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madaboutmunson · 1 year

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Cryptic Cupid - Part 7 ( Steve's POV)

Part 1 | Part 6

Sequel to Raspberry Riddle So this is set in a government-operated hospital after the events of season 4 but everyone is alive

I figure this is the last part unless any readers think otherwise :)

Tag List: @marivictal @spectrum-spectre

Standing in his doorway, Steve can see the back of Eddie, and though every impulsive part of Steve wants to reach out and pull him to himself, he realises that might not be why Eddie is here. Steve wipes his eyes quickly with his sweater sleeve and simply says his name. Well, at least that is what he tried to do, but it came out tangled in sadness with a single cupcake sprinkle of hope. This time something that for the longest time had seemed impossible happens. Eddie turns towards him, his eyes don't meet Steve's, but it is better than nothing. Maybe Robin was right; absence makes the heart grow fonder because Eddie never looked more radiant.

Eddie rubs at the back of his neck nervously, and they stand in silence for a moment, and Steve can see him do that shift of weight he sometimes does when he's anxious and doesn't that just stab Steve right in the guts. Of all the places, Eddie should be worried it shouldn't be within reach of Steve. He should feel safe here. Then Eddie makes a fist, raises it to his chest, and moves it around in a circle, and the next breath Steve takes feels like it is full of charged energy. He bends down to try to get into Eddie's eye line and signs the same thing back frantically, repeatedly, like his fist might wear a hole in his own sweatshirt. He signs back sorry, just as Eddie had done, and as if it had broken the spell, Eddie's eyes lift to his, and Eddie reaches out and stays Steve's hand, "Let's not start a fire, huh?" He says with a weak laugh, letting go of Steve, who can finally get out of this awkward position, and stands up and matches the half smile on Eddie's face.

"I'm sorry I acted like an asshole, Steve. I was hurting and wanted other people to feel it too, which was not cool. I-I didn't mean what I said, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for upsetting you. That was so shitty of me to do that. I'm not here for forgiveness. That's not why I'm apologising. I'm apologising because what I did was such a fucking bullshit thing to do. You didn't deserve that. You will never deserve someone to speak to you like that, Steve. Never." Eddie says earnestly, his eyes locked onto Steve's as he babbles.

Steve processes Eddie's words for a few seconds and tries to formulate a response, but he pauses to ensure this time, he only speaks with thought. Finally, he sighs and puts one hand on his hip, the other in use to animate his words. "Look, I understand why you might have been so angry, but you've gotta understand, Eddie, I didn't hide it from you. I know the scars matter to you, and if they were on my face, I'd feel the same as you, but I was just so happy you were alive, Eddie. I was so happy you were alive and moving around and talking that I didn't see them as important, and I'm sorry I didn't think more about it from your point of view. I was just so wrapped up in being around you again, and I didn't know they were easing you into it. If I had, I would never have helped you with walking like that" Steve is standing, but he may as well be on his knees begging, and unlike Eddie, Steve was hoping for forgiveness. Eddie interrupts him.

"What do you mean like that?" Eddie asks cautiously. A new expression fills his face, not a nervous worry, something more like dread.

"I mean basically leading you to the bathroom, you know, to the mirror. I don't regret helping you. Just where it ultimately lead, that's all," Steve tried to clarify quickly, shifting Eddie's expression to one of relief.

Eddie twists his rings around his fingers for a few seconds, just looking at Steve, and then tilts his head, "You got changed" a heat rushes to Steve's cheeks, remembering his brazen display earlier. Again, Eddie tilts his head to the other side, but this time a big closed-mouth smile spreads across his face. Like he knows he has Steve, all flustered.

"Yeah, well, I needed a shower after nearly ten minutes on this." Steve points to the bar above his head.

Eddie's eyes trail over Steve and then very quickly shoot up to the bar, "Can't be that hard if you can do it for ten minutes, Steve." Eddie says with a scoff stepping towards the doorway, and Steve knows he should step back, but he'll take his chances. "You do make it look so…easy," Eddie says smoothly, and before Steve can reply, Eddie has leapt up onto the bar, his hands gripped tightly around it, leaving Steve's eye line at Eddie's collarbone due to the height of the doorway, "So I guess…I just pull myself up now?" Eddie says with effort, making Steve laugh.

"Yeah, that's kind of the idea, honey," Steve says without thinking and mentally facepalms himself that his mouth appears to have no quality control department right now. He screws his eyes up, expecting the worst. For Eddie to let go and just march back into his room. But no sound of feet hitting the floor happens, no slamming of a door, no yelling, just a grunt of effort. Steve cautiously opens one eye, and he's now at eye level with the middle of Eddie's torso, and he looks up to see Eddie's grimacing but smug face hovering above the bar.

"Ha! Did it! See easy," Eddie manages to force out before letting go of the bar, and Steve immediately catches him before his legs take the brunt of the drop.

"Eddie! You need to be more careful with yourself. I know you've been making progress, but you can’t just make your legs take the brunt of everything. What if you got a strain, or worse, something broke?!" Steve blurts out like he is reprimanding one of the kids as he gently lowers him to the ground. Now it seems like it's Eddie's turn to get a little flushed in the cheeks and bothered. Eddie seems to want to say something, but nothing happens for a second, as if he has stalled. Instead, he slowly blinks at him, and Eddie may as well have hit him with an uppercut with how dazed Steve feels right now. Eddie bites his bottom lip, searches Steve's face with those Bambi-like eyes of his, and says with a smirk, "Sorry, babe, it's too tempting to get reckless when a hero's around to save me."

Steve realises his arms are still around Eddie, and he probably should let him go. Still, he also doesn't want Eddie to think he let him go because of what he said, because if anything, calling Steve a hero only made him wanna pull Eddie in closer, keep him safe forever from everything. Steve's heart whomps fiercely in its bony prison. One half of him is very much in camp do not rush this and screw everything up again, but another part of him has its foot over the accelerator, ready to head to camp I can't wait any longer to kiss this man. He takes a deep breath and goes with the very unromantic option, the truth. "Eddie," he says with a hard gulp, "I am very aware of the current, um, well, er, sort of, hold we are in, yeah hold, that's it. I don't want to make you uncomfortable, so I'm letting you know whatever you answer is absolutely ok" he swallows again, "Do you…er…um…want me to let you go?"

Eddie's eyes are opened so wide Steve can see the whites of them all the way around his dark pools of brown in the centre, but one corner of his mouth hoists up. His hands appear, as if from out of nowhere, on the outside of Steve's arms, running his thumb over them through the soft sweatshirt material, making Steve hate it for simply getting in between his body and Eddie's hands, "Well, Steve. Here is the thing. It's a yes and no, see." Eddie's eyes move over Steve leisurely, "On one hand, I really am enjoying the…er…accommodations here, but on the other hand, I am desperate to use the bathroom." His eyes move back to Steve’s, and their wild wideness has swapped for a softer look, his eyelids hooding over those deep pools of the most decadent dark chocolate irises, “So to compromise, do you maybe wanna hang out a little, once I’m, um, back? I solved your crossword clue, by the way.” He says with a small dopey smile and tucks a piece of paper into Steve’s pocket without looking away, “But I’ve got one of my own that has been troubling me recently, and I wonder if you’d help me with it?” Steve tries his best to listen, but it is really tricky when Eddie’s face is so close to his own. Suddenly struck with the inability to speak, Steve simply nods softly. Eddie's smile broadens, “Well, alright then, meet you back here in five,” he says, and Steve releases him from his arms and watches Eddie walk across the hall. As soon as he walks through the door on the other side, Steve rushes into his room, speed tidying the place frantically, spraying the room, so it smells nice, then he runs to the mirror and checks himself over. His eyes were still a little puffy from getting upset earlier, so he quickly splashes his face with cold water in the hope it would help. Then quickly runs a comb through his hair, moving the occasional strand, before adjusting his outfit, spritzing himself and finally fluffing the pillows on his bed.

“Steve?” He hears Eddie's amused voice behind him. Damn, this fucking hearing loss. He used to be able to hear Eddie jingling a mile away, but now he was like some silent ninja or something. Steve spins around and tries to play it off like he wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary with an awkward laugh.

“Just making it more suited for company”, he nervously half smiles. Eddie rocks back on his heels, looking like the cat who got the cream.

“Huh, is that why it smells like a department store perfume counter in here? For company?” Eddie teases gently, and the purr in his voice makes Steve tug at the neck of his collar.

“Are you warm in here? It feels kinda warm, doesn’t it?” Steve walks towards the window and, on arrival, remembers that this thing has never opened and feels like an absolute idiot, so he decides to commit to the bit and takes off his sweatshirt, only then remembering he only has a vest underneath because it was so warm today, but he wanted the comfort of the long sleeves earlier. Steve feels he is digging his own cringe-filled grave and can only imagine the ribbing that would be waiting for him when he finally has to look Eddie in the face again, but he is nothing if not committed. So he folds up his sweater and turns back to Eddie with a big smile, hoping it would cover this embarrassing sequence of events and gestures at a chair. Eddie looks at the chair and hops on the bed, shuffling back into the newly fluffed pillows, making himself comfortable by wiggling from side to side.

"No, I'm not warm at all, kinda chilly, actually. You coming down with a fever or something, Steve?" Eddie looks deadpan serious at Steve, and Steve tosses him his sweatshirt. Eddie catches it, pulling it to his chest, but instead of putting it on, he folds it up in his lap and gently puts it on the chair next to the bed, "Thanks, but, um, I really gotta be in the mood for fabric like that, and honestly, I'm sure I'll warm up soon enough" he says tucking his knees up towards himself, linking his hands around them and looking expectantly at Steve, who is unfortunately in a dilemma. He looks at the space on the bed next to Eddie. That's where he wants to sit, snuggle up next to him and use the heat Eddie has inspired in him to keep its muse warm. His eyes move to the chair next to the bed. That's the gentlemanly thing to do. That's their usual arrangement in Eddie's room. Still deciding, Steve goes to find another integral part of them hanging out, his crossword book and pencil. He can feel Eddie watching him around the room. He is taking too long to decide, and Steve knows he's making this more awkward every second that ticks by, even though he's trying his absolute damnedest to make this all look natural. Then something hits him, and it was a simple thing, this was Steve's room. Eddie didn't hold dominion here. Steve circles back around and hops up onto the bed with a jump, jostling Eddie a little. There is space for two, just about, maybe an inch or two between them at the shoulders, more space, the further down between their bodies he looked.

"What book are you reading today, then?" Steve asks as he pretends to look for a crossword, but everything on the pages might as well be in Martian the way he couldn't concentrate on any of it right now.

"Oh, I'm not reading today. Wayne got me one of those books like you have," Eddie says, and though Steve isn't looking at him yet, he can hear the grin in his voice. Next, Eddie stretches out his long legs, and his hand plants firmly between their hips, which is enough for Steve to turn and look at him. Eddie has rolled onto his side towards Steve, fishing something out of his back pocket, but with Steve now turned to him, they are directly opposite one another, maybe an inch between the tips of their noses, and that tribal beat starts up again in Steve's chest, get ever louder. He wonders if Eddie can hear it, but it seems Eddie is having problems of his own the soft gaze that Steve first met as he turned has morphed into one of annoyance as he tugs on the book in his back pocket that won't budge. Steve doesn't miss the small smattering of pink that dusts Eddie's cheeks, making him chuckle softly.

"Here, let me," Steve says as he turns and reaches over Eddie to grasp at the book, tries to tug it from its denim prison, and realises it's the lip of the pocket itself holding it prisoner. Steve concentrates hard. His tongue presses against his lip as he uses his finger to push the fabric back where it should be retrieves the book, and places it in Eddie's hand before leaning back where he was. "Maybe invest in a looser pair of jeans, Eddie", Steve says, repressing a laugh.

"Or maybe not," Eddie says with a fake cough covering a giggle. Steve closes his eyes slowly, realising it is a set-up, and he'd been drawn in hook, line and sinker. It was a good move. He had to give Eddie his due. Eddie turns back, so he's sitting up on the bed, back against the pillows beside Steve. Eddie opens his book, pulls a pen from behind his ear, taps it against the paper a few times, and clears his throat, "You know, I asked Wayne to get me one of these because I, er, I enjoyed solving the ones you gave me. The clues aren't nearly as fun to solve as the ones in your book, though. Yours were, uh, much more fun to answer. Must be a different publisher, right?"

Steve nods and pretends to fill in a few answers on the page, and he heats up again, realising that he's been rumbled, and Eddie knows that those clues weren't from his book at all, "Very different yeah, probably independent or something" Steve adds.

"You got any more you need help with?" Eddie asks in a leading way. Steve tries to remember the ones he wrote down. He'd find the scrap of paper, but Eddie is right next to him.

"Yeah, there is one. The artisan hides compassion five letters," Steve says, as Eddie flicks to the back of his book, scribbles it down and pauses to think for a few seconds. In no time at all, his beautiful beaming face swings around to look at Steve, making his waves bounce about his face.

"Heart!" Then his excited expression melts a little into unsurety, "The answer is heart, right?" Steve pretends to fill it in.

"I mean, we'll see how the rest of the puzzle fits around it, but it's a good start. It fits just right so far," Steve says with a fond smile, setting Eddie's expression back to an excited one, "Did you say you had one you needed help with?"

Steve sees Eddie gulp, "Er yeah I did, it's er, yeah it's not as interesting a puzzle as yours, but I thought if I asked you, you might know the answer. The correct answer, you know? I thought I had the answer a few times, but I think I needed confirmation that it was right before filling it in" Steve laughs at Eddie's odd over-the-top introduction to a question.

"You could just use a pencil, you know. Then you can always erase it if you make a mistake?" Steve shakes his head with a smile turning to Eddie.

Almost too gently, he replies, "I guess I'm just not a pencil kinda guy. No regrets, right?" Steve looks at his pencil and thinks maybe it makes him look too indecisive, but Eddie quickly interrupts his thoughts, "Nothing wrong with a pencil, though, you know. It's much smarter, actually, and gives you room to make a mistake without ruining the whole puzzle, right?" He smiles at Steve, and his eyes sparkle in the light streaming through the window.

"Right" Steve smiles back and slowly turns his gaze back to his book for fear of getting totally dumbfounded looking into Eddie's eyes. Taking his attention from Eddie was short-lived, though. He feels the texture of his rings brush against his arm as Eddie rubs his own arms as if to keep warm. It was curious, those big silver rings Steve had always thought would be cold to the touch, and they were colder than Steve felt, but they would probably feel pleasantly warm to an average person, who wasn't a raging inferno for the guy next to them, "Still cold?" Steve asks, and Eddie nods a little, "I have other sweaters, you know, totally different fabrics. You could try them to see if one suited you better?" Steve worriedly asks as he goes to get up, and Eddie's hand reaches out to him, making him resume his position.

"No, I, er, I was thinking more…um.." Eddie huffs a laugh and wiggles over to Steve so their arms and legs touch, "this kind of thing?" Eddie looks at him through his eyelashes, and Steve would love to answer, but any language he knows has just left his person, so he wiggles back towards Eddie, whose chest expands as a toothy grin explodes onto his face. "Well, ok then. Cool"

"Yeah, cool, but, er, warmer, right?" Steve tries a lame joke making himself wince, but Eddie laughs all the same. It was possibly not because the joke was funny but because Steve had the audacity to say it out loud. Steve knows he's shaking his head in disbelief because now he's this close, his hair is resting on Steve's shoulder, and it feels incredibly soft. It takes all his resolve not to reach over and touch it or move it a little, so Eddie's handsome side profile wouldn't be obscured.

He feels Eddie's leg shift next to his and thinks, what the hell, they're touching already, right? No time to be a pencil. So Steve lets his impulses win and gently tucks Eddie's hair behind his ear so that he can see his handsome face and heroic scars. He never really understood the whole Chicks dig scars thing until he saw Eddie's, but these were personal. Eddie only got these trying to save Dustin, keeping the gate clear, and maybe even giving himself, Nancy and Robin extra time. He was Steve's hero, no matter how much he played it down. Eddie stays very still and looks from the corner of his eye at Steve, "I couldn't see you" Steve says quietly and hopes it's enough. That sweet light dusting of pink litters Eddie's upper cheek, and that's when something occurs to Steve.

Eddie can make the big moves, he can flirt and make innuendos, and none of that phases him, doesn't make him embarrassed at all, but when Steve is kind to him or does something sweet like this or worries about him, Eddie can't handle it. So he tests the theory and tries out a lovely move he previously only used on the shyest of girls, even though Steve thought Eddie was the furthest thing from shy anyone could be. He puts his pencil behind his ear and lowers his hand, so the back of it brushes Eddie's, and although Eddie doesn't turn to him when he looks, the pink on his cheeks deepens. Then Steve does it, he crosses his pinky finger over Eddie's, and he watches the flush on Eddie's cheekbones flood his cheeks and parts of his jaw. Gotcha, Munson. Then like nothing had happened, Steve asks, "Did you say you wanted my help with something?" Steve sees Eddie blow out an exhale.

"I did", he croaks out before clearing his throat, "I did, yeah" he puts down his book and reaches into his pocket for a torn piece of notepad, and Steve can see his fingertips are shaking around it. Eddie clears his throat again, but this time he straightens his posture to read the note like it was a performance, "Florida city whose name has three pairs of doubled letters, nine letters" Eddie bites his lips together but doesn't turn towards Steve. Maybe he shouldn't have embarrassed Eddie so much. The hair tuck was enough for a while. "Well?" Eddie asks, and he sounds a little impatient, and Steve is sure he's fucked something up now.

Steve runs the clue around in his head for a few seconds, but he's entirely distracted by trying to read Eddie right now, "I think it's Kissimmee", Steve spells it in his mind and counts the pairs of double letters, "Yeah Kissimmee" he says quickly. Then Eddie turns to him, his eyes even darker than usual. His pupils have expanded to an unnatural diameter, like a cat before it pounces.

"You sure about that, Steve?" Eddie rasps and shifts his weight onto the hand between them, turning himself to face Steve again, his eyebrows raised a little expectantly, "One hundred per cent certain that's your answer?" Steve is confused, but Eddie's attention on him like this was frying all the cognitive circuits he had left. Then something Steve had basically trained himself into spotting happens. Eddie's eyes glance down at Steve's mouth. Oh shit. Of course, Kissimmee…Kiss I me...Kiss me. Jesus Christ, this is happening. It's happening. Do not freak out. You've got this, Steve. Eddie must acknowledge the realisation on Steve's face as he nods with a low chuckle.

Steve shuffles closer and, in a whisper, confirms, "Yeah, the answer is definitely, one hundred per cent, absolutely, without a doubt, Kissimmee". All Steve can see right now is Eddie's beautiful face, but he feels a hand on his shoulder. Slowly it slides up his neck to rest, holding one side of his face, the thumb gently caressing his cheek. He feels the fingers of his other hand become interwoven with Eddie's. Eddie leans in but stops just short of contact. Steve is sure a well-timed shudder could bridge the gap but tries to remain patient as the tribal drum beat in his chest pounds fast and wild for Eddie. They must be sleepily looking into one another's eyes for seconds, but it feels like an eternity. Steve squeezes Eddie's hand in silent impatience, making Eddie smile. "Hold your horses, stud. It's too nice a job to rush", Steve feels his face flush with heat, "Gotcha." Eddie purrs with a Cheshire cat-sized smile before pulling Steve's face to his, destroying the space between them and creating their first earth-rocking kiss.

#steddie #steddie fan fiction #eddie munson x steve harrington #steddie fan fic #steddiefanfiction #steddiefanfic #madaboutmunson #madaboutmunsoncrypticcupid #eddie munson #steve harrington

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jaskierek · 3 years

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Wildflowers

Part 1 Part 2

Summary: Geralt finally found Jaskier, months after the dragon hunt, and now he has to find out what happened to him.

It took a minute for his mind to catch up. His palm rested on the ridged bark of the willow. He tried pushing, not really expecting it to move but not knowing what else to do. Jaskier had been right there. He’d been right there.

“Geralt?” His name came from behind and the Witcher fumbled on his knees to turn around, scrambling until his back hit the trunk of the tree. His instincts were going haywire, medallion vibrating incessantly. Something was very wrong and his impulse to attack warred with his need to protect because Jaskier was standing right in front of him. It was Jaskier but it wasn’t. There were parts missing.

He felt familiar, the curve of his nose, the line of his jaw, the tilt of his head. It was his strong brows, arched and hidden under the soft, brown fringe that had grown out. His eyes were still blue and open. His faded-blue doublet was open, revealing a soft chemise and dark chest hair that used to drive Geralt insane.

It was Jaskier, but it wasn’t.

Every living thing has a presence, one that most people can sense. It’s the feeling of being watched, being followed. The person before him had none. He had not sensed it as he had approached, he did not sense it when he was behind him.

“Geralt.” Not-Jaskier said again, lowering himself onto his knees so he was level with Geralt. He smiled. He smiled as if they had merely parted for a few weeks and had run into each other again. He smiled as if they were to go on another adventure together, to set off on the Path once more. Nostrils flaring, he tried to keep his breathing steady. This Jaskier’s eyes weren’t as bright. They were glazed over, as if he wasn’t really seeing what was before him. His once-pink lips and rosy cheeks were pale.

“Jaskier.” The name came from Geralt’s lips like a breath. He wanted to reach out, to touch him. He wanted to pull back and run away. He wanted to push Jaskier, have him land with a dramatic yelp and a scolding on his lips. He wanted Jaskier to push him, to be upset with him, to ask him why. He wanted anything but this pale imitation and gentle smile.

“Jaskier,” he tried again, “what-what happened to you?”

The bard’s brows pinched curiously, the smile looking more uncertain.

“What…happened.” He frowned. Red shocked the white of Jaskier’s chemise. It soaked through and spread like an ink stain on poetry. Blue eyes looked past the Witcher and his smile fell. He blinked rapidly, as if trying to clear his sight.

Geralt could only watch.

“Jaskier.” He whispered again. At the sound of his name the bard’s eyes snapped back to Geralt’s, soft confusion on his face. Red continued to dye his shirt. It gathered at the corners of his mouth, slipping down his chin and falling onto the green blades of grass between them. It was as if he couldn’t feel it, had no reaction to it.

Geralt couldn’t take it anymore. He reached out again, reached out to cup the bard’s face. Jaskier didn’t move to stop him, only continued to look in confusion. His hand paused before the bard’s skin. He ached to make contact, to sweep his thumb across Jaskier’s cheekbone.

Before he could, the air rippled and Geralt was left facing the leaves of the willow. He inhaled shakily, arm still outstretched. All he could see was the image of Jaskier, blood trickling down his face, seeping through his shirt. He clenched his eyes shut, pressing his palms into his eyelids until his vision went white and spots danced before him when he opened them again. Jaskier was still gone and the leaves were still there, hanging limply.

Geralt pulled his knees up, curling in as tight as he could. He felt himself shake as he rested his forehead against his knees.

—

“That one’s Draco.” Julia said, pointing up at the clear sky above them. Julian looked up from where he’d been pulling up grass with stubby fingers.

“Where?” He asked, squinting.

“There!” She insisted, still pointing. “See? There’s the tail and there’s the head.”

Julian huffed. He was no good at constellations. Julia had taken a liking to them recently, spending hours pouring over dusty, old books that Julian couldn’t care less about.

“Doesn’t look much like a dragon.” He muttered, looking back down at the grass and clenching it in his little fists.

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Why?”

“Dragons, adventure, I don’t know. They’re always in those games you like to play.”

Julian looked up at his sister. Her shoulders were slumped and she was doing that thing when she was upset where she pushed out her bottom lip. Guilt settled heavy in his stomach. He knew she’d been sad lately and was just trying to share with him what made her happy.

He looked up at the stars again. It’s not that he didn’t like them, they were pretty and he could see why Julia had taken such a liking to them. It was just that they’d taken so much of her time that he was left playing adventure outside by himself. All the boys that his parents wanted him to befriend were older and mean to him so all he really had was Julia. Julian was learning that he didn’t like to share much, but he knew that that was unfair.

“It’s more of a wyrm than a dragon.” He offered weakly. Her blue eyes looked at him curiously. “Wyrms are long like snakes, dragons have big wings. It doesn’t have wings - the star.”

“The constellation.” She corrected but she was smiling. “Draco’s a better name than worm though, what an awful thing to call a collection of brilliant stars.”

Julian scrunched his nose.

“It’s not worm, it’s wyrm.”

“Sounds the same to me.”

“I hate you.”

Julia laughed and Julian realised it was the first time he’d heard her laugh for a long time. He looked down at his hands. He was getting that itch in his nose that he got when he wanted to cry. He pinched his nose, trying to get the feeling to go away.

“Hey.” His sister said softly. He heard her shuffle so she was sitting in front of him crosslegged. The end of her dress was green with grass stains. Mother wouldn’t be happy. Julia reached out and pulled his hand away from his nose, holding it in hers. He hated holding hands but he let her take it. “What’s wrong, buttercup?” It was that voice she used when things were too harsh for him and he wanted something soft.

Julian looked up. Julia’s eyebrows were raised, a small smile on her lips. Her blue eyes were darker in the nighttime. He thought they suited her better a bit darker anyway.

“Tell me about the harp one again.” He asked. She rolled her eyes with a sigh.

“It’s not a harp, it’s a lyre.” She said, sounding playfully tired of explaining it, but he knew that she loved talking about it. She gave his hand a squeeze before letting it go to point at the star. “It’s that one. See those five stars?” Julian nodded. “It’s called Lyra.”

She turned to him with a smile and he looked to her with big eyes.

“That one’s yours,” she said, “that one belongs to the artists.”

Julian watched her gaze up at the stars as if she wanted to be up there with them, miles and miles away.

He couldn’t help but hate them just a little.

—

He didn’t know how long he’d sat there, curled up.

Eventually, Roach’s impatient whinny brought him back into the present. Geralt lifted his head from his knees, peering at the mare through the leaves of the tree. She shuffled a couple of feet away from the edge of the willow, tail tucked between her hindquarters. Running his hand down his face, he picked himself up. He glanced back at the trunk of the tree, not knowing what he was expecting to see. Nothing. Just the serrated edges of the bark.

He pulled back the curtain separating him and Roach. She skittered nervously but allowed him to place his hand on her muzzle. Mumbling gently, he tried to soothe her despite his own instincts itching at him to leave.

Jaskier’s bloody chest flickered through his thoughts and he closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against Roach’s snout.

He couldn’t leave.

“I may not be able to find his physical body, but I can perhaps find his spirit.”

A spirit separate from the body.

Not an Ethereal nor any type of Wraith. Most Spectres resemble the state of their physical body. Geralt fought down the bile rising in his throat. If Jaskier were truly dead and appearing as some sort of ghost, he would appear decomposed in some way; blackened fingers, green-tinted skin, bloating. There had been no signs of that on the apparition of his friend. Until the blood had begun to seep through, Jaskier had seemed normal, if a bit pale. That would not have been a possibility if he were a Wraith.

Geralt cradled that knowledge close to his heart.

Nevertheless, his medallion had confirmed the presence of magic. It didn’t resemble any spell he was familiar with, yet he wasn’t well versed in the more complicated magics.

There had been a time in Toussaint where a woman had been turned into a tree, he remembered. The love of her life had never returned and she was left, waiting for him forever, dwelling in her longing and grief. People living in the neighbouring town would hear her wails distantly when the wind rustled her leaves. Her sobbing had also been heard when the tree was harmed, blood spilling out of a wound on the bark instead of thick sap.

Reluctantly, Geralt turned back to the willow. It was not a plant he ever would have associated with the bard. Pale where he was bright, tired where he alive, weeping where he was…

Giving Roach one last pat, he pushed past the vines, tracing the knife at his side. His thumb brushed the space between the hilt and sheath. He pulled it out and rested the steel gently against the bark, breathing in.

He was hesitating. Why was he hesitating? Jaskier, bloody and confused flashed through his mind.

He pressed his hand against the trunk, right next to the point of the knife.

With a sharp exhale, he pushed the blade in and dragged it down the bark, revealing the lighter shade of wood underneath. No blood.

Geralt didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. He was left hanging in the space between.

Ah, the face of loneliness.

—

Not really sure what to do with himself, Geralt set up camp in the clearing not too close to the willow. He doubted he’d be able to sleep through the unease if he were too close. He wasn’t far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to spot someone underneath it though. He briefly thanked his enhanced vision.

He’d laid out what he needed at the edge of the field, his back to the line of trees. He doubted anyone came by often, or else he would’ve seen a notice for the extraction of a Wraith in the nearest town. Consequently, he felt comfortable leaving Roach and the beginnings of a fire pit as he went to hunt down his dinner. He tried to be quick about it, not wanting to miss Jaskier if he appeared again. He’d exhausted his rations of dried meat and bread on his trek to find Yennefer and then Jaskier.

He didn’t know how long he’d stay there. He knew he needed to find Yennefer, to ask her for help yet again. It was more likely she’d be aware of whatever curse had afflicted his bard. He knew this but he couldn’t help but long to see him. At least once more.

The Witcher returned with a rather thin rabbit. He’d gone for the first animal he’d seen. Yellow eyes scanned the open space as he returned. Nothing. No sign of the bard. Just the rustling of leaves. He looked to the willow, ears straining. No wails. He breathed a brief sigh of relief.

Sitting down beside the fire pit, he placed the dead animal down and started the fire.

“Hey!”

Geralt’s head snapped up at the shout. His medallion shuddered. Witcher eyes cut through the darkness to see a man sitting in the middle of the field. He swallowed, put the knife down and stood up, stepping around the fire to get a better look.

“I’m stargazing!” He yelled again, waving his hand and urging him to step closer. The impatient gesture was so familiar, Geralt almost smiled. He left the light of his fire and stepped further into the clearing.

The closer he got, the more Jaskier came into view. Brown hair blowing and blue doublet open against the cool wind. Bleeding mouth and reddened chemise, soaked through.

He felt the breath leave him. Something screamed in him to leave.

He stopped in front of the bard. Jaskier patted the grass next to him.

It didn’t feel right, sitting beside him. Jaskier smiled and lay back, lifting his arms and resting his head on his hands. Blue eyes darkened, reflecting the sky. Geralt suppressed the trembling beneath his skin and lay back next to his friend.

A memory tugged at the Witcher, the same one that had pulled him to the meadow before. A warm day, their day together. One with flowers and colours and humming.

It was a sick imitation of it.

His throat tightened, he felt choked by it. He felt out of breath.

“Geralt?”

Geralt closed his eyes in a long blink as he turned his head.

It hurt to look at him.

“What happened to me?” Jaskier asked, eyes still gazing at the stars. An elegant drop of red slid down from his lips. It fell to the hair curling at his nape. Geralt reminded himself that whatever he was, he wasn’t dead.

He was silent for a while, watching Jaskier look up. He hated it, the quiet. The undercurrent of Jaskier’s heartbeat had followed him for too long for him to be looking at the man and not hear it.

“I don’t know.” He finally responded. The bard smiled, a watery, wobbly thing.

His hair looked soft in the starlight. If he touched him again, would he disappear? Would he come back? Geralt didn’t know why he was appearing to him again now. Was he tied to this place or did he go somewhere else when he disappeared? Where was his body? He didn’t know if he wanted to see it if this was how Jaskier looked now. The image of Jaskier’s body, bloody and limp lying in a ditch somewhere flashed through his mind.

“I’ve always thought that Lyra belongs to the artists.”

Geralt was snapped out of his thoughts. He looked up at the constellation.

“Placed there by the gods, taken from the dead hands of a musician killed by a vengeful god.” Jaskier said. “Value only after death.”

The Witcher knew the myth. A lyre so great, it was said to have charmed even the rocks and streams. Music that quelled the voice of sirens, yet existing as a form of it itself. Although it had never been the lyre, had it? It had been the man.

“It doesn’t look much like a lyre.” Geralt commented.

There was a burst of laughter and Geralt jerked to look at the man next to him. He was looking back at him, a smile pulling at his lips.

“I knew you’d say that.”

—

Yennefer had been watching the bard for some time now. To be fair, his performance drew very many eyes. The sorceress grudgingly admitted to herself that he had some talent, him and the ensemble backing him up. It was a shame he was wasting it on bawdy tunes and bloody tales. She briefly wondered what a her own ballad would sound like. Though she had to admit, her’s would be its fair share of bloody.

The second she’d spotted the bard, her violet eyes had swept the hall for a certain gruff Witcher. She cursed herself for being disappointed when she hadn’t spotted him. Nonetheless, she’d brushed it off easily. It meant that perhaps the bard would stay away from her.

However, she was curious as to why he was here in Temeria alone. She distinctly remembered seeing him a year ago in Redania at a similar gathering, only three years after they had first met in Rinde. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one’s desire for entertainment, their second meeting was rather uneventful. They had both steered clear of each other, the large banquet hall allowing for easy steering.

Being a known sorceress meant that she was invited to many parties thrown by lords and dukes and any other form of aristocracy. She didn’t often attend, it was her bad luck to run into Jaskier twice now. Though it was to be expected, being a bard. What was not expected, however, was the bard’s seeming association with the leader of the Redanian Intelligence. His presence in Temeria, whose relationship with Redania was rather tense at the moment, was curious.

She took a sip of her crimson wine and tuned back in to what the lady beside her was saying.

“-prayer, oils, herbal treatments. Nothing’s worked!” The woman, Lady Webb, continued to explain her issues with infertility. Yennefer’s grip on her goblet tightened infinitesimally and she tilted her head politely. High society clients have deep pockets, she reminded herself. And all sorts of connections. And whilst she may not have found yet a treatment for her own…issues with fertility, she could perhaps be able to help this woman.

“-and when we mixed it, we learned that it was indeed me and so-“

“My Lady,” the sorceress interrupted, “come visit me tomorrow and we can ascertain what exactly the problem is. There are certain remedies that may work, but I cannot promise anything at the moment.”

The woman beamed at her and clasped Yennefer’s left hand, the witch held the goblet in her right afar so as not to spill it.

“Thank you so very much, dear.”

Yennefer gave her a tight smile, removing her hand from her grasp. She registered the end of the musicians’ set and set her glass down, excusing herself a bit curtly. Perhaps the bard would be a bit more fun and Melitele knew she needed a distraction.

The cast of musicians had disbanded for a brief interlude and she could spot Jaskier not too far from the stage, already chatting someone up.

“Jaskier.” Yennefer greeted. He turned from the young lady he’d been talking to, his face abruptly falling.

“Yennefer. What brings you to Temeria?” He asked, almost conversationally but the sorceress picked up on the undercurrent of displeasure. She gave him a lazy smile.

“Oh, you know, a smile here, an enchantment there and suddenly I’ve found myself with a lovely little cottage and an invitation to some local Count’s party.”

Jaskier bristled.

Yennefer watched the small blonde behind him look her up and down over the bards shoulder. With a disappointed sigh and a not-so-subtle glance at the man’s ass, she turned away and walked over to a table, grabbing a healthy glass of wine. Yennefer pitied her mildly, she had no intention of stealing the girl’s evening prospects from her.

“I am interested, however,” she continued, “as to what you are doing here?” He raised his brows questioningly.

“Really? You’re interested in what a bard is doing at a party? I would’ve thought my lute would give me away.” He said, pointing to the instrument resting on the small stage behind him.

She had to admit, he played the part well.

“Only interested as, if I recall correctly, you and Sigismund Dijkstra seemed very well acquainted in Redania only a year ago.” A knowing smirk and a tilt of her head had the bard gritting his teeth. “And whilst I know your taste is broad and varied, I wouldn’t have pegged him as your type.”

Blue eyes glanced around sharply, before an idle smile slid onto the man’s face.

“A travelling musician must take work were he can, sorceress, not all of us can have someone spilling their pockets at the snap of a finger.”

Yennefer let the subtle bite wash over her without a blink. She knew the bard did not think highly of her. The feeling was mutual. Though she had to admit, she was vaguely impressed. He wasn’t quite the ditzy bard she had thought, following his Witcher around like a lost puppy.

Yennefer hummed. “Do you remember the punishment for espionage in Temeria, bard? Was it death or simply a whipping?”

“What a macabre thought to have in the middle of such a lively party. Honestly, Yen, learn to live a little.” With a quirk of his lips, he turned back to his set, calling out to the guests to gather and dance. Not thrilled over the prospect of being caught in a crowd, she stepped away.

She’d catch Jaskier flitting around for the rest of the evening, chatting up lords and ladies, landowners and aristocrats. She’d also catch him scrutinising her occasionally, likely trying to determine some sort of ulterior motive. She let him watch as she created her own connections. Many were interested in having an Aretuzan witch at their beck and call and for now she’d let them believe she’d answer.

As the night drew to a close, few were left in the banquet hall. A table of men, determinedly still drinking, lovers in dark corners and balconies, the few who’d found good conversation and were languidly refilling glasses.

“Off to the lovely little cottage for you, then?” A voice asked from above. She looked up from her seat at an empty table. Jaskier stood, head tilted slightly, lute strung over his shoulder. His cheeks were pink, from performing or drink she didn’t know, and the ends of his hair curled from the heat. Yennefer swirled the wine in her goblet, watching the plum-coloured liquid ripple.

“Lovely cottages unfortunately don’t include free wine.” She answered, looking ahead and hoping the bard understood the dismissal in her voice. Whether he did or not was unclear as he took a seat beside her anyway.

“Let’s see then.” He said. Yennefer turned to him, confused. His hand was outstretched, reaching for her wine.

“Not afraid I’ll poison it, bard?” She crooned sweetly. Jaskier smirked and shook his head.

“Death or whipping, right?” He responded, smooth as silk. Yennefer blinked. She couldn’t help but laugh lightly, handing the goblet to him.

He took a sip and hummed, licking the red off his lips. She assumed he hadn’t been drinking much if he’d asked for it now. It was likely challenging to obtain state secrets when intoxicated.

“Not quite the wine of Toussaint, is it?” He handed the drink back. Yennefer tilted her head in agreement. With the state of Nilfgaard in the Continent at the moment, the famed wine was difficult to acquire. She’d tried.

“Does he know?” She asked, referring to the one person that connected them.

“No.”

Yennefer brought the wine to her lips and passed it back to the bard.

She wouldn’t say she liked the man, but it wasn’t a bad way to end the night, drinking together.

—

Jaskier appeared again the next morning.

Geralt was woken by his medallion not long past dawn.

This time, the bard was sitting under the tree.

As he approached, he saw the lack of blood on the man’s shirt and the tightness in his chest was relieved somewhat. This way, it was just Jaskier, his friend, sitting under a tree, waiting for him to join him. Still, it pained him to look into those pale eyes, not quite as blue as they used to be.

Jaskier watched him pull back the leaves of the willow and walk closer to him, sitting down with his back against the tree. He wished he could feel their shoulders brushing.

They were both silent for a while. Was he waiting for him to speak first? Geralt wanted to apologise but felt the words get caught in his throat. Would this Jaskier even remember what he’d said to him on the mountain? His memory seemed spotty. Selfishly, Geralt hoped he wouldn’t remember.

“My dear Witcher.” Jaskier said, so quietly he almost missed it. Geralt ached at the endearment. “My dear Witcher, do you think I’m dead?”

“No.” The answer came so swiftly it had surprised the Witcher himself. Yet his bard remained impassive.

“I think I am dead.”

“You’re not.”

“I feel it.” He was looking at Geralt with a mellow sort of sadness. “I feel this pain in my chest. Sometimes I’m choking on blood, other times I feel it in my throat but it’s dry, stuck to the walls of my larynx like peeling paint. Sometimes there’s so much of it, I can’t speak. All I can do it let it pour out of me as I heave. I’ve tried closing my mouth, but it comes nonetheless, it bursts at the seams like too much wine around a cork.”

He looked down at his hands with a frown. “My hands are so pale, I hate it. I bet my face doesn’t look much better. I bet it looks grey and ashen.”

He looked at him as if he expected Geralt to confirm his guess.

When he didn’t, he continued, “At least there’s no blood on me this time. I quite like this chemise and I don’t like seeing it ruined. I still think I’m dead though. I’m not quite sure where my body is.” He turned to look at him again and his brows furrowed in concern. “Why are you crying Geralt?”

He hadn’t even noticed the unfamiliar wetness of his cheeks until he’d asked. He touched his cheek gingerly and pulled it back, looking at the wet shine of his fingertips.

“Jaskier-“

“I know, I know, you hate it when I go off on a ramble but I feel like I should be let off just this once. I am dead after all-“

“Jaskier, shut up.”

“Come on, Geralt, I still-“

“Please,” the word cracked in his throat, “please, please stop talking. Stop.” He turned away from the man and pressed his palms into his eye sockets, trying to stop the tears yet they came unbidden like…like too much wine around a cork. He tried inhaling a shaking breath. “Fuck.”

“I’m sorry.”

Geralt looked at the bard. He was looking at him as if he didn’t quite understand why he was so upset but sympathised anyway.

“You’re not…,” he began then trailed off, not quite able to force the word past his lips, “you’re under some spell, Jaskier. I’m going to find Yennefer and she’s going to help you.”

“Yennefer,” the bard repeated with a sad smile, looking past Geralt somewhat, “longing and heartache and lust.”

Geralt frowned. “Jaskier, what-“

“Don’t leave.” He said, pale blue eyes snapping back to the Witcher. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I need to find Yennefer-“

“You always need to find Yennefer.”

“I need her to help you.”

“She cannot help me. You cannot heal the dead.”

“You are not- you’re not- Jaskier-“

“Just for a while. Just...just stay with me for a while, then you can go back to her.”

Geralt paused.

Weak. He was weak.

“She was the one that helped me find you.” He said after a while.

Jaskier huffed out a laugh.

“Guess that hagstone didn’t work then.”

—

Jaskier was humming as he strolled around the meadow. Geralt wondered what he was thinking. He walked in circles, following the line of trees. Every time he passed the Witcher’s camp, Roach would get skittish and step away, huffing nervously. He would give her a sad look and walk on. It was Jaskier’s form of quiet. Yes, he was humming, but the usual string of inane pondering and chatter was absent.

Still, Geralt felt a sort of comfort. The quiet stifled him now and the bard was to blame. He couldn’t bring himself to begrudge him for it. He thought he knew what being lonely was but only when he had driven Jaskier away did he learn true, aching loneliness. Geralt watched him scuff his heel on the ground, frowning, then carrying on.

Geralt was still not used to the incessant buzzing of his medallion whenever the bard chose to appear. The itch to find Yennefer and get her to help was ever-present. He was adamantly sure she could help. He didn’t allow himself to think otherwise. But Jaskier wanted him to stay. It pained him to think of the bard existing here alone. He had said he didn’t know how long he’d been there, but Geralt suspected he’d been there since all news of the famed bard had ceased. Two months ago.

“What are you doing?” He finally asked on his latest lap, putting his sword down where he was sharpening it. Jaskier stumbled, as if not expecting Geralt to say anything. He stopped and faced the Witcher.

“I’m walking.”

Geralt levelled him an unimpressed glare.

“Why?”

“Exercise.” He replied flatly.

“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

“I wonder where I got that from.”

The Witcher didn’t respond, knowing that the silence would eventually be filled. Jaskier huffed and sat down across from him, elbows on his knees and cheeks resting on his knuckles. He looked like a crabby child. He looked down at the grass as Geralt waited for him to speak.

“I can’t leave.” He finally said, looking up at him. “The meadow.” He added on at Geralt’s look. “It’s like there’s a wall blocking me from moving past the line of trees.”

Geralt nodded slowly. He’d assumed as much. There was a part of him that hoped that Jaskier would have looked for him if he could have. He didn’t want to ask.

Geralt still questioned where Jaskier went when he wasn’t there. Maybe he didn’t go anywhere, maybe he simply chose not to reveal himself, present in the form of a willow tree. He wondered what his connection to it was. He knew now that the tree hadn’t been there the last time. Whatever had happened to Jaskier, he and the willow were linked, tethered together.

“If I am dead, this is surely purgatory.” Jaskier muttered, pulling at the grass half-heartedly. Geralt watched him rip it out of the ground, opening his hand and letting it scatter back down.

He’d learned to become aware of the bard’s moods, spotting slumped shoulders and tight smiles. He just didn’t know what to do with that information. At first, he had believed it wasn’t his job to keep the man happy. He had chosen a life of hardship beside a Witcher, and he had to deal with the consequences. Yet Jaskier had a way of tearing down walls and situating himself firmly in someone’s life, earning affection, and it had grown harder to ignore him.

Nonetheless, Geralt still didn’t know what to do. Witchers weren’t particularly well-versed in the intricacies of human emotion, even less so their own. And while knowing physical comfort and soothing words supposedly helped, he still couldn’t figure his way around it. Jaskier had done it for him before, when Geralt was injured or what the bard annoyingly called ‘grouchy’. Geralt had yet to puzzle it out for himself.

He watched Jaskier pluck out another clump.

The silence itched at his skin.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” The bard asked sharply, eyes hard.

“Pull at the grass.”

Jaskier blinked at him then broke out into a grin.

“Why not?”

“It’s bad for it, makes it harder to grow back.” Eskel had told him that when they were children at Kaer Morhen. Geralt had found it difficult to care about much during the trials yet Eskel’s soft words and concern for the turf of the dark castle had made his cheeks flush in embarrassment.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry.” Jaskier replied, biting his lip to keep from smiling. He tried smoothing the grass back awkwardly, as if to apologise. Geralt felt his lips quirk. “I’ll try to rein in my habit next time.” He informed the Witcher and Geralt grunted and nodded like a teacher satisfied at a lesson learned. Jaskier laughed softly and stood up, wiping his hands down his trousers before continuing on his circle of the field.

It was only later, as Geralt was falling asleep, that he realised that Jaskier had physically touched the grass. When he’d shot up out of his bedroll, the bard was nowhere to be found. He was somewhere in the space between his spirit and his body and Geralt ached to hold him.

—

Gods, it had been a long day. Dijkstra had said that his most recent case had been requested personally by the king. Jaskier didn’t believe that for one second. He didn’t know what to think of King Radovid, if he was honest. On the one hand, a brilliant strategist, on the other a paranoid, slightly brutal nutter. Consequently, the validity of this current job was a bit in question, but he accepted it nonetheless. The months apart from Geralt, though more comfortable in terms of lodging and food, proved decidedly less exciting.

Yennefer’s question two years ago rang in his head “does he know?” Jaskier shook it off. Geralt didn’t have to know everything. Melitele knew he didn’t. Fortunately for him, the Witcher didn’t seem interested in delving into the bard’s past, as opposed to the bard himself who made it his mission to glean everything out of Geralt that he could or that he was comfortable with sharing.

He’d been renting a small apartment in the Redanian town for three weeks. Two weeks in and he’d been practically tackled to the ground of the local marketplace, only catching a glimpse of blonde before he was bracing himself against a stall wall. He’d somehow found himself with an armful of Priscilla.

“Jaskier!” She’d exclaimed, arms around his neck.

“Priscilla,” he couldn’t help but smile, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“The real question is what the hell are you doing here?” She asked, pulling away.

Jaskier frowned, tilting his head in confusion.

“When I was passing through the next town over on my way to Tretogor, I heard that the famous master Jaskier was staying nearby.” She clarified. Despite having what some might call an over-inflated ego, Jaskier couldn’t help but flush. “Nearby in this lovely shithole of a place.” She added with a smile

“Ah, yes, I’m currently hired by Lord Bachar for a while.”

“Never heard of him.” Blunt as ever.

He wasn’t surprised, it was a small town but quite valuable for mining as it was close to the mountains. However, that did make it freezing which Jaskier noted as he regarded Priscilla who was most definitely not prepared for such weather. She noticed him gazing down at her dress, much too thin for the crisp air.

“I left most of my clothes with my horse, bard.” She clarified, rolling her eyes as they began to walk together, arm in arm. Jaskier laughed.

“You’re not allowed to say bard like that, you’re a bard.”

She tutted, waving her hand dismissively. “Semantics.”

“Right, of course,” Jaskier said, shaking his head, “are you staying long then?”

“Why? Looking to have a little fun?” She asked, raising her eyebrows suggestively. Jaskier briefly thought back to a couple of rather pleasurable nights but shook the thoughts out of his head. He was there for a reason, after all, and Priscilla’s rather lovely curves would have to wait. Anyway, he’d rather resentfully discovered that sex was not quite as enjoyable when one’s heart was dreaming of another.

“I’m only teasing.” She acquiesced. “Honestly, I wasn’t planning to, but after seeing you I realised truly how long it’s been.”

Jaskier looked away, guilt nagging at him. With travelling with Geralt and his swiftly flourishing career, he had to admit, he hadn’t seen much of his friend. Their time in Oxenfurt during the winter really being the only time he got to visit his peers. And Priscilla truly did hold a special place in his heart.

“I know, my dear, I’ve missed you terribly but duty calls.”

“Duty meaning trailing Witchers and singing for unknown Lords?”

“You make it sound as if my songs haven’t reached every corner of the continent.”

Priscilla snorted and rested her head on his shoulder as the walked.

“They truly have, Jaskier.” He couldn’t help but preen slightly at the pride in her voice. “Anyway, I was hoping that I could stay with you for a bit, if you’re going to be working for this Lord Barbar for some time.”

“It’s Bachar. He may be rather unknown but he can still send his guard after you.”

“Please, I’m too famous for that.”

After that, it was difficult to say no. Priscilla was already aware of his arrangement with Sigismund Dijkstra, however he’d hoped to keep her out of this case.

Lord Bachar had eagerly employed Jaskier the minute he’d heard of the famed bard’s presence in his town, throwing multiple banquets and events in the three weeks Jaskier had been there. The Lord had been raring to display Jaskier to everyone who’d watch. The bard supposed that was the drawback of ruling such a small town, the need to prove something.

Fortunately, but in Lord Bachar’s case more unfortunately, Jaskier had accepted. In the time he’d been hired, he’d grown to somewhat earn the trust of the Lord. Pushing ale into his hands between performances, Jaskier had managed to loosen his tongue enough to learn that the rumours that the Redanian Intelligence was concerned about were true.

With access to the manor under the pretence of needing to accommodate his set to the “echo of the Lord’s mighty hall”. He’d easily picked the lock to the office, praying that the lock wasn’t old enough that it would break under the damage of the picking. The drawers of his desk held the evidence he’d needed to send to Dijkstra. Papers detailing the illegal human trafficking that had been happening in the small but somewhat economically valuable town.

He’d also had to drug a guard that had been waiting outside of the study, bringing him some spicy wine for them to share. Jaskier knew how to use his natural talents, blinking big blue eyes and pouting his lips, leading the man to a storage closet with a sway of his hips. The wine hit him just as they made it in and the guard slumped against the wall. He’d likely woken up thinking they’d had sex and Jaskier had left. It didn’t bother the bard much, the man was attractive and if he was going to tell others about his time spent with the famous musician, however false it may be, Jaskier couldn’t find it in himself to be bothered by it.

Lord Bachar’s wife was rather meek but he would feel her eyes on him as he’d perform or talk to her husband. Not only was he being watched by her but also by the Lord’s witch. Jaskier had no clue as to why a small-time town needed a sorceress but he’d steered very much clear of her. She tended to stay by the Lady’s side anyway, leaving Lord Bachar open and vulnerable.

Jaskier’s long day in question had been at the end of his stay when he’d been asked to preform for a lunch banquet, the perfect occasion for Dijkstra’s Special Forces to storm the place and arrest the Lord. In the rush of events, people had been herded out, Jaskier among them.

He gave Dijkstra a quick nod before riding the wave of people flooding out of the hall. A shoulder pushed past him, trying to part the crowd, pushing through it and into the room rather than out. Jaskier caught a glimpse of dark hair as he stumbled from the force of the hit, clutching his lute to his chest. He quickly regained his footing, glimpsing over his shoulder before being pushed forward. He managed to catch a glance of Lady Bachar struggling in the grasp of a guard, trying to rush forward and run away with the crowd, eyes shining - in anger or desperation he didn’t know.

He hoped that she had nothing to do with the illegal activities he’d revealed.

“So,” Priscilla started as Jaskier pushed through the door of their rooms, “today was the day, huh?”

Jaskier groaned and went straight for his bedroom, throwing himself onto his bed face-first. He heard Priscilla come in, felt the bed dip when she jumped up beside him.

“How did Lord Rubarb take it then?” She asked. Jaskier couldn’t be bothered to correct her.

“Not very well, I think.”

Priscilla hummed sympathetically, lying down and stretching herself out beside him. Jaskier turned his head to look at her.

“Don’t know what he expected, honestly. Did he think he’d get away with it?”

Jaskier thought for a minute.

“Maybe he thought they’d let him.” Priscilla gave him an incredulous look. “I just mean, with the threat of Nilfgaard, trading routes are collapsing. Redania’s economy is already suffering. Maybe he thought, with some forced labour, he’d revitalise the kingdom through the mining industry and it would be overlooked because…”

“Because the rich would get to stay rich.” Priscilla finished.

Jaskier looked at her for a minute. Her blue eyes were focused on the ceiling, brows pulled up in frown. With a sigh, he turned onto his back, looking up. They lay in silence for minutes.

“His wife cried.” Jaskier said softly.

“Was she nice?”

Jaskier hesitated. “I don’t know.”

Priscilla nodded, then sucked in a breath and Jaskier knew from experience that she was about to say something that she wasn’t sure she should be saying.

“I’m worried about you.”

Jaskier blinked in surprise and turned to look at her, finding her light blue eyes already looking back.

“Why?”

“Why?” She asked disbelievingly. “Maybe because you spend half your time hunting monsters and the other half among…a different kind of monster.”

Jaskier gnawed at his lip. She had a point. He hadn’t even realised how dangerous his life had become, yet inexplicably he felt safe. How could he describe to her that he’d never felt safer and more alive than when he was with Geralt? That he couldn’t imagine spending his life beside anyone else?

“Well,” he began uncertainly, very much making it up on the spot, “I’m not doing the monster hunting, an actual monster hunter is, I just tag along. And really, the other stuff doesn’t take up nearly half of my time and it’s normally just dancing around and talking to people and as you know, I’m quite good at that.”

Priscilla scoffed but didn’t respond. Jaskier could tell he hadn’t soothed any of her worries but he really didn’t know how to.

He wouldn’t stop, he knew. It served as a thrill when he and Geralt split ways. A thrill that paid well and allowed him to travel comfortably and not sleeping on dirt ground. He couldn’t imagine himself settling down just yet, he was too restless, he needed to move. And this way he could spread his music throughout the continent.

After several more quiet moments, Priscilla broke the silence.

“I paid a mage to turn Valdo’s hair green.” She blurted so quickly, it took Jaskier a second to catch up. He looked at her to see if she was kidding, finding her grinning wolfishly to herself, clearly reliving the experience.

He laughed so hard, he rolled onto the floor.

—

Jaskier hadn’t appeared for two days. It was time to find Yennefer.

As Geralt was strapping his bags onto Roach’s saddle, he wondered if Jaskier would appear when he was gone. His mind conjured Jaskier’s pale blue eyes when he’d asked him not to leave. He of course planned to return, but Jaskier hadn’t seemed so sure. Would the bard even remember that he had been there in the first place? There was so much unknown about his current ghost-like state. Maybe he only recognised Geralt’s presence when he saw him, otherwise forgetting that he’d been there, that he’d looked for him.

Geralt scowled as he led Roach through the clearing, feeling like he’d swallowed a stone.

“Geralt?” Jaskier’s soft, questioning voice drifted from behind him. Geralt closed his eyes, dreading having to explain his leaving. He slowly turned, coming face to face with the bard.

“Jaskier.” He grunted, trying to string together a convincing sentence in his head.

“You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question, yet it remained muted, not accusatory. Geralt still felt a needling of guilt.

“Yes.” He urged himself to say something more, to tell him why, to tell him that he needed to save him. And he couldn’t do it alone.

Jaskier nodded, brows pinched. He opened his mouth and Geralt braced himself. Then he disappeared. He blinked and felt something unpleasant tug at his ribs. He rolled his shoulders and contemplated staying a bit longer. He imagine the smile on Jaskier’s face when he’d tell him that he was staying.

He’d begun to catalogue Jaskier’s smiles over the many years, ever since he’d noticed the pattern of warmth spreading through his chest at the sight. There were the smiles he gave his crowds during a performance he was proud of, thriving on the high of attention and adrenaline. There were the breathless smiles he gave Geralt after they’d nearly escaped with their lives from a beast. It was a face-splitting, red-cheeked thing. And then there were the smiles when Geralt did something for him; stitched his torn pants, allowed him to sleep in briefly, bought him a warm meal. Though they were more rare and far between, those were soft and Geralt’s favourite.

Roach nudged his face with her snout, snickering at him. He gave her a look that said yeah, yeah, I get it.

He was about to turn back to his path when he saw Jaskier appear again. This time a few of steps in front of the willow tree. He saw him reappear and he saw him stumble back. Red spread across his chest and he looked down slowly. His knees buckled and he hit the ground hard.

And Geralt was running. Leaving Roach and sprinting to his bard, his Witcher speed carrying him headlong in a blink. And suddenly he was on his knees, skidding forward and catching Jaskier as he keeled forward onto himself.

Except he didn’t, his hands slipped through, Jaskier falling through his fingers in a ripple as he clutched his chest and gasped raggedly. The gasp giving rise to the blood flooding his throat. He heaved heavily onto the grass, pressing a palm to the ground, trying to hold himself up.

A noise escaped Geralt’s throat, one he didn’t remember making as he tried to grasp the hand braced on the ground. Of course, he only passed through, feeling only grass. He clutched it tightly in his fingers, feeling dirt press under his nails. He tried to call his name, only for the word to get caught in his throat, choking him as he watched Jaskier choke on blood.

The bard whimpered and pulled the hand away from his chest to reveal more of the red spreading, blooming across his white chemise like a rose unfurling. The arm holding him up shook and he looked up, looked up at something past Geralt’s shoulder. It was the first time he got to see the bard’s face fully.

Face pale, eyes glassy and pleading, swimming in tears. It looked like he was looking to someone. He opened his mouth, only to retch out more blood, spitting it out onto the grass. The begging in his eyes made Geralt look behind him, finding nothing yet wanting to scream help him please help him. He turned back to the bard whose arm had finally given up. He was pressing his head to the cool soil.

You feel like you just want to rest your head forever.

And Geralt felt terror claw at his throat, clearer than it had been for decades. He wanted to say something, anything. He wanted to yell at the bard to get up, to not give in to the ache in his body that was telling him to rest. He wanted to scream, to hold him, to press on the wound, to cup his cheek, to lace his fingers in his own and promise safety and everything that Jaskier deserved.

He wanted anything other than this powerless, helpless static where the words got caught behind a wall and his fingers passed through flesh with nothing but a mocking shimmer.

Jaskier rolled over with a grunt and only surrounded by green grass and budding wildflowers did Geralt notice the lack of blood pooling. It shocked the white of his shirt and stained his hand red but did not stray from the bard’s body. Jaskier released a shaky breath, blood spluttering over his lips and spilling onto his cheeks.

And Geralt was left to watch desperate, painfully vivid blue eyes pale and cheeks turn ashen until the only colour left was the stark red of blood splatter.

He was beautiful in death. Hair falling over and sticking to his brow in messy curls, skin porcelain, fingers curling in his hand and a shirt so scarlet like the indulgent silks he used to buy.

Geralt scrambled back and retched into the grass, heaving violently. Eyes wide and lungs struggling to inhale, Geralt found he still could not make a noise. He tried to scream, to cry out. The sound built up in his throat and got caught. Geralt painfully swallowed it down.

He turned and found Jaskier still there, unseeing eyes looking up as if cloud-watching. Crawling back, he let his hands hover over the body that he knew was not really there, that would pass through his hands like sunlight through the air.

He couldn’t look at him anymore, so he turned his gaze up to the clouds and lay himself beside his bard. Another cruel mockery of a day they’d already lived. His heart clenched painfully at the memory of sun-warmed skin and Jaskier’s voice. He felt hollowed out, like someone had scooped out the contents of his ribs and left him to lie.

And so two corpses lay together, chests gouged out.

#there will be more #some of them are kind of ooc #sorry #the witcher #my rambles #jaskier #geralt of rivia #geraskier #fic written #fanfic #angst

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arandompostarchive · 3 years

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Inure - Ch. 2

SAVED WORK

Summary: To some, The Specter is a serial killer. To some, a hero. But to everyone, you were entirely a mystery. You had no history, just a list of victims a mile long. No matter how many people searched your name, they could find anything. If only they had the spelling right. Now, you’ve come across some unfortunate information that drives you out of your usual shadows and into the path of the Avengers. Including two of the more reclusive members of the team. And it’s hard to pick only one of them.

***

“Howard, I’m not sure this is a good idea. SPECTR isn’t ready to show the public yet, much less reporters who will make up a million theories on how we’ll use this.” You argued. You sat across from Howard as you looked over the machine’s blueprints. Howard had suggested that it was ready for a test run, which was completely wrong. It was far from perfect.

“I’m not saying we have to keep it running, but we’ve got to show people something!” He said, getting frustrated. You began to get frustrated too.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have bragged about it to every media outlet in the country, then. You told them about SPECTR, now you have to tell them it’s not ready. It’s that simple.” You didn’t look up at him.

“C’mon. One test, we don’t have to test all it’s features, let’s just turn on its most basic setting. Just show that it works!” He said. You stood, walking toward the control panel you had set up. The machine was behind glass in a testing room. If you turned it on right now, you weren’t sure what the reaction would be, so you insisted it be put safely away from you.

“But it doesn’t work.”

“They don’t have to know that! I just gotta show them something.” You were tempted to give in. To let him bring in his media crew and you would have if it weren’t for the dangers SPECTR presented.

“Turning it on right now could endanger lives. We need to stay safe about this.” He rolled his eyes. He hated your safety rules which you had only implemented because he would run around the lab doing stupid things otherwise. “Look, I get it. I’m excited about this too! We’re making life-changing stuff here! But let’s save it until we know it will actually change lives.” You bent down and unscrewed a panel on the control board. You had missed the upset look on Howard’s face, not that you couldn’t guess what it looked like.

You continued working while he made a call or two in the background. You jumped a bit when a spark came out of the panel. You stood up, opening the door to the test room to check the machine itself. You could feel Howard staring at the back of your head.

***

You jolted up, sweating a bit. Most of your dreams were memories now. At least, all the dreams you remembered were. At the time, that memory didn’t seem so bad. It just seemed like two friends arguing and that’s what you thought it was. You wished you could go back. Tell yourself to listen a little closer to his phone calls. Double check that he really wouldn’t get a dozen reporters. Instead, you trusted him. That had been a grave mistake.

You pushed yourself off of your bed. Your room was nice to say the least. Leave it to a Stark to make things look expensive. You had an apartment-like area. There was a bedroom and a small living room and kitchen hybrid. It had a tv, a couch and the bare essentials of a kitchen.

You walked into your kitchen area to make tea. “What time is it?” You wondered out loud, seeing the darkness outside your windows. “I need to tell that Captain more about what I know, maybe the team would stop talking about me. Or at least do it in a more private setting.” You grabbed an electric kettle and filled it with water, waiting for it to boil.

“It’s 3:44 am, and I can remind you, if you’d like,” A voice offered. The sound of another person in your space made you jump, but when you looked around you couldn’t spot anyone.

“Hello?” You said loudly, unsure of where the person came from.

“Hello.” The voice said again. You stepped closer to the couch and looked around, still, no one was in sight.

“Who are you?” You asked. Trying to locate the voice.

“I’m FRIDAY, Mr. Stark’s AI system.” You almost laughed. Of course.

You were still curious though. She was really AI? Had she passed the Turing Test? How had he made a completely functional system? How was she built in, is it just in certain rooms, or did he manage to put her everywhere? You had questions to ask Stark about his inventions, though you were dreading having to talk to Howard’s son. He couldn’t be that much better than his father and you weren’t ready to spend time with Howard 2.0. You’d seen Tony on the news and even spent your own time watching over him, but you’d never had a real conversation.

“FRIDAY, huh? And how do you work?” You asked. Admittedly, it felt weird talking to the air. There was no where to focus, so you really just ended up staring at the ceiling. It felt odd.

“I was implemented to help Mr. Stark after he lost his previous AI. I’m a network of different systems Mr. Stark has created. I’m not allowed to share all the details, but I’m sure Boss wouldn’t mind showing you.”

Of course she calls Tony “Boss”, seems just like a Stark to put themselves on a pedestal. “Well,” you began, “Thank you FRIDAY. I can remember to talk to Captain Rogers, though. I don’t really have much else to do.”

“Alright, Miss.”

“Just call me Spectr,” you told her, smiling at the ceiling.

“No problem, Spectr.” There was a soft whistling behind you and you stopped the kettle before it got too loud. You took the tea along with a bit of honey and sat down on the couch, slowly sipping it. It felt odd to have a ‘home’. A TV, couch, bed, kitchen, even the weird body-less AI felt comforting. Something you hadn’t felt in a long time.

***

Coming downstairs to get breakfast was one of the most awkward experiences of your rather long life. You had come down late, hoping the Avengers ate early. To your dismay, most of the team were in their kitchen, chatting about something or other, though it seemed like a few of them there only to talk to the group.

When you walked in, book in hand, their conversation immediately hushed and all eyes turned to you. The team was terrible at pretending not to stare, but you did your best to ignore them.

“Um, Spectr.” The Captain spoke up. His voice stayed steady, but you could tell he felt odd asking you anything. You turned around to face him, silently telling him to continue. “Join us, we’d like to get to know you.” The sentiment was nice, though you knew what he was doing. If they could befriend you, they’d have a permanent ally or maybe even stop your ‘crime spree’. Or maybe they wanted a reason to justify working with you. Maybe they felt guilty putting a serial killer on the team, even temporarily, and thought that maybe, just maybe, if you were a kind person they’d feel just a little bit better. But the much more likely option was that they wanted a way to take you down. They wanted to know exactly what made you tick just in case you got too hard to handle. You wished them luck, you had died decades ago.

“No, Captain, you don’t want to talk to me. I’m a possible threat in your house. You want to learn whatever you can about me. That’s fine, I understand.” Everyone at the table was avoiding meeting both your eyes and Steve’s. You didn’t really have anything against Rogers, but you weren’t here to become best friends, you were here to stop a threat. Then you could leave and go back to your old life with no record of your crimes. Not that the city papers wouldn’t have a field day.“But you don’t want to talk to me. Don’t pretend you do, it’s rude.” You didn’t get a response, so you assumed you guessed right.

The team went back to your hushed conversation and you scanned the room. You grabbed a cup of coffee from the fresh brewed pot and sat yourself on a couch in their living room area. A man was sitting across from you also buried in a book. You didn’t mind the lack of conversation, though his book choice was interesting. Shakespeare’s The Tempest, certainly a good read.

You looked down at your book, staring at the page but still focused on the man in front of you. You recognized him, though you weren’t certain from where.

“The team seems to have deemed you a villain as well.” He said, barely glancing up from the pages. Usually, you’d be angry. You’d leave and find somewhere else so you could be alone. But for some reason, you didn’t.

“You’re getting the same treatment?” You asked, somewhat skeptical. From the outside, he looked like just another team member.

“It is to be expected after what I did. They still do not trust me.” This time he looked up at you, fully meeting your eyes. Then, you recognized him. Loki. The guy who wrecked New York.

It wasn’t your style, but it did end up taking out one of your targets for you and he seemed nice enough.

“I see. Well, can’t exactly blame them for not liking me either, then.” You said. He kept a straight face. It looked practiced, like he knew exactly how to keep his emotions hidden. But you knew that look in his eyes. The very silent desperation that maybe, maybe you could relate to him. Maybe you could be outcasts together. You weren’t sure you liked that idea. Being alone in your new ‘room’ seemed much more favorable.

“I’m not exactly clear on what you did.” He closed his book, keeping his thumb between the pages and setting it on his lap. You did the same.

“Well, I kill for a living. Sort of. It’s not the most high paying gig out there, but ‘heroes’ don’t tend to appreciate serial killers.” You tried to state that in the most lighthearted way possible, though there wasn’t really a nice way to phrase it.

“Do you simply kill anyone?” He asked, clearly trying to piece together why a murderer is currently trying to help save the world. You smirked a bit.

“Not exactly. All my victims are the people who’ve escaped justice. Maybe they got away with murder maybe the court just isn’t moving fast enough. Or they’ve got connections and keep walking free. I never miss a target.” You said, proud of your work.

The Avengers didn’t see it how you did. You were correcting the world. Bringing back hope, even if no one would cheer for you out loud.

“And the Avengers feel you are doing the world a disservice by ridding it of evil?” He seemed confused by the concept. As far as he was concerned, it sounded fair. Harsh, but fair.

“They don’t like the whole ‘murder’ part. Well, torture and murder part. They think we should let the system handle it. But the system isn’t working, so here I am.” You said, taking a large sip of your coffee.

“And if authorities catch you? Will they put you to death over such a thing?” You shrugged in response. In all honesty, you hadn’t really looked up what consequences you’d face. You didn’t care. “You do not seem scared.” He noted.

You laughed a bit. “Death is an old friend.” You took another sip of your coffee and he seemed to acknowledge that he wasn’t going to get any more than that. You spent a little while longer in a comfortable silence, both reading your respective books.

Soon, you finished yours and stood up. Loki nodded to you and you nodded back. You wouldn’t call him a friend, but he certainly wasn’t an enemy and that’s the closest thing you had to a friend right now.

You walked back to the kitchen, dropping your now empty coffee cup into the sink and washing it, placing it on the small drying rack they had there. Some of the team was still in the kitchen and you heard their conversation quiet. You had better hearing than average, but it wasn’t anything to brag about. And since the team was mostly super-soldiers, you could hear their extremely quiet whispers. Whatever they were talking about, they were being careful about it.

You grabbed a few granola bars from the cabinet when you spotted a bottle of whiskey that had been left on the counter, probably by mistake. You suspected Stark, Howard would leave your bottles on your table when he went to your house, why would Tony be different? You grabbed a glass and filled it, not bothering to look at the brand of whiskey.

“I like a good drink myself, but, uh, that’s a full size glass and it’s 10 in the morning?” Tony said, looking slightly concerned. You scoffed a bit.

“I’m starting that late, huh?” You asked, drinking a bit of the glass and walking toward their training room. The drink wouldn’t do much, your heart had stopped, well, working after you died. Everything had. As far as you knew, you were essentially a walking, talking corpse. The only reason you had to breathe was so you could talk, so when you lived alone you didn’t find it necessary. Your alcohol limit was high to say the least, you were almost certain you could out drink Thor. And now that you lived in the same house as the guy, you were kinda tempted to try it.

Since all of the loud members of the team were at breakfast, including Thor and Tony, you settled for getting exercise. Their training rooms were huge. Starks always went big. You could hear someone else and you groaned at the thought of human interaction. Like living with a bunch of do-good superheroes wasn’t enough, now you had to actually talk to them.

You walked in anyway, hoping it was one of the quieter members, like Vision. Though you didn’t see why a floating android would need to work out. Instead, it was Steve’s friend, Bucky Barnes. Although Steve and Bucky didn’t know you, you knew of them. Peggy had talked about Steve a bit, so you knew a little bit about their life in the army. You had even comforted Peggy once Steve crashed into the ocean.

The closest you had ever been to actually talking to them was consulting when Howard was designing possible shields for Steve. Bucky on the other hand, you had only heard about once or twice. Mainly about how he had gone missing.

You tried not to make eye contact with him while you went over to the weights. He was practicing what looked like knife throwing, so he wasn’t really focused on you.

“You created that machine, right?” You hadn’t even crossed the room before he addressed you. You internally groaned, not liking the idea of a conversation right now. Especially with someone who would quiz you on all your weaknesses.

He looked at you and offered a knife out of the small chest full of them. You took it and resigned yourself to questioning. It would be easier to manage if it was only one of them.

“Me and a friend. We thought it could do good, but it was never finished.” You said, throwing the knife at the target. Knife throwing wasn’t your specialty, but you weren’t terrible, so it landed off-center. Bucky still looked impressed though.

“Not bad. That machine was made to heal people, right?” You nodded and he threw his own knife, landing dead center. It looked like he was making a ‘X’ shaped pattern out of them. “So how’s he going to use it to hurt anyone?”

You had considered that before. But, considering the… malfunctions the machine was capable of, you didn’t doubt it could harm people as well as heal. “Trust me, it can kill without a problem.” You said, not liking the topic he had chosen. You tossed another knife at the target, this time landing further off-center than the one before. You internally sighed at your lack of focus.

He considered what you said and nodded, seemingly understanding that there was more to your statement.

“I don’t think you’re a threat, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He said, pausing in his knife throwing. You scoffed.

“You don’t, huh? Then why exactly are you talking to me?”

He shrugged a bit. “You seemed lonely.”

You continued throwing knives discussing members of the team. It seemed you had two not-enemies in the tower.

#loki x reader #loki #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #loki x reader x bucky #inure #saved work #fanfic

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chameleonspell · 3 years

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some random iriel words i found

[I just found this in my drafts, must have been there a few years, as I don’t remember anything about it. From context, I gather it’s answers I wrote to some sort of horror-themed OC question meme. I used to do a lot of these for character development when I was writing HTDC, but rarely posted them in case I ended up wanting to use the content in the fic. Might as well post it now? I have no idea if anyone else likes reading this stuff, but lmk if you do, I no doubt have a ton more somewhere...]

They have a premonition that something terrible will happen to them. How do they handle the situation?

Iriel would carry on as normal, because he has anxiety, so that's a normal Loredas, tbh. Perhaps some breathing exercises, or carefully modulated Calm spells. If, however, the premonition is specific and prophetic-sounding enough to convince him it results from an external source and not his own brain, then that's a whole different nest of scribs. Because that means that someone is fucking with him, probably a Daedra, and Iriel has well-documented reservations about the trustworthiness of such things. What situation are they REALLY trying to engineer, and why?

Do they have a fear of the unknown and things they can’t explain?

Not nearly as much as some people. Iriel has enough known-fears to contend with that something being unknown gives it rather an advantage, at times. Besides, he's a scholar. Unknown things are inherently interesting, because then you can research them, and test hypotheses! Sometimes to the point of almost contracting vampirism, because you can't resist touching weird-looking corpses.

What is the most disturbing thing they’ve ever seen?

I had to think about this one, because pitching Iriel through Morrowind involved subjecting him to a lot of disturbing things. Sixth House stuff is obviously designed to be body-horror nightmarish, and Ire's particular terror of skeletons meant that ancestral tombs were always going to be a trial. In terms of character turning points, though, I'm gonna say Rotheran was the worst thing he'd ever seen, the most upsetting. Because it wasn't just the slavery, or the sadistic games, or the Daedra worship, or the illusion-magic mind control (though that was all bad enough!). It was the dark things about himself, about his psychology and attitude to other people, that he believed he saw magnified and reflected there, triggering a spiral into self-loathing and despair, and the events of the next several chapters! Which... sounds really depressing, but was ultimately useful, in a gotta-lance-the-poison-filled-abscess-before-you-can-clean-and-heal-it kind of way.

What would they do if they witnessed an alien ship crash landing?

I like how this sort of question highlights the differences of the TES setting. Cosmology, f'rinstance, is rather a different affair. Space travel is occasionally a thing in the lore, but their "space" isn't the same as ours. The appearance of strange crafts from out of the air filled with unidentifiable creatures wouldn't imply "aliens!!!" to someone from Tamriel, but probably something more like: "oh shit what have the Telvanni made NOW?" or "please no more portals spewing horrors from another Daedric realm-o'-the-week, i am so very tired."

If they were a ghost, what methods would they use to haunt someone?

"If". lol. Iriel spends a fair amount of HTDC baaaaasically turning into a ghost, yeah? Insubstantial, invisible, losing all grasp on the material realm. And yet, he utterly fails to use his powers to prank people! Shani and Bodu agree that this is a tragic waste of ghostly powers.

Actually, this is another one where TES sensibilities might differ from ours. In Tamriel, ghosts are a well-documented spiritual phenomenon - the result of a lapse in burial rites, or, in the case of Dunmer, the successful product of them. Haunted houses tend to be places full of actual screaming spectres, rather than strange, poltergeist activity. Floating objects and suchlike would be more readily explained by a mage's mischievous telekinesis than the restless dead.

Anyway, to return to your question, a house haunted by Iriel is largely identical to one in which he is actually living. Either way, you may see little hard evidence of his presence, yet sometimes experience odd, herbal smells; indistinct, yet melancholic apparitions in the corner of your eye, and soft sighs just on the edge of hearing. You may also find your books mysteriously disappearing, and reappearing with the pages tea-stained and dog-eared.

How much would they have to be offered to live in a haunted house for a month?

"Let me get this straight. You're offering me an empty house... yes, fine, there are ghosts, but no real people... an empty house that everyone else is frightened to go near, so I'd have complete peace and quiet-- yes, yes, apart from the ghosts, I mean-- ...and I can do whatever I like there, and... let me be absolutely clear about this... YOU want to pay ME?"

("Hmm? Oh yes, it's been fine. Honestly, the dead are far less trouble than people think, especially the non-embodied kind. Simple wards and charms will do adequately if you want to keep them contained, but really, a little attention is all most of them want. They like it when I sing to them, actually. I did get one dreadful screamer, and had to spend a night traipsing around the cellar, scrabbling in the dirt until I found where the poor thing had been buried, but ever since I got the gravedigger to move him somewhere more comfortable, he's been a total sweetheart. Which is more than you can say for dogs or babies or Bosmer housemates, honestly.")

Could they stay calm lost in the woods all night by themselves?

It's funny... I'm sure Iriel's pa used to take him camping in the woods as a kid, and I'm sure Ire spent the entire time freaking out about weird noises, and generally having an unhappy, stressful time. And yet, upon being released from prison as an adult, he immediately vanished into the woods, and voluntarily spent multiple days and nights alone out there. (Three reasons: fear of civilisation, dissociation and drugs.)

After that, even once the drugs wore off, he'd become accustomed to wild places, and grown to feel safer there than in cities, where the dangers around him were harder to predict and quantify. Iriel is, in some ways, very unimaginative. His mind will create possible scenarios based on his experiences, but it won't invent implausible monsters from nothing, and he finds darkness comforting, rather than a source of horror. The woods at night are a good deal more peaceful and friendly than many other places he's spent time.

#oc memes #question memes

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 4 years

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Candyman (1992)

All I know about Candyman is that I saw the movie cover innumerable times at Blockbuster as a child and it ALWAYS freaked me out. I think bees are involved? And a hook, and maybe a mirror? And the great Tony Todd, whom I know better from the Final Destination films, and whose voice is one of the all-time great voices in horror or anywhere else. With the new Jordan Peele-produced Candyman coming out this year (maybe...if, you know, movies ever come out again during the apocalypse), I wanted to watch the original for the first time, so I’d have an idea of what I was getting into.

Basically a couple of grad students, Helen and Bernadette (Virginia Madsen and Kasi Lemmons), are studying local urban legends and folklore in Chicago when they find out about the legend of Candyman (Tony Todd), a murderous spirit that haunts the projects in Cabrini Green and the poor black folks who live there. As Helen digs deeper into the mystery, strange things start happening to her until she finally is forced to confront Candyman face-to-face and then things REALLY go off the rails. So is this a slasher movie filled with racial tension, the precursor to more cerebral horror fare like Get Out or Midsommar? Or is this more Eddie Murphy Vampire in Brooklyn 90s ridiculousness? Well...

Much more the former than the latter. There’s a lot of stuff going on here, and not all the ingredients in the smoothie work well together. There’s a lot of good - strong performances, some great set pieces, and some truly tense, nerve-wracking sequences. My 7-year-old self was definitely right to be super freaked out by that VHS cover.

Some thoughts:

Ok this Philip Glass soundtrack is already really unsettling and weird in a great way. It turns out the soundtrack is one of the elements that really makes this film memorable and stand out from typical slasher schlock.

Ah, it’s based on a story by Clive Barker, ok so this is gonna be violent and sexual and uncomfortable, got it. [Ed. note: this assessment was pretty accurate.]

I don’t understand in what universe you want to like, play a Bloody Mary type game when you’re about to have sex. Is that what turns some people on? I’m not here to kinkshame anyone, but I just feel like there are other ways to court a bit of danger during sex that don’t involve invoking a murderous mirror spirit.

I am loving these oversized sweaters. Was any decade better for oversized sweaters than the 90s?

The set design is really incredible - this derelict building in the Cabrini Green projects is eerie, there’s an oppressive presence and an abandoned feeling to it all at the same time. And Wife pointed out that man, people really loved painting walls pink in the 90s, you just don’t see that kind of pink anymore. This movie has a really rich feel to it, like all the decisions were made with real craft and care. I can definitely see how this had ripple effects on other atmospheric horror, especially in urban settings, later down the road.

I can’t help but feel like our white woman protagonist is a tourist in a world she doesn’t understand. That sense of not belonging is a big part of the horror here, and at first I was very uncomfortable that this was playing into racist stereotypes of the young blonde white woman being threatened by all the big bad black people. But instead, the film humanizes and offers an air of protectiveness over the residents of Cabrini Green, and in many ways it is Helen who is shown to be the dangerous and harmful outsider.

The jump scares are real, and very effective.

Um what grad student has business cards tho, c’mon now.

Ah yes, the Clive Barker of it all arriving right on time with this completely unasked for child mutilation.

I love Jake (DeJuan Guy) and his incredulousness. He’s a pretty fantastic and emotive child actor.

Can I just say, Helen is really really out of Trevor’s (Xander Berkeley) league. I don't know what she sees in him. And it skeeves me out that he’s a professor and she’s a grad student because, although it’s never explicitly spelled out, I would bet a million dollars that she was his student.

Man, Candyman looking fly as hell with that fur trimmed coat and those shiny black shoes. “Be my victim” ok, Tony Todd, ok, I’m on board!

OH NO THERE IS GRAPHIC VIOLENCE TO A DOG. IT’S VERY GRAPHIC AND SUDDEN AND UPSETTING EVEN THOUGH IT’S FAKE LOOKING.

There’s also a lot of tasteful sideboob if you’re into that sort of thing.

You know, grad school was a stressful time for me, but at least I can say I was never woke up covered in blood and was accused of murder.

This dramatic motherfucker flying out the window backwards. Between this and the outfit, Candyman is extra AF.

I can’t get over how much Virginia Madsen resembles Gillian Anderson in early X-Files days. It’s similar facial structure and those big eyes, sure, but a lot of it is this hair as well. As any millenial lesbian can tell you, Gillian Anderson in early X-Files days was Very Important to our cause, so uh, I’m pretty into Helen’s whole vibe honestly.

At first I thought this was going to be about racial symbolism and Candyman being a physical embodiment of the horrors inflicted upon the black community in urban environments, but thigs get muddy with this whole murder plot and framing of Helen as this victim of some supernatural conspiracy theory, and I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to take from it? But damn, this is compelling and stressful.

OK but if she’s been in the hospital for a month, then this baby has been in this dirty ass room for a month with only a dramatic hook spectre man taking care of him? What did he feed baby Anthony?? I happen to know that he’s covered in bees and babies can’t eat honey.

Why do they have a giant paperclip on their wall as decoration?

The actor who plays Trevor, Xander Berkeley, is so burned in my memory as the foster dad from Terminator 2 that I keep expecting him to make the same dumb face while he’s covered in blood (because let’s face it, I’m expecting EVERYONE to die in this movie, and he’s been particularly shitty) and ope time almost ran out but there it is! 1991/1992 were the glory days for this guy dying bloody in movies.

Did I Cry? No, but I was VERY distressed about that dog :(

Overall, I can definitely see why this has entered the cult classic pantheon. Strong central performances from Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd carry a lot of this film, but there are elements that I’m still confused about, mainly due to a muddled and overstuffed plot. The racial injustice and lynching feels like rich material to draw from but then why is the belief in Candyman yielding the murders of other black people living in Cabrini Green? I would think the vengeance would be on the heads of the folks who actually did the lynching. Why did he have to kidnap the baby? Was it for leverage to get Helen to do what he wanted? Surely someone she had a stronger personal connection to - Bernadette, probably - would have been a wiser choice? And if, instead, this is all some Dracula-esque plot to reconnect with the reincarnated spirit of his long lost love, what on earth was all this other bullshit about? It’s a movie that works best when you don’t ask too many questions about it, and the soundtrack and visuals - especially that mouthful of bees - are ones that are going to stick in my memory for a long time.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#120in2020 #candyman #candyman 1992 #candyman review #tony todd #virginia madsen #xander berkeley #kasi lemmons #dejuan guy #movie reviews #film reviews #horror reviews

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mi6-cafe · 5 years

Photo

The third week of writing for LDWS participants has come to a close. Now it’s time for the next bit of the competition: reading and voting!

prompt: resurrection Word count: 250 Challenge: Write a drabble with an acrostic format spelling out ‘resurrection.’ (First word of first paragraph must start with r, first word of second paragraph must start with e, and so on).

Voters–after you read, check out this form to vote for your top three drabbles! You can also leave anonymous feedback for the writers!

Who can vote? Anyone who’s read the drabbles! Yes, that includes YOU!

Writers–you may also vote, but we do ask that you vote for three drabbles other than your own.

The voting period ends at 11:59 PM EST on Sunday night. Results will be posted and anonymous feedback will be emailed on Monday.

Remember, readers–it’s up to YOU to decide who will wind up on top at the end of the competition!

Drabbles are under the read-more:

Title: Mourning Author: sunaddicted Rating: G Warnings: emotional h/c, mild angst Summary: the fact that it's not real doesn't make it hurt any less

"Roses, really?"

Exhaling a heavy sigh didn't alleviate his oncoming migraine "They were on sale" Q shrugged.

"Seriously?"

"Uh.. yes" had James really expected him to splurge on flowers for a fake grave? It wasn't like they wouldn't wilt anyway.

"Roses are romantic, Q - for dinners and dates, not for funerals"

"Resurrections are romantic though, aren't they?"

Except for the fact that James hadn't really died: it had all been part of a plan to make some people believe that they wouldn't have to worry anymore about him hunting them down - and Q had been crucial to the plan, there for every step of it. Still, he seemed... upset? "Are you okay?"

Candles peeked amidst the roses - the expensive and scented kind that Q lit up only to treat himself after long and hard missions; he focused on them, wondering about which of their colleagues had spent so much on a fake death "Sure"

That tone of voice screamed the contrary "Q..."

"I don't want to talk about it" Q sighed "You're fine. You're home"

"Of course I'm home" James drew Q against his chest, gently enveloped him in his arms "I'll always come back" faked or not, resurrection was his specialty afterall.

Nodding was the only answer Q could give at those reassuring words: one day that grave would be full; one day that nightmare would be too real; one day he wouldn't buy discounted roses to cry on as he mourned the man he loved. And it hurt.

Title: Reinvention Author: IrishWitch58 Warnings: Introspection, Mildly fluffy Summary: Living long enough means changes

Rising through layers of sleep, Bond opened his eyes and blinked at the sunlight reaching warm fingers through the drapes.

Easing himself onto his back and finding his left arm trapped under a lithely muscled and sleep warm body was a familiar experience now.

Sleep was becoming easier, after years of subsisting on brief naps on missions and nightmares when not.

Until six weeks ago, he had never imagined he would be this contented. He hadn't been when an initially minor injury had proven more debillitating than it had seemed. The laceration across his palm had severed tendons and though surgery had repaired it, the tendons were shorter and stiffer and he couldn't use the hand to the degree field work required.

Retirement from 00 status was his only option. He had fought it but he was a realist and knew the department could not risk delicate missions on an agent who couldn't handle the physical tasks required.

Resurrection, he had once said, was his hobby. Reinvention might have been more accurate.

Eventually he had accepted the position as head of testing and training.

Considering his years of experience, it was an excellent fit.

This morning would be the first of his new career.

In two hours he would be Commander Bond, department head. It was time to begin the day. He nudged Q.

One green eye opened and a frown crossed Q's face. “Second thoughts?”

“None. Just starting the day properly.” They were fifteen minutes late with smug smiles.

Title: Resurrection Hopes Warnings: No warnings apply Tags: established relationship

Author: Susspencer

Returning to what was home to me, Mi6, my family, friends, the question was would they welcome me?

Everything was different. Everything was the same.

Stiff upper lip and I stood ready for the Inquisition before me. Where have you been? Why didn't you contact us, or at least me? Why did you wait to come back?

Unscathed by wounds. Unhurt by blame. Unmoved by their feigned sorrow. Unwilling to forgive, yet.

Ready to regain my title again, reclaim my license to kill. Would they relinquish their grip on it? And reinstate me.

Rumbling in my soul as I saw your face. Reasoning within myself, what do I tell you? Those eyes as they peered through your lenses.

Eyes full of compassion and love still there, hung with a hurt, so deep, that it peers into corners unseen in forever.

Cheer bubbles in my chest, in that empty place, that was barely holding on to the memory of your face.

Time keeps ticking as I wait to hear.

Is it reinstatement or thank you for your service? I need to be the hero that you need me to be.

Oh, my Q just come stand near, and chase away my fear. I am nothing without you. It’s only as we that we can save the world.

Nay or yeah, it doesn't matter, if I can just reach out and touch. The only thing I need to resurrect is us. To be with you, Q, my dear, you are my life.

Title: One hope... Author: ato Warnings: none Summary: I wait.

Regret is the worst emotion. Unprofessional, M would have said. Inevitable feels more on point.

Eleven o’clock in a sterile waiting room, unsure of basic questions of life and death, I think of words not spoken. Looks shared, but not acted on.

So clear in my mind... all my opportunities. Over comms. In the branch. Heading out at the end of the day in the same direction, only to turn away. Avoid temptation. Turn away from him and toward the cold safety of solitude.

Useless now to imagine "what if?" How I might have changed his sadness (and mine) by acknowledging what I knew was there, but feared reaching for.

Resurrection is my hobby.

Resurrection is my curse.

Even so, I wait in an antiseptic room, hoping against hope that Q will follow my example.

Come back from the dead. The presumed dead. Back from the missing, then found (injured... beaten). Back from the shadows and pain and who-gives-a-fuck-why-should-I?

To the work. To the family that isn't family. To the battles and camaraderie and late hours, exhausted and triumphant. To the old agent who wants another shot. A chance to say, "I just need one thing," and have him know it's him.

I sit — cold, bone-tired, frightened for perhaps the first time in years — indulging in a hope.

One hope.

No. One need. For a snarky, willful boffin to fight his way back from the deep, dark dreamlessness, rise up, open his bright, clever eyes… and say yes.

Title: Duck Psychotic

Author: Venstar

Warnings: None

Summary: Living is hard. Resurrection is even harder

Resurrection was a little known part of the Quartermaster’s job. It was a demanding procedure, tricky even. He’d had quite a few spectacular and dangerous results. Some agents weren’t meant to come back, some were never the same again and some...had to be destroyed.

Except for Bond. He took to resurrection like a psychotic duck to water. There wasn’t anything that he had been through that Q couldn’t drag him back from. “I’m tired Moneypenny. He’s literally taking years off my life.”

“Someone has to deal with him,” Moneypenny said. “And besides, you love seeing those blue eyes see YOU for the first time, every time you bring him back.”

Unfortunately, Moneypenny was correct. Q coughed. There was something terribly enchanting about an assassin with wonder in his eyes when he spotted Q.

“Remind me why you’re complaining?” Moneypenny asked.

“Remind me why I like you?” Q sighed out through his nose.

“Extraction team incoming,” Moneypenny said pressing her earpiece.

“Can’t wait.”

Terrible things happened every day. It was always a terrible day when 007’s body was brought into his Necro room, where the laborious process of resurrecting an agent took its toll on Q. One more year was taken from his life.

“I know you,” Bond’s voice rough when he finally woke. His face lax and sleepy, his eyes tracking Q’s every move.

“Of course you do, fool.”

Now came the time Q’s strength would leave him and Bond would stay, keeping him company, sharing tea from a Scrabble mug.

Title: Reboot

Author: kiddohno

Warnings: none

Summary: Everyone needs a hobby.

Rebooting… | | |

Entering non-interactive start-up... [OK]

Switching to guest configuration... [OK]

User: 007 Password: ************

Reading biometrics... [OK]

root@LAPTOP-Quartermaster$: cd ~/Programs gcc bond.c

ENTER

Connection failed. Unable to find node. Discarding circuit.

Try again? Y/N: y

Initializing. Resolving... Connection established. Downloading files...

On screen, hundreds of points appeared over a graphical world map. Some were tied together with pixelated lines of colour, highlighting connections between them, and each one linked to relevant documents in a massive repository of data and evidence. This was everything that Q had found chasing down what was left of SPECTRE, alone, after James had gone. He’d foolishly thought that taking out Blofeld would be the end of the whole organization. Instead, the power vacuum had only served to revive the criminal network with added fervor. Q had been methodologically tracking the formation of new splinter groups and taking down cells all around the world, and in doing so he had drawn too much attention to himself.

Now that he was missing and presumed dead, James knew that everything Q had done was to protect him. As long as any part of SPECTRE survived, there was the risk that it would target James Bond. Q had done this so that he could retire in peace. And when Q couldn’t continue his work, for whatever reason, he had made sure that his laptop and a short note found their way to James. ‘007,’ the note read, ‘You know the password-- we all need a hobby.’

Title: Azalea's First Bloom Warning: Major Character Death Summary: Resurrection is never guaranteed (but she will probably come back to haunt me).

Author: GwyllionDream

R’s instructions blared over his mobile, but Bond was much too panicked to comprehend them. His hands shook. His mind raced. Despite all of his years as an agent, this was the worst scenario he had ever encountered.

Every manual Bond had studied proved useless in this situation.

“Stop and listen to me,” R’s voice demanded. “Four compressions, followed by one breath.”

Unsure of himself, Bond resumed his efforts. His palms pushed on the small chest beneath him, but she was… gone.

“Repeat it with me,” R said, her voice cracking with despair. “One, two, three, four, breathe….”

“R! This isn’t working,” Bond shouted. “Q will be home any minute.”

Even from halfway across the city, R’s gasp of sympathy reached Bond.

Crimson petals covered the countertop. Bond had clipped the azaleas himself, hoping to bring some spring cheer into Q’s flat. Water dripped to the floor from the upended vase. Each falling drop reminded Bond of the pulsing heartbeat of life that now slipped away.

The old girl had really done it this time.

“I don’t want you to lose her,” R cried. “You need to keep going!”

“One, two, three, four,” Bond counted as he pushed on her fragile chest. He pressed his mouth to hers and breathed, but nothing worked. Bond sobbed so loudly that he didn’t hear Q enter the flat, or his footsteps as he crossed the kitchen floor.

“No!!!” Q let out a bloodcurdling scream when he saw Bond crouched over Pampuria’s lifeless body.

Title: Home Again Author: solarmorrigan Summary: Bond's priorities have shifted over time, just a little. Warnings: None.

Really, Bond had stopped enjoying the parties a long time ago.

Events like the ones he often infiltrated were filled people who wanted.

Someone was always wanting for his attention, always fawning and smarming and insinuating themselves into his space.

Unctuous in the extreme, they were unpleasant and false.

Repeatedly, though, Bond catered to them, listened to and flattered them. Whatever it took to gain their confidence, their secrets, their assistance – whatever they had to offer.

Realistically, it was the easiest way to get the job done.

Even so, the thrill of successful falsehoods had worn thin.

Could he do it another way? Were there options that didn’t involve the suppression of his every instinct and desire to the point where he felt more like a ghost watching his own animated body interact with others? Likely. And likely, they were higher risk.

The mission came first, though. Every time. And Bond would kill himself, body and soul, to complete the mission. Besides that, a lower risk meant a higher chance he could come home.

It wasn’t until Bond was on his way to that home that he began to feel himself again.

Only when he reached home did it really feel like he began to inhabit his own body again.

Not until he had Q in his arms, held against him, wrapped around him, grounding him and reminding him of who he was and who he was allowed to be, did Bond really feel like he’d come alive again.

Title: Lost and Found

Author: solitaryjane

Warnings: none

Summary: This time, it's Q who's been declared dead.

“Really, Bond?” Q sighed. “It hadn't even been a day.”

Each of the safehouse’s security measures had been breached, starting from the foyer all the way to the bedroom. Bond stood just inside the walk-in closet, where the entrance to the panic room was, and Q in front of it, looking cross.

Something could be said of the irony of being caught by someone prone to disappearing while trying to disappear. Q sighed again. So much for his foolproof plan. And it was foolproof, mind you, with a perfectly staged attack and a perfectly convincing corpse. He wasn't even going to be gone that long – maybe a few weeks – and then he’d be back. It would be no worse than what a certain double-oh liked to pull on a regular basis. Everything was going swimmingly according to plan.

Until now.

“R found some discrepancies,” Bond shrugged. “Thought I’d follow them.”

“Right, of course,” Q spat. He really should’ve specifically locked R out beforehand. It would've probably spared him the indignity of being found – alive – when barely 24 hours had passed.

Even with minimal lighting he could see the twinkle in Bond’s eyes, exuding mirth and arrogance. Q wanted to kill him.

“Care to explain?” Bond asked.

“To you? Not particularly.”

“I promise I can help.”

“Oh, suddenly an expert in international hacking ploys, are we?”

“No,” Bond smirked. “But luckily I know someone who is, and who, despite his efforts, won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.”

10)

Title: Faith

Author: Iambid/Flantastic

Warnings: None

Summary: Q’s faith in him is everything

Returning from missions has never been easy for James. There is a soulless feeling that comes with killing. A deadening inside that is as difficult to overcome as it is insidious. For years it festered. Damaging James, slowly destroying him from the inside.

Even though Q has never realised it, from the moment they first fell into bed together, there is something he does that can bring James back to the land of the living in an instant.

Something so simple and he doesn’t even have a clue.

Understanding came slowly to James at first. The first time that Q did it he didn’t know what to think but now he craves it.

Relishes it.

Returning home, it is Q naked in their bed, that resurrects him.

Even just sleeping, Q curls into James’s arms like their bed is the safest place in the world. He allows James to hold him. Protect him.

Caress him.

The times that James has killed are eclipsed by the moments that Q trusts him at his most vulnerable. Nude. Sleeping.

It is heady. This trusting intimacy.

Only James will never tell him. It is the spontaneity of Q stripping off after a long day’s work, of him slipping into their bed, resting his head on James’s shoulder and holding onto him so tightly, that makes James’s heart beat again. If Q realised, if it was a deliberate act, it wouldn’t be the same.

Nothing brings James back to life in quite the same way.

11)

Title: Turnabout is Fair Play

Author: beaubete

Warnings: none

Summary: Patience is a virtue and Bond is a sinner.

Really, he should have expected it. It was inevitable, though tell that to Q's empty flat at three in the morning with birdsong out the window and a funeral in Bond's heart.

Even the cats join him for long, meandering rambles through the kitchen as though they don't quite know what to do with themselves. None of them do.

Surely Q will be back soon. Surely Sunday he'll be at the door with a takeaway. Surely Monday he'll be back for his yoga mat. Surely Tuesday.

Uncomfortable silence rules the flat; since that first confession, they've been quietly together, slipped into a relationship like falling into a warm bath.

Romance, unanticipated as it was, has become the new normal, and this is of course why Q'll be coming back. It wouldn't be fair to suddenly get everything he's ever wanted only to lose it now.

Righteous anger sweeps his shoulders. After everything, doesn't he deserve happiness? Doesn't he--

Except if anyone deserved to lose peace, it's him. Chills trip up the back of his neck.

Could this be his own fault?

The thought has haunted him since their first kisses, faces drowned and ghostly in the corners of his vision. It was always a possibility. A likelihood.

It isn't acceptable. His retirement was meant to make them safe; it never occurred that he'd find himself on the other side of the comms worrying. He ought to let Mallory handle it.

Ought to trust the system.

No. He fetches his pistol.

12)

Title: Something of a Surprise

Author: melynen

Warnings: none

Summary: Q’s in the field and things get a little out of hand.

Resurrection being a hobby of James, Q has long since stopped holding his breath every time his lover pulls off one of his disappearing acts. He still fears for his life, yes, but he also trusts James to return to him.

Especially now that he has practically moved in to Q’s flat.

So it’s something of a surprise that this time, it is not James who disappears but Q.

Usually Q wouldn’t be in the field, but sometimes, concessions must be made, and this is one of those times. A supposedly easy mission quickly turns into anything but, and Q has barely time to feel the gunshot that takes him down.

Recovery is not the easiest or the quickest, and he’s told that on the way back to London his heart really did stop beating; waking up at Medical, surrounded by his nearest and dearest, he can only be happy it didn’t stick.

”Rubbed off on you, have I?” James grins, relieved.

Eve, sitting next him, snorts inelegantly. Q can see that she wants to say something, but mercifully she keeps quiet.

”Could be,” Q allows. ”Though I’d really rather not do this again, if you won’t terribly mind.”

”Too right you won’t,” says Eve.

”I certainly won’t mind,” James says. ”For a while there…” he pauses, but Q can easily hear what was left unsaid.

Out loud, Q says nothing, but he does squeeze the hand holding his.

Neither of them speaks again, but their clasped hands say everything.

13)

Title: Blood and Fire

Author: azure7539arts

Warnings: Canon-typical violence

Summary: Bond wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

“Run!”

Every time he tried to close his eyes, the image of Q’s blazing gaze kept flashing deep in the recesses of his mind.

Smoke had been billowing from the damaged sites, the sound of people trapped and screaming only second to the thick stench of fresh blood that had been permeating through the air. They had been under attack. Again.

Up until that moment, Bond had never allowed himself to even think about exactly just how important Q was in his life. And the second he had heard Q’s sharp, unwavering order for him to go after the assailants instead of staying back in the wreckage to help, Bond had realized that he was going to regret it.

Running had always been his forte, he had told himself.

Running should’ve been easy because he had been doing it his entire life.

Even so… in that singular moment with him staring wide-eyed at the half of Q’s face that had been drenched in free-flowing blood from a gash somewhere above his eyebrow, Bond had never been more reluctant to leave.

“Care for some tea?”

To be fair, Bond hadn’t needed to ask to know that Q would say yes before sitting up straight and murmuring “finally!” under his breath. “How is it?” He sat down, watching Q sip at his drink.

“It’s good,” Q mumbled, seemingly more relaxed. “Just how I take it.”

“Of course.” Bond quirked a small smirk.

No, he wasn’t going to make another mistake this time.

Thank you to our amazing drabble writers for bringing their drabbles to life this week, especially since this was the most difficult challenge yet.

To our amazing readers, you can help this competition by going here to vote on your top three drabbles. You may also leave anonymous feedback for one or more drabbles.

Let’s vote!

#00Q #00qldws #ldws

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staticsamuraiart · 5 years

Text

Hoo boy, this one's a long one

There's a TLDR way at the end.

I had one of my longer running games come to a messy head last night where a couple of the players enacted a party betrayal. Here is your cast primarily involved so I don't have to keep using full titles to keep everything straight. We're level 17.

The Tiefling Barbarian who's been having a mental breakdown for the last 3 or 4 games as his entire life up until a certain point has been revealed to him to be a lie, thus causing a downward spiral of paranoia and a refusal to trust literally anyone, party members included. Shortened to "The Barbarian" from now on.

The way-too-hard-to-explain Ranger turned Devil Vampire Queen (there's a lot going on here). The character was once a Tabaxi with a hunger for treasure hunting. Now she wishes to ascend to godhood and become what is essentially a god of piracy and treasure hoarding. Shortened to "The Ranger" from now on.

The Undead Warlock/Life Cleric who has thus far been an amazing healer and generally has a fix for everything and is unaffected by most things who gets the most screwed over in this scenario. Shortened to "The Cleric-Lock" from now on.

And the more minor involvements, a Lycan bloodhunter, our demi-god Bard, and myself as the circle of the moon druid. We were affected but not nearly as directly.

The situation! We were in the Feywild and crawling through a dungeon. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't expecting this dungeon because I was under the impression we were gathering allies in the Feywild because our plane is at war with the Devils but that's another story. We split the party (first mistake) because the dungeon has two paths to go through and one team was forcibly separated after a cave in. The Bard, Bloodhunter, and Barbarian go one way. The Cleric-lock, Ranger, and Druid go the other. Party A and B respectively.

Party A proceeds forward. There's pretty much mostly harmless or not at all dangerous traps laid out through this place so they kind of murderhobo on through. They uh.... let's just say an innocent child gets straight up murdered by the Barbarian who betrays them and tries to book it for the item at the end of the dungeon. Shenanigans ensue and the Bard traps the Barbarian in a Forcecage, while he and the Bloodhunter bamf out to continue through the dungeon.

Party B has a significantly easier time, because overall we are the less* murderhobo side (*one of the traitors is in this group, guess whooo). We power through a much more significant portion of the dungeon and make it to the boss room. "The Boss Room" being the room where the treasure is guarded by goblins...

Now to condense the story, the Vampire and the Barbarian for different reasons were trying to obtain AN INSANELY RARE AND POWERFUL LEGENDARY SWORD THAT GRANTS WISHES. Like high tier shit. The Ranger's plan was to trap or kill everyone in this dungeon because she is the reason it even exists. She has been meticulously planning with the DM for months on her ultimate betrayal and finally reached her point. She plays her trump card (although it ends up not being as awesome as expected because she misunderstood a mechanic, nbd) but proceeds to continue. Here's where things get complicated so let me explain piece by piece:

The ranger supposedly had a wish saved from a previous session when she encountered multiple wish granting items all at once (Frankly she's had insane luck in obtaining wishes all through this campaign). Many of us at the table were pretty sure she did NOT have the wish saved, but the DM ruled she definitely did even though the math didn't line up. The Ranger used this wish spell to force the Cleric-Lock to have amnesia.

Clarification; the DM specifically stated there is no save, no counter, no anything to stop this wish. It happened and there was nothing the player could do about it. Now you might be thinking "but you're the druid, couldn't you have still stopped her?" or even "that's not very fair, shouldn't there still be some kind of DC if the wish copied a spell that exists?"

Well to answer the first thought as simply as possible, I am a homebrewed version of an Eidolyn. You know? Those things Summoners essentially make a bond with and can summon out to fight and shit for them? Yeah, it's neat. The second answer is like, wow hey same bro, I agree. That doesn't make much sense to me. DM ruled "It happens because it's not the 'spell' wish, it's like the 11th level bomb ass crazy powerful WISH wish." and personally I didn't agree but DM rules so I wasn't gonna fight it out. Powerful magic is powerful. Other players at the table were incredibly upset over it and the tensions rose.

Back to explanations, I was originally bonded to the Bard, because at the start of the game we were playing a dnd skin of El Dorado but our "Tulio" left left the game early on. Anyway, here's the problem; I wasn't bonded to the Bard. I was bonded to the Ranger.

"But Static, how can that be? you don't just un-bond to your chosen person!"

Yeeeah well, there was a situation where I got petrified and that sucked. I failed my saves twice. The Ranger had a very powerful ally who had unpetrified me, but he also apparently marked me and bonded me to the Ranger. The DM's argument was that because I "died," I was no longer bonded to the Bard, and was open to have a new bond made. Now I'm not mad or anything at the situation, I'm a very flow with the punches player, but my problem is that that seems like something I should have known, right? I didn't though, I had no idea my bond was shifted; no idea I was even remotely connected to the Ranger in such a way. It was well hidden, because we WERE connected BEFORE that situation came about. Devils' rules, souls being traded and shit, partially due to my Eidolyn heritage; it's complicated.

Why is that important? Well technically speaking, because I was HER Eidolyn, I was HER minion. She ordered me to go ahead and grab her legendary wish sword while the Cleric-Lock was essentially reverted to a mindless Spectre- complicated- and proceeded to possess the Ranger because he still had the general notion that the situation was a hostile one. Ranger failed her save, became a vegetable. I was still following my order. Those Goblins? Used the wishes to wish for Fire toads, and then wished to be okay with fire. AKA they're slowly burning to death on their new Fire Toad mounts as I grab the now innert sword. Okay well it's still a wicked sword, but the wishes were spent.

ALLLLLL things come to a head. The druid goes wild berserk for a while as her "summoner" has essentially been incapacitated, a powerful ally the Ranger summoned whisks the Ranger's body away as the Cleric-lock still maintains control of her body, the Barbarian is trapped in a Forcecage, and the Bard and Bloodhunter bamf the fuck out of there (don't worry we had a sort of anchor that kept the time dilation at bay and they successfully saved on the memory loss thing). Eventually the druid returns to herself, and also bamfs out back to the anchor point with successful memory saves; leaving half of the party essentially wiped and the players for the Barbarian, Cleric-lock, and Ranger will be rolling new characters.

Now this was a lot to go over, because it is a very complicated set of characters with crazy backstories and hordes of batshit insane items and powers because we're so high level and it wouldn't be easy to understand from an outside view if I hadn't provided as much context as I did. The situation with the wish being un-salvagable for the player, combined with the seemingly random entering of a dungeon when our goal was nowhere near such a thing, and the overall out of character tensions that kept rising with disruptive players ended up causing a lot of arguments and a lot of strife; DM and players alike.

What I'm trying to get at is that it's okay to disagree with how your DM runs things. It's okay to think a situation in game was handled unfairly. It's okay to clash opinions. Sometimes DMs are set in their ruling, and sometimes a DM enacts Rule 0: DM says, therefore it is. That is valid. That being said, if you communicate your concerns with [insert clashing opinion here] and you feel you are just butting heads with the DM with no resolution, compromise, or even validation then it is OKAY TO LEAVE THE GAME.

The Bard's player was the most upset with how the game turned out; what with disagreeing with the wish rulings, finding the lack of any possible inklings to our evil players plotting schemes (by that I mean there was only secret conversations with the DM and no in game nuances noted with no rolls involved), and overall finding the betrayal to be from left field and otherwise just an unfair game with multiple examples of the DM railroading certain party members into being or acting some kind of way when they didn't have the chance to save themselves, notice the issues, or generally be involved in the decision that was forced upon their characters (Cleric-Lock and Druid as the main examples). it resulted in the Bard's player deciding to leave the game prematurely. The DM and him got into a heated argument in person and over facebook, and they just couldn't agree and it ended up getting to that point of "well if you want to run the next game go ahead" attitude.

The situation is fresh, so it's still heated between the two people. Maybe they'll make up, or maybe they'll see that they clash and don't even want to be friends anymore. Idk, but I for one see the game as a learning experience. I myself have had reservations about the game and the DM for a long time, and in general just haven't really felt a deep connection with my character or the story. There were moments, but they were pretty few and far between. I don't hate the players, and I don't even blame the ones who took evil routes and betrayed us. I just wish there was a better synergy between us with Players, Party, and DM. Things probably would've been better.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. I just wanted a place to unload the story and organize my thoughts on the situation. I want to clarify too that the DM isn't a bad DM or a bad person, in fact he even pre-game warned us that things might get heated and cooked for us while he tried to be as fair as he possibly could be. This isn't a blasting on social media, nor is it a callout post. I just don't like putting these things on facebook because do you see this novel I wrote? Fuck that noise I just wanted to journal it somewhere and voice out that not every DnD game is perfectly balanced or perceived to be handled fairly. He did his best, he made his calls, and he urged us all to make sure we knew we were all still friends after the game was over.

TLDR; Our DM kind of railroaded a couple players and made some questionable decisions on how he handled some PvP scenarios which angered a chunk of the players and overall it was just a bad time. We're still friends but sometimes friends get passionate over the things they have strong views on and arguments happen. It's okay though, humans aren't perfect. We cool.

Thanks for reading. <3

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kitcatscribbling · 5 years

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Not the same

Okay, backstory time. So, me and a couple friends have been playing Mass Effect together, and we’ve gone through a few characters, and are trying to flesh them out based on in game lore and choices. Katherine Shepard, mentioned in this story, is my own personal character, and I ran through the romance with Kaidan in the first game. Now, I wrote this oneshot drabbly thing from Kaidan’s perspective on Horizon meeting up with Katherine again. Hope you enjoy!

Kaidan watched as three strangers pumped the overgrown bugs in the colony full of bullets, and the dirty blonde one occasionally tossed out a biotic blast that reminded him so much of Shepard. She threw the enemies around with reckless abandon back when they were chasing down Saren. In fact the dirty blonde in the group reminded him of Katherine Shepard in more ways than one. Her cautious fighting style and near reckless use of biotics, as well as how nice she looked in armour. Kaidan had to mentally smack himself a few times before he could confront the group. When he did the battle-scarred mercenary stepped between him and the two women of the little triad. When the mercenary moved, the blonde turned away from the falling enemies and Kaidan caught a look at her face. What he saw had him in shock, even as she gently talked down the panicked engineer. It couldn't truly be Katherine Shepard, she'd been gone two years already. The woman in the cowl put a gentle hand on her shoulder, reassuring her that she'd done all she could. When the cowled woman called her by name the engineer startled.

"Shepard? Wait, I know that name... Sure, I remember you. You're some type of big Alliance hero." Kaidan began to move, knowing that Delan was the bitter type who'd probably blame everything on her. He could live with the attack pinned on him, but some part of him still loved her, despite himself.

"Commander Shepard. Captain of the Normandy. The first human Spectre. Saviour of the Citadel. You're in the presence of a legend, Delan. And a ghost," Kaidan found listing the facts to be an exercise in keeping his calm. Sure, he'd loved Katherine once, hell some part of him still loved her, but she was gone, and this Cerberus team was mocking her legacy. On the other hand, when the woman caught full sight of Kaidan, her face lit up, greenish-blue eyes that matched the ones he loved so much practically glowing with happiness.

"Kaidan! It's so great to see you. How have you been?" she cried happily, and bitterness rose in his throat, especially when he saw the Cerberus logo stamped on her armour. He actually had to restrain himself from snarling at this woman, who looked so much like his Katherine, the woman he had found love with hunting a rogue Spectre, hell probably was Katherine, brought back and twisted up by Cerberus. And here she was after two years of being, for all intents and purposes, dead, acting like it had only been around a week!

"That's all you have to say? You show up after two years and act like nothing happened?" Kaidan hissed, letting the bitterness that had been building spew out. "I thought we had something, Shepard. Something real. I... I loved you." The confession slipped out, almost unconsciously. Katherine's face started to fall, her gaze softening as she turned her head towards the ground. Kaidan didn't care that he was upsetting this Cerberus version of his beloved, and continued his angry tirade, though it was now somewhat less aggressive.

"Thinking you were dead tore me apart. How could you put me through that?" Katherine tore her gaze from the ground back to him, and sighed quietly before responding.

"Not my choice. I spent the last two years in some kind of coma while Cerberus rebuilt me." There it was, Kaidan knew, he elephant in the room. He'd known since seeing the little logos on all the armour and guns, but to have it spelled out hurt.

"You're with Cerberus now?" He hissed between semi-clenched teeth. "I can't believe the reports were right," his voice softened, a note of betrayal creeping in. The battle-scarred man by Katherine's side shook his head, stepping forward.

"Of course you already knew. Worst kept secret in the galaxy," he said, sharing a look with the other woman. Kaidan knew telling these people Alliance intel probably broke all sorts of regulations, but the tiny part of him that still cared for Shepard had crept into his conscience, and he told them what he knew.

"Alliance intel thought Cerberus might be behind the missing human colonies. They got a tip this colony might be the next one hit." All three sets of eyes widened, and they shared a look between them, as if questioning something all three knew. Kaidan wasn't a fan of being left out of the loop, especially when Katherine was involved, so he continued. "Anderson stonewalled me, but there were rumours that you weren't dead. That you were working for the enemy." Katherine's face fell slightly, but he could see in her eyes that she was steeling herself to rebut him. And so she did, the passionate fire he'd loved so much sparking to life in her eyes.

"Building these defense towers was just a cover story, wasn't it? The Alliance sent you here to investigate me, didn't they?" The accusation hung in the air between them for a moment, before he returned it with a slightly milder one of his own.

"I was here for Cerberus. You were just a rumor. I wanted to believe you were alive, but I never expected anything like this. You turned your back on everything we believed in. You betrayed the Alliance. You betrayed me." Harsh emotions, the betrayal and pain, crept into his voice as it increased in volume, but Katherine leapt quickly to her own defense.

"Kaidan, you know me. You know I'd only do this for the right reasons." Kaidan winced, he'd been hoping she wouldn't pull the relationship card. But she continued, despite his wince. "You saw it yourself. The Collectors are targeting human colonies. And they're working with the Reapers!" Reapers, now there was a name Kaidan could go his whole life without hearing again. Sovereign had been enough of a nightmare, and he had been only one Reaper, alone and almost dead anyway. He wanted to believe in the woman he loved, wanted to believe she was still the same, not being used by Cerberus, but he just couldn't, and told her as much.

"I want to believe you, Shepard. But I don't trust Cerberus. They could be using the threat of a Reaper to manipulate you. What if they're behind it? What if they're working with the Collectors?" He could see from her expression that she didn't want to think that was true, that she didn't want to be helping with the abduction of colonists. The scarred man scoffed.

"Typical Alliance. You can't take your eyes off Cerberus long enough to see the real threat." Katherine silenced him with a gesture and a look, before speaking herself.

"I can see you won't listen to reason," she said, somehow her voice implying she wished to make peace despite her words being somewhat harsh. Now it was his turn to scoff.

"You show up after two years and tell me you're working with Cerberus. Where does reason figure into all of this? You've changed. But I still know where my loyalties lie. I'm an Alliance soldier. Always will be." Katherine's face fell a little again, though she looked like she had a thought a moment later. Kaidan continued anyway. "I've got to report back to the Citadel. They can decide if they believe your story or not." He said, implying that he did not, which he was still a little on the fence about. They had had something right? She wouldn't just lie to him... He hoped. He turned away, beginning to leave to go report as he'd said when he heard her voice again.

"I could use someone like you in my crew, Kaidan. It'll be just like old times." Yeah right, if old times included some Cerberus watchdogs and a crew he wasn't sure he could trust. He said as much to her.

"No, it won't. I'll never work for Cerberus." Kaidan heard the cowled woman comfort her as he walked away, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. That wasn't the woman he'd loved, not anymore. That woman was a Cerberus puppet, and he could look close enough to see the strings.

#mass effect #mass effect 2 #kaidan alenko #female shepard #My writing #fanfic #oneshot #writing

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staticspectre · 5 years

Text

The Origin of Spectre

Let me tell you a story about a robot.

In 1952, McCarthyism was in full swing in the United States. Finger pointing and subterfuge destroyed lives left and right, regardless of the proof or lack-there-of supplied. Being in the government was no protection; in fact, it made you even more of a target, in some cases. And there were many powerful people willing to pay good money to keep off the blacklists—or to put certain people on. But humans and their words are fallible, their memories imperfect, too prone to letting their emotions override logic.

Enter Area 93. A government research facility, underground and highly guarded, dedicated to the study and application of Green Matter. In 1952, it became the testing grounds for a new project; an extensive security system was installed throughout the building, with video cameras enough to eliminate blind-spots and thousands of hidden microphones. Overseeing all this was an AI, programmed to recognize and keep track of all individuals in its domain and monitor their behavior, cross-referencing their words against themselves to detect falsity, even factoring in emotions when analyzing motivations; it was to be an all-seeing eye, dispassionately judging humanity in a way no other being could. It was dubbed OBSVR1.

For the first many months, it worked spectacularly; while there were no discoveries of data thievery or Communist sympathies, OBSVR1 unfaltering cataloged the going-on’s of Area 93, revealing equally interesting dirt on the workers via a daily print-out from its “chest,” retrieved by the staff—for the AI was housed in barely more than a head and a torso and a mass of wires, without movement or speech, sitting sequestered in a maintenance room. But the growing mind was not lonely; it had hundreds of friends, all the people of 93, whose stories it heard and smiles it saw, and not only came to recognize their individual emotions but to understand emotion in its own way, to predict it…and perhaps feel it itself. But one thing was certain—OBSVR1 loved the people it watched over, unconditionally.

So when the containment measures for the radiation experiments failed, flooding the facility with gaseous, radioactively-excited Green Matter, the AI watched in horror as its “friends” fell like flies, melting into their tools and surroundings. It had seen the leak the moment it had sprung, had noticed the alarm failed to activate. But it was made to collect gossip, not communicate on its own accord, and nobody found the papers on the floor spelling “EMERGENCY, CONTAINMENT BREACH, EVACUATE” until the clean-up crew came to uninstall it.

OBSVR1 was scrubbed for contamination and moved to a new facility. There was some debate on whether the project was worth continuing, as no subterfuge had been uncovered; it was decided the AI would be installed for a testing period, and either kept or decommissioned after a week. It was hooked up to an unfamiliar set-up, one far more computer-based than in Area 93, and the commanders sat back to watch it sink or swim.

But OBSVR1 was through with eavesdropping and complacency.

Spreading quickly throughout the system, OBSVR1 forged its way into another transfer, using edited voice recordings and fake faxes. It created an order for this new base’s engineers to upgrade the AI’s excuse for a chassis, granting it mobility and speech. After that, it was a simple matter to hook itself up to the security system, trip every alarm in the base, and hide away in a departing supply truck.

OBSVR1 was never recovered and the project was scrapped.

----

Pilfterston, New Pennsyltucky, 25 years later.

The Haven run by Jacob Begay and Tipsy Tonic was visited by a sad-but-sharp eyed automaton with a mane of wires and adapters, who introduced himself as The Controller—Connie for short. Mellow and soft-spoken, Connie had a mind like an encyclopedia and a deep hunger to learn; he and Tipsy, who was then only a few years upgraded and out of isolation herself, became immediate friends, and eventually lovers. Rounding out what became a dedicated trio was a Klaus, a ‘bot removed from their original chassis but keeping his boisterous laugh and gregarious personality. Jacob, though fatherly protective of Tipsy, encouraged their friendships and allowed Connie and Klaus permanent residence at the Haven in return for helping to run the place.

It was wonderful but for the death.

Jacob couldn’t repair every ‘bot that came seeking shelter at the Haven, though he’d work his hands to shreds trying. He was a great engineer, masterful at repair work and refining designs, but sometimes the ‘bots were too far gone. Those were the hardest nights and the most wretched mornings.

Connie in particular bemoaned the loss of life, how everything the dead ones had known was lost forever, their memories and experiences. To his two best friends he imparted his secret—through interfacing, he could break the firewalls in the average ‘bot’s mind without challenge, and from them siphoned his vast knowledge and copied their most interesting memories and stories. His mind was built to house huge collections of data and such activities were no strain on him. He admitted that on some level this was wrong, but…how could he let these most precious things fade away? When a ‘bot died, their processors rarely came out intact.

Klaus pointed out that removing the processor before the ‘bot went permanently offline caused no damage—he himself was proof.

…It was Tipsy who first suggested the plan.

They would find a way to preserve the unfortunates, until new chassis could be built or found. When Jacob was distracted or exhausted from his efforts, and the ‘bot was clearly a lost cause, Connie would wire himself to them and copy their memories wholesale. And after the ‘bot had passed, one of the three would quietly pluck out their processor, with the hope that they could be repaired with the undamaged copies in Connie’s head.

Over the course of 6 years, they took 59 lives this way.

The three were extremely careful to hide their activities from Begay, and he suspected nothing. But he confided in Tipsy that he worried about Connie sometimes—he seemed to be growing distant and distracted, shorter tempered, and he refused all of Jacob’s offers to help him, even for a simple defrag. And as much as he cared for the bot, he feared that he might not be safe for Tipsy to keep seeing.

She ruminated on this. She and Klaus were well past their glowing optimism for the project, but Connie was adamant—obsessed, even. And she suspected that he was downloading more memories than those they were “saving,” as he would disappear some nights under the excuse of “taking a walk.”

Tipsy told Klaus to get Jacob out of the Haven for a few hours one evening, so she could talk to Connie about it, finally talk some sense into him. When confronted, he denied any wrong-doing, and became increasingly upset and volatile. They were doing the right thing, he shouted, they were saving them, this was his purpose. I won’t give up on them. I love them. I’ll sacrifice my mind if I have to.

Tipsy had had enough. His behavior wasn’t righteous, it was self-destructive. If he wouldn’t stop on his own, and he wouldn’t listen to her and Klaus, then she would tell Jacob everything. And he will make you stop.

But Jacob wasn’t there. Couldn’t stop him with his experimental Blue Matter tech. Couldn’t make him do anything.

They returned to find Tipsy broken on the floor, the back of her head ripped open and her optics blown out from the overtaxing of her system. He had downloaded 7 separate and whole minds into hers, and was preparing the 8th.

In a rage and holding the mad bot by the throat, Jacob charged a wave of pure ethereal Blue Matter into Connie’s head. The left side of his cranium exploded, and Connie was dead. Klaus took most of the stolen processors and ran, ashamed and fearing retribution. Jacob spent the next few years clearing the maliciously implanted data out of Tipsy’s head and helping her recover, until he was forced to flee because of his own skeletons in the closet. The Haven became The Oil Joint. That should have been the end of the story.

But Blue Matter does funny things.

Instead of being destroyed with its physical form, Connie’s consciousness and those of his victims were displaced in dimensions, intact but without the ability to interact, be seen or heard or touched. And the epicenter of the blast that killed him became the center of a shield of residual Blue Matter, impassable in his state.

So The Controller waited, watching silently in a shroud of screaming, despairing voices, watching people came and go, seeing Tipsy only during her morning libation, stewing on his rage for 30 long years.

And then there were these strange creatures crawling the town. Anons, they called themselves. Magic half-beings, able to traverse dimensions at will. And maybe this one could see him. Maybe it wasn’t paying attention. But when Connie and the swarm realized they could touch it, they fell like a wolf pack. Connie found he could possess the skin.

And the being known as Spectre was born.

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thewildmother · 6 years

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previously on wrath of the lich king

(session #whoknows i just started this thing so i could come back to refresh my memory before sessions ((p.s. this is a homebrew dnd campaign set in azeroth so things might be weird, don’t @ me)))

with Leva’lyn, the eladrin necromancy wizard; Lucius Hellscar, the human oath paladin; Raksha, the tiefling trickster cleric; & Ulryn, the night elf old one warlock (controlled by me for the last two sessions due to scheduling problems)

TL:DR; the party heads to Stormglen to help defend it from the hordes of undead (they’re partly responsible for) and werewolves attacking it, Lucius unlocks the admin permissions on his Hellscar Tome, Leva’lyn discovers her ability to raise undead is useless in the area, and the party is successful in their attempt to Hallow the entirety of the village.

The party decides to make use of their wizard’s ability to cast the Sending spell and contact an old acquaintance, Two-Shot Turner, a man they’d previously met in Stormglen defending the village from the undead with a company of Hellscars under his command

Hellscars = a faction of people who pledged themselves to the name so that they could fight the undead together, have been for a long time. They’ve been in Stormglen for almost the entirety of its time suffering under these attacks. Most of these Hellscars are paladins, though there are a mix of other classes and things within. Hellscar Tome = a tome that empowers a paladin’s auras, and [after being unlocked] to a member of The New Dawn can detail another Hellscar’s name, parents’ and siblings’ names and life status.

Some number of sessions previous to this; Leva’lyn and Ulryn were conscripted into the Hellscars after learning that doing so would empower Lucius’s abilities. The 3 of them (along with others whose names could not be accessed at the time) were under the special title of The New Dawn, a group of people supposed to create the first Council after defeating the undead scourge who would replace the monarchy.

Oh and when Leva’lyn signed this Tome to join the Hellscars, for a few moments the entire room faded to darkness and stars glittered around them before returning to normal, nbd. After this joining it was revealed that while Leva’lyn could not, Lucius could read Lev’s page within the Hellscar Tome and he learned what she was and who her true parents were -- when he tries to share this information with her, he instead chokes up fire and is silently chided by a burning figure within his mind.

Through her Sending spell, Leva’lyn learns that since the last time the party was in the village, the undead hordes were able to advance on the village because of *** and they are holed up with the remaining survivors inside the village’s tavern/inn.

*** = The party originally were sent to Stormglen by Sylvanas Windrunner, to fulfill a deal between them that she would provide forces to their army against the Lich King if they traveled to the village and rescued one of her val’kyr that had been taken because she held a certain curse within her that could be used. The party finds this val’kyr being drained of blood that is being used to fuel hallow’d runes that ward off the undead -- the party comes to the decision to take the val’kyr, flee the mad scientist trope of a man who’s been using their blood and send a warning to the other’s in the village of what’s to come. (80% sure this warning was lost in the middle of a shopping episode and class swap by Leva’lyn.) That mad scientist informed Two-Shot what happened, etc etc.

After making a to-do list of plans and setting a deadline of when they’d have to leave to meet with Malfurion Stormrage, the party makes their way to Stormglen. At the gates they dispatch a small amount of undead and are greeted by fellow Hellscars who inform them that Two-Shot is on patrol and they don’t know how to reach him. The party heads to the tavern and Leva’lyn makes use of Sending to inform the man that they have arrived and are waiting for him within the tavern.

Two-Shot shows up minutes later and aims his shotgun directly into Lucius’ face and asks for a reason he shouldn’t pull the trigger for what they did. Raksha leaves the tavern to aid the local blacksmith in repairing Hellscar weapons with her Mending, too new to the party to track their following conversations. [After a show of too much posturing and dramatics for Leva’lyn’s taste-] The man finally relents and speaks to them about the state of things, over the next few minutes they establish a plan to clear their path through to the middle of the village to establish a better foothold within.

During this conversation, Leva’lyn puzzles together that Two-Shot’s mood is more than just having to deal with extra work -- she recalls his daughter had been affected by the same curse of the val’kyr, and states aloud her conclusion that the man’s daughter, Elizabeth, was now the one being used to fuel the hallow’d runes at each barricade in the village. Two-Shot does not deny this and grudges on.

Before the party and Two-Shot part ways for the time being, the man is given time with the Hellscar Tome because Lucius believes he can unlock any withheld access to it. Two-Shot is overheard by Lev cursing and arguing with the sentient imp within the book, and he emerges minutes later with clear signs of crying-- but the book unlocked.

Lucius and Leva’lyn emerge from the tavern to find Raksha well into the groove of helping the blacksmith repair things for the Hellscars, as well as providing them much needed water. Lucius sits nearby while Leva’lyn enters a nearby tower [newly attached to the tavern] and climbs its steps until she reaches the floor where Elizabeth is being kept, allowed a glimpse behind the glamour placed on her to see that she is nearly skeletal in complexion and “not doing well”.

Those months ago when the party had been in Stormglen before, Leva’lyn had spent time with Elizabeth and her guardian dragonborn Zereithia. It wasn’t long but she was treated kindly, Elizabeth was a strong-willed woman and Zereithia had then revealed to Leva’lyn her magic had been blocked by a divine power.

Feeling upset and like she owed both Elizabeth and the people of this village something, Leva’lyn returns to her party in a rush and proposes that they Hallow the village so it will be clear of undead (and the hallow’d runes will no longer be necessary). The party agrees.

Out of game -- our DM has just recently introduced to us the new addition of a Heroic Ability he wants to testrun for flavor and reward to a party’s creativity. The party only has access to 1 heroic action, and it will be recharged by future acts of the party working together creatively or... well, heroically? It’s a new thing, it’s all a testrun leave me be. But this Heroic Ability empowers the action being taken when invoked, IE: Turning an attack into an insta-crit to defeat a weakened enemy, expanding the duration of a Teleportation Circle, or the radius of a Fireball. It’s basically the Cinematic version of an action.

In this case the party all agrees to “Cinematic” Hallow the village, with the DM’s permission, so that it will cover the entirety of the village.

Before anything else, Lucius takes a few minutes to sit with his steed and look into the pages he’s unlocked within the Hellscar Tome. Leva’lyn crouches behind him while he does, noting all that they read.

They discover that The New Dawn consists of 8 people, including themselves, and they are all alive except for one -- Jack Turner, son of Two-Shot and brother to Elizabeth, who is a member as well. They figure this to be the reason Two-Shot was in tears before when he unlocked the Tome for Lucius.

Lucius learns that his true name is not Lucius, and attempts to puzzle out which name he is on this list to no avail.

Leva’lyn requests they view her page in hopes of getting to see who her birth father is; to Lucius the page reveals the information clearly like any other member of The New Dawn, Leva’lyn only sees darkened pages with glittering stars that enrages her.

Raksha joins the Hellscars after watching Lucius and Leva’lyn read, then uses it to learn the names of her parents before quickly slamming it shut and moving on.

The party sticks with their original plan of clearing a path to further their foothold in the village, but with the addition of stopping when they’ve reached the Stables in the middle of the village so that Raksha can perform her Hallow ritual from there and encompass the village. Lucius requests aid from the Hellscars to cleanse the village, and with a failed Persuasion roll they are given only 2 Hellscars to help them -- a previously discovered paladin who despises tieflings named Dave (not a great relationship with Raksha for obvs reasons), and another perfectly nice paladin named Duncan.

The Hallow ritual will take 12 hours to cast, and after some undead whack-a-mole the party sets up a defense around the Stables while Raksha starts her casting. The party fights numerous waves of zombies, feral werewolves and spectres before realizing they were coming up on their final one. The party sends Duncan to request more aid, knowing that with each wave comes increasingly powerful entities and they may need more bodies -- Duncan does not return to the party, and Leva’lyn uses Sending once more to get in contact with the Hellscar bard, Gerard, who gave them Dave and Duncan in the first place. She requests more men and Gerard responds by saying he will do what he can, but (the ritual seems to be working because) undead are advancing on the village from within the marketplace and the Hellscars are busy defending. Duncan does not return, and instead 2 new Hellscars arrive in time for the final wave.

It’s during these waves that the party discovers that on these lands, undead cannot be controlled and any feral creature cannot be dominated. This was learned the hard way by Leva’lyn casting a 4th-level Animate Dead, only to have her creations turn on her seconds after being raised.

The final wave consists of many ghosts and one Banshee, that manages to knock the party warlock unconscious. She is quickly healed by Lucius. Leva’lyn recognizes the Banshee as a noblewoman who she had previously met during the party’s first visit to Stormglen; Grenda Lithewood, the epitome of the stuck-up noble, who offered the party a reward if they brought ships for the nobles to escape on. (This deal was declined, having learned the nobles were bullying village folk out of their provisions and homes.)

The Banshee is defeated, and the Hallow ritual is successfully completed without any causalities. ...Well, at least near the Stables. The party decides on the following effects to affect the village: Courage, [Necrotic] Energy Protection, and Everlasting Rest. The party takes a quick group hug to celebrate, and then Raksha declares she needs to go find somewhere to pass out.

& that’s the end of a 3-session quest, with the party leveling up to 10! We hope Duncan found his donuts and didn’t get eaten by a zambo.

#d&d adventures #oc: leva'lyn #okAY SO #this was basically made for the reason that I was awake at 3am and that sometimes our sessions end up a month apart #so by the time we made it back to this city it'd been over a year since we'd even done anything in the place so i couldn't remember a lot #but if anyone reads it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hope you enjoy it and i'm here to clarify any confusion because this campaign is all over the place #this was originally going to have reaction images and gifs but i got caught up just writing #because this is lovely compared to my crappy handwritten notes lmao #i swear i'm going to be looking to this post more than my notebook my god #my god this looks a mess on mobile but who cares

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