𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄! this is a low-activity, selective writing blog run by achilles featuring test muses from dimension twenty, the magnus archives, and more. i am not affiliated with the creators of this media and the characters belong to their respective creators. give my rules a read before interacting with me. muse roster under the cut. this muse list will change routinely, as this sideblog is for muses whose voices i’m testing or muses i want to write briefly rather than making them permanent additions to the roster.
because of their stories & settings, this writing blog will explore some dark themes. triggering material will be tagged upon request. this blog, like all my muses, is a sideblog to @miscelliany. all follows will come from there.
the legend of zelda.
ser link of hyrule, champion of the wild
dungeons and dragons: honor among thieves.
doric of the neverwinter wood
xenk yendar
dimension twenty.
riz gukgak
bruce “kugrash” kugrich
captain k.p. hob
big barry syx
not another d&d podcast.
hardwon surefoot
vance “deadeye” cybin
request only muselist.
the magnus archives.
jahnu “jon” sims
timothy “tim” stoker
sasha james
michael “the distortion” shelley
pokemon black & white.
natural harmonia gropius, or n
stranger things.
all muses are anti-duffer and have heavy headcanon influences.
edward “eddie” munson.
jane “eleven” hopper.
max mayfield.
hands wrapped around two wooden vulkens suspended from the blüdhaven community center ceiling, dick grayson glances down at taro. with ease he shifts his grip so instead of being vertical to the padded floor below, he’s horizontal, facing it and his friend. “you saw that, huh?” his voice is somewhat strained. “names like that come up sometimes when you’re just starting out. it’ll pass, —” one hand releases. “—glowstick.”
there’s something endearing about their grimace. it’s their typically meek demeanor giving way to something more assertive underneath. dick offers a lopsided smile. “okay, okay, i’ll cut it out — for now.” free hand finds the rope the climbed to reach the vulkens. with one fluid motion, he releases the gymnastic equipment and slides to the ground, touching down on the pads below. “it shouldn’t matter what the gotham gazette says, anyway.”
hands wrapped around two wooden vulkens suspended from the blüdhaven community center ceiling, dick grayson glances down at taro. with ease he shifts his grip so instead of being vertical to the padded floor below, he’s horizontal, facing it and his friend. “you saw that, huh?” his voice is somewhat strained. “names like that come up sometimes when you’re just starting out. it’ll pass, —” one hand releases. “—glowstick.”
a gentle, floral breeze rustles the castle drapery. standing with his boots against the stone floor instead of the grassy meadows outdoors, link can’t help but feel somewhat out of place. rich, deep blue fabric hangs at his shoulders. there’s a high collar at his neck and a slanted hat atop his head. his hands and feet are clothed in pristine white boots and gloves. the leader belt is tight at his side, and the master sword’s sheath glitters in the afternoon sunlight.
turning his gaze away from the rippling grass and smoking mountain outside hyrule castle’s window, link turns his attention to zelda’s room. she’d left him seated at a small, round table in its center when her handmaidens spirited her away to be fitted into her royal attire: they were to have a formal audience with the king to discuss hyrulean champions’s training. as her guard, link is honor-bound to attend.
everywhere he looks, there’s evidence of her research. the piles of paper on her desk possess her characteristic cursive, the four-poster bed is unkempt, dried leaves and flowers — no doubt subjects of her research — are scattered across her vanity. the room is like zelda herself: designed to be the stifling quarters of a courtly princess, yet teeming with life and color.
with little fanfare, she reenters.
@pompedia: ❛ well? how do i look? ❜
link studies her attire: the high, gold-lined collar that mirrors his own, the puffed shoulders, the long hanging sleeves. the dress is a vibrant royal blue rivaled only by the late afternoon sky. it’s undeniably beautiful, but…
« different. » his eyebrows raise. there’s no sign of displeasure on his face — only the barest hint of concern. « do you like it? » his brow furrows slightly, and he lingers on the word you as he signs.
evening fell quickly. where it would typically take an hour or more for the sky to darken following sunset, it was already a deep blue-black in less than a half hour. fewer stars shone overhead. even the moonlight appeared faint. they were entering somewhere dark, both in character and in physicality. link reaches into his bag and draws out a torch. he strikes together the flint and fire steel so — whoosh — the orange firelight comes to life. the twenty-odd feet of light it would typically shed is swallowed by the surrounding darkness. it flickers as though caught in a breeze, thought the trees overhead do not stir. the trees themselves appear to cluster closer together the further they press on.
the previous evening, they’d sheltered in a farming town about a day’s trip away. rumors of a dragon in a cursed montane wood brought them to the darkness before them now. the town’s carpenters had discovered the dragon on a journey to gather timber. the forest’s pines made up most houses in town. its folk had been going missing since the reputed dragon’s first sighting: some had been investigating the rumors, others pursuing their departing relatives. the remaining townsfolk had offered an ample sum for their recovery.
link scans the visible extent of the forest floor. something glitters dimly a foot ahead of them. he catches lae’zel’s arm before she strides onward.
@chmarva: "i don’t have time for distractions right now."
insistent, he places her hands over his so she can feel what he’s signing. « it’s not a distraction. look. » the object that caught the torchlight is a small steel dagger. its carved wooden handle is characteristic of the nearby town’s woodworking techniques. was it left there in someone’s haste to flee the wood, or as a sign for potential rescuers? « can you tell how long it’s been here? »
He's been watching the other with an intent curiosity. Being around new humans is still a foreign experience to Oliver, and he's not sure whether he even likes meeting them yet. But Mark had brought this stranger into the house, and usually the people his brother talked to were safe. Still, the tot remained wary of any unfamiliar presences.
"You," Finally deciding to offer Eve an attempt at a greeting. "You know Mawrk?"
eve had felt the boy’s eyes on her since she entered the grayson’s house. there was something discomforting about being there, the site of so much adversity in the last nine months. oliver had been through so much. eve didn’t know whether to acknowledge his staring or whether to leave well enough alone.
distracting herself from that indecision had been easy enough while mark was there. but when he’d received a call from cecil, he’d jetted off after killcannon, promising to be back within a few minutes. it had come somewhat of a relief when oliver spoke up. eve stood and crossed the room to sit cross-legged before him. “yeah,” she offers a slight smile. “we used to…go to school together. now, sometimes we help out cecil.” she offers a demonstration, a spark of bright pink energy hovering above her palm. “maybe you’ve heard your mom talking about him?”
"Maybe I just don't understand where all the controversy lies." It's kind of strange, having someone else to talk to in the white room. Most of the lab techs that the GDA employed weren't really worth engaging with. But the addition of the second incantation of Nightwing to the typically isolated department they'd been assigned to was promising to the resident scientist. "Stedman is quite open to the fact he makes the difficult decisions. Why is the idea that our employer capable of being a bad person so absurd to the Guardians?"
ben wraps strips of cotton fabric around his wrists and hands, bracing them for further fights against sinclair’s reanimen. even with the padding afforded to him by the dark-wing suit, ben’s knuckles are still split and bloodied from his last test of sinclair’s tech. the the white room’s characterizing noise surrounds them: the overhead lights’ hum, scientists talking amongst themselves, tapping on keyboards, hissing of lasers, whirring of a drill. ben’s grown as much used to it as he has sinclair’s company. confinement had bonded them in a way that wouldn’t have been possible outside the global defense agency. ben looks over one shoulder at him, having moved to wrapping his other hand. “‘controversy’s’ uncharacteristically gentle of you.” he flexes his hand, testing the wraps. “it’s real black-and-white with them. comes with being a hero sometimes.” there’s a trace of bitterness on the word ‘hero’. ben turns around more fully. “that’s why they’re having a hard time realizing stedman’s more gray.”
the kobold sits hunched over the lunch table with her adventuring party. greataxe and backpack of dangling plush charms propped up behind her seat and an empty sandwich container and half-drunken mango soda in front her. kipperlilly's blabbering about another adventuring party, the bad kids, again / about her specific disaste for their goblin rogue... again. mary ann can't visualize whom she's talking about because she doesn't pay mind to who's in her class, hasn't been despite several months into freshman year. by now though, it feels like she does, at least with the bad kids ( and unfortunately for kipperlilly, none of them have any classes with her ).
she continues listening, of course, but only half-heartedly when a repetitive high pitch beeping captures her attention. immediately unhooking the crystal tamagotchi from her jacket's pocket with claws bouncing between three buttons—a newly hatched pixelated mimic moves back and forth demanding for her. … @potpourris
flipping open an orange spiral-bound notebook, lucy jots down names between sketches made during her classes. though she’s everything kipperlilly is saying before — aguefort’s favoritism of the bad kids, gukgak’s advantages in their classes — she makes an effort to ignore the persistent hum of students’ cafeteria chatter. next to the name riz gukgak, lucy sketches an angular face with large ears, shaggy hair, and a newsboy cap perched atop it. next to the name figureoth faeth she sketches a round face, pointed ears, curved horns, and a long braid. they’re visual aids for her and for her friends. despite her tall stature, lucy’s reserved demeanor affords her inadvertent obscurity. with it she’s been able to observe each of the bad kids from afar: kristen in their shared cleric classes, fabian on the football field, adaine in the library, gorgug in the cafeteria, fig in the parking lot practicing a skateboard flip, and riz in the hallways. lucy adds corresponding symbols next to each of the bad kids’ names. she’s beginning to outline a stack of books next to adaine’s name when hears a persistent beep at her side. she watches mary-ann unhook the crystal from her backpack and notices the pixelated mimic. lucy’s eyes grow wider as she watches mary-ann tend to the creature.
lucy ducks slightly to level herself with her friend. “mary-ann?” her voice is little more than a stage whisper to prevent kipperlilly from noticing the diversion. “what is that? it’s so…cute!”
luke gawked. 'you just bypassed the charge coupling completely.' hopping down and around the ship and punching a few buttons in the droid hooked up to the machine, the open mouth expression whipped back to bix, 'and the intereference reading is... fine!' the shock bloomed into a grin as he faced his feet to the mechanic, hands settling on hips, 'say, where'd you learn a trick like that?' @miscelliany for bix
bix flashes a smile that draws sharp contrast to the hardness in her eyes. “i’ve been learning tricks like that since I could hold a socket spanner.” she’d fallen into the easy rhythm of ship modification hours before the rouge squadron left the hangar. stripping parts, inserting fine-tuned replacements of her own design, and the acidic smell of rhydonium were the only things that followed her from ferrix to the rebel base. she’d expected to fall back into that rhythm when the rogue squadron returned, but it seems her routine’s been interrupted. luke’s is a welcome intrusion. she’s hardly heard the words charge coupling and interference reading come from a pilot’s — not a mechanic’s — mouth. “you’ve done ship repair before?”
aaron wakes with a start to find he’s surrounded on all sides with pillows. as his eyes adjust to the low light, he recognizes the pattern, the feel of the fabric. he’s in his own bed. he doesn’t feel the cowl around his face, but does feel the nomex of his suit. the last aaron remembered, he was following a distress call from a civillian just down the street. after dispatching one of her attackers—and recieving a gunshot wound just above his hip in the process—he’d staggered forwards, red rush close behind…
he blinks hard and looks up. the curtains are drawn, so the figure that stands before him his backlit, little more than a silhouette. it’s a silhouette he’d recognize anywhere. “josef.” aaron moves to sit up and is struck with a sudden, sharp pain. he suppresses the urge to wince. “what happened?” there’s urgency in his voice. anything could have happened between now and then, be it to josef or to the civilian.
@potpourris / darkwing .
quick hands reach out to help Aaron sit up, knowing full well the extent of the damage . gunshot aside, when Josef found him, Aaron looked like he’d been hit by a bus . except the bus was on fire, and was full of bears . he shouldn’t have been walking, nonetheless out fighting . Josef’s worry and held-back urge to chastise Aaron is clear even in the low light as he gets closer, sitting on the bed next to him with hands lingering on the other’s shoulders .
❝ everything’s fine . ❞ he says quietly, tone more dim than his usual voice . he isn’t angry, not upset with Aaron necessarily, but he’s worried as all hell and a little miffed that Aaron of all people pulled a stunt like that — wasn’t he supposed to be the responsible one ?
❝ no one else got hurt . ❞ well, aside from the guy who shot Aaron . he’ll probably need a nose job after his face heals . ❝ I took care of it . so you don’t have to worry . ❞
Josef sighed then, gaze falling from Aaron’s eyes to idly graze over the wounds he knew were still present . he was by no means a doctor, but apparently Aaron’s constant lectures about how to treat certain wounds stuck after all . the worry is thick in his voice . ❝ why were you out there in this kind of condition ? you could have died . I could have lost you . it’s a miracle I was already out looking for you . otherwise … what would have happened ? ❞
the grant estate had fallen silent since aaron took up the cowl. in the few hours he spent there between city general and the streets, he had become acutely aware of the cavernous space left behind by his parents. his footsteps echoed of its it’s high, ornate ceilings in the many early mornings step passing through its empty rooms after patrol. even in the city’s meager moonlight, aaron noticed signs of them everywhere he looked. his mother had rearranged the living room the morning of the day they were arrested. she’d traded the softer, round pillows aaron preferred for the square, stiff pillows embroidered with a golden lattice. they still sat on the velvet living room couch. the brazillian dark roast his father drank sat untouched in its package besides the coffeemaker.
these familial vestiges had driven him from most living areas of the estate. its air stagnated. its rooms gathered dust. it was as though the house itself was holding its breath.
the house had suddenly let that breath go. it wasn’t his speed alone that makes aaron feel as though josef’s presence filled every room in the estate — it’s his warmth, both literal and metaphorical. aaron’s breath catches when josef’s hands finds his shoulders. he’s met with two disparate sensations: the heat of his hands and the chill air. aaron places one hand atop josef’s own and squeezes it, as though to dissolve the tension that knits josef’s brow.
it’s not hard to identify the flat affectation in josef’s tone. aaron swallows hard as both relief and turmoil settle in his stomach. the civilian was safe, but at the expense of josef’s safety. searching josef’s gaze as it passes over his wounds, aaron’s mouth presses into a line. there must be something josef’s deliberately not telling him. had he brought their attackers to the police? how had he diffused the situation? aaron is about to ask for more detail when he’s stunned into silence by the sheer worry in josef’s voice.
“i had to be.” his reply is immediate, instinctual. “this city…” his throat constricts. “i can’t leave it alone.” he speaks not only of responsibility but of inability. midnight city has been abandoned for more than a decade. criminals of all caliber took advantage of its vulnerability. with volunteer policemen aiding citizens only at their leisure, those that need dark-wing have little recourse in his absence. aaron’s gaze is distant, as though he can see the individual violent struggles that plague midnight city through the curtained windows. “if something happens to me, it won’t be needless. it’ll be in the service of something greater than myself.”
a sting of pain forces him back to reality. when it’s abated abated by the soothing heat at his shoulders, aaron’s gaze meets josef’s own. “i wish i could tell you that you won’t lose me.” his voice is not the resolute, dutiful intonation of darkwing, but the gentle timbre of aaron grant. “but we both know that’s not the nature of this job.”
kino’s “i can’t swim” ending is just as heartbreaking as nemik’s accidental death and there’s a valid (and i bet intentional) reason why they both feel so unsatisfying: there’s nothing romantic in fighting against the empire. there’s no such thing as a “warrior’s death” or “honorable death”. it’s all a mess. there’s only recklessness, sweat and death.
aaron grant had left the guardians’ headquarters another corpse amid five. all but one of the guardians had been lifted from the ground and placed on stretchers, broken bodies askew. aaron had taken a silent breath, waking from unconsciousness so deep, so dark, he hadn’t remembered slipping into it. his senses returned to him one after the other. first, he heard the low hum of an aircraft engine. then there was the hard surface beneath him, the sensation of cool metal permeating his suit. the worst of it was when aaron smelled blood. it permeated the room like early rot: he could feel it in his nose, running down his arm, welling in his mouth. it was all he could taste. his vision cleared slowly, revealing the veiled but recognizable forms of the guardians — his friends — before him. aaron squeezed his eyes shut, but received no reprieve. there it was again, just as vivid as the first time it happened: the thud of a fist through alana’s flesh, the sharp crack of holly’s neck, the sickening crunch of josef’s skull. alana, holly, josef, his friends, his friends. aaron closed his eyes. thud, crack, crunch. he grit his teeth. it was all he could do to keep from weeping, from vomiting. his friends, his friends, his friends.
aaron woke again in chicago. the light that filtered through a half-shuttered plane window was warm and mocking. the memory that again intruded was vicious and bloody. it had happened in a matter of minutes: in the fraction of a second between when josef had shoved the immortal away from an incoming attack, pure instinct had caused aaron to reach for the the sonic device he carried. aquarus’s subsequent blast had slowed omni-man long enough for aaron to set it to the right frequency, but he still wasn’t fast enough. omni-man grabbed ahold of josef’s wrist tight enough to fracture it, he’d reached up and taken ahold of his head…by the time aaron had set the frequency, it was too late. only then did the frequency sound, inaudible to all but the viltrumite. time seemed to slow when omni-man turned his sights on aaron, imbalanced and in pain. when the blows landed, he’d subconsciously categorized the injuries like he would a patient at city general. the time he’d tried to buy the guardians had cost him six broken ribs, a badly punctured lung, and a dislocated jaw.
a shadow falling over him had mercifully interrupted his thoughts. slowly, his eyes adjusted to the light, making out a familiar face: cecil stedman.
moments later he’d staggered down an alley, concealed as best he could by the afternoon shadows. just the effort of standing was immense. torn muscle and broken bone protested beneath his weight; his every exhalation intentional, forced.
the communicator stedman had given him is pulsing quietly in his hand. the only evidence of its efficacy is the boy standing before him, shocked as aaron is himself that he still lived. there’s a stab of sympathy amid the pain. my dad. his expression of disgust matches mark’s own. aaron feels his brow furrow, bile in his stomach rising to his throat. aaron had trusted that man, the man that pretended all this time to be one of the guardians, the man they’d trusted with the key to their headquarters, the man that had helped them rescue civilians them from countless dangers, the man that had murdered his friends.
through blood, he speaks. “he tried.” omni-man had tried to murder him. so far, he still lived, but he couldn’t go on alone much longer. it wasn’t self-preservation alone that drove him to seek mark’s aid. the boy deserved to know what his father had done. the monster that had torn aaron’s friends apart couldn’t have been anything like the father mark had grown up with. omni-man was hiding something from them, something deeply violent, merciless, cruel. mark deserved to know the truth firsthand.
“your name…” aaron puts his forearm arm against a wall to support himself, clutching his side with the other. “is markus grayson. you…” he draws in a ragged breath. “invited the guardians…to your twelfth birthday party.” there’s a twitch of his facial muscles, as though he’s trying to smile at the fond memory, but his body has forgotten how. “i showed up…thirty minutes too early. time enough for a utility belt demonstration.” as though speech exhausted the last of his strength, he slips down the length of the wall, legs collapsing beneath him.
