of he’ll hurt me, if you anger him; only the village, only my sister, and Jinbe’s heart breaks and breaks and breaks.) 

“He won’t,” Jinbe says, because looking at her, now, he knows he’ll die before he lets that happen. “I swear on my life I won’t let him.” 

Something crumples in her face, then, and her shoulders start to tremble, and then she’s sobbing like the child she is, rubbing at her eyes with raw and bloody hands as fat tears roll down her cheeks and splatter to the concrete. She cries like Koala used to, like she’s desperately trying to swallow back her tears, keep herself quiet, keep herself safe. 

Jinbe’s hands twitch at his sides, because- he should do something, say something, but he doesn’t want to make this any worse. He doesn’t want to hurt her any more. There’s nothing he can do but wait until she cries herself dry, and he can do that much for her, at least. 

And then the doors of Arlong Park crash open, and a voice, sharp and slithering and all-too-familiar, snarls, “What’s that fucking racket, Nami?” 

Nami’s whole body tenses up all at once, and she claps her hands to her mouth as if to silence herself. Arlong- older, angrier, but still so recognizably Jinbe’s little brother that it hurts- stomps out of his wretched palace, and Jinbe immediately steps sideways to place himself between him and Nami, shielding her at his back. 

The sky is clouded over, and Nami is still choking on tears behind him, muffled and broken, and the flag overhead snaps in the wind, and Jinbe hates. 

Arlong’s eyes land on him. They widen.

“Jinbe?” he says. 

“Arlong,” Jinbe replies, and lets all of the rage that he’s been struggling to contain throughout his conversation with Nami bubble up and over into his voice, lets it fill his eyes with lightning. “Explain yourself.”

Jinbe came here hoping he wouldn’t have to fight his brother, and now he might have to kill him. 

A flicker-flash of something that might be fear crosses Arlong’s face; he’s seen Jinbe angry before, many times, perhaps more than anyone else still living, but this is different. They both know it’s different. Did Arlong put that bruise over her eye, he wonders, or did he just not stop whoever did? Did he laugh? 

Arlong’s face hardens, after a moment. “What’s there to explain?” he snaps back, defiant as he’s always been. “I’ve built a place where our brothers can live in the sun as they deserve. What are you going here? What have you accomplished? Come crawling back to join me, finally?” 

“Did you hit her?” Jinbe asks, and his voice is so flat and cold with fury he barely recognizes it. 

Arlong blinks, looking momentarily wrong-footed. “What?” 

“Nami,” Jinbe clarifies, acutely conscious of her ragged, hiccuping breathing at his back. “Were you the one who hit her? You always did think it was funny, with Koala.” 

Arlong stares at him for a moment, and then he laughs, and it should be familiar but instead it’s just grating. “Is that what you’re so upset about? Nami?” He stops laughing, but he’s still grinning. “She’s my crew, Jinbe. I’ll treat her how I want. She chose to join up herself. She’s a brilliant cartographer.” 

“She’s a child, Arlong!” Jinbe is shouting, now, couldn’t stop himself if he tried, and he can see other faces in the doors, in the windows, drawn by the noise. Some of them he knows, has sailed with, fought with, laughed with. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to look any of them in the eyes again. “You branded a child!” 

“A human child,” Arlong sneers, his voice thick with disdain, with hatred, and Jinbe takes two strides forward and punches him into the ground hard enough to shatter the concrete. Behind him, Nami makes a tiny, shocked noise. 

For a moment, the plaza is silent, but for Jinbe’s heavy breathing and the sound of Arlong spitting gravel. Arlong lifts his head, slow and painful, and Jinbe doesn’t flinch from the seething betrayal in his eyes. 

“So that’s how it is?” Arlong hisses, clawing himself to his feet, spitting blood, red red red as the blood dripping from Nami’s fingers. “Traitor. You’d side with the human scum over your own brother?” 

“You betrayed everything Fisher Tiger stood for,” Jinbe snarls. “And you call me the traitor?” 

“They killed him!” Arlong howls, and the old pain in his voice is something Jinbe knows well, something he’s carried in his chest for years. “She killed him!” 

“She is innocent!” 

“She’s filth, and she’s mine, and I’ll do whatever I want with her!” Arlong bites out. 

And Jinbe knows, he knows, he knows what happens when people become things, because he’s known Tiger, Koala, Aladine. He’s seen that damage, sat up at night hearing the echoes of those nightmares. 

“You sound like the Dragons,” Jinbe snarls out, all the disgust of the revelation in his voice. “Tiger would be sick.” 

He sees the words hit, because Arlong’s eyes widen, just for a moment, before they harden again, defiant to the last, and maybe there is no saving him, not anymore. Maybe everything that was good in Jinbe’s brother died when Fisher Tiger did, and he doesn’t know this person he’s facing now at all. But that’s wrong, too, he knows it’s wrong; the truth he has to face is that maybe Arlong has always been this, and Jinbe has always been blind. 

Arlong bares his bloodied teeth and lunges, and Jinbe’s fist and all the grief and guilt and rage behind it catch him in the chest. Bones crack, and blood splatters, and Arlong hits the wall with a shattering crunch. 

This time, he doesn’t get up. 

Quiet falls.

Arlong’s crew are all present now, drawn out by the crashing sounds of the fight, faces Jinbe knows and faces he doesn’t. They’re all watching him with wide eyes, expressions that range from shock to fear to anger. None move, so Jinbe ignores them for the moment. He’ll need to deal with them, he knows, and he will, and with Arlong, too, but there is someone more important than both, first. 

He turns to Nami. 

She’s still frozen in place, staring past him, bloody fists clenched at her sides, lips parted, eyes fixed unmoving and unblinking on Arlong’s still form. “Nami,” he says. She doesn’t respond. 

“Nami,” he says again, and it’s a moment before she can tear her eyes away to glance up at him. “Do you live here?” 

She stares at him for a moment before she seems to find her voice. “I- I have a room,” she manages, and she sounds so young. “…It’s not home.” 

“Alright,” he says. The anger, as fast and chokingly intense as it had come, is ebbing away just as suddenly in the face of the shell-shock in her eyes, leaving only tired old grief. “Why don’t you go collect your things, and then I’ll take you home, wherever that is.” 

For a moment she looks like she’s going to cry again. “…Okay.” 

“Do you want me to come with you?” 

She shakes her head, and swipes at her eyes, and then hurries across the plaza to the doors of Arlong Park. She pauses, for a moment, as she passes Arlong’s body. As Jinbe watches, she spits on his face, murmurs something he can’t make out before ducking through the open doors. The watching fishmen let her pass without a word; they’ll do nothing, he knows, with him watching them. 

Jinbe is already so tired, wrung out and exhausted by anger and grief, but his duties are not over yet. (Sometimes it seems like they never will be.) 

“You’re going to leave this island,” he tells Arlong’s crew, and he’s not shouting anymore, but his voice echoes across the silent plaza nonetheless, heavy with the disappointment he knows cuts worse than knives. Even if he doesn’t know all of them, they all know who he is, and they know now where he stands, and his words have weight. “Leave Arlong for me to deal with. I don’t care what you do from here, but never come near here ever again.” 

He sees Chuu, Kuroobi, Hachi. They were there for Tiger’s death, all of them. His crewmates, once; his brothers, once.

“You should be better than this,” he says, and thinks about the blood on Nami’s fingers and the brand on her shoulder, and feels nothing but tired and angry and sad. “We need to be better than this.” 

Nami isn’t inside for long. She emerges a few minutes later, with nothing but a small bag over her shoulder and a carefully-folded piece of paper clutched tightly in her hand, and hurries to Jinbe’s side like she wants to put as much distance between herself and the monstrous building as possible. It warms something in his hurting chest, that she sees him as safe.

“Ready to go?” he asks her.

She’s still staring at Arlong’s prone body like she can’t process it, but she nods, jerky and uneven, and so he sets a careful hand on her narrow shoulder and guides her away through the gates. She’s so small. Jinbe has been cruel before, in his life, cruel and brutal, and he isn’t proud of it, but there’s a world of difference between brutality in combat and the kind of cruelty that darkens a child’s eye. 

They leave Arlong Park behind, and the tension doesn’t start to run out of her shoulders until the road has risen up behind them and the high concrete walls are out of sight. 

“What’s going to happen to him?” she asks after a long, long moment. Her voice is raspy from crying. 

“I’ll drop him at a marine base,” Jinbe says, and the betrayal in the words cuts like glass, but the alternative is to kill Arlong himself, and even after everything, he’s still not brave enough for that. “From there, he’ll either be sent to Impel Down or executed.” 

She swallows, nods, staring down at the dirt road. “Good,” she says, and the anger in her voice is something he knows down to his bones. And then, after a beat, more tentative: “…He said you were his brother.” 

“He is,” Jinbe says, and it comes out as a sigh, because even after everything, Arlong is still his brother and always will be. “He was my crewmate, too, once.” 

She’s quiet, and then, “I have a sister. Nojiko.” 

He remembers. He’s gonna hurt my sister- “Older or younger?” 

“Older. She’s fifteen.” 

“She must be worried, hm?” he says. “Older siblings always worry.” 

She laughs, a little, and it’s a ragged, guilty sound, but it’s a laugh, and that’s a victory, if only a small one. “She does. All the time. She tries to act like she doesn’t.”

He should have come sooner. He can’t stop thinking about it, about what might have been avoided if he had. He’d wanted so badly to think the best of Arlong, to believe whatever he was doing couldn’t have been too bad, not when he’d borne witness to Tiger’s last moments, not when he’d had Hachi and the others with him, not when he was still Jinbe’s little brother. 

Older siblings always worry. He should have worried more. If he had, maybe Nami’s sister wouldn’t have had to.

They reach a fork in the road, the main path continuing on towards the town while a smaller, less well-worn trail branches off towards the coast, and Nami stops. 

“Nami?” 

“Can we,” she says, and swallows, “before we go back to Cocoyashi. Can we go somewhere else, first?” 

“Of course,” he says, and she steps off the road and leads the way down the trail. It twists and winds its way through a copse of trees and up a low rise of hill, and Nami ducks the low branches and steps over the roots like she’s made this trek a thousand times before. 

The path emerges onto a cliff, overlooking the ocean, and on the cliff there is a grave. 

Jinbe thinks, oh, and does not follow past the tree line. This is something he will not intrude upon.  

Nami takes a few steps more, and then falls gracelessly to her knees before the rough wooden cross. She digs her abused fingers into the grass, bows her head. Tears fall, glittering in the sunlight, splattering to the ground below. 

“Bellemere-san,” she says, and she’s smiling, and it’s real, the first real smile he’s seen from her, and that alone is worth all the pain and grief and fury weighing on Jinbe’s shoulders. “Bellemere-san, it’s over. It’s over. It’s-” 

She cuts herself off, sniffling, and wipes her eyes, and she’s smiling, and it’s real. 

“I’m free.”

#opfanfic #opfic #jinbe #nami #one piece #arlong #my writing #op

[ybcpatrick]

your house is haunted??? cool!!! my parents house is also haunted. and i have at least one ghost who just hangs around

can you tell us more about your haunted house

oh gladly.

disclaimer here i am super not here to debate the existence of ghosts wkaksksjfjjf. i don't CARE if anyone reading this doesn't believe in ghosts because this is my life lmfao. my mum is a full-on empathic medium (she sees, hears, talks to, smells, even occasionally touches, WHOLE NINE), my older brother and i are sensitive (and i'm also an empath, to boot), and my younger brother has spirits come to him in dreams. my dad is not a special lad with special brain but he's been around all this stuff for 20+ years now and he's gotten used to all of it.

i can tell you........ so much so here goes:

so the majority of the ghosts we have hanging around our place are family.

my other younger brother and my nana are the most common visitors, but there are other extended family members who roll through from time to time, too. there's never an empty moment in the house

speaking of my nana, my dad apparently inherited her poltergeist! and now he likes to fuck with me. she named him armstrong, and he answers to it. when he first appeared back when my dad was a kid, he just liked to flicker the lights in the bathroom attached to the kitchen to bug my nana. nowadays, he likes to knock my action figures over and... hide food in places it shouldn't be. i used to call him the granola bar poltergeist, bc he would put granola bars in places they shouldn't be logically. like balanced on the chair rail, or in the bathroom drawers. why would any of my living family members put that shit there? they wouldn't. exactly.

THERE ARE SO MANY PETS. SO MANY.

SOME OF THEM WEREN'T EVEN OURS, THEY WERE PETS OF FRIENDS. I HEARD A PARROT THE OTHER DAY AND ASKED IF IT WAS ON THE TV. MUM SAID NO. IT WAS ON THE BACK OF THE COUCH

back in july, my friend mar was staying at my place and a cat that my mum had like right before i was born turned on my lamp right in front of her. like twice. so thanks for freaking her out, pepsi 😒 /j

the last pup we lost was an english spaniel named sasha, and she was my baby and i miss her sososososo bad 🥺 we got her when she was already five, and she had started going blind very soon after, so she'd find her way around the house by gently bumping her head against doorways and walls and stuff. it made a really distinct sound, and a lot of times i still hear her thumpin around the downstairs level ajskahdksjfle

as for spirits that came with our house, we have a few we know by name!

there was a spirit of a man in the basement when we first moved in, his name is Eduardo, but we call him Eddie. he's attached to the property, not the house, and he said he lived and worked here in the late 1700s/early 1800s. he was likely a servant, which.. oof. BUT, he's special because he's fully aware that he's dead! he's completely conscious! he doesn't stay in the basement anymore, he just hangs out on the downstairs level because he thinks we're all chill. he thinks TVs are fuckin fantastic

there's a rlly high dutch population in my area, and an elderly dutch couple haunt the attic. we've nicknamed them oma and opa. they are NOT aware that they're dead, but they are aware of us, which is odd? every day, a little after 6pm, an apparition will pass on the front porch, and that's opa "coming home from work". if you go into the attic and don't "stay for tea", oma will get mildly salty. they're just nice.

my mum sees horses in the backyard. like regularly. just herds of wild horses

(THIS IS DARK YOU'VE BEEN WARNED) i live on the main highway through my town. there's unfortunately a death echo on the road just outside, and im usually the only person who fucking hears ittttttt. in the 1910s-ish, a little boy passed away due to an accident with a horse and buggy. every now and again, i can hear him screaming 🥲 i fucking hate it, but i hated it even MORE when my baby brother was still little bc i thought it was him getting hit by a car or something

that's all i can think of at the moment, that covers the basics (THE BASICS.) there are so many more incidents i could tell y'all about but i gotta go get ready for work ive been typing for an hour wjskajdksjfkd BYEEEE

#shut up kell #ask #ibidflash #cw ghosts #cw haunting #child death mention #im so sorry this is MILES LONG akskajdkshfkdj

[magicalforcesau]

Dancing With Ghosts in Your Garden~ Chapter 22 - Year 2: June

(ao3 link)

Qui-Gon Jinn’s funeral had been a somber affair populated by an extraordinary assortment of people that hastily filled the simple wooden seats that decorated the field just beside Hogwarts. Most of whom, Obi-Wan Kenobi found he did not know, but each seemed set on honoring the man who lay peacefully at the hearth of the pyre that had yet to burn. It had been his wish to be buried at Hogwarts, where he dedicated himself entirely and touched so many lives in the process. Obi-Wan wasn’t surprised to realize this, but it made it harder to forgive himself as his other professors insisted he must. He couldn’t help but feel that he had failed all of these strangers, who did nothing to warrant losing such a renowned wizard before his time.

Of course, he was also surrounded by those he knew. His parents weren’t in attendance, but most affluent families of the pureblood community weren’t. He hadn’t even bothered to tell them he was going, though surely they’d learn soon enough since mortality was not enough to ward off the influence of the press. He found he did not care either way.

Anakin sat to his left and Satine to his right with Cody and his whole line of brothers on her other side. Her hand had never left his, serving the necessary purpose of grounding him during the ceremony. Otherwise, he wasn’t positive he’d stay lucid during the various speeches commemorating Qui-Gon and that only would have been another stab of guilt for him to resurrect later.

There was not a dry eye in sight for each professor’s traditional tribute to their fallen colleague and friend, save for Obi-Wan and the daze he found himself trapped in. Professor Ti went on about his caring and inquisitive nature through his rants about muggle objects, while Professor Sifo Dyas rambled about a time Qui-Gon had saved him from the Whomping Willow. Professor Plo reminisced about their shared love of tea and Professor Palpatine on his determination and wit to finish crossword puzzles. Professor Windu’s had been surprisingly warm and heartfelt despite his typical tendency to disagree with Qui-Gon on a daily basis. It seemed, in the end, that's why they got along so well. They accepted their misgivings and their differences.

It was a tranquil first day of June- neither too hot nor chilly with its wide display of clear sky that met somewhere in the middle with the black lake to create one expanse of blue in the center of the horizon. The emerald grass that stretched over the hills like a snug blanket coupled with the soft chirping of birds in the distance made for it to all be picturesque at face value. It all felt balanced.

Headmaster Yoda, who was welcomed back almost immediately by demand of the entire staff and student body, stood with a lit torch at hand that even from his row, Obi-Wan could see the deep sadness that reflected in his eyes as he stared at the flickering flames.

“Student, colleague, friend of mine… Qui-Gon Jinn was.” Yoda’s deep brogue seemed to rumble in his little green chest more than usual as his words seemed caught in his throat. His long ears dipped down as he cast his eyes across the sea of people who sat with bated breath over what the Headmaster would say in tribute of the man that still lay untouched by anything except the sun. “Miss him, I will.”

Everyone could resonate with that.

“But gone, he is not.” He said finally, “Lives, his spirit and message do. In all of us, we must find him. In class, at home, in our hearts. Never far do the dead go, not when they leave so many of us behind. Sad, we will be, for a space there is left.”

Everyone’s attention was directed to the ceremonial empty golden chair that was positioned at the front of the field next to Mace Windu, Shaak Ti, and Sheev Palpatine.

“Fight til the end, he did, and do the same we must, every day. In class, at home, in our hearts. Fight to maintain and sustain the light he cast, we must.” He raised the tip of the torch to the wood at the edge of the pyre and quickly, it was engulfed in flames, “Burn, the fire and spirit of his life will for all of eternity. Keep us warm, it will, as well as guide us in times of darkness that lie ahead.”

Without any choreography indicating otherwise, Mace Windu stood to his feet and raised his wand, casting a small white glow at the tip. As if sensing the need to highlight such a gesture, a singular cloud hovered over the bright sun that would otherwise drown out any other light. The other two Heads of House followed suit as well as Yoda in tow. The audience, with a domino effect, each individually raised their wands triumphantly.

Obi-Wan felt a tug on the sleeve of his other arm and looked down to meet the glassy eyes of Anakin Skywalker.

“What happens to me now?” He asked quietly, hardly above the wisp of wind that fluttered across the grassland.

“You will still become a wizard, I swear.” Obi-Wan said with more sincerity than he likely had any right giving, “I’ll look out for you.”

While it wasn’t an answer on where he would be at the official close of the school year, it seemed to placate him enough to silence any further questions for the time being. This was just as well to Obi-Wan, who was content with the agonizing silence that had come over the crowd and allowed him not to face anymore people that he’d failed.

He did his best to beat the crowd back to the castle, even slipping from Satine and Cody, who were talking to Cody’s older brothers. While he liked the presence of the Fett’s, Obi-Wan was not in the mood to entertain.

In his aimless grief, he’d wound up at Qui-Gon’s office, which was poignant to say the least. As he ran a hand across his desk and glanced up at the array of books that filled the shelf across from him, he absently wondered how often he’d come here when he felt he was drowning too deeply in his own thoughts. How often had the man, who now had his own commemorative portrait near the Great Hall, saved him from himself? And what would he say now?

No answer from Obi-Wan would be sufficient, so he left the internal thought untouched and opted to sift through the book that still sat open on his desk. He promised himself he’d leave it just as he found it in some convoluted attempt at preserving his final quiet moments, but was curious what he’d been reading.

It was a yearbook from while Qui-Gon was at school. The page had been opened to a bunch of class pictures, which true to form with anything in their community, the pictures were moving. Most concerning, was that Maul was on this page, bearing all of his teeth during his photograph in a way that a canine might exert dominance. It probably should have been jarring to see a picture of the man he’d murdered in defense of Obi-Wan’s de facto father figure, but all Obi-Wan could feel was an unsteady sadness.

Qui-Gon would not want him to feel hate or hold a grudge. Maul was gone and wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again and that was the point Qui-Gon would fixate on.

If everything was supposed to be balanced, why did Obi-Wan feel so unsteady?

“I should have known I’d find you here.” Satine’s voice instantly interrupted his thoughts.

He tried to manage a shrug, “Just catching up on some light reading.”

As she practically glided across the floor towards him, Obi-Wan admired her, even in his dismal state, and how put together she always managed to look. She, like him and most others, wore all black. In her case, a long sleeve black skater-dress with matching floral stockings and shiny flat shoes. Her hair was half-up and half-down in long blonde tresses that curled in sweet waves down the length of her back. He wasn’t sure if it was the contrast from the darkness of her outfit or the fact that she’d been crying earlier, but her eyes had never looked so piercingly blue before this moment.

She rested a hand on the back of the chair at which he sat and peered over his shoulder. He could feel her tense beside him, but could do nothing to offer any real condolence other than a shared look of sympathy.

“It was sitting open on his desk.” He answered her silent question, “Do you think they knew each other? Beyond what he’s said in the past, that is.”

“If he was searching for answers in a yearbook, I find it doubtful that it was a close bond.” She said and lifted the book to catch the year, “Qui-Gon was only a second year when Maul was in sixth.”

That was the same age gap between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Unsure why that thought floored him so, Obi-Wan forced himself to remain focused on the facts at hand.

“This is the year Maul killed that girl.”

“The only minor to ever be convicted of first-degree murder in the history of the Wizengamot.” She said quietly and while he first thought he was just hearing things, he couldn’t help but notice how her voice caught on convicted as if there were others gone untouched by the trenches of history. Maybe there had been, but the sullen look on her face as she stared down at the young picture of Qui-Gon distracted him once again. He certainly didn’t see it fit to remind her that Maul hadn’t actually been caught and tossed away until years after he was convicted.

“We always used to come here for answers.” She said and she leaned on the edge of the desk, taking in the entirety of the classroom as though for the last time, “And often left with more questions. I suppose it’s only right this mystery not be completely put to bed.”

“And you’re alright with that?” He asked, unsure if he was asking for himself or for her.

She breathed out a sigh, “What choice do we have on the matter?”

She had a point. It wouldn’t change anything. The heaviness in Obi-Wan’s chest felt nearly unbearable for that moment, but he sucked in a breath and walked around the desk to join her. They sat so close they were nearly touching, but not quite. In a way, he never felt farther from her.

“Qui-Gon always said that a curious mind was a happy one.” He pointed out.

“But we must be careful which avenue we point our questions,” She countered without a trace of bite to her tone, “And decide when it’s wisest to ask them. Or if it’s wise at all.”

“If we do everything with the intent of being wise, then that negates all wisdom.” He debated and similar to her, lacked any momentum.

“But at some point,” Satine turned to look at him, “You need to ask yourself if you’re searching or deflecting.”

“That’s not something Qui-Gon ever said.” He whispered, simultaneously afraid to continue staring at her and to look away.

“No, but perhaps he needed to.” She said just as quietly and considered him under a scrutiny that instinctively made him shift, “You haven’t even cried since it happened.”

“I’m not much for crying.” And even as he said it, he knew he sounded like a cardboard cutout of a person rather than his true self.

“Well nobody likes crying, Ben.” She shook her head, “But mourning loss is a necessary part of life. It’s not healthy to bottle everything up inside.”

Obi-Wan could think of a floor-length list of emotions that have been welled up inside him for quite some time- some good and some bad, but all gone unexplored beyond what crept into his dreams at night.

“I know.” He said stiffly and diverted his attention to the floor, “But I’ve got bigger things to worry about than my feelings right now, Satine. Anakin is essentially homeless now since they’ve still yet to find his mother.”

“I heard the promise you made him.” She said.

“And I intend to keep it!” He asserted harshly, standing to his feet and putting some distance between them, “I promised Qui-Gon.”

“What?” She asked, sliding off the desk, but staying in place.

“After the Maul fight,” He breathed in, trying to ground himself from trembling at the thought of the memory, “His dying words were that I promise to look after Anakin. That he will save us all!”

Though his vision was becoming slightly blurry as he regarded Satine, the overwhelming sadness in her eyes as she stared at him openly without barring any of her feelings was what made him feel suddenly as though he’d been shoved underwater.

“I’m not sure who that puts more pressure on.” She said hoarsely, “You or Anakin.”

“You can’t tell Anakin this.” He said, “He’s got enough on his plate.”

“Yeah, he’s not the only one.” She admonished and stepped across the room to stand before him. Even if he wanted to back away from her, he knew he couldn’t.

“I’m fine.” He said softly, if only to appease the worry that worked its way between her brow.

“No you’re not.” She insisted as she drew closer, “And nobody expects you to be.”

“I have to.” He croaked, “Anakin-”

“-Needs you, I know.” She said, but although she admitted what he had previously insisted, he knew it never came without a caveat, “But you need people too, because you lost someone very dear to you.”

He opened his mouth and closed it, but found he didn’t really want to reject what she was saying, not when her tentative hands reached up and pulled him into a hug that felt like coming home. Or at least, what he imagined that was supposed to feel like.

He rested his chin on her shoulder as the embrace continued and released a sigh as he finally put to words what troubled him most, “I feel like I failed him.”

“I know.” It wasn’t dismissive in the slightest either, but as though she truly had known all along that this was what raked his mind at the late hours of the night since the moment his former mentor fell before him. It was because of how resolute she sounded that he started to believe her when she said, “You didn’t.”

After a long beat of just floating like that, he finally pulled back to look at her. Her arms were still hung over his shoulders and the gaze she fixed him with was still of concern, but it no longer felt like an intrusion. It just felt natural.

“Thank you.” He said a bit awkwardly, because what else did one say in this instance?

She smoothed out his suit whether he needed it or not and loosened his tie a bit, “That’s what friends are for.”

For a brief second, he remembered what he wanted to tell her before and the slight escape of emotional vulnerability was almost enough to send it soaring out of him. However, the remorse that still clung to them in this room felt like the wrong place and the wrong time for such a confession. Nothing like that should be tinged with sadness.

One way or another, they silently ended up sitting next to each other on Qui-Gon’s desk again, this time with legs touching. His remained still while hers swung forwards and backwards.

He took her hand gently, stirring her from her own heavy thoughts, “Headmaster Yoda asked that I help sort through some of Qui-Gon’s stuff. Closure and all that.”

She sniffed, but didn’t quite give way to any tears, “That’s a lot just for one person.”

“I’d be open to a little help.” He said, hoping she would take the bait.

She did, “Someone has to keep you from breaking everything.”

He scoffed, “That was one time.”

“And he never knew.” She said.

“Oh, he definitely knew.” He snorted, “Knowing him, he always knew.”

Qui-Gon Jinn knew a lot about many things and had passed on as much knowledge as time allotted to the very fortunate Obi-Wan Kenobi. Every silly and simple trinket seemed to evoke some piece of wisdom from the deceased wizard, but one that seemed louder than the rest came when Obi-Wan’s eyes drifted to a sprig of mistletoe that was held under a glass display- enchanted to never wither.

“You need to live your life.”

Satine leaned her head on his shoulder, “I’m going to miss quarreling with you in this office.”

He chuckled, “Something tells me the next professor in here won’t be quite as accepting of our constant intrusions.”

“We’ll have to find another space to rip each other apart,” She sighed wistfully, “The next professor has big shoes to fill.”

“Yeah,” He snorted, “Literally and metaphorically.”

“I’ll miss him.”

He nodded against her head, “Me too.”

“There you lot are!” Cody’s voice echoed abruptly through the corridor, startling both Obi-Wan and Satine away from each other in earnest. Off of this reaction, their friend grinned wryly. “I just came to tell you the food is out! I’ve never seen such a spread before in my life.”

“Thank you, Cody.” Obi-Wan chuckled and it actually felt legitimate for the first time in days, “What ever would we do without you?”

“Get into more trouble, I’m guessing.” He said, but his features softened a bit as he looked at the two of them, “Everything alright?”

Satine smiled lightly and tugged Obi-Wan by the hand out the door, which was for the best, seeing as he would never leave without her gentle prodding, and linked her other hand with Cody’s. “We will be.”

And that was an answer Obi-Wan could deal with. He only looked back once at Qui-Gon’s now vacant office, but settled his stare straight ahead and allowed himself to sink into the idle and comforting chatter that his friends naturally engaged in. He felt Satine squeeze his hand as they approached the Great Hall, as though silently asking if he was ready to face the masses and he returned the gesture in kind.

The rest of his life started today.

***

Anakin was told on numerous occasions by countless individuals that it would do him some good- being outside and enjoying the fresh air. Objectively, it was a gorgeous and quiet day, but any of its beauty was lost on Anakin as he pondered the growing uncertainty of his future. First, it had been his mom and his entire world had been shaken. The only pieces that had been slid into place was that he was to continue attending school at Hogwarts thanks to Qui-Gon. However, with no one to care for him and a strict policy against allowing students to stay for the summer, even that was laid to dust as well as someone who became important to Anakin in a short period of time.

He kicked a stray pebble as he walked the courtyard. It felt strange to linger around the grounds of the school without fear or risk. In a sense, it felt like the entire year was lost to Maul. And worst of all, he never did get the closure he desired on the whereabouts of his mother.

He tightened a fist and stared at the horizon. Repairs for the exterior to Hogwarts were still ongoing after Qui-Gon’s funeral. The bridge at which Maul fell was still sectioned off as it was deemed unstable and still being used for the purpose of investigations. No one tried to walk it anyway. The canyon beneath was already developing rumors of being haunted since a body had yet to be recovered.

Anakin was beginning to understand that no scary story could be worse than what he was living. Obi-Wan was, of course, hovering like he feared Anakin would go throw himself off the tip of the castle and dance around the topic that lingered above them. He’d made a promise to ensure Anakin would be a wizard and continue going to Hogwarts- a promise that Anakin knew he had no business making, but still held onto. What other hope did he have, after?

The kids who he believed were once his friends and then turned on him- Ferus Olin and Jax Pavan to name a couple- now looked at him with such pity that they didn’t even warrant him safe for teasing. Even Sebulba was laying off of him!

And it was more infuriating than anything else. He just wanted something to be mad at, to lash this growing fury that was rising in his throat like bile. He wanted someone to blame and he didn’t even have a clear answer to that. He’d seen Maul enter his house, but his mother had already been gone. Whatever disaster he caused had been after she left.

He shivered.

No, that wasn’t right. Taken. She would never leave Anakin willingly, even if someone wanted him to believe that.  Maul had no reason to lie about taking his mother, not when he so freely killed two of Anakin’s professors and wanted to do the same to him. That left Dooku, essentially, as people who wanted Anakin to suffer. The slimy former professor operated almost purely in deceit and would surely love for Maul to take a fall for his crimes. He’d been training Ventress on how to sneak attack Anakin all year and thankfully, she was terrible at her job or else it might have worked.

He’d let it get into his head that as the Chosen One, he was unstoppable and maybe that was true to a degree, but all it seemed to do was mow down the people he loved. But then, when he tried to go at it alone, people still suffered. Was this not escapable?

He toyed with the necklace still in the pockets of his robes. Did anything he did make a difference? Or was Qui-Gon right about being at will of the fates? It was an awful lot for a 12 year old to take, though he realized with disarming clarity that he was to be 13 in only two weeks’ time. It would be the first year he’d have no one to celebrate with.

“Sorry if I’m interrupting,” A pacifying voice disturbed his increasingly dark line of thoughts and he was relieved to turn and see Professor Palpatine’s kind eyes looking down at him.

“No, I was just thinking,” He shrugged, “I don’t mind a break.”

He knew under more pleasant circumstances, one of his friends would make a joke about how he usually was on vacation from thinking, but the unspoken jest fell flat. Palpatine gathered the front of his robes as he took a seat on the nearby ledge and patted the spot next to him for Anakin to follow suit.

“I wanted to apologize if it’s felt like I’ve distanced myself from you during such a difficult time. I wanted to offer you the time to properly mourn,” He said and then fixed him with a look that Anakin had grown familiar with over the past semester, “I understand you and Qui-Gon were quite close.”

“Yeah,” Anakin said.

“And it is to my understanding that you haven’t been very vocal with the mind healers that Headmaster Yoda has set you up with.”

No, he hadn’t been. He didn’t even know those people! How was he supposed to bear his heart and soul over losing two very important people in his life? How was he supposed to reconcile that with strangers? Moreover, they would surely judge him for the creeping eeriness that lingered at the perimeter of his heart.

“They wouldn’t understand.” He said, not caring for a moment how helpless that made him sound, “Obi-Wan can talk to them. He’s the one who got to do something about Qui-Gon’s death while I was locked inside the Room of Requirement.”

Palpatine’s eyes sparkled with curiosity, “I did hear that you managed to discover it…”

“Everyone’s been asking me where, but I don’t even know! It just popped up in front of me one moment.”

“You have every right to be quite angry,” Palpatine said, “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy around here for you. Losing not one, but two people in the span of a year would cause anyone, let alone someone as young as yourself, immeasurable grief.”

That wasn’t even factoring in Professor Fisto’s death, which felt a little callous to Anakin.

“And I could understand why you might be upset with everyone, including Qui-Gon Jinn, himself.”

Anakin’s head snapped to Palpatine at his words, mostly because of the gnawing clarity at which they resonated with Anakin’s deepest and darkest thoughts, “Why would I be mad at him?”

“Search your feelings, Anakin,” Palpatine said gently, “You know what I say is true. It’s not something many, even the healers, would understand, because while Qui-Gon did die fighting to protect this school and you, he still left a vacancy at his own misstep.”

Being mad at someone for dying also felt incredibly callous, but Anakin didn’t grow rash or angry at this explanation but somehow… Validated. He loved and cared for Qui-Gon and appreciated everything he did, but in the end, a promise was still broken and Anakin was alone.

“I’m not here to sugarcoat anything,” Palpatine continued, “I don’t believe friends should do that.”

Anakin didn’t think so either, which was part of what was so infuriating about these past couple of weeks. Everyone was trying to be nice, but he was only feeling the lack of authenticity at their smiles that didn’t reach their eyes and their empty promises of support. He’d heard it all before at this point. Now, honesty, regardless of if it hurt, sounded appealing.

“Obi-Wan hasn’t told me exactly how it happened.” Anakin revealed with a heavy sigh.

His professor quirked a white eyebrow, “Understandably, he might never tell anyone, but we can draw the conclusion that Maul got the best of Qui-Gon somehow.”

“I just don’t get it.” Anakin sighed heavily, “Qui-Gon was so invested in the future and the knowledge around it. It seemed like he knew everything.”

“Sometimes adults allow students to perceive their strengths in an amplified matter to give them hope,” He said, “I’ve never believed in doing such a thing.”

Anakin nodded, “It’s felt like everyone’s been doing that all year. At the end of it all, it was a kid who took out Maul.”

“Yes, but not on accident, Anakin,” Palpatine shrugged, “You of all people should understand that a person’s age and stature should have no bearing on how they’re estimated. In the end, young Obi-Wan had something that Qui-Gon did not.”

“What’s that?”

“Obi-Wan was willing to do it.” Palpatine said, “To take that step across the line of light and dark. It’s a careful one to walk, but he acted out of revenge and surely channeled some of his hate and anguish to do so.”

“And that makes you more powerful?”

“When properly used, yes.” Palpatine said, “Qui-Gon never believed in utilizing emotion in magic. He felt it deluded oneself. Dooku taught him that though…”

“And you taught Maul, who was only emotion, so which is right?” Anakin ran a hand through his hair. It was impossible to deny that the anger that Obi-Wan felt and the heartbreak of watching Qui-Gon die surely gave him a boost in power. What was described sounded like something he could never picture regular old Obi-Wan doing on his own.

“Maybe we can discover that together?” Palpatine asked tentatively, “You lost a guardian and I lost a student, regardless of the polarized intentions they had.”

Anakin nodded, “Just as long as I don’t turn out like Maul.”

“No, I don’t think you will, my boy,” Palpatine chuckled, “I don’t think you will be anything remotely like Maul.”

Anakin smiled as he looked up and over at Palpatine. It was a beautiful day and maybe, just maybe, he’d make something of it.

***

Although Obi-Wan couldn’t discount the somber atmosphere that still hovered over the school, it felt a little whiplashing how quickly everyone was to move past the attack on the school and the death of Qui-Gon Jinn. He supposed no one else had, had a front row seat to watch their favorite professor be stabbed right in front of them. Today however, it was almost like the whole thing hadn’t happened at all. It was the final Quidditch match of the year, the previous game, while incomplete, had been handed over to Slytherin per Hufflepuff’s surrender. The Great Hall was filled with excited chattering and enthusiastic yelling. The attention was off of him at least, many hadn’t stopped bothering him for all the gruesome details since the attack, but the excitement in the room made him feel like he was suffocating.

“Perhaps, I’ve ought to go get ready,” He bounced his fork between his fingers as he spared a glance at the doors, “It’s almost time to leave anyways.”

“Ben...” Satine frowned at him. He knew she was concerned, but she was polite enough not to bring it up.

“Right on, mate,” Cody came up behind them, a hand landing on each of their shoulders, “Early bird catches the worm and all that,” The Gryffindor captain wasn’t as eager as he normally would be. Between the attack and how far Gryffindor was down for the Quidditch cup, it was only his love of the sport that kept him optimistic at all.

“I’m not playing today,” Obi-Wan said as he straightened his silverware. Satine seemed to relax at the news while Cody's eyes widened.

“What? You sure?” He asked and Satine shot him a warning look, “Nothing gets my mind off things like being up in the air,” He shrugged, defending his point.

“I’m sure,” Obi-Wan just nodded, “I’d prefer my feet on the ground at the moment,” The last time they hadn’t been was when he’d been dangling off the side of the bridge.

“Well, alright,” Cody relented easily and offered instead, “Wanna walk down with us?”

His eyes caught sight of Anakin lingering in the doorway waiting for Cody, or maybe himself. So he rose from his spot at the table easily.

“You could always sit with me if you want too,” Satine let him know as she blew softly on her tea to cool it down.

“I’ll be expected to be on the benches,” Even if the thought was tempting, “I’ll see you afterwards? Studying?”

Satine nodded at the same time Cody mumbled, “When on earth are you doing anything else?”

He felt Satine’s eyes followed him all the way out the door.

Cody filled the silence with Quidditch tips as the three of them trailed after the Gryffindor team down to the pitches. Anakin had been a little quiet lately, so Obi-Wan was grateful that he had plenty of people surrounding him from his own house. He was sure that the Fett’s and even Padmé likely didn’t let Anakin wallow.

“I’ll try not to knock you out Obi-Wan,” Anakin announced after Cody had finished a rather long spiel of Quidditch related injuries from the past 10 years, “I’ve been told I hit pretty hard.”

He certainly wasn’t lying and as he continued to grow, Obi-Wan was quite sure he would only be stronger, “I think hitting a benched player is considered a foul.”

“It is,” Cody confirmed, but Anakin stopped walking just as they got to the edge of the pitch.

“They benched you?”

“I asked not to play,” Obi-Wan only paused in his stride when Cody did. Anakin’s gaze flicked between the two of them rapidly. Although Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what was going on in his head, he was clearly thinking through a few things.

“Should I- Maybe I shouldn’t play either,” Anakin said slowly, “I mean...” He trailed off, clearly thinking. Cody crossed his arms tightly, clearly not liking the idea of his star player being benched, but not willing to deny the request if he was asked.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan sighed grandly. It was so obvious to him that Anakin would enjoy the distraction. Much like Cody, Anakin clearly revered flying as it would likely allow him to clear his head and to work towards a simple goal, “You should play.”

“But I-” Anakin turned, just enough to look off towards where Qui-Gon’s funeral had been held and Obi-Wan tried not to flinch at the thought.

“I’ve never liked Quidditch,” He reminded his mentee, “And although I take pride in my position on the team, they do not need me today,” Nahdar Vebb would do fine just as he always did, “Your team, however, does need you if they have a chance of winning,” Anakin stood a little taller at the thought, looking towards Cody for confirmation.

“Well, it’s always going to be easier with you-” Obi-Wan cut his friend off before he could continue.

“If you really don’t feel like playing I’m sure Cody will find a substitute for you...”

Anakin hesitated, “It’s not that I don’t want to play-”

“If you want to then you should,” He stepped forward, putting his hands on Anakin’s shoulders. Qui-Gon’s final request seemed to echo around in his head, but he ignored it as best as he could, “You’re a fantastic Beater, Anakin. One of the best Hogwarts has seen in my time here,” Anakin’s eyes were watching him, wide, impressionable. Obi-Wan was reminded once again just how young he was, “Ravenclaw will be playing a clean game today. I’m not going to let you in on our strategy, obviously,” He shot a short, pointed look to Cody, “But Gryffindor is going to need all the help they can get.”

“Oh yeah? You’re going down! A lion would eat your bloody bird for breakfast!” Cody caught on to the energy and Anakin shook off Obi-Wan’s hands to go join him.

“Yeah your team has no chance against us!” He had perked up significantly.

“I’d think a raven could outsmart a lion,” Obi-Wan shrugged playfully, “Guess you’ll just have to prove it.”

“Oh we will!” Anakin called as he resumed a swift walk towards Gryffindor’s locker room, “You’ll see.”

“See ya after the game mate,” Cody threw one last wave at Obi-Wan before heading swiftly after the second year.

Obi-Wan shook his head. For now, Anakin was easy to motivate. He could only hope the boy would keep some of that enthusiasm in his later years. He moved to walk towards his team’s locker room when a shadow fell over him.

“How interesting,” Obi-Wan turned slowly to meet the narrowed eyes of his parents, “Lying to your friends in Gryffindor house,” She smiled down at him, but it never reached her eyes, “Unless you were planning on breaking your promises to us.”

“No, of course not,” He answered automatically, “I only thought...”

“You think too much,” His father took a step forward, blocking even more of the light from streaming into the space, “I don’t believe we came all the way down here just to watch you sit pathetically on the sidelines.”

“Of course not,” Obi-Wan swallowed the spark of frustration, “Had I known you were coming I-”

“-You should have anticipated it,” His mother told him.

‘You’ve never come before,’ Obi-Wan held his tongue and instead just dipped his head in apology, “I’ll play.”

His mother scoffed as if he’d said something so obvious. She turned to leave and his father gave him one more steely look.

“You’d do well to remember your place,” As if he could see straight through him he added, “Kenobi’s don’t show any weakness.”

He finally turned and followed her out, making their way to the stands. The Ravenclaw team who had arrived just at the tail end of the dispute moved out of their way.

“Alright Kenobi?” Eeth clapped a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, spinning him towards the direction of the locker room.

“Of course,” He responded easily enough, “Say Eeth, could I ask a favor of you?”

He would play, it was the simplest solution. His father was wrong about his reasonings though. Obi-Wan wouldn’t view having loved and lost as a weakness.

***

The atmosphere in the stands was charged with anticipation. Quidditch was always popular with the student body, but now it seemed they were latching onto the sense of normality with an iron fist. Many Ravenclaws had done up face paint and enchanted signs that flashed silver and blue letters cheering on the team. Gryffindor was leading chants from their end of the field and Hufflepuff and Slytherin houses split as the students picked a side. There still weren’t as many students as there should be, practically all those sent home had determined it would be a waste to come back to school for only a few weeks. Ravenclaw was down a few players because of it, and Gryffindor truly should count themselves lucky that their entire starting team was willing to play.

Even so, it seemed as if the stands were full just from the energy pouring out of them. Satine’s eyes were on Ben the moment he had been visible on the field. As if that was particularly out of the ordinary. She would deny such accusations if there were anyone brave enough to suggest anything. The familiarity of the whole thing was enough for her to not notice something was amiss until she realized that Ben was standing alongside his fellow starting players on the field rather than standing at the sidelines with the backups.

She sat up straighter, eyes darting around the field, looking to see if there was anything else out of place or perhaps for the reasoning behind the action. Satine had sat through her fair share of Quidditch matches in the past, but she knew she still didn’t know everything about the sport. Cody and Eeth Koth were sharing a word in the middle of the field. That was the only thing she could say was unusual, but not unheard of.

It wasn’t enough to make her suspicious of anything until Cody turned looking up at the Ravenclaw stands. She frowned, moving to turn around and get a clue as to what he could be so interested in.

“Nothing like the World Cup, is it,” A chilly voice that was unfortunately enough for Satine to recognize caused her to freeze in place and certainly not turn around any further. Obi-Wan’s parents were sitting only a few seats behind her.

“Box seating would be preferable,” Mr. Kenobi mused, “Hogwarts doesn’t show parents the respect they deserve.”

“Do you remember Beauxbaton?” Mrs. Kenobi asked, “They certainly had class.”

“We were there on ministry business,” He scoffed, “They hardly would have shown as much effort otherwise.”

“A pity.”

Satine hadn’t spent much time around the Kenobi’s when they weren’t berating her and her lack of status. Sitting nearly frozen and unnoticed just a few feet away, she could say for sure that they weren’t any more pleasant when left to their own devices. Blessedly, the players took to the air and both of the Kenobi’s lapsed into silence as the game began.

Of course that silence couldn’t have lasted longer than Satine’s patience. Ben hadn’t even done anything and they were quick to open their mouths and spew endless criticism from everything from his form to his choice of broom.

“None of your precision rubbed off on him,” Mrs. Kenobi muttered to her husband as Ben nearly dropped the Quaffle before chucking it hard and fast at the first free chaser, “He should be practicing more.”

Satine grit her teeth, sitting on her hands as they went on and on. Their voices were so abrasive to her own internal thoughts about Ben while he was playing. Where they saw a clumsy hit, she saw the way he considered each move carefully. Where they saw awkward form, she saw the way he was careful to stay on the damned broom. However, even with her own opinions about Ben’s performance, he certainly wasn’t at his best today. He’d let several quaffles through, enough that Eeth was hovering around the hoops nervously. Gryffindor wasn’t easy to beat on a good day and little slip ups weren’t helping.

“It’s like the boy’s never played a day in his life. How embarrassing,” His father scoffed and Satine bit back a stream of choice words and grimaced as Ben missed catching the Quaffle practically right in front of him and instead caught a bludger to the chest. He rolled a few times on his broom. It was enough for Eeth to finally call a timeout and Ravenclaw rushed towards their bench.

Satine, while grateful he was safe and firmly planted on the ground, didn’t like the way his parents made a disapproving noise.

“Ravenclaw’s a soft house,” Mrs. Kenobi spat, “I suppose it always has been.”

“6 years in the sport and he can’t take a hit,” Mr. Kenobi added, “Slytherin would have taught him better.”

“Oh look there,” His mother growled, “He’s got himself benched.”

Mr. Kenobi made an odd sound that Satine had to assume was some sort of laugh, “I can’t blame the captain. What a pitiful performance.”

Satine stewed quietly, unable to take her eyes off Ben or her ears off the Kenobi’s. She tried to reason with herself. Making such a fuss about it wouldn’t do anything to help Ben or her. No matter what she said they wouldn’t listen anyways. Still she found herself slowly turning around eyebrows twitching, mouth opening to give them a piece of her mind.

She only caught the tail end of Mrs. Kenobi’s long robe as she disappeared down the rickety stairs.

So they didn’t even deem the game worth watching if they didn’t have the opportunity to bad mouth their own son at every twist and turn. Satine growled, startling a few first years behind her before she turned back toward the match. Very well. She wouldn’t be able to prove anything to them in words so she would instead prove to them in her continued support.

***

Cody easily dodged a bludger as it rocketed its way back to Anakin. Despite Anakin’s earlier enthusiasm, he was fading ever faster. Cody was tempted to bench him just as Ravenclaw had done with Obi-Wan. Unfortunately Gryffindor needed the edge that Anakin could give them. Not to mention, Cody knew Anakin needed the distraction. He was only 12 and had faced death this year, not to mention he wasn’t yet sure what was going to happen to him when the year ended. It was an awful lot to put on a young boy’s shoulders.

Anakin managed to hit the bludger, but Eeth was able to dodge it just in time. Rush Clovis ended up being at the receiving end of the blow and he looked around wildly for where the thing had come from in the first place.

“Shake it off Rush,” Cody called with a wince. It was bad enough dealing with the other team’s beaters, without also worrying about your own.

“Sorry!” Anakin called, but Cody just waved him off as he moved to intercept the Quaffle. Taking it down the field and sinking it easily past Kenobi’s replacement. Vebb was a good Keeper, but he knew a lot less about Cody than Obi-Wan did.

Cody was nearly knocked off his broom as a flash of blue and silver streaked past him followed nearly immediately by his own team’s seeker, Moteé. They were both moving with speed and precision, trying to knock each other off their brooms in order to claim victory. He saw the glint in Moteé’s eye as she moved to put even more pressure on her broom when he also saw Skywalker raise his bat. Before he could call for Anakin to stop, the bludger was hit, rocketing towards them just as Moteé had pulled ahead.

There was a sickening smack as Moteé spun out, crashing towards the field below. The bludger still managed to clip Ropal sending him pitching forwards into the snitch. He flipped over, but managed to stay in the air with one hand. The other went to his snout where he coughed out the snitch.

“Damn it,” Cody cursed as he dropped to the ground while cheers and blue and silver sparks flooded the air.

“Moteé!” Anakin too had hit the ground, heels practically tearing up the grass as he screeched to a halt, “I’m so sorry! I-” Whether it was from Moteé’s glare or Cody’s warning look, he quickly cut himself off.

“Nasty hit,” Cody knelt down next to her, “I saw what you were doing, definitely a smart move.”

“Would have won us the game-” He hastily cut her off.

“I know,” She was swept away quickly by Madam Nema and a few other professors as Anakin approached Cody nervously.

“Is she okay? I didn’t mean to hit her...”

“She’ll be fine, probably just a concussion,” He clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulders, “We’re going to have to work on your intuition some, but everyone makes mistakes,” And when Anakin looked upset he sighed and added, “There’s always next year, kid.”

***

Satine didn’t waste any time rushing down to the field upon Ravenclaw’s win. She wanted to find Ben as soon as possible. He hadn’t wanted to play in the first place and having such a rough game, despite their overall win, wouldn’t do much to improve his mood. She was nearly to the field when she nearly got run over by Cody and the other Gryffindor’s filing noisily back to their locker room.

“Satine?” Cody moved aside, letting his team continue to file past. They were a little more subdued considering their loss, but the game had still been a much needed break, “If you’re looking for Kenobi, he’s not on the field.”

“How do you know I’m looking for him? Maybe I was looking for you,” She crossed her arms, but she glanced out towards the field giving herself away if she hadn’t already been so obvious.

“Oh please,” He grimaced, “I saw them in the stand you know. You aren’t here to sympathize with Gryffindor’s defeat.”

Satine frowned, “I am sorry you didn’t get your win this year-” But Cody waved her off.

“You know what they say, Satine, third time’s the charm. We’ll get you next year!”

“So,” Satine shifted on her feet, “If he’s not on the field...”

“I’m not sure where he went. One minute I’m giving my team a once over the next he’s nowhere to be seen.”

“Ravenclaw Locker room?” Satine suggested and Cody just turned easily in that direction, leading the two of them there.

“I figured he’d run towards the school, library maybe?”

“Well, his parents are hardly willing to enter Ravenclaw spaces, but I wouldn’t put it past them to enter the library if they’re looking for him,” Satine reasoned and Cody hummed in thought.

When they reached their destination, they peeked inside and her suspicions were found to be correct.

The room was empty besides Ben, sitting alone on a bench polishing his broom handle meticulously. Satine figured it was already well done enough to see your reflection in it, but he was always particular.

“Hey,” Cody called, entering first, before Satine could find the best way to break the silence herself, “Congrats on the win.”

“Oh, Cody,” He looked startled by the intrusion, looking past Cody to catch her eye, “Satine,” He smiled at her and she mirrored it with one of her own. He looked back towards Cody, “Thanks, I think I may have hindered us more than helped us. Sorry about the loss,” He offered his sympathy and Cody sat down across from him leaving Satine to drop down right next to Ben.

“Next year for sure,” Cody repeated with conviction.

“I don’t think you did bad at all,” Satine leaned towards Ben, the heat of anger that had been stoked by his parents nearly the whole game resurfaced. He leaned away surprised, “You did really well, you’re a great Keeper!”

“Thank you?” He answered. She was glad he had no idea what she was really getting at, that meant his parents hadn’t found him to complain yet, “I messed up quite a bit today, I definitely wasn’t on my game.”

“Well, you didn’t want to play in the first place,” Cody shrugged and the air between them grew cold as each member struggled to find a foothold in the conversation.

“We still won,” Satine reminded him firmly and he blinked at her before parroting.

“We still won.”

***

Anakin kicked a stone as hard as he could into the lake. He didn’t really want to go back to the common room and face a whole bunch of people he’d just let down. His team didn’t even seem that disappointed, but Anakin felt that maybe they should be. If it wasn’t for him, they may have won the game! Plus if it wasn’t for him a mass murderer wouldn’t have been disrupted the entire school year. He kicked another rock.

“Careful mate,” Rex appeared at the corner of his vision, picking up a smooth stone and flicking it so it skipped across the lake, leaving ripples in its wake, “There’s said to be creatures living in there. I don’t think they’d like to land a rock to the head.”

Anakin sighed deeply, dropping down to the ground, his shoes just brushing the edge of the water, “I can’t believe I lost us the game!”

“Yeah if you were going to take out our seeker, you should have done it earlier. Could’ve given me a chance to play,” Rex joked sitting next to him.

“I could have killed Moteé!” Anakin looked at Rex, guilt swirling around at the thought.

“You didn’t though,” Rex shrugged, “Moteé knew what she signed up for, so did Ropal, so did Cody, so do I. It’s Quidditch mate! It’s dangerous.”

“Yeah, but I never expected to be the one causing the danger,” Anakin grumbled and Rex laughed.

“Sorry to say, but I think danger might be in your bones,” When Anakin didn’t respond, Rex punched him in the arm, “Come on, you wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless it was a fly actively trying to hurt your friends. Sure, Moteé’s a little mad, but you would be too if you’d been knocked around twice in one year. She’ll get over it.”

“I should make her an apology card,” Anakin decided as he flicked a rock into the water, “I’ll leave it on her bedside table while she’s sleeping so she doesn’t try to strangle me.”

“That’s the spirit!”

***

Obi-Wan had been under the misguided impression that once the drama with Maul settled down that he and his fellow prefects would finally earn themselves a decent night’s sleep. Of course, once he’d drawn up those conclusions in his head, he hadn’t factored in the possibility of losing his favorite professor in the process. He never would have thought, even when things were at their worst, that the earth would allow itself to turn without the brilliance that was Qui-Gon Jinn. Even weeks later and for likely longer than he could imagine, he still struggled to sleep at the horrible visions that filled his eyes when he closed them. He wondered how long such a reaction would last and hoped it wouldn’t be for as long as he missed the man, because he would always miss Qui-Gon Jinn.

Satine tried to insist that it was okay to mourn and grieve and he knew she was right. He’d never judge someone else for feeling depressed over losing someone important, but it was harder for Obi-Wan to reconcile this about himself.

If there was one thing that helped take his mind off of the persistent ache that gnawed at his chest, it was the influx of schoolwork. If they were going to be remotely ready for finals, they needed to play a massive game of catch-up. Satine, in particular, still had work to catch up on from the month she’d been frozen in carbonite.

It’s what brought them to tirelessly working on outlines, notecards, study guides, and mock quizzes just about every night in the common room.

He nearly scowled just thinking about how easily Ventress had gotten off for her involvement in that fiasco. She could have permanently disfigured students or worse! She could have killed them and according to Satine, she didn’t seem to care all that much about if she did or not.

She should have been arrested or at the very least expelled, but no, it was simply a year of detention and her losing her prefect status to atone for her crimes. She hadn’t even lost any house points for Slytherin, though that might have been in fairness to the other students of Slytherin house. He had no doubts that her affluent family, or adopted family to be more correct now, had a say in striking up the plea deal.

Since his only source to any real information was gone, he didn’t know what she told them about Dooku. All he knew was that it was apparently enough to be useful.

“I think Yoda believes her more dangerous out there with a vendetta than in school,” Satine’s tired voice interrupted his thoughts and startled as he was, he really shouldn’t have been. He was practically staring a hole in the newly added section about countering carbonite curses. It was taught by Yoda himself and learned during his time away.

“Or he’s afraid what Dooku will do to her if he expels her,” He grumbled and held his quill a little tighter. If he was being honest, the words were starting to blur from the way his eyes glazed over in exhaustion. Maybe, he’d actually get to sleep tonight.

“I mean it’s reasonable,” Satine shrugged, “I don’t want Dooku to hurt anyone, even her.”

That was the admirable thing about Satine. Her consistency with her noble values was something to be revered. Ventress could truly benefit from taking notes. For instance, having morals at all would be a vast improvement.

“I don’t either,” He sighed, “That doesn’t mean I have to like what she did to you… And the others.”

He might have added that a bit too late. He’d been horrified when discovering Rabé in Hogsmeade, but he did guiltily admit that Satine’s freezing was different. So much so, that he wondered if he’d look at the place the same next time he ventured there. So much had been taken away from them this year. Experiences, laughs, people. He was sure this would be a year too heavy to bear had he lost Satine too.

She sighed, “It was truly abhorrent, but it was a bit like waking up when I came out of it. I’d expect the worst part was for all of you who had to sit around and stare at my stony face.”

His tongue grew a bit fat when he thought to comment that looking at her face had never been a problem for him and at his own reluctance to admit: anyone else. Still, all he could think to do was peer over to her forearm, which lay turned facing up on the couch. He could still see the faint little scars of nails that had dug into her arm.

Catching his eyes, she carefully unraveled her sleeve to cover them and he looked at her sheepishly, to which she only shrugged. She might have said it was like waking up, but he had a feeling that getting frozen hadn’t been like falling asleep.

“She still deserved far more than detention.” He said.

“Of course,” She scoffed, “Seems like she’s got quite the chip on her shoulder now, though. She’s been laying pretty low.”

“Even during the match.” He admitted and rubbed his eyes, “I can’t help but wonder if she’s planning anything.”

“Considering how she was dumped by Dooku and left to burn, I’d say it involves turning some of those witchy powers onto him if she can get within arm’s reach.”

“I’ve had enough talk on Sith lords this year,” He yawned, “Maybe next year.”

She snorted dryly, “Yes, I’m sure Dooku will take that into deep consideration.”

“We’ve only got a couple weeks left,” He reminded her and even as awful as this year had turned out being, he couldn’t help but be surprised that it was nearly over. “One more year left.”

“Don’t start,” She warned, “I’d like to at least pass my finals first.”

Now, it was his turn to snort, “Satine, I know we’re tired, but we’re not completely delusional.”

She closed her book and faced him. Her bright blue eyes were bloodshot and struggling with effort to stay awake, “That implies we’re delusional at all.”

“Maybe we are,” He said, “I know you aren’t ever one to hold back when you disagree with one of my less conventional plans. Not to mention your obvious opinions on my possible color blindness.”

“To be color blind, you’ve actually got to mix up or not see certain colors, Ben.” She groaned, leaning her head back at the armrest. “You’ve just got batty taste.”

“I don’t know about that.” He said, pulse quickening. Nothing about this moment quite seemed right, but he’d been delaying in telling her how he felt for far too long. Recently, he’d been shown numerous signs of realizing how short life was. And yes, Cody had been right, delivering the sentiment of telling her how he cared in the form of a card was cowardly and short-sighted.

Telling her at the funeral would have just been plain depressing and any time before that had been consumed with the very real fear that their lives were about to be taken away. He still kicked himself for how he’d parted with her before seeking out Anakin. A kiss on the hand? What was this? A Victorian period piece?

In his defense, that was where he’d gotten most of his exposure to the romance genre.

In between the deftly heady spaces of remorse that clouded his thoughts, he regretted not spewing exactly how he felt or at least properly kissing her to make it clear. Though the prospect of being so forward like that now reddened him to a palpable flame. Now, it felt like a moment had passed between them and though he suspected she had some level of understanding, it seemed she wouldn’t be bringing it up either.

Unless she’d gotten over it- nope! He was not talking himself out of it. They were alone, which was a triumph in and of itself. He’d never want something of this nature to be spoken in front of an audience. They were also considerably peaceful, so much so that he felt like he might actually fall asleep by the comfort of warmth that radiated off her profile. He looked at their hands and how they were only a quick movement from touching. What would she do if he just held her hand?

Maybe, just maybe, this year didn’t have to be so dreadful after all. Qui-Gon’s words about learning to live flowed through him and seemed to finally make sense as he looked over at Satine through lowered eyes. The very least he could do was honor his mentor’s wishes.

“Hear me when I say that you need to live your life.”

“I don’t think I have batty taste at all,” He reiterated after a long pause.

“Is that so?” Satine responded slowly, “I beg to differ.”

“If I had batty taste I wouldn’t be friends with Cody.” He reasoned, “Nor would I have chosen Anakin as my protege.”

“Mmm, perhaps,” She said quietly.

“I wouldn’t have such a preference in dessert or soft animals if my taste was foul and I wouldn’t like all the books you recommend.”

“Unless your tendency to appreciate ugliness is contagious,” She chuckled.

He kept his eyes fixated on the fire ahead, really struggling to look at her as he figured out his way around the sentence that swirled around his brain. It shouldn’t be hard and he knew the stress was him overthinking it. He didn’t dare to dream of the consequences, because he wasn’t sure dreaming was in the cards for him now. Really, all that mattered to him was that it was said and that she knew.

His first step in attempting to truly live was gently taking Satine’s hand in his, interweaving their fingers and admiring at how perfect of a fit it seemed and how soft her hands were. He took the way they immediately curled around his as a good sign as any to continue with what plagued his broken heart.

“Well, I should hope you don’t feel that way,” He winced, “Because… the truly defining reason that I couldn’t possibly have that much of a predilection towards the unseemly is you.”

She didn’t answer right away, but his nerves prevented her from really doing so, “That is to say, I think you’re quite lovely, or more accurately, I think you’re the loveliest person I’ve ever seen or met. Inside and out.”

Because he really didn’t need her thinking he was sitting around drooling over her looks all day, no matter how impressive he found them.

“Because you’re everything I or anyone could ever want. You’re beautiful, brilliant, compassionate, witty, creative… Really, I could go on for so long that I’d need a dictionary of proper words to articulate how in awe I am of you, even without romantic connotation.”

Ugh.

“But there are plenty of romantic connotations, of course,” He coughed, “I wanted to tell you sooner. And the reason that it’s been so hard for me to say that is not because I don’t feel strongly in this regard, but the opposite. It’s intimidating for someone like me, who’d been taught otherwise about passion, but my feelings for you go beyond and within logic, forming what I can only assume is… Love.”

Silence.

Oh, no, had he said something wrong?

He turned his head to brave the consequences of his words, hoping that she would at least be the good sort of speechless. She had kissed him at Christmas. It wasn’t like these conclusions weren’t coming from somewhere. That didn’t stop his head from racing at a mile a minute with other possibilities.

They stilled when he received the sight of Satine Kryze, passed out against over the side of the couch, leaning on the armrest with her full body weight, her hair tumbling over the edge in a blonde waterfall. She was captivating, even in slumber, of course, so he was left in the debilitating and confusing predicament of his heart inflating and deflating.

She hadn’t heard any of it?

He blew out a breath like a balloon releasing air and leaned back. It wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted this moment to go at all. His head was pounding with a headache and he massaged his temples. Okay, he was officially and regretfully scratching out “firelit study session” as a possible setting to express his romantic intentions towards her. He was beginning to feel like some higher power might genuinely have it out for him.

He looked back down at their still joined hands. Any residual disappointment fell away at the sight and he gently and tenderly raised her hand to his lips for a careful kiss. It was nothing like the firm and desperate one he’d parted her with before, but a true promise of hope.

“Another time.” He whispered and without releasing her hand, nestled into the comfortable couch, finding a blanket out of the parchments and books across their laps, and for the first time all month, Obi-Wan slept a fearless sleep.

***

With Quidditch having ended for the year and nothing else to look forward to beyond finals (a truly bleak thought for Anakin), he realized with sharp clarity that this might be the last week he spends at Hogwarts should he never be able to return. While he had previously been depressed, he was filled with a new sense of purpose. He wanted to make it count.

Starting with how he was finally going to get a few things off his chest.

He didn’t walk lightly or quietly past those who pitied him, instead pushing past them with a heavy force of nature propelled by his inner desires finally coming to fruition. Regardless of consequence, he was a Gryffindor fearless and true, and he would be owning up to that title one way or another this year.

He found her sitting surprisingly alone on the front lawn and nearly toppled over a loose root on his way. It was a beautiful day, because apparently Anakin was allowed some small favors by the universe, and would be a lovely setting to deliver the impression he’d truly wanted to.

“Oh, hi, Anakin!” Padmé was one of the few people in this school whose empathy and kindness seemed genuine. It was a tenderness he was unsure he deserved to be on the receiving end of, but welcomed it nonetheless.

“I know you’re studying, so I won’t keep you long,” He sat down on the picnic blanket without waiting for an invitation to join her. If he stopped or paused, he might lose his nerve and if there was anything this fleeting year taught him, it was that there was no glory without guts.

“Okay, what’s up?” She asked him warily, setting aside her History of Magic textbook and crossing her hands on her lap to give him her full attention.

With her staring so openly at him, he nearly got lost in the way the sun made her eyes look golden in their warmth depth. However, the very last thing he wanted was for her to think he was a creep, so he continued onwards with the last remaining gumption he had left.

“I made something for you,” He blurted out, hating that it didn’t sound as impressive out loud as it had in his head when he internally rehearsed this speech. Even without decorum, he dug in the pocket of his robe and pulled out the trinket he’d made from the mockups that Hondo sold as merchandise. It had a completely different paint job. It was tan and carved with a little square and squiggly lines at the center.

“Oh!” She clearly didn’t know what it was meant to signify, so Anakin had no problem filling her in.

“I saw it in a book when studying ancient runes with Obi-Wan, from a japor snippet,” Off her curious look, he shrugged, “It’s meant to give good fortune to the beloved of the maker.”

“To the beloved of- oh.” Her eyes bugged when she hastily met his gaze and dropped the little necklace in her lap. “You mean you… Like me?”

“Well… Yeah.” He said awkwardly, realizing this was not as romantic as he’d drawn it up to be in his head. Embarrassment was quickly coloring his features and he hoped it would play as sunburn.

Anakin felt like his breath stopped somewhere in his chest. She definitely didn’t look like she was about to go running into his arms and dance with him in the sunlight. He shied his gaze away, trying to figure out a way to play this off as a joke when she suddenly took his hand.

“Anakin, this is very sweet,” She said, “I just- I don’t, I’m not really in that kind of place right now.”

His blond fringe hung in his eyes, which was fortunate for him as he didn’t want to appear too depressed or forlorn. It was another blow to take, but a risk he understood. At least he knew.

“And honestly, I don’t feel like I really know you,” She admitted.

He looked up at her and frowned, “What do you mean? I feel like I know you.”

“I think…” She paused, gnawing on her bottom lip to find the words she wanted to say, “I think you might have conjured an idea of me in your head.”

“And that’s different?” He asked.

“Yeah, I mean, we don’t really talk that often.”

“That’s because I’m always too nervous to talk to you.” He answered.

“Why do I find it hard to believe that you get nervous?” She tilted her head to the side, flashing a smile that still warmed him up from the inside, “In any case, you’ve nothing to be nervous of.”

“Yeah, I guess the worst case scenario already just happened,” He leaned back on his legs, kneeling now in front of her with remnants of disappointment still tainting this day. He didn’t know why he would believe that someone as magnificent as Padmé Amidala would ever be interested in a scrub like him. The crushing weight of this rejection felt a bit like a wound being reopened before she squeezed his hand.

“I’d really like it if we could be friends.” She offered lightly, “I’m always in the market for more true friends.”

“If you’re just saying that because you feel sorry for me…” He trailed off, because he really didn’t want to be anyone’s charity case.

“Why would I lie?” She asked, “Anakin, you seem like an incredibly caring person and like a lot of fun, frankly. It would be my pleasure to get to know you and to be your friend… Just as long as you understand that that’s all I want to be.”

He thought about that and considered, not for the first time, that having more good people in his life to some capacity was better than less. He could trust Padmé and while she believed he didn’t really know her, he intended on getting to know the real her.

Then, he briefly thought back to something said to them earlier this year. “I just hope Miraj wasn’t right when she said misfortune will follow you for befriending me.”

She squeezed his hand again and his heart felt a little lighter, “I don’t let anyone tell me who I can and can’t be friends with. Friendship doesn’t come with terms and conditions.”

Anakin smiled at her, “Well, in that case, I ask that you still keep the necklace. We’ll call it… a friendship necklace.”

“Are you sure?” She asked, “There might be another lucky girl out there that you could give it to.”

“Nah,” He waved her off, “There isn’t. I’d rather it go… To a friend.”

***

“Poisonous plant that kills animal cells?” Satine was blocking her notes quite strategically from both Obi-Wan and Cody even if Cody was not participating in their little game. In his opinion, studying should not be done at the dinner table or really at any sort of event outside of maybe an hour or two in the library.

“Bloodroot,” Obi-Wan answered quickly, not even a moment's hesitation. He then looked down to his own notes without even waiting for confirmation, “What do the four golden statues in the MACUSA represent?”

“The victims of the Salem witch trials,” Satine frowned, “And may I just add how absolutely horrific that was,” She turned back to her notes, “How would one go about resisting the imperius curse-” She looked unsettled as she looked up at Obi-Wan, “What have you all been doing in DADA?”

“Utilizing strong mental fortitude,” He answered the first question before shrugging, “I may need it someday. Professor Fisto said those that can make the best aurors.”

The expression on Satine’s face was enough for Cody to cut in before they could start arguing, “Do you really need to be studying right now? It pays to take breaks you know,” The two looked at each other.

“I’m not tired, are you?” Obi-Wan asked and Satine shook her head, “Alright, how many known wand core components are there?”

“Three,” Cody answered dully, poking at his mashed potatoes.

“Nineteen!” Satine answered.

“Really?” Cody grimaced, “Glad I’m not in that class.”

“We could switch to something else if you’d like,” Satine offered and Obi-Wan nodded, “Charms?”

“Please no!” Cody shook his head quickly, “You might not be tired, but I’m tired just watching you go back and forth.”

“Suit yourself,” Obi-Wan shrugged, “We’re almost out for the summer anyways, you won’t have to think about classes for a whole two months.”

“Yeah, except every time I get an owl from you lot,” He rolled his eyes, “Last year, you sent me more book summaries than you did events from your real life, Kenobi.”

“The books were the interesting part!”

“Anyways,” Satine finally took a bite of her, surely cold, chips, “We’ve had a rather chaotic year. It serves to be prepared.”

“They should just cancel the lot of them if you ask me,” Cody said with a shrug, “We hardly had any real classes for half the year.”

“Oh stop! It hasn’t been that bad-”

Headmaster Yoda tapped the side of his glass, and a hush rolled across the Great Hall. He was slow to rise, but stood on his chair as to best see across the room at all the students.

“An announcement, I have to make,” He nodded, “Uncertain, our year has been. Unprecedented. The remaining professors and I, come to a conclusion, we have. NEWT exams and OWLs will be pushed back until the end of July.”

There was an audible sigh of relief from those students who had certainly been stressing it. Cody had to admit, had he been taking his NEWTs this year, he was almost sure he’d be in a full-fledged panic over it. Chatter rose in the Great Hall again and Yoda tapped on his glass once more. He wasn’t done yet.

“For the rest of you,” Anticipation hung in the air like electricity as they all turned as one to face the Headmaster, “Decided we have, to cancel your finals.” He barely got the words out before the whole hall broke into loud cheering.

Cogs in his brain turned quickly as he realized the universe had heard his pleas for once. He quickly shouted, “And I want onto a professional Quidditch team!” He turned to express his delight to his two best friends before glancing over to looks of utter horror and despair.

“But- I-” Satine was at a loss for words and Obi-Wan looked like he was still processing the information.

“Oh, cheer up!” Cody grinned, “This is a good thing.”

“I hardly think so,” Obi-Wan sounded quite like he’d been informed of his own expulsion, “How will we test our knowledge now?”

“You were doing pretty well on your own,” Cody rolled his eyes.

“Yes… We could just make our own tests,” Satine turned to him excitedly. Obi-Wan perked up at the thought.

“It’s certainly not against the rules,” He immediately scrambled for a quill, “We’d have to grade them together though-”

“Of course, I don’t want you doing it wrong!” Satine pulled out her own quill, pulling his parchment closer to her.

“You two are absolutely insufferable, you know that?” Cody crossed his arms, stewing, “Something good finally comes our way and you want to make it harder for yourselves.”

“Cody, would you like us to make you one too?” Obi-Wan asked, clearly not having heard him.

Cody stared at him long and hard, “Hell no! Leave me out of your insanity!”

***

Much to Ventress’ disdain, Headmaster Yoda’s list of announcements didn’t stop at the cancellation of finals, no matter how welcome that was. Once the outburst of mass celebration simmered down, the smiling little green Headmaster patiently began yet again.

“Finished, I am not. Announce the winner of the house cup, I will.” He said and Ventress felt her stomach turn inside out. All eyes at Slytherin’s table turned to her in immediate appraisal. They’d already won the Quidditch cup, but it was obvious they were concerned that her transgressions this year could result in slating them. She didn’t care about the competition, as there was no true value to winning. However, some under Slytherin’s banner took beating Gryffindor very seriously.

A pregnant pause filled the entire Great Hall as everyone held their breaths for the reveal. Ventress kept her eyes focused hard on Yoda and it seemed he caught her gaze. He remained tepid and relaxed, but never breaking contact as he spoke,

“Won, Slytherin house has,” He said and backed away as the entire Great Hall flew into even greater hysterics than before. The other three houses were understandably outraged while Slytherin was practically crawling on the table to celebrate their win. Ventress, a bit dumbfounded, did not join them in their hurrah.

“What, so they try to kill us all semester and they get rewarded for it?” Shouted one student that Ventress couldn’t see through the chaos.

“They’re monsters! Maul was one of them!” Yelled another.

“We lost how many points for Krell last year?” A Gryffindor, obviously, jumped in.

Her Slytherin counterparts didn’t resist chiming in, of course, since they were not the sort to be made victims of, “Hey! Maybe if you kept your head focused on your books instead of every little trollup’s arse, you might get somewhere!”

“That is enough! Take a seat, all of you!” Professor Windu boomed over the rest of the crowd. If he was good for something, it was projecting his voice even without an amplification charm. “First of all, Gryffindor House, you lost zero points for Krell’s actions last year, because as with this situation, it was agreed that his abhorrent actions were an anomaly and completely unfair to take the rest of you down.”

“Second,” Yoda continued for him, “Hard work, Slytherin has shown. The actions of one, they will not be crucified for.”

Once again, Ventress felt the burning stares of her peers. She was shunned by Dooku, who promised to reunite her with the Nightsisters of Dathomir, who would understand her, embrace her skills and her flaws as they were. They would be a true family, not the imposters that supposedly raised her under the affluent guise of success. Even these wannabes were rejecting her, save for those whose parents likely threatened them.

She clutched her fist. They didn’t deserve to win the house cup. None of them did. There should have been no rewards for any of their actions. Two professors were dead and a stack of aurors before them and here they were deliberating over a trivial contest. It was foolish and exactly why the Sith would easily be able to dominate them all. They could cast their disappointment at her all they wanted, but it was all just a distraction. It would be easy, in the end, and the commoners would clutch their pearls and act like it hadn’t been in front of their faces all along.

She’d told them what she knew not only to hopefully scorn Dooku, even if that would be an added bonus, but because it seemed they needed it spoon fed to them in order to begin tracking him down. She didn’t want to give Dooku or his master the satisfaction of seeing their future through. She never had any real loyalties to it, just what it could do for her.

Instead, she’d need to play the role of the dutiful pureblood witch and utilize whatever funds and resources to bring about real change: to bring back the sinister sisters of her bloodline, to take back everything and destroy the muggles that stood in their way. It would be better than the dogmatic Sith.

It would be revolution.

“So, if I hear any of you claiming that it was unjust, I’d like you to ask yourself, what more could you have done to better advance your house?” Windu said.

Quiet murmurs spread across the room and she still knew they were all indirectly about her. Someone pointed out that Obi-Wan Kenobi took out an entire Sith lord on his own, but another mentioned something about how he rejected any rewards for it.

Faro scowled from across the table at that, “Such a fool. Does he believe he’ll get anywhere in life with that sacrificing attitude?”

“I’d expect he doesn’t need to, with mommy and daddy’s money just waiting for him,” Miraj Scintel said coolly, “He’s not too bad on the eyes, too, which helps.”

She cast her eyes towards Obi-Wan Kenobi, who was chatting amongst some of his quidditch friends. She grimaced at his natural charisma that everyone seemed to fall for. It was sickening, really, that he could blend so well amongst everyone, even the muggle borns. That he wanted to. She didn’t get the appeal to his relentlessly charitable way of being. It was like he asked to be magnificently cursed.

It would be like swallowing a thick and heavy dose of the foulest medicines, but Ventress knew what she needed to do in order to accomplish her greatest desires. Next year was their final year at this putrid school, and she would do what she must to climb the ranks. He wouldn’t break easy from his band of misfits, but he would break. And really, Ventress would have very little to do with it. The way of the pureblood culture would be more than enough. Time was ticking and Ventress knew she had much to do.

She began scrawling in her notebook the terms of an unbreakable vow.

***

Now that finals had been cancelled the library was practically vacant, most students were spending their precious few hours left at school in the courtyard, on brooms or chatting by the lake. Obi-Wan could never think of anywhere else he’d rather be in his spare time than in the library and it was clear that Satine thought the same, taking up her usual spot beside him.

She was engrossed in her book, something on hidden secret wizarding communities across the globe. He hadn’t gotten around to reading that one yet, although he was sure he’d been to plenty of the places listed. He was sure she’d quite like Appleby if she ever got the chance to go. She turned a page and it seemed like enough to jar her from her focus and instead place her eyes on him.

“What?” Obi-Wan winced, he hadn’t realized he’d been staring, how rude.

“Oh nothing I was just-” He floundered for something to say, “Appreciating that we had time off.”

“It’s pretty nice,” She smiled, letting her book flutter closed and almost seemed to lean a little closer to him as she rested her arm on the table, “I do still have that evening patrol tonight.”

“You could trade for mine tomorrow morning,” He chuckled at the way her lips curled back into a snarl.

“Not on your life,” She huffed, “Perhaps, I’ll have fewer next year. Considering we’ll have the most seniority.”

“I’m sure as Head Girl you’ll have your pick of the litter,” Obi-Wan said without thinking and she looked at him a little surprised.

“I don’t think anything has been decided yet,” She answered coolly.

“They’d be a fool not to pick you,” Obi-Wan waved a hand at her, “Certainly there’s no competition, you’re the brightest witch of your age.”

“Well, I’d hardly say there’s no competition,” She smothered a smile, “But it would be a high honor to receive.”

“I was expected to get prefect,” Obi-Wan mused, “I didn’t realize how much I’d enjoy the position. I’m already honored just to have been considered for the role of Head Boy.”

Satine gazed at him for a beat, “Why do you talk like you’ve already lost out?”

“Well we don’t know-”

“-Don’t we?” Satine scoffed, drumming her fingers on the table in irritation, “If you think I have no competition, you’ve already won.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, “There’s always Bail-”

“-Ben please,” Satine rolled her eyes, “Bail’s incredibly smart and a good prefect, but even he, himself, knows that he’s not getting the position,” Satine continued before he could open his mouth, “Ben you’re the top student at the school-”

“Second,” He corrected automatically, “You beat me by half a point-”

“I haven’t forgotten!” She jabbed a finger at him, “I wasn’t counting me.”

“Well you should,” He grumbled, “You’re the brightest witch here.”

They looked at each other for a second, neither knowing how to break away, “That means I’m always right,” Satine pointed out, turning towards her book, face a little red. Obi-Wan looked away and found interest in reading the titles on the shelf across from him, “You’ll be Head Boy for sure.”

“Then you’ll be Head Girl,” He shot back without glancing over. They hung in an almost oppressive silence for another minute or two before Obi-Wan hesitantly glanced over. Unfortunately for him, she’d been looking his way and they were once again stuck, eyes locked together.

It was almost as if words were traveling unspoken, questions, maybe answers. It was enough for Obi-Wan to take a shaky breath and try to ask one of his own out loud. The one he’d been trying to get out for a while now.

“Satine-”

“There you are!” Anakin’s voice was quick to shatter whatever spell had come between them and Obi-Wan felt his face heat up and his heart race as he turned towards Anakin with a hint of irritation.

“What?” He groused and Anakin looked between him and Satine with a tilt to his head.

“I was just going to ask you to check over my essay...” Anakin faltered, “I can come back-”

“No, no. It’s fine,” Obi-Wan let out a long breath, “You only startled me. This is a library you know.”

“I know! You never spend any time outside of it...” Anakin complained under his breath, handing over his essay.

Obi-Wan took it and used it to hide his face as he glanced towards Satine. She’d gone back to her reading, but looked unfazed. She flipped a page and brushed a strand of hair out of her face.

“Whatcha looking at?” Anakin whispered in his ear and he glared at Anakin.

“Your poorly written essay,” He answered, rolling up said parchment to bap him in the head with it.

“Aw come on I tried extra hard this time!” Anakin sighed, draping himself across the table.

“You really need to reel in your tangents,” Obi-Wan pulled the red pen Anakin had given to him the previous year and scratched through a whole paragraph before handing it back, “Professor Yaddle doesn’t want to know how this relates to your favorite shows.”

Anakin spent a moment looking over his essay before pulling out a blank sheet of parchment and began to revise. Obi-Wan looked between Anakin and Satine and frowned. So much for a quiet moment or any sort of real talk.

“Perhaps, I’ll see you back in the common room then?” Satine placed a bookmark in her book and he gave her a sheepish smile.

“I suppose so-”

“Padmé?” Satine was looking over his head and so he turned to indeed see Padmé Amidala edge her way out from behind a bookshelf.

“Ah hello,” She greeted, “I was hoping you could look over my potions essay, Satine? If it’s not too much trouble.”

Satine sat back down and gestured to the seat across from her, “Alright, hand it over,” She leaned closer to Ben and whispered quietly, “Never a dull moment.”

“Never,” He grinned over at her.

***

“You summoned me, Headmaster?” Obi-Wan creaked open the door to Yoda’s office and was immediately comforted by the reminder that it was Yoda’s office yet again, no matter what qualms certain sectors of the Ministry of Magic had. It had been a unanimous vote, one even cast by Palpatine, to reinstate him and he was glad he had. It was nothing personal to Professor Palpatine, but his parties catering towards his favorite students didn’t exactly speak for a strong lack of bias.

“Indeed, in you come!” Yoda gestured for Obi-Wan to take a seat and he followed suit. “Important things, we have to discuss.”

Obi-Wan winced. He really didn’t want to relay what happened on the viaduct with Maul yet again to another person. He really didn’t understand why Windu couldn’t have just passed on what he received first hand immediately afterwards. There had been a lot of heavy sobbing and sniffling to get around, but he knew he told him everything in a flush of emotions uncharacteristic to him. That moment was foggy, likely at his mind’s own choice to further spare him from sadness, but he remembered being grateful that no one else was around.

Alternatively, the debate over who was to be the next Head Boy and Head Girl was buzzing louder than ever with just a few days left in the term. Traditionally, this announcement was made over the summer in the form of a personal letter that students usually hung over their mantles in pride. However, maybe they wanted to deliver some more good news in light of recent events.

Then again, Satine would probably be here too if that’s what they were discussing. Or at least, he really hoped she would.

“What is it, Headmaster?” He felt compelled to ask, because they sat in silence for a long time, neither looking relaxed that this troubling year was coming to a close. With Dooku still running free, it was very likely that a precedent was starting.

“Worried, for young Skywalker, you are,” He said calmly. It was not a question, but Yoda was never known for dancing around his point for very long. No, the lengthy and often riddled speeches were a trait of a professor who would no longer be bursting into this office without announcement nor would they live to relay another prophetic theory ever again. The weight of that absence sat between Obi-Wan and Yoda, though neither acknowledged it formally.

“Very much so,” He confirmed and tapped his fingers aimlessly on his knees, “I- Well, I made a promise to look after him.”

“To whom?” Yoda raised a brow on his wrinkly face, “Skywalker or your former mentor, did you promise?”

Qui-Gon always said that Anakin was the top priority and though he’d always known it, that really sunk in now that the boy had no one left but Obi-Wan.

“Both.” He said after a deep breath, “So, if you’ve brought me here to tell me that you’re just going to throw Anakin in some orphanage when Dooku is surely out there waiting for him to be vulnerable, I cannot allow that.”

“Sound like Qui-Gon, you do,” Yoda said, amused, but Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if he knew how much that meant to him just then, “Cast Skywalker aside, we cannot.”

Obi-Wan relaxed his shoulders immediately. He hadn’t been sure what his course of action was going to be to follow up his assertion, but he was glad he didn’t have to come up with anything just then. He was just glad that Anakin wasn’t going to be left with strangers. It was incredibly cruel considering everything he’d been through.

He didn’t breathe completely easily yet, “But you’re also not going to lock him up in the castle all summer either, right? He needs normalcy.”

And a break from this place. They all did, as much as he preferred his years at Hogwarts to his summers at home. Obi-Wan knew he would be eager to return back in the fall, yearning for the bright memories this special place held for him. However, as it was at the moment, he could only feel the lingering sense of loss.

“Agree, I do, but find new normal for him, we must.”

“Until his mother is found.” Obi-Wan agreed.

“That might-” Yoda caught himself off as he regarded Obi-Wan with sad eyes and without the desire to complete the thought he started. Obi-Wan knew what he’d been thinking. It had been on his mind too whenever Anakin brought it up, even since it first happened. He also never said what came to mind.

Yoda shook his head and started again, “Yes, and find an alternative, we have. Or more accurately, found us, the alternative has.”

“That’s great.” Obi-Wan said, “A family is taking him in then.”

“Appear so, it would.”

“Well, that’s fantastic! And Anakin is on board?” There was something still odd about this meeting, a wariness to Yoda’s gaze that wasn’t quite meeting Obi-Wan’s eyes anymore. His body language was turned away, like he knew he was delivering bad news.

He nodded, long pointed ears wiggling a bit as he did, “Inform you first, I thought I should. Object to the arrangement, you can, but very few options, we have.”

“Inform me?” Obi-Wan repeated, “Headmaster, I’m not sure I have the faintest idea what you could be talking about. Who are they?”

***

“Anakin, darling, there you are!” Mrs. Kenobi came shuffling over hurriedly, or as much as she could with the trail of midnight green satin slithering behind her in long tresses. Mr. Kenobi took long strides behind her, leading with his infamous walking stick that always captured Anakin’s attention.

Anakin was indeed surprised when he was given the information that the Kenobi’s wanted to take him in for the summers and holidays and relieved that he would at least get to stick with Obi-Wan, but he certainly hadn’t expected they’d show up at the castle’s doorsteps.

Obi-Wan, it appeared, was also absolutely flabbergasted as he dropped whatever bags he’d been helping Satine with clean on the cobblestone walkway, much to his friend’s initial chagrin and gradual understanding as she rounded the bend.

“What the hell, Be- Oh.” Satine snapped her mouth shut and just focused on picking up her scattered things with Padmé and Breha at either side of her. None of the three girls dared to lift their heads.

“Mother, Father, you’re here… At Hogwarts.” His voice was tight and clipped while his eyes didn’t blink.

“We do need to work on your hosting mannerisms.” His mother didn’t look once at him and kept her eyes on Anakin, “Ah well, I suppose there will be plenty of room for practice this summer with our brand new house guest.”

“Thank you for taking me in.” Anakin said earnestly, because even while belonging on another plane of elitist culture, they still volunteered to take Anakin in the moment they’d heard he was without a place to stay.

“It is no trouble at all, my boy,” Mr. Kenobi ruffled his hair, “The servants have already taken the liberty of clearing out Obi-Wan’s room for you.”

“My room?” Obi-Wan questioned.

“Oh, no I can’t do that. I can just sleep on the couch or something-” But Anakin was instantly cut off by Mrs. Kenobi’s thin, but noticeably strong arms crushing him into a hug against her bony sternum.

“Nonsense!” She hissed, “His room is much warmer than the spares and only the best for growing heroes.”

Anakin wanted to turn around and shrug at Obi-Wan. He hoped he didn’t mind giving up his room for him. He knew he would be pretty upset if some little kid came into his childhood room and took over all of his stuff and space.

“And since we have raised Obi-Wan correctly, he will do the just and honorable thing and give his room for you in your time of need,” Mr. Kenobi’s voice was lethal, but Anakin still only had a view of Mrs. Kenobi’s laced neckline, so he didn’t see the look that matched it over Mrs. Kenobi’s shoulder.

After a pause, Obi-Wan cleared his throat, “Yes, well, I have been eyeing up the west wing.”

“Mmm, I think not.” Mr. Kenobi waved a large hand at him dismissively, “I’m refurbishing it as a second office.”

“The east wing, then.” Obi-Wan tried.

“The basement will do, you’ll have much more space down there to practice Quidditch.”

After a long pause, Obi-Wan only nodded and was giving Anakin a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes, “Sounds good.”

“Clearly, it’s needed,” Mrs. Kenobi added and gently pet Anakin’s hair to the side. It would have reminded him of his own mother, if her fingers weren’t so long and cold, “Unlike you, my little star. Gryffindor’s team truly does not deserve your efforts.”

He didn’t have the heart to remind her that it was technically Anakin’s fault that they threw the game and Ravenclaw won. Neither team had their hearts in it that day, though, and it had definitely been a shock to all of them when the Kenobi’s showed up to watch. At least they’d been impressed enough with him to still give him a place to stay. That had to count for something.

“The new broom must have helped.” He smiled.

“You know, I think it did. That’s what happens when you have the best of what money can buy, Anakin.” Mr. Kenobi sighed at Obi-Wan, “Usually.”

“Now, now, I believe our new guest warrants a special welcoming feast of his favorite foods!” Mrs. Kenobi said, “Why don’t we get your things and you can just simply come straight home with us?”

“Is that allowed?” He looked around at Obi-Wan as well as Satine for approval. He was pretty hungry and was starting to feel a bit cautiously optimistic at the promise of any foods he wanted. After all, they were filthy rich and if they were willing to share that money with Anakin, well, he might as well make something good of this whole mess. He bet Obi-Wan’s head would explode if afforded the opportunity to try a hot pocket.

“As long as you’ve got approval from a professor or prefect-” Satine started, but was promptly cut off as though she never spoke.

“Which Obi-Wan most certainly is that.” Mrs. Kenobi tutted.

“As am I.” Satine reminded them, but once again, they simply did not hear her. Obi-Wan’s mother’s lips twitched a bit, but she retained her bright glow as she reached out for Anakin’s hand. He accepted it, deciding he would get used to how cold they were.

“Well, I suppose I’ll see you in September.” Obi-Wan began to say to Satine.

“Right,” Satine nodded a lot, like she was flustered and Anakin squinted as he looked between the two of them. He wondered for a second if they were going to hug or something, but their arms remained at their side. It was weird, he knew for a fact that Cody had wrapped Obi-Wan in a headlock earlier and called it a hug, but it was still a hug. Anakin hugged Rex earlier. He didn’t see what the big deal was.

She cleared her throat after a moment of words unsaid, “Be sure to write when you can.”

“Of course, especially if you get- well, you know.” Obi-Wan shrugged and Anakin didn’t know and the Kenobi’s both stuck their noses up in suspicion. Mr. Kenobi’s long nose was flared as he looked down at his son that began to follow them. Had Obi-Wan’s eyes not been glued to Satine’s he might have noticed when his father’s large hand stuck out to catch him in the chest, preventing him from going on.

“-Uh uh uh, you’re not dodging your responsibilities, young man!” Mr. Kenobi wagged a long white finger at him. “You can apparate now and will do so from the station when you are finished assisting with loading and unloading. We’ve recommended you for bag duty again.”

Obi-Wan was clearly trying to stop himself from groaning at the thought.

“Get some muscles on those bones.” He poked his son with his stick.

“And don’t let us hear you were caught frolicking or lollygagging in any way.” Mrs. Kenobi added coolly, flicking her blue-grey eyes to Satine for the first time, “You’re practically an adult now that you’re 17. It’s time you acted like it.”

“Yes ma’am.” Obi-Wan said and nodded at Anakin, “I’ll see you later.”

“See you.” Anakin said with a sympathetic shrug. He did wish he could come with them, but Anakin supposed it was important that Obi-Wan keep things in order on the train. He knew from someone who usually caused chaos that the prefects were necessary to have on hand and that Obi-Wan was one of the best.

Mrs. Kenobi patted his hand as they walked down the hill with Anakin’s trunk and bags floating aimlessly behind them, “Oh, Anakin, I believe this is going to be a splendid arrangement. Someone of your caliber deserves the finer things in life. It’s about time you got to experience them.”

“Do you have a pool?” He blurted out, knowing it could sound rude, but was pleased when they only laughed.

“Try several.” Mr. Kenobi grinned beneath his beard, but it looked foreign on his lips, even if Anakin didn’t know much about the man, “It will indeed be refreshing to have someone around who can appreciate our way of life.”

With several pools, Anakin would at least try.

Maybe it was selfish, when his mother was missing and lost somewhere. However, he still vowed to find her and to see that she was safe and to unite their family. He knew in his bones that she would want him to be happy. She would always be his real home.

No matter how far she was.

***

Sometimes, a plan needed to be executed to the number in order to come out successful. It all depended on who the puppeteer was, of course. A true strategist knew when to bend the wills and patterns of the fates to adhere to the plan, of course, because not every variable could be accounted for with a third eye. No, it required flexibility at its finest. Even towards the end, he truly believed he might have been over. His position as Headmaster had been one he was ready to give up… For now.

No, there was much more he could do as a teacher.

And now, he accomplished two birds with one stone in a beautiful array of damage that Sidious couldn’t have planned more perfectly himself. Maul did as he did best and caused a chaos that disbanded trust between the Ministry and the school board as well as its students. While they would always try to slap a bandage on a gutted wound, they would find their results required much more than that when Sidious was hiding in the corner, putting poison to the casualties.

Letting them fester and bleed until the only thing that remained was an infected and unrecognizable gash that spread through the body, consuming and ultimately defeating its host from the inside out. That was the only way to get to someone, after all, but Maul was a physical being and would never understand the true power of the dark side.

Sidious had to see to that for a reason.

And all he wanted to do was destroy Sidious and his hard work and the work that had yet to come. It was brilliant, he had to admit, to turn the dementors against them. It was something he’d taught him long ago, of course, with the help of the night witch. But it had been executed brilliantly.

Instead, he proved himself the worthy apprentice for one last time where Tyranus had not, in destroying the very person that Sidious had his eyes on all year. Many knew now that the battle between Qui-Gon Jinn and Maul was a battle for Anakin’s very soul, but few understood just how terribly it had been lost. It was tragic, really. If Obi-Wan had died, they all would know. So for once, Sidious was glad for the boy’s survival.

There was still the matter of the girl, who would likely be a problem for Tyranus down the line, but that was something his apprentice reaped that he would need to sow. They could only delay the inevitable for so long. As it were, the girl could still provide some use in accomplishing Palpatine’s next feat.

He honed his sights on Obi-Wan Kenobi, who stood not quite touching but very close next to that muggle-born Satine Kryze. Like a damn vision, the sunlight cast a specific ray just to glow around him, symbolically highlighting why Sidious needed to get rid of him. Next to the holocron, he ran his finger around the rim of a chalice, a cup if you will, divine and extravagant though muddled with dust and a disguising charm to hide its true origin of where it had been won.

As it were, there was a fairly believable way of elimination arriving in his lap. Yes, Obi-Wan Kenobi would need to be removed from the story as he was in many ways, the final obstacle in his way.

“But first…” He drifted his yellow eyes across the room until he landed on the chest near the desk. He ran ghostly white fingers over the wooden finish.

He unlocked the latch and lifted the lid, drifting his eyes all the way down the hole that it hid until landing on its sole item: Shmi Skywalker, frozen in carbonite.

“What to do with you?”

#anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #obitine #the clone wars #tcw #star wars #hpau #magical forces au

[darkpetal16]

Can we see anything about the Jujutsu story? I'm so excited to see all the chaos!!

Sure thing! I'll take some scenes from chapter one. They haven't been edited yet and I don't have a beta so please forgive the typos / lack of description.

April 13th, 2000

Éclosion was a town of over 25,000 citizens in France. It was a suburb a few hours from Paris, and was known as one of the safer towns in France.

On April 13th, in the year 2000, the entire population of Éclosion instantly died from an “unknown” cause.

To most of the world, it was a bizarre tragedy, something to be marked down as an unsolved mystery for the history books. Each citizen had simultaneously suffocated within a few minutes of being exposed to… something.

Something that could not leave behind a physical trace of its existence yet was so overwhelming it simultaneously strangled over 25,000 living beings within Éclosion.

To a very small group of people, they knew the truth.

That town did not die by ordinary means, rather, from the sheer spiritual pressure exerted by a very dangerous being.

To that small group of people, they assumed it was the work of a curse.

Curses were created when cursed energy leaked from humans as a result of their human emotion. Cursed energy would build up in areas like sediment until it is strong enough to manifest a form. They were known to be lethal when left alone.

Populated locations such as schools and hospitals are hot spots for creating curses because many negative emotions were associated with those places. The same concept applies humanity's collective fear and hatred. An image of fear shared by the masses can create a powerful curse even if the subject was not real, such as famous monsters or ghosts. The negative emotions that humanity directed at that singular fear would cause it to manifest as a curse and in time… a cursed spirit.

Cursed spirits’ bodies are entirely made up of cursed energy--or spiritual energy. Their metaphysical existence made it impossible for normal humans to perceive or touch them.

Only a small group of humans were able to interact with cursed spirits, and in turn, combat them.

They were known as Jujutsu Sorcerers.

Jujutsu Sorcerers formed a society over the past thousands of years to work in the shadows to supress curses in an effort to protect humanity. All Jujutsu Sorcerers were trained in their youth at one of the two Jujutsu educational facilities in either Tokyo or Kyoto in Japan. At those facilities, they were taught how to utilize their own cursed energy in order to exorcise cursed spirits.

After graduating, alumni Sorcerers who remain aligned with the schools typically used one of the two facilities as a home base. Those facilities served as the cornerstone for the Jujutsu Sorcerer community. They mediated issues, assigned missions, and officially established a payroll for all their employed exorcists. The higher-ups were in charge of the schools and by extension all Jujutsu sorcerers.

Sorcerers would be dispatched wherever they found a gathering of cursed spirits. They were dispatched based on how strong they are in comparison to the spirit they face. The jujutsu society would rank spirits--and Sorcerers--like so:

Grade 4 - The weakest; a tire iron is plenty to deal with it.

Grade 3 - Slightly harder than Grade 4; handgun or something of similiar power recommended.

Semi-Grade 2

Grade 2 - An average Jujutsu sorcerer would not come out unscathed.

Semi-Grade 1

Grade 1 - “Even a tank might be insufficient.”

Special Grade 1

Special Grade - “Cluster bombs might work.”

For reasons not yet known to the Jujutsu community, curses and Sorcerers were most commonly found in Japan. While some could crop up in other countries, it was exceedingly rare.

That meant only a handful of Sorcerers were dispatched on rotation to monitor countries outside of Japan.

For example, France.

There were only three Sorcerorors stationed in France and they would handle the curses and Curse Users that appeared in France.

Three Sorcerers.

Who, at best, could handle a Grade 1 spirit.

But on April 13th that year something truly horrific happened.

A curse that had simultaneously slaughtered thousands of civilians within minutes of being born. Its mere presence could be felt by the Sorcerors not only in France, but in the surrounding countries across Europe.

It was only felt for five minutes, and then it vanished.

And so while the majority of the world was in a panicked frenzy over the mysterious massacre, the Jujutsu world was in a different kind of panic.

For a spirit that went beyond their measurement system had just been born… and they had no way of dealing with it.

.

<Skipping a scene here to avoid spoilers>

.

(Lilly - April 13th, 2000)

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Lilly stared in grim resignation at the hanging corpse. The woman didn’t even reach her thirties before throwing in the towel. The body swayed side by side, still warm. Still leaking. The woman hadn’t hung herself from far up enough to snap her neck, so she strangled slowly and painfully.

Dumbass, Lilly thought, finding it hard to scrounge up sympathy for the woman.

Woman could have saved herself the painful death if she just chugged sleeping pills with wine.

But people that desperate to flee reality rarely thought that rationally.

“Geh,” Lilly gasped, clutching at her head as another burst of pain shot through her. She was blinded, her vision going completely white at the influx of memories.

She fell to her knees, struggling to breathe from the intense pain. Her body quaked and trembled, unable to cope with the weight of her soul.

Too many memories. Too many lives. Too many deaths.

If she could forget then the body would carry on without needing her entire soul to be there. She could rest a bit more. She could sleep in death’s kind arms--

But, no.

Again.

Again.

She woke up again in a body too small and immature to handle the weight of her memories.

Lilly was what many referred to as an old soul.

It was not that her soul was older than the others around her, more so that her soul tended to retain the memories and knowledge of her previous lives.

Whereas death granted most souls a clean slate before their next life, Lilly was not permitted the same courtesy.

She was, mockingly, a Blessed being.

The pain subsided, the small body quivering.

How old am I now? Lilly wondered. Which world is this? Where--?

Panting, the old soul glanced around the house. Most of it looked like an average house on Earth from the early 2000s or late 1900s. None of it was in disarray so probably not apocalyptic.

Not completely normal though, Lilly thought, feeling how sensitive her spiritual energy was in her current body.

If was born in a powerless world, she wouldn’t have woken up. The fact that she woke up meant there was something about that world that made it special.

Maybe a Hero will be born here? Will a Story happen?

Her head throbbed again, her soul and energy aching from the strain of being awoken in a premature body. Lilly stumbled around the house, every so often feeling another spike of her insides burning.

It was not too dissimilar to swallowing lava. On top of the pain, she was nauseous, unbearably hot, and had significant difficulty in trying to focus on what was in front of her. Every step was a milestone. Her soul yearned to burst out of the fragile body, to preemptively rejoin death.

Not yet. I woke up here for a reason. There’s always a reason, Lilly thought. She fumbled around the house, searching for anything that could give her a better idea of where she was.

No computer. I think I see a landline phone, though, Lilly thought.

When she went to use it, however, only silence could be heard. She frowned, then hesitantly moved to flick on the lights.

Nothing happened.

Uwa… did I accidentally fry the tech trying to contain my energy? Lilly wanted to groan.

She hated being reborn in tech-sensitive worlds. If her spiritual energy was too overwhelmign for the technology, it became such a hassle. It meant she had to consciously filter, repress, and refine her energy any time she had to use it when around technology.

Whatever.

Time to find a neighbor then, she thought.

Stepping outside the house, Lilly found a bizarre scene. There was a mailman who collapsed right at the door, and judging from how still he was, she could tell he wasn’t breathing.

Lilly stared at the dead body. She looked up and found several crashed cards and more dead bodies.

Oh.

“Oops,” she said.

.

<Skipping several scenes & time skip>

.

March 8, 2001

Lilly was minding her own business the following day. Yuuta was swaddled and placed in a baby wrap carrier that Lilly tied around herself. She kept his head well supported, it rested in the crook of her neck.

It had been a while since she had repeatedly cast so many illusionary and compulsion spells. She knew it couldn’t be helped--she was in the body of a seven-year old, of course the adults wouldn’t take her too seriously.

She had finished authenticating his birth certificate, adoption papers, and was on her way to handle funeral arrangements for his mother. Lilly had already made a few tentative and brief ventures into the world to steal (shamelessly) steal money so she had cash on hand in case the woman hadn’t made prior plans for herself--which guessing by how optimistic she was, Lilly assumed the answer was no.

Yuuta was an easy crier, which made what would have been a thirty-minute errand into a two-hour errand since a lot of that time was spent soothing the infant.

Lilly could feel he had more spiritual energy inside him than some of the adults she had previously encountered, but it was still growing.

If her hunch was correct and he was a protagonist--or antagonist--then she figured his energy would only continue to grow.

Maybe I should start feeding him some of mine? Lilly pondered. If she doubled or tripled the raw power of someone important, what would Fate do? Would it increase the power levels of everyone else to match, or would it give away under her pressure?

She didn’t know the story--if there was one in that world--so she had no way of knowing what to anticipate. She could only catch the common signs and draw her own predictions from her past experiences.

Let’s find out, Lilly thought.

<Scenebreak>

Daiki Choki was had recently completed his mission to vanquish an A-Grade Curse at a nearby graveyard. It had gone much smoother than he anticipated, and the Jujutsu Sorcerer was looking forward to his pay.

As he was leaving the graveyard, however, he felt something… odd.

It was indescribable. A sensation he had never encountered.

Similar… very similar… to encountering a powerful Curse, but…

It was a Curse, yet it was not.

It clearly had a presence. He felt an uncomfortable heat wash over him, as if the thing was projecting an aura of fire, but it was not malicious. Curses were filled with malevolent bloodlust, but what he felt lacked that intensity.

It was still dangerous, that heat.

Perhaps not directly evil, but…

If he had to put it into words, it was as if he had stumbled across a forest fire. The fire held no ill-will, but it was still a dangerous force that if left unchecked would devour the entire forest.

Daiki did not feel that it was especially powerful, however, so he made his way over to it.

To his surprise, it took the form of a small girl holding something in a budle of cloth. She was entering the funeral parlor.

Daiki frowned. Curses had never looked human before.

Suppose there’s always a chance it’s possessing her corpse, Daiki thought. He may not have encountered that specific scenario before, but he didn’t see a reason why it couldn’t happen.

Curses weren’t human, but they were tricky by nature.

Daiki lingered outside the mortician’s office, wondering if he would need to follow after the curse. He hated fighting near civilians, but--

The Curse left, as if sensing something was wrong.

But that’s silly, thought Daiki.

It headed straight past the building, making its way to the graves behind. Daiki followed behind it, slowly pulling his gun.

The Curse stopped, turning around to face Daiki. Its eyes were a vibrant red.

“Why are you focusing on me?” it asked.

Oddly articulate for a curse, the Sorcerer thought, raising his gun and taking aim. He smirked. “Don’t worry about it, Curse.”

“Curse? What--?”

He fired, and then his whole world tilted upside down. He hadn’t even felt it happening, let alone seen it, but somehow his head had been chopped off his body the moment he pulled the trigger. The Curse, who had been several steps ahead of him, was suddenly crushing his gun in her bare hand, scowling at him.

“If I had let that gone off, you woulda woken him,” she scolded the decapitated head. “Rude.”

#jujutsu

[naivesilver]

top 5 adaptations of the Fairy from Pinocchio? (or maybe top 5 best AND 5 worst?)

I spent so long staring at this and wondering if I even KNEW five good Fairies, but it turns out I do, albeit mostly for asinine reasons. Anyway AHFAKKJKFHAHJKJA thank you <3

Ask me my top 5 anything

Obviously under the cut because I couldn't resist and did BOTH

The salt AKA the worst of the worst first:

1) Piccolino No Bouken

Surprised? I suppose most would have expected me to put the Disney Fairy first, and I did, too, for a while, but as I was sitting in my car pondering this ranking I realized I was SEETHING with rage about this one, so I had to rearrange things a bit. This, guys, is where my Fairy hate begins - not the book, not the Mouse's interference. This woman.

I hate her. I hate her SO MUCH, for all that I love this adaptation more than most things in the world, and that the choices made about her characterization were a huge inspiration for me. Not only does she not send Pinocchio to school, instead teaching him on her own, she is the only one to actively keep Pinocchio from his father - indeed, she makes the choice for them, saying to Geppetto's face that it would be best for the boy to be taught something before he goes back home. Who the hell are you to make this call, uh? You have known him for a day at most! You left him hanging from a fucking tree all night! I wouldn't trust you with a bloody lapdog, nevermind a child!

Also she lets Pinocchio believe she's dead UNTIL THE VERY END. She turns into a bird while he cries at her tomb. Are we fucking serious now? Leave him alone.

(Yes, this is elementary school me howling for revenge. I've been mad about this longer than reason would let me. Sue me.)

2) Disney's Pinocchio

Bane of my existence. I don't know if anyone remembers that pic of me at the Pinocchio theme park I posted a while ago, but basically in that moment they were putting up a little show to tell children a little bit of the OG story, and they asked the audience if they knew what color the Fairy's hair was - a few said blonde, and I, being on stage next to her, distinctly heard her mutter "dammit, Disney". I've been living with that mantra since then.

Nobody asked you to make that puppet sentient, ma'am. He doesn't owe you shit. Aside from that, just like Jiminy Cricket, she ruined her character in a good two thirds of future adaptation. And while we're speaking of Jiminy, WHY did she think it would be a good idea to entrust a little boy to a slime ball such as him? He's too horny to have an ounce of sense. Conscience, my ass.

Basically...begone, asshole.

3) Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night

This film is so horrible, the Fairy had no chance to be decent at all. A cheap copy of the Disney one, with the addendum that she turns MULTIPLE toys into living beings while holding them responsible for whatever they do after. Basically Victor Frankenstein, but make it a poorly dressed woman from a direct-to-TV movie that shouldn't have existed at all.

-100/10, at least you're pretty, but by God, SHUT UP.

4) Once Upon a Time

Honest to God if she doesn't keep her filthy hands off my faves she's gonna get a slap across the face so strong her Wish Realm self ought to feel it sting. I am not exaggerating.

Seven seasons in, she hasn't done ANYTHING useful that I can remember. She's not even good at her own fucking job! Not only that, she's traumatized and guilt-tripped a good chunk of the population of Storybrooke, including first and foremost my beloved son August. The Pavlovian reaction I had every time she appeared on screen can't be described in coherent words, only in eagle screeches.

She's wrong. On principle, she's wrong. Let's move on.

5) Luigi Comencini's Le Avventure di Pinocchio

Doesn't rank higher only because she's played by Gina Lollobrigida (my beloved). She's book accurate, which means she'd be annoying as fuck as it is, but what little they added only makes her worse.

She has the gall to tell Pinocchio she'd like to see him happier. Like, apart from the fact that the ghost of his father's deceased wife isn't exactly the most reassuring person to hear it from...Said father has been swallowed by a giant fish. You told that boy he's only going to see his father if he studies hard. You keep turning him into a puppet anytime he misbehaves. What did you expect, that he would do the Macarena every time he entered your house? I am honestly too shocked to say any more. What the fuck.

.

.

.

Okay, I've been enraged enough for a single night. Let's move onto brighter shores!

1) Enzo D'Alò's Pinocchio

Enzo D'Alò knows what the fuck is UP!!! The only one with the courage to let the Fairy be a weird little girl - not only for a short time, but up until the end of the movie! That takes guts! Balls of steel!

I've said before that this movie has nothing memorable to it, and it's true, but also...Pinocchio wanted a sister so bad, and the movie gave him one. And they even explained the plot hole of the medallion with Pinocchio's face in it! That's twice as good as the fact that they cut out the most awful parts of her story, which is already delightful.

Thank you, Mr D'Alò. You have my trust until the end of days.

2) The Adventures of Buratino

Speaking of weird girls, this one is officially balls to the walls enough to gain my respect. She's bothersome to Pinocchio, but she's bothersome to everyone and everything, so I'll let it pass. Her role is exclusively to appear out of nowhere and do batshit insane stuff for no good reason at all. A star.

Plus, other than having an handwashing obsession that I've felt very keenly in the past year and a half, she also has a boyfriend - her and Pierrot are the original girlboss and malewife, I'm not accepting any criticism on the matter.

(Fun fact: when I was a young kid I once dreamt that the Piccolino No Bouken Fairy was dating a big, buff and blonde farmhand. He wooed her by gifting Pinocchio a dog. Apparently I've always been very interested in Fairies getting a love life and staying the fuck away from my specialest little boy.)

3) Pinocchio miniseries

"Serena, but you said you were disappointed in this adaptation so many times!" True. But consider: I am also very, very queer, and Violante Placido being motherly and wearing wispy dresses stirred SOMETHING in 11yo me that I can't very well ignore.

In hindsight, she and the Cricket probably had something going on behind the scenes, which is a shame. Miss Fairy, I swear, you could do better than Luciana Littizzetto in an ill-fitting green suit. She's gonna break your heart and lose your puppet charge in a crowd of little idiots. Do me instead.

4) Pinocchio Vampire Slayer

This woman kills monsters - and she's damn good at it! Honestly, so badass, and such a good mother figure too, even in trying times. I don't want to spoil the comic much to those who haven't read it, but she and Cherry are the highlight of the first volume and I am very fond of them. A+.

5) Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio

This one's book accurate, too, but Garrone did something with her that almost burst in tears in a crowded theater. She's awful, and irritating, but she's...she's so human, too. I can't rage against a Fairy that's so impossibly human even during the smallest of scenes. It breaks me over and over again.

Look at her SMILING, for pity's sake, am I supposed to think there's some warmth in the dead lady? Fuck you, Matteo, what did you do to me? I am an honored Fairy hater. You're going to ruin my reputation if you keep this up.

#ask meme #bewilderemoth #pinocchio #the tag needed some more bullshit from yours truly didn't it

[evening-starlight]

Chances {Chapter Eleven}

I lied, this is the longest chapter. They just keep getting longer ya’ll

Master List

Comfortable, Not Easy

Word Count: 2010

    I spent the next two weeks avoiding everyone and everything thing, especially after I slipped and invited Jared over. Not my proudest moment. Robbie dropped by a couple of times to coax me out of bed, but it didn't work. I felt dirty, used, and stupid. I called Jared after he assaulted me in front of my house like a whore and let him stay over for nine days.

    It wasn't necessarily comfortable being with Jared for nine days, but it was familiar. I knew what to expect from waking up to going to bed. Tom was texting to check in as well, and I ignored every sweet text he sent me. I couldn't face the fact that he was there, waiting for me to recoup while I was living with my ex again.

    Robbie finally kicked Jared out on day ten for me. I told him about the kisses and how horrible I felt letting Jared stay on day nine. Jared was gone before I woke up, and Robbie was trying to pull me out of bed. Literally.

    Robbie pulls on my ankle repeatedly, trying to loosen my hold on the headboard. "Come," pull. "On." He pulls again. "You can't stay locked in your room because you've made a mistake, Stella." He scolds, sitting next to my feet. I grunt in response. "I swear to all things LA, I will make Stevie do a house call." I moan louder, pulling a pillow over my head. The space next to me dips down, and Robbie throws an arm over me.

    Whenever I'm in a lousy mood, Robbie's first response is forceful eviction of my room followed by snuggles. If either won't work, he calls Stevie. In our ten years of friendship, he's gotten to know me inside and out. He's my closest friend and my most relied-on confidant. He knows more about me than anyone else in the world. He knows the darkest places in my head and knows how to help me navigate them better than myself. He was the only one who was there during my entire marriage and divorce. Hell, he was my bro of honor.

    I turn to lay on his chest, curling in to feel his warmth and wrapping my arms around him so tight I thought he'd turn purple. I never, ever, want to lose him. "I hate seeing you like this, Stell." He mumbles. "You're so hard on yourself. I know it's easy with Jared; you guys have a routine. He's easy, and Tom is hard. I understand why you did what you did." The sobs rip out of me in violent bursts. I hate how well he knows me some days, especially when he says things I know I need to hear.

    He remains quiet as I sob, rubbing my head and holding me tight. He's the rock in my twisted life, and I'd be lost without him. Robbie makes me feel seen, heard, and appreciated even after my undesirable days.

    When the sobs turn into small whimpers, Robbie continues, "I think you need to talk to Tom; he's genuinely worried for you. He's dropped by the studio to ask about you. God, you should have seen him, Stella. He's a fucking god. Don't even get me started on those eyes dude, they're so blue." I can't help but laugh at Robbie's fanboying. "They hold so many emotions I didn't know they could do that. He looked so worried and concerned. He really cares about you."

    "I know he does." I manage. "I just don't want to bring him into this fucked up life I've created for myself. He deserves so much better." Robbie sits up quickly, grabbing my face to look at him. His eyebrows are pulled together, and his face is set in a stern look. His father look.

    "You deserve better, Stella Thompson. You deserve a man like Tom. You deserve Jesus himself for all I care. You need someone who will treat you ten times better than Jared ever could. Someone who loves and cherishes you as you are, broken, sharp pieces and all." Robbie runs a thumb over the new tears leaking. "You are the most beautiful person I have ever met, Stella. You care so deeply about people that you let them continue to be in your life even after they've fucked you over a dozen times. Stella, you deserve to start over with someone like Tom."

    I swear to God, the universe was listening to us because, as if divine intervention stepped in, my phone begins to buzz on the nightstand. Robbie reaches to hang up before going over the name again. "Here. Talk to him. I'll make you some food." With that, Robbie leaves the room and closes the door behind him.

    With a grounding breath, I answer the phone with a meek hello. "Oh, thank heavens you're okay." Tom breaths out a sigh of relief on the other side of the phone. "I was beginning to worry. More. Worry more than I already was."

    "I'm sorry I scared you," I mumble. "And I'm sorry I've been MIA for so long. It's been a really rough two weeks after everything happened, and I tend to shut down when things get hard." I admit, brushing my mangled hair out of my face.

    "I understand, Love. We all have bad habits. I was worried I had pushed too hard, and you were ghosting me. I was actually going to call and tell you I would give you some space if you hadn't picked up. I can still give you space if that's what you'd like?"

    "No," I answer quickly. "No, please. I really like having you in my life, and I love the way you make me feel. But I have to tell you that Jared spent the week with me. It doesn't mean anything. He's just..." I pause, trying to find the right words to make my asshole move sound less assholey.

    "Easy. You're used to him. I understand that, Love." I take in a shaky breath. "I appreciate you telling me. Is there anything I can do to help with your rut?"

    "Can you come over sometime today? I could kinda use a hug from you." Fucking crying making my defenses turn to mush. It always makes me a ball of emotions and fussy needs.

    "I'd be delighted to. Would you like me to bring some lunch?"

    "No, Robbie is here making me some. You called at the perfect time, actually. We were talking about you. Everything good, though. Nothing bad." I reiterate quickly. Tom chuckles on the other end.

    "Well, I was just thinking about you and hoping you were at least alive."

    "The heart's still ticking, so the body is alive," I joke. "Brain could use a jumpstart, though."

    "I'll be over in about ten if that's alright with you?" I confirm with him and hang up. Pulling myself out of bed for the first time in fourteen days, I make my way to the kitchen.

    Robbie stands over the stove, cursing and shaking his left hand. "Burned yourself again?" I ask. If you'd lose a year off your life every time you got burnt, Robbie would have died at age five.

    "Fuck off." He mumbles, going back to the grilled cheese he's making. "How'd the call go? It seemed pretty short." I nod as I sit on a barstool.

    "Fine, he's coming over in a few minutes." It hits me. Tom Hiddleston is coming over to my depression pit of a house after I've had two weeks of nonstop crying and zero hygiene. "Fuck, I need to shower." I curse, rushing to the bathroom. A quick shower will help everything. Hopefully.

    Robbie pokes his head into the bathroom as I wrap my towel around me. "Tom's here. I'm going to keep him company while you  get changed." He states before winking and shutting the door again. I don't feel like I have the energy to put on any form of makeup to cover up how deathly ill I look, nor the power to care what I look like besides the clean part. The shower did seem to wash away the residual guilt and shame I felt about everything. Though it didn't clean off everything.

    After changing into some comfortable clothes, I make my way into the living room, where Robbie is watching Tom talk with nothing less than homosexual love in his face. "Robbie, out," I demand, catching both boys' attention. He leaves after a quick goodbye and non-discrete wink.

    Tom walks over to meet me behind the couch, wrapping his arms around my shoulders in a tight hug. "I'm so glad you're doing better," He mumbles into my hair. "I've been worried." We stand like that for a few minutes before my stomach growls loud enough for him to hear. "Here, Robbie left your food on the table." Tom leads me to the couch and sits next to me, our legs touching.

    "Thank you for being so understanding, Tom. I know I'm pretty fucked, and I really appreciate you being understanding of it all." He smiles as I take a bite of the grilled cheese. Robbie should be made grilled cheese God the way it melts in my mouth.

    "Of course, Love. We are all pretty fucked when we think about it. I haven't felt this way in quite some time. I know I can be a bit pushy, but I really enjoy your company," Tom says, sending those all-too-familiar shivers down my spine. "We can take things as slowly as you'd like. We can stay friends if that's what you need to heal as well." I shake my head while finishing a bite.

    "I don't want just friends, Tom. You make me feel like a better version of me. Less dark and gloomy." The anxiety of actually communicating and talking about feelings causes my knee to bounce. Jared never let me talk so candidly, and I'm afraid I might overstep. "Can I be honest?" Tom nods quickly. "I have absolutely no idea how to communicate in a not toxic way.

    "My whole life, it's been demonstrated that yelling and cursing is the only way to get across what I'm feeling. What I do know is that I like who I am when I'm around you, and I don't want that feeling to ever stop." Tom presses a kiss on my forehead.

    "Then let us work it out together. I like who I am when I'm with you as well." The absolute zoo that took residence in my stomach could wipe out the entire human population. Tom motherfucking Hiddleston likes being with me. "Bloody hell, I fancy you, Stella."

    Tom chuckles as I start to choke on my own breath. He reaches for the Caprisun set out and hands it to me. Tom likes me. He like likes me. Tom Hiddleston. Who would have guessed my damaged ass would land someone like him.

    For years after my breakup with Jared, I thought all I deserved was heartbreak and pieces of shit men. Maybe I could really turn my life around here. Turn it into something wonderful and perfect. Something made just for me.

    "I, uh, I fancy you too, Tom," I admit after controlling my breathing. His smile in this exact moment will stay with me forever. No ill-meaning behind it, wide and bright, and absolutely dazzling. Tom was as close to perfect as one man could get.

    The kiss. The kiss that followed behind our confessions was just as magical, if not more magical, than the first. Only this time, there was no Jared to ruin it. It was just Tom, me, and the ugly off-white sofa I stole from Jared when I moved out.

    How do you even end a chapter after that? Like, I impressed myself with that shit. We still own that couch too. It's where our little love story started, truly. I mean, no, we didn't go exclusive at that moment, but it's where it began.

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddelston imagine #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston fanfiction #i got 99 problems and tom hiddleston could fix everyone of them #jared leto #Jared Leto imagine #jared leto fanfic #jared leto fanfiction #love #romance #fanfiction #fanfic #Original content #original character #oc #og #Chances #fiction

[standbi-ghost]

Burning Bridges

Part 4 of the Dying for Dummies series: 1  2  3

Words: 1,564

TW:  detailed gore, implied underaged drinking (though could be replaced with gasoline since it’s not explicitly stated), technically suicide and major character death (is it major character death if he’s already dead-ish and continues to die-ish?)

AO3 as always

A seemingly invisible branch smacked him, like a slap to the face. He bit back a curse as he tenderly rubbed the injured spot. He shot a glare at the offending branch before walking off, shattered ego in hand.

It had been a long day for Dash.

To start off, it was a Tuesday; the worst day, in his humble opinion, of the week. A mockery of the seven-day week system. Mondays always went by quicker than anticipated, maybe because your mind was still laid out on Sunday’s bed and hadn’t fully woken up. Or maybe just because of the bad stigma surrounding the day. Up for debate. Wednesday offered the relief of being smack in the middle, a sign that you were halfway through the week. Plus, how could anyone hate the iconic “pink / hump day”? Thursday’s a reminder of what’s to come. Friday is just around the corner and Thursday was it’s biggest cheerleader, and who could deny a sexy cheerleader? Did he even have to explain the weekend crew? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were the A-listers of the week, but with less criticism and more fun. But Tuesday? Tuesday laughed in the face of students. You’re awake, aware of what’s to come. Tuesday roundhouse kicked you in the gut and called you all kinds of slurs.

Tuesday also marked the date of his Physics exams so he may be a little biased. He could never wrap his head around the subject. Give him a poem to analyze, a historical event to write a report on, hell, even a sonnet to play, but ask him Newton’s laws and he’ll respond with a blank face. It wasn’t like he didn’t study either. He had weekly study sessions at Fentons’ house, and while Danny had been a huge help, that didn’t stop him from failing this exam.

Speaking of Danny.

Their relationship was slowly, but surely, getting better throughout the years. After being dragged to therapy by his family, he’d gathered up the balls to not only stop the tormenting of his fellow peers but formed a well-versed apology- his magnum opus, to Danny. The kid just waved his apology off, as if it were the least of his worries, water under the bridge, but that only served to fuel his need to get closer to him- no one waved off years of bullying that easily.

To say Dash worried for Danny was an understatement. While the bullying ceased at the end of Freshman year, the daily bruises Danny wore didn’t. There was a higher probability of winning the lottery than to catch the kid without some kind of injury.

And he was skinny. Deathly so. Malnourished more likely than not.

It could be neglect. Hopefully not abuse. Dash knew the Fentons were over-indulged in their work, gluttonous even. He really hoped that, amidst all of their work, they set aside time from their children. Ghosts were important, sure, but why have kids if you don’t look after them. And by the looks of Danny-

But Jazz was a different story. She seemed to be the mirror image of her brother, both siblings passionate and wise beyond their age, but that’s where the similarities seemed to end. Jazz was the perfect everything. Perfect student, perfect daughter, she was beautiful and graceful and seemed to light up the world around her. Where Danny was cold and distant, Jazz radiated warmth and greeted everyone with open arms. Where Danny was pale, gaunt, and sharp in his features, Jazz was vibrant, bright, and soft. Jazz was a compassionate canine; Danny a cornered cat.

That alone raised so many more questions. Did the Fentons favor Jazz? Did they feel that Danny hadn’t lived up to the legacy Jazz left behind? Did they hate Danny? It sure seemed like they did. What could Danny- sweet, dopey but kindhearted Danny- have done to garner such fierce hatred towards him? From his parents no less.

He pushed the thoughts away as he trudged past the park’s populated hiking trail into a more obscure one.

One of the activities he picked up from his therapy days was hiking (although hiking was a generous term to describe the early morning and nighttime walks he went on). It allowed him time away from all the drama at school, all his responsibilities. Out here, it was just him and the trees.

He knew these trees better than he knew the bottom of his bed. This coming from the kid who used to be afraid of the monsters in his closet and slept under his bed countless times. Take that as a metaphor if you’d like.

The trees were his family, the trees were his home, the trees listened to his rants and tears and joys all the same. This time venting his frustration over the taunting 50 he’d earned. And they were usually alone, just him and the trees, but Tuesday seemingly had it out for him. Among the trees was the boy inhabiting his thoughts- Danny.

He was dressed in his usual dark jeans and oversized NASA tee, a flannel draped loosely over his arms, threatening to fall at any sudden movement. Combat boots dug into the dirt beneath him with his weight pressed against a Rum Cherry tree, he was the blueprint for nerdy punks across Amity Park. Stealing glances at a notebook held tightly in one hand, he was taking swigs of water out of a pastel pink hydroflask. He looked- peaceful.

Feeling like a creep, Dash continued to watch as he let his notebook fall from his hands as he drunkenly fished in one of his flannel pockets. Horror washed over Dash’s senses as he watched Danny pull out a matchbook and strike one. Mischief lit up his eyes. Before he could take even a single breath, he watched Danny fill his mouth with what he was now convinced was definitely not water, before taking the flame to his lips.

In an instant, flames licked up his face and Dash ran on autopilot. He dug his own water bottle out of his backpack and spent no time rushing up to his burning friend, dousing him in liquid life. Conspicuousness be damned.

“Fuck”

Concern flooded Dash as he took in Danny’s appearance. His face was glazed, like the grease off a re-heated pizza slice. The pepperoni blisters only further drove their likeness. Singed hair wilted only to be pushed back up by a somehow conscious Danny, only to reveal a melting eyeball. Like a goblet of wine, it dripped lazily, hypnotizing Dash for only a moment before feeling a tug deep in his stomach. He was caught in a battle between wanting- no needing to throw up and rushing to help his friend.

He didn’t win.

“Shit, Dash, how long have you been here?” Danny gurgled out, words swishing in his mouth, meaning only salvaged by the sheer luck of Dash’s presence. If he hadn’t been there-

“Dash?!”

Maybe it was because it was his name and it was familiar, but he could’ve sworn his name spilled out in a much clearer light. He didn’t want to look up. He didn’t want to take the chance of throwing up again. Vile still stained his tongue as he asked,

“Are you okay?”

The question was stupid, obviously he wasn’t okay, but it still hung in the air for a few excruciating seconds. Dash squeezed his eyes shut and turned to Danny’s general area and opened his mouth to say something, anything to cut through the ugly tension between them. Danny cut first.

He had the nerve to ask, “Are you okay?” and Dash blanched. He didn’t know what to think of Danny. Was he selfless for asking, or just plain brain dead?

“Am I okay?” he drawled out.

“I mean you kind of just ruined my shoes with your puke, like, how am I s’pose to wash this out?” he said. This time he didn’t imagine it. His words were much easier to decipher. Not oozing with moist vowels and quivering consonants, but clear and coherent thoughts. And, was he teasing him about the throw-up? The same throw-up caused by his near-death experience?

“You set yourself on fire!? In the middle of the park no less! You could’ve died! You could’ve-“ mid-way through his little speech he dared to look up only for the words to die on his lips. Danny looked fine, generally at least. His face was now adorned with light scar tissue where previously dark burns marred his fair skin.

“Uh, that was kind of the point?”

At that, the tug at his stomach returned. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes at the very thought of witnessing Danny’s suicide attempt. It was much worse than he thought.

“Danny-“

“Wait no, that came out wrong.” Danny sighed and ran a shaky hand through his now unkempt, but otherwise fine, hair. “look Dash, you might wanna sit down for this one.” He gestured to the tree he had, just minutes ago, been resting on. He shakily took a seat on one of the tree’s massive jutting roots. Danny followed. In minutes, his view of the world shattered. Everything he thought he knew about ghosts was thrown out the window and he found himself back in school Freshman year, back at seeing a ghost for the first time.

He hated Tuesdays.

#Danny Phantom #Danny phantom au #danny phantom fic #Dying for Dummies #Danny Fenton #Dash Baxter #Dash is trying to be better #Dash and Danny are friends and probably seniors now #Im so proud of this ngl