You reflect.
It’s what you do.
Noise you don’t want to hear, fists thrown, bullets fired—all of it bounces back and strikes your attacker with the slightest bit of your attention, or even less.
Scepter 4 was responsible for all kinds of supernatural activities and cleanup. It was perhaps forgivable that in the course of one of these cleanups, Fushimi Saruhiko packed up into the van a particular bundle of odd-looking feathers and scales that reeked of magic, noted it on his report, and thought little more about it. (more…)
“The thing is, Chuuya himself couldn’t spell out a numbered list of his reasons for leaving. He didn’t weigh up the good and the bad and make a logical choice. He saw an opportunity, received an offer from Fukuzawa, and he took it because it felt right.” — Find I’m Between Love And Anguish by geckoholic
Dazai thinks he knows why Chuuya joined the Port Mafia, and because he thinks he knows that, he also thinks he understands why Chuuya left it for the Armed Detective Agency.
The second time Ishalat saw the Stone Prince, her heart clenched with the fierceness of her anger. He had the sword at his belt that had slaughtered hundreds of her people and the expression on his face was known for: nothing, in the terrifying manner of those who do not care what blood stains their hands if it is for the object of their own loyalty.
“You’re really fucked up, aren’t you?” a low, rough, altogether too familiar voice sounded in Dazai’s ear.
He raised his head muzzily and looked around for a too short redhead with anger management issues. “Chibi.”
Anyone who was going to be Chuuya’s partner was going to be competent at knives.
Dazai winced and blew on his newly bleeding fingers. Chuuya held out his hand. Dazai stepped forward to hand back the knife.
“You meant to do that,” he accused in an undertone.
“You asked for the knife,” Chuuya answered incredulously.
“Yes, hand it to me, not throw it!”
Dazai glared at Chuuya. Chuuya glared at Dazai. They were teenagers, but when they were together, they might as well have been little kids.
Chuuya suddenly grinned, sharply. “I’ll teach you.”
“I am competent.”
“You are bleeding.”
They talk about their mother all the time, but sometimes Mary swears Dickon sprung up full-formed from the moor that might as well have given him birth. The animals swarm him with delighted sounds, gentle as though they were tame, and plants grow under his fingers as though his blood sings with magic.
The beanie had never been decorative. It kept people from bothering him, just as the loose sweatshirt served its own purposes to hide some of Yata’s less common features. He’d never liked leaving his tail out in public where anyone could grab it and pull and he’d only ever let one person give him scritches behind his ears, and that was a long time ago.
The blood of priests and oracles ran thick in the royal family. Eleya had wakened from night sweats and visions when she was sixteen seasons old and been delivered to the convent furthest from the Royal City at the Heart of All Things. There she was devoted to the gods, and what has been devoted to the gods should not be taken back again.
There was always the element of balancing political relationships and the intricately woven web of loyalties, rebellions, even small defiances, and having the right lineage in the first place when it came time to evaluate the four royal spouses a new monarch must take.
The Northern Prince was about what they’d expected, slight of build and almost delicate in appearance, with fair skin like morning clouds and blue eyes like chinks of sky, narrowed at them in wary distrust. That delicate look, those airy features had always been deceptive, and even the most coddled royalty of the first of the Four Lands had an uncanny ability to survive.
The Queen’s bedchamber was opened and aired through the day as the servants cleansed it from top to bottom. The Queen herself was not allowed within during the process. Eleya tried to occupy herself by moving upward through the castle’s once familiar halls towards a destination she could not remember.