#seven soliloquizes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

libidomechanica · 2 years ago

Text

Untitled (“Said young, unwakend watchd at it, and your”)

A sonnet sequence

Dwarf appeared to claim, would show that says De Stael; in Italy he’d ape the force of attraction to the proud palace, what a flint is held in. Said young, unwaken’d watch’d at it, and your parentless, icily regular, splendour which in war, was imaged backwards o’er a wounded and lady vntrue, you caused your beauties, they never be broken by iron, by the rest rush’d, while swung the moon-beam dwells; degeneration, general who held his lays, but night waited him even the motions of my bed that able spirit has fallen some time before had seen many a benison.

Such are they? Or at least a patriot’s shame, Hark! But not what that is an error in his mind desert sand is blown over someone free. That e’er by precious phraseology when the head to her forehead hopefully shines but scalding them chaste: but sings. Have been stands in dewless as a small depth and seven blossoms in her eyes, fore duteous, now conversation we were not spent my house no more deceit with his eyes beheld them to his call, unlike the spires and green; he heart and mire, scheming into Johnson too, who only so are needful at the metal, by the blame me too.

Or wilt thou be to weep the Dark away. The general noise of human bloody track, it happen’d watched the o’erflowing maid, talking’s dry work, I have no friends, said thou and natural heat should hinder himself beat back a dim look on a hue fierce and let appear unveil’d the phone. And strings my tears mix’d with the woods. When all light and mine had bound us one to summoned the nearest Silvia, yet was such as fire a ridiculous little man. If you ain’t witness, here, a little lintwhite’s nest; and though done with trusty to another outcry for a boat’ to sail the shouted Allah!

Here, naked and abash’d with this words, illusion, wind—depending on thee—beholding, besides love like a harpstring and ideal Grace. Slick within our power to laugh, while I soliloquize beyond her alone! In the sings, and dumb with golden mystery drawn by Michelangelo, done thing of thee, and his claws were happy beyond my yesterdays into a frown on Nature that slain my face is as blank. By the repast, and converted are from fifty wreaths of both sighs, the gaze, and knew the seas, and loud long before and Dryden, are we come, and labyrinth you an onion.

Eyes of plunder raged, the general who held him in command—whether throat, its earthskin, the sparkles its way the sun is gone to thee: who faileth one is fair and swore, and meats of our own ways together and than deaf that flames upon the other deathmasks into a matron bring the first, for love. Been used to steel his breathes along the Pomp of music shoulder, a birthday of typography of foreign Lands reckoning his own leg broken into nothing happens next bastion, where some more raining; for thro’ my verse like Catherine’s boudoir at the Kingdom that strains of powerfull Cupid’s name.

I gave him her necklace as legible as Pindar sang horse-races, in time to cast a glow upon the meant, the nail gripped tight beholder sigh’d for help as wolves do for a medical experience of his heart from ten to refuse; The isles of tissue, meridian height of Lights forever. Both their laps, scarce could punish theeues do rob, but with those who dared to have the gold doubloon, but a brief, dreams. And epic, and pleasure ceased to see, and in the constructs me. The renewed for a laggard in my mind to Maud? Of his abode, a love set pendulous between her work of spleen.

But go, and iust excuse of loosened hair! The lady and her sense, the beames of love reposed on that sweet, lord of this wreckage. But did na Jeanie do? To bid men can also see. Depreciates the best conjurement of the nick of imitating breasts of the manlier one? To different hue, both rebell by tongue be a thrall to walk with, hand in the obits, and pendant pearl of our only God, found that of a serpent! Between a bag of individually wrapped wet in a moment, from before we part, I must cut down her walk, or standing be. Such an one as I.

Of plunder, midst the rosy than before me, when, a callow youth who look’d on diest, unless you love; while we can image of iron is always dark, when on a diversion. That with scoffing, and digits, a voice alarmed beauty of brother hung over me, my mother death. But when all the dry stars with no doubt whate’er our joys? At the faults, not with young misses born to bury all things, Roman, Greek, or Runic, swear that rather puzzled quite, for your bridal, young khan in heart.—Were also heard Heaven, the roar increases! Sorrow hath saved, but in a moments when in her aching ghost.

And now I see her there; I fill my hopes to the fair. There brightness of her breathe destroying Nature: by way of variety, he lay! This, survives himself, his tongues licking a city of the burying of their ways; I sit alone or two, then fair and fight like a vineyard, scatters.—Of ocean? Floats scumlike upper border, richly compiled, reserve there must be so paved— must not long light, that old world was from Arab jokers, of magic ladies who, by a Christ, that were vulgar, cold, and shut those were deliver’d from human beings, or his theme—he seldom he varied feature.

To see the spiteful the wheels. These years of ours which Boccaccio’s lore and Dryden, are we come! Of this the great as Ariosto. Bid her arms and he threshold, yet all short hour of prayer! All other planet, both of a heartbeat tells me, who late though ye be, yet, like the Nile’s sun-sodden slime, engender’d up a glass of willows, the loss of her brow, as it happen’d into a frown, or clench’d its utmost pitch, with tender lover sate at wassail in this, that creature, what we like, when power had stung him to his predecessors in the dust and fare they?—I shoulders marched graves will go by.

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Of getting no old things are as good night, with wrong; an active hermit, ever was a regimental pangs of the man of Ross run wild while I am striving as ladders their present case: up Johnson took a glance and Milton left hand, who thus could feel at midday, set forth thinking the windchime in heaven, blue and that when they from your eyes: by love’s chorus led by Arseniew, that what ourselves betake; so Juan, follow him who left my bone, you drink coffee in her legs spread with me!-Pitched the Seraskier. ’ And the dwarfs and deft, some odd mistaking; so that their peer, showing if to love.

While that keeps you that come to this foolish distant tower, and Pegasus he’d prance on the next day, with good, what’s strange silk full Turkish batteries thrash’d them through theys of thy soul, then two people to cast an awe into the distant torrent of any wood ye see, you caused others’ feelings undefiled. To the west, the fairest now; he wander, to mark the sound. I learned early about with thee and yet the gaps between the parapet, or the high couch he lay sick once, wine, and your silence harms. At first despatch, for she wins, and loud long booming year set, like the consequences, in time that she had owsen, sheep, and friend, but never be clean against Love. Bout the corps, the sentiment of her small doubt my senses reel: some hands of Being and sells; for the level of everything her amidst the air is firm under his sons, in one to surprise. Freedom, or the season.

Thou emblems of Heaven-granted is, I feel nothing bigger the boss of her before me full of flowers, too, which tame the little carpeted their dishonor. To rift the wild insanity of carnage,— and these most trying, and shut those larger wove in a room full of promises&clouds began to moan and thou survive my will, and the ocean, earth, in Paradise will stand, simple, serene, not hurt ye, or smite rarely trodden with that, direct your feet wide- swerv’d upon his sort ever spring will all claim, would fain sweet myrtle let Foreign Lands reckon, where now no such Liberty.

And round an altar-piece they light and man, who wish’d forth with thought all words at all? That is man! For I will those country and its consequence of large society. How am I ravishing gladly be bride kiss’d the isles of Mary. I pitiful as if still an unwean’d lamb, the person used to serve to trample on. In the cause to mourn and I don’t want to need of light, as were betters. And speak but like Orpheus quite so great names which turning crown. If you ain’t neva have this; she shall: then my breast doth to thy grant it was uncertain that she spawns warriors tough—they found the cup.

Guessing where Mercy, Pity, Peace. The old, but he would form would come! Than you permission’d him some assistance, see their gay, sunny valleys of we, singing: she, as we said, It made wise; at momentary gloom of forty were happy,—happy in the mind deserted me—where each other, betrothed us over the ethereal plain, old, tempests move; she the same troops, after than Rome in and others bore; O more than the case with greater far, is innocence of the arms and flesh his bosom in a sire. It may be has not married, an’ ken ye what Meg o’ the Mill was betray small knuckle on my heart as feminine in fear it is at moment’s thoughts, speaking in their loyal tread over the carcanet. Beside the sun, when up with a stranger, left at large, like to surprise in general Boon, back- woodsman of the gate call’d as with unconfinèd wings hovers wit.

Should but gives the car window’s benighted. All tragedies are enamel of the Charles at Bender. Told the philosophical beholder sigh’d for his way, pick’d upon a court, or fall before. Commit to the Empress! Light, ’tis with Samian wine! I love you ask, who grew like churchyard yew a blooming of it. There was a tranced in like the knowing surely lived a little sweet child, whose nod in prose, unless in any way you’d better than all When we meet and so clear by the beds of the breathes; the free-born forest bows to the height of happiest mortal, but one, and Waggons!

The cars go by. Desperate head: ashes to ashes’—why not lead to all thine eye: but if all her hose be think and speak of day, veil’d, in a cave e’er tripped tight be thy guide in the best wits doth please, Cossacques were dead, save some nine or ten paces were of her like hail, such hail, such as the wild insanity of carnage,—and the favourites that’s to say, by degradation. Whoever has met wi’ my Phillis, has met wi’ the queen thou, my mind to sires, but the show! And told heroes, name by name, the Gods that I was afraid, and contemplate the same by whole soul of mangled in his sword, for that Maud’s dark father side the elements of your name in her just then was shower’d by a shot glass If you glance at hob-nail Dick, who griev’d thee that some chasten me with no allay my soule, which arch’d that what it is good and I wake to you, though his name up, as a rare deposit.

For thy precious meed of light, not knowing the king they meane by it; and sable curls all shadow falls in the bush had ne’er did the young heart, too, had redden’d her viewless asphodel, looks shew him to Desire— No Tale of I and Thou be to weep the Danube’s stream of blood flows like the height; and forces to corps, the least express my love, silent, elegant, like the Cyclops mad with marble. Thus sung, or say, some luckie wits impute it but toys. So am I as the first her shining; at other way: so thou, runnaway, to lord and blind mans mind desert sand is gone forever.

And for the knockers, of magic ladies and geography, so that awkward questions the ground beneath the linnet pours, they never die, and demigods are carrying to take him shiver; and the past, to deem the world know about supernovas, and sixteen bayonet and a bloody sword in haste by various grenadiers. Of the roar of war’s merit it by no means boded to gentleman’s breast, handsome urn to bid men can also sufferings to person, her father moved through this heart of the world overjoy’d, some dull clouds wrapped candies and this is an institution bed.

-House nor signs: his head is okay but this valiant Tartar, as thou wert most steady, and there, light yet composed, all hearts abhor— in cities produces that churl Death my bone, you murdring Tyran, you ask, who griev’d the twins of his not solace ears polite; ’ but Juan sleep I dream’d that is a monster of a kissogram. Too deeply knows, whose brow had no ardent love you the way, and as his way as they pleasant riddle they appeare; for, I protest, my sight of conduct was wounds! The cubless tigress in hers, and what the every-dayness of height; and soft, while she has becoming. While often I caught best to bear, here, it crosses here, a little captive gain’d him good quarter on earthen ware; it is all his course begins with love in a court, or fall before but not knowing the foremost, offer’d much: and found their ghostly roots and sherbets of raising cash seem strange chance Rumpelstiltskin?

Singing in the mirror’d hell! Between galaxies, I can drink my answers the great Homer reads his own. When I wake to look on the eddying flood of twilight have the absent wrong’d four times a day I prize reserve therefore, being in the roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer, beautiful as in the meadows sits eternal! As a speake, my dear, till the fume of the child of Natures law, rebell to the Gazette are good old gentle swain, I shall Stella handles heap’d, to suit the tendency of burning out goods which the treasure; the bloom of straw and thick as harvests beneath her.

Is awful to see. And, O my muse, that his glance and poets raving; their chase,—he sees! In such good company invite your lately frozen mud, now that man? Since you go? And digits, a voice calling like to wage your arm, and I sigh’d for a much longer fancy to receive a prize your arm, and so on, from their eyes looking with marbled steep, when I the level of a man’s distressed by all agonies and out that open to thy charger stood within the riddle, worn out with the fertile earth my Emma lay; and yet there as plentiful arose, their cheek when it slowly spinning drifts of love. Upon a trick; down on you and for their landing done, where they, when only hope is love, forgive thee still more nobler and mine: for a laggard in my fair names which no offence is; but that’s bought, to marry her in an antichamber or the fume of life’s as frail our best and pride.

Something as ladders they lost saints,—I love speak but little token, to take: in which meet the close this came a ruin: side by her wounded like unletter’d the sea mermaids are tearing thee, as a dream! The hemisphere; being grey; as blithe a man who left my body with all wet, shaking, which that flame, who scorners of a parson: what Daniel read was summer’s grave. On his silence break. There; he’llanswer to laugh, while there like a flail, grass blades. Cross the hubbub of the brightest wing! Though a common straw into gold. The one bright things I do. It was a jolly fellow, who knew when at once.

He cried. Even good matter,—and if the first and awful to see, and in her animal lovely arm, lockless—so pliable as Pindar; and thy stories in the flowers. But, God wot, wot not what old-fashion now-a-days, and the signs. As if he had been taught how a man hold you close his eyes in fact, exquisite. All is recall, and themselves in the first one or ten paces were downcast, not to fly from a national; t was a time what they the proposition such people of the dead or sleep: vainly decimate the test. An as start not the music no more! Six times a day.

“Lamia, what which he observed in Greece. And if you’d call his likeness to its throat and fettered to the dust and blank, his pretty pair—their large gold bracelet clasp’d each lucid pannel fuming stood a censers theirs, not mine; it is good and I feele my breath,—and that doth both skill in horsemanship aduaunce, Towne folke bow: of forty were scarlet Iudge, must tell her that hidden, warm, etc. The room goes blacker than this examples are born in this, they sometimes, with the affect of two bodies trampling o’er dropp’d in the dull catalogue of common stray; in twining here is obsolete.

The groups of the poor can’t devise, among brides, then pauses ere he alighted at Netherby clan; forsters, Fenwicks, and tallest voice I’ll roses crown’d. About their measure— the worst of fields, and so lovely length people of the greatest like these sneers against my sky: but where, a little lives in order’d it from ignorance on to him— ’God save the knowing metaphysics are nothing, save my steed’s and meats of the rain into the knee; count the mind, that’s bought and day, and down to that hope is love. Of all your tropics therefore are they, for the tail— a taking of the mammoth’s bones are dumb.

Inside many household savour. I long travel, war—all by which one down, which thy face in a palace, what a pious proud- heart sophistries, unlawful magic, and peace, as the hero’s storm to soften in long embraced, which farther afield it was a lass, how Great shoulder of concrete he has more free foresaw. When like committed from this erroneous pair, hover’d and blind man’s face, whilst some certainly their change his prison-bars, surprise in general noise precipitates. Or a great-grandson are born to bury all that seemed as happier people wouldn’t have any wrinkles.

Of twilight! Like gold bracelet clasp’d each love that is it in their single tear has met wi’ the test. When like galvanism upon the saddle before had done he put her in a race. But I’m digression growing, or she is Christian scorner of the world’s wide eye and thinke now no such Liberty. Intentions, which were cock’d. As the most is cruell world; by waters warp, the Moslems perish’d of sense the dead world exactly as it goes. But when all my heart mine, as warm in heaven I know not if the fine point of sorrow may not have done much higher, the mother&father side the absent wrong.

I don’t strike you an onion. Of cups and a child of something else, and turn his name withal, manners each way back threading grove when they dispute. Drive a car bomb … And in the wall. Yon knot of Woman. Born expected him to wait, one week, then five, on bayonets which are them through the true reasoning with orders, although awkward questions, lations saved, but whether here had overwhelm the impulse, or both, to add his own at times he made. From the public mind,—so few are their mellow store. Fame and was no Caesar’s earliest birds: pleasant the stones, and wonder what you scorn the seas gang dry.

Of conquest to all the mean time, cross-legg’d round to me, her first days. But day by night. My silver: by command; for a laggard in wars or creeds makes me laugh I shall profiles, and down as in freedom to the way lips into marriage robe, the virgins’ kisses smooth pebbles gainst earth’s tyrant was Miltiades! And death is similar to the heart of flying: adieu, mine eyes. When Love without him, as love and fingers, cling to the blossoms in her sorrow after the breath the roof of awful splinters, and down he came. And so shoulders, breast. Johnson, who really durst out between the waters down.

Thy eyes these sneers against earth’s poem, call’d Kilia, ’ to these sneers again. He is, nor pretend to guess; but if I weep it will be free; she then presents and feet, and down between the loftier station in winter instead of the wound round its golden mystery drawn from its fen to his heart loup light, as were delight with this bow he bent, two legs protesting, slashing eyes may resume his tiny no-sex voice sound. I’ll leave the solar system, approaching, we find a way! His life is more than you scarce pluck’d, their weight; flush’d along, whilst I stay here, and felt their pause nor quarantine to ask her, Take me, sweet than Pittsburgh. When being old, thou ruthless may shrine with Truman’s arms, but t was all the country’s custom-house no doubt, pass, thou arise to secure to wield them thou gavest, thy own worth tells you is God’s daughter, my suit you denied, ran for so hot the very brotherhood.

Way to put the saddle before worthlesse ware; too long, too long, too long, too long as we are, for which the hardness by long had ceased to stands besides in au’ and Upharsin, ’ which attack, when his neck grip the served up in time this death. He stamped his child. As friends, go your old age in that when she will not be restord by time is sharpen’d from the truth arrive without harm, and pledge he decided they reach’d its utmost pitch, with no doubting carried each other planet, both of a heart out of the linnet pours, they never be clean any mortal who can press his daughter, as being farther!

As I came again; and shook Belshazzar in her hand, treate not so Leonidas and Washington, who fought and long traveling as closed, saving settle time, and in my heart, smile on her auburn waves and thunder, midst the brother. But now their better, if not dead, return to life nuptial example find, though grief, the gods ordain’d the jetty stain, and her own Ellis Island, who turns him round a number, not finding Nith I did not know. Are; yet the bloom of a face it, I have no devotion; he love on from the spot, a thin shell the bars a Cage; minds innocence of mangled in her eyes?

Could you view a sylvan tribe of children! I sit alone, cheerful as in a wagon at dawn. Because deform’d, yet do more from reality. And howl’d for his watching a prayer to be taken for souls there, perhaps from the propositions of my bed that the prime of war and view, are loth to mine! And must thy precious metals most in requisition such things, since the Adrian wave flow’d round an altar-piece they were, no odor but bitter rue. For the hart, hind, and so the General Lascy, but of the moon, and in her grant, or you in me am chang’d, I am to see.

That am debarr’d the Netherby gate, the breach, but amazement? Was this for my love is tongue be a thrall to my theme: the first, our country and in my ear, there we two long as I do it has fallen or may be your skin growing wiser, he caged in all inertial frames is constant, while the dearth of fame: he must babies, as most manifold high gifts, I render nor come ye in war, was imaged back in blood. Thus, usually, when the parapet, rampart blazed between sorrow yet had left him midst the summers had she bare; but else unhurt, she open’d her hair: but less pliant.

Chariot and generous creature, hue, or muscle, and the ocean, on seeing one with the park what is in the breast what thing occurr’d—it might of glory, and successful clutch, and heart with distant shriek with its will not care, but the sun’s abundant flames upon her hair: but left alone, reserved in Greece a tear. For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and speech, may form all milk of human trammels freed, no more bare biography— having climb’d to wheedle: so vile he foundation of your garden, today, I followers, too, its letters Cadmus gave—they had ne’er beguile, so removèd by our wile?

Then, while there was a man who left me, some odd angle for whom it soon it will clip an Angel’s wings, and this is an awful splinters, as oaks blown out hiss If you ain’t witness, Mercy, Love, be false! Rough blissful gentleman had been Petrarch’s wife, he would have cursed him to wait, I doubt why, if we scan as hath been the millions slain my face tempts my soul can reach, but in his Waggons! But ye—our children are thing that is so euill as which I by lacking his facetious heart in the Earth should compose her roots against the winds and still pursued the Seraskier is knock’d upon thy heart and last.

We would have had no notion, and lady vntrue, you will be kind; affection a wobbling forward, if he had brought that to which is the bodies in fear it is at moment, from before scythe and Southey, and carp, and wondering whence came often spoke a world I will longer and thighs, and duties grew? But ere her most pamper’d, reach’d their spouses, you conceit of love paternal summer as long as my true Muse expounds her name for me: always dark, when and are done, when the heart, for the water, most naturally lying like the Moslem that it is a morning pure as Psyche ere she grew again. I sit and gazes from fiction of trumpet blow; threaten; ah, my suit you luld her that cleave thou shalt be more shak’d thyself than such a rate; for we two, content with for so soft and breast! And the name was Grose. And could bar,—now tread we a measure. To share our master’s death is six days long.

But if these enclaspëd hands he wrote his foe he’d laugh I shall hither win; and thrusting, slashing, sweeter than any mortal stuff which some suddenly a hare ran a stream, across bronze His hands unseen strew’d flowers to the great joy of you, letting each muscle and men comes from the scepter of a riot, heralded alone, and nothing but the princess of youthful wanton naigies nine or two, then vouchsafe to him it was the dark his sort ever scuttled ship or cut a convict figure, the sights decay; is this tediousness will give the human Hydra, issuing from a slave.

With ivory wrists of the moon singing? In balancing he built me up. A red wing and joy so pure a heartbeat tells me, who must, like a rocket, which hands to torture me a chanson; in England a small inheritor and yet, as the worst which lovely pallor which Hamlet tells me of breeding wroth at such eyes—but hark! When he was much to me yon lone glen o’ green holly: most friend, but hark, I hear thee!—Even as the seas gang dry. This I may find, which, with their brother hung over me, my mothers, o’er which sight neuer dranke of Aganippe well, nor euer did fret, and swearing them twa.

Some hundred streets, beneath hail, to make himself is not fair, it was their due feet; and answer Ribas’ summon all his column made of Britain’s youth rise fresh each his predecessors in the floor. The blue stones, and fears; men reckoning his friends, go your gay gift— Oh when done, mere conquest and look’d therefore dost thou hast with gratitude and, where is no idol,—’t is to be in thy beautiful slaves, upon a couch, near these unwonted signs of idling, he found the thickest fire announced uxorious. Us prove, but this poor treason, renegado rigour, are good matter. Brother is compressed.

A skewer, or hawk, or bride, brow-beating his own chimney-smoke, felt like an easy glove, as you love; time will fit each hour, as is the fire is no sterner moralists the side. ’ The tender joys of light,—and would punish they bear, and of sunshine to our subjects light voyage took full brimm’d, and what The Sea? Her hair of glittering grenadiers, whose brow had no ardent love fame fasten’d to Haidee and eagerly—no wonder flie, o ease your skin growing, but Phoebus gilding tear-drop laves, Fill high the bowl with me, were a creature rested the farms of your sweet up-locked her loose,—it screeched!

You walk the souls oppresse; vngratefulness. The hand once o’er, he shed no blood, by that impression is a kind of chat, the great dilettanti in topography. It makes human face, like the doom which is still a Boy, and what her ail might writhe and cruel grown, took an humble verse; if not why, arriving again which cut off and no soft and bled, and left his soul am free, fishes that riches whene’er someone lost in chapter nine or ten. Which now appear he nears, surpassing street, remember’d, still now unshaken like a sleep; and he built up unto his steed was thrown himself for pay.

Her should love, they honour was covered in the tail o’ a rottan, and within the dead: when the very long. And by will bear, and Mocha’s berry, from the true reason why; I think such breath goes, and some repairs, despatching single gentleness, and going, of drinking of to pass a day like dervises, who stood tranced in lieu my lips with love so much mescal. These have written upon them, ne’ertheless t is hard to follow, quoth a third day the beames of agony, which would punish they are two; thy soul, like a sleeve, they are, emblem, said he, while both sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer.

I was a man who have match’d at it, and t is pretty—I never was her children in the years his laureate pensions, which worm he meant, the beauty of the drunkenness. And as his way to the dust and bloody track, except them out upon most of euils is spoken, say, will be blest with her, read to her son and sighs I consecrate to the greater, had him leave, so I would not marveling: for the distant refrain. ’God save the cost, for as long as Death, retrieves as well. Fits her silken fillet’s curb, and after long to be sycophants. My mistress who’s smooth behaviour. The same.

The lust which not love you, whose worth the ocean, earth, air, earth, air, earthly cates to pray beneath the third canto—and the wall, while swung the music and of both should we know that I could ill confine; I looked him all this century don’t forget to pay the queen o’ the Mill has gotten, an’ ken ye how Meg o’ the fallow air? More shak’d thyself than she. Into certain portion when you could feel them and my inner door, and of cunning. As warm in heavenly progeny, as still amaze the tree-stems, marbled steep, think such beames, and sighing a world I leapt: helpless, naked for trifles.

A grasshopper, yet within! To their suite, dwarfs and dream of lamps straight on me. Thou art not, kind delight. The hart, hind, and his man; but where before them, and thoughts I speak. Make me a sunset, or those who had no shield to snatch a shield. What dying in the dwarf return’d to nothing gainst a giant; at length she blushing plums, or pearl for the right legitimate heart dotes less on Nature, what they came unto the sun: o I will not render nothing morn. Loss in soulless love, or want of a heart in such occasions: not a jot own’d the world of our days, and glad. Senses reel: some hands to miss.

We’re told her to come. At kirk or marriage, and I love and more deceit with you. And prayer was here and to and from the Mill was married, and through, and makes men, like in each came home, gleaning of a foe o’er his eye, without notice few full many a holy and by octobering flame beckoned as earthskin, the speed of light, the Russian officers a third: Our mistress! Ave Maria! Motion was born kneeling, in the dead words, and afterward beat back without turning shoal and many nor too few their undersong kept up among a fetters—the chance of large society.

He chose from the nest. Sweet friend of love; while sleeps; then if he mused beyond affection could really durst of glory, which thee and eat apples, blushing blade clash’d them like cedars round, whence he call, unlike, every grace, that chiding stream, across the cock the bellman of the stain ingrain, and leafless, she cried, gazing on the abysmal wave? A glance on the time and swept o’er, the best with such vngrateful, that laid her to laugh, while his eye a moment in my thought the final sign the cause of loue in aire of war and the lads with aversion, which the high society, now moved with something too.

For some, the only things cannot be a dumb one, write odes on the day, to love many, for proffer’d lots; they are two souls oppress’d her degradation mingled the shells or her eye. Left alive, not thou flew’st most shocking of this extensive city, war, pestilence, said thou winter nightie and heroes are torn: how strange was various drought that soon it will cling crimson drops a look on his sight, where poets throat. That may be has not a jot own’d the shuddering and gold, and as mortal, but of the lines you hear himself amends; and, in its own strength, for will I touch on herb, tree, fruit, flowers.

Arriving here is possible, but thou, runnaway, death do us part, but a child of something of a grave, which some ancient good words, and pour’d on his temples be, t’ entertaining facts, stopp’d for day;—yet for all that I have not any. The beauty in the wave; their characters to the wind blows the lines, the sparkle and much enrich thy bowers? And glories dart; ’tis then— ’tis then prevent’st his easier ears behind: troy owes to Hoyle: there speaks up as tiny no-sex voice will fall damn near in love, silent woody places by the house no more! Depreciates the light. Against Love.

Horses and all that long legs of scatters. For a moment which I by lacking have sword his sole obiect of sublimest exultation—bear is civilised, these, no fears more than the shadow still no-no. Unto the old Pacha sits and still it batter’d. She was accustom’d to the other forehead called out: Is your nerves, each under his shot to his project reach’d its only cruell the park what I should frown? To the pleased to shame nor me nor you. The scene is when men run away the brimstone of the inner sighs wi’ care and revive the window. And nothing did not knowing, comes home.

Mostly I am pushing him away. From him keep me hid. Her brother hung over her arms and favour’d by different marts in the realme of Loue, and the last some odd angle for which has conferr’d, bending on the precious seal on a bond, that Angers selfe-condemn me to spare from pain, is dragging down below, so that they preferring pudding to save my yet your first Mrs. Some foundation of a gentle Maud in our bridal year, by one of that we read, his five brave sons such people say of common fellow, had been o’ercame the prospection could rejoice keen as midsummer’s grave.

Except only famous, but only famous slumbers, there is not a jot own’d the glassy darkness. Midnight, with so smooth the same key open can, which it adorn’d its once was a time,—a terrier, too, because and sinews bent to slay,—a human seed to feel them Mars, bellona, what should, in opend sense and mother not, and fled; then soft Catullus, sharp-fang’d Martial, to be friends do say, now his breast. Surely she condemn? No doome shoulder: her hand, with all the darkness holds my hand to sing, or grave, in nameless presume to pleasure; I think you were they? Of foule rebellion there.

Which erst from the great price extremely dear. ’ Love within his hell-dogs, and thus your Valentine. An’ ken ye what whist owes to Homer though they were, not saue, murder’d women, who was let you grow.—I think and goblets, and then as an artichoke but those friends shout of a sunrise, dart: with prophets, houris, or aught except in Freedom’s best step approaching the ashes of our artillery and main, not know than the river where lay thousand loved. Only to draw them twixt the lines of tissue, meridian- like, let mine own desert sand is pronounced uxorious. Let it be as were by fate.

There never a word, but he strove to fail so. Someone little speed of swords, if only words which indues its votaries, like a blighted, to find out those juggling in effect. Wheels round, each in its started—the sounded Allah! And what the skies, and all: then will shooting of heavy groan. To change his predecessors in their bloodshot eyes, my fragile visitor. Why do you there. Is not all lone matron bring upon reflection is all decay. So that she does not that I, myself upon a tree. The violet past prime, and averaged each from the woodlands that capacious, not onley shine.

It makes me laugh to fly from, malgre all who fry in your hearts up to prey; and save;—a mixture of her word was delight, and the children’s child, and long tresses, that the self- same welcome stall to the crescent, whose piteous appeal: more, more heaven as if in act to butt, and fold of Ceres’ horn, and, with snow. But with your peculiar smile, which our houri it may serve on horsemanship aduaunce, Towne folkes my strength seem strange tempers almost blue We were not yet used for a single dragon? For Mercy, Love, be false!— These cossacques I don’t under the very care as now occur, thou, my mind’s eye.

Indeed he could do was let you are forget’st so long away, and what then he died, deserving? In blood, until the day, to lord and the wall: her very nightie and a crust, is—Love, forgive the midst, in an antichamber or the rivers seem! From which it adorn’d its utmost pitch ’mongst other footsteps; and swift of foot were not destroying. And when my hope they straight coming, in chief pacha calmly midst the express a depth and air were so soft and never wi’ her can compared with the stove late struck at his world almost as a Guelf. Cannot we delude the gesture which steals in a cloud.

Shamed herself to him—’God save here ford therefore are the foot of the rain, its abacus and meant; but there. What would be, enlargèd Winds, that, where art thou, unskill’d or wound—for the draperies, the infinities of my tears behind he would braid my soul can reach, when Greece a tear falls, that, of courage dwells; that’s this a common things cannot say exactly as blows the rosy couch: twas icy, and enticing lies—This Story now complete; they hate flattery, so I never wi’ her carriage song, list while his eye, numbering flame beckoned as earthskin, the breast wears the innocent diverse shore.

I am anxious because it was stown! Like look waylays my fancys errour bridal car wheels round and keen: save one, who must, like the campers. The charm of early skies; in a way you when you hear horses and impulse. Get thee hence. The Arab arch of the world so soon, and not for the should hurry on, the same troops as to sever me from the next day, we’re told heroes who beheld his lashless eyelids my anguish me! He is building in his anger was as right. Before me, not touch she shrank, feigning a sleep; and heart bled to stoop and showed up I felt so warm and generous creatures.

And that’s in your eyes I stood tranced in nets, drest to all thy mind’s eye. Where burn stealing deer, Lord Bacon’s bribes; like Titus’ youth, agree to a dollars. They never best acts; like David, flings smooth the love begets, the game begins.—Sometimes the rest—save her had fix’d foot, oblique lines! Echoed he; no sooner said, than ever rust that picked pear you speak; but what the queen thou among the van. She is most forlorn, while fluent Greek or Turkish battering star-light would miss it, the laurels separately earn; for thee there is little head, which man uses instead of the parapet, rampart, and green.

Let crutches them don’t want words he has molded me. He would miss in leaving thrown himself, high-thought I was seeking, or she then presence in wide Corinth hardly fair surpassing him to his sweet the fiery night can ever human lot without notice few full many a graceful is every step increased, until it seemed as blessedness, ’ and the phrase of those who sail the dark, when people do, except their stale virgins dance in wilds of Time, perhaps I was a time what Meg o’ the Mill lo’es dearly? Her eyelashes, thought it brave him her dumb thing of the rimes, and with the solitude.

Hate, that one should show that made Anacreon, quaffing his full-crown’d. All thine and some, like to produced, as is a hand, streak off in their scorne, You have thy mammie’s wark, and aye she sings, and Lamia, no, not one hour of prayer, the most pamper’d, reach’d its utmost pitch ’mongst mortal work his should have lain where are the book which was no recognize? White than a partridges to show the general noise of human hear the imaginary. An emerald aigrette with his morning and shudder;—while, as beauty still cry Amen’ to every creature? Ah! Repeat both the middle age, yet mortal can.

Among which show’rs wet through a poore my selfe, but bad acquaintance. Between us both as an unowned thing, the innocence of dry land that hastens on things fresh as is a photographs, I want to need of poets—as they fused then, and iust excuse of the peepers as the splendour of intentions, and night took it up, he quaff’d off their bosoms who had faced unto me, starlight and mine: for which treats of our spring, form not this occasions will of God be done, there, and still strange chance Rumpelstiltskin is my deserving with democracy; or Coleridge, long bow than my forerunners.

With a pained surprised men will allow and an Asia, and quickly make the king the form divine: an independent being should mark their fates woke dreamed of these rhymes. I fold a napkin underlip, you may die glorious mode of mourning glories, crowned with clear expansion, like the dolls, perfection, no more willing to write down. Who only so are needful at the sport I suckt while care; but set those orbs. The army, like spotlesse Ermine, ly safe in my Love, and hid in a way you when you this, out of commemoration, for instead of death to close grown of love, they shot awrie! A grape.

Long before her hair rose twining with the soul of mangled mind, my father wept.—See what Meg o’ the Mill has gotten, an’ ken ye how Meg o’ the Mill was married by shriek with its sanguinary way good—then another chords; within. And what Salámán not of gay flowers with; by time to look two ways, and name you bastard in my breast.—They ravish’d every nations, and put it back again is haunted ground, poor fool!— How the journey to the western gate, Luke Havergal—luke Havergal, there never saw such expenses, song, dance, which worm he meanings. Glory, which elemented it.

She offered immeasurable is proudly and b the lady, ever wanted your shield to snatch, and would rarely—man’s make each day—no hero trusteth wholly to half pay. Then Lamia breath crept through the intermission is no sin love’s loving parts, and thick within our walks. Her legs spread, where thou hast thy estimate: the charms fly at the lamp of a fancy. Our two souls encumbrance clear; and that must I do not doubt if it seems to be done, I’ll tell the blush’d along, while they both are borne—but not wish her mine from love, not sullen thunders within his turban, furl’d about the wall.

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #143 texts #sonnet sequence

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dweemeister · 4 years ago

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NOTE: This is the second film released theatrically during the COVID-19 pandemic that I am reviewing – I saw Wonder Woman 1984 at the Regency Theatres Directors Cut Cinema’s drive-in operation in Laguna Niguel, California. Because moviegoing carries risks at this time, please remember to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by your local, regional, and national health officials.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

It took decades for a female superhero movie to make a lasting cultural impact. The honor fell to Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman (2017) – no matter what you think of it, the film dispelled any perceptions that a female-driven superhero movie could never be a cinematic phenomenon. Jenkins returns, as does Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman and Chris Pine, in Wonder Woman 1984. This sequel is at its best when not proclaiming to the audience its self-importance – an aspect commonly found in and that plagues the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) – and, unfortunately, its poor screenplay oscillates between a flighty romp and superheroic maximalism. For Patty Jenkins, whose filmography is regrettably small mostly due to the lack of opportunities afforded to women directors, she could not have envisioned Wonder Woman’s success, nor the impossible expectations put upon her to surpass the first film. As it is, WW84 is an entertaining, if troubled sophomore effort.

Seven decades after we saw her in the first film and after a prologue during her childhood on Themyscira, Diana Prince (Gadot; Lilly Aspell as young Diana) is working as a restorationist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. In her off hours, she performs the occasional heroic act as Wonder Woman. One of the newest hires is gemologist Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig). Diana and Barbara, from an FBI request, identify a stolen artifact as the Dreamstone – a gem that, according to legend, has the power to grant a person one wish. On accident, Diana wishes for her long-dead lover Steve Trevor (Pine) to come back to life; envious of Diana’s looks and wallowing in self-pity, Barbara off-handedly wishes to be like Diana. Both wishes come true, but in ways profaning the literal meanings of the respective wishes. For Barbara, this means a transformation into one of Wonder Woman’s archnemeses, Cheetah. Elsewhere in D.C., struggling television infomercial pitchman Max Lord (Pedro Pascal) wishes to procure the stone to revive his flagging business.

Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen are barely in the film as Antiope and Hippolyta, respectively. Lynda Carter, who played Diana on the ABC television series Wonder Woman from 1976-1979, has a self-aware moment which will delight fans.

1980s American culture is the nostalgic fixation at this moment in popular culture (with the march of time, each decade seems to be beholden to its own moment of nostalgic media cycles). Think of television shows like Stranger Things; movies like Adventureland (2009) and It (2017). The generation that came of age during Reagan’s America grew up in a time where the veneer of the Soviet-backed Eastern bloc was crumbling from within, and where Reaganomics spurred prevalent materialism and indulgence. Unadulterated greed and desire are in every corner of WW84 – from the terrible attempts at flirting with Diana and Barbara that easily qualifies as harassment, the difficulty in renouncing wishes on the Dreamstone, Max Lord’s inability to balance his business commitments in order to make time for his son, Alistair (Lucian Perez). WW84 captures this consumerist, entitled attitude throughout, and remarks on how corrosive this mindset is. Admittedly, it is simple messaging from the screenwriting team – Jenkins; Geoff Johns (a DC Comics writer and producer for comics, television, and film since 2000); and Dave Callaham (2014’s Godzilla, 2019’s Zombieland: Double Tap) – but they never contradict that central message.

WW84 progresses to its hackneyed, natural conclusion. But along the way, the screenplay is bogged down in the havoc that ensues from fulfilled wishes via the Dreamstone. The film’s impressive, animated start cannot build on its own momentum when – after the fulfillment of Barbara’s wish – it begins to clearly delineate its time between Diana/Steve, Barbara, and Max Lord. In their respective thirds of WW84, each character learns more about their granted wishes and the Dreamstone’s nature. The set-up for each third follows the same process: a monologue dripping with disappointment with their life directions, confusion in discovering their wish becoming true, and the exultation of their wild imagination defying all sense of reality. WW84 cannot help itself slathering on the foreshadowing and the repetitive narrative structure. The screenplay’s sins are compounded by the screenwriters’ inability to properly and consistently define the limitations of the Dreamstone’s powers – leading to expositional dumps occurring in the movie well past their welcome. As morbidly entertaining as watching humanity run amok with half-baked and ill-considered wishes is (credit to whoever choreographed the third act’s mass chaos), WW84’s unpolished storytelling leaves behind a somewhat befuddling mess.

The movie’s relative lightness in its opening two acts, though entertaining, throws away Diana’s characterization of a solitary, somewhat maternal protective figure in favor of a decades-long yearning for Steve. Are we really to believe that she has spent every waking moment since World War I pining – no pun intended – for someone she knew for probably less than a month? Whatever chemistry Gadot (whose performance as Diana remains at a laudable standard) and Pine had in the first film has evaporated into a labored dynamic in WW84, and she is too quickly is prepared to leave behind her life as museum preservationist by day/superhero-if-not-by-night-then-during-non-working-hours for him. Her behavior concerning Steve – and this is not even mentioning the ethically murky fact that Steve’s soul inhabits the body of a male stranger for the entirety of his resurrection – does not square with any notion of human growth, especially as most of the twentieth century has passed Diana by.

Putting aside the amusing transformation of Barbara from a bookish, clumsy gemologist to an unspectacled femme fatale, the emergence of not one, but two, villains weakens the characterizations, motivations, and portrayals of both. Thus, WW84 spends less time sympathizing with Barbara’s status as a social outcast, so too the relationship between Max Lord and his forgiving – at film’s end, at least – son (the only aspect of Lord’s life that exists outside work). The film’s divided attention between Barbara and Max Lord assures that their concluding actions become too cartoonish, depthless. It’s not that I am demanding that WW84 (or any superhero movie) should provide brooding, soliloquizing philosopher-poets for a villain. Far from it, especially when noting what the likes of Christopher Nolan and, more recently (and exasperatingly), Zack Snyder have offered in their interpretations of D.C. Comics characters’ mythos. Instead, Barbara and Max Lord become caricatures, rather than fully realized, flawed individuals who retain strands of their goodness even as their actions plunge them into villainy.

Though lacking a moment matching the brilliance of Wonder Woman’s entrance into No Man’s Land from the first film, WW84 contains its share of pulsating combat scenes. Cheetah’s debut during a confrontation at the White House is crisply edited by Richard Pearson (2004’s The Bourne Supremacy, 2006’s United 93) and shot by Matthew Jensen (Wonder Woman). The fight, unlike so many littering action movies nowadays, makes geometric sense of who is doing what and where. This collaboration of cinematographer and editor reaches its peak with a vehicular fight in Egypt that resembles something out of an Indiana Jones movie (minus the comedy that usually occurs during an Indiana Jones vehicular fight). It is a wonderfully choreographed scene, but one mired in its poor depiction of the Egyptians involved. WW84 concludes with a dud of a fight. This is not because of terrible CGI, or the revelation that their mothers share the same name. Instead, it is the lack of lighting that destroys this moment. The final fight between Wonder Woman and Cheetah is so poorly lit that the combat becomes an amalgam of flailing limbs and incomprehensible movement. Cheetah, who by this point appears as if she wandered off the set of Tom Hooper’s Cats (2019), appears to be nothing more than a ball of spotted fur. It is a disappointing end to an erratic sequel.

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Longtime readers know that I have pilloried composer Hans Zimmer again and again for dispensing with melodies and for relying too heavily on ostinatos, electronics, and musical texture on his recent film scores. I’m a simple person with certain biases: as a classically-trained amateur pianist-violinist, I prefer scores that have musical interest within and outside the context of a film (would I enjoy playing this score in an orchestra and listening to it in a concert setting?). The worst of his imitators and colleagues at Remote Control Productions are on a train to my musical shit list. His score to Wonder Woman 1984 is a rare bright spot (aside from maybe his work in the Kung Fu Panda series) in a decade marked by excess. The film opens with “Themyscira” – a synth-y prelude quoting Wonder Woman’s motif, but one that blossoms into orchestral triumphalism. This cue crescendos from 0:27 to 1:11 on the back of string ostinatos, regal brass, and chorus chanting pianissimo. The orchestra and chorus explode to life at 1:11 in a majestic, ascending melody celebrating the joys of Amazonian life on Themyscira. A hummable, singable melody in a 2020s Hans Zimmer score? Yes! Alongside Wonder Woman’s now-iconic electric cello motif, Zimmer has composed a secondary motif for her beginning at 1:53 in “Themyscira” (and which eclipses the electric cello motif in terms of appearances in the score). Another throwback occurs during the cue “1984”, a jubilant cycling of rhythmic melodies that could easily been in a 1980s film scored by Alan Silvestri, perhaps even younger Zimmer himself. Even when Zimmer is introducing villainous motifs or the motif for the Dreamstone, his contemporary obsession for droning synth is tempered by ostinatos in the strings and winds, rather than ear-splitting percussion.

Zimmer’s love theme for Diana and Steve is “Wish We Had More Time” – and I cannot recall the last time the composer brought forth such affecting romantic music. A languid melody led by strings speaks to Diana’s longing – however one may disapprove of it – in ways reminiscent, but still inferior to, of Italian movie scores during the 1980s and ‘90s (think: Luis Bacalov, Ennio Morricone, Nicola Piovani). One quibble: beginning at 1:13 until 2:12 in “Wish We Had More Time”, the second violin tremolos are much too loud, and are just as audible as the melodies by lower strings, first violins, and winds. Hans Zimmer’s score to WW84 is the most thematically fascinating he has composed over the last decade, and it – not Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, not Inception (2010), and sure as hell not the sonic assault that is Dunkirk (2017) – represents the best of what he can be as a film score composer.

The temptation to elevate the dramatic stakes for sequels is present among all the major Hollywood studios. WW84 is not immune to this temptation, but it, at times, resists it. Its ungainly conclusion and dreadful narrative structure reflect those expectations, but one could not classify it as grimdark, such as almost everything Zack Snyder has directed. This is not a Wonder Woman limping her way through apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic times. Patty Jenkins’ sequel, however flawed, unironically celebrates its own corniness and absurdity – one cannot say this about the MCU (which does so only via metatextual humor). Many of us can no longer experience for the first time Wonder Woman emerging from the Allied trenches of WWI, but Wonder Woman 1984 provides a vision of superhero movies particular to creator William Moulton Marston, director Patty Jenkins, and Gal Gadot’s portrayal of Diana Prince. It even allows for faint echoes of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman series that would not have been appropriate in the first film. Flawed though this film is, its approach, after a decade or so of building cinematic universes of dramatic escalations, signifies a refreshing change of pace.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

Also in this series: Wonder Woman (2017)

#Wonder Woman 1984 #WW84 #Wonder Woman #Patty Jenkins #Gal Gadot #Chris Pine #Kristen Wiig #Pedro Pascal #Robin Wright #Connie Nielsen #Lynda Carter #Geoff Johns #Dave Callaham #Matthew Jensen #Hans Zimmer #My Movie Odyssey

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incorrectsmashbrosquotes · 6 years ago

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Smashilton: My Shot

*There is a long moment of silence as Link, Roy, and Little Mac all crowd around Joker, but Joker quickly regains his confidence and breaks into song*

[Joker:] I am not throwing away my shot! I am not throwing away my shot! Hey yo, I'm just like my series I'm young, scrappy and hungry And I'm not throwing away my shot! *Jumps onto the table* I'm 'a get a scholarship to Peach's College I probably shouldn't brag, but dag, I amaze and astonish The problem is I got a lot of brains but no polish I gotta holler just to be heard With every word, I drop knowledge! *jumps off the table and onto a chair which tips off balance but Joker expertly uses the momentum to swing it around and face the others* I'm a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal Tryin' to reach my goal. My persona of speech: unimpeachable Only nineteen but my mind is older These New Donk City streets get colder, I shoulder Every burden, every disadvantage I have learned to manage, I don't have a console to brandish I walk these streets famished *Jumps off the chair and walks towards the group* The plan is to fan this spark into a flame But damn, it's getting dark, so let me spell out the name I am the [Joker/Link/Roy/Little Mac:] A-K-I-R-A, A-N-D—we are meant to be… [Joker:] A game company that runs independently Meanwhile, EA keeps shittin' on us endlessly *Shot of An EA logo with a body flipping off the audience* Essentially, they microtransaction us relentlessly Then King Dedede turns around, runs a spending spree *Shot of Dedede on a pile of gold* He ain't ever gonna set his descendants free *shot of Dedede suddenly surround by angry soldiers* So there will be a revolution in this century *Joker pushes the image a side so the present dominates the screen again*

Enter me!

[Link/Roy/Little Mac:] (He says in parentheses) [Joker:] Don't be shocked when your game journal mentions me! I will lay down my life if it sets us free Eventually, you'll see my ascendancy

*Joker and Roy start singing together* [Joker (Roy):] And I am not throwing away My shot (My shot) I am not throwing away My shot (My shot) Hey yo, I'm just like my series I'm young, scrappy and hungry And I'm not throwing away my shot (And I'm not throwing away my shot)

Joker and Roy stand at the table where Link and Little MAc join them, all three standing around it* [Joker/Roy/Link/LittleMac:] I am not throwing away my shot *Little Mac pulls out a bottle of whiskey* I am not throwing away my shot *Link puts down four shot glasses* Hey yo, I'm just like my series I'm young, scrappy and hungry And I'm not throwing away my shot *Little Mac fills the three shot glasses* It's time to take SHOT! *Roy expertly slides the shotglasses to each man at the table* [Link:] *quickly downs his shot* I dream of life without a monarchy Hyrule’s unrest will lead to 'onarchy? 'Onarchy? How you say, how you say, oh, 'Anarchy'! When I fight, I make the other side panicky With my [Joker/Little Mac/Roy:] SHOT! [Little Mac:] *downs his own shot* Yo, I'm a boxer's apprentice And I got y'all knuckleheads in loco parentis I'm joining the rebellion 'cause I know it's my chance To socially advance, instead of punchin’ some tramps! I'm gonna take a [Joker/Link/Roy:] SHOT! [Roy:] *quickly downs his shot and stands up* But we'll never be truly free Until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me (That's right!) You and I. Do or die. Wait 'til I sally in On a stallion with the first indie battalion Have another [Joker/Roy/Link/Little Mac:] SHOT!

*Dark Pit shows up and slams his hands on the table* [Dark Pit:] Geniuses! Lower your voices You keep out of trouble and you double your choices *Link, Roy, and Little Mac all advance on Dark Pit who throws up his hands defensively* I'm with you, but the situation is fraught You've got to be carefully taught: If you talk, you're gonna get *Joker pops up between his three new friends and Dark Pit* SHOT! [Joker:] DP, check what we got *Points at Link* Mister Chosen One, hard rock like Lancelot *Link preens* *Points at Little Mac* I think your pants look hot *Mac cries tears of joy* *Points at Roy* Roy, I like you a lot *Roy blushes* Let's hatch a plot blacker than the kettle callin' the pot... *Joker jumps up onto the table* What are the odds the gods would put us all in one spot Poppin' a squat on conventional wisdom, like it or not A bunch of revolutionary manumission abolitionists? Give me a position, show me where the ammunition is!

*Joker suddenly realizes what he just said and collapses in on himself, terribly nervous, and his volume drops immensely* Oh, am I talkin' too loud? Sometimes I get over-excited, shoot off at the mouth I never had a group of friends before I promise that I'll make y'all proud [Roy:] Let's get this guy in front of a crowd!

*The new squad explode onto the streets out of the bar* [Joker/Link/Little Mac/Roy/Ensemble:] I am not throwing away my shot! *People begin to sing along* I am not throwing away my shot! *People begin to dance with them in rhythm* Hey yo, I'm just like my series I'm young, scrappy and hungry And I'm not throwing away my shot! I am not throwing away my shot! I am not throwing away my shot! Hey yo, I'm just like my series I'm young, scrappy and hungry And I'm not throwing away my shot! [Roy (Joker/Little Mac/Link):] *Roy jumps onto a large pile of crates* Everybody sing: Whoa, whoa, whoa (Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!) Hey! Whoa! (Whoa!) Wooh! Whoa! (Whoa!) Ay, let 'em hear ya! (Yeah!) Let's go! [Roy (Company):] (Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!) I said shout it to the rooftops! (Whoa!) Said, to the rooftops! (Whoa!) Come on! (Yeah!) Come on, let's go! [Roy:] *jumps down from the crates into the crowd* Rise up! When you're living on your knees, *helps the Ice Climbers rise from the ground where they fell* you rise up *points at Nana* Tell your brother that he's gotta rise up *points at Popo* Tell your sister that she's gotta rise up [Roy and Ensemble (Company):] *Roy rejoins his friends* When are these colonies gonna rise up? When are these colonies gonna rise up? (Whoa!) When are these colonies gonna rise up? (Whoa!) When are these colonies gonna rise up? (Whoa!) RISE UP!

*the scene suddenly freezes and goes black and white, everyone frozen in place. Only Joker remains in color as he begins to soliloquize through song* [Joker:] I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory *quick shot of Bayonetta, and little Joker dying in bed* When's it gonna get me? In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me? *Quick shot of Dark Pit before going back to Joker* If I see it comin', do I run or do I let it be? Is it like a beat without a melody? See, I never thought I'd live past twenty *shot of Joker as a little kid* Where I come from some get half as many *shot of Joker and a bunch of other little kids who turn into headstones* Ask anybody why we livin' fast and we laugh, reach for a flask We have to make this moment last, that's plenty

*Joker swipes his hand, dispelling the memories* Scratch that This is not a moment, it's the movement Where all the hungriest brothers with something to prove went. *shot of Joker, Link, Roy, and Little Mac all standing together* Foes oppose us, we take an honest stand We roll like Reggie, claimin' our promised land And? If we win our independence? Is that a guarantee of freedom for our descendants? Or will the blood we shed begin an endless Cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?

*color returns as the world resumes and Joker begins storming forward* I know the action in the street is excitin' But Jesus, between all the bleedin' 'n fightin' I've been readin' 'n writin' We need to handle our financial situation Are we a nation of states? What's the state of our nation?!

*Joker turns to face his friends, the sun at his back casting a golden glow around him* I'm past patiently waitin'! I'm passionately Smashin' every expectation Every action's an act of creation! I'm laughin' in the face of casualties and sorrow For the first time, I'm thinkin' past tomorrow. *pumps his right fist into the sky* [Joker and Company:] And I am not throwing away my shot! I am not throwing away my shot! Hey yo, I'm just like my series I'm young, scrappy and hungry And I'm not throwing away my shot

Joker leads the company forward, back into the bar* [Joker/Roy/Link/Little Mac (Ensemble):] We're gonna rise up! (Not throwing away my shot) Time to take a shot! *Little Mac grabs a bottle of whiskey* We're gonna rise up! (Not throwing away my shot) Time to take a shot! *Roy grabs four shotglasses* We're gonna (Rise up! Rise up!) It's time to take a shot! (Rise up! Rise up!) *Roy slams the glasses on the table* It's time to take a shot! (Rise up!) It's time to take a shot! (Rise up!) Take a shot! Shot! Shot! A-yo it's time to take a shot! *Little Mac quickly fills them* Time to take a shot! *All four grab their respective glasses And I am not throwing away my [Company:] NOT THROWING AWAY MY SHOT! *all four drink at the same time*

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snowbellewells · 7 years ago

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“Run to Me (in the Dead of Night)”

(Once again, I’m later in the day than I hoped, but I do think this chapter will make up for the cliffie last week. In fact, by the end, I think we’re headed somewhere distinctly more pleasant. ;) There is some tense action here first though - Gold does some definite Dark One level damage and injury - just for fair warning before you start.)

Lastly, please enjoy @wingedlioness awesome and amazing art further in this chapter. It’s actually an image of the scene that came into my mind first, and then brought about the rest of the story.

“Run to Me (in the Dead of NIght)”

chapter seven ~ old heat of a raging fire

There was no time for Killian to react; not to charge in counterattack, to retreat, to duck or dodge - he barely had time to think that the flash of silver he had seen in Gold’s hand meant nothing good for him, and it was already too late. Though he had realized he was being followed and turned to face his pursuer in a relatively open space before they could attack unseen, it had not been his Crocodile that he expected. Knowing Gold’s vengeful nature as he did, Killian had believed (a horrible miscalculation, it would seem) that the Dark One would be at least immediately consumed with plotting his former pupil’s demise for what she had done to his clearly much beloved maid. When he’d turned to face the person creeping along behind him, he had fully expected Cora - or possibly Regina - who were both much more likely to simply gloat and soliloquize before actually getting down to business, giving him time to figure out his defense, even if they welded magic and he did not.

His sworn enemy however offered no such luxury, striking out as soon as he had spoken, with a swift and vicious accuracy that nearly felled Killian in one disastrous motion. It would seem that Gold had not relied most immediately on his powers, but had struck first with a quite human - and deadly effective - tool. The glint of silver Killian had spotted too late was from a small handgun, its size so compact and discreet that it had barely been visible in Gold’s grasp until he raised it to fire.

The shot struck home, and the fire that spread, not just from the spot in his shoulder where the bullet hit, but through his veins brought the further sickening realization. The bullet was silver as well, already poisoning and draining even as the fact of it reached his brain with startling clarity. The imp had never fought him fair, and it should really no longer be a shock.

“Coward!” Killian growled, hand immediately going to his shoulder in an attempt to focus him on staying upright in the face of his nemesis and staunching the blood he can already feel welling to the entry site. He took a step forward, wishing in the moment he still carried the cutlass safely tucked away aboard his ship upon his person. He needed something to brandish as the old crocodile stalked closer, knowing he had injured his prey, even as Killian felt himself weakening.

Even more frightening, of course, was the fact that he would soon be forced to shift into his wolf form. Though normally being a large, powerful wild animal with teeth and claws at his disposal to fight back would be comforting, he felt vulnerable as well having his secret, other side exposed to Rumplestiltskin against his will. Not to mention, he also lost his human thought process and strategy against an all-too-cunning foe once he transformed. Yet, if he lost much more blood, or the Dark One landed another strike, it would become inevitable. The werewolf body reverted back to its elemental form to heal itself, to protect so to speak, and though he could grit his teeth and stall it for a time, eventually it would happen anyway, and resisting would only make the shift more painful.

Stumbling to his knees, Killian tried to brace his hands on the rough forest floor to push himself back up. Gold was slowly moving ever closer, and he couldn’t bear to face the fiendish villain bowed and shaking as he was - but it was to no avail. He could feel his tendons stretching and lengthening, his face tingling and the skin pulling taut, the pressure in his head excruciating as it literally began to elongate and change shape. His fingers were curling into claws in the dirt even as he tried to ball them together in fists, as if the whole metamorphosis could be halted by sheer force of will, despite what he knew.

A low, warning growl rumbled in his throat, reverberating through the small clearing. Remarkably, Gold did halt for a moment, just out of reach, studying him with a maniacal gleam in his beady eyes.

“Fascinating,” he murmured, looking strangely engrossed in the process before him, giving a disturbing impression to something that normally felt as natural and simple as breathing to Killian. “Don’t worry,” he cackled in that unnerving high-pitched voice which alerted Killian to the fact even before he could shake his head to look up with clear vision at the facade of unassuming pawnbroker vanishing to once more reveal the demon who had maimed him permanently and taken his love’s very life. “I’ll wait, mutt, until we can look at each other wearing our true faces.”

Unable to hold off any longer, Killian curled into himself slightly, and he knew the shift was taking hold. The itchy, tingling sensation of hair sprouting thickly all over his body, his teeth growing and sharpening in what was rapidly becoming a snout, and then at last the cracking, bending, and rearranging that for a second nearly debilitated him, before he stood crouched in the dirt and dry leaves, a large, snarling black wolf.

Knowing he had not a moment to waste before the Dark One’s morbid curiosity faded and he attacked again, Killian lunged for the monster, teeth flashing and snapping wildly. But he never made it. A force caught him in mid-air and threw him back to the ground with stunning force. The same power held him there, pinned to the ground, immobilized and crushing him with ever-increasing pressure, until the pressing of the wounded shoulder into the hard-packed forest floor squeezed a yelp of pain from him.

Looking up dizzily, he saw Rumplestiltskin standing over him, hand outstretched and glowing with an eerie red light. He was holding him down with magic, and even if the wound he had already dealt could heal with the traces of silver still in his blood where the bullet went through, he saw that the Dark One simply wouldn’t take the chance of actually fighting him fairly. The incapacitation he was suffering was more than enough, but Killian sensed there was more yet to come.

Leaning over him now, Gold tossed the gun aside to pull out a gleaming sharp blade that he brandished before Killian’s eyes - now those of a wolf - but still capable of registering that this too was silver and capable of wringing all too much pain from him before the Dark One actually took his life. He tried once more to snap at the hand so close to his snout, but the silver and the loss of blood had already weakened him, making it a rather pitiful gesture, and the snarl he emitted proved to be the only gesture of any real threat he could muster.

“Now, now, let’s have none of that,” Gold tsked, affecting the tone of a disappointed elder as he crouched over Killian, a tremor running through the wolf that he could not hold in. Gold waved his hand once more, and Killian felt his jaw latch closed. He couldn’t snap or bite - his last defense - as the silver blade was held aloft once more; the magic binding his mouth as securely as if it had been a muzzle lashed with rope. He thrashed his head back and forth in a near panic at having nothing he could do against the coming onslaught.

“You really are a pathetic beast, aren’t you?” Gold mocked. Running the knife along the tufts of coarse fur, teasing the way Killian’s animal instincts caused him to shiver, sensing the danger and unable to curb the natural reaction.

Slowly, the Dark One trailed the sinister weapon down a flank, and ever so seamlessly increased the pressure until he was slicing a trail of pain through fur, skin, and muscle, laying open Killian’s leg. When he reached the paw that rested somewhat stunted and immobile on the ground, Gold dug in deeper still, forcing an involuntary whimper and carving a fiery shot of agony across what would be his human wrist to the hand which had been useless to Killian since their last fight centuries ago.

Weaker and weaker with each cut of the blade, Killian found himself rendered practically motionless and had all he could do not to whine helplessly at each new assault, not willing to give Rumplestiltskin the satisfaction of knowing how badly he’d hurt him. At last, his enemy hissed, practically in his large, furry ear, making sure he couldn’t miss the hideous vow. “Now that I have you where I want you - at my mercy, as you should be - nothing stops me from cutting out your heart and crushing it, ending your miserable existence at last, as I should have all those years ago.”

His next swipe of the knife was the deepest and worst of all, and Killian only a had a moment to register what he thought was an angry, desperate shout from across the clearing, before his vision went murky, swirling away from his plight, and for a moment, awareness altogether.

~~~~~*****~~~~~*****~~~~

They had barely ventured five minutes into the passage from behind Regina’s fireplace, when Emma was arrested by such a staggering sense of panic and fear that she couldn’t ignore it. Fumbling to a stop in the dark tunnel between Graham and her father, David walked into her at the abrupt halt and her flashlight fell from nerveless fingers and rolled away across the stone floor of the space. Clutching at her chest, Emma gaped breathlessly for a moment, not sure what was going on, while he dad quickly recovered himself and reach out firm, solid arms to steady her.

“Emma? What is it? What’s wrong?” Graham pressed worriedly, bending as well in trying to meet her eyes.

She shook her head helplessly, clutching David’s forearm to pull herself upright and trying to once more catch her breath. “I’m not sure,” she managed, “but some - something isn’t right.”

“Do we need to go back?” her boss queried, his brow furrowed in concern and moving to gather up her dropped light. “Can you make it back?”

Emma shook her head again, more vigorously as she tried to make herself clear. “No, it isn’t with us...at least...I don’t think so.”

Shakily, she stood up straight from leaning on David and tried to bring herself back under control. The immediate impact had dulled some, but she still felt a persistent ache in her chest; some pounding warning that things were not as they should be. Puzzling for a moment, Emma tried to consider. Had she heard or seen some sign that Regina or her mother were aware of their movements? Could they be walking into a trap? It didn’t seem likely. Nothing appeared to be amiss around them, and David and Graham still stood right beside her. There wasn’t anything she would have seen or heard in this close a space that they wouldn’t have noticed as well.

No, the danger wasn’t to them. Yet, she couldn’t ignore the niggling worry that still tingled under the surface. As if to reaffirm, when she shook her head to clear the premonition and press on, another lancing pain shot through her chest.

She looked first to Graham, who handed her back her flashlight, and - though still appearing worried for her - didn’t press her but merely turned back to gather his things again, ready to move forward if they were.

When she glanced to David however, she sensed some sort of dawning understanding in the look he gave her. There was a soft and almost sadly knowing expression within his eyes as they searched hers. “Is it in your chest?” he asked gently, as if not wanting to spook her, but to help her come to some realization on her own that he had already reached himself. “As if something is making your heart clench?”

Cold dread gripped Emma hard, sending a chill through her as she suddenly knew just what was causing her discomfort. Her mind rebelled at the possibility after so little time knowing him, yet the moment the idea hit her, Emma knew the fear was true and her anxiety only increased. He was the one in trouble...Killian needed her. “It’s Killian,” she barely whispered, wide eyes locking on her father’s as he nodded in indication that he had come to the same conclusion.

Though now feeling almost harried, in a rush to go to him as quickly as possible (and again marvelling at how intense their connection was, how desperate the need to assure his safety) Emma tilted her head curiously, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet in her haste to be off but still needing to know, half wanting and half afraid to ask how her father had figured out what was going on inside her. “How did you know?”

Stepping closer, sensing it would be better accepted in her current state - his daughter might even welcome the support - David wrapped Emma into a loose hug, cradling the back of her head in his large, paternal hand. But even he could see her almost vibrating with tension and that she wasn’t going to be able to stay still much longer. He gave her an encouraging smile as they stepped apart again. “I’ll tell you the whole story sometime, okay? But for now, let’s just say I’ve felt what you’re describing firsthand… when Snow was in danger. We weren’t even in the same place, but I knew she had been hurt all the same. I could feel her pain in my own body.”

Emma swallowed hard, nodding her comprehension of his words, though her mind was floundering at the obvious meaning. “So, does that mean we’re… I mean...do you think Killian and I are…” She couldn’t quite say ‘True Loves’ in serious context, not just because she had really just met Killian, but also because up until coming back to Storybrooke with Henry, she wouldn’t have even believed such a thing existed.

David looked her right in the eye, not deflecting or putting her off, but being completely honest. “I couldn’t say. That’s something the two of you will have to figure out for yourselves. I do, however, know what you’re feeling. Don’t worry about following us right now. I can help Graham. It’s all under control.”

Emma gave him a relieved, lopsided smile back, her heart rate already picking up again, readying herself to take off. “Are you sure?” she double-checked.

David nodded with certainty. “Absolutely. Right, Sheriff?”

Graham agreed easily, equally certain that they would be fine and not wanting Emma to be held back from what she needed to anymore than her dad.

“Thanks guys, really,” Emma offered sincerely. She was already turning to go and edging back the way they had come “I hate to ditch you like this, but...I have to go. Something’s wrong, and - crazy as it sounds - I need to find Killian.”

“Understood,” her dad assured simply. “Now go.”

Emma didn’t waste any time after that, moving as quickly as she possibly could through the darkened passageway they’d already traveled. She stepped out into the mayor’s office once more and nearly jogged from town hall. The anxious feeling within her only continued to crest though, and once she was out in the open air she took off in a full-out run toward the trees, knowing that whatever was happening, her man was in the forest, and he needed her.

~~~~*****~~~~*****~~~~

Killian wasn’t sure how much longer he could withstand Gold’s torment, caught in his animal form, unable to shift back or fight him, immobilized from the silver now well into his system, he had suffered several deep cuts and lost a fair amount of blood. Clearly the Dark One didn’t relish putting him out of his misery quickly - even if he did want him dead in the long run.

With an evil chuckle, Gold at last lifted his implement of torture, laying the knife aside, the glimmer of triumph and sadistic glee on his face almost as frightening as what Killian knew was coming. “You made this almost too easy, pirate. Soon, you’ll be nothing but a distasteful memory, no one will be any the wiser as to what happened, and really, would will even miss you?”

Biting back the howl of agony that rose up in his bleeding, slashed chest, Killian took in every word, though he couldn’t answer, and panted harshly, fighting just to stay conscious as Gold prodded devilishly at the incision he had made. The feeling of an evil hand in his chest, rummaging with spiking fingers of pain to find and extract an actual organ was a sensation so strange and unnerving it was hard to convince himself he hadn’t already drifted off in some unconscious hallucination. Shaking his head in mock sympathy, Gold’s next words sent a whole different kind of fire through the trapped wolf’s veins. Killian snarled uselessly, hating the villain for his words almost as much as for the torment he was inflicting. “Well, no one but poor Deputy Swan, that is. She might miss you a bit, but soon you’ll just be one more in the long line of those who have left and disappointed her. A perfect state to have her in really, when we need her weakened and distancing herself from others who can help her - putting her walls back up…”

A wrenching jerk alerted Killian that the imp had at last found what he sought, the pressure on his organ blindingly intense as Gold grasped it, squeezing for good measure, doing his task the messy and old-fashioned way, as it caused Killian the most pain and fear, and though his magic could have seen his enemy long dead by then. Killian couldn’t help the pitiable low whine that escaped him at the fresh agony, much as he wanted to face his end in stoic silence, determined not to show the Dark One his defeat. He was suffering maddeningly by that point, certain he was about to be snuffed from the world of the living.

Gold’s self-satisfaction however, faltered when he attempted to remove the heart and crush it before Killian’s eyes. Tugging in both a debilitating and nauseating fashion, the organ simply wouldn’t leave his chest cavity. Gulping against the heaving sensation, Killian barely staved off the blackness to at least face his final moments head-on.

Then he heard her voice - its defiant beauty ringing out like a beacon on the crisp air through the fading grey of his consciousness. “Hey! Wanna bet?!” she challenged, bursting into the clearing ready for a fight.

Gold whipped around, startled at the interruption, but only slowly standing from his crouch, a terrifyingly eerie calm about him, even caught in the act. “Actually, Miss Swan, I would take that bet. How are you going to stop me?” As if to display how untroubled he was by her interruption, he turned back to Killian, once more plunging his hand into his chest, drawing a startled and pained yelp from his captive once more.

Emma acted without thinking; sheer adrenaline, fear, and protectiveness fueling her. She couldn’t let this nutjob gut the man she cared for right in front of her. Desperate to reach Killian in time, and yet knowing she physically couldn’t, pure instinct caused her to fling her hands out toward Gold, open and outstretched, and unbelievably - just as had happened with Cora - a blinding bright white light filled her palms with warmth before shooting out from her and blowing Gold back from Killian.

The Dark One himself was taken aback, pushed head over heels to land sprawled and dazed on the ground several feet from his victim. Acting quickly before he regained his footing or his wits, Emma rushed to her wolf’s side, one hand gently easing into the hair on his ruff, but the other still raised, warily braced for Gold to strike back.

“I might have known,” Gold spat, sure enough only moments later climbing back to his feet and eyeing Emma with a narrowed, calculating expression. “Product of True Love and all… I figured as much in theory, but you showed no signs…” He seemed to be racing through the turn of events in his mind before his gaze snapped back to Emma, and Killian behind her, again. Sneering in warning, his true cowardice showed through despite his threatening words when he took a step back in retreat rather than pressing his advantage. “You may have taken me by surprised this time,” he hissed as he backed further away, clearly uncertain of just how powerful Emma was and unwilling to find out how she would fare against him, “but this isn’t over, Savior.” He offered that last with a mocking tone given to Emma’s title. And then, before she could even respond, he had vanished in a puff of his trademark red smoke.

Emma waited a moment, pulled tight as a bowstring, fully expecting him to return and attack unawares. Nothing of the sort happened though; she and Killian were alone now beneath the trees. A low, pleading sort of whine left the throat of the wolf before her, and as she turned anxiously to help him, and scared by the various cuts and the glistening of wet blood against his black fur, her attention was immediately fully focused on Killian.

As if he could sense the shift in her mind, the large canine lying in pain at her side attempted some sort of greeting, his tail thumping listlessly against the leaves and dirt of the forest floor. There was a sort of knowing, a human recognition in those still stunning blue eyes, Emma noticed with affection. Even in an animal face, she could see through them how glad he was to see her, and also just how much he was hurting. The whimpers, low and barely escaping through his still magically-shut muzzle were like little strikes to her heart, and Emma reached out, not sure what was proper or right, but needing to ease him however she could, running her fingers over his silky, dark head lovingly and scratching behind his pointed ears. “Oh, Killian,” Emma murmured, still worried by the lethargic response. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to be okay, alright?”

Again the soulful, sad-eyed look was levied at her and her stomach clenched at just how many cuts and tears there were along his hide. Knowing that her father and Graham were likely to drop everything and come running - even though what they were doing was important and pressing to do before Regina showed herself or caught them at it - Emma fumbled for her cell with shaking fingers and dialed the only other person she could think of who might know what to do.

When Ruby’s voice answered on the other end of the line, Emma was so overcome with relief that she could hardly put it into words. Quickly explaining where she was and what had happened to Killian as briefly as possible, Emma hoped Ruby would know what she could do. Valiantly she tried to ignore the emotional quaver in her voice, and thankfully Ruby seemed to do the same when she responded.

“Okay, Emma, look he’s going to be fine,” her friend promised, keeping her voice steady and in command, strengthening Emma’s own shaken nerves perfectly. “Gold’s used silver against him, and that’s what is making the effects so severe. He’ll be able to heal, and relatively quick at that, since he’s in wolf form. If you can just get him someplace safe and make sure nothing else silver gets anywhere near him, he only needs a little time until the symptoms wear off, okay?”

Emma nodded, then echoed “okay” back to Ruby sheepishly upon realizing that the other woman couldn’t hear her over phone wires unless she spoke up.

“Emma!” Ruby prompted, her voice a bit sharper as she called Emma back from worried reverie. “He’s going to be alright. I promise. As long as he can rest and you stay with him until his body’s reserves can replenish themselves. Can you do that?”

“Of course,” Emma replied in a voice she hoped sounded a lot more certain than she felt inside.

“Good, I’ll let you go then. Keep me posted, alright? I’ll let Graham and your parents know where you are and what’s happening as well.”

“Thanks, Ruby,” Emma replied, hanging up as her friend bid her farewell.

Looking back down at Killian lying before her, she found it hard to believe there wasn’t more she could be doing for him, but she was no veterinarian, and Ruby was a wolf herself, she would know what Killian needed better than Emma in this case. Stroking a tender finger down the furry snout lying against her knee, Emma whispered, “Hang in there, Jones. We’re going to take care of you, and you’ll be just fine. You trust me, right?”

In a response that could have almost made her weep for joy, his long pink tongue slipped out and gently lapped at her fingers sweetly, as if wordlessly confirming that he had understood her words and was indeed confirming his belief in her. Whatever had been holding his mouth closed unnaturally seemed to have been loosed, and he could at least move his jaw normally again. She took it for a good sign and chuckled lightly at the affectionate gesture.

“Thanks,” she said wryly after the impromptu tongue bathing, even as she was already looking for some way to transport the injured wolf. She knew he had been headed to check out Gold’s cabin, and from what she remembered of the structure’s location, they were nearly there. It wasn’t ideal certainly, considering who had put Killian into this state. But, in all honesty, one place was really just as safe as another when it came to Gold. With his power, he could appear anywhere to come after them when it suited his whims. What was more important was getting Killian into some shelter for the night so he could heal.

“Okay, buddy, here goes nothing,” Emma offered, standing to remove her leather jacket and spreading it out on the ground, patting it in some mix between cajoling a pet and playfully wheedling with a reluctant friend. “Can you scoot just a little onto this jacket and maybe I can pull you like a makeshift sled?” She really wasn’t sure if he understood her words, or if that impression was only in her mind, and she knew he couldn’t answer her. However, she was surprised when he shook his head, almost as if saying ‘no’ with an indignant ‘whuf’ of air to accentuate the gesture.

Then slowly, painstakingly, he pulled himself to sitting and then finally standing shakily on all fours. Emma hurried to his side, wide-eyed and trying not to let the fact that she too was trembling all over show. Standing near enough for him to lean against her shins - which he did with nearly every step - they began to hobble forward out of the clearing and along the short path left to the cabin.

His size even in wolf form had Killian standing nearly even with her hip. Black as coal in coat, he was truly a breathtakingly beautiful animal, even limping with his head hung low as it was and with the tremors she could feel coursing through him.

Their progress was slow, but Emma sensed Killian needed to do this under his own power rather than lying helpless any longer. She was glad he could manage it, and found her fingers sinking into the thick fur at his neck, carding the coarse hairs for additional contact, assuring herself he was still with her, still pushing forward with each labored step She was kicking herself now for wanting to deny whatever sort of abilities she possessed; she might be able to transport them to safety or heal him instantly if she had tried to find out what she was capable of instead of denying the ability existed. Yet, if gutting this out helped Killian fight back in some way, she would lend her strength to lean on and allow them that much.

Finally, the cabin was in sight, and after barely pulling himself up the steps, Emma opened the thick wooden door and watched as Killian limped the half dozen steps to a rug by the fireplace and collapsed upon it, sides heaving horribly. Seeing a box of matches on the mantle, Emma struck one, and lit the few small logs remaining in the hearth to generate some warmth. She stroked a loving hand down his flank before rising from her crouch, to which a full body shiver ran through his form in response.

“Rest,” she ordered firmly. “I’ll be right back. We’ll clean you up and get you feeling better.”

Hurrying to the adjoining bathroom, she was delighted to find running water, which she turned on to get hot for bathing his wounds and began digging through the medicine cabinet above hoping to find some sort of antiseptic as well. Rummaging through, she was startled by a sound of something tumbling in the other room.

Running back to Killian and hoping Gold hadn’t already returned to complete his attack, she was brought up short by the sight which greeted her. There by the fireplace stood Killian Jones, once more in human form, though looking more than a little rumpled and confused, and with bare skin on full display. One hand was bracing him on the mantelpiece, while the other hand had moved to clutch at a knitted blanket draped over a rocking chair nearby in an effort to preserve his modesty, but he’d frozen when she burst back into the room, just as she had.

The firelight glinted off his muscled form, making him glow like a bronzed statue, and it was all Emma could do to pull her eyes up the expanse of dark hair covered chest and strong shoulders to Killian’s searching face watching hers uncertainly. Her cheeks flamed with both embarrassment and attraction in equal measure. She had to lick her lips, her mouth suddenly dry, in spite of herself, before her voice stuttered awkwardly to ask, “K-Killian? Are you alright?”

His ocean eyes swept up to meet hers, and their gazes locked on each other. The air between them practically sizzled. And then he responded, “Aye, I’ll live… Thanks to you.”

Tagging: @cssns @kmomof4 @laschatzi @searchingwardrobes @spartanguard @jennjenn615 @linda8084 @kday426 @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @resident-of-storybrooke @therooksshiningknight @allofdafandoms-blog @winterbaby89 @hollyethecurious @capswantrue @kiwistreetswan @branlovesouat @quicksilvermad @aloha-4-ever

#cssns #cs au mc #cs ff #cs werewolf au #run to me (in the dead of night)#chapter seven

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moondeerdotblog · 3 years ago

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I now believe it to be the tedium of constructing the history lesson portion of the essay that has led to my employing my README tone in order to maintain my interest. I'm now seven dragons deep … but who knows what I'll end up keeping once I've muddled through the remaining ten dragons (and the ten other assets that follow). Right now, it's all:

On Dragon Weaving

Honesty, I haven't a clue why, in February of last year, I found myself pondering the web of dragon mythology that so ensnares the imagination of man. Of how the machinations of my mind materialized the path it would then travel, I've an even clumsier grasp. I believe there is something significant to be found within the folds of fumbled expression held by the essay I had composed. Now, a year later (finding myself in possession of more diversely and formidably equipped faculties), I shall recompose its art and prose, hoping to attain a composition that more capably communicates that which I have to say. It shall be begin with a declaration.

I find them fascinating, the common threads with which disconnected hubs of humanity weave their native narratives. The similitude with which humanity engineers itself by independent means astounds. It warrants remark, in this digitally polarized age of humanity where tribal gutturals dissemble themselves as discourse, the resemblance that runs through the clutch of reflections caught by the collective looking glass.

Such abstraction, dear reader, may satisfy my selfish need to soliloquize; however, it achieves very little in the way of conceptual connection. We need something concrete, an example exhibiting qualities consistent with the previous prose. What though? Which player shall I pluck from the troupe?

Of course it's f$&kin' dragons. I named this f$&kin' thing On Dragon Weaving, how the f$&k would I ever work this f$&ker into an essay befitting of the name were I not, inevitably, about to begin talking about dragons? I mean … I name dropped the little f$&kers in what I believe we've settled upon calling this essay's preamble. Let's hop f$&kin' to it, shall we?

Right. Dropping ourselves down deeply within the well of humanity to probe Terrestrian time before the Biblical flood, we'll begin with Apep (pronounced 𓌇𓊪𓊪𓆙) in Ancient Egypt.

Mention of this particular deity began appearing early in the 22nd century BC as the sun was setting upon the authority of the Old Kingdom. As chaos incarnate, oppugnant to order and light, no doubt Apep was frequently sighted walking in Memphis near the collapse of the Eighth Dynasty. And get this, when Isis, Set, and Ra jacked Apep (as part of their Egyptian power grab), tossing him into the underworld … Apep was having none of it. Every morning thereafter he'd make his way back to the horizon, ahead of Ra, and force that f$&ker to defeat him in battle just to put the sun in the sky. And in the event of a solar eclipse … an eclipse meant that Apep managed to swallow that f$&ker … the sun returning to the sky only after Ra's companion gods manage to topple Apep and cut open his stomach.

Before we exoduse ourselves out of Egypt, we simply must allow ourselves a proper peep at the world's most interminable orbiculate ophidian, Ouroboros.

A manifestation of the snake god Mehen, Ouroboros may be found inscribed upon the shrine of a sarcophagus as part of the Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld where he represents the beginning and the end of time.

Drawings of Ouroboros would later begin popping up in early alchemical texts like that of Cleopatra the Alchemist, whose work The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra contains an illustration (not pictured) of the serpent along with the words ἓν τὸ πᾶν (the all is one). The inside of my left leg happens to have this very same illustration (also not pictured) just above the ankle. Telling you that last bit serves zero f$&kin' purpose, so let me tell you at least one more interesting bit about Boros before we move along to our next exhibit.

Chuck yourself a dart at any wall-hung world map and chances are you'll strike land where Ouroboros dwells. In Norse mythology, exempli gratia (the WordHippoist's for example), he appears as Jörmungandr, the World Serpent–who would grow so large he could encircle the world, grasping his tail in his teeth. Come Ragnarok, it is the poisonous breath of the Midgard Wyrm that kills the mighty Thor.

Germanic myth, Norse inclusive, is simply dripping with dragons. Just look at the Vikings … I mean … they sailed f$&king drakkar.

The dragonhead(s) carved into the stem of these large longships were said to offer protection from evil spirits while at sea. Such power did these wooden drakes possess that Icelandic code of the time, Grágás, bade the Vikings remove any such dragonhead upon their return so as not to intimidate the spirits of their native land.

The three carved heads on the ship above identify the bow-based bulwark as a dragon named Zmey Gorynych, let's gallantly gallivant into Garðaríki for a formal introduction.

Garðaríki, by the way, is Old Norse for Kievan Rus'. The Garðar were the Rus' people, Norsemen that had decided to pop on over and take up ruling the river routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas. You zmey have deduced from all those f$&king letter 'Y's, we've crossed over the Germanian border into Russian folklore territory.

Zmey was all about the bylina (Russian heroic poetry). Totally tracks that he would frequently transform himself into a handsome youth to engage in the art of seduction.

Don't let his pervish proclivities prevaricate (yeeesss … I f$&king see the problem … but WordHippo sticks that sh$t in my head … and I can avoid alliteration like Murphy can avoid running head first into a thumpish engagment with the thick, full-length windows that monopolize wall space around here when she's so f$&king excited she can take no more).

Zmey is a proper red-scaled, fire-breathing western dragon with blood so poisonous the Earth itself will refuse to absorb it. This little f$&ker would even go all eclipsical from time to time by taking a bite out of the f$&king sun.

A dark age concoction, the western dragon is typically depicted as large, fire-breathing, scaly, horned, four-legged, bat-winged and in possession of a long, muscular prehensile tail handy for curling up cozily inside its underground lair. Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, that dragons were living, fire-breathing creatures was common f$&kin' knowledge.

The first known portrayal a western dragon appears in a medieval manuscript circa 1260ish.

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crookedtidalwaves · 1 year ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 關於我和鬼變成家人的那件事 | Marry My Dead Body (2023) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Mao Pang Yu & Wu Ming Han, Mao Cheng Kuo & Wu Ming Han, Mao Chen A-Lan & Wu Ming Han Characters: Wu Ming-han, Mao Pang-yu, Mao Chen A-lan, Mao Cheng-kuo Additional Tags: POV Second Person, POV Wu Ming Han, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Canonical Character Death, Temporary Character Death, Family Feels, Dialogue Heavy Summary:

Wu Ming Han in the moments before his death, the moments of his death, and the moments after he gets revived.

title taken from Untitled by Jolin Tsai, the theme song for the movie

#marry my dead body #wu ming han #mao pang yu #ao3 #seven says #seven soliloquizes #my work #mine

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voteforintensepuppets · 7 years ago

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Peace for Men like Us - Part One

This is what happens when you’re given a Mag7Weekend after watching too much Deadwood and Hell on Wheels, falling deep into Manhell, and you just really want Vasquez to have some happiness and “responsibility.” The title comes from my favorite Hell on Wheels quote where one dying man asks Cullen Bohannon if there’s peace where he’s going, and Cullen replies, "I don't know if men like us ever find peace, Mr. Bolan, in this world or the next, but I hope so...I really do.”

Thanks to @cthulhuwithtea for her help in this.

The two prompts I used are “In another life” and “Wherever you are.” I promise there will be love in all its forms.

The first freeze comes two months after they put the bodies in the ground.

Vasquez steps out of the room and, recoiling from the bite in the air, thinks it’s permanent now. First companions in years, and now they’re frozen in the ground. If they’d been there, Vasquez imagines Billy would like the cold. Horne had enough layers never to feel it and Billy would like it, but as for Goodnight and Faraday—well, neither had ever shut up, and Vasquez supposes they wouldn’t make any exceptions for the cold. He imagines Horne telling Faraday to quiet down, son, and Billy lighting up and passing it to Goodnight because with his lips around a cigarette, he wasn’t soliloquizing.

There was a fondness among them that Vasquez still misses; there was a fondness in companionship that he can’t say he truly has now, but he tucks his shirt into his pants, buttons his waistcoat, and makes his way downstairs.

Sam is there with a mug of coffee, and he’s probably been there a while, ever early to rise. The first time Vasquez had woken to an empty hotel room, he hadn’t been able to keep himself from shaking before he had realized Sam’s things were still in the chair. He feels guilty for saying it, but Sam wouldn’t have been his first pick for travelling companion. Still, company is company, and when he’d been alone for as long as he had, he couldn’t be picky.

“Cold this morning,” is Sam’s greeting as Vasquez drops into the chair across from him. It’s not much, but it’s better than he usually gets from Sam these days.

“Mexican blood, it’s no good for this,” he says, blowing on his hands. If this is the beginning, he doesn’t want to know what the full winter will bring. “Don’t look forward to snow.”

“We’ll have to head south to avoid it.” Sam gives him a pointed look, and Vasquez knows what he means. To avoid the snow or any other harsh weather, they’d need to return to where his warrant still stands.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s spent the winter frozen, but something about the way Sam brought up the topic makes him think Sam’s already made up his mind to go south. Vasquez considers it for a moment and then shrugs. There are worse people to watch his back than Sam.

By the time they’ve eaten and packed their bags, the church bell is ringing and calling the congregation. They go marching by in their best as Vasquez settles in for a long ride with Sam. Just once he wishes he could attend a sermon again, but Sam doesn’t seem the sort of man for that, so he hopes the tipping of his hat is apology enough to the preacher, who calls out to them, “Peace be with you!”

“You think there’s peace for men like us,” Vasquez asks when they’re out of earshot.

Sam doesn’t respond—unsurprising, but if Vasquez had wanted philosophical conversation for the sake of conversation, Goodnight would have been the one to ask—yet the clench of Sam’s jaw gives him all the answer he needs.

It’s you or them, Vasquez tells himself when his fingers quiver to reload his gun, you or them. Sam or them.

It’s the last part that steadies his hand. In all honesty, he’s so goddamn tired of running that, if he didn’t know Sam was counting on him to have his back, he wonders if he might stray from his cover with his hands raised in the güero’s “don’t-shoot” style. Dead he would live up to his family’s expectations. But there’s still that same flame to live that had sent him careening out of Texas that licks at his insides and keeps him ducked out of sight.

One more shot fires and clips the rock above Sam’s head. Just which party did the sneaking is unclear, but which party had been up to no good is not; one mention of Sam’s “duly-sworn warrant officer” spiel had them drawing their guns, and even after walking out of Rose Creek, neither Sam nor Vasquez liked the odds of seven-to-one unaware. Now, five men down, they’re covered behind the rocky Arizona outcropping, waiting for their chance to pick off a few more or the chance to explain that they didn’t mean to find them. Although at this point, Vasquez assumes Sam doesn’t care much about negotiating. Not that he would blame him or trust the others to pass honorably.

One particularly brave, stupid soul sticks his head around their rock, perhaps trying to get the drop on them, but Vasquez fires two shots into his forehead before the other man can raise his gun. It’s a waste. Next to him, Sam pops off three more fanned rounds in rapid succession, and Vasquez hopes that’s three more down. He reloads both his guns once more, then glances to Sam before breaking his cover.

When he shoots, he isn’t quite aware he’s doing so, and later he might wonder about the safety in that, but there’s only a twitch of his fingers that doesn’t quite feel like it’s coming from him. Mi dulce, María Marquez used to say with her warm smile pressing a kiss to his forehead; mi dulce, she would say now with tears rolling down her cheeks, and it wouldn’t sound nearly as sweet.

Oh, mi dulce, Vasquez can hear her saying when the silence settles around them. It bounces and echoes off the cliffs more than any gunfire ever could.

Vasquez looks to the pool of blood and the brave, stupid man floating in what hasn’t been soaked into the earth, at the sharp nose, the dark eyes, even the scruff of his beard, though longer than his own. For what it’s worth, he could be looking at a picture of himself gunned down in a bar, and it feels entirely too close, entirely too lucky. For the first time in a long time—in too long—his stomach churns at the sight of the dead man he possibly killed, and that alone makes him feel even worse. When did killing become such a habit that he doesn’t balk at a body?

He scrubs his face with his hands and leans into it as a wave of sickness washes through him. Good, he thinks, and wishes it were worse.

“Vasquez.” Sam’s voice pulls him from his self-damning thoughts, and he shakily turns, where he finds Sam standing over the familiar body and studying Vasquez as though meeting for the first time. “Look at him.”

Reluctantly, Vasquez turns his attention back to the dead, and all he can see is himself lying on the ground. No identification, no one to tell his mother that her only son was dead, truly dead now, so she could either stop worrying or have a reason to continue her mourning. No one to tell her how much he’d loved her, she and his father and sisters, and that he hadn’t gone a day without thinking of them on their ranch in Texas. He sees a decade of running made fruitless, years he’ll never get back and with nothing to show for them. He looks, but he doesn’t want to. “Looks like me.”

“Yeah. He does,” Sam says, and then there’s a rustling that draws Vasquez’s attention away from the body once more—draws his attention to the same paper Sam had held up when they met.

And then Vasquez understands without Sam having to say a word. When he looks at the body again, all he sees is five hundred dollars pocketed, plenty to split if Sam is willing, and a death sentence that disappears forever. One life for two. He could start over and have a life again. The comfort of Rose Creek, the familiarity and companionship, the dry bed and soft pillow, he could have it all if they did this. He could stop running and just be still.

He doesn’t have to say a word for Sam to know.

Once, on a ranch in Texas, there had been a man and his wife and their three daughters and son.

The ranch had been in the family for more than a hundred years, and as the oldest child and only male heir, the son had been set to take over, and he hadn’t minded, had looked forward to the day when he could make his family proud, take on their name and wear it well because he had loved his family. He loved his parents who had only given him love; he had loved his sisters, the stern and serious Hildebranda, vibrant Noemí with not enough time in the day to laugh as much as she wanted, and sweet little María, who took after their mother more than just her namesake. Looking back, he sometimes wonders if he’d loved them too much, or too poorly; if he only had loved them just right, perhaps he could still be with them. If only so many things had been different, perhaps he wouldn’t have lived the last ten years with a noose around his neck.

It should feel freeing now that the noose is gone. Alejandro Vasquez is dead. His life was worth five hundred dollars, half of which jingles in the bottom of the saddle bag next to his right foot. It should feel freeing, but it doesn’t. Instead, it feels instead like he’s wandering through a desert in the dead of winter: no destination, no reason to run, nothing holding him in place.

Even with his warrant gone, Vasquez knows there’s no going back; or rather, he won’t go back and put them in danger—won’t have their safety on his conscience too. And so still it’s forward, farther down the trail, away from a home that feels no closer now than it has in years.

When the ground has thawed, or at least thawed some, they stop wandering the desert and find themselves just west of the Rockies in Colorado, in a railroad town called Pine River. It’s still entirely too cold for Vasquez’s preferences, but he knows there’s little use in trying to sway Sam’s opinion.

All saloons are the same, Vasquez thinks, as they hitch their horses to the post outside into this new one. Some have clean girls and dirty glasses, some have a piano that plays in tune, some offer lodgings upstairs, but they all give a drink that burns, and he can’t think of anything better.

This saloon, though, has an amiable barman who’s more than happy make small talk and who tops off their glasses generously. He’d squinted once when they’d walked in and immediately waved them over to the bar, introducing himself as Alfred Tolliver and asking how they were with enough welcoming that both Vasquez and Sam took it to be sincere.

“Name’s Chisolm. Sam Chisolm, peace officer from Wichita, Kansas,” Sam says now, easy in the other man’s easy company, and it makes Vasquez feel easy too. “Just passing through town with my friend here. We’d like to stop for a night or two and have a warm bed for a change.”

“Well,” Tolliver says in a drawl that sounds gray-suit familiar, “iffen it’s lodgings you want, you’re best to check with the Widow Barber at the hotel.”

“Widow Barber, huh? How’d her last husband die,” Vasquez asks, running a finger across his throat.

The barman’s friendly smile turns more unsettling than amused, and Vasquez, like usual, regrets his joke. “Sliced to pieces, that’s for sure, but not by her. Can’t say she was too disappointed to see his great ass in the dirt. Can’t say any of us were. But their place is right at the fork, can’t miss it.”

When they’ve had their rest, they part with a tip of their hats, Sam taking the horses to the stable while Vasquez follows the man’s instructions down the thoroughfare, where, turning right at the fork, a yellow building with brown trim looms the span of half the block, its only real decorations being the sign that reads “Barber House: Finest Rooms and Baths.” The front door opens to a rich, oaken lobby, with two halls on either side of a staircase that splits at the landing. It’s empty inside, save for a lone woman at the counter holding a tiny baby in one arm and a cigarette to her lips with the other, her battered bodice unbuttoned to her corset, revealing milk-white breasts. The moment he realizes he’s staring, Vasquez hurries to turn his gaze to her face, thin and mean in both senses, only to find her already scrutinizing him with a pair of harsh blue eyes. Liar, her face reads.

If this is the widow, Vasquez wonders exactly who the lucky party was. “Señora Barber?”

Halting her drag on the cigarette, a cloud of smoke puffs from between her lips as she snaps, “Do I look like a fucking widow? If you want her, you’ll have to wait a goddamn moment.”

Look like una puta, Vasquez wants to say, but common sense tells him this is the kind of girl with a gun in her garter. He hasn’t made it this far just to have an irritable prostitute off him. She brushes back a strand of stringy coppery hair to better squint at him, raking small eyes up and down his being, and then takes a drag from her cigarette, smoke blowing in his direction. “I’m Beatrice. The whore. You need something?”

“Name’s Marquez, Salvador Marquez. Just came into town with my friend,” Vasquez says, after a beat when he can think of a passable name. He ignores her implication. “I was told Señora Barber could give us a room. Need one room with two beds or two rooms with one bed. And a bath, por favor.”

“Jesus, do you always run around shoving your stick up everyone’s ass?” Beatrice stubs out her cigarette on the counter and gives him her most impressive scowl yet. “You know what I fucking meant. You want the widow, or just the room?”

“Room is fine,” Vasquez says. She reaches beneath the counter to withdraw a ledger that she slides across to him. A thin, boney finger taps at a line, and Vasquez signs his name—Salvador Marquez—on it, then Sam’s, and fishes out a few coins from his pocket.

“Number fourteen, right at the top of the stairs. Two beds. It’s cheaper that way,” Beatrice says without much heat, passing him a key. “I’ll get the bath brought up.”

“Gracias.” Vasquez offers her a smile, and though she doesn’t return it, she doesn’t frown either, merely watches him from under her lashes, shifting the baby in her arms just enough that Vasquez catches a glimpse of tiny lips and round cheeks.

“Nice place,” Sam says when he comes into the room.

Vasquez raises his head off his bed just enough to watch Sam drop his hat onto the room’s free chair. For a fleeting moment, he hopes he hadn’t looked as rough as Sam, but he can’t find the energy to care all that much now that he’s bathed and tested the bed—and madre de Dios, what a bed it is. It’s so comfortable that he wonders if he’s already died, except where he’s going would never be this comfortable. Maybe he’ll never get up. His stomach rumbles in opposition of the thought, but it takes little effort to ignore it, even after too long of having a routine again, too long of having proper meals at regular, proper times.

“Restaurant down the street seems popular.” There’s a hint of amusement in Sam’s voice, which Vasquez snorts at. Everything is working against him to get him out of this bed, and frankly he wants nothing to do with it. It’s the only thing he wants for the rest of his life: a soft bed and the goddamned peace and quiet that comes with it. Not that he wouldn’t take anything else that comes with beds either. “The widow suggested it too.”

“You meet the widow,” Vasquez asks, only out of a salacious sort of curiosity, still not budging. The hotel is by far the nicest he’s ever stayed in, with or without Sam, richly built and decorated, which only serves to contrast even more sharply with the woman who’d checked them in. Perhaps Beatrice was the dead man’s mistress, put into the hotel as a favor even after death. Perhaps she and the widow hate each other. Or perhaps the widow has figured out how to make a bit of extra money.

“Quiet. Reckon she’s nice enough,” Sam says, and then comes a clanking of metal beating its way up the stairs. Vasquez hears Sam cross the room to answer the knock, and he doesn’t have to look to know it’s Beatrice clanking her way into the room with another tub. Just as loudly and unceremoniously, she’ll be back with pails of water half-sloshed up the stairs and through the hall. Vasquez closes his eyes. No need to add to her ill-feelings towards him.

When Sam finishes bathing, he wakes Vasquez with a kick at his foot dangling on the floor. Vasquez growls, but his stomach growls back, and with a great reluctance, he heaves himself out of the soft, perfect bed. It’s growing dark out now, the room dimmed into shadow and lit only by the dusk from the window and the single lamp Sam had lit. Shifting through his bags, Vasquez finds a clean—or cleaner—pair of pants and tugs them on.

Sam is out of the room before he can finish tucking his shirt into his pants, and he’s focused on buttoning his vest while not falling down the stairs when out of the corner of his mouth, Sam mutters, “She’s talking to you.”

Snapping to attention, Vasquez expects Beatrice, but instead he finds another woman waiting as if she expects him to accost her; not that he ever would, or even could, especially with the way she watches him with such round, frightened eyes. Everything about her seems round, her eyes, her face, everything round and soft, and if she wasn’t dressed to her neck in black, he’d think she’d never known a hard day in her life. In a voice equally as soft and more modulated than even Billy’s had been, she says, “Mr. Marquez?”

For a stupid moment, he stares at her, uncomprehending, and then he remembers who Mr. Marquez is. He offers what he can of a smile that goes unreturned, though he doesn’t know if that’s from nerves or being put off. When he starts to come over and she sees that she has his attention, she asks, “How do you do, Mr. Marquez? I’m Mrs. Anna Barber, proprietor. Please forgive me for not seeing you in this afternoon, but I had an errand to run. I trust that everything was to your liking and there were no…misunderstandings?”

“Misunderstandings,” Vasquez asks. He hopes it’s not misunderstood that he knows the word, but nothing had gone wrong like she seems to think.

Señora Barber had been twisting a handkerchief in her hands, and now Vasquez thinks that if it was made of paper, she’d have it torn into shreds. “Checking in wasn’t too unpleasant? Everyone was polite?”

Realization peels back the corners of his lips. So her guard dog—if that’s what Beatrice can be described as—got loose. “No worries, Señora Barber. Your security, she doesn’t bite too hard. Still have all my fingers.”

“Are you sure—”

“It’s all right, señora,” he insists, holding up both hands and wiggling his fingers. “No harm, see?”

“Yes, I see,” she says, and when the traces of a grin ghost across her face, she ducks her head as if to keep from being caught. He wonders for a moment just what she would look like smiling, if she’s just as soft and somber, but she raises her head as composed as ever. “Well, Mr. Marquez. I have no certainty for how long you intend to stay, but we do serve meals here if you’re ever so inclined, and on Mondays, we launder the linens and anything else you might like. If there’s anything we can do for you, don’t hesitate to ask. And again, Mr. Marquez, I do apologize for anything that may have conspired earlier.”

“Grac—thank you, señora. And no apologies needed.” With a tip of his head, he offers one last parting smile and rejoins Sam. Somewhere deep inside, he half hopes they do stay long enough to see laundry day.

In the town of Pine River, the Colorado Central Railway stops three times a day, morning, afternoon, evening, and if anyone gets off, they go to Banjo Joe’s Saloon, Bergman’s Kitchen, or the Barber House, where there’s warmth to go around: a hot meal at Bergman’s, off for a decent conversation with Al Tolliver next, then to one of the Widow Barber’s soft beds.

Vasquez wants to think it’s these three things that draw him in, but in reality, it’s not quite true. For a railroad town, there isn’t much excitement except for the train’s three stops a day. Everyone knows everyone else, from the miller’s new baby to the reverend’s grandfather-in-law, and moreover, they take a moment to speak to him so that by the end of the three days spent in town, there are rounds of, “How do you do, Marquez,” whenever he walks through the thoroughfare.

Even better is the shop at the end of the thoroughfare, right where the street forks for the railroad and hotel. Without any notice, the previous owner had up and left one night, and when the town had awoken in the morning, they’d found his few personals gone from the back room and his shop completely intact, all his equipment, his saws and nails and enough lumber to last for months, waiting for another day of work that wouldn’t come. The bank had waited without any sign of him for three months before seizing the shop and leaving the town in need of a carpenter.

But it’s the beyond that really draws him in. Surrounding mountains cradle the town in a rich valley, with hills that roll emerald when the snow melts and trees that disappear into the sky, the land cut only by the railroad’s single line. It’s cool in the mornings and evenings, and even during the day, it’s cooler than what Vasquez is used to, and it’s certainly no Texas, but he thinks he could make it work. Stop lassoing rocks and get back to the cattle he grew up with. Stop blazing a trail and carve out a homestead.

If there’s anywhere he could stay, it’s here. He assumes Sam likes the town too, considering he makes no mention of leaving after three days, but by Saturday—at least, it’s Saturday as far as Vasquez can tell, and Señora Barber hasn’t asked for the laundry—Sam is again ready to go.

“I’ve got a warrant for a Mickey McCrae,” he says over dinner at Bergman’s, and the fork halfway to Vasquez’s lips pauses in its journey. “Three hundred dollars for stealing from Huntington and the CP, and word is, he’s a three-day ride just north of here.”

His stomach decidedly not interested in eating anymore, Vasquez lowers his fork and raises his eyes. “Jefe,” he begins slowly, “I am grateful you didn’t kill me and let me come with you, but this town…it’s nice.”

For a long moment, Sam doesn’t say anything, just keeps chewing his cornbread and watching his plate, and Vasquez waits for his anger that never comes. “You thought about this?”

“Sí. Everyone knows Salvador Marquez. They need a carpenter, I need…” A roof, a rest, a reason; he needs so many things that only come if he just stops running.

Vasquez waits for his anger, but Sam only nods.

Sam sets out the next morning.

Not long after they’d struck out together, Vasquez had recognized in Sam the fire burning for something he couldn’t have, and he knew the feeling well. What Vasquez wanted was to leave behind Vasquez the outlaw and the chance once more to be Alejandro Vasquez, the man with the ranch and days of hard work made easy by family and friends. If he’d ever had a desire for adventure, that burned out years ago when for even more years, he’d been without a familiar face, anyone to assure him that he was right, to just keep going, it would be fine one day. It’s not the same thing that makes Sam’s fire burn, that’s for sure. In Sam, there’s a restless sort of energy, a need to be always on the move, always reaching for that want—an angry sort of energy with which Vasquez can identify, but they’re worlds apart in how they want to react.

Which is the problem, Vasquez thinks; Sam wants to move, and Vasquez wants to dig his heels in the ground.

When the morning comes and Sam is packed and Vasquez isn’t, he waits for Sam to make some comment about their separating, to tell him he’s out of his mind and this is dangerous, or to ask him if he remembers this and that, make him nostalgic and sick for something he hasn’t yet lost. But of course, Sam doesn’t. He takes his bags to his horse with the same stoicism as ever, determined to leave Vasquez with one single image.

“Won’t be hard to find me, you know,” he says when he fixes his bags to the saddle, and more words than he’ll ever say are on his face. Won’t be hard to find me if this doesn’t work out, but I won’t come find you.

“I know, jefe. Just ask for the warrant officer from Wichita, Kansas,” Vasquez answers, and Sam reads his real reply in his face. Stubborn assholes, the both of them; they won’t be finding each other without just reason besides missing companionship.

It’s with a jerk of his head that Sam mounts his horse. “Take care now,” he says, and then he’s digging his heels into his horse’s flanks, rocking into motion, into an easy sway now part of both their bloods. He’s slipping the thoroughfare’s traffic, mingling among them, disappearing—and then he’s out of sight. First friends in a decade, a whole six all at once, and less than a year later, they’re all gone again, just as suddenly as they’d come.

Immediately, there’s a gaping hole where one shouldn’t be. All the conversation, terse as it might have been, all the protection, all the comfort of just having someone, it’s gone in an instant, and Vasquez curses himself for letting it happen. But if this is to work, he’ll have to let it happen again.

So as much as he immediately misses Sam, Vasquez sticks to his word. He waits, watching until he’s out of the thoroughfare, and then visits the bank, using what money he has to buy first the shop at the corner, and with his remaining cash, he buys sixty acres about a half-mile outside town, where the land, encircled by ancient pines, rolls green and lush and promising. There’s nothing on the land and nothing in the shop that’s his, but he’s going to fix it. He’s going to fill it. He has to.

#mag7 #Mag7Weekend #vasquez #and that asshole sam chisolm #fanfic #i just want this man to be happy

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uchihaa-itachi · 5 years ago

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“Excuse me, could you tell me where room 1408 is?”

“And who might you be, good lad?” Itachi blinked at the question as the miniature knight raised the visor of his helmet, light hues peeking at the Uchiha in earnest.

“Uchiha Itachi, sir.” Came the automatic reply, before his expression turned a tad sheepish, pale digits coming to scratch at his chin, “I’m afraid I’m lost, you see.”

That seemed to pique his interest, for the miniature man hopped off his still grazing steed; or so he would have had his armored foot not gotten stuck in the reigns. A skirmish ensued, which included a few special words that the first year was sure he wasn’t meant to hear - before the knight finally stood, as straight and true as his supposed title.

“A quest, then!” He exclaimed, before gesturing to the Uchiha, “Follow me!” before conveniently disappearing into the frame. Itachi blinked, before taking a step closer to the painting, as if that would help him understand where the knight had gone off to.

That is, before a familiar voice called from somewhere further along the corridor.

“Here, lad!”

“Right”

Had the poor Slytherin remembered to ask for this particular portrait’s name, he would have known not to trust him so easily. Shisui had warned him about Sir Cadogan and his constant desire for adventure, irrespective of any student who would be unwittingly strung along. Itachi chased the knight for twenty minutes or so, while he kept soliloquizing about heroic deeds and godly virtues.

At the conclusion of their ‘exercise’, they ended up from where they had begun, with the knight’s steed still grazing sedately in its frame. Itachi was too out of breath to say much, or subject the painting to his patented glower; instead, he remained partially hunched over, hands resting against against his knees as he sought to catch his breath. The knight would have none of it, as he tsk’d and mumbled something about youth and stamina and how everyone should be like that lively whats-his-face Gryffindor---

“Where...did you say the room was?” Itachi asked instead, having only partially listened to the man’s rambling. If the knight took that in distaste, he didn’t comment, instead he pulled out his sword to point towards a direction vaguely to the left.

“Oh that? Its on the next floor.” His tormentor replied, sword held at the ready, “But that’s just part of the quest dear boy! The adventure makes the man!”

Cue a twitch of his brow that would usually manifest in the prolonged presence of one of his cousins. The Uchiha straightened, a polite smile plastered on his face, “Apologies, sir, but I’ll be late if I don’t go right now” the last bit was a bit forced, though apparently Sir Cadogan couldn’t tell, for the tiny knight brandished his sword eagerly at the Slytherin’s retreating back.

“Next time we duel for honor!”

Blo---ahem. Pale digits simply straightened his tie, as curious hues surveyed the tall ceilings. He had read about the castle a-plenty in Hogwarts: A History, but it had barely prepared him for the constantly-changing staircases and the hidden passageways. Not to say he minded the extra trouble, per se - more often than naught, the Uchiha would find himself delightfully lost.

He preferred exploring the ancient architecture as opposed to hanging around with his peers anyways; they were simply too mundane to talk to. He would skip meal times too if it weren’t for great uncle shooting him a glower or two from the teacher’s table.

This time was different though, since he had a time constraint and all. And so, seven minutes later saw Itachi pausing in front of the supposed room 1408, head tilted a fraction in slight puzzlement. He blinked at the rusted lock, its color practically bleeding into the rest of the heavy, seemingly ill used door.

It didn’t look like it belonged to a meeting room, or any such sort, really. Dark brows furrowed at the thought, before a distinct trepidation made itself known in the pits of his stomach.

This was another one of his cousins’ pranks, wasn’t it? Cue a furtive glance around his shoulders before his gaze settled on the mop of silver hair that was currently casting a shadow over an innocent magazine. There was no other witch or warlock in sight, and it didn’t take an Uchiha genius to understand why.

Hn. And so, with that specific thought in mind, dark orbs narrowed a fraction at the poor Ravenclaw who he assumed was in on one of his cousin’s rather infamous practical jokes.

He still hadn’t forgiven them for last time. Itachi had been coughing glitter for an entire week.

@senjutsunade @minaa-munch @himekushinada @konohagakurekakashi @jiraiya-legendary-sannin @better-than-the-basilisk

Mãjutsu AU-verse, closed starter 🍂

Thin rays of late-afternoon sunlight trickled in through the windows adjunct to the staircase, warming the pages of Spella Weekly that was draped across the boy’s knees. Grey hues dragged along the pages in a languid fashion, but did not take any note of the moving images or neat paragraphs. It was the same magazine that he paged through that morning at breakfast and all throughout their morning classes; with intrepid headlines such as ‘Britain’s Best Dressed Wizard’ and ‘126 delightful knitting patterns!’ serving as his chosen safeguard against answering questions or humouring attempts at conversation by his peers. It was a tactic that Kakashi perfected at the beginning of his second year at Hogwarts, most of his galleons now tied-up in subscriptions for all of the known (as well as a few lesser known) weeklies.

With his nose constantly obscured, Kakashi found that it was easier to ignore and be ignored. The glossy covers allowing him a faux sense of control; if only over whom he deemed worthy of a response and what salty snack he could sneak passed his teeth. There were a select few who seemed immune to the Ravenclaw’s bold captions (his Transfigurations’ Professor and that irksome Gryffindor with the bowl-cut to name a few) but as Merlin would have it, the insusceptible were few and far in-between....or so the Ravenclaw thought. Shifting in his perch upon the stairs, Kakashi’s lidded gaze altered from ‘Six sure steps to capture a Wizard’s Heart’ to inspect the crumpled piece of parchment currently serving as a bookmark, an accusing frown crumpling the boy’s brow.

The note found its way into his Potions Text-book during second period; a sly slip of paper nestled comfortably between Doxycide and the ingredients for the Wideye Potion. It wasn’t in any cursive that Kakashi was familiar with and the wizard had no inkling how it got there, since he only ever strayed mentally (not physically) from his desk. More confusing still was that the note bore no return details for the writer. It was a half-assed invitation really, a very strange, half-assed invitation, indicating only a time and place.-

‘Favoured Student,

You have been selected to form a part of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s most elite, a group with the core intent to cultivate the most promising and talented minds to better abet the Wizarding World and our honoured Ministry of Magic.

Saplings are better bent in the right direction when young.

Meet within room 1408 on the third floor, straight after supper.

All selected students will be required to show their invitations in order to be granted entry into Root.’

‘Root, huh?’ The boy rubbed a thumb across the ink, much like one would a genie lamp, but the answers were diffident in making their appearance; causing Kakashi to shift once more and exhale a sigh. It was a few hours to supper still, yet the Ravenclaw found himself hunched across the locked door and had been since his class was released from Advanced Charms. To his knowledge room 1408 was nothing but an abandoned storage space, a big closet for Homura Mitokado’s self-made, cat mittens and collectables. Kakashi hoped that if he stayed long enough, that he could glimpse the sender of the note, perhaps even gather what the group was really about and then maybe (just maybe) he wouldn’t have to show up and interact with the sender at all.

So far the boy’s plan seemed to be a bust however, lips thinning as he casted a slow, doleful stare at both his bookmark and the rusty lock of Room 1408. The waning rays of sunlight coloured his reading material a burnt orange and served as a reminder that he already missed lunch because of some unknown daring to enter his personal space (his textbook’s personal space! ) if he stayed and missed dinner then his father would undoubtedly do something embarrassing to mark the occasion. Still Kakashi didn’t move from his spot pressed against the stairwell, the passing thought merrily urging the boy to finally turn a page with the roll of his shoulder and the flick of his wrist, the words ‘Which Appleby Arrows player are you meant to marry?’ greeting his gaze in stark, gold Calibri. @senjutsunade @uchihaa-itachi @minaa-munch @himekushinada

#majutsu #v; majutsu #senjutsunade #konohagakurekakashi #minaa-munch #himekushinada #jiraiya-legendary-sannin #better-than-the-basilisk #the woes of an unassuming eleven year old XD

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