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 Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2023 11:51 pm
Quote: immediately follows oh no.
Specifically, following his most recent jaunt into Mirrorspace, Reiki had wandered out of a mirror discreetly hidden in an alley beside an all-night diner (not Gertrude’s, unfortunately), about a block-and-a-half west of Palisades Park. This grated his nerves, because he so rarely came out this way anymore, but he’d milled around here quite a bit in high school, while trying to get away from all the drama at home. But at least he knew where he was and how to get back to his place (he would’ve had an easier time getting to his parents’ and grandparents’ place, Sibyl’s place, or Uncle Mitch and Sidney’s place, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as getting spit out of a mirror near the EconoLodge and needing to figure out where, exactly, it sat relative to something that Reiki actually recognized).
On the plus, he told himself as he darted into the park, the best path home took him through some good spots for patrolling. Aside from how many messed up magical encounters tended to happen in parks around Destiny City, he’d have some twisting alleyways to check for youma or Negaverse officers in need of someone to stand up to them. He’d go through more than a few streets with multiple bars as well, which provided additional hunting grounds for youma and Negaverse lieutenants. Drunk civilians, after all, tended to have even fewer means of protecting themselves against magical girl nonsense than sober civilians. Even though it was a weeknight, bars usually saw reliable streams of customers all regardless, so it would be good for Reiki to check in on those streets while getting himself closer to home, to do his part to help protect the people of Destiny City (in a more proactive and, frankly, less miserable way than feeding himself to Mirrorspace over and over again so it wouldn’t eat anybody else).
And Reiki would’ve done, too……except he felt a White Moon aura as he passed by the entrance to Palisade Park’s fancy garden. Much like Demeter’s when he’d met her, something felt off about it.… Not quite as weak as hers had felt, but still: distinctly weaker than it should have felt, and otherwise Not Right. Maybe this White Moon soldier was just more powerful than Demeter was? Or maybe they hadn’t been drained as much as the Negaverse woman had drained Demeter?
As he found the source of the aura, Reiki abandoned all of that thinking, because it didn’t matter anymore. The person curled up on the ground by one of the benches was dressed in the white and pastel rainbow gradient combo that Reiki knew belonged to Cosmos Knights. Even at a distance and crumpled up, the uniform looked like it belonged to……
“Duckling? …Ams?” Reiki called out gently, carefully, tilting his head as he got closer. When he spotted the wolf’s-head cane, he knew who he’d found and rushed right to him, kneeling on the ground beside him. “Ams? Hey, Duckling, can you hear me? It’s me…” Reiki swallowed thickly, wishing for probably the umpteen-dozenth time that any of his White Moon friends could have just……learned his real name, without it being A Whole Thing. “It’s Muri…”
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 12:43 am
Amsvartnir still knelt on the ground, shaking, not very long after the strange, aggressive Senshi had fled. He got it, okay, he'd be really suspicious too, but he'd tried to be nonthreatening, until she said stupid s**t that ignited his stupid teenage brain into being even more dumb and... ugh. He flinched at the sound of someone calling his name, still focused far too much on how everything felt oppressive, pressing down on his body, scratching at every sense, until he realized he knew the person. Slowly, he unclenched parts of his body to slowly sit up, wincing as his stiff back straightened out. "Ah... Muri?" he asked feebly, not opening his eyes. "I..." He faltered. He felt like he sounded really stupid. "Magic. Everything hurts. So much. Keep, uh, keep whispering, please."
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:30 am
“Okay, whispering,” Reiki agreed, immediately lowering his voice to said whisper and speaking to Amsvartnir very gently. Jeez, whoever he’d had a run in had done a number on him. Made Reiki’s heart ache, seeing him like this. Doubly so, because Reiki was very inclined toward offering physical comfort and physical reassurances, and with how unwell Amsvartnir seemed at the moment, he didn’t know if he could do that without exacerbating whatever had been done to him. “I’m sorry for being too loud. Didn’t know. But……”
Maneuvering carefully, so as not to knock into Amsvartnir when this magic had messed him up so much. “Who did this to you? What kind of magic did they use? Were they a senshi, or……?”
That seemed the most likely option to Reiki, but one never knew. Maybe there were other half-youma officers in the Negaverse who didn’t have such straightforward, elegant abilities as Faustite’s. Maybe some of the aliens in the matchy-matchy uniforms weren’t as on-the-level as the ones who Reiki had met personally. Maybe there was some new, as-yet-unknown magical threat from gods-knew-where running around Destiny City and it would all culminate in another big battle somewhere, like the battle against the Blight, where Ida had sprouted those princess wings and saved everybody.
Or maybe, said a somewhat more reasonable part of Reiki’s mind, maybe another Dark Mirror senshi took a more hostile tack in dealing with a Cosmos Knight……
That thought left a chill in Reiki’s stomach, but he couldn’t deny: it was very, very possible. Logos, after all, existed and had seen fit to choose violence with Reiki’s Duckling up on Astraya, for no reason whatsoever besides “Logos was paranoid, with a major stick up her a**, and she just ******** felt like it” and “Amsvartnir had been enthusiastic about seeing someone he recognized in an unfamiliar situation.” Couldn’t put anything past some of the other members of his Court, unfortunately.
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 1:42 am
Mm... Amsvartnir winced again as he uncricked his legs next, bonelessly flopping onto the ground in a more prone position with a heavy sigh reminiscent of a big dog who'd just laid down after getting up to follow his owner move from room to room three times. "Dark Mirror," he said dully, "Tried being friendly, she got bitchy, I got bitchy. Told her I knew you, she was all 'ew, i don't know him so he's not important', I got mad..." He sighed, rubbing his eyes and subsequently shivering. At least he was in a patch of very soft grass free of rocks to dig into his flesh. He didn't know how much he could handle right now when his entire body felt like a live wire in a way he hadn't felt in a long time. "She attacked first, though. Everything feels so... sensitive. An' then she stole energy from me."
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:14 am
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 7:45 pm
The longer he lay there with Murikabushi distracting him, the better he was beginning to feel. He took deep, measured breaths, letting out a startled "oof" when the soft little bunny was dropped onto his chest. "Hello, Usa-chan," he said, voice scratching at his throat. He very carefully petted her for a moment, growing more relaxed as he focused on the bunny. Okay. Yeah. He was definitely doing better. The soft bunny focused his senses and he couldn't help but pull it in for a quick sniff—the clean scent helped ground him and he sighed, content. "Mm... Thanks, Muri," he said, at a more conversational level now. "She's real pretty. Ah, um, I don't know the name of the senshi, but her call out was like... sensory decadence, or something? Ahh, it really sucked!"
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:32 pm
Reiki nodded along, taking mental notes of the few details that Amsvartnir could recall about the Dark Mirror who’d attacked him tonight. “Sensory Decadence” sounded like some interesting magic.… Not at all the point of trying to find her for A Talk, but much like Reiki’s own Gnawing Hunger and its more recent upgrade, Ravenous Hunger, this other senshi’s attack seemed to point toward what her sphere might have been.…
Maybe Soya would’ve heard something from one of the other Chaos Mauvians.… This girl had likely met one of them when whichever Eternal had recruited her had taken her into Mirrorspace, so maybe there was gossip that Soya could pass along.… All of which, while interesting, didn’t mean much in the here-and-now. With a soft sigh, Reiki silently thanked his brain for making note of those ideas, then gently nudged them to the side so he could focus on Ams.
“I’ll have to let my aunt know that another friend complimented her handiwork,” Reiki said easily, keeping his tone and volume both lower than usual. Ams was speaking at a more normal tone, but Reiki still didn’t want to overwhelm him. “She made Usa-chan for me when I was little. My brother got a plush like her too, except his is a purple bear……and he named his bear ‘Tigger’ instead of something sensible like ‘Kuma-chan’…… Even though the actual T-I-double-G-Errr is not even remotely a bear.…y’know, as you’d tend to guess from him being an orange feline with black stripes.”
Reiki shrugged, chuckled. “Then again, I’m the one who went ‘Sure, all the princesses are girls. But they also only seem to kiss princes instead of each other, and *I* want to kiss princes, so……? Clearly, “princess” must be an all-genders-inclusive title that just means “someone who wants to kiss princes.”’ So, I don’t really have a right to judge Ju—”
Reiki caught himself just shy of actually saying Junsei’s name, no matter how much he wanted to give his friend complete trust. He trusted Amsvartnir, he really did……but it wasn’t just his own safety that he was gambling with. Moreover, Amsvartnir had gotten out of the Negaverse before becoming Amsvartnir. There was no telling if someone he’d known—maybe his old General, maybe the guy he’d dated, maybe someone else entirely—wouldn’t someday kidnap him and force Ams, through no fault of his own, to reveal intel that might have wound up including details about a Dark Mirror senshi’s brother.
“Judging him or anything.…” Reiki sighed. “No right, on my part, to do that. Certainly not over naming his bear ‘Tigger’ when he mostly did that because Real Tigger reminded him so much of his best friend at the time.”
A comparison that, for better and for worse, Reiki felt like he probably deserved.
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Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2023 11:49 pm
"Hah, that is such a cute little kid thing to do," Amsvartnir said, smiling before it dropped suddenly. He thought of the little brother he'd once had, though all the details were... fuzzy. All he had were feelings. Just... a lot of hate. He wondered if his parents would even care that he was completely gone, now. He doubted it. But... he did wish he'd been able to have a good relationship with them. To have a little brother, because that behavior screamed "little brother". Maybe he wouldn't be in this mess now. Maybe he wouldn't have dated Albite, gotten himself all turned around... Maybe he'd be a pro basketball player if he wasn't a knucklehead dropout. "Mm. What's it like, having a little brother? I... left. I don't know much, just bits and pieces, and most of it screams that I would never want to go back anyhow, but... I just wonder, y'know? Be kinda cool to have someone looking up to you like that, and to think about how I'd never have come here and gotten all in this magic mess, dated a jackass... That's not fair to Albite. He was sweet, while I was with him..." He sighed heavily.
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Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2023 12:33 am
Listening to how Amsvartnir talked about his home life, Reiki couldn’t help but frown. “It’s not leaving if somebody pushed you to the brink, Ams,” he said, voice earnest, and soft, and all but outright begging the knight to take what he said to heart. “Even if you have people you regret not being there for? Getting out of a so-called home when someone makes it so you can’t survive? That’s like they’re holding the door open and telling you ‘Don’t let it hit you on the way out.’”
Holding back was starting to kill him more than a little, but Reiki still took care in reaching for Amsvartnir’s shoulder. He kept his touch and squeeze feather-light, ready to pull his hand back if Amsvartnir couldn’t handle that contact yet. But—Reiki couldn’t just let Amsvartnir talk about himself and the choices he’d once made—before he’d even been Thorite, much less been the Amsvartnir he was today—without objecting. People did not, generally speaking, have no reason whatsoever for up and ******** off from home and school, putting themselves unwittingly in the path of the Negaverse.
But with that objection made, Reiki was left torn between two impulses for what to say next. Two wolves inside him fought viciously, one of them snarling to talk about how being twins differed slightly from most older/younger sibling dynamics, and the other whimpering piteously about how Amsvartnir had said a name that Reiki recognized—not just from having heard Ams say it before, but now, from having additional context.
“Wait, that—” Reiki spluttered inelegantly. “I promise to answer your question about brothers soon, okay, just…? Albite? Like……*Albite* Albite? Tall, but still shorter than me? Broad shoulders, green-heavy uniform, dreads to the floor, clearly getting the most out of his gym membership? Eccentric speech patterns, flirty, chatty, loyal, kind of a space cadet? Magic turns his tattoos into whips that he could, say……snare around your neck and use to jerk you back into a conversation you were trying to leave? Like……that Albite? He’s the guy you got entangled with back in the Negaverse?”
The part of Reiki that ever remained A Messy b***h Who Loved Drama tittered eagerly in the back of his mind, hopping around and seal-clapping about the potential Juicy Gossip he might’ve been about to hear.
But the part of Reiki that would hold the lack of apologies over Albite’s head until he at least pretended to say I’m sorry to someone other than Faustite? That part of him openly, visibly pouted and rubbed, one-handed, at his neck, as though Albite had pulled that maneuver only a few moments ago, rather than back in the autumn.
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:37 pm
Amsvartnir winced briefly at the contact, but relaxed when he realized it didn't hurt anymore. He breathed a sigh of relief—but only for a moment, as Murikabushi suddenly lost his mind and ranted about Albite. "Um... Yeah, him," he said, embarrassed. "I'm so sorry, it sounds like you met him. Under very unideal circumstances...."
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Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2023 11:56 pm
Noticing the wince, Reiki folded his hands in his lap. Okay, he wouldn’t enjoy it very much, but if Ams needed him to keep his hands to himself, he’d just need to continue doing so. The relief that had followed the wincing registered in Reiki’s mind, kinda, but mostly, he took off into explaining The Drama.
“Yeah. You could say that.” Swishing his ponytail a bit, Reiki sighed. “So, for starters? It goes back to this General named Faustite, and even more so to Kerberos. Blossom and I are cool now and everything, but after my first meeting with him, I was……upset. And being a brat about it. I accidentally stumbled into the bench where he hangs out, and it turned out that Faustite was also there, plotting to stake it out or something. We have a tiff that turns into a talk, which turns into him asking me to demonstrate my magic, which……”
Reiki hoped the comically widened eyes, pursed lips, and shaking head helped to explain exactly how bad that went.
“Faustite is half-youma, right? And I don’t know his whole story—wouldn’t disclose it if I did either; I don’t care if he’s Negaverse, that’s just not something you do people, right?—but the point is, my magic made him hungry……for starseeds. Triggered what you could accurately call a relapse for him. While I was busy getting starseeded by a robot and being depressed about it, he was busy trying to get clean again. Which he managed! Probably at least somewhat because his support network includes Albite, who……does not seem like he takes ‘no’ for an answer when he’s trying to stop someone he loves from destroying themself?
“We—Faustite and I—run into each other two more times. The second one is at this big ******** battle with all kinds of people. You remember those gray splotches that showed up around StarFest last year? Monsters from outer space. And Sailor Ida of Orchids from the White Moon? She popped some ultra-fabulous princess wings to beat them, ugh, she was amaaaazing. Seriously, she’s like the perfect example of everything that comes to mind when I hear the phrase ‘magical girl princess.’”
Which was really not the point of the story, Reiki realized, but he couldn’t gush enough about Ida going all Hime-sama to save everyone like that. Brilliant, incredible, amazing, showstopping, spectacular.
A deep breath, and then Reiki picked back up: “So, all the Order fam noped right out of there after the Blights were gone, and I was……in my feelings? A little? Which Faustite took as an opportunity to nab me and haul me off to this dingy basement in a burned out hotel.” Maybe, if Reiki had actually listened to himself, he might’ve realized that his casual, ‘same chatty nonsense as usual’ tone had long since ceased to be appropriate for what he was talking about. “Then, he summoned his team to have them help him figure out what to do with me, which……?”
Shaking his head, Reiki rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that went over like a lead balloon. Still no idea what he actually wanted from that. And the two of us—meaning Faustite and I—have since managed to, like, talk? And get on reasonably decent terms? But holy <********>, Albite made…… The best I can say about his impression was ‘mixed’? Like, in light of hearing how my magic affected his Firebrand, I completely understand the switch from ogling me like he wants a piece of cake to leering like he wants to ******** tear me apart. But then, he abruptly jerks back around to ‘Hey, no, don’t listen to my other teammates who are telling you you’re free to leave! Wagahai, Eien no Suji-kin Arubaito-sama, do not approve of this! I whip you with my tatts!’
“And then because I don’t have enough whiplash from dealing with him yet, it’s all sparkly puppy eyes and ‘Muri, hun, you’ve got the wrong impression about us, join us why don’t you, just fear me, love me, do as I say’—which? In case you haven’t seen Labyrinth? Albite did not literally say that last bit.” Reiki huffed. “I’m just comparing him to David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin-King. Because……I’m sorry to diss your ex like this, Duckling? But his extremely irritable, emotionally volatile, literally flaming half-youma significant other has made a much better impression on me overall than Albite has.”
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Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2023 1:04 am
Amsvartnir's eyes glazed over as Murikabushi went into.... some kind of ridiculous tirade. Geez, dude! This is so much unnecessary information! Drama queen!!! He rubbed a hand over his face, giving Murikabushi a very unimpressed look until the words finally started registering again. "So, in summary, Firebrand kidnapped you because of your weird magic, and Albite wouldn't let you leave when the rest of your kidnappers said it was cool, to like... Beg to suck your d**k, bro?" he asked, eyebrows raised. "I appreciate the drama, theater kid, but that was a loooot. And go ahead, insult him. He was nice to me, but..." He shrugged, sighing. "I wasn't happy. He probably would've tied me up the same way. I don't like his magic, at all."
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Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2023 4:45 pm
Only when Amsvartnir gave him that look and tried to summarize the story did Reiki realize that……oh. He’d talked too much and gone on for way too long.… Again.… With way too much detail that probably no one cared about (not least Ams, when he was still reeling from magically induced sensory overload).… Exactly like Faustite hated him doing. Faustite and probably even more people than Reiki consciously realized.
Taking a few deep breaths, Reiki told himself to just……dial it down. He could restrain himself. He’d done it before. And anyway, it wasn’t about Reiki. Not really. About him shutting his mouth more effectively, sure, but only in the service of doing right by and for Amsvartnir, who needed Reiki to be a better friend right now and less of a drama queen. (The raw spot trying to rear up inside him, Reiki shoved as far to the back of his mind as he could. Needed a pillow to smother it with, honestly. Because it was stupid, getting Like This over……Amsvartnir being unwell and needing better behavior from Reiki right now. Stupid, selfish, egocentric, bad friend behavior.… He knew better than to act like this, and he knew better than to get into any kinds of Feelings about it when it literally wasn’t about him.
Just like it wasn’t fair to harbor any upset with Anser or Angelica, when one of them had attacked him over a broken heart who’d deserved better from Sappho and the other was just a traumatized twelve-year-old who’d deserved better from her life so far, so when he’d had his run-ins where they’d attacked him, their actions hadn’t been about him.…
Just like he was being stupid, every time he thought back to the battle in the subway station and felt like Couldn’t Ida have taken me, too? Couldn’t I have been the exception? Just this once? Because the answer was “No.” Point blank, period, end of discussion. Because even just this once was probably too much when it came to Chaos, could’ve led to Chaos wreaking havoc like it had done to Daphne’s world, and to Fang’s, and so many others besides. On top of that, surely some of the Knights and Order senshi at Ida’s battle had too much trauma associated with Chaos, even one then-basic Dark Mirror senshi who just wanted to help would’ve triggered them into gods-knew-what—and top to bottom, it wasn’t about him.…
Just like he was probably also being unfair in how deeply uncharitable he felt toward most of Faustite’s team, when it’s not like he could fault them for assuming that being a Dark Mirror meant he’d either roll over to give them whatever they wanted or show them Chaos Rat solidarity. Even if their specific flavors of Chaos differed, he had a tainted starseed, same as they did, so they probably hadn’t meant anything personal, much less hurtful, by assuming that he should’ve been flattered for them to want him attached to their team as their sentient pet weapon—grateful, even, for such an opportunity. Because all of their garbage? It wasn’t about him.…
Just like it wasn’t fair to feel so jealous of every White Moon senshi who’d always been that way and didn’t realize how good they had it, and every Negaverse senshi who at least had the option to <******** leave. The vast majority of them [from either category] didn’t know that Reiki existed and probably never would. They probably didn’t care, and either way, them being smarter than Reiki in choosing magical girl teams wasn’t anything to blame them for. It wasn’t about him.…
Just like how Toráin was gone now, replaced by somebody who was kind of the same and who’d look exactly like him if or when he and Reiki next saw each other, but who’d be wearing white, and couldn’t whip off senshi-drag to go with Reiki to Gertrude’s for chicken fingers anymore—who might not even like chicken fingers anymore for all Reiki knew about what happened when people left the Negaverse—and who, most saliently, probably wouldn’t remember Murikabushi [at least, not if Reiki could judge from what My Little Lysithea had said about her own memories], and definitely wouldn’t remember him as Reiki, the real person, as opposed to Murikabushi, the ridiculous, over-talkative, self-torturing, moronic Mirror Thing, who was being unfair and a terrible friend for feeling how he did about this.
Which was especially stupid because he was happy for Toráin. Proud of him for getting out of the Negaverse and doing it for himself, even given how broken up he’d been about the man he’d fallen for not leaving with him. So, really, what right did Reiki to feel wounded? He’d encouraged Toráin in getting out. He’d wanted that for his friend, so Toráin could be happy. Reiki had no right whatsoever to get all precious about it now……to start feeling hurt over something that he’d wanted to see happen.
Besides, the most important truth about the Toráin situation remained perfectly simple: it. was NOT. *ABOUT*. ********. Reiki! Period! End of discussion!)
—None of which really helped in answering Amsvartnir.
All of which, Reiki smothered with a mental pillow because it didn’t matter.
Not when the only actual question here was whether or not he was going to restrain himself in talking to his poor friend, who just……deserved better than another tirade.
“I don’t know about begging to suck my d**k,” Reiki supposed, mussing his fingers through his bangs. “Pretty sure Albite doesn’t like me any. Not even in a way like ‘if you duct tape his mouth shut, he’s cute enough to sleep with.’ The Jareth comparison was just because Albite was trying to come on like ‘Oh, I’m really just a silly little guy, I’m very soft and sensitive, you can totally trust me while I’m telling you that you have the wrong idea about us’……y’know, as if I couldn’t hear him saying that some of his teammates had the right idea about wanting to torture me. Which they suggested after Faustite had specifically told them all ‘no murder, no torture’—like?”
Shrugging, Reiki shook his head. “I’m not crazy for thinking that ‘no murder’ and ‘no torture’ are some pretty basic and straightforward ground-rules, right? Thinking they should be easy to ******** follow?”
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Posted: Thu Mar 09, 2023 8:50 pm
"Yeah, well, Albite's always been a bit of a rule breaker," he muttered, shifting to finally sit up with a wince as his muscles protested. "He's... Yeah, I'm glad I left the Negaverse. Things were good with him, but you know, sometimes you see the red flags after you've left. Rose colored glasses, yada yada." He stretched out, giving Reiki a half-smile. "Sorry you met him. You doing okay?"
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Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2023 11:21 am
After a few deep breaths to settle down and consider that question, Reiki reached into his subspace pocket. Not that he had any answers waiting in there or anything—but he did have his trusty bottles of water, one of which he took out and offered to Amsvartnir.
“Sounds about right, with the red flags,” Reiki said softly. “One of his teammates called him a himbo and I have to wonder if she’s confused about the definition? Because last I checked, ‘himbo’ doesn’t mean ‘nice to your friends and the guy you’re sleeping with.’ In order to tick off the ‘pure of heart’ box, you also have to be kind to people society considers ‘beneath’ you.” Rolling his eyes, Reiki showed how little regard he had for the concept by making quotation marks with his fingers. “And I don’t know, maybe there’s more to him that I just haven’t seen? But as yet, I’m not getting ‘himbo’ vibes so much as ‘arrogant gym-bro, just rainbow-flavored instead of cis-het.’”
Which did not, Reiki realized, actually answer Amsvartnir’s question. “But yeah,” he sighed, and shrugged, “I’ll be fine.” Hoping that it made his answer feel somewhat less flimsy, he gave Amsvartnir a small smile. “I’m mostly not over the Albite sitch because it ended on a messy note with no real closure. But for all the world may be cold and hard, dogs are warm and soft, y’know?”
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