LadyMercale

 Everyone else always said it was a gradual change. That over time Rose had grown more contemplative, more intellectual, maybe even a bit more genius than she had always been as a child. Of course all of them were outsiders. They hadn't lived a life at her side, hadn't been there every day, hadn't seen what Rose was really capable of. No, only Roxy had that honor, and so it was only her that could mark the exact moment that Rose had truly changed. Okay, so maybe not the exact moment, but pretty darn close to it. Some might have said that Rose had been an indefinable and growing enigma over the years, but it hadn't really been there, hadn't

There was hardly a shortage of things Sollux Captor knew he understood with perfect clarity. He knew he was a psionic troll of amazing ability. He knew that someday he was going to be taken up to the fleet and plugged into a ship unless he could prove himself far more valuable in some other way. He understood the complexities of programming and had created viruses of unfathomable power and complexity. He understood that Karkat Vantas was a pathetic excuse for a hacker or programmer and often yielded the most humorous results. He understood physics, complex theoretical maths, how to master any computer game that came across his screen, and eve

It's the first new car Karkat's ever had in his life, and it's a thing of beauty. Not some fucking piece of cheap no leg room, nook crushing, milk beast scented, go no where fast and guzzle fuel doing it, piece of shit that a custodial unit bought for their ward when they finished schoolfeeding or vocation training. No, this was the real fucking deal, with slick lines, went from zero to hold onto your horns in thirty seconds, was as quiet as a stalking purrbeast on the inside, roared like a maned roarbeast on the outside, and got all the trolls to smolder in positively black envy. Sure, it belonged to the agency, but they were giving it to hi

“You? A guardian?” His laughter at the suggestion was more than contemptuous. It was superior, as if he could not begin to fathom just how it was possible that she had even come up with the very idea. “Good joke, Teth. And by good I mean shitty to a degree that isn't even remotely fathomable. Tell me honest, were you drinking before...” “Stick it, Kyth,” Tethys snarled, pulling away from him, throwing back the sheets and twisting out of his reach. The floor of the respiteblock was chilly as her feet touched it, but not so cold as to bother her. Not really. Temperature, she had long since learned, was a ma

 Everyone else always said it was a gradual change. That over time Rose had grown more contemplative, more intellectual, maybe even a bit more genius than she had always been as a child. Of course all of them were outsiders. They hadn't lived a life at her side, hadn't been there every day, hadn't seen what Rose was really capable of. No, only Roxy had that honor, and so it was only her that could mark the exact moment that Rose had truly changed. Okay, so maybe not the exact moment, but pretty darn close to it. Some might have said that Rose had been an indefinable and growing enigma over the years, but it hadn't really been there, hadn't

When he looks around him, what he sees is the scattered remnants of the life he was supposed to have lived. The one he’d imagined when he was a little boy, building sandcastles on the beach and playing at creating. Back then it had been simpler. His concerns had been how wet the sand was, getting the walls straight, the towers tall, the crenelations even. They had been simple days, simple joys, simple goals of seeing something beautiful and amazing and full of life spring forth from his hands. When he was done making walls and towers and keeps he’d make banners out of sticks and seaweed, bridges out of driftwood, and studded the

Everything had been quiet after Squall and Rinoa had stormed off and the others had given up on their attempts to make something of the night. Instruments had been taken back to the Garden, save the piano. It had been left, along with the stage, until the faculty could be convinced to bring it aboard the Garden with the help of the mechanics of FH. It was for this that Xu had come outside. Being unable to sleep she had chosen it would be better to try and figure out how to get it all back onboard. What she had not expected was to find another person stricken with insomnia. What she expected far less was for that person to be playing the piano

 There was a part of him that couldn't help but wonder just why he kept coming back here. The rational part of his mind would offer up the way the faint perfume of flowers would soothe him whenever he took a deep breath. It would point out the way that being surrounded by nature calmed him in a way he had never been able to put into words. The sentimental part of his mind favored sharing memories of a wonderful time living here before everything had started to go wrong with his life. His days with Daphne, playing catch the chocobo with Ariel every afternoon, and how nice it was when he had picnics with his mother on one of the beaches far out

Took the whole of a week for the initial shock to wear off, for the excitement of the sudden wedding to fade, and for the pure relief to become sight irritations. Well, that last one was only for a single knight in the Kingdom of Alexandria. While the rest of the kingdom, no, the world was celebrating the return of its hero that lone knight was quickly finding himself annoyed. That knight, Steiner, Head of the Knights of Pluto and body guard of Queen Garnet, had good right to be annoyed in his own mind. He could understand Zidane taking the first few days for Garnet. He could understand the trip to Lindblum to see the Regent Cid and Eiko, be