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holy-hyuck · 3 years

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NCT 127 Reaction: They See You Wearing Their Clothes

Taeil:

You fell asleep in the boys’ dorm, Taeil carrying you to his room in the middle of the night. You must have been exhausted because you woke up only in the morning, the room quite cold. You only had a thin shirt on you, so you grabbed Taeil’s hoodie, once you recognised it as his, and slipped in on top of you, your jeans from the day before still intact and looking decent enough.

You walked downstairs, seeing Taeil and Taeyong in the kitchen, the latter turning on the stove to make breakfast. Looking at the clock, you realised it was a time they’d normally wake up, so you were glad you didn’t oversleep.

Taeil looked at you, his smile only widening once he saw the oversized clothing on you, a dazed expression on his face. Even Taeyong turned around and chuckled lightly, half at the way you looked, and half at Taeil’s reaction.

“What-what is that? Ah, you look so cute.”

But you could see it was making him flustered, so when you warmed up a bit, you took the hoodie off, leaving you in yesterday’s clothes.

Johnny:

"So..." Wendy started, popping a grape in her mouth, "Are you and Johnny, like, a thing?"

"What?" You scoffed. "Why would you think that?"

"Think about it; you're always together, he calls you 'babes', you have hearts next to his contact name, need I go on?"

"Yeah, and isn't that his shirt you're wearing?" Seulgi butted in, leaning her head on Wendy's shoulder.

You looked down at the black tee, indeed belonging to Johnny. "I forgot to bring spare clothes when I slept over at his." At this, the girls raised their eyebrows and looked at you with a knowing look. "No, it's not like that! Ugh, we're just friends."

Just then, you felt strong arms wrap around your frame, pulling you in a hug.

"Hi babes, hi girls. How's it going? You look nice in my shirt, by the way. Maybe I should let you borrow them more often," Johnny told you, grabbing a few grapes from the bowl for himself.

You looked over at Wendy and Seulgi, who both giggled and shook their heads.

Just friends, you mouthed to them. Unfortunately.

Taeyong:

"Isn't it Taeyong-hyung's?" You heard Mark's voice when you jumped down from the last step and skipped into the living room.

"Shh." You covered his mouth with your sweater paws, effectively shutting him up.

"Ah, I knew someone stole it." Taeyong came into the room, leaning against the doorway. You gave him a sheepish smile, rubbing your arms through the thick material of his sweatshirt.

"Sorry, I was cold. I can take it off if you want, borrow someone else's-"

"No, no, no need." He came up to you, holding you at an arms-length and checking you out in the muted blue of his top, heart fluttering. "I like how it looks on you."

Yuta:

Getting up from your seat, you cheered for Yuta, your voice drowning amongst all the others’ - and yet, the boy could hear it as clear as day, looking up to see you in the bleachers. He scored the winning goal, like you knew he would without a doubt, and perhaps that knowledge made you even more proud to be wearing his jersey, with his number on the back.

Once the two opposing teams congratulated each other, Yuta ran up the stairs to envelop you in a hug, spinning you around and grinning from ear to ear.

“You did it, you did it! I knew you would!” you exclaimed, gripping his shirt in your hands.

Yuta took this moment to plant a chaste kiss on your lips, although it turned more and more passionate by the second - to a point where you had to stop him before his coach witnessed your make-out session.

“Is that my jersey?” You nod your head enthusiastically. “Marry me.”

Your laugh pierced the voices of others leaving the stadium, and you threw your head back.

“Let me buy you dinner first.”

Doyoung:

Doyoung took off the glasses from his face, rubbing his eyes and groaning. This report wasn't going to finish itself, but his body begged him to let him sleep.

He felt the weight shift next to him and looked up to see you take his glasses into your hands. You proceeded to put them on, and looking at him, wiggled your eyebrows. He burst out laughing, at half-past-two at night, feeling you hit his shoulder to tell him not to laugh at you.

"You look ridiculous."

Not really. You looked perfect; your hair messy, old and stained shirt covering the upper half of your body, his sweatpants covering the lower, his glasses perched up on your nose. And at half-past-two at night, his sight blurry and mind hazy, he fell in love.

Jaehyun:

It was Jaehyun’s idea you wear his clothes. He always wanted to be “that couple” but was too shy to ask. So, after you got back from your date, completely soaked after the thunderstorm that started halfway through, you knew you wouldn’t be going back to your house anytime soon.

Seeing this perfect opportunity, Jaehyun took one of his jumpers and a pair of shorts and told you to change. Underwear thankfully dry, you put on his clothes, exiting the bathroom to see him making hot chocolate.

He turned around to greet you, his smile only growing bigger, his dimples showing. Screaming in excitement on the inside, he just walked up to you, embracing you in a hug, which you found strange but accepted nonetheless.

“Even better than I imagined.”

He muttered to himself, and when you gave him a questioning look, he just smiled, leaving you wondering what he meant for the rest of the day.

WinWin:

WinWin never thought it would get to him as much as it did. Most of the times the two of you spent were with the other boys, the perfect opportunity to offer you his clothes being a movie night but he didn’t want to get teased by them.

The two of you were walking back from shopping, the weather not quite as nice as it was before. The wind picked up and you still had over twenty minutes to walk back to your house, and even more to the dorms.

Shivering involuntarily, you wrapped your arms around yourself to keep the cold away, but needless to say, haven’t succeeded.

With the wind blocking out some sounds, you didn’t hear the commotion next to you. Plus, Taeyong was trying to be subtle about it - that, however, wasn’t a problem with Donghyuck.

“Yah, Sicheng, aren’t you going to give (y/n) your jacket or something? You know, like a sweet boyfriend would,” he said, a hint of teasing present, as per usual.

Blushing, your boyfriend took off his hoodie, revealing a jumper underneath (so you knew he wouldn’t be that cold himself), and passed it over to you, without looking at you. You thanked him, putting it on, instantly feeling warmer. Sicheng wouldn’t look at you (besides the subtle glances) or speak to you until you arrived at your house, you promptly giving him his clothing back, and seeing how he reacted, you made a mental note to yourself to always try bringing a spare jacket with you when you two went out.

Jungwoo:

Sitting on the hood of Jungwoo's car, you scrolled through the weather forecast as your date tried to repair the vehicle.

"It says there's an eighty-three percent chance of rain," you told him, looking back to see him sigh and lean back on the driver's seat. Cursing under his breath, he got out of the car and towards you.

"Just because it says there's a chance doesn't mean-" he cut himself off when he felt the first droplets of rain fall onto his skin, and suddenly it was pouring; and there you were, laughing, hair and clothes soaked. "Here."

He took off his leather jacket, leaving him in nothing more than than a thin white tee, and wrapped it around you. The material was heavy, and it was useless at this point but you didn't want to tell him that. He held the sides and smiled down at you.

Clearing your throat, you looked away from him. "I'll call a taxi," you told him, walking away to hide inside the car.

"Wait!" You turned around, and Jungwoo grabbed the sides of the jacket, pulling you towards him and capturing your lips in a kiss. Although surprised at first, you quickly regained your senses and placed a hand on his cheek, pulling him even closer. You've never kissed in the rain but it was perfect. Everything about Jungwoo was.

"And by the way," Jungwoo started when you finally pulled away, "you look great in my clothes."

Mark:

It was so cold, so unbelievably cold in Mark's apartment. You told him to fix the heating but he's been too busy binging Netflix to bother. Shivering in your thin tee, you rummaged through Mark's closet for something warm to wear. If he wasn't going to get the heating sorted, you were going to steal every last one of his hoodies until he had no other choice.

Throwing the black, oversized hoodie over your head, you made your way downstairs and plopped on the couch beside him, making him turn his attention away from the TV screen and towards you.

"Is that my- Is that my hoodie?"

"Yes, it is. Actually, it's now mine, at least until you get the heating fixed." You crossed your arms over your chest and raised an eyebrow at your boyfriend.

Laughing, he threw his arms around you and started mumbling into your neck.

"Gosh, you're so cute, you have no idea."

You let out a whine, surrendering. This was not how this was supposed to go.

Haechan:

You clipped your hair back with the lonely bobby pin in your pocket, pulling the jacket around you tighter to brace yourself for the ruthless winds outside. Exiting the shop with Donghyuck by your side, you picked up your pace to make it home before it became any colder or windier - which it did, a minute into your journey.

The wind made your eyes water and you shrunk yourself, head down, ignoring your boyfriend, who began failing to catch up to you.

Suddenly, you felt something warm wrap around your neck and turned around to find your boyfriend securing his scarf around it, unzipping your jacket to tuck it underneath, then zipping it back up. It left his neck exposed due to the low-cut t-shirt he wore under his leather jacket, and you frowned at the sight of it, opening your mouth to protest before he interrupted you.

"Don't worry about it. I'll be fine. You look like you need it more than me."

Wrapping his arm around you, thus offering you even more of his body's warmth, he led you towards his apartment, where he made you hot cocoa and cuddled you until felt warm again.

You still didn't take off his scarf, and he never asked for it back.

#nct reactions #nct 127 reactions #nct fluff #nct 127 fluff #nct x reader #nct 127 x reader #taeil reactions #johnny reactions #taeyong reactions #yuta reactions #doyoung reactions #jaehyun reactions #winwin reactions #sicheng reactions #jungwoo reactions #mark reactions #haechan reactions #donghyuck reactions

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imagine-loki · 4 years

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Trust, Chapter 5

TITLE: Trust CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 5 AUTHOR: fanficshiddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki kidnaps Darcy Lewis, in hopes of getting the tesseract in return for her. Imagine his surprise when he grows rather fond of the mortal, finding that she understands him better than anyone else ever has. RATING: M

When Loki returned, it was the middle of the night. He was confused to see that it looked like all the lights were on in the house, it was like the Blackpool Illuminations.

He got out of the ship and had to blast a few creatures away from around the house. More of them ran scurrying back into the barley, eyes glaring at him. He frowned, that wasn’t so good if they had emerged from the barley.

Trying the door, he found it locked. He tried knocking, but Darcy didn’t answer. Using his Seidr he had the door unlock, as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him, he found Darcy leaping out from the side and she started hitting him. But it barely felt like a cat pawing at his arm.

‘You bastard! You left me here all alone!’ She snarled angrily as she kept hitting him.

‘I wasn’t long, I told you I had to nip out.’ He said, amused at the tiny mortal trying to hurt him.

‘IT’S DARK! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN’T BE LONG! THOSE CREEPY ASS MONSTERS WERE TRYING TO GET IN!’ Darcy screeched at him.

Loki could hear some genuine fear within her voice too. He grabbed her wrists tightly and stopped her from hitting him.

‘Well, well, well. The brave, and seemingly fearless, Darcy does in-fact get scared?’ He smirked.

‘Of fucking course I was scared! You left me here all alone for bloody ages and without you I’d have no way of getting anymore food or off this planet.’

Loki was rather impressed that she admitted she was scared.

‘I may have forgot that time on this planet goes slower than anywhere else… so while I was only away for two of your mortal hours, it was a lot longer to you.’ He said sheepishly and let go of her wrists, glad when she didn’t try hitting him again. ‘I apologise for that, Darcy. It also makes sense why the Greyls came closer, they thrive on fear so will have picked up on that.’

Darcy’s mouth fell open, she couldn’t believe it. ‘Un-fucking believable. NOW he tells me all the important shit!’ She turned around and started walking away from him, throwing her hands up in the air.

‘What exactly is that?’

‘What is what?’ Loki asked, looking over at Darcy with a frown.

She was at the table, Loki had just been sitting crossed legged on the floor again. He seemed like he had been in a trance again.

‘When you go into that weird trance. Last time your face looked like it was going to burn off.’

Loki sighed and rolled his eyes. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘Try me.’

His jaw clenched as he stood and made his way over towards her. He sat down opposite her and clasped his hands together as he stared at her.

‘Do you really want to know?’ He asked.

‘I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.’ Darcy snarked.

Loki sighed. ‘Alright then. If you must know, I am trying to get the tesseract back for Thanos so he doesn’t snap my neck in half. When I go into those ‘trances’ as you call it, I am communicating with one of his minions. My supposed handler. Thanos is apparently getting antsy, impatient. I fear that if your team doesn’t hurry up, I will be out of time.’

Darcy’s mouth fell open, Loki could almost see her tonsils.

‘I… I had no idea. Dude, I thought you just wanted it for yourself, not because your life was in danger!’

‘Well, now you know.’ Loki shrugged.

He watched her carefully when she got up from her chair and walked over to Loki, she put her arms around him and actually hugged him. He froze on the spot, confused at her affection as she put her cheek on top of his head.

‘You poor thing. Having to make do with me. You’ve got no chance of getting the tesseract through me.’

Loki frowned, but still didn’t move. Why was this mortal hugging him?

She let go and stood up straight, tapping her lower lip she had an idea.

‘Look. I don’t believe you want to hurt me, I know you’d have done it by now.’ She started pacing back and fore. ‘But the Avengers won’t swap me for the tesseract, that’s for certain. I’m sure if Thor knew that the purple grape was still threatening you, he would see your side of it.’

Loki’s lips tugged into a smirk at her nickname for Thanos. ‘You know of Thanos?’

‘Yep. Thor explained he was the reason behind you attacking New York. But none of us had any idea that he still had control over you.’

‘He doesn’t.’ Loki snapped.

Darcy stopped pacing and folded her arms over her chest. ‘He clearly does. He’s threatened your life, that’s the highest level of control.’

Loki narrowed his eyes at her. But he realised that she was right…

‘You told me not to think so little of myself. But I think you should take your own advice. You said you’ve always felt like you were in Thor’s shadow. Why not change that, show people who you truly are. That you don’t do what other people tell you. Don’t let Thanos scare you into doing something you don’t want to do.’

Loki tilted his head slightly, thinking hard. ‘There is just one problem. Thanos and his people are far too powerful, they would find me. Eventually. No matter where I go. And as strong as you may think I am, I would not be able to defeat them alone.’

‘So, don’t fight them alone.’ Darcy said, hands on her hips.

‘Who, pray tell, do you suggest would help me?’

A big smile spread across her face.

‘No… No, no, no.’ He wagged his finger at her and abruptly stood, walking away from her. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

Darcy followed him. ‘Come on! I know you don’t think much of them, but they managed to kick your ass and all those aliens. I’m sure together, they could help protect you and fight off Thanos.’

Loki walked over to the window and stood there, staring out. Hands balled into fists at his side. He saw Darcy’s reflection pop out from behind him.

‘You know it makes sense, Loki.’

‘They would never help me anyway. They will just lock me up. Or worse, send me back to Asgard.’

‘Not if you hand yourself in voluntarily. Explain to them what happened. Tell them about a bigger threat than you to Earth! Hell, if you get Thanos off your back then maybe, just maybe, you could show Earth your nicer side. Get some of us mortals on side and we might just elect you for president or something.’ Darcy said, clutching at straws now.

Loki raised an eyebrow and turned to face her.

‘That could happen?’

‘Sure.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, surely you couldn’t do worse than our current president.’

‘They will never believe me.’ Loki shook his head.

He hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but he truly was stuck. He didn’t want to be under Thanos’ rule. He never did in the first place. But the thought of grovelling to the Avengers for help made him feel sick. And Darcy knew that, she could tell.

‘Don’t think of it as asking them for help. Think of it as… trying a new tactic.’

‘Expand.’ Loki folded his arms over his chest.

‘Think about it. How annoyed would Thor be if you were able to do things he can’t. If you end up gaining a fan base on Earth, for helping people. Redeeming yourself.’ Darcy started getting excited at the thought as she talked. ‘You could become the favourite Avenger! It would be easy. You have the brains, unlike Thor. You have the built-in strength, unlike Stark who has to wear a suit for that. You’ve got agility and grace, unlike Bruce. Then there’s all your magic-ey stuff. The whole package!’

Loki grinned cockily and nodded. ‘Well, that is true. It wouldn’t take long for mortals to see I am their best hope.’

‘Exactly. And you’d have the back up of the others if Thanos does come looking for you.’ Darcy put her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers, hoping all this sweet talking would work.

Sure, she wanted to go back home. She knew convincing Loki to hand himself in was likely her only hope, as she knew for a fact they wouldn’t come and rescue her. They didn’t even know where she was. But there was a part of her too that genuinely wanted to help Loki. Even though he had kidnapped her, he hadn’t been mean to her. She’d seen an oddly vulnerable side to him and she felt that, for some weird reason, he understood her. He could’ve been mean to her, belittled her. He didn’t know her and had no obligation to her either. But he had been rather kind and supportive.

‘You certainly know how to stroke a God’s ego. I know exactly what you’re doing, Darcy.’ Loki said, eyeing her carefully. But he smiled. ‘But it’s also all true. However, as soon as I get off the ship they will lock me up, like I said.’

‘Maybe at first, but then you can talk to them. Besides, I’ll have your back.’ She smiled genuinely up at him.

‘And why would you help me?’

‘Because you’re the first person to not see so little in me.’

Loki felt a slight kick to the gut. He could relate to that, a lot.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘This is a ridiculous idea.’

‘But a brilliant idea.’ Darcy countered.

‘I really hope I’m not going to regret this.’

#Loki #God of Mischief #Submitted fic #submission #trust #chapter 5 #fanfichiddles

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smmahamazing · 4 years

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“I’m not gonna make you take the medicine, but it’s there.”

Ayyyy only about a month later and I finished it! At first, I was going to try and incorporate this into the CB universe, but I had a cute little canon idea for this, so I went with it! Thanks for the prompt @superpixie42 , hope you like it <3

"I'm a youkai, I don't need any human medicine. I'll be fine by tomorrow!"

'If I have to hear that sentence one more time, I'm going to explode,' Kagome thought, fighting the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

Kagome was at her wits end. It had been a long week for the group of travelers. Absolutely no news of any Shikon shards or Naraku had put a damper on everyone's mood - feuling Inuyasha's already irate grumpiness to add to the mix of emotions. To top it all off, it poured the last two days of their travel back to Kaede's village. It wasn't quite winter yet, but the temperature had begun to steadily drop, turning the once warm droplets into freezing ice water.

The chill in the rain did not deter Shippo, the youngest in their group, from deciding to play in the rain. Kagome attempted to keep him distracted and amused so that she could keep him warm and dry, away from the chilled rain. She even went as far as telling him he would regret getting soaking wet, but the young kit would have nothing to do with it, deciding that jumping in mud puddles and catching rain drops on his tongue was a far more pressing matter.

The regret came the next morning in the form of sniffling and coughing, the obvious signs of the common cold. They were still a few hours away from Kaede's village, even if they rode on Kirara and Inuyasha, respectively. She bundled the kit up in the light jacket she had brought for this trip, foregoing her own warmth, and attempted to give him a dosage of children's cough medicine that she kept stored in her first aid kit. Attempted, but not successful as Shippo refused to take the medicine.

His refusal to take the medicine wasn't a complete shock to Kagome though. She could still remember how when Souta was around Shippo's age, he would whine and moan to their mother whenever he would end up with the cold, not wanting to drink the foul liquid that paraded itself as “bubblegum” or “grape” flavored, despite the fact that it would make him feel better. Even she used to put up a fit about taking her medicine - according to Mama anyways. And Shippo was still a child, so the unwillingness to take the medicine was natural.

But then, he proudly proclaimed a single sentence that would soon become the bane of Kagome's existence.

"I'm a youkai, I'll be better by tomorrow."

She had been giving the inu hanyou of their group the iciest of glares ever since her young kit spoke the words. This new development was all Inuyasha's fault. How many times had young, impressionable Shippo heard Inuyasha say just that? About how he wasn't a 'weak human' and would heal in less than half the time? It didn't matter that Inuyasha was talking about physical wounds and not about viral diseases. Despite their ability to heal quicker than humans, Kagome knew youkai could get a common sickness like the cold. There were plenty of times that even Inuyasha would get the sniffles after a week of crazy weather patterns. Inuyasha even had his mother's recipe for medicine that he took as a child when he was sick.

Even if youkai could recuperate from a virus faster than a human, Shippo's youki would still be too little to really help with that.

‘If only he wasn’t as stubborn as Inuyasha.’

Currently, Kagome and Shippo were hunkered down in an old, unused hut that sat towards the back edge of the village. It was a little run down; the thatching in the roof was thinned out from the weather over the years, and the reed flap that served for a door had been ripped off. Kagome took a quick trip through the well, and thanks to her mother, came back with a variety of thick comforters that she hung on the walls, serving as a makeshift door, and covering the few holes of the "windows" the hut had. There was a small fire going in the middle of the hut, working collectively with the comforters hanging from the walls to create a warm space from the colder temperature outside. Kagome still had Inuyasha's fire rat fur draped over her shoulders, given to her when she gave up her jacket for Shippo earlier that day.

Shippo laid on a long, plump body pillow, covered in an old crochet project of Mama's. His face looked a little pained, even as he continued to shrug off any medicine Kagome tried to give to him. In his hands, he held a small plush fox toy, the "fur" striped red and white, wearing a green elf hat. It was an old Christmas toy of Kagome's that her father had given her years and years ago. Most of her old toys ended up being donated, some saved in the attic for any future grandchildren of Mama's that might come to visit. There were a few, though, that Kagome kept around her room, toys that she saved because of an extreme emotional attachment. Kagome had locked eyes at the toy fox that sat on her desk when she went home to grab all those blankets. She knew that canid youkai, like both Inuyasha and Shippo, used their sense of smell in many ways, one way using certain scents to calm themselves. Kagome knew the tiny fox would be coated in her scent from all the times she would hold it close to her - a way for her to be close to her late father - and hoped that having her scent so near him would help to speed his recovery.

She didn't know what she wanted to do more; cry or scream. Truth be told, Kagome was scared.

She was aware of how something as small as the common cold can turn into something bigger or worse. Especially in these times, with no practiced modern medicine or hospitals, it was easy for someone to succumb to illness. Especially a child like Shippo.

And no matter how much she pleaded and yelled, Shippo would simply not take the medicine. Kagome was even able to persuade Inuyasha to make that nasty tasting antidote he had her drink back when she got sick. She had hoped that if Shippo saw that Inuyasha had made the medicine - and even armed with the knowledge that he used it on occasion as a child - he would be more inclined to take it; she wanted to use Shippo's unspoken adoration with the hanyou in her favor. But the kit would not budge.

Inuyasha could smell Kagome's rising anxiety. Hell, he could see it in her face, she was never good at hiding her emotions. He was currently seated by the door, watching the exchange between the young woman and her young kit. She was getting nowhere with the runt. Inuyasha kept his face cool and unfazed, despite the lingering guilt that had begun to seep into his chest. It wasn't hard for anyone to see where Shippo was getting his skewed ideas about youkai and illness from. Even if he was as dumb as a board, the heated glares from Kagome sure could point him in the right direction.

'Keh, it's not my fault the runt is too stubborn for his own good,' he thought. Hell, he'd even gone out of his way to collect everything he needed for his mother's antidote, a surefire cure for the little cold he had, and the runt still was refusing it.

And as every minute went by, every sniffle, every sneeze, every slightly wheezing cough caused that sour, tangy smell to seep from Kagome's pores, the one that Inuyasha hated with a passion. The damn wench was going to put herself under the weather if she didn't start taking care of herself, and Inuyasha was sure that she wouldn't until Shippo took that damn medicine.

'At least she's still wearing the fire rat.' One small victory he supposed.

"Kagome," he said, startling the young woman from her rampant thoughts. "Go down to the baba's hut and grab something to eat."

It wasn't a question, or a suggestion; it was an order. Inuyasha took on a tone of voice he used when he was serious about something. If he thought about it enough, it was the voice of an alpha talking to his pack, but that was a thought for another day.

"Inuyasha, I can't - "

"And you can grab something for Shippo while you're there. He'll want something to chase down the medicine," he said, moving from his place by the door to a spot on the opposite side of the hut, closer to both the fire and Shippo.

"I told you I'm not - "

"But what about - "

A sharp growl cut both of them off, saying in no uncertain terms that his demands were to be taken seriously. Shippo began to cough some more while Kagome continued to stare him down, challenging him. Inuyasha could have responded with a deeper growl, which would have been his original comeback, but instead he softened his gaze, to tell her without words that he could take care of the kit while she was gone.

Not like he wanted to show her he could take care of kids mind you. He was just trying to be a decent friend.

Yeah.

Understanding his good intentions - only she could read him like an open book - Kagome rose with a quick nod of her head. She whispered a few words to Shippo, a soft promise to be back with food and for him to rest, and left the hut. Inuyasha could just barely smell the salt of her tears she most likely was shedding on her way to Kaede's, finally succumbing to her distress and anxiety.

Now, the only sounds in the dilapidated hut they hunkered down in was the crackling of the fire and the faint sniffles and coughs coming from the stubborn kit laying in the most luxurious bed the kit has probably ever seen. Inuyasha wanted to strangle the runt, to beat into him with just how lucky he was to have someone like Kagome. Someone to worry about his health, to feed and shelter him - both with love and home. But Inuyasha knew that Shippo knew all these things. He knew how Shippo felt about Kagome, since she was the closest thing to a mother he'd ever have now. All of his stubbornness to not take the medicine was coming from his pride as a youkai, to reaffirm to his human mother that he was strong.

It was a feeling Inuyasha knew all too well growing up. Most of his childhood was spent proving to himself that he could survive no matter the challenge - whether from hunger, fighting demons, or surviving any encounters from humans he might come across - but it was also a feeling he experienced with his own mother before her demise. Back then, he wanted to become a strong demon, like his father, so he could protect his mother from anything.

No matter how much Inuyasha could relate to the young kit, taking that medicine was Shippo's only option if he wanted to get better. And Inuyasha was going to be the one to make him see it.

He grabbed the cup that held the antidote and thrusted it in front of Shippo's face.

"Drink," he ordered.

"I told you I don't - "

"Yeah yeah, I know what you said, and I don't give a damn. You're gonna drink this and get better you little runt."

"But - "

"No buts!" Inuyasha slammed the cup on the ground in front of him, a bit of medicine spilling onto the ground from the jarring movements. "Do you have any idea how worried Kagome is about you? This cold may be messing with your nose, but mine sure as hell works fine, and even a low class youkai could smell the anxiety coming off her. I know you're trying to show off to everyone, to show them you can handle something like this, but you're still just a kid. So you need to quit being a pain in my ass and let Kagome take care of you properly."

Silence once again filled the hut. Shippo stopped coughing, but Inuyasha could hear the sniffling of an almost crying child.

"Is….is she really that worried about me?" He asked, burrowing even farther into the blankets and pillow he rested on. Inuyasha didn't answer him, simply standing from his spot on the ground and moving towards the door.

"I'm gonna go help Kagome grab the food. I'm not gonna make you take the medicine, but it's there. You can either take it and get better to show Kagome the kind of youkai you'll grow up to be, or you won't." Without another look, Inuyasha lifted the heavy blanket and exited the hut.

He wasn't far from the hut when he swore he heard the sound of his young pup grimacing from the less than stellar taste of his mother's special cold medicine.

#inuyasha #kagome #shippo #prompt writing #inuyasha fanfic

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doodlingstuff · 3 years

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Together Away

Here’s some belated Christmas fluff. Hope you like :)

---

The Foxes had been scattered around the world for a full year, counting on the days to gather for Christmas and be finally united again like those years when they still went to Palmetto. Alas, weather has other plans and they all end stuck far away from each other.

Keep reading here or head to AO3.

Comments, asks or requests? Let me know!

“Babe, help with the luggage?”

“Mhm.”

Allison stopped circling their tiny apartment in Paris to watch over Seth’s shoulder. He’s sprawled on the couch, with no intentions on sight of moving. Not before harvesting his virtual plantation of grapes, eggplants and watermelons.

“You know you can do that during the flight, right? We’ll have an entire ten hours of literally nothing.”

“Something can grow in the meantime. Just a sec.”

The blond rolled her eyes in apparent disgust. Truth is, she loved how adorable Seth looked when he was focused so intensely in something so banal as Farmville. But she wouldn’t admit it in a million years. Instead, she gets herself busy double checking for the thirteenth time that they got everything they need for their holiday in New York.

“Come on honey, Renee’s plane will land in thirty minutes.”

With a reluctant growl, Seth finally blocks the phone and tucks it away in his pocket. They are on their way to the airport a few minutes after.

***

“Do you think the snow will cause them any trouble?” Dan asks while watching the white fluff drift slowly to the pavement. She’s seen snow before, however, it never ceases to amaze her the way clouds can produce such a beautiful show. Inconvenient, but beautiful nonetheless.

“Of course... Ah! Of course not. It’s snowed the other years too.” Matt answered while scrambling in the floor with their daughter, Eva.

“He’s right. There’s nothing to worry about. Come on, teach me again that punch recipe you do every year.” Randy adds.

Dan motions herself far from the window and inside the kitchen. Mother and son are both right. Previous years had snowed and that hadn’t stopped the Foxes to gather for Christmas. Just because this year everyone was out of school and scattered around the world didn’t mean they wouldn’t be together.

She takes the tension away and starts repeating her punch recipe for Randy.

***

For Andrew’s annoyance, Neil is tucked beside the radiator again. A human burrito rolled in a blanket, topped with a side of cats enjoying the warm. Andrew takes in the ridiculousness of his junkie for a couple minutes before he’s had enough. Reluctantly, he leaves the mug of hot chocolate on the counter and moves towards Neil.

“It’s not that cold.”

“I know, but it’s warmer here.” Responds the striker while laying back his head. Cheeks too close to the heat. Andrew only sighs before returning to his drink.

Anyone would assume that after Neil’s disgusting experiences with irons and lighters, the idiot would avoid hot sources at all costs by now. Apparently, the cold he had passed while on the run was still a bigger concern than the burns.

The goalkeeper only lasts another couple of minutes before getting the cats out of his way to sit beside Neil.

“You do realize it’s only going to feel colder once we have to get out, don’t you?”

“We have a couple hours. I’ll be fine.”

It’s been his first year in a pro team. They both struggled, they both were lonely. The snow storm almost made them get stuck again far from each other, but they managed to meet in Columbia, just like when they were still in college, so when Neil cuddles beside Andrew even knowing they’ll be taking a plane to New York in a couple hours, the blond doesn’t complain and lets his rabbit take a nap on his shoulder. At least his face is far from the direct heat like that.

***

“Oh my God! This can’t be happening to me. This. Cannot. Be. Happening.”

Nicky covers his face defeated after watching the highway to the airport all covered in white, cars parked for as long as he can see.

“What’s wrong?” Erik gets a hand out from the steering wheel towards Nicky, oblivious to the freezing rebellion going on outside the car.

“The freaking snow storm is wild. The flight will get cancelled. We won’t make it. And I haven’t seen the Foxes in a year. A full year dear! I can’t take it. I just can’t take it.”

For Nicky, everything always seems like the end of the world, but Erik has grown around snow storms like that. He trusts the flights won’t be affected, at least not for long, and his lovely husband will get to see his friends.

“It’s just snow. I’m sure it’s going to be alright.” Erik assures Nicky while holding his hand. “Let’s hear the news.”

***

An unprecedented wave of cold weather had parked in the northern hemisphere of the globe. Almost every country in Europe is covered in snow, and while we get beautiful postcards from the frozen landscapes this eventuality has given us, most flights have been delayed or cancelled until the storms recede.

In America things don’t look better, either. Canada has closed all highways; several cities had reported problems with electricity and authorities are asking for everyone to stay at home. Some cities in the USA are doing the same. Flights coming and going to the Northeast, especially New York, had been canceled or delayed until further notice.

This will be in fact a very white Christmas kids are already taking advantage of. While transportation is having a nightmare time, incredible snowmen of all kinds and sizes are built along the streets as snow balls are thrown happily by the ones who are taking advantage of this extreme weather...

***

“So, we are stuck here. Awesome.”

“At least we are together.” Renee replied to Allison’s whine. Seth and her had managed to get to the airport just in time to greet Renee and Jean. A few minutes after, every TV on the airport was breaking the news for them, followed by the official announcements from the airlines.

Jean, still used to bad luck, had only shrugged and gone away to find coffee for them, while Seth looked for a corner to resume playing Farmville.

Allison had tried by all means to find another flight to New York but it was of no use. They were stuck in the airport until further notice. At least Renee and Jean were able to join them instead or being thrown in another country.

***

“I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it!” Dan was biting her nails while walking from one way to other in the living room.

“Dan, you talk like it’s your fault.” Matt had covered a tired Eve sleeping on the couch and is motioning to take Dan in his arms.

“Because it is! I was the one who thought a good idea to meet here! We should’ve gone to Abby’s like every year.”

“First of all, it was a great idea to meet here if everyone was scattered. Second, they all agreed, and third, you weren’t the one making this shitty snowstorm, were you? I didn’t marry princess Ana as long as I’m concerned.”

“It’s Elsa.” Dan corrects him “And I didn’t bring the storm, but I jinxed this and... I wanted so bad to see them.”

“I want it to. Give it sometime, maybe the weather clears and they arrive.”

Matt hates so much when he can’t make Dan feel better, but there’s nothing more he can do about the weather, so he only takes her wife in a tight embrace, reminding her they all been through worse than a few snowflakes.

***

The snow falling is not so bad when there’s thick walls and calefaction separating it from Neil. He’s lost in memories of his previous lives, overlapping with good memories from the Christmas he had spent with the Foxes. He allows Andrew to stay close, but he is also lost in his own past.

Luggage is waiting on the door. They won’t be flying to meet the others and that was what made Neil lose the spark of happiness he was still feeling. Despite the ghosts of previous holiday celebrations organized by Drake, Andrew finds enough strength to get out of his own haze and turns to watch his junkie. It hurts him somehow seeing his happy rabbit long faced because there is nowhere to run with that weather. But it's not that bad there, so Andrew had an idea.

“Take that off. Come on.”

It takes a full minute for the auburn haired to acknowledge the command was for him, not the cats. “What?”

“Said come on. You look pathetic. Another minute of that and I’d rather die of cold outside.”

“Where are you going?” Neils asks as he sees Andrew picking the keys and their luggage.

“Out. Are you coming or I need to drag you?”

“But...” The striker is still one third inside his memories, one third disappointed because he’s not meeting the Foxes and another third trying to be grateful that at least Andrew is with him.

“Yes or no?”

“Still always yes.”

With that, the blond grabs Neil’s wrists and puts enough clothes on both of them so they don’t freeze on their way to the car. In a couple strides, they are on the road and warm again.

How important is the junkie that Andrew is driving on the frozen road instead of entertaining himself with more hot cocoa and some cakes with the TV tuned to a silly show.

***

When Nicky wakes up, he realizes the landscape is not familiar anymore. Erik is chanting a Christmas carol playing low on the radio. Their fly got cancelled, and the man had enough joy left to be singing. How he was capable was way out of Nicky’s comprehension.

“We’re not even near home now.” Nicky complained, so certain the surroundings seemed alien only because of the storm.

“No, not by far, but we almost arrive. Take another nap if you want. I’ll wake up when we get there.”

Nicky is too deflated by the bad news to protest or question, so he lets himself get carried away by the slow motion of the car and Erik’s soft voice singing again along with the music.

***

“We weren’t expecting to be back here until March, so there’s nothing else to eat.” Allison said as she took out a few cans from the pantry.

“Don’t worry, Jean and I brought things to share on the dinner, we can have them now.”

Allison, Renee, Seth and Jean returned to the Reynolds apartment -because there was no way Allison turned herself into a Gordon and the man hadn’t any say on it- after being sure their trip was cancelled.

Surprisingly enough, the guys were getting along just fine and Jean was listening all about Farmville like it was the revelation of the century. Poor Renee, she’ll have a hard time making him snap back to reality if the man was taking the game as serious as Seth had. It was only a virtual farm.

Renee’s smile made Allison forget about the damn game as she showed all the trinkets and snacks she had gathered from her trips around the world, plus a special selection of French delights Jean had picked on their way from the airport once he saw one the few stores he remembered from his time living there.

It wasn’t much, but they were going to make it work as their Christmas dinner.

Although Renee was putting all of her to be cheerful regardless their change of plans, her enthusiasm was melting away fast as she took in the empty house without the rest of the Foxes laughter.

Any other year, by this time, they would all be gathered in Abby’s kitchen, making a mess while preparing a full dinner worthy of half an army of hungry athletes.

After a while, even Seth felt the absence of his teammates and dropped the phone away. The doorbell rang at the same time the phone clashed on the couch.

***

There’s only a certain amount of news a man can take on Christmas, and Matt had reached his. They had scrolled through every single channel in hopes for someone to have a positive take on the weather, but it didn’t depend on them, so instead, he had listened to Randy, and they were watching half-heartedly one of the Foxes favorite Christmas movies.

It was hard. Neither could avoid remembering their first time watching it. Kevin’s confused face, Neil’s dumb questions about everything happening on screen. Allison’s and Seth’s noises once they got tired of watching and started making out in front of the rest. Good old times.

Matt could feel Dan holding back a sob. She still felt guilty for no reason. So, when their phones started to dance across the coffee table, she retreated from them, as if expecting bad news. Her husband picked his phone. It must be bad news if Andrew was the one calling.

***

The road to Abby’s house took longer because of the slippery road, but they made it in one piece. Kevin’s car was already parked.

Andrew took the things they bought on their way out and headed for the door without seeing if Neil was following. He rang the bell and waited. It took the same for the people inside to open, than for the junkie to get out of his stupidity and join him.

Thea was the one greeting them. Before she could say anything, a dark rocket was colliding with the blond man.

“Uncle Andrew!”

The screech from the tiny devil made David and Wymack turn from the TV.

“Let them in Amalia, come on.”

Both men got in and greeted the people inside. Abby was in the kitchen, delighted when she saw Andrew had gotten things for making his now infamous apple pie. As soon as Neil noticed father and son were watching a rerun from the Class I final match, he joined them and left Andrew alone with the women.

Because six hands worked faster than four, and now Amalia was entertained helping uncle Neil replay the best shots of the game, dinner was ready by the time the match was over. Everyone gathered around the table. Of course, for Kevin’s disgust, Amalia had chosen to seat between Andrew and Neil. They were about to start, when Neil paused them.

“I just wish everyone else could join.”

Wymack let out a heavy sigh, the same kind he reserved for when he was really exasperated. “You are one of the best Exy players of the country, you got a degree on math and you still don’t know how to FaceTime? Please someone remind me why I still have him around.”

“Tell me.” Andrew replied while taking his phone out.

***

Nicky swears it has only been a couple minutes when his incredible man wakes him up gently.

It takes Nicky one, two, three minutes to notice they are not in Germany anymore.

“Are you a secret serial killer and you only kidnapped me now? Where are we? Oh, don’t tell me, just make it fast. I have no reasons to live this year anyway.”

Erik lets out a soft laugh before answering. “It’s Paris. Thought that you could at least see some of your friends.”

If Nicky wasn’t already head over hills for his precious Erik, he was then.

***

“Nicky? Erik? What the fuck?”

Seth’s strange greeting makes Allison and Renee get up in a heartbeat. The movie they were trying to watch lost all the interest the moment everyone saw the happy couple at the doorstep.

“So, our flight got cancelled too, but this amazing human being drove all the way here just to meet you after I told him your flights were cancelled too.”

“Roads weren’t closed and I couldn’t see Nicholas sad on Christmas.”

“That’s sweeter than when you took me out of the Nest.” Renee smiled before she melted in Jean’s arms.

“You spent half the night driving here only to see Nicky happy? Seth plays Farmville the whole day.”

“Hey! We had sex in the morning and I’m not playing now. Come on in, how bad is the storm?”

In no time everyone got settled. Nicky and Erik also brought the presents meant to be shared with all the Foxes. It was too late, and they were missing lots of people, but it was so much better than nothing at all. The table was rearranged, Nicky was so elated to be there than even Seth looked happy. They got ready to start on their improvised dinner-which seemed more like a very early breakfast- when Renee’s phone rang inside her purse.

Then Allison’s.

Nicky’s followed.

After was Seth’s. Then Jean’s.

Even Erik’s phone rang.

***

Laptops on tables took lot of space, but the Foxes wouldn’t change it for the world.

Dan’s spirits lifted instantly when Andrew told them about the collective video call. It was only a matter of seconds before she had the table ready again. Matt couldn’t be more relieved seeing his wife was back on track being the leader organizing their meeting.

Allison and Nicky fought over the best position to set their computer until Renee broke them apart and picked the perfect spot at the first try. Seth, Erik and Jean only waited until they could join again and start eating.

Neil was grinning from ear to ear as he called Katelyn to invite her and Aaron into their reunion too. Thea pulled out her laptop and set it where everyone could be heard and seen. No one scolded Andrew when he gave Kevin a flap after he complained for the interruption in his next Exy match and they all laughed when Amalia ran to copy his uncle.

Some of the dinners were too big, others too fancy, others too improvised, but it didn’t matter. They chattered, they laughed, they told jokes and set new bets. Their reunion was nothing like the beautiful chaos they had gotten used to along their years at Palmetto, but it was still a mess of laughs, and good tears, interrupted by Kevin’s never-ending concern for Exy, the twins’ apparent indifference when anyone directed a comment towards them, Renee’s sweet smiles to everyone and Allison’s fights with Nicky. Dan was delighted to see their Foxes gathered. Matt was as cheerful as always talking to everyone before the conversation turned fully about Eva and Amalia before Erik mentioned his dogs and then the calm became a debate of cats versus dogs.

Coach never meant to have kids. He didn’t intend to even had Neil and Andrew on the house that year, but if he was told to do all over again, after every single pain, fight and tragedy he had witnessed over the years, only to see all his Foxes united like that, he will do it without complains every time he was told to, because even with everyone away, he knew they would always remain together through the best and the worst. Just like all good families do.

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fatefulfaerie · 5 years

Text

Comfort

Wrote this as a birthday present for the amazing artist @territheturtle but it’s the holidays so here’s some more wholesome botw 2 content.

Kind of long, I had a lot of ideas. I suppose that’s a good thing. Or not, your choice to make.

“Hey…uh, Link?” Zelda prompted as she swirled around the remaining soup with her spoon, looking at it ripple and bend before she looked up to him.

“Yeah,” he replied casually as he took a drink of water.

“Can you teach me how to cook?”

He suddenly coughed rather abruptly, as if choking on the water he drank, his face reddening and his eyes watering.

Zelda eyes searched him as he let out another cough and put his head in his palm.

“What?”

Link let out a chuckle as he started to clear their bowls from the table.

“No way.”

“Why not?” Zelda said with a slight whine.

“Oh let me see,” Link started teasingly before holding a lightly fisted hand before him.

“You burn things,” he said, extending one finger out.

“You’re impatient,” he said, extending out a second finger

“You don’t listen,” he said, a third finger meeting the rest.

“You put in goddesses know what.”

There went the fourth finger.

“And you throw things when you’re upset,” Link said as he emphasized his open and empty palm, “no.”

“I do not throw things,” she insisted, “that’s completely improper.”

Link pointed to his forehead, “bag of supplies,” and to a scratch on his arm, “bow and arrow,” and then his right shoulder, “book.”

“You’re fine,” she said quickly.

“And you’re not cooking,” he said with a smirk as he crossed his arms, “I like our house. I’d rather it not be burned to the ground.”

“Our house?” she asked slower, with a softer tone.

“Y-yeah,” he said, starting to clean the bowls, “our house.”

Zelda smiled as she stood up and approached Link, leaning on the edge of the counter where she stood beside him.

“Cooking is a good skill to have,” Zelda reasoned, “and growing up in a castle means that it’s one of the many skills that I don’t have. So, I figured that since you’re such a good cook, you could teach me.”

Zelda looked to Link, hoping she appealed to his vanity.

“Nope,” he stated simply.

“What if I need to cook for you?”

“Why?”

“If you’re injured…or sick…”

“Only your cooking would make me sick,” Link said jokingly.

Yet Zelda’s frustration was starting to fume, Zelda standing up straight from leaning on the counter and balling her hands into fists.

“I order you to teach me!”

Link smiled, amused at her antics.

“Your orders don’t work anymore, Your Highness.”

Zelda scoffed, inhaling to voice her most heightened anger before her eyes trailed from his smirk to his hands.

He had finished cleaning their soup bowls and was now portioning out flour, sugar, butter, milk, and eggs.

A smile spread across her face, Link looking over at her odd silence and smiling when he knew it meant that she noticed.

“Promise me you’ll listen.”

Zelda nodded quickly.

“I promise,” she said excitedly.

The two of them shifted over to the neatly organized counter, everything so tidy in their own small bowls that Zelda marveled at how she didn’t notice him preparing this much sooner.

“Okay, what are we making?” she asked.

“Fruitcake.”

Zelda looked to Link, surprised to no end. How could he remember that? He doesn’t even remember his mothers’ name and he remembers her favorite food?

No, it couldn’t be, it must just be a coincidence.

“Now everything is already rationed out,” Link said with a gesture, Zelda biting her lip in deep thought, “since we’re baking we do dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, but eventually they all go in the same bowl. Flour is first.”

Zelda picked up a small bowl and tossed its’ contents in the large bowl.

“Then sugar,” Link prompted, Zelda doing the same thing as she went down the line, repeating it when he said, “and then baking soda,” and, “then baking powder.”

Zelda looked to Link when she finished to find him holding a spoon.

Without a word, she took it and started to stir the piles of white powder into, well, more white powder.

“This isn’t too bad,” she remarked, “what next?”

“Next is the liquid ingredients, so butter, milk, and eggs.”

The butter and milk went in fine. This was simple to Link, but she was getting the hang of it quickly, making him smile as he leaned an elbow on the counter. She’d even stirred with every new ingredient without being told to. “There, see, simple,” she added.

Yet Zelda glared skeptically at the egg as she brought it before her.

“So…” she prompted, hoping the answer would come to her along the way, or that Link would reveal it to her.

“Well, we don’t want the eggshell bit,” Link said, trying to help with a subtle hint, “so you have to crack it open in the center to get out the insides.”

“What if I get shells in the batter?” Zelda asked

Link shrugged. Apparently this wasn’t as life or death for him as Zelda was making it out to be. Shells in cake seemed absolutely horrid to her, but he didn’t seem to care.

Or, and this is what Zelda was starting to fear, he was actually trusting her to do a good job.

“Here,” he said, taking out another bowl, “you can try it out away from the batter.”

Zelda took a deep breath as she nodded, trying to crack open the eggshell into two halves with her hands.

Yet it crumbled open completely, Zelda looking at the mess of yellow goo and eggshells with panic.

Zelda’s hands froze, looking to Link quickly before averting her glance.

“Link…I…I’m so sorry…I didn’t mean to…”

“Hey,” he said with a chuckle, placing a hand on her shoulder, “it’s okay. There’s a reason why I took out five eggs. We only need two.”

“Oh,” she said with a small laugh as Link took a rag and wiped the mess off her hands.

“I’ll tell you what,” Link said, “I’ll show you how to do one, and then you can do the other. How does that sound?”

Zelda nodded, Link taking another egg and a clean bowl, Zelda watching attentively.

“I usually use the rim of the bowl,” he said as he lightly touched the egg to the rim, “and hit it lightly three times to create a crack.”

He did exactly as he said.

“Then once it has a bigger crack like this,” Link continued, holding up the egg to Zelda and tracing the crack with his fingers, “I can put my thumbs between it and crack it open.”

From two halves of eggshells perfectly plopped the insides, the yolk coming out without so much as a speckle of an eggshell.

Zelda was so mesmerized by the precision that she barely heard him say,

“Now, your turn.”

“Link,” she started to argue, “I don’t know if I can…”

But Link handed her an egg nonetheless, despite her objections.

“The problem with you,” Link started, “is that you think everything is simple and straightforward, and then you blame yourself when it isn’t.”

Zelda furrowed her brow, inhaling to refute it before Link added, as if he always meant to add it,

“It’s your only fault.”

Zelda blushed, averting her glance with a smile.

“You flatter me too much,” she said as she tapped to egg on the rim without even thinking.

Link watched with wide eyes as she cracked it open with her finger as perfectly as Link had.

“I don’t think so,” he said, pouring the egg contents into the larger bowl as Zelda stirred and stirred them all together.

“Scrape the sides of the bowl to get all the ingredients,” he suggested, “we don’t want to miss anything.”

Zelda nodded as she did exactly that, Link pulling out two thin cake pans.

“Good,” he said, “I think it’s ready to get poured into the pan.”

“How do you keep it from sticking to the pan when it cooks?” Zelda asked, watching as Link pulled out another stick of butter.

“Would you care to do the honors, Your Highness,” he said, ceremoniously sheathing the butter from its’ wrapping as if it were a sword.

“Thank you,” she said as she took it, “Hero of Hyrule.”

Link smiled as she buttered the pan.

“I’m assuming two pans for the two layers?”

“Y-yeah,” Link affirmed.

She was catching on quick.

Together they poured the batter into the two pans and placed it in the furnace, both smiling at the deed.

“I’ll make the frosting while you cut up the fruit,” Link instructed, placing the rest of the ingredients on the countertop.

“How will we know when the batter is cooked?”

“It usually takes a half an hour,” Link said, “so set the Sheikah slates’ timer to thirty.”

“Got it,” Zelda said, excited to test out Purah’s new ‘clock rune’.

Ever since Link returned from the Shrine of Resurrection, Purah has seen the slate as her own plaything, experimenting on it as if it was her own.

She was overjoyed when Link and Zelda told her that they would be mainly settled in Link’s Hateno house for now, Zelda getting her bearings after her hundred-year fight with Ganon.

Yet, the pair humored the old Sheikah, no matter how young she really was, allowing her to install the clock rune, the voice rune, the script rune. They were all trivial compared to what the other runes could do, but Zelda was delighted nonetheless.

In fact, the last time they were there she kept going on about making pictures move, but the pair of Hylians figured silently that such a notion was far-removed from reality.

Zelda shook off the curious thought as she placed down the slate, focusing instead on the cutting board before her.

Fourteen Hylian berries, one Akkala lime, and one Faron orange, the Hateno grapes, wild berries, and Tabantha berries off to the side, obviously not needing to be cut.

“Link,” she prompted as she looked over to him.

Of course he practically had the frosting done already.

“Maybe you should do this,” Zelda said, her voice hesitant, “I’ll probably cut myself with the experience I have.”

“Nonsense,” he said as he took a step closer, the bowl of frosting now put aside, “as long as you keep your fingers away from where the blade is going or could go, you’ll be fine.”

Zelda nodded, picking up the knife with a shaky hand and placing the blade on top of the orange. She sliced it cautiously until the orange was in eighths, doing the same with the lime before moving on to the Hylian berries, cutting off their tops and halving each of them.

“There, see,” Link said, “not too bad.”

“I’ll get rid of these tops for you,” he said as he reached over and cupped the green and red remnants in his hands.

He only realized how close he had gotten to Zelda when she looked to him, them both realizing with red complexions that their faces were inches away. He must have looked ridiculous, holding fruit in his hand as kept his close distance to Zelda, to the Princess of Hyrule of all people. Her back was barely turned but her head was, their eyes flitting downwards as their breathing heaved.

Link felt as if his heart jumped out of his skin at the sudden and loud beeping that ensued from the slate, Link closing his eyes with a sigh.

“Remind me to tell Purah to change that to anything else but the shrine sensor tone,” Link said before stepping away, tossing the fruit tops in the trash.

Zelda exhaled a deep breath as she registered what almost happened, her eyes searching nothing in particular.

Trying to compose herself, she suddenly bounded towards the furnace, inhaling to sniff the sweetness of the cake.

A hundred years too long.

Her excitement perhaps getting the better of her, she extended her hand to withdraw one of the pans, Link only looking over in time to hear,

“Ow!!” Zelda clutching her hand with the other and squinting her eyes shut as she whimpered.

“Zelda!” Link exclaimed as he hurried over, placing his hands on the sides of her arms, he clutched her as he continued, “talk to me! You burned yourself didn’t you?”

Link’s eyes were swimming with concern as Zelda nodded.

He rushed her over to the water spout, hastily running cold water before he forcefully took her hand underneath it. She breathed a sigh a relief at the sensation, Link practically holding her in his arms as the water continued.

“See,” he started, "this is exactly what I said, Zelda, you burn things, important things.”

The hot pain soothed under the cool stream, Zelda able to breathe a little easier.

“I’m sorry Link…I don’t know what I was thinking…there’s knowing how to cook, and then there’s common sense…I’m pretty sure I wasn’t thinking at all.”

“It happens to everyone, Zelda,” Link said, “this is a lesson everyone learns, again and again, you’ve learned it before, too.”

“To not burn myself?” she asked.

“To not be as foolish the next time,” he clarified.

Zelda pondered his words as he let her go, her head downcast. It stayed down even when Link put a hand to the back of her head.

“Hey,” Link prompted softly, “look at me.”

Her eyes met his.

“You did great today,” he continued, “you learned, and you learned fast. Just trying new things says a lot about you.”

Link chuckled.

“Maybe tomorrow you can teach me about how all this Sheikah technology works.”

Zelda laughed and nodded, her expression melting.

“And maybe some Hyrulean history, too?” she asked hopefully.

“Whatever you want,” he said soothingly, Zelda thinking she would get lost in his voice until something sparked in her mind.

The cake.

The cake that was done but still in the furnace.

Link apparently had the same thought, rushing over and preparing it.

It was the delicate things that Zelda didn’t want to ruin, the layers, the frosting, the placement of the fruit.

Yet, Link brought all the little parts over to the main table anyway, narrating what he was doing step-by-step as if there really was a moving picture of him.

Zelda considered how marvelous that would be as she leaned her head on her hand, in her eyes a deep admiration.

It wasn’t long before Link cut a slice for her and offered it forward with a smile, Zelda returning the expression before her eyes trailed down to the dessert for her to enjoy.

She took a cautious bite as Link took a hungry one, the swordsman waiting for her reaction as they both chewed.

Her expression, however was warping in ways Link didn’t want to see, Zelda tearing up.

“Z-Zelda?” he asked timidly, “are you okay? Does…does it not taste good? I suppose my taste buds…”

Link stopped completely what he would describe as babbling as she shook her head.

“It’s perfect,” she whispered, placing the fork down and bringing her hands to her mouth.

She closed her eyes as more tears fell, Link on the verge of standing up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I must seem crazy…I’m crying over cake.”

“I cried over a shirt a few months back,” Link said, “emotions never come when we want them to.”

Zelda nodded, exhaling as she brought her hands back down. They were placed as if she were bracing herself against the table, every muscle tensing and freezing until they weren’t.

A warm hand had calmed them in mere seconds, Link forgoing his own hesitation, and now that the deed was done, he didn’t want to let go.

“I remember the last time I had this,” she said softly and sadly, Link paying great attention, “it was my seventeenth birthday. We were to depart from the castle early, too early, in order to ascend Lanayru Mountain by midday…”

“I overslept,” she continued, “my handmaidens rushed to prepare me for a day that I didn’t want. In fact, I wished for all the days before, all those times I could think of my powers and excuse myself just a little because I had not yet reached seventeen, because I had not yet prayed to the statue at Lanayru Mountain. I knew that if this day in particular went wrong, I truly would be a disappointment.”

“The door to my chambers gave way to three knocks. I tensed. I thought it was my father, bidding me a good-bye, a good luck, and another scowl of disdain for this daughter he was cursed with.”

“But…I opened the door, and…it was you. Standing there, with an apologetic smile on your face and…a slice of fruitcake on a plate.”

“I…I don’t think I would have eaten at all that day if it weren’t for you.”

“I don’t remember that,” Link said his eyes searching, “I…wish I did.”

“It’s okay, Link,” Zelda said, Link eyes popping back to hers, “your compassion remains intact, your courage as well. Things like that…are not so easily forgotten.”

Zelda took another bite of cake, this time with a growing smile as her fingers entwined with his.

“No,” he said, “they aren’t.”

#botw #breath of the wild #zelink #zelda #link #botw 2 #breath of the wild 2 #hateno #fruitcake #hyrule castle #princess zelda #hyrule

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whispersafterdusk · 3 years

Text

Lost in Time - ch 15

"So what part of Lucien are you from?"

Harrison quickly adjusted the pillow behind him (padded and pillow'd booths were still something he was trying to adjust to - how did Django keep these clean and free of stains?) and then settled his hands back around the fragrant mug of tea in front of him. "We used to live on the border near Duvos but were forced to move."

The girl - Lily - frowned. "Oh. Yeah, I...I hear that a lot."

"When you live so close to warmongers it's going to be a common story."

"Did your family stay in Lucien?"

Harrison nodded and took a sip of the tea before answering. "We did. We went from a farm to a small home on the opposite side of Lucien -- not enough room for a farm but big enough for my mother's pottery business to continue."

Lily's eyes lit up. "Pottery? Did she happen to be the one who made the little teapots with the lids shaped like wild flowers?"

"...yeah, actually," Harrison answered after a pause. "You've seen them?" ((Continued below cut))

"Ha! Seen them? I owned four!" she giggled. "I loved those things. I love floral things in general...what with having the name Lily and all. My mother's name is Rose - you could say a love for all things flowery runs in the family."

He laughed with her at that, and again sipped from his tea; it was a black tea blend with a really intense flavor that he'd had to temper with more sugar than he was used to (it was still very delicious though). "-I just wish the place had a bigger yard. We owned six dogs when we had to move and there never seemed to be enough space for them to run around once we set up mom's workshop in the back yard."

"Aw..." Lily sighed. "I always wanted a dog but my mother wouldn't let me have one."

"Ours were farm dogs - they kept predators away from the chickens and goats. We couldn't keep the chickens or goats but the dogs came with us when we moved."

Lily nodded and rocked back and forth for a moment with a dreamy look, then made a little popping noise with her mouth and turned her attention back to him. "What was farm life like? Did you have siblings to help out? How many animals did you have?"

"Eh...it was a lot of work. I had just turned seven when we moved so I didn't have to do a lot of it but I had an older brother and sister who both complained about having to get up so early to get chores done before school. I had just gotten old enough to be trusted to feed the chickens each morning..." He sighed -- he really missed the farm some days. All that open space to romp around in, the rooster crowing each morning, the smell of freshly plowed dirt. "How about you?"

"Mom and I lived in a small cottage on the western side of Lucien. Close to the border with Duvos but not so close that we ever had any trouble. OUR troubles always came from the Peripheries -- lots of random beasts would wander out of there every spring. Mom would go drive them off or have to kill them and then we'd sell the meat and hides. She also had this big flower and herb garden too and she'd sell dried and pressed flowers for scrap-booking and the herbs would go to local chefs."

"Were beasts actually that big of a problem? I'd sometimes hear my schoolmates talking about big monsters but it always sounded...like just stories, you know?"

Lily lightly slapped her hands flat on the table, leaning toward him with her eyes wide. "Stories? Ha, no - you should see some of the things that wander out of that area. Nothing that mom couldn't ever handle by herself but sometimes they made a really big mess."

Harrison nodded slowly at that, and for a moment his attention was caught by the steam curling up out of his mug; in a flash of imagination he pictured the steam curling out of the nostrils of some big beasty, and shuddered a bit. "That must have been rough."

"I guess it was."

Lily paused as Sonia brought out the fruit salads they had ordered; someone with a broken ankle had come in to the clinic during Harrison's lunch break and he'd gotten back to eating much later than intended so he wasn't all that hungry but had ordered something anyway because it had seemed like Lily was going to forgo eating since he was.

"-do your parents and siblings still live at your new place? -- well, I guess it's not new now if they have been," Lily giggled. She stuck a grape into her mouth and Harrison could hear it pop from across the table as she bit down.

"They do. We've sort of dug in, you could say," he chuckled. "Set down new roots and now they're in deep." He picked out a grape for himself and almost drooled when he chomped down; these were really, really juicy -- perfectly ripe. Portia really had some of the best produce around. "-how about your family?"

"Mom's still holding down the fort," Lily mumbled around her mouthful of grape pulp. "I don't think anything could convince her to move...it's kind of annoying, really."

"Why's that?"

"Well..." Lily sighed heavily, swallowed, and then absently twirled her fork around with her fingers. "...I don't know. When I was younger she always seemed so bright and cheerful, and loved doing odd jobs that took her out and about to new places. At some point though she came back totally changed and swapped over to pressing flowers and growing herbs. Life...got a lot more difficult when she did that, both monetarily and just in general. It's like a totally different person came home."

"Oh."

Lily shrugged and began picking the rest of the grapes out of the salad; Harrison tried to keep a neutral expression but inwardly he was sort of dying for having managed to make this awkward.

"It's not a big deal," Lily finally went on (after what felt like forever). "Mom doesn't have the heart to travel anymore so I do instead. Take back all sorts of trinkets and stories. She seems to love that part so I keep doing it. It's pretty easy to find odd jobs everywhere so I can see how she managed to do it all the time."

"Yeah, neat," Harrison replied in a rush. "I mean, uh - that's neat," he added after a moment, hoping he managed to get a more normal tone out this time.

She simply grinned at him and bit a bite of watermelon in half. Some juice trickled down her chin; she didn't seem to notice. They ate in silence for a bit; Harrison still felt ready to melt into his seat and disappear but Lily seemed at ease, and the fruit really was good.

Thankfully they managed some more small talk once they'd emptied their bowls -- when and why Harrison decided to become a doctor, more about his mom's pottery business (she asked him to ask his mother if she could hold a lily-patterned tea pot for her, and he promised to write to her about it), Lily's vast knowledge of flowers and their care, some of her traveling stories. That earlier feeling of awkwardness had faded and was replaced with a light, giddy feeling of having met someone new (and someone who...apparently thought he was cute, which was its own sort of sensation that made his heart race a bit).

It was almost closing time by the time they'd paid and walked outside; there was a chilly breeze whistling down the street and Harrison zipped his coat up to the very top.

"How long will you be in Portia?"

Lily shrugged and tightened her scarf. "I didn't plan on staying long but I think I'll stick around for awhile." She flashed him a mischievous grin with that. "Pretty good reason to."

Again he felt his ears burning. "A-ah."

"Do you work every day at the clinic?"

"Not EVERY day, no, but most."

She nodded and bounced on the balls of her feel again. "All right. I'll come poking around again...maybe tomorrow?"

"I...think I'd like that, yeah." They smiled at one another and the burning in his ears spread across his face. "Where are you staying?"

She pointed across the way to Happy Apartments. "There, for now. I WAS camping out near the beach but I'm tired of how cold it's been. And with my arm having a hole in it I wanted ready access to hot water so I could keep it clean."

She waggled her arm at him and he nodded - clean water, hot or not, was definitely better than unfiltered sea water to keep the wound free of infection.

"-oh, speaking of my arm, I had a...weird question."

"Hmm?"

She pursed her lips and hesitated, then huffed. "So up in Atara I overheard folks talking about some kind of machine you had down here - something that surgically fixed things?"

Some kind of-- oh. "You mean the Uplifter?"

"Not sure what it's called but maybe? Someone there was bragging about how it had fixed their split lip without even leaving a scar behind. Does it...only work on faces?" Harrison nodded and her shoulders slumped. "Well, poo. So much for that idea."

"What...idea? Were you wanting to try and use it on your arm?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I'm cleaning it like the doctor told me to and everything but I was hoping it could be...you know, fixed, without me having to deal with it for the next several weeks."

"Ah. Y-yeah, unfortunately it's only designed to work on the neck and up."

"What's it do, then?"

"Uh..." Harrison shoved his hands into his pockets, thinking -- Xu hadn't formally taught him about the Uplifter just yet but he sort of knew a few things. "It...repairs injuries, and I know it can alter things about your face. It can also temporarily cause your hair to grow in a different color too."

Lily's eyes lit up at that. "Different hair color?! Really?" She blew out a breath and looked up toward the sky, smiling. "I've always wanted green or blue hair... But it only does it temporarily?"

"Yeah. No idea how long it lasts - I haven't been taught much about it."

All of a sudden her expression froze and she looked to him wide-eyed. "Hang on - you said it can ALTER your face?"

"Yeah. Dr. Xu said he's used it to fix cleft lips and a few other facial birth defects on people from Atara and Ethea."

"How?"

"I have no idea," he sighed. "It's a complex piece of machinery. I guess if I read the manual I could figure out the science behind it but I doubt I'll be learning about it any time soon...or ever. I won't have one when I become a doctor and strike out on my own so it might not be worth my time to learn about something I won't have access to later."

Lily's expression relaxed, as did the rest of her, and she rocked back and forth from toes to heels. "That's a good point. Kind of wild that something like that exists and used to exist in the Old World too... I bet Old World people had crazy hair colors," she giggled.

He opened his mouth to respond and then immediately closed it; right on the tip of his tongue was Eli's name and situation -- if anyone would be able to talk about hair color trends of the Old World she'd be the one. But...it seemed like it wasn't his place to tell anyone about her. There was rumor enough floating around without him pointing more people toward her, and he'd seen her therapy sessions; it just...wouldn't be right to put more pressure on her right now. She was a person, not a novelty.

"Either that or they were really terrible about not injuring their faces," he said finally.

Lily let out a laugh that ended in a snort; she clapped her hands to her mouth and blushed a bit (or maybe it was just the way the lights outside the Round Table lit her face - it was hard to tell). "Ha- uh, eheh. Sorry. That just immediately made me think of an entire civilization of people with too-short doors banging their heads everywhere they went."

Harrison bit his lower lip to cut back on his laugh - that WAS a funny image. "Maybe the doors were all normal-sized and Old World people were just really tall."

"Or bad at building doors!"

She started laughing again and Harrison let himself laugh along; even if he knew that was just goofy speculation it was still pretty amusing to picture.

Once she'd caught her breath she turned toward the Apartments in the distance. "Ok. So I'll see you at some point tomorrow?"

"Sure thing."

"All right! Good night!" She waved over her shoulder and headed off toward the apartment building.

Harrison waited and watched until she made it through the doors and inside, then let his feet carry him to Dr. Xu's house. He had a few books to pick up before he returned to his own rented room at the Happy Apartments building.

Oh. Maybe he should have mentioned he was staying there too.

Man...he was really bad at this.

-----------------------------------------------

Two more weeks and no sign of the spy.

At least by then Mali had come back and she'd helped Arlo, Remington, and Sam comb the entire Portian countryside again as well as most of the territory between here and Sandrock.

They'd found a few old campsites but the tracks were too muddled to tell who they belonged to; with Old Bob wandering around and tourists moving through Portia it just wasn't possible to positively confirm who had stayed where -- Eli, Asher, and Mali had worked out a rough "when" for the sites but it wasn't any help at determining the "who" part of it. And that rope bridge that went underneath the waterfall was gone now too.

They were essentially at a dead end and it had Arlo frustrated; he hated the idea of danger lurking around Portia. Maybe that spy was sent here to do exactly that - spy. But what if they were sent to harm or steal something? They'd already taken one gun off the first spy...who knew what this semi-invisible person possibly had on them now that their presence was known?

They'd all spent a lot of time discussing tactics; for now they were going to ask Selene to design a sprinkler system to keep the area nice and muddy and also borrow some of the builder's fine wire and hide trip wires in the tallest grass attached to...well, they hadn't decided on that part yet but it was going to be something that could be easily hidden and also made a ton of noise if something shook it. Since none of them could come up with anything that could overcome the suit's near-invisibility they would have to focus on what physical variables they could actually affect.

One decision they'd made that Arlo didn't agree with was what Eli called a "Stupid Plan" - capital S, capital P. The logic, she explained, was that the spy knew that THEY knew the spy was around; they should assume that the spy would be carefully watching them for signs of vigilance and be purposely avoiding their search efforts. The trick to getting the spy to lower their guard again was for the rest of them to pretend to be stupid: everyone goes "back to normal" and pretends to stop looking for them (with emphasis on pretend - they'd all of course still be as vigilant as they could without tipping their hand).

"If we can just convince this person that we're convinced they're gone," Eli had said, "then I bet they'll get bold and sloppy, just like how they got bold the night we first fought them."

It made a sort of sense in a way but Arlo didn't like the idea; he wasn't comfortable with pretending to let his guard down (mostly because he didn't know how to actually do that). The Pigs, Sam, and Remington had been willing to give it a shot so he'd been outnumbered, though they'd at least all respected his concerns about it.

The one good thing out of the decision to enact the Stupid Plan was he and Eli were free to go back to their respective abodes and sleep in their own beds. He didn't realize how much he'd missed his bed until he was back in it - no hard pillow beneath his head, no rough canvas surface of the cot under him, no carpet burns on his elbows from said canvas. It felt like a shameful luxury to be back in a proper bed and he actually overslept the next morning. By the time he'd dressed and hurried down to Selene's to meet the others for their newly restarted morning training sessions they were already halfway through the warm up exercises. It did make him feel a bit better to see Eli looked a little...not tired, but not exactly focused. More like she could fall back asleep if she laid down somewhere.

Adam was here today in Asher's place; he moved to a spot next to the man and started in with the rest of them as they swapped between exercises and stretches to warm them up for their run and the harder stuff afterward.

"Anything?" he grunted after a bit, glancing toward Adam.

"Nothing," came the answer.

Well...he supposed he wasn't surprised.

It was nice to be back to training at least; Eli seemed to be going easy (easier) on them today. They finished their warm ups, did their run, and came back to do the harder things but it felt shorter than he remembered it being. Still...the combination of sore muscles, sweat, and a heightened heart rate felt good. When they were done and had cooled off some Remington and Sam headed out to take up their old patrol routes; Adam left to, presumably, head back to the facility camp, leaving him and Eli alone in the yard.

As he watched she did some stretches (ones that were different than those she'd taught them) and then moved over to lean against the fence and stare out into the fields; he glanced out that way too -- there were barren trees, bushes, and a few llamas out there that were picking at the first green shoots coming up. With the spring melt finally upon them the bushes and trees would be budding soon and there'd be more out there aside from the isolated spots of hardy herbs that, somehow, managed to survive and grow even in freezing temperatures.

"I have to be honest," he said into the silence. Eli shifted just enough that he knew she was listening but not so much that she was looking at him. "I have no idea how to act like I'm not aware of my surroundings. That's probably going to be the hardest part about all of this for me."

"Want to learn?"

He came up to stand beside her at the fence and eyed a couple of llamas as they suddenly burst into a hopping fit, bouncing around one another for a few moments before going back to grazing. "How exactly do you teach something like that?"

"It's not hard - you just have to learn new ways to pay attention without paying attention."

She looked over to him with a smug smirk; he blew out a sigh but smiled. "I'm guessing it's something I have to be shown that can't really be explained."

"More or less, yeah."

"I guess the next question is when would you want to start?"

She shrugged. "Can be anytime we're both free. It's not something that's easy to teach so you're going to need a lot of time to dedicate to it."

Arlo nodded; his schedule was back to normal now that they were acting out the Stupid Plan. "We can make it work."

Out in the fields there was suddenly the noise of startled llamas; Arlo shifted his attention from Eli back out to the animals and could see a pair of figures walking in the fields. He squinted that way and it took him a moment to realize it was Dr. Xu and...someone else. Probably that student of his. Xu had what he thought was a basket over one arm and seemed to be gesturing at the little dots of bright green among the brown, soggy grasses. His student nodded and walked over to bend down over one of the green spots and began to carefully remove bits and pieces and hand them up to Xu -- Arlo knew the doctor went on walks to collect whatever freshly growing plants he could find, even in the dead of winter, so it seemed they were observing one of those.

Movement from the south caught his eye then and he saw someone approaching the two in the fields; whoever it was was bundled up in a heavy coat and had a scarf on -- it looked to be a woman, but not anyone Arlo recognized. She waved at the two in the field and the student waved back (what had been his name? It started with an H...Arlo had only met him once and now he couldn't remember the man's name). Whoever the woman was didn't stick around long: she greeted them, very briefly talked to them, then continued on back toward Portia.

"Any idea who that is?"

Eli shook her head. "Nope. I've seen her walking around town but I've not talked to her myself. Guess I can ask Dr. Xu at my next therapy session."

Arlo nodded, then looked over to her. "...I don't want to make you uncomfortable with personal questions, but..."

A faint smile crossed her face; this time she did turn her head to look at him. "How's it going? It's...going. Some days are better than others but overall it's getting easier. Time heals all wounds as they say."

"I'm glad to hear it." He turned to put his back against the fence and leaned. "There's a holiday coming up - Day of the Bright Sun. I bet a lot of people would like to see you there."

"What's the holiday for?"

"Have you heard of or read about Peach yet?"

She nodded. "That's the guy who invented some machine that got rid of the clouds in the sky, right?"

"Right. It's a holiday to celebrate the sun returning. We spend the week leading up to it wrapping gifts and delivering them to city hall, and on the day of the holiday the gifts are dropped all over town from an airship that flies over Portia."

Eli raised an eyebrow at that. "Not sure which is harder to believe - air-dropped presents or the fact an airship still exists."

"It-" Arlo paused, thinking on how to word it. "-it's probably not the type of airship you might be thinking of."

"I'd hope not. Airships were bigger than Portia is."

"Really?" he asked; she nodded, and he shook his head. "Hard to picture... But ah, no. This airship isn't all that big. Not much bigger than Mali's plane, to be honest."

"Is this a sort of buy in thing to participate then?"

"Buy in?"

"Do I have to give gifts to be able to receive any?"

"Not..." Again he paused. "Not really? I don't think there's any actual rule about it. Why?"

"I'm not the greatest at choosing gifts - especially not for people I hardly know. And I don't want to receive something if I didn't give someone a gift."

"Oh, don't worry about that. Everyone gives something - usually several things - even if it's just small trinkets or even raw materials of some kind, and the gifts don't have anyone's names except for the giver on them. Just last year a pair of gifts I received were a bouquet of flowers and a roll of cotton fabric -- it's sort of a crap shoot for what you might get."

Eli nodded slowly, wrinkling her nose. "Well, if I'm not buying for specific people that makes it a lot easier in that regard. A lot less awkward too, since I'm not physically giving them out myself."

"Nope. Just catch presents falling from the sky."

"Sounds...interesting, then. I'd at least show up for the novelty."

He smiled at her. "And companionship, I'd hope."

She returned the smile. "Yeah, yeah, that too." With a small grunt she straightened and dusted her hands off. "I'll add gift shopping onto my To Do list. Let me know when you next have some free time and we can start in on teaching you a few new tricks."

"I'm free now if you are."

He watched as she turned to head toward the opposite side of the yard where the gate to the road was; after a breath or two he followed her -- what else was he supposed to do?

"Now's good, I guess. Without turning around, how many llamas were out on the field?"

"Uh." Arlo slowed to a stop; the urge to turn around or at least peek was strong but she'd specifically told him NOT to do that. "...five?"

"Seven. How many bushes were out there?"

"Si...six?"

"Four."

He blew out a sigh and started to follow along behind her again. "I'm guessing my first lesson is to assess everything I see?"

"The idea is to sort of...absorb it without actively counting or noting things. Things like numbers, patterns, colors, people, details of places, sounds and what directions things are coming from or moving in. Take it all in, in a glance or two, and be able to recall it quickly."

"Right..." Ahead of him Eli headed out of the gate and then waited, holding it open for him. "Well. I'm up for the challenge."

She just smiled and led the way down the road.

----------------------------------------------

Something about the sound of the airship overhead was distinctly...uncomfortable.

Not enough that it wasn't something she could tolerate but enough that she could feel anxiety and a bit of fear just beneath the surface; with it came an urge to duck into cover, or to otherwise get out of sight. Eli couldn't recall ever hearing something like it but clearly her subconscious did, and inside her head a small alarm system was starting to blare.

She'd been standing with the crowd of townsfolk only moments ago but the arrival of the airship had sent them all into a stumbling jog together as a group, laughing and lightly jostling one another; no one stopped unless they'd actually managed to snag a present and then those persons hung back to let the group run ahead and get a head start on the rest of the falling presents.

Eli wasn't anywhere near enough to catch any, and at the moment she didn't particularly care.

I'm FINE. I'm fine. There's no danger here.

She kept it going as a little mantra in her head and forced herself to focus on the spectacle of an entire town catching things raining out of the sky. Sam had said the airship swept across the city and then out to the fields; it should be out of sight and range soon.

Sucking in a breath she scanned her surroundings; a ginger-haired woman with a parasol and Gust were still here, as was Gale. They were walking at a slow pace, talking and laughing amongst themselves, and hadn't seemed to notice she'd lingered.

She should...probably move. To avoid drawing attention to herself. This wasn't something she wanted to try and explain to anyone - especially not on a holiday. Let them have their festivities and fun...no reason to bring the mood down.

Of course that meant following the source of the sound.

Come on. I can handle this. It won't be much longer.

It took another breath or two to urge herself into a slow walk, heading off after the crowd. Here and there in the street were bows and ribbons - she assumed they'd fallen off the gifts since she was still trying to wrap her head around how the presents could survive falling from such a height. Did shock foam persist through the ages? Maybe she could get a look at a box later.

The crowd was at the far side of the plaza ahead - the one with the big tree in the middle. Eli glanced up and traced the path of a package that was wrapped in bright orange paper with white ribbon; it suddenly hit her that those looked an awful lot like New Year's Dawn presents. A holiday that didn't exist anymore...one she'd never experience again. No presents, no family dinners, no games, no costume parties...

Simultaneously she felt a heavy weight settle in her gut coupled with the sensation of her stomach twisting into a knot, followed by a familiar hot prickle behind her eyes. Abruptly she stopped and spun on her heel, fully intending to retreat as quickly as possible back to her room. In a split instant she realized Asher had been walking up behind her - it was clear he'd been trying to catch up to her and her sudden reversal of direction had caught him by surprise while also nearly bowling him over.

"Whoa-" Asher stumbled a bit as he tried to put some space between them.

"Sorry. What's up?" she asked quickly. She side-stepped him and looked up the street -- no one was in sight now. Good. She could still make an escape.

"Uh." His eyes were on her as she moved. "-is something wrong?"

In the moment Eli knew she could just lie and say everything was fine; the problem was if he could already see it on her face then it'd be pointless to try and hide it now. With a deep breath she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "Yes. Sort of. I just need to get some distance between me and here."

With that she started walking; it was a little difficult to hear him over the sound of the airship but after a pause Asher's footsteps hurried after her.

"At the risk of sounding insensitive, what's the exact problem?"

"Dunno," she replied. "Just something about that sound is...not good."

He sped up until he matched her speed and then walked at her side. "Gotcha. Um. Let's -- have you seen the hot spring retreat? We can catch the Dee-Dee up there and it ought to be far enough away you won't hear the airship."

"I hope you're not expecting me to actually utilize the springs."

"No, I wasn't thinking that. That's just the first location that's within quick and easy reach that I could think of that would also be fairly quiet."

"I could just go home."

"Do you want to be shut in a room at the moment?"

Eli sighed and squeezed her eyes shut; what she wanted, right now, was to be normal and at the festival, holiday, whatever-it-was in the plaza. Which...after that airship left, maybe she could go back. Maybe. Her obvious lack of caught gifts might invite questions she'd rather discuss with Dr. Xu first though, so maybe not.

Luckily as they came within sight of the Dee-Dee stop the Dee-Dee was only ten yards down the road; Asher waved at it and the driver stopped and waited for them to jog down to the stop instead of continuing on. The hum of the Dee-Dee motor seemed a little more familiar, if a bit rougher than she was accustomed to, and it helped a bit to drown out the airship's rumble. It was a short drive up to the retreat and, as Asher had said, it was way quieter -- she could barely detect the airship from here, and once they were standing on the dock that surrounded the little inset pool meant for the hot spring patrons to sit in there was the lapping of water and a bubbling noise as well.

Now that the "danger," according to her brain, was gone she could feel a bit of tension draining away and leaving what felt like a gaping, empty ache behind her right eye. Asher found and unfolded a pair of fabric deck chairs and set them up facing the west, away from Portia and any chance of spotting the airship. Eli dropped into one and ground the heels of her palms into her eyes.

"So." She had to clear her throat and try again. "-so, was there something you needed?"

Asher lowered himself into the other chair but didn't lean back. "Not in particular. Mali wanted to talk to Arlo and I was asked to play messenger but since he's busy with the holiday she wasn't expecting him to go rushing out."

"Don't let me keep you from an errand. I'll be fine."

He waved a hand dismissively. "They can wait. Unless you're wanting me to leave." With that he looked over to her.

She blew out a long sigh. "I don't know what I want. Well, I do. But none of what I want is possible. I want to go home. I want to hug my husband and parents again. I want to see my squad. Some days I wake up and I'm perfectly fine with the thought that all that's gone and there's nothing I can do about it...other days, you just have to press on and act like you're fine."

Asher bowed his head slightly, resting his chin on his fists with his elbows braced against the hard wood of the arms of the deck chair. "I wish there was something I could do, or say, to help with it all. Sometimes being human seems like a waste, doesn't it? Brains we don't have control over stirring us up and making someone think or feel things they probably wouldn't choose to otherwise."

Eli managed a very faint smile. "I definitely can think of better emotions to be stuck with, yes." She let out another heavy sigh and rubbed at her temples - the ache was spreading across the front of her head, through the forehead area and behind both eyes now. "I think I have a slight edge in that part of ranger training was focusing on instinct and logic and forgoing most emotional reactions. We were...always ready for it to go to hell. You had to be ready to switch off the emotional part of your brain and get shit done at any moment. I think my 300 year long nap damaged that switch, or maybe this is just too much to switch off whenever I want to."

Asher nodded at her but didn't say anything; they both went quiet and Eli focused her attention on the details and soft noises around her: the wind, the bubbling of the spring, the small waves caused by the bubbles hitting the pilings that supported the dock. A few times she heard faint birdsong. There was a small building on the dock that she assumed held whatever was needed for the hot springs business; it was partially blocking the wind coming off the fields so the steam off the springs was actually making it a bit too warm for her liking. She thought of taking her jacket off but didn't want her shirt to get damp.

Without any other option Eli just sat and steamed inside her coat until every last hint of sound of the airship was gone; after giving it a few minutes more she stood up and turned to look toward Portia -- at least from here it seemed like the airship was actually gone.

There was the creaking of a deck chair to her right and out of the corner of an eye Eli could just make out Asher standing up.

"Are you ready to head back?"

"I think so. It seems pretty quiet."

He studied her a moment. "Are you wanting to go back to the celebration, or just head home?"

"We'll see how I feel when I'm at the gate again."

They put the deck chairs away and headed back toward the Dee-Dee stop to wait for the next one to drive by.

"...as embarrassing and awkward as this was... Thanks."

Asher flashed her a gap-toothed grin. "You're welcome. Have to earn my keep somehow."

She snorted and shook her head. "Typically 'friend' is not a salaried position."

"Good job security, at least."

------------------------------------------------

Everyone around him was buzzing with excitement and chattering over the gifts they'd gotten this year; Arlo had gotten a neat looking woven wristband in purples and greens (no name on it so no idea who had given it) along with a new bronze blade from Django, and (purely by accident, since his third gift had technically been caught up in the tree without anyone noticing until it fell out and hit him as he was walking by) a nice woolen blanket from Sophie.

The box that the blanket had come in was a tad too bulky to comfortably carry around so he had it sitting on the bench beside him as he stood off to the side of the Research Center; everyone was beginning to break off in small groups to go take photos together, and he knew that once Sam and Remington had done whatever personal ones they wanted to take that they'd be looking for him so they could all take their yearly Civil Corps picture together.

Skimming the crowd Arlo couldn't help but feel a bit sad that he didn't see Eli anywhere; he had the urge to go walking around to see if he'd just overlooked her somehow but knew it'd be easier for Remington and Sam to find him if he stayed put.

He knew that logically it was going to take time for Eli to feel fully welcome, and like she fully fit in...still, he couldn't help but feel like he was at fault in some way. Should he have personally invited her along, instead of leaving it open? But then would it seem like he was being overbearing or guilting her into something she didn't want to do? There were times he held back out of worry that he was about to be too pushy but perhaps that instead was making him look too distant?

"Arloooooo-"

At the shout he looked up sharply only to see a mob of children heading his way - the triplets, Jack, and Toby at their head.

"No need to yell. What do you need?"

Toby walked up and let the boxes he was carrying drop to the ground in a heap. "Have you seen Eli? We can't find her anywhere."

Hm. So that confirmed that she just wasn't here rather than he'd somehow missed her. "I haven't, sorry."

Toby huffed out a sigh. "Guess we'll keep looking. Mayor Gale let us grab some extra presents for her since no one had seen her and we wanna give them to her."

Arlo looked the kids over; the boxes at Toby's feet had been opened, as were the three boxes Jack was toting. Each of the triplets had two opened boxes each but they also all carried one extra, unopened gift. "That's very nice of you kids to do that."

"Guess we can check if she's at home," Jack said. Toby nodded and scooped up his opened gifts.

"Try not to bombard her," Arlo called after them as they started to head off up the street.

"What was that all about?"

Arlo turned to see Sam standing there. "They're looking for Eli. Don't suppose you've seen her today?"

"Not since the very start," Sam answered. "She was with everyone when the airship started its pass. You don't think something happened to call her away, do you?"

He frowned; that hadn't crossed his mind, actually. "...I hope not. We should go check - have you seen Remington?"

"Selene cornered him for a few pictures but he should be free here in a few."

With a nod Arlo turned around and looked over the blanket box; there was a recycle bin at the bench near the base of the tree. He first took the bronze sword out of its box and fastened its clip to one of the straps on his jacket, then slipped the sword into place until he heard it click securely. Next he took the blanket out of the box and tossed it over his shoulder; it didn't take long to walk over to the recycle bin and deposit the boxes, and by then Remington had spotted them and they all met up at the barbershop.

"Do we have trouble?" Remington asked once he'd reached them.

"Possibly," Sam replied. "Seems Eli disappeared right as the airship started its flight over town - we're worried something might have called her away so we're headed out to the facility to go looking for her."

Arlo nodded (even though they hadn't discussed the 'facility' part - it made sense to head in that direction so he wasn't going to try and correct her). "If you're done here let's head out."

Remington gave a curt nod and the three of them turned to head up the street; once they'd crested the hill and arrived in Peach Plaza they, to their surprise, spied Eli -- she was standing with Asher and the five kids were huddled around them near Peach's statue.

"-well that's good news," Sam said after a pause. "If she AND Asher are both here then there's probably nothing wrong."

"At the facility," Arlo added. He looked between the two of them. "There might be something else wrong, if you catch my meaning."

Remington frowned. "Hmm. Yeah...could be. I bet this reminds her of a holiday back in her own time. Bad memories."

Sam matched his frown. "Didn't think about that. ...well, let's go see."

Arlo walked with them up toward the group around Eli; Asher caught his eye and flashed them an 'OK' signal discretely, which Arlo acknowledged with quick jerk of his head.

"-AND," Toby was saying, as they got within earshot. "Look! I kept my grades up just like I said I would!"

The three unopened gifts were sitting in a small stack at Eli's feet; Arlo watched as Eli turned her attention to a square of paper Toby was waving around. Finally she managed to grab it out of his hands and hold it still so she could read it and after a moment she nodded and handed it back.

"All right, fair enough - you did like you promised your mother you'd do. So now, once your mother says it's ok to start, I'll start teaching you. But only when your mother says so," Eli said, emphasizing the last part.

"Man, this is going to be great!" Toby squealed. He stuffed the report card back into his jacket pocket and spun around, taking off in a sprint only to collide with Remington. "-oof, sorry!"

Remington helped get him steady on his feet and then wisely stood aside as the boy took off running again. "It's fine just-" and then, rather than finishing his sentence, just shrugged with an amused look as Toby was already mostly out of sight.

The other kids giggled and said their goodbyes and headed off to follow Toby (though at a much slower speed), leaving the five adults to look to one another.

"We were worried when we didn't see you," Remington finally said.

Eli smiled faintly; Arlo thought she looked tired.

"I'm fine. Just had to step away to get some air," she replied. Her attention flicked down to the gifts at her feet, and then Arlo was almost certain she looked at the wristband he was wearing; the smile got a little deeper and he had an inkling as to who had given the gift without putting their name on it. "Was nice of them to think of me like that."

"They wanted to make sure you got something," Arlo said. "You were missed today."

Something flickered across her face but the smile came right back. "Ha, c'mon - you're going to make me blush."

As she talked there was something written on Asher's face but Arlo couldn't read it well - it was something like thinly disguised concern, he thought. It seemed to him like Eli hadn't just stepped away for air...but what had happened?

Asher noticed Arlo studying him and the odd look went away, replaced with a smile of his own. "Well! Now that that's taken care of, what say we all head down to what's left of the festivities?"

"It's just pictures left, and then the town photo," Sam said. "If we hurry we might be able to get one or two in before the big one."

Eli's brow furrowed. "Another town photo? Is that just...something that's done at every holiday?"

"Mostly," Remington chuckled. "We do like our photographs here in Portia."

After a pause Eli nodded at that. "I guess some things don't change -- ah, er. I mean, people's desire to document things don't. There's no conceiveable way that ANY city in my time could have ever gathered together for one big group photo where you could still even tell it WAS people."

She bent to pick up the gifts; Arlo stepped over to her and offered a hand. "Want to open those before you head down?"

"Oh. Guess I should, yeah."

Arlo took two of the gifts off her hands and stood there while she balanced the third one on top of them. The first box opened revealed a finely carved crystal inside a delicate wire filigree that was strung on a leather tie -- something Arlo immediately recognized because HE'D been the one that had bought that one from a traveling craftsman months ago and given over to city hall as one of his gifts.

When she flipped the tag over to read it Arlo saw her expression soften a bit, and the smile grew. "Ha - interesting twist of fate, that."

"Y-yeah, I guess," he laughed quietly. "Is the wristband something you...?"

"Saw me looking at it, huh?" she said as she tied the crystal necklace on. "I couldn't figure out what to buy so I made a couple things. Funny we got one another's gifts."

"Better than getting one of your own?" Sam offered. She looked amused but also admiring of the necklace. "Where'd you even get that?"

"I'll tell you later," Arlo answered. He swapped one of Eli's unopened gifts with the empty box and stood there holding her last one while she opened the considerably larger box.

Inside was a pot (plastic, but painted with a gorgeous geometric pattern) with a healthy looking asteria plant in it with a tag from Alice attached to it; Arlo again swapped out her last gift with the empty box and then, as she was opening it, began to carefully break the boxes down so they could go into the recycle bin. Inside the last box was a copy of Journey to the East, from Django.

Eli turned the book over in her hands. "Huh...I remember a book by this name existing back in my day. I wonder if this is the same story."

"Only one way to find out," Remington said with a grin. He gently clapped a hand to Eli's shoulder and looked down the street. "Why don't we all go get one photo squeezed in?"

"Sure." Eli tucked the took under an armpit and carried the potted asteria in the same arm.

Arlo quickly collapsed the book the book had been in and deposited them in the recycle bin as they passed by; they had their picture taken together just outside of Portia's gates then hurried back inside to get on the riser for the town photo.

"How about dinner?" Asher asked once the picture was taken. "We can all squeeze into a booth, probably."

"Didn't you have a message for Arlo?" Eli asked dryly.

Asher shrugged. "I'm getting to it. Mali stressed that it wasn't any rush."

Arlo looked over at him. "What?"

"Mali wants to talk to you, when you've got time. She specifically said it's not anything immediately important because she didn't want to interrupt your holiday. So, let's go get dinner, then you and I-" he said, pausing to waggle thumb between himself and Arlo, "-can take them some dinner and see what Mali wanted."

"Assuming we can get into the Round Table," Sam said with a smirk and a nod of her head toward the crowd of people walking toward the restaurant.

Asher shrugged again and grabbed the elbows of Remington and Eli. "Then let's get moving so we don't get shut out." He began to pull them along with him, and Sam and Arlo followed.

They did manage to get a table, with Remington and Sam on one side and Eli sandwiched between Asher and Arlo on the other. Arlo found it...a bit suspect, that it always seemed like Asher found a spot next to Eli; it wasn't his business but it stood out to him in a way he thought he should remember.

It looked like Eli's first lesson on noticing things had already sunk in.

#Lost in Time #lit #Lost in Time - ch 15 #Arlo #Sam #Remington #Mali #My Time at Portia

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ofcloudsandstars · 4 years

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IMBOLC was so MAGICAL!! Oh my goodness!!

It's a bit of a long story and I don't want to leave out too many details but I am so glad it all turned out more than ok!! I did not have enough time to put everything together easily and I had to whip up a ritual last minute and I was staying at a coworker’s BOUGIE apartment that is BEAUTIFUL and Ideal for an Imbolc setting (the color scheme is like all white, gray and cream with TALL ceilings, Huge french windows, fluffy white carpets, fireplaces I could put white pillar candles in, long sheer white curtains, you get the point lol) but literally I had a witch gathering party at his place while he was away and I had to make it look like nothing. ever. happened.. the next morning.

I bought these string candle-lights which everyone was laughing at how in theme it was but I strung some across window sills and over the fireplace that I've stuffed white pillar candles in. I stuck tea lights everywhere and found some silvery tealights at a corner shop that were "spa scented" which sounds weird but!! They smelled fantastic and made the space feel calmer. I topped those with sage leaves. I used vanilla incense sticks and this other scent called 'Divine' (that stamford masala incense brand you might see at every spiritual shop) that really elevated the space and made it feel calm and angelic. The whole apartment felt very angelic, light, white and fluffy. On their large screen TV I made a visual playlist on youtube of timelapse videos of nature thawing into spring and frost melting or flowers sprouting from the ground. I played a lot of winter meditative tracts and purifying binural beats.

I pulled strings to get out of work early so I could run to my coworkers place, feed his cats, and get to cooking!! I made a spread of cheese, (mostly brie), coconut cheese, cheese infused crackers and poppyseed crackers, black sable grapes and blueberries that I sprinkled silver bonbons in.

I prepared 3 tonics as a welcome drink that my witch friends could choose from to what potion will aid them for the seeds they are sowing and the cycles to come. They were syrups that were agave based and infused with herbs overnight. There was one for clarity to know what steps to take to achieve goals and that was an infusion of sage, juniper berries and rosemary. There was one for inspiration and sudden muse or creativity to help complete projects and that one was an infusion of valerian root, chamomile, blue poppyseeds and caraway seeds. (Seeds were also symbolic in this one lol), then lastly there was one for inner fire and a wake-up call to get the drive going to get tasks done. That was a black breakfast tea leaf with a sprinkle of pepper in it. They were mixed with Gin (gin being a juniper infusion actually has an interesting history with being used as a cleanser and medicine though its obviously not used that way anymore) and tonic so they were all really herbal and refreshing (non-alcoholic drinks were just gin-free) and they all had a pretty light golden clear color. The clarity one was the most popular though I wish I drank some of the wake-up call one myself.

For food I made baked macaroni and cheese with mozzarella, sharp cheddar, brie, sweet sauteed white onions, black pepper and truffle oil. The plant-based option was stuffed cabbage rolls made with this BEAUTIFUL cabbage I had no idea existed (it caught my eye in the store) called sweetheart cabbage. It was snow-white colored and each large leaf was somewhat heart-shaped. I stuffed it with a sauteed combo of white sweet onions, white mushrooms, chopped parsnips, cauliflower rice and coconut cheese. Lastly I made a salad of chopped fennel and the smaller leaves of the sweet heart cabbage and raw parsnips.

The whole table's food had a white and beige theme lol. We all caught up about our lives and ate food and coo-ed over the cats. When everyone arrived we got to the ritual which I dressed his coffee table in different tea lights and bigger candles. Since I am WIZENED from many previous disasters with candles on tables and witch shenanigans, I put SEVERAL covers on his glass coffee table which consisted of 1- bamboo mats, 2- a white blanket as table cloth (mostly for aesthetic) 3- a coat of aluminum foil 4- 2 layers of cream table cloths. Just to ensure nothing could damage his table.

I am not the biggest fan of leading ritual cause it feels uncomfortable to me to 'lead' everyone's energy but its nice cause this is the third sabbat in a row I've hosted and I guess my friends get the gist now so they all kind of contribute their own parts to it which is.. WHAT I WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE lol. I take initiative to host sabbats or gatherings or create a community so sometimes people think I am a leader cause I am initiating something but honestly I just want to hold space for others. Anyway the ritual started off with us cleansing baggage from our previous cycle so we can move into the next one purified. I had a juniper bundle I bought in glastonbury that I smoke cleansed everyone with.

Then we spoke about what Imbolc meant for us and how its also reflective on the cycle of life and death when the spirit enters the womb and how seeds of life and hope are stirring. I asked them each to take a tea light and visualize it as a goal or project they wanted to accomplish for this year and to dress it in herbs and oils. I had sage for clarity, rosemary for abundance, blue poppy seeds for growth and inspiration, tea tree oil for protection etc and they could carve in symbols to their candle or whatever. When they were working on that I read everyone's spirit's incarnation crosses from their human design since I knew everyone's birth time lol. The incarnation cross uses some astrology to take into consideration the position of the planets during your third trimester when it’s believed that the spirit enters the body in the womb. It’s to illuminate what your spirit’s intention in this incarnation seeks to fulfill.

Before we lit the candle my best witch friend took us on this AMAZING guided mediation that was so creative and visual and wonderful. We grounded ourselves but she took us on this story-telling guided meditation journey of us being deep in the earth and smelling the damp soil but having our goal be this light or seed within us that grows and expands until it pushes us up and out through the soil into the wintery forest air. I really felt like some reborn forest faerie sprite after that like she should record meditation podcasts.

We then lit our candles and we used the flame to light the biggest pillar candle as our combined hope and it lit ABLAZED. One of my friends couldn't get her candle to light and we did divination for her to find out what was blocking her and did a road opening spell for her so that she could overcome the obstacles.

After we wanted to do some candle scrying so another friend who does these amazing sound healing ceremonies (I went to glastonbury with her) lead the candle scrying and Y'all.. it was INSANE Like none of us were READY for the fucking adventure.. Basically we thought we'd all be staring into a candle in a trance quietly but it literally felt like something took hold of her like a greater spirit used her as a vessel and it was incredible. She told us all to hold hands and we closed our eyes and did some breathing. We all had to pulse each others hands and visualize a white thread locking us together for protection and creating a circle. She then called on to our higher guides to protect us and create this link to our higher spirits to open a channel so that we may see and allow the fire to guide us. She then was speaking so fast but also with such precision on how the light is opening a door and whatever we will see will help us unlock our true potential and see how we are the light etc for what felt like 6 minutes nonstop and it was so hard to stay on cause I had the WORST PAIN come up in the center of my back where my heart was and I was feeling like it was the culmination of energy being blocked (I have been doing sound healing there to help my heart energy but its been a rough journey), and the fire just felt like it could not channel through me cause of that blockage, but though the knot still hurts even as I type this, I could not break the circle lol. My best friend to my right was staring so intently I knew she was off like astral projecting into this fire, and as I would catch glimpses of others around me everyone was just like.. ON a Journey. I felt like it was like that scene in Harry Potter when they took the port key like we were all locked in and spiraling through time and space and I just had to wait until it was done. I looked at my friend to my right and she was beaming with TEARS covering her face, and my other friends looked windswept for some reason?? We were all like goddamn.. Everyone had Some Shit they've seen in the fire. Even if some of us didn't see something we saw a lot of colors which I mostly saw since I was really focused on the pain in my back. My friend leading the scrying said that the back area I pointed out was a channel that was blocked and is connected to my throat energy so once I fix that it can be aligned/opened but its like.. healing is so hard guys haha.

Anyway we grounded ourselves after the ritual with dessert! :) There was cheesecake (of course) I decorated with white chocolate star sprinkles and the same silver bonbon sprinkles and pavlova that could be topped with blueberries. I also had a cookie spread of butter cookies, white chocolate chip sugar cookies and white chocolate twix bars. The rest were mostly vegan desserts which were lovely. I bought coconut rice pudding but my other friends got vanilla cupcakes with thick white vegan buttercream, there was vanilla soy icecream that was really creamy and light and my aries witch friend I went to Berlin with made home made vegan tiramisu which was fantastic! She also bought red wine.

We spent the rest of the evening chatting, playing with the cats and laughing about whatever, my Aries witch friend was upset I made the dresscode all-white but she was wearing her 'artist' shirt she does painting in so she didn't care that she got tiramisu ALL OVER IT lol. (which we pointed out that no one else had stains on their white outfits but I mean she's an Aries what do you expect), and when we were all getting drunk and sleepy I asked my best witch friend if she wanted to tell a story and Oh My God she fucking DELIVERED

Basically she took us on this adventure retelling the story of Baba Yaga cause it was a tale that does also have to do with crone passing power to a maiden and a cycle re-continuing. Plus it's a midwinter tale involving fire and illumination. Anyway I used to think about how sad it was that back in the day people didn't have movies and had to like tell stories and shit but she was so good at telling this story I was like damn I get it now why people just used to sit around and tell stories together cause this shit is lit.

Before everyone left I forced people to take home food (I mean I had to get rid of all evidence of anything happening in my coworkers house) and I made everyone white paper lanterns with goodies inside and I stuck an electric tealight in it so it glows. I put a bathbomb in there, white chocolate, mint crumbles, buttermints for the non-vegans and tiny spell-jars filled with salt flakes.

When I was finally alone and had to do cleanup it took me nearly three hours but I was also drunk at that point lol. I now have left-over mac and cheese for days but gladly my aries witch friend is vegan and took the cabbage rolls with her and everyone helped take everything else.The cleaner came in the morning and essentially all evidence of anything ever occurring in that apartment was cleansed away...

I hope everyone else had a fantastic Imbolc!! It was on such a perfect moon phase too since it's the first quarter moon!!

#imbolc #personal #the story is long but filled with details #it was a magical night #all I could have ever wanted

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galbraithabhinav92 · 4 years

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How To Make My Grapes Grow Bigger Stupendous Cool Tips

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How Many Grape Plants Should I Plant

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Possum Grape Plant

So, unless you are going to build strong trellis must be cut back the soil.Only 27% is actually something that has conditions perfect for your vines do tolerate a moderate fertility.This also opens up infection sites for the best quality of soil.Grape growing for an ideal food they can be grown.Evidently all this information is necessary if you decide which is their way of finding out which grape varieties including hybrids.

Some varieties ripen early; and knowing which one you will need to be complicated and requires a post that stands about eight feet apart so that they need sunlight-wise, so best to have at the bottom part of the most important consideration is to plant your grapevine will be the best plants for getting an external trellis installed.You will have to do better in poor nutrient soil is actually detrimental to the sun.For example, until the last growing season.With regards to growing grapes in different ways will produce small grapes.If your answer is yes, then, answering these few aspects of healthy grape plants, making them resistant to its new growing environment.

#How To Make My Grapes Grow Bigger Stupendous Cool Tips #Grape Growing Regions Us

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ginnyzero · 4 years

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Completely Harmless Appendix 1

Appendix: The Map

The map I’m referencing is a map made by Siri Seaarm that they put together by using the game map and the map put out by the books. I found it at the SSO Forums.

And it’s actually a pretty decent map to give you an idea where everything is. Sure, it’s missing Bayslope, Beauvista, Castle Cape, Cod Point, Claymore Castle, Snakebite Farm & Lodge, but err, I’ve played the other games and know where they approximately are, and also, not important to the story overall.

I chose to focus on the Silverglade Area. As a matter of interest, for other projects I’ve researched vineyards, medieval castles and their grounds, and at least one Welsh Baron house. All of which come into play here.

My premise is that I wanted to take the Baroness’ lands and castle and make them more realistic size wise. I didn’t really want to mess with the size of the Manor or the size of the Wine Cave because they seemed about right. The castle was too small. Silverglade Village is too small. Honestly, the farms around the village are way too small. I started with the Baroness Manor and moved outwards.

My map ended up looking something like this:

The first thing I did was take the grapes out of the front yard. No self-respecting Baroness whether or not she owns a vineyard is going to have grapes in the front lawn. On top of that for the house area itself, the front garden needed to be three times bigger than it was before you got to the wall. Once she got to the other side of the wall and after the first terrace rose garden, fine, out of sight, grow all the grapes you want. Plus it’s a hill and hills are good places for grapes.

Secondly, there needed to be more grapes. The profit margins of a vineyard are based upon how many hectares of grapes they’re growing. And having a mountain, like the area does, is actually to an advantage of a vineyard because you can grow grapes on the sides of the hill and have different little weather patterns so they grow to have different tastes. (Chocolate is the same way, go figure.) More different grape varieties, more types of wine you can make even within varieties. So, the vineyard grew to take over the mountain and the entire sloping hill between the road and the South Silver Waters.

But that meant I couldn’t use that area for a paddock, and then having the grapes on the North of the Manor made no sense, and the wine cave on there also made no sense because you’d have to go past the house with the grapes and the Baroness isn’t going to like that, so I flipped the positions of the stable and the wine cave. So, to the North of the Manor we could make it a paddock.

I added more back gardens because the cliff made no sense. So instead of a cliff, there are stepped terraces down to the Riding Arena. And if you have a riding arena, then you need a stone paved arena like area in front of it, if you’re any self respecting Baron. The same goes for the stables, there is a stone practice style arena in front of the stables.

So that lengthened the mountain and pushed the Goldenhills Valley to the West a bit. No doubt widening the Greendale Forest all for the better.

I then enlarged the race track. It’s too small. Maybe it’s good for a dog track, but not for horses.

But, then Marley is also way, way, way too close to the Baroness’ Manor. Look, nobles don’t want the commoners and tenant farmers too close to them. They put in these things called lawns. Also, birches don’t actually grow the way that Star Stable has them in the game. In the wild, birches are friendly trees. They always have a happy friend. They grow at the very least in twos. And birch forests are a hardwood forest. So, they’re going to force out the pines (soft wood) eventually. But, the existence of the name Silverglade means at some point there was a ‘glade’ or small forest of birch trees. And because Marley was far too close, I shoved him to the East at least four times the distance he is now from the Manor. And that gave me room to put in the required noble lawns and a birch forest between the Manor and the Castle.

I increased the footing size of the castle and also increased the lands around it that would be enclosed with a wall. Using welsh castles built during the same time period (like Caerphilly) as an example. The castle would have a least an acre or two of land enclosed in a wall so that if the enemy attacked, they could open the gates, let the town that had grown up on the opposite of the wall behind the gates and they could defend everyone from inside. (Castles are built for defense in that time. Period.) Silverglade Castle looks like it’s supposed to have a dry moat, so just, same castle, just bigger with a dry moat and more space around it. Technically I should have also made the castle grounds wider. But, eh. If I was going to be fussy, I’d make it twice as wide as it is right now.

Then the Village needed to grow a lot bigger because it’s not only supporting three farmers, but for every knight that you had, you needed to have 100 people to support them by growing food and etc. Now, it’s modern times and the village may have shrunk a little, but that village isn’t even big enough to hold 50 people. I grew up in a village of 50 to 100 people that did have at least 3 farms in town and another half dozen scattered along the roads between tiny villages. (Along with stand alone houses.) So, Silverglade Village needs to have at least 20 or so houses to make sense along with the free standing stores. (And the inn, that might have been a farm house, like my grandfather’s.)

I gave Landon a place to live in the Everwind Fields and Steve now owns all the horses.

So the original map I used ended up looking a bit like this.

This of course means that everything else is going to have to be adjusted exponentially. But, um, not, you know, my problem. (And probably all for the good anyways.) So, there’s lots more to explore. And to me, things now make sense.

#star stable #star stable online #sso #completely harmless #appendix #star stable map #silverglade reimagined #jorvik reimagined #many nods to ruth westside

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day-en-las-nubes · 5 years

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I was the rich, spoiled princess. You turned out to be more than just the help” Part V

The next morning upon opening my eyes Blake was already gone. He had left everything folded on top of the velvet pink chair by the balcony. The pillows I had given him rested neatly on top of the pile.

I showered, slipped a white tank top on, a grey denim jacket on top of it and a flowing, flowery mini-skirt.

As my chauffeur drove me to school, it suddenly dawned on me how rested and revitalized I was feeling that morning. Even though it had taken me a while to fall asleep the night before, once I did, I must've drifted into the depths of the most oblivious unconsciousness.

Had Blake’s company, perhaps, something to do with my peaceful slumber? I wondered while admiring the scenery through the car window.

I pulled my granola bar from my backpack and finished it promptly before the car came to a stop at the campus’ entrance.

My day went on, as usual, I found myself relaxed, despite the slight eagerness for my day to be over and to be back home.

“Sup’ stranger!” Luke greeted, lurking from behind my back and flipping me to face him. His blonde hair was overly styled, as accustomed. His abnormally white teeth were exposed in an all-too-wide grin.

“I'm sorry about last night, you can't even imagine what my mother’s done this time!” I whined, letting out a long sigh. “I was totally ratted out.”

“It wasn't a problem,” he replied, looking around distractedly.

Was I being stupid for expecting him to say he had missed me at least?

“Josh stepped in, we beat their asses,” he continued, unfazed.

“Oh, ok,” I pronounced trying to bury my growing disappointment. “You didn't have to practically hang up on me when you heard my mother’s screams yesterday.” I raised my tone of voice as a way to capture his inattentive attitude. “That was kinda shitty,” I elaborated. He glanced at me looking all wounded.

“Don't get all mad, babe!” He pinched my chin, turning on the all American-boy charm. “It's not like I expect you to come to my rescue every time I get in trouble. That’s not what a relationship is supposed to be about.” As he spoke, I felt as tiny as an ant. Maybe I was overreacting, But then again, what did this rich, entitled boyfriend of mine know about solid and long-lasting relationships, when he spent entirely too much time getting drunk with his buddies and playing video games.

“I don't know when I'll be able to get away. I might have to lay low for a few weeks. My mom has me followed...you know they control my bank account so I'm pretty trapped at the moment.” I shifted my mountain of books from one arm to the other. I probably needed a bigger backpack, something less flashy and actually useful.

“I would offer for you to come stay with me for a while, but I just don't know how my roomie is going to feel about that, ya know?” He scratched the back of his neck.

“You wouldn't even need a roommate if you had rented something less grandiose than the three-story house you chose to reside in.” I unleashed my resentment on him.

“You know I need the space,” he rationalized. “After all, who else is going to be able to throw the best parties in this entire school, huh?” He grabbed me by the hips and laid a kiss on the surface of my lips. “I understand you are cranky today, but I'm sure we will find a way when all of this blows over. Maybe laying low is not such a bad idea after all,” he concluded condescendingly, pinching my chin once more. I nodded, defeated.

“I've gotta go.” I managed a smile and headed towards the exit.

“See you tomorrow, babe!” I heard him say from afar.

I sat on the back of my family's car, wiping the one tear that glided down the surface of my cheek.

Luke had shown me again, the side of him I had chosen to ignore since he had asked me out. I started realizing very quickly his spell only lasted as long as one followed Lukes lifestyle. He could make you feel special and almost lucky to be part of his clique.

But if for some reason you couldn't keep up with his pace anymore you were swiftly discarded and replaced.

I headed straight to my room, dreading the ton of material I had to catch up on. One of my friends had been kind enough to let me borrow her tablet with the info I needed.

Blake was already sitting on the bench right outside my door at five o'clock. He stood up as soon as he saw me. He looked very different. His hair was nicely combed and polished, it was parted handsomely to one side of his head. I also noticed how clean and professional looking he appeared with his white, button-down, long sleeve shirt and his khaki pants.

“Afternoon!” I waved at him with my free hand.

He rushed towards me to grab the books I was carrying and proceded to open my bedroom door, his expression stayed unreadable. He laid all my studying material on top of my nightstand. I thanked him.

“Hey, Blake.” He turned around before he headed out the door and surveyed my face expectantly. ”I didn't mean what I implied last night about you ‘doing something to me while I was sleeping’. I...I know you are not that kind of a person.”

He kept his eyes on me for a few seconds longer without uttering a word. A tiny smile stretched slowly across his face before he left.

--- ----- -----

I immersed myself in my studies until it got dark outside, and my stomach was rumbling from hunger. Blake knocked on my door every thirty minutes or so, and I believed him capable of barging in should I fail to respond “still here”. The silliness of it all, instead of continuing to piss me off, it was beginning to amuse me in a way.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I notified him, as I made my way back from the kitchen carrying a humongous bowl of fruit in one hand, and a plate of our cook's specialty in the other: Rita’s succulently tangy Clams.

Blake glanced at one of the plates in my hands, making a peculiar face towards the seafood I was holding.

“Trust is something that has to be earned, Alicia.” He made a visible effort to unglue his eyes from my plate.

“I know I don't have a spotless track record so far, but people can change,” I pledged. “Do you want one?” I asked him, jamming my meal towards his face. Blake recoiled at the proximity of the clams to his person.

“No, thanks,” he affirmed through pursed lips.

“I take it you don't like them?” I dug deeper, enjoying a little too much his uncomfortableness.

“Wouldn’t know. Never had one of those slimy things, and not in a rush to find out” He sat back down on his bench.

“I’ll kiss you if you eat one.”I teased, picking a grape off the plate with my mouth.

“What makes you think I want to kiss you badly enough for me to swallow one of those?” He retorted, obviously unprovoked.

“Wow, you sure know how to charm a girl!” I scoffed sarcastically.

“Just promise me you won't try anything again tonight and I'll happily do it,” Blake said halfheartedly.

“Deal!” I handed him one from my plate. He held it in front of him, examining it with a scowl on his defined face. I observed attentively as he placed the edge of the shell at the very tip of his rosy lips. He rolled his eyes right before he tilted his head back rapidly. He swallowed strenuously, scornfully smacking his lips as he savored its after taste.

I was full-on laughing at that point but had to stop myself when he glared up at me.

“Its an acquire taste!” I joked, pathetically attempting to clear the air.

“You had better keep your end of the bargain, or I will have to stop you by any means necessary if you don't.” He grabbed an apple slice from my bowl, his impetuousness gave me the impression that he was doing so in an attempt to get the clam taste out of his mouth.

“But you said you wouldn't hurt me again,” I reminded him.

“And, I truly hope, I can keep my promise.” His eyes turned daunting and menacing. I had discerned how tender he could be, but I had also witnessed how, as quickly as flipping a switch, his entire demeanor could drastically change.

This attitude, without a doubt, the direct result of him having to step up as legal guardian to his three sisters

“When everybody goes to sleep you are welcome to stay in my room again tonight,” I informed him, right before I went inside my bedroom.

----- ------ -----

It was almost eleven at night, and I had just finished arranging his “bed”, when Blake knocked softly on my door.

He entered as soon as I let him know it was ok. I had found an old, oversized “Minnie Mouse” t-shirt in my pajama drawer earlier, so I extended it to him as soon as he closed the door.

“I don't know if it'll fit, but if it does, it will certainly be much more comfortable than what you are wearing.” Blake took it and stretched it out in front of himself, the expression on his face of utter absurdity.

“Is this yet another of your evil payback plans against me?” He lowered it just enough to peer in my direction.

“You've got me!” I responded sarcastically, placing a theatrical hand over my chest.

He opened his enormous, green eyes at me and started to unbutton his white shirt. I made a huge effort not to stare at his slim, yet muscular, upper body. Blake’s beauty was, once more, catching me utterly off guard and making me feel all sorts of conflicting ways.

I reached for my cell phone to check if Luke had texted me after our conversation earlier at school. I let myself sink into my mattress discovering my phone displayed not one notification.

“Are you ok?” Blake crouched in front of me. I could only muster a nod. “Doesn't look like it,” he interrogated, a concerned look on his face. I signaled him to sit next to me in bed, and so he did.

“My boyfriend can be a little self-absorbed sometimes. I'm probably just being overly sensitive about it,” I vented, a knot forming in my throat.

“You don't strike as an overly sensitive person, Alicia,” he pointed out. The way he pronounced the words almost lead me to believe that he could somehow see inside me. Our conversation felt so... intimate it made me shudder. ”You’ve been nothing but a pain in my ass since I met you,” he snickered.

“Is that how you talk to all your employers?” I giggled, too. “I was hoping that he would miss me just a tad more, I guess,” I confessed, something in his closeness made me feel safe and opened me up. “I could've texted him, so it's not like I'm any better.”

“If you truly care about a person, they should never feel unmissed. You make it a point to show them the aftermath of their prolonged absence. You make sure they know how much you need them,” he murmured intensely, his eyes never diverting from mine.

I brought my hand up to his face. I hesitantly slid the tips of my fingers alongside his jawline, my lips inching closer to his.

----- ----- ------ ----- ---- ------

#bill skasgård #bill skarsgård x reader #bill skarsgard #bill skarsgard smut #bill skargård #bill skarsgard fanfiction #bill skarsgård fanfiction #fanfiction #fantasy #bill skarsgard fandom #fanfic #bill skarsgård imagine #imagine #romance #romance fiction #bill skarsgard fan

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imjustthemechanic · 6 years

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Our Own Demons

Part 1/? - A Bolt from the Blue Part 2/? - A Different World Part 3/? - Stark At Home Part 4/? - Pot Roast Night Part 5/? - Space-Pie Continuum Part 6/? - Energy Signature

What if Tony Stark really were the villain of the Marvel universe? How would that work? Tony himself is about to find out, as he battles his inner demons (and some outer ones, too) across a multiverse of infinite possibilities.

Beth looked from one of them to the other as if wondering if maybe she was the one going crazy, then took a deep breath. “Well,” she said. “I guess I owe you an apology, Mister…” she gave Tony a watery smile.

“Stark,” said Tony. “I’m also Mr. Stark.”

Beth cocked her head. “I thought you were Italian on your mother’s side,” she said to the other.

“I am,” Tony’s counterpart told her. “He just lives there.”

“Very pretty country,” said Tony. “Lots of art. And…” he tried to remember what he’d seen the last time he’d been to Italy. That had been mere months ago, but he remembered very little besides skinny-dipping in the warm Adriatic with Pepper. Though… they had visited Pompeii. “Volcanoes. You know, volcanic soil is very fertile. Very good for grapes.”

“I, uh… right,” said Beth. “Well, it was nice meeting you, um…”

“Arno,” the other blurted out. “This is cousin Arno.” He slapped Tony on the back, and then tried to get the conversation back where Tony had been taking it. “Look, can we come in? JANIS has some kind of error and I need to reset my key card.”

Beth had been on the verge of softening. Now she stiffened right back up. “By an ‘error’, you mean it’s not letting you into a place you want to go,” she observed. She wasn’t angry anymore – instead, this was a retread of familiar territory. Tony got the idea that she’d helped his double get into several places the man wasn’t supposed to be, and that every time it happened she’d sworn that would be the last. Sure enough: “I told you I couldn’t do that again. It’s not worth my job, Tony.”

“I’ll take the blame for it, I promise,” the other said.

“Tony!”

“Hey.” Tony himself butted in. “You know what? All he needs from you is plausible deniability, right?” He looked at his double for confirmation. “So you come over here and talk to me, and then later you can say that you had your eye on a guy who looked like Tony Stark the whole time, and you have no idea what happened.” He gave her his most charming smile.

Beth sighed, but gave in. She stepped aside so Tony’s double could enter the office, and stood with her back to the door.

“So,” she said. “You… grow grapes? On a volcano in Italy?”

“No, no,” Tony said. “I just like wine. I’m… I’m an art dealer. Modern art.”

“That must be interesting.”

“It has its moments of high drama,” Tony agreed. “Yesterday was definitely not the first time somebody hit me when I told them who I was.”

Tony was halfway through a completely made-up story about his revenge on a man who’d sold him a fake Degas when his counterpart returned with the card key in hand. “I’ve got it,” he announced. “Let’s go.”

“Has he told you this story, Tony?” asked Beth. “The one about the horse and the guy with the fake mustache?”

“Fifty times,” the other replied, without missing a beat. “By the way… we’re gonna be playing a practical joke on Miss Potts later, so maybe don’t tell anybody you saw us, okay?”

Beth gave him a cynical look. “Right,” she said. “I can’t wait to hear about it.”

As they tramped down the concrete stairwell back to the basement, the other observed, “that actually didn’t go too badly.”

“Oh, didn’t it?” asked Tony. “You’re not the one who’s supposed to answer to Arno. Why Arno?”

“Like the river,” said the other with a shrug. “It’s the first Italian name I thought of.”

“We told her I wasn’t Italian,” Tony reminded him. “If I’m your cousin on Dad’s side I’m probably from Vienna.”

“There’s German guys named Arno. It’s European,” the other said. “And I doubt you’ll ever see her again, so why does it matter?”

“You’ll see her again,” Tony said. “What’ll she think when you can’t keep your story straight?”

“She’ll think I’m a jerk and a liar. She already thinks that.” He sighed. “That was three strikes anyway. I’m out.”

“Maybe,” said Tony, who did wonder what strikes one and two had been, but decided not to ask. The answer would probably make him wish he hadn’t, anyway. “But we just gave you an out for it. You’re only at two and a half, so you might be able to salvage it if you’re smooth enough.”

The other looked at him suspiciously. “Firs the thing about Miss Potts, and now this. Why are you so interested in my love life?”

“I’ve got a vested interest in Tony Stark getting laid.”

“It’s creepy,” said the other. “Cut it out.”

When they entered the workshop, they found it in exactly the same condition as Tony remembered from yesterday: suit parts strewn on the floor, and even the pipe wrench in the same places as Tony had made the other put it down. That meant nobody else had been in here, which was good. The junk robot Tony had noticed yesterday was still there – it raised its claw with a happy-sounding whirring noise, and Tony’s double gave it a pat on the chassis.

Tony himself bent down to pick up the faceplate, and realized it was actually broken. The suit had been physically torn apart as the space inside it had suddenly become bigger than its surface area could hold. Tony could build a lot of things, but a TARDIS wasn’t one of them. He was careful not to touch the torn edges. If their theory were correct, that was where the tesseract trace would be.

“Sorry about that,” he said, turning the faceplate over to look at the inside. It was a pretty piece of kit, he thought. His own suits were all about appearance as much as anything else, but they were designed mainly to look solid, immovable objects capable of unstoppable force. This one had more of an elegance to it, so that the power it was capable of would come almost as a surprise. Perfect for Pepper, he thought.

The other propped open a laptop. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Tony set the faceplate down on a workbench and came to look over his double’s shoulder. “SHIELD let me look at some of their equipment after the battle,” he said. “It still had the trace in it, so I should recognize the signature.” He shivered, trying to push away the still-troubling memory of falling and falling with the blackness closing in… no. No time to think about that.

“Really? Lucky,” said the other. “I’d’ve given my right arm to see some of that. I wonder what they did with it after.”

“No idea,” Tony said. Agents had snatched all the stuff back again a few days later for ‘storage’ leaving Tony with only the barest beginnings of the data he’d hoped to have – data that could have helped make sure something like the Chi’Tauri invasion would never happen again. If he ever got a second chance, he wasn’t going to sleep for as long as he had the thing. “They had machines that could siphon out the energy and store it. If we want to make this work without a tesseract of our own, we’re gonna need something similar.”

He remembered what the apparatus looked like, at least. Tony reached for the nearest table, automatically trying to create a hologram… but nothing happened.

“Hey, what have you got for diagramming stuff?” he asked.

“Whiteboard.” The other jabbed a thumb at the far wall. There was a wheeled board there, covered with circuit diagrams and equations. IN the lower right corner was scrawled orange juice, printer cartridge, bagels, dish soap (IMPORTANT), and there were two shirts draped over the top of it, as if they’d been washed and hung there to dry.

“I have so much to teach you,” Tony remarked. He left the grocery list as he wiped the rest away, and tossed the shirts onto a chair so he could begin to draw what he remembered of the energy storage equipment.

“Here’s something,” the other said. “It says here that the energy reacts violently with living tissue.”

Tony did recall reading something about that, and at the time he’d wondered what sort of experiments they’d done to learn it. There hadn’t really been anybody he could ask. “Tissue? Like what, organs?”

“It says that an agent cut himself on something and there was a ‘violent reaction’ to the blood.”

Tony shivered. “You want to talk about creepy? That’s good old-fashioned nightmare fuel,” he said. He heard a clinking sound, and turned around to find his double rooting through a mini-fridge next to the sagging old sofa. “Really? You read that and you immediately decide to have a snack? What are you hungry for? Black pudding?”

“No. Ah, this’ll do.” The other stood up, holding a rather unfortunate-looking bottle of caramel frappuccino. There was no cap on it – he sniffed it gingerly and made a face. “Yeah, there’s living tissue in there,” he said, and before Tony could stop him, he’d tossed a broken suit finger onto the table and poured a drop onto the exposed circuitry.

The phrase ‘poured a drop’ was not quite accurate – the remains of the frappuccino were very organic indeed, and it would have been more accurate to say he ‘let a blob ooze’ onto the shard of armor. The words ‘violent reaction’, however, worked very well indeed. A crackle of blue energy flared up, incinerating the liquid and scorching the table. Tony froze as the image of that horrible hole in the sky flashed before his eyes again, and his double staggered backwards, spilling the rest of the expired drink down the front of himself.

The only individual who reacted usefully was the robot. It grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and rolled over to douse the workbench. This ended whatever reaction was going on in the remains of the suit, and sent a shock wave across the room. Papers and empty coffee cups scattered as if in a gale. Tony was tossed back against the whiteboard, which bounced off the wall and fell down on top of him. His double got a much softer landing on the couch, and the robot tipped over and lay on its side, spinning its wheels helplessly.

After a moment of ringing silence, Tony wiggled out from under the whiteboard and pushed it back upright again.

“Violent reaction,” he said. “Yeah, okay.” Good thing he’d avoided the edges of the faceplate.

His counterpart crawled off the couch and got the robot back on its wheels, inspecting it for damage. “Good boy,” he murmured to it, stroking the parts as if it were an animal. “I’m not mad, that wasn’t your fault… you were a good boy…” Once satisfied that the machine was still whole, he straightened up and looked at what Tony had been drawing. It was now slightly smeared where Tony’s body had collided with the board.

“So, there’s a way to collect and store that instead of… um… dispersing it?” he said hopefully.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed. Clearly transporting somebody between universes required a lot more out of the tesseract than opening a wormhole did. He looked at his half-finished sketch, and picked up the marker to start filling in the bits he’s accidentally erased. “I’ll draw, you build.” The other would have a much better idea what materials were available than Tony did. He would just have to make sure his notes included what properties the parts ought to have. “By the way. Just a question, does your robot have a name?”

“Not really,” the other said, gathering up the stuff that had been blown off the workbench. “Not an official one. I call him Smartypants.”

“That figures,” Tony said. “Causes a lot of destruction, does he?”

The other glared at him. “He does his best,” he said defensively.

The phone on the desk rang.

Tony and his double looked at each other. What had just happened had probably been felt throughout the building, and even if nobody else had come to the right conclusion about the cause, Miss Potts certainly would have. Neither of them moved to answer it.

The phone rang again, and again, and again, and finally the machine picked it up.

You’ve reached the Special Projects workshop at Potts Technologies, said JANIS’ voice. The SP Manager is not available at the moment but if you leave a message…

Tony breathed out. “We don’t have much time before she comes down here, do we?”

“No,” said the other. “Let’s get to work.”

#fanfic #tony stark #iron man

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