#squick warning

After enough generations an immortal being mating with a descendant isn't really incest so much as backcrossing.

Backcrossing is a crossing of a hybrid with one of its parents or an individual genetically similar to its parent

Note "parent" in this definition could be a plant. I first learned the term with regard to crops.

Be Careful What You Wish For:

Whumper: Villain Whumpee: Hero’s Sidekick Caretaker: Hero

I feel like I should call this one out for possibly containing a few squicks that people may not like. Spoiler, Villain is meant to save them and ends up turning them into a cyborg, there’s a vague description but nothing too graphic. So yeah, if anyone can think of the actual terms let me know.

Hero heaved their Sidekick up to Villain's door and brayed on the door. It opened surprisingly quickly.

"What do you want now?" Villain snapped.

"Help them! I know you can!" Hero demanded. "They'll die without your help!"

Villain folded their arms and leaned against the door frame. "Why should I? You're my enemy after all."

Hero looked down at Sidekick's flushed face, their dropping expression and their strained breathing. They clutched onto their stomach where Hero had placed them on the floor. They wheezed and cried softly with the pain.

"Because I'm telling you to. I'll pay if that's what you want, but this isn't a normal illness and only you can cure it. Just save them, that's all I'm asking. They don't deserve this."

Villain stood quietly for a long moment. Hero crouched down to talk gently to Sidekick, to try to reassure them. Villain sighed.

"Bring them in, but you have too much faith in me," Villain grumbled.

Hero carefully scooped them up from the floor. Sidekick buried their head into the crook of Hero’s neck. “P.please just make it stop,” Sidekick whimpered.

"I will. Bring them this way."

Hero followed Villain deeper into their vase, and their feeling of dread rose in their chest.

"What happened?" Villain asked.

"They. They got hit with magic, and it's just… not wearing off. They're in so much pain and their body- it's practically rejecting itself."

Villain thought long and hard about how was best to fix such a problem. They didn't even have to look at Sidekick to know that their body would be in a state, perhaps unsaveable in some places. They could save them, that didn't mean Hero was going to like it. They didn't care. Perhaps this would be lesson enough for Hero and Sidekick to stop meddling in Villain's business.

Villain brought Hero into a room and then took Sidekick from them with care. The movement made Sidekick whimper. Yes, it was as bad as they expected. "Wait here. There's a bed and food available in here, use them. I'll be a long time."

Hero waited. 

And waited.

And waited…

They didn't see Villain until the next day. They'd tried leaving only to find themselves locked in. Anxiety had chewed on their body all night, sleeping had been an impossibility. They regretted everything, but if it was Sidekick's only chance… they just didn't understand what was taking so long. Surely it was simple? Just a matter of drawing the power of them. Villain had healing powers, it should have been easy.

As soon as the door clicked open, Hero stood up ready. Sidekick wasn't there, only Villain.

"I've ensured their survival."

"Let me see them," Hero blurted. "Please."

Villain smirked. "Of course."

Hero followed them through more hallways, more corridors until they came to a particularly solid-looking door. Villain unlocked it and gestured for Hero to go first.

Hero fainted as soon as they caught a glimpse of Sidekick's body.

What had Villain done?

Hero came around after a few seconds, they felt sick, they were furious, devastated, and yet they couldn't move, couldn't lash out. They only stared. They stared at the tubes and pipes sticking out of Sidekick's body, the way at least half of their body was now metal and robotics, including part of their face. They looked like nothing Hero could fully recognise.

Hero couldn't get up off the ground. Villain dragged them up, but the movement was enough to break them out of their trance. Hero slammed them against the wall. "What have you done?!"

"Ensured their survival. Would you believe me if I said there was no other way?"

"You've hacked them to pieces!" Hero screamed.

"Their body was shutting down. It wasn't going to come back. Be careful what you wish for, [Hero]. You wanted them alive, then this was the only way. I kept as much of their body as I could. It was left too long."

Villain dug their fingers into Hero's throat to make them step back and let go.

"It's going to take some getting used to, perhaps even some tweaks, but that's not my problem anymore."

Villain headed back toward the door. "They'll be waking up soon- Oh, and of course, we have a payment to discuss."

Villain left, leaving Hero alone with their cyborg Sidekick. 

Hero collapsed back down to the floor, leaning against the wall with their head in their hands.

             ||.  listen not to start di//scourse or anything but... i’m kind of real tired of people in the tangled fandom dismissing varian’s character in favor of idealizing this twisted... dark version of him ?? like, i understand that he’s a villain and it’s fun to mess with that side of him. I get it. I’ve been there; I do it all the time.

          ......but the key difference is that... i know that his villainy ?? that all of his terrible, rash decisions come from a place of deep-seated LOVE. buried love, and twisted love, and “he loved so hard and got nothing so it sharpened into a painful hate” sort of love, but still LOVE. 

           I’m not understanding people who think that his actions are ... somehow not justified ?? despite the show hammering in throughout the 2nd season that, yes what he did was wrong and downright evil .... the gang still messed up ?? the gang was a HUGE part of that downfall ?? they were the calatysts of it ??? just as much as varian was ??? everyone played a part in the s1 finale’s downfall and there is no one person to blame. Each and Every One of the Main Cast played a part.

           &. I’m ESPECIALLY not understanding why people don’t think Varian cares about his friends ?? esp ruddiger ??? he did horrible things to both of them, sure, but... in the case of his friends, he acted out of hurt ?? in terms of ruddiger, well...... he’s proven to us as an audience throughout earlier episodes w/ his appearance within them that... he DOES care about ruddiger. he LOVES ruddiger, and maybe there isn’t any concrete evidence to back me up when i say this but ??? i genuinely believe he REGRETS what he did ?? to ruddiger. 

“... Did it just move?” Briar asked, staring out the window at the massive twisted creature outside.

There were warning beacons marking off about a 500-yard radius around it on all sides; even seemingly dead, the Old Evil’s body had enough power in it that getting too close was a good way to get chopped in half by invisible forces or sent plummeting to the planet below. The miners that got Briar offworld in the first place had narrowly survived just such an encounter.

And Briar wasn’t wrong. Mere seconds after he asked, several house-sized lumps on its surface contracted while others bulged out. One gnarled limb twitched, then another, and then the whole alleged corpse started to convulse, twisting and bubbling until a dark, gaping hole the size of a stadium yawned open on the side facing the planet and the Old Evil’s whole body made a single, unified movement: It contracted, and a column of inky black material shot down onto the planet below, billowing out in all directions as it plunged through the atmosphere, with no sign of stopping.