An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Danny Phantom
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jazz Fenton & Dan Phantom, Danny Fenton & Dan Phantom, Vlad Masters & Dan Phantom, Sam Manson & Dan Phantom, Tucker Foley & Dan Phantom
Characters: Dan Phantom, Danny Fenton, Jazz Fenton, Vlad Masters, Tucker Foley, Sam Manson
Additional Tags: implied sam/danny, post agit, author hasn't read Fair Game yet, Canon-Typical Violence, very light accidental self harm, mention of de-aging in a way, Canon-typical bullying, Dan Phantom Needs a Hug, Parental Vlad Masters, Good Sibling Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton is a Little Shit, But he's trying
Summary:
After waking up in a body that was not his own, Phantom has to learn to navigate a life he left behind and without powers he relied so heavily on.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Dark and light are not evil. Both are only hungry.
A continuation to "candles and ashes". Read that first. Requires some knowledge of Sky lore.
(reblogs appreciated!)
--
Theo knows very well how time works in the Land of Sky, or rather, how it doesn’t. They know the feeling of hearing cheers in the Valley from spirits long passed on, and they know the feeling of tripping over a bunch of candles that wasn’t there before.
But they had never seen a non-skykid so alive before. Oh, Theo wasn’t stupid, they knew things worked differently here. They knew the land was plagued with spirits needing to be saved. But never in their travels had one of them interacted with them. A wave, a bow, and off they go. Theo meets skykids draped in grey and then in brilliant colours. And then grey again, when they meet the awful bittersweet emptiness of the Storm.
Theo knows this: in the Land of Sky, nothing lasts forever.
The awful acid rain won’t last forever. The sunset won’t last forever. It is a constant countdown in Theo’s mind: how much longer will this last? How many more lights, spirits, candles?
Theo doesn’t know - isn’t sure they want to know.
(By all rights, Theo should love the stars, and the light, and the glowing warm gaze of their Mother Her Great Light. Theo is a skykid, starborn starwatched starwatcher.)
Sometimes, Theo wonders when this will all be done, if then their mother will take them into her glow forever and if it will feel like home. They are certain it will feel more like home than the tiny island with the constellations. When Theo succumbs again to the red rock rain at the land, they think that home is farther away every time. Theo wonders if stars are allowed to feel longing.
Theo does not hate the dark they burn away. Theo cannot find it in themself to detest the corrupted Dark Dragons. Theo does not cringe away from the red crystals that slowly drain their light.
Theo had almost turned and ran when they saw the child in the Forest.
(Theo knows Skykids are compassionate. Healers. Not fighters, never fighters. Remember the ancestor spirits. Remember their battlefields and what has become of it.)
Alef. Theo doesn’t know how they know the name. Doesn’t know why that child had almost brought them to their knees. From fear, or from the pressing urge to obey the king . Doesn’t know why the sight of them falling felt like they’d both been here before. Theo shook off their hesitations and lifted a hand to help them up like it was the only option.
Theo has always been a flickering candlelight. They’re not sure why Alef would burn. But they did. But they did. Faintly, they remember a story of Prophets and a King and pride. Remember a story of a King who fell to the Isle of Dawn, but all they brought to the kingdom, eventually, was storm.
So many skykids condemn the dark for devouring mercilessly. The dark’s animalistic urge to take and take and take.
None think of the need to burn away the plants. Or to purify the cursed mountain. Or of how a Prince’s skin blisters under their touch.
When Theo falls to the Storm once more, reaching towards the diamond, they meet an all-too-familiar figure in an empty space. Somewhere between death and rebirth. They offer a hand. Pull the figure to his feet. Offer a hug. Offer forgiveness to a child like them.
Alef was born light and faceless, made to be dark. Theo was born dark and faceless, made to be light. There is not so much of a difference between them.
Dark and light are not evil. Both are only hungry.
Theo has given up everything for this mountain so many times over. And they do not feel guilty when they embrace Alef and pull their light towards them.
At least the dark dragons don’t love you when they steal your light. Alef is forgiven with a hug from a child. Alef accepts penance from the child.
Skychildren are Her Great Light’s true mouthpieces. And She does not know innocence. But She knows justice.
Theo spirals towards what should be home with the light of a Prince, and turns the entire sky golden.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: A Sky fic inspired by the final quest of the Season of Abyss. Contains main game spoilers. Saving the Cackling Cannoneer was never going to be easy, but when has that ever stopped her?
Warning: /
Rating: General
Characters: Sky OC (Candle), the Cackling Cannoneer
Pairing: /
Words: 1,320
Fandom: Sky: Children of the Light
Author’s Notes: Just a Moth writing her first fic about her Sky experiences.
Based on the Season of Abyss, but contains my Sky kid, which I am referring to as “Candle,” she/her pronouns. The Cackling Cannoneer I prefer to as they/them. Hope this doesn’t turn off too much!
The candlelight spirits are not true children; you could set the city on fire with their heartbeat and a drop of their blood.
A conversation in the Hidden Forest.
Words: 1193 | Chapters: 1/1 | Language: English
Read it on ao3
(Reblogs appreciated!)
--
It is a cold night in the Forest, the type of cold that does not snow but settles all the same. He has been warned not to stay out too long.
Boots, scarf, cape. He is smart, for his age. He knows that children have frozen in the Forest. That children have entered the Orbit and stood under Her Great Light frostbitten, with a trembling not-quite-smile.
The ground is firmer than it normally is, and the rain has hushed for once. It drips off the branches of the trees, still, and he finds himself wishing he had brought an umbrella. The blue one, perhaps, that he found in the temple. He likes the blue one; all the kids in his class back in the Isle say it is pretty.
(The rain does not burn him.)
He is young, young enough to not know how dangerous the forest can be in the hazy hours of the evening after the rain has stopped, but when the fog still lingers. Nothing is always safe.
He does not know where he is going. He wants to meet up with a friend, or build a fort, or look for crabs. All he knows is that there is a mystery in the forest at dusk, and being a child, he wants to find it. To crush it with his bare hands.
He has met strange folk, during his travels of the kingdom. Prophets in the Isle, keepers of sanctuary in the Prairie, scouts in the Forest, dancers in the Valley, enchanters in the Highland, mystical characters in the Vault. Lightseekers, families, performing troupes.
It is why he does not flee immediately upon seeing a glowing figure in a clearing.
They turn. Brown cape, shorts and a long shirt, a ponytail.
They’re barefoot. Barefoot in what is probably going to be the coldest night of the year in the Hidden Forest, barefoot on the frozen ground strewn with sharp rocks and sticks.
That is what he focuses on; not the glow emitting from them, not the candle gripped in their small fingers without a holder, hot wax dripping over their hands and onto the forest floor. They’re barefoot.
It is so spirits-damned cold.
They notice him, though, far before he has blinked away his shock. They turn towards him, take a few steps. He jerks away, taking a few quick steps backward, then falling down onto the grass. He doesn’t know who or what this- child -is, and he’s not sure he wants to find out.
He looks down for a few short minutes, hunching himself into his knees, then takes his courage with two hands and looks back up. They look almost feeble, in the hazy evening, flickering candlelight against the long shadows of the Hidden Forest. He offers a quick prayer to Her Great Light (who, he’s sure, would not send someone to harm him, and anyways his light is brighter than theirs) and offers a hand to them. To see whether they would help him up.
They hesitate, too. They are as young as he is, he notices now, and they- must be scared too. But their hesitation is just that (a second) and then they are pulling him up.
They both just look at one another. Two kids glowing in the dark, alone, both scared but curious. He notices things about them, then, that he wouldn’t have from far away.
How the bare skin of their arms and legs is dark, but it is still somehow so colourful. He thinks of black ink and how it’s made of different colours, but this is not even close to describing their skin. It reminds him, he thinks, of nebulae, though he’s not sure how he knows what a nebula looks like. Thousands of swirling colours, dusted over their skin like snow. Pinks and greens and yellows and colours he cannot even describe. He wants so badly to be able to verbalize in his mind the exact shade, but it stays tauntingly out of reach.
And now he finally looks into their eyes. If their skin was the nurseries of new stars their eyes were the deaths. Brighter and more luminous than anything he has ever seen. He remembers supernovas, though again he does not know how. Their eyes are beautiful in the way something doomed is beautiful, and blinding, still.
They move, and he almost flinches away, but manages to steady. They open their arms. After a second, he sinks into their embrace. The two of them need no lantern, even with the fast approaching night. They are a light all their own, pure and untainted.
Moths hover around them, drawn in by the light. They pull away from the hug and lift a hand to one of them, then hunch their shoulders up as if they are laughing, sharing a private joke all to themself. They let down their hand and step back from him. It almost trips them- they do not seem to want to look away from him. They catch themself on a branch of a nearby tree, and the wood gives a burning crack. Their handprint comes away full of ash.
(He does not think about how his skin had not felt burning in the moment of their embrace, but once he is back in full light it is as if he has been laying in the unforgiving direct Prairie sun all day.)
They bend down to a flower. A lily, he thinks, but for a moment it flickers to something blue and black, something darker. He does not have time to take a breath before the lily is burning away into ash, which- isn’t right. They are holding a candle again, a red one, the wax dripping down onto the forest floor but still glimmering like constellations. Where the lily once was is now pools and pools of something as bright as pools of diamonds. He doesn’t ask, not to this child with an ethereal glow and starlight beneath their faceless mask.
They look back up, offer a half shrug and a bow. He knows he has to be home. It is dark, and not things are at all safe in the Hidden Forest after dark. He will be lucky to find his way home.
(He knows he will probably never meet this child again. But he is sure that if he does, he would run towards them with open arms.)
He has never bowed to anyone, but he offers one to them. He then turns away, squinting into his own meager light to find his way back. He takes only a few steps before he stumbles, caught off guard by rocks and a sudden drop. Something catches him, from behind.
He looks up to find the child again, pulling him up from what would have been a nasty fall. He only has time to stammer before they lean close, and speak for the first and last time.
“Careful, Alef,” they say, the closest he has heard to his name as it is sung in the shining tongue of the stars.
The notes of their voice ring around the clearing, like a call.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
someday, someday chapter 4
in which aviva and asher talk.
read it from the start
———
Aviva stepped away from the crowd surrounding Asher, biting their lip. It wasn't Asher's fault they were so good at everything. It wasn't Asher's fault that everyone loved them. But Aviva had hoped to maybe go have hot chocolate with Eli and Asher after; instead, they watched as people begged them for skating tips and racing tips. Instead, Aviva found themself standing on the sidelines of Asher's perfect performance.
