The Legend of Rose the Bookish Hero
Jul
06
Vigilant
Jul
02
He’s cold. Space closes around his body without the warming blanket of riftspace caressing his hull. He moves a human hand and stares at it, wondering at the warmth of his own body heat and how it doesn’t remove the chill he feels.
Ekos has no pilot right now. He remembers how the temporary sync felt that got them to this solar system, remembers the warmth of human laughter and chatter in the corners of his mind.
They’re gone now. He’s too large a ship to be so empty.
Ekos lowers his hand and settles in for his long vigil.
A Work of Art
Jun
21
He’s a work of art, Dazai—most beautiful when he’s bruised, bloody, with the faint curve of his scheming smile to match the glint in his eyes.
Chuuya buries his hand in Dazai’s hair to pull him closer, grinning fiercely. His blood is pounding. Every nerve ending feels alive and on edge. There aren’t many feelings that can compare.
This is what a job should feel like. Like despite the superfluous chains on Dazai’s arms, despite the clear power difference, each wears equal strength and provocation on their tongues, in their faces, in their bodies.
“After all, I’m your old partner.”
To Stand
Jun
17
It’s downright educational to watch them move together, in perfect sync, like they’ve been doing it all their lives. (They have.)
She watches the way Lock and Key practically dance through the air and through any objects or obstacles in their way, hands outstretched as they mingle their power to devastating effect.
Gloria can’t help but think there’s no one like that for her, no one to reach her hands out to that both mirrors and expands her strength simply by existing, no one like her other half.
Her name over the comm.
She stands and unleashes her power—alone.
Do You
Jun
12
Do you love me? They don’t ask it in words.
Saruhiko asks in the curve of his mouth, a bitter-tasting smile Yata swallows down in a kiss.
Misaki asks with hesitant hands before Saruhiko grips him hard enough to make him wince. He doesn’t wince, he surges up into the embrace to more easily devour each other mouths and skin in hunger.
Do you love me? An arrested hand, an open mouth, those wide eyes wondering as Saruhiko pauses before turning his back.
Do you love me? A fierce grin, demanding words and sword to draw Misaki’s attention.
They answer.
Feeling Loved
May
16
Aya’s heart was hurting in ways she didn’t know how to deal with. You’re not good enough, her mind whispered to her. No one wants you.
She’d never been left before.
It took a while for her to pick herself up, quiet the tears she’d been holding inside herself unshed, and go out to where her dad was working on some computer project.
Aya curled up next to him quietly.
She felt more than saw his surprise. After a moment, he tucked one arm around her shoulders, kissed the top of her head, and kept working.
She stayed there—feeling loved.
Morning Wait
May
13
Skylight woke before morning had fully come. The room was dark, and Math’s warmth and the beating of his heart lay under her head. His arms had come up around her in the night, and she blinked a moment at the sensation of being held.
She had things to do before they flew out to the next mission. There was always last minute mission prep slotted in, and she had always risen early for practice and training, but for a moment she ignored that in favor of this feeling, this warmth, the solid sense of being loved.
Morning would wait.
Let’s Go Home
May
11
“Let’s go home.”
It’s the end of a long day—longer. They’re all weary from battling the Guild, and there’s plenty of mop-up work for the Black Lizard dealing with those who would capitalize on anything left behind. The Port Mafia still rules the local underground and has no interest in letting others get a foothold in their territory.
But at home, they shed that. Ryuunosuke eases into their home with a sigh—perhaps relief, perhaps comfort. Gin makes tea and curls up in a chair, freed of the hard silence that guards her during work.
“Drink,” she suggests.
Her brother drinks.
Actions Speak Louder
May
11
Gin proves herself strong. She’s quick, agile, and more driven by the need for vengeance and to no longer be helpless than by gratitude for Dazai’s choice to take them in.
It was the Port Mafia that killed their companions, and the Port Mafia that punished the killers and rewarded Gin and her brother. The Port Mafia values strength, values proficiency with knives and body and all goes well—until she hits puberty and her voice doesn’t change.
“Nobody listens to me,” she vents, frustrated, to Ryuunosuke as she washes blood from his shoulders where Dazai’s training has harmed him.
“Words mean nothing,” he says in a low rasp. “Actions are everything.”
Gin pauses, considers that, stops her brother from escaping, and finishes dressing his wounds.
She’s getting to be pretty and that’s a problem. She ties up her hair and forces it to be just the right amount of wild, the right amount of out her way. She covers her delicate features with a mask and stares keen-eyed into the mirror. She closes her mouth and makes her points with the tip of a knife instead.
They listen to her. She rises in the ranks. She takes command.
Count
May
06
They count coup: confirmed kills, unverified kills—which covers the halo of supposed inhabitants or workers within a given area when they destroy en masse—and sometimes when the weight gets too heavy, they count things they aren’t required to.
“Five confirmed lives saved. Seventeen unverified.”
“Ten confirmed saved.”
They pass the tea back and forth, alcohol warm on throats too young to be drinking it, and it almost washes away the taste of blood in the backs of their mouths.
Because they don’t care about those numbers. They care about mission success rates, intelligence gathered, acceptable cost.
“Mission success.”
Success
May
06
They add up successful missions over time, beads on a string, but though somewhere in Department headquarters someone tracks absolute numbers, Team 95 only tracks percentages. Ninety-nine percent mission success rate, with the closest hewing to planned acceptable losses across the Projects.
They control the flow of Baganechi raiders around international trade in the region, build intelligence networks, and exploit them ruthlessly, knock problem leaders out of power, manipulate chosen leaders in.
It’s bloody, it’s violent, they’re all too familiar with working in shadows and dealing in bodies and lives.
“Minimize the blood, Skylight,” Wolf murmurs. “Save some of them.”
First / Most
May
06
“Count me in.” Bridge leans forward.
Ice Queen swaps the coin in his hand for a jar of tea. “First kill?”
“Ah. I don’t remember that.”
“Most memorable then,” Arc substitutes with hard eyes. They count them all, adding them up like stones on their backs, in the backs of their minds.
Most memorable was “Saving Augment from that Baganechi over his back.”
Augment scowls, doubtless displeased at the reminder of being thrown from his horse at the caravan, at the old fashioned blade coming down for the kill. “It wasn’t even a planned raid.”
Planned by them.
Bridge drinks.
Head Count
May
06
Augment does head count when they break from the jet at base. He’s been Wolf’s right hand from early on, and it’s his job to interpret the team’s flags, for good or ill.
When Stream doesn’t smile when another team member glances at him, when Ice Queen moves like her bones ache, when Skylight actually looks like she cares… When ghost memories that aren’t Augment’s drift in from Bridge, when Arc smiles as if she means it, when Math doesn’t immediately bury himself in a book or dossier—
“Wolf.”
She pauses, sighs. “Who?”
An answer. Another down for the count.
Smiles
May
06
Stream keeps them laughing. They all have a thing, and that one’s his. He supports and smiles and draws smiles from their lips because at the end of the day, they have to survive this childhood and teenagerhood and time spent as a living weapon before they finally come out the other end.
He counts them sometimes, the smiles he draws from Ice Queen that reach her eyes, the number of times Math’s quiet laugh breaks the stillness, the outright chuckles he can coax from Bridge.
At base, each day he claims dozens. On missions, he’s lucky to get five.
Minimal
May
06
Skylight has made blood of the regions they serve in. The Ogunn block of nations is bloody enough without their team dipping in their hand, but when it comes to mission parameters, it’s Wolf that decides acceptable cost, and Skylight that tells her the options available.
“Minimize the blood,” Wolf says, slowly, thoughtfully, knowing there will be some other cost for even that.
And Skylight minimizes the blood, taking it down from thousands to hundreds to dozens before she digs in both her metaphorical feet and tells her leader, “That is the minimum.”
Fifty-six people dead to achieve their goals.
Blood
May
06
They’re older, practically grown, when Skylight broods for a moment, considering the dance they’re practicing. She isn’t given to brooding, though he’s heard she knits her brows in concentration or thought quite frequently. But she doesn’t hesitate, until she asks for a goal and the instructor says, “Just dance.”
It’s an outside instructor. He doesn’t realize there’s always a goal—whether seduction, intelligence gathering, or even assassination.
“Sex, blood, and violence,” Math murmurs. The mortar with which empires are made. “Arc is the sex, Ice Queen is the violence, and you’re the blood. And that’s okay.”
They dance for blood.
He rolled over in the bed and reminded himself he wasn’t a little kid anymore. He couldn’t turn to his mother for comfort. He had to protect her. He couldn’t go to her when he wearing a reminder of his father.