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blockgamepirate · 3 years

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So we were talking on Discord about a DSMP superpowers AU, specifically Syndicate as an anarchist superhero team who are perceived as villains by pretty much everybody. (There were a bunch of people involved in the brainstorming but I wanna particularly credit @macachee for the idea for Techno’s superpowers, even though I ended up using a slightly different version than theirs.)

Anyway I know I don't really write fanfic anymore and I'm extremely rusty but uh... my hand slipped?

(CW: nothing major but there are repeated mentions of fire and some pretty tame violence)

×××

"Professor Underscore, I presume?"

The distinctive deep voice of an infamous supervillain was really not something anyone wanted to hear after 14 hours of last minute bug-fixing on a prototype superweapon in a secret laboratory. Especially when all your assistants had already called it a day and gone home.

Without even looking around, Tubbo reached for the gun in his desk drawer but before he could pull it out, a blade smashed into the wood right next to his hand.

"Nope", said the voice, "you don't get to have weapons, I get to have weapons. And speaking of weapons..."

Tubbo carefully turned around on his chair to face his attacker. As expected, it was a huge, hulking pigman dressed in flashy red and a golden mask.

"You are Protesilaus, aren't you? From the Syndicate?"

Protesilaus blinked at him. "You're a LOT younger than I expected, professor."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

"I mean it's very impressive though, good for you."

"Thanks."

"So anyway, I'm here for the weapons."

"The weapons are kinda reserved already. You know, for the military."

"Don't give a shit", said a voice from the door. "Gib."

Protesilaus sighed. "Zephyrus, you're supposed to be the secret back-up."

The man hiding by the door frame laughed. "We already took care of the guards. There's nobody here but him, it's fiiine."

"But what if HE has his own secret back-up? What then? Well, it's too late now so just keep a look-out, alright?"

Zephyrus laughed again. "Sure."

"Alright." Protesilaus pointed his sword at Tubbo. "Show us to the weapons."

×××

There wasn't much he could think of doing to stall except try and tap in the pin codes on the doors as slowly as humanly possible. To be fair he didn't even really know what he was stalling for exactly. Secret back-up would have been nice but if they’d really taken out all the guards then none was likely to come.

Protesilaus was following him, sword in hand, making random small talk on the way as if he didn't know how to deal with the silence. Tubbo had only caught a few glimpses of Zephyrus, the winged man, in the background or in reflections. He seemed to be tampering with the security systems on the way, meaning that Tubbo really might be completely alone on this if the sabotage was successful. Zephyrus was also pulling along a big wheeled container of some sort that was probably intended for the weapons.

The two of them were the known members of the Syndicate, a team of anarchist terrorists who gave nightmares to the local police forces, the national guard and occasionally the military, but it was also widely theorized to have a secret third member with fire powers. Nobody had ever managed to catch them in the act, the only evidence of the secret member's existence was the trail of smoking ruins following the pair, their targets always burned down in a blaze of extremely memorable pink flames.

Tubbo had a theory that there were actually two secret members in the Syndicate, because if you're going to have one secret member you might as well have two, right? Maybe even three! It just made sense.

His assistants hadn't seemed convinced by this logic.

They arrived at the large hall leading up to the main vault where the prototypes were hidden and Tubbo finally had a plan. Somebody (probably him, honestly) had left the remote control of his battle bots lying around on a sidetable. He took advantage of his captors checking the space for surprise guards and inched slowly towards the remote.

"Everything good up there?" Protesilaus called out to Zephyrus who had flown up to the rafters.

"All good."

"Alright, seems safe enough", said Protesilaus. "Now, open the vault."

Tubbo just needed to stall a little bit longer until he could grab the remote undetected. "Actually, maybe I just won't be able to live with the fact that I let you guys get your hands on superweapons? What if I'd rather die than let you have them?"

Protesilaus sighed. "Look, don't worry, it's for a good cause, I promise."

"I mean, you guys are supervillains."

"Oh yeah sure, you're literally making weapons for an imperialist government but we're the villains?"

"What about that orphanage you burned down?" Tubbo kept moving towards the sidetable, trying to make it look like he was just pacing nervously.

"I have NEVER burned down any orphanages, I do NOT have an irrational hatred of small children, in fact I LOVE orphans in particular, you can ask anyone."

"You did, though! That was like two years ago, back when you were part of the Sleepy Bois Inc!"

Tubbo actually knew quite a lot about the Sleepy Bois, the infamous villain team who were particularly known for conning people into taking part in some sort of strange experiments, like that time they somehow transported a hundred people to the moon and told them to terraform a random area. The group had broken up a while back and two of the four had since reformed. Well, more or less reformed anyway. Actually not really reformed, but they were at least sticking to smaller crimes these days.

Anyway Mr. Business was now one of Tubbo's best friends, although nobody was supposed to know that. And Dirty Crime Boy seemed like a surprisingly nice guy. He was out there running what seemed to be some kind of a drug van but Tubbo had chosen not to worry about it too much.

The other two members, however...

"Sleepy Boys? Doesn't ring a bell." Protesilaus' face was suspiciously blank.

"You know, back when you called yourself the Blood God."

"Nah nah nah, I'm Protesilaus, not the Blood God."

"Come on, you're OBVIOUSLY the Blood God."

"I've never even heard of that guy."

"You're LITERALLY a pigman with superhealing powers and a shiny magical sword, you wear a crown AND you're hanging out with a blond guy with wings who looks just like the Angel of Death."

"Wow, wild coincidence", said Protesilaus

“Not gonna lie, the Angel of Death is a really cool name“, said Zephyrus.

Tubbo ignored them. "And you sound exactly like the Blood God."

"I don't hear it", said Protesilaus.

"You said you don't even know who he is!"

"Exactly."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'EXACTLY'??? THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!!!"

"Well I can't hear it if I've never even heard him speak. That's just logic."

Up in the rafters Zephyrus was cackling like a madman.

"You annoy me so much", said Tubbo.

"Aaaanyways, just give us a little peek into the vault, alright? Just out of curiosity, you know."

Tubbo had made it to the remote, he just needed one more distraction to cover for him grabbing it. "Uh..." Then he had an idea: he just took a quick sudden glance at the exit, as if he'd seen something over there and sure enough both of the criminals immediately turned to check. It was just long enough. He got the remote. "Okay fine, you can see the vault."

"Nice, nice." Protesilaus was still glancing around suspiciously but he had no idea what he should have been suspicious of.

Tubbo was more than happy to open the vault now. It might be holding the prototypes but it was also filled with a small army of robots.

All of which came to life with the press of a button.

"Ah", said Protesilaus. "There's his secret back-up."

"Oh Jesus", said Zephyrus. "I think we fucked up."

"You could say that", said Tubbo. "If you just leave peacefully I might let you go", he added in a sudden fit of uncharacteristic levels of confidence.

Protesilaus raised his sword. "Well you see, I really want those weapons, though."

"I guess you'll just have to fight the robots for it then", said Tubbo, configuring the targetting system.

"Mate, they've got guns on them", Zephyrus called out from above.

"Take cover then", said Protesilaus, very much not taking any cover at all himself.

Tubbo, pretty sure the bots knew which people to fight, released them on the criminals.

Protesilaus immediately managed to dodge the first few lazer bolts from the bots, but the third hit him on the arm. He flinched a bit but didn't seem too bothered. "Ouch. Okay so they can actually aim."

Still dancing around the shots, he held his hand to the wound and once he took it off, only the singed hole on his sleeve remained. The Blood God had been known for some kind of healing powers and coincidentally Protesilaus of the Syndicate, who apparently definitely wasn't the Blood God, just happened to also have healing powers. This fight was going to be hard even for thirty robots.

The pigman finally took some cover, hiding behind a pillar. The robots would have to move closer and Tubbo could already tell that if he'd manage to single them out, Protesilaus would easily take them down one by one.

Even worse, Zephyrus had hidden behind a different pillar up near the ceiling and was sniping the bots from above. They were supposed to be bulletproof but the man was absolutely cracked and managed to keep hitting them in the joints and in the eyes.

But at least the bots had given Tubbo some room to work with. He bolted into the vault and headed straight for a very specific section.

"So I just wanna know, professor", Protesilaus called out from the hall, "how are you NOT the evil mastermind here? You have a LITERAL horde of robots in your control that you can just let loose on people!"

"What do you MEAN? They're for fighting people like you! In this exact kind of situation!" Tubbo found what he was looking for and quickly unbuckled the huge harnesses holding it in place. He had to get a stool to reach the highest ones and nearly tripped on it in his hurry.

"Oh and how many of these have you sold to the government? And what if they just decide that they'd be very convenient for taking care of dissenters?"

"Well if the dissenters are literal supervillains, that sounds great." He climbed the ladder on the wall up to the platform by the mech suit and jumped inside.

He couldn't hear what Protesilaus responded after he pulled down the dome of the suit over his body. The sounds of fighting and the bulletproof glass drowned it all out from this distance, and the sound system wasn’t turned on yet. Now the odds should be a lot more even, though. Let’s see how they deal with this, he thought. He settled in and launched the mech--

... and then maneuvered awkwardly through the mess of secret weapons and machines inside his vault. He was pretty sure he didn't break too many things on the way, it was fine. In the corner of his eye he thought he saw a flash of pink and for a second he worried that the pigman had followed him into the vault where it would be almost impossible for him to fight in the suit but luckily he could still hear the sound of sword clanging into metal from outside.

He moved over to the vault door as sneakily as he could while piloting a 12-foot-tall machine in a tight space and looked out into the hall. The floor was littered with broken robots, and there were several blinded ones aimlessly wandering around and getting in the way of the ones that still functioned properly. Protesilaus was towards the back of the hall, stabbing a bot in the armpit and tearing off its arm, Zephyrus on the other hand, still perching on the rafters, had moved around the pillar he had hidden behind, now aiming away from the vault. Neither of them were looking at Tubbo. He took aim and shot at one of the huge grey wings.

"Ah! Fuck!" Zephyrus spun around. "You little shit!"

"Zephyrus, are you okay??" Protesilaus immediately looked over to his ally and took another hit himself.

"I'm FINE, dude!" Zephyrus sounded exasperated but fond. "Look out yourself! Also the kid has a fucking mech."

"A what?"

Tubbo slammed the vault door shut. Good luck getting in there now, Syndicate. Then he tossed aside some robot carcasses to clear out the floor and threw one at Protesilaus who dodged it easily but in the process took another hit from a different robot. He was starting to look tired and he was obviously distracted by Zephyrus getting hurt. That was promising.

Tubbo started climbing the pillar up to the ceiling. Zephyrus cursed again and tried to hop around the pillar to run across to the other side but his hurt wing didn't open properly so he lost his balance, slipped up and fell. "Shit!"

"ZEPHYRUS!"

The man managed to open his wings and soften the fall but the injury made him veer dangerously to the left and crash into a pile of broken robots. Protesilaus leaped over to him, dropping his sword and laying his hands on his friend's wing and back. A faint red glow emitted from the touch points.

Tubbo jumped back down to the ground and stormed at them. He punched the pigman right in the chin, sending him flying across the room. He then tried to grab Zephyrus but the man had already slipped away and had apparently managed to pick up his friend's sword. "You motherfucker", the man said, "I'm going to take that fucking suit apart and then it's your turn."

"Zeph!" Protesilaus called from the side and Zephyrus tossed the sword to him without taking his eyes of off Tubbo. Then the man pulled up his sniper rifle again and Tubbo quickly covered his weak points with his armoured arms and jumped behind a pillar. He needed to disarm Zephyrus ASAP.

Behind them, Protesilaus was taking care of the last few robots. Tubbo didn't have much time, but he couldn't do anything until Zephyrus would have to reload, the guy was just too accurate...

"Oh fuck", said Zephyrus suddenly. "Prot, the door!"

They all turned to look at the exit.

There, at the door, was Ranboo, widened eyes flicking between Tubbo, the broken robots and the Syndicade. He was holding a bowl of biscuits and a cup of tea. "Uh... hello? Hi?"

Ranboo was actually NOT allowed in the vaults but how do you stop someone who can literally teleport anyway? Tubbo was glad to see him sneaking in, though.

"Ranboo! Help! They're trying to steal the weapons!"

"I..." Ranboo seemed frozen in place.

"Ranboo!" Tubbo was starting to get worried. His husband wasn't even taking any shelter. He drove the mech over to him to at least give him some protection.

"I just came to bring you cookies? Coz I thought maybe you were staying late to make the deadline and I thought--"

"Ranboo, I'm being attacked by supervillains right now!"

"Look, what if we just talked this through? I'm sure everybody here would rather not kill each other, right?" Ranboo was tall enough to lay a hand on Tubbo's shoulder even when he was wearing the mech suit which kind of pissed Tubbo off to be quite honest.

"Sure", said Protesilaus, "I love negotiating. Give us the weapons and their blueprints and we're more than happy to go."

"See? That's good, right? Tubbo, we can just let them have the weapons."

"Ranboo, sometimes you're a bit too quirky for my liking. Stop being quirky, help me fight them. You can use your... T-E-L-I-P-O-R-T-A-T-I-O-N powers."

Everybody just stared at him for a second.

"Shouldn't it be T-E-L-E?" said Protesilaus.

"Tubbo, you realise they can spell words too, you know, like most people who graduated elementary school?" said Ranboo.

"I'M SORRY! I'M TIRED, OKAY?"

“You could have just said ‘use your powers’, I mean, I know what my powers are.”

“IT'S BEEN A REALLY LONG DAY!“

"Zephyrus, I think this guy might be too much for us, I've never met such intimidating intellect", said Protesilaus. Zephyrus seemed to already be dying of laughter and his ally's words did not help.

"Now that's just rude," said Tubbo.

He'd barely finished his sentence when a horrible whistling sound hit them all like an invisible cargo train. After a second Tubbo managed to reassemble his braincells long enough to figure it out: "The fire alarm!"

Then he noticed the grin on his enemy's face. "Well, good job, everyone! Let's go home, Zephyrus", said Protesilaus cheerfully.

"Sure, mate."

The secret third member of the Syndicate, Tubbo suddenly remembered. The container they'd brought with them was gone too. Well, fuck. "This whole thing was a diversion??"

"Yep." The Protesilaus was already at the exit and Zephyrus was following right behind him. "See ya, losers!"

Something inside the vault exploded, making a muffled bang through the door, as if just to prove where exactly the fire had been lit.

"Oh man..." Tubbo flopped down on his seat. "I spent SO LONG building all those things!"

"Tubbo, we need to get out." Ranboo took him by the hand of his mech suit and pulled him along.

"No, we could still go in and save the--"

"No, Tubbo. Let's NOT run into the vault full of dangerous chemicals that's literally on fire, actually."

×××

By the time the fire department showed up, pink flames had enveloped the entire lab complex. The terrorists presumably had at least one of the prototypes now and all the remaining ones were a lost cause.

It's not like all the work was gone to waste, they'd made some backups at least, but it would be a pain to find a new lab and order all the extremely volatile chemicals again. So much paperwork. Tubbo was really not good at paperwork.

"Well, there goes my summer holidays I guess", he said.

"Yeah", said Ranboo. "There they go."

×××

"So... Lethe", said Techno at the next Syndicate meeting, "you never happened to mention you were friends with Professor Underscore."

Ranboo shifted nervously in his chair. "I mean... in my defence, you never said you were going to raid his lab?"

"True, true. It didn't seem like relevant information at the time I suppose. You know, because you're kinda more in the group just for the book club and Bake Off Fridays and not so much for the vigilante thing."

"How do you know Professor Underscore, Lethe?" asked Niki gently.

Ranboo looked around the table. He was fairly certain that the others wouldn't kill him for fraternizing with the enemy. He was pretty sure anyway. At least 70% sure.

Also they were all staring at him now.

"Uh... he's my... husband?"

The staring continued.

"Oh!" said Niki.

"Well", said Techno. "This is awkward."

"Uh huh?" Ranboo responded, his entire body tense and slightly wobbly.

"Techno", Phil said softly. Techno brushed him off.

"So uh, are you attached to him, Lethe?"

"Y-yes?" Ranboo straightened his back. "Yes." he said again, more firmly.

"Alright. I guess in the future we should try not to kill him then."

#dsmp fanfiction #technoblade fanfiction #im not tagging the others #i feel like im too much of a techno stan and it shows

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 12 second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Funsies)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

After locking Wei Wuxian into some comically large chains, Wen Chao has him thrown into the dungeon, with an unpleasant surprise.

This Fucking Dog

Being a fan of The Untamed involves occasional second-hand embarrassment, like when they fly on their swords, or the zombies all have the same wig, or a fight sequence moves slower than everybody’s granny. It's ok because each of these things is offset by excellence in acting, story, costumes, weapons, sets, etc.

Then there's this fucking dog.

The department of questionable practical effects really outdid themselves with this thing. Just seeing this awful creation on screen gives me so much cringe squick I can barely look at it. But for you, dear readers, I FORCED MY EYEBALLS to watch the entire dog sequence OVER AND OVER. Then I applied some brightness adjustments and looked at it EVEN MORE.

Let's get desensitized! I’m going all in on this monstrosity.

First, this dog does not ever move its body or its feet. Its legs are totally immobile. It appears to be made of a big sawhorse with a stick for the neck. The head swings up and down and side to side. That’s it.

“Animatronic” is too generous of a term for this thing. The animatronics at Chucky Cheese learned to play musical instruments and host birthday parties decades ago. This dog cannot play an instrument and it has to wait for Wei Wuxian to walk over to it before it can attack him.

When it falls over after Wen Ning K.O’s it, it’s like a chair falling over. It just topples to the side, legs sticking straight out.

(more after the cut)

Next, It has a mouth full of teeth, which opens and closes. And it has drool the texture of Astroglide Extra-Thick Gel. But...no tongue.

Seriously you guys, it literally does not have a tongue. They just sculpted a little bump at the at the bottom of its mouth, despite dogs being known for, like, lolling their tongues out of their mouths at every opportunity.

Moving along, it has dull, lifeless eyes, and its eyelids are visibly disconnected from the rest of its head, like a doll that mechanically shuts its eyes when you lay it down to sleep.

Finally, its fur looks like a fucking muppet, and it has random shiny spots all around its eyes and lips. These are probably supposed to be body fluids of some kind, but they just look like someone was careless with the cra-z-glue.

Xiao Zhan gamely tries to act opposite this ridiculous fail prop, but there is nothing remotely scary about it.

Here is Wei Wuxian being scared. I replaced the animatronic dog with a reversed clip of my dog Pepper asking for a piece of cheese, and I think it looks more convincing this way.

Ok, let's be done with this stupid fucking dog. Wen Ning knocks it out, Wen Chao criticizes it in the morning, and nobody ever speaks of it again.

Wei Wuxian is so mortified to have endured this farce that when Lan Wangji asks him, much later, “why are you afraid of dogs?” he does not say “don’t you remember that time I got chewed on by a giant animatronic dog at Wen Chao’s place?” but instead pretends that this never fucking happened.

Wen Ning to the Rescue

For contrast, the next dungeon scene is a really touching and important encounter between Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian.

Wen Ning comes and knocks out the creature, and gives Wei Wuxian medicine.

Wen Ning is doing this in defiance of his clan and his sister, simply because Wei Wuxian is his friend. Yes, he feels indebted, but Wen Qing saved WWX’s life once, so the tally is already even. Wen Ning is just super attached to Wei Wuxian, and vice versa; WWX calls him Wen-Xiong in this scene.

When Wen Ning explains how to use the medicine, Wei Wuxian changes the subject to ask how WN and his sister are doing. He is bleeding, chained up, high on adrenaline and fear, and what he really wants is to hear how his friends are doing. When Wen Ning talks about Wen Qing’s troubles, Wei Wuxian wishes she would accept help, instead of always going it alone.

Wei Wuxian thanks Wen Ning formally, and tells him no words can express his gratitude. Whether this is a literally correct translation, the gratitude both of these young men feel toward each other transcends words. It will become a driving force in both of their lives as they save each other from increasingly awful situations.

Wen Ning tells Wei Wuxian about the burning of Cloud Recesses....the burning of the half we never visit. It would suck to damage that exquisite set, so I’m ok with that production choice, but creates some cognitive dissonance when characters get upset about the fire.

Wei Wuxian reacts to the news of Lan Wangji’s injury by punching the concrete floor of the dungeon, which is dumb but also highly relatable.

After Wen Ning leaves, Wei Wuxian decides to save the medicine for Lan Wangji, who might not even need it, while WWX is bleeding right now and definitely needs it. No matter how bad things are for him personally, Wei Wuxian is always thinking about ways to help the people he loves, and constantly seeing his own needs as less important than everybody else’s.

Breakfast Time

After his night of terror and maiming, Wei Wuxian emerges as chipper as ever. Almost like he is already an expert at hiding his trauma from the people close to him.

Lan Wangji gives him a careful look, taking in the sight of his ripped clothes and bloody neck and hands.

Jiang Cheng is angry at Wei Wuxian for joking about his injuries, so he shoves him, potentially causing more injuries.

Wei Wuxian laughs off the signs of torture and attempted murder and everyone goes along with it. Nobody knows what happened to him other than "dungeon" and what he looks like right now, and they’re all just like, okey dokey, I guess you’re fine.

He’ll carefully laugh off his months in the burial mounds in the same way, later, and Jiang Cheng will accept it nearly as readily as he accepts this. But by that time Lan Wangji will see right through him.

Nie Huaisang mentions the Lan Clan in the course of discussing breakfast, and then everyone pauses awkwardly because they know that mentioning this will make Lan Wangji think about the recent attack on his home and the deaths of many of his fellow disciples. Whereas if nobody had mentioned it, he totally wouldn't think about it. That's how grief works, right?

Insult to Injury

Wen Chao decides to spend some time gloating about battles and insulting people's families, which he does with Wen Qing standing behind his eyeline so that she can warn Wei Wuxian not to let his brother go off.

Jiang Cheng is not going to let anybody who isn't his mother insult his father like that, but in a reversal of their normal roles, Wei Wuxian restrains him and helps keep him from doing something rash.

Monster Hunting

Wen Chao makes everyone read out loud until Nie Huaisang wisely faints and gets carried off. Then he gathers everyone for a monster hunt. It's unclear why he wants to go monster hunting but he sure does, and bringing the hostages along might make them all die, which would be a nice bonus.

The cultivators wander around en masse in a small section of forest, thoroughly covering every inch of it. This is a great way to hunt for a dead body but not so good for living prey.

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng stand around like bitchy queens at a dance club, talking smack about Wen Chao and his girlfriend.

Wei Wuxian brings out a salty phrase and Jiang Cheng wonders what websites he's been going to.

Dude. Lighten up.

Leave that Boy Alone

Wei Wuxian notices Lan Wangji struggling, and now that he knows the backstory, he's determined to help. Jiang Cheng is determined to stop him.

This is, once again, the fundamental disagreement between the brothers, and it's never going to be solvable. Jiang Cheng's specific dislike of Lan Wangji may be rooted in jealousy, but his belief in not helping outsiders runs a lot deeper than that.

For Wei Wuxian, there is no such thing as having helped enough. If someone is his friend, he will never stop helping them, and he has a lot of friends, and makes new ones wherever he goes. He's always going to be giving something of himself, to the detriment of any conflicting obligations.

Jiang Cheng tells him that Lan Wangji won't accept his help, and Wei Wuxian says that's not the point.

What other people think, want, say, or do, is not going to have any effect on whether Wei Wuxian does what he feels is right. This is a bit of a problem where a person's right to self-determination conflicts with Wei Wuxian's need to help them, as Jiang Cheng will eventually discover.

Jiang Cheng's least effective argument is the one he relies on most often when they disagree: other people's problems are not our responsibility. He's saying this to an orphan who was eating trash and stealing scraps from dogs before Jiang Fengmian came into his life.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem to realize the underlying logic of this argument. If it's wrong for Wei Wuxian to help the people he cares about, it was also wrong for Jiang Fengmian to help Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng loves Wei Wuxian and would willingly die for him, but he, like his mother, rejects the philosophy that brought them together in the first place.

Wei Wuxian walks away from an upset and shocked Jiang Cheng to offer a piggyback ride to Lan Wangji.

...who won't accept it, but who will remember the offer forever.

Writing prompt: Thoughts of an animatronic dog

Soundtrack: Five Nights at Freddy’s by The Living Tombstone

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #wangxian #chen qing ling #wei wuxian #giant animatronic dog #lan wangji #jiang cheng #restless rewatch the untamed #my gifs #canary3d-original #the untamed spoilers #embarrassment #this dog is why I started writing these #this goddamn dog

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falcor-thee-luck-dragon · 3 years

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Of Monsters and Men

Chapter 6- Betrayer Moon

Summary: Temeria holds a beast that has been said to have slaughtered many. With the sweet sound of coins offered you’re ready for another wild hunt.

Warnings: lil smut we starting out with, gore and blood as per usual, fluff

Masterlist

Outside the winds are cold and snowy as the night cascades its great darkness over the land of the Continent. But none of that holds any kind of significance as you lay in the warm bed of a village tavern, Geralt's muscular body pressing flush against your heated skin. You hold tightly onto the tousled bed sheets as he thrusts into you over and over again, nothing but the sweet sounds of his grunts and your pleasant moaning filling the darkly lit room but for a simple fire in the hearth.

He deliciously rocks you into the mattress as he gently kisses your sweaty temple, sending bolts of electricity coursing throughout your entire being as you await your building climax. With each new thrust of Geralt's manhood into your entrance, you try and hold back a scream but to no avail. He quickly silences you with a heated kiss, both of your tongues dancing in the dark with one another as he pushes your legs apart even more, his large body taking you all in.

He's a lot to handle but you can take it, no matter what he throws at you. Soon he's a moaning mess as he dumps his load into your clenching walls, hitting your own high just the same, you suddenly claw at his back as he pumps himself into you a couple more times before slowly leaning up to take a good look at your blissfully beautiful face. He gently pulls out of you, falling onto the bed at your side as the both of lay in silence, the only viable sounds coming from your heavy breaths and the crackling of the fireplace.

"So, I heard something interesting today." You begin, turning on your side to lean yourself into his chest as he stares at the ceiling, a satisfied smirk gracing his handsome features.

"Do tell." He quietly mumbles.

"I was conversing with some of the whores by the market today, asking about what interesting creatures have met their eyes and whatnot. When wouldn't you know it, another Witcher had come through this very village." He raises an eyebrow, curiosity catching his interest quick, "Said he fled Temeria with some miners coin when his ass was supposed to be killing their monster. I think foul play." You inquire, absentmindedly running your fingers over his battle scars, Geralt's intrigued by your words but is honestly enjoying himself too much to care about anything else at the moment.

Sighing in deep content he shifts his golden gaze onto you, "Tonight I will blissfully ignore my problems." He muses, closing his eyes as you continue to lightly trail your fingers against his skin, "Just uh...keeping doing that." A drunken smile gracing his sweaty face, as you break out into a grin while your eyes fully take in his glistening muscular form that's laying butt-ass naked right next to you. Oh, how did you get so lucky with a man like him?

The rest of the night is spent inside one another here and there, until you both fall asleep in an exhausted heap of tangled limbs and messy blankets. The next morning you two get dressed and head for Temeria, Geralt wisely leaving Roach with the stable boy until you both come back to retrieve her, whenever that may be.

The hike to Temeria went rather smoothly, no one to bother you and the cold of the winter weather doing nothing to freeze you, considering you're practically immune to feeling cold, another wondrous perk of being half vampire.

As you walk out of the shadowy woodland you look up to see a large abandoned castle stout upon the top of a rocky hill, thick forest surrounding it. Looking ahead you notice as the trail suddenly dives into the earth, lamps held up by steel poles guiding the way in, but before this you stop to read over a poster pinned to a wooden pole.

"Temeria, realm of monsters and cowardly kings." You turn to Geralt with an amused smirk upon your face, "Well it's nice to know they don't hold anything back." You laugh before turning to walk down the descending trail, Geralt smiling as he watches you go.

Your time in the mines was a quick one, the miners and the kings men on the verge of a tiny battle that was stopped by Geralt's calm inquisition. The high guard or whoever the fuck, lead you and your Witcher out of the mines and into the shadowy snow covered woods, you're guessing with interior motives but nonetheless you follow.

As you're walking next to Geralt, with the kingsmen on their steeds to either side of you; all of a sudden you catch the scent of another being lurking in the shadows. Another heartbeat thudding in the night, then not even ten seconds later do the guards fall from their horses, enchanted by some sleeping spell. Geralt quickly pulls out his silver sword as you bare your opened hands, emitting crackling purple lighting from your fingertips, this is sorcery at play and you know just how to fight it if need be.

"You can put down your sword...and calm your lightning. I'm not here to hurt you." Speaks a woman's calm voice, her shadowed silhouette walking into view.

"Says the witch hiding in the woods." Mutters Geralt defensively, sword still held out in front of him as you slowly lower your hands, dissipating away the lightning. You can tell this mage has come with no ill intent, even if you don't adherently feel very fond of such beings, you're wise enough to understand that not all are terrible.

"Sorceress." Corrects the curly haired woman.

"Witch." He growls darkly, you lightly touch him on the shoulder, silently asking him to calm is unneeded anger, he slowly brings his sword to his side.

"Triss Merigold. I serve King Foltest." She serenely replies. A simple mage.

"So he makes a show of kicking us out...then sends his errand girl to slip me some coin so we kill his monster." Proclaims Geralt smartly, believing he's just figured her out.

"Not a very original plan for a king." You add, your brows furrowing in thought.

"It's my plan. My coin. And I don't want you to kill the beast. I want you to help me save it." Assures Triss.

"Save it?" You ask.

Wanting to hear more she takes you both into her area within the castle where she goes into more detail about the happenings in the woods. Geralt leans against a counter as you sit on a wooden table, the both of you facing Triss who stands by a desk and chair directly in front of you.

"Six years ago, stable hands statred vanishing at the castle above the city. Before long, citizens were disappearing throughout all Temeria. Foltest's royal guards soon realized the creature was coming from the crypt where the king's sister Adda is buried. Rumor has it she was having an affair with a young man in town when she died."

oh the drama, you wanted to laugh when she said that but wisely chose against that.

"Was she pregnant?" You finally ask, your curiosity getting the better of you. Maybe that's why this beast is killing people?

"If she were, that would make her child the sole heir to the throne as Foltest never married." Explains Triss as her expression changes to a thoughtful one, "The king fled the castle, ignoring the rising death toll. After Nilfgaard overthrew their king, the Brotherhood couldn't risk it happening again, so they sent me here three months ago to cure the creature."

"Vukodlaks are freak mutations." Says Geralt, mind reeling with what this creature truly is.

"They can't be cured." You add as Triss' brows furrow, "A vukodlak is a type of mutated werewolf, its a beast that conceptualizes in the womb of a dead woman, this woman however must be pregnant. It's rare, but it happens."

"How strange, maybe if I take you to the creatures latest victim then you might have some understanding as to what it actually is."

"Worth a try."

Triss leads you and Geralt through the pre-burial section under the castle where all the dead lay awaiting their final home in the ground. The place reeks of death, spices to mask the dead smell, and too many salts and herbs doing their part to delay the decomposition process.

"Two thousand orens if either of you can tell me what exactly killed these people." Says Triss as all three of you scan over the cloaked bodies laying on wooden tables.

"You didn't want the people to know that it bested a Witcher. And you let them believe that he fled with their coin." Mutters Geralt.

"You two clearly weren't acquainted." At the end of the long cavernous room does she stop at a stone tub of white salt and sand, you can smell the dead man underneath. You walk past both of them before standing in front of the tub.

Taking a breath, you reach down to wipe away the white sand until the caved in chest of the fallen Witcher is revealed. You stick your hand inside the opened chest cavity to gather a mental image of what could be missing. You look over at a curious Geralt, "His hearts missing along with his liver."

"Only one creature I know is that picky an eater. A striga." Explains Geralt while you remove your wandering hand from within the broken rib cage to wipe it off on your pants. You then turn back around to face Triss and Geralt, noting how the mages face begins morphing into that of befuddlement.

"Strigas are old wives' tales." She replies, not completely sure of herself.

You shrug, "They're very rare as are the vukodlak, but they can happen. However the only way to make one is through a curse." You add, crimson eyes trailing over the mutilated body of the dark haired Witcher. So this is really what became of that other Witcher, better him then Geralt, nonetheless he fought bravely.

"Someone wanted Adda dead." Realizes Triss as Geralt hums in agreement.

"But the curse didn't stop with Adda. It turned her daughter into a monster." Triss' head tilts in surprised puzzlement at your troubling knowledge.

"Her daughter?"

"Strigas are female. This striga's a princess." Concludes Geralt with a sigh, his gaze searching for your own perplexed expression as you turn around to face him and Triss who still looks rather disturbed.

"Well then, lets see if this king of yours is willing to let us help." You quip at Triss as you begin leading the way out of the large burial room. "Can't be that difficult now can it?"

——

"Miss Merigold, you were dispatched to settle a family affair, not to enlist a mutant mercenary and a rouge hybrid for a game of sleuthing." Argues one of the kings guardsmen as King Foltest hungrily rips apart a turkey leg, rather disgustingly if you're being honest. He even smells of meat and sweat.

"This is no game, Captain. Tonight is a full moon, Geralt and Y/N have already proved themselves to be invaluable. We believe we can cure the creature." Implores Triss urgently as she vouches for you, Geralt, and her pertinent point at hand. You just lean yourself against the rooms wallpaper as Geralt stands next to you, feeling a bit doubtful that she'll be able to convince any of them.

"You say she's a girl. Then you will refer to her as Her Royal Highness." Directs the kings guard before his other man, who instructed for you and Geralt to leave Temeria only yesterday, walks over to give his two cents.

"Segelin." He says introducing himself before continuing, "I believe urgency warrants flexibility in a court decorum. The Witcher's theory is nonsense. Princess Adda was the people's angel. Who'd wish to murder her?" Implores the man Segelin as his eyes wander over to you and then to Geralt, eyeing you both suspiciously.

"What about her lover?" You inquire, folding your arms over your leather armored chest.

"Seditious rumors. Idle courtesans trading out boredom for jealousy." Quickly replies the kings guardsman giving you a distasteful look.

"Perhaps if you'd call off your guards, if we were able to search the abandoned castle, we could find clues as to who cursed her." Explains Triss, attempting to convince the king. That's not a bad idea.

"Except, these two monster hunters would kill the princess as she sleeps, and collect the miners' coin." Argues Segelin as you simply roll your crimson eyes at the grey bearded man. What's got water up his breeches?

"Call her a princess. Call her a unicorn if you'd like to." Begins Geralt, "She grew inside Adda, feeding on her petrified womb."

"Have you no respect?!" Shouts the guardsmen defensively, the king just continues his gruesome assault on his turkey leg as he listens.

"Mutating. Growing for years till she got so hungry..." Geralt steps closer, the guardsmen laying a quick hand upon the hilt of his sheathed sword as Geralt continues unfazed, "she was forced to slither out. Rotten muscle, bent bones, two spidery legs, claws dragging in the dirt." You watch in satisfaction as the kings eyes flash with disgust. You've got him.

"An overgrown abortion." You add shrewdly, pushing yourself off of the wall as you walk next to the long table, the kings face cast down in deep thought as the other men throw you nasty glares.

"Enough." He snaps, setting down his half eaten leg of turkey.

"Your Highness?" Begins the loyal concerned guardsmen.

"Leave." Growls the king menacingly, his men nodding before making their way for the door, Triss, Geralt, and you following.

Opening up the door first, Geralt politely opens it, offering his hand for the others to follow out, you giving him a wink as you tail the guardsmen who's last to leave. As soon as you reach the doors entrance you quickly shove the guardsmen into the hallway before Geralt quickly shuts the doors on all of them, making sure to lock it as they shout their angry protests.

You listen to the pounding on the wood as you calmly walk past Geralt to the right side of the long table, leaning your hand onto the clothed wood as he casually rests an arm over a great oaken chair, opposite of the king.

"Who's the princess' father?" Immediately asks Geralt with a curious tilt of his head, the king glaring bitterly.

"My men will kill you two, bastards." He warns darkly, Geralt pulls his arm away from the chair to slowly approach him, you standing your ground while he walks past you.

Eyeing up the plump king, you slowly drag your fingers over the wood while taking small steps closer, "Your threats don't shake me, but it's funny...you learn your sister was murdered, and you didn't even flinch." Your sly remark has the king's eyes staring daggers at his roast turkey, while Geralt hums in agreement, walking himself towards a window before turning around to lean himself on a wooden cabinet as he faces the king.

"But the moment I mention the girl's father.." King Foltest purses his lips together, his eyes downcast onto the floor, "Why were you never married?" Questions Geralt smoothly, the king lets out a sigh as he leans back into his chair.

"You are speaking to a king." He proclaims with no heat is in his words, other then something else that he seems to be hiding from you both.

"That's exactly my point. Why not produce your own heir? Why not kill the striga and avoid this revolt? Why drag this all out?" Suggests Geralt, his brows furrowing together at the strange reason for everything that's happened. You walk over closer to the king, his beady eyes following you the whole time, you've already figured out the possible truth. And why must it be so disgusting too?

Raising an eyebrow, you reveal a small smirk to the glaring king, "Between the three of us, and I would dare not tell...who is the striga's father?" King Foltest appears to want to say something, almost willing to answer your question. But instead he looks to the window as he slowly rises from his seat, bringing his gaze back over to Geralt.

"I remember hearing stories about Witcher's when I was a child." He says, voice low and gravely while eying up Geralt, turning his sullen gaze upon you now, "And that of dhampirs. Is it true what they say? That you're neither living nor dead, unkillable but for silver?" Sneers the sweaty king, anger emitting from his every word, "That the mutations that grant Witcher's their...abilities. Also erase your emotions? Must be." He criticizes sharply eyeing the two of you with hate, "Cause only a person devoid of all heart could accuse a brother of bedding his murdered sister while urging him to kill her." Suddenly the doors burst open, a small handful of yelling guards racing in with their weapons bared, you don't even flinch as a second later the king throws a hand into the air, silently commanding them to halt.

He turns to you then back to Geralt, "Leave Temeria. Never return." His command is noted as Geralt gives him a nod before turning to walk out the door. You follow suit and smile at a nervous guard who looks like he might have just shit himself. The both of you silently walk out of the castle, deciding to make a new plan of attack.

——

Crouching on the roof of the abandoned castle as the wind and snow blows past your face, you slowly crawl closer to the front gates. Where two incredibly anxious guards converse about how much longer their post is until they may leave. Quietly you pull out a loose piece of the castles roofing, before chucking it into the direction of a crow where the bird and the ceiling make a loud rackety noise as they take off elsewhere. To your utter satisfaction the two nervous guards yell and book it down the cobblestone pathway and away from the castle.

Well that was easy enough.

Pleased with your harmless mischievousness, you decide to find your own way into the castle while Geralt takes the front entrance. You find a broken rotting part in the roofs wooden beamed structure where you then purposefully slip through, falling down to the floor, catching yourself at the very last moment as you levitate your body the rest of the way for a silent and painless landing.

The castle smells of mystery and dead rats as you walk quietly throughout the gloomy thing, suddenly your ears pricking to the sounds of Geralt and Triss rummaging around in someone's room down the hall. With a smirk upon your lips you stalk closer, listening to them speak about letters from Adda's mother as they both begin walking for the door.

As soon as you catch sight of Triss' oblivious face do you finally make yourself known, turning your skin the color of bluish pale grey, the whites of your eyes turning to black as your scarlet irises practically glow red. You hiss, baring your pearly white fangs, her face contorts into pure dreadful fear as she lets out a surprised scream. Geralt suddenly rushing to her side, his magic at the ready before his concerned face slackens to throw you an amused glare.

Cackling you turn back into your more presentable self, "You two find anything?" You wheeze as Triss gathers her bearings.

Breathing heavily she practically stares daggers at you, "Oh yes, just a fucking heart attack!" She breathlessly retorts, throwing you a harsh glare as Geralt walks past her. The corners of his lips pulling up into a smirk as he catches your entertained gaze, you smiling back at him like a fool in love.

"You're an ass." She mutters, shaking her head at you while she follows Geralt down the dreary shadowed hallway. An enthralled grin upon your beaming features as you tail behind them.

——

Once back inside Triss' lair of sorts within the castle walls, unbeknownst to King Foltest, the three of you let Segelin in on what they found in the ruined castle. He stands, eyes cast onto the letters, "A Queen Mother cursing her own children for their affair." He plops the old papers onto a table, "This could destroy the throne." He says dismally while leaning, both hands pressed to the wooden table.

"Sancia wanted Adda to get rid of the child." Says Geralt, concluding all that appears to be written down in those letters between Adda and her Queen Mother.

"It seems she refused. Repeatedly." Adds Triss while you all stare at the back of the man.

Segelin sighs, "And now she's taken that curse with her to the grave."

Triss clasps her hands together, "You've served the family for decades. Was Sancia involved in dark sorcery of any kind?"

He turns to look at her, "No. Of course not." His expression reveals no faults, yet you feel something is not right here. He's not nearly surprised enough about all of this.

Touching a dangling green plant that hangs out over a wooden cupboard, you raise a brow at him, "What was your relationship to Adda?"

He rests his hands casually against the long desk behind him, "Well, I like to think that she saw me as a confidant." He smiles, "And a protector, even. We used to talk at great length about her troubles. She could be very naïve."

"She ever mention her brother?" Asks Geralt from his place by the wall, a foot or so away from you and Triss' plants.

Segelin looks down at the letters, "Certainly not like this."

"She was ashamed." Says Triss as Segelin turns to face her.

"Or she was frightened. What if the relationship was not.." He pauses a moment like he can't even bring himself to say it, his eyes trail over the three of you, "..consensual?"

Geralt hums in thought at this indeed interesting bout of information, he looks to Segelin, "You think he raped Adda, then cursed the child to cover it up?"

"Well, kings have done more for less."

Geralt's eyes fall elsewhere, "True." He mutters as you mull over everything previously said. This doesn't sit right with you at all.

You take a step away from the plants, "There's only one wrinkle, though." Both Triss and Geralt watch as you stand almost threateningly in front of Segelin, they have not a clue what you're doing. The greying man eyes you nervously, you narrow your eyes at him, "Your scent was on her sheets."

Triss takes a step foreward, "Y/N?"

Your crimson eyes never leave him once, "Old ones...and new ones."

He leans away from you, "What would I be doing in a dead girl's bed?" He accuses, face shifted into a repulsed grimace. You lean in closer so that your mouth remains mere inches from his ear, he's visibly uncomfortable.

"I smelt what you were doing."

You move backwards to stand in from of the conflicted man, he says not a single word as you patiently wait for him to break. The moment lasts a couple seconds more, you can hear how loud his heart is pounding within his chest. His lip quivers, breathing increasing with anxiousness, "Foltest had no right!" Shouts the angered man while you scowl and step away, "He seduced Adda! Abused his position. He was always nagging her for attention. Always nagging! But he didn't love her....I did."

"You cursed the woman you loved?" Denounces Triss like a disappointed mother.

Segelin shakes his head, "I cursed Foltest, not her."

"Countless are dead because of your jealousy."

"Countless are dead because of Foltest!" Protests Segelin, "He spoiled Adda with his seed. He refuses to kill this striga. He lies to his people. And yet you wag your finger in my face."

"If you wanted him to suffer, you could have just exposed the affair." Counters Triss while the three of you stare down the heated man.

"And hurt Adda?" He says softly, "Never. Her memory will not be sullied, not while I'm alive to protect it." Geralt glances from you to him.

"Tell us how to lift the curse."

Segelin pauses a moment before looking defiantly up at your Witcher, "No. Foltest will watch as Temeria turns against him. Just as he turned Adda against me." Geralt hums in response.

Fed up with his excuses you walk up to him, he slightly cowers back before keeping straight again, a snobby expression upon his greying features before you crack him across the temple. Sending him falling to the ground in an instant as he plunges into unconsciousness.

"Y/N." You turn to face Triss.

"What? You were all thinking it."

——

Waiting atop the crumbling castle roof where this striga is soon to be, you watch from above as Geralt and King Foltest speak about how you and him will handle the princess. He gives the king Renfri's brooch as a gift for the princess incase Geralt does not live to see the light of day. You watch the king and his men finally leave, letting Geralt enter the dying castle as he looks up towards the roof for a second before turning his gaze for the wooden doors.

Taking the same route as earlier in the day, you soon find yourself in Adda's room. Segelin tied pathetically to the wooden beams of the dead princess' bed as your unwilling captive. Geralt brooding by the window as he thinks of what to do next, none of you truly having a solid clue as to what should be done about this royal striga. You watch when the greying man glares at you, blood smeared across his lips from your abrupt assault not even an hour ago.

"The both of you! This is madness!" He cries angrily, tugging at his cloth restraints, "What are we doing here? What's happening?" He wonders while searching desperately around the room for a nonexistent answer.

"How can we lift the curse." Mutters Geralt, his leather armored back to you and Segelin.

Segelin shakes his head, "No! This is not right. Foltest must pay for what he did." Whines Segelin once more, you simply fold your arms in irritation as the man looks to you for a sign that you care, which you most defiantly don't.

Rolling your eyes, you scowl at him, "You're already too blind to even comprehend your own faults. This is what you get for your childish actions." You mutter bitterly as he glares hopelessly at you, frustration clearly evident on his dirty face.

"Carry me out. I order you." Demands Segelin as Geralt turns around to face the desperate man. "Tell us how to lift the curse." He orders, Segelin huffs in frustration, avoiding Geralt's intimidating gaze.

In a blur of black and grey your hand is suddenly around his neck as his eyes go wide in stunned alarm, your squeeze isn't enough to choke him, but you're hopeful it's enough to change his mind. "I'd advise you to listen well, your life is already standing on the edge of a knife." You hiss maliciously in his ear before releasing him, he lets out a dramatic gasp as his wide eyes follow your every movement.

He turns his attention from you to Geralt as his mouth opens to finally answer, "Sh-She was hiding from the Brotherhood. She sold me a lamb....Sh-She told me to wait until a full moon, to wait and then to kill it." He stammers, Geralt crouching down to meet his eye level, "And then I recited some silly chant. And then I bathed in the lamb's blood until sunrise. Until the rooster crowed three times. And that is all. I swear. I swear. Now please let us leave." Begs Segelin desperately as he fruitlessly pulls against his constraints, your face falling into a frown, understanding immediately what this idiot has done.

"What was the chant?" Wonders Geralt, his brows furrowing in thought while he stares daggers at Segelin who looks down in frustration.

"Uh..It was years ago." Protests Segelin as he tries to think up the chant, "It was Elven. Um..." Suddenly he begins reciting an Elven curse, your eyes going wide in realization as Geralt shares a quick wary glance with you before racing over to his bag of potions, earning a confused expression from the bound man.

"Wh-what is it? The..I...I've done what's been asked. What more can I do?" He wonders in blissful ignorance as you let out a pissed off huff of air.

"You've done more than enough you perverted fool, unless you can keep a fucking striga out of her crypt until a fucking rooster crows three times." You snap while unsheathing your dagger, his face falling in frightened understanding as Geralt fumbles around with his potions, trying to find the right one to take before the action starts.

Segelin's eyes go downcast, his whole aurora turning to pure dread, "You're gonna have to fight it till dawn." He murmurs softly, staring at the far wall as Geralt downs a potion, his eyeballs turning into two pools of inky darkness. You turn, hastily walking for the door as Geralt quickly follows behind you.

"No. No. Come back here! Please. Please! You'd leave a man bound to die in such indignity?" He cries desperately, pulling on his restraints but to no avail.

"You're not a man." Growls Geralt as he takes his place by your side, the two of you walking down the dreary hallway as the snow falls lightly from outside the nearby broken windows, you catching the scent of the beast on the cool night air.

"Remember not to kill the princess, Y/N" Implores your Witcher with a smirk, you simply roll your eyes.

"We'll see if you can last till dawn my love, I don't doubt it." You retort, a suggestive tone hidden in your voice that's most definitely caught by Geralt.

The hallway breaks off into another section of the abandoned castle, you giving him a nod before turning in that direction, deciding it best to take on the royal beast from two sides if he gets caught up in some trouble. You silently walk down the dusty corridor past rotting wood and broken glass, cracked pieces of stone and the occasional human bones.

The enthralling shriek of the striga bellows throughout the castle walls, it's high pitched scratchy scream sounding like a knife that's stabbed you in the ears. Without another thought you race down the entrance-way towards the sounds of a great messy struggle, the princess has found Geralt, and she doesn't seem too pleased.

Turning round another stony corner, you halt dead in your tracks as your scarlet eyes zero in on the striga who's completely manhandling your Witcher, throwing him this way and that, deflecting every punch he's throwing at her. He suddenly rips a lamp from the wall and uses it to crack her across the side of her grotesque wrinkly head. She stumbles back at the violent impact, pain running throughout her body before she quickly recovers, hurling him backwards with a fiercely strong blow.

As Geralt falls onto his back you swiftly race down the hallway as the striga climbs on top of his armored body. She doesn't hear you coming, or when you electrocute her without warning, sending her flying into the nearby wall as she screeches in pain. You stop to help Geralt up, your right hand crackling with energy as he stands and glances down at the light emitting from it, then over to the pissed off princess. Who almost immediately recovers from her abrupt assault, she stands, her umbilical cord dragging as she stalks over towards the two of you.

In an instant she charges, a piercing scream sending your ears into agony at the frantic noise as Geralt lunges for her, grabbing her shoulders as he throws her against the brick wall.

For the next couple hours would you and Geralt take turns beating on the striga, down this hallway and that, into doors and wooden walls, crashing into cabinets and breaking more cracked windows through the struggle. Every fucking time she would recover and throw it back at you ten fold, like nothing had even happened in the first place.

Racing across the hall to Geralt's aid, you electrocute the royal beast just before she's about to bite into his exposed jugular, she falls back as you get closer, preparing to hopefully knock her ugly face unconscious for a while. You're slowly getting more and more fatigued with every couple minutes that fly by, this fucking striga giving you a real run for your money. No matter how much stamina you have.

But as you get within a few feet from her, she whips around, slashing you across the face with her razor sharp claws. Sending you flying into the wall as a hot stream of blood pours out of your freshly opened wounds. Dazed, you try and raise yourself from the ground and watch as Geralt gets pinned down by the striga once again. You blink back your blurry vision, painfully raising your hand as lightning brightly emits from your opened palm and fingertips just as Geralt uses his magic to break the stone flooring from right out under him.

Himself and the striga immediately falling through the broken floor and straight to the crypts below. Rising to your feet, you can feel as your facial wounds begin to fuse the skin back together again, your injury a thing of the past except for the strips of blood that mark it's path.

You hastily limp over to the hole in the ground, looking down to find Geralt laying in the rubble before slowly getting up. Without another thought, you jump down, landing hard on a pile of rocks as the unconscious striga lays motionless next to you. Pulling yourself up from the wreckage, you tiredly shuffle over to the center of the room as Geralt puts an enchantment onto the doorways so that the creature cannot escape.

"I don't know about you but I could think of ten different ways we could have spent tonight." You jest, breathing heavily as you hold onto your aching side, Geralt hums in reply before turning around and freezing, his face morphing into wariness as he gives you a concerned look. You turn around to see what's bothering him, only to find absolutely nothing, which is most definitely the problem.

"Oh fuck." You whisper as Geralt cautiously walks over to you, the both of you looking around the room as you stand back to back.

You hear a dull rapid thudding of a heartbeat before suddenly the striga jumps down from the crumbling ceiling to pounce at Geralt, she lands, whipping her hand across your chest as she picks him up, throwing him into the nearby stone pillar. You stumble back at the abrupt impact, watching as Geralt gets his ass beat by the pissed off striga, it throws him into another pillar, quickly turning around to race for the open doorway. But before it can get through, the white force field knocks her back, she snaps around once more shrieking in rage, bolting on all fours towards Geralt.

You pull your bruised and tired body onto your feet, reaching your hands out to send volts of hot white lightning into the vessel of the striga, sending her into a cruel stone pillar as she screeches in misery. When you look to your left a beautiful streak of orange sunrise emits from an opened spot in the roof, you breath heavily as the striga and Geralt take notice of the sunlight. Your eyes go wide as the creature races for the safety of her dirty crypt, you trailing behind her as Geralt jumps to his feet to follow.

Your boots pound against the gravely stone of the abandoned crypts as you valiantly throw yourself onto the furious princess while she attempts to launch herself into her resting place, she falls into the wall as your hands smack onto the cracked floor.

"Get in the fucking crypt!" You scream at Geralt as he makes a mad dash for the opened tomb, heeding to your rushed words without a second thought.

You watch as he falls into the stony coffin and shutting it just as the striga launches herself onto the thing, her cries and horrid wails sounding noisily throughout the large drafty room. Picking up a fist sized rock you chuck it at her, cracking her perfectly across the back of her grotesque head.

"Your royal pain-in-the-ass, come and get me." You taunt, lightning crackling from your fingertips as the angry princess snaps her attention to you.

She jumps down and immediately pummels you into the rocks as you send harrowing sparks of electricity into her body that thankfully throws her backwards, your vision going blurry once again. Gods your head hurts. Dark spots cloud your sight as you rest on the rocks in exhaustion, your side most definitely hurting as your eyes flutter closed.

You awaken to the sounds of Geralt as he opens up the tomb and steps out to walk over towards the princess, a concerned and astonished expression crossing over his dirty features. Pushing some ruble from your legs you finally stand and slowly walk down the small stairway as Geralt leans down to see if the princess is actually okay, considering her naked mud covered self is facing away from you both.

You can hear as her heartbeat picks up in pace, but before you're able to warn him, the princess turns around and in a confused rage pins him to the ground just as she sinks her teeth into the side of his neck. She falls back in fear as Geralt's pained gaze finds your own bloody face while you race to his side. Your eyes going wide as he lays upon the stony ground, blood seeping out from his mouth and ripped neck as you try and put pressure on it.

Tears slowly begin building up in your shimmering irises, "No. No. No...Geralt, look at me...look at me." You desperately plea as his golden eyes try and stay open for you, but he's slipping as more blood spurts out from his wounds, "Don't you fucking leave me you prick, not now of all times, or places. Geralt!" You cry as his eyelids flutter shut, his breathing slowing down as you try and cover his bleeding neck the best you can, not sure what to do. If you leave and try to get help he'll bleed to death, but if you stay then his chances are less grim but still uncertain.

Your mind swirls with what's the best course of action when suddenly you hear the rushed steps of Triss coming to your aid, and just in the nick of time.

——

Leaning yourself into the welcoming comfort of Triss' plush lounge chair, you watch as she mixes some more healing ingredients into a marble bowl at her work counter. You touch the side of your torso where a white linen wrap tightly hugs around your aching side where you fell on Geralt's silver sword. It throbs under your soft touch, but due to your immaculate healing capabilities your wounds will not bother you in a couple days time.

Turning your head lazily to the right to find a sleeping Geralt laying on the bed, recovering from his own injuries, you idly smile at his peaceful yet considerably less dirty form. Suddenly his eyes fly open, a puzzled expression upon his handsome features as Triss calmly turns around.

She smiles fondly at him, "Your scars. You heal quite nicely, if not for Y/N's blood you would most certainly be dead." She concludes knowingly as Geralt gives her a confused look, "She dropped some of her blood into your wounds to speed up the healing process. It was more effective then I had first realized." He turns to face you, a relieved sigh escaping from his parted lips.

You smile back at him, "Don't worry about the princess, she'll be fine, Triss has arranged for her to stay with the Sisters of Melitele." You chime in with a shrug, "Also she had her first bath."

"You should know Foltest issued a statement. The honorable Lord Ostrit gave his life to slay the vukodlak. Miners are gathering ore for a statue." Adds Triss with a grin as Geralt attempts to get up, "Anyone else would've killed the princess. You both chose not to." She finishes as Geralt painfully rises into a sitting position, a grimace upon his sweaty face.

"We'll take our coin now. I need to get back to my horse." Grunts your eager Witcher as he sits on the side of the bed, pressing his hand against his wrapped torso. Triss only grins in reply, walking over to hand him the leather sack of coins. He quickly takes it with a nod, Triss turning to flash you a knowing smile before excusing herself from the area.

Turning to Geralt with a frown, you search for his eyes as they glance around the room before landing on you, "Lay down you idiot, I watched you bleed out and go as pale as a ghost." You lightly argue, he sets the coins onto the makeshift bed as he finds your frowning gaze once more, "If I hadn't been there to give you some of my blood...fuck...you'd be dead. So don't you dare try and get up or I'll give you a reason to be in pain."

His stern face suddenly breaks out into an amused grin, "I'd rather not face your wrath my dear, although I wouldn't mind a couple more hours here if you decide to lay next to me." He suggests with pleading eyes, ones that know exactly how to win you over.

Leaning into the soft back of your seat, you cross your arms over your chest, "You're sweating, honestly still smell a bit, and your sheets are stained with blood..." You add with an inquiring raise of your brow, "How could I ever say no to such an alluring offer?" He breaks out into a beaming smile at your humored words, his heart just about fluttering in his muscular chest as you suddenly rise to your feet, walking over to him before crawling over to his other side near the wall. You turn to face him, a hand propped up against your head while you watch him lay down once again. His back touches the mattress as he turns his head to face you, a blissful smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

"Yes. That's the face right there, the suave steely golden eyes that I've fallen in love with. No matter how beat up you get...you still make me feel things."

"What kind of things, hmm?" He wonders with a lazy smirk as he watches your face break out into a small smile.

Trailing your delicate touch over his old scars, you look over to him with tired eyes, "Things I wouldn't even dare share with the very stars in the sky, nor the moon herself. And I tell her everything." You muse before leaning over to kiss his exposed shoulder. You listen as he hums in delight while you scoot yourself close enough that your whole body is flush against his, "Just sleep for now, love. You've had quite the rough night...and that's putting it lightly. I honestly thought for a moment that...that uh...I might have lost you." He searches for your hand, holding it tightly as a small way to comfort you while he locks eyes with your own downcast ones.

"I wouldn't dare think of ever leaving you alone in this world, not for a second. Y/N you mean more to me then all the coins and jewels combined, more then...uh..."

Laughing you shift your face to gently kiss his bare shoulder before looking up at him once again, "Geralt, there's not a lot of things that you love. That's honestly some short list you've got there...but it matters not, I'm your favorite person in the world and that's all I need to know."

He smiles adoringly at your closing eyes, sleep tenderly calling to you by the second as you hug him closer. He stays silent, wanting to listen to the calming thumps of your relaxed heart beat as your mind drifts into slumber. Closing his own tired eyes, he finally lets sleep take him into darkness where no monsters of any kind wait to hurt him. He's safe in your arms as you're safe in his, the two of you blissfully enjoying one another's company after a taxing hunt.

Tagged: @notahappytree @ashleyforeverareject @sokkasdarling @kmuir1@haleypearce @diegos-butt (@auds24 sorry idk why ur name won’t work)

#the witcher x reader #the witcher x you #the witcher #geralt of rivia #geralt x reader #geralt x you #geralt of rivia x reader #geralt of rivia x you #Of monsters and men fic

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writing-by-candlelight · 3 years

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Hargreeves Mansion Layout: Second Floor

Thank you for coming back for part 2! If you haven’t seen part 1 (the ground floor) you can find it here. And Part 3, the third floor, here!!!

The second floor is slightly more complex than the first floor and it has a lot more rooms.

If you haven’t seen my first post; yellow symbolizes doors or double doors, green are archways, the neon pink is the staircase coming up from the floor beneath (same goes for the light pink - its the main staircase coming up from the ground floor.), the blue is the long staircase from the stair race scene that goes through the entire house from the basement to the third floor. The orange and black will be explained later.

So overall the second floor has the most rooms out of all the floors and the most colors so here we go!

So for the ‘home’ section of the house lets start on the far right.

The empty square there is the balcony area above the living room. Its thicker on the bottom since that’s where the bar is and the bar is completely covered. There also seems to be a small sitting area above it.

I’ve realized now in hindsight that the other end of the walkway ends at the wall and does not have the same sort of walkway across the top. I may correct my drawing in the future.

Speaking of the top section, this is where I’ve put Hargreeves personal rooms. I’ve placed the surveillance room here - the room where Hargreeves watches the children’s brainwaves and where Allison watches the tape of Hargreeves death. I’ve also placed it at the beginning of the hall. We only know there’s a hall since Diego walks down one on the way to Hargreeves’ Bedroom.

I placed Hargreeves’ Study right next to it. I know its not L-shaped as I’ve drawn it but I didn’t want to make the surveillance room super big so I’m just going to run with it. We see a living room and another room through a second door in the study so I assumed that this was another way into his bedroom.

The dotted line through the main walkway is just how I separated the house into sections so it may be ignored.

Now the central section is simpler.

On the bottom we have the Academy oil paintings. The small tragic things taking place from their debut until there was only Luther, Everyone leaving or dying or disappearing.

A bit further, slightly around the corner, is Grace’s charging station with its portraits. I put a dotted line around it because there are no walls but I wanted to show where it was.

Ignoring the courtyard we now get to the most complicated part.

The Bedrooms.

So Luther and Allison are side by side with their doors angled like we see in the dance scene and a lot of other scenes as well.

Then to the side is the bathroom which we see in the show has its own small hallway lined with attack posters like the rest of the hall (horrifying, I know).

Now to the interesting part. Klaus and Vanya’s rooms.

In the flashback scene we see both of their rooms. They are next to each other and both about the size of a closet with Klaus’ being slightly bigger.

But in the scene where they are older and Vanya is destroying the mansion room by room, you can see that Klaus now has a bigger room and that the sort-of-brick wall that we only ever see in Vanya’s room is a part of it.

So at some point the wall was knocked down and both rooms were given to Klaus. It even seems to have both doors, as in one scene Five enters through one and leaves through the other. This results in this chaotic mess of the room:

See? Both doors!

Moving on.

Any black sections on my ‘map’ are just thick walls or areas filled up with dirt or cement (though that last bit is more likely for the basement.)

The rest of the layout is sort of only based in canon since I had to change things around for them to fit (this is what happens when you film in multiple locations and not one house)

Now Diego’s room is the one at the end of the hall as we see in the flashback of Grace walking along it. Now I know in this scene we also see a hallway veering off to the left but it doesn’t make sense with the layout of the house, since that’s where the house ends, so I’ve erased it.

Diego’s room is the smallest of the rooms (once Vanya’s wall is removed) and it doesn’t change much at all so I have little to say about it. But its canonical location is interesting. Originally Diego’s room is diagonal to the third floor staircase (which I’ve striped orange) and has a slight angle to the door. Thing is, for the bathroom to have its hallway and for said hallway to be within the constraints of physics, I had to switch the rooms around a bit.

From the hallway scene we know the bathroom is next to Allison’s room and Klaus’ room is next to Luther’s. But in order to fit the bathroom hallway I had to flip them so I could cut the bathroom into the walkway. That’s why there’s a dotted line through the bathroom since the walkway wall would be there.

The creators also just...forgot??? About the staircase coming up through the floor from the ground floor? so I put the pink stairs right next to the bathroom.

This meant though that I had to put Diego’s room next to Klaus though.

I’ve added a new room for Vanya since she needed one and we are never shown were it is. I’ve put it at the end of the hall, slightly closed off from her siblings since that seems to be where Reginald would have put it.

This is from the hallway flashback just before Reginald comes in frame from that side hallway that doesn’t make sense. The open door we see is Diego’s original (nonsensical) room, which is the room I’ve given Vanya. And the stairs there are from the orange staircase that goes up to the third story. That dark doorway you see is (now) Diego’s room.

Now imagine that the hall just ends with Vanya’s door and that the stairs are folded halfway down to face Vanya’s door.

That’s how I finally got everything to make sense. It took me hours!!! Now we can finally move on to the training section of the second floor.

The second floor is the main training floor. This floor houses the training and exercise room on the far right. This room is mainly for overall training. I’ve headcanoned that it has tan oval running track, weights, workout equipment, punching bags, a climbing wall, gymnastics equipment, and an obstacle course in the center.

The sparring and weapons room is exactly what it sounds like. I’ve put it here for a separate space without all the equipment, because there is no way Hargreeves didn’t pit his children against each other. I headcanon it as having a boxing ring style space at the top and empty weapons space at the bottom with targets secured to the wall (the targets can move with a remote). This space is separated from left to right 3/4 of the way by a large metal weapons case with almost every weapon imaginable. There are dozens of types of guns, swords, war hammers, battle axes, bow and arrows, spears, knives, flamethrowers, scythes, clubs, maces, batons, both dual and singular sticks & staffs, num-chuks, shuriken, and even ‘non traditional weapons’ like ropes and chains.

We know from the scene where Five reappears in Ep 1 that they were taught how to use anything as a weapon. I assume this was either tested in the kitchen itself, or he set up a replica of a household room here.

(This is really really sad, look at it!)

We can see the following:

Egg Beaters - Hair Pull

Stock Pot - Explosive Device

Toaster - Use Cord For Strangulation

Coffee Pot - Throw Coffee In Face

Blender - Hand Mangler

Then I added a row of personal training rooms for their individual powers. Each room has an observation room - with a two way mirror and its own entrance - beneath it. I made it like a prison interrogation room on purpose because Hargreeves goes for functionality and trauma over anything else, and he would not like to be in the same room as some of their powers.

As you can see, the seventh room, which had been Vanya’s, has had its wall knocked down (hence the dotted line) and observation door boarded up. Hargreeves changed it all and made himself a small office instead. This was because it was no longer in use and because he wouldn’t want anyone to suspect anything.

And that’s it for this second installment in the mansion layout!!! Thank you so much for reading, id love to hear any thoughts!!!! Stay tuned for parts 3 & 4.

#The Umbrella Academy #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #reginald hargreeves

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heyitsjay03 · 3 years

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Fighting for Tomorrow

Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I do not own AOT! All rights go to the respective owner(s) :) Reiner x Fem!Reader, eventual Captain Levi x Reader, Sasha x Sister!Reader Word Count: 8.9k words TW: gore/blood/violence/death, adult language/swearing, loss/grief

-------- You can read parts one, two, and four here! Just give the number you want a little boop :)

The rain beats down on us nearly as hard as the Commandant does. The hoofbeats of his horse squelch and merge with the thunder above us. “Cadet Braus!” The Commandant yells, sidling up next to me. “You look like you’re getting tired! Are you exhausted?”

“No, sir!” I pant, willing my legs to continue on in the mud. “Just gettin’ warmed up, sir!”

“Are you sure? You’ve been ahead of the group for a while now- you should take a break!”

“I’ll politely have to decline sir!”

“And why is that, cadet?”

“Because I’m gonna be in the top ten, sir!”

“You hear that, maggots?!” The Commandant calls to the rest of the recruits behind me. “Cadet Braus is gonna be in the top ten! Who else wants to be in the top ten?!”

Various grunts of agreement resound behind me.

“That’s more than ten!” the Commandant yells, “It seems you have some competition, Cadet Braus!”

“Aye, sir!”

“How about a wager? Whoever can beat Cadet Braus back to the barracks gets extra merits for this exercise!”

I let out a breath, swiping my hand over my forehead to clear the rain from my eyes. The pack of equipment on my back is weighing down on me- making my steps sink deeper in the mud. The ODM gear at my sides bangs on my legs. My ears strain… and I can hear someone at my left.

“Looks like we have a taker!” The Commandant yells.

My eyes dart to the left. Annie runs alongside me, huffing with each step. Her hair is plastered to her face, mixed rain and sweat slicking her pale skin. My whole body stretches and strains and screams with effort as I will my legs to go even further, even faster.

Annie’s eyes widen as she watches me, falling behind for a moment. She quickly snaps out of it and picks up speed. The two of us stretch forward in a dance of advance and retreat. The barracks’ warm glow appears over the mud of the hills.

My lips turn up into a smile and I feel the pain in my legs fall away. The breath in my lungs is fresh and clear- no more tightness in my chest. Even the weight of the pack on my back is gone.

I’m sprinting now. Mud squishing, rain slicing, heart beating. The glow of the barracks gets closer and closer and closer. I can smell the freshly-cleaned linen, the hearth. It coaxes me closer, urges me to go faster.

My hand reaches out and I slam my fist against the wall. “Commandant!” I pant, slouching over and heaving in breath. “I finished first!”

The Commandant’s horse pulls up before me, the Commandant looking down at me. There’s a faint trace of a smile on his lips. Wordlessly, he dips his head.

I go into a salute and watch as he and his horse pull next to the mouth of the woods. Annie trails in just behind me, shrugging her gear off. I smile at her weakly. “Great run,” I mutter, “Ya almost had me.”

Annie’s eyes flick up to me, quiet and intense. I reach a hand out for her to shake, the other hand gripping my knee to keep me upright. She stands up straight and takes my hand, giving it a quick shake.

And then she walks away with her gear.

I stand up against the wall. My eyes flutter as raindrops fall into them, blurring my vision slightly. The rest of the group trails in. Mikasa, Eren, Bertholdt, Connie, Jean, Sasha, Ymir, Christa, Armin.

Reiner’s behind them all. Hair stuck to his skin, raindrops beading down his face and onto the soaked cape around his shoulders. A smile crosses his face as our eyes meet and he picks up his pace.

I laugh a bit, taking off my gear and letting it rest up against the wall of the barracks. “There you are,” I say as I jog up to him in the rain. “Was gettin’ worried.”

Reiner smiles down at me, “Was your own fault- left me in the dust.”

“You were jogging,” I roll my eyes, “You could’ve kept up with me if you wanted to.”

“Had to make sure no one got left behind.”

“Jeez…,” I scoff and grab his collar, pulling him down towards me. “How in the walls did I manage to fall for a softie like you?”

Reiner shrugs, “Must’a been my incredible flirting skills.”

The two of us chuckle and I press my lips to his. “You’re warm,” I mumble, pulling away.

“You’re freezing,” he mutters, “C’mon. Let’s get you inside.”

--.--

The wind runs its airy fingers through my hair as I swing through the trees. My fingers let go of the trigger, only to switch back to pressing it again. The wires of my ODM gear shoot out and stick into the bark of two trees on either side of me. I’ve broken off the group and shaken off Ymir. It’s just me and these two Titans.

My blades glint beside me and I turn my head to look at myself in the blades. I’ve gained a bit of muscle, all toned and smooth under my skin. My skin is even more tan from the days spent in the sun. I’ve got another scar on my collarbone from messing around with ODM blades that one time with Connie and Jean.

I swing again, circling the clearing where two Titan models stand. There’s a foam section on the back of their ‘necks’- their napes. My grips on my swords tightens and I swing down towards the clearing.

The wind is tearing through my hair, cracking like sharp whips in my ears. It only urges me faster. A short scream leaves my lips as my blades dig into the nape of the first. My fingers quickly switch and I angle myself around the Titan’s back, falling down underneath the second Titan’s legs. My back arches away from the ground and I activate my ODM gear- shooting up towards the sky. I force myself to one side, sending me spinning in mid-air. My blades trail along the nape- taking out a deep chunk that falls to the floor behind me.

“Ha!” I yell, smiling. The ODM gear activates and I head back into the woods in search of my next kill.

Through the trees, I can see three people swinging to the west. I follow them from a distance and hear Jean, Connie, and Sasha arguing.

“You stole it!” Connie yells, “That was my kill!”

“That wasn’t yours!” Jean shoots back, “I found them!”

“You’re both just mad because I got the kill and you were too slow!” Sasha calls back, giggling.

My eyes hone in on their target- another Titan. Fifteen meters. Easy pickings. My ODM gear activates again and I launch into the clearing, brandishing my blades.

“And you’re gonna be mad when I steal your kill!” I yell, spinning down to the Titan’s nape.

Screams of protest and anger grow behind me as I feel the blades dig into the foam. Pulling away, I look up and see a chunk of the foam fall down the wooden Titan’s back. I cackle, swinging in circles around the trio. “Top ten here I come!” I laugh.

“Not if I can help it!” Jean snaps, swinging up to me.

The two of us pop out above the trees, staring at each other as we fall back down to the ground.

“You’re on, Kirschtein!”

--.--

“C’mon then, darling,” Reiner says charmingly, a smirk plastered on his stupid face. “Let me have it.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were getting off on this,” I say back, getting into position.

Reiner shrugs, “Eh. Maybe. Come over here and find out.”

I roll my eyes and dig the ball of my foot into the dirt. My grip on the toy knife tightens as I lunge forward, aiming for his chest. His hands shoot out for my chest and my stomach- intending to flip me.

I duck down, dodging his arms. As I shoot back up, I place the knife just under his chin. Panting, we stay there for a moment. His eyes trail down my figure before coming up to meet mine. “Damn…” he mumbles, “That was…”

I press the wooden knife to his throat a little harder. “We’re in public,” I scold, “You’ll scare the kids.” I pull away, flicking his nose.

“Eren,” I call, waving him over as he watches us from the sidelines.

He hurries over, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “How’d you do that?”

“You have to find their weakness,” I explain, “Whether it be physical or in their attack. Rei’s a big guy and can easily outmatch me in most styles of fighting. Lucky for me, though, he doesn’t keep his hands up enough to keep me from finding an ‘in’.”

“Pfft,” Reiner scoffs, rolling his eyes as his arms cross over his chest. “I let you win.”

“I know you’re joking, love, but let me explain to the kid first,” I wave him off, still focusing on Eren. “So what you have to do is find your opponent’s weakness and use it against them.”

Eren nods slowly, taking the knife from my hands. “So… what’s your weakness?”

“Being too badass,” I smirk, tousling his hair. Eren ducks away and scowls. “Fine… It’s a few things. For one, I’m not the tallest person in the world. People like Rei, Bert, or Ymir easily have an arm’s length advantage over me. And I’m not good with defense. You’ll always see me strike first.”

“Which is why you two work so well together,” Eren's eyes brighten with realisation. “Reiner- you’re good at defense and _________, you’re good at offense.”

I can feel my face turn a slight shade of pink and I tousle his hair again, “...jeez, kid. Don’t make me blush.”

“Nearly two years of dating and you’re still all blushy,” Reiner coos, the smile on his face echoing in his tone. “How cute.”

“‘Cute’?!” I snap, turning around to face him. “I’ll kick your ass- I have kicked your ass! Multiple times!”

“Oh really? Then how ‘bout you go pick a fight with someone else? Prove how ‘not cute’ you are.” Reiner teases, an eyebrow raised as he looks me up and down.

I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Fine. I will. I’ll even let you pick my opponent.”

Reiner heads off, weaving through the various groups to find me someone to fight. Eren stands beside me and scoffs. “You two are so weird,” he mumbles. “One minute you’re all over each other and the next you’re pushing each other’s buttons.”

“It’s called being comfortable,” I laugh, watching as Reiner claps a hand on Bertholdt’s back and drags him over here. “You’ll have that one day.”

“I’ll be too busy slaying Titans for that.”

“Yeah, yeah… I didn’t think I could either. I was stuck on being a Scout and saving my family, I just… I didn’t think it was in the cards for me.” I roll my eyes and laugh, “And then that blond idiot stumbled into my life.”

“You talkin’ about me?” Reiner asks, walking up to us with Bert. He’s got that look in his eyes- all playful and teasing. What a softie.

“Yeah- about how much of a softie you are.” I gesture to Bert, “You explain what’s goin’ on?”

Bert’s eyes flick from me to Eren and then to Reiner. A small bead of sweat trails down his forehead. He gulps. “...yeah.”

“Aw, c’mon, Bertie,” I laugh softly, getting into position. “You act like you’ve seen me fight.”

“That’s the thing,” Bert chuckles warily, a crooked smile on his lips. “I have.”

“Oh…,” my shoulders slump slightly before tensing back up again. “Well. You’ve got an advantage. I haven’t seen you fight so I’m going in blind.”

“Hey, Reiner, I-” Bert starts, trying to hand the toy knife back to him with shaky hands.

“Aw, c’mon, Bertholdt,” Reiner chuckles, hands kneading Bert’s shoulders. “You’re afraid of her? She’s like… so much shorter than you.”

“Yeah, but-”

“C’mon, then. Show ‘er how it’s done.”

Bert’s eyes are wide as Reiner steps away to stand beside Eren. Finally, he sighs and tenses his jaw. “Fine…,” he mutters, “Let’s go then.”

“Fantastic,” I smile, bringing my fists up to guard my face.

Bertholdt takes a deep breath and I ready myself. Go for the gut- when he’s winded, hit the backs of his knees. He’ll bring himself down.

Bertholdt and I charge for each other. The knife between us, I turn to the side. Grabbing his wrist, I twist it back. My left elbow digs into his stomach at the same time and he hunches over. My leg wraps around his and pulls at the backs of his knees, sending him toppling over. I step forward as he does and am out of the way before he hits the ground.

A cocky smile plays my lips as I hand Eren the knife. “That… is how it’s done.”

--.--

“Sasha farted,” Mikasa says calmly.

My hand flies up to my mouth, smacking against my face as laughter threatens to bubble out. My other hand gripping Reiner’s bicep, I try to remain quiet as the Commandant scolds Sasha. Connie sitting next to me is snickering. I elbow him and press a finger to my lips, only for the two of us to tremble with pent-up laughter. Reiner is tense and still but I can feel the rumbling in his chest as he tries to stay calm. Sasha’s face has drained of all color as she stares open-mouthed at Mikasa.

The door closes and we erupt into giggling. “Holy shit,” I wheeze, wiping a tear from my eyes. “Holy shit… Holy shit, holy shit. Ho. Lee. Shit.”

“I can’t breathe!” Connie howls, holding his sides.

“Shut up!” Sasha snaps before turning to Mikasa. Her hands on Mikasa’s shoulders, she starts to shake her back violently. “How could you say that?! In front of everyone? In front of the Commandant?! I thought we were-”

She’s cut off by Mikasa shoving a piece of bread into her mouth. “We are,” she says simply. “It was the only way to get him out of here fast without him asking any questions.”

Sasha’s eyebrows unknit as she chews on the bread. Her grip falls away from Mikasa’s shoulders and she crosses her arms over her chest. Pink dusts her cheeks as she pouts.

“Aw, jeez, Sasha,” I mumble, “Everyone’ll forget it in a few days. It’s not a big deal. ‘Sides, the ones that won’t forget are going to the Scouts. You won’t have to worry about-” The table grows quieter as we all realise what I said. “Shit…” I mutter, feeling the weight of the choosing ceremony settle in amongst us.

“You still wanna… go... to the Scouts?” Connie asks beside me.

I nod, “It’s been my goal since day one.”

“You guys, too?” He asks, looking at Eren, Mikasa, and Armin. Each of them nod.

“...Sasha?” I ask quietly, my eyes flicking to her from over my cup of tea.

“Military Police,” she says firmly. “I… I won’t have to worry about food there.”

A weight leaves my chest, sliding off with her words. Military Police means she’ll be far away from the exterior- safe. I won’t have to worry about her getting hurt and I can protect the kids better. The only thing she’ll have to worry about is if she’ll be seated closest to the food that night.

She’ll be safe.

“And you?” I ask, turning to face Reiner. He’s been too quiet for too long.

His eyes meet mine as I duck into his vision. A small smile crosses his lips and he shrugs. “...I… I’m still deciding.”

That’s been his answer for months now. ‘Still deciding’. It’s driving me insane. If he could just make up his mind already, I could stop worrying.

--.--

“You have three choices!” The officer in front of us yells. “The Garrison Regiment- who reinforce the walls. The Scout Regiment- who ride into Titan country to take back land for humanity. And the Military Police- where you protect the people and serve out the orders of your King.”

The officer gestures down to us. “Naturally, the only ones that can join the Military Police are the top ten- sorry, eleven- scorers that we announced earlier.”

Christa. Sasha. Connie. Marco. Jean. Eren. Annie. Bertholdt. Me. Reiner. Mikasa. We’re set apart from the group. My chest puffs out a bit with pride as I stand in a salute. Not just me, either. Mikasa, Eren, Sasha- we’re here.

Carla, I hope you can see your boy.

Mom… Dad… I hope you’re proud.

We made it.

--.--

The room is buzzing with excitement, so thick and pure you could almost taste it. People are laughing, drinking, eating, cheering. Others are dancing on top of tables, belting out drinking songs.

Eren, Mikasa, and Armin sit across from me. Sasha and Connie are on my right while Reiner sits to my left. His hand is around my waist, tucking me into his side. I lean into his chest to soak up his warmth like a happy, slightly-buzzed, little sponge. In front of me is the pile of cadet evaluations someone stole from Sadies’ office.

My eyes scan over the first cadet evaluation. “Ooh,” I laugh giddily. “‘Connie Springer is exceptionally note-worthy regarding ODM maneuvering but’-,” I stop, bursting into laughter.

“Well?!” Connie snaps, slamming his glass down on the table. “Finish it!”

“‘But is a few sandwiches short of a picnic’.” I finish, giggling. The group erupts into laughter as Connie’s eyebrows furrow.

“The Hell does that mean?!”

Armin leans over and whispers something in his ear. Connie’s face turns bright red and the grip on his drink grows tighter. “Hey!” He snaps, “I’m not stupid!”

The group’s laughter surges. Connie scoffs and sinks down into his seat.

“Aww… Poor thing.” I laugh, rubbing his head.

He shakes me off and takes a gulp of ale. “Just do the next one already.”

“Me! I’ll go next!” Sasha yells, waving a hand over her head.

I nod, turning my gaze down to the pile of evaluations in front of me. Picking up Sasha’s file, I take a drink of ale and open it up. “‘She has unconventionally good intuition’,” I lift my glass as the group cheers. Sasha smiles, puffing her chest out proudly. “But also doesn’t share this intuition with her classmates, making her a poor teammate as a result.” Sasha shrinks, shrugging and rolling her eyes.

“Who’s next?”

“Reiner!” Someone calls out. I scan the group as Bert raises his eyebrows at me, smirking as he takes a sip from his cup.

I nod and snake Reiner’s file out, opening it. “‘Stalwart in both mind and body’- I can attest to that.” I tease, earning some cheers and groans from the group. “...‘and well-respected by his comrades. Also-” my hand clamps down over my mouth as laughter threatens to spill out. “...‘has the constitution... of a grass-fed ox’.”

The group howls. I close the file and turn to Reiner, who was reading over my shoulder. “Aww… poor Rei…,” I tease, placing my hand against his face. My thumb rubs over his pink skin as he scoffs.

“Let’s read yours next,” he laughs, reaching behind me and snatching mine off the pile.

“Now- wait, hang on-”

“Who wants to read _________’s?” Reiner yells, holding the file above his head so I can’t reach it. The group erupts into cheers, lifting glasses and fists into the air. Reiner looks down at me and shrugs. “Gotta give the people what they want.”

I roll my eyes, groaning as I sink back into my seat. I take another sip of ale as Reiner clears his throat. “‘Although talented in bladework and maneuvering… she is relatively lackluster in the classroom- caused by her genuine dislike of being stuck indoors. Also has issues trusting in new people- and a stubbornness rivaling that of a donkeys’.”

The crowd cheers.

“To Hell with rules!” Connie yells, lifting a glass.

The others lift their glasses and I do the same. “To freedom!” I laugh, smashing my cup up against the others’. I bring it back down and take a long sip of the ale in it.

“How’s it feel to be in the top ten?” Thomas asks, sitting down beside Armin.

“Eleven,” Armin corrects, “Actually.”

“Christa and Sasha got the same exact score- so technically it's still the top ten scorers,” I say, shrugging. “But I don't really care.”

Thomas, Armin, and Reiner chuckle. “Well?” Thomas asks, “How’s it feel?”

I breathe in deeply, closing my eyes. “...like I’m gettin’ drunk,” I laugh, taking another drink of ale.

“Cheers to that,” Reiner mumbles, hitting his cup against mine. The two of us take another swig, giggling at each other as we peek over the rims of our glasses.

“You’re an idiot,” I laugh, placing my cup on the table. “How in the walls did I ever fall for you?”

“It was that damn walk,” Reiner says, slamming his cup down a little harder than he wanted to. “In the woods. When I helped Eren.”

“That was when I fell for you?”

“No, when I fell for you.”

“...really?” I ask, turning to face him. His cheeks burn a slight red and his golden eyes are half-closed as he looks down at me. Slowly, his tongue comes out and wets his lips- all while staring at mine.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, reaching up and tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Seein’ you in your element- the moonlight, the woods… Making those jokes and laughing with Armin and Eren… All I could think about was how beautiful you looked.”

My face turns bright red, burning hot with embarrassment. “You…” I trail off, trying to snatch the next coherent words in my short-circuiting brain. “You’re…” I laugh softly and shake my head. “I think you’re pretty good-lookin’, too.”

His lips press against mine softly. He tastes like ale and mint. Slowly, Reiner pulls away. His eyes flick around the table before bouncing back to me. “It’s crowded in here,” he whispers. “Let’s get outta here.”

“And do what?” I ask coyly, snaking my arms around his neck. “What sort of lewd, lecherous, lascivious things are you trying to steal me away to do?”

“Why don’t you come with me and find out?”

My lips turn up into a smirk and I pull away. “Sasha?” I call, tapping her on the shoulder. “I’m trusting you to make sure Connie, Eren, Jean and Armin don’t drink too much.”

She nods, “I’ll make sure. Where’re you going?”

“Um…,” I trail off, “On a walk.”

She shudders, “Ew. Just… be safe.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure thing, Mom...” I mutter, getting to my feet. “Let’s go, Rei.”

--.--

My fingers graze against the edges of the suitcase. They’re fraying and the leather has cracked. Pieces of string poke out of the sides, allowing gaps to form around the edges of the suitcase.

I still haven’t found someone to transfer everything to my name. With training and testing, I just haven’t gotten the time. I will find someone though. I’m not giving up. I can’t give up.

Reiner’s hands find my waist, clutching me as if I were to fly away at any given moment. His lips leave feathery kisses against my shoulder. Slowly, he trails upwards and nibbles my ear.

“You’re distracting,” I hum, turning my head to give him more room to work. “Keep going.”

“Two years,” he whispers against my skin, “Two whole years- and you’re just now coming to that conclusion?”

I laugh airily, my eyelids fluttering closed as he finds that spot in the crook of my neck. “I’ve known for a while… Remember that ODM incident?”

Reiner chuckles, sending warm air fanning over my shoulder. “You nearly crashed. Commandant Sadies had to send me to the barracks.”

“You were being distracting on purpose,” I laugh, “There was no reason for you to be stripping.”

“It was hot.”

“It was raining.”

“It was payback,” he mutters, “You were bein’ a brat.”

“I’m always a brat.”

“More than usual,” Reiner’s hands run down my sides. I shudder with pleasure and he stops. “...that was hot,” he chuckles. “Look at yourself.”

My eyes flick up to the mirror in front of us. I didn’t even feel my arms reaching up behind me and tangling around his neck. My fingers are gently massaging his scalp. I can feel my back arch slightly into his chest, my hips flush against his.

“You’re beautiful,” he mumbles into my hair.

“Stop it, handsome, you’ll make me blush.”

His eyebrow arches and a smirk plays his lips. My eyes widen as I realise what he’s thinking. “Don’t you dare pick me u-!”

“You’re right, darling, no more teasing,” he says, picking me up and throwing me over his shoulder. “Let’s get right down to it.”

“Rei-” I laugh, feeling him climb onto my bed. “Reiner Braun! You put me down this instant!”

Reiner laughs, pulling me off his shoulder and laying me down on the blankets. He wastes no more time. Kisses are hot and twisting, all sloppy and eye-rollingly erotic.

“You are the best thing… that’s happened to me,” he says between kisses.

“You’re-” the words get stuck in my throat as his mouth starts to suck on my collarbone. All I can do is shake and run my trembling hands through his hair, pulling it gently.

“Don’t get too excited,” Reiner chuckles, eyes flicking up to me. “You have a long night ahead of you.”

--.--

I groan, pulling the collar of my shirt up further. My entire neck throbs and pulses. Even my collarbones are sore. And my legs.

And then he’s just gone. Just a little letter by my bed. ‘Had to go. Bert needed me. Love you- Rei’. That blond asshole. I’d punch him if I wasn’t in love with him.

At least he left a note, I guess.

“_________!” Eren yells, waving me over to the spot where he, Armin, Sasha, and Mikasa stand.

I push through towards them, giving them each a small smile. Eren’s eyes are glistening as he stares out into the street.

The Scouts were coming back, led by Commander Erwin. Eren had burst into the dorm and dragged me out to come with him and the others.

“Things are different with the Scouts now.” Eren comments, beaming at the Scouts on their horses. Various people cheer for them from the sides of the streets. “People are excited for them.”

“Yeah,” I groan, massaging my temple as throbbing pain shoots through my head. “They’re being loud as Hell about it.”

“Maybe it should’ve been you I was watching out for last night,” Sasha teases, nudging my side.

“I didn’t even drink that much,” I mutter, “It was just-”

“There’s Captain Levi!”

Everyone turns back to the street, chattering with excitement. “They say he’s like a squadron all on his own!” Someone else comments.

“That guy?” I ask, looking up at the black-haired, grey-eyed, bored-looking man sitting on his horse. “...wait… I know him.”

“He’s the most popular Scout in the Regiment, of course you know him.” Eren says, rolling his eyes.

“No, I actually know him… Remember when Shiganshina fell? And I was with that wagon, helping their soldiers out? One of the soldiers that came to help was him.”

“Really?” Eren asks, his eyes wide as he turns to me. “What’s he like?”

“...quiet. And snappish.”

“Like Mikasa!” Sasha laughs.

“Yeah… a lot like Mikasa, actually…”

“Hey, guys!”

My head snaps towards the voice, feeling myself bubble with happiness. “Hannes!”

“Heard you all graduated yesterday,” Hannes laughs, a bright smile on his face. “You four really are something.”

“Five,” I say, grabbing Sasha’s arm and pulling her closer to me. “This is my little sister, Sasha.”

“Ah!” Hannes’ eyes light up as they flick between us. “I can see the resemblance.”

“Sasha, this is Hannes,” I explain, “He’s been the one that’s gotten us in and out of trouble. And he was the one that got me out of Shiganshina.”

“Nice to meet you, sir!” She smiles, shaking Hannes’ hand.

“How’ve you been?” Eren asks, “I heard you got promoted to Captain of the Corps of Engineers.”

The group collectively chuckles.

“You punk,” Hannes scoffs, flicking Eren’s nose.

Slowly, his smile fades and his eyes lose their brightness. “I’m sorry… that I couldn’t save your mom… I know it’s sudden but... it haunts me every night.”

Eren’s smile falters and settles into a determined line. “It’s not your fault. We’re not kids anymore. None of us are going to let such sorrow happen again. I’m gonna beat those Titans. I swear it.”

--.--

“You didn’t…” I mumble, staring at Sasha as she salivates over the cut of meat. “Sasha! You’re gonna get caught! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“I wanted to do it myself,” she mumbles, eyes still fixated on the meat. “But it’s okay! I’m willing to share.” She presses the meat up under her nose and takes a long sniff.

“You’re an idiot…” I mutter, shaking my head.

“A scary idiot.” Connie adds, his eyes wide.

“Put it back!” Thomas snaps, “You’re gonna get caught.”

“But imagine the sandwiches.” Sasha froths at the mouth, stumbling towards a container.

“Do you have any idea of how rare meat is since Maria fell?” Mina asks.

“Yeah, but look at it this way,” Sasha hums, placing the meat inside the container. “Once we take back Maria, we’ll have all the room we need to raise livestock. They won’t even look for this one piece of meat.”

“She’s got a point,” I murmur, raising my eyebrows and shrugging.

The group goes quiet, all salivating at the mouth and staring at the meat as Sasha closes the container. It smells amazing. Like it was gifted to us by the gods.

“...I would really like a slice please!” Thomas erupts, eyes squinting and fists clenched on either side of him.

Connie drops the brush he was using to clean the cannons, “Hey- if he’s getting some, I want some, too!”

“I’ll take some, too!” Mina laughs.

“Hell, I’ll take some,” I smirk, tying an upper section of my hair back into a ponytail. “Save some for Reiner, too. Big lug’ll want some, too, I’ll bet.”

Eren’s eyes are wide as he looks from each of us. His mouth hangs open and parts of words fall out past his lips. “C’mon, Eren,” Samuel chuckles, picking up a brush and scrubbing out the inside of a cannon. “The longer you stand there with that look on your face, the more suspicious they’re gonna get.”

“Yeah, man,” I joke, nudging him with my elbow as I walk past. “Don’t ruin this for everyone.” I bend over, grabbing a wooden box filled with cannon ammo. Straightening back up, I haul the box over to Sasha. She’s busy scrubbing the metal of the cannon, muttering to herself about ‘how delicious that meat smelled’.

“Hey, I’ll take over,” I smile, taking the rag from her hands. “Go take this to Connie.”

Sasha’s eyes narrow. “...why?”

“Because.” I state, nudging her with my elbow. “Now get a move on.”

Sasha smiles and gets to her feet, snagging the ammo box. She walks over to Connie, who looks up from his work and smiles. The two start chatting- planning little devious pranks on Jean. I start cleaning the cannon metal.

I wonder what my blond idiot and his tall bastard best friend went. Always up to no good.

I roll my eyes. I went and fell for a child. Not that I’m any better in that regard but still. What a dork.

But he’s my dork or whatever.

“Hey,” I say, getting to my feet and turning towards Eren, who’s looking out over the side of the wall towards the interior. “Ya gonna help ‘r are ya gonna just stand there?”

Eren turns to me and smiles gently. “Come here,” he says, gesturing to me to stand beside him. I throw the rag over my shoulder and walk to stand beside him. “If you lean just a bit over the side, you can hear everything.”

My feet toe the edge. I look out over the roofs and houses, the streets and carts. People are bustling around, talking and laughing and running around. Children run through alleyways and hillsides. I close my eyes, letting the wind tousle my hair. The sounds below swell with each breeze. My arms come out on either side of me. The wind runs up my sides and my clothes flutter in its touch.

It’s like I’m flying.

“Hey, don’t lean too far over,” Eren laughs, grabbing my collar and pulling me back slightly. “I don’t need Reiner chewing me out because you fell down the wall.”

I roll my eyes, “Tch… Can’t even let me have a little fun.”

“By the look of your neck, you had plenty of fun last night.”

My cheeks turn bright red as I tug my collar further up along my neck. “H-hey! Shut up about that!”

Eren shrugs and laughs, “You can deny it all you-”

It all happens too fast. Like a collision of events. The lightning just beyond the wall. The Collosal Titan appearing. The arm smashing against the wall, wiping clear the cannons and sending us flying over the side.

My hands find my ODM controllers and the wires launch out, gripping the side of the wall. My eyes look around. Mina, Connie, Sasha, Eren, Thomas- “Where’s Samuel?” I scream, looking around at each of the figures clinging to the wall.

“Sasha!” Mina yells at my left. I turn towards her and watch as Sasha runs down the length of the wall, heading towards the figure plummeting towards the ground. A wire shoots out of her ODM gear. The prongs pierce through Samuel’s leg. Sasha stops in her spot and looks up at me.

A smile crosses her lips before she turns down to Samuel. “Try not to move!”

“Sound off,” I yell, “Who else is hurt?”

“I’m good!” Connie yells back.

“All good here!” Mina calls out.

“Just a scratch!” Thomas yells.

“Where’s the scratch?” I call back.

“Left forearm!”

My finger comes off the trigger, letting the prongs shoot back into my ODM gear. Using the momentum of falling, I shoot the wires out again and swing up to where Thomas is. Landing beside him, I roll my sleeves up. “Let me see it.”

Thomas starts to roll up his sleeve, revealing a gash running up along his forearm. “‘Just a scratch’, huh?” I ask, ‘tch’-ing my tongue as I examine it. It’s not too deep but it’ll mess with his ability to fight if I don’t take care of it now.

“Okay, listen,” I mutter, shrugging off my Cadets jacket. “This is only temporary. As soon as we get the Hell outta here, you’re gonna get some fresh bandages… and don’t tell Reiner.”

“Don’t tell Reiner wha-?”

I cut him off, slicing a piece of the bottom of my shirt with my blade. “He got me this shirt,” I mutter, taking his arm and wrapping it around his ‘scratch’. The blood soaks into the light green material. It slowly turns a sickly brown… but it’ll do.

“Make a fist,” I instruct. He does so without strain. “Good. You should be able to hold a sword in that hand.”

Thomas nods, “Thanks, Mom.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I smile before my hand comes up and bats the side of his head. "'nd don't call me 'Mom'."

“There’s a hole in the wall!” Connie screams. My eyes widen and I look down below us. There’s a gaping hole at the base of the wall, stone and brick scattered around it. “They’re gonna get in! They’re gonna get in, they’re gonna get in!” Connie repeats over and over again.

“...oh, shit.”

--.--

“As members of the Cadet Corps that passed the final maneuvers, you are now considered fully-fledged soldiers!” The officer yells as the Cadets weave through the pillars and each other to the gas canisters.

I hurry to the wall, having someone hand me a pair of gas canisters for my ODM gear. “Sasha!” I call, putting the gas into my gear. “Sasha Braus!”

Sasha stumbles to me, trembling and her eyes wide. Her mouth falls open and closed- but nothing comes out. I grip her shoulders and shake her gently, staring at her. “Can you hear me?” I ask, eyes flicking between hers.

Sasha nods, her eyebrows curving upwards. “...yes.”

“You listen to me very carefully, Sasha,” I say calmly. “You have to listen to me.” She nods again. “You’re going to be okay, do you hear me? You’re going to be okay... if you listen to me- you stay close to me at all times. If I’m separated from the group, you don’t hesitate to follow me- do you hear me?”

“_________, I can take care of myself,” she starts, shrugging my hands off her shoulders. “I placed Top Ten, just like you.”

“I know but this isn’t like training,” I mutter, eyes roving around the room as Cadets and soldiers frantically ready themselves for battle. Some are throwing up from nerves, others are sobbing on the floor. “This is battle. It’s always different.”

“You’re going in for the first time, too, _________. Why are you talking like you’ve done this before?”

I'm not answering that honestly. She doesn't need to know about the life-or-death fights I'd managed to get myself in.

“Remember when I used to go hunting with you?” I ask, scanning her eyes.

“...yeah.”

“It was always different hitting a target than hitting something in the wild, right?” Sasha nods. “It’s like that. It’s just... the deer can and will kill you without hesitating. So you stick with me. We can get out of this.”

Sasha’s eyes soften and slowly, she nods. I breathe out and wrap my arms around her. “I love you,” I whisper, running a hand through her hair. “I love you so much.”

Sasha’s arms tighten around me. “...I’m scared.”

Another shaking breath passes my lips. “I’m scared, too,” I mutter, pulling away and resting my forehead against hers. “But we’re gonna be okay. You and me and Connie and Jean and Armin. Mikasa. Eren. Reiner. We’re all gonna be okay.”

A determined smile appears on her lips. I press mine to her forehead and wipe my sweating hands on my pants. “I need t’go find the others. You tell Connie and Jean what I told you. The more of us working together means the more chance of us surviving.”

Sasha nods once and runs into the crowd. I sigh, running a hand through my hair while my legs tremble beneath me. Where the Hell is Reiner?

--.--

There’s a silent buzz that echoes through me. My veins. My skin. From the depths of my stomach to the edges of my fingertips. It buzzes and hums- but silent, nothing heard.

It’s felt.

My body twitches with excitement, all nervous and energetic.

I remember something like this. In the woods, drawing a bowstring back to my ear. The shaky but determined exhale of breath as the bowstring was loosed. The buzz concentrated in my ears, in my fingers then. All soft and almost unnoticeable. But now…

It’s different.

Amplified and harsh. My leg bounces up and down- I can’t stop it. The tremble in my hands, in my gut. Chills running rampantly through my skin and so wildly I can feel it under my hair.

It’s not fear, no. Had it been fear, I would’ve known.

‘Adrenaline’. Medical books and Doctor Yaeger’s teachings in the lamplight come rushing back to me. This is pure energy. The pulse of determined energy; wild and untamable. It controls me now. I can only direct it.

My eyes turn down to the blades at my hips.

Yes. These will be where my energy is directed. Every twist and spin and curve and turn will be where my energy is. Not to run away from the enemy. But to run straight for it.

“_________.”

I look up from my blades. It’s Jean. There’s deep trenches in his face- worry. I get to my feet, feeling my eyebrows knit together. “...are you alright?” I ask quietly, brushing the hair from his eyes.

Jean’s eyes meet mine and he shakes his head. “...I was supposed to leave tomorrow.”

I nod, recalling the scuffle he and Eren had gotten into just a few minutes ago. “And you will.” I say quietly, taking his face into both of my hands. “Do you hear me? You will.” He opens his mouth again to speak. Before he can get anything out, I stop him. “Have I ever lied to you?”

“...you told me iodine would burn.”

Rolling my eyes, I gently smack the side of his face. “I said that because I wanted to see if you would make a scene or not,” I mutter. “Have I actually ever lied to your face before?”

“...no.”

“Then why would I start now?”

Jean’s eyes soften and I can feel his body begin to radiate confidence. Over his shoulder, I can see Hanna waving an arm over her head. I lift a single hand up and she nods, running out of the courtyard. Turning back to Jean, I stare him in the eyes. “You listen. You’re gonna be fine and we’re gonna have one helluva celebration when you get sent off tomorrow.”

Jean nods, smirking. “I’ll be waiting to hear you sing.”

I smile and press my lips to his forehead, “See you in a few.” Running towards the courtyard’s exit, I stop and wave one last time.

“Bye, Mom!” He calls as I round the corner.

“Call me that one more time, Jean, and the Titans won’t be the only thing you have to worry about!” I yell back.

--.--

“...how ‘bout you, _________?”

My eyes slide up to the voice. Slowly, I blink away the glaze. Franz and the others are staring at me, waiting for a response to something. “Sorry?” I ask, getting to my feet.

“I was just asking if everyone’s alright,” Franz answers, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. “...are you?”

I laugh slightly and shrug. “As ‘alright’ as I can be right now.”

The group collectively chuckles- all quiet and heartless.

“Just wondering how you’re doing,” Franz says quietly. “You aren’t nearly as… bubbly right now.”

“‘Bubbly’?” I ask, smiling. “We’re about to go into battle after knowing each other for three years and I’m just now realizing you think of me as ‘bubbly’?”

The groups’ eyes shoot off into different directions- avoiding me. Franz stumbles over his words, eyes wide and hands up slightly in surrender. “Hang on- that’s not what I… I didn’t mean like… I meant it like-”

“Aw c’mon, man,” I scoff, punching his arm playfully. “I’m just messin’ with you. I know I can be… ‘lively’ at times.”

Franz and the others visibly relax. Floch scoffs and shakes his head. “I think Franz had it right the first time. ‘Bubbly’ is the word to describe you.”

Something deep inside me hardens as I hear his voice. The only one in my squad that I truly and genuinely cannot stand. Insensitive, rude, arrogant. Walls above, the boy drives me insane. He’s led to more fights in the squad than everyone else combined.

Floch lifts his sword, “Actually… I’d say ‘perky’.”

“‘Perky’?” I say quietly, an eyebrow raised as I look at him.

He nods, flicking a piece of hair from his eyes. He raises his sword to gesture to my chest. “...perky.”

I smile sweetly despite the urge to tackle him off the roof bubbles in my veins. Slowly, I breathe in and out. He just wants a reaction. That’s all it is. Same with every idiotic moron with that mindset.

“Really, I mean, Franz- you’ve noticed it, too.”

Franz shakes his head and sets his jaw. “I respect my squad leader-”

“Yeah, okay,” Floch mutters, rolling his eyes. “C’mon, not even you, Gordon?”

My eyes slide over to Gordon, who notices me do so. His face pales and he frantically shakes his head. “No, no, no… Not me.”

“Hanna, how ‘bout-”

I’m at his throat before he can get the next few words out. My blade is pressed up against his neck. With morbid fascination, I watch as he gulps. “Enough,” I snap, “Enough of this shit. You want t’get your ass beat by me so badly, we can have this out right here and right now. Maybe if I break your jaw, you’ll finally shut the hell up and leave the rest of us in peace.”

“You’re bluffing,” Floch mutters.

I press my blade just a bit harder. “You wanna find out?”

“Hey,” Hanna says gently, appearing next to me. “Let’s not do this right now.”

My eyes flick between Floch’s. Sweat is beading down his forehead and I can see his hands shaking gently. I scoff and pull away, “You’re right. Waste of energy and.. we’ve got bigger problems right now, anyways.”

Hanna sighs, pulling my arm to lead me away. Franz and Gordon force smiles as I meet their gazes. Franz stammers out something- a change in topic or something. I don’t really hear him. I’m too busy waiting for Floch to open his mouth. As I turn around, I can hear Floch chuckle. “...I knew it.”

Hanna doesn’t have enough time to stop me as I turn around and strike Floch’s nose. There’s a crunch as my fist collides with his skin and I can feel his nose give. Gordon runs for us as Hanna holds me back. Gordon picks Floch up off the roof tiles. Franz appears next to me, his mouth open slightly as he stares at Floch’s bleeding, broken nose.

“Don’t ever,” I hiss, “Ever. Think I will hesitate.”

“Squad 32!” Someone yells from another rooftop. “Squad 32! Report!”

Glaring at Floch, I shrug Hanna’s grip. “Squad 32 leader reporting!” I yell, walking to the edge of the roof.

A pair of soldiers standing on the roof down below us look up at us. “Move out!” One of them shouts, waving us forward.

Turning to the others, I smile and pull out my blades. Each of them stare at me- all terrified beyond belief, all nervously gripping their swords and shifting in their spots. The buzz, the hum is back and even stronger than before.

I let myself fall backwards off the side of the roof, pressing the triggers of my ODM gear. Feeling myself shoot back up towards the sky, I let out a small laugh.

It’s time.

--.--

“Sound off!” I yell as we zip through the air.

“On your left!” Franz yells back, appearing briefly in my vision before slipping back down underneath me.

“I’m here!” Hanna says from above me.

“Gordon? Floch?” I call, launching my ODM wires out and swinging upwards.

There’s no response.

Angling myself, I spin backwards and let the ODM wires pull out of the building they had lodged into. Now facing the other way, I watch as Floch and Gordon weave through alleys and buildings a ways away from the rest of the group.

I fall back down to the earth, shooting my wires out to put me right beside the two slackers. “You’re gonna get left behind if you don’t hurry the hell up!” I snap, swinging beside them.

My eyes dart to movement just beyond a clocktower. “Eyes up!” I yell, propelling myself to the front of the squad. My blades slice through the air as I brandish them. Rounding the corner, I can see our target. Fifteen meters. Ugly son of a bitch, too.

My ODM gears shift and I launch the wires directly into the Titan’s collarbone. Its arms swing out towards me and I duck down underneath them, letting go of the trigger as I fall. The arm collides with the building beside me. Rocks graze my face- leaving little slices of raw skin behind.

My feet land on the tiles of the same building. I jump onto the Titan’s hand as it snakes it off the broken section of the roof. Running along the arm, I raise my swords and launch the wires into the side of its neck. I jump and swing around its back, slicing my blade along the nape of its neck.

The Titan immediately goes limp and falls to the floor, tugging the wires of my gear along with it. Planting my feet just under the cut, I ride it down. It crashes to the street, rocking dirt and debris from the building.

“_________!” Franz yells, “There’s two more in the other street!”

“Two over here, too!” Floch yells, appearing on the rooftop above me.

“Franz, Hanna- take care of the ones over there! I’m going with Floch and Gordon!”

Franz and Hanna each nod, whirring off into the other street. Steam surrounds me and the air is thick with heat and the smell of flesh. My fingers twitch, propelling me up along the clocktower. Floch and Gordon land just under me.

My eyes scan the street Floch was telling me about. Two Titan wander aimlessly through the street, bumping into buildings and houses. “Gordon, you and Floch take the one on the left,” I say, pointing the end of my sword to a brown-haired Titan. “As soon as you’re done, you help me finish that one off. I’m gonna lead it away from you two while you work.”

The two swing off the tower and into the street. I roll my shoulders and launch my wires into the roof of the building just behind the second Titan. My fingers press the triggers and anchor the wires into the Titan’s chest. As I gain momentum, I release the triggers and shoot them out into another building’s walls- allowing me to speed past the Titan’s ear.

It takes notice of me. Turning away from the other Titan, it mindlessly follows after me. “Yeah, that’s right,” I whisper, digging my feet into the wall. “Come on…”

The Titan’s eyes hone in on me. My grip on my blades gets tighter, my fingers dancing along the triggers. Its hands reach out for me and I jump off the roof, falling down to the street. The Titan charges into the building above me. The wires of my gear dig into its side, pulling me up onto its back. Slowly, it pushes itself off the ruins of the house as I run up its back. My blades slice through its neck before it can fully get up. As the body falls back against the building, I swing onto another rooftop.

The steaming blood on my blades starts to evaporate as the other Titan hits the street. Floch and Gordon swing onto the edge of my rooftop, running to me. “I thought you said we’d help,” Gordon pants.

“I got it in a good place,” I shrug, chest heaving slightly.

There’s a scream that tears out, cutting into our words. “Let’s go!” I yell, heading for the sound. It sounded like Hanna.

Jumping off the roof, the ODM wires lodge into the bottom of the roof of a building across the street. I’m shot straight up. My eyes scan up and down the street. One Titan lays on the ground, steaming and quickly deteriorating.

My stomach churns.

The other Titan. It’s… chewing… on something.

On someone.

Hanna has her back to a wall, holding her swords out at the Titan. She’s screaming and I can see the glisten of her tears from here.

Falling back down, I shoot my wires into the back of the Titan. As my feet land on its back, the Titan drops whoever it’s chewing on. I can hear Hanna screaming clearly now.

“It’s an Abnormal!”

Shit.

The Titan twists and I don’t see the arm until it’s too late. It collides with my body, sending me flying into the wall across the street. The sound of my backbone cracking echo in my ears- blunt pain running through my muscles. Falling forward, my fingers just barely graze the triggers.

It’s enough.

I’m shot forward and under the Titan’s legs. Grunting, I slide against the cobblestone. “Gordon! Get Hanna out of here!” I scream, massaging my side briefly.

The Abnormal’s neck snaps towards me as I yell. My grip on my swords gets even tighter. The Abnormal sprints towards me, footsteps uneven and shaking beneath me. I hit the triggers and swing into the sky, feeling a burst of wind just behind me as the Abnormal bats at me.

There’s a brief moment when I think it has me. When I mistake the tightening in my chest for its hand.

But it’s only a moment.

I spin backwards, feet landing on its hand before I’m completely upright. As I straighten up, I run down its arm. “Eyes!” I scream to my squad members, “Eyes, eyes, eyes!”

Someone’s wires launch into the Abnormal’s bicep and the glint of blades flash across its face. The Abnormal lets out a mangled form of a scream as blood seeps from the gaping holes where its eyes used to be. We don’t have that much time.

A yell of my own leaves my lips as I jump off the Abnormal’s shoulder and curve along its back. My blades sink into its nape. The body falls along with me, shaking the ground under my feet as I struggle to stand up.

“Hanna! ...Hanna! What the hell are you still doing down here?” I ask, running to her.

“_________!” She yells, head snapping up to look at me. “Help him!”

My eyes slide down to the body in her hands. Franz lays in a puddle of his own blood.

Just the top half of him.

“We’ve gotta do CPR on him!” Hanna says frantically, getting herself on top of the body. “Help me!”

“He’s dead, Hanna!” Floch snaps, landing next to me. “There’s no point-!”

“We can bring him back!” She snaps, her eyes wide and body trembling. “We can-”

“Titans incoming!” Gordon yells from the roof above us. “We can’t take them all! We need backup!”

I nod slowly, swallowing the thick lump in my throat. “Hanna,” I say quietly, placing my hand on her shoulder. “You have to listen to me-”

“No! I… I’m not leaving him!”

“Titans!” Gordon screams, “We have to go- now!”

“Hanna, come with us!” Floch snaps, grabbing her shoulder and trying to tug her to her feet. She refuses, pulling out of his grip.

“You’re going to kill him!” She yells, tears streaming down her face as she resumes chest compressions. “You- You all are going to kill him!”

Floch grabs my arm, leaning in and whispering. “If we don’t leave right now, we’re all going to die.”

“Hanna,” I say quietly, “We need to-”

“Get out!” Hanna demands, “Get out of here!” Her eyes flick to me, “Go!”

An arm wraps around my waist and I can feel myself being tugged into the air. “Floch!” I yell, vision suddenly clearing as I watch Hanna and Franz’s bodies get smaller and smaller. “You ass, let me go! I’m not leaving her there!”

“I’m saving your life!” He yells back, activating his gear as we start to swing downwards. “She was gone- she wasn’t coming with us.”

“You don’t know that!”

“We need you alive!”

“We need her alive, too!”

“...she wasn’t alive,” he says, just barely audible over the wind. “Not really.”

--.--

“Get off’a me,” I snap, shoving Floch off as we touch down onto the roof. “You- you left her!” I yell, stumbling as I try to stand up. Pointing at him, my eyes narrow. “You left her behind!”

“I saved your life!”

The eyes of the others are on us as we circle each other like predators. “_________, what’s wrong?” Bertholdt asks, appearing next to me.

Jean swings onto the roof, landing next to Floch. “Where’s Hanna and Franz?” he asks, looking around.

“They’re dead,” Floch answers.

“Hanna wasn’t dead!” I scream back, “She was alive!”

“She was going to get us all killed!”

“I... am going to get Hanna.”

My hands snake out from under my jacket. A hush falls on the group as they stare at me.

“...you’re wounded,” Jean says quietly. “_________… We can help you- just… Just sit down.”

I shake my head, gripping my controllers. “She’s running out of time.”

“You’re running out of blood,” Jean mumbles, stepping closer.

My eyes flick down to my hands as they grip my controllers. A thick coating of blood drenches my arms and stains my skin. It seeps down my sleeves to my elbows, crusting in certain places. “I can make it,” I mumble, walking to the edge of the roof.

I can feel it. My balance is off- all swaying and shifting. My vision is worse. I can’t focus on anything. Everything is dancing around me as the edges of my vision go dark. The lump in my throat cuts me off, making it hard to breathe.

I can’t even take a step off the roof before my vision goes completely dark and I collapse.

--------

You can read parts one, two, and four here! Just give the number you want a little boop :)

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its-our-paris · 4 years

Text

Kids Will Change The World

Two years ago, when my older son was five and my younger son two, we walked into a clothing store. Shopping for new clothes is something we do very, very rarely (we are all about second-hand threads) so my older boy was excited.

I told him he could pick one thing that he really, really, wanted and I would buy it.

I left with two very happy boys in multi-coloured sequin skirts half an hour later.

When I was a child, in the early 90s, my mother sewed me a stunning princess dress in pink that I adored. At 7 years old, my hair had never been cut and reached down to my hips. I loved being a princess.

My mother also sewed me, at my request, pyjamas with tassels resembling a Native American outfit (we were a Russian family living in Germany, there was no concept of cultural appropriation or real Native Americans at the time; we played at being Cowboys and Indians like we played Princesses and Knights or Power Rangers). I made my own bow and arrows using twigs, sticks and yarn and I climbed trees and “shot down” apples.

I was always comfortable being a girl. But I never spent a lot of time thinking about what it meant, to be a girl. I liked the things I liked because I was me. Dolls, toy cars, marbles, sparkly dresses, cool trainers, video games, matches of different colours. Making mud pies and climbing things and racing around on my bicycle over fields and down hills. Drawing and stories and singing and dancing. I played handball and I did ballet. I dissected a dead mouse with a pocket knife (for science) and I played with my mother’s make-up.

I’m sure that somebody must have said the words “that’s not for girls” or “it’s not very ladylike” to me, at one time or another, but I don’t remember taking them very seriously. I always had the innate conviction that, boy or girl, people were people. My mother strongly reinforced this view and it was reflected in the mixed-gender groups of friends I surrounded myself with.

I grew up not caring about gender very much – unsurprisingly, it turned out I was pansexual – and while later in life remaining “gender-blind” has not always been possible or easy much of the time, I still strive to see a person first before I see their gender. Because so much of the time, the latter isn’t relevant at all in everyday interactions.

So when my son grabbed the sequin skirt excitedly – “Mummy, I want this!” – I told him very plainly: “It’s beautiful. I like it. Just so you know, some people will tell you it’s for girls.”

“I know,” he said with a shrug, “That’s okay, I want it.”

He wore the skirt to summer camp the next day and I was the English language teaching assistant (we live in Spain) so I witnessed the reactions. Sure enough, the other children stared when he first walked in. And then there were shrieks of laughter and shouts of “Skirts are for girls! You can’t do that!”

I waited to see what my son would do. Cool as a cucumber, he walked over to the other children and simply said, “Yeah, I can. It’s the new fashion.”

None of the children quite knew what to say to that. I went on to show them some pictures of male runway models in skirts on my phone. And that was that. The entire class of five-and six-year-olds went about their business for the rest of the day, playing together as usual. Not another word or glance was wasted on the skirt, other than to admire how it shimmered in the sunlight.

Acceptance is uncomplicated for children, if the environment facilitates it. We are not born into two separate groups of beings. We are all born people. My boys play with dinosaurs and paint their nails. They like glittery things and necklaces and trucks and toy trains. Sword fighting and wrestling and dancing and painting.

I see no reason to limit self-expression because of something as changeable and inconstant as fashion. The way we choose to present to the world doesn’t dictate our gender or sexuality any more than dressing up in alien costumes would make us extraterrestrials.

It’s lovely to see that gender roles and stereotypes, as well as stereotypes regarding sexuality, are being challenged and questioned by the younger generations. We have gone from a binary understanding of gender to the desire and ability to categorise gender in much more detail, with a lot more nuance. And I think that’s an important process.

But what I hope this is leading to, is a society where gender and sexuality are not disputed, nor fought over or imposed, nor have to be worn as a badge of pride in defiance of discrimination.

What I hope for is a society where gender and sexual orientation are no longer of much consequence. And we can look at one another and simply see in the other a multi-faceted, unique human being – such as ourselves.

My older son picked another article of clothing that day, also from the girls’ section, unbeknownst to him. It was a black jumper with a sequin rainbow which spells: KIDS WILL CHANGE THE WORLD.

The same jumper was not available in the boys’ section. Because, I can only assume, rainbows are “not for boys”.

My boy loves to wear his rainbow jumper, thus proving its message true.

I am, among other things, a portrait photographer based in Madrid. A big thank you to my very enthusiastic ‘models’: Erik, Emmet, Vega and Mimi.

Anastasia Mara Photography | Insta |Wordpress

#Children #children's clothing #kids fashion #children's rights #gender identity #gender non conforming #gender stereotypes #family photography #Photography #Parenting #Kids will change the world

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itsuki-minamy · 3 years

Text

BEFORE ZERO: CHAPTER 5 “BATTLE START”

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

Before Zero (Chapter List)

The moment Minato Hayatoshi entered the room following Habari Jin, the smell of blood and burned flesh snorted.

The room was surrounded by dim darkness. Not only were the lights turned off, but the windows were also blocked that should let in sunlight.

But it is not completely dark. The red, blue and radiant light of different abilities hit each other while flashing violently. The battle is on.

Based on information confirmed in advance, this room must be a shared room of less than 20 tatami mats. Not enough room for a full-scale battle. However, Minato's eyes, which began to get used to the darkness, clearly recognized a space that was larger than that.

A large space has been created by removing the walls of several rooms, focusing on the common room of the detention center. Is it a space for interception created in anticipation of an attack from the outside, or is "Purgatory" living in the facility piercing the wall in a playful way? He doesn't know, but this hasty "corridor" had turned into the biggest battlefield of the day anyway.

When the two of them started moving towards the shadows, looking at their surroundings ...

"Habari! And Minato!"

There was a call from the corner of the room.

"Zenjo, what is the situation?"

When Habari calls again...

"I'm addicted to this! I was waiting in this room!"

Zenjo said again as he dealt with three black clothes. The face that removes their fangs seems to laugh.

"And there is a nasty guy."

At the same time as that word, a thin whip-shaped mass of flames burst out of the darkness and attacked Habari like a poisonous snake.

When Habari instantly drew his sword and turned his "head", the flaming whip shrunk and recoiled, sucking on the hand of a man a dozen meters away and disappearing.

"Are you Soma?"

Answering Habari's question...

"Yes, it's me."

The man replied in a fuzzy tone.

Thin, thread-like eyes on the back of light-colored sunglasses. A smile that seems to stick to his mouth. It has a mask-like face that cannot be read.

The tall, slim physique and moderate demeanor, in the "Purgatory" martial arts group, their hair color is slightly different.

His "uniform", even a black suit that spreads a feeling of intimidation, only for this man, looks like a clean dress.

"Purgatory", Executive Soma Hitoshi.

He is also called the advisor and number 2 of the "Red King".

"Welcome, Habari-san. And I'm sorry. It is the appearance of the "Blue King", but my general is sleeping in the back... God only knows when he will wake up."

Soma speaks with a unique intonation like Kansai Ben's, which is exaggerated in a cartoon.

"Even if I don't get this far, I'll take care of you. I don't think it's possible, but I'll try."

"No, Soma. There is no shortage for the other party."

With a beaming smile, Habari held up the saber. The vanguard aims at the heart of Soma.

"Far from being unreasonable, you are an uncomfortable opponent. You can be said to be the worst except for Kagutsu. If you don't die soon, they will kill you."

"Ah, I must be careful. Really. A face-to-face showdown with a 'King'..."

Soma pulled out a cigarette case from his chest.

"Before that, let's take a break, huh."

When the breathless Habari smiled a bitter smile, Soma also bowed with a masked smile, then took a cigarette and raised his left hand to his face.

The little finger on Soma's left hand was missing at the second joint. The cross section of the cut finger glows red with the extraordinary capacity of the flame. That was Soma's "Holy Mark".

Using the chipped finger in place of a lighter and moving the fire toward the tip of the cigarette, Soma began to smoke deeply.

Meanwhile, the sound of the sword battle between "Scepter 4" and "Purgatory" echoes through the room. Also, what hides it is the moan of the wounded black clothes.

However, Soma pays no attention to them at all. Habari also just looks at Soma with interest.

Finally, Soma turned his face towards the ceiling and exhaled for a long time.

"Fuu..."

Soma moved his left hand forward at the perfect moment to cut off the conversation. It is like throwing luggage in his hand, but he has nothing in his palm. Instead, a high-pressure "flame" erupted from the severed surface of the little finger and was shot into the space in front of it.

Soma's technique is called "whip". The flame that emerges from the missing finger cross section literally flutters like a whip. Autonomy and trajectory.

Like a laser, like a poisonous snake, the flaming whip piercing the darkness was not targeting Habari, but Minato at his side. The moment the tip of the fire whip seemed to crush Minato's eyebrows, Habari's saber flashed and the blade with a blue light flickered from the side.

The flaming whip that floated in the air for a moment, when swiftly swaying like a snake, attacks Habari this time in an arc-shaped orbit.

As he touched the head of the whip again, Habari stomped, crossing the "hole" in an instant with his extraordinary leg strength, and advanced until he reached Soma.

Whether or not the difference in range between the whip and the saber changes to the saber advantage when sneaking into the chest, the fire whip, which moves more freely and precisely than a live arm, is fully functional even in attack and defense at close range.

Habari and Soma began to fight a fierce battle.

In contrast to Habari's sword skill, which unifies all of his sword, body, and abilities, Soma keeps his left hand down and does not hold it.

The whip that extends from the little finger blinks rapidly like a creature of its own will and accurately repels the blue blade that thrusts itself over and over again. Soma himself protects his body with the whip, keeps the cigarette in his mouth and adjusts his standing position calmly leading the stars in a dance.

"After all…"

Habari said without any sign of discomfort.

"It is not easy to kill if the messenger is on the defensive."

"No... this is barely."

Soma responds with a suffocating tone and finally spits out a cloud of smoke.

"Minato!"

Without letting go of his swordsman's hand or looking back, Habari said...

"Please rebuild the place. Ask the others."

"Yes."

Within 30 seconds after that, she takes control of the battlefield and makes a breakthrough.

Minato quickly looked around. Eyes accustomed to the dark pick up the situation in the room and the disposition of his companions and the strength of the enemy, and reconstruct the history of the battle in his brain.

That way, Minato must understand, how "Scepter 4" and "Purgatory" have been fighting in this room for the past few minutes.

And how Akio died.

++++++++++

The "Saw Traction Unit", which deviates from the original "Scepter 4" powerful control and cooperates at high speed by reflexes and instinct, has the power to easily cut through "Purgatory" like a flock of beasts. Neither a group of daring black suits nor executives with destructive abilities could contain a swarm of rapidly rotating blades.

However, the situation changes when a strange brain named Soma appears in the herd.

Soma was an exceptional technician among the powerful and crudely talented of "Purgatory." He was a genius who reached the realm of art, a genius comparable to Zenjo and the "Saw Traction Unit", and an advanced precision machine.

"Red King", from the existence of Kagutsu, flowing through the relationships formed by the facility, raging in the body, a tremendous amount of heat gives the subordinate clansman the power of destruction, but in the end, the energy it will burn its own body.

Soma is in full control of his own free will.

A strong "individual conscience" that does not renounce its own reason even with the "King of violence" on top, that is the basis of Soma's technique and also the reason for his peculiar position.

His position is the "immovable number 2" position in "Purgatory."

There is no organized chain of command in the prison. Like a flock of beasts, there is only one hierarchy of forces, which is very fluid and fluctuates with replacement of personnel.

It is not limited to this, the situation always boiled in a violent whirlpool around the "Red King". Nothing can maintain a firm presence there.

However, in the situation where even life is lost in an instant, Soma has been Kagutsu's assistant for about two years.

As a ghost beast that lives in lava, he himself is a superhuman by Kagutsu's side, and is an abnormal existence.

However, personal characteristics and abilities are only part of Soma's danger.

Soma was the best in individual combat technology and at the same time, he had more skill as a group commander. The whip of fire that pierces the heart, leaving the enemy's neck, was also the whip of a beast master who commanded a group of allies.

When Soma appears on the battlefield, the black clothes fighting for a strong self-begin to behave as if they are living creatures with only one will. Soma himself does not give clear instructions or strike the underside of the black robes, but Soma's "whip", which has both precise movement and long range, intervenes at key points in the battle unfolding around it. By doing so, he can control the transition from the war situation.

It was a unique ability in all clans under the Seven Kings. To put it bluntly, it was close to the combat assistance provided by Hayato Minatoshi's slow knife, but it was even more sophisticated and strategic. The flaming whip that runs between the beasts was an extension of Soma's brain, a nerve fiber that controls the body of a beast.

In fact, even in this "hall", the black robes of "Purgatory" acted under Soma's intent without being aware of themselves, releasing the power of fire and dispersion. Soma's "one move on the board", and because of that they burned their lives and collapsed, they were the game pieces that Soma enjoyed, the exploding stones and the abandoned stones.

The black clothes self-destructing special attack folds up, and Zenjo and the "Saw Traction Unit" split up and isolate themselves.

A group of swordsmen who surpassed the instinct of the beast were on the verge of being crushed when entangled in a mysterious and unusual intelligence.

++++++++++

But now…

Habari represses Soma's actions. The tentacles are blocked and the giant beast once again divided into an uncontrolled swarm of beasts.

"Scepter 4, get together!"

Minato threw a knife to each corner of the room in rapid succession, giving a sharp command.

The black clothes of "Purgatory" are like amateurs in the sense of a group battle. Without Soma's guidance, they couldn't cooperate properly. The individually encircled and divided chainsaws were able to quickly defeat several black clothes and escape by simply hammering in a few knives and creating an opportunity.

Zenjo, Azuma, Bado, Chidjiiwa, Daiba. When the five men gathered together, Minato called to Habari's back.

"Commander!"

"Yes."

While shooting a strong blow in moderation, Habari jumps away from Soma, after a few steps back, he is left with Minato and Zenjo.

"Habari!"

"Commander, are you safe?"

Habari gives brief instructions to the men who speak to him.

"Rebuild the 'Saw Traction Unit'. Not everyone can go."

"But Akio is not here!"

Zenjo said that. It was also a word that he said for the other members.

Zenjo and the others understand. The "Saw Traction Unit" is not just a team of powerful swordsmen. It is a fierce precision machine in which individual qualities and unconsciousness are intertwined at the instinct level, it cannot move properly without Akio, one of the gears.

But…

"I will take the place."

When Habari said that, everyone was shocked by the void for a moment and understood immediately.

Certainly, Habari will have sword skill and divine judgment, and Habari Jin will more than make up for the hole Akio Minato has left.

"But, Commander..."

Minato won.

The "Saw Traction Unit" is, so to speak, the "king's alternate force" in clan fighting, and it is the end of the story that the "Blue King" himself joins it. In the unlikely event that they are killed outright with the "Red King", it can unleash an unprecedented disaster, the "outbreak of royalty."

"Yes, Minato."

Habari responded with Minato's will.

"Today we cannot fight Kagutsu. This battle is our defeat. So…"

Habari turned the tip of the saber toward Soma.

"Today's ultimate goal is to seize the head of 'Purgatory' executive, Hitoshi Soma, and retire."

"Oh."

Zenjo, Azuma, Bado, Chidjiiwa, and Daiba resumed in anger and fighting spirit.

It was a reasonable place to end the battle that Akio lost.

"The same order."

"I will need your eyes again."

Minato leaning forward was controlled by Habari's words and Zenjo's hand.

"Go ahead, Minato. Now, I'll get souvenirs in the fall."

Zenjo was sharpening his fangs to laugh. There was only anger in his eyes.

The words ran out and the remaining killing intent focused on Soma with a sharp eye.

"Really."

Soma coughed with a smile on the edge of his mouth.

A chunk of ash fell from the tip of the cigarette.

"Everyone, draw your swords!"

They have already drawn their swords. Members of the "Saw Traction Unit" ceremonially repositioned the swords they had been holding.

Zenjo has a saber, Azuma has a twin sword, Bado has a spear, and Chidjiiwa and Daiba have daggers.

"With a sword, according to heaven, our justice is incomparable. "Saw Traction Unit", mission execution!"

With the command, his specialties were tinged with an extraordinary light. As he spilled the blood that wet the blade, it was blue, strong and glowing brightly, illuminating every corner of the "hole".

The six-body "Saw Traction Unit" has been revived. He was a divinely combative figure who turned anger and murder into light.

Soma got ready for the first time. In the next moment, a series of super speed attacks can turn to dust.

Distrustful of the reassembled "Scepter 4", the black robes that had been rolling in the distance began to move in anticipation of the resumption of the battle.

The tension was building in the room again.

++++++++++

There is still something.

Minato's consciousness couldn't fully digest the sensation of strange matter in the corner of his thoughts.

First of all, the "Saw Traction Unit" was a perfect wall. It was a unit organized to be a perfect wall. No matter how strange Soma was, there should have been no possibility of attaching him to the ring of blades spinning at high speed.

What killed Akio, an unknown factor that broke the "ring" circulating in the perfect wall should still be in this room.

Minato looked around the "hallway" again. Before, he was paying attention to the position and movement of humans, but now that he's in a winning state, I've also noticed things around him.

Remnants of battle and destruction on the floor and ceiling. A blackout curtain that closes the window. Concrete fragments still remain on the edges of the perforated loose walls.

And he can see that furniture like sofas, tables, and shelves were the living space of "Purgatory."

Part of the view is hidden behind the pillars. Minato moved carefully and changed his mind.

Akio had fallen there.

"……"

Minato snuck under Akio, hiding in the shadows.

He hugged her body from behind, but she wasn't breathing and he wasn't ready to move. From the amount of bleeding around her and the huge wounds that pierced her while burning her heart, he was sure that she had died instantly.

A long saber rolls beside him. Akio's favorite sword, "Shiden".

It is not an offensive or defensive attitude. It is a situation that makes him imagine how she was suddenly beaten and killed with one blow.

There were no scratches on her face, and the wide-eyed expression remained as it was.

A slight expression of surprise.

Even if she was attacked by an enemy, she would have reflexively avoided him and blown him head off with a flash of "Shiden". That was the reason why she was selected as a member of the "Saw Traction Unit", and her qualities.

What surprised Akio? What kind of enemy could she not respond to?

Minato surveyed the surroundings while being aware of Akio's point of view.

Half-eaten pizza on the low table. A gaming machine is hooked up to a big screen television near the wall and a controller is lying around.

Do black clothes play games?

When he thought that...

"Uncle, what are you doing?"

He hears a voice from behind.

Minato looked back. A knife that slides from his sleeve into the palm of his hand pierces the enemy's heart the next moment. That was the moment.

But…

Minato's hand stopped when he saw the black clothes behind him.

It was a fatal delay in reaction.

In front of Minato was a young man, not a boy, but he was under 20 years old.

The sleeves of a black suit that he is not used to wearing are rolled up.

In fact, a poor intelligent student than a member of a violent organization.

It reminded him of his twin sons waiting at home.

The other day when their high school uniforms were tried on, they both appeared to be wearing uniforms.

"Is it too big?" Says Minato.

"They'll be big soon.", Akio replied.

Then, Minato understood.

"Akio, you too... you saw this kid."

"Ha, what is that, idiot?!"

The boy's fist was covered in red flames along with his forearms.

An extraordinarily strong fist pierced Minato's chest. He couldn't allow him to speak.

In a short time before he collapses to the ground, his eyes are quickly defeated and his vision closes to darkness.

A child's voice was heard from above the fallen Minato.

"Hey, this is two stars."

Then another boy, probably the same age, called.

"He was about to die now. Satsuki, it was dangerous too."

"I don't feel like I'm going to lose to him."

"He thought you were a boy and was not careful."

"I am not a child."

++++++++++

"Minato!"

From somewhere far away, Zenjo's voice is heard.

"Wait, Zenjo."

The commander stopped Zenjo.

"Zenjo, now, focus on Soma."

Is this a member of Kagutsu?

"If you defeat Soma, you can do anything else."

The voice is far away. It's like saying something of a swordsman.

This may be a scene he need to stop.

The "Saw Traction Unit" is dangerous equipment that tends to run out of control.

Above all, because the commander is also interesting and inspiring.

The group is also constantly fighting.

"Habari!"

Something suddenly became noisy.

"This sign... he's the one."

Commander.

"Wow, it's finally here."

Soma looks.

A wave of sound. The opening voice of "Purgatory" that shakes the space.

"Come on, ours."

The boy's excited voice.

++++++++++

"Oh, I can't hear it anymore. Something vibrates on the ground... don't distract me."

What the hell was he talking about?

He wondered if that boy was saying, "I'm not a boy."

What happens? If he thinks he have grown up, he is still a child. That age is very difficult.

"Akio, what do you think?"

"Stupid, do you really want to deal with kids?"

"Oh, not at all. Exactly correct."

"You are a kind person. And always make the right decisions."

"There is no mistake in the important things in front of you, the things you must protect and order."

"Today and in the future."

"Where will you go next?"

"As always, I'll jump as I want."

"Of course, I am with you."

END

#k #k project #K stories #k fan clan #K BEFORE ZERO #SCEPTER 4 #habari jin #zenjo goki

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callme-chaos · 3 years

Text

Not Your Princess - A DSMP ff

Niki caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a ballroom window. The chandelier lights made her typically very pale skin look golden and her pastel purple dress glittered like a galaxy. The material looked beautiful (she’d have to thank Eret later) but it didn’t half scratch her skin. And the tightly pinned bun in her hair was already giving her a headache. The bodice of the dress restricted her movement quite a lot – which was not ideal if she needed a quick get-away but at least the poofy skirt hid what it needed to.

Niki knew she looked like a princess but it was difficult to relish the moment when she didn’t /feel/ like a princess. People listened to princesses, people noticed princesses. Niki might have effectively not existed at all beyond slaving away in the bakery. She wondered if some people thought fairies made the bread at night and left it all on the bakery counters for people to collect in the morning.

But Niki was no fairy. She worked hard and for little thanks. But tonight that would change. Tonight she’d take the first brave steps towards making a better life for herself and all that she loved.

“Niki?” another taller, handsome figure appeared in the window’s reflection. Niki whipped around, “Will?” Niki tried to steady her breathing; now was her chance.

Wilbur Soot smiled softly. “I’m glad you could make it,” his eyes shone in the low ballroom lighting. He looked very princely in his L’Manberg revolutionary get-up. “I’m glad I could run into you,” Niki started speaking. Her words were falling out of her mouth at 100mph with sudden nerves. “I need to talk to you.”

“Of course we can talk. But can I have this dance first?” he held out his hand for Niki to take.

The music slowed to a ballad. /Perhaps I can have a private conversation with him on the dancefloor,/ Niki thought. She curtseyed and smiled politely. “I’d love to.”

She took Wilbur’s hand and he led her over to the centre of the floor. People were already swirling together to the music and watching them made Niki feel a little dizzy. So she kept her eyes trained on Wilbur as he placed a hand at her waist. He was still smiling softly.

“You look beautiful,” he said as he spun them both around the floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so dressed up before.”

“I wanted people to notice me,” Niki replied.

“Well, you certainly have my attention.”

Niki’s feet were starting to feel sore (she knew these shoes had been a bad idea) but she felt a sense of relief when Will said that. Now was her opportunity. “Will, can I ask you something?”

Wilbur’s eyebrows dipped in concern, “Is something wrong?”

Niki took a deep breath. “Yes, actually. Me, my friends, our land – we’re all dirt poor. We all slaved away for the Manberg government and we have yet to see any major changes even with your rebellion against Schlatt. We want a voice, Will.”

Wilbur looked stumped. “And what do you want me to do about it?”

“I want a rank amongst your revolutionaries.”

Wilbur’s face changed from shock to confusion to amusement in the span of a few seconds before he chuckled. “No.”

Niki felt like he had punched her in the gut. “Why not?”

“Niki, you are sweet and kind and pure-of-heart and all that good stuff. You clearly care about people – arguably too much. That’s why I can’t let you join us. I won’t be responsible for twisting that up.”

It was like a slap in the face. So many things were wrong with that sentiment.

“Kindness isn’t weakness, Will,” Niki said. Her voice was barely above a whisper but her tone contained enough venom to poison an army.

The ballad was sounding its finishing flourishes and Wilbur let go of Niki’s waist, bowing deeply. “Navy blue isn’t your colour anyways. Stick to pastel purple,” he said and left, leaving a stunned Niki alone on the dancefloor.

Her heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible, taloned hand. She felt tears prick the backs of her eyes but she refused to let them slide down her cheeks under the light of the chandelier. The sights, sounds and smells of the ballroom hit her all at once and the opulence made her want to throw up. She needed to find an exit. Quickly.

She ran as fast as the stuffy dress and pinching shoes allowed her, pushing through a pair of gilded-gold doors and onto a deserted courtyard. She sat on a bench, grabbing the shoes off her feet and lobbing them at the ballroom windows. Still, nobody on the inside batted an eyelid.

Niki ripped her hair from its bun so it fell limp around her shoulders. Once again, she had been brushed aside like dust on a far-away shelf. She pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle a sob as the tears finally trailed down the sides of her face.

What did she do now?

Something heavy and woody creaked in the wind above her and she looked up. A canopy of dark green leaves blotted out the stars and sky. Niki stood: it was the L’Mantree.

Which gave Niki an idea: “If they won’t listen to me, they’ll just have to watch instead.”

Niki tore off the stupid purple dress revealing her own revolutionary suit beneath, as well as a sword strapped to her leg. Tossing the dress to the ground and unsheathing the sword, Niki hurled her bodyweight at the tree. She swung her arms wildly at the trunk as she hacked away at the bark. She pictured Wilbur’s pained expression as she took a piece of his history down with her and grinned manically through the tears.

After a while, Niki stopped. She turned back to the ballroom windows expecting to see panicked faces but she was being upstaged by a refill at the punch table. With a frustrated yell, Niki threw her sword at the ground.

When she looked back at the L’Mantree, Niki saw that her brute strength had barely made a dent on the trunk. Gritting her teeth, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a lighter.

Niki’s glassy gaze flitted from the lighter to the tree. There would be nothing left of it once she was through. Was she really going to do this?

She looked back at the waltzing mob of people on the ballroom floor. Wilbur had said she was kind, that she cared too much. He wasn’t wrong; she would do anything for the people she loved. And that meant no more tyrants.

Picking up the purple dress, she hung it across the tree like a flag. Niki placed a final kiss on the trunk and tossed her lighter at the dress’ skirt.

“Sorry L’Manberg, but I’m not your princess.”

Whatever material the dress was made out of, it was incredibly flammable. Instantly, it was entirely engulfed in flames. Each tongue licked and spat, steadily rising to envelop the tree. The crackling drowned out the music and sweat was already collecting on Niki’s forehead and she faced the fire. Smoke billowed out from each leaf and painted the night sky a dark, stormy grey. The red and orange flames challenged the golden light of the chandelier inside for dominance and the flames won.

It was all so devastatingly beautiful.

But Niki’s initial attack on the tree must have done a lot more damage than she had originally thought as the weakened trunk began to collapse.

And it was going to go crashing straight into the ballroom.

Niki tensed but there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. She would just have to let the heat from the inferno dry her tears instead.

The tree drove straight through the building, bringing a section of the roof down with it. The meretricious decorations were swiftly incinerated and the music melted into screams. The guests all screeched and cried and coughed and spluttered as their dresses caught fire and the smoke invaded their lungs. The punch table collapsed and finally - /finally/ - people turned and saw the girl who stood outside, watching as their heartless, indulgent world descended into a freshly scored Hell.

But Niki didn’t take any pleasure in it. It was only what was necessary. She swiped the remaining tears from her cheeks and lifted her chin.

“Now tell me Navy blue isn’t my colour.”

#niki #nihachu #wilbur #wilbur soot #ball #fire #dream smp #revolution #l'manberg #l'manburg #l'mantree #purple dress #arson pog #techno would be proud

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quirkdotcom · 3 years

Text

With the Setting Sun || Awase Yosetsu x Reader

Summary: Though their world is already filled with heros, villians, quirks and everything in between, Awase Yosetsu and Y/N's world is also granted a chance to find one's soulmate through a single dream.

Authors Note: So over the weekend I had a little event going for thr BNHA Sanctuary server, where you create a little something for a character you feel is under appreciated! So I decided to do something for Awase ! I hope you guys enjoy !!

×××××

Dreams. Everyone has them. But the one thing people love most about them, is the night where they get to meet their soulmate.

In dream they have twenty four hours to figure out all they can while in this lucid state, and from there, once the night fades away, people are left to their own devices.

The dream comes at different times for each group of soulmates, maybe when you're young or maybe even when you're old. If you're lucky it comes at just the right time.

Tonight you were expecting one of your usual dreams, whether about school or work or something mundane, so as it started, you were met with an unsettling feeling of being aware.

You turned slowly, it seemed that you had been transported to a hillside, once you've never seen before, and were unsure if it existed. It was full of beautiful flowers, all varying in species, color, size and almost in the way that some seemed too magical to be true.

As you looked away, and out towards the horizon, the sun was rising.

"Im...im not really asleep am I…" you hummed, mostly to yourself, as the more and more you took in your surroundings, the more and more you seemed to find that you were too aware of it all.

After a few moments you started down the hill, trying to find another area, maybe see if anyone else happened to be around.

As you got to the bottom of the hill, the flowers became scarce, and the grass faded into a dirt path, which just by following it with your eyes, it led into a forest.

It took you half a second to decide that you'd rather explore than sit around and wait. Oddly enough, the forest itself was quite peaceful...and almost familiar.

You were so immersed in looking around, that you didn't notice the trail ending, and that you had just kept going into the underbrush.

In fact, it wasn't until you had heard a snap of a branch under your foot that you had even stopped walking, realization dawning on your face.

"Well...it's a dream so no harm in getting lost ?" You spoke aloud, mostly to keep yourself calm.

"Yeah that's what I thought. Then I tripped and skinned my knee, dream or not I still felt it,"

You turned to your left, to where the source of the voice had come from, and there stood Yosetsu Awase, who had been in class 1B with you.

"Awase? " you krept forwards, wondering if this was just any old dream...or the dream.

"Thats my name," he eyed you back, the same question running through his head.

The thing about the whole soulmate dream was, that you had to wait it out until the very end. If you waited until the sun set, you would wake up immediately, and according to people who had been through it, they saw a golden light dancing above their chest, where their heart was.

For those who would wake up in the middle of their dream, or even continued to dream, were faced with the fact that their chance hadn't yet come.

"I mean. I know that. " you paused, trying to figure out something to say that wouldn't make things any more awkward than they need to be, "So tell me this, where did you start off in this dream?"

He looked around a moment, then sat down on the clearest space he could find, "Well, I actually started off in my room, so I thought I had just not dreamt..and when I opened the door to my room, I came out into the woods,"

In turn you sat down, and told him about the hill you had started out on, then paused for a moment, looking around once more, "Does this forest seem familiar to you?? Like we've been here before?"

Part of you asked because you were truly curious, but another part asked to test out if this was any old dream, or if this was the soulmate dream. If Awase couldn't answer, then this was likely just a random night.

"Actually, I've been trying to avoid that thought."

Hear this, you shrunk a little, hugging your knees, "oh..I guess-"

"This was where the League attacked class 1A and us at training camp. One of those...nomus, I think, almost killed Yaoyorozu and I…"

Suddenly a memory flashed through your head, the night was one you didn't remember all too well after being attacked by a member of the Vanguard Action Squad.

"Where is everyone?" You asked some kid from class 1A, he was blonde and had a tail, pretty sure his name was Ojiro or something.

He turned to you for a brief moment, but the two of you had to keep running towards the main facility, "I don't know. I think we all got seperated, just keep going, okay?"

You nodded, trying to keep an eye out, unsure of what dangers lay ahead. Just when you both had figured you could slow down a tad bit, Spinner appeared, he seemed distracted, as he was actually looking for Mandalay.

Both you and Ojiro were weaponless, his quirk was good for close quarters, however neither of you seemed to want to go up against Spinner's sword or rather bundle of blades.

Really though, you had no choice and took to combat, you trying to be a decoy for Ojiro so he could get in a stronger hit. And at one point you just remember seeing Spinner's weapon flying towards you.

After that moment everything went dark. You weren't sure exactly what happened, just that he had saved you, and got you out of there.

"Right. The training camp. That's why it's familiar. "

It was quiet for a few minutes, until Awase broke it.

"I visited you in the hospital, while you were still unconscious. At the time I wasn't sure why. I just felt this tug, and couldn't stop myself from going into your room. It was scary, you were pretty beat up. I kept thinking to myself that you were only asleep and that you'd come back to class in no time,"

You looked up, now focusing on Awase, his grey eyes not meeting yours, "We started to talk a lot more after I did come back, and you were the first person to greet me," you smiled slightly, glad that you at least now knew about your current situation.

"Yeah I guess so," he responded, face starting to turn a little red.

"Hey, do you think we can change the setting of our dream? Like if we concentrate enough? I get the feeling that we both don't like this forest, "

At this he chuckled, and forced himself to look at you, "Yeah. But where should we try to get to?"

"Do you remember in our second year when, you, me, Monona, Kendo, Testutesu and Kodai went to that old playground? " you asked, closing your eyes as you did so.

He didn't answer, nodding as he forgot that you couldn't see him do so.

When you opened them again, you two were sitting on a set of creaky swings. No kid had used this playground in a long time, it was in a forgotten section

of Musutafu.

"Okay. I'll bite. Do you think this is our soulmate dream?" Yosetsu stared down as he asked, trying to press his lips into a tight line, trying to keep from getting his hopes up.

You toed the ground, trying to swing a little as you contemplated the question. You weren't fully sure about Awase in the past.

He was a bit hard headed, had a very brash personality, could be pretty tense, but when it came down to it, he could be counted on.

You knew that he never meant to be mean or anything, and can understand why being social wasn't exactly his thing, hell it wasn't always your thing either. But ever since you two started hanging out, you were sure that he would stick around. And the thought of that had never bothered you.

"I think it is," you finally said, breaking the silence, looking back to him.

Awase didn't say anything for a moment, he only turned his head to the sky, where the sun was starting to set.

"Time went fast…"

You followed his line of sight, and stood up suddenly, "It did!"

Slowly, Awase stood up as well, and faced you, finally bringing his eyes to yours, "Are you ready to see if we're right?"

You nodded, and in a quick movement, you hugged him, "Promise me that if we wake up to that light thing, that you'll try to call me! I still have the same phone number okay?"

Awase froze for just a second, and carefully wrapped his arm around you as he nodded, "yeah...I promise,"

With the setting sun, you two pulled away, smiling to each other as it all faded away.

With a startle, you sat up, looking around your room frantically, until you looked down. There it was, a golden orb just floating right next to your heart. It was so beautiful in and of itself. And it felt so familiar. You brought your hand up, trying to hold it.

But as you touched it, it blinked out, and instead, your phone lit up.

You scrambled to grab it, hitting the answer button, "Awase!"

"Hey there soulmate,"

#boku no hero academia #my hero academia #boku no hero academia x reader #bnha #mha #bnha awase #awase yosetsu #x reader #gn reader #my hero academia x reader #mha awase #awase Yosetsu x reader #class 12a pals

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thebibliomancer · 3 years

Text

Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 28

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because after all of that, Kylan finally has a bell-bird bone to make a super-duper magical firca out of.

Last times on book: Kylan, Naia, Tavra (stuck in a spider), and new party member Amri saved the Grottan Clan from millions of angry spiders who wanted their caves back. Also, the spiders got their caves back. Good compromise. They also trapped skekLi the Skeksis Satirist on top of a mushroom and found a bell-bird bone so Kylan can make a special flute that will help warn all Gelfling about the Skeksis drinking them. Everything is coming up Kylan, really. All he has to do now is make a magical firca he has no idea how to make and come up with a warning.

Chapter 28

Kylan makes a magic firca. And gets lethally embarrassed by Amri.

As Team Kylan is leaving the corrie, they find urVa standing watch dramatically.

The Archer’s mane danced in the wind where it was not tied back in braids and topknot, and he faced the direction of the breeze to take its scent.

The most dramatic urRu? Maybe.

Naia asks urVa if they’ll see him when they come out but he tells them no.

“I traveled this far in search of my others, little Drenchen,” he replied. “I found one, but it seems he will stay here. I must move on. We will meet again. Someday.”

“Are you all right? We fought skekMal... I was worried we would harm you as well.”

urVa shook his head. When he did, the wind blew his mane from his face, and Kylan saw a wound on his cheek and eye, in the same place where he’d struck skekMal in the Dark Wood.

“What is done is done. The suns turn.”

You’re a chill guy, urVa.

urVa gets ready to head out but asks the Gelfling that if they see any of his “urRu others” to tell them to meet him in the valley.

Huh! So the urRu are all just kind of spread out and urVa is seeking them. I think in the show’s conception of things, the urRu tended to gravitate toward the Valley anyway and the Wanderer was the Wanderer because he’s the one who stood away longest.

The Gelfling find themselves in another tunnel, although a short, well-lit one and as they go Naia muses out loud about the state of things.

“The Skeksis live together in the castle... They have power there, because of the Crystal, and because they are all in one place. The Mystics are alone. We found urVa trapped in the Cradle-Tree. urLii was in the Tomb of Relics. They had power over skekLi with their song... but only because he was outnumbered. If all the Skeksis were to overtake urVa alone, or urLii... if they all came to rescue skekLi, and only urLii was here to guard him...”

“But if the Skeksis come to get skekLi, they’ll have to defeat urLii, right?” Amri asked. He held up two fingers in parallel. “But if they defeat urLii, then won’t skekLi also be defeated? Right?”

“Either way,” Kylan put in hastily, “urLii stayed behind by his own will. He seemed confident he could contain skekLi safely. We have no choice but to trust him. We have our own journey.”

So this is something I’ve been thinking about since Aughra said what she said about how Skeksis and Mystics could counter each other.

Its very unequal! The Skeksis have a bunch of societal power, the Crystal, a sweet castle, and strength in numbers! The evil that Skeksis do is therefore a lot greater than the good that the Mystics do!

Anyway, the Mystics are pretty lucky that the Skeksis just avoid them out of sheer ‘ugh that guy!’

The Gelflings finally exit the caves and tunnels in a pretty beautiful area.

The mountains here were soft and undulating, not jagged and rocky. The air was clear, blowing flurries of leaves and sometimes white and pink petals by, and Kylan thought he heard the sound of chimes. It was beautiful and gold and green, but the scene left something to be desired. Kylan frowned deeply. Their belongings were back at the entrance to Tide Pass, including the Book of Raunip, the pearl amulet, and Tavra’s sword. The others were quiet, too. No one wanted to be the first to bring up the subject, but it was too important. They couldn’t just leave their things, not with the journey they had ahead.

But Naia sees an arrow sticking out of the ground which makes her burst out laughing.

Cool guy that urVa is, at some point he found their stuff and moved it over here for them to save them a trip. Nice!

Really streamlining this part of the narrative, urVa!

Kylan retrieves the Book of Raunip, turns to the section about Gyr’s Firca, and gets really in the zone!

He forgets all the terrors and troubles of the past couple days, all the worries and wounds accumulated, and even forgets his cool friends as they give him space and quiet to work in.

All he saw were the sketches of the firca and the hope it had to offer. It was like every other firca he’d ever seen or played, with one mouthpiece, which split into a fork. The pipes on either end of the fork were carved with three finger holes, one for each finger when held properly in two hands. Firca were made out of many materials, each with a slightly different voice. Most were carved from a single piece of wood, though many were made from forced reeds. The Sifa were known to make theirs from the prongs of welhorn shells, and their firca’s voices came with the ghostly roars of ocean waves. The firca was the most common Gelfling instrument, and perhaps one of the simplest, yet the many materials used in its creation also made it one of the most varied. It could play single notes as well as harmonies, while still being small enough to dangle around one’s neck.

That’s so many firca in one segment.

I’m glad that we’re getting background on the importance of the firca to Gelfling culture but its a bit funny to me that its coming at the very end of the story after all this journeying to find a special firca. Although it makes sense for it to happen now because Kylan has the bone and he’s pondering the enormity of the task.

The bell-bird bone is already forked and a little bigger than your av-er-age wooden firca. Kylan feels lucky that Amri found the Last Bell-Bird Bone in the entire mountain and that it happened to be the correct shape and not broken.

A single bone could have been used to make a flute but Kylan decides that a single flute wouldn’t have had the same impact, remembering joining urVa and urLii’s song.

No, a pipe or flute would not have been the same. The firca was special. It could play two notes at once, leaving room for a third. What that third voice was, Kylan didn’t know, but he felt instinctively that it had to do with the legend of the bell-bird. The birds that sang and the mountains sang back. Perhaps, if the bell-birds sang with two notes, it was Thra itself that sang the third part. Perhaps the firca was so valued by the Gelfling because it left a place for the very voice of Thra.

Rule of Three: the planet.

Kylan doesn’t even have any tools to sand the bone or carve the holes but he knows that if he doesn’t make the firca now, he’ll lose his courage to even try. What with it being an irreplaceable only bone left in existence.

SO HE USES DREAM-ETCHING

My god, it just keeps getting more and more versatile a skill!

It was established that dream-etching put out a lot of heat since it basically just burns things into surfaces. So Kylan just focuses the heat of dream-etching onto the surface of his thumb and rubs the jagged edge where the bone broke and he just sands it smooth with dream-etching heat!

Amazing!

The vibration of the etching heat made the bone sing in a high, resonant key.

Also, amazing.

Kylan takes all afternoon and until Naia returns with dinner.

Naia looked over his shoulder, and he opened his hands. Lying in his lap was a white firca, sculpted and smoothed to the finest detail. He hardly remembered making it, or at least, he recalled none of the moments. As his head cleared from the focus, he realized he had gone into a kind of trance. His fingers were blistered and sore, but the product of his dedication was perfect, as if he had transformed the bell-bird bone into the instrument it had always been meant to be.

Naia declares it beautiful and Tavra agrees, adding that she wished she still had Gelfling ears so she could hear him play. Because when he played the bone, it sent her flopping to the floor.

Kylan apologizes again for turning her into a spider but she’s having nothing of it.

“If you hadn’t, I would be dead. And I would not have had the chance to see the two of you succeed as you have. For this, I am only grateful... Stop berating yourself for doing the things your heart calls you to do.”

You’re a good, Tavra.

Amri cooks dinner and puts one of his alchemical pastes on the fish Naia caught which causes Naia and Kylan a Concern but it turns out enjoyable.

Kylan hangs the bone firca around his neck because after going through this whole Song of the Dark Crystal book to get it, its his most precious possession and he’s not letting it out of his grasp.

While they eat, Naia suddenly remembers that note Kylan gave Tavra and then Amri and asks what was in it. Hey, tying up that loose end!

Kylan tries to say that hey that loose end doesn’t matter lets forget about it! but Amri saved the note and he pulls it out and dodges Kylan’s attempt to stop him from reading it.

“Dear Tavra,” he began to read. Kylan interrupted in a hurry, hoping to drown out Amri’s reading.

“I guessed that whatever was controlling Tavra couldn’t read. That it couldn’t read the note on the rock wall, so it had the spiders try to conceal the message -”

“... I write to you on behalf of Naia, and Gurjin, and those others whom you have helped since leaving Ha’rar on an errand for the All-Maudra...”

“- I had to test it, so I used -”

“I know it must be very difficult for you, having been betrayed by the Skeksis in the most painful ways. I wanted to let you know that we all care for you and that, should you need us...”

“So I used what I had on hand...”

But there was no stopping Amri, so Kylan put his face in his hands and waited for it to end. Amri stood before Tavra, Naia, and all the stars and moons above, reading for all to hear:

“... simply call on us. For especially I admire your courage and your loyalty to all that is good and right, and even if I’m unable to put these sentiments into words to say to you directly, I wanted at least to give to you this promise in words that stay. Your friend, Kylan.”

Oh my gooooooooood, the boy really did it! He wrote his feelings in a letter so he wouldn’t stumble over his words! This precious bean! This poor, mortified Gelf! Everyone’s grinning at him!

Naia is saying that she’d learn to read just so she could read it if Kylan ever wrote her anything “sticky-sweet” like that.

This poor boy!

Kylan justifies that after he saw “Tavra” talking with a Skeksis he needed to be sure whether it was Tavra or not so he gave her this letter that he’d prepared ahead of time. It’s such a personal note that if it were Tavra and she could read, she’d definitely react to it.

Tavra finally pipes up, after sitting silently as poor Kylan was mortified to death, to agree that it was a clever plan.

I’m thinking that she didn’t want to pile on so she just stuck with the narrative Kylan is trying to emphasize.

Despite his conviction that she would have reacted to his letter had she been able to decipher it at the time, the All-Maudra’s daughter showed no reaction now. Kylan wasn’t sure which he preferred.

This poor boy!

And when Kylan fished the letter out of the fire and gave it to Amri, he knew something was up because no way would a Vapran princess be illiterate.

The topic changes to Kylan’s relief, so he brings up his ideas for the Big Message that this whole quest has been about.

He’s been thinking a lot about it. They can’t just use a normal message because Skeksis can read Gelfing but not all Gelfling can read Gelfling. How vexing. But urLii reminded him of dream-stitching in the Tomb of Relics.

So his idea is to dream-stitch the message into some innocuous symbol that the Skeksis won’t notice but a Gelfling will get a dream-fast when they touch it.

And since he accidentally dream-stitched “the dream of her mind to the spider’s body” he’s prettyyyyy sure he can do it.

“I will deliver the message that begins our fight against the Skeksis.”

Heck yeah, Kylan!

So with that so declared and the final chapter of this book setup, the party sleeps under the stars. Although Kylan has trouble sleeping because there’s so much anticipation for the following day.

A blade of grass moved to the side near his cheek. It was the only sign that Tavra had joined him, silently picking her way across the tips of the grass as he might hop along the pathway stones in Sami Thicket. She said nothing, balancing on the stalk of a grassflower like a tiny, delicate acrobat.

He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t. There was simply a shared quiet - an acceptance - and then she left, not one word spoken.

When I first read this bit, I got so mad. I thought Tavra was going to leave the group, just vanish in the night because spider and so Kylan could play the bone firca without worrying about the effect on her. I was like TAVRA C’MON WE KEEP LOSING PARTY MEMBERS!

But on another pass, I think this is Tavra accepting his letter and his sentiments.

Aww, friends.

#dark crystal #Song of the Dark Crystal #the dark crystal #liveblog #Kylan #Naia #Amri #Tavra #urVa #the Archer #a lot of feelings in this one #it was a bit of a longer one so it took longer

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dopescotlandwarrior · 4 years

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Beauty Chooses II-Chapter Six

A Special thanks to @statell for your help and wisdom

Previous Chapters at AO3

Chapter Six-Remember Me

I rubbed my sore shoulders and whimpered with the pain. I don’t know why I was so keen on shooting a gun in the first place. I was obviously too small, too weak, or too something. I walked to the barn knowing Jamie would ask me if I did my exercises. If I did two or three lifts, I could tell him I succeeded. I sat on the ground and pulled the rope attached to a sack of grain and then pulled with all my might until it lifted off the ground. The rope was thrown over a board in the roof and it didn’t like to move. Maybe two more.

“Ah Sassenach, I am impressed with your dedication.”

“Finished!”

Jamie helped me up and hugged me close until he heard me wince. He held me at arms distance so he could look at me.

“Sassenach, you need not do your lifts every day. Give yer muscles time to heal in between, otherwise, ye wilna get any stronger.”

“I know, that's what you told me to do but it will take too long and now I am so sore I can barely hold Faith.”

“Mo chridhe, yer so sweet and verra sexy,” he growled into her ear. “It’s a good day for an afternoon nap.”

“A what?”

I stared at him like he had lost his mind. Jamie didn’t nap during the day, ever. He threw me over his shoulder and took the stairs two at a time being quiet in case Faith was sleeping. I was deposited on the bed and felt Jamie’s warm hands remove my boots and stockings before lifting me to remove my jacket, skirts, and the infernal corset. It took so long to get everything off it made me giggle. I still didn’t know what we were doing in bed in the middle of the day. Well, I knew what we were doing but not why since it was very uncommon. Jamie was stripped to his skin in under a minute and laid on his side, holding me close. Our bodies were pressed together from chest to toes. He closed his eyes and silently held me like that for several minutes. Our lovemaking was slow and unhurried, and I softly kissed his face a dozen times as he panted to catch his breath.

He looked at me while we laid in our post-rapture embrace. I could see his mind grinding on something and waited for him to tell me. When he didn’t, I asked what was in his mind. He told me the Jacobites had come upon him in the fields, separating Murtagh behind drawn swords at his throat. He refused to join them again, and warned them of consequences if his godfather suffered a single nick of the blade.

“They laughed at me Sassenach. One of them said I would fight, willingly or otherwise. Then they left. We must go Sassenach. After Hogmanay, plus maybe a month for the weather to become favorable for such a voyage. Be strong love and know I will keep my promise to get us to the new world before the fighting starts.”

He held me close and ran his hand up and down my back. It was a large, strong hand, that I entrusted the life of myself and our daughter to, with absolute faith he would see us safe.

The first time the Jacobites came to the estate there were five of them. They stood with Jamie outside and talked for over an hour. They were mustering and wanted Jamie to join them no doubt. I watched Jamie, for any sign of acquiescence.

It was five months later when they came a second time. I was outside with Faith and Glavia when a dozen men rode up on us. Glavia grabbed Faith and ran into the house and I turned to face them hoping my hatred did not show. I could only point them in Jamie’s direction, and they rode off to find him. That time I could not see Jamie to watch his body language. I could only hope.

When Hogmanay approached, I went the distance to provide an exceptional holiday for my family and the tenants that joined us. Misses Crook and I cooked all week for the celebration and the house was decorated in fine fashion. Jamie was up early cutting wood for fires that would burn bright all day and night. He put a pig and a deer to roast over the firepit outside. I sent Murtagh to the priest’s hole to unearth our silver serving dishes and candle holders. Throughout the day misses Crook and I laid out plates of meat and side dishes, fruit and cakes, sausages and potatoes, cheese and soup. When the house filled it was joyous with dancing and laughter. Our guests were treated to a very special party and Jamie was celebrated all evening.

It was all I could do to keep smiling, knowing this is the last Hogmanay to be celebrated in Scotland. The tenants would lose their laird, their customs, tartans, and all else held dear. It was a very difficult night for me. Faith, the apple of her father’s eye, entertained us until Glavia came for her at bedtime. She hugged Jamie and kissed him goodnight and I followed them upstairs.

“Glavia, why don’t you put a pretty dress on and go downstairs for a while. I will take care of Faith and stay right by her side.”

Glavia blushed and dropped her head shaking it side to side. She pulled Faith out of my arms and insisted I go back to the party. I listened to the joyous laughter below and fought back the tears wishing we were already on a ship to the new world. The battle of Culloden Moore was but four months away giving me good reason to fear.

When our last guest was out the door, I quickly sent misses Crook to bed and went looking for Jamie who was last seen in the dooryard with one of the tenants he grew up with. I found them in the barn, drunk off their collective asses, playing some kind of game.

“What are you two doing may I ask?”

“Ah, my beautiful Sassenach! Come my gorgeous darling. We are playing a wee game.”

“Well, the party is over and I am going to retire. How is this game played anyway?”

“One of us draws a line in the dirt, the other tries to throw somethin over the line. It’s so fun, ye want to try Sassy?”

“Certainly not. Goodnight gentlemen.”

By the state of their inebriation, I anticipated finding two very cold Highlanders passed out in the barn by morning. I went to our room to write a note for Joe. He was on my mind all evening and I wanted to wish him well. I wouldn’t know if he ever got back to Scotland and Lallybroch to see my note, but I hoped he did.

My sweet Joe, I am thrilled you come back to see my notes. I miss you and Baritone. I gave birth to Faith Ellen Fraser on January 5th, 1744. She is beautiful, healthy and strong. We have an idyllic life here without airplanes overhead or commuter traffic. Mostly, I love Jamie with every fiber of my being, so I belong here. The Jacobites are mustering troops and there is nothing I can do to stop it. We are leaving for America before the battle and I will watch Jamie’s heartbreak as he leaves his homeland. Master Raymond left me a stone that would transport me through time and worlds. Jamie threw it into a gorge, and it was never seen again. I wish I still had the stone. I have a sick feeling about escaping Scotland and wish we had a safe alternative. You start your residency this year! How very exciting. I will be thinking of you and all you will do. Love Claire

I set the note in Jamie’s hiding place and went to bed. I dreamed of sailing on a large ship seeing a beautiful green landmass ahead. I said a prayer for Jamie asking God to keep him strong and safe.

When I breezed through the kitchen the next morning it was obvious my prayer would have to wait for Jamie’s hangover to resolve as he looked anything but strong and safe today. I kissed his temple and he lifted his head an inch before dropping it back down over his plate. I poured him a whisky and announced, hair of the dog, before tipping the glass and liquid into his mouth. It seemed to help for a minute of two before he ran for a chamber pot emerging white-faced and slick with sweat.

I helped him up the stairs to our room and pulled his clothes off. He didn’t fight me, so I knew he was really feeling sick. Once he passed out, I returned to the kitchen to help with the cleanup. Out the window I could see snow whipping off the ground into spirals and sheets and moved to the door to peek outside. It was bitter cold, and I closed the door quickly.

I pulled my cloak around me with several scarves and gloves and pulled Jamie’s knit had over my head and ears.

“What’s got into ye Misses? Ye canna go outside today, it’s too cold!”

“I’ll be alright, but I cannot say the same for the animals without extra bedding. Has anyone seen Murtagh?”

“Aye, he looks worse than the Laird.”

I rolled my eyes and bravely walked outside closing the door quickly behind me. It was face-freezing cold, and I struggled to the barn hoping for a warm interior. What I saw was the plume of vaper as each animal exhaled and felt no warmth compared to outside. Something had to be done or these poor animals would freeze to death. There was a stone circle about two feet high and I wondered if it was used for fire to warm the barn during harsh weather. I dragged a stick through the dirt at the bottom and uncovered ashes and burnt pieces of wood. Running inside the house I gathered an armful of wood running back to start a life-saving fire.

How, I wondered, did they vent such an indoor fire. Running my eyes along the ceiling I saw a string ran along the slope and was tacked to the side of the barn. When I pulled the string a section of the roof popped open and it was directly above the fire pit. I was feeling like a hero when I lit the kindling to set the logs ablaze and clapped my hands at the radiating heat. What I didn’t anticipate were the embers that shot out from the popping wood sending little fireballs into the air.

I panicked, racing around the barn looking for something to contain the embers. I was ready to wake Jamie up for help when I spotted a metal disk laying atop a barrel. I grabbed each side and pulled until I was panting from the effort. I managed to move it only an inch and decided to push it off the barrel to the ground and then move it by lifting one end and tipping it over. By the time the disk was next to the fire pit, there were no more embers because the fire was long cold. I guessed I pushed that round metal for at least an hour. It was time to recruit help.

“Misses Crook, I need your assistance in the barn.”

“What have ye done to yerself Misses!”

“What?”

“Yer hands and face, they’re all black!”

By the looks of her, Misses Crook was going to faint right in front of me. I rushed to her promising I was alright. It was just soot and I was fine. I held out her cloak and bundled her up with scarves and a hat before pulling her outside to the barn. It seemed the temperature was falling if that were possible. I explained my intention to lift the disk on top of the fire pit to hold the embers leaving enough open space to fan the fire. I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore, so I urged the older woman to dig deep for strength. We each took a side and heaved the disk upward to rest on the stones above the fire. I was so excited and jumped up and down realizing I had no feeling in my toes.

I pushed Misses Crook out of the barn and promised I would be fine. In reality, I was dangerously close to freezing my fingers straight through, so I worked fast. I build another fire, twice the size leaving two inches to fan oxygen into the pit. I could fan and knock down any embers that snuck out of the opening. I was so intent on what I was doing I didn’t notice the interior of the barn warming up until I suddenly felt my fingers again. As I continued fanning and chasing embers, I started to sweat and rubbed the beads off my forehead, leaving a black greasy smudge that I was unaware of.

When the fire had burned the logs into glowing beds of warmth, I turned my attention to feeding and building up the bedding in each stall. The grain was the easy part. I took the large forked shovel and walked it, heaping with straw to the closest stall. When I swung it into the air the shovel was empty and fallen straw made a path where I walked. I tried several times to use the shovel, finally setting it aside to grab heaping armfuls of straw to throw into the stalls. Donus looked at me like he was afraid, and Brimstone leaned against her stall door to watch me. The goats were unimpressed and laid down for a warm winter nap.

Next, I had to bring water for each of them and I pumped until my arm felt like it would fall off, but no water came out. I ran back into the barn when I could no longer feel my face and threw more logs into the pit after shoving the disk farther back to make room. In minutes the fire was blazing again, and I dashed to replace the cover and bat at the escaping embers. I picked up the matted hay I used for a fan and kept the fire going.

I was exhausted. I wondered how many hours I was out here but felt so happy I saved the animals. My body dropped to the ground and I leaned against the warm stones of the fire pit. It finally occurred to me why they built the sides up with two feet of stone. The fire made them hot so they would radiate heat for hours after. Very smart. The fire wasn’t shooting embers any longer, so I closed my eyes to rest for just a minute.

I heard the barn door open and Jamie calling me. I barely woke up when the door closed, and the shouting stopped. I leaned against the warm stone and closed my eyes. What seemed like seconds later Jamie was hoisting me up stammering about my black face.

“Are ye hurt Sassenach? Yer covered in soot, how did this happen?”

I was delighted to see him and smiled brightly causing Jamie to lose it completely. He bent over holding his stomach and every time he looked at me the laughter started anew. I wanted to show him all that I had done but he couldn’t stop laughing long enough.

“Well, while you wet yourself laughing at me, I’m going to get water.”

I grabbed a bucket and made for the door to try the pump again, but Jamie stopped me. He grabbed four buckets and filled them with snow, right outside the barn door, and then hung a bucket in each stall.

“That will melt straight away since ye got it so warm in here. Yer the most beautiful mess I have e’er seen, lass. Thank ye for takin charge today.”

I could see he was biting the inside of his cheek to stem his laughter and his eyes watered with the pain. I followed his gaze around the barn and saw the upended barrel, straw littered all over the floor, and straw sticking out of each stall. I glanced at my warm hands and recoiled in horror. They were black on both sides up to my forearm. I looked at Jamie while a whimper escaped, and I held my hands up.

“Come lass. Let’s get ye cleaned up.”

Jamie wrapped my multiple scarves around my face and neck and pulled my arm into the crook of his elbow like I might blow away. Strange since we were so close to the kitchen door. He checked the glowing logs and pulled the disk completely over the fire pit. When we closed the barn behind us, I started for the kitchen and felt Jamie pulling me in another direction. The snow was shooting into our faces from the wind and I was decidedly uncomfortable until he pulled me into the back door and down the steps to the room at the back of the house.

“It’s warm here because all the chimneys run down this wall.”

He pushed me to sit on the stairs and promised he would be right back. It might be warm, but it was also black as pitch and my comfort level had plummeted. Jamie was back in five minutes with a basket full of hot, wet towels and a hand mirror. He pulled me to the outside door and opened it long enough for me to see my black, sooty face. I started to giggle, especially when I smiled and my bright white teeth were suddenly visible. The more I looked the more I laughed, and Jamie was right with me.

Once composed, Jamie pulled the towels out and wiped them on my face and arms. We needed the door cracked for light, but he worked fast, dropping the black towels once they were used up. I was shaking from the contrasting cold coming through the door and the hot towels on my face and arms. My teeth started chattering and Jamie abandoned his mission to carry me upstairs. My cloak was removed and Misses Crook handed me a towel after towel, pointing to places I missed.

It all seemed to catch up with me. The laborious afternoon in the cold barn, heaving straw, moving the disk inch by inch, pumping the water, and then scraping the soot off my skin. Again, I was lifted into Jamie’s arms and carried upstairs. Each piece of clothing was carefully removed and dropped into a basket on the floor. Jamie looked me over, front and back, declaring me clean. I was never so grateful to be crawling into bed until I stopped, frozen mid-crawl, hearing Faith cry. I looked down at my dripping nipples knowing they were painfully engorged but lacking the strength to get Faith. Jamie was out the door, so I pressed into the bank of pillows he had stacked against the headboard. I felt Faith lay across my stomach and latch onto the closest nipple.

“Ye didna want to wake me Sassenach, so you used yer incredible brain to figure out the fire pit and how it worked, and incredible brawn to get the work done.”

He squeezed my sore muscles as he spoke until Faith grabbed his hand and pushed it away. She didn’t like to be disturbed when she was nursing, and Jamie and I laughed at her territorialism. Any other time she was her da’s girl but not now. Jamie leaned against the headboard and kissed my neck before pulling me with a suckling Faith against his chest.

“Close yer eyes my beauty and rest in my arms.”

I thought about what Jenny told me so long ago. It’s a beautiful life in this century with plenty of hard, backbreaking work, and an abundance of time to love and reflect. Our lives are full of genuine people who know who they are, and what their purpose is. I never hear anyone say ‘why am I here? What is my mission in life? How can I feel fulfilled? No one is board, no one is addicted, no one is depressed for no reason. When I tell Jamie about the future, he crinkles his brow over the internet and the television. The wonders of these distractions are lost on him. Rather, he can watch his daughter nurse for thirty minutes and never move a muscle.

Jamie powers through his day like he is on high octane fuel and then sits on a hay bale to talk with a tenant who needs his attention. He’s never short with them but gives his full attention and lets them talk until they choose to leave, then he goes back to his task. It’s amazing to watch because I have never seen the same in my century. I wish I could write a book about the staggering differences between the centuries. Maybe people would turn off their television and push away from the computer, spend more time with neighbors in helpful pursuits, spend more quiet time in their head so they quit looking outside themselves to define who they are. If it required returning to my own time to give this book to the people I wanted no part of it. My heart would burn for Scotland and this beautiful life. I could think of nothing I would risk going back for and settled into my nap feeling warm and loved.

In mid-February, I laid in the dark with Jamie and asked the question that burned daily in my brain; when do we leave for the new world? We spoke quietly and Jamie instructed me to pack a trunk for each of us and be ready to leave as soon as passage could be secured. I kissed him over and over again, crying with my relief. Murtagh would secure our passage and he was leaving for the docks the next day.

Jamie had an Aunt in North Carolina and he had received word from her that we were all welcome and she would pray us safe to our new home. I could see Jamie’s heart breaking and I held him to me as often as possible. He spent more time outside on the property and I would find him watching the sunset, alone, with his sadness. I told him we would come back after a time and regain our wonderful life atLallybroch. Sometimes it was enough to lift his spirits and sometimes it wasn’t.

Snow covered the land until late February, and I was finally able to get through the trail to the bottom of the gorge. I searched for the blue rock for as long as I dared before returning home disappointed. Murtagh made his third trip to the docks as he had been unsuccessful so far. Again he returned empty-handed and my worry was blooming into a continuous panic. All of the treasures from the house were buried in the priest hole and the trunks were packed and ready. The voyage to America was a dangerous journey with sickness and treachery. If a mother got sick during the passage; she was thrown over and her children followed. This added another layer of fear to my days. I didn’t care. I just wanted Jamie on a ship sailing away from Scotland and I hardly cared the direction.

Jamie visited each tenant’s home and spoke with the family about the coming war and what was likely to happen after. He left their homes with the women crying and the men pacing. It was very unpleasant, and he would cling to me that night and claim my body to help him forget.

One day in early March, Jamie kissed me and left for his chores. It was a lovely day and I dressed Faith in warm clothes, and we spent some time outside in the fresh air. I helped Misses Crook in the garden preparing for seed we would never see sprout and I worried like I did every day.

Once again, Murtagh returned with no passage booked for us and I excused myself to fall apart in our room. I cried until I noticed the light waning and ran to the window to look for Jamie. Where was he? It was long past his usual time to get home and the sun was setting fast. I paced in our room until Misses Crook knocked on the door.

“Should I hold dinner for the Laird, Misses?”

“No, let’s go ahead and eat. Leave the pot on the fire to stay warm for Jamie.”

I needed the feeling of normalcy tonight to keep my hysterics at bay. I will feel much better when I see my husband and then we start again tomorrow looking for a ship.

Murtagh had searched the fields for Jamie and came back freezing. I searched his eyes and he nodded side to side while I collapsed in a chair. Where are you, Jamie? Are you hurt? Please come home, I prayed. By ten o’clock there was no sign of Jamie and my tears were uncontrollable. I sent everyone to bed and stoked the fire so the house would be warm when Jamie came home.

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