#still gnawing away at that old bone etc. etc. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mandoinevarro · 4 years

Text

NO REFUNDS

Words: 5.1k :))

Rating: E, baby

Warnings: Smut (surprise surprise), bad words :0, masturbation, a biiiit of praise kink, face fucking, cumplay? let me know on the comments, etc. etc.

a/n: Happy Star Wars day!! The first few lines of this are an attempt at dumb comedy, but humor me a little and you’ll get a reward (smut) along the yellow-brick road

Finally, the lanky kid behind the counter stops air drumming with two chicken bones gnawed dry and trails his dopey eyes from the gloved fist on the table, up a bracer, and along a flexed arm, until they settle on the Mandalorian helmet staring him down and waiting for an answer. The employee removes the music bandeau from around his ears and settles it down, its noise so loud Mando can hear it from where it lays. The kid scratches the whiskers of facial hair growing patchy on his cheeks and thoughtfully nibbles on one of the bones, trying to figure out what one does when a client shows up.

“Uh, what?”

“I need to speak to the owner,” the Mandalorian repeats slowly.

“Oh, uh.” Mouth gaping like a fish too stupid to know it should fear hooks, the kid calmly turns his attention to the four walls of the hardware store, searching for guidance in the fluorescent signs hanging around the room and dictating the store’s rules like they’re ancient scriptures:

NO CHILDREN

WILL BUY STOLEN GOODS FOR LOWER PRICE

NO IMPS

NO REPUBLIC OFFICIALS

NO REFUNDS

NO APPOINTMENT, NO MEETING

“You, uh,” the kid continues, lingering on that last stanza and flicking open a dusty agenda that probably hasn’t been touched since the war ended, “you got an appointment, uh, sir?” He drags a greasy finger down the planner, squinting at nothing and pretending to read the page that Mando can clearly see is empty.

The bounty hunter sighs, holding on to the last reserves of patience that hang precariously on the cliff of his self-restraint, threatening to let go and leave him to his own anger. “No. But she’ll see me.” You better. You better fucking see him. “I was sold equipment here a few days ago, some of it faulty. I need to speak to her.”

The navigator. The fucking navigator. Of all the bunch of overpriced, black market scraps you’d somehow convinced the Mandalorian to buy from you last time, it just had to be the navigator. He still has his old blasters. Pumps are cheap. Even the deflector shields he could’ve done without for a couple of months. But the fucking navigator. The lack of droids on the Crest means that Mando relies solely on the navigator to set coordinates. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to find his way out of a system, let alone make hyperjumps. Even worse, the model is so old, its glitching isn’t recognized by the control panel, so he had to hover around the atmosphere of this damned planet for three days before figuring out what it was, throwing off his schedule and losing track of two bounties in the process. All because you sold him a damaged version of the one part he can’t do without.

But your gaping-mouthed kid worker seems too unused to visitors to really care about Mando’s request, too entertained nibbling on a bare bone and eyeing the costumer in front of him as a knowing smirk cracks his lips and he says, “I dig it.”

“You…you ‘dig it’? I don’t…”

“The whole, y’know.” He draws circles in the air with the bone, signaling the beskar armor while he wipes the sauce around his mouth with a sleeve. “The, uh, Mondolarian vibe you’ve got going on. Very retro, dude. I dig it.”

Mondo…? Bewilderment overshadows irritation for a second, and Mando focuses all his energy into searching the kid’s vacant eyes for a sign of intelligent life. “I…I am a Mandalorian.”

Fucking stars above, it’s never easy with you. If not your endless teasing, it’s the exorbitant prices, your unwillingness to compromise, or your scurrying around so he’s forced to play cat and mouse with you. Your latest impossible challenge for him to tackle is, apparently, getting a straight answer from the obtuse employee you must have handpicked from a catalogue of idiots to torture Mando. Maker, he’s surprised your store hasn’t gone bankrupt yet. He can’t imagine anyone else in the galaxy putting up with your whims. And he only does it because…well, because…

After dedicating a couple of seconds to crafting the perfect response for what appears to be his very first client, the kid muses, “Well, shit, what do I know.” He flashes a toothy smile as he rereads the dogmas on the walls. “Says nothing about Mondolarians here, but, uh—”

“—Look,” Mando bargains with your gatekeeper, trying to level the exasperation escaping the vocoder, “I only have one faulty part. Let me talk to the owner, and—”

“—Shit. I bet it was the microvalves.” Your staff of one hangs his tuff of hair in shame, swaying it limply from side to side, before staring straight at the visor apologetically. “My bad, dude, I’ve been trying to get them right, but I always fuck them up. It’s hard, y’know? Red with red, white with white. Why not red with white? Or—”

“—No. What? No. Listen to me. You sold me a busted—”

“—I sold you?” the kid scoffs, his eyes suddenly snapping wide and offended, ignoring Mando’s clenching fists, which usually make normal people cower. “Excuse me, mister Mondolarian sir, but I don’t, uh, don’t recall selling you shit, in fact—”

“—Not—not you personally, the store, look, just—”

“—in fact, I’ve never even met a Mondolarian before and you’ve, uh, no right—no right— to judge my microvalves that I worked hard on—”

“Let him in.” Your voice carries its usual amusement as it cuts between the Mandalorian and the kid, breaking off the bickering from both ends and drawing their attention to the melody’s source. You lean on the doorframe leading to your workshop, holding a pair of pliers in one hand and a wrench in the other. Grease is smeared on your face, where teeth bite down on a playful smirk and the twinkle in your eyes speaks of terrible intentions—like always. You tilt your head back to the room behind you. “C’mon, Mando. Let my receptionist work.”

With a sigh, the hunter moves towards the separate room, not before glancing back at the receptionist, who throws him one last disapproving look and wraps the bandeau that never stopped blasting music around his ears.

“Why do you keep him here?” the Mandalorian grunts as you push yourself off the doorframe to move inside your studio.

You shrug. “It’s him or droids.”

Mando trails after you inside the cramped workshop, filled to the brim with piles and piles of sensors and motors and all the other scraps from dubious origins you collect, fix, and resell. He closes the door behind him and pushes a large tube hanging from the roof to the side to walk closer to you.

Facing him, you plummet on your wheeled chair with a sigh, your arms dangling off the armrests, still holding the wrench and the pliers, like you’re the monarch of your little kingdom of junk granting him an audience.

There, Mando finally gets a good look at you, and—much to his annoyance—you’re as lovely as always. Glistening and greasy, you’re still beautiful with oil stains on your skin and fat droplets of sweat trailing your temple. You beam at him from your squeaky throne with that faint grin that attracts nothing but trouble. Maker, no wonder you always manage to talk circles around him. But not this time. This time he won’t fall for your little games. He won’t, he won’t, he won’t. Tonight he’s walking out of here with all of his money, no matter how much you bat your pretty eyelashes at him.

The Mandalorian squares his stance and straightens his back in a futile attempt to intimidate you, strutting ahead firmly and pointing an accusing finger at your face.

“You sold me a—”

“—a busted navigator.” You roll your eyes and push yourself to your legs abruptly before the hunter can get any closer. He stops dead on his tracks. You wave the wrench and the pliers in the air like the conductor of an orchestra. “I sold you a busted navigator.” The vowels are dragged out with an exaggerated tune to make fun of him. “Yeah, I heard you the first four thousand times, Mando.”

Without looking, you drop the pliers to the side. They land dead center on an open storage box. Perfectly. Almost rehearsed. Something clicks. The Mandalorian suddenly finds the missing piece of a puzzle he didn’t know needed solving, and he feels his shoulders deflate and release some of the anger that drove him to your store in the first place.

You peacock closer to him, one foot in front of the other and swaying your hips as you look down to the wrench in your hand. “But, you should know by now,” you murmur once you find yourself only inches away from the beskar, your voice morphing its earlier mock exasperation into the tone you only use whenever you two aren’t talking business. You look up at him, failing miserably at masking the mischief in your eyes. “I don’t do refunds.” You lift the wrench and grin as it taps the beskar breastplate lightly with a tink.

And before you can blink, Mando’s hand flies to your wrist to clutch it roughly, squeezing without hurting you, but with enough strength to force your fist open. Just like he knows you like it. The wrench falls to the floor with a bang that makes you jump. It’s Mando’s turn to smile when he pulls you by the wrist to press you closer against him. The cocky glint in your eyes dulls into confusion.

“I never said it was the navigator,” he informs you lowly.

You tense under his grasp and shift your jaw. “You knew I’d come back,” he continues, encouraged by your grimace. Staring at your feet, you half-heartedly try to wriggle away from his grasp, but he grabs your other wrist instead and holds you flush against the cold beskar. “Okay. I’m back. Now give me my money.”

But his satisfaction is short-lived, because if there’s anyone in the universe who knows no shame, that’s you. So you simply bite your lower lip and move your head from side to side to shake hair and embarrassment off your face. When you look up at the visor again it’s with that brazen insolence that secretly gets the Mandalorian going like nothing else in the galaxy.

“A girl gets lonely in here,” you purr. Your wrists relax, and make no attempt to pull away. “Can you blame me for wanting you back a little earlier?” Your plush lips curl into the perverse smile of someone who’s holding all the cards, making heat rush involuntarily to his crotch. And it drives him fucking insane. He could have you tied, shackled, or bent over, and you would still sneer at him like you had him wrapped around your finger.

At his silence, you wedge a leg tightly between his thighs and massage it against the bulge between. Your gasp in fake surprise when his length hardens at the first hint of a brush, too unused to any sort of physical contact to remain neutral to your bold caresses. He bites down hard on his lip to suppress a moan. He won’t give you the satisfaction.

Mando’s learnt, though, that his restraint only feeds your audacity. Only makes you taunt him more. His lack of response spurs you on, and you crane your neck forward to lick a slow line along the beskar of the chest. You blink at him playfully as you go, stuffing your tongue back into your mouth once you reach the top edge of the breastplate.

You must find it funny. How his ribs expand and contract in anticipation. How he tends to roll and unroll his fists in an attempt to suppress the instinct to throw you on top of the table so crowded by clutter that he can barely see the surface beneath and fuck the smirks off your face. How he always gives in. How he stiffens both scandalized and impossibly aroused every time you introduce him to some newer, filthier act. You must think it’s so fucking funny.

And as much as the bounty hunter wants to shove you back against your crumbling wheeled chair, he knows you’ll only enjoy it more. So he simply lets go of your wrists and steps back.

“I’m only here for my money,” he lies.

The vicious grin grows wider. “Oh, so you’re making me work for it tonight.” You step back and lean against a table with your arms crossed over your chest, purposefully pushing your tits against the cleavage. Mando shifts in his place. Licking your lips until they glisten, you give him a once-over. You study him inch by inch, and an uncomfortable rope knots in his stomach when he realizes that this is how his bounties must feel when he watches them wordlessly.

Your eyes settle on his visor, and a decision seems to cross them as you walk over to sit on your creaking chair. “Or maybe you just want to hear me beg.” You part your legs wide and clutch the armrest with one hand while the other disappears under the waist of your pants. The contour of your hand shifts up and down slowly inside the crotch of your trousers, and your lips crook into a full O as they release a deep, foul moan. “Is that it?” Your eyes are glossy and malignant, trained on his visor. “You want me to beg for your cock?”

His leather gloves ball into fists, trying to coax blood into his head and away from his…well, his other head.

Yet you hold him in place with that sinful stare and the lewd whimpers that you know get him off, and yes, fuck yes, he wants to hear you beg and sob for him all night as much as he wants to clog your throat with his shaft and make you swallow your teasing.

But he can’t let you win. You can’t scam five thousand credits out of him and expect him to throw himself into your arms no questions asked. He wants to put an end to your little tyrannical rule on his cock. And he wants his fucking money back.

So the powerful Mandalorian watches helplessly as your hand quickens under your clothing and you throw your head back in ecstasy. That fucking smirk doesn’t leave you, though. Even less so when your palm picks up some speed and you hear his breath hitch involuntarily at the visual, loud enough to override the vocoder.

“C-come on, Mando, don’t—” Your hand sinks deeper into your pants and you hum at the adjustment. “Don’t you wanna teach me what—what proper cos-costumer service looks like? Huh?”

His cock jumps in his pants when you say his name in a wanton gasp, and Mando can see you’re sweating and moving your hips faster against your palm. He’s so hard it hurts.

Your smile falters and you frown impatiently as the pent-up tension threatens to snap in your body.

“Don’t cum,” Mando blurts before he can stop himself.

“Or what?”

“Or I won’t give you what you want.”

Your movements halt on command, and the hunter almost envies the control you have over your own body to be able to backtrack on the very edge of your release. You hold your hands up in triumphant surrender as you watch the Mandalorian approach and stop just a breath away from your body. He stands tall before you, crowding you with his size and turning down the volume on the nagging voice that reminds him that he’s letting you win.

Eyes on the prize ahead of you, you lick your lips and snake a hand beneath your sit. You pull a lever and the chair plummets a few inches until your mouth is directly in front of the rigid tent growing in his pants. Expert fingers undo his belt and lower his fly, but, stars, nothing is fast enough when Mando already feels the veins of his cock growing thicker and thicker. Skipping all formalities, your hand sneaks inside, cups his balls, and pulls all of him outside. He groans when you grab his shaft and squeeze hard from base to tip, your bare palm catching awkwardly on his equally dry skin. Mando melts into the sensation all the same, but you seem displeased with your palm’s lack of fluidity.

“Fuck. Hold on.” A pair of fingers disappear into your mouth and down your throat as far as they’ll go. You choke on them dramatically and your eyes water slightly, but they shine when the two small intruders drag outside your mouth, pulling a thick string of elastic spit with them and dropping it on his shaft, pulsing with anticipation. You lean forward and look up through your lashes as you unroll your tongue slowly and more gooey saliva dangles from it. It’s too dense to spill onto its target, so you pluck the heavy ropes from your mouth and smear it manually on his cock, while a thread of it hangs on your chin.

“Fuck.” Your tiny clenched fist wakes up every nerve in his body as it drags up and down his shaft, obscene and perfectly lubricated. Mando’s hips buck into its grasp involuntarily, so suddenly that you flinch at the unexpected jolt. It’s a small comfort for him, to see that he can also surprise you. But then you’re giggling again, locking him in place by grabbing the buck of his belt with your free hand.

“Eager,” you remark. You lean forward and place a chaste kiss on the tip that digs into his spine. Maker, it was barely anything, but he’s so hard and your mouth is so close. “Aren’t Mandalorians,” you tease, “supposed to have self-restraint?”

Mando’s only answer is a low groan and a gloved hand that tangles on your hair and pushes you forward. You resist, though, instead wrapping a fist around his base and dragging your hot tongue up his underside, stopping just before the tip. A tortured whimper echoes around the helmet, and the Mandalorian is not sure if you could hear it because his muscles pull tighter, drawing his attention to his cock and your mouth and the fact that the latter is not wrapped around him for some reason. As if you could read his mind, you suddenly engulf him whole. Spit gathers on the edge of your lips as you suck on his length, swallowing around the tip and swirling your tongue around his girth.

“Fuck, you’re so—so fucking g-good at this.” You hum in response, sending vibrations through his shaft that make his knees buckle. He always forgets how good it feels with you. He forgets that you take him perfectly like all your holes were made for him to fuck. That you make his blood run hot with every swing of your tongue and every spasm of your cunt and every insolent remark that escapes your lovely mouth, now busy pleasuring him.

You settle on his head and suck on the bulb, hollowing your cheeks to let him feel the delicious inside of your mouth. Mando grabs handfuls of your hair with both hands, still trying to extinguish little whimpers before they leave his throat. And you can tell. He knows you can tell because determination clouds your eyes as you yank him closer by the belt. You drag your tongue in a circle around the ridge of the head, before dipping into the slit on the tip and finally earning a punched out groan and some beads of precum as a reward. Somehow, you moan and chuckle at the same time, opening your mouth as strings of spit fall to the floor.

“You’re hard, Mando,” you coo, pumping his length while you rub it on the side of your face, “throbbing and so, so hard. You should’ve come to me sooner, baby. You’re desperate.” You suck on the head again, and the Mandalorian’s grip on your hair turns to steel, pulling you into him and no longer asking. Moaning, you let him, taking him as far as you can and wrapping a fist where you can’t reach. Your other hand releases his belt and snakes down to your lap, fumbling with the waistband of your pants.

Somewhere in the swamp of sensations drowning his thoughts, an idea flashes in Mando’s head, and he holds on to it before you can suck it out of his tip. One glove lets go of your hair and quickly grans the hand lowering into your heat to resume touching yourself. His cock still in your mouth, you look up at him with furrowed eyebrows and a silent question.

“You can’t c-cum,” he explains, forcing words out of a throat that right now only wants to moan, “un-until you give me my—my refund.”

You groan and roll your eyes, taking your mouth off him with a pop. “Fuck no,” you breathe as you pump him faster and harder, almost making Mando lose his resolve. Almost. His hold on your wrist tightens. “It’s store policy.”

“Y-yeah?” You continue sliding your fist along his shaft, as you lean forward and lower your face to start lightly licking his balls. The room spins around Mando, and his grip on your hair pushes you into him until you suck on one ball gently. “Is—is it store p-policy to—ngh—to f-fuck your clients?”

You chuckle against his taint. Your head straightens to set your attention back on his tip, where he’s leaking an almost embarrassing amount of precum. A thumb brushes over his slit, gathering the pearls and bringing them into your mouth to taste him. The way you rub your core slightly against the chair is sneaky enough, but the Mandalorian catches the movements and tugs your hand and hair tighter as a warning. Your shoulders slump. “I’ll give you half,” you offer.

Mando guides your hand lower and curls it around his swollen cock, silently begging for your attention. His hand wraps over yours as he squeezes your fist and drags it along his shaft at a pace of his liking that sets his insides ablaze. “Eighty.” The helmet falls back as he revels in the wet sounds of your hand sliding back and forth his cock and giving him a nice enough memory for when he inevitably goes back to the Crest and is forced to take care of his needs himself.

You let him guide you, cupping his balls with your other hand and swirling your tongue around his darkening tip. Mando’s chest trembles with a long moan at the toe-curling feeling of your warm spit and your clenched fist working so hard for him, until you drop him from your mouth and answer, “Seventy.”

“N-no, I—”

“—Seventy,” you repeat and twist your hand away from his grasp, leaving his seeping cock throbbing and abandoned, “or you don’t cum.”

Fuck, he was close. He was so fucking close, before you turned the tables. Like fucking always. A part of him cradles his already bruised pride, shaming him for—yet again—not being able to hold it together around you. But his cock tugs harder. More insistently. It pulls every fiber in his body and screams at him to give you whatever the fuck you want.

“Fine.” He nods his head once, before his better sense can convince him otherwise. “Seventy.”

A full, beautiful smile that almost makes Mando forget he’s getting scammed graces your plump lips. You waste no time shoving your hand inside your underwear again and moving your arm frantically as you give him a couple of throaty whines. You open your mouth as wide as it’ll go and blink up at him, inviting him to take you however he so pleases. He tangles his fingers on your hair and shoves you against him as you wrap your lips around his cock and muffle your mewls on it.

The Mandalorian starts fucking your face, getting his money’s worth as he moves you back and forth. Your eyes water and you gag with every shove, but you work earnestly for him, hollowing your cheeks and moving your tongue and pulling just about every trick on your toolbox to make Mando’s eyes roll to the back of his head.

And stars, even through your pants and his helmet, he can still smell your arousal. He hears the wet squelching of your fingers working your pussy fast and if he could only get a look. One look is all he needs to cum, he’s sure, one fucking look at your clenching cunt and he’s done.

“F-fuck, l-let me see,” he pants, “let—let me s-see you—see your p-pussy cum, just—fuck—just a mo-moment, please, j-just…”

Tears from all the gagging fall out of your pretty eyes as you open your mouth and stand up, taking your trembling hand outside to fumble with your trousers. Your thumbs are hooked under their waistband and push down slightly before you suddenly stop and stare at the Mandalorian gulping all the oxygen he can get and waiting for you. “Sixty,” you say carefully.

Too intoxicated with you and too focused on the blood beating hard on his cock, Mando couldn’t care less. He doesn’t give a shit about percentages or money or parts or whatever half-forgotten excuse he had to come here tonight. All that matters and all that’s real is whatever he needs to climax, and if it means letting you win, so be it. “S-sixty. Yes. Whatever. Just—just take your fucking pants off.”

One swift movement and your pants and underwear pool around your ankles. Yanking hard on the hem, you manage to pull the right leg off your boot. You don’t bother with the other one, letting it hang on your left leg as you climb back on the chair, spreading your legs and hooking one thigh over the armrest to offer him the best view possible.

Mando’s cock threatens to spill at the sight. You’re fucking soaked. Your folds are blushed and slick and swollen with all the blood accumulated on your cunt. Three fingers rub your aching clit and everything around it with messy strokes, as you stare at the bounty hunter with raw lust and moan for him loud and clear, and this. This is worth the fucking navigator.

As soon as his shaft ghost over your face you lean into it and reach for him with your mouth. Mando takes your head between his hands and resumes his previous brutal pace, his eyesight now directed at the way your cunt spasms and seeps more juices with every circle you press against your lips. And, fuck, you’re taking him like you’re hungry for his cock. Pushing harder and further and faster despite the gagging, you’re making Mando see blotches cloud his vision and feel how his muscles turn into hot, thick magma. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he can’t hold it in anymore. His balls start pulling up as a warning and you’re sucking harder and mewling around him.

“I—I…I’m gonna—I—”

Mando can’t find enough words to put together for the life of him, but you nod and manage a chocked “Mhmm” and bob your head to the pace of your quickening fingers and stars oh fuck—

The wave of his climax hits him hard on his back and makes him curl around you. He braces himself against the top of your chair and the change in position makes his cock slip outside of your mouth, but his vision goes completely black and all he can feel is the rush of pleasure crushing his bones into dust. Maybe your name is falling from his lips, but he can’t be sure. The never-ending spurts of cum falling somewhere hoard most of his attention, and he focuses on that thick and heavy release, so rare for him that he puts his mind into savoring every second.

It’s not until the echoes around his ears dissipate that the Mandalorian hears you’re still whimpering. Hunched over you, he opens his eyes just in time to see you gather some of the seed that he spilled on your neck and bring it down to smear it over your bundle of nerves, rubbing it one, two, three, four times, before you’re sobbing long and loud. Your hole tightens around nothing, your forehead resting on his cuisse, and Mando thinks he could get hard again just from the image.

You both stay like that for a while, curled into each other and panting in turns, until Mando gathers all the energy left in his system to pull himself upright and shove his softening shaft back into his pants. It’s only then that he sees just how much of a mess he made: Cum landed everywhere. It hangs thick all over your face, on your neck, on your hair, on your clothes. He blushes darkly and he’s about to open his mouth to apologize, but you sense it. Somehow. You wink and brush off his shame with a smile and a wave of your hand, standing up to get dressed. But Mando’s quicker. He kneels in front of you and gently raises your underwear until it hugs your hips, wishing for a fleeting second he could press a kiss on the supple flesh there. You grab his pauldron for balance to sneak your foot into the pantleg that Mando holds open for you.

For once, it’s he who breaks the silence. “I…I do want my sixty percent, you know.”

“Of course.” You smile sweetly at him, reaching back to your work table to grab a clean rag, rubbing it against your face and neck. “I’ll even throw in some free microvalves for good measure.”

—

Taglist of two so you can keep each other company :) : @rosetophighlander @hellomothermoon

#the mandolarian #the mandalorian x you #the mandolorian x reader #the mandalorian x ofc #the mandalorian smut #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin smut #din djarin x you #mando x reader #mando x you #mando smut #star wars smut #star wars day #his fucking microvalves that he worked hard on

1K notes · View notes

hello-im-not-a-possum · 3 years

Note

6 and 7 for Malice and the Prophet?

Pre-relationship:

6. If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

Sammy has mixed feelings about it. He exists to serve the Ink Demon so pursuing a romantic connection with anyone, let alone an angel who actively defies his Lord, would take him away from his purpose of living. On the other hand, if soulmates exist, his Lord must be responsible for that, therefore, if he doesn’t comply with getting together with the angel, he is defying his lord. No matter what he’s going against his god and he feels upset about it.

Malice begrudgingly agrees on the grounds that there must be no other way for her to be attracted to such a disgusting creature.

7. What would their lives be like if they had never met?

Either very different or not at all. Assuming that if their pre-inked selves never met either, than Malice might not even exist in the first place as Susie would never be the voice of Alice Angel. If their pre-inked selves did meet, then the two would just carry on with what they normally do while trapped in that studio, Malice’s life isn’t effected much by the scavenging searcher and even without Malice, Sammy is a very busy prophet.

General:

6. What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

If Sammy’s flock counts as his family then not good. Malice isn’t exactly popular with the people she kills for spare parts. Any family either of them have outside the studio would just be happy to know that they’re alive and well, so they wouldn’t dare appose the union.

7. Who takes the lead in social situations?

Sammy, he’s the more social of the two.

Love:

6. Who’s the big and little spoon?

When Malice eventually gets okay with touching/being touched by Sammy (which takes a while.) it’s hard to tell. When Sammy’s not actively putting in the energy into keeping himself stable he kinda just... melts and even Malice herself can’t tell if he’s holding her or she’s holding him. It’s not spooning at this point, it’s bread bowling. She is the bread bowl, he is the soup and the soup is everywhere.

7. What are their favorite things to do together?

Those old songs... he still plays them and she still sings them.

Also sometimes Malice will dissect Sammy. It might not seem like the greatest thing to do with a partner but believe it or not, it’s a mutually beneficial thing. When Malice takes what she wants, she replaces what she took, she removes things that have been causing Sammy pain, and she gives the guy some actual bones so he doesn’t have to resort to stuffing fucking nails and scraps in there anymore.

And they talk while she works on him, it takes a while to get the job done well, so both of them get stuff off of their chests that’s been gnawing at them for a while, studio-related and not. Sometimes it’s long, meaningful conversations about what they miss about the past, how’d they’d change it if they could, and who they used to be.

While other times it’s shit like; “I swear to god, I’m just going to run you through a fucking strainer if it means I don’t have to spend six hours picking dead bugs out of your brain. ...At least, I think this is your brain...” “Say, speaking of running me through things, do you think I’d become something if I was put in one of those machines in Bendy Land?” “Are you thinking out loud or giving me a suggestion?”

Domestic life:

6. Who worries the most?

Malice, She worries a lot over the Ink Demon, Joey, Allison, the butchered gang, etc. While Sammy has more than enough faith to keep him from ever worrying again.

7. Who kills the bugs in the house?

Both of them, Malice kills ‘em on sight and Sammy unintentionally suffocates them in his ink when they try to crawl in there for food.

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #sammy lawrence #Malice Angel #susie campbell #susie x sammy

19 notes · View notes

heroineimages · 3 years

Text

Tagged by @theoutcastrogue. (Her post)

Rules: It’s time to love yourself. Choose your 5 favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Thanks so much, sweet rogue, for tagging me! Firstly, this is exactly the kind of thing my therapist tells me I need to do for myself more often. Secondly, I tend to fixate on reading back over my past writing, so this gives me an excuse to do just that. Under the cut because there’ll be several writing excerpts and it might run long. Tagging @chenria, @9musesandanoldmind, @queer-trans-amazon, @jeanjauthor, and anyone else who wants in!

1. I did a lot of tinkering on Hero Forge after they released the colors and new engine. Firstly, I found it therapeutic and helpful for my anxiety. Secondly, I have a tendency to create stories for the new OCs I come up with. In particular, I like coming up with themed versions of the twelve base D&D classes. My favorite so far is the Desert Elf minis and their story.

2. My second favorite Hero Forge buildup was the Muskets and Snow designs, pitting Frost Elf tribes against musket-armed, multiracial commonwealth soldiers, once again based around the D&D classes. (Check my Hero Forge tag for more mini designs!)

3. I added four chapters to my Legend of Korra gladiator AU last year, and commissioned a movie poster for it from my amazing artist friend, Telenia Albuquerque. I added a few fighting scenes and several explicit lesbian bedroom scenes that I’m kind of proud of, including a fun, racy striptease. In the following scene, Asami breaks up a meeting between Varrick and none other than Marc Antony after Varrick attempts to abduct her and poison her bodyguards, including Korra:

“You said our host tried to abduct you?” [Antony] continued, turning to Asami.

“Of course not!” Varrick interrupted, stepping between Asami and Antony. “We’re pals, right, Antony? You know I’d never abduct anybody!”

“Mm, I seem to recall you abducting Titus Atticus’s wife, as well as the late Clodius Pulcher’s favorite catamite,” Antony replied.

“Allegedly!” Varrick protested, turning away and crossing his arms. “I allegedly abducted Atticus’s wife and Pulcher’s catamite!”

“Everything you do is ‘allegedly,’” Asami glared.

“So you’ve had dealings with this bastard before,” Antony laughed. “Please, come in,” he invited, gesturing to Varrick’s office. “No doubt we can handle this like civilized people, miss…?”

“Asami Sato,” Asami answered, allowing Antony to take and kiss her hand.

“Ah! Master Hiroshi’s daughter,” he identified her. “I’ve heard about you, and I’m delighted to make your acquaintance.”

“I’m sure,” Asami agreed with a hint of smooth annoyance.

“Great, thanks a lot, Zhu Li,” Varrick grumbled as the six of them trooped into his office. “What the heck happened, anyway?”

“It would seem you underestimated Mistress Sato, sir,” Zhu Li informed him, [still tossed over the gladiatrix’s shoulder]. The armored pauldron pressed into her gut was really uncomfortable. “She already had her guards inoculated against our poison.”

“What? How could you possibly know that?” Varrick demanded, turning to Asami.

“I’m more intelligent than you thought, and you’re less clever than you’d like to believe,” Asami answered, taking one of the three chairs in the room. “And, frankly, that old Persian trick of poisoning the dancing girls’ lips isn’t as cunning as you thought. It was all a matter of knowing what poisons you have access to and researching which ones work on contact and can have resistances built up for them.”

“Smart,” Antony agreed, taking the second chair while Acainissa stuffed Varrick in the chair behind his desk. Hebasken and Acainissa took up positions on either side of Varrick’s chair, looming over him.

“Varrick, this other door leads to your bedchambers, doesn’t it?” Asami asked, pointing to the curtained doorway.

“Yeah, why?” Varrick frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Korra, are you up for a bit of… revenge-sex?” Asami asked.

“I’m always up for revenge and sex,” Korra assured her.

“Take Zhu Li into Varrick’s chambers and fuck her stupid, please.” Asami instructed. “She’s a very intelligent woman, so I suspect that will take a lot of fucking to accomplish.”

Korra laughed and turned to pack Zhu Li through the door.

4. I’ve also made some progress on an older story I started a long time ago about my OC Elindra, a Drow paladin of the Red Knight who gets turned to a Drider by fanatics of Lolth. The following scene comes during the big escape from Ched Nasad between her and her dwarf cleric friend, Nell:

I used the glaive to parry the [Drider] warrior’s first assault. The snarly bastard was skilled, blocking and parrying my every attack, despite my Haste spell. And even if I did land a hit, my odds of breaking his Stoneskin were frustratingly small. I gave way instead, using my quickened speed to my advantage. An arrow flashed past us, announcing the return of the annoying ranger from earlier. I grimaced from frustration as another arrow shattered against my Mithral spaulder.

This was taking too damned long. No doubt the alarm had been raised and more guards and spell-casters were on their way.

Dueling with the warrior, I deliberately backed myself toward another aperture in the webs. I parried the warrior’s mace, managing to rap him across the face with the butt of my glaive. As he lunged again, I dropped my glaive and caught his arm. From there I leapt backward, pulling him though the gap with me. He caught the edge of the webs with two clawed legs, flipping us through upside-down. Still clutching his arm, my weight yanked him through the gap behind me.

A slightly larger Drider, I flipped myself onto his back, riding him downward as we plummeted. Gripping him by the hair, I screamed, “Smite Evil!” as we hit, slamming his head into the hardened webbing below.

The impact threw me from the warrior’s back, and I skidded onto my side perhaps twelve feet away. The warrior’s head was obliterated—a black, bloody smear across the calcified web floor.

“You alright?” I asked Nell as I picked myself up.

“Ye’re focking crazy, ye know that, Elindra?” Nell grumbled behind me, [still harnessed to my back]. “Ooh, that’s a pretty mess!” she laughed when I turned to look for a way back up. “Aye, let’s see ye Stoneskin protect ye from that shite, motherfocker!” she taunted the dead Drider.

5. And, lastly I’m happy with a lot of the progress I’ve made on my novel, First Empress. The following excerpt is a cute, racy little flashback scene of Elissa and Queen Viarra’s first time having sex:

“O–oh, gods!” Elissa groaned, catching her breath as she came down from her third climax.

Princess Viarra gripped the blanket on either side of Elissa’s shoulders, grunting as she thrust against Elissa’s leg to ride out her own climax. Broad, muscular arms trembling, her thrusts continued to get slower and more deliberate as she finished herself off. Her highness’s entire body shook one last time, and she gave a panting laugh before collapsing halfway atop Elissa.

They lay laughing and gasping for breath for long moments, their legs tangled together, their right breasts squashed against the other’s sternum. Princess Viarra’s arms splayed off to the sides while Elissa’s trembling arms clutched her love’s shoulders. Their shoulders were about even, but Viarra’s cunny now rested against Elissa’s knee. Their clothes lay discarded to one side with the wine they’d stolen from King Vaso and the erotic poetry they’d stolen from Prince Kallis. Above them, the peach trees of King Vaso’s orchard swayed in the afternoon breeze.

“I’m not squishing you, am I?” Viarra asked, her face still half-pressed against the tangle of brown and copper hair next to Elissa’s right ear.

“No,” Elissa laughed, wishing she had the energy to clutch her beloved princess tighter. “I feel safe beneath you,” she promised. “You make me feel safe and happy.”

“And you make me happy,” her highness assured her, turning her head to kiss and nibble at Elissa’s cheek. Elissa squealed and used one hand to try to push her away.

Unrelenting, Princess Viarra made a nasal, growling sound and pretended to gnaw on Elissa’s neck. “Grar! I just want to eat you up, you’re so sweet!” her highness declared, making exaggerated chewing noises against Elissa’s neck and shoulder.

Gods, her highness had gotten so strong the last few years, Elissa acknowledged as she squealed and giggled, unsuccessfully attempting to fight back. Viarra’s arms were probably bigger around than Elissa’s legs, and her shoulders were almost half-again as broad as Elissa’s. And she was tall. Possibly as tall as her mother as well as thick and big-boned, Princess Viarra was just too big and strong for anyone except maybe a wrestler or a gladiator to overpower.

Clearly Elissa would have to resort to guile instead.

Viarra shrieked out a series of giggles as Elissa reached up to tickle her sides. “Gods, no!” her highness squealed, attempting to push Elissa’s hands away. Unable to quite grab onto them, Viarra pushed herself away, laughing as she rolled onto her back.

Instead of renewing her assault, Elissa rolled over next to her, draping her left arm across Viarra’s chest and left leg across her waist.

“That was amazing,” Elissa admitted, snuggling up against her beloved’s nude form. “Thank you for being my first.”

“Thank you for being my first,” Princess Viarra countered, wrapping an arm around Elissa’s bare back. “I never imagined sex would feel like that.”

“You seemed to know what you were doing,” Elissa observed. “I mean, I could tell you were trying out techniques and all, but where did you learn them?”

“I asked Captain Vola,” her highness admitted looking over at her. “She’s pretty candid about sex advice, and even Captain Kellor admits it’s usually good advice. Part of the reason I brought you out here was because I wanted to try it, and there’s no one I’d rather try it with than you,” she added, reaching over to stroke Elissa’s cheek.

Elissa blushed and smiled, stroking her love’s powerful belly. “I’m glad you did,” she admitted, unable to think of anything else to say.

#theoutcastrogue #we-are-rogue #discussion

14 notes · View notes

we-are-the-amb · 3 years

Note

hey duder I hope you feel better soon!! can I request some headcanons for reverse tlb!! like maybe the frog brothers as vamps? <33

Thank you, buddy! <3 I do have some thoughts on this, though I have yet to really connect everything up and smooth things out. So, my thoughts are rather small, but I’d still like to share them.

- Edgar and Alan are not the brothers’ original names in this instance. Edgar and Alan were names they picked out after joining the Emersons, to cut themselves off from their old life. Sam found them delightful.

- I stated this in a previous post, but in this AU, the Frogs are Catholics. Despite being halfway turned, they insist upon keeping their rosaries. The skin on their chests and fingers are covered with burns and are constantly irritated, as a result.

- Their faith, combined with absent parents during their human lives, gave them a fervent love and devotion for Mary. She had become something of a mother figure to them, while they were still living in the bayou. This was a love that was transferred somewhat onto Lucy, when the Frogs were persuaded to leave their home to find a new one with the Emersons (this was before they knew about the vampirism). After they were half turned, Lucy regretted that they were brought in blind. Since their turning she has only worn the colour blue, as a way to comfort and placate them.

- Coming to the time that TLB is set, the aesthetic of the vampires in this AU is somewhat different. Rather than taking on the guise of a biker gang, Lucy’s boys are more like a tiny circus troop. They blend in with the entertainment at the fair by dressing like little laundry heaps, wearing masks and makeup and entertaining people on the boardwalk. They do magic tricks, they mess with people, they play music. Instead of a concert, we are instead treated to an eerie scene of Sam singing a traditional folk and dancing song on the beach, while Edgar and Alan pluck away behind him.

- As Sam once did, the Frogs wear masks in public. In their case it is not to hide their vampy features, but a remedy for shyness and to avoid direct eye contact with their audience. Sam for his part, has cast off the masks in exchange for makeup by the 80s. Since they began to pose as little clowns, he decided to simply pretend that his own face was a mask, caking it with makeup and sparkles to add to the illusion.

- The Frogs of course, having been half vamps for so long have gotten by on animal blood. This has, however, made them rather sickly, as it is not what their bodies want. It is also very upsetting for them, as they struggled to even eat the animals they owned in their old home. Edgar always wants to keep a piece of the animals he drains, most often their pelts. All of the clothes he owns are large, shapeless garments sewn from a patchwork of animal skins; rats, rabbits, cats, etc. He has collars strung with ears, feet, feathers and bones. He finds it all quite comforting and is almost constantly touching the furs. Sam and Alan, too, find him quite cuddly as a result.

While Edgar prefers to drink his blood fresh, get it over with quickly, Alan is a great deal more squeamish in that regard. Rather than drinking blood fresh, he collects and distils it, and sips it like milk. I based this on a youth preserving practice from a few centuries ago (excuse me, by memory of dates is fucking abysmal, but I think it was most popular in the 16th-17th centuries), when it was believed that distilling blood isolated the life force within (blood turns gold when distilled), which would add years to one’s life if drunk (that is, if the individual died prematurely, or suffered a violent death). As a result, Alan feeds less than Edgar and appears more noticeably ill. He wears a lot of copper jewellery, partly because he enjoys the sound and partly because he likes to gnaw on it. It’s all full of teeth marks. His body is sickening for something.

#mylovesickvalentyne #asks #headcanons #au #reverse au #sam #sam emerson #edgar #edgar frog #alan #alan frog #vamp!sam #vamp!alan #vamp!edgar #awesome monster bashers #frog brothers #the lost boys #lost boys

11 notes · View notes

typinggently · 4 years

Note

So what do you think Feral™ Bruce’s relationship with his kids would be like? Somewhere in my bones I feel that he’d have a better relationship with all of them than in canon, but I wonder what you think! Love your blog, btw!!!

Hello Love!!! Thank you so much for your message! 🥰🧡🧡

I took some time to reflect on this and really think it through, since there are two problems: 1) I only really know about the “fandom favourites”, as in Dick (who I know most about since I used to read the 50s comics as a kid), Jason, Tim, Damian. And thus I felt a little unqualified since I know so little about the girls etc.

2) Rob is 33, which means the Robins would all have to be VERY young. Realistically, I guess, we could assume timeline-wise Jason would’ve died not too long ago? But I’m just going to ignore realism. So, without further ado

Feral Bruce and his Robins

Dick: Bruce adopting Dick makes sense to me, since the grief over his own lost family is so fresh in his mind. He’d lay eyes on this heartbroken child and immediately jump into action. However, due to his age and personality, this wouldn’t have a TRACE of a father/son relationship. Not even close. They’re chaos siblings, with Bruce as the messy rat and Dick as the adoring golden boy. He’s super proud of his older bro and tells others about how cool he is, which everyone 100% buys because it’s Bruce Wayne, of course he’s super cool. They don’t know that Dick’s definition of cool is “he slipped on his own 3 hour old puddle of sprite and did a funny backflip”. Now - as they grow older: I say they’re rather close due to their shared history(&shared grief), and they’re in a way rather similar. Similar fighting styles (both acrobats and very graceful, while Dick is more of a show-off while Bruce is more erratic), similar sense of humour and taste in films etc. I also think they don’t have a dramatic falling out, Dick just fucks off. Bruce is definitely sad about it, but I think he respects Dick’s need for personal growth since he himself isn’t exactly an overbearing cuddly person and most likely shut himself away for a few days at a time in the past. Idk. I think they get each other really well. So yeah, their relationship is def better!!

Jason: Bruce sees a kid trying to hotwire the batmobile and recognises a kindred spirit. Jason pros - he has a lot of that chaotic energy Bruce has. Jason cons - he lacks the grace and self-control. In general, I feel like pre-Joker Jason and Bruce had a rather good relationship as well. Once again not really that father figure thing, though. But Bruce moved up from”chaotic older brother” to “cool older brother” - since he now has a bit of a grip on how to treat teenagers, even though Jason doesn’t take to his rules as well as Dick did (I see many a person interpret Bruce as kind of lenient and clueless, letting the kids run wild and free, and while I agree with the base levels of that, I’m p sure that Bruce in any version is so built on self-control, that he’d impose that on others as well. Strict meal plans, exercises, etc). Jason’s death is a thing I really don’t know how to handle, because Bruce has such a thin skin. Frankly, I don’t know how he’d survive something like that. Grief is terrible and heart-breaking, and I’m not sure how well-equipped Bruce would be. It’s a very, very dark time. Red Hood is another thing. Bruce can barely fight Harvey, so I don’t see how he’d manage to interact with Jason. I honestly think he’d completely pull back from him. I don’t know how they’d heal from that and I’m not sure how Bruce would deal with the core of Jason’s anger. Fighting him is one thing (which he absolutely cannot do), but understanding him and trying to mend what’s broken is another. Very difficult. Very heartbreaking.

Tim: that would just be a mess. There aren’t any real descriptions of Batman, because his contact with civilians/the GPD is minimal and can you trust villains? They say his fighting style is erratic, but can you trust them? Can you believe Riddler, madly gnawing on his hat, when he tells you Batman threw a comically large plush bat at him and then bonked him over the head with a “bat-knocker”?! What I’m saying: Tim figures the “I love the Ritz. I just wish they had soda-fountains. They have the room and people would love it. A fountain of sparkling-cool orange soda in the hall, catching the light and making those nice ambient sounds. That would be glam. What was the question?” - act is an act, but he’s not at all prepared for the actual Feral Bruce Experience™️. He drops himself off on Bruce’s doorstep and holds his whole “I know who you are” speech until Bruce opens the door and the guy is wearing a kilt and a “world’s #1 Bat” shirt, drinking hot beetroot juice and greets him by saying “how the fuck did you get past the sprinklers?” In short - Tim didn’t expect to be the responsible one here. In general, I feel like they’d get along well, still, considering Bruce is so enthusiastic about learning and bettering himself. However, I do feel like his erratic rat-nature would clash with Tim now and then.

Damian: Bruce’s first instinct after hearing he’s a father is to learn how to raise a baby, so he panically throws together a huge pile of Infant Care books from the library, Damian (10+) standing right next to him. That said, he’s very concerned about being a good father figure and raising Damian right. He loves the other boys, of course, but he never really saw himself as their father. This is a new situation for him and he doesn’t feel like he’s up for it. So now he tries to be a good influence, which results in him knocking on their doors at 1:30am all “remember not to drink coffee past midnight!” while holding a pitcher with Earl Grey.

Which brings me to the end note: Bruce is actually a great influence, he’s just not aware of it. He enforces healthy eating habits and a strict exercise routine. He’s got great posture and reminds his boys to sit/walk straight and stretch. He’s very cultured and studious in a very un-pretentious way, setting a great example for the boys.

But most importantly - he’s so true to himself in such an unapologetic way that everyone else feels free and encouraged to be themselves, too. While his eccentric behaviour could be interpreted as self-centred narcissism, he makes it extremely clear that he cares greatly about each and every one of them. He’s incredibly compassionate and they all know that he loves them dearly.

They all learn a lot from him when he’s not looking, and whenever he notices some little piece of evidence for just how much he’s influencing them, he turns into a mess, eating carrot sticks in the kitchen at 2am with big teary eyes while Alfred makes him tea. (Alfred is the real father figure, of course, but he’s insanely proud of Bruce for handling his responsibilities so well and doing so good with his flock of Robins)

I’m very, very soft. Bruce deserves the world. He loves his family a lot, even though he seems to take them for granted or forget about them at times. And they love him, too, although he’s a bit strange.

(So, to make it short: they DO have a great relationship. Just a tiny bit rocky at times, but I feel like this Bruce is less emotionally repressed and thus a lot of issues would fall flat? They know he cares)

#feral bruce hours #DC #im soft soft SOFT

50 notes · View notes

ckret2 · 5 years

Text

Gold Skin, Black Blood, and Stone Bones

Today, Ghidorah tells Rodan they’re starving for a very particular food: gold.

A long time ago, the Xiliens ensure Monster Zero can never escape by restructuring its digestive system with a strange dietary need: gold.

It's odd how often a gold craving can be solved with a little grave robbing.

Uhhhh happy halloween? Written (loosely) based on the prompts:

(June 19) Anonymous said: So there was a tweet about how in a way mothra was godzillas flag bearer (in addition to being his queen), how about a fic of ghidorah thinking about rodan being his or something similar?

(September 16) Anonymous said: Prompt: Waking Hour. Rodan wakes up first; explore both Rodan and Ghidorahs morning habits, what the two of them like to get up to in the early hours of the morning.

(October 14) @corruptapostasy said: Thanks to new information I have another Rodorah prompt idea. Ghidorah messily trying to shed, and Rodan helping them out by ripping all of the old skin off. By doing so, he sees the scars of the stitches lining their body from when they were fused together. Possible angst ensues.

as well as a long headcanon post from Sept 4 about what Ghidorah eats. (Answer: dirt and gold.)

This is part of an ongoing series of Rodorah one-shots. If you don’t wanna read the others... you don’t have to, but this fic builds on the others enough that tbh it’ll probably make more sense if you do. Quick note: Rodan goes by "Nido" because he refers to everyone by the name of their home volcano/island/etc but I ain't got the space to explain everything else from prior fics. If you wanna read this anyway and then get confused feel free to message me for context. If you wanna read this but the content warnings in the tags are for things you can’t handle message me and I’ll get you a version with that content removed. Links to the other fics are in the source at the bottom of this post.

###

Life around to Nido's volcano was settling into a familiar daily routine. Depending on what time he'd gone to sleep, Nido could get up long before the first light of day or long after the sun had crossed the horizon. The golden ones, who sometimes slept curled around the rim of Nido's crater and sometimes in a hollow at the base of the volcano, invariably rose exactly at sunrise, except on cloudy mornings. (They almost always went to sleep at sunset, too, except on nights they were waiting for him to return late. Like flowers that bloomed in the day and closed at night.)

On mornings when the golden ones were up before Nido and weren't out flying, Nido could usually tell before he'd opened his eyes. They'd almost always be at the northernmost point of the island, staring out at sea, singing. Quietly enough not to wake him or fill his dreams with strange emotions, but still loudly enough for him to catch occasional snippets of the melody—sometimes even a word or two if they were singing in his language. On such mornings, Nido would sleepily call them up to his nest, pull himself out of the lava, and let them nuzzle him to their heart's content, which always left the scales on their necks and faces streaked with fresh volcanic ash and left the armor on his wings, chest, and back decorated with golden stripes and facial imprints. They'd check his decorations and twist around to examine each other's faces and necks, and when they'd decided that both their decorations were satisfactory, the middle one would give him a good morning bunt; and then they would go about their separate business.

And from there, Nido decided what to do that morning.

Some days, if Nido saw the humans out and about on the sea scooping dead fish from the water, he'd help out—sometimes by scooping and dumping fish himself, sometimes by sweeping the fish drifting away into one area so the humans could more easily get it all in a couple of passes.

There should have been no more dead rising to the surface by then, a month and a half after the strange light that had killed everything in the water. And yet, every once in a while, another wave of dead creatures bobbed up. Nido has even seen a whale corpse recently. It wasn't natural. Nido didn't know a lot about what happened beneath the surface of the sea, but he knew that the dead shouldn't still be floating almost two months after they'd died. It meant they weren't rotting right, and that made him nervous. Quite a few things could go wrong in nature, but rot itself wasn't supposed to be one of them.

Nido had carried the whale corpse out to healthier water and dropped it there—he didn't want it near his island, too big for the humans to remove, too big to cremate in his volcano, and liable to rupture and blow rotten blubber and fetid gas all over the place at any time. He hoped it would rot properly and sink elsewhere in the ocean, and hoped he wasn't inadvertently helping spread some weird plague around.

Some days he traveled. He was slowly working his way over the two nearest continents—he'd started by heading southeast straight along the coast to Ponta do Seixas and then back to his island, and each day moved a little further clockwise around the compass, exploring a strip at a time. When he finished the nearest two continents, he would cross the volcanic trail via Alaxsxa and explore the larger continents out west bit by bit, as much at a time as he could without leaving his nest for longer than a night.

It wasn't the most thorough way to explore the area—you saw a lot of green and tan blurs when you were flying near cloud level and faster than sound, but you didn't pick up a lot of details. Right now, he only wanted to see how the land itself had changed while he'd hibernated. Details came later. He noted anything that looked interesting so he could come back and investigate more thoroughly once he'd finished his initial survey.

Some days he patrolled his territory. He was down to patrolling about three or four times a month at this point, now that the land and sea around his island were familiar to him again, and next month would probably only patrol it a couple of times. The human population was booming on his turf, he saw. It seemed it was booming everywhere.

And the sky was lousy with metal birds. He'd very much like to hunt them; but when he'd tried near home, the golden ones had shouted at him to stop, and then forcibly dragged him back to land when he didn't. After an argument that was rather prolonged by the fact that the golden ones didn't know the words for whatever it was they were riled up about, they managed to convey that they were trying to talk about humans, Nido taught them the word for the little creatures, and they'd claimed that humans rode around in the metal birds. He'd scoffed at the idea—but they'd told him to wait, flown off, come back with a metal bird carefully pinned in one talon so its wings were crushed but its body was whole, and had shown Nido where to peer through its transparent back to see the little human inside. It was the most disturbing thing he'd ever seen until he'd realized the bird was a fake.

He still wanted to hunt them—partially just to rip one open and see what was in its artificial guts—but the golden ones were paranoid around humans, and so for their sake he left them alone. He'd just chased them for a bit instead.

Some days, he'd investigate odd morning noises. Some days, he'd make quick trips to the nearest active volcanoes. Some days, he'd just roll down the side of a mountain for a while.

The golden ones, on the other hand, had developed their own routine as they grew comfortable on Nido's island. If left to their own devices, they'd spend late morning to high noon doing only one thing.

They preened.

Nido assumed it was preening, anyway. It was the same sort of motions that Nido used when he was preening himself, at any rate—when he was fresh from a bath and needed to sculpt the still soft lava into ridges and spines, or when he'd had a long day and needed to pick out bits of rubble that had flaked off from his armor or detritus that'd gotten wedged into cracks during a battle—and it was the same sort of motions he used on the golden ones when he was preening their necks and heads, which they seemed to enjoy just fine, even though they were really too smooth to need much of it. The point was, it looked like preening.

But it also looked excruciatingly painful.

They'd scrape their teeth against their scales viciously, sometimes hard enough that, on overcast days, Nido could see sparks produced where their teeth dug into the scales. They'd twist and contort themselves to reach whatever spot they thought needed attention, usually one of them scraping at the offending spot while another one bent around to keep an eye on the work—the most impressive position Nido had witnessed so far was when one of them had managed to get his head hooked behind their knee to gnaw at a spot alongside one of their tails.

Sometimes they only left grooves in the scales with their teeth, ugly-looking scratches in the soft metal surface that they covered up by leaving more grooves parallel to the first, until the grooves had combined into a single smoothed-out depression. Sometimes they'd dig the tip of a fang under a scale and rip it out completely. Sometimes—to Nido's perpetual horror—they'd bite straight down in to their scales, fangs piercing deep into the flesh, and carve out whatever surface imperfection had so offended them.

Their blood, Nido discovered, was black and slow-oozing, and left dark brownish-purple stains. And by late morning, it wasn't uncommon for them to be alternating between their vicious preening and licking at a dozen tiny bloody trickles running sluggishly down their scales.

They snarled, growled, hissed, and grunted with pain and frustration as they ripped at their thin armor, as though they were engaged in battle with each other but trying to keep quiet about it—and Nido would almost suspect that was the case, except that these strange sessions were clearly a tearm effort.

And when they were finished—Nido was hesitant to say "satisfied"—they'd climb the volcano, flop in the lava, and remain there until their bloody punctures had shut and their damaged scales had regrown.

They always waited until Nido left the island before they started preening—they wouldn't do it at all on the days he stayed on the island, and if he was patrolling nearby they didn't progress past leaving a few shallow grooves in their scales. Initially, they would stop completely whenever he came home. By now, they just ignored him, turning away as they preened—not in a way that prevented him from watching, but that prevented them from watching him watch—and hissed threateningly if they did catch him staring. He got the sense that they were ashamed of this near-daily ritual, but too ashamed of being ashamed to leave the island and find somewhere more private to do it.

Usually if Nido didn't understand something, he'd just embrace the bafflement. Not all things were for him to understand. But in this case, their preening habits looked so painful that he had to make sure nothing was wrong. He had waited until he actually managed to make eye contact with them as they climbing the volcano to recover before he dared ask them what, exactly, the point of all that was. They'd given him a resentful look, but explained that sometimes their scales would grow back crooked or misshapen and the easiest way to fix it was to rip them out and let them regrow properly.

"We are far from where we come from," they'd explained. "If something becomes wrong with our body, there is no one here who knows how we work on our inside. We have to be vigilant." ("Vigilant" was one of their favorite words; they pronounced it as four syllables.) "We fix a small problem before it is big. We stay healthy."

Nido had thought that sounded like a load of rubbish to him—in what way did ripping tiny wounds in their hides improve their health? How did straightening a few crooked scales balance out the fact that they spent most mornings with tiny open wounds that anything could crawl into?

But then, what did Nido know about three-headed mind-controlling flying singing golden sea serpents from outer space? Maybe they were genuinely combating some kind of deadly dermatological condition. If that was the answer they wanted to give, he had no choice but to grudgingly take them at their word.

He noticed they never disturbed the scales that got volcanic ash on them in the morning. He was half tempted to ask them whether a coating of volcanic ash guaranteed scale health no matter how crooked they were, and if so, how come they didn't cover all their scales with it?

If he pointed it out, though, they might stop their morning greetings out of self-consciousness. And he'd hate that. So he said nothing, but on some mornings tried to coax them into nuzzling him a bit longer, in hopes his shared armor would help protect a bit more of their scales from their own fangs.

###

"How is Monster 0 recovering from surgery?" Scientist 7 asked. "I received a notice that you had trouble with it trying to tear out its stitches."

The Animal Trainer who'd been put in charge of tending to the monster said, "We were able to curb that behavior until it mended."

S-7 nodded. "Good."

"Although we had to restrain its heads, legs, and tails in padded covers until the stitches had healed."

"To be expected. Its wings are still stitched shut?"

"For now. We'll have to switch to a less restrictive means of keeping them closed before it grows much more, or else we'll risk them atrophying beyond any hope of its ever flying again."

S-7 waved off the concern. "We've already prepared an alternate means of easily unsealing and resealing its wings."

"Good." The Animal Trainer paused. "However, in the wake of Monster 0's recovery from surgery, it's developed some unexpected behavioral quirks that may be detrimental."

"Oh?"

"It no longer has any stitches to bite, but instead it sometimes bites its own undamaged scales. It has made itself bleed several times."

S-7 considered the information impassively. "Do you believe its heads are trying to attack each other?"

"No. On the contrary, the self-injury appears to be a collaborative effort."

"Unexpected indeed. You are the expert in dorats—what do you believe is causing this behavior?"

The Animal Trainer took a moment to consider the possibilities. "I believe it's simply a response to stress," xe said. "Their body language resembles common dorat social grooming behaviors used to sooth each other during stressful situations, except such behaviors typically take the form of licking each other rather than biting."

"So its distress has caused the specimens to emotionally bond with each other rather than turn on each other?"

"Yes, it's a vast improvement over prior prototypes. Nevertheless, the damage it's causing itself is deserving of concern."

S-7 was silent a moment as she thought. "If it's a reaction to stress, them the only way to purge this odd behavior is by drastically reducing the stress they're under, correct?"

"Or physically restraining them," the Animal Trainer said. "Although that's not a long term solution."

"No, it isn't. How bad is the damage? Is it wounding itself?"

"Only superficially. It doesn't bite deeper than its scales. The damage heals readily under a heat lamp."

"Then spray the wounds with disinfectant before they heal. I don't see any need to address it further than that," S-7 concluded. "The cost in time, effort, and resources that it would take to reduce its stress isn't worth it for something as easily repairable as lightly damaged scales. Some of our objectives may, in fact, be impossible to reach without inducing considerable stress. If biting itself is its chosen coping mechanism, by all means." She made a sharp, permissive gesture. "Let it cope. It saves us some of the effort of dealing with its mental state."

As they spoke, they hardly spared a glance toward the three-headed creature, already five times larger than the average adult dorat, curled up and shivering on the grated metal floor.

###

And then one morning, the golden ones didn't touch Nido.

He stretched gracelessly with a leg and half a wing out of the lava, tilted his head to listen to the golden ones sing, opened one eye a slit, and called, "Hey."

They stopped singing, but there was no reply. Usually they came flying. "Hey?" He flopped around, getting his face over the humans' addition to his volcano's rim so he could check and see whether the golden ones were still on the island.

Not only that—they were already halfway up the volcano, looking up at him.

He chirped at them. "Morning."

"It is," they agreed neutrally.

He watched them expectantly. Lefty and righty turned away under his gaze, one of them surveying the human colony and the other gazing somewhere vaguely behind Nido, feigning disinterest.

Only the middle one looked him straight on. "Not this time," he said.

"Oh," Nido said. "Yeah. All right, that's fine."

The golden ones eschewed their morning ritual that day. Instead, almost as soon as they'd greeted him, they took off to the east. The sky clouded behind them, and although no rain fell, thunder rumbled until early afternoon.

What in the world had that been about? They'd never been anything but eager to take advantage of the morning exception to the "no touching below the neck" rule. What, were they mad at him about something?

Yesterday he'd taken them to see a waterfall that was taller than he was and teach them some related geography terms. They almost spent more time staring at him than the features he was trying to teach them about. Lovestruck dorks. They'd effortlessly curved themselves to fit the contour of the canyon below the waterfall and taken a nap right in the river. They'd had a great day. No, they didn't have anything reason to be upset with Nido.

And anyway, they reacted to anger the same way most people reacted to fear: the only two options were fight or flight, and they committed to their choice immediately. They wouldn't just sulk around for a night and then give him the cold shoulder the next morning.

So what was up with them?

He didn't see them again all day or night.

###

Monster 0 growled at its bowl of food, and then growled at Animal Trainer 80.

AT-80 looked up impassively at the beast with teeth thicker around than xer thigh. "You want to eat that," xe informed it.

It growled louder. Somewhere far behind it, the tips of its chained down tails rattled menacingly.

"You stupid creature," AT-80 said coldly. "This is the same kibble you had last week, it's just a different shape." Instead of being sculpted into massive spheres made to resemble common dorat pet food, Monster 0's food had been dumped into its bowl as it actually was: dirt. Dirt and rocks, carefully mixed to provide the exact minerals needed to meet its nutritional requirements, no added flavors or artifice reducing its purity and disguising its nature.

Monster 0 snorted at the bowl in disgust.

"We understand your dietary requirements better than you," AT-80 told it.

Monster 0 lifted its middle head and snorted at AT-80. Xe was blown to the ground by the gust.

With the help of a couple other Animal Trainers, xe got back to xir feet. Xe brushed xemself off shakily. "You know better than that."

Right on cue, AT-80 felt the cranial implants through which xe received direct audial transmissions from Controller 0 swell into earplugs, as they were no doubt swelling for every other person in the room; xe only faintly heard the shrill, trilling siren Controller 0 played as punishment for Monster 0. It dropped its heads to the floor, pressing them together and pulling its wired-shut wings over them in a futile effort to block out the noise, writhing in pain as much as its shackles allowed. It remained there, eyes squeezed shut and trembling hard enough to rattle the furniture, long after the sound ended.

When Controller 0 had unsealed everyone's earplugs, AT-80 heard a voice say, "I am certain you are not torturing Monster 0 as a punishment for not eating."

AT-80 looked up as Scientist 7 entered Monster 0's hangar through a mezzanine door. Xe didn't know S-7's exact field of expertise—only that she was the mastermind behind the program to turn dorats into monsters. AT-80 had only recently been added to the team of Animal Trainers controlling Monster 0 and got the sense no one else knew her exact field of expertise, either. Controller 0 probably wanted it that way.

"You are aware that torture will only teach it to force feed itself when under duress, not to willingly and voluntarily consume its meals." She descended the stairs as she spoke. She had her daughter in her arms today, a small curious creature that already had her mother's pale ivory chitin. Typically children would never be allowed in this facility, but Controller 0 made a generous exception for women who were training their daughters as their successors.

"I am aware," AT-80 said. "The punishment was for an assault on my person."

"I see."

"However, it appears unwilling to accept its food in its new form. It is too simple-minded to understand that loose soil and kibble-shaped soil are the same substance."

"Three heads, and yet none appear to have brains," S-7 said dryly. "How unfortunate."

She seemed to be making a joke. Quite unorthodox, particularly this high in the military. She must be an exceptional talent for Controller 0 to promote her so highly despite her behavioral quirks.

"Since switching its diet from kibble to loose soil, it appears to have regressed in its ability to accept the food we offer," AT-80 said. "We may have to backtrack to letting it make its own meal choices again before we can make progress again."

S-7 considered the proposal. "Or perhaps we have simply progressed too fast to give it adequate time to cope with the earlier changes in its diet before insisting on even greater changes. We might have to go back to the kibble until it's finished adjusting," she said. "How many times has it successfully eaten kibble-shaped soil?"

"Twenty-five," AT-25 said.

"Without prompting?"

"Without prompting."

S-7 sharply waved away her hypothesis. "Then it should have had more than adequate time to adjust to its new diet," she said. "Proceed with your proposal."

AT-80 nodded to a lower-ranked animal trainer, who hurried to prepare another bowl.

In seventeen minutes—during which Monster 0 progressed from cowering on the floor to glowering sullenly at AT-80 and S-7—one of the steel overhead doors along the side of Monster 0's hangar rolled up. A second bowl was wheeled out in front of the monster. The bowl was filled with warm dead animals: a mix of the usual prey of feral dorats—creatures tiny enough to get caught between the fangs of this massive mutant—and larger prey that dorats typically would bring down in a flock. Monster 0's nostrils flared at the scent. Its heads jerked up and it stared greedily into the bowl.

AT-80, S-7, and the other workers relocated to the mezzanine level.

Just before the right head dug in, the left caught sight of the scientists moving up a level, and all three heads froze. All three faces stared up at the Xiliens, a rumble building deep in the monster's throats—not a threatening sound, AT-80 had determined over time, but an oversized version of a self-soothing noise dorats made when they were injured or afraid. As though Monster 0 was waiting for permission before it touched the bowl of meat. So it did remember what was going to happen.

"Eat whichever bowl you want," AT-80 instructed it. "This is what you asked for, isn't it?"

Xe hoped it would be sensible, recall its past experiences, and eat the dirt like it ought to. But it hesitated for only a moment before all three faces ferociously dove for the bowl of meat. It snarled and snorted like the base beast it was, gore spattering its faces up to its eyes and dripping down its throats, strips of meat and bone spattering to the floor—as though it hadn't been fed in a month. Or as though it wanted to eat as much as possible before the inevitable happened.

Nevertheless, it hit in seconds.

In the process of adjusting Monster 0's dietary needs and digestive system, S-7 and her team had also adjusted its sense of taste. Dirt wasn't delicious—there was absolutely no need to give Monster 0 the capacity to derive pleasure from its food, that would only inspire it to try to eat on its own schedule rather than on the Xiliens'—but at the very least, dirt tasted neutral. However, they'd needed a way to ensure that Monster 0 wouldn't attempt to revert to its former carnivorous dorat diet and make itself ill.

Thus, its sense of taste had been altered so that meat would taste intolerably vile.

It jerked back from the food, jaws clamped shut and making three different expressions of disgust. Its entire body was tensed around its throats, like it was trying to swallow its mouthfuls and vomit them back up at the same time. Its eyes bugging out, sides convulsing as it fought against its own disgust; but the disgust was winning out.

AT-80 could feel its nausea wash over xem in a psychic wave. Xe quietly excused xemself and joined the other scientists stepping into the hallway, where the walls would shield most of the psychic barrage—along with the noise and the stench.

The monster started heaving just before the door sealed shut.

The floor under Monster 0's hangar was grated specifically for ease of cleaning up fluids and minute detritus. Even so, when AT-80 stepped back in, the floor below was still coated in thick black bile struggling to ooze through the small holes. Shreds of dead meat were mixed among the bile. The monster had collapsed in its own sick—dark bile dripping in slow, gunky rivulets around its fangs, from its nostrils, and out of its eyes. What a sorry, disgusting mess. To think xe and xer team needed to get this thing ready to raze whole cities. "Prepare to hose it off," xe said curtly to an underling, and then faced the monster and raised xer voice. "Have we learned our lesson, Monster 0?"

It didn't move. Its faces were pressed close together, eyes screwed shut, like baby dorats in an abandoned nest huddling for warmth. It shuddered with each breath.

"Well?" Xe waited until one of the heads pried open an eye and focused blearily on xem. "You knew very well what would happen. Nevertheless, you did this to yourself. Remember this the next time you think you know your dietary needs better than we do."

Its eye glazed over and drooped half shut.

AT-80 wasn't sure it could understand xem. Lightly, xe asked, "Would you like me to refill your food bowl?"

Its eyes shot open. It struggled to back away from AT-80 and the two food bowls, spines arched, gagging again at the mere suggestion of food. Black drool dripped from its filthy jaws, its eyes wild.

S-7's daughter laughed.

###

The golden ones' imminent arrival was heralded before dawn with peals of thunder and flashes of light from the west. Nido groggily lifted his head to peer at them as they landed on the slope beside him. "You're up late." He tilted his head and shoulders back, stretching his throat and chest. "S'going on?"

"We need lava," they said. "We do not know where."

Nido clicked his beak at them, puzzled, but obligingly scooted to the edge of the crater. His volcano was their volcano.

"No, not that. Other kind of lava."

"Mafic?"

"No! Different."

"Those're the only kinds they make."

"No. Then—" They made a displeased noise. "Maybe word is wrong. What is the word for things that go in mouth and into body? All things."

"Food?" Nido cackled. "You thought lava means 'food'?"

"It is the only thing you put in your mouth, what else should we think it means?" They swiped at him with a wing. "Stop that. We are serious. We need food."

Nido forced himself to stop laughing. "You're hungry, you mean?"

"Hungry means 'rotting'?"

If he hadn't already stopped laughing, that would have done it. They definitely knew what rotting meant, he'd shown them with the fish washing ashore. "Not quite." He climbed on the volcano's rim, trying to ignore the drizzle now rolling down his back. (For a moment, they leaned toward him, like they wanted to press against his fresh armor; but they held themselves back.) "Okay, what kind of food do you need?"

"It is this kind of rock." They pushed several objects to the rim of the volcano: the remains of the metal bird, their music box, and what looked like a giant chunk of iron.

"Metal?"

"It is metal that looks like this." They curled a tail around to rap themselves on the chest.

"Gold."

"Gold. We need gold." They twitched as they processed what they'd just said; and then they looked at Nido, tapped their chest again, and quietly asked, "'Gold-In-Ones'?" It was the closest they'd ever gotten to correctly pronouncing Nido's nickname for them.

"Golden means 'looks like gold,' yeah."

"Ihi." For a moment, they said nothing, processing this new knowledge of their name. Nido hoped it wasn't somehow insulting. If they ate gold, was calling them "golden" like calling them a piece of meat?

But they went on without comment. "We do not just look like gold. We are gold. But it is getting..." They pantomimed a rubbing gesture with one wing, searching for the word. "We are losing our gold. We need more."

Nido glanced over them. Maybe it was the morning rain, but did they look a little less lustrous than usual? "Maybe if you didn't bite off your own scales so often..."

One head snapped his fangs threateningly at Nido. He snapped his beak back. They said, "We are careful. We take our scales back in as food. We lose no gold that way."

"So where's it going?"

Two heads turned away while the right glanced sideways at Nido. Oh. It was him. Every morning, they gave him a little more. And every night he covered it up in another layer of lava. "... Huh." He looked down, letting their chunk of iron absorb his attention.

"You know this world. You know where we can find gold?" they asked. The left added, "It needs to be pure. Mostly pure. Gold inside other metal makes us feel bad."

Nido pushed the iron around with a talon as he considered the question. "I think so." It had been a long time, but... "I can look. Wait here."

They hesitated. "You will be back soon?"

"Yeah! Just gotta... make sure it's where I think it is. Continents shift, mountains erode, you know."

"What do what what?"

"Gold now, geology lesson later." He lifted off, butted the middle head—and was immediately awash with an unease made up of shame, anxiety, and a strange numb fatigue that seemed to stretch over the very surface of his armor. They jerked back and the right head curled in front of the other two protectively. Whoops. "No touching," Nido said. Got it.

He circled above them, cawed a farewell, and headed north away from the island—and, hopefully, away from the rain.

###

According to legend—stories so old that they were passed down by mouth rather than by instinct—Nido's kind had arisen from the Central Pangaean Mountains hundreds of millions of years ago, when the mountains had stretched toward the sky like teeth and breathed such fire that the whole world burned with them.

According to everyone else, this legend was bunk. The Central Pangaean Mountains' volcanoes had been extinct for nearly half a billion years, and when they had burned, creatures were just barely figuring out how to walk on land. Nido still liked the legend. It seemed appropriate to imagine that his kind had come from the firebloody heart of a supercontinent.

Anyway, even if it wasn't quite that long ago, it was true that his kind could trace their origins to the Central Pangaean Mountains: the first home of his ancestors, before they'd nested in volcanoes, before they'd even flown. The evidence was in their bones, buried beneath the mountain range. If you knew where to look, you could still find their graves.

And Nido knew where to look.

Of course, "Central Pangaean Mountains" was a bit of a misnomer now. Considering that the range had been split in two by the Atlantic and a third chunk of it had ended up on an island somehow, the Central Pangaean Mountains were neither Central nor Pangaean. But the name stuck nevertheless.

Luckily, the bulk of the former Central Pangaean Mountains—reduced from sharp fangs to old, dull, ground-down teeth—wasn't far northeast of him. Just a quick loop around the gulf and it was practically right there. Even though he was partially flying east, the sun had barely progressed by the time the mountains rolled out below him.

He was always shocked at how much lower the Central Pangaean Mountains looked than he thought they were supposed to—but he'd long gotten used to superimposing the map in his brain over the far flatter map he saw in the landscape below him, so he flew on, looking for the right valleys.

###

Nido was squashed between several trees that went up to his chest, awkwardly shoving the branches aside with his wings so he could see the ground, clawing at the soil with his talons to try to find a gap between the roots, and all the while sang nervously to himself:

"Gonna rob a grave, gonna rob a graaave, not gonna be a big deeeal, it's gonna be fiiine."

He was very glad the golden ones couldn't hear his singing.

"Gonna be o-kay, cuz they're not buried on moun-tains, so it's not actually des-e-crat...ing-a-grave..." He didn't know what this tune was. This was a horrible tune. He was never making up a song again. "As long as I stop when I hit the hide and before I reach the bones behind, it's fiiiiine..."

Which was, of course, the exact moment his talons hooked around what he thought was a deep root and tugged it out, and he discovered it was a fossilized thigh bone. "Oh! Oh hell!" He stared in the hole he'd been digging, wondering how he'd managed to dig straight through a layer of gold without noticing. There was no gold. "That's a lady! This is a lady grave. I am so sorry ma'am." He dropped the bone back in its hole, quickly kicked the dirt back in place and stamped it down, and tore half the leaves off one nearby tree in his eagerness to put a solid-sized grove between himself and the grave.

Not a good start.

Before Nido's kind had existed, there were... well, he wasn't sure what they were called. But they were about a third of Nido's height, and their faces had looked about the same, but they weren't designed for flight and it was painfully obvious. Most importantly, though, they were the reason why Nido's kind wore stone armor. In order to woo the women, the men had plucked gold out of the ground, crushed it into little plates, stuck it to their bodies, and turned it into armor. Nido had no idea what the women did to woo the men, but whatever didn't matter they were extinct now. What mattered was that a male grave meant a nice little cache of gold.

And a nice little cache of gold was what Nido needed.

It was possible to get gold just by digging around long enough and separating the grains from the rest. Hypothetically. Nido himself didn't actually know how to do that, but he knew it could be done. His ancestors-so-ancient-they-weren't-even-the-same-species had done it. He'd rather do that, truth be told. It meant he wouldn't have to stir up the graves of his own prehistoric relatives.

But finding gold the old fashioned way, he had to imagine, was a painfully slow process; and whether or not the golden ones were willing to admit it in so many words, it was clear enough to Nido that they were desperate for food. That dull ache he'd gotten over the surface of his body when he'd peered into their emotions had felt... well... he had no other sensation to compare it to, honestly, but it hadn't felt healthy. Maybe their weird grooming rituals had been to fend off that feeling from coming until now, but it was clear preening alone wasn't adequate. They needed serious help.

And they were afraid. Just a little bit—but out of an unparalleled asskicking machine like them, "a little" was enough to qualify as an emergency.

As Nido dug through the dirt and the roots, he saw a thin yellow glimmer. Finally! He hopped back and crouched down so he could scrape aside the dirt more carefully with his claws. The millennia had flattened what had once been a shell of gold in the shape of a person into an uneven metal plate. He uncovered enough to ensure the gold was mostly intact, made a note of the site's location, and moved on.

He didn't know exactly how much gold the golden ones needed. As far as he knew, enough to re-coat their entire body. (Hell, as far as he knew, enough to re-coat every one of their internal organs.) Nido's ancestors hadn't even been half his height, it would take a ton of them to completely cover the golden ones.

Intact hundred-million-year-old-plus corpses were a finite resource. Nido hoped the golden ones didn't need gold very often.

He uncovered two more male graves, decided that was enough for now—he'd promised the golden ones he wouldn't keep them waiting for long—and he headed home.

###

"Their diet?" Scientist 7 asked.

"Adhering almost precisely to your guidelines," Animal Trainer 32 said.

(Xe'd been Animal Trainer 80 the first time xe'd worked with S-7 directly, and had hoped to at least reach the top ten before being deemed too old to productively contribute to the Monster 0 project; but it didn't seem likely now. Xer number was going to begin descending any time. Xe chose not to be jealous that S-7's number had remained just as high—but xe had to choose very hard.)

AT-32 scrolled through a log of all Monster 0's feedings for the past year. "It has no trouble consuming its food however we present it. If we tell it to eat, it eats. Only one minor difficulty: when the soldiers took it on the field for training missions, they would dump its food on the ground rather than expend the space and resources to bring along an adequately large bowl for it. Unfortunately, it began to overgeneralize and treated any uncontained dirt as food. We instructed the soldiers to switch to feeding it out of bags. The worst of the problem has abated, but they still demonstrate a tendency to... taste test the ground. I'm concerned the issue will resurface if we do not monitor them closely when they're in natural environments."

"That won't be an issue," S-7 said. "The reason we restructured its digestive system to let it process basic minerals and elements as food was to make it as easy as possible to feed it no matter where in the universe we've taken it. We can't design it to eat every conceivable form of meat, considering how many life forms out there make a mockery of the very concept of 'flesh' as we understand it—and at times we'll be camping in parts of the galaxy with no readily available life at all. Bringing sufficient meat from X to keep it fed would put an unnecessary burden on our supply train. But soil—nothing but ground-down minerals and metals—soil is everywhere. If it can eat random dirt, it can eat anywhere."

"As long as you can find a planet," S-7's daughter Scientist 18 threw in. S-18, whom the Monster 0 team had seen far less of since her formal schooling had started, stood just behind her mother. She came up just to her mother's shoulder, now. She spent most of her time around Monster 0 taking diligent notes and trying to assert her qualifications for her position by peppering in supporting comments whenever she could, as apprenticed daughters so often did. She'd learned not to laugh openly but still had her mother's unorthodox inclination toward humor; she had a wicked tilt to her head, a sharp jut to her jaw, when she saw something that made her want to laugh. Sometimes AT-32 saw the same tilt in her mother's head.

"I understand," AT-32 said. "So we should let Monster 0 get used to foraging for food no matter what planet it's on."

"As long as it's not overeating—"

"It eats exactly as much and as often as we instruct it to and expresses no desire to eat more."

"—and isn't eating meat," S-7 finished.

Were xe younger, AT-32 might have scoffed. "Of course not. It's learned its lesson very well."

###

Nido had never quite understood the tendency that others had to redecorate themselves to show they were together. Like the way she-of-Infant-Island put her brother's eyes on her wings when she planned on going into battle—well. He supposed that one made sense; it let people know they were on the same side. They didn't exactly look like siblings.

But he knew some kinds of people that wore matching crowns of trees to show they were a couple; some that put matching paint on their family members to show their allegiance to a faction; some that left acid burns on mates they had unilaterally claimed so no one else would touch them and some that were dying to be so claimed... it was a somewhat disturbing concept, honestly. Sure, okay, different kinds meant different minds, of course other species handled their relationships differently—but he was still uncomfortable at the thought of the more extreme gestures.

And even more confusingly, he knew on some level that this was something his own kind did, too. Couples would bathe in each other's volcanoes, filling the cracks in their armor with fresh rock that matched their partner's. That, at least, wasn't disturbing—not like wanting to be permanently scarred by one's partner was. But while he comprehended that it was a thing that happened, he still didn't understand it. He hadn't known why anyone would want it.

He thought he got it now.

Because every time the sunlight caught on the gold gilding his wings, and every time he saw the fine volcanic dust that shaded the golden ones' scales, he got a little thrill.

And it wasn't just because he thought he looked rather majestic with a thin layer of gold highlighting the ridges of his armor, like fresh lava still glowing on the slopes of a low volcano. Or because the golden ones' alien features seemed even more handsome when each scale was emphasized by black dust lining the cracks, or because their eyes seemed to glow almost amber when they were peering out of shadowy black sockets. (Although he did think all these things.)

It was because he knew that, after the golden ones had spent who-knew-how long by themselves in the dark of space and who-knew-how-long ostracized by everyone else on this planet, anyone who looked at them now would immediately know: someone had given them those markings. Someone had touched them and been allowed to touch. Someone would notice if they didn't come home one night. Someone would come flying if they roared for help.

Anyone who looked at them now would know they weren't alone.

Whenever they saw themselves, they would remember that they weren't alone.

And just that knowledge alone made the world seem a little brighter a place to Nido.

Was that another reason why Infant wore her brother's eyes on her wings? For that sense of solidarity? For that constant reminder that she wasn't alone? So that no matter where she went, she needed only raise her wings to say behold, I am loved; there's a place where I belong as long as someone expects to find me there? Did she feel anchored as long as she carried the evidence of his face on her wings?

He'd probably never ask her. But he wondered.

He would hate to lose the opportunity to exchange decorations with the golden ones.

###

Their joints ached as they followed their red sprite northeast. Their shoulders, their hips, their knees, the backs of their necks struggling to support their too-heavy skulls, every knuckle on the phalanges that held their wing membranes outstretched. The entire surface of their body was sore, as if someone had worked over every inch of them with a meat tenderizer, cracking open their scales.

Their body was more or less a mystery to them. Things would go wrong with it at irregular intervals, and they had a limited set of skills to deal with their periodic maladies. As often as not, they had to wait out a malfunction and hope their body was like a gyroscope that would wobble and right itself without any help, rather than on the verge of losing balance and toppling over for good.

This, thankfully, was one of their more familiar ailments, with a simple cure and a recognizable list of symptoms. They could feel that they were long overdue for a shed, not because of the time that had passed since the last one (variable and unmeasurable) but because of the tight raspy discomfort of their skin. They could see the luster dimming from their scales. They didn't feel static crackling over their bodies like it was supposed to; and when they flew, rain poured but lightning flashed less and less. They needed gold.

They'd needed gold for weeks—along with a proper meal. They'd been stupid for going this long without finding a meal—and why? Because they were worried if they left the red sprite's island for a couple of days, he'd forget about them? (Not to name names, First.) Or that if they left this planet to mine gold from an asteroid where they knew they could find it easily, they might forget the red sprite? (Again, not to lob accusations at anyone in particular, Third.) Or that if they dared to eat food on this crowded planet where anyone could see, the machine makers might somehow use the observations to deduce their entire biology and formulate a way to kill them? (That... that one was on everyone. And they agreed it was a valid concern.) Or that if the red sprite saw them eating literal dirt at his feet, he might decide they were lowly, disgusting animals—vile detritus feeders—and cast them out? (That was also on all of them—but, particularly on Second.)

But they didn't have much choice now. Trying to leave the atmosphere in this condition was dangerous—without electricity smoothly rolling across their scales, they'd have difficulty controlling their space flight. They had to eat here. And they hadn't put in the time to track down caches of gold when they were at their full strength, and now they ached too much to do a decent job of it. Hopefully they could at least consume their gold with a bit of dignity and it would let them recover enough to find a proper meal without needing the red sprite to escort them.

They were going to see the burial sites of the creature that red sprites had evolved from, apparently. He'd taught them the word for "ancestors" today—"the kind that my kind came from, far far before," as he'd defined it, for the benefit of their limited vocabulary. What was gold doing with the corpses of the red sprite's ancestors? Did they make art out of gold, the way the red sprite made art from stone and glass? Had humans (as the red sprite had told them the local machine makers were called) left the gold as offerings to far more powerful creatures, before they'd developed the weapons to challenge such creatures?

They'd find out soon. The red sprite began wheeling down out of the sky; they waited to see where he was heading before dropping more heavily to the ground. It hurt their joints more than usual to land so abruptly.

Either from that pain or from the relief, their knees and elbows went weak at the sight of the gold shining beneath the dirt, and they practically tumbled into the pit. They flung aside massive scoops of dirt with their wings and tore aside tree roots with their claws. Their stomach roared with pain so strong they could feel it stabbing their lungs, tearing their throats.

The red sprite chirped—was he concerned?

They flinched. "Do not watch."

"What?"

They didn't elaborate and didn't wait to see whether he listened. If he thought less of them for their table manners, that was on him now. They'd warned him. They were starving.

They dove at the gold, jaws crumpling and ripping the metal as they went—lucky it was a relatively thin plate, pity there was so little—and swallowing huge mouthfuls of dirt with each bite.

Something else crunched between their jaws. Bone. Bone old enough it had turned into stone. Flesh so ancient even they could consume it without fear. Oh, how they missed meat! How they missed knowing that their meal once held life. They hardly remembered what meat had once tasted like, but they still craved it. It was like longing for a ghost. Whatever had once existed of this beast's flesh was dust now—probably for the best, since they wouldn't have been able to tolerate the flavor—but the stone bones splintered just right. It was almost enough for them to remember when they'd been able to taste something other than ash or rot. Their red sprite had given them a rare treat.

Third jerked up first to make sure the red sprite wasn't watching—he was pointedly focused on an aircraft passing overhead—and they hastily licked each other's faces clean before climbing out of the pit. "We are done."

The red sprite barely spared them a passing glance before looking into the pit—and staring. They looked down as well, trying to figure out what it was caught his attention—had they left a mess? No more of one than could be reasonably expected in a pit of dirt.

They gave him a moment. "... What?"

He flinched and tore his gaze from the hole. "How much do you need?"

They studied him for a moment. Something was off. But couldn't tell what, so... "One more." What they'd already had would be enough to replenish their scales, but usually they had reserves stored... somewhere in their body. Who knew where. Helpful for when they lost body parts. It would be better for them to refill that cache now than scramble for gold again the next time they were injured.

"That's all?"

"That is all."

"For how long?"

They really had no way to know that, did they? "Until we lose what we have."

"Okay." The red sprite carefully picked through the ground-level forest detritus, shoving aside a couple of trees they'd toppled, until he found a small rock that he could flick up and knock with his beak to send it sailing over the trees. "Next one's over there," he said. "I'll catch up to you."

"'Catch up'?"

"You go, I'll follow later."

They hesitated, not sure why he couldn't come with them—even more uneasily certain now that something was wrong—but spread their wings anyway.

Just before they could take off, he said, "Hey." He was still looking into the pit. "Don't—don't eat the next one's... Just eat the gold. Leave the bones."

Their heart immediately plummeted from their chest down to their tails. He hadn't taught them the word "bones" yet, but he didn't need to for them to guess what it was. They looked in horror at the boen shards they'd left in the— It wasn't a pit. It was a grave.

Stupid. They were stupid, why hadn't they realized—? They knew his species buried their dead. His species had funerals, dirges. And he'd told them that this was a predecessor to his species, they should have assumed—they should have at least considered—

"We..." They didn't know the right words to compensate for a faux pas like this—it probably wasn't even a faux pas, it was probably a major violation of a taboo they were only half aware of—the right words probably didn't even exist. So they trailed off, floundering. And then mumbled, "We leave the bones."

Very few things could make them feel small.

Their appetite was gone. A glint of gold would be just another shade of yellow now. But they should still replenish their internal reserves, just so they wouldn't be caught unprepared in case of a fight. And then should leave as fast as possible.

They took off, hurrying to the second grave.

It wasn't very far. Not quite within eyeshot of the first—but close enough that, after they'd scraped aside the dirt and as they attempted to crunch into the metal, they could hear the red sprite's voice echoing between the nearby mountains, singing his kind's dirge over the first grave.

The taste of gold turned to rot in their mouths.

###

"And Monster 0 has taken well to the gold chips?" Scientist 7 asked.

"It has," Animal Trainer 55 said. "We added them on top of its regular rations until it understood them as food, and since then we have been able to present the chips alone. You must pardon the irrational sentiment, but we have noted that it even appears eager to eat them."

AT-55 was distantly aware that Monster 0 had stopped eating to listen in on the conversation. A hexagonal-shaped plate of solid gold, the height of a Xilien and slightly curved to allow the monster to more easily pick them off the floor with its teeth, dangled from one of its mouths. Teeth punctures covered the surface. AT-55 had long gotten used to the fact that, unlike the dorats xe had trained on, Monster 0 would listen in on their conversations about it—and understand what they said.

"Monster 0 is an animal and therefore irrational," S-7 said. "Perhaps it views them as a source of pleasure. All the better, ultimately."

Although xe thought xe was doing an excellent job of suppressing the emotion, AT-55 would, if pressed, confess that xe had found xemself somewhat intimidated when xe was informed xe would be reporting directly to S-7 for the first time. The mastermind behind Monster 0. Xe'd only been informed a moment before meeting her that xe was actually answering to the clone of the S-7 who has invented Monster 0—the mother had passed away a few years ago and the daughter inherited her position. All the same, the new S-7 was her own form of intimidating: she was the same age as AT-55, and already commanded such a high rank.

"Did you have an opportunity to review my proposal?" AT-55 asked.

"To use the gold chips as rewards for good behavior during training?" S-7's voice wasn't quite so expressive that AT-55 could fairly accuse her of being unduly effusive on the job, but nevertheless AT-55 was sure xe detected a hint of disapproval. "No, we will not be using them that way."

AT-55 protested, "But if it both depends upon and derives pleasure from the gold chips, then the chips would be an excellent method of exerting control over it."

"The chips are already a method of exerting control," S-7 said. "We didn't have to give Monster 0 a biological need to consume gold in a solid, undiluted form, rather than extracting it from other composite sources the way it does with all its other necessary nutrients. We made it that way for a reason: to ensure it can't run off. It can feed itself on any rocky planet or asteroid in the universe—but so long as it needs pure gold in order to repair damage to its scales, it remains dependent upon us to meet its needs. The gold isn't a treat; it's a tether."

AT-55 tilted xer head up. "I understand."

"And you see the necessity of feeding Monster 0 its gold precisely when it needs gold, no sooner or later. Even if it fails or misbehaves, it must remain confident that it will have its need for gold met by us—always by us and only by us."

AT-55 nodded. Xe wouldn't bring up the proposal again.

Monster 0 slowly resumed chewing.

###

Nido had nearly finished reburying the remains of his ancestors' ancestor when he heard, lilting over the trees, the sound of the golden ones singing his kind's dirge.

On the one hand, he felt like they probably shouldn't be doing that. They didn't completely know how his kind's funerals were supposed to go. On the other hand, Nido had only learned secondhand while the golden ones had actually watched one, so they probably knew better how they went than he did.

Mostly, after they'd eaten half a corpse, Nido appreciated that the golden ones were making the effort. It was above and beyond what he'd asked for.

He was about to take off and catch up with them when he saw them swooping down to meet him. They landed heavily between the trees. Before Nido could say anything, they bent forward, made a foul rasping sound—"Uhh, guys?"—convulsed from their hips all the way up to their throats as they gagged several times—"Are you okay?"—and then regurgitated a pile of fossilized bones through their right mouth.

Nido gaped.

Middle one licked right's muzzle clean while lefty bent down and flicked out his tongue to pick up spare flecks of gold from the bone pile.

"That's nasty."

"We are," they conceded. Nido had an easier time than usual picking out which head was producing which syllables; the right one's voice was a bit raspier and deeper now. "You can put the bones under the dirt again."

Nido looked in exasperation at the hole he'd just finished refilling, and got to work digging it out again. After taking a moment to recover, the golden ones joined him.

"For a little before, we do not remember about the dirge you sing for the dead of your kind." They don't look at him as speak. "Or how you put them in their volcanoes."

Nido has to mentally turn over the statement a couple of times before figuring out they're trying to explain why they ate a bunch of bones straight out of a grave. "It's... these aren't really my kind," Nido said. "I don't think they got funerals at all. But they were close enough to us that we have to respect their dead. Leaving their bones on their land and all that."

"We do not know."

It's not quite an apology, but it's apology-adjacent, so Nido decides to accept it like one. "I didn't tell you. I didn't expect you to..." He trailed off. He supposed he should have expected them to lunge for the remains of a dead body, shouldn't he? With their fangs. They obviously ate more than just metal.

When they'd dug deep enough to find some of the bone shards the golden ones had missed, Nido hopped back out of the hole and started carefully picking up the upchucked bones to return where they belong. By habit, he almost grabbed them with his talons, caught himself, and scooped them up in his hands instead.

The golden ones backed out of his way. After Nido had carried a couple of loads into the pit, they said, "We eat the dead of our kind."

Nido jerked his head up to stare at them. That was the first time they'd ever told him anything about their kind's culture. He'd been half convinced that they didn't have any others of their kind—that they'd been born alone without having ever met another member of their species. Hoping they'd share more, even if it was just funerary customs, he said encouragingly, "Yeah?"

They went on, "We do not eat the dead of your kind again. Or the kind close to your kind."

"Ah." He supposed that was all they were going to share. "That's good."

"And when you die, we will tear you open so you bleed out on your volcano."

"That's considerate of you."

###

Monsters 0, 3, 4, and 10 looked down at the body of Monster 17.

Their body was riddled with massive crystallic harpoons, black blood welling up from the punctures and oozing around electric pink shafts. One had pierced their heart. Had that been the blow that killed them, or could they have recovered if not for the others? This had been M-17's first mission on a planet with a technologically advanced population. They'd been relying on the experience of the more veteran monsters to keep them safe.

M-0 wondered if the other three monsters (the other nine animals) were feeling what they were feeling: the uncomfortable sense that they all ought to be coiled together, joined together over this tragedy, supporting each other through the grief of losing another one (three) of their aerie.

Except they weren't part of an aerie. They were part of a squad. And M-0's capacity for empathy had been so numbed they couldn't feel their own reactions to M-17's deaths, much less any of the other monsters'.

They felt dully as though they'd lost something.

The body lay in the rubble of a shattered crystal dome, crumpled and twisted and limp, eyes wide and glazed. And they all stood staring around it, unmoving and unmoved. As though they were trying to figure out how they should feel about this. M-3, losing interest in the exercise, twisted around to lick at shoulder wound that had scraped off several scales.

M-0 had a thought. Specimen 1's thought, probably—typically the clever one—but the flash of inspiration had come upon them so suddenly they couldn't tell and didn't care. They crawled toward the corpse gingerly, trying to keep the weight off their injured right leg—half the scales on their thigh had been burned off. The other monsters watched them. M-0 was their leader, after all.

Specimen 3 butted M-17's chest as Specimen 1 looked at the others and said, "Free gold."

They made various noises of disgust.

Specimen 1 said, "More for us." He lifted high to keep watch for the approach of more alien troops or Xilien supervisors, and Specimen 2 bent down to watch as Specimen 3 dug his fangs into a puncture wound to peel the skin off.

"You'll make yourself sick," M-4 said.

"All the gold they give us goes to our scales," Specimen 1 said. "If we only eat the scales, it's fine."

M-10 said, "You're stupid."

M-0 rattled their tails and the others backed off. More blood dripped to the ground as they ripped more and more off the meat. They gagged and nearly retched several times as Specimen 3 tasted the meat, , but they'd learned to control that reflex. He bit down harder on the scales and they went on anyway.

M-4 was right. They did make themselves sick. The Xiliens retrieved them from the basement of a collapsed skyscraper they'd hollowed out to hide in, curled up tight with their knees pressed into their abdomen to try to quiet their heaving. Their fever didn't break for several days.

But during that time, the burned scales on their thigh regrew by themselves. When M-0 returned to the field, the scales scraped off M-3's shoulder wound had not.

###

The more Nido thought about it, the more he was bothered by the fact that the golden ones seemed so confident that they would be the ones to bury him and not the other way around, and that they'd apparently already put thought into what they'd do when that happened. As if they knew something he didn't.

After Nido had re-buried the uneaten graves and they'd flown halfway back home, he barrel rolled over and yelled up at the golden ones, "Hey!" When they called back an acknowledgement, he asked, "What do you want me to do if you die first? I can eat you if you want, but it'll take a while."

"We do not die first. You do."

"You don't know that!"

"We do." And they said it with such serene confidence that Nido almost believed them.

"You said you eat your kind's dead," Nido said.

"Yes, but you do not need to—"

"So your kind can die, right? You don't know that it won't happen before me. It could be an accident."

They considered that, then begrudgingly said, "Maybe."

"So, what should I do if you die?"

"Throw our corpse at the one that kills us and see if he screams."

Nido cackled.

He wanted to get a serious answer out of them; but before he could ask again, the golden ones swooped closer to him, close enough that he had to constantly adjust his flight to compensate for the turbulence stirred up by their wings. It was a fun challenge, actually. "The kind before your kind has gold on its bodies instead of lava, yes?"

"Yeah—well, only the males."

"What are 'males'?"

"The, uh..." Okay, there was no way to explain that one without getting into a whole mess of vocabulary they hadn't covered yet. "In most species, the better-looking members."

"Then you are one of the males?"

"Probably, but my kind is actually one of the exceptions to the—ha! You charmers."

They spared only a second to bask in the triumph of getting in a slick line before returning to the prior subject. "Is this why you let us on your volcano? We are 'golden ones' because we look like your ancestors?"

"Sssort of."

"'Sort' of?"

"A little yes, a little no?" Since the golden ones were actively flapping instead of soaring, a storm was rapidly brewing around them. Nido hid from the coming rain in the shadow beneath their body. "Actually—honestly, when I saw you, I thought you were one of my kind."

He wasn't sure if that rumble was thunder or their laughter.

"I've never seen one of my kind alive!" he yelled defensively. "Anyway, I thought you might've been... I don't know, old-fashioned. Putting gold over the lava to go courting. It took me a bit to figure out there wasn't any lava under the gold."

"You think we are courting when we first attack you?"

"Yeah?" They'd sure been courting the hell out of him since then. "Why? Weren't you?"

They didn't immediately reply. He looked up at them. They looked down at him, then away. "We just like fighting."

He laughed so hard he couldn't breathe.

He heard the steady rumble of their laughter above him. When he'd nearly recovered, they dove down over him; he thought for a moment they were going to attack him from above, but they stopped just short of landing on his back and ducked their middle head upside-down to bop Nido's forehead, giving him a brief glimpse of their affection/amusement.

It was also enough for him to tell that the ache across their body was already subsiding.

The force of the flap that carried the golden ones back to their cruising altitude was almost enough to knock Nido out of the sky. He flapped hard to catch himself and climb back to their height. Rain, rain, rain, yecch.

When he was flying even with them, they said, "When you see us, the first thing you think is that we are more like you than anyone else you know on this world."

"Well—yeah. Basically." It sounded a little ridiculous when they put it into words like that, but...

They copied the barrel roll he'd started off the conversation with so they could circle beneath him as they spoke. "That is the first thing we think, too."

Suddenly the wind across Nido's rain-soaked back felt a little less cold.

He watched the graceful way their necks and tails curved as they completed the barrel roll, and made a note to himself: he needed to take them out dancing sometime soon.

###

Was this was how aliens under attack by their monsters felt?

The Xilien space station's sirens were wailing—a shrill, trilling note—sometimes drowned out by distant explosions as another critical system was destroyed, or the howl behind a sealed door as another chamber was ripped open to the vacuum of space. Their space station's uplink to Controller 0 had been the first system knocked out, rendering their cranial implants useless and eliminating the supercomputer's telepathic control over Monster 0.

Every once in a while, Scientist 7 could hear a siren that sounded slightly out of tune echoing down distant hallways. Every time she did, she was seized by a wild panic. Nothing mattered more than running away from that out-of-tune siren as fast as she could.

She had to hear it several times before she realized that out-of-tune siren was Monster 0 itself, distracting them from their evacuation and sending them scattering through mazes of hallways. Monster 0's voice rang like a bell. Shrill and trilling. Was it trying to imitate the siren, mocking them? Or was that how it laughed?

Even knowing what it was didn't stop her from fleeing in a blind panic whenever she heard its voice.

This was never supposed to happen. From mind control to dietary control, they were supposed to have a thousand ways to keep Monster 0's leash tight enough to strangle it. S-7's grandmother had made sure of that when she'd designed Monster 0, S-7's mother had reinforced their control, S-7 maintained it—she'd been so careful—they'd all been so careful—

She and dozens of other scientists and soldiers were corralled into one of the space station's largest hangars, chased by the monster's high, mocking laughter, echoing in the distance. They hadn't made it to the escape pods, but at least there were ships here. S-7 looked for a soldier to order to pilot one of the spacecraft for here—when the wall behind them exploded in lightning.

The phony siren had sounded so much further away—she'd thought the monster had passed them by. Had it been deliberately misleading them? Could it throw its voice somehow? It looked down at them without making a noise, leering malevolently, fangs exposed hungrily. The soldiers' weapon fire bounced harmlessly off its scales.

One of its gazes fixed on S-7—and then they all did. She could feel its sadistic delight weighing on her mind like an impending thunderstorm. That was impossible. She'd been told it had lost its empathic abilities back in her grandmother's day. All the monsters lost their empathy.

The monster circled around her, getting between the ships and the massive hangar door. Its gait was uneven and lurching; for a moment S-7 hoped it had been injured, but then realized it was purposefully crushing people under its feet and wings with every step, like a child crushing nuts and bugs on the sidewalk. The left head curved down to scout out more victims, the right snapped and snarled at anyone who dared point a weapon at them, but the middle's gaze never wavered from S-7.

She was the only thing in the room that Monster 0 was constantly fixated on. Her family was the closest thing Monster 0 had to a consistent master—maybe it still recognized her. Maybe it would listen to her. "You know you can't leave," she told it. "You're dependent on us. Even if you escape, you'll come crawling back to us in a few weeks. You know you will."

The three heads lunged down at her. They moved so suddenly she stumbled back, falling. But they just stared at her, as though goading her—go on, explain more.

"You think you're invincible! We gave you the ability to survive indefinitely without air, to subsist on nothing but dirt and sunlight, even to regrow your own body! But unless you want your skin to peel open and your flesh to spill out, you will always, always need us for gold."

"Will we?"

S-7's breath caught. The monster spoke Xilien, actual Xilien. They had trained it to understand Xilien, but they'd never imagined...

Voice weak, she stuttered, "The—the chips. Without us, where will you—?"

"She is too simple-minded to understand that loose gold and chip-shaped gold are the same substance." Its voice was unnervingly high-pitched, hissing the S's and clicking the T's like they were separate syllables. Und-ersss-T-and. Sssubsss-T-anssse. "Three generations, and yet none appear to have brains. How unfortunate."

They'd made it too smart.

The right head slithered down and curled around her, the left head slowly opened its jaws and unrolled its tongue, and the middle head said, "We know this will make us sick. We will enjoy it anyway."

She shrieked as the left head snatched her up. Its fangs crunched through her body twice before it gagged and spit her remains to the ground.

With only a casual one-headed glance behind a shoulder, Monster 0 crashed its tails on the hangar door behind it, tearing open the metal as though it was tin foil. The sound of sirens was lost to the howl of the vacuum.

Monster 0 spread its wings to catch the wind racing out into the vacuum, letting it rip them into space. Crossing the threshold of the space station, they shed all the shackles and all the labels the Xiliens had ever placed on them. They cackled like an alarm bell until the void stole their voice.

###

A few days after their meal, the golden ones' scales turned dull and cloudy, almost the color of sand. Which alarmed the hell out of Nido; but when he asked them if they were alright, they assured him this was perfectly normal.

"You give yourself new armor in your volcano at night," they said. "This is how we give ourselves new armor." Nido would have to take their word on it, since there was no one else's word he could take. At least they didn't preen while they were gray like this. Maybe getting enough gold meant they wouldn't have to again.

In another couple days, Nido woke to find they'd risen before dawn and were furiously rubbing the sides of their faces against a rocky surface near the base of the volcano, scraping and peeling off the faded layer. He watched in morbid fascination as they labored into the morning to slough off their own skin, revealing a fresh layer of scales underneath that sparkled like pure polished gold in the morning light.

They glanced up at their one-pter audience and asked, half self-deprecatingly, "Gross?"

"No," Nido said. "Just interesting."

They looked surprised. They considered Nido a moment, and then slowly bent down to thoughtfully start eating their own discarded skin.

"That's gross."

"Then stop watching."

That was a totally fair request.

A few strips of dead skin still stuck around their wings and between their necks. They nibbled irritably at the edges for the rest of the day and took a couple of quick swims in the ocean—to loosen it, Nido suspected—until by dusk it had flaked off on its own.

###

The first morning after they shed, Nido woke up to find the golden ones looming over his head. "Uh. Hey! Morning. What...?"

"Up."

The moment he'd lifted his torso out of the lava, they lunged forward, wrapping their necks around him possessively. He froze before he recognized what they were doing. How many days had it been since they'd last decorated him?

"What are you—?" Nido was interrupted as middle one bunted him. He bunted back a little harder and tried again, "What are you doing? You're just going to waste your gold if you do that, aren't you?"

"We like seeing us on you."

Nido made a strangled sound. He decided not to read too deeply into that. "Yeah, but..."

They held him a moment longer before slithering off. "We should not do it all mornings," they said. Nido's heart sank, even though they were only saying what he already knew. "But it is okay some mornings. Mornings that are... not better, but... more interesting than normal mornings."

"Like special occasions?"

"Sure," they said uncertainly.

Nido climbed the rest of the way out of his volcano and crouched on the rim. "Okay. That sounds... alright." He'd miss having gold all the time—he'd gotten too fond of seeing gold glinting on his wings, and he wondered if they felt that way when they saw volcanic dust on their scales—but he didn't think they could afford for the golden ones to lose a little bit more every single day. This was probably the best compromise. "What's special about this occasion?"

"We took off our dead skin!" They reared back and lifted their wings proudly. Electricity cracked down their sides and glittered on their scales. "We are the most shiny!"

Nido almost laughed. It was true, they were. It made the new volcanic dust lining their throats and faces look even darker and sharper in contrast. Okay, he'd accept that as a special occasion.

He nevertheless felt guilty that night as he perched on the edge of the crater and contemplated covering up the gold. It seemed unfair for the decorations to be so fleeting when it was such a chore for the golden ones to replenish their supply.

He could let them eat it back off, he supposed. But he still remembered the first time they'd attempted to embrace him—the way they rasped their teeth against his sides, flicked their tongues over his back—and shuddered. Maybe eventually. In a long, long time. But not now.

So before sleep, he went down to the beach, carefully chipped off the top layer of gold with his beak, and left the chips in a pile near the golden ones. One stirred and looked at him sleepily. He awkwardly said, "Here's your gold back," and fluttered up to his crater to sleep.

The next morning, they quietly said, "Never do they again." So he didn't.

But they did eat the chips.

###

Nido couldn't help but notice several thin lines tracing the golden ones' body where the scales were paler and slightly buckled outward. Under their jaws and eyes, around their throats, between their necks, stretching down their chest and back, curving around their shoulders along their spines, above their tails, around their hips, between their legs, crisscrossing multiple times over their abdomen.

They looked like scars.

They were the first places the golden ones attacked in their next morning preening session.

Nido had hoped that the feast of gold would spare the golden ones from obsessively tearing open their own skin each morning. No luck. The routine picked back up just a couple days after they shed their skin. Maybe that really was normal for them. At least they seemed less irritated now.

Nido tried not to wonder too hard at the fact that, as they progressively tore and gnawed down more and more of the thin misshapen scar-like lines, the scales grew back flatter and smoother.

Over the next month, their fresh scales faded from pure yellow-gold to their usual dull, pale brass hue. The scars became invisible.

The golden ones still gnawed at invisible flaws every morning.

Nido didn't bother them about it. He'd watched them eat a massive chunk of gold and wiggle out of their own skin. If they told him something was normal and necessary to their health, he was taking their word for it. They knew their needs better than he did.

But he hung around a little later each morning before flying off for the day, sitting on the beach with them, listening to them sing. They put off preening when he was there.

Some days they didn't do it at all.

###

(Replies/reblogs are welcome! Check the “source” link below for my masterlist of KOTM and Rodorah fics, as well as my AO3 and Ko-fi links.)

#rodorah #rodan #ghidorah #king ghidorah #kotm #godzilla #fanfic #my writing #(typically i don't warn for things that aren't super common triggers or that i haven't been asked to warn for)#(but this fic's got A Lot so content warnings for:)#(dermatillomania; blood; pica (kinda? they eat things humans shouldn't and they eat things THEY shouldn't); vomiting; and cannibalism)#(uhhhhh it's mostly heartwarming?)

114 notes · View notes

tabletoptrinketsbyjj · 5 years

Text

Random Battle Cries, 6: Whether they’re warcries, taunts, calls to arms, rebel yells, rallying cries, or just offensive trash talk, the existence of battle related chants, shouts and songs are timeless. They can be simplistic and bone chilling, complex and inspiring or primal wordless screams of rage that shakes the enemy down to their iron-shod boots. PC’s can be defined by their words as much as their deeds and their last message to an enemy as battle commences can reveal who they truly are. Finding the perfect phrase for a unique and beloved character can be difficult and having several to choose from can be a quest in itself. Similarly, DM’s can become hard pressed to come up with new and inventive battle cries for enemies to shout just before initiative is rolled. This table is a collection of simple phrases, threats, insults and violent promises for creatures to yell before and during combat to add verbal spice to each attack. —Note: The phrasing for these are copied from their original sources the way they were written (I, Me, We, Him, Man, etc), and a player or DM should change the tenses to best suit the situation.

All That Will Be Remembered Is That You Fell!

At The End Of My Weapon You Will Find Your Fate!

Aww, Better Luck Next Life!

Be Destroyed!

Behold All These Lives For The Taking!

Believe Me, This Is A Mercy!

By the power of the light Burn!

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Death Calls And My Enemies Come!

Death Smiles At You!

—Keep reading for 90 more battle cries.

—Note: The previous 10 battle cries are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.

All That Will Be Remembered Is That You Fell!

At The End Of My Weapon You Will Find Your Fate!

Aww, Better Luck Next Life!

Be Destroyed!

Behold All These Lives For The Taking!

Believe Me, This Is A Mercy!

By the power of the light Burn!

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Death Calls And My Enemies Come!

Death Smiles At You!

Die With Honor, Whelp!

Do You Feel Lucky, Punk?!

Even A Shallow Grave Is Deep Enough!

Fall Where You Stand!

Get Over here!

Go ahead, make my day

Go Meet Your Gods!

Great Honors Await You In The Valhalla!

Here You Break!

I Am The Last Thing You'll See!

I Come Bearing The Word Of My God. That Word Is Die!

I Doubt Your Kin Will Weep For You!

I Have Waited For This Moment!

I Live For This!

I Shall Remember This Victory Forever!

I Was Born To War, But You'll Die To It!

I Will Scatter All Who Gather Here Today!

I'll Beat You To Death With An Olive Branch!

I'll Cut A Notch With Your Name On It!

I'll Never Give You The Satisfaction!

I'm Done Being Merciful!

I've Bested Your Kind Before!

I've Never Lost And I'll Not Start Now!

I’ll Rend Your Fat Into Candles!

If You Surrender Now I’ll Buy Us The First Round At The Nearest Pub!

It’s Now Or Never!

Kill The Mages First!

Let Them All Fall Still Beneath My Shadow!

Let's Have Some Fun!

Live And Die On This Day!

Mark These Words, They'll Be The Last You'll Hear!

May The Gods Forgive Me!

May Your House Long Record Your Name!

Nevermore!

No Grave For You!

Off With Their Heads!

One Day, My Grandchildren Shall Tell The Tale Of This Moment!

Our Foes Are Gnawing Vermin! Scatter Them Before You!

Peace Was Never An Option!

Prepare Thyself!

Ready Or Not, Here I Come!

Redrum!

Scatter While You Can!

Show Some Ambition!

Stand And Face Me!

Suffer My Sorcery!

Taste My Blade!

The Bards will Tell Tales Of This!

The Doors Of Death Open Wide!

The Gods Giveth And I Taketh Away!

The Gods May Spare Them, But I Will Not!

The Hour Has Come!

The Omens Foretell Your Demise!

The Sweetness Of My Victory Shall Be Like Divine Honey. Can You Already Taste It?

The World Is Safer Now!

The Worms Will Have You!

There Is No Sweeter Music Than The Screams Of Our Enemies. Now, Go Compose!

There Won't Be Enough Of You Left To Bury!

There's More Where That Came From!

There’s no escaping me!

This is the end my friend!

This Is What Heroes Do!

This Will Hurt!

This'll Be A Good Show!

Time For Some Good Old Fashioned Diplomacy!

Time To Collect Your Bounty!

Time To Match Steel For Steel!

To The Foe!

To War And Glorious Conquest!

Try To Keep Up!

Watch Your Step, It's Six Feet Down!

We Are Pack!

Were You Expecting Me?

Who Dares?

You Almost Count For Half A Kill!

You can take my life but you will never take my freedom!

You Die As You Lived, Insipid And Ignorant!

You Have Been Weighed, You Have Been Measured And You Have Been Found Wanting!

You Have Called Death Upon Yourself!

You Lacked Discipline, Now Life!

You Made A Powerful Enemy!

You Shall Not Pass!

You Will Be Forgotten Tomorrow!

You'll Not Thwart My Quest!

You're Not Fit To Fight In My War!

You’ll Feel The Red Hand Of Death!

You’re Arrow Fodder!

Your Death Ennobles Us All!

Your Life Cycle Ends!

Your Nightmare Is Here!

#d&d #dnd #d&d 3.5 #d&d 4e #d&d 5e #d&d homebrew #d&d 5e homebrew #pathfinder #roleplaying #rpg #dungeons and dragons #dungeon master #dm #d&d ideas #d&d resources #tabletop homebrew

40 notes · View notes

judehvyward · 5 years

Text

lady gaga vc: i’m still in love w judas Babey..... helo. nai again. i cnt rly write lana atm so! switched her out fr jude. some of u might kno him already bt if nt then here is his pinterest board to kind of get a feel fr his aesthetic or whtever n then u can find out mre abt him beneath the cut. like this or hmu fr plots!!

( cis-male ) haven’t seen JUDE HAYWARD around in a while. the DOUGLAS BOOTH lookalike has been known to be (+) WITTY & (+) PROTECTIVE, but HE can also be (-) SARCASTIC & (-) DETACHED. The 23 year old is a JUNIOR majoring in FINE ART. I believe they’re living in AUDAX but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( nai. 22. gmt. she/ha. )

born in sheffield in england, bt they went back and forth between there n san fran a lot

jude was an unhappy accident. his parents never rly used protection bc they were super liberal n au naturel n believed in the pull out method bc… they were maniacs. bt then the one time they used a condom in an effort to b safety conscious it broke n hence…. jude was born

they just kind of ran w it bc they had such a passionate relationship tht they were like what the hell…. may as well! itll be fine we’ll learn to be good parents n love him like normal ppl do

spoiler alert: tht didn’t work out

they were ok to him like they weren’t super abusive or anything like that bt they just found him to be a massive burden n hindrance to their plans

they literally….. had sex all day every day n acted like a pair of teenagers. it ws a super weird/unhealthy environment for a kid to grow up in bc he literally had no role models or… guidance or…. anything rly. occasionally they’d joke around w him or pretend they even knew what grade he was going into but for the most part they just didn’t care one bit

they were both suuuuper into the arts. they’re both rly good sculptors bt they paint too n they actually own a successful gallery in san fran

as a result he grew up around a lot of creative n sometimes pretentious ppl. the friends of his parents were more present in his life than his actual parents bc they were always jetting off to diff countries to scout out new pieces fr their galleries n just have a gd time in beautiful places without…. the annoyance tht ws their son forcing them to b responsible n look after someone else. tbh some of his parents friends tht stayed w him while they were away were rly damaging too bt….i won’t go into that just yet. it doesn’t rly…need properly explaining bc jude never talks abt it anyway n it….is rather triggering so i’ll jst….leav it for now tbh fgkhdfgh. basically they just were not nice n jude had a lot of bad memories he keeps repressed

bc of how he ws raised he has a p cultured taste. he luvs classic lit n film n p much anything artsy. he can play piano 2 n sometimes gets rly high n thinks he’s mozart level gd at composing. i mean he’s gd bt… chill

personality wise he acts out sometimes bc he’s so frustrated. he tried rly hard to be someone his parents wld care abt by doing wild or stupid things so he’d hav funny stories to tell them n tbh sometimes it works n he gets them to laugh w him but it isn’t a parent/son bond n it never rly wil b. he’s rly sarcastic, sleeps around a lot bt isn’t particularly fond of actual dates except in rare cases, has an overflowing secret sketchbook n if he cares abt someone he’ll probably draw them n get rly defensive if they find out abt it fkjgdhfkj bcos he’s an independent boy without a sentimental bone in his body! or so he tries to pretend. pretty deadpan humour most of the time. luvs strange ppl tht keep him on his toes

he has rly bad insomnia so he like never sleeps fgjkhfgjkf he always has rly sleepy eyes n rubs them tiredly mid conversation. he smokes a lot of weed to try n compensate fr this n make him tired bt he still struggles a lot. he also… smokes a lot fr the sake of his depression bc hoo boy does he hav it bad! he’s tried a bunch of medications n none have rly worked bt u kno. he’s surviving

wld die to protect tha Wamen. once punched a guy fr bein disrespectful to queen n living legend frankie vigo. rly jst… does his best to b a gd guy bt sometimes fucks up mostly frm jst. thoughtless errors

king of bein an lgbt ally. experimented once n ws like :/ when guys jst… weren’t fr him. he genuinely ws disappointed over it n hs sighed at least seven times over the matter. when blake came out as gay he wore this shirt 2 support him. truly jst a strange little man w positive intentions

ummmmmmmm honestly idk i’m blankin on what else to say. ull find him smoking weed reading an american classic or gnawing at his thumbnail n getting charcoal smudges along tht dramatic model jawline. he’s p broody n scruffy n he’s mostly here fr a good time. o and he’s that guy that would die fr morrissey (in terms of…. his style bt he acknowledges tht he ws/is a pretentious twat) and all that stone roses the smiths the cure etc stuff music wise. hmu fr plots!!!!!! i’m down fr anything

#water:intro #depression tw #abuse tw #its never mentioned its only very briefly implied at one point #trauma tw #same w tht #i think thts all..... the tags he needs #or maybe #neglect tw #??? idk abt tht one bt throws it anyway

11 notes · View notes

emospritelet · 5 years

Text

I know it’s been awhile, but Christmas etc. Anyway, last time we left Woven Lace having just had angsty sex following Weaver’s tearing up of the divorce papers. This chapter is a flashback to just after them having the angsty sex that got her pregnant in the first place...

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9]

AO3 link

Four years earlier

The Greyhound bus drew to a stop with a loud hiss from the hydraulics, and Lacey came out of her doze with a jerk.

“Storybrooke!” said the driver curtly, and her eyes widened as she pushed out of her seat, grabbing her backpack and coat and pulling them on.

She was the only one to alight, the bus stop little more than a single shelter at the end of a well-lit main street. It was colder than in Seattle, and snow covered the sidewalks, a few flakes drifting down as the bus drove off. Lacey shivered, pulling on her coat and hat and wrapping a scarf around her neck before shouldering her backpack. She looked around warily, but the street was almost empty, the only figures she could see two people hurrying along with their heads bowed and coat collars turned up against the stiff wind.

Shoving her hands into her pockets, she turned away from the main street, taking a side road which she knew cut across town and onto the trail up into the woods. She wanted to avoid the busier roads as much as she could, preferring to keep to the shadows until she reached her destination. Not that she suspected any threat from the usual residents of Storybrooke, not really, but she had learned that it paid to be careful.

The snow was thicker on the trail, undisturbed except for a single set of footprints, and Lacey hurried along, shivering a little as the cold air bit at her exposed skin. It was dark, the only light coming from the rising moon, and she stumbled a little on the rough track, arms flying out to steady herself before she hurried on.

Eventually the trail split, and she took the narrower path off to the right, heading over a ridge and down into a valley where the trees met a high fence. Lacey looked around warily, but could see no threat, and so she began to climb, feet ringing a little on the metal links. The fence was built to deter wildlife rather than people, and she vaulted over the top with ease, landing in a crouch on the soft snow beneath. Hugging the fence, she made her way swiftly around to the north, and a large house loomed out of the darkness, warm lights spilling onto a wide paved area that stepped down to neatly-kept gardens. There was no way to get to the house without leaving a trail, but the snow was falling again, and so Lacey decided to chance it.

She sprinted across the snow-covered grass, arriving at the kitchen door a little breathless, and put her ear to it. Silence. A brief turn of the handle opened the door, and Lacey slipped inside and into blessed warmth that made her sigh in relief.

The kitchen was clean and empty, stainless steel surfaces gleaming, and she made her way swiftly through and up the narrow flight of stairs that led to the floor above. The floor creaked a little under her feet, and she moved quickly, stepping on her toes until she reached the third door on the right. Opening it up, she slipped inside a large, high-ceiling bedroom, the walls papered in blue and a thick patterned rug covering the polished floorboards. A bed was against the far wall, twin lamps sending out a pleasant light, and Lacey heaved a breath as she looked on the figure that lay there.

It had been months since she had last visited, and guilt gnawed at her, but she told herself it was highly unlikely she had been missed. The woman in the bed had once been vibrant and beautiful, with kind eyes and an infectious smile, but was now gaunt and too pale, her cheeks sunken and her hair thin and brittle. A machine beside the bed was letting out a rhythmic beep as it tracked the beat of her heart, and bags of fluid hung from a stand, plastic tubes snaking beneath the sheets. Lacey crept nearer, slipping off her backpack and easing into the chair beside the bed. The woman’s arm was thin, the bones in her hand clearly visible through paper-thin skin, fingers curled into a claw on the white sheet. Lacey reached out, folding her own hand around it, and the woman’s eyes flickered and opened.

“Hey Grandma,” whispered Lacey. “It’s me.”

Her grandmother’s mouth twitched a little, as though she was trying to smile, and Lacey beamed, hoping to encourage her, to comfort her. Marie d’Avonlea had been the one force for good in her life, however ineffective, and she owed her some comfort, some love. She owed her that much.

“Doesn’t look as though much has changed around here,” she added. “You’re looking beautiful. Does Mrs Potts still make that lobster pot pie I used to like?”

Marie smiled with her eyes, but they were unfocused, and Lacey wondered if she even realised her granddaughter was there. Perhaps the waking world was like a dream to her. She hoped so. She hoped her dreams were good.

“I know I’ve been away for awhile, but I’ve been working,” she added. “Busy like a bee, you know me. Never in one place for too long. Except this time. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed. But it was nice, you know? It was nice to feel safe, just for awhile.”

Marie’s eyes had closed, and Lacey squeezed her hand.

“Anyway, I’m back,” she whispered. “I don’t know how long I can stay, but for now I’m back.”

Marie didn’t respond, and Lacey released her hand, letting out a sigh as she settled back in the chair. It had been a long four days on the buses she had taken, and she had gotten little sleep. She curled her legs under her, hugging a cushion to her chest, and closed her eyes. It wouldn’t hurt to get a little rest.

A clattering noise made her eyes flick open, and almost immediately pain lanced through her hip. Lacey grimaced, shifting her position to something more comfortable and letting the circulation return to the leg that had been folded under her. There was a rattling outside the door, and her eyes widened as the doorknob turned. A quick glance around showed few hiding places, but she leapt up anyway, stumbling on stiff legs as the door opened.

The sight of a plump old woman pushing an aluminium frame cart made her sag in relief, and she sent her an uncertain smile.

“Hey, Mrs Potts.”

The housekeeper’s mouth fell open, white hair swept up on top of her head as always, glasses perched on her nose.

“Miss Belle, as I live and breathe!” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”

“Yeah, I know it’s been awhile,” said Lacey uncomfortably. “Thought I’d check in on her. How has she been?”

Mrs Potts pushed the cart closer, and Lacey saw that breakfast was on it: a bowl of porridge, buttered toast and tea, and a plate of cut fruit.

"No real change," she said. "She can eat, but she can't speak. She seems as well as she can be, other than that. Smiles a lot, anyway."

"Good."

Lacey chewed her lip, looking at Marie's closed eyes. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps she was happy in her little world. Mrs Potts cleared her throat.

“When did you get here?” she asked. “I didn’t hear the door.”

“No, I came up last night,” said Lacey. “Didn’t want to disturb anyone.”

“Hmm.” Mrs Potts gave a knowing sniff, looking her over. “Well, you look as though you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. Too thin, besides. I bet you haven't been eating properly."

"Don't fuss," sighed Lacey.

"It's my job to fuss," said Mrs Potts. "We'll soon have you fed and rested, no need to worry. I expect you’ll want a bath and a change of clothes.”

“That’d be great.”

“And some breakfast?”

“You’re an angel,” said Lacey. “I always said so.”

“Flatterer,” she said, with a smile. “Let me see what I can do.”

“No one can know I’m here,” said Lacey hastily. “Who’s still around? I mean from the old crowd.”

Mrs Potts pursed her lips.

“Well, Cogsworth is still here,” she said. “He always did say they’d have to carry him out in his coffin. And there’s Ashley, who comes in to clean, but it’s a big job for one girl. I closed up most of the rooms. Other than that there’s Anton, who does the gardens, but he won’t be here until the snows go.”

“Okay.” Good. The fewer people to see me, the better.

“Of course the nurses come in once a day,” she added. “Dr Whale attends once a week to see how things are. Oh, and Felix comes up from the town every three or four days. To keep an eye on things, he says, but I have to say I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

“Oh.” Lacey shifted nervously. “And - and them?”

Mrs Potts pursed her lips.

“Not for a month or so,” she said. “I doubt they’ll be back before the spring. She doesn’t like the cold.”

“Of course not,” said Lacey. “Hell’s always warm, right?”

Mrs Potts’ mouth worked, as though she was trying not to laugh, and Lacey nodded. Maybe I can stay then. Maybe for a little while.

“Right,” said Mrs Potts briskly, patting her broad thighs. “Well. Let me see about some food for you.”

“I’ll give Grandma her breakfast,” said Lacey. “It’s good to see you, Mrs Potts.”

The old woman smiled, her eyes twinkling.

“It’s good to see you, Miss.”

Feeding Marie took a long time, but Lacey finally finished, and her grandmother appeared to fall asleep again, so she turned her attention to the breakfast she had been given. Warm fresh bread and butter, porridge with stewed pears and maple syrup, and a pot of tea. She was oddly homesick for the coffee she used to make in Weaver’s apartment, and resolved to ask Mrs Potts to get some, but the food was delicious, and she ate every scrap.

Once that was done, she followed Mrs Potts to one of the three bedrooms that Ashley kept clean. It wasn’t the room she had stayed in when she had briefly lived in the house, but she didn’t mind that. The room was decorated in a pale, soothing green, with cream sheets and an embroidered, down-filled comforter on the bed. There was an en-suite with a shower and bath tiled in cream and jade, and Lacey lost no time in turning on the shower and washing away four days of dust and grime.

As she pulled out a set of clean clothes - sweater dress and skinny jeans over her chunky boots, she began to plan, her mind running over the advantages of staying where she was for now, along with potential threats. The lack of staff was a good thing; fewer eyes to see her meant fewer mouths to flap about her being there. She certainly trusted Mrs Potts and Cogsworth not to mention her presence in Storybrooke, but as for the rest of them… She had no idea who Felix was, and decided she had no desire to find out.

Cogsworth was a rotund man in his sixties with thinning hair and round little glasses that gave him an air of fussiness. He was overjoyed to see her, promising to keep an eye out for any visitors. He repeated Mrs Potts’ claims of there being few enough of those, and the long driveway leading to the house would give Lacey plenty of time to hide herself away until they had gone. She felt herself relax a little, and ate her dinner that night down in the kitchens with both of them.

“Where have you been all this time?” asked Mrs Potts, passing her a plate of chicken casserole, and Lacey sighed.

“Look, the less I tell you, the less you have to lie if someone asks,” she said.

“Oh, I’m used to lying by now, dear,” she said cheerfully.

“Yeah, and you’re good at it, but Cogsworth sucks,” said Lacey, causing a noise of protest from him. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I was in one place for too long. Won’t happen again.”

“Does that mean you’ll be moving on soon?” asked Cogsworth, looking crestfallen, and she nodded.

“They’ll return in the spring, right?” she said. “I need to be gone by then.”

“At least take some money,” he said. “I go over the accounts, you know, and I’m well aware you haven’t touched yours in years.”

“Yeah, because an account is a link,” she said patiently. “I don’t want to give them any way to trace me, okay? I’m not making this easy for them. Besides, I can take care of myself.”

Cogsworth sighed resignedly, pushing vegetables around on his plate.

“Where will you go?” he asked, and Lacey shrugged.

“I don’t know. Wherever the bus stops, I guess."

“It sounds a lonely life, Miss,” he said. “And a dangerous one.”

“Not always,” she said quietly. “Sometimes you meet good people. There are a few of them out there. A few good men left in this world.”

“Your grandmother wouldn’t want to see you like this,” he chided. “Drifting through life, no roots, no future…”

“Yeah, well, I guess my grandmother didn’t want a lot of things that happened to me,” she said abruptly. “No use crying over it.”

She dug into the casserole, spearing a piece of meat and shoving it into her mouth. He was right, but she had realised long ago that what someone wanted and what life offered them were two very different things.

It was strange being back, and not as comforting as she had expected. Lacey enjoyed seeing the familiar faces of people that she knew, eating Mrs Potts’ excellent cooking and reading to her grandmother from the library, but the house no longer felt like home. Perhaps it never really had, and she had simply never noticed. Or perhaps it was the fact that she had had no place of her own with which to compare it, so it had remained the only home she knew. At least until recently.

She missed the apartment in Seattle, with its snug lounge and her bedroom that overlooked the street and the deli on the corner with its scents of fresh ground coffee and bagels. She missed serving drinks at Roni’s, and the playful banter she had with the customers. And she missed Weaver. She missed waking him with coffee and getting a sleepy groan in response. She missed arguing about what to put in the grocery cart or curling on the couch with a glass of something and bitching about their respective days. She missed him most of all.

She had thought about calling a hundred times or more, and dismissed each thought almost immediately. Why bother, after all? It wasn’t as though she would be going back, and he would ask her questions to which she had no answers. At least none she could give him. Better to remember it as a brief moment of calm in the never-ending chaos of her life and move on.

It was March before she accepted that that wouldn’t be possible.

She had been feeling under the weather since Christmas, bone-tired and weak, but when she started throwing up each morning, a dreadful suspicion began to take form in her brain. Her period had come again, but it was much lighter than usual, and although she tried to tell herself it was stress, the ominous suspicion persisted. She decided to wait until testing her theory, in the vain hope that she was wrong, but the weeks passed and the sickness continued, and eventually she bit the bullet and took the bus to the next town.

She was nervous about going into Storybrooke, even simply to wait at the bus stop, so she picked a day of dreadful weather, when the snow was falling hard out of a iron-grey sky and the wind blew it in sheets across the road. The buses still ran, though. It took more than a little snow to stop the residents of Maine getting around.

The next town over was bigger, filled with strangers who took no notice of the girl in her too-big sweater and hooded coat, and Lacey felt herself relax a little as she slipped into the clinic she had called the day before. The test result wasn’t exactly unexpected, but it didn’t stop her swearing like a trooper as she stomped around the consultation room. After her initial outburst, to which the young nurse listened calmly, she slumped into a chair and began to cry.

“I realise this is a lot to take in,” said the nurse. She had told Lacey that her name was Dorothy, and she had a kind but efficient air that made her feel at ease.

“Oh, it’s not like it’s a total shock,” said Lacey, wiping her eyes with the tissue she was handed. “Just - just confirmation, I guess. I kind of knew, and I couldn’t face it. I’ve been putting this off for bloody weeks! I’m a fucking coward!”

“There’s no cowardice in being afraid your life will change,” said Dorothy. “You’re here now, that’s what matters. Do you want to discuss your options?”

“Options.” Lacey’s mouth flattened. “Wouldn’t those be nice?”

“Well, you do have them,” she said. “Remember it’s your body, and your decision. I’m certainly not going to make it for you, and nor should anyone else.”

Lacey was silent, thinking about Weaver. He was no doubt going about his usual business, working way too much and self-medicating with whisky, with no clue that three thousand miles to the east, his ex-roommate was pregnant with their child. How would he react, if she told him? Would he care? She thought he would; he had already done more for her than anyone else she had met in the years she had fended for herself. What would he want to do about this? She didn’t know, but she thought perhaps he deserved to hear the news from her personally. It was almost spring, anyway. It was time for her to leave Maine.

It seemed to take an age to walk back to the house from the bus stop, the woods cold and ominous, the snow slipping beneath her boots. She was glad she no longer had the ridiculous heels she had taken to wearing at Roni’s. There was little call for sexy outfits when one was on the road, and it seemed that that was what she was destined for once more. She eyed the big house warily, alert for any strange vehicles outside, but the driveway was clear, and so she hurried around to the kitchens, where Mrs Potts was pouring hot water into a teapot. She looked around with a smile as Lacey entered.

“Just in time!” she announced, and her face fell. “Why, whatever’s the matter?”

She put the lid on the teapot and hurried over, and Lacey burst into tears again. It took five minutes of gulping and sobbing and broken sentences to explain the reason for her distress, but Mrs Potts was as kind and comforting as ever. Lacey wept on her shoulder as Mrs Potts stroked her hair and whispered soothing words, and when she was done she felt better, as though some of the weight around her heart had been lifted. She let out a shuddering sigh, and Mrs Potts patted her back.

“There now, dear,” said Mrs Potts kindly. “You sit down and have some tea. Things never seem quite so bad after a nice cup of tea, I always say. And a piece of cake, hmm?”

“Guess I need the extra calories,” said Lacey despondently.

She took a seat at the table, slumping in the chair as Mrs Potts poured tea and set slices of ginger cake on a plate. Lacey felt a little better after eating a piece, and reached for her tea.

“So,” said Mrs Potts, looking at her over the top of her glasses. “What are you going to do?”

“Go back to—” Lacey snapped her mouth shut before she could reveal her destination. “Go back. He deserves to know.”

“The father?” She put her head to the side. “Did it end badly?”

“It was never a thing,” she sighed. “We were friends, that’s all. It happened once. He was sad and - and I wanted to help. I never thought it would - well, I guess I was stupid. Reckless.”

“And now?” asked Mrs Potts. “What do you think he’ll do?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, pushing dark brown crumbs of cake around on her plate with a finger. “I don’t even know what I want to do. But he’s a good man. The best I’ve ever known. Maybe he’ll help. At any rate, he has a right to know.”

“Yes.” She reached out, squeezing Lacey’s hand with her own. “I think you’re right. I think you should go to him.”

There was silence for a moment, and Mrs Potts sat back, taking a sip of her tea.

“When will you go?” she asked quietly, and Lacey glanced up.

“I’ll go tomorrow,” she said. “It’s time, anyway. You said they’d return in the spring.”

“Yes.” Mrs Potts looked grim. “And rest assured, they’ll hear nothing of this from me.”

“Thanks,” said Lacey. “Look - I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back. I hate leaving Grandma all this time, but—”

“Dr Whale says she’s comfortable, and she doesn’t realise what’s going on ninety percent of the time,” she said soothingly. “Don’t worry about her, Miss. Or us, for that matter. You think about keeping safe, and about the decision you have to make, that’s all.”

Lacey gave her a tremulous smile.

“Do me a favour and don’t say anything to Cogsworth,” she said. “I know he means well, but secret agent he ain’t.”

She smiled at that, eyes twinkling.

“Just promise me one thing,” she said. “Let me know what you decide, and let me know you’re alright.”

Lacey nodded, reaching for a second piece of cake.

“I promise.”

#fic: things left unsaid #woven lace fic #woven lace #my fic

21 notes · View notes