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snzinite · 3 months

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Nothing to See Here

2k words. yes that is the fic name. i finally finished something that wasn't a headcanon! yippee!! this is for @messysneezer who requested a fic involving Mudrock. sorry this took so long, i was busy for all of January so I didn't have much time to write write. this ended up being a little longer than i pictured. i hope you enjoy it!

female sneezes (mudrock) / allergies (pollen but mostly dust), some talk about mess and spray but not really much of either

Mudrock had never been inside of a Leithanien library before. Even in a town as small as this, it was something of a wonder. The ladders moved themselves to and fro, guided by the unseen hand of the musical arts of the gramophone units. Their music was soft and ambient, and their effects were more seen than heard. Books levitated themselves off the shelves for the clientele, going so far as to flip through themselves if one decided they were only looking to have a peek instead of a read. Warm lighting splashed visibility around classy decor of ornate stone and lacquered wood. She would have liked to spend a few days in this building alone… were it not for a few problems.

“Heh-xxng-choo!”

She scrunched her shoulders together as she pressed her finger into her lip through the sneeze. She had been waiting for that one to work its way out of her ever since she had to slip out of her suit.

A particularly nasty Leithanien caster unit had managed to tail what remained of her squad as they made a desperate play to soldier on to Kazdel. Her men lacked the strength or the willpower to square off against them now, so their only hope had been to ditch their equipment in a safe location and scatter about this border town in disguises. She rolled her shoulders, feeling the silky smooth straps of her casual dress glide across them. The feeling almost didn’t register against the soreness from months of having her armor and mud plates weigh down on them. She wore clothing, yet she felt almost naked.

“Het-xngt-choo!”

Speaking of feeling naked, the brief moment of being exposed to the grass pollen-laden air of springtime Leithanien had been enough to cause her allergies to flare up. Not exactly pleasant in its own right, but it could prove deadly if it caused her to be found. She rubbed the underside of her nose back and forth, subtly massaging her septum and the outside of her nostrils to ease them of the stinging itch that throbbed. It helped until it didn’t, and the sensation of a fingernail scratching and itch sent a tingle up to her sinus, until–

“HeeETCH-XNGT—oo!”

She exhaled after that one, nearly losing control but managing to stifle at the last second. The volume definitely increased a few notches, and she had officially drawn the notice of the denizens of the library. An older Caprinae man shushed her with a disapproving glare before adjusting his reading spectacles and going back to his tome.

(“Excuse me,”) she whispered as an apology before rubbing her nose again. It felt warm to the touch, with moisture beginning to collect at the insides of her nostrils. She attempted to sniffle it back. In that moment, she discovered two new unfortunate things about the situation.

One: this library was very dusty. The inhale caused her to just about feel every particle of dust that was invited into her already irritated, sensitive nasal passages. It made the itching migrate to the top of her throat for the time being, but she knew that it wouldn’t stay there for long. Apparently, the grand mastery of Leithanien arts units did not extend to cleaning functions. Now that she could feel it, she saw it on every surface, book, and floor she could lay eyes on.

Two, and much more immediately deadly: a Spire Caster, one of the most elite arts users in the Leithanien military, had made their way into the library while she had occupied herself with worrying about her allergies.

She took an involuntary breath of alarm and ducked behind a shelf. Her heart began to hammer in her chest. How many of her people had also chosen this library to hide out in? She hadn’t seen any come in, but the place was fairly large; it didn’t mean there weren’t any here. She willed herself to calm down. There was a reason she chose this place–detection arts were thwarted by thick sheafs of matter, and what better place to find such obstacles than a library?

The shot of adrenaline dulled the itching for a moment, but as she calmed it returned with a vengeance. She tried to swallow to tame it, but a pang of scratchiness lanced through her mouth into her nose. She took a hitching breath, then two–

“Haehh–choo! Hah-kxnt-choo!”

And stifled with all of her willpower against the side of her wrist. As soon as she was satisfied that she wasn’t going to sneeze again, she risked opening her eyes and shooting glances around her. The Elafia woman who shared the aisle with her gave her a strange, pointed look, but everything more or less remained the same otherwise.

She shook her head a bit and sniffled again. Blinking made her realize that tears had begun to pool at the corners of her eyes. She wiped at them with a delicate touch so not as to irritate her eyes.

Stifling meant she was now congested as all hell, not relieved of any of the itching, and generally miserable… but at least that meant her nose was clogged up to any other irritants looking to extend the misery further. She could still breathe in some troublemaking dust if she wasn’t careful, but low, shallow breaths would hopefully prevent that. She tested it out. The breath only fanned the embers of a sneeze rather than set it ablaze, so she managed to relax a little on that front.

The next step was to get clear of that Spire Caster by any means necessary. Not sneezing was half the battle–not casting out a metaphorical flare to her location was only one aspect, but merely being seen would be enough. She began to walk through the aisleways between shelves. She kept her pace measured as leisurely or academic; frantic footfalls of a run would more or less shout out that she was exactly who they were looking for.

She neared the center of the floor now. The dust on the shelves was thicker here. It made the roof of her mouth itch just looking at it. Her lips had parted so she could breathe entirely through her mouth. Any movement of air through her nose was bound to be futile and noisy at her luckiest. She needed to leave this place and regroup with her squad, but she couldn’t risk making a move so soon after she’d spotted the enemy.

Think, she forced herself. Stop thinking about how much you need to sneeze. You’re supposed to be a scholar, remember? What kind of scholar enters a library and doesn’t look at any books?

She reached for one at random, and her heart skipped a beat as it levitated itself into her hands. She had seen it earlier, but it turned out to be quite another thing to experience it personally. She did her best to ignore the puff of dust produced by it opening its cover for her and flipping through its pages. It would have been useless to her even if she wasn’t struggling to see through watering eyes, though. She had picked up enough Leithanien to hold a conversation, but she still couldn’t read more than directory signs.

She shut the book and tucked it under her arm. She paced around the corner, hopeful to find a reading table or chair in the corner of a room to keep watch over the area from when she froze.

Standing in the middle of the small space between shelf-aisles was the Spire Caster. They didn’t look like they were looking her way, but the unseeing face of their white masks always gave precious little away.

The jolt of fear caused Mudrock to suck in a lungful of air as she pivoted her heel back to press her back against the shelf she had just walked from. She stopped herself, but it was too late; the breath had already disturbed the contents of her sinuses. The resulting noise was no more than a deep snuffle, but that was the least of her worries. The tickle that danced in her nose spiked its heels into her, and she hitched once, twice, and–

“Hah-choo.” That was fine, but she wouldn’t get away with just that. “Hah-choo!” A little louder, but both had been contained fairly well. But the tickle only magnified, and she could only draw in a huge breath. Her mouth hung open. The world seemed to stop. She felt a tear roll down the outside of her eye off of her face.

Cover yourself! The thoughts came crashing in. Hold your nose shut! But they had come too late.

“HUUUESSSHHoo!” She sneezed down toward the floor, fully uncovered. Mercifully, the lighting wasn’t right for her or anyone else to see the resulting spray. Unmercifully, she wasn’t done–

“HAAUUUUESSSSSSHH-OO!” She brought a hand up in a reflex after the next one, but it wouldn’t have done her much good anyway. She had nothing to sneeze into but her bare hand and arm, and neither would have muted the sound. Thankfully, letting these out had reduced the itching dramatically, and she managed to end off the fit with a “HA—-choo!”

Her sinuses had cleared themselves of their congestion somewhat, too. She was much less uncomfortable now. Unfortunately, she was also probably much more heard by the Spire Caster. She whipped around to look for them. She did not have to look long.

The Spire Caster rounded the same corner she had just moments ago. The robed figure stood somewhat shorter than Mudrock, but their presence made her feel small. The black eye sockets of their mask bore down on her like hateful coals. She remained rock still, hand frozen over her face as though it would prevent them from sucking her soul out. Which, for all she knew, was just the sort of terrible spell that Spire Casters were capable of.

They held her gaze for a moment, then gave a chuckle as they dug around in their pocket.

“Let me guess. Foreigner? Grass season?” Their voice was soft, muted further behind the mask.

Oh. Right. They have no idea what me or my squad look like without our gear. This line of thinking was interrupted by a wordless panic followed by a single, stifled sneeze.

“HET–ngt-choo.” It took Mudrock a moment to find her voice again. When she did, her first syllable was choked with phlegm. “How did you know?”

“Well, the horns are more or less a dead giveaway,” they said. “And this time of year is always the worst for grass pollen. My sister has it worse than you do, and we’re from the C Minor Spire.”

She didn’t know what the C Minor Spire was, but she did recognize the bundle of gilded cloth she was handed from the Spire Caster’s pocket: a handkerchief.

“Oh,” she said, before forcing her brain to engage in nicety mode. “Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly.”

“It’s just a simple cloth. Please, keep it. If you’re planning on staying in this nest of dust, it sounds like you’ll need it.”

She hung in a pause before taking the handkerchief from them. She hadn’t made a mess of her face by sneezing, but removing her hand and showing her face felt like a barrier being breached by the enemy. She brought it back up by burying her nose in the cloth and blowing to get what remained in her nasal passages out of her. It felt nice on her irritated face; warmed by the Spire Caster’s body heat so it wasn’t uncomfortably cold, but not so warm that it aggravated any sensitive skin. “Thank you,” she managed.

“It’s nothing,” the Spire Caster said. “I hope you manage to feel some relief.” They turned away to leave, but they only made it one step before stopping. “Oh, right. Pardon me for asking, but you wouldn’t happen to know of any Sarkaz mercenaries by the name of Mudrock, would you?”

Nothing else could catch her off guard today. “Mud… Rock? Sounds like a silly mercenary name, no?”

The Spire Caster snorted. “Silly or not, he’s responsible for a lot of dead people. Be careful if you run into him or his men.”

“Will do,” she said, savoring the irony over a sniffle. “Thank you.”

#snz #snzblr #sneeze kink #snz kink #snzknights #snzfic #snz fic #took some liberties but i had a lot of fun with this #yes its a library fic AND a hiding fic sue me #i thought it was a cool idea #my mudrock research did me well i think

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luna-lovegreat · 1 month

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I want. Four to get appreciation. Because

Four gave a ton of unnoticed help when Twilight was injured

The fight with Wild was difficult, and I know we're all concerned about his negative view of the shadow crystal

But Four did something that no one else really thought of to help- He took care of Twi's stuff

From the beginning he told Twilight to not worry about them

So Four took care of pretty much everything but the others (that Sky and Wars handled)

He took care of Epona

Which is so very important- he took care of Twilight's horse. After her arrival at the stable Four followed up on her

And for Epona, a horse so attached to her human, having some company can help so much for reassurance

He took care of Twilight's stuff

He got Twi's shield- his bags and equipment, and organized it into one place

And he was worried. He obviously found the shadow crystal while handling Twi's stuff, but his negative reactions to it were out of concern.

Also- because of his placement in this scene

I'm fairly convinced Four was ready to start cooking before Wild showed up (since he's beside the counter with food supplies). At the very least he had the basket of fruit out for everyone -but he was literally standing with food behind him- he thought of everything

And he did housekeeping!

Wars payed for the inn, so Four took care of the inn

Realistically these boys were probably not too concerned with tidyness. Four got all of Twi's things on one table, and took care of the room they stayed in

Organizing tables and Twi's things, having food supplies ready, and opening the curtains- overall he was the one tidying up the inn

Four helped in a huge way! He took care of Twi's horse (Epona is so important), his equipment and shield and bag, as well as the other rooms in the inn

Four filled in all the little tasks that others didn't think of. He helped in ways that were needed, but not obvious

There's a lot of problems with the shadow crystal and with Wild, and I don't know what's gonna happen in the future

But don't forget this- don't forget that Four was one who stepped up in an almost unnoticeable way

Don't forget that when everyone was barely holding it together, Four visited Twilight's horse and took care of his things

No matter what develops in the future- this amount of care shown is important ya know?

Art and comic from Jojo @linkeduniverse au :)))

#epona is so important #Lu four #linkeduniverse #linked universe #I work with horses and #Epona is INCREDIBLE- she's extremely attuned to humans and emotions. she doesn't scare easily and can keep her cool in a fight #but it's still super stressful to suddenly be in a fairly large and populated town- separated from her person #and for such an empathetic horse? Four going and TALKING to her- gently petting her nose and just being near her #means so so much! that literally matters so much to a horses mental state in a foreign situation- just having company #he checked on Epona and gave her company like !!!!!! it's so considerate and means so much for Epona! Four I love you !!!!!#uhhhh yeah!#with the food- I don't think the innkeeper would have free/complimentary food out- but wars wallet def had it covered #then wild showed up with potions in a cooking frenzy- but four was still shown with food behind him- he thought of everything #I don't know what's gonna happen with the shadow crystal and stuff. but no matter what happens in the future- this matters.#he did a ton of small things no one else thought of it matters he cares so much didjdkdksjfjj #I have a lot of posts I'm making/editing and trying to get to. I'm just a little gal trying my best :/#so many ideas and so little time... I love you guys and this fandom so much :))#(if I said anything off or offensive let me know... I'm always nervous about that but I want to hear from you if I'm wrong)#(also you are so so cool and valuable don't forget that ok? I love you and you are important)#:)

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