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kimetsunoyaibawritings · 3 years

Text

Introspection

[AO3 Version] | [Original Request]

Rating: General

Summary: When a rainstorm threatens Tanjiro's travels through the countryside, he takes refuge in the home of a kind stranger. During his stay, he discovers that not only is his host of half-demon blood, but their mother had also been a member of the Demon Slayer Corps.

Tanjiro is nothing if not curious, and learns more about the multifaceted world of demonkind, hopefully growing ever closer to undoing the curse upon his sister.

Tanjiro could tell that something was off. From the moment that the man had entered into his physical perception he knew that something wasn't quite right. The man -- you -- weren't entirely human. Neither were you entirely demon, but he couldn't get much detail behind the simple fact of otherness that permeated the air around you with every shift of your body.

It wasn't a bad smell either. In fact, when you bowed in greeting, he found the gesture scented with honesty and friendliness instead of hidden malice or insincerity. He bowed in turn, and the two of you exchanged names. It didn't take long before you took note of his weapon, and much less after that to realize that the wooden case hefted against his back held something far less trivial than one would have assumed. Not something, but someone.

His nose was sharp -- for a human, at least. Yours was just as honed, though the ability came from your mixed blood than from a rare natural gift. It took but one breath with a defined focus to realize the young man you'd met was hardly a normal person.

Demon Slayer.

The words held some semblance of meaning. Nothing with coherent form; they were words passed down to you from your parents, spoken with such fearful vitriol that you had to wonder what kinds of people became such Slayers of Demons. Surely they would be bloodthirsty, heartless souls that would so willingly strike down such simple people without due thought or consideration to what their sins truly were -- assuming that existence itself wasn't a sin for a demon.

But as Tanjiro stood before your eyes, you had to reconsider the image that had built up behind the words. He did not look bloodthirsty. He didn't even seem aggressive. But he still carried the nichirin blade that you'd been warned of, and you had to wonder how many demons had been killed at the mercy of its sharpened edge.

So you, a half-demon standing before one so named a demon slayer, do the careful thing:

You invite Tanjiro to stay with you for the night.

Truthfully, Tanjiro isn’t in a position to reject the offer. he’d been traveling for several days through the rolling landscape between the mountains, and he could smell a thunderstorm coming in. For all that he couldn’t understand you or your strange scent, Tanjiro really had no reason not to trust in his kindness.

The house you called your own is humble, too far from the nearest village for anyone to randomly stumble upon you without incredible forewarning. Tanjiro is actually quite the rarity, one that you find some manner of joy in meeting — the last person you’d met was half as kind and barely a fraction as patient.

“Are you a demon slayer?” you find yourself asking barely a moment after the two of you have stepped into the narrow threshold of the front doorway. Beyond is a home consisting of a few rooms at most, minimally furnished but meticulously cared for.

Tanjiro barely has the chance to set his gear down, but he flashes an earnest smile in your direction.

“I am,” he says. There’s pride in his tone. “Though I’m a little surprised. Not a lot of people recognize us that quickly, unless…”

“No. I don’t have any connection,” you quickly dash his assumption aside. “But I recognize the uniform and weapon you’re carrying. Nichirin blade, correct?”

Tanjiro blinks, but the look of warmth never quite fades from his face even as he nods to affirm your suspicion. It sates your surface curiosity, but it doesn’t offer any sort of clue as to what is in the box he’d carried upon his back. For a moment you wonder if it would be rude to inquire about it, but shrug the notion off quickly when you remember how strange the box smells. Not weapons, not rations, but something softer.

“What’s in that box of yours?”

Tanjiro’s entire frame stiffens. In barely a breath’s worth of time, his demeanor tightens up and leaves the young man looking tense and unsure. With one hand gently laying upon the wooden surface of his cargo, he says, “Something… very important to me,” he then reaches his other hand up, fingers splayed open and shaking as if to ward off concern. “-but I promise it’s nothing dangerous.”

You can smell a soft trace of anxiety around him. While the unexpected reaction incites a spark of curiosity within your chest, it’s not without a resounding sense of restraint and mannered respect for Tanjiro’s privacy. If he doesn’t wish to share the nature of it’s contents with you — someone who is little more than a stranger to him, admittedly — then he is under no such obligation. Still, you purse your lips for a moment in disappointment before lightly gesturing for him to step further into the house with you.

“I’d been cooking food when you arrived,” you say gently. “Clean yourself up and I’ll serve us both something hot to eat.”

It doesn’t take very long before the two of you are sitting together, sipping at the brothy soup that had been bubbling away for the entirety of the earlier afternoon. Though the majority of the meal is somewhat silent, Tanjiro’s eyes move about the room, taking in every detail that raises above the floor and out from the walls. It doesn’t take a genius to realize how well he fits into the ideal of a Demon Slayer — Tanjiro is perceptive and foolhardy with at least some basic talent for the blade on his hip.

Beyond that, however, you’re not quite sure what is to be expected of him as a slayer. He’s very kind and respectful… but those are hardly the traits you’ve come to associate with the title. Everything about the young man demands curiosity, so much that you don’t realize how his gaze has settled onto one particular spot on the wall behind you. By the time you remember what is hanging openly, Tanjiro’s lips are already forming a question -

“Whose sword is that on your wall?”

You don’t even turn your eyes around to look at it. The object has taken a defined place within your memories — you can’t forget the shape of the blade, the texture of the hilt, or the soft smile of it’s previous owner even if you genuinely wanted to purge them from your thoughts.

A sigh escapes your lips after a few moments. “It belonged to my mother,” you explain after a moment. When Tanjiro’s rust-colored eyes light up, you decide to answer the question just behind his lips. “And yes, it’s what you think it is. She was a demon slayer herself.”

“Oh,” the syllable falls with a sense of understanding of was rather than is. A misjudged understanding, given the ambiguity of your answer, but a respectful one nonetheless. “I’m sorry.”

A moment passes.

“And… your father?” Tanjiro asks.

The speed at which you shake your head is almost comical. No. No. The visual image is a joke in itself, and Tanjiro doesn’t even realize why his question is so humorous to you.

“My father was not the kind of person for that line of work.” a gentle chuckle does manage to escape the poised line of your lips. “…I doubt he’d be able to wield a blade like that in the first place.”

It feels as if the conversation is going to continue out from there, a gentle rolling of waves upon the edge of a beach after the brief storm of near-realization to what was hiding just beneath the surface of half-dodged answers. But it doesn’t manage to get farther than another breath before a noise sharply echoes out from the wooden box set out near the doorway and shocks both of you into a gazing silence.

“Tanjiro,” your tone is careful and your eyes hone in on the item. Caution prickles in your fingertips and against your tongue as claws and fangs slowly emerge from behind a carefully-kept glamor. “what is in that-”

“What are your thoughts on demons?”

You blink, turning to face the man again with a look that does not hide an ounce of your confusion. It takes a few moments for some of the dots to connect to one another. The reason for him asking your opinion is hanging right above your head, a heavy reminder to half of your heritage — but it doesn’t quite match all of the points of confusion all but emanating from Tanjiro and the strange box he carried with him.

Still, his question deserves an answer. And even as your eyes settle carefully on the square shape across the room, you offer one.

“Asking my thoughts on demons is no different than asking my thoughts on humans,” you say, words careful and tone oddly tight. “Some are good, some are bad, and none-” a sharp breath passes over your lips. “-none are perfect.”

Tanjiro’s eyes linger on you for a long while, longer than what feels comfortable for the silence between you. For a few moments you wonder if his question was a test and your answer had failed it abysmally, but it didn’t change your feelings on the matter in the slightest. Nothing ever will.

Another sharp noise echoes from the direction of the box. Your eyes begin to dart towards it, but the motion of Tanjiro’s body commands your attention towards him instead, he as if ready at any moment to launch himself towards the box, but his eyes meeting yours openly and earnestly.

“So you’re saying you think some demons can be good, right?”

You watch him, but sense no malice in the young man’s gaze.

“Of course.”

Relief seems to flood across his expression. When another, more rhythmic sound comes from the box, he doesn’t so much jump towards it as he does shuffle to his feet and step across the room. Before he’s able to reach it, however, the door suddenly opens to reveal a shape of pink fabric spilling out from within. You blink and watch as the fabric moves, and ever so quickly does your mind realize that there is a person within it, wearing the kimono that reminds you of cherry blossoms in springtime.

By the time Tanjiro is at the side of the wooden box and holding out an outstretched hand, you’ve come to realize that it’s been a young girl inside of it the entire time.

A demon. The scent doesn’t escape your nose for a moment, though it lacks the underlying sharpness of iron you’d come to expect from others of her kind and yours alike.

And Tanjiro regards her with tolerance, nay, respect. It seems to take the young woman a few moments to orientate herself to her surroundings, but he smiles at her with all the same gentleness.

“It’s okay, Nezuko,” Tanjiro says brightly, pulling the woman onto her feet. “This is a safe place.”

Despite all the words that press up behind your tongue, you can’t help but stare at the young duo. Tanjiro smiles and gestures towards the young woman beside him, Nezuko.

“This is my… younger sister,” he says at last. The air settles around the room in a nonverbal confirmation of information that doesn’t take more than a heartbeat to confirm, but it leaves you equally confused and curious all the same.

“Tanjiro,” you murmur, words finally picking up a semblance of strength. “This may be a stupid question, but are you aware that your sister is currently a demon?”

Though it’s not clear what would have been more surprising of an answer, Tanjiro’s honest nod does seem to do plenty to throw you for a loop. A demon slayer traveling around with a demon at his side? The notion vexes you completely, even if the demon in question is a member of his familiy. Unless…

“Was she born a demon?”

Tanjiro and Nezuko both look at you, the former with a more defined look of confusion across his face.

“Born…?” he asks. “As in turned? Turned into a demon?”

“Ah,” you suddenly feel a bit silly and more than a little embarrassed as his confusion seems to be genuine. “I think I misunderstood a few things. I’ve got my answer in any case but, no, I did actually mean born as in physically birthed.”

While Nezuko loses interest in the conversation and begins to roam about the room, her brother slowly settles back onto his spot across from you — albeit shooting a glance to his young sister every once in a while which is admittedly endearing. The two of them seem barely old enough to be out on their own, and you’re not sure if the demon slayers even have a minimum age requirement to begin with as long as someone can hold a weapon and defend another.

“How could someone give birth to a demon?” Tanjiro finally asks. “I thought they were only created by… uh.” he pauses for a few moments, waiting as if to catch something in your eyes. Recognition perhaps? “…A man named Muzan Kibutsugi.”

He’s not bothering to conceal his befuddled expression as, behind his eyes, you can see the threads of thought and logic try desperately to put an answer together from the bits of information he already knows about demon-kind.

“Most are,” your words taste bittersweet on the tongue. “But not all of them. Some demons can create other demons if they’re strong enough.”

Tanjiro nods as the faces of both Lady Tamayo and Yushiro appear in his mind’s eye. Though she had been a demon created by Muzan, he recalled that Yushiro was created by her hand in the continuing search for a cure to turn someone human once more. It had been the only instance where he’d come across a demon not created by the demon king himself, but it’s a clear enough example that Tanjiro doesn’t need to stretch his mind very far to understand your words.

Seeing this recognition, your hand raises to gesture up towards your chest, fingertips barely skimming across the wash-worn fabric of your kimono.

“You asked before about some demons being ‘good’.”

Tanjiro nods. Even Nezuko has moved her attention towards you, though she stands solemnly in one of the darker corners of the room as her eyes glow like shimmering sakura blossoms.

Considering the nature of whom was sitting in front of you — the organization for which Tanjiro allied himself with — there was a part of you that wished to simply lie between your teeth and wait out the night until it would be socially acceptable to all but kick the young warrior out of your home. That part had good reasons to be cautious and fearful, but another part of you found something hopeful behind the young man’s eyes. You aren’t naïve enough to call it ‘trust’, but the emotion is certainly within the same pond.

“My father was a good man,” your hand lingers, stilled against your chest and all but faintly feeling the thrum of your own heartbeat. “An odd man, but a good one. Tended to the fields, took care of my mother when she fell ill, even managed to make friends with some folks of the local village. He respected everyone around him.”

Even as he remains politely silent, something starts to click in Tanjiro’s eyes, even before you finish the point of your words.

“…my father was also a demon created by Kibutsugi.”

Tanjiro blinks with wide surprise and shock stilling the words that otherwise press against the back of his lips. While there had been a growing hunch forming somewhere within his thoughts, he can’t help the suddenness of the question needed to confirm them when he finally can speak again.

“Does that mean that you are-”

“Half-demon, yes.”

"How does that even...happen...?"

You chuckle, "I'd imagine how most people go about having babies."

Tanjiro's cheeks turn a dark red, and he quickly drops that particular line of questions.

You try to offer the young man a comforting smile, but he continues to stare in a summation of awe and disbelief. He’d never even thought that a demon and human could have a child together. For the longest time since learning of their existence, Tanjiro simply thought that demons couldn’t have children at all — like an extension of the curse befallen upon them, leaving them wanting for human flesh and blood, feral and wild and-

It is then that Tanjiro’s thoughts click into place once more. No. He’s not without multiple examples to the contrary, strengthened each and every day by the knowledge that his own sister is of the same creation as many of the demons so easily vilified and hated. But, even then, it doesn’t change the fact that Nezuko is a rarity — her lack of bloodshed is, as far as he’d learned, a genuine oddity among other demons.

“… Have you killed anyone?” he finally asks. His eyes glance towards the floor, looking almost ashamed in having to speak the words.

You shake your head. The question is hardly a surprise — you actually would have been more caught off-guard if that hadn’t been the first thought on his mind. But oddly enough, the question is something of a comfort. It allows to you answer it honestly.

“I haven’t hurt or killed anyone before — since part of my blood itself is human, my diet is relatively lackluster.” with a sweep of your hand, you gesture out to the empty bowls in front of the two of you. “I can be out beneath the sun, but my skin is somewhat sensitive to it; just a short while in direct sunlight can leave me with a terrible burn.”

Tanjiro nods. He brings up a hand to his chin for a moment to ponder over the details and new information as what appears to be every thread of his thoughts devote to try and weave it all together with what he already knew. One detail into another, filling up the ever-growing sense of curiosity that he had for demons and those around them. If nothing else, it proved that there were still things that not even the Demon Slayer corps understood properly — or, if they did, they certainly didn’t admit to them. The Hashira’s response to Nezuko solidified that well enough.

After a few moments, Tanjiro’s attention flicks back up to your face.

“Your… mother was a demon slayer, right?”

You nod politely, though it doesn’t take more than a quick glance back up to the nichirin blade hanging above both of your heads on the wall behind you to be reminded of the fact.

Tanjiro’s gaze tilts ever so slightly with his head to one side. “How did your mother and father meet?”

You shrug. “I never learned much of the details, though I do know that he was at one time a demon she was sent out to kill.”

Tanjiro chuckles after a few moments.

“I think I can guess what came after that,” he says. “So was your father… around much after you were born?”

“Of course!” your expression all but beams at the gentle memories. “Just because he was a demon doesn’t mean by default he was a bad or neglectful father. Though I suppose he so often seemed sickly to others; not able to go outside during the day, having to hide himself when there was company… I admit there is a lot about my father I still don’t know.”

For but a flicker of a moment, you are absolutely certain that there is a sadness within Tanjiro’s eyes. A mutual bitterness, empathetic beyond words. But the look is gone ever so quick, so much that if your perception was but a moment slower it would have been missed entirely.

But what remains is yet a soft expression.

“Thank you,” he finally says. “I am trying to learn as much as I can about demons right now.”

“I assume as much, being a demon slayer.”

“No, no it’s-” the young man looks suddenly flushed. “I promise I’m-… I’m not going to tell anyone about you. I just, think that… there’s a lot that I don’t understand. But I would like to. You see, my sister and I-”

And so, Tanjiro tells you the story of how he and his sister began traveling together — the murder of his family, his sister being turned into a demon, his promise to himself and those he lost that he would try to right all of the wrongs that had been done to them. He explains how he joined the demon slayers, how he had met other demons who had been kind to him in much the same way that you had been. Though the names Tamayo and Yushiro held no recognition, they did bring a sense of warmth to your chest in the confirmation that being a demon didn’t truly mean one had to give up their sense of humanity and kindness.

One topic moved onto another as the night continued on and the rainstorms moved in. Through the soft pitter-patter of water against the roof, you did your best to answer as many of Tanjiro’s questions as you could despite the fact that your knowledge of Muzan went no farther than simply hearing it once or twice and having a basic understanding of his role in the origin of demons themselves. There is also something admittedly humorous in watching Tanjiro’s expression when your glamor falls just a little, revealing sharp claws at the tip of each finger and fangs barely hidden behind the press of your lips.

“Neither my father nor I had any semblance of combat ability, but they’re useful for hunting.” a moment passes. “Animals, I mean. Me and mother still had to eat something.”

Perhaps it’s the reminder of your mother, and her lack of presence in the house with you, that finally encourages the question forth, “How long have your parents been…?”

“Dead?” you don’t fear the sound of the word or the notion behind it. “It will be twenty years this coming spring.”

“Twenty years?” Tanjiro gawks. “H-how old are you then?”

“I was born in 1857, so…” you do the math in your head, giving Tanjiro several moments to try and come to terms with the fact that you barely look older than your mid twenties at most. “This year I will be fifty-five!”

Your bright, sharp grin is in hilarious contrast with the shock all but painted across the young man’s face. After giving him a breath to take in the information, you point out, “I am half-demon. Time doesn’t mean as much to my health as it does a normal demon.”

“I… see,” Tanjiro’s eyes return to normal, but there’s no hiding his lingering awe. “So will just a nichirin blade… kill you?”

You have to laugh at just how shy the question is for the severity of the words. “Trying to plan my demise already, demon slayer?”

Though Tanjiro immediately begins to shake his hand and try to babble out an apology and explanation alike, you aren’t cruel enough to let it linger for more than a moment before explaining, “A normal blade could behead me and I would die. I could drown in a lake or perish from a high enough fall. In all things but old age, I’m still very mortal, Tanjiro — for better or worse. I can’t speak for any other half-demon you may come across, but I know that much.”

A moment of silence passes between you. Tanjiro thankfully doesn’t ask about your parents or their passing. In fact, he seems rather satisfied by the amount of information he’s gotten already, so much that his mind constantly looks as if it’s rolling about within his skull, putting together a puzzle with far too many pieces missing for most people to even bother in the first place.

The rain continues to fall. It’s a gentle white noise, ceaseless, and punctured only by the dull rolling sounds of thunder as it moves across the edges of your perception. It doesn’t take long for you to realize the time either, knowing even without looking out the door or window that the moon is high into the night sky and that, furthermore, it was not hospitable of you to keep your guest from getting a good night’s rest.

“If you have no more questions, I think it would be a good idea to get some sleep.”

There were more questions — there is always more questions — but Tanjiro can’t ignore the fact that it’s late and, yes, he would need to be moving along to his next destination early in the morning. It doesn't’ take long to ready a place for him to sleep, and less so for Nezuko who seems content to simply be near her older brother. Though she doesn’t speak a single word to you, the look in her eyes seems soft and curious, perhaps even grateful.

It’s understandable why Tanjiro has such a moderate view of demons despite being among the Demon Slayer Corps himself.

That fact in itself is something of a comfort as much as it is a curiosity, one that lingers with you even when you see the young man off the next morning, so early that the sun has barely crested above the hills and mountains on the horizon.

And Tanjiro, as he leaves, finds himself renewed with energy and questions alike. Every time he thinks he has a strong grasp on the world around him, something new emerges that throws it further into perspective in an ever-growing map of knowledge. Though the edges continue to get blurrier, there’s something nice in familiarizing himself in it. To Tanjiro, it brings him further hope for the future of not only himself, but for the Demon Slayer Corps and the greater world around them.

Maybe, he hopes, he’ll run into you again one day.

And maybe then he’ll be able to introduce his sister to you as a human — or perhaps the world will have grown in such a way that, like the union of your parents and the makeup of your own blood, it won’t even matter in the first place.

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #fic #male!reader #sfw #sfw fic #writing #sfw writing #gen fic #gen writing #no ship writing #no ship fic #readerinsert #readershot #tanjiro #tanjiro kamado #request fill

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miceenscene · 3 years

Text

Star-Crossed

din djarin/female oc | soulmate AU | pre-canon

wc: 2.3k / 9.8k (so far)

summary: The Way was not supposed to be a solitary one. People, house, clan. And when all else failed, your Match. “Fits like a Mandalorian Match” was the old saying. Though it wasn’t so long ago that it stopped making sense. But what's a lost Match to a man like Din Djarin?

warnings: canon-typical violence, lol does pining need a warning??

Previous Chapter | Masterpost | ao3

Chapter Four: The Difference

It was as the hull door was slowly shutting behind them that Din realized he'd invited someone to join him on a semi-permanent basis.

It was as the hull door was slowly shutting behind them that Din realized he’d invited someone to join him on a semi-permanent basis.

He’d never done that before.

Ever.

Sometimes people were more passengers than quarry, but they never stayed before.

They always left.

Nia stayed.

It took some getting used to, having another person around.

Old habits had to be adjusted. His helmet now only came off in bed or the fresher.

Though once he did forget it till he was halfway across the hull, half-awake and scrounging through the ration bars to find the good ones. It took a boot scrape on the floor above him to remind him that there was another living thing aboard.

There was an undignified scramble back to the bed cubby, but the helmet was firmly in place before Nia appeared down the ladder.

Other habits were completely abandoned.

“Heading out?” Nia asked, looking up from her flight manual as the hull door dropped slowly open.

Din pulled a few hand grenades out of the armory and tucked them into his belt. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“I’m coming with you.” She picked up her bo staff and the pistol that she’d taken from the Sergeant.

“There’s no need–”

“I’m not going to sit here and babysit an empty ship.”

“I work alone,” he hedged.

“You offered to help me. And since the only thing my mind seems to bother recalling is fighting, I’m sure as hell not going to let that slip out of my grasp too.” She crossed her arms and gave him a very obstinate look.

Out of habit, she got the usual treatment he gave people when they argued: silence.

It was laughably ineffective.

They just wound up staring at each other for several minutes in stubborn silence.

She’d stand there till the sun went down, he could feel it in his bones.

Call it a Match hunch, which did not technically exist but might as well have.

“Fine. But wherever I go, you go, understood?”

“Loud and clear.”

Her stubbornness didn’t stop once they were off the ship either.

A quarry got away from them for a full two days because they kept arguing about battlefield tactics.

They got the clawdite in the end. But only once they’d both apologized and made a new plan together.

And there was also the time she flew the ship without him.

Granted, he’d been knocked unconscious. And they did need to outrun the X-wings.

And for a woman who couldn’t remember where she was two moon cycles ago, she was a fair pilot.

If he didn’t care to use the ship ever again.

That dent in the hull wouldn’t come out no matter how many mechanics tried.

Even still, it seemed to take very little time at all before Nia’s presence was thoroughly expected and normal.

She seemed to… enjoy herself at times. And he did too, if he was honest.

Not that she wasn’t still deeply odd.

She spoke fluent mando’a, but fought like no Mandalorian he’d ever seen.

She could meditate for hours, and always seemed keenly aware of his exact location nearby when she did.

And then one evening, he came down from the flight deck, ready to climb into bed for some rest when he found her… contorted in the middle of the hull.

Her body was bent and stretched in ways he wasn’t previously aware that bodies could move.

Or at least move and still survive.

He watched as, without any hurry at all, she moved from one impossible pose to another; her breath and muscles in perfect control.

She could have made any of his old trainers proud with her self-mastery.

“You’re staring,” she said without looking his way.

His face heated under the helmet. He should have guessed this would be like her meditation.

“What are you doing?” he asked, moving to sit on a crate and pull off his boots.

She ended her routine by standing and bringing her hands pressed together in front of her chest and letting out one last long breath.

“I don’t know exactly. All I know is I feel restless if I don’t,” she said, turning around to face him. She patted his shoulder as she passed. “Sleep well.”

That happened often. Her touching him.

Even in the covert, even in his years of training back on Mandalore, no one had touched him so often.

And so casually too.

Like it was nothing at all for her to rest her arm on his shoulders as he demonstrated how to properly land the ship.

Or to sit so close to him when eating that her arm brushed his with every movement.

Maybe it was nothing at all to her.

But it was much more than nothing to him.

Her hands were all over him as she trained him in polearms, adjusting his grip, shifting the angle of his arms, urging him to relax the tension between his shoulder blades.

She held his hips to guide him through the weight transfer he kept overshooting, his face hot enough to melt his helmet clean off the entire time.

She quickly noticed how stiff he was around her. To his detriment.

He’d just been stepping around her in the flight deck.

Then suddenly a hand jabbed his rib cage.

He jumped, a strange noise cutting out of him as he did.

Nia broke immediately into a resounding laugh, pressing a hand to cover her mouth, doing a poor job of dampening the sound.

“I’m sorry!” she managed after a moment. “I–I didn’t know you’d… oh I’m s-sorry, Din.”

That was the first time he heard her laugh. It softened her blow considerably.

The second time he heard her laugh was when he retaliated two days later.

She leapt to the other side of the hull and was in a full fighting stance before she realized that he’d poked her.

Then she laughed again, making him laugh too, a smile beaming from under his helmet.

It happened somewhere when he wasn’t paying attention.

Somewhere between debating infiltration tactics and sparring, between knowing glances while Karga attempted to short-change them and long warm afternoons spent up in sniper’s nests, waiting for their quarry to return home…

She became his friend.

“I figured it out,” Nia said as she sat at the bar of a crowded cantina. She’d been sent in alone, semi-undercover as she was far less conspicuous than he was, to find their quarry. “An emergency induction tube. Then you can drink in bars with me and keep the helmet on.”

Outside in the alley, Din scoffed and spoke over the commlink in his helmet. “An emergency induction tube?”

“I have one now.”

He looked through the window to see her sip her drink through a straw. He chuckled then answered, “Still won’t work.”

She grunted, feigning annoyance. “‘Wherever you go, I go’ always seems to stop counting when it's time to relax.”

Under the helmet, he smiled.

“Do you have friends, Din?”

“What?” he asked over the commlink. Had he heard her right?

“I said, do you have friends? Been flying with you for a few months now, and I’m still waiting to meet them.”

“You met Ran and his crew.”

“You think Ranzar Malk and the rest of those criminals are your friends?” she asked, a little incredulously. “Didn’t Qin try to stab you during the last job?”

Technically, it was Xi’an who tried to stab him. “They’re… contacts.”

“So that’s a no on friends.”

He paused then said, “You’re my friend.”

Through the small vantage he had, he could see her smile down at her drink, eyes glancing just his way. His chest warmed.

“So one woman with a head like Corellian cheese. That’s… pretty good for a bounty hunter.”

“Same number you have right now.”

Her chuckle was low, sparking a single star burst high in his chest. “You have me there. Ah, found him. Target’s at the sabacc tables. I’ll flush him out into the alley.”

They had a good partnership. And he was happy to share most everything with her, what little amenities he could offer aboard The Razor Crest.

He didn’t realize she hadn’t been sleeping in the bed for weeks. Not until he came down from the flight deck early and found her curled in a corner of the hull, still using his cape as a blanket.

She didn’t seem to know where it had come from. And he certainly wasn’t going to inform her or take it back.

When he asked why she wasn’t using the bed, she said that it was his.

“It belongs to whoever’s sleeping,” he replied, firmly meaning it.

She took him at his word.

He hadn’t really been prepared, however, to crawl into the cubby after a long day and find that the whole space smelled like her soap.

She’d bought it in the first city they arrived in weeks back. Now it was all over his blankets.

Sea air. And wildflowers.

With the door to the cubby firmly shut, he slept with the helmet off that night…

And every night after, an unstoppable glow building in his chest.

Her memories, unfortunately, did not return. Or certainly not as fast as the droid made it seem like it would.

In several months, very little arrived.

Early childhood memories of Mandalore before the Great Purge. But no explanation of the control chip, or her skills.

She kept up a strong aloof appearance of her defect, but every so often, Din caught a glimpse of her despair hiding behind it.

They were in hyperspace, both working on small projects during the journey. He was outfitting one of his guns with a new scope, and Nia had taken to carving designs on her bo staff. It was turning into quite the fine weapon in her steady hands.

They’d been quietly working for a while when she started humming a low, slow tune. She didn’t even seem to be aware she was doing it.

Din looked up at her as her quiet song continued. Her curly dark hair twisted high on her head, back bowed over her staff in her lap as she deepend the etchings she’d done.

Her song wound back on itself and only then did she seem to realize what she’d been doing.

She looked up and sucked in a shaky gasp.

“Are you alright?” he asked gently.

She nodded, bottom lip quivering and eyes turning glassy. “My father used to sing that song,” she finally explained with a watery smile.

Though she couldn’t see, he smiled back, a tightness clenching high in his chest.

A bright fullness so wide it pushed out all the air in his lungs to make room.

He’d been feeling that a lot lately.

It wasn’t unpleasant, though it was annoying at times.

Especially when it showed up in the middle of a fight after Nia did something particularly skilled against her opponent.

It seemed to have no rhythm or source… besides her.

The galaxy was just different with her around.

It didn’t seem so soulless.

Perhaps because she noticed the small ignorable things.

Grabbing his arm to stop and watch street performers in a market he would have otherwise just passed through.

Pointing out the broad purple sweep of the planet’s rings through the night sky as they walked the quarry back to the ship.

Or perhaps because it was just simply nice to have someone around. Someone he enjoyed spending time with, someone who would have his back in danger, someone he trusted.

He knew what the star bursts high in his chest meant.

He wasn’t obtuse.

But there was a large difference between understanding and ready to admit, even just to himself.

Much less to her.

As for Nia, it took her several months to ask the inevitable.

He could feel her gearing up to ask something. Must be something pointed with how long her wind up was, nearly a full ration bar.

“Can I ask about your helmet?”

“No, you can’t wear it,” he answered, not looking up from the gun he was cleaning. He got a small smack on his arm for the answer, making him grin.

“I know that. I meant… your oath is to not show your face to another living being ever. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Not even your clan?”

He looked up now. “I don’t have a clan. I was a foundling.”

“But you could have one someday–unless that’s also part of the oath.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not part of it.”

Nia leaned forward, deadly serious. “So… say you have a spouse, or children, they’d never know your face?”

She sounded… sad, he realized after a moment.

He’d had plenty of questions about his helmet; it came with being a Mandalorian. But none before had ever looked at his helmet and seen tragedy.

Not even him.

“When I took the creed, I gave up my old life. The helmet is my face. That’s what it means to be Mandalorian.”

“But I knew my parents’ faces… and they were Mandalorian.”

No they weren’t, a voice not his own hissed in the back of his mind, nasty and cruel and he didn’t know where it had come from.

He shook his head. “I don’t know… but this is what I was taught. This Is The Way.”

She didn’t press it any further, but the quiet disagreement in her eyes stuck with him as he drifted to sleep, alone and helmetless in sea air and wildflowers.

Chapter 5: The Discovery

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#The Mandalorian #Din Djarin #Pedro Pascal #Din Djarin x ofc #the mandalorian #mando x you #Din Djarin fanfic #soulmate au #Star Crossed #my writing

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bunnyywritings · 4 years

Note

Could you please do Akaashi, kuroo, suga and Tsukishima comforting reader because she has an ED and feels disgusting and gross every time she eats? I’ve been feeling like shit lately and my ED is getting worse and I just need comfort rn, it’d mean a lot to me thank u:)

comforting fem!s/o with an ED

[a/n: hi hi anon! Thank you for the request I’m sorry that this is a little late but I really hope you feel better soon and that these can bring you some comfort!💓💓 i love u sweetheart!! I made these kinda like mini scenarios? drabbles? instead of hcs -yours truly, bunnyy -`ღ´- ]

TW: mentions of an ED, throwing up, nothing too explicit

❁ akaashi keiji

It didn’t take him long to figure out that you were acting a bit strange. Whenever he suggested going to grab lunch after school, you had always shrugged and said you weren’t too hungry and you were still full from lunch, but he knew you hadn’t eaten then either but he didn’t say anything so you two would just go to a cafe or something. He was starting to get very worried when you were getting headaches or when he saw that you were just less energetic than usual.

“(Y/n), you know you could tell me anything right? I would never judge you for being honest with me.” He held your hand from across the table, gently running his thumb over your knuckles.

You guys had just returned from a date where you had barely touched your food, again. Sighing, you stared at the table before nervously looking back up at him.

“I-“ Mouth opening an closing a few times in indecision. Should you be honest? Or should you tell another little white lie? He noticed the internal struggle that you were having as your eyes started to swirl with tears and panic started to bubble in his chest.

“You don’t have to say anything, my love. I just want you to know that I’m here for you.” The warmth and concern in his words made the tears drop as you nodded.

“I just...I haven’t been r-really eating.” He nodded, his suspicions confirmed as he calmly waited for you to continue. “It feels wrong, just the thought of eating makes me sick to my stomach.” A frown wrinkled his face as a bitter laugh rumbled from your chest. “Even if I was sick to my stomach, it’s not like anything would come up.” Your shoulder started to shake as you looked down at your lap, taking your hand from his and covering your mouth. Quickly rushing to you, he pulled you up from your seat and pulled you into his chest. An arm wrapped tightly around your waist and the other around your shoulder, gently pressing your head into the crook of his neck. His heart clenching painfully as you tightly clutched onto his shirt.

He held you tightly, waiting until your tears subsided.

“I can’t say I know what that feels like but-“ he softly peeled you away from him, holding you at arms length. “You don’t have to go through it alone. I still love you and will make sure to do the most that I can to show you every day.” His hand came up and carefully caressed your cheek. “I can help you in any way you want me to, just know that I will always be here for you.”

The two of you had cuddled afterwards where he whispered sweet nothings into your ear. He loves you, there’s nothing that can stop him from being there for the most important person in his life.

❁ kuroo tetsuro

It would take him a little longer than Akaashi to figure out that you were having trouble. It’s not that he isn’t observant, you’re just really good at hiding it. You took every precaution possible. If you two were on a date where there was food involved, you’d take advantage of whenever he went into the bathroom. Throwing away or hiding your meal so it looks like you had eaten. However, recently it had gotten worse.

You had worked up the courage to eat at least one small thing/meal a day. Whether it was a granola bar, some onigiri, or even half a sandwich. You were proud of yourself for being able to keep your disgust down but other days just weren’t as good. The moment any food touched your tongue, you gagged and spit it out or it would even go as far as you having to rush to the toilet and throw it up.

Kuroo had invited you over to his place, he was having Kenma and a few of the boys over for a video game/movie night so, he thought why not invite my amazing, gorgeous girlfriend. You had survived the night so far, dodging offers of snacks with the ‘I’m full’ or ‘I had dinner before coming’ but when they had ordered some pizza is when things went downhill.

You figured that if you waited a few minutes, all the slides would be claimed and inhaled by the boys and it was working so far...until Kuroo insisted that you at least have a piece and with every bodies eyes on you, you felt pressured and took the tiniest slice there was. You were a little surprised when you hadn’t immediately spit it back out but the moment you swallowed it, you felt your body lurch in disgust. Willing yourself to keep it down was hard, but you did so and distracted yourself with beating Lev at Super Smash Bro’s. Once it was time for everyone to go, you felt a little guilty at the relief that spread through your body but when Kuroo had gone outside to see everyone off, that’s when you took your chance. You rushed over to the restroom and started to purge anything that was in your stomach. What you hadn’t accounted for was how long it actually took you.

“Hey kitten, if you’re still h-“ He paused when he caught you hunched over the toilet, expelling what little was in your stomach. “Oh my god! (Y/n) are you okay?!” He got onto his knees beside you and comfortingly rubbed your back. This is kinda the moment where he put two and two together. He was besides you through the whole thing, rubbing your back and holding your hand as you rinsed out your mouth. The two of you had sat down to talk about it. Instant guilt flooding his body as he remembered on how insistent he was to get you to eat.

“I’m so sorry kitten...”

“I-It’s okay Tetsu, you didn’t know.” A surprised squeal left your mouth as he pulled you onto his lap, pressing little kisses all over your face. Whispering words of love and encouragement after each one. He vowed to help you and to shower you with encouragement and love every damn day.

❁ sugawara koushi

He knows. He’s known for a bit but he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable and bring it up. He would encourage you to eat, or he’d slip little snack into your bag along with a cute little note. At that point, you knew that he knew. So you worked with him to come up with a way that he could be involved with helping you slowly get to being able to stomach whole meals.

What neither of you really expected was the sudden relapse that you had experienced. And it hit you hard.

He had come over one morning and found you absolutely distraught. There was a plate in front of you and a half eaten bagel, but beside it was a little bit of the bagel that you had spit out. He rushed to your side and pulled you into his arms.

“I-I’m sorry Koushi, I-“

“Darling, why are you apologizing?” He asked quietly, hand raking through your hair in a comforting manner.

“B-Because, after all t-the hard work t-that you helped me w-with...it was all for nothing.” You cried into his chest.

“Of course it wasn’t.” He placed a gentle kiss to your forehead. “If anything, I’m proud of you darling. You didn’t spit out all of it right?” You mumbled a small ‘no.’ “You got the rest of it down, and that’s all that matters.”

You guys spent that morning in each other’s arms, before he helped you run your errands. He had gotten you to eat a little bit of granola bar throughout the day and some water so you could at least get some of the necessary nutrients for the day. Once you guys had made it back to your place and he grinned widely, holding the empty wrapper in front of you.

“See, you finished an ENTIRE granola bar today. You should be proud, I know I am.”

He always reminded you that even the smallest victories are the biggest ones.

“I love you darling.” He gently grasped your chin between his fingers. “You’re making amazing progress and I’m greatful that you’re letting me be apart of it.” He presses a loving kiss on your lips, both of your mouths moving together lovingly and softly. You were blown away at how supportive he was, but honestly, he coudn’t help it. He loved you and that was enough reason to help you on your journey.

❁ tsukishima kei

Kei understood to some degree. Some weeks he would go without eating for a couple days in a row. Not on purpose really, just because he forgets. Plus, it’s not like he eats a ton on a daily basis.

He’s very observant, so he notices very quickly that you’re not really eating. He doesn’t really know how to approach it so he just...doesn’t. He finally does when he notices that you’re slowly slipping and you’re less and less like yourself. He feels guilty that he hadn’t brought it up sooner. He just isn’t good with talking about sensitive/vulnerable things. He surprisingly asks Suga and Daichi for help, not mentioning what the topic is but just for advice on how to bring up a sensitive topic and how to encourage someone.

Both are almost in tears at his serious question.

They give him the best advice they can with what little information they have but their happy to help.

He’s contemplating on when to bring it up but when he catches you throwing away your untouched lunch. It was very awkward and blunt but it was in normal Kei fashion. You could hear the concerned undertone to his question. Watching and listening calmly when you tried to stutter out an excuse.

“I know you’re not eating, (y/n)...why?” He sighed. If you hadn’t known him, you would’ve thought he was annoyed.

“I-well I’m just not feeling very hungry t-today...” You laughed nervously, watching as he gave you a bit of a harsh look and you sighed. “Okay, okay. I not feeling hungry, ever.” You groaned quietly. “It’s hard to explain...I just don’t like how it feels when I eat. Whenever the food just touches my tongue, it-“ he watched as you shuddered in disgust.

“But you know you need to eat right? You can’t be skipping meals every day.” Your face quickly turned sour.

“You’re one to talk, you barely even eat most days too.” You frowned, he could basically see steam coming out of your nose as you stood up from your seat. “So how are you gonna sit there and tell me that eating is important. I KNOW it is okay?! You don’t think I get frustrated that I can’t even stomach a freaking banana, Kei.” You laughed bitterly but his heart broke once he saw your tears. “A banana...” He frowned, making his way to you and wrapping you in his arms. Your legs were trembling, both of you falling to your knees.

“I-I’m sorry (y/n), I didn’t really think about it like that...” He’s beating himself up for upsetting you further.

So, he did his research. He read up on a bunch of studies and articles about EDs and how they work. The psychological damage and the difficult process of recovery. He didn’t care. If the process took months or years, he’d be there right by your side. He wanted you in his life for a long, long time.

You were a bit surprised at how hands on he was. He was helping you start off slow. He was also making sure to eat everyday so he wasn’t being a hypocrite and so you could see that he was there with your. You can see the little smile on his lips when you make progress, and if you digress or you have a relapse, he still has that smile and tells you how much he loves you and how thrilled he was about your development.

“You’re not sick of me right?” Your voice was echoed because you were currently hunched over the toilet bowl, you had felt the need to throw up but nothing came up.

“Of course not. I love you, you idiot.” He gently massages your thigh, “I see us having a future together...I want us to have a future together.” You sat upright, eyes glistening and lips twitched up in a grin.

“I do too...” You leaned forward to kiss him but he put a hand in front of your mouth.

“Not until you at least rinse.”

“But I didn’t even throw up~” You whined. He shook his head, fighting the smile threatening to split his lips.

God he loved you. So, so much.

hehehe basically all these boys would 100% support you in your recovery and shower you with love and cuddles

#akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi x reader #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo x reader #sugawara koshi x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima x reader #haikyuu x reader #anon ask #anon request

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st-just · 3 years

Text

Barely coherent rambling about nation-states, culture, the Hapsburgs, and Canada

Because why have a blog except to occasionally purge one of the essays floating around half-formed in your brain. To be clear, it’s still half-formed, just on tumblr now. 1,666 words, here’s the Deveraux essay mentioned. Book is Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs: To Rule The World

So I’ve had like, nationalism on my mind recently.

And so there’s a kind of recurring beat in left-of-centre American political discourse (like, not ‘internet rnados screaming at each other’ discourse, ‘people with doctorates or think tank positions having debates on podcasts or exchanging op eds’ discourse) where you have some people on the radical end list some of the various horrible atrocities the country is built on, the ways that all the national myths are lies, and how all the saints of the civic religion were monsters to one degree or another – this can come in a flavor of either righteous anger or, like, intellectual sport. And then on the other end you have the, well, Matt Yglesiases of the world. Who don’t really argue any of the points of fact, but do kind of roll their eyes at the whole exercise and say that sure, but Mom and Apple Pie and the American Way are still popular, and if you’re trying to win power in a democracy telling the majority of the population that their most cherished beliefs are both stupid and evil isn’t a great move.

Anyway, a couple weeks back Deveraux posted an essay for the 4th of July (which I don’t totally buy, but is an interesting read) about why the reason American nationalism is so intensely bundled up into a couple pieces of paper and maybe a dozen personalities is precisely because it isn’t a nation at all. Basically, his thesis is that in proper nation-states like England or the Netherlands or wherever, there really is a core population that is the overwhelming demographic majority and really have lived in more or less the same places since time immemorial, and that once the enthographers and mythologists finish their work, all those people really do identify with both the same nation and the same state as its expression. America, by contrast, is by virtue of being a settler nation whose citizenry was filled by waves of immigrants from all the ass ends of Eurasia in a historical eyeblink, even before you add in the native population and descendants of slaves lacks any single core ethnicity that is anywhere close to a majority, as well as any organic national traditions or claims to an ‘ancestral homeland’ that aren’t obviously absurd (and we are trying to include the descendents of slaves and the native population these days, to varying levels of success). All this to say that his point is America is a civic state, not a national one, with the identity of ‘American’ being divorced from ethnicity and instead tied to things like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the whole cult around the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and [FDR and/or Reagan depending on your politics].

Which, like I said, don’t totally buy, but interesting. (to a degree he overstates how homogenus ‘actual’ nation-states are, he makes America sound very special but if his analysis holds that it’d presumably also apply to several other former settler colonies, in the American context there’s a fairly solid case to be made that the whole ‘nation of immigrants’ story and the racial identity of whiteness were constructed to function as an erratz national ethnicity, with incredible success, etc, etc).

But anyway, if we accept that the American identity is bound up in its civic religion and the mythologized version of its political history, it’s absolutely the case that there’s several segments of the left who take incredibly joy in tearing said civic religion and national mythology apart and dragging whatever’s left through the mud. I mean, hell, I do! (reminder: any politician whose ever had a statue dedicated to them was probably a monster). And, well, call it a greater awareness of historical crimes and injustice, or the postmodern disdain for idols and systems leaking out through the increasingly college-educated populace, or the liquid acid of modernity dissolving away all unchosen identities, or a Marxist cabal undermining the national spirit to pave the way for the Revolution or whatever you like, but in whichever case, that critical discourse is certainly much more prominent and influential among left and liberal media and politics types that is was in decades past.

And, okay, so I finished Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs a few days ago. And I mentioned as I was reading it that the chapters on the 19th and 20th centuries reminded me quite a bit of courses I’d taken in school on the late Ottoman Empire and Soviet Union. Because all three are multi/non-national states (Empires, in Deveraux’s terminology, though that’s varying degrees of questionable for each, I think. Moreso for the Hapsburgs than the rest) who outlasted their own ideological legitimacy. And in all three cases it just, well, it didn’t not matter, but even as all the ceremonies got more absurd and farcical and the politics more consumed by inertia punctuated with crises, things kept limping along just fine for decades. Even in the face of intense crisis, dissolution wasn’t inevitable. (The Ottomans are a less central example here, admittedly, precisely because of the late attempt to recenter the empire on Turkish nationalism. But even then, more Arab soldiers fought for the Sultan-Caliph than ever did for the Hashemites, and most prewar Arab nationalism was either purely cultural or imagined the Empire reformed into a binational federation, not dissolved).

But as Rady says in the book – losing WW1 crippled Germany, it dissolved Austria-Hungary. And in all three cases, as soon as they were gone, the idea of bringing them back instantly became at least a bit absurd.

And okay, to now pivot to talking about where I actually live but about whose politics I (shamefully) know significantly less than America’s. I mean, maybe it’s because most of my history education from public school was given by either pinko commies or liberals still high off ‘90s one-world universalism, or maybe it’s just a matter of social class, but I really can’t remember ever having taken the whole wannabe civic religion of Canada seriously (the only even serious attempt at sacredness I recall was for Remembrance Day). Even today, the main things I remember about our Founding Father is that he was an alcoholic who lost power in a railroad corruption scandal.

Really, in all my experience the only unifying threads of national/particular Canadian identity are a flag, a healthcare system, those Canadian Heritage Minute propaganda ads, a bill of rights from the ‘60s, and an overpowering sense of polite smugness towards the States.

And that last one (or, at least, the generally rose-colored ‘Canada is the good one’ view of history) is taking something of a beating, on account of all the mass graves really rubbing the public’s noses in the whole genocide thing. At least among big segments of the intellectual and activist classes, most of the symbols of Canadian nationhood are necessarily becoming illegitimate as Canada is, in fact, a project of genocidal settle colonialism.

But it really is just purely symbolic. Most of the municipalities who cancelled their Canada Day celebrations are going to elect Liberal MPs and help give our Natural Governing Party its majority in the next election, no one of any significance has actually challenged the authority of the civil service or the courts. And, frankly, most of the people who are loudly skeptical of all the symbols of the nations are also the ones whose political projects most heavily rely on an efficient and powerful state bureaucracy to carry out.

(This is leaving aside Quebec, which very much does have a live national identity insofar as the vigorous protection of national symbols is what wins provincial elections. If I felt like doing research and/or reaching more there’s probably something there on how pro-independence sentiment has largely simmered down at a pace with the decline of attempts to impose a national Canadian identity).

I mean, Canada does have rather more of a base for a ‘national’ population core than the US (especially if you’re generous and count the people who mark French on the census as a core population as well). At the same time, no one really expects this to continue to be the case – even back in Junior High, I remember one of the hand outs we got explaining that due to declining fertility most or all future population growth would come from immigration (I remember being confused when my mother was weirdly uncomfortable with the idea when it came up). I suppose our government gets credit for managing public opinion such that anti-immigration backlash hasn’t taken over the political conversation. Which you’d think would be a low bar but, well.

But anyway, to try and begin wrapping this rambling mess up – it does rather feel like Rady’s portrayal of the late Hapsburg empire might have a few passing similarities to the future of Canada. A multinational state whose constitution and political system and built on foundations and legitimized by history that no one actually believes in anymore, or at least no more than they have to pretend to to justify the positions they hold, but persisting because it’s convenient and it’s there and any alternatives are really only going to seem practical after a complete economic collapse or apocalyptic war. (Though our civil service is a Josephist’s dream by comparison, really.)

Or maybe I’m premature, and the dominant culture will just be incredibly effective at assimilating immigrants into that civic identity. Anecdotally, the only people I know who are at all enthusiastic about Canada as an idea are first generation immigrants. I could certainly just be projecting, really – I’ve never really been able to get all that invested in the nation-state as an idea of more moral power than ‘a convenient administrative division of humanity’, and certainly liberating ourselves form the need to defend the past would certainly rectifying certain injustices easier.

Or maybe I’m just being incredibly optimistic. Half the economy’s resource extraction and the other half’s real estate, so decent odds the entire place just literally goes up in flames over the next few decades. BC’s already well on its way.

#politics #political theory #nationalism #in this essay I will #this is theoretically a writing blog #the hapsburgs: to rule the world

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simsadventures · 4 years

Text

Only Mine: Chapter 4: The Encounter Part I

Summary: You try to forget all about the night and the dinner you had with Bucky, but some people just won’t let you.

Warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of rape (trying not to be too explicit), angst, mobster AU

Word Count: 2244

A/N: Remember, you wanted it @sebbbystaaan and @kneel-begyourpardon. Don’t stone me for this little cliffhanger. Part II of The Encounter will come out tomorrow. Let me know what you thought xx

Series Masterlist __ Masterlist

< Previous Chapter

The next couple of days were a blur for Bucky. He couldn’t figure out how anyone would be so cold towards him, especially a woman. He tried to think back to the night the two of you spent together, that maybe he did something wrong, or that he maybe not performed the way he usually does. But he shook this thought off, remembering how your thighs quivered and how your whole body shook. This couldn’t be the reason then.

All the women always loved when he acted like an alpha around them, so he didn’t understand what your problem was with things like him ordering food for you. A weird thought appeared in front of his eyes. Maybe you really weren’t anything like the women he was used to, and that he genuinely had no idea how to treat a woman, but he dismissed this as well. Pff, he was Bucky Barnes, every woman would fall to their knees to just spend a night with him.

He was standing in his room, staring out the window at his backyard. He could see three gardeners trying to create something beautiful of the mess the grass and trees were at the moment, and he loved to see them work. It brought peace to his weary mind. But somebody disturbed the peace by knocking on his door.

“Yeah,” he rumbled but didn’t make any effort of looking who it was. He had the nagging feeling that it was either Steve, or Sam, or both, and he didn’t need to see their faces. He could get all the emotions just from their voices, especially when the three of them were together, his right hands always told him everything just like they felt it.

“Staring into the distance, thinking of your one try love, mate?” Sam asked, humour laced in his voice. He could hear Steve snicker behind him and Bucky just rolled his eyes at their childish behaviour.

“You wanted something particular, or did you come in to tease me?” Bucky growled, his eyes now closed, with his fingers massaging the root of his nose. They’ve been there for a few seconds, and they were already giving him a headache.

“Teasing? You think this is teasing? Teasing would be if we came back to the scene at the restaurant. Man! The way she sassed you and how you stay quiet, that was hilarious! We were a little worried that you bit your tongue. This, this would be teasing, old pal.” Steve was smirking at Bucky, who was now intently staring at the two of them, wishing they would turn into dust.

“Haha, so funny! You done, assholes? I do have better things to do than to listen to the two of you.”

“Like? Staring out the window like you’re the cover of a sad-boy’s album?” This time, Sam and Steve actually high-fived, and all Bucky could do was to sigh. He might have been the boss outside the room, but here, in his personal quarter, they were just three old friends, teasing the hell out of each other. Bucky just hated that it was now his turn to be in the burning seat.

“Give me a break, ok? I just never met a woman like her, that’s all. But she made it very clear that she wasn’t interested and I’m not gonna hunt her down. I’ve got better things to do than to think about some sassy-big-mouthed girl. Any word on Pierce?”

Both of the men in front of Bucky shook their heads. “Nope, nothing. Apparently, he is still very much on the West Coast, and if he likes his own life, he’s gonna stay there. Don’t worry about him, we’re gonna make sure he stays where he should. Speaking of shoulds,” Sam said, and looked at Steve, importantly.

“Right, we should get on the streets today. There are some bastards roaming the city, raping young women. We should make a purge and show them what happens to guys like them. I spoke to the Commissioner of the NYPD, and he said that their forces could help us, we just gotta call them. He told me, that they almost had the guys, but that they weren’t scared of the cops one bit, and the Commissioner thinks they would be scared of us. He also gave us full permission to do whatever we think is necessary. He just wants them out of the city.”

Bucky nodded and clenched his jaw. He hated men like that. He might have been a jerk, but all his women went with him willingly, or, at least, he wouldn’t push himself on them sexually. He also hated the fact that some asshole thought it was a good idea to start that shit in his city.

“Call the Commissioner, and tell him that the patrols that would see anything suspicious should call us directly and that we’ll handle it. Let’s hope it’ll be enough, and that it will be over with quickly. Do we know anything about them?”

Sam was thinking for a while, as was Steve. When they felt like they thought of everything that could be important, they switched between the two of them and told it all to Bucky.

“There are two of them, apparently taking turns at the girls.”

“They sometimes take two girls, one for each. Most of the time, they, however, take one girl, and when they’re done with her, they look for another one, so they have at least two girls a night.”

“Which tells us they must be on the younger side of the spectrum, having the stamina for two rounds, pretty quickly after each other.”

“They use condoms, so the hype is not in breeding the women, but maybe over-powering them? They apparently don’t have a type, their victims vary from the colour of their skin to their height.”

“But, we do know that their favourite part of New York is Brooklyn, only one of the 10 rapes they managed to do happened outside of Brooklyn, so we should be stationed somewhere around there.”

Bucky listened intently, making mental notes and preparing a plan for the night, or several nights ahead of them. For a second, his mind wandered towards you, if you were fine, and if you would be fine, but he quickly dismissed the thought and concentrated on the task at hand. They had an eventful night ahead of them.

—-

Getting Bucky out of your head was easier than you thought. Mostly because you were buried in your work, deadlines licking your heels and you knew you’d catch absolute hell if you didn’t finish in time.

What also helped was that you couldn’t meet him anywhere. Because the two of you lived such different lives, you were almost a hundred per cent sure there wasn’t a possibility of the two of you randomly meeting again. Once was enough and you didn’t need him threatening you go on another date with him. You inwardly rolled your eyes at yourself, reminding you that it wasn’t a date and that you definitely didn’t want it to be one.

Bucky was a mobster, and you definitely didn’t have his icy eyes in front of you when you were falling asleep. Not. At. All. But, to tell the truth, that was the only time you actually thought of him, otherwise being pretty busy.

Natasha loved every detail of that night, and you thought she would soon start writing down quotes from the date. She was obsessed with someone putting Bucky in his place, even more so that it was her best friend who did that, and she had first-hand details of the encounter.

You were sitting at the publishing house, with 5 other people, all of you catching up with your work. Among others, a new secretary of the editorial director. She looked like a sweet girl, even if you thought she was a little too dolled-up for pretty much an all-nighter at a publishing house, with a bunch of uninterested people. Your director was gay, so there was no chance she would be able to get to him, and other than that, it was you, Kate, and Bruce, who was currently single, but too shy to even look Tania’s way.

You and Kate were discussing the best approach to one of the Young Adult books you were currently trying to edit so that it could be sold in the shortest amount of time. You felt a light tap on your shoulder, and when you turned, you could see Tania sitting on your desk. You cringed inwardly, really hating when people invaded your personal space but tried to remain calm and collected. It was still a long night ahead of you.

“I thought I knew you from somewhere, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. You were out on Friday night, weren’t you?” She asked sweetly, but the smile on her face didn’t reach her eyes.

You smiled politely and nodded. Not that it was any of her business anyway. “Well if you saw me, then I must have been out, right?” You started to turn back to Kate, who was obviously trying not to laugh but failing miserably. Tania’s hand stopped you.

“So you’re the girl of the month, then? Huh, would never guess his demands got so low but good for you. The best month of your life awaits you until he decides that you’re old news and kicks you out like a stray dog.”

There was so much venom in her voice that you were surprised she didn’t poison you spitting at you.

“Sounds like you have the first-hand experience with that, sweetheart!” You smiled oh-so-sweetly at her, and she was now sending daggers through her eyes. “Look, Tania, I don’t know what you think you saw, but it was just one dinner, and I’m definitely the girl of no month. I bet Bucky is a great guy for the month, but I’m seriously not interested. So you can stop keeping me away from my job, and maybe start doing yours and bring us all coffee?”

You were a bitch, and you knew it, but you just couldn’t help yourself. You hated when people were nosey and would ask you unnecessary questions about your personal life. It was called personal for a reason.

She scoffed, but got up from your table (not before she “accidentally” pushed some of the papers from the table on the floor) and asked everyone around if anyone else wanted some hot beverage. Everyone hummed in agreement, but never stopped with their works.

Kate showed you thumbs up excitedly but otherwise dropped the case, knowing you two could gossip about what just happened after the deadlines were closed and your asses weren’t catching on fire.

It was around 2 AM that you could finally send out all the files you were supposed to, and despite your exhaustion, you couldn’t help but feel happy and relieved. Tania went home around 11 PM telling you all that she wasn’t cut out for such things, and that she better go home to be fresh and pretty the next morning. You collectively rolled your eyes at her but left it without a comment, feeling like she wouldn’t get the sarcastic comments that were on the tip of your tongue.

You said your goodbyes with Kate, and both walked in different directions. You would typically put in your headphones and zone out, but you were aware that it was quite late, and that even if New York acted as the safe city because of Bucky and his crew, you heard about few rapes around Brooklyn and you didn’t want to take a chance.

So you casually walked down the pavement, thinking about how you didn’t want to get up the next morning, knowing it would be a massive pain in the ass. Your mind also wandered towards your breakfast, trying to imagine the contents of your fridge to think of what you were gonna make the next morning.

As you were deciding between scrambled eggs and pancakes, somebody behind you whistled. You paid no mind to it, thinking that it definitely wasn’t at you. But when the whistling came from much closer behind you, followed by a low “pussycat”. You could hear a chuckle, which sounded like coming from a different man, and a cold sweat burst on your forehead, while a shiver ran down your spine.

You quickened your pace, hearing that they did the same, and you suddenly felt the rush of adrenaline in your blood. You didn’t want to die, or be used like that, and tried to think of anything that would get you out of the situation. You got to run. You knew you wouldn’t be able to fight them, especially if there were two of them, but you weren’t willing to take a look and lose time with it. But even without turning, you could hear them getting closer every second, and when you could feel a hand on your shoulder, harshly grabbing you, you did the only thing that was left. You let out a loud shriek, which was quickly muffled by a hand over your mouth. Your eyes watered instantly, you were trashing in the attacker’s arms, trying to get free, but he wouldn’t budge. You never thought you would end up here, and with this thought, your mind grew hazy, and your body went limp.

/ Next Chapter >

Only Mine: @albinotigerpython @brownlee-22 @yennewolf @heywess @bitchwhytho @thegirlwhowritesfics @eteramfools @blonddnamedhandz @everything-is-awesomesauce @justlovelifeblog @scuzmunkie @rohaintahquil @d-jall @cap-just-said-language @readermia @chubby-dumplin @rohaintahquil @slcvely @thewackywriter

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If you’d like to be tagged comment/message/send an ask. If you like the story, please reblog :) any comments are appreciated, even the critical ones. Always a space to get better, so let me know what you guys think.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky barnes #mobster au #mobster bucky #mafia au #mafia boss bucky #avengers #avengers fanfiction #marvel #mcu #mcu fanfiction #multiple chapters #only mine #angst #cliffhanger

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dlamp-dictator · 3 years

Text

Allen X Rambles about Chapter 7

“I hope Episode 7 is focused on only 2 or three characters with little distraction... Amiya maybe finding out that Ch’en is slowly becoming Infected and helping her come to terms with that. Ch’en revealing her past to Amiya and the two connecting over losing so many close to them due to Oripathy. The two standing up to the political corruption of Lungmen, shoulder to shoulder, as women that refuse to see another life lost due to the indifference of a city’s politics.”

-Allen X, October 2nd, 2020, Rambling about Chapter 6

Man... I’m starting to believe it when they say Arknight’s story mode is longer than the Harry Potter series. Things are getting crazy in Chapter 7 and crazy-long to in terms of length. This chapter really had me on the edge of my seat as I read through it and as I played through because 7-16 and 7-18 were a bitch to get through that require some of the most precise timing I’ve seen in this game yet. That aside, I enjoyed a lot what I read and experienced.

And I wanted to talk about it a bit.

But first, as always, a synopsis.

Coming off the heels of Frostnova’s death and the realization of Wei Yenwu’s purging of the Lungmen slums, tensions are high and trust has been fractured between Rhodes Island and Lungmen. However, in the midst of Ch’en hot temper and Amiya’s cool head, Reunion is plans to send the Russian Ursusian city of Chernobog on a collision course with Hong Kong Lungmen, giving Ursus a cause to make war against Lungmen and its great region of Tawain China Yen. However, through some rather amazing political maneuvering and passionate words by Wei Yenwu’s wife Fumizuki, Rhodes Island agrees to mobilize in order to save Lungmen, the Infected, and the beloved daughter of Lungmen, Ch’en. But beyond Chernobog lies Patriot, Reunions greatest commander next to Talulah herself, who’s rage toward his daughter’s death is only matched by his disciplined mind and even more disciplined soldiers. It’s a fight to the center of the Chernobog to save as many lives as possible, even at the cost of this great general’s life.

An Addendum to 7-18

So between my venting about 7-18 when I talked about some fun Arknight’s lore a handful of people wanted to give me some advice on how to conquer that stage. Admittedly that venting was said out of anger and was much more acidic in tone than my usual essays and opinion pieces. I have since beaten that stage and I can give some of my thoughts on this advice. Some of it was helpful... some of it.

“AmIyA cAn TaNk PaTrIoT’s SpEaR tOsS!”

This is technically true and I was technically wrong. When Amiya’s S3 is active she gained increased Max HP and can in fact survive with a sliver of health. However, Amiya’s S3 takes quite a long time to charge even with her talent, and unless someone is actively blocking Patriot her can honestly spam his spear through for how long it takes Amiya to get prepped for her S3. This is more of an issue of Amiya’s balancing than with the game, but I’ll talk about that later.

“jUsT sTaLl PaTrIoT tO kEeP hIm FrOm UsInG tHe SpEaR tOsS!”

This would be pretty viable advice if Patriot didn’t one-shot my units. Yes, defenders like Cuora, Nian, Hoshigumi, and even tankier vanguards like Zima and Siege can tank at least one hit from Patriot without dying, meaning a squad of healers can just focus-fire on them while they do chip damage to Patriot and stall him out. However, Patriot’s phase 2 has him do constant damage to nearby units with his aura ability, so if he can get lucky enough, he take someone down to a sliver and let his poison damage finish off your staller before they get a chance to be healed. That strategy needs luck and some damn smart unit placement. Neither of which I honestly have.

“uSe SpEcTeR aNd DeBuFfErS!”

Again, this is also a pretty good strategy. Specter’s S2 makes her immortal for a limited time and pairing that with healers like Breeze and Celycon who reduce stun damage isn’t a bad idea. Characters that ignore or lower defense like Pramanix, Shamare, and Meteor are also good. This doesn’t work for me however since I only have Pram and the other debuffers are way too underleveled and not on my priority at the moment, and E2-ing units this late in the game just to take out one boss feels like madness.

“f12 CaN dOdGe ThE sPeAr ToSs!”

F12, W, Jessica, and FEater have a dodge chance. Their dodges are not guarantees. Yes, Patriot will target the ranged operator furthest from him and there are range tiles pretty close to his spawn point for that purpose. However, some of those operators have some pretty damn expensive DP costs and waste that on a chance to survive isn’t worth.And feeding Patriot ranged units that take over 30 seconds to redeploy is a waste of DP in general. And those either dodge chances aren’t viable. Them surviving isn’t a strategy, it’s a fluke, and you can’t depend on flukes in auto-deployment.

“Allen, you’re being kind of an asshole to what’s actually sound advice.”

Yes, I am.

I don’t care.

7-18 does things to a person, man. That stage breaks people. I lost sanity IRL just doing that stage or 20 times with a guide... dear lord this stage.

Anyway, moving on.

Story Notes

My, this story sure was thick, wasn’t it? It’s been while since I’ve been on a ride that wild. And this time around I don’t have any small issues to bring up. All the characters felt in character without breaking my suspension of disbelief. There weren’t multiple character arcs going on at once. And I even tolerated Kal’tsit berating the Doctor for reasons beyond his understand since she wasn’t discussing too many things that were above my head as the player.

No... I only have big issues.

But before that, I wanted to hit on some actual important notes that were very good and smartly written.

Rosmontis and Child Soldiers

This was probably the biggest takeaway for me. I know the Arknights community likes to poke a lot of fun about the child soldier thing and how Kal’tsit is harboring slave children, but... man, it makes so much since now.

These kids aren’t just kids, they’re all infected people with some rather scary abilities. Popukar has a history of mental instability coupled with monstrous strength. Ifrit has powers she can just barely keep under control and could set Rhodes Island ablaze at any point. Frostleaf and GreyThroat are deeply traumatized from their past. The Ursus Self Government are full of kids with hatred, resentment, and fear of both the world and themselves. The list goes on, but the fact is that these kids all either have abilities that would be a danger to themselves and others if they aren’t trained, or have emotional hang-ups that might very well have them lash out at innocent people if not put on a leash. Wouldn’t it be better to at least give them some training and let them hack and blast away at the actual bad guys? Wouldn’t it be better to at least make them a weapon for some kind of greater good? And would anyone else really treat these broken, powerful children as anything but weapons and warriors anyway?

I know this is about chapter 7, but I remember in Children of Ursus Rosa asked Zima why she fought, and Zima casually answered that she just liked fighting. It’d be far better to have someone with that mindset working for an organization like Rhodes Island than ending up in Ursus’s fold and blindly hacking at something she shouldn’t.

And I think it’s important to remind everyone that Amiya is the head of Rhodes Island and not Kal’tsit. She’s a big part of the organization, but it’s the bunny in charge. And the bunny that is herself close to a living nuke and is also has empathetic superpowers understands this probably better than anyone else, which is why she okays it.

Patriot and Reunion

As much as I despise, and I do mean despise, how cagey this series can be with it’s portrayal of Reunion’s morality I can understand why a lot of its members can see the group as being just. Patriot is a warrior of such renown and praise, and Talulah has so much charisma and power that I can see the group overlooking characters like Mephisto and W when the other two do so much for their members and general people. The Guerillas under Patriot behave like soldiers. They don’t rampage, loot, pillage, or harm everyone in sight, only those that halt, stagnant, and harm the infect. Talulah has a charisma about her and attracts people, and seems to come from some sort of royal/noble line to match. And while Faust wasn’t mentioned much in this chapter, he was a soldier that started at the bottom, worked his way to the top, and made sure to play by rules that kept his moral high ground. Mephisto seems to be the only outliner here for some baffling reason.

But... there are some major issues with this story. I hint at them every time I talk about Arknights’ story, but I’ll go into depth here. And I’ll present these two issues I have in the form of a two question:

Who is the Doctor?

I don’t mean this the sense of the story, but what is his function as a character? Is he a self-insert for the player, or his own character to be explored and examined?

And either answer, to me, is wrong.

The Doctor Isn’t a Self-Insert

It’s straight up impossible for the Doctor to be a self-insert character. Most self-inserts are blank enough to let us place our own personality onto them and the situations their in the choices they make are meant to be more or less choices we’d make or at least a general audience could make barring some specifics. Their personalities tend to be blank or at least bland to let us, the players, live through them and project our personalities onto them.

The Doctor isn’t this.

There are too many moment where our choices are clearly pointing to one conclusion and most choices, though varied, give a clear idea that the Doctor is someone that care about the operators’ wellbeing deeply and hates seeing them used, abused, or manipulated. They are strategist and commander, but they have enough humanity to not see people as tools. They are passionate when they see other operators and especially Amiya in harms way and tries to come up with strategies to minimize lost and causalities. Awhile we, the player, feel the same in this regard the Doctor has dialogue that feels more conversational and toward specific directions than what a player would likely want and gives us some bits and piece about what they’re actually like.

The Doctor hates Kal’tsit and wants little to do with her, only tolerating her presence as much as she is with the Doctor. The Doctor is a bit of a bleeding heart that doesn’t fully grasp that they are constantly in a warzone despite their strategic competency. The Doctor has an extremely weird diet and eating style, devouring live animals and ingesting foods that would probably need to be probably mixed and brewed before consumption. The Doctor still sees Amiya as a child despite her mature nature.

The list goes on, but there’s enough there for me to say the Doctor is more like Hakuno Kishinami of the Fate/Extra series, a character that seems like a self-insert but has a number of traits and character tics that keep them from fulfill that role. However Fate/Extra, for all I have against it, makes Hakuno work by giving them their own internal thoughts outside of the player’s actions that explain their dialogue choices and actions outside of the player’s control. The Doctor doesn’t, so them being a self-insert feels really weak and irritating when the dots stop connecting.

But despite this...

The Doctor Isn’t Their Own Character

Too much of what the Doctor does is passive. For a clear as their personality is, at least to me, they don’t have much agency in the plot. Not enough for me to call them their own character at least. They commander the battlefield, but they don’t have a place on it. They don’t have much reason to interact with characters like Patriot and Talulah unless its on the metaphorical and literal chessboard we’re playing on.

Every time the Doctor says something that advances the plot in some way I feel like it could be said by another character and work better. Amiya trying talk down Patriot and explain that Frostnova fought bravely did not need the Doctor’s interjections, especially when Patriot shoots them down in the same manner. In chapter 6, being trap with Frostnova would had worked much better with Amiya since that chapter was giving them parallels anyway. The only thing that really works is the Doctor trying to call out Kal’tsit for her treatment of Rosmontis as a soldier despite her age, as that’s only something that someone who didn’t have the full context could do.

But... Jessica, Frostleaf, Frostnova, Melantha and several other Operators are young teenagers and even children. Specter and Lappland are clearly just as mentally damaged and still going into battles. The Doctor knows the kinds of people that fight for Rhodes Island, so isn’t this just another young fighter like Popukar and Suzuran? Hell, in chapter 6 we canonically had Beagle and Fang in a stage where they had to fight and tank Faust, why is the Doctor so surprised that someone like Rosmontis exist and works for Rhodes Island?

See?

See how trying to give this character separation from being a self-insert and actively slot them in the active story does more harm than good?

I think games like Girls Frontline and Honkai Impact 3rd do this better, where the player character is clearly more behind the scenes and is only a passing influence, if any.

But that leads me to my next question, which is...

Who is Amiya?

Amiya falls into the trope of being a cute anime girl with a mysterious past and dangerous powers. More accurately, she has a mysterious past and powers to the player, but everyone in Amiya’s inner circle seems to have a clue about it. I don’t mind this being a mystery, but... when our main character’s plot revolves around things the player doesn’t know, it’s curious at best, and infuriating at worse.

Folks, I’m not someone that looks to theory-crafting. I’m not someone that reads every scrap of dialogue in this game to find out more about its lore. The lore, to me, is just fun and interesting. I honestly do not have the time and energy to spend on making theories and predictions that could be wrong and a waste of mental energy. However, with all this stuff about the King of Fiends just feels like a waste of time, or at least a last minute addition to something I could had been added properly in Chapter 8.

A lot of it feels like you had to know about the Darknight Memoir side story to really get a feel for what’s going on. The Sarkaz civil war, Theresa, W’s role back when Rhodes Island was Babel, a lot of things that don’t come up in the main storyline. Especially with that bombshell about the Doctor maybe killing Theresa.

I don’t like it when a story expects me to have read the spinoff to understand the mainline story. This is why I don’t like the Dragon Age series and I’m really getting annoyed with Arknights right now.

This bombshell of the King of Fiends also kind of sours a bit of Amiya’s character as this young child who rose through the ranks of Rhodes Island as a charismatic leader being able to steel optimism with the reality of war to forge ahead as a proper leader through her abilities as both a commander and an empath. Instead it’s beginning to come across that her skills as a leader comes from something more supernatural, or at least something more forced than "small child is a good leader and can lead an army,” which is surprisingly more believable and nuanced given how seriously the series takes Amiya’s character.

That said, I recognize this criticism is more my wish of what was rather than an issue of what is. I completely understand that essentially wishing for my own fanfic and limited fan theories to come true isn’t a sound criticism, but it's a criticism I have regardless.

But moving on, there’s one more issue that bugs me.

W’s Importance

I’ll keep this brief since I already discussed my bigger issues of the story and this is an admittedly small portion of the story:

W wasn’t utilized much in this story despite being a main feature of it in the promotional material. She has a pretty lengthy intro, disappears from the story for most of it, then reappears at the last bits of chapter 7 to make mean looks at Kal’tsit and the Doctor before being literally shoved offscreen again. I’ve already discussed my issues with the Doctor’s agency so I won’t bother here.

W’s banner should had been during Darknight Memoir, it just makes more sense given she was the feature character of it and her high physical damage would had been a goodsend among all the arts-resistant Sarkaz units of that series of chokepoint-heavy maps, similar to Weedy’s inclusion her is helpful as a lot of these maps could use a good pusher, especially 7-16.

Speaking of, Weedy, the other operator on this limited banner, has no presence in the story at all. Need I remind you in the last limited banner Aak and Hung at least had cameo-esque appearances in the Ancient Forge event. Weedy’s inclusion feels like an afterthought because they didn’t want the limited 6-Star to have a good chance to be pulled for the whales.

Anyway, I believe those are all the big issues I had with this story, so...

In the Future

As I always tend to say, I don’t like the idea of trying to fix something that has already been made and has already passed. It’s too late to change the past, but I see nothing wrong with asking for things to happen in the future as a way of giving feedback.

To that end, I still have hope that Chapter 8 will have a focus on Amiya and Ch’en tackling Talulah together. From my understanding of some spoilers this is more or less what is going to happen. I also hope that we’ll have a more detailed idea on this whole King of Fiends thing is about. As much as I personally don’t care for it, it’s already be discussed in the story so I at least hope we get the full idea on what’s going on with that plotline.

I also hope the Doctor either plays less a role or becomes their own character outright away from any player influence. Us speaking through a character that already has a personality feels weird to me and I’d rather not have it at all.

Anyway, that’s it for me folks. Next time... maybe I’ll talk about anime or something, who knows.

#your dictator is speaking #arknights

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tfw-needs-baby · 4 years

Text

sam winchester | internet personas

based on my own experience.

read on ao3?

Sam Winchester and his brother stumbled upon fanfiction and the fandom a while ago. He swore to himself that he would never, ever go back and visit the crazy people that existed there.

Well, sitting in his room in the bunker, he was bored and had nothing much to do because the supernatural had been pretty quiet for the past month or so and he was scrolling aimlessly through new articles and finding nothing. He doesn’t know how or why the idea popped into his head, but it came and he was curious at the time, so why not?

‘Best places to’ Nope, delete that.

‘Where to join a fandom’ Delete that too. That just sounded stupid.

‘Fandom friendly sites.’ Yeah, that sounded about right. He clicked onto the first link, and it immediately brought him to a site called ‘Fandom.’

How ironic. Although it didn’t exactly help him much, it was just an explanation guide to their platform and what it had to offer. The rest of the links weren’t much help either, and he sighed. Alright, how to find the fans...wasn’t there something called livejournal?

According to a couple of articles, old and inactive journals had been purged, but were still doing pretty well. And then, the Winchester searched up ‘best places to read fanfiction.’

A couple of suggestions appeared underneath ‘Popular on the web.’

‘Wattpad - tumblr - kindle words - deviantart - archive of our own - asianfanfics’

Huh. Visiting a couple of sites, Wattpad and Fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own popped up frequently, so he decided to visit Wattpad first. He went to browse works and choose fanfiction, and it brought him to a selection of hot and trendy stories with millions of views on them. Woah. It ranged from k-pop to a selection of animes to CBS shows and weird crossovers. The ‘x reader’ tag seemed very popular and he shivered, reminding him of Becky.

Signing up wasn’t hard either. It had only taken him a couple of minutes. But when he was reading a selected few from the hot section, they didn’t exactly grab his attention. A lot of them seemed to be written by younger ten to fifteen year olds. They did have a large amount of potential and amazing storylines, he’ll give them that.

Then he wandered over to Fanfiction.net. The sign up process was easy, but the site was a bit more historical and a bit more him. There were multiple forums, and he scrolled down and viewed a couple of them. Oh. They were similar to roleplay, but just - more building along a storyline with it, if that made any sense. The sign up was pretty easy here too, and he smiled as two notifications popped up in his gmail for both sites.

Backtracking now, he went off to ‘archive of our own,’ nicknamed ‘ao3’ for short and a paragraph popped up and he skimmed through it quickly. It was just a warning that everything could be viewed by whoever and whatnot. The writing here definitely seems way more advanced, way more complex and interesting, with canon divergences going all out and unheard au’s. And the cliche plots we’re simply adorable.

He went over to sign up, and raised an eyebrow when it stated that you needed to get an invitation, and all you had to do was enter in an email. And wait a day for an invitation.

Hopping onto tumblr, he made an account quickly and started scrolling through it, and everything seemed different somehow. Like, more modern day than the last time he came to the page. The fandom had definitely become smaller due to a ‘nsfw ban’ and he couldn’t decide whether that was a good or bad thing. They had gifsets of memories that had happened about three years ago, with their final stand against Chuck, and he smiled as he went through year’s old blogs that never updated anymore, reblogging everything ‘Supernatural’ underneath the username ‘babytrenchcoatnougat’ and he started to tear up when he stumbled upon a post where they had created a small art of playing the rainbow slinky with Dean based on a gifset of a memory. He still remembers how happy Dean had been when he got it just for him, he played with it for the next week.

A couple of week’s later, Sam want’s to do more than reblog and comment on content. Sam does have artistic potential, and he could definitely look into that. Although, writing seems easier at the moment, and he scrolls through an endless amount of fanfiction on archive of our own - ranging from major character death to general fanfiction - from his brother and best friend sleeping together to him turning into the boyking to high school universes to Apocalyptic worlds where they have failed.

He wants to write his own world, where they’re all happy and care-free and able to actually live happily, where no one he’s loved has died. Making a post on tumblr he states: By any chance, is there anyone on this platform that can help me with a non-romantic general Supernatural fanfiction?

He places a couple of normal tags that fit into the category, then presses post. About an hour later, he gets a reblog from someone called @ misha-moose-dean-burger-lover [and wow, that sounds like a handful] offering to help.

I’m available if you need me to, @ babytrenchcoatnougat ; what’s the plot? We can discuss more in DM’s if you’d like! Besides, I’m free for the week, but if you need a beta reader I can offer a couple of people that I know.

Sam sends her a message.

babytrenchcoatnougat: can you give me some advice or writing tips if you have any? i'm not looking to make any implied romantic pairings in the fic

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: well, that depends, what’s the fic going to be about?

babytrenchcoatnougat: i don't know yet, maybe team free will 2.0 just taking a roadtrip to nowhere without a destination in sight after defeating chuck?

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: eeeeee

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: that sounds like a awesome idea misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: you're definitely going to want to have specific destinations in mind, and only a hint of angst, and what they’re going to do at these locations

misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: use transition words and make sure it doesn’t repeat often, descriptive details but don’t use it in every scene, and make sure there are frequent movements in the characters so they don’t sound so stiff, and make sure to slowly transition into the next scene, as time skipping to every scene will make the story seem boring. misha-moose-dean-burger-lover: make sure the characters aren’t ooc either!

And so, Sam writes. He writes until his eyes hurt and he definitely needs some sleep, so he sends a quick message to a beta to read it over for him and they do, gushing about how the plot was wonderful and badly needed after all the terrible angst that occurred this season. He smiles, giving his thanks before uploading the first chapter out of 15, 13k words, onto ao3.

[He checks over the grammar and tags over fifteen times.]

He can hardly contain his excitement, jumping around happily all day, even baking Dean a pie which makes him get sprayed with holy water and go through every test just to make sure he isn’t some supernatural creature.

Later that afternoon, he checks his ao3 underneath the same username and finds out it’s gotten about 150 hits, and 38 kudos, which makes his heart swell. He’s also gotten a comment, and he presses comments eagerly.

‘Kill yourself, psycho virgin fag.’

He re-reads the comment a couple of times, eyes tearing up and dropping his phone onto the kitchen table recklessly. What the fuck. Was his story really that bad? Did those people who didn’t leave a kudo really hate his story that much? Did the fans think his story was too child-like? Badly written? OOC? Do they really hate him that bad that he actually should commit-

Sam breaks down right then and there, pushing his computer aside, placing his head down and crying softly. Castiel and Dean don’t find him until an hour later, and he’s still softly crying. They rush over to him, Dean quickly sitting to the right while Castiel sits to the left. “Sammy? What happened?” Dean asks, and the younger Winchester shakes his head.

“N’thing.” He mumbles, and the older Winchester sighs. He’s just being stubborn, when he doesn’t want other people to worry about him, afraid that he’ll give them his problems. “Sam, please, if you talk to us, then we may fix the problem together. Remember, we made that promise two years ago, to be more open with each other.” The former-angel now archangel says, pushing Sam’s hair out of his face. Sam takes a shaky breath, pushing himself off the desk and grabs the laptop, opening it up to the recent fanfiction he had written, and Castiel and Dean both skim through it before Dean snatches the laptop. “Is this a fanfiction?” He looks at him as if he’s crazy, and Sam slowly shakes his head in agreement. Castiel walks over to Dean, both of them reading the first chapter silently, and everytime he glances over to see their reactions it seems unchanged. His brother probably thinks he’s weird, and Castiel is going to find him crazy-

“Damn, Sammy, you’ve got talent.” Dean says, and he actually sounds impressed. “W- what?”

“That is incredibly written and a wonderful idea, I think we should go on a roadtrip ourselves,” Dean nodded in agreement. “Is this why you’re crying? I think this is perfect.”

“Wait - you two do find it weird or anything?”

Castiel and Dean look confused. “Why would you think that Sammy? I like it.”

“You should uh - read the comment.” He says, and it takes the angel and older hunter a moment to find the comment section at the bottom, Castiel pointing at the button. Their faces turn into pure fury.

“I’m going to smite them.” Castiel all but growls out, and Dean shuts the laptop closed. “Don’t listen to ‘em, this is fucking amazing, got it? I want the second chapter. Don’t listen to what anyone else says, they're probably jealous that we’ve got a New York bestseller writer and all they can do is write the abc’s.” Dean hugs his brother, Castiel immediately joining right in and Sam sighs happily. They stay there for a bit, muttering out a ‘thank you’ before jumping up slightly, seeing that he’s gotten two more comments on his fanfiction, and nervously opens up the comment section to see that a user called ‘quicksilvermalec’ writing on how much they enjoyed the fic and can’t wait to read the second chapter while an anonymous user has attacked the one that insulted him, throwing a whole truckload of insults and Castiel smiles. “They got what they deserved.” The archangel says, and Dean shouts ‘damn straight’ joyfully. “Would the two of you want to write fanfiction with me, then?” Sam asks while writing the second chapter about an hour later, and the unison ‘yes’ gives him a warm feeling in his chest.

#sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #jack kline #archangel!castiel #ficlet #gen fic #genfic #supernatural #fluff #representation week

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zztophat · 4 years

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｢ The Purge ｣

SUMMARY: Dean find Zatanna at the Masquerade after all hell breaks loose and asks her to perform a spell that casts a protective, no ghosts barrier around Lux. TRIGGERS: Gore, Violence Mentions, Death Mentions WRITTEN WITH: @ofwaywardsons

ZATANNA: She swung one of the emergency fire axes at a ghost. It was wrought iron and made the ghost in front of Zatanna disappear on contact. Unfortunately, she swung it too hard and it stuck to the wood pole of the photo booth. "Honestly," she muttered angrily to herself as she tried to pull the axe out. She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned sharply, a defensive blast spell already dancing on her tongue, but then she saw it was Dean. "Jesus Christ," she lowered her defenses and took a moment to run a visual check on him. He was covered in blood and carrying around a mound of salt and a human heart. "Did you...get roped into a satanic ritual or something? Where is all of this blood coming from?”

DEAN: It was pretty easy to find Zatanna. Tiny as she was, she was fucking fierce. He caught sight of her down by the photo booth just as she swung an axe into a ghost like a fucking viking. It reminded him of why he tried to avoid getting on her bad side. To her misfortune, the axe stuck to a wooden post. He approached her as she tried to pull it out; Dean imagined he probably looked like shit. "Sorry, sweetheart." He pulled the axe out of the wooden post with his freehand. "Surprisingly the dumbass rituals weren't my doing this time. Imagine that." He saw a ghost approaching them from behind Zatanna. "On my count, you're gonna wanna duck." He handed her the heart and took the axe with both hands. "Now!" as she ducked out of the way, he took a swing at the ghost. The axe sliced right through it and it disappeared like mist. He turned to look at the magician. "If we're keeping score, that was like my tenth tonight."

ZATANNA: She made a face when he handed her the heart. Gross. "Aw, you really shouldn't have. Valentines day is still so far away," she replied weakly. This was the worst game of hot potato. She ducked when he ordered her to, watching as he swung the axe and cut through one of the ghosts. "Ah, ten, that's nice," she grinned. "I lost count somewhere at 30. Magic and all that." She was reserving her chaos for now in case a higher level magic was needed to resolve this. That's why she picked up the axe to begin with. "Trade you." Before he could protest, she took the axe from him and gave him the heart. "You got any idea what's going on?" she asked. She could make some educated guesses, but given the fact that hearts were required for a variety of magical spells and Dean had sought her out specifically, she gathered that he knew what happened. "Who's blood are you wearing?" she asked. "Don't tell me it belongs to the guy who owns the heart."

DEAN: "What can I say? A gentleman always plans ahead," he chuckled before frowning. Thirty. Of course she had 30. She had magic on her side. The playing ground was just unfair and the game was rigged. "Show off." He was just about to open his mouth to protest but she handed him the heart anyway. "Someone stole Death's Scythe," he explained. "Without it, the veil is falling apart and ghosts are leaking into this world." He said it as if this was par for the course in his life because it was. He'd gone through something like this before in his universe. "No, the blood is Charlie's. Reapers are tied to the veil and with it falling, she's dying again." Not just dying, she was relieving the exact way she died the first time. "She and Sam took Cupid and Belphegor to get the scythe. In the mean time, you and I have a spell to perform." He handed the heart back to her as he took the axe. "You're gonna need that," he grinned. Was he enjoying this? Okay, maybe a little. "When we went through something similar my universe, Belphegor - not this Belphegor but another - gave us a spell that created a parameter around the city the ghosts couldn't break through. Kind of like a massive salt circle. New York City's too big for the spell to encompass the whole city, but we can at least create a safe parameter around this club. You up for it, spirit fingers?"

ZATANNA: She rolled her eyes at him, but the grin remained. "Death's Scythe, now that's ballsy." Zatanna generally didn't play with necromancy. That kind of magic had serious consequences and repercussions. She frowned when he mentioned the blood was Charlie's. Zatanna tried to maintain a neutral face when he told her Sam had taken Belphegor with him. For Fucks Sake. Bells was a time bomb and she wasn't sure Sam was aware of that. Would Charlie have told him about the void? Clearly not if he opted to take Bells on this mission. Belphegor was likely at their most vunerable tonight with their friend's life on the line. They could very well lose it and New York would be turned into another Grand Canyon. Zatanna swallowed hard and focused her attention back to Dean. A spell. Right, a spell. She could do that.Focus, Zee. "I'm up for it, but call me spirit fingers again and you'll be joining the undead tonight," she warned good-naturedly. Up ahead she saw another ghosts coming their way. "You better get that axe ready again," she warned. But before either of them could take a swing at it, a black shadow in the shape of a dog side swept the ghost and began to tear into it. Hell hound. "Well, now that that ghost is occupied. What exactly does this spell need?"

DEAN: He was inclined to agree but then again, in his universe he killed Death so he really couldn't speak. He noticed Zatanna briefly freeze up at the mention of where Sam went. "What? What's with the face?" The concern in his voice was growing. He didn't like the idea of splitting up to begin with but now he was even more worried about it. "There something I need to know about, Zee?" Keeping secrets was a Winchester family trait so he wouldn't be surprised if Sam kept one or two that would've changed his mind about letting him go at this on his own. He nodded and eased into a smile when the magician told him she was up for this. "I'd rather you kill me than one of these ghosts." He nearly dropped the axe when some invisible force side swept the ghost and started gnawing into it. He could hear growling and barking enough to know what it was. Hell hounds. He felt his mouth go dry as he swallowed hard. "Right, uh," he focused back on Zatanna. "It's pretty simple. Mound of salt," he held it up. "A heart. And this spell." He handed her the journal where they'd written the spell down in case they needed it again. "Maybe you can backward magic it into being." He felt something breathing at his heel and tried not to look in that direction. As if it would matter, he couldn't see them anyway. He didn't need to to know what it was. "We better get to it before we, you know, end up dog food tonight."

ZATANNA: "Nothing, it's nothing," she tried to reassure him. "I'm just...I'm worried about him, that's all. He's gotten really close to Charlie and it looks like she's in rough shape. How's he holding up?" It was as close to an honest answer as she could give Dean right now without putting him at risk. Not to mention, she was sure if she told him about the void, he would go after Sam and then they would both end up dead. She eyed him curiously at his reaction to the hellhound. The dogs weren't likely to hurt either of them. They couldn't without having to answer to Michael. "If you can't see their form then you have nothing to worry about. You aren't dying tonight." She opened up the journal and read up on the spell. It was simple enough to perform. Either it worked and a safety barrier would be created or it didn't work and they would just go back to swinging axes and spells at as many ghosts as they could. Zatanna took the salt from Dean and poured it onto a concentrated spot on the ground before kneeling down beside it. "Do what you can to keep the ghosts out of the way. They aren't going to like this."

DEAN: He wasn't sure he believed her entirely, but the hell hound at his heels kept him from pressing further. If they got these ghosts out of the club, then these demons could take their hell hounds elsewhere for a good old fashion ghost chase. "I am too," he admitted. He was always worried about Sammy. "He's hanging on by a thread but if she dies..." he shook his head. "Look, we just can't let that happen, okay? You saw him tonight." He looked at his heels, feeling the heat of the hell hounds breath where Maze slapped his ass earlier. Was this her dog? Was she fucking with him still? "Yeah, call it bad life experience." He threw the axe over his shoulder and moved to stand behind Zatanna in order to guard her while she worked on the spell. "You got it. I should've opted for the flannel suit, really," he grinned lazily. "Might as well go full lumberjack."

ZATANNA: "Yeah, I saw him tonight," she smiled softly, remembering how Sam's entire face lit up when he was around Charlie. It hurt a little to think back on how warmly the night started and how quickly it all went to hell. "It won't happen," she assured Dean more firmly this time as she placed the heart atop the mound of salt. She looked up for a moment to see Maze periodically staring at her and Dean. It dawned on Zatanna that the hell hound keeping a parameter around them was likely Mazikeen's. Whether she was doing this for their safety or simply to put pressure on them, Zatanna didn't know. The magician placed her hands over the heart and began to recite the incantation backward. "Imina muronrefni sutirips issyba itcerrus ogifed sov artni ainifnoc inmaicniv!" She slammed her hands down on the ground with force and intent, causing a red energy to pulse from the heart and rush out in all directions. As the energy expanded, ghosts were forced out of Lux. Zatanna's own eyes began to glow a similar red color to the heart as she harnessed the spells powers and began to push the barrier further and further around the club, bringing it to encompass not only Lux but the surrounding areas. Maybe she would be able to include more of New York than they thought. As she pushed herself, she felt blood dripping from her nose onto her lips and chin. The spell was talking as much from her as she was giving, but if it meant potentially saving more lives she would take the risks. She knew (or at least thought she knew) how far she could push before she ended up one of the dead too.

DEAN: He wanted to believe that they'd be able to fix this before anyone got hurt, but she hadn't seen Sam the way he had in his universe. When the kid lost hope, it was game over. Right now, Charlie held most of his hope. Dean liked the girl, she was good for his brother. Her softness balanced out some of Sam's harsh lines. It didn't get rid of all the trauma, but it made it easier to swallow. He couldn't see the hell hound, but he no longer felt the dog at his heel. He figured it had taken a position in front of Zatanna, guarding her that way while he covered her back. Or maybe it went away entirely. Dean was okay with either option, to be honest. When the magician slammed her hand down on the ground, a title wave of red reverberated throughout the club. He could hear anguished screams as the ghosts were pushed out of the club. Dean turned to look at Zatanna when they were all gone and his face dropped. Her eyes were glowing red and blood was dropping down her nose as she pushed the spell forward. "Son of a bitch!" he dropped the axe and dropped to his knees in front of her. "Zatanna!" he cupped her face in his hands to try to break her concentration, but it was no use. She was going to get herself killed if she pushed any further. He dropped his hands over hers and the pure force of the magic expelling from her finger tips burned his hands like wild fire. He wasn't a natural conduit for these things like she was, but that didn't matter. His fingers wrapped around her hand and he pulled until he was able to physically break the connection between her hands and the earth. The magician collapsed into him and he held her for a moment as the barrier stopped and held a steady one mile ghost free parameter around Lux. "For fucks sake, Zatanna," he breathed. "I said set the parameter around Lux and only Lux. You trying to get yourself killed?"

ZATANNA: She could hear Dean calling for her but he sounded so far away. It wasn't until his hands pulled at her, breaking her connection to the earth that it all came flooding back. First came the overwhelming exhaustion and fatigue as she collapse into him. Then came the headache. It felt like her brain had its own pulse. To her surprise, the barrier held. The club was eerily quiet now as people cautiously made their way out of the woodwork. Zatanna became distinctly aware of Dean's breathing as he checked her. The tension in his shoulders seemed to ease when he found she still had a pulse. "Bold of you to assume we're not already dead and in hell," she laughed, but the effort only caused the throbbing in her head to intensify. She'd burned herself to the wick tonight, but she wasn't the only one. "Your hands..." she winced. Fuck. Grabbing her in the middle of a spell like that was like trying to hold onto a shooting star. "I'm sorry."

DEAN: He chuckled at her response. He was relieved to hear she still had enough energy left to talk. "If that's the case, this might be the swankiest version of hell I've ever been to." He picked her up, wincing sightly when pain shot through his arms, but he managed to carry her over to a table and some chairs that were still standing. "Don't sweat it, I've been through worse." He ripped apart one of the table cloths and wrapped his hands. It did nothing to contain the pain, but it would at least keep the wound clean for now. "You did good tonight, but I'm gonna have to bench you for the rest of this fight. Can you hang tight here?" He needed to leave the safety of the parameter and get as many people back here as he could. "I'll send someone back here to check on you." Maybe he could send Jack out this way. He preferred if the kid stayed in the parameter anyway.

ZATANNA: "Aw, come on, coach," she laughed but even the effort of that hurt. She knew he was right. It was best she say here and recover as much of herself as she could. When she regained enough strength, she would be able to help people get back to this side of the parameter. "I'll stay here," she agreed. "Oh, and Dean," she pulled him back as if she was about to say something serious. "Watch out for the hell hound. He's on your left." The hound never left them. Up until this point he just observed. It was in that moment that it growled to let Dean know it was still there. "Careful out there, yeah?"

DEAN: He stiffened and then straightened when the hell hound growled. "I hate this place." He turned his head to the left and the growling got closer. "Yep, definitely hate this place." He grabbed the axe off the ground. "I'm always careful. Try not to die while I'm gone. I'm the last one that saw you alive and I really don't wanna answer to your angel mafia," he shuddered but a cheesy sort of smile remained on his face to let her know he was kidding. After a beat, he threw the axe over his shoulder and made his way out of the club. Maybe it was his imagination, or maybe it was just his paranoia, but he was certain he could hear the hell hounds paws hitting the ground in time to his own footsteps. It was gonna be a long night.

#╰☆☆ you know the devil would be jealous of your silver tongue | replies ☆☆╮#╰☆☆ family doesn’t end with blood | dean ☆☆╮#discords

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thefudge · 5 years

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How is it right that Dany can crucify people when not everyone who she crucified is guilty. Why is collective punishment ok just because the people being punished belong to one class instead of the other. I thought collective punishment of a group whether or not they are guilty was wrong.

i don’t know where this is coming from, but it’s an interesting question and here’s how to look at it, from my point of view

a) i think the show/books are pretty clear in not totally condoning dany’s actions against slavers, despite her passionate reasoning (the show doesn’t do a good job with the ethical ramifications, but rather the practical ones). the issue is not solely rooted in morality; it’s also the fact that collective punishments don’t work on a practical level. dany’s reformation of slaver’s bay is a complicated process which she had hoped to streamline by simply purging the slavers’ class indiscriminately (more on that later on). GRRM and the showrunners (in their hamfisted way) are pointing out that it takes more than that to rehabilitate these societies.

b) “ when not everyone who she crucified is guilty” - this is our modern outlook on things, but in the world of asoiaf, the mentality is “you have to raze the whole village”, a principle applied by many characters in both books and show. basically, you don’t leave survivors of a certain group or community you mean to disempower, because they will rise up and try to stir that shit again (in this case, they’ll try to bring back slavery, and wouldn’t you know it, the slavers/masters in neighboring cities do. in fact one of the reasons they want to invade mereen is to bring back the good ol’ days. the discussion is a bit more complicated in the books, because there’s a lot more political chaos on both sides). however, you can’t exterminate everyone and call it a day. GRRM underlines that the “raze the whole village” model doesn’t work in the long run, because there are always ppl who survive and remember what happened (”the north remembers” is coming for the boltons in the books), or alternately, the damage done by the extent of the violence has ramifications that the perpetrators don’t even understand.

the best example of this is tywin obliterating house reyne (and btw, unlike dany, he doesn’t just execute the male adult “masters”/nobility, he makes sure no infant, woman, or elder person survives the purge). in theory, tywin is removing a tumor so that nothing will grow back. the problem is, the story of house reyne became infamous. and this made house lannister look formidable and impregnable, BUT, very importantly, it imposed a future pattern: house lannister from now on will have to keep one-upping the competition, secure their power by totally exterminating other houses. if they do anything less, their prestige wanes, i mean there’s even a song about it, for christ’s sake. it’s basically like crossing a line. once you do that, you have to keep crossing it to maintain your position. basically, tywin showed his hand: he doesn’t negotiate, show compassion, or adapt, which makes the whole “a lannister always pays his debts” more of a funeral dirge than a bargaining chip. it also makes house lannister inflexible and rooted in a model that can’t survive a modernization of westeros. (which reminds me, i know there’s talk in the books that tyrion is the child that most resembles tywin, but i think cersei isn’t far off. she has the same mentality of “leave no survivors” which she thinks is very clever cuz she got it from her daddy lol anyway)

these are the ramifications leaders, both good and bad, don’t always see. dany, who is a much better person than tywin all around (and no, i won’t debate this), is also slowly required to up the ante, to cross certain lines. and once you do that, you have to keep going forward (”if i look back, i’m lost”).

this is all to say that while we as readers/viewers can perceive dany’s actions as problematic, dany and her contemporaries would not, not to the extent we do. in the world of asoiaf this is just another strategy. on the other hand, while readers/viewers didn’t necessarily celebrate the crucifying of slavers & nobility, no one wept over it either. and here i contend with the ethical argument:

(more under the cut cuz this is getting too long)

as many others have argued, dany doesn’t understand the hierarchy or the inner workings of these societies and may be killing innocent people while other guiltier masters may get away (163 masters for 163 children is a tough thing to get 100% right). but dany doesn’t have the resources or the ability to measure everyone’s degree of complicity. that’s why in modern society, collective punishment is frowned upon, you just can’t quantify that shit. that doesn’t mean whole groups don’t benefit off of exploitation and must be exonerated. we just don’t resort to indiscriminate violence. in the asoiaf universe, however, when you can’t quantify it, you do what you think is the next best thing which is to root out the tumor. who is likely to reinstate slavery and rise against dany? the masters & nobles. it should also be pointed out that the crucifying is her passionate response to the earlier crucifying of slave children.

no, dany’s actions aren’t right (or smart, in the long run) and she suffers the consequences for it since she hasn’t really eradicated the problem but 1) the slavers are forcing her hand. she has to respond to the crucifying of children, otherwise she will appear to the people she’s liberating as not much different from the slavers, 2) she is acting on the assumption of the greater good (and her own great destiny as liberator), which can very easily blind a leader to the nitty-gritty of day-to-day politics.

basically, dany is #trying but failing due to 1) deeply flawed systems that were installed long before she got there and 2) her own skewed perception of what a leader can do.

now, does this make her a blood-thirsty tyrant? i say no. i say she is a good mirror for the unexamined righteous self. she is actually more like us than we’d care to admit. we like to think our heart is in the right place as we strive to do the right thing, but sometimes we end up making things worse.

and this is coming from someone who has always squinted at dany’s biased and rose-tinted portrayals in the fandom. i’ve always been a dany skeptic who sees a tragic, rather than truly heroic figure in her. she is meant to be an anti-heroine, make no mistake about it, but she will never be the gross caricature d&d fashioned in 1 and ½ episodes. like i said, d&d actually made me more of a dany fan after their reductive conclusion.

the recent dany love from many ppl stems not from deciding to uncritically “stan” her 5ever, but as a response to d&d’s bad writing. once GoT is put to bed, i think there’s room for more nuanced discourse (and there’s a lot of it already). and as an aside, you can still support and cherish dany and see where her faults lie.

as a second aside, i always find it interesting that such complex debates about ethics always revolve around dany, but not so much when it comes to other characters. the northeners’ purity politics & isolationism on the show, for instance (which extends to those barbarous wildlings that have to go back beyond the wall)? unexamined. but dany tries to do smth about slavery??? what a heinous human being. again, i know the argument is made in good faith, because after all, the books themselves are supposed to make you question dany’s actions. but i don’t think GRRM meant for ppl to dedicate so much time thinking about those poor, poor masters/slavers. GRRM is rather pointing out the fallacies of collective punishment as a rule, as you mentioned yourself (it never works, it isn’t moral etc) but we’re not supposed to become devil’s advocate for the oppressors (i mean his depiction of some of those nobles & slavers in book 5? priceless. they’re all dehumanized caricatures, or just plain dehumanized).

#replies #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf #anti got #got meta #my thoughts #slavery

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korra4321 · 4 years

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Epiphany (Gifts sequel)

Word Count:14.5K

Trigger warnings: Violence, strong language , yandere themes

Teaser :Epiphany is a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization.

Fate really have it twisted way of bringing two broken souls together, the said souls share the copy image view of the world not only mutual understanding but bring out the best in his other half , understand one another with the simplest move , love unconditionally and care for each other like there is no one but them. Soulmate bond that unbroken, soulmate was a whole being divided by two , one soul in two separate bodies.

Korra found on him the companion that she was seeking all the time , someone who understands her no matter how massed up and fucked up she was , the later always understand her , someone who view the world just the same like he was seeing it through her own eyes, he was magical too and he brought a new purpose to her life , he saved her from the bottomless loneliness. Tom found on her everything literally, a savior, a companion, someone like him with extraordinary abilities, she showed him how special he was , cared for him like a human being that he was, he felt gratitude for her first , he wanted to give back to her and protect her that feeling slowly developed to a youthful liking that took an expected turn to become an endless obsession that growth worse day by day.

He called it love and soulmate decided by fate. She called it companionship of no more or less then best friend platonic love.

Korra laid down on her bed, no there bed now that her massed up besitie claimed it as theirs , he was taking a bath in the exact same water she just bathed into it.

She heard him humming a song that she always listen to when she was working and she let her mind roam for a second debating if he always did that in his time in the prison , she though that leaving him there will help him realize that she doesn't have romantic feeling toward him , the only emotions her heart hold for him was platonic one .

But unfortunately it did not help at all, it made him believe she was either :

A)giving him time out as a punishment of not telling her he was Lord Voldemort and not making her involved in the purge as her right for being his soulmate

B) transferring there relationship to the state of long distance one to taste his ability for it which he proved to be idealist one

Even direct method of communication like talking her feeling toward him to make it loud and clear made the latter believe she was denying her feeling and too afraid to let herself being loved and love someone , loving her soulmate, he claimed that she have Philophobia . He called himself her medicine that will cure her of that phobia.

She sighed making herself in the fetus position , as she deeply analyzed trying to see from when and where he started loving her and having that 'we are soulmate' delusion .

Usually adolescence start having crushes around fourteen years old the average age where puberty happen , the awkward stage of leaving the childhood and entering the mystery land of teenage years that will be the gate to adulthood the current state of which both of them where now , they are doomed to stay in it for evermore .

"Fucking horcruxes" Korra scowled her tone dripping loath for whoever had a hand in letting him know about it , she never felt the desire to rip one throat with her bare teeth or the desire to curse him down with all the unforgivable curses respectfully in sequence .

In her fetus position she froze down at the idea, at the train of thought and where it landed her. She was thinking just like him, the ill intention to cause harm and unmentionable thing to an innocent.

Maybe just maybe they were .... alike?

‘No...I am not the same as someone who torment ,kill and destroy pure people life .’ She buried her face in the pillow deeper , letting the soft cushion consume all of her face , needed to let it block her though

How dare she let herself to even think they were the same? Next thing she knew that she would believe that they were product of fate design, the two shards of the same entity... soulmates.

Whoever said that one mind can be it worse enemy is truly man of wisdom. Even if the said wisdom applies to her right now, it's a sword with two different blades, her ally and her foe.

She could use it as weapon if she played her cards right. She can be free in no time and she could run away from him if she pretended that his ' treatment ' is curing her of her blindness of the indisputable truth.

'and then when he see I view him as a soulmate, I will run away when he give me freedom, when he trust me blindly ' Her mind was being her ally right now , Lady luck was on her side , her lady hope persona may lost the battle but there is war left , there is fire left on her that didn't die .

The door of the bathroom slightly opened leaving a crack that let the steam escape and the scented candles with lavender to spread into the air. And his humming stopped.

"Korra dear? Is everything alright there?" His voice was worried with no other trace of emotion there, just filled with worry.

"Yes Tom, everything is right, did something happened?" She matched his voice.

The crack spread more allowing for his wet head to be seen, and that smile to be fully displayed on it glory ,"it just that I heard you saying, " he paused for a few seconds allowing himself to perfectly mimic her words like a passage of speech from president himself. "Fucking horcruxes" his smiled forsaken for a smirk . "Darling you can't ..have an intercourse of that type with a container ...but if you feel...." Korra who's face exploded with red had avoided eye contact with him and rushed to cut his sentence. "No! I..don't want that ..." He chuckled softly , like she made an inside joke . "I know you don't want it ....now ....you are just saving yourself up for our wedding" His eyes had hunger look into them as he slowly closed the door.

Leaving her a mess of red and heat, while he returned to his humming that followed by more tone of euphoric.

She really needed to get out of that place.

As a mocking from fate her eyes landed on the pillow form the living room, she didn't know why it was there but the writing on it mocked her

{HOME SWEET HOME}

It's like a butcher welcoming a livestock before ending them for good.

She stepped out of the bed, but remembered the masks, she looked at them.

Lord Voldemort persona was staring at her with unforgiving stare promising chaos to whoever breathed an insult directly or indirectly to her or him, to any and every no magical human to make them existent from the word of living.

Her eyes drafted slightly to the right.

Lady Hope is antonym of her counterpart, her eyes brought mercy and hope to the suffering survivors, a reminder of the light side that still exist.

Anyone in their right mind will see that they were the opposite, foes made to destroy one another. Light vs dark in their form of materialistic.

But not to him of course.

Tom Marvalo Riddle was soaking wet in the bathtub He couldn't help but to feel rush of adrenalin through his vines.

That smirk was still in his lips. The masks were even more proof of their love.

Lord Voldemort destroy the enemy while Lady Hope cure the falling of their side both mentally and physically like the ancient Yin and Yang, one can cease to exist without the other, they need each other to survive.

Why she was so confused and misguided by those muggles ? His teeth chatting and his jaw clinched. The rotten muggles made her filthy . How dare they firstly to drive her away from her world that rightfully belong to her by their nasty spawn of Satan that doesn't have the ghost of claim to magic that preserved only for pureblood no they stole magic from them no claiming to claim something is to have an ownership right for it ,secondly they made her live among them doing low job that barley cover the bills ?

In infuriating he ran his hands through his long hairlines, he recalled that she would return them to their original length just the same length she putted will he did what he always does, impressive her.

He breathed in more of that scented smell of lavender, he noted to himself that in the manor he bought for them and just them he will grow lavender in the garden and more lovely flowers so when she walk the pathway it always have a scent she liked.

He has millions and more scenarios of their eternal life together, he had one year of isolation to plan it and write it down on the diary, even living them in his slumber.

He heard the sound of a door opening and he was half expecting that she will be joining him, he embraced himself to feel her body heat against his and move his body to the side of the bathtub making space for her and he moved a finger and music began a pleasing song filled the atmosphere but the bathroom door was not the one who opened that the bedroom one .

Korra was on the hallway , it was still Halloween night she called hear children screaming with enjoyment "trick or treat", she looked at the window and saw youngsters wearing cosplays of their favorite characters even that one of them even wore a suit and claimed to be bodyguard for his sister that wore a simple regular custom resemble modern princess. she got an instant flashback at the sign of the two.

It was Tom first year Halloween with her and she wanted to give him as normal childhood as someone like him called. Blaz was waiting for them at the living room to get ready for the ancient act of trick and treat.

"Are you sure you want to be wearing suit? I don't mind it but it's your choice " he simply nods and flashed her a lovely smile. "Yes bestie, I am really sure also I read in a book that cliché is overrated so why not use something new?" The boy that too mature for his age said , Korra theorized that his suffering and tormenting that he faced in the orphanage led him to be this developed in his mind but they say that trauma build the character ,it's a sacrifice of innocent for the gain of knowledge.

Korra left him to change to her custom in her room . the boy mentally scolded, he never liked this 'Blaz' , but for her he will pretend that he tolerate him until he find the perfect method to get him to leave them alone .he looked at himself on the mirror .the reflection showed his dark hair gracing his childhood feathers and his dark eyes matched the occasion and the suit that he insist on wearing will give an effect on anyone to not talk down to him.

After couple of minutes Korra come back wearing regular clothes that was not addressing the holiday at all, he extended his hand to her like a young gentleman , korra though he was being in the character so she took his hand into hers and they wordlessly went downstairs to join Blaz . The man jumped to his feet from seeing that she was not dress up and he was wearing skeleton custom . "You...you didn't dress up?" Blaz voice filled with disappointment as his eyes traveled between his custom and her regular everyday clothes . She shrugged "I am going in as a background character they don't dress shiny like the protagonist and antagonist, just normal to blend in" she took a good look at his custom and an idea popped into her head ." I can be the previous you ... Living just before death" Tom hand on her squeeze and he bite his lips making them thin line, just the idea of losing her to death was unbearable , he hated how death means separation of loved one, in his orphanage days he was starved out of love and caring that he craved so frantically, just because he was different than others doesn't mean he didn't yearn for his basic human right of emotional containing. That made him attached to her as she was the sole survivor with him after the apocalypse.

"And Tom? let me guess a high lord of a previous lifetime?" Blaz voice may come as cheery for others but to him it's as irritating as sharp nails on a chalkboard. He just couldn't wait to get him out of the picture. It took Tom a maximum of five seconds to put his fake tolerance for Blaz to display. His vocal was so calm and soft as his dark eyes held warmth of the sun in a winter morning "You can say so , but in fact I am korra's bodyguard...she may say she's a background character for someone story but for me she’s the heroine in my book" his eyes captivated with real emotions of gratefulness as he continues with charming tone ." She's my savior" with a kiss on her hand he finished.

"Tom....that’s too much .... You are too much of a true gentleman now " Korra who can't remember the last time someone made positive remark on her maybe it was when she worked in the ministry when Jonathan Morgenstern an aurora made a mistake of practicing magic to let out a fire when he was camping during his vacation unaware of unwanted attention of a muggle who was hiking which led the wizard to ask the ministry to send an obliviter to fix his undone, he called her in a friendly comment a light giver due after obliviating the muggle she didn't forget to bring with her a light to help him start a bonfire. That nickname become her code name after the accident .

"No bestie I am telling the truth....is that a tear?" Indeed she had a silent tear on her eyelids , "yes, something went into my eyes I think it was an eyelash" she was not lying completely since one was on her eyes and she had a tear because of the impact pf his words on her , it was fate giving her a merciful look.

"Let me rub it out for you" before she can protest he reach out his hand that she knelt to his head level allowing him to get the stubbornly eyelash for her but instead of dismissing it with his hand the boy put it on his hand palm . "Bestie what are you doing?" Korra was concerned that he will practice magic Infront of Blaz. "It's a saying in a folklore that if you put an eyelash on your hand and made a wish it will become true , come one bestie make a wish for me"

The woman mumbled lowly out of Blaz earshot but in Tom's one "I wish that we will stay best friends forever " and then she bellowed. ----- When they walked from house to house that was decorated for the night of the mythical creatures, enjoying the peaceful night without any accident until one that nearly ruining the night for them had happened . They were walking to the last house of the night when the one responded to the door ball was an obese man with his double chin and obvious vines that was nearly everywhere and his smell was straight out of butcher as he smelled of livestock fat and tissues , his eyes was too inside of him that he had to widen them to get great view opened the door. "Trick or treat" Tom said as he felt the weight of his bag full of sweets from the night . The man that awfully reminded anyone looking at him of a pig grinned as he looked above and behind Tom shoulders to Korra, his hands around the glass bowl he was holding tightened while colors of deep red exploded on his face he licked his lips as saliva escaped his mouth . "Oh dear lord knows I don't mind trick ...private trick from her " his tone heavy with unmistakable lust as he made clear with his eyes what type of tricks he seek from her . Blaz didn't get the time to respond to the direct verbal sexual harassment when it happened.

The bowl in the human pig hands exploded candies falling like tiny rain of child dream on the small area between them ,shards of glass entering the man body piercing his skin do deep that it surprised Blaz with how deep the shards buried into the man that they disappeared in him like pins hanging on a jacket not a living body , but that didn't shock Blaz more than the fact that in nothing but a miracle when the bowl exploded a wind blowing from behind them protected them from the shards . The pigman face was stuck on shook as he shaking tried to take out the shards with his fat fingers but in pointless efforts he failed , then his eyes widened even more that it was semi cartoonist as his bloody hands went to the place his heart was and it looked like he was having a heart attack but in fast and extremely misery and just like a pig he made a final cry that literally sounded like the said animal and he dropped dead.

What happened after it was the classic of making sure that Tom was fine as the later took the opportunity to hug her and bury his face into her claiming to be shocked by the tragic and trauma death that happened before his innocent child eyes, as Blaz dialed the police and ambulance informing them of the accident ,Tom was glad that the hug give him the cover for that dark grin on his face . He was wearing the suit suitable for a bodyguard...savior his extraordinary abilities helped him to live as the role ...her savior and not just for one night for all their life together.

Korra was back to the present time with feeling of his arms around her torso and hot breath on her ears as he whispered" do you remember that night? That pig of a man ...?" The edge of his voice was merciless ,his arms stiffed but didn't feel like the force that will case a break more like borderline feeling of a snake closing itself around her waist in a light hug . "Now that I think about it his death was....easy , I should have tortured him more , by that time I didn't realize the disturbing truth of his words I thought it was just trying to make you do a trick without me , I got this feeling of heavy burn inside me and then you saw what happened, if that happened now... " Still he didn't press harder on her torso but his chin rested on her shoulder and she saw scarlet on his orbs , mad with rage at the mere thought of dead man. his eyes softened when he saw that she was looking at his reflection. "Sorry love for that " he let her go only to take her hand and led her to the bedroom where a scissor lied on the table waiting to be used , a faint glow on the edge told her it was magical enchanted just like everything else in the house .he sat on at the chair and she knew what he wanted , that damn hair.

She realized a sign if she wanted to gain his trust and escape to the ministry of magic she will have to play the role . ---- "I am never a chief but at least let's try it" He made for them a dish that she didn't bother to look at it but when he sat the plate to her with a wave of his hands she saw it was a simple parmesan chicken . "Bone Appetit" he said as they began their meal, Korra found it mystery how he was still having a appetite after ordering Nagini to eat the shop owner but again that was just a drop of the black sea of his mistakes that she wanted to fix, she refused to accept the fact that her bestie is now someone that obsessed with her and claim it as love , for a second she paused as she realize that it was love and she knew it but he have his way of showing it that made the line between friendship and romantic relationship to be questionable. She forced herself to eat not wanting to know what he will do if she didn't.

Being done eating he waved again but this time the dishes disappeared in favor of bottle of wine and two glasses. "A toast for our eternity together" he raised his glasses and she knew that she have to do her part of the tradition. "For our eternity" 'until I escape to the ministry ' and there was nothing but the sound of their glasses cracking .

---- They were laying on the bed with a book on her lap as she was reading and he was following making comments on how the characters were predictable and nothing new happen. As if he's complaining was a cue an owl dropped a letter to his lap. He led go of the hand that was holding his before flashing her an apologetic smile and opened the letter.

{Done} with no sender information at all.

Korra didn't remove her eyes away from the book "you are right they are so foreseeable" he kissed her head ,"I love when you admit I am right ....maybe that's will make you see how deeply I am willing to go for you , purging the wizarding society is just a tip of what I am capable of and how far I will go for you" his voice was one of those who have a sugar rush . "Muggles need us the same way we need them..."she firmly said ,he took a deep breath "we don't need them at all, they can't use magic to safe one of their loved one dying or even to simply left an object ....they drove you away from where you truthy belong " his tone hold grudges as if he was born for it . "I left because it became toxic with all the pureblood maniacs " he paused looking at her in disbelief. She took at as signal to continue " I mean I know a lot of muggle born who are brilliant with a lot of potential unlike some purebloods who have squib in their family " she grinned falling victorious . "The only reason for squib to happen is because a mudblood took the said squib , muggles are nothing but kelptomaniacs that need to be punished for the crime of taking what not belonging to them" that victory in her died at his reply, she knew that there is no point on keeping this conversation going. "Five" he said with a silky voice . In puzzling state of mind she looked at him . There is no need to ask as he understood her without talking . "Each single time you defend those low life of mudblood and muggles I will end five of them, the ratio will vary it can be five kids , five men, five elders , five women , a twin child and woman and two men , or to make the odd preferable five pregnant women so that bonus " He said that with a teasing amount of causality like he was reading a newspaper . "You can't do that....think about how Blaz will feel" a finger on her chin forced her to have eye contact with that flame of hell . "Don't you dare to say any male name around me .... especially Blaz he was the worst , really he need to be learn to mind his own business and he had absolutely no respect for personal space " he silenced himself to collect air in his lungs. "He was my secret keeper and you know what his death did , it was what made my existence return to the wizarding world " hint of regret was on her voice but she didn't take her eyes of his bluntly to keep that fact buried into his mind.

"You do realize that they have a shorter lifespan then us, why not choosing a wizard to be the secret keeper? “he was not complaining but did she really disliked to that level how toxic the situation of blood state was? This time she avoided eye contact with him "it's felt the only way to truthy have nothing left to come back to that society" What do they say about anyone who avoided eye contact when he in the middle of a conversation?, Clear sign of a lie . He smugly grinned at the conclusion that she had something that will always connect her to the that world. He just needed to find it, he had that ambition that he wanted no, eager to clarify the fog of mystery surrendering his soulmate past. "You know , lovely angel , you never told me about your time as a witch save being an obliviter I want to know facts like your magical state , what you did in Hogwarts ?, If you had any childhood friend or took solace in being friends with books?" He freed her chin of his finger to lean back to the head of the bed to observe every single move she makes. She felt a knot in her throat, her past was nothing, but song of loneliness played with melody of tragedy. She was a love child of misfortune and loss,

"At a very young age I learned that nothing good last forever "

Her very first memory is this, It was her seventh birthday with her parents they were celebrating it in the forest surrender by a lot of creatures, her father holding her to reach a tree branch where a small nest had bird that was too shy to go and see what the world have to offer, "daddy he is so shy , he won't take the worm from me" her tiny voice hold disappointment, her father slowly lowered her back to the ground fearing that a rush will harm her , "sweet one , it's too early for him to step out of his safety shell to the outside " he kissed his daughter head. Her mum was setting on a rug that they brought with them that on it their lunch and a simple cake for three , her skin glowed attractively in the sun light her brown hair gracefully freefall on her without any style to keep their beauty away. The little girl walked to her mother that embraced her so tightly as she whispered to her "Happy birthday" her father who had black hair and heterochromia eyes , one was grey the other hazel, he was watching the scene with butterflies on his stomach, how lucky he is to get both a beautiful wife and lovely daughter it was so contiguous euphoric like a scene a painted by an artist of what the first minutes in heaven like. The girl remembered a trick she can do but it required a baby animal such as a bunny or hare . "Mommy , daddy I am going to show you something really cool just wait for me" Her mother had a book in her lap and her father laid down looking at the clouds telling his wife the shapes they remind him off , her mother extracted her wand from her pocket. "Expecto Patronum" from her wand busted a silver ghostly runespoor, it's three head tall with pride and in that sunlight it give him a glow of grace . "I will protect you " it was awkward to hear her mom voice from the Patronus but she got used to it from the second time , Patronus are meant to be guardians even companions for the lonely souls, never she felt the intense feeling of her blood turning ice on her vines from the terror of the runespoor Infront of her , she found him comfortable and favorable to have around when her parents where working, call it a questionable choice of babysitter but the three head serpent was her only friend ,they were living on a shack in the forest it was not fancy neither in poor condition but perfect for the small family with no civilian only for a small town that was miles away what was it name? Little Hangleton.

It's a small town actually with nothing of interest, the family lived in peace away from the anything that was civilian, self-sustaining themselves form the little garden they have and a nearby river. They had jobs small one in the town enough to get them by and never to let them feel short hand and waiting from pay check to another . It's was all so peaceful and paradise like. It was too good to be truth, too good to be left without darkness tinting it .

Korra went deeper to that forest not lost due to the the patronus keeping a clever watch and map of the soul to its caster ,when she didn't only find a bunny but a wounded child around eight years old . "You don't look so good " she draw closer to him , now that she was closer she took a good look at him , curly platinum hair and strange purple eyes , albino?, And a gashes covering his body he was bleeding heavily. "I am on my way " again the patronus spook with that voice . "What happened to you?" Her curiosity was over the roof . "I...I was attacked by a wild creature I don't remember it's shape it was fast...so fast and brutal he left me to die as you see “the child spook with wary voice . "My mom is coming to help, my name is Korra" all what she can do is to speak to him to keep him awake. "Nice name for a nice child, mine is Godric, tell you what we are going to be friends , actually we already are "he give her a little smile as his lips managed to part. The girl eyes widened , "friends ?, Really ...I have no friends like living flesh and bone one" she didn't have any at all the town people didn't have any child as if they were so afraid to bring any to the world due to the economic crisis that was going on yet they give her parents looks she didn't understand and her looks of discomfort and pity but to finally have a friend it was an experience that she longed for , she read about it in books and always longed for someone to call a friend other than runespoor . "Korra dear , step aside I want to aid the child " her mom took out her wand and the tip of her wand touched the child body. In a blink of eye, a heartbeat ,the boy vanished , long gone his aurban locks and purple eyes , now standing on all four a creature of darkness and eyes of the devil , lava like eyes glowing with bleeding red , and his voice bottomless hole it must be what an vengeance will be like if it had a voice , his teeth so sharp it was surprise it didn't cut that long tongue . "I knew I will find a Huffman here ...not one but two my dark lord Grindelwald will be so pleased " he snicker , her mom come in front of her shielding her . "Go and tell your lord that he can make love to himself that all I care about " her wand never left her hand as she throws a hex at him , he judge with a jump upwards , it was thing of wonder how a being of that mass is able to move with such agility and in a blink of eye landed behind them , the patronus sprinted attacking at the same time that her mother made a protection charm to her daughter not caring for her safety , the creature went invisible the same minute the patronus hit him and dismissing into thin air .

"We are friends korra just you and your mommy come with me to the dark lord" he mocked ,voice coming from everywhere and nowhere . "Think about what your place will be with my Lord , your daughter too, you are wasting away all your potential and abilities here " a shift in the branch of nearby tree made her mother send a hex at it . The jinx hit the tree with but no monster was on it . It was right next to her child, who was shaking . 'f....friend .monster. They do this...trying to kidnapped their friend to a bad guy....I don't want that ' Her daughter magic core what in chaos and the aura around it growing viciously , repealing against the protection charm , creating an orb of gray cocoon . Her mother was torn between keeping her daughter save and calming her and defeating the monster. The creature open his mouth so wide but it was not the teeth to be terrified off, it's spitted a texture liquid and sticky it rained from his mouth like riddle of bullets at them , but before it can touch any one of them it froze . His body abruptly vibrated brutally , and like a fireworks it explode . Korra magic murdered him. Her mother was caught off guard, her daughter was more powerful then she thought she need to learn to stabilize that magic before wrong hand find her . She rushed to her hugging her , " I am so sorry you had to witness that, so sorry for what happened , you are alright right ?" She briefly scanned her daughter, wide teary eyes, and shock on her face. "Mom is that what friend do..." It was not a question, a broken statement. "No.....they do this " the monster voice raged again with a tone that will hunt her for the rest of her life . Her mom eyes froze when she realized what the creature actually was .... It was ultio. Ultio was the worst ever, it should never ever be killed, once he is dead, he literally brings his murderer down with him to the grave. There was only one way to survive. "I love you " she kissed her daughter check and hugged her so tightly shielding her from what was happening . She heard to sound of blood spilled and tissues of body ripped off as the creature killed her mom and was gone with her. One Huffman was gone , another shocked to the core . Her mother sacrifice made the girl to be invincible and untouched by any dark force.

Her father grows worried from not seeing anyone return as he felt heavy silence, even the birds were silent, he just woke up from a nap. "Love, Korra??" The cake and food were left untouched, again no answer. He felt string leading him forward to the deeper part of the forest. The deeper he got the more the lack of sound become ominous. Until he saw the scenery.

A bony body hugging a frozen bloody living one , and the hair covering the girl become red with blood . He lost it. ----- "Daddy I am so sorry...I wanted to show you and me....why aren’t you looking at me?" Her father was gone in his mentally and it had been days since that cursed day, be barley ate , slept that was when he was home , when he was not he drowned himself in work ,locked the house on his daughter who desperately needed someone to calm her from all the mental attacks she have , there was no runespoor anymore to keep her company, no friend , not a soul but her and his dad who is mentally dead ,refusing to accept it , part of him died with his wife he couldn't bear to look at his daughter she was the spilling image of his late wife, not acknowledge her , like she died with her mother. For four years she didn't hear her father voice at all, just crying and ugly whining. She never spoke during that four years at all , so when an owl appeared dropping a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts ,like a robot her father moved his eyes hallow and took her to get her things for the school . --- Now they were at the train express , families where hugging their children goodbye promising to exchange letters , her father gaze to the unseen as he just waved goodbye. She didn't bother to wave back at all.

"Salvatore ,Korra Salvatore" the sorting hit said her name , she walked toward it ,not caring which house she will be into , the hat was putted on her head . "You are unique one here, not many like you , I can name very few who share the same magical core like you ...I see intelligence and bookworm Ravenclaw will be great for you... But you are loyal and love fair play ...it's equal the traits of the two houses on you hmm it's difficult for you ...is that a trace of .... oh, my let it be ... Hufflepuff!" The said house clapped and giving her a warm welcome , she didn't feel a string even when curious eyes looked at her wondering what the sorting hat was going to say as he cut himself off before announcing her house . Time passes and she never gained any friend , she didn't want another Godric she wanted her mother back she wanted her father back from the dead , it's like she become orphan losing them both . Soon even her house learned to leave her alone she was shut down of the world it's all black and grey no white that white left along with runespoor that patronus friend , she never spoke a word unless it's absolutely necessary and to cast a spell other time they thought that she was mute , but as more news come by about the dark lord and people more and more terrified, her sleep had a lot of nightmare surrounding by one word Grindelwald, what was that wizard and why he wanted her and her mother so badly ?, It's definitely have to be about her family from her mother side. In one evening her mother made her promise that she will never ever tell anyone she was Huffman rather than she was a Salvatore from her father side , she didn't know why but she made that promise without asking . Her father had no family at all, he was orphan didn't have a foster family. Her mother never told her about her family or even if she has one . Still the mystery around that Grindelwald and her family hunted her , she wanted answer and a book in the restricted section will contain the answer. But all what she had to do is to one of the perfect students to be able to get access there. So becoming teacher pet and bookworm she was her approach .around the time that her pairs where getting hormonal she was ignoring all the looks of admiration that she got from boys , she felt gross by it , no one will deny that she was beautiful .she never let herself feel the need to have a friend let alone lover .was she asexual aromatic? She didn't care at all to leave her heart open to anyone . she found solace in the darkness , in the middle of the night one day she realized she was nyctophile , that was when a teacher asked randomly if a student preferred light or darkness more if they preferred sun time or moon time since that cursed day of her mother untimely passing and she avoided everything that reminded her of it , even light .she felt her light wither fading more into a grey one .

"Listen today lesson is about casting a Patronus " she temporary froze as if she was stunned by stupefy, the others didn't give her a mind . "To conjure it you have to think of a memory that make you happy , feel you with joy " she felt sick on her stomach .

"Good job Felix of Slytherin. Your Patronus is a stage that quite amazing...Miss Salvatore you are next " Korra knew what will happen before hand , she rise her wound looking at her wand tip and said the spell, nothing at all not even a spark or pity excuse of smoke. "Thing of a happy memories dear " then she doesn't recall what happened but when she come by her class was terrified and she was quickly dismissed of the class.

----- It's he fourteen birthday, she was setting with a teacher in her office. "I am so sorry for your loss dear , you must have been so close to him that his loss affected your magic that day" she felt her teacher words of condolences . When she got that letter that day she didn't feel anything negative more like relief that her father joined her mother , at least he was happy there and content . Not her , she never smiled at all , she looked to be more suitable to be Lady of darkness then light .

"......" "I understand your grief I am here for you " "He was dead long time ago" her tone was colder and lack the care. She left her teacher stunned as she exists the room.

Korra was not completely unaware of her surrounding she just knew the elephant in the room when it comes to wizarding society was always blood state . She was half blood , she didn't know about her mother blood state if she was pure or not , but it was unfair that a teacher will be extra careful marking muggle born and careless when marking pure blood, and the bullying was so unbearable for those muggle born , from calling them mudblood to physical beating . It was unjustified at all, it had to be stopped no one was doing anything like it was the norm , even when a first year was being cornered by a pack of fourth years . It's the harsh reality of that world, she told herself that she will try to make them say what they were doing was wrong but the only way for it was if she had a high position in the ministry of magic.

On her sixteen birthday she found the answer, the restricted section illuminated by her wand the light casted shadows in her face among with the darkness of the night made the scene to be out of a mystery movie , the book of about every magical family that existed. 'H for Huffman ' she found her family from her mother side . 'Huffman have a long and interested origin , they began in the early dawn of the magical history ,legend says this that a Huffman witch found an injured animal(tale varies about the animal type some says it's a dove , dire wolf, phoenix, cat or another animal ) on the blink of death ,no passerby spare the dying animal any glance , the Huffman witch who had heart of gold took the animal in and spend countless of night nursing it back to health in the expense of her what little of supply she had and time , once the animal is back healthy , the unexpected happened , it's turned out to be an divine being. "Congrats dear witch , you are the only one who passed the test" the holy creature said his voice was so captivating and delightful. The witch was catch up by the creature ethereal beauty and light . "You and your entire bloodline will be blessed , you will have the full package, beauty , wealth , talents, abilities and luck, I have been testing witch community to see who will earn my blessing" the witch didn't approve or disapprove she tough that she died nursing the creature and this was her going through the afterlife ,but a light touch on her check told her it was real ."thanks but I was doing the right thing ", the angelic beamed. "It's a gift ,pure lady ". Korra couldn't finish reading the rest of the tale . She just closed it , tears on her eyes and onerous in her stomach. Her mother died because of a legend , and she knew that Grindelwald won't rest until he get a Huffman to join him but why he couldn't get another one or went on a hot pursue for them earlier ? If her bloodline was that of a jewel for a crown, why no one mentioned them earlier? What she believes will answer her questions have risen more questions than satisfied her. She closed the book and returned to her dorm.

The next morning she found a ray of hope when she heard that Grindelwald was captured and for the first time since more than half her life she smiled and the words that lift her lips were one of kind . "Fuck you Grindelwald" and a sea of shocked wizards and witches looked at her . ----- When she graduated from Hogwarts she got a lot of work offers from everyone who had a high position in the society , the thing is she never learned how to use that 'blessed' side since her mother didn't tell her how to use it , the only thing that was default was the looks . She didn't care about wealth since she was not one to spend it on trivia things. The only job she accepted was the obliviter position in the ministry of magic , she became obliviter for the hope to be promoted to higher position that will let her voice be heard about the racism unethical practice . It's funny to be memory wiper when you are yourself hunted and broken by your past . But as time process by and more years flew by that hope died on her , it transformer into dark void in the black hole of herself, they didn't care , they accepted the fact that it's written on stone , you see when generation rise a generation it's rise them on the previous learning that they got from the generation who risen them and the generation that is being risen will sink in the learning in like a sponge in its mindset and being risen to care more about blood state then potential is one of those things. So it was no surprise when she quit her job and moved into muggle world .

She never realized just how lonely she was until one day when it was December and numerous people pass by congratulating each other for the upcoming Christmas , a child walked to her being so full of the spirit and congrats her for it . "Lady, I hope you have a Joyful Christmas with your family and friends" Friends....she had none she couldn't even conjure the spell that heavy emphasis on happy memories. Friends were not for her , ' they either turn out to be server of the dark or one that prejudge so much ...they are risen like this ......risen wait ... Why not adopt one and mold him into a friend that is what I seek for , what I lost, who accept me for being who I am ?' It was the only option she had , all the others was unfavorable as the old saying say beggars can't be choosers. Desperate time lead to desperate methods and outcomes. Before she knew she was standing in front gates of wool's orphanage.

"And that lead us to where we are now, bestie " she dropped the last word like a spokesperson dropping the mic after victorious speech.

The dark lord was in utopia , it just couldn't get any better, every single peace for the puzzle fall together creating the perfect picture, fate really outdone herself in this love story it’s a masterpiece , he was broken by his past just like her ,he saw how the society was toxic ,they were half-bloods her family from her mother side was pure blood descended from the origin of Helga Hufflepuff his from mother side rooted from Salazar Slytherin , both of their fathers were unfortunately muggles , he will forgive fate for making them muggle , also they come from the same village, what a wonderful gift to have two decedent from two out of four now dead houses to be soulmates? it must be that their ancestors were one too, and that the great Salazar went mad when a muggle tried to take his other half away from him, it all fit perfectly fine, she was expert in advanced level of magic just like him , safe that she is so shy to show it off.

Korra knew from how she found his arms around her waist and his lips on her that his obsession have grown worse , she told him her entire background to give him window on herself a chance to let him see that she’s beginning to heal and see him as what he saw her, a step to her freedom.

so, when his kisses become more demanding and hungrier, she gives in.

----

its bright afternoon when his hand sneaked like spider legs from her back to rest at her shoulders and he printed a kiss on her cheeks before saying in nobbling words "love its time" she nearly dropped her calm facade, time for what? there weeding or to do the traditional purposing to her?, only one way to find out.

"what is it time for? Beloved one" she forced the words out of her lips, its worse than the fresh memory of that creature and its acid rain.

"to move to our new home" she looked at him like he was having a second face behind him , he adored every single expression she was making except the painful one , a pure lightness like her way not allowed to have a painful look, it's ruin that perfection on her esthetic face , he careless toyed with a hair lock , speaking about expression he was lately wondering about the type of faces she will be making from the gift he got for her. "But our belongings, we can't leave them" ‘oh sweet angel you really are worried about muggles devices aren't you.’ "I took good care of them " As they existed the place Korra with their luggage that was magical transformed to their new home , he just had to be extra dramatic and burn the house down, he smiled as he cut down the last string that pinned her to the muggle world, there was truthy no turning back now, not when the orphanage that they crossed by was with ear tearing screams of agony. -------- The marble floor felt pleasing against her bare feet , in other life she showing more awe for that manor or mansion that was her new home ,every single detail was phenomenal , what is it with dark lord ,heir of Slytherin and incredible taste? , It's like she was in heaven. Heaven..... No heaven was worth the price of one freedom and free will.

"I told you I can give you the world and more , here it is, just name the thing and in a snap of a finger it's yours" he purred seductively. She had to remind herself to earn his trust to get a chance of that sweet freedom . She run her finger to the outline of his sharp jawline and stood up on we toes the same way he was kneeling to her level , arms around her waist to give her access to his ear . "I already have everything I want " her whisper send shiver to his spine and goosebumps to his skin . "Precious one , you don't have the tinniest idea of what you are doing to me now " his dark eyes landed in hers as his thumb found her lips gently running to her upper one . --- As she took a bath , it was out of blue , a lightbulb opened in her mind and then Epiphany happened , her heart nearly stopped when a sense of revelation washed on her .

He needed her more than air , his soulmate She needed him her one true friend , obsessed and all but he understood her at the bottom of his heart. Messed up relationship but fate granted her that wish. They were part of each other that forever intertwined, tangled and become one.

Speaking about fate she wanted to know why her out of everyone had to be his....

A knock on the bathroom door made her flinch , the level of the water that was crowned with petals of rare flowers rose higher then it's container level. "My lady I am so sorry to disturb you in your time of showring but he told me he have present for you " she was glad it was not Tom voice rather a house elf one ,if her memory serves her right she will safely recall the name of Delphine for the voice owner . "It's alright Delphine thanks for telling me that" she knew that he send her to send curiosity in her to see him and know what is the present was, sneaky one isn't he, she got dressed he made sure that all of her wardrobe had luxuries clothes from every item manmade ,they had to be highest of the high end or else in his eyes it will not do her right, his wardrobe is not of a differ from hers , she settled for a simple yellow summer dress and a high socks to cover her knees , she will never wear anything short when he is in her radar.

"Precious one, you don't have the tinniest idea of what you are doing to me now "

his voice sink on her, she will never wear any short that exposes her skin, not that she was a fan of short clothes to begin with.

the marble floor welcomed her feet as the house elf led her to the garden, more accuracy one of the gardens. The ridiculous size of the land was as if it was a small country of its own and here is, he the man of the question standing and giving her a bow before claiming her hand and planting a kiss on it.

"I missed you"

"I was in the bath for twenty minutes, Riddle" his lips twisted.

"lovely angel, you don't have to remind me of the agonistic amount I was not around you" there is a lock for doors for a reason and it’s to keep the lovesick away.

she saw a box, its green color had yellow ribbons on its surface cycling it like a snake, even the house elf can tell why he chose those colors. His thumb flirt with her hand as he rubs on them, liking her body heat.

"I love the feeling of our skin together its feels right" and she longed to be contained but not like that, it’s wrong on all the right places, right on the wrong reasons.

"I am here for the present, curiosity is killing me" god by the time she escapes she will have a lifetime to spend on therapist and that therapist will need another one for himself after every session with her.

he give her a worried glance and his tone heavy with concern "my one, don't you say or suggest something like that ever again, I can’t live with the idea of losing you " she was not imagining the wet tear on his eyes , out of habit she put her hand wiping it out, out of nature he take that hand press it on his cheek before leading it to his lips and kissing it. with his extended long arm he retrieve the box, when she put distance between them he gesture for her to open it , and when she does she is captured by the present beauty.

Salazar Slytherin locket had never shined so brightly like it did in that light "you like it don't you?" her eyes had been captured by the locket and he took his sweet time glancing at every detail of her face, "its mesmerizing"

"just like you" lord have mercy, smooth one she will give him that

"turn around" he ordered.

she obeyed and his long thin fingers skillfully opened the lock and he putted it on her, it felt so right and marvelous.

"I have another present for you".

----

Azkaban eerie atmosphere screamed death and doom, it was home for him, forced to call it home after spending more than decade in it he felt strange link to it ,Grinderwarld face has aged but his feathers was still identifiable as what he was. A dark lord.

memories of his region of terror hang beyond his inner mind, his goals of making wizards and witches a superior to muggles as if it supposed to be, his only key to make that noble dream to come true lay no other than Huffman's ,this unique and sacred bloodline have unimaginable powers that no warlock or the darkest wizards could even dream off, but the dispute pose within that they are cleverly vanished from the history like they were a myth, a fragment of one imagination or even made up legend of a story to be told in a lazy winter night to children.

when he finally discovered how they managed to remain under the radar he wanted to slap the back of his head in shame, a secret keeper that pass before death the secret of the bloodline existence to another secret keeper ,foxy way to disappear but it’s not safe from the short stick of the said secret keeper untimely death, this is how they returned to existence, all what left was to find only one of them to join him, he place off lots of his followers to different places in hope to catch a wind of one of them, the more time it took the deeper his desire turned deadly , forget deathly hollows ,Huffman were the real deal, soon his fascination turned into obsession ,its forbid him from resting until he got one Huffman into his army , no it didn't matter the age , gender or blood state of the said Huffman.

He have two different aims to fulfill , firstly to get Lady Macy Galen (Korra mom) as his wife and queen, secondly to make wizards superior, ever since he met her and all what he could think off was her, his time with her as her fellow student of Beauxbatons academy of magic and they could get a future that will be envied by others, all was good until she fall in love with that muggle , he went basilisk and nearly killed him if it was not for his best friend Dumboldore stopping him, Dumboldore who is now six feet under the dirt and dead ,just like Macy .

he felt a stub of pain in his chest at that though, he waited and longed for death to get him save out of this world to her, she will always hate what he become , cant she see it was all for her?, he become dark lord to get her to notice him, why did a muggle stole her from him, he will never forget his elation when he discovered she was a Huffman ,universe love to throw every single twist at him.

he heard two footsteps walking toward his cell, one was so light like bunny, the other was balanced like a model on runaway ,the two walked in symphony that if he didn't gain acute hearing from complete solitude he will mistake them as one. He felt a wave of magic consuming all of his sense and then when he come by he found himself pined to the wall of his cell with chains, Lord Voldemort himself was honoring him with his visit and he had a women with him ,two dark lords in the same cell and a light being trapped with them.

Grindelwald looked at the women and he froze, "Ma. Mancy you are alive?" he visited her grave even digger it himself and he felt the corpse, she was truly gone, that leave one possibility. "you are her daughter" he jabbered, "Huffman, blood and soul and everything in between " the falling dark lord cooed, not believing that his dream walked to him literally. "yes she is , and keep that dirty toughs to yourself or else you want to test crucia on you " never Grinderwarld felt that the other was using legilimency on him, he didn't even make eye contact at him or felt him invading his mind, he was as good as the rumors had him to be.

"on what honor you two are visiting me for?"

it was kora who spoke "answers ", he noticed that Voldemort had his hands on her waist a clear sign of relationship and saying that she was his ,he couldn’t help but to imagine him in the other position and the daughter as her mother, it will be flawless world to make that imagination see the light , Voldemort growled and then there was nothing but the feeling of his bones turning dust through unmistakable penalty of the crime of imagination, he was being cruciaed .

he didn't know the duration of it but when it was over he found himself on the cold floor and panting like a thirsty dog, “hope that enough to make you cooperative " Voldemort voice white noise compare to the main attraction of the Huffman.

"Tom , the sooner that I ask the questions the sooner that we get out of here , it’s depressing to be here" her tone was so sweet he wanted to hear every day, if only she was Mancy,"as you wish love , I don't have a string of like in my heart for a lich like him" the gentle manner that he was speaking to her was of one of those movies about purest form of love.

"firstly, why starting the entire regain and why my bloodline of every other, I know of the powers but still get a life "

"my life ended with your mother death, I tried to commit suicide on her grave holding her corpse, but the auroras found me and now I am here “she was stunned by his answer.

"didn't anyone tell you that you are creepy obsessive lovesick specie? “he chuckled, her mother told him that a lot, but he was being her soulmate and where is the crime to love your soulmate?

"darling, do you mean me?" Voldemort asked not being sure if she was speaking to him or the falling.

"no , Tom you are my soulmate “she had to fight off the urge to choke herself , he was her bestie not lover.it had magic on him as he kissed her lips quickly .Grindelwald smirked "you don't know about the rest of the story of your bloodline do you?", a sense of dread fall on her heart , his tone had no good news on it ,he took the silence as his que to answer, “the brighter your light shine, the darker your shadow become, your bloodline have a quirk that no one will wish for on their worst enemies , to attract darkness to you , to make dark lords desire only you, yes ..to have a soulmate of darkness obsessively over you "

there is it, that cursed word that doomed her from the dawn of time, the word that awaken the devil himself that was Tom Marvalo Riddle,the delusion that in a twist of fate become truth , become her reality.

"even you know that me and her are soulmate its must to be one of kind bond that others envy us for" Tom arms caged her waist even more , "but still I can’t alter my mind of your fate " Grindelwald felt confused by Voldemort words.

before Tom could do the signature move himself korra pointed a finger at the gray-haired dark lord, infamous green light brushed from her finger illuminating the room with deadly green.

one dark lord was dead, the other having his body pressed against hers

----

"why are we in the chamber of secrets" she asked feeling a sense of raw confusion, “love , to meet the legacy that Salazar himself left as a prove that he will always love Helga at the extend of passing it to all the generation"

"a chamber that its only accessible through girls’ toilets, pervert" he laughed "I love that sense of humor of yours "

he hissed in parseltongue and the basilsilk merged in, with his eyes closed, “that it’s the legacy, touch it dear, its smooth right? but it’s no match to your skin" he flirted

indeed it was smooth and left pleasing feeling in her when she touched it ,but her mind was occupied by what she did to Grinderwarld, she didn't know what she was doing it’s like her body took matter into itself and acted up, she didn't know if it was part of the powers or not ,she had not felt that feeling of raw power before its felt so natural and deep within her soul , buries and left unattended until that moments its awaken itself .

music fall on her hearing and Tom bowed to her like a gentleman and then they danced there ,she had to act the part , after all there weeding is months from now and her only chance of escaping is the tradition of the groom leaving the bride for 24 hours that due there weeding, until then she will act , act , act until then.....

"he made the basilisk to be protector of her bloodline against mudbloods "his voice will be great for narrating any story, engaging anyone to it ,he span her and when her wrist found his , something magical happened .it come like streams of raw cosmic energy , ancient language that manifested itself within and settled there , a feeling of liquid ink of the stars themselves being written on their waists , when it was done its left words that was solid truth.

I can’t live without you

he hummed that song in relish and a long finger touched the words on her waist, it was so ghostly that his finger can be a breeze of air in a summer night ,she saw her counterpart on his waist the exact same words that can summarize there entire being.

-----

the manor felt oddly like something changed within it that matched her change , when they returned there were as always bowing death eaters to them and sentences of compliments as if both of them were a personified version of an answered prayer , till this day she couldn't get used to it , she found appreciation that he was born for the spotlight and she was born to shy away from it .

so, she failed to notice a follower mumbling to him words of approval of a delivery.

"why are we heading down?" she had never been to this part of the manor before in matter of fact she hasn’t seen all of it.

"It had failed to my attention that there is something I turned blind eye on and its should be done long time ago but you know ,my angel, that I was busy with a lot of important business to give that thing its attention" he bubbled hands holding her , leave it to him to give a speech that indirectly answer her. he loved to hear his voice, didn't he?

the door opened and what lies behind that closed door should stay behind it.

Tom riddle was being bonded by unseen robes to his rusty chair, it was not her Tom that she knew , it was the forty something version of him , what he will look like if he didn't do that deed ,if he was remind mortal and aged gracefully, his muggle father held there and completely helpless.

"why is he here?" it’s the only thing in her mind that buzzed louder then thunder.

"you mean dear, why is he still alive till now? don’t worry he won’t be" the senior made a gagging sound in response to his son assertion.

"ohh does my fool father have anything to say?, what a low life that carry made blood in his vines , a beetle that only purpose in life is to be lab genie for the wizards to test new research on" he paused for a minute to inhale a breath .

"you left my mother knowing that you are unworthy of her, she was larger than life and you were lower than the dirt" the senior again made a gag sound.

"Tom can you ungag him I want to know what he will say" she didn't care what the other will hay but she knew that her Tom will never stop talking if it was about his loathing for his father his grudge for him was undying , just like his obsession with her.

"as you wish, soulmate" with a lazy wave of his middle finger to his father, he could talk now, and the very first words were....

"Fuck you son"

what a classic, its run on the family, touché.

the junior giggled, " I am not interested on you, only in your bloodlust death, actually it’s her who should I fuck"

one thing that both of she and her father had in common, both had disgust look on them, she was glad that his attention was on his offspring and the later was glaring daggers at him to notice her greenish skin.

"now now don't you dare to get any idea of yourself in my position, you mud scam" the junior harshly said ,jealousy of something that never happened burning him, just when she tough that his condition couldn't get any worse.

"I will never think of a lady of the street like her in that way, I , who have the blood of Riddle in my vine , the heir to all ...ohhhhhh" his scream of agony nearly tore down his throat and korra found herself again in that rotten cell in Azkaban and the dead dark lord Grinderwarld dead eyes looking at her , empty with no light, he was in the afterlife now, but Crucio curse had one thing that its due to the miserable receiver, they cry sound exactly the same, that why in her mind both screams of Grinderwarld and Tom senior merge as one.

the junior sound as he stopped the curse brought her back to the present, "I am the hier of slytherine , blood of ancient pure blood run to my vine with magic you cannot imagine should end you, for this crimes, being mudblood , daring to think of marking my soulmate as yours and finally abounded my dear mother who died of a broken heart , you were never the man to stay there by her side when she needed you the most"

korra looked at the senior ,she was astonished to see the face two halves now, one for the for his father, the other for hers, she saw the similarities , both of them were never there for them leaving them to the dark , to suffer burdens that crashed them, there innocent is gone.

she felt wave of void consuming her, "kill him, he is waste of space " she was hissing, the senior looked at her as if she was the bogyman of his nightmare, Grim the ripper come for his soul.

"love!! you are truthy amazing aren't you, the reason why I remembered him was when I visited my mother grave that day and your too"

that glorious green light showed up and her father died again.

-----

its white and wonderful, her dream was miracle of light, pure in it natural form, if it not for that old man of infamous long beard and half-moon shaped glasses. They stared at each other for a very long time before he began.

"Korra Huffman or Lady Hope, I am quite disappointed in you" no hello?

"why?"

"you are literally the only one who could stop him, the prophecy was fraud to get you some time to act and be Lady Hope, he only answers to you, his soulmate"

"I am traying to bid my chance, but it is getting worse, he even threatened to kill five muggles each time I defend them" at her answer Dumboldore shrugged.

"it’s for the greater good, there death among Harry and Neville just like your mom"

time froze in that dream if that possible and so her mind, did he just....

"you are the one behind the certain, the one who send Ultio, but why"

Dumboldore began his speech and his task of explaining his deed.

"you believe in the butterfly effect don't you?, I know about your bloodline, I know that my Grinderwarld only weakness was your mother, his soulmate ,he only cared about her, I know about the quirk of your bloodline so I did that , I killed her by sending that Ultio, I know that your magic will act up killing him and triggering it all, then when she sacrificed herself Grinderwarld died with her so he tried to be physically dead to join her , and her death send your father to the state of numbness which made you what you are today so you could stop him, stop Voldemort make him see that killing muggles is wrong"

she shut down.

"YOU RUINED MY LIFE, DISTROYED ME WITH NO REPAIR, MADE MY LIFE LIVING HELL, MY PAST IS KILLING ME, MY PRESENT IS UNCHANGING, MY FUTURE IS DARK, ALLL FOR WHAT?"

Dumoldore didn't flich at her breakdown, he softly answered with voice clam and solid with no doubt even a hint of it.

"it’s for the greater good"

her mind showed her the alternative of the light lord action "if only you didn't do it I will never met him and he will never believe that we are soulmate, he will never be obsessed with me"

"oh dear child of light, it’s true, you are soulmates , there is no avoiding it , even if I didn't do what I did, he will still find you , still get you, even if he burned down the world to claim you from its ashes , there is no running from it, never"

"you are crazy you are just as dark as him, are you truthy in the light side?"

"yes, I died as I lived..."

"completely mad man"

"there was only one way to stop him, but you didn't take it that what disappoint me "

she woke up with cold sweat on her and her heartbeat so loud in her ears but it was nothing compared to her nightmare ,she found Riddle legs closing around her legs and his arms caging her torso ,like the symbol of his house he was embracing her in a snake like manner needing her body heat but it was more than the heat , she was in top of him so she felt it ,his heart beat matched hers in it racing he was still sleeping and he had heavy blush on him , she looked at him and his face was peaceful like he was light lord not the most darkest of them all if she didn't know she will be taken back by that face but again even the devil was once an angel, now cold blooded murderer, and so is Dumbledore.

she saw her waists and that words on them, in that state of mind all what she saw was the word (out) she really needed to get her nightmare out of her mind , so it’s no surprise when her nails scratch the word out .

again, and again, stronger with each turn.

'get out, get out, get out'

that nightmare is a new demon on her collection among with the epiphany of everything that had happened to her.

Where there is truly light side and dark side? she belonged to none, the light side forsaken her after its destroyed her, leaving her to be claimed by the dark side, sacrificing her like a lamb.

she smirked; she was going to show them wrath of the lamb.

her blood fall on his shirt.

-----

she was at the library with a book titled (all about soulmates) by a bitch of a witch that she didn't care about, she was now at the section of signs of a soulmate. ten ill signs.

1. You just know it.

'nope, but everyone said it'

2. They're your best friend.

' unfortunately, yes'

3. You feel a sense of calm when around them.

'before the storm, yes, I did feel calm around him when they lived at her house of the muggle world, now I still do because I am allergic to death eaters'

4. You have extreme empathy for them.

'it’s every Hufflepuff thing, it’s my thing to be empathic'

5. You respect each other.

'it’s true we do respect each other'

6. You balance each other out.

'he is the dark, I am the light'

7. You share the same life goals.

'to get rid of toxicity'

8. You challenge each other.

'Lord Voldemort and Lady Hope'

9. You can totally be yourself.

'yes, yes'

10. You fight for the relationship.

'w.....no comment'

why was she reading it? to feed the image that she was believing and feeling the bond, he was having a nosebleed there while pretending to read another book.

----

she was at the garden during that dreadful and 24 hours of being without him , yes she was completely without him for the very first time in forever, he left her to attend the last bit of touches before there weeding ,she was with both Regulus and Snape acting like her bodyguards.

Regulus was called back to do a final check on a package, that left her alone with Snape, he had that aura of hate around him and dead inside more and more.

so, it was not the wind that spat and snapped.

" die, die, die "

the dagger that he was hiding in his robes rose shiny silver dry and went down red and wet with her blood, she barley saw the light reflection and managed to judge nearly unscratched safe for a wound in her arms ,how does a tiny dagger cause sharp burning pain?.

"why you are alive when Lily is dead, I will make him feel what I felt when he killed her" he snapped voice echoing in the open space , he rise that wet dagger again but this time she was ready her survival instinct taken over her blocking everything ....even the stunting jinx that Regulus send to Snape.

"my lady I am so sorry let me check the wound " when both looked at it, it was healed not even a scar left.

that's the second sign of the said powers.

Regulus didn't question it , he just rose his wand and cast the lavation spell lifting up the body , when they walked back korra knew that her window of opportunity is gone , if she run now he will kill every single muggle till she return to him or find her , burn villages down, do unspeakable things to people, but there was another chance it was named Regulus Black.

------

she was wearing the wedding dress, she requested no help in getting ready she didn't want anyone to see her nearly breaking down, Snape died in a horrifical and what left of his body was giving to werewolves to feast on, but she didn't feel sympathy for him. he got what he deserved, Regulus Black was immediately having the title of Tom right hand, so he was using it right now, to give her personally one last present before the weeding.

"you know that I like you a lot, if we met in a different circumstance, we will be ...."

Regulus said shyly looking down toying with the package that he left to take yesterday when the assaults happened.

"we will be f... friends or even siblings like" Korra said " you know Regulus you are too soft to be death eater, too kind to be a Slytherin, too humble to be a black" he blushed at her words.

" you mean I should be in your house? both of our houses are extremely loyal and curious, my lady but have our differences that shape us "

now his tone become warry.

"I will help you escape "

---------

The door opened and korra walked in her white dress to the aisle ,she was breathtaking beautiful ,even few witches looked at her in awe , her soulmate was in more than awe , envying his own luck with her , and then she stopped next to him .

" you are taking my breath away love, black is your color "korra told her soon to be her husband. The priest began the classical vows ordering both to repeat them.

------

She felt the silky texture of the fabric of the invisibility clock in her hand awfully reminding her of the basilisk skin but she shook that memory away as she sneaked out transporting herself to the second nearest ministry of magic beside the British one ,the Italian one, she couldn't risk to go to the British one since it was under his control, France one was too close so she choose the Italian, its ministry is as what she heard extremely kind so it’s her only chance.

when she settled in the minister office and by sheer luck, he was alone she removed the clock throwing it away in desperation to be seen. The poor mistier nearly had a heart attack but before he called say anything she spoke.

"please help me I want to be away from him"

he looked puzzled, like he couldn't understand her, so she switched to Italian her father native language.

"I want your help in shielding me from him "

"I know you .... Lady hope" hope is still alive, so naturally good deed is being rewarded,

"Yes, I am"

"you are my lord soulmate" not only it was in English, but it was a settlement that meant .... all hope is gone.

"m.....my Lord?"

"yes, my lady ....and my lord" he bowed, he was there right behind her, the smell pf blood hanged on the air.

his arms left wet mark on her shoulder as he settled them there and then that manic laugh echoed through that massive office, the sound waves come back to her ears from them it entered her body settling in her broken soul.

"you ,my soulmate ,wanted to personally see the extend of my control so much that you abounded our weeding for it making Regulus Polyjuice into you , he is dead now ,red his coffin ,I will give a hint all of the magical society in the world is mine , I am sorry ours a mate is an equal"

he spans her around facing him, facing red eyes of the devil, finger under her chin and he left her head to take a good look at his bloody suit.

"I am sorry Korra , the wedding must frightened you but you didn't want to break my heart so you send him as you "

he kissed her and she tested blood on his lips, he broke apart to laugh again that maniac psychotics laugh, it didn't have to be echo through anything as it directly invaded her soul.

"'and then when he see I view him as a soulmate, I will run away when he give me freedom, when he trust me blindly " he recited her though of that night that he escaped and got her , which meant...

"you were in my head but ...."

"how?, you see love , when I knew we were soulmate I didn't want it to be like another soulmate bond I wanted it to be more symbolic and unique so I took part of your soul and putted it in me and part of mine and putted it in you "

he toyed with her wrist before capturing them with one hand of his now his eyes returned that dark color.

"we are each other horcruxes" at her word he jumped in joy.

"yes , one of the things your shard did to me made me lucky in achieving it in a very short time , one of mine did to you is it made you parseltongue it was quite the romantic move when you spoke it to me ordering to kill my fool father when you hissed it at me and again you spoke it again in your sleep that day "

this is it , her mind being her enemy, so now epiphany happened what Dumbledore told her by that she couldn't use that only way to stop him, he meant to kill herself, but since their souls is forever intertwined as one, it’s impossible he won completely.

"now now, dear soulmate since you didn't do the weeding it’s time for those to pay the price of your defining me since there movies made you so blind to see that we are meant to be together, we are soulmate "

more than five muggles died that day, and he have won.

Lady hope is no more.

Trivia facts:

this actually started as a drabble discussing both OC and Tom’s relationship but it ended up as a sequel

Kindly leave comments and feedback , ask any question you would like me to answer, I am doing an ask event for gifts you can ask any character anything and I will answer as them.

#fanfic #tom riddle #x OC #Harry Potter #yandere #lord voldemort

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