What It Feels Like To Take Emmrich And Davrin With You As Your Team

impure thoughts today surroundingthe song Rule #34 by Fish in a Birdcage and some dark Emmrich vibes like if u agree

Even more Manfred and Fred please 🥺 maybe Rook can bring Fred a friend and Emmrich is flustered but can't stay mad at them 😂🐸

Very well, dear Anon :D

Rook and Manfred were giggling in Emmrich’s rooms.

Normally that would bring a smile to the necromancer’s face and a burning sense of love and contentment to his heart.

But today it didn’t. There was a difference between Rook and Manfred having fun, and Rook and Manfred conspiring.

And Emmrich knew them both well enough to know the difference.

“Big!” exclaimed Manfred.

The spirit of curiosity was kneeling in front of the fireplace beside Rook. Their backs were to the door. Neither of them had heard him come in.

“It is a lot bigger,” Rook was saying. “It might not fit. This one’s okay though. What do you think?”

“Pretty spots,” Manfred cooed. “Like Harding.”

Rook laughed and Emmrich nearly lost his nerve as he crept up behind them. There were few things that got to him like that low, contagiously happy sound.

“Yeah, it does look a bit like her freckles. You could call it freckles.”

“No. Harding.”

“Well okay, that makes sense. What about the other one?”

“Yes,” Emmrich whispered in Rook’s ear. “What about the other one?”

Rook made a new, and completely unique sound that Emmrich had never heard in or out of the Veil. He didn’t know the human ear could comprehend sounds of that pitch.

Every hair on Rook’s head was standing on end as they whirled around. “How did you do that!?!?!?! Are you Emmrich’s ghost?! Why did you do that?! Are you trying to kill me!?”

“What other one, Rook?” Emmrich said sternly.

“Uhhh…” Rook tried to hide what the necromancer now realized was Manfred’s terrarium with their body. It did not work.

Manfred turned, holding aloft not one, but two handfuls of frog.

One was rather large, and muddy brown, the other was small and almost charmingly speckled with little golden spots.

“Vorgoth!” Manfred declared as the frog’s little legs dangled from his fists. They seemed very unconcerned about the deadly drop below them.

“Wh–Where did you get those?” Emmrich sputtered.

“Rook!” Manfred pointed the newly minted ‘Vorgoth,’ at the person in question.

Rook chagrined and bounced back and forth on their toes. “Yes…well…”

“Why?” Emmrich begged, gesturing to the already extravagantly large and well decorated terrarium in which Fred the frog basked like a little king in his own slimy kingdom.

The necromancer’s arm shook emphatically, grave gold jingling, as if to say: ‘See?! Look at what I have already done for my precocious skeleton son! Is this not enough?! Do you doubt that I love him?! What more must I do!?’

“Fred looked lonely,” Rook admitted.

Emmrich’s arm fell.

“Alone,” Manfred moaned softly, tucking the additional frogs against his collarbone like one would a pair of kittens.

Emmrich sighed all the way to his chair, leaving behind a mournful trail in the air, pinching the bridge of his nose, and collapsing at last into the seat.

“Well…it was kind of you to name them after Vorgoth and Harding after they helped us with your terrarium, Manfred. We must send Vorgoth a note. And get Harding…a new plant?”

“She likes cheese,” Rook said helpfully, seating themself on the ground against Emmrich’s legs.

Emmrich wasn’t fooled. They were only sitting there to trap him. The selfish wretch.

He let his fingers curl in their hair as together they watched Manfred place Vorgoth and Harding into the tank, giving them a tour in the soft little voice he reserved only for his frog…er, frogs.

oh noooo🥵

Cole / Compassion

"came back wrong" what about Came Back Afraid. You used to be brave. Too brave maybe, defying the odds at every turn, a fighter, cocky, playing with fire, first to throw yourself at the enemy. Until one day it all caught up to you. You came back, somehow, but now you know all too intimately how it feels to lose, to die, to be destroyed. Now you flinch and freeze and cower at the slightest provocation. Who even are you now if you can't be brave? The grave may have let you go, but the mortal fear still grips you tighter than ever.

:)

The baby's arrival leaves Spite unimpressed.

It is a tiny, noisy, smelly, helpless lump. It takes up all of Rook and Lucanis's time and attention. When Lucanis finally sleeps and Spite gets a turn in their body, the baby shrieks and wakes him up again. For reasons Spite can't understand, Lucanis wants to be around the baby all the time. Lucanis thinks about the baby all the time.

Rook says it will someday be a person. Spite has his doubts. Even when it becomes a slightly larger lump that can move around on its own, it crawls on its hands and knees. It doesn't use its feet. Even Curiosity can use its feet!

Then one night when Spite finally gets to use the body and he's doing flying loops around the ballroom chandelier, he feels something tug at him. It's not magic. It's not a smell or a sound or a shift in the air. He doesn't know what it is, but he thinks he should—or that he did once.

He follows the feeling and, to his surprise, ends up at the baby's room. When he creaks the door open to peek inside, he braces for shrieking, but the baby, though awake, doesn't even seem to notice him. Its dark eyes are fixed firmly on the bars of the strange cage it sleeps in. Its brow is furrowed with tiny lines, and its mouth pulls down in a pursed pout. It reaches out its tiny hands, grabs the bars, and rocks on its fat little knees.

It wants to do something. It's determined to do something.

Spite leans a little further into the room. Something about the scene has him captivated. He practically holds his breath as the baby lets out a grunt of effort and then slowly, painstakingly pulls itself to its feet. With a whoop, Spite dashes to the sleeping cage, wings spread wide, bathing the room in a bright purple glow.

"You used! Your feet!" he exclaims.

The baby's eyes go round, and Spite shrinks back. He remembers the one time he tried to show the baby his wings when it was a smaller lump. It had screamed and screamed, and Rook had asked him not to do it again. The baby's mouth opens, and Spite prepares to flee the body and let Lucanis handle the screaming.

But the baby doesn't scream. It laughs.

The shrieking Rook says is the baby's laugh isn't all that different from the screaming, but its mouth is stretched in a wide grin. It releases its grasp on the bars to clap its hands and immediately falls back onto its rump. With much less effort than the first time, it pulls itself up to stand again. It uses one hand to firmly grip a bar and reaches the other toward Spite's wings.

Spite flutters one wing closer, and the baby, still laughing, bends and straightens its knees, bouncing in delight.

"Pah!" it says, which is the noise it makes when it sees Lucanis. "Pah!"

"No," Spite says. "Not Pah. Spite." He points to the wings and then his glowing eyes. "Spite."

The baby stops its bouncing, and the focused expression of before returns. It tilts its head and fixes Spite with a serious gaze. Spite leans closer until they are almost nose to nose.

"Spite," he repeats.

"Sssssss...," the baby hisses.

Spite nods and doesn't lean back even when the baby's free hand tugs roughly at his hair. "Yes. Say it. Say Spite."

"Spah," the baby says. And then, after a particularly emphatic yank of Spite's hair, it triumphantly yells, "Spy!"

"Yes!" Spite crows. His wings shiver in excitement, and the baby bats at the one closest.

"Spy!" it shouts. "Spy!"

Spite grins at the giddy feeling bubbling in his chest, one only Lucanis has felt around the baby until now.

The baby knows him. The baby likes him.

They spend several minutes enjoying their new game. Spite laughs as he flicks his wings toward the baby and away, and the baby cheerfully cries his name as it tries to snatch the gleaming feathers. But the baby's voice gets softer, and its grin shrinks to a smaller smile and then fades entirely. Its round face scrunches up again, its focus engaged in some new thought.

Spite watches breathlessly, waiting to see what the baby will learn to do next. The baby's face turns pink and then a mottled red with effort. Rook told him the baby wouldn't have wings, but as Spite watches the tiny muscles tremble with strain and hears the baby grunt, a little part of him wonders if feathers and light will suddenly erupt from its back.

Then the smell hits.

Spite rears back with a snarl of disgust. He and Lucanis have perfected smooth handovers of their shared body, but this time Spite jerks away with such abruptness that Lucanis is left staggering. Spite doesn't apologize. He flees the room to escape the horrid stench and then decides to flee the entire family wing just to be safe.

He'll tell Lucanis the baby said his name later.

i want rook to get a turn sleepwalking

lucanis is lying on his "bed" in the pantry reading when rook stumbles in, half-conscious. before he can even ask what's happening, rook has sprawled across him, buried their face in his neck, and mumbled, "the fish are judging me." seconds later they're snoring

lucanis, holding his book over them and having no idea where he is supposed to put it or his arms in general now, looks over at spite in panic (because he and rook are nowhere near that physically intimate yet. man hasn't been cuddled like this in... well, maybe ever)

spite just nods knowingly. "we should kill. the fish."

Manfred, everyone's skeleton son 💀