Hi, I'm thatnightlamp, this post is to help you to avoid scrolling down too much.
This blog of mine is to satisfy my delulu, and I will post some pretty cringe things too.
English is not my first language.
I have A LOT of fandoms, I will have tags so you could avoid fic that you don't like.
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My main focus now is Warhammer.
I do NSFW. I don't do dirty requests aka SC*T, and requests that are too much for me.
Requests will be answered super slow or super fast, depending on what ideas and how many motivation I have for that fic, thank you for understanding.
I loved the last chapter of the isekai AU, although I felt really sorry for Robust Gorillaman 😭😭 That's how I think Rodent Guilliham is going to feel after being rescued and fed by Farmer Reader
ur isekai curze fic is SO compelling!! i cant wait to see what happens next. Just the idea that readers holding this baby primarch, having NO idea what is even happening. Thank you for posting it, I've been thinking about it all day 🥰
For isekai farm au: does the reader have to hide medicine inside treats, or are the primarchs good boys who take their pills without complaint?
The Primarchs weren't very fond of medicine. Especially the taste. And having to take the medicine felt insulting to them even if it's wrapped in their favorite treat... what? TWO kisses? It's fine then.
There was no dignity in it. No command presence. No statesmanship. No measured strategic withdrawal. There was only a fat little hamster body moving with shocking speed through roots, weeds and dry leaves while something much larger tore after him with murderous focus.
He had already discovered several things about being a hamster, and all of them insulted him.
His legs were fast, but only in brief bursts. His heart beat so hard it felt like a drum under his ribs. His entire body was shaped by nature around the principle of becoming lunch if caught in the open. His teeth never seemed to stop wanting to work. His paws were pathetic. His cheeks stored food whether he approved of it or not. Worst of all, fear moved through the little body so quickly and so strongly that it swallowed thought if he let it.
Right now, fear was trying very hard to swallow thought.
Behind him, claws ripped through the leaf litter.
Roboute squeaked and veered left around a root. The sound offended him almost as much as the situation itself. He did not know how a squeak could carry so much panic and so little authority, but somehow the body managed it perfectly.
A shadow flashed over him.
He threw himself forward and hit the ground rolling. Claws struck the dirt where his back had been a heartbeat before. Loose soil sprayed over him. He smelled earth, leaf mold, and cat.
Cat.
Not just any cat.
The Lion.
No, not Lion. Not anymore.
The creature hunting him had Lion’s aura, Lion’s heavy frame, Lion’s long, thick golden hair, Lion’s terrible directness. It had the broad paws and tufted ears of a Maine Coon, and it moved with the awful certainty of something that knew the forest belonged to it. But the mind inside those green eyes was wrong. Roboute had seen no recognition in them. No thought that held. No reason. Only hunger, rage and the savage fixation of a predator chasing smaller life.
Roboute darted under a fern and bolted for the nearest hole he had marked earlier.
His world, once full of star charts and legislature, had shrunk in two days into routes between burrows.
He dove headfirst into the opening.
Claws scraped over his back. Pain flared like fire. Roboute squealed and kicked forward on instinct, wriggling deeper into the narrow tunnel as dirt rained down around him.
A paw drove after him and gouged the entrance wider.
Cold terror flooded him so hard his paws almost lost their rhythm. The tunnel was barely big enough. If Lion dug with real determination, if the dirt was too loose, if the entrance gave—
The ground above him thundered.
A snarl exploded overhead, then a shrill, furious scream that was very much not cat.
Roboute froze in the tunnel.
Something large slammed into Lion. Leaves churned. Dirt shook loose over his head. A body hit the ground with such force it jarred his teeth. Then came a series of violent impacts, scrabbling claws, a thump against roots and the unmistakable pounding kick of hind legs striking flesh.
Roboute backed up in the tunnel until he could turn. He was breathing so hard it made his whiskers tremble.
He crept toward the mouth of the hole and peered out.
A huge streak of yellow and brown had launched from the brush and collided with Lion in a burst of flying leaves. For one disorienting second Roboute could only stare, because the newcomer was almost gigantic from his current scale: long-limbed, dense-muscled, powerful hindquarters and alert ears laid flat against the head. A hare. A very large hare.
Not merely a hare.
Dorn.
The realization hit a second after the first shock.
The hare body was wrong and absurd, but the stubborn blunt force of what he was watching was familiar in a way nothing else in this nightmare had been. Dorn had got both front paws braced against Lion’s shoulders and was actually wrestling the cat. It was not elegant. It was not graceful. It was mostly a determined refusal to yield an inch. Lion twisted with a guttural snarl, raking with his forepaws, and Dorn took the hits without retreating. Then Dorn drove both hind legs upward with a brutal two-footed kick that caught Lion in the chest and hurled him backward through the dry leaves.
Roboute crawled halfway out of the hole and stared.
Lion hit a tree trunk hard enough to make the bark shiver.
For a moment there was silence.
Dorn landed awkwardly, sides heaving. One ear was bent wrong for a second before it righted itself. His fur was full of leaves. He looked ridiculous. He also looked, in that moment, like the most glorious thing Roboute had ever seen.
Then a dry, exasperated voice struck into Roboute’s mind.
«Are you planning to keep gawking, or will you get out of the hole?»
Roboute nearly swallowed his tongue.
«Dorn?»
The hare turned one bright, hard eye toward him. «Unless there is another son of our father presently trapped in the form of prey with a talent for kicking cats, yes.»
Relief hit so suddenly it made Roboute’s legs wobble.
He scrambled fully out of the burrow, then immediately stiffened as pain caught up with him. The scratch across his back suddenly burned much worse now that the immediate need to survive had eased. He hunched instinctively.
The late-arriving fear followed it. His whole body began to tremble.
This, he thought with mounting humiliation, was not entirely emotional. The hamster’s nerves were simply built like this. Terror arrived late and complete, shivering through every inch of him until even his whiskers quivered.
Without asking permission from his dignity, his cheeks tightened.
Roboute made a small appalled sound as several seeds popped out of his cheek pouches and onto the dirt in front of him.
He stared at them.
Then, equally against his will, he snatched one up in his paws and began gnawing.
Dorn looked at him.
Roboute, crouched beside his burrow and mechanically eating a seed while leaves drifted down around them, tried to preserve what remained of his authority. «Do not comment.»
Dorn’s whiskers twitched. «I had no intention of doing so.»
That meant he absolutely had.
Roboute gnawed harder.
Ahead of them Lion lay on his side, motionless against the roots of the tree. His massive tail twitched once. His fur had gone dull with dust, and one foreleg was stretched oddly.
Dorn kept his breathing under control by force and began edging forward.
Roboute swallowed the last of the seed and dropped the husk. «Wait.»
«If he is dead, we confirm it,» Dorn said. «If he is alive, we decide what is to be done.»
«He tried to eat me.»
«Yes.»
«Repeatedly.»
«Also yes.»
«That should influence the decision.»
Dorn continued forward. «It does.»
The hare moved with infuriating calm, ears angled forward, paws placed carefully through the leaves. If Roboute had still possessed a human face, he would have frowned at that back. Dorn was hurt; Roboute could see places where Lion’s claws had dragged through the dense fur. But the hare’s spine remained straight and his pace did not hesitate.
He reached Lion and stood over him.
For a breath nothing happened.
Then Lion’s eyes snapped open.
He moved so fast that even expecting violence did not help.
One moment he was prone in the leaves. The next he was a blur of golden fur and claws exploding upward. Dorn leaped sideways, but Lion still caught him across the shoulder and sent him rolling. Roboute squeaked in horror. Lion hit the ground, skidded, recovered and spun toward them with ears flat and teeth bared. His pupils were huge black wells. No recognition lived there. No pause. Just that same raw, wild fury.
Then he kicked backward, all four paws digging at once.
A cloud of dry leaves and dust burst upward so thick it swallowed him.
Dorn lunged in.
He came out the other side alone.
Lion was gone.
For three full heartbeats neither of them moved.
Then Dorn stamped a hind foot into the dirt, once, hard enough to make the leaves jump.
«Damn him.»
Roboute’s fur puffed in every direction. «Gone? How is he gone?»
Dorn turned in a tight circle, scanning the undergrowth. «He used the dust for cover. Already moving before it settled.»
«That is impossible.»
«For a cat in a forest?» Dorn shot back. «No. For us? Yes.»
Roboute went cold all over.
He could hear the forest again now. The ordinary sounds had returned around the sudden absence: insects, the far rustle of branches, a bird calling from high above. Ordinary noises. Worse than noise. Silence in pieces. Anywhere Lion might be moving among them watching.
Roboute whipped around and stared into the bushes. Every patch of shade became fur in his mind.
That at least was sensible. Roboute forced himself to breathe once, twice, and the chewing urge returned so powerfully he almost hated his own body. Instead of yielding to it, he shoved the next seed deeper into his cheek and straightened as much as a hamster could.
«Agreed. We need defensible ground.»
Dorn looked down at him.
Roboute ignored the size difference and continued. «Somewhere with narrow approaches, overhead cover, and at least two escape routes. Preferably ground suitable for tunneling. Distance from open meadow. Near water if possible.»
Dorn’s expression, insofar as a hare could produce one, shifted from battle-readiness to something more assessing.
«You have not been idle.»
«I have been hunted for the better part of two days.»
«By Lion?»
«By Lion,» Roboute confirmed grimly. «He found me almost at once after I woke. I escaped only because hamsters are built for strategic humiliation.»
Dorn gave him a long look. «Strategic humiliation.»
«Burrows,» Roboute snapped. «I mean burrows.»
Dorn’s ears tipped backward for a moment. Roboute had known him long enough to read that as dangerously close to amusement.
«Come,» Dorn said. «Explain while we move.»
They left the ruined patch of ground at once.
For creatures their size, the forest was enormous. Not beautiful. Not majestic. Merely enormous. Roots were walls. Grass was a thicket. Fallen branches became barricades. Open spaces were killing zones. Shade could hide anything with teeth.
Roboute ran a few body lengths behind Dorn, not because he enjoyed the position, but because Dorn in hare form cut a clear path through the leaves and also because if Lion came out of the brush again, Roboute preferred something larger and more kick-capable to be between them.
«How did you find me?» he asked.
«I heard you.»
«Squeaking?»
«Yes.»
Roboute wanted to die.
Dorn added, «And your thoughts were loud.»
That made it only marginally better.
They moved between fern stems taller than tree trunks should have been. A beetle the size of Roboute’s head climbed over a stone and made him flinch aside on instinct before his mind could catch up and classify it as harmless. The humiliation of that joined the rest.
Dorn seemed to handle the body far better than Roboute expected.
The hare moved with quick confidence. He bounded roots cleanly, turned without slipping, and held his ears constantly in motion, using them like antennae for danger. It was not that he liked the body. Roboute could tell that much. Dorn’s sheer disapproval of circumstances radiated from him like heat. But he had accepted the form with the same grim practicality he had accepted sieges, attrition, and impossible building demands all his life.
Roboute, by contrast, had spent part of the morning discovering he could not cross a shallow puddle without feeling like he might drown.
«What do you remember?» Dorn asked.
«Of waking?»
«Yes.»
Roboute jumped a small stick and nearly failed it. «Cold. Damp soil. Total darkness. At first I thought I had been buried alive.»
«Pleasant.»
«Quite. Then I realized the space around me was already there, not coffin-like but narrow and natural. A burrow. My burrow, apparently. I surfaced at dawn into this forest and immediately saw Lion.»
Dorn glanced back. «He attacked at once?»
«He stared at me for perhaps three seconds first. I thought he recognized me. Then he pounced.»
«Did you speak to him?»
Roboute gave him a flat look. «I announced myself. By name and title.»
Dorn was silent.
Roboute bristled. «I was operating with incomplete information.»
«You informed a predator of your precise location and identity.»
«I am aware of the flaw in hindsight.»
Dorn faced forward again. «He found me few days ago. Near a stream. He blended in with the branches high above.»
Roboute almost stumbled. «Above?»
«Yes. He descended with hostile intent.»
For one moment the absurdity nearly broke through Roboute’s fear. Lion El’Jonson, lord of dark forests and brutal campaigns, reduced to dropping out of branches like a common forest menace. Then he remembered the claws and the humor vanished again.
«Did he recognize you?»
«No.» Dorn’s voice flattened. «He made no sign of it.»
They pushed on through brush until the ground dipped. The air cooled a little. Roboute lifted his nose and caught the smell of water not far away.
Dorn slowed. «You smell that too?»
«Yes. Stream. Good.»
«Or bad.»
«Both.» Roboute scanned the ground. «Water draws everything. But we will need it.»
Dorn angled away from the scent rather than toward it.
Roboute understood instantly. «You want to parallel it, not sit on it.»
«Exactly.»
There were moments like that, even now, that made Roboute want to laugh and perhaps bite something out of sheer relief. Even in ridiculous bodies, even hunted through the undergrowth by a deranged cat, Dorn remained Dorn. Solid. Methodical. Irritating. Reliable.
Ahead, an uprooted tree rose from the earth like a small fortress. The root ball had torn a deep hollow from the ground when it fell long ago, leaving a pocket beneath the tangled roots. Moss grew thick along one side. Thorny vines had claimed the outer edge. A narrow animal path led past it, but the interior was shaded and partly concealed.
Roboute stopped dead.
«There.»
Dorn surveyed it. «Explain.»
Roboute’s heart picked up, but this time from something close to purpose. «Root shelter. Existing overhead cover. Dense tangles on two sides. I can dig into the softer bank beneath the roots. If I extend a tunnel under that moss line and another toward the path, we have at least two exits. You can clear and reinforce the approach with thorn stems. If Lion enters from the front, he cannot easily turn inside. If he reaches in, I can go deeper. If he circles, you can hit from the flank.»
Dorn studied the site for only a few breaths.
Then he nodded once. «Acceptable.»
The word nearly felt like a medal.
Roboute scrambled beneath the roots, sniffed, pawed the ground, and found the soil damp but workable. Good. Not ideal, but good. He began digging.
Nothing in all creation could have prepared him for the deep physical satisfaction of burrowing. It was appalling. It was efficient. Dirt peeled away under his forepaws with ridiculous ease. His body stretched and pushed and wriggled through narrow spaces naturally. Within moments he had lengthened an existing hollow into a proper tunnel. Loose earth kicked behind him in a neat trail.
Part of his mind screamed that he was a primarch and should not enjoy excavating like a grain-loving mole-thing.
The rest of him thought, very clearly, this angle need widening.
Outside, Dorn worked with equal focus. The hare could not carry branches the way a larger beast might, but he could drag thorny lengths of vine and hook them into place, trample grass flat, and mark the safest approach paths with scent and memory. He tested the spring of the ground in front of the den with short pounding steps and then deliberately loosened the driest patch beneath a hanging mat of leaves.
Roboute backed out of his first tunnel and spat dirt. «What are you doing?»
«Preparing loose footing.»
«For Lion?»
«Yes.»
«Will that stop him?»
Dorn gave him a look. «No. It will annoy him.»
Roboute considered this. «Acceptable.»
They worked until the sun began to lower in earnest.
By then Roboute had carved a central chamber large enough for himself and barely large enough for Dorn’s head and shoulders if the hare flattened completely. One tunnel sloped downward and curved sharply left before emerging under a mossy hump. Another ran toward a split in the roots masked by fern growth. A third, unfinished, pointed toward the downhill side in case they needed an emergency drop.
Dorn had improved the exterior. The front opening no longer looked inviting. Thorns angled inward around the edges. A narrow gap remained for their own use. Dry leaves covered the patch of loose soil. A dead branch had been braced overhead so that a hard impact might shake debris down into any larger face pushing through.
Roboute emerged, filthy and panting.
Dorn stood watch nearby, ears high.
«You are bleeding again,» the hare said.
Roboute froze, then twisted as much as his body allowed. The scratch across his back had clotted badly under the dirt and exertion, then split open again along one side.
«Wonderful.»
Dorn came closer and sniffed the wound with clinical disapproval. «Not deep enough to cripple. Deep enough to draw interest.»
«That is a very poor category of injury.»
«Sit still.»
Roboute wanted to protest the phrase on instinct alone. He sat anyway.
Dorn moved off into the weeds and returned with a wad of crushed leaves stuck together by sap. He pressed them carefully over the scratch. The touch stung enough to make Roboute’s paws flex.
«How,» Roboute asked through his teeth, «do you know to do that?»
«I watched a doe clean a wound in one of her fawns this morning.»
Roboute turned to stare. «You observed woodland medical practice?»
«I observed what worked.»
That, Roboute thought, was perhaps the most Dorn answer possible.
He let the leaves stay where they were.
For a little while they rested. Not truly. No one rested with Lion loose in the trees. But they paused, and that had to serve.
Roboute crouched under the roots and finally gave in to the pressure building in his cheeks. He spat out half a dozen seeds, sorted them with offended efficiency, and began eating. Dorn pretended not to watch.
«You may comment now if you must,» Roboute said bitterly.
«I prefer not to interfere with logistics.»
Roboute stared at him. «You call this logistics?»
«Stored rations are useful.»
He hated that Dorn had made it sound respectable.
The hare settled just outside the entrance, long legs folded under him. In the dimming light his fur had gone deeper gold. He looked less like prey sitting still. More like some severe forest spirit that had not approved of its own incarnation.
«Do you think this is punishment?» Roboute asked abruptly.
Dorn’s ear tipped back. «For what?»
«Choose a century.»
Dorn was quiet for a moment.
«No,» he said at last. «I think it is a problem.»
Roboute chewed another seed slowly. «A very you answer.»
«And you?»
Roboute looked out through the root gap at the darkening trees. «I think someone or something did this deliberately. I think we were placed, not scattered by accident. I think Lion’s condition is part of it. And I think if there are three of us, there may be more.»
Dorn nodded once. «Reasonable.»
Roboute glanced toward him. «You do not object?»
«Not yet.»
That, coming from Dorn, was practically enthusiasm.
Evening thickened. The ordinary forest began to change around them. Day creatures fell silent. Night insects woke. Somewhere far off an owl called. Every sound came sharpened by danger.
Roboute tucked the last seed husks into a pile because even now he disliked mess in shared quarters.
Dorn was the first to speak again.
«When Lion looked at you, what exactly did you see?»
Roboute took longer to answer than the question required. «Hunger. Irritation. Fixation. At times...» He paused. «At times sommething almost like thought, but it passed too fast to use.»
«No language?»
«None.»
Dorn turned his head toward the trees. «When I fought him, I heard fragments.»
Roboute stiffened. «Fragments?»
«Not words in full. Impressions.» Dorn’s voice grew harder. «Territory. Pursue. Kill. Threat.»
Roboute’s stomach dropped. «Instinct has overwhelmed him.»
«Not entirely.» Dorn’s ears rose. «There was resistance. Brief. When I called his name.»
Hope hurt more than fear for a moment. It opened too sharply.
«And?»
«And then he raked my shoulder and fled.»
Roboute closed his eyes briefly. «That sounds like Lion.»
A rustle sounded to their right.
Both froze.
Dorn rose in one smooth motion. Roboute backed three paces into the den before he knew he was moving. The rustle came again, soft and measured through the leaves.
