hey sorry for the silence, weekend was whack. my sister set me up with a guy she works with and turns out he was my jhs batchmate??? and he had a literal glowup???? like, "when did you get hot" by sabrina carpenter type of glowup???? so yes, just a tmi, and i was supposed to post a filo! riki smut for his bday but i couldn't do it anymore, so i am cramming jay's fic for my series and hopefully i could post it before 2025 ends. okay love you all, drink water, and happy hoonki day. <3
I KNOW IVE BEEN GONE FOR A WHILE BUT I COME BEARING GIFTS HEEEHEE
This starts out as bullet points but there's a fully written scene at the end, its just long enough that I'd rather put a cut so that it's easier to scroll past if need be.
Also, if yall were fans of Draco and Hermione as a ship, EAT UP!!!
Mk1! RAIN X RIVAL! READER
Think about it!!! The institute of sorcery is the perfect setting for some delicious rivals to lovers settings!
You are a very far off descendant of Shinnok, and for generations the magic in your bloodline had completely vanished. But unexpectedly, this magic resurfaces full force in you. Similar to the power that very first demigod would have had.
Empress Sindel (THINK OF HER AS MORALLY GREY I promise I'm not trying to make her seem evil ;-;) sees your potential to be a skilled outworld warrior, and sends for you to be enrolled in the institute of sorcery.
Thing is, although you have a good heart and good intentions, from a young age, you had never been able to do regular magic. With how powerful your magic is, it baffled those around you. Very few knew the truth that even you didn't know. And that truth was that you simply couldn't perform those magics. The magic in your bloodline was dark, and repelled by any elemental or healing magics.
Despite this downfall, you had a knack for raising the dead in particular. Curses, hexes, and dark magics came easy. You were so innately good at it. Sindel didn't want to loose someone with so much potential, so you became the Institution's pet project.
You were unenrolled in regular classes. Instead, you studied privately with professors. You learned forbidden magics, magics that only you had been able to harness completely without any drawbacks or side effects.
This was common knowledge for professors and students alike. Most avoided you, leading to eating alone for quite a few meals, but some resented you. It simply wasn't fair that you and only you were given the right to learn magic that had been forbidden for anyone else to learn.
One such person was Rain. Rain hated that fact and hated you for it. He would go out of his way to make problems for you. Trip you in the hallways, snicker at your fruitless attempts at elemental magic. Even some of the few plant matter components you needed to collect for a practical exam would come up dead and downed in the gardens. The two of you spent your academic days bickering, even into adulthood.
Even so, Rain wasn't particularly liked by other students in the institute either, due to his prowess with water magic and the jealousy of others. The two of you were both loners for similar reasons. He started to sit next to you during mealtimes to mess with you over petty things, but a few times turns into many. You two started to eat together almost always, go into the gardens together to pick spell components, you would even study together into the early hours of the morning, tired eyes flicking from page to page before simply giving in and falling asleep, then scaring the other awake and boast about it.
As you grew, the bickering remained, but the malice and hatred behind it did not. Sure, you may have been bickering whnever you spent time together, but surely a bit of fondness had formed between the two of you.
One day, you and Rain had a particularly rough fight. More so than usual. Wounding words were said, and Rain said something that struck you deep to your core.
You couldn't heal. You couldn't control water, or fire, or earth or nature. What kind of magic user were you when you couldn't even do the basics of magic as a whole? You were supposedly "powerful" but you hadn't even tried to explore the world of magic beyond your dark and shadowy bubble.
The words had hurt. And it was days before Rain would see you again. You spent your time tucked away in a secluded corner of the library, trying again and again to use these magics you had failed at as a child, and even now you were failing.
Then, you find something in the garden that breaks your heart. What you would do next would break it even more.
---
It's late when Rain finds you, slumped over your desk in tears. He's taken aback. He came to see where you were when you didn't show up at dinner, curious as to where the Golden Child of the academy had gone during mealtime. He didn't expect to find you here like this. Your desk in the library is littered with papers. A single candle lights the area, and a small sparrow lays dead before you.
Rain opens his mouth to speak, but you sit up, wipe your eyes, and after a moment of silence, start to speak without ever looking up at him
"I killed it." The words come out as a whisper. Rain furrows his eyebrows in confusion.
"What?" He moves to stand behind your chair. You still can't bear to look at him.
"I killed it." You say, louder this time.
"What do you mean?" He asks, voice low. It takes a moment before you find the strength to speak.
"I found it outside this morning. A cat had gotten it. I…I thought I could try to heal it." Your sentence is interrupted by a sharp sob. "But I couldn't."
" I did everything by the book. Focused my magic into my fingertips, pushed that magic into the sparrow- but I couldn't heal it. I drained it. I took it's life, Rain. " You gesture at the mess before you with a shaky fist.
"I can create potent mana potions. I can make curses that are so concrete and so indestructible even experienced high mages struggle to break them. Fuck! I could raise armies of the dead with a flick of my wrist if I wanted to! So… so why…" You trail off, swallowing thickly as you do your best to blink away the tears.
"I just don't understand. I don’t…" There's a moment of silence, and you just can't seem to speak. It hurts. It hurts to think of how you failed the sparrow. You let out a another choked sob.
"... I can't believe I killed it…"
Rain is silent. If it was anyone else, anyone else, he would be scoffing. But you're just so… broken. Broken over this little bird that you couldn't save. All he can feel is pity. All his life, he has strived for more. More magic. More skills. More power. He has done all he can to learn the most powerful dark magics that the academy knows of… and here you are, blood surging with those very same potent and powerful magics that everyone else has been banned from learning. And you are broken over one of the most simple spells to learn. He had mastered this simple magic before he had even been accepted into the institute.
Part of him is prideful. The other part is ashamed.
He reaches over you to pick up the sparrow. You look at him with tired, swollen eyes.
"You don't want to resurrect it?" He asks. You shake your head. Rain holds out his other hand to you. And you take it.
He doesn't tell you where you are going, but you follow him anyway, too tired to interject. He leads you into the garden, stops among the plants frequently harvested for casting, and kneels. He digs a small hole, and buries the sparrow. You feel numb as you watch him.
He stands by your side again.
"Everything has a place in this world." He says. "Earth, Water. Light. Life. Death.The same goes for magic. " With a surge of his own magic, the ground becomes wet, and then sprouts begin to grow.
"Death magic and magics as such may be taboo to most, but it has a place. Just as water does." He moves to face you now. You keep your eyes on the grave of the sparrow.
"Just because the magic that runs in your veins doesn't give life, or heal those in need, does not make it any less useful. It does not make it any less powerful. Despite your faults-" You roll your eyes at him. He's relieved a little to see a ghost of a smile on your face. "- You are... still a worthy rival to me."
"You know, even when you're being nice, It feels like you're secretly being mean." You huff a laugh. He smirks.
"Who said I was being nice?" You scoff at him, and before you know it, you're hugging him. You weren't sure why, you did it on impulse, without even thinking. Even so, you don't let go. Rain is taken aback, holding his arms out without knowing what to do.
After a moment, he relaxes, and his arms gently hold you back. Rain's face was flushed. For someone so smart, you had to be an idiot to hug someone who barely tolerated you. You sigh into the hug, burying your face in his chest.
"Thank you, Rain." You mumble. Rain feels his heart do something strange as you do. The sight of you holding onto him so snugly, like you trusted him, makes him feel weird. He ignores it. He has the sudden impulse to lean down and press a kiss to your temple, and then the train of thought derails into the temptation to lean back, take your face in his arms, and kiss you silly.
What an idiotic thing to do, he thinks. Why would he ever think such a thing?
These thoughts aside, when you lean back, wipe your swollen eyes, and complain about missing dinner, he can't help but follow you back into the institute like a lost puppy.
I’m just saying, Suvi’s better than me. if I was sleep deprived, if I recently—within the span of hours saw someone whose safety I was in charge of murdered in front of me while I was unable to defend or move to act because some voluntarily unwashed cannibal decided a light jog warrants death, if I did backflips and risked my LIFE over and over again in the space of hours to make sure BOTH my friends didn’t get murdered, and then took a moment for a well deserved panic attack only for my friends to hand me THAT? First things first, I would scream, secondly I would ACTIVATE. THIRDLY my villain arc would start right there. AND THEN FINALLY, CRUCIALLY, I WOULD GET NEW FRIENDS. SORRY TO MY SUMMER CAMP PALS WHO I REALISTICALLY HAVEN'T SEEN IN LIKE TEN YEARS. ITS TIME FOR SOME INTERNAL RESHUFFLING!
Everytime i start a rewatch of Arcane i get hit with this craving for watching it with someone who hasnt seen it before, like it could remind me of what it was like, watching it for the first time.
