#creatures with three heads are cool too. creatures with ANY number of heads are cool

[iwakuraz]

froggies

[hyruleairbnb]

I always was interested in natural phenomenons such as diseases weather conditions or mutations. I was working on a series of multiple images showing exact these thematics.

Please consider I portrayed them in loz species due it fits this account. I won’t make fun of one of these conditions. Thank you 👉🏽👈🏽

Im Not sure if Tumblr flags this in your country too but you can read more under the cut 👇🏽

Two headed fish

“Polycephaly is the condition of having more than one head. […] A polycephalic organism may be thought of as one being with a supernumerary body part, or as two or more beings with a shared body.

Two-headed animals (called bicephalic or dicephalic) and three-headed (tricephalic) animals are the only type of multi-headed creatures seen in the real world, and form by the same process as conjoined twins from monozygotic twin embryos.”

Two mouthed fish

I am not sure if this two mouthed fish is a case of Polycephaly too or if this is caused by another condition.

*edit* it's actually an injury not a second mouth. You can see the explanation in the reblogs list

Four legged chicken

“Polymelia is a birth defect in which an affected individual has more than the usual number of limbs. It is a type of dysmelia. In humans and most land-dwelling vertebrates, this means having five or more limbs. The extra limb is most commonly shrunken and/or deformed.

[…] A four-legged chicken was born at Brendle Farms in Somerset, Pennsylvania, in 2005.[6] The story was carried on the major TV network news programs and USA Today. The bird was found living normally among the rest of the chickens after 18 months. She was adopted and named Henrietta by the farm owner's 13-year-old daughter, Ashley, who refuses to sell the chicken.[7] The second (hind) legs are fully formed but non-functional.”

Overgrown beak

Beak abnormalities in birds have several reasons. You can read more in this article , due it would probably be too much for one post.

Stratified rocks

“Diplono Petris near Agios Pavlos in the south of Crete island is one of Europe’s most impressive folded rock formations. The rock strata document an alternation of different limestone layers in the pindos top of the Cretan ceiling pile. These sediments, once deposited in a deeper ocean basin of the Pindos Ocean, were deformed in the course of Alpine fold tectonics, triggered by the Northern Drift of the African Plate against the Eurasian lithospheric plate, which increasingly constricts the present-day Mediterranean as the remainder of the former ocean.”

Hexagon stones

“The Giant’s Causeways consists of over 40,000 basalt hexagonal columns, pretty much all systematically uniform in their shape. What caused this is actually not so unique to this windy coast of Northern Ireland. It is a common feature when a hot, mafic (basalt or dolerite) volcanic rock (either lava at the surface or shallow magma just below the surface) cools and contracts into a hexagonal columns (e.g., Kantha, 1981; Gray, 1986; Budkewitsch and Robin, 1994). The rapidly cooling lava cools from the outside toward the centre which causes contractions, and differences in the way it cools leads to the formation of hexagonal, prismatic column shapes (termed columnar jointing).”

These are some researches I made by my own I am not an expert in any of these fields. In case you have more information or wanting to add or correct an incorrect information, please go ahead and correct in comments or reblog (but be nice we just want to learn )

Thank you very much for reading 🙌🏾

[verysium]

ACT 1, SCENE 4: blue lock headcanons

shidou would view traditionally ugly creatures as strangely cute. it's not a disgusting cockroach, it's a silly little bug with eyelashes as long as his. no, he's not going to let go of that scraggly one-eyed cat that likely has rabies. it looks too sweet to be abandoned on the streets. his dream childhood pet was definitely a piranha.

aiku wears band t-shirts without knowing the actual music group. no, he does not listen to sex and the pistols, he just thought the design looked very cool. would also wear lana del rey merchandise just to impress the ladies. the only song he realistically knows is west coast, and even then he's only heard it at a random sushi restaurant.

reo would have stereotypical rich people problems. he can't decide if he should bring his chauffeur and valet or actually drive the car himself for your upcoming date. also spends at least one hour seriously pondering over which gucci silk pattern tie looks better on him. trick question, they're both the exact same shade.

shidou steals your covergirl perfect point eyeliner because he thinks it looks way better on him. also a big fan of body glitter and super vulgar eyeshadow palette names. his favorite hue so far is that one hot pink fuchsia that literally burns your eyes with its brightness. nothing is too neon with this man.

ness is the epitome of the sunshine-turned-unhinged-maniacal-killer trope. he would be the bestest boy, but if someone even lays a single hand on you, he’s already plotting their murder. eerily good at hiding bodies but would never divulge his secrets in fear of scaring you off.

shidou would walk unashamedly to the women’s clothing section of the general department store. would never be embarrassed by the bra sizes. you have a double D? he’s already trying three of the cup sizes on just to see if he can get you a comfortable one. if you’re part of the itty bitty titty committee, he wouldn’t judge either. this man loves femininity in all its full glory.

aryu exclusively uses dior beauty. he would rather die than use a generic drugstore makeup brand. sometimes you wonder if he's secretly a dermatologist because this man knows the exact shade, tint, and quality of product for every possible skin tone and type. also very passionate about the controversies behind animal testing and parabens. would be exceedingly picky when it comes to anything he smears on his face (think jeffree star but without the problematic issues.)

sae has his phone screen set to default wallpaper. he only has the translator app downloaded, and that's about it. his personal trainer takes care of all the rest of his stats. after he started dating you though, he kept pictures of you in his private photo albums.

noa cannot tell a white lie to save his life. if he doesn't know something, he will not know something. he doesn't see the point in hiding that. sometimes has trouble reading the room, so you need to remind him that brutal honesty and pure rationality aren't always the way to go. he does become more conscientious after that.

bachira used to draw crayon portraits of all the imaginary monsters he saw at night. scared the shit out of his parents because they thought he was hallucinating (he actually was.) nowadays, he's a lot tamer because you force him to take his meds.

isagi is, in fact, the number one mind reader and manipulator throughout the entire series. this man is clairvoyant, psychic, and telepathic all packaged into one. sometimes his right ear twitches, and he just knows someone is talking about him behind his back. unfortunately, all of this occurs in his head, so no one on the outside world actually knows about his sixth sense.

rin was absolutely bombarded with valentine's chocolates last year, but when he sorted through the entire pile and realized you hadn't given him one, he returned them all to their respective senders. will refuse any form of sweets unless it came directly from you. you need to be there physically to hand him the box.

kaiser writes, thinks, and speaks entirely in german even if no one else can understand him. he secretly can speak english but chooses not to because he absolutely hates anglicization. refuses to compromise his own language and culture just to fit in with the rest of the world. it's degrading. if he had it his way, german would be the new lingua franca. definitely thinks translation is for dummies. what do you mean you're not already bilingual? you better run, not walk, to that little green owl app. does use his foreign accent to make you feel flustered though. has a voice kink but in a non-traditional sort of way. you have to be the one turned on by his voice. only then will he start feeling it.

yukimiya loves it when you lose your shit. one time a jerk cut you off in traffic, and you started aggressively cursing. he fell in love with you right there on the spot. it was something about the fire in your eyes and the way you refused to take any attitude from the other party. that self-assertiveness you exhibit is so empowering.

aiku takes you out to karaoke bars just to hear you sing. you look so pretty under the purple disco lights, belting your little heart out to the rock lyrics. sometimes he has to take a minute to just appreciate how lucky he is to have you.

nagi didn't know that you have to actively check and update your email inbox. he had no clue school even started until one day the principal called his parents over his thirteen student absences. he thinks it's a headache to even get out of bed and put his fingers on his laptop keyboard. since when was the distance between his arrow cursor and the search bar that wide? it looks too long for him to reach. maybe he should just do this tomorrow.

reo does not know what saving money is. the first time you asked him for a promo code, he looked at you as if you had just spouted a strange language. when you showed him your little wallet full of cut-out coupons, he literally had to hold them up to the light and closely inspect them. it was definitely a moment of enlightenment.

sae likes anklets, especially the super thin gold chain ones. something about the way it brushes against his bare leg when you sleep beside him drives him out of his mind. he's also a sucker for subtle jewelry as evidenced by his necklace and wrist bands.

otoya practically lives for instant gratification. he would be guilty of love bombing. loses interest quickly, but sometimes wishes he could actually commit for once. football is important to him because it is one of the only activities he has consistently practiced for over a decade.

karasu is down bad for anyone who can actually outsmart him. you got a higher mark than him on the recent exam? damn, his heart just beat a little faster. spaces out in a love-filled haze whenever you ramble on about your nerdy little subject interests. he is a sapiophile through and through. intelligence just does it for him.

loki is the type of person who absolutely demolishes your self-esteem, and yet you still cannot bring yourself to hate him. when people say god has his favorites, they mean this man right here. he would be an innately talented genius while simultaneously being the most humble human being in existence. at this point, it's not his problem. it's a you problem. try harder next time.

chris is very similar to a neurosurgery resident. he has the largest self-entitled ego in existence. not a single day goes by when he doesn't remind you that he is, in fact, one of the highest ranking football players in the world. you can't say anything about it though because he has rightfully earned his arrogance. i mean, what are you going to use against him? his grueling hours of blood, sweat, and tears? this man works harder than the devil himself. in fact, he is the devil.

rin is the type to get emotionally attached to the most ordinary objects ever. he collects batteries and keeps a separate drawer as a graveyard for them once they die. the triple A ones get a special funeral since they're so hard to find. he just can't bring himself to let go of objects that no longer serve a purpose (just like his relationship with sae, sorry not sorry.)

hiori cannot go to bed unless it is absolutely dark. the curtains have to be closed. the door has to be locked. everything has to be drowned in pitch black. the reason he does this is because he still has flashbacks from that tiny strip of light underneath his bedroom door. his parents would argue all night when they thought he had gone to sleep. it still haunts him to this very day.

nagi wishes he could be a cat. sleeping all day and sunbathing on the rooftop seem like great ways to spend his life. unfortunately for him, he is not a cat. when he dies though, he wants to be reincarnated as one. either that, or a rock.

rin snores like a whole power drill at night. sae secretly hates his brother for that but can’t bring himself to wake him. whenever the itoshi family goes on vacation, ear plugs are not an option but a necessity.

chigiri knows ventriloquism. he used to play with his sister's dolls and make up character voices for each of them. definitely uses it as a party trick or as a way to make you laugh when you've had a bad day.

sae always keeps his feelings to himself. sometimes he finds it easier to rant to you than others, but then he almost always ends up retracting back into himself after realizing just how much he's revealed. he hates being emotionally slutty.

ness is the big scary dog in his relationship with kaiser, not the other way around. everyone thinks kaiser is the intimidating one, but ness wears a leash for a reason. one of them is the chihuahua, and the other one is a rottweiler. you can already guess who is who.

reo was having a mental breakdown in his limousine one time, but he ran out of his usual luxury aloe vera lotion tissues. instead of buying more, he took out his cheque-book and ripped out the pages to dry his tears. money is just paper to him. it can be recycled (no, it can't.)

loki is the type to show you a sweet and heartwarming smile before pulling out the most atrocious uno card combination in existence. i'm talking reverse, wild card, skip, draw 2. you sat there for twenty-five minutes trying desperately to draw a green. by the time you were done, he only had one card left. (screw you, loki.)

niko draws his own manga whenever he doesn't like how the official plot ends. if the canon ever diverges from the way he imagined it in his own head, he will draft his own fan fiction instead. one time, he rewrote an entire shonen jump series just to bring his favorite character back to life (*cough cough* said character wears a blindfold.)

karasu is definitely the "um, actually..." type of student. he will always have a rebuttal on hand. the truth is never black-and-white with this man, and he will argue both sides if it furthers his own agenda. he reads the encyclopedia front and back every night just so he can pull out a random arbitrary fact to win an argument some time in the near future.

shidou had a bad habit of chewing pens as a child until one day it finally exploded in his mouth. from then on, he vowed only to chew glittery gel pens. that way when it exploded in his mouth, his tongue would be stained a bright, shimmery purple. if you ever got him a scented gel pen pack, his life would finally be complete.

rin cannot differentiate between colors. if you asked him to find the difference between bubblegum pink and cotton candy pink, he would not know. to him, seven colors is already a lot to memorize. when he was a child, he only drew pictures with a single color because it was less of a hassle that way.

otoya used to think lime green was the most aesthetically pleasing color in existence. almost considered dying his hair that shade until karasu told him that girls don't actually like guys who look like neon highlighters. still wishes he did it though. he wants to glow in the dark.

© verysium 2023 / please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize any of my works

[wandixx]

Ghost of fries and Hero of cookies part 2

All work words count: 14 593

Words in this part: 1 794

Summary of whole work: Duke wasn't expecting to wake up from his quick rooftop nap to some meta kid with fries. He also wasn't expecting kid to stay Or Danny asked Dani to stay safe while she was in Gotham. Where would she be safer than under the wing of local hero? And he looked like he needed bad day combo anyway

This part summary: Of new names and teasing

Beta read by @audhumla-sailor though English is second language for both of us, so proceed with this in mind. I also know all of the charaters through fics alone, so probably ooc. Stay catious if it's something you don't like

First part

Duke knew that Dani was in their agreed meeting point, he even vaguely knew where she was floating but not much more. She used her invisibility, which was weird since she knew it didn't work correctly on him. It was fifth time they met, of course they knew. 

"Hey Signal, remember how you said that I need a codename if we're going to hang out in future and that all my previous ideas were horrible names?" a disembodied girly voice asked. Duke smiled. Ever since he raised the idea, the girl would come up with ridiculous names to be called, proposing them with absolutely straight face. It was expected from someone who thought Dani Phantom was a good alias. It didn't make her ideas any less amusing.

"Of course I do. Whatcha got for me today?"

"Alright, since you don't let me be a name stealer, I decided to take a sheet from local nightlife's notebook–"

"You mean take a leaf from their book?" He was sure she was rolling her eyes on him, but it didn't stop him. No one could maim English language like that with him around.

"Whatever. I chose to steal their idea and became a bird. It's only fair since I can actually fly!"

"Can't exactly disagree. So, what did you get this time?"

"You'll like that, I promise. But now, I introduce to you…"

Duke got ready to shut down every Robin iteration and all Birdgirls he could think of.

"HOOPOE!" Dani yelled, popping back to the visible spectrum. She was covered in bright orange cape with weirdly shaped hood and flimsy mask "I even did some costume changes to fit the name better–" in all honesty, one, yeah, he wasn't blind he realized, two, he needed a moment to remember how these birds looked (his first thought was 'wait it's a thing?!'). But then he got it and yeah, those were funny little creatures, just like Dani. It fitted her "–so even if you don't like it, it doesn't matter," she added, sticking her tongue out.

Duke patted her on the head. He was there, he knew it mattered.

"It's a great name Hoopoe"

Dani visibly though probably unconsciously, relaxed. Her mouth curved into a proud grin and her aura brightened. Normal auras didn't do that. He got used to Dani surprising him like that sometimes.

"Of course it's great, I made it."

Duke chose to not remind her about almost two dozen times she came up with absolutely not great names or about the fact that technically she didn't quite make this one either. He wasn't in such a petty mood. Maybe in future if he needed blackmail.

Oh, it was such a Bat thing, wasn't it? He needed to spend some more time with his civilian to get it out of himself, he liked his ability to interact with normal people in a healthy way. 

*

"Wait, is your mask a paper?"

"What else could it be, titanium?"

"If you stop three muggings on the next three patrols each I'll get you a better one, okay?"

"Hey, my mask is perfectly fine"

"Yeah, but it can tear too easily. I can get you a mask that is more sturdy."

"Aha."

"It's the same material every Robin and Nightwing wear…"

"Don't care, my mask is flawless"

"..."

"Okay, better mask would be cool"

***

On the third patrol Dani joined, about a week and a half ago, they exchanged numbers. Duke knew how hard it was to come to terms with new powers on one's own and God strike him with a lightning or something if he ever lets anyone go through similar bullshit. Especially since she didn't seem to have anyone taking care of her. Girl her age shouldn't be able to hang out or respond to messages within ten minutes at any given time. Only twice she didn't do that, because she was on a celebrity hunt for autographs as she later explained. He would be teased endlessly if any Wayne or their associate learned about it, but he considered introducing Dani to Bruce. She needed help, okay?! He didn't inherit adoption tendencies.

But he hadn't done that, partially because he didn't want to scare Dani off and partially because of fear of teasing. And bet. Because of course in the meantime somehow there happened a bet. 

He smirked at the video Dani sent as a response to the hydration check. She was tossing a coin and playing an elimination game to pick one juice from eight drinks she had. Steph jumped over the back of the couch to join him. At the start she was in front of him so to do that she had to run around the furniture but such minor inconveniences couldn't even wish to stop her dramatics.

"You're smiling at your phone ergo you either text your secret girlfriend/boyfriend/enbyfriend or watch memes. Show me the memes," she demanded, nudging him in the arm. Duke chuckled.

"Wrong guess. I'm texting my sidekick," they agreed it would be a funny way to introduce Dani to people who asked. Duke tried his best at this whole having sidekick thing anyway. As well as he could without help from other Bats because of this damn bet.

Steph froze for a moment.

"Your what–"

"And the lucky winner is… an apple with mint juice! Damn I really hoped it would be lemonade,"  Dani from the video announced cheerfully before opening the bottle" Shame it didn't make it past semi-finals. Happy hydration break. I'm going on an autograph hunt so I may not respond for the next two hours or so. Wish me luck, bye~"

Duke paused the video before it replayed. He glanced at Steph who finally rebooted.

"How come you got a kid and I learned about it just now?"

“In my defense I'm like 60% sure you're the second person in the family to learn about her. Depends if Tim got his ‘I have to know everything, gotta check body cams’ paranoid spree in the last two weeks or not. There was no teasing from Babs or anyone else if I'm being honest and no lecture from B, so they have no idea.”

“First was Alfred?”

“First was Alfred. I still don't know how.”

“That's our grandtler for you. You are forgiven but you have to tell me everything about her,” Steph demanded excitedly. “And show me the photos''

Duke snorted.

“She goes by Hoopoe and is about Damian's age. She can tell you her real name when B inevitably finds out and tries to interrogate her.”

“What if Spoiler drops by during the day?”

“You can try but give it another week and a day, okay?”

“Why?”

“We have bet that I'll hide her from B for three weeks. Tomorrow is the end of the second week. We both know how he is, he'll have questions if you randomly show up during the day."

"Stakes?"

"Speedster worth of winners favorite Batburger meal, 2 quarts of chosen drink and cookies"

"Valid. I ain't snitch, but I want to know more. Is she a meta?”

"Yeah. Powers I know of are invisibility, intangibility, superspeed, enhanced hearing and flight. Probably more. I think she already had some training with it because she has quite amazing control over this stuff. Like, it comes naturally to her. But her hand to hand is atrocious."

"Are you jealous?"

"No."

"Omg, you totally are! Don't be, she is just a baby with a better idea of what's going on with her powers than you have with yours. There is nothing to be mad about Duke, it's okay Duke–"

"Keep going and I won't tell you anything about her," he dared, trying not to snort. 

"Sorry, sorry, you're doing great, please continue," she nudged his arm again "Don't be such softie, dude" He stared at her at the comment, disbelief clear on his face. Steph at least then looked a little ashamed "Okay, sorry. You're honestly doing far better than any of us would. Excluding Cass and Alfred."

"Excluding Cass and Alfred," he agreed easily enough.

"So, you think your kid has some training with her powers," she recalled eagerly.

"Yeah, probably from when she was helping her cousin. He is a hero in Amity Park, Illinois, his name is Phantom. It took very little digging even though Hoopoe does her best to stay mysterious. I swear this kid has no brain-mouth filter. But! I got my second shovel talk from her cousin!”

“The what?”

“After a week of hanging out with her, I got message on Signal’s twitter from Phantom that basically read as ‘I have nothing against you, really dude I’m a fan but here is list of my most powerful enemies, and let me tell you, there were some scarily powerful guys there, I won with all of them, if something bad happens to Hoopoe I can and will destroy you.’ After some research, yes, I think he could try and have considerable chance of success. Even if he didn’t fight would be painful enough to be a lesson. He and Hoopoe have the same powers and she worked with him for some time. She most likely learned then. She was called Dani Phantom, boy went by Danny Phantom then”

“Dear gods, their aliases were so horrible, who even let them go with it?! Are those their first names?!” Steph sounded genuinely offended by it.

“I don’t know,” Yeah, he knew, but he preferred to keep at least this secret to himself ”In boy's defense, because Hoopoe came much later,  he was fourteen and Amity went to shit really fast, so alias was probably not his first concern. And it’s much better than Invioso-bill, name he was given by the press. And he uses some intense gaslighting to make people believe it’s just Phantom now. And allegedly they’re both ghosts. Apparently ghosts don’t exactly have secret identity”

“You doubt it”

“You would too. She eats, she breathes and she is tangible by default. From what I know, ghosts don’t do that”

“They don’t, I checked. I went on a research spree when I first learned about Deadman. I just thought it was so cool you know. Ghosts being real and all,” Steph leaned towards him, almost vibrating with anticipation.

“Really?” he asked, knowing what he was getting into.

“Yeah, you see…”

And on she went, releasing expected infodump as if she waited for this opportunity ever since she first read about it.

********

Some additional name getting shenanigans

Signal: I won't call you Dani in the field

Dani: Why?

Signal: Ever heard of secret identity? Name is, like, half of it. Disguise is other half but it can be exchanged with lore. Superman made it work. Just make up enough lore for people to not question it.

Dani: Oh, okay *gremlin^2 mode activated*

Random they just rescued: And who are you little one?

Dani: *looking them dead in the eyes* I am clone of dead child hero, travelling around the world to find identity separated from my template befre mistakes made during my creation make me turn into puddle of primordal liquid and my conciousness fades forever

Random: *petrified* What?

Signal: *internally* I have miscalculated

Dani: Kid Signal

Signal: No.

Dani: It works in Central

Signal: We're not in Central

Dani: Signalgirl

Dani: I mean, Batgirl exists

Signal: No.

Dani: Monochromatic Signal. Y'know, Red Robin route?

Signal: ...

Signal: Just no. Don't make my name part of your name

Next part

Do you want to see some Hoopoe doodles I made? There were redesigns!!!

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Running Hot and Cold

So, of the creatures you’ve invented for your world - are they ectothermic or endothermic?

“Cold-blooded” and “warm-blooded” are the colloquial terms for it. They’re... not exactly wrong, but incomplete. A “cold-blooded” critter simply does not have internal workings devoted to keeping it inside a specific band of temperatures No Matter What. (Though some may in fact be able to keep parts of their body much warmer or cooler than their surroundings - see the swordfish, among others, with their rete mirabile of blood vessels to keep their eyes warm in the sea to spot prey.) On the other hand a “warm-blooded” critter (birds and mammals being our key contenders) not only has the inner workings to do so, it absolutely must, or perish.

If you’re not sure what your critter should be, consider that these are two different ways of adapting to life with distinct advantages and disadvantages. Sort out which of those fit your critter best, and you should know what to pick.

First, let’s take ectothermy. As have most animals in the history of the world. It’s the most common way of life for a reason: it works. Since ectotherms rely on the outside world to keep them warm or cool, they don’t need to spend any energy on maintaining a constant internal temperature. This makes needing to eat much, much less of a worry; critical if you’re in a low-prey environment. Full-grown Nile crocodiles can pretty much live on only two wildebeest a year... and guess what? The herd’s migration usually takes them across particular rivers twice a year. Convenient!

(Herbivores prey on plants, algae, etc. Those, too, can be in short supply.)

Three distinct disadvantages, though. First, you have to make proteins that function at a wide range of temperatures; this costs extra resources. Second, your eggs are usually more temperature-sensitive than you are. Finding the right environment for them is critical. Third... if you really really need a fever, say to kill off a bacterial or fungal infection, you have to figure out how to get your environment to do the work. You have to give yourself a behavioral fever. Alligators, crocodiles, and their relatives will all do this by basking in the sun longer and more often than normal.

So. Endothermy. Apparently pounced on by both proto-mammals and some of the dinosaur lineages. This is a very resource-intensive strategy. You have to eat; you have to eat frequently. And if you get just a little too hot or cold inside, you die. A snake that drops down to 50 F inside may be perfectly fine, though it probably doesn’t want to freeze. A human whose internal temp drops to 85 F? That is nightmare territory and heading toward death. Why would any creature do this?

Look at the three disadvantages of ectothermy. An endotherm doesn’t make proteins that function across the temperature spectrum; it doesn’t have to. All its building blocks can be finely tuned to the temperature it’s supposed to be, with a little wiggle room in case of, you know, a smidge too cool or too hot. This saves a lot of resources. Sensitive eggs? Can be kept with you, either in a nest you keep warm or even - gasp - internally. (Mammals are so metal.) Fungus and bacteria? Get hit by a blazing reception of fiery fevers and fine-tuned immune systems. They can kill us, but numbers-wise, ectotherms are at far greater risk.

And evolution, very often, is a numbers game. It doesn’t take much of an advantage to pull ahead. It only takes a small, constant advantage over time.

Of course, there are exceptions. Like hibernating hummingbirds (some let their temp drop to 40 F every night) and pythons shivering to keep eggs 5-10 degrees warmer than outside air (as the Everglades snarl in frustration). And then there are paleontologist speculations that the really big sauropods and some other dinosaurs had mesothermy, which doesn’t seem to exist on the planet today because the (probably asteroid impact) disaster at the K-T boundary wiped out every critter past a certain size, and you had to be sauropod-size to make it work. 

Consider all these, when you make up a critter for your characters to deal with. It matters to how they behave - and that makes a big difference when your heroes might have to run through a pack of them!

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1144 review

Yeah, I think this is the end of volume 112. Oda has lately favoured rallying moments and bits of intrigue over dire and desperate cliffhangers for recent volume endings, so Dorry, Brogy and Scopper leaping into the fray is the perfect moment to cut things and leave readers excited to see what's coming next.

That said, it's also starting to feel like we're moving into the middle stage of the arc where the pacing slows for the action to play out. The set pieces are building bigger and bigger, but I'm finding myself with less to say each week because it's just the stuff already established playing out. Which is fine, and normal, and a necessary part of any big shonen arc, and they all feel better on the reread than they do to wait on week by week.

This week's one big lore piece is the ancient facility in the opening scene. The art here is awesome with deep shadows and overgrown detail that really emphasise the age, and that 3000 year figure almost certainly making this First World tech is crazy. I thought it would be years before we came back to that. Glad that it gives Lilith something tangible to do in the background instead of just fading away as well. What's rough is the spoiler providers assuming this is a robot - I'm not saying there's no chance of that, but it's far from as certain as the summaries suggested. Yeah, that dome at the top looks a decent bit like the heads of the robots from Castle in the Sky, but there's no body. And yet, the perception of it as one is almost certainly going to persist in the fanbase and overshadow any other theory. To shout out another possibility I've already seen, there was a comment suggesting the top section as a cylindrical segment of a rocket. I'm not convinced enough to put money down on that, but I still like the idea.

Usopp gets a really fun joke quietly slipping in that he wants to fight as the giants get ready to fight the nightmares. We get what looks to be a broad division of labour for the coming set piece with the Strawhats and Collun (surprised he wasn't at the school, but he still gets to fill his expected role as the one kid fighting back, so it's not that big of a shock) taking on the human-size intruders while the giants face the big ones. There's some good, quick logic from Brook and Jinbei picking out the number of enemies and the fact that giants might have trouble pinning down a threat so small, as well as Nami getting on Collun's good side to get access to a boat they wouldn't have had otherwise.

It's neat that Gunko is a Soul King fan. Crazy it's taken this long for that to come up, actually. And cool that it's an enemy instead of an ally, for that potential drama. If her pantsless state is all for his sake I'll crack it though. And the whole conversation that follows is a fascinating reminder of how evil the Celestial Dragon mindset is. These guys have seemed pretty affable so far (outside of the whole kidnapping children thing), but reading between the lines of Sommers executing enslaved musicians for missing a note. That's an insanely cruel pastime to so casually bring up. And the only objection at the table is for making fun of Gunko's interests.

Attention to detail check: the Great Erik still shows the charred evidence of being shot at by Marine ships and getting ignited by Mars' fire break on Egghead, as well as the figurehead being haphazardly tied on after Nusjuro severed it.

For all the feeling that this set piece is just starting to build, the nightmare monsters seem like they're going down fast. Dorry and Broggy knock down three in a single panel at the end of the chapter while the other adults fell the draugr, accounting for a decent portion of the creatures from the reveal spread already. Almost too easy. Makes me wonder if these monsters are really gone, or while the children sleep will Killingham be able to pull infinite copies from their minds? How many back to back Hakoku Sovereignties do we think the captains have in them? This could be the thing that makes it properly desperate and high-stakes that the Strawhats find and take down the Holy Knights.

And I hear we're getting another colour spread next week to celebrate the anime returning. I wonder if it'll be a normal one, or if Oda will draw something specifically for the spot the anime's up to, as he's done for movies, games, the live action show, the Ryuma OVA and the Heroines novel. Maybe fully and officially coloured versions of the Five Elders' monster forms? We can only hope.

[roverjamball]

DAY 1 - 17.07.2023

 "I've got you and I'm not letting go."

Raven enters the Titans tower, Damian, following her. He close the door he’s been holding for them. 

 Team Leader for the month continued to berate me as we climbed up the Everest, to the top floors that house living quarters, dining and kitchen area. Damian lead, I was slightly behind him. Trying to to lag.   

The patrol was routine. Except for the fire, of course. Which was probably some kind to trap. Either way it would need investigating. This was the day from hell.

Most days Damien and I took the nightshift. I was more alert at night. Shadows, they spoke to me. This was not something I had really noticed, but when we ended up doing three nightshifts in a row, I realised how the cool darkness could feel, freeing. The night Spoke to me in a way that nothing else had before. Shadows, not usually sentient, were always aware of her, always eager to do her bidding.

Raven counted the steps, Damian's, tall, lean frame, ate up the steps beside her. His breathing steady, as if they were out for a stroll. She on the other hand was tired, her legs ached, magically depleted. After being up for almost 48 hours straight, fighting fire creatures, warding a whole building only for the creatures to vanish and rousing unnatural flames, I was a little flames out. 

The previous two days, from what felt like dawn to dusk had been filled with Justice League briefings, mandatory Justice League, briefings. There was a threat. It was spooky. Ant that was all Constantine could or would tell them. One magical and one norm was the new protocol. And though they could’ve asked out of Night Shift, Damien and Raven both decided not to.

Raven was mentally cussing the person who designed the tower, this insanely long staircase, and the fact that the elevator was lowest in the list of priorities for renovations of Titans Tower. Maybe she should teleport the architect all the way up and help him feel each stair, head first, on his way down. 

So involved was she in the violent, yet satisfying fantasy, it took her totally by surprise when they reached the kitchen. 

Raven blinked, further surprised to find that Damian had stoped in the middle of the corridor, and was speaking to her. I turned to look up at him, my senses searching him, what question? Only to sink into his green eyes. 

Wide eyes shone like sea glass under dark brows. Add to those mesmerisers, straight thick brows. Damian’s wavy hair, now covered with soot, ash, his warrior bearing, lean like a professional fencer, his beauty could lead her to any number of sins, and Raven was turning into a poet, trying to justify why she couldn’t take her eyes off her teammate.

Thick eyebrows were raised in question. Look away. Look away Raven told herself. 

Damian was far too perceptive by half, even suffering form smoke inhalation. And then Raven made the mistake of looking at his mouth, soft lips compress in a lush line as if annoyed at being ignored. Tempting softness beckoned Raven. She had watched him clean up after the fire was put out, ash and soot patchwork, still his magnetism caught her. She didn’t want to notice such things. 

Seep deprivation, Raven thought, yes that is the only reason.

“Huh?” She asked. 

They’ve been awake for over 48 hours in one go. And haven’t had much rest before that marathon either. A good excuse to be out of it. Reason, not excuse. 

The night had been quite, but Raven sensed unease in the air. Damian noticed, he suggested they linger a bit before heading back. Donna and Conner would release them in an hour or so. Damian called for his bike, a fun self drive feature, handy. It stoped below their perch and Raven teleported them to street level. 

Damian hoped on, side wheels retracted into the bike, no longer required for balance. Raven took to the skies. They would run parallel sweeps, Raven taking high ground and Damian covering her. 

Doing a final lap before turning in, a few blocks from the Tower, Damian informed her a building was on fire. The FD had just been called. FD would take 20 minutes, budget cuts, while Damian and I were less then a minute away. They passed by the area most nights on the way home, office buildings dominated and then closer to the pier godowns and warehoused were plentiful.

I cast my senses out. There was something there. It needed investigating.

I landed on the roof while Damian went in through a window, creating a zip line for evacuation, if needed. It was early morning, midnight oil a old memory. Even so. Patrolling guards or any number of people could be trapped.

My boots slipped and slid on the tile floor as I sprinted around a corner and toward the doors to the middle of a grand foyer reception. The place had an abandoned feel to it. 

Streetlights provided light in the dusty hall, and left huge swaths of blackness crouching and observing my progress. The reception of one office to doors to various utility closets. I was looking for anyone trapped in. Stretching my senses I listened, listening to the hum of the universe, speak to me, I thought. 

Moving faster, my cafe-length magical cloak black in the darkness swishing against my legs. I heard a rustling, hissing sound and I’m not sure why, ducked to the left, taking cover of an alcove doorway. 

A ball of some kind of noxious-smelling substance, zipped past me, engulfed in blue-white flame. The ball of foul I don’t know, hit the floor, sparked and promptly exploded. I broke to lock and ducked into the room behind me, heat of a hungry fire shot towards me and half melted the wooden door. 

It got hot for a second, and wooden door would’ve  burst into flames but for the wards I'd woven the moment I touched the doorframe. 

I called to Damian, but my magic was interfering with the com technology. I could pull my magic in, but then the door would burst and I didn’t like my chances of hand to hand with a thing ablaze and alive. 

Another flaming glob crackled toward me. The substance, whatever the hell it was, clung to what it hit and burned with a supernatural ferocity. It had already burned metal doors to slag in the dim hall behind me.

The goop hit my shield, it slid off the protective spells, spattering the walls on either side of my door. I flinched . The walls wouldn’t hold it back and it was getting hot. 

Checked behind me, the light from the street lamps and the fire revelled luckily, restrooms. Water! 

Light was growing back where I'd come from, as flaming missiles chewed into walls and floor, spreading with a malicious glee. The door held.

I ran for the windows by the sinks, in was an older building, a few stories tall. Slamming the locks, opening the safety bar with my arm and barely slowing down, I pushed with my will. Plumbing broke and as the pipes burst out, they poured with vengeful force guided by my magic on the flame creature. Once the water honed in on the magical flame monsters, knocking them down took minimal concentration.

I climbed out the window, onto a ledge. Three feet wide, if that. The warded door and water kept the burning creature out, but for how long. I’d regroup, find Damian and then we’d finish this. Slowly I moved to the next set of windows, more than a few feet away, a side way shuffle. 

Don’t look down. One step at a time. I could teleport but I wasn’t sure if the creature could track that. I pressed against the side of the building. Teleportation was an option of last resort. I wasn’t even high up, but this close to the ocean sea breeze nipped at me. Pulling my cloak. I focused on making my self streamline. I wanted to levitate, this narrow ledge, only a few stories high was getting to me more than I thought it would. 

A sudden weight hit my back, it was all I could do to hold onto the window sill, something pulled viciously at my hair. A wolf like creature had leaped off a dumpster below me. It held on, finding purchase on the ledge, started biting at my neck and ear. It hurt. I tried to spin and throw it off, but it had a good hold. If I pushed harder, I’d lose a ear. The creature could easily pull me down, out weighed my by a mile, a short drop but it would do me damage. 

I stopped struggling, the wolf thought it had me, I could feel its triumph, primitive thoughts, ruled completely by instinct. I couldn’t fight it off physically, heavy with power musculature. Instead focused on where the creature touched me, my bare skin, “Sleep” I pushed into the creature. Elation and catching me, its guard was done.  Feeding compulsion and power where its molten fur met my skin. My voice echoed in the empty streets, “sleep” I willed it, feeding more power into the command. I fed it empty fields, a full stomach, lazy afternoons with shade for a nap. 

The pressure ended abruptly. The command took hold. A thud sounded below me. Heavy body hitting metal. 

Compulsion took effort, will, concentration, I lost focus of the water to fend off flaming monster in the building. The fire creature burst threw my magically barricaded door. Rushed into the restrooms, zeroing in on me. Heading right at me. More pipes broke, spewing water all over the restroom with the creature in it. Did little good, wet, flames diminished it come for me and I lunged to the side, now all the way out the side of the building to avoid a collision, but now I fell. 

My will no longer focused on water cannoning, I blinked into shadows, out of existence. Only to reappear somewhere else. Disoriented I appeared in the middle of a hallway. Smoke, an acrid smell filled my nose, my vision limited. Still in the same building then.

I was about halfway to an exit, not a fire exit she saw, so the door maybe locked. Walking to the middle of a corridor as I pulled my magic into me, I saw it was the ground floor. 

Robin still unreachable. 

Something ripped the steel doors behind me inward, against the swing of their hinges. A low, bellow erupted from further inside the building. I felt it like thunder.  Calling energy to me, my power manifest dark ebony a deep purple. Shadows move to me, eager to please, puppies to her master. 

Panting, I looked down the hallway and then to the exit. There was maybe twenty meters between me and the exit. I’d be out, a barred door couldn’t hold me, but then I’d have led who know how many fire creatures after me. I sensed three. I faced two of them, one would sleep for a bit, but the other could re-group and I’d face two again. 

I have successfully developed a standard operating procedure for dealing with big, nasty monsters who wanted to kill me in excreting ways. Run. But I couldn’t apply that here. This building was going down, business, shop hopes and dreams would burn tonight. We shall see. I just hoped Damian was all right. He could hold his own. 

I breathed in pants, pulled on a mask to cover my mouth and nose. My eyes watered from the heat and smoke. 

Water water everywhere, I thought. Finding the reserves of the building, the infrastructure around. Ah!. In an overhead tank, I had spotted something white and round when I landed on the roof. There was three fire hydrants nearby. Only one close enough to make a difference. I reached out to them. 

Just then my com crackled. “Raven?”

“Get bike. “ I kept my sentences short and urgent. “Exit off the west parking lot. Over looking the high rise expansion.”

“Copy” his voice crackled in my ear. 

“Be ready to carry me out.”

No response. I hope my message was heard. If I ran, the monsters zeroed in on me, would follow. If I escaped, they may scatter in the sleeping city. My magic and will held them at bay. No man made flame retardant material had a prayer against supernatural fire these creatures were throwing around. It was like greek fire. 

I pictured the building in my minds eye. Then spread my awareness all over. My power coated each wall and window and vent. I wanted to contain the creatures in which ever area they are, but I don’t think I can do both. Find them all to keep them in, contain the flames. 

Adrenaline surged through me. My heart hammering in my chest. The world slid into sharp focus. I saw it all at the same time in half a second: two creatures converged from different areas to me. Their shape flickering in my minds eye. The whole building is covered in my energy, spread too thin I panted, should’ve practice more. 

“Seal.” I say. But my voice is normal not a force to be obeyed. I pore my will into the command.

“Seal”, I say again, my voice an eerie register, even to my own ears. I picture what I want. Identify the creatures to the ward. Keep these in. Contain the unnatural flame. Snuff in out. Deprive it of oxygen. 

Damian! I sense, him coming from one side, lower face covered with a modified oxygen mask, eyes red from smoke. I find the sprinkler system and feed some magic into it. I give the water intent and power.

Something new, other touches my senses. Closing in. Not from the mundane, not having the same signature as the creatures, they are not of the entity, its power setting my senses on high alert. 

Undeterred, I showed the ward the differences in the air. Mundane and magical and foul. The darkness that are shadows creeps towards me. As if to assist. A stranger on the street watching me lose energy, someone it considered of itself, coming to help.   

Avalanche of power, magic rushed at us. Honing in on me, it fell in waves. Damian was closing in, keeping the power contained was beyond me. The colossal power must have found a way around my ward, it was like an extra dimensional opening. 

Its magic beckoned me. Making promises and offers, all without words. Emotions: belonging, power, family, support, understanding and finally acceptance. 

It took a monumental effort of will to restrain it. I was a rock, small and unmovable. The power and its promises an ocean. The waves could go on right over me, but I would lay there, stationary, not at all affected. 

The creatures surged, drawing my attention, a frontal assault. Keeping my wards up, while pushing water at the flames was taxing. Walls burst all around, the plumbing breaking out, drenching the beasts; the sides, front, back while the sprinklers worked double time, pouring water from above. Magic combined with water seemed to be effective. Steam rose, mixing with smoke, filling the air. It was hard to see. 

Attuned to seeing into levels and dimensions far removed from reality, and therefore inefficient at observing the merely mundane, I was now suspended in the narrow space between the living world and the dark shadow-world, I could survey all that was Metaphysical. My vision doubled magical and mundane superimposed. 

With smoke and steam obstructing my normal vision, this magic shadow-world sight was worth the loss of the former. 

Magic brushed against me, insubstantial but saturated with power. It was too large, I couldn’t perceive its limit. I began to tremble with the effort. I strained to stay upright.

An explosion of magic, a blaze of white brighter than the nearby street lights. The entity was here. The light bathed the creatures. There were three of them, vaguely animal like, made of flame, the constant water combine with my power did not fade them, but they shied away from the blinding light. 

“Evac?” I head in my ear, Damian was here, he reached me. I felt relief in my very bones. Damian was here, safe and he would back me up. 

An ancient colossal power that observed me, I felt it judging me. The magic pulled me forward. I only barely got my barriers up. Belatedly, I threw one around Damian. 

The pressure held, roaming around my shields, against their shape, strength, a long pale beam of light tasting, testing. Its focus was solely on me, Damian or the creatures beneath its notice. In a moment it retreated. I heard a clinking sound. I think I was losing it, my shields, the warding of the whole building, holding back the creatures, dousing them with powered water, it was a bit much. 

The remaining light coalesced into something luminescent, it landed on the tile floor to the side of me. The power was finally truly gone. And it left behind a present. Good thing too. Damian and I we no match for it. Not with out major preparations; artefacts and back up.

On the floor was the object, it that was hard to describe. It had a physical and metaphysical presence. The double vision was giving me a head ache, and sapping at my power reserves. It had markings on it, scratches in the groves. A misshapen shape, it could be an octagon, a hexagon, a disc of some sort, of what sort I just wasn’t sure.

I nodded to Damian, he walked the perimeter of the area. Taking in the scene. We could leave, no need to stand and fight. The wards were in place. Able to function without my intervention. They would hold. Back to my senses, I found that we were alone. Damian and I. 

I looked up and around, the creatures must have backed off. They were gone, leaving only charred animal footprints on the floor as proof of their passing. 

“Stand back.” Damian walked to the luminescence. It finally faded, leaving nothing behind. 

I staggered to the exit. The door was locked. I sagged on it. Right now a stiff wind could flatten me. 

Damian gestures me to move away, staggered to the side I leaned on the wall, he took a running start and rammed the door. It shuddered. Where it was weakest, he rammed it again. Wood splintered, metal groaned, the doors burst open. Ignoring my protests Damian lifted me and we shot out into the darkness of the parking lot. 

The fresh air was startling, it tasted so good. I stumbled, blinking, trying to get used to the darkness after the red glare. After images dancing before my eyes. The symbol etched on the coin predominant. 

I hear a bike reeving, the headlight turn on and helmets come out its sides. I run to it assisted, mostly carried by Damian, push on with my will, climb the rear seat and sag. Spent. 

Damian mounts the bike behind me, securing me to him. "I've got you Raven, and I'm not letting go."

“Go!” I mutter. Go”

We duck into an alley. Sounds of sirens and flashes of red blue light pass us. Their howls deafening. Damian turns to check on me, passing me water canteen.

“What the hell is that?" 

“Back at the Tower.” I held back a groan. The fire was out, a fire truck couldn’t have done much but with the fire monsters gone they had a chance putting out the embers. 

As Damian drove us away I pulled my directive back from the building. The fire hydrant I had repurposed went back to normal and the sprinklers pushed out regular water found in any tap in the city. 

And now we were back at the Tower, standing together, Damian facing me.

Damian shrugs resigned to having to repeat the question. “Would you like breakfast before turning in, Raven?” Damien asked, but ever so aloof and polite. Typical, Damian. 

His eyes never leave my face, I love my name on his lips. At 19, Damian is so much bigger than me. Taller, broader. His face losing its youthfulness, and with the right get up he can look younger, older, Arab, Afghani, Caucasian or Latin descent. I used magic to help, but with Damian it was all micro expressions and body language. 

Back to his question. Spend more time with Damian while he inevitably cooks us breakfast, because my skills in the kitchen were basic at best! Answer a hundred questions. Or, or go off to sleep, hungry. 

Her body needed sleep and food. She’d gone without one and now going without the other wouldn’t in anyway, restore her.

Raven nodded, realised she’d been staring and looked down and away. Oh crap sure signs she was hiding something. Hide the slip. Move, move, she told her body. Did an about turn towards the kitchen. Put some distance. Actions speak louder than words.

Before she could, Damian open the door for her. His whole body was in her space. Trying to repress then urge to gauge Damian’s response to our closeness, as he behind me, too close for comfort. 

I worked to control my breathlessness. But Damian filled my perception in every way.  His face leaning over my right ear, his warm breath grazing my temple. My whole body tingled from the contact. Unless I moved forward, or leaned back a fraction of an inch, I’d be braced against him. Too close. 

At times like this, when Damian was gentlemanly towards her, opening doors or pulling my chair for me to sit, I felt something. Correcting my stance during practice or training. Offering me a ride when I’m tired at the end of patrol, giving me a leg up to climb on his unnaturally high Robin cycle. With him this near me, touching but not touching, when his very presence surrounds, he makes me feel safe. 

I hope I didn’t pause for too long, get a move on, Damian followed me, our combined smoke flavoured miasma dispersed into the largest, most modern kitchen anywhere, ever. 

The kitchen was a priority over fixing the elevator, food trumpets a few extra stairs. Jamie words not mine. I thought of using a portal when I didn’t disagree. Good food the way the Titans did it was usually worth the hassle of a few, million extra stairs.

The right side of the kitchen faced the ocean, floor to ceiling reinforced glass with metal panelling. In times of emergency or lockdown, bars and shutters would enclose them in darkness, but right now hints of sunrise, seeped threw. Hints of stars, twilight still evident. 

After Tera’s betrayal, the priority was structural integrity of the tower and defences, after that armoury and training room. Even before the living quarters, the kitchen was done up.

“Pancakes?” Behind her, Damian stood almost touching, his words vibrate through her back. She still felt unsteady, but managed to move unaided. She conquered the stairs, a few feet to the kitchen she would manage.

“Aha” she said, monosyllable reply, is best, Raven decided.  

Going into the kitchen, she moved purposefully towards the sink cleaning up the best she could. Then the cupboards. Raven pulled out the necessary pots and pans, while Damian entered the pantry, returning a moment later with required ingredients; butter, flour, salt, maple syrup and honey. 

His voice echoed in my mind, a continuous refrain “"I've got you and I'm not letting go.”

When I thought back to those words, how Damian sounded as he said them, how he held me close and warm.  His arm around my waist, secure and strong against my back. 

Placing the items on the counter, Damian moved to  one of the breakfast bar. Removing his cape he folded it and draped it on the back of a chair. He smells like smoke just like she does. Then arm guards came off, followed by all outer pieces of armour; leg guards - that moulded mussels, chest plate, domino mask, equipment belt. Stop, she thought, eyeing him covertly.

 To her dismay, Damian even pealed off his reinforced buttoned tunic, now dressed only in pants, and an athletic temperature regulating black t-shirt, the kind most of us wore under our suits. Unaware or unconcerned of side glances Raven gave him, Damian moved about the kitchen,  cleaning up, washing his arms after pushing his sleeves above his elbows, scrubbing his face and neck. Water clung to him as he drank a swallow after rinsing his mouth.

Arranging the utensils in only half of his Robin uniform. Pants that moulded his thighs, defined, long legs and a thin temperature regulating athletic high neck T-shirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing warm sinewy muscles. 

Oblivious, Damian continued, drying off, measuring ingredients, finding dishcloths, wrapping an apron around his waist. His body, lean and hard, flexed, stretched, his sure hands working kitchen appliances, mixing and tasting. It was embarrassing how much it all appealed to me. 

This was the worst part of the morning routine. Damian had only recently, a couple of months ago, started to feel comfortable removing his armour, which he usually kept on, even in Titans Tower. And now Raven felt like an asshole for not removing her cloak and equipment belt when he was so comfortable with her. 

Raven debated using magic to change out of her smoky clothes, but with her mind so addled, she may end up picturing something ridiculous, and be utterly humiliated. No thank you. 

Facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, Raven chose the   table furthest from the kitchen. Ever this early it smelled of coffee, the automatic timer must have activated. 

Quit stalling. I remove the cloak, balling it on a chair - warding saved it but would need to be washed, belt pouch - carried magical items, powders and herbs equipped with multitools and gadgets, like our communicators and such, I set down carefully across the table. Magic and technology don’t mix too well, techno-magic was possible, I’d tried my had at it a bit. But as a rule I kept them separate, powders in glass or lead jars, mostly inert to magic. 

Keeping it simple, I unlace and remove my boots: an organic vegan compound Gar created to replace leather, soft soled and light with re-enforced heels and toes, they had two loops for silver knives, Anthems. By the power of my will I send them to my room. Then I sent the cloak to the hamper and my belt which had technology, I left alone. 

Not wanting to be barefoot in front of Damian, I summoned slippers and unbraiding my hair, still smelling of smoke, I took a moment to get a hold of myself.

All this took less than two minutes. Was she being rude if she didn’t continue to help Damian with breakfast?Decided that she was, he was as tiered as she felt, Raven went to set the table. She could do this without distractions if she kept her eyes averted.

Setting the table with plates, glassware and cutlery, Raven while giving Damian a wide berth, opened cupboards, pulling out a platter and placed it on to Damian’s left. 

She went back to the pantry, found some ripe summer mangoes, proceeded to peel and cut them to go with the pancakes. As a cook, she was okay, but cutting, mixing ingredients was an essential part of being a magic practitioner. The fruit was cut in perfectly thin slices, garnished with mint and a bit of red pepper sprinkled on the side. And it didn’t make sense, but Damien liked a bit of roasted spice with his pancakes.

“Thank you” Damian said indicating the platter and cut fruit. His voice was low, it had a husky quality to it that made even the most clinical assessments in the heat of battle, sound, intimate. Planning logistics sounded private, spoken in the dead of night. His voice was rough, smoke damage. 

It would be beyond rude if she left him there while he cooked for both of them, but she didn’t know what else to do. The table was set fruit, honey, maple syrup placed on the table, awaiting diners. 

Damien had two pans going on the burner and soon pancakes word begin piling up the platter. Raven probably would eat three, Damien would probably have four or five, but if he didn’t make some for the other Titans, he would never hear the end of it.

I forced myself to grope for reason but found only fog, a fog Damien routinely created around my mind; every time he spoke, looked at me or I looked at him. I had figured that if I look just off his ear, it would seem I was looking at him, and I would only see him in my peripheral vision. I felt it dilutes the intensity and his effect on me, at least a little bit. 

“After we finish breakfast, Damian”. Raven said, I kept my gaze on him. No emotional compulsion.

I pick up the platter of pancakes, taking away Damian’s access to it, once it had enough pancakes for the two of us. The others weren’t even up and they could wait for breakfast after Damian had eaten. Damian had been awake longer than even she had.  

The corner of Damian’s mouth twitched, Raven was struck again by Damian’s beautiful lethalness. Without even trying, his dimples and the beginning of stubble made him distinctly handsome. 

Damien put the kettle on one burner and turned off the heat of the second burner, leaving the pans as is.

 “For later” his smooth voice assured her. Surprisingly a placating smile graced his lips. 

Carefully balancing the planter, Raven turned away, she moved away for the kitchen, to their table by the windows. The Sun rose over the horizon, lighting the ocean in pinks and oranges. The whole sky was lightning as she placed their food on the table, arranging the cutlery. 

Damian’s long-legged steps were easy beside hers, and she envied the way he seemed so at home in his own skin. Feeling every step Damian took, getting closer and closer as he pulled a chair for her to sit, Raven wasn’t sure how much more she could take. Just keep it professional. Less pathetic that way.

For the last couple of months, most of the night patrols were Damian and Raven, what partnered She’s caught herself staring at him a moment too long and would look down a street, or anywhere else abruptly, so as not to keep staring at him. 

As if perpetually aware of her, Damian responds to her sudden movement. Trusting that she must’ve seen or sensed something that he missed. It was happening with such frequency, these last few weeks, it was getting ludicrous.

 She could notice things like that, she reasoned, despite the fact that she would never fall for him. She could appreciate his appeal. His movements across any space, for instance. He was fluid and aloof, like a wolf that could take off at any moment with great speed, even though at the moment he was simply beside her. She wouldn’t touch him, however. She had a feeling she’d end up losing a lot more than a limb.

[kenonade]

stella maris reading log #1

its about damn time i start noting down how i feel when i read what i read. hell yeah. hopefully this makes me a better writer.

spoilers not really about the plot (bc honestly is there even a plot in the sense of a plot) but more about the language below the cut woooooo

tldr: book cool. writing insane. wtf. wtf. wtf. head ouchie. 越级打怪的后果就是头晕脑转 (dizziness is the consequence of attempting to read beyond my level). ooga booga man talk abt english

reading stella maris is so interesting because im just sitting here wondering like. how the FUCK did mccarthy accumulate all this knowledge about a variety of very distinct fields. my brain hurts. this is so much information. im learning nothing and learning everything at the same time. how the man managed to learn all this stuff and how he managed to put it together like this puzzle me equally intensely. its one thing to acquire knowledge. its a whole other thing to convey it in language so dense with information but also character. like, not to be that guy, but when osc does his infodumps i think to myself okay old man lets get you to bed. every time alicia opens her mouth i confront my intellectual inferiority and contemplate the meaning of life because it is alicia talking.

not to mention what the FUCK alicia. if only you’d have KNOWN. EUGH. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.

my head hurts. the reason why im writing instead of reading is because ive already reached my reading breaking point where my eyes glaze over and the words go in one and out the other. its only been two hours. difficult language i can handle fine, verbosity is fine, i inhaled the ender stuff and only took breaks when osc pissed me off, but stella maris is information overload in a way that i’ve never experienced before. im like, texting three separate people all the time. oh i should vet this w my math guy. i need to show this to my psych classmate. this has to go to my orthopedics bestie.

i started this book saw the page number and went oh sure. its half the length of the passenger. the style means that it’ll contain less words overall too. i should be able to finish this on a three hour hsr ride. WRONG. i CANT. it’s TOO DIFFICULT. im running into roadblocks very similar to what i felt when i read the passenger: dont know place/name/context/big word. except im finding stella maris to be even more difficult because unlike some nautical jargon or random place in the midwestern usa that i can just look up, i cant. i think its impossible to even begin to comprehend all this math.

that’s definitely part of the charm of stella maris. the format of audio transcripts creates a much more intimate connection between the characters and the reader. the target demographic of this novel, though niche, is definitely not as niche as to comprise only of genius mathematicians with a burning passion for music and a hatred of psychology. the reader might be a master in one of these fields, but alicia outsmarts them in it along with all others. viewed through this lens, the reader is the doctor. the reader is the one who converses with alicia, trying their best to piece together a mind that is so extraordinarily genius and extraordinarily tormented. it’s a position of emotional significance. the reader sits through these audio recordings because they want to understand alicia. and to understand alicia is to love her. (this is a certified when i truly understand my enemy i love him moment)

all of that sits in stark contrast to western’s narration in the passenger.

i wrote an entire paragraph but tumblr fucking ate it. im pissed. its ok. for love i’ll write it again.

western’s narration is detached. it’s impersonal. mccarthy’s clinical and direct use of language alienates the viewer and prevents the formation of any sincere rapport, allowing only mild sympathy for western’s continued suffering. the reader is merely an observer, piecing together the life of a strange, curious creature through inference and deduction. nor is the reader meant to empathize with him. he’s the one who chose to abandon alicia, the one reckless enough to chose race car driving over his degree, and therefore the one who shoulders alone the responsibility of alicia’s death—or so he thinks. in a sense, because western is comparatively lucid, the detached narration becomes almost a punishment for the guilt he’s assigned to himself. he’s not the one in the mental asylum, afterall.

its interesting to me how mccarthy presents this duo to the audience. i have many Thoughts on alicia’s sexuality and stuff but i should finish the book before i synthesize those thoughts. anyway. thanks for reading 👍

[theofficersacademy]

Nel Griss Poe Corrin (M) Eldigan Edelgard Lapis Freyja Ivy Lilina

WEEK THREE - August 18th - August 24th

Tag - #SVIlia2023

The village of Reval was supposed to be a sleepy village where people meandered about their lives. If you moved all the way out here, it was because you wanted - or needed - to get away. People mostly minded their own business,

yet community blossomed slowly but surely all the same, for humans are creatures wont to look for somewhere to belong.

This family threatens now to fracture, and violently at that.

The problem? Most of you are part of that family now.

What you know

Ilians don't like the thought of dragons. You've found a dragon. Brynn is confused about the rumours that more of his kin have surfaced. He's been alone a long time.

Lysander is the wealthy owner of Reval, and appears to have bailed out the village after its having fallen on hard times. To him, it's a long-term investment. Also, he is purportedly the one who created the tomes some of you have purchased.

Time slips away from you rather suddenly. Some of you have been exploring for a small eternity. Others have been in the village so long now that you've become part of the family. You're not sure when this happened.

Corrin, Lapis, and Lilina sport simple garb, warm but nothing too fancy - quite similar to what the villagers in Reval wear. Eldigan's donned a set of monk's robes in St. Elimine's fashion, same as Weiss'. Edelgard and Ivy look set to be in command, heavy councillors' robes sweeping the floor. Nel and Poe suit up in a warmer version of Sacae's swordsmen. Griss... Griss looks pretty normal, actually. And as for Freyja, she is trapped in her goat form, and feared by all. She is, however, still family.

The world looks, feels different than how you remember it. It's not as colourful as you remember. You get the impression it's been slowly shifting ever since you arrived, but perhaps it had been too subtle to realize until now.

How much time has passed since you were shipwrecked? A moment ago you might have thought it a mere couple of days, but now it feels like it's been forever.

Villagers continue to go missing all the while. Up until now, you've been lucky enough not to number among them. More people have been whisked away overnight than has ever been recorded prior: the yet injured Lapis and Canna have been vanished, alongside Karev, Nel, Cain, and Eldigan. There does not appear to be any of that strange dust left behind where last they were seen, at least. Poe, Griss, and Ivy haven't been seen in town for... some time now.

What to do

Poppy and Dehlia are absolutely super duper fretting about the third member of their Pegasus Knight Trio being missing, and intend to head out to search immediately.

Lysander remains at the tavern, ever cool as a cucumber - though if you ask him, of course he's worried. What on earth is happening? Can he hire you to look into it? He'll send his dear sister, Weiss, as a guide with you if so.

The mines that were said to be abandoned (and condemned besides) do appear to be rather empty so far - save for a certain Hunter's log alongside a curious sphere. Only one way to find out what else awaits within these caverns.

Karev, Nel, Lapis, and Eldigan awaken to find themselves bound, two each to a cell. It's cold, but not as bad as being outside, one presumes. You feel a bit sluggish. Last night is a blur. Last week, month, year is a blur. What exactly happened...?

You’re not limited to the above. Anything else you’d like to explore, feel free to ping Mod Key. What would your muse do?

[theshatteredrose]

The Curse of Empathy (Chapter 15) - CrossEdge/Original Fiction

AN: Hope you enjoy reading~!

Ao3 | Wattpad | Inkitt | FFNet

-

Chapter 15:

Zelos idly flicked on the safety switch of his gun as the fog began to dissipate. Luckily, that battle was over relatively quickly. There were only three of the bastards and with their glowing red eyes, they were able to take their heads off at a distance. Through the broken window, no less.

With the short number of creatures, Zelos made Lyner stay on the back line and focus on pointing them in the right direction. The blond was not exactly thrilled with the command, but he did not argue. After that coughing fit he had yesterday due to the fog, something no one else endured, it was safer that he stayed away from the stuff. It was also obvious that he did not want to be in the house, the Carnage House as he called it, longer than he needed to be.

Not that he could blame him.

Zelos kinda…blamed himself for what happened. He had always tried to inspect the locations for any unwanted scenes or sites. He had stumbled across such a scene near the doctor’s clinic back in town. Eerily similar to the one they stood in currently. With Lyner’s ability the way it was, he assumed the residue found at such scenes should and would be overwhelming.

They smell like shit, too.

Still, he had not anticipated the guy going into a trance and actually having some kind of vision. That was the last thing he expected. With all that sensing and forewarning, he supposed he should have suspected the guy would have the ability to view events of the past. Why not? He had a new ability, why not screw him over even more.

With the fog fully dissipated, Zelos instinctively sought Lyner out in the small group. He did not need to search very far. The guy had stuck close to him during the fight. Not close enough to be a hinderance, but close enough that Zelos knew he was there.

Lyner remained on edge, trying not to pay too much attention to his surroundings as he waited impatiently for the fog to completely dissipate from his senses. He had his sword resting by his side, but his grip was tight around the handle, further proof of his unease. The duffle bag that usually carried their combined weapons rested upon his shoulder, the strap of which was constantly being twisted and tugged at by his other hand. He had insisted that he was fine, even before the fight, but Zelos knew he was lying.

The guy was still far too pale for his liking.

It appeared that Lazarus also noticed. The blond gunner walked right over to Lyner and boldly pressed his hand against his forehead. The act surprised and startled Lyner, to the point that his eyes widened, and his head reared back a fraction. But Lazarus persisted, a slight frown tugging at his lips.

Zelos found himself unexpectedly irritated and he had the urge to tell the gunner to piss off and not flagrantly encroach on the guy’s personal boundaries. But he swallowed it back. Just barely. Only because he knew internally that was not what ticked him off.

His own hands, with their mechanical coldness, would never be able to do that. Be able to touch someone like that. Feel their heat. Not how others could.

And it…pissed him off that others flaunted that privilege so blatantly.

“You feel cold to the touch,” Lazarus exclaimed. “Are you sure you’re perfectly fine?”

Lyner smiled that false what he hoped was a reassuring so to not worry anyone smile of his. “I’m alright,” he insisted as he took a half step back, to subtly dislodge Lazarus’ hand from his brow. “It’s just this house.”

It was more to it than that.

Zelos had noticed the small signs. It was more obvious during the night, back at the safehouse when they had very little to distract themselves. But there were signs during the day, too. Subtle signs that Lyner tried to hide or ignore. Or simply did not realise himself.

The temperature had been steady. Cool at night, but not cold. And Lyner seemed content to walk around in his casual clothing around the safehouse. But whenever there was a fog at night, he would reach for a throw blanket to wrap himself in. Yet, he would still shiver on occasion.

Something about that fog also brought with it an unnatural cold. Something Zelos and the other two idiots could not feel.

Unsurprisingly. That new ability of his liked to fuck around with him.

Lazarus continued to look at Lyner in mild concern before he unexpectedly glanced in Zelos’ direction. And, in a way that irked Zelos fiercely, gave a lopsided grin. “Anyway, York and I are going to give the outside a quick inspection,” he suddenly announced, completely out of the blue. “Zelos here should help Lyner to warm up.”

Zelos bristled. He was not entirely sure why, but something in that punk’s voice just pissed him off. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Lazarus, however, was already on his way out through the door with an irritated and puzzled York behind him. “You’ll work it out!” he called back gleefully, even having the nerve to wave his hand dismissively at him over his shoulder.

Lyner laughed softly and shook his head, somehow amused by those two idiots. “It’s ok. I just need to get out of this house and sit in the sun for a bit.”

He supposed that would help. It would also get him away from the house, which was what he needed the most. Everyone needed to get away from this god damn house. There was nothing of worth to be found inside. Just bloodshed.

“Yeah, alright, head out,” Zelos said as he retrieved the duffle bag from him to stash away his weapons. “I’ll just do a quick sweep and we can get out of this shithole.”

Lyner gave him a grateful smile and retrieved the bag to return to the jeep. In that moment, however, he looked unexpectedly tired and worn down. He obviously tried to hide it, but the mask had slipped for a fraction of a moment, and it made Zelos briefly wonder how much sleep the guy was actually getting a night. He could not sleep with those creatures loitering about within his ‘range,’ as he called it. So, how long were those bastards in town for? Until sunrise?

He let the blond go without interrogating him, not wanting him to linger inside the house any longer than necessary. He himself did not want to overstay his welcome. He would just do a quick sweep, grab what he needed to find, and get out.

What Zelos was not going to do was search for any documents or journals for the blond to read later. Lyner had already gathered enough information from the place. They had already found enough info leading up to the desolation of the region – creatures appeared, started killing, military got involved, everything went to shit. What else was new?

What they needed to know was why they were pulled into this Human Realm and how they could get the fuck out. And that likely involved finding the source of those creatures and destroying it.

Zelos ignored all the bloodshed and chaos to go in search of the one thing he really wanted – a blanket. Something to keep in the jeep and for Lyner to use whenever they had a creature encounter out in the field. There were sure to be other encounters and Lyner was no doubt going to endure other unforeseen side effects.

He needed to find something buried in a cupboard, though. Away from the bloodshed and carnage. Away from the victims and their emotions. Something that should not carry any negative excess baggage.

After searching a few cupboards, he finally found one that appeared to be untouched and had been for some time. Inside he found a throw blanket. Not large enough to be a proper blanket, but big enough for Lyner to wrap around his shoulders in search for extra warmth.

It was all he could find that was not already tainted. So, he grabbed it and immediately headed to the front door. He did not know where the other two idiots went and, in that moment, he did not care too much. They had their weapons, there was not a fog occurring; they could take care of themselves.

A subtle flash of colour from the corner of his eye caught Zelos’ attention the moment he stepped outside and it made him pause in his steps. He first glanced to his right before he crouched down to the get a better look. Amongst the green grass sat a small plastic tag. Yellow in colour. It had not been in the clearing previously. It was new. And if he was correct, it was in the same area where one of those creatures had died.

He picked it up and idly turned it around with his fingers. Where a short string of black letters was found.

Experiment 17.

…Interesting.

Zelos idly tossed the plastic tag aside and stood up before he resumed his previous journey. He would keep that little discovery to himself for the time being.

With blanket in hand, he went in search of Lyner and found him near the jeep, on a stone bench before a small decorative garden that was located outside of the makeshift security barricade. He sat with his back toward the house, obviously. His attention toward the road and the trees that surrounded them.

The guy was likely lost in thought, replaying the images he had seen in that vision of his. From the jumbled description he gave him earlier, he had witnessed the demise of the families holed up inside. As nothing more than a passive observer. That shit had to have messed with him, especially since he was someone who preferred to be in the thick of the action.

Watching as carnage unfolded and not being able to do a damn thing about it…Yeah, that shit was infuriating.

Lyner was not surprised when Zelos came up beside him; he had expected him, actually. Likely sensed him the moment he stepped out of that damn house. Instead, he simply tilted his head toward him in a form of greeting. He was startled, however, when Zelos tossed the blanket at him, catching it in his arms out of pure reflex.

“I found it in a cupboard,” Zelos explained bluntly. “There shouldn’t be any emotions attached.”

Lyner looked up at him before he blinked down at the blanket in his arms. He then turned his face up toward him again where his eyes unexpectedly softened and a smile, though small and undoubtedly tired, was sincere. Sweetly gentle, in a way. “Thank you.”

That small show of appreciation internally floored Zelos for a moment. Why would he hold such sincere gratitude for such a small act? He only did it because Lyner was their best forewarning for those creatures.

Right…

Lyner did not hesitate to drape it around himself, and he pulled it tight around his shoulders, a clear indication that he was colder than he was letting on.

“Sit with me for a moment?” Lyner suddenly requested.

Zelos probably shouldn’t. He needed to go in search of those two other idiots. Keep them out of trouble as he knew they were capable of it. Despite himself, however, he sat down on the stone bench next to the blond, deciding those two idiots could take care of themselves. If they got into trouble, hell, it was not his fault. Two less mouths to feed.

There was also something else that had been on his mind.

“I want to ask you something.”

Lyner tilted his head to the side. “Hm?”

“Sensing these things. Is it draining to you?”

Lyner was momentarily stunned by the question before a flicker of guilt briefly appeared in his all-too expressive eyes and he quickly tore he gaze away from his. To look out at the empty road and woodlands surrounding them. “Oh, well…it’s stressful, I suppose. They make my fight or flight instincts activate. Especially at night. I’m constantly waiting for them to attack.”

He supposed that was the worst part. The waiting. The bastards were going to attack at some point. There was no doubt that the entities were going to track them down and try to kill them. It was inevitable. Especially since Lyner said all those things knew was brutality and violence. And knowing Lyner, he was constantly on edge, priming himself to forewarn Zelos the others of an attack.

That would be draining after a while.

“Your presence, though, does help to ease that tension.”

That admission was something Zelos had not expected to hear. And he found himself a bit sceptical, though the guy had never actually lied about something like that before. There was no point in it. “Why is that?”

Lyner gave him an awkward smile as he scratched the back of his neck and refused to meet his gaze. “Honestly? I don’t know,” he admitted with a splash of pink to his cheeks. He pulled his arm back into the blanket and tugged it closer once more, practically snuggling into it. “But you do bring me comfort. So, I’m grateful for that.”

The guy was undoubtedly weird. Being all open and honest like that. Zelos would not be caught dead uttering such statement, false or otherwise.

…Comfort, huh? That would be a first.

From the corner of his eye, Zelos noticed something move and a warmth fall against his shoulder. He immediately stiffened and snapped his head to the side, greeted by the sight of blond hair. It took him a few seconds to realise that, for some inexplicable reason, Lyner had leaned to the side and rested his head upon his shoulder.

And, miraculously, Zelos did not immediately shove the blond away from him, which would have been his normal, justified response. “What-?”

“Sorry,” Lyner interrupted quietly, his head still resting on his shoulder. “I just have a slight headache.”

Zelos was not exactly comfortable with the…closeness. He never liked anyone getting too close, touching him. But he kept still. For some reason. He was not sure how comfortable his arm would be, with the prosthetics in the way. But the stubborn blond seemed comfortable enough. For some reason.

Another headache, huh? He endured quite a few of those, too. After each fog and creature encounter, if Zelos remembered correctly. Another side-effect of that marking on his forehead and those new abilities of his.

They were draining him. Lyner had admitted it himself, but knowing him, he did not have the full scope of just how exhausted he was. He could not keep up with the demand. Not if he continued to get an hour or two sleep at night and insist on joining in on the battles and exploration during the day. Something had to give, and chances were, if they were not careful, Lyner might be the first to fall.

Zelos felt his jaw tighten at the thought.

He…They could not afford that. They needed his forewarning.

Right…

“These monsters are starting to get a little bit too violent,” Zelos murmured. “I don’t think the medicine of this world will be strong enough to heal any wounds inflicted by them.”

“You’re right,” Lyner replied, ensuring he kept his head on Zelos’ shoulder. Strangely, he seemed to curl closer toward. It soon dawned onto Zelos why when he caught a brief glimpse of a wince on the blonde’s face. “I think there’s something toxic added to the claws as well.”

Yeah, he learnt that from that vision of his. They definitely needed to rely on long-ranged attacks if that was the case.

“I might be able to grathmeld something.”

Zelos furrowed his brow. “Grathmeld?”

A smile made its way to Lyner’s lips as he lolled his head back slightly so that his cheek rested on Zelos’ shoulder instead. “It’s a form of alchemy, I suppose. That’s what we call it where I’m from. The only thing is, I don’t know the materials of this world. What’s available. What’s useful. You know?”

Alchemy, huh? Zelos was going to go ahead and assume he was much better than the devout failure Marie was. Well, he certainly could not do any worse.

“I suppose we might have to scavenge for materials, see what we’ve got,” Zelos mused aloud. “And then raid the school for equipment.”

Lyner nodded. “Checking out the library might be helpful, too.”

“We might be able to find some dry herbs at the general store.”

“That would be useful.”

“I guess, it’s settled,” Zelos stated firmly. “That’s what we’re doing for the rest of the day.”

It was going to be annoying, running around in search of materials in equipment, but it was for a good cause. They did not have a healer with them. They needed medicine. Sure, they were able to defeat those bastards easily enough. For the time being. But they could not afford to be caught off guard.

He-they could not afford to let anything happen to Lyner.

“What about the checkpoint?” Lyner asked.

Zelos waved his hand dismissively. The checkpoint was their original destination, but he was not in a rush. “It can wait. It’s not going anywhere.”

Lyner seemed content with that answer. “Alright,” he replied nonchalantly, turning his head to rest his temple upon Zelos’ shoulder once more.

Despite the fact that they had set themselves a new goal, neither of them moved. Lyner had a reason not to want to move, but Zelos didn’t. So…why hadn’t he?

It was likely because he was caught up in his thought. That checkpoint was a looming obstacle, he had to admit. They would have to seek out the other checkpoints eventually, but he would rather they had little to no contact with any military or government organisations. Keep them as far away from the bastards as possible. Keep Lyner away from them, for if they found out what he could do…

Zelos turned his head slightly to glance at the blond swordsman resting his head on his shoulder. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted, a clear indication that he was resting. Inexplicably comfortable. Somehow.

…That little plastic tag said experiment.

Zelos was fairly certain he knew what organisation was responsible for a possible experiment gone wrong.

[ljamberfantasy]

The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon

CHAPTER 5 – A Bloody Contest

“What in the world? Another interruption?”

The wizard had remained seated in his chair when the door flew open under Saphienne’s knock, though the three elves that stood before him had jumped, surprise written on their faces.

Almon maintained his cool, sitting back. “I told you, girl, another time. You are far too young to begin–”

Saphienne strode into the room, not caring that the door hung open. “You asked me the wrong question.”

If before she had irritated him, now she annoyed him. Yet the wizard would not cede his dignity by admitting anger to a child. “Which question was that, girl?”

“You asked what these three have, that I lack.” She swept her hand across the three would-be students, all older than her, all incredulous as they watched her antics. “You should have asked, ‘What do you have that these three lack?’”

The younger of the two boys murmured, “Audacity?”

The others laughed quietly.

Yet Almon wasn’t smiling. His fingers had come to dig into the armrests of his high-backed chair, and he leant forward to stare her down frostily. “And what is it that you possess, that you say these three fine young elves lack?”

Saphienne ignored the indignant looks they gave her. “Nothing.”

This confused the other children, but intrigued Almon, who spoke more lightly than before. “Nothing?”

“I’m sure they’re disciplined, they’re motivated, and they’ve made something of their necessary intelligence. They surely have many virtues. They lack for nothing.” She paused, and breathed in. “But I’m their equal, and I’ve attained it quicker than them. I’m probably better.”

The girl, Celaena, couldn’t restrain herself. “Cheeky bitch!”

She flushed as Almon snapped his fingers at her, immediately muttering an apology to Saphienne that she didn’t mean. The wizard hadn’t even looked at Celaena as he admonished her, and he was still staring down Saphienne, smiling. “Is that so? Perhaps it might be. You arrived after everyone had finished giving their credentials.” His fingers drummed against his chair as he contemplated how to proceed, and then he made his mind up, whispering a word and waving his raised hand.

Behind Saphienne, the door slammed shut. She tried not to flinch; she didn’t know whether or not he noticed.

“A wizard,” he began, “must be prepared for the unexpected. And a wizard must be prepared to inform the ignorant wherever he goes, for wherever he goes, he sails his ship in a sea of ignorance.” Finally, he looked away, to the students. “Let us see if she is right. Faylar, please restate your credentials.”

The youth he addressed was the one who had first spoke, and as Saphienne studied his appearance she was surprised to realise he wore his white hair short, which was very unconventional among elves. He responded confidently, and with a slightly strange accent, reminding her a little of the way Filaurel sometimes sounded late at night. “Certainly, Master Almon. I have spent the past four years preparing for the Great Art by studying languages, that I might fluidly pronounce the invocations you may teach me, and better memorise whatever texts you deem it appropriate I read from. I speak four languages, and write in five.”

“Which are?”

“Elfish, Dwarfish, the elder tongue of dragons, the tongue of the sylvan creatures, and the common trade language of humans.” He bowed his head. “I cannot speak the dragon tongue, for want of a teacher who is conversant. I understand you are.”

“Most wizards are,” Almon answered, but he had already turned to the girl. “And you, Celaena?”

“Only three years of study,” she began, “but I’ve spent them grounding myself in the philosophy of nature and the beginnings of the philosophy of magic. I’m capable with numbers, Master Almon, and have a very strong grasp of ciphers and geometry. While I haven’t yet studied any sigils, I’m confident I will take to them quickly.”

Almon was nodding as she finished speaking. “Which only leaves us with Iolas. What about yours, boy?”

Iolas was the eldest, yet he seemed self-conscious compared to the others, and squared his shoulders as he spoke. “Five years with Master Folwin, studying calligraphy.”

Celaena was smirking, thinking little of his efforts.

Catching this, Iolas forced himself to say more. “Calligraphy has taught me a steady hand and a keen eye, diligent patience, as well as how to not let myself be bored when working. I’m told that wizardry takes many hours of numbing, repetitive work, along with unfaltering focus. After five years, I know I have it in me to accomplish both.”

The wizard hummed thoughtfully. “Well said. Calligraphy itself is also vitally important to magical study, as you may well go on to learn.” Then he shifted, and the fleeting warmth in his tone dropped away as he faced Saphienne. “And you, girl? What of your credentials?”

Used to confrontation from her time with Jorildyn, she forced herself to project confidence she found difficult to feel. “One year learning the maintenance of books with Filaurel. Four months studying tailoring with Jorildyn. Another four months studying jewellery with Eletha.” Celaena and Faylar had begun to quietly laugh, but she pretended not to hear. “Three months with Ninleyn learning shoe making. Then a little under three months studying sculpture with Gaeleath, until today.”

Faylar was grinning broadly by the time she was done. “Quite the dilettante, aren’t you?”

“I learned what I needed to.” She glared at him. “Did you?”

That caught him off-guard, and he opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it as Almon coughed.

“Your lack of devotion to a single subject of study,” the wizard said, “does not inspire confidence in your ability to see the work through. In comparison–”

“I wasn’t studying to become a librarian, or a tailor, or a jeweller, or a shoe maker, or a sculptor. I didn’t grow bored of them; I was very deliberate. And none of this matters, because the point stands — I can do as well or better than at least one of these three.”

Celaena almost sneered. “Really? Which? Which one of us can you best?”

Almon raised an eyebrow, then nodded, and he folded his hands together as he waited for Saphienne to meet the challenge.

Who, thoughtfully, looked her competition over. She simply lacked the study of languages to contest Faylar. While she might rival Celaena in knowledge of her chosen subjects, the older girl would have more practice in performing calculations, which would doubtlessly be their battleground. Which left only the eldest of the trio. “Iolas,” she asked him, “did you start studying calligraphy when you were twelve?”

“Yes.”

If Filaurel was right, when Saphienne was twelve her calligraphy had been excellent for an elf of twenty-four… though she was sure she had improved since then. Assuming he was similarly talented, his ability would be excellent for someone of seventeen, and possibly excellent for an elf of thirty-four. She couldn’t be sure she could best him.

But the coin she held in her palm wouldn’t let her back down. “I’m a better calligrapher than you.”

He stood a little straighter. “No, you’re not.”

“Then I’ll prove it.”

*          *          *

Almon stayed in his chair, directed Faylar to find a writing board behind a pile of books near the window, and gave Celaena the task of retrieving his writing set from up the stairs that wound up against the far wall. The girl seemed delighted at being trusted with entrance into his sanctum — a little too obviously, and so wilted when he sternly told her to touch nothing else and to be quick.

While they fetched the necessary components, the wizard decreed the terms of the forthcoming duel. “I will provide each of you with passages to transcribe, and you will reproduce them in fine style.”

To Saphienne’s surprise, Iolas shook his head. “No, Master Almon. That wouldn’t be fair.”

“No? Whyever not?”

“If it’s to be a fair comparison, we should work with the same words. Anything else would make the judging subjective.”

Almon narrowed his eyes. “Yet, I will be judging. What’s to say I won’t just favour you over the girl? Or perhaps her, over you?”

Iolas held firm. “Our skills will speak for themselves, if it’s a like-for-like comparison. You’re the judge of who would make the best student, but this is between me and her.”

Almon laughed, and he glanced up at the back of his chair, speaking as though addressing someone standing over his shoulder. “Ah, the boy has pride. What do you think? Does he have the right of it?” He paused, then nodded as he looked back. “Very well, Iolas. I will choose a passage, you will transcribe it, and then she will try to improve upon your work.”

Slightly unnerved by the way he had spoken to empty space, Saphienne pushed down her rising anxiety and inclined her head. “That sounds fair to me.”

“Not really,” Iolas answered her. “It would be kinder on you to do it the other way around.”

“She has accepted.” The wizard overruled him. “Now, show her why she was wrong.”

Celaena had descended with the writing kit, and Faylar held out the board. Dropping to the floor, Iolas sat cross-legged, accepting the board to lay it across his lap, then took the kit and set it down beside himself with obvious reverence, opening the lacquered box and examining the pens and nubs and bottles of ink. He chose a very fine point, elected to write in a deep blue, then ran his finger across the rolled up sheafs of paper, nodding as he selected one to lay out.

Then, seeing he was prepared, Almon whispered again, and his ritual gestures were slightly slower than before. Celaena recoiled as a slim book slid from the shelf near her, and Faylar gasped aloud as it hung on the air and slowly floated over to where Iolas was waiting, opening as it glided toward him, coming to rest on the floor with a certain page exposed.

The wizard was pleased by their reactions. “This poem, ‘When I Heard the Learn’d Magician.’ Quite beautiful.” He sat forward. “Make it more so.”

Swallowing, Iolas lifted the book, read the words, closed his eyes. Then he lay it back down, and lifted his pen. Celaena and Faylar stepped closer, to watch.

Saphienne scowled. “It’s rude to watch over someone’s shoulder while they work.”

“I don’t mind,” Iolas answered, absently, his eyes now on the page as he wrote.

Almon chuckled. “Uncomfortable with performing before others, girl? What did you say your name was?”

Her scowl stayed in place as she faced the wizard. “I didn’t say. You never asked. And I think you remember that you never asked. Either you didn’t care to know, or you already know my name. Whichever it is: I’m as comfortable with performing as you are with rudeness.”

“Quite the mouth on you.” He was unfazed. “You’ve certainly learned a lot from Filaurel, haven’t you? Still, point taken. Give him space, children.”

They shuffled back, but both looked at each other, and then at Saphienne, as though they were sharing a joke at her expense.

A quarter of an hour passed in uneasy silence, Saphienne’s anxiety growing, her grip on the coin in her hand tightening.

At last, Iolas sat down his pen, and there was contentment in his blue eyes as he held up the page for the others to scrutinise. “I could do better with longer, but this will stand.”

Saphienne knelt down to study his work closely. Behind her, she heard Faylar giggle, but her eyes stayed on the page, taking in every grand majuscule, how each stroke ascended and descended above and below the writing line, the elegant flourishes that comprised each serif. Almost every letter was well proportioned, every hairline confident, and the embellishments he had placed inside many of the counters were small, tasteful renditions of the stars with which the poem was concerned.

“It’s beautiful,” Celaena whispered over her shoulder, and her voice sounded childlike in her sincerity.

Saphienne nodded. “It’s good. You’re a talented calligrapher.”

Then she shifted to sit, crossing her legs as she took the page from his hand and laid it on the ground before her. “I like what you did with the stars.” In her mind, she was deconstructing his strokes, working out how he had danced the pen across the page. “You have a very light hand.”

Iolas took the compliments well, and his voice was low. “Still think you can do better?”

She could feel Celaena’s mocking smile beside her cheek.

Wordlessly, she held her hand out for the board, then waited as he returned the pen and nib and ink to the writing kit before sliding it across to her. When her turn came, she lifted the nib he had used and the cloth he had wiped it on, carefully polishing it to make certain there were no remaining traces of blue ink. She needn’t have bothered; he knew what he was doing. Then she lifted the same pen, and similar paper, though in selecting the ink she held several bottles up to the light, finally settling on one that ran red when she swirled its contents around.

Readying her materials, she returned her eyes to the page. “Keep the time for me?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Iolas nod. Saphienne slipped the coin into her other palm, and set to work.

The room around her faded away as bloody ink curled across the page.

There was still time left when she set the pen down, and she didn’t hold the page up, simply sat back as Celaena and Faylar leapt to her sides and bent to read. Both of them started laughing, quite loudly, and Celaena crossed her arms as she straightened up and addressed Almon. “She’s just copied him!”

Faylar looked equally unimpressed as he stood. “It’s the same. All she’s done is change the stars.”

But Iolas knelt down before her and reached out to the page, gently turning it around so he could read. His expression froze as he saw what was written there, and then his lips parted, his mouth slowly falling open. Sliding to the floor, he sat heavily, his demeanour compelling silence from the two still standing.

Eventually, he found his words. “Those stars, are they one stroke?”

Saphienne nodded. “I wanted to capture their halo, like they have on a misty night.”

“…And they become sharper at the end of the poem.” He finally met her gaze. “That’s… beautiful.”

Faylar moved behind Iolas, looked down at her art. “Still, she’s just reproduced your work with a slight change. You did most of it.”

“No,” Iolas said, sadly. “No, she’s much better than me.” He lifted his own work, and laid it out beside what Saphienne had done. “Look again.”

“Well, like I said, she’s copied you.”

Now Iolas was smiling at Saphienne, as though sharing a wry joke with her. “She hasn’t just copied,” he admitted. “She’s reproduced my hand. Perfectly. Even the mistakes. Apart from the stars, which she did better than I could.”

Stunned silence filled the parlour.

He rubbed behind his long ear. “How old are you?”

“I’ll be fourteen in the spring.”

“Who taught you calligraphy?”

“I learned the basics the same as everyone else,” she said. “Then Filaurel taught me how to practice. The rest I learned from scrivening — from copying.”

“So you’re self-taught.” He laughed as he spoke. “Astonishing.”

Before she could argue, Iolas leapt to his feet and stretched, all the tension flowing out of him. “If magic doesn’t work out for you,” he declared, “Master Folwin will want to teach you. But I think you’ll do just fine with Master Almon.” He bowed to the wizard. “I concede. She’s the better student. I’ll go.”

Yet, as he turned away, Almon spoke up. “No.”

Indignant, Saphienne slid the board from her lap and climbed to her feet. “He admits I’m better.”

“At calligraphy,” Almon announced. “Yet, he also admitted this: I’m the judge of who would make the best student.” Smoothly, the wizard stood. “All you’ve done is earn yourself a place in the running, young Saphienne…” He grinned as he acknowledged her by name. “…For what little that’s worth.”

Iolas slowly returned to stand beside her, shame on his face, hope writ in his eyes. Sensing what was expected, the others fell into line as well.

Almon walked behind his chair, and he leant his elbows on the back, shifting his arm as though he brushed against something the four children couldn’t see. “I have heard from the other three, Saphienne. So, now, you will answer.” All hint of humour fled from his face. “Tell me: what is it about you, that makes you worthy of the Great Art?”

End of Chapter 5

[greensparty]

Concert Review: Sleater-Kinney

Sun. March 17, 2024 @ The Paradise (Boston, MA)

Paradise marquee

The last time I saw Sleater-Kinney live was in Summer 2002 was when they headlined the Siren Music Festival in Coney Island in 2002 and they blew me away. The indie rockers burst out of the mid-90s riot grrrl movement in Olympia, WA and their brand of feminism amassed quite a following on college radio. They have been on my radar since 1997’s Dig Me Out (got my copy on vinyl). After the band took an indefinite hiatus in 2006, they reunited in 2014. It’s ironic that the masses now know Carrie Brownstein for Portlandia (as well as scene-stealing performances in Carol, Transparent and best of all as Larry's assistant on Curb Your Enthusiasm) and didn’t even know her as the singer/guitarist for Sleater-Kinney. Singer/guitarist Corin Tucker has also had multiple side projects outside of S-K including Eddie Vedder's soundtrack to Into the Wild (S-K opened for Pearl Jam in the 00s) and she's also a part of the supergroup Filthy Friends. But things changed for the band after drummer Janet Weiss left in 2019 after recording the album The Center Won't Hold. I dug that album and I even named “The Future is Here” my #1 Song of 2019. Their first post-Janet Weiss album was Path of Wellness, which I named my #6 Album of 2021. There are purists who feel it’s not the same band without Weiss. I very much disagree as Brownstein and Tucker are still musical forces to be reckoned with. After the release in January of the Little Rope, the band is currently on tour and stopped in Boston on St. Patrick's Day.

Sleater-Kinney onstage at the Paradise

I am by no means an expert on S-K, i.e. someone who has traveled to the Pacific Northwest to see the band. But I do own a great deal of their albums and have immense respect for them. I say this because there were a number of songs I didn't know as well as others, but that's cool - you learn from the live experience. The show was heavy on the new album Little Rope. They did 9 of the 10 album tracks in their set, highlights being "Say It Like You Mean It" and "Untidy Creatures". They only did two songs off of Dig Me Out, notably the title track for the final encore. I would've loved to have heard more off that album (my personal favorite), but beggars can't be choosers. It was great to hear some songs off of No Cities to Love and The Center Won't Hold played along with songs from The Hot Rock and The Woods. I was kind of surprised they didn't do any songs off of Path of Wellness, especially since that was their last album.

Brownstein and Tucker front stage!

In my album review of Little Rope I noted that "with Path of Wellness, as much as I liked the album - it is a band trying to figure out how to go from being a three-headed monster to a two-headed monster. But with this one, Brownstein and Tucker are clearly past that transition and diving back into the indie rock sound they perfected over the course of the last 30 years." That is also true of their live tours. Both Brownstein and Tucker are clearly the stars putting their supreme voices on full display, but credit needs to be given to their backing band: drummer Angie Boylan (big shoes to fill, but she rocked!), keyboardist Toko Yasuda, and multi-instrumentalist Teeny Lieberson. This lineup was outstanding! Seeing the band in The Paradise was special too (this was the most packed I've ever seen The Paradise and that's saying something) and on St. Patrick's Day no less. Now let's hope I don't end up waiting another 22 years to see them again!

For info on Sleater-Kinney

[eating-the-inedible]

So, just sit back and relax my lord, because it's time for you to meet today's eligible bachelorettes. And here they are. Bachelorette number one is a mentally abused shading from a kingdom far, far away. She likes sushi and hottubbing anytime. Her hobbies include cooking and cleaning for two evil sisters. Please welcome... Cinderella. Bachelorette number two is a kemp wearing girl from a land of fantasy. Although she lives with seven other man, she is not easy. Just kiss hers dead frozen lips and find out what a live wife she is. Come on. Give it up for... Show-white. And last but certainly not least. Bachelorette number three is a fire-breathing ????, dragon guarded castle, surrounded by a hot boiling lava. But don't let that cool you off. She's a loaded pistol who likes Pina Coladas and getting cut in the rain. Yours for the rescuing, Princess Fiona. So will it be, bachelorette number one? Bachelorette number two? Or bachelorette number three? -Two... -Three! -Two! One. No, no, no. Three. Pick number three my lord. Ok, ok. Number three. Lord Farquaad. You've chosen... princess Fiona. She's nice. Fiona. She's perfect. All I have to do is just find someone... But I probably should mention little thing that happens at night... -I'll do it! -Yes, but after sunset... Silence! I will make this princess Fiona my queen. And Duloc will finally have the perfect king! Captain! Assemble your finest man. We're going to have a tournament! That's it, that's, right there, that's Duloc. I've told you I'll find it. So. That must be lord Farquaad's castle. Aha, that's the place. Do you think maybe he's compensating for something. Hey, hey wait up Shrek! -Hey, you! -No, no! Wait a second. Look, I'm not gonna eat you. I just... It's quiet. Too quiet. Where is everybody? Hey look at this. Wow! -Let's do that again. -No. no. All right. You're going the right way for smack bottom. Sorry about that. That champion should have the honor, no, no... ...the privilege to go forth and rescue the lovely princess Fiona from the fireing keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner up will take his place. And so on, and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Applause. Let the tournament begin. What is that? Ugh, it's hideous. Oh, that's not very nice. It's just a donkey. Indeed. Knights! New plan. The one, who kills the Ogre, will be named champion. How about him. Oh, hey. Now, come on. Can't we just settle this over a pint? No? All right then. Come on. Hey Shrek! Let me, let me! The chair! Give him the chair! Thank you. Thank you, very much. I'm here until Thursday. Try the wheel! Shall I give the order sir? No. I have a better idea. People of Duloc. I give you our champion! What? Congratulation, Ogre. You've won the honor of embarking on a great and noble quest. Quest? I'm already on a quest. A quest to get my swamp back! -Your swamp? -Yeah, my swamp! Where you dumped those fairytale creatures. Indeed. All right Ogre, I'll make you a deal. Go on this quest for me and I'll give you your swamp back. Exactly the way it was? Down to the last slime covered toast tool. -And the squatters? -As good as gone. What kind of quest? Ok, let me get this straight! We gonna go find the dragon and rescue a princess just so Farquaad will give you back the swamp, which you only don't have, 'cause he filled it with full of freaks on the first place. -Is that about right? -You know what? Maybe there is a good reason, donkeys shouldn't talk. I don't get it Shrek. Why didn't you just pull some old Ogre stuff on them? You know, ??? . Grab his bones to make you brave. You know the whole Ogre trick. Oh, you know what. Maybe I could have decapitated entire village and put their heads on plate. Got a knife, cut open their spleens and drink their fluids. Does that sound good to you? A, no, not really, no. For your information, there is a lot more to Ogres than people think. -Example. -Example? OK, A-a-m, Ogres are like onions. -They stink? -Yes, no. -O, they make you cry.

Here's something someone put in the "anything else" box

Once upon a time there was a lovely princess. But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort, which could only be broken by Love's first kiss. She was locked away in a castle guarded by a terrible fire breathing dragon. Many brave knights had attempted to free her from this dreadful prison, but none prevailed. She waited in the dragon's keep in the highest room of the tallest tower for her true love and true love's first kiss. Like that's ever going to happen. What a loony. Shrek Beware Stay out I think he's in here. All right. Lets get it! Hold on. Do you know what that thing can do to you? Yeah. He'll groan into your bones for his brains. Well actually that would be a giant. Now Ogres, huh, they are much worse. They'll make a soup from your freshly peeled skin. They'll chew your livers, squeeze the jelly from your eyes. Actually, it's quite good on toast. Back, back beast, back! I warned you! Right. This is the part, where you run away. Yeah! And stay out. Wanted. Fairytale creatures. Right, this one is full. Take it away. Give me that. Your fine days are over. -25 pieces of silver for the witch. Next. -Come on. Sit down there! And be quiet! This cage is so small. You wouldn't turn me in. I'll never be stubborn again. I can change. Please, give me another chance. Oh, shut up! Next. What do we got? This little wooden puppet. I'm not a puppet, I'm a real boy. Five shillings for the possessed toy. Take it away. No! Please, don't let them do it! Next. What do you got? Well, I've got a talking donkey! Right. Well that's good for ten schillings, if you can prove it. Oh, go ahead fella. Well? He's just a li..., just a little nervous. He's really quite a chatterbox. You boneheaded donkey! That's it. I have heard enough. Guards! No, no, he talks, he does! I can talk. I love to talk. I've talked to... Get her out of my sight! -No, no, I swear! Hey, I can fly. -He can fly! -He can fly! He can talk! -That's right, fool! Now I'm a flying, talking donkey! You might have seen house fly, maybe even a superfly. But I bet you ain't never seen a donkey fly! Seize him! Get him! This way! Hurry! You there. Ogre. -I. By the order of lord Farquaad. I am authorized to place you both under arrest. And transport you to designated resettlement facility. Oh really? You and what army? Can I say something to you? Listen, you were really, really something, back there. Incredible. Are you talking to... ...me? Yes, I was talking to you. Can I just tell you that you were really great back there with those guards. They thought that was all over there. And then you showed up and BAM. There was tripping on over themselves like babes in the woods. That really made me feel good to see that. Oh, that's great. Really. Man, it's good to be free. Now, why don't you go celebrate your freedom with your own friends? But I... I don't have any friends. And I'm not going out there by myself. Hey wait a minute. I have a great idea... I'll stick with you. You and me in green fighting machine. Together we'll scare the spin if anybody crosses us. Oh, a, that was really scary. Maybe you don't mine me saying. If that don't work, your breath will certainly do the job done, 'cause... you definitively need some tic-tac or something, 'cause your breath stinks! Man you've ??? my note! Just like the time... ...and then I ate some rotten berries. Man I had some strong gases leaking out of my but that day. Why are you following me? I'll tell you why. 'Cause I'm all alone, there is no one here, beside me. My problems have all gone. There's no one to derive me. But you got to have free ... -Stop singing! Well, it's no wonder, you don't have any friends. Wow! Only a true friend would be that truly honest. Listen! Little donkey. Take a look at me! What am I? A... ...really tall? No! I'm an Ogre. You know, grab your torch and pitchforks. Doesn't that bother you? Nope. Really? -Really really. Oh? Man, I like you. What's your name? A..., Shrek. Shrek?! But do you know, what I like about you, Shrek?

[angelisverba]

thinkin’ bout you

in which harry owns a flower shop and has a major crush on a girl who comes in to buy flowers every once in a while (and he’s too shy to ask for her number) 

word count: 17.3k

paring: florist!h and y/n

warnings: just some pinning and lustful yearning. m for mature...

author’s note: i’ve been working on this forever. not to pick fav’s but i think florist!h comes second to sl23... hes just so.......well, you’ll see!!

*    *    *    *    *    *

When Harry was given the option to go on a playdate with his car-loving and dirty-nailed schoolmates or spending the weekend at his nan’s house, he would often pick the latter. 

He preferred to spend his afternoons frolicking with her Siamese kitty in her wild-flower filled garden, sunbathing in the open grass, or napping on a quilted blanket under the large, round oak tree, with the kitty nestled into his tummy, keeping him warm. When he woke in the arms of his nan as she carried him inside the house for a glass of cool lemonade, he bore a band of pink sunburn over his button nose, and the blue and white striped Mickey shirt was sticking to the areas where his furry friend had provided an extra heat. 

So, it was safe to say that from the start, Harry’s tastes weren’t what could be considered ‘average’ or ‘normal’ or ‘straight’ for a heterosexual male of his age in current society. 

Not that he ever valued those opinions, but their impressions rang in the back of his loving head when the women who he brought to the comfort of his home made hurtful ‘joking’ comments on how ‘peculiar’  his choice of decor was or giving him prolonged strange looks before shaking their heads and yanking their clothes off so that they landed in a forgotten heap in some unimportant corner of his room. 

Granted, he still got a good shag, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill his desires regarding any actions associated with relationships. He wanted someone warm and soft and kind. Someone who wouldn’t judge his home, his music choices, his clothing, or anything else about him. A girlfriend, not a fuck. 

Long ago, he’d stopped caring about what others said about him. Adopting this mindset had given him some of the happiest and healthiest moments of his life (albeit occasionally, doubts merged with the ghastly shadows of his loneliness). Business at his flower shop increased as his charm increased with positivity, and a new life within him bloomed like a baby rose bud when he accepted that being single was okay. The ribbons of his bouquets bouncing with an added umf and the mist that landed on his skin when he changed the water in the flower buckets only enhanced the golden hue of his skin. 

Harry even took to renovating his home a bit. 

 Coincidentally, his apartment was located on the floor above his flower stop, and contained a significant amount of singular flowers in vases or bouquets in empty corners to prove it. An array of pastel colors smeared on the once blank walls. Bambi pink in his bedroom, sage green in his kitchen, and a French blue in his living room. The couch was a suede papaya three-seater with black and white checkered pillows, and the coffee table was an emerald-tiled piece standing on top of a geometric lavender carpet, a soft contrast against the dark oak of his floorboards. Harry’s taste in pop-culture, art, and literature was displayed on the frames hanging off his walls. Pictures and posters of his favorite pieces like Matisse’s Blue Nudes and Goldfish and The Dance II. An enhanced, enlarged photo of maraschino cherries and a raven haired pin-up girl. Another glass table by the end of the couch held a silver candlestick and a small statue.

Sometimes, the miniature Greek statue he bought at a thrift store of a man with his nakedness pure and unobscured to the viewers' eyes made his dick bloat against the seams of his pants. If he stared at it for too long, his eyes drawn to the softened cock between thighs that looked so flesh-like even though it was carved out of some clay or ceramic material, his mind would travel to sensual, honey-red places that he hadn’t been in so long. Harry’s imagination explored- as cheesy as it sounds- the sexual aspects of the male genitalia, and therefore his own sexual expeditions and how much he missed giving or receiving a good fuck. More often than not, he ended up with himself in his fist, forehead sparkling with perspiration under the candle lights in his room as his thighs and abdomen clenched with every buck of his yearning hips. 

The doorknob of his room was in the shape of an eye, the iris colored a brilliant blue. His king bed- no, frame, just a minimalist white base, pushed up against the wall with two tables on either side, both of them loaded articulately with vintage trinkets and ceramic ring trays shaped like seashells to hold his jewelry. His bedsheets were a stylish combination of pastel colors; lilac comforter, mint and sky pillows. Previously, they had been snow white sheets with strawberry print, but a woman he brought over said they looked like the sheets her five-year-old niece had. 

He changed them the week after that.

On the windowsill, a pot in the shape of a white, blue-eyed kitty with vines of string of hearts kissing the floor. A mirror in the shape of a heart with a pink trim besides the lightswitch, above his brown dresser. In the corner, a bookshelf stuffed with books that spilled over the seams, and perpendicular to it, the home of his pet chameleon, Owen (he wanted a cat, but when he went to the pet store and saw the dehydrated creature, he couldn’t leave him there). A 16 x 16 x 30 inch tank filled with a branch that cut across halfway. It was full of all the things he might need, maybe even too much of it, but it didn’t matter because when Harry was home Owen spent most of his time hanging off the collars of his shirts or snuggled in the ruffles of his hooded sweatshirt on his shoulder. The small, color changing friend adored his owner, and only morphed into a mild red color when Harry didn’t feed him more mango. 

The renovations occurred in his bathroom; a cherry-red covering the walls because it looked boring before (at least in his opinion).  The gold piping of the sink accentuated nicely with the darker color, and the sun seemed brighter when it streamed in through the window above his ceramic claw-footed tub. Owen particularly liked the misty showerhead stall in the corner, and as long as he kept his eyes to himself, Harry didn’t mind it if his green friend wrapped around the showerhead and enjoyed the mimicked tropical atmosphere. 

For awhile now, it had been just him and his chameleon (and maybe his mum’s cat if she was going out of town and needed a sitter) but he didn’t mind it. 

He got to meet new people everyday within the parameters of H’s Garden, and they all tended to overshare when it came to buying a bouquet. ‘My wife just had our son, want to see a picture?’ or ‘my boyfriend and I have our anniversary on Saturday’ and even ‘my sister had plastic surgery so me and my dad need something that says ‘congrats you look like Kim Kardashain now’ how ‘bout it?’ 

Stories ranged from sweet, to grotesque, to sad, to funny, and sometimes even evil- Harry didn’t like customers that gave flowers as a ‘fuck you’. He thought it was a waste of beauty and sacrifice. Flowers were living things that had their lives cut short in order to provide momentary satisfaction and life long memories to the receiver, not bitter feelings of revenge. Although it was still business, it pained him that such a pretty arrangement be misused. It was one of the cons of his work. He created what he considered to be masterpieces, and had no control over where they would end up, whether it be as a centerpiece for a candlelit dinner, or in the trash after the apology for a strong argument hadn’t been enough. 

However, Harry couldn’t deny that he didn’t love his job, because he did. 

When he turned 16, he’d determined that he wanted a peaceful life with a job that wouldn’t bore him. He wanted to be as stress free as possible, with his spirituality as a prominent highlight in his lifestyle. When he turned 18, he had determined that he wanted to be a florist, and began to save up to open his own shop with the occasional help of his friends and sister. He refused to take anything from his mother because he wanted to be the one giving her gifts and money and everything good after all of her sacrifices in raising him. Call him a momma’s boy. Harry loved his mother. 

Online seminars and college classes became his best friend, teaching him everything he needed to know about accounting, stocks, and how to keep his business going. He was a businessman first, florist second. During the slow seasons (the start of winter and an awkward half-week between summer and spring) he relied on his investments to triple-ensure that he had enough money to stay afloat. 

On his 22nd birthday, as a gift to himself, he signed the lease to the building that housed all of the pretty plants in temporary buckets full of flower food and water, and hired a graphic designer to design the cursive, golden letters that spelled out the name of his shop above the front door. 

 Now, three years later, he lived as happy as can be. 

And he wasn’t lonely anymore. 

Well, if you wanted to be technical, his relationship status was still a checkmark over the box labeled ‘single’, but his heart couldn’t be fluttering any harder at the sight of one of his regular customers, and she was there, creeping around in his brain to keep him company. 

She was the complete opposite of every girl he’d ever been with. She was sweet, kind, funny, and didn’t judge him for the way he dressed, or his profession. In fact, they bonded over things that previous women had… slyly berated him for. The color of his nails, the lace of his collar, the pattern of his flared pants,  and even the sheep on his baby blue sweater vest.  

She stole his heart the moment she walked through his door with a soft smile on her face, a sparkling gleam in her warm eyes, and placed it in her pocket the moment she said, “it smells lovely in here!”

Harry, awestruck and blushing because well, she was pretty and wore a shade of purple that somehow made her hair look so soft. Two strands of hair were pinned at the back of her head, essentially keeping the rest of it away from her face save for the few baby wisps that rested gently against her cheeks like a lover’s caress. The stuttering, stumbling cupid’s-bow-struck fool replied with, “thank you. It would be my pleasure to help you with anything you’d like,” and that had been his name, signed on the dotted line of a soul contract. Only she was not the devil. She was an angel. 

But even then, it wouldn’t matter. If she was the devil, if she was an angel, something in between or something new entirely he wouldn’t care because he was half gone for her already. 

“In that case,” she smiled, and Harry’s heart sang a melody it never had before. It was like the sun beamed from the spaces between her teeth and tickled the fuzzy spot beneath his earlobe. She had the most amazing voice, tranquil and clear and ethereal. “I just moved into a new apartment and wanted the place to feel like home. I thought maybe flowers would give it a little life.” 

He vividly remembers that the color of her cheeks changed to that of what is called a ‘blush’, but he didn’t know if it was a trick under the light, or a product of his wistful imagination. Her fingers gently skimmed the petals of a rose from it’s bucket near her hip, and one of the straps of the tote bag on her shoulder disrespectfully dropped away from her shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously rush over and fix it for her, and yell at the inanimate object for not being grateful of the fact that it had the opportunity to cling to her shoulder.

But, before either of these inner-conflicts met a sound resolve, her delicate fingers righted what was once wrong, and Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed because he’d stared for a little too long. He wanted so badly to ask for her name and how she liked her eggs in the morning, but instead he said, “there’s nothing like a bit of something pretty to brighten your day. Did you have something specific in mind?”

He hoped that the meaning of his words wasn’t caught on her, or that would be totally embarrassing and ‘loser’-like. 

When she walked out the door with a content smile on her lips, his own heart was beating faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s tender wings. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on a pair of lips like hers, neither the feeling that blossomed in his chest at the thought that she might be smiling just for him to see and enjoy. 

Of course, it was a silly crush. One that clawed and gripped onto his sweaty palms with no sign of letting go. Maybe, Harry thought, it was because he hadn’t wet his wick in so long, and the interaction he’d had with her had sparked irrational, poem-inspiring feelings within the love cavern of his ribs. Because how could he fall head over heels with someone he didn’t even know? Surely, the swarm of hormone-pumped butterflies in his stomach was the beginning of a dead-end infatuation. 

Right? 

Harry went that entire day, appalled at the apparent angel he had the fortune of being in the presence of in her short fall from the tender heavens. He wondered where she placed the flowers she bought (an arrangement he was particularly proud of, full of lilac, delicate stems of lavender, and puffs of baby’s breath wrapped with a white bow) and where that tiny extension of him was. At the entrance of her home, right below the place she rested her hand against as she tugged her shoes off? At the center of her table? Maybe besides her bed? Where she would see the purple petals and white of him as he wrapped it every time she woke up or went to bed? He hoped- as much as it was a romantic thought- that it wasn’t the last one. He’s been so awkward, so pink. A blush on his cheeks he hadn’t remembered being there since the time he yelped, startled, at the unexpected pain of a tattoo needle, the artist pointedly peeved. Acting like such a boy. 

Right before crawling up the steps of his apartment, heart still bleeding with love-blood from the deadly tip of Cupid’s arrows, he made himself a mini version of the bouquet he’d made her, and placed it at the center of his tiled coffee table. 

*********

A few days trickled by, and the memory of her face drifted in and out of his mind like a giant sway of fabric slowly billowing in the wind. He was just so… struck by a slab of awe, stunned by her kind of beauty. Natural, the kind that hooks you in it’s purity, like the golden beams streaming in through transparent curtains on a warm spring afternoon. 

Her strawberry lips curved elegantly under her nose, and displayed a smile that leaked some sort of heady drug into the air because the air was sweet when he breathed it in. And when he handed the bundle of flowers over to her, the pads of her delicate fingers skimmed the rough ridges of his knuckles. He wondered immediately what kind of moisturizer she used, and if it smelled like honey or lavender or peaches. She smelled sweet. Sweeter than all of the flowers in his colorful soul shop put together. The colors that belong to her, on her person and worn by her, were more captivating than any of the tones that painted the petals on his plants. 

Owen got a kick out of this whole ordeal, though. Harry’s passionate mood had him divulging in munching and nibbling on things that tasted the way he felt; ambrosial, fresh and pure. It resulted in the purchasing of endless amounts of fruit, with many bites given to the tiny chameleon. Mangoes, strawberries, oranges, grapes, pears (Asian pears, if the store carried them, they were Harry’s favorite), peaches and guavas. The sudden craving for fruit might be explained as just a casual craving, but deep deep down inside, Harry knew that it was because he wanted to replicate the feeling that coursed through his golden veins when she giggled at something she happened to find funny. 

He wished that he had caught her name. The girl had paid in cash (and left a five dollar tip Harry fawned over), so he couldn’t have read it on her card, and he was halfway between charming and awkward that he didn’t even think of asking for it until the minute the door closed behind her, bells tinkling in announcement of her exit. He wished for a hundred different things, but he was not the type to live in regret. Not anymore. So after about a week of floundering in her memory, he meditated for an hour, tropical incense on one of his bedside tables, and cleared his mind as best he could. 

The next morning, he did the same thing. Woke up with heavy limbs, plopped himself down on his blue mat and stretched in various positions, his white boxers hanging low on his hips. His lips and eyes were sticky with sleep, and the back of his nose ached with cold air that he must’ve breathed in throughout the night after forgetting to close the window (again) but the pleasurable twinge of stretching aches between his joints were the perfect way to start his day. They urged his mind to transform into the still surface of water, clear and collected from any unproductive-pinning thoughts towards a girl he would most likely never see again. 

Even his clothes reflected his refreshed mindset.

Harry donned his favorite pair of flared  trousers in an earthy brown color, nestled snugly on his slender hips and around his thighs. The tight fit accentuated the way his back tapered into his waist, glutes shapely and sculpted. A maroon sweater vest that had a teddy bear embroidered on the middle of his chest, the small latte-toned stuffed animal seemingly childish, but on him it only directed attention to the spotlight daze of the velvety heart sheltered underneath his breathless plate. Underneath, a mustard long-sleeve shirt with tiny cherries printed on them. Some straight, some tilted or lopsided. His shoulders and biceps were hidden in the floofy bunches of cloth, anonymity given to the true thickness of his ink slathered skin. 

He looked like a corduroy dream. A thick milkshake of patterns and colors, but he managed to pull it off.

A tiny gold hoop on his right ear gleamed under the morning sun coming in through the windows and a pearl necklace rested against the downy skin of his throat. Slender fingered tipped with a coat of pure white, with his ring fingers accented in a shimmery pink. Chunky rings adorning the base of his digits; a silver rose, a band of dancing teddy bears (a running theme with him), two gold rings with his initials H and S on one hand, and a simple ruby stud from his graduating class. 

He looked good, he knew that he looked good, and was ready to begin a bright, healthy, non-pretty-girl-thought-polluted day. Even the old woman had pinched his cheek whom he had been assisting- a regular-had said he looked like a proper ‘nice boy’ along with ‘when are you going to her a lovely girl to help you run this place, Harry?’. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had momentarily sworn off women until his broken sentiments healed, and they had a long way to go. 

In the middle of wrapping a smashing set of tulips and fern stems with a cherry red bow, the bells adorning the top of the door frame dinges, announcing the entrance of another pleasant customer and giving passage to a gust of chilly air. Harry looked up to greet the customer with his usual pleasantries of ‘welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment!’, but the words died on his throat in a desperate hussle, just as the little mermaid had given up her voice to meet her gallant prince.  

It was his own personal little slice of heaven presented to him on the black and white checkered floors of his shop. Hair loose against her shoulders again, eyes cast downwards to inspect a bucket of fresh daisies that tickled the space above her bare knees. How she could wear a skirt in this biting weather, he didn’t know, and it partially prevented him from continuing his pursuit of admiring her because the first thought his caring mind jumped too was, ‘is she cold? And if so, does she need a sweater? Because I will gladly give her one.’ His second thought, however, was ‘how could someone be that beautiful?’. The third was something along the lines of ‘all my yoga has gone to shit, and I’m okay with that’. 

He cleared his throat, tightened the bow around the stems of the flowers in his hands and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment, love!” His head bowed, looking at his work because he wasn’t sure he could afford the medicals for the paralysis that was sure to take over his meek self if they made eye contact so soon. Harry needed a moment of homeostasis, his soul adjusting to her dulcet presence. 

The woman he was assisting, Edna, spoke, drawing him out of his daze, but he had been so deeply in thought that he had not heard what she said. 

“What was that?” He asked her. He grabbed Kraft paper from the roll by the register to wrap up her arrangement. 

“The girl. You like her?” She was smiling at him, wagging a finger the way his nan used to do when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t lie to me, I recognize that look. I’ve given and received that look many times throughout my life.” 

The woman was not wrong. With age, comes wisdom, Harry thought, smiling to himself at being caught. A dimple carves itself into his cheek, nestling onto the space above the corner of his mouth as if he had no choice in the matter. The apples of his cheeks were shadowed with a dusky pink, and the tip of his nose was twitching like a rabbit when it stood on its rear and sniffed the air, only he was coy after just being caught and wanted to avoid the question as much as possible. 

“I’ve got no idea what y’talking about,” he chuckled, keeping his voice low so that the intriguing stranger in the store didn’t hear that their topic of discussion was her. He moved over to the register to ring her up, and even slid in a discount he applied to customers he liked. 

“Next time I come in,” Edna said, passing Harry her debit card, “I hope to hear that you got her number, dear. Don’t let these opportunities pass you up. Life is short. And who knows? She could be the one.” Harry gave her the card back after charging her, and handed her the flowers, too. All the while Edna was grinning at him, shaking her head like she knew something he didn’t. 

“Take care, Edna. And don’t forget to change the water every 2 days with the flower packets I placed at the stems,” he reminded her, sweetly wiggling his red-lacquered nails at her retreating woman as butterflies awakened in his stomach in a furious flood of nerves. The girl was looking around, her hands hovering over the up-turned faces of a bundle of lively sunflowers, browsing and quietly humming to herself as she waited. 

There was no backing out of this, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t! He didn’t want to back out. The girl was a customer, and he would have to approach her no matter what. But she was so pretty it was also intimidating. He doesn’t remember ever being this nervous while approaching someone, especially one he harbored feelings for. His heart was pounding so loud, he was sure it was audible. 

“Hello,” he wanted so badly to add ‘love’ at the end of his greeting. “Are y’finding everything a’right?” He asked her, his hands wringing themselves, palms moist with sweat from his unyielding need to impress her. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to swipe across his full bottom lip, and soon after that his teeth sunk down into it, nibbling with uncertainty. Harry made sure that he was standing straight, body aligned to face hers because in that psychology course he took once, he learned that it was a subconscious tactic to engage interest and pleasant replies to attempts at wooing another. 

At the sound of his voice, the girl jumped, startled at the sudden vibrations of Harry’s husky voice. Her delicate feet, he noticed, skittered on the floor from her tiny jump, and her doe eyes widened, shouldered rising and falling at a quicker pace than before from the new rush of light fear. When she realizes that it’s just him her hand flattered over the base of her neck and her collarbone in attempts to soothe her racing heart. 

“M’s sorry,” he whispers, his hand clamping over his mouth, and then lowering to his chin when he speaks again, “didn’t mean to scare y’love.” This time he can’t restrict himself. It comes so naturally, like the endearment was meant for her, and when a flush covers the bridge of her nose his first instinct is to coo at her for looking so cute. The second is a surge of guilt for having scared her to such an extent. 

“It’s okay,” she says, a little out of breath. The blush on her face was partly because she was embarrassed at her own reaction, while the other was that she had let herself act so freely and uncoordinated in front of someone that looked like him. Handsome and sweet and eyes so green they refreshed you upon first glance. Like the cool burn of water going into a mouth that had just chewed a stick of minty gum. “I want to buy these flowers.” 

God help him. Her voice alone was enough to make him melt. The lilts and melodies of her voice swarming all four of the ventricles in his heart with warmth, and every blood cell that passed contained a glowing heat, buzzing with her energy. 

She points to the sunflowers, her gaze lingering on them with longing. A soft smile toying on her mouth, and Harry could see the tendons in her throat stretch as she inhaled to add another thought to her sentence, “Do you sell vases by any chance?” The girl looked at him shyly, her eyelashes almost twinkling as she blinked, and his heart soared, “I had a really nice one in the shape of a big Coca-Cola bottle, and I accidentally knocked it over, so now I have nothing to put them in.” 

Harry is incredibly enamoured by subconscious gestures that take over her hands as she speaks, fiddling as if the vase she spoke about was in her hands, all in one piece before it was broken. He’s quiet throughout her tiny ramble, listening and taking note of her enticing antics. She’s looking down at the floor or the flowers or her hands, and when her eyes dance over to his steady gaze, “I’m rambling aren’t I?” she murmurs bashfully. 

“No, no it’s a’right. I can look in the back for something if y’like?” He suggested, arrowing a thumb to the ‘back’ he mentioned. “Did y’want anything in particular?”  

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a troubling customer!” She squeaked, concerned with becoming a nuisance she didn’t want to be. 

“Y’not a bother, love. M’promise. I’ll go look f’you. What color did y’have in mind?” He asked her, tone calm and soothing to reiterate his sentiment. She was not a bother. The only thing about her that bothered him was the fact that he did not know her name, and even that was his own fault for not asking her. 

His hands rest on his hips, tattooed cross momentarily hidden by the bunch of his sweater vest  as he waits for her to respond, his eyes locked on her mouth, her own tongue subtly licks her lips, adding a sparkly sheen to it that only drove him crazy. Ever the jilted fool, his mind jumps to what it would feel like to kiss her, or what it would feel like if she kissed him in other places. What fruits she tasted like, and what kind of kisser she was. A timid one? With a patient mouth waiting to be broken open with the force of his own? Frugal? Opening her mouth and giving him everything she had to offer. 

“Something pink, please. If you have it.” That smile again. One that told a million apologies it didn’t owe, with her eyes pinching at the corners with whatever nonsense culpability she felt. Her voice was sweet, Harry thought, like wind chimes on a summer morning. 

Feeling guilty for allowing such dirty thoughts to gallop through his mind when she was so… so pure. Like an angel. Even her way of presenting herself was shy and sweet, yet he was thinking about kissing her. Was that perverted? She was a customer he had seen twice, and his mind was already running wild with luscious assumptions; a sunday topped with a red cherry of sensuality. How awfully dirty of him. 

But! But those were not the only thoughts he had. He wanted to ask her what happened to cause her to drop her vase, and where she had bought it. If it was vintage, considering it was a Coca-cola bottle, and if she had any accidents while cleaning up the mess of broken glass. He wanted to hear her thoughts. No, better yet, he just wanted to hear her talk. He wanted to get to know her. To know if she was as nice as she looked. 

“‘Course,” he mumbled, his eyes shamefully downcast to the floor. “Be righ’ back.”

Harry stalked off to ‘the back of the store’. Truth was, there was no back of the store containing vases. There was only a small closet with boxes of items he might need around the store, like flower food, rubber bands, and decorative paper for the bouquets. A crate of bottled water for when he got too lazy to climb up the back stairs and into his home. 

His home. 

Plucking the keys from his pocket, a ring that held a ceramic swan his closest friend Mitch had gifted him with a humble admission of ‘saw this at a thrift store and thought about you, H, I had to buy it’, and five keys: one to the front door of his shop, one to the cash box in the register, one to the mailbox, another to the front door of his apartment, and one to his car. The one to his front door was painted at the head with pastel pink nail polish, so it was easy for him to pick out when he was dead tired after a long day of being on his feet (spunky shoes that he liked to wear sometimes didn’t help ease the ache on his back, and neither did his posture). 

The back door that led to the stairs had locks on both the inside and the outside. A deadbolt and chain on matching sides of the door to ensure comfortable sleep at night, and peaceful work time during the day. Not having to worry about curious children opening doors or nosy customers relieved him. It was a little amatuer, but the door made a loud noise when opened because it wasn’t quite level, and he had a tiny key so he could lock it from the outside, too. 

A loud shucking noise resonated through the store as he pulled the door open, and then again when he closed it behind him. The delicacy of his dainty yet large hands were nearly comical around the tiny golden pin stud that hung from the chain, almost slipping from his hands with nerves as he slid it in place. Harry didn’t think that she was nosy or anything like that, bit if he was going up to give her a vase of his own personal collection, he didn’t want her to find out and feel even more intrusive that she already did. 

He was a huge giver, and upon hearing her say that she broke her flower pot, his mind was already thinking about the perfect one to replace it. It just so happened to be sitting on his shelf with a bundle of dying lavender. Climbing up the stairs (the ache in his thighs was a mere twinge compared to what it was when he first moved here), Harry huffed and thought to himself all the ways he could ask for her name and number. 

Listen, I really like y’and would like to have y’number?”

Do y’wanna have my number so we can go out sometime if y’feel like it?”

“Is it alright if I get y’number so we can go out sometime?”

“Hey, love. What’s y’name?”

Nothing’s making sense to him. The pick up lines he had stored in his head for the rare times he would flirt with a girl were slipping from him. None of them seemed worded right to use with her. Too abrupt or too brisk. Not sweet enough. He wanted to treat her gently and to be worthwhile of her time. Plus, it also had to be smooth enough that it made her forget she was paying him for flowers or it would be awkward. He was a twenty-six man for crying out loud, not a twenty-one year old smile at the bar looking for a good time. This wasn’t a ‘good time’. This was… a courting. An inquiry to a relationship. A rose rose in a candlelit room. 

Harry opened his front door and moved in a quick jog to a table besides his hi-fi that held a translucent pale pink glass, fat at the base before twirling and widening a few inches at the lip. An image of a nude mermaid puffing out at the front like an engraving. Cuddling it into his breast, he grabbed the lavender, speed walked back to his kitchen where his toe banged against the metal of the trashcan as he pressed on the lever to open it. He hissed fuck under his breath and shucked the dead lavender into the bag before turning back to his door, closing it behind him, but not locking it because he didn’t want to keep her waiting. His feet moved quickly down the stairs, the one hand not holding onto the vase cupping a hand over the side of his hips that held his keys so they didn’t make much noise. 

The button on the chain slipped from his fingers a few times from their repeated clamminess, and when he was ready to finally twist the knob, he paused to take a breath and collect himself. Harry ran a hand through his hair, fixed his collar, and dusted off his pants legs. He wanted to look perfect for her. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured to himself. He had a good feeling about this. About her. And if he messed this up because he looked bad or said something weird he would kick himself into a muddy ditch. 

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and calmly walked back, “I’ve got the last one,” he said, tapping the tip of the vase with his pointer finger. It was a lie, right through his teeth, but he was happy to tell it in return for the way she was looking at him in that moment. His eyes rounded out as he approached her, like the curves of hearts that made up the heart-eye emoji, or the puppy-dog face. Just another physical display of his growing affinity towards her. 

“Oh my god!” She said,  “It's so pretty!” The trapped crystals in her irises twinkled with bewilderment at the treasure Harry’s presented her with.  She’s got a smile on her face, and he can’t help but think, ‘wow, she looks like a freshly bloomed white lily’. 

There’s a vintage print hanging in his corridor, a ‘flower language chart’ with different types of flowers and a sentence beneath them describing the messages they send. For example, red carnations= my heart aches for you. The description beneath white lilies reads ‘my love is pure’. 

She asked him if it wasn’t too pricey, and he made up some fake sale he had going on about a hybrid BOGO in which if she bought an arrangement she would get a vase included in her purchase (he added “I’ve got a shipment of new ones coming in an I need the space cleared out before they get here” just to make sure his fib is believable.) And he explains this so shyly. Harry can’t keep his eyes locked on hers because she’s staring at him with an intensity that lets him know she's really listening, and it makes him squirm.  The tips of his fingers tap against the vase, and he’s tripping over his tongue, which is ridiculous because he already talks so slow. 

“I guess I was right in waiting then,” she said casually, waiting for Harry to finish ringing her up. 

His finger froze over the touch screen of the sleek, modern device (he wanted nothing but the best for his store) and listened to the exciting roar of blood through his eardrums at her words. I guess I was right in waiting then? What did that mean? That she was planning on coming back to see him and didn’t? Of course, it could also mean that she was going to buy something else somewhere else, but he couldn’t stop the vine of ripe hope that swelled around his chest. And she looked so apprehensive while saying it. As if she was walking on glass and was looking for cracks as she stepped. As if she was waiting on him to catch on to something.

Harry cleared his throat and looked at her through the corner of his eye, trying to be as discreet as possible as his fingers continued their deliberate work on the screen, “What d’you mean, love?”

“I was going to stop by sooner, but I just got in my head about it,” the girl shrugged, and adjusted the ends of her cardigan so they wrapped around her torso. She had a different bag this time, one of those reusable market bags that was made up of holes, and it was filled with two books and a can of green tea from the vegan store down the street. Harry thinks he can make out one of the titles on one of the spines, which looks suspiciously similar to something that he has on his own shelf. 

“Why would y’get in y’own head about coming to m’flower shop, hmm? It’s hardly that intimidating,” he chuckles to play off the dashes of pink and red that are painting themselves across the bridge of his twitching nose, “I don’t bite, either.” 

And he hopes that his wistfulness isn’t meddling with his vision because he swears that he can see a matching reaction on her own doll face. “I know! I know, it’s just that I can’t help it sometimes. Talking to other people makes me nervous.” 

Harry could coo at her right now. He doesn’t, though. He nods and smiles at her before reading her total out to her, “That I get, too. But y’doing just fine with me, love.” 

Waiting patiently as she digs through her bag for cash, he tries to not stare. However, it’s impossible. His eyes had a mind of their own dragging against the forces of his will to feast on her image again. Her hands and the tip of her nose. The base of her neck and gentle swell of her clavicles. The swoops of hair that hung in a curtain from her shoulder as her head tilted in search, and the how her teeth bit down into her lip in concentration. Harry counted the amount of times her eyelashes met her waterline in those few seconds of comfortable silence. Three. 

“I thought I had cash on me today,” something in her bag clicks, and she pulls out the rectangular card Harry’s become familiar with, holding it out to him between two deft fingers, painted with red hearts on a white base. “I guess I used my last twenty at the organic food store down the street,” she said. 

“It is pretty easy to get lost in there, isn’t it?” He took her card from her, and tried not to make it obvious that he was eager to read her name off of it as he inserted it into the machine. The embossed letters into the plastic read y/n y/l/n, and when he turns back to look at her, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his boyish features.

Y/n. 

Y/n, y/n, y/n.

This is what it must feel to be let in on a secret that’s worth millions of dollars. It must, because Harry’s heart is soaring with a closure he didn’t know he needed. Y/n, y/n. Her name tickled him. Stroked him. Lathered him with the honey smoothness of the beeswax shampoo he bought at that fateful organic store. It was a fitting name. Sometimes, one could tell a person ‘you know, I actually thought you were a Amy or a Jessica’, because their looks and style just didn’t match the strength or modesty of their name. But not y/n. It fit her like a glove. There was no other way to make sense of the way Harry’s brain was thinking. The name was her. 

“What?” Her lips quirk up into a smile and her eyebrows dip in confusion. Why was he looking at her like that? Did she have something on her face? Here she was, opening up to a cute stranger and she had something on her face? This, she thought to herself, is humiliating. Her finger dusted off non-existent crumbs from the corners of her mouth, “do I have something on my face?”

“No! No, no.” Harry’s careful beam simmered down from it’s previous brightness, and his hand nervously filed through the swoop of chocolate curls sitting on his head like a cinnamon roll. “I just think y’name is pretty thas’ all.” 

He murmured the last part so that it was practically incoherent, and lowered his gaze as a searing heat stretching like saran wrap around his head and the divot on the nape of his neck.  Oh, God. He was fucking blushing. Great Harry. A normally favorite among the ladies had been reduced to murmurs and thick, uncoordinated movements. 

Like dropping her card when she piped up again. 

Voice as small and quaint as his had been, "you think my name is pretty?” Her fingers are wrapped around the frail straps of her bag, tight enough that her knuckles were white and Harry was scared that she’d bury her fingernails into her palm. 

“I think y’very pretty.” He whispered back. He can’t even bear to look at her in fear that he’s totally fucked himself over once and for all. His logic was this: what girl wants to be told by the guy they’re buying flowers that they’re pretty after he reads her name from her debit card? Especially one who (if outside female sources are to be believed) dresses “the way my mother did when she was a girl in the seventies”? Jesus, fuck. He must’ve looked ridiculous. 

Harry opened his mouth to backtrack and apologize for being so unorthodox in his workspace, a breath sitting on his tongue with words ready to spew out, but the bell began to chime and it yanks his head from the register to the front and instead he said, “welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment.” 

Flustered and full of regret, the flower connoisseur returned his wired gaze back to y/n, who… was smiling at him? The kind of smile that said ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that. Now please say it again’? Was he… dreaming? Did he have to pinch himself in order to verify that he wasn-

“Thank you... what’s your name?” Y/n looked at the card from his hands and sunk her hand- carefully, as to not get her fingers stuck in any of the tiny holes- and there was another clicking noise before she took her hand back out. That angel-like smear of girlish happiness was still on her, decadently radiating positivity and secret affection. Goodness leaked from the seams of her bones; through the cracks of her breastplate, radiating from her chest to Harry’s. He could feel it now. He could feel that his previous assumptions about her nature were true. She was altruistic and tender, like the inside of a bird’s wing. 

“Harry. M’name’s Harry.” This time, he didn’t hide his happiness. Even his eyes shone with a heightened, clear and sparkly shade of liquid evergreen. The joy that bounced inside of him like ricocheting metal balls in a pin game machine. His slender hand, fawn-skinned and graceful like the legs of a deer, stretched out between them. His mother had taught him that along with the first introduction of his name, a handshake must be present, always. Dipping his head slightly, and his words spongy with love-ditz, Harry rumbled, “Nice to meet you, y/n.”  

She placed her hand in his, and was practically swallowed by only his palm. He curled his fingers around her, thumb and middle finger overlapping around the clammy center of hers. So she was nervous, just as he was. Y/n was trained on their embracing limbs, and he could feel a spot on his neck where the skin palpated from the rush of blood as she observed their entwined digits. Their hands moved up and down, up and down between them for longer than necessary until her chin twitched back up to meet his, and she blinked mawkishly, slowly, like the videos of rehabilitated barn owls Harry sees on his Instagram. 

Then, suddenly, as if she remembered she was not the only one present, y/n jolts upright and shakes her head dazedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Harry. I like your nail color,” she added. 

He’s cheesing. A shit-eating grin too big for his face and it carves dimples into the flesh of his cheeks. His name on her tongue had never sounded so appealing, like it was made for her and only her to say. Not even the turtle-doves that cooed outside his window in the mornings sounded as beautiful as she did saying his name. And she complimented her nails! She hadn’t scrutinized him like others had, instead, she displayed her admiration for them. No one- well, actually he can’t say that without offending Mitch- no female of his age had ever received him with such open-mindedness as hers. If he didn’t have any self-restraint, he would giggle. Instead, Harry pulled his hand back so that their perfect moment wasn’t sullied with bouts of bad timing, “thank y’love. I like yours, too. You’ll have t’come over sometime and paint mine, yeah?” 

Y/n laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been too bold, “I’d love too!” With glee frozen on her, she turned to look over her shoulder at the customer who was browsing the flowers Harry had in buckets, “I don’t want to hold you back from a customer for so long. I’ll stop by again soon, Harry. Thank you so much for your help.” 

The moment her hands reached for the wrapped bundle of sunflowers and the mermaid vase, a metaphorical grey cloud of rain and thunder manifested in the space above his head, and blocked all of the sunshine from spanning across his toned, lithe body. Did she really have to go? He wanted to whine. Maybe even wrap himself around her ankles like a child that refused to leave the park. They were only just getting to a mutual spot of comfort! Forget the other customer, he wanted to shout. Harry would kick them out and flip the sign to ‘closed’ if it meant only a few more minutes in the presence of her candy-coated charisma. 

But he knows that’s unrealistic, and settles with, “it was my pleasure, y/n,” a flirty wink (at least he hopes it is), “I’ll be waiting f’your next visit.” His taffy lips wrapping effortlessly around his smooth words, fueled by her welcoming receptiveness to his advances. It would be easy to be himself in the future, a little smoother and eloquent in his language and feeling. He was usually clear with what he wanted from anyone, and made it a pleasurable experience in all aspects for both parties involved (once it was three). Harry wanted to sweep her off her feet, and he wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the both of them. Revel in that feeling of blooming emotions in a new relationship. A healthy one, in which he wasn’t receiving back-handed compliments all the time. 

He wasn’t superficial enough to push anyone off the table based on looks alone, but it did help that y/n had the disposition of an angel. An ethereal voice, supple lips that looked so silky and soft they had to feel that way, too, and hands that felt so tender in his. Perfect for holding on a late night stroll, or over the center console of his car when -if they go out on dates. 

What really hooked, reeled, and sinked him, though, was the fact that she was so nice to him. From the start, she’d been nothing but polite and sweet with him. Don’t even get him started on the way he swooned at the tone of her voice when he said that her name was pretty! So quiet and velvety, careful and calculated like she wanted him to know that it was okay. That she wasn’t thrown off by his comment. He nearly toppled over, clutching his heart with his legs jutting straight up into the air like a frightened goat. 

It wasn’t until the bells stopped ringing the sad notice of her exit that Harry realized he passed up the perfect opportunity to ask for her number, and as he kicked himself over it, he walked with the perfect customer service face he could muster to help the other person in his store. 

***

Harry was having a shitty morning. 

Not the kind of morning where every aspect of his routine is a terrible mishap, but like the water being too cold and the stove not working or the bottle of oat milk in the fridge being empty so he couldn’t make coffee. No, everything was fine and rolling smoothly, as it should. 

His water was the perfect temperature and ran down the toned bumps and divots of his muscles like the relaxing thrums of a lover’s caress in the midst of prowling heat. As soon as it hit his back, he released a sigh of contentment, his shoulders hunching and head rolling back and his hands roamed his shoulders and the back of his neck, rubbing away any aches that existed. The branch of eucalyptus that hung from the golden pipe of his showerhead fused a thick minty scent into the steam that fogged the glass wall, and the calming aroma helped the tendons loosen like the deflating limpness of untied shoelaces. He spent a few minutes just standing there, inhaling and exhaling deeply and feeling his lungs open and stretch beneath his rib cage. 

It almost made him wish that he’d opted to use his tub for a hot bath instead. 

He was able to cook an egg just fine on his stove, with dashes of Everything Bagel Seasoning with a side of avocado and a slice of toasted cranberry walnut bread, the same thing he had every morning. The carton of oat milk was brand new from his trip to the market the day before, and his coffee tasted the same as it always did. But… he was just... sad. An melancholy soreness that eroded against the insides of his body, consuming him slowly but surely and leaving him with a lost feeling of emptiness and unimportance. 

He thinks he might know why he’s feeling this way. 

While he’s stirring his scrambled eggs, he’s wondering how y/n likes hers. Over easy? Sunny-side up? Scrambled, like him? Did she even like eggs in the morning? What did she eat in the morning? He knows that some people ‘aren’t hungry’ in the mornings, though that’s only because they’ve gone hungry in the mornings before for an extended time period, and after so long of not feeding their growling stomachs, their brain discontinues the signals of hunger. Harry hopes that isn’t the case with y/n, and that she’s eating the proper three meals a day every day. 

And while he dipped a mini vegan chocolate croissant that he got at Whole Foods, he also wonders what she likes to dip chocolate croissants into, or if she even likes chocolate croissants. If she was a person who likes sweet treats, like strawberry tarts with powdered sugar over them or something lighter, like fruit cut into small squares in a bowl. When Harry was younger and would visit his nan on the weekends, she would pick fresh strawberries from her garden and cut them up for him when he’d woken from his nap. Sometimes, she would even sprinkle half a tablespoon of sugar over them. He wonders if she’d ever eaten strawberries like that. 

It’s been a week and a half, he still hasn’t seen her, and his heart is yearning. 

Harry knows he’s not in the correct headspace to assist other people with a cheery disposition about an hour before opening time, and decides it’s best if he writes a note on the door about how the shop wouldn’t open that day because he didn’t want to taint the reputation of his business by snapping at a customer for the only bundle of sunflowers he had, or dissolve into a puddle of love-sick tears in the middle of ringing someone up. Though really the notice just says ‘H’s Garden will not be opening today. Sorry for the inconvenience!’ followed by a frowning face and a lopsided, filled-in heart. 

Harry drags his feet back up the stairs, his lower lip jutting out in a discreet but depressing pout, and grabs Owen from his tank so that the chameleon could curl into the shoulder of Harry’s hoodie while he moped on the couch to sappy rom-coms that would only make him think about her more. At least there was someone there with him, even if his small green friend only used him for mangoes and papaya. They sit together for the entirety of Romeo + Juliet, and when it’s over, Harry’s sniffly and standing up to return Owen to his enclosure and to clean because the riotous emotions that whirl within him are too much to process while sitting down. 

Cleaning wouldn’t help him solve his problems, but it would help him cram all of his worries into a tight corner at the back of his mind- sort of like when dirty laundry began to overflow in the hamper and it requires extra force to shove it all in, only to come all back out like a memory sponge. His tormented thoughts on y/n could be compared to a dramatic inner monologue, very similar to how Romeo feels about his Juliet. But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and y/n is the sun. Harry has the play on his book shelf (the one with the side-to-side modern English translation because he was never quite gifted in the English department) and as he reaches for a bandana to tie his hair back, he finds himself resonating with a particular line: parting is such a sweet sorrow.

There was no need to change any of his clothing, since he was already dressed in one of his more impromptu outfits; grey sweats and a white t-shirt that read ‘women are smarter’ in black across his chest. He tied the red bandana into a knot at the back of his head, and lifted it over his chin so that it settled on his forehead, sweeping his hair back with a final push back. It doesn’t get in his way when he crouches to clean his various tables, spraying cleaning products with his shirt pulled over his nose, another organic product that’s supposed to be less harmful and smells like cinnamon and sandalwood. His shoulder blades begin to ache because he’s being a little more aggressive than he has to be, but the green tiles were sparkling so he was content. 

He washes the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, vacuums the carpets, cleans Owen’s habitat, and tidies the mail that piled up on the table when he finally calls it quits. Scouring his brain for something to do, to keep him busy- his brain busy, Harry settles on the floor with his back to the edge of his bed. He’s shirtless now, and is in need of another shower but he’d rather not because he knows he might end up crying over the possibility that he’s scared y/n off. There’s a book in his hands and a Frank Ocean record playing softly in the background that mentions something about ‘I've been thinkin' 'bout you, do you think about me still?’ and it’s not helping his case at all.    

It’s no use. 

There’s a plague of darkness buzzing like cicadas in his ears. He fears rejection and criticism. That maybe, she was only pretending in order to make the situation more pleasant so it ended sooner. Most of all, he feared that it would always be this way. That he would never find someone who embraces who he is as a person. Always met with mean side-eye glances or second looks of displeasure and confusion. It isn’t always that way, though, because then that would mean he gets absolutely no action, and that isn’t true. 

Harry is very… well-educated in matters that concerned sexual intercourse, but it was always a one-night stand ordeal. It was never ‘I really like you we should go out sometime’. In fact, he noticed that only time his approaches were well received were those in which he was dressed in a calmer manner. Simple, solid colors with sneakers or a t-shirt. Girls would flirt back, make good conversation, allow him to buy them a few drinks, and when he’d take them to his apartment they’d ask why he lived on top of a flower-shop, and if it was his sister or female-friend’s palace that he was crashing. Sex would ensue, but his heart wouldn’t be as present and engaged as he wanted it to be. 

Wrong. It was always so fucking wrong, and God, if he didn’t get out of this apartment he’s going to breakdown and cry and there’s no one to call to come over because Mitch is on a trip with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his other friend Jeff is on his honeymoon in Sweden. They were the only two on his mental speed dial list during the rare occasions he had a crisis, as they were the two that Harry had ever really opened up to. Mitch was a bit closer to his heart. They’ve known each other since their school days and practically grew up together (at one point they had small crushes on each other, which were confessed years down the line). Jeff was the owner of Winsome where… where y/n had mentioned spending her last twenty dollar bill. He didn’t have an issue opening up to them. He liked opening up to them, but he didn’t understand why they were the only two that ever truly opened their arms to him. 

A walk, he decided, would help him… air out his brain. Calm down. Breathe a little deeper, a little easier. 

He threw his white shirt back on, and a forest green sweatshirt that donned the emblem of the school he went to earn his business degree that fit him wide around the shoulders and felt like a marshmallow. Putting on a pair of beat up shoes, he shoved his keys into his pocket, hobbling and nearly losing his balance because he was moving way too fast. The door closed behind him with a slam, and even though he was still wearing the bandana around his head, wispy stray curls framing his face in a wild mane, his distress palpable through his appearance, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out and feel the cool air against his skin. 

There’s a backdoor behind the stairs that will take him to a small alleyway that leads to a back parking lot where other shop owners that live at the top of their stores on the same side of his street parked their cars. He unlocks it from the inside, and throws his shoulder into it, desperate to her out. When it shuts behind him, he doesn’t turn back because it’s the kind to lock from the outside when closed. His fingers curl into the ends of his sleeve so that the tips of his fingers (nails now changed to a sparkling silver color) are the only parts of his hands visible. 

Rounding the corner, he whistled the cheeriest tune he can muster. His lips are puckered and his cheekbones high with the extension of his mouth. He’s not very happy on the inside, though he remembers reading something somewhere that if you pretend to be something long enough, you’ll eventually become it. If he pretends to be happy, then he’ll actually be happy. 

Right?

Harry rounds the corner of the parking lot and turns on to the main street. It’s only two in the afternoon, so there's people crawling in and out of shops anywhere. He even sees a man and a woman peeking into the window of his store, and he would feel bad if he wasn’t in a shitty mood already. He’s so out of it, that he nearly yells ‘get your hands off my windows!’. He doesn’t though, because for a moment the woman becomes y/n and the man becomes him, wrapping a ringed hand around her waist and whispering in her downy ear ‘they’re closed, darling, let’s go somewhere else’ and she straightens dejectedly, pouting playfully and standing up and her tippy toes so that she could press a quick kiss to his lips. 

That image fades though, and the couple continues with their stroll, hand in hand, and his heart is wrenching, writhing and trying to yank itself free from it’s place in his chest because it hurts too much to stay. 

Cars whizz past, and he skirts in and out of people on the sidewalk, keeping his pace fast and focused. There’s no intended destination, he’s just moving with the intent to forget the pretty girl who haunts him. Her voice is all he can hear. Her smile is all she can picture. And the rest of her is all he can imagine, which is exactly what hurts the most. Imagination only goes so far, fulfils so much with uncertainty of what the truth was and what wasn’t. Harry could imagine her with her feet up on the lip of a bubble filled tub, a glass of wine in her hands, but then…what kind of wine did she like? Or did she even like wine? And did she even have a bathtub to stretch out in after a long day? 

He curses the crimes he may have committed in past lives to deserve this torture. This unbearable pain that felt like he was being dunked in a slow-acting acid. He can do nothing about it but keep walking with labored will power. He passed his shop, and a bakery and a small thrift store that sells used clothing for way too much money. At the propped open double-doors of Jeff’s Winsome, he decides to talk in and browse. There’s so many items that smell good and taste good, that it was fun to just walk in and look. 

“Back again so soon, H?” 

Spinning on his heel, Harry comes face to face with Niall, a brunette, fit, Irish bloke with a chummy smile and a killer sense of humor. The two have brokered a sort of friendship, considering the amount of time (and money) that Harry spends there. Niall has even started calling him ‘H’ in silent homage to his flower shop. 

“Y’know I can’t stay away,” Harry attempted to joke, his lips pulling up in a weak smile, “plus, I think I needed s’more of the peppermint essential oils f’my diffuser.” 

“‘Course ya do! You're worse than the bloody vegan mums that come in asking for gluten free baby powder!” Niall cups a hand over his mouth and loudly whispers to so that only Harry catches his verbiage. There was a woman in the back of the store, looking through soaps in the limited kid’s section, the same exact kind that Niall was speaking about. “Go on and look around then, I’ll be here when you’re finished.” He said. 

Harry only nodded his acknowledgement, and moved in between wooden walnut shelves. The entire store had a caramel brown color scheme, with only the inventory adding color to it. Macramé potted succulents and plants added to the natural, outdoorsy feel. Winsome had an interesting mix of smells from all of the aromatherapy based products it housed, but it only added to the appeal. 

Currently, he held a packet of four lip balms that advertised to be ‘100% all naturally derived ingredients with no artificial additives' infused with ‘healing power of crystals’, two of them ‘citrine cherry' flavored, and the remaining ‘garnet guava’. The brand name is something in Italian that he can’t read, packaging thick and a triangle made of arrows in the corner signaling it can be decomposed and/or recycled. He had the same exact ones at home, only they were all misplaced and- 

“Harry?”

A small, timid voice called his name from behind him, and he froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one he had repeated over and over in his head for the past week, waiting for her promised arrival with a hopeful heart. 

His eyes go wide with recognition, body still and stiff like a deer caught in headlights. His heart begins to rump at a furious speed, loud in his ears like a million stampeding hooves. The packaged products in his hands shake, and then she speaks again, “Harry, is that you?” 

Is this really happening right now? He’s embarrassed at having been caught with lipstick in his hands of all things, but he can’t put them back now. It was too late for that. He lets them hang at his side, and turns around. He hopes there isn’t perspiration dripping from his temples because all of a sudden he wants to yank his sweater off. 

Harry turned, slowly. He feared that if he moved too fast she would fly away like a startled dove. 

“Y/n…” He’s breathless, but he manages a pitiful quirk of the corner of his mouth, which he licks over right after, “hi.” 

She’s wearing a dress this time, frilly at the hem which fell just above her knees. It’s pink and covered and lined with blood red trim at her forearms. A string of pearls glistens at the base of her throat, and her lips are covered in a sheen of lipstick. Her hair, however, is a tousled mess, pieces of it framing her face and untucked from her bun as if she had been jostling around. Her cheeks are flushed with the cold, and clearly that thin beige cardigan hanging off her elbows is doing nothing to keep her warm.

Y/n smiles at him, with the same shakiness, “f-for a second I thought I was talking to the wrong p-person.” 

 It’s quiet again, and they’re both fidgeting. Y/n’s knees knock together as she shifts her weight from foot to food, and Harry idly rubs his finger under his nose and sniffs boogies that aren’t there. She’s staring at the ground and rocking back and forth on her heels and he can’t think of anything to say because he’s so paralyzed by the fact that she’s actually standing in front of him, and looks as gorgeous as ever. Had he somehow manifested her presence? 

While she’s hiking up the ends of her sweater so that they’re situated properly on her shoulders, he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Aren’t y’cold?”

Her head snaps up and she peeks at him from under her lashes while flattening a hand at her thigh, “a little bit.” 

Harry watches her tuck her hair behind her ears and wonders if she came walking from her apartment again. In the cold. Dress as she was. Not that he had a problem with the way that she was dressed! He understood that sometimes when people grew bored they used the smallest occasions to dress up and have some fun and get out of their homes. He did it too, sometimes. To clear his head. Hell, isn’t that what he was doing now?

“D’you need a ride home?” He stumbled over his tongue to backtrack, not wanting her to think that he was a wierdo or anything like that, “t-that is if y’walking, I wouldn’t want you to get sick or anything like that. S’bit chilly out today.” 

Y/n smiles shyly at him, a blush on the highest points of her cheeks, and rubs the side of her face against the fabric of her cardigan, “thank you, for the offer, but uhm… it’s my friend’s baby-shower-gender-reveal thing today and I came with my other friend to some last minute gifts and some flowers. I was going to buy some stuff from here because she’s crazy about the whole ‘no preservatives’ and all but, and I was also going to stop by your shop to buy some flowers, but I saw you were closed so I…I’m rambling again.” She sputtered out the last bit, and pressed the tips of her three middle fingers to her lips to stop the words from coming out. 

Harry smirked at her antics, but it’s more of a repressed smile, and the rest of his humor gleamed in the sea-glass of his eyes like a message in a bottle. 

“S’alright, love.” He’s still holding the lip balms in his hand, and he can feel the moisture that’s collecting on his palms dampening the Kraft like material as he gestured to her dress with the tip of his chin. “Y’wearing pink. I take it y’want the baby to be a girl?”

“Actually, I know it’s a girl. She told me,” y/n pips, shrugging smugly. 

Harry laughs at her this time, “Did you finish with all your purchases here? I can make an exception and open up f’you.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t wanna bother you! Because if this was your day off then-”

He lifts a hand to get her to stop, and uses the opportunity to twist around and put back what he had in his hands. The conversation is flowing so smoothly now, that all of his previous worries are gone. He can only focus on her and the way her eyelashes fluttered and the crystalline sparkly in her voice. 

“Y/n, it’s fine. D’ya finish here? We can head over to the shop now if you’d like.” Harry points a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. 

“Uh, no. I just got here so I still have to go grab some things,” she said, pushing her hair past her ears again. He thinks that she can probably tell the disheveled state her hair was in, because she begins to pop off a pin in her hair to readjust it. He doesn’t mind it, though. He thinks she looks cute. Angel-like. 

He nods, rolling his hands into fists within his sleeves so that the cuffs hang over his knuckles, and tries not to trip over his legs as he backs away. “A’right. I’ll wait f’you in the front, then. Take y’time, love.” 

“‘Kay,” she gleams at him, biting down on her bottom lip, and Harry turns away fully before he starts whining about how cute she is or before there’s a dent in the heather grey fabric of his sweatpants.  

At the front, Niall has his chin at the palm of his hand, and as he gets closer, Harry lifts his head to see that the brunette is wiggling his eyebrows mischievously. There's a shit-eating grin on his face that clearly points to a mountain of teasing in the near distance. 

“A little love-struck, mate?” He said, as soon as Harry was within hearing distance. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down, he thought. 

Harry flips him off, “oh, bug off.” 

Silver glitter sparkling on his nails, and his gaze strays to the floor, bashful of how clear his affection was. He turns to rest his bum against the counter and pulls out his phone to appear busy as he waits for y/n, mindlessly opening Instagram to have something to do (and to stop him from glancing at her ever two seconds).    

“Yup. I knew it. Have y’asked her out yet?” Niall doesn’t stop to let Harry refute his question, “y’know she comes in sometimes, after stopping by your place? And she just will not stop talking about how nice yeh were to her.”

Harry’s head snaps up from his screen so fast, something at the back of his neck creaks with the force. Instagram is long forgotten.

“What? Are you fuckin’ with me right now?” He doesn’t mean for his words to come as aggressive as they do, but the thought of her speaking to someone else about him is… well, it’s thrilling. 

Alarmed, Niall’s hands come up near his face in the motion of surrender, “no, man! Dead serious. Think she likes yeh, honestly.”

He can only say: “Fuck me.”

Niall is about to respond when a quiet voice breaks their stares, “I’m all finished.” 

“Already, babe? I’ll rig ya up, then!” 

He’s quick to slide the few products over the scanning square, and y/n and Harry stand beside each other silently, their height difference laughable. Niall’s gaze flickered between them with no commentary, and his lips pucker with a wiggling smile when he finally announces her total. A bit too much for a small changing blanket, oatmeal-based baby lotion, pacifiers with a lavender infused towel attached to ‘aid with goodnight night’s sleep’, and a bamboo hairbrush with a tuft of soft bristles. 

Nonetheless, she provides the money with a pleasant smile. Harry can see a bit of tightness around her eyes that suggests discomfort, but he doesn’t say anything. Niall hands her a paper bag with her purchase, “there yeh go! Have a good day now, y/n! And be good, to Harry!” 

Harry’s eyes widen at Niall’s last comment, and it takes every bit of self-restraint in him to not reach the other counter and whack him in the back of the head. Instead, he shakes and ducks his head in near shame.

Y/n, however, quips back with “I’ll be nice only if you’re nice,” and bumps her shoulder against his before walking towards the door, looking over her shoulder at Harry who’s smiling wide now, and trailing after her with no regard to Niall at all. 

He shouts something after them about being rude lovebirds, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s floating after this heaven-sent like cartoon characters being led to a freshly baked pie with their nose on the scent. His rump high in the air like the Lorax disappearing into the light in the clouds, utterly ignorant to everything else. 

When they’ve both stepped outside, they speak at the same time, 

“Let me just-”

“Do y’wanna put-” 

Harry and y/n giggle at each other, 

“You go first.” 

“Y’speak first.” 

And then they laugh again. Harry pretends to zip his lips and throws away the key, and she says radiantly, “I’ll drop this off in my friend’s car really fast and we can walk to your flower shop.” 

Watching her approach a car parked two spots away, a girl with blue, pink, and brown hair leans over to the passenger side, seat belt straining against her throat and when she sees Harry, she waves and it makes y/n push her back to her spot behind the driver’s  side. Whoever this girl is, she and Niall have to meet, seeing as they can’t mind their own business. He chuckled and waved back, that girl laughing along with him and it made y/n cover her face with her cardigan covered hands. 

“I’m sorry about Charlotte,” she said when she got back, “she doesn’t know how to mind her own.”

“A bit like Niall, it seems.” Harry said. He waits for her to catch up before beginning to walk down the street. Side to side, shoulder to shoulder. They’re so close, Harry can feel the warmth of her body heat through the fleece of his sweatshirt. It’s cold, and she’s still this warm? 

“Maybe,” her eyebrows raise, and her head tilts towards him, “they should meet.” 

“Tha’s exactly what I was thinkin’!” His voice rises with his excited agreement, and the tip of his nose wiggles as he scrunches his nose. 

As they get closer, to H’s Garden, Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys, fingering through them so that they wouldn’t have to stand in the cold for so long. He didn’t want her to get sick. 

“I’m sorry, Harry. I feel really bad about this,” she whispered beside him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she worried her lip between her teeth, the sheen of gloss adding an extra allure to her image at that moment. “It’s your day off, and I’m bugging you.” 

They stood in front of the door now, underneath the green umbrella cover that extended from the top of the door and down the side of the window. Harry waited for her to step into the little alcove created by the indent of the door before stepping in after her and jiggling the key into the lock. He resisted the urge to pull his lips down into a cooing frown at the look on her face. She really was worried about disturbing him. If only she knew that he spent the entire day moping (and nearly crying) over her. 

He sucked on his teeth, “oh, love, please worryin’ about it. Don’t wanna see that frown on y’pretty face anymore okay?” His confidence was slowly coming back, “s’not my day off, I just didn’t feel like speaking to customers today.” 

Shrugging, he opened the door, and took a step back to allow her to step through first. Y/n ducked her head as she passed him with a murmured ‘oh, okay’, and he followed right after her, wanting to get away from the cold too because he knew that his nose was probably pink at that moment, but what he didn’t anticipate was for y/n to stop right after breaching the threshold, and bend over at the waist to pick something up from the floor, causing Harry to bump into her at such an awkwardly sexual angle with all of his momentum. 

Considering he was half twisted away from her and in the middle of pulling out the key from it’s slot, the amount of force in Harry’s push from behind was enough to cause her to nearly fall forward, a surprised whimper slipping from her lips. Harry, determined not to see her fall, lets go of the key and reaches out just in time to grasp her hips on either side, pulling her back towards him mid-fall so that she doesn't collapse on her face. 

However, in the midst of all of this Harry forgets himself and uses a bit too much force. Not to mention, the implications of their position makes him hyper aware of every single place their bodies touched, her small frame against his lithe, tattooed body. 

This moment only lasts for a few seconds, but he can feel everything. 

He can feel the easy give of the skin of her hips underneath each finger that touched her, the softness of the flesh on her thighs against his sturdy knees. The fabric of his sweatpants is suddenly non-existent, and it’s almost as if he felt every taught tendon of her legs, frozen with efforts of helping catch or brace herself. The heat of her groin is flush against his, and it makes him want to scream with a sudden sensitivity. Her ass is practically seated on him, full and malleable against the points of his laurel covered hip bones. Harry’s semi-hunched, as her weight also pushed him back, and the position is doing nothing to help his frenzied mind settle. He feels like shit because he’s being a horny, pubescent kid instead of asking her if she’s okay, but then y/n moves back into him to straighten fully and their centers grind. Her dress is semi-bunched at the halfway point of her bum, and he can feel heat emanating from her, radiating back on his bloating cock. He has to stifle a moan when she pushes herself up with the tips of her fingers. 

Just as quickly as it started, it’s over. Y/n is dusting her bum off so that her dress falls and covers her modesty, and she’s beet red in the face, not looking at him. Which was fine by him, he was too ashamed to look into her eyes. 

He clears his throat (something he’s doing a lot around her) and asks if she’s okay. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This was on the floor,” she squeaked, holding up a neon yellow notice sheet in her hand. That damned thing was what caused all of this?

It’s a notice from the delivery men that said, ‘sorry! We missed you!’ with a time and date messily scrawled on the dotted lines. Harry had forgotten that he was getting a shipment of several plants that morning. 

Cursing, he takes it from her, “t-thank you. Now how ‘bout those flowers?”

It’s awkward, obviously, but y/n is severely silent. Harry’s still stuffy in his pants, but he ignores it and doesn’t add any fuel to the fire because there’s more pressing matters at hand than a boner. Y/n is the most quiet she’s ever been around him, considering all of her word vomits and ramblings, and he’s suffering. Definitely beating himself up in his head for having ruined the moment. He held onto her for a second too long, frozen. She must feel so embarrassed, and he was self-endulging like a fucking asshole. 

Harry asks her questions on what flowers she’d like, and she answers by pointing or bringing a stem to him, laying it on the counter without a word. A mixture of dahlias and baby’s breath with a handful of feverfew to make the pink in the dahlia’s stand out. He lays them out on his work table, cutting the ends at an angle where they need to be cutted and laying them out on a sheet of clear, dusty rose paper. Three packets of flower food are strewn at the corner, and y/n busies herself by fidgeting with them. He grows concerned when he makes a comment on the kinds of ribbons he had stored and she doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod or a hum. 

Eventually, he decides he’s had enough of her neglect, and pauses his work to devote her some attention.  

“Love, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said softly, trying to catch her eyes, “I know it probably made y’uncomfortable, and I didn’t do much to make the situation better, but I just didn’t wanna see y’fall.”

Y/n’s head is already dipped, so he can’t see her face, but when her shoulders begin to shake, he knows he’s utterly fucked. She starts to sniffle, and his eyes go wide. The paper crinkled as he set down the baby’s breath he’s holding in his hands. He hates seeing people cry, not because he didn’t know how to deal with it, but because he often ended up crying along with them. Also, he just didn’t want to see her cry. Harry wanted her to be happy, glowing, and smiling. Not dull with dollops of woeful distress in liquid form.

He rounds the corner and spares a look out to the street, wanting to make sure that there is no strange onlooker eavesdropping on their interaction. His hand reaches out to stroke her back or shoulder comfortingly, but he thinks better of it and drops his arm. She most likely would not like to be touched, considering what just happened between them. He drops his head, seeking face-to-face interaction, and speaks as gently as he can, “y/n, what’s wrong?” 

She avoids his search, and turns the other way while sniffling, “you probably think I’m weird now or something after that.” 

“No!” Harry exclaimed, jerking his head back as if he’d been struck, and her words practically had. He can’t believe that she would think that and even go as far as verbalizing her thoughts when he worshipped the ground she walked on and didn’t even know her that well, yet. “No, no. I don’t think that. Y’tripped, that’s all. Happens to everyone. If anythin’ I’m the weirdo for grabbin’ y’the way I did, and I’m really sorry about it.”

Y/n dig the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, “that was so embarrassing, I should’ve told you I was gonna stop or something. I always embarrass myself in front of cute boys and I never know what to do. I just-” 

Harry interrupts before she can dig herself further another hole. He highlights a segment of her words, dropping everything else in hopes of changing the conversation and taking her discomfort away, and mostly because he was bursting with relief and happiness. She had said that she thought he was cute, just how he thought that she was adorable, and nice, and everything good. They were on the same level, their minds in sync. Did that mean…

His voice is airy and light because of what she had just admitted, “y’think I’m cute?”

She stills with awareness of what she’s just said, and a puppy-like noise seeps from the back of the throat before her hands sink further into her eyes, embarrassed. Harry tenderly wraps his fingers around her small wrists and pulls her hands away from her face, murmuring about ‘don’t rub y’eyes anymore, love, y’gonna hurt’ with nothing but kindness. A millisecond of distraction speeds through his mind at the softness on the inside of her wrists. 

There’s a trickle of blubbering in her part, her bitten lips bumping against each other as she attempts to backtrack, “I mean- I- I-”

Harry decides that it’s now or never. It was a bit inconvenient, perhaps, but with her revelation his confidence soared and he was more prepared now to ask than he ever had been. So, he goes for it, “can I have y’number?” 

A moment of semi-uncomfortable silence as the unknown tips the scale. Would she say yes? Would she say no? His head was spinning and he hoped his nose didn’t start bleeding or something because y/n nods slowly, smiling, and then, “okay.” 

He’s elated. He was the polar opposite of what he had been that morning. If only Owen could see him then. He doesn’t waste any time reaching into his back pocket and handing her his unlocked phone. They don’t share any words, only coy glances and flirty quirks of the lips as the tips of her fingers move on his screen. Harry can’t believe that he’s finally getting her number, after nearly a month of pinning. 

When she’s finished, she clicks it off and sets it next to him with an added pat to the back of his suspiciously clean white phone case while he’s tying the flowers together with a loose rubber band at the ends to attach the food packets. He’s fine with working in silence now that she's not crying anymore. He throws occasional glances in her direction, and catches her watching his hands while fiddling with her own. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth was twitching. 

“Will you text me?” She asked him. 

He’s careful not to bruise any of the petals as he sets them down again, pausing with his ministrations to pick up his phone. He wiggles his eyebrows at her and types a quick ‘Hi. It’s Harry :)’. He hits send, “until you’re sick of me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She shakes her head, and Harry’s reminded Rachel McAdams in The Notebook while she’s in complete denial of her feelings for Noah. The comparison makes his heart flutter, considering the romance of the onscreen couple. “How much do I owe you?” 

Harry waves her off, “it’s on the house.” She begins to argue, but Harry stops her before she starts rambling again, “y’better go or you’ll be late, love.” He holds out the arrangement to her, tufts of baby’s breath poking out from between the vibrant dahlias like fluffy clouds, the feverfew looking like miniature white daisies in the center. 

She looks at it, and back at him before huffing, “fine, but you’ll have to let me return the favor.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “with dinner, maybe?” 

They’re both gleaming at each other now, “okay.” Y/n takes a step back, her body half twisted as she walks away, but it remains like that for a moment as her eyes rake him up and down, a murmur following, “bye, Harry.” 

His veins charge with electricity, and his dark taffy lips part at her actions. Had she just checked him out? He doesn’t recover quick enough to return her goodbye because the previous swirl of arousal in his navel was bristling back to life at the implications of that look. Calm, slow, steady, and her eyes remained doe-like and innocent. 

She had to have known exactly what she was doing, whispering his name the way she had, looking over her shoulder and under her eyelashes the way she did. Deviously provoking his thoughts to begin a new with a reinspired fervor. The space in his underwear was growing tighter by the second, a blissful ache swelling. 

Before any other customer stepped in after her, Harry locked the door, and jogged up the stairs to prepare himself a nice, hot bath, simultaneously cursing and thanking the stupid fucking delivery men.  

********

Harry can’t stop thinking. 

Obviously, this is a huge issue for him. He was constantly thinking, and well, who wasn’t? The process of thoughts wisping around in his brain was one that he often put an unnecessary amount of energy into because he had no one to filter these thoughts onto, releasing them through a conversation to prevent the exhaustion of his brain and heart. A prime example of these mishaps being the depressing slump that occupied his demeanor that very morning. 

This?

This was different.

As soon as the apartment door was shut behind him, Harry pulled the suffocating sweatshirt off of his upper body, fingers hooking in at the collar and yanking it off with a swift tug. It landed somewhere on his kitchen floor, and he didn’t stop to take note of its final destination. Instead, his legs instinctively took him to his bathroom. 

Chest heaving, Harry walked to the small window leaking sunlight and rolled the stick between his fingers to close the blinds. His thumb dipped into the waistband of his boxes and dragged them down lopsidedly, the tiger tattoo roaring as it became exposed. When the blinds are fully closed, the white extension clangs against the shutters from his aggressive release. His body was slowly being consumed by a raging fire stoked by the illicit images his brain conjured of the innocent, unsuspecting y/n.

His inner turmoil consisted of guilt for using her image that way and justification from the conspiring rake of her eyes along the upper half of him that was visible behind the counter. He was so fixated by her, that her look alone felt like a tempting caress along his skin. And it all happened in a matter of fucking seconds. That’s how gone he was. That’s how fucking gone he was. Harry guesses that the easy excitement also had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while (he only ever gets lucky when he goes out to the bars with Mitch or Jeff, and they’d been gone for a significant amount of time) and the strong affinity he had for the girl who bought flowers from him.  

Explanation or not, he had to do something about the problem in his pants. He was painfully hard, and when he shucked his pants off fully, his underwear dragged with the movement and pressed against the tip of his swollen prick. A darkened patch of moisture bloomed where the head was, and he saw stars at the short pressure. He wouldn’t take his pants off just then, though. He liked to stall his pleasure as much as he could so that when he finally did cum, his stomach muscles contracted and his toes remained curled for more than ten seconds. 

He twisted the golden knobs of his tub so that the water would come rushing out at a borderline scalding temperature, and opened the small cabinet above the toilet for a bottle of almond and coconut shea butter bubbles. He uncapped it and bent over the edge of the tip, the cool, porcelain lip touching his crotch and provoking a choked whimper to leave him. Jerking his hips back, he poured the soapy liquid into the spot where the water cascaded, and retracted his hand when the beginning of froth formed along the surface. 

The heady sweet smell permeated the air with the rising levels of bubbles, and Harry couldn’t wait any longer. Because he liked to torture himself, he closed his eyes and slowly dragged the hell of his hand over the outline of his cock, a groan ripping though the silence. It’s so painfully good, that he does it one more time, and he jolts forward. He removes his hand, slips his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers, and lugs the fabric down his hips at an excruciatingly slow pace. The head of his member smearing precum all along as he moves and when he gets caught in the ripples of his boxers the muscles in his thighs flex at the ripple of pleasure that zips into his nerves. 

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. His mind was a spinning vintage reel of slideshow images of y/n. Y/n on bruised knees, her mouth wide open and her own drool on her tits, the tip of his cock flat on her tongue as she pleads with weepy eyes for him to cum down her throat. When he finally springs free of his underwear, a hefty slap rings out as his dick collides against his abdomen, right on the space underneath his belly button. 

There’s a stripe of liquid on the trail left by the mushroom head of his prick, and Harry’s eyes roll to the back of his head, throat straining as he hovers over the bathtub. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been this hard over a girl before, and it’s driving him crazy. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last as long as he usually does. As he swings a leg over the edge of the tub, the hot water encasing his calf, he’s thinking about how soft she is. The inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand. If she’s that soft on an external part of her body that’s used everyday, he can only wither away at the idea of what the inside of her thighs feel like. 

Bubbles are swarming up now, swathing his thighs and buttocks as he sinks into the sloshing water. When he’s completely seated and satisfied with the belly-button level of water, he clumsily throws a hand in the direction of the knobs to shut them off, and reclined his head against the curved end of the tub with his eyes shut. 

He hikes up his knees so that they’re resting against the porcelain walls, and mindlessly ruts up into the water at the filthy images he’s picturing, white foam collecting in sparse clouds over the math on his chest. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s as if his body is being transported back to the moment his hips clashed with y/n’s. At the recollection, his mouth drops and his eyebrows pinch in a silent moan. The feel of her flesh underneath his fingertips has him bobbing in the water, and the next ideation has him gripping the base of his cock. 

Vividly, he pictured her on all fours, keening back onto him as her pussy enveloped him in warmth, a warmth that is almost replicated by the temperature of the water, dripping and making a mess of him but what’s turning him on most of all is the easy flushness of their bodies. He had felt the way her bum gave way under his hold, and he imagined the bounce of her flesh as he thrusted into her. 

He moaned a broken call of her name with his eyes still shut, and heard the trickling of water as his fist rolled up his stiff prick, squeezing at the tip so that a few more droplets of precum dribbled out. With his thumb, he rubbed over the red mushroom head and lathered it in slow, leisurely circles, a throb pulsating with the beat of his heart as he returned to flicking his wrist over himself. 

The way that he looked at him and the sound of his name on her lips seared into his memory. Airy and willowy, similar to it resonated in his brain with the fantasy of sinking into her for the first time, stretching her and having her preen and arch with desperate whimpers of his name for more. Harry considered himself to be ‘well-endowed’ and his size was a factor of what sent him careening over the edge as girls mewled over his size after he’d bottomed out. He wanted y/n to mewl under him, both of them falling apart at the seams at the mutual pleasures because if Harry’s this broken over just the thought of her, then he’s sure he’s going to lose himself beyond recognition after he’s buried himself into her velvety walls, slick with her arousal and so fucking warm. 

Just as she had been earlier that day. There had been two layers between them- the fabric of Harry’s pants and her panties- yet, he was still able to feel an immense heat from the apex of her thighs against his cock. He needed more than this. He needed her, not just his hand driving him closer to the edge. 

His jaw clenched as he bit back on a particularly loud moan, for no reason other than he enjoyed self-sabotage from time to time, and the speed of his jerking hand increased. His other hand gripped the side of the tub, and his legs flexed as he began to thrust up into his own fist, a trail of bubbles sticking to the tanned muscles. The cut rectangles of muscles of his abdomen glistened like freshly chopped cubes of apricot with the droplets of water that remained clinging to him. His breath came in labored, strained puffs as the palm of his hand twisted, tightening at the tip and loosening at the base. 

For a moment, he paused and cupped his balls, massaging them as the fantasy in his head continued. His mouth wrapping around y/n’s nipples, her eyes glazed over from previous orgasm that he wanted so badly to give her. She’d whine something soft and quiet to match her personality, ‘please, Harry, please I want more. Need another Harry, please’, and he’d speed up the movement of his hips, driving deep into her and cooing into her ear about, ‘c’mon, darling. Give m’another then. Y’want it so bad, yeah? Give me a’fucking ‘nother’, and she’d release a peircing moan that explodes in his eardrums while arching into him. She’d squeeze impossible tight around him, gushing with her own cum. 

The water in Harry’s tub sloshes around his ankles, and the muscles of his abdomen clench so that he’s closing in on himself, sputtering on an outrageously loud cry that he can’t contain and his hand increases the speed of his filthy ministrations because he’s right on the edge. He’s about to fucking cum and the back of his eyelids burns with the possible variances of y/n’s face in ecstasy provided by him with his nose deep in her cunt, lapping at the sweet honey that spills with every whimper of, ‘please let me cum, Harry. I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please let me cum. 

He tensed violently, his face contorted painfully as white ropes spurt from the tip of his cock over his fist and onto his chest, blending with the white almond foam. His feet are braced against the edge of the tub and his head falls back and his stomach tenses even further, the final leaks of his cum dribbling out. 

With the fuzziness that comes after an orgasm, his body melts back into the water that’s still warm, and his jerks with a pant as he allows his softening prick to sink into the water. The head on his hair is matted in a chocolate smear across his forehead, and his lips are a raging heart of cherry blossoms, parted with arduous gasps of recovery breath. His hands fall into the water at his sides, and with the lapping movement of the liquid against his sensitive member, he ruts into nothing again. 

Reclined with his eyes closed and heartbeat slowing, Harry murmurs a final, “fuck me,” at the extreme sensations that had raked through his body. 

Somewhere in the muffled distance, his phone dings with the notification of a text message, and with a tired noise of resentment, he sits up and reaches for his sweatpants that lay in a messy puddle besides the tub. His fingers drip darkening spots onto the grey material as he rummages for his phone, and then he finally clicks it on...

It’s her name, lighting up his screen, and the text reads: 

y/n <3 : so… dinner? 

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever crushed on a girl this hard before because even though he’s just completely physically spent himself, there’s something stirring in the depths of his tummy just at seeing the heart she put next to her name. 

He couldn’t be happier. 

*    *    *    *    *    *

and here he is!! what do you guys think?? pls pls pls leave your feedback in my askbox! i’d love to hear your thoughts! and if you really really loved it, don’t be afraid to press that reblog button <3333

[muffindaddystyles]

LOST IN ITALY.

Where Harry's cute assistant gets lost in city of Italy and the thought of loosing her drives him bullocks.

Flatulent gust of breezy wind kept wiggling through Harry’s coffee lovelocks, sunshine bounces against his soft skin and his pink heart-shaped mouth stays puckered as he takes in the beauty of his surroundings with his cheek smashed over his wrist – which’s resting atop the rooftop of yacht and his head perks up puppy like when tufty giggles maroons in his ears.

He gazes his cute assistant from under his ray bans and skims back a timid smile when her face beams with glee, her cotton puffy sleeved sundress blows away from the breeze giving glimpses of her plump thighs and Harry sucks in a breath snapping his eyes away.

“Harry look s’beautiful!” She squeals taking another picture of landscape with her grandpa's vintage Yoshika camera and Harry just rumbles his lips, shrugs and slumps back, a lazy mumble of “mehhh” elicits past his lips.

She’s just so endearing, and cute and fucking adorable it’s hard for Harry to keep from not babying her.

When he first went to sets of My Policemen he considered her rather unprofessional, as everyone kept on finding her but it seemed like she vanished into thin air, turned out when Harry took a break in his cubby she was lighting up saffron and black scented candles, “Oh! Thought you’d like comin' back to nice smelling room —-- holy fudge .... by the way, me Y/N your new assistant for the meantime.” His all grumpiness defused into bunch of reverence for her.

She'd always beat him to bringing in brekkie and smoothies for him and her fellows, sometimes giving him the velvet muffins before he goes back home --- Harry became such a drooly lovey puppy for her that he decided to keep it stern from then.

He’s trying. He’s prolly gonna fail.

Y/N isn’t very immune to water trips and she was well aware that a sickness is coming – but so soon? She didn’t know that!

So, when she chokes onto nothing and then gags driving Harry into fritz. Harry tries to keep his balls in place and not panic because that’d just spill his secret and expose him.

He quickly facades himself under stoniness, “Christ! Y/N if you die on me —-,” Though, grabs her elbow lightly and walks her to the edge of the deck.

Y/n smacks his hand away. Glares him and grunts pushing her hair away aggressively, “Don’t tell me what to do I’ll die wherever the hell I want!” His pupils resembling to that of clashing waves of sea blows away comically as she huffs and pushes past him.

“Better die and ghost you for life.” She gags into her elbow again and he rushes to grab her hand, when she pulls away with a tut he rolls his eyes brings his glasses to the bridge of his nose and looks at her from under the brown sunnies, “Jeez just holdin' a hand, not gonna slip a ring, ‘s that what yer afraid of.”

“Just admit you’re desperate to hold my hand.” She smirks up at him and he cackles, then dims into nervous chuckles because oh fuck he’s getting caught red handed.

“No.” He mutters.

How much she resists not to pout and turn all fussy over his denial she ends up doing so and it’s his turn to smirk cheekily at her.

“Are you mad? You look mad.” He wiggles his finger at her and she grumbles folding her arms infront of her bosom and cranes her head to side, “I’m not mad.”

“Yer pretty face’s all screwed up, like you’re mad.” He nibbles at her and she glowers him --- sighing at last, the wisp of her hair falling in her eyes, her lips plush and glossy from sick.

“I’m perturbed, not mad.”

Then there’s an overrated pause of silence and heartbeats before Harry pokes her knee.

“You still look mad.” His face splits into a wide cheeky grin – showing his bunny teeth and she stands up hastily wobbling a little.

“’M’not mad! But I’ll be soon Harry Styles!!!!” She goes for smacking him at chest but he jerks back and sneaks his way out squealing annoyingly, “Mommy come save me from this feisty sea-creature.”

“You mean a mermaid?” She giggles.

“No. Frogfish.” He deadpans.

“I’m not talking to you ever again!” She cries out and turns away from him but he barks out a laugh --- riling her up is the most entertaining thing and seeing her make cute fussy faces another.

“’Kay, sorry! Wouldn’t do it again.” He toddles behind her and glides his forearm against her clavicles bringing her to his front, “Says this everytime!” She squirms pushing him away but he’s ten times stronger than her and even if she’s ... she’d want to spend some more time like this.

“Wouldn’t call ye' frogfish —-.. from now on.” She nods. Humming in agreement and he turns her, holding her from shoulders and looks down at her with glinting eyes and wide toothy mouth.

“How ‘bout blobfish? They look more funny.”

“I’m gonna kill you, Harry Styles!”

..

They were given a loft infront of the shore 10 minutes drive away from the shooting place and after fighting over who'll occupy the bed, bickering and pillow fighting over it and almost making it creaky loose bench Y/N went back to living room telling him that he snores so much, “Sorry but ‘m too sensitive to piggy snorey noises – better sleep outside.” He was fuming and gritty mess, flailing his limbs like a baby because he was “the hair on his directors head” away from sharing the bed with her.

“Whateva! your loss. Don’t come t'me beggin’ to pop your backbones.” He told her in high pitched mimickness and flumped under cool sheets.

His one hour nap turned into two then three. In the meantime, Y/N made a sandwich from the fresh veggies piled in the fridge, sipped onto her matcha drink sitting beside the window and enjoyed he view, even went through her socials.

Realized that she’s missing him around her terribly even if it’s just jokes and giggles and shit, whatever, so she took her camera and went outside to take pictures of shore and the purple sky battling with hue of clouds.

She got so charmed with Italy's beauty that she kept on walking and taking pictures, only to realize when the bustle of crowd dropped into tranquil quietness and she found herself into some unknown street.

She’s fucked.

She’s lost.

She has got nothing,

Not even her phone.

She contemplates to knock on the house doors and ask for locations but she’s petrified of the idea and tries to find some shop, so she could call someone and ask them to pick her up.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumbest decision, she has ever taken in her life.

When she sees no passer by, none tourists no-one in sight and the daylight defusing and darkness laughing and taunting her tears springs in her eyes --- bubbling at the corners and weeping down furiously.

Her heartbeats drops dead when she sees a group of men approaching towards her. She runs away hiding into the dark tunnel and clamps her mouth shut from crying out loud when they walk away -- they weren’t about to do anything to her – it was just her feared instincts.

“Harry ......” She whisper-cries into her wrist, her legs weak and trembly making her tumble down into dusty stoned pavement, her back getting scratched from the bricked wall of tunnel.

..

Harry woke up to pin-drop silence. Void of the sun that was once glimmering through the window, “Y/N.” He grogs out, knuckling the sleepiness away and trudged out finding the room empty.

It startles him. Waking him up properly now. A sweat flushes down his spine when he couldn’t even find her in the washroom and at the door-steps.

He dials her number and finds it at the coffee table, gruff cruses breathes out from his mouth at that.

FuckFuckFuckFuck.

His heart feels like someone’s squeezing it mercilessly in their grip when he goes outside, but couldn’t spot her and he finds it difficult to breathe, chest heaving as he snaps his head in every direction to look for the face he’s oh so in love with.

Where are you, Y/N?

Maybe, she’s angry with me? Did I hurt her in any way? Oh, fuck. I’m such a bitch.

Now, she’s angry with me and hiding in some corner cursing me out.

I have to bring her back.

So, he calls anyone in connection with Y/N in hopes that she’s with anyone of them and when there were, “no mate --- maybe check in the washroom...” and “last time she texted, said she’s going out to take pictures.”

Harry’s face pales at that. Sick to his stomach. His fists tighten by his sides to keep his calm the world around him spins for a moment and he stables himself with the nearby railing.

Bad thoughts spirals in his mind, how much he avoids them it frightens him like his worst enemy.

What if she’s hurt? It hurts him in heart even to think that.

Got into an accident and they took her?

Fuck.

What if some mafia has kidnapped her.

Obviously, Italy is famous for mafias ..... No!No!No! Harry shut up, shut up, shut uppppp!!

He screams internally to pause everything and think rationally.

He searches for her everywhere. In every street. His feet hurting until now and he chokes onto a sob, not even wanting to think of getting police involved and still not able to have her back.

He shouts for her name. Halting past anyone looking like her, that mini dress she flaunted infront of him with a gorgeous smile –-- asked him how it looked on her and he wasn’t very interested to give a response.

If he could take all of it back and praised her like his life depended on it, only if he’d told her how much he loves her, her making sure he’s comfortable in his cubby, her bringing cold milk drinks for him, dividing her oreos with him.

His hands shakes by his side, his lip twitching constantly and his legs trembles pathetically with each step he takes.

He stops. Narrows his eyes to squint through the darkness and he feels like someone blew oxygen back in his lungs, his knees weakening at the sight of some girl sitting on the bench, her shoulders slump and her head downwards as she clutches the edge of bench, rocking on it with quite sniffles.

He prays that it’s her.

Upon, hearing the footsteps Y/N looks up and those sweet eyes are enough for him to recognize her in between many people.

“Harry?” Her voice feeble and scared.

“Oh baby .....” He mumbles. Rushing towards her, stumbling back a bit when she flies in his arms and latches to him like the missing piece of her body.

His palms curves into her ribs, her face smashed into the crook of her neck – her tears wetting his skin instantly and his cheek squished atop her sweaty hair, he hugs her for dear life making her legs dangle in the air, she sobs nuzzling deeper into his throat and he caresses her shoulders to soothe her cries down. Kisses the side of her temple with tender affection and sighs in relief.

“Shhh. Shh baby, ‘s okay. I’ve found y’now ..... ‘m here sweetheart ‘s alright.” He doesn’t stop splodging soft pecks to her forehead – scared that if he’ll she’ll get lost from his arms again.

Her hiccups painful not letting her take a breather and Harry puts her down on her feet gently, taking her face in his clammy hands and hooks his thumb into her hair gazing into her glassy eyes intensely, “Hey look at me lovie’ just .. focus on me alright?” She nods at his plea grabbing his wrists and follows his breathing pattern.

He glances back at the bench and goes to grab her camera but she cries out fisting the hem of his corduroy shirt in her tiny hands, “No!” could barely choke out from her dry throat and he turns his attention back down onto her, strokes the rosy apple of her cheeks and pets her head.

“Not leavin’ yer side baby .. was bout to get your camera fo’ you. Could come with me if you don’t like stayin' away.” He assures her softly and trots towards the bench with his arms still around her as she keeps on hiding her face into his bicep.

They walk down the street like that, she has calmed down letting a sniffle slip here and there --- this kind of scenario has never happened to her before – she has never been outside of her home city before too.

He feels her tummy screech for food so asks her, chin butted atop her head, “You’re hungry, petal. Let’s get pizza.” She doesn’t feel like eating though. When she shakes her head – squeezing him more. He takes her from shoulders looking down at her with gentleness and brushes a strand of hair behind.

“Just a tad, darlin'. I know a delicious take away round the corner ... could eat it sittin' by shore.” He offers her with a smile and punches the air happily, whistling when she agrees.

When she giggles softly, defrosting back from numbness Harry spins them a little overly gleeful.

“Got me sweet girl back.” He exclaims ducking down to kiss her cheek and now when she’s less wobblish, her lungs fills with bunches of butterflies.

Blush splatters on her features. As Harry aligns his tanned arm with her delicate one and locks their fingers together lulling it backs and forth between them lovingly.

He keeps her tucked under his chin and snuggled in his arms all the time, even while waiting in the line for the take away.

“Ow!” Squeaks, “Ow. Ow.” Jumps on his tippy toes upon balancing the hot pizza on his palm.

Grins like a mad man when succeeds in making her laugh, takes her hand and helps her climb down slippery stones.

Goosebumps arises on her skin from shyness when he coils his strong arm around her to pick her up, with pizza in his other hand and giggles breathily in her ear upon hearing her squeals.

She sits in between his knees. Leans against his chest and inhales his woodsy vanilla scent, nibbles onto the crust while hearing his heartbeat.

“You scared the living hell out of me, lovie’ ... thought —-... thought I’d never be able to have you back again ... proper vanished.” He croaks out. Runs his nose up and down the sweet curve of her neck.

“Made me realise ... that I don’t want to be away from you, ever.” Y/n's breath hitches at that and she turns in his embrace. Looks at him with surprised doe eyes and coos when his eyes gloss over with wetness, that he’s forcing to keep at waterline.

“I really like you, Y/N.”

“You do?” She gasps.

He bobs his head giddily, “Can you picture it? You and I together?” He murmurs mellow street light dancing between them.

“’Us'? I like the sound of that....” She smiles searching for his hand and he grasps it eagerly like he was yearning for it.

“Kay then, when could I take you on a date?” He grins. Dimples mauving deep and pretty.

“This isn’t a date?”

“We’re in Italy. The sky's so romantic and I’ve got you, seems like a date to me....” She peppers kisses to each rosy gap of his knuckles and his inside bursts like they never did before.

“Kay then. It’s memorable too, you got lost on our first day –--”

“Harryyyy....” She whines nudging him in belly with her elbow. “’Kay we could change that.” He laughs. Showering her in kisses and her laughs whirls loudly into quite air, trying to squirm away from his tickles.

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

Hi! Thank you for all the work you do! Your page is amazing!Do you have any fics you can think of where Derek struggles with control because he’s so into stiles? Or just your all time favorite smuts ?

Yeah!

in the pitch black clubs by scepticallyopenminded

(1/1 I 989 I Mature)

“Are you…stalking someone?” he asks when Derek doesn’t offer up a response. He cocks his head to the side, squinting, “Are you stalking me?”

Derek flares his nose as he huffs, glare hardening, and Stiles’ other eyebrow joins the first as he takes a sip of his rum and ginger.

“Do you even know what kind of creatures are here?”

Hot to Frot by LadyDrace

(1/1 I 1,214 I Explicit)

Derek is very hot for Stiles' bod, and no one is complaining.

Losing Control by StaciNadia

(1/1 I 2,932 I General)

Derek wasn't expecting to lose control during the three consecutive supermoons and start courting Stiles.

Scent Marking For Dummies by Hatteress (goddammitstacey)

(1/1 I 8,824 I Teen)

Stiles is almost used to being chased around the school by werewolves at this point. Having to share a bed with Derek freaking Hale, on the other hand, is just needlessly complicating his life.

A Little Too Much Stiles? by Erin1324

(12/? I 13,489 I Not Rated)

Derek becomes feral and is super protective over Stiles. He won't let anyone come near either of them, Scott's learned his lesson once. Stiles doesn't know how to feel about any of this, especially when Derek starts scent marking him..

Don't Feed the Wolves by Amazonia_8

(8/8 I 30,329 I Explicit)

Stiles took the dare, because what else was he supposed to do when the whole lacrosse team was chanting his name? Even though the werewolf pack had left Beacon Hills years ago, nobody was stupid enough to set foot on the Hale property.

Except, apparently, Stiles.

Now he's got a feral werewolf following him around town with the sole purpose of claiming Stiles as his own.

[Hilary Duff Lyric Redacted] by calrissian18

(1/1 I 40,096 I Explicit)

Stiles hadn’t been in Beacon Hills in five years, hadn’t seen Derek in nearly as long, when he got the text:

New number: (+530) 365-2421

or

An abundance of overeating and geekery, dangerous caffeine/sugar cereal addictions, surprise werewolves, bird insults, purple-eyed shrimp, reincarnated serial killers (it's cool, he has a leash), poorly played professional baseball, and a love story. In that order.

Baseball Bats and Sour Wolves by Erin1324

(54/? I 67,233 I Teen)

Derek is cursed with some sort of spell, and for some reason only responds to Stiles as a result. He tries to attack everyone else, even his Alpha, he's also acting super overprotective of Stiles, hardly letting anyone get close to him.