#raging screaming frothing at the mouth about work and I need to yell about it so ! time for a tag rant!!

[asmolbirb]

.

#delete later #tag rant #vent #raging screaming frothing at the mouth about work and I need to yell about it so ! time for a tag rant!! #this fucking account guy is getting on my last goddamn nerve #he’s always the first person to roll over and say yes to any bullshit client request without thinking about the creative work required #and then he turns around and refuses to do the same amount of work as the creatives because it’s too much for him #he’s LAZY he’s fucking LAZY and he’s still offering us up on a fucking serving platter to our clients!!! #I take a lot of pride in my work and try hard to make everyone else’s jobs easier #if I am making a decision that someone else will question then I leave rationale alongside the decision #and this mf just DOESNT READ #he doesn’t read and then he leaves brain dead comments saying ‘this didn’t address the client feedback’ #first of all it did address the feedback! it’s just phrased different! maybe learn to read! #second of all I LEFT RATIONALE for why I addressed the feedback differently. why don’t you read the rationale asshole!! #oh is it because there were too many comments last round? there was too much for you to review? #GUESS WHO HAD TO MAKE ALL THOSE COMMENTS #it’s such a fucking slap in the face. he can’t do what we do and yet he gets to throw us to the wolves? he gets the leeway? #I’m rapidly losing the joy I felt for this job and this guy isn’t helping #fucking hell

[nezclaw]

don’t mess with the medic: or how i managed to give myself heavy+medic feels

blood, violence, needles, (it’s tf2), and just a *teeny* bit of angst

(posted a more edited version to AO3. I'm nezclaw there too)

Heavy hears a concerning amount of yelling from the Medic's lab and goes to investigate.

   "... should try being a little more *careful* next time, hmm?" the medic hisses. Scout is bound to the examination table, surrounded by wicked medical implements.

   "Hey Doc come on man! I was just looking for a band aid!" Scout protests, struggling against the straps holding him tightly against the table.

   "Ach, zhat ist vhat zhey all say. Jusst a bandaid." Medic says, browsing his collection of vicious syringes. His accent is much stronger, the hard consonants gutteral and sharp.  "But it ist never *jusst* a bandaid, ist es? Zhere'z alvays zomething else to vaste my time!" He tests the sharpness of one needle, and grins as he turns back to Scout. "Isn't zhat right, Scout?"

   "Uhh no Pyro used up all the bandaids in the general first aid cuz they were the fun patterned ones and I cut myself while making lunch and Ma always told me to take care of cuts immediately or they'll get infected and I'll die from it and-" Scouts voice cracks as he babbles, eyes on the massive needle in the Medic's hand.

   "Oh, vell vhy didn't you say so?" Medic asks, voice almost normal as he smiles at Scout. Scout has about half a second of hope that this was all a misunderstanding before the Medic grabs his bonesaw. "Clearly it needs to komm off! Don't vorry, zhis vill only hurt a lot!"

   "Doktor, is not necessary to butcher little Scout. Why are doing this?" the Heavy asks, one large hand gently, yet firmly preventing Medic from chopping the Scout's entire hand off.

   The Medic spins, grabbing an unidentified syringe in a power grip and wrenching his other arm away from Heavy in a surprising show of strength. His eyes are wild with rage, and he is practically frothing at the mouth.

"Er hat interrupted meine Arbeit for zhe LAST time!" he screams, lunging at Heavy, lapsing into his native tongue in his fury. (He has interrupted my work for the LAST time)

   Heavy easily catches the Medics wild swing, and carefully removes the syringe from his grasp. "Heavy thinks Doktor should not operate while angry." He grunts as the bone saw catches him a glancing blow. "Nyet. Bad Doktor." Ignoring the blood flowing freely from the wound, he grabs the Medic by the back of his shirt, picking him up like a feral kitten.

   "Schweinehund! Put me down! Jetzt! Schnell!" The Medic thrashes in the Heavy's grip, six feet of pure German fury, rendered helpless by the massive Russian.

   "Doktor will calm down first." Heavy says firmly.

   "Nein!"

   Heavy ignores the Medic's enraged thrashing and carries him to a side room. The Russian man is easily able to carry the enraged German, even with one hand clamped over the gash the Medic managed to score with his saw. He shakes him slightly as he tries to get a grip on Heavy's arm.

   "Biting will not help you." he says as the Medic manages to sink his teeth into the Heavy's arm when his previous efforts failed. "Had to help raise three baby sisters."

   "*Let. Me. GO!*"

   "Nyet. Not until you are calm." Heavy locks the door and puts the Medic down. Hopefully someone will be by to let Scout out of the restraints.

   "I AM CALM!" Medic shrieks, frothing at the mouth.

   "Da. And Heavy is girl scout." Heavy watches as the Medic paces around the room, snarling in German. Most of it Heavy doesn't understand, but he does catch "schweinehund" and "dummkopf" a couple times, which he's pretty sure are insults.

    He leans against the door and wonders if this is going to be a regular occurrence. Maybe they should get some pillows for this room.

   After a few moments the Medic charges at him, fingers bent into claws, and tries to gouge out Heavy's eyes. Heavy catches him and sits on him, to keep him from hurting himself  or Heavy.

   "OAF! RELEASE ME-(more german swearing)"

   "Nyet. Perhaps story will help. Here is Russian story I would tell baby sisters when they were angry..." It is full of blood and gore. Medic stops his struggling partway through the telling.

   "Is Doktor feeling better now?" Heavy asks, once he's finished the story.

   "Ah... yes, I am. I'm quite sorry you had to see that." Medic's voice is a bit raw, but otherwise normal, devoid of overt malice. "Er.... Would you be so kind as to let me up?"

   "Da." Heavy stands and helps the Medic up. The Medic straightens his glasses and coughs.

   "Danke. I... appreciate it." he says, not meeting Heavy’s eyes.

   "You promise you will not maim Scout?" Heavy asks, hand on the doorknob.

   "I promise not to inflict unnecessary or excessive harm on the Scout," the Medic promises. Heavy chuckles at that phrasing as he opens the door.

   Scout is still there. He screams when he sees the Medic.

   "Here is your bandaid. Now get out of mein office." he says as he undoes the straps holding Scout down. Scout does not need to be told twice, and promptly disappears in a cloud of dust.

   The Medic sits down in a chair, leaning forward and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He sighs. Then he pauses, nostrils flaring.

   "I smell blood. Sind Sie bleeding?" (Are you bleeding?)

   "Is nothing." Heavy says, despite the fact that Medic did manage to break skin while biting him.

   "Don't be absurd if I can smell it from over here then clearly you need more at than just a bandaid." Medic replies sharply as he stands. Heavy shrugs.

   "Did not want to upset you."

   Medic tch's and approaches to inspect the Heavy, taking note of the gash in his side and the bite marks on his arm. Then he looks at the bloodied bone saw and the drops of blood leading to the room they were just in.

   "Ah." he says, slightly awkwardly. "I will get the medigun."

   He is quiet as he patches the Heavy up. "There." he says once he is finished. "Now if you'll excuse me... I need to spend some time with my birds." He looks weary, the lines in his face and the grey in his hair serving a sharp reminder that the medic is likely the oldest of them, though he remains in excellent shape. Heavy nods silently and leaves.

   The Medic straightens his lab, mopping up the spilled blood and collecting his tools. Archimedes flies down and lands on his shoulder, cooing.

   "And where were you when I had Scout on the table, hmm?" he asks mildly. Archimedes nibbles at his hair, preening him. He gives a soft chuckle. "I suppose you're still getting used to the new routine with the rest of the flock." He reaches up and gives him a little scratch on the head. Archimedes makes a contented noise.

   Medic pulls out a bag of birdseed and  heads to the dovecote with it. He scatters a handful or two and sits down to watch the birds do their thing.

   It's calming. They don't have to deal with fools whose idea of a good time is blowing themselves up or putting themselves into organ failure. The soft coos and flapping of wings grounds him. It's easier when he was alone, usually then he could tell if he had a black mood coming on and could distract himself with his birds, or Archimedes could alert him when he noticed his mood dropping after reading some particularly moronic medical paper.

   Anyway they did need to understand that just because he was their Medic it didn't mean he would put up with them coming to him for every little booboo. Though he did feel bad about gouging the Heavy. Heavy respected him.

   There's a knock on the door.

   "Hmm? Wer ist es? Möchten Sie?" (Who is it? What do you want?)

   "Is Heavy. Have sandwich for Doktor." Heavy says, correctly guessing that the Medic wasn't telling him to fuck off and die in German. "Doktor is hungry after trying to maul Scout, da?"

   "And nearly mauling you." Medic replies, but opens the door anyway.

   "Is nothing." Heavy says, shrugging it off. "Have three sisters. Maybe if most of team tried, could hurt me, but one little Doktor? No chance. Can come in?"

   "Ah, yes you may. Try not to step on the birds."

   "Da. Heavy will be careful." The big man enters, birds scattering, and puts the sandvich on a table. "Nyet. Is Doktor food, not bird food." he says as he gently shoos the curious doves away.

   "You didn't have to do that you know." Medic says, eyeing the sandwich and realizing the Heavy was right.

   "Is good to take care of Doktor." Heavy says. "Is also good that Doktor can protect self if needed."

   The Medic nods and takes the sandwich.

   He is very hungry after attempting to maul Scout, and is quite surprised to find that Heavy had made a ham and sauerkraut sandwich with the *good* mustard. Very strong flavors, very German.

   "Is good, da?"

   "Ja! I see you were serious about taking care of your Medic." There is an odd emotion stirring in the Medics chest. Gratitude, perhaps? When was the last time someone had done something genuinely nice for him? He looks over at the Heavy, who is very, VERY carefully patting Archimedes on the head with one finger, a look of intense concentration on his face. Even if it was just to make sure the Medic didn't try to kill him. It still would've been easier to just avoid him, instead of seeking him out.

   "You have sisters?" he asks he watches Heavy coax a bird onto his finger.

   "Da. Zhanna, Bronislavia, and Yana. All younger. Had to break up many fights." He chuckles. "Zhanna was little terror. Often had to separate them to prevent serious injury."

   "I see..."

   "Seems technique works on mad Doktors as well as baby sisters." He smiles, gives Medic a pat on the back, and leaves.

   Medic is left with a confusing mix of neurochemicals that he's not entirely sure how to handle. It comes as no surprise to anyone that the Medic was generally pretty bad at relating to other people. His birds generally helped him fill his necessary socialization requirements, usually by him projecting conversations on them. (It's free therapy!) Of course, that does mean he has an interpersonal skills rating of Bad.

   He sighs, rubbing his face. His black moods always left him feeling like he'd been run through the wringer, leaving him exhausted. He rested his head on the table and closed his eyes.

   When he opened them again, he found that his glasses had been removed and set aside, a trick he had taught Archimedes, and there was a pillow under his cheek, a trick he had definitely not taught him, largely due to the birds being too small to move his head. Suspicious.

   Still, the nap had done wonders to reset his neurochemistry, though there was still an odd sensation when he thought about the Heavy. Whatever. He was here to be the teams medic, not make friends. Attachments would compromise the quality of his work. Of course, being friendly could enable him to experiment more... but there was a reason he only confided in his birds. It was easier, that way.

   It would be a cold day in hell before he admitted how desperate he was for a hug. So he shoved his feelings deep down inside and pretended that nothing was bothering him. He had managed this long, he didn't need friends.

#nessie writes #drabbles #red oktoberfest #just pretend the tense shifts aren't there shhhh #TF2

[unokins]

No Truth Left - part 4

CW: violence, possession, gross monsters

Link to Archive

"I'm sorry- I just-" Chie cut herself off with a click of her teeth and focused again on breathing steadily. In… out. In… out. Breathe. She could feel tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. Just calm dow-

It gurgled again, shifting where it lay on the floor, and Chie felt panic spike through her veins.

Come on, Chie, Maverick pushed. It won’t stay there forever.

“Right,” Chie whispered, clutching the knife with both hands. She inched backwards towards the monster, shoes dragging on the ground. “You’re right. It- It would have killed me, without thinking twice.” 

Or worse.

“Or worse.”

Her bare leg brushed against the thing’s skin. Its slimy mucus clung to her, cold and wet and sticky. Disgust shuddered through her. Slowly, Chie turned, staring above the creature than at it. Purple blood stained the stone wall, streaking down in thin rivulets. 

It hit its head before going down, Chie realized. That must be why it was still out. She got lucky. 

Squeezing her eyes shut, Chie next to the monster. Knife poised, blade down, she turned her head away, hiding her nose and mouth against the sleeve of her shirt. There was no comforting scent of laundry detergent. Just mud that smeared her face.

You need to look at it. We need a clean hit. 

With whimpering reluctance, Chie opened her eyes and beheld the creature’s full visage. Her breath caught in her throat as the world swayed. 

The first comparison that came to Chie’s mind, which did no justice to what it actually was, was that this thing was a cross between a rotting human corpse and a fish. Its shriveled skin was a sickening grey and clung to the thing’s body as if vacuum-sealed. Its upper arms, shoulders, and legs boasted dense musculature, striations visible under the tight skin, while its white stomach, feet, and hands succumbed to bloat not uncommon with drowned corpses. The skin on its neck was feathered and flabby - gills, Chie realized - and webbing bridged the gap between long, thick fingers and toes. 

Dull blue and green scales clumped over its body, collecting densely at its face. Bulging, watery eyes stared upwards, the dull yellow of the irises thinned to small rings around yawning black pupils. Its large mouth hung slack-jawed, and Chie saw several rows of sharp teeth, orange with the plaque that rotted them. It gurgled again, water frothing from the back of its throat. 

She saw two of them, then three, as her mind reeled to comprehend the monster. “Oh… Oh fuck…” Chie breathed, pressing her hand hard against her forehead. Her breath hitched, and more tears tracked down her face- had she been crying this whole time?

The faster you kill it, the faster you won’t have to look at it anymore. Maverick needled her with impatience.

"Shut up." Shaking her head, Chie forced the world back to clarity. She raised the knife again. The monster’s thick throat lay bare, and she carefully brought the knife down, gauging where she needed to strike. The blade's tip scraped scales covering a prominent Adam’s apple. Chie took a deep breath, and held it as she drove the knife into its neck.

Animalistic and furious, it tried to screech. But the knife blocked any sound beside a weak whistling. Chie pulled the knife out, blood spraying out of the wound-

Again! Stab it again!

-and brought it down again. Maverick's violent screaming overpowered the dying monster’s weak moaning. Its eyes were wide with malice. She stabbed it again. It thrashed, clawing at Chie, ripping feebly at her skirt. She stabbed it again. She stabbed it again. She-

Chie. Chie! That’s enough! It’s practically decapitated.

Chie jolted and froze, knife hanging in the air. The blade trembled in her hands, and the monster’s blood dripped off it, landing on her bare leg with a chill. Her eyes fixed steadily on the wall above the monster, drenched in purple blood. Slowly, her gaze trailed down.

Don’t look at it, Maverick ordered.

Chie’s eyes snapped back up. 

It’s not something you need to see. You’re already… Maverick faltered, then sighed. It’s just not going to be pleasant.

“Do you think any part of this experience was pleasant?” Chie asked weakly. Her legs refused to fully cooperate so she dragged herself from the corpse. Purple blood covered her arms, clothes and legs. She tried wiping it off, but stains remained.

You have a point. Maverick paused, as if trying to give Chie a moment of peace. No sense in prolonging the unpleasantness, then, he continued. It’s time to head deeper into the caves and get our answers.

Chie sheathed the knife, biting back a reply. She stuffed it in the backpack, exchanging it for the flashlight. With a quiet click, light down the back of the cave, and relief washed through her as she saw the ground. It was probably ten, maybe fifteen, feet down, but at least it was there.

“Should we hide the… the monster?” Chie asked, taking the rope from the bag. She moved to tie it around a rock but faltered. 

I doubt you have the guts to move it. Here- wait. Let me.

Chie’s hands moved automatically again, and she watched, mouth agape, as another expert knot tied the rope securely in place. 

Toss it down the hole and get moving. We’ve wasted enough time here.

"A 'please' would be nice," Chie muttered as she did so. With the flashlight in one hand and rope in the other, she began her slow climb down. 

“For someone who remembers almost nothing,” Chie started, pausing to test a foothold, “you sure do know a lot about what’s going on.”

I literally don't. Maverick scoffed.

“You called this place the Devil’s Reef. You knew that thing could smell me, and that there are more of them here.”

There was a thoughtful hum before Maverick responded. Suppose so.

“What else can you remember, then?” Chie asked. She continued down, hissing when a sharp stone scraped her palm.

Careful, Maverick warned. He was silent for a moment, and Chie could almost feel him remembering. I know those monsters are called Deep Ones, and they’ve been around the world - not just the Devil’s Reef- for a long, long time. Effectively immortal-

“But we just-”

Unless they're victims of physical violence. Maverick’s voice grew louder as he tried to talk over her. Chie huffed, annoyed. I think there was an incident back in the twenties or so. The feds got involved. Pissed a lot of people off. Another pause. I don’t remember how I know that, or why.

“Hm.” Chie turned this information over in her head. “Who would get mad over those things dying?”

Their worshippers. 

The purple blood on Chie’s hands gleamed menacingly in the flashlight’s glow. She grimaced. Best to wash that off, first chance she got.

“Okay, so what about us?” 

What about us?

“Well,” Chie started, then paused. Water droplets echoed off the rocks around her, and- was that a groaning she heard? She continued quieter. “How long have you been in my head?” 

I think it’s been around two weeks, Maverick recounted. Yeah, yeah. About two weeks.

Chie shuddered. That was about when her memory problems started. “Have you been doing things to me? Like what you did with my hands and my legs?"

Every now and then. Controlling you takes a LOT of focus, Chie. It wears me out, especially if I take full control. Twitching a muscle, or tying a knot is simpler. 

“So you’ve been using my computer, and arguing with my roommate.”

Sounds about right.

The flippant way Maverick spoke twisted Chie's stomach into a knot. The uncomfortable warmth of anger bloomed in her muscles. So it had been him, not her. The strained relationship with her roommate, the confusion at work, the compounding stress. Had he seen her when she showered? Did he do anything to her while he controlled her?

Chie’s feet hit the ground, breaking her train of thought momentarily. She stepped away from the wall and looked up. Best to leave the rope. If she had to make a fast escape, it could save her life. 

Get moving, Chie.

The corner of Chie's mouth twitched down. This ended now. No matter what had happened to him, this was her body, not his. “Maverick, you're going to stop controlling me.” Chie's voice was steady and firm.

Like hell. If your incompetence gets us in trouble, I’m doing what needs to be done to get us out.

“Oh, so that was the case over the past two weeks, huh?” Chie snapped back, moving down the tunnel. She felt him, almost like seeing someone square their shoulders, and spoke first. "No, it wasn't." 

Maverick seethed.

Her flashlight beam illuminated smooth, black rock. The tunnel had strange striations on it, like it had been carved from giant claws. At least she didn’t see any other Deep Ones. "You could've talked to me on day one. Whether or not you chose this, you still invaded my life, violated my privacy, and kept it secret. So until you prove yourself reliable, I'm calling the shots." The beam wavered slightly as her hand shook. 

Maverick's voice radiated rage. Prove myself reliable?! It felt like an earthquake rumbling in Chie's brain. I AM reliable! If it wasn't for me, you'd be fucking dead!

"If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't fucking be here!" Chie yelled back. She immediately clamped a hand over her mouth as her words echoed against the stone. When nothing happened, she continued in a whisper. "I don't care what happened to you. You want to live? Then you don't control me. I will fight back tooth and nail, Maverick. And that'll get us both killed."

Maverick didn't respond. 

"Did I make myself clear?"

You're too weak to commit to that. 

"Excuse me?!" Chie demanded.

A deep rolling laugh reverberated in Chie's head like far off thunder. You heard me. You couldn't move when that Deep One almost grabbed you. Stop me? At the price of your life? Don't make me laugh.

Just you wait, Chie thought to herself as she continued walking. Annoyance panged when she realized she couldn't leave him behind. "Insufferable prick," she spat.

Whiny bitch, Maverick returned.

Not bothering to respond to that, Chie continued down the tunnels. The more she thought about the fact that this stranger was inside her, seeing what she saw, manipulating her like a puppet, the more violated she felt. 

Where did he get off? Chie thought. First chance that presented itself, she'd toss him from her mind like the trash he was. Acting high and mighty because she was reasonably scared of a literal monster. Asshole!

The tunnel turned slightly, then branched off in two directions. The one to Chie's left tilted upwards slightly. The walls were covered in a tarry slime, clumped together like chewed up bubble gum. The one to Chie's right dipped down at a gentle slope. Standing water sat in pools shaped disturbingly like large footprints. Swinging her flashlight up, Chie illuminated loping carvings and symbols etched into the walls.

Go… left, Maverick said.

>Go Left >Go Right

#horror #writing #horror story #choose your own path #choose your own adventure #original writing #ocs #original characters #lovecraft #lovecraftian horror #lovecraftian #let me know in the replies or reblogs what you would like Chie to do #thank you everyone who keeps reading #no truth left

[orderofthedyingstar]

RECAP: Session 7

SESSION SEVEN

(Hi Danny!)

Rhododendron and Jun continue to eat their breakfast, while Jun hedges around the fact that he’s curious about the angel’s strange request. The two go outside, where Rhododendron (annoyed) yells at the angel to tell them who they’re looking for.

Rhododendron: “Who did you want us to kill?” 

Angel: “There’s an aasimar I’d really, really like dead.” 

Rhododendron: “Why? Are they ugly?” 

Angel: “Rather not say. Look, just kill any aasimar you see around these parts, there aren’t many of them.”

The angel, in lieu of a description, offers 100 platinum to the crowd to hunt any aasimar they see. They make a few platinum coins and disperse them into the crowd for incentive. After the angel leaves, Jun immediately catches onto the fact that Rhododendron wants to help this random aasimar, despite not knowing who they are or anything about them. Rhododendron asks Velanna and Leo if they’re going to participate in the aasimar hunt, but they respond that they’re not going to get involved because it seems dangerous. Rhododendron thinks there’s something off about the whole circumstance.

Rhododendron pulls Jun aside and tells him that she knows an aasimar, a friend she met a while ago and hasn’t seen in a few months. She decides to look around the area on the off chance the angel is looking for him. (She uses her hands several times to count to numbers less than ten.)

OF NOTE: “rhododendron doesn’t know anything about  magic, because all of her magic comes from the earth. That’s why it’s bullshit”

Verrix has just arrived at the Snaketail Crevice Trading Post, concerned about the strange aggressiveness the people here seem to be exhibiting - they’re searching around the whole area, and several people are fighting over a platinum coin. He heads to the local tavern and hides in a dark corner, watching as Rhododendron walks through the tavern door and immediately spots him staring at her. She asks Verrix what he’s doing here but he fudges around an answer. 

Rhododendron: “Are you lying to me? You’ve already done that like eight million times.” 

Verrix: “You definitely can’t count that high.”

Rhododendron tells Verrix that he needs to leave the outpost, catching Verrix up to the situation at hand with the angel and the enormous bounty. 

Rhododendron (to Verrix): “You could really use a shower.” 

Jun: “Rhododendron, when was the last time you showered?”

Rhododendron (as Verrix is audibly snickering): “Listen, some people look beautiful with leaves in their hair. Verrix is not one of them.”

The trio tries to sneak out of the outpost but fail miserably (another nat1 from Rhododendron), but Verrix manages to salvage their mess by convincing the crowd that some random citizen is the aasimar they’re looking for - Rhododendron is also convinced that Verrix really did point out another aasimar. They decide to try to meet Donny (and possibly Raz) on the road between Dynafell and the outpost rather than chance staying in the frenzied crowd of people. They decide to cut through the grasslands to save time. 

Rhododendron: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read a book.” 

Verrix: “A what?”

While they’re traveling, Rhdodoendron tries to make Verrix tell Jun the story of how they met (Verrix: “do I even remember?”) but then gives up and tells the story herself: while she was walking home after dance rehearsal, some stranger grabbed her hand (while trying to pickpocket the guy next to her). When he started running away, Rhododendron chased him down (they argue about whether Verrix was crying or not) and shot his cape into the ground.

Rhododendron: “I didn’t confront him the crowd, psh. I waited until he was cornered and alone.” 

Verrix: “Like an animal.” 

Rhododendron: “Yeah! Like an animal! (…) I have a perfect memory, I can recount any tale.” 

Verrix: “I bet you do that on your hands too.” 

Rhododendron: “ANYWAYS, he can’t pull the arrow out because he’s weak as hell, so I felt bad and tried to help him pull the arrow out of the ground.”

Verrix: “No you didn’t. You were laughing.” 

Rhododendron: “I was laughing a little bit. So eventually I felt bad and sat down and helped him pull the arrow out of the ground, but he tried to run, so I shot him for real this time. (At Jun and Verrix’s scandalized looks) In the leg!”

While Verrix recovered from the arrow wound (and ran away, with Rhododendron saving his life) he lived with Rhododendron for a few months. Before she can fully catch Verrix up on the situation at hand, Rhododendron hears voices from a nearby grove of trees. She makes Verrix and Jun wait while she investigates the source of the noises, finding that there are a few bandits arguing about what to do with a captive aasimar that they have tied to a tree. Among the bandits is a fire genasi (Umbra, c’mon) that seems to be the leader of the group. Rhododendron tries to cut the aasimar free of the ropes, but ends up loudly scratching the bark and alerting the bandits to her presence.

Umbra: “Who are you?” 

Rhododendron: “Uh, Romeo.” 

Umbra: “What are you doing here?” 

Rhododendron: “It’s, uh, hard-eth not to.” 

Umbra: “Right, well, I’m going to kill you now. Nothing personal.”

Rhododendron: “It seemeth personal!”

When they hear the bandits go quiet, Verrix and Jun realize that Rhododendron might be in trouble. They head over to where the bandits are to help her.

Verrix: “I don’t think her plan worked.” 

Jun: “She had a plan?” 

Verrix: “Good point.”

As Rhododendron shoots Umbra, it seems like they instantly heal the wound, yanking the arrow out without flinching. During the fight Umbra singles out Rhododendron and hits her using their own blood, causing her to go into a blood rage. Rhododendron is fully taken into her Romeo schtick in her frenzy, tearing at the bandits with her swords. One of the dwarven bandits (rolling a poorly timed critical miss) accidentally kills himself with his own war hammer. Umbra sends out a blast of necrotic energy with a scream that hits everyone on the battlefield, blood flying out from them and blinding Rhododendron and Jun. Right after Rhododendron sustains heavy damage from another one of the bandits, the other aasimar wakes up, punching one of the dwarven bandits straight in the face. 

Umbra causes Verrix to go into the blood rage. Meanwhile, Rhododendron’s blood rage ends, giving her a point of exhaustion. The strange aasimar heals Rhododendron a little, asking if she’s okay. Verrix manages to work through his blood rage to finish off most of the bandits. The other aasimar, while Rhododendron and Jun are still blinded, unfurls a pair of skeletal wings, Frightening the remaining bandits. Rhododendron finally manages to wipe the blood out of her eyes in time to see a tree that Jun accidentally set on fire, a stranger with creepy wings, and Verrix practically frothing at the mouth with bloodlust. 

The party manages to finish off the last of the bandits and realizes that the fire genasi disappeared sometime in the middle of the fight. (Rhododendron is at two hp, they short rest.) The strange aasimar keeps his distance from the group, eyeing the ashen remains of the majority of the bandit group. Verrix and Rhododendron have both taken one point of exhaustion. 

Rhododendron: “Hey! New guy! Why’d you get tied to a tree?” 

Inigo: “Uh, someone knocked me out.” 

Rhododendron: “What did you do? Very few people get knocked out without deserving it.”

Rhododendron properly introduces the group to the other aasimar, and asks if he knows any angels - he says he wishes he didn’t. He then dances around answering any questions that Rhododendron asks other than providing his name. After finding out he doesn’t have any memories - and after Inigo inadvertently name-drops ‘Umbra’ (followed by a lot of “um, bruh” jokes) - the party convinces Inigo to come with them, with Rhododendron telling him that she knows him (and that she’s his mentor). Rhododendron recruits Inigo to go join their party, keeping the details of her goals in the mountains vague.

While continuing their trek towards Dynafell, Verrix tells Rhododendron that it’s a little hard being on the run since he “can’t run very fast”, to which Rhododendron casts Longstrider on him. When Verrix starts walking too far ahead of the group, Rhododendron warns her that Umbra is probably still running around somewhere nearby. As they get closer to Dynafell, Rhododendron fills Verrix in on the reason she cannot go back into the city. Donny pops out of the grass, threatening Verrix with her great sword before realizing that he’s with Rhododendron. She reveals that she got Raz to come along with her, and that angels also appeared in Dynafell to offer a huge reward for killing any aasimar in the area. 

Rhododendron: “Huh, weird. Anyways, I don’t know any aasimar.”

Rhododendron persuades Donny to stop harassing the rest of the party after she finds out that 1) two of them are aasimar and 2) Rhododendron was in a fight where she was pretty badly hurt. Donny is still disappointed by the additions to the party (and that Jun is still there). Donny is convinced that Inigo is lying to the group about not having any memories.

Rhododendron: “Do you see that big bump on the back of his head??”

Donny: “I can make it bigger.”

After realizing that Inigo and Verrix aren’t safe anywhere nearby, the group decides to head towards the closest other city: Tszar, a coastal city a few days away. Along the way, people in the small farming villages they pass through also mention the appearance of the angels and their enormous bounty. Verrix disguises himself, Rhododendron helps Inigo put a disguise on to avoid suspicion as they move through these villages and telling the rest of the group to ‘lie low’. 

Rhododendron (in a bad fake accent): “Ah, Donyah, silly girl.” 

Donny: “My name is Donny! DONNY! Did you forget already?” 

Verrix: “It’s okay, it took her two weeks to stop calling me Ferret.”

As they pass through a few more villages, Rhododendron realizes that it might not be safe anywhere for the aasimar she’s with, further confirmed after Jun falls asleep and says that the angels are looking for two aasimar. He also mentions that their best chance of avoiding one of the aasimar getting killed is to pass back through the Snaketail Crevice. 

Donny: “It seems like you’re doing this to avoid addressing the personal problems in your life. That’s why you’re fixating on helping strangers and killing dragons.” 

Rhododendron: “……I’m not killing any dragons.”

After Donny continues to annoy Rhododendron and make vague threats at the rest of the party, Jun casts Silence on her, happening to trap Raz in the sphere of magic as well. (Rhododendron, to Verrix: “Is this what love is?”) The party heads back towards the crevice in relatively more peace, but Rhododendron and Donny get trapped by a bush that they have a lot of difficult setting on fire - and Raz refuses to help with. Rhododendron manages to cut herself free (Jun slows her fall with Featherfall) while Donny takes a little while longer to wrestle out of the bush’s vines (Jun just watches her fall, Inigo reluctantly catches her). The party eventually manages to defeat the bush after sustaining a surprising amount of damage.  The party decides to trek a little further before taking a long rest, getting rid of Verrix and Rhododendron’s exhaustion.

The next morning, Donny scavenges a few birds from the nearby trees for ‘breakfast’, throwing one at Verrix when Rhododendron tells her to share. Verrix takes a bite out of the raw bird, (rolling a nat20 CON check) and keeps eating it to the collective horror of the party minus Donny, who offers him another bloody bird.  As they pass through more villages on their way back to the Crevice, Rhododendron and Jun notice that the people are still frenzied in their search for the aasimar, with Jun pointing out that it’s an unnatural frenzy, similar to the blood rage Umbra had inflicted on the party the day before - and that, if allowed to continue, people might die from the unnatural frenzy. Jun wonders if the angels are trying to kill all aasimar rather than anyone in specific. Verrix tries to get answers from the voice in his head but there is no response; Rhododendron asks Inigo if he��s heard any voices in his head since waking up, but he denies hearing anything. Rhododendron offers everyone in the party (except Verrix and Inigo) an out from the party if they want it, but no one takes her up on the offer. Donny wonders if killing the person/entities responsible for cursing people with their blood-frenzy will end the spell, but Jun says it isn’t guaranteed. Rhododendron decides to split the party up to search for answers, or a cure. 

Rhododendron: “Me, Inigo, and Verrix are gonna go - well, no. We all have the intelligence of a paper bag.” 

Verrix: “Has that stopped us before?” 

Rhododendron, Jun, and Inigo: “Yes.”

Verrix, Raz, and Donny are one group; Rhododendron, Jun, and Inigo are the other - Donny is horribly jealous. Before the groups split up, Jun Sees that the cause of the aasimar hunt is personal, but can’t identify the individual behind it. The groups enter the canyon, the first group taking the top level while the other one walking along the bottom path - Rhododendron, Inigo, and Jun can hear everything that the group above them says. Donny (unsurprisingly) makes a lot of noise in the canyon, causing a bright streak of radiant light to come down from the sky and hit her. An angel much like the one from earlier lands in front of Donny, engaging the party in combat. Rhododendron, hearing the angel land and threaten half of her party, climbs up to a higher level to join the fight (still below Verrix, Raz, and Donny), while Jun is tasked with babysitting Inigo on the lower level and keeping him out of the fight (although he still throws a few Firebolts up at the angels). After a few rounds of combat where the party (minus Verrix) has trouble hitting the angel, the party manages to finish it off, with Donny beheading the angel. The angel’s body turns into dust as Verrix pushes it off of a ledge, with Verrix remembering just enough about celestials to know that ‘real’ angel’s bodies don’t turn into dust when they die. 

Rhododendron: “Hey, do tieflings have wings?” 

Jun: “Some. Not me, I don’t even have a tail, ha.” 

Rhododendron: “I’m…sorry?” 

Jun: “Don’t be. It’s a personal choice.”

As the group travels further into the canyon, Jun and Rhododendron try to speculate about the angels’ purpose and what the cure might be, while Donny grills Verrix about Rhododendron - mistaking his responses to mean that they were involved while he was living with her.

Verrix: “So how do you and Rhododendron know each other?” 

Donny: “Oh, we’re like BFFS, and someday - RAZ, COVER YOUR EARS! - we’re gonna *vulgar hand gestures*” 

Verrix: “Uh, you guys are gonna walk a dog?” Donny, winking: “Yeah, we’re gonna walk a dog.”

Rhododendron yells up at Donny that she can hear everything she’s saying, and that she still won’t forgive Donny if she hurts Jun (or Verrix). Inigo starts to regain a little bit of his memory, and Jun offers to charm him into forgetting again ‘in case he turns on them’. The ground starts rumbling further down the canyon, and a giant crack appears in the canyon floor as a giant purple-centipede-thing crawls out of the hole. Donny falls from the overhead bridge she’s on all the way to the canyon floor, taking a large amount (27 points) of bludgeoning damage. During the fight the monster casts an illusory meadow over the battlefield, making it difficult for the party to tell the different height levels in the canyon and where the giant hole in the ground is. Rhododendron, Verrix, and Donny manage to land solid hits on the creature; Jun freezes a part of the battlefield, outlining part of the terrain through the illusion. During the fight the creature spits out what looks like another of the green angels at the party. 

When Inigo engages the angel in combat they get annoyed, calling him by his name to the surprise of Inigo and Rhododendron. They try to interrogate the strange angel, who says that she was ‘looking for her son’ and confirms that it is Inigo, who looks completely baffled. She also says that she’s going to kill him. After some more hesitation, Inigo finally starts to attack the angel.

Rhododendron: “Why are you attacking him?! He’s never done anything to you!” 

Angel: “He’s done plenty. Don’t get involved in this, he’s my responsibility.”

Donny gets swallowed by the worm during the fight. Rhododendron is horrified, but keeps fighting the angel; Verrix gets close to finishing off the monster. Inigo is distracted from the fight, clutching his head as a few memories start to fall back into place, his mother still trying to kill him.

Angel: “Listen, you were a mistake. I’m just trying to fix that. You’re not mad, are you?” 

Rhododendron: “YES, YES YOU ARE.” 

Inigo: “I…I…? OF COURSE I’M FUCKING MAD.”

Inigo rages (finally becoming competent in combat like he was meant to), although he’s still having trouble with his returning memories. Donny manages to get spit out of the worm, only for it to swallow Jun soon after. Inigo’s rage ends, and he sits out the rest of the battle, too confused and exhausted to continue fighting. As the creature’s health gets whittled down by Verrix and Donny, it spits up Jun - straight into Raz, damaging them both. Donny takes Jun’s dagger and uses it to finish the worm off, partially (and sloppily) decapitating it. Rhododendron finishes the angel off, shooting an arrow straight through her mouth and dissolving her in a shower of gold. Donny cuts off quite a few of the worm’s legs to keep as trophies, while Jun confirms that the worm and its illusions were the cause of the widespread frenzy due to it having swallowed an angel. Donny tries to eat one of the legs and pukes blood. 

Inigo: “We don’t know each other, do we?”

Rhododendron: “Does it matter that we don’t know each other?”

Inigo: “Ugh….”

Donny tries to shove legs into other people’s bags, and the party heads back to the trading post. They’re relieved to find that the people at the outpost aren’t in a frenzied rage anymore, with most people assuming that the aasimar that the angels were after is dead. When they return to the tavern, Donny tries to barter some of her worm legs for food/drink, nearly getting kicked out of the place in the process. 

Rhododendron: “So…dragon tomorrow?” 

Everyone: *groans* 

Donny: I wanna nap! I wish I knew what sleep was!”

Donny (followed after a little while by Raz) ditches the table the party gets to sit at the bar and continue to try to barter off her worm legs, while Jun and Inigo fall asleep at the table. Rhododendron asks Verrix if he wants to stick with her and the rest of the party for the foreseeable future, to which he responds that he ‘might as well’. Verrix hears the chime of bells and laughter in the back of his mind. Rhododendron rents two rooms for the party to rest in, then looks over her strange group of acquaintances + Verrix and sneaks out of the tavern, overwhelmed. Verrix catches her leaving but doesn’t say anything. After a few minutes spent brooding and staring at the mountain range, Rhododendron drags Verrix outside to talk. During the talk Rhododendron does that YA-novel/anime protagonist thing where she convinces herself that she’s responsible for bringing danger into the lives of the people around her, much to Verrix’s concern.

Rhododendron: “Are you sure you want to do this? You almost died today.”

Verrix: “You could die so many ways at this point.” 

Rhododendron: “Exactly, you almost died today. Like a lot. And you could be safer if you were not chasing dragons.” 

Verrix: “So could you, but is that gonna stop you?” 

Rhododendron: ”You were never really involved in this until I dragged you into it…” 

Verrix: “Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

Rhododendron: “Hey! Technically, you dragged me into the other stuff. The stuff with your -” 

Verrix: “Shut up!” 

Rhododendron: “You tried to rob me!”

Verrix: “Nuh-uh, the guy next to you. Your hand was in the way, flailing all over the place.”

Rhododendron asks Verrix if he wants to go with her, without the rest of the party, into the mountains to find the dragon. She also asks Verrix to tell Donny and Jun not to go after her if he stays. Verrix repeatedly tries to convince Rhododendron to stay with the group, to little success, even though Rhododendron admits that she would miss him, Donny, and Jun.

Rhododendron: “Jun is…weirdly feels like my other half, I guess? That’s way more romantic that I meant to put it. He gets what I’m saying even if I don’t make any sense. And Donny...”

Donny, Raz, and Jun are playing cards when Rhododendron heads back inside, Inigo still fake-sleeping at the table. Rhododendron kisses Donny on the cheek before she goes to bed.

#that was loooong #first few hours were p good middle 2-3 dragged last hour or so was p good #i looooooove rhododendron and Verrix’s relationship aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHH #also first use of junie from rhododendron in this sess #dndas #dnd another sunrise #dndas recap

[punishandenslavesuckers]

Somewhere in Faerûn, there’s a tabaxi, a bugbear, a werewolf, and a tiefling all sitting in a boat. There’s a triton in the water but she’s not alone. In a split second, one of the others will have to do something about it. An excerpt from my last homegame session. Combat-heavy one-shot.

Blue and Will are and have been giving each other the silent treatment for the better part of six hours now.

Rime is professionally friendly, but he can only make so much neutral single party conversation before getting annoyed and settling in to watch the river. Their three-boat caravan of small outrigger canoes continues steadily up river – powered by the tireless efforts of the hunkered bugbear jammed uncomfortably into the lead boat. With him is Bian – their smallish tabaxi navigator who’s perched somewhat absurdly on the back tip of the canoe like a lightly armored counter balance.

The second boat, lashed between Rime and Bian’s respectively, is empty save a single occupant. He lies very still, shivering occasionally beneath the worn travel blanket that Rime very carefully tucked around him some hours ago. Tivas hasn’t regained consciousness since the closing of the water purification ritual that went non-stop these last thirty-six hours. Rime was careful to pack the ritual instrument – the Blossom of Beauties – into the druid’s pack and tuck it protectively under his arm.

Tivas, even thralled by delirium, pulled the sacred thing close (pulled close the vehicle of his death) and Rime had to get back into the third boat. Blue commented, eventually, that the flowers ringing Rime’s headband were a weird silver and he told her, simply, “Yeah they do that,” with no further explanation.

So Rime is still in the back boat when they reach the salt marsh.

Bian has her back to Rime so he can see the twitching white length of her tail going this way and that as she scans the foggy western shore. Occasionally, she shoots Rime meaningful looks and Rime grimaces significantly back. Vorgut, the big black-furred bugbear, rows furiously while likewise sending glances toward the reed-choked river bank. His giant, tattered, bat-like ears swivel nervously.

Somewhere to Rime’s right, Blue rows as well, but less out of geographical anxiety than pure, domestic rage and need to put that rage somewhere. Preferably in the water and not directly into the back of her husband’s half-elf skull. She’s a small, blue and white blur of flexing arm muscle, muttering softly to herself in furious Aquan. So she doesn’t notice Rime taking a more attentive crouch in the boat.

Will looks up from his book and scans the waters.

“Hey, Rime.”

“Mmm,” says Rime, rather than use thaumaturgy to speak just yet.

“What’s going on? I’ve got the heebie-jeeebies.”

Rime snaps his fingers and the spell murmurs almost directly into Will’s ear: “Shh. Lizard folk live out there.” He jerks his head toward the salt marsh. “We need to be careful.”

“They wanna eat us,” Bian says without looking away from what she’s doing up front.

Blue, hearing this, growls something like, “Good,” under her breath.

And, naturally, that’s when the first javelin slams with a loud thunk into the side of Tivas’ canoe. The entire party stares, horrified, for moment. Except of course for Blue, who lunges eagerly to her feet with her wand in hand and anticipating a target. That does not happen because a second javelin already airborne immediately slams into Blue’s stomach with such force it knocks her with a scream into the bottom of the boat and blood splatters across Rime’s startled face.

Will howls, “Blue!”

But the javelins have already begun to rain down.

“Bian!” Rime hooks his arm through his battle shield and lunges back toward Blue. “Get us out of here!”

Blue – teeth bared, screaming like a banshee – is snapping the javelin between her webbed fists. She hurls the long part of the shaft into the water, keeping the head of the spear embedded in her gut. She doesn’t waver or try to rise. She raises her hands and instantly, an unnatural slither of white mist condenses from the river waters. A nearly opaque cloud-wall forms between the shore and their boat, veiling them in a literal smokescreen. Rime feels a wind driving like a kick into the back of the third canoe and Blue just lies there, bright-eyed and snarling, her off-hand gripping the javelin.

Magic floods Rime’s hands.

It courses hot from his heart down the track of his arms to his palms. He wills the magic like lightning courses to ground – Blue, Will, and Bian. The blessing diffuses through each of them. Unfortunately, it happens precisely as Will is attempting to jump from their boat into the middle boat and he nearly biffs it, boot slipping so he topples head first into Tivas’ canoe. Bian is already yelling to Vorgut to row faster and easterly. The boats begin to swing toward the opposite shore, far away from the marsh.

Javelins soar from the fog – hitting the walls of the boats, the water around them. One nearly wings the ropes that lash the third boat to the second. Seeing this, Blue waves a hand and a ripple-like mirage passes over the ropes… then a knotted tangle of a dozen ropes appears there, obscuring the target. Will, meanwhile, wrenches a javelin from the side of the boat and without warning, he swells. His spine bows up. Dark fur erupts from the back of his neck and spreads instantly across his body and as Rime watches, stunned, the newly shifted werewolf winds one massive arm back and whips the javelin right back across the shore.

Then he does it again. Over and over. Across the shore, there’s a scream as a spear going ninety miles per hour surely smashes through several lizard men.

Rime maneuvers to the back of the boat and kneels directly between Blue and the foggy enemy-infested shore. They crouch together behind his shield, peering into the mist but no more javelins come. There’s just… motion somewhere in the long grasses and reeds. As Rime’s vision adjusts to the fog… he realizes the shore is literally swarming with lizard folk. The reeds bristle with spears and glinting eyes.

Rime braces the shield more securely. “You see them?”

“Oh, yessss I do,” Blue hisses.

Rime hears her flick the wand of magic missile somewhere directly over his head. There’s a flash and eighteen screaming beads of neon light rip across the river like tiny, hyper-speed fireflies before arching up, then divebombing into the crowd. There’s a sound of wet screaming and bursting. Gore and skull fragments pop as if from red balloons along the shore. Behind him, Rime hears Blue muttering in Aquan and he’d bet it means, “Fuck you fuck you fuck you, I win!”

Will, seeing his wife at work, lays down his sword a moment and grabs the oars to join Vorgut in furious rowing.

Rime – seeing this and hearing the continued guttural shrieks of torment still issuing from Blue’s blast zone – closes his eyes. He presses one hand to his chest, over the three-star sigil of Lliira and for a moment simply mouths, “Show me,” and looks skyward.

It’s instantaneous. The knowing rushes through his head and through his body, takes possession of him in a jolt of sudden muscle memory. Rime shudders, then grabs the oars from where Blue left them and with a sailor’s stolen confidence, begins to pull them asymmetrically through the waters, swinging the tail boat into Will’s rowing, and then into Vorgut’s.

And the boats are suddenly traveling snug to the western shore, so far beyond the range of the javelins that again, no weapons are thrown. For a full ten minutes, Rime expertly navigates the outrigger along the edge of the shore until the light of Lliira fades like a touch from his mind and he loses that sailor’s expertise easy as amnesia. At the front of the boat, Bian is alertly watching the river with one eye and Vorgut’s navigation with the other.

Will, in his boat, says, “Fuck. They’re coming.”

There are splashes from the far shore. Bodies getting quickly through the waters toward them as about forty lizard folk abandon long-range in favor of swimming directly at their small canoes. Blue, behind Rime, staggers up still impaled by the javelin. She hisses, “Let me at ‘em!” and before Rime can tell her to stop fucking moving with a spear in her gut, she raises her arcane focus and throws a fistful of sand into the water.

Magic flashes. Suddenly about half the charging lizard folk go limp mid-swim. Rime sees their eyes slide peacefully, magically shut as they are sucked down by the river’s current and disappear beneath the dark waters.

A force of over twenty furious, screaming lizard-folk are still powering like scaly, ravenous missiles through the water. Rime again takes position between Blue and the enemy, pulling her close behind him and bringing the shield up in one hand. With the other, he raises it palm out toward the waters… and he hesitates.

He can hear Will yelling and hacking furiously as the first wave of lizard men attempt to swarm his canoe. Bian is hissing and snarling, just beheading and hacking into the water. Rime can smell Blue’s blood on the wood and slick on her dress.

Lizard folk hit the third boat.

Wounded, the water frothing with blood, they claw and grab. Gored by Bian, mutilated by Will, the survivors bump down the line of the outriggers to claw madly at the last boat. The grapple the rigs, pulling themselves up, trying to get at both Rime and the wounded sorceress behind him only to be bashed in the face by a shield, but they’re starting to pile on. Rime can’t… he can’t just drive them off. They dragg the boat like an anchor, water sloshing into the…

“Fuck,” Rime whispers.

And summons his spiritual weapon.

It manifests instantly, a bright spinning ball of carnival ribbons hovering like a giant dandelion tuft just above the water… then it swings down, gliding to skim the water, the ribbons foaming the surface as it hooks down to pass along the right side of the head boat where, in a spray of pureed bone, blood, and meat, the razor-sharp ribbons shear one lizard man’s arm off at the elbow, then beheads the fellow behind him. Then on down the line like a meteorite of frothing water and blood, dismembering and bludgeoning any clinging enemies until it reaches that last boat.

The weapon stops directly in front of Rime and grinds a bloody, screaming, person-free space into the waters next to Rime’s shield. This does not last. There are… far too many and even the horror and losses don’t seem to sway them. The lizard folk bash against Rime’s still raised shield, hooked over the side of the boat and he shoves them again, bashes one of them in the face, watches that face shred off the skull when he falls into the weapon.

Blue grabs Rime’s shoulder.

She hisses a little frantically in his ear, “How do you feel about taking a hit?”

To which Rime grits, cheerfully, using his real, demonic voice in all its hissing horror, “Pretty good!”

“Okay!”

Then Blue dives off the back of the boat like a suicidal swimmer toward the lizard-folk infested waters. She arcs up, twisting midair, arms out. A wind catches her Triton frame like a slender kite on an updraft. It carries her upwards, spinning her so for a strange, impossible moment she is almost vertical, upside-down, white hair blown out around her face with her hand out… and she casts thunder wave.

She casts directly at the last boat, Rime, and all the lizard folk upon it.

Rime slams his shield down, grabs a bench and braces as the electricity hits him in a white-hot, screaming wave of pain. Every muscle seizes with a hideous rigor as the lightning courses through him. It hits him like a blow to blast him back, but he holds the fuck onto the boat. He hears the wood splinter, water flood over his boots. For a horrible moment he sees white, then stars, and then the sky reeling above him. Lizard folk are still screaming. He can hear them scrabbling at the out rigging, banging into the canoe walls as they still, still keep on coming.

Then Blue drops with a little shriek into the boat again, almost knocking Rime over, and Will is bellowing, “Jump! Jump! You gotta get in here!”

Rime moves on a dizzy, static-buzzed instinct. He rolls, pivoting to face the middle boat and Will who stands at the back with one hand frantically out stretched and the other holding a blazing scimitar. Rime staggers, still seeing stars and feeling the buzz in his bones. He reaches the front of the boat, drives one foot down on the bow and jumps, landing directly in the second boat and immediately losing his shield from his static-numb arm.

Blue. Is Blue –?

He turns… just in time to see Blue try to follow him. He’s in time to watch it happen, as if in slow motion, as the sorceress’ blood-slick boot squeaks out from beneath the driving lunge off her right leg… and she loses half of her momentum instantly. Rime watches her fall, one arm outstretched toward them – Will and Rime both staring in horror – as she falls into the writhing, blood-red waters.

Split second: Will is screaming.

Split second: The lizard folk start to swarm.

Split second: Bian yells.

And Rime feels his focus like a razor’s edge along the arcane line from his mind to the spiritual weapon. The cyclone ball of ribbon rockets up the side of the boat and every ribbon in its composition loses any bluntness they formerly possessed. What hits the bodies of the lizard folk hits with molecular-sharp indifference and with no clear difference in texture between bone, meat, and water, the weapon plows down into the river and the waves blacken, then redden, then thicken with blood and body parts. The ribbons are no longer any other color but blood red.

Blue tucks into a ball as the weapon screams a horrifying orbit around her, over and over, clearing a ring of mutilation. It’s so precise, it never touches her. Only the ones it intends to harm.

Eventually, the river is clear around her. The remaining lizard folk still alive, screaming, and mauled, swim away back toward the marsh. Blue unfolds herself beneath the water, kicks up, and her head breaks the water by the back of the second canoe now cut free of the third. The water is red around her pale blue face. She blinks up at Rime, bright eyes a little shell-shocked and glassy. Her white hair is pink as Rime catches her arm with a shaking hand and pulls her from the river.

Rime does it carefully, turning her onto her back as he drags her into the bed of the boat.

Will is already pulling Tivas (still unconscious) to the other side of the boat to make room as Rime arranges the tiny Triton woman on the floor and immediately checks the fucking head of the javelin still stuck between her hip bone and her belly. Rime promptly rips her dress open a little to get a better look and presses his fingers into the flesh around the puncture, trying to gauge the depth. Blood pulses around the head of the spear, turning the water puddled beneath her a dark red.

“Blue.” Rime smacks her cheek a little until she looks at him, his real voice grating and seething with whispers. “Are you okay?”

“Eh-heh?” Blue kind of whines.

Rime takes that to mean she’s in shock and therefore not fully aware. So with one hand he yanks the javelin from her gut and with the over dumps a minty-hot rush of healing magic down the tunnel of shredded muscle and perforated gut. Lightly perforated though. Just barely. Rime feels the magic knit her back together until the spell runs dry beneath his fingers. He peels his blood-tacky palm from her stomach… and there’s nothing but a shallow, scabbing cut where a four-inch gouge once gaped.

“You’ll gonna be fine,” Rime says, water dripping from the circlet of flowers around his head. He knows without seeing them, they will be an eye-aching orange. “Dummy. Why the hell did you stand up? You just wanted to give them a target? Give me something to do?”

Blue kinda grins dimly up at him.

“I got ‘em,” she slurs.

Rime looks over the side of the boat, to the receding red waters as the river current eddies and pulls the blood out to sea. He thinks, vaguely, I’ve just lost count. I don’t know how many I’ve killed now. Then he looks back the Blue and Will and Bian perched anxiously at the back of the first boat. Bian’s eyes are big, her tail fluffed anxiously out. He puts on a smile.

“We’re fine,” he says. “Let’s get to Daggerford.”

#homegame fiction #dnd #rae plays dnd #last session got real fun at the end #rae writes #raewrites

[beloved-judged]

On family, as a topic

I'm just going to say it plain--the word "family" does not do happy things for me.

I had the chance to have a conversation with a gentleman at the petro fete last weekend on the topic of family. He was talking to me about some things that made him reconsider his family and their relationships to each other, and happened to make the comment that what he learned about his family as an adult caused him some trust issues.

I sat for a moment with what he said, trying to empathize, and couldn't. I got nothing for that.

I finally remarked that I couldn't remember ever really trusting my family. It's hard to trust people that keep trying to kill you (figuratively), maim you (not figuratively), or involuntarily institutionalize you (also not figuratively.)

I showed the gentleman my left index finger, a scar ringing it that I got over thirty years ago but that is still clear against my skin--my brother attempted to cut off that finger with a pair of garden shears. I knocked him out with a hammer a few days previous.

We were even, in my childish opinion.

Even when I was very little, I learned not to seek a hug from my mother, as it would come at the cost of a finger bent back, a vicious pinch to the skin beneath my arm, or some other pain that I knew better than to acknowledge by wincing, even very early.

There would only be a hug at all if someone was watching.

My father, you did not dare touch. Not even when other people were watching.

All of this is to say that deep down, deep in the instinctual responses, when someone starts talking about family, alarm bells start ringing and I do my best imitation of a castle with a moat and dragon.

Beware, beware, her flashing teeth and fire.

God help the person who tells me they love me in that context. It is difficult not to physically fight them, to take a swing at them while yelling "you don't get to love me. No one does."

I am doing a magical work with my papa on my poor, beleaguered heart--and that word, "papa", I suppose will get less weird over time. I've been treating it like a title to avoid the implications, which very definitely make me want to get the fuck back.

It has been made clear to me, via the lwa, that there will be room in my heart for these people, the people of my temple, my spiritual family, whether I like it or not.

Spoiler alert: I don't like it.

Spoiler addendum: Yet, beneath the urge to fight someone, I know I will need them when I stop frothing at the mouth when I think about closeness. I know it will be a richness, and even pleasant on occasion.

This is not criticism of them as individuals. They're a likeable bunch, and I appreciate how blunt they can be, while getting the urge to run screaming from how entangled they are with each other.

And to be real with the reader, their not-whiteness (culturally speaking) is very much something I am confronting here.

My urge is less offensive with them, for the most part, and more... guarded. There's so much sharing in this culture that, again deep in the instincts, makes me want to climb a wall to get away.

And sadly, some part of me sneers at the messiness of it all, at the people who would include me, something I'm told was very visible during the ceremony.

In ceremony, they move together, a intangible thing which manifests as physical movement but has roots somewhere else. The mood, the air, the energy of the place is difficult for me to join. It is difficult for me to encounter it at all.

There is no "place" in me for that (no previous encounters with that closeness).

There are a lot of bad associations (again, my instinctual response to closeness is to crawl the wall to get away).

Emotionally speaking, there's a LOT of baggage there ranging from feelings of being bereft and inferior to rage at the loss and time passed.

It's hard not to envy the protection that comes of it, to listen to them talk about the casual things they do for one another and not think of how many of those things I have done alone, from giving birth alone and raising children alone, to defending myself against bad teachers or adults of poor intent as a child, to defending others.

Ya girl actually did physically throw down with adults as a very small child. Not well, mind you, but I will defend with everything in me.

I simply cannot imagine being able to call someone who would come and help me, cannot imagine the closeness with which they live. It's taken my best friend four years to convince me that it's okay to call him and talk when bad things happen, and that even if he doesn't answer, it's okay. That this is normal for people.

The lwa didn't call me to feel positive about everything, of course, just to do.

Which leaves me wrestling this, all the ugly bits hanging out.

#vodou #family #lwa

[shift-shaping]

THE LIONESS AND THE WOLF - VI - HON HON

This work is also available on Ao3. If you enjoy my work, please reblog, leave a comment, or donate to my Ko-Fi. Thank you!

Rating: Mature

Genre: General, Okay I Guess It’s a Slow Burn Now

Pairing: Solas x Surana

Warning: Bad singing, mild gore, More OCs

Part six of The Lioness and the Wolf.

previous <> next

This wasn’t right. Usually when Eirwen awoke in an unfamiliar place, the hangover that hit her seconds later would tell her what happened. She felt dehydrated and worn, but as a true hangover connoisseur she knew when she wasn’t experiencing one. 

She shifted, her body sore as she moved for the first time in hours. Across the room she heard the floor creak, and the sudden noise wrested her from her drowsiness so fast she felt her hip crack as she turned. Flickering candlelight met her eyes, dancing against the pale face of a middle-aged woman with a crooked smile. “Ah. So you are awake.”

The woman had an Orlesian accent, but not one so thick Eirwen had trouble understanding. Forcing herself to ignore the bitter taste of sleep in her mouth, Eirwen cleared her throat and spoke. “Where am I?”

Again the floor creaked, and with a sigh the woman stood and strode into the light. She was tall and square-faced, her short hair emphasizing the sharp angles of her cheeks and jaw. “Fort Revasan. You are in no danger, Warden.”

Eirwen’s gaze fell to the bright, blood-red symbol on the woman’s chest, peeking out from beneath her cloak. “Why does Gaspard need Templars?”

“There are apostates everywhere. One never knows when a specific skill set may be required.”

“He must have several,” Eirwen said, thinking out loud. “I am no apostate.”

“I did not mean to suggest that you were.” The Templar shrugged. “But after seeing what you are capable of, is it so strange that we would have you guarded?”

Eirwen said nothing, having heard this line of thinking more than enough times to know where it led. “How did you know I was a Warden?”

The crooked smile on the Templar’s face tilted even more, a true smirk now. “A question of mathematics. A Rivaini elf with shapeshifting abilities of the expected age and dimensions? You are not so hard to figure out.”

“For the educated, I suppose.”

“There is a painting of you in Kinloch Hold. Do you know this?”

Eirwen snorted and shook her head. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me.” She sat up and grimaced at her sore muscles. “When did you go to Kinloch?”

“I have been many places.” The Templar held out her gauntlet-bound hand, and after a moment of hesitation, Eirwen reached out and shook it. “Knight-Captain Lezare.”

“Eirwen.” She sat up, frowning. “You didn’t capture me alone.”

“We did not capture you at all, Warden.” Lazare gestured to the door. “You may leave if you wish.”

“That explains your presence...” She wasn’t stupid. They wouldn’t put a Templar so close if they actually meant her to leave on her whim.

“As I said.” Lezare smiled slightly again. “There is no harm in being careful.”

“You found me with someone else. Where is he?”

“We could not catch him. He left you as bait to protect himself.”

Eirwen rolled her eyes. “Unlikely.” She drew her legs toward her, sitting cross-legged now on her bed. “I want to see him.”

“I will not stop you from leaving, Warden. But... perhaps you would meet with our leader, before you go?”

“Gaspard? Oh, yes, as an elven mage that sounds fantastic.”

“You degrade yourself.” Lezare’s voice took on a note of offense, and Eirwen watched her quietly. “You are much more than a mere elf or mage. Duke Gaspard recognizes your accomplishments. He believes a conversation would be... fruitful.”

“I’m not interested.” Eirwen had nothing to gain from such a meeting. She had no interest in following politics, much less being part of them; she’d had plenty of that during the Blight. Her purpose here needed to be leaving, preferably as soon as possible. The longer she spent wallowing in her own exhaustion and having worthless conversations, the worse off her men would be. 

Her fingers toyed with the blanket and she tried not to think of them, locked up somewhere, suffering at the hands of the Freemen because no one knew where they were. Perhaps Adaar had learned of the mishap, perhaps not. 

She looked up at Lezare again, her brows furrowed. “How long have I been asleep?”

“I would say... twenty-six hours or so, by my count?”

Eirwen’s eyes widened. “Liar.”

Lezare shrugged noncommittally. “It may not be exact, but about as much. After your spell, you slept heavy. We could not rouse you, even as we fixed your wounds.”

That’s right. Eirwen touched her side and felt thin, clean bandages under her fingers. There was nothing wrapped around her head either, and the only pain she felt was from dehydration. “A mage did this.”

“That would be absurd.” But the glint in Lezare’s eyes told Eirwen she was right. Clearly Gaspard had no problem keeping both rogue Templars and runaway mages in his employ. 

She shook her head and looked away, frustrated with herself and afraid of what the consequences for this were. Solas, her men, they were all in danger because she couldn’t handle the recovery of her own spell. If Solas was still alive, if they were ever stuck together again, she’d make him promise to keep her from turning into a dragon while intoxicated. 

There was, however, a way out. She looked at Lezare again and nodded to the pile of clothing in the corner that looked like her things. “Give me my clothes and my flask. I’ll speak with the Duke.”

...

“And my girl she wore such lovely things, such lovely pearls and flowers. She’d have you in her palm all night, so long as you pay for the hour, ooh!”

Solas cringed and pressed his fingers harder into his ears, trying desperately to block out the ear-splitting sound of his cellmate’s singing. The dwarf danced about and yelled every line, much to the chagrin of everyone else in the fort’s prison. Every once in a while something heavy would smack into the cell bars, causing the dwarf to yelp and sing louder over the men cursing him to shut up. 

So far Solas had gathered the dwarf, and many of the other prisoners, were part of a lyrium-smuggling ring that Gaspard’s troops broke as they tried to find a way to the fighting in the west. They were selling to anyone that would buy, but the Venatori were naturally their biggest customers. Yet despite their ambiguous morality, the smugglers’ coin still held sway and they’d managed to get the guard to largely leave them alone --and to make their most irritating comrade bunk with the “weird egg-headed knife-ear.”

The dwarf’s name was Sam, allegedly, but that seemed very fake. One of the other smugglers had called him “Belherav,” which seemed a bit far from Sam to Solas’s admittedly un-Dwarven ears. 

When Sam wasn’t singing, he was coming up with remarkably stupid escape plans. One particular highlight involved training a rat to summon his rat friends, attack the guard, and bring him the key. He also seemed convinced that Solas could turn him into a frog and was holding out on him. 

“I know what you magic-y people can do --you can do anything! See, if you just turn me into a frog then I can hop right out, open the door, and we could both go free!”

“I was not aware frogs had the dexterity necessary for lock-picking. Or even using a key.”

“Well you’d turn me back once I got of the cell, obviously.”

“...would I?”

And so on. For hours Sam sang or talked or farted and worked every other smuggler into a frothing rage. At first Solas had assumed Eirwen’s absence was due to her being a woman, that she was being held elsewhere, but he’d heard plenty of female smugglers screaming at Sam since he arrived. She must have been put somewhere else because of her celebrity, an irony which did not go unnoticed. 

Solas tried to ignore his cellmate as best he could, but the incessant noise wore his patience thin. Eirwen had probably slept through all of his suffering somewhere much more comfortable, though he knew it wasn’t her choice. Had it been up to her, he knew she’d have wanted them both in relative comfort.

He considered escaping by using his magic, but one of the Templars Gaspard employed wandered through the cells at inopportune times. The mere existence of Templars upset Solas’s stomach, but that they were here, in the Dirth, was case for even greater concern. He knew of no fighting between mages and Templars here, but the Dalish came through frequently and many of them were fairly relaxed about their mages. That some of them disposed of excess mages was even worse: there were apostate elves wandering the fens and prairies, easy pickings for cruel Templars. 

A loud, sudden crash tore Solas from his thoughts and he looked up to see the guard leaning against the iron bars of his cell. Sam stood directly opposite the guard, holding all four feet of himself tall and proud. The guard spoke in rapid, angry Orlesian to the dwarf, but Sam obviously had no idea what he was saying. 

“Er, hon hon I am, how you say, so Orleeeziian, I cannot speak that, erm, detestable common tongue, as you call it,” Sam said, affecting a very bad Orlesian accent. The guard slammed his fist into the bars, making Sam jump. 

“Shut up! I will beat you!”

“I’d like to see you try! I’m two-thirds your height and still have about a hundred pounds on you!” That was blatantly untrue, but Sam was a rather rotund man. He leaned into the bars, getting uncomfortably close to the guard. “But if you’d like a singing contest, I’d be happy to oblige.”

The guard jabbed his finger through the bars, poking Sam hard enough in the eye that the dwarf reeled backward. “That is what you get, dwarf--” 

Sam cut him off. He reached through the bars, grasped the guard by the collar, and brought him hard into the cold, solid iron again and again. The guard screamed and tried to fight back, but Sam’s grip was too strong as he pounded the guard’s face into a bloody pulp. 

With the ease of a man who had just finished an excellent musical performance, Sam bent down and fished the guard’s keys from his belt loop. He unlocked the cell door and it swung open with a loud creak.

Solas watched him, astonished and silent. Sam met his gaze, paused for a moment, then shrugged. “He didn’t need that. His face, that is. Wasn’t doing anything important with it.”

“I...”

“Well, come on then.” Sam gestured to the door. “You want out of here, then help me. Could use a mage to back me up.” He blinked a few times and rubbed at his eye. “Fuckin’ cheese-eating bastard.”

Solas stood and frowned as he followed Sam into the hallway. The other smugglers yelled and cursed and threw what little they had. “You aren’t going to release them?”

Sam shook his head and raised his voice above the din. “Nah, fuck these guys. Never liked my singing!”

They found the closet where Solas’s staff and Sam’s giant metal fist was stored. Solas eyed it wearily for a moment, then looked at Sam’s face. He had a scraggy, greasy beard with unkempt black wires for hair and pale skin poking out beneath. In the right light, Solas thought he could see dark freckles along Sam’s cheeks and nose. “How did you discover that I am a mage? I never mentioned it.”

Sam fixed his weapon to his arm and shrugged. “You aren’t Dalish, and city elves aren’t that pompous unless they have magic, a giant cock, or both.” Solas raised his brows, and Sam just winked. “Anyway.” The dwarf grinned as he finished strapping his gauntlet on. He let out a slow, relieved breath. “Good to get my hand back. Now let’s get the fuck out of here, I’m itching for a good fight.”

#solasmance #the lioness and the wolf posts #solas #solas rarepair #glimpses

[littlepurinsesu]

In Regards to Hugs: No

Title: In Regards to Hugs: No Fandom: Yuri on Ice Characters: Yuri Plisetsky, Yuuri Katsuki, Jean-Jacques Leroy, Seung Gil Lee, Emil Nekola, Michele Crispino, Sara Crispino, Victor Nikiforov Relationships: Yuri Plisetsky & Yuuri Katsuki, Yuuri Katsuki/Victor Nikiforov Rating: Teen and Up Warnings: Swearing

*Read on AO3*

Summary: The pork cutlet bowl goes on a hugging spree. It’s disgusting and traumatising and Yuri Plisetsky could have sworn that he saw his life flash before his eyes, but he thinks he understands.

Author’s Notes: The hug scene in Episode 9 has always been one of my favourite moments in the anime. It’s so hilarious and adorable, but there’s also so much potential for some friendship feels between Yuuri and Yurio. So this went from a simple fanfic-isation of the hug scene to a full-fledged fic that got a lot more serious than what I had in mind when I started the piece. Mostly canon compliant, but lots of filling in the gaps to really bring out the relationship between the two Yuris. Because Yurio is an angry tsundere who will never admit how much he cares for his Katsudon.

Silver.

Whether it was the colour or its symbolic value or simply the word itself, Yuri Plisetsky was not happy with it.

He had worked his ass off and almost busted his lungs to execute a perfect free skate performance. For fuck’s sake, he’d even earned himself a new personal best. Yet apparently none of that was enough to stop that Canadian sucker from pushing him to the right side of the podium again. Second for the second time, and Yuri could not be more displeased—with himself, with that jackass, and with practically everyone, because there wasn’t a single person who didn’t piss him off right now.

I’ll destroy that shithead at the Finals. Fucking watch me. Knife shoes or not, I’ll fucking end him.

Yuri’s brows were knitted tightly together and his heavy steps reverberated menacingly as he tramped down the hallway. The aura he was radiating was enough to keep any unwanted people at bay.

‘Unwanted people’ did not include a certain pork cutlet bowl, though. After that frustratingly underwhelming free skate, Yuri had come to the conclusion that he probably needed to give him a good talk (complete with a kick or two) to get him back on track. Maybe he’ll yell at him about this later before the Japanese skater returned home the next day or something.

Yuri rounded a corner in the maze of corridors, hoping to bump into absolutely no one, when lo and behold, who should he chance upon but Yuuri Katsuki himself. The fourth-placer was standing near the wall in a daze, eyes seemingly fixed on nothing in particular as he stared absently into the distance. It was almost odd to not see the balding man-child draped around his shoulders, trying to cheer him up or talk some sense into him. But then again, if that man-child had been present, Yuuri wouldn’t have placed fourth to begin with. Yuri knew this for a fact, because goddamnit, Yuuri Katsuki was better than this.

He was pondering the possibility of giving that pep talk right here and right now when the Crispino twins approached, occupied with some small disagreement that Yuri didn’t care about.

‘Yuuri!’ Sara called suddenly as the pair neared the pork cutlet bowl. She speed-walked the final steps to close the distance, leaving her scowling sibling behind. ‘Congrats on qualifying for the Grand Prix Final! I knew you’d make it.’ She extended her arms warmly, as though welcoming a friendly embrace.

Oh, boy. That obsessive freak of a brother is not going to take this well.

Sure enough, within milliseconds, Michele Crispino had marched right up to them, mouth set in an angular frown. ‘Sara!’ he complained.

Had Sara been asking for a hug? Or had she simply been holding her arms out as a strange gesture of congratulatory pride? Yuri had not quite wrapped his head around the mixed social cues when he saw Yuuri fling his arms around the woman’s slender frame.

‘Thank you,’ he breathed.

Congrats on qualifying for the Final? More like congrats on digging your own grave, Katsudon.

Yuri had to press his lips together to suppress his vindictive snicker as Michele visibly bristled, before squawking out an exclamation of the utmost rage. The flower bouquet he had been holding moments ago went flying as he raised his fists in the air. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?!’ he demanded, with perhaps a little too much passion and force in his voice. If the disturbed Italian man had yelled any louder or harder, Yuri was sure he would have ruptured a vein in his neck.

Yet no horror movie Yuri Plisetsky had mistakenly watched while curled up on the couch in the wee hours of the night could have prepared him for what happened next.

Yuuri Katsuki opened his eyes—if they could still even be called eyes—revealing one of the most terrifyingly lifeless expressions Yuri had ever seen. It was dark and vacant and enough to send an unnerving chill slithering down his spine.

This dangerous gaze was slowly pointed at Michele as Yuuri let go of Sara and latched himself onto her fuming brother instead.

‘Eh?’ Michele spared less than two seconds comprehending his situation before completely losing it. He flailed his arms uselessly, eyes swirling and shoulders practically vibrating as he released a shriek so high-pitched that Yuri had to wonder if it were even possible for a person with a Y chromosome. It was one of the most hilarious cries of distress Yuri had ever been fortunate enough to overhear, and the teen had no shame in his lack of guilt as he mentally thanked the deities for granting him the privilege of witnessing such a spectacle. By now, Yuri was unsure whether he was watching a horror movie or a comedy show.

His amusement was short-lived, however, as a concerned voice rang out from around the corner of the hallway. ‘Was that Mickey screaming?’

A bearded face and a head of chestnut brown hair came into view as Emil Nekola emerged, voice as gallant as a knight’s, ready to sweep his comrade away from danger.

Your comrade has fucking bubbles coming out of his mouth.

Yuri wished he had been joking, but there was no mistake in the scene unfolding before him: Yuuri clutching a mass of glittering purple as Michele lay limp in his arms, eyes blank in a traumatised stupor and a steady flow of froth gurgling at his mouth. The predator now turned those same soulless eyes in Emil’s direction. He put an end to Michele’s misery and freed the foaming man from his grasp, ignoring the dull thud as his body hit the floor and his sister rushed to his aid.

Yuuri’s steps were frantic as he sprinted into Emil’s arms, and Yuri was not so preoccupied with the Italian siblings to miss the ease and amicability with which the Czech man returned the embrace.

‘What’s this? A hugging competition?’ he questioned, cheerful and relaxed as he held Yuuri snug in his arms.

Does the idiot not realise that he currently has a fucking zombie hugger hanging off his shoulders?

Ignorance is bliss, Yuri decided, and he really would feel bad for Emil’s poor cluelessness if he had known the bearded sunshine a little better. But alas, hugs and sunshine really weren’t the Ice Tiger’s forte, so Yuri was content to stand away from the commotion and assume that Emil’s smile was of genuine mirth and not, in fact, a disguised plea for help.

Emil’s beaming face was so bright that Yuri was beginning to feel the need to whip out a pair of sunglasses, so he was quite relieved when the apathetic Korean man appeared and restored some much-needed balance. Seung Gil Lee approached as silently as a skulking cat, but even his phantom presence didn’t escape the hugging maniac. There was an ominous glint in Yuuri’s eyes as he ended the hug with Emil and rounded on his fellow Asian skater instead, tackling him in an unsolicited embrace.

The poor man had no idea what hit him.

Seung Gil failed to register the situation enough to utter some hostile remark about wanting to be left alone, instead only managing to choke out a feeble noise as his face darkened in a manifestation of revulsion and fright. Yuri watched on with a strange mixture of both hilarity and sympathy as Seung Gil’s hands hovered awkwardly about Yuuri’s shoulders, clearly wanting to place them anywhere but on the Japanese man’s body.

At this point, Yuri, being the graciously kind and angelic soul he was, considered stepping in to rescue poor Seung Gil from his predicament and officially putting an end to this mayhem. Agape, right? Unconditional love for all, including those who were suffering. And these people were definitely suffering.

But then Jean-Jacques Leroy sauntered idiotically down the hallway, his unwelcome entrance topped with an equally unattractive smirk as his gold medal flashed obnoxiously from around his neck. The image itself was enough to set Yuri’s teeth on edge again, and the Ice Tiger of Russia internally swore for the umpteenth time that he would wipe that repulsive grin off the fucker’s sorry little face when he knocked him off the podium at the Finals.

And suddenly, the idea of demonstrating his agape didn’t seem like Yuri Plisetsky’s top priority anymore.

Ah, what the fuck. Who am I to deprive Katsudon of another hug? Jean-Jacques fucking Leroy, it’s your time to shine.

There was an irritating swagger in JJ’s gait as he breezed towards them, no doubt engaged in some unintelligent conversation (or monologue, Yuri notes) about his supposed superiority.

‘JJ is—mmph!’

What exactly is JJ? The world may never know. And Yuri had never felt so eternally grateful for the hero that is Yuuri Katsuki, the awe-inspiring saviour who had just rescued humanity from the agony of having to hear JJ speak more than two words at a time. The Japanese skater had thrown his arms around JJ’s build and effectively silenced the lanky idiot, whose mouth was now stretched into the most ridiculously hideous expression Yuri had ever laid eyes on. It was so ugly and so stupid, and it brought Yuri so much joy.

Oh my god. Yuuri Katsuki, you are the light of my life. Holy shit you amazing—

He had spoken too soon.

Yuuri turned.

Huh?

His soulless eyes bore into his final target.

The fuck are you staring at, asshole?

As though in slow motion, Yuuri began to move in his direction.

What the actual fuck? Wait, no. Don’t you fucking think about it, you—shit, no. No! NO!

‘HUHHH?! STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!’ Yuri could hear the cry tearing from his throat as he turned on his heel and fled for dear life.

This is it. This is how it all ends. Yuuri Katsuki was closing the distance with his arms outstretched, and Yuri, the poor deer caught in the headlights, stood no chance against that man’s damnable stamina.

Yuri could have sworn he saw his life flash before his eyes. All the laughter and tears, blood and sweat, love and loss. Every promise he had made to himself and every dream that had yet to come true.

It was all over for Yuri Plisetsky, and at such a young age, too.

What will happen after he is gone? Will the world remember him? Who will feed Puma Tiger Scorpion? His final performance on the ice had suffered a maddening defeat, and he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to his grandfather…

The image of his grandfather’s smiling face faded and reality gradually shifted back into focus. Yuri was now acutely aware of his surroundings: a dimly lit hallway, the stares of puzzled onlookers, and a pair of arms wrapped tightly around him from behind.

He could not recall when his legs had finally stopped scissoring through air or even begin to fathom why he wasn’t struggling, but Yuuri’s grip was unrelenting as he held the teen’s body firmly against his chest, face buried into his shoulder. Yuri felt a slight tremble in the unsteady rise and fall of the older man’s breathing, and the fingers squeezing even tighter around his upper arms made him swallow the aggressive protest that had been stirring at the base of his tongue. There was a certain sense of unhappiness in the embrace, a kind of loneliness, as though Yuuri was trying desperately to seek out something that he just couldn’t find in any of his previous victims. And from the way his frenzied breathing was failing to slow or even out, Yuri knew that he wasn’t the one, either.

‘The one’? Fuck, sounds like some kind of shitty romance story. That kind of crap belongs in the gross ass world of you and Victor, not—

That was it, wasn’t it? That’s what Yuuri was longing for.

Yuri was no fool. He was very much aware of the reason behind Yuuri’s less than stellar free skate earlier on. The pork cutlet bowl could do so much better, like those times when he had captivated the proud teen prodigy with his entrancing step sequences and flawless spins. Today had obviously not been one of those days, and everyone in the audience and their dogs had probably figured out why.

Silly Katsudon. You won’t find what you’re looking for here… Not even with me, because I’m not him.

Yuri wondered briefly if his part in this sordid hug fest was longer than the others’, or if he had simply lost track of time while fighting between the impulse to kick and shout and the strange urge to reciprocate this one-sided hug. But even if the angry Russian boy were to swivel around and uncharacteristically wrap his arms around Yuuri’s drooping body, it still wouldn’t change anything, would it? He wasn’t the one Yuuri needed right now.

There were many things in this world—perhaps too many, if he was willing to admit so himself—that provoked Yuri Plisetsky’s anger, but never had he considered that this could be one of them. The Yuuri Katsuki he knew could often be a flustered ball of anxiety and insecurity, or sometimes a sensual skater oozing enough sex appeal to rival Christophe Giacometti, and always a kind and simple boy who was sincere, hardworking, and charismatic. Not… whatever this was. This mopey, depressed loser who couldn’t get his shit together and act like the fucking champion Yuri knew he could be. And although this time it wasn’t the Japanese champion’s own fault, it was an infuriating reminder of the cowardly sobs Yuri had heard in the bathroom stall at the Sochi Grand Prix Final, and he hated it. He hated it with his guts, and if he could do something within his power to bring Yuuri back to normal or raise his spirits again, he would fucking do it. Heck, if he could give the pork cutlet bowl something to make him feel warm and safe, to make him feel at home again, then goddamnit, he would give him anything.

But he couldn’t do what Victor does best, nor could he give Yuuri the sense of security he craved, and that upset Yuri even more than the silver medal he had taken off immediately after the ceremony. And before he even realised that he was slowly raising his hand to offer Yuuri a gentle but awkward pat on the arm, the pork cutlet bowl had released him and begun to shuffle away.

Yuri was joined by an assembly of hug victims as they stood, united in their mutual confusion and concern for Yuuri’s behaviour. Michele was wedged between Sara and Emil as they supported his weight (the dumbass still couldn’t even stand on his own); Seung Gil had deigned to situate himself with actual people, risking the possibility of further human interaction; and Yuri himself was miraculously standing less than half a metre from JJ without the temptation to claw his ugly face off.

And as he watched the zombie hugger’s retreating form, slumped and downcast and in desperate need of… of something, Yuri Plisetsky made up his mind. He may not be a certain silver-haired old man, but someone needed to be there for Yuuri right now, and Yuri swore on his skating career that he would fight anyone who dared to jump in for the job before him.

The brown paper bag would probably be slightly soggy and the contents cold by now, but Yuri had many fond memories of his grandfather handing him the steaming pirozhki when he needed a bit of comfort or love. Plus, the ones sitting in his bag weren’t just any ordinary pirozhki, they were katsudon pirozhki—an affectionate invention of his grandfather’s to remind him of the unforgettable taste he had experienced in Hasetsu. And they would serve just as well as a small token of home for the lonely Japanese man as he spent his final night in this foreign country.

‘Where are you going, little Yuri-chan?’

Under any other circumstances, Yuri would probably have grabbed his skates and hurled them at JJ’s face for that wording (not really—his knife shoes were precious and expensive), but tonight, Yuri had more important things to do. The pirozhki were getting soggier and colder with each minute he wasted, but he was sure that they would still taste absolutely divine and hopefully put the smile back on the pork cutlet bowl’s dumb face.

And anyway, it’s not like he had marked Yuuri’s birthday on his phone and had been saving the pirozhki for him in the first place, thank you very much.

#yuri on ice #yuri plisetsky #yuri katsuki #yuuri katsuki #yuuyu #yuriyuu #victuuri #yurio nice #mine #writing #creative writing #fanfiction #fanfic #prose

[oh-ishouldnt]

The favorite - part 01

The favorite - part ½ | Jack Maynard | imagine

Word count: 2123

A/N: The name Kirstie is being used.

More imagines here | Requests are open! 

“I’m just going to take my wallet, Y/N.” Conor said to you. “It won’t take 5 minutes, I swear.”

“For your own good, Conor, I really hope you won’t take too long to come back” You warned, snorting as he opened his front door.

“Jack isn’t even at home, Y/N/N, you’ll be fine” Conor promised.

“Oh, yeah, he would be the first to leave the place, right?” You remembered, calming down instantly.

Conor nodded his head and you two entered the house together, finding the exact opposite from what Conor have said: Jack Maynard was on the sofa watching TV.

“What the hell are you doing here?” You asked seeing Jack’s head turn to you.

“This is my home, Y/N. I guess I live here?”

“No, is not.” You hit back. “You moved out.”

“Okay, guys, you work the things out, I just need to get my wallet.” Conor asked, he gave up of the whole Y/N vs. Jack a long time ago.

“Yeah, but my name is on the rent’s contract, so technically I still live here.“ Jack answered, ignoring his brother.

"That’s a waste of money, isn’t it?” You commented, crossing your arms and supporting your weight in one leg near by the door. Where were Conor? Gods, where the fricking wallet has gone? “But I guess it suits you… You’re a waste of human being, so…”

Jack was pissed off already. At first moment, he thought yoj would be a really nice girl, all his friends only said funny and interesting things about you, yet when he met you, you were a pain in the ass and continued to be since that.

“Shut up and get out of my house, Y/N.” Jack commanded.

“Sadly to you, this house also belongs to your brother, as you might forgotten, and he…”

“Is going to take his best friend out on her best night ever.” Conor completed your sentence before you and Jack started fighting for real and ended killing each other.

Conor took your arm and drag you to the front door as you almost froth of rage.

“You look beautiful in this tight red dress by the way, Y/N!” Jack yelled as you and Conor were leaving.

“I can’t say the same to you, Jack!” You yelled back.

You and Con started walking down the street to get some food somewhere before hitting the nightclub, both of you freezing in the night, especially you because, after all, you were using just a dress and a jacket.

“For God’s sake, Y/N, when you and my brother will start to get along?” Con asked and you almost feel bad for him.

“Well, the day he stop being an asshole will be a great day.”

Conor sighed, his life would be so much easier if you two just stopped being little kids who stole each others toys on the playground.

“I thought you guys could, somehow, stop acting like this through the time… I was wrong”

“Yes, you were.” You told, starting to get angry with Con, because by the way he sounded, it seemed you were the villain. Of course, Jack was his perfect little brother.

“I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“Why you and Jack hate each other.”

You automatically responded: “I don’t hate Jack.”

Conor looked at you and frowned.

“Oh, no! That little scene back home was a demonstration of love!”

You rolled your eyes, sometimes Conor’s sarcasm was just annoying.

“Fine.” You grumble. “I hate your little brother.”

“My little brother?” Conor laughed “His older than you.”

“Your little brother still.”

“I never called him little brother.” You raised an eyebrow for him. “Not for real!”

“Whatever, Conor.”

“Honestly, why do you hate Jack?”

It was your turn to laugh: “I’m surprised you don’t know this answer.”

Conor was genuinely confused.

“I should know?”

“You should guessed by now.” You shrugged. “But no one did it yet so you must be alright… Maybe I’m just not good at pointing my reasons for doing the stuff I do.”

“Yeah, you’re not.”

“Shut up, Maynard.” You said. “Let’s grab some food, I’m starving.”

Later that night:

You said to the taxi pull over, it seemed that this building was the one, so you paid the driver and jumped out of the car, receiving the English storm with a grouch.

Oh, Conor was a dead man! Dead man! If he wasn’t dead already, you would kill him! What the hell! This wasn’t what you signed for when you two became friends! And you definitely should revised the terms of this if he thought rescuing him was on your tasks.

The place was brand new. You didn’t know how the heck Conor ended up on an office building, and didn’t know how it was a fancy one, but at least you could congratulate him for that.

You smiled to the blonde receptionist and explained you forgot your laptop on the 32nd floor because that was only one floor away from Conor and it wouldn’t be so suspicious. You thought you must be really chilled and had a really nice face because the woman said you could go without hesitating and let you pass the ratchets. Maybe they should hire someone better, you clearly didn’t work there.

Your high heels echoed on the marble floor and it was really fine, because you never felt more powerful than that, thinking that you could get used to the sound of your shoes on a classy floor. That would be nice in a daily basis, wouldn’t it?

You pressed the elevator’s button and sent a text message to Conor, saying you were almost there to rescue him from his little rendezvous. You must be a really really cool friend to do such a thing.

You heard someone speak to the receptionist, it had a flirtatious tone… A specific flirtatious tone that made you close your eyes and groan. Why? Why, gods? Aren’t you a nice person? The receptionist didn’t even doubt you! You weren’t on dawn trying to save your friend across the city? Why then? Why?

You stared at your phone, seeing the keyboard and thinking the zillion words you could angrily type in and scream at Conor for being such an idiot. Maybe you could even leave him there! But it wouldn’t be a punishment, would it? Because obviously he had another one coming to get him and it meant you took the cab for nothing. You hated Conor even more than you hated his brother in that moment.

“Oh, fuck off.” You heard Jack’s voice grumble.

You raised your eyes from your phone and stared at the person who just got there.

“I’m not happy either, but I guess you can complain about that with your brother later, when I rescue him from this girl and cut him in hundreds of pieces after.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m the one who’s rescuing Conor.”

You rolled your eyes.

“First: Can you stop being such a child? How old are you, 7?” You asked and then continued: “Second: I got here first, so definitely I’m the one who’s on a mission.”

“Your mission is over.” He declared “You were with him and look what happened? I had to leave my date because you couldn’t take care of my moron brother.”

The elevator arrived and you entered in it, being followed by Jack.

“Don’t call Conor a moron, your dumbass. And get your own elevator, please. This one is taken.”

“Oh, who’s acting like a fricking kid now, wise old lady?” Jack asked, pressing the 33rd floor button. “At least, now I can understand why are you so boring.”

“Don’t press the 33rd button, stupid.” You said. “They will realize we are with your brother and the girl.”

“Who will realize that?”

“The owners of the building! We are invading, you know?”

“And, yeah, our bigger problem will be being associated with my brother and the girl who actually have access to this building if we get caught.” Jack rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, my brother said you were smart, Y/N.”

“Your brother says good things about you all the time to me too, but I think he’s blind.”

“You don’t tell me…”

All the sudden, the lights went off and the elevator made a huge noise before stopped.

“Fuck.” you cursed.

“It can’t be.” Jack complained.

“What the hell?” you started walking across the space, as if it would make some difference.

Jack, after panicking a little, said:

“Relax, baby, there’s a power generator in this kind of building”.

“Call me ‘baby’ again and I will be opening these doors with your teeth, Jack.” You warned. “And it’s the middle of the night in a weekend, we weren’t supposed to be in here, there’s no power generator for us, brainy.”

“Oh.” he realised you were right.

“Yeah, I know, genious.”

“But someone will take us out of here, Kirsten is just downstairs.”

“Who the hell is Kirsten?”

“The recepcionist, of course.”

“Oh, yeah, I supose I should know that.” You rolled your eyes.

“You spoke to her.”

“Yeah, I did, but I’m pretty sure you only know her name because she’s beautiful.”

“Are you jealous, Y/N?”

“Jealous? Oh, gods, someone should analize your mind, Jack, you are pretty damn sure of yourself in an abnormal way.”

“If you say so, honey.”

“I’m serious, Jack.” You angrily told.

“You only said about calling you ‘baby’, honey.”

You gave up, rolling your eyes with the feeling you would do a lot of it that night.

“Try to call Conor.” Jack said.

“Do you even have a brain?” You asked. “It’s an elevator, we don’t have signal.”

Jack lost his words:

“Some elevators do.”

“Right then, try to call your brother, your bloody idiot.”

And Jack actually tried, with no success.

“Dammit.”

“I said to you, dearie.” You stated with a smile bigger than the recommended.

“Shut up, Y/N. If I need to be with you for more than 10 minutes, it would be better if if you just don’t say anything.”

“Shut you up, Jack. You are the one to blame!”

“How the hell I am the problem in here?”

You opened your mouth to speak but a female voice came from the botton of the pit.

“Jack?”

“Kirstie!”

You rolled your eyes, the gods must be kidding with you because worst than being stuck with Jack Maynard was being saved by Jack Maynard’s new girlfriend.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah!”

“The pretty girl are there with you?”

You smiled, “pretty girl”? Okay, you might be okay with the Jack’s new thing.

“Yeah, Y/N is in here too.”

“I will send some help to you, guys!”

“Thank you!”  You both said as one, making faces of disgust for each other.

“Just wait a little and I’ll come back!” Kirstie said, leaving nothing but the silence behind her.

“So I’m the pretty girl, huh?” you teased Jack, calming down now that you two were going to leave that metal box.

“Again: shut up, Y/N.” He sat down on the elevator’s floor.

“Fine, I just find interesting you think I’m attractive.”

“Everybody thinks you are attractive.” Jack rolled his eyes, not really noticing what he told you.

“Everybody?” you were starting to find funny being stuck in there. “It’s really sad that it isn’t mutual.” Althought these were that got out of your mouth, you were bluffing. Since day 1 you thought Jack was handsome, but there wasn’t no way you would tell him that.

“Don’t make this a big deal, Y/N.” Jack argued, one thing was to compliment you to tease you, another thing was let a compliment slip out of his mouth. “And everybody knows you can’t resist me.”

“In your dreams, Maynard.”

“Guys!” Kirstie called and Jack jumped of the floor.

“Hi!” Jack shoulted back.

“I’m so sorry! I can’t get you out of there! Aparently, your names aren’t on the system, so the police is being called!”

“WHAT?” You and Jack screamed. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“I mean, I said it must be a mistake, but they can’t come here unless I make a complaint and I think you guys don’t want any trouble so…”

You stared Jack, the panic on your face was inevitable.

What are we going to do?  You asked without sounds.

I don’t know! Jack answered.

“Guys?”

Say something! You ordered.

“That’s fine, babe.” Jack told Kirstie at the end. “It won’t be more than a few minutes, me and Y/N can wait. Thanks, Kirstie!”

You sighned, letting yourself fall on the floor as your back slide down the wall, it would be a really long night.

Second part here

#jack maynard #imagine #fanfic #buttercream squad #conor maynard #maynard brothers #fanfiction

[azissuffering]

The Cure - A TOG/ACOTAR Cross - Part 1

THIS IS IT, DUDESSS. PLEASE please PLEASE let me know if you enjoyed. This is one thing that I actually have a lot of ideas for and I just want to know if this something you guys want or something I’m getting way too caught up in. *Eventual Feysand and Rowaelin and Moriel and Nessian and SUCK IT TAMLIN, I PROMISE*

Evangeline gripped Aelin's hand tightly as they walked towards the portal. It was huge, swirling and frothing with unchecked power, and a ripple of fear pushed through her. Aelin, with that remarkable sense of hers, seemed to notice and squeezed Evangeline's fingers.

"Don't worry," the Queen said in her soothing timbre. "I'm right here."

The knot of fear eased.

#

Aelin was pissed as hell.

Three days. Three fucking days since the war with Erawan and Maeve and the gods' drama and blablabla. They all needed to find hobbies that were less destructive than world domination. Feelings aside, the battle had gone much smoother than anyone had predicted. Turned out, Aelin had a hell of a lot more magic than everyone had originally thought. Enough to burn the world to a crisp. It had bubbled to the surface in a fit of anger (no surprise there, really), and she'd wiped out damn near half the continent. It was a good thing, Gavriel had said, they'd been standing on the other half.

Too bad, though, that Aelin's power decided to make a cameo at the end of the battle, after Maeve's armada had wiped out half of the Whitethorns' and blood slicked the once-green grass of the killing field. Too bad that it was after Evangeline had been stuck through by an arrow. It shouldn't have been a problem really; the blunt stone head wasn't sharp enough to get anywhere that would do real damage. But something strange had happened when they'd cut the shaft and pulled the head. The wound had not healed, not even when tended to by Rowan and Aelin both.

No one had known what to do when ebon decay began to creep up Evangeline's arm, replacing smooth, healthy flesh with rotting black. One sweat-soaked sleep later, and the rot had spread from the wound's mouth at the shoulder, all the way down to the bicep. Finally, after three days of pacing and yelling and running hands through hair, Rowan had pulled Aelin aside and mentioned a possible solution: a tale from when he was a boy, of another realm, one where Fae and human were separated by a wall of adamant and strange magics thrummed through the land.

Aelin, being Aelin, had ignored his warnings of danger and probable failure, and scoured the libraries endlessly. It had taken less than a day to find the book she was looking for: The Walking Dead. And there, at the bottom of a nameless page, written in swirling Wyrdmarks, was the key.

Prythian, the place was called. More specifically, Velaris. How to get there exactly, she was not sure. That was something to worry about after the whole "making-it-through-the-portal" thing.

As they edged towards to the portal, Evangeline so close she was near stepping on Aelin's feet, it took only a glance at the limp, coal-black arm for the rage to return. Damn Maeve's archers for having such rutting good aim. Damn her magic for not working. Damn whatever strange substance had been on that arrow. She struggled to hide the irritation she knew would only further worry the girl. This particular habit, Rowan liked to call "negative-ruminations."

She could almost hear his scolding voice...

You're doing it again, Aelin. Just breathe. And think about how irrational your line of thinking is.

"The rutting buzzard can go to hell," Aelin muttered.

The tightening grip around her hand made her aware that Evangeline was in fact still there.

"What did you say?" the girl asked.

"Um..." She struggled to find a suitably evasive answer. "Oh, look! A portal!" Aelin yanked suddenly on Evangeline's arm and stumbled, sending them hurtling forward into the blinding light.

#

She couldn't help but feel she was missing something.

The world was black, then stark-white. Vaguely, Aelin thought of the unadulterated white of the Stag's fur, of Terrasen, of peace... That was why she started when a plethora of blurred rainbow colors pierced the foamy calm. Consciousness brought about a pounding headache, and with it, the sound of voices.

"Should we shoot?"

A male.

A second said, "Not until the High Lord gets here."

"But our orders—"

"Were to wait for the High Lord's command," the second interrupted harshly.

If Aelin hadn't felt as drunk as that one night as Dorian's, she might've told the bossy male just where he could shove his attitude. Blinking rapidly, she groaned and ran a hand through her snarled locks of hair and frowned at the dirt that smeared across her palm.

And no bathtubs in sight.

"She's awake, sir!" the first male said, voice pitched high.

"I can see that, moron." Dripping sarcasm.

A jolt went through her as she realized what her initial unease had been caused by. "Evangeline," she murmured under her breath.

"She's speaking!" The voice had far surpassed the bar of "male tenor," and Aelin thought perhaps he would've made an impressive opera soprano in another life.

"Yes, I can see that as well—"

Patience worn thin, Aelin glanced up sharply, pushed into a seated position, and said irritably, "Would you two shut up?"

They did so, promptly. But it didn't matter much, as the swell of gathered soldiers were parting around the hulking shape of a man in gleaming armor.

Fae, she corrected herself as his face came into view. Delicately pointed ears, a mane of golden hair framing a sharp jaw and emerald eyes.

Aelin found herself nodding vaguely as he assessed her in much the same way. "Not bad," she said. "Not bad at all." A tilt of the head as she squinted. "Though, you could do to lose a few inches on the hair. It makes your nose look wider than it actually is."

The Fae blinked. His lips tightened, but he took no notice of her comment.

She didn't like that.

"I am Tamlin," he said in a honey-dripping timbre. "The High Lord. And you are trespassing on my territory."

Don't trust him.

The voice was fleeting, a brush against her ear, and she kept her face blank even as wary surprise curled in her breast. Instead, she gave him a sweet smile, refusing to give in, to even stand up in front of the brute. "Oh, really?" she asked. "And just what is this territory?"

He straightened, and it reminded her of a bird puffing its plumage during courtship. "The Spring Court," he said proudly.

"Spring?" Aelin snorted. "That's not very original, is it? I mean, you might as well name your sword Wind-cleaver, or something equally as stupid."

Tamlin spluttered. "I am High Lord—"

He has the one you seek.

"Of the Spring Court, I know." She waved a hand in front of her face. "Now," finally she stood, "If you'll excuse me, I do have somewhere else I need to be."

I'll be waiting, the tendril of dark touched her consciousness again. I will protect her.

You'd better, Aelin growled back, even though she was positive the thought fell on empty ears.

It took much longer than she'd anticipated for Tamlin to come to his senses. Longer still for his sentries to process his command to "Seize her!"

Aelin took specific delight in fleeing a mob set on killing her, and only her. There was something so much more invigorating as opposed to other kinds of mobs. Perhaps it was the fact that she was the lone target, that she had to keep an eye over her shoulder for stray arrows, or maybe it was that the surprise on their faces was so much more pronounced when they were beaten.

With a wild grin, Aelin pivoted on her booted heel and let out a shrill laugh. The frontal line of men skidded confusedly at her abrupt halt, then seemed to come to the unanimous conclusion that they were fighting an idiot, and there was no reason to question good luck. As they approached, her grin only broadened, and some had the good sense to look nervous.

Her magic burst forth in a furious explosion. Fire licked at the edges of open forest, and a wall of solid flame hurtled towards the oncoming traffic. They didn't have time to scream before her crackling power met their flesh, scorching bone and peeling skin. She was in Fae form suddenly, sprinting back the way she'd come, through the chaotic rows of shrieking males and past a blur of golden hair and tanned skin.

"Get her!" Tamlin boomed, but Aelin only smiled wider.

#

Somewhere deep in the forest—that is, deeper in the forest—an ashen-haired Fae male rested his aching everything in the safety of a tree. It had certainly been a pain to climb to even the lowest branch, what with his aching everything. The male ran a hand through his hair, scanned the horizon with onyx eyes.

The jump to another world had been terribly painful, near fatal if his battered body was anything to judge by. Deep fatigue had settled in his bones, but he fought it desperately. Danger could be anywhere, and though his arms were limp, his heart sputtering to keep up with the amount of energy drawn—

Fenrys grunted as he leapt from the tree.

His Queen needed him.

#acotar #tog #throne of glass #fenrys #aelin #rowaelin mentions #crossover #evangeline #spring court #omg please review or message or pm me or something im really nervous about this one because im so excited