fandoms 7 and 8
7.
Title: Red Thread
Fandom: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Characters/Pairings: Rex, Azami, Pyra, Dahlia - Azami/Rex, Pyra/Rex
Rating: PG-13
Tags: all the spoilers, speculation on how Azami works, creepy jealousy/possessiveness, sympathetic magic, description of injury
Word count: 315
Summary: A real woman wouldn't have been jealous of his wounds.
A/N: this is my first time playing through this, Azami is kinda cool in a horribly creepy way
Maybe a real woman would have felt concern for the boy when the deep lacerations appeared on his arm, in the exact same spot as Pyra's. All Azami could feel was a burning jealousy. No, not burning, that would be to admit she was anything like the hated fire-Blade woman. It was more like a whirlpool of shadows that grew deeper as it expanded, twisting in on itself, becoming stronger so that it could drag them both down into the void where he couldn't escape from her any longer.
Still, it wasn't necessary quite yet. Just because this Pyra had that new bond, the one that broke the usual laws between Blade and Driver, didn't mean that Azami's cause was lost. She could create bonds of her own that also harnessed the Driver's life force - even better, she could control the flow, take the responsibility entirely out of that inexperienced Blade's hands. Then she could truly look after him and never have to lose another Blade, even if it involved a few rather large donations of vital essence on his part occasionally. At least she had a clue what she was doing, not like that weird Blade who claimed to be special but was probably just faulty, who didn't even have complete control over her own identity, who had somehow managed to subsume all memories of her past duties to another Blade.
On the contrary, Azami remembered every single Driver she had ever been in service to. She remembered how they all died, too: every single one of them failing to withstand her methods. This boy was stronger, she knew, despite looking so young. He had to be, to endure what was happening to him right now.
She did not let Pyra see her smile of satisfaction as they both left the room, shooed out by Dahlia so the water-Blade could heal Rex's wounds.
8.
Title: Sirocco ~ Shining Wind of Ashes
Fandom: Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon/Shining Wisdom
Characters/Pairings: Max, Surtr, Dark Dragon, mentions of Primula
Rating: PG-13
Tags: spoilers, headcanon, weird timeline AU
Word count: 900
Summary: He could not let go of the sword. He cast the spell over and over again but he could not get free.
A/N: this is a bit longer because I have lots of ideas and I want this to be the start of something much longer
Even when everyone but himself was gone, he didn't give up trying to free himself.
He could be heard screaming the incantations of the Egress spell over the rumbling of the forbidden shrine as it began to collapse around him, as the entire structure began to sink into the depths. Magic roared around him, raw storms of arcane energy, more than he had ever summoned before. The small army he usually transported from place to place with this spell was long gone, safely retreated onto the nearby cliff. Only he could not leave, his hand stuck fast to the sword that was still embedded in the skull of the demonic three-headed dragon he had slain.
His mental reserves now spent, he simply tried to wrench his arm free from the sword, then the sword free from the black dragon's carcass. Bolts of energy from the sword crackled up his arms, a sensation as agonising as though his armour was contracting and crushing him. Was this the beasts's last curse or was the sword itself betraying him? It had contained as much Darkness as it did Light... Come to think of it, maybe it had been a grave error from the start to expect it to only work in the service of an apostle of Light to slay Darkness... This could quite easily be the final balancing act, the Breaking of Chaos that the blade had been created for...
The floor felt loose beneath him. As a last desperate measure, he kicked a hole in the ground, hoping that maybe gravity would give him enough leverage to rip a piece of the beast's skull off, stupid sword and all. He would still be falling several hundred feet into freezing cold water while things fell on his head but he would have more chance to survive than if he just stood there and waited. There was a satisfying crack as a mosaic tile fell away...
Another green flash, this time painful enough to make him black out. He still felt as though he were falling, somewhere covered in darkness so thick that there were layers of shadows alive and moving around him. They whispered to him, voices that sounded distant. He couldn't feel anything apart from slight cold, occasional shadows brushing against his face and a terrible numbness. Was this death - final, true death, the kind you didn't come back from through shameless overuse of advanced-level tactical retreat magic that was, shamefully, the only damn spell he knew? Had this been what General Varios and King Guardiana and, he supposed, all his fallen foes felt?
Would he finally be able to rejoin his brother?
No, it hadn't ended yet. He suddenly felt was though he had stopped falling and was hovering in place, possibly upside down. There was a fire. As the warmth of the fire reached him, he felt sensation return, warmth and movement and a flood of replenished thoughts and imaginings and reserves of magical energy that he never knew he possessed and...
Was it just him, or was that fire really, impossibly enormous, so vast that his mind had been blocking his understanding of it so he didn't come down with a migraine or short his magical senses out trying to figure out how high a tier of spell had to be maintaining it?
"NO MORTAL ENCHANTMENT," rumbled a voice that seemed to be coming from all directions at once, echoing endlessly through a chamber that had to be the size of a Cathedral, "ONLY THE FIRST MAGIC OF THE LIVING FIRE AND THE DARKNESS AND THE MOUNTAIN."
Oh, he thought, mind-reading talking volcanoes exist here. Maybe this was some really, really bad afterlife after all. He didn't feel dead, though...
"WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN IS VERY MUCH LIFE. THE ONE WHO CREATED YOU HAS RESOLVED NOT TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE, NOT SINCE THE FIRST OF YOU. SHE NEEDS YOU TO FREE HER AND WHILE SHE DOESN'T REALLY WANT ME TO BE FREE AS WELL, OUR BROKEN DESTINIES HAVE BECOME TANGLED UP TO THE POINT THAT WE CAN'T REALLY BE APART. YOU'RE INCLUDED IN THAT, NOW."
He wasn't sure if this was good or bad, or even how to express his opinion by the rules of this plane of primal elements.
"I WILL GIVE YOU A SPELL," said the fire, as if by way of explanation, "AND YOU WILL USE IT TO FREE ME, AND THEN TO PURIFY THE DARK DRAGON CORRECTLY, AND THEN YOU WILL GO AND FULFIL YOUR CONTRACT TO FREE HER. THERE'LL PROBABLY BE A FIGHT AFTER THAT BETWEEN US AND YOU CAN DECIDE WHICH SIDE TO TAKE, OR GO AND LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE A SENSIBLE PERSON, ALTHOUGH WHO WINS WILL PROBABLY DECIDE QUITE A LOT ABOUT THE FATE OF THE WORLD, SUCH AS HOW MUCH FIRE IT'S ON. LOOK, I'M SORRY THIS EVEN HAPPENED. IT'S ONE OF THE PARTS OF THE WORLD YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE UNLESS IT GOES WRONG, LIKE... LIKE HAVING TO FIX A CLOCK YOURSELF."
Um, that's fine, I get this kind of thing a lot, it's probably my own fault for being incapable of finishing a quest like a normal hero, he replied, finally getting the hang of this telepathy business. Then he stopped, What do you mean, how much fire the world is on?
But then the volcano erupted because of course it did.
Title: Red Thread
Fandom: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Characters/Pairings: Rex, Azami, Pyra, Dahlia - Azami/Rex, Pyra/Rex
Rating: PG-13
Tags: all the spoilers, speculation on how Azami works, creepy jealousy/possessiveness, sympathetic magic, description of injury
Word count: 315
Summary: A real woman wouldn't have been jealous of his wounds.
A/N: this is my first time playing through this, Azami is kinda cool in a horribly creepy way
Maybe a real woman would have felt concern for the boy when the deep lacerations appeared on his arm, in the exact same spot as Pyra's. All Azami could feel was a burning jealousy. No, not burning, that would be to admit she was anything like the hated fire-Blade woman. It was more like a whirlpool of shadows that grew deeper as it expanded, twisting in on itself, becoming stronger so that it could drag them both down into the void where he couldn't escape from her any longer.
Still, it wasn't necessary quite yet. Just because this Pyra had that new bond, the one that broke the usual laws between Blade and Driver, didn't mean that Azami's cause was lost. She could create bonds of her own that also harnessed the Driver's life force - even better, she could control the flow, take the responsibility entirely out of that inexperienced Blade's hands. Then she could truly look after him and never have to lose another Blade, even if it involved a few rather large donations of vital essence on his part occasionally. At least she had a clue what she was doing, not like that weird Blade who claimed to be special but was probably just faulty, who didn't even have complete control over her own identity, who had somehow managed to subsume all memories of her past duties to another Blade.
On the contrary, Azami remembered every single Driver she had ever been in service to. She remembered how they all died, too: every single one of them failing to withstand her methods. This boy was stronger, she knew, despite looking so young. He had to be, to endure what was happening to him right now.
She did not let Pyra see her smile of satisfaction as they both left the room, shooed out by Dahlia so the water-Blade could heal Rex's wounds.
8.
Title: Sirocco ~ Shining Wind of Ashes
Fandom: Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon/Shining Wisdom
Characters/Pairings: Max, Surtr, Dark Dragon, mentions of Primula
Rating: PG-13
Tags: spoilers, headcanon, weird timeline AU
Word count: 900
Summary: He could not let go of the sword. He cast the spell over and over again but he could not get free.
A/N: this is a bit longer because I have lots of ideas and I want this to be the start of something much longer
Even when everyone but himself was gone, he didn't give up trying to free himself.
He could be heard screaming the incantations of the Egress spell over the rumbling of the forbidden shrine as it began to collapse around him, as the entire structure began to sink into the depths. Magic roared around him, raw storms of arcane energy, more than he had ever summoned before. The small army he usually transported from place to place with this spell was long gone, safely retreated onto the nearby cliff. Only he could not leave, his hand stuck fast to the sword that was still embedded in the skull of the demonic three-headed dragon he had slain.
His mental reserves now spent, he simply tried to wrench his arm free from the sword, then the sword free from the black dragon's carcass. Bolts of energy from the sword crackled up his arms, a sensation as agonising as though his armour was contracting and crushing him. Was this the beasts's last curse or was the sword itself betraying him? It had contained as much Darkness as it did Light... Come to think of it, maybe it had been a grave error from the start to expect it to only work in the service of an apostle of Light to slay Darkness... This could quite easily be the final balancing act, the Breaking of Chaos that the blade had been created for...
The floor felt loose beneath him. As a last desperate measure, he kicked a hole in the ground, hoping that maybe gravity would give him enough leverage to rip a piece of the beast's skull off, stupid sword and all. He would still be falling several hundred feet into freezing cold water while things fell on his head but he would have more chance to survive than if he just stood there and waited. There was a satisfying crack as a mosaic tile fell away...
Another green flash, this time painful enough to make him black out. He still felt as though he were falling, somewhere covered in darkness so thick that there were layers of shadows alive and moving around him. They whispered to him, voices that sounded distant. He couldn't feel anything apart from slight cold, occasional shadows brushing against his face and a terrible numbness. Was this death - final, true death, the kind you didn't come back from through shameless overuse of advanced-level tactical retreat magic that was, shamefully, the only damn spell he knew? Had this been what General Varios and King Guardiana and, he supposed, all his fallen foes felt?
Would he finally be able to rejoin his brother?
No, it hadn't ended yet. He suddenly felt was though he had stopped falling and was hovering in place, possibly upside down. There was a fire. As the warmth of the fire reached him, he felt sensation return, warmth and movement and a flood of replenished thoughts and imaginings and reserves of magical energy that he never knew he possessed and...
Was it just him, or was that fire really, impossibly enormous, so vast that his mind had been blocking his understanding of it so he didn't come down with a migraine or short his magical senses out trying to figure out how high a tier of spell had to be maintaining it?
"NO MORTAL ENCHANTMENT," rumbled a voice that seemed to be coming from all directions at once, echoing endlessly through a chamber that had to be the size of a Cathedral, "ONLY THE FIRST MAGIC OF THE LIVING FIRE AND THE DARKNESS AND THE MOUNTAIN."
Oh, he thought, mind-reading talking volcanoes exist here. Maybe this was some really, really bad afterlife after all. He didn't feel dead, though...
"WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN IS VERY MUCH LIFE. THE ONE WHO CREATED YOU HAS RESOLVED NOT TO MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE, NOT SINCE THE FIRST OF YOU. SHE NEEDS YOU TO FREE HER AND WHILE SHE DOESN'T REALLY WANT ME TO BE FREE AS WELL, OUR BROKEN DESTINIES HAVE BECOME TANGLED UP TO THE POINT THAT WE CAN'T REALLY BE APART. YOU'RE INCLUDED IN THAT, NOW."
He wasn't sure if this was good or bad, or even how to express his opinion by the rules of this plane of primal elements.
"I WILL GIVE YOU A SPELL," said the fire, as if by way of explanation, "AND YOU WILL USE IT TO FREE ME, AND THEN TO PURIFY THE DARK DRAGON CORRECTLY, AND THEN YOU WILL GO AND FULFIL YOUR CONTRACT TO FREE HER. THERE'LL PROBABLY BE A FIGHT AFTER THAT BETWEEN US AND YOU CAN DECIDE WHICH SIDE TO TAKE, OR GO AND LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE A SENSIBLE PERSON, ALTHOUGH WHO WINS WILL PROBABLY DECIDE QUITE A LOT ABOUT THE FATE OF THE WORLD, SUCH AS HOW MUCH FIRE IT'S ON. LOOK, I'M SORRY THIS EVEN HAPPENED. IT'S ONE OF THE PARTS OF THE WORLD YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE UNLESS IT GOES WRONG, LIKE... LIKE HAVING TO FIX A CLOCK YOURSELF."
Um, that's fine, I get this kind of thing a lot, it's probably my own fault for being incapable of finishing a quest like a normal hero, he replied, finally getting the hang of this telepathy business. Then he stopped, What do you mean, how much fire the world is on?
But then the volcano erupted because of course it did.