nero's strand

RestorationStuck RP blog for an older!Eridan Ampora, but multi-fandom and multi-au friendly. Occasionally NSFW and trigger-happy though all are tagged appropriately. Please check out the general info, bio, or headcanon sections for more information. While I significantly prefer para RP, all initial in character interactions will take place online and over Trollian unless otherwise discussed. Trollian Handle: nerosStrand Tracked Tag: nerosstrand

[avitus-ostrander]

Underwater eskimo kisses with Restostuck Eridan and Sollux! (Or Eridan rescuing Solllux from drowning or any number of other things really.)

[nerosstrand]

Underwater eskimo kisses are pretty much the hottest thing ever just like underwater anything is the hottest anything ever. I really dig the floaty hair though its perf as hell! :DDD

[nerosstrand]

cut you like you want me to

[discordantaberration]

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[nerosstrand]

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[nerosstrand]

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[nerosstrand]

Sollux's forced complacency doesn't last long. The moment stretches out but a few seconds, enough for your terse words and spilled blood, cracked skulls and bruised throats. But while they feel like several small eternities for all the adrenaline in your system – the flicker red-blue gleam of his eyes, the sneering curl of his lip, all slowed down to some impossibly slow and erotic rhythm – the actual measure of time is infinitesimal and fleeting and gone.

His hands are on your chest and the heat of them burns like hot brands all the way through the layers of your fine and expensive attire. This isn't his body heat, impossibly warm though it usually is; this is much hotter than that. This is anger turned into aggression gone hot-pitch with hate, and the fabric of your suit burns away to ash beneath his spread fingers in the skip of a single heart beat. You can feel your skin burn.

There's not any time to react, not before he's pushing into you, the violence of it augmented by his powerful psionics. You're swept from your feet, falling back through the air, breath caught in your throat as you have to actually try to correct your balance.

It isn't that you didn't know he was capable of this. You've known that truth for as long as you've known him, evident as much through your childhood scuffles as in your begrudging realization of the inevitable: that as you grew more powerful with age then so, too, would Sollux.

And as suspected, he is nothing if not exceedingly talented. You've spent sweeps involved in countless wars and insurrections. You've known days of fighting without sleep, engaged in combat with alien and beast and troll alike. You've faced things significantly larger than yourself and never questioned the outcome. They were lesser than you, and fate all but promised your victory.

Not in all these past sweeps has someone managed to knock you from your feet. But Sollux – shorter than you, smaller than you, all lean-wired muscle born of desperation a helpless cause – has thrown you back. You let out a triumphant laugh even as you stumble backwards on clumsy feet, your pusher wild just beneath the curve of your ribs. You can feel the pulse of it through the entire length of your body, throbbing even in the tips of your fingers, and your fins flare out, flushed deep violet, teeth barred in a crooked half-snarl half-smile.

The agony that blooms suddenly if belatedly along the flesh of your chest is grounding, and you make use of the way the pain clears your mind to find your balance. It's a small and fleeting relief because he takes full-advantage of your surprise to throw himself at you again. His face is hazy and ill-defined in the smoke that rises slow and lazy from the wounds he's burned into your skin, but even then it's gone, his hands clawing at your sides as he sinks his teeth into the soft, cold flutter of your gills.

The pain is excruciating and nothing you've ever known before and its almost too much and you can't hold back the hiss-growl that tears its way from your throat. Were it not for your control – were it not for all the practice you'd put into teaching yourself the restraint you lacked as a wiggler – it might have been a scream. The feeling of his claws shredding your coat may as well be a tickle compared to the way your neck throbs, the tender, thin flesh of your gills shredding too-easy beneath the onslaught of his unforgiving teeth.

Your blood spills easy along the slope of your shoulder and all down the front of you. Your sides are wet, the fabric of your torn shirt and jacket clinging sticky and damp to your skin, the gills just along your ribs beginning to give under his hands as he rips his way through the thin barrier of your winter apparel.

The sensation is surreal and foreign; no one has ever posed this kind of a threat to you. You'd never let them get close enough, and it's a bit of a shock to realize that his presence against you is no choice of yours but wholly his own. He has fought his way here of his own accord, and for all your damning pride you realize he could kill you as easily as you could kill him.

Sollux spits blood and the frayed remnants of your gills in your face and the mess of it sticks to your cheek and chin, an open challenge, a mockery. There's electricity all up and down your spine, setting you alight, your blood singing in your veins even as it stains your clothes and the white glint of his teeth in that smug mouth of his. “You’re such a cocky fucking asshole, ED,” he snarls at you, eyes burning into yours even as a wide grin splits your own face. “I hate you so fucking much! You’ll be lucky if there’s enough of you left to put back together!”

You don't answer with words and instead strike him hard across his jaw with a half open hand. Your claws catch at his cheeks, tearing jagged and deep lacerations through his flesh that stretch from his ear to the corner of his mouth. The violet of your blood smeared along his mouth and chin mixes with the sudden glimmer of gold that gushes from the fresh wounds, and you think to yourself just how regal and lovely that color combination is.

But there's no time to get lost in aesthetics, and you're fast on your feet, closing in on him even as he stumbles backwards. Your hand – blindingly white-bright and full of the only heat your body has ever been able to produce on its own – makes contact with the sharp curve between his shoulder and throat.

Digging the dagger point nail of your thumb into the flesh just below the sharp jut of his collarbone, you push him downwards, the cloth of his shirt burning to nothing beneath the pale sunfire heat of the power you stole from the corpses of dead angels so many sweeps ago. His flesh beneath the grip of your hand twists and crackles beneath your palm much the ways your own did under his, his twisting face a mess of purple-gold.

“You absolute piece'a fuckin' shit, Sol,” you breathe from between clenched, leering teeth, your smile all razors and maniacal lunacy. You want destroy that sudden surge of smug self-assurance; you want him to scream himself mute. You want to mark him with a thousand different wounds that will leave him scarred forever and you want to shatter him into so many millions of pieces that he'll be forever unable to put himself back together the way he was before.

The hate that fills you is all encompassing and driving, and you're drowning in it and it's okay, it's all right. It's like the embrace of the ocean, hot-cold, bitter-sweet, familiar and omnipresent and god, god, it's almost too much and you can't let yourself lose control because you can't kill him even though the thought of it is impossibly arousing because it wouldn't be worth it, it wouldn't be worth it – to lose this and never have it again.

Your knee catches him in the stomach as you push him in on himself, every claw of your hand buried deep within the flesh of his shoulder now. His body sags against the grip your hand has on his shoulder, his flesh tearing under his own weight, and you push him backwards and to the ground, following his fall with considerably more grace.

He's beneath you now, his heavy breathing a match for your own. Your hands slide up the length of his chest to his throat, tearing his shirt to shreds as you go. He's bony and too-thin, and the tips of your nails catch at the corners of his ribs leaving little prickle-points of yellow all over his gray skin.

When you reach his neck, you take hold of his chin and press your lips to his throat, mimicking his earlier assault as your teeth kiss deep against his warm-flushed skin, down his shoulder and across his collarbones. They pierce his flesh and the feel of his blood wet and hot on your tongue is like a drug, and you want to press your thumb to his throat and suffocate him until he jerks and thrashes beneath you, until he grows still and his lips as cold as your own.

Between your legs, your bulge throbs, slipping easy from its sheath. You snarl into his throat, the flat side of your teeth sliding easy-slick against his flesh. So this, you think, is what proper black feelings feel like: some odd mix of hate and affection and lust and blood and death and life and the realization of it makes your mind blur.

“I won't have to worry about puttin' myself back together,” you whisper, tone oddly affectionate as you nip almost playfully along the line of his jaw. They leave wounds just the same. “Not if I don't mess you up right an' good first.”

[avitus-ostrander]

“I’ll forever stay your perfect enemy”

Adult Eridan and Sollux spending some quality time together.

[nerosstrand]

Helmsman roleplay is the best roleplay... At least until it becomes legit. The colors are perfect and the lighting is wonderful and they both look so cool. Ahhh, inspiration, I feel it coming back.

[avitus-ostrander]

Condy visits Sollux before he is supposed to be made into her new Helmsman. (I had a whole sort of mini comic planned out for this scene  but I am lazy. RestorationStuck stuff in case anyone is curious/confused.)

[nerosstrand]

Shit son, they both look outrageously cool! I love Condy's bling and poor Sol and his no eyeballs look wicked fucking sweet.

AND THEN YOU REMEMBER HOW SAD THIS IS.

[dopey-trollzors-deactivated2013]

You step back a bit, panting faintly from telling off that other idiotic highblood. Your pale eyes look him up and down, when suddenly it hit you. You knew this guy! There had been talk amongst the crowds you tended to linger outside of of this particular seadweller. This had to be none other than Eridan Ampora, one of Condesce’s men. You try not to look so nervous, but he was a MUCH higher rank than the guy you’d just dealt with a few seconds ago. Plus, you were kind of a fugitive.

"Pheh, why does it FUCKING matter to you?" you respond in a cold tone, taking one more step back from him, "Fun’s over now, so you can just FUCKING leave now and busy yourself with something more important than a humble blueblood just trying to protect her-…" You fell silent. Would it be wise to let this creep know that you were a girl, despite no longer having a woman’s chest? You got the feeling that it didn’t really matter to him, so you continued: "I was just protecting myself."

[nerosstrand]

You allow yourself one slowly raised eyebrow as you incline your head to the side, your steady violet gaze fixed wholly on the agitated troll before you. “Excuse me?” Your tone plays at mock bewilderment, but you can't keep the corners of your mouth from curling upwards around your words. “Let me just make sure we're straight here, an' on the same page.”

Taking a single step forward, you close the distance she'd tried to put between the two of you with your longer stride. “You just completely thrashed a troll higher on the hemospectrum than yourself, which is to say nothin'a the rank he's got on you. The self-defense argument might earn you some reprieve, but the rank thing, ahhhh – ” Clucking your tongue, you shake your finger at her like you are scolding an errant wiggler. “That's a bit more serious'a offense. Still...” You shrug at her, sucking in air between your teeth in an expression of regret. “I might've been willin' to give you a pass. We aren't always without mercy, you know.” The smile you give her is nothing but teeth, widening at your own private joke. You are never merciful. “But it's real goddamn hard to feel any sympathy for a bitch who runs her mouth an' can't even pretend at bein' somethin' even close to respectful. Ain't you ever learned that when you want someone to look the other way you gotta ask pretty? Runnin' your filthy mouth ain't gonna inspire me to do shit in your favor. Mostly,” you pause for a moment to suck on your teeth. “It just pisses me right the hell off.”

[avitus-ostrander]

This was intended to be (and still might end up being) the first in a small montage of pictures of Eridan and Sollux through the years, inspired by the opening sequence to the Swan Princess.

[nerosstrand]

The beginnings were innocent enough!

[nerosstrand]

After coming up with the story behind the ring Eridan gave Ara (and the ring she gave him back because heart break sadness) I got to thinking about jewelry and how Eridan drowned himself in outrageous purchases after he lost the love and hate of his life, hurrhurr.

They cause a lot of tension and asshattery at Imperial state dinners. Nefarion isn't ever pleased with Eridan blatantly wearing lowblood colors, but Eridan gives no fucks.

Too little, too late Eridan. >:

[discordantaberration]

vacillation

A wee drabble about Sollux’s conflicted feelings on Eridan in the aftermath of his betrayal.

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[nerosstrand]

I spend all my days mourning Eridan's lost relationships and crying to myself. This is so perfect and sad. I love shit like this jesus christ words.

[thisblogdeadyeet]

[purplefox135]

[nerosstrand]

theres a reason i like bringin all my dates swwimmin

[devildaisies]

your headcanon cecil can be anything

your headcanon cecil can literally be anyone who can make audible noises that sound like speaking

your headcanon cecil can be eridan ampora

[girlmeat57]

And noww, the wweather 

[macncheese-blog]

all hail the gloww cloud wweh

[aquarian-emissary]

today dear listeners wwe find that fuckin sollux has been discovvered by the sherriffs secret police to havve been a spy for the desert bluffs vvultures all along and wwas secretly plottin to plant some evvidence in the ongoin case of allegations that angels havve been helpin our belovved night vvale scorpions wwin at football

of course teh city council reminds us that there arent any glubbin angels in night vvale and there nevver was and there probably nevver wwill be especially since i fuckin killed them all forevver ago

anyone wwith information on the angels or any more nefarious plots by the desert bluffs high school coaches should stand outside their hivves and shout ‘conspiracy’ and the sheriffs secret police wwill be there shortly to take you to the abandoned mine outside of towwn for questionin

in other newws vvriska dropped by the station today wwith her perfect hair and her gleamin smile and asked one of the interns wwhere i livve

theres a good chance im gonna be gettin lucky tonigh listeners though im confused wwhy she wwould also ask intern fef wwhere she could buy some lighter fluid matches propane and gasoline or wwhy shed ask if there was a particular part of the hivve that wwas likely to be more flamable than the rest

im guessin wwhatevvers in store for this community radio host its gonna be hot

ivve just recievved wword from cat troll nepeta dowwn by the car lot that sollux is a glubbin tool

but wwe already kneww that didnt wwe listners

and noww

the wweather

[amorteacolyte-deactivated201707]

kicks self for spending all night on this

the backstory of that little gold ring aradia used to wear on her hand

[nerosstrand]

You know when I was lounging around in bed and half asleep I was scrolling past this and in my near-dead stupor I didn't recognize your art (it was probably the baby Eridan) and as I went on I was like "WHAT THE HECK SOMEONE'S HEADCANON FOR ONE OF ERIDAN'S RING INVOLVES HIM TRYING IT ON EVERY DAY TOO???" and then I got to Aradia and I was like "OH YES NOW SUDDENLY LIFE MAKES SENSE" because that's when I recognized it as your art. Holy shit though, adorable babies this is the cutest thing I think I've ever seen in my life and it makes me SO GODDAMN SAD.

-Throws the snippet of the RP that inspired this at the thread for more sads.-

This ring had been your favorite; you were never without it, even before it had fit you. At the tender age of four and a quarter sweeps you’d discovered it in the wreckage of a ship lost to some lonely and long forgotten corner of the ocean. The violet gem had been enough to charm you but it was your symbol carved so expertly along the inside of the band that had truly endeared it to you.

It was later through the time you’d spent with Vriska that you’d learned it had been Dualscar’s own. Enamored with what that had meant, you’d proceeded to try it on every day until – at seven and a half sweeps – it had finally fit you. You’d been nothing short of elated, as if its presence, snug and perfect on your ring finger, was a mark of your ability to overcome everything that had ever dared to hold you back.

You’d worn it proudly for two sweeps before you decided to make a gift of it to Aradia. Her hands were smaller than yours had been even as a wiggler, her fingers slender and delicate, and you’d had to take it to a jeweler to have it re-sized to fit her. You thought you’d mourn the changes, but the feel of it between your fingers when the jeweler had returned it to you had only excited you.

It excited you because of what it had meant to you and what you hoped it would mean to her.

At nine and three quarter sweeps – on a night when it was storming too badly to take her out – you’d pressed her down beneath you and into the soft blankets of your bed, your cool lips a repeated presence against the slope of her jaw, your hands over her own. Aradia had been receptive, if surprised by your bold expression of affection, but when you’d slipped the ring over her finger and asked her to be your matesprit she’d been speechless. You could tell she recognized it by the way her eyes widened, by the way she’d looked from it to your own ringless finger.

It had fit her as perfectly as it had once fit you.

She hadn’t taken it off.

[nerosstrand]

I hate everything about you

[nerosstrand]

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[nerosstrand]

The heat of the hotel breathes life anew within him. The pallid color of Sollux's cheeks warms to a richer, warmer gray and his movements no longer seem sluggish and stilted as though restrained by the weight of the cold. There's a twitch to the corner of his lips and you imagine his eyes behind the red-blue glass, narrowed, no doubt, to slits. You are struck, suddenly, with the desire to snatch the offensive eyeware from his nose, to crush it beneath the iron grip of your fingers. You want to grind the shards of them into his flesh.

Your hands ache with the effort it takes to restrain yourself. Crossing your arms across your chest you turn your head from him to fix your gaze instead on the red-on-black display that announces each passing floor. The elevator is slowing.

He doesn't take kindly to your bravado or your arrogance, but then you didn't think he would. You hoped he wouldn't. You risk so much with him, running your mouth about thoughts you know you should keep to yourself, but it's so hard. Out of all of them you want him to know just how different you are now. For all the prestige you'd had over him through the mercy of the hemospectrum, Sollux had never so much as had even a shred of respect for you. You'd never been anything more than the butt of one particularly long and embarrassing joke to him, and you are not about to let that travesty go.

“Get your head out of your ass, ED,” he says, voice sharp-edged and snappy. “I’m not one of your docile lowblood slaves and you don’t get to ‘parade me around’ anywhere! I’m not part of your stupid blood-based hierarchy anymore—that’s the whole point of this!”

You're tempted to tell him that you don't keep any slaves unless he considers his ex-matesprit-moirail-whatever-she-was-to-him to be one, but that's a low blow even coming from you. He does not talk much of Feferi in your presence, online or otherwise, and it is equally rare that you mention Aradia in his. For all the subtle but dangerous antagonism between the two of you, there are unspoken rules that even you are inclined to respect.

From the corner of your eyes you catch the all-too-familiar spark of red-blue light, and you cast him a withering sidelong glance in response, your expression a perfect portrait of disinterested disdain. It is a stark counter to the way adrenaline surges within you, to the way the heat of your white-bright energy surges and smolders just below the skin of your arms, of your hands, of your fingers.

You don't bother to will it down. You don't bother to answer him. You don't even bother to properly look at him.

The elevator shudders a bit as it slides past the final three floors, and by the time it stops the energy on the air is an almost palpable thing. You can feel it; it's a searing sensation in your muscles, electricity in your veins. It's as much a premonition as it is something that is happening right now even as you turn to face him.

In your arrogance you've let your guard down, and the feeling of his hands sliding over your own is a surprise you weren't expecting. The warm hue of his blood has fared better at absorbing the heat of the hotel, and his hands are hot again, burning like sweet fire against the ever-cold flush of your skin.

Too late do you realize it isn't just his normalizing temperature. The sizzle-spark of crimson-azure glimmers bright and surreal off the silvered-glass walls of the now-open elevator. The pain that minor light show plays herald to isn't near as brutal as you were expecting, but the thin lacerations that split your palms into perfect parallel lines draw blood and offense all the same. Violet wets both your fingers and his own beneath his grip, and its a moment before you raise your eyes to look at him, eyebrows raised.

All efforts at holding back his animosity seem to have vanished; Sollux is almost trembling with rage, unbridled and unrestrained and raw, evident in the way his lips curl back from a full-toothed snarl. When he speaks his voice is half-whisper-half-hiss. There is no mistaking his intention. “I hope you’ve been saving your creds, because it’s going to cost a fortune to put you back together when I’m through with you.”

You know he expects you to retaliate with something similar, with something he could match. White gray on red blue, all blinding light and scalding heat. It would be fair, you think, but you're not in the mood for even footing.

Instead you pay him one very careful and close-mouthed smirk before you twist yourself in his grip and throw yourself into him shoulder-first. While you've only got a few inches on him in height you have considerably more bulk, and in a contest of strength, you win every time. It's as much a testament to your royal blood as it is to the hours you spend each day further honing your marital skill. You very much doubt coding gives him much of an edge in hand-to-hand combat as Karkat never risks the lives of his most important inner circle in direct confrontation. It's a fact for which you are thankful for more than a few reasons.

He stumbles backwards into the room on unsteady feet; the blow was forceful, but not enough to knock him over completely, and as you cross the threshold of the elevator you press the button to send it away. Your blood leaves a smear of violet across the surface, but you pay it no mind.

You won't make the same mistake twice.

“Really?” You ask him, rubbing your fingers along the shallow gashes of your palm. The ache that blooms beneath the pressure is decidedly arousing, and you allow yourself a full sneer finally, your tongue tracing the gleaming white arch of your teeth as you stare him down. “That's real goddamn considerate'a you Sol; I'm touched all the way down to my fuckin' blood pusher.” You pat your chest right above your pusher as if to illustrate an irregular heartbeat pattern, indifferent to the blood that stains the fine fabric of your shirt just beneath your long coat. “But there's really nothin' to worry about! See, I got enough bloody creds to buy this shithole out twice over which'a course makes fixin' whatever hypothetical an' clearly fictitious beat down you got planned for me a null point. Well, more null than it already was, which is pretty fuckin' impressive Sol. I'd really never pegged you as a comedian; you ought'a rethink your career choices.”

When you cross the space between the two of you, your movements are erratic and quick and – you imagine – difficult for him to follow. You're upon him suddenly and without warning, your hand catching his chin as you push him back even further and slam him unceremoniously against the wall. The crack his skull makes when it connects is deliciously satisfying, and your smile twists further.

Releasing your grip on his chin, you move to press your forearm just beneath it and across his throat. The pressure is enough to stifle the flow of air considerably, but not completely. You want him to struggle; you don't want him to pass out. With your free hand you pluck his glasses from his face, tossing them casually to the floor. They clatter sharply against the ground, and you hope the lenses break. You don't spare them a glance, but find them with the heel of your boot. There's a tinkling sound of shattering glass and then blissful silence.

Snarling your fingers into his hair, you force his head backwards so that the crown of it grinds up against the wall. His horns scratch deep rivets into the wall beneath the forced and jerky motion, and you hope the obvious strain on them hurts.

There is only a few scant inches between your face and his, and your breathing – quick and deep through flared nostrils – stirs the mess of his black bangs. There's a smudge of purple just along the angle of his jaw from where you'd taken hold of his chin; its bright even in your peripheral vision, even as your eyes burn fixed and steady into his own.

“I mean don't get me wrong or anyfin; I reely doappreciate your concern.” You sigh and bat your lashes at him in a mockery of red flirtation. You consider pointing out the second pun, but he's spent enough time with Feferi and you trust he can read the enunciation on the word well enough to pick it up himself. “It's real fuckin' flatterin', especially comin' from such unrepentant landdwellin' filth, but it's unfortunately – for you a'course – terribly misplaced. In reality you should be worryin' about your credit situation an' – more importantly than that, even – yourself.” Lowering your head you run the tip of your tongue up the length of his jaw to clean that stubborn streak of purple from his gold-dusted skin. It feels as if there's an inferno blazing just beneath the his cheek, and you clip him with your teeth just beneath his ear.

The gold that runs in rivulets down the side of his throat is fascinating, and you breathe in slow and deep in an attempt to steady your resolve into something that won't accidentally kill him. Your excitement, you think, is getting the better of you. “If anyone's goin' to be makin' a mess'a anyone here tonight, it ain't goin' to be you doin' the mess-makin', Sol.” You throw your head back to catch his gaze again, regretfully pulling your eyes away from the sight of his blood seeping into the plush folds of your scarf. “But c'mon.” Your voice is cold and hot at the same time, a jeering, taunting dare. “Let's see how good a go you can give me.”

[fruitegg]

fuck this gif i wish i was dead

shitty panel redraw thing of this page and i really am sorry that its split up into a photoset but i just didnt want to mak e the image any smaller 

[amorteacolyte-deactivated201707]

you got the world, but baby at what price?

[nerosstrand]

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[amorteacolyte-deactivated201707]

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[nerosstrand]

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[amorteacolyte-deactivated201707]

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[nerosstrand]

Aradia's wild hysteria peters out into something quieter, into something more subdued. It's a smothered desperation now, a strangled and choked surrender, and it hurts you more than you would ever admit. You wish she'd keep yelling. You wish you could salvage your anger, that you could reclaim that manic glee that you'd known so intimately only hours earlier. Anything would be easier than watching Aradia finally realize what you've all but known your entire life, and the pity that wells hot in your chest is painfully familiar and tempered with a tenderness you despise yourself for feeling.

It's not even that you're holding your tongue as she lays into you again. It's that you've said everything you can and there's nothing left to say any longer. All the words in the world – eloquent, vulgar or otherwise – couldn't convince her. Everything you've done for her doesn't matter because she identifies too strongly with the life she came from and not with the life you've given her. The bitterness inherent in that realization is enough to make you frown, but not enough to jump start that pride-saving barely controlled rage you've come to depend on so much.

When she takes your hand in her own and pries your fingers apart to return the ring you'd given her sweeps ago, you let her. Even without her clarification, you understand the symbolism behind the gesture and it's like a knife twisting deep and painful in your gut.

This ring had been your favorite; you were never without it, even before it had fit you. At the tender age of four and a quarter sweeps you'd discovered it in the wreckage of a ship lost to some lonely and long forgotten corner of the ocean. The violet gem had been enough to charm you but it was your symbol carved so expertly along the inside of the band that had truly endeared it to you.

It was later through the time you'd spent with Vriska that you'd learned it had been Dualscar's own. Enamored with what that had meant, you'd proceeded to try it on every day until – at seven and a half sweeps – it had finally fit you. You'd been nothing short of elated, as if its presence, snug and perfect on your ring finger, was a mark of your ability to overcome everything that had ever dared to hold you back.

You'd worn it proudly for two sweeps before you decided to make a gift of it to Aradia. Her hands were smaller than yours had been even as a wiggler, her fingers slender and delicate, and you'd had to take it to a jeweler to have it re-sized to fit her. You thought you'd mourn the changes, but the feel of it between your fingers when the jeweler had returned it to you had only excited you.

It excited you because of what it had meant to you and what you hoped it would mean to her.

At nine and three quarter sweeps – on a night when it was storming too badly to take her out – you'd pressed her down beneath you and into the soft blankets of your bed, your cool lips a repeated presence against the slope of her jaw, your hands over her own. Aradia had been receptive, if surprised by your bold expression of affection, but when you'd slipped the ring over her finger and asked her to be your matesprit she'd been speechless. You could tell she recognized it by the way her eyes widened, by the way she'd looked from it to your own ringless finger.

It had fit her as perfectly as it had once fit you.

She hadn't taken it off.

You curl your fingers around it now and the gold of it is still warmed from the heat of her. That it will soon grow cold in your position – that it will never be warm again – is a terrifying thought that causes the room to spin, even if only for a moment.

Suddenly you feel very tired.

You take a step away from her and slowly sit down on the edge of a chair, your hand a tight fist around the fast cooling ring. You don't really see her, anymore. You don't really see anything.

It feels like you should say something. Your pride, weak and broken, calls out for blood, for revenge, for something, but its voice is dim and faint and more annoyance than savior. You open your mouth but there isn't anything there, and after a moment you close it again, reaching instead into your pocket with the hand not held fast to the ring.

Your communicator is a searing heat against your fingers and you realize, suddenly, just how cold you are. Numbly you punch a few buttons, thankful that you have no need to speak, that you'd had the sense to work this all out before hand. There is no response, but you know they'll come. You know they'll be here soon, and you return your communicator to your pocket because its almost too hot to hold.

When your eyes flicker back up to her, your face is expressionless, eyes dry, mouth a thin, unreadable line. “Well,” you say, and then you pause, because you still don't really know what to tell her. Breathing hurts. Thinking hurts. Living hurts, and you want to lay down and go to sleep and wake up long after she's gone.

The ring in your hand is cold now, and you set it down atop the smooth surface of the end table, hesitant and careful.

“Well,” you say again, smothering a sigh. “You'll be free to do whatever the fuck you want soon enough.” You don't say that she'd have infinitely more freedom if she stayed with you, because you're sure she knows. You're sure she's aware. And anger stirs to life within you, too little, too late.

It's not even worth the effort. You lower your head and press your thumb and forefinger into your eyes in a futile attempt to let off some of the pressure building just behind them.

[noruirin]

good morning (x)

[auralion-duskwither]

Every Day the Future Looks a Little Bit Darker

Short story about Eridan’s predecessor.

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[nerosstrand]

"Someone should teach the Condesce what the rest of us already know all too well." 

"Someone already has."

---

Eq's player asked what happened to the Psiioniic given that he should have been restored along with the rest of the universe when the Restoration happened - and he did. 

This story neatly explains what happened to the Psiioniic and also to Eridan's predecessor.

It's hard not to be jealous of Condy's life giving abilities.

[nerosstrand]

hey

LIFE STORY:

Opening Credits: “Come Little Children” - katethegreat19

Waking Up: “Girls and Boys” - Blaqk Audio

First Day At School: “Teenage Recoil” - Zeromancer

Falling In Love: “Screenager” - Muse

Fight Song: “Trails of Gore” - SuidAkrA (ahahaha)

Breaking Up: “The Meek” - Homestuck

Life’s OK: ”Come and Kick Me” - Oomph

Getting Back Together: “All I Ever Wanted” - Basshunter (goddammit Basshunter ahahaha)

Wedding:  ”Fisherman’s Horizon: Piano Collections Version” - Nobuo Uematsu (sad.)

Birth of Child: “Hallelujah” - Rufus Wainwright (???)

Final Battle: “The Prince of Egypt (When You Believe)” - Mariah Carery/Whitney Houston (hahaha)

Death Scene: “How’s It Going to Be” - Third Eye Blind

Funeral Song: “Between Two Lungs” - Florence + The Machine

End Credits: “Land Of A Thousand Words” - Scissor Sisters