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love-and-monsters · 3 years

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Sauriosapien

M sairosapien X F human, 6,429 words.

This story does not have a reader-insert because I wanted to focus a little bit more on some characters that I came up with. This involves an established relationship, some fluff, and four tiny velociraptors. Enjoy!

The sun was blazing hot in the sky, so much so that it was uncomfortably warm even in the shade. A heavy mugginess hung in the air, so much so that Grace felt like she was inhaling through a damp rag. Sweat soaked through her loose ranger clothes. Even with her sleeves and pant legs rolled up, she was still overly warm. Fortunately, the trees were closely clustered enough that the sun only peeped through in tiny patches, dappling a few small areas of the ground.

Despite being so hot that she barely wanted to move, her tiny pack of velociraptors was running around like their tails were on fire. Rococo was perched in one of the trees, chattering furiously at Boho, who had her head stuck under the roots of one of the larger trees. Minimalism was hunched behind Grace’s legs while Maximalism oscillated between chattering at her and trying to snatch one of the tiny amphibians crawling through the damp undergrowth.

“C’mon babies!” Grace called, her voice higher pitched. “We got hunting to do!” She lifted her clicker and pressed the button a few times.

Rococo hopped out of the tree and skidded to a stop in front of Grace. Boho was right behind her. Maximalism fell into line next, chittering eagerly until Minimalism crept up next to him. Grace cooed to them. “Good, good! Okay, here. Sniff this.”

She crouched until she was on their level and held out a chunk of eggshells. Rococo’s nose was there in a second, snuffling intently. The other three were less enthusiastic, but Grace made sure they all got a good sniff before she stood back up. “Okay, babies! Go hunting!”

She clicked the pointer three times in rapid succession. Rococo placed her nose to the ground. A moment later, she gave a triumphant croak and took off into the trees. Boho and Maximalism fanned out on either side of her, with Minimalism bringing up the rear.

Grace ran after them. Despite only being the size of cats, the raptors were fast. Only the rustling in the undergrowth ahead of her let her know where her pack was. They called back and forth, little piping noises that blended with the usual cacophony of the forest.

Running was easy for Grace. Her body settled into an easy rhythm, burning with exertion, but not agonizingly so. She kept up a steady pace, keeping her raptors just in her sight. They worked best when she wasn’t crowding them.

After about fifteen minutes, Boho sent up a hooting signal. The rest of the raptors peeled off, following her lead. Grace followed them, slowing her pace as she approached so she didn’t trample over anything important.

Her raptors were chittering excitedly when she came upon them. Between the four of them, barely concealed in the branches, there was a nest of off-white eggs. Grace crouched next to it, voice hushed. “Okay, come back, babies. Yes, yes, good job.” Treats were passed out to the whole team, with a special helping going to Boho. She chittered and preened, giving the rest of the raptors superior looks. Grace laughed. Their little competitions inspired them to work harder, and Boho and Rococo had a particular rivalry.

Treats dished out, Grace reached into one of her back pockets and pulled out a notebook. She jotted down her rough coordinates, the size of the nest, and the number of eggs. Donning gloves, she prodded and poked at the eggs, rotating them and checking for unusual shell weakness, cracks, or any other signs of disease. Satisfied, she returned the eggs to the nest and carefully covered them once more. She walked over to one of the nearby trees and scored the bark before applying a sandy substance made from a mixture of crushed insects. The bitter, acrid smell was sharp enough to make Grace shy away, but it wouldn’t bother the mother of the nest and it would let her raptor pack know they had already visited that area.

The nearby undergrowth rustled. Grace drew up stiff, her raptors circling around her. Rococo sniffed at the air, head twitching back and forth. Then she dropped out of her alert posture and chirped reassuringly to the others. The rest of the raptors relaxed and Grace followed their lead. They would only be this relaxed around someone they knew. So, the person coming through the trees must be-

A flash of green and pink darted out from between the trees and skidded to a stop. He stood just as upright as a human, but he balanced on large, bird-like talons. His tail swung behind him, acting as a counterbalance. A massive hot pink crest of feathers covered the last quarter of his tail and crowned his head. Fangs glinted as his mouth stretched into a smile.

“Gracie.” There was a slight rasp in his voice, a noise that traced deliciously through Grace’s head and sent tingles along the back of her neck. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Howdy,” Grace said, tilting her hat back. “You could have just waited for me to head back to town. I’m kind of working right now.” No sooner had the words left her mouth than Rococo charged their visitor. The rest of the pack followed her, working their small, feathered wings to propel their jumps so they could attach themselves to his chest. He staggered under the unexpected weight and sank to the ground, lifting his tail awkwardly to prevent his crest from getting dirtied.

“Seems like these guys want a break,” he said. Minimalism chittered wildly from her position on his lap while Boho buried her face into his head crest. Rococo, perched on his shoulder, made an attempt to corral her subordinates that was cut off when Maximalism started snapping at her tail feathers.

“Seems more like someone’s being a distraction,” Grace said. She gave a sharp whistle. Rococo, Maximalism, and Minimalism snapped to attention and formed their line in front of her. Boho kept her face pressed into his crest until Rococo rounded back and drove her into position.

He carefully got back to his feet, brushing dirt off his clothes. “I’m surprised you’re working,” he said. There was something deliberately airy and casual in his voice. Too casual. Grace paused, taking her attention off her raptors.

“Why are you surprised?” she asked carefully. She tried to rack her brain. Was she forgetting something?

“Oh,” he sighed, scanning the trees around him. “It’s nothing major. Only that you told me last week you were going to take a day off so we could actually spend some time together.”

Ah. Shit. Grace felt her face go hot with shame. Oops. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to- I totally forgot what day it was!” She considered blaming it on her unfamiliarity with the Sauriosapien calendar, but that wouldn’t have been true- even with the standard human calendar, she was always mixing up dates and forgetting things.

He frowned. His crest was pulled tight against his head, feathers tucked in to display his irritation. That was far worse than the aggressive puff he showed off when he was really and truly pissed; this was more akin to someone saying ‘I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.’

“Look, I really am sorry. Uh, hold on. Let me take these guys back home and get a little washed up, and maybe change into some nicer clothes and I’ll be right there.”

He shook his head. “Don’t bother. You’re already out here and in the middle of work, and these guys are already all wound up.” He gestured to Boho, who was practically twitching with the effort of staying still and in line. “I was just coming to make sure nothing happened to you.”

Grace felt her shoulders droop. “Oh. Thanks for that.” Her eyes were stinging slightly with humiliation and anger at herself. “I’m sorry you came out all this way. Maybe we can go out tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “I took off work today.” Irritation was thick in his voice again. Grace slumped her shoulders. He worked in a particularly popular boutique and getting specific days off was always difficult for him.

“Are you sure you don’t just want me to go home? I can always do this tomorrow. I’ll just let everyone out in the yard and they’ll run themselves out,” she said.

He gave a snort, his lips twitching into a half-smile. “You remember what happened the last time they were in the yard for more than an hour without supervision.”

Grace grimaced. As many times as she reinforced the fence and made it taller, the raptors found a new way to get out. The last time, Rococo and Boho had managed to dig underneath until the chicken wire had come loose and had squirmed free. Everyone but a very lonely Minimalism had been gone by the time Grace made it back, and she’d spent much of the night tramping through the forest looking for them. “Then they can go in the coop. They’ll destroy it, but I can clean it up later.”

“That’s not fair to them,” he said, and despite the situation, Grace felt her heart surge with affection. Even pissed off, even if it would benefit him not to, he cared for her raptors. “You’ve already wound them up for work. Just let them continue.”

“Are you really sure?” Grace asked. He waved a hand at her dismissively.

“I’m sure.” He gave her a smile, though it was clearly tense and tinged with sadness. “I know you have a lot of difficulty with remembering dates and things that aren’t on your schedule, but… well, I really would like to spend time with you more often than a couple evening every week. And it’s frustrating when you don’t remember these kinds of things.”

“I know. I’m really sorry. It’s not that it’s not important to me. It is! It’s just… if things aren’t part of my schedule and I don’t have reminders, then I tend to forget them.” She pulled her hat off and ran her fingers through her hair. “You know I missed my own birthday a couple years ago?”

He looked at her a little blankly. “Er… that’s important?”

Right, egg-laying people didn’t think about birthdays the same way. “Uh. It’s like forgetting your hatching day, I guess, but birthdays have more cultural significance to us.” He nodded slowly, though he didn’t seem to understand. “Days just kind of all blur together for me. Time is a flat circle and a total scam and I don’t know dates very well and I’m sorry. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

He stared, but his lips were quirking like he was trying to hold back a smile. “We’ll have to work on this in the future. I just came out to make sure that you were all right.” He turned, waving a four-fingered hand over his shoulder. “I’ll see you when you’re home from work.”

“Velly, wait!” He paused, looking over his shoulder. Grace swept her had back up onto her head and offered him an apologetic smile. “I, uh. I feel bad that you came all the way out here for nothing. Why don’t you stay a little bit?”

Vel paused. “You’re working.”

“I know. But I mean, the pack knows you pretty well. You probably won’t be much of a distraction for them.”

He tried to give her a serious look, but his lips were twitching again. “I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to be on a date during the work day either.”

“No one will find out. We’re in the middle of the park. You just need to head back before I go to the ranger’s center. And it’s not like you didn’t already sneak in.”

He laughed. “Well. Yes. That’s true.” His crest fluffed up, his tail swinging back and forth. “Are you going to have to take me in?”

“Hey, if you give me any trouble, I might have to cuff you,” Grace said with a grin. She didn’t miss the little shiver that moved through Vel’s crest. “Maybe I’ll just restrain you and leave you in the woods for anyone to find…”

Rococo, apparently irritated at being ignored, took that moment to nip at Grace’s boot.

“Okay, okay! Come on, let go.” She shook her boot and the raptor detached. Rococo trotted back to the others, but Grace could tell her patience wasn’t going to hold for much longer. “Like I was saying,” she continued, turning back to Vel, “I can’t trust you to leave on your own, so I guess you’re going to just have to come with me. No trying to escape or anything.”

Vel grinned. “No, ma’am.”

Grace turned back to her raptors and clicked her clicker. They all skittered back into formation, looking up at her expectantly. “All right. We found one. Go get another one!” She clicked the clicker rapidly and the raptors took a moment to snuffle at the ground before plunging into the trees. Grace took off after them, Vel following her.

The raptors pulled ahead again, stunningly fast for such little animals. Grace followed at a small distance, careful not to go at much more than a jog. She was fast, for a human, but she couldn’t maintain the speed for very long. As long as she could trace their path through the trees and hear their calls back and forth, she could track them.

The bigger concern was Vel. He was already starting to lag, even after only a minute or so of running. He was not as well-trained as Grace, nor as fit, and no sauriosapien was as good of an endurance runner as a human. He might be able to outrun her in a sprint, but the further they went, the less likely that was.

Vel looked to be on the verge of collapse by the time the raptors called out again and came to a halt at another next. Grace, slightly winded, leaned on the nearby tree. Vel hunched over, making wheezing noises like his lungs were going to come out of his mouth.

“You good?” Grace said. He gave her a thumbs-up, then sagged all the way to the ground.

“I can see why they like humans to do this job,” he said. He rested one of his hands on his chest as he panted. “I think my heart’s going to explode out of my chest.”

“Hey, humans may be better at endurance running in general, but a sauriosapien could do this job,” Grace said as she bent down to uncover the nest. “Don’t throw your whole species under the bus because you’re really out of shape.”

Maximalism had found the nest, and he was crowing over the others, holding his second treat in his mouth like a prize. Minimalism crawled up next to him, chittering anxiously until he allowed her to take a tiny nibble of the treat, then he gulped it down. Grace waved them off, checking the size and integrity of the nest.

Vel, having recovered slightly, rolled onto his side to watch her. “What exactly are you doing with that nest?”

“I told you about this the other night,” Grace said, not looking up from the nest. Vel pushed himself up into a sitting position, shifting his robes around him.

“Yeah, but I had a hard time figuring it out. I’m better when I can actually see what you’re doing.” He crept closer, though he paused a short distance away, like he was concerned that his presence would disturb the nest.

“There’s a few species of microraptors whose nests have been damaged recently. There’s some kind of disease that’s been going around and causing all sorts of problems with the shells.” She covered the nest back up and scent-marked it. “I’ve been trying to tag the number of nests there are and making sure the eggs are in good shape. If we find any nests where the eggs look weak, we’ll tag them and collect the eggs. Hopefully we’ll be able to raise them until they can hatch and be returned to the wild.”

“Oh,” Vel said. He crept a little closer. “How’s this nest doing?”

“All good. I haven’t actually seen too many bad eggs in the past couple of days I’ve been doing this. Hopefully that means that the disease hasn’t been spreading too much.” She gestured to the raptors and clicked at them. They circled up around her. “And we’re keeping our eyes peeled for any rat dens we find. If we locate those, we-”

Minimalism let out a loud peep and darted out of the circle. She plunged her narrow muzzle into a nearby bush, snapping wildly. There was a squeak, some thrashing, and Minimalism withdrew her head. A rat dangled from her jaws.

“Oh, good girl!” Grace got down on one knee. Minimalism ran over, giving up the rat in favor of another treat. “Yes, you’re a good girl! You’ve done very well!” She carefully placed the rat into a plastic bag and eased that into her pack.

“What do you do with the rats?” Vel asked. He looked mostly recovered from his mad dash, his crest perking up once more.

“Send them to a lab. They usually run some tests on them, try to do a blood panel and figure out if they’ve got any diseases they’re spreading. There’s been some concerns that the rats are actually spreading the disease that’s causing the nest weaknesses.” Grace got back to her feet, her knees cracking loudly. “Ugh, I’m like an old woman.”

“And yet, you’re still more fit than me,” Vel said. He clambered to his feet and shook his robes free of leaf litter and debris from lying on the ground. “Do we have to run again?”

Grace laughed. “I’ll see if I can slow these guys down, so we can give you a break.” She clicked at the raptors a few times. “All right, slow, babies.” Rococo chirped in confirmation, then turned and chittered at the other raptors. Satisfied her message had been conveyed, she took off, the others fanning out behind her. Grace straightened back up. “Come on.”

This time, they went at a light jog. It barely winded Grace, but Vel still struggled to keep up. At least this time, he wasn’t wheezing so alarmingly when he breathed, so Grace didn’t have to be constantly worried he was going to collapse.

Vel was at least able to keep up as they tracked down and assessed the nests. The frequent breaks they took while Grace examined the eggs seemed to be helping him keep up, but by the middle of the day, he was definitely flagging. Even Grace, with her much better stamina and training, was starting to feel the beginnings of exhaustion.

“We’ll take a break,” she said, signaling the raptors. They were starting to look fatigued as well, mouths hanging open as they panted and their feathers drawn tight against their body in an effort to calm them down. “I need to eat lunch anyway.”

Vel collapsed next to her as she spread out a mat and set down her packed lunch. “Here. I brought some dried meat with me.” She offered him a package wrapped in paper. He opened it and pulled out a jerky strip.

“Thanks.” She knew it wasn’t his favorite, but he ate it without complaint.

“I don’t have much for you,” she said, digging through the pack. “I know running around all afternoon must be making you hungry. Er, I might have a few hard-boiled eggs.”

“I don’t want to take your lunch,” Vel said as he snapped down another strip of meat. “You need to eat more than I do.”

Humans, thanks to their endothermy, needed to eat much more frequently than sauriosapiens- at least three meals a day, nearly two thousand calories, compared to the typical two-meal, thousand calorie diets of the sauriosapiens. The sauriosapiens were only selectively endothermic, with their bodies heating up with exercise and cooling down when they were inactive or sleeping. That meant their bodies could manage with far fewer calories, though after running around for a while, there was quite a large loss of energy.

“Missing one meal won’t kill me. I’ll be fine.” Grace pulled out a couple of hard-boiled eggs. They were large enough to fill her palm, much larger than the chicken eggs she’d been used to at home. She passed one to Vel, who hesitated for a moment before cracking the shell with his claws.

“Thank you.” He took a bite out of the white, eyes drifting half-shut as he tasted the rich fattiness of the yolk. A lot of food in sauriosapien culture was fixated on fattiness and oils. It was an easy way to get calorie-rich food, considering that they couldn’t taste sugar and were fairly carnivorous. Grace hadn’t eaten much in the way of refined sugar since she’d arrived, only managing to scrounge a few pieces of fruit that she grew herself. She took a piece of dried fruit from her bad and chewed idly on it.

The raptors gathered together, chittering and playing with each other. Grace watched as they tumbled around, hopping over each other, nipping at tails, and generally enjoying themselves. She could see Vel giggling at them out of the corner of her eye.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said. Vel licked some egg yolk off his finger as he turned toward her.

“Well, we were supposed to have a date today,” he said. There was a slightly sarcastic edge to his voice. Grace ducked her head, a flush of shame touching her cheeks.

“I really am sorry about that. I’ll make it up to you,” she promised.

“I knew what I was getting into then I started dating you,” Vel said. “Remember when there was a holiday in the middle of the week and you tried to go into work anyway?”

Grace pulled her hat down over her head to hide her face. “Ugh. Please don’t remind me.”

Vel laughed into his hand. “You were messed up for the rest of the week. Kept thinking you had days off when you didn’t… and the raptors were confused too! Poor Rococo, she started yelling at you, trying to get you to go out and then you started to think maybe she was right and not you…”

Grace swatted his shoulder. “Keep teasing me and I’ll make good on my threat to tie you up.”

“Will you?” Vel asked, his voice dropping into a lower register. Grace pressed a finger to his forehead and pushed him back, causing him to break into another fit of soft giggles.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the trees and fell across Vel’s face. His green scales gleamed under the sun, glossy as ocean-smoothed glass. Grace took a moment to just take in his face. His teeth gleamed, sharp as knives, but somehow also attractive. His eyes were glistening, beautiful gold. Grace swore that when the sunlight struck them, they illuminated like a chunk of pyrite. His feathered crest twitched and flared. The motion of the feathers was always fascinating, the way they ruffled in response to his emotions. Touching them was always a wonderful experience. Feeling their slight motions against her fingers was grounding, the reassuring contact of another living being that trusted her completely.

Vel was attractive, by both human and sauriosapien standards. The human standards would be satisfied by his reasonably tall stature with smooth, lithe muscles, his flowing grace, and his fine-boned face. The sauriosapien standards were satisfied by the bright green of his scales and the brilliant pink of his head and tail crests. Not only were they an incredibly vibrant pink, but they were thick and full and expressive. Grace had seen the interested looks of other sauriosapiens when they walked through town together. Whether or not they approved of his relationship with her, she wasn’t sure. She could observe their attraction to Vel with a sort of clinical detachment, but when it came to how people viewed her, she had no idea.

“Are you still hungry?” Vel asked. She looked down. His head had migrated onto her lap somehow, and the side of his face was pressed against her middle. “I can hear your stomach growling.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I know a place-” She trailed off. Huh. Maybe she could really make up for screwing up their date.

“You know a place?” Vel prompted, lifting his head. She turned her attention back to him and scratched along his crest in that just-right spot. He made a trilling noise and went nearly limp.

“Never mind. We need to get moving.” She carefully tucked any wrappers and containers back into her bag and swung it up onto her shoulders. Vel got to his feet, shaking some leaf litter from his clothes. They were in typical sauriosapien style, which meant they looked a little like a fancy hospital gown to Grace’s eyes. They were essentially robes that clipped together in the back, which gave ample space for their tail. She’d seen a few sauriosapiens try to put on human clothes before, which was always amusing. The head holes were never big enough to accommodates their stiff crests, and the pants were just a complete disaster, what with their digitigrade legs and tails.

On the other hand, humans who wore sauriosapien clothes, along with the inherent indignity of the outfits nearly always being too big, tended to have their asses hanging out through the tail hole, so it went both ways.

They started through the forest once more, this time with Grace reigning her raptors in close. A series of whistles and click signals kept them close by, though she couldn’t prevent them from running ahead at least a little bit. They jumped in and out of the undergrowth, scaling the trees on occasion and snapping at insects that settled nearby.

“Are we still looking for nests?” Vel asked. Despite the slowed pace, he was still panting a little. Going to slow was nearly maddening for Grace, but she slowed down a hair more.

“We’re going to put a pause on that for now,” she said. “There’s somewhere I want to check out first.”

“Oh,” Vel said. He fell silent, devoting most of his energy to walking. Grace focused her attention on watching the raptors jump around. Rococo snapped a bright flower from a nearby bush and bolted back to her, chittering furiously.

“Thank you,” Grace said. Rococo relinquished the flower when Grace offered her a treat in return and immediately bolted back to the others, chirping with excitement. Within moments, the other raptors were gathering up flowers and offering them to Grace. Her arms filled with the sweet-smelling blooms, the raptors chittering and hopping up and down around her.

“All right, all right, that’s enough,” Grace said. She waved her hand at them, dismissing them. They plunged back into the undergrowth to find some other game to play.

“Did you train them to do that?” Vel asked, looking at the flowers with amusement.

“No, they kind of trained themselves,” Grace said. “They know that performing certain behaviors will get them treats. If one of them sees another getting a treat for something, they’ll all repeat it until I stop giving treats. They know that when I make the cut of signal, though, no more treats are coming and they need to stop. I don’t want them completely stripping the forest of flowers to get treats.” She gathered the flowers in her arms into a bouquet. “Here.”

Vel blinked as she thrust the flowers into his arms. They were a cacophony of bright colors that complimented his brilliant pink crest. “Oh,” he said. He wasn’t able to blush, thanks to his scales, but his tail whipped back and forth so fast it knocked down a sapling. His crest flared, feathers spreading into a brightly colored crown. “Thank you.” He adjusted them to sit in the crook of his elbow. “I’ve never gotten flowers before.”

“Really? I find that hard to believe. You’ve got a lot of admirers, you know.” Not only was he handsome, but his shy, slightly submissive personality was considered the height of masculinity to sauriosapiens. Sure, males were typically expected to make the first move in relationships, performing display behaviors with their feathers and showing off for any females they were interested in, but Vel would have had enough admirers that one of them would have taken it upon themselves to ask him out.

“I don’t know about a lot,” Vel said, his crest twitching with embarrassment. “And we don’t really give flowers as gifts. Carved bones or teeth are more likely. But I know flowers are more important to humans.” He removed one of the flowers with the longest stems and turned to tuck it into Grace’s hair. His claws were sharp enough that any touch against Grace’s thin human skin was dangerous, but she’d never felt any sort of threat from him. He didn’t even cut a hair as he slid the flower into place behind her ear.

“Really important is an exaggeration. But it’s a common gift.” She carefully adjusted the flower so it wouldn’t fall out. “Here, let me.” She plucked another flower from the bouquet, picking a pale yellow one that would offset the hot pink nicely, and tucked it into his crest. He made a soft rumbling noise in his chest as her fingers trailed along the edge of his crest.

There was an irritated chirping at her feet. Grace looked down to see Rococo and Maximalism peering up at her. Boho and Minimalism were only slightly further back, also staring. Their impatient gazes made Grace realize that she and Vel had simply been staring into each other’s eyes, not moving at all.

“We should keep going,” she said. She waved her hand to the raptors. They took off into the trees. “Come on.” Without thinking, she linked her fingers through his and pulled him along after her.

Vel struggled to keep up with her still, so she was very much dragging him through the undergrowth. He clutched her hand with both of his as he panted. “Uh. Hah… Could… Gracie, could we please slow down a little?”

She slowed her steps just a bit and he stumbled into her, letting his body weight fall onto her. She bore it with only a little effort. He was almost exactly her height, but all sauriosapiens were light-boned and limber, so he weighed less than he appeared to. “Do you want me to carry you?” she teased, thought she knew he would say no. It was probably for the best. She could have lifted him for a while, but it was awkward carrying something the same size as her and she couldn’t carry something even only three-quarters of her body weight for a long time.

“No. You just gotta stop moving so fast. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.” Vel lay a hand over his chest as he straightened up. Once he’d managed to regain his breath, he glanced around the forest in curiosity. “Where are we?”

The trees were thicker around them, their canopies clustered close together so their leaves blocked most of the sun. The humidity of the forest was thicker, but the lack of sunlight added a little coolness to the air. Without as much sun reaching the forest floor, the undergrowth had mostly cleared. The raptors hopped around the enormous tree roots, even darting under a few particularly enormous ones that bulged up from the ground.

“We’re closer to the middle of the forest. Come this way.” Grace picked her way over a few of the larger roots. Vel followed, his hand still gripping at hers. The ground grew damp under their feet the further they went. Vel managed it a lot better than Grace did- his feet were broader, allowing him to balance well on the spongey ground. A couple of times, his grip on Grace’s arm saved her from falling face-first into the muck.

Grace picked her way over the crest of a small hill and stopped. “Okay. We’re here.”

Vel peeked over her shoulder and his breath caught. The raptors, chittering with delight, hopped down along the sloping ground in front of them until they hit the waterfront.

In the middle of a circle of trees, covered with tangled green vines, there was a crystalline spring of water. Lily-like flowers dotted the surface, adding splashes of bright color in the green.

“Oh!” Vel said. His crest flared and his tail whipped back and forth. Grace couldn’t help but smile at the look on his face. “Oh, it’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen this place before. I didn’t even know it was here.”

“Technically, we’re not supposed to be here. It’s in the restricted section of the park, because of these.” Grace crouched down and pointed toward a particularly thick patch of lilies. Under the plants there was a tiny, darting crowd of fish.

“Because of fish?” Vel said, crouching next to her. The fish were small, barely longer than the first two joints of his finger, and mostly tail. They had mostly dull coloration, except for a brilliant red splash on their backs. He reached his finger toward the water, like he was about to stroke them, then pulled back with a cautious look at Grace.

“I wouldn’t touch them,” she said. “They’re sensitive little things. And they’re not actually fish. They’re the tadpole stage of a kind of amphibian.”

“Like a frog?” Vel said.

“Sort of. A little more like salamanders, actually. They’re about this big, only as long as your hand, and they’re pretty similar in coloration to these little guys. Mostly greenish-brown, with a big splash of red on their backs. They’re pretty uncommon in the area, though. Most of the time, they lay their eggs in the rainy season, when a lot of temporary puddles form. When they fully metamorphosize, they find a damp spot and bury underground until the next rainy season, when they can find a mate and lay their eggs.” Grace indicated the circumference of the pond. “This spot’s the only place where you can consistently find them. It’s fed from an underground spring, so it’s here year-round. Every year, you can find a few tadpoles here. We use it to keep an eye on the population.”

“How come no one’s allowed to know about it?” Vel asked.

“Uh, the tadpoles get hunted a lot. See the red spot on their backs? That secretes a kind of hallucinogenic substance. It’s deadly to sauriosapiens, and to most other species here, but to mammals, it acts more like a slightly milder form of acid.” Vel gave her a bewildered look. “Uh, it’s like a euphoria-inducing drug that can give you really nice hallucinations. Humans like it a lot. There’s a big underground market for it, so smugglers try to catch the tadpoles every year. But because the nests move every year, they need to look for them. We’ve done a pretty good job so far at keeping this spot safe- as long as they can’t find a regular spot to pull the tadpoles from, their hunting shouldn’t put too much of a strain on the population.”

Vel nodded. “It’s a shame. It’s beautiful here.”

Grace nodded. “It’s one of the prettier locations. If you stay here for a while, you can usually see some animals come through to drink.” She let her hands hang at her side, pinky finger just barely brushing against Vel’s. “Thank you, by the way.”

He glanced at her. “For what?” “For forgiving me. For coming along with me on my work day. For being understanding. For letting me speak about the tadpoles. I don’t often get to discuss these things with other people.”

“Oh. You don’t need to thank me for that. I like listening to you speak. You have a very soothing voice.” Vel was quiet for a second. “Oh, and you’re welcome.”

Grace hummed and threaded her free hand through his crest. His eyes drifted shut. He leaned back against her. A soft rumble sounded through his chest, almost like a purr. Grace felt her eyes closing as well. It was beautifully warm, and if she shifted a little and dangled her feet in the water, it added a cool, soothing element. Vel shifted a little to wrap his arms around her.

And then about twelve pounds of velociraptor cannonballed itself into Grace’s stomach.

She jerked, limbs flailing involuntarily. Vel’s head, previously resting on her shoulder, shot up. The soft dirt at the edge of the pond crumbled under their sudden movements and gave way. Vel barely had time to shriek before he slid sideways into the water.

Grace, sitting on a better-structured patch of dirt, didn’t slip, but was soaked anyway by Vel’s panicked flailing. It calmed within a moment when he realized the pond was only about five feet deep and he could stand pretty easily. He shook his head, spraying water from his crest.

“Ow,” Grace said. Boho, the raptor who had launched into her stomach, blinked innocently. The three other raptors watched with the wide eyed interest of children whose sibling had just broken a prized possession.

Vel spat out a mouthful of water. “Are you all right?”

“Nothing I haven’t been through before,” Grace said, fixing Boho with her sternest stare. Boho’s crest drooped and she crept off of Grace’s lap like a scolded puppy. “Are you all right?”

“Wet,” Vel said. He braced his arms on the bank and heaved himself up. “But not harmed.” He shook himself off like a wet dog. The water cleared fairly easily from his scaly skin, but his crest and tail were saturated, as was his outfit. Grace’s clothes were similarly soaked.

“I was going to suggest that we headed back,” Grace said, “but I suppose it makes more sense to wait here until we dry off.”

Vel smiled, sharp teeth glinting. “Maybe we should get out of these wet clothes, first? It might help them dry quicker.”

Grace lifted an eyebrow, but she couldn’t help a tiny laugh. “I suppose.” She smiled at him as he stood and started to undo the straps of his clothes. “I love you.”

Vel paused in his undressing to kiss her forehead. “I love you, too.” His grin widened and became wicked. “Now strip.”

#exophilia #exophilia writing #lizard folk #sauriosapien #monster boyfriend #monster lover #dinosaur #OCxOC #fluff #established relationship

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millie-ionaire05 · 4 years

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A Shadow’s Light

Min Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Fae AU ♕ Monarch Yoongi ♕ Fantasy AU ♕ CEO Yoongi ♕ Soulmate AU

Summary: The approaching solstice reminds Yoongi that his time for remaining Monarch without a kindred soul is running out. As each day goes by, the shadows around him become more unruly, and his emotions become harder to control. Even as his right hand, he’d never considered you as someone to court, not until he realized your light could tame the shadows. Oh, but your light brought more than that, it brought a burn that had desire curling deep within him. A desire that he won’t allow to slip away.

Word Count: 4,130

Rating/Warnings: M for Mature (+18); Monarch Yoongi; Confidant Reader; Female Reader; CEO Yoongi; Slightly Dom Yoongi(?); Office Sex; Unprotected Sex (wrap the schlong before you sit on the dong); Oral (f receiving); Fingering; Multiple Orgasms; Overstimulation; Bottom Yoongi; Top Reader; Squirting

Author’s Note: I’ve dreamed of this Yoongi quite a few times over the last few years, and so I finally decided to write it. Albeit, this is a completely shorter version than the original one I started years ago, but I think it’s fine as I ease my way back into the writing scene. Thank you so much to @dee-ehn for the amazingly beautiful banner; it’s absolutely stunning! Hope you guys like it 😊

The feel of cold paper against his fingertips is almost a welcomed reprieve compared to the monotonous drone of the head of marketing, an older man with a pinch in between his eyebrows and a smug expression. Yoongi’s mind is filled with a million other incessant thoughts, ones that are far more pressing than the steps on appealing to the board of directors.

For one, the solstice was tomorrow, and the primal hunger for a kindred soul to be at his side was becoming even more difficult to deny. He knew if he was unable to find someone this year, the Elders would begin to question whether he truly should be the Monarch for their kind. His kind. Just the notion has his wings twitching in anger before it is dwindling to a burning frustration, his fingers reflexively crumpling the edges of the paper he held.

“Sir?”

He turns merely a centimeter towards you, his eyes forcefully focusing as they make contact with your own. You seem almost taken aback by his gaze, your lips having parted and your eyes wide. He must not have realized how hard his expression had been, but he quickly softens it, a rumble of an apology carrying its way to your ears only. Your gentle eyes turn sympathetic, your mouth curling up to show a bright smile, and it almost blinds him.

It was no secret within the world of Fae that he was the first shadow chosen as Monarch, much to his surprising dismay. It was not so much a surprise that he was chosen per se, as he had been groomed for it during most of his childhood, but it was the fact that he was groomed at all that surprised him. Even as Monarch, the Fae were wary of those ‘cursed’ by the shadow. It was not only uncommon amongst their kind, but it was also dangerous if not controlled properly, and it could rarely be controlled. Before his ruling, parents would often tell stories of shadow monarchs who grew out of control, their shadow swallowing the settlement whole.

Whether parents continue to tell their children such stories is lost on him, as he very rarely is included in conversation when the settlement gets together. He wouldn’t be surprised though, as he, too, worried for the safety of everyone around him.

You on the other hand, he was the least worried about. You were the complete opposite of him, as you were blessed with the light. A rare gift. It was always said that the light could tame the shadows, but he only feared you would make his grow, like how an increase in light source could cast a stronger shadow of a human figure. Especially if it got too close.

But regardless, you were also groomed similarly to himself as a child, so that you would be by his side. A loyal….assistant….if he had to title it. You were his confidant, his right hand man (or technically woman), so to speak. The Elders had thought it wise to have you close to him, and while the thought had initially made him uncomfortable - the shadows around him twitching in disgust at the light you brought - he had grown fond of your company within the last several years. The shadows around him had ceased their fury long ago when you were near, and he was grateful for at least that respite.

“It’s quite alright, sir,” you carry on, oblivious to his internal torment. “Would you like me to escort you out of here?”

He can’t help the twitch of his lips, an eyebrow raising as he allows his body to turn towards you, his chair barely squeaking at the action. He watches the way your cheeks flushed at his stare, your eyes casting down to your lap as your fingers fiddle with non-existent lint. His eyes roam to your wings, watching how the beautiful white seems to shimmer as they fluttered slightly. He knew he could fluster you - he often found it entertaining - and quite frankly he also found it adorable. The shadows around him groan.

With a tsk, his lips twitch down, and you immediately sense his shift in emotion. You were so perceptive to him, and yet still so obliviously unaware of how his shadows reacted when you shined so bright. In those moments it was very painful, and while he could usually muster through the pain, he found that it was actually difficult for him in that second.

Fear zings through his body as his shadows laugh, their forms swiftly quivering in excitement at the thought that he wouldn’t be able to stop them, that he wouldn’t be able to prevent them from consuming what was around him. His body becomes rigid, his eyes closing as he works to compose his emotions, his mind fighting with itself as his heart thuds within his ears. He can faintly hear you calling out to him, but he is too busy focused on his task.

A sharp sting envelops his hand, and his eyes snap open to find your own hand against his, the shadows retreating to the furthest recesses opposite of your shine, and his heart stutters. Never have the shadows withdrawn so quickly, no matter how many lessons the Elder’s had given him, he has never been able to control them. Not to say they are controlled per se, because he knew they could never be controlled, but they were tamed for the moment. Your hand continues to burn against his, and he slowly pulls back from your touch, his eyes meeting yours once again.

A small nod of his head is all you need, your body instantly moving as you announce their departure, your figure guiding him back towards his office. His eyes never waver from your wings, watching how they are so delicately beautiful and white, a complete contrast to his sharp black wings. Your wings were round, many swirls intricately woven in various degrees of white, sparkling no matter what time of day. While his wings were sharp edged, and of the deepest of blacks, a color that portrayed an endless void. He’d been told, more often than not, that his wings seemed invisible if he flew around the city at night. It didn’t just stop there though, as the shadows also allowed him to blend in to the darkest corners, keeping him out of sight if he wanted.

He was such a contrast to you, not just in wing shape and color. It was normal for women’s wings to be larger than men’s, just like a female bird was larger than a male, but your wing size complimented you so well. Everything about you and your gift suited you. Your gift gave you the ability to travel at the speed of light, not that he’d ever seen you use it. He supposed there hadn’t exactly been any reason to use it, so of course he wouldn’t have seen you. Or maybe he hadn’t seen you because you were simply too quick for him to catch, he wasn’t entirely sure. He made a mental note to ask you one day.

“Would you like me to clear the rest of your day, sir?” you ask, watching him as he moves around his desk to his chair, your eyes wide with concern.

“Yes, please,” he murmurs, his eyes closing as you rattle off into your phone for all of his meetings to be cancelled.

The shadows are still in the corner of his mind, having shifted so they were completely opposite of your presence. Yoongi’s heart races with the speeds of a thousand mustangs, the beat traveling up his neck and into his ears, and he isn’t sure what to do. You had stopped the darkness, which had seemed to be even more out of control lately, but you had done it. His eyes can’t help but open to stare at you, your body now resting on the chair across his desk, completely oblivious to his gaze as you scroll through your phone.

With a simple command, he orders the shadows to close his office door and lock it, and he watches as they are quick to avert your presence and complete his task. He wonders if they fear the torture of the light again, and whether that is why they are so compliant. Nevertheless, he has an image in his mind that couldn’t be wiped, and that image was you. In all his years of life he had not looked at you in any way more than a friend, a confidant...until today.

He smirks at the way your body jumps, your head turning to see the office door closed before your gaze whips back around to look at him. He knew how you felt about him, because while he was quiet for the most part, you were like an open book. Your emotions were as plain on your eyes as your heart was on your sleeve, open and bared for him. You didn’t cower from your feelings towards him, but you also weren’t jealousy possessive when the Elders ordered him on many courtships with other women. No...you stayed by his side and supported him, even as each of them failed to subdue his darkest demons.

Slinking from his spot, he slowly makes his way around the desk, stopping until he has leaned against it in front of you. Your body instinctively shifts back against your chair as your gaze lowers, though he knows this was out of respect as the Monarch, he doesn’t want you to pull further away from him. His hand still burned at your contact, and a deep part of him begged to feel it again, begged to feel the pain.

“Stand up,” he orders, and watches with satisfaction as you instantly comply, your body a mere few inches from his.

The shadows quiver at the proximity, which only brings a shaky breath from his lips, his hand reaching forward until the tips of his fingers graze your cheek. Your eyes rise to meet his, confusion trying to mask the culmination of fear and desire he knew you felt, but the words of your open book practically scream at him. Beg him.

In one swift movement his hand grips the back of your neck, his fingers burning, but he doesn’t care as his lips meet yours. And oh, how soft your lips were against his, it had to be a crime. He had been with sparingly few people in his life, but nothing compared to how you felt against him, how your light seared him in magnificent ways. A moan escapes from your velvety lips and it can only be accompanied by the groan from his own as he shifts his head, taking advantage of the new angle to slip his tongue into your mouth.

Oh, had he known how compliant you would be under his touch, he would have tried this ages ago. So soft and supple, yet you burn hotter than a thousand suns as the shadows practically whimper at the onslaught, yet the pain was quickly becoming something he relished. Something he needed. An addiction that he wasn’t sure he would be able to fulfill. Your pretty moans only further the tingles in his body, their assault almost unnecessary since his pulsing cock was tightly confined to his work slacks, but it only furthered his need for you.

Pulling back swiftly, he practically melts at the whine that escapes from you, your gaze hazy as you stare at him in a mixture of confusion and disappointment. It almost makes him lose it. Almost.

“Please tell me you want this,” he states, his breathing heavy as his chest heaves to allow more air in, but it seems almost futile.

Your face contorts into an expression he can’t seem to understand until it shifts into understanding, a soft smile falling on your lips. Your hand comes up, cupping his cheek and his heart jumps at the contact, the burn intensifying. Your eyes silently consent, but he wants to hear you say it. No…he needs to hear you say it, and he can see it in your eyes that you know that.

“I want this,” you whisper, and that’s all he needs.

The room envelopes in a darkness like no other, the pure desperation in your eyes as he swiftly swipes his hand across his desk, items clattering onto the floor. You squeal in a mixture of delight and surprise as he unexpectedly throws you onto the now cleared desk, the chill of the wood bringing goosebumps onto your skin, and he doesn’t miss it. No, he sees you so clearly, it is as if all the noise in the world has cleared away to provide the perfect picture that is you. He can’t keep calm as your back arches, your chest practically begging for him to come closer, to ravage you.

Reaching forward with trembling hands, his fingers deftly unbutton your blouse, his eyebrows rising when he’s met with the most complimentary color of silk that cups your breasts. Your skin is illuminated with a flush as he continues to stare, his moves slow and methodical, and he takes note of the clench of your thighs as you attempt to relieve the pressure. He doesn’t speed up in his ministrations though, slowing even more as he allows his fingertips to trace from your neck down to your hips, stopping right above the barrier of your tight pencil skirt. He relishes in the way you quiver as he hooks his fingers into the waistband of the skirt, finding the clasp and button with ease and opening it before you can even comprehend what’s happening.

He thanks the Heavens that you hadn’t chosen to wear pantyhose this day, because he would feel guilty having to tear them off your body. Well...only slightly guilty. He can’t continue the thought process though, because a deep groan is pouring from his lips at the sight of your matching underwear, his cock now at full attention and already weeping through his pants. His teeth grips at his lower lip as he forces his body to remain at a glacial pace, but with every second that passes, he’s finding it utterly difficult. Your panting did nothing to calm him, your breaths coming quick as your blown out pupils stare at his hands, your tongue coming out to moisten your reddened lips.

Oh he needed something on his mouth, and he needed something on them now. Discarding your skirt to some unknown spot across the room, his hands grip right behind your knees, fingers tightening so he can forcefully spread your legs. He can feel the muscles in your legs resist as you try to snap them together again, but he doesn’t allow it, his Adam's apple bobbing at the sight of you. So pretty, so beautifully created, and the burn against his hands strengthens. Grunting at the pain, he is practically salivating as it mixes with the pleasure, the shadows quivering around him, but they remain compliant.

And you remain compliant, too, your wide eyes moving to meet his own. A smirk claims the corners of his lips before he leans forward, allowing his hot breath to seep through your underwear. Your legs are trembling within his grip, and you try with all your might to bring his mouth closer to where you want it. Where he knew you needed it. And he is content on giving it to you. Moving his hands from their spot, he uses the angle to spread your legs further apart, his hands coming to your hips. The cry of pleasure that escapes your mouth is pure bliss, your body clearly stiff with shock at the sudden action of his fingers having pushed your underwear to the side so that they could flick your clit.

Yoongi’s mouth salivates at the sight of your entrance, completely wet and dripping. He wants to ask if it’s because of him, but his body is working faster than his mind. His mouth begins to suck at your juices, his nose bumping into your clit and you jump, his hands swiftly moving to hold your hips down. Oh how sweet you were. Like the sweetest of treats, but a rapidly addicting taste that he isn’t sure he can stop. He is sure you don’t want him to stop either, considering how your hand has desperately moved to his hair, fingers gripping at his locks. You tug when he purposely licks your nub, a mumbled whine of his name falling from your lips, and he can’t help but groan.

With all thoughts of a glacial pace flying from his thoughts, he allows himself the pleasure of wrapping his lips around your clit, alternating between sucking and licking in hopes he could hear you call his name once more. At least once more.

Oh but he doesn’t have to wait for long, his name practically pours from your lips in rapid succession as he continues his actions, the tremble in your legs intensifying. Shifting in his spot, he blocks your leg with his shoulder so that he can free a hand, the tips of his fingers promptly prodding at your entrance. Earning an anguished whine from you as he leans away from your pretty pussy, his heart thrums at the way your eyes roll back when he shoves a finger inside of you, quickly following it up with another.

There isn’t much he is proud of, but his fingers are one of them. He doesn’t miss the way your back instantly bows off the desk when he curls them and finds your sweet spot.

“Y-yoongi,” you cry out, beginning a new song of his name with explicit curses that sound so sinfully sweet, his jaw is aching.

Desperate to see how quick he could get you off on his fingers, he leans forward again to provide unabated licks to your clit. The light behind his eyes is almost blinding as your bodies remain connected, the shadows sticking to the far walls away from your shine, but quaking at the pleasure they feel through him. He wasn’t even undressed, and he felt as if he could cum on the spot, just on the feel of you against him. Of the mix of pleasure and pain as he refuses to lose any form of contact with you. And you must have felt the same, because you basically wail your impending orgasm a mere second before it comes crashing.

But he can’t stop. He doesn’t want to stop. He continues sucking at you and savors the battle your body has, conflicted on whether you should withdraw from the overstimulation, or stay under his tongue as the pain rolls into renewed pleasure. All Yoongi can think about is pleasing you, devouring you in every way he can because this is nothing he has ever felt before.

Your grip in his hair tightens painfully, and he moans at the way you try to stop him. Finally caving in to your demands, he pulls back from your clit and looks you in the eyes, a growl tearing from his chest at the look on your face. You had to be as far gone as he, possibly further gone considering your pupils had practically consumed the iris, your wings spread taut across the desk. His own wings twitch at the sight, and it only takes him a mere five seconds to pull his clothes off and throw them across the room with yours.

Five seconds seem like too much to him, and possibly to you too, because you are standing in front of him by the time he finishes. You have managed to remove your bra and panties on your ascent, your hands coming forward to grab his shoulders, a flash of your wings switching your positions. His vision all but careens at the intensely quick motion, unable to keep up with the change as the room spins. When his eyes are finally able to focus, you have him lying against the desk, scrambling to climb on top of him.

His cock twitches at your juices dripping onto him, each drop tingling against his skin until your flesh makes contact with his once again, the sheer pleasure of pain zinging through him. Reaching forward, his hands grab hold of your hips, desperate to bring your entrance against his member. Your mind seems to be in sync with his, as your hand shoots down to grip his cock, bringing his head to your dripping core. He growls at the onslaught, his thighs tensing for fear that he would lose if before he could get himself in you.

You waste no time in letting his thick cock slide in, your neck becoming exposed as you throw your head back, a cry echoing in the office. The shadow’s tighten their position, absorbing your moans as you beg him to release his grip on your hips, desperate to move so as to allow the tip of his dick to rub over your spot. But his grip is ruthless, the onslaught of pleasure and pain putting him at the edge, and he was not going to lose it now.

Tears are trailing down your cheeks as you meet his gaze, your eyes widening as you observe the slithering shadows wrapping around his neck, quivering in hopes he would lose control in this moment of fragility. Your hands move towards the shadows, the tips of your fingers connecting with the skin at his neck as they retreat, the thrum of his pulse accelerating beneath your fingertips. All control flees from him as his hands grab yours, your fingers intertwining before he thrusts, a silent command to move.

Oh, how you felt above him. Pure bliss. Your hips snap as you grind against his cock, your back arching as you try and move faster. He can feel the shake of your thighs, the shivers as goosebumps travel down your body, turning your nipples into hardened nubs. He lifts himself slightly to take one of those buds into his mouth, groaning against your skin as you practically cry his name. A constant tune of his name on your lips, collective curses intertwining between your bodies as your grip on his hands tighten.

He forces his eyes to remain open, unwilling to lose contact with your body above his, his eyes flitting to all parts of you. He never wanted to forget how beautiful you look above him, how well you balance him as your skin made his burn in all the best ways. Your walls tighten around him, signaling your fast approaching release, and your cries of pleasure grow in volume. Digging his feet into the desk, he lifts his lower half in hopes it will give you more leverage against him, but it was also his desperate way to be closer to you in all the ways he could be.

Your back curves as you halt above him, your walls spasming against him as your juices gush out, the push of your orgasm almost causing him to slip out. He grits his teeth as he forces himself to stay inside of you, his grip unmerciful as you continue to squirt on his cock, soaking his lower abdomen.

Desperation consumes his body as he watches you unravel above him, and his grip on your fingers release, his hands moving to your hips as he adjusts his stance. He revels at your cry of surprise when he begins to slam himself up into you, your chest coming forward to rest against his own, changing the angle in which he enters you. Your lips rest against the thick vein in his neck, your teeth nibbling at his skin as your hands run up his arms before slipping through his hair. If the pain was intense before, his body was practically aflame as your fingers grip at his hair, your walls remaining clenched around him. His thigh muscles scream as he chases his high, frantically speeding up further when he feels the end near. His wings twitch, pitching forward as they comfortably make contact with yours, the bond of a thousand lifetimes pushing him over the edge.

It takes him a moment to realize you’re both in the air, his wings having carried you both off the desk, and you both softly float back towards it. You remain on top of him, your eyes searching his own as your wings stay connected, cocooning your bodies as the bond is finalized.

“I found you,” he whispers.

A small smile claims your lips as you stare back at him, his heart swelling at your reply.

“I found you.”

#Bts #Bts smut #Bts Yoongi #Min Yoongi #Yoongi #Yoongi smut #Min Yoongi smut #Yoongi x Reader #Fae Yoongi #Monarch Yoongi #CEO Yoongi #Fae Reader #A Shadow's Light #btscreatorscorner #bangtanhq #ficswithluv

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thelastspeecher · 4 years

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Spirit Touched - Chapter 4: Baby Badger-Viper

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 AO3

I actually updated on AO3 yesterday, but I was too lazy to post the new chapter here. So here’s the new chapter now. Chapter 5 won’t go up until after I move next week, though, because I’m going to have to focus on packing and whatnot.

Again, this fic is inspired by @muffinlance‘s fic Salvage and fanart that @agent-jaselin did of it. A component of this chapter is thanks to this art that jaselin did.

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Hakoda should have known that whatever Tuluk had to say was trouble. The crewman had come into his cabin while he was responding to letters from the Northern Fleet – without knocking.

“Chief?” Hakoda set his pen down.

“Yes?” he asked.

“The kid’s up the mast again.”

“The-” Hakoda’s eyes widened. “Zuko climbed the mast?” Tuluk nodded. “He’s four!” Though, now that Hakoda thought about it, Zuko’s current age wasn’t as much of an impediment as it would have been to someone else. This was, after all, the boy that had managed to bruise multiple crewmen while battling hypothermia. Hakoda got up from his desk and followed Tuluk onto the deck.

“You need to wear something!” Toklo called. True enough, Hakoda could just make out a very young boy, sitting on the crossbeam of the main mast.

“Tui and La, how did he get up there?” Hakoda breathed. Much of the crew had stopped to watch the spectacle of a toddler up very high, in a very precarious, very dangerous situation. Even those who were taking longer to warm up to Zuko were visibly concerned for his safety. The crewmen that had bonded with him, like Toklo, looked like they might have heart attacks.

“No!” Zuko shouted down to Toklo. His voice was petulant, but not in the way a prince would speak. He sounded every bit the toddler he was. “I won’t wear it!”

“It’s the only thing in your size, Zuko,” Bato argued. Hakoda walked to his second-in-command’s side.

“What happened?” Hakoda asked. Bato sighed and uncrossed his arms.

“The little brat won’t put on a coat.” Bato looked up the mast to shout again. “Do you want to get sick again?”

“Yes!” shrieked the small firebender.

“Son of a-” Bato rubbed his forehead.

“Why won’t he put on a coat?” Hakoda asked.

“The one he likes is still drying,” Toklo said. “We had to wash it earlier.” Washing it was the right move. The last Hakoda had seen of the coat, it was covered in messes that only a clumsy toddler could make.

“We got him another coat last time we docked,” Hakoda pointed out. Panuk snorted softly.

“Yeah, and he hates it.”

“Are you talking about me?” Zuko shouted. “That’s not nice!” Scattered snickers came from the crewmen.

“I’ll get him,” Hakoda said wearily.

For the second time, he climbed up the mast to retrieve a stubborn firebender. When he arrived at the crossbeam, Zuko glared at him.

“Zuko, you can’t stay up here.”

“Yes, I can!”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can!” Zuko said stubbornly. Hakoda sighed. He’d forgotten how difficult toddlers could be. After all, it had been a while since his children were this young, and up until now, Zuko had been on his best behavior.

“It’s not safe for you,” Hakoda said, forcing calm. Zuko glanced down at the deck uncertainly, then met his eyes again with that distinctive glower. But Hakoda had seen the brief flash of fear across the boy’s face. Zuko didn’t want to be up here any more than Hakoda wanted it. “You’re coming down with me.”

“No.” Zuko fidgeted. On a crossbeam. That a fall from would cause serious injuries. Hakoda fought the instinctual urge to grab the boy. He waited. Zuko clearly had more to say. “…I’m scared,” Zuko finally whimpered. “It’s taller than before.”

“Well, you’re shorter than before,” Hakoda pointed out. Zuko fidgeted again. “I’ll carry you down, okay?” After a moment, Zuko bobbed his head. He scooted closer to Hakoda, who scooped him into one arm, stifling a sigh of relief. Zuko buried his face into Hakoda’s shirt, hiding from the height or the eyes of the crewmen, Hakoda wasn’t sure.

Once back on the deck, Hakoda set the boy down. This incident with the mast was vastly different from the first; for one, the boy shivering in the cold wind looked nothing like the proud prince they’d fished from the sea. With his blue clothes drying, Zuko was in his green Earth Kingdom attire again. His hair, which Hakoda felt certain grew faster than normal, was tied back in the traditional wolf’s tail. It took the shortest amount of time of any hairstyles the crew knew, and Zuko was too fidgety to sit still for a longer one.

No, Zuko didn’t look like a prince. He looked like a refugee. Like one of the orphans that picked up a heritage from any adult willing to help them, and as a result, blended many backgrounds into one.

It wasn’t entirely inaccurate, Hakoda considered, to think of the former Fire Nation Prince as a refugee.

“Put on your coat,” Hakoda instructed Zuko, pushing away his musings. Zuko scowled.

“N-n-no,” he said, his teeth chattering from the cold.

“Wearing a coat you dislike is preferable to catching your death,” Hakoda said shortly. Zuko opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but closed it again. He nodded reluctantly. Toklo, who had been standing nearby with said detested coat in his hands, moved forward and draped it over Zuko’s shoulders.

“I can put it on myself,” Zuko whined as Toklo busily dressed him.

“I’m just helping you with the buttons,” Toklo chirped, buttoning up the coat. He pulled the hood over Zuko’s head. “There! Now you can stop shivering.” Now that the coat was on, Hakoda could see why the boy hated it.

“It looks even better than I thought it would,” Bato said, not bothering to hide the glee in his voice. “We’d better keep you away from the birds. They might think you’re a predator.” Zuko scowled.

“Of course you like it, you bought it,” he mumbled. Bato grinned. The coat was one made for children that enjoyed dressing up in costumes. It had ears on the hood and a tail on the back. Overall, it brought to mind a simplified version of an animal Hakoda had heard of, but had not seen.

“You make quite the fierce pygmy puma,” Hakoda remarked.

Zuko pulled the hood further down his face, pouting.

-----

“He’s here, Chief,” Aake rumbled as he walked onto the deck, carrying Zuko over his shoulder.

“Put me down, put me down!” Zuko shrieked, kicking his legs ineffectually. “I don’t need a nap!”

“You sound just like Sitka when he gets overtired,” Aake said. “That’s a sign that you do need a nap.”

“No!” Zuko whined. Aake handed the squirming toddler to Hakoda.

“Zuko, we’ve been over this,” Hakoda said wearily. Zuko wriggled fiercely in Hakoda’s arms. A few sparks burst into life, meeting Hakoda’s skin and causing him to instinctively drop the toddler. Unlike the first time he’d fallen to the deck, Zuko didn’t stay quiet. He burst into tears.

“What is going on with him lately?” Panuk muttered.

“He’s overtired, for one thing,” Aake said. Hakoda picked Zuko up again and brought him to the infirmary, ignoring the boy’s crying. “Toddlers always get worse when they need a nap.”

“Yeah, but he’s been acting out even when he’s not tired,” Toklo pointed out. Aake shrugged.

“Maybe he’s given up on pretending to be a teenager.”

-----

It took a long time for Zuko to calm down. The moment he did, he fell asleep, exhausted from his temper tantrum. Kustaa shook his head.

“It’s back to being the baby badger-viper you were when you first joined us, huh?” he asked the sleeping boy. Zuko snored in response. A thin line of drool dribbled down his cheek. “At least you’re too small to bruise us every time you throw a fit.” Zuko snored again.

Satisfied that his young charge wouldn’t wake up for some time, Kustaa took out the book he’d been given by Healer Yugoda. It was a record of every known instance the Northern Water Tribe had of someone being spirit touched. Hopefully, he could find something in it to illuminate what had happened to Zuko. He sat down at his desk and began to read.

Yugoda’s book was very, very detailed. It included names that Kustaa half-remembered and others that he had never heard before, tales from both poles, ancient legends, and even recent instances, such as the Moon Spirit saving the life of a Northern Tribe Princess.

The reasons spirits intervened in mortal affairs were varied, but a common one was for personal growth. Spirits, despite being immortal, could be impatient with the pace of human development. Any human that had been marked as having a significant destiny was watched closely. Should that human dawdle on their journey, a spirit might intervene.

Kustaa wasn’t too familiar with Fire Nation customs, but he had heard that the royal family were thought of as being blessed by the Sun Spirit, Agni. Zuko, a Fire Nation Prince, would undoubtedly have a destiny the spirits might take interest in. It seemed most likely that Zuko had been reverted to a child as some manner of speeding his journey. After all, the other frequent cause of a spirit intervening – to save a life – didn’t apply. Zuko had been hale and hearty the day before he woke up as a toddler.

Unfortunately, there were no records that Kustaa could find of spirits returning someone’s youth. Which dashed the hope that he might be able to figure out whether Zuko’s change in behavior was as troubling as it seemed. Zuko didn’t seem to notice, but the rest of the crew had picked up on the firebender’s increasingly frequent meltdowns, immature speech patterns, and juvenile reactions.

He could be upset about something, and slipping into more age-appropriate behavior as a coping mechanism. It could be a delayed effect of this specific spiritual intervention. Or even an effect that only happens after being in a spirit touched state for an extended period of time. Maybe it’s as some crew are suggesting, that he’s given up hope of returning to his proper age, and as such, opted to give up acting as if he were that age.

With a soft sigh, Kustaa closed the book. There were too many possibilities, and he wouldn’t be able to narrow them down unless Zuko opened up.

Fat chance of that happening. There was faint stirring from Zuko’s furs. Kustaa looked over. A small face popped up.

“Did you enjoy your nap, nephew?” Kustaa asked pleasantly. Zuko yawned widely and stretched. He nodded. “Good.” A sudden stricken look crossed Zuko’s face.

“Um…” Zuko fidgeted. “Can- can I stay in here for a while?” he asked sheepishly. Kustaa raised an eyebrow. “I…I behaved poorly earlier,” Zuko mumbled. After he’d let Zuko wallow for a moment, Kustaa nodded.

“I have some herbs that need sorting. If you’d like, you can do that.” Zuko beamed. Kustaa fought back a smile in return.

The kid was a beast when he was upset, but far more endearing than he had any right being.

Like most young children.

-----

Hakoda browsed the selection of the store, in his peripheral, keeping an eye on Zuko. The first few towns, he hadn’t been the only golden-eyed child, but as they progressed down the coast, his obvious Fire Nation heritage turned more and more heads. Luckily, any glares sent Zuko’s way were replaced by sheepish looks once they saw his scar. The fact that Zuko preferred warm clothing, and thus dressed in Water Tribe attire more often, helped as well. But Hakoda remained on edge.

Someone tapped on Hakoda’s shoulder. He turned.

“Excuse me, sir, but is he your son?” asked the woman who had approached him. She pointed at Zuko, who was ogling a display of exotic spices. Hakoda nodded. “Ah.” A sympathetic expression settled on the woman’s face. “It was very kind of you to keep him.”

Hakoda knew what the woman was implying. It was the lie he’d given over and over, that Zuko was a war bastard. But the lie suddenly tasted bitter. He’d seen the golden-eyed street urchins. He knew that war bastards weren’t always kept. Still, Hakoda couldn’t shake loose the dirty feeling that had come over him, at the suggestion that a mixed-blood child growing up in a home was an anomaly, not the norm.

“Of course I kept him,” Hakoda said softly. “He’s my son, regardless of his parentage.” The woman smiled. Zuko stood on his tiptoes, reaching for a bright red spice. “Nuktuk.” Zuko spun around. The woman Hakoda was talking to let out a soft gasp. “If you want to get a closer look at something, ask and I’ll get it for you.” Zuko scowled. “We can’t have you knocking things over again.” Zuko nodded reluctantly. Hakoda walked over. “What did you want to look at?”

“That,” Zuko mumbled, pointing out the red spice. Hakoda handed it to him.

“This?”

“Yeah.” Zuko stared intently at the small bottle. According to the label, it contained ground chilis and fire flakes. “I like this.”

“Do you want it?” Hakoda probed. After a moment, Zuko nodded. “Then ask.”

“Can I have it?” Zuko asked quietly. Hakoda raised an eyebrow. “Please?” Hakoda nodded.

“Since you asked so nicely…” Zuko handed Hakoda the bottle, already brimming with excitement. “You can keep looking around, but remember to be careful.” Zuko nodded. He toddled over to a wall of jars containing pickled vegetables. Hakoda turned to the woman he’d been speaking with. Horror filled her eyes.

“I’ve seen burns on refugees before, but never something that bad on someone so young,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” Hakoda paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond.

“Thank you. But it’s something we’ve done our best to move past. Dwelling on it only makes it worse,” he said diplomatically. The woman shook her head, still visibly disturbed. She walked over to Zuko and crouched next to him, speaking to him in a low voice.

Hakoda watched for a few moments, nervous that Zuko might say or do something that made it obvious he wasn’t a regular toddler. But the woman didn’t seem perturbed, so he resumed shopping. The woman eventually left Zuko’s side and went up to the register. She stopped by Zuko again on her way out of the shop.

Hakoda brought the supplies up to the register. Zuko sidled over to him, a large stuffed animal turtle duck in his arms.

“That thing’s almost as big as you,” Hakoda remarked. Zuko scowled and hugged the toy tighter. “I can’t buy it for you, you know.”

“Not a problem, sir,” said the cashier, counting out Hakoda’s change. “Lily got it for him.”

“The woman that was in here earlier?” Hakoda asked. The cashier nodded.

“Yup. She’s got a soft spot for refugee kids.” The cashier shook his head. “It’s a shame what good people like you and your family have to deal with. Leaving your life behind, taking only the barest of necessities…”

“It’s war,” Hakoda said dryly. The cashier handed Hakoda his change.

“That it is.”

-----

Zuko’s poor behavior began to die down after that stop. His stuffed turtle duck came with him almost everywhere. It reminded Hakoda of the blanket Sokka had been overly attached to as a child.

“Who would’ve thought the kid just needed a toy?” Bato remarked. Some of the men were training on the deck. Zuko was watching, heckling those he thought could do better. His sharp words were undercut by how tightly he hugged his stuffed animal.

“A complete stranger in a store,” Hakoda said softly.

“You mean the woman that bought it for him?”

“Yes. She was under the impression we were refugees whose only real possessions were the clothes on our backs.”

“Huh. Well, with Zuko, that’s actually pretty accurate.”

“Exactly.” Hakoda watched Zuko tease Ranalok for losing a sparring match. “I don’t think Zuko qualifies as a refugee, but he’s pretty close to one. His world’s been turned upside down multiple times. I can’t believe I didn’t think of giving him a toy or blanket or-”

“Hakoda, he’s been trying to act like a teenager for most of his time as a kid,” Bato pointed out. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. The good news is that the kid’s finally calming down again.”

“We never did find out why he started acting up.”

“Don’t look a gift ostrich-horse in the mouth,” Bato said with a shrug. Hakoda didn’t respond. Zuko yawned widely. Hakoda walked over.

“Zuko, would you come with me?” Hakoda asked softly. Zuko nodded. He followed Hakoda into his cabin. Hakoda lifted the boy onto the chair opposite his desk, then sat down. Zuko looked at him, his eyes getting slightly bleary from tiredness.

“What is it, Chief?” Zuko asked. Hakoda steepled his fingers.

“I want to talk about your behavior.” That shocked him out of any sleepiness he might have had. Zuko straightened, eyes wide with fear. “Before you say anything, I’m not punishing you. You’ve been very well-behaved since we last docked.” Zuko relaxed slightly. “But for a rather long time, you were not.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko mumbled.

“I don’t want an apology. I’m just wondering if you could share with me the reason,” Hakoda said. Zuko squeezed his stuffed turtle duck. “After we parted ways with the Northerners, you began acting in ways you hadn’t before. Why?”

“Why are you asking me now?” Zuko mumbled. “You should have asked while I was misbehaving.”

“Do you remember how you refused to cooperate with something as simple as taking a nap?” Hakoda asked. Zuko reddened. He nodded. “That’s why I didn’t ask then. I’m not going to judge you. But if you know why you were behaving so poorly-”

“I was upset,” Zuko blurted out. Hakoda waited. The boy didn’t say anything else.

“Why were you upset?” Hakoda prodded gently.

“Uncle,” Zuko mumbled. He squeezed his toy again. “I…miss him.”

“Do you want to see him?”

“Yes. No. I-” Zuko looked away. “The spirits cursed me, and I don’t know why, and Uncle cares too much, and he’d ask questions I don’t know how to answer, and-” Hakoda held up a hand. Zuko fell silent.

“You were conflicted,” he said. Zuko nodded. “You want to see your uncle, but you’re worried how the reunion might go.” Zuko nodded again. “You could have told us.”

“No. I’m already four. I don’t need any more indignities thrust upon me.”

“Zuko, when something troubles you so much that it affects your behavior, it’s something you need to share,” Hakoda said patiently. Zuko scowled. Hakoda felt like he was back in time, trying to convince Sokka to talk things out before escalating to a fight. “Are you better now?” The young firebender blinked in surprise, clearly taken aback by the apparent change in topic.

“Sort of. I mean, I still miss Uncle and feel…conflicted,” Zuko confessed. “But it’s not as bad now.” He looked down at his stuffed animal. “I had one like this before. Lu Ten gave it to me.”

“Lu Ten?”

“My cousin. He- he died during the Siege of Ba Sing Se.”

“Ah,” Hakoda said softly. Zuko looked at him expectantly. Hakoda raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Am I excused?” Zuko asked. Hakoda nodded. Zuko hopped off the chair and rushed out of the cabin. Hakoda leaned back.

Despite all his protests to the contrary, he’s just a boy. A boy that feels a bit safer when he has something of his own to cuddle. Hakoda grimaced. I can’t tell Toklo and Panuk that toys are apparently the key to getting Zuko to open up. They’ll bury him in stuffed animals.

-----

“Zuko.” Zuko sat bolt upright. He looked over at Kustaa. The healer was still fast asleep. Wondering if he’d imagined it, Zuko laid back down. “Zuko.”

Who’s saying that? Zuko fought free of his pile of furs. He slipped on a coat to protect himself against the night wind and snuck onto the deck as quietly as possible. The night shift did their chores, not paying any attention to the toddler padding past them. Something guided Zuko’s feet to the edge of the ship. He clambered onto the railing, ignoring Hakoda’s voice in the back of his head telling him to stop climbing things.

The full moon shone in the sky. Its mirror image on the still ocean was just as bright. Zuko cocked his head curiously at it. Normally, he could feel the influence of the moon decreasing his bending capability. But tonight, he didn’t feel stifled.

It’s probably because my bending is even weaker than usual right now. Zuko tilted his head back to look up at the stars. A memory flashed in his mind: the first time he’d seen the spirit lights in the South Pole. Uncle had been thrilled and dragged Zuko out of bed to watch. He blinked, and the memory faded. No colorful ribbons split the sky in two. Stars scattered across the heavens like they had been spilled from a jar. The moon hung heavy. Zuko sighed. I should go back to bed.

“Not yet, Prince Zuko.”

“Just Zuko,” Zuko said instinctively. His eyes widened. A figure began to form out of the moon. A young woman, about the age he’d been before the spirits cursed him. She smiled sweetly.

“Not cursed, Prince Zuko. Blessed,” she said. Her voice echoed across the waves. She floated closer. “And why would I not call you Prince? It is your title.”

“Not- not anymore,” Zuko stammered. He resisted the urge to fidget. Clearly, he was in the presence of a spirit. He had to be on his best behavior. The spirit settled next to him on the railing. Zuko winced slightly; her bright glow hurt his bad eye. Her eyes widened. The glow surrounding her dimmed from the force of the full moon to a soft foxfire.

“I apologize,” she said. “This is the first time I’m really acting as a spiritual intermediary.”

“But…you’re the moon spirit,” Zuko said, having finally recognized her. She smiled sadly.

“Not always. You can call me Yue.”

“Yue.” Zuko looked down at his hands. “Yue, I- I can’t be the prince anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I just- I can’t.”

“Hmm.” Yue looked out across the water. “If you want to renounce your title, it might behoove you to wait until you have a firm reason for doing so.”

“…Maybe,” Zuko mumbled. He took a deep breath. “Why- why are you here?” he asked. To his displeasure, it came out as a weak squeak. Yue smiled fondly at him. Her white hair billowed behind her, despite the complete lack of breezes.

“It’s time you were told why the spirits have intervened with you.” Zuko whipped his head up to stare at Yue in shock.

“That doesn’t happen very often.”

“The general consensus is that you might not pick up on it on your own,” Yue confessed. Zuko flushed in embarrassment. “Prince Zuko, your personal journey, one that the spirits have been invested in, is unlearning what you were taught by your father.”

“Like what?” Zuko asked. “Give me an example.” Yue’s mouth twitched.

“They’re all examples.”

“What?”

“Children your age wear their hearts on their sleeves and don’t hide their intentions,” Yue said, changing the topic. “They have no difficulty accessing the emotions that you grew up learning to stifle. If you wish to be a kind, just ruler someday, you must relearn how to be vulnerable and open. You must abandon the idea that rage and fear are all that will make you strong.”

“But that’s where firebending comes from. Anger.”

“Is it?” Yue asked, cocking her head. Zuko blinked. “Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“It sounds like you want me to stop being Fire Nation.” Zuko rubbed the back of his neck. “Which…I sort of already have.”

“No. The Fire Nation is no more inherently bad than any other creed.” Yue put a hand on Zuko’s back. “It has a rich culture whose good aspects have been masked by the bad ones for a hundred years.” She began to fade. “Our time is coming to an end.”

“What? But you didn’t- you didn’t tell me anything!” Zuko protested. Yue began to float away.

“I did.”

“No, you-” Zuko huffed. “What am I supposed to do? Am I even going to return to my proper age?”

“That’s something only you can control,” Yue said softly.

“Wait!” Zuko shouted at the spirit. She was growing smaller, moving away from him, back to the moon hanging in the sky. “Wait!” He got to his feet clumsily. “That’s not a real answer, it’s-” His already precarious balance on the rail failed as the ship hit a rough wave. Zuko toppled forward, falling overboard.

Again.

At least he was rescued quicker this time. Ranalok had seen him lose his balance and fished him out of the ocean immediately. Tuluk stood ready nearby with a towel.

“Kid, you have to think of some new ways to drive us up the wall,” Tuluk said as he removed Zuko’s dripping outerwear. Thankfully, he didn’t take off all of Zuko’s clothes, even though every stitch was drenched. The crewman allowed Zuko some of the piddling amount of dignity the former prince had left. He wrapped Zuko tightly in the towel and dragged him to the infirmary.

When Kustaa awoke and saw the soaked boy, he merely raised a silent eyebrow.

“The baby badger-viper fell overboard,” Tuluk explained. Kustaa sighed. “Hopefully he won’t get sick this time.”

“Hopefully,” Kustaa repeated. Tuluk left. Kustaa turned so that Zuko could undress and dry off. “You realize what this means, right?”

“…No,” Zuko said warily, scrubbing his hair with the towel.

“Your clothes need to dry again.” Zuko froze. “Including your favorite coat. So…” Zuko scowled as the coat he did not like one bit was tossed at him. “Time to dress up like a pygmy puma.”

#Spirit Touched #ATLA #Zuko #Hakoda #Bato #Yue #my writing #my stuff #fanfiction #speecher speaks

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ilguna · 3 years

Text

Lacuna - Chapters 9-12 (f.o)

summary: they say the odds tend to favor those who need them. well, they were wrong.

warnings; swearing. MURDER, GORE.

wc; 12.1k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

-- CHAPTER NINE --

Most tributes would trade off with one of the others when they get tired. But there’s three problems when it comes to that, and they’re all very valid in your situation.

The first one is that you aren’t tired. At all. You feel like if you got up right now, you’d be able to run around the entire arena twice before you’d feel tired. Sure, you’d break a sweat but besides that, you’re wide awake. The adrenaline is pumping, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop anytime soon.

The second reason why you won’t wake any of them up, is because you don’t trust them. Mainly Trink, Eytelle, Allio and Lennox. Thyme is absolutely loyal, you know that. She would have survived just fine on her own had you not convinced the others to let her in. But she’s under some sort of safety net for the meantime. If you wanted to run off, you’re sure that she’d stick along, because you had offered her this chance at safety.

You’re not too entirely sure about Finnick anymore, which is a disappointment in itself. The fact that you can’t trust the one person that you were hoping to count on during this entire event. You two would lean on each other, and you would support him as best as possible. Keep each other from dying in case one of you get hurt, want to kill one of the careers or get sick. All the possibilities of being together through the tough shit and it’ll never happen.

There is a partial chance that Finnick is playing it up with his friends already, but he hadn’t mentioned it to you. He didn’t bring it up to you in the chance that he had, when the both of you were talking a couple of hours ago. To be fair, you hadn’t mentioned the same, but with Trink and Eytelle. But he’s always been honest with you, you just thought that he would go first.

Maybe you’re relying on him too much. You’re forgetting how to stand on your own feet because you’re thinking he’s going to support you. Is that why he’s keeping things from you?

The third reason is that you’re wide awake because you’re worried about three. When three will show up, what their intentions will be. If you’ll be allowed to wake up and take Finnick and Thyme before he tries to kill all of you. If he’ll think that two others is too much, since all you did was spare his own life. Unless there was more with him, but you had only seen him.

It’s hard to fall asleep, you’ve tried, but there’s always sounds going on in the woods. Branches snap, leaves get turned up out of nowhere. Birds will chirp, even though you’re sure that they should be sleeping like the rest of the forest. But it seems to have come alive in the nighttime, exactly what you don’t need. You hope that the gamemakers won’t send anything towards you guys. They have a reputation of sending things during the night when the tributes have fallen asleep.

You need the sleep as much as the others do. It’s been a couple of hours, you’ll force yourself to fall asleep, it doesn’t take very long. As much as you hate to say it, Finnick will probably be comforting enough to soothe the mind. You’ll be out like a baby in less than thirty minutes.

Of course, with that thought, you yawn. You struggle to keep your eyes open, and then you succumb to the yawn entirely. When you’re done, you freeze almost immediately with the pair of blue eyes that stare back at you in the forest. Mouth still hanging open, your arm locked around Finnick’s shoulder.

Suddenly, there’s another pair of eyes just beside it, and when you see that they’re glowing a little bit--you would not be able to see human eyes that clearly in the dark--you begin to worry what they are. Because there’s only one species so flexible to make the fantasy to come to life.

Muttations. Mutts.

You pinch Finnick’s upper arm as hard as you can, and then slap your hand over his mouth. He jolts awake, and you hold him down. From the very bottom of your eye, you can faintly see his own eyes look up to you. Confused, probably frustrated by the hand. But when you don’t move from where you’re looking, he follows the stare.

The eyes keep multiplying. From two to four to eight to sixteen.

How are you going to tell the others?

You slowly remove your hand, and Finnick slides up next to you. Your left hand grabs the nearest knife, and you clutch it in your hand like your life depends on it. Finnick grabs his sword, since he still doesn’t have his trident or spear. Those are left in the middle, because you thought to be going back for them pretty soon.

Finnick inches forward, his hand on your chest briefly to hold you back as he shakes Lennox awake. Lennox squints at Finnick, unsure of who he is almost, and then Lennox’s eyes widen. He turns to see the eyes, which are beginning to light up the area on all their own.

And just like that, it’s a chain. Lennox gets Trink awake, Trink gets Allio, who reaches over just barely to touch Eytelle, earning a snarl because of it. Finnick is very slow when he gets Thyme, and pulls her back to where you are.

“What do we do?” Trink whispers.

Another growl from in front of you. You slowly inch around the tree to see only one opening. You slide on your backpack, the others following.

“The path.” you don’t point, but they seem to get it. You’re the first to get to your feet, and once they’ve all followed, slowly turning their bodies in the direction that you’ll be going, you count down.

Once it hits one, you grab Finnick’s hand tightly, and then bolt off. Finnick has a hard time keeping up with you for a second, but the screams behind you are enough to inspire him to go faster. All you can hear from Eytelle is how they’re getting faster, that they’re giant, the size of bears.

“They are bears!” She shrieks.

The branches easily whip at your face, leaving little cuts wherever they hit. They begin to sting for a moment, but the second the next one hits, you forget about it. At least the blood going down any exposed skin and under the clothes--if they hit hard enough--is your own blood.

Finnick sees that you’re taking it after a while, and he goes just fast enough to take most of the hits after that. There are a few you still have to cover your face for, but for the big ones, he holds them long enough for you to slip through. Everyone behind you, it’s every man for themselves.

The adrenaline is still pumping just fine. You felt this coming, you knew that they would release something like that, because they can’t just let you guys have one simple, happy night. It could very well be a punishment for not creating drama between you guys and the boy from district three, but what do they know? Who’s to say that he won’t come in later and cause just as many problems?

You and Finnick have just made it to the bushes that touch the field in the middle, when a scream cuts off the panting and rapid feet. You fall, trying to catch your breath back, knife still in your hand tightly, Finnick leans over, hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.

You watch as they come out of the forest. Thyme, Trink, and Lennox.

“Where’s the other two?” Finnick asks, out of breath as he motions towards the woods.

“Get off her!” Allio screams, Finnick helps you to your feet, and you point at Thyme and Trink.

“Stay here.”

You feel stupid for running back in, But you’re pulling knives out of your waistband before you even know what you’re up against. The first one flies from your fingers, and you watch as the bear falls, feeling the ground shake beneath your boots from his weight.

Eytelle is a goner. She’s stretched out, and they’re still attacking her. Her screams are loud, garbled with tear-filled sobs as she pleads for it to end. And then the mutt will take another bite, and she screams again.

Allio is in Lennox and Finnick’s hands.

You try to get around the bears, wasting your knives on them. And the second you get a big enough clear to kill Eytelle, she looks directly at you. You have the pleasure of watching the knife getting lodged in her head, as it hits the dead leaves on the ground again. Listening as the cannon goes off.

Your third one, already. So early in the morning.

You turn, taking off towards the boys, two hands on Finnick, you shove. He tumbles with the others, bringing them down. You’re about to jump yourself, since it would be much easier to fall than to run, when a red hot, searing pain goes over your back.

You falter, trying to collect yourself just enough to get past the bushes. Tears are brimming your eyes when you get on the other side. And then, your legs buckle, and you find yourself with a face full of grass.

“(Y/n)!” Finnick gasps, all he does is barely touch your back and the tears spill over. A cry of pain leaves your mouth, and you're shaking your head against the grass.

“Stop! Please,” You sob, clenching your teeth.

“We need to get her under the cornucopia.” Trink says softly, coming over to help Finnick out. They get you up the same way they did to Allio, but instead of holding you back, they’re trying to support you so you don’t fall.

You’re trying to hold back the moans of pain. But each time one of them jerks by accident, the hot pain comes back, and it’s burning. Licking up every inch of your back.

They’ve just laid you across one of the boxes full of clothes, beginning to dig through the others. Thyme is very carefully helping you peel off your jacket, and then the shirt. When the shirt proves difficult, you raise it to your neck, since it doesn’t need to come off completely, just expose your back so she can get a look at it.

“We need water.” Thyme says, “to clean this out.”

Finnick is immediately offering up his water, uncapping the bottle, when Allio mutters, “Why should we? She killed Eytelle.”

The others have their heads screwed on right though, because they all look at him like he’s insane, “She stopped her from suffering, you would have wanted her to die slowly?”

“Maybe I did.” Allio mutters, turning away from you guys.

You’re not sure if he’s embarrassed now, since they make a pretty good point. It’s the entire reason why you stuck back. She may be a bitch but she needs to die a quick death like the rest of you. To draw it out would be an asshole move.

Which means that the others might not think how you thought. They might make the tribute plead but you’re thinking that they won’t drag it out. Of course, Eytelle was a friend, so they probably wouldn’t want her to die a slow death.

You’re hoping that you didn’t piss off the gamemakers. Because they’re all about shows, and so you fighting would have made a great experience, raised the stakes. But then killing Eytelle would have ruined all of it, since she had plenty of time left. Where she was being mauled and where the middle sits, isn’t that far from each other.

You guys would have been forced to listen to her agonized screaming for so many hours. Because that’s what the games are about, a show. There’s no better way to have one than torturing a poor teenager until they die an unnatural death. Not like this entire thing isn’t unnatural in the first place.

“Don’t move,” Thyme is quiet, and you can feel Finnick hold you down a little bit, even Lennox comes into help to make sure that you don’t jerk.

Clenching your teeth, you close your eyes as tightly as possible. With hands enclosed into fists, you try not to scream the second that the cool water is poured over your back. She does it fairly close so it’s not hitting your back like a bag of rocks. A low moan leaves your mouth, and you can’t help but to hate yourself for going to kill Eytelle for them.

If you had let her die like they wanted, you wouldn’t have to go through this pain. But here you are, a handful of claw marks down your body. Burning like the red sun, like the heat continues to go up with each passing second. You feel like your entire back has been doused in gasoline and lit on fire.

It burns.

You get used to the water after a while. Trink offers to get more, Allio says that he’ll go with her, and then they leave you, Finnick, Lennox, and Thyme.

“This fucking sucks,” you complain, huffing a little bit.

“Thank you.” Lennox doesn’t elaborate, but you can guess what it’s about.

He gets up and moves to the back of the little building, digging through what’s back there. You watch when he grabs something, and then comes out, dropping it in front of you on the ground. There, sits a spear covered in gold. Or, since the Capitol is rich and they love to make luxury items, it could very well be made out of gold, the entire thing from handle to blade tip.

Lennox doesn’t bother to say anything as he goes back to digging, you know exactly what he’s looking for, and he’s not going to find it. Finnick will have to do with a spear just like you. On the same goddamn playing field once again but it seems like you guys aren’t as open as you’d hoped the both of you would be.

You’re not saying anything because you’re hoping that he will first. Tell you of the little alliance going on between the boys, so you can tell him of the one going on between the girls. Especially now since there’s one less member, it just makes a tighter circle, easier to open up and reveal true personalities. They’re not stupid, they’re going to find out that you’re not as dumb as you play it out to be.

Maybe Finnick will come open about the fact that the entire love thing was a joke too. That he was doing it for sponsors, because the interview was a perfect time to set it up, and kissing out here will be a beautiful way to execute it. He’s buttering you up so you won’t be able to kill him when the time comes. But you’ve gained three, as he’s still stuck at zero.

As far as you’re concerned, no damage has come up just yet. You’re as clean as a whistle, and it plays just fine. Your brain still functions like it has before, you’re just slowly adjusting to how it needs to be. You’re wide awake still, and you’re sure that you’ll crash as soon as you feel safe--an adjustment since you’d sleep heavily on most days--and you haven’t been hungry since you ate, which was hours ago. You should be hungry, even if it were just a little bit.

If you have to kill Finnick, you’ll be able to do it. It only gets easier with time, right? Like swallowing a hard pill, just learn how much water you need to take it down with, and go from there. You’re ahead of the game.

You’re going to go home.

Your eyes drag to where Lennox is. You can see his back is turned, no more hands are on you as far as you can tell. Finnick is standing off to the side, staring off into the night. Thyme, you’re not sure where she is.

“Allio and Trink on their way back?” you ask, reach down to the spear slowly, eyes glued to Lennox.

“Year, pretty far off though.” Finnick mutters, “Your back hurts?”

Finnick turns, and you shake your head at him, pushing yourself up to sit. It does hurt, it feels like a bitch. You can’t move any of the muscles back there without a stabbing pain going with it. At least the water helped, even if it was just a little bit.

You try to play off you sitting up, with the spear in your hand as like you’re just testing it out. You pretend to move it around in your hand, getting a feel for it. But when you do stand up, wandering around the boxes what looks like aimlessly--but you’re really starting to move your way to Lennox--you see something.

The person jumps, a scream leaving their throat, which makes Lennox turn immediately. You draw your arm back, right hand on the spear, which sends the pain spiraling in your upper back. Reaching over with the left, your hold onto it tightly. Soon, you’re going for a stab.

It’s successful, and the cannon goes off. The kid, who must be from twelve, falls dead onto the ground, golden spear sticking out of them. You can see the blood gathering in their stomach, and spilling onto the blood around them. With a tilt of your head, your eyebrows draw in when you look over them a little more.

“He’s--he’s twelve.” you choke out, stumbling back.

A faint feeling comes over you, and you reach back to grab something to hold yourself up with. You come across a whole lot of nothing, and before you can fall, Finnick catches you in his arms.

And the world turns black for good.

-- CHAPTER TEN --

If you’re going to kill anyone first, by your own hands--besides the four other people you have already killed--inside of the alliance, you think that it should be the girls first. Or girl, you’re not too fond of knocking Thyme out just yet. She would be easiest though. You take her down somewhere nice, like the waterfall that you think is hidden somewhere in the water, and you drown her or something.

Spear her to death, even though that’ll be painful unless you get her in the head the first time. Really, anything that might take her out, that includes you not being anywhere near the others, Finnick included. You might have suggested her to the group but the longer she sticks around, the more she learns. The more Trink and the others grow attached, the harder it’ll be to cut her off without the others pitching a bitching fit.

You know Finnick likes her. With the way that he talks to her and all of that. They like to share a certain look sometimes. One that you’re not sure how to decipher, but you do know that you don’t like the looks of it at all. It’s like they’re holding secrets that they won’t let you in on, much less let you know that they have them in the first place.

Actually, scratch that, they’ve basically let you know. You’ve asked several times to know what they’re giggling about, and they give you some fucking glance. The type you use to brush someone off if they’re babbling about something incoherent. It’s like if a drunk family friend--you have experience with your dad’s old friends that liked to come around when he was home--that tries to give you advice on fashion even though they’re wearing some old ass rags. It’s a look of you being under them.

Trink, Lennox and Allio don’t treat you like that at least. It’s like the more that time passes between all of you, you’re drawn more to the career pack. As Finnick ostracizes himself and finds more of a friend in Thyme than you.

You’re tired of the giggling and the glances and so you’ve taken a walk all the way down the lake. Which is where you’ll sit and watch the water, because you can’t fucking stand whatever the hell is going on back there.

During the time that you were out, medicine was sent in from one of your sponsors. Thyme lathered it on, Finnick did bedside and sat by you the entire time basically. It’s healed everything on your back nicely, Finnick says all that’s left are pink scars, but it still stings if you move the wrong way. You’ll put on another thin layer tonight, but that’ll be it. You guys can save the rest for later or something.

Eytelle, the boy from twelve and the girl from nine showed up in the sky last night, three more down. The total dead is eleven, and there’s still six of you in the alliance. Seventeen minus twenty-four is seven. Six if you’re not including yourself. Six more people until the alliance breaks off. Probably less.

Besides that, everything is as it was before. Lennox snuggles up to Trink. Allio is bitter, looking for a fight in everything that you do. Because he wants to believe that you did it out of pleasure. You were satisfied a little bit because it lessened one person in the group. One more person until you get to go home. But that’s it. You hated everything about it.

And had you known that you would get hurt because of it, you would have let her be there in pain and saved your own ass. Those couple of hours with it healing felt like an absolute bitch, and you would give anything not to go through that pain again. It’s as simple as that.

The arena has been unusually quiet, but it’s like that always. Everyone is hiding, and trying to find food to eat. Getting set up where they want to stay for the next couple of weeks. If you guys work quickly, it can just be a singular week, but that’s not going to happen. Five days have passed and only eleven people are dead. You have a feeling that this is going to be dragged out a lot longer.

You hate it here. You hate it more than you thought you would, because it’s not going how you planned.

Pushing yourself up, you swipe your backpack and spear from the sand, before wading into the water, using the spear to see how deep the water gets. You’re sure that it’s going to get to your chest, but it never goes above the waist. The water is fairly cold, but all it does is wake you up more, keeping you on your toes.

You’re being careful as to make sure that you’re not disturbing anything in the water. If something grabs your ankle and drags you under, you’ll be fine for the most part. You can hold your breath for a good while, but the problem would be fighting and trying not to lose all your air while doing it. When people are thrown around underwater, they have a tendency to lose the air that they’re holding.

You’ve seen it before with the neighborhood boys your brothers used to wrestle back when you were younger. Caspian was there most of the time, and they’d tackle each other, go underwater and you’d just watch the bubbles go to the surface. Worried about if they’ll be able to know that the other person doesn’t have anymore air left over.

Eventually they’d pop up to the surface, take in a huge gasp of air, and then do it all over again.

You never joined in because of these fears, but thinking back on it now, it would have helped. Had you been in the situation yourself, you would know how to take care of it, if you were dragged under.

The sound of the waterfall isn’t that far off, and in fact, you can see exactly where it is. It’s off to the left, with a pile of rocks, which makes up the waterfall in the first place. You go ahead with going inside when you’re close enough. If you weren’t wet before, you are now.

Inside of the waterfall is fairly lit up, but at night it has to be pitch black. As far as you can tell, no one has been inside of here yet. There’s no sign of footprints in the moss, which means that maybe no one has thought of coming in here yet.

It really sucks that you had suggested this to the other two. Had you not, you could really disappear off into here and they would have no goddamn clue. They’d think you ran off, maybe died if they heard a random cannon, only to see you’re alive when you don’t appear in the night sky.

It’s also got to be really fucking cold at night with the water and the rocks. Like living in a basement, the cold tends to settle a lot better. It’d be impossible to sleep at night if you didn’t have a sleeping back. You’d end up shivering and then dying of hypothermia. Trying to get a fire started in here?

Not only stupid, but also useless. They’d see the fire clearly through the waterfall, a random ass light source would draw anyone with the right mind. You know you’d head for it, take out anyone who thought that they’d be able to get away with it. It would be their own damn fault. Then again, the cold will do shit to people. And then, it would be useless because the wood would be wet the second you go through the waterfall.

It’s a really sucky spot to be, but it’s better than nothing you suppose.

Sitting down, you dig through the backpack, drinking some of the water, and then nibbling on whatever your hands find first.

Twelve people left in the games, excluding yourself. Five that you’re sticking around and seven that are spread out somewhere in the arena. Some of those seven aren’t any good, like the boy from ten, the girl from twelve, and so on. The useless districts, they’ve only survived this long because they’ve gotten lucky. They run into the wrong person once, and they’ll be dead meat.

You need to find a way to wipe out Trink, Lennox or Allio. As you were saying earlier, it would probably be easiest to go with Trink, but the boys are the stronger ones. Allio already is paranoid about all the shit you do. Simply you walking off rose suspicious which you not-so-kindly told him to go fuck himself in reponse. You don’t need him on your back for jack shit.

It should be him, you should wipe out him. But he won’t go anywhere with you in private. It will have to be either Trink or Lennox. However, the more you think about Thyme and Finnick, you’re starting to think that it wouldn’t be so bad killing her after all. The others won’t care that much, she’s not a career. They need you and Finnick, she’s just an accessory.

Then again, you really would like to take out Lennox. Even the playing field a little bit. The three boys could wipe you, Trink and Thyme out with the blink of an eye. If you’re quick enough, you’ll be able to get away, but it won’t be unscathed. Even having two of them alive is still risky business.

You were already going to go for Lennox, so why not?

Kill Lennox, draw Trink in closer to you, and try to convince Allio that you’re not doing anything wrong. Maybe you can try to pin it on Thyme, have the job done for you, and Finnick will have to turn back to you.

Allio was the one that was worried about Thyme, right? Because she let her district mate run off?

It’s not a bad idea. The only problem is that you’ll be creating mass suspicion and it’ll create tension sooner than it needs to be. The faster you guys split up, the less you have to worry about. If no one trusts each other, then there is no alliance to have.

Sneaking out of the waterfall, you’re drenched in water again, feeling like a drowned cat for a little as you have to go all the way back to the middle by walking through the water. Then the sand sticks to your shoes like mud, a couple of pieces do get into your shoe entirely, and you have to pull the shoes off.

Then, you find yourself stripping off the jacket, your socks, and your shirt. The pants you can deal with, but everything else is squishy and it feels gross. By the time you’ve reached the cornucopia, you’ve successfully rung out your shirt and socks, the shirt being back on your body while the socks are hidden somewhere on the backpack for further drying. The jacket seems to have a never ending flow of water.

Trink looks up at you. She’s sitting on the ground, holding her arm. Her face twists angrily for a second, “What the fuck do you want?”

“What?” you ask, surprised by the hostility. Had you said something before you left that pissed her off?

“Don’t play pretend. You and your fucking boyfriend planned this,”

“Planned what?” you ask, looking to see that Lennox and Allio don’t look too thrilled to see you standing in front of them either. You take a step back, worried that they’re going to attack you like a pack of angry dogs.

“Attacking us and then leaving.” Lennox favors his left leg more than his right, “So you can get a head start.”

“That is--” you turn to look behind you, all you see is a short amount of field and then the trees, ��They left?”

“You really have no clue?” Trink sounds nicer now.

They left you out of this? They attacked and then left you to deal with them? Finnick took Thyme over you and just… went?

“I didn’t fucking--” you can feel the anger swelling, and now do you know what you were feeling earlier. It was jealousy, you were jealous over the fact that Finnick was talking to her more than you, was acting like you knew nothing anymore.

But now it’s anger.

“I didn’t know.” you tell them, sitting down on the nearest chest, shaking your head, elbows on your knees and you place your face in your hands, “I can’t fucking believe that they would do this.”

“Glad to know that we’re in the same boat.” Allio mutters, but it’s not that harsh, maybe he trusts you now.

They’re so fucking dead the second you get your hands on them. Dead.

-- CHAPTER ELEVEN --

You wonder how agonizingly painful it is to watch two of what looks like the best tributes you’ve gotten in a long time, turn their backs on each other and not even bother to find the other. If Mags is pulling her hair out right alongside Elysia, because you can picture it now. Fistfuls of Mag’s white hair and blonde hair from Elysia’s stupid synthetic wig.

They have to have sponsors lined up the wazoo, and the further that time goes on, the more expensive shit is going to start being. So if you’re going to do anything of significance, you’re sure that you have to hurry the fuck up. Just so that they all don’t go to waste and you’ll be able to use their money a little bit.

Although, you’re sure that no news is good news at this point. You’ve reached a week and a half already, but no one is dropping like flies, as you’re sure that the Capitol is hoping for. The only person that has died is the girl from district twelve, and that’s about it. No one even killed her, you’re sure.

You, Trink, Allio and Lennox are having trouble coming across people as it is. You haven’t seen a goddamned person since the boy from district twelve was inside the cornucopia, and that’s really saying something about how the games have been structured so far. The poor girl probably starved to death because she had no skill whatsoever.

That must have been boring as hell. You’re not sure how the girl did it though, going so long without food and water. Each time you and Trink take up the woods, all it seems is like there is food and water. Which was there before the girl had dropped dead, they didn’t just up the production just because she died.

Actually, there have been more deaths. The boys from eight and ten, no clue what got to them either. None of you had gotten your hands on them at all. It’s been serene since Finnick and Thyme left. And speaking of that, you haven’t heard a goddamn thing about them either.

You have a feeling where they might be, but you flat out refuse to go to the waterfall. It’s not just you being stubborn anymore, it’s genuine betrayal that they would do that. If they had thought that you disappeared for a few hours because you were running away, they’re stupid. You wouldn’t have done it without getting a few licks in on the pack, and you would have told them.

Well, maybe you wouldn’t have told them with all that has been happening lately. They can believe that they did the right thing, even with the week that has passed, and they can also believe that you’re coming, but it’s not going to happen. You’re hoping that they don’t come across you at all, because you’re not making friends anymore. The boy from three got his pass, but former friends? Betrayal really is a bitch, isn’t she?

Continuing off of that, you’re not really looking forward for what the gamemakers have in mind for people who don’t spice shit up. Which is why you’re going to kill Allio tonight. Take first watch, wait till the others are asleep and then stab him when the time comes. Pretend like Finnick or one of the others came and attacked you, and play it from there.

You’ve built up trust. You’ve got them relying on you for food as if you’re some personal chef. You go down to the lake, pond, whatever and fish up whatever you can get. Normally you stick to four, on days that you’ve had to skip the entire day without eating, you bring back more. You’re getting them to shrink their stomachs. They complain but they know that you’re right.

Sadly, this only means that the future generations coming from the rich districts will know the tactic in being able to starve yourselves and live on longer, and still have that much energy. This will only help out them, but as for the kids back home in the poor districts, you’ll wander around inside of the arena and point out the berries and leaves that you do know. As if you’re giving a lesson in herbal remedies or some shit.

You’re hoping that the Capitol is allowing them to tune in to those parts, and that the sponsors are seeing just how capable you are. You feel like some villian from a book that your mother used to read to you before bed. The types that walk around their little lair after they kidnapped the hero, as they give away every single detail of their plan. Because you’ve done it once, speaking to yourself to work out the details. It’s much easier to do it that way than in your head because you’re mapping it out. Like visualizing it.

Anyway, Trink looks at you like a best friend now. You’re not sure if it’s because you’re acting as a replacement for Eytelle, or she’s just lonely, but it’s working out on your part too. A distraction for all the things going inside your head constantly. Finnick, Thyme, your brothers and sister, Mags, Elysia, your parents, the cycle repeats itself almost a hundred times a day. Like an addiction. Like clockwork.

She’ll just gossip about meaningless things that happened before the games--trink, you’re talking about. She’ll sit on the chest while Lennox will cook up the fish, or on days she’s bored, she’ll go with you down to the pond-lake or around the arena to find extra food or any unlucky tributes that manage to cross your paths. She’ll talk about the girls that she thought were pretty.

She’ll bitch about how everyone that’s thrown into the arena with them has these automatic assumptions that she wants to kill everyone. That she doesn’t want to have a normal life and just be at home with her family. Because of this, she’s cried twice and you’re not really looking forward to anymore times in the future. You’ve tried to do the pat-on-the-back technique but she had the pleasure of informing you that they know your dumb damsel act, was an act.

Apparently they knew from the beginning, but they thought taking you in was smart anyway. They were guessing that you playing damsel was to win sponsors, and you didn’t tell her it was so that they would take you in. You have a feeling that Trink was lying about all of this, and she just wanted to take it out of you. Unfortunately for her, you said nothing and you just watched as she scrambled to apologize as if you’d forgive her and tell her it was all true.

She said that having you around is nice. That you’re nice to her, and it gives her a chance to feel human again. And then after that, not even a few hours later, she was down at the pond-lake, scrubbing grime from your skin and fixing your hair like a couple of grade school friends. Again, this could all be a tactic to get you to like them so you won’t kill them, because you had gotten the ten after all, but you’re not so sure about it.

Trink seems broken, but she was just waiting for someone to open up about it to. Lennox is there to support her, but he looks like he’d rather be distancing himself, getting ready to take out the rest of the tributes. And you’ve just begun to get Allio to like you in the first place. Which is the exact reason why he’s got to go in the first place. If you were to kill Trink or Lennox, you’d be the first they’d point fingers to, and then you’d be fucked.

Two against one? Not the odds you like. If Finnick and Thyme were here, it would be a little different. But even then, Thyme is like dead weight and you’re not even sure if Finnick knows how to fight anymore. You can’t remember his number at the bloodbath, but all you know is that it was a small number. Nothing above a two, but it couldn’t even have been that high. A one, maybe.

Everything that you had built up to before the games was useless. You had made an alliance, a friend, a lover, a person you could trust out of Finnick only for it to fall apart the second a week passes. You introduced Thyme to the group for her safety, but the only safety she could find was in your cold-hearted, nasty-ass, two-timing, son-of-a-bitch boyfriend!

“It wasn’t even official!” you laugh, throwing the stick in your hand, “He didn’t even ask me to be his girlfriend!’

You swing your foot into the trunk of the tree, ignoring the spike of pain that goes up your foot, it’ll go away in a minute's notice. The tears that collect in your eyes are completely unrelated to the pain in your foot. It’s related to the fact that you counted on someone from home that turned out to be an asshole. All in it for himself.

You take a moment to sit in the dead leaves, wiping away the tears as you rip your backpack apart to place the fish inside of it. However, you’re stopped with the snap of the branch. You think it’s another bear muttation, this time coming to take you out, but three stands in front of you.

He’s skinnier than he was the last time he saw you. His cheeks are starting to sink in, giving you a perfect outline of where the bones on his face lie. He’s been starving this entire time, it’s obvious.

“Please.” three asks, “Please, I know you don’t--”

“Get down before one of the others see you.” you tell him, watching as he drops his makeshift knife onto the ground, falling to his knees as he holds his hands out eagerly.

This should definitely be against the rules, but you could care less anymore. What you considered to be your boyfriend had ran off with some girl he had just met. The people you trust now are a bunch of assholes that wouldn’t last two days without you there. And everyone else is either starving or waiting it out, wanting the gamemakers to take matters into their own hands.

“Here, take it all.” you shove the fish into his hands, “I’ll just go get more.”

“Thank you.” he tells you, it looks like he’s about to get up, but then he waits, “What were you saying about Finnick?”

“Off on his own with the girl from eleven.”

“Thyme? Thought you were friends.”

“Me too.” you mutter bitterly, getting to your feet, reaching for the golden spear. You left the fishing rod at the cornucopia, thinking that the spear would be easier. It’s somewhat, you caught the same amount of fish. The only problem is that you’re out of practice with standing still. You can’t help but to sway.

You shuffle through the woods, listening as three follows behind you, “So, who’s left?”

“Really not into you attacking us during the night so I’ll keep that info to myself.”

“There’s what, four? Five, of you? I wouldn’t stand a chance.” he sighs, “It would be a faster way out.”

“Not too keen on killing you either.”

“Why not?” he asks, and you shrug.

“You’ve grown on me.”

“Why’s that?” three trips over his feet for a moment, trying to catch up with you.

You wish he would go away, but talking to someone other than the three musketeers back at the cornucopia is refreshing, “Saved you during the first day. Saw you in the training center. Wouldn’t want you as an enemy.”

“Not much I can do with what I make.” he holds up the flimsy knife, “These rocks are nothing like what they have in the center.”

“But they do what they’re intended for.” you tilt your head slightly.

“I guess. How many have you killed?”

You’re not looking forward to this part of the conversation. At all.

“I don’t know, three to five by now. Girl from ten, boy from eleven, Eytelle.” Shit fuck, you just gave away--good job, idiot.

You have no clue if he picks up on this or not, “Oh, so three?”

“Boy from twelve.” you mutter, still not happy that you had to kill a twelve year old. Fresh out of the womb in your opinion, and you’re only three years older than him. Finnick being two.

Hey! Why the fuck are you thinking of Finnick as a lover when he’s--you two are so goddamn young and here you are, moping over the fact that some teenage boy broke your heart. This is the part in the villain story when the girl rises up and becomes her true self, huh?

Doesn’t matter, you’re still taking out Allio tonight, whether you like it or not.

“You killed--”

“Listen, I wasn’t happy about it either. Back to back kills with Eytelle.” you stop at the water, looking to him, “if you’re going to stick around, don’t throw shit and don’t come in.”

“Got it,” he sits in the sand, picking apart the fish as he eats it raw. He must be hungry, because you would never. Even if it is safe or whatever, you’d still cook it. Raw fish does something to your stomach that you’re not too fond of, every single time.

“What’s your name anyway?” you ask, spearing the first fish. When you pull it out of the water, you see that there’s two. Less work for you to do in the end.

“Blaire.” he tells you, brushing his hair out of his face, “You’re (Y/n)?”

“Yup.” you waddle into the water a bit more, which finally brings the waterfall into sight.

Those motherfuckers.

The light shines through the water crystal clear, exactly like you had thought. Unwanted visitors will be drawn in, and those fuckers will pay the price for it. Not your problem, and quite frankly, for once you’re excited that Finnick might die alongside Thyme. Maybe not quick and easy.

What would be the ultimate betrayal was if you’d bring Lennox, Allio and Trink back here. Introduce them to Blaire here, and go create some fucking problems, starting with that stupid waterfall and your ex alliance. The one you made, the one that belongs to you. The one that you had busted your ass to make sure that everyone would have a place in.

The light is gone quickly, and for a second you think you see a hand. But the sun starts to fall a little quicker than you thought possible. You find yourself stabbing fish endlessly, until you’ve made a pile to make up for a couple of days. You tell Blaire to ration his out carefully, and if he’s lucky enough, you’ll start putting extras under a bush for him around the pond-lake.

You part ways, heading straight for the cornucopia. The walk is fairly quiet, the animals in the forest are acting like they normally do, but a feeling creeps up in your stomach, so you start jogging a little bit. Which sets off the snarl, and then the barking of wild dogs.

“Fuck!” you yell, gripping the spear tightly as you take off running, using the weight of the backpack as momentum to go faster. The ground is a blur beneath your feet as you pick up the speed. They’re right on your heels when you just barely slide underneath the building.

There, Lennox and the others are already on their feet, weapons in hand as they swing. You don’t even take time to catch your breath before you’re up and helping them. Gasping for air, stabbing whatever you can see because the sweat is dripping into your eyes. It stings, but you blink it away as fast as possible.

“What the fuck?” Lennox finally yells, you watch as he swings the sword faster than you can stab. He’s taking down the dogs left and right. Allio is just behind him in number.

By the time you’ve gotten through ten to fifteen, they begin to realize that they’re not going to win the fight. Slowly they back off, allowing you to catch your breath. By the time the last one has retreated, you’re on your knees, hand in the grass as you gasp for air. Your sides are aching painfully, arms and legs burning.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that you were just set on fire.

“God damn it.” Allio pushes himself up, hand on his side. When he pulls it away, there’s a clear set of teeth marks and enough blood to prove it.

“Medicine for that?” You ask, and Trink shrugs, going to dig immediately through the medicine box.

“We can have dog for dinner.” Lennox picks one of them up by its back leg. It’s fairly big, and it’ll probably feel all of you.

You grab an empty box and dump all of your fix into there. Inside it just has water. The fish may be long dead and you guys might not have ice but it’s better than nothing. Keeping it in the back corner of the building in the shadiest spot keeps it cold for the most part.

“Yum,” Trink doesn’t sound too thrilled and you don’t blame her.

“One night only specialty.” You point to Lennox, falling back into your butt as you try to breathe without hurting your throat, “We don’t want the fish to go to waste.”

“We can have both?” Trink suggests.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.” Lennox chirps, before working away at the dog.

It’s a mutt, it’s not an actual dog. Dogs like that… they have a superior intelligence, how else did they know to back off? Others would just keep attacking until none of them were left. It’s just what happens when you’re starving and it’s better than nothing.

You’ve just started the fire, when the first cannon goes off. You turn to look at the others, who are still very alive--you’re not sure if Allio had just tipped over due to blood loss or something--and they look just as confused as you feel. Trink shrugs slightly, trying to go back to searching through the medicine.

And then the second cannon goes off.

“A fight?” Allio asks.

“Has to be,” Lennox tells him, you get off of the ground and wander out of the building a little bit to see if they’re nearby.

You nearly get a heart attack when you see a hand stick out of a bush by the lake. It’s blurry, since it’s so far, but it’s a thumbs up, and it disappears as quickly as it had appeared. It’s probably Blaire, letting you know that he’s very much alive. What an idiot, he could have just killed himself if it had been one of the others.

“The fallen will play soon,” you mutter, wandering back inside, throwing a few more sticks into the fire, “We’ll be able to see who’s fallen by then.”

Two down. Must mean that it was a fight of three people or more. There’s no way that it was just two people, the first killed the second, and the first had managed to get hurt badly enough to die immediately after. It had to be a group of three, an alliance. Two people working together against one, and the one prevails or only one of the alliance people die…

Finnick.

Finnick!

You struggle to keep your mouth from opening, because you’ve told yourself that you’re not going to be tripping over your own feet for Finnick anymore. But that doesn’t stop you from worrying about what’s happened. If he did die, you bet it’s because of that stupid waterfall. It had brought people in, a death trap.

How did they even get the water to stay dry? They must be bringing it in by the bucket load, hanging it up to dry in some sanctioned spot and using whatever dry wood that had made the night before. A complicated, but smart system. However, you’re not sure if either of them art smart enough for that technique.

Lennox offers you a leg of the dog, but you turn it down because you’d rather try to keep down that small portion you’d choked down, than force anything else down. It’s disgusting enough that it was a dog, and thinking about Finnick has got your stomach wanting you to empty whatever is left.

The anthem stars, you look to the sky. The anticipation builds in your stomach to the point where you’re actually pressing a fist to your mouth to keep it down. Leaning forward subconsciously as you await the news.

And then just like that, the girl from district six shows up, her picture is a little wonky, as if she didn’t know what she was doing when she took it. But it’s good news, because it’s not Finnick. It had skipped straight to district six, he’s somewhere inside of the arena, alive.

For a moment you forget that there were two cannons. Then it switches to Thyme, and you jump to your feet, mouth falling open, “Oh my god.”

Lennox claps a little bit, “Finnick is alone--”

“Serves him right!” Trink shakes your right leg a little bit, and you slowly go back down to your feet.

Nine in the games left, eight if you’re not including yourself. The number will be down to seven tonight after you kill Allio. You’re surviving, you’re doing it. You’re going to live. You have a chance at making it home! Twenty-four to eight? That’s sixteen down!

The odds are surely in your favor.

You let your temporary group of friends know that you’ll be taking first watch. Helping them package up the nasty dog meat and placing it into another empty box to get it out of the way. Allio and Lennox throw the rest of the bodies off into the edge of the woods, and then they come back to lay down.

Lennox lays down first, Trink right beside him. Allio lays somewhere near the back, where the fish is at. Curled up with a fleece blanket that he found at the bottom of one of the chests. You wonder if the gamemakers threw it in for shits and giggles, because the thing is basically useless. Allio says it makes him feel like he’s back at home.

You sit with your back to the wall, one hand on the golden spear, that you can’t help but rub your thumb over. Hoping that it’ll reveal it’s true nature of being brass. The color hasn’t come off just yet, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be off any time soon. You’ll keep trying for as long as you have it though.

Your eyes flicker to the others each time they’ll toss and turn. You spend most of the night zoned-out, thinking about Finnick. Wondering if you could afford a quick run to the waterfall and be back before the others wake. The reminder of the frigid waters and the possibility of something being in the pond-lake stops you from doing it. Doesn’t mean you don’t consider it.

It’s a while before you feel like you can move without the others waking. Being very careful on your feet. You tip-toe to the back of the building, where you also happen to like to sleep. The difference is that you don’t bother sleeping anywhere near where Allio is.

Throwing the spear into the grass, you then turn to Allio. Slowly pulling out your knife, eyes dragging back to the couple off to the side. Lucky enough for you, their backs are turned, there’s no way they’ll be spying on you tonight.

You’re very careful when you crouch down next to Allio, breathing deeply. You’re about to kill someone, and you know this. You’re very aware of your actions when you hover your hand over his hair, and have the knife prepared behind his head. Once the knife goes through, you have to act fast.

One deep breath, a fistful of hair, a gasp of air, a knife through the back of the head, a jump to your feet, the sound of a cannon, your body hitting the grass behind a chest, a knife shoved under that same chest, your eyes closing.

Trink and Lennox gasp, and by the time they’re getting up, going to wake you, the dizziness and the out-of-body experience is finally subsiding.

“Who died?” Lennox’s voice is gruff, he’s rubbing his eyes, but he has his hand on the sword.

Trink is hovering above you, and you play the act of just waking up as well as you can, not sure if she’s buying it. But she apologizes, looking sorry as she then looks back to Allio.

“Is he awake?” Lennox asks.

You yawn, it’s easier than you thought it would be. You’re exhausted, “He took watch a couple hours ago.”

You refrain from wiping your face, knowing that there has to be blood on your body somewhere. Instead, you take your hands and shove them inside of your pants, wiping them on your legs and underwear. Not the cleanest thing, but you can’t afford them knowing that you just killed one of the career members.

Trink tries to wake up Allio, but when she sees the blood pooling behind his head, she screams, “Someone was here?!”

“What?” you ask, still not getting up from your spot, heart pumping in your ears.

“He’s dead.” Trink turns to Lennox, “One of the others snuck in here and--and they killed Allio!”

“Who would do that? After we just lost two today?” you ask.

“They weren’t our two.” Trink whines, and then her face falls, “They don’t know that Thyme and Finnick left our alliance. They thought we were weak.”

As long as she takes up any and every theory that has nothing to do with you.

“You’re right.” you nod eagerly, and she looks grim, like she isn’t happy that you think she’s right in the first place.

“They won’t know that we’re down two until tomorrow night.” Lennox tells you two, “Until then, we got time to prepare.”

“I’ll take watch--”

“No, I’ve got it.” Lennox hoists Allio up into his arms, struggling a little bit. But you watch with Trink as he drops Allio off somewhere nearby, far enough so the gamemakers will take him, though still in sight.

Lennox tells you to go to sleep, and you do as you’re told, Trink doing the same. However, the second that you’re hidden behind the box, you’re taking deep breaths and trying to calm yourself down. You’ll have a panic attack behind the chest if you’re not careful, and it’s the last thing that you need.

You can’t fall apart now.

-- CHAPTER TWELVE --

To you, it’s a mystery on why Blaire has stuck around this long, and why you continue to insist on feeding him. He can do it all on his own, you’ve taught him a couple of things he needs to know if he wants to do it. But you always come back around, burying a fish in the one designated bush just to keep him alive. Like a distant companion that you’re really getting too attached to.

In return for all of you teaching him, he’s begun to give you a few tricks when it comes to making your own things. You brought up the one idea that you had, with no way to execute it. And he went out of his way to go and get the materials and sat down with you for an hour or two just to make sure you’ve got it down.

A net. The holes are too big for fishing, unless you were to find a big ass fish somewhere in the pond-lake. It’s more of something to catch people, holes to big for fish to pass through but too small for someone to wiggle out of. It would take a lot of sawing the knife to get the person free. And by then, they might have drowned.

Blaire took the time of finding a place where there were vines, and gave you simple directions on how to get to the area when you need to make a new one. Since it’s a little flimsy, you’re sure it’s a one-person use only since it is vines and not rope. And you can’t really take it back to the middle for the others to see, since you can’t give them the whole truth about it.

Listen, you’re not bad at lying. You could do that all day, it’s the acting part. Acting like your clueless. If they were to approach you and demand you remake it because they’re suspicious or whatever—you hardly doubt they’re that interested in your net-making—you wouldn’t able to do it and you’d have to act or lie your way about it. Acting would be you bullshitting through the entire thing and lying would be that you got lucky enough to make it.

Anyway, Blaire had taught you the process, but it turns out that he doesn’t know how to tie as many knots as you, much less the ones that are needed to keep the vines where they’re supposed to be. So, he weaved and you tied the knots, every now and then you’d switch off to weave it yourself, trying not to fuck up the somewhat complicated pattern.

It turned out pretty good for the most part, you’re proud that it doesn’t look like total ass. And you’re sure that the technique will offer new insights to everyone back home and prove helpful to the future of being in this arena.

Speaking of which, death rates have dropped off completely. You guess that everyone left right now are the smart type, they’ve got their skills on lock or they’ve found a way to live it out. Starving until the very last person has died off. But it looks like everyone can provide for themselves somehow—with the exception of your idiot friend Blaire.

The weak have been picked off or died of their own accords so now it’s left to the rest of you to hunt. It’s been two weeks since the games have started. You’re really hoping that it doesn’t go on for a month. Your poor brothers watching you run around betraying and befriending like it’s going to save your life when it’s really going to kill you.

At least Reed has had a chance to watch you exercise everything that he had taught you. He might not be happy that you’re sharing that information with Blaire, but you can’t just leave him. You’ve saved his life three times now—the pack, the food and yesterday he nearly drowned when he got his foot tangled in a root. If it weren’t for you, he’d be dead by now. Many different ways for it to have happened.

Guess that you’re really skipping from friend to friend. Finnick, Thyme, Trink, and now Blaire? You’re really getting around, aren’t you? If you were to come across anyone that’s left that you haven’t met just yet—the girl from five, boy from eight, and boy from ten—you’d make friends out of them two. It’s only a matter of time. Hell, you briefly talked to Mac, the boy from seven, but he’s a friend to you too.

You’ve really screwed yourself over. As long as you don’t run across the three outsiders and Mac, you’ll be able to survive this. You can kill Trink and Lennox, Allio was easy enough. The problems are Blaire and Finnick now. You’ve nursed Blaire to the point where it feels like leaving him is like a mother deer leaving it’s baby.

He’ll learn to stand on his own but how plausible is that? Killing him will be near to impossible.

You are dumb. Maybe just not a damsel.

“My fingers are beginning to hurt.” Blaire mutters, and you look over to see that his fingertips are turning red. Like they’ve been pricked and sliced over and over.

You pull the jacket sleeves over your hands as you take the vines away from him, bringing them closer to your face. You’re not too thrilled when you see that there are thorns and razors or whatever. They’re just too small to see initially.

“Take a break. They’ve got spikes.” You tell him, shoving the project beneath a bush.

“Great.”

“Pretty sure you’ll be fine. Unless they’re poisonous.”

“With my luck, they are.” Blaire mutters, shoving his hands into the water and you grimace. His fingers have got to be stinging like a bitch right. It’s salt water, you know that for sure.

It was a distinct smell when you had first come above the ground from the moldy smelling tunnels. Fresh air, unpolluted, filling your lungs. It was a change from what you had been inhaling in the Capitol. The trees, the pollen, the chirping of birds. The rustle of the leaves when you had felt the wind for the first time in a while.

And with that wind, it carried a familiar scent. The one that had provided hope, opened your senses to a whole new level. If you had been standing in front of a mirror, your eyes would have dilated. Smelling the salty lake was like feeding chocolate to a baby.

“Nice knowing you.” You snort, and he cracks a smile.

“The sun is going down already.” Blaire tells you, knowing that you’re going to have to head back, “When are you killing the other two, anyway?”

“It would have to be a two-in-one.” You tell him, “Like killing two birds with one stone. Maybe while they’re sleeping. Lennox hasn’t allowed me to take night watch since Allio died. They’re onto me.”

“Be careful,” Blaire tells you.

“If I don’t show, don’t worry about it okay? You can hunt for yourself.” You punch his shoulder, getting up.

“Yes I can. Good luck.”

“Thanks, you too.” You throw your bag over your shoulder, using the spear like a walking stick on your way to the middle.

You toss the bag into the cornucopia, as well as the spear. Rounding the corner like you normally do, since it’s going to be just you and them in the middle. No need to hide what you’re doing at all, hoarding your stuff will make it look like you have contraband. Which really isn’t the case. The bag has what it normally does when you come back.

A pair of hands grab your shoulders immediately, spinning you around and slamming your back against the wall. The air leaves your lungs, and before you can take in air again, his forearm presses into your throat, stopping any sort of airflow.

Lennox is a lot more deadly than you took him for. You thought that he would know the baby's way of choking people to death—squeeze and shake until they’re no longer moving. But here he is, one arm against your throat, while the other has his fist drawn back.

Your eyes widen significantly, because you’re choking and you’re about to get punched. You’re going to die in his hands. But you want to know one thing; is this betrayal or revenge?

His fist single handedly breaks your nose, the snap filling the air, the pain slamming into the middle of your face as the blood begins to flow. From your nose, to your lips, and downwards.

“Bitch!” Lennox yells, removing his arm.

You take in the air immediately, trying to make up for lost time. It doesn’t last long, he slams his boot straight into your chest, ignoring your stomach. He’s going to break ribs if he’s lucky, do some sort of damage up top rather than down bottom. In your opinion, he should be breaking every single bone in your miserable body.

“Lennox!” the words leave your mouth before you’re able to catch them. Like pleading his name is going to do you any good. Like he’s going to lesson the punishment.

You can picture your brothers back home now, watching as Lennox delivers blow after blow. Chest, stomach, legs, back, anything he can kick he’s doing it. They’re watching you, hissing in pain, groaning out when the hit was particularly hard, and they keep going up. He’ll draw his foot back, and then hit you again.

“You killed him!” Lennox yells, and then he draws his foot back again, and slams it right into your cheek.

Static in your brain.

The kick had rattled you enough to conjure ringing in your ears. Lennox is yelling something at you, but you can’t hear at all. You watch his mouth move, and all you can make out is traitor, which probably sums the entire thing up. Screaming at you for being a dirty traitor.

He then slams his entire body on top of yours, breath leaving you from the weight. You watch in agony as he draws his hand back, prepared to send it flying forward, probably into your mouth or your nose. Any place that would do a significant amount of damage.

Unfortunately, your hearing begins to come back when he says something about messing up your ‘pretty’ face. Mangling your body and making you unrecognizable so when you go home, you’ll have to have surgery to restore. He says that he hopes they won’t even be able to.

You reach for the knife in your pocket, prepared to flip your body on top of him as momentum when he punches you. That way you’d be able to pull out your knives and stab him the best you can. Anywhere on the upper body will do, it’ll throw him off long enough for you to get the spear, or run.

You don’t get the chance, a cannon goes off, distracting Lennox from punching you. At least you thought. He looks up for a moment, surprised as you are, because that’s another person down. And considering that there’s nine people, it lowers it to eight.

Lennox turns to you with a grin, “Let’s make that two?”

The punch breaks your nose, but you still go to flip your body on top of his. Only for a certain makeshift knife to break you off, making you press your body to the ground as hard as possible. Like Blaire will accidentally miss and hit you instead.

Looking over, Blaire has a grin on his face, he winks, and then he takes out another knife, throwing it. But this time, it hits Lennox in the arm.

Lennox yells, and for the final goddamn time, you flip yourself on top of the fucker. It works, but you’re weak, and you’re working slowly to take out the knife. He sees this, he’s not stupid and through whatever pain he’s feeling, he grabs the knife from you, and turns to stab you in the stomach instead.

“No!” Blaire’s voice is distinct, and you can hear him running forward.

You take in a breath from your chest, not your stomach as you slowly slide off the blonde, hands finding their ways to the knife.

It has to stay in. It needs to stay in until you find a bandage.

You take it out, you’ll start bleeding out like a goddamn faucet. Blood will be pouring out of places in your body that you didn’t know you had. It’s in your stomach, pull it out and a lot of blood will come with it. Your heart will keep pumping, more blood will come out.

Keep it in, you live. It’s like the cap on a water bottle, blood won’t come if you don’t give it a reason to run.

But every time you move it tabs into another thousands nerves, if you could only take it out--

The world has split into two during your little dilemma. Take the damn knife out or not, you’re bleeding just the same. It’s painful, tears join your eyes gleefully, you have to keep yourself from hiccuping because you’re about to cry for real, for the first time. Your nose will start running, your stomach will move, permitting more blood loss. And worst of all, your brothers, your sponsors, and everyone else back home and at the Capitol will see it. They’ll see just how weak you are.

Just another girl who thought that they could make it.

Blaire tackles Lennox before he can make the jump at you. Blaire is on top, punching Lennox and dodging when Lennox tries to get him back.

Despite the fact that you’re dizzy as hell and the world seems to be going the opposite of your way, you get onto your feet.

“Go!” Blaire yells, “Quickly!”

You turn to the spear on the ground, your only choice of a makeshift cane. You lean over a little, fingers barely bringing it into your hands, and you take off just like that.

You force yourself to focus on getting to the woods. Disappear into them, no matter what it takes. You go to the lake, being near water will do you better than if you were to go into the woods directly. If you collapse from the pain then you’ll be able to drag your feeble body over.

Plus, Lennox won’t see what direction you’ve gone, but Blaire will probably take the guess.

You slow down when you hit the sad, since you have to lift your feet more, rather than drag them like you’ve been doing through the grass. You barely manage to get somewhere behind a log in the woods when you collapse. Blood, sweat and tears pouring from your body at once.

At the yelling of your name, you push yourself closer to the log, wrapping one hand around the knife, like you’re going to pull it out. But really, you’re keeping steady as you try to figure out if it’s Blaire or Lennox’s voice.

No chance, because the world goes from spinning to being eaten up by black spots in the matter of seconds.

LACUNA IS THE FIRST VERSION OF BELAMOUR

//MASTERLIST//

#ilguna #finnick odair #lacuna chapter nine #lacuna chapter ten #lacuna chapter eleven #lacuna chapter twelve #lacuna

26 notes · View notes

vaguely-concerned · 4 years

Text

R-r-r-rewatch thoughts for The Mandalorian S2 Ep2

(or Chapter 10 as they seem resolved to call it)

- can I just express my joy for a moment that in one episode we get peli, the answer to my pleas for female representation in the ‘sketchy middle aged car mechanic’ niche, and a female alien designed with no consideration towards sexiness. (I mean I’m sure there’s someone. There is always someone somewhere on the Internet, is the bitter truth history has shown to us. but it’s not the intention behind the design haha)

- they do take great pains to deliberately show you boba’s armour several times both in the recap and in the episode itself, so never despair he is very likely still on his way onto our screens once more

- this dude holding the baby hostage wanting specifically the jetpack in exchange is the one (1) break this whole episode gave din lol

also the Patented Mando Finger Curl of Stress while he talked softly and calmly to not promp this asshole to make a sudden move... the most endearing character tic, I love my space cowboy dad so much

- fun continuity detail: din is all out of whistling birds now, and you can see it here!

I wonder if he could still use the same mechanism with different ‘ammo’, it’s just not as effective? from the way the armorer spoke whistling birds seem quite rare and it would be an inefficient use of beskar if that’s the only thing it can be loaded with

- I love how after the last episode, a 50 min epic with a bunch of original trilogy significance and impressive technical achievements and exciting character reveals, I was like ‘yeah okay I suppose that is quite interesting’, and this mess/comedy of inconveniences is the thing that fully makes my brain tip into the obsessive ‘BABY AND DAD SHOW!! BABY AND DAD SHOW!!!!!’ mind state lol

- ah the traditional ‘mando trudging slowly but steadily through the desert’ montage we all love to see (I hope this is going to be a Thing for the second episode of every season from now on)

Also I assume his suit has some sort of temperature regulation built in and that’s how he didn’t, y’know. die under the blazing desert sun

CAT FIGHT CAT FIGHT man I love the jawa. also mando doesn’t even glance over at them, really emphasizing how he’s like. done with this entire day (and it’s all barely even getting started din! i’m sorry)

yodito’s look in this scene tho... he’s like ‘we’ve Seen some shit lady’ (actually I think he’s staring at ‘dr mandible’ like O___o. it’s been a long day for a lil boy)

you get to see dr mandible’s cards a few times, so I assume anyone who knows the rules of... sabacc? probably? could figure out beforehand that he was in a bad spot. (the star wars fanbase is one of those where I KNOW the rules exist somewhere, and I know people who know those rules exist too)

- that sound the baby keeps making -- the ‘boo-a’, sometimes with a p-sound at the end -- if that’s the precursor to him saying any variation whatsoever of ‘dad’ or ‘papa’ or ‘baba’ or even ‘buir’ or anything, I will die. I will sink to the ground in a heap and never get up (the way he keeps seeking out gaze contact with the helmet and seems perfectly satisfied with it too... fasdhfaskdjhl my FEELINGS)

- it seems confirmed in this ep that the mandos who died on nevarro did so while holding off the enemy so the rest(probably especially the children) could get away; some of them appear to have escaped. which I guess is a small relief

frog lady stepping out of the shadows and into our hearts

I like that her firm nod after Peli translates ‘her husband has seen them’ lets us know she understands... basic? is that the common tongue thing in star wars there’s just so many to remember across fandoms lol? perfectly well, even if she can’t speak it.

- mando might be running low on ammo for the pulse rifle, if the fact that he hasn’t replaced the missing cartridge on his... bandolier belt thingy is any indication

ETA: actually ignore me this has been a thing since the literal first episode of the show my brain just had a hiccup lol

- so baby seems to use a little bit of the force to pull the eggs towards him -- I wonder how often he ‘taps into it’ or if it’s always ‘on’ in the background for him. if so I guess there’s no wonder he’s so hungry (but also... kid you can’t end this lady’s entire family line like that one cat who singlehandedly made extinct a whole species of bird! D:)

- din so rarely gets openly angry, he just gets passive aggressive and grumpy. and that’s probably not the healthiest way to deal with things but I love him

- frog lady reacts so strongly to when din sends the ping when nothing else woke her up, I wonder if she can hear more frequencies than a human

hello darkness my old frieeennnddd

proof nr 1508 that din does not starve this baby you guys, he even has his own little tray just the right size for him! as it happens the baby simply seems to prefer eating things that are... still alive in some capacity. which, uh. maybe they can invest in some form of non-sentient crickets or something for him to hunt down and.... oh dear

Look how they massacred my boy

By the way I finally managed to put into words why the Razor Crest -- and particularly the way it keeps getting beaten to hell and back and patched up again -- is so symbolically important and meaningful to me in this show in this post over here! it’s always a great relief to me when I can finally understand what the hell I’ve been going on about all this time and this was one of those lol

- honestly if it weren’t for frog lady and (more importantly) the baby I think there’s a slight chance din would’ve gone ‘well I had a good-ish run of it for a while there’ and just let the ice claim him haha

- “Why don’t you come over here and give me a hand. Make yourself useful” This is the one time in the episode I think he crosses the line into just being a dick for a moment (but noticeably the baby isn’t just a little hurt at this reaction, he’s clearly surprised and confused, which means this really does not happen often. after the time mando’s been having recently I guess a moment’s snappishness is understandable haha. he does follow up right after with being much more responsive and attentive when the baby toddles away from him, so it feels like it’s going to be okay)

also the ‘boo-ap’ sound is there again when he’s trying to get din’s attention. just sayin’

when din comes over to see the footprints baby makes a declarative little meep like ‘see??? I did tell you!’ haha

- it is very funny that mando is using all his technology meant to track down dangerous bounties in the grungy depths of the criminal underworld... to find a naked lady just chillin’ in a hot spring

cue the ‘father is evil?’ memes fsadfda. actually the funniest thing about this moment (apart from the fabulous finger acting) is that din actually snatches a few eggs out of the baby’s reach more subtly right before, and that baby only whines for ALL OF ONE SECOND before he goes to sniff around for other food possibilities fkadfhjkds. from my experience with human children he’s a lot less prone to tantrums. yodito doesn’t get mad, he gets even

- baby running towards din through the hatching spiderlings like ‘DAD I FUCKED UUUUUUP’, din’s little strangled ‘ngh’ sound as he picks the baby up and watches all the creepy crawlies come out... *chef kiss* impeccable

(that little ‘ngh’ and the soft shocked ‘ah ah AH!’s from when he goes flying at the beginning of the episode... pedro pascal and his voice work for this character gives me so much life. in some ways din has this sort of dignity and grace and in other ways he uh extremely doesn’t. he gets to be cool but also vulnerable in ways a lot of male main characters don’t and it’s probably why I love him so much)

btw here is that moment when din moves to hold the baby tightly against him with both hands as the big spider appears, because it gets me right in the heart... it such an instinctive thing of holding on to the dearest thing you’ve got before something bad is about to happen

fdsafhsdakjlfhsdkjlhfsdajhf oh my god the baby is clutching din’s finger with his little hand during the chase!!!! 😭😭😭

this FUCKING SHOW has just WEAPONIZED putting in small details everywhere to convey the love and tenderness and attachment felt by a little muppet doll even where only weirdos like me will frame by frame their way through the video to see it I am so MAD

- frog lady going ‘fuck this’ and bounding along is e v e r y t h i n g

- din is an amazing shot, though, he doesn’t seem to miss a single one in this whole scene (then again there’s something to shoot at basically everywhere one can take aim so lol)

baby hiding behind/half hugging din’s boot as he tries to get the doors closed hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I can’t breathhhhheeeee

honestly every single one of the baby’s proximity seeking behaviours in this ep has me on my knees

- it’s very unfair to play the heroic happy mando music like everything is going to be fine and then have a huge fuck-off spider drop down from the ceiling and break it off mid-tune, the mandalorian, you have trained me in certain ways and now do you betray me??? how can I trust again

- the camera work in the scene with the new republic guys gives such a good sense of the discomfort of being judged from on high by someone or something you can’t really see -- the glare of the lights blocking out everything in the shots from din’s pov makes it feel like a tense interrogation (the new republic dude who is actually dave filoni has such a look of fondness as he watches din tho it’s kind of sweet)

- ...oh no I think baby was actually considering munching on that dismembered spider leg YODITO NO JUST EAT YOUR KRAYT DRAGON BABY

- hngh this is a weird filler episode and it has my entire heart. I suspect we might get some episodes of a more stationary baby between active ones like this -- you can tell a little bit in this episode that especially having him running around fast is quite difficult to have look natural, they likely save that effort up for when it best serves the narrative

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian meta #the mandalorian spoilers #mmmm brain empty only dad and baby show in here #(actually that's not true there's some tf/graves activity going on at all times too haha)

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clowniconography · 3 years

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A couple weeks ago when it was still snowy I went for a walk in the cemetery and then preceded to start writing this short bit of prose about it. Now there’s no snow left on the ground and I’m already starting to miss it a little, but I finished the story. how about you come and take a little wintery walk with me?

When I entered the cemetery, I knew for a fact that I was the only human visitor it had seen in days.

Among the many uses for snow, two of the most notable are “security system” and “clock”. No matter how much you disguise yourself, when there’s snow on the ground there’s no way of stopping your boots marking your every move, short of learning to fly.

Weeks upon weeks of intermittent snow mean that on that particular day, everything that didn’t have a heartbeat wore its history like a neon sign. I could tell when every car had last been cleaned, when every sidewalk had last been shovelled, and when every unpaved path had last been tread. Every winter, I see the snow as a delightful opportunity to know things about my environment that would never be clear to me otherwise.

In that most prodigious of winters I had come to memorize my own boot tread pretty well, as generic as it was. I was able to competently distinguish my men’s size 9 ½ from every other men’s size 9 ½, although I have no obvious use for such knowledge.

On my way onto the cemetery grounds, the signs of human intrusion were apparent in places, but what individual footprints I could make out had been rendered toothless and near invisible by a good three or four inches of snow. No, I was sure that I was the only one there, and the first in days at that.

And before you ask; no, I’ve never been afraid of cemeteries. At a young age I experienced a series of funerals in quick succession, each for a different distant elderly relative who I barely knew. For me, these experiences turned cemeteries into normal businesses you run errands to like any supermarket, graves into simple rocks as mundane as address plaques, and corpses into inanimate objects.

I had taken a particular interest in a cemetery near to where I live. I’m not native to the area and no one I know is buried there, but that didn’t matter. I considered the cemetery simply a quaint and charming few acres of trees and pretty rocks amongst miles of suburban houses. It was a pretty place where solitude was easy to find, and as a bonus I felt a good samaritan when visiting and cleaning some of the older, more derelict graves.

I hadn’t visited the cemetery since the winter had started and the snow had begun to make itself a constant presence. Just as spring and fall had done in the past, winter put its own stylistic spin on the backdrop of graves. Great untouched white plains dotted with solitary black stones stretched out before me. It was a sunny afternoon, and whenever the sun peaked its head out of the measly clouds the landscape would transform into one giant dazzlingly reflective surface. Despite the frigid air there were a few varieties of bird that could still be heard chirping in the black and white striped treetops above.

I took a rambling route through those of the cemetery’s paths that were still passable. A good few feet of snow stood between me and my favorite viewpoint in the place, but the view from the regular trail suit me fine.

Over the course of the winter I had also learned how to distinguish the prints of a few of the cemetery’s nonhuman inhabitants. On the ground I would occasionally see the sticklike protrusions of the sparrows I could hear conversing above me. Long spidering trails criss-crossed the ground where squirrels dashed from tree to tree. Every once in a while I would even delight in finding a cluster of coffee-bean-shaped deer tracks.

I meandered along the trail, taking in my usual sights, eventually passing by the small cobblestone building at the center of the property. I had always assumed it to be a storage space for maintenance equipment and such, but its appearance was so utterly commonplace and fitting that I usually took no notice of it.

However, as I approached the building, I did become aware of something quite strange: a set of footprints leading inside.

I didn’t notice the prints at first glance because of just how similar they were to mine. I stamped a print of my own next to one of them to compare and was surprised at how alike they were, Same size, similar design, maybe even same brand, but still definitely different. Like I said before, they were leading into the shed, with no visible set of footprints leading out.

This wasn’t that strange. Of course it wasn’t. How self-important could I be, surprised to see that someone other than me had breached the fresh snow? The cemetery wasn’t fenced in, and someone could’ve easily entered from a different direction without me having seen them.

Pretending this was no detour from the original intended trajectory of my walk, I began to follow the footprints towards their origin. I retraced them away from the storage shed and along the path in the opposite direction. They followed this path deeper into the cemetery, and around a turn towards the trees on the edge of the property. The trees loomed like burnt skeletons, casting shadows over the otherwise blindingly bright snowpack.

As I neared this naturally-occurring boundary, the prints came to an abrupt stop. Or, more fittingly, they came to an abrupt start, since I had been following them backwards.

It was as simple as this: one moment the footprints weren’t there, the next they were, appearing clear as day on the pristine snowy ground. No other footprints save for my own invaded the spot for at least three yards in every direction.

I huffed audibly, annoyed that my search had brought up not just nothing, but less than nothing. I followed my own footprints back to the shed and was met with another shock: the door was open.

While it was getting more and more difficult to distinguish the footprints the more I tread the same ground repeatedly, I could tell that there was still no set of footprints leading out. Eager to get the explanation for the footprints that I was sure existed, I powered forward into the shed.

It was dark inside the shed, and it was just as cold as it had been outside but was tenfold more damp and uncomfortable. My initial assumption had been correct: the shed was full of maintenance equipment. Gardening shears, brooms, and hammers were among the objects I saw populating the walls. One thing that I was sure I didn’t see, was any people. I was alone.

I turned around a few times, inspecting the inside of the shed for any signs--signs of what? I felt incredibly stupid. I’m no detective, and spinning in circles inside a building I definitely wasn’t supposed to be in was getting me nowhere.

Suddenly, as I was facing the back wall of the shed, I heard a loud dusty THUD come from behind me. I whipped around and was horrified to find that the door to the shed had slammed shut with me still inside.

I rushed to the door and grasped the handle. It appeared locked, but there was nothing to indicate a lock on the inside of the door. The doorknob was smooth and featureless, an ancient and simple construction of brass. I pawed at it for a minute before coming to the conclusion that turning the knob was no use.

Fear and panic mounting, I began to slam my entire body into the frail door, which coughed up spouts of dust with every collision. I was beginning to worry I would have to call the authorities and ashamedly explain my predicament (I pushed aside any thought that suggested the shutting the door had been the machinations of anything more intelligent than a gust of wind).

I was absolutely frantic by the time the door gave way as easily as if it had been open the entire time.

Luckily, I prevented myself from falling directly into the snow. I stumbled clumsily out into the blinding white afternoon, cold winter air bracing my face. For the first time that day I was truly thankful that no one was around to witness me.

Determined not to let this experience shake me, I continued my twisting walk through the cemetery, making my best effort to let the cool air and soothing sounds of the forest soothe my nerves. What I didn’t do was turn back to look at the shed, to check if there really was a lock on the outside of the door.

After about twenty minutes of taking in the scenery, the snow blindness was beginning to get to me. More and more of my vision was filling with patches of white, and that which I could see appeared foggy and blue-tinted. I started back the way I came, and along the way I encountered my own footprints from earlier in the walk.

It was then I saw my last and final strange thing: another set of footprints, same as before. They were unmistakably the same prints as the once I had seen earlier, nearly identical to mine.

Just like before, these strange footprints started pure out of the blue, in the middle of the trail. Unlike before, though, they weren’t leading towards a specific destination.

Instead, they seemed to follow my own, two steps behind.

I stiffened my posture and quickened my walking pace slightly, not allowing this sight to get the best of me beyond that. I didn’t want to run, or yell, and by god was I not going to turn around.

I only made it a few steps before I felt a shock run through my body. I don’t know what it was; an evolutionary failsafe, a message from a higher power, or even the most imperceptible sound of a boot heel compressing the snow somewhere nearby.

Whatever it was, it caused me to immediately take off running towards the edge of the cemetery as a terrifyingly dark feeling began to overtake me. With every frantic footstep my boots sent snow flying, while themselves filling entirely with chunks of snow within seconds. My vision filled with more and more of that white static until I was barrelling forward entirely blind. I still feel thankful that I managed not to stumble or slip even once for the entire stretch, although what that thankfulness is for I still do not know.

When I crossed the border of the cemetery and emerged on the sidewalk, The oppressive feeling ceased at once and all was normal again. I came to an abrupt stop and turned around to see nothing but my own messy bootprints leading to the spot where I stood.

I immediately began to scold myself internally for how irrational I’d acted. Standing outside the cemetery, inhabiting the world of the real and the logical, my own behavior from just seconds before felt shameful and childish. Dejected, I walked myself and my now extremely wet boots all the way home.

I’m still not afraid of cemeteries. I’m not going to stop going to that same cemetery, either.

I just think I’m going to wait until after all the snow has melted.

#horror #horror writing #short story #horror short story #horror tw #unreality tw #scooter.txt #my writing #LET THE RECORD SHOW I DON'T LIKE HOW THIS TURNED OUT. BUT I AM POSTING IT NONETHELESS

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fascinatedhelix · 3 years

Text

More spoilery Pathless thoughts, notes, ideas, etc:

So, from the limited glimpses I’ve gotten of the Shark Temple monks, the hoods they wear don’t look like scarves like I initially thought when I saw them in Abzu. The texture and hard shapes give off the impression of something more along the lines of a gabled hood, reinforced with buckram or something similar to keep the geometric shapes.

Also, though I couldn’t get a super long look at the faces of their skeletons, they look... weird. The eye sockets are small and the rest of the face looks blank. Maybe the developers borrowed from the Diver’s model, or they’re wearing masks. Either way I’m not 100% convinced they’re normal humans. Jumping off that point, it does kind of weird me out that the ancestors from Abzu appear to be human, at least to some extent. It doesn’t quite make a ton of sense, given how the architecture in Abzu is rather amphibious (yes, there are stairs underwater that would imply they used to be above water, but also, the more “urban” areas (such as the area where you find the bird mural) seem built specifically for exploration above and below water, implying the inhabitants could travel both ways). Than again, magic is a thing in-universe, or at least a rather unusual form of it. Somehow the Godslayer managed to grow twice the height of a normal person and attained a tail and claws, so I don’t think its a stretch that a society might develop where the people figured out how to give themselves gills or something. Or they were never human in the first place and just lived alongside the Isle humans for a while before they were ousted.

It is very difficult getting good references for the characters from screenshots. Since I can’t play it myself, I have to rely on Youtube videos, and even those aren’t super reliable due to basically nobody taking the time to take a close look at the skeletons and stuff, and the constant movement making it difficult to get any clear shots. Even the OST videos, as recommended, aren’t very good because the concept art featured is all either scenery or the Hunter, so while I might have no problems with her, everything else is kinda bust. Godslayer in particular is a pain in the ass because he’s always shot with this low red lighting, to the point you can hardly make out the details of his arms outside of a few blurry shots.

It is implied that the Tall Ones took the physical bodies of animal-headed humanoids before the Godslayer killed them and corrupted their spirits, as evidenced by some stele text and the giant fucking skeletons that are revealed after one completes the different plateaus. I suppose the size of the skeletons would explain why they’re called the Tall Ones in the first place, though I can’t imagine being one of the Isle’s humans, living a normal life, finding out about all sorts of drama off at the monasteries, and then one day looking out my window and seeing a 100 foot tall streaker with a deer’s head carefully tiptoeing over pine trees. I say streaker because the giant skeletons sure as hell didn’t look clothed, and the statues of their humanoid forms imply a rather... limited wardrobe. But then again, if the statues were accurate, then the Eagle Mother and Nimue would have masculine bodies, which would be kind of weird, but they’re not human so I suppose one can excuse them not being super well versed in human sexual dimorphism.

Also, going by the singular lore video I can find on Youtube, I think the Pathfinder had already slipped into being a little crazy before he donned the Mask of Ancients, got his hands on the Sun Sword, and started demanding human sacrifices. Case in point, he had a bunch of his followers sacrifice their lives to set off the traps to get to the Mask instead of doing the rational person thing and just working on the puzzles. Their spirits even say as much. I don’t think he was put in prison for just voicing an opinion contrary to the popular doctrine of the time, I think he was already stirring up a violent cult following before that point; the prison break was just the earliest point in which people really started to notice him. Or at least, start dying.

I don’t think the time period between the fall of the Isle civilization and the Hunter’s arrival was much more than maybe a generation or two. For starters, the Hunter and the Godslayer speak the same language, and don’t seem to have any issues understanding each other despite presumably a long time for linguistic drift to set in. Additionally, the dead, while skeletal, seem to be in relatively good condition (with clothing intact, no less), and while the buildings and such are in ruins in many cases, they don’t look like they’ve been overtaken by the elements like one would expect from a centuries old ruin.

#the pathless #spoilers #abzu #giant squid games

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thejosh1980 · 3 years

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Little Wing

(Trigger warning: animal/pet death)

Today, right now, I am sat at the spot where Mijo felt his last sunrise, just 24 hours ago.

He was 28 weeks old, he spent 20 of those weeks with me, and my family. He was my family. He was thrust upon me by my wife and mum, who knew Mijo would be the kind of birthday present I'd want, but could never ask for.

When he arrived he was unexpected. Straight from the car, into my bedroom, onto my lap, what a surprise, it was love at first sight. Those eyes, that tail, that round belly, the fur, I was all in. I had to say goodbye to 4 beautiful pets whom I loved dearly when I left Germany, so then and there I made a quiet, whisper promise to Mijo;

“I'll never ever leave you”...

We began like any other Daddy and cat story, playing, eating, talking to each other. We may have made a few messes on the bed learning to potty train, but I couldn't really fault him, he was perfect. He loved cuddles, got under our feet all the time, talked to us a lot and wanted to be a part of everything happening around the house.

He meowed very loudly too. Sometimes he'd meow from the next room sounding lost and worried. That's when I started to realized something was very different about him. It took about 2 weeks, but then I realized, he was totally deaf!!!! No vacuum cleaner, loud bangs, claps, or door slams could get his attention. When he meowed loudly, it was either because he had to, to feel himself meowing in his head, or he was missing us and could smell us, but not hear us in the next room. I had never had a cat who couldn't hear me call their name, so this was going to be a challenge.

Mijo accepted that challenge...

In a short time I figured out how to clicker train him, using a torch. I love training cats. Most folks think it's impossible, but I've taught cats to fetch, sit and come on command in the past.... So, pretty soon I had him jumping up, over and across chairs and tables on cue. I also learnt a way to “call” him; assuming he could see me, if I knelt down and tapped my leg, he'd come a running. Every time. We had it all figured out.

Grab a harness and a lead, and off we go, walking around the garden. This wasn't a cat, this was a dog. He had very little fear, I mean, he couldn't even hear the birds making a racket or the car driving by or the dog barking next door. He was fixated on me.

I bought him a blow up boat, to use in the pool, to help him get used to floating on water. It was a huge boat for his little size, but he'd hop in, and I'd “treat” him while he got used to the motion. The plan was to build him up to a real boat, or canoe or SUP. I could imagine him walking on water.

He was also great with other cats, so I could take him to visit his cousin and they'd play all day (if we'd let them). He'd come with me to visit other family and then... well, then the real adventures started. Mijo and I could go to the river, the park and the beach. We also went for coffee at the busiest part in the local village, and he took it all in his stride. We took bike rides too, as he sat in a special backpack I had for him. I could hold him while skateboarding or put him on my shoulder as I walked around. He was chill, happy to see and smell his silent world.

When Alex or I came home, and he'd be in the bedroom snoozing or gazing out the window, we could come in, take off our shoes, put our stuff down, maybe run to the loo, then we could snuggle up with him, cause he hadn't heard us arrive. He would just be waiting... He'd just wait for someone to step close enough, blow on his ear, feel a vibration and then he'd meow a big BIG hello, purr and snuggle. He was a no pressure cat... But always ready for hugs and pats.

Besides being deaf, he just didn't seem like any other cat I'd had or even met...

But isn't the way it is with all pets? They're all unique.

He loved Alex. He always had a hard decision between my lap and hers, or sleeping close to one or the other. We had a son to take care of, to love and to enjoy. At the beginning, Alex wasn't sure about having a cat, she'd pretty much always been a dog person, but it didn't take long for Mijo to wrap her around his little paw. She was hooked.

We thought he was going to be grow up to become a big boy. You know, Maine Coon sized 5-6 or maybe 7 kilo. We had high hopes for a dog-like cat, big enough to take on the world. We wanted to show him the world too.

After he had his snip (desexing) in mid March, he wasn't very well, and it really traumatized all of us, we just weren't sure why he took it so badly. He was in a lot of pain, even though the operation itself was quick and really good, with no issues. He would spend the day, in his “bread loaf” position, with his nose to the ground. It was like he was conserving all his energy for when we came home or wanted his attention.

Eventually, after a few weeks he bounced back, back to being his usual self, for a while. He actually lost a lot of fur during this time, most likely due to a reaction to the antibiotics and pain killers. Where his collar and harness were, he lost all his hair. It only took a few days, a bit too quick to realize what was going on, he rarely wore the collar or harness after that. It meant we sometimes lost him in the house without his bell on to tell which room he was in, so I'd be running around turning on and off the lights to get his attention and a meow.

It was our fun game of “Mijo Polo”.

We had noticed he wasn't eating as much, and he wasn't as playful. In fact, all his toys were being ignored, and he rarely chased anything we teased him with. When we took him for playtime with his cousin, he wouldn't last as long play fighting. Something was up, we thought he'd bounce back by now.

Overall, he was a very chilled cat, having just had an operation and now with, ringworm, a tooth problem (one adult tooth was causing him problems and needed to be pulled) maybe that was why he wasn't too interested in food. Surely it wasn't bacteria, an infection or a virus in his blood.

In early May, Mijo developed ringworm, which, by the way, isn't a worm but rather a fungal infection. The vet already had us on anti fungal cream day and night. It's very unusual to get ringworm; it's all around us, but a strong immune system, actually, a decent immune system, would fight off any infection naturally. Cats generally just lick it all off their fur. Humans sometimes get it, from a scratch or a wound. It's in the soil, it's in the air.

When we got the treatment for the ringworm, we also gave him an appetite stimulant, to encourage him to eat, but it made little difference. As nothing changed, we went back to the vet a few days later, and did a hypothyroidism test; the results were borderline.

What could be going on?

At the time of his desexing operation, he was 1.7 kilos, a week later he was down to 1.5 and eventually 1.45 kilo. His body was growing a little, but his muscle and fat wasn't.

We talked to the vet and decided, even though his ringworm was infectious, the tooth had to go, sooner rather than later. It seemed logical that it was his biggest barrier to fulfilling his dietary requirements and his well being. We wanted him fattening up, growing up, and being his usual self again, ASAP. We needed to get him back on track towards good health, enough was enough.

On Monday 17th May I dropped the little guy off at the vet for the day. A check up and a tooth pull.

Before any cat gets an anesthetic, they run a simple blood test to determine if the cat is well enough. During the day we got a call that the operation couldn't happen, and that he'd have to stay in over night or longer, with meds to help him, because his red cell blood count was low. 10%. Most cats need around 40%, if there's any complication with the tooth pull, his blood may not clot.

It's official, he was very unwell.

I was at school when I got the news. I was in shock. Our little boy was that unwell? But he does eat (a little), he does walk on the lead with me, he's eating his treats... was he that unwell?

Suddenly we had to decide on some expensive tests to figure out what was wrong with him. I mean, the red blood cells were being eaten up by the white ones, but why?? We arranged the suggested tests and they kept him in over night.

I was very distraught. How can my little guy be so unwell yet behave well? With that blood count, he shouldn't be able to walk, he should be so lethargic that he can't keep his head up!! He should be in a coma.

All in all, theoretically, he should be dead.

So was it dwarfism, hypothyroidism, mycoplasma??? And and and?? Tests... Blood being taken.. Our boy in the vet over night, alone, worried, scared??? Will he make it through the night? I didn't sleep well...

On Tuesday afternoon the vet let us bring him home. His blood level was down to 9.1%. The idea was that, at least at home he'd have cuddles and love, and that might help his immune system. He was lethargic but not completely terrible. I would need to bring him in on Wednesday for another blood test, to see how he was doing.

On Wednesday, it didn't go well, Mijo had gone from 9 to 8.1% blood level. It was now becoming almost impossible to get any blood out of him. I saw how difficult it was 2 weeks earlier when he had the hypothyroid test, they had to try on both legs and his neck to get a half mil of blood! He was a champ and barely complained. But now, I couldn't imagine the pain he went through with even less blood.

He's been that sick for how long?? Why hadn't we noticed?

We were panicking.

The vet suggested we meet with a mature, more experienced doc, on Thursday. We should be able to figure something out, we had to. Each day = less blood = more chance of...

Well, I am a hopeful guy. I realize, I live on hope. I spent years hoping certain people in my life would change, or love me in a way that I feel some love. I always hope things will change for the better. I don't know why, but it's ingrained in me to feel hopelessness or hope... I think I'm never in the middle... or is that called acceptance? OK, maybe I do feel that too, eventually... But it takes a long long time...

I have videos of Mijo on Thursday 20th, he's cleaning himself in the sun, meowing and purring, happy to see me, walking around the garden with me. Full of life and adventure.

At lunch time, Mijo and I go to the vet. He is his usual cute self, always curious at the vets, and now there's a the new guy he's meeting, what an adventure.

Before he opens the cat box he said something along the lines of “Well, because his blood levels are so low, today is really about deciding if he goes to heaven or not...” I'm not sure, but I know I heard words like “heaven” and “euthanasia” early on in the consultation. Shock was setting in. I barely heard anything else he said, luckily we had Alex on the speaker phone.

Turns out, not only is our little guy deaf, he's an anomaly.

Any cat with 8.1% should be comatose. They should barely be able to walk. They certainly can't pee or poo without help and don't drink or eat much. Mijo came out of his box and sniffed around, was alert and ready to meet the new guy!!

The vet was stumped. He had never seen this before, in over 30 years...

We didn't know he was so sick, because, he was, overall, a well behaved cat. His weight he lost, sure, but he was now at least stable. He was eating, it just took a lot of creativity sometimes to spark his interest (mostly warming up meals and giving him treats).

The vet tried to explain to me, but I'm sure Alex on the phone understood it clearly, that we had very little time, well, no time. We had 3 choices that day. Go to a specialist an hour's drive away, give Mijo steroids and hope he had mycoplasma or Immune mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA) or, lastly, euthanasia.

Wait???? What does that even mean??

The specialist would give him a blood transfusion, and some special custom drugs which should help him. The vet said it could cost in the 10s of thousands, and may help Mijo for a few weeks, but it's not a solution that we are sure would be long term or not.

Giving Mijo steroids would give him a fighting chance, or not... Basically it could cure or kill him. Because we aren't sure what is the cause of the low blood count, it could be IMHA, mycoplasma or something else, but it's a best educated guess at this rate. If it is the wrong choice, he may die quicker than expected.

Euthanasia, no explanation needed.

We decided on steroids. According to the vet, there was a 50/50 chance it would work. If the cause of the blood cells killing off each other was for or against steroids, we'd know soon enough. Still shocked I tried to understand it all. I'm so grateful Alex was on the line and knows this stuff through experience and study.

The idea of taking Mijo an hour's drive north to the specialist, to a cubicle, a place where we may not be with him 24/7, on the off chance that he wouldn't make it and die alone, we couldn't fathom that.

Mijo took the steroid injection like a champ, he always did injections well. He was given some antibiotics to also help. The vet said, that by Saturday we'll know if it was the right decision. We'd know if he would be getting better...

It was decided that on Monday 24th we'd go back in for a blood test to actually see if the steroids were working (cause apparently one can't really tell with Mijo's behavior, the cheeky monkey).

Mijo and I came home, and well, he ate, he was purring, sitting on my lap. The usual deal. When I went out to get the washing in, he tried to go out too, something we, as parents, have been very protective about. He doesn't go out alone, he doesn't go out without a lead or a bell. He's not an easy cat to find if he runs off, not that he has ever tried. He deaf, he can't hear cars or other dangers out there.

I promised him I'd take him out to that side of the house/garden that afternoon...

So we did, we went out, we sat down, he explored. He was well, good, better, best. He was my boy. He trusted me, I trusted him. I'm always amazed how well he walks by my side, like a dog, with loose leash... Taking my steps as cues when to walk, and when to stop.

We also met the neighbor's dog, which was a first, both were not really interested in each other... But still, Mijo knew there's a lot to live for...

Overnight he went great... Woke up with him on my chest relaxing waiting for me to get up and feed him, luckily I have a wife who had to get up for work at that moment. I remember she sang him a lullaby and held him like a baby. It was really sweet to see how much love they had for each other. Rock-a-bye Mijo...

We wanted to him feel as much love as we could. We felt that, if the steroids and antibiotics were doing their part, and we did ours, there's nothing he can't beat. And he sure felt the love...

I held him while doing some singing exercises, close to my chest. It was something we hadn't done before, and he purred. He'd look up and meow every time I stopped making vibrations. He felt it, I felt it, it was a connection.

We spent a lot of time, reading, relaxing and sitting on laps. Alex and I cuddled him, told him we loved him. He was really fighting. He was eating. He was a little more playful than in recent weeks. He wanted to live. We could feel it...

He went from eating half a packet to 1.5 packets a day, plus dry food. He always wanted treats, and I was always glad to oblige.

By Saturday he was wonder cat! Kneading... Purring... Chasing toys... Eager to hang out...

We'd overcome the problem! He was getting better. There's fight, love and life left in him. He was amazing. If it hadn't been for his ringworm (which was also healing very very well) I'd say he was perfect, especially once he put on another few grams...

We had 4 awesome days, loads of energy and love. He was never alone in the house, and rarely alone in a room. We wanted him to know, to feel, that we loved him so deeply and that all we want was him in our life, for adventures and cuddles.

On Monday morning, his appetite went down... He didn't really eat much...

We all left for the day, work and school. I think we were all worried, but he'd been so good and improved so so much, that we were sure he'd be fine. We have the blood test booked for the afternoon, I'm sure he'll pep up by then. The injection could be wearing off too...

Mijo and I went in to the vet, and his test came back at 14%!!! Damn, that's 6 points!! The vet expected 3 to be a big improvement. In fact, if he had 3 or less, euthanasia may have been the only option... Happy days! He was well. He's going to live! He'll be fine.

We're not out of the woods yet, but we are in the right direction.

All that love we lavished on him, not just in the past days, but the past 4 months. The adventures, the friends he'd made (both human and animal) the smells and sights he'd seen, the vibrations he felt, it was all coming together... He was a fighter with a lot of love to give...

We were over joyed. Really, I couldn't have been happier when I got the results. I gave a “whoop” and threw my fist in the air (I've never done that before in my life!).

We changed to tablet form steroids, as they'll be better long term, keep up the antibiotics and off we go...

But we all know, that often people and animals, when they know they are dying, they give it one last shot. And that was it... We didn't realize until Wednesday, that he wasn't actually going to get better...

Mijo stopped grooming himself, he slowly ate less and less... He became more and more lethargic, he started to sit in the “bread loaf” position with his nose on the ground, as he did after the snip, resting. We thought it was the change in steroids, and as I was at school and the girls at work, we just kept thinking he'd pep up eventually.

When I left for school Wednesday morning, he was alert, but lethargic. When I came home early to check on him, he had really changed again.

His belly was a little bloated, but he had hardly eaten. He had trouble walking, it seemed like it was a mix of muscle degradation/pain and confusion. His meowing changed to a high pitch cry, similar to that of a young kitten. He also stopped eating, he wouldn't even touch any of his tasty treats. He searched for any bit of sun to stand in, but he was looking so uncomfortable, his posture had changed, half sitting, half standing. I was grateful, when I carried him to his water bowl, that he drank a lot. He also went to the toilet, I held his tail so he didn't make a mess on himself.

We spent the afternoon outside, as the sun started to set. He loved the sun, I wanted him to feel warmth... I held him, talked to him. I don't know now many times I asked him to please hold on, please fight and that I loved him. He looked more comfortable in the sun.

I did film us walking around the pool. I am forever grateful for technology, so that I could just put my phone down, touch a button and record a moment. As we walked and talked, oblivious to the camera, I recognized a change in his breathing... I may have missed it previously, but for sure, his breath was becoming more and more labored. Every 3 or 4 breaths, he just had to try harder... His eyes were changing too... But I was sure he could recognize me, the way the vibrations from my chest reached his body and the way I smell. He would react from time to time, shifting or clawing at me.

He often touched my chest with his paw. Reaching out...

Mum and I went to the vet late Wednesday afternoon, the earliest we could. I explained it must be the change of steroids. No, it wasn't. They were the same type, it was just that he wasn't able to fight anymore. We discussed the specialist, called them and made a plan to go in first thing in the morning. I arranged for a friend to come with me, and Thursday morning bright and early, we were going up to get Mijo cured. Transfusion, drugs, you name it, we were going to do it. We had to, we told him we'd make him better.

There and then, Alex and I decided to trade in our honeymoon, you know from the wedding we had 13 months ago and still haven't done the traditional thing of a week or two away somewhere. We decided the money we had aside for that, would go to Mijo's specialist costs, because without Mijo, our honeymoon, whatever and whenever we decide to do it, wouldn't be worth doing, if he wasn't around.

I made a firm plan on how to help him through the night. We would hold him in shifts... All 3 of us... If one showered, the other held him. Dinner time, we shared the responsibility, not that we ate much anyhow. We cuddled, we talked, we purred, I would blow gently on his head... He was feeling love and he was fighting...

Because he hadn't eaten all day, we decided to try feeding him with a syringe, with success. With the tablets we were putting into his stomach, I felt he needed something else down there too... With a small syringe, he took it well, lapping up a tasty liquid treat.

When it was bed time, we put pillows around the bed, incase he fell, because he was very wobbly on his feet. He would cry out at random times, possibly from pain, but I think more from confusion. He sometimes wanted to get away from us, as we know, pets know when it's time and usually disappear, isolate.

We barely slept. I managed about 3 hours... But it was tough.. He wouldn't stay still, and eventually we put him in his little bed, near our bed... Of course he didn't stay there long.

At 4am I heard him crying... I found him under the bed... Alex woke up too... His breathing had changed a lot... Every breath was labored. He wasn't getting enough oxygen.

I laid on my back, and Mijo laid on my chest. This was how it often was, especially when I was reading... We did that until around 7am... Alex taking turns, holding him, talking to him, loving him. Mijo could barely hold himself up, he just laid in our arms... Breathing... His eyes began to glaze over...

We discussed our options, we felt the specialist was now a long shot. We didn't think he'd make the drive, he was near the end. Our little man had little fight left... And we wouldn't forgive ourselves for him dying in a foreign place. There were a lot of tears and back and forwards, including mum coming in for cuddles with the little guy at 5am...

Alex called the emergency vet, and we planned to go in at 8:30... Mijo's time had come...

When the sun comes up, if the blind is open in our bedroom, the sun shines right on through to Alex in bed, Mijo was in her arms, while she drank coffee as the sun rose.

Sometime later I took the little guy out to the pool, where we walked and talked, cuddled and loved, around and around, in the morning sun. I talked to him about all the adventures we had, riding bikes, visiting people, the beach and the river. I spent most of that hour, holding him, looking to his eyes... He gazed up, I just hope he knew it was me. I just knew he felt the vibrations of my words.

We both told him, it was OK to let go now. We were ready. But he kept on fighting for each breath... I think he was just like his Dad, always hopeful..

He last moments at home, where in the chair I'm sat in now. It gets the best light, first thing, even though it's inside the “catio”. Alex had sat down while I was walking outside, I seem to do better when I walk, and I brought him in for cuddles with her in the sun... He was bathed in sunshine, in Alex's arms... It was beautiful...

Actually getting in the car and going to the vet, was tough, but it really hit me when I walked in. I held the little guy, and just burst into middle-aged-man tears and sobbing... If you were there, you'd know I was my mother's son, cause she was sobbing too... I couldn't look anyone in the eye... I didn't understand what was going on, or about to go on...

I think I was in another place...

We went into a consult room, and I just laid the little guy down, not thinking of using the blanket we had... The vet explained the procedure and took him away for his catheter and first injection, some anesthetic? I don't know, but apparently it was the right thing, it helped with his pain.

I couldn't even look Alex or Mum in the eye... I just cried...

I still had hope...

When they came back, Mijo was wrapped in a soft blanket, what a great idea...!! He was quieter, more peaceful... The vet left to give us a moment...

He was still breathing, still fighting... I put my ear to his face, and heard him...

I kept making sure his eye lids closed from time to time. I remember back when Catalina, my little girl in Germany, needed to be anesthetized for a check up. The vet put some put liquid drops in her eyes and made her blink, so her eyes didn't dry out... So for Mijo, I did that every once in a while... I didn't want his eyes to dry up... I wanted him to be able to see me, because laying on that table, he couldn't hear me.

I begged Alex not to bring the vet back in for the final injection... I think I may have screamed something at her... I don't know... I wasn't me... I was trying to hold him in my arms, without moving him... I was trying to give him another chance...

I bawled...

I don't know if I have ever cried like that before... I thought I'd be all cried out... I thought all my tears had already left the building the previous hours and days... But there was more... a lot more... and more to come...

I know that Alex and I held hands over his body... I felt the love... I felt his warmth... his breathing... I know I cried tears onto him, there were tear drops on his lips...

I looked him in the eye as much as I could, but mostly, I cried...

I felt the liquid go into him, I felt it go around my hand into him...

I don't know much about what happened after that... I know I didn't want to leave him, I had promised him I would never do it. I regret not holding him once more... I know that at that moment, I felt the life drain out of me... I felt hope die...

I walked out, not knowing what to do, and flopped down on the grass outside... I never sit on grass, but Mijo liked it...

I managed to drive home...

That was yesterday...

Since then I've tried to rest, tried to come to grips with what has happened, tried to connect with a few friends, I've tried... I'm still trying...

This morning I got up wanting to do some sport, washing, then study and take on the day with confidence... It's a new day, I should take that opportunity to get back into my routine... It took all of 1 minute, from bed to bathroom, to be bawling... Except for the time I manage to calm down enough to type this blog, I've been crying... It's now 10am... I was awake at 6:15...

We are running out of tissues..

I felt so bad this morning, I wanted to plead with Alex not to go to work, because I just can't today. I just can't. We have discussed how she copes in these situations, and I know that's how she copes, by going to work, so I kept my trap shut. I just want her to hug me all day, so I can feel her warmth.

I cried so much on the drive to drop mum off at work this morning, she started crying too, and contemplated not going to work... She wanted to be there for me, but I told her, honestly, I don't think I'd be much company today.

I don't know the grieving process, we haven't learnt that in counseling school yet, but I do know, I'm feeling very lost... I feel very numb...

I can't explain it, and maybe that's why folks can never really explain how they feel after someone close to them, or their pet, has passed. We are just lost.

I also feel that I am grieving for my other losses in my life. It's a bit like, it's a culmination of all the others before him, plus him on top, making me feel pain like I have never experienced before.

Grief is just love, with no place to go... Alex and I talked about that quote last night. I used this quote to help me through leaving my 4 pets in Germany, I know I have to find a new place for my love, but for now, I just can't.

I know I couldn't have gotten through this without the support of my Mum and Alex...

While Mum cries at the drop of a hat, she is solid and thoughtful and loving. Alex is strong and experienced in these matters. She knew what to say, and when, even if I did yell back… Both have a lot of time and patience for me.

I know Alex and Mum feel bad, maybe even guilty, for choosing him. Mijo was a present, to give me joy and love and comfort. And he sure did, in multitudes, to all of us. I would never have gotten a cat back then, I didn't feel Alex or I were ready, we were still working through our issues with our pets in Germany.

Alex and I decided that we want Mijo home with us. He was only on this earth for 6.5 months, we expected him to be with us for 10+ years. Taken too early. Once he's cremated we'll have him in a little urn. He was so small, but if there's a little left over, we will either plant a tree with his ashes or sprinkle him down by the river, the first place he went to that was close to water.

The past day or so, I have shared what happened with some friends, classmates and family, and everyone has been so thoughtful and caring. Thank you, it's really helped to know you're all out there, thinking of the little guy. He would have loved to meet you all.

He was perfection. If someone else had gotten him, realized he was deaf, they may not have given him the adventures and life he had. Mum considers him a rescue cat...

So here I am, in the chair, his last chair in his last moments at home.

I can still smell him on my shirt. When I walk around the house, dazed, I sniff my shirt. He had a wonderful smell. The smell of love and adventure. I hope that smell lasts a life time.

I miss his warmth, his meow, which was damn loud!! I miss, that sometimes he'd get lost around the house... Or he'd lose me, around the house. He was gentle, and only bit me once, by accident, piercing my thumb a little. I miss the fact he had 1 tooth growing forward, directly out, making him a tri-toothed kitten with a protruding top lip! He took on the world without fear. I've never experienced anything like it in a cat. My girl Catalina did sit on my shoulder as I walked down the street in Germany, but Mijo, he let me go skateboarding with him, played guitar with me (he'd chew the strings) and one time, I even vacuumed his tail.

All trust. No fear.

Back when he lost all his hair around his neck and stomach after his snip operation, we were pretty concerned. Funnily enough, it grew back pretty quickly, but it grew back white, not grey. He had a ring around his neck and kind of marks on his back wrapping around to his belly. Alex googled it, and actually found out, cats can often have their hair grow back white after trauma or experiencing extremes of temperature if their hair was cut short or fell out.

About a month ago, I sent my dearest of friends, Sandra, a photo of his regrowth, and she commented looks like “little angel wings”...

Fly on little wing, fly on...

RIP Mijo Angus

12-11-2020 – 27-05-2021

Thanks for reading,

Josh

#pet #pet love #pet death #sad story #loss #griefandloss

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remmushound · 3 years

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Birds of Prey

Pete waddled happily across the rooftop with no true destination in his mind, but he sure did love to waddle! Especially at night when he was less likely to be yelled at and could find all sorts of goodies lying around! He hoped and hoped with all his heart to find bread on his nightly journey, be it stale or fresh he’d eat it all the same. As long as it filled his belly and tasted good, he’d gobble it down.

He gave a curious coo and stopped with his foot still raised mid-step, tilting his head farther than any human could hope to achieve when he heard the strange sound of chewing. Not chewing like a human would, but more like some starved animal that had just found its first meal in days. Whatever it was, it sounded like the animal— or animals— were definitely enjoying themselves. Pete couldn’t help but wonder if he could steal a few scraps, if there were any left.

He followed the sound a few buildings down until he found the source of the frenzied scarfing and peered down to get a look at who it was. Maybe one of his friends! But no— he didn't know these mutants. They sure were big though! Two of them, one bigger than the other but both of them a lot bigger than Pete was. One was fat and hairy with a big gut, but big muscles too; he had a bright purple mohawk that Pete couldn’t help but stare at and the spikey black and orange outfits he wore were so vibrant too! The bigger one had no furs or feathers that Pete could see, but he shared the same jiggly belly as his comrade and two large horns on his nose that Pete was ever so curious about.

New friends, maybe? New friends with food! Both of them held a massive disk of bread covered in cheesies and pepperonis and all sorts of greens that Pete couldn’t recognize, and beside them was a broken and bent two-wheel car that Pete sometimes saw those strange humans riding in the day. Stacking beside it were more boxes, some empty but others with more of the yummy-smelling bread disks! Pete wondered if they wouldn’t mind sharing.

***

Bebop and Rocksteady were having the time of their lives, howling through the night with their mouths full of stolen pizza. They were still reliving the hilarity of the pizza boy's expression when his bike got picked up and folded like a pretzel, and how he had nearly wet himself screaming for his mommy. Bebop was on his fifth pizza, scarfing out down like there was no tomorrow, when he heard a strange rush of air that made his ears give a curious twitch.

“Hey Rocky, what’s that?”

Rocksteady swiped his tongue over his lips as his gray eyes searched around to find what Bebop was talking about. He had heard the rush of air too but had given it little mind since eating his share was more important to him at the moment. Looking down, he finally found just what it was that his boyfriend had been talking about.

The creature was pathetically small compared to them, with a dopey little smile on his face and eyes that seemed to bulge out of the sides of his head. A little gray pigeon, from what little Rocksteady could tell, with a vibrant chest of blue and purple and a hopeful look in his eyes. He wore tiger-striped boxers and a watermelon-colored fanny back on his side, a pin that read ‘CUPID’ locked onto the belt. Apart from that, the only other accessory he had was a space-patterned sash that held various bottles, some filled with soda or other beverages, and some filled with shiny rocks and other tiny and shiny things.

“HI I’M PETE!” The mutant said in an obnoxiously loud voice. His tongue was hanging out of his beak between uneven sets of teeth and, though he often corrected it, his tongue just kept falling back out again. “I like your bread disks! Can I have some?”

He didn't wait for a response before he went to try and peck at the cheese dripping down Bebop’s fingers, catching some of the warthog's fur. Bebop gave a squeal out of surprise more than pain and then snorted his anger.

“Oh, I know you didn't just do that!” Bebop pulled his lips back in a snarl.

Pete frowned and tilted his head. “I… I’ll trade you some soda pop for em?”

Pete reached into his belt and pulled out a half-drunk bottle of Pepsi, offering it gladly to the mutants. Bebop snatched it from Pete’s claws and bit into the plastic, sucking down the drink in two solid gulps before tossing the empty bottle back at Pete. Pete gave a startled squeak and stepped back to try and avoid the hit, then gave an excited bounce between his feet and opened his mouth for the promise of pizza.

Rocksteady reached down and grabbed Pete by the neck, hoisting him up and laughing as the pigeon started to screech.

“Hi Pete. I’m Rocksteady. And you ain’t getting non’ma food!”

Pete gulped. Rocksteady pulled his arm back, still holding Pete tightly, and launched the helpless mutant clear across the alley. Pete landed hard, bouncing a few times and luckily managing to land unsteadily on his feet and he tried to take off into flight.

“Aww, don’t go yet, little Petey!” Bebop grabbed Pete by his ankles and yanked him back down, purposely knocking his head against the ground before dragging Pete back into the alley. “We just getting started!”

***

It was almost halfway into her rounds and Pete still hadn’t come to visit her— she hadn’t even seen the hapless creature bumbling about like he often did. She tried to tell herself that it was nothing, and that the kid had probably just eaten himself into a food coma somewhere, but the pit in her chest made her think otherwise. Hobs always told her never to fly lower than the clouds— that would increase her chances of being spotted by any late-night humans below— but she couldn’t help it. So she dipped down lower than the clouds and let the sharpness of her eyes scan the buildings and alleys below.

The lights of the city were almost blinding to her sensitive eyes, and so the white film came over her to block out the brunt of the unnatural brightness. That certainly made it a lot easier for her to see the scenes happening below her, able to make out the smallest of details even hundreds of feet below. She could see quite a few drug dealing going down between both mutant and human, but she didn't care. Let them have their fun— it was none of her business! She could see drunk men and women stumbling home or into their cars from late nights at the bar. She could see those four turtle brothers hanging around, doing whatever it is they do. It was of no concern to her that night— as long as they stayed far away from her. A moment of thought passed through her considering if they could have done something to her annoying friend, but she quickly brushed past it. The turtles absolutely adored Pete, often leaving their pizza scraps for him to find so he’d always have something to fill his belly. They would never hurt the careless creature.

Her eyes continued to search for several more minutes until they locked on a scuffle in an alleyway. She looked even closer and dove lower to made out the details. It wasn’t like Pete to get in a physical altercation with anyone, but it was better to be safe when it came to the safety of the mutant pigeon. What she found were a pair of two brutish mutants laughing as they help down a tiny mutant with very little effort on their part, guffawing as the mutant flapped his wings desperately in an attempt to escape.

“Pete…”

She started to circle in the sky, watching the every move of those monsters as they terrorized her friend. Her friend! And she couldn’t be more furious. She tucked her wings in tight for a sudden dive, then started to circle the alleyway more closely. Humans be damned, she was going to help her friend whether she was spotted or not! Another sharp dive and another circle as she searched for an open place to land. With her wingspan, landing always proved to be a difficult feat. Each wing spanned fifteen feet, enough to give her the force to lift herself from the ground even at her great size. She knew she wouldn’t be able to land properly in the alley itself, it was far too narrow, but the road offered an almost perfect landing strip…

***

“I’m sorry!” Pete whimpered as he still tried to escape, pants and Fanny pack ripped off and his contents dumped all over, as well as all the soda he had on his belt. They dumped it on his head and wings and made his feathers feel all heavy and sticky. “I’M PETE!”

“You said that already!” Rocksteady kicked Pete over and laughed as Bebop walked over with one of the pizza boxes.

“You want pizza so badly little man? Here you go!” He dumped the hot cheese all over Pete’s chest and smeared it in down to his blood feathers, twisting it as deep as he could manage while Pete screeched with the heat.

“Aww, poor birdie! I thought you liked pizza.” Rocksteady laughed, “Or— I’m sorry, bread-disks!”

“I’m sorry!” Pete whimpered, trying to flap his heavy wings, “I’m Pete— I’m Pete—”

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

The screech came from the road and made both Bebop and Rocksteady look up with curious grunts. Before they could do much more than look, the flash of gray and black was upon them and talons dug into their flesh, targeting the soft of their stomach. Bebop in particular took the brunt of the sickle-claws, and he was left with four large gashes in his stomach that immediately started to bleed profusely.

“Hey— ow, that hurt!” Bebop and Rocksteady backed up as one, laughing off the pain as they tried to get a better look at their frankly powerful attacker.

It was another bird, this one twice as big and twice as strong. The majority of her feathers were a light gray, but her wings were black and tipped with white. They were folded upward, the majority of their size hidden from view, with the highest feather almost three feet above her head. Her face was white with a striped pattern of black and her eyes of white stared back at them. She had a torn wrapping on her chest, and a loincloth around her waist.

“That was the point.” She gave an almost evil hiss as she hopped forward, stepping between the brutes and Pete.

Rocksteady gave a concerned grunt when he smelled the blood pulling from Bebop’s belly, and he turned to the falcon with a furious snort as he dug a foot into the stone. “YOU GON PAY FOR THAT!”

Before Rocksteady could complete his charge, Koya locked her talons around Pete’s shoulder and hoisted him onto her back, sprinting off and spreading her wings the moment they entered the streets. Rocksteady still charged, but missed completely and instead started to roar curses at the birds as they disappeared into the night sky.

#I love Pete with all my heart #I don’t usually post on weekends but #b e h o l d

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

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All in the Family

Chapter 144: Hermione's Helping Hand

The room was a very dangerous landing, each of them got a book to the head no matter where they landed. Frank was on a flaming red comforter on the bed with a dog eared copy, the title so faded he hadn't a hope of recognizing it until he flipped through a few pages, and even then did not follow the Muggle story.* Alice had a heavy tomb smash so hard against her forehead she saw stars, and it was over a copy of some muggle thing to do with the human anatomy a Healer would struggle to follow.

Lily groaned miserably as she removed a book on alchemy from her face, and Potter's glasses had broken where he'd faced planted a window with an interesting view of a Muggle neighborhood and still had a book on the windowsill crack a lens he couldn't even read the title of now.

Peter had to pull himself out from a whole pile of books, on top of which was Defensive Magical Theory, by Wilbert Slinkhard, and Regulus even found one on teeth he had to dislodge from his own.

Remus landed painfully on a desk, the book losing its place as the bookmark toppled out of sight he felt bad for, and Sirius even found a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages to his distaste for the first time in his life as he pulled it from where it had whacked his ear.

The silver book itself they were all supposed to be here for sat in the middle of the room with the air of innocence. For once.

"As if we haven't been traumatized by enough books already," James sighed as he tapped his glasses to fix them.

"If this room isn't Hermione's, then I'll kiss a centaur," Sirius happily informed the room at large.

"Brilliant deduction there," Lily rolled her eyes, but there was only amusement in her voice. "Did you figure that out before or after this?" She was holding a picture of Hermione in this very room, a still image of her sitting at this very desk with Crookshank's in her lap, the sun just visible on the horizon from the window.

The walls didn't house much decoration, it was simple yet charming to see so much of her personality packed into the comfortably sized room.

"The best part is, I bet this is only a quarter of the ones she owns," James grinned. "She takes most of them with her to school!"

Sirius laughed and Lily found herself smiling in agreement as Lupin tried the door, which mercifully opened. The others scattered about the house, some for the loo, some for the kitchen. Sirius made to do the latter, but lingered in the door jam to watch in fascination as Prongs hesitated, and then turned back to Evans.

There was a reluctance in him he'd seen a few times now, and he had a very good guess why James was suddenly so hesitant to engage with her. He'd been devastated by the news of Sirius' death, arguably more than him even, and it wasn't hard to follow his logic if he had to change something to keep it from happening it would be taking Harry out of the equation via her. He wished his brother wouldn't think like that, but he'd never liked Evans much himself to understand his fascination with her and so wasn't even sure how to urge him back.

When James turned back holding in whatever he'd been about to say though, Lily startled them both by asking, "so, do you know what a dentist is?" The tone was mild, maybe a little mocking, but she was now holding the book Regulus had spat out with a curious smile.

He would have expected James, as usual, to not actually know how to respond to her when she spoke like a normal human being. Instead he hesitated with an odd smile in place and said casually, "not really, but I got the idea. Teeth and such, Muggles need them cared for without a spell."

Prongs hesitated again, some torn expression lingering, before he softly asked as if speaking of her ill coming death, "how come you never took Care of Magical Creatures?"

Sirius snorted fantastically, earning a dirty look from both of them. He raised his hands in surrender and took a step back into the hall, where Remus came up and pulled on him out of sight. James turned back to watching her, still unsure if he should have asked. She'd gotten assurances on their first day from McGonagall, Flitwick, and Slughorn all the creatures came to no harm for their classes to commence. He'd watched her love of animals long after that, she'd taken to cuddling with every cat in the common room and watched the birds deliver post every morning despite receiving none of her own long after other Muggle-borns grew used to it, but that look of awe and longing lingered in her.

Just because he'd given up on the idea of her didn't mean he couldn't still learn more about her, right? It was something he'd wanted to know for years but obviously she'd never have answered before. Maybe if he tried without the flirting he'd get a better result.

And, it worked. She went a little red, but answered casually, "I was trying to prove something, to my parents, to Snape, myself. Taking Arithmancy and Runes, the harder and more difficult classes. I regret it a bit now."

Potter watched her, absolutely fascinated by her little speech it seemed. She kept waiting for that to wear off now that she was actually trying to talk to him on a regular basis, but it didn't seem to be happening.

"You can take it come NEWT year if you want," he told her, that damnable cheerful smile creeping back now as they managed the first casual conversation of their life. "Remus will lend you his notes for the OWL's next week if you want."

She laughed in surprise, then realized he wasn't joking. He really thought she was that smart she could take a class she hadn't been in for two years? "I'll, ah, take that into consideration," she tried to shrug.

He hesitated, seemed to decide he'd pushed her enough, and then finally left. He'd gotten her to laugh, that was more of an accomplishment he'd managed in his life already! He glanced the way two of his friends went, rolled his eyes, and called towards the kitchen, "hey Alice, want to show me how a muggle stove works!"

Lily blanched in fear of him burning the house down and snatched up the actual needed book, not bothering to pretend to herself she was smiling as she followed along and cracked it open, but paused to take in the rest.

The hallway was littered with cheerful hallmark signs such as 'Love, Life, Live,' and several more of Hermione through the years, but Lily kept watching the muggle photos despite the fact that they weren't moving in mild curiosity for several moments before it occurred to her why they seemed a little odd. Hermione was alone in each of them, smiling brightly, but the only one in focus. Not only no friends hanging off her arm in her primary years as she held up spelling awards and science fair projects, but her parents didn't seem in any of them either. One particularly telling one was a candid shot of a very young Hermione sitting in an empty waiting room, reading a book far too big for her lap. Only when she got to the very end of most recent photos hinted at who could have been there all these years, and it was an extremely elder lady, possibly her grandmother or even a nanny, the photo at such an angle it was clearly taken by her as well as she stood shoulder to shoulder with Hermione. The tender look of love in the older woman's eyes only leveled with the weary exhaustion in the folds of her skin. Beneath that was a hand drawn calligraphy plaque with the year and date, but no other sort of explanation except her socially awkward behavior from back at the first book.

The kitchen seemed to double as a study, there were heavy journals on multiple surfaces, Frank was flipping curiously through one that was ear marked with dates, names, and what the appointment was going to be for, another that Regulus was prodding his wand along curiously through every page seemed to house lots of studies and practices on how Hermione's parents could improve their work. She doubted he followed a word, even she probably couldn't.

The chapter title itself was unsurprising, and she went through it still laughing it was all about Harry's first act as Captain sorting out members of his team, indeed with Hermione's help. Wasn't this just a day of surprises.

Potter continued to rank highest of all in that regards. The look on his face when he found out what Hermione did was priceless.

The reason behind it she misunderstood.

"She cheated? On Quidditch! I'd expect this girl to snog Snape before I heard her do something like this!"

"She did set Snape on fire once during a game." Alice happily reminded as she swatted his hand away from the hot surface, again. He seemed to keep forgetting despite the red light and heat waves coming up from the innocent black circle. "Guess her bar goes out the window during sports," she finished with a giggle.

His flummoxed expression still seemed at war if he should be impressed or agitated at this, while Regulus was snickering relentlessly for the show as well as he said, "I thought it was brilliant, as if I want to sit around hearing about that McLaggen's temper for the games, he'll ruin what little fun we've been getting out of these."

His eyes tracked curiously as he seemed to realize his brother wasn't in here to give his opinion, but seemed distracted enough when Peter spoke, "think of it this way, you or Padfoot would have done it to some arse in the hallway if he was really saying half that shite. Does the location matter that much?"

"I mean, yes," he pouted, but if anything he looked more confused. "Quidditch shouldn't be trifled with," he finished with a hint of defiance, but eventually sighed and turned back to turning the stove on and off with the odd switch and all the numbers while she finished.

Remus let his fingers brush against Sirius' and subtly pulled his fingers before letting go. Sirius needed no further prompting before following him out of the room into what must be Hermione's parents room. Remus didn't care as he locked the door and then hugged Sirius.

He laughed in delight, immediately returning it as he said quietly into his neck, "I'm getting whiplash from you."

"I just wanted to make sure you know I'm grateful," Remus told him as he pulled back, having to remind himself not to let his hands linger. "For not beating Frank's face into a pulp, back in the apothecary," he elaborated.

The fact that Sirius never held his mood swings against him or even ever accused him of being moody because of the full moon made him wish he could snog his face off right about now. Merlin, James had barely been involved and he'd called him on being an emotional ass!

"Oh," Sirius' face did not settle into a promising expression, barely concealed anger still there, but he made such a valiant effort to push it back away Remus had to fight back the urge to kiss him again. "Right, you're welcome. If he had done it on purpose though, I can't say I'd have been able to stop myself." Moony and Prongs had made a valid point, better Longbottom occasionally forget the dangers than continue being a racist arse, but his point still stood there was a middle ground that wouldn't put Remus in pain! The Marauders all knew it, couldn't he?!

Remus really couldn't resist and let his hand brush along his cheek and settle down on his neck as he gazed into his eyes. Sirius hummed as always at the physical affection. Remus could have hugged him back in the apothecary and not been an arse about this too! This really would just have to be enough for him, he could never ask for better friends. He reluctantly let his hand drop back away with one more whispered thanks.

Sirius looked hurt though, to Remus' confusion. "Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?" He denied, he really hadn't thought Sirius would realize he was starting to back off yet, as much else as he was dealing with.

"Remus, you've barely looked at me since the polyjuice prank," Sirius finally called his crap. "So if you're not mad at me, would you please say so?"

"I'm not," Remus instantly promised. Merlin if he was mad at Sirius for every stupid prank he'd never not be enraged at this one. "I'm, mad at myself." He finally reluctantly admitted.

Sirius' face clouded with concern. Even on top of dealing with James, Peter, and Regulus at once Padfoot hadn't once tried to cope a field on him for some fun away from them while in this room, and a traitorous bubble of hope still lingered in Remus' chest this could mean more to Sirius. They were just friends with benefits, he instantly reminded himself. Friends! Of course he cares, you know he does.

"Anything I can do to help?" Sirius was even the one to reach for his hand, their fingers naturally intertwining.

"It's, Harry," he finally gave a half truth, which was still a truth that the book provided. He couldn't believe he'd only been back in Prongs's kids life once so far this year with Sirius out of the picture. "Not even writing to him, I'm just, this future- I don't want to stop-" He stopped himself quickly before something stupid came out. 'Being there for you,' probably sounded way too intimate to Padfoot. Maybe if he'd actually been around Sirius during that awful Ministry fight he would have come back out of it and none of this would be thrown in their face so repeatedly!

What kind of heartless monster couldn't do the bare minimum to look after one of his best friends kids anyways? And he was complaining Sirius wasn't ready for more, he clearly wasn't capable of it either.

Sirius had such a beautiful smile, and one he so rarely showed anyone. A smirk, his teasing grin were all anyone but the Marauders ever got to see, and Remus drank his fill in now as Padfoot squeezed his fingers while mimicking as well, tracing his cheek before letting his hand rest on his neck as they naturally mirrored each other. Remus wouldn't dream of denying he instantly felt warm and assured as he leaned into the touch even before Sirius told, "this future's a mess Moony. Don't kick yourself about this poor kids life we have no control over. We'll find a way to fix this."

He spoke with such assurance it's like they should have heard the very words Evans was reading change to match. Remus was convinced Sirius could hypnotize the moon to never be full again in that moment as he leaned in and kissed him.

It was just sweet, and gentle. There was no randiness in either of them, just a silent promise as Remus leaned back that no matter what, his words would be true.

HPHPHPHP

*Let me know what you think Hermione's favorite book is. I personally always thought it was Sherlock Holmes.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #Hermione's Home #HP #HBP #Marauders #Wolfstar #Jilly #James Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #Lily Evans #Peter Pettigrew #Regulus Black #Frank Longbottom #Alice Smith

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