My Favorite Fatui Dynamics So Far (try To Spot My Favorite Trope):

🌙Daily life with the sun and moon☀️

#﹒softboy scara

"I wanna chat all night, talk about everything about my day" — serenade by BOYNEXTDOOR

summary﹕just softboy bf scaramouche and his smau includes﹕ wanderer!scaramouche tags﹕super fluff﹐modern au﹐smau﹐female!reader﹐ooc﹐established relationship

notes﹕tryna get my motivation up, this is not a sign that I'll update my smau- a lot of content, its softboy scara cmon, lemme know who i should do next!

© 2023 dittodon pictures are not mine, please upload with credit

_•_•_•_•_•_SEVEN DEADLY SINS_•_•_•_•_•_•_

_PRIDE •WRATH•GLUTTONY•LUST•GREED•ENVY•SLOTH_

(gn!readerXharbingers. title ‘pet’ used,dubious consent(dottore),blood mentions,violence,manipulation,you know the drill)

Pierro feels intense Pride when thinking about his social standing. The first harbinger, the strongest, the most valuable asset to the Tsaritsa. He has everything he could need and more but none of those material goods matter when he has himself. He is typically the voice of reason in harbinger meetings, knocking the other members off of their egotistical thrones. He holds an air of importance, the wise man of the group, but behind closed doors, he admires himself in the mirror, telling you the stories behind each scar littering his toned body. Each battle won, each opponent slaughtered, every fight which led to his current status. ‘You should feel lucky,’ he tells you, gripping your chin- forcing you to meet his gaze ‘Without me, you’d still be rotting in some mud-hole in Mondstadt. I saved you, I made you who you are’. You’ve learned to know that he’s right, he’s taught you to cling to his every word. So you shine his shoes, polish his medals, warm his bed and listen to every heroic tale he tells about himself with wide eyed admiration.

Arlecchino possesses a vengeful spirit. She spits venom at those she dislikes and prays for the demise of those who she disagrees with. Plenty of government officials have peeved her enough that she threatens them behind closed doors, huffing about how they don’t deserve to stand behind those podiums or attend royal balls when they’re such disgusting pigs. She slits the throats of anyone who dares question her authority or collects the eyes of henchmen who dare to look at you without her permission. The eyes in question sit in a jar of water on her desk, floating round and round their glass container. Your stomach flips every time you see them, you feel sick knowing that there are more in there than last time. She interrogates you about any interaction you have with anyone who isn’t her. A chat with the maid, a hushed joke with the butler, a compliment sent to the chef. If she deems an interaction as competition for your affection, those others will feel her Wrath. If you care about the lives of the hired staff or fatui henchmen, you better keep to yourself, don’t look at them, don’t talk to them. Unless you want them to feel the cold blade of your wife’s blade at their neck…

If anyone is the embodiment of Gluttony, it’s Capitano. He doesn’t just fight his enemies, he feasts upon them. He drains their will to live, torments them with the tip of his sword until his prey is begging to be put out of their misery. You see the way he eats his meals, as if he’s been starving for weeks. He viciously cuts into his steak, scarred lips curling up into a wretched smile, those silver teeth glinting in the dark. ‘Why don’t you have some, pet? It’s good~’ he offers you a bite, the gravy spills off of the meat and splats onto the table. He huffs behind the mask, baffled and disappointed when you shake your head. You lean back, refusing to take a bite- you could never stomach it even if you wanted to. With a frustrated growl, he slams his fist down onto the table ‘Whatever, no dinner for you then! Stupid fucking brat- give me that’ he snatches your plate away, dumping its contents onto his own. Blood from the meat splatters up onto his chest and mask, soaking into the white coat he wears. You can’t un-see the way he acted earlier, how hungry he was for battle, how he fought like a bear, covered in blood. The image is burned into your mind… If you think about it much more you’ll be sick…

Dottore’s Lust is insatiable. He lusts for knowledge, for power, for more more more of everything he can get his scarred hands on. He neglects you in favor of spending time in his lab, consulting copies of himself for advice or observing what they do. His little meetings with himself last for hours, sometimes days, and when the fumes become too much or he’s too frustrated with his copies to continue, he seeks you out for stress relief. You hear him before you see him, he’s panting and groaning, kicking the door shut behind him as he approaches the bed where you pretend to sleep. Those gloved hands grope and pinch anywhere they can reach, sharp teeth dig into soft flesh. He doesn’t care that he woke you up to do this, doesn’t care that you’re too tired or too unwell. Right now, he’s lusting for you- nearly drooling at the thought of sinking into you. His mask hides his hungry eyes from view but you know his pupils are blown wide, raking over your exposed body as if it’s the first time he’s seen you this way. When he’s in this state, there isn’t much you can do but submit and hope he’ll be gentle though he never is. Evidence of his lust will always be marked onto you in one way or another

Pantalone has been destined for Greed since childhood. He’s told you his story before, how he grew up in a poor village, watching as his friends gained visions for doing the bare minimum. He succeeded in school, wrote novels worth of economic research, crunched numbers day and night yet no vision came. The glowing orb never appeared in his palm, on his desk or in his pocket. He built himself form the ground up, worked his way through the ranks of the Northland Bank and disposed of his peers who threatened to take a promotion before him. He’s worth billions now, he spends his money on items he doesn’t need to fill that gap in his heart. He possesses so much that his mansion is overly full of trinkets and sparkling decorations. He possesses you too and your neck aches as you’re forced to wear gaudy, heavy jewelry. He keeps his possessions close by, never allowing you to leave his line of sight. You’re all his, everything you own is his. Pantalone has a chokehold on you, your savings, your family’s savings. But it’s never enough. It never will be. He’s greedy, he knows he is, and he accepts it fully, smiling as he fills his pockets with mora and diamonds, holding your hand tightly in his own

Envy flows through Tartaglia’s veins, making his blood thicker and bitter. He paces his room, ranting fiercely ‘Why don’t they see how strong I am? Some girl gets to be Number Four while I’m stuck at Eleven? Put us all in a room together, I’ll come out Number One! You’ll see- they’ll ALL see how terribly the underestimated me!’ He laughs, the awful sound bouncing off the walls of the empty corridor. You awkwardly shift your weight, flinching when he yanks you in by your collar ‘You see how strong I am, right?’ You caress his bloodstained cheek, nodding along, reassuring him that the others don’t know what they’re missing. Ajax is so bitter about his position, he believes he deserves more and he’s jealous of those who rank above him. Now that Signora is dead and Scaramouche is missing, he’s eyeing the Eighth and Sixth spots on the roster, badgering his comrades about dueling regulations. He wants to be the best and won’t let anyone get in his way. You better be his biggest supporter… well… it isn’t like you have a choice

Those who exhibit Sloth are often characterized as sleepy or lazy. An uncommon, but perfect, characterization exists for Scaramouche: apathetic. He shows little emotion, marble eyes stare at you without a hint of concern as you hold your bleeding hand up to him. He rolls his eyes as he wraps your injury and simply discards you once he’s finished the task. You don’t believe he loves you, that he’d care if you died or went away forever to live a life with a better man. He degrades you in his monotone voice, lifeless eyes boring into your very soul as you apologize for speaking out of line. You observe him work, listen to him talk to subordinates. He sounds so bored… Part of you wants to test the waters, to throw a fit so dramatic, so catastrophic that he has to respond. But no matter what you do, no matter your injuries, tears, laughter, proclamations of love… you never get a proper response. A dull ‘love you too’ or ‘get out of my face’ is uttered, emotionless and robotic. Giving up would be the easy way out but maybe, just maybe, you can push things further just out of morbid curiosity. Is there anything you can do to get him to see you? To react to you?

Omg how is it even possible to spend more than 100k in 2 days after u got the salary?!

Is it even okay that EVERYTHING IS SUPER EXPENSIVE WTF WITH THIS WORLD

False Idols, Empty Worship Navigation

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Love Story

— [Love Story by Taylor Swift; Covered by Sarah Cothran]

Yandere!Dainsleif x GN!Reader

Spoilers: This is sort of up-to date with the chasm reveal of the archon quest. If you haven’t done it and don’t want any spills, do not read, or if you don’t care— Be my guest.

CW: delusional love, mentions of kidnapping, angst, toxic, unhealthy obsession, possessiveness, blood, gaslighting, slight nsfw, mentions of suicide//unhealthy thoughts

I don’t feel like making it long so you get this, also thank you very much for the 200+ likes from [The way I still love you part 2]

||Minors DNI. You have been warned||

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“A second chance”

A Scaramouche x GN!Reader fanfic

Spoilers for the 3.3 Archon Quest ahead!

Chapter 2: (Re)Introductions

You’re a scholar in Sumeru, plagued by the faintest memory of someone, someone you cared for deeply. But you couldn’t remember who. You soon meet a wandering eccentric, who seems vaguely familiar to you, but you just couldn’t figure out how.

Previous | Next

Masterlist

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You glanced at your clock as the sun seeped through the blinds.

6:29 AM

Yet another sleepless night. You decided to try staying up late working so you would be more tired, but to no avail. You were beginning to think that you should talk to someone about it. You got up, changing into your clothes for the day. You quickly hooked your vision to your hip before heading to your kitchen to get breakfast. But unfortunately for you, you seemed to forgotten to get groceries. You decided to just get some breakfast from a restaurant near by. You put on your shoes and went out the door.

Once you entered the restaurant, your eyes landed on him. The man from yesterday. What were the chances that he’d be here? He looked up and noticed you staring again, but these time he smiled and gave a small wave. You quickly glanced away, before going to your seat and looking at the menu. You settled on ordering Pita Pockets. You gave the waiter your menu and took a sip of your water.

In the corner of your eye, you noticed the man making his way to your table. You assumed he was just heading for the door, until he sat directly infront of you. “You know, you’ve been having a hard time keeping your eyes off of me recently. Could I ask why?” He asked, a slight smirk on his face.

“Uh, it’s just that you seem so familiar. But I can’t figure out how I know you, have we met before?” You replied.

“Well, it’s possible we’ve meet. I’ve travelled across numerous nations, from Inazuma to Sumeru,” he answered, waving a confused waiter over.

He must have moved tables before telling the order responsible for his order.

“Hm, then yeah I guess that’s possible. I was in Inazuma for a time not too long ago,” you admitted.

Shortly before the Sakoku decree, you had taken a trip to Inazuma. Unfortunately for you, the decree and been implemented shortly after your arrival. This caused you to be stuck in the nation for a time. You only just got back half a year ago.

“So, do you have a name?” You asked.

The man paused for a moment, before answering, “Well, I’ve gone by many titles in the past. But none really matter anymore. I suppose you can call me Kuni,”.

“That’s a pretty name, it suits you,” you smiled.

“Is that you calling me pretty?”, he smirked, resting his face against his palm.

“I suppose so,” you shrugged.

He shook his head, “Well, now that I’ve introduced myself, I believe it’s only fair that you give me your name,”.

“It’s Y/N, sadly it’s really the only title I’ve ever had. Besides acting sage,”.

“Acting sage?”.

“Well once the Dendro Archon got rid of our old sages, she asked a few scholars to temporarily become sages until we found people who actually wanted the job. Which we since have found said people,” you explained, the waiter placing your order infront of you.

“Ah, so you’re a scholar,” he nodded.

“And what do you do for living?” You questioned, taking a bite into your Pita Pockets.

“Oh I’m just a wanderer, I’ve long forsaken any typical styles of life,” he answered, drinking some of his tea.

“So like an adventurer?”.

“Something like that, except I have no intentions on leaving Sumeru for the time being,”.

“And why’s that?”.

“You’re full of questions aren’t you,” Kuni shook his head, “Well since you’re so curious, I have some unfinished business here. I can’t leave before I get it resolved,”.

“That business is?”.

“I feel like I’m being interrogated right now,” he sighed.

You chuckled, “Sorry, sorry. Here, I’ll answer some questions from you to make things fair,”.

He paused for a moment, thinking of something to ask, “Your vision, how did you get it?”.

“When I was younger, my friend and I had wandered off too far. We eventually found ourselves in the Abyss. We probably would have died if I didn’t receive my vision at that moment. Thankfully we weren’t stuck there for long though, after about a day we had managed to get out,” you explained, fiddling with your vision.

“That story seems vaguely familiar to me,” he said.

“It does? Surely receiving your vision as a result of falling into the Abyss isn’t that common?” You asked.

“You’d be surprised,” he shrugged, “Anyways, I’m curious, were you involved in the whole false god thing led by the akademiya?”.

“No, similar to the Scribe and General Mahamatra, I was kept in the dark about the whole thing. But I did help the Scribe with his whole plan to stop it,”.

He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, before pulling out some Mora, “Well, I can only assume we should both get going, here I’ll pay for you,”.

“You really don’t need to, I have plenty of Mora,” you sighed, a guilty expression on your face.

He chuckled, “No really, I can take care of it. It’s the least I could do for taking up your time,”.

You nodded, “Alright, thank you Kuni,”.

He handed the waiter the Mora, then you both exited the restaurant. “I’m planning on going for a walk to the Lokapala Jungle later, would you like to come with me? Unless of course, you’re too worried about going too far and falling into the Abyss again,” he offered.

You smiled, ignoring his comment about the Abyss, “I’d love to, that place really is beautiful. I don’t think I’ve been there in awhile,”.

“Alright, I’ll see you around,” he smiled, before waking around.

What a strange man

You decided to head back to your home, not feeling like stopping by the Akademiya today. You still felt like Kuni was eerily familiar. You just had a gut feeling that you two had met on multiple occasions in the past. Much to your dismay, actually meeting him seems to make this feeling even more intense.

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Authors notes:

•Don’t you guys worry, he might seem nice right now, but he’s just trying to seem friendly. His real personality will become more present as the story progresses.

•this chapter isn’t proofread either😭

•Scara remembers you, but you can’t remember him. This really sucks for Scara doesn’t it 💀

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Taglist:

@mcryv @auvioh @belletifeshyl @raideneiari @local-mr-frog @c0nn0rv8 @cherrybeomgyu

If you want to be added to the taglist, just ask! I’ll be happy to add you!

———————————————————————

Smutty One-Liners Part I

“I dreamed of your legs wrapped around my waist.”

“Don’t act innocent when we both know where your mouth was two minutes ago.”

“We should probably leave, before we start a scandal.”

“Stop looking at me like that or my knees will not hold me any longer.”

“I think you lost your underwear somewhere.”

“My tongue still remembers the way you taste.”

“Is there some space left in that bathtub?”

“The way your eyes get darker when you get aroused, is making me lose my mind.”

“I want to count every one of your freckles with my lips.”

“Jealousy seems to be a great motivator for you.”

“Oh no, there is only one bed, what will we do now?”

“I could make you feel better.”

“Get back down here, we’re not done yet.”

“Later you will definitely need to tell me where you learned this.”

“I know I should care about the reason why you’re naked in my bed, but I will just enjoy it for a moment.”

Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V

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translation

Aventurine doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you. (Or: You are the only person in the universe who understands Aventurine in his mother tongue. He often regrets teaching it to you.)

5k words. gender neutral reader, established relationship, angst, non-graphic sex (reader bottoms, anatomy neutral), themes of cultural loss, references to slavery, aventurine’s canonically implied desire to die. MDNI.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

Deception does not come easily to him in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak—and too kind. The universe was a different place in the days when his life was coloured by the warble of Avgin dialect. It felt simpler, partly because he was a child and partly because Sigonia was yet untouched by outsiders. There were no corporations, no casinos, no commodity codes. His entire world was sand, desert, mother, sister, father (or more often—ghost), goddess, tent, wagon, luck, sin, rain, blessing, Avgin.

Katican.

Aventurine is sure that he knew more than just those words. He was fluent as a child. He had conversations with his sister that were complex enough to make his heart hurt, though perhaps his heart was just constantly aching anyway. But the rest of his early words escapes him. He could maybe dredge them up if he thinks long enough, but he also isn't sure if his tongue and lips could form the shape of them anymore. Sometimes he still counts in Avgin, memorises phone numbers in it, but he doesn’t remember the last time he actually strung together a full sentence in the language.

When Aventurine was first stolen into slavery (a word that he had not known as a child, and still doesn't know in Avgin), he wasn’t given a Synesthesia Beacon. He had to rely on his ears and his wits, deciphering the harsh edges of the Katican dialect and then the strange garble of Interastral Standard Language. By the time he had a Beacon installed, it was already translating all speech into Standard—his dominant language.

Sometimes he feels a little aggrieved by it, but at least it wasn't Katican. He'd have blown out his brains if it were.

But it is easy to console himself: Avgin is not a useful language anyway. Dead languages have no value, and the Avgin dialect was killed along with its people. You can’t perform commerce in a dead language, can't negotiate contracts, can't enter a gambling den and use your silver tongue to rob people blind. You can't use a dead language to fell governments and extract resources; you can't use a dead language to bring an entire planet to its knees. You can’t use a dead language to gamble your life; you can't use it to save yourself from the gallows.

You cannot deceive people in a language that is defined by sand, sister, goddess, ghost.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin. His command of it is too weak, and there is no one left to which he can lie, anyway.

When you ask Aventurine to teach you his first language, he gives you an amused look.

“Why Avgin?” he asks. “No one speaks it anymore. I can teach you Common Sigonian if you’d like. Or we could learn Xianzhounese together. Maybe Intellitron code? I know a little.”

“You speak Avgin,” you argue.

“Not often,” he says. “And badly when I do.”

“But it's still your language. And I want to understand you.”

Aventurine has to stop himself from laughing. Understand him? He hates being understood. When people understand him, it makes him predictable. And unlikeable. Hardly a position from which he can manipulate people in.

You understand him well enough to know that.

“You'll have to give me a better reason than that,” he says neatly. “Make it worth my while. Reward me.”

You look at him as you ponder, your eyes lingering on his. Perhaps trying to read him, though he prefers to think you're just enjoying the sight of them.

“I’ll teach you my language as well?”

“You mean—you'll reward my hard labour with more work?” he says, lighthearted.

You frown at him despite the joke. “You don't want to understand me better than what a Synesthesia Beacon would allow?” He blinks, pausing. “It’ll be convenient too. We can talk shit about other people in public and no one will understand us.”

Aventurine considers you. He doesn't like being understood, but he does like understanding other people. It is essential for manipulation, for scheming, for control. And he likes controlling you especially—for keeping you close but your heart a comfortable distance away, for opening your legs when he wants the pleasure of your body, for playing your emotions however he needs. And the day will come when that skill will be invaluable—the day when he must die without shattering you.

He also likes the idea of talking shit in public.

“I'm listening,” he says, voice lilting. You lean in, smiling. Sweet. It makes his heart feel something he isn't used to. Something addictive. Something disgusting. He scrambles to cover it with one of the usual tools: humour or distraction or maybe just plain old lying—his most reliable weapon.

“I'll throw in a kiss?” you try.

He hums. “Just one?”

“One per day.”

“Three.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“Well, I am a businessman.”

You snort, but he knows you're endeared. You have very noticeable tells when you’re flustered.

“Okay,” you say. “Three kisses on days you teach me.”

“Deal.”

Aventurine remembers more Avgin than he thought he would.

It comes to him slowly, painstakingly. You aren't interested in structured lessons, and he wouldn't be able to provide them anyway. He has a nonexistent grasp of grammar aside from this sounds right and that sounds strange, and Avgin dialect is both so niche and so dead that no textbooks are available. The scholars have abandoned the language as much as the politicians abandoned its people. Aventurine only has you, his fragmented memory, and whatever questions come to mind as you live out your days with him.

Mostly, you ask him about basic vocabulary. Sometimes you ask him to repeat sentences from your conversations in Avgin, like he’s some kind of multilingual parrot. Each prompt forces him to wade through the fog in his mind, the one that’s been shrouding his childhood memories until now. He's startled at how naturally the old words roll off his tongue: One, two, three, four. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. Sweet dreams. Five, six, seven, eight. You're lying to me. Why do you always lie to me? I don't know what you're talking about. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Welcome home. Have you eaten? Have some bread. I made you stew. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty. That was dangerous. I thought you wouldn't make it back to me. Sometimes I think you want to die. One hundred, one thousand, one million, one billion. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

When you say, How do I ask you to let me hold you, he answers easily. He'd heard the words so often as a child: Let me hold you, Kakavasha. Let Mama hold you. His mouth forms the sounds without conscious thought.

He regrets it almost immediately.

When Aventurine hears it from you—stilted, halting, but no less gentle—he stops breathing. Let me hold you. You say it all the time in Standard, but it feels different in Avgin. More painful. A strange sense of panic closes in on him when he's wrapped up in you, thinking in Avgin, thinking sand, sister, goddess, ghost. He holds you tightly, like the rags cut from his father’s shirt, or his mother’s locket won back from the shell-slashers, or a bag of poker chips beneath a card table, clutched within his trembling grip.

“Aventurine, is something wrong?” you ask in Avgin, and he replies in Standard with his usual smile.

“Hm? No. What could be wrong if I have you here?”

Lying is one of his greatest tools. Sex is another one. So he says, “I think I'd like my reward now,” and he runs his lips along your jaw, your pulse, the spot over your heart (there's a word for that in Avgin but not Standard, he tells you), until you're laughing. I thought you wanted three kisses, you tease, and he replies, Who said I wanted to kiss you on the mouth?

But he coaxes open your thighs, and once he's inside you, he collects his payment properly. He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and you swallow his lies whole.

There are some things that Aventurine doesn't teach you. Mostly, they’re things that he can’t teach you.

There are countless gaps in his Avgin. His speech is painfully childish—probably more childish than it was when he actually stopped speaking it. He doesn't know how to swear (something that disappoints you) and he doesn't know how to flirt (something that devastates you). He doesn’t know any words that would be useful for work either: commercialization, governance, stakes, winnings, profit. When you ask him what his job title is in Avgin (“Was senior management even a thing in Avgin society?”), he laughs and gives you the word for gambler.

Then there are the words that he remembers—has remembered his whole life—but never says. Not to you, and not to himself. He doesn't teach you any prayers. He doesn't teach you any blessings. He doesn't teach you about Mama Fenge, or the Kakava Festival, or how the rain fell when he was born. When you ask him, What holidays did you celebrate when you were little? he shrugs and says, We didn't have any. Sigonia’s too bleak to do any partying.

Then you ask him one day, while your bodies are spent in the afterglow of sex, sticky with sweat and sweetness, how to say I love you. And he goes quiet.

Love is a cheap word in Interastral Standard. In the language of globalisation and trade, love has been commercialised, commodified, capitalised for power. You say it to him in many contexts: I love this, I love that, I love you. He hardly ever reacts, and he's never said it back. It would feel unnecessary and also cruel if he did: Aventurine has only ever said the words himself as either a joke or a manipulation.

But love feels different in Avgin than in Interastral Standard, doesn't sound like a thing that can be traded or bought. Kakavasha only ever said the word love to his mother, to his sister, to his father's grave. Love in his mother tongue feels priceless.

When Aventurine thinks about you saying it—I love you, Kakavasha, in clumsy, earnest Avgin—something so painful swells in his throat that he can hardly breathe.

“There is no word for love in my language,” he tells you.

You blink. “Okay, then what's an idiom for it?”

“There is none. There’s no word or phrase expressing love.”

You raise a brow. “That’s hard to believe.”

“Is it?” He smiles. “There’s no Avgin in the known universe who cares about love. Only scheming, thieving, and treachery—and you can't do those things when love is involved.”

You look at him in alarm. “Why are you saying that?” You're practically squirming in your discomfort. “I don't know why you think I'd believe such a racist stereotype.”

“It’s not a stereotype,” he says. “I'm not talking about the Avgin culture. I'm talking about myself.”

After all, he is the only Avgin left.

It is an unfair thing to say. A cruel thing to say. After all the laughing and kissing and crying and fucking, after all the tender eyes and gentle words from you—it is probably the worst pain imaginable: I don't give a shit about you. He waits for you to cry.

But you only stare at him calmly, studying him. You brush the hair out of his eyes, seeing them clearly.

“If you lie to me all the time,” you say in Avgin, “eventually I'll stop believing anything you say.”

Aventurine is speechless. His heart does that addictive, disgusting thing again. He thinks about leaving, but then you say, Let me hold you, and he can't do anything other than obey.

Avgin dialect was once included in the Synesthesia Beacon list of functions. The Intelligentsia Guild added it before the Second Katica-Avgin Extinction Event, when the IPC was trying to get a political foothold on Sigonia via the Avgin people. The language was alive then, with enough value to be included into the Synesthesia LLM by the linguists.

But since the Extinction Event—since Kakavasha ran away from home—the Synesthesia data on Avgin has been stagnant, a fossil. Aventurine knows because he's subscribed to software updates for certain languages (Avgin Sigonian, Common Sigonian, Interastral Standard, and now your mother tongue). He gets pinged every time there's a new addition for slang, for neologisms—but there hasn't been a ping for the Avgin dialect since he had the Beacon installed. The live translation function hasn't even been available since the previous Amber Era. When he checks its page on his Synesthesia app, it's very clear why—

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 0 STATUS: Extinct END OF SERVICE: 2156 AE

The complete death of the language has led to an irritating dilemma for you and Aventurine. You keep running into words that he doesn't know—this time not because of his childlike speech, but because they never existed in his language to begin with. Ocean, tropical, rainforest. Starskiff, accelerator, space fleet. Stock market, shortselling, mutual funds. Black hole, event horizon, spaghettification. All things that never came up for Kakavasha, but now come up for Aventurine, and the language has not evolved to include it.

He always wants to switch to Standard to discuss these things, but you're insistent on speaking in Avgin as much as possible. He doesn't know why, but he doesn't mind humouring you—partly because he likes to indulge you, and partly because he’s grown used to hearing the honeyed timbre of Avgin dialect in your household. The place would feel strange without it.

So you start filling the gaps with other languages, filtering them through the lyricism of Avgin. Loanwords, he thinks they’re called. You take ocean, tropical, rainforest from Amazian; starskiff, accelerator, space fleet from Xianzhounese; stock market, shortselling, mutual funds from Interastral Standard. For the astrophysics terms, you try directly translating them—with limited success.

“Can't I literally just say ‘black hole’?” you ask in Avgin, and he nearly spits out his coffee.

“Please don't. That's a dirty word.” He can't bring himself to say what it means, but from the way you’re laughing, you can clearly guess.

“I thought you said you didn't know how to swear.”

“You've just reminded me how.”

“You're welcome.” You look on the verge of cackling. Aventurine finishes his coffee and wonders when you're going to surprise him with your newfound vulgarity.

“Let's just do the space terms based on Standard,” he says. Begs.

“No, that's so boring.”

“Then let's do your language.”

You open your mouth. Close it. Give him a blank look.

“You don't know how to say those words in your mother tongue either, do you,” he intuits.

“Well, ‘spaghettification’ doesn't really come up in everyday conversation, does it?”

“Then maybe we don't need it.” He smiles, senses an opportunity. Smells blood. “How about ‘love’? I'd much rather know how you say that. I bet it sounds beautiful.”

You give him a long look. Your eyes are vulnerable when you share it: Love. I love you. He’s fascinated by the sound of it. Your voice is never that fragile when you say it in Standard. It's never so earnest. He repeats it, staring at you, and your gaze falls to the ground. His mouth curls.

“I like it,” he says. “Let's use that. It'll sound nice in Avgin.”

You try to recover. “Sure. That works. But back to ‘black hole’—”

And the two of you continue like that for days, weeks, months. It feels like a complete bastardization of his mother tongue on some days, in some conversations. Almost unrecognisable. But it doesn't feel bad. It’s all he has, it's all you have, and when he walks into your home, he starts speaking it without thinking: your bastard, patchwork language. The Avgin dialect that exists only in your house. A tongue that can only be understood by a liar.

And then, one lazy Sunday morning, he gets a familiar ping. He expects it to be Interastral Standard, as usual. The language balloons with each planet that the IPC colonises.

But instead, he opens his screen and freezes.

SIGONIAN, AVGIN DIALECT SPEAKERS: 2 STATUS: Endangered. SERVICE RESUMED: 2157 AE NEW UPDATES: 103 loanwords and 5 neologisms added.

He can't stop looking at the status. Endangered. Endangered, which means dying, but alive. The Avgin dialect is alive again. The Intelligentsia Guild determined it, so it must be true. But Aventurine can't agree: there are no Avgin speakers in the known universe other than the two of you, and what you speak isn't real Avgin. The Avgin spoken by his mother and father and sister is dead; the Avgin spoken by Kakavasha is dead. The festivals are gone; the deserts have been terraformed. There are no wagons; there are no dances; there are no prayers. There are no blessings, and he has no home—

As long as you are alive, the blood of the Avgin will never run dry.

His throat locks up.

“Aventurine?” you ask. Your voice is drowsy, but concerned. “Is something wrong?”

He looks at you from his phone, a polished smile on his face.

“No.” His syllables are plain and efficient in the noise of Interastral Standard: “Just looking at details for a new assignment. It’ll be a long one.”

“Oh.” You frown. “Will you be away from home for a long time, then?”

He stops himself from swallowing. “Yes, I'll be away from the house. For several months, probably.”

“Okay.” Your voice is small. “Take care of yourself, okay? I'll miss you.”

Each word you speak resonates with heartbreak. It always does in these conversations, even in Standard—but the sorrow is amplified in Avgin. His mother tongue has an inherently sad quality to it, he's noticed. His people have lost so much over their history—their language is one of loss. It's his language of loss. Kakavasha did all his grieving in Avgin; Aventurine has never felt sorrow in Standard. When the language died, so did Kakavasha—and all his regrets with it.

“You'll come home to me, right?” you ask. It's a beautiful sentence in Avgin. A heartrending one. He feels something that he hasn't known since he was a child.

It's a feeling he has to kill.

“Yes,” he says in Standard. “Of course I'll come back.”

This is not the first time that Aventurine has been mistaken for dead, but this is the longest time.

The latest world to join the IPC network was a tough acquisition. It had been ruled by a despot who wreaked havoc on both the people and the planet, and who was too stupid and reckless to resolve conflicts with his trade partners. He probably would have blown up the whole star system had he been left to his own devices. Aventurine had no qualms about bringing him to ruin, nor did he have qualms about nearly dying in the process.

If things had gone his way, he'd either be dead or missing. This would have been the perfect opportunity to do the latter, actually—to be freed from the IPC. Free to drift alone, speaking with strangers in strange, unfamiliar tongues. No connection to his past, to the cruel history of his luck, to his commodity code. No tether to his inherently unjust destiny. But instead he's back in your house, pockets heavy with his borrowed wealth, speaking to you in his bastardised, childish Avgin. I'm sorry. Come here. Let me kiss you. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry.

Your Avgin is—shockingly fluent. He doesn't know how. He can't think about it right now. All he can process is the wounded animal noise of your speech as you yell at him, as you cry. Like an injured songbird, or a weeping child. Why did you leave, why did you lie, why do you always lie to me, why don't you give a shit about me, you spit. Why do you want to die, why do you want to die, why do you want to die, you keep saying. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost, he keeps hearing. Sand, sister, goddess, ghost. Don't leave me, big sister. People will die. Why do you have to go?

“I’m sorry,” he tries again, this time in your language. “I'm so sorry. Come here. Let me hold you.”

You collapse into your mother tongue. Aventurine is both relieved and horrified. Relieved that he doesn't need to hear the language of his grief—horrified that he needs to hear yours. He's never heard you cry like this. He's never heard you break like this. These must have been the words you used when the soldiers found you hiding in your closet, when they dragged you out of your home. You were just a child.

Aventurine doesn't know the words you are using—you've never taught them—but he still understands them.

You're very malleable when you’re sad; even more so when you're hysterical. Aventurine understands this about you, and he understands how to calm you—this time in your native tongue—and he understands how to kiss you. He understands that you need to feel close to him. He understands that there are ways to accomplish this other than sex. A normal person would talk it out, have an honest conversation, come to a mutual understanding, and maybe even stop trying to kill himself. They wouldn't fuck you into the mattress while your face is still wet with tears.

But Aventurine is not a normal person. He doesn't know how to have an honest conversation, and he doesn't want to be understood. Lying is his greatest weapon, and sex is a close second. So he kisses you until you’re too breathless to cry, fucks you until you can't think, and makes you come so hard that you’re in too much bliss to grieve. And maybe it's horrible of him, but he enjoys it. He enjoys the way your body takes him in so easily, the way your nails dig into his back, the way you tighten around him when you climax, so wet and needy for him. The way you beg for him in your language for liars as he spends himself inside you: I love you, Aventurine, I love you, I love you, I love you—

Only because it feels good. This is all only because he enjoys fucking you. This is all only because you enjoy fucking him. This is all it'll ever be, and it'll be this way until he gets to meet his end.

(Some months ago, Aventurine started dreaming in Avgin.

It surprised him when he first noticed it. The last time he remembers having a dream in his native tongue, he was twelve years old and still in chains. And even then, it had become a sporadic, strange thing. Awful to wake up from. One minute he was with his mother and sister on a cool, rainy day, speaking fluently in Avgin as he laughed and played—and the next minute, he was being shaken awake in his cage, hearing the cruel lash of Katican.

But ever since he's started speaking Avgin with you, he's been dreaming in it. Vividly. Sometimes he's a child in these dreams, and sometimes he's grown. He's always back in the Sigonian desert, among the tents and the campfires and his family wagons. His mother and sister are alive. Sometimes his father is too. The skies roar with thunder and the stellar winds are always harsh, but they always keep him cocooned up in their arms. He's always warm.

Sometimes Aventurine dreams of nicer days. Clear skies, warm sun, cool breeze—all blessings from the Mother Goddess. On these days, he tends to be an adult, and you tend to be there with him. Your Avgin is fluent but strange, filled with funny loanwords and peculiar slang. His father likes the neologisms and starts using them—but only in wrong ways. His sister finds it embarrassing and keeps apologising to you.

His mother loves you. She loves you so much it hurts. This is how I know you're blessed, Kakavasha, she says, glowing. You’re so lucky to have found such a kind person.

Kakavasha knows this. He knows he's lucky, and in his dreams, that isn't a bad thing. In his dreams, his luck means that his home is not violently excised from his heart: his father never dies; his mother never dies; his sister never dies. The tents are not burned; the wagons are not destroyed. He is never forced to forget his people's dishes, their songs, their language, their joy. And in his dreams, his luck means that he meets you anyway, without all the loss and the chains and the lying.

In his dreams, he is able to bring you to the desert. He is able to teach you the Avgin he spoke as a child, to cook all the meals his mother used to make, to share with you their coffee and their tea. He teaches you prayers. He teaches you blessings. He tells you about Mama Fenge, about how the rain fell when he was born. He takes you to the Kakava Festival, shows you how to dance, sings to you all the Avgin songs until you're singing back. He presses his palm to yours in prayer; he kisses you in devotion, not avoidance.

Sometimes the two of you still fight, the same fights that you have in real life, but he handles them with honesty. He listens to you. He apologises to you. He tells you that he’ll change, and he means it—because this world is a kind one, and he has no need to be so cruel to you.

In this kind world, when you lay in bed with his arms tight around you, you smile at him and say, I love you, Kakavasha. You say it in Avgin—real Avgin, not the dialect born from genocide and deceit—and when he responds, there's not even a little bit of insincerity in his voice. Because Kakavasha never became Aventurine in these dreams, so he has no Interastral Standard in which he can lie to you, no silver tongue with which he can manipulate you, no commodity code that inspires his fear of being controlled by you. Kakavasha only knows Avgin, and he only has his sand, his family, his goddess, his home.

And he has you. Finally, he has you.

He kisses you, and kisses you, and kisses you—and then he tells you the truth.)

.

.

.

Aventurine cannot lie in Avgin.

You noticed this very early on: whenever he lies to you, he always switches to Interastral Standard. Probably he wouldn't be able to do it in his mother tongue. His command of it is too weak, and the words he knows are all too kind. He speaks with the innocence of a child, and children cannot deceive people in the way that adults can. Children cannot perform commerce or negotiate contracts. They cannot use a silver tongue to rob people blind. They cannot save themselves from the gallows.

So Aventurine’s Avgin is defenceless. Vulnerable. So vulnerable it hurts. You are not so vulnerable in your first language because your captors spoke it on occasion, and you learned to lie in it to gain their pity. You told Aventurine that knowing it would help him understand you, but this was a deception. Aventurine’s mother tongue was a language of trust, but yours is a dialect of abuse.

The Avgin language died before Aventurine could be gutted by it; this is why it disarms him so completely. This is why he’s so indulgent and so warm when you use it with him, why he yields to all your requests. Not requests for money or gifts—you’re certain those are meaningless to him—but for affection. Let me hold you. Let me touch you. Let me kiss you. He can never say no.

This is also why he loves hearing you speak his mother tongue, you think—it makes him feel at home, it makes him feel safe. Maybe it even makes him feel loved. He never seems so at peace speaking any other language, so you try to use Avgin as much as possible. You like seeing him happy. You like it even if it means you need to teach him your own native language in exchange, even when it means you need to hear him say all the things your captors used to say. You don't mind it if it's him. You never mind the harm he inflicts on you, especially not when it brings you closer to him.

It is convenient that he cannot lie in Avgin. You only wanted to learn it in the first place because he talks in his sleep—mostly in Standard, but sometimes in his native tongue. And now that you know he cannot lie in Avgin, you also know he's always being honest in his dreams. Honest when he throws his arms around you in his sleep. Honest when he grabs you so tightly that you bruise. Honest when he buries his face into your neck and whispers prayers into your skin.

Most of the words he says are common ones, the earliest vocabulary that he taught you. But there are some things he's withheld from you—and to learn those things, you had to track down linguists from the Intelligentsia Guild, bribe them with your dirty money, have them give you all their deprecated, extinct data. It felt two-faced, and it was violating, but it was the only way. You already know that Aventurine would rather die than translate his feelings for you, would never want this part of himself understood.

I'm sorry for always leaving you.

I'm sorry for making you cry.

I can't bear the thought of losing you.

Freedom would be too lonely without you.

I don't want to hurt you anymore.

I don't want to lie to you anymore.

I missed you.

I want you.

I need you.

I love you.

end

afterword