Hey lovely people! So it's no secret I've been shit at keeping anything up to date and I've let a lot of you down r.e replies and interactions: I can only apologise for being so flaky. Had this blog for going on 8 years and I think it's time to catch my breath proper. The dash has become a bit stressful and I feel a lot of guilt being on here.

I'll be archiving (never deleting!) this blog some time in the new year and will signpost on to a smaller multimuse combining Thor with a few of the muses on Compassofsouls. I'll be trying fewer threads replied to faster and wanna make a commitment to actually getting to know my partners better. For those of you who have stuck around, I love you: for those who plan to follow me onwards I adore you <3

In the meantime I'm gonna be answering a few inbox memes and bits which have been hanging about and pre-agreed to carry across to my new blog. If there are any threads/relationships/things you also wanna carry on, please drop me a line here (or send an ask, or ask for my discord, whichever works) and I'll make a note C:

The Vampire Ascendant stood before the man he had bound to an outer bedpost, a vase of sussur blooms nearby preventing the wizard from using magic.

"I'm going to give you this pretty little trinket back so that you can trade it to Mystra for the removal of that ghastly orb, but I must insist you return to me immediately. Now, how do you suppose I can ensure you do as you are told?"

He toyed with the Crown of Karsus in his hands. It was so very tempting to wear it. Yet, even with the power he now had at his disposal, the most formidable vampire the Sword Coast had ever known, Astarion wasn't stupid enough to risk everything trying to don something that had maddened even gods.

Humiliating enough though it was to have proven so foolish as to find himself in this predicament at all, to be cut off so easily, so simply from the weave itself left a coldness in his soul defying all description. Furthermore, the orb, though inactive, seemed to be finding it as unsettling as he; the space between his ribs ached with cold, desperate, hollowness.

He had wondered in the moments before the vampire’s return if this primal hunger, this desperation, was something his companion was, in his own way, cursed with feeling.

Astarion. No longer companion, but something so much more and so much less. Beneath anger and indignation, Gale couldn’t help but feel the hurt of betrayal at war with admiration. The ascendancy of the pale elf had been brutal, cruel, and necessitated power and command like no other. Ambition knows like, and, well...Hate as he might the methods, one can hardly dispute the results.

All except this present manipulation, of course. Tired eyes at last flicked up to meet those of his captor, intentionally refusing to acknowledge the prize in his hands, no matter the compulsion already sending his mind tripping into schemes and plots to get his hands on the crown. The next few hours were going to feel like the highest stakes game of lanceboard he’d ever played.

Hey lovely people! So it's no secret I've been shit at keeping anything up to date and I've let a lot of you down r.e replies and interactions: I can only apologise for being so flaky. Had this blog for going on 8 years and I think it's time to catch my breath proper. The dash has become a bit stressful and I feel a lot of guilt being on here.

I'll be archiving (never deleting!) this blog some time in the new year and will signpost on to a smaller multimuse combining Thor with a few of the muses on Compassofsouls. I'll be trying fewer threads replied to faster and wanna make a commitment to actually getting to know my partners better. For those of you who have stuck around, I love you: for those who plan to follow me onwards I adore you <3

In the meantime I'm gonna be answering a few inbox memes and bits which have been hanging about and pre-agreed to carry across to my new blog. If there are any threads/relationships/things you also wanna carry on, please drop me a line here (or send an ask, or ask for my discord, whichever works) and I'll make a note C:

A small mercy was that it seemed to be completely out of range of the Absolute, which had pissed off the mindflayer parasite for a good few minutes before it settled down and seemed to realise its best hope was for him to get them both back to Faerûn. However that was supposed to be achieved.

This world at first did not seem all that different from his own, but the atmosphere of the first small tavern he entered was vastly different. The air was thick with distrust and fear, far deeper than anything like the settlements outside Baldur's Gate. He didn't stay and felt a group of men follow him beyond the village's limits where their fear smelt worse. As did the environment. It stank of misery, of rot and death and shit. Blood far too long congealed to be appetising. A battlefield.

War. Wonderful.

Nervous though his pursuers were, they had become spurred on with their designs. His shoulder-cast warnings did not dissuade them. They were poor and hungry. They fancied robbing an outsider who looked like he'd have a few coins and trinkets. As soon as he sensed one rushing for him, he whirled, fangs bared, flame conjured in his palm.

"I said Fuck. Off."

They tripped over themselves to get back. Called him a demon, a monster, a witch. It was so tempting to kill them for getting in his way. Except it seemed they weren't the only hungry ones here. Shapes appeared among the scattered bulk of the dead. The stench of rot and gore grew stronger. And then they moved fast.

The men screamed and fled. Astarion watched an undead beast leap upon one of them, ripping and tearing like...like a ghoul, but on all fours and somehow even uglier. More of them burst across the field, beelining for him, snarling at the fire in his hand.

"Oh hells. Ignis!"

He threw the flame at the monsters, earning a pained screech, and bolted for the woods.

He ran headlong into the sturdy frame of a now-disgruntled horse and its white-haired rider.

“Ploughin’ monsters! You can all’ve yer fuck off!” Almost knocked off his his feet, the man didn’t waste time spitting or cursing further, instead continuing his headlong plunge for safety.

Geralt, expression immobile as he soothed Roach in the wake of the panicked man, would not have given the words any thought if not for the terror with which they had been delivered. Battlefields were notorious for necrophages, and sure enough it was only a moment longer before an echo of guttural burbling reached his ears, followed soon after by the acrid tang of burning flesh. Someone was using fire.

“Come on, Roach.” A nudge with his heels and he spurred his horse into a canter, silver sword in hand.

Those ghouls remaining out on the battlefield had not expected a Witcher to ride past, and were summarily dispatched in passing. Riding through, quick yellow eyes and heightened senses took in all he could: the fire had been used before someone cut into the woodlands, and if the stranger’s earlier comment suggested anything…there could be another Witcher abroad. Probably wouldn’t take too well to sharing a contract, but he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to check in with a Wolf in these times. Leaving Roach at the edge of the trees, Geralt chose an angle to head them off and loped through in pursuit.

He burst onto the scene with all customary enthusiasm, casting aard to flatten the first ghoul which had turned to pounce upon him before the sword descended in a glittering arc upon it before whirling into the next. It was a short confrontation, leaving Geralt to forego pleasantries and ask the most pertinent of questions: “Is that all of them?”

Any disappointment to note that the man he had tracked down was a stranger and did not carry the scent of a Witcher was quickly overcome. They were white-haired, like himself, but dressed more akin to Dandelion and certainly not clothed in the usual attire for Velen. Presuming they had money, what the hell were they doing this far off the roads?

Corlana stands, nearly as frozen as the lake itself, at the edge. She stares at the icy surface with great distrust, eyes squinting into a glare as if all she wants to do is stab the surface with her sword.

Ah, if only all problems could be solved that way.

"And this is the only way to get across? Surely we can just walk around the damn thing."

A ridiculous suggestion. She knows that time is of the essence and, if they hope to stay out of the Sun's gaze, they need to reach the other side before morning where they'll be hidden under the shadow of the mountain.

Damn it all.

Should she tell her reluctant travelling companion that she can't swim? No. Her pride won't allow it. It's far better to keep that to herself.

"You should go. Ladies first and all that."

He had only been partially joking with his earlier comment. Though notably taller and broader than Corlana, the paladin’s armour adds significant weight: if anyone is at risk on the ice, he believes it to be her. Though the grim suspects he cannot freeze or drown, he’s not of a mind to experiment.

Keeping a firm grip on the willow branch, Nate relents enough to test the edge of the frozen surface and slithers about a foot or so out, unusually quiet with the focus of keeping on his feet. It also prevents him from biting back a retort to her comment, though it tempts him to abandon her and cross the ice in his other form.

[Give my muse something]

He's still breathing heavily after his last jaunt to get to Thera, scarlet plumes of smoke and the acrid scent of brimstone dissipating in the blustery evening as he lands before her with all the silent grace of a feline.

It's a silent grace only somewhat at odds with his disheveled hair and several ragged little marks to his suit. As far as he's concerned, coming straight from work lends him a little rogueish charm.

"..."

It's one of those moments - the ones where her lips part with the instinct to reply, then falter when words fail to arrive. Yes, she had appealed to him not to be late (or at least to let her know, because sometimes X-Men business just be like that), and yes, there may have been a tired tone underneath. But popping up so soon after an obvious battle, when even after the brimstone vanishes curls of his hair still smoke like the pirate he wants to be ...

He could have just called. Granted the notion of arriving fresh from fire, steel and blood does kick over some of her more primal inclinations, but those usually pair with the adrenaline of having been part of the fight herself.

 “No cheering crowds? No big kisses? No “goodness, Kurt, you kept your word, I’ll order in pizza and hear all about it?” tch. Can I renegotiate if I come back even more dramatically?”

A wink, and he drops the act long enough to press a quick, affectionate kiss to Thera’s cheek, a brief and wordless communication of gratitude that he has made it back to her. In this line of work, it’s never a certain thing.

Your help. Eyebrows shoot up at once, and the persistent ting of Mobius’ fork at last pauses. A little dramatic flair, something to aim for, at least, might just stave off some of that moping for now. He’s going to find a way to help Loki get back to the life he’s fought so hard to build, but in the meantime if stabilisation and security are the focus, everything else will have to wait. Besides, he’d said he had a life to live – and he does – but who’s to say he can’t freelance now and again? It nags at him now that he can't take this rest, not truly, until the story's done. With Loki out there it just feels incomplete.

Loki smiles at the man, achingly bittersweet. There’s liable to be a god-shaped tantrum on the horizon at the choice he has made, but for now he doesn’t truly feel it is unfair. Not given the alternatives. He knows his mistakes and his wrongs, he knows his original path was fraught with misery and death. It’s only right he takes on this responsibility, for the love of Mobius, if anything else. And how wonderful it is that he can still see him.

He starts somewhat from where they left off.