#Something Good and and Right and Real

[cressidagrey]

for the first time, what's past is past

Summary:

Of all the ways, Azriel expected to meet his mate, this wasn’t it.

Warnings:

Rhys Bashing, Azriel has a horrible time

Notes:

Mostly Canon Compliant Through A Court of Silver Flame including the Azriel Bonus Chapter with some teeny tiny changes, which are explained in the story (a difference in the necklace arc). Set around 1 year into the future from that point, where it veers off wildly.

(thanks to @firefly-graphics for the super pretty dividers!)

His mate literally stumbled into him. 

Of all the ways, Azriel could come across her, that was not the one that he thought it ever would be. 

It was so…mundane. 

It was a spring evening in Velaris. Less than a year after Elain’s wedding. 2 years since that Solstice.  Nyx would be 2 in just a few weeks. 

To say that Azriel hadn’t been…doing particularly well, was an understatement. 

He hid it well. 

He buried himself in his work, he did everything anybody expected from him…he existed. 

It was fine. 

Everybody was busy with their mates or their significant other and Azriel…well, he kept busy with other things. It was better that way. 

The problem was only that even Rhys had suggested for him to take a break. Just that it wasn’t a suggestion. It had been an order. 

“Take the rest of the day off. I am sure there is something or somebody that could get your mind off your work.”

He had wanted to bristle. He had wanted to make a sharp-cutting comment about how Rhys had been the one making sure that Azriel didn’t have anything to do, nobody to go home to. He hadn’t. 

He had stopped doing that. Granted, his shadows hadn’t and had been bristling around him about how the High Lord didn’t know better than they did. Azriel had ignored that too. 

He didn’t protest anymore. Why should he even bother doing that? If Rhys wanted to send him on some bullshit mission, well, then Rhys was going to do that. Why should Azriel fight it? 

He was so tired of fighting. 

So there he was, in the Rainbow, looking for a birthday present for Nyx. Then he could cross that off the neverending list of things he needed to do. He hated gift-giving with a passion. 

He had never liked it here overly much, even when it was his High Lady’s domain. Feyre loved the Rainbow and the hustle and bustle of the artists’ quarter. For Azriel, it bordered on too much. Azriel only liked the bars with their constantly changing lineup of musicians performing for an evening.

Never anywhere twice, just for a few hours...  

He had done that a lot over the last few months. When sitting alone in his house didn’t help him. Cloaked in shadows, so people would leave him alone…sitting in one corner of the bar, and just listening to the music…

He never really patronised the shops around there, because…well, he didn’t really need anything. He never had. He bought the things he needed and that was that. And to be honest, he was completely content with a couple of daggers, Truthteller and his Illyrian fighting leathers.  

She stumbled against his chest when somebody bumped into her. The str 

Azriel didn’t react fast enough…and then it already happened. 

The mating bond snapped into place in an instant and he could just stare at her, hands reaching out to hold her up. 

His. 

Even his shadows agreed with him, hissing in agreement. 

Ours, Master

He was frozen in place as he drank her in. 

For once in his life, he wasn’t the only one surrounded by shadows. His were different than hers, Tartera shadows seemed to surround the fairies making it impossible to see anything but just sometimes a hand or a shoulder poking out. 

Hers were…far weaker than he had ever seen, just smudged at the edges. And then there were the pointy ears that stood out from a dark cloud of beautiful curls and the near-black skin that covered the rest of hers. 

So not Tartera after all? A high Fae? 

Either? Both?

It didn’t matter. He had never cared about anything less. 

And then her eyes had looked up at him. They smoldered like embers, nearly red and he could swear he saw flames licking into them. It was probably the most startling thing he had seen in centuries. And then she blinked, and they were completely pitch black, and the embers were gone. 

Full lips pulled into a wide smile, showing white teeth. 

“Oh, I’ve been waiting for you!” Those were her first words to him at that street corner. 

Waiting for him. 

His heart constricted. She…she was happy to meet him? 

He hadn’t expected that. 

He could feel the bond pulling against his ribs, pounding in time with his too-quick heartbeat. He couldn’t help himself. Azriel had never felt quite as wrong-footed with another fae in his life. 

But with her he was. She made him just want to stare at her. 

She was beautiful. 

She stepped back and immediately he ached with the lack of her warmth surrounding him and the feeling of…loneliness. He wanted to stare at her, wanted to drink in every inch of her because this was… her .  

He had waited, hoped, and prayed for her for so long that it had become second nature to him. 

He just had never thought that he was going to actually have this. 

“Are you alright?” she asked him softly. “You look pale.” He probably was. 

Azriel had fought for his life, waged war and lived for centuries…and still, this female that he didn’t even know could put him on the floor with nothing but a smile and a look out of black eyes. 

“Yes, I…I didn’t think I was ever going to…” he managed to bring out and she gave him a soft smile. 

“You let me wait a long time,” she teased him and he barked out a laugh. 

“You made me wait too,” he responded quietly and she laughed, a tinkling tone like a bell. 

“I am Oriana,” she introduced herself, holding out her hand and he took it dumbly, only a moment later realising that she hadn't flinched back from his scarred hands for even a second. Instead, she held it in her smaller and much, much darker one, her skin nearly as pitch black as her eyes. 

Oriana . 

It suited her. 

But then he would have thought that about any name because it was her . 

“Azriel,” he told her, still hanging on to her hand, feeling the soft skin underneath his fingertips. 

“You want to come with me? My apartment is around 5 feet to your right,” she told him and he could just nod as she pulled him along into her life, without even a moment of hesitation. 

Was this how it was supposed to be? 

He swallowed. 

It was the work of just a few steps, until she unlocked the door to a tiny jewellery store, holding it open for him. 

He followed along, the door closing, shutting out the hustle and bustle from outside, shutting them into a quiet room and…He smelled her for the first time, the scent of wood and…burning? seemingly clinging onto her. 

He had never thought that that would be an appealing scent, but it was. She smelled like a bonfire. Something wild and unbridled, warm and safe. 

“You live here?” he asked her, as she ventured into her shop, doing something, before she opened a door that showed a small staircase that he would just manage to traverse if he tucked his wings as tight to his body as possible. 

“It’s mine. I live above,” she explained. 

That did make sense with her Tartera ancestry. They were well known for living in the mountains of the Night Court, masterful goldsmiths that had a love for jewellery that revelled Amren’s.

The pieces were artfully made, all of them in a very specific style that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Though he was sure that he would always be able to pick out pieces she had made now. 

A lot of it was gold, arched, beautiful pieces that held stones in a wisp of nothing, beautiful scroll work and jewels in every colour of the rainbow. 

He took it in for just a moment longer before he followed her up. 

Oriana let him into her apartment, walls covered with pieces of jewellery and pieces of metal carefully formed into what probably passed as art and Azriel blinked twice as he saw precious gems carelessly piled high in a bowl in her entranceway. 

“Tea?” she asked then, but then she had already waved to a kettle that seemed willing to do all the work for her if she told it to do just that. Her bag was carelessly hung onto a chair and another wave got teacup to fly from her shelves onto the small table. 

“Yes, thank you,” he managed to bring out, his shadows skittering away from him for the first time in what felt like months as they started to investigate their surroundings. 

He wanted to pull them back, he probably should, shouldn’t scare her like that, but then she turned around and saw a tendril crawl along her wall towards a blue stone that seemed to glow from within, an amused smirk covered her face. 

“Curious, aren’t they?” she asked him and Azriel swallowed. 

He wanted to respond, but then she was giving a delighted little laugh and Azriel watched in horror as she lifted her hand to reveal a shadow winding its way around her wrist, threading through the golden bangles she wore, up her arms. 

Stop , he warned them sharply, and they froze. Didn’t disappear though. 

“You upset them,” Oriana said with a pout, her other hand carefully, gently touching his shadows. She hesitated for a moment before she started to pet the shadows like they were a cat or something. 

Azriel could just stare at her.  Oriana trailed her fingers across her arm nearly thoughtfully. 

Azriel wanted nothing but to be the one that she touched and not just her shadows. 

“I…forgive me. They shouldn’t be doing that,”  he apologised, heat beginning to blossom on his face. 

“Why?” she asked him, still looking at the shadow that had wrapped itself around her arm like it belonged to the collection of armcuffs she wore anyway. 

Only now he realise that while she wore multiple pieces of jewellery, most of it was simple, gold pieces, nearly architectural. Not that many stones, though there were some…

“Why?” he echoed back and she shrugged. 

“They aren’t doing anything. They’re sweet.” 

That was the last thing that he expected her to say. Especially when nobody in his life had ever called them that. Or willing to reach out to touch them. His shadows didn’t even want to touch. They had disappeared out of Elain’s sight whenever they could, probably because she had done her level best to outright ignore them. 

Cassian and Rhys…well they saw them as tools. Which they were.

But Oriana…she seemed to see them as…an extension of him. 

He watched bemused when a tendril of his shadows crawled up her arm and disappeared between her black curls, nearly blending in, pinning it out of her face. 

“I…people don’t say that,” he finally settled on. “They aren’t…normally sweet.”

They weren’t. They were the stuff nightmares were made out for most of the population. 

And she just…

The teakettle shrilled. Oriana moved, filling two chipped mugs with it and took a seat at the small table tucked away in a corner. “You should sit,” she told him easily. 

Another shadow was winding itself around her other wrist and he glared at it. There weren’t even words coming from them if one ignored them purring like a bloody cat. 

What in the world was happening?!

“You know, I spent my first century in the mountain. I know darkness,” she told him drily. “I always found it…comforting.”

He finally managed to move, tuck the wings out of the way and he sat down across from her. As he met her gaze, he once more stared into the fire. 

Until she blinked, and it was back to pitch black. 

“I apologise. I have a better handle on the eyes most of the time,” she apologised to him, taking her mug in both hands and gently blowing on it.

“Should I apologise for the wings?” he blurted out and she grinned at him. 

“Not on my accord,” she promised him sweetly. “But I have it on good authority that my eyes are fucking creepy . They kinda show up when emotions are high. I have it under control most of the time.”

Her eyes were…fascinating. It was like looking into a bonfire and not…not seeing anything else. Like he was staring into flames and eaten alive and somehow Azriel loved it. 

He didn’t think that he ever would. He didn't normally particularly like fire. The scars on his hands had taken care of that. He hated the cold even more though, so that was the trade-off he needed to make. 

When emotions are running high? 

For the first time, he tried reaching out through the mating bond and felt a twinge of nervousness coming from her. Nervousness and Giddiness and…happy. She was so happy to have him hear. 

It was startling. 

He cleared his throat. “Who told you that?” he asked her and she laughed. 

“My brother,” she told him with some amusement. “I got most of the…Tartera blood. He looks very much like a normal High Fae. Got out of the Mountain as soon as he could. He loves the fresh air too much to stay down there for too long,” she explained to him. “Mom is Tartera. Dad was a High Fae. It was the talk of decades when he ran off with him.” She said all of that so matter of factly like her heritage just was another thing about her. Like she was proud of it even

His thoughts about his heritage were a whole lot more… difficult. Harsher. 

Maybe because there wasn’t anything amusing about the way he had come into the world. Maybe because he wanted nothing more than to just ignore what had happened through his childhood and never wanted to think about it anymore. 

“And you?” she asked him, looking at him over the rim of her cup.

“Illyrian,” he answered her, because wasn’t that obvious?

“Yeah, the wings are a bit of a giveaway,” Oriana agreed with a smile. “But that wasn’t what I meant. Tell me about yourself,” she invited him and he could just stare at her, terrified. 

Alone the question terrified him and he couldn’t help it. 

What was he supposed to tell his mate that wasn’t going to send her running away screaming? 

Azriel was quite certain that he could do just that with one ill-thought-out sentence, and he didn’t want to do that. 

He really didn’t want to. He was a master strategist. His plans had backup plans and backup plans had backup plans, but right now, he felt utterly unprepared for what his mate was offering.

What was the right thing to say? He hadn’t gathered enough intel to know what sweet little lies would make her fall in love with him and to be honest, he didn’t want to lie to her. Not like this. She deserved better than that. 

Better than him. 

He was a monster dripping in blood and she…she was…dipped in temptation and gilded around the edges. 

He didn’t even know her and still he ached for her. 

For her and what she represented. 

“What do you want to know?” he asked hoarsely. Wondering to what god he needed to sell the bit of soul that was still belonging to him so that she wasn’t going to look at him in hatred and disgust. 

She mustered him, eyes dark, no more flames. He missed them suddenly. 

“What do you want to tell me?” she asked him softly, holding out a hand to him over the table, his shadows still wrapped around her wrist. 

He wanted to take it. 

He didn’t want her to shy away from his hands. She hadn’t, not the first time, but he didn’t think she had even really seen them, even…thought about it. 

And now they would be obvious to her. 

“This isn’t an interrogation, you know,” she told him with a soft laugh and finally, he inched his hand over the table towards her. Her fingers curled around his, the constant dull discomfort that they were in forgotten as he just felt soft skin…callouses though and one or two of her scars. 

She mustered them for a moment, and there was a twinge of something… through the bond. Empathy maybe? It wasn’t the disgust or fear that he had expected though. It was far sweeter than that. She held onto his hand and he didn’t want to pull it back. 

“What is it then?” he managed to bring out and her hand pressed his. 

“Right now? Mostly a getting to know you,” Oriana said. “The cauldron seems to think that we would be a fit for each other. I reserve the right to judge that for myself.”

Right. He didn’t know how he was feeling about that. Maybe it was better that way..that she wasn’t just going to blindly follow the cauldron. But like this, she could also decide that he wasn’t worth the hassle and that…that terrified him. 

“That’s…fair,” he finally settled on, finally taking a sip of tea. Peppermint. Sharp and warm. 

She smiled at him. “How about I start and then you can ask whatever you want?” she suggested. He managed to nod. He could do that. 

“Well, you already know my name. I am the result of a very, very scandalous pairing of my mother with a High Fae enchanter. It was a whole thing when it went down,” she said with some amusement. “I have a full older brother named Cyrus and a couple of nieces and nephews running around from him.” It was obvious that she liked her brother. Her face lit up when she talked about him. 

And he was soaking up every bit of information he could get about her. 

At least this time, he didn’t need to resort to anything…illicit. She was offering it all up for the taking. And he was a selfish male that he wanted every bit he could get off her. 

“I have some half-siblings as well but they are in the mountains and I spend most of my time around here nowadays, so I don’t see them that often,” she explained. So she was obviously closer to Cyrus. It made sense. 

“I was trained as a Goldsmith by my mother’s people,” she continued. Of course. Tarteras were known for the jewellery they made. They were literally the gold standard of their trade. It was also ridiculously expensive.  “And as an enchantress by my father. These days, I mostly do jewellery though. I got some autumn blood through my father as well, which leads to a very… interesting combination of my natural abilities,” she told him. “Also explains the creepy eyes.”

He wanted to laugh at the way she rolled said creepy eyes. They stayed black this time. He wondered if it was an enchantment or if she summoned the black eyes through magic. Or maybe the flames were an emotional response?

It made him curious. 

“Do I get a peek?” he asked her. She raised one dark eyebrow at him and he blushed, as he replayed his words in his head. Right . “Of your natural abilities?” he added quickly.

“Oh, you would like that, wouldn’t you?” she teased him. For a moment, he regretted even asking, but he had done it.

“It’s just fair, you have seen my shadows,” he said, not allowing himself to overthink it. 

“Well, then you can see my flames,” she agreed with another laugh. He hadn’t expected her to pull back her hand from his grip. Azriel couldn’t help but mourn the loss, even when she was doing as he requested. 

Just a moment later, she had flames dancing in the palm of her hand. 

 He could just stare at them. Right. 

She had meant that literally . 

Even his shadows froze, pulling back slightly higher up her arms, not wanting to get in the way of the flames that happily burned in her hands. 

She closed her fist, the flame dying. “Surprisingly useful in the forge,” she said lightly. “Took me a few decades to get a proper handle on it though.“

Yeah, he imagined that. 

“How old are you?” he blurted out. A few decades ? At least it made him feel less like a cradle robber. 

“You are horrible for making a lady admit her age, you know,” Oriana said drily. “200 years. Give or take a few,” she admitted easily. 

“540,” he responded and she smiled brightly, showing a row of white teeth. 

“Well, any questions?” she asked him. 

Oh, he had questions. A lot of them. 

He didn’t quite know with what to start. But she seemed content to wait until he had managed to figure out what he wanted to ask her. 

“Did you spend a lot of time living in the mountains?” he finally asked her. She had said her first century. But had it been longer or…

She nodded. “Most of my childhood, Most of my adult years as well,” she admitted. “I married when I was 18.” He just stared at her. 

Just…please, everything but…

“You don’t need to worry, he’s dead,” she quipped drily. He opened his mouth to apologise but she waved him off. “We were married for 80 years. Then he died. It was…difficult. My heart wasn’t in my work anymore. Wystan was my husband, but he was also my research partner in many ways.” She stared off into space for just a moment. 

“Do you miss him?” he asked her quietly. She reached out for his hand again, his heart painfully thudding in his chest. Her fingers curled against his scarred ones, never once hesitating. 

“Not in the way you think,” she said after a moment. “ It was an arranged marriage. I was… fond of him. He was a good friend to me. A better friend than he was a husband. You don’t need to worry about him or my feelings for him,” Oriana promised him. “I had a century to grief for him.”

It was the truth. He could hear that in every word. She had griefed him and moved on. 

 “I spent nearly 500 years pining over a woman who couldn’t possibly be less interested,” he blurted out.   

He had no idea where that was coming from. Or why he even wanted to tell Oriana about Morrigan, because quite frankly it was an idiotic thing to do. He shouldn’t be doing this. He should be…

“Well, let nobody ever tell you that you aren’t loyal,” Oriana responded after a moment. “Are you still in love with her?” she asked him, not a grain of judgment in her voice. Nothing of that sort. 

“No,” he said softly. “I…got over her. Fell in love. Again. She had a mate. She chose him.” And that summed up his romantic life that wasn’t…just taking somebody home because he wanted it. Though he had never one much of that. Of course, his brothers thought differently, but they didn’t need to know the full truth. 

“I am sorry. That must have...hurt,” she said sincerely. 

She kept surprising him, not saying at all what he thought she would say. Shouldn’t most mates be…jealous of some kind? But she seemed to just be happy to be in his presence and talk to him. 

“Aren’t you going to tell me that since she isn’t my mate, I should get over her?” he asked her curiously. 

She just shrugged. 

“I have seen matings that were a catastrophe waiting to happen and I have also seen grand love stories. The mating bond…it doesn’t…” she seemed to struggle with her words. “...guarantee a happy ending,” she finally settled on. “In many cases, it helps. In other it doesn’t,” she said quietly. “My parents weren’t mated. My father still loved my mother enough to give up his life for her.”  She mustered him quietly, eyes pitch black and even. He had only rarely in his life felt that assessed. “You aren’t over her, are you?” Oriana asked him quietly. 

“I…I don’t know.” Alone saying the words hurt. 

She nodded. “You are honest. I like that,” Oriana said evenly. “I would much rather you tell me the truth even when it hurts me momentarily than lie to me and let me believe that everything is alright, even when it isn’t. Tell me the truth, and I won’t ever be angry with you about it,” she promised him. It was a heady promise. 

He wanted to give her all his truth, even when he knew , he couldn’t. He couldn’t possibly give her every secret he held. But he wanted to. 

Azriel wanted to get to know her. Wanted to see where it would lead. 

“You don’t owe me anything,” Oriana continued. “Not your time and not your attention. If you want nothing to do with me…I understand that.” She said the words and he knew that she meant them, but he could still feel the prickly of hurt down their mating bond. 

Azriel could just stare at her shocked. 

He had never even thought about the possibility that he was going to be the one refusing his made. And there it was. 

“You know nothing about me,“ he finally said quietly. “Otherwise you wouldn’t put that choice on me.”

If she knew the whole truth, she would be running away from him right now.

Her eyes lit up suddenly, pinning him underneath the weight of her gaze. 

“Don’t I, Shadowsinger?” Oriana asked him pointedly. It was the first time she had even mentioned his ability, no one counted her sweetness to his shadows.  “I can put 2 and 2 together. An Illyrian Shadowsinger. You work for the High Lord,“ she said drily. 

Azriel swallowed. Inclined his head. 

She sighed. “You have secrets. Some I can guess at and others I have no clue about,” she told him. “Do you like your job?”

The question came so out of the blue that Azriel could just stare at her for a moment. 

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he didn’t. Sometimes he wondered if this was the prize he needed to pay. Sometimes… “I am not a…good male.” This time it was him that struggled for words. 

“You don’t need to be good for me.” 

Somehow Azriel knew that she meant every word. And wasn’t that a startling thing? 

“Tell me one thing and we won’t ever need to discuss it again. If you can’t be good…can you be righteous?” Oriana asked him, fiercely.

“I…I think so.”

“Then that’s all I care about.”

The truth rang out high and clear, like a mountain river. 

“You are saying the truth,” Azriel said, shocked. She couldn’t…but she looked at him, eyes flaring. 

“I am,” she promised.  “I don’t like lying.”

For a moment they just mustered the other, right there in that little apartment in the rainbow. 

He didn’t know her. 

Not truly. He didn’t trust Oriana either, because he was conditioned to not trust anybody. But…But there was something there, something in him that pulled him towards her. More than even the fledgling mating bond. And Mother knew he wanted that mating bond. 

But Oriana was calm and even and intelligent and fiery and pragmatic and brilliant and…gorgeous. 

And Azriel wanted her. In any way, he could have her. In many ways that he didn’t even allow himself to think about. 

“...can I come see you again?” he requested softly, his hand curling around hers and the smile that she gave him was wide and unbridled. 

“Of course, you can. I thought you would never ask,” she teased him. 

And still, Azriel couldn’t help but ask: “Why do you even bother giving me a chance? You could have…somebody else.” He struggled to bring the words out. 

She was gorgeous, there was no way around it. She mustered him for a moment, the hand that he wasn’t holding playing the necklace around her throat. Gold. A rope as thick as his thumb. Dotted with clear stones that sparkled in the sunlight.

“You could have somebody else as well,” Oriana responded evenly.  

“Somebody more beautiful than you? I doubt that.” The words were just flowers over his lips and he could feel the tip of his ears redden. 

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Flatterer.” She looked at him fondly, before growing seriously. “You think a lot of faes like the idea of a half-breed?  The answer is no.”

“Don’t call yourself that,” he snapped. “Not unless you want me to call myself an Illyrian Bastard,” he softened his voice. 

She inclined her head. “I’ll be there whenever you want to come over,” she promised him.

And that was it. He said his goodbyes, even when he wanted nothing more than to stay right there with her in her tiny kitchen and listen to her talk about anything she wanted. 

Because he was sure that if she didn’t tell him to go, he never would. 

He would be content there, staying right there with her. 

But he couldn’t do that. So he forced himself to go, leave her apartment and her shop and finally, he was back on the cobblestone streets of Velaris, his head still filled with his mate’s scent and her smile.  

He wanted to hoard her like a dragon hoarded his treasures. Hoard away her scent and her smile and every gesture, the flames in her eyes and her laugh. 

That’s what she was. His treasure. 

Keep her safe and keep her to himself and…He didn’t need anybody to know, did he? 

Could he get away with keeping her a secret? Just for a little while? Just while he figured it out? 

Just until…Just until he knew what they wanted, and how they wanted it? 

And maybe until the mating bond was consummated? The fear was potent for just a moment. He didn’t actually think that Rhys was going to tell him not to pursue how own fucking mate. He wouldn’t do that. Right? 

But when the Elain thing had taught him one thing then that he really shouldn’t trust that…everybody had his happiness first on their mind. Granted everything with Elain had seemingly been a catastrophe waiting to happen, with a mate that she hadn’t wanted at that point in time, but who was also the son of a High Lord and the brother to another and Elain herself being Feyre’s older sister and…Maybe if he wasn’t still bitter about the whole thing he could have seen where Rhys was coming from. 

Still, Rhys had used his status as the High Lord to make an order about Azriel’s private life once. What would stop him from doing it again? 

Nothing. 

And Azriel wasn’t…Azriel wasn’t going to take that risk. He was not. 

He was willing to maybe use his own life to bargain but not hers. Not Oriana. 

He had kept worse secrets for less. 

And she was the most important of them all. 

So he would keep her a secret. 

The first secret in his long life that brought him joy. 

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[yashley]

Then why are you here? What is it you want? I want to free you.

[screwpinecaprice]

Just a silly guy, with silly silly thoughts.

@glowweek Day 2

Casual | Surprise

A casual surprise?😬😬😬

[th3-c0ll3ct3r]

WAKE UP BITCHES ISKALL DROPPED AND IMMA EVALUATE IT-

Especially considering I was never a fan of him in the first place I will have no bias in this horse race

Video:

The entire video genuinely sounds like a more constructive Dream allegations video minus the detective outfit and 2hrs of rambling and a serious lack of evidence due to privacy reasons which kind of, so lightly sound like an excuse

He claims that when he was alerted to these allegations, he was given a 1hr and 30 minutes deadline to produce proof to the Hermits he didn't do anything

He then contact the police and a lawyer

Girl we are going to pause right here because stunning that you contacted the police and a lawyer but if you didn't do the things that you're alleged or doing then you would have proof that you didn't do those things like the whole situation could it take in 20 minutes

If he didn't do even one of the things he was accused of it would have taken less than the hour and a half he was given to screen share his screen with multiple Hermits and just start scrolling through Discord

Then he goes on to say that he wasn't given enough time etc... And that they'd rushed him.

There have been MULTIPLE sources stating they tried for MONTHS to get into contact with the Hermits.

But IT IS odd that when he was "notified" of his wrongdoings, he first went to the police and a lawyer, DESPITE a hermit telling you first. If everyone knows then it's not a matter of privacy anymore.

Like personally if that was me, I'd have jumped into Discord no questions asked, shown the proof THEN contacted a lawyer for defamation or other relating charges

It's very unusual for someone to go the legal route in the situation not because it's never been done before it's because it's a waste of money and time. They will not gaf. Most cases in the similar situations come out with inconclusive responses and the person does not come out with a response themselves as their is seemingly enough evidence to smear their name and they would not like to proceed if there's that much evidence.

And it's VERY clear he's going the "innocent till proven guilty" route. Which is fair enough.

But, and I cannot stress this enough, HE'S NOT BEING ACCUSED OF TEXTING MINORS

He's being accused of having inappropriate relationship with multiple members of his audience/community and moderators, and using his Discord server as the catalyst for it all.

Which is especially alarming as some have said he's a moderator for them, which IN SOME PLACES is illegal to have a boss/employee relationship.

But it genuinely sounds like he's missing the point, as a content creator you have to hold yourself to higher responsibilities, accountability and credibility then the rest of your community. And even if it's not illegal, it's EXTREMELY INAPPROPRIATE for a content creator to have any form of relations with a fan, WITHOUT it being for certain types of videos (like challenges or servers) or for commissions/work

So unless they were gaining genuine service or having particular videos, having that sort of PM relationships with your fans is inappropriate, especially if your working with them or not. It's not appropriate at all.

He then blames it on cancel culture. WHICH GIRL-

I've seen alot of things pumped out of Hermitcraft fans but "cancel culture" IS NOT ONE OF THEM

Blaming it on cancel culture is the biggest excuse, genuinely.

He acts like it was public execution, even through its been CONFIRMED from MULTIPLE SOURCE that people tried for months to get into contact with the Hermits, so the END OF THE INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONS WITH MEMBERS OF YOUR COMMUNITY SHOULD HAVE BEEN WARNING NUMBER 1-

Like imagine all the people you allegedly had relations with suddenly all wanted to cut contact, did you think they would just disappear?

Cancel Culture, is when you're cut from your career for doing something OBJECTIVELY stupid, as it becomes a growing trend. It's unserious and often a social media trend.

Iskall's situation was not apart of cancel culture because it's genuine. And he knows it's genuinely enough to take legal action, meaning that in some capacity he did do at least 20% of what he's been accused of, to have grounds for a cases

So he's done SOMETHING it's just not what he thinks it is/isn't like what's allegedly

Then he goes on to talk about a developer he defended after they scammed him and we're generally not nice.

I have yet to see this developer anywhere and to my knowledge they have not pushed any allegations onto him.

He instead brings up this developer, because he defended them when they did something that was seemingly objectively wrong and it's meant to be a display of his good character

Personally I would have not used that as an example. Using an example of you defending someone when you in the same breath claimed that they had wronged you is putting the notion in your fans and audiences heads that even "if I do something wrong you should defend me because it was only a silly little mistake and it's the right thing to do"

And it was unnecessary. Completely unnecessary. He wants to be a display of a good character yet also once privacy so that's why he shares a personal story of him defending someone who wronged him so show that he's a good person who gives second chances? But then implies in the video that he had to give that person more than one chance?

And I think Goodtimeswithscar said it better then me. GASLIGHTING he's hardcore gaslighting.

It is similar to what Mr Beast, did with his allegations. Actually it's almost a copy.

Instead of completely addressing it he only addresses what he wants to in the face of privacy. He then brings up all the good things he's done to make him seem more trustworthy and like a better person even. And then he pays someone to investigate himself to find himself not guilty.

Iskall it's literally doing the same thing. He only addresses what he wants to because of privacy even though he knew about the situation before he got a lawyer, he uses the worst example possible to show that he's a trustworthy person, and then he pays for a lawyer himself to prove that he is not guilty.

Having the police and lawyers is meant to make it seem more 'fair'. But as we all know the police will only do so much before a lawyer has to step in. And if you're paying for the lawyer yourself obviously the lawyer is going to have bias because they want to do a good job because you are paying them to do a good job.

It's the most hardcore gaslighting I've ever seen.

And worst of all he might actually get away with it, because like Mr Beast he has a younger audience who will not understand how much he's trying to Gaslight them.

So to conclude, he's doing a Dream / Mr Beast remix on a smaller scale because money. And he's getting lawyer involved and unless they're suing for defamation, then there's nothing to sue for because no one is accusing him of pedophilia they are accusing him of having inappropriate relationships with his audience which is a big no-no for content creators..

Now for Stressmonster

Girl dug herself either a hole or a grave and now has to lie in it.

They tried to protect her dignity and integrity by not stating the reason why she left but it's now clear to many why she also left.

And yet again I would like to make it very clear like no one is accusing him of actually committing a crime (UNLESS HE LIVES IN AN AREA THAT MAKES IT ILLEGAL FOR BOSS AND EMPLOYEES/COWORKERS TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP) he's being accused of having inappropriate relationships with members of his community and moderators, which is not a very good thing if you're a content creator

Its not a jailable offence unless *see point above*, and to be like "I'm standing with you 100% of the way!", is more telling about your priorities than 'what is right'

They act as if hermitcraft is a cult, that kicks members out for not conforming.

But I am entirely on the side of HermitCraft in the fact that I would indeed, kick Iskall out/get him to resign, if he'd had inappropriate relations with mods and fans REGARDLESS OF IF THEY WERE ADULTS

Because the main audience for Hermitcraft ARE CHILDREN. KIDS. NON-ADULTS

AND HE'S ENDANGERING THEM AS WELL AS THERE COMMUNITY EVEN IF IT'S NOT MINORS HE'S MESSAGING

LIKE GROWING UP IN A COMMUNITY WHERE IF YOU EVENTUALLY REACH AN ACCEPTABLE AGE YOU GET TO HAVE A PRIVATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CONTENT CREATOR YOU'VE BEEN IDOLISING FOR YOUR CHILDHOOD ARE YOU INSANE?

Overall he's digging himself a grave and handing out shovel.

And also. To be sosososososo clear.

NEVER. SEND. DEATH. THREATS. TO. ANYONE.

[deadpoetsandlivinglegends]

Something something every time Charlie isn’t fighting to be the center of attention, he is always looking around to others to gauge their reactions and silently observing them all something something he is searching for connection, to fit in and be loved but he doesn’t know how to ask for love so instead he gains their attention by acting out in ways he knows they’ll notice and tries to pretend their attention and love are the same thing

[mywitchyblog]

Message to @alphaltrainreflection

First of all, bitch, where did I ever say anything about "eroticizing inferiority"? Like, be fucking for real. Show me the receipts. Because unless you’re reading between lines that don’t exist, nothing in my post said anything about power dynamics, submission, or “inferiority.” It sounds like you’re projecting some judgmental bullshit that I didn’t even invite into the conversation. So let’s start there—check yourself before you come into my space twisting my words to fit your weird little agenda.

Second of all, and I mean this with every ounce of sincerity, shut the fuck up. Genuinely, if you don’t like what you see, don’t interact. It’s that simple. Not everyone has to match your narrow idea of what shifting is “supposed” to be. Shifting isn’t some gated community where you get to play security guard and decide who’s allowed in. So do us all a favor, take that rigid-ass energy, and keep it to yourself, bitch.

Let’s be real for a second. You said, “sex freaks who insist on eroticizing inferiority are ruining shifting.” Bitch, nobody’s ruining anything—especially not me. All I said was that I want to get fucked. Plain and simple. If my desire to shift for a good time offends you, you’re free to move along. Shifting means different things to different people, and if sex is part of that, it’s totally valid. If I want to shift to a reality for some damn good dick, who the fuck are you to get all sanctimonious about it? Newsflash: your opinion on what’s “appropriate” doesn’t apply here, darling.

And let’s get one thing fucking clear, because clearly, you need this spelled out: even if someone did want to shift to a reality where they take on a more passive, submissive role, what of it? Why the fuck does that bother you so much? Some people spend their whole lives having to be strong, holding shit together, constantly defending themselves, and staying in control just to survive. Maybe, just maybe, they want to create a reality where they can finally let go, surrender, and trust someone who respects them and won’t take advantage of them. Imagine that—feeling safe enough to let down your guard and explore a side of yourself you don’t get to express in this life. For some people, that’s healing. For others, it’s fun. Either way, it’s their choice, not yours. So back the fuck off.

So let’s talk about this “ruining shifting” nonsense you pulled out of nowhere. Bitch, the only thing “ruining” anything is people like you, stomping into conversations uninvited and acting like you’re the gatekeeper of how others should experience their desires. You’re clinging to this imaginary rulebook about what’s “appropriate” for shifting as if that makes you morally superior, but all it does is make you look insecure, judgmental, and way too invested in other people’s business. Spoiler alert: nobody gives a fuck about your approval or needs it to validate their experience.

Here’s the truth, since you seem to need a wake-up call: shifting is deeply personal. It’s about self-determination and freedom, not conforming to some rigid-ass code of conduct set by random bitches on the internet. If someone wants to shift for spiritual growth, self-discovery, sexual exploration, or all of the above, that’s their fucking prerogative. Shaming them because it doesn’t align with your limited, vanilla-ass view of what’s “appropriate” is straight-up pathetic.

And by the way, bitch, sex is a natural, beautiful, and completely valid part of life. If I want to shift for sex, or if someone else wants to shift to feel cherished, adored, or, yes, even submissive, that’s nobody’s fucking business but ours. Maybe instead of trying to drag others down to your level of insecurity, you could take a hard look in the mirror and figure out why other people’s sexual autonomy bothers you so damn much. Because this isn’t about “ruining shifting”; it’s about you being uncomfortable with the idea of someone enjoying themselves in a way that’s different from what you deem acceptable. Maybe some self-reflection would do you some good.

To every other shifter out there who’s ever been made to feel guilty or “lesser” for shifting for your own reasons, listen up: you don’t owe anyone an explanation, and you don’t need anyone’s approval. Your DR, your fucking rules. If shifting for you is about finding love, intimacy, exploration, or yes, even some good dick, that’s your choice. Don’t let some insecure bitch shame you or make you feel like you’re somehow ruining the experience just because it doesn’t fit into their narrow little box. Shifting is about creating the life and reality you want to live—whatever the fuck that looks like for you.

So, here’s a suggestion: take your unsolicited, holier-than-thou attitude and keep it to yourself. If you can’t handle seeing people talk openly about their desires and goals for shifting, then bitch, scroll past and save yourself the outrage. Because at the end of the day, I’m not here to please you, and neither is anyone else. We’re here to live our best lives, however we see fit, and if that’s too much for you, the door’s right over there.

To everyone who’s out here shifting for what they want, keep going. Own your desires, own your reality, and don’t let anyone’s outdated judgment make you feel like you’re doing it wrong. Shifting is your journey, and if that includes exploring intimacy, vulnerability, or sexuality, you’re not alone. You’re valid, and your experience is just as real and important as anyone else’s.

Consider this your reminder that no one’s begging for your approval. I’ll be over here, unbothered, shifting for exactly what I want, and loving every fucking second of it. ✨

[bunnieswithknives]

Okay but does Peri KNOW that Dev has a robotic leg when he shows up? Something about the fact that Peri's wand is a cane and the fact that Dev could have kept his leg and just had a cane for the rest of his life instead tickles my brain.

I mean he doesn't know immediately, he wasn't like briefed or anything, but he basically lives in Dev's house so he definitely finds out. Peri doesn't comment on or react to it all though really, there's no reason for him to think anything of it, plenty of people have missing limbs, a lot of people are born without them, it doesn't necessarily mean anything sinister happened. He had no reason to pry or ask and I think Peri's lack of reaction to it helped Dev feel a bit more comfortable in his skin. (Not by much but.. a little bit.)

[cressidagrey]

Something good and right and real - Chapter 1

Summary:

Azriel had spent centuries believing that he of all people didn't deserve a mate. And if anything, the last three years had just galvinised that particular belief. And then he meets her.

The first time Oriana met Azriel, she thought that he reminded her of a skittish cat. Shy and a little bit broken. Good for him that she absolutely excelled in fixing the things around her.

Warnings:

Rhys Bashing, Azriel has a horrible time

Notes:

I put a lot of world building into this. If you don't recognise it from canon, I probably invented. Or I forgot that canon existed.

(thanks to @firefly-graphics for the super pretty dividers!)

To be quite frank, Oriana hadn’t expected Azriel to show up again. 

(She had fully expected to never see him again, to be honest. And that had resulted in her spending three days moping around before she had forced herself to act like an adult again.)

She had hoped he would. Of course, she had. He was her mate. 

She had spent two centuries waiting for him. And it made her feel half-grown, giddy to know that finally, there he was . He existed. He was alive. He was… right there. 

But…she also looked into these hazel eyes and saw…pain. So much pain and hesitance and….he had looked at her like he had expected her to turn him down any second. Like in her very hands, she held the key to lock away any chance of happiness he ever would have. 

It terrified her to see him like that.

She didn’t even know him. Not really. But he was the one fate thought she should have and she didn’t want to see him like this . 

He didn’t deserve that. Nobody did. 

Still, she hadn’t wanted to push. 

She didn’t ask him what was wrong, because she knew that she had the tendency to want to fix everything and that could be… overwhelming. And she didn’t think he was going to answer her questions anyway. So instead, she had offered him an open-ended invitation and then waited. 

She treated him like a skittish cat, putting out the milk. 

Her patience was rewarded a few days later. 

Much to her surprise. 

She was just getting ready to close up her shop for the day, cleaning up the displays of the jewellery she sold on a daily basis. She may no longer live in the mountain full time, but some things would always stay with her, and her love of jewellery was one of them. 

Mentally she was taking stock of the things that she had sold, of what she needed to make more and which was probably going to end up being remelted down because it hadn’t sold for so long. 

There were a few pieces that she never would melt down, even when it was going to take years for them to sell because she was too proud of the workmanship she had put in them. 

However, there were very few of these. Most things she did these days were easy enough to replicate if the mood struck her and if they didn’t sell… well then she had only lost some of her time and none of the materials that had gone into them. 

A dark winged shadow showed up at her doorstep and she smiled to herself as the door closed behind him. 

He didn’t look any less broody than he had the last time he showed up. Still looked like he didn’t quite know what he was even doing here. 

But Oriana could work with that. 

“You can put the closed sign on, I am done for the day,” Oriana said with a bright smile as she finished wiping down her counter. He did as she asked, silent as he crossed the room, the always present shadows skittering around his feet. 

One tendril immediately wrapped itself around her wrist, a soft touch, just like velvet, slightly cool. She patted it as greeting, holding back a laugh as it playfully tugged at her fingertips in response and then looked up to find Azriel standing before her, watching her play with the shadow, wiggling her fingertips at it enticingly. 

“I…Good evening,” he finally said hoarsely, like he didn’t quite know what to tell her and her smile widened. 

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” she asked him. “I was making stew, it’s upstairs, should be finished in an hour or so. You can serve yourself,” she suggested. “But I am gonna need to go into the forge for a moment and finish up my nephew’s birthday present,” she warned him. “Wanna come along?”

He seemed so taken aback by the invitation, just like the first time,  that Oriana just opened the door that kept her shop closed away from her forge and waited until he entered behind her.

Hopefully, it would be comfortable for him. Her mind was already whirling with ideas to make it more comfortable with him, some ideas of temperature control charms that she hadn’t used in decades coming to the forefront and then wondering where one could find a chair that was fashioned to allow for wings.

At least it wasn’t too hot.  It was cool there as she had already let the fire go out this time of the day, knowing that she could simply relight it if she needed and she probably wouldn’t. 

She never needed to worry about that, Oriana thought with some amusement. The heat was doing nothing to her, neither did fire. She could walk through it and she would come out without a scratch on her, even if her jewellery would have melted off her. 

“Welcome to the forge,” she welcomed him. Somehow…somehow this was more private to her than her apartment had been. Maybe because making jewellery, working on things right here was where…Oriana felt most like herself. She always had. She always would. 

“It doesn’t look like it does at the blacksmith’s,” he said suddenly and she watched out of the corner of her eye as he tucked his wings tight around himself, tucking himself into one corner like he was terrified that…she was going to throw him right back out. 

“No, most of the things I work with are a bit more delicate than broadswords,” she said drily. “Tartera excel at making jewelery. We make art, not war,” she said, recounting her grandmother’s words. 

He made a noise that she was quite sure was something between a laugh and a sigh, like he wished it was that easy, and she couldn’t help but agree with that. 

“I always wondered that if you take a stand for nothing, then what do you fall for?” she continued, as she sat down at her worktable. She pulled a rolling stool that she kept there out with a foot, pushing it in his direction, as she herself sat down and pulled out the bin that she used to keep together all the pieces for a project. 

She did her best not to stalk him like a wolf did it’s prey as he sat down across from her. 

Cat. Think about the cat, she warned himself. It won’t want to be pet immediately. Even if she thought that he could really use some pets. And some treats when she was already at it. And a warm, safe place to sleep. 

“But what do I know? I was always in the forge and never on a battle field.” Different than him probably. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, taking in the black leather armour he wore, Different from the dark jacket of last time.  Blue stones were glinting off it. Siphons. She knew that. She had studied them decades back for a pet project of hers, though Illyrians seemed to play it close to their vest. Like they seemingly did everything . 

Her brain was itching to figure out how it all went together, how it worked around these wings that she was quite jealous of. Flying, who didn’t want to be able to do that, after all? 

Still, talking about battles and bloodshed was probably not such a good idea, if she wanted him to relax around her. And he still didn’t talk. 

So she wrecked her brain, trying to think of something else. 

“What are you making?” he asked her, Curiosity getting the better of him and she held back a grin. Oh, he wasn’t going to tell her anything but put him in the forge and he started to ask her questions... she filed that away for later. 

“My nephew’s birthday present. He’s turning two, so I thought I was gonna make him a toy,” she said, as she fiddled with the pieces until she finally put them together into the sphere she was making. “It’s pretty much a glowing ball that has an enchantment on it that makes it change colours. Puts on a pretty light show and not much else,” she explained, as she quickly fit the last piece into place and then pushed her magic into it slowly. It glowed brightly into her hands, until it turned off. 

She held it out for Azriel to take and he did, broad hands carefully holding it. It immediately lit up bright blue, nearly making him drop it. She grinned at him. 

“Don’t worry it’s safe. I would never hear the end of it otherwise,” she promised him. “Worst case scenario: It loses the ability to light up.” These days, she was very careful in always putting a dead switch in anything she was making. A sort of last-ditch attempt to fix things that she couldn’t fix anymore. 

Azriel turned the ball around in his hands, the ball changing colours to red and green and yellow, before cycling back to blue. 

“This is…” he didn’t seem to have the right words for it. “This is beautiful,” he finally said quietly as the ball glowed brightly. She watched him as he took in her work, even when it was just that stupid ball that she could have made before she was even an adult. 

It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? She had spent centuries studying and honing her craft, knew that she had been well on her way to be one of the foremost goldsmith her people had…and still, all the praise that she had received for her work, somehow paled in comparison to him playing with that stupid ball, turning it over and over again to see the engraved metal. Paled in comparison to these simple words. 

“I…Do you sell these?” he asked her and she couldn’t help but grin. 

“You can have that one if you want it,” she said instead. No, she didn’t sell them. Didn’t think there was much of a market for them, to be honest. She did jewellery these days. Nothing more. 

“No, I couldn’t…it’s your work. You put hours into that. It wouldn’t be right if I…” he disagreed. 

And now Oriana was charmed beyond belief. 

“Stay for dinner and you can keep the ball, Azriel,” she interrupted him and he swallowed. “It took me less than 2 hours to put it together. I have made dozens of them over the years,” she assured him.

If he kept looking at her like this, with this look of quiet wonder,  then she would gladly make him a dozen more. Even when, quite frankly, she didn’t like making them, because they were not a challenge for her in any way. But what was these days?

Well, he was. 

“That doesn’t seem fair to you,” Azriel protested. “You are giving me this and feeding me dinner. That’s not how bartering works,” he told her seriously, and she laughed with amusement. 

Oh, she was definitely the one that was winning here. 

“I get your company out of it. It’s fair to me,” she told him matter-of-factly, enjoying the way his ears seemed to redden once again. He stayed quiet for a moment clearly not knowing how to react to her flirting. Was it flirting? Mother knew Oriana hadn’t flirted in…centuries. Or ever really. She had been married just days after reaching the age of majority. 

“It’s my nephew’s 2nd birthday in a few days. I couldn’t come up with a gift for the life of me,” he finally said quietly and she filed that away, where she kept all the kernels of truth that she knew about him. 

“Then give it to him,” Oriana said easily. “He’ll enjoy it. I remember having one of these when I was a child,” she recounted as she started cleaning up her work surface. 

Seems like she would make another one of these tomorrow. 

“You do?” Azriel aksed and she hummed. 

“Yeah, I do. I used to take it apart and put it back together when I was older. Still do sometimes, when I need to think,” she said easily. Gave her hands something to do. She finished putting everything away. “All finished,” she proclaimed just seconds later. “Come on, we need to check on the stew if we want to eat today.”

She never had had a problem with filling the silence and had on more than one occasion been told that she could have a raucous conversation with a cave wall if the mood struck her. So she also had no problem whatsoever doing the same thing right now. 

If it bothered him, he could open his mouth and say another word to her. It wasn’t like he had told her more than 50 yet. And maybe a part of her was wondering if she would need to pull on his tail to get some sort of reaction from him…and for him to stop looking at her like she was either going to kill him or throw him out of her house. 

To her surprise, he actually did say something when they were in her apartment, as she stoked her fire and dragged a spoon through the stew that she had been making for the better part of a day. 

Granted it was two words. 

“You paint?” he asked her and she looked over to find him standing, bent over the table, which was currently covered with some of her designs. 

“I sketch ideas I have. It’s different,” she corrected him. 

“How?” he asked her, amusement lacing in his voice and Oriana smiled. She put her spoon down and then came around to stand next to him. She could feel the air move as one of his wings twitched like it wanted to move but he pushed it down. 

“Mostly because if you tell me to paint a horse, it’s not gonna look like a horse. But I can make you a very exact drawing of the necklace I am gonna make tomorrow,” she explained, shuffling through her papers until she found the one she was looking for, pulling a bright red garnet out of the bowl she kept the flawed ones in for design purposes. She placed it on the drawing, right in the middle of the sketch she had made of the necklace it would end up in. It matched perfectly, the scale right just as she had drawn it that morning over breakfast. 

He mustered it attentively, leaning nearer to investigate and she left him to it... “I just can’t ever get the colours right. There isn’t that much iridescent metallic paint around here,” she sighed. The reason why most of her drawings were made in pencil. 

“I…How long have you been doing this?” Azriel finally asked her. “They are beautiful.”

“Pretty much my whole life,” Oriana gave back drily. “I told you I grew up in the mountain. All of us learn the basics. And then it’s a question of what we want to do…where we are particularly skilled. I decided very early on that I was going to be a goldsmith. Not a silversmith, not one of the very rare blacksmiths that we do have…But a goldsmith. And that I was going to be an enchantress just like my father.”

“How does that work together?” Azriel asked her and she hummed. 

“Can you set the table?” she asked him. “I’ll show you in a moment,” she promised him, as she handed him two plates. 

They both served themselves and then she held out her wrist for him. 

“Try taking off my bracelet,” Oriana said. He stared at her. 

“Your bracelet,” Azriel repeated and she nodded. 

“Yes,” she agreed. “Try taking it off.” He reached out for her wrist, his broad, brutally scarred hands a sharp contrast to her own skin the colour of fireplace ashes, and tugged gently at her bracelet. It didn’t budge. He did it again. This time, he got a magical shock for his troubles that made him pull back his hands. 

“Doesn’t work, does it?” she asked him with some amusement. “

“Did you…” he asked her but she shook her head. 

“No, that was the bracelet,” she promised him easily. Slipping it over her hand to hand it to him. He took it, taking in the runes that were on the inside of it, painstakingly etched in, so that nobody would see them unless they were looking for it. 

“See the runes right at the beginning?” she asked him, waiting until he nodded.  “Anti Theft enchantment.  It’s locked onto me. Only I can remove it. It was a birthday present from my father. That’s one of the easier ones.”

Azriel looked at it for a moment, nearly calculating. “What other enchantments are there?” he asked her curiously. 

“Well, whatever else can you come up with?” She asked. “You can do anything you want…if you do the research and make the rune array for it to work…but for the more common ones…jewellery that returns to the family vault if they do get stolen after all, necklaces that automatically snap closed without you needing to do it yourself, anti-choking, things like that,” she explained. “They are timeconsuming but not particularly difficult. Still, the time investment drives up the price and the value, so it’s only done for stupidly expensive pieces,” she explained. “Of course, there is no limit of what you can do. Some enchantments are made for a more emotional reason. Fidelity enchantment on a wedding necklace for example, or anti potion detection…things like that,” she explained. 

“Fidelity?” Azriel wondered. 

“Yes. Tartera wear necklaces to signal that we are married…They are spelled that way. At least the traditional ones,” Oriana said. Her own had been spelled that way. The same as the arm cuff that was traditionally worn by the males. But of course…even that couldn’t help in some instances. It didn’t foster emotional intimacy at any rate. 

“Anti Potion detection?” Azriel asked and she grinned at him. 

“Pretty handy, isn’t it?” she said, mentally already wondering if she would be able to get him to wear a wrist cuff that she made. She could put Anti Potion Detection on that. She also could layer on every single protective enchantment she knew to keep him safe. 

“That’s what you do?” he asked her and she sighed. 

“That’s what I used to do,” she corrected him quietly. “These days, I am much more a goldsmith than an enchantress.” The ball had been the most enchanted thing she had made in months. Before that…a bracelet for her niece…and before that…she couldn’t even think about it anymore. 

“Why?” Azriel asked her. “You are obviously talented.” She was. She wasn’t even touting her own talents if she agreed with that. She always had been talented. 

But these days…it had been a long time since she had been itching underneath her skin to dive headfirst into a research project as she had used to be doing. 

“I used to be one of the researchers,” she told Azriel quietly.  “Which meant that I spent day in and day out in the forge. I made things. I did experiments. I had my own projects that I worked on.” She could still remember that. That was all she had wanted to do during the first few years of her marriage. And she had been so happy about it. 

And damnit, she had been good at her job. Great even. She had done more in a few decades than others had in centuries. Created and worked hard and every day she had found something new and it had been…And then…

“Enchantments can be…fickle. It has the potential to go awry very quickly. One wrong rune and you put half the mountain on fire,” she quipped, her mouth pulling half into a grimace as snapshots came to the forefront of her mind of exactly that happening. 

“Did you ever manage to do that?” Azriel asked her.”

“No. But I was caught in the sway.” She pushed the memories away sharply. They were still there. Even a century later. still as fresh as they had been that. Ruby red blood trickling down her body, as the inferno raged around her. The pain, the agony…the spearing pain. 

She shook herself out of it harshly. 

“After a while, I decided that I was going to…stop doing that. The more explosive things at least. Nowadays the worst thing I do is balls that glow,” she explained to Azriel and he mustered her attentively. 

“Do you miss it?” he asked quietly and she didn’t even need to think about it. 

“Yes.” Like a limb. 

“You could start again,” he suggested. She turned over the words in her mind. Cyrus had suggested it often over the years but it had never quite seemed right. But now as she looked at Azriel over her table, as she wondered about making something for him, of making something that would keep him safe…she wanted to do that. 

“Maybe I will,” she finally agreed with a soft smile. “It’s my turn now, by the way,” she told him drily. 

“Of what?” he wondered, his brows furrowing. 

“Questions,” Oriana agreed. She immediately took in how his fingers tightened nearly imperceptively around her cutlery and how she could feel a bleed off of…fear, hesitance over their tiny wiggling bond. She wanted to keep their bond safe, nurture it and make it grow strong and not be this hesitant little thing that…well. 

“What do you want to know?” Azriel asked her, sounding like she was going to stab him. 

“Mostly, I want you to stop looking like I am going to torture you,” Oriana said drily. “You know if you don’t want to tell me something, you can just say so,” she pointed out reasonably. 

What had happened to him to make him so hesitant to even trust his own mate? What did he think she was going to do to him? Hurt him?  

“And you are just going to accept that?” he asked her, sounding like he didn’t believe one word that she was saying. Oriana wanted to sigh. She didn’t. Instead, she tried to push as much acceptance and warm, happy feelings at him as she could. 

“Yes, of course,” she agreed. “It’s none of my business. You think I told you everything there is to know about me?” she asked him drily. 

“I think I know more about you than you do about me,” Azriel said, his voice thawing. “And that’s not fair either,” he murmured under his breath. She took that as an opening. 

“A truth for a truth,” she proposed. It was a gamble. But it paid off. 

He inclined his head.

“Siblings. I have Cyrus and then I have half-siblings, 2 sisters and 2 brothers,” she said easily.  

“Two brothers,” Azriel answered quietly. “Claimed. Not by blood. I have two half brothers, but I don’t…they are no brother of mine.” His hands clenched again. She wondered what that was about. 

“I am the youngest,” Oriana said instead.

“Oldest,” Azriel responded. 

“I always wanted to keep a couple of chickens, but I never had any room for them,” she told him, utterly serious, only for him to crack a smile as he stared at her hazel gold eyes warm and amused. 

“Why chickens?” he wondered. 

“I don’t know, I think they would be neat to have. Always fresh eggs!” Oriana said brightly, this time managing to shock an actual laugh out of him. “And don’t think I didn’t notice that these were two truths!”

“Alright,” Azriel agreed. “I never thought about keeping chickens,” he told her seriously and she rolled her eyes at him, making him smile even brighter. “I…I always expect you are going to be scared of me,” he said, growing serious and Oriana kept a smile on her face, even when she wanted nothing more than to envelope him into a hug. and keep him away from everything in the world that had ever hurt him. 

“Maybe you aren’t half as scary as you think you are,” she told him instead, the expression on his face that was half relieved and half scandalised made something flutter in her stomach. “Maybe I just really like you.”

“Is that a truth?” he asked her softly and she smiled at him. 

“Keep coming back and you’ll find out,” she quipped. 

And so they continued, trading tidbits of their lives between bits of food.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Azriel had tried keeping away from her. He had. 

He had tried everything to get his mind off his mate…and he had failed. 

Even when it had been a never-ending litany in his mind. She is better off without you. It’s safer if you keep away. 

It wasn’t helpful, that his shadows had absolutely no qualms of doing everything in their power to whisper enticingly to him. 

She’s your mate, Master. You have every right to see her. She isn’t scared of us, Master. When will we see her again, Master? 

And finally…he broke. 

He was too selfish to keep away from her for longer than a few days. 

And so he had showed up at her house. 

And Oriana had smiled at him. 

That smile, that beautiful, lovely thing had cut him to the quick. 

Azriel couldn’t even remember the last time anybody had been willing to…just be there with him. No expectations…Oriana seemed content to just go on about her evening when he did slink into her apartment and stayed for a few hours. Soaking up everything he could get away with. 

Squrielling away every word she told him,e very conversation they had, regardless of how mundane t was. He learned about her brother Cyrus and about running the shop, about the two females that she employed there…he learned about the few friends she had, mostly other shopkeepers in the rainbow…every new thing that he learned about her, he committed to memory. He wanted to know everything. 

Staying with Oriana…it was peace. He had never had that before. 

Not like that. 

She chattered on and on and while he normally relished the quiet, he found out that her talking…he could get used to it. It was a safe thing. As long as Oriana was talking, everything was alright. 

And so he listened when she chattered on about nothing in particular and came back the next evening to do it all over again. 

He hated himself for doing it but he loved it. Adored it . He wanted nothing more than to soak it all up, bottle it to take it with him whenever she decided that he wasn’t worth the hassle. 

Because she would think that eventually. He knew that. It was just a question of time. A question of time until he said something or did something that terrified her and she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. 

And so he went back, again and again, and…after a few times, he couldn’t help himself. Because even when it was taken from him, currently it was still there. She was still there. And she was wiling to cook dinner and talk to him..and so before the next time he went to visit her, he bought her flowers. 

He had no idea what made him do that. Why he bought her flowers of all things. He could have given her something else, he supposed, but he was on the way to her and he saw that flower card just packing up and…it hadn’t even been a conscious thought. 

That’s what faes did if they were courting after all right? Find something to gift to the other one. Why not let flowers be the first thing? He would never abe able to give her jewellery, because he had the feeling that whatever he picked, she would be able to make much better.

And he couldn’t very well buy her knives and be done with it, right? 

So flowers. Nobody could hate flowers, right? 

The smile on her face definitely made the few clipped coppers he had spent on them worth it. 

“Oh, these are beautiful,” she said quietly, reaching out to take them from him. 

He had absolutely no clue what he should have picked, so he had ended up with a bunch of bluish, nearly violet, jasmines. Azriel was quite certain that he never would be able to look at them and not think about Oriana ever again. 

“Do…Do you like them?” he managed to bring out because somehow she managed to make him feel like the luckiest idiot in Velaris. 

“I love them,” Oriana said and he could feel the fledgling happiness burning along their bond, how happy and glad she was to receive them. 

He would gladly find her flowery every damn day if that meant that he could get that smile from her. 

“I am glad,” he said softly and she grinned at him brighter, taking out a vase out of a cupboard, burnished gold, inlaid with some kind of brightly sparking blue stone and put it above her sink. 

He listened to her chatter on about his day, about taking out her nieces and nephew for a day out in the city soon. He thought about Nyx’s birthday party that had just been a few days before, about how happy he had been about the glowing ball and how Amren had mustered him with a look tath he hadn’t quite been able to place. Nobody else had said anything to him, not Rhys, not Feyre, so he was quite certain that his walls were holding. 

But then Amren had always seen more than she said. 

And if she did figure it out, there wasn’t much he could do against it. 

He could just accept that. 

The longer he would be able to keep Oriana a secret, the better. 

He liked having her to himself. Azriel didn’t allow himself to think about that for much longer. 

“I’ll be gone for a few days,” he told her finally. There was a mission coming up, a trip to Spring to figure out…a few things and Azriel didn’t doubt for one moment that it would take longer than a day. Maybe two or even three. 

“Alright. Be careful, will you?” Oriana said easily and he stared at her. 

He had no idea what he had expected, but the easy acceptance wasn’t it. 

“You aren't going too ask me where I am going?” he checked and she cocked her head to the side. 

“If I would, could you answer that question?” she asked him drily and he just shook his head. No. The further he could keep her away from his…job, the better. Oriana was bright and light and shouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. It wasn’t right. “Then I won’t ask.  Just…do your best to come back to me,” she requested softly and he swallowed. 

Then he nodded. 

And that was that.

There was this quiet embering of wonder in his chest at that. She didn’t fuss, she didn’t ry to stop him, just simple accepted that he must go and that was that. 

No fighting, not anything, just asking him to be safe and come back to her. 

And so that became his goal. Of course, he was still gathering the intelligence Rhys wanted. He still did what he needed to…but he wanted to come back to Oriana. And so if he was more careful than he usually was…well, that was good then. 

Still, even an abundance of caution resulted in him coming back home with numerous new bruises and a few shallow cuts. 

And two sets of metallic paints stashed away with his things, one of which he dropped off for Feyre after he debriefed with Rhys…and then he finally got to see Oriana. 

He landed on her doorstep, fighting leathers still damp with blood that definitely wasn’t his. Maybe he should have thought this through a little bit better. 

But he didn’t even have time to hesitate, because suddenly, there she was. 

“Are you alright?” where the first words from her mouth as she opened the door for him.

“Yeah. Just a few bruises,” he promised her, tiredness suddenly overcoming him and she pulled him into her home, without a second thought. He wanted to warn her of the blood that clung to him, not wanting to ruin whatever silky dress…gown, robe, whatever, she was wearing, but she ignored that too. 

Instead, she gently pulled him up the stairs and before he could protest, he was chivied into her kitchen and put onto one of her chair…and that was it then. 

The enchanted teapot that he had learned to tell what kind of tea he wanted waited for his command and he managed to bring out a wrecked “peppermint, please,” before it already depositing steaming tea into his cup. 

And then Oriana was there, depositing what he was quite certain was half an apothecary on her kitchen table and wetting a clean tea towel to gently blot at the scratch on his face. 

“You don’t need to do that,” he said softly. It was fine. It was already nearly closed. It would be alright. He had way worse. She held still for a moment, poised to stop. 

“Don’t I?” she finally asked him. “Do you want me to stop?” she asked him. He swallowed. Then shook his head. 

No, Azriel didn’t want her to stop. He was selfish enough that he wanted her hands on him in any way he could get away with. 

Master isn’t selfish. She’s Master’s Mate!, his shadows hissed comfortingly. 

“Thought so,” Oriana hummed thoughtfully as she kept cleaning up the scrapes. the towel was warm, her touch gentle and Azriel wanted to close his eyes and let her do to him whatever she wanted. 

He didn’t. 

“It’s nothing. It’s not even a scratch,” he tried to protest as she started smothering the cuts with healing salve. He didn’t need that. It wouldn’t do anything. The natural fast healing would take care of it. The only thing the salve would do would be to numb it while it was healing and he didn’t need that. 

“How about you let me be the judge of that?” Oriana said quietly. “Hands,” she requested, thought he realites ethat fighting her wasn’t going to be futile. 

He was amused beside himself as he held out his hands for her perusal. 

High Lords were terrified of him, people thought he was death incarnate, and Oriana…bosses him around and cleaned the blood from his hands without even flinching away from him once. 

“His scarred skin was less sensitive than the rest of him was, but that didn’t stop it from feeling like tiny electric shocks as she finished with the damp towel and then started rubbing salve into them. 

His heart constricted as he realised what she was doing. 

“That isn’t going to work,” he pressed out. “I tried everything to get rid of the scars.”

Her hands froze. 

“They are beautiful,” she told him, her voice even. “And I wasn’t trying to get rid of them. I am trying to get rid of the bruises that are covering your hands.”

He stared down at his hand, and for the first time, he realised the mottled bruises that covered where he had gripped Truth-Teller so tightly that the scabbard had bitten into his hand. 

“Oh,” he managed to bring out.

Oriana sighed. “You didn’t even notice, did you?” she asked him drily and he managed to shake his head, feeling slightly dazed. “These are beautiful,” she promised him, lifting one hand and he could just stare as she pressed full, rosy lips to his bruised knuckles, before she let go of his hand. 

“They really aren’t,” he whispered. 

“Agree to disagree,” Oriana said calmly. “One day in the future, I am going to show you mine.”

Her scars? He stared at her. 

There were no obvious scars to her that he could see, other than the few that were on her hands, thanks to her having one mishap or another in her forge. But they weren’t big or she wasn’t trying to hide them, nothing like his at least. 

“You have scars?” he asked her and she hummed. 

“Yes,” Oriana agreed. “Drink your tea.” 

He did as she asked, staring at his own hands.  

“Every time I look at them I remember…I remember how I got them,” he finally said as he stared at the violently mottled skin, now painted with bruises. “I spent…I spent most of my childhood in a cell. I was the result of my father’s affair and…and I think he hoped that I was finally going to die and get rid of all his problems.” It was the most he had told her about his childhood. He hadn’t yet touched how he had come to have these scars, but they were there, painted on his skin. And they always would be. 

Oriana turned from where was standing at her kitchen counter. 

“He put a child in a cell,” she said flatly and he just managed to lift one shoulder. 

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I got to see my mother one hour every week. He used me to torture her for daring to get pregnant. She never…quite got over that.”  And now he wondered if that was all he was good for. Inflicting pain on those surrounding him. 

“Is he still alive?” Oriana asked, her voice sharp and Azriel snorted. 

“No.” He had taken care of that . 

“Good,” Oriana agreed calmly and he stared at her. 

“Good?” he echoed. 

“Yes. Good,” Oriana said, turning back to the counter. “Children are…precious. To Tartera. We aren’t perfect. Of course we aren’t. We have our own problems in our society. But if anybody ever to put a child in a cell or use them to hurt their mother…Well, they wouldn’t be alive much longer,” Oriana said, her voice dripping with disdain. “Children are above…everything.” 

And still…“You make art, not war. That’s what you said,” Azriel recounted and then it was Oriana’s turn to shrug.

“And it was a hard-won achievement to get that far,” she quipped.  “Still, if anybody ever would have suggested putting any of us into a cell to my mother, I think there would have been a bloodbath…and she would have been the one walking out without a blemish,” she said with some amusement. “We get territorial if threatened. And not in a good way,” she said with a sigh. 

“You ever got territorial like that?” he wondered and Oriana hummed thoughtfully for a moment. 

“No,” she finally answered. “But then, I never really had a reason to before. I understand it now.”

“What changed?” Azriel asked her. Why did she…

“The mating bond, Azriel. That changed,” she told him with some amusement in her voice, putting a plate of…sandwiches? next to his elbow on the table. “Eat, sweetling,” she told him softly, a hand gently reaching out to smooth his hair away from his forehead. He couldn’t help but lean into it. 

“I brought you paint,” he mumbled, suddenly dead tired and Oriana hummed softly. 

“They are metallic…i thought you could…use them…” Why did talking suddenly take so much effort? “ You said there wasn’t any metallic paint around here.”

“That sounds lovely. Thank you so much,” Oriana assured him softly. “I am sure I am going to love them,” she promised him. “Come on, let’s get you on the couch. You can sleep, and I make dinner. I think you need to sleep first before I get you to eat anything,” she mumbled under her breath. He let her drag him up and the few steps into her small living room where he fell more than sat down onto her couch. 

“How about you just rest for a moment?” Oriana said quietly and he listened. The shadows seemingly covered him and he fell asleep, knowing that they would wake him if there was anything that he needed to be awake for. Any danger that would befall him. 

But for once in his life…he felt…safe. Surprisingly. Right there, with the quiet noises of Oriana moving around into the kitchen, he felt safe.

[dollopole]

They should have dwelled more into Merlin’s skills (and I’m not talking about just magic)

As I rewatched Merlin, I realised this man has so many skills?!

We often talk about how surely Arthur must have thought him how to use a sword (I agree 100%) but Merlin also knows how to hunt?

He dislikes it, yet years and years of going hunting with Arthur proves to be fruitful. Merlin founds the deer in season four before the entire Camelot patrol. He knows how to recognise tracks on trees and traces of feet in the mud (he knows how to build them in the right way with magic, too). And I have proof that Arthur teaches Merlin, because in season five, Arthur makes Merlin see what was wrong with the branch. when they went out and Arthur noticed that someone (Mordred) had walked past the woods.

Also, season four, episode two? Merlin wakes up before Lancelot and HE IS HUNTING FISH LIKE A MASTER?!

Have we talked about this? Who taught him? I believe most things he already knew how to do, since he grew up in a village with a single mother where everyone had to fetch up for themselves.

He also knows how to cook. And he gets compliments (even if they are jokes) from the Knights and Arthur himself too.

HE IS A PHYSICIAN, and I wished we could have seen so much more of that, because he is hot, because it proves that is so good at learning, listening and also teaching. He tells Daegal how to get rid of the poison, poison, in his body and HE IS STILL SO HUMBLE ABOUT IT?! He spent more than ten years being an apprentice and when Daegal tells him he is a good physician, Merlin denies it?! Bro has low self esteem.

Merlin also has all the skills required from a servant, like sewing, cleaning specific fabric in a certain way, polishing armour and so many other things, adjusting swords and weapons ecc.

I guess it pisses me off when Merlin is described (heavily in fanfictions too) like an incapable manservant, unable to do things for himself or defend himself without magic, when he spent ten years in Camelot doing new work after new work. Just because he was scared at the end of season five without his powers (because he had never lost them before) it doesn’t mean Merlin isn’t capable of using a sword, or help himself, since he does and challenges Morgana too, even without powers.

EDIT:

Merlin also knows how to use a crossbow and how to fight side by side with Arthur and he knows where to head, where north and south are, based on the scent of the air?! Merlin knows so many things.

[arsenicflame]

It's a time-honoured tradition- every time Sam comes across Izzy (and Ed) in their travels, he asks Izzy to marry him. And every time, Izzy turns him down.

At this point, Sam is asking more for the sake of it than any belief Izzy will ever say yes, a remnant of childhood dedication touched with 30 years of heartbreak and regret- though even now, a small part of him still holds out hope. Sam's promises have only got more extravagant over the years, from a job as his first mate, to a captaincy, a fleet at his command, a whole fucking island if that's what Izzy wants- but he knows it isn't though, not really. If Izzy was ever going to agree to marry him, to leave his life and go with Sam, it wouldn't be for anything Sam could offer him. Izzy never did care for flashy shows of wealth, for a ship or to be captain. The only thing that ever mattered to him was loyalty given, and loyalty shown in return. 

It all comes to a head after Stede left and came back, after Izzy lost a toe, lost his leg. Sam hasn't seen him since before things with Ed started to really slide off the rails, before stress permanently set into the lines of Izzy’s face. So, when he sees a dishevelled man with a hoof for a leg in a no-name port, he doesn't even consider the idea that he might know him. It's only when he turns towards him, and Sam catches a glance at those oh too familiar tattoos, he realises this is Izzy, his Izzy, that stands before him.

Knowing Izzy's discomfort with pity, he doesn't treat him any differently than he would in years gone by, positioning himself in Izzy's line of sight before approaching and sweeping him up into a bone crushing hug. 

“Israel-goddamn-Hands!” he exclaims, as Izzy grumbles back a begrudging “Samuel-fucking-Bellamy”, a tradition almost as old as their friendship itself. Izzy might not hug him back, but he can’t keep the corner of his mouth from twitching, just for a second.

(If Sam holds Izzy a little tighter and a little longer than usual, well. That's his business)

By the time Sam lets go, most of the crew has appeared in the town square, drawn in by the commotion. They may have given Izzy his leg and welcomed him as one of them, but still there’s an underlying tension, with nobody quite ready to set aside everything that happened before the Kraken. Seeing him cosying up to an unknown man sets everyone on edge, unsure whether to come to their first mate’s aid, or to assume that they've been betrayed once again.

When Ed sees that the yelling was Sam, his hand goes tense where it's held in Stede's. He knows the routine, has seen it more times than he can count, but as he watches them part he realises that this is the first time in a long time he's unsure of what Izzy's response will be.

Knowing that something’s different, knowing that Izzy's feeling vulnerable already, Sam doesn't go for the same flashy proposal he’s been giving for years. He doesn't promise Izzy the world, he doesn't cause a scene (or, any more of a scene than he already has, anyway). He looks at the fractured man in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says the exact same thing to him he said when they were little more than boys. “Israel, I have to ask you. I know what you'll say, but I have to try. Come with me. Marry me and sail away with me. I'll keep you safe”

And Izzy… hesitates. He glances over at Ed, at Stede, and says to Sam “...We’re staying in port for a week. Ask me again then”

That's the moment Sam knows there is something deeply, horribly, wrong. He's not just looking at an Izzy who got seriously injured in a fight and is struggling to cope, this is something so much bigger than that- and that Ed has something to do with it. Izzy wouldn't even be considering leaving if he didn't. Whether it was negligence or something more sinister, Sam doesn't yet know, but he intends to find out.

[ineed-to-sleep]

Ran into another post about the disney-midjourney lawsuit discourse and tbh it baffles me every time. You guys Do know it's already illegal to sell fanart, right? You know that the lawsuit isn't calling for expansion of copyright law and disney doesn't need to expand it in order to win, right? You know disney is only *really* suing midjourney because it has a subscription option(profit) and has the capacity to mass produce copyrighted work(scale), and the interest disney has in this is entirely money based, and they won't suddenly see a monetary benefit to be gained from suing small artists after this(who neither make enough of a profit nor produce their work in a large enough scale to become a real competitor for disney), right? You know making money off of copyrighted work that's not yours or that you don't have a license for hasn't been protected by the law for a really long time and we make it despite this because we know it's very unlikely to give us trouble, right? Right guys? Right???? You know your rights, don't you guys?????? Guys????????????????

[babynorppa]

Jere’s obsession with a waiter/bartender foreplay should be studied more

[tenvishund]

F I S S I O N - Why the hell do you hurt yourself for this?

[madbard]

Thinking about how the Long Quiet outsources change. As the embodiment of stagnancy, it was never meant to exist on its own, never meant to exist as sentient being which, by necessity, must adapt and change to survive. And it handles this by creating the Voices, mental embodiments of trauma responses and attitude shifts and altered worldviews and everything else, externalized advisors embodying the changes it cannot personally undergo.

It accepts these Voices as guides because it needs them, but it refuses to be altered itself. Each princess and each story bring with it a physical change that horrifies it, and every time, it resets those changes, kills the new voices and returns to its original state. Theoretically, it stays the same as it always was.

But still. As it continues forth, it can’t help but remember. With each story, memory returns. Against its will, against its very nature, it changes, because it isn’t only stagnancy. There is a splinter of the Shifting Mound in there as well.

Thinking about how the Princesses exist as mere facets of the Shifting Mound, how the Shifting Mound is scattered among them because personhood requires a certain amount of stability and stagnancy that she cannot perform all at once. How the Shifting Mound cannot exist as a single, stable perspective because even the continuity of thought is contrary to the concept of change and destruction and evolution and death, expanding always and infinitely and away.

She pulls herself together from limited experiences and ideas, rejecting the possibility of being any single person.

But still. At the end of each story, she greets the Long Quiet, offers it comfort and company in the way she knows how. The progression of their relationship, though it is by necessity a story of change, is also a tale of repetition and familiarity. The Long Quiet asks the same questions. She gives different answers. But it is ultimately the same conversation, again and again. And she is capable of that because she is not just the Shifting Mound – there is a sliver of the Long Quiet in there as well.

And the Shifting Mound is only able to reform itself because the Long Quiet makes different decisions each time, bringing her fresh perspectives – because despite being the manifestation of stagnancy, there is a piece of the Shifting Mound to motivate it. And the Long Quiet is only able to try and remain stagnant because the Shifting Mound is able to wipe its memory and reset it – because despite being the manifestation of change, there is a whisper of the Long Quiet to stabilize her.

They weren’t meant to be separated. They weren’t meant to be sentient. As separate beings, they fail. As separate beings, they greet each other with violence and hunger and desperation – the fury of their essential conflict warring with their frantic desire to be reunited, to never have been torn apart. Two people who never wanted to be people. Two people who want to be the same thing and try again and again to join themselves together through bloodshed and love.

Movements synchronized, moving as one. As if they were still the same being because, in a sense, they are.

There is a reason they always appear to be dancing.

[potatounicoorn]

Alya is so much better than me, because if I found out my bff is protecting a terrorist? A terrorist that has specifically attacked and targeted my loved ones? Who also was an abusive father to a good friend of mine and also said bff's boyfriend? A terrorist that is now being worshipped by everyone because of your bestie? Yeah, I would have tattletaled immediately.