#( c: i am the sea and nobody owns me )

[coffeewithcutcaffeine]

[...] she felt so old, so awfully old and worn, and so young all at once, raw as a wound. — Catherynne M. Valente, from Deathless

DETECTIVE KIMBERLEY CLAIRE CUNNINGHAM | THE WAYHAVEN CHRONICLES

[my--moon]

❝ Tonight is ours ❞

Pairing; Percy Jackson X Fem!Reader (Child of Dionysus) Warning; TEASED SMUT. READ AT OWN RISK PLEASE.. situation-ship? angst A/N; @riordanness, I hope your happy honey. this is your dinner. (Fluff, Angst and Smut) Full course meal

Previous: Daddy Doesn't Like You

The two stated that that wouldn't happen again.

That was a fucking lie. It wasn't long after the "situation" that Percy came back to her cabin.

Knock knock kn-knock knock! He tapped rhythmically against the plum coloured door, the grape vines wrapping against the porch freely. Seems nobody bothers calling a Gardner... Or a Demeter kid.

The child of Dionysus opened the door, clutching a bottle of suspiciously red coloured liquid in one hand and the door in the other.

“Oh great.” She rolled her eyes. (Y/N) looked the sea prince up and down. “What do you want? I'm NOT in the mood for a fuck sess. So this better be good.”

“Relax,” Percy put his hands up in surrender. “I came for a friendly chat... And a drink, whatcha got in that bottle?”

(Y/N) looked down at her bottle, and swished the red liquid around. “Cheap booze.” She answered.

“Uh huh, so it's too expensive for my taste?” He smirked before getting swatted by (Y/N)'s hand.

“The more of a smartass you are, the less booze you get.” She hissed. Percy chuckled before walking into her cabin, silently locking the door behind him.

(Y/N) walked into her bedroom area, with her desk, bed and wardrobe. She fumbled over to her desk chair, the sunsets rays shone through the curtains, casting a wine colour onto the floors.

Percy took a swig of the wine she held. It took him a moment before replying with a look of disgust. “Oh this is horrid.” He said, passing it back to her.

“Told.. you. Cheap.” She said, hating the taste but still taking a sip.

(Y/N) was absolutely stunning in Percy's eyes (even when half drunk). Percy was always a bit of a sucker for moody women, with her (h/c) fluffy hair, with (s/c) skin and features that challenge Aphrodite's...

When she smiles at him, his mind goes blank. He can already see himself doing anything she asks. Whatever she wanted from him, he’d happily offer it up. Who wouldn’t, when looking into her eyes?

“You should smile.” He said offhandedly, his own smile playing at his lips. A mischievous smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Shut up.” (Y/N) glared.

“C'mon. You're still mad about last time?” Percy questioned, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear her say it.

“Of course I am! You left your necklace and my dad found out! Do you realise how hard it is to convince my dad that I'm not sleeping with you?”

“You mean wasn't.” Percy corrected. “You mean 'that I wasn't sleeping with you'.” Correcting her grammar with a smug smile—made her groan in annoyance.

“Shut. Up. Trout breath.” (Y/N) hissed at him, placing the bottle back on her table.

“Trout breath? I've heard Seaweed Brain, but trout breath is new.” Percy chuckled softly.

“What did I just say?”

Percy rolled his eyes at her defiance and annoyed glare. “Listen, just c'mere.” He beckoned her over.

(Y/N) cocked an eyebrow at before reluctantly standing up and shuffling over to him. “What do you want—”

“You.” He cuts her off, his face inches away from her own.

“Pardon?”

Before she can get a response—Lips smashed together, her eyes widened but quickly close, warm tongues dance in each other's mouths. He grabs her hips and pulls her close.

She holds herself up by grabbing on his bicep. Leaning against the bed, the pair fall on their backs as their lost in their own passion.

For a moment, they break apart, (Y/N) panting and hungry for more. Percy just smirks. “I thought you weren't in the mood for a fuck sess?”

“Shut the fuck up and kiss me.” She replied, gripping onto his collar for leverage. Percy does as he's told.

His lips caressed her own, his palms make their way up and down. Gliding along her waist and hips like she was a delicate jewel.

The sun set as the two's moans and 'delighted' sounds got louder. The (h/c) girl groaned at his tongue in her mouth.

A fist full of the sheets scrunched up in her hands, her head thrown back as Percy removed his tongue from her mouth.

Percy looked at her neck and back at her. “May I, dear?” He asked. (Y/N) nodded, then he started his assault of hickeys on her neck. A low moan escaped from her throat, followed by breathless pants.

“Mmrph...!”

Percy found his way over to her shirt buttons, unbuttoning her shirt. As the piece of clothing slipped out, so did his own shirt.

“Relax, sweetheart. Let me handle it.” He whispered with a grin as (Y/N)'s eyes rolled back.

Outside of the cabin, the grape vines that wrapped around the porch beams—started to tighten and bloom. The grapes ripened almost immediately, the juicy grapes ready to pick.

People outside—who we're heading back to their cabins for their night routines—looked confused at the grapes sudden ripening.

They shrugged off the question—they assumed it was similar to the Demeter kids powers, growing and blossoming depending on their emotions.

Of course, they weren't technically wrong.

As the night washed over the blue sky, and the colours of the day turned dark—The pair inside the Dionysus cabin hadn't stopped.

“Uh~”

“Quiet down, honey.”

The two's drunken states became lust filled and passionate. Their love and alcohol driven states had lead to another night of ecstasy and desire. Another promise broken.

The sound of (Y/N)'s alarm rang throughout the Dionysus cabin. (Y/N) reluctantly arose from her slumber and tried to turn off her alarm clock.

“C'mon..” She groaned, banging on the clock's buttons to turn it off. She moaned in annoyance, as she flung the clock off her beside table, making it crash and break on the hardwood floors of the wine cabin.

(Y/N) looked down at the damage she made, letting out a small 'eh' as she shrugged it off. She fell back and hit the plush pillow. She turned over to find Percy, sleeping next to her.

He started to stir, his eyes flicking open. Spotting (Y/N) looking at him, a grin placed on his lips. His arms snaked around her body—this was all too familiar.

(Y/N) pushed him away. Percy's brows furrowed at her distant behaviour. “Hey.. What's wrong?”

“It's like last time.” She mumbled, grabbing her oversized shirt and slipping it on.

“Not true.” Percy argued playfully. “Your dad isn't knocking at our door. and I haven't called you vino yet.”

“My door.” she corrected. (Y/N) sighed before speaking in a whisper. “Besides.. It's a cycle at this point. You come over, we argue, we fuck, we don't talk for a few days—then it repeats.”

Percy paused, his grin faltered. “Well...” (Y/N) cut him off.

“Percy. Is a hook-up all I'll ever be to you?” She asked, her expression blank but her eyes asking for reassurance.

Percy kept his arms locked around her body, resting his chin on her shoulder, before answering her.

“Look... (Y/N). You're an amazing girl, and I do love you. If your dad didn't hate my guts, I'd 100% call you mine—”

“You've already done that. The hickeys prove it.”

Percy chuckled before continuing. “Yea yea, either way. (Y/N), I do love you. But until your dad comes around, this is all we can do.”

(Y/N) felt better knowing at least this wasn't loveless. “Thank you... Percy. For everything really.”

“I haven't done anything for you though?”

“well... Besides back pain and bruises, you're right.”

“You're an idiot. y'know?”

“oh shush. Now c'mon. If we get up now—guarantee on hot breakfast.” (Y/N) reminded, which made Percy smile and laugh.

[moononmyfloor]

My Year End C-drama Review (2023)

Part 1

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17. Actors I newly discovered in 2023

Hong Yao, Wang Yinglu, Marcus Li, Tian Jiarui, Qin Hailu, Wang Ke

Some of these are new actors, some are already very experienced but I discovered only now. All of them provided phenomenal performances in their roles this year.

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18. Favorite Child Actors of the Year

Wang Haoze (Ou Zimo- Be Your Own Light), Phoebe Sun Yichen (Duoduo- Stay With Me)

Child actors in C-ent always baffle me, I have zero idea how they are SO good. Impeccable performance. I want to take them home. 🥺

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19. Feminist Cdramas of the year

Be Your Own Light, A Journey to Love

The premise of the first is about women to begin with, the second only partially. Most of the time the self-identifying feminist stories fail massively in realistic depiction of women, let alone idol dramas where the focus is elsewhere.

But these two shows really understood what women think and say, their priorities and what they want in life, how they conduct themselves....and not through the eyes of men who assume women crave xyz things only. The arcs and growths of women in these two shows felt very organic and relatable.

(I hear there were few other such dramas this year as well, eg: Faithful. But this is all I managed to watch huhu)

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20. A drama that let me down

Destined

The chemistry of the real-life pair Bai Jingting and Song Yi was adorable, but the story just wasn't my cup of tea.

I absolutely loved their spacious bedroom tho!

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21. Favorite BGM

Be Your Own Light- I Only Wish to Face the Light by Liu Yuning

Stay with Me- Stars Shine by Zhang Jiongmin, Xu Bin

I Am Nobody- Sea of Time by Zhou Shen

Young Blood 2- Lending a Ray of Light by WineQ (圈9)

Romance On the Farm- Letters from Spring by Su Yunying

Silence of the Monster- Cross a City Just to See You by Huang Yi

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22. Favorite wardrobes

Sui Yi (Sun Yihan)'s wardrobe in Silence of the Monster and Pang Hongmei (Peng Xiaoran)'s fits in Unshakable Faith

Oh they looked so delightfully vintage and exactly my style! 😍

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23. Best Breakups

Moxi and Jiagui (Gone With the Rain), Xiangyi and Wanmian (Mysterious Lotus Casebook)

I HAD to include this category simply because of these two pairs. I LOVED those two scenes. So mature! Such thorough discussion about how their feelings have changed over time, the frank admission that there are indeed some remnants left (because contrary to popular depiction, feelings don't POOF overnight), how they'd always consider the other as a special someone that they were lucky to have met in their lives, the wish to remain as tight friends in the future as well.... 🤌🤌🤌👏👏👏

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24. Worst character designs

Road Home

Gods know I only sat through this for Jing Boran in army gear and snow. The characters were so mind-blowingly flat despite the actors giving their best to "understand" their roles and make them relatable but there was only so much they could do. All the interpersonal relationships happened just because the writer said so. There was a child character who was passed from hand to hand for whenever the writer wanted a "warm childcaring and family moment" but was discarded without a glance the next second, I got second-hand abandonment issues from watching that lonely kid. I did not understand why anyone was doing anything at any given moment.

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25. Most convincing villains aka characters I loved to hate

Yuan Hao (Young Blood 2)- Gotta be one of the most dangerous villains I have ever seen. He was insanely smart, unpredictable and cunning AND strong, and it took all the heroes of the story to defeat him and still it was barely enough. He was so well written and portrayed, till the very end of the show the viewers weren't sure of the outcome of the battle.

Jiao Liqiao (Mysterious Lotus Casebook)- AHH Jiao jie! We all love a good unhinged female villain who isn't uwufied in the name of some weird "women should always be portrayed with tearjerking backstory" notion. Let her go crazy all over the place, we support women's wrongs as well as rights! She always meant what she said and did what she meant and it was terrifying to see.

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26. Favorite murder kittens of the year

Gong Yuanzhi (My Journey to You), Li Tongguang (A Journey to Love)

Oh these two bois were VERY disturbing individuals and I wouldn't go within 1 mile radius around them but were them such delightful affection starved meow meows with killer (ha!) hair and eye acting? Heck yes.

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27. A drama that I wished was longer

Romance On the Farm

I really appreciate how 3D and empathetically portrayed all the family members are. We are shown all their sides and what made them what they are today without making a mockery of Asian family values, but rather constructively analysing + celebrating the good parts.

And then there is a political thriller story arc.

And then there is "this is all but a game" part which I had to try very hard to pretend like it's ignorable.

And then there was the basic premiere of the pastoral country life story.

Clearly the dramamakers had LOTS of ideas. And you can see none of them were empty bite-more-than-can-chews but had actual potential.

If only.... it didn't try to do all this at once under the guise of a 26 ep lighthearted fluffy romcom genre.... it would've made such a difference.

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28. A drama I wanted to watch but couldn't

SO many! For all sorts of reasons.

Ray of Light, Butterflied Lover, The Road to Ordinary, Pledge of Allegiance, Where Dreams Begin, There Will Be Ample Time, Faithful, Stand By Me

ARGH!😭

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29. A drama I wish more people watched

Stay With Me

This is a Chinese BL, with Chinese cast, Chinese locations, but produced by a TW company. That's all I'm going to say about it, give it a try. You won't regret it. (Maybe don't watch last episode tho lol)

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30. Most favorite Cdrama of 2023

Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Why? Because... well if you are in the fandom you'd know, if you aren't... I can write ESSAYS about it so I won't 😂 In short, it was such a healing watch.

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31. A Cdrama I'm excited to see in 2024

JOL 2. Obviously.

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Conclusion

2023 served to solidify my belief that there's really no 'perfect' drama, what I can do is listening to the stories people have to share and then take what I want from them, and leave what I don't want behind. Some may resonate more with me, some less. Some may teach me new things, some may feel redundant. Sometimes you will enjoy only 50% of a drama and hate the rest, but that won't diminish the impact that 50% had on you. It could be a totally different experience for another viewer and that's fine. I watched all the DMBJ shows this year as well (but didn't speak about them in this list since my focus was on 2023) and it really was an exercise on not being overly critical and going with the flow or you would totally miss out on all the good things DMBJ had to bring.

Overall I enjoyed 2023 Cdramaland a lot. I hope this review helped some of you to try out dramas that you didn't know existed/were hesitant to press play or continue on!

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More Posts by Me

[rhetoricandlogic]

Playing God By K.J. Parker

Issue #366, Fourteenth Anniversary Double-Issue, October 6, 2022

He who trusts the wind trusts in Satan’s compassion

—Richard Wagner, The Flying Dutchman

“Hello there,” said the Goddess, gazing at me hungrily. “Have you brought me something nice?”

She had big yellow eyes, the colour of hot iron in the forge just before it’s ready to weld. They were so bright, I almost didn’t notice the crow’s feet. “Yes, my Lady,” I said. I put down the basket and pulled off the cloth I’d covered it with, to keep the flies away. “A few token offerings, to show my—”

“Not too token, I hope.” She reached past me, brushing against my arm, and I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. “Honey-cakes,” She said. “I like honey-cakes.”

I’d also brought dried figs, a cheese, a two-pound wheat loaf, a dozen olives, a bunch of grapes, a slice of honeycomb wrapped in vine leaves, half a dozen dried sausages, and a jar of pickled walnuts. She grabbed the handle of the basket, pulled it toward Her, and began stuffing Her face. She ate quickly, like a slave.

“This is particularly good cheese,” She said, with her mouth full. “So, what can I do for you?”

No beating about the bush. My arm was starting to blister, where She’d touched it. “I want to know the future, my Lady,” I said.

She looked at me. Honey glistened at both corners of Her mouth. “No,” She said, “you don’t, trust me.” She picked up a sausage. “What you want,” She went on, “is happiness, prosperity, honour, and wealth. Am I right or am I right?”

I hesitated. Her temple—bigger than a hut, smaller than a barn—was rendered inside with plaster and painted white. At one time, I’m guessing, it was a tomb, from back when they buried rich men with their chariots and horses and armour. The plaster was beginning to flake just above the doorframe. She filled the place like a hermit crab. “I’d like that,” I admitted, because lying to the gods is a mug’s game. “But that’s not why I—”

“No, of course not.” Her fingernails were gouging into the beeswax that sealed the pickled walnuts. “You’re far too earnest and high-minded for that, of course you are. You want to know if there’s anything the Erymanthians can do about their plague.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

She nodded. “Because they hired you to come here and ask.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Of course,” She said. “And the answer is, no, there isn’t. They’re screwed.” She gave me a dazzling smile. “But they paid you in advance.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“So that’s all right. I do like these walnuts. It’s the quality of the vinegar that makes all the difference.”

I felt like I’d been slapped across the face. “Is there nothing the Erymanthians can do?”

She shook Her head. “Nothing at all,” She said. “It’d be a complete waste of time and effort trying. They brought it on themselves, needless to say. Why do people do that? It’s so silly.” She bit into a fig and spat out the stalk. “Still, that’s mortals for you. Anyway, not your problem. You’ve done what you were hired to do, and you brought me these delicious figs, so everything’s fine.”

I wanted to say: surely there must be something—repentance, prayers, sacrifices, gift offerings, building a temple. She shook Her head. “Waste of time,” She repeated. “Once I’ve made my mind up, that’s that.” Then She grinned. “Unless I choose to change it, of course. But in this case I don’t choose, so that’s that.”

I didn’t want to ask. But since She could read my mind, there didn’t seem much point in staying silent. “What did they do?”

“None of your business,” She said sharply, and I felt my guts twist. She tapped the side of Her nose with Her finger. “Thou shalt not pry,” She said. “But I forgive you, just this once, because of those heavenly walnuts. So instead of smiting you, I’ll let you do a little job for me. How does that sound?”

I bowed my head. “I am yours to command, my Lady.”

“Well of course you are, silly.” She wiped Her mouth on Her wrist and stood up. She was well over six feet tall, maybe nearer seven. I hadn’t appreciated that when She was sitting down. “That’s what you people are for, that and baking.” She smiled. I never saw anyone who could communicate so much diverse and complex information with nothing but a few face muscles. “Now then, what I want you to do for me is this.”

She crossed the room in three strides, lifted a vase off the cedar chest standing against the wall, came back, put it on the little folding table next to where She’d been sitting, frowned at it, shook Her head, went back and replaced it exactly where it had been on the chest. “I want you to sail your ship to Iden Astea,” She said. “It’s on a bay about twelve days’ sail north of here. Know it?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Of course you do. In that case, you know the city?” She laughed. “Call it a city. There’s a hundred and sixteen families living inside the wall, plus another forty-odd scattered about the island. Used to be a lot more of them five hundred years ago, but there you go. Times change,” She said, “or so they tell me.”

“I know the city.”

“Betterer and betterer.” She beamed at me. “I want you to burn it down for me,” She said. “I want you to kill all the men, then round up the women and children and sell them to the Sherden. You can keep whatever you get for them. Oh, and while you’re at it, round up all the sheep and goats on the island and sacrifice them to me, there’s a sweetheart.”

She looked at me. You’re not supposed to look directly at the sun, because it’s bad for you, but what can you do when the sun looks directly at you?

I’d thought it before I could stop myself: or—what did they...?

“They were very naughty,” She said. “And rude. But you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about that. What you need to do is sail your ship to Iden Astea and do as you’re told.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“That’s my brave little soldier. And if you do that, I’ll give you something nice. What would you like?”

Not to have to go to Iden Astea. “I don’t know.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” She said. “I know exactly what you’d like. You’d like to be a landowner. You’d like a place of your own to call home.” She smiled again. “You’d like to be monarch of all you survey. Yes?”

I nodded.

“Well, of course you would. Now run along and see to it, and do try and get a move on. It’s a funny thing, but being immortal doesn’t make you patient. Quite the opposite, actually.”

She was right about one thing. More than anything else in the whole world, I wanted my own place.

I don’t suppose you can really understand what that’s like. I’m assuming you’re like everybody else, except me and a very few others. You were born on the land your family’s owned and worked for generations; it may be four acres or four hundred, that doesn’t really matter, it’s just a question of scale. You have a place of your own.

Everything else about you comes from that. It decides, for example, who you marry, who gets to be the mother or father of your children: one of the neighbours, inevitably, so already the field narrows from half the human race down to maybe eight or ten; and one of them’s the prince’s daughter, so you can forget all about her, and two of them come from those no-good families we don’t talk to, and two of them are already spoken for, and one of them can’t make cheese to save her life— The same sort of process of elimination brought you into the world; simple rural logic. You are where you live; you are what you own. And people and cattle die and barns burn down and trees snap off in the wind and locusts wipe out a whole year’s crops, but the land, the crumbly black soil and the stones (eight generations of your family have picked out every last one and tossed them into the hedge, and still there’s more of them) aren’t ever going anywhere; the most you can do is plough in lime and cowshit, or let it all go back to briars and withies (but someone else will be along sooner or later, your son or your great-grandson, to root them all out, plough in lime and cowshit, then let it all slip back into jungle again...) You have a place of your own, which defines you, and everybody knows exactly who and what you are because of it, from the day you’re born until the day you die. And if you’re wise you know your place, and everything is just fine.

It doesn’t matter that you’re bound to the soil. Legally, a serf can’t go more than five miles from his farmhouse without his lord’s permission. Some people say that that makes him property, like the house and the barns and the fence-posts and the plough and the oxen. You plough when he tells you to, not when you want to or when the time is right. You need the lord’s permission to marry and to breed children. When the lord dies, his son inherits: the land and the fixtures, the live and dead stock, including you. But you still have a place; a place of your own. The lord giveth, but there are constraints on what he can take away. He can’t evict you, unless you neglect to pay your rent and work your allotted time. Maybe you’re property, but you’re not his property. You don’t belong to him, you belong to the land.

And by me, that’s a small price to pay for belonging. Everyone belongs somewhere. A place for everyone, and everyone in his place.

Except for people like me, the very few, too few to matter.

Once, presumably, generations ago, we had a place of our own too. But something must have happened—war, plague, drought, flood, one of those tiresome Acts of God—and we lost it, let it slip through our fingers.

Well, now. The fact that I was born proves that it’s not the end of the world. There’s a place for people like me; all over the place, in fact. We walk from district to district, looking for work; a week here, a month or so there if we’re lucky—and our luck is usually someone else’s misfortune; a broken leg, a fall from a ladder, an old man getting too weak to fulfill his obligations to his lord at ploughing or harvest and too poor to hire regular help. Serfs have a place of their own, even if it’s just a single room you share with the pigs. I don’t.

Neither did my father. But he wasn’t the sort of man who takes it on the chin and gets on with it. So, when he was younger than I am now, he walked down from the hills to the coast and waited till a ship put in for the night. The sea, after all, is different: different rules; freedom. He walked up to the ship and asked the skipper, you wouldn’t happen to need an extra hand? Are you kidding, the skipper said; and my father left the land and went to live on the sea, which proves that people will do anything when they’re desperate.

I bet you shuddered just then at the very thought of it. Actually, it could be worse. Yes, it’s a dangerous life, a great many sailors die. You never know from one day to the next. A storm can come up, faster than a horse galloping, and smash you into the rocks or sweep you out of sight of shore into the vast emptiness, and nobody will ever know what became of you except that you went to sea and never came back. That aside, though, it’s not so bad.

It worked out for my father. He started as an oarsman, and the palms of his hands and the skin on his buttocks rubbed away raw and grew back hard as boot-soles. In return for rowing all day he got his bread and cheese and a pint of wine and his oar-bench to sleep on; and then one day his ship came across a smaller ship, and it was in a remote place, with nobody about to see... He and his pals killed all the men, scuttled the ship, and divided the cargo between them, strictly fair and egalitarian. My father sold his share at the next landfall they came to, and instead of drinking the proceeds he bought a few carefully chosen bits and pieces, small tools, arrowheads and trinkets, which he kept in a jar under his bench and sold at the next place they came to— And ten years later, he bought a third-share in the ship, when one of the owners died.

I take after him, so people tell me. I own a third share in a ship, but not the same one. My ship has fifty oars and carries twenty-five tons. It’s faster than anything except a Sherden cutter, and it has a mast and a sail, though we don’t use them unless we have to, for obvious reasons. I sleep under a roof in the wheelhouse, not on an oar-bench under the stars, and there are times when I can almost kid myself I’ve got a place of my own. But then I wake up in the morning and the view I see isn’t the same as it was yesterday, or the day before, and a gust of wind reminds me that I exist on sufferance, relying every minute of every day on the sea’s compassion... That’s no way to live, people tell me, and I’m inclined to agree with them. But I do it anyway.

“So,” Enki said, as I reached the ship. “What did She say?”

“Don’t ask,” I told him. He pursed his lips. He knows me.

Enki reminds me of me. Actually, he gives me an unpleasantly convincing idea of what I’ll be like in ten years time, if I live that long. His third of the ship belonged to his uncle, and he’s been sailing her since he was nine. He still gets sick in a storm, but we all pretend not to notice. “Fine,” he said. “So, back the way we came.”

“No,” I said. “North.”

He frowned. “But aren’t we supposed to report back to the Erymanthians?”

“No point,” I told him. “Besides, by the time we get there they’ll all be dead.”

He thought about that. Enki thinks like the sun, brilliant but a bit slow-moving. “Fair enough,” he said. “No skin off our noses. So, on to Celeuthoe.”

“Yup,” I said. “And then Iden Astea.”

The name rang a bell. He closed his eyes for a moment until he’d placed it. “What do we want to go there for?”

“She said so.”

He went a colour he usually only goes in very bad weather. “Fair enough,” he said.

That night we put in at Toliethron, which is basically just a beach between two spits. A freshwater spring comes tumbling down the cliff, so you can fill your jars, but otherwise the most you can say for it is that it keeps still in bad weather. “So,” Enki said in the wheelhouse, lowering his voice, “why are we going to Iden Astea?”

That’s Enki. He fondly believes that if we’re fifty miles away and he keeps his voice down, the Goddess won’t hear him.

“She wants us to burn down the city,” I said.

“Ah.”

“And kill all the men, and sell the women and children, and slaughter all the sheep and burn them.”

He nodded slowly. “Who gets the money for the women and children?”

“We do.”

He looked at me. He had that look on his face, as though he’d heard his mother coughing in that particular way and knew what it meant. “Not so bad, then,” he said.

“Pretty bad,” I said.

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Not if it’s the Lady’s will,” he said firmly. “Thy will be done, remember. We’re covered. And let’s say a couple of hundred women at a drachma a pop—”

“Don’t,” I said.

“I’m just saying, that’s all.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

He shrugged. “Mind you,” he said, “it’s a big ask, storming a city. Like, there’s fifty-five of us and what, a hundred of them, fit to carry a spear, I mean. It’s not going to be like picking an apple off a tree.”

“The Goddess will be with us,” I said.

“Yes, of course.” He nodded. “We’ll have them for breakfast, no doubt about it.” He paused. “Why us, did She say?”

“No.”

“Did you piss her off or anything?”

“I might have done, I don’t know.”

He looked at me. Relieved, I think, rather than angry; if it was my fault, then it couldn’t be his. “Easy done,” he said. “You’ve really got to watch your mouth, talking to—-” Quick skyward glance, then eyes back on his sandals before anyone noticed— “Them.”

“I don’t remember saying anything bad,” I told him. “I think She was just looking for an excuse.”

“She doesn’t need an excuse,” he said.

I remembered the way She’d gobbled the cheese, and the olives. “I’m not sure about this,” I said.

“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But there are other gods.”

He looked at me, that don’t-do-anything-stupid look I know so well. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said. “But there’s fifty-five of us, and we live on a ship.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.”

Why would anyone deliberately piss off a god? They’re stronger than us. They control our lives. To them, we’re just property. Unlike mortal lords, they can kill us at will, or (worse) displace us, pull us up by the roots and leave us in the sun. I am the Lady’s, to use as she commands, on the strict understanding that what I do in her service is her fault, not mine.

Even so. There are limits.

For me—and you can see how stupid and flaky I am—the line gets drawn when it comes to enslaving my fellow man. A slave isn’t like a serf. A slave gets pulled up by the roots and taken from his place and put forcibly where he doesn’t belong. That’s not right.

People say I’m idiotic for making such distinctions. Slave or serf, they say, what’s the big deal? And slaves get treated well, because they’re an investment. You spend good money on plant and equipment, naturally you take good care of it. You’d be crazy not to.

I can’t argue with that. Correction: I won’t argue with that, because it’s not my place to do so. But I’m outside all of that. My privilege, on account of not having a place of my own. I draw my own lines, even if it means annoying the almighty. I can do no other, gods help me.

I knew what I was doing all right. I was telling a lie.

But what the hell. There are other gods, ever so many of Them, and if the poets are to be believed They spend Their everlasting lives fighting like cats. And our next stop but one was Choris Seautou.

Everybody knows the white temple on the promontory at Choris, even if they’ve never seen it, never left home in their lives. Choris is where the Archer God lives. Getting in to see Him costs you a sheep, but in this case I reckoned it’d be a sheep well spent. So I bought one in the market at Celeuthoe and we rigged up a pen for it on the aft deck. “What do we want a sheep for?” Nijah asked. I tapped the side of my nose with my finger, and he shrugged and got on with his work.

Getting from Celeuthoe to Choris can be a breeze, or it can be several days of sheer misery. I had a bad feeling about it, because unlike Enki I don’t believe you can get past the Goddess by whispering. But instead we got a nice brisk north-westlerly wind. Bani said we could raise the sail, but I gave him a look and he dropped the subject. A sail, after all, can take you to all sorts of places in no time flat, including places you hadn’t intended to go. I’ve spent my life trying to avoid unintended destinations, and look where it’s got me.

I was standing up in the prow, searching the skyline for the first gleam of the white temple, when Enki suddenly appeared next to me. I hadn’t heard him, but it’s noisy up the front end of a ship.

“We should raise the sail,” he said.

“Don’t be an idiot,” I said. “We’re making seven knots. That’s plenty fast enough.”

“I want you to raise the sail.”

I turned to face him. His eyes were the colour of hot iron, just before it’s ready to weld. “Oh,” I said.

“It’s all right,” She said. “I’m here, aren’t I? What could possibly go wrong if I’m here?”

You can’t lie to the gods, everybody knows that; nor can you keep anything from them. I’d thought it, so I might as well say it. “Why are you here?”

“To make sure you get a move on,” She said. “Otherwise you’d just dawdle. You people are great dawdlers, which is odd, when you come to think of it. Bearing in mind that you’ve got so little time, I’m amazed at how willing you are to waste it.”

A white flash, at the edge of my peripheral vision. I tried really hard not to think what it meant. “Nijah,” I called out. “Raise the mast.”

Nijah was amidships, messing about with a coil of rope. “Seriously?”

“Do as you’re damn well told.”

I didn’t look at him, so I didn’t see the expression on his face. “All right,” I heard him call out, “you heard the man. All stop.” Everyone stopped rowing, and the ship began to slow down.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to go and see to the mast.”

“Of course you do.” She smiled at me. It wasn’t quite the same, on Enki’s face, but the meaning was clear nevertheless. “Remember, no dawdling.”

Enki’s face went blank, and a seagull that hadn’t been there a moment ago spread its wings and launched off the rail into the air. I tried very hard to keep my mind from thinking. She might be flying away, but She was still listening.

I turned my head. Just because you mustn’t think doesn’t mean you can’t use your eyes. I’d been right. The white flash I’d seen was the sun on the walls of the white temple.

“Are you all right?” Enki asked me.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was miles away.”

He looked at me. “What are we raising the mast for? I thought you wanted to stop at Celeuthoe.”

“I do.” I made a colossal effort and got a grip on myself. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking of. All right,” I called past him, to Nijah and the others, “forget about the mast, we’re closer than I thought we were. Carry on rowing.”

Nijah gave me a look, but I couldn’t be bothered with him. I was too busy trying to figure out where I was. I could see the white temple, and the Goddess had left in a hurry. That meant, surely, that we’d entered the jurisdiction of the Archer God—

On whom, I reflected unhappily, everything now depended. Not a pleasant thought.

The drill is, you lead your sheep on a bit of string up the hill to the gatehouse of His temple, where a porter takes it from you and tells you to wait. My sheep didn’t want to be led, which meant I ended up back on the beach with rope-burns on both hands. We tried again; me leading the sheep, Nijah and Bani behind it, pushing. “That’s a really bad omen,” Nijah told me, “the sheep not wanting to go.”

“Shut up, Nijah,” I said. “You’re not helping.”

We got there in the end, and I handed the bit of string to the porter. The sheep grabbed its chance and made a dash for it, ripping the string out of his hand. He yelled, two of his pals chased after the sheep and flipped it onto its back.

“I know,” I told him. “Bad omen.”

He took a deep breath. “You’d better go straight in,” he said.

“What, no waiting about?”

“I got a feeling He wants to see you right away.”

The Archer God isn’t like the Goddess. For a start, He comes originally from the other side of the Friendly Sea, where most of His temples are. He has a reputation for being fair and sensible, at least compared to other gods. He’ll listen to you, they say, instead of just barking out orders and smiting. Also—well, He’s a man or at least a “He”. I know where I am with men.

You reach Him by walking through the main room of the temple, which is this big square building with nothing in it. Round the back of the high altar there’s a door, and then you go down a long, scary spiral stair, with no light except the stupid little rush taper the porter gives you; and just when the darkness and the dizziness from winding round and round and round is about to get too much to bear, you find yourself in this sort of cellar. The walls are covered floor to roof with weird frescoes, but you can only see little patches of them by the light of your pathetic little taper; wrists and ankles and ears and noses of huge, incredibly lifelike painted men and women, and the tails of horses and the claws of lions. Then there’s a sudden sharp draught, which blows your taper out.

But that doesn’t matter, because He’s arrived, and He glows in the dark. “You’ve got a nerve,” He said.

“Lord?”

“There are two commandments,” He said, “and thereby hang all the law and the prophets. One: Thou shalt not go over the head of the Lady thy Goddess. Two: Thou shalt not drag the Lord thy God into a row with His kid sister. Got that?”

“Yes, Lord.”

He sighed. “Oh for pity’s sake, stop looking at me like that and sit down.” The light of His countenance revealed a three-legged stool. I sat on it. He closed His eyes and rubbed them with His thumb and forefinger. “I know what you’re thinking,” He said. “You’re thinking, that’s a piss-poor return on a perfectly good sheep, and yes, I agree with you. But there you go,” He said. “My hands are tied.”

I looked at Him. “To the gods,” I quoted, “all things are possible.”

He scowled at me. “Well of course they are,” He said, “in theory. I mean, yes, if I really wanted to, I could cast my mantle over you and protect you, and not a hair of your head would be harmed. Only that’d mean a flaming row with my sister, who between you and me and the bedpost isn’t the easiest person in the world to get along with, and to be perfectly frank with you, I don’t think you’re worth it. Which isn’t anything about you personally,” He added. “You strike me as a decent enough sort, and not wanting to kill a bunch of strangers who never did you any harm is definitely to your credit.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. But what you’ve got to remember is, I’ve got to live with my sister. For ever and bloody ever.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“There you go again,” He said, “looking at me with those great big puppy-dog eyes. And I know what you’re thinking. I’ve got a conscience, you’re saying to yourself, I can’t go doing something I know is wrong. Well, bully for you.”

“Lord?”

“You can afford to have a conscience,” He said. “It’s one of the benefits of being here-today-gone-tomorrow—you can allow yourself to think in terms of right and wrong and all that nonsense. I can’t.”

“To the gods, all things are—”

“Yes, I know,” He snapped. “Except for that.” He turned His head, almost as if He didn’t want to look me in the face. “You don’t understand,” He said, “how could you? No, sorry, I feel for you, but there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re just going to have to do as she tells you or face the consequences. Which won’t,” He added, “be pretty.”

“Yes, Lord.”

“Sorry about that,” He said. “I’ve got half a mind to let you have your sheep back, except it might set a precedent, and we don’t want that.”

“I’m not worried about the sheep, Lord.”

“Good man. All right, then, off you go.”

I turned away from His light, trying to remember where the stairs were. I found the wall with the tip of my nose. “Just one thing.”

I turned back. “Yes, Lord?”

He gave me a solemn look, as though I was costing him money. “I can’t help you,” He said, “because I’m on land. Nobody on land is free, not even me.” He paused, then added, “Do you understand?”

“No, Lord.”

“Then try thinking about it,” He snapped. “Now get out.”

Enki thought it was a terrible idea, but I decided to tell the crew what we were going to do next, and why. They took it well, all things considered. I told them that if anyone wanted to jump ship at Antecyrene or Moas they were welcome to do so, but nobody showed any interest. They knew that the Goddess had her eye on them, and she didn’t suffer men of conscience gladly; besides, there was money to be made, and opportunities like that don’t come along every day. My father had gotten his lucky break by robbing and murdering strangers and it never bothered him. And in this case they had a rock solid assurance that they were doing the Goddess’s will; what more can you possibly ask for?

Try thinking about it, the Archer God had said, so I did.

To a certain extent, He was simply stating the obvious. Everybody on land—everybody with a home—is a serf, to a greater or lesser extent; we’re all bondsmen of each other, in a circle, like the snake that eats its own tail. The bought-for-money slaves serve the serfs, who serve the princes, who serve the king, who serves the Great King, and even he isn’t at liberty to do whatever he likes. He has responsibilities, like all other landsmen; he has borders to protect, people to save from drought, earthquake, and famine, gods to answer to; we’re his bondsmen, and he’s ours. The Great King could no more marry for love than you could, he eats what’s put in front of him (after it’s been tasted for poison, naturally), and his clothes are laid out for him each morning by the chamberlain, in strict order according to ritual and precedent; wearing a white shirt when there’s an R in the month would be unthinkable. It goes with the territory. It goes with having a place.

The sea, on the other hand— The sea is a remarkable thing, when you come to think of it. Nobody owns it. It’ll kill you if you give it half a chance, but it’ll take you anywhere you want to go, it’ll even carry your luggage for you. It can turn a nobody like my father into a person of consequence, owner of a third of a ship— Think about that. The third third of our ship is owned by a prince, and it’s one of his most prized possessions. You can’t bring the sea up in front of the magistrate if it murders your entire family, but if you come from the sea you can’t be held accountable either. You can rob other ships, murder people and throw them over the side, swoop down on cities and steal and slaughter to your heart’s content, and nobody will come after you, because of jurisdictional issues. The sea isn’t a place, it’s a state of mind. The sea is freedom.

The Archer God couldn’t help me because He was on land. Oh, I thought.

I was letting these issues develop and mature in the compost-heap of my mind when Enki came and leant on the rail next to me. He doesn’t do that. “I hope you’re not planning anything stupid,” She said.

In the liturgy we say; Almighty Goddess, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden... We say it like it’s a good thing, because we’ve never actually had one of Them up close and breathing in our ear. “You know what I’m thinking,” I said. “So why ask?”

“No my Lady this morning,” She said. “I ought to smite you for that.”

“You won’t, though,” I said. “You want me to do a job for you.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of other people.”

“But you chose me,” I said. “Why was that?”

The smile didn’t look nearly so fetching on Enki. “I have my reasons. Partly because you annoyed me.”

“But partly—?”

She laughed. “Partly because you’re the right man for the job,” She said. “You’re smart, and your crew love you—”

News to me. “You’re kidding.”

“Oh yes. It’s amazing who you can get attached to. They’d do anything for you.” She grinned; what fools these mortals be. “I knew your father, you know. You’re quite like him.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not.”

“Thou shalt not contradict. You’re quite like him in some ways.”

“Thank you.”

“But not in others. For instance, he didn’t answer back.”

A thought struck me. “Is that how he got his lucky break?” I asked. “Was that you?”

“That’d be telling. Actually, yes, it was. You see, I had my eye on you before you were even born.”

That made me shiver.

She laughed again. “Oh come on,” She said. “That’s a good thing. It means that nothing you ever did was your fault, it was all me. Now isn’t that a comfort?”

I thought of all the horrible things I’ve done, the ones I’m truly ashamed of. “No,” I said, “not really.”

“Oh you,” She said. “You worry too much. That’s probably why I like you so much.”

Cold fingers closed around my heart. It’s scary when a goddess likes you. It means She’ll be back to play with you, again and again. “Is that right?”

“Oh yes. I like men of principle. They’re so sweet.”

A seagull erupted off the rail in a flurry of wingbeats. It hadn’t been there a moment before, and it scared the life out of me. Then Enki looked at me, as if to say: why am I standing here leaning against this rail?

We put in at Leucopolis, which is as far north as we usually go. Any farther and you run into the nasty currents in the bay, which can suddenly whisk you away, far out of sight of land, and that’s the last anyone ever hears of you.

Actually, it’s not that bad. I’ve been out of sight of land six times and I’m still alive. It was, of course, utterly terrifying, a cross between drowning and falling off a cliff—neither of which I’ve ever done, needless to say, but I’ve been underwater and I’ve fallen out of trees, and I can extrapolate. I can extrapolate because I have something in my experience to extrapolate from; which is a way of saying that I can still see land on the horizon even though I’m out on the water. But when you’re completely surrounded by the stuff, there’s no seamarks, nothing to orient yourself by, unless you count the sun. But the Sun’s one of Them, a god, and I’ve learnt (from the sad histories of others and my own bitter experience) that if you try and navigate by gods, you’re liable to come to a bad end.

We had a buyer at Leucopolis for the hundred and sixty ingots of copper of questionable purity that we’d got stuck with the year before, the consequence of doing business with dishonest people. In exchange we got three hundred jars of dates, stamped with what looked very much like the royal seal of Heddo but in fact wasn’t. But down south no one would know the difference, so that was all right. Just to make sure, though, I bought a jar of genuine Heddo dates, emptied out one of the dubious jars, refilled the dubious jar with the good stuff, and carefully repaired the seal with a brooch-pin heated in a charcoal stove. We tried eating the replaced dates ourselves, but they were horrible, so we chucked them over the side.

That night, when everybody else was asleep on the beach, I went back on board the ship, knelt down beside the socket the mast fits into, and prayed, a thing I don’t usually do as a rule. I said, Seafather, can you hear me? or words to that effect.

There was no sound except the lapping of the water round the hull. Ah well, I said to myself. It was a pretty terrible idea anyway.

Then I looked up, and there He was, sitting on an oar-bench. He looked like—

“Dad?” I said.

He shook his head. “Though I knew him quite well,” Seafather said, “back in the day. You’re like him, you know.”

“So I’ve heard,” I said.

“Yes, so you have. Oh, and the answer is yes.”

“But I haven’t asked the—”

He looked at me. All desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden. “You want to find a way of not doing what my niece told you to. My nephew couldn’t help you, but He hinted I could. Well, call it a hint; it was a bit obscure if you ask me. But you’re a smart boy and you figured it out. And the answer is yes.”

“You can help me?”

“Sure I can.”

“And will you?”

“If you want me to.”

I waited for a moment. Some details would be nice, I thought.

“You want details,” He said. “Fine. Close your eyes.”

So I did that; and at once I saw a black sky and felt rain and spray stinging my face, wind ripping at my skin, and the deck under my feet heaving. The mast had been up but had snapped off. Then a wave came up out of nowhere and everything turned upside down, and I fell, a short way, and my nose was full of water and I couldn’t—

I opened my eyes and looked at Him. “Really?” I said.

“Sure,” he replied. “Freedom.”

I gazed at him. “I don’t understand,” I said.

“And you were doing so well.” He smiled. It was a kind smile, compassionate, fatherly. Everyone who comes from the sea lives every moment of his life by Seafather’s compassion. We stand on the palm of his open hand; he forbears to close his fingers and crush us. “You want to get out of doing the job my niece gave you.”

“Yes.”

“In other words, you want to be free.”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then,” He said, and for a moment I could feel the water in my nose and throat, killing me. “You want to be free of the evil task, and the guilt. I can do that for you, easy as falling off the rigging.”

Then I understood. “But I’d be dead,” I said.

“Exactly,” He said. “You’d be free.” He clicked his tongue, as though I was being deliberately obtuse. “And you know what, I envy you people sometimes. Really, I do. You have a freedom I can never share. You can choose for it all to be over, where nobody can hurt you ever again. You can opt out. I can’t do that.”

“Yes,” I said. “But I’d be dead.”

He laughed. “There’s worse things, trust me. There’s living in pain. Did you ever see a sick person die slowly? Yes, of course you did.”

I nodded.

“But at least she died eventually, didn’t she? It was long and horrible, but eventually she was free. And of course there’s other sorts of pain. There’s prison. And living with things you’ve done.” He frowned, then went on: “Pain is a prison. Guilt is worse. The only true freedom is death.”

I must’ve pulled a sad face or made a sad noise or something, because he nodded again. “No,” he said, “trust me, it is. Everyone living is a prisoner, except for us. Well, us too, actually, but I’m not supposed to say that. Mostly, chained to duty, or love. Basically the same thing.”

“I don’t—”

“Understand? Yes you do. Your life is wretched, nothing but misery and pain, but you can’t just run away, because you have obligations. You’re chained to the people who depend on you, the people who love you. You can’t escape, because of the pain they’d endure if you weren’t there any more. The only way out is when death sets you free.”

“Yes,” I said, “but like you said, I won’t be there any more.” I hesitated. “I like being there,” I said.

“You enjoy pain and suffering? There’s a word for that.”

“Yes, but if I’m not there, surely that’s missing the point. What good is freedom if you’re not even there?”

There was such deep compassion in His eyes, as deep as the sea. “You want to be free and still be there? How charmingly naïve.” He looked away for a moment, then looked back. “Actually, it’s possible, but only for us. That’s our privilege.” I felt the weight of his presence on me, as though I was at the bottom of the sea with all that water pressing down on me. “Listen carefully,” He said, “because this is gospel truth and divine revelation. People would pay good money for what I’m about to tell you.”

He paused for a moment, then went on: “There are only two ways to be free, death and not giving a damn. We chose the latter option, leaving you people the former. That’s how we survive, by not giving a damn—about what we do, or what happens to anyone else, about anything. Giving a damn is binding yourself in chains that even we can’t loose.” He grinned. “Which is why we’re incapable of it, simply a matter of survival. If we cared about anything, we wouldn’t last five minutes. How you people can endure it I have absolutely no idea. You’re tough little buggers, I’ll say that for you.”

I took a deep breath. “What She wants me to do,” I said. “It isn’t right.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course it’s right,” He said, “it’s the divine will. That’s the definition of right, you halfwit. She’s a goddess, and where the hell were you when She laid the foundations of the Earth? But if you refuse to let Her set you free, that’s your own stupid wilfulness and I have absolutely no sympathy.”

“But what She wants is murder. That’s wrong. It’s a crime.”

“What’s a crime?” He was being patient, trying to keep his temper. “The definition of a crime is something that’s against the law. Who makes the law? She does. We do.”

“It’s wrong,” I said.

“Says who? All right, try this. Would it be wrong to kill and eat your firstborn child?”

Here we go, I thought.

“In Tidor it’s the law that you sacrifice your firstborn to the Good Goddess and eat the body. You invite all the neighbours and make a party of it. People look forward to it, it’s a sacrament. And if you don’t do it, they drench you in tar and set fire to you in the marketplace, as an awful warning to other sinners. Anyway, that’s what they think in Tidor, and they’re advanced. They have plumbing and indoor sanitation. You don’t even know that that is.”

“No,” I said, “I don’t.”

“Well then, there you go. You’re ignorant.” He breathed out slowly, then breathed in again. “Laws and rules are just arbitrary things. We invent them, and on top of that you think up even more of them, as if you hadn’t got enough chains already. You know, you people really enjoy making life difficult for yourselves.” He shrugged. “The point is, they’re just conventions, like fashion. They don’t actually mean anything, any more than a side parting or a floor-length hemline means anything. They’re just whims, really. Whims of iron.”

I thought for a moment. I think he had the decency to look the other way while I was doing it. “So,” I said, “what am I supposed to do?”

“What we tell you.” Then suddenly He grinned again.

“And since there’s a hell of a lot of us and we all want different things, all you need to do is shop around till you find one of us who wants the same things you do, and put yourself under his protection. Easy as falling off the rigging. You know what the difference is, between gods and men?”

“Tell me.”

“Gods are stronger. That’s it.” He paused. “I’d have thought you’d have known that by now.”

“But what if what you want is wrong?”

“Oh for crying out loud,” He said, and vanished in a clap of thunder.

All the next day I had this sort of buzzing in my ears. It drove me mad. It eased off at nightfall. She knew that if she pushed me too far, I’d be no use to Her.

Enki said; “How are we going to do this?”

I hadn’t given it much thought. “Piece of cake,” I told him. “The Goddess is on our side, remember? She’ll think of something. Which means we don’t have to.”

While I was saying it, my poor worm-eaten brain was whirring. How precisely do you capture a walled town when outnumbered three to one? It’s happened, because I’ve seen it. At least, I’ve sailed past places where there was a city last time I passed that way but now there’s just a heap of stones and some ash; and I ask, what happened? And people tell me it was just one or two ships; usually also, it happened so quickly, they came charging in before anyone had a chance to shut the gates... Usually unspoken; it must have been the will of the gods, or how could such a thing happen?

Fine; quite reassuring, in its way, if you happen to be the Hand of God. But even so, there’s such a thing as practicalities. We had weapons; you don’t entrust your life to the freedom of the seas without a bare minimum of either a spear or a bow and two dozen arrows. In addition I have a sword and a helmet, taken off the body of a rich bastard I’d killed, and so did Enki and three or four of the others. Now, the recipe for a soldier is weapons plus experience... I guess we had plenty of that, too, between us. One aspect of the freedom of the sea is that people are free to take the valuable things in the hold of your ship, if you let them; by the same token, you’re at perfect liberty to stop them, if you can, by any means necessary. We knew about as much about fighting as the average landsman knows about hedging and ditching—enough to get the job done.

Storming a city, on the other hand... One time, when I was much younger, we got caught up by the wind and blown right the way down to Coelesyra, the furthest south any of us had ever been. While we were there, we thought we might as well see the sights—outstanding among which is the temple the Great King built to commemorate his victory over some unfortunate enemy or other; the walls are floor-to-roof carvings, life-size and amazingly realistic, of the King’s army storming cities. An amazing thing, and truly one of the wonders of the world, so three cheers for the King in his aspect as patron of the arts, and as good as a seven year apprenticeship in the craft of storming cities.

According to the King, you pile up a huge mountain of earth against the city wall so your soldiers can walk straight from the top of the mound onto the ramparts; or you build wooden towers on wheels; or you knock holes in the walls with massive rams mounted on carriages; or you dig tunnels under the walls and get in that way. Thanks to the Great King I know all about it, including the ridiculous amount of time and manpower and wealth it takes to turn a few buildings into rubble...

Either that, or a god helps you.

I had eight days to think about it, as we worked our way up the coast towards Iden Astea. It was one of those trips where everything seemed to work out perfectly. You arrive in A with a cargo of bleached linen cloth; people in A are desperate for bleached linen and in return they give you lemons, of which they have so many that the town stinks of lemons squashed under cart wheels because nobody can be bothered to pick them up. So onwards to B, where early frosts buggered up the lemon harvest that year but the walnuts more than made up for it... So you carry walnuts to C, where walnut trees don’t grow and where they mine copper, and on to D, where they have no copper and are at war with C, so they can’t get any but need the stuff desperately to make arrowheads to shoot at C’s invading army. Everywhere we went on that trip, we supplied deficiencies and were amply rewarded out of surpluses and people were genuinely pleased to see us, which was by no means always the case. “It’s because the Goddess is with us,” said the intellectuals in my crew, and I had a horrible feeling they were right.

Your first sight of Iden Astea is when you sail up the coast from Nöon Egno and come round the headland into the bay. The first time I went there was when I was eleven years old; the first time I was allowed to go out with my father on a run. I was standing next to him in the prow—that was the old ship, not the one I have now—and he pointed, and I saw a hill on the far side of the bay with something black on it. “That’s Iden,” he told me. “We always do well in Iden.”

This time, we got there early, just as the sun was rising. That meant we had to round the headland in the dark, a bloody stupid thing to do. “It’ll be fine,” Enki said, “the Goddess will see us right,” and evidently She did, because we had no trouble at all. We’d done it like that with a view to hitting the city while they were still asleep, but it didn’t work out that way; a current held us back, and by the time we got close it was nearly light, and people would already be up and about and making their way to the fields.

“Plan B,” I told them. “We hang about here until everyone’s gone out to work and there’s only women and children in the city.”

Nijah didn’t like that. “That means we’ll have to go out and get them, in open country.”

“No,” said Rami, “because as soon as we set the city on fire, they’ll see the smoke out in the fields and come running, and then we’ll be trapped inside the city and burnt to death—”

“Fine,” Enki said. “So we don’t set fire to anything. We round up the women and children, and when the men come home at night—”

“We’ll be inside and they’ll be outside,” Nijah said, “and they’ll outnumber us three to one. Sort of like, oh, I don’t know, a siege—”

“Screw Plan B,” I said. “We’ll go now. The Goddess got us into this, She can get us out of it.”

That actually seemed to make sense to the rest of them. By that point, I was past caring.

So we took a line on our usual seamarks and went straight in, the way we always did when we came to Iden. I noticed that there were more fishing boats drawn up on the beach than usual. At that time of day they should be at sea. Still, no matter. We pressed on. When we got there, we all jumped out with the ropes and hauled the ship up out of the water. I was looking over my shoulder, watching for people coming down from the town to see who we were and find out if we’d brought them anything nice. No sign of anyone.

“Nijah,” I said, “run up the beach and see if the gates are open.”

They were. If they’d seen us and suspected trouble, they’d have shut them. So why was there no-one about? “I don’t like it,” Bani said. Neither did I. “Shut up,” I told him.

Enki wanted us to run up the beach, but it’s a long way and uphill and you don’t fight so well when you’re gasping for breath, so we walked. Of course, I’d never been inside Iden before. They always bring their stuff down to the beach and take back what they get from us. No big deal, it was just the way we’d always done it; and there’s nothing to see in Iden, so why walk a mile uphill when you don’t have to?

“Is there more than one gate?” I asked Enki.

He looked at me. “I don’t know, do I?”

City gateways are special places, of course. At that time of the morning, you know what you’d expect to find there. People and carts on their way to the fields; traders setting up stalls; a priest sacrificing or a magistrate getting ready to hear cases. When we got there, the gateway was deserted. We went inside, feeling like idiots with our spears in our hands and arrows nocked on the bowstring. Nobody to be seen anywhere.

It took a while before we figured it out. Actually it was Nijah, not usually the sharpest arrow in the quiver, who guessed the reason, or at least said it out loud. “There’s nobody here,” he said, and then, “they’re all dead.” As soon as he said it, I knew he was right. And then, when we tentatively poked our heads into a few houses, we found them.

“Fuck,” said Bani, who doesn’t usually swear. “Plague.”

He backed out again, dropping his spear and pulling his tunic up over his face. I didn’t doubt he was right, but I decided I had to make sure. So I pushed past him and went inside, and there was a whole family; man, woman, old woman, three children, all dead. Their faces were grey and shrunken, like a desiccated rat you find on the floor of the barn. The room stank of shit, and flies were buzzing. I decided I’d done my duty and seen enough.

We ran through the gate and down the beach to the ship. When we got there I stopped to catch my breath. Enki came up beside me. His eyes were yellow.

“You idiot,” She said.

My nose was still full of the smell, and I felt as though there were flies crawling in my hair. “What happened?” I asked.

“You didn’t get here fast enough, is what happened,” She said. “While you were dawdling your way up the coast buying and selling, they all died. Before you could kill them for me. I have to say, I’m not happy.”

“Plague,” I said.

She shot me a don’t-give-me-that look. “Of course it’s plague, you fool. And you know who sent it?”

“You did.”

“No I didn’t.” She remembered she was a lady and lowered her voice. “Why would I do that, when I’d already sent you to deal with them? No, this is all my sainted brother. They did something to piss him off, and while you were lazing around sunning yourselves down south, he nipped in first with his poison arrows and wiped them all out.”

I tried to meet Her gaze, but it hurt my eyes. “Well,” I said, “they’re all dead. Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters, you clown!” She was yelling again. “How do you think this makes me look? They offend me and nothing happens to them. They offend my wretched brother and two minutes later they’re all dead. I’ll be a laughing stock. And it’s all your fault.”

I closed my eyes. “Yes, my Lady,” I said.

“Oh shut up,” She said. “No, it wasn’t your fault, strictly speaking, but that’s not doing me any good, now is it? It still makes me look like I’m soft and weak and He’s strong and powerful, and I’ll never hear the last of it.”

I realised I was shaking. I tried to stop it, but I couldn’t. She must have noticed me thinking about it. “Oh don’t be such a child,” She said. “You haven’t caught it.”

So that was all right. “What about—?”

“Oh for pity’s sake.” She paused for a moment. “All of your men are fine, apart from Adonijah.”

“He’s got it.”

“Not any more. I just cured him.”

“Thank you, my Lady.”

She looked at me. “You care about him, don’t you? That’s so sweet. Anyway, he’s fine now. The point is, what are we going to do about this appalling mess you’ve made of everything?”

“I don’t know, my Lady.”

“No, of course you don’t. Now shut up and let me think.”

“How would it be,” I said, “if you brought them back to life? And then we could kill all the men and—”

She scowled at me. “Half-wit,” She said. “You know I can’t raise the dead. Well, I can, of course I can, but uncle Death would be livid.” She stopped and peered at me, as though She’d just found me floating in her drink. “Oh, I see. That way, at least the women and children wouldn’t die. That’s extraordinary,” She said. “You tried to trick me. You don’t even know these people, but you’d risk annoying me to save them.” She sighed. “You’re the sort of man who goes around rescuing flies from cobwebs. Don’t you realise, there’s no point? You’re all going to die sooner or later, so what does it matter?”

I forced myself to look at Her. “What does matter, my Lady?”

“I do,” she said. “Now then, where were we? Right, I’ve solved it. When the plague hit, there was one fishing boat. It was blown out to sea by uncle Seafather, almost as far as Aelia, and it’s on its way back and it’ll be here this afternoon. All of its crew were drowned except one man, so he’s the last surviving Idenite. Kill him and we’re all square. Now I can’t say fairer than that, can I?”

“My Lady—”

“Don’t even think,” She said, “of refusing. Because if you do, I’ll sink your ship and drown the lot of you. I mean it.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

She rolled those terrible golden eyes, so monstrously out of place in Enki’s eye-sockets. “All right,” she said, “I don’t know why I’m pandering to you, but here goes. You can fight him honourably in single combat, if you feel any better. A fair fight, and may the best man win.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“You’ll win, of course, but it’ll be a fair fight. Oh come on, be reasonable. Even your wire-thin sensibilities can’t object to that.”

“My—”

“It’s that or I drown your crew. And when you’ve done it, I’ll reward you. Everything you always wanted, on a silver platter.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Enki’s eyes had gone from golden to their usual turd brown.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said.

“Why?” asked the fisherman, after we’d dumped him on the beach. “And who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Doesn’t matter why,” I snarled back. “Fight me or die where you stand.”

Most of my fighting’s been done on beaches, in the disputed area between land and sea. Some of the time it’s land and belongs to the Archer God or Her Ladyship; some of the time it’s sea and belongs to Seafather. It’s a shifting jurisdiction, so conflict goes with the territory, like a serf.

“This is stupid,” the fisherman said, as I tossed two spears at his feet and took a long step backward. “I don’t want to fight anybody. I just want to go home and see my wife and my kids.”

“They’re dead,” I said.

He stared at me. “You what? They can’t be. What—?”

“The god sent plague.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. At which moment, it suddenly occurred to me to wonder. Plague had wiped out his entire city and Seafather had drowned all his crew, but he was still alive. Therefore— I was a moron not to see it earlier—

He himself was under the protection of a god. In which case, I couldn’t hurt him. Or at the very least, his god and my goddess would cancel each other out and it’d be a fair fight. I might lose. Or if I won, it wouldn’t be cold-blooded murder...

“Which god?”

He said it twice before I realised he’d been talking to me.

“Does it matter?” I said. “Your people offended a god, so naturally you had to be punished. You’re the last survivor, so you’ve got to be killed. Now defend yourself or I’ll cut your throat.”

He looked at me long and hard, then stooped and picked up the two spears. “The hell with you,” he said.

“That’s the spirit,” I said, and backed off ten paces.

He knew the rules too, and backed off another ten. I was the challenger, so he got the first throw. He shifted his back foot, lining himself up; clearly, he knew what he was doing, which comforted me. I settled my weight equally on both feet, standing square on to give him the best possible target. It occurred to me that I was preparing to give my life for a perfect stranger, a man I’d never met before and owed nothing to. It was so silly I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t see that I had any choice.

He threw. He missed.

With hindsight, I know exactly why he missed. He was anticipating me moving out of the way at the last moment, which is of course what everybody does in a formal duel. He’d seen I was left-handed when I dropped the spears at his feet, so he knew I’d instinctively dodge left. He’d allowed for that when he threw. But of course I stayed perfectly still, to make it easier for him to hit me.

We looked at each other. It was my throw.

Now then, I thought, how can I be absolutely sure I’ll miss? Because if I missed, we’d close with our second spears and slug it out; I’m no great shakes at the hand-to-hand stuff, whereas I’m probably the best spear-thrower I’ve ever come across. He’d thrown right handed, so he’d flinch right—or he might be really clever and stay put, like I’d done, expecting me to aim left into his flinch. So, I figured, if I threw a whole pace wide to my right, that ought to do the trick.

I threw. He flinched left. I hit him in the hollow between the collar-bones, and he was dead before he hit the sand.

I walked over to get my spear. His dead eyes lit up yellow. “You clown,” She said.

“You got what you wanted, didn’t you?”

“Don’t talk to me like that. And you do realise, you were being horribly irresponsible.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Don’t yes-my-Lady me, you idiot. If he’d killed you, I’d have had to drown your entire crew. Don’t you care about them?”

I looked right back. “To be honest,” I said, “I don’t think I care about anything any more.”

That got me a foul look; then the eyes went cold again. A fly landed on one of them and started bustling about, like flies do. I couldn’t be bothered to shoo it away.

I walked back to the others. Nobody spoke.

“What are you standing about for?” I said. “Get on and loot the city.”

Nijah looked at me. “Do you think we should?”

“Why the hell not? Nobody owns it any more.”

“It’s crawling with plague.”

Valid point. Still, I wanted them to get something out of the whole ridiculous affair, so we traipsed round the countryside looking for anything worth having. There wasn’t much. The figs were ripe and ready to pick, but you could hardly give figs away at that time of year in any of the places we were going. We ended up with a few hoes and brush-hooks, worth their scrap value but not much more, and the dead fisherman’s nets. I’ve never had much luck with piracy, though my father did well at it, as I think I mentioned.

Before we left we set fire to the city. Not because She’d told me to do it, but because fire stops the spread of plague. And yes, because She’d told me to do it. She was perfectly right; I had my crew to think about. Even on the sea, there’s no freedom, not from the chains of responsibility and love.

Halfway to Anticonessus, a storm struck. It was all very quick. One moment we were rowing steadily across a placid wine-dark sea. The next, the ship was at forty-five degrees and my friends were hurtling into the water like windfalls from an apple tree. I wrapped both arms round an oar-bench and hung on, eyes shut, screaming prayers to Seafather, and then there was an almighty crash and the sound of wood splintering, and something hit my head and I went to sleep—

And in my sleep I dreamed that I saw Seafather, and he gave me a look of deep compassion. “Not your fault,” He said.

“Really.”

He nodded. “The fisherman was under my protection,” He said. “So you weren’t at liberty to kill him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You weren’t to know,” Seafather said generously. “And you’re under my niece’s protection, so you’ll be all right. The rest of your crew—well, that’s how it goes. No hard feelings,” He added, and then I woke up.

...on a beach.

Lying next to me on the sand were a spear, a cloth bag, a brush-hook and a hoe. The tools were from a hut just outside Iden Astea. The spear was the one I’d killed the fisherman with.

She was standing over me. She reached out a hand and helped me up. Touching Her was like touching fire. “Don’t say I don’t ever do anything for you,” She said.

“You spared me,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Oh, I wasn’t talking about that,” She said. “If I’d let my stupid uncle drown you, how would that make me look? No, I mean giving you your heart’s desire. What you always wanted.”

“A brush-hook and a hoe. Thank you.”

“Funny man.” She spread her arms wide. “All this,” She said.

“All what?”

“All of it.”

I was, I realised, on an island.

It’s not a bad island, as islands go. It’s about half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. I found a stream of fresh water, and a small flock of wild goats, and grapevines and a couple of fig trees. I looked in the cloth bag she’d given me; seed corn. I walked all round the island looking out to sea, but there was no land in any direction.

I’ve been here twenty years. It’s not so bad. I have a place of my own. I am monarch of all I survey. And, in spite of all that, I guess you could say I’m free.

[thanksforthedinosaur]

october 2023

rosie tucker - hellraiser

somoh - anything

sydney sprague - nobody knows anything

silvie - the zoo

sawyer - support group

brye - nothing!

hannah jadagu - lose

slow pulp - mud

katy kirby - cubic zirconia

tilly louise - own worst critic

stevie bill - hahaha

etta marcus - nosebleed

sundial - grass is greener

charli adams - cry over everything

evangeline - camera shop

speedy ortiz - emergency & me

sarah crean - solitaire in apt. 7

isabel dumaa - quarter life crisis

kate teague - actor

corook - alien

vagabon - anti-fuck

helena deland - spring bug

rachel sermanni - big desire

madilyn mei - slippers

sun june - mixed bag

mitski - i don't like my mind

soccer mommy - losing my religion

lighthearted - from here on out

sea lemon - vaporized

kitba - tell me what i am

allegra krieger - terribly free

salem ilese - ketchup

kate davis - yoyo

june henry - baby teeth

sushi soucy - missing hell

field medic - you deserve attention

sufjan stevens - will anybody ever love me?

pollyanna - the cold

olive klug - faking it

into it. over it. - can i buy a v_wel?

thank you, i'm sorry - parking lots

subsonic eye - tender

lacuna - red thread

brand new legs - bloom

del paxton - chart reader

runaway brother - my friends

sincere engineer - landline

boys life - worn thin

flooding - monolith girl

chase petra - reliable narrator

proper. - earn

jeff rosenstock - future is dumb

blink-182 - more than you know

hawthorne heights - we were never lost

towa bird - wild heart

fazerdaze - bigger

nightosphere - two heads

virga - portal

computerwife - lexapro

lies - knife

cafuné - unchained memory

adoy - avenue

lany - alonica

allie - ambient playlist

boyish - split up

s. carey - new meaning

sonny zero - dew

a beacon school - alone

cherry glazerr - shattered

tanny ng - my, my, my

leebada - sleep

fieh - full time (part time allthetime)

berryblue - selfish

tiffi - bored

dounia - coolest girl in california

olivia rodrigo - all-american bitch

juliana chahayed - strawberry town

devon again - deep

easha - manic pixie dream girl

may-a - lola

charlie houston - all night

eliza mclamb - glitter

luna aura - blind

jessica andrea - sage

gatlin - paris

sad alex - jupiter

yeule - cyber meat

lolo zouaï - vvvip

mothica - sirens (feat. sophie powers)

ūla - scandal

madison beer - sweet relief

kim petras - problématique

slayyyter - girl like me

ebony loren - tongue tied

dacey - getaway (feat. kimmortal)

cleo sol - self

living legends - lettermen

meltycanon - out of body

phora - stay beside me

doja cat - balut

astrus* - throwaway tantrum

take van - bad behavior

fifi zhang - so beautiful so lonely

tomcbumpz - c u never

layzi - idk

troye sivan - got me started

pinkpantheress - mosquito

meltycanon - ghost in the shell

tinashe - tightrope

alex sloane - nuclear

[auramoved]

@hypedust sent  :  blows a kiss to her favorite honey bun & throws a wink on top of all of it. "all of my flair's for you, sweetheart. "

pale cheeks flushed a familiar dusky pink at charming words, lathered in regular coffee scented charm.   could she turn ever turn it off?   velvet didn’t really want her to, musing by the bunny echoed with soft smile tugging at her mouth.   ❝ yeah? none for the other girls watching? ❞   there had been plenty, tons of boys too. coco stole the show wherever she went, all charming smiles and charisma seeming to make her shine. a star of the stage, lead role of whatever movie she was playing that day. velvet more than once had wished she had the same confidence.

[bigasswritingmagnet]

Seek a Little Strange and Unusual

Fandom: Psychonauts Pairing: None Characters: Caligosto Loboto, Chloe Barge Summary: One day at the grocery store, Loboto overhears two parents discussing their...problem child. It's a very familiar sounding conversation. He may not understand why, but he won't let history repeat itself. Chloe isn't particularly fond of her human caretakers. The dentist who smuggled her out of the store is strange...but so is she. And he, at least, understands the importance of space helmets on alien planets.

[don’t make tumblr funnyposts about headcanons guys because you WILL become attached to them]

Cucumbers, lighter fluid, toothpaste, apple sauce, quick rise yeast, mineral oil...

Almost everything! All that was left was condiments. Except...had he written ketchup, or catsup? Did it matter? Of course it mattered, they were totally different things! Weren't they? Well, they had different names.

Lobot stared between the bottle of catsup and the scribbled list, trying to read his own handwriting.

"No, no! Put it down--Chloe put that down right now." 

Ooooh, drama! He loved drama. Loboto poked his head around the corner of the aisle in time to see a small child standing on their tiptoes, arms outstretched to the cereal boxes on the upper shelf. A brightly colored box of sugar pretending to be a nutritious breakfast was wrapped in a purple glow and descending, slowly. 

A woman materialized next to the girl. Her face was tight with anger and she snatched the box out of the air. Shoving it back on the shelf she hissed "What did I tell you? How many times do I have to say it, Chloe! Don't do that! Especially not in public! And I told you take that stupid helmet off when we're in the store!"

The child's response was unintelligible, muffled by the space helmet they were indeed wearing. He wondered what the big deal was. It wasn't the 1940's; nobody cared if you wore a hat in public anymore. Just look at him! He was wearing his showercap and no one had said a word! They just left the aisle as soon as they saw him.

“Take it off, now!” 

A man appeared and grabbed the woman's arm.

"Keep your voice down, people are going to come see what the fuss is."

The woman rounded on him, her expression one of frantic desperation. 

"I can't do this anymore."

I just don’t care anymore.

"I can't deal with this, the helmet and the moving things around--!"

He’s a monster!

"I know, I know--"

Soon we’ll be free of this devil child.

"I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this! If I have to deal with one more dismantled radio, one more time trying to get her to take it off for company, one more bent spoon--"

Every! Spoon! Bent!

"I've been asking around, and Johnson knows someone who can do a procedure that’ll fix her--"

They all agree on the diagnosis and what must be done.

He felt strange. Cold and hot and angry and...sad. The child didn't seem to notice the conversation. She was trying to float the cereal box back down again. She probably didn't understand what it all meant. She was young. Very young.

Younger than he had been.

He hadn't understood either, until it was too late.

The humans were arguing again. They were always arguing these days. Arguing about such petty problems, when they could be focusing on the whole galaxy around them. She ignored them. It wasn't like they listened to her anyway. How many times had she explained to the woman why she needed to wear the helmet whenever she left the hermetic seal of her room? It never mattered. 

The box of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs landed gently in her hands. Excellent. She would slide it into the cart under the frozen peas. By the time they got to the cash register, the woman would be bound by social convention to make the purchase, or risk making a scene in front of the cashier.

Chloe still hadn't figured out what making a scene meant. The term was definitely in regards to public behavior, but was applied to anything from yelling in public to silent refusal to remove her helmet. Human rules were so strange and arbitrary.

The boxes in front of her rustled. Chloe tilted her head to one side. Odd. Sometimes things around her moved on their own, but usually she got that strange tingle in the back of her head when they did. She wasn't feeling it now.

The boxes of cereal parted, excess tumbling off the ends of the shelves. Two small lights gleamed in the newly made gap. One red, one green.

A metal claw shot out, grabbed Chloe by the shirt, and hauled her through.

She had half been expecting to be pulled into another dimension, but instead she was just in the next aisle. There was no time to feel disappointed before she was dumped unceremoniously in a grocery cart. Someone loomed over her, but Chloe only got the impression of blue skin and flowers before the stranger scooped up half a shelf's worth of bags of macaroni and dumped them on top of her.

It didn't hurt. She could breathe fine with her helmet protecting her face--see, she wanted to say, I told you I needed it--but she couldn't move very much. The cart rattled and bumped, one wheel squeaking obnoxiously. They paused briefly, and Chloe considered shouting for help, but didn't. She wanted to see where this was going.

So she stayed quiet and still, holding the box of cereal to her chest as a cheerful voice cried "No need to do your beeping scans! I know what I bought! Keep the change!"

Then they were off again. The sounds around her changed as they left the store and rattle bumped their way through the parking lot. She heard a trunk open up, and decided now was a good time to figure out what was going on. She had no interest in riding with the groceries.

Chloe made the purple glow around her hands and pushed until the groceries around her lifted enough for her to move. She popped out from beneath the macaroni like a beach ball being released underwater.

The stranger was. Strange. Very tall. The lights Chloe had seen were his eyes--or rather, small tubes where his eyes should be. They twitched and turned independently of each other. He was smiling at her, and his smile seemed to stretch much, much further than most human smiles.

He was wearing a labcoat and a shower cap.

"Hello!" he said. "I'm going to kidnap you and raise you as my own so your parents can't stick an icepick in your brain to take away your psychic powers!" He tapped his chin, brow furrowing. One of his arms was made of metal, and ended in three claws. "Although I already did that first part, so...I have kidnapped you and am going to raise you as my own so that your parents can't stick an icepick in your brain to take away your psychic powers!"

Chloe considered this with some alarm. She didn't know what an icepick was, but she was sure she didn't want anything stuck in her brain. Psychic powers? Ah. That would explain the purple glow. Her caretakers had been very frustrated by it. But could she believe that they would stick things in her brain just so they could be less frustrated?

Yes. She could believe.

Her chest hurt. The macaroni was heavier than she first thought.

"Will you let me wear my helmet?" she asked.

"Of course!" He patted his showercap. "Headwear is a very important personal choice!

Chloe thought some more.

"This is acceptable," she said, and lifted her arms. The stranger stared at her. Neither of them moved for several seconds.

"What are you doing."

"You need to lift me up."

The stranger stuck his hands under her armpits and did so, holding his arms fully extended out in front of him. She dangled in the air, up, up, so high up, higher than she'd ever managed on a swing, and without the heavy weight of rope and swing seat to remind her she was pinned to this mudball planet. She felt weightless, floating, a dizzyingly wonderful feeling.

They stayed like that for several moments.

"Is this what parenting is?" the stranger asked. "It's a lot easier than they made it sound."

Chloe was so high up, her vision extended over the sea of cars, and she spotted her caretakers--former caretakers--rushing out of the grocery store, looking around wildly.

"Put me down," she said. She would have liked to stay up there for longer. For hours. Maybe she could get him to do it again later. The man used to do it all the time, before the arguing started. The stranger set her feet on the pavement, and began to toss the cart's contents into the trunk without any care for fragility. He did not seem particularly rushed or concerned, for all that he said he was kidnapping her. And wasn't kidnapping illegal?

The car was nothing like the sleek blue sedan her parents drove. The man washed it obsessively, and acted as if you had removed an organ if you so much as borrowed a single sparkplug, even if the project was important.

Not only did this car look as if it hadn't been washed, ever, it also looked like it might dissolve if you tried. It was mostly rust held together by duct tape. The car was decorated in strange patterns picked out by objects hot glued to the sides: rubber ducks, dice, plastic flowers, and many, many teeth. From the looks of it, mostly Odocoileus virginianus and Procyon lotor, although she had to wonder about some of the molars.  

"Chloe!" someone shouted. "Chloe, where are you!"

Chloe opened the door of the car and climbed inside. There was a moldy grey blanket on the car seat. She unfolded it and draped it over herself. It smelled like seaweed and toothpaste. She tried to look as much like a non-child lump as she could.

The trunk closed. Through the thin blanket she saw the shadow of the stranger--her new caretaker--lean over her. He wound all three seatbelts across her, pinning her to the seat.

"Safety first!" he said.

The car's engine whined and groaned and the calls got closer. They wouldn't be able to see her under the blanket. She was hidden. It was safe.

All the same, she felt a rush of relief when the engine finally growled to life. The car shot backwards and then came to an abrupt halt with a crash and the tinkle of glass. The seatbelts held her so fast Chloe didn't even move.

"Whoopsie!" the man said. The car lurched forwards and came to another abrupt halt with another crash. "Sorry!" Forward. Smash. "Oopsie daisy!" Back. Crash. "Almost got it!"

This time when the car sped forward, it did not stop, although Chloe did hear a scream and a bump as they turned a sharp corner.

"There we go!"

Chloe waited a few more minutes before working her arms free and pulling the blanket down from over her helmet. The car was zipping down the road, swerving violently between the other cars. In the space of three minutes they shot through two red lights. Her new caretaker was humming an offkey ditty to himself, as if he was taking a casual stroll through the park.

"Who are you?" Chloe asked.

"I am Dr Calligosto Loboto! The greatest dentist in the world!" He threw out an arm dramatically and his claws punctured the roof of the car. She could see many similar holes clustered in the same area.

"My name is Chloe. I hail from the planet Cygnus A."

"Ooooh, you're an alien! That explains the helmet! You better keep that thing on, I don't want you suffocating in our atmosphere!"

Chloe couldn't name the feeling in her chest, except that it was a good one.

"That's what I kept telling them! Just because I can breathe your air doesn't mean it doesn't have a detrimental effect on my lungs!"

"Of course!" the doctor said, genuinely annoyed. "That's Alien 101! Boy, your parents are weird."

"They aren't my parents," Chloe said, firmly. "They're my human caretakers. They were looking after me while I'm on the planet. Someday my real parents will return for me, and take me back to the home planet."

"Makes sense to me! I wonder if that makes this less of a felony."

[luvlysangi]

m a s t e r l i s t .:｡✿*ﾟ

key

[f] fluff [a] angst [m] mature [+] personal favorites [multi] multi-chapter [os] one shot [y/n] your name [oc] original character

note: hey ya'll! welcome to my masterlist! ^^ I've compiled all the fics I've written here! I'll try to keep this updated as much as I can :3 now keep in mind, I don't write smut so don't go looking for any from me. i might get suggestive but still most of my fics are soft ✨and cool 😎. lastly, i don't take requests as of rn ^^; lol I'm just transferring my fics from watty to here xD however if you really value my writing and you realllyyy want a fic from me dm me and we can talk. other than that, enjoy!~

[ ♪… ] Now playing: don't stop by ateez

💌 he's a pirate (os, f , y/n)

↪ "He drinks the alcohol from the small silver flask then looks at me with a drunken smile, “After we rescue your brother, I was thinking you could start sailing the seas with me.”

💌 among us (ot8, f)

↪ “Can we play Among Us?!!”

The leader sits up from laying on the eldest’s lap, “NO! Absolutely not," He disagrees immediately, "Remember the last time we played?! It’s just as dangerous as the Mafia game.”

Mingi nods in agreement, looking up from the TV, “Yeah!! San tried to choke me after I convinced everyone to eject him!”

“I was NOT the IMPOSTER!!! It was YOU!!!” San debated upsettingly.

“Okay, okay that was in the past though!! Just one round please!!!” Wooyoung begs them all.

Seonghwa sighs and nods, “Alright, just no violence if one of us gets unrightfully ejected, deal?!”

“Deal!” Everyone unanimously approves.

Wooyoung cheers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “YESS!!! HWTAB is the code! I’m hosting!”

💌 the medusa curse (+, f, a, os, oc) ↪ "He created small white and pink flowers and turned them into a pretty little flower crown. He crowned himself and adjusted it on his head as needed. Perfect. The flowers were perfect. The crown was perfect. He was perfect."

💌 butler (+, f, os, oc, m)

↪ "Did you...finish cleaning?" She asks him awkwardly, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.

He smiles and folds his hands behind his back, "Yes I did, Miss Kim. I made everything spotless enough so you can see your pretty face in the reflective surfaces."

💌 h20 (os, f, o/c, +)

↪ San tiredly sat up in bed and joined the call, "Guys come on we agreed to let me sleep when I got-"

"I HAVE A FREAKING TAIL!! WHAT AREN'T YOU SEEING?!!" Seonghwa yells in panic as he turns the camera around to show his friends the big coral-colored tail in his bathtub.

Mingi brought his face closer to the screen to get a closer look, "Seonghwa what happened?!! You're joking right?! That's a costume!!"

Seonghwa furrowed his brows in frustration and brought the camera down to his waist to show the tail conjoined to his body, "DO COSTUMES DO THIS?! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TAKE THIS OFF?!"

💌 the crown prince and his twin {pt1} (+, f, oc, multi, m)

↪ "You're a fool for always coming by yourself when I'm hungry." He says licking his lips with a smirk.

Seonghwa sighs, coffee pot and teacup secure in hands, "I'm not completely by myself today... palace guards are surrounding the cottage outside."

"Oh? So now my own brother doesn't trust me?" Hwaseong asks, amusement strong in his voice.

"No, it's not that. Mother's orders. She didn't like how I kept coming here alone so now she sent guards to come with me."

💌 the crown prince and his twin {pt2} (+, f, oc, multi, m)

↪ Seonghwa puts his towel down and ties the cord to his blue silk bathrobe, "Hwa? What are you doing here?! You're not supposed to be here! If someone finds out-"

Hwaseong darkly chuckles, "this place is supposed to be my home too, funny how I'm so unwanted. Nobody will find out, don't worry."

"Well, what are you doing here anyway?"

"Oh, I was just a little curious about the little maiden you lip-locked with earlier."

Seonghwa blushes and immediately smiles at the thought of his moment earlier with Kai. He wondered if she was sleeping well right now.

"Hahaha, you look stupid when you're in love."

💌 the crown prince and his twin {pt 3} (+, f, oc, multi, m)

↪ "I'd never kick you out. Yes, you caused a lot of trouble but I can't stay mad at you for it. You're my brother, you mean a lot to me. I just hope from here on out you can be happy once again."

Hwaseong looks up at Seonghwa and smiles at him again, holding his hand with a tight squeeze.

"Thanks, Seonghwa."

💌 among us (ot8, f)

↪ “Can we play Among Us?!!”

The leader sits up from laying on the eldest’s lap, “NO! Absolutely not," He disagrees immediately, "Remember the last time we played?! It’s just as dangerous as the Mafia game.”

Mingi nods in agreement, looking up from the TV, “Yeah!! San tried to choke me after I convinced everyone to eject him!”

“I was NOT the IMPOSTER!!! It was YOU!!!” San debated upsettingly.

“Okay, okay that was in the past though!! Just one round please!!!” Wooyoung begs them all.

Seonghwa sighs and nods, “Alright, just no violence if one of us gets unrightfully ejected, deal?!”

“Deal!” Everyone unanimously approves.

Wooyoung cheers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “YESS!!! HWTAB is the code! I’m hosting!”

💌 angel feathers (f, os, oc) ↪ “I love you more than you could ever know. I hate that you can’t see me and that you don’t know I exist…please understand these signs I leave for you. I want you to see me…I need you to see me.”

💌 among us (ot8, f)

↪ “Can we play Among Us?!!”

The leader sits up from laying on the eldest’s lap, “NO! Absolutely not," He disagrees immediately, "Remember the last time we played?! It’s just as dangerous as the Mafia game.” Mingi nods in agreement, looking up from the TV, “Yeah!! San tried to choke me after I convinced everyone to eject him!”

“I was NOT the IMPOSTER!!! It was YOU!!!” San debated upsettingly.

“Okay, okay that was in the past though!! Just one round please!!!” Wooyoung begs them all.

Seonghwa sighs and nods, “Alright, just no violence if one of us gets unrightfully ejected, deal?!”

“Deal!” Everyone unanimously approves.

Wooyoung cheers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “YESS!!! HWTAB is the code! I’m hosting!”

💌fins {pt. 1} (+, mc, oc) ↪ “It is. Hmm, I guess that’s just a story to us. But regardless…the myths and fairytales are true…merpeople are real…”

“Just as real as humans, it seems…”

💌fins {pt. 2} (+, mc, oc) ↪ "She giggles at the thought. Her merman. It was cute to think of Yeosang as hers since it is sort of true, Yeosang knows no other human but her. She's his only human in his life, and she's very happy about that."

💌 flower boy cafe (os, f, ship) ↪ Yeosang returned and placed a small plate of a small red velvet cake. When Yeosang sat down he gave San a fork and shushed him.

"Hehet! My boss doesn't know that I'm giving this to you for free! You always like this cake. Did I do well?"

San felt his heart melt as he received the fork and admire the white frosting with two strawberries on top cut in the shape of a heart.

He smiled and reached over the small table to gently pat Yeosang on his head, "Yes, you did very well. My special little flower boy!~"

💌 dream prince (y/n, f, os, a)

↪“God, I love you...I'd marry you if I could.” he breathes to me making me smile as I caught my breath.

“You can marry that princess, just don’t kiss her the way you kiss me.”

He smiles and nods his head, “of course. I’m yours. I won’t give her any of me.”

We kiss once more and he leans into me making my back land in the grass as he gets on top of me. My heart races in excitement at our new position. I knew these last few kisses would be goodbye kisses as I knew my body would wake up from the dream soon. I knew it would be okay as long as my prince will be here with open arms waiting for me.

💌 among us (ot8, f) ↪ “Can we play Among Us?!!”

The leader sits up from laying on the eldest’s lap, “NO! Absolutely not," He disagrees immediately, "Remember the last time we played?! It’s just as dangerous as the Mafia game.”

Mingi nods in agreement, looking up from the TV, “Yeah!! San tried to choke me after I convinced everyone to eject him!”

“I was NOT the IMPOSTER!!! It was YOU!!!” San debated upsettingly.

“Okay, okay that was in the past though!! Just one round please!!!” Wooyoung begs them all.

Seonghwa sighs and nods, “Alright, just no violence if one of us gets unrightfully ejected, deal?!”

“Deal!” Everyone unanimously approves.

Wooyoung cheers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “YESS!!! HWTAB is the code! I’m hosting!”

💌 secret webs (os, a, oc) ↪ “Hehe…Hi Tina…I-I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

💌 fight (os, a, y/n, m)

↪ “San darkly chuckled, “The way you’re talking about him like that is also unfuckingbelievable. You like-”

You cut him off, “Shut up! I do not! For your-”

“I WAS FUCKING SPEAKING!” San raised his voice with another stomp of his foot to the hardwood floor."

💌 expensive date (os, f, y/n, +)

↪ "I clear my throat and look back over to San with a serious expression, "Look, San. You really didn't have to."

He waves it off and gives me a cute smile, "I wanted to, it's fine!"

"San these gifts, I've told you before...I-I can't pay you ba-"

He takes my hands and looks at me with soft eyes yet a serious expression, "and I've told you before too. You don't have to pay back anything. Just knowing that they're going to a gorgeous girl with a pretty smile and a beautiful personality makes me happy enough. I promise you."

💌 h20 (os, f, o/c, +)

↪ "You stupid girl trying to play the hero. Look where that got you." San says shaking his head with a small smile.

He caresses her wet cheek then plants a kiss on her forehead.

"Wait for me."

San scoots himself closer to the water before diving back into the sea. He swims to the other side of the beach and lets his tail dry off on the sand.

💌 paris in the rain (os, f, y/n, +)

↪ "Cause anywhere with you feels right Anywhere with you feels like Paris in the rain"

💌 flower boy cafe (os, f, ship)

↪ San took the cookie from him and gave him a sweet smile back, "If it's from you, I love it."

"I'll be back with your order then, San."

San watched as Yeosang walks away and he looks at the small bag with the cookie in it. He lands his forehead on the table and screams internally. It was almost as if Yeosang indirectly gave his heart to San. San wasn't sure if that's how Yeosang really felt but for now, he'd believe it.

💌 among us (ot8, f) ↪ “Can we play Among Us?!!” The leader sits up from laying on the eldest’s lap, “NO! Absolutely not," He disagrees immediately, "Remember the last time we played?! It’s just as dangerous as the Mafia game.”

Mingi nods in agreement, looking up from the TV, “Yeah!! San tried to choke me after I convinced everyone to eject him!”

“I was NOT the IMPOSTER!!! It was YOU!!!” San debated upsettingly.

“Okay, okay that was in the past though!! Just one round please!!!” Wooyoung begs them all.

Seonghwa sighs and nods, “Alright, just no violence if one of us gets unrightfully ejected, deal?!”

“Deal!” Everyone unanimously approves.

Wooyoung cheers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “YESS!!! HWTAB is the code! I’m hosting!”

💌 roommate (oc, f, os, +)

↪ ""So....we need to set some rules if you and I are gonna be living together," Lucy tells her new roommate as she places a pen and paper down on the kitchen table.

"Alright. Then, I guess the simple one can be don't touch each other's stuff."

💌 h20 (os, f, o/c, +) ↪ Mingi shrugs and puts his phone on the floor before doing what his friend did. He touched the water from his sink faucet. In no time at all, Mingi fell to his floor as well, his legs turned to a tail after touching the water.

"WOAHHH!! AWESOME!!!" Mingi exclaimed as he grabbed his phone from the floor and showed his coral colored tail.

💌 among us (ot8, f)

↪ “Can we play Among Us?!!”

The leader sits up from laying on the eldest’s lap, “NO! Absolutely not," He disagrees immediately, "Remember the last time we played?! It’s just as dangerous as the Mafia game.”

Mingi nods in agreement, looking up from the TV, “Yeah!! San tried to choke me after I convinced everyone to eject him!”

“I was NOT the IMPOSTER!!! It was YOU!!!” San debated upsettingly.

“Okay, okay that was in the past though!! Just one round please!!!” Wooyoung begs them all.

Seonghwa sighs and nods, “Alright, just no violence if one of us gets unrightfully ejected, deal?!”

“Deal!” Everyone unanimously approves.

Wooyoung cheers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “YESS!!! HWTAB is the code! I’m hosting!”

💌 revenge to romance (oc, f, os)

↪ "I hate how it's so hard to kill you, Jung Wooyoung...I hate you."

💌 i choose you (os, f, y/n)

↪ If she could just get her hands on his Dark badge, she’d be 3 badges away from being in the Pokémon League. Out of all the gym leaders, why is Wooyoung so difficult for her?

💌 i choose you (os, f, y/n)

↪ If she could just get her hands on his Dark badge, she’d be 3 badges away from being in the Pokémon League. Out of all the gym leaders, why is Wooyoung so difficult for her?

💌 among us (ot8, f) ↪ “Can we play Among Us?!!”

The leader sits up from laying on the eldest’s lap, “NO! Absolutely not," He disagrees immediately, "Remember the last time we played?! It’s just as dangerous as the Mafia game.”

Mingi nods in agreement, looking up from the TV, “Yeah!! San tried to choke me after I convinced everyone to eject him!”

“I was NOT the IMPOSTER!!! It was YOU!!!” San debated upsettingly.

“Okay, okay that was in the past though!! Just one round please!!!” Wooyoung begs them all.

Seonghwa sighs and nods, “Alright, just no violence if one of us gets unrightfully ejected, deal?!”

“Deal!” Everyone unanimously approves.

Wooyoung cheers and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “YESS!!! HWTAB is the code! I’m hosting!”

[coffeewithcutcaffeine]

hello my darling lin 💞 i'm afraid i can't keep it to myself any longer, i must know all about your character tags, they're simply too intriguing 👀.

Ahhh, my loveliest Lizzie! Thank you so much for sending this ask my way, it was such a lovely and generous surprise to find in my inbox today! 🥹❤️ I have a lot of different tags for five separate works so, please, bear with me as I briefly try to elaborate on all of them skdskfjsksfjsk. I apologise beforehand for my seemingly endless rambles, though I hope it will turn out to be interesting nonetheless! 🥰✨️

VOIEVOD:

The majority of my tags come from my medieval magnum opus sksksk because numerous distinct characters are already detailed and elaborate in my mind — let’s dig into them! I do have to confess that some of these tags have yet to make a proper appearance, but I have prepared them in advance, just in case.

( oc: if i cannot move heaven i will raise hell ) — Vlad Dracula. This phrase is a well-known quote from Virgil’s Aeneid: “Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.” I have always felt that it perfectly encapsulates Vlad’s entire life — he is quite the prototype of a Machiavellian ruler willing to resort to more violent methods if needed (which we know very well from history, after all). Throughout the works, he repeatedly acknowledges his belief that he is destined for hell and expresses his willingness to sacrifice his soul for the greater good of his people. And he is also a very strong-willed and stubborn person who will always find a way to achieve his goals, whatever it costs him.

( oc: sanctuary ) — Cătălina. At first, I greatly hesitated to use this symbolism as I truly believe this remarkable woman is defined by much more than her role as the royal mistress and the mother of the voivode’s sons, and I try to depict that individuality of her character. However, this role does significantly influence her life and defines many of the decisions she makes. Throughout their relationship, Vlad sees Cătălina as his sanctuary because she accepts him as he is, loves him despite his perceived defects, and offers him a sense of belonging and peace. Sure, he loves that she keeps him on his toes, but this acceptance and the notion of having a kindred spirit give him the feeling of healing and safety. He can take off the many masks and let himself be exposed as he is, deep down. She also serves as a sanctuary for their sons, acting as the family’s anchor since they spend most of their time with her.

( oc: golden child; lion boy ) — Mehmed the Conqueror. His tag comes from the beautiful poem written by madzieloss on Tumblr, with the whole quote going, “Golden child, Lion boy; Tell me what it’s like to conquer.” I initially tried to use one of Mehmed’s poems from his diwan to make it a bit more personal, but this particular poem works perfectly because it encapsulates Mehmed’s whole essence — the Sultan of the Empire, the gifted child, the great conqueror. I also love using the recurring theme of gold and sun for his character. Gold represents the splendour of the Ottoman Empire, as well as his personal visuals (a lot of rich clothes and jewellery, the gilded Ottoman armour, his ginger hair and beard). Sun is the lovely little dichotomy seen in his character as it is both radiant and invigorating (his manners, generosity, education, intellect, aspects of rule), and merciless and blazing (his cruelty and the destructive sides of his politics towards other countries). Like the sun, he can either help grow or burn everything down.

( oc: the dragon ) — Vlad Dracul. I hate admitting that I could not come up with anything even remotely unique for Vlad’s dad as his moniker Dracul literally means “the Dragon” skdhskfskdks. However, the nickname was used for a reason, and we do not fix what isn’t broken in this house. The dragon’s role in medieval symbolism reflects a complex interplay between themes of heroism, morality, and the battle between light and darkness — on the one hand, the creature is seen as a protector and symbol of power, strength, and courage, but on the other hand, a dragon also represents a cunning and dangerous figure. He is called “the Dragon” both by people who admire him and despise him, so it shows the double meaning and the complexity of a ruler’s nature. At the same time, the meaning also spills over to his private life as he is both a figure of protection and (unwilling and unintentional) destruction to his family.

( oc: of burning martyrdom ) — Mircea Dracula. The eldest sibling is without a doubt the most tragic figure in the entire story, and I wanted his tag to reflect the tragedy and inevitability of his fate. He was killed at nineteen at the hands of his father’s enemies and in the cruellest way imaginable, and the “burning” part hints at some of the circumstances of his death. In his own way, he dies as a martyr because he dies refusing to give up his beliefs — and he is a martyr figure because the majority of his short life is marked with great struggles.

( oc: keeper of secrets ) — Alexandra. This tag is supposed to represent all the inner turmoil and complexities fighting one another inside Vlad’s younger sister. Because the two siblings share most of their personality and physical traits and are also close in age (there is a three-year gap between them), Vlad has always had a fond spot for his little sister and always considered her his little confidante — hence the meaning of keeping secrets. In return, Vlad has always been the brother who has granted Alexandra the most freedom and experience. She also keeps many secrets because there is a lot of her she has to repeatedly suppress inside of her — as I have mentioned, Vlad and Alexandra are quite alike, but Vlad’s personality tends to be accepted more while the same traits in Alexandra are often frowned upon.

( oc: cel frumos ) — Radu Dracula. My laziness shows here once again as that is Radu’s moniker, meaning “the handsome” or “the beautiful”. Radu has been given a fair share of horrible portrayals in media over the years, so I aim to further develop his character and show the varied aspects of his personality that are frequently overlooked. I initially tried to find something that would suit his complicated character but eventually settled on the nickname itself as it nicely shows the irony of his life and the most defining issue of his life — always being disregarded and reduced to only a sliver of his being.

( oc: cel mare ) — Ștefan the Great. (Or, as I like to call him, Fane.) There is no possible tag that would fit the famous Voivode of Moldavia and Vlad’s cousin (Vlad’s mother was a Moldavian princess) more than his own nickname, “the Great”. He is considered a national hero in both Romania and Moldova and undoubtedly earned his monicker through his actions.

OPEN HEART:

( c: i rise with my red hair and i eat men like air ) — Laura Levchenko. Her tag comes from Sylvia Plath’s poem called Lady Lazarus and, although I wanted to find a fitting quote from Lesya Ukrainka to represent Laura’s roots (that form a great part of her being), this one has the right amount of sharpness and edge fitting for my darling spitfire. Her fiery hair is undoubtedly one of her trademarks, and the quote also represents an independent spirit that will not be pushed down by being seemingly “inferior”. It also shows her own stance towards men, beginning with the painful experience with her dad and marking her whole life, as well as people who look down upon her.

( c: veni vidi vici ) — E.R. This is incredibly embarrassing because I was desperate to find something better for Ethan, something more fitting for his character… but there it is skdksfksldls. I do not think this quote even needs any introduction, so I will mention instead that “I came, I saw, I conquered” expresses the way Ethan achieves everything he sets his mind to, as well as the ferocity with which he pursues all his goals. When we compare his character to Laura’s, it might also imply the briskness with which he achieves certain things in life as a straight white American man — as opposed to Laura who is not only looked down upon for being a woman but also has to face a lot of xenophobia in her life. (You also want to re-enact the Ides of March on him sometimes but… I digress sksksk.)

CRIMES OF PASSION:

( c: this ghost sitting year after year upon my heart ) — Milena Rosa. This quote comes from Federico García Lorca’s play Yerma, in Spanish being, “este fantasma sentado año tras año encima de mi corazón”. I have to admit that I have yet to get myself familiar with Milena and craft her character in detail the way she deserves, but we know from canon that Jimmy’s tragic death greatly defines not only her own inner life (because she battles with all the demons his loss has inflicted upon her) but also the trajectory of her future career and the purpose she finds in her mission.

( c: bleeding sun ) — T.T. Trystan’s tag is from Lucie Thésée’s Poem, and the full quote goes, “Handsome as life and poison. Sun-blood handsome. Bleeding sun.” This was an instant fit because Trystan is undoubtedly the product of the environment he grew up in — Drakovia is both a place of beauty and vibrance, but we know its regime is bloody and deadly. Trystan will also never suppress the essence of who he is, and his character is both full of life and somewhat fierce (sometimes even violent) in nature. A lot of my worldbuilding for the story comes from my own experience as an Eastern European, and this little corner of the world is brimming with endless contradictions, so I tried to come up with something that would evoke that as closely as possible.

THE WAYHAVEN CHRONICLES:

( c: i am the sea and nobody owns me ) — Kimberley Cunningham. Kimble is my TWC newborn that I have only recently crafted into a character she should have been from the very beginning. Her tag is actually the legendary quote uttered by Pippi Longstocking which, apart from its fierceness, also fits Kimberley’s playfulness and carefree approach to life. She is a rebel through and through in every aspect of her life, which stems from the disastrous nature of her relationship with Rebecca. Her main objective in life is to do the exact opposite of what she is told, and she enjoys shocking people around her. But, just like the sea, she can be tempestuous and unpredictable, and some of her decisions can be quite destructive. Kimble ends up in the love triangle which kind of mirrors the rest of her life — initially harmless fun turns complicated and messy.

( c: a ribbon of loneliness ) — Sydney Brannagan. My poor baby Syd has been characterised through his melancholy since the very first moment, so I needed to find this little nugget that would instantly evoke his inner world. Then I found this quote by Jenny Slate that goes, “I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that there will always be a ribbon of loneliness running through who I am.” Loneliness runs through Sydney not only in the sense that he is such a sorrowful soul, but also because a part of him always feels so detached from others. All his life, he has felt like he has to prove his worth to his mother to feel accepted, and he also unconsciously builds a wall around him as the time goes by. In the professional setting, his personality does not stand out in any particular way — he is diligent and polite, some might even consider him a bit bland.

BLEEDING HEART:

I do feel like I need to give a bit more context for this interactive fiction beforehand, especially because there is only Chapter 1 out so far. The story is a retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula through the point of view of Mina Murray, and the first chapter already explores several wonderful themes I cannot wait to get my grubby little hands on! I have a very clear idea of who I want Mina to be, how she struggles in the setting and society she lives in, and how her personality drives her emotions and decisions. I do not know if my personal HCs will align with the story as it progresses, but there is nothing this user cannot tweak to her liking skdhskfjfksks.

( c: growing fruit around cyanide ) — Wilhelmina Murray-Harker. Mina’s tag is a part of a poem from a collection called Swallowtail by Brenna Twohy and goes, “Peach pits are poisonous. This is not a mistake. Girlhood is growing fruit around cyanide. It will never be your for swallowing.” Essentially, it encapsulates the conflict between who Mina seems to be on the outside and who she truly is on the inside. I have always felt like the Victorian times were one of the most suffocating periods for a woman to live in, and Mina always has to suppress a huge part of herself to somehow “fit the mould”, hence how she grows fruit around cyanide. Just like the society, her relationship with Jonathan also suffocates her — her engagement is a choice made out of reason, but she does not feel fulfilled with him in practically any way, which ultimately drives her into the arms of Dracula.

( c: the master of the night ) — Count Dracula. His tag is just the tweak of the quote from Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” Since he commands all the creatures and phenomena of the night, I have changed the bit to the “master”. I wish I had anything interesting to add to his character but, so far, I am waiting to see what he turns out to be like in Bleeding Heart — I know we are able to make him be the big villain or give him redeeming qualities, so I will wait and see which route will seem more fitting to me though I do play around with the idea of making Dracula more redeemable and a different character more villainous). Also, Count Dracula the Vampire has absolutely nothing to do with Vlad Dracula the Voivode in my fictional world — I know merging the two into one character is very popular, there is even one novel that did this that I absolutely love, but… not happening here lmao.

[adhdslugcrimes]

More Souyo headcanons because I sold my soul to the fox guardian to max out their soul link. But like,,, adding more of the friends and the ships I ship with them lol

Yosuke and Yu have their own sets of nightmares, Yu needs skin-on-skin contact like holding a hand or resting his forehead on Yosuke shoulders (Yosuke wears loose shirts so his shoulder is always showing), as where Yosuke just needs grounding words and sometimes to be hold.

Their friends have their own ways of going through all of the things they went through with the murders, tv world, and such.

Though Yosuke's confession went off the plan, Kanji finally building up the courage to ask out Naoto in a cute but painfully awkward way, but none of them has anything on Chie's confession to Yukiko was... Memorable. Chie had lost her ability to speak due to the fears of ruining their friendship (even though everyone who helped her practice said Yukiko actually liked her back and to go for it), became frazzled, yelled she loved steak, ran away, it started to rain, Yukiko chased after her, multiple people in the group slipped on their asses, and then chie did confessed finally in the rain however leaning down for a kiss Yukiko loses balance and both get covered in mud, goes to the inn for everyone to wash up and the next day they all caught a cold except for teddie.

Their sexuality and gender identity (my opinion, if yours is different that's cool please share 🥺)

Yu- Pansexual because of course he didn't see gender, he saw husband material in the trash, and Genderfluid because I don't care that cross dressing moment awakening this part of him and like terrible timing in the middle of a murder cases but gender identities don't come in good timing. Pronouns: he/she/they mostly he and they.

Yosuke: this man is bisexual, first nobody calls their friends partners ironically unless you are not straight and don't bring up cowboy movies into this there are gay cowboy films, v-necks all season long, talks about yu a bit much, headphones, has zero balance, his room being a mess, in mostly all of Yu's dancing scenes and his dance scenes too, your affection, and lastly he rolled up his sleeves. He's a disaster bi and I will die on this hill.

Kanji- pansexual, I know him being straight and liking stuff that normally label you as gay and I got to agree with that like whatever you want, however I love him as pan because it feels right to me.

Naoto- Demisexual, I am a firm believer that Naoto is Demi and when getting to know Kanji they fell in love with him. They are non-binary, pronouns are she/they tho since she/they are not called they as much I'll be referring to them as that because my reasons.

Chie- lesbian. I ain't got to say much, she's totally a lesbian and is in the middle of butch and femme presenting.

Yukiko- also Lesbian, I'm sorry I can't see her liking a guy and like,,, we all saw her's and Chie's shadow scenes and them rescuing each other like,,, not a hetro explanation to be seen.

Rise- graysexual, she felt attracted to Yu but like she could see how much Yu liked Yosuke but little hurt feelings she's fine, beside she doesn't really need any partners as badly as she puts on sometimes her friends and family are more than enough! She's also mtf trans because fuck you I say so let me just have my trans babies!

Teddie uhhh well Teddie is Teddie he doesn't have a sexuality if you are pretty or even handsome he'll flirt with you, also I am sure he has no gender but he present male because it feels right and like he was really comfortable in the cross dressing moment so like he just exist to be a one-of-kind Teddie.

Speaking of Teddie, this man lives with the Dojima's to protect Nanako as a big brother! Yu is very proud of him and grateful for him wanting to protect his little sister/cousin.

Yu, Yosuke, and now Teddie can sing the Junes store theme by heart. It's still Nanako's favorite store and yes she's disappointed in her big bro and Yosuke getting banned for one.

Kanji becomes a fashion designer and he makes his friends wedding attire and clothes for Nanako and send them to her because she deserves cute dresses for her family and damnit she's so cute and when he visits he goes to her and just makes her look even more ADORABLE and send pics of her new outfits to Yu and Dojima and listen okay, these two have been seen crying at their phone because NANAKO IS JUST SO CUTE AND HAPPY AND THEY JUST WANT HER TO PROTECT HER PRECIOUS SMILE AND JUST SHUT UP NANAKO DESERVE TO BE SPOILED AND HAPPINESS FOR YEARS AND YEARS AHHHHH

Yukiko and Chie's cooking has gotten better, Yu are Kanji helped them not make anymore mystery food x again. Yosuke stutters at the utter mentioned of that name.

Yu looks calm, but he's holding back his pure feral rage. He keeps it inside him and then he'll die.

Kanji and Yosuke 🤝 getting bolder around their loves

Yukiko and Yu have thrown movie nights in where they kidnap their friends, use teddie to get through the tv world, and watch movies together and nobody else question it.

Rise came out on her being tran, and Yu became her bodyguard because he saw half the hate by some fans and like she has some already but no he literally placed a hand on her shoulder and said "I want to go with you." and he did went and broke a few knee caps and def met Ryuji and yes in pq2 he def remember Yu because you can't forget someone with a silver bowl cut busting someone knees (Ryuji is trans too btw, because) ((also no knee busting, he wanted to but legally he couldn't... Lol new au delinquent! Yu the true delinquent but yeah he was just there making sure Rise tour was safe so he didn't have to worry about her))

Yu is a mama bear, he calls up everyone ever once in a while and kill not think twice about murdering you if you decided to choose violence towards his friends.

Yu also takes being an uncle seriously, he has Dojima has an uncle he has standards to meet.

Kanji saw Rise new costumes line and he said "these are ugly give me three days" and now he makes her costumes.

Kanji also personally tailors Naoto's clothes because they are still so short-

Naoto gets top surgery, shut up let me self-project here.

Chie also gets top surgery, she loves her chest flat she's more confident and like,,, men shirts,,, a new possiblity.

Yu unironically sings the little mermaid under the sea while cleaning and nobody knows why.

Everyone makes Naoto eat because they just forget to being so deep in a case.

Yosuke and chie 🤝 sleeping in weird and almost uncomfortable looking positions

Yu and Yukiko 🤝mildly worried about their partners.

Kanji reads to Naoto as a thing that relax them and like cuddling with Kanji is like heaven (get it?)

Yukiko has a Halloween type of stuff for the inn's to gain more tourist but like there's three levels of being scared. 1. Very small that won't cause heart attacked, 2. Middle scare, 3. HOLY SHIT level.

Yosuke can draw but like only his friends know this, and like in the crushing years there's a sketch book that is just Yu, everything Yu, and like Chie found it and like impressed but also like felt it because she has written C x Y since like middle school okay.

[fuckyouquiznak]

Dream's past

(pretty long but this is Tumblr, am I right?)

Puffy is the captain of a pirate ship and has two children, Cornelius and Tobias (yes Dream with horns is my kink + I am not over the name Cornelius Dream used during one of Karl’s tale).

Cornelius is the elder one, around six years older than Toby, and he loves the sea and the pirate life. He is a sunny kid, always smiling and telling jokes. Everybody in the crew loves him.

He and his mother are really close. They share the same kindness and curiosity, which makes them always ready go on adventures. Cornelius also loves his little brother, Toby. They haven't a dad, so he acts very protective and defensive around him. They are an happy family.

Until one day everything changes.

***

The ship docks at a strange place. A creepy island maybe, dark and mysterious.

Cornelius is told to stay on the ship because it might be dangerous, but he is too curious to stay still. He is grown up after all, he can handle an adventure. Moreover he is sure the island is hiding a secret. A treasure? A temple? He needs to know.

When nobody is watching he sneaks out of the ship and goes exploring on his own. But then he'll eventually find something there, something wicked and scary. Maybe it is just a cage... something Cornelius is not supposed to open. But again how could he know? And there are voices... they tell him to free them... (dreamons or maybe even DreamXD?)

And you know what they say... "curiosity killed the cat". Excepts Cornelius doesn't die. As soon as he opens the cage he hears a loud and shrill scream and then everything goes black. He wakes up a little after, but nothing has changed. Or at least it seems so.

He grabs his things and quickly comes back to the ship, pretending nothing happened.

***

However after a couple of days things get worse. Now the voices keep visiting him, especially during night. And he doesn't feel alright.

His mother thinks it might be just fatigue or scurvy. But Cornelius doesn't tell her about the voices and the cage. He stays silent even when he sees a white stain growing on his hand.

It can't be that bad, can it?

***

After a week or two Cornelius is not getting better: his head spins, his heart hurts and the voices keep being louder and louder in his mind, till he passes out.

When he wakes up the ship is burning. He has a lighter in his right hand. Fire starts spreading everywhere and the crew panic, trying to stop it with water. But it doesn't work. It's too late.

Cornelius stares at this hands horrified. He doesn't remember anything. Why is he in the middle of the fire? What happened? He cannot breath and closes his eyes. "Let it be just a dream" he prays "He can't be me". His voice cracks, noticing the white stain has grown all over his arm. (imagine it like Ranboo’s left side... these two are connected)

Puffy quickly reaches him and helps him get out of the cabin. They are both burned and covered in ash. Toby cries and squirms in his mother's hands. "It'll be ok" she says culling the baby too calmly to be in a middle of a fire. "Cornelius, you two will take the lifeboat". Cornelius hesitates. "What about you?" Puffy smiles back at him, her cheeks buried in tears: "A captain never leaves her own ship, duckling.. I've got responsibilities here".

"What about us? Mom you don't have to this" he prays, his voice broken. He doesn't want to leave his mother...

But she doesn't listen.

"Take your brother away from here. Row till you find a coast, then ask for help, ok? I'll find you both eventually. I swear" Her smile is weak and tired. They both know it's a lie. They will never meet again.

Puffy gives Cornelius a compass. "Will be together again" she promises. "Do it for Toby".

Cornelius grabs his little brother and finally leaves. He doesn't have the bravery to hold his mother one last time.

(Puffy will actually survive, but she'll forget everything)

The rest is like a memory.

He manages to reach a little beach a couple of days after the accident. When they touch the ground Cornelius collapses. (Tubbo, Puffy and Dream would have scars and marks after the ship break)

***

The following months are horrifying.

It's cold and desolate where they landed. Nobody is willing to help, mainly because they're scared of Cornelius' white mark.

He can't blame them anyway. There's something wrong and scary inside him. They had found a village at some point, but Cornelius had one of his episode and burned down the place.

Toby cries all the time. He is hungry and, most of all, he misses mom.

The voices are not helping.

Cornelius can't keep him anymore. It's already difficult being alone out there. He can't... he can't let his brother live in misery like this. And what if has an episode close to him?

When they reach a wooden house in the middle of the snow (SBI house of course), Cornelius is sure it's time.

He leaves Toby out of the house, with a letter that says: "Save Toby". He has seen a woman doing that with a blonde hair baby a couple of months before (Tommy’s mother y’all).

The owners seem fine. Cornelius had watched them laughing and eating all together next to the fireplace a couple of times. He is sure they could give Toby the love and the warmth he can't provide him. He'll be safe there.

He gives the compass to Toby, just in case he'll need it one day to find him. It's hard, but it's the only choice. They can't be together.

As soon as his brother walks away, Toby starts crying louder. Cornelius does the same. For a moment he even thinks about turning around and take him back. He doesn't want to leave him: he is the only family he has left. But he is doing the right thing, he tells himself. He needs to be strong. For Toby's sake.

The first one to notice the screams is Wilbur, who jumps out of the door worried and scared. He looks at the baby on the top of the stairs and then looks directly at the tree Cornelius is hidden behind.

Philza exits a few moments later. He grabs the baby softly and he looks up to the sky where is crawls are flying. "There's someone" Wilbur whispers, pointing at the tree. Philza stops him and gives him the card. "Whoever left this baby here has a reason, Will".

Cornelius keeps crying. He wishes he could be there too. But the thing that is growing inside him... he is not sure he can handle it.

Techno is out in the forest eventually. He sees Cornelius. "Have some food, nerd", he says, before leaving him with a potato.

***

Cornelius stays close to that house anyway. At least he can keep an eye on Toby from there. He has found a nice spot, next to a cage. It's not that much, but he can't complain.

Toby is growing fast, even if his horns haven't shown up yet. Cornelius likes to watch him play outside with the other blonde kid, Tommy. They seem to get along well. He is as happy and carefree as a child his age should be.

Cornelius instead is sicker than ever. The white stain is growing on his skin day by day. His left arm, part of the chest and even his eye, now red, are surrounded by that. He doesn't know what to do. The voices keep him awake almost every night. They whisper something about "Dream".

Sometimes he wishes he could think about his mother, but the voices are louder than his thoughts. He can't remember her, nor his past life.

The stain is slowly erasing his memory. He is afraid one day he'll even forget Toby.

***

He meets Sapnap when he most needs a friend.

He hasn't talked with someone for ages (except for Techno who sometimes leave him food), so he is not sure he can remember how to do it, but with Sapnap is easy and comfortable.

He saves him from a spider.

Sapnap is scared and lost in the forest. Cornelius happens to be right next to him when the monster comes out. He grabs his sword and kills it.

"Woah, dude you saved me!" Sapnap says, jumping around. "What's your name?" Cornelius hesitates. It's been so long since someone called with his name. He can't really remember it. Was it something with a C? Maybe. Why can't he remember?

"I think it's Dream" he lies, feeling his skin burning. The other one however doesn't seem to notice it. "That's nice, mine is Sapnap! Do you live here? All alone?"

Dream nods, still unsure he should trust or not this new guy. He stays in the shadow. Sapnap smiles. "Dope! I wish I could have an house just for myself" then the smiles runs away from his face "I actually came here to do that... I got into a fight with my dad. Do you have parents?"

"I don't"

Sapnap laughs a bit. "Me neither actually.. Bad is my guardian to be honest. But he is a great guy, really. It's just... I needed space, you know?" Dream is sure he hasn't understood a word of what this kid has said. Bad? Guardian? Space?

"Not really" he answers, lighting a fire. Sapnap immediately steps back, and Dream realises he has finally seen his face. Now he'll go away too, he reckons. I'll be alone forever.

However Sapnap's smile grows bigger then ever. "Whoa that's sick" he screams "I mean in a cool way, dude. Loving your style".

Dream blushes. "I... don't really like it"

Sapnap raises his eyebrows, sighing. "Maybe my dad could fix it"

***

Bad has never been so worried in his entire life - which is a looooong life.

Sapnap wasn't in his bed this morning. He really thought he lost him for good after their last fight, but he luckily came back safe and sound.

He even made a friend.

Bad was so angry, but the happiness of holding his child again was bigger then every other feeling.

"Does it grow?" he asks, touching Dream's face. The kid nods uncomfortably. "Your left eye.. was it green before?" He nods again. "Do you have memory loss?" Dream hesitates. Bad writes something down.

"Well, Dream, I can't erase the stain. What I can do is preventing it from growing bigger. Your memory is damaged, so I can't fix it, but form now on you should remember things more clearly"

"What does that mean?"

"It means I can't give you back your memories, but you can make new ones"

Dream stares at his feet. He is sure there was someone important in his life before worth to remember.

"It'll hurt a bit"

***

"You can stay here if you want" Bad says.

The "operation" went pretty well. Bad and Sapnap offered him to stay with them as long as he wants. Dream is glad. He likes it here. It feels like... family. The voices are gone. Is he really free?

Sapnap enters the room with a big smile. "Dream, I made you something! I know you have to wear bandages everyday, because the mark is still there – Dream touches is face - so my dad and I came up with this little idea" Sapnap hands him a mask.

"It's easier to take off. I drew the smile"

Dream feels his eyes burning. No one has ever done something like that for him. A gift! "I like it. Thank you Sapnap"

“Don’t worry! That’s what friends do”

[yumgrapejuice]

An analysis on Ranboo’s lore playlist

okay y’all first of all, ranboo has a killer taste, i love him, and second, i couldn’t resist. i’m an analyst by nature. am i looking too deep into some things? did ranboo maybe choose some songs purely for the vibe? perhaps. do i care? no. let me have my fun.

I’m gonna drop my own analysis/interpretation based on these songs but feel free do use this yourself if you want!! And also feel free to disagree/correct me on anything!! I’m not a professional musical analyst lol and I did take some inspiration from already existing interpretations for the more lyrical songs.

here’s the playlist btw

“Introduction to the Snow”—introduction to the album. Fitting for the playlist’s beginning, seeing the tone. It’s mostly referencing (self-imposed) isolation.

“Dream Sweet in Sea Major”—this Miracle Music’s whole album is about dreams and reality, how they clash, loneliness and the wish to be close to someone, yet still remaining isolated. Very whimsical, metaphorical, melodic, and it has this vibe as if on the edge of consciousness. I’d say it fits quite well with c!Ranboo’s general vibe. This song in particular deals with sleepwalking(ha)/being in a dreamlike state, the line between what’s real and what’s not blurred.

“The Mind Electric”—oh this one fits Ranboo extremely well. First part is in reverse, the second in normal (mirroring), and it can get quite unsettling. Like you’re not sure what’s happening with the instrumentals, many different voices. Again, very metaphorical, but to put it shortly, the protagonist is being judged for a crime they’ve committed and, in their defence, they say: “Father, your honor, may I explain, my brain has claimed its glory over me; I’ve a good heart albeit insane”. They get “condemned to the infirmary” for that, where electric shock is used on them as a form of “therapy”. As a result, the protagonist loses grip on reality and themselves and truly does go insane. They beg for mercy and sympathy, but there’s no one to help them. “Someone help me; Understand what's going on inside my mind; Doctor I can't tell if I'm not me”—need I say more, really?

“Live and Let Die”—the phrase “live and let die” means to live your life how you wish and let others live how they wish without interfering. At first, you live by the phrase “live and let live”, meaning you have your ideals and you try to change the lives of others according to them, but as life progresses, you stop caring as much/try to distance yourself from others’ business.

“Turn the Lights Off”—dreams and nightmares. Mildly foreboding yet energetic. The actual meaning is about growing up (transition from childhood to adulthood), but we can take some other interpretations that’d fit with Ranboo’s character better. This Tally Hall’s album deals with differences, black and white, and how there shouldn’t be a divide between them. In this song, there are some noteworthy lines that I’d like to mention:

- “Bend the nightmare, you control it; Artful dodger, easy does it”—lucid dreaming, you have to be careful with it so as to not lose control.

- “Shut the closet, get under the covers”—you’re afraid of something and instead of facing it and seeing whether there even is something to be afraid of, you hide.

- “Turn the lights off”—confront your fears. It can also mean that in the dark, there’s no differences between people, going back to the album’s meaning.

- “And everybody wants to get evil tonight; But all good devils masquerade under the light”—this could mean that everyone has a darker part of themselves but those who actually indulge in their dark tendencies do so in plain sight by pretending to be someone else.

“Ruler of Everything”—the main theme here is time and how it’s the “ruler of everything”; time doesn’t matter about where it goes, and it will never stop. The second verse is most interesting to me—there are two singers, man and time, but for the sake of interpretation let’s just see it as two voices. One is obsessed about being liked, fitting in, constantly asking for reaffirmation (“Do you like how I walk? Do you like how I talk?”), while the second criticizes the first (“You practice your mannerisms into the wall”). They argue—”I’ve been you, I know you, your facade is scam; You know you’re making me cry, this is the way that I am”. The second is calling out the first for not being honest to himself. Tone is lighthearted but with an edge of unease.

“Merry-Go-Round of Life”—from Howl’s Moving Castle soundtrack. The title’s self-explanatory, I’d say.

“Killer Queen”—this one’s a harder one to interpret in regards to Ranboo lol. The song is about, based on an interview with Mercury, a high class woman that likes to indulge in her various desires (mostly sexual). I would doubt that’s what Ranboo was going for, so! Perhaps about a person that has no regards for their reputation and instead does whatever they feel like it? They have a certain image but still act however they like. Yeah, not too sure about this one :’) But that’s what I’ll go with for my later analysis.

“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”—quite straightforward. A person that performs bad deeds has reasons for them. Not excuses, but explanations, and you can sympathize with it. We all do “bad” things for one reason or the other, and, in the end, we’re all just trying to get by. Once again, plays into the theme of there not being a clear distinction between good and bad.

“The Bidding”—another harder one to interpret. On the surface, it’s about an auction where men are trying to sell themselves to women. They all present themselves in different images, and it’s remarked that the women care less about the date and more about the prospect of it, the pretty words. The date, actually, ends up being disappointing. Could be about expectations. Some men outright admit they’re assholes so whoever chooses them should know that. People can tell you what their intentions are from the start so if you end up hurt, you have no one else to blame but yourself.

“A Mask of My Own Face”—another interesting one! Unusual instruments, strong beat. They’re singing about how they have a desire to pretend to be someone else while secretly still being themselves. “I’d rob my own apartment and I wouldn’t give a damn; I’d blame it on the person that nobody knows I am”—implying they have no regard for their own livelihood and are just out to have some fun. Plus, that no one would be aware it’s all an act. “I'd wear it on Thanksgiving and I'd laugh in the parade; At all the people hissing, knowing I'm the one they hate”—they take delight in the idea of upsetting others and them not knowing it’s actually the singer that they should be hissing. “And at the big finale I would tear my face away; And smile as they grip their own and try to do the same”—everyone wears masks, and this person implies that their mask and their true self is not different from each other while others’ are.

“Stardust Crusaders”—soundtrack from Jojo. Action-packed? idk never seen it sorry lol

“I Can’t Decide”—oh, this one’s a doozy! One of the ones that do not fit c!Ranboo at all, but that’s what makes it interesting. A classic, the singer is out to have fun, very lighthearted and yet they’re singing about murder. The protagonist here is clearly mentally unwell and they’re indecisive whether they should let their enemy/toy/(up to interpretation) live or not. Some curious lines:

- “It’s not easy having yourself a good time”—in the context of the song, that “good time” implies something wicked.

- “I’m not a gangster tonight, don’t wanna be the bad guy, I’m just a loner, baby, and now you’ve got in my way”—they don’t view themselves as “bad”, however, the next two lines are paradoxal—the singer says they’re alone and yet decide to “mess around” with whoever comes up in their life.

- “No wonder why my heart feels dead inside, it’s hard and cold and petrified”—signifying lack of empathy.

- “It’s a bitch convincing people to like you”—they don’t actually want to do that and see it as a bother.

“Stranded Lullaby”—back to Miracle Musical, back to the theme of isolation. Super lyrical, super musical. They talk about how their memories float around aimlessly in their head, a sea, and may sometimes get lost. The protagonist, a sailor, is losing touch with reality and can’t tell apart what’s a dream anymore and what’s not. They question what they’re going through and why.

“Hidden In The Sand”—a song about longing, in my eyes. The protagonist sings about how “you” love things and how he wishes to love the same things, in the end admitting that “all I’ve wanted was you”. They don’t wish to be separated, they wish to have someone in their life that they could love.

“Now I’m Here”—euphoric. They sing about how they’re alive again, thanks to one specific person. I’m not gonna go too much into this one (partly because it’s a more difficult one for me again, partly because it’s Queen and I don’t wanna uhh talk nonsense on accident lol), but what I got from it is that when one one else saw them, someone did, and they made them “live again”, and now as a result the protagonist is devoted to them.

“&”—really highlights Tally Hall’s album’s theme of black and white and that there shouldn’t be a divide. The repetition of comparing opposites is present throughout the entire song (Weak & Strong & Wet & Dry…) and it’s heavily implied we should “say goodnight” to this mindset. But people love to choose sides, put things into good or bad categories. By the line “They took a lesson from their fathers” it’s implied that people don’t develop this mindset by themselves and are rather influenced by others around them. The whole album is titled “Good & Evil” and Tally Hall examines and criticizes this idea. If we keep dividing people into good and bad, eventually, we’ll all destroy ourselves.

“I’m Gonna Win”—a song about someone who’s struggling to get by. “Sometimes it can seem like a merciless dream”—life can get really hard and the protagonist wonders “what’s really worthwhile”. In the chorus, whoever, they declare that they’re “gonna win” no matter what. They might get “bloody and bruised” but they won’t give up until they “won’t be abused” and until they’re “laughing alone”. No matter how hard life/others kick them down, they’ll keep going. By the lines “It’s hard to be charming and smart and disarming; It’s hard to pretend you’re the best; It’s hard to fulfill everyone’s expectations; It’s hard to keep up with the rest” it’s implied that they find it tiresome to keep up appearances and be liked. It’s challenging to always fit everyone’s expectations, but they’ll continue doing whatever they have to to “win”.

if ranboo ever adds more songs to his playlist, i may add them here too :) 

[consumedkings-archive]

WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic.

chapter eleven: after you've gone

word count: ~12.6k

rating: m

warnings: canon-typical religious blasphemy, though it's in full-force here with joseph so i wanted it to be noted in the warnings. there are mentions of self-harm, both past and implied presently, and they're not treated very lightly. elliot is having a hard time.

notes: there's a lot of moving parts in this so i apologize in advance if it feels a bit slow, but everything felt really important to include and i wanted to make sure nothing got left out. thank you so much to my beta @starcrier who literally proofed this beast with all of the love in the world.

i won't ramble on too much, but i did want to say that the reception for the last two chapters really made my whole heart just explode and i wanted to thank you all! what an incredible experience it is getting to write these two gigantic idiots. <3

“I saw her. Our mor.”

Helmi cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear, scribbling absently on the side of the file she’d continued nosing through once she’d gotten back to the bunker. Like this, she felt far from Kajsa—farther than she had in the longest time. Maybe since they had welcomed her into the Family.

“Did you?” She stretched back against the truck’s seat, feet kicked up on the dash as she scanned the page, going over her own notes. Starvation, classical condition. On animals and people? In the back seat of the truck, Peaches rumbled her discontent at lack of attention; Helmi reached back and scratched her ears until the rumble turned into what she recognized as a more contented purr.

“Yes. She is doing well. Her color is just as Ase said, you know. Perfectly balanced. Poor John—I can see his suffering.”

Helmi hmm’d, the thoughtfulness matching the patient rumble Peaches had rewarded her affection with.

“Is Deputy Pratt behaving?”

“I should hope so. He has no reason to have any loyalty to the Seeds, outside of fear.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Helmi was sure, in the very marrow of her bones, that Kajsa was smiling.

“And what did you give him, Helmi? To make him loyal?”

She considered. “A more impressive fear.” And then: “Also, I said I wouldn’t kill him.”

“That is just a more impressive fear bundled up pretty, my heart.”

“Mm,” Helmi replied in agreement. Whatever the case, she thought that Pratt had more to gain from fucking the Seeds over than he did by fucking them over—and that’s why Kajsa entrusted this sort of thing to her and didn’t do it herself, after all. If it had been Kajsa here, eyeing Pratt like a piece of lunchmeat, she’d have him drugged to the gills and barely aware of what was going on. Not being of use.

It’s why we make a perfect pair, something inside of her said, joy shared, joy doubled.

“Don’t rest on your laurels.”

Sorrow shared, sorrow halved.

Helmi sighed. “I’m not.”

“Keep putting pressure. I want them squirming, hjärtat.”

“I will.” She paused, sitting up in the truck and glancing out at the remaining members of the Family. Those that hadn’t given themselves a swift, clean death. After Kian’s face was crushed in, Kajsa had gathered them all and said, It’s going to be harder, from here. If you feel you cannot do it, if you think that you do not have the strength to answer our calling, then it is your time. We love you.

It had been the time for many. Morale had been—and still was—low. Ase’s death first, gut-wrenching and tragic, and then Kian’s; worse than the last. Worse, because while he had been grieving, while he had been suffering, he had still been their second-in-command. Meant to be infallible, even more so than Ase. He had been meant to carry them into their next life, after It was appeased. Contented. After It had turned the world to winter.

Now, more than ever, with only a handful of them left to huddle around their fires and sleep in the backs of cars, and kiss and laugh and hug each other in the inky black night, they felt like a ship adrift at sea.

Kajsa’s voice hummed in her ear, plastic and metal vibrating where it lay trapped between her head and shoulder. Helmi’s gaze swept away from the remaining Family members and turned her gaze back to the file. The Seeds were deeply rooted in this place—the tendrils of a tree that might be dead at the trunk but stayed for many decades after, if it wasn’t ripped out at the base.

“Did you hear me, Helmi?”

“No,” she replied truthfully. “I was distracted.”

“I am coming back,” Kajsa reiterated patiently.

“The others will be happy.”

“And what about you? Will you be happy?”

Helmi paused. She closed the file, dropped it back onto the dashboard and cranked the seat back so that she could stretch a little, her eyes tracing the tinny, ancient ceiling of the truck she’d lifted from Eden’s Gate. She exhaled, once, and then held her breath; closed her eyes, felt the ache of it between her ribs.

“I sense before me a lost lamb.”

“Not lost,” Helmi replied, her lungs tight. “Just—thinking.”

“Must I divine the dark cloud over your soul myself?”

She allowed her body to take air back in. “I wonder,” she murmured, “if it will be enough to appease the Father.”

“Do you wonder,” Kajsa hummed, “or do you worry?”

A moment of silence stretched. And then, the rich, melodic timbre of the Hierophant’s voice came through again, idle and pulled snug against her ear, like Kajsa was really right there again to say the words against her skin: “What will you do, if Staci Pratt defects despite your Machiavellian threats of harm so great he should never consider to incur it?”

“I don’t know,” Helmi replied uneasily. “It would depend on if he brought mor and the interloper, or if he just—”

“The answer, hjärtat, is that you do not know, because it has not been revealed to you yet.” Despite the interruption, Kajsa’s voice was pleasant and serene. Ever since Ase’s death, she’d been more tempered—like she was playing a role, filling a void. Helmi almost missed her cruelty. Like it was a creature comfort. “There is no use in wondering, because we will never know before it is our time to. We want for much. Whether or not we are given it remains to be seen. Our Father is a most...”

Her voice trailed off. Helmi tried to think of what words Kajsa might use; stringent, perhaps, ambitious, or even enigmatic—

“Wretched god,” Kajsa finished, a grin in her voice. “It does so love to watch us toil, does It not?”

“Yes,” she answered after a moment, because wretched resonated somewhere in her soul, somewhere in the marrow of her bones, reminding her why this had felt like home ever in the first place. Wretched, to watch them suffer, to give them so little information and let them suffer wreck after wreck.

In front of her, the dark of the forest swelled, breathed, reminded her: failure was not an option. Theirs was not a benevolent, forgiving God, the kind who would forgive sin if one only asked—the Father was wrathful, was vengeful, and would make them suffer their insolence and their ineptitude.

“I should get going. I imagine our mor will not be far behind, thanks to your ingenuity, and I want to be in Hope County to welcome her.”

“I am,” Helmi blurted out after a second of hesitation, “happy, that you’re coming back.”

There was a pause on the other end; and then, a soft breath, where Helmi thought maybe Kajsa was smiling again.

“Ingenting under solen är beständigt, my heart.”

The call clicked. Only empty air and static, then, buzzing faintly in the ear, the words dead in her mouth before she’d had the chance to say them back.

Nothing under the sun is lasting.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot was going to be sick. Nevermind the morning-after-dread of realizing she had caved in on her most basest animal desires—What, the man who’s perhaps lied to you the most tells you he’s never thought you’re crazy, and you let him fuck you? Come on, Elliot,—but listening to Pratt ramble nervously into the phone about how he didn’t realize everyone was gone, nobody stopped to look for him, nobody tried to call, he thought she had left too and she had, where was she? Was she okay?

“I’m fine,” she managed out. Guilt ripped through her sternum, burning hot and shameful. I’m fine, Pratt, don’t worry about me. Got well and truly railed last night, it’s fine. Oh, also, I’m going to have a baby. And I’m married. Don’t worry, you found out about the same time as me, just off a few weeks. “I’m at my mom’s.”

“In Georgia?”

“Yeah.” Elliot swallowed thickly. “Are you okay? You sound like shit.”

Pratt laughed uneasily on the other end of the line. “I’m with, uh—I’m with them.” He paused. “The Seeds. And their—the lawyer lady.”

“That doesn’t tell me if you’re okay,” she reiterated, more firmly.

He laughed again. “I’m on the phone with you, aren’t I?”

Frustrating. They might all be looming around him, waiting to hear what she was going to say. It was a trap, of course. Jacob or Joseph had done enough digging around in her past to find out they’d gone to school together, had gone to school dances, had basically dated—and they knew she’d evacuated the entirety of the Resistance otherwise. They were clearly laying a trap to get her to come back. But for what?

“Hey, um—” Staci cleared his throat. “Ell, there’s—a lot of bad stuff going on. There’s these people, and they’re—they’re just killing people, left and right, gutting them and sticking them up and—Jesus, they fucking split Miss Mabel open like a fish, and I’m—”

Oh, there it was; the sickness, the violent urge to throw up. The Family was supposed to be dead. They had been killing themselves off in pairs after Kian’s death, weren’t they? Elliot blinked rapidly, trying to calm the furious beating of her heart, the way it slammed against her rib cage and demanded penance.

Calloused fingers swept her hair to the side and squeezed at the juncture between her neck and shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. She closed her eyes tight, willing herself to accept it for what it was—John, comforting her, because even now he knew her well enough to see she was spiraling.

I can’t, is what she needed to say. I can’t come back, Staci, I can’t, not me and not my baby, my hands are already covered in blood I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—

“—I’m so fucking scared, Ell.” Pratt’s voice wobbled on the other end, hitting straight at the fresh welt of guilt in her chest, ripping and tearing at it.

I can’t—

“I don’t want to be alone—”

I’m sorry I can’t I’m sorry—

“—I’m sorry—”

“I’ll come,” she blurted out, her voice hoarse, the burn behind her eyes and in her nose a threat of oncoming tears. She couldn’t stand it—couldn’t bear to hear him like this, when this whole time he was supposed to have been safe. She’d let him down, and while she had a responsibility to herself, the responsibility to the others had always come first.

And, better still, was the tiny, tiny fragment of hope that the dark-haired woman with a mouth like broken glass would be left behind, too. The dog with the man’s face and the strands of her hair glinting between Its bloody teeth would stay here, in Weyfield. It would wait for her, but perhaps there would be some peace there, too.

It waits for you, It waits for us all, It will have you. As It gives, so too does It take.

“Tell them I’m coming back.” Elliot bit the words out through her teeth. “And tell them if I come back and you’re hurt, or dead, or—if there’s anything wrong with you, I’m going to fucking kill them. Okay?”

“No need,” came Jacob’s voice over the phone. “You’re on speaker, Deputy Honeysett. We’re well acquainted with your particular brand of mania.”

“Great,” she snapped, feeling a vicious flush spread through her cheeks despite the fact that she didn’t feel bad at all for what she’d said. “You thought I was fucking manic before? I had nothing to lose, then. Imagine how much worse I’ll make your life now—”

John’s hand squeezed again. This time, she shot him a venomous look over her shoulder and shrugged him off. Elliot knotted her fingers in Boomer’s fur and prompted again, “Is that clear?”

The eldest Seed sounded like he was smiling when he said, “Crystal, Deputy.”

“Good.” She paused. “And don’t fucking call me that. I’m not a deputy, anymore.”

“Sure thing, hellcat.”

“Pratt—”

Jacob’s voice came again: “Have a safe trip.”

The phone call beeped once, twice, three times, and then ended. The hard knot of dread in the pit of her stomach did not lessen; she hit the redial button, and it went straight to voicemail. Again, and again, and again, her hands shaking as she thought wait, I didn’t get to say goodbye, I didn’t get to promise I’d be there, I’m coming Pratt, I’m coming please don’t be worried, before she shoved the phone into John’s grip.

“Call him back,” she demanded, “make him pick up the phone—”

“Elliot,” he began, “if he turned the phone off, I can’t—”

“Fuck you!” she snapped, coming to a stand and raking her fingers through her hair. “You fucking knew they had Pratt, didn’t you? You knew that he was still trapped there and he didn’t get out, and you fucking left him there, so that you could pull me back if it didn’t go the way you wanted—”

John stood too, setting the phone on the bedside table and lifting his hands. The gesture was meant to calm and soothe, see my hands? Here they are, no threat here, but all it did was make her angrier, stoke a fire inside of her that had apparently lain dormant since she’d left Hope County.

Elliot smacked his hands down. “Don’t treat me like some fucking animal, John.”

“I’m not,” he defended quickly, dropping his hands all the way back to his sides when Boomer barked twice, sharp and accusatory, hackles lifting. “I didn’t know Pratt was still there. I thought the Resistance had got him out, and I didn’t bother asking.”

“You should have bothered—”

“I’m just as displeased as you are,” John interjected dryly, the dark coloring of his tone implying that he was—but for perhaps a different reason. It struck her that he might, in fact, be so displeased because he was aware of their history, on some level. It did feel a little gratifying to know that he was squirming for such an insignificant reason.

“You fuckhead,” she spit. “You put a fucking baby in me and you still have the insecurity of a middle school boy.”

“We both know,” he replied tartly, “that our baby is not in any way binding you to me, Elliot. And is it so shocking, considering that the thing that I want most in the world is for you to come home, and you fight me at every turn—”

“Hope County isn’t my home anymore—”

“—but Staci Pratt calls you and cries a little into the phone, and you’re jumping at the bit to go back?”

“Fuck. Off,” Elliot bit out between her teeth, face flushing. “Pratt is my friend, which is more than I can say for you.”

“Right,” John agreed, “because you let the person you hate fuck you.”

Her mouth clamped shut, biting and swallowing back a wad of venom she thought might make her sick if she let it out. There was too much of it, the things that she wanted to say—fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou, I fucking hate you, you make me sick, if anything is wrong with Pratt I’ll kill your brothers and then I’ll fucking kill you too—but she didn’t say any of it.

Instead, she said, “Get out. I’m getting changed and we’re leaving.”

John sighed, passing a hand over his face for a moment like maybe he regretted what he’d said. “We can’t.”

She felt her voice spike, near incredulous hysteria: “Pardon?”

“Old Father Time of the Job Ineptitude mentioned he had Federal agents showing up out of nowhere,” he snapped. The words had her stomach twisting; her first thought was a tiny spike of happiness at the idea of Cameron Burke, and then it was quickly doused by the sharp reminder that she’d stolen his gun and ran with it. Because he thought she was crazy. Because he was going to put her behind bars.

John continued, “He seemed to be implying it was somehow related to me showing up, and by proxy you, and if we up and leave—”

“It’ll make it look more suspicious,” she finished, feeling a little numb. “Okay, so—what? How long do we have to wait?”

He scratched his cheek, his eyes flickering absently over the duvet on the bed, like he was trying to map it out in his own head. No doubt, he was trying to operate on multiple timelines—the timeline of Not Raising Suspicion, and whatever timeline Joseph had given him.

Some things really did never change.

“After your mother’s Christmas party,” he ventured finally. “It’s not quite Christmas—could look enough like we’re sticking around for enough holiday cheer to be passable before leaving again. Pritchard’s clearly not unfamiliar with your mother’s...”

His voice trailed off. He looked to her as though asking for permission to say something critical; when Elliot remained stonefaced and immovable, he finished, “...temperament.”

“Nice save.”

“Well,” he replied, humble as ever. “Anyway, that probably wouldn’t rouse suspicion. If it is Burke, and your house isn’t getting stormed right now, I have to think he’s here on unofficial business. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they just come and bust the door down and grab you?”

Elliot hoped that was the case. She hoped this meant that Burke was just trying to find her, and was not hunting her down at the behest of the government. If there was one thing that Joseph had been right about amidst all his doomsday-saying and whatnot, it was that according to the news, there was a big chance the government had bigger things on their hands. Bigger concerns than a tiny town in Montana and its cult inhabitants.

“Get out,” she said again. “So I can change.”

“You—” John sucked in a little breath, stopping himself from what was inevitably going to be stirring another argument; he lifted his hands again, this time in surrender. “Alright, Ell. I said you’d get anything you want, I’ll give it to you.”

“Chop-chop.”

“I’m going. Mind if I pull some clothes on before I walk out into the house owned by your mother, where she has almost assuredly been sipping her vodka martini since four AM?”

She felt her eyes narrow. “Fine.”

Turning, she crossed the bedroom into the master bath and shut the door behind her, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes until fine webbing scattered across the dark of her eyelids. This was the last thing she needed—and it felt, surely, traitorous and awful to think it, to think, this is the last thing I need, Pratt needing rescuing, when the only reason she’d felt comfortable leaving Hope County in the first place was because she thought the only people who were left were cultists.

Elliot dropped her hands from her eyes, blinking a few times until her vision cleared. In the mirror—much as it had been since coming back from Hope County—stood a girl that she thought looked like a stranger. Blushed cheeks and kiss-reddened lips, her neck littered with love marks, the healthy glow blooming up from beneath the WRATH scar on her chest, exposed by her loosely cinched robe.

That’s not me, she thought, pulling absently on a strand of red hair and swallowing thickly. I’m not that girl.

Her face was softer than before, more lively color rising up around her eyes and cheeks and mouth. More of her freckles had come out. There was a tiny, tiny—almost imperceptible—slope to her tummy, now, too.

Not me, came the thought again, more distressed this time, her brows pulling together at the center of her forehead. That’s not me. I’m not that girl. Who are you, pretty girl? Not me.

The woman and her dark hair—dark dark dark, like an oil slick, looming in the corner of her mind. Her mouth red as pomegranate and stretched like broken glass.

I hear stress is bad for the baby.

A knock came at the door. Elliot blinked, feeling unwell and unsure of how long she’d been standing there, her hand having dropped to cup the slope of her stomach experimentally. Women did that, right? When they were pregnant? Did it make them feel closer to the baby? Did it make them feel more protected?

Did she feel safer?

“Ell,” John said, nudging the door open, “your mother is...”

Pulling away from the door, she cinched the robe tight and busied herself at the sink, turning the water on. As he stepped into the bathroom, she could see John was now fully-dressed, freshly-showered. She’d been standing in front of the mirror trying to recognize the person staring back at her long enough for him to do that, it seemed.

“That was a quick shower,” she said briskly, splashing her face and rubbing absently at her cheek. She could feel John’s eyes on her through the mirror, even though she refused to meet them.

“I’ve always preferred it that way,” he replied casually. And then: “Get distracted?”

Yes, she thought, but didn’t say, because then the things he’d said last night that had made her feel sane and normal wouldn’t mean anything anymore. John would have said I don’t think you’re crazy and he’d have to take it back, because if she told him there was a stranger standing in her mirror, he would think she was crazy.

“It’s weird,” is what Elliot offered after a moment, trying to find a way to be honest and redirect, “to see a baby bump. Even if it’s small.” She cleared her throat and fished her toothbrush out of the holder. Continuing briskly, she added, “And the scar. I spent a lot of time avoiding it.”

John’s expression had done that funny thing that she supposed was softening at her words. He stepped forward; the ghost of his fingers trailing her ribs over the robe made her skin prickle with goosebumps.

“I’m not done being mad at you,” she warned him, eyes flickering to meet his gaze through the mirror.

“I know,” he replied, tone agreeable. “I just—”

The brunette paused then, waiting for her to stop him before he smoothed the warmth of his palm over her hip, across the expanse of her abdomen. It was painfully intimate in a way that didn’t imply sex—intimate, in the way that she felt seen, that she could see the relief coloring the edges of his expression.

John pressed his mouth to the back of her shoulder. “Just missed you,” he murmured after a moment. “Getting to touch you. Even just like this. Especially just like this—”

Something panged sharp and unforgiving in her chest. “Well, don’t get used to it,” she replied tightly, brushing his hand away from the baby bump after letting it linger for a moment. “And I don’t remember inviting you in.”

“Your mother was asking after you,” John said, by way of explanation, looking pleased from their little moment. Fucker. “She wanted to know if you’d be drinking coffee this morning. I think her exact words were, ‘Mr. Seed, would you ask my daughter if she’s going to take the risk of drinking coffee this morning? I know she shouldn’t be, with her condition—’”

“Ugh.”

“‘—but since we’re going to be picking out her dress for the Christmas party today, I could make an exception—’”

“Fuck me,” she muttered, wetting her toothbrush and putting the toothpaste on it. “Ask her if she can make it extra strong.”

“I’m actually enjoying being out of your mother’s ire for a minute.”

Elliot rolled her eyes. “No coffee for me.”

“Got it.” John headed for the bathroom door, and then paused again, turning to look at her. “Ell,” he began, “I really didn’t know—you know, about Pratt.”

That pesky little flutter of something agonizingly sweet—softness—in her chest flared again.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” is what she said, before she turned the toothbrush on and started scrubbing her teeth. That seemed enough of an answer for John, for once, because he left and closed the door quietly behind him after deliberating.

The minutes, and hours, and days—well, day or two—until they got back to Hope County were going to be something close to agony. She could only hope they had taken her seriously when she told them that she’d better come back to a Pratt in one piece.

I don’t want to be alone. Pratt’s voice echoed hauntingly in her head. She thought she could remember the sound of voices in the background—a woman’s, at least. Faith? Or John’s friend, Isolde? Surely Jacob and Joseph were there listening to him call her, too. She’d been so fucking stupid to let them get to her.

No, not stupid. Not stupid to want Pratt to feel safe, and like someone was coming back for him.

I’m sorry, she thought tiredly, as though the words could somehow get to him. I’m sorry, that it’s me you have to wait for.

I’m sorry that I won’t be the person you remembered.

I’m sorry.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“You did so well, Staci.”

Faith’s voice jarred him out of the weird pause in time he’d been marinating in. It had been just a few seconds, maybe—Jacob and Joseph were talking in low voices, the dark-haired woman standing at the point of their little triangle with her arms crossed and her brows furrowed—that his brain had shut off, the distress in Elliot’s voice echoing eerily in his head. She’d sounded so upset. He wouldn’t have called, wouldn’t have started to ask her to come back, if he’d known how much she didn’t want to.

But that wasn’t true, either. He would have called, because Helmi had said, Either the Seeds are going to drag her back by her hair kicking and screaming, and eventually kill her, or she comes back and we keep her safe.

‘Safe’ had been the keyword there. He didn’t know how much he could take the woman at her word, but considering everything—well, it was better than trying to take the Seeds at their word.

Faith’s hand touched the back of his, startling him into a tiny jump. He cleared his throat. “Um—I wasn’t...Acting.”

“Still,” she replied sweetly, “I know it must have been hard.”

She was so polished—skin all dusted silver and moonlike, flushed with a little high color in her cheeks, her blonde hair tumbling around her face loosely. In the chapel, the air was tepid at best, and frigid at worst, keeping a little pink in everyone’s faces.

It was strange to look at her now. Her hands were soft; her skin unblemished. Just hours ago, he’d been sitting in the car, noticing the same kinds of details about Helmi—about how human she looked, hand slung over a steering wheel, her cracked phone plugged into the truck’s stereo and her chipped nail polish and the scars and bruises littering her knuckles. The way she’d shot him a toothy, wolfish grin as she cranked the volume up and said, What, Staci Pratt, you don’t like Blue Öyster Cult either?

In comparison, Faith didn’t feel human at all. She felt like a dream.

“Can—” Pratt came to a stand, rubbing his palms on the tops of his thighs. “Can I go? Lay down, or something?”

Three pairs of eyes snapped to him. The dark-haired woman, who Jacob kept referring to as Sol, completely ignored his question and looked at the redhead to say, “Has someone checked him for head trauma?”

“I’m not—concussed!” Pratt snapped, his voice wobbling. “I’m just tired.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. He looked like maybe he wanted to say something, and then reconsidered, saying, “Dr. Hale will take a look at you and then sure, Peaches, you can rest.”

It took every ounce of his self-control to not tell Jacob to stop calling him that. He had to remember that as far as they were concerned, he hadn’t been taken in by the “other side”, he’d been sitting scared and meek like a good boy at the compound.

Pratt’s eyes darted, catching sight of the woman that Jacob gestured to with a free hand. Right. The Fall’s End vet. She’d been here for what—a little over a year? He couldn’t tell if she was being held captive by Eden’s Gate or if she was there by her own volition, though the few times he’d run into her before she’d seemed like a pretty even-keel person. Didn’t she have like, two degrees or something? What was she doing here?

He made his way to the back of the church, meeting the curly-haired blonde halfway. Definitely looked too clean to be a cultist. “You’re not a people doctor, right?” he asked uneasily, watching as her head cocked to the side and her mouth quirked in a bit of amusement.

“No, Mr. Pratt, I am not a people doctor.” She fell into step beside him, opening the chapel door for him. “But I do have first aid training, which I think is about as good as you’re going to get around these parts.”

“I didn’t get a concussion.”

“That’s good. When was the last time you ate?”

His mouth twisted in a frown, trailing after through the snow as the cold began to sink into his bones. She seemed awfully confident moving around the compound, if she wasn’t part of the cult. But if she was, what was she doing here? How did—?

Pain bloomed behind his eyes, a fresh headache sinking into his nerves. Too much. It was too much confusion, about Elliot (pregnant? And John Seed was with her?) and about the Family and about all of these—these people that he didn’t really recognize hanging around the Seeds. And the compound was so quiet. Where was everyone? Had the Family really taken that many of Eden’s Gate out?

“Mr. Pratt?”

The woman opened a door into a bunkhouse that glowed with golden light from within and radiated heat. Two long-haired shepherds lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, lifting long faces and peering at him with dark eyes. He stepped inside and cleared his throat.

“Uh, a day, maybe,” he replied after a minute. Taking a seat when she gestured for him to, he shifted uncomfortably as she set a first aid kid on the cushion beside him and pulled one of the wooden chairs up in front of him.

“And slept?” She blew a curl out of her face and opened the kit, fishing around to find some alcohol wipes and Neosporin. He guessed he was a bit worse for wear than he’d thought, initially; not that he’d been taking great care of himself, even when it had just been him and Dani. She’d encouraged him to stay high, not stay better.

Fuck, I’m such an idiot.

He let out a little hiss when she pressed one of the alcohol wipes to a cut on his cheek.

“The same,” he replied, reaching up and brushing her hand away. “What—what are you doing here, doctor?”

“Arden is fine.” She sat back, regarding him curiously. “I’m cleaning that cut, Mr. Pratt. It looks agitated.”

“No, I—” Pratt let out a little breath. “I mean here. In the compound.”

Arden stared at him for a moment, like she didn’t understand why he was asking her that question. She lifted her hand and arched a brow inquisitively; when he nodded shortly, she leaned forward again, balancing her free hand on his shoulder and using the other to gently dab at the cut.

“I’ve spent the last month or so holed up in my house,” she explained to him. “Me, and the dogs, I mean.”

A little smile ghosted over her lips, and despite himself, Pratt felt a wry smile tugging at his own. It was difficult not to feel relaxed, when Arden moved with so much surety. In the glow of the radiators ticking away and the warm yellow light, especially.

“Mostly reading. They had assigned one of the boys to me—Santiago. I think he’s John’s man. He doesn’t strike me as one of Joseph or Faith’s.”

Pratt made a little noise of agreement, because he knew exactly what she was talking about. She dropped the alcohol wipes to the side and reached over for the Neosporin, dabbing some onto her finger and then reaching back up to resume her work.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment. “That you got—stuck, I mean. Here.”

“Oh, you don’t need to apologize, Mr. Pratt.”

“I feel partially responsible,” he admitted, feeling some of the tension flee his shoulders. “You know, being law enforcement and all—”

“Hold still, please.”

“Sorry,” he said again. “I guess what I mean is—sometimes it feels like a real failing on our part. All of those people, I...”

He paused, and Arden leaned back, giving him a pat on the knee. “That’s alright, Mr. Pratt,” and her voice bloomed with comfort. “Where was I?”

“Up at your house, with the dogs and maybe one of John’s men.”

“Right. I wasn’t allowed to leave, you know, on account of the—” She gestured with an elegant hand. “Cult running amok.”

He nodded. “Cult number two.”

Arden smiled, and continued, “And then just a few days ago, after one of them started killing those folks in Fall’s End, Jacob came up to get me.”

The way she said it made him feel, a little uneasily, that maybe he was misreading it. Jacob came up to get me did not sound like Jacob came to pick me up because I’m his prisoner.

And then she said, “He was worried, you know. Only having a radio up there. I know how to use a gun, but I’d prefer not to, if I don’t have to, and—”

“Sorry,” he blurted out, “but are you—”

She blinked light eyes at him, almost owlishly, like she didn’t understand the question. “Am I...?”

“With? Them?” Pratt gestured towards where the chapel lay, beyond the bunkhouse walls. “The—Eden’s Gate?”

“Oh!” Arden laughed, almost sheepishly; he felt a nervous little laugh bubbling out of him too, almost hoping for the relief of her assuring him that she was, in fact, not in league with the Darwinian psycho that had spent the last few months mindfucking every resident he could get his hands on.

She came to a stand and pulled a bottle of ibuprofen and a granola bar out of the kit, dropping them in his hand.

“Eat the bar before you take the ibuprofen,” she told him, “or it’ll—well, I’m sure you know. Upset stomach, and all that. Do you want to take a shower?”

Pratt’s fingers curled around the ibuprofen bottle. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m sorry,” Arden replied, not sounding very sorry at all, “I guess I just thought it a bit silly. Who else would I be “with”?”

His stomach somersaulted, sinking viciously. Suddenly, the granola bar—which had certainly been sitting in the kit for who knew how long—looked even less appetizing than before. While his vision swam for a second, the woman carried on conversationally, as though she had not just revealed herself to—

Well, to be in league with the Darwinian psycho that had spent the last few months mindfucking every resident he could get his hands on.

“But—they think the world is ending,” Pratt blurted out, lifting his eyes to look at her finally. “And—doctor, all the people they killed, and—”

“Don’t strain yourself, Mr. Pratt. You’ve been under quite a bit of duress as of late, I think, and it would be best to try and keep those stress levels down.” She moved to the small pantry beside the bathroom, shuffling around and producing a few towels, leaning into the bathroom to set them on the counter. “Though, you do bring up a funny point—have you been listening to the news? I suppose you haven’t. I remember listening to the news before all of this business went down and thinking that the world had ended a long time ago. We were just a bit behind, all the way out here. Do you want to take a shower?”

Blinking furiously, Pratt searched his brain for the answer; he muddled through the disappointment raking down his spine, the delicate little hope that had been fostered at the prospect of finding someone who was kind and not under the Seeds’ thumb being crushed beneath the weight of the reality of his situation.

“Yes please,” he managed out, his voice hoarse.

“Alright. Eat that bar first, so you don’t pass out in the hot water. And Mr. Pratt?”

“Y—” He had clumsily ripped open the granola bar and shoved half into his mouth, the fear of being seen as disobedient when Jacob Seed was within radius flickering like a wildfire through his body. He swallowed thickly, the dry food feeling like it was sticking to the inside of his mouth. “Um, yes?”

Her expression colored sympathetic, Arden reached down and fished a water bottle out of the case, dropping it in his hand.

“The honorific isn’t necessary,” she told him. “Remember, Arden is just fine.”

“Yes ma’am,” he mumbled. “I mean—Arden.”

She smiled, this time with teeth. “Good. You holler if you need me.”

I won’t, he thought, even though she was probably preferable to anyone else coming to his rescue.

Maybe he really would rather be dead.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Scarlet insisted that John stay at the house while they went to the boutique. It was all a big show of his mother-in-law attempting, he thought, to be polite, though she failed miserably at it; and as much as John wanted to argue that it would probably be best if he came along—considering their late-night visitor—he could tell when a battle was a lost one, and when it wasn’t.

“Do you think you can do that, Mr. Seed?” she asked, pulling the objectively ostentatious fur coat around her shoulders and buttoning it. “Remain in my home for a few hours, without causing me any problems?”

He said, “I think I can certainly give it a shot,” to which the blonde rolled her eyes.

“Please do more than that.”

“Rest assured, I am fully capable of behaving myself, Mrs. Honeysett.”

He couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Every second he spent in her presence, being reminded of how little she liked him given how much she didn’t know about him—or care to get to know about him, anyway—he thought, I cannot fucking wait to get back to Hope County and the resurgence of the Family. I cannot wait until that is my only fucking problem. Anyone else and she would have been thoroughly cleansed; clearly, Wrath ran in the family. Just the thought of it made his fingers itch.

Elliot had looked tired already, standing at the door and letting her mother go first. As soon as Scarlet was out the door, carefully picking her way down the front steps, John’s hand went to Ell’s hip; her lashes fluttered at the contact, but she didn’t jerk away; only tensed, considering the act of balking and pulling away from him but not yet committing. So there had been progress.

Her free hand came to his shoulder, resting there uncertainly. “Please don’t do anything to my mother’s house.”

“As much as I would love to, I will refrain from my wretched impulses. I am a man of God, after all.” He grimaced. “Do you think she’ll like me more if things are immaculate?”

“Ha-ha. She certainly will not.” She paused, letting out a little breath. “Okay. Back in an hour.”

He felt a smile tug at his mouth. “Ambitious.” His hand drifted to the small of her back, and he said, “Ell, before you go—”

“John, I don’t—”

Elliot turned to look at him at the same time that he stepped forward, closing what little distance there was and rapidly; she blinked, and her eyes flickered to his mouth instinctively, like she was expecting it—like she’d gotten used to the affection when he closed in on her like that. The gesture sent a little thrill through his stomach.

Mine.

“Don’t let her stress you out,” John murmured, keeping his voice low between just the two of them. “You’ll look good in whatever you pick.”

She turned her face away, cheeks going pink. “What’s this, huh? Still trying to make up for being a complete fuckhead this morning?”

He grinned. “You really have gotten brattier.”

“Goodbye, John,” she said, and then he leaned in and kissed her; the connection made every part of him sigh, collectively, as though he’d just been waiting for it.

Waiting for her.

Yes yes yes, it all said when she didn’t pull away, his fingers curling into the fabric of her sweater at the small of her back as her hand slipped from his shoulder to his chest, yes, mine all mine.

Elliot did pull back after a moment, putting a bit of space between them—though it seemed more to catch her breath than anything else. She only pulled back enough for their eyes to meet; John’s gaze darted downward, watching pearly teeth as they tugged at her lower lip, worrying it there for a moment.

“To answer your question,” he continued as casually as he could, “that’s not how I intend on making that up to you.”

“So you agree?” Elliot asked. Her voice came out evenly, despite the color blooming underneath the freckles on her cheeks. “You were being a complete fuckhead this morning?”

“I did so miss our banter.”

“Bunny,” Scarlet called impatiently from the driveway, “the boutique is going to get crowded if we don’t get there when it opens.”

“I’m coming!” Her gaze darted back to him. “The best way to make it up to me would be to say the words out loud,” Elliot informed him as she inched toward the door. “So that baby can hear them, too. At least you’ll have been more honest around our child than with me, if we’re keeping a running tally, and we should—”

He tugged her back from the doorway again, lighter, more playful as he went in to kiss her a second time; but she pulled back, just out of his reach, hand planted firmly on his chest.

Elliot said, “I told you not to get used to it.”

“I’m not,” he answered lightly, “just taking what I can get.”

“Elliot.”

“Coming!” Elliot cinched her coat up more snug, closer to her throat and where the scar lay expertly over her sternum, and snagged the keys off of the counter to the beat-up Honda Civic John had lifted from Eden’s Gate. Right. He couldn’t wait to hear Scarlet’s input on that car ride.

The redhead made it down two steps before she paused, turning and looking at John and going, “Um, bye,” in a tone that was more sheepish than he anticipated; it was almost shy, and it caught him so off-guard that he didn’t even get the chance to muster a response before she was making her way across the snowy driveway.

“Drive safe,” John called, once he’d gathered his senses a bit more. Elliot glanced at him over her shoulder and then ducked into the car, closing the door and beginning to pull her way down the drive. He waited until they’d turned onto the freshly plowed road before he turned back into the house and closed the front door behind him.

Boomer had seated himself in front of the window, letting out a little whine as his tail swept along the floor.

“C’mon, furry sentinel,” he sighed, not risking putting his hand within biting reach. “Just you and me today.”

The Heeler whined again, apparently thoroughly displeased at this news, and stayed rooted at the window to watch for his girl to come home.

Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he hit the redial button on the number they’d gotten a call from that morning and waited as the phone rang, pacing around the polished living room. It rang enough times as he idly adjusted glasses on a bar cart that he thought for certain no one would pick up—and then the phone clicked, and a warm voice came through.

“Hi, John.”

He blinked in surprise. “Hello, Faith. How’d you get this phone?”

“Isolde passed it to me when she saw your call. She wanted me to tell you that she’s too busy to talk to you.”

A wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Sounds like everything’s operating as normal, then.”

“I suppose.” Faith paused. “Are you coming home soon?”

“I am.”

“With Elliot?”

“Yes, she—” John cleared his throat and made an effort to sound as unbothered as possible. “She’s very concerned about Deputy Pratt’s well-being.”

“We’re taking good care of him. Will you tell her that? Better than he’d be getting out there, anyway,” and she said the word out there with such a surprising amount of venom that John realized he’d nearly forgotten about the Family’s reappearance. Well, there couldn’t be that many of them left, could there?

And then Faith said, “A lot of us are dead, John.”

His hand went to the mantle for a little support as he leaned against it. There was a bit of a bite to Faith’s voice—almost accusatory. A lot of us are dead, she said, as he stood in the plush home of his mother-in-law while they went dress shopping for a Christmas party. It occurred to him that none of his siblings—nor Isolde—were aware of what they’d been dealing with the last couple of days; they must have felt like he was getting off easy.

“The Father says we only have a little while longer,” she continued, “and that if we can’t fix this in time, we won’t wait for you. He’s been alone, a lot. Talking to God. Praying for more time, for you.”

The words made his stomach wrench, a little. He would have felt worse if he didn’t know already that there was an exit plan in place, one that Elliot was already on board for. “We’re only here for another day, and then we’re leaving” John replied. “The sheriff mentioned some—Federal agents. I don’t want to rouse suspicion and bring them down on us again.”

“Do you think it’s Burke?”

“Maybe.” He pressed his forehead against the stone mantle. “Probably. No one’s come storming in yet.”

“I hope it’s him. I hope he follows you all the way back here.” And then, darker: “He has a lot to apologize for.”

John made a low noise of agreement. It felt good to have a conversation with someone who seemed to be on the same side as him, for once—no bickering with Scarlet, no bickering with Elliot, and no bickering with Isolde. As of late, it seemed he was only capable of incurring arguments; though that did seem to be changing quickly with his wife.

“We’re having a service soon. Did you want me to tell Joseph anything?”

“Ah, no, that’s alright. I just wanted to let you know we had a plan.”

“Do you want to talk to him?”

“No,” John said again, more quickly and with a bout of unease sprinting up his spine. “No, that’s alright. I’ll let you go. We’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Alright.” Faith’s voice lightened when she added, “Tell Elliot I said hello.”

Bad idea, he thought, but said, “Of course,” and hit the end call button. It wasn’t until his entire body relaxed that he realized he’d been fully tensed, waiting for some kind of verbal blow—and though there had been a few, he felt...

Fine.

I feel fine.

It was fine. Everything was fine. Joseph was praying for more time for them. They’d make it back without a hitch. And then, when the world ended, and took the remainder of the Family with them—

Well, that would be all the better.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“My children.”

The heaters rattled, clicking in the lukewarm air in a steady, mechanical heartbeat. Candles lit throughout the chapel drenched the members of Eden’s Gate in a strange, golden glow, and as Joseph’s voice carried all the way to the back where Staci sat between Jacob and Arden. He could see in the front row sat Faith and the dark-haired woman—who he’d come to understand was Isolde Khan, John’s old business partner—and there was a moment where Joseph’s eyes fixed on her before they lifted back to the congregation.

“God has truly been testing us,” the man continued, pacing away from the altar the front, hands folded behind him. “As you know, I have spent a lot of time in silence and solitude so that I might be the most open to receiving from Him. For the longest time, I thought—had we done something wrong? Had I led us astray? Were we being punished?”

An uneasy murmur rippled throughout the crowd. In the front, Pratt could see Isolde writing something down in a notebook; he wished he was closer, so he could see what it was—what was so interesting that she was taking notes now, of all times? What could she possibly be doing?

Preparing for the worst-case scenario, he thought idly, shifting in his seat. Jacob’s eyes cut over to him and he cleared his throat. The shower had done nothing to ease his nerves.

“But I’ll tell you—devout, and loyal, we have not been left to the wayside.” Joseph stopped, pressing a hand onto a woman’s shoulder, squeezing. “I have heard His voice. I have received His word. We are not only followers of God’s word—we are His soldiers.”

The noise that passed through the congregation this time was brighter, agreements—it must have felt good. Not just passive sheep, to be shepherded; soldiers. Capable of violence. And they were.

“We are His warriors.”

The woman Joseph’s hand was on was getting teary-eyed, and when he departed from her to sidle his way down the aisle, she all but collapsed in on herself, folding in half to bury her face in her hands. Another attestation of acknowledgment rippled around him, louder.

“This world is a wretched, vile machine, taking in and spitting out sin, flooding our garden with locusts,” the Prophet continued, his voice lifting in volume. “We are, my children, the only people who have the great fortune of seeing this—of knowing what no one else in the world seems capable of understanding. God has told me—”

Sick, Pratt thought dizzily, I’m going to be sick.

“—that a life of bliss awaits us, if we can only...”

Joseph paused, as though he needed to look for the words, as though he hadn’t been reciting this all day in preparation for the sermon; Pratt knew that he must, the assured cadence of his voice coming so firmly that there was no way it wasn’t rehearsed.

“...look past the dread, and the fear,” he continued earnestly, allowing his hand to be taken by another member, “because fear is the language of the Devil—if we can look past it, and dedicate ourselves fully to His cause, there is only happiness and serenity waiting for us on the other side of this.”

“How do we do it, Father?” a man to the other side of Jacob cried out, his voice a panicked fever-pitch. “How do we show Him we’re devoted?”

Joseph’s head turned. His gaze landed on Pratt, lingering before lifting to the congregant. “We’ve got to stop the machine.”

Optimism flooded the crowd. An easy solution. Stop the machine, like it was nothing. Like they weren’t dealing with a group of people who killed as easily as they did.

“Throw your bodies upon the gears, upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus,” Joseph intoned dutifully, pacing back toward the front. “Whatever it takes to bring the machine to a grinding halt. We can no longer passively take part in the End—we are warriors of God, and our divine right is not instinctively endowed. It is earned. And we will show that we have earned it by exterminating these interlopers invading our garden.”

Pratt’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Eden’s Gate members came to a stand around him; loomed in his vision; eclipsed what little murky light reached him. Cheers and applause rolling around in his head. He thought for sure he’d heard this all somewhere, before—

Oh, yes. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! The irony of Joseph lifting lines from an activist’s speech was not lost on him.

A heavy hand gripped the collar of his shirt, hauling him to his feet. “Stand up,” Jacob muttered. “Good posture’s important.”

He steadied himself on the pew ahead of him. Amidst the chatter of the congregation, eventually quieted down by Joseph’s patience at the front of the chapel, he could hear renewed excitement. More life had been breathed into the peggies than he’d seen in a long time—well, considering that he’d only been here roughly a day, and the whole place felt like a ghost town even now, that was saying something.

“Please,” Joseph called lightly, “join me in prayer.”

Heads bowed. Pratt let his chin drop to his chest, but his eyes didn’t close; his gaze darted to his right, where Arden stood, hands clasped politely in front of her. Her head did not bow for prayer.

He was only vaguely aware of the words coming out of Joseph’s mouth, redirecting his eyes back to the floorboards beneath his worn shoes. Lord, we pray that you might show us guidance and wisdom in these uncertain times; show us how to be most like you, for only you are perfect...

Elliot was going to come back to this. She was going to come back to this, and he was going to have to figure out how to get her out of here without any of the Seeds noticing. Helmi had said, meet me out back, by the river, in three nights, but he couldn’t keep track. Had it been one night? Two? Less than one?

“I am your Father,” Joseph was saying. “You are my Children. Together, and only together, will we march through the Gates of Eden.”

A rousing amen echoed around him. They milled about, chatting excitedly—perhaps delighted to have a focus for their ire, for their agitation. The members of Eden’s Gate looked worse than Pratt remembered. Dirtier. Thinner. More exhausted. He thought that it must be nice to have a purpose—

Fuck me, not that shit again.

He filed out of the row behind Arden, and with Jacob behind him, following her to the front where Isolde and Joseph stood. They were speaking in low tones, bundled close together; she tapped her ten against the front of her notepad in what looked like an agitated tick, but he couldn’t hear what it was she was saying. By the time they were close that he might have heard, Joseph lifted his head from where he’d bent a little to speak closely and looked at him, smiling.

“It was nice to see your face in the crowd this day, Deputy Pratt,” he said, his voice warm. “Did you enjoy the sermon?”

Pratt opened his mouth, and then closed it. He didn’t want to play this game.

“Go on, Peaches,” Jacob prompted, clapping his shoulder.

The nickname sparked something angry inside of him, like dragging a match against the sandpaper side of the box. If there’s anything wrong with you, I’m going to kill them, Elliot had said.

Pratt turned his gaze to Joseph. “I thought the Mario Savio part was a bit much.”

A surprised, abrupt laugh barked out of Jacob. Joseph’s expression remained flat and serene. In fact, the only person who seemed to have any negative opinion about his words was Isolde, narrowing her eyes as she turned to look at him fully.

“We’re not exactly looking to hit notes with the intellectuals in the crowd, Deputy Pratt,” she informed him coolly. “They don’t care who said it first. They care who said it better.”

“Y—” Pratt swallowed. “Okay, well—”

“‘Okay, well’ shut the fuck up,” she snapped. “Or I’ll have Jacob take you out back and put you down like Old Yeller.”

“You can’t,” he protested quickly, “Elliot said—”

“Do you think I care in the least what some woman five states away said?” Isolde cut over him quickly, the elegant, soft roll of her accent a strange and unsettling juxtaposition to her words. “I’m getting this ship in fit fucking order, and that means I don’t need you inspiring dissent. Anyone with an opinion that is less than glowing, radiant, gorgeous—they get taken care of, whatever that means. Got it?”

Pratt closed his mouth tightly, until the pressure was beginning to build between his molars. I just have to make it until Elliot gets here, and then—and then I’ll—then I can get—

He took in a little breath. “Yes.”

“Peachy.” Isolde flashed a smile that was all-too-saccharine, and then turned to Joseph. “Let’s sit.”

“Of course.”

They departed to a pew just to the left of them. Jacob was grinning at him, wolfish.

“Thought about telling you she wrote it,” he said, “but that was much more entertaining.”

“You look pale, Staci,” added Arden, her voice light as it redirected from Jacob’s apparent joy at his suffering. “Maybe you should go lay down. I don’t want you straining any of those injuries.”

Okay, he thought, and maybe the words came out of him but he couldn’t tell; he couldn’t tell anymore, but he did want to go lay down. Lay down, and close his eyes, and sleep until Elliot got back.

He’d never been happier at the prospect of seeing an ex-girlfriend.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When they arrived at the boutique, Sylvia was standing outside, bouncing on the balls of her feet in what Elliot could only assume was an attempt to get warm. It was difficult, to focus on something as inane and arbitrary as dress shopping when she knew that Pratt was back in Hope County, dealing with God-knew-what the Seeds were throwing at him.

Well, the Seeds. And more. The Family, who were supposed to be dead, and—

I hear stress is bad for the baby. A familiar accent, wasn’t it?

“Well, are you just gonna sit in there all day or what?” her mother asked, having stepped out of the passenger side.

“Did you invite Sylvia?”

Scarlet sighed. “I thought it might be nice, for you.”

It was an unexpectedly sincere gesture on her mother’s part. She swallowed a thick emotion down, clearing her throat and managing out, “It—is, mama, thank you,” before she got out of the car and took the keys with her, heading towards the front doors of the main street store.

“Howdy, Freckles!” Sylvia greeted her warmly, throwing her arms around her in a tight hug. “Been a few. Wyatt’s still got your Jeep, he’s been runnin’ it a few minutes a day to make sure the battery doesn’t go bad.” She smiled brightly, turning to Elliot’s mother. “Mrs. Honeysett, you look mighty lovely.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Sylvia tugged the door to the boutique open, ushering them inside so that she could trail in after. The inside of the store was toasty warm, making Elliot regret having worn a scarf, but it was too late now—the coat and scarf combination were doing the work to keep her scar covered.

“I just love this place,” Scarlet sighed, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it on the rack by the door. “What do you think, Elliot? Maybe something blue. I’d put you in green, but with that red hair, you’d look like a Christmas ornament. Blue’s a nice winter color—very fashionable.”

“Sure, mama,” Elliot replied, brushing her fingers along the silk of one of the dresses. The last time she’d been in anything that blue and nice had been back in Hope County. At her “baptism”. The same one Burke had been dragged to, the same one that John had held her under for just a little too long for, maybe distracted by the Marshal’s arrival back then.

“Psst.” The sound of Via’s voice caught her attention, pulling her from the waking memory. The blonde had pulled what appeared to be the most atrocious Christmas gown that could have been looked at off of the rack, holding it up and lifting her eyebrows as Scarlet chatted enthusiastically with the store’s saleswoman.

“Stop it,” Elliot said, fighting back a smile. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, dead serious, Freckles.”

“It has mistletoe on it, Via.”

“How else am I supposed to fetch a husband, if not by readily-accessible entrapment?”

Well, she thought a little dryly, that is how John got a wife.

It was odd, to think of the moment with anything less than hostility—to have come to a point where there were things more pressing than a marriage that, in the end, might not matter anyway. John had said that he knew the baby didn’t mean she’d take him back; had acknowledged there was no guarantee. For once, he’d shown up in her life with every intention laid bare for her to see.

Maybe not every intention. But she’d root them all out, eventually, and pretend like it hadn’t become something of a game, to catch John in a lie and watch him squirm.

She let the boutique’s owner show her around, clearly making quite a show for her mother, and politely turned down any suggestions for a deep v or off-the-shoulder type of garment. Sylvia had picked out a few; most blue, some blush, a few red, and then loaded some into Elliot’s arms.

“Try ‘em on!” she chirped. “Yes, even the green ones. Maybe your mama doesn’t want an Elliot Christmas ornament, but I do.”

Elliot heaved a sigh, though it was only half-sincere—anything delivered with Sylvia’s bright, cheery smile, she was hard-pressed to feel anything less than good about. Maybe that was dangerous, to be so comfortable with someone.

Or maybe, she thought, closing the dressing room door behind her, that’s just how having friends are. You remember what that was like.

She did. As she undressed and zipped the back of one of the red dresses Sylvia had selected—thoughtfully aware of the fact that she’d want most of her chest covered—she regarded herself in the mirror. There was that stranger again, flushed cheeks and bright eyes staring back at her. A familiar nose shape, a familiar slope of her cheekbones—but the rest of her. Where had she gone?

With one hand she pushed the door open, the other one lifting the back train of the dress as little as she walked out. A grimace had planted itself on her face, even despite Sylvia’s elaborate applause at her appearance.

“Oh, bunny, you look darling,” her mother sighed, having turned to take a look. “What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”

“Not big on the sparkles,” she admitted.

“I like them. You’ve always looked good in red, though. That fair complexion of your father’s.”

Sylvia grinned. “Try on a green one. I wanna imagine how you’ll look on my tree!”

Elliot stuck her tongue out at the blonde, turning around and scurrying back into the changing room. There were a few more dresses—even a green one—that were in the running, but eventually, she’d settled on a floor-length piece, dark blue velvet and halter-topped to get the most sternum coverage. When she’d redressed and rejoined the group outside, her mother was beaming as she gossiped with the boutique owner.

“Elliot’s quite modest,” her mother said conversationally, “and she’s already married, you know.”

“Thank you, mother,” Elliot sighed, a little smile fighting its way onto her face.

“Whatever are you still wearing your coat for? Your face is all red.”

“I’m—” She paused, swallowing. “Still cold.”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Cold? It’s eighty degrees in here. And your face is all red.”

Sylvia had glanced up from across the store, neck-deep in dresses of a warmer shade. Elliot could feel the eyes on her—her friend, her mother, the boutique owner—and she cleared her throat and tugged absently at the tag on the dress.

“It’s fine,” she said after a minute.

“Well, at least take your scarf off.”

“I think it’s a lovely scarf,” the owner tried, a little helplessly.

“Mother, it’s—I’m fine—”

But her mother moved too quickly for her to realize what was happening; her mother’s hand unwound the scarf with expert ease, and then froze, her eyes fixed on what Elliot thought assuredly was the little of her WRATH scar, revealed.

Her stomach rolled. Heat flooded her body, worse than before—it was the kind of sticky-wet heat that came with the threat of throwing up, the kind that crept up the spine and gripped by the nape of the neck. Elliot felt her lashes flutter; she dropped the dress abruptly and yanked the scarf out of her mother’s hands to wind it securely around her neck again. The boutique owner had quickly turned to the clothing rack, as though something very emergent had occurred on the inanimate objects.

Stupid. She was so stupid. She should have just worn a sweater. She shouldn’t have looked at her scar that morning and thought, maybe it is something to love, she shouldn’t have ever risked the chance that her mother would see it, stupidstupidstupid—

“My God,” Scarlet said tightly, the tone of her voice washing Elliot with shame. “What did you do?”

I’m sorry, she wanted to say, automatically. Mama, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m not good anymore, I’m not—

“Phew, I sure am dressed-out,” Sylvia announced, having come over. “I’ll have to go home and weigh my options. Ell, you wanna head outside for some air?”

“I think that’s best,” her mother replied curtly, before Elliot could even think to formulate a sentence. “I’ll finish up in here.”

She thought about trying to say something—trying to explain, maybe, what it was that had happened. But how could she? Her mother had suffered through the years she’d inflicted pain on herself, after daddy and after Mason, and she had told her mother she was better, now. Healed. Good. What could she say, to make it alright?

Because there was no world where she could say, I didn’t want it, and mean it.

Via’s hand fit snugly in hers, tugging her lightly out through the front door of the boutique onto the street. It wasn’t until she took in a lungful of cold, dry air that she realized she’d been holding her breath; her lungs ached, her head swimming, and she was gripping Via’s hand too tightly.

“Hey,” Sylvia said softly, “s’okay.”

It’s not, she thought miserably, it’s not okay, I’m not okay, I want to go—

Where? Where could she go?

I want—

Nowhere? Anywhere?

—to go—

“Home,” she managed out unsteadily, “I should go home—”

Sylvia gave her hand a squeeze. “You want I should give your mama a ride back to the house?”

“Yes.” She swallowed, sniffing. “Yes, please.”

“Okay, Freckles. Sure. You just—maybe you just take a little drive for yourself, collect your thoughts.” Via paused, and then leaned a little to catch Elliot’s eyes; though her vision blurred from the threat of tears, the blonde still smiled a little. “You gonna be okay all by yourself?”

It was a strange question to ask, but Elliot knew what she meant. Are you safe? Alone?

“Yeah,” Ell replied in a thick, watery mumble. “I am.”

“Okay. Can you give me a call when you get home?”

She nodded weakly. Via pulled her into a hug, tight and gentle all at once, enough to make the dam break; just for a little, just for a minute, the tears streaked down her cheeks and caught up in the fabric of the scarf where it wadded against her jaw.

My God, what did you do?

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, pulling back and sucking in a sharp little breath. “Um, I’m really—s-sorry—”

But Via shook her head firmly and brushed some of the hair back from Elliot’s face, wet from her tears. “Don’t apologize. Go get a little breather.”

She fished the keys out of Elliot’s pocket for her, putting them in her hand and hesitating.

“Promise you’ll call,” she reiterated.

Elliot nodded. “I—I promise.”

“Okay. No take-backs.”

“No take-backs.”

Via gave her another hug before ushering her towards the car. As she climbed in and turned the key, her hands shaking, she thought about the way her mother had looked at the scar—with disgust. Horror. Shame. Via hadn’t looked at her like that, when she’d seen it. She’d seemed embarrassed, at having put Elliot in such a position; but not like that. She hadn’t looked horrified.

John didn’t look at it like that. He’d spent a lot of time last night, tracing the shape of the scar with his eyes, with his mouth, reverent and adoring. Makes you hungry, doesn’t it?

At least leaving would be that much easier.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They came back separately.

When John heard the front door open, he’d been starting a pot of coffee in the kitchen. He poked his head around the archway to look out in the foyer, only to find Scarlet standing there, furiously unbuttoning her coat and dropping her gloves into the drawer. Two dress bags hung on the coat rack.

“Ell outside?” he asked casually, coming around.

“Certainly not,” Scarlet replied tartly. “She’s—”

And then the woman let out a sigh, closing her eyes for a moment—for the first time, Scarlet Honeysett looked to be composing herself, which he thought she was nearly incapable of losing sight of. It seemed even the impenetrable armor of the Honeysett matriarch had its own weaknesses after all.

His tiny little thrill at the sight of Scarlet looking troubled was short-lived, however, because she said, “My daughter walked into the boutique sporting this—wretched scar—”

Oh, he thought, suddenly.

“—never been so humiliated in my whole life—”

Oh, no, because he knew exactly what she was talking about and Elliot would be—

“—have no doubt, Mr. Seed,” Scarlet bit out viciously, “that scar is new and you have certainly not influenced her away from such activities.”

He needed to find Elliot. She would be distraught; why hadn’t she come home with her mother? And why wasn’t Scarlet more pressed concerning her daughter’s well-being?

“And where is she?” John asked, ignoring the stinging anger bubbling in his chest. Wretched scar, she’d said. Like it wasn’t beautiful. Like it wasn’t gorgeous. Like he hadn’t spent a whole night looking at it, running his hands and mouth over it, knowing that Elliot had looked at him and wanted it and trusted him and if there was something more devoted, it was carrying someone’s child. “Elliot? Where is she?”

“Taking a moment to regain her senses,” the blonde replied sharply. “She has vowed to be home soon. Mr. Seed—”

He had gone to reach for his coat, pausing at her words and looking at her expectantly.

Scarlet twisted the gloves in her hands for a moment, her brows pulling together.

“I just think,” she finally said, “that as her husband, you are responsible for her as much as I am. You have to be taking care of her when I’m not around.”

“I do,” he replied.

“Evidence says contrary,” Scarlet snapped. “She has come back to me with more—damage—”

The sound of a car pulling up outside snapped John’s attention elsewhere. He knew that if he stayed much longer in the conversation, they would be leaving sooner than what they had planned, if only because Scarlet wouldn’t tolerate him in the house for the things that he wanted to say to her. Damage, he wanted to say, that is only as bad as it is because it’s compounding on your incessant need to brush aside her problems like they’re nothing, like she didn’t need help then.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, pulling his coat on and opening the door. The rush of cold air bit at his face and hands; Boomer came rushing out around his legs, springing down the steps and hurrying to the driver’s side of the Honda. John was only vaguely aware of the door closing behind him—and it didn’t matter, anyway.

She didn’t open the door when Boomer got there, scrabbling at it for her eagerly. She kept her hands on the top of the steering wheel and pressed her forehead into it, the engine ticking as it cooled. When John got there, he reached for the door handle to tug it open. Elliot hit the lock button.

“Ell,” John said, “open the door.”

She lifted her head tiredly from the steering wheel. Where her hand sat over the lock button, her fingers trembled a little, and her face was flushed—not with health, but with the sickly red of feverish, panicked crying.

“Baby,” he tried again, a little more urgently, putting his hand on the glass of the window, “Boomer wants to see you.”

Elliot’s eyes were fixed on his jacket. “Would you—” She stopped, her voice muffled by the glass, and then she took a deep breath and said, “Would you even be here if I wasn’t pregnant?”

“What?” John blinked at her.

“If I didn’t have the baby,” she tried again, her voice thick and watery with unshed tears, that pouty lower lip trembling, “would you have even come for me?”

He stared at her. It had never occurred to him, that there might be a world in her head where he didn’t come for her, where he didn’t find her, where he didn’t try and bring her back.

“Of course I would,” John said, drawing her eyes to him. “I love you, Elliot.” And then, more urgently: “I love you, with or without the baby.”

She looked away from him, then, staring out the other side of the window, fingers curling uselessly against the steering wheel even as the keys lay in the passenger seat—like she wanted to run. Like she wanted to floor it, and go somewhere, anywhere.

“Open the door, Ell.” He swallowed thickly. “Won’t you?”

The door lock clicked. He tugged at the handle and it opened with ease, Boomer instantly shoving his face into Elliot’s side and whining, tail wagging so furiously his whole body moved with it. John pushed the door open the rest of the way and reached for her, and her hand caught his wrist and pulled, and she buried her face into his chest and trembled like a leaf in a breeze.

“I’m so tired,” she moaned miserably into his chest, hiccupping with grief, “I want to go home.”

John wrapped his arms around her, one hand cradling the back of her head and keeping her tugged close.

“I know,” he said. “We’ll go. We will, I promise, Ell, okay?”

“Please—” The redhead pulled back to look at him. “I can’t—you can’t—lie to me, anymore—”

“I know,” John said again, a little helplessly, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone. She was clutching him so tightly he was sure her nails would leave marks on his skin, even through the fabric of his clothes.

“I won’t.”

[navigatrixnarrations]

Sometimes Always, Chapter 1: Thieves Alley

The first chapter of a canon divergent kind-of fix-it set after Season 3 as encouraged by @whenimaunicorn. The beginning looks familiar because I posted it as a WIP, but it continues.

Warnings: Canon-typical violence and profanity

Words: 2034

Charles Vane once heard that a man can only truly possess that which he cannot lose in a shipwreck. For all the times he’s had to run with nothing but his life in his hands, and those times are many, this most recent is the hardest to bear.

The late autumn sleet beats against the drafty window of his rented room by the wharves. Nor'easters, he learned these storms are called, blowing in off the Atlantic, bringing traffic in the harbor to a standstill and turning the muddy streets into debris-strewn rivers.

Until recently, he spent his entire life in the heat of the West Indies. New York City is cold and unceasingly raw. Its damp chill seeps into his bones and makes old injuries ache damnably. Vane finds himself taking a liking to these storms anyway; they match his mood.

Perhaps he should head to the tavern where he works instead of huddling by the small fire trying to ignore the past. The tavern owner is a freedman, known to give a hand to other former slaves. All Vane had to do was show the brand on his chest and scowl a little, and he was given a job as a bouncer. The irony of it: Charles Vane, notorious scourge of the seas, reduced to breaking up drunken brawls and preventing grown men from pissing on the floor under an assumed name. Still, he’s alive and free, right under the noses of the fucking English…

He’s definitely being followed. He dislikes being followed. He turns to see that several of the tavern-goers are coming toward him, an assortment of weapons in hand. He dryly thinks that times must be hard indeed if they intend to rob him of his pay; split several ways it wouldn’t even be enough for a mug of ale each. A pistol goes off, grazing a leg just barely recovered from the last time he was shot, and Vane staggers. His attackers are nearly upon him when a slightly-built figure leaps between them. A low-pitched female voice, an oddly familiar voice, calls out something in what Vane recognizes as Dutch. There is laughter from the others, and they withdraw.

The woman approaches, her hands empty, reaching down to assist him. He gets the impression of large eyes in an angular face, a dark coat wrapped tight against the mist. Is it? Can it be?

She looks at him as if seeing a ghost, albeit a ghost with whom she is slightly cross. Then she remembers herself. “Charles.” Her expression turns wry. “Did I hear them refer to you as ‘Mr. Thatch’ back there at the tavern?”

He checks her face for any sign of fury, and sees none. “I can’t very well go by my own name now, can I, Miss Teach.”

“It’s Mrs. Sullivan now. And no, I suppose you can’t. I’m sure my father wouldn’t mind you using one of his last names; you’re more his child than I ever was.” Her tone is matter-of-fact, without bitterness.

He forces a levity to his voice that he does not feel. “So you married Sully? How is he, anyway?” At least she wedded a brave man and a kind one.

She shuts her eyes slowly, shakes her head, then reopens them. “He’s been dead three years. Took a bullet to the head in a raid.”

“Margaret, I’m…”

“Save the platitudes, Charles. They don’t suit you.” She looks tired, her eyes far away. “He was right beside me when it happened. He died free and he didn’t suffer.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. What can he possibly say to that. Memories of the three of them as teenagers, skylarking in the rigging of the Revenge. Vane was the strongest, Margaret was the fastest, and Sully, well, Sully was acrobatic and fearless. And Sully made her laugh, something she did far too seldom. Vane envied him that ability.

She turns her sharp gaze back to him. "If you’re wondering what I said to your new friends back there, I told them that while it is clear that the only thing you use your head for is growing hair, entering Thieves Alley alone as you did with a pocket full of coin, it would be cruel to deprive you of it."

In spite of himself, he huffs out a short laugh. She’s studying him, and he thinks she sees the question that he cannot bring himself to ask aloud. I missed you. Did you miss me?

“My last words to you were cruel.” She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. “I regret them. I’m glad I have the opportunity to tell you so.” Why did I get you out of there if you’re going to go do her bidding, be her attack dog? She doesn’t love you, Charles, she’s incapable of loving anyone. And now you’re walking right back into another kind of slavery and it was all for nothing. If I never see you again, it will be too soon. She jumped into one of the longboats and never once looked back at him as the men rowed it out to the ship. He wanted to call out to her to stay, that he changed his mind, but youthful stupid pride made the words stick in his throat. In the end he watched her climb the rope ladder to the Revenge, watched her sail out of Nassau Harbor, watched her disappear over the horizon...

Vane holds her gaze because he’s certain that she would not welcome him holding her body. “Everything you said to me was true, though I couldn’t see that at the time. You had every reason to hate me.”

Margaret tilts her head to one side. “I never hated you, though I tried. Never even resented you, really.” She sighs. “I resented my father for wanting a son so badly that he all but ignored me once you arrived, and I resented the hell out of myself for trying so hard to win his approval.” She pauses. “You’re shivering.”

He starts to deny it but Margaret rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, I know, you’re tougher than the rain and wind and you’re made out of pain and hunger, but you’re not dressed for this climate. Let’s get you in front of a fire. I didn’t come to your aid yet again for you to catch consumption in fucking stinking Thieves Alley.” Vane knows better than to argue with her when she takes that tone.

He falls into step beside her and follows her through a series of alleyways, up some back stairs to a garret. It’s two rooms, sparse but clean, a fire burned down to embers in the small hearth. She drags two chairs and a small table closer to the fireplace and gestures for him to sit while she sets about stoking the fire. He finds himself admiring the quiet confidence with which she moves, the deft precision of her hands. That hasn’t changed. The wooden chair feels like heaven after a night on his feet, and the fire quickly warms the small room. He slouches back and stares into the flames while Margaret bustles around, hanging her coat on a peg, boiling the kettle. Unconsciously, the fingers of one hand worry at the scar on his neck left by the hangman’s noose. It’s slight, but it’s there. In most ways he’s recovered from his brief hempen jig. He can sometimes go hours without thinking of it, but there will always be reminders. Much, Vane muses, like his years sailing with Edward Teach and daughter.

Everything hurt. The latest flogging from the taskmaster tore his back open from shoulder to waist, and he could barely stand. His whole body was wracked with fever. He heard a girl’s voice, and a man’s voice, both unfamiliar, distorted-sounding, and then he was being carried. He must have lost consciousness; when he came to, the whole world was swaying and he heard the creaking of boards, waves lapping against the...hull? Why was he on a ship? Had he been sold again? And then a girl about his own age was looking down at him with a grave expression, her hair in a braid and her big eyes curious. “Where am I?” he asked her. “You’re on the Revenge,“ she said, and, seeming to intuit his next question, she added “you’re free now. We’re all free here. We’re pirates.” There was pride in her voice and her posture at that last. He later learned he was free because Margaret Teach talked her father into taking him with them.

In the silence that has fallen between them, his stomach growls. He tries to ignore it, but she’s heard. She fetches bread and cheese from a box on the windowsill, a bottle of rum, and a pair of dented tin mugs into which she pours tea, putting it all on the table between them.

That’s what seemed off. She’s wearing a dress, and it’s all wrong. It flatters her well, but it’s all wrong. A proper pirate like her, dressed like a merchant’s wife.

Margaret raises an eyebrow at the look on his face. “It isn't poisoned, Charles” she says dryly as she pours rum into her tea. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now. I wouldn’t waste good rum.”

He takes the offered bottle and adds a heavy pour to his own tea, then takes a sip and lets it burn all the way down to his belly. “Thrown your lot in with civilization, have you?”

“No.” Her knuckles whiten on the edge of the table and she scowls. “I fucking hate it here.”

He reaches over and places a hand on hers, and is gratified when she doesn’t pull it away. “You’re like me, Magpie. We belong at sea.”

“We do.” Her voice is quiet, wistful. “Nobody’s called me that since Sully died.”

Sully grinned at the way Margaret's eyes tracked the doubloon that Vane set dancing back and forth across his knuckles. “You’re a magpie, that’s what you are.”

“ What’s a magpie?” she asked.

“Very clever little bird, a bit like a crow. They’ll steal anything that catches their eye, especially if it’s shiny, and they’ll have a go at birds of prey many times their size. They live in England.”

Margaret curled her lip. “Fuck England.”

“Fuck England,” Sully agreed. “Rest of it suits you, though.”

Vane thought it was apt for the clever dark-haired pirate girl. His fierce little Magpie.

She turns her hand over in his and gives it a brief squeeze. “I don’t mind you calling me that.” They finish their meal in silence, but it almost feels like the silence of old times. As in old times, it’s easy to fall back into task organizing without needing to discuss it much; he clears up the remnants of their meal while she makes up a cot for him near the hearth.

He hadn’t expected her to invite him to her bed, not really; she never did in the past, and the disastrous choices he made when he was a young man likely destroyed any chance of that in the future. They’re no longer children with a habit of falling asleep in a pile among coils of rope like a litter of alley cats between their watches. But now, all these years later, they’re reunited. It will have to be enough.

From the other room, he hears a sob, quickly stifled. Vane knows Margaret doesn’t want him to know she’s crying, perhaps wants it less even than he wants her to cry, yet how can he ignore the pain she’s in? He tries her door, only to find she’s bolted it from within. He returns to his cot. Eventually sleep takes him, and by some mercy, he does not dream.