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pernatius · 3 years

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Lost in Space Part 11: Ch 2

Summary: Finally, on Commander Knox’s spaceship, the trio finds themselves running out of time before the commander becomes an all too powerful Watcher.

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Both grab the doorway. Like with Ashley, both Tauvoxes were fitted with gauntlets, but theirs are fingerless. Their sheer strength bends the walls and stretches them, breaking the glass part of it. We cover our eyes from the flying of sharp, translucent material.

Shiitake grabbed Saamuki and me and shoved us down as the two of them thrust their claws at us. They ripped through the circular wall behind us, shattering the already cracking glass and tearing through the metal, and graze against Shiitakee’s arm. The cuts are minor, but he still cringes at the pain. It will take him seconds to heal, but I still am stricken at seeing his blood.

Saamuki pushes the two minotaurs away from us with her powers. She lashes a blue ray of light at them. They skid across the floor, but not too far from us because both giants grab the floor before they can be forcibly thrown any further. It’s still enough distance to give us time to get out of that cramped, broken space.

The leftover glass behind us continues to crack until it eventually shatters. Just in time yet again and yet again, it’s Shiitakee that protects us when he catches Khavas’ fist. The long, thick, and stringy vegetable tissues that make up his arms and legs expand a moment after the impact, nearly tearing apart. They contract back after when he stops sliding backward, but his body proceeds to shake from having to stop a mass triple his mass.

Shiitakee is on one knee when he asks through his whimpering, “Any of you going to step in?”

Mikrovos comes up from behind the bigger Tauvox. His shadow engulfs the wilting mushroom. He’s about to turn Shiitakee into a pancake until Saamuki blasts him. She runs over to him with glowing blue fists when he falls with a hard thud. I get out my sword again and step over to help Shiitakee, but the Tauvox he’s engaging with points his free hand at me. The gauntlet stretches and clutches me, and when I’m lifted several feet in the air, he tightens his grip until I feel my ribs cracking. I scream, flail, and try to keep my sword from slipping out of my shaking hand.

Even with my limited mobility, I try jerking my sword at my suffocating seal. It merely clinks rather than cutting me free.

Saamuki punches Mikrovos across his face, but he follows it up with his own punch. She dodges that and even catches the next one, but she doesn’t get to counter his kick. The kick from the beefy alien flings the flail alien, causing her to come barreling back towards the elevator, but she readjusts herself so that her feet hit it instead of her back—the metal dents around her feet.

Just like with Khavas, Mikrovos extends one of his gauntlets towards her. She tries blasting at it, but she’s too slow. Saamuki is grabbed too, but he swung her over us, across the room, and then let go when she passed us.

Saamuki smashes through the roof, and I am sent falling back down. We crash into the floor. Someone screams as soon as we do.

My body tried to relent. It screamed at me, but I forced it to get back up. Breathing became difficult. It is as if a Tauvox is sitting on me, pressing their mass onto my chest. Considering my chest has collapsed in on itself as I can see through blurry eyes that some pieces of ribs have pierced through my skin, of course, with my squirting blood, the feeling makes sense. Standing back up is met with slipping and falling back down face first. I still have my sword in my hand through my struggles, which I transform into a shield and get my blaster out. I try aiming it at Khavas because he’s currently engaged in a brawl with Shiitake. This is probably the first time I’ve ever seen him truly mad. Annoyed he’s been, but nothing even remotely close to this. He swings left and right, giving no time for Khavas to do anything but be his punching bag. With every swing, his fists crack, but they quickly reknit. The same is said for Khavas, but his nanites can’t process fast enough because of the downright brutal jabs. His chest is covered in bruises, a sizable second-degree burn, and his face is covered in his blood. He can’t stand anymore, and I think I can see pieces of rib have torn through his flesh as well. The Tauvox goes unconscious, hitting the floor; the out of breath victor tries cooling his smoking hands by shaking them about. Although his victory doesn’t last long. Mikrovos brings himself back into our senses, Shiitakee’s mainly, when he grabs the worn mushroom’s face.

I crawl out of that crater and limp towards them. I shoot as well, but he blocks all but one. It digs into his flesh, dispersing a clump of fur on his cheek, and twists it until it comes out of him. Mikrovos huffs then while squeezing the now squirming Shiitakee. Something takes over me. Is this what Ojos was talking about? Heart racing, everything in the room blurs but him. I don’t feel the pain anymore. I didn’t even realize I dived away from his fist and smashed the shield into his stomach, cutting into it, but as soon as the collision occurs, Shiitakee’s head explodes in his grip.

He drops the headless Shiitakee. Around Shiitakee’s twitching body is his blood gushing out of his neck and pooling underneath him. I turn back to the beast above me and look into his lifeless eyes. I shove my shield upwards. It smashes his face. His head juts back, and when he returns it forward, I see that his nose is bleeding, but I shove the shield again into his face. He growls and reforms both of his hands into blades. They are rammed towards my neck, but I shoot into his mouth, missing his spinal cord. It’s now his attention is focused on himself. Mikrovos presses down on the wound, covering the spurting blood.

I’m crying, but I’m smiling. I’m too scared to mourn yet. “It’s because of you I’m standing before you. You’ve saved my life, my dear friend, too many times. Now I am going to save yours once and for all.” My shield’s fire soars onto me. It consumes me as I transform the broad piece of metal into a war hammer. The weapon, the biggest one I’ve ever had to create, has two faces on either side as big as the Tauvox’s face. Without this invigorating feeling, I wouldn’t be able to hold this monstrous weapon upright with just a single hand. I wouldn’t be able to hold it at all.

I ready myself, widening my stance and tightening my grip. The hole in Mikrovos’ neck must’ve been patched up because he returns his focus onto me and stretches both his gauntlets towards me. I outmaneuver some and strike the rest. Shoot, too, as I’m circling around and inching closer towards him. Mikrovos evades all of them. I knew he would, and I made such a seemingly pointless effort because it made it all that much easier to get onto one of his gauntlets and dash across the rippling armor. Upon noticing how close I am to him, he tries batting me off with his other hand. I slid under it and beat my hammer on his forehead.

Another Tauvox lay knocked out. Both will get up soon, but I still head to the comrade I have left and begin to carry her away from the brutality. Upon my touch, she begins to wake up, but she’s groggy.

“S-Shiitakee...Where is he?” Her eyes move around the room until she spots what’s left of the man in question. She tears up, but she can’t bring herself to cry. I place her head on my chest. We stand there in silence as my eyes linger on Shiitakee’s lifeless body. I still can’t bring myself to cry, but I can bring myself to bring our focus back to the bright room at the end of this hallway. Both of us drag our feet.

The crystal is colossal and purple. Besides the size and color difference compared to the Tauvoxes’ spaceship, this crystal is covered in beating veins. They cover the room as well. What was once an energy source now looks to have become a parasite. Stepping inside the room validates that assumption because the two of us become weak. She’s slipping in and out of consciousness, her eyes flick from blue to its regular color, as streams of blue light emanating from her float towards the sickly rock, and now I’m having trouble keeping us both upright. When I get on my knees, she moves a trembling glowing blue hand towards me. I, in turn, grab it with a fiery one.

Our unworldly powers blend into each other and surround us, creating a rainbow-colored bubble. Our energy comes back to us, but we find out we have our backs to Commander Knox as he slowly claps. I have my blaster ready to blow off his head, and she’s ready to blast him into deep space to choke on his failure, but he grabs the two of us before we can and throws us further into the room.

We go tumbling, and as I do, I see he rips into particles. He teleports on top of me and presses down on my neck with his foot. Saamuki comes right behind him and blasts a blinding ray of light. That would’ve easily killed Cala, but Knox reaches out towards it. The blast doesn’t even scratch the metal arm. He grabs her face and throws her across the room. She goes right through the wall across from us and several others beyond it.

Knox laughs at my pitiful attempts at trying to pry him off. I feel myself growing weaker again. “I didn’t get a good look at you the last time we saw each other, cousin. What an ugly sight you are.”

“Your people have gotten this far yet none have created a mirror.”

“A true shame, isn’t it? But I don’t need one when I know the beauty I carry, centuries worth of splicing and dicing our DNA with some of the most powerful civilizations.”

“Power, but the catch was your humanity.”

He grabs my collar and lifts me up. Then, slams me into the wall directly facing us. “Your people would do the same things I have done. In fact, they have done them—wars and slavery. Our histories have always been about atrocities. It should not be a surprise a semi-human would be at the forefront of the second intergalactic war, but we’ve always done it all for a reason.

“So, now I’m here asking why you are trying to stop me? Humans have made Earth a living hell, but they’ve also made it one of the best planets in the universe. I’ve caused destruction. Beyond these walls, thousands are dying as we speak, but sacrifices must be made to make the universe a better place.

“The Lords are merely puppets. They do not care for us, but I do. Do you really think it doesn’t hurt me knowing so many are dying out there?”

I don’t respond.

“This is the part where you explain yourself before I kill you.”

“How did you even know we would be here?”

“Instead, you bring out a question rather than an answer? Fine. Relieving you of your worries is the only mercy I can grant you.

“That idiot Syco, a child that kissed the ground I walked on, has been missing my calls, so of course I began to question. I wondered for some time if he finally moved on from his daddy issues. Thankfully my suspicions were proven to be right long before you entered my ship.” He snaps his fingers. S1Y jumps down from the roof with a familiar, limp shape over his shoulder. He throws Skeema’s pummeled body towards us.

Skeema’s eyes are swollen shut, his legs are bent the wrong way, and he is covered in dried blood. He’s breathing, but barely. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled out.

Another snap of his fingers and one of S1Y’s hands impales him.

“Skeema!”

Because of the state that Virmus is in, he doesn’t relent when S1Y yanks his still-beating heart out. The robot squeezes it until it explodes. I cry out.

“There are plenty of places to hide on this ship, but there’s only so much time before a rat becomes hungry. He survived far longer than I calculated. I’ll give him that.”

Once more my fire envelopes me. I punch the Virmus’ commander square in the face with such a force he lets go of me and crashes into his crystal. He lands back on the ground with a shaking body and looks up at me with the broadest, toothy grin I’ve ever seen from anyone.

S1Y is about to engage me, but with the third snap of Knox’s fingers, the robot returns to being an audience member. Knox dusts himself off.

“All of you messed up fucks only know how to care about yourselves! You make us pawns in your sick little game, but us pawns are people just like you. We have history. We have thoughts. We have feelings. All so meaningful, precious, but it takes you to be brought to your lowest for you to finally understand that, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to cut off that stupid smile off your horrid face.”

“The outdated fighting against its perfect form?”

“More like it’s broken form.” In an instant, I’m in front of him with my longsword about to slice off his head. He stops me from doing so with just a single finger pressing against the blade. Again, not even a cut. He smirks as my eyes widen.

“I am God and in these few minutes you have left I will make you understand that.”

#230 #lost in space #my writing #writers on tumblr #writeblr

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dxrksong · 3 years

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Chapter 3 part 2

Things get real

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You all ran inside, heading to the kitchen. Things were all fine when the Jims froze at the kitchen door

Y/N: "Something wrong Jim?"

CameraJim: "Uh-well…"

Cherry pushed passed the twins

Red: "I suggest you stop beating around the bush and-"

Cherry froze as well and the moment you heard HIS voice, you knew why.

Mark: "Now now, let's not all stare at me and hold up dinner!"

Slowly Cherry and the Jims walked into the room and taking their respective seats. Eventually you had to walk in to, looking around and realizing unhappily that the only chairs that were left were either right next to him or still within arms reach.

Mark: "ah! Y/N! Just the elusive-"

You started walking away. You're not eating with him anywhere NEAR you.

Actually you might throw up if you tried. The sheer anger and disgust he makes you feel, makes you feel uneasy and anxious and just flat out nauseous sometimes.

Almost as if you had just downed a whole gallon of alcohol among other things.

Mark: "Y/N! Oh come on, don't be like that! Why won't you talk to me??"

Dark tried to say something but you drowned him out as Something snapped in your head, nothing but anger so hot it nearly broiled in your mind as You stopped, turning around on your feet sharply as you glared daggers at him

Y/N: "Oh you want to know why I won't speak to a man that's notorious for the partial blame of me being in the mirror? A man that has this downright CREEPY obsession with me when I bearly remember you? Yes, I remember SOME but that's about it. Most of the time you're just a fuzzy little memory in the back of my head that refuses to surface. And with everything I DO remember of you is nothing short of TOXIC!! So You know what?! No! No I won't speak to you!! And do you wanna know why?!"

Your voice started to crack, A ringing in your ears as you didn't bother holding back, feeling you hair stand on end and the ego's seeming to flinch at your outburst

Y/N: "You killed my friends, forced them against each other, ruined my marriage, forced everyone to go INSANE AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T HANDLE YOUR GIRL LEAVING YOU AND DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET HELP OR DROWN IN ICECREAM LIKE A NORMAL PERSON DOES AND INSTEADS GOES FOR MURDER!!! So No! No, I won't speak to you! You're just a whiney little baby that no one wants to deal with that cries all the time and doesn't bother trying to anything yourself or shuts the fuck up and DEALS WITH IT *BECAUSE YOU'RE OVER A CENTURY OLD!!!!*"

You were panting once you finished your little rant, the entire room speechless. Slowly you realized what you had done and said, Mark's face twisted in shock, surprise, and maybe just a dash of fear, Dark's surprisingly no different

Even after all this time….

Oh how you'd love to see it more. But you have important matters to attend to. You straightened yourself upright before walking away towards your room, hands behind your back to keep your posture positive even as you slowly broke down in the halls, picking up the pace once you were out of sight from them.

You can't believe you just did that! You can't believe what you just said!! A ruined marriage…? On top of all THAT?!

The poor DA…...no wonder they turned to dreaming….it's much better than out here!!

You busted into your room, slamming and locking it shut behind you. You collapsed onto the edge of your bed, burying your head into your arms as you sobbed and bawled. You just wanted this day to end already, maybe turn back time and pick a different route.

You just need more time.

"Oh child…"

"We all do…."

You looked up and you saw two very familiar shapes.

Unus and Annus

"Y-you guys..?"

They smiled warmly at you.

"Now, you may not really remember us"

"And though our time may be up"

"We got you a little something."

Unus and annus took out an hourglass, setting it in front of you, on your bed. It was black and white, the lids/roofs being in a black and white spiral with the walls being black and the skulls being white. The sand was also black too.

"To always remember us by"

"And just remember."

"Never. Forget the ticking of the clock"

You could hear it in your head, you watching the sand go down in the hourglass as the clock ticked over and over again, progressively getting slower with each second until…..

The sand stopped all together, frozen in time.

"You have a wonderful gift Y/N! Don't be afraid, to use it!"

"And remember. Don't let ANYONE tell you what you can and can't do"

You paused before smiling and nodding

"Y-yeah!.....thank you I-"

They were gone. Were they even here to begin with? You looked over to your bed, seeing the hourglass still there. You smiled once more and picked it up, setting it on your dresser.

You looked up, peering into your reflection. An empty eyed version of you looked back at you and strangely.

You didn't feel afraid

Your smile turned into a grin as you stared right into your reflection before opening your mouth and uttering your command

"Play!"

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The ego's watched tensly as Mark sat at the table. Mark wasn't really welcome here, that fight from earlier being more than enough proof of that. As the last members of the table arrived, they had given a shocked pause like the rest of them.

Mark: "Now now, let's not all stare at me and hold up dinner!"

The Jims had nodded slowly and unsurely as the Red Googleplier took it's seat. However when Y/N walked into the room, the room suddenly got more intense than before.

Y/N wanted nowhere near Mark, that much was obvious as they started to walk away from the dining room all together. The Jims were originally going to get up and join them but what happened next practically glued them to their seats.

They had seen this before, back at the manor before Y/N had woken up from their coma. A kind of feralistic energy made by sheer RAGE that cracked their body from the inside out.

Just like the broken mirror.

Except it was worse this time somehow, like a predator that had just found it's prey cornered and helpless.

Y/N screeched at the top of their lungs, the terrible ringing sound they emitted completely drowning out Dark's aura, leaving the man stunned.

But that wasn't all. Y/N's eyes…...they were dilated like a cat's, a loud growling being heard in the background of their screaming.

It hurt to hear and see all that at once as Y/N continued on. until finally….they left...leaving the room even more tense than it was before.

Wil: w-well now…..that was certainly….something.

Host: the host would like to remind Mark, Dark, and Wil about the warning the host had given the trio earlier that morning. That is no longer the same gentle Y/N from a century ago. And if you three keep pushing them they might do something you won't like.

CameraJim: wh-what about us BookJim?

Host: The host feels it IS a little nessasary to say the warning only correlates to these three as they had known Y/N longer than the rest of the manor egos.

The Jims sighed before looking at each other and nodding

MicJim: whelp, we're gonna go to bed!

Dark: Jims, what are you hiding?

The jims froze, looking at each other before looking to Dark

CameraJim: why-what ever do you mean StaticJim?

Wilford squinted his eyes

Wil: are you two hiding something from us?

Bim: mind sharing?

Blue Google: not everyday the JIMS of all people hide things. Suspicious behavior indeed.

CameraJim: wh-what???? No!! Jims would NEVER-

Dark: Jims. Where DID you find Y/N in the first place?

The Jims once again shared a glance before the one holding the camera sighed and gave up

CameraJim: we call MirrorJim 'MirrorJim' for a reason, Static-i mean *sighs*

MicJim: Jims….MAY have ignored StaticJim's advice and had gone to the spooky manor-HEAR JIM OUT!!!

Dark looked to be three seconds away from yelling.

MicJim: Jim didn't touch anything like StaticJim said but something happened with Jim's ouija board and next thing Jim knew MirrorJim had suddenly appeared!

CameraJim nodded his head vigorously

CameraJim: But something was wrong with MirrorJim! MirrorJim didn't respond to anything Jim was saying, their eyes were completely empty, and when Jim tried to get too close, MirrorJim would chase us around the house before returning to the area Jim found MirrorJim in!

MicJim: Jims stayed when Jim realized that the story was huge so Jims stayed behind despite Jim instinct and next thing Jims knew, MirrorJim had suddenly woke up!

Dark: so you knew about this the ENTIRE TIME?

CameraJim: J-Jims didn't think it was important….

Dark's aura began to ring louder and louder, the Jims flinching before running away from Dark's wrath.

Part 2

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panharmonium · 4 years

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stranger things 3, a visual summary:

more coherent thoughts under the cut, because wow.

......okay. that was a Trainwreck. an absolute mess.

i remember when my coworkers were watching S3 (and still urging me to start season 1) and they were saying how amazing the latest season was, and honestly i think there must just be a difference in people who watch tv just to be entertained and people who watch tv and automatically evaluate the story (aka fandom veterans and English majors, lol - cue Me twice), because WHO could watch this critically and praise it that way?

it's honestly hard to know where to even begin; i've been sending frustrated notes to @brambleberrycottage ever since episode three and now that i'm done with episode 8 there's just......so much more to say

first, good things:

erica is a great character. she's what max should have been (aka, uh.......interesting!) i liked the realization moment where dustin was like "you're a NERD!"

that entire sequence where will is so upset with lucas and mike for not being engaged with the dnd game was very well done, especially the conversation he has with mike out in the rain. i loved that moment where mike asked him "did you think we were just going to hang out in my basement playing games forever?" and will said, "yeah. yeah, i guess i did." i really felt that. [edit, now that i've finished: this was never resolved. will giving away his dnd books at the end was not an actual resolution to this conflict.]

steve is still a good dude, and robin was pretty cool. i'm down for them being super friends. but i'm still mourning the steve+nancy+jonathan trio that was a thing for like 5 seconds and then never returned.

i loved how genuinely excited steve was to see dustin when dustin came back from camp. that was adorable. "HENDERSON!!!!" "how many children are you friends with?"

and uh. yeah. i had more problems with this season than praise-bestowing moments, so. here goes that bit.

OVERARCHING PROBLEMS:

1. keep it simple, stupid

remember in the office when dwight quoted the above advice to ryan as michael's rule for making a sale? the same advice applies to storytelling.

season 1 of stranger things is so simple. there is One Monster. that is the danger. and somehow, that single monster manages to be a thousand times more terrifying than all of these new "bigger, scarier, more epic" threats crammed into the second two seasons.

how goofy is the stranger things season 3 plot, seriously? russians are blackmailing a small-town mayor so they can buy up land to steal power from the town while operating a secret lab under the mall to open a gate to the Upside Down (WHY?), while simultaneously a remnant of the malevolent force that was "defeated" last season has reanimated itself and is making people scarf chemicals (WHY?), and then it possesses one of them and uses that person to possess a bunch of other people in order to build itself a body made out of melted people, in order to kill el, whose only story this season is breaking up with her boyfriend, and we have to infiltrate this russian base in order to close the gate (same endgame as last season - BIG NO-NO) to kill the goo monster, except last time the "mindflayer” survived the gate being closed, so why would this even WORK, and -

the fact that there are so many "round-up/info dump" scenes where characters summarize what's going on and make implausibly accurate connections/guesses about what it all must mean is a red flag. the characters shouldn’t have to tell your story to the audience. if it's too complicated for us to keep straight on our own, it's too complicated.

the amount of energy that goes into trying to lash together a Chaos Plot with too many shaky legs leaves nothing left over for nuanced character development or mood establishment. you're constantly running to catch up to your own flimsy story before it collapses on top of itself.

2. the horror!

S1 of stranger things was the scariest thing i'd ever seen.

granted, i don't watch a lot of horror, because i don't like it. i get scared too easily and then i legitimately can't sleep. i watched a horror movie five years ago that i still think about every time the lights are off in my house. but still, ST1 was something i had never experienced before.

it wasn't creature horror, and it wasn't just suspense. it was the UNSETTLINGNESS of it all. it wasn't really about the monster. it was about the Upside Down.

the reason ST1 is so successful is because of how much we don’t know. it's the horror of not understanding what is happening, and the terror of knowing that nobody thinks it’s real. feeling like you're going crazy and being cut off from all assistance. the conspiracy and the cover-up. and the sheer unsettlingness of the whole parallel worlds things just tipped me over the edge - the idea that you can take one wrong step and then be suddenly and without warning completely off the map, simultaneously right next to the people you want to get to and also utterly beyond their reach. that was fucking scary!!!!

and they do it all with so little. i have literally never been more scared in my life than when i would see those christmas lights start flickering. and they're just LIGHTS! yes, we see the monster later, but it's the uncertainty that's most frightening. we don't understand how it arrives in our world, and we don’t know where it will show up next. it could be right next to you - on the other side. you could be standing on top of it. you just don't know. it’s like what jonathan says to nancy in her bedroom - “it can’t get us in here.” and she says, “we don’t know that.”

the later seasons of stranger things, by comparison, did not scare me at all. season two was like a zombie movie - hordes of weak enemies that you can just shoot with a gun. and season 3 was even less frightening - upping the ante and making things gorier, more explosive, and bigger just isn't the vibe they set in S1. i'm not scared of that giant goop monster. it's like godzilla. it's not horror; it's just a lot of noise.

the unsettling, "creep" factor that made season 1 so effective was gone. it just turned into a regular old monster movie, and i didn't find that particularly interesting.

3. illogical, captain

a while ago there was a wave of pushback against people complaining about plot holes, but you know what? there is, in fact, an appropriate place for us to talk about plausibility, as well as the point at which our suspension of disbelief collapses.

ST3 is a bona fide plausibility disaster. i did not believe half of the story, because it was not unfolding in a believable way.

half of the plot points in this season would not have happened if the characters had been behaving with any kind of sense. it is absolutely impossible for me to believe that none of these children IMMEDIATELY went to joyce or hopper the minute they knew something weird was going on. it makes no sense. after the shit they've seen? it makes sense in season 1, because the kids are still so young that they have that kind of magical thinking that makes all of this seem kind of like an adventure. but they're teenagers now, and developmentally, they’re past that stage. they know the evil creature is back and they're pretty sure it's possessing billy? for some unfathomable reason, they don't go to an adult, but try to trap billy in the sauna and just see what happens. the other group has actual proof that russian soldiers are up to something shady in the mall? they don't tell an adult; they send a TEN YEAR-OLD in through the AIR DUCTS to investigate the secret room guarded by MEN WITH GUNS.

this is ridiculous. none of this should have happened. none of this WOULD have happened. it breaks the boundaries of disbelief. it completely sabotages the audience’s engagement with the story - joyce and hopper's whole detour with alexei and murray is so dull, because its entire purpose is to bring hop and joyce up to speed on something that we, the audience, already know. the other characters already found out this stuff, but did not communicate it - the gate is being opened again in a russian lab underground. there's no suspense for us. nothing new is revealed. we're just waiting for them to hurry up and finish finding out so we can move on to the next thing.

moreover: there are so many other problems besides just "these characters would have talked to each other." why on earth would murray, whose sole characteristic is extreme paranoia, take alexei wandering around the festival for hot dogs and carnival games. why would hopper be so virulently against the possibility that weird shit might be happening again? does he remember the past year or what? how on earth would the kids be able to fight off that massive monster with an ax and a hunting rifle? it's made out of dead guts and bones; why does it care if they shoot it?! how in the WORLD is this russian facility so penetrable? i'm sorry, it's just - beyond believable. it doesn't have cameras? the russians guards really can't tell that murray isn't a native speaker? they don't check his id when they don't recognize him? joyce and hopper really just got that lucky, to be asked a question and have “smile and nod” be the right answer? nobody ever got shot? it's silly. it's just silly. so many things - erica uses the "Open" button to open the elevator door in order to let steve and robin and dustin inside, but once the elevator is at the bottom of the shaft, robin explains the door's inexplicable non-opening because......you apparently need a keycard to use the buttons???? THAT MAKES NO SENSE; ERICA JUST USED THE BUTTONS A SECOND AGO.

even the entire endgame of this season is a contradiction! if the mind-flayer survived el closing the gate last time, it doesn't make sense that closing the gate this time would kill it. literally the entire plot of last season was "we need to get this thing out of will, because the creature will die once the gate is closed, and we want to make sure will doesn't die with it." but apparently the creature didn't die upon closing the gate; it just got trapped in our dimension. but now apparently it WILL die upon closing the gate. for whatever fucking reason.

i'm sorry, but that’s a mess. that’s a bona fide mess.

4. watch your tone

i honestly think the tonal change is the thing that made me the most frustrated about this season. it's possible to have a terrible plot and still stay relatively true to your characters - you'll still have a bad season, but at least you didn't bastardize your characters in the process.

i had issues with S2 and i definitely was not as impressed with it as i was with S1, but at least in S2 joyce and hopper were recognizable. in S3, i felt like i was watching strangers. the tonal shift was bizarre and off-putting, more so with hopper than joyce, but it affected both of them.

even as early as the very beginning of this season, i was feeling weird about how often hopper was being used for comedy. and as the season progressed, this trend only became more pronounced. almost every scene we had of him felt silly - and not like there was just something funny in the scene for me to laugh at, but like the audience was almost being asked to laugh AT him. like he was constantly the butt of the joke.

this really bothered me. from that incredibly sincere and heart-wrenching portrayal of him in season 1, when they kept him rooted in the trauma of losing his daughter and the breakdown of his marriage, and then how that same trauma made him so driven to save will and protect the kids - what a change. even in season 2 i was frustrated how the throughline of his daughter wasn’t touched again until the very last episode, and now in season 3 we’ve left that part of him so far behind that he's just there for us to laugh at. we're supposed to laugh at scenes of him being drunk and a mess. every scene he's in is either him arguing with joyce for comedic relief or being way over the top with alexei or the mayor. he was like a caricature of himself, and i didn't recognize him.

joyce suffered from the same thing, just by virtue of proximity. she spent almost all of her time in this season with hopper, and virtually all of that time was taken up with silly shenanigans or comically overblown arguing. what a departure from the desperate mother of season 1, who was maligned by everyone in town and only taken seriously by the audience. now it’s the audience who are supposed to be chuckling at her.

i dunno. the tone shift was very dramatic, very obvious, and it impacted the entire season. are we supposed to be taking this seriously or is it supposed to be a joke? a little bit of humor to break tension can be a good thing, but when it's constant, it confuses the mood.

and i personally don't think it was appropriate or respectful to either of these characters, in this case.

SMALLER THINGS THAT BOTHERED ME:

this show has 100% hit maximum character saturation. by the end of this season there were 13 core characters onscreen at the same time, in the same scene! it’s too many people! they cannot reasonably develop that many people in the space allotted.

i still am not interested in max. i don't feel anything for her. she doesn't feel real. i don't hate her, but she's just an empty vessel, and i really do think she's superfluous to this show. i think you could remove her with very little reworking and the show would be stronger for it. (they TRIED to do something interesting with billy, and i might have cared if we had been given literally any reason to care about him previously, but there was no investment earned there. they didn't do the front-end work to make him somebody we were interested in.)

weird relationship sunderings from previous seasons. i felt very strange about jonathan barely even seeing will this entire season. i felt very strange about steve having almost zero contact with nancy. i felt very strange about joyce hardly ever interacting with her kids. all of these were core relationships - the characters were BUILT on those relationships, and they don't feel real outside of them. not seeing these characters devote time to these relationships makes it feel like i'm watching a slightly different show.

the VIOLENCE. apparently this is a beat-em-up now??? i really felt like every other scene somebody was getting beaten to a bloody pulp. there was SO much smashing and bashing and throwing people into walls and fistfights and head trauma like - first of all, i find that stuff pretty boring, and second of all, all of these people should be in the hospital.

the GORE. other people’s mileage may vary, obviously; i just didn't like that. i looked away at the scene with the rat, and all this...goopy dissolving human shit, and the stabbings, and just...general grossness level - season 1 managed to be bloodcurdlingly terrifying without any of this stuff.

i know this borders on nitpicky, but yet more medical malfeasance - another example of someone receiving an injection via the mysterious 90 degree angle neck route, plus - was anyone else losing it at the fact that steve and robin “puked up” a drug they received……..via injection?????? IT’S NOT IN THEIR STOMACHS, FOLKS! THEY CAN’T PUKE IT UP! IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT!

the complete lack of follow-up to last season. the whole S3 plotline (such as it is) feels like a weird side quest. last season seemed to be furthering the mythos and setting us up for "there are other children like el/brenner is alive" - but this season, that fact appears to have been forgotten by everyone (even el!!!) and has nothing to do with the story that we're given, which is a goofy and redundant story about russians opening a secret lab under the mall which requires us to solve the exact same problem as last season (closing the gate).

this show's inability to keep certain throughlines in its headlights/keep things visible on the periphery instead of dropping them completely and then bringing them back whenever they feel like they need it again. i already talked about hopper’s daughter as an example of this (done well in S1 and poorly in S2 and S3). another example is that scene with nancy and her mom - it’s such a good scene, and yet it misses out on so much resonance, because they completely dropped the plotline of karen feeling locked out of her kids’ lives and desperately wanting to connect with them. if they had continued to reference that throughout season 2, then this scene would have been so much more powerful. as a third example, season 3 starts with a clear context/premise, and it’s INTERESTING - the town landscape changing because of the mall, business slow to non-existent, small town discontent over big corporations moving in, hopper pressured to break up the protest against mayor kline when he should have let it proceed - and then the show just drops that entire context. you expect season 3 to stay rooted in the "our small town is being strangled by this mall" and then to eventually deal with the revitalization of hawkins, but nah. it's never mentioned again.

LASTLY:

i'm not really gonna get into hopper "dying," because he's, like...clearly not dead. but the whole situation was stupid and contrived (i was so sick of that arnold schwarzenegger lookalike by the last episode, god that whole thing was so dumb) and it's even cheaper knowing that he'll obviously be back.

what i AM gonna say is that i was livid that they brought back that peter gabriel cover of "heroes" to end this season. their use of that song in S1 blew my mind - it had me stunned with how GORGEOUS it was and just, the way it worked in that particular scene - absolutely incredible. floored me. gave me chills. to recycle it at the end of such a poorly constructed season made me so mad. yOU CAN'T MAKE ME FEEL THINGS JUST BY REUSING THIS SONG. I REFUSE TO HAVE EMOTIONS JUST BECAUSE YOU PULL OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL TRACK THAT YOU ONCE USED TO GREAT EFFECT; YOUR STORY WAS STILL TERRIBLE THIS TIME AROUND; DO NOT TRY TO TRICK FEELINGS OUT OF US THAT HAVEN’T BEEN EARNED.

and that's it. i’m sure later i’ll think of other things i neglected to mention here, but...yeah. i was not impressed.

#i finished yesterday #holy moly #interdimensional babysitters club

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blankdblank · 5 years

Text

Paint Pt 5

“There’s been another Fire. Half the building has been destroyed…again.”

“What are you looking at me for? I’ve been here the whole time!”

Sorry, been a long day, had to take a quick nap, but hope you like it all the same, tad bit of a humorous take on an invasion, brief allusion of suicide by Dior and Nimloth, other than that shouldn’t need any more warnings. :D

It was very well known that Doriath was your home now that you and Thranduil were courting. From Gondolin Thingol had moved to Lindon, leaving his grandson Dior King of those lands. In your late teen years it was time to up your training and none other than your Uncle Tulkas had been tasked by himself to do so alongside his son.

Another well known fact was the random explosions had become common place in Doriath. Sheer focus did nothing for either of your budding powers still yet to be honed in entirely, meaning archery practice put even the Isitari’s finest firework shows to shame. Wide eyed with purses lips you both watched the targets get blown to shambles and the cascade of flower petals or pinecones that would rain down for you and the far more dangerous deer fur cast on gushing bursts of power for your cousin. Each time gaining loud laughs and words of praise from Tulkas in means to hone your explosions in a bit more.

…

A distant plume of smoke signaled trouble in Gondolin, in through the door Ecthellion strode, “There’s been another Fire. Half the building has been destroyed…again.”

Peering up at the Lord speaking to another trio of guards keeping watch over you while your father and uncle had gone to answer Manwe’s call, “What are you looking at me for? I’ve been here the whole time!”

More fires were started and screams filled the breeze and soon enough the fleeing masses raced through your kingdom already packing and readying to flee themselves at word the Feanoreans had means to take this kingdom as well. Lost in the fleeing hordes you caught whispers of the taken Nobles and your path had gone against all others.

Hours you had ran hearing the dying shouts of your name from Thranduil as his family urged on ahead to safety after packing up all they had including the belongings in your room in their home after having reached that solidifying level of courting.

Ahead of you in the dimming light of the setting sun you spied the cheer filled Feanorean forces beginning to divide what remained as spoils for a sort of celebration. Taking the back paths you crept your way through the city pointing others hiding still onwards to safety in your path to the inner circle.

Leaping up a series of mingling arches under the much taller roof aided in your sneaking through the palace following the sniffles and hushed whispers of Elwing’s to her younger twin brothers, Elured and Elurin. Unfortunately weaponless you made a stop at the kitchens due to the armory having been emptied in the fleeing when the attacks began. Nipping at your lip you peered around and with all the knives having been taken out for carving what food they had hunted along the way. Subtly behind the backs of two Noldor soldiers you leaned forward folding your hand around the handle of a cast iron skillet you raised and carried out of the opening you had entered from above the arches to make your way after the sniffles and cries.

It didn’t take long and wasn’t hard to find where they were being kept. Atop the arches you spied Dior and his wife Nimloth both on the edge of the balcony with tears filling your eyes as they blatantly refused to hand the silmarils over, their statements laced with tips on where their children were being held. Turning away at the locking of their hands you hurried away in their joint leap backwards into the ocean below.

Above a small dead end hall you inhaled deeply and focused your energy on the vase at the end of the hall that flew from one side to the other crashing against the stone shattering luring the guard away from the door to inspect what had happened. A glowing butterfly behind his back freed the keys from his belt loop and you crept across the archway through another small opening into the apartment suite in the Royal Wing far enough away they wouldn’t hear their parents’ screams or cries of agony. Between sniffles Elured tilted his head back in a chocked sob for air landing his eyes on you and your finger raised to your lips keeping Maedhros, who was pacing along the wall oblivious to your place here. Creeping down a sudden swing of the skillet when he turned again sent him into the wall after a heavy crash of metal echoing in the now silent room.

Hastily you tore the tether holding back the curtains and flopped him onto his stomach to bind his arms and legs together in a far from escapable contraption. More bindings were found and you untied the children helping them into a cupboard along the wall where you asked them, “Could one of you do me a favor?” The trio nodded and you said, “I need one of you to scream, loud as you can.”

One by one each of the Sons of Feanor who had marched on you fell to your now badly dented skillet, and into a series of trunks you managed to drag their bodies into they were locked. The now floating trunks followed you through a back series of halls leading out to the empty stables, inside which you found a wagon you loaded up. Peering around you eyed the horses ridden here in the invasion in the distance all being brushed by their owners, wetting your lips you tried to think of a way to separate some of them only to turn your head at the sound of hooves tapping on the stone floor turning your head. Peering upwards you eyed the pair of Bull Moose that lowered their heads to you and the children and lined themselves up to the wagon for you to strap them onto it. Carefully you hid the children under an armored tarp on the back then hopped up onto the back of the left Moose in the absence of a seat on the wagon.

Heavy hooves was all the Feanoreans heard and splitting at the roars of the charging moose their horses could never dream to outrun they let you, just another escapee in their minds take what you had stolen to race off into the wilderness. From Gondolin to Doriath you rode, and there atop the hilly entrance of your now abandoned city you heard the soldiers in the city behind you screaming out in fear as a giant row of waves began washing into the city toppling its towers triggering a flight of their own. Lowly you whispered, “We better go.”

The curious Moose, now remembering the innocents on their backs turned to charge off again following the tracks of those who had fled days prior, slowing only to pick up straggling women and children that had hidden or gotten left behind in the confusion. Now free from their hiding place the trio of silver haired heirs to Thingol sat atop Maglor’s trunk with hair whipping behind them watching a path clear and the trees behind you shuffle to close in worsening the path of any foes behind you at the sound of the roaring waves careening through the lands you had just fled.

Nearly two days the Doriathian and Gondolian Elves had raced with all they could carry and in their resting try for a meal gasps stirred up as they all turned to watch the kingdoms in the distance sinking and collapsing into the oceans. Heavy hooves sounded and screams rose up in the panicking Elves who found their feet again readying to flee. “They have caught us!!”

“Run!!”

“Everyone-,”

The roar of the Moose under you halted those movements as it came paired with the swooping of multiple brightly colored flocks of birds announcing your approach causing Thranduil to leap up from his place atop the wagon holding your belongings to race through the sea of Elves parting for him to do so. Heavy crashes came with the scent of dirt sent up in the skidding stop of the Moose panting to calm themselves and wide eyed Thranduil eyed the pair. Your leap down brought his eyes to you and straight into his chest you crashed in a tight hug as the rest of the crowd let out gasps and cries of joy that the trio of heirs and those forgotten had been found, the latter leaping down to race to their own families.

Pulling back Thranduil’s hands cupped your cheeks and his eyes looked over your face, “Please, never do that again.”

A weak chuckle came from you before you said, not just to him but the others around you falling silent at your voice, “The land is sinking. We must cross that ridge by nightfall, or we sink with it.”

The distance was eyed and nods rippled through the crowds with all unable to keep the pace loaded atop the wagons and carriages for the long train of Elves more than agreeable to the final stretch to go still with the promise of safety. Behind you on the wagon Thranduil sat as you rode your Moose, his questions about all you had done and seen confirmed with the face indented bloody skillet on the floor at his feet as he broke off pieces of his pack of lembas to split between the Nobles passing around his canteen.

Lindon had been found and the Grey Havens had taken up the overfill, Thingol lavished praise onto you for saving his kin and all through the celebratory dinner your head kept turning to glance off in the distance. Night had found you in an apartment shared with Thranduil and his family, though morning had brought you to the balcony overlooking the garden in which the stirring captives of yours had been stirring. One by one they eyed the butterflies resting peacefully on the ground until they each tried to escape when they would be attacked and frightened back to their former places until you and Cirdan had come to an agreement. The glowing gems they had searched for were theirs, but alone they stood in this Elven haven and under heavy watch to keep them from attacking again.

Calls from the East loaded you back on your wagon, and in the hundreds of thousands Elves followed after you wondering where your heart would settle down roots. Thingol would soon fall, for his own greed, and under the guard of Melian, his wife, the trio was transferred back to your care alongside the Silvan Elves who clung to your rule instantly through Oropher until you were wed and considered old enough to rule alone. The explosions of your training began again, and before long ceased in your growing control. Still war found you in Melkor’s rise alongside his pupil Sauron, both of whom were floored to see the band of brothers among your ranks all bent on bringing them down.

The arrow dream again tore you rather abruptly from sleep and straight to the King’s room again you went. The silence inside had you creeping inside peering through the hall into each room until your eyes fell to the hot spring sunken tub fed by a waterfall, the absence of an answer clearly explained by the King’s head currently under the waterfall rinsing his hair. Over to the edge you strolled and waited, lowering to sit cross legged on the edge of the tub.

A second glance back in the search for the floating soap try had him winding up his hair he wrung out in his stride across the tub, “Another dream? Or was it the same one?”

Wetting your lips you replied, “I remember how Doriath and Gondolin were sunk.”

He nodded and laid his hands on either side of your legs, “Yes, that is one of the more troubling memories we have shared.”

“What, happened? To Feanor’s kids? The ones I kidnapped?”

Thranduil smirked, “They are in Lindon still, where we left them, under Cirdan’s watch.”

“Do they hate me?”

The frankness and rapidity of the question stirred a deep chuckle from him and he shook his head, “Not at all. There was a grudge, at first, but after the Great Wars and our truce we became quiet irreproachable friends.”

“But, I kidnapped them.”

Making him smile adoringly at you, “No less than they deserved for ransacking Gondolin after attacking that harbor. You reminded them of their path and aided alongside Tulkas in the destruction of Melkor. In fact, if I might shed a bit more light, your introduction to that particular set of Lords is mostly why Lady Galadriel is so spotty on her wish for your company. While Lord Celeborn has written to me almost daily and has expressed a wish to come visit you.”

Partially not understanding what he’d said you wet your lips in another brief nod then asked, “The twins, and Elwing?”

Thranduil chuckled lowly, “Have lived here since the passing of King Thingol.”

“They live, here? I’ve seen them?!”

He nodded and cradled your cheek stilling your body’s rush to shift into full panic attack mode, “When Elves return it is a universal gesture for those of us knowing them in their previous life to simply wait until we are remembered naturally. You will know them at once in time. We can wait.” Leaning in he pressed a warm kiss to your cheek closing your eyes, “Now, let me climb out and dress, I will write to Lindon and have our friends travel to see us. No doubt by then you will have remembered more.” You nodded and kept your eyes closed deepening his grin in his move to pull to your side and climb out to dry and tug on his sleeping pants. Ruffling the towel through his hair behind you he missed the opening of your eyes threatening to fill with tears at the weight of all your questions, mostly those revolving him, you and Legolas.

“Were we happy?” That question made him freeze and turn to you at the sadness bubbling in your voice, “Before I died? All of us?”

Tossing the towel away he crossed to you and knelt behind you back scooping you up into his chest where he lulled your eyes shut again in another warm kiss to your cheek before he hummed, “We still are.” You nodded and sniffled in the easing of his arms more around your center shifting you to nearly be in his lap almost, “Come with me, off to bed, I will hold you.” Lifting you bridal style in his rise the King peppered your cheek with kisses all the way to bed, where he had done as he’d said, laid out with you draped across his side in his arms, how you had chosen to lay.

Peering up at him his adoring gaze deepened into yours as you said, “I’m so sorry I don’t remember all of you.”

He shook his head, “You do. Somewhere in your heart you do. Do not fret over it. I have you here, in my arms, all I need.”

“I will try to hurry my memory along.”

Thranduil chuckled saying, “Please do not do that, every time you are rushed, there are fireworks.”

“Is that why no one had offered to train me in archery yet?”

Thranduil chuckled again, “My Darling Starlight, if you wish to train I will give you a lesson myself in the morning. Best wait till sun up before the fireworks begin.”

“You are sure no one’s afraid of me?”

He chuckled and nodded, “Only Meadhros,” making your head tilt to peer up at him and his chuckling smirk, “But only when you have a skillet in your hand. His nose is still a bit crooked after you dented it with his face.” Making you giggle and nuzzle up against his side, focusing on his heartbeat as you buried your doubts and questions of how you truly knew the King and his son, the two most visibly pained in your amnesia.

“What about the Moose? What happened to them?”

“They are also waiting patiently, we can see them in the morning if you wish.”

You nodded again and in your rapid inhale to ask another question he shifted to mold more around you with a deepening grin eager to hear all you were trying to remember of your previous lives. “Why do I remember catching you proposing to one of my Moose?”

A deep laugh left the King and he purred back, “I was nervous. When you remember more of our lives I will give you all the finer details.”

All –

@himoverflowers, @theincaprincess, @aspiringtranslator, @sweeticedtea, @ggbbhehe4455, @thegreyberet, @patanghill17, @jesgisborne, @curvestrology, @alishlieb, @jogregor, @armitageadoration, @fizzyxcustard, @here2have-fun, @lilith15000, @marvels-ghost, @catthefearless, @imjusthereforthereads, @c-s-stars

Hobbit/LotR – @abiwim, @jotink78, @pastelhexmaniac

X Thranduil - @evyiione, @sweetlytenacious25, @tigereyesf, @pastelhexmaniac

#Theincaprincesswritingchallenge #30daywritingchallengebytheincaprincess #hobbit #lotr #Thranduil x Reader OC

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professordrarry · 5 years

Note

Prompt: Drarry Person 1- “that’s not what you told me the other day/night.” Person 2- “Okay, well, it’s what I’m telling you now.”

#ministry chaos, part seven

For the first time in all his time in the city, Draco is glad that he lives in London. There are few places where a curry could arrive at your door at midnight, unquestioned and as delicious as at a more appropriate time. Potter had not been kidding about starving; he didn’t even have a few stale crackers shoved in the back of a cupboard.

They ate sitting up in Harry’s bed. Later, Draco would probably find this gross. Right now, he was not really up for a discussion of anything that involved leaving the warm comfort of this miniature world they had suddenly entered.

Harry was not wearing a shirt. All other conversations could wait.

Harry had grown suddenly shy in the late hours of the afternoon. Sleep had engulfed them both, and apparently, waking up had rumpled and unsettled the man - whose eyes, Draco noted, were a more complex golden green when he wasn’t wearing his glasses.

“This is truly terrible food,” Draco muttered through a mouthful of naan.

Harry laughed. “Pickings were slim. Shut up. I would have had food if someone hadn’t finally decided to grow a pair.”

“I’ll have you know, I liked you first.” Draco glared at Harry, who just smiled in response.

“Whatever, pretty boy.”

“How dare you,” Draco teased. “Calling me pretty, with those fucking eyes.”

Harry laughed again and threw his food container on the nightstand. He collapsed back onto his pillow and shifted to stare at Draco.

“You still think you’re no good for me, huh?” he asked quietly.

“I think we’re no good for each other,” Draco replied, pushing food around with his fork. “Also, I don’t mean to make this…you know, awkward and everything but—”

“If you’re going to tell me you don’t want to keep doing this, would you mind waiting until you aren’t in my bed? Like, tomorrow even.”

Draco looked at Harry expecting to find him joking. Instead, he found a vulnerability that broke his heart. “Silly man,” Draco said, putting aside his own dinner and shuffling down under the covers until he was face to face with Harry. “I just wanted to say. I won’t do casual. I’m terribly jealous and kind of an asshole, and I’m far too old to not just admit that. So I don’t know what you want from me now that I’ve finally done you’re little ‘push you up against a wall’ thing, but…anyway.”

Draco closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He was not normally this shy; Potter discombobulated him and it should probably be more of a warning sign to him than it was.

Suddenly, a kiss was placed gently on his nose. “Technically it was a door,” Harry whispered. “I am a thirty-one-year-old divorced dad of three. Do you really think I want casual?”

“Well, I don’t fucking know. We’re only in this mess because I screwed a couple of — oh, shut up Harry. Merlin, you’re worse than Pansy.”

“Well, you’re the one who just used the word ‘screwed’,” Harry replied, shuffling back and standing up. He picked up both containers of food and started to walk out of the room. “It’s late and you should stay. There’s a new toothbrush under the sink. You smell like curry.”

“So do you!” he called after a chuckling Harry. Still, a grin stuck itself firmly on his face as he wandered to the bathroom.

Saturday morning found Draco warm and cosy and unwilling to move for anything; the blanket was the perfect weight and Harry, though not quite touching him, radiated just enough heat to be a steady presence.

Ron Weasley, on the other hand, seemed to have decided this was unacceptable. At approximately nine that very morning, the fireplace in the corner of Harry Potter’s large bedroom flared with green light and a large, red-headed man stepped into the room in full Auror regalia.

“We’ve solved the pixie mystery,” he announced loudly, startling Harry bolt-upright. “You two both need to get into the Ministry, right now. There’s a debrief in Malfoy’s office in fifteen minutes.”

“Um, Ron?” Harry wheezed.

“Yes, I have in fact noticed that Draco Malfoy is half-naked and in you’re bed at nine in the morning, Harry. I am after all an Auror,” Ron snapped. “And normally, I’d be mortified and leaving to go and scrub my own eyes out with the business end of a toothbrush. But right now, I mean it. You both need to get up and get going right now.”

“Yes, well, Auror Weasley,” Draco interrupted. “We are more than happy to comply. But I suspect Harry’s protests here are more related to the fact that we are not half-naked.”

Ron blushed the deepest shade of scarlet Draco had ever seen and immediately whirled around to face the fire. “Right, um, erm, yeah. I’ll just. I’ll sort myself. I’ll…see you soon.”

“See you soon,” Harry laughed.

They stepped into Draco’s office in the midst of complete and total anarchy. Every Minister in the department was crammed into the too-small space and were all, it seemed, trying to speak at once. They both watched for a moment before Harry cleared his throat very pointedly. Miraculously, everyone fell silent a moment later, and the crackle of sheer power was back in full force; Draco had to look away. The idea of seeing that energy in Potter? Well.

They were at work.

“Sorry to interrupt, but this is Mr Malfoy, and as we are standing in his office, I feel it would be prudent to get him up to speed, don’t you think, Ministers?”

Ron stood up from where he had been leaning on Draco’s replacement desk and proceeded to explain the situation. As he spoke, Harry became more and more incredulous, and Draco had to fight the urge to laugh.

“Ron, just. Stop there for a moment,” Harry finally interrupted, holding up a hand. “You mean to tell me that all nine—nine—of these pixie infiltrations over the past six months—which, may I just remind you, have been under investigation by no fewer than four departments of dark magic. Those attacks can all be attributed to an infestation of fucking woodlice?!”

“Unfortunately,” Ron nodded. “Yes.”

“And furthermore,” Harry said, his voice reaching a whole new level of volume that sent a shiver down Draco’s spine. “That the Ministry has been aware of the problem for well over a year?”

“It would seem that way,” Ron agreed. “I only discovered the issue because my new desk fell apart all of a sudden. The Pixies were just attracted to the offices because they eat them.”

Harry, as everyone could see, was furious. He whirled around and began advancing, ever so slowly, on one, small, bald man, who seemed to already know what was coming for him.

“I should hope that such a monumental oversight,” Harry growled. “Of the sort that has paused Ministry transfer requests and halted budgets, warrants a full investigation, Minister Crowly.” The small man nodded vigorously. “I also expect full compensation for the three months of lost pay for all those whose requests were unduly delayed,” Harry added, spinning on his heel.

“Now. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. Auror Weasley and his wife, and Mr Malfoy and I have a very important brunch to expense on company time.”

With that, Potter waltzed from the office in a full billowing of robes; Draco beamed at the stunned Ministry officials and Ron saluted as they both followed Harry out of the office.

“I take it back,” Ron said as they all took the stairs two at a time. “You may continue to sleep with my best friend.”

“That’s not what you said the other day,” Harry laughed.

“Yeah, well, I’m saying it now,” Ron replied. “That was fucking brilliant. I’ve been waiting for you to tell off Crowly for years!”

“How is that because of me?” Draco grinned, catching Harry’s hand in his own.

“Whatever, mate, I know what I know.” Ron grinned and flung an arm across Harry’s shoulders. They made for a rather cumbersome trio of grown ass men cackling their way out of the Ministry building. “I can’t wait to tell Hermione!”

The End

#ministry chaos #drarry #drarry drabble #you thought i'd forgotten abou the pixies didn't you

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yumie-yagi · 6 years

Text

Memories post

Gonna try and do this in order

-All Might hoped I was quirkless because he didn't want me to feel like I had to fill his shoes, since his legacy is nigh impossible to live up to.

- opening the door to the house and hearing Nighteye screaming into the answering machine not to go inside

-being frozen in fear while watching AFO vs All Might round 1. There was a lot of fire... All might got his injury protecting me from All For One and Nighteye picked me up and ran so that I wouldn't see All Might die because he really thought he was gonna

- opening the summons letter from U.A. saying that I was recommended for the hero exams. All might was drinking cola out of the 2 liter bottle when I told him and he spat blood and cola across the kitchen it was pretty funny. We found out later that Nighteye recommended me. All might was a bit annoyed because he didn't want me being a hero since he didn't want me to get hurt like he did.

- I made some lunches for Deku when he was training with All Might but I never actually met him until school started but even then he never knew I was All Might's daughter

- tiptoeing around the fact that I was All Might's kid during class was great because I just "dadd- I MEAN MR. ALL MIGHT, HOLY SHIT!"

- I got split off with Deku and Mineta during the USJ incident and Shigaraki would have killed me if it weren't for Aizawa. I owe him my life

- it wasn't until the USJ incident that everyone learned All Might and I were related because I couldn't help but panic like "daddy are you okay?!" Everyone was thoroughly confused, like "how?" Because I was 5'2" and 115lbs soaking wet, not to mention our dispositions were entirely different

- I fought Todoroki in the sports festival and got him to use his left side and lost because I had a flashback of the first AFO vs All Might

- my 1 week internship thing was spent(unfortunately) with Endeavor

- Nighteye used to text me stuff and warn me about things like once he text me and told me to go to the back corner of a store and the second I did a truck came through the front of the store

- I was put in a Trio with Deku and Bakugo for the final because I would likely get them to band together and because I myself refused to go all out in class because I didn't want to hurt my class mates. Aizawa figured if those 2 were in trouble I'd step in to help them and he was right. I came up and hit All might 4 times in his left side and then threw him through a building(sorry dad)

- Nighteye text me not to go to camp but I did anyways and was subsequently kidnapped by the League of Villains

- AFO had a very one sided conversation with me in which he convinced me it was my fault all might got hurt so badly. I was so scared I couldn't move and by the time the fear wore off he's taken down the pros. I went and sucker punched him and he broke my left arm and right collar bone. Then when the league showed up tomura tried to kill me. I had to fight through the pain and punched Tomura so hard I broke my right arm and shot him into the warp tunnel. Later AFO used me as a shield basically before throwing me behind All Might and I got impaled on 2 pieces of rebar, one through my thigh and the other through my chest.

- I was plagued with nightmares after all that and when we moved into the dorms I ended up crawling in bed with Aizawa in the middle of the night once but mainly I ended up wandering into Deku's room. Maybe it was all the All Might merch? I mean, I usually did go into all might's room when I had nightmares before they instated the dorms. Long story short everyone thought Deku and I were a thing and when All Might heard the other girls talking about us he just said "soooo... Midoriya huh?"

- I fought gang orca while Todoroki and Yoarashi fought each other

- I sent a picture of my liscence to All Might and he replied in a group text to me and Deku "you fucking weebs"

- when we fought Mirio as a class and he popped up out of the ground butt naked I dropped to the ground, covering my eyes and yelling "I yield! I yield! I yield! For the love of God just put some clothes on!!"

- I never knew Mirio knew Sir until he, Deku and I were walking to his office, I remember telling Deku not to let Sir intimidate him and he was like "is he that scary or something?!" And I replied "oh He's something alright!"

- Sir Nighteye was certainly more comfy with his quirk in my canon than he was in the source, because he would text me and warn me about dangers before they happened. However he thoroughly believed my kidnapping that instigated the first AFO vs All Might fight and All Might's injury were his fault I also think he believed that deaths were the only things set in stone by his quirk.

- I wanna say I fought Rappa? And won?

- I saw Nighteye get impaled by Chisaki and the sheer devastation I felt... The amount of energy pouring off of me from One For All was causing small rocks to float and will around me. I beat Chisaki into submission and proceeded to crush every bone in his hands... The worst part was he was incapacitated so he was no longer a threat to anyone I feel horrible about it... If Nighteye hadn't willed himself back into consciousness and begged me to stop I probably would have killed him. Chisaki likely never used his hands again.

- After Nighteye flat lined I collapsed to my knees and me and mirio sat there on the floor hugging and crying for like 5 whole minutes while All Moght knelt behind us and hugged us and cried too.

- Monoma intentionally triggered my PTSD during the joint training we did by saying "what are you still doing here? How can you still call yourself a hero when you caused the death of the symbol of peace?" I started hearing All For One's voice in my head telling me it was my fault over and over again and that I crippled All Might. He nearly copied my quirk but I turned and ran before he could. I booked it out of there so fast aizawa couldn't erase my quirk to stop me. I locked myself in my dorm room and Iida came and calmed me down. I unlocked the door and he hugged em so tight it felt like he was never letting go.

-sometime after Nighteye's death Mirio, Iida and I got into a polyamorous relationship.

-when we were established heroes Mirio and I were working together. We were on top of a building and I felt a bit anxious as I looked down the side of the building. I looked over at Mirio and he smiled at me and all the anxiety faded. The sun was like half way below the horizon so the sky was a nice orange color and his face was lightly shadowed. It was a nice memory.

Last updated 1/4/19

#yumie speaks #kin memories #bnha kin #my hero academia kin #all might kin #deku kin #fiction kin

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dancingkirby · 5 years

Text

In which Bolin plays with toys and Eska fails at flirting

I’m going to have to think up a title for this story soon. I was thinking maybe “Into Open Waters.”

“How dare she? How dare she?”

Eska paced around the room, trying her hardest to keep her voice low so as not to disturb Kinalik. The stress of the previous sleepless night, their escape in the wee hours, the sheer physical effort required to waterbend all the way to Republic City with a toddler and luggage in tow, the energy required to interact with people in a strange place…all of it was consuming her.

She collapsed in a chair, her body shaking and angry tears streaming down her face, which made her feel all the worse; like she was no more mature than her daughter.

Did their courtiers think that the twins did not hear the snickers and whispers of “half breed?” And yesterday…they had all looked at Kinalik like she was a monster. They felt that their only option was to get her out of there.

“I was trying to explain, but she wouldn’t listen!” she moaned to her brother.

“Perhaps she felt the same about you,” Desna offered cautiously.

“Perhaps,” Eska muttered, making an enormous effort to control her crying. “I have no harsh feelings towards our cousin’s significant other; she is not nearly as uncouth as the others. I was just…trying so hard not to cry in front of them that I forgot to thank her. People only seem to care about what I do incorrectly; not what I do the appropriate way. Yes, I know you are an exception, brother,” she hastily added to ward off his protests. She furiously scrubbed the tears away.

“I recommend that we go to sleep right now and ponder the matter further in the morning,” Desna said.

“Yes…that would probably be wise.”

Eska was worried that she’d have problems falling asleep like she often did in locations that weren’t home. However, the rhythm of Kinalik’s breathing soothed her, and the trio was soon huddled together in a deep slumber.

When Eska woke up who-knows-how-late in the morning, her back was throbbing in pain. She supposed it was to be expected with all the exercise and lifting that she did yesterday. Even attempting to roll over caused her to moan. Thankfully, Desna had already awoken, and was ready with the bowl of water. He and Eska silently healed each other, then Eska also healed Kinalik, who was uninjured but wanted to do what the grownups were doing. It didn’t get rid of all the pain, but reduced it enough to allow her to perform the usual morning functions and help Kinalik with hers.

When they got downstairs to the breakfast room, Korra was sitting there alone. She had finished her own meal, but there was still a pot of tea and a plate of steamed buns filled with bean paste on the table. Eska was impressed to see that they’d remembered about Kinalik’s noodles, and that the child’s chair had a pile of cushions on it in lieu of a booster seat.

“Asami’s in the shower,” Korra said in response to their unspoken query. “She likes to fiddle around in her workshop first thing in the morning when she’s feeling upset.”

Even Eska could tell that the last few words were pointed. “Hm,” was all she could trust herself to say in response as she grabbed a bun.

“Does she eat anything else?” Korra asked, referring to Kinalik. That was a somewhat safer topic, at least.

“Rice. Eggs. Apples peeled and cut to slices exactly ¼ inch thick. Arctic hen. Some types of fish; she seems to change her mind about exactly which types by the day,” Eska answered. She stopped to think. What else was there?

“We have been having modest success in getting her to eat kelp,” Desna reminded.

“Oh yes. The first time she ate that was a triumphant occasion indeed. And before you ask, cousin, we do give her a daily multivitamin.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Korra said quickly. She took a sip of her tea and said, “I wonder if she’d like Narook’s? They have a kid’s menu.”

“Is it noisy?”

“Dinner can be…lunch is usually quieter.”

“We will consider it.”

They were spared from doing further chatting for the moment by Asami entering the room, fully dressed but with a towel wrapped around her head. Korra looked at Eska expectantly.

Eska supposed that this was her cue to apologize. Damn it. She’d never cared about the feelings of anyone outside of her family before.

“I’msorry,” she mumbled while looking down at her hands. This seemed to satisfy the requirements for now.

“It’s okay,” Asami said. “I know you must have been under a lot of stress. Now, is this enough food for you? We could have the cook make something hot…”

“This is sufficient,” Desna assured her.

Asami sat down as well and got her own breakfast, and apparently decided that it would be best to get right to the point.

“So…Korra said that you were concerned about Kinalik’s safety…”

“That is one way to phrase it.”

“So exactly how deep into hiding did you want to go?”

Good question.

“We hadn’t thought things through that far yet,” Desna admitted. “All we were hoping for was to buy a few days of time to strategize. That was why we chose not to stay at a hotel.”

“Simply arriving at this destination was the main objective. They will discover our location sooner or later, but I doubt that they would take our lives here. Nevertheless, we should take precautions,” Eska added.

Korra and Asami stopped to think, and then Korra said, “Well, you do have one thing going for you. You’re fairly obscure. Probably all that most people in Republic City know about you is that you’re those creepy twins.”

Eska clenched her jaw, and willed the angry words ready to spring from her back down her throat. She didn’t want another argument to start so quickly. Desna appeared to be having a similar struggle, but was able to state in an even tone, “We do like our privacy.”

While they had been talking, Kinalik had finished her noodles and was getting bored.

“Down!” she commanded. Eska rose to help her off the cushions, and sat back down with her daughter in her lap.

“And that’s another thing,” Asami said. “I didn’t even know of Kinalik’s existence until yesterday, and I don’t think Korra did either.”

“They may have mailed something,” Korra said. “But I was kind of distracted at the time.”

“We did air a birth announcement on the radio,” Eska remarked. Granted, it had run only once. At 6 AM. Neither the twins nor their advisors had wanted to call much attention to it.

“Well, anyway, if all that the general public knows about you is that you’re twins, we’d want to make you look as unalike as possible. Plus, the weather’s much too warm right now for your regular wardrobes. We’ll need to shop for new clothes, and one of you might have to cut your hair.”

Asami looked over at Desna, but Eska quickly said, “I’ll do it.” Desna had done so much for her; it was only fair that she should be the one to make this sacrifice.

“I have to go get the rest of my stuff this morning, but…hold on, let me write this down,” Korra said.” She retrieved a notebook and pencil from a side table.

“Asami, could you take them downtown this afternoon? I’ll probably want to rest, and you’re the one with the style sense. And um…I still can’t drive that well.”

“Sure, but maybe one at a time? Whoever is after them would be looking for twins.”

“No prob. Desna, you okay with waiting until tomorrow?”

“Whatever you think is best,” Desna answered, albeit apparently with some unease about them being separated. The twins squeezed hands under the table.

“Bolin might want to join us,” Asami remarked. “You know how he is about makeovers.”

“Oh, yeah, whoops, I forgot about Bolin. And we were going to do a proper introduction today.”

“I wonder…” Asami trailed off as Korra scribbled away.

“Hm?”

“I was just thinking about how to make all this more pleasant for Kinalik. I think I have an idea. You go over to Air Temple Island. I can take care of arranging things.”

“’Kay, love you.”

They kissed. Eska was relieved. All of the talking had been making her dizzy.

After Korra had finally departed, Asami got Eska, Desna, and Kinalik situated in the living room. Unlike the more formal parlor they’d seen on the tour yesterday, this room was stocked with comfortable furniture, which was a blessing for Eska’s back. It was decorated with plush carpeting, wooden paneling, several paintings, and a tall bookcase in the corner. Eska made a beeline for the latter and thumbed through the selection.

While Eska was busy with her browsing, Asami used one of the mansion’s many phones to call Bolin.

“So what do you think about coming over here shortly? Makeovers may be involved.”

Eska could hear Bolin’s shriek of joy from clear across the room. Asami had to hold the receiver at arm’s length until he calmed down.

“I take it that’s a yes? Okay, what time? Yeah, I think we can do that. So see you…oh? What is it?”

She listened for a few seconds, then said, “Well, I’ll ask them,” and covered the receiver with her hand.

“Eska, Desna, Bolin says that Opal wants to come meet you. Is that okay?”

Eska was intrigued in spite of herself. She wanted to see just what sort of powerful woman had managed to ensnare her ex’s heart.

“It is all right with me. Desna?”

“Me as well.”

“Great!” exclaimed Asami. She turned back to the receiver and said, “That’s a yes from both of them. See you in a few, then? All right. No, Pabu had better stay at your apartment this time. Bye.”

She hung up the phone, then left the room, saying vaguely that she had to “get things ready.”

Eska, in the meantime, had found several recent issues of Republic City Style. She had first encountered this publication in the storage room of the library back home, and knew that it was trash, but had been unable to stop reading these chronicles of uncivilized famous people and their clothing. And it definitely wasn’t because she was jealous of them and their hedonistic lives! No, if ever asked, she would claim that it was simply anthropological studies.

“All right, let’s see who Ginger is dating now,” she murmured as she sat down to look at the pictures with Kinalik.

“May I have one?” Desna asked.

“You may.”

They were deeply engrossed in their reading material, with occasional snorts of incredulity from the twins and squeals of “Pretty!” from Kinalik, when they heard something being hauled down the stairs and dragged into the living room.

“I found that box of t-o-y-s that I was telling you about yesterday!” Asami said as she beamed. She had removed her towel, and looked no worse for wear from the exertion. Eska wished that she could look that put-together.

“So I was thinking that Bolin could help Kinalik look through these, and that maybe she would warm up to him more if she associated him with a positive thing like that.”

Kinalik perked up at the mention of her name. Eska thought that this was actually a clever idea, and wished that she could have thought of that herself.

“Shall we see what is contained in here?” Eska asked Kinalik. Her daughter didn’t answer verbally, but appeared happy for the first time since they’d left the palace.

As Asami left to get some scissors with which to open the box, the doorbell rang. The door was opened shortly thereafter, presumably by the butler…what was his name again?

“We have arrived!” Bolin announced as he bounded into the living room, followed closely behind by Opal. “And…hey neat, what’s that?” He gestured at the box.

Asami explained her idea to him as Kinalik removed the first item from the box: a stuffed animal in the form of a cat-owl.

“Great, sounds great!” Bolin enthused as made to sit down right next to Kinalik, then caught himself in time and picked a spot a respectful couple of feet away.

Asami had certainly never been lacking in any amusement as a child; Eska felt a twinge when she remembered how her own toys had been taken away when she wasn’t too much older than Kinalik. There were stuffed animals of all sorts (yes, including a turtleduck and a koala otter), dolls, and Satomobile models. Thankfully, nothing was in that box that would pose a choking hazard; Eska presumed that Kinalik was smart enough not to put toys in her mouth, but one never knew for sure.

Kinalik was insistent on doing the unpacking herself, and kept most of the toys to herself, but every so often she would shyly offer one to Bolin.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed at her latest offering of a stuffed animal that was so worn that Eska couldn’t even tell what it was supposed to be. “Do you wanna know something, Kinalik? I don’t remember what toys I had when I was your age. I wish I did. So this is really as exciting for me as it is for you!”

Kinalik scrunched her nose, and either because she didn’t know how to respond or didn’t have the words, settled for “Okay.” But she did hand over a toy truck to him.

“Oh, she’s just adorable!” said Opal, which slightly startled Eska because she’d been so focused on the scene across the room. She was seated at the opposite end of the couch from the twins.

“Yes,” Eska answered. She and Desna switched places so that there would be no one between Eska and Opal. Then she remembered.

“I have on my possession a copy of Kinalik’s birth certificate,” Eska stated as she took the piece of paper out of her pocket. “It contains proof that Bolin was not being unfaithful to you. Not with me, at least.”

Opal didn’t move to take it.

“It’s okay, I believe you. Really,” she said.

It was just that easy? Eska had been anticipating a more frosty reception.

“So what do you think? Can we be friends?” Opal asked as she smiled gently. She extended her hand, and Eska forced herself to make eye contact while tentatively reaching her arm out as well. But she only had the nerve to brush Opal’s fingers with her own.

Just then, there was much excitement from the duo on the floor. Having removed all of the toys from the box, they had reached the best part…the packing paper. Kinalik reached for a particularly large piece and gleefully ripped it in half.

“That makes a cool sound, doesn’t it?” Bolin observed.

Kinalik studied the two halves in her hand, and then crumpled one up, walked over, and reached up to place it on Bolin’s head.

“Oh wow! A hat! Just what I always wanted!” Bolin said with all evidence of sincerity. He tossed his head ever so slightly, and the paper fell to the floor.

“OOPS! It fell off! How clumsy of me!”

Kinalik looked at him, then at the paper, then back at him. And she laughed.

This was something that even Eska herself rarely elicited from her daughter. She wished that she could telepathically transmit to Bolin the significance of this event. But as he glanced over it her, it seemed that he already knew to some extent.

Shortly thereafter, Korra returned, and while the servants transferred her things, Asami herded them all into the main dining room for lunch. Evidently, Korra had informed her partner of Kinalik’s preferences, because the meal was omelets…plain for Kinalik and with vegetables for everyone else. Kinalik actually ate most of hers, and even sampled a piece of mushroom from Eska’s plate without spitting it back out.

When that was concluded, Desna put Kinalik down for a nap while Eska ventured out into the great unknown.

For what felt like the millionth time, Eska felt the ends of her now shoulder-length hair. It felt exceedingly strange to not have it hanging halfway down her back.

Also, the hairdresser had insisted on using hair clips to pin her bangs back.

“You have such a perfectly-proportioned forehead!” the older woman had gushed. “And such delicate eyebrows. Why would you ever want to cover that up?”

At least it might work as a disguise. And Asami and Opal had wholeheartedly agreed with the stylist. They had tried to get Bolin’s opinion as well, but he held up his pointer finger for silence.

“Please don’t disturb me. I have attained manicure Nirvana,” he stated in an exaggerated whisper.

When Bolin had finally descended back down to Earth, they went clothes-shopping. First they got some everyday items. Eska was rather embarrassed that she had to wear clothing from the Juniors section due to her petite frame, but she managed to tolerate the shopping long enough to attain several new outfits. The store had a changing room in case one wanted to wear an outfit out of the store, so Eska had changed her regular tunic and leggings for a sky-blue shirt with cap sleeves, white pants that fell just below the knee, and white sandals. It was odd to have so much of her skin exposed in public, but it was amusing to imagine how the dreaded councilors back home would react.

She was taken aback when she realized that she would have to help carry her own belongings for the first time in her life, but decided not to argue.

Then Asami had remembered about Korra’s party, to which Eska hadn’t realized that she was invited, so they went to a more upscale boutique that specialized in Water Tribe inspired designs to find a dress. Of course, the one that caught Eska’s eye was too large for her, so she would have to come back later for fitting.

By the time that was over, all of them were loaded with shopping bags and getting tired, and Eska’s back was acting up again. She still didn’t understand why some girls and women did this for fun.

“There’s a bubble tea shop just down the street. Let’s stop there,” Asami suggested.

Eska was about to inquire what bubble tea was, but her thoughts slammed on the brakes as a horrific sound rose from the corner next to the tea shop.

“What. Is. That?” she demanded as she jammed her fingers inside her ears.

“That’s a trombone,” Opal answered. She and Asami rolled their eyes at Bolin, who was edging nervously closer toward the tea shop door.

Even leading such a sheltered life, Eska had heard of street musicians. But she had been under the impression that most did it for money. There was no tip box beside this man’s feet, so either he was just doing it for fun or wanted to cause all pedestrians an agonizing death. Probably the latter, she thought.

“I am going to ambulate over there right now and inform that man that he must cease and desist immediately,” she declared.

“Maybe…just going inside would be a better idea?” Bolin offered. “Come on quick, before he sees us!”

Bolin dashed inside, and the three women had no choice but to follow, Opal and Asami both making noises of disapproval.

They got their orders and sat down. Eska had assumed that the bubbles would be some form of carbonation, but they were actually solid spheres. She guessed that it was not called “sphere tea” because it didn’t roll off the tongue as easily. In any case, the spheres had a pleasantly chewy texture.

Meanwhile, Asami was still scolding Bolin.

“He’s a much better person now and you know it!” she said.

“He still scares me!”

“Well, I invited him to the party, so get used to him.”

“You what? Oh frick…here he comes.”

The door abruptly swung open as if accompanied by a musical cue, and Trombone Man walked in like he owned the place. To Eska’s relief, he had put away that torture device for the present. Wait…why was he making a beeline to their table?

“Hi, Tahno!” Asami said cheerfully as Opal waved. The latter elbowed Bolin, who squeaked out a “Hi!”

The name rang a bell. Eska tried to recall where she’d encountered it.

“Now who is this lady here?” Tahno the Trombone Man asked. “I don’t believe that I’ve seen you here with the Uh-vatar’s crowd before.”

Eska assumed that he was referring to Opal. But after several seconds, she realized that he was looking at her. Just in time, she remembered how she knew of him.

“I saw you in the magazines,” she said. “Except then you weren’t there anymore. And then you were, but not quite as often.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Was he flirting, or just making fun of her?

Eska rose from her seat and affixed her best glare.

“Your subpar pronounciation irritates my auditory receptacles. As does your so-called musical talent.”

The look she was giving him would have sent a whole room full of courtiers fleeing. But Trombone Man just laughed.

“Oh, did I offend you, Ice Queen?”

Did he know? At any rate, Eska realized that he towered over her by at least a foot, despite her drawing herself up to as full a height as her back would allow. This would not do.

“If I am the Ice Queen, then you are my subject. I demand that you swear fealty to me by kneeling.”

She heard three sharp intakes of breath. But kneel Tahno did, after only a brief pause. He kept his eyes and his smirk on Eska. Eska remained outwardly composed (at least she hoped so), but her heart was starting to pound…from anxiety or from something else?

“Of course…you do know what this means, Ice Queen? Now I must kiss your hand.”

Eska barely had time to process the words before Bolin leapt in between them.

“O-kaaaayyy!” he exclaimed louder than he had to. “I know we’re all having a wonderful time here, and it was great seeing you again, but look at the clock! We really have to be going now, so bye and see you at the party, I guess!”

He herded the trio of women out the door, drinks, bags, and all. Eska didn’t know whether she wanted to thank him or throttle him.

“That was interesting,” Eska mused as they walked back to the Satomobile. “However, I doubt he would show the submission required to be my husband.”

Bolin choked on his last sip of tea.

“Mental images, Eska! Mental! Images!” he gasped out.

At least he was starting to show his true self around her.

#legend of korra #fanfic #eska #boleska #now you know why I was looking up tahno a few days ago

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cursivescrawl · 6 years

Text

Misadventure

Rating: PG Category: Elementals Summary: It’s a wonder Feline Team is still alive, really, after a certain incident when they were a young team.

Feline once stumbled upon the edge of Kaltis.

They'd been meant to go to Sengolia's realm at the center of the web of worlds, to check that Sengolia's bonds hadn't loosened since last she'd been checked on. Usually a team more experienced than theirs would do this. Feline was young, then, and had only been together for half a year or so. Flash still looked at older warriors in envy, wondering when his team would achieve the perfect synchronicity they all seemed to have.

But this had been their first time traveling alone in Kaltis. Their first actual, real mission of import. The only way to get to Sengolia was through the ley lines of her web. Theoretically, it wasn't much different than traveling through the ley lines in a single world. Practically, as Zey would always explain it later to wide-eyed apprentices, it was like shooting an arrow – where a small angle change might not matter over a distance of ten meters, it would tremendously matter over a distance of a hundred.

Distraction could be fatal, in other words.

Flash barely remembered the argument between himself and Zephyr, later, when he tried to recall details. It was useless. Something about the plural of hippopotamus. Lake and Jag got drawn in by the sheer ridiculousness of the topic. There was a fierce sense of elation, Flash remembers, arguing with his team, being on a solo mission, flying alone (the sensation of strong wings pumping even though he didn't have wings, the swirling Aethir around him) through the ley lines and towards his team.

They must have gotten turned around. When they emerged from the web, the sky overhead wasn't garish yellow, ribbons of chaotic light fighting for dominance. The ground wasn't pulsing black sand with random many-colored silk cocoons rising at odd intervals, each containing a near-born monster.

The argument – silly as it had been – died in the still air. Feline Team stood staring.

Before them stretched a white plain covered with perfect uniform ice. The sky overhead gleamed the dully colorless sepia of a long-faded photograph, unbroken by stars or clouds. Though there was no light source, there were no shadows either. It seemed lit by the kind of fluorescent light which leaves no shadows and a roaring headache.

Perfect snowflakes glimmered in midair. Unfalling. Unfailing. Suspended, as if in clear plastic, the way a trinket might be suspended in a soap.

“Father's wrath,” breathed Flash.

Jag reached for Lake's arm. “We shouldn't be here.”

“We shouldn't,” Jag agreed.

None of them moved. It felt impossible. This land was perfect, untouched, eerie. Static in all the ways Sengolia was dynamic.

Zephyr seized that thought. The opposite of Sengolia. Could this be the farthest point in Kaltis from her ever-shifting cocoon?

He sucked in a breath, disturbing a single snowflake from its everlasting position.

“Static,” he said aloud.

The name fell like glass and shattered the silence.

A howling dread filled Flash, filled his teammates. He couldn't move. The landscape didn't change,but suddenly someone-

a trio of someones-

were watching them, malevolent, wanting these Elemental intruders out of/absorbed into their domain. Flash couldn't see them. But they were there. Their eyes pierced him. If he could only turn around, he could see their faces, see the clawed hands reaching for him.

Lake's knees buckled. He caught himself on Flash with a convulsive movement; Flash automatically raised his arm to loop it around Lake's shoulders. But his arm didn't move. And Jag was already there (or was he? It was hard to tell in this blizzard, or was there a blizzard? There wasn't a blizzard. Everything was just as perfectly still as it always had been would be was).

Jag's urgency slashed them, urgency turning to panic turning to adrenaline in Flash's veins, determination and wakefulness shattering Flash's heart back to life.

(And it had stopped without him realizing, and when it began to pound, it was abnormally loud in the silent howl.)

“WE NEED TO GO!”

The words might have been shouted, spoken, whispered, thought. Flash's throat was hoarse. The still air felt like daggers in his lungs, like plastic over his nose and mouth, stale, deadly, suffocating.

He desperately clawed for the ley lines. But they weren't there. The comforting, warm, purifying Aethir was out of his reach, the magic of his heritage dead at his fingertips. Dread filled Flash's ears and lungs and settled leaden in the pit of his stomach.

“I'll pull you!” Zephyr vanished. Lake almost crumpled again; Flash yanked him upright, tugged him close, felt his teammate's ragged breathing as Lake buried his head in the shoulder of Flash's black cloak.

Jag was on one knee.

“We do not kneel,” Flash forced out through numb lips. The words carried some emotion he couldn't identify. Jag gritted his teeth.

(And Flash didn't feel the frustration, he realized, didn't know what Jag wanted or was trying to say. The connection, the contract, the thing that made them Feline Team, was-)

Zephyr was there. Zephyr's power and magic was binding and revitalizing, carrying with it the sense of Sengolia and chaos. Lake took another shuddering deep breath.

“Go,” hissed Flash. Lake vanished from his arms. Flash felt suddenly cold without his teammate pressed against him. Lake slipped from Flash's mind like water from a child's cupped hand, and then he was gone.

Flash stumbled over to Jag. Every movement seemed to be fought through syrup, through half-solid wax. He couldn't feel Zephyr or Lake. Couldn't feel his fingers. Couldn't feel his heartbeat anymore, it was a cold dead sensation in his chest, and he shuddered.

Then he was tumbling backwards.

He landed squarely on his butt in warm black sand, and it was coarse under his fingers, and his heart pounded in his ears and he drew a shuddering, gasping breath. And another. And another. It hurt, his ribs hurt, but the air was sweet despite the taste of sulfur and-

“Help me pull,” snapped Zephyr, his wings straining with effort. Flash reached for Jag.

He seemed so close. But then Flash's outstretched mind hit a wall, like a bird who realizes a sliding glass door isn't open.

Jag's mind moved sluggishly. Where normally thoughts fired quickly and in all directions, now he only had one thought, one sensation. Flash threw himself at the glass door, panic closing his throat-

and it shattered and Jag was there and he was lying across Flash's lap and drawing in heaving breaths and choking on nothing and clawing at the sand until he realized it was sand. Their minds pressed in on each other's. Lake crumpled beside Flash and Jag, resting his head unashamedly on the small of Jag's back; Zephyr, wings still extended, collapsed with one great bronze wing draping over his teammates.

They breathed.

Sengolia's screeches and cries sounded around them. Somewhere in the distance a monster ripped from its cocoon with a rending of silk and a newborn scream. Above, the sky danced with color and chaos. The earth itself seemed to pulse with irregular spasms.

Slowly, Flash's heart calmed. He felt his teammates – felt the black sand beneath Jag's fingernails, the way Zephyr couldn't quite bring himself to dismiss his wings back into air. Lake's exhaustion and his depleted reserves of magic. Zephyr gave energy to Lake, and Flash realized the leaden exhaustion in his own limbs and drew from Jag until they were all equalized again.

The sensation, thought Zephyr drowsily, now that they were all calm enough to think. He replaced his guarding wing with one strong arm draped over his teammates as he flopped closer. Flash heard his heart steadily drumming in his chest. In sync. What was that sensation, that thing Jag had been focused on while they tried to rescue him.

Jag wearily opened his eyes and cleared his throat.

“Ocelot.”

His team name. The name of his totem. Flash saw Jag drawing a small stone-carved ocelot from his cloak, setting it down on the ice, focusing on it to stave off the numbness.

“Clever.”

He wasn't sure if it was him or Lake that spoke. It didn't matter. Here, in the outskirts of Sengolia's realm, everyone could speak and it wouldn't matter.

“I know.”

Zephyr huffed a laugh. Jag's amusement jolted them all back to wakefulness, even Jag, who seemed a bit startled by his own emotion – was it okay to be amused after that?

“We should go,” said Flash.

“Yeah,” said Lake, and he was the first one to stagger to his feet. Flash was the last simply because he was on the bottom of the Feline pile. “You all- ready?”

They weren't. But they were prepared, and, weapons drawn, they entered Sengolia's realm.

It took eight hours to reach her. She was wrapped in colorful silk strands with each filament a different shade and trapped in solid chains of some peculiar metal which might have been steel once but which now gleamed with the solid enchantments of the Elementals (bright red, deep blue, pale yellow, straight green). The cocoon was steady. If they'd had to fight their way back to the edge of her realm, Flash might have just given up right there; as it was, the center of Sengolia's realm was also where the ley lines were the strongest. Magic couldn't even be used near her for the chance it might go wild. So after checking on Sengolia, Flash closed his eyes and let the Aethir sweep him away from her giant dangerous shrieking form, let it get him very close to their world before taking over again and making an effort to get back to the Fire base.

He did not give the report that night. Lake did, but he fell asleep in the middle and it ended up being Flash to give the report anyways the next morning, reassuring the senior warriors that Sengolia was still bound.

They did not mention the edge of Kaltis. If it was known they'd traveled there, and come back alive- well. Lake found no records that anyone else had accomplished that. This near-deadly accident was not something Feline, as a whole, wanted to be known for. So they kept quiet even when Jen of Astral Team joked with Flash about how he hadn't looked this tired since that one all-nighter where all the Fire apprentices tried (and failed) to get drunk.

They did not mention the dreams, after that, of standing in that horrible landscape (alone). Each of them had a different version. Zephyr felt a malevolent gaze, but no matter which way he turned, he only caught the ghost of blue inhuman eyes. Lake turned to ice, his every blood cell slowly freezing and becoming one with the stillness, until he shattered into a million tiny snowflakes and hung motionless in the air for the rest of eternity. Jag was covered in snow and ice and forgotten, left to scream silently for some unknown period of time. And Flash always heard the same soundless chant, the same tuneless song, with eight words he could make out and hundreds more he could not.

I C O M E A L I V E A T T H E E N D O F T I M E

It was a blessing, really, that it was acceptable for them (as a Nighttime team) to sleep during the day and be awake at night. They had trained in the night. It was familiar to them. There was no reminiscing when they were busy in the dark hours, and in the daylight hours, it was well-lit enough that the nightmares and the eerie landscape always seemed so far away – until they went to sleep.

It took time, but the dreams faded into memory. That fear was replaced by others. The entire experience became one of many near-death calls, something that they all became quite familiar with as they rose to be the Hunters and then the Holder's Seconds, answering only to Astral Team (and then not even to them, because how can you answer to someone who remains in a coma?) The day came when Flash didn't think about it; the year came when none of them thought about it; and life went on.

But the little black ocelot carving, the one Jag had focused on to keep his sanity, remained in a snarling pounce at the edge of Kaltis.

#elementals #ocelot #cougar #lynx #panther

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the-purple-hero · 6 years

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🔥 Dark Spyro AU Drabble 🔥

{🔥}—; It should have been an ordinary day in the Dragon Realms, but with what started with a bit of a bad feeling where something felt a little off to a certain purple dragon. It would escalate into something much worse that could change everything, Spyro had been called to go and see Nestor in the big castle of the Artisan home.

The dragon elder seemed, very nervous and told Spyro and Sparx that a very powerful dark presence had been located by the Magic Crafters near the traitorous Elder Red’s old laboratory where he’d fought against him and had destroyed the Dark Gems, or so he thought. For he was told that according to the still shrunken Red who was contained in a jar in the room, that he had hidden away a unique Dark Gem away from the lab in further isolated part of the underground caverns where it wouldn’t be found as he knew Spyro would be coming and he wanted that one Dark Gem to survive. “I thought I took care of all of ‘em? Huh, well I guess I’ll head over there and handle it.”

He glared at the little jar that contained his old enemy. “Looks like ya tried to pull a fast one didn’t ya? Well I’m gonna go an’ take care of it, so next time ya hide somethin’ make sure it’s not gonna be somethin’ easy t’find.” The young dragon looked down at him with a smug grin, but Red spoke up still in a tiny voice that he be surprised by what he’d find after the Dark Gem had been left undisturbed for so long like he was expecting something but Spyro just huffed and a wisp of smoke billowed up from his nostrils. “Gee, am I seriously supposed t’be scared of anythin’ ya say? I mean can ya hear yourself talkin’? Not like you were that much of a challenge before anyway short stuff.”

With that he headed out to take the balloon over to the Volcanic Isle, climbing into the hot air balloon’s basket he was soon in the air. Spyro took in the sights from the balloon, Sparx flew up to his friend with a buzz.

“Hey Spyro, did you notice how nervous Nestor looked when he started talking about the Dark Gem? I’m pretty sure something’s wrong, cause those things weren’t that big of a deal back when we took care of them before.” The glowing dragonfly said, trying to state facts that Spyro seemed to not have taken notice of when he was given this task. His companion only wanting to advise he be careful going into this.

After a long trip, the duo arrived at Volcanic Isle but almost immediately they were approached by Hunter, who had come to try and lend him a hand as he overheard talk of this. “Hey Spyro! I heard you were going back into the caverns underneath this place to take care of the last Dark Gem, that you missed.” He said, putting emphasis on ‘missed’ like he was trying to take a playful jab at him.

“Real funny Hunter, but thanks for comin’. We better get a move on an’ maybe after this you an’ I can hang out and maybe have a couple rounds skateboardin’!” He playfully nudged him and led his friend over to the shaft that would take them down to the caverns.

Upon taking the lift and entering the familiar caverns the type of atmosphere down there was different. With the power of darkness spreading with puddles of dark substance and energy all around it gave off a dark and dismal feel to the place it didn’t have before. Spyro was well aware that the Dark Gems were capable of corrupting the environment around it, but the extent of it here baffled him to say the least. As it turned out, something really was wrong, so with Sparx’s guidance Spyro made sure nothing would jump out and attack since he knew Hunter was with them and he wasn’t going to let him get in trouble.

By the time they reached the Dark Gem itself it had seemingly ingrained itself into the ground it rested on, glowing and had covered the entire cavern surrounding it in black energy with the weight of it’s power spreading across the area and increasingly became heavier on the trio.

Spyro wasn’t going to drag this out any longer than he needed to so he trotted over to the Dark Gem with the intent to smash it into bits as he’d done with all the others he’d encountered before this. Approaching it though, it almost seemed like it tried to defend itself even if it wasn’t sentient.

For when he got closer then in unleashed a blast of dark energy towards Hunter and Sparx, almost as if deliberately a dark spell came from it as it unleashed a beam of darkness that rippled through the caves allowing it to spread rapidly.

The young dragon’s attention went directly to his friends who were within seconds put in danger, his first instinct was to try and protect them. “Don’t worry guys, I’ve got ya!” The young hero rushed quickly to the Dark Gem to destroy it, but the energy pulsing from it knocked him off his feet and tossed him aside. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get close enough to it to stop it nor could he push Hunter out of the way since he seemed locked in place by the Dark Gem’s power which had begun to attack him.

He felt a sense of urgency wash over him, worried about his two friends and what could happen to them and to the Dragon Realms if the sudden rapid spread of darkness couldn’t be stopped now, not only could it put everyone in jeopardy but the fact that he’d be here powerless, while his friends were attacked by an inanimate object of darkness hurt him.

There was only one other option he saw that he could see, and so without even the slightest regard for his own well being, Spyro rushed and put himself in front of the beam of dark magic which caused a large banging sound to be heard coming from the Dark Gem.

Intense dark energy rippled through Spyro’s body, even Sparx’s presence couldn’t protect him from the sheer amount of power being forced onto him. The darkness in the cave began to rescind and fall back towards the source, but didn’t return to the Dark Gem and instead the dark energy began flooding into Spyro, latching on like a leech.

Both Hunter and Sparx tried to save him, but even with their efforts just like before, they could not get close enough to stop this. All they could do was watch helplessly as the dark magic was painfully forced upon the hero of the Dragon Realms. “Spyro, no!”

The amount of pressure Spyro could felt was like he was being crushed as well as having daggers pierce his scaly hide which caused the young dragon’s toes to curl under the unseen weight. He could barely keep his eyes open, let alone think straight as his heart pounded rapidly in his chest. which soon translated into pain that could be described from the pained shouts from the little dragon that was only followed by him shaking violently while the dark magic surrounded him and pain induced tears forcefully yet unwillingly streamed down his scaly cheeks.

Within moments, the beam began to die out as did the energy in the Dark Gem itself and Spyro seemed to, change in appearance as his vibrant purple scales began to darken until they turned entirely black, while his friendly and inviting look changed to a more dark and intimidating appearance.

Once the energy had drained entirely from the Dark Gem, it crumbled to dust and Spyro collapsed onto the cold hard ground falling unconscious instantly. His breathing was labored and he was barely moving aside from slow shivers from the young dragon, his body also steaming. Sparx was the first to go over to him, quickly in extreme worry for his best friend, the dragonfly’s stomach churned terribly over what he and Hunter had just witnessed happen that even his glow began to dim.

“Hunter, you’ve g-gotta help me get him, back.” The dragonfly was clearly in shock as he stumbled over his words and small tears were visible in his eyes, something that wasn’t seen often at all among him or Spyro himself. Hunter clearly understood the situation and didn’t hesitate to pick Spyro up carefully and quickly went back to the balloon to return to the Artisan homeworld.

Upon their return, they were quickly asked what was wrong with Spyro and Sparx explained alongside Hunter and the cheetah did most of the talking as Sparx was visibly distraught by this situation, fearing that what if Spyro didn’t survive the night or if something terrible had happened with a hint to it being his drastic difference in appearance.

Nestor understood the severity of the situation and had a chamber in the castle set up for Spyro, where he was placed in a bed where he would rest until he would wake up.

But, days quickly turned into a week and Spyro still hadn’t woken up or seemed any different other than his breathing seemed to improve but not by a lot. Sparx, never left his side and Hunter was kind enough to bring the dragonfly some food and help him out while he stayed with him. Spyro did get visitors from some of his other friends, including Elora, or even some of the younger dragons whom he’d once saved from the Sorceress before they hatched.

However, on the eighth day since the incident, while Sparx was sleeping on his friend’s head he felt movement which woke him up. The little dragonfly fluttered up in the air and it appeared that Spyro was finally stirring, and once he woke up it was clear his eyes had changed as well for now instead of a violet color they were now a blood red color...

#drabble #verse introduction #dark!spyro #v. inner struggle #my first full length drabble #i hope you guys like it

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maris-solstice · 7 years

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“The Golden Spires of Ghirapur” my first Magic: the Gathering fanfiction.

This is the first fanfiction I’ve written I feel manages to not suck enough to share with you guys! (criticism welcome, but please be gentle)

It stars my fanwalker, Maris of Zelzo, and two characters he works with on Kaladesh, Saria, an Aetherborn who’s adopted female tendencies, and Kharik, a frustrated Dwarf inventor, in a short look at Maris’ involvement in the rebellion. It will take me a while, but I’ll make a follow-up.

It also quotes the Magic Story installment Revolution Begins by Nik Davidson, Kelly Digges, and Kimberly J. Kreines. Enjoy!

The golden spires of Ghirapur stretched toward the aether-swirled clouds under a bright sun, majestic and intimidating, inspiring awe in observers on a regular basis, standing indifferent to the chaos currently unfolding at their feet.

The crowds parted as a swerving metal vehicle careened around a corner, three Consulate cruisers close behind. Blue aether jetted from cracks in its hull and one wheel rattled ominously, threatening to end the swift chase violently. The cruisers were in slightly better shape, but one was lagging behind, spilling aether profusely.

The onlookers gasped as a concentrated blast of golden energy flew from the fleeing craft and tore into the lead cruiser, tearing off a chunk of the smooth hull and causing the vehicle to swerve wildly off course, directly into the side of a building.

As the Consulate vehicle disintegrated on impact the other two veered off onto side streets, leaving the fleeing vehicle more or less to its own devices. The battered craft continued at breakneck speed through Ghirapur, followed by dozens of surveillance thopters, careening across open squares and down narrow thoroughfares toward the lower district,

Until it reached the barricade. Large Consulate automatons and a group of nervous enforcers with aether-powered weapons coupled with large metal barriers to make an imposing blockade at the close end of a bridge.

The pilot of the fleeing vehicle was not faring well. Maris of Zelzo was, quite frankly, not used to operating outside the influence of the law. Bending rules was commonplace as a Boros enforcer, but being in direct opposition to the government was usually something he avoided. Of course, this issue paled in comparison to the fact he had not slept more than half an hour at a time in three days, and the fact he’d just had to punch his way through an alley too narrow to swing a sword in, and the fact he was entirely unsure how to drive this vehicle or if it was even made for humans, since the Dwarf he’d hijacked it from was surprised he even got into the thing. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he gritted his teeth, squinting through the borrowed goggles at the barricade. Plenty of room to swing a sword.

Gripping his Boros signet, he conjured a fireball and, opening the hatch of the vehicle, he threw the fire into the air intake. As planned, the aether (or something volatile, at least) caught fire. Thinking quickly, he melted the steering apparatus and accelerator in place, then leapt from the cockpit, his hasty combat roll saving him from serious injury. The brass and wood market stall he rammed headfirst into, however, ensured he was still going to pay for his decision.

Leaping to his feet, Maris watched, sword drawn, as the enforcers dove out of the way, some simply running for cover, others diving headlong into the river below the bridge. The automatons, about six of them, stood in place, reinforcing the barrier. In seconds, the flaming vehicle made impact with the barrier. The explosion virtually vaporized the leading automatons, scattering burning, twisted gears and metal plates everywhere. Another simply sustained so much damage it toppled into the water. What aether wasn’t burning sprayed into the sky in a fine blue vapor, swirling and dissipating like smoke.

The remaining operable automatons began stomping to his position. Dozens of thopters swept through the sky and several enforcers stood and readied their weapons, as Maris stood, defiant, in the street, clutching his Boros Signet in one hand and his sword in the other.

Suddenly, a dark figure swept from the alley behind him, throwing a large metal canister behind the advancing line. The object ricocheted onto the bridge, ticking loudly. With a loud explosion, the already damaged bridge and barricade collapsed, the span crumbling on the near side, cutting off the enforcers on the other side from reinforcing their fellows. As the grenade exploded, Maris hurled a fireball at the most damaged automaton, and the burning ball of light burrowed into the chest plate of the mechanical soldier, forcing it to the ground.

The figure grabbed Maris’ arm, and hissed “You’re going to be late now, come on!” The gloved hand latched on to Maris’ scarf and dragged him into the alleyway, as the enforcers fired aether beams after the rebels.

A Dwarf stood in the alley. Gesturing behind himself, he simply grinned at the other, then took off running ahead of the pair. Maris struggled to keep up. His liberal use of magic, combined with his injuries and sheer exhaustion, was taking a toll. Ducking in and out of doorways and buildings, the trio managed to evade the loud enforcers fairly easily, despite Maris tripping over his own feet on two occasions. The thopters were more of a challenge, but after leaping into a building through the window and leaving through a trapdoor in the floor, with the homeowner ushering them through, the trio managed to lose the small fleet following them.

Gasping for air, Maris leaned against the wall in the alley. The Dwarf seemed similarly winded, but the dark cloaked figure was unaffected.

“How long will you two need to rest?” The question was tinged with genuine concern. The figure removed the hood, revealing the relatively featureless face and blue, glowing eyes of a slender Aetherborn.

“I’m fine. Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix, Saria.”

“Maris...That does not answer the question.”

The Dwarf adjusted his tunic and grinned. “Yeah it does. Old boy’s tuckered out because of his manhunt. Next time, maybe don’t punch out a peacekeeper when he stops you in the street.”

Maris sighed, having heard the same advice from...almost everyone, honestly.

“Yes Maris, Kharik is right. Next time let them finish the first question before you brutalize some poor dwarf who probably just liked your scarf. I understand the paranoia, but really?”

“Yes, yes, Saria. It’s a nice scarf. So where is this ‘Prakhata Club’ and, follow-up question, who in the Undercity is Gonti?” asked Maris, “You know, before they deploy a peacewalker to find us.”

The Prakhata Club, to Maris’ surprise, was a lot more somber than he thought it would be. He hadn’t been to clubs on Ravnica very often (mostly for raids, to be honest), and when he had they varied from intimate tavern settings to poorly-disguised Rakdos murder dens. But the depressed atmosphere was...new. Here and there inventors, pilots, workers, and quicksmiths grumbled to each other or to their drinks as Aetherborn servers darted about, refilling drinks and collecting tabs and tips. A musician playing some kind of unfamiliar instrument was providing atmospheric music. In one poorly-lit alcove, Maris noticed a trio of Aetherborn sitting, watching the room. In one corner a portly dwarf drooled into his own beard, whether asleep or stupid drunk he could not tell.

Maris, Saria, and Kharik sat at a small table, as far from both the entrance and the alcove as they could. No sooner had Maris received his drink (“You should try the mango fizz, Maris. It’s a dwarven favorite”), than a few new faces entered the tavern, about five assorted dwarves and humans, chatting excitedly in hushed tones. An elf watching them intently turned to his tablemate and murmured something. Soon the whole club was whispering and muttering. Maris caught a few words at the table next to theirs, a woman talking about three dangerous renegades on the run, and realized that news of the barricade’s destruction and the bombing of the bridge was now spreading. The Club was abuzz as the renegades and renegade sympathizers quietly discussed who could have done it.

“Well, Maris.” Saria cocked her head in what Maris assumed was amusement, “It seems there are some dangerous rebels on the run. You should go after them.”

Maris chuckled and went to reply, when the music coming from the small stage stopped abruptly. Two red-clad women, one much older than the other, were standing on stage. They had entered recently, and were standing near the stage for a good amount of time, talking to each other and surveying the room. Maris could swear he recognized the younger, but was completely unsure why.

That is, until Saria noticed him staring. “That’s Pia Nalaar, Renegade Prime!” she hissed.

Nalaar…

Nalaar!

The younger woman was Chandra Nalaar, an associate of the Gatewatch. He’d been following the other Planeswalkers around since the Battle for Sea Gate on Zendikar. Truth be told, he’d been following Gideon around since Zendikar, after Aurelia asked him to keep an eye on the Commander-General, and he’d only seen the pyromancer briefly, and from a distance, at both Zendikar and Thraben. Of course, the Gatewatch arrived on Innistrad after Maris had spent some time there, but that was not important…

Chandra looked nervous and unsure. She spoke a few words to the crowd.

"Hi. I'm, well, I guess you know who I am. Chandra Nalaar. Pia's daughter. Um...Kiran's daughter."

The patrons began to talk quietly among themselves. Others nodded, simply acknowledging her presence

"Some of you probably knew him. Some of you...I bet some of you maybe knew him better than I ever got to. And you know what? That's not all right! That you got to know my dad, and I didn't. That you got to work with him, talk to him, laugh with him, and I didn't. They took him away from me. From my mom. And when she decided to fight back, you all just...you just let her. They took from her, so of course she'd fight. But you? Not yet. You let her fight alone, because they hadn't taken enough."

The crowd began to get louder, angrier, as if she were accusing them of something. Kharik gritted his teeth and mumbled something under his breath, messing with his bracer.

"Well, today they took the rest. All your work, all your efforts, all your tools, everything. They took everything because that's what they do. And you're still sitting in here eating and drinking and complaining and not doing anything. What did they take from you? What else do they have to take?"

The Club erupted as some patrons began yelling in her direction, others arguing with each other. A few began to actually become violent, posturing at each other. Kharik, Maris, and Saria just watched as Chandra, disheartened, stepped off the stage. Then, the Aetherborn and their bodyguards moved in. The crowd stopped, frozen. Maris could sense the electric feeling of pure fear, cold and visceral. They scooped up the Nalaars and began to retreat to a door, gesturing to several patrons to follow….then, a pause. Maris felt a thrill of apprehension as the Aetherborn pointed toward him and his compatriots.

Nervously, the three followed the group into a back office, and down the corridor.

“Why do you think Gonti wants to speak with us directly?” Maris muttered.

Kharik leaned close and whispered back, “They might know about the bridge this morning.”

At that moment, the Aetherborn, having a conversation with Chandra, opened the door and ushered them into Gonti’s sanctum. Maris’ apprehension spiked suddenly at the sight of the Aetherborn crime lord.

“Angels above...here we go.”

#mtg #mtg fanfic #fanfic #fanwalker #kaladesh #magic the gathering

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