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sanjisboyfie · 6 months

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๑ keep safe : coffee beans (6)

one piece x male reader

we all look for heaven,

and we put love first.

something that we'd die for,

it's a curse

『 prev 』

“ah, nami-san, vivi-chan, we found you!”

sanji turned into a completely different man, flapping his hands at his sides as he caught the sight of the two women.

but to [name]’s surprise, they were greeteed by glares from usopp and carue. they were even shaking in anger, it seemed.

“i wonder why they're looking at us like that…” [name] said to himself.

sanji’s cheery tone turned into one of anger when he caught sight of the two giants sitting behind the group.

“wow! you guys are humongous!” [name] cried out, rushing forward and pointing at the giants in awe. sanji, who also ran up with him, was seething with anger and annoyance.

[name] was jumping around, luffy joining, and the duo began cheering about how cool it was that there were real giants right in front of them. nami shook her head, “idiots, the both of them,”

[name] looked at her with a carefree smile on his face, but his expression soon dropped as he realized that she wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“oi, nami,” he spoke up and she looked at him with an unimpressed look on her face. her hands were resting at her hips as she waited for what he had to say. “hold on!” he threw off the sword from his back and took off his second layer, a simple button up.

“what the fuck is wrong with you?!” nami shouted, greatly confused by his mannerisms. but then her look of anger was washed away when he threw the shirt at her.

“you’re gonna catch a cold!” he reminded her, motioning for her to put it on to cover up.

she did as he suggested, only really caring for her health and not thinking twice about it. and neither did [name], who went back to jumping back and forth with luffy, chanting their song on the giants.

“what in the hell?! are you mr. 3?” sanji shouted in an accusatory voice to the giant.

“how do you know about mr. 3?” nami asked, making sanji turn his head towards her.

“oh, me and [name]-” then he noticed the shirt that she was wearing and how [name] was currently missing his second layer, “oi!!! shit for brains, what’s the meaning of this?! you tryna make a pass at nami while i’m not looking?! think i wouldn’t catch you being a sneak!?”

nami’s eyebrow quirked up in annoyance, saving [name] from explaining himself as she shouted at sanji to answer her original question. sanji’s facial expression morphed back to one of normalness as he took a seat on a log, “me and [name] just finished talking with mr. 0 via den-den mushi,”

vivi seemed to shake in fear at the idea of the two talking to her boss while luffy paused his celebrations to actually hear what sanji had to say.

“yep! a weird wax box was in the middle of the forest and there was a transponder snail in there,” [name] explained, pointing at sanji. “sanji did all the talking!”

sanji tried to slap the hand that was rudely pointing at his face, but [name] reacted faster and put it down before sanji was even close, making him grin in victory. the blonde’s eye twitched very slightly, before he continued on telling the story.

“he seemed to think i was mr. 3, so i told him that i eliminated everyone,”

“so that means he thinks we’re actually dead?” vivi confirmed.

“so we’re finally free of people chasing us, but we can’t go anywhere!” usopp cried out, [name] looking at him as if he were stupid.

“can’t go anywhere? do we still have bus-”

“me and sanji picked up an eternal pose in that wax house, vivi, we can go straight to alabasta!” [name] cut him off, making the blonde turn to him in fury.

sanji began yelling profanities at [name], claiming he wanted to take all the spotlight of vivi’s gratefulness for himself and was calling [name] a selfish bastard. his anger only seemed to be fueled even more when he saw vivi go over to [name] and give him a tight hug.

“oi, you bastard, i’ll kill you!”

“thank you so much, sanji-kun, [name]-san!” vivi said, still having her head resting on [name]’s shoulder, “i was so worried for a second,”

“our pleasure!” [name] said, returning the gesture and holding the princess by her waist.

“you mean, my pleasure, you selfish bastard, since i'm the one who did all the work!” sanji interjected, but then his eyes turned into hearts as vivi came over to him to also give him a hug. “oh, vivi-chan, i’m glad i could make you so happy,”

“alright, everyone, let’s have a rice cracker party,” luffy cheered, but [name] shook his head.

“luffy! a whole country is waiting for their princess, we gotta go now!” [name] said sternly, making luffy pout.

“you’re no fun!” the captain whined, grabbing ahold of another rice cracker and eating it whole.

“finally, someone else with a sense of urgency on this crew,” nami said in relief. “you and sanji really saved us, [name], thanks!”

[name] waved off her thanks, glad to be on somewhat good terms with the rest of the crew. he wished he was there for the supposed fight, to really prove himself loyal to the crew and that he had good intentions, but it seemed breaking into a wax house was more than reliable.

“oi, idiot,” [name]’s head whipped around in a moment’s notice at the name calling, “i can’t wait to see the look on your face when you see i won the competition,” zoro’s look of pride seemed to make [name]’s own competitive spirit bubble up.

“ha?! you wish, marimo,” [name] said, pulling the bottom of his eyelid down in mockery.

“what’s the stakes for whoever won?” sanji asked.

as they were walking through the forest, [name] suddenly put his fist against his open palm, “ah, wait, now that i think about it - when me and sanji went back to the ship, we ate some of the food we caught. oh! dinosaur meat is soooo tasty, by the way! but in order to preserve whatever we had, i cut them up into small pieces and stowed them away on the ship…so i don’t think we can decide who the winner is anymore guys!”

[name] began laughing at the predicament, but sanji and zoro didn’t look amused in the slightest.

“just what were you thinking, shit for brains?!”

“you bastard! you’ve ruined everything!”

“hey! don’t blame me for your stupid pissing contest!”

“you were apart of it too, you just wanted to win!” sanji accused.

“no, i just wanted to eat!” [name] defended, turning his head away from their snarling faces and walking with his arms crossed over his chest, “you guys are totally unreasonable!”

“shut the hell up, you ruined it!” zoro tried cutting [name] in half, but the latter dodged the slash with ease, as well as the flurry of kicks sanji sent towards his head.

the whole walk back, [name] was evading attacks from the swordsman and chef, who were still very bitter about the whole thing by the time they boarded the ship.

when the ship was finally put into motion, [name] jumped on the deck as he saw the two giants up ahead.

“look, what’s their names again? borry and duggy?!” he said in excitement.

“it’s dorry and brogy! put respect on their name they’re the best warriers to ever sail the sea!” usopp shamed [name] while also praising the two giants.

“since you worked so hard to protect our pride!” one of them shouted.

“we will do our best to open up the path for you going forward!” the other finished.

“go straight ahead!” the two shouted together, making the crew turn quick to confusion.

[name] squinted his eyes, jaw dropping while stars formed in his eyes.

“no way! you guys are serious?!” he asked out loud, making the two giants laugh their heads off.

“huh? what are you talking about? what’s so funny?! what are they serious about?!” nami asked, seemingly scared at the sudden change of pace of things. “oi! [name], explain yourself!”

“haha! no!” [name] said, evading the attack from the navigator.

just as the going merry was in the open sea, something erupted from the ocean.

a good portion of the crew was looking up at it in fear or just shock. luffy had a grin on his face as he saw the, “giant goldish!”

“i wanna eat it!” [name] cried, earning himself a kick to the head from sanji.

“quick, turn the rudder usopp, we can’t be eaten by this thing,” nami shouted, looking uneasy as their sniper wasn’t doing anything in response to her command. “usopp!”

“no, we can’t. we have to full straight ahead! isn’t that right, luffy?”

“yeah, of course!” luffy confirmed.

nami felt like she was going insane. then she ran up to [name] and began shaking him back and forth, “go on! kill it! kill it before it eats us!” she commanded, looking to zoro and sanji for help as well. “aren't you worth 200,000,000 beri!? this'll be a piece of cake!! [name], go already!!”

“but, they got it!” [name] frowned motioning over to the two giants.

“yeah, nami, calm down! here, i’ll let you have the last rice cracker!”

“i don’t want it!” nami said, but she caught the snack regardless. she took refuge behind [name], peaking over his shoulder as she was scared to look if they were really going to let hemselves be eaten by a goldfish.

“look! we’re inside!” [name] said, shouting a couple of times in amusement and enjoying the sound of the echo that it produced inside the fish’s throat.

“it’s too late,” nami was about to fall to the ground in disbelief, but [name] quickly held onto her to prevent her from crashing down.

“oi, nami…” [name] mumbled to himself, lifting the hem of her (his) shirt with the tip of his fingers and feeling the temperature of her skin. she looked at him in confusion, but before he could even continue what he was saying, they were being launched into the air.

out of nowhere, there was a sudden gust of power that made the fish spit them out.

they were soon outside of the fish’s mouth and blasting out onto sea. [name] made sure to keep a tight hold on nami. he didn’t think much of her lax stance, thinking it was just the sudden rush the boat got that had her standing all wobbly.

he leaned them against the mast, watching as nami slowly slid down and began to sit. he followed her motions, now kneeling in front of her. in confusion, he tilted his head, “oi, nami, are you okay?”

“i’m…fine,” the ragged breath she took in between was enough of a ways to tell that she was lying. “i’m just exhausted after everything that’s happened,” at this point, vivi walked over and crouched down as well, “vivi, would you mind watching this for me for a moment…i might go lay down to rest up,”

[name] frowned, sensing that there was something wrong with nami.

“there’s no need for either of you - not including you, shit for brains - to push yourselves so hard! you can rely on me!” sanji said, appearing with a tray full of goodies. noticing that they were all sweets, [name] looked the other way in disinterest of the snacks.

usopp, luffy, and carue were eager to have some though as they ran towards the kitchen.

“you don’t want any, [name]?” vivi asked as she grabbed her own piece.

“nope, but do we have coffee beans on deck, sanji?” [name] asked, looking at the chef with sparkles in his eyes.

“only a little bit, nami-san drinks some, but we might be running low.”

“oh! i’ll take those then!”

the three watched as [name] also took off to the kitchen, all of them sweatdropping.

“is he going to eat coffee beans?” vivi asked in concern, but sanji simply shook his head.

“as i said before, vivi-chan, don’t concern yourself with the problems of idiots,” he said sweetly, pushing the tray forward to urge her to grab more sweets.

when [name] walked into the kitchen, he saw the trio were absolutely devouring their own plate of goodies. luffy had his cheeks full like a rabbit and carue and usopp were trying to get their fix.

“ah, [name]! good thing you joined us, here try some!” before [name] could correct usopp, the sniper came barreling towards him and shoved the sweet into his mouth.

luffy’s face changed from a smile to an angered expression almost immediately. whilst [name] had the sweet shoved in his mouth, he tried really hard not to notice it.

the sweet pastry’s frosting was melting on his tongue already, seeping onto his tastebuds. he shoved usopp back, spitting out the pastry before it could do more damage and his whole body was shaking as he tried not to vomit onto the wooden planks of the flooring.

‘don’t think about it, it’s not there, don’t think about!’ [name] mentally urged himself, clamping a hand over his mouth to stop the bile from escaping. ‘no, no, no!’

he clamored around the kitchen, desperately looking for where the coffee beans were. meanwhile luffy was shaking usopp’s collar back and forth, shouting at him.

“why’d you do that?! usopp!” luffy shouted in fury. poor usopp was too confused to even think straight, simply sputtering out random noises to justify his actions.

finally, after fighting back the urge to vomit for longer than he was confident in, [name] was able to find a brown bag that was for the coffee beans. he shoved his other hand inside, as the other was still cautiously holding his mouth shut, and immediately shoved a handful down his throat.

“[name]! are you okay?!” luffy asked, clamoring over almost immediately.

the man chewed slowly, really trying to take in the taste of the coffee beans and very slowly swallowed them. after that, he took another handful into his mouth, and repeated the same process. after he was finished chewing and eating them, he turned to luffy with an exhausted look on his face.

“i’m fine,” he said simply, throwing a thumbs up as a precaution.

“h-hey, what was that? [name], are you sure you’re fine?” usopp asked, walking up to [name] in fear, “what happened? what was that?”

“i just…” [name] swallowed harshly, sticking his tongue out of his mouth in disgust as he remembered the pastry that was in his mouth, “i hate sweets.”

usopp blinked a couple of times, scratching the back of his head, “i’m really sorry, then, i didn’t know!!!”

[name] tried to smile, but it was completely lobsided, “no, it’s alright! you couldn’t have known, don’t worry!” but with the way [name]’s breathing was still ragged and he hadn’t completely caught his breath, yet, usopp was still majorly concerned.

“and luffy!!! you can’t just go around yelling at usopp for something he didn’t mean to do,” [name] scolded, tossing one single coffee bean into his mouth and savoring the taste before continuing on again. “he didn’t know,”

“ah, you’re right,” luffy said in a matter-a-fact tone, a blank look on his face, “oops!”

“don’t just say oops - i was scared for my life just now!” usopp berated, not looking impressed at his captain’s lack of discipline.

“oi! someone explain why my kitchen is a complete shit show?!” sanji shouted, the sight of a spat out pastry fueling his anger, “who the fuck did this?!”

“me!” [name] said, raising his hand.

“hah?! first you wanna raid nami-san’s coffee beans and then you spit out the food i made for everyone! i’ll throw you overboard right now!” sanji said, stomping forward in an obvious fury before usopp stepped in between the two.

“n-no it was my fault!”

“that bastard right there just took responsibility, usopp, move aside. i’ll teach him a lesson!”

“that’s not neccessary-”

“thanks for sticking up for me, usopp, but,” [name] gently moved usopp aside to meet sanji, eye-to-eye, “it’s my fault. i don’t like sweets so i spat it out when he fed it to me, i’ll clean it up now.”

“so you don’t like something so you just spit it out?! how ungrateful and disrespectful are you?! i made that food for others to eat, if you don’t like it, don’t just spit it out on the ground! have some manners, shit for brains!” sanji berated and [name] didn’t bother fighting him more on his opinion.

it seemed sanji was a real heckler about wasting food, [name] noted, looking at the spat out pastry on the floor.

“i’ll clean it now,” that was [name]’s only response as he moved past sanji and grabbed paper towels and a spray bottle.

“i want that area sparkling clean!” sanji commanded, and his loud shouts, snapped usopp out of his state of shock.

“hey, sanji, go easy on him — it was a really bad reaction, give him a break,” the sniper tried reasoning, but sanji wasn’t hearing any of it.

and as [name] was just about done cleaning the area, there was a shrill scream that made everyone in the kitchen perk up.

“everyone please come - something bad has happened!”

“nami-san has a terrible fever!” vivi broke the news to the group as they came shuffling out of the kitchen, sanji rushing forward the moment nami’s name left vivi’s lips.

[name] was chewing on a coffee bean as he moved luffy and usopp aside to get a good look at nami. her face was paling completely, making her rosy cheeks stand out more. he leaned forward in concern before taking her into his arms, bridal style, and looking at luffy, “do you have a medical bay?”

“hey, hey! get your dirty hands off of her!” sanji shouted, displeasure ringing in the air.

“well, we have nami’s work station, there’s a bed there,” usopp answered for their captain, who was still confused on the situation. “i-i’ll lead the way,”

[name] nodded, following after his crewmate and holding nami with a gentle grip, as if she were a fragile piece of glass.

as he laid her down on the bed, it seemed him and vivi were the only ones with half a brain of what to do. as vivi was running to get a bowl of water and cloth, [name] made sure nami was resting in a comfortable position. he put the thermometer gently into her mouth, fingers working delicately gentle to aid her.

“it’s probably the climate,” vivi reasoned when she came back with a wet towel. her eyebrows were furrowed together in extreme worry, “there are countless stories of tough pirates that are taken down by their own carelessness.

sanji was ugly crying behind the working duo, letting out a weaping and pathetic, “nami-san!”

“don’t you guys have a doctor?” [name] asked, looking at his captain, who merely lifted his hand and pointed at nami in response. [name] looked completely unimpressed, “well! obviously she can’t treat herself!”

luffy confused with all the yelling and hassle only shrugged his shoulders, “what’s the big deal? give her some food and she will get better! isn’t right, sanji?”

[name]’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance, wondering how the crew actually was still standing on their feet.

“i can make basic food meant for sick people, but-” then sanji went onto a whole rant about the preparation of their food, his favoritism for the woman showing through in his cooking as well, and how he didn’t know how to cater to the needs of sick people’s stomachs.

“well, food isn’t the only thing that’s gonna make her get better,” [name] said with a sigh. “we need a proper doctor who can treat nami, this is serious guys,”

“how serious?” luffy asked curiously.

[name] took the themometer out from nami’s mouth, eyes widening slightly, along with vivi’s as they saw the sky high number.

“104! (40C)!” he exclaimed, but the crew didn’t seem to completely understand the urgency.

“there’ll be doctors when we get to alabasta, right?!” usopp tried calming everyone’s nerves. “how much longer will it be, vivi?”

“i don’t know, but to wait one week is out of the question,” vivi replied helplessly.

“hey, is being sick really that bad?” luffy asked, to which sanji and usopp shook their heads, echoing that they’ve never been sick before.

“i can’t help her much, especially with the supplies you guys have. and if she doesn’t get treated soon, it may end up ending really bad,”

“what? like she’s gonna die?”

“yes, this could be a life-threatening instance,” vivi confirmed, which then made the ones inside the room go into a panic.

they were screaming their heads off and running around the room and [name] got the sense in himself to punch all of them to shut their mouths.

“we gotta find a doctor to treat nami!” luffy shouted, making [name]’s lips turn into a grimace.

“no,” nami weakly called out, making the entire room turn silent, “no,”

she tried sitting up, but [name] pushed her down instantly. it seemed sudden, his movement, but he made sure to act with extra caution when guiding her back to lay down.

“nami-san?” vivi asked gently, looking at her friend in concern.

“in my desk drawer, there’s a newspaper,” nami said finally.

when vivi went to check, [name] looked at nami, “what does it feel like?”

“i said, i’m fine,” nami said, but [name] rolled his eyes at her response. she seemed to cower under his gaze ever so slightly, but [name] didn’t let up in staring right into her tired eyes.

“what does the newspaper say, vivi?” luffy asked in a light tone.

“is it about alabasta, vivi-chan?”

“300,000 royal soldiers deflected to the resistance,” she said shakily, the grip she had on the newspaper only tightening, “it was originally a cold war, with 600,000 royal soldiers and 400,000 resistance soldiers — but now that’s suddenly changed!”

“the uprising in alabasta is getting serious now. that newspapers three days old and i’m sorry i kept it from you, but i knew we couldn’t change speed, so i didn’t want to worry you,” nami explained and [name] quietly worked in re-wetting the towel that was on her forehead. he wrung it out and gently put it back into its place.

“but do you understand, luffy?” nami asked, trying to see if the captain understood the urgency of the situation.

“i’m fine…that thermometer must be broken,” she breathed out, forcing a smile on her face to ease their minds. “it’s probably just sunstroke. for now, let’s head straight for alabasta as we planned. don’t worry, i’ll get better on my own.”

she pushed [name]’s tending hands aside, sitting upright and making sure to squeeze his arm for support when getting up, “thanks for worrying about me,” she spoke to the entire crew, walking up the stairs and leaving the little room.

“oi, we are finding a doctor, now,” [name] said.

“alabasta…is in shambles! we need to go there quickly,” vivi said, more so to herself as she crumbled into her own figure. “if we don’t millions of people will die, for no reason!”

there was a stalemate in the room as [name] hummed in thought. then he kneeled down in front of vivi, gently holding her shoulder.

”i can’t imagine your burden, princess,” he said softly, trying to ease her mind, “but — if nami doesn’t get treated, she’ll die.”

“the whole kingdom, crocodile-”

it was obvious vivi was scared out of her minds, she was at her wit’s end.

“i’ll kill him when we find him,” [name] said grimly, he took her hands in his to calm their shaking, encapsulating her hands in his own, “i can’t understand what you’re feeling, and i know it’s asking for a lot, but please,”

vivi shook her head, unable to wrap her hand around the idea of abandoning her people.

”crocodile? the moment i see him with my own eyes, i’ll kill him. i promise you, vivi, but nami needs a doctor and she needs it now,”

suddenly, there was a shout from on deck and it came from zoro, telling everyone to get out and help steer the ship’s course. everyone scrambled at the calling, but [name] and vivi stayed inside.

“[name]…” for a moment, [name] thought that vivi was going to slap him for being so pushy and he wouldn’t have blamed her. but it seemed he read the situation wrong as she simply collapsed into his arms, “i really need to go home, but nami needs to get better,”

he hesitantly wrapped his arms around her back to give her a hug, allowing her to rest on his shoulder, “i don’t know what to do!”

“well, we’re obviously gonna save alabasta!” [name] cheerfully replied, making her head rise from his shoulder and stare up at him with teary eyes, “but first we have to save our navigator,”

she smiled at his carefree attitude, wondering where he gets his strong mindset from. she wiped her eyes, laughing as he jokes about how sanji would beat him up if they walked out of the room together with vivi’s eyes teary.

“you’re a good princess, vivi.” [name] spoke, comfortingly moving his thumb up and down her shoulder, “but you’re an even better woman,”

she seemed genuinely touched at his comment and he was happy to see her smile return.

“i’m sorry, i don’t usually cry easily, especially with strangers,” she said, but then suddenly looked up and waved her hands around, “not to say we’re strangers, you’ve helped me plenty already and i sound so ungrateful for all you’ve done for us. i really think we are good friends - i don’t know why i-”

“haha! princess, you’re so funny! don’t worry,” [name] said, standing up in front of her. his previous position of kneeling down in front of her figure made them see eye-to-eye, but with him standing up she had to crane her neck to see him properly. “i’ll prove myself to be a great friend to you and everyone on board!”

for some reason, [name]’s smile seemed to be even more blinding now that they’d had a serious talk. vivi didn’t take it for granted, feeling relieved that someone so reliable was on her side and understanding of her.

“let’s go tell everyone and make sure we get nami to properly rest,” the two walked out of the room together and everyone was anticipating what vivi would say.

when she broke the news to the crew that she wished to find an island with a doctor everyone interuppted into loud cheers. [name] smiled at the looks of relief and happiness on the crews’ faces before pacing over to nami.

“let’s get you to lay down, alright?” he said softly, taking her frail body against his. “and good job in predicting that cyclone,” he whispered, making her look at him in confusion.

“what-?”

“what?! the hell?! is that!!!” luffy shouted out of nowhere, making [name] chuckle at his reaction.

“that cyclone,” [name] mused, watching as nami could only shake her head in disbelief.

“if you knew it was coming, you didn’t say anything…wait, how’d you know it was coming?” she asked, weakly walking alongside [name] back to the bed.

“i can tell!” [name] said proudly, “you felt it, right? i can feel it too, to an extent,”

she laid back down and [name] got to work in apply a cold towel to her forehead.

“you’re really weird, [name],” she said, eyes closing shut as she felt the relief of a cold towel pressed to her hot head. “really, really weird.”

[name] smiled at her and that was the last thing she saw before she was whisked away to sleep. it wasn’t a bad sight, were her last thoughts.

ー

『 prev 』 ˗ˏˋ꒰ 🌊 ꒱ 『 next 』

#≡;- ꒰ ° keep safe series ꒱#ks #one piece x male reader #one piece x reader #x male reader #x reader #male reader #one piece male reader #one piece imagines #male reader imagines #anime male reader #one piece fanfiction #one piece fanfic #male reader fanfic #male reader fanfiction

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crossguild · 2 years

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i love the concept in one piece of log poses and vivre cards and eternal poses and all of the tools people on the grand line have created to navigate by pointing themselves directly toward a person, a place, or their next destination some unknown distance away, the idea that as long as you're alive and you go where it points you, you'll find what you're looking for

AND these navigational methods reflect the baseline of, if you're a person who's decided to enter and sail the grand line, you have the conviction to point yourself at an unknown, unknowable future and throw yourself at it with everything you have, and someday you'll reach it or die trying

oda's grasp and execution of theme at every single level is unmatched, and OP is a romantic absurdist fantasy/sci-fi action-adventure epic like nothing else in the world, i'll never get tired of this series, and i never want it to end 😭

#one piece #if i could only read one thing for the rest of my life it would be OP tbh

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salteytakesonmanga · 8 months

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you say they ignored the log pose on Little Garden, but isn't that because Sanji got the eternal log pose to Alabasta?

As you can see in this chapter, they ignored the eternal pose, too! And just sailed out into the open ocean hoping to find something. Luffy’s luck is honestly insane, because realistically this is nuts.

Here’s a real world example. The visual range from a ship the size of the Going Merry is about 8 miles in any direction. Now look at a map of Hawaii. The Big Island has a large cape to the north that directly faces Maui. Relatively speaking, the two islands are pretty close together, but there are 30 miles of ocean between that cape and the shore of Maui.

In other words, a ship like the Going Merry could sail between the islands of Hawai’i and Maui without ever realizing either one was there. The ocean is a big place. Finding land is practically a miracle, while not finding land is the easiest thing to do. It’s a good thing Luffy is so lucky…

So despite my earlier griping about how the log pose is kind of an arbitrary mechanic and you could theoretically just sail due east until you hit the Red Line again, it would make One Piece a very different story. Much more about the logistics of food storage, rationing water, and making sure the crew doesn’t go insane from looking at the same thing every day for weeks and hallucinating that they could walk off the crows nest (a real thing that happened to sailors!)

If you think about it, the fact that the world of One Piece lacks comprehensive maps makes a lot more sense when you remember how reliant people are on the log pose. Like, why bother looking at a map if GPS will just give you directions.

Anyway, you didn’t ask about most of that but there you go lol

TLDR: They used the eternal pose for Arabasta as they left Little Garden but then ignored it to find a doctor for Nami and wound up on Drum Island. After that they followed the eternal pose the rest of the way to Arabasta.

#curapicas #asked and answered #saltey takes on one piece #sorry i held this ask for so long #as you can see i had a perfect place to answer it!#saltey says

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shysheeperz · 4 months

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#one piece #eternal log #fishman island #official media #official art #anime #shirahoshi #princess shirahoshi #anime art #toei animation

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broomsick · 4 months

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hi. im sorry if im bothering but you're a norse pagan and i am too but i joined recently and haven't been able to gain much knowledge yet. i have a few questions, if you would like to answer them i would be very grateful:

• other than the eddas, is there any book that can help me as a beginner to the norse faith or maybe witchcraft?

• yule is coming up and it is my first pagan festival so could you please help me understand how to celebrate it, is there any norse deities in specific that i should give offerings to? (i plan on making offerings to skadi right now)

• i'm may have some european amcestors cause im indo european but i doubt that any of my ancestors were norse...could i still practice norse paganism?

•lastly, what are blots?

Hello there! Thank you so much for the ask. And welcome to this faith! I hope this path is as fulfilling to you as it is to me.

You'll be happy to know there are so much great ressources for norse pagans to use for research. I've actually listed a bunch of them in this previous post, in which I identified what sources were books and which were online ressources.

Now, Yule is a very exciting celebration for heathens! We know that it was a major festival in Iron Age Scandinavia. Traditionally, there would be a toast made in honor of the ancestors, one made in honor of the One-Eyed, to ask for success (he is even called Jólnir, "Figure of Yule"), and one made in honor of Yngvi-Freyr and Njörðr, to ask for fertility and prosperity. This is why these three deities are most often viewed as the main deities of Yule in nordic tradition. Thórr also has some associations with Yule, primarily due to the traditional yule goat decoration still present in Scandinavia today, which may or may not have had ties with him due to his association with goats. Whatever the case, he is also a popular choice within modern practice when it comes to the deities honored during Yule celebrations. You could also very well include Sól in your practice around that time of the year. After all, winter solstice celebrations often serve to rejoice and welcome the return of the sun as the days grow longer once again. It's for this reason that lighting candles or bonfires on the longest night of the year is a popular way to celebrate Yule: it symbolizes the return of light and warmth as the second half of winter commences. There are a few accounts of some sort of "yule log", a very long log decorated with candles, being burned during the twelve days of Yule, though the veracity of this story is debated. Still, it can be fun for us to incorporate a similar tradition into our own celebrations! For example, by decorating a piece of wood and burning it during a ritual as our own yule log. Decorating using greenery (real or fake) is also a popular way to celebrate Yule! It's a way to remind ourselves that despite the cold and the snow, the earth still lives and nature still thrives! Traditionally, one would use plants such as holly, ivy, or any evergreen tree, which stay green throughout the winter. I also can't forget the eternal norse pagan tip: when in doubt, hold a feast! To invite your loved ones around a table and eat homemade food is always one of the best ways to honor the Gods, and this goes for any festival. So much can be done even if you prefer to celebrate alone, or with just a few close friends! Just treat yourself to a hearty winter meal, and save some of it to offer the Gods, along with a glass of the alcohol of your choosing (I generally go for winter drinks, such as mulled wine, warm ice cider and the like). There is only so much I can list at the top of my head, and there are countless ways for you to celebrate Yule. Feel free to dig around for more ideas, and to experiment with whatever feels right! I'll now direct you to this wonderful video, which I discovered a while back and which does a wonderful job of explaining everything we currently know about Yule and midwinter festivals in the nordic cultures.

Now, norse paganism is a fully open practice! Everyone is free to practice it, no matter their ancestry. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise, they would not be speaking the truth!

As for your last question, blót is an Old Norse term meaning "blood", which can seem scary when you put it that way, but it's nothing to be worried about! It merely refers to the act of sacrifice, or as we neo-pagans often say, offering. A blót is a ritualized offering made to the norse Gods! The celebrations around such an event can also be refered to as blót: the term "Yule" originally came from the Old Norse name for the main midwinter sacrifice, Jólablót, which is the name I give to my own winter solstice celebration. We know that during the Scandinavian Iron Age, there were many blóts scattered across the calendar! Among those: Þorrablót, or Husbands' Day, allegedly celebrating the God Thórr, Góublót, or Wives' Day, a celebration of the end of winter, Sigrblót, a festival to ask for victory, Alfablót, celebrated at the end of the harvest season during which offerings to the elves were made, Jólablót, and Dísablót, when offerings to the Dísir were made. Most solitary practionners of norse paganism do not celebrate all of these. After all, little is known about them! Scholars cannot even pinpoint the exact moment of the year when Dísablót was performed. For this reason, we are all free to practice them based on our own interpretations. Since I am a devout worshipper of Yngvi-Freyr, I offer to him along with the elves on Alfablót. Though Jólablót is arguably the most popular blót to perform among heathens, I have met practionners who did not practice it. The blóts you choose to perform are all up to you!

I have only scratched the surface of how norse pagan holidays can be celebrated! I hope you'll find as much information as you need to prepare for Jólablót, and I also wish for you to have lots of fun celebrating it! Do be sure to trust your gut when it comes to celebrating pagan holidays. It all comes down to you, your preferences and what feels right. Have a great rest of the day, and please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have any other questions!

#ask #asks #norse paganism #spirituality #polytheism #paganism #norse gods #heathenry #deity work #deities #pagan #yule

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oftenwantedafton · 2 months

Text

Secret Smile - College English Professor/Vampire Steve Raglan/William Afton x Female College Student Reader

Chapter 4

Rating - Explicit

Warnings for sexual content, menstruation kink

Also available on AO3

You’re being chased.

You don’t recognize the wooded area you’re in. Tall trees that have endured many seasons. A thick carpet of pine needles and decaying leaves at your feet that helps to muffle your passage. You can’t hear any sounds of pursuit. Perhaps you’ve evaded the hunter. Your lungs burn. You lean against one of the surrounding trees. The bark is rough at your back. A shadow in your peripheral vision.

How foolish to think you could elude this undying creature. An eternal being that defies time. Yielding to none, the only enemy the light of day. The dawn is not present now. Sister night stands guard. You offer your throat to him. His lips press along your pulse, his hand resting on your upper arm. Squeezing. More pressure. The images grow hazy. You’re being pulled away.

You wake up.

You’re lying beside the vampire in his bed, his back resting against the headboard, ankles crossed. The book he’d been reading to you from rests on top of his thighs, face down, the spine creased many times over.

“I feel asleep. I’m so sorry!” You flush and struggle to sit up.

“There’s no need to apologize. You certainly have earned the right to feel fatigued, considering…” Steve leans over to set the book on the nightstand. “I’m sorry that I had to wake you. But I need to return you so you can get some proper rest.”

You glance at the clock nearby. The night is more than halfway over. Soon it’ll be time for him to sleep, too. Maybe that’s not something he likes people seeing. You wonder if he looks…well, dead, when he’s slumbering. Corpselike. You push the unpleasant image from your thoughts.

Your instructor invites you to use the bathroom before you depart.

Your eyes lift from the sink you’ve just washed your hands at to check your appearance and that’s when you realize it: the vampire casts no reflection in the mirror. Another piece of lore proven true. It’s a little eerie. You can feel him standing behind you. The warmth of his body. Hear his breathing. Yet no image of your English teacher in that silvered surface. You see your hair lifting away from your neck. Your jaw shifts as he cups it. Pressure against your lips, an invisible force making an indent.

“I was dreaming about you earlier,” you murmur.

“Were you?” Raglan’s lips graze your throat.

“You were chasing me. Somewhere with tall trees. An endless ancient forest.”

“And then?”

“Caught.”

He hums a little satisfied sound and it vibrates along your skin. “Did you want me to catch you, little mouse?”

“Yes.” You turn to face him.

Pointed teeth poke out in a grin. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes.” You don’t want to. You wish you could have lingered in his bed longer. Cuddling. Exploring. But you’ve got school in the morning. Homework. A shift at the coffee shop tomorrow.

Still you hesitate in the passenger seat of the bearded man’s Rolls Royce now parked beside your car in the deserted parking lot. You lean towards each other. Still a lingering taste of your blood and your sex in his mouth. Your fingers curl around his neck. He inhales sharply. His scent stirs the air. Freshly mown grass. Pine logs newly lit in a hearth. The resinous citrus of bergamot. Your hand releases and slides down his chest. Over his abdomen. You’re nearly at your goal.

Steve’s hand shackles your wrist. His grip is like iron. You’re trapped, immobile. “Gently, rabbit. A gesture of parting. No more than that, for now.” He sighs and relaxes his hold on you. The fragrance fades. “Sleep well, little one.”

You return home and find you’re suddenly exhausted, managing to set your alarm and change into pajamas before you crash dreamlessly into slumber.

***

You feel like you’ve barely slept.

You move in slow motion getting ready for the day. A sluggish drag of your toothbrush. A lazy shower. Clothing chosen without much thought. You’re so thirsty. The sunlight streaming through the window in the apartment’s kitchen is giving you a headache.

By the afternoon you start to feel a little more like your old self. Monday evenings aren’t particularly crowded at the coffee shop. You lean back against the counter, looking out through the shopfront windows. The car that pulls into the parking lot is familiar.

Steve Raglan enters the building.

You immediately perk up, his unexpected appearance the equivalent of a double espresso. “Hey.”

“Hello. How are you feeling?”

“I was dragging earlier, but I’m better now.”

Your coworker is out back. There are no other customers around. “I found myself craving…something,” he amends when the other employee makes a reappearance. “Maybe what I had the other night, only less watered down.”

“Sure, I got you.” You busy yourself preparing the drink. His fingers subtly stroke yours when he hands you the money.

A tentative sip has his eyes lighting up behind the lenses of his aviators and he takes another. “That…is delicious. Best thing I’ve had in ages. Well, maybe not quite the best thing.” His eyebrow lifts and your cheeks flush. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow night.”

You watch him leave and the burst of energy you’d had fades. The rest of the shift passes by quietly.

Back home under the covers the words on the page in front of you swim. You’ve lost track of Melville’s story. Instead you’re thinking of the feel of Raglan’s hands and mouth on you. This is the first night you haven’t seen each other since that first in his office. You wonder what he’s doing right now. Maybe something tedious like a lesson plan. Correcting papers. Sighing over stale inarticulate entries. A respite at the piano. Restless fingers over piano keys. Striking ebony and ivory. A memory of a melody shifting through time.

You close Moby Dick and reach for your notebook. You don’t want to read someone else’s words tonight. You want to gift your own.

You want him.

***

Tuesday morning you wake up to stomach cramps. You’ve started your period. Terrific.

Some ibuprofen and a warm towel heated in the microwave help to take the edge off a little. You make it through your morning class. Manage a little more writing and some homework. Eyeing the clock. Nearly time for your English Literature class. The menstrual pains are coming back with a vengeance.

You’re seated in your usual spot in the corner. Steve sets his weathered briefcase on the desk. His eyes lift and ever so casually glance in your direction. Linger. Something passes over his features. Hunger. Flared nostrils for the briefest of moments. A lift of the broad shoulders when his chest expands, drawing in more air. The tethered gaze breaks. You realize you’ve been holding your own breath and you suck in a lungful of oxygen.

The English professor paces between the aisles, his rough voice deceptively calm as he lectures. Carefully steering clear of getting too close to you. You might have been flattered that he found you so irresistible that he had to maintain a distance if you didn’t feel so lousy. You choose a group at random to join for the discussion. The symbolism of the prevalent pipe smoking featured throughout the novel is being debated. You don’t contribute much. You feel you might have a low grade fever. A prickly sensation on your skin like you might break out into a sweat at any moment. Slightly nauseous. The thought of being hurled into the ocean along with Ahab’s pipe sounds appealing right now. Cold waters closing over you. You can’t wait to take another shower.

The class finally ends. You’re slow to gather your things. The classroom door swings shut and you realize there is a sudden absence of sound. The other students are gone. It is just you and the vampire now.

There’s a door leading to another room at the back. A repurposed space filled with spare desks and chairs. A rolling cart for an overhead projector. Some poster boards from a long forgotten project, the printed text already fading, the glued photo copied images peeling. Your teacher drags you into the darkened space, his fingers wrapped around your wrist.

“Steve, I’m really not feeling well, I have—”

“I know.” He releases you. His voice is a tense rasp of sound. Things suddenly click into place. He can smell you.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes.” The word is uttered through clenched teeth. He’s struggling to control himself, more than you’ve ever seen him. The ash scent is strong tonight, tempered with aerated soil and an iron tang. It reminds you of blood.

“I didn’t know.” Dust under your fingers when he crowds you against a desk nearby. “Is it always like this? You know every time someone is bleeding?”

“I can tell, yes, but no, it’s not always like this.” You hear the tremor in his air exchange. Trying to resist inhaling. Shuddering over the fragrance of your shedding womb. “It’s not the blood; there’s less of that than there is tissue. Not the same as drinking it from your vessels. It’s something else entirely. That failed preparation for breeding, a feral awakening…” His voice trails off. “Are the cramps bad?”

“Yes.”

“I can help with that. Uterine contractions when I grant you your little death. A burst of endorphins to accompany the pleasure and numb the discomfort.” A ragged sigh. His breath hot against your face. “I want to eat you right up.” A flash of teeth. Wolflike. Catching the moonlight filtering through the open blinds covering the windows. The recently disturbed dust motes sparkling on those same beams.

“I’ve never, um…done anything with anyone when I’m on my period. Isn’t it going to be messy?”

“I’m counting on it.” His voice sounds raw, ravenous, at odds with the soft kiss he plants on your scarred throat. The scabbed puncture marks are burning again. Aching. Your flesh wants to be opened for him. “I’ll make sure you’re licked clean. Help you empty that hollow space right back out again…”

An answering throb in your sex. Your body desires him.

***

There are too many people around for you to get a ride from your English teacher.

You drive to his house instead, the route already familiar to you. He reaches the destination far sooner than you, waiting for you on the front porch, tugging you inside.

You’re suddenly shy when you’re back in Raglan’s bedroom.

You’re thinking about staining the sheets. You feel bad about him having to clean after that no matter how much he’s claiming he’s going to enjoy it. You give voice to these nagging misgivings.

“Do you think I’ve never had to tidy up blood before? Don’t worry about it.” His hands find their way under your shirt. Your nipples are tender. He massages them gently through the layer of your brassiere. “Let me have you, little wonder. I want to taste you…”

Your sex tingles. You nod softly. He helps you undress. You avoid looking at the stained pad adhered to the crotch of your panties. Another deep inhale from Steve. His hands on you are shaking.

You’re pushed back onto the bed, onto clean white sheets. They won’t be so pristine soon enough.

He climbs over you. Kisses you, surprisingly gently. Hand moving in small circles over your abdomen. “You have a fever,” he murmurs. “So much inflammation. That lining in your womb is eager to escape.” His fingers trail down to your mound. You still haven’t spread your legs. “Open for me.” A slight part. “Wider.” A little further. “Wider.” You let your knees fall open. Your heart races as his fingers glide through your bloodstained lips, painting small circles over your hooded button. Your hips shudder and you whine. “So swollen. So ripe. A bountiful feast before me.” He parts your labia and gently eases a finger inside of you. “Oh, little one. I can’t wait to stretch you with my cock one of these nights.” His thumb massages your clit while he fucks you with his finger. You’re starting to be distracted from the turmoil in your abdomen. Sticky blood mixes with slick arousal. Some of the metallic odor in the air is emanating from your own body. Coppery and sharp.

Your English teacher’s tongue caresses your throat before moving to your breasts. He sucks each nipple into his mouth, still pleasuring your pussy. The points of his upper cuspids dig into but do not pierce the globes of flesh. Incisors pull lightly on eraser point tips. You touch his hair and keep him there, alleviating some of the soreness. Little hums of enjoyment.

His hand lifts from your sex. You see the crimson staining his pale skin. So much of it. He brings it to his lips. Watching you when he begins to suck his finger clean. Eyes rolling back at the taste. Tongue dredging the creases of his palm. Savoring every last drop. His face now between your thighs. A stripe licked through the coated petals. Steve moans, burying his face against you.

Your back lifts off the mattress. His mouth clamps over your nub and he sucks, hard. Two fingers working inside you now, scissoring that engorged interior. “Steve, oh God, it’s…” You’re amazed at how quickly your thinking about this scenario has shifted. Shamelessly grinding yourself against his mouth. Tugging his hair. Begging for more.

That long tongue spearing inside you. Fingers laid flat, rapidly dragged back and forth over your enlarged clit. Both of your scents heavy in the air, mingling. The obscene sound of his mouth sinking into all that wetness. The built up lining in your body makes the sensation of climaxing feel different. More tender, aching. Shaking against him. He eats you right through to a second. His face is a mess, beard stained garnet and a deeper shade that’s nearly black. Bloodied hand wrapped around his cock. White and red and pink where his cum and your blood have mated and merged spread across your abdomen and between your breasts.

In the shower he’s much calmer. Taking his time washing you. Coaxing a third release from you with his fingers. He’d been right. You do feel better. You help him strip the bed, trying not to think about how it looks like a crime scene. Tucked beside him once again. He’s reading the latest prose you’ve created.

“You’re still holding back,” he observes, closing the cover of the notebook.

Your head lifts to regard him. “So are you.” He hasn’t fed from you tonight. The dark feast he’d consumed between your thighs wasn’t an equivalent for drinking fresh blood.

The vampire stares at you for a moment. “You know why that is.”

“But you said you can control it. You know not to take too much.”

“It’s more complicated than that. Your body needs time to replenish plasma and create new cells. Even a little constantly drained over a period of time will make you tired. Weak. You admitted it yourself. You were exhausted this morning.” He sees you frown. “Do you really think you know more about this subject matter than I do?”

“I��no. Of course not.” Your fingers pluck at the clean sheet spread beneath you. “Why am I so addicted to it?”

“Something in my saliva. Like the…neurotoxin, as you call it. Also involuntary. Rendering prey more willing. Immobile. An induced evolution as it were. That’s one of the reasons for it, anyway.”

“What’s another?”

He grins. “My devastating charm.”

You shove his arm playfully. “You’re so arrogant.”

“I prefer the term confident.”

“Will you let me stay the night?”

The smile slips from his mouth. “I don’t think you’d enjoy that very much, rabbit.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not sleep like you know it. More of a kind of restful hibernation. Stasis.”

Your earlier suspicions were correct, then. “You’ll look like you’re dead,” you say softly.

“I am dead,” he reminds you gently.

“Who turned you?”

“That is not a topic to be discussed tonight.”

“But you will tell me, eventually?”

“Eventually.”

“What’s your real name?”

The vampire remains silent.

“Why are you so reluctant to tell me?”

“Because there’s power in a name. Because no one has said it in a long, long time. It’s not for tonight, little mouse.” His mouth brushes yours. Again. Lips pressing firmer this time.

The questions scatter from your mind.

#william afton x reader #william afton x you #steve raglan x you #steve raglan x reader #dividers credit @saradika-graphics

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zeldaelmo · 8 months

Note

Congratulations on your two milestones!

Have fun:

“What do you mean you ate it?”

Hey B! Thank you for your prompt! This was fun. 😆 Thank you @flutefemme for betareading!

Imagine Link speed ran both games for this. He didn't do the tears quest apart from the one Impa half-dragged him into. Crack fic, kinda, takes place after the ending.

Of Rocks

Link peeks into the cooking pot and then back at Zelda who sits on a log and scribbles furiously in a notebook. He speaks up anyway; she usually gives him her attention if he keeps talking. Old habit from when he hardly got words out.

“I'll have to admit, I was a little confused earlier, you know, back with Rauru and… his wife. What did you say was her name?” He shakes his head to himself. Sometimes he thinks his memory took more damage than they thought.

“Sonia,” Zelda breathes absently and continues taking notes.

“Yeah, Sonia. Anyway, maybe you can tell me more about this Light Dragon thing.”

That makes her look up. She rubs her ink-stained fingers at each other, frowning when he underlines his words with the sign for ‘noodle’. Another old habit.

“Did it… swallow you?" he asks. "Kinda like the Calamity?”

The fire under the cooking pot pops and Zelda sighs like she always does when he brings stray animals home or weapons that are too good to be tossed away (they are!).

“You didn’t search for the geoglyphs, did you? Just like you ignored the pictures on the slate the first time. I even made them easier to find this time, they’re glowing in the dark and all.”

He narrows his eyes on her. “Zelda. You fell into the abyss when we accidentally stumbled over the mummy of the Demon King. You were gone. Poof, swallowed by golden light. So, no, I didn’t feel like searching for anything but you.”

She stares at him for a moment, but then she puts her notebook aside, and faces him fully. “The secret stone here”—she taps the golden, tear-shaped gem on her necklace—”it amplifies the powers of the wielder. It can also be used to perform a forbidden ritual that turns the wielder into a dragon who isn’t bound to the limits of time. Performing that ritual was the only way to heal the sword for you.” Her gaze searches the small clearing where they’ve set up camp on their way to Hateno. It's not far from where they fell from the sky.

Link points his thumb in the general direction behind him where the sword leans against his pack. “I got it, no worries. Didn’t forget how mad you were the last time when I rushed to the castle with a soup ladle.” He lifts the stew-covered one currently in his hand for good measure. Then, he mulls over what she said and tries to piece it together with the strange things that happened in the sky. Or realm. Might as well have been a different realm with the clouds, the hovering, and all that. He stirs the soup, watching her through his lashes. “So, the Light Dragon, that was you?”

“Yes.”

Now that answer came quicker than he had expected. “Huh.” He scratches his head. “So, the other dragons, Naydra, Dinraal, and Farore…”

“Were once priestesses who swallowed a secret stone to guard the springs eternally, yes.”

“Wait.” He leans the ladle against the brim of the pot and frowns.

“What do you mean, you ate it?”

“Well, it’s part of the ritual.” She crosses her arm in front of her, voice growing impatient.

Yes, yes, he should have tried to find more of the geo-thingies. They would probably have explained everything, but they've been through this before; he doesn't feel like dabbling when her life is on the line. And he didn't even have amnesia this time!

“So when you eat a stone that's fine but when I do it, you get mad?”

She blinks and blinks and blinks. He clicks his tongue. Seems like she has been mad at him so often that she can’t even remember it.

“Goronia,” he jogs her memory.

“Oh!” she calls and leaps up, the notebook toppling into the grass. “Oh, now that was completely different!”

“Is it now? You ate rocks, I ate rocks. Seems pretty similar to me,” Link says, unwrapping a dark clump directly in front of her eyes. His little diversionary tactic nearly works out when he drops it into the cooking pot and the whole content shifts to a dark blue, but she shakes off the urge to investigate.

“You ate the rock roast for sports. For me, there was no alternative to this measurement. I took the risk of losing myself entirely to give you a fighting chance!”

“Well, I saved diplomatic relationships with the Gorons, as you surely remember. And just for the record, it was a Rock Roast Flambé.”

“You are ridiculous and you know it.”

“Ridiculous, huh? The Princess of Hyrule causing a scandal by refusing to eat traditional food prepared especially for her? I saved your ass back then.” By now, he can’t help the grin tugging at his lips. Her eyes flash dangerously when he passes her a bowl of dark soup. "What?" He laughs. "It's true and you know it. Just admit that you're just as unhinged as I am."

"It was a sacrifice," she insists, blowing over her spoonful of blue soup. "For Hyrule. And you. Although you make me second-guess myself about the latter."

"Ah, come on. You seemed pretty happy to see me earlier although it has hardly been two weeks."

"Two we—" she starts, her spoon freezing mid-air and soup dripping back into her bowl.

"I know, I know, last time I only needed a couple of hours after I woke up. Rauru kept holding me back. Tricked me into thinking you were at the sky island."

"Well," she deadpans. "It sure felt like an eternity for me."

He knows he's missing something with the way she chuckles dryly, but she'll bring it up again later. He'll feel stupid for the things he said, then, but she says it's part of his charm, so he doesn't mind.

They eat in amicable silence, fire cracking and soup simmering. Farore buzzes in the distance, climbing the skies at her own, leisurely pace. Link's gaze follows her for a while, but then he turns back to Zelda.

"Did you chew it?!"

"Link!!!!!!"

#zelink #zeldaelmo writes #legend of zelda #totk spoilers #totk #I live for smart Link #But this was fun too

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dear-mrs-otome · 3 months

Text

Chapter 02 - Bimare

Pairing: Silvio Ricci x Emma...eventually Word Count: 1.5k+/??? Author's Note: If Cybird won't give me a proper Beauty and the Beast story, I'll write it myself. This is a slowburn fairytale AU that hews closely to canon, but veers when needed.

Summary: A curse, of sorts. A rose, of sorts. And one prince's long, tangled journey to answer an eternal question...What separates man from beast?

Previous Chapter

The lodge was silent, save for the faint crackle of flames licking at logs in the oversized fireplace looming over one end of the great hall. There were no servants plating a meal for the man seated at the table that stretched its length - there was no meal at all, in fact. Just an an empty gilded setting for one adrift on a sea of crisp white linen, a nearly empty bottle of wine, a full goblet, and a rumpled piece of paper.

Metal chimed softly as Silvio lifted the goblet and took a long drink, and then another. Draining the rest of the glass.

“I’m not carrying you to bed if you get drunk, Your Highness.”

Silvio glanced over at the tall, rail-thin man who had just stepped into the room, and snorted into his cup. “As if you could, Carlo, even if I did.” He reached for the bottle, and poured the remainder of it into his glass. “Which I won’t.”

Carlo drifted closer, hovering behind a nearby chair as if not quite daring to sit down. Plucking repeatedly at the shabby cuff of his linen shirtsleeve. “You went into the city today, I gather?”

His only reply was a quiet grunt of assent.

“And…er…h-how did it go? How did she take it?” Carlo ventured.

The crash of the door as she’d walked out of the shop echoed in his ears again, and Silvio took a long drink to banish it. “She didn’t.”

Nerves forgotten, a frown creased Carlo’s forehead as he pulled the chair out and dropped into it. “I don’t understand.”

Silvio slammed the goblet down atop the table, red wine sloshing over its rim to bloody the tablecloth, causing Carlo to jump. “I mean,” he snarled. “She quit. And I don’t wanna talk about this anymore.”

Carlo subsided into silence, shrinking slightly in the face of Silvio’s ire. “But you had planned -”

“Enough.” If his voice was a snarl before, it was a roar now. But he reined it in, with effort. “It doesn’t matter.”

And it didn’t, not really. It wasn’t as if he would see her again - that much had been made clear, although the reason why that thought stung so much remained opaque.

Wisely letting it go, Carlo turned his attention to the piece of paper on the table, leaning in curiously for a closer look. “What’s that?”

For reasons he couldn’t fathom, Silvio found himself snatching the page closer, slapping a hand atop to hide the words written on it. “It’s nothing. Just a bit of trash I meant to throw in the fire.”

And he had meant to throw it into the merrily crackling blaze. Had stood at the hearth, hand braced against the heavy stone mantle, with every intention of tossing the hideous thing into the flames and being done with this whole mess. But every time he tried, the words were backlit once more, the fire rendering the page translucent and the lines of the poem crisp. Crawling across the page like chains. And he found he just…couldn’t.

“Of course,” Carlo agreed carefully.

Anything else he might have said was lost when a harsh pounding came at the door of the chateau. Not the grand front entrance outside the main foyer, but the humble postern here in the great hall that was meant for discreet exits.

The two men exchanged looks, Silvio rising to his feet and dropping his hand to the hilt of the sword he kept at his hip. The chateau was far from any town, and was set in deep woods a good distance from the road - it was hardly the sort of place to receive visitors. Let alone ones that came to back doors.

“I’ll get it, Your Highness.” Carlo hurried over to the door, fumbled with the latch, and eased the heavy door open. Cold wind blew in, herald to a swath of velvet darkness that was storm dampened - and an indistinct cowled figure on the threshold.

The fire and few candles did little to lend it any details, and Silvio narrowed his eyes as he took in the slight frame through the low light.

“Good evening, sirs.” It was an older man’s voice that greeted them, muffled and indistinct from the depths of the hood, bearing a faint foreign accent that tickled his memory. “It’s a night fit for neither man nor beast out here. Would you be willing to share your fire and your roof with this sorry traveler?”

Carlo glanced in Silvio’s direction, uncertainty plain in the drawn lines of his face. “I-I’m not s-su-”

“This ain’t an inn.” Silvio cut his aid off before he could stutter his painful way through a denial. He took in the man's shabby cloak, the mud stains spattering the ragged hem. “And it ain't a flophouse.”

He would have sworn Carlo never budged, and yet somehow in the blink of an eye the man was inside, dripping puddles on the polished parquet floor.

“Oy.” Silvio stomped closer, irritation needling him. “Are you deaf, old man?”

The stranger merely laughed, as if he’d said something incredibly amusing. “Far from it, I can assure you.” Heedless of Carlo fluttering by the door and Silvio’s scowls, the man drifted towards the table as if he had every right to be there.

“I said-”

“A canzonetta!” The stranger’s delighted exclamation as he caught sight of the page laid atop the table cut Silvio’s renewed protest off, and before Silvio could react he’d lifted it to read. “Are you a fan of love poems then, sir?”

Silvio barked a sharp laugh. “Hardly. Why bother with them when a shiny bauble will get the deed done much faster, and without having to embarrass yourself with a load of horseshit like that.”

“I see.” The man paused, head inclined in the direction of the words consideringly. “My mistake, then. I saw it laid out so deliberately here that I thought it must have some meaning to you.”

“It's not important. At all.” Just like that damned book of poetry. Just like that damned shop.

Just like that damned woman.

It was impossible to make anything out clearly in the shadows of that deep hood, but he felt the intensity of the man's gaze on him like a brand. “Oh, I'm sure it's important to someone.”

“Not to me.” He nearly spat the words out as he snatched the damned piece of paper from the man’s hand and crumpled it into a ball, hurling it into the fire that flared up hungrily. Fury burning hotter still in his veins, fed by the hard knot suddenly lodged beneath his breastbone. “Now leave. You’re pissing me off.”

“Oh, my boy.” There was a sorrow woven amidst the words, one threaded with genuine disappointment that stung for some reason Silvio couldn’t name. “I came all this way hoping I’d be wrong, but you’ve truly learned nothing, have you?”

The paper lifted itself from the flames and hovered mid-air, smoothing flat, scorch marks mending themselves before his astonished eyes. Those cursed lines made hale and whole again. He heard Carlo’s gasp as the edges twitched and folded in on themselves as if by an invisible hand, over and over again in a complicated pattern until the whole thing had twisted itself into something that resembled a pressed rose.

“Take it.”

The stranger’s tone was oddly compelling, and his hand lifted against his will towards the trifle. But the moment he made contact an unspeakable agony tore through him, shredding nerves from muscle, shattering bone. He couldn’t even find breath to cry out, his lungs crushed in a pitiless fist.

Dimly, he was aware of a hand on his shoulder following him down as his knees buckled beneath the weight of his unvoiced screams. A voice in his ear, eerily clear over the roar of his own shuddering heartbeat. Eerily familiar. “Five years and a day, to realize what you must. Pride has leached into your flesh, your bones, your very eyes, until it colors all you see. You have grown blind with it. But I will give you a chance to regain your sight.” The fire in the hearth leapt even higher at that, bathing them in light, and from the dark recesses of the hood the outline of a vulpine face stared down at him with something akin to compassion. “What separates man from beasts? Learn, little prince - lest ye join them in truth.”

And then the hand was gone, the voice was gone, and all that was left was the pain. He curled around it as the world went white. Then black. As the pain pummeled and pushed and pulled at him like clay on a maker’s wheel.

Until, as suddenly as it had began, it stopped.

He lay limp on the floor, eyes still clenched shut, and had the inane thought that somewhere a dog was whimpering.

“Santo cielo…”

It wasn’t until Carlo’s wan, shaking murmur layered over it that he realized - the one making that sound was him.

A thousand thanks to my beta, you know who you are ;)

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fetch-me-penguins · 15 days

Text

i want to live (Astarion x VampireSpawn! Tav)

Every minute that he holds on without loosing it, is a minute closer to dawn. A minute closer to whatever end this may have. The only thing a vampire can feel is hunger, people say. Gods, he wishes it was true. or Cazador takes Tav.

An angsty take on the premise of Cazador kidnapping Tav to replace a dead spawn on the Ascension ritual.

Read it on AO3

CHPTR 1 (you're here) | CHPTR 2 | CHPTR 3 | CHPTR 4

Out of all the places where they have camped so far, a Guild safehouse was not the one he expected to have the most spectacular view of them all.

At one of the highest points of the Lower City, in the courtyard of a seemingly abandoned summer house, Astarion has an unobstructed view of the sun meeting the sea as it sets in a show of blood orange rays and heavy purple clouds. A gentle wind, running through the trees and the overgrown wild lawn at the courtyard where they have set their camp, the heavy stench of the city getting lost between the blooming flowers and aromatic shrubbery.

He can hear a bellowing bard on a tavern a few properties down, the gliding sound of a sharpening stone against metal some place across the firepit, leaves rustling in the wind, and the owlbear’s claws as he stalks pigeons from behind the dry fountain at the entrance of the courtyard.

It is a beautiful evening at a peaceful camp, and he is indifferent to it all.

Even though he knows in his bones that something is missing, he can’t find it in himself to care.

Such is the nature of the Calm Emotions spell, apparently.

His mind is molasses, stuck on trying to separate his senses from his thoughts despite the throbbing migraine he has been nursing for an eternity, it feels like.

He can’t remember when or what was the last thing he drank, or how many hours he’s been awake. As far as he knows, the log where he sits is the only place where he exists. The only place where he is real and thinks.

There’s a wide pot in front of him, filled with a dark liquid and strange jutting shapes that resemble fabric.

He stares. He is almost sure it’s dye.

Puzzling.

Did he need something dyed? Is the clothing even his? How long has he been sitting here? He can vaguely remember seeing the high noon sun reflected on the surface of the dark water as it steamed and reeked, but surely it hasn’t been that long?

The sun sinks lower, showing off to no one.

The owlbear trips and falls with a thump and a whine, the pigeons fly away in a flurry of loud flapping and cooing. They settle on the roof. The sharpening stone glides. The bard is off pitch. The wind races.

He is cold. His hands and forearms are stained a faint hue of indigo. Like a drow.

They don’t feel his. If he flexes the fingers, they seem to move on a delay. Heavy, clunky.

His body is here, but his will is… somewhere else.

The untethered feeling should be nauseating in its familiarity, but it feels like nothing instead. Jarring, in a detached way his empty brain can’t begin to piece together. A pot of ink poured over a letter to hide whatever secrets it used to hold.

Just like the pounding headache, he hasn’t been able to get rid of the stone slab over his chest, a deep feeling of wrongness that he can’t quite place.

He searches for an anchor, something beyond the log that may make sense and he follows the sound of the sharpening stone.

It’s Karlach, sitting on a crate and sharpening her axe with minute care across the firepit. The orange glow of the sky reflects on the blade, casting light over her red rimmed eyes and a deep frown on her face. The mirror shine of her weapon stirs something in Astarion, a visceral urge to take his own blades and run…somewhere.

The urge fades as soon as it comes, drowned by another wave of numbness that he attempts to resist to no avail. The longer he tries to hold on to the memory of his daggers, the greater the pain grows, snaking beneath his eyes and into his teeth. It makes his forehead feel like it’s about to burst open until he surrenders to it, breathing shallow and bending over the tub.

He is cold. Hungry. And so gods damned tired he can’t even begin to think why, out of all the people in their bloody camp, he was the one given dyeing duty.

A man clears his throat right beside him, and Astarion can’t even bring himself to even blink as he meets Gale’s pitiful attempt at a warm smile.

“Time to take them out, I gather?” he says, gently placing an empty wooden tub at his feet.

He stares at the wizard’s face, the dark purple circles under his eyes and the straining at the corners of his mouth, his pale, dry skin.

He knows he is under a spell. He knows that this wizard is the one holding it over him. And yet, he feels nothing but a faint whisper of annoyance

Puzzling indeed.

Gale’s brows furrow slightly at the silence, and the fog over Astarion’s brain rises and swells. He fights it, trying not to drown in the void again. A throb pierces his temples, a familiar presence scratching and throwing itself with all of its might against the rock solid walls surrounding the numbness and confusion. His will, fighting the spell with almost rabid desperation.

Gale’s strained smile fades, and his eyes sharpen. The fog thickens and Astarion is pretty sure it’s going to split open his head and make him crack his teeth.

“Stop that” he snarls, his lips curling back, barely hearing the sharpening stone stop.

Gale doesn’t step back when Astarion closes in on his space, filling his lungs with the acrid smell of the wizard’s blood, the pain of his own hunger and the raging migraine the only thing standing against the muck in his head.

It’s Gale’s turn to stand still and stare.

“Astarion,” he starts, voice level but not moving an inch, “We agreed to this, remember? You told me yesterday evening to hold the spell until we could set out.”

He can’t remember, and he can’t even be alarmed at the fact that he can’t remember. He can only only puzzle over the here and now, everything else has been swallowed by the numbness.

Gale sighs and steps back, gazing over Astarion’s shoulder and slightly assenting to someone before his eyes return to his face. The fog barely recedes, but the pain dulls to a thud instead of a piercing lance. Astarion all but collapses back on the log, aching to claw at his own chest to force his lungs to take a full breath, to feel something other than the all consuming void.

The other man sinks down to one knee, his eyes searching Astarion’s face with something akin to pity.

Astarion knows himself. Which is why he knows that everything, even this, is amiss.

He should be sneering at the wizard and his pompous self righteousness, furious at the sorry state of his hands, fuming at the bloody bard with a piss poor pitch at the tavern next door, and he should be somewhere else. Somewhere important. The ache of not being there refuses to let him breathe and he can’t understand why, the answers locked behind the closed gates of his mind, tearing apart his temples every time he even thinks of getting them back.

He did this to himself, then. He gave another person his mind on a leash, and agreed to have disobedience punished with pain. And apparently, he made the choice at some point, to let his mind waddle in the muck instead of facing whatever it is that has everyone acting out of sorts. Specially himself.

He must have lost it pretty badly, to have turned to the fucking wizard for help.

Gale settles on the ground and moves the empty tub closer, pulling his long sleeves back and reaching for one of the pieces of fabric closest to the surface. Astarion follows his motions, reaching into the dark water and pulling on a piece of linen, some sort of sleeve now dyed a deep midnight blue.

Gale sighs again and he clears his throat, apparently intending to say something, when a shooting vine bursts from one of the overgrown garden plots, raining down a flurry of roots, clover and the busted pieces of a wooden hatch door. Karlach runs towards the noise, axe in hand, when the muffled sound of Shadowheart’s battle cry is followed by the head of her morningstar, smashing open the rest of the hidden hatch.

Astarion can feel Gale’s concentration on the spell sway, as he gets up and nears the hole in the ground where Shadowheart now has emerged, dragging the tumbling body of a young woman with a burlap sack over her head.

“Don’t tell me that’s-” Gale begins to question, a hint of anger in his tone.

“Yes, she is.” Wyll answers, voice flat as he emerges from the ground, followed by Lae’zel and Jaheira, who watches the scene unfold with her hands on her hips as soon as she is out.

Astarion is about to start twisting the linen shirt in his hands when something makes him stop cold, a whiff of the girl’s scent piercing through the sea of numbness and rattling something inside his chest. Sour sweat, the Flaming Fist’s standard issue soap, traces of orange peel oil. And underneath the drool and bile soaked front of her shirt, wine. Heavily spiced and bitter.

The blood covering her is new, though. It hadn’t been there before, he muses as the headache spreads from his forehead to the back of his scalp.

Shadowheart all but hauls the girl towards the empty rooms surrounding the courtyard and kicks open one of the wooden doors, splintering the frame. She unceremoniously drops the girl on the ground, her skull hitting the floor with a loud crack, and exits the room without looking back, stomping in a beeline towards the water barrel.

The sun has already set behind the ocean, but the bright orange light reflecting on the clouds renders their little group’s gathering around the firepit in a hellish light. Wyll groans as he takes Karlach’s place on the crate, massaging the side of his neck with a grimace. Lae’zel has taken to sitting on a log, her eyes dully following Shadowheart’s pacing from the water barrel to her tent as she forcefully removes pieces of her armour and throws them to the ground. Gale approaches with branches and a couple of thin logs to start their fire for the evening.

Astarion can hear Jaheira talking to a couple of the Harpers guarding the roof, but his eyes follow the interest of his nose, to the darkened room where their new prisoner hasn’t moved. Her wrists are bound, but it seems hardly necessary; she is missing all her fingers, except for her left pinkie.

He doesn’t need the tadpole or his head entirely clear to realize that whatever the rest of his companions were up to during the day, it has not gone over well.

“Well?” Gale prompts, once the silence has stretched long enough.

Wyll stares into the fire and feeds it some small branches before answering, “She said she cannot spare the hands. Specially now that she has weeded out rats on her den. She is gathering whomever can hold a sword to hold together what she can of the city”

Gale’s face contorts in a sneer and the walls around Astarion’s mind tremble.

“Whomever? More orphans? Is that it?” he almost spits out.

Wyll stays silent, and after a beat he responds, strained.

“The Flaming Fist is scattered after my father’s brush with the Absolute, the Watch all but disappeared under Gortash. They have at most two weeks before the fight for the city begins. If I were in her place-” Wyll’s mismatched eyes don’t meet Gale’s when he scoffs. The walls get a few hairline cracks and Astarion can feel the weight over his chest getting heavier and heavier, a vice growing around his throat.

“You wouldn’t have done that. And would have stood by your word.” Gale insists, bitterness seeping further in his tone.

“Chk. Shut up, both of you.” Lae’zel hisses in their direction, “Focus your anger on something useful or stop wasting it.”

Silence fills the fire pit, and Gale seems to get a hold of his temper, the Calm Emotions spell gathering back its steadiness.

“After what we did for them. After what she did for Nine Finger’s, for so many years. I don’t-” Gale sighs, rubbing at his eyes.

“Nine Finger’s is not like either of you.” Jaheira says as she approaches on long strides. “Loyalty in the Guild does not come cheap, and we have earned it. If she’d had the means to pay it back and hold us in her debt, she wouldn’t have hesitated to use them.” She removes the cork to her waterskin and takes a long drink. “But she doesn’t have the means. And the fact it’s one of her most loyal assets is the one in that palace, well…” she lets the sentence wander off into the night, putting the cork back on the waterskin and staring pensively into the fire.

“It was a long shot anyway, but we had to try.” she says with finality, her keen eyes scanning every face across the fire.

The silence stretches as Shadowheart joins the pit, her scowl lessened by exhaustion. Astarion realizes that he is still holding the linen shirt in his hands, his fingers now wrinkled and stained a nearly black shade of blue. He drops it into the dye water once more, the splashing sound of it the only thing to accompany the crackling of the wood burning in the pit.

“What about her?” asks Karlach, nodding in the direction of the room where the girl still hasn’t moved an inch.

Wyll looks pointedly at Jaheira.

“A show of good faith from the Guild. They don’t claim her, or her actions.” she stops once more, staring straight into Astarion’s direction. “We may dispose of her, as we plea-”

“Excuse me?” Gale interrupts her, “Dispose of her? Is this what we are doing now? Are we going to take turns on chopping up the only finger she has left?!”

“Gale, please-” Wyll rises to his feet.

“I hold no love for that-that individual in there. But it’s clear as day, that she has been through enough.”

Jaheira’s face twists into a sneer, her eyes fixating on the flames that seem to grow taller.

“That individual invited spawn into our camp and took our friend, the woman she called sister, to her doom. She has worked against her own Guild, against the Gate, for months! You cannot fathom the damage she has done!”

“She almost succeeded in killing me, so I can gather some! But I won’t be her executioner. She didn’t need to walk on her own broken feet all the way here, just to end up in a gallow with a different view!”

Jaheira seems to grow larger in the whipping light of the fire, her cold stare turning slowly towards Gale.

“Do you need a list of what that bastard is doing to our friend in that palace, wizard? Can you stop thinking of yourself for a minute?”

Gale’s concentration snaps like a tree in a hurricane, and Astarion gets a taste of everything he has been holding back.

He is a pig for the slaughter, a bloody canal has split open his chest and cracked open his ribs, but his lungs are frozen, refusing to expand. The firepit tilts, his vision blurs in a red and black fog, the burning logs and heated voices turn into a senseless cacophony that rises endlessly. He heaves onto the floor, his brain tearing itself apart between running away into the sunset or darting into the streets of the Lower City, gutting everything that may cross his path on his way to rip apart Aurelia and Leon, for what they have dared to take from him. She is gone, she is gone, he took her screaming four days ago and he is waiting for Astarion to come willingly to the slaughterhouse, to present his neck for sacrifice a second time. The wine on the girl’s clothes is an Utterdark, a favourite of the Master; a sickeningly familiar mix of spices, forever intertwined in his brain with the scent of rotting blood, rat piss and spawn waste in the kennels. Nails dig into his scalp, a burning pain that instead of tether him as it should, sinks him further into the sea of despair. The wine had been the only whiff of a smell on his year inside the coffin, the Master pouring himself a glass over the stone lid, just to let him catch its scent mixed with blood already in the glass. He hears his screeching laugh, the rattling of the chain whip, his own molars breaking, broken bone grinding against raw nerves and vermin flesh. She is there, she is strapped onto the rack, the stones of the palace drinking in her precious blood. And he is here, loosing his fucking mind in front of his own companions.

It stops at once, just like it began.

He finds himself on his hands and knees, staring to the cobblestone floor in the courtyard of the camp. The heavy silence only interrupted by Gale’s quiet cursing and Astarion’s own ragged breathing.

His arms tremble and he is so dizzy that he lets himself flop down on his back, shadows at the edges of his vision creeping back and forth in time with the renewed thudding at the back of his brain. His throat is raw and his breath shallow, but slowly a few stars blur back into focus, alongside a tiefling’s worried face hovering over him.

“This is not about revenge, Jaheira” a male voice says. There’s a slow breath before an answer comes.

“That is not the reason why she is here.”

The tiefling is slow and deliberate on guiding Astarion by the shoulders, first to get up from the ground and then to sit down on a log close to the fire. He lets himself be steered, still too addled to feel any hint of disgust towards himself for it.

The fire is mesmerizing, a much better sight than Gale’s conflicted face as something seems to dawn on him, and Jaheira’s solemn expression when she readies to speak again.

“The truth has to be spoken. Hazel has most likely been turned by now. We need to plan accordingly. And for that, we need to talk. All of us.”

She walks closer and drops to a knee in front of Astarion, blocking his sight of the fire and the blurry silhouettes of their companions. Her aged face fills his vision, her eyes purposeful but not unkind.

“We need you here, Astarion, really here. You know the inside of his lair, the dirty tricks he may use. Any advantage we can get, we need it now. We have to move at dawn.”

He is still shaking mildly, phantom traces of whatever had been going through his mind before he found himself crawling on the floor still floating around the fog inside his brain. It is an instinct to avoid Jaheira’s searching stare, whatever part of his brain that actually understands what she is saying taking control.

Her brows furrow slightly before softening again, her face loosing some of the tension around her eyes and mouth. She almost seems to grow old in front of him.

“I know a thing or two about loosing people, my friend. But the day they took my husband from me…” her eyes get lost on some point over Astarion’s shoulder, her mouth forming a thin line before she returns her gaze to him, “I have not forgotten that pain. So know, that when I ask you to let the spell run its course and get yourself together, I am aware of what it means.”

The walls around his mind hold back most of it, but the taste of bile at the back of his throat is reminder enough of the full force of what is happening beyond the limits of the spell. He’s not just drowning in despair. He’s terrified.

“He will be waiting.” His voice is a broken, whispered thing.

“Yes.” Jaheira answers, holding his gaze without flinching. “But you are not alone.”

His eyes drift towards the fire at her back, where a log and some pieces of broken furniture have been fed to the fire. The far off bard hasn’t stopped singing, although there’s a distinctly nostalgic quality to his bellowing now.

The tune is familiar, tugging at the strings in his throat and pounding at the insides of his temples.

The girl’s blood sings to him from a few meters away, but the wine on her clothes stills him with an iron grip at the nape of his neck.

He doesn’t want to think about it.

The druid sighs, and after a moment of consideration, she leans in closer.

“You know to fear your former master. But right now, you need to bear your teeth through that fear; let it wash over you and believe that you will get to dwell on it once everything is said and done. If not for her, for yourself.” She whispers, quieter than the breeze running through the courtyard.

His body has been numb and foreign for days, like a sleeping limb that refuses to recover sensation. At some point in the last five minutes though, the walls have thinned. He can feel it now, distant but clear. The wind on his arms, and a rising sense of panic that clings to her every word.

“You get to try to get her back. You get a chance to put the spawn on the ground and rise as your own man, Astarion.” Her hand is warm as she grips onto his, her earnest eyes unblinking. “You get to try. So try.”

He can feel it creeping on his spine, wrapping itself around his ribs and deep inside his skull. The full force of the last four days looming on the horizon, a wave gaining height.

Jaheira waits and doesn’t let go of his stained hand. The wind howls through the trees, the fire crackles and whips into the darkened sky.

You are not alone, she said. He knows these words, they matter to him. They echo in his bones, they loosen his chest just enough.

He grips Jaheira’s hand in return and assents before letting go. He closes his eyes and feels the walls crumble all the way, the crest of despair standing still for a moment.

This time he has half a mind to turn around, before it drags him under.

.............................................

He has no idea who the nonchalant performance is for any more, but at this point of the night he is way to exhausted to puzzle over anything.

Wyll, Karlach and Gale linger at the fire, spitting venom at Nine Fingers and her excuses, whilst Astarion wipes his hands of the grime from sharpening the last of the blades he’s settled on taking with him. He sneers at his hands, still dark blue and now smelling of steel shavings and polish. A cleric, a druid and a former Chosen of Mystra, bested by a bit of indigo dye.

He is not feeling optimistic about their chances.

Although, that may have more to do with the hunger burning a hole through his abdomen, rather than the actual state of affairs.

The spell may be lifted, and he may be able to take shallow breaths now, but its mostly because he has willed himself not to think about it, any of it.

There’s plenty to stew over anyway.

Like the fact that the pedantic vampire lord would surely choke on his wine if he knew that there existed a floor plan of his state on some courtyard in the Lower City, drawn by his own spawn with a piece of chalk. Crude marks for hidden entrances that Astarion knew like the back of his eyelids, traps that he’d been an unfortunate test subject for; and a short explanation, given in the flattest, most unconcerned voice he’d managed, of what intimately little he knew of Cazador’s magical preferences.

If Jaheira had been expecting more, she doesn’t show it. She merely nods and listens, even as Gale’s heart skips a beat at the mention of necromancy, and Karlach mutters a dejected “Of course” the moment he mentions Cazador’s misty form he’d used once, on a game of cat and mouse on the one night he’d dared to visit his own grave. Useless details they don’t get to know.

It may not be all that his former master can do, and he knows it well. But it is well past what Astarion could stomach to tell.

The metallic tang of polish clings to his skin with stubbornness, and the tavern next door has fallen silent a while ago. The wind rustles through the leaves above and he can tell with acute awareness, that the blood on the girl’s stumps has soaked through one of her bandages.

He clings to the pain in his gut, forcing himself to turn his head towards the fire instead of the alluring dark room. He is drawn to it, the way a fly aims for a rotting carcass on the street; and he feels the same disgust for that girl the way he does for the fly.

No one has mentioned her again. Not Wyll, who is strategically sitting down so he is giving his back to her, and not Jaheira, who marched off to the stairs the moment they could hear Minsc’s loud ramblings coming up the street.

If he focuses on the twisting pain at the maw of his stomach, he can’t think of the hole in his chest. If he tries, with all the might of his weakened senses, to hear the wretch’s rabbit heart pumping away, he can let the hunger eat him whole for a moment, and pretend that it is the only thing he has to worry about.

He is dizzy, the vision of his dry, splotchy hands blurring slightly, when he hears Minsc yelling just a few feet away from him.

“Astarion! Astarion, look!”

He barely has the time to lift his eyes before a longbow is placed in the very hands he’d been sneering at. He blinks several times, trying to focus on the thing. It gives off a faint, familiar glow.

“Wait. I’ve seen that thing somewhere.” Karlach wonders as she approaches.

“Ah yes! Minsc had forgotten, Karlach was there too when we pawned it off!”

That quip makes things fall into place. The Devil’s Fee. And what a fee it had been.

Gontr Mael is still one of the finest bows he has ever held. It had pained him to give it up, but they had needed to bypass the bloody diabolist as soon as possible to follow their idiot leader into the House of Hope.

Back then, even when things had been strained between them, he hadn’t hesitated to give up his most precious bow if it meant reaching her in time, even if he’d had such precious little time to enjoy its weight on his hand.

It had been so simple.

“Helsik gave it back?” he asks, in a slightly hoarse voice, as his hands find the spikes along the bow’s body and pluck at the tight string that binds both ends. As perfect as it had been then.

“A bit of persuasion and promises were needed, but not nearly as much as we had feared.” Halsin answers.

“Ha! Well, she still owes us nine thousand gold. She got so much of our stuff, and those gloves? Man, don’t get me started.” Karlach laments.

Astarion can nearly hear Halsin’s smile when he answers.

“In such case-”

“No way!”

He has a moment to feel a crumb Karlach’s joy as she takes the Hill Giant Guantlets from Halsin and almost squeals, the deep frown in her forehead temporarily smoothed out.

He catches sight of Jaheira by his tent as she drops the quiver of arrows by the entrance. As she notices his attention, she points her face quietly towards the dark room.

He leaves all the muscle gushing over their newly reacquired weapons and he approaches the broken threshold of the room, where Jaheira meets him with crossed arms, staring at the rumpled figure on the floor.

“So this is what our village berserk has been up to for the day.” He comments, following one of the bow’s sharp spikes to its curved end.

“The knucklehead was not going to let Astele's reasoning go unchallenged, no matter how sound it may be.”

The girl’s breath is shallow, the skin of her neck bathed in sweat. The heart still beats, weak and fast, but still alive. Beckoning him into the dark, an itching in his bones to rip apart this bag of meat that clings stubbornly to life.

He grits his teeth, and tightens his hold on the bow. A bitter reunion, if there ever was one.

He has plenty of those in his near future.

“Nine Finger’s was about to get rid of her when we got to the Guildhall. She offered to let us do the honours.”

“So you dragged her all the way here.”

She stays silent, staring at the girl. She walked the whole passage from the Guild to the safehouse and she had every chance to end it. To drop the girl and let her die in the darkness of the tunnel instead of pushing her onto his hands. But not only she hadn’t done that, she had apparently talked Wyll into it too.

“Why?”

Jaheira takes her time to answer.

“They say that the only thing a vampire can feel is hunger. Nothing else touches them — not grief, or mercy. Or any sense of what is just.”

Out of all the things the master ever used against him, the hunger was the one that had kept him in the tightest leash. Eating had been as agonizing as being hungry, the compulsion that made him crawl on his belly for rats would never truly leave him, even if he had no master.

Only one thing would, the one thing he is trying his damn hardest not to think about.

“Well. There must be something to it, then.”

“Perhaps.” she hums and leans back from the creaky door frame, shifting her gaze towards him. “Maybe a sense of what is just escapes most of us, not only the undead.”

Silence falls over both of them. He is almost afraid of it now. He has no escape, torn between his hunger and the frightening amount of contempt he feels for the woman on the floor.

He could see Hazel all over her, when they met her at the Basilisk door. The plain appearance and mended uniform hiding the quick wit and the muddy secrets.

She had vouched for them at the entrance to the Guild. She had been funny, she had watched over Mol when she entered the Guildhall and Hazel had been so relieved to see her that she’d almost seemed to float. The girl’s eyes had lingered on him, as so many eyes did now that he could be seen by day, and Hazel had teased him about it. An olive branch to try and stay the rift that was tearing them apart.

She hadn’t been attracted to him, he knows it now. She had been zeroing in on her prize.

Her name was Meg. Hazel had called her nutmeg twice, truly smiling for the first time in days.

He may loathe her, but he knows he will not enjoy this one bit.

“Try to get some sleep, Astarion. We need you at your best.” Jaheira says as she leans in and takes the bow from his right hand, turning away towards the firepit and leaving him alone.

He goes into the room and swings the door closed, decidedly ignoring the dejected sigh Gale lets out.

Alone and in the dark, his dark vision reveals details of the room in shades of black and gray. The scent of the girls blood blooms and fills his lungs with mouth watering expectation. The richness of a healthy human, a sprinkle of bitter adrenaline, and the foulness of the Utterdark wine still on her clothes.

If he had been near enough to camp to smell the wine, he would have known that the girl was an envoy of Cazador, even if she herself had no idea who she worked for. But he hadn’t been there.

And none of them had known who took her, not until it was too late.

The heavy silence settles on his shoulders and at the bottom of his neck. He wonders if it was done on purpose, the wine spilling over her clothes the moment Cazador decided to reveal his hand in a way only Astarion would understand.

Knowing that it would make him remember who he truly was.

He could make her suffer, he ponders. Make whatever Nine Fingers had done look like mercy.

He could give her some semblance of dignity. Prop her up against a wall and be done with it.

Or, he could just give in. Surrender to the instinct already thrashing beneath his ribs.

He could go down under, give control of his body to the ghost of a predator living inside his head, go away for an instant and come back once it’s over, one last time.

It’s easy, really. He truly makes things harder for himself when he thinks.

His legs seem to move on string, kneeling besides her on the ground. His hands follow the lead, removing the burlap sack over the girl’s head. Her breathing is shallow and she cries weakly as his fingers grip onto dark hair to tilt her head back. Her neck is already marred by a dark, thick rope burn; the markings of a noose.

If her blood smelled as foully as the Moonrise drow’s had, maybe he would have an excuse for the full body shiver of disgust that makes him close his eyes and cower deeper inside his head. Her blood smells fine. They need this. He needs this.

Bear your teeth through it, let it wash over you, Jaheira had said, whilst Gale had sighed like if he was the one destined for the gallows.

They know why the girl is here. They know what he is doing in the dark. They know that only one walking corpse will leave the room.

He was told to dwell on it when everything is said and done. So he will.

He feels his back bend and his jaw opens wide.

His mouth fills and he swallows pull after pull of something warm and soothing. He sinks his fangs again, digging deeper between the tissue, and he drinks everything he can. He focuses on the warmth spreading to his fingers and the clearing of his head, the burning at the mouth of his stomach cooling down at last.

He does not want to heave onto the floor. He is not avoiding to touch her skin with his lips as much as possible. He is not considering pulling the burlap sack over her head again.

He is not thinking of running away.

He is not.

Astarion straightens up and stares at the cooling body on the ground. Even though she has lost some blood in the last few hours, his senses sharpen to a needle point once more, the aches around his body only a sign that he really needs to lie down.

Jaheira’s awful fiddle plays into the night. Gale seems to be roasting almonds in the fire.

Every minute that he holds on without loosing it, is a minute closer to dawn. A minute closer to whatever end this may have.

The only thing a vampire can feel is hunger, people say.

Gods, he wishes it was true.

.............................................

The halfling behind the bar is the only soul in the Guildhall when their merry band makes their entrance. Astarion finds the lack of blood and innards pleasantly mundane, even if the smell is still atrocious.

As soon as the guard at Nine Fingers’ office lays eyes on them, she opens one of her doors and the Guildmaster’s voice emerges from inside. It doesn’t stop in whatever it is saying, not even as the guard signals in Thieves Cant to someone inside.

‘They’re here.’

Nine Fingers must be the one answering, because the guard looks back to them and motions towards the inside. Jaheira steps forward, and he is about to make his way to the bar with the rest of the party, when a quick whistle catches his attention back to the wooden door.

It’s the guard, making another familiar sign whilst holding his gaze.

‘You too.’

The scraping sound of chairs being opened and the heavy clang of weapons placed on the bar top accompany the slight dread that dawns on him as he approaches on quiet steps, focusing on whatever it is that Nine Fingers’ has been talking about this whole time.

“-I don’t give two shits if your wife is in labour Stefan! I want every bloody rat on this den exterminated by midnight. Don’t come back until it’s done.”

Jaheira seems intrigued as she approaches the door, dodging the unassuming young man that exits the office in a hurry.

The moment they enter the now familiar cavernous space, he can tell the situation is far different from their first meeting a couple of weeks ago. Nine Fingers is alone at her desk, dressed in leather armour even though it is close to midnight.

She may look composed, but the bulging vein on the right side of her forehead gives her away. The moment her eyes fall on him, her pulse quickens and a frown settles on her forehead.

“Where the hells have you been?! I’ve been trying to get a Sending to you for the last two fucking hours!” her eyes fix upon Jaheira as the older woman walks calmly to her desk, her voice rising slightly after the doors have been closed once more.

She is furious.

He shares the sentiment. Jaheira just seems tired.

“Apologies, Guildmaster. Bad reception at the Murder Tribunal.” the druid retorts, lowering herself on a chair without invitation. Astarion stays far from the desk, in what he can guess is the periphery of Nine Fingers’ field of vision. Just in case.

A beat of silence passes, as Nine Fingers pours a finger of whisky on a glass and pushes it towards Jaheira. She offers none to him.

He is over this conversation and it hasn't even begun. He wonders what even is he doing here.

“Got what you were looking for?” she asks, the vein at her forehead pulsing in the low light.

No, he thinks bitterly. He didn’t get what he had been looking for, because Hazel hadn’t ever been at the Temple of Bhaal.

Halsin had, but that was a given anyway. He even was unharmed and had been unconscious for most of everything, for all the good that did him.

But Hazel hadn’t been there. Not on the slab, not as decoration on the hallways or hiding between the cultists, as he’d dared to hope in a last bid to make the journey worth it. Orin hadn’t even known what they meant when they demanded she reveal her second captive.

The might have gotten rid of the last Chosen of the Dead Three and taken possession of her netherstone, but they hadn’t found their leader.

It had made sense back then, to think that the changeling had been the one to take her. He’d returned from his Minsc chaperoned diner excursion to a ravished camp, no Hazel and a letter written in blood, congratulating the party on killing Gortash.

It’s been a while since he has truly put his mind to try and understand anything that happens to them on a daily basis, and of course the one time he actually cares to follow the reasoning behind what their escapades, it has to fall apart.

At least he hadn’t been the only one dumbfounded at the Temple. Too bad Hazel hadn't been there to see Gale gape like a fish and be speechless for once.

“We did.” Jaheira responds. “A few errands to attend to now, before we move onto the brain and get this over with.”

The low light in the office may work to hide her from human eyes, but his darkvision reveals Nine Fingers’ face and the steady tick that pulls at her left bottom eyelid.

“A pity that your guiding shrub will miss all the action, after everything she did to get here.”

She must have guessed this was the way the conversation would go, because Jaheira merely blinks and stares at the woman across from her in silence. She hasn't touched the whisky glass.

“If you know something, you better spit it out Astele.”

“Of course I bloody well know something! I can’t believe you’ve kept this from me for the past three days, Jaheira. She’s Guild, she is ours too, for fuck’s sake.”

“She isn’t. Not any more.”

He doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe it’s the raising thirst gnawing at the bottom of his stomach, or perhaps it is the past three endless days that make him say out loud the thing that Hazel had only ever said to him through the tadpole. Or maybe it’s her tone. Her particular choice of words that remind him of his own former master.

Nine Fingers’ eyes snap from Jaheira to him, her face a mask of ice cold rage. This is the first time she has truly had him on her sight, and he doesn’t like it one bit.

“Think it’s that simple, Astarion? Leaving what we are behind? You better think again, because you past is catching up.”

Everything recedes. Nine Fingers’ racing pulse, Jaheira’s furrowed brow, even his own awareness of his name on her voice and the wrongness of it.

“What?”

“Your head is catching a pretty penny on the bounty hunter market these days. And yet, you’re still here. Bet you didn’t even notice the four hunters and the Shadow Thief that almost cashed in, did you?”

He thinks back to the last few weeks and can only think of one body out of place on the periphery of their errands at the Gate. But he can see Hazel’s dark circles grow purple and deep, taking guard more often and for longer, making her own tent and renting her own bed instead of joining him at his. He had assumed it had been because of their fallout after their increasingly bitter Ascension talks, but he’d only been partly right.

She had known.

“I warned her that you were trouble, that she should keep her distance.” Nine Fingers continues, holding him still with the weight of her accusatory glare.“Trust a thief in a hurry and a fool in love to run into the same wall twice.”

“I couldn't think of the kind of enemies you've made to have such an obscene bounty on your head, but now that the splashback of your shitshow has gotten me too, I can get an idea. Not many creatures in this city have to send a decoy first, to ask for permission to be let in.”

Whatever Jaheira says next gets overpowered by a shrill ringing in his ears. He barely gets to hear the name of Cazador Szarr leave Nine Fingers’ lips before he is pushing open her doors just to get away from the sound.

The empty Guildhall is still the same, his companions sprawled on the bar stools.

“Hey, Fangs! We got you some wine!” Karlach sing-songs, pointing at a glass in front of an empty chair.

He is paralysed at the threshold for a moment, his ribcage frozen mid breath.

“Astarion?” Wyll asks, getting up from his seat, “Are you alright?”

What now? What now that he has her? What now that she has been there for three days whilst they have been parading around and saving the world?

What now that she is dead?

“Slow down, what are you saying?” a voice beneath a sea of cotton asks, hazy silhouettes closing in on him.

His vision blurs. He can’t breathe. Where are his blades?

Hands reach over, gripping at his arms, his back. Growing whispers of something that sounds like his name but make no sense. No, she isn’t dead. What she is now, is much, much worse than that.

He has to go. Find anything to drink and then he will do something. Something other than doom her as he has been doing the past three days where he has play acted at being something that he is not.

See what happens when you leave your place, child?

A large red shadow looms over his vision, it reaches for him. The Master, come to take him where he stands and return him to his place. He is terrified. He wants to throw up. He wants to rip something apart. He wants to cry and beg to let him go. He wants to disappear.

Although you may try to deny it, what I made you had always been in you, son.

He reaches for the dagger at his hip.

A sudden bright light shines on his eyes and blinds him. A blanket of cold numbness cuts through the terror, making his vision clear and his hand relax. A metallic rattle echoes around the high vaulted ceilings of the empty Guildhall as he hears a blade falls to his feet.

Everything is quiet as colour and shape return slowly to his eyes.

Karlach holds a bleeding slash on her right palm, but her worried eyes don’t leave his face. Her blood drips onto the stone floor. Shadowheart is just beside her, her hands still emitting a faint yellow glow.

Gale makes his way from the edges of his vision, his hands raised. He looks remorseful. Astarion distantly wonders why.

“You’re under the Calm Emotions spell, Astarion. I’m… I’m sorry.”

His hands are too heavy to grasp at the dagger again, Gale’s words drip onto his brain one by one.

“We’ll figure this out, just—just hold on.”

He is cold.

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