#I will be very happy up there eating bark and pine needles

[zoologica42]

happy Tu 'BiShvat, all I want this year is to climb up into a tree and hang out up there like a porcupine and never ever come down ever again :)

[stargirl1331]

Very Oddly Specific Vibes of (some of) my mutuals!(mainly if I interact with you a bunch)(I will be adding more this post will get so long)

@hauntedsuns (sunny!)

The smell of strawberry cotton candy, and the color of sunlight through a sun catcher tinted purple, the texture of a popcorn ceiling painted sky blue and the feel of when you are spinning in a flowy skirt and it’s not quite raining because there aren’t many clouds and it’s sunrise so all the clouds are nice colors. Pink and blue mica powder swirling in water, and the sound of pancakes getting made. And just have Aphrodite vibes.

@wyvrens (wyvren<- adopted child)

The crunch of a grape jolly rancher, the smell of air in the kitchen after snickerdoodles are made, a dinosaur shaped penutbutter sandwich. You are the sparks before the match lights, and the stim whre you hold your arms a little away from you and wiggle your wrists. Running fingers over a gecko that’s not quite cold but is cold blooded. The sky right before night in a city where it’s not dark but it is dusty, streetlights reflecting off a green house and Christmas lights up in October.

Izzie-re’pue:)

The minty taste of bubblegum icecube gum, the smell of squishmallows, the soft light when you shine a lamp through a scarf so it doesnt hurt your eyes. You are the stim where you are sitting criss cross and wiggle your shoulders and it turns down to your torso, happy and good. It’s when you see the stars and are sitting on the grass so you wiggle our shoulders and you feel it all the way down your torso, not anxious. Eating moss, but only if it was edible, and getting an obscure tattoo so that you can make up stories for what it means. Shadow puppets on the wall with the light of a phone screen, stirring a chocolate spoon in milk while rain falls in April. You are the smile when the first snow falls and the whole class runs to the windows to look, the quiet of a full house when everyone is sitting together.

@thedoctorandclaraforeverandever (Zoya:))

Firelight shining on stones(like the big blocky ones fireplaces are made of) and apple cider. the little bits of paper that fly up when you burn it, and cinder blocks painted orange. sharp ish thing is tree bark. white oak tree bark. it looks all rough and angry to touch but is actually soft and will fall off the tree easily. Waving to someone as they exit the airport and you meet for the first time, and an arm around your shoulder. The smell of popcorn half way through the movie, and music in headphones.

@wardofwinters (Pauhi Life)

Melted wax on a penny, and sunlight on pavement. leaves blowing through a doorway, scarves on lights, worms digging through the dirt, unseen by everyone. 27 candles burning at once but only 3 have sents and they are all warm smells. pine needles if anything sharp, pokey but actually not. Eye contact and giggling, shushing the other. Trading notes telling you to take care of yourself and staring until they open it. Excessive and unnecessary punctuation, but it’s fun. Bumping shoulders and knocking elbows. Post offices and the taste of envelope glue. Spinning in so many circles and staring at the stars once you fall.

[scribespirare]

WIP Wednesday

I was tagged by @dear-massacre

I've actually never done one of these before?? And I'm a little late to the game but I was out most of the day lmao. But here's a snippet from a Sterek primal/xeno fic I've been working on! It's still very rough so keep that in mind.

-

And yet…behind the terror, behind the overwhelming certainty that he was about to eaten, there was a kind of thrill to it. Maybe it had something to do with how the growls of the beast sounded almost playful, its barks joyful and happy.

Or maybe Stiles’ brain was turning to mush and spitting out complete nonsense as a result.

Soft pine needles gave way to tall, rough grass that lashed against his legs as he rushed through it. After the shadow of the forest, the sudden unhindered moonlight felt blinding and Stiles stumbled despite himself, that silver glow disorienting him.

It was the slip up the wolf was waiting for, apparently. One moment Stiles was running, the next a huge, heavy weight was baring him to the ground. He screamed, curling in on himself as he waited for the pain of landing, that moment where momentum and gravity collided and bruised.

But it didn’t come.

Huge arms wrapped tight around him, and Stiles could feel their bodies rolling and jostling together. When they came to a stop Stiles was dizzy and out of breath, adrenaline and panic a high pitched buzzing in his ears, but there was no pain, no jarring impact.

There was, however, a hulking monster crouched over top of him, blocking out the light of the moon and panting down at Stiles. Its fangs were bared and dripping with saliva that soaked the torn fabric of Stiles’ thermal shirt, its red, red eyes intense as ever. A low growl bubbled up from its throat in a steady stream.

The knife and bear mace were long gone, lost when Stiles fell, and really he was lucky he hadn’t gored himself on that blade. But he still missed the weight of it in his hand as he laid there and sucked in huge gasps of air, empty useless hands pressing up against dark fur and hard muscle as if he could possibly keep the monster at bay.

As if to prove how very little Stiles’ strength meant to it, the wolf leaned down even closer, sniffing loudly at Stiles’ face even as he turned away from it.

“Fuck,” he gasped, then again, “Fuck,” when a burning hot tongue dragged across his cheek. It was so big it caught the corner of his mouth and he grimaced.

That tongue was recently in the dirt. That tongue was recently lapping up Stiles’ fucking cum.

Unable to help himself, Stiles’ squirmed, trying to push at the wolf’s head and get himself out from under it. But the wolf growled and one huge, clawed hand came down hard on his chest and held him in place as easily as he might keep a piece of paper from fluttering away on a breeze.

“Shit, please don’t eat me,” Stiles said as his head was knocked back by a strong muzzle and the wolf continued sniffing and licking down his throat. It spent a long time snuffling at the junction of throat and shoulder. “Seriously man, er, not man? Is that offensive? I don’t taste good I promise I- fuck, hey, watch the teeth!” he squeaked.

Grunting, the wolf yanked backwards, the fabric of Stiles’ shirt in its teeth. Since it was already tattered in a few places, most of it came away with a loud ripping sound. But some held and Stiles’ torso was jerked upwards by the force. He flailed, batting at the wolf until it grew irritated and dropped him in order to snap at his hands. He yelped, jerking them into his chest.

“Stop, stop, there’s no need for biting! I’ll take it off, okay, just-” His breath was sawing in and out of his chest again but the wolf blinked at him and. Sat back on its haunches. Stiles’ mouth fell open then closed again. “You…you understand me?”

Besides a slow blink and a huff that sounded annoyed, the wolf gave no answer to his question. But the fact that it was clearly waiting for him to strip was answer enough for Stiles. The monster understood what he was saying.

-

uhhhh I'll tag @itsevanffs and @a-sentimental-man if yall want to do it!

[twilights-800-cats]

<< Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || From the Beginning || Patreon >>

Chapter 3

Despite his knowledge of the future, Stoneheart still couldn’t help but feel a lump in his throat as he beheld ShadowClan’s camp for the first time in nearly two whole moons. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d miss it when he left for the journey to the lake – as he followed Pansytail towards the Clanrock, his heart felt dizzyingly light.

Everything was still where it should be – dens nestled deep within prickly sedge-and-gorse walls, the Clanrock still standing tall near the back, the surrounding pines shading the camp from the sunlight. On his way to the fresh-kill pile, he spotted Russetstar and Blackfoot chatting quietly in the shade of the twin pines that grew as one at the back of camp, between which Russetstar made her den. Pansytail quickly joined them, pulling ShadowClan’s leader aside while Talonstripe and Redpaw went about their other duties.

Stoneheart was eager to set the dove down, finally, and speak with Russetstar. She has to know what we’re facing already, but I can give her hope. He poked his head into the shadows behind the Clanrock, noting just how little fresh-kill was piled beneath the thick slab of pine bark ShadowClan used to shelter its food.

His stomach growled, and he quieted it. I won’t be eating as well as before...

“Stoneheart? Is that really you?”

Stoneheart nearly slammed his head against the pine bark roof of the fresh-kill pile as he lifted his head. “Finchsong!” he purred, ignoring the gentle ache in his jaws from holding that dove for what felt like ages. “It’s so good to see you again!”

The pale gray tabby queen’s eyes sparkled, and she rushed forward to press her muzzle into Stoneheart’s fur. “I was so worried about you!” she breathed. “Where in StarClan’s name have you been?!”

Stoneheart swallowed. Over Finchsong’s head, he could see several of his Clanmates finally taking notice of his presence, stepping forward cautiously with curious eyes. Cedarheart, Finchsong’s mate, whispered something into Oakfur’s ear. Redpaw was chatting with Smokepaw, looking proud to have discovered ShadowClan’s lost warrior. Nightwing looked between Orre and Pinewhisker, concern flashing in her eyes.

What’s wrong? He wondered, looking at them all. They all had that same cautious look in their eye that Pansytail had when she found him at the star flower grove. Are they not happy to see me home?

One face, though, was not among the crowd – the one face that Stoneheart had wanted to see above all others. Where is Rowanclaw? Is he out on patrol? He noticed that Wolftooth and a few other cats weren’t here. That must be it.

Stoneheart blinked as the crowd parted. Russetstar had come around the Clanrock, her gaze resting evenly on Stoneheart. Blackfoot and Pansytail were with her. “Finchsong, step aside,” Russetstar ordered. “I need to speak with Stoneheart.”

“O-Of course.” Finchsong moved away, ears flicking with embarrassment. She trotted back into the crowd on nervous paws, settling back down beside her mate. Cedarheart licked her between the ears as she looked down at her paws, her eyes suddenly troubled.

Stoneheart blinked at his Clanmates. What in StarClan’s name was going on with them? Why would none of them look him in the eyes?

“Stoneheart,” Russetstar meowed. “Come.”

Swallowing his worries, Stoneheart got to his paws. It doesn't matter right now, he thought as he followed Russetstar towards her den, Blackfoot taking up the rear behind them. All that matters is delivering our message. Everything else can come later.

Before they slipped into the dark cleft between the roots of the two twisting pines, Russetstar flicked her tail at Pansytail. “Fetch Littlecloud,” she ordered. “I’m sure he’ll want to hear this as well.”

As Pansytail trotted past, heading for the medicine cat’s den, Stoneheart couldn’t help but wonder just what kind of scolding he was in for that would require a medicine cat’s presence. Russetstar had been his mentor when he joined ShadowClan, and she certainly hadn’t been an easy teacher.

The inside of Russetstar’s den was dark and warm, smelling of fresh pine sap and moss. Russetstar tucked herself into her nest, kneading out a comfortable place to sit. Blackfoot settled himself beside her, tucking his paws beneath him. Stoneheart, feeling awkward and singled out, sat on his haunches, curling his tail over his paws.

There was silence while they waited for Littlecloud – the way Russetstar stared at Stoneheart made his heart thump so hard he was sure his leader could hear it. Blackfoot busied himself with washing his tail, pulling out a stubborn pine needle that had lodged itself near the base.

“I’m here, I’m here!” Littlecloud pushed his way into the den, his eyes glittering apologetically. He took his spot on Russetstar’s other side quickly, wrapping his tail around his short legs. He smiled at Stoneheart. “Welcome home!”

Stoneheart only nodded back to the medicine cat, too nervous about Russetstar’s gaze to find an appropriate reply.

“The most obvious questions are where we ought to start, I suppose,” Russetstar decided. “Where have you been?”

“And why did you leave your Clan?” Blackfoot demanded, his voice a low growl.

Stoneheart swallowed. Here goes... “I want to say that I am sorry for leaving – however, it was something I had to do, for the good of ShadowClan.”

Blackfoot’s eyes flashed skeptically. Russetstar lifted her chin. “Is that so?” she wondered.

Stoneheart nodded. “Around a half moon or so before I left, I received a dream. In that dream, I saw my sister, Mosspaw. She told me to meet with cats from the other Clans and that together we would help save the Clans from a coming darkness.”

“You say StarClan asked you to abandon your Clan?!” Blackfoot was bristling. “What mouse-dung!”

“Let him finish,” Littlecloud meowed sharply. He turned to Stoneheart with curious eyes. “Go on.”

Adjusting his paws, Stoneheart went on: “I met with the cats from the other Clans – Mistyfoot from ThunderClan, Feathertail from RiverClan, and Crowpaw from WindClan. We had all been visited by our ancestors in some way, but we weren’t sure what to do with what we had seen. We parted, deciding to wait and see if we would be granted another sign.”

“And you were, I presume,” Russetstar concluded, her tail-tip twitching, “considering that each cat you named went missing from their respective Clans.”

Stoneheart nodded. “Mistyfoot received another sign, and we took that as a signal of where to go – so we set off as soon as possible. Stormfur of RiverClan and Nightpaw and Shadepaw of ThunderClan joined us as well.”

Littlecloud sighed, looking relieved. “So that’s where they went... Brackenfur was so worried about Shadepaw!”

“Tinystar as well,” Blackfoot added.

“Where did StarClan send you?” Russetstar asked, her tone frustratingly skeptical.

“To a lake, far off beyond Highstones,” Stoneheart answered simply. “We crossed Thunderpaths and through a big Twolegplace to get there, guided by StarClan all the way. We made it there, together, and there, at the lake, is where we learned of our purpose.”

Stoneheart paused, deliberately. He wanted to give them some time to process this before he dropped the boulder atop their heads: “StarClan was guiding us to this lake to meet Midnight, a wise badger who speaks with the stars. She told us that the Twolegs were destroying our homes, and that this lake we had found, and the land around it, was to be our new home.”

Silence greeted his words. Stonheart braced himself, unsure of what to expect from his Clan's leadership.

“That is... certainly a story,” Russetstar mused, finally, frowning. She glanced at Littlecloud, who seemed deep in thought.

“Mouse-dung!” Blackfoot spat. “Lakes? Talking badgers? I don’t know where you went, Stoneheart, but it certainly wasn’t anywhere within reality.”

His words pricked at Stoneheart’s pelt like claws. “This was all real!” he spat back, bristling. “Stormfur died for this!”

“Stormfur died?” Russetstar’s ears pricked, her eyes going round.

Stoneheart looked his leader in the eyes. “On our way home we passed through some mountains. We met a Tribe of cats, a group like us Clans. Stormfur died saving them from the beast that was threatening their lives.” He turned his gaze to glare at Blackfoot. “Whatever you might think of our journey, that was real enough.”

More silence. Stoneheart forced himself to settle down, flattening his fur. To his satisfaction Blackfoot kept his mouth shut. I don’t care if it looks disloyal to ShadowClan, he thought stubbornly. Stormfur was my friend, and I’ll not have his death mocked!

“This... this is all very hard to believe, Stoneheart,” Russetstar meowed carefully. “You must understand that. If you were having visions from StarClan, why did you not tell anyone?”

“Would you have believed me?” Stoneheart wondered, his tone sharp.

Russetstar frowned. “Fair enough,” she decided.

“I think he’s right, at least,” Littlecloud chimed in. He gestured to Stoneheart with his tail. “The message he received from this Midnight is true enough – Twolegs are destroying our lands. The Black Fens are gone, ThunderClan has moved to Sunningrocks, and WindClan’s territory has nearly been swallowed whole.”

Stoneheart swallowed, taking in this new information. “What!?” he breathed, worry curdling in his belly. He’d known about WindClan, but the rest? The Black Fens are gone?!

Russetstar nodded solemnly. “All of the Clans have suffered – at least those on this side of the river,” she meowed. “We’ve had no word on what’s going on with RiverClan.”

“The Twolegs destroyed Fourtrees, too,” Blackfoot growled. “Tore it apart right in front of us, and during a full moon! As if StarClan wasn’t even watching! We haven’t met with the other Clans beyond border patrols since.”

Stoneheart dug his claws into the earth, reeling.

“There’s more, Russetstar,” Littlecloud meowed. “Remember my vision from the last half-moon meeting? How none of the medicine cats could understand it? Now I think I know what we saw – it was all of us, journeying away from the forest.”

An ominous silence greeted his words.

“I see,” Russetstar decided, after a long moment. She raised her head, and sighed. “I have wondered these past moons whether or not this Twoleg situation was salvageable, but I can see that it is not. It seems our destiny is laid before us.”

She lowered her muzzle, her eyes bright with sorrow. “We must leave the forest.”

“Russetstar!” Blackfoot bristled. He got to his paws, his tail lashing to and fro. “You can’t mean that!”

“The signs are all around us,” Russetstar told him gently. “We were already discussing what we might do if the Twolegs took more of our territory – we have our answer now. We must leave.”

“But...” Blackfoot sputtered, sheathing and unsheathing his claws as he grappled with the idea. “This is our home.”

Stoneheart felt a pang of sorrow for the Clan deputy – for all his Clanmates. Even if they hadn’t all been born in the forest, this place was still home. They thought it was theirs, and that made Midnight’s words come back to him: “Land no belong to you,” the badger had said, simple as the sunrise. “The land belong to no one.”

“We thought a meeting between all four Clans would be best,” Stoneheart told them, “so that we can discuss where to go next. Tomorrow night, at Fourtrees.”

Russetstar nodded. “That will do,” she decided. “The Twolegs should not be there to disrupt us.” Littlecloud looked uncomfortable at the thought of heading back to Fourtrees. Blackfoot was staring into space, as if his world was unraveling – and, Stoneheart supposed, it was.  

Stoneheart swallowed. “I... I’m sorry,” he meowed quietly. “I’m sorry that this was bad news.”

Russetstar padded over to him, and touched her nose to his forehead. “You were following the path of our ancestors,” she reassured. “It does not always take us down pleasant trails, Stoneheart.”

“We must tell the Clan,” Blackfoot meowed, his voice cracking.

“Go,” Russetstar told him. She flicked her tail at Littlecloud. “You, too. Reassure the Clan that we are handling this. I will be out shortly.”

Blackfoot got to his paws and padded slowly out of the den. Littlecloud followed, his tail dragging in the dust until he reached the sunshine, where he lifted it in a show of hope for the Clan. Stoneheart’s paws itched, but when he shifted his weight to move, Russetstar’s tail touched his shoulder. A signal to stay.

“I should go with them,” he meowed to Russetstar. “The others might take it better from me, if I can explain...”

“They might,” Russetstar agreed, “and you can speak with them when I am through with you.”

Stoneheart swallowed. “What else is there?” he asked. He searched his leader’s expression for a hint, but found that she was being frustratingly stoic. What more could she have to say?

Russetstar did not meet his eye. “You and your group were not the only cats to go missing, Stoneheart. Cats from every Clan have disappeared lately, it seems – Wolftooth thinks they’ve been taken by Twolegs, for getting in their way.”

Stoneheart’s heart beat in his ears. “W-We can find them!” he insisted. “Before we leave!”

“That may be difficult,” Russetstar told him. “We have no idea where they are, and we may not have time.”

A strange feeling of dread was creeping over Stoneheart. Why was she telling him this, and so privately, if everyone else knew, too? “We’ll make the time,” he insisted. “We are all going to make it to our new home!”

“Stoneheart...” Russetstar finally met his gaze. “Oh, Stoneheart...”

“What?” Stoneheart demanded. “What is it you’re all hiding from me?!”

Russetstar swallowed. She paused, considering her words. There was a tiny shake of her muzzle, as if the approach she had thought of wouldn’t work.

Finally, she meowed, simply and plainly: “Rowanclaw has been taken by Twolegs.”

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/Rynne Hawke: Disappointment

A (VERY late) prompt fill for @talesfromthefade​​​, for @dadrunkwriting​​​ Friday! 

Set during the later end of Act II. It’s basically a drunken conversation featuring some cuteness, but even more angst, pining, and UST. 😭

~6100 words (SORRY, MY PROMPT FILLS ARE LONG). Read on AO3 instead.

************************

Fenris was sitting at the table in his mansion and struggling with a copy of Hard in Hightown when he heard a knock at the door.

It was more of a bang than a knock, really, and the sound instantly put him on alert. Before he could reach for his sword, though, he heard the laughter.

His shoulders relaxed. Hawke, he thought ruefully, and he went to open the door. 

Hawke tripped into his house with a giggle, followed closely by the scent of brandy. “Fenris!” she chirped. “I’m so glad you’re here, I was about to — hic — set up camp on your front step if you didn’t answer the door. Would you care for some wine?” She haphazardly waved a bottle of wine in his direction.

He hastily took the bottle before it could hit him in the face. “Er, thank you, but no. How much brandy have you had?”

She turned to him with wide eyes. “Brandy? Me? How did you know?”

“You smell like you were bathing in it,” he said dryly.

A beautiful grin lifted her lips. “Wouldn’t that be the dream? An entire — hic— bathtub filled with brandy, just for me. I could be persuaded to share with you, though.” She shot him a saucy wink, then began meandering toward the table. Her gait was loose and lazy with booze, yet somehow her hips were still moving with their customary alluring sway, and Fenris eyed her wistfully as he followed her to the table. 

She gasped and petted the pages of his open book. “Ooh, were you reading?” she asked brightly. 

He grunted and scratched the back of his head. “Trying to, in any case. It’s slow-going.” 

She looked up at him with hopeful eyes. “Can I help you? I can help, if you like.”

He eyed her with a touch of exasperation and placed the wine on the table. “You’re hardly in a position to be assisting with this at the moment.”

“Oh please,” she scoffed. “I’m not that plastered. I’m only a tiny bit plastered. Look, I can absolutely help you with this.” She peered at the page. “Now if only the letters would stop moving all over the place.”

Fenris huffed and pulled out a chair for her. “Sit down, Hawke. You look as though you’re about to fall over.” 

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. Then she promptly plopped down on the floor and started pulling off her boots. 

He shook his head, then sat in the chair he’d just pulled out. “What is the special occasion?”

She smiled blearily up at him. “Hm? Occasion?”

He gestured at her. “Is there a reason you’re this drunk?”

“Do I need a reason?” she said. “Maybe I’m just full of joie-de-vivre, as the Orlesians would say! But Orlesians would probably also spit on my taste in Rivaini brandy, so never mind that.”

Fenris frowned slightly. Her tone was as jocular as ever, but she wasn’t meeting his eye as she spoke. “Were you at the Hanged Man?” he asked.

“I was,” she said cheerfully. “Varric and Bels and I got into this fabulous darts tournament, and–”

She broke off suddenly and looked up at him in horror. “Oh fuck. Oh shit. Did you want to come? Oh Fenris, I’m sorry, I should have come to get you before going to the Hanged Man but I didn’t even think about it, I just went straight there, I’m sorry–”

He waved her off. “You went straight there from where?” he asked.

“From the Gallows,” she said, to his surprise. “I took Mother to visit Carver today, and–” She snorted. “Can I just say that it went swimmingly well? Swimmingly, splendidly well. It’s definitely something I’ll be doing again, perhaps in fifty years or so.” She broke off with a goofy giggle.

Ah, he thought. Now it made sense. Something unfortunate must have happened during her visit to the Gallows with her family. 

“Did it truly go well?” he said quietly.

She finally met his eye, and for a brief second, her smile slipped before returning to her face. “It did!” she said. “Mother was happy to see him, even though he could just visit the house when he gets his leave days. Can you pass me that wine?”

Fenris hesitated. It was probably a bad idea for Hawke to have anything more to drink. But she was a grown woman who was free to make her own (possibly poor) decisions, and who was he to tell her what to do?

He reached across the table and picked up the bottle of wine. Then he came to join her on the floor. By the time he was settled beside on the floor, she was beaming at him with so much uninhibited fondness that it made his stomach twist. 

He dropped her coppery gaze and pulled a small knife from his pocket, then pried the cork out of the bottle. But instead of offering it to her, he took three big gulps. 

She laughed. “Fenris, you boozehound! I thought you didn’t want any.”

I don’t, really, he thought. But if he didn’t drink any of it, Hawke would drink the whole bottle by herself.

“I changed my mind,” he said, and he offered her the wine. 

She beamed at him. “You beautiful thing, you. You’re joining in with me.” She took the bottle and took a long drink, then lowered it and gave him a quizzical look. “What were we talking about?”

“The Gallows,” he said. “Your mother.”

“Ah yes! Oh, Mother.” Rynne laughed and shook her head. “She said the funniest thing. There I was, talking to Carver and just, you know, needling him about the usual stuff. Asking about his love life, pointing out the irony of him becoming a Templar in the first place, the usual sort of thing. And my mother…” She snickered. “My mother jumps in and starts carrying on about how Carver was just trying to support the family while I went swanning off to the deep roads.” She snorted with laughter. “Can you believe that? ‘Swanning off to the deep roads’! Those are the words she used. As though—” She broke off with another giggle. “As though the deep roads are some fancy Orlesian spa that you and I and Varric and Anders just bloody decided to ‘go swanning off to’ for a few months.” She chuckled some more and lifted the bottle of wine to her lips, and Fenris watched with a pang as she took a few gulps. 

When she lowered the bottle, he gently took it from her hand. “Did you set her straight?” he asked. “Remind her of the reason why we were gone so long?” Namely, that Bartrand had locked them in the ancient thaig, resulting in the need to wander even deeper into the cursed bowels of the thaig before finding a way out?

“Oh Maker, no,” Hawke said. “I never told her why we were gone that long.”

He lowered the bottle and stared at her in surprise. “You didn’t? Why not?”

Hawke snorted. “Are you kidding? She’d have a fit if she knew. She’d fuss and carry on about how dangerous it was and how she never wanted me to go in the first place, even though we needed the fucking money to get the fucking Amell estate back.” She broke off and took a deep breath, then smiled at Fenris and pointed at the wine. “Can I have some of that?”

He quickly took another big drink before handing her the bottle. She took a sip, then broke off with a snort of laughter. “She thought all this time that I swanned off for months. Can you believe that? The deep roads weren’t exactly a cake walk. D’you remember those rock wraith things that were eating the lyrium down there?”

Fenris sneered. “Ah yes. And that hunger demon.” He shot her a reproving look. “I still think it was unwise for you to offer it sandwiches.”

“And I still think it was worth a shot,” she retorted. Then she sighed and offered him the bottle. “Ah well, what’s done is done. It’s just…” She huffed in amusement and shook her head. “She wanted the fucking Amell estate, so I got it back for her. Next time she wants something, maybe I should just become a Templar too.”

Her cheeky smile was still in place, but she was too drunk for the smile to fully hide her true feelings. Fenris eyed her sympathetically, but he didn’t know what to say. He had no experience with providing any kind of comfort. 

He took another sip of wine and wracked his brain for something to say. “I wasn’t aware that the Templars were accepting mages among their ranks,” he said finally. “Has Cullen found a soft spot for you that I didn’t know about?”

She grinned at him, and his heart fluttered; her smile was genuine and warm once more. “Oh Fenris, don’t be silly,” she said. “Cullen has had a soft spot for me all along. Don’t pretend you didn’t notice.”

“Hm,” he said. “I suppose all that scowling and telling you off could constitute a soft spot, according to some.”

“Exactly,” she giggled. She took another sip of wine, then gave him a pitiful look. “I know I’m barging in on you and all, but I wasn’t in the mood to go home just yet. Is it all right that I came here instead? Any safe port in a storm and all that.”

He frowned. Safe port in a storm? “Are you concerned that your mother will harm you when you return home?” he said quietly.

“No no, of course not!” she exclaimed. “It’s just a figure of speech.” She barked out a laugh. “My mother, harm anyone? Don’t be ridiculous. She couldn’t harm a wasp even if it was about to sting her.”

Fenris eyed her skeptically for a moment, then shrugged. “You can stay for a visit. I suppose it is only fair, since I…” He trailed off awkwardly. He was about to tell her that her house had become something of a safe space for him as well — a place where he felt at ease, almost at home, particularly when he and Hawke were lounging together in front of the fireplace in her study. But to admit such a thing would be veering far too close to telling her how much he still longed for her, and he didn’t dare let the conversation venture there.

It was surprising that he’d even said as much as he had, in fact. He usually did everything in his power to keep his tenderness for Hawke under wraps, for fear of letting her think there was a chance of them being together again. Why had he nearly said something now?

She offered him the bottle of wine; it was three-quarters empty. That explains it, he thought in resignation. With a small sigh, he took the bottle and drank from it once more.

Hawke stretched her legs out and leaned back on her palms. “So! What were you reading before I came bursting in to ruin your night?”

He lowered the bottle with a smirk. “You really couldn’t tell? You are that drunk?”

“I am quite spectacularly drunk, yes,” she agreed.

He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were only… what was it you said? ‘A tiny bit plastered’?”

She snorted. “What is this, an interrogation in Aveline’s office?” She poked his arm. “Come on then, tell me. What were you reading up there?”

“Hard in Hightown,” he said. “Varric gave it to me. I am only on page ten or so.”

Hawke chuckled. “Of course that’s what Varric gave you to practice with. Any excuse to get more readers.” She suddenly straightened up and gasped, and Fenris recoiled slightly in surprise; her face was bright with enthusiasm. 

“I just had the most fantastic idea!” she chirped. “You should write a book!”

He wrinkled his nose. “What would I write about? And besides, I can’t write.” He didn’t tell her that he’d been secretly writing terribly-spelled letters to her since the day he’d mastered the alphabet. That was one secret that even his half-drunken mouth would never spill.

She waved one hand dismissively. “You’ll be able to write in no time, you’re brilliant. And the book should be about your life, of course!”

He frowned. “My life? Why?”

“Because you’re strong and handsome and interesting. And you lived with the fog warriors!” she exclaimed. “You probably know more about them than anyone in the whole of Thedas!”

His frown deepened. “Reflecting on that time in my life is not exactly pleasant, Hawke. It did not end well, if you recall.”

She wilted. “No, I know, I just meant… oh fuck, I put my foot in it, didn’t I?” She nervously patted her cheeks. “Maker, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you think about awful things. I was hoping to make you think of nice moments when you were with them since I know you liked living with them, but… ah, I’m an idiot. Don’t listen to me.” She reached for the bottle of wine. 

He allowed her to take the bottle. “It’s all right. I already knew you were an idiot.” 

She shot him a grateful smile. They passed the bottle back and forth for another minute, and when it was empty, Fenris placed it on the floor beside him. 

“You’re not wrong. I did enjoy living with the fog warriors,” he said. “It was… unusual to spend time around people who were not afraid of me. But I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised; the fog warriors were the most courageous people I ever knew.” He draped his arms loosely around his knees and glanced at Hawke. “Even their children had no fear of me.”

She nodded and didn’t speak. Her expression was a picture of attentive focus despite the boozy flush of her cheeks, and something about her attention prompted him to go on when he usually would not.

“I remember the first time I stepped into their… settlement, for lack of a better word,” he said. “I was weak after healing from my injuries. Every step I took required a great deal of effort. But as I walked through their settlement with one of their healers at my side, a child approached me. A boy, perhaps five or six.” He grimaced. “Or maybe seven; I’m not familiar enough with children to guess their ages.”

“Five, seven, it’s all the same,” Hawke said softly. “The little boy approached you. What happened then?”

Fenris tilted his head as he remembered the moment. “He was holding a ball that looked to be made of dried branches and twine. He stopped and stared at me, and I was certain he was going to run away. Or perhaps throw the ball at me in disgust. I’ve suffered worse from children in Minrathous. But…” He slowly rubbed a hand through his hair. “He asked in Seheronese if I would play with him. The healer translated for me, and I… I didn’t believe her, and I didn’t believe the boy. I thought they were taunting me. I…” He swallowed hard. “I went back to the tent and didn’t come out again for another day. But the same boy approached me again when I emerged. He continued to approach me until I agreed.” 

Hawke’s face lit up with a brilliant smile. “You played with the fog warriors’s children?”

He shrugged. “I had little choice. They are very persistent.” He gave her a tiny smile. “All of their people are persistent. Stubborn and determined. Or… they were, at least, before I…” 

Blood. Screaming. Women and children fleeing, to no avail. The horrible images flashed through his mind, raw and undimmed by time, and Fenris dragged a hand through his hair as though that could pull the memories out. 

The only time he had ever seen fear in the fog warriors’ faces was when he had put it there.

“Hey,” Hawke said softly. “I’m glad you were happy while you lived with them. I know it ended badly—”

“I killed them all,” he snapped. “It ended badly because of me.”

“I know,” she said. “I know you feel responsible. But I’m still glad you were happy there for a time.”

He stared hard at her for a moment, but her expression was calm and steady — surprisingly steady for someone who was so drunk. 

He sighed and shifted his position on the floor. “I was happy with them; you’re right about that. The only time I could ever remember being happy, really. Before I came to Kirkwall, at least.”

Hawke perked up. “Before you came to Kirkwall? Does that mean you like living here more than being in Seheron?”

He huffed at her hopeful tone. “I don’t know that I would say that. But… this city has its charms. They may be few and far-between, but it does have them.”

“Like what?” she asked. 

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Such as… that apple pie at that one particular stand in Hightown.”

Hawke nodded. “Oh yes, that pie is fantastic. What else?”

“The music at the Hanged Man isn’t completely terrible,” he said.

“I do love the music there, it’s true,” Hawke said brightly. “Anything else?”

She looked so hopeful. Fenris gave her a chiding look. “Why do I get the sense that you’re fishing for compliments?”

Her beautiful amber eyes grew wide – suspiciously wide. “Me? I never! I never ever fish for compliments. Particularly not from broody handsome elves with the sexiest voices I’ve ever heard.”

He scoffed and rubbed his mouth. “Kaffas, Hawke. You will make me blush.”

“I’m not talking about you,” she said. “I’m talking about some other elf.” 

She clearly was not. Her smile was coy and warm, and it made his ears feel uncomfortably hot. “I see,” he said dryly. He absently rubbed the red scarf on his wrist and studied her from the corner of his eye. She was humming to herself now and gazing at her bare feet with the sort of vacant smile that made it clear how drunk she was.

Then he surprised himself by speaking again. “I suppose some of the people here are tolerable as well,” he said.

She perked up. “Oh really? Like who?”

Fenris shrugged and leaned back casually on one hand. “Sebastian is a fine man.”

Hawke snorted. “Perfect Sebastian. He doesn’t count. He makes everyone look bad. Who else?”

“Varric,” Fenris said. “He’s forgiven my gambling debts on more than one occasion.”

She let out a scintillating laugh. “Has he? Oh, Varric. He’s such a soft touch.”

Fenris smirked and gazed idly at her legs – lovely legs that were regrettably covered by trousers. Lovely legs with soft golden skin that was so smooth beneath his hands… 

Before Fenris could stop himself, his drunken mouth was opening once more. “You are good company, as well,” he said.

Her face lit up with a slow and breathtaking smile. “Am I, now?”

He shrugged and ignored his suddenly thrumming heart. “You can be. When you aren’t aggravating me.”

She raised one hand innocently. “Those were all failed attempts at flirting, I swear.”

He gave her a chiding look. “That’s hardly a comfort, Hawke.”

“It should be,” she said. “I’m usually a very good flirt.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” he said wryly.

Her smile widened. “Maybe I should try harder, then.”

Her cheeky voice was ripe with its usual humour, but there was something more to her tone now: something husky and heated that made Fenris’s clever retort fade away on his tongue. He studied her face carefully, and his heart jolted; only now was he realizing how close she was. She was sitting right next to him, and although they weren’t touching, they were so close that they might as well have been. Her knees were almost brushing against his thigh, and she was leaning in as though to take shelter against his chest, and he… kaffas, his shoulder was curled toward her as though he wanted her to take shelter against him. 

A rush of excitement filled his rib cage, followed by a surge of terror. I can’t, he thought. He couldn’t let her get any closer. Not because he didn’t want to; venhedis, there was nothing he wanted more. But the closer she got, the more she would see just how damaged he truly was, how unprepared he was for what she was trying to give, and he couldn’t… He couldn’t stand it. The thought of looking into her perfect amber eyes, of seeing their heat replaced with pity instead...  

She wet her lips, and Fenris was instantly distracted by her mouth: her lush raspberry-red mouth that he vividly remembered kissing, even though it had been almost a year. 

Then Hawke nibbled her lower lip, and Fenris could feel his own lips parting as though by instinct — as though the movement of her lips was a siren call, a lure drawing his own lips to react, to lean closer to her, to breathe in the wine-scented warmth of her breath…

He inhaled slowly, and his heart thudded in his ears. She smelled exactly as he remembered, of sandalwood and sweetness and a hint of sweat from dancing at the Hanged Man, and overlaid on it all was the scent of the wine she’d drunk — that they’d been drinking together. 

Then Hawke’s hand rose slowly toward his face.

His breath stuttered, but his heart burst into a galloping race. Her fingers were reaching for him, reaching for his cheek, reaching so slowly that he knew she was giving him time to stop her. But he was frozen on the floor with Hawke sitting so close to him, so damned close that he could smell her intoxicating scent, and her fingers were drawing nearer still… 

She stroked his cheek gently: so incredibly gently, with just the tips of her fingers. And with that one simple touch, the buzz of longing in his gut hit a fever pitch.

Fenris closed his eyes and turned his face toward her fingers, and her thumb brushed over his lower lip. He exhaled shakily, and he was distantly aware that his breath sounded far too much like a groan. 

“Fenris,” Hawke breathed. 

Fenris. That was all she said: just his name in her husky voice. But it was almost enough for him to come undone. His name in her voice, carried through the air on a breath of desire: fasta vass, it was too good, too evocative, too strong of a reminder of the past — of the mistake he’d callously made by going to her in a moment of anger-fuelled impulsiveness. 

A mistake he was primed to repeat right now, in a moment of impulsiveness that was fuelled by alcohol instead.

He reached up and grabbed her wrist. “I can’t,” he rasped. 

Her eyebrows tilted in a way that made his chest ache, but he forced himself to stay still, to not move, to not bridge the mere inches that separated his lips from hers. He held her wrist in a steady grip and stared steadily into her glittering amber eyes, and he forced himself to remember – to remember the way those same amber eyes had filled with tears when he’d walked away from her before. 

The memories of their night together still tortured him, along with all the attendant reasons why he couldn't let this same mistake happen again. He was an empty shell whose history had been carved away and replaced with anger and hate, and nothing about that had changed in the year or so since he and Hawke had tumbled together into her bed. He was still the same broken man, the same ex-slave with a mind as scarred as his body, and in the time that had passed since that one glorious night in Hawke’s arms, Fenris had failed to make any changes in his life. 

He hadn’t tried to find his sister. He hadn’t done anything other than take on jobs as an errand boy and follow Hawke and her friends around in their ill-advised adventures. He still sat alone in his mansion at night fuming about Danarius and Hadriana and all their misbegotten ilk. He was still just as blank and ruined as he’d always been, and he couldn’t… he didn’t dare inflict that on Hawke, not again, not even if he was drawn toward her in a way that he’d never been drawn to anyone else before. 

They sat frozen on the floor for an interminable minute, Hawke’s fingers a hairsbreadth from his cheek and her wrist entrapped by his intractable grip. Fenris stared into her eyes and ignored the plumpness of her lower lip, and he prayed for the strength to move away from her now – right now, right this second now, now before his frenzied thoughts led him away from the reasons he shouldn’t touch her and brought him back to all the selfish reasons that he should. 

And oh, the reasons he should, the reasons he wanted to fall into the crystal clear pools of her eyes and take what her slightly-parted lips were offering: those reasons were… fasta vass, they were far too close to the front of his mind. The pleasure of her body stretching beneath his own, of her needy gasps filling his ears, of her comforting hands cradling his face as she told him that there was nothing ruined about him–

“I can’t,” he snapped. He pulled her hand away from his face and turned away from her, dragging shaking fingers through his hair as he did. 

For a brief, terrible moment, Hawke was silent. Then she laughed.

“Of course!” she said brightly. “Of course, I didn’t mean to – I was just, um – I’m terribly drunk, you know, and it’s – I should go home. I’m just about ready to fall asleep right here on your floor, which probably means I should go crawling into my bed before I end up like another one of those corpses in your corners here.” She snickered and pushed herself to her feet, and Fenris watched painfully as she stumbled toward the door.

She wasn’t wearing her boots, though. Fenris hastily pushed himself upright and ignored his own slightly spinning head. “Hawke, wait,” he said. “Your boots–” 

She cut him off with a haphazard wave. “It’s okay, please, don’t say anything, it’s like it never happened.” She reached for the doorknob. 

Fenris darted forward and planted one hand on the door. “You need to put on your boots,” he said. “You can’t go out without boots.”

“Why not? You do it all the time,” she said belligerently. 

Fenris raised his eyebrows, but before he could reply, she sighed and sank down to the floor. “Ah, you’re right. My feet are terribly tender and delicate. Where are my bloody boots?”

Fenris silently brought her boots and socks, then waited with an ugly mixture of fondness and misery as she clumsily pulled them on. When she was finally shod once more, she stood up and did a dramatic curtsy. 

“On that sparkling note, Rynne Hawke takes her leave,” she announced. She giggled and opened the door, then promptly tripped on the front step. 

Fenris snatched her arm and her waist before she could hit the ground. “Fasta vass,” he complained. 

She didn’t reply; she was far too busy laughing. Fenris sighed heavily, then stepped out of his mansion and pulled the door closed behind him. “Come on, Hawke,” he said wearily, and he looped his arm around her waist to guide her home.

She hiccuped and squeezed his arm. “Did you see I—” She broke off with a giggle. “I didn’t even make it one step out the door! Oh Fenris, aren’t you pleased I came to your house tonight to entertain you?”

“Not particularly,” he muttered, but not for the reasons she thought. He hadn’t had his hands on her this much since the night they’d spent together, and her drunken state wasn’t making the curve of her waist any less appealing. And his drunken state wasn’t making it easy to maintain the barriers he’d been building to keep her at bay. 

She squeezed his arm again. “I know, I’m horrible, I’m a nuisance. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’ll — hic — bring you some of that apple pie that you like first thing in the morning, bright and early. You’ll be woken by the smell of fresh-baked— eek!” She tripped over a paving stone with a squeal, and Fenris scowled as he pulled her upright. 

“Quiet,” he hissed. “If you cause a disturbance, I will be the one who’s blamed.” He scooped her up into his arms and continued in the direction of her mansion at a faster pace.

She gripped the collar of his tunic and beamed at him. “You hero. You chivalrous thing. You’re making a drunken girl’s dream come true.”

“Perhaps you can return the favour and keep your voice down,” he scolded softly. He was already on Hightown’s radar as ‘that elf of Hawke’s who squats in the derelict Vint mansion’, and he didn’t want anyone to find a reason to complain to Aveline again about his presence. 

“All right, all right, I’m being quiet now,” she stage-whispered. Then, to his surprise, she actually fell silent. 

He carried her in silence for a couple of minutes. She eventually rested her head against his shoulder, and he guiltily savoured the scent of her chestnut hair. But she still didn’t speak, and eventually Fenris wondered if she’d fallen asleep. 

He glanced down at her, and his heart lurched; her eyes were closed, but her face was tinted with melancholy, and there were tears trickling down her cheeks. 

He hastily looked up at the path ahead, but his entire rib cage was aching now, as though his heart was swelling and pushing against the walls of his chest. He ought to say something – something to soothe her, like the way she was always trying to soothe him when he was angry. But he was the cause of her distress, so what was there to say? 

He swallowed the lump in his throat and didn’t speak, and they made the rest of the trip to the Amell state in silence. 

As they approached the door, Hawke finally spoke. “Don’t knock. I don’t want to wake her.”

Fenris nodded. “Where are your keys?”

“In my pouch belt,” she said. “You can put me down now. I promise I won’t disgrace myself by falling onto my own front step.” 

Her tone was cheeky and warm, and for some reason, this made his chest hurt even more. He shook his head slightly. “I’ll bring you safely inside.”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “All right. I won’t complain about being carried by Thedas’s most handsome elf.” 

He scoffed softly, then waited as she pulled out her keys and unlocked the door. But as they were moving toward the stairs, Leandra’s bedroom door opened. 

Leandra stepped out with a scowl. “Rynne, I’ve been beside myself—” She stopped short at the sight of Fenris and clutched the neckline of her dressing gown. 

“Surprise!” Rynne exclaimed, and she patted Fenris’s chest. “Two for the price of one!” 

Fenris cleared his throat. “Hawke, keep your voice down,” he mumbled.

She pulled a little face. “Right, right, people sleeping and all that,” she whispered. Then she blew a kiss to Leandra. “Hello, Mother! Go on back to bed, all right?” 

Leandra stared at them for a moment longer, then lifted her chin and went back into her bedroom. As soon as the door was shut behind her, Hawke burst into giggles.

“Maker’s balls,” she whispered. “She’s going to be furious in the morning when you’re not here. I might not be able to bring you apple pie after all. I’ll be too busy nursing the new asshole she’s going to tear me in the morning.”

Fenris grimaced at the vivid image, then headed for the stairs. When they were in Hawke’s bedroom, he set her down on the bed. 

Hawke snickered to herself as she pulled off her boots. She clumsily shucked her vest, then started pulling her shirt over her head, and Fenris hastily turned away. 

He awkwardly tugged his ear. “I’ll, er. I’ll just…” He trailed off and started shifting toward the door.

“She’s disappointed,” Hawke said.

He glanced cautiously at her. She was tucked in bed and covered up to her chest, and her lips were curled in a sad sort of smile. 

Fenris took a cautious step closer to the bed. “She will get over it soon enough.”

“No, I mean she’s disappointed that I’m not Bethany.” Hawke’s smile widened. “Honestly, so am I sometimes. She had the most perfect milkmaid skin. I bet you would have loved her too.”

His heart twisted painfully. Whatever Bethany’s virtues were, there was no doubt in his mind that she would never have found her way past his armour and burrowed beneath his tainted skin the way that Hawke had. 

But he couldn’t tell that to Hawke. Such words meant nothing if he was incapable of backing them up with the devotion that she deserved. 

He swallowed hard. “Get some sleep,” he said softly. “I will see you in the morning.” He slowly made his way to the door. 

“Fenris?”

He glanced at her. “Yes?”

“Do you want to know what I like best about living in Kirkwall?”

“Half-off Tuesdays at the Hanged Man?” he suggested weakly. 

She let out a bark of laughter. “Aw, half-off Tuesdays. That’s almost my favourite thing.”

He leaned against the door jamb. “I give up, then. What do you like best?”

“Running around this fucking place with you,” she replied. 

In the dim lantern light of her bedroom, her smile was sweet and free of guile, and Fenris felt his throat growing thick once more. He felt the same way, of course; Kirkwall would have no value if not for her. She was the reason he had decided to stay, even after the exquisite disaster of their night together. Even knowing he was no good for her, he was incapable of leaving her side. 

He gazed at her for a moment and drank in the perfect softness of her smile. It is the same for me, he thought. You are the only reason I’ve remained in this Maker-forbidden city. The confession crept close to the edge of his tongue, ready to spill into the soft and intimate atmosphere of her bedroom. 

But the walk from his house to hers had cleared the booze-induced boldness from his mind, and he was no longer at the mercy of his selfish heart. 

He bowed his head politely. “Get some sleep,” he said.

Her smile widened, and she snuggled down into her blankets and reached for the bedside lamp. “Goodnight, Fenris,” she said softly. 

“Goodnight, Hawke,” he murmured. A moment later, her bedside lamp went out.

Fenris quietly closed her bedroom door, then padded silently downstairs. Orana was awake and waiting nervously by the door to lock it behind him, and he murmured an apology to her as he left. Then he was slipping stealthily through Hightown back to his empty mansion. 

Once he was in the mansion once more, he sat at the table and stared at Hard in Hightown, but the words were meaningless on the page, unseen by his unfocused eyes.

Hawke thought she was a disappointment, but nothing was farther from the truth. Nothing about her was a disappointment — not her incessant jokes or her drunken visits to his home, not the fact that she was a mage, and the memories of her naked body bending beneath his hands… venhedis, nothing about those memories were a disappointment either. 

It didn’t bear thinking about, though. Hawke might not be a disappointment, but Fenris certainly was, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. 

With that heavy thought, he closed his copy of Hard in HIghtown and went to bed.

[furry-monster-trash]

Tigerclaw Kittypet AU

What if once Tigerclaw was exiled from ThunderClan (Forest of Secrets), he got captured by twolegs? These twolegs used to own Firestar (Rusty). This would never happen but I like the idea.

Upon exile, Tigerclaw leaves ThunderClan territory as fast as his injuries will allow.

He finds himself near the twolegplace and heads towards ShadowClan territory but collapses due to his injuries before he gets anywhere near the border.

A male twoleg is getting ready to leave for work stops when he sees Tigerclaw’s body, bloody and battered right outside of his lawn on the other side of the fence.

The twoleg takes Tigerclaw inside his house and puts him in a cat cage so that he can take him to the vet.

Tigerclaw wakes up in the cage inside of the monster and begins to struggle.

When the twoleg and Tigerclaw arrive at the vet, the vet sedates the aggravated warrior so that it can better tend to his wounds.

Tigerclaw comes to once more and is covered in bandages and he has bright colors on his claws (claw caps so he can’t scratch anyone).

He slams into the bars of the cage (vet cage - larger and better to observe his health in) in an attempt to break them. It doesn’t work.

He reluctantly drinks the stale water in the cage but refuses to eat the food.

When the vet comes back to check on Tigerclaw, he hisses and lashes out at the twoleg, but is unable to hurt him due to the claw caps.

The vet takes Tigerclaw out of the cage, putting a muzzle on him so he can’t bite, and then vaccinates him against several illnesses. Tigerclaw freaks out at the needles.

Tigerclaw talks to the cat in the cage next to him once he is placed back in his cage. 

The kittypet next to him, a fat dark brown and white tom, says that he’s at the vet and that the vet is only there to help him, not hurt him. The kittypet is named Oscar.

Tigerclaw explains that he isn’t a kittypet, that he’s a warrior from the forest: “I’m not one of you soft, overfed lumps!”

Oscar knows some about the forest cats but doesn’t seem very interested in their lifestyle “Well now you’re one of us. You might as well eat, if you don’t, you’ll never get out of here.”

Tigerclaw refuses to eat for another day and is almost given an IV so that he would regain some weight. Once threatened with another needle, he eats some of the wet food given to him. “It’s better than crowfood, but a fresh mouse is heaven compared to this.”

The vet tells the twoleg that rescued Tigerclaw that Tigerclaw needs to be introduced slowly to other cats, in case of aggression.

Tigerclaw is let out of the cage in another twoleg room, where Oscar and two other kittypets are laying around.

Oscar greets Tigerclaw and introduces him to Snuggles (a tabby she-cat) and Phoenix (a chimera tom).

Tigerclaw secludes himself near the window, spending his time trying to break out.

Phoenix sits next to Tigerclaw and talks to him to distract him “Tell me about your...clan?”

Tigerclaw pauses his attempts to escape and explains in detail about clan life. Phoenix says that the clan life seems hard, but that it explains why Tigerclaw has so many scars.

The vets sees Tigerclaw getting along with Phoenix and allows for him to be released from the vet.

The twoleg that rescued him takes him home and renames him “Tiger”.

Snuggles lives next door to him and Phoenix lives on the other side. Oscar lives across the street.

Tigerclaw meets the other twoleg that lives within the home where he is being held captive in and runs away when she tries to pet him.

Tigerclaw is not allowed to leave the ‘den’ of the twolegs, so he spends most of his time hiding under the couch and only drinking water and eating only the wet food at night.

The twolegs eventually put a cat-bed on the floor for him and he recognizes the scent on the bed, although the scent is very faint: “Fireheart used to live here! These are his twolegs!”

Tigerclaw is trying to leave through the window one night and doesn’t see the female twoleg come up behind him. She picks him up and scratches him between the ears. Tigerclaw still can’t claw back due to the claw caps.

Tigerclaw runs under the couch again when she puts him down.

Tigerclaw is given a special shock collar (a perimeter shock collar) and is allowed to go outside by the male twoleg.

When he tries to jump over the fence to go back into the forest, he gets shocked and almost runs back into the twoleg den in fear: “I’m being softened by this kittypet life!”

Snuggles hops up on the fence to greet Tigerclaw, calling him Tiger, and welcoming him to the neighborhood. Tigerclaw can hear a dog in her yard. “Aren’t you afraid of the dog?”

Snuggles says that she grew up with the dog and the dog would never hurt a cat. Tigerclaw jumps on the fence and sees the massive dog in the other yard (a husky). He grimly admits to himself that Snuggles is very brave for being so close to the dog.

Tigerclaw goes back into the twoleg den and sees that the cat bed has been moved to the windowsill. “The twolegs must’ve seen me near the window.”

He lays down on the bed and sleep overcomes him immediately. The cat bed is a lot more comfortable than any nest he ever had in the forest.

Tigerclaw wakes up to find the male twoleg putting food in his bowl and filling up his water once more. The twoleg gives Tigerclaw a few good pets before leaving.

The cat flap is unlocked permanently now that Tigerclaw has his collar and he once again goes out into his yard. He successfully catches a bird and eats it. 

Phoenix sees him catch the bird and is impressed. Tigerclaw is happy that he hasn’t lost any of his warrior skills.

A few days later, Tigerclaw is sunbathing on his fence, gazing longingly into the forest when he spots a ThunderClan patrol in the woods. He can easily make out Cloudpaw’s bright white pelt. He hides from the patrol.

In a puddle in his yard from the sprinkles, Tigerclaw can see that he is more fed and filled out than he has ever been in the forest and that his fur is much sleeker than usual.

When a massive storm is raging outside one night, Tigerclaw admits that he’s happy to be inside a war twoleg den rather than being outside in the storm.

Tigerclaw runs into Oscar the day after the storm. Oscar asks him how he’s adjusting. “I would go back to the forest in a heartbeat if I could, but it’s not awful. I’m surviving.”

Oscar comments that it won’t be long before Tigerclaw goes to see the cutter (gets neutered).

Another week passes and Tigerclaw officially responds to the name Tiger, but still calls himself Tigerclaw. He is beginning to understand some twoleg language and learn the routine of the twolegs he lives with.

Tigerclaw is asleep on the male twoleg’s chair when the twoleg comes back home. The twoleg picks him up and puts Tigerclaw on his lap when he sits back down in his chair. Tigerclaw makes no move to leave the lap and lets the twoleg pet him.

The twolegs take off his claw caps.

When the first snowstorm of leaf-bare hits the forest, Tigerclaw is grateful for always having food to eat and heat to keep him warm.

He sees Snuggles playing with the husky in the neighboring yard and notices how both Snuggles and the husky are having fun in the snow. “I was never able to play in the snow, I was always too worried about feeding myself and my clan.”

Tigerclaw jumps into the yard and almost runs when the husky approaches him. Instead of attacking, the husky barks happily and runs in circles around him. Snuggles explains that he is playing.

Tigerclaw resentfully admits that the life of a kittypet isn’t that bad, that the warmth and food makes it almost worth it. Phoenix says that he doesn’t have to give up every aspect of his past warrior life: “You can hunt birds in your yard and a house a little ways down has a mouse problem.”

Tigerclaw has now been living with the twolegs for almost two moons and has adjusted completely. 

His twolegs remove his perimeter collar, but Tigerclaw doesn’t run back into the forest.

Tigerclaw sees Darkstripe a few days later when Tigerclaw finally ventures back over his fence. Darkstripe is surprised to see him alive and asks him where he is living. When Tigerclaw admits to living with twolegs, Darkstripe attacks him, saying that he is weak and not a true warrior.

Tigerclaw easily defeats Darkstripe and almost kills him (although he suffers a wound to his shoulder). He tells Darkstripe that the kittypet life may be easy, but that he will never have to worry about food or being sick again. “My name is Tiger.”

Tiger chooses to stay with his twolegs, enjoying their company and letting them pet him and play with him. He is taken to the cutter and becomes a lot lazier than he ever was in the forest. 

When the forest is being destroyed (The New Prophecy novels), Tiger sees ThunderClan cats being captured by twolegs and risks his own tail to save them. He saves all but Graystripe, who is taken away in a monster - now known to Tiger as a ‘car’ - before Tiger can save him.

Tiger leaves the scene before any cat can recognize him and is thankful that his scent has almost completely changed.

Tiger lives to be fourteen years old and dies of old age in the female twoleg’s arms. He sees StarClan but is not welcomed by them because he chose the life of a kittypet. “I do not regret my decision. My twolegs treated me well and were kind. I can see why my father chose to live with twolegs himself. I am grateful for ThunderClan and grateful for the many seasons I spent with my clan, but I am thankful that I found my own happiness after I was cast out.”

Tiger reunites with Pine (Pinestar - his father) in the kittypet version of StarClan.

[talesofpanem]

Peaceful Easy Feeling

Author: @xerxia31

Rating: E

Summary: A camping trip helps a stressed out Peeta find that peaceful, easy feeling…

Author’s Note: This is for the prompt ‘peace’. With apologies to the Eagles for subverting the title of their song (which was stuck in my head nearly the entire time I was writing this story). And in case you can’t tell from the rating, it’s smutty. I make no apologies for needin’ a little everlark lovin’ today.

She wants to take me camping. 

I’ll do almost anything for Katniss, endure almost any torture. But camping? Why on earth would I want to march through the wilderness with an eighty pound pack just to get eaten by bears?

And worse is knowing it’s something she used to do with her ex, so every minute of it she’ll be comparing me to him. To tall, dark and broody, mister I’m so much more of a man than you’ll ever be, something he makes sure I know every time I see him, which is far too often in our small town. 

But how can I refuse? When she looks at me with silver eyes sparkling and tells me it’ll be the perfect cure for all of the stress I’m under running my dad’s bakery while he convalesces and my mother tries to interfere in every damned decision I make? When she somehow convinces my brother Rye and his wife to take over Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday so that we can have a true weekend alone together?

———

The two hour drive to Panem State Park may well be the highlight of my weekend. It’s a perfect late September morning, the sun bright and the sky cloudless. The early morning prep at the bakery went exceedingly smoothly, and Mother didn’t pop in to belittle me before Rye and Dells took over. I have a hot mug of tea in my Jeep’s cupholder and Katniss curled up beside me, singing some pop ditty about me being trouble, trouble, trouble. In her smoky, sultry voice, the lyrics become a dirty promise that has me shifting in my seat. 

But once we park at the station, once I strap on a pack that’s not quite 80 pounds but might be 75, my mood deteriorates. Katniss keeps up a gentle banter as she walks the forest floor with nearly soundless steps. I crash through the brush like a foul-tempered bear, tripping over roots and nearly scratching my eye out several times on low-hanging branches. 

I try, I really try, not to bitch and moan when yet another bug flies up my nose. But it sucks. My new hiking boots are rubbing my heel raw and the old knee injury that killed my scholarship hopes flares up with every staggering misstep. This death march from hell is endless. 

Though Katniss usually has zero patience for, well, anything, she doesn’t lose her temper with my shit mood. Here, in the woods that she’s loved since she was a little girl, she’s luminous. Her bright eyes dance everywhere, and she sees things I’d never have caught - the white tail of a rabbit darting under a bush, mushrooms clinging to a fallen tree, a glistening beehive - and she delights in showing them to me. She’s so comfortable in the wild, so at home, she’s practically a wildling herself. 

Yet she’s stuck with me, a townie to my core. My only previous camping experience was in a cabin at scout camp when I was a kid. And I hated even that. 

She guides us along without ever once looking at the map that the park ranger gave us, even though we’re not following any path that I can figure out. But her steps are sure, as if she’s walked this route a hundred times. And maybe she has. Maybe this is the exact place where she and Gale used to spend time together. The thought makes me sick. 

By the time she stops, I’m sweaty and aching and acting like a jealous asshole, grumbling under my breath and refusing to even answer her questions. She stands in the centre of a small clearing and spins around. “Perfect,” she breathes. 

I grunt. If not for the circle of river rocks, I wouldn’t even know this is a backcountry site. It just looks like a spot where the trees don’t grow quite so closely together. 

Katniss drops onto a fallen log and gestures for me to join her, which I do because my feet are killing me. The bottle of cold water she passes to me soothes my parched throat but doesn’t improve my mood. I slump, scuffing at the pine needle covered dirt with my ridiculous boots. She frowns, but still doesn’t call me on my shit attitude. 

Rummaging in her pack, she pulls out the bag I know contains a tent, then empties it methodically. The sheer number of pieces hurts my head. I’m certain you’d need an engineering degree and a team of technicians to turn it into something shelter-like. I bet Hawthorne can assemble it blindfolded. I wonder if she and Hawthorne used this very tent to— 

“Are you hungry?” she asks, snapping me out of my very painful ponderance. I shrug. I am, frankly I’m hangry at this point, starving on top of morose and irritated. But if she’s going to go off and shoot a squirrel for us to eat she’ll see just how unmanly I am. 

Katniss laughs, warm and husky. “I’m not interested in squirrel either,” she says, and I wonder whether I can kick my own ass with my knee acting up this way. But she digs through her pack and produces a small insulated bag containing hot dogs, of all things. My jaw drops and she winks. “How about you get a fire started while I set up the tent?”

Starting a fire is the one thing I’m capable of out here, good at, in fact. The bakery is all electric convection now, but when I was a tot, my grandfather was still using wood ovens. At his knee, I learned to start a fire no matter the circumstance. I gather fallen branches while Katniss organizes the 846 individual tent pieces, give or take 830. And by the time I have a nice fire going, she’s put up our shelter and set up our bed. 

She ditches her boots to curl her bare toes in the moss and pine, I join her, and roasting hot dogs over the fire calms me, at least a little. We don’t talk much, but with my aching feet freed from their overpriced prison, and with three of Nathan’s finest warming my belly, I start to feel a lot better. 

We watch the small fire burn down to embers, then she tugs me to my feet. “Come with me,” she murmurs. And I do. Because I would follow Katniss anywhere. This gorgeous wood nymph who I’ve loved half my life. 

She doesn’t put her boots back on, so neither do I, though I’m nervous about cutting the shit out of my feet walking through the forest. But the path she leads me along is mostly bare dirt, and we go slowly enough that I can be cautious about the few rocks and pine needles. 

We go no further than a hundred yard before the canopy of trees open and we are standing near the rocky shore of a tiny lake, a perfect blue jewel, partly shaded from the afternoon sun by the thick trees all along what must be the southern and western shores. The water is so calm that the surface is mirror-like, reflecting back the trees and the blue sky above. For several long moments, I just stare, heart filled with gratitude. 

Her hand slips from mine, and after a few beats, I tear my eyes away from the beauty before me to focus on the beauty beside me. She’s watching me with mischief in her silver eyes while unbuttoning her flannel shirt. “How about a swim?” she says. 

“Didn’t bring a suit,” I mutter, distracted by her dainty fingers, by the eroticism of each button slipping free. She’s wearing a thin white tank top underneath, one that emphasizes the swell of each perfect breast. 

She laughs. Her flannel gets tossed over a tree branch and she starts on her cargo shorts. “Did you suddenly get shy, Mellark?”

I snort; I don’t care if she sees me, and she knows it. But she’s usually so reserved, almost pure, that seeing her strip down out in the open has me bewildered. It’s like she’s a completely different person in the woods. And that hurts more than I’d expected. I love seeing her happy, I do. But I can’t help wondering why she’s wasting her time with me, putting up with my seven day work weeks and my toddler-esque bedtime and my near constant stress headaches when she could be out here with Hawthorne all of the time.

I’m still brooding when a splash sounds beside me, and I catch a glimpse of long, lean legs disappearing into the water. I glance at Katniss’s pile of clothes - flannel, shorts and bra, but no tank or panties. So I quickly strip down to my boxers and dive in.

Then shriek in a very unmanly way.

“Damn this is cold!” I yell, my nuts climbing up into my stomach, icy water sluicing from my soaked hair over my shoulders and down my back like so many tiny daggers. Katniss giggles, maybe the first time I’ve ever heard her giggle. I want to bark at her, but she’s standing a few feet away in water only waist deep, and her tank is completely see-through, her dark nipples straining against the wet fabric like magic bullets. Despite the cold, my dick stands up to say hello! 

Katniss is insanely sexy, I don’t think she has any idea how many of the men in our small town lust after her. I know I’ve always been one of them. But she barely noticed me until I came home after college, just over a year ago. That’s when she started coming to the bakery in the early mornings, before her shifts at the veterinary clinic where she’s a technician. We chatted nearly every day for months before I finally gathered enough courage to ask her out.

We’ve been together since.

I stalk towards her now, and she bites her lip, torn between standing her ground and trying to run. Her stubborn nature wins, and she grins defiantly at me just before I scoop her up into my arms, cold, goose-pebbled skin pressed together. I kiss her hard, but only for a moment. Then I toss her back into the water.

She’s laughing when she surfaces, splashing me, and we spend more than a half hour chasing each other through the glassy water, playing like kids. Only when her teeth are chattering so hard I can barely understand her do I call for a time out.

The late afternoon sun illuminates a large, flat rock a few dozen yards from where our clothes await; it’s there that I carry her. Then I cover her shivering body with my own, and kiss her blue-tinged lips until we’re both warm and panting, the sun pounding on my back no match for the heat between us. But as much as I want her, a rock perched in a lake isn’t the best spot to do more than kiss. So with huge reluctance, I force myself up and carry her back to the shore.

We trudge back to the tent hand-in-hand, bare feet still wet and with pine needles sticking to them. I barely notice the discomfort though. Katniss is only wearing her flannel unbuttoned over her damp undergarments, and every step as she leads me teases me with glimpses of those wet panties clinging to her perfect ass.

But when we get back to our campsite, our home for another 24 hours, my fantasies of climbing into that tent and finishing what we started on that rock are shattered. “I know you’re not big on squirrel,” Katniss teases, “but how do you feel about fish?” She pulls a bunch of carbon sticks from her pack and begins twisting them together. I’m a little curious what else she has stowed in the packs, she put everything together, only collecting a single change of clothing from me. Planned every aspect of this weekend. While I puzzle over that, two fishing rods with reels appear almost like magic. 

I like fish, but the idea of catching and cleaning one makes me feel a little green, and worse, it reminds me, yet again, that this is a place she shared with mister oh-so-manly. A place I’ll never truly fit in.

I follow her back to the lake anyway, after tugging my pants back on. Might as well not get my nuts eaten by blackflies.

We wade out again to the large flat rock and settle side by side. At least it’s a beautiful spot to suffer.

I’ve never been fishing before, unless you count those carnival games with the little magnets on the end of the line (everyone wins a prize!). But Katniss is surprisingly patient with me, baiting my hook with some squirming red worm thing, showing me how to cast the line. And thankfully there’s not much to do in fishing but wait, something I’ve always been really good at.

Katniss lays her head against my shoulder and I wrap my free arm around her. She fits so perfectly against me, like I was made for her. For a few minutes, I do feel calmer, like my stress is parked somewhere back on shore. It’s almost like meditation. “I haven’t been here in so long,” she breathes. “I’d almost forgotten how much I love it.”

And now I feel fucking awful, keeping her from the places she loves and things she wants to do. All of those feelings of inadequacy come roaring back. I’m not good enough for Katniss. I’m not good enough for anything. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, my voice hoarse.

“For what?” She glances up at me, confused.

“For keeping you away from this place for so long.” It’s ripping me apart, knowing how being stuck with me has made her life so much duller, so much smaller.

Katniss lifts her head off my shoulder and scowls, and I want to kiss that scowl so bad. Instead, I turn my focus back to the water.

“You haven’t kept me away from here.” They’re the words I expected, but instead of sounding scripted and placating, Katniss sounds pissed off. “Why would you even say that? You’re the reason I finally came back.” I glance back at her, but she’s turned away, staring out over the gloom gathering along the shore. “I knew this place would be full of memories, and I didn’t think I’d be strong enough to face them alone.”

It’s like a spear through the chest, knowing how many memories there are for her here, and how melancholy they make her. I can’t help but wonder how much of what we’re doing is Katniss reliving the good times she had here with Gale.

The rod in my hands jumps; I nearly drop it. Katniss’s somber mood vanishes. With a smile, she sets aside her own rod and shows me how to reel in my line. The fish that emerges from the water, squirming and fighting, is an ugly silvery-green thing, maybe two feet long. I have no idea what it is, but Katniss’s reaction suggests it’ll be good for eating. She’s laughing, holding it by the gills and removing the hook as it continues to squirm. My stomach also squirms. But she’s so happy that I bite my cheek and plaster on the biggest smile I can.

Her expression says I’m not doing a good job of convincing her. But she takes pity on me, not insisting I hold it or asking me to pose for a selfie with it or anything like that. “This will be enough for both of us,” she says. “And I have some dried noodles in my pack too.” Thank goodness for that.

Dusk is falling when we get back to our site, the dense trees blocking much of the twilight. Katniss, of course, has flashlights. She’s thought of everything. While she cleans the fish, something I’m not keen to watch, I stoke a decent fire from our embers, and gather fallen wood, using her tiny, almost useless little hatchet to turn it into manageable pieces. I catch Katniss watching me and grin. She likes my arms, something she’s never been shy about telling me. I wish I had a bigger axe, I could give her a little show. Remind her I have some things going for me.

But then she sends me away to fetch a jug of water from the lake, and I’m forced to pick my way along the path slowly and cautiously in the dark, reminding us both how completely out of my depth I am here.

I boil the noodles and sauce mix and she fries the fish. We eat right out of the pans and I’m surprised and grateful that it’s actually delicious. When I tease her about it, since Katniss is normally a terrible cook, she sticks her tongue out at me. “It’s not a soufflé, mister master baker,” she laughs. “But it’s hard to screw up cooking over a fire.” 

“I doubt that,” I snicker. “I’m pretty sure I could mess it up, if I could find food out here at all.”

Very little moonlight penetrates the trees, we have only the firelight to see by. But Katniss’s smile is unmistakable, a flash of white teeth in the darkness as we rinse out the pot and stow it away. “I have my father to thank for being able to hunt and forage. He taught me so much about survivalism,” she says, melancholy infusing her voice. “He wanted me to be prepared for any scenario.” Her soft laugh is laced with bitterness. “But he couldn’t prepare me for a life without him.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, because I am. The terror I experienced when my dad collapsed in the bakery is nothing compared to the horror Katniss’s life became when her father was killed in a car crash. We were only in middle school, but the whole town knew that her mom lost her mind when she lost her husband. Even now, I don’t know all of the details. Katniss is loathe to talk about that time, but it was several months before her uncle moved in with them, years before her mother recovered. But the cute, bubbly Katniss I sort of knew in grade school was gone forever.

She reaches over and squeezes my hand, and we sit silently, watching the fire crackle and pop. It’s so peaceful, so relaxing.. “I want to say it’s quiet here,” I muse after a while. “But it’s not.” The woods are practically screaming with crickets and peepers, and other sounds I don’t recognize, but which Katniss identifies for me. It’s like a natural symphony. I’m captivated. 

“Hypnotic,” she says, and she’s right. There’s a rhythm to the night sounds, it’s soothing. 

The fire wanes, but neither of us move to put any more wood on it, simply watching, hand in hand, each lost in our own thoughts. 

“My life has changed so much since the last time I was here,” she whispers, breaking me from my trance. “But this place is exactly the same. Even after ten years.”

“Ten years?”

“Yeah. Well, eleven I guess.” Her fingers flex against mine, as if she’s counting in her head. 

“I just assumed you came out here with Gale,” I admit. 

“Gale?” she scoffs. “Why on earth would you think that?”

I shrug. “You were always doing stuff like this with him. Camping, hiking, fishing…” My voice sounds petulant, I know it does. 

“Hunting, Peeta. We went hunting a few times, with his uncle. For turkeys, mostly. But Gale hates fishing, he doesn’t have the patience for it. He wouldn’t go hiking unless there was a purpose for it, he never thought just enjoying the woods was a good enough reason. We definitely never camped together.” Katniss sighs, turning back to the fire. “And I never brought him here. This was my father’s favourite place. You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to share it with.”

“Oh sweetheart,” I breathe. “I didn’t realize.” I pull her snugly against me, and she doesn’t resist. “That’s what you meant about the memories.”

“Yeah,” she says, nestling deeper into my embrace as I press my lips to her sweet hair. “I locked away so much about him, when he died.” I know that’s true. I’ve spilled the dirt on pretty much all of my family’s dysfunction to Katniss, but while she’ll talk about her sister Prim, their mother, and even their crazy uncle Haymitch, her dad is a topic that only rarely comes up. “It’s easier to share him with you,” she murmurs, contradicting my thoughts completely. “Because you’re so much like him.”

I pull back, studying her face in the firelight, mostly shrouded in shadows. Even in the dim I can see she’s not mocking me. But I remember her dad, he was larger than life, a big man with a booming laugh and a smile for everyone. “Katniss,” I say, wary. “I don’t think I’m anything like your dad. He was brave and adventurous and amazing, and I’m just a dumb townie.”

“Stop it,” she barks. “I hate it when you put yourself down. And it’s not even true.” She grabs my face in her hands and I can’t help but lean into her touch. She has no idea, the effect she has on me. “You’re kind,” she says, voice wavering, “and so generous. You’re selfless almost to a fault. And you listen, you really listen, to me and to everyone. And you make me feel safe. Those are the things that made my dad special too.”

“Katniss,” I whisper, but she’s not done.

“I don’t care that you don’t hunt or that you’re not too keen on fishing. I love you, Peeta, exactly the way you are.” I turn my head to kiss her wrist, almost overcome by her words, by the sincerity behind them. “I suck at cooking and I couldn’t care any less about movies or television, but you still love me, right?” She knows I do; she’s trying to make a point.

And succeeding.

“With all of my heart,” I tell her.

“Then stop comparing yourself to Gale,” she says, cutting away everything else to lay my biggest insecurity bare. “I chose you. I love you.” Then she kisses me, lips soft but insistent.

I forget Gale, forget my ineptitude, even forget my job and family stresses. There is only Katniss, only the woman I’ve loved always.

Without breaking our kiss, I haul her into my arms and stand. Her arms fly around my neck, and I walk the half dozen steps to our small tent. Katniss tilts her head back and laughs, husky and warm. 

Getting the zipper open with my arms full of Katniss is a worthy challenge, and my prize is her soft sigh when I lay her on top of our sleeping bag. 

It’s pitch black in the tent, not even a whisper of light from our dying campfire penetrates the nylon walls. I lean over her, but catch her braid under my hand and she yelps. When I pull away to apologize she reaches for my face but instead pokes me in the ear. I try to kiss her again but she moves at the same time and we bash noses like middle schoolers just learning to kiss. 

I sit back on my knees and laugh at the ridiculousness and novelty of it, and after a moment, she joins me, snickering as I stroke her belly blindly. I could search for the flashlight I know she’s stowed somewhere near the door. But I’ve never been in complete darkness like this, it’s never this black in town, and it’s disconcerting but also exciting. 

Katniss wiggles in the darkness, maybe trying to find me. But I grasp her waist and her attention. 

“You just lie still and let me love you,” I say, and she sighs, but stills. I know her body better than my own, have studied every dip and curve and ticklish place. The darkness is no detriment now. With sure hands, I pull off her flannel, and the tank beneath it. She’s still braless from our earlier swim, and though I can’t see her breasts with their dark, pouty nipples, I can certainly feel them. Katniss moans as I pull one perfect peak into the heat of my mouth, sucking hard, the way I know she likes it, rolling the other between my fingers, plucking and teasing it to aching hardness. Then I switch, soothing one nipple with my tongue, pinching the other. 

Katniss squirms and bucks underneath me, trying to hurry me along. But I take my time, worshiping her breasts, lavishing them with attention. It’s so incredibly rare that we have unhurried time to make love. She still lives with her mother and uncle, I’m stuck above the bakery with my mother and eventually my father again, once he’s released from the rehabilitation centre. Far too often, Katniss and I are forced to settle for quick, near silent fucking. She deserves better. She deserves to be savoured, and tonight I’ll do just that. 

It’s with reluctance that I surrender those perfect peaks, but more wonders await. I kiss a path down her belly, trace the riot of goosebumps with my tongue. Her cargo shorts are easily dispatched, and I press a hot kiss to the cotton of her panties, damp again but not from lake water this time. 

“Peeta,” she gasps as I graze her cotton-covered pussy with my teeth, breathing a rush of hot air through the fabric. 

The sheer need in her voice is nearly my undoing. I ease her panties off and she assists, but moves her hands quickly away again, her breathing harsh, expectant. I can’t see her pretty pussy in the stark blackness, but I can smell her arousal, feel the heat emanating from her core. I nuzzle her inner thigh, biting just lightly, and she curses.

I kiss her lower lips softly, and she tilts her hips up, begging for more. Something about the darkness makes teasing her feel cruel; instead, I lick a long line through all of her spicy wetness, from entrance to clit, and she moans her appreciation. 

Katniss keeps moaning and bucking as I feast, alternating between thrusting my tongue inside her like a tiny cock and sucking on her clit. Her hands find my hair, tugging as she writhes against my face. It’s so hot, her uninhibited cries, that I’m practically humping the sleeping pad beneath us, desperate for some friction to ease my own ache. 

When I slide two fingers into her waiting heat, she cries out, like sensual music splitting the night. She’s never been loud like this with me, we’ve never really had an opportunity to be this free. It’s a drug, her sweet sounds, and I want to hear more. I want to hear her forever. 

She chants my name over and over. I suck her clit and her snug walls tighten around my fingers. I know she’s right on the edge, and the gratification of that makes me groan against her flesh. Nothing is as good as pleasuring Katniss. 

Her trembling thighs clamp around my ears, preventing an escape I have no desire to make. Then she comes, and it’s a fucking glorious thing, she arches and wails my name with abandon, pulsing around my fingers. It’s nearly enough to push me over too as my dick begs for release. 

She slumps, sated but still quivering with aftershocks, and I bring my sopping wet fingers to my mouth, sucking away her arousal loudly so she can hear it. Katniss moans. “Come back up here,” she says, and her voice is hoarse in a way that makes me feel like a damned hero. 

I slide off my own shirt before climbing up her body. I’m careful in the darkness, not to crush her or pull her hair again. Kissing Katniss with her bare skin pressed against mine is the best feeling. She tugs at the waistband of my pants. “Lose these,” she demands against my lips. 

“Yes ma’am,” I laugh. I’m so eager to be inside her that just pulling off my boxers makes my dick throb. She kneads my ass muscles, then pulls me closer. She’s so slick and ready that I slide in smoothly, and I have to pause, buried inside her right to the hilt, to catch my breath. “Oh fuck, I gasp.

Her fingernails rake up my back and her calves wrap around my thighs, and she feels so damned good that it’s driving me insane. But I can’t see her gorgeous face and it’s disconcerting. I try fucking her harder, but if anything it makes the disconnect worse.

As if she can feel my uncertainty, Katniss pulls my face against her throat, her mouth against my ear. “Peeta,” she moans. “You’re so sexy.” I groan at her words. She’s not much of a talker during sex, that’s more my thing. But I think she knows how desperately I need that connection right now. “You feel so good. So big and hard,” she sighs.

And I’m a goner.

I grab her thigh, hiking it up over my hip, spreading her wide, and fuck her with fast, brutal strokes. She keeps chanting in my ear, yes and more and harder, Peeta. I bite her neck, not quite hard enough to mark but hard enough to make her swear. Her pussy flutters around me, an unexpected second orgasm that sends me hurtling into the abyss. I come with a shout, my cock pulsing, my ass muscles tensed, every inch of my body on fire.

We lie panting in the darkness, kissing and caressing, loving each other. “I needed that,” she laughs as she pulls away, fumbling for the edges of the sleeping bag, wrapping them haphazardly around us. I know it’s not very late, probably not even ten yet, and I want desperately to lie awake, cuddled together and whispering in the darkness. But after months of having no days off, another in a string of obscenely early mornings and the hike to get here conspire against me, and I drift off to sleep almost the moment her soft body again settles against me.

—

When my eyes pop open, it’s later than I usually awaken, but not by much. The sun isn’t up, but there’s a little bit of thin grey light seeping through the tent. It’s neither my alarm, nor habit that has me awake pre-dawn on the one day in more than three months I could have slept in.

It’s Katniss.

More specifically, it’s my gorgeous girlfriend kissing a path down my body, her lips soft and warm against my chilled skin. “Fuck,” I groan as she bites that spot where my leg connects to my groin, a place she knows I’m sensitive. She laughs.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she says, and I’d laugh at the absurdity of that if she wasn’t gazing at me from between my legs, her words ghosting across my hard cock.

“It certainly is,” I murmur, and she laughs.

Unlike last night, I can see her every expression as she teases me, pressing wet kisses to my shaft, using the tip of her tongue to tickle my crown. Can see the love that shines from her eyes, and the pleasure she gets from driving me to the edge. I cup her beautiful face in my hand, and she smiles. That smile feels even better than what she’s doing to my dick.

And what she’s doing to my dick is utterly amazing. She draws the tip of me into the heat of her mouth and I can’t hold back my groan of pleasure. Her small, soft hands grip what doesn’t fit in her mouth, stroking just firmly enough to make me crazy, but not quite enough to make me come. Over and over, alternating firm suction with fleeting licks, kissing and tasting and even grazing me oh so lightly with her teeth. Sweat beads on my forehead as I fight the primal urge to thrust upward, to speed her pace. I know she can tell that she has my control in tatters.

Her own control is being tested too, she shifts and squirms and sighs, and I know she’s almost as aroused as I am. “Come here,” I growl, tugging gently on her wrist.

Little minx that she is, she shakes her head and then sucks harder. I arch helplessly. “Please, Katniss,” I beg. “I want you.”

She releases my cock with a soft pop. “I’m yours,” she whispers, silver eyes shining. She slides sinuously back up my body, rubbing her wet pussy against my aching shaft, and I moan. I’m so close to the edge, so primed to explode. She takes pity on me, reaching back, grabbing my cock and notching it in position. I howl as she sinks down, surrounding me in the hottest, tightest prison. 

Her lean thighs flex and she starts to ride me, slowly, pleasure written all over her gorgeous face. I reach for the tie at the end of her braid, slipping it free then unravelling the raven mass with gentle fingers, until her hair floats in rumpled waves around her like a corona. She smiles indulgently. I love her hair, love to sift my fingers through it, love to see it curtaining us when we make love.

I slide my hands all over her body, everywhere I can reach, caressing the gentle curves that were hidden in the darkness last night. Strong thighs and smooth ass, tiny waist and perfect apple tits that sway as she rocks against me. “You are so beautiful,” I murmur. “So incredibly beautiful. I’m so lucky.”

She leans forward, hands bracketing my head, making her hair spill around us, brush against my chest, envelop us in a cloud of lavender and woodsmoke. I cup the back of her neck, pulling her down further to kiss her, and she makes little mewling cries against my lips. I can’t last; her sounds, her scent, the silken vise of her pussy gripping me, it’s too much. 

I wedge my hand between us, finding her clit, swollen and wet with her arousal. I strum it, and she tenses around me, pulling her lips from mine to gasp, a broken wail of pleasure.

And my restraint is gone.

Katniss tucks her face against my throat as I lever my hips upward, pumping into her hard and fast, one hand still cupped around her nape, the other circling her clit firmly. The reverent predawn silence is broken only by our panting breaths and the slapping of flesh against flesh. She whimpers my name, then murmurs “I love you,” against my throat and I come, shuddering and groaning, filling her with pulse after pulse. She follows me just a heartbeat later, her cry almost a scream and the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.

I cradle her against my chest, pressing kisses to her hair while my breathing calms. She’s sweaty and disheveled, completely magnificent. “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever,” I whisper.

Katniss lifts her head to look at me. Usually, when I get too sentimental, she rolls her eyes or gets uncomfortable. Today, she simply smiles. “We have so many more good moments ahead of us, Peeta,” she says softly.

She’s right. We do.

She only lets us tarry in bed a few moments longer, then sits up and pulls my t-shirt from last night over her head. “Come on,” she says. And of course I do.

We pad towards the lake, hand in hand, me in boxers, her in only my shirt, though it’s practically a dress on her. It’s not quite warm out yet, but I don’t feel even a speck of discomfort. “Are we going fishing?” I ask. I enjoyed the fish well enough last night, but I’m not sure how I feel about fish for breakfast.

She laughs. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard Katniss laugh as much as she has the past twenty hours or so. “Not just yet,” she says.

We emerge from the tree cover to the shore, and I stop dead in my tracks. The forest had obscured the sky from me; here in the open, it’s a masterpiece. Glowing gold and muted orange, streaked with pink, the sunrise has painted not only the sky, but the mirror-like surface of the small lake as well. It’s hands down the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Or the second most beautiful, actually. “You like?” Katniss asks, her tone smug, but also just a little bit tentative. I tear my eyes away from the splendor of nature to gaze at the love of my life. She’s chewing her lip, the rising sun burnishing her skin, crowning her in gold.

I can only gasp her name, overcome by awe. She pulls my hand to her lips, kissing my knuckles. “Come on,” she whispers again, and leads me through the shallows to the flat rock we’d fished from yesterday.

She sits between my knees, her back flush against my chest, my arms wrapped around her collarbones, and we keep each other warm as we watch the shifting colour show play out before us. The artist inside me, the part of me beaten down by life and familial expectations, roars to life. I try to commit every bit of the spectacle before me to memory, aching to capture it in pastels, or even in oil paints. Though I’m awake long before dawn every single day, I can’t remember the last time I watched the sun rise. The bakery kitchen is all but windowless, and I haven’t had a day off since before Dad’s stroke. I’ve been trying so hard to keep everything together for him that I’ve forgotten the simple pleasure of taking ten minutes to watch the sun paint the sky in fire. 

Five, ten, fifteen minutes pass in silence. The sun clears the horizon, streaking the water with platinum.  Waterfowl float lazily by. Emotion clogs my throat, burns my nose. I have no doubt this is exactly the reason Katniss brought me here. Not to relive her past, not to enjoy the outdoors the way she hasn’t been able to lately, but to give me this perfect moment in time, this peaceful easy feeling, surrounded by beauty, far removed from all of the stress. It was never about Gale. It was always about me. 

There’s only a hint of pink edging the fluffy clouds when she turns to face me. She traces my face with gentle fingers. “There you are,” she says. I raise a brow, and she shrugs, smoothing her fingers across my forehead. “You’ve been so stressed out,” she says. “It’s nice to see the worry lines gone.” 

“Are you calling me a wrinkled old man?” I grin. I know she’s not. She shakes her head at me, but doesn’t let me joke away her concern.

“You can’t keep going the way you have been,” she says. 

“What choice do I have though?” I know she’s right, but it’ll be months yet before my dad can come back to work. He’s improving, day by day, regaining his speech and mobility. Doing better than we’d hoped in those first dark days. But it’s a long road.

“Your mother is taking advantage of you.” Her words are quiet, tentative. But while she’s voicing a thought I’ve had myself, many times over, I feel compelled to defend Mother. Katniss doesn’t let me, shushing me as soon as I open my mouth. “You dad never worked seven days a week. He always had someone to help. You’re shouldering everything.”

“I know,” I sigh, and I do. Dad had not only me, but a full time manager in addition to his part time staff. But Mother fired Dalton while Dad was still in the ICU, somehow convinced that he was too expensive, though Dad paid him a fair wage, not an extravagance. Without his expertise, I’m working just to keep the bakery in business at this point, running myself absolutely ragged not only doing everything, but doing things I’m not even very good at, like ordering and keeping the ledgers. I haven’t had time to even think about looking for a replacement. And telling Mother that we need help invariably leads to more of her complaining that they paid for my fancy business degree - the one I didn’t want - for this very reason. So that I could run the bakery. And how could I possibly betray them now?

“Your dad doesn’t know, does he? That she’s working you to death.” I shake my head. I can’t even argue with her phrasing. “He needs to know.”

“I don’t want to stress him out,” I tell her. “He has enough to deal with right now.”

“He can handle the truth, Peeta. He wants to know what’s going on. He’s worried about you, about why you look so miserable.” Katniss visits my dad more often than I do, between the hours I keep and the exhaustion that has me asleep before 9 every night, I’m barely getting to the rehab centre twice a week, and I’m crappy company when I am there.

“I don’t want to make things worse with Mother,” I admit. It’s already hard enough living with her without Dad as a buffer. I can’t imagine the hell that would result from talking to Dad about her interference. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Katniss says after a pause. “What if you weren’t living with your mother any more?”

I nod, it would make life easier for certain. “I know I need a place of my own,” I admit. “But I can’t afford it.” It hurts to tell her that, I should be able to take care of myself, I’m 23 after all. But the salary I draw from the bakery isn’t fantastic, and a big enough chunk of it goes to Mother for rent that I feel like I’ll never climb out of this hole.

“We could afford it, if we did it together.” Her voice shakes a little. 

“You want to live together?” I hope that’s what she means, not that she wants to give me charity or something. But she nods solemnly. 

“Yeah, I mean, if you do.” She sighs and turns away, looking over the water. “It’s the logical next step.”

I don’t give a shit about logic. I catch her cheek, turning her back to face me again. “But is it what you want, Katniss?” I can’t risk this not being for the right reasons. I want real. 

“Yes.” She searches my face, and when I break out into a huge, shit-eating grin her expression softens. “I want more days like this with you,” she admits. 

“I’ll still be working stupid hours,” I remind her. I trust my dad will insist we hire a new manager once he finds out what Mother has been doing. But the bakery is in my blood and early mornings are par for the course. 

“I know,” she says. “But I want to crawl into bed every night with you, even if it’s not quite dark outside.” I snicker, and she grins at me. “I want to build a life together, Peeta. And I want to start now.”

My whoop startles the ducks milling around the lake’s edge as I scoop Katniss onto my lap and kiss her until she’s squirming and laughing against my lips. 

We decide the big flat rock is a great place to make love after all, with the sun beating on my back and the granite scraping our knees and our passion echoing across the water. 

We swim a little, and eat packets of instant oatmeal instead of breakfast fish. Then we crawl back into our sleeping bag and chat about our future all cuddled up together, just like I’d longed to do last night. 

And though my boots are still uncomfortable as hell, the hike back to my car is far more pleasant. Accompanied by Katniss’s smoky bourbon impression of the Eagles, I’m filled with hope for our future, and with a peace I haven’t felt in forever. All thanks to the beauty by my side who insisted on taking me camping. 

[multiplefandomfics]

Vampires in Alexandria

So me again guys. This i made out of a small idea that i had. I felt the deep need to combine two of my favorite shows and put it in words. I hope it hasn’t gotten too bizarre but i really liked the idea.

Warnings: blood, Gore, death of fan favorite characters, vampires, the walking dead, smut, unprotected sex, make out session, magic

Words: 4.928 (got a bit out of hand)

Summary: what if the Mikaelsons were sent to the world of The Walking Dead? Find out in the following.

Authors note: Let's pretend the whole blue spirit thing didn't happen. May not completely follow the plot of TWD.

You were really happy to have found a home in New Orleans again. After over a century. Even though your twin brother Klaus often acted out he had always been good to you.

After you had performed the ritual to release your wolf sides in Mystic Falls you had been closer than ever. You were the only sibling he had never dared to dagger. It's not like you didn't love the others as well. Sometimes you even favored Elijah over Klaus but you guessed he did too.

And the french quarter in New Orleans was the perfect place to live. Most of the people knew about magic and vampires and you already had friends and a place to live there.

Admittedly you had to fight in the beginning to get the town you build up with your family back but it was kinda worth it.

Weeks and months ticked by and there was always a new threat but that didn't stop you from sticking together. Always and forever, right?

When your oldest sister Freya stepped into the picture you instantly knew that she would become your best friend.

But the best thing to happen to your family and especially for Klaus was his daughter Hope. She was adorable but still strong and fierce. Even you could feel the magic pulsating through her veins.

In the beginning you had hated her mother Hayley. She was such an annoying little brat and pushed herself between your twin and you but after their one night stand she kept away and when Hope was born she was a completely different person.

That was about 8 years ago. Hope really made progress with her witchcraft. She was almost stronger than Freya already at such a young age. It was amazing.

Well until there was a new evil something threatening the Mikaelsons that was when you somehow got your neck snapped and when you awoke you were not in New Orleans anymore.

"Ouch" you slowly got up and rubbed your neck. You were momentarily blind due to intense sun rays but all around you it smelled like pine needles and moss.

When your eyes had finally adjusted you found out that was because you were sitting in a clearing in the middle of a goddamn forest. "Wonderful" you thought to yourself. That could have been anywhere. You looked around and suddenly heard a very familiar sound. A growling almost like a hissing sound. You turned around and we're met with the hulking figure of a walker. You all but fell into an episode of the walking dead. Who in hell sent you there? You dodged the biters teeth because you weren't sure if these things could kill you, most likely not but why risk it? And ripped its head clean off smashing the skull. It was really messy but you were used to that.

Suddenly "Y/N?"  You spun around to see Elijah, completely dishevelled like you rarely saw him, stumbling out of the bushes.

You ran into his arms and hugged him tight. Thank God you weren't alone.

"Elijah, it's so good to see you. I thought whatever send me here did that only to me."

"No sister. By all means you are not alone. And what it god's great name was that thing?" He nodded to the corpse on the ground.

"That, big brother, was a walker. Remember that, and I quote hideous TV show Klaus and I used to watch? The walking dead?" You mimicked him.

"Yes I think I do recall." He seemed thoughtful.

"That's exactly where we are. The witch that sent us here must have know that we watched it. It must be one of those dream world's that Fin sent you to once. Remember that?" You asked him.

"Of course I do. That means we have to find something that represents us in here and destroy it. That seems almost impossible. We don't even know who put us in here and how that person views uns individually." He remarked.

"Yes that is gonna be tricky but I know this show better than anyone and I know what things could be out of place and have to be what represents us." You planned and he nodded.

"But we won't find that here in the forest. Let's find a street so we can orientate and maybe find somewhere that I recognize." You didn't wait for an answer and just started off toward where it was most likely to find a street.

20 minutes later and you finally found concrete pavement and decided to follow it west were the sun was slowly setting.

You didn't speak much because you didn't want to attract unwanted attention from walkers. Occasionally you killed one here and there but saw nothing much. Your vampire hearing made it possible to know if something was nearby and could become a threat at some point.

After walking for hours, it had already gone dark, the pungent smell of rotting corpses reached your nostrils.

"Ewww. That smells terrible here." You clamped your nose shut.

"Indeed it is a very pungent odor." Elijah marked on holding his handkerchief in front of his nose.

And shortly after that you heard and saw them- a herd of walkers standing right in the middle of the street. But there was another noise. A slashing and crushing sound here and there.

Suddenly a smile broke out over your face when you saw them- Niklaus, Rebekah, Kol and Freya fighting their way through the undead.

You grabbed you noble brothers arm and ran toward them smashing your way through some skulls. When you had reached each other all the walker had lost their undead life.

You slammed against your twin brother and engulfed him into a great hug.

"Thank God you are here too." You whispered to him.

When you had let go of him you pulled the others in tight. After your reunion was completed you talked about a battle plan.

"So how are we gonna proceed?" Kol asked.

"I think I know where we are now. If we head about two miles that way-" you pointed further west-" than we should arrive in Alexandria in no time." You suggested.

"That sounds about right." Klaus agreed with you.

So you all went on until you stood in front of the wooden gate to Alexandria.

"Do you think they will let us pass through? They don't know us." Freya sounded unconvinced.

"Then we will make them open up." Klaus said through gritted teeth. He was already on the edge to borderline choleric. You laid your hand on his arm, that gesture immediately calmed him and you could feel his muscles relax.

"Let's just politely knock and explain." Rebekah mocked.

"If this isn't real than what harm will it make if we just kill them all and take our time to find what represents each one of us?" Kol suggested.

"That would only prove that we are the monsters that half of New Orleans is seeing in us. And I for my part don't want to prove them right!" You barked at them. That made them shut their cakeholes.

You walked toward the gate with big strides when suddenly a voice rang through the silence: "Stop! Don't come any closer! Who are you and what do you want?" The voice belonged to Abraham and you involuntarily sighed relieved that he was alive.

"My name is (Y/N) and those are my siblings and we really need to talk to Rick. We have a story that you wanna hear. And no we are not from the saviours. Do we look like that?" You looked at him expectant of an answer but he just mumbled something along the lines of wait a second and was out of sight but fortunately for you not our of earshot. You could still hear him talking to Rick who had been pulled out of his house by the commotion at the gate.

"You trust them?" Rick asked.

"No way in hell. But they look like they could use some help and a nice bath and we can take them on if need be." Abraham answered. You had to smirk at that. If they only knew what you were. There was still the question if you would survive a bite from a walker but you postponed that question to later and concentrated to get inside the walls of Alexandria.

Not a minute later the massive door rolled open to reveal a bunch of people with guns raised at you. They really didn't trust new people around here anymore. But after what they'd all been though that was understandable.

You calmly raised your arms and motioned your family to do the same even though the bullets would only tickle you, you didn't want to alarm those people any further.

When you were fully inside and the gates had been closed behind you again you were met with the scrutinizing gaze of Rick Grimes.

"So Abe already asked you who you were and what you wanted but you didn't really answer so I ask you again."

"That's kind of complicated. You must know…" you took a deep breath before continuing because you had decided to go with the truth because that would get you were you wanted a lot faster. "My siblings and I are vampires, except for Freya she's a witch, and we seemed to have been put here by another powerful witch so we would be trapped and couldn't have influence on what is going on in our real world. I know that you may have doubts about that story cause it might sound absurd to you but it's 100% true and we have proof." To prove yourself you let your face shift and the citizens of Alexandria backed away revently.

"So you're not lying how do we know that your not just gonna eat us at night?" Abraham asked.

"Because we are not." Rebekah put it as simply as that with a disgusted grunt.

"What my sister so impolitely wanted to submit was that we have honor and we will need your assistance in getting us home. That means it would be very unwise to drink our hosts dry." Elijah elegantly expressed what you would have put a bit simpler but fine.

"And how do we get you home?" Rick pulled an eyebrow up.

"We each need to find an article, could be anything from a chess piece to a chair, that represents each one of us and destroy it. The only problem is that we have no clue what witch sent us here. But the objects we are searching for are from her perspective. So something that represents us the way he or she sees us. If we knew that it would make things easier." You admitted.

Suddenly Freya interfered: "maybe I can try to make contact to the ancestors from here and ask around but it would take me some time not all of them are going to want to help me. They don't like me all that much. But I will sure as hell try." She looked convinced.

"Alright. Rick is there a quiet place where Freya will have her piece to do magic? And she'd need candles if you could spare some." You looked directly at Rick and he nodded and sent Rosita with her who looked grumpy as always.

Suddenly there was something on your mind. You didn't want Abraham and Glenn to die so you decided that your family could help with their upcoming saviour problem.

"While we are waiting we could help you with something. You heard of the saviours I assume?" They all nodded yes.

"Good because they are true bastards and if we don't do something against them now you will lose people and I definitely don't want that to happen." You added.

"Okay and what would you do?"

"Well we can't be killed not even with normal wooden stakes. That means we are going to visit the sanctuary and make their life a little hell until they stop being bullies." You smiled self-righteous.

"Seriously Y/N?" Rebekah whisper yelled at you annoyed.

"Yes Bex we are already bloody and dirty from killing walkers and running through the mud for hours so why the hell not?" You asked and whisper added so only your siblings could hear "didn't you wanna give those saviours a good ass kicking while watching the show?" The all reluctantly admitted that you were right.

"Alright so what do you say Rick? Will you give us a car and someone accompanying us only to drive us there because we wouldn't know where to go?" You asked the leader again.

After thinking and talking that through with his friends he agreed to the plan.

So you got a little cleaned up and talked to Freya again.

"Freya I'm a little worried. I don't know if a walkers bite can hurt or even kill us. We have nothing comparable in our world so no one's ever tested it." Your forehead was wrinkled in worry.

"I'm relatively sure that the bite won't kill you. It's transmitting a disease and you can't get sick so why would it affect you? Just be careful okay? Could still hurt like a bitch little sister." She hugged you and you went relieved back to the rest.  You decided to push the mission to the next morning because it was never safe out there but it got worse at night.

The drive to the sanctuary was spent with planning. You and Klaus knew the premises better than anyone so you tried to visualize everything as best as possible to your siblings.

"So Abraham and Sasha will let us out here." You pointed to a  point on the makeshift map you had drawn back in Alexandria. Rick had wanted to come with you but you didn't want Carl to lose his dad so you compelled him to stay.

Much to your dismay a certain redneck had been all too silent and then had just driven off on his bike when you had wanted to leave for the sanctuary. You had had a crush on him for the longest time of the show running.

But you had more important things to think about. Killing eine saviours for example.

That was gonna be the most satisfying thing you had done in 1000 years of your immortal life.

When you arrived the Alexandrians threw you out and drive to safety. You had agreed on 30 minutes of wreaking havoc before they would come back and get you.

You didn't even sneak in you just waltzed in through the fences killed the walkers hanging there and pushed loudly through the door.

Immediately you had some saviours in your way. Guns blazing. They didn't ask. They shot first. The bullets hit you but you just kept on walking. Even headshots couldn't even bring you down.

"Where's Negan?" Klaus bellowed. "And when I hear from one other than him that he or she is Negan that person is going to die in agony."

So everyone stayed silent.

Then somebody jumped on Kol. Bad move because Rebekah ripped that guys heart out faster than be could get back to his feet. And then the fight broke loose. You killed about 40 of Negan's armed men and women until you heard the signature whistle of himself.

"Who has the fucking guts to come into my home and slaughter my saviours?" His voice echoed from the walls.

"We did!" Klaus boomed back.

"So the fuck is we?" He asked as he arrived on the railing over our heads bat swung leisurely over his shoulder.

He looked kind of relaxed but he was angry as hell you could see the veins at his hairline pop out.

"We dare to come here and demand you to stop harassing the other communities around here. You are not to harm any of the people or their stock and crops. If you still do so you will suffer the consequences." You had his attention by now. But he still looked a bit amused by your demands so you sped up to him and stood face to face with the man.

"Is that clear?" You whisper yelled. He was close enough so that you could feel his wet breath on your nose.

"No darlin. Damn your a hot piece of ass but I ain't listening to you." He said that almost as silent as you had done. And then pound enough for everyone without vampire hearing to hear. "I'm the leader of this ragged bunch of people they need supplies and we are getting them. And we don't care how. We are protecting the other communities and they give us their shit. That's a mutual agreement and we honor that. So again for you sweetheart no fucking way are we stopping what we are doing!!"

As much as your knees buckled at the use of the nicknames for you you fought the wetting of your panties by his gravelly voice and took a deep breath.

"Then I have no other option but to kill you." You sighed. "any last words? Though you don't deserve to say them!"

"You're not gonna kill me sugar. No one in their right mind dares to--" before he kept on talking his arrogant bullshit you rolled your eyes and ripped his heart swiftly out.

After that everyone kept filing out. And you did that care where they went as long as they went far away.

You had managed to do all that in the 30 minutes that you had intended to use and got back to your ride in time.

You all sulked in your victory on the ride home. Champagne would have been nice then.

Back in the confines of the community you were immediately greeted by Freya. "Oh thank God you're fine." She exclaimed and hugged you all. "How did it go?" She asked.

"Fine we put up an ultimatum and when they refused we killed most of them. They won't be a problem anymore. Maybe you have to take in some refugees who fled but they weren't soldiers just ordinary people. Women and children." You shortly informed them.

"Have you found something out Freya?" Elijah chimed in.

"I have spoken to some dead witches who were very helpful and it seems as if your daughter, Klaus, was the one to put us here. She must have thought she'd protect us with this spell. And I'm blaming myself because I taught her about this particular spell." Freya told us biting her lip nervously.

Klaus scoffed: "This is Hopes doing? She didn't even watch this show with us. How was she supposed to know what it looked like in here?" He was doubting this.

"I may have let her watch it with me last summer." You turned to him.

"You what? This show is far too bloody for a teenager." He yelled at you.

"Oh come on brother, she saw you rip somebody's heart out when she was what? 8?" Rebekah intruded then.

"Alright there is no point in shoving around the blame let us just find the objects which represent us and find our way back to find out whatever is happening at home." Only Elijah could always find the right words in the right moment. After you had gotten cleaned up you spread out and started searching.

But that was not your only goal. You wanted to find Daryl and talk to him and get his attention. It had been too long since you had slept with someone and Daryl seemed good enough to eat so you decided to give it a shot.

Couldn't hurt to flirt a bit and you thought you'd never get a chance with him. That he'd stay the fantasy of your wet dreams forever. You would have certainly regretted it not to try.

You strolled over to his garage where you knew he'd be working on his bike.

You knocked on the open door and he looked up, grunted something unintelligible and turned back to his bike.

"Hey Daryl, I'd like to talk to you." Great you sounded like a teenage girl in front of her crush. You rolled your eyes at yourself but continued when he didn't say anything.

"So. I know you don't trust us. I wouldn't. But there is something that we haven't told anyone here before." He was still silent as a fish so you kept going. "In our world you, all this" you motioned around with your hands "is part of a tv show. We knew what was gonna happen because of that. And I gotta say…." Be brave Y/N you thought to yourself "that you were my favorite character from the beginning." That made him look up again this time raising himself from the ground and wiping his oily hands on a handkerchief.

He still didn't respond so you added "from the time in the camp outside of Atlanta over Hershel's farm to the prison and now here. And I fell hopelessly in love with you." He just snorted scornfully as if he doubted your words which you knew he did. That thought saddened you a lot. So you tried to convince him how much he is worth. "From the shy redneck in the beginning who was a little too much under the influence of his brother to the man you are now. Caring and a true asset to this Family. Thank you for that." You finally had it out of your system.

Then something untypically for Daryl happened, with two strides he was in front of you and a blink later he had his mouth pressed to yours.

"Wanted ya since I first saw ya." He mumbled between kisses.

"You started to tear each other's clothes off until you were both stark naked.

He looked around in the garage to find a place to lay you down on but you had something in mind. You sprawled yourself down on the seat of his bike and spread your legs. He growled in arousal and kneeled between your legs immediately diving in and licking your cunt from entrance to clit. Something else you wouldn't have expected from the archer.

"Shit Daryl!" You moaned and gripped his hair tight to push him further into your pussy.

It tingled in all the right places and it didn't take you long to come screaming his name over and over so loud that your siblings probably heard you six houses over.

He came up gasping for air when you let go of him, having your spendings in his beard. When he kissed you again you could taste yourself in his mouth.

"That was amazing but now I need you inside me!" You whispered to him.

When he pushed inside you he leaned his forehead lovingly against yours and it was the best experience you'd ever had. He stretched you so completely. Just like he belonged there. "Hmm ya're tight girl!" He grunted.

"Feels so good. Better than I imagined." You moaned.

He waited for you to adjust and when you started to push back against him he pulled out all the way just to slam back in. And you started screaming again when he brushed your g-spot just to hit against your cervix deliciously.

You could feel him with your hand inside your womb and it was the sexiest thing you had ever felt. You sneaked your hand down to your clit and started rubbing ferociously until you couldn't take it anymore and clamped down on his cock to milk him dry he came inside you a second later with a strangled moan.

"Holy shit that was amazing. I'd love to do that again but I have the feeling that it unfortunately won't come to that." You looked sadly at him.

"Hmm it was really nice. I wasn't to rough, was I?" He asked concerned.

"Oh God no. It was perfect. Thank you for that." You answered and kissed him again.

When you got up from the bike and started getting redressed you noticed something strange. The bike had a certain glow to it that it didn't have before. Could it be that that was the object that represented you? And then it got impossibly clearer. Of course it was the bike. You were the rebellious aunt and driving motorcycle yourself so it was only right that it was the bike. Furthermore had you always mentioned to Hope while watching the walking dead how much you adored the bike and the man on top of it. But you didn't want to destroy it. Daryl loved and needed that bike. Damn it you thought to yourself.

"Daryl? What if I told you that your bike seems to be my object?" You carefully asked him.

"You need to damage it?" He asked back.

"Kind of yes. Maybe scratching her will do?! That pains me as much as it pains you so I'll go find my siblings and ask if they found theirs and then we can maybe go home altogether." You explained to him. He just nodded.

You knew that this world wasn't real but you still didn't wanna disappoint him.

You walked out the roll gate him trailing behind you with the bike. In town square the others had already gathered.

"Y/N! There you are. Finally!" Rebekah rolled her eyes at you.

"Yes Bex I'm here. Have you all got your objects and did they too glow like mine did?" You asked them.

"Indeed. Mine is the piano these gentlemen were so kind as to escort out of the house over there." He pointed to one of the nobler looking houses.

"Mine's a silver dagger that I found behind a mantle piece. Nice hiding spot little niece!" Kol spoke to heaven.

"I found glowing paint brushes in the closet of a children's room." Klaus added. Makes sense you thought.

"I was in little Judith's room and found a glowing pacifier next to her crib. Probably because she was with me the first months of her life." She shrugged.

"It was really strange but I was looking through a makeup table as if something drew me to it and found the headband I wore at my wedding so that is my object. Y/N?" Freya asked you.

"I gotta scratch Daryl's bike and hope that I don't have to destroy it completely to get home." You let your head hang low.

"Alright let's do this. I want nothing more than to get away from here." Rebekah said impatiently.

"Yes of course. Thank you for everything." You looked at the people around you.

"No we have to thank you. Without your help we would have probably been into some trouble soon." Rick exclaimed.

You all nodded to each other than you turned to Daryl threw yourself into his arms and kissed him feverishly while the others just stared at you unbelievably.

After that you all got to your objects and somehow damaged them. Then the world got blurry around you and you found yourself back in the Abattoir in New Orleans.

"That was a bumpy ride, don't you think?" You asked your siblings.

"Yes. No let's find our little trouble maker." Klaus said.

You all stormed upstairs and crashed through her door without knocking and got rewarded with the sight of Hope making out with a guy on her bed. She just screeched loudly when she noticed you and threw a pillow.

"Can't you all knock? And why are you back so soon?" She screamed.

"Well we are better in finding things than you think." You offered.

"And who might you be?" Klaus tried to compose himself but he had sped over to the bed and had taken the boy from her to push him against the wall. He wasn't even able to answer Klaus's question he only gurgled.

"Dad! Let go of him!" Hope yelled at her father and tried to loosen his grip. Again it was your hand on his arm that brought him down and he let go of what's his name.

"It's probably better if you leave now brother." You whispered to him and he did just that followed by Elijah, Kol and Rebekah.

Freya and you remained.

"So you sent us to the walking dead land to have a boy over?" You asked her and she nodded.

"I'm sorry that you feel you can't bring boys over, Hope." Freya continued your thought.

"We promise you we will help you with that. Your dad has nothing on us. Well keep him in check. But thanks for the ride anyways. It was really awesome." You thanked the teenager and she smiled. "I thought you'd like it."

"We'll go now and you" you pointed to the boy. "Don't forget protection! We can't have more tribrids running around now." He looked scared to death and wouldn't probably dare to do anything to upset us. Even if Hope would probably be able to tear his throat out easier it he hurt her. Sometimes she had her temper from her dad.

You both left the room and her to her boyfriend. Sometimes you wished you could have taken Daryl with you but that would become a dream again.

[augment-techs]

happy for any reason

(”What’s the point of learning anything, if you’re going to be with different people each time?” “You’re NOT going to be with different people.” --Dead Again) Three months is about as long as Ciel could bare to keep Sebastian with him in their joint solitude, their contract becoming a heavy chain around both their necks as the smaller realized the actuality of his situation through and through, and the taller-older-stronger-better of them slowly starved and, perhaps on his bad days, contemplated revenge. He has them travel to the French countryside, vast and full of fields turning yellow with the season of fall and the trees as far as the eyes could see a great black and green collection of giants that could have housed the same families of birds for a thousand years. Their carriage was left at a small village and put up for sale, with the two fine thoroughbreds fetching as good a price as they were likely to get from peasants that could barely afford to buy nails when the fences keeping their livestock penned needed mending. Ciel also bought a glass pendant that was meant to carry precious stones and gold scoured from the nearby river. With the shade of the trees covering them and nightfall but mere hours away, Ciel stated as kindly as he could with a voice that still felt cold and pointless to himself in the weeks that had fallen behind them, “I can’t give you what I owe you Sebastian; I’m sorry for that. The best I can do is give you what I can.” The other didn’t even get the chance to question Ciel’s words, Sebastian standing stock still as his master turned away from him, removed his eye-patch and then, wonder of wonders, removed the eye holding their contract in place. There wasn’t much blood coating his fingers, not enough to leave but a few smudges on the little pendant he’d brought along, tucking the eye into the confines and corking it shut to hand over to Sebastian. Like he was handing over severance to a loyal employee who deserved to remain in service but simply couldn’t be kept, because there was nothing left for him to do; and he was too good for it, anyway. Ciel remained with one eye looking down at the mud they didn’t have any real choice but to stand in, the other eye shut tight to prevent the small amount of blood from secreting down his face; he preferred it to clot tacky and keep his lids closed. He didn’t see, so much as feel, Sebastian take his offering, possibly tuck it into his fine, pressed black coat pocket... and then vanish. Ciel wouldn’t see him again for over a hundred years, would have to make his way into the world with seclusion and loneliness draped over him like he felt he deserved. He waited a good ten minutes, foolishly thinking, just maybe, that Sebastian might change his mind. Maybe he’d hate the thought of going back to being bored again. Maybe he’d...felt something after all the years in Ciel’s service. After the ten minutes were over, Ciel walked into the woods and tried to pretend it didn’t hurt. ---- He didn’t go seeking prey, which in and of itself was like announcing to all demonkind that he was weak; like telling the Reapers that he was less trouble than a stray alley cat; like telling himself that he would keep his humanity any way he could. He found, with his hunger, came a curiosity in what he could eat barring human souls and thought to himself, ‘There are other living things. There are animals of lesser thought than cats and crows and dogs. There are trees and flowers. Anything is worth a try, isn’t it?’ The instinct in taking a soul came more readily than he ever dreamed it could when he found himself near the very heart of that forest he’d left Sebastian at the edge of, standing before a tree that was, perhaps, the size of his old townhouse and over three centuries old. He brought himself within a hair’s breadth of the bark, hand flat against it, and breathed in what must have been the life force that demons, Reapers and angels called a soul. It probably didn’t taste anything like a human would, and it gave him a comfort that he probably never would have felt otherwise. It reminded him of when he was, maybe, no more than five years old and there had been a three day blizzard that ended up coating everything on the manor grounds. He’d taken a handful of the snow that was perched on the head of one of the marble statues decorating the fountain and stuffed it inside his mouth. Fresh, clean snow was what older trees tasted like, Ciel would later learn as he continued onward away and away from England and from memories and emotions that made him ball his fists and curse Alois Trancy and every damn one of the wretched demons that were a part of leaving him like this. Ciel didn’t really notice when his shoes had fallen entirely off of his person, but when he entered into Germany, he noticed the pine needles of the forest tickling his toes and that his clothes were basically in shambles. It had been over a year since Sebastian was free and Ciel had found he liked the taste of trees older than a hundred or younger than fifty years. Eating the souls of shrubs or flowers or insects was a level of pointless that he could do without, despite getting some sick satisfaction in ending the lives of spiders. He could eat the souls of cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, horses, grouse, pheasants; deer if he could gather enough energy to run after them. Weasels were less than satisfying; rabbits tasted too much like fear to be enjoyed at any capacity. The one time he attempted to eat a goose, he spent the next three hours retching at the edge of a river and swore he’d never try again, nor with any other water fowl. Fish weren’t bad, but a little bland. (to be continued...?) ((I’m actually debating whether or not to expand on this concept. I really, really want to, but I feel like they’ll end up more OOC than I would like. I have drafts on AO3 and fanficdotnet that are a little longer, but... We’ll see.))

[holdon-a-minute]

As Time Repeats

Prologue

*BANG*

His gloved leather fist comes down hard and fast, slamming straight onto the smooth mahogany surface of the table. The expensive-smelling room is lit only by a magnificent candle chandelier that dangles from the high ceiling, a slight fog filling the atmosphere as its flames flicker in the mist.

Dressed in a long, thin, flowing black cape, he stands from his slouched position on the dark throne-like chair, keeping his breathing steady and his hands clenched.

His head stills in it's bowed down position and his clean jaw tightens as he speaks in a gruff mumble, "This is not going to plan."

Slamming every door behind him, he exits the building in a rage, the obsidian cape that hangs from his shoulders and hoods his eyes effortlessly flowing through the air as he marches through the woods. A stern look on his face, he finds his way through the forest as if it were his own family, twisting and turning around the ancient trees.

Trunks of pine and bark so brittle, needles lay spread throughout the woodland coating the mossy ground like a soft veil. A gentle smell hangs in the air, one of dampness and green, and it lingers in the forest as a mist carries it through. He nears the edge of the wood, and slowly brings himself to a halt. He watches the blissful scene in front of him unfold; the soft sun setting in the clear sky and the pale grass sat in the meadow before him gently swaying in the silent breeze.

Crisp is the evening. He inhales cold oxygen and his eyes drift closed as he exhales again. His hood is pulled down and he spends a while just standing on the outskirts of the forest, taking in his tranquil surroundings...

Thick grey clouds start to stir in the sky above. His eyes sharply burst open now filled with an emotion too unique to describe, and he starts through the meadow, taking long fast strides through the grass, his character now completely switched from the one that was just present.

Thunder begins to roar and rain starts to fall. With a wave of his hand that reaches behind him, his once thin cape transforms into a heavy cloak, draping over him entirely until there is no evidence of his body showing except his tall neck and head. Still charging through the meadow, his face grows paler and his hair blackens. Dark circles begin to form around his eyes and his cheekbones are raised making his face appear longer and dangerously thin.

The once peaceful man is now completely gone; transformed into a terrifying being, physically and mentally, as he heads straight towards the castle…

Lightening snaps, wind thrusts, the sun has set and the sky is stirring as he enters the bustling atmosphere. Slower movements are taken by him now, his steps echoing through the stone kingdom.

One million different thoughts are racing through his brain in this very moment, and you can see it in his striking squinted eyes. A plan formulating in his head, and all of the different outcomes are playing through his mind like a movie projection, people often interrupting with loud whispers, causing his built up fury to finally boil inside of him.

In a body not his own, in a place where he trespasses, surrounded by walls built of hatred and people of toxic fear, he embraces the discomfort settled in his presence with an iniquitous grin on his face. Nobody can recognise him, and yet they all know he is there. It brings joy to his sinning soul, the only unentertaining thing is that no person throughout the realm has the courage to say it out loud. He was back, and he was thirsty for the ever-reigning sovereignty of revenge.

A damp, earthy smell travels around every corner of the domain as the rain continues to thrash down. He comes to a stop and tenderly peers up at the stone fortress, an observant glint in his eye and a knowing grin spread across his face. He continues up the soaked staircase, his cloak dragging along the stone as he makes his way to the giant castle entrance.

*Thud*

*Thud*

*Thud*

Ready to feed lies into each and every being that speaks to him next, he waits with his head bowed down in front of the huge, heavy and expensive wooden door. Out of all of the scenarios that played through his brain on repeat, the scene unfolding before him was definitely not one that would cross his mind.

The dense entrance slowly aches open, and his eyes drift down to see a young girl stood in the doorway. A stern, confused look coats her face as she speaks in a bold, confident voice, “Who are you?”

Internally panicking, but showing no visible sign of anxiety on his body, he continues to stare down at the young girl unblinkingly. "Little girl," he finally speaks in a slow, sinister voice, "Have you been permitted to open this door by yourself?"

The child keeps half of her body hidden behind the door as she bites her delicate lip and starts to fiddle with her round little fingers. "Sometimes my daddy tells me not to..."

"And will your daddy be happy if I tell him you disobeyed his orders and spoke to me?" his gruff voice asks.

"No! Please don't tell my daddy!"

"Well, my darling, I'll let you in on a secret," he croaks as he crouches down to look the girl in her big brown eyes, "I'm your daddy's cook for the evening, he's having a big banquet you see."

"He is and I'm not allowed to play when everyone's here," the young girl interrupts, a slight sad expression on her face.

"Don't look so upset now darling, because I'm going to make a deal with you. You let me through here and I will not speak to your daddy of you going against his orders, and I will also see if you will be granted to play whilst everyone is eating."

The child explains, "But I'm really not allowed to let people in through the big door, and I've already been naughty. So if you are my daddy's cook, you can go to the back door over there see," and she steps out from behind the heavy entrance to point the now standing man in the right direction. "They'll let you in there."

Quickly realising that the child is not letting him past and a woman is slowly approaching from behind her, he changes his plans in an instant and dives for the young girl, swiftly scooping her up into his strong arms.

Now racing back down the stone stairs with one arm gripping the girl's waist and the other muffling her voice, he smiles at his last-minute change of plans and silently praises himself for quick-thinking. The sky is booming with every step he takes further from the castle, lightening breaking the sky to pieces and rapid water droplets drowning the child's radiating warmth. Her silky pink dress is now useless, soaked right through and soaring everywhere in the storm. The delicate fabric is torn from side to side as she strains to keep fighting, her plump little arms being no match for the solid ones that lock her in place against his hip.

He swings the girl onto the back of a royal horse and jumps on himself as he reaches for the reins. "Hey!" the girl screams, "I'm the Princess, you cannot steal me!"

Looking back over his shoulder, he smugly replies, "I know darling," and rides into the midnight of the woods, his black cloak windborne as he charges with the unconscious princess...

For Gangan

[tipsycad147]

How To Enhance Your Magic With Regional Modifications

SL Bear

Where you live informs a lot about your life. What you eat, what you believe, whether you call it pop or soda, etc. If you’re a witch, it also influences your magic. I used to live in the desert, so rainstorms became very powerful and special to me and the perfect time to do magic. In the mountains, I was introduced to seasons and those changes became magical. I think most witches relate to their environments in this way, and in particular the weather of the region. Through online resources, we have access to all kinds of different magic, but at the end of the day, you’ll use what’s around you and you develop a style based on how your environment influences you.

Today, we’re going to focus on elemental magic by region and give you some ideas of how to use your environment for your craft. While it’s fabulous to be inside in front of your altar with candles and spell ingredients, this post is about getting back to nature and using what’s already available in your region in your magic.

Desert

Water is essential to life. Our blue planet is a thriving, flourishing, unique place in the known universe because of its water. Without it, we would not exist. Perhaps more than any other region, the desert is especially aware of this. Animals and plants are built to conserve precious water until the next rainstorm, and even the people, who have access to running water in their homes, move out to their porches when it rains to simply enjoy a break from the otherwise unrelenting sun.

While my first impulse was to choose fire for the desert, I realised that what’s truly special about the desert is how it relates to water. Its lack of water is what makes it what it is, and so I’ve whipped up some easy magic for desert witches to use when those all too rare thunderstorms finally show up.

The next time it rains, go outside and collect some rainwater in a couple bottles. Enjoy the storm and try and think of it as restoring you!

Rainwater Cleanse

What you will need:

White candle

Black candle

Rainwater

When the rains come to the desert, they replenish the earth and that’s what this cleansing spell is about. Think of it as a restorative cleanse for yourself, and any emotional damage you’ve endured lately.

Light your candles and arrange them on either side of your stove, then pour the rainwater into a pot and bring it to a boil. Hold your head close enough so that the steam from the water touches your face. Inhale deeply and hold your hands over the steam as well. Not so that you burn yourself — just waft the vapours toward you like you would if you were sick and trying to clear out your sinuses. This cleansing works in the same way, except you’re clearing out negativity from your system. You can save this rainwater in a spray bottle and use it for cleansing instead burning sage or smoking in other ways — much easier on the lungs!

You can also add plants and sand to this brew and really get the essence of the desert, which is a very pungent energy. You must be careful, however, because the desert defends itself and some plants are toxic — like the rain-scented creosote and pretty oleander. Be careful and do your research, witches!

Mountain

The mountains make our world interesting in a way few other things do. Travelling to the mountains, where the air is thin and cool, touches some primitive part of us all and it’s hard to deny their majesty. The element I’ve paired with the mountains is earth. Earth represents many different things but especially grounding.

If you live near mountains, you may not get to visit them as much as you’d like, so next time you do, take a few smoky quartz crystals and a container. While you let the crystals charge in the crisp mountain air, fill the container with earth and any leaves or soft mountain debris that you find — smooth stones, old pine needles, etc. Make sure there are no creepy crawlies in there.

Next time you perform a grounding, arrange the same smoky quartz on the surface of the earth you collected and submerge your fingers into the container while you centre yourself. Clear your head. Run the earth between your fingers, smell it, remember what it’s like to be up in the mountains and away from it all. This is a very literal way to get back to nature during groundings, without having to travel anywhere. This earth can also be added to amulets or talismans so you can keep this steady power with you, or used to charge grounding stones.

Coastal

Water seems like a natural element to use for the coast and sea, but after looking harder at what the sea represents, what it’s capable of it, how it has shaped our world, it becomes clear that water in this environment represents power. Symbolically, power is associated with the sun and fire — something the sea tends to lack. The easiest way to capture fire is a candle, so that’s what we’ll be making for this coastal power spell, merging these two powerful elements and helping to rekindle your personal power when you feel it’s gone out.

What you will need:

Candle making equipment along with red dye

Small stones or shells from the shore

Sand

Salt

Cayenne pepper

Oaktree bark if it’s handy, if not the bark of your favourite coastal tree

There are many online tutorials about making candles so I won’t detail that here. While you’re making the candle, add the stones or shells, sand, salt, cayenne pepper, and bark to the wax so all of these power ingredients are part of the candle. Once completed, take your candle down to the shore, light it, and meditate on all the ways you feel powerless in your life and how you can flip these scenarios to regain your power. Take a notebook and pen if you like, to write down any realisations or ideas. Once you’ve completed your powerless list, make a new one for all the times in your life you were powerful. Sometimes when we’re overwhelmed, we tend to forget the good things we’re capable of and only focus on the bad. How can you apply these powerful moments of your life to your powerless ones to regain a feeling of control? Take as long as you like with this, and when you feel you’ve made some progress, use a little sea water to put out the candle. Repeat this ritual whenever you need a little power pick me up.

Plains

Often ignored, the plains are the heartbeat of a country. In the USA at least, this is where we grow most of our food. It’s a land with a clear purpose, which is why I’ve chosen air as its element and the perfect place to work on manifestation.

Manifesting is hard. Essentially, you’re making what you think and dream about a reality, but if you’re bogged down with negative thoughts, you can see how this would manifest negative energy in your life. It’s not personal — the universe isn’t targeting you. Going beyond magic, there are medical studies that support this logic, as well. Negative, stressed out people tend to have greater risks for heart problems and other health issues. The good news is that you can train yourself to think differently and avoid these problems simply by changing your perspective.

In life, we all have some good and some bad, but what separates us is how we cope with these things. During the lows, you must learn to remember the good and to be grateful, to keep your thoughts positive and appreciative of what you do have. We all have moments of being overwhelmed, but you can’t let it rule how you see your life. Learning to be positive is key in learning to manifest positive things. No, you may not suddenly win the lottery or cure a long-standing illness, but you’ll learn to be thankful when things do go your way, and how to cope when they don’t.

So, witches of the plains, go out to one of those big open fields, relax, regulate your breathing, and say aloud what you are grateful for. You may struggle for a minute — it’s hard to retrain a mind — but work at it and make this is a regular ritual. Feel the air on your face, don’t let negative thoughts get in the way, and list all the things that you have that make you happy. During the week, make notes of when you’re grateful for something (especially small things) and try hard to stop negative thoughts or feelings in their tracks. Recognise when it’s happening and work to control it. Being alone in an open place will help you center, but by no means does this exercise only have to be performed outside. It should be something we all practice regularly.

Once you start changing the way you think, you’ll begin to notice good things happening because you’re learning to see them better.

You can always take it to the next level and show your gratitude as well. Take some seeds out to the field and leave it for the birds in offering. Pick up any trash around the area. Do something that gives a little back, taking the time to show thanks in any way you can think of. It does a soul very good. Congratulations, you’re now actively manifesting positive energy!

While I often enjoy complicated, structured magic, it’s certainly not the only way. By simply being outside and learning to use your magic with your environment and finding the magic within instead of in fancy ingredients, you’ll become a stronger witch. I haven’t covered all the different, beautiful regions this world has to offer, but with a little creativity, you can learn to use whatever environment you’re in to your advantage.

https://thetravelingwitch.com/blog/2018/8/26/how-to-enhance-your-magic-with-regional-modifications-m78tf

[notconsolation]

those tips are so interesting to read!! would you care to make a similar list about what to eat/how to manage food resources while being on a trip? or advice about camping alone in general? thanks!

HAPPILY this is one of those subjects that makes me really happy because I am 100% a nature witch

this is a great way for to procrastinate thank you thank you. (warning: it’s long)

disclaimer: I don’t really know what I’m doing any more than the next person, so I can’t really recommend doing things, I can just tell you about my experiences. Here’s what i got (SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOOOT)

Food:

er how can I say this….. I don’t have the healthiest relationship with food so I cannot emphasize enough how uncomfortable I would be if anyone were to take my eating patterns as guidelines for anything. Having said that, I am most at peace with food and my eating habits when I travel. But suffice it to say that it’s probably not quite enough calorically and I personally think that’s fine because it’s not my constant state of living but…… anyway.

-I’ll go about a week between stops in towns sometimes. When I say that I just mean sort of passing through one on my route and checking if they have a market/supermarket. Sometimes it’s less than that but generally if I’m in a town I’ll get a bunch of beef jerky (might have to alter this this summer when I’m in bear country but I’ll still look into that) - say five packets for a week. I might also get some energy/protein bars but these are not my faves tbh and also the wrappers take up space in pockets. Other than that I might get a bag of carrots or some sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds are good for magnesium, which helps prevent cramps, so that’s a plus when you’re walking all day and don’t want foot cramps that hurt like a bitch. I like carrots. Honestly, though, I prefer finding food in the forest to taking it with me. 

-It depends when and where you’re travelling obviously, but if you familiarize yourself with edible wild plants before you go somewhere that’s a useful bit of knowledge to have. I personally don’t eat something unless I’m sure it is what I think it is. That means that I end up having a lot of blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, mirabelles, plums, apples, wild garlic, dandelion, clover, wild sorrel, chickweed, purslane, gooseberries and beechnuts because they’re hard to mistake for other things. There are also things that are technically edible but I wouldn’t really recommend like birch bark and rosehip berries. I just dont like them much. 

-Oh, also: corn. So I realise this is not technically a morally great thing because it’s sort of like stealing? but if I’m walking past a field of corn I’ll usually take a cob and shave off the kernels into a container and then munch on them as I go. Fibrous and gets your digestion going and honestly raw corn is really tasty. Wash it first, if you can, and always check for bugs in your food. 

-I also prefer to stock up on water when I’m near civilization or at a spring, just cause ya can get some nasty ass infections from nasty water and that can suck when you’re alone in the middle of nowhere. I got a very mild stomach bug last year and that wasn’t nice. I do carry water purification tablets, though, and some charcoal in case I really really really need to make a makeshift water filter. But I try to have at least 4 litres on me whenever I leave a town. Forest springs are great, and quite often well signposted if they’re reasonably near civilzation because people jog up there and stuff. My grandpa used to do that.

- Pine tea. I like it. Boil pine needles in water. Tea. Piney. I like it. You may not.

Advice on isolation without loneliness:

The main thing people ask if I’m talking about this stuff is whether I get lonely without talking to someone for 2 weeks at a time. Honestly I think the answer to that depends party on who you are. I am a solitary person in the first place so my answer might be different to yours. My answer is just straight up no. I don’t get lonely. I sing to myself on the road. I talk to myself sometimes, but just sort of in a thinking aloud way. I find the whole process incredibly therapeutic and it allows me to work through so much shit because when you’re on your own there’s no one around to hold you to their standards, so you have to learn to be okay with yourself. Literally looking for food, water and shelter every day is a good way for me to indirectly express my will to fight to stay alive. Or actually. I mean it’s pretty direct. You have to actively Survive rather than just passively Exist. I find that to be the best environment for working through shit and confronting yourself with issues because who are you gonna distract yourself with or hide behind if you don’t want to talk about it? I do have a couple of tips though:

- take books. Ones you know and ones you don’t. Ones you know give you comfort, ones you don’t engage you. Pick up books at flea markets and from old bookshops when you pass through towns and cities. I actually also set aside a certain amount of battery on my phone every day for reading stories I’ve downloaded and I think that actually also helps tether me to society a bit and not get lonely, because it’s this implicit inclusion in a community (ao3) of like-minded creative people. I didn’t have tumblr then but I can say for sure I’m gonna miss the hell out of you guys in July

- MY MOST IMPORTANT ADVICE: write. I filled a tiny journal with tiny writing last summer and it was the best part of everything. Not so much because i can look back at what I did but because it gave my thoughts and days and actions coherence and I could sit down and think something out on paper with myself and make discoveries about my thoughts and feeling and just……. you learn a lot about yourself when you start writing your thoughts down.

- Sing. Sing out loud all the goddamn time if you’re like me.

General advice:

This is just some info that’s good to have? I think?

-periods: sonofabitch. Fucking. Periods suck, and when you’re travelling solo for over a month you’re gonna have them (maybe. this is for those who have them) and you’re gonna have to be prepared for them. Tampons are the way forward in my opinion but *tmi* my periods are so heavy that they bleed through a maxi tampon and a maxi pad during the night sometimes so I have no choice. But also if you get mauled or something I guess pads are good for blood absorption so they’re a good thing to have anyway. Tampons are also good for blood absorption (WHO’DA THUNK IT) and also make good kindling. I’m gonna talk more about kindling later, though. The good news: periods can be less heavy when you’re active all day.

- pine resin/sap: useful stuff. You can theoretically eat it if you’re really desperate for something cause it’s v high-energy but absolutely disgusting and in general it’s best for a couple things: if it’s liquid and fresh you can use it to hold together cuts and wounds (natural antibacterial properties and all that plus it’s sticky and literally holds skin together). if it’s hardened you can still melt it down or dissolve it in warm water - at which point you can use it as a gargle that’s good for upset stomachs and throat problems (and colds i think?). If it’s dry it also catches a spark really easily. It also apparently repels mosquitos, but I’m skeptical about that one.

-kindling/fire: so there’s a long list of materials that can be used as kindling which might be really useful to you, but I’m gonna level with you and say that I don’t really make fires when I camp out for a couple of reasons: 1. A lot of the time I’m in national parks where that’s not allowed and also where I am not sure I’m technically allowed to camp, so best not to draw attention to myself by making a fire and 2. I’m just not that great at it. Like, I’m just not very good.

-brushing teeth: I use biodegradable toothpaste concentrate and just spit it out. not that great, yep. I have yet to figure out a better system.

-washing: imma level with you - I don’t stay terribly clean. A lot of campsites have showers you can use if you pay for them, but there aren’t always campsites around. Wash in lakes and learn to live with the fact that you’re not gonna smell great. If i walk past some lavender I take it and I stuff it in my sports bra and in my bag. Same with mint or thyme or rosemary - anything with a strong, pleasant smell. Wash your face in the bathroom sink at the train stations. Look up at your reflection and be taken aback cause you haven’t actually seen yourself for a while and you realise that you’re a little more tanned and that makeup is totally unnecessary a lot of the time.

[movingoutothecountry]

My awesome dog.

Yall I can’t get over my dog. I knew he was a dog, but I never knew what a little bad ass he really is. He’s taken to the woods like he was born to it!

I’ve said it before, but I was certain it would take him weeks if not months to settle in here. The first few times we visited, he’d barely step foot out of the car. He’d get out, sniff around for maybe one minute, decide the ground wasn’t smooth enough for his princely spoiled feet, and stand at the door to his seat looking forlorn and put upon until we let him back in, and he would just sit in the car for an hour while we messed around looking at the place.

I really can’t exaggerate what a total priss he’s always been. He drinks his water all dainty and won’t drink a drop unless it’s fresh poured and if there’s even a hair in it will refuse; he haaaaaates when there’s not a sidewalk; he’s never met an animal that wasn’t his friend (though he’s always liked to chase birds out of the yard) and would hang out and just lay in the yard with the raccoons and possums in our old back yard; he’s scared to death of thunder; he hates the fuck out of the VW bus we got for him because it’s dirty; he won’t step in a puddle or in mud and will take great pains to go all the way around; he’s the most spoiled when it comes to food and if there isn’t something “special” in his supper he’ll eat it all slowly while sighing and giving me dirty looks. He’s always had a dog bed in every room, and any time there’s any “new” dog bed (which includes just moving one to a new spot) that’s where he wants to be; he takes up the whole couch and will spend days just lazing on the couch... Honestly he is the prissiest city dog I’ve ever met. You’d think he was a decorated little shih tzu with painted toes and bows in his hair the way he acts.

Well, was.

He really is a new dog now. 

He spends his days out in the woods hunting, rolling in dirt, chasing fuck knows what, threatening / scaring off anything or anyone that dares cross his gate, he’s got dirt and burrs all in his fur and he loves it. He spends his days rolling in the grass on the pasture or in some kinda nest of pine needles. Yesterday he got thr furthest away from me he’s ever been in his life (apart from when I left him at home, of course); I looked over into the woods and he was so far off into the woods trying to find our resident loudass armadillo I could barely seen him. He’s never been more than 20 feet or so from me in his entire life, and he gets REALLY antsy when he can’t see me. But he LOVES it here now! He’s like a whole new dog!

He LOOKS AMAZING, too! He’s all kinds of muscular, and he’s surely lost at least a pound in just the week we’ve been here. In just a week!! He’s a whole new dog! I admit I did let him get fat and lazy in the month or so leading up to the big move - one, because I was soooo fucking busy trying to get it all done, and two, I was intentionally giving him a rest in preparation for moving out to the woods where he’d become a real dog - but I still just can’t believe how FAST he’s gotten so good looking and strong and gorgeous. Damn I love this dog.

Our builder was laughing at him and petting him when he came over the first day, because he got all the way into the house before ol dog even noticed him. He did try to bark and put up his mohawk, but our friend was just scritchin him and laughing like “you got to do better little guy! I got all the way into the house before you even saw me buddy!” But even the very next day, it’s like he took it to heart, because he’s started meeting any truck that drove up right near the gate - and he’ll even sit on the front porch watching to see if anybody comes in - and he runs right up to every truck’s door and sniffs everyone up and down. Granted, he’s still just looking for scritches, but he’s so much braver!

I never thought in a million years he’d be this happy this soon. I honestly thought he’d be mopey and depressed at least until the house was all fancy. But it’s like something primal in his head just clicked on. He’s happy to live in a completely gutted, run down looking, dirty house. He does spend a lot of his time in his own little fancy house, but other than that he’s out in the woods being a badass little dog. 

He still loves his mommy and he still needs his hour of sweetness and cuddles every day, but the rest of the time he’s tearing shit up.

I’m so damn proud of him, and just so happy for him. Oh, my sweet, bad ass little country dog Westley. <3

[goddessgardener]

Aw Shucks!

by Cynthia Brian

 “Plough thorough and deep, while sluggards sleep, and you shall have corn to sell or to keep “ Poor Richard

 In August, there are few things better than eating freshly picked corn or nibbling juicy ripe tomatoes right from the vine. This month our vegetables and herbs are at their prime when shucking corn becomes a family activity. I like to pull back the husks, remove the silk,  and wash the cobs, allowing them to soak in clean water for an hour or so. I then proceed to slather the kernels with a mixture of butter, garlic, basil, cilantro, and red peppers.  Finally, I wrap the husks onto the corn to grill on the barbecue. Delicious. 

 I dine and dash through my vegetable garden, nibbling on basil, arugula, and cherry tomatoes, only the eggplant, peppers, kale, potatoes, and basket of mixed herbs make it to the kitchen. With the heavenly herb harvest, I dry as many varieties as possible and make gift packets for people who buy any of my eight books. (Yes, I’m excited to announce that my 3rdbook in the Be the Star You Are!® series, Be the Star You Are!® Millennials to Boomers Celebrating Positive Voices in a Changing Digital World has been published. Buy your autographed copies at http://www.CynthiaBrian.com/online-store)

 This month is also a great time to divide your bearded iris. These rugged and reliable bloomers are not attractive to deer. With a shovel, cut rhizomes and plant where you want another patch of colorful flags. Did you know that the Greek goddess of the rainbow was named Iris?

 In this hot month, continue to water deeply and prevent evaporation through mulching. Other advantages of mulching include eliminating weeds, which reduces the need for cultivation, which reduces injury to shallow rooted plants. Buckwheat hulls, coffee grounds, shredded corn stalks, peat moss, pine needles (around acid-loving plants), tree bark of cedar, fir, oak, and redwood, and wood chips are all excellent materials to use.

 I recently wrote an article titled The Language of Trees  (https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1204/Digging-Deep-with-Cynthia-Brian-The-language-of-trees.html) with research proving that trees talk and support one another. When I returned from Ireland, I witnessed a once very erect pine tree reaching out with one of its branches to “hug” a neighboring pine twenty feet away. That pine was bending to reach yet another pine. Because of the volatility of this year’s fire season, I will need to cut this lonely limb. Keep your trees trimmed to a minimum of six feet above ground level, remove brush, and dead limbs from around the perimeter of your home.  Since we all live in a fire zone, put together an emergency supply kit for your family and pets.

  SUGGESTIONS FOR AN EMERGENCY SUPPLY KIT

 In the midst of the many disasters last fall, I encouraged clients to put together an emergency “go bag”.  I would like to share this safety measure with you. Whatever the calamity, it will behoove you to have an emergency supply kit in every vehicle and a larger one in your home. Make sure you know where all of your important documents are located. Make copies and put a reminder note on your bag to grab any necessities that aren’t already packed. Sometimes, as is the case with our California wildfires, a matter of minutes was the difference between life and death. Make copies of your passport, driver’s license, credit cards, and have some small bills available. Know where your chargers are for phones, tablets, and computers. Back up your computers and keep files in the cloud or off-site. Make a plan for your pets and animals and have a bag ready for them as well. Most of all, remember that saving your life and that of your family is the most important. Everything else can be replaced.

 Fill a backpack or small case with the following: First Aid kit

Work gloves

Towelettes

Small towel

Bottled water (1 gallon per person per day)

Blanket

Walking shoes

Peanut butter

Honey

Protein bars

Personal hygiene kit with a toothbrush, soap, medications

Matches

Candle

Flashlight with extra batteries

Eating utensils

Breathing masks (Niosh-N95)

Clothing change

 I hope that we never have to use these emergency kits, but it’s best to be prepared.

 Most of the schools are back in session. Drive safely and be aware. 

 Days are getting slowly shorter. Savor those golden sunsets and enjoy shucking summer’s white and yellow corn.

   Cynthia Brian’s Gardening Guide for Mid August 

 FINDING dead birds? West Nile disease is transmitted by bites from infected mosquitoes to many species of birds, especially hawks, owls, crows, and blue jays. If you find a dead, do not handle it with your bare hands. Report to the health department or vector control. 

 CREATE an emergency kit for any disaster. Keep a kit in every vehicle and one near an exit door in your home.

 ENCOURAGE pollinators to visit your garden by continuing to plant agastashe, phlox, monarda, liatris, coneflowers, and aquilegia.

 VISIT http://www.CynthiaBrian.com/online-storeto purchase any of my eight books, including the 2018 publications of Growing with the Goddess Gardener and Be the Star You Are!® Millennials to Boomers Celebrating Positive Voices in a Changing Digital World.  You’ll get FREE seeds and herbs with every purchase.

 CUT back tree suckers that are sprouting from tree roots. You’ll know they are root suckers as they grow rapidly.

 HARVEST blackberries. Heavy prune the canes after harvesting.

 DEADHEAD roses and perennials to continue the blooming season. Make a habit of deadheading once per week.

 SHAPE wisteria, hibiscus, honeysuckle, lilac, mock orange, and trumpet vine.

 THANKS for coming to the garden party on August 23 sponsored by A.S.I.D. (American Society of Interior Designers) and Janus et Cie for a Summer Garden Party in San Francisco. We enjoyed a flower arranging demonstration, elegant bites, cocktails, presentation, and book signing by yours truly!. https://www.cynthiabrian.com/gardening

  Read more at https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1213/Cynthia-Brians-Gardening-Guide-for-September-Aw-shucks.html

 Happy Gardening. Happy Growing.

 Cynthia Brian

 Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, raised in the vineyards of Napa County, is a New York Times best-selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are1® 501 c3. 

Tune into Cynthia’s Radio show and order her books at www.StarStyleRadio.com.

Buy a copy of the new book, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. 

Available for hire for projects and lectures.

Cynthia@GoddessGardener.com

www.GoddessGardener.com

[mirinauchida-blog]

Food! Gravlax!

The most well-known dish from Sweden is probably its meatballs. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with the limited variations of Swedish dishes that I had found, and with the popular, but non-unique dish that is meatballs. Coming from Japan, I’m very picky when it comes to food. I love good, unique food and dishes that are not just bread, cheese, and meat. Since I mostly grew up eating Japanese dishes that are not simply made, and have fresh, natural ingredients, I still sometimes become sick eating overly salted, greasy, buttery food, which often is the only option I have here. Western food in general is not my favorite food, and I was getting a little worried about living in Europe as I was searching for popular Swedish food. However, I found one thing that makes me very happy about food in Sweden, SEAFOOD!!

I instantly chose to cook and eat a dish called gravad lax. Gravad lax or gravlax, sometimes spelled gravlaks, is a dish that is mostly eaten in Sweden and around the Nordic region. It consists of raw salmon that is cured in salt, sugar, and dill, and is usually served on the Swedish smorgasbord as an appetizer. Gravlax is often sliced thinly and accompanied by hovmästarsås (literally meaning “fox sauce”), a dill, and mustard sauce, on bread or with boiled potatoes. Gravad lax used to be seen with suspicions among tourists because of its use of raw fish (the best way to eat fresh fish though!), but it eventually became very popular, and English dish has adopted its short version of the name gravlax and the dill-fragrant, sugared and salted fish dish.

Gravlax means ‘buried salmon’ or ‘grave salmon’ and the name comes from its original preparation method. Gravlax is one of the notable Scandinavian fermented fish dishes, which include Swedish surlax (‘sour salmon’) and Norwegian rakfisk (‘soaked fish’). During the Middle Ages, the method of fermentation used to be common in remote places where large quantities of fish were caught in a short period of time. Back then, salt was a rare product, and they found a way to ferment the fish and recycle the salt by burying the clean, lightly salted fish in a ‘grave’ dug into the ground, and adding some carbohydrates (bark, whey, or malted barley) and antioxidants (pine needles or berries). This traditional method was used to create the condition for the lacto-fermentation process which preserved the fish very well. This fermentation process is no longer used, and instead the salmon is “buried” in a dry marinade of salt, sugar, and dill.

Ingredients for gravlax (6 servings):

750 g —fresh salmon filet with skin on

120 g —salt

85 g —sugar

8 tbs —chopped dill

1 tsp —crushed white pepper

First, remove the small bones of the salmon, but leave the skin on. Make a few cuts in the skin so the marinade will enter from below. Mix salt, sugar, and pepper and sprinkle it beneath and on top of the salmon filet, along with plenty of dill. Place a weighted cutting board on top of the salmon filet and let it marinate at room temperature for 2–4 hours. Then refrigerate for 24−48 hours, turning the salmon filet a few times. Rinse the salmon in cold water. Cut into thin slices without getting too close to the skin, so the dark part is included.

Ingredients for the “fox sauce”:

1 tsp —Dijon mustard

2 tbs —mild Swedish mustard

2 tbs —sugar

1 ½ tbs —red wine vinegar

200 ml —oil (not olive oil)

A pinch of salt and white pepper

Chopped dill

Gravlax sauce is served alongside the dill-cured salmon. Mix the mustard, sugar and vinegar and season with salt and white pepper. Stir vigorously, while pouring the oil in a steady, thin stream. When the sauce has attained a mayonnaise-like texture, stir in the chopped dill.

Here's a video of making gravlax: https://vimeo.com/262176112

The process is simple and straightforward with not many ingredients required. Once you refrigerate the cured-salmon, there’s not much to do but you have to wait for at least 24 hours, so unless you have your own refrigerator (not like the one you have to share with 15 other people in a college dorm), it might bother some American neighbors who are not used to the smell and presence of raw fish in a fridge. Other than that, it was very delicious and not time-consuming to make. Overall, I came to like gravlax very much, and now that I know there are really good fish dishes in Sweden, I don't have any concern going there and starving myself, I will greatly enjoy nice seafood meals that shall make me very happy!

https://sweden.se/collection/classic-swedish-food/article/gravad-lax/

http://nordicfoodlab.org/blog/2015/6/4/gravlax-a-buried-salmon