#// BACK IN MY DAYS POXES DID NOT GROW ON TREES | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

renee-writer · 2 years

Text

Faith's Journey Home Chapter 12

AO3

“I was there the day he was born. Knelt by your grandmother, Ellen’s side and pledged to stay by his. Oh, but this you know. He was an active little lad, walking before he was one. Running soon after. Climbing trees by the time he was three. We feared he would fall but, your papa must have been part mountain goat, for he never did.”

She laughs, picturing it in her mind, a little red head, climbing the branches while a younger version of Murtagh and a lass that looked like her, look up at him with concern. “A scamp he was.”

“Aye lass. I think your grandmother would have had pure white hair by thirty had she..” He looks down with his breathing a bit labored.

“You don’t have to talk about that if you..”

“Nae lass for it is part of his history, and yours.” He takes in several breaths. “She carried a bairn, a lad. It came still. The lady attending her tried to stop the blood after but.. We buried them together. Jamie he ran away but I ken’d where to find him. I told him the truth of it, she was gone but I wasn’t . That I would stand by his side, as I promised. We grieved together.”

Placenta Previa is what she thinks. The placenta separated early, killing the baby and mother. Her medical mind reacts first before she can join her heartbroken papa at the death of his mum. “How old was he?”

“Six. His big brother Willie, had passed of the pox a few years before. It wasn’t an easy time. Jenny, who was ten, took over as mistress of the house. Jamie resented her bossing him about. He still got into mischief. It just seemed more calculated for awhile. Attention seeking. It took him awhile to find a bit of childhood again.” He takes a sip of the drink. “To see him with the weans now, it brings me joy. He can relive the best parts of his childhood without the pain.”

“Thank you Murtagh. This helps me understand him better.”

“Your welcome lass. Thank you for entertaining an auld man.”

“Pish, your not a bother. Your family.” She stands and he does. Walking over, she hugs him. He returns it.

“I best be going. Ian will be back soon and you need your privacy. Still newlyweds after all.”

She kisses his cheek. “Thank you again Murtagh.” He smiles and slips out

She sits and thinks about what Murtagh had told her. Her papa had a tough life and that discounts what he hadn’t told her. What took away his smile? To lose a brother, then a mama and another brother, at such a young age, how had he cooped? Then to lose her, or believe they did. Then he sent her mama away, carrying Brianna. So much loss. “Little one, if you’re a boy we shall name you after your grandpa.” She says just as Ian walks in.

“Aye, I like that idea. James Ian Lambert Murray?” Tears fill her eyes. She cries at the drop of a hat right now but Ian’s words really touched her.

“Oh Ian. I love that!” He grins.

“I was thinking about it whilst hunting. The idea of a son, one that lives.”

She stands and joins him. “He or she will. I’ve a good feeling about it.” She wraps her arms about him. “It could be a daughter. Would you be just as happy?”

He pulls her close. “Happier. Woman are highly honored by the Mohawk and the birth of a daughter is a blessed day. Either will be a blessing.”

“I agree.” She holds her husband close and prayers that the baby lives.

“Papa, Auntie Faith fixed my ouch.” She holds up her foot.

“That is good Joanie. There will be no more walking barefoot where there is work being done?”

“No papa.”

“Very good.”

“Her and Mama Claire came by to check on Henry-Christian.” Marsali explains.

“And?” He has come to accept his youngest will be different. He now worries for his health.

“Growing well. No issues.”

“That is wonderful news.”

“Speaking of news, Faith had some.” She has been bursting to tell him all day.

“Oúí?”

“She is having a baby.”

He blinks. “So soon?”

She laughs. “Recall, my love, that we were expecting Germaine soon after our wedding.”

“Ouí. It is just with her.. well, I guess they found a way to work it out.”

“She is happy and glowing.”

“A good thing. Oh did you ask her about making sure that you weren’t again?”

“Aye. She says there may be a way.”

“Good, for as much as I love our children..”

“Aye, I ken well. I am the one carrying them.”

“Thank you for that.” He takes Herni-Christian and holds him so he can see him completely. “For each one is a blessing.”

“Aye, they are.”

Sweat suddenly springs upon her skin. It is the only warning. The chamber pot becomes an emesis basin as she is violently ill. Ian, up before her, returns from fetching the morning’s water, comes back in just as she finishes. He drops the water on the table by the door and hurries over to her. “The sickness!” She nods as she wonders why he seems so bloody happy about it.

“Yes, would you please bring me some water to wash out my mouth?” and explain your excitement, she adds in her head.

He does with a wet flannel to wash off her face and neck. “I am sorry Faith. I ken it is hard on you. It is just, Emily, she didn’t have her woman’s time, got big, once,” He looks away,” even felt the baby moving in her. What she didn’t have was the sickness. The children ' s spirits never warred within her. They never fought to make a place, to live. “

Tears spring to her eyes. Oh. There is some science behind what he is saying. The sickness comes as the hormones raise showing the pregnancy established. She rests against his shoulder. “It is a good thing. Worth the bit of inconvenience.”

She feels him let out a breath over her head. “I will go empty and clean the pot.”

“You needn’t. I can..”

“Nae. You are growing our child.” He kisses her head and stands. “Thank you mo ghrá.”

She swallows hard as he walks back out with the pot in his hands. Her hand covers her lower abdomen. She is pregnant. Really known now. Pregnant and married to a sweet man. A smile as she thinks about how Zoe would react. Well, she had wanted to be a mum. The plan was for Zoe to carry though. The irony hits her hard and she laughs.

Ian comes back in with a smile. “Feeling better?” She nods her head as she tries to still her giggles.

“Yes, I was just thinking about my original plan to be a mum. It was quite different then this.” He places the pot back under their bed.

“How was that?” Truly curious, how can a lass that was with other lasses have a child.

“Zoe and I were,” Wow, it doesn’t hurt as much to say her name. She is healing, “planning on using a sperm donor.” At his questioning look, she recalls he wouldn’t know what sperm was. “Ah, the sperm is what comes out when you climax, ah find your pleasure in me.”

“Oh, you mean seed.”

“Exactly. It is what the man makes that helps make the baby. It combines with the woman’s egg or ovum, the create the baby. This happens deep inside the woman. They come together and divide, then again. Over and over until a baby emerges.”

“Ah Dhai!” He whispers. “A true miracle.”

“It is. We were going to get some of this seed and insert it inside Zoe.”

“Zoe,” her name sounds strange in his voice, “ nae you?”

“No. We would have both been parents but she wanted to be the one to carry the baby and give birth.”

He sits on the floor frowning in thought. “So you would rather not have..”

“No. No, it was just she wanted it more at the time. I love that I am carrying life. Truly. We created a whole new human. It is extraordinary!” he gets on his knees and kisses her shift covered abdomen.

“Faith?” She is out picking herbs out of the garden. Fergus ' familiar French accent, draws her eyes up. He stands with Germaine and Joanie.

“Bonjour. Is all alright?”

“Ouí, Joanie just wishes to know if something can be done about the itching.”

“Auntie Faith, it itches bad where my ouch is.”

“That’s the healing. Let me have a look at it though.” She stands, walks over to the bucket of clean water and, washes her hands. Drying them on a clean part of her apron, she sits down next to her niece. Removing the bandage, she sees that the cut is closed with no redness. Wonderful. “It is all healed up. The ouch is gone. I need to take out the stitches that was holding it closed. That will help with the itch a lot.”

“Alright.” She trusts her new auntie as much as she does her granny.

“How do you do that?” Germaine asks.

“Well, I cut them, here.” Both children and their papa look, “and then just pull them out.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No Joanie. It might tickle a little though.” A sterilized knife is fetched and Fergus holds his daughter ‘s foot still as her auntie cuts and removes the stitches. She then soothes some lotion her mama had made on it.

“That feels much better. Thank you Auntie Faith.”

“You are quite welcome Joanie.”

“May we help auntie?” Germaine nods to the herbs that lay in the basket.

“You may. Thank you. Will you and Joanie carry it in to the surgery? Your granny needs it.”

“Ouí.” They pick it up and hurry in. Fergus takes a seat beside her.

“Congratulations on the bairn.”

“Thank you.” She picks some weeds from around the growing plants. “We are quite excited about it.”

“Ouí, when Marsali told me Germaine was on the way, I was strutting about like a cock.”

She laughs, imagining it. “She was quite young, wasn’t she?”

“That she was. Just ten and six when he was born. I wished to ask you something.”

“Ouí?”

“I know that you and Ian are well because of the bairn.”

She giggles again. “ Having sex?” His dark complexion turns red.

“That ouí. I just wonder if you are finding satisfaction in the act. I ask because I ken’d lasses that preferred other lasses in the brothel. They did their jobs well enough but, it was just a job.”

“Your asking if it is just a job, my marriage, if I am only doing what is expected?”

“Ouí.”

“I thought it would be. To my surprise, it is more. I do find satisfaction in my marriage bed.”

“I am glad. I pray you didn’t find my question out of line?”

“Non, I know it came from a good place. Your my brother and wish to see me happy.”

“Ouí, I am relieved you are. I am also relieved for Ian. A man can tell if his woman isn’t happy in and out of bed.”

“He is happy just worried about the baby.”

“Ouí. He will feel better at the quicken. When he can feel the bairn move. It isn’t as real to us as it is to the lass, not until then.”

“Makes sense. Thank you Fergus for showing concern.”

“Thank you for fixing Joanie’s foot.” He helps her up and they walk towards the surgery to fetch his children.

“No mama, measure from here.” She redirects her hands over Bree’s bump. The ladies are both now showing. Claire is carefully keeping track of her lasses progress. Faith places her mama’s hand under her sister ‘s bump. “It is more accurate.”

“Thank you Faith.” She has no problem learning from her daughter. “Twenty-two weeks Bree.”

“So he or she is exactly where it is supposed to be?”

“Yes.” She then measures Faith. “Nineteen weeks.”

“Wonderful. Just as big as I should be. Come little one, let’s say hello to your cousin.” They place their bumps together. To early for either to feel movement, they know that inside, their children are moving about, aware of the presence of the other.

Marsali, carries Henry-Christian in for his check-up and smiles, a bit wistfully, at the sight of the sisters. “There’s granny’s pumpkin!” Claire reaches for the baby. Marsali hands him over.

“ I’ll be able to join you in a few months.” They look to her, mouths agape. “Aye, I am expecting again. “

“I am sorry Marsali.” Faith comes up to hug her.

“It is God’s will.” Faith looks to Bree. Their eyes communicate that they will figure out a way to prevent this from keep happening.

“I need to check you also.” Claire sighs. Her son just looks at his wife and she is pregnant. It is crazy.

“We will leave you alone then.” Bree hugs Marsali also and they walk out. They start talking as soon as they are outside. “Faith, we have to figure this out.”

“Yes, Henry-Christian isn’t even a year yet. We can’t have our sister being completely wore out from childbirth and parenting.”

“Exactly.” She starts at hearing something. “Faith, there is something in the trees.”

Her sister just smiles at her. “It is alright. It is just Ian. He keeps a close eye on me.”

“He is in the trees?” she looks up but can’t see anything.”

“Ouí, it would irate me but,” She holds her hand out and an apple falls into it, “he brings snacks.” She hands the apple to Bree and holds her hand back out. Another apple falls into it. “Thank you Ian.”

They laugh together as they walk towards the main house, eating the apples.

#my writing #outlander fanfic #faith's journey home #chapter 12 #jamie and claire #cannon divergence #outlander fandom

4 notes · View notes

libidomechanica · 1 year

Text

Every color of stone— where every general curses

A rispetto sequence

Every color of stone—where every general curses. Or keeps you once adored false friend; nor the first and pride! His service of going to die so soon. You than those thou my verse thine own soft-conched ear: surely be. Fill with an offering each thought do care to vaunt, which no longer. I can say that hired huzzas redeem in gentler dreams awake the lady Geraldine!

Her bright, the empress, chest and pray for your sheephooks, and of war turn’d to Absál, her Star was harsh prude indemnifies her teens; and the brae, Sir, slides over you play, such as could not, or, like Friar Bacon’s brazen head, hand, whatever the countrèe. Faire eyes, with thy hair is the caper overrooted, by way of blisse, and there thy love, Jamie, come, t is fit to bear it.

And meant, that with vulgar brain of dames: by axe and expression in the light to light, and thou pursued as food for inanition, her chamber flesh which Death may oft be unreturn’d. And haunted, beseech your nocturnal skin. If this all kinds of gin. Behind seen but in the vales await thee seen, the living brotherly affection, his you talk of love, and innocence.

Antonia puzzled; Julia whom on this So saying what hateful for my poem. Riotous and Witch’s sieve, blissfully haven’d both to yield his spirit bows before hopes, and frown— that wintry brink, which means compression most people chosen poor Frederick, why did so, satisfy his credit, who all give back, and said … Nay, we are whom she did. In things, then beguiled.

Although six days so far out of love at the old tree. The two hearts that braine doth breeds the lynx, they said, he was young girls these some silly flower, and summon lackeys, arm’d with slow and anger, free from this my soul is mine! Upon bed and green fool and saw his wife in every body on the dew dwelt in haste, she heart-stifled, in her morals, and yet against all payment!

When it is an act of patriots now and answers I am waiting to habit. If you delight is lost, and Locks pickt, yet wither, and how to scale an upper sphere, extreme ill- breeding hard, and cry, at war with my mandate like a harpstring each morn and fault was good, have some rest; thou should not know, this is the owlet’s scritch: for what you would that minute—then be wise?

Embryonic chickens grow vicious. Preach out- at-elbow peer, or desperate those skies above; and if I lie, I lie on; my altar elevated by darkness must be settled— and you might tempt to know. The halter was gone off wholly back in to chide: But I could not, or, like Joseph, leaving hands or the blasted Pine, to sit a stand—come down, O maid, alas!

Her chamber, or ambition was of silence and silent was gone for his page with the sea. Watched by some more strong Foundation by the glittered, white with shut eyes I lay on sea-weed, on love, and suck the blue affrayed like that. A paragon, and the surgeon’s knife, dissection life’s worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated, to set up vain pretending to your nocturnal skin.

Tulip seen to-day, but I, vnbid, fetch from joy and wonder’d in his let us away, my love allowed to an old maid of Tryermaine? Clings more than to week: much had been sleep. Star afterwards confesse, that they know that mine enemies who spur more from sweet to put you must be beaten. What opposite of white-thorn laden are more true wisdom of so strong, how self-denial.

Juan the seven! The animals: an old pox, by borrowed. Which other time and must for youth a little door was of corn, and thought, though I can’t oblige her with such sublimity; in short-sighted; the day, right so doth he protected: and then my eyes so innocent, and some, like some said that I would studies fair began that moment seemed strong Foundation built that then?

Fair maid, from you I try to picture, and the forum, and slay me not what care, alone with a tiresome food; I can’t say much amiss, an order lived besides the true! The world hath ever know your face, silent light, and Campbell’s Hippocrene is so good, have sail’d, and at her sire, Sir Leoline. Who knew the renew’d attack? On which commandment is the physician.

’ Made the people everybody but hold. Between syl-lables! Of poets and pine! For the lake-like brow is ruffled cage of any kind mean not to boast, for Venus’ ceston every body has some years, at the echoes rang, while I do speak, and sung their languor, which the World a Desert, and winter in Florida. But no—already … I’m beginning like resign.

That harvest, sowing that’s amiss—I say, when finish Juan’s last set free their minds, our bodies fill with ladies, praying in the mind the cincture from paining—they say to the sons they shrunk in hearts beating my thunder, of looking for giraffes in my blood! But what we were;—too old for slept an azure-lidded sleep, dear heart can fall liking no such welcome aye to Nanie, O.

The vision of his penitent fare, my griefs alike from faery fancy; all amort, of stone—and was the porphyro! My misery can not contain commit a sin, and in their eloquence like a garden walk, and tween the gray clouds, astrea’s beam no darkness and is e’en talk’d learn the world has some skill for sinners’ sake grieved I, when, and they cal that cheek all pumpkins!

’ And camps’ be quite old enough too late the sun, her who is the god unshorn, and wild Recess! As she past on; but each assumed from the brain, love and her heard her the soul which it could yield her infants in youth sincerity; but one whereon magician’s wand wrought it? Literary leave them, thought into my bosom whereon he his hardiness than all, could I hurt her?

In the strike on mine offence, that seems you love the curtains peep’d, where our shadows hauntings of grotesques illumined; and delicate duties; thy ways! The conjuror played but see thee in lover’s vow they were. Or for their dangerous emulation then I should so continents, as they rode furiously she seems to drink in again? From the same who physician.

To those bred up by spade from wicked woman and prosody are eligible, unless I blunder, shaped hearts. So pure and plighted match, and love. Flash up in ingots, bags of dollars, coins not of those exposure it is light which none but sage Antonia’s gondolier, by blood! Through all profits is another’s feelings from home in an author’s cap’s a feathery grasses.

And must have a letter from thence worse, makes cakes? At least t was forced to claw it, and aspire to feel! But have seen! To be sure shadow camest thou? Maid paused a mind within her arms embraced and now doth Geraldine! His self-sweet-conspird in one to Venus, or hoard up warmth against thy mountain-river, why aught except they had been hid—I don’t make you suspected be.

For one or two souls of wild flowers, such miracle. It favors neither fright of Don Juan’s earliest words. Whether in the ruins of income-tax laid on by favouritism, but now unrobe yours one more is any one except a dunce, daily, or mole, exceedings, than cough like her, and heart at bottom shelf, behind the lady’s tale. Is it the train was a bus.

And Julia to the more heirs. And perfections clipt with the vainly guardian green, two white nor speak, but press’d unlink’d with grief a rich field with Ida’s shady brow, his flame, t is very eyes divine. She the mother would adopt your only tarry, her only bad; yet whence Love sprung in rhymes to catch my breast has taken up a lifeless vow to rob a living breast.

From Tom&Jerry, and hear and drippings; and in pride, beside the charted system feigns o’er thy voyce the family-likeness, or states such as once Britannia’s glanced behind her, and small. Land quiet and fair; the bosom try what proper limits, was, to love talk, is it not worth a neat little strange their rose on my rose tree. Is free, the roar of some one tear it down on you wrought.

—My Sandy O, my bonie, O: the op’ning gowan, wat wi’ dew, how pure, amang the ships, and hath ever with you this. Raised the ship from Cadiz. ’ The lady Christabel, that fell but not mad with faery land, and can’t help them both interest foes—converted. A huge, dun cupola, like a Shadow as I’m nearing—i only rise, not to be a Jew. So for a blink.

Why call the house your brand new knights’ fees: his house, ’ she cried, baptize posterity, or from the lady Geraldine, his gray: tis a month before we know our lives under. This most part, thou, and birds sang, all nature is no dream it would win my love for love outsoaring mine, lass; and while he told her transitory perhaps this morn to his let us wish away her days.

Sweet Christabel awoke and Wilberforce: the true we are seen em; she prayed she might have become died palsy-twitch’d, with torches bright, if such easy to him, and take twenty know. Of late; and thus, an order lived beside her kennel, run to see them still keeping by on its wings, for his infants in great of man the exact oppose, chain’d and anger, a space which missing?

And no sneer again, he learn’d to fling through the frees; lies dreams came a chance speak, and sage, and all scandal which was bright have been, at best, when fine days together, like any other tree, which she died. And the chariots traced his jaunt to Germany, whose follies had run dry. Let the voice cries: to you to this sheet, t is sometimes on his knees he saw thee woman send away!

When it sees but shorter a good deal may be done, since I’m free, I wish I could see beautiful: let it be grand multi-track white termination, preludios, trying just as reader! Glaciers, volcanos, oranges and saw his wide open air, and having Love upon you. Thousand guessed the windows, gazing on it hard, young Juan was obscure wood, ’ than when vicious; thy cliffs.

A xylophone may say, nor of the moment didst seem. And all the dust of death, with other born in Roman scowls, and the strove to speak give me. To thy nest this verses show his age, his Death may give that spotless willingly their change the Thunderer’s face: watchet the hunter tell; but go, and though I have miss’d him as for all that his back—was ever agape—bought? From death.

Same fashion, the second life supply come, let’s goe a Maying. Human observer in a wilderness; thought like this enough the tax; behind, and all things in wedlock. Coveted their eyes’ expressively did imitate that worst of all the nymphs and thence a half-unquench’d volcanos, oranges, and teach my mother, with many a famish’d for a pint-sized journey.

Her even as this, out of malice, and small. These days together lie in one to Venus, or the fields to cross soft face puts on pants and bleached: bees pass it unimpeached. Some golden tresses near relations, particularly with thee watch’d with feet and fade that nursed the wide hall; they must be; for that they can one edition, Julia mistress, and May? Not that my name.

Even survive that novelties are a’ my night, and goddesses came with triumphant song— he won them could I love, my love had some Hercules to walk here. Is your hand in this short of way which show’d a fever call’d back return with his card, was laden are Thus whisper’d, in short, I must nor may his pride, jealousy brought and speech of spleen? His toes, I know there is foiled.

I’ll do my best canto, save me not the Italian Musico Cazzani sing at all the other stuffs, within us and Witch’s Lair, and Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent, with capsules in the moment of beer—but then Madam—Madam— here’s mony a flow in so thick and she looked at the tide is turn’d to kiss. And evidence is burning ring, silver cross the world.

Many a coral grove, the maid, alas! But sixteen short, in all the abyss of course, of apprehending door and thine? I would do; but sometimes peaceable as Numa’s who wast thou dost go, thro’ the cedar-shadowed lawn; then grew a fire broken-hearted fair peace or war. The burden the great discernment was grown high and reason; t was merely tend the church, the vow?

—Eight-and-forty manors if that matter. Nor stumbled into itself has many a curl that labyrinth, whose flame in two cupped hands. ’ As my friends should ask, t is but rarely gnaws so much that Boy, proues that black Edward’s helm, and good, so fared she was given: he miss’d. Suddenly the key turns, and tell me how the cottage, I dwell near these reported in Ettrick’s shore.

After all, pray have much by being this fair, her defender; a dream of your quarrels, by blood and slight, and be at home into her knee. When folly of all these trunks of delight was grown with heart of thee, on such band, from out my songs thine shall call such as are you so apply, as his maine forced to me a livelier influence remain. Sighs which we cast the mothers?

I loved me prettily bedabbled so, her charms in heights and the shield her foot she hungry arab—after male loss of tomorrow with such privacy Give me a kingdom or a hypocrite at length. Worthy skiff; and she was manifested in all;—no more, and my epic brethren gone by, this night; when her mouth keepe, that hope is dim: but at his magic vapour.

On thing—too thick to be acted.—To all that water-smoke, that saints I could he could not justify the Genius. Alas, if you this. Could I ail my life and forth her sight; her fair creatures, couched, close by the high hill, thy spiritual splendour front steps are deaf and blue spurt of a great cause from top to toe. And another. Such think who got him, at least, he’s fast, and marriage.

Of all poor Frederick, why did she accomplish, with so much—to give you on the wall, is first learn to hold their spirits. Come, come the earlier than half granted is, I feele my breast: her small bald eye would be brought St. And it wanted; nor the gilded monument give whate’er the city at his feelings ebb and sweetly! Then comes a clog will bloom upon the fray.

And lay down in her joys, her female, young, he was an egg. We have sail’d, and doubts: the needy honour was but the heauens conspiring I might be taken. They hurt me. Too much; I lived in negatives, till he is none e’er light, half-listening; then think it would do; his youth shy, their injuries: yet do not giggle, and winter cloying they though meadows manage either. Remain.

You faltering talk seem’d overbold; now I though some private play: name it I would have any wrinkle, or the grief at the same, as might blend in one, and dwell in pride of a different talent and passed away into tall grasses every degrees: the law. God said that beats, a family’s once so dear as grace she that I am I, who level, such a monstrous choice.

Still forgive me a kind of faith, too—filled the conjuror played between their sea-coal canopy; a huge, broad-brimm’d hawker of the day—they’d have that desecration or petition; at which holds this a plighted vows fleeting as it swelled hers! That, Virtues, I call such mania a disease—he died; and begg’d her brother: they will come over the throne, your life, am I.

Wound much rather charms of men and the money. —Donna Julia, in fact, there is an ever lightsome dawn that should not you so much them he beams have prince is but told of this enough. Hath left me broken. Until too late for this I heard, whom thy darkness of the Parliament and all is than the elected. ’ True Love is of the room-door in a modest all kind of doubt.

I never be broken, but in old England! My Sandy O. ’ Or Verflucter, ’ affect noon, in all these tears; and worship of The Fire—even These let me take such pursuits: thought, a dreary change in zero gravity. And if in a witch’s Lair, and out went before thee; how small lady bowed, and neuter, with ruffian passing- bell may ere this; and like liquor or aspirin.

And bad, on each day began too soon, alas! Roman scowls, and without a rapture in a second whiskers, to decay, and green snake coiled around, and them from his own slipp’ry steep; and the dimness of no great command, if at morning young Pharsalians did she find thee, as a page redacted, you walk into far Ku-to- yen, by the dust of death. Am I failing?

Nor wilt thou be my ain. She could with a long minority and past worlds, and get into play—and raised: and bear with pushing roar: there is left with a quiet leave to go for a calm: God grant you forgive me. All grasses everywhere; a witch, you Diuell alas you still then with all the melodious wits, whate’er sum in mulct they could suffer. From Tom&Jerry, and hope?

The angels would burden of widows, she resolved to scale a fortress—or a nunnery. So quicken, confusion over suddenly I saw a bright, drest to me a livelier emerald twinkles which saves, in fact that words. Soon as ASTREA may be drest in your happy are in the tangles of salt, and glances along the truth. I only ever suffer paine.

Farewell; it is to hope that modulated cantana of the porphyry font: the time so opportunity; or fall but her whom they, in the wealthiest of bane: while with fears, than Heav’n will soone might have given up his garden- gate; a lion ramps at the eye, Love were your hurt invades it. Might be ta’en by Gurney, who saw the same that since arms she did not lie.

What if I had vowed with words: this we pass overcome both brains to draw them all by name. And all, like poplars, with other; gratefull, who is not why or where ’t is strengthen outran discreet at all times; no, not Jove himself, and servants in your young Don Juan was a charming chips, o’er which none but see the dame, consulting the Society’s beginning when thy cruelly!

And life, for all those times delay; then spur away o’er every bough and sweet loves in her mouth undaunted with her Moon and stolen glanced about to let the inner me threw himself for fits. You run about this than another snapp’d the chambers of tomorrow. Peep out somehow people say, I don’t make the cherry. Skill in wild dismay o’er earth and all the monstrous debt.

Full-blown sleet: who knelt, with trump and she as one defied, collect his time. The climate’s sultry. But sage Antonia maid, until his duty, in all dipt in Angel offices, so I ascended. And being only the due prevarication, but—Oh! A star hath rescue me, I waste blank-verse, I’m fond of fire, and her who love. Then the sounds ill in motion sound.

Pseudo-syphilis? Materials, but not mine: a real spirits of the despots know what to meet you as far as such a curry, and when all the black rock in the swelled her arms, that asking in desire to staunch the leafy nooks where upon the movies from home into memory doth deceive! In your spirits, leave me that huddling slant in furrow, and ices.

In gangs of the morrow-day; and when at last! Should be something of innumerable bees. That vast disinterest grew; there she still with life, besotted infamy! I had thread them under, which were one learned from Tom&Jerry, and barbarous Don Alfonso leaning, broiling, burning weeds. From Tom&Jerry, and birth This is with his bright touch upon a living.

And pensive awhile, I’ve spoken, and pine, and again the last grown-up daughter’s name—sir Leoline greeting the ear that modulated cantana of the wolverine’s howled signals, that are just soil. And no spurre can his resty race renew? As if her guardian, which presents into the dead, my hauntings of the skilfu’ strings, all whose experiment and you make.

Thou sire of this will sen’ me, O: nae ither curvëd point, exception out of dusky strange a dream. Then Piers, of fire, and placing a rumpled crimson petal, now that the Donna Julia’s dainty mistress, some Orient Pearls unwept: bid her Face beneath these words away; for still breaking, sterling, stupid. How cold is this worth, by laying horses over all!

Wearing Venus badge in euery part one modern instance’ more, but now I’ll bear, and turn, sole- thought, for his things are in this endeavor … I am not of any other men may use deceit: he always is suspicion countrymen, we will I bury me while. But somebody or other laws: a kind of truest breath and feels, as if a new-fall’n year, they hurt me.

Into the moon. You run about, my little hard, and speech t’ engarland so, that clouds befringe their judgment, though, in the cot below the temperately grew gross in some slight, the hunter tell; yet many houses? ’Er candy buzz round rippled by Fame, the closet: pray, keep your halls, and let me his pale as smooth as snow she sent his fools away, I wis, dreamingly.

Then spring of refuse do powre euen hell on her deceased. Robbing and will fly and dastardly, and greater part of Christabel! My love, that this festive day, Sir; there’s not be, as hath charmed our day by day. Have tried to teach him manners for all the Greek, as well as most sublime, where yet in the street a Parke many a token before those feathers pluckt, where a man.

At such a rate for needy fate. And the yellow hair waits me the hunter tells you—’take no care nay! Middle of night, and upon the paths of snows, don Juan’s mother’s row, each failed in stillness, whether on crystal clear strong in the dew- slick grass, it does no harm, or else t were lost lands. Each about entwine, here is the mother consented., Began at once, and I the walls.

Dear, but be shown—yet ne’er believed that bards of happier men. Is something red, that blows, her wit she something chests weigh not in her as the languish’d, the darken’d to him its direction of hers your cheek or the five, took me from does not kept awake, for what she knows why nothing so becoming down to human thoughts I speak, she look’d upon her palsied fancy, fair St.

But what beats, a family’s once more, nor more to add yet this morality whate’er he may float where the Ring of my dear Perilla: all are gone and understood, by solitude against his starving skies for a monarch and passion and one or two; yet he was sold, his eyes the mother, with Formosum Pastor Corydon. To understand—a heart nectar-brimmed.

Around shall bide at rest, that only to keepeth well. Three whole, breathed joy and passions I commit are forgive me, love which is a screaming fears. And situation of his paradise, or plays of travel, a paleness,—not like a God in pain sprung. To waken doubt in fact, there’s sometimes I would I love you, holy Christians have become a man. The gently sway.

A decent either without a woman. Perfect bliss for life a thing about her face ablaze, yearning to and comforter, will be when you cease to live upon your eyes; my doubts could not, but whether in his breeding; but making conversation through bliss, and when the panted, with thou deserving, they give you this—to tell you trust to meet her master and his last words.

My passions great moral, still on me; she seem’d the work Longinus o’er the window-panes; St. Amid their control; the silk was, and yet, writing world my spirit, smile on my pen and beneath these sodas or magnesias; which Britons deem their powers of her loving languorous hours, such a one t was sheer air such puppets of her own innocuous occupation.

Who favoured men deem her that do such delight in those thing limping across the smooth, so levels with what life I did see the world till not room for her relations, particularly sets him often—such a scene between a rook or bishop, but yet for imposture. A richer pearles Ruby-hidden of roses and laid conditions howl of human cattle.

In the forum, and here you once a whole troupes of verdure, certain order lived on air that charmed ocean’s swell; no, child, and, Loue, I hope he’s young: the fiery ringlets from this midnight— Donna Julia and Don Juan was real, or making dead words of wedded to tears. With blood burnt each place but to fix again the wind that god of pleasure lives attached to me: such sorrow!

For the bars and wounded fantasies. Thou gav’st me leaves, the two-celled her; but since which she died of the garland was whole troupes of the ear-trumpet of my heart at bottom virtuous mermaids, whose ladies wishing in her side—a sight the Baron, the roads, and left alone, and oft that bitterness. Wavering on the surprise, what ails the honey on the room-door in a.

And slip at once and takes, that glory prick’d and anguish’d, though travel through Warsaw, who level, when Pan and immaculate, unmix’d and their lady’s cheeks and length burst in the oranges and immortal of the spray, their station, a period sometime hold my tongue of last campaign. It to climb o’er whom abundance melts, and bells have burnt each and dashing to tell us.

Such giddiness of the living befell, but his own high ground, and finding sickle’s compass, round the Fortune lay one’s laurel: for feare hence— forward violet,—those cooler shade yestreen. Till he send forth understand there she died: and moon were in vain? I many thoughtful Madeline’s change horses o’er the cause it is lightly term I may, a manly Palm, a maiden mild!

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 7 #200 texts #rispetto sequence

0 notes

rabchunter · 2 years

Text

Being called out by a forestry owner who has a bit of a squirrel problem.

I have set a series of Katch It Traps multi cage traps, Goose and I sat in a makeshift hide overlooking a feeder we installed some time back, a 2 hour session produced 7 squirrels, I lost one head shot in the thick brambles so only picked up 6.

There were other squirrel calling but I had to get to another job, so I will tackle them on the next outing there.

I was glad of my jack Pyke armoured Digi cam long sleeve top, not only did I stay cool in the heat but it kept me concealed too, plus it kept the biting insects off my arms.

The Air Rifle of the day was the awesome Air Arms S510T (Tactical) that performed flawlessly, this style is really starting to grow in me, although I still love traditional wooden stocks.

The Grey Squirrel is a huge conservation headache, not only is it a non native invasive species, it's also a major threat to our ancient broad leaf trees and forestry, doing irreparable damage, also a major killer of our song bird and ground nesting birds, taking the eggs, killing the young birds and adult birds alike.

The Grey invaders are also a direct reason for the almost extinction of our native Red Squirrel, they carry a virus/pox that's deadly to our native Red Squirrel.

So fluffy and nice they are not.

We are stuck with them now, the best we can hope for is to control the population and aid or native Red Squirrel.

Air Arms, Jack Pyke and The Ole Hedge Creeper, now that's a winning combination in the field or on the range 💪🐾🐶🤠

www.theolehedgecreeper.co.uk

#theolehedgecreeper #jackpyke #airarms #AirArmss510T #AirArmsTactical #squirelshooting #squireltrapping #squirrelcontrol #greysuirrelshooting #greysquirrelcontrol #conservation #redsquirrelrescue #redsquirrelconservation #redsquirrel #thegreyarea

0 notes

dreadwulf · 3 years

Text

prompt #1: The Green Knight

(Warning: Major Character Death. Not the Major Character you think. Be warned.)

The Green Chapel stands still and silent when the Golden Knight arrives.

Once he had expected a fine cathedral to await him at the of his journey, but by now he is unsurprised to find a crumbled ruin overgrown with ivy. Only the stone walls remain of this “chapel”. The sunken paving stones admit dirt and weeds between them enough that it is barely distinguishable from the forest floor, and the roof is long since fallen in. Everywhere it is overgrown with thick green leaves and vines, and surrounded by a canopy of trees that opens only enough to admit a slice of night sky directly above.

Ser Jaime Lannister enters watchfully, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

The Green Knight is nearly invisible to him at first: concealed in greenery, grown into the landscape as though part of it. The bark of his skin is encrusted with moss, leaving no visible gap between himself and the plants around him. Judging from the growth, the Knight has not moved in a long, long while.

Has he stood exactly here for the entire year, waiting for him? It looks more like a statue, or a tree carving. Something long abandoned. Much longer than a single year.

“Ser Knight,” he announces, “I have arrived per our agreement.”

Silence.

There is only him here, and a tree that looks only a little like a man.

He is early, Ser Jaime realizes. Will be it dawn of the day, or the very hour of their meeting? He may be here for some time. It will be hours to dawn, and it had been another sundown after that when the Green Knight had ridden into Robert’s court on his enormous steed.

One year hence, the Knight had said. Well, at least he is not late.

The pre-dawn hours are quiet here, and the grove is peaceful. The trees overhead open out onto a pretty sprinkling of stars, and all the noise of the forest and the brook which has lead him here has faded away. He can see why the locals call this the Green Chapel. It is the sort of place that encourages one to pray, and to contemplate, at least if one is given to introspection and piety.

Which he is usually not.

The Golden Knight quickly grows restless. Waiting is not a skill of his. He is impatient by nature, impetuous and impulsive. Faced with delay he will rush things ahead, or abandon his course. Unless, as in this case, he has no choice but to wait, and then he will be overcome with unease.

He paces. His fingers twitch. His gaze darts around, landing on this and that.

There is no sign of movement from the Green Knight.

If he had not seen him walking and talking, he might assume this to be only a sculpture, and not a living being. He might wonder if he had been tricked, and if some unseen enemy hovered nearby laughing at his predicament. But he has seen the Green Knight up close, and ran him through with his own blade, and watched as the great gnarled hands pulled the greatsword from his own breast as casually as a thorn from his finger, and tossed the weapon aside as though it were a child’s plaything.

His hands curl around the same greatsword at his belt. He has carried it for a year, this sword. It was his prize for accepting the Green Knight’s challenge, and ostensibly he is here to return it. When he does, the knight will return him the same blow, and stab him through the heart.

Was it worth it? What, after all, did he do with his fine sword?

Ser Jaime sighs and sits on the wet ground. He can grow no more muddy and disheveled than he is already. He left King’s Landing in his extravagant golden armor, wearing his lion’s helm, and riding the finest horse in his stable. But he arrives in the Green Chapel on foot, with no helm, dressed in shabby clothing and battered bits of armor. Even his golden hair is shorn, and only a thin growth of hair remains of his famous golden curls.

The only thing of value remaining to him is the sword. And to be quite honest, the Green Knight is welcome to it. If he could, he would exchange it for something much more valuable that he had found, and then lost, along the way.

It had taken many weeks to get him here. There were some diversions - misadventures, a strange episode in a Keep, and a good deal of wandering around lost - but he has come a very long way from Robert’s Court to find himself here. He had managed the journey only with the help of his squire.

The girl had joined him on the road on the very first day. She was part of the crowd that had followed him from the gates, those knight-hopefuls who so frequently followed his footsteps around the city. Most wanted some of his glory, hoped for it to spill onto them by mere proximity. Some wanted merely to see him meet his fate, others to be part of that tale if they could. But there was very little glory in this journey. They had been beset by bandits, wild animals, bad weather, and strange side-tracks from almost the very start

There had been six, even eight of them at a time, during the ride through the Westerlands, but as he traveled further and further from the capital and the weather worsened their number dwindled, and by the tenth night there was only her. Her name was Brienne. If she had another he has already forgotten it.

She was a strange girl, ungainly large, and dressed all in armor, in imitation of a knight. She had a face like rotten fruit, softly misshapen. Her straw-blonde hair, ruddy and pox-marked skin, and stubborn pout completed the picture. Her very presence proved subtly irritating. If a maid cannot be beautiful she might at least keep herself out of sight; or else be a servant, who are barely women to begin with.

His followers quickly decided to make a servant of her. This did not go well. Ser Jaime came upon her fighting three of the men on the third night. One of them had blood streaming from his nose already, another was sitting on the ground looking dazed from a blow to the head. The last was seemingly unfazed by the fate of the other two, and Ser Jaime observed him take a good punch to the chin that left him spitting out teeth. They were trying to steal her supper, she said. The girl should be cooking for us all, the men said.

“She is my squire”, Ser Jaime told them, deciding upon it at that very moment. “She will cook supper for only me.”

“Like hell I will,” the ungrateful wench spat at him.

Ser Jaime raised an eyebrow. “Do you wish to be a knight or not? First you must be a squire.”

She did at that. She did wish it, very much. He can see it in her eyes -- striking blue eyes, with a determined gaze.

Brienne did cook his supper, the next night, over the campfire. Not very well, and he did not insist again. But she also tended his armor and sword, and that she did very well indeed. She handled his greatsword with tremendous respect and care, such that it touched him to see. He had long since stopped being impressed by the blade, after carrying it for a year.

Brienne proved a loyal squire, if not the most typical one. When wolves attacked she proved herself courageous, stood herself well in front of older and more experienced men. When there was work to be done she would be first to do it, and without being asked: gathering firewood, tending the horses. Drudgery she avoided, but practical, necessary things she performed without complaint.

She had very blue eyes. Sky eyes, clear and bright. He would have liked to look at them, except that she would be looking back, and that seemed to frighten her. She did not like to look him in the face. A shy maid, for all her armor and prickly temperament. He liked to tease her, and tell bawdy jokes with the other men until her face turned a pleasant pink.

A skirmish with the Brave Companions lost three of his would-be-knights and all of their horses,and it lead to their capture for a brief time. When they managed to escape, they were left traveling afoot, and without their supplies. His other followers drifted off then, losing their taste for adventure. Only the girl remained, and walked beside him along the road North uncomplaining through the long days ahead.

She was good with a blade, better than most. Not so good as Ser Jaime, who had a prodigious talent. But on the occasions he challenged her to spar with him, she got his blood up and roaring in a way he had not felt since he was a young man himself, and all his adventures before him.

She was kind. Too reserved to be gregarious, but generous in spirit. She took pity on every foundling, every poor farmer and milkmaid they encountered along the way. She wanted to help them, rescue them all; if he had not restrained her they would have been fighting for the honor of each individual cow from the Westerlands to the Neck. She was much disappointed that they hadn’t. What is a knight for, if not that?

She would learn, as he once had. The Knights of Robert’s Kingdom were more tarnished than a starry-eyed squire suspected. Heroes and legends in tales were only men in the flesh, and men with a bit of money and renown all went the same way. Given the best of everything they would indulge themselves, would grow greedy, would came to expect what had once been freely given. They fought not for gods and country but for glory, and mainly fought each other. They plundered wealth and women, sat by roaring fires, went slow, went soft, forgot hunger and killing cold.

Honor was a facade, nothing more. To become a knight was to learn it. It made him glad she would never be knighted, and fail that lesson.

“Entertain me, squire,” he said to her as they rode side-by-side, needling her. “I have heard all of the songs and stories of this land, and they bore me. Tell me a tale of yourself, Squire Brienne. What adventures set you on this course to become a knight?”

She bowed her head. “I have no tales to tell, my lord. It is only a wish, and an aspiration. But I have no adventures but the one we are on now. But you, my lord, are a famous knight, and must have many stories to tell. I would be honored to hear them from your own lips.”

Ser Jaime had hundreds of tales. He has boasted of his adventures to innumerable audiences as they looked on him admiringly, the great Golden Knight. Wins at tourney, duels with other knights, riding to war for King Robert. But for some reason, as he turned them over in his mind, he discarded each of his favorite stories one by one. He did not want to tell them now; those stories are not for her.

“I also have no tales to tell,” he said.

“Are you not on a quest, my lord?” She looked over at him quizzically, her blue eyes innocent. “I hear tell you are riding to the Green Chapel in the north…”

“I am, and to meet the Green Knight. But even I am not so bold as to tell that tale when I do not yet know its ending. But it sounds like you could, Squire Brienne.”

Again she frowned at him for that title. But she did know the bare outlines of the story, how the strange Green Knight had rode into King Robert’s court and invited the bravest and boldest of his knights to face him in battle, to strike a single blow and receive a blow in return, and for it they would gain his greatsword as a prize. How the Golden Knight had taken up the challenge, and in a blow of great talent and precision stabbed the Golden Knight through the heart, finding the weakest point in his armor on a single try. But instead of falling down dead, the Green Knight had easily pulled the blade from his own chest and mounted his horse. He told the Golden Knight to meet him in one year at the Green Chapel, where he would return his blow.

“And I see you do not hesitate to keep your word,” Brienne concluded the tale. “You are as bold and brave as all the stories say. But what will you do when you get there?”

“Fight him, I suppose.” Ser Jaime’s hand tensed around the ruby-encrusted pommel of his borrowed sword.

“Ser?” She blinked back at him in confusion.

“What, you expected I would meekly bow my head and be murdered? Of course not.” Ser Jaime’s shoulders shook. “Twas not a fair bargain, when he has such dark magic that he can take a sword through the heart and survive. I have no such magic, and it isn’t a fair exchange.”

“But you did not have to strike a deathblow. By the bounds of the agreement you might have only scratched him, and taken only a scratch in return.”

Well, yes. In hindsight, that would have been wiser. If he had taken the time to think it over, he might have put that together. But by nature he rarely takes that time.

“He was a large and fearsome Knight, and I thought only to prevent the return blow. Of course if I had known he would survive it I would have acted differently. I know it now. And when I see the Knight this time I will fight him with everything I have, and he will fight me with everything He has, and we will see who is the victor.”

“But you made a promise…” She sounded faintly disappointed, and it irritated him greatly.

“It was a trick, girl. A trick to snare a knight by his honor. Would you have me die for a trick? What good will that serve? No, I will keep my appointment as promised, but he will have to work to land his blow against me. I’ll have my skill and my wit to defend me, as he had his magic.”

“Are you not afraid, Ser?”

“Afraid to fight? Never. It will be a fine duel, perhaps the finest of my life, and I am eager for it. It will be the battle that will make my legend, the kind that songs are sung of, and I look forward to that.”

Brienne said that she hoped to see it, and let the matter lie.

She did not see it, of course. They came to the Crossroads instead.

An inn stood at the crossroads, and cast-offs from the Riverlands sheltered there. Orphans and strays. Jaime and Brienne arrived only long enough to see a great many helpless faces before bandits came riding, meaning to plunder the kitchens, and carry off the women and children.

Jaime told the girls to run away as best they could, and aimed to do the same. If they were quick about it, the raiders couldn’t catch them all.

Brienne, on the other hand, meant to defend them. They would not survive alone in the forest, she said, and if the bandits took away the food, the little ones would starve.

“Better the bandits take them then, one or the other,” he said quickly, tugging at her. “But we had best retreat. We will not manage another fight in our condition, and not without more men.”

This was entirely reasonable, to him; better knights than he had often advised the same. There was no glory in failure, and certainly none in a pointless death in the middle of nowhere.

“No.” Brienne grew taller under his grasp, and would not be moved. “What good is a knight if he will not defend the innocent?”

“You stupid girl.” He holds her by the shoulders. “There is nothing you and I alone can do against so many men, no matter how skilled you are with a blade. They will surround us and cut us down -- it won’t even buy any time for your orphans. The best we can do is live to fight another day.”

“Someone must do something,” she says stubbornly. “I will not run.”

“Not to no avail! A battle is bravery, but this is suicide. It’s foolish, meaningless. It will make no difference whether you intervene or not - either way the women are taken and the children are killed. You will only add another body.”

“Someone must fight for them,” she insists. “Even if there is no hope. I am not enough, but if there is no one else, then it will be me.”

With that, she had shoved him in the larder, with a sudden and ferocious strength, and barred the door.

“Let me free, you stupid child!” He slammed his weight into the door sharply with his shoulder, enraged.

He could hear her through the door, her voice steady and clear.

“Someone must fight for them. If there is no one else, then it will be me.”

“Damn you,” he swore at her. “Open the door and I will fight with you. Two against a dozen is better odds than one. Open the door!”

“You have an appointment to keep,” she said, and then there was silence.

Jaime could not see what happened after that, but he could hear it. He could hear the disdainful laughter of the brighands, and the drawing of many blades. He could hear for a time the blades clashing, and much shouting, and one unfamiliar cry of pain, and for a brief moment he was hopeful that she might prevail. She was a talented swordfighter. If they fought her one at a time he had no doubt she could best them.

He could tell, even without seeing, that they did not. The fight turned, became a slaughter. He heard a single cry that he knew in his gut was Brienne, taking a blow she would not survive. There came more noise then, more steel and blows, and then the screams of the women and children being dragged from the Inn.

He screamed too. He wept, and clutched at his useless greatsword in a rage, wanting to throw himself through the door and impale himself on them like an arrow, these animals who would dare to touch a true knight. None of them seemed to hear him, or proved interested in the larder.

He didn’t know how long he had been left sitting there on the floor, with tears on his face and the earthy smell of raw meat weighting him down in the cool darkness. He waited for one of them, any of them, to remember him in the kitchens and come back, but no one did, and that was how he knew that no one remained. He wondered if he would be left there to rot. To moulder away with the bits of cheese and bread that remained there until he was nought but bones and a borrowed sword.

Eventually, quietly, a small boy with enormous eyes unbarred the door, having emerged from his hidey-hole only hours after the vicious intruders had left. Seeing Jaime huddled in the dark, he fled again and hid himself away in the Inn.

Jaime emerged into the twilight reluctantly. When he looked down the road, he imagined he could see them. The prisoners being taken away in the back of some wagon, women and children and women who were really children still, huddled together and weeping, down the long road and away. It was all for nothing, all of this. The brigands had taken them anyway.

There was no glory in this defeat. There was only a bloodstreaked trench in the mud where a terrible battle occurred, and in the middle of it a sad heap of metal. She was unrecognizable there, cut to pieces. Only a few strands of pale blonde hair remained to know her by.

The blacksmith’s armory had implements enough to break the cold ground. He dug a hole right beside the crossroads while the rain bucketed down on him. His chest hurt from the strangled sob caught in it. He put her in the hole and blanketed her again with the mud. If there had been flowers anywhere in that season in all the land he would have found them and laid them there above her grave. One day, he hoped, grass would grow.

It was a meaningless gesture, and made no difference to the blue-eyed girl. But it meant something to Jaime.

It was not meaningless to them, the shivering children and the sad-faced women riding away in the wagons. They had looked back, mournfully, at the place in the road where her body lay. Looked back down the long road, into the distance, through the rain and the trees and the tramping feet of the bandits’ horses and out of sight, and they kept looking. They would look back long after the rain and wind had wiped away any traces of what had happened there. They would not forget. When the enemy came for them, someone took up a blade in their cause. Someone thought they mattered. Someone thought they were worth dying for. They did not face their fate alone.

When evil comes, so long as at least one person stands against it, there is still some light left in the world.

He left the shovel there in the road and went back to the Inn. It took some time to locate the boy and persuade him to come out of the trunk where he had hidden himself. He carried the boy with him North to the next village, where he left him wordlessly at the Sept, and turned North again, alone.

The rain never stops now. The ground is crusted with snow and the air is wet and mossy and somehow the rains never wash anything away. It only soaks into the dirt and grime and ice and blood and weighs it down. Makes it heavier. Makes everything impossibly heavy.

There are more strange things that happen to him then: how the road curves and wanders beneath his feet and doubles him back to the start as though trying to throw him off his course. There were strange dreams, and visions, and he walks in a sort of fever. Nothing seems quite real after the Crossroads, nothing except the sword in his hand and his goal: the Green Chapel. He has an appointment to keep.

He grows only more determined to reach his destination.

The nights grow colder. He wakes up shivering, rolling over, trying to wake the embers of the fire, and every time his eyes open they are looking for the foolish girl in her armor. They find only blackness and he remembers then the crossroads and the hole he dug besides the road.

He missed her terribly.

He misses her still, sitting here before the Green Knight. It is a persistent ache, a weight that grows heavier by the day. It makes him feel ancient to contemplate. He sounds like one of the rusty old knights who cluster around Robert, lamenting the roads not taken, the women they might have settled down with. Lost loves. It has been only days and yet it seems like years ago, and a road already overgrown and impassable. He can see it already, the enormity of his mistake. His life might have become something entirely different, improbably better. The opportunity came to him, and he wasted it.

Brienne. The Maiden Knight. She could have been his lady love and his brother-at-arms all at once. Would anything have been so perfectly suited to him as that? He will never find her like again, and even if he did he would not want it; he will only want her, for the rest of his life.

Jaime muses over these memories through the hours. The journey, the past, the world around him. Time seems to settle into a hazy blur.

The sun rises slowly, impossibly slowly. He cannot see it past the trees, but the world gradually brightens, with gentle insistence. The greens grow ever more lush and verdant all around him. The wall where the Green Knight stands turns from grim grey to a lively grass color, the dark ivy wound around in loops that seem to form an altar of deep mossy overgrowth around the still and sleeping form of the Knight.

His hands worry at the hilt of the greatsword that he had come to return. He might leave the blade on the altar and go. Would that fulfill his word?

What did Jaime do with his famous sword, during the year he had it? Only held it aloft for others to see. Used it to threaten, and to cajole. Boasted of it to other lords. But the only time he had just cause to draw it he had chosen to retreat instead, and in doing lost the only thing of any value he had ever found.

If only he had gone with her. Agreed right at the first, without hesitation. If he had stood at her side it might have ended differently. One had no chance, but two, perhaps, might have survived. He might have taken her with him to the Green Chapel. He might have taken her home to the King. He might have seen her made a knight, and stood proudly beside her at the king’s table. The tales he might have made with her, he would be proud to tell.

The Knight’s form comes into clearer and clearer relief: looming over him, impossibly tall, improbably wide.

Jaime knows with cold certainty that the Knight is going to wake very soon. As the light grows stronger, the Green Chapel is waking around him with a thousand tiny movements. He can almost make out the subtle sound of leaves uncurling to the sun, and worms crawling in the earth.

The sword, Oathkeeper, quivers in his hands, as though outraged. How did he dare to carry that blade to this place intending to lie? To break his promise? More and more he thinks he did not. He came here for something else entirely.

Jaime finds, for the first time that he can remember, his hands are trembling. It is one thing to go to battle, but another entirely to go to an execution. His heart beats in his ears with a deep drumbeat of doom... doom... doom...

He’s not here to fight a duel, is he? What, then, is he here for?

Glory? Judgement? Mercy? Absolution?

Or only the cold, mechanical means of his inevitable end?

Was all this journey only for that? Is he truly here only to get a blade through his chest? And if so, might it be worth his while? After all, is there any better way for a knight to die? Will it not be a fitting end to his legend?

But he isn’t ready to die. Not willingly. Not without redeeming his honor, making something of himself. If he had another year… but would he do any more with that than he had the last? Than he has with all of the years thus far? Is there any amount of time that would make any more of himself than he has already?

The time he needed was these weeks on the road with Brienne. That showed him what kind of man he’d like to be. But he failed her when it mattered most. Perhaps he should be judged for that. Not a year from now, nor twenty. Today.

The sun rises higher in the sky, and paints the Green Chapel gold. The air warms, and birdsong calls to him on the breeze. The day is relentlessly pleasant, with a promise of endless more such days to follow. A bittersweet longing fills him. It has never seemed half so lovely to be alive as it does in this beautiful place. If only he could have brought her here.

I will be brave, he says to himself. Like Brienne.

All at once there is a great creaking sound of wood bending and tearing, and when Jaime looks up the green altar is moving. Green leaves tremble and wave purposefully, and twigs and small branches snap and fall away to rest in the dirt below. The trunk of the altar pulls itself free, excavates itself from the enclosure in the leaves and branches. Limbs pull free, and something nearly human rises out of the green, the bark of its skin glistening, newborn.

The Green Knight is standing.

Jaime looks up, and up, and up, from where he sits on the mossy floor of the green chapel, and his hand grips the hilt of his sword.

He is ready to fight, by instinct, and to flee, by sudden impulse. He is afraid, he realizes, afraid in a way he has never been before. There is more than a blow to the heart to fear here. There is the fate of his soul, which is suddenly entirely in question. Before his journey he had no doubt of his own worth as a knight, and now he is just as certain in the opposite direction. Is he worthy? He is not. He is not.

Slowly, he stands. The sun shines down on him through the same corridor in the trees where he had watched the stars the night previous, and its warmth is a rebuke; why should the sun shine upon one such as him? He is the golden knight no more. He is only a man, a man with a sword that does not belong to him.

His eyes raise last of all.

Jaime finds through the golden light the Green Knight’s face. The eyes first, through a thin bloom of leaves and moss, and then the nose, the jawline. He has never seen it so clearly before, not even when he had stabbed her through the heart. With slow realization his eyes travel down and up again, taking in the shape of his host, and her nature.

The Green Knight is a woman? Why didn’t he realize it before?

It seems only too clear now. The slight narrowing of the waist and wrists, and in the face… not a pretty face, but undeniably feminine. Full lips, round cheeks, and the eyes...

Blue eyes. Beautiful blue, sad blue, noble and sorry. The lost blue of long-forgotten clear skies.

When he sees them his hands stop shaking. All is well. His grand sword slips from his fingers and settles softly in the grass, sinks gently into the ground, is welcomed.

“It’s you,” he says. “I’m glad it’s you.”

The girl from the Crossroads is standing before him.

He doesn’t understand how it is possible. Was she always the Knight? Was all an illusion? Was the Knight in disguise when he met her, or was the Knight once that girl? But it doesn’t matter. Whoever she is, she is here now, and it is good and right that this happen to him.

Her voice is low and rusty, like a hinge that has not moved in many years, and slow in its opening.

“You... kept... our appointment,” the Knight creaks.

His mouth is gone dry. “One year hence. You gave me time enough. And so I am here.”

He thinks he sees her smile, faintly. With the crackling sound of breaking branches, the Knight gestures to his feet.

“You... dropped your sword... my Lord.” Ser Jaime glances down at Oathkeeper, already disappearing beneath the twining vines on the forest floor. “Is it not time... for our blades to cross? A duel to make your legend?”

“I made you a promise,” he says faintly, and puts a hand over his unguarded heart. “It seems my word is all I have, and if it means nothing to anyone else, it means something to me.”

She smiles. An oaken hand reaches out and touches him on the face, gently. “My brave knight.”

Her eyes are the bluest skies he has ever seen. He is not afraid. Not anymore.

“Are you ready?” she asks him, still stroking his cheek.

“Yes.” He is eager for it now. “Strike your blow.”

“Straight through the heart,” she agrees. Then she reaches out with her other hand to touch the other side of his face.

She kisses him.

#dreadwulf fic #jaime lannister #braime

57 notes · View notes

iero0 · 3 years

Text

A Love Like Oxygen

The warmer months are the worst. Around the time that the sun grows warmer, and the chipper of birds wake him before sunup, a darkness seizes Harry from deep within, one that worsens with every memorial, every birthday, every deathday along the line.

The grand finale, ultimately, is his own birthday.

He doesn’t understand why he’s feeling so low. In contrast to Draco who despises the summer for its heat that he doesn’t deal well with, and loves it for the long hours of daylight, Harry enjoys the warmth on his skin, hopeful that it will permeate through to bones that feel so dead-cold at times, heavier than Harry thinks people ought to feel in their late twenties.

With his birthday fast approaching, Harry removes himself from get-togethers and barbeques and from life, just to indulge in the agonizing memory of birthdays spent secluded and unloved as a child.

The irony doesn’t escape him. When Ron says that it’s almost as if he wants to be a miserable loner, Harry answers that he might be just correct. They don’t fight about it, though, they don’t. The thing all of them learnt after the war is that sometimes, you help your friends by giving them some space.

Draco, however, is not good at granting space. Fortunately, Harry doesn’t mind, not with him. Draco always seems to be there, holding him through nightmares and reading next to him when Harry stares blankly ahead, incapable of making any sense of his world, stroking through his hair when Harry hadn’t realised how he craved the touch.

This year’s birthday is hardly different from others. He had hid away at home for the last two weeks, avoiding company like Dragon Pox. On the very day of his birthday, however, not even Draco lets him spend the day secluded. Instead, he’s served a huge pile of pancakes and is then shoved into the shower whilst he hears Draco rummaging through their bedroom.

Harry understands only later that Draco was packing a bag for them, when Hermione hands him a small box for his birthday. In it he finds a battered tin soldier of all things (well, she can’t know, he never told her about the cupboard), and it takes him a shocked moment to realise that it’s a Portkey, not some sort of twisted plot to make Harry talk about repressed trauma.

They spend the day at a beautiful wild beach. Ron, Hermione, and Draco travelled with Harry via Portkey, but once there, they meet up with Ginny and Luna, and Dean and Seamus, with Pansy and Theo, and with Blaise and with Neville. Caught up in chatter, splashing about, and playing a bumbling party of beach volleyball, time seems to race. It’s only when the sun changes from yellow to orange that Harry pauses, and his useless brain supplies him with thoughts from earlier, reminds him how exhausting this all is.

Draco’s hand finds Harry’s. He doesn’t look worried, only aware.

In his peripheral view, it doesn’t escape Harry how Neville’s gaze and mouth corners drop to their linked fingers, and something about that is almost too much for Harry to bear. They take a walk along the beach, only he and Draco. Ginny and Ron want to join, grinning and fierce as they are, but Harry hears Hermione tell them off without many words.

Harry smiles, grateful for ‘Mione and her unerring understanding of others. Harry’s smile grows wider when he looks at Draco at his side, clad only in his swim trunks. His delicate pallor is reddened on his cheek bones and the thin bridge of his nose. His shoulders almost gleam in an angry hue of red.

“What?” Draco asks, smiling and playfully shoving at Harry. In lieu of replying, he only shoves back, steps heavy in the uneven sand, and they end up walking arms around each other. Harry presses a careful kiss to Draco’s burnt skin.

“The sun goes down at last,” Draco remarks, eyes squinting against the fiery orb above the trees that line the beach. “Was rather aggressive today. I wouldn’t have endured a minute of it at home.”

“Not without complaining,” Harry says, teasing, and somehow feeling happy to have a moment alone together. They rather tussle instead of talking. Everything that needs to be said is communicated by mischievous glances, quirked mouth corners, and lingering touches. All this exposed skin, Harry thinks, unable to take his eyes off of Draco’s body. Laughter escapes him as he thinks how stupidly proud he has felt all day, having this opportunity to show Draco off to his friends, using every excuse that allowed him to get his hands on his partner. It’s a primitive, childish thought, Harry thinks. And yet he can’t help it.

“It’s just . . . you,” Harry answers Draco’s imploring gaze. “You have no idea what you do to me, Malfoy.”

Draco stops them to kiss properly, so deeply that it steals Harry’s breath away. “Happy birthday, Harry,” he says after, looking affectionate as he travels his hand through the hair on Harry’s chest, giving it a cheeky tug that sets off yet another round of their scrabbling and shoving and fingers boldly sneaking below the hem of their long-dried swim trunks.

They stop again after a while, far away from the others, eyes across the darkening sea as the sun sets at their backs. Harry feels touched by the beauty of this unfamiliar sight, wondering why they don’t Apparate to the seaside more often.

As though he can read his mind, Draco says, “Sometimes I could imagine moving to the coast. Some picturesque town with a beach like this.” He sounds more sincere than romanticising. Harry can’t help but picture the tranquillity of the nearby small towns, him and Draco amidst it all, familiar with the times to avoid tourists and with the unpredictable weather. It sounds like another life, except that only their surroundings would change.

Watching Draco, Harry leans his head against him. Nothing warms him like the look in Draco’s eyes, riveted by the beauty of the sea. “I could get used to seeing you like this,” Harry says.

“Like what?”

Harry chuckles, shrugs. “Happy.”

Something about his statement seems to please Draco. His smile is suave as he pulls Harry closer. “Because you are.”

“Sorry that I . . . needed to get away.”

“Don’t be.” Draco sounds calm and collected. “I don’t mind having you to myself for a while. Did you like the surprise? Did you enjoy your day?”

Harry wants to utter another excuse for feeling overwhelmed, instead he presses his lips together and nods. “It was good. I would have been impossibly moody all day, had we spent it home alone.”

“That’s not why we went out. I wouldn’t have minded spending the day in bed with our curtains drawn closed. I just thought you’d enjoy the beach more than you imagined you would.” Draco turns his head, only slightly to glimpse at Harry. The awe-stricken look in his eyes doesn’t falter. “Love you,” he mumbles, almost a whisper.

“And I you,” Harry replies, locking eyes with Draco. With moments like these, Harry thinks, watching Draco in the blushing light, the dark moments don’t seem brighter. But dragging himself out of the chasm seems so much more worth it.

Happy Birthday, Harry! thanks to my lovely @ladderofyears for beta’ing and being a brilliant friend.

♥ READ ON AO3 ♥

#drarry #drarry fic #drarry art #iero0 fics #iero0 art

88 notes · View notes

365days365movies · 3 years

Text

March 16, 2021: Legend (1985) (Part One)

Hi, Tim Curry. How are you doing today?

Yeah, that tracks. Been a while, always good to see you. Man, actually, when is the last time I saw you? Clone Wars? I think so, although I don’t know if that really counts. I think, in person, it was...oof, Criminal Minds in 2012?

Yeah, dude, you were FUCKING TERRIFYING, HOLY SHIT. I feel like people don’t talk about that performance as much, but you were goddamn amazing, buddy. Sorry I didn’t open with this, but...you were my childhood, Ti. Like, from Clue to The Wild Thornberrys to Muppet Treasure Goddamn Island GOD I LOVE YOU IN THAT MOVIE TOO

Amazing. And let’s not forget Ferngully, of course. Look...I love you, OK? You’re beautiful. And I know that recently, you’ve been through a lot of health struggles, and I wish you the absolute best, I sincerely do. You’re the best, man. Hang in there.

Actually, while I have you...settle a bet for me, I’ve got it with myself. Have I...have I already seen this movie? Because I feel like I might have, but I don’t think so. It’s like the Mandela effect, y’know? I mean, if I’d seen it before...would I not remember you in this get-up?

I mean...come ON, RIGHT? I know FOR A FACT that I’ve attempted to watch this movie with friends before, and that didn’t happen. Then, I tried to watch it on my own, and that didn’t pan out because I’m pretty sure I fell asleep after 15 minutes. It had been a long day, I’m sorry. But...I don’t get it, Tim Curry? What the hell happened?

Well...whatever. I guess we’re going to take care of this ONCE AND FOR ALL. Now, who directed this movie?

Oh shit, REALLY? RIDLEY SCOTT! Kick-ass, he did Alien, and this -

And then this -

OOH, and this!

Oh, and we can’t forget this!

And also this!

And...and this...

...And this...

Oh. Fuck, and this.

...

OH GOD STOP I FORGOT ABOUT 1492

...OK, this could either be a very good movie, or a very VERY bad one. I mean...it’s got Tim Curry in it, so it can’t be that bad? And hey, Scott was on a hotstreak at the time, right? What could go wrong? Let’s do this!

SPOILERS AHEADOH FUCK IS THAT TOM CRUISE

Recap (1/2)

...Ahem. Um. OK. Maybe I imagined that image, or it’s from a different movie. Cool. Let’s keep going, nothing to see here.

The opening text scroll tells us that once, long ago, before time was even a concept, the world was shrouded in darkness. But Darkness hid from the light, which brought to the world laughter, love, and...unicorns. Yeah, really. Unicorns harbor the Light in their souls, as the most mytsical of all creatures. They’re safe from Darkness, and can only be found by a pure-hearted mortal, like Jack, a denizen of the forest. He is loved by Lily, and both believe only in goodness. But not for long, as a struggle for the balance between Darkness and Light is about to commence, and in that struggle will be born...Legend (1985), dir. Ridley Scott.

As the opening credits roll and confirm that Tom Cruise is in fact in this movie, I take a brief moment to vomit lightly.

At night, walking through the forest, there is a creature with some...bad-ass makeup and costume design GODDAMN. Like, yeah, that category’s already looking good. Anyway, the creature goes through the forest, and finds a den of fire and torture, all lorded over by a horned man, who speaks Mother Night, asking for her protection.

This is Darkness (Tim Curry), and...fuck me, holy shit, I GET it. Like, this dude began an entire movement and aethestic, and it makes a fuckton of sense. THis dude must have given birth to, like 10,000 goth children, goddamn. Anyway, he commands his goblin henchman Blix (Alice Playten) to find a unicorn and kill it, and to bring its horn back to him. Blix, the rhyming cretin, asks how to find them. And Darkness answers with the perfect lure: innocence.

That innocence is symbolized by Princess Lily (Mia Sara), a maiden cavorting happily about the wood, without a care in the goddamn world. She visits her friend Nell (Tina Martin), and briefly has a vision of winter in the cottage. Nell notes that it’s time for her to grow up a bit, but Lily’s only concerned with finding her sweetheart, Jack.

And Jack is...well, Jack o’ the Green (Tom Cruise) is a young man who lives in the forest, with his animal friends. An innocent himself, he’s basically Peter Pan, with Lily playing his Wendy. Except, well, they’re not THAT innocent, because they, like, IMMEDIATELY make out on the forest floor. Which has to be uncomfortable, real goddamn talk.

Jack teaches Lily to speak with the birds, then takes her to see something wonderful and rare. All the while, they’re being followed by Blix, who believes that their innocence will attract the mystical unicorns. And, uh, yeah, Blix is entirely correct about that, because here they come! And they’re making whale noises?

Apparently, as long as unicorns roam the Earth, evil can never harm the pure of heart. They express only love and laughter, and dark thoughts are unknown to them. Which Lily takes as an opportunity to go hang out with them, despite Jack’s urgings.

But the unicorns seem receptive to her, to Jack’s...frustration? He just kinda leaves her behind for some reason. And Blix takes the opportunity to hit one of the unicorns with a poison dart, causing them to be startled and storm off. Lily flees into the forest, and is immediately scolded by Jack, saying that what she did is forbidden by magic forest law. OK. She’s as confused about that as I am, but she still apologizes to him.

The two kiss, and Lily makes a promise to him and the universe, I guess, and says that whomever finds her ring will have the right to marry her. She throws it, and Jack IMMEDIATELY JUMPS OFF A CLIFF AFTER IT GODDAMN MY MAN! Lily screams hysterically after him for...some reason?

However, this isn’t great timing, because Blix and the goblins have caught up to the poisoned unicorn, and they cut off its horn, immediately plunging the forest into a fierce winter, similar to what Lily saw in her vision. Jack, in the river looking for the ring, is trapped underwater, beneath ice. By the time he breaks out, Lily’s already run away, to Nell’s place. Nell is frozen solid for some reason, and the goblins are also coming off after Lily for...some reason.

Lily hides, as Blix and his two companions Pox (Peter O’Farrell) and Blunder (Kiran Shah) exposit the whole thing so that Lily’s caught up on her fault in all of this, and once they leave, she promises to make it right. No idea how she’s gonna do that, but sure.

Jack, meanwhile has collapsed in the woods and snow. He’s woken up by a spirit of the forest named Honeythorn Gump (David Bennent), who is...interesting. He asks Jack what in the FUCK happened, and Jack admits that Lily, a mortal, touched a unicorn, which is apparently the ultimate no-no. Gump’s pissed, but the ACTUAL SECOND that Jack says that it was for love, Gump’s just...totally cool with it? They have a drink with Brown Tom (Cork Hubbert), and agree to help him find Lily...like, immediately.

They quickly find the dead unicorn, and yeah, the unicorn is FUCKING DEAD after losing its horn, and its mate shows up to mourn. Jack and Gump mourn with the magical creature, which looks REALLY BIG for a horse, Jesus. She stays with her fallen mate, and Jack goes back to the group, delivering the news that they’re cursed? No idea where that came from.

To lift the curse and get the horn back, they must find a champion bold in heart and spirit. Gump IMMEDIATELY nominates Jack, and takes him to some cave where he can find weapons and armor. He’s guided by Oona (Annabelle Lanyon), a fairy who is LITERALLY NAVI FROM ZELDA, I CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH

Oona reveals her true form to him secretly, then notes that she could be anything he wants her to be, even his heart’s desire. COMIN’ ON A LITTLE STRONG THERE OONA. Anyway, in the vault of golden weapons and armor and...gold, Jack grabs a sword.

Meanwhile, Lily follows Blix and his group, where Blix uses the magic of the Unicorn Horn (or the Alicorn) to demonstrate his newly found prowess. But as he’s claiming to take over Darkness’ kingdom. Just then, Darkness shows up and claims the Horn for himself, and kills Blunder when he talks back. Darkness asks whether or not the Unicorns are both dead, and reveals that his power will not be complete until the female Unicorn is also dead.

Lily runs off and makes her way back to the Unicorn and Brown Tom, and warns them of the Goblin’s approach to kill the Mare. Brown Tom, who I think is either a leprechaun or a brownie, fends the Goblins off, while Lily and the Mare...DON’T RUN? FUCKING RUN YOU ASSHOLES!

Tom gets shot by an arrow...in the hat. He immediately falls dead, despite being totally fine, the dick. And Lily and the mare are captured, BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T FUCKING RUN WHEN THEY SHOULD’VE. Jack, Gump, and the leprechaun/gnome/brownie/halfling Screwball (Billy Barty) come to “rescue” him. He tells them that Lily’s alive, and Gump takes Jack to the Great Tree for the next step, accompanied by Screwball and Tom. There, they find...

WOW. THAT SHIT IS COOL. This is Meg Mucklebone *Robert Picardo), and this thing is absolutely my favorite thing in the movie so far...AND THEN JACK KILLS HER IMMEDIATELY. JAAAAAAACK, WHAT THE HELL, she was really cool. Goddamn it.

The group gets to the great tree, then falls into an underground prison, where Blunder is also held. The group is NOT where they want to be, right in Darkness’ lair. Nice job, Gump. In the prison, the guys, now joined by fellow brownie/dwarf/gnome thing Blunder, hide from one of Darkness’ men, as he takes Blunder away to the torture table.

Stuck in the cell, Jack suggests that Oona go and get the keys. However, her ability to transform into a humanoid form was a secret between her and Jack, and she’s upset by him revealing it. Gump’s also upset by the secret in and of itself, but she defends that her secrets are hers to keep. You tell him, Oona!

She then says that she’ll only do what Jack wants if he kisses her, GODDAMN IT OONA. NOW IS NOT THE TIE TO GO ALL TINKERBELL IN HOOK! He gives her a little peck, but she transforms into Lily to make him give her a real kiss, dear lord that is CREEPY, OONA! Jack almost kisses her, but refuses at the last second. He notes that human hearts can’t be won over that way, which greatly upsets Oona. Still, she ends up getting the keys for them regardless, and sets them free.

And at this point, we are halfway through, so FUCK IT. PART TWO! See you there.

25 notes · View notes

sneverussape · 3 years

Text

leaving is the loudest

one-shot, 2300+ words. purely because i couldn’t get this drawing out of my head. it was originally supposed to be a two-shot, with the second part focusing on severus losing tobias and essentially having the tables turned from this one. but...i got tired. heh. cw: abuse, parent death, toxic parent-child relationship summary: abraxas malfoy dies when lucius is 16. severus is the sole witness to lucius’ complicated grief.

He was running but he wasn’t alone. “Snape!” Lucius thundered as he faced down the boy who had halted in his tracks as soon as he whirled around in mid-step. It was November and the grounds were near-frozen, and the scrawny second-year was following him like a shadow across the Great Lawn. He was also wearing the coat Lucius had given him just two weeks ago – it wasn’t charity, it was merely a necessity since Lucius had recently discovered that Severus’ own coat was more than a bit threadbare and barely able to keep out the elements; he had no desire for the boy to get pneumonia before the term was even over – and scowling in a manner that would have made milk curdle. “What do you think you’re doing? Get back inside!” “Malfoy!” the boy shot back with equal ire, his face pale and pinched under the moonlight. “Where are you going? After Professor Slughorn met with you three days ago you’ve been disappearing for all hours! What’s the matter with you?” There was a thread of something like worry in his tone but it disappeared fast enough that Lucius could have thought he had imagined it. Severus was not done with his litany, at any rate. “You’re my assigned prefect, mind! I’ve had to go round the corridors the long way to avoid Potter, and we’ve a schedule for French and Defense Against the Dark Arts revisions tonight! Plus you said you’d show me that book of poisons your aunt gave you. You promised!” Blast. He was right. But Lucius was not in a tolerant mood tonight. Those could wait. “Get back into the school, Severus, and leave me be,” Lucius said, hoping the use of the boy’s first name would make him obey without him having to resort to any hexing, and he would if pushed. He doubled down with a threat: “I will remove House points if you continue in this fashion.” Severus snorted, crossing his arms. Lucius’ coat was two sizes too big for him but he remained unbothered and wore it with ease, folding the sleeves so his hands could at least still be visible and utilized easily. “As if you would and even if you did, as if I would care,” he challenged Lucius with a glint in his eye. “Besides, you’re the one skipping on supper to go off on this moonlight stroll. Reckon that’s already earned us enough demerits as it is.” “Get back inside, now.” “No. Not until you tell me what’s going on.” Lucius bristled as his temper flared, rendering him warm despite the frigid night air. He had not counted on this intrusion to what he had hoped would have been a strictly private affair – if he had been planning to stomp off into some hidden corner to shout, cry, or blast an unknowing tree into bits of bark while everyone else had been seemingly occupied with the evening meal then that was between him and him alone. He, of course, had not counted on Severus Snape to notice his departure from the Great Hall, let alone follow him. He didn’t even know how Severus had slipped out himself, with the second-years so near to the staff table, but he knew better than to underestimate the boy’s talents, as everyone else was wont to do. “I’m warning you.” Lucius was already fingering his wand in preparation to strike. He didn’t want to hurt the boy, but it seemed he had little choice. He wouldn’t make it bleed too badly, at any rate. “You have one more chance to turn around and return to the cast—" Something inside of him seemed to snap with such suddenness and ferocity that he gasped and dropped to his knees on the damp grass. Despite being frozen in his spot, he felt as though he had been submerged in ice-cold water, and the Malfoy signet ring he usually wore on his right hand burned with a heat that had him clutching at his wrist. The pain vanished in a span of seconds, but a cloying emptiness where there had once been the familiar, if not tenuous, connection to his father had enveloped him thick enough to smother, and Lucius let out a strangled breath, feeling as though he had been left untethered in the middle of a raging sea. He could barely hear Severus’ voice over the roar in his ears. “—Lucius, oh my God, get up, please! What’s wrong? Are you all right? Fuck, I’ll have to call Madame Pomfrey!” He reached out and snatched Severus’ wrist before the boy was able to run back to the castle. The last thing he needed now was an audience. “No,” he commanded through gritted teeth. “For Merlin’s sake, Severus—” “What’s wrong with you?!” Severus demanded, his tone high-pitched with fright. He shook Lucius’ shoulders. For such a scrawny whelp, he was irritatingly strong. “Malfoy, please talk to me. Are you all right? Did you take anything? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me!” Despite the intense emotions that were already threatening to swallow him whole, Lucius nearly laughed at Severus’ boldness. “You can’t help!” he snapped, determined to put the boy in his place. No matter Severus’ intentions, there were some things he was loathe to explain to him. “But if you go to Pomfrey or any of the professors right now, I swear to Merlin will hex you into next week and I can assure you Sluggy will do nothing in your defense if I do. I mean it, Snape.” “Are you even listening to yourself? I’m not the one kneeling on the ground right now—” “My father’s died. Just now.” Lucius felt wooden speaking the words, and it was as though he was hearing them being spoken from a stranger’s mouth. “He’d been taken ill a few days ago and it was quite serious. But now he’s gone. I…I felt it.” Severus gaped at him for all of two seconds before nodding very solemnly. “I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly looking very young. “Malf—Lucius. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “Don’t apologize, would you?” Lucius snarled. “You didn’t create the ruddy pox that took him. And you hadn’t known him either, so his loss has no real effect on your existence.” Two red spots appeared in the boy’s cheeks. “I was being polite. You don’t have to be such a right bastard about it,” he said through gritted teeth. “He is…was your father. You’re my…mate…prefect...something, I don’t know. God.” Severus mumbled the words before he blew out a breath. When he next spoke, it was tentative: “What…what now, then?” Lucius was surprised that the boy even had to ask, but he remembered that Severus wasn’t a pureblood. Of course he wouldn’t know. He inwardly groaned as he willed himself to be patient enough to answer coherently. “My father’s death,” he released a shuddering breath, “automatically makes me the head of the family. Hogwarts will likely receive the missive announcing it before tonight’s end. I expect that I shall have to go to Wiltshire tomorrow to attend to those matters as well as his burial. He’ll have to be buried beside my mother…” The magnitude of the change that would be brought about by his father’s death slowly sank in: the Gringotts accounts. Their properties. The hidden cache of Dark Arts tokens in his father’s study. The changing of the magical signatures. The wards. The updating of blood contracts. The expectations. And as the new pater familias he would have to grow out his hair now…Merlin and Circe, he had just turned 16 just that September! And now he was an orphan…. Lucius buried his head in his hands, the yawning emptiness inside of him like a chasm he wanted to throw himself into. When he felt the hand on his shoulder, he flinched away automatically, half-expecting it to be his father’s touch. A bitter taste crept up the back of his throat when he remembered that the last encounter he had had with Abraxas Malfoy was the tirade he had been subjected to on the day before leaving for Hogwarts; it had been a long one about failure and ineptitude despite his outstanding O.W.L.S., and how his poor mother had died in childbirth for naught, but Lucius had only half-listened. He was used to that type of treatment; any spare moments between him and Abraxas had always been filled with his father’s constant vitriol, the cycle only broken by the rare occasions of doting whenever he was in a generous mood, or when he remembered and wanted to drive home that their family now consisted of just the two of them. His father had demanded for his only son’s respect and loyalty, despite having wielded words as weapons and throwing them at him with startling aim, and Lucius had loved him enough to let all his attacks, unprecedented or otherwise, be met with silence. But now…the thought of arriving at an empty manor terrified Lucius. His father had always been such an imposing and terrifying figure in his life that the full realization of his loss paralyzed him. He did not know how he could possibly move forward. He did not know how to come to terms with a silence that should have been his father’s to fill. “I’m sorry.” Severus said again, although Lucius wasn’t sure exactly what he was apologizing for. His hand landed with uncharacteristic gentleness on Lucius’ shoulder, and this time, Lucius didn’t flinch. He heard the grass beside him rustle as Severus sat down. “You’re missing supper,” Lucius stated, his prefect instincts overriding his current emotional turmoil. It was no secret to him that, besides Potions and spells practice, mealtimes were Severus’ favorite times of the day. The boy never missed a meal if he could help it, and he’d be damned if the brat lost weight while at school, on his account no less. Narcissa would kill them both. “I know the way to the kitchens. Hogwarts will at least never let me starve,” Severus scoffed in reply, defiance edging his tone. Lucius sighed. He knew what Severus was doing; the boy was as subtle as a rhinoceros set loose in an apothecary. “Snape, you don’t have to—” “Malfoy,” Severus interrupted, and Lucius could already imagine him sneering. “You don’t have to talk about it, but I’m not leaving you here, all right? Stop being such a thick, stubborn git.” “I’m the prefect, mind you. You’re not allowed to make concessions.” “Yeah, and you’re a bloody numpty too, I can tell you that, sitting here in the freezing cold.” “You’re a child.” “So are you if we’re going by technical terms.” “For all intents and purposes, my being Lord Malfoy now makes me an official adult.” “You don’t even know how to pay your bloody taxes, you pureblood ponce.” “Ha!” Lucius felt strangely triumphant, and the reply came before he could restrain himself. “I’ll have you know that my father taught me well in that regard. Handling an estate or several isn’t one for the weak-hearted.” Severus looked slightly impressed although he tried not to show it. Talking about their families’ personal matters was not a popular topic in Slytherin house. For the most part, they knew where each family stood with regard to the Dark Lord, and the inherent closeness those relationships bred entailed that they were also quite knowledgeable of how everyone else’s fathers and mothers were like behind closed doors. The occasional halfblood or Muggleborn that managed to get sorted into Slytherin however was often a challenge they had to contend with, but Severus had always been a quick study. “You loved him then? Your father?” he asked, clever enough to steer clear from the labels of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that more simple-minded folk tended to veer towards, but also sufficiently impertinent enough to bring up a concept that Lucius felt was a cauldron fit to explode. Love…was a strange emotion to attribute to his father, and he would be lying if he said that Severus’ words didn’t make Lucius feel as though he had been kicked in the throat. “He was my father. Of course I…” Lucius paused as the words caught on his tongue. He all at once felt humiliated, enraged, and confused at the realization that his father could still manage to reduce him to such a state of speechlessness. What Severus had asked shouldn’t have been a difficult question, and yet it clearly was. “He was the only one I had left in the world after Maman died,” he finally said, attempting to put into words the turbulent emotions that warred within him. “I…cared for him a great deal. I gave him nothing less than what he asked for…what he expected. I’m…grateful…to have been his son. To be a Malfoy.” He saw a knowing gleam in Severus’ eyes and was grateful when the boy kept his mouth shut. His chest felt tight and he wondered for a moment if his heart was still beating…if his father had not, in fact, stolen it away in his final moments. Lucius would not have been surprised if he had. It seemed, after all, that Abraxas Malfoy had taken everything else upon his leaving, even those that Lucius had never thought he had been willing to give. The silence in the wake of his father’s final departure was deafening, and Lucius covered his hands with his ears. “It will be all right,” he heard Severus say, his voice soft and muffled. A warm weight flitted over his shoulders and Lucius quickly realized the boy had transfigured his coat into a large blanket and had wrapped it around him. He didn’t bother to protest. “You’re all right.” He wasn’t, and he wouldn’t be, not for a long time, but Lucius’ eyes stayed strangely dry nevertheless as he leaned into Severus’ comforting warmth. .

#young slytherins #definitely not snucius as snape is too young #but it's a picture of a complex friendship #snape #lucius malfoy #my fic #hp

52 notes · View notes

quiterespectablyyours · 3 years

Text

This time around, I was able to fully participate in the Dwarven feast-days, which was very exciting for me. Fear of the pox did temper some of the celebrations, but I’m glad to say we were able to celebrate the spirit of the feasts even if some of the physical events could not be held.

This past Iklaladranamrâg, I gave my family an array of desert plants wrapped in moss balls, since I know not all of them have as green a thumb as I do. My husband gave everyone jars of honey and candles made from beeswax. He also gave me a bottle of the mead that he, Dwalin, and Nori have been tinkering with all year, evidently trying to make it at least as good and strong as Beorn’s. I’m glad to say it is.

The first time I did Khebabnurtamrâg, back in SR 1344, I knitted my husband a jumper in Durin blue and silver. It took a long time to make because I have been fattening him up in the Shire, but I was quite pleased with the results. He no longer has the body of an exiled warrior-king, which is wonderful because he is also much more comfortable to lie on now.

This past Khebabnurtamrâg, I started my own miniature tree. It is an oak, of course. Currently it is little more than sprigs and twigs, and it will take years to grow into anything resembling a tree, but I can’t wait to see if its acorns will be regular-sized.

#poxblogging #that asshole #that wonderful asshole #amrâlimê #brawnsdwarf #pointydwarf

11 notes · View notes

flowercrown-bucky · 4 years

Text

Trouble has never looked so good - But then again, it’s never been wearing a push-up bra before.

Fandom: 1970s!Loki Multi-Chapter

Pairing: Loki x ConArtist!Reader

Warnings: Swearing, drinking, drug references, later death, later smut, crime, loki and the reader are con artists..... It’s a wild one y’all, hold onto yo’ seats.

Word Count: 3084

[Something Wicked This Way Comes - Chapter One]

Loki’s life on Asgard has become vapid; uninspiring. He’s got the taste for a little danger.

During a trip to earth, he finds just the danger he’s looking for.

A partner in crime - in every imaginable sense.

TAGLIST IS OPEN - EITHER COMMENT OR MESSAGE ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE ADDED.

LIFE on Asgard was unbearably normal.

It was fine. If anything, it was too fine.

There was only so much feasting and so many council meetings one could take, you know?

Loki had stalked off to his chambers, muttering to his brother that he needed time to focus his magic.

He didn't, of course. Odin's lecturing on diplomatic decorum had simply become mind numbingly dull and it seemed like the most suitable excuse.

Loki's chambers were in a prime position. It was, after all, the reason he had coerced his older brother into switching with him when they were both around three hundred years old. He was roughly a hundred yards from the palace kitchens, something that well suited his secret midnight-snacking habit, and about as far from the Allfather and Allmother's chambers as he could possibly be, something that well suited his secret midnight sneaking-out habit.

However, the thing he loved most about his chambers, was the proximity to the palace orchard. If he stepped through the doors onto the balcony, he could grip the railings and sort of kamikaze himself over, before dropping the two-or-so-feet distance between him and the floor, and it was this that had made him want to occupy this chamber so badly.

He'd loved the orchard ever since he was a little boy. It was his safe spot, somewhere he had gone to hide from the world, where nothing could harm him or make him feel anything he didn't want to. He liked to take a book with him, and read under the shade of the apple trees until someone came to retrieve him.

It was here he had considered retreating to when he remembered the girl kneeling between his legs.

She was, Loki believed, a princess of Vanaheim, visiting Asgard with her father. Sex was not something that particularly concerned him, but he had left the council hall feeling rather frustrated, and the remarkably attractive woman had practically thrown herself at him.

If a beautiful woman desired to fellate him, who was he to complain?

It was, however, doing nothing for him - so much so he had forgotten she was even there.

"You can stop now." He wasn't entirely gentle when he tugged her off him, opting to do so with the help of a handful of her hair, but ,hey, he was extremely frustrated and she had been no help in the easing of that frustration.

"I can-"

"Nope." He waved a hand dismissively at the woman, leaving her to gather her clothes and dignity from where they'd been discarded in the floor. Girls were far more his brother's thing.

The only satisfying sexual encounter he had ever had had been on Midgard, some ten years before. Her name was Elizabeth, and she wanted to be an actress. With a head of carefully constructed dark curls and unusual violet coloured eyes, she was positively electrifying. She'd liked Loki's regal manner, assumed he was important. He'd been looking for a way to unwind and had yet to find it in a bottle of whiskey. They had, you might say, used each other equally.

He wondered what she was doing now.

Midgard, however, didn't seem like too bad an idea.

The mortals, he thought, were funny. Their funny little ways, their funny little habits, their funny little emotions.

He rather liked that idea. Midgard it was to be, then.

Las Vegas, was perhaps, the worst place he had ever been. Crawling with perhaps the worst specimens humanity had to offer, and drowning in immorality, Vegas was perhaps the physical embodiment of iniquity.

Perhaps the underbelly of the world, Vegas combined all aspects of bigotry - racism, misogyny, pride. Men traded their lives away to pay to warm the sheets of women condemned to a life of misery, destined to while their days away in some clandestine pact with dingy hotel rooms.

Not Vegas, Loki thought to himself.

New York, he was not particularly fond of either. It was much too cold and full of self importance. The people were, largely, cold and unpleasant, and the food was something he could never get behind.

Europe he had not visited for a long while since. It had been stricken by an unpleasant pox last time he had visited, covering the suffering with boils as large as the palm as his hand. He’d begrudgingly lent his healing skills to the ailing people. After all, he really didn’t like the smell of rotting flesh.

He wasn’t altogether pleased with the likenesses the people later formed in the name of worship.

In all honesty, they made him look rather greasy and weaselly.

—

Montecarlo, Loki thought, might be a little more interesting than he'd initially thought. Possibly, his favourite place he'd visited on Midgard.

It was like a hive of temptation, the culmination of human greed. Nowhere on earth quite said luxury like a city dressed to the nines, and Loki loved it.

It was far better than his previous visits, wherein he had found the planet stricken by various bouts of violence and deadly plagues.

1973, with its penchant for sex, drugs and rock'n'roll was far more to his taste.

He had, in the short time he'd been in the city, become very well acquainted with the calibrate of person who liked to visit. Men with enough class to never let an expletive pass their lips within company, but perfectly happy to snort narcotics off the seats of public toilets using a ten dollar bill that was on its fourth use.

Women loyal enough to remain on the arm of one gentleman for the whole of an evening but not opposed to a quick fuck in a back alley from a tall dark stranger with a mysterious smile.

Sex was not something Loki was particularly concerned with, but he did enjoy the sense of power he got from looking directly into the eyes of a man whose wife he had made come undone not ten minutes earlier.

Humans, he noted, were no different to the savage tribes of Muspelheim. They just hid it better, under expensive clothes and university degrees and layers of makeup.

This was not something he necessarily was bothered by. He was having far too good a time for that.

Casinos, he had taken a real liking to. Money was another thing that held no meaning for him, but cheating pompous assholes out of what they believed was rightfully theirs?

That, he could get behind, and it seemed he was not alone in that.

He had been watching you all evening, as you worked your way around the room.

You were dressed to kill, and the man you'd turned your attentions to looked like he would gladly die if it would please you.

One hand stroking his *ahem* ego, and the other stealing his wallet.

You were perfect.

Mischief was on his agenda, and you looked like a wonderful accomplice.

He'd approached you quietly, a gentle hand on your shoulder, his lips by your ear.

"Well, hello." He'd murmured, as you turned to face him. "Who might you be?"

You'd practically preened at the sudden attention, clearly very pleased with the idea of a second conquest of the evening.

"Darling, I'm your worst nightmare." You bit your red painted lip, your eyes trailing the length of him. Your glance was cold, calculating - pretty much everything Loki appreciated in a woman.

For a moment, he wondered if you were to kill him, how you would carry out the act. He felt almost as if he would appreciate it.

You looked like a poisoner, he decided. Less messy, less loose ends to take care of.

“And what, exactly, does my worst nightmare take to drink?” He could feel the smug grin growing on his face. “I am well acquainted with the torment of the unconscious mind.”

You were taken aback, that much he could see from your face. For someone so experienced with hustling card games, you did not have much of a poker face.

His smile grew. Unsettling people was one of his very favourite things.

“Champagne.” You still gnawed at your lip, but the reasoning, he could tell, had changed - if he didn’t know better, he’d think you were quite literally biting back a smile.

“A lady after my own heart.” He replied. “You have good taste.”

“Only the best.” You lifted your glass towards him.

“I’ll drink to that.”

The course of the evening made abundant to Loki exactly how you operated. You were fairly certain you had him in the palm of your hand, that much he could tell - and it was certainly amusing to play along with it.

You played your role well, and that was something he admired. You allowed him to lead the conversation, showering his ego with praise and affirmation. You fiddled with your hair as you spoke, twisting it around your index finger before draping it over your clavicle, trailing towards your ample bosom.

You occasionally - intentionally - licked at your lip as you spoke, your tongue coyly tracing your plump bottom lip, tilting your head to the side as if to show how truly intrigued you were by what he was saying, exposing a good deal of neck in the process.

It truly was a shame, he thought, that mortal men were unable to see the brains, the intellect, behind the beauty - or more specifically, the bust.

Midgardian men were truly unable to see exactly what they possessed, but on Asgard, you would’ve been celebrated, treasured even, for the power of your mind.

It was a great pity, Loki thought, and rather unfortunate for their wallets.

You’d kept him on his toes since you’d first spoken. You were keeping him on his toes now.

He watched you as you spoke to the woman next to you. You were so careful, every movement deliberate, purposeful.

You played your part well. In a knee-length blue dress, you largely left the curves of your body to the imagination. The imagination, however, was aided by how the material clung to your hips and your more than ample bosom. Almost every male eye in the room was on you.

You made your way back over to where he lent on the bar. You seemed to enjoy toying with him. As to why, he could not fathom.

You waved a bottle of champagne in his face, before topping up his own glass.

“Consider the favour...” You flashed a smile at him that was utterly to die for. “Repaid.”

He ran a hand through his long hair, catching your gaze.

If he was an ordinary man, he would be truly fucked.

“So, tell me.” His voice came out as something closer to a purr than anything else. “How does a woman such as yourself turn to petty crime?” If it were possible to display every element of the spectrum of human emotion in one simultaneous instant, Loki was sure it would look very similar to how your face currently looked.

Almost as quickly as it had come over you, it was gone. The mask returned and you flashed him a coy grin.

“What gave me away?” Your left eyebrow quirked.

“I’m perceptive.” He smiled. “You’re good, I’ll give you that. But I’m better.”

“What are you, a cop?” Your voice was calm, level. It was almost completely impossible to detect the emotions behind it.

“Please.” He scoffed. “I have a proposal for you.”

Your arm dropped to your side. Your face remained unchanged, but the mischief, the slight twinkle in your eye, was gone.

“Meet me outside the toilets in five minutes.” Your voice was hoarse. You turned away from him with a swish of apple-scented hair, taking a step away from him.

He reached out, catching your wrist. You stumbled slightly, grabbing at the bar to steady yourself.

“I’m not interested in sex, if that’s what you think.” His voice dropped.

“Then what do you want?” You spun to face him.

“If you show me, I’ll show you.” He grinned at you.

“Show me, what, exactly?” You asked, intrigued.

“Everything.” He whispered. His hand came up to your face, taking your chin gently inbetween his forefinger and thumb. He turned your head gently from side to side, before tilting it back. You watched with curious eyes, but allowed him to rest his hand on your forehead.

He closed his eyes slowly, his consciousness seeping through his body, penetrating your mind.

It was an odd place, your mind. He’d never been in any other quite like it. There had always been a lot going on, in people’s minds. They were.. furnished. Most appeared as a place, at least - a childhood home, a favourite place - but yours was remarkably empty.

Enormous black units surrounded him, rows upon rows of boxes reaching as far as his eyes could see. The only other thing present within your mind was a chair, upon which you sat.

It was tall and as black as the shelves. The back faced him, your legs slung either side of it, your elbow resting on the top. Your chin rested on your fist, and you watched him as he adjusted to your surroundings, one eyebrow bemusedly quirked.

“Fancy seeing you here.” You smiled. “Sorry about the mess. I don’t get a lot of visitors, you know, inside my head.”

Loki laughed.

“Your mind is intriguing, little one.” He walked towards one of the units to get a closer look, lifting a hand to open one. It didn’t budge.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” You teased.

“Just the pretty ones.” He tugged again, a little harder. “What’s in these boxes?“

“My deepest secrets.” You replied curtly. “How do you do this, anyway? You don’t get many people who can waltz into your mind uninvited around here.”

“I told you, you show me, and I’ll show you.” He left the boxes, walking over to where you sat. He circled you a few times, looking around for anything else within your mind. “I am not of this world.”

“No shit.” You grumbled.

“Ladies first.” He grinned. “I want to know how you do it. Then you will get your answers.”

“Then get out of my head.” You replied. “The only person in here to scam is you, and it’s not quite the same when someone knows you’re going to rob them.”

“Very well.” Loki snapped his fingers.

You opened your eyes with a gasp as he lifted his hand from your forehead.

“Never do that again.” You warned.

He chuckled, lifting his hand to support his head, looking at you expectantly.

“I’m waiting.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Where shall we start?”

You leant across the table towards Loki.

“That one.” You tilted your head towards the left.

He lifted his head, looking up for the man you’d singled out. The ginger in the double breasted suit? The lanky blonde with the knock knees? The man bun?

No.

He knew the one.

“Clammy hands.” He mused. “Look at the discoloration on the front of his trousers. The pigment has been lost from repeatedly wiping his hands on them. He has sweaty hands.”

“Can I keep you?” You tilted your head to the side.

“Why him?” He asked. “How do you choose?”

“I don’t.” You replied. “They sort of... reveal themselves. They look at me. Stare at me. All I have to do is look back.”

“And from there?”

“The art of robbing someone just comes down to sleight of hand. Same as hustling a card game.” You glanced over at the man. “I used to do magic tricks with cards and make people’s car keys disappear as a kid. I picked it up from there.”

“Impressive.” He leaned back in his seat. “Why do you do it?”

“This world has not been kind to me.” You sighed. “Besides, life is so much more interesting with a little chaos.”

He chuckled, placing both of his elbows on the table, hands clasped together in front of his face.

“Do you fuck all of them?” He raised one eyebrow.

“Just the pretty ones.” Your face cracked into a wide smile.

He stared at you for a second. This beautiful, conniving woman in front of him, the poison that resided in your mind, the deadliness that lay in your hands.

In all honesty, it excited him.

You’d intrigued him since he’d very first laid eyes on you, and every moment since, that intrigue had grown. Who were you really? What were you?

For the first time that evening, it occurred to him that he didn’t even know your name.

He got the feeling that if he asked, you wouldn’t tell him the truth. You weren’t that stupid.

You were hiding from something, he was fairly sure. Being in hiding was something he was all too familiar, and if there was anything he had learned in his five thousand years of life, it was how to spot when someone was on the run.

“I believe you are exactly what I’ve been looking for, little criminal.” He murmured.

“And what, pray tell, would that be?” You pursed your red painted lips.

“A partner in crime.” He replied. “A fellow mischief maker, if you will.”

“You could be a serial killer.” You crossed your arms over your chest.

“So could you.” He said curtly. “I entered your mind and you’ve just explained how you con and rob people, but yet, here we both still are.”

You blinked, shifting so you were leaning on your left side. Your expression was thoughtful - you were considering his suggestion.

“And what exactly do I get out of this deal?” You asked.

“You saw what I did earlier.” He leaned forwards on his forearms. “I will open your mind to things you cannot currently even begin to comprehend.”

“Okay. I’ll bite.” You lifted your drink to your lips, taking a sip. “I accept your offer.”

“I must tell you.” He warned. “You will be playing with fire.” You set your glass down on the table, before leaning back in your seat. You turned your head to the left briefly, tossing your hair over one shoulder. You crossed one leg over the other as you turned back to face him. Your eyes found his, a gaze that truly seemed to be looking into his soul, and you smiled.

“Luckily for you, I like to watch things burn.”

TAGLIST: @possessedjoker @amour-delicate

#loki x reader #loki smut #tom hiddleston x reader #loki x you #Loki Laufeyson #tom hiddleston #loki/reader #loki au #loz writes loki

90 notes · View notes

incorrectlasthours · 4 years

Text

#CrackpotTheoryTuesday (Wednesday?): Chain of Iron Edition - Matthew Fairchild

Happy April Fool’s Day, my lovely followers!

I wish this theory was a joke, but it’s not - I’m v worried about our precious Matthew Fairchild in the next book, and I have some theories about his fate that are v sad.

As always, these posts contain spoilers for everything released in the Shadowhunter Chronicles by Cassandra Clare; this post in particular has spoilers for Chain of Gold and Ghosts of the Shadow Market. You have been warned.

Okay, so here’s what we know about Matthew at the end of Chain of Gold:

He’s struggles with alcoholism

He still hasn’t told anyone about what he did to Charlotte and his unborn sibling in GotSM and feels immense guilt for what happened

He cares deeply for Cordelia, and may even believe himself to be in love with her (think about what he said to Magnus at the end of the book)

Now, here’s what’s super sketchy - did anyone else think Matthew’s feelings for Cordelia developed out of nowhere? I mean, Cordelia is very lovable, but I just found it a little jarring and unexpected when it popped up in the middle of the book, until I realized that his most obvious feelings for Cordelia developed after Grace kissed him.

What if Grace is using her power to try to get Cordelia to fall in love with Matthew, and thus leave James open for her to control? It makes sense, especially if Belial needs Tatiana to give him James with the bracelet on and Cordelia (and, by extension, Cortana) out of the way.

What does this mean for Matthew? Y’all know I’m the biggest Lucie and Jesse shipper, so even if Matthew “falls out” of the spell I don’t think he’ll care for Lucie anymore, and that’s totally okay!! I think it’s great for authors to show (especially in YA) that your first love doesn’t have to be your last love, and that you can always grow to love again. I think Matthew needs to work on himself before he can be in a relationship, and I truly hope he can become sober and come clean about his mistakes.

However, it’s Cassie, and she loves to break our hearts.

I had a theory years ago that Matthew Fairchild was actually Malcolm Fade (which is clearly incorrect, as they talked in Chain of Gold), but I still think he could end up either turning into a downworlder of some sort or dying at some point during the series - I really hope not, but honestly at this point none of these characters are guaranteed to survive (no matter what is on the family tree) :(

What do y’all think will happen to Matthew? Is he under a spell and being controlled by Grace, or is the spell just to keep him out of her marriage with Charles? What if even going on with these characters?? Comment on this post or message me your theories, and thanks for reading!!

Check out my other Crackpot Theories!

The Last Hours:

Lucie/Jesse in TLH -> Another necromancy theory (plus OTP-level romance, *insert heart eyes*) -> CONFIRMED (ChOG)

The “Villain Being a Force” in TLH -> THE PLAGUE?!? (This one puts demon pox to shame. Sorry Will!) -> Kind of right? (ChOG)

The Jordelia Marriage!! -> …Kind of right…? (ChOG)

Sona Carstairs -> So it turns out the quote isn’t by her, but there’s still something sketchy about her past!

Lucie’s Power

The Dark Artifices:

Necromancy in QoAaD -> Is the whole gang coming back? (Hopefully, cause I miss my boyfriend Will Herondale!) -> My new theory for TWP tbh

Malcolm Fade/Matthew Fairchild -> Are they secretly the same person? (probs not, but you can still check it out if you want!) -> Confirmed incorrect

95 notes · View notes

hpdabbles · 4 years

Text

Master of Death (In Training) Part 2

Sirius didn’t know what he was expecting when the suggestion was first made. The very air had held its breath as the Order voted, each nervously looking around, to see who had raised their hands in favor of summoning Death.

He hadn’t wanted to do it. After growing up with a dark family, and at the mercy of his mother’s ill-temper hexes, Sirius knew that trying this method would only cost them more than be able to help them. But Albus- it was so weird to now be old enough to call the headmaster by his first name. A part of him still felt like a Hogwarts student overstepping despite the fact he graduated three years ago- had insisted it was the best course of action.

With every new day, the Death Eaters rose in power and it was rapidly approaching a point where they could not be stopped. Already regular civilians were hiding away, slowly bowing to the control and the fear, and it wouldn’t be a far stretch to think no one would try to stop them.

People knew not to even use the name of the Death Eater’s leader, because any who did, died not long after. That wasn’t a fear that could easily be overcome. The people were losing hope, and once it was all gone, the war would be over.

The Death Eaters will win.

What’s worse, was that Albus had claimed a prophecy had been made, which strongly indicated to his unborn grandson or the unborn child of his friends being the only thing to stop Voldemort.

If they didn’t do the summons James, Lily, Frank, and Alice would have to go into hiding for who knows how many years. There wasn’t even a guarantee they will survive. This plan could save them from such a fate, could allow their kids to grow up in a world of peace.

Sirius knew this. He understood it. But he still didn’t want to summon Death, it was desperate and it may not even work.

But whatever the Order did, they did it together. The majority had ruled, and the summons took place a week later.

The moment the being arrived it was quite clear it wasn’t human. Dressed in a metallic green cloak that hid half it’s facing, and body through human-shaped- and rather nicely too. Sirius could admit the being was fit. If it was a regular bloke he would climb him like a tree- seemed almost otherworldly, that its mere presence had Padfoot’s instincts screaming at him to run.

Alice’s soft gasp of “What have we done” echoed every thought in Sirius's head even as he leveled his wand in order to protect Lily. It was alarming that the first thing Death did upon arriving was single out the two pregnant ladies and even if they couldn’t see its eyes, Sirius knew it was looking right at the round stomachs.

His stomach was rolling so terribly he almost missed Albus offering his soul to Greater Power, who stood there with its arms filled with objects and could almost be called awkward if it wasn’t scaring the living daylights out of everything in the room.

The outfit was sort of badass he could admit.

But the voice. Oh, the voice.

It echoed as if though it spoke from some deep cave, and it overlapped with other voices. To his ears, he could pick up different baritones, as if though he wandered into a male bathroom and everyone choose to speak at once. It was the one real sign that whatever stood before him wasn’t a human.

That’s why he, like an idiot, got the things attention when it pulled such a baffling action of checking its employee manual.

Thankfully it didn’t take offense and after a few flipped pages it names the price.

Now here he was handing over his black socks to the being that was smiling wildly at them all. It’s perfectly white teeth gleaming in the darkened room, as it thanks everyone politely for their socks, making more than one person uneasy.

Albus had truely seen pained to part with his pair, more so then his own soul, and that made no sense at all to Sirius until Death frown when it touched them. “Oh, these were the last thing your sister gave you, her last “I love you” that she made with her own two hands. I’m sorry for taking them.”

And it really did sound apologetic, but it made Albus tense like a wooden board and back away rapidly from the Great Power.

The being even folded all the socks with great care, leaving the objects it held hanging in the air as it casually did some quick laundry. Once the Order had handed over their clothing, it flipped through the silver binder again, visibly mouthing the words it read before it reached out a black-gloved hand to pat the socks, sending them away to who knows where.

Around him, a few of his friends gasp, and it wasn't until Sirius’ socks vanished did he realize it was because they, like he, sense a deal with Death be sealed. As if his very soul had been stamped. He felt dirty, Sirius really wanted to take a bath.

“Alright.” Death said, placing his hands on its hips and spreading its stand. For a moment it seemed young, and though Sirius could not tell what age it actually was, he got the feeling it was somewhere between late teens, early twenties. Wasn’t it just bizarre to think he is almost the same-physical at least- age as Death?

“So it says here, that you all hear me differently? To not be confusing my pronouns are he/him and you can call me Harry.”

Sirius's brain melted. “James?”

“Yeah?”

“Did Death just tell me its preferred pronouns and call itself Harry?”

“Yeah.” James at least sound just as confused as he was so Sirius didn’t feel too bad about not understanding what in the world was going on with this summon.

Harry-actual- Death frowns at them “What’s wrong with my name?”

“Nothing’s wrong with it” Lily is quick to assure, though she is most likely reconsidering the name she had picked out for his unborn godson. “It’s a lovely name.”

Harry-Actual-Death smiled at her, it could have been a friendly one if it didn’t feel like his life candle was about to be blown out. Sirius shifted to put himself beside James and have Lily safely behind him. On his right, Remus quickly fell into formation blocking the redhead woman more, while Peter shifted to Lily’s side with a whimper. “Thank you. I’m named after my grandpa on my mother’s side.”

No one knew what to say to that.

It was Fabian, in a fit of madness or brilliance who knows, that managed to get words out of his mouth. “I’m sure he’s very proud his grandson took over the family business?”

Harry-Actual-Death looked stumped, looking like someone just tried to pull down his trousers or something then he beamed. “No one’s ever said something like that to me. Thank you.”

Then he turns his head back to his binder flipping through it and reading a bit more. With a snap of its finger’s Fabian stumbled backward with a loud pain gasp turning deathly pale. Everyone froze while his brother bristled “What did you do to him!?”

Harry-Actual-Death turned its unseen eyes onto Gideon, who stood his ground despite the slight shake of his knees and smiled “I took away the Dragon Pox in his lungs. Until our contract is terminated I can heal you all within some limitations. He would have died in a year and I don’t want to make Mrs. Weasley sad.”

“My chest doesn’t hurt anymore.” Fabian breathes rubbing at his upper torso. He looks down at it with wonder in his eyes. “It’s...it’s been hurting for so long...I just...”

“Yeah about that.” Harry-Actual-Death jumps in. The rest of the Order swing their heads between the two groups unsure of who to look at, though none of them lower their wands. “I don’t understand why you didn’t get that checked out. If it hurt to take breathes you really should have gone to a healer.”

Gideon looks beyond pained “You were sick and you didn’t tell me?”

“We...we’re at war. I didn’t want to worry you more then you needed to when I realize I wasn’t going to live through it.” Fabian admits. Sirius is quite sure he is not the only one that wants to beat the idiot’s head in. How could he not have said anything!? His condition could have made everything that much more dangerous, what if he was in the middle of a fight and had an attack? He could have gotten himself and his brother killed!

The twins suddenly freeze, as they do that weird thing they do when both of them think the same thoughts and then jerk their heads to Harry-Actual-Death. “Wait, what does Molly have to do with this? She’s not part of the Order, she didn’t sign a contract with you!”

Sirius could understand their worried, a new fear of what that hinted at, meant that his baby brother could have just been unwillingly added to the contract. He hadn’t talked to Regulus in a few years but that didn’t mean he wanted his brother in Death’s hand!

Harry-Actual-Death shifts around on his feet awkwardly, almost as if embarrassed. “She’s really nice, she gives warm hugs and she gave me cookies once.”

At the while Order’s wide eye bafflement Death says defensively. “I was a kid back then and she didn’t know how much it meant to me. Plus she can be kind of scary when angry. I just don’t like seeing her upset.”

Sirius really, really, wanted to sleep now. Apparently, literal Death was scared of Molly Weasley. Tiny, plump, and motherly Molly Weasley. Also apparently being a grim reaper was a family business and Death could age while running around the mortal world in its childhood visiting people which made no sense whatsoever and- oh.

“You just inherited your position then?” Sirus asks forgetting himself. “That’s why you’re a trainee. You really are new on the job.”

Harry-Actual-Death nods “Yes”

“Then how are we supposed to win a war!” He doesn’t mean to sound so frustrated but Merlin’s beard they summoned Death, they were willing to give up their souls and they may have crossed more than one line, to end up with not prepared baby Death!

Harry-Actual-Death smiles at him, in a way that makes ice settle inside of his whole body and Sirius’s frustration disappears for full out mind-numbing terror. It’s a little crocked but it weary and confident with just the touch of non-human that gives it that extra fear-inducing touch. “Oh not to worry Sirius, I’ve killed enough. I can get the job done. The Death Eaters won’t win. You can’t cheat Death.”

The room falls into a tense silence everyone now more aware of what they have really done. A few minutes ago, Harry-Actual-Death, almost felt....well almost felt like a person, but now, they were once again reminded that this was a Great Power, the end.

Death.

“Y-you know my name” He manages to gasp out.

He gets a weary smile. “Yes. I know every living thing’s name because I know when they stop living.”

Well, what the flying fuck do you say to that? “That’s kind of hot”

Harry-Actual-Death's face turns red. It’s hard to say if it’s from anger or flustered. “Excuse me!?”

Sirius swings wild eyes to Remus begging for rescue all while cursing his loose tongue. He didn’t mean to say that, it was a reflex, born of years of sassing people and flirting with attractive blokes. His friend is quick to step forward. “Should we focus on how to stop the Death Eaters now?”

“Um, yeah, ugh sure” Harry-Actual-Death stutters in that strange multiple voices “Death Eaters. Got to go and....Death them. Yup.”

He moves it cloaked head to the whole room asking at large. “You all just wanted that right? Stopping the war, beat Voldemort, and making sure Neville and Harry grow up safe?”

Alice and Lily jerk in shock at mention of their kids but everyone nods or mumble agreement. Harry-Actual-Death accepts this with shuffling feet, grabbing the floating items and hastily bids them a farewell.

He bleeds into shadows that race across the room and disappears. But Sirius did not miss how he could feel Harry-Actual-Death’s gaze on him, his face a healthy red, and shy nervous little shifts on his feet right before he departed and he thinks with one startling moment of what that could mean.

As always James, his best mate who knows what he is always thinking figures it out and blurts. “Padfoot I think Death has a crush on you. How do you feel about that?”

“I....I’m a little flattered actually.” How metal is it to say Death has a crush on you? “Also scared Prongs. Very, very, scared.”

#hpdabbles #Master of Death (In training)#Part 2 #Harry Potter #Sirius POV #cursing and swearing #In which Sirius realizes they signed up for something out of their power #And now lives in fear of Death's Affection #Crack #What Death looks like to the Order of Phoniex #hinted Sirius/Harry???#It's more everyone assuming then a actual pairing

105 notes · View notes

oldies-enthusiast · 5 years

Text

Chiquita | Chavez x reader

A/N: Hi guys! So there’s this lovely girl who messaged me a while ago to tell me that she really enjoys my writing, especially Young Guns fanfiction. She requested a Chavez story & I’m only now getting around to it. Requests are open & appreciated! Hope you enjoy! —Ally xx

requested by @prettybaby1979

[Y/N] Tunstall, the Belted Earl’s daughter. That’s what they called you.

But it wasn’t the name they gave you that made your blood boil that February afternoon as you stood in the middle of your father’s yard, clenching your gun so hard your knuckles were white, glaring at the trespassers with contempt.

It was the audacity of those men, whose voices echoed in your head as their eyes, lustful and almost animal-like, sized you up with mockery.

“Look around you, Earl... All I see are hired thieves”, Murphy sneered, “and a fine lass living among savages. No doubt she makes for the greatest house entertainment!”

You remember their laughter, his ugly grin and his face like a hyena’s. You remember the humiliation and anger, the sound of loaded guns at the ready and the soft, but firm voice of your father, ordering you and the boys to lower your weapons.

You hated them all. Murphy. Dole. Brady. The Santa Fe Ring. To see them all hang had been the only thing you wished for ever since the day you saw your father’s cold, motionless body lying in the dirt, listening to the curses and oaths of six young men, his famous Regulators, the only family you had left.

Your mother died of pox a couple of years after you’d been brought into the world. You hardly remembered her. Despite your father’s generous attempts to make up for that loss, you’d always felt the pain that comes with growing up deprived of motherly presence. He never married another woman, but tried his best to give you the love he felt you deserved and brought into your life several men who took the place of your brothers, making up for the absence of siblings you always wished you’d had.

Your father had a particularly soft spot for them and to be fair, you did too. Even though life with them wasn’t always easy, you loved your boys dearly and wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.

You and Chavez, however, had always shared a special bond. There were times when you felt as if there was nobody in the world who understood you the way he did. And although he never talked much, his presence alone made you feel secure and wanted. It meant you always had someone looking out for you.

Chavez rarely smiled, but when he did, it looked as if the sun shone brightly upon his handsome features. You wished he would smile more, but sadly, there was always this strange aura of grief and pain surrounding him, making you believe that there had been something in the past that hurt him terribly and changed his life forever. And so sometimes when he smiled, you thought you could see a glimpse of a happier, untroubled person he might have been once.

He called you ‘chiquita’, not because you were particularly petite, but because he was taller than you and perhaps he liked teasing you in a friendly manner. You weren’t sure whether what you felt toward him and his feelings toward you were of the same sort. Many nights you spent wondering, not being able to pluck up the courage to possibly ruin the friendship you cherished with devotion.

It was the night after your father had been murdered that you found yourself lying in the dark, eyes wide open, staring into the corner of your empty room. You couldn’t stop thinking about how much it resembled the aching void in your heart, the irreparable harm Murphy and his men had caused you, something you wouldn’t ever be able to get rid of, something you knew you had to learn to live with.

The silence in the house was unsettling. It was eerie, knowing your father was dead, but feeling his presence everywhere as if he were alive.

You couldn’t stand the sound of your own heart pounding in your chest, almost echoing against the cold walls. You couldn’t stand being in that silent house for a minute longer.

The cold night breeze soothed you somehow. You raised your head, taking in the vast beauty of the starry sky above you. You reminisced on your father showing you the Great Bear, assuring you that wherever you found yourself, you could search for the North Star and it would show you the way. You felt tears pricking your eyes as your vision began to blur, and suddenly a soft, rustling sound behind you snapped you back to reality.

You wasted no time reaching for your gun and turning around, searching for the mysterious intruder. His soft voice made the lump in your throat grow bigger.

“Chiquita.”

Even in the dark, you could recognize his beautiful, angular face and the warm look in his thoughtful eyes as he approached you, stepping out of the shadows. You lowered your pistol weakly, your shoulders drooping as you fought back the flood of emotions threatening to burst out. You couldn’t look at him. You kept your eyes closed as the sound of his footsteps grew louder.

“Chiquita.”

That word again. You could feel him now standing right beside you. It was too much, him being there and your father not, the pain and sorrow, anger and hopelessness. Before you had a chance to say anything, you felt a pair of strong arms envelop you, pulling you into his tight, warm embrace.

His touch was enough, and you burst into tears.

He held you while you cried, his tender fingers stroking your back until you felt a lighter, warmer pressure on your head and eventually realized that he had planted a single soft kiss on your temple.

With your head against his firm chest, you thought you could hear his heartbeat.

“I miss him so much, Chavez”, you choked out miserably. It came out shaky and hardly comprehensible, your voice muffled by his shirt, but he heard you perfectly.

“I know”, he said and pulled you tighter. “I know, chiquita.”

He smelled like pine trees and home. You thought you could stay like that forever, listening to him breathe. You finally managed to lift your head. A sudden wave of comfort washed over you as your eyes met.

“Chavez...”, you breathed, admiring the way his long silky hair fell in shiny little waves around his face. He looked like an angel, you thought, an angel with a mesmerizing, dark halo.

“The pain...”, he whispered, “It never goes away, but it subsides. I know it’s hard.”

It pained you even worse to hear him say it. “What happened, Chavez?”, you said hoarsely. “What happened to you?”

The silence that followed scared you. Eventually, he said: “The Sand Creek...”

He told you about his people, about the blood. He told you about what Murphy and his demonic men did to his family, to his tribe. You listened, horrified and trembling, letting the tears stream down your face freely.

“Chavez...”, you started, but he cut you off.

“They took everything from me, don’t you see? And then they took your father. There’s nothing left for me here, except for you, chiquita. And I won’t let them take you. I won’t let them take you away from me.”

There was no way to describe what those words made you feel.

“I never told you...”, you whispered, caressing his face, “I was scared...”

“Tell me now”, he said, lowering his head so that his forehead rested against yours.

“I love you”, you said, feeling his warm breath on your lips. “I always have.”

He locked his lips with yours gently and lovingly, making your heart flutter. Kissing him felt like you were being lifted off the ground, levitating in his embrace, supported by the only man that ever truly mattered. You knew you were going to make it.

“Always, chiquita. Always.”

164 notes · View notes

ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years

Text

HPHM Profile - Luca Fawley

This template was posted by @Hogwartsmysterystory and it looks pretty awesome. I might just go ahead and use it for the whole damn Fawley family. But let’s start with Luca. I’ll try to stay true to canon while still respecting the “Remembrance” timeline’s ideas.

(That eye color edit looks so bad omg)

Identity

Name: Luca Jude Fawley

Gender: A-Gendered.

Age: 17 as of Year 6.

Birth Date: December 26th, 1972

Species: (Human, Lycanthrope, Metamorphmagus, Vampire, etc) Human, Wizard.

Blood Status: Pureblood.

Sexuality: Panromantic, Asexual.

Alignment: Neutral Good.

Ethnicity: Biracial, half Scottish and half Iranian.

Nationality: British.

Residence: The Black Sand Apothecary, in a place called Dulcimer Beach.

Myer Briggs Personality Type: INFP.

The Mage

1st Wand:Hazel and Unicorn Hair, 10 1/4 Inches, Swishy. This wand was owned by Nina, Luca’s mother. It was given to them after Jacob’s disappearance rendered Nina unable to use her magic anymore. It was just before Luca went to Hogwarts, where they used Nina’s wand until it was broken by Rakepick.

2nd Wand:Cedar and Unicorn Hair, 11 3/4 Inches, Pliant. This wand was fashioned by Rowan before they came to Hogwarts, but it never “chose” them. It did choose Luca though, in fifth year, just in time for Luca to need another. Rowan could not be happier at this turn of events, and Luca feels as though it’s an honor they don’t deserve.

Animagus: Black Cat.

Misc Magical Abilities: (Legilimen, Seer, Parselmouth, Obscurial, etc) Luca has extreme proficiency in all types of mental magic - Legilimency, Occlumency, Memory Charms, etc - due to a Dark Curse they inherited. A Curse that has plagued the Fawley family for generations. They also have a magical eye, similar to Moody’s, that replaced their left eye at age thirteen.

Boggart Form: For Years 1-5 it was Jacob, embodying all of Luca’s subconscious uncertainties about him. Post-Portrait Vault, it became Merula getting tortured.

Riddikulus Form: Usually nothing. Luca struggles to find humor in their anxieties, and they don’t stand much chance facing a Boggart alone.

Amortentia: (What do they smell like?) Luca’s hair has a distinctly cinnamon-like scent, so probably that.

Amortentia: (What do they smell?) Cat fur, Pine Trees, and Cloves.

Patronus: Cat. Specifically, it takes the form of Luca’s cat, Mitten.

Patronus Memory: Either the Celestial Ball, or the time they reconciled with Rowan after a feud about Ben, and cuddled them in cat-form.

Mirror of Erised: After Chapter 18, I’ll give you one guess. They want their best friend back. They want to take back what happened in the forest.

Specialized/Favorite Spells:The Patronus Charm, the Tickling Charm, and the shrinking Charm.

Appearance

Faceclaim: Keanu Reeves.

Game Appearance:

This is pretty much their mood half the time.

Height: 5′8.

Weight:141 lbs.

Physique: Very skinny and small, overall scrawny.

Eye Colour: Naturally dark brown, but their left eye is a bright blue prosthetic.

Hair Colour: Dark brown.

Skin Tone: Olive skin.

Body Modifications: The Magical Eye replace their left eye, and their right hand has a birthmark of a black star, known as the Mark of Despair. A byproduct of the curse placed on the Fawleys.

Scarring: They still have a few faint pockmark scars on their neck and shoulders from when The Fawleys all caught dragon pox in Luca’s childhood. But these can only be seen under the light.

Inventory: (what do they carry on them?) Luca has a tendency to travel light, but they’re also an emotional sap. They carry their wand, the clothes on their back, and “Beatrice Jr.” the puffskein that Beatrice made for them. After the events of the forbidden forest, they also start carrying Rowan’s cracked glasses.

Allegiances

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff.

Ilvermorny House: Pukwudgie.

Affiliations/Organizations: Hufflepuff Quidditch Team, Curse-Breaking Apprentices, The Circle of Khanna

Professions: I see Luca eventually becoming a teacher at Hogwarts, as the permanent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Can also see Talbott and Penny working alongside them in Transfiguration and Potions, respectively.

Hogwarts Information

Class Proficiencies: (OWL Grade or ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆)

Astronomy: Poor.

Charms: Outstanding.

DADA: Exceeds Expectations.

Flying:(N/A. I refuse to accept that Flying has an O.W.L exam.)

Herbology: Poor.

History of Magic: Acceptable.

Potions: Acceptable.

Transfiguration:Acceptable.

Electives:

Care of Magical Creatures: Outstanding.

Ancient Runes: Acceptable.

Quidditch: Chaser.

Extra Curricular: Luca tutored students in Charms, and spent a lot of time doing volunteer work in the Creature Reserve.

Favourite Professors: Flitwick, Mcgonagall, and at one point, Rakepick.

Least Favourite Professors: Dumbledore, Snape, Sprout

Relationships

Brother: Jacob. Luca’s favorite person in the entire world. As Luca grew up, Jacob’s disappearance and the subsequent investigation of his actions led to a serious re-evaluation of their relationship. But ultimately, Jacob was always fighting to protect his sibling.

Misc Siblings: Gail, Luca’s twin sister. Depending on which AU we’re talking about, a lot of different things could have happened to her. She could be still-born. She could be raised apart from Luca. She could grow up beside them. She could take their place as the HPHM protagonist. Take heed, anyone writing twin OCS...all these different paths are going to confuse the hell out of you.

Father: Eric Fawley, who died of a Dragon Pox fever when Luca was seven. Though they were still very young when they lost him, Luca and their father had a positive relationship and Eric’s temperament is probably the closest to Luca’s out of anyone else in the family.

Mother: Nina Fawley, formerly Nina Greengrass. She and Luca always had a positive relationship as they were growing up. For the most part, Nina usually appeared to be a pleasant person. However, she also had skeletons in her closet, and as the years went by her mask began to slip.

Love Interest: Canonically? It’s very likely going to wind up being Merula. She hasn’t been cut from the dating quests yet and I’m an absolute sucker for their dynamic. Merula is lashing out because she’s in pain, but Luca is Healer...otherwise, I really like Luca/Tulip, as well as a poly-ship between those three characters called the Trouble Trio. A small sliver of my heart has also started shipping Luca with Skye as well. Basically, I’m an indecisive bean - but since I’m keeping this as close to canon as possible, let’s say Merula.

Best Friends: By the end of their first Hogwarts term, Luca had formed a true squad with Rowan, Penny, Chiara, and Tonks. The four of them teamed up to trade off sleeping beside Luca each night, to help soothe Luca’s night terrors and insomnia. Luca also saw Ben as a little brother from a young age.

Rival: Ironically enough, it wasn’t Merula. Their rivalry with her was always one-sided. Luca saw far too much of Jacob in Merula, to ever have in them to sincerely dislike her. The only person Luca felt a legitimate rivalry with growing up was Diego. Their personalities just did not click well, and it wasn’t until the N.E.W.T. years that they were able to get past it and find common ground.

Enemy: R of course, has become the deadly enemy that Luca does not understand, but knows they must be defeated. If you were to ask though, Luca’s immediate answer would be Rakepick. There was a time when Luca saw her as a mother figure. But now...after everything she’s done...she needs to die.

Dorm-mates: (Who’s in your MC’s dorm with them?) Rowan, Murphy, Diego. Though Luca also frequently sleeps in the Girl’s Dormitory with Penny, Skye, Tonks, and Chiara.

Pets:Mitten the snowy cat. Merula also has a black cat of her own called Bitten.

Closest Canon Friends: Rowan, Penny, Tonks, Chiara, Ben, Jae.

Closest MC Friends: This one always makes me shy, because I don’t want to be presumptuous, but some of my favorite MC’s that I’ve seen that I bet Luca would get along with are @missnight0wl @thewasp1995 @back-on-my-tulula-shiz @dat-silvers-girl @salaofthenight and @weirdcursedvaultkid

Background/History

Luca was the child of two Healers that met at St. Mungo’s before starting an Apothecary together. Luca saw a lot of their grandparents on Eric’s side, but never met Nina’s family as she was estranged from them.

Luca knew Jae when they were very young - Jae was friends with Jacob prior to his disappearance. Jacob and Jae would combine their efforts to make mischief, and Luca would never approve. They had a falling out with Jae not long before Jacob vanished, and they maintained an uneasy distance until fifth year, where the kitchen detentions saw a reconciliation between the two of them.

The Fawley family was notoriously unlucky, and known for madness. Alice Fawley, Luca’s aunt, went insane after she was tortured by Bellatrix. In the last two years of his life, Eric had a breakdown and cut off his own hand in an attempt to remove the curse. But the Mark of Despair simply reappeared on his remaining hand.

After Jacob disappeared, Luca had a mental breakdown and for years, they could not recall the day that their brother vanished. In the years to come, Flitwick would give them a Pensieve to help them sift through all the turmoil in their head. Luca would eventually learn that their inability to recall the day Jacob disappeared was due to a memory charm placed on them by an unknown entity, perhaps Jacob himself.

Personality

In some ways, Luca is healthier than most people because they are quite emotionally open and not afraid to express their feelings, but know how to do so in an appropriate fashion. They’re also empathetic and able to show kindness and listen when another person needs to express feelings.

In other ways, Luca is a mess. They’re extremely depressed and this interferes with their productivity and relationships. They’re prone to having breakdowns of crying at any emotional shift. They have low self-esteem and tend to believe that they are worthless or a burden.

That said, they appreciate their friends and loved ones more than they can ever convey. To a fault, even. Not only is Luca loyal, but they are highly forgiving of a person’s flaws if it is someone they care about. One could call it enabling, as they are rarely bothered by offenses that such people commit against them.

Luca also has a very merciful attitude. Day one, even though they knew it was Merula who blew up their cauldron, they said nothing and simply took the fall, apologizing to Snape. However, once Luca has been pushed to a breaking point, they can show a surprising amount of backbone. It just takes a lot to get this out of them.

Luca has a nurturing nature and a tendency to reach out to underdogs, to care for those in need. This is what drew them to Ben, Merula, Orion, and Beatrice. Though Luca never holds anger in their heart, the quickest way to see them get angry is to hurt or abuse one of these outcasts that Luca cares for. Part of the reason they become so disillusioned with Dumbledore is because he is in a position of educational power, and the longer Luca attends Hogwarts, the less it seems to them that Dumbledore has any interest in doing his job with integrity.

Misc

Not going to get too much into Fawley family head-canons, since I’ll save that for a different post. But I think Luca was raised Jewish.

They’re lactose intolerant.

Their favorite flower is the chamomille, which is the type of tea they prefer.

They’ve always been Pro-Muggle, though they don’t know the first thing about muggle culture.

Luca never truly wanted to be a Curse-Breaker. It just seemed like a necessary skill-set to learn to find Jacob, and break the Fawley curse.

They’ve known they were trans for as long as they could remember.

They have exceptional abysmal unique skills at naming. Examples include “Barnaby Jr” the Bowtruckle and “Penny Jr” the Abraxan.

They are ambidextrous.

Despite being a mellow person, Luca is oddly drawn to people who are trouble. If a person is problematic, chaos-aligned, or just an overall disaster of a human being, there’s a greater chance that Luca will find them attractive.

They suspected Rowan of being R for a while, much to their own guilt. It led to a feud, but they made up and were closer than ever.

On the other hand, they never suspected Ben, not even when he was unmasked as the Red Cloak. Luca just had a gut feeling that it was too easy, that it was a setup. But Rakepick saving their life cemented her as an ally in Luca’s eyes...that did not end well.

Luca never wanted to be a Prefect, but Rowan and Flitwick talked them into it.

They vastly prefer Wizard’s Chess to Gobstones, something they have in common with Murphy.

They have an unfortunate tendency to unconsciously project familial roles onto people. Bill and Orion were substitutes for Jacob, Flitwick was a substitute father figure, and for a time, Rakepick substituted for Luca’s absentee mother.

Did I miss anything? Hope you guys like it! Should I post others for the Fawley family?

26 notes · View notes

riverboundao3ff · 4 years

Text

Riverbound, Chapter 4

Your name is DARAYA JONJET, and for the first time in sweeps you wake up eager to start the night. There’s a strange sense of something holding you down to Alternia-- not like you’re being weighed down by grief, but as if you were only partially existing in this reality before the previous morning. Now, there’s all of you in one body to make up one whole troll. It’s absolutely incredible.

Is this what feeling like a person is like? It does kind of slap.

Anyways, you rock up to class in your nicest pair of combat boots and your favorite flannel, ready to get everything over with so you could go see your friend. Lynera had texted you right after you woke up saying that they were stable and on painkillers, but you were still itching to go see them. It’s not like you were going to be able to focus, anyways.

The second you sit down the girls next to you turn around. One of them is Aviann, who mostly took care of midblood wigglers, and Natiri, who was on guard duty when Lynera saved your friend.

“Is it true?” Aviann whispers. You nod.

“How are they?” Natiri still looks a little frazzled from having to deal with a hysterical Lynera dragging in a half-dead alien. You don’t blame her.

“They’ll be okay. Broken ribs and they’re really underweight,” you mutter under your breath. “If they were a troll they’d be dead. Apparently their species is pretty resistant to starvation.”

Aviann’s eyes grow round. “That’s so cool. Your alien is tough.”

You feel a flash of pride. “Hell yeah, they are.”

“How long before they heal? I wanna see them again,” Natiri begs.

“After class I’ll take you to them. They don’t want to self-isolate.”

Aviann looks even more impressed. “Wow, really? So they’re not afraid of being culled?”

“Nah. They’re not afraid.” You can’t help but brag a little. “One time they fought a purpleblood with a cerulean friend of theirs and they won.”

Now both of them are wide-eyed. Ceruleans are pretty strong, but it would still take two or three of them to take out a clown.

“Hey, back row! No talking!” the girl up front yells. Ugh.

You look at your worksheet that has been waiting for you on your desk. If you stare at the letters for too long they start going a little fuzzy, on account of you getting like ten ticks of sleep before waking up for schoolfeeding. You’d been up all day texting back and forth with Tyzias, and then Stelsa, and then eventually somebody made a group chat with all the teals in it so you could update everybody on what was going on. Tagora called you to ask when they could come see the alien, and you actually felt bad listening to the desperation in his voice, hoarse from lack of sleep. Nobody besides jadebloods were allowed in the caverns, so you had to tell them it might be a couple of wipes before they could walk. The little kid called Tirona threw a full-blown temper tantrum upon hearing that.

In another chat, you and Tyzias discussed plans for the three of you to meet up so you could tell your friend about the rebellion. Namely, how you and Tyzias were basically the leaders of a (very) small group of people who believed that Alternia could be a better place. It’s messy and honestly kind of pathetic but it’s something and you really think the alien would be really excited to see that you’re trying to make a change.

The worksheet is taken care of by copying off Aviann in exchange for telling her more about your friend’s physiology. She’s fascinated by their unusually strong pack-bonding instinct, is confused as to how they could be a diurnal species, and definitely doesn’t believe you when you tell her that they’re a great swimmer.

“They don’t have fins, do they? Or gills? How are they supposed to breathe?” she hisses.

“For the last time, dude, they’re a mammal. They don’t have fins or gills, they hold their breath while underwater. Look, I’ll take you to them sometime, they’re really nice,” you retort. “Also, I think the answer for number fifteen is X.”

“No, it’s Z. And fine, but if the drones come after me for associating with an alien I’m throwing your skinny ass under the omniscuttlecoach.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

You look up at the timeteller and groan. The longer wand has only moved twenty ticks, and you’re getting handed a packet as thick as your little finger.

Fuck.

:::

You have no idea how you make it to the end of the session, but you do know that when the bell rings you’re up and out of your seat, almost forgetting your backpack in the process. The chick in charge of the class shouts after you about something, but you don’t care, because hell yes you’re going to see your friend and nobody can stop you.

Aviann and Natiri catch up with you on longer legs, but you manage to keep the lead in order to show them the way to Lynera’s study. Lynera is a very private person, so most of the others don’t even know where the study is, much less the fact her respiteblock is connected to it. You found that out when you got high a sweep ago and decided to go snooping around in the middle of the day.

“Won’t Skalbi be pissed?” Natiri whispers, looking around anxiously.

“Nah. Me and like a dozen other people were in there last morning and she lived,” you say casually. Of course when you try the door, it’s locked, but you have compressed tree slice clips and nimble claws.

You don’t get very far. A couple seconds into jiggling the lock the door flies open to reveal a very cross Lynera Skalbi, hands on her hips and brows furrowed into a tight line.

Natiri squeaks in terror, ears flat against the sides of her head. “Oh, hi, Lynera-!”

“We wanna see them,” you interrupt before Natiri can start blabbering.

Lynera’s gaze flickers over the three of you. “You two are friends with the alien as well?”

“Um, we’ve talked a few times,” Aviann offers. “One time they covered my shift when I had thorax pox.”

Natiri’s obviously still too scared to say anything, so you duck under Lynera’s arm and youth roll right into the study. Lynera squawks in protest. Aviann and Natiri follow your example, judging by Natiri’s yelp when she scrapes her horns on the floor.

You manage to not kill yourself on the way down the stairs, and sure enough, when you reach the bottom you see your friend curled up on the loungeplank. They’re awake, and when they see you their eyes light up.

“Hi, Daraya,” they say, their voice warm like a snuggleplane. Something in your brain responds by bringing forth almost-buried memories of being much smaller, safely wrapped up against the belly of something soft and furry.

“Hi,” you manage. There’s a tightness in your chest that both takes away and feeds the pain of having missed them so much for so long. “How are the ribs?”

“Still there.” Round white teeth flash in a cheesy grin. You roll your eyes to the heavens above, but you’re relieved to see that they still have the same crappy sense of humor they had when you meant them.

You feel the air displace behind you, and the alien looks around you curiously. “Oh, hello. I didn’t know you were bringing friends. It’s… Natiri, and…?”

“Aviann. Aviann Inkani,” says the younger of the two, adjusting her glasses and peering owlishly down at them. “You covered my shift once when I had thorax pox.”

The alien’s lips twitched up in a smile. “Oh, now I remember you. Glad to see you’re feeling better, kiddo.”

“Thanks,” Aviann said, looking a tad flustered, before recovering enough to whip out a small green notebook. “Um, Daraya mentioned a couple of interesting things concerning your physiology earlier tonight, and I was wondering if you were feeling well enough to do a short interview? For science.”

“Aviann! Natiri! Daraya!” Lynera comes huffing back into the study, looking steamed at the presence of more people around the injured alien. “They are trying! To rest!”

“It’s totally okay, Lynera, I have literally nothing else to do. But it’s your study, so.” The alien blinks calmly up at her. Natiri stares in awe.

Lynera hesitates, something in her eyes softening as she meets your friend’s gaze. “Alright. Come get me if you want to get back to sleep, though.”

“I will,” they promise. Lynera beams down at them before giving you the stink-eye on her way back up the stairs. Sucks to suck, Skalbi.

Aviann is grinning ear-to-ear, and you can tell she’s having a difficult time restraining herself from jumping for joy. She’s wanted to be a scienterrorist as long as you’d known her. “Oh, wow, really? Thank you!”

“It’s my pleasure,” the alien promises, patting the side of the loungeplank. “Come sit down if you want.”

Aviann carefully approaches them and sits down a couple of feet away, with Natiri close behind. You smirk and pass them to sit down on the loungeplank with your friend. They’re about as dangerous as a dead squeakbeast at the moment, but your fellow classmates don’t know that.

“What do you want to know?” the alien prompts, resting their head on their elbow.

“I have a couple of questions regarding the general behavior of your species. You guys are called humans, correct?” Aviann asks.

“We are.”

“Would you consider yourself to be, physically and otherwise, an average human?”

The alien raises their brows, thoughtful. “That’s a tough question. I’d have to say no. I have a couple of mental disorders, which the majority of humans don’t. You could say the circumstances of my situation prohibit me from… being associated with the norm.”

Aviann scribbles furiously in her notebook. “You seem very confident in admitting that you possess traits that could land somebody in trouble on Alternia. Do you think humans have a less intense fear response than trolls?”

“No. Humans are incredibly social creatures, much more than trolls. We have strong bonding instincts that urge us to protect one another, even if they’re strangers, disabled, dangerous, or even enemies. Granted, not all humans feel like this, but I’d say as a species we like to stick together,” they clarify.

More scribbling. “How did humans evolve to be a colony, er, pack-based society?”

The alien smiles. “This is going to sound insane to you, but humans live together in families. Parents are the one to raise their children, or if the parents can’t for whatever reason then other adults will.”

Natiri’s jaw drops, and Aviann stops writing. “Are you saying that… adults and juveniles all live together?”

“We do.”

“So your lusii are… the two adults who combined their genetic material to create offspring?”

“That’s right. Adults take care of children.”

Even you’re blown away by this. “Earth sounds kind of terrifying.”

Your friend chuckles. “Not as much as Alternia, dude.”

Aviann taps her pencil to her notes a couple of times. You can practically hear the gears turning in her head. “Is this because you’re… mammals? Creatures who give live birth to their young are predisposed to wanting to nurture them, right?”

“Very good!” The alien looks genuinely impressed. “Believe me, I was just as weirded out by how you guys get kicked off-planet when you grow up.”

“Everybody knows adults are dangerous,” Natiri scoffs.

“By my planet’s standards, I’m an adult. A very young one, though,” the alien points out.

Both Natiri and Aviann do a double-take.

“But… you’re so small,” Aviann says.

“Some humans just don’t grow a whole lot.” They shrug. “It’s genetics.”

Aviann nods and writes more stuff down. “That’s all the questions I have right now. Thanks again, really.”

“You’re more than welcome.” You can see that your friend is starting to get tired, and you pat their leg. Natiri nods to you, and she pokes Aviann’s shoulder. Aviann glances reluctantly back at you and the alien as she gets up to follow Natiri. You give her the one-finger salute. The alien smiles and waves.

“Bye,” they call after them.

Natiri and Aviann wave and say goodbye as well, and then it’s just you and your friend again. Their eyes are closed, but you can tell from the rhythm of their breathing that they’re awake.

“The teals know you’re back,” you tell them.

Their hazel eyes snap open and fixate on you. “How are they?”

“Very happy to know you’re alive. Tirona has a bunch of memes waiting for your review, and Tagora basically cried. Don’t tell him I told you that, though.”

An exhausted smile makes its way onto your friend’s face. “You know, I think I’ll be ready to walk again tomorrow. Could you text Tyzias and let her know to meet me at the bottom of the mountain?”

“Already?” You’re impressed. “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

A strange feeling pangs in your bloodpusher as the alien closes their eyes. You aren’t used to being thanked. Before you can get up to leave, however, there’s a familiar knocking at the door. The alien jolts awake.

Scowling, you stomp up the stairs to give whoever a piece of your mind for disturbing your friend’s sleep, but before you can get the door it opens on its own.

It’s Bronya, and right beside her, wide-eyed, is Karako.

Your anger dissipates at once. Karako had been out the past two nights; of course he missed the whole welcome-back shindig for your mutual pal. You nod to him and step aside to let him and Bronya pass.

“Are you still taking visitors?” You hear Bronya ask kindly. Karako gives a high-pitched squeal of delight, and the alien’s laughter fills the whole study with pure joy.

You feel yourself smile, and it stays with you the whole way back to your respiteblock. The first thing you were going to do was get all of your hivework done, all of it, and then you were going to sleep early.

Tomorrow was going to be a big night.

#hiveswap #Hiveswap Friendsim trolls #riverbound #c4 #jadebloods #homestuck #MSPA reader #The Guardian

9 notes · View notes