lmao i was that person who introduced killian as xephos and omfg im having god awful war flashbacks bc of you. I hope you are happy. good job on bringing back the mistake. Hero.
omg were you i am so sorry but i feel like that may have been the reason i followed you? came for the trash stayed for the better quality content lmao
I feel like the yogscast fandom are like the seagulls from finding nemo. Once any tiny bit of plot happens, we all swarm to it and cuddle it for the next forever because something is finally canon!
Warnings: None that I can think of, let me know if there’s anything I should mention here
Summary: Zoeya’s frustrated while working on the nuke, Rythian tries to talk to her and finds out there’s more to her stubbornness than he thinks.
Notes: The song is a parody written by Rythian. This is a very lovely video of it. The whole idea for this story came months ago from my best friend rowenar11, who was talking about writing a song fic based on another song. Props to her for inspiration because I actually kind of love this story.
~
Zoey was not working on the nuke when Rythian brought her lunch. In fact, she was nowhere to be found. Usually she was curled up inside it from morning to night, researching and tinkering and rerouting. He’d even found her asleep on the power node once.
Rythian put the mushroom soup down as far from the nuke as possible. He drifted a few inches off the ground toward her nook of wires, pipes, levers, computer screens, and loose paper covered in zeroes and ones. Her bronze wrench stuck out of a broken computer face.
“What on Earth…?” Rythian touched down and carefully freed the wrench. “Zoey? Are you down here?”
No shock of red hair appeared from the platform above. No bright voice replied, “Right here--Fishton, no, stay out of there!” Rythian’s brow furrowed. Zoey hadn’t been anywhere else for at least a week now.
He flew around the nuke just to be sure, then tried to quell his growing worry. There wasn’t any reason to believe she’d been hurt. Surely she was somewhere around Blackrock. Still, when he didn’t find her in the dusty, wrecked lab searching out some device or the other, he found himself calling her name a little louder.
He drifted up through the unrepaired hole near the castle’s entrance. His scarf almost tore on a jagged bit of stone.
“We have got to fix that,” he muttered, walking in the direction of the farm. “Zoey? Are you out here?”
She was, though she made no reply. Relief flooded him when he saw her just past the M in FARM. Or, HARM, now. He walked toward where she sat cross-legged in front of the old still she’d never gotten back around to working on. He still had the bronze wrench in one hand.
“Hey,” he said. “Is everything okay?”
Zoey nodded, of course. Her yellow glasses wobbled and then slipped over her face. She pushed them up the bridge of her nose, all the while not looking at Rythian. He took a seat next to her, not too close.
“I’m okay,” she insisted. “I was just wanted a break from working on the nuke.”
“Break” must have meant farming, because her arms were covered in dirt. Rythian glanced back; some of the sugarcane looked a little scorched.
“Right. Do you--want any help?” He hesitated, because he knew he was a useless farmer. Still, he wanted to do what he could.
Zoey almost shouted, “No!” When she saw the surprise on Rythian’s face, she went red. “No, no, I can do it myself. I know I can.”
Rythian turned his palms up. “I know you can too. Do you need anything?”
“No, that’s okay.” Zoey leaned her head against a barrel. There were dark circles stamped under her eyes. It seemed without thinking that she added, “You’ve already done everything for me. I have to do this.”
Rythian frowned, more at her tired eyes than her words. “I think you need more than a break, Zoey. You’re exhausted.”
Eyes closed, she smiled wide. “I’m fine, Ryth. You’re such a worrywart.”
His fingers tightened around the wrench in frustration. Why was she so stubborn? They could just wall off the stupid nuke and be done with it, but Zoey insisted on defusing it. He wasn’t a worrywart--he had every reason to be concerned!
“Just let me help,” he said, trying to keep frustration out of his voice.
Zoey stood up then, quite suddenly. She whirled away from Rythian, and he heard her mutter “Maybe the blue one...splice it with that…” He had the distinct feeling he was being ignored.
“Zoey!” He floated to his feet right behind her. “You don’t have to do this. Obsidian is blast resistant--”
She turned so fast that her long hair whipped his face.
“I don’t want that! I can do this!” She stepped back when she realized how close they were and how loudly she was shouting. “You’ve done so much for me. You and Teep. I can--I’m--I can fix this.”
Rythian still didn’t understand, but after those words, he was starting to. There was more to her stubbornness than a nuke and binary codes and a castle in danger. Her face was set, but her eyes were glassy.
“Sorry,” she said. She was backing down again, face red. But she stopped herself and took a very deep breath. “You’ve done everything in the world for me. I want to show you I can do everything in the world for you. You protect me, so I want to protect you for once.”
She wanted to protect him. Rythian felt something warm well up in his chest. He took a small step forward and, when she didn’t pull away, touched her shoulder.
“You’ve done so much for me already.”
Zoey gave a strained smile. Rythian hooked the wrench into his belt so he could hold her tanned, tired face between his hands. He pushed the glasses away from her eyes.
“Believe me, Zoey. You have done so much.”
She held on to his arms. “I don’t feel like it. You’ve made all these cool, amazing things like flying rings and awesome armor, and I can’t even fix a nuke.”
“You helped me make all that.”
“Not really.” She grabbed his hand when his face fell. “I appreciate it, Rythian, I really do! You made me all this cool stuff! It’s just, you made it all for me. I didn’t do anything myself.”
Rythian swallowed his own pride. Here was relentlessly positive Zoey trusting him with her insecurities, and all he could think was, have I been such a bad teacher? Justifications didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was how much she mattered.
“You made this whole farm yourself. You’ve taken care of Daisy and Steven and J.R.”
She pulled away involuntarily and rubbed her eyes. “I know, I know. I’m a farmer and a rancher and a hacker and a brewer and a mage’s apprentice and a technomancer and all that. But look at what’s happened to my farm.”
Zoey gestured at the still-smoldering crater, then laughed and sat down. Rythian crouched next to her.
“That was not your fault.”
“The only other thing I managed myself was Barry.” Her head was in her hands. “And that went so well. I meant to help and I just made a big mess. And I can never finish anything!” She hit one of the barrels next to her. “I just can’t. There’s so much, and I can’t do any of it right.”
She looked so tired and small just then. Her hair stuck up all over the place, dwarfing her face, and her pink stripes were smudged. Her fingers twitched as if she was fiddling with wires in her mind.
Rythian also felt very small. All he’d ever wanted was to protect Zoey--he’d never thought she could feel inadequate. Not her, who did so much for him. He admitted to himself that he’d wanted impress her, too.
And he’d left her thinking she was useless.
He did not know what to do. He thought of her renovating Blackrock. He thought of her befriending a cautious dinosaur. He thought of all the care she gave her mushrooms. He thought of her coming home. To defuse the nuke. To protect him.
How was he supposed to tell her how much that all meant?
There was a song he’d written a few days after her return. That night after they’d decided to work in magic and science, together. Technomancers, together.
Rythian took the wrench from his belt, twirled it in his hand. He pulled his scarf a little higher to hide his blush.
“She’s my engineer, she wants me to be too.”
Zoey looked up in surprise. He offered her the wrench.
“Combine both arts and make them one, together--”
She took the wrench and leaned into him. Rythian’s breath caught.
“--me and you. I have my share of reasons to not go there again.” He shrugged. “Perhaps this time it won’t be quite as bad as it was then. Flying by the moonlight…”
And on that he took her hand. They drifted into the air like dancing partners, flying.
“...together there’s no fear. Hear the pretty laughter of the girl with fire hair.”
No laugh, but she smiled and leaned her head against his chest.
“Engineering, oh I will go. Engineering, engineering I will go.”
He hummed then, and she joined in when she caught on to the tune. They turned slow circles in the air. When the second verse started he grabbed her hands and swung her in a wide circle. She shouted and laughed and held his hands tight.
“Quantum helmet, red katar, a wrench that’s made of bronze. Uniting both philosophies, just like I dreamed of once.”
When he stopped spinning her, Zoey’s momentum still pulled them both into a twirl. She threw her arms around his neck and held on. He held her waist.
“Come with me to Blackrock hold, together we will be,” he leaned his head toward her and said earnestly, “the greatest technomancers they will ever see.”
Zoey smiled, floated up a few inches, and kissed his forehead. “Engineering, I will go,” she sang.
Rythian hoped that she understood from the song just how much she mattered. He didn’t know how to tell her that she was capable of everything. So he hoped this was enough, and that she could find that strength herself.
By the light in her eyes, it seemed that might be so.
When he brought her breakfast and a refill of coffee very late the next morning, Zoey was just beginning to repair the computer screen. Its fractured light reflected off her glasses. She looked in her element once more, wrench in one hand, fistful of instructions in the other. She hardly glanced up when he set the food down near her. She did, however, grab the new coffee mug without so much as looking and took a long drink.
“Morning, my engineer,” He took her empty mug. When he was walking away--there was no use waiting for a reply, she hardly ever said anything while so focused--he heard her whisper behind him, “Morning...enderhunk.”
Summary: The Hats find refuge in a fae village, and the fairies find their story...unsettling. For the yogfairyau
Notes: Credit for the original script and plot of this story goes to falcons-strike
Welcome to the forest, to flower fairies and lightning mages, to cursed humans and tainted exiles. Shadows lurk here, black and purple. Still, there is much that is good, if only you look. But mind you don’t look too long, or you may never leave.
~
Fools who play with fire are the first to burn.
Klang. Klang. Klang.
The alarm from an old church bell sent ripples through the sleepy community. Candles and fireflies lit up in waves beneath the circling crow. The masked fairy rang the bell three times before flying back and guiding them to a landing.
Several fairies fluttered from their mushrooms and trees and nutshell homes. The first was a stocky black-haired man, his eyes made huge by glasses with dewdrop lenses. From what could have been a watchtower flew a woman in a nightgown and oversized mouse leather jacket, her blonde hair twisted out of her face.
“We have injured! Get Minty!” yelled the masked fairy as they touched down.
In just a moment a woman appeared, her dress plain brown, her hair tied up in a scarf. Her expression was alert and concerned.
“Where are they? Who’s hurt?”
The masked fairy didn’t speak again after his announcement. He just gestured at the two bloody bundles near Smiffy. In a moment, and with just a few words, Minty rallied four fairies to carry Ross and Trott to her hollow-log hospital. She commanded easily, as if she’d done this before. More than once.
Smiffy wanted to follow, but the man with glasses stopped him outside the hospital. He was short but tough.
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do now. They’re in the best hands.”
Smiffy rubbed his eyes. “Yeah.” He didn’t have an argument left in him. He just collapsed into the dirt with his back against the log and waited.
Minty moved quickly, summoning bandages and setting up tables. Her assistants worked easily around her. In only moments Ross and Trott were facedown with their bandages removed. There was a lot of blood.
“This one’s got bad burns on his hands, how did he—? Never mind, we’ll deal with it later. Nilesy!”
The man with glasses started. “Yeah?”
“Come in, I need you to stop their bleeding. They’ve lost too much, they can’t afford any more.”
“Wait, both? At the same time?”
“Yes!” she snapped. “Both at the same time! I need to get this done as quickly as possible.”
“Okay, okay.” Nilesy put up his hands in defense. There was no fighting Minty—she usually won, because she was usually right. He vanished inside the hospital.
Meanwhile, outside the log infirmary, a blonde woman approached Smiff. She had big, feathery owl wings that matched the primary feathers under her blue eyes. What he liked most about her were the two cups of soup in her hands.
“Hey,” she said tentatively.
“Hey.”
She sat beside him. “Rough night?”
“You could say that.”
She handed him a wooden cup. It warmed his hands.
“I thought you might not have had anything to eat in a while. Name’s Lomadia, by the way.”
“Smiffy.”
She nodded, then sipped from her cup. “Try it. It’s good.”
He did. It was hot and heavy and full of vegetables and meat and gravy. He swore he’d never tasted anything better. Maybe there was a little bit of magic in the broth, too. He stumbled over a thank you.
“No problem. You looked like you needed it.”
“I guess. It’s just, it’s been crazy. You know?”
Her piercing eyes studied him. “I don’t.”
“Oh, fuck, right, of course not. It’s—a long story.”
She shrugged. “It’s too late to go back to sleep. Or too early, I guess.” She nodded at the tree-covered horizon. “Sun’s coming up.”
“That’s fair.” He shivered. It had gotten so cold without his fire.
That didn’t go unnoticed by Lomadia. She shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over him despite his protest. After a second he gave up and snuggled into it.
He told her about the captured fairy while awkwardly trying and failing to avoid the part where she’d exploded. Lomadia didn’t comment on that, however, positive or negative. He told her about waking up with wings and how his were made of fire, and how that went a little south when their house went up. He told her about searching for fae to help them, and the vampire bat, and how everything went wrong.
Lomadia was quiet for a while after he finished. Smiffy’s arms were crossed as he waited for judgment.
Finally she said, “You were human?”
“Just this morning.”
“And you conjure fire?”
Smiffy spread one of his wings, which immediately lit up. “That would appear to be the case, yeah.”
There was another long pause. She was watching the lightening sky, processing.
She looked back with one more question on her lips. “And you met a bat. That’s why your friends are hurt?”
Smiffy pulled the jacket tight around himself. He felt a chill in the air.
“Yes. Does that mean something?”
When Lomadia sighed, her breath made a cloud in the air.
