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blizzardfluffykpop · 3 years

Text

Patience

Summary: This maybe the most stubborn patient (Y/n) has ever had to deal with. But they are determined to help the best friends mend their friendship and take care of their patient.

Oneshot

Fluff, a Smidge of Angst, and a Slice of Life

Word Count: 4,255

Requested: @crzy-devil Oh well I was interested in a story where y/n would be jinyoung nurse and jinyoung would be paraplegic and y/n would fall for him was what I was thinking.

Paraplegic! Jinyoung X In-home Nurse! Reader

[Featuring butler/best friend Jaebeom and peacocks: Yugyeom and Jackson {mainly}]

This is my third transfer as a live-in nurse. My first patient was Mrs. Madeleine, she was the sweetest, and I loved waking up to care for her. But it was only temporary until her daughter moved back up to take care of her along with her family. The second patient I cared for was super funny. I took care of them for two years before they transferred to a long-term care hospital. The taxi cab starts to slow down as I look out, finally done reminiscing when my eyes settle on the gated community. ‘This is a first,’ I thought to myself. I gulp as the driver finally stops in front of a two-story brick house. I pay for the cab and tip them a nice amount before walking up the sidewalk to the front of the house.

I ring the doorbell, and they ask, “Who is it?” Come from the little doorbell camera. I smile, “I’m (Y/n), and I am going to be your live-in nurse.” I wait for a response, but all is a sigh before the door opens by itself. Unlike creepy abandoned mansions, behind the door was a guy dressed formally. “I can take your bags up to your room.” My eyes nearly pop out of my head, “No, no, that's okay! I can do that!” He smiles and shrugs, “As you wish, follow me up, then.” I follow him up the winding stairs and notice a built-in lift. I smile good to see they have accommodations built into the house. “Your room will be three doors from Mr. Park’s.” I nod, “Can I see them?” He nods, “I’m Jaebeom, and I’m sure he will want to see you as soon as you settle in.” I smile at him, “I’m (Y/n), and it’s nice to meet you, Jaebeom!” I push my suitcase under the bed and follow him out.

He knocks three times before Mr. Park lets out, “Come in.” Jaebeom holds the door open for me. I walk in and take in the expanse of the room. When my eyes settle on him, I see he is reading a book. “Hi, Mr. Park, I’m (Y/n), and I am going to be your live-in nurse.” He gives a half-smile before finishing up the page he was reading. He puts the book down after bookmarking it. “I do not require an in-house nurse. Jaebeom hired you, not me.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes and decide from that moment to do whatever I can to ease the job off of Jaebeom.

It’s been a few weeks, and caring for him has not gotten any easier. He’s been stubborn as all hell and refuses to take any medication in front of me. Unless Jaebeom gives it to him, I sigh as I help him into a bath. And he grumbles under his breath, “What?” I ask softly, “Thank you.” He says with so much venom that I almost scream. I help him bathe, and he continues to grumble the whole time. Hopefully, one day it will get easier and, he’ll accept my help. After finishing and helping him get dressed, I get another venom-filled ‘thank you’. We eat dinner in silence, and he promptly goes back to his room once he finishes his meal.

I go over and help Jaebeom with the dishes and ask finally, “Has he always been like this?” He shakes his head, “You see, when we were younger, he was bright and bubbly. But since his condition worsened after his accident. He absorbed himself into work and has not been the same since. While I admire the dedication, I truly miss my best friend.” I nod as I help Jaebeom put the dishes away, “Have you ever told him?” He sighs, “No, but it’s not like we talk much these days. Before you, I would always help him around the mansion. And our conversations turned terse. He’s the closest thing I have to a family. I love him dearly, and now whenever we talk, it’s strictly business. Last night was the first time we had a whole conversation. It felt good to talk to him again, thank you.” I sigh, “I’m going to do whatever I can to repair your guy’s friendship. I think one of the reasons it got damaged is that Jinyoung wants to do everything by himself. I cannot blame him for that, but sometimes you have to accept the help you don’t want. I know he cares about you, but everyone has a different way of showing it. I can see it in the way he refused my help and only wanted yours because he trusts you with his whole heart. And you care for him with your whole heart.”

The next morning, I come in with his medicine and find he’s looking out the large window in his office. I set it on the desk, expecting him to tell me to shove off as I tell him, “I brought your medication.” His chair slowly spins around, and he gives me a small smile. What did Jaebeom and him talk about to make him smile at me? He looks out the window as he takes a sip of tea and tells me, “I inherited this place from my uncle, but I rarely get to enjoy it. I’m usually only moving from my office to the dining room and the bathroom every day. Because it’s all on the same floor, the only time I can see these beautiful birds is when I look out the window.” He gestures to the peacocks walking gracefully to see one spread its wings and try to court another bird. “I have never been out there either, and I have never seen peacocks in real life before.” He nods, “Would you be able to take me out there?” I nod, “Without a problem, whoever put stairs in this mansion needs a smack” He nods, “Tell that to my uncle...” I laugh, “I’m going to have a long conversation with him.” And for the first time since I’ve been here, I hear him laugh. My heart flutters as he moves his chair to the top of the stairwell. He grasps the top of the lift and swings himself into it. I fold the chair and follow him down the stairs with the chair in hand. I place the chair down and hold it steady as he swings into it. I go over to the french doors and open them. He smiles, and with no malice, he says, “Thank you,” I shake my head and tell him, “It’s no problem.”

-- (Jaebeom and Jinyoung’s conversation) --

“You cannot keep treating them that way, you know?” Jinyoung grumbles, “I know.” Jaebeom sighs, “Well, then you better clean up your attitude.” Jinyoung nods, “I’m going to try, but no promises.” Jaebeom nods, “Okay, I believe you. But please don’t shut me out again.” He nods, “I promise not to anymore. You mean a lot to me, Jaebeom. You're like a brother to me.” Jaebeom nods, “I feel the same way about you.” And for the first time in a long time, they hug it out. “Alright, I have some errands to run in the morning, so you’re completely in their care until later.” With that Jaebeom, leaves telling Jinyoung a good night, and he tells Jaebeom good night.

He moves to the middle of the garden and gestures for me to follow. I follow him down the brick-paved walkway until we are in front of a water fountain. I sit next to him on the bench as we face away from the water fountain looking out into the massive garden. “It’s beautiful out here, breath-taking even.” He nods, “It’s one of the reasons why I fell in love with this house.” I nod, and we sit in silence. Watching the flowers move with the wind, the peacocks are further back than they seemed. But they move closer as time goes on, “Did you name them?” He shakes his head, yes, “That’s Youngjae,” He points to the one courting earlier, “That’s Soyeon.” Pointing to the one the peacock was courting. “That’s Bambam,...” He names the one who is poking at the ground with no sign of stopping. I grin as he tells me the two that look like they are talking to each other, “That’s Yugyeom and Mark.” He points to the two white ones, “That’s Seulgi and her sister Siren. The one casting its feathers in the back is Jackson.” I smile, “I think Jackson leads the peacocks.” He shakes his head, “Actually, it’s Seulgi and Siren.” I laugh, “You know, that makes sense.” He nods, “My irritator is coming over… Whenever he sees me in the window, he flys over and acts like he is arguing with me.” The one called Yugyeom starts marching over to us. He pokes at Jinyoung for a second and squints his eyes. He comes over and brushes his feathers over me, and goes back to Jinyoung, and squints again. Jinyoung squints back before Yugyeom pokes his hand. Jinyoung hisses and shoos Yugyeom away. “Do you need ice? Or something?” He shakes his head, “No, just need for him to go find something to do.” I laugh, and he gives me a tight smile.

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I asked, “Why didn’t you ask Jaebeom to bring you here?” He sighs, “He’s my best friend. He shouldn’t be the one doing everything for me. I know he is my butler,... but I couldn’t ask him to do this.” I nod and place my hand on his shoulder, “You know he would do anything for you, right?” I caught a glimpse of his smile. “I feel the same way about him. I’ve just had a harder time expressing it as of late.” I ask the fateful question, “How long ago did this happen?” He looks down, “I’ve always had problems getting around as a kid, but two years ago, I got in a car wreck. It exacerbated it; I no longer had control of my legs. While I had limited mobility before only needing a wheelchair every once and a while. Now I’m here, and I’ve finally accepted it. I’m happy with the life I lead. But sometimes it would be nice if my house did not have stairs. I think that’s the worst part of it. Most of the time I’m stuck to the 2nd level. Because that’s where everything is,...” I nod as he looks over at me. “Well, whenever you want down here. Just ask me, and I’ll be over in an instant.” He smiles at me, and my heart flutters again, and I can’t help but smile back at him.

We watch the peacocks for a while before he smiles and says, “Well, I’m good now.” I nod and follow him back after giving Jinyoung medicine and helping him into his bed. Making sure he is comfortable, I leave and shut the door. Heading over to my room, I see Jaebeom sitting on the window ledge, “Hey, I saw you guys out in the garden today.” I nod with a big smile on my face before joining him and looking out at the traffic. “It’s the first time I’ve been out there. It's super pretty.” He nods, “It is out there, and thank you.” I shrug, “For what?” He shrugs back and goes into Jinyoung’s room. I smile and fall asleep with ease, happy that Jinyoung and I finally got to talk.

I wake up to the smell of pancakes, and I start to rush over to the dining room. Jaebeom sees me come out of my room and gestures towards Jinyoung’s room, and I raise a brow. But follow along and see Jinyoung propped up. He gestures for me to sit in the chair with a tiny table in front of it. “I wanted to eat breakfast in bed with you two,...” He trails off with a slight pink tint. I smile as Jaebeom sets the pancakes in front of us. Before grabbing us something to drink. Jaebeom smiles, “This is nice.” We agree and eat our breakfast in comfortable silence. “We should do this again,” Jinyoung nods, “I think so too. Thank you guys for joining.” I grin, and so does Jaebeom.

It’s been a few weeks since then, and it's gotten easier to care for Jinyoung. All three of us can interact and hold conversations. He accepted my help, and we are now seeing eye to eye on a lot of things. Jaebeom and Jinyoung’s friendship has repaired itself, and I’m so happy for them. While we still have our duties, Jinyoung tries to include us in his meetings and his work. Talking about how we care for him and he cares for us. I nearly cried myself to sleep the first time he said that because of how sweet that was. Sometimes you have to crack the hard exterior to meet the inner softie. I think I'm falling for him. I knock on the door with some herbal tea in hand. “Come in,” I come in and sit the tea down and drink a sip of mine. “You asked for some tea, but Jaebeom had some errands to run. Thus he asked me to make it.” He nods, “That’s okay,... I like your company too.” He gestures for me to sit next to him at the window. I bring a chair around, and we drink our tea in peace, and he asks, “Would you like to know more about them?” I nod, “They are Indian Peafowls. In Native American culture, they represent; self-esteem, dignity, refinement, knowledge, pride, and beauty.” I nod, “My uncle brought them over to property when I was little and taught me all about them. In some legends, they represent omens of nobility, guidance, holiness, watchfulness, and protection.” I smile, “That is super cool!” He continues, “I think that they protect this house and keep care of me. No matter what that thing--." He gestures to Yugyeom, the bird that is acting like he is trying to fight Jinyoung. With his feathers bristled and jumping at the window. “Does-- he truly cares.” I laugh and wave down at Yugyeom, and he calms down for a second only to continue. Before Jinyoung puts up his 'dukes', and acts like he’s punching him, Yugyeom falls over and sashes away. I cackle at the two of them, “Oh man, that is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone have that interaction with any animal.” He laughs, “I was about seven when they brought the peacocks over, and I met him first. We formed a special bond since he was a peachick. We used to play fight, and it’s continued into adulthood.” I laugh, “How long have you had this house?” He smiles, “I used to come here all the time as a kid, but when I turned sixteen, they turned it over to me. So about eleven years now.” I smile, “That is sweet of them.” He grins, “Yeah,...” He trails off, and we finish our tea.

“You want to feed them with me?” I nod, and we do the same routine of me, carrying the automated chair down the steps and holding it steady. I grab the feed once we make it past the french doors. We head out further, this time on the brick-paved trail, and spread the feed out around the trail. They notice almost immediately, and they all rush over, and I gasp as I watch them eat. “Wow, can they get any more majestic?” He nods, “Yeah, when they all walk with their feathers out. It’s a sight to see since they only do it once in a while.” I nod and watch them all get enough of the feed and go their separate ways. Yugyeom and Jackson stay before he turns around and shows me his flight and flies to the top of a tree. “Uh, did he just fly? I did not know they could fly. I thought they were like ostriches. Oh my god, this made them so much cooler.” Jinyoung laughs, “Yeah, they are one of the largest flying birds.” I grin, “Oh, wicked.” He agrees before Yugyeom starts squawking at him, and Jinyoung squawks back. I raise a brow but don’t question it as I watch Yugyeom look between the two of us again before he makes a squawk of surprise. I stand up, and he swiftly turns and pushes me towards Jinyoung. “Um?” Jinyoung squawks at him back, and Yugyeom ruffles his feathers and walks away. “Um, what was that about?” He smiles over at me, “He thinks I need a little push, and he is um?...” He looks down at his hands, “He is like courting you for me?” My mouth drops open, but I don’t let out a sound. “I uh,... he thought I liked you before. And for me coming out with you a second time. Probably confirmed his suspicions?” My cheeks turn red, and I look over to see his cheeks are red as well. “Um,... can I ask if his suspicions of you liking me are true?” He nods, “I may,... Would that be crossing a line?” I shake my head no, “No,... I may as well.” We sit there for a moment, wondering where to go from here. “Hey, I thought I would find the two of you out here!” We look over at Jaebeom, and he comes over to us. “Am I interrupting something?” We exchange a look before shaking our heads no.

After that confession, nothing really changed. The next month was filled with doing random activities together and going to actual doctor appointments. Jinyoung refused to go into the room alone and dragged us both along. When the doctor would turn away from us, we would make silly faces at each other. While trying to hold our laughter in, which was pretty successful until they would leave for a moment. And we would be in fits of giggles by the time they can back. We would quickly conduct ourselves and grin at each other. These are the moments I would never wish for to end.

I get a call from my contracting office, “Jaebeom only hired you for three months and two weeks. So in a week, we will be assigning you to a new place.” When I get off the call, I start bawling into my pillow. I feel at home here. I do not want to leave them. What happens when I leave them? Will their routine go back to normal? I can’t let that happen. And what about my feelings for Jinyoung? I don’t think I am ready to get over them. As I bawl, I hear a soft knock on my door. I quickly wipe my tears and tell them to come in. It’s Jinyoung, “Hey,... Um, are you okay? I think I heard you crying.” My brain battles me on whether I should tell him the truth or fib. And I tell him softly about my company call. He moves closer, and before I can start crying, I feel his hands holding mine. I look up at him, and he squeezes my hands. “It’s okay. I am here. I am not going to let you leave me. Unless... that is what you want?” I shake my head no, “I want to stay here with you,... but I can’t if my contract is over.” He removes a hand from mine and pulls out his phone from the holder, dialing up something. “Hello, I would like to speak to the contracting department.” I raise a brow, trying to hold back my tears still, “Yes, this is Park Jinyoung. I am currently under the care of (L/n) (Y/n). My butler, Lim Jaebeom, called and had you assign them to me. And I want the contract extended indefinitely. Yes,... I know how much that will cost. Now, I wish for you never to call them again. Unless they call first.” He hangs up and places it back in his holder, “J-Jin-Jinyoung?” A few tears slip from my eyes, and he raises my chin to look him in the eyes. “I think I’m in love with you.” He brings up our joined hands and wipes my tears with his thumb. “You don’t have to cry. You’re not leaving.” I nod and throw my arms around him, “I think I love you too, Jinyoung. I am not going to leave you either.” He rubs my back, and I pull back. I look down at his lips, “Aw man, I am interrupting something this time.” We shake our heads, and I peck Jinyoung’s cheek. Jaebeom says, “I was going to ask if you wanted to see Youngjae’s and Soyeon’s baby peacocks but... since you guys are busy.” We roll our eyes, and we head over to the stairwell. Jaebeom raced us down there and opened the doors. “It is going to be a little awkward third-wheeling you guys now. But I think I can get used to it. Considering I have been doing that unofficially for a while now.” We roll our eyes at him again, and he laughs. He leads us over to the pile where the harem is all circled around the bundles of joy.

They squeak at their mother, and we all coo at them. I find myself holding Jinyoung’s hand, and my heart nearly falls apart. I feel a soft peck on my hand and turn to see Yugyeom. I didn’t think a bird could look smug but turns out I’m wrong. Because Yugyeom surely looks smug, I squint at him, and he squints back. Before joining the rest of the harem to stare at the little ones. “I think Yugyeom approves.” Jinyoung looks up at me, “I think so too...”

A few days later, after helping Jinyoung bathe and whatever else. Jaebeom tells me to go, get dressed up nicely. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he tells me to go along with it. So I do. When I finish getting dressed, he brings me into the dining room located on the first floor. It’s the first time I have ever been into this one, let alone eat in here. The room is dimly lit with fairy lights hanging all around with a red candle lit and slowly melting. He brings me over to the seat, and I scoot myself in and before I can ask. Jinyoung comes into my view and sits in front of me, “I thought I would make our first date special. So I asked Jaebeom to prepare all of this... I hope it’s not too much.” I shake my head, “It’s perfect.” Jaebeom brings over two plates, “Bon appetit if you need me. I will be in the upstairs dining room. Eating by myself and watching the notebook.” We shake our heads and laugh, “Thank you, my compliments to the chef.” He rolls his eyes and sees himself out.

We eat slowly, “Thank you for taking care of me and falling in love with me.” I grin, “How could I not? Loving you is everything I dreamt of and more.” He blushes at my words, and we eat before he places his hand on the table, and I put mine on his. He intertwines our fingers as we began to realize that this is the beginning of a forever. “With you next to me, I think I can take on the world.” I whisper to him, “We will take on the world together.” I grin as we finish our dinner, and I put the plates in the sink. I quickly wash them before joining Jinyoung. He grabs my hand and leads me over to the french doors.

“Fun fact, baby peafowls can walk three days after they are born.” I gasp, “No way.” He laughs, “Yeah, come on.” He speeds up a bit over to Soyeon and Youngjae. The peafowls raise their heads at us before she lifts her wing. And the peachicks walk around the two of us before rejoining her warmth. I am simply amazed, “Can you believe that?” He nods, “Well, we are like family to these Peacocks, so they want their babies to understand that as well.” I look over at him, “My heart is going to combust with this information.” He grins, “Yeah, imagine me when I was little, and I figured that out.” I grin over at him, “Man, you must have run to your parents, and they must have been so happy for you.” He nods, “They were and asked me to introduce them, of course.” I laugh, “That is adorable. I love you.” I blush as those words slip out, and he pulls me down, and I fall onto his lap, and he kisses me. “You don’t know how long I have wanted to do that.” My cheeks are beet red when we pull away, and his cheeks match mine. “Let’s do it again.” He laughs, and we kiss again. I turn around and look at who is pecking my back to see Yugyeom and Jackson there. Their wings spread, and I cannot help but laugh, “I think they are protecting the peachick's eyes.” He laughs, “I think so too... Let’s take this back, shall we?” I grin and move off of him and place a kiss on his lips again.

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emkay512 · 3 years

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Once Upon A Time

Chapter 1

Summary: This starts at the beginning of TRR book 2 with the Fydelia ball but with a different series of events. This AU is based off the show Once Upon a Time with Riley and Liam mirroring Snow and Charming. Characters belong to Pixelberry.

A/N: This is my FIRST EVER post and it’s literal trash 😅 I’ve never written before I found you all, and I’ve never had so much fun reading all the stories I found. If you read this please know I’m a complete rookie and I have no idea what I’m doing haha. I welcome and encourage any thoughts and feedback!

A/N 2: my biggest thank you’s to @queenrileyrose and @bbrandy2002 for pre-reading and giving me endless boosts of confidence!!! This first ever, cherry popping post, is in honor of you ❤️

Warnings: This will contain NSFW adult language and content. By reading, you acknowledge you are 18 and over.

I’m tagging those I’ve connected with and thought would be interested. Please let me know if you do or don’t want to be tagged!

@burnsoslow @ao719 @kat-tia801 @callmeellabella @charlotteg234 @neotericthemis

The welcome ball had been exhausting. Riley finally saw them, all of them, the good and the bad. Mostly bad with Liam being the exception.. except the fact that with him came his stupid fiancée. She was forced to deal with the Penelope’s and Kiara’s of the court, and got none of the Olivia’s and Drake’s of the world, with Olivia blackmailed and Drake most likely avoiding the court. Majority of the conversations she had to deal with throughout the night consisted of her rebutting all the allegations against her, most people believing that she had jilted their king. At least she had Maxwell and Bertrand, her home away from home. With the maybe two seconds she had Liam to herself and the amount of work and effort she had to put into her first public appearance, she was completely drained and changed from a gown and into more comfortable leggings and tank after she got back to her room of the Fydelia estate. Just as she was decompressing from the stress of her night, there was a knock on the door. She opened the door to see a particular grin on the face of one Maxwell Beaumont carrying a vase of two dozen roses.

“Greetings, little blossom! One of the staff members stopped me on the way of delivering these, asking what room you were in and I insisted on catching you myself.” Maxwell invited himself into her room after handing her the arrangement. Riley pressed the roses to her nose, inhaling the beautiful scent, and she noticed a note wrapped around one of the stems. She unwrapped the note and turned to Maxwell, who had already cozied himself up on her bed, clearly excited to hear what was on the note. “I noticed the paper in the arrangement too, it’s clearly from Liam isn’t it? You did so great tonight and he had the biggest puppy dog eyes on you, I knew his Prince Charming ass would pull off something like this.. well, go on! Read it!”

Riley quickly unwrapped and read Liam’s note, she had no idea the girlish grin she had plastered on and Maxwell was beaming. He had hated these past few weeks so much, he had been watching one of his closest friends, his makeshift sister, live in desperate torment, questioning her worth after hearing nothing from those she cared most about. She put the roses down and placed the note down next to them and looked up at Maxwell, “He wants me to meet him on his balcony in 20 minutes..”

“That is charmingly romantic, but did he slip in his royal socks and tumble down Madeleine’s overly buffed stairs?? He’s clear across the estate, it’s way too dangerous for you to get out of here alone.”

Riley sighed and collapsed onto the bed with Maxwell, “I don’t know Max, his note is sweet and remorseful, but.. maybe this isn’t about getting back together.. maybe I should just focus on helping house Beaumont and getting home..”

Maxwell stretched across to Riley and smacked her across her head, “Come on, Riles! You have been unable to go a single day without asking about him.. at least twice a day! You NEED to go meet him, otherwise I think both of your little fairy tale hearts will die.”

Riley smirked and rolled her eyes, “You’re so dramatic! And please tell me what fairy tale involved a half nude photo scandal and public humiliation leading to a bullshit engagement between a king and the only ice queen that would rival both Olivia and Elsa while singing let it go? Plus, didn’t you just mention that it’d be too dangerous for me to get to him?”

“Hellooooooo?? Ok first of all, literally all fairy tales are structured that way, couple meets and falls in love, and a public enemy curses them with a dramatic, heartbreaking lie, and then they defile all enemies and live happily ever after.. you’re just living the 21st century version of that! Nudes are basically the most vanilla scandal these days anyway. And secondly, have you JUST met mr covert ops extraordinaire, Maxwell Beaumont!? I said it’d be too dangerous for you to go out alone. Let’s just simply walk out together, and if we get any questions, we can just say we’re meeting my brother for.. you know.. this and that diplomacy reason.. whatever, I’ll wing it. Plus, look at you, you’re already dressed for stealth. I just need to get you outside, and then you can scamper over to Liam’s side of the building. Whaddya say, blossom?”

Riley was exhilarated. Maxwell always knew how to say the right things. She locked eyes with him, pointed straight to his chest and said, “You son of a bitch, I’m in.” They shared a mischievous smile and giggled their way out of her room, totally giddy without even shutting the door all the way. They were completely unaware of the royal guard that had been manning her room and slipped inside.

Thanks to Maxwell, Riley had successfully snuck out of the estate and crept to below the balcony of Liam’s room. She had to think fast as to how the hell she’d get up there, and then she spotted the flower vine growing on a trellis against the building, and she let out a small victorious, “Yes!”

But as soon as she took a step in that direction, a hand grabbed her shoulder and jerked her around so she was facing one of the royal guards. “I don’t think so, lady Riley,” he put a heavy sarcastic emphasis on the term lady, as he was clearly disgusted by her newfound tarnished reputation. “You’re coming with us.”

“Us?” And then from behind her, another guard bagged her head and she felt the grip of two men on each of her arms as they forced her to their destination, practically dragging her as they went. Riley’s heart was thundering in her chest. Where were they taking her? Back to the airport? A jail cell? A dungeon? A firing squad? She wasn’t at all expecting what she got. She was sat on a decently comfortable chair. The guards removed the bag and revealed to see she was in a study. A large one. And there before her on the opposite end of a mighty desk, was the king father, Constantine.

Constantine nodded a dismal to both the guards, and they took their leave. “Well, well. If it isn’t the disgraced American.” Riley was utterly confused and could feel the former kings command in the mood of the room. He did not like her, and she could feel his dislike radiating off of him. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, you foolish girl?”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“You had your exit, your out. You were scandled. Ostracized! I even had you as far as at the airport gates. But no, you came back. You came back and left me back at square one on how to get rid of you!”

Realization dawned to her, “It was YOU!” Riley leapt to her feet. She felt no fear, only anger coursing through her. “YOU staged those photos, YOU unleashed Tariq on me.. and you timed the release of those photos, at the most prime time allowing maximum humiliation and zero time in between Liam’s announcement. You’re despicable, I bet you’re even disappointed that Tariq’s attack on me didn’t end.. didn’t end up the way he planned.” She had deliberately slowed her speech as each new revelation came to play in her head, she had lowered her voice with disdain and disgust.

Constantine let out a scoff-laugh at what he considered to be a poor attempt of exerting dominance. “You’re right, and quite honestly I don’t care what that pompous buffoon would have done to you, but I must say, those pictures certainly did deliver.” Constantine was teasing and patronizing her, “And now you’re here, still trying to get to my son.”

Riley crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at him, “I don’t know what you’re tal-“

“Enough. I know everything.” He waved in front of her the very note that Liam had written inviting her to his balcony that he got from one of the guards. “You poisoned his heart, and now his marriage. And with that, the entire kingdom is poisoned, all because your feelings.” He spit the last word out as if he found it vile.

“I wish feelings could be helped, but they can’t.”

“Of course they can. Love is a disease, and like all diseases, it can be vanquished in one of two ways. A cure, or death.” Constantine stood and leaned both of his palms flat on the surface of the desk. “Do you know where your beloved is right now? He’s right down that hallway, he should be packing for his new life, prepared to take on his engagement tour to unify two Cordonian houses and assume the responsibilities and sacrifices it takes to be king. But no.. He’s pining for you. Awaiting your arrival.”

“And I suppose you intend to keep him that way? Waiting for me, only to be rejected, never knowing I came for him?” Riley’s voice was desperate, but still cunning in reality. She needed him to know her questionnaire was not doubtful, but challenging. That she hated his deliberate intentions.

“No. In fact, you’re gonna walk down that hallway. You’re gonna sneak in and tell him you got his note,” Constantine slid the note across the table, no longer wanting it in his possession, and Riley picked it up. “You’re gonna tell him why you answered his call.. Because you don’t love him. It’ll break his heart.. And that will cure him.”

Wide eyed, Riley could only assume the consequence if she didn’t do as he said, “Or you’ll kill me.” She stated with no question in her mind.

“Oh no. I’ll kill him. Killing you would only make him love you more. And the marriage and kingdom would ultimately crumble.”

“And what about your precious Madeleine? I know how this works this is all about mergers and business transactions. How else would you get Godfrey and his house to join with yours?”

“Please, if Liam were to die at an assassin’s hand, he would die a martyr. Godfrey would forgive, even laud, the death. And the merger would be complete.”

“You would do that to your own son?”

“I’m doing it FOR my son.” Love was once Constantine's weakness and it led to Eleanor’s death. It scarred him and he became brainwashed. Convinced love was the enemy. And now, the product of his foolish love, was Liam, who he groomed to be the perfect king. Constantine applauded himself all these years. It was clear as day that even Leo knew the job belonged to Liam, so Constantine did everything to assuage any of Liam’s hesitation into taking on his duty. He always planned on Liam being the logical one, ready to take on the duty and a loveless union. Then that damn New York trip happened. And that damn Riley came in the picture. Immediately Constantine couldn’t tell if he actually hated Riley, or if he hated the idea that Riley was basically the new version of Eleanor that he’d never have.

#the royal romance #TRR #choices #liam x riley #choices trr #liam x mc #king liam

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flowerflamestars · 4 years

Note

Let's ask the hard questions here, baby. What do you think the series would have been like had it been Nesta Archeron under the mountain?

BABE this is it-this is the best question I’ve ever been asked.

For one thing, chaotic. For another: I think the simple substitution reframes the whole structure of the narrative. It’s not about a journey to power that fights Evil Tyranny (abused Human to Hero to High Lady).

It’s a story about the people working around, beside, under the powerful Lords- and the difficult choices they make. Less Hero’s Journey more, Look, These Are the Real Heroes.

Let’s start with Spring. We know now that the whole you killed a faery now you have to come to faeryland thing was an insanely shitty ruse. So maybe Andras is still alive. Maybe Feyre killed him and Nesta successfully protected her sisters. Maybe Tamlin is just a twat and went that one is pretty. ANYWAY-

Nesta gets to Spring. Lucien doesn’t immediately despise her, for, you know, murdering and skinning his only friend (a handy sublimation of the anger he can’t express against his High Lord). Nesta was raised in the fucking gentry and Nesta can play the game- it’s a question of willingness.

Feyre is a lot more willing to roll with weird circumstances for caution. Nesta is, to her bones, an aggressor. Empty manor doesn’t add up? She’s going to say something so cutting, and so infuriating to Tamtam she ends up seeing all the faeries. She steels herself, refuses to be afraid of Alis, and asks questions. (See, Nesta’s first IC dinner, zeroing in on the scariest faery and refusing to flinch)

At some point, there’s a confrontation.

But it’s not between Nesta and Tamlin. Now, in canon Tamtams is extremely willing to drag his feet on the curse. In this version, that is so much worse- sure, he’s into Nesta (Nesta, recall, just looks like sharper Feyre), but Nesta takes one look at this fragile immortal man child and roasts the shit out of him. What’s he going to do? Kill her? Negates all the stupid trouble he went to. Punish her? He clearly needs her for something.

Tamlin cannot handle that. There are no Romantic Moments. Nes spends calanmai watching faeries do weird shit out her window. She sure as fuck doesn’t drink faery wine and dance for Tamlin at the solstice. It is not happening.

So Nesta spends a lot of time alone, wandering around. Talking to Lucien, Alis, random-ass faeries out of sheer reckless ego, reading every book in the ugly manor.

Nesta confronts Lucien. I’m going to go with after the wingless dead faerie and the head in the garden. The stupid blight conversation.

This works differently and better than Feyre’s attempts to get more information for I think, two important reasons. 1) Lucien and Nesta speak the same language in acotar. It’s all anger babes- sharp edged, sexy, bullshit. There’s no cycle of forgiveness then softening- they are the same, too the same, tired and self-hating survivalists bored out of their minds in a gilded death trap.

and 2) Nesta and Feyre are quintessentially perceived differently. Feyre is hopeful- tenacious, young, free. She shakes up things for these old ass faeries and gives them something to believe in. It’s youth for the eternally young.

Nesta...is not that. She gets under your skin, forever. Multiple faeries meet her throughout the books and have very extreme reactions to that- but what matters at this point, as a mortal- Nesta reads as an adult. She’s immune to glamour. Her strength isn’t kindness or an open heart, it’s fucking steel that might take your last breathe.

And look, Lucien would respond to that. Tamlin...isn’t even talking to the girl his people died to get him. The curse is almost over and they’re all going to get tortured. Nesta, has, from day one, known something is wrong- she’s so angry, and it makes it easier for Lucien to be angry.

It’s not hunting bros who become Real Friends, it’s fire and gasoline. Empowerment.

So, I haven’t read acotar in ages- but I’m pretty sure they literally couldn’t tell her about Tamlin’s curse. But Lucien can communicate around the magical fuckery- there’s a great evil. The kids in Winter are all dead because of another High Lord.

And look, Nesta cares about dead kids. She even, begrudgingly, cares about Lucien. She does not give a single flying fuck about the High Lords.

But Lucien, in this world, is the first one to say it: Hybern.

Amarantha is Hybern’s general, and Hybern wants all of Prythian. All of it.

Nesta is absolutely going to walk into the fire to keep the humans- and by extent, her sisters- safe from faeries.

Tamlin- because he does not love Nesta- doesn’t send her away. Doesn’t crush any savage hope Lucien harbored, doesn’t do shit. He gives up.

And so Spring is dragged beneath the Mountain.

Nesta has exactly two advantages on her side: she can see through glamour, so she’s not 100% disoriented and vulnerable (just..you know, terrified), and sheer force of will.

Amarantha likes will. She likes to break it, and there are so few real contenders left after her victory.

Nesta doesn’t bargain- Nesta doesn’t beg for Tamlin’s life and love- she asks to win her own.

Amarantha wants to crush her like a bug. Insignificant little human- but wouldn’t it be more fun to watch each little crack form?

So she gets the riddle. Tamlin’s power is thrown in like the boring chekovs gun that it is. Lucien (probably) gets beat up because Lucien always gets beat up under the Mountain.

Nesta has two choices: she can answer the (stupidly cliched, easy) riddle right there, and try to walk out. (Nesta knows she’s not making it out alive). Or she can wait, and play the game. (She’ll be damned if she doesn’t take that insane bitch and maybe Tamlin down with her. Her only ally is Lucien and he’s being hauled off with a bleeding headwound soo..)

Nesta lets herself be dragged away. She doesn’t fight.

Let us remember again, that the Archeron sisters are built like a triptych. A presumable almost mother maiden crone. They look alike, especially Nesta and Feyre. If Rhysie boy thinks Feyre is hot at first glance, guess what he also thinks about Nesta?

So, yes, of course he goes to offer a deal. And let’s be clear on something- when Feyre hated Rhysands guts, what did he like about her? That she was beautiful, absolutely didn’t give a fuck, and what’s that? Fought with him.

She lets him heal her, but then- Nesta won’t even talk to him. Nothing he does works. They come to agreement (which Rhysand finds fascinating, a human with loyalty, that human heart) that Nesta will listen to Rhysand’s offer if and when, he delivers to her a whole, safe, Lucien Vanserra.

Rhys frames this as emotional torture. Incentive. He doesn’t need to play evil as well- Nesta hates fucking faeries. And she knows he killed a bunch of children.

So Lucien gets thrown in the cell. Minimally healed. About to embark on the misery train, self-deprecating laughter at the fact he’s healed, now, because of Nesta.

Lucien: so nice of you to make sure we’re all pretty before we die, Archeron. Final night spent huddling for warmth together?

Nesta: Shut up. Shut up- tell me why the fuck Rhysand would be trying to make a deal with me.

They come to the conclusion that, while Rhysand is a monster, he also has no control of his own. He’s completely under Amarantha’s thumb, and apparently, wants out.

Nesta, because she always goes for the jugular, has another thought: Are you really going to go back to Spring after this? He gave up. He gave up and you were rotting in a cell.

Lucien, to whom Nesta is both gasoline and mean friend catnip, but who is also a Sad Boi: where else can I go?

So they make a plan. Rhysand thinks Nesta is the key to killing Amarantha? Cool, Amarantha needs to die. Tamlin is the only High Lord who has access to his power more readily? Tamlin needs to do the killing.

What does Nesta want? There to be no Hybern coming to burn the land where her sisters live. To go back, to go home- but Nesta doesn’t think, even for a second, she’s really going to make it out alive. And if she does, as she thinks late at night, of Feyre’s laugh, or Elain’s quiet humor- how will it ever be safe? They live on the Wall.

Nesta is known to faeries now- Nesta is infamous, and there’s nothing to stop anyone, should her presence lead them back to her home.

Nesta privately decides Tamlin should die too.

So when the time comes, and Rhysand is like, I’ll protect you, you’ll be mine and you’ll be healed- Nesta says no. Nesta, because she really has never learned to back down- looks dead in the eye of the High Lord of Night, the monster who sleeps beside Amarantha and says: safe passage.

She’ll do what Rhys wants, for this: Lucien Vanserra’s safe passage to a safe place, and for Rhysand to promise not to get in her way when she answers the riddle.

Rhys still wants her to come to the Night Court- for whatever nebulous reasons he wanted Feyre to...which only make sense AFTER she’s changed by the High Lords...which Rhysie couldn’t have known, BUT ANYWAY- Nesta says yes. She doesn’t expect she’ll be alive to pay.

Lucien sulks back to Tamlin’s side, and spends a few weeks between challenges laying it on thick. A quiet whisper that grows, a perfect stroke to Tamlin’s volatile ego. How dare Amarantha, how dare Nesta- Tamlin is a Lord, Tamlin is Spring- Tamlin, who has suffered so much more than the other Lords, deserves his power back.

Nesta is dragged out for the final challenge.

In one of the long, dangerous hallways, her guards look the other way for just a moment- for a visitor. The High Lady of Autumn knows her son is safe because of this girl.

She hands Nesta a knife. A small gift- all she can. Steel, not ash, small enough it will go unnoticed.

Nesta is dragged before the throne, before the High Lords, Tamlin and Amarantha, Rhysand.

Nesta answers the riddle.

And when Amarantha refuses to abide the rules- Tamlin, carefully manipulated without coordinating by both Rhys and Lucien, goes apeshit.

This does not stop Amarantha from hurting Nesta. The opposite- she’s trapped in the fight between them. When Amarantha does give Tamlin over the power, it doesn’t stop- unloved by even a human, and now she’d take any chance he’d had to win her as he really was.

Nesta doesn’t stab Amarantha. Nesta lays there, bleeding to death, biding her time.

Tamlin murders Amarantha. Rhysand doesn’t beg, but he’s there, getting growled at by Lucien as he tried to staunch Nesta’s wounds.

Amarantha dies, and Tamlin, glowing with power, makes his way to Nesta. They think he’s going to heal her- to try, but Tamlin is Tamlin, so he pulls her into his arms.

Nesta, who knows she’s going to die- Nesta, who was taken from her home, her family, deprived of her life by the choices of this man- Nesta lets Tamlin embrace her, the arrogant, stupid bastard, and stabs him in the throat.

It is the golden, desperate words of Lucien Vanserra that convince the High Lords to heal her. It is Rhysand who tries first, who gives the most. After all- Tamlin had been too selfish to try, and they’d all suffered for it. Faery justice: swift and bloody.

Nesta had died victorious. Nesta died with a bloody autumn court dagger in one hand and the grip of her only real friend in the other- but death was chaos. Skies and stars and howling wind, love and blood and war.

A thousand miles away, Cassian awoke screaming, clawing at his own chest.

She climbed through blood and battle, dreams and hope, floated to an infinite sky: and found herself alive.

Breathing, whole, an immortal monster. On her way to the Court of Night with Lucien by her side.

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talkfantasytome · 3 years

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During the monthly court meeting E/lain had this kind of behavior, at this meeting Nesta or Lucien were not present to justify this kind of behavior (which are behaviors that are pointed out that she has with both, Nesta in ACOSF and Lucien every time they meet).

“I’d have E/lain try her hand before we approach him, though.” E/lain had already departed with Feyre, claiming she had to be up with the dawn to tend to an elderly faerie’s garden. Cassian didn’t exactly know why he suspected this wasn’t true. There had been some tightness in E/lain’s face as she’d said it. Normally when she made such excuses, Lucien was around, but the male remained in the human lands with Jurian and Vassa.”

Do you have any thoughts or theories about this?

Because many people point out she behaves like this around Lucien but she has also behaved like this with other people.

From the pov of the other characters we also see them pointing out things about her personality or how much she tries to belong to NC and has her ignoring Rhys as well.

Any thoughts? I like to read about your point of view

Hi! And thank you so much! I appreciate your interest in my point of view. <3

This ended up longer than I thought it would - as these always do. Not super crazy, but still. The last paragraph is also a bit of a TL;DR.

E\ain's Lie

This is a super interesting paragraph, not going to lie.

I believe some people have interpreted the tightness and escaping to be because Azriel was at the meeting. However, I don't really believe that. If she has a crush on Azriel, why would she escape with some excuse? Why wouldn't she stay around? He's apparently incredibly pretty, so just staying would mean getting to look at that masterpiece a bit more. 👀

However, the more important tell to let us know this isn't the case is this:

Normally when she made such excuses, Lucien was around...

Azriel is around a lot more than Lucien. If E\ain was doing this because of Azriel, I feel like they'd see this happen more when Lucien isn't around.

It's also important to note that Cassian observes a tightness in E\ain's face "as she'd said [she had to be up early to garden]". He didn't observe it throughout the dinner, no, solely as she made her excuses. It's why Cassian thinks she was lying, making an excuse to leave.

However, if she was struggling because someone else was around, it would have been a noticeable change in her personality throughout all of dinner. Az is around more than Lucien, but we also know he's not around that much, because he's trying to stay away from E\ain. So it wouldn't be an "well, Az is around a lot, so it's just not noticeable that she's stressed around him too". Just as, when Lucien is around, we do see that E\ain is a bit more withdrawn.

So, I don't believe it was Az that caused E\ain to make an excuse to leave. It could have been, but personally I find that less likely, or she'd have been doing it more often. Regardless of whether it's because she likes Azriel or because she views him as a threat on her own plans, I don't think that's the reason.

It could be just that she's less comfortable around the group without Feyre.

I find this one an unlikely possibility, but it is possible. Despite what E\ain says, she really is not part of the court, and she's definitely not part of the Inner Circle - no more than Nesta. In fact, by the end of ACOSF, you could argue Nesta is more part of it. But Feyre is the only true IC member of the Archerons.

But, either way, I don't see E\ain as being friends with any of the IC members. Not even Az. They may have some sexual chemistry there, but they're not friends. They never talk and they don't really know each other at all. So it could just be that simple.

But, unlikely if this is meant to be foreshadowing.

She also could just be tired and making some excuse to sound less lame - we've all done it, don't lie. XD

Again, though, I find this unlikely. I don't think her face would be super tight in doing this, because we know E\ain can lie. Or, at least, use words and smiles to her own advantage.

Rhys's brows lifted. "You'd think they'd been told plague had befallen the house."

I pulled the door open wide enough to let them in, then quickly shut it against the bitter cold. "My sister E\ain can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles."

It's not exactly the same, but this is one of the first things we really learn about E\ain beyond "pretty and likes flowers", her ability to convince others to do anything. To use her wits and wiles to get her way, and it's pretty obvious that's something she's used to in her life. It may not specifically state that she can lie, but she was convincing the staff to leave the house so that Fae could come into it. And we know she definitely wasn't telling them that was the reason why.

She can lie, she can stretch the truth, to do and get what she wants. With ease.

So, the fact that her face is tight tells me this isn't an easy lie for her. This isn't a bland excuse.

More so than that, why not just say she's tired? Why not use that as the reason? That's an easier lie. But no, it was something that would include an explanation for her being out early in the morning.

My conclusion: she did have something happening the next morning, but it wasn't gardening for an elder faerie.

Now, I could be wrong. Cassian's assumption was that E\ain was just lying to leave the dinner. She was making an excuse to go up to bed. You can see that because he drew a parallel to when E\ain makes excuses around Lucien, which we can assume actually is to just get out of the room where he is.

And maybe he's right. Perhaps that observation was meant to be foreshadowing about some other form of discomfort E\ain has around someone in the IC. But, based on my reasons above, and how that would happen more often, I find it unlikely.

Thus, the lie must be about something other than her just making an excuse to get away. And she uses it to also explain away why she won't be in the house the next morning.

Think about it - she made the excuse in front of Rhys and Feyre too...maybe. Maybe not. I read it as E\ain and Feyre went up together at the same time. Either way, at least one of the people she currently lives in this house with heard the excuse, so they'd expect her to not be home early the next morning. Why do that if all she was doing was making an excuse to get away from someone? The next morning she may have to answer questions about that, which I don't think she would want to do.

Now, I honestly have no idea what she was doing instead. After the bonus Az POV chapter, we know she wasn't having a secret rendezvous with him. Based on that chapter, it sounds like the two have had minimal interactions other than at dinners and things at the River House. But that's just what isn't happening.

Some wonder/hope that she's having secret meetings with Lucien. As amazing as that would be, that her "discomfort" around him is, maybe, more just lying to everyone else and pretending they aren't spending time together. I don't think that's the case. We're told Lucien is remaining in the human lands, that he looks at E\ain with longing, and that E\ain didn't even thank Lucien for his Solstice gift to her.

For someone who has a defining trait of being "sweet", that's kind of a big thing to not do when getting a gift. Like, even if she's pretending to not really care about him or know him, not thanking him is...kinda awful.

So, it would mean she's meeting with someone else. With whom? I honestly don't know.

I am intrigued by the concepts and theories about E\ain seeking out a way to try and become human again. I find it plausible, and that there was some information in ACOFAS to make it sound like she was trying to do this only makes it more so. Also, E\ain is definitely more stubborn than I think we've seen, but she's stubborn in a selfish way. Remember that she was doted on by Nesta, but also at times by Feyre, and her father. I, personally, believe that she is likely the most spoiled in nature. In fact, I wrote a post about how I'm wondering if E\ain is somewhat narcissistic.

With that, I don't think E\ain would have been deterred by Amren's comments. All I think that would have done would have made E\ain try to be more secretive and subtle in this pursuit.

I am also intrigued by the thoughts that, in doing this, she ends up siding with/helping Koschei, essentially turning into a villain. Of course, if this does happen, I think it would be revealed very end of book 5 or very beginning of book 6, and in that reveal she would plummet to rock bottom and then her book would be about her journey out of that.

And I do love the idea of a possible semi-villain E\ain because, in the end, her current development has been "she's pretty, and good, and sweet, and kind"...so, she can't be further developed and be made more "good". If her development is just her continuing to be good, that doesn't actually give us more of her character. As we learn about E\ain more, I am convinced we will learn about sides of her that aren't so "good".

E\ain & the Night Court

Okay, I'll be much faster on this, because I've talked about it before as well.

My perspective is that those vignettes, comments, narrations, etc. from other characters' POVs are all very important. I do believe this is some foreshadowing happening that tells us E\ain will not end up in the Night Court. And, I believe, her initial leaving of the Night Court may not be a particularly pleasant separation. I'm not saying it'll be absolutely awful, but maybe it's E\ain leaving on her own, or following someone she shouldn't follow due to promises of a better life, or something similar.

The other possibility is that it will be part of E\ain's emotional journey, to understand that she's not living in a place that's right for her, and that it's OKAY. It's okay if the Night Court isn't the right place for her, even if it is for her sisters. It's okay if she needs something else, if she'll find value somewhere else. It's okay to be different. I think that will be a huge thing for E\ain to learn and accept.

But, yes, I do agree with the perspectives that say those passages are telling us that E\ain doesn't belong in the Night Court. Not because she's not good enough, just because it's not where she shines. And you can find a deeper analysis on that in this post, in the "Home is Where You Shine" section.

I will say, though, that I don't think she'll end up doing anything crazy in an attempt to prove she's part of the Night Court. She's defensive about it, for sure. But if there's a big goal we're going to see her try to work toward, and maybe do so in a not so great way, I'd say it's more likely something about trying to be human again. When with the NC people she wants to be included, because she's selfish and self-centered and narcissistic - and I don't mean that as an insult, those are just some of her personality traits, and they're not necessarily a bad thing. However, I would say that's more likely why she wants to feel like she's a part of the NC. Because her sisters have both started to truly become a part of it, and she's never been the outsider. She's never been the third wheel. It was always her and Nesta. Now it's her and Feyre. But if Nesta is so much a part of the Night Court, if her two sisters will be working together on things - well, that leaves E\ain on the outside, and she can't handle it. Not because she wants to work with them. Not because she actually wants to be part of the Night Court. But because that's just not how it goes in her mind.

And I truly hope that in her journey she'll come to understand herself better, and understand that it's okay to be different. E\ain will find her place, with people who love her, care for her, adore her FOR HER. They don't simply dote on her and protect her because they think she's weak or fragile. No, she will find those who will see the wonder in her. Who will appreciate her stubbornness and ability to convince anyone to do anything. And who will only ever want the best for her because they love her. I look forward to meeting them.

And, hey, if it happens to be Jurian and Vassa and Lucien, I can see it. E\ain could use some snarky Vassa and Jurian in her life. XD

Summary

So, there you have it. That's my perspective on this. I do think E\ain was likely lying. I think the lie went beyond her just trying to get out of the room, and more so was a lie about the why or what she had going on the next day. And I do think she may have had some meeting she didn't want anyone knowing about. I know it wasn't with Az, I don't think it was with Lucien, but I don't know who else it could have been. I like the idea that it has to do with her trying to become human again, which fits in with my thoughts on what her emotional journey will be like in her book, and I'm intrigued at the thought that it could lead to her working with Koschei. But I'm not yet convinced that's definitely the case. I'll have to try to read it again, but so far I'm not sure there's been enough foreshadowing to prove that. The best thing would be her interest in helping find the Dread Trove, except I don't believe she actually was interested in that. I think in that discussion she was just more interested in proving Nesta wrong, because she never actually did anything to try and find the Trove. So, it would be cool, but we need more info before I can say I definitely think that will happen.

And yes, I do agree E\ain likely doesn't belong in the Night Court, based on all those internal thoughts we've seen. It's very telling when you have three characters observe how black does literally nothing for E\ain, how it drains her.

#ask box #acotar theory #acotar thoughts #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #elain and lucien #elucien #villain elain #acotar

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maastrash · 4 years

Text

Making it Official

I am still not satisfied with this but oh well hope you enjoy anyways! based on the song boyfriend by ariana grande!

thanks to @verryberriess for help as usual hehe

“Another tequila please,” Elide drawled as she placed her elbows onto the bar, resting her pounding head on the cool surface.

The night had just begun and the dingy bar was already spinning thanks to her 5 other shots. It was Aelin’s 25th birthday and the whole group had come out to celebrate despite their busy work schedules. Elide barely had time to let loose, but when she could, she took full advantage of the situation.

Lysandra was happily perched on Aedion’s lap sipping a neon green margarita and Aelin was already dragging a reluctant Rowan to the dimly lit dance floor. Fenrys and Connall even seemed to be having a good time flirting with 2 girls in the back corner.

But that wasn’t really what Elide was focused on. No, all her attention was on Lorcan Salveterre, especially since a a tall blond -- who was practically Victoria Secret model material -- flirtatiously placed a hand on his chest.

She knew she had absolutely no right to be jealous. She wasn’t his girlfriend and he certainly wasn’t her boyfriend.

But, it was complicated, to say the least.

A couple months ago at Lysandra’s birthday, Elide had gotten shitfaced. Lorcan, being the chivalrous guy he was, had walked her home. They’d been friends for years, but if Elide was being honest, she had always had a little crush on the broody man.

That night the alcohol finally gave her the courage to make a move. And luckily, Lorcan being tipsy himself and had easily reciprocated. Reciprocated all night in fact.

After that, they had become friends with benefits of sorts. Nobody in the group knew about them. It was casual.

Casual meant they were not exclusive in any way, but she still couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy when she saw Lorcan brush a stray hair behind the stranger’s ear.

Gods above she truly was an absolute trainwreck. Elide quickly took her shot, embracing the burn of the tequila as it cascaded down her throat and warmed her stomach. She didn’t want to think about Lorcan since he clearly wasn’t thinking about her.

It sucked being halfway with him, but she did it to herself. Now she wanted to be more than friends with someone who only saw her as an occasional fuck buddy. And there was no way she would ruin their friendship over her stupid feelings. Pathetic pining would have to do.

Elide thought the alcohol take her mind off of everything, but instead, she was drowning herself in self pity. Seeing the girl brush a kiss to Lorcan’s cheek was just the icing on her miserable cake. It was too much. Before she knew what she was doing she was stumbling off the barstool and walking out into the cool night.

She soon found herself sitting on the sidewalk, too unsteady to stand for long. She watched the city lights twinkle before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. Gods knew she needed it.

It had barely been 5 minutes before a familiar voice rang out.

“Getting some fresh air?” Lorcan asked.

“Something like that,” she answered, her eyes still closed.

She felt Lorcan drape his warm leather jacket over her bare shoulders and slowly sit down beside her.

When she turned to look at him he just shrugged. “You looked cold,” he said as if it was obvious.

Him being such a good friend only made this harder for her.

“Go inside,” she tried to say it firmly, but her voice was too quiet.

Instead of listening, his 6’4 self, scooted, actually scooted to be closer to her.

She might’ve laughed if she wasn’t so upset. “Damn it, Lorcan. I don’t want you here.”

She almost felt bad that the hurt flashing across his face brought her satisfaction. Almost. Maybe he deserved to feel the pain she constantly felt for once.

“Elide did I do something?” He looked concerned and she absolutely hated it. He had no right.

“No,” she said, crossing her arms and turning away from him.

“Well you know you can tell me anything right.”

“No. I actually can’t.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Why not?”

Elide rolled her eyes. This man was so dense. “Because I am too drunk for this and I’ll definitely regret it.”

“That’s also what you said that night at your place,” he laughed softly, as he nudged her elbow, clearly trying to lighten the mood.

Elide forced her cheeks not to flush at his suggestive words and instead made her voice ice cold as she said, “Well, maybe that was a mistake too.”

Lorcan’s smile quickly faded. “Seriously, Elide, what’s going on?”

Elide’s face heated. Whether it was from the alcohol or the frustration she couldn’t tell. All she knew was she couldn’t keep it in any longer. She had to tell him. “Fine,” she said, her voice deadly calm despite her thundering heart. “I thought I could be casual with you, Lorcan, but I can’t. It literally kills me seeing you with other girls. It is so unbearably hard being just your friend.”

Shock flashed across his face, but he quickly regained his composure. “Are you joking?”

Elide stood abruptly, his jacket falling from her shoulders and onto the sidewalk. “Seriously? I confess my feelings and you think I’m joking? Real nice of you,” she snapped before turning on her heel and walking away from him.

She didn’t get far before Lorcan grabbed her hand.

“Elide no that’s not what I meant.”

The desperation in his voice made her stop.

“What the hell is ‘are you joking’ supposed to mean then?”

“I was just surprised because,” he paused. “Because I love you Elide. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.” At her doubtful expression he added, “I literally lose my mind thinking about you. I really didn’t know you felt the same way. Trust me, if I had, I would’ve made a move a long time ago.”

Her gaze dropped to the floor as she shook her head in disbelief. “You’re just saying that.”

He tilted her face gently so their eyes met. “I smile randomly thinking about you Elide. I’m never happier than when I’m with you and I can say with 100% confidence that I am in love with you.”

She was unable to fight her smile. Lorcan loved her. He really loved her.

“I know we’re not official and I’m not your boyfriend but - “

“But you could be,” she finished for him. “If you’d like that I mean,” she quickly corrected.

He smiled softly before pressing a soft kiss to her lips and pulling her closer.

“I’d like that very much.”

sorry i only have one tag list so feel free to ignore this

tags: @illyriangarbage // @court-of-fuck-me-daddy // @girlnovels // @julesherondalex // @ifangirlninja // @dreamerforever-5 // @queen-of-wings-and-fire // @rhysanoodle // @jemma-nessian-and-elriel // @books-and-words-addict // @nightinshadow // @wolffrising // @the-regal-warrior // @dreamingofalba // @abillionlittlepieces // @alitzeldiaz // @kylizzles // @queenmaas // @illyrian-bookworm // @aspillofstars // @b00kworm // @tswaney17 // @girl-who-reads-the-books // @theshadowsinger-and-thefawn // // @perseusannabeth // @acourtofmarauders // @sweetlyvillainous // @awesomelena555 // @notyournymphetish // @ladywitchling // @aesthetics-11 // @sjmships // @iammissstark // @illyrianwitchling13 // @moondancer-204 // @sjm-things // @foolsinlovex // @sayosdreams // @welcometothespeaknowworldtour // @stardelia // @julemmaes // @thewayshedreamed // @texas-shaped-waffle-maker // @keshavomit // @superspiritfestival // @wannawriteyouabook // @verryberriess // @courtofjurdan // @bookstantrash // @sannelovesreading // @ahappyhistorianreader // @cass-nes // @my-fan-side // @junsuichow // @sleeping-and-books // @yumna402 // @lordof-bloodshed // @emcarstairs578 // @gisellefigue08 // @maybekindasortaace // @starborn-faerie-queen // @empire-of-wildfire // @loveofbooksandwine // @sanakapoor // @silentquartz // @a-omgnaomithings-love // @aimee1602 // @jlinez // @creamcheesechicken // @steamedlattes // @sahsahprova //

#car writes #elorcan #elorcan fic #elide x lorcan #elide lochan #lorcan salvaterre

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andrewmoocow · 3 years

Text

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 18: Growing Pains (originally published on July 12, 2021)

AN: Welcome back everyone. Now, this is going to be a pretty heavy chapter for me to write. Well, mostly the A-plot, the B-plot will be courtroom nonsense ala Phoenix Wright and Harvey Birdman. But I'm getting off track, as someone who have faced some very tough times before in my life, I hope I can be as respectful to both the original episode and everyone who watched it as possible. Now then, let's get rocking and rolling.

Synopsis: Steven goes to his first doctor's appointment and realizes how deep his problems run.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl, Volleyball, Yellow Pearl

Grace Rolek as Connie

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as Priyanka

Tom Scharpling as Greg

Christine Pedi as Holly Blue Agate

Charlyne Yi as Navy

Hayley Kiyoko as Morganite

Jennifer Paz as Lapis, Zuli

Shelby Rabara as Peridot, Squaridot

Uzo Aduba as Bismuth

Amy Sedaris as Yellow Zircon, Blue Zircon

Patti LuPone as Yellow Diamond

Featuring Casey Lee Williams as Cat's Eye

The day after his failed date with Connie, Steven stayed in his bedroom for most of the morning where he was surrounded by ice cream and watching the preview for a new Dogcopter movie, which showed the titular canine standing on top of a black car chasing a blue car and a mail van while a pug gave him orders.

"I know you're eager to catch the mail truck Dogcopter, but it's really a decoy!" the other dog at the wheel named Drew ordered Dogcopter. "Chase the blue car instead! Good boys chase the blue car, and you're a good boy Dogcopter!"

With a fearless expression, Dogcopter leaped off the black car and used the propeller on his back to fly towards the black car, followed by using a pair of extendable hands to open up the trunk, revealing a bomb and a ring box inside.

"Nice work DC, now get the bomb outta the trunk and off the bridge!" Drew congratulated Dogcopter. "We're almost out of time!"

However, it was too late for Dogcopter. The bomb went off as he tossed it off the bridge, and the resulting explosion blew him away. As Dogcopter collapsed on the bridge, the ring box fell from his mechanical hands and onto the asphalt.

"Dogcopter, no!" Drew cried as he burst from the car to keep his friend alive. "I can't lose you Dogcopter!" Luckily, Dogcopter was unharmed and he woke up to pop open the ring box, which contained a ring shaped like a dog bone that he presented to Drew. "Is that?"

"DOGCOPTER 6: TILL DEATH DO WE BARK: I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU MAN AND WOOF!" the announcer read the film's title as it appeared on the screen, making Steven groan in agony at the irony of the trailer he was watching.

"Everyone's getting married except me!" Steven yelled as he sank into his bed and started turning pink. "Even Dogcopter succeeded in popping the question! I feel like poop." Steven then picked up his phone and tried calling one of the Crystal Gems, but he unfortunately got no answer. "Wish the Gems weren't doing a field trip to Homeworld today. I wonder if they got any reception?"

Meanwhile, on the Gem Homeworld, it was a rather tense time. Following the exposure of Black Rutile's revolution and attempted massacre of the Crystal Gems, the citizens were in fear of who among them could still be a supporter of her. And three followers, in particular, were about to be put on trial.

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth led their classes into the Diamonds' throne room, which was already set up like a courtroom with stands for the judge, jury, witnesses, attorneys, and the accused. Those accused were Holly Blue Agate, Morganite, and Navy, who sat down at the plaintiff's bench with varying expressions of irritation, resignation, and sadness.

"Now class, we want you all to be on your best behavior," Garnet advised the Gem students. "This is a serious time for our kind, and we want absolute silence for most of this trial. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Garnet." The Gems obliged before they retreated to the jury box while their teachers took their seats at the prosecutor's stand. That was when Garnet took notice of Pearl sticking her nose in the book by George Ikari that she had gotten at yesterday's signing.

"I see you're keeping yourself busy Pearl." Garnet remarked, forcing Pearl to look up from her book.

"Thanks for noticing Garnet." Pearl replied to the fusion. "I've just been a little enraptured by this little tome lately. George uses such flowery terms for such simple concepts, and the concepts in question could be very useful to Steven too."

"All y'all, shush!" Amethyst ordered her two seniors. "Here comes the judge!"

"All rise for the honorable Yellow Diamond!" Yellow Pearl announced, serving as the bailiff for this trial, before her former Diamond emerged from the curtained entrance and made her way to her throne.

"Good day to you Gems." Yellow Diamond greeted the other Gems in the makeshift courtroom with utmost seriousness. "In case you are wondering, Blue and White Diamond are out searching for more of Black Rutile's supporters, so I shall serve as sole judge for these proceedings." She informed. "Now without further ado, read the charges."

"Holly Blue Agate-12B, Morganite-8HK, and Ruby-EJ9, you stand here accused of your support of the intelligence officer turned terrorist Black Rutile." Yellow Pearl announced as she read off a hologram. "How do you all plead?"

"Not guilty!" Holly Blue declared, speaking on behalf of all three of them. "Black Rutile is no terrorist, she had big dreams for our kind! She simply wanted to restore us to our old ways because she believed Steven had made us weak, no doubt weak enough to be so easily conquered!"

"Liar. Kinda not surprised you would do this." Amethyst snarked in-between fake coughing, inciting a glare from the Agate before she continued her plea.

"If you can find it within yourself, your most grand clarity, to scrub this silly trial altogether and let us go, it would be most grand." Holly Blue continued.

"Request denied." Yellow declared coldly. "If you really insist on begging on your knees this whole time, then I guess your defense attorney might not be needed."

"Wait, attorney?" Amethyst wondered out loud just as a new Gem stepped into the room.

"Sorry for being so fashionably late, Yellow!" a tall, confident Gem apologized as she strode into the throne room. In addition to the honey yellow pantsuit with large diamond-shaped buttons she wore to match the gemstone above her upper lip that resembled a mole, a straight bob-cut, and a cat's tail emerging from her rear, this new Gem also wore a large sunhat, a neon fur coat, sunglasses, high heels, mustard yellow opera gloves, and a cigarette holder in her left hand. "Had to quell a few uprisings a few districts over. Hope you're not too mad."

"Oh goody." Bismuth shared the sentiments of her fellow Crystal Gems as they grimaced at the cat-like defense attorney, all except for Amethyst.

"Who's the new pussycat here?" Amethyst asked about the attorney.

"That's Cat's Eye, one of the most affluent uppercrusts on Homeworld." Bismuth informed the smaller Gem.

"And one of the most irritating." Lapis groaned as she buried her face in her hands.

"She's almost like an Earth cat in a way." Peridot added. "Incredibly smug, loves making others mad solely for her amusement, and that grin on her face just rubs me the wrong way."

"So Cat, how have you been lately?" Pearl asked the opposing attorney with a strained smile.

"Miserable, my darling Pearl. Perfectly wretched." Cat's Eye answered as she made her coat, hat and sunglasses disappear with a snap of her fingers, revealing a pair of cat ears atop her hair. "Now then, let us get down to business." With that, Cat's Eye took her place alongside the prosecuted trio and kicked her legs up on the table.

"Oh Cat's Eye, thank you so much for coming out today!" Holly Blue exclaimed gratefully. "These horrible traitors have framed us for a crime we clearly didn't commit, and now we could lose every-"

"Could you move approximately 30 centimeters away from me?" Cat's Eye raised a paw-like hand to Holly's face while filing her sharp nails. "You're invading my personal space." The Agate meekly complied and returned to her seat, causing Amethyst to laugh raucously.

"That cat may be trouble, but seeing Holly put in her place will always crack me up!" Amethyst cackled, but her chuckling was cut short when Cat's Eye turned her cigarette holder into a riding crop to whip Amethyst in the hands with. "MEOWCH! Bad kitty, what the H?!"

"Order in the court." Cat's Eye declared crossly as she returned her weapon to her gem and took a stand. "Now, without further ado, I'd like to make my case for these three Gems and call a witness."

"Go right ahead Cat's Eye." Yellow rolled her eyes before the cymophane made her plea.

"Your honor, Gems of the court, these three stand here wrongly accused by these band of ingrates for allying themselves with a known terrorist who once filled a high seat in White Diamond's court." Cat's Eye stated. "But, maybe they could've been spared this fate if the Crystal Gems had simply shown them a little kindness."

"OBJECTION!" Pearl yelled and pointed an accusing finger at Cat. "We tried to show Navy here kindness, but it was all a ploy to steal back her squadron's ship!"

"That is true." Navy agreed. "But I simply played nice because you left us all to drift forever in space, even after Steven said you'd get us all back!"

"I'll admit, she raises a good point." Garnet found herself agreeing with the Ruby. "We were in a rush to get back to Earth, so rescuing the Rubies just flew over our heads."

"I rest my case." Cat's Eye declared with a prideful smirk. "Now, if we have nothing else to discuss, I'd like to call Yellow Zircon to the stand."

The Gems in the gallery began muttering among themselves as Yellow Zircon sadly got up from her seat and marched to the witness's stand, while her blue counterpart gave her a cheeky grin. "Whatever you do," Yellow Zircon said to Blue Zircon. "don't make a fool out of me."

"Oh, I won't." Blue Zircon said innocently as Yellow Zircon made her way to the stands, where Cat's Eye sat down in front of her with a seductive gaze.

"Now my dearest Zircon, do try to not make a fool of yourself for me." Cat cooed, cupping the Zircon's face in her hand and squeezing her cheeks, making her usually arrogant witness blush.

"I-I won't." Yellow Zircon sheepishly obliged and sat down in the witness's box. "But how did you become an attorney? You don't know the first thing about law and order!"

"Well, I'm here because I'm smarter than you think I am!" Cat's Eye yelled at Yellow Zircon's face, a far cry from the smug seductress she presented herself as. "Not because I'm so gorgeous! Though I really am."

"This is going to take a while." Pearl groaned before picking up her book again. "I wonder how Steven is doing."

Back on Earth, Steven continued to scroll through all the numbers he had on his phone. Pretty much most of the people in his contacts had either already began to drift away from him, would probably be too busy to call, or simply didn't have time for him. All except for one.

"Hi, Steven!" Greg greeted his son on the other end after Steven decided to give him a call.

"Hi Dad, how's it going?" Steven asked his father.

"The tour's been going great!" Greg replied happily. "Which reminds me, how have you been doing? You been throwing any dope ragers while you got the house to yourself?"

"Yeah, you know me. Steven the party animal." Steven responded sarcastically. "I'm glad you're finally coming home tonight Dad. I wanna talk to you about something that's happened between me and Connie?"

"Oh, this isn't that whole situation after you came back from Homeworld the first time again, right?" Greg asked sympathetically. "By the way, Sadie and Shep wanna say hi while they're working on a new routine that they're excited to show off. And guess what? The tour got extended!"

"Wow, that's-that's great." Steven tried to sound happy for the musicians and their manager, but at the same time, he was sad that he'd have to wait a little while longer for his dad to come home.

"Yeah." Even if they were far apart, Greg could sense the disappointment in his half-alien son's voice before trying to turn things around. "I get that you want to see me again soon, but this manager job is working great for me! Takes me back to when I was touring as a lad. Anyways, we're gonna go through a tunnel. You wanna call me back about your Connie sitch?"

"I-it's not really important." Steven fibbed.

"You sure?" Greg asked Steven. "You know, I can make a quick stop when we pass through Delmarva."

"No, I'm totally fine. Have fun!" Steven reiterated before hanging up and letting out a deep sigh. "Maybe I should get some more ice cream."

Steven then walked down to the kitchen to fetch some more of that dairy goodness from the freezer, but when he opened the freezer door, he discovered Connie's glow bracelet left in there after last night. Taken by surprise, the depressed half-Gem once again turned pink, but this time was different.

This time, parts of Steven's body began swelling up like a balloon and tearing through his pajamas as he accidentally tore the freezer door off its hinges before slowly turning back to normal. As Steven was left aghast at this new development, he decided to take a breather on the couch. However, his body began swelling up for the second time in a row as Connie began calling him on his phone.

"I shouldn't worry her." Steven tried to hang up on Connie upon realizing her promise yesterday to call him at noon. "You know what, I'll let her go to voicemail!" Steven's body had other plans as his right arm began to inflate and took the call for him, allowing Connie to be seen on his screen while the arm returned to normal.

"Steven, are you there?" Connie asked through video call.

"Hey Connie, what's up?" Steven casually asked, trying to hide the strange new changes his body was going through.

"I've been worried about you Steven." Connie answered when she noticed how pink her best friend was. "Um, are you glowing?" she asked before Steven's face began to puff up. "Good grief, what's wrong with your face?!"

"Wait, my face?" Steven mumbled through his inflated head. "What's wrong with my face?"

"Uh…." Connie replied.

"Oh right, the swelling." Steven realized what his would've been-wife was talking about. "Parts of my body have been randomly growing for some reason. But I'm sure it doesn't hurt, I'm perfectly fine!"

"How long has this been happening?" Connie inquired.

"Since this morning." Steven meekly replied, causing his face to blow up some more.

"What do the Gems think?" Connie began pressing further.

"Can't reach them right now." Steven answered as his face returned to normal while the rest of his body kept growing. "Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were asked to serve as prosecutors for a trial on Homeworld, so they decided to make it into a Little Homeschool field trip." As Steven finished, his form returned to its normal size. "It's really nothing to worry about."

"You don't look well." Connie nervously observed. "I think you should see a doctor. I can ask my mom if she'd like to give you a checkup."

"I wouldn't want to bother her." Steven declared. "Besides, I already got a pretty okay idea of what doctors do when I went to see Lars in the hospital after his crash landing."

"Steven, you need to see a medical professional," Connie demanded. "Doesn't matter if my mom can see you or not, you need help."

"Okay, you're right." Steven accepted the opportunity while his face began to deform yet again. "Call me when she's ready."

Thankfully for Steven, Connie's mother had an opening and soon enough, Steven was sitting in her office with Connie by his side.

"You're lucky I had a cancellation today," Priyanka stated as she prepared for work. "Usually, I'm booked weeks in advance."

"Think you'll be able to help Steven out?" Connie asked her mother. "Even if this is some sort of Gem issue?"

"Gem issue or otherwise, he still has a human body, which means we can run tests." Priyanka remarked. "At the very least, we can see if you're suffering from a non-Gem condition, Steven."

"See? Everything will be fine." Connie assured Steven. "I'm sure everything will be fine." As Connie left the examination room, she began dialing on her phone and put it to her ear.

"Okay, give me all you got." Steven said reluctantly to the doctor.

"Alright, let's check for symptoms first." Priyanka said before putting a thermometer in Steven's ear to check his temperature. "Mild fever." She observed before walking away to pick up a stethoscope, returning to find that Steven is starting to once again glow pink. "Glowing pink color to the skin." Priyanka continued as she put the stethoscope to Steven's heart and then his gem. Next, she reached for a blood pressure device to check Steven's blood pressure, but it caused his arm to swell up and break the machine, causing his doctor to fall over in alarm.

However, Priyanka was quick to regain her composure as she looked over the notes she had taken. "Blood pressure is high!" she realized as she got up. "Well, these readings are quite interesting. Tell me, Steven, if you don't mind, who's your GP?"

"GP?" Steven wondered.

"Your general practitioner?" Priyanka explained to her patient. "As in, your regular doctor?"

"I guess you?" Steven answered confusedly. "I never have been to a doctor's appointment before, mostly because I have the Gems, my dad, or my healing spit to rely on whenever I get hurt."

"You're almost seventeen and you have never seen a doctor?!" a shocked Priyanka yelled, causing Steven to once again turn pink and inflate before she tried to calm him down. "I-it's okay, it's okay! I'll talk with your father later, but now we'll just need to run some more tests."

Steven looked nervously at Connie's mom as she walked over to a cupboard, opening it to fetch some hospital gowns. "Get undressed, then we'll help you into a gown." Priyanka ordered.

"Is that one of those blue things that don't cover your butt?" Steven asked embarrassedly before he was thrown a hospital gown.

"Yes, now let's get started." Priyanka declared before snapping on a rubber glove.

"Thank you for your testimony little Peridot." Cat's Eye thanked Squaridot, while licking the back of her hand, as the square-headed Peridot finished her testimony. "Tell us your designation so we may enter it into the records."

"Peridot, Facet-4E3M Cut-7ZY." Squaridot stated as she left the witness's stand and rejoined her classmates. "But everyone calls me Squaridot."

"Squaridot?" Cat's Eye repeated with utter disgust. "Who comes up with these abhorrent names?! I mean, Laz, Zuli, and now Squaridot?!"

"Would you care to get to the point?" Bismuth snarked to the catlike defendant.

"Gladly." Cat's Eye answered before clearing her throat. "Gems of this courtroom, the testimonies we have heard so far have given me enough to make my deduction." She announced to the courtroom. "These Crystal Gems are only kind to other Gems who treat them kindly in exchange. And that DOES, NOT, MAKE, SENSE!" She emphasized her declaration by slamming her fist into her open palm with each word. "If they say that they practice restorative justice, then why didn't they use that kind of justice on my clients here?"

"OBJECTION!" Amethyst yelled. "Girl, did you even see the Human Zoo back in the day?! Holly Blue was treating my quartz peeps like garbage!"

"That is because they were beneath her in the caste system!" Cat's Eye argued with Amethyst. "I swear you droll quartz, did you emerge yesterday or something?!"

"Actually, she was," Pearl answered for the purple Gem. "And you're just making stuff up in the hopes of sounding smart!"

"Do I have 'stupid' written on my gem, you no-good servant?!" Cat's Eye shouted at the white Gem, making sure to whip Pearl's hands for added emphasis. "Let's review what we have learned so far. Those two Lapis Lazulis retaliated violently when ordered to not terraform and their friend came close to poofing them both, yet 2F8D immediately forgot all that when coming to your silly little school!" she analyzed. "That does NOT, MAKE, SENSE!"

"Laz and I argued about going to Little Homeschool!" Zuli objected to Cat's Eye's observation. "An argument you obviously weren't there for-" Before Zuli could finish, she got a whip in the hands by Cat's Eye's riding crop.

"No backtalk!" Cat's Eye exclaimed as she returned to her statement. "Back on subject, then came Miss Squaridot here," she once again cringed at the name while gesturing to Squaridot. "who was given a second chance, yet was poofed without a second thought! That does NOT, MAKE, SENSE!"

"I tried to give Squari a second chance after I released her from her bubble," Peridot began. "but she then just ran off and got herself taken over by Hessonite's warship."

"Ah yes, the swashbuckling vigilante Hessonite." Cat's Eye said smugly. "Tell me, why isn't she here today to give a testimony?"

"Hessonite is off weeding out more of Black Rutile's supporters across many of our former colonies, alongside Citrine." Yellow Diamond answered.

"Speaking of Black Rutile, what if, and a very big if here." Cat's Eye stated. "What if Black Rutile wanted to do better than the Crystal Gems by offering these lost Gems a helping hand?"

"OBJECTION!" Pearl roared and once again pointed straight at Cat's Eye. "That no-good Rutile didn't care one bit for her subordinates! Not only did she let them all get defeated by us, but she abused her Topaz as well!"

"As I had stated earlier with Holly Blue, the Topaz was merely a subordinate to Black Rutile, especially since the Rutile had such a shockingly high status in White Diamond's court." Cat replied.

"Same with my Ruby and Pearl that fused into Rhodonite," Morganite spoke up. "It was only natural that we mistreated those beneath us."

"And on the topic of Pink Diamond's entourage," Cat declared. "allow me to call her former Pearl to the stand."

Rising from her seat, Volleyball separated from her Little Homeschool classmates to walk to the witness's stand, where Cat was awaiting her.

"My dear Pearl, you truly deserved a better Diamond than Pink." Cat cooed to Volleyball while stroking her broken eye, which was now showing the absolute faintest signs of a pupil following her fusion with her white-colored successor at the Reef. "Tell us all this court needs to know sweetie,

"Actually, you can call me Volleyball now." Volleyball corrected the defense attorney. "That's the name Steven gave me."

"VOLLEYBALL?!" Cat's Eye shrieked outrageously at the top of her lungs, quickly returning to her normal condescending tone. "I shouldn't have spoken too soon after complaining about that Peridot." She muttered while pointing a thumb over to Squaridot. "Now tell me, word on the street is that you may know a thing or two about this revolution. Is this true?"

"Yes, it's true." Volleyball revealed remorsefully, shocking the prosecutors and the jury. "Not too long after Era 3 began, I was left wondering what purpose I could still serve now that Pink Diamond was gone, until Black Rutile and Holly Blue Agate approached me with the chance to seek revenge by spying on their enemies."

"That is a bold-faced lie if I ever saw one!" Holly Blue fibbed while beginning to sweat profusely. "I never approached her in the slightest, the poor Pearl came crawling to me in tears, begging, no, pleading that she get some sort of payback for the abuse she suffered!"

"Really laying it on thick Holly." Morganite stoically muttered to the Agate.

"Yes, I can clearly see you lying." Pearl added before she walked over for Volleyball. "But as for you Volley, is it true? Did you really join Black Rutile and spy on us this whole time?"

"I'm truly sorry Pearl, they gave me no other choice." Volleyball apologized, now on the verge of tears. "I was so horrified by how they wanted to fight back against you, that I decided to back out after you and Steven offered to fix my eye." Volleyball then began to sob as she rushed out of the witness's stand and into Pearl's arms. "Please forgive me, I just didn't know any better!"

"It's okay VB, I'm here." Pearl comforted her crying fellow ex-servant. "Just let it all out."

"Wah wah wah, I betrayed your trust!" Cat's Eye mockingly cried. "Please forgive me even though I was allied with a proud sociopath! Oh brother, this era has lost all sense of justice. At least give her a week's punishment, anything."

"Big talk coming from the alleycat who doesn't have a single clue about justice." Pearl growled at Cat while Volleyball's tears started drying and she returned to the jury.

"Big talk coming from a Pearl who wanted to be free despite still essentially serving her Diamond." Cat snapped back at the Pearl. "And on that note, I feel we are ignoring the big Jasper in the room." Biggs Jasper raised her hand. "I wasn't talking to you!" Biggs lowered her hand while Cat kept a stiff upper lip. "But really, I wish to speak of a certain Jasper that has been housed on Earth lately."

"Here we go." Lapis rolled her eyes at whatever outlandish claims the defendant was going to make now.

"You see, the Jasper is just as much of a victim of Pink Diamond's faked death as pretty much everyone on this planet." Cat's Eye proclaimed. "And did the Crystal Gems ever try to extend a hand in friendship and sympathy? NO! They just let her get dragged to the bottom of the ocean in an unstable fusion, fall into an earthquake, rocketed sky-high by that Lapis, and later corrupted! That does-"

"Not make sense, we get it." Garnet interrupted what was essentially Cat's catchphrase at this point. "We tried so many times to help Jasper, but she just kept refusing out of her vendetta against Rose."

"And doesn't anyone find it ironic that Jasper has a burning hatred for a Gem that was her Diamond in disguise?" Cat shook her head with a cheeky smile. "Oh, how cruel fate can be."

"Good grief, how long can this puddytat keep yapping?" Amethyst whispered to Pearl, who just groaned and got back to her book.

As for Steven, Priyanka had gotten to work on examining her unusual patient. However, with each test she made him take, things just kept going wrong. Sticking a tongue depressor in Steven's mouth made him glow pink for the second time this appointment, taking his height stretched his neck up high, and testing his reflexes bubbled the hammer she was using. But it was taking Steven's X-rays that really clued Priyanka in on what was going on.

"So this is an average human skeleton." Priyanka demonstrated the X-ray image of exactly that to Steven before moving on to X-rays of the Crystal Gems. "By comparison, these are X-ray images that the Crystal Gems allowed me to take for research purposes. Their charts look like this."

Due to Gems having bodies of light, only their gemstones could be pictured. And in Amethyst's case, whatever she ate that day could be seen too. The doctor then showed off Steven's own skeleton, which was covered in cracks. "And this is your chart." Priyanka continued. "Definitely the skeleton of a human your age, albeit quite a large amount of fractures in the skull." She pointed out the various cracks that decorated Steven's skull. "Yet despite the injuries, everything is still perfectly aligned. Almost like the injuries healed just as fast as they were gained."

"That's good, right?" Steven nervously asked.

"Well, you've made miraculous recoveries," Priyanka replied. "but that doesn't change the fact that you've clearly been traumatized. You may have recovered physically, but what about mentally?"

"Are you saying there's something wrong with my brain?!" Steven cried as he glowed pink.

"Not wrong!" Priyanka assured Steven while kneeling to his gaze, turning his body back to its normal hue. "It's that adverse childhood experiences, or childhood trauma, can leave a lasting impact on how your body reacts to stress." She explained. "This can affect all kinds of development, social, emotional, and physical. When humans are in crisis, their brains release a hormone called cortisol. It can cause your heart to race, your muscles to tense, among other effects. I wonder if your body is perhaps reacting to the Gem equivalent of cortisol, if any. Steven, can you recall any childhood experiences that particularly stuck with you?"

"I can list so many." Steven stated before he began recounting some traumatic experiences. "It all started when I learned my favorite ice cream was discontinued around the same time I nearly got eaten by a bug monster. Then there were even more monsters that threatened my life, I got stuck in a bubble & nearly drowned, I made a new friend who nearly killed me; which is pretty often, I got turned into a giant pulsating blob of cat heads after an attempt at shapeshifting, got so old I nearly died, saw the Gems die multiple times, I woke up on a spaceship with a black eye, and more recently got tossed off a cliff."

"Steven, this is serious!" Priyanka yelled worriedly.

"That was only some of the earlier stuff!" Steven cried. "You really should've been there when I was tossed off the cliff. Black Rutile was a sociopath and proud of it!"

"I think all these experiences have subjected your body to an almost inhuman level of stress, and it's affected your ability to healthily react to new forms of stress." Priyanka deduced as Steven looked back on more harrowing experiences he's been through, from legitimately traumatizing moments to parts that would at first be seen as mere jokes or accidents. "You've been dealing with genuine threats to your life from such a young age, whether big or small, your body is responding to such minuscule threats like your life is always in danger!"

"But, why am I only swelling up now?!" Steven began fretting as he slowly felt his body change once more.

"Stress can be far less harmful when we have a circle of loved ones who can help you," Priyanka advised, causing Steven to flashback to yesterday evening's failed proposal. "Maybe if you've been drifting away from people who would've supported you, or if a recent experience had felt particularly off-"

Before Priyanka can finish, Steven began trembling in place while bolting from his chair before he began to swell up to possibly the biggest size he's ever been today, to the point of cracking the ceiling with a bash of his head.

"There are just some who don't want to be helped, and we try to respect that!" Pearl kept arguing with Cat's Eye while everyone else in the courtroom awkwardly spectating the event.

"And there are also some who you've forced to change without their consent!" Cat's Eye replied, baring her sharp teeth at the former servant. "Think of it, Black Rutile believed she could be a better ruler because she would take into account the feelings of everyone!"

"Are you sure you're not another one of her spies?!" Pearl asked, folding her arms and turning away from the defendant.

"I couldn't care less about what she's doing, I just think she raises many good points for a maniac!" Cat answered while her stuck-up image began cracking apart more and more, slowly revealing the petulant aristocrat underneath. "For example, in ending an oppressive empire, Steven created an even worse one where all who don't agree with him are deemed outcasts!"

"Steven is simply trying his best!" Pearl yelled back.

"You know, I am so glad that we invited our Homeschool classes, because this is way too much fun for just us three to get involved in." Amethyst whispered to the other Little Homeworld teachers.

"You're right, watching an uppercrust get humiliated puts a real big smile on my face." Bismuth grinned.

"They've been going on for too long." Morganite mumbled as her face was buried in the table. "Can't we just shut them up and reach a verdict already?"

"Well, if you're so loving towards Steven, then where is he now?" Cat's Eye asked one final question. "Did you actually care for him to begin with?"

"That is where you are absolutely wrong Cat." Pearl declared with a smug grin as she presented George Ikari's book to her opponent. "Steven is currently going through some tough times, and we're trying our best to help him thanks to this book from Earth. The author has a son much like Steven who lost his mother too, so he knows what he's talking about." With that, Pearl returned the book to her gem and took a bow. "Court adjourned."

It was here where Cat's Eye finally lost all control and lunged at Pearl with a mighty yowl. Gone was the smug and austere wannabe lawyer, and in with the furious predator going in for the kill.

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!" Cat's Eye shrieked as she wrestled with Pearl and kept trying to chomp at her face. "I AM CAT'S EYE, AND I WILL NOT BE TALKED DOWN TO BY A MERE PEARL!"

"Woo, catfight!" Amethyst cheered before Garnet put a stop to her revelry and prepared for a fight.

"Get ready Gems, we're in for a fight." Garnet declared while summoning her gauntlets, and the other Gems prepared for battle against the feral defendant. But fortunately for them, and unfortunately for Cat, the judge finally decided enough was enough.

"Okay, I've had enough sitting down and watching." Yellow declared fiercely before getting up from her throne and flicking a ball of electricity at Cat's Eye, making yellow lines course through her body and finally poofing her, leaving only her small gemstone to be collected by Yellow Pearl. "Now that that's settled, have we reached a verdict?"

"I believe so." Pearl responded after getting up and dusting herself off before turning to the other Gems. "What shall be decided?"

The Gems in the jury all rose up, their decision clear as day. "We, the jury, hereby declare Holly Blue Agate, Morganite, and Navy guilty as charged. In addition, Cat's Eye shall be tried for public assault of the prosecutors." Squaridot announced on the behalf of her classmates, to the horror of Holly Blue as she and her two compatriots were escorted away by Amethysts. While Morganite and Navy had resigned themselves to their fates, Holly was far less than pleased. In fact, she was furious.

"Get your hands off me, you no-good Kindergarten spawn!" Holly Blue shrieked at the Amethysts dragging her away by the arms before turning to the Crystal Gems with hatred in her eyes. "I hope you're happy Crystal Gems! Era 3 has destroyed this planet!" she yelled at the Gems. "Pretty soon, this planet is going to burn! We're all going to die! The Gem race shall be driven to extinction all because of you!"

As soon as Holly Blue was fully removed from the premises, all was finally quiet in the makeshift courtroom as the trial adjourned. Pearl let out a dramatic sigh as Garnet and Amethyst helped her back to her feet and walked her back to the prosecutor's table.

"Court is usually a lot more funny on TV." Amethyst remarked. "What Cat and Holly tried to do was just sad."

"Still, what if they're right?" Pearl moaned in exhaustion and grief. "What if we are soon to be our kind's downfall? Maybe we should've just ended colonization and left it at that."

"Don't get too down on yourself Miss Pearl." Blue Zircon lent some comforting words to Pearl. "You all tried the best you could, and that's all that should matter."

"Uh, can I go now?" Yellow Zircon shakily inquired to her fellow Gems, still reeling from being publically humiliated at the witness's stand.

"Yeah, you're dismissed." Blue Zircon told her fellow Zircon and turned back to Pearl.

"Yeah, we tried our best with Era 3, kinda like how we're trying our best with Steven." Lapis reiterated the other blue Gem's kind words. "Speaking of which, wonder how he's doing?"

"I'll go call him right now!" Pearl stated eagerly as she unsheathed her phone from her gem and began dialing Steven, but she got no answer. "Darn, no signal on Homeworld." She huffed in frustration. "Well, I hope he's doing fine."

Little did Pearl know, there was more than one reason why as to why Steven was unable to reach her, that reason being he was so stressed out, he was swelling up to a massive size.

As Dr. Laurie walked past the office Steven was in with a cup of coffee, he took one look at the giant pink boy, then back at his mug before dumping its contents into a nearby drinking fountain while Connie raced back to the office to aid her friend.

"Mom, what's happening?!" Connie asked her mother while they watched the inflating Steven fill up most of the doctor's office.

"I'm not sure dear, I just asked if he had any stressful experiences lately." Priyanka answered, trying to remain as calm in a crisis as possible while other doctors huddle around the window to watch what was happening, along with a man in sunglasses who seemed to blend in with the crowd.

"Steven, you don't think?" Connie then asked Steven.

"It's not you Connie, it's everything that's been going down lately!" Steven yelled as he grew larger and larger with every second.

"What is he talking about?" Priyanka asked, glaring at Connie.

"You haven't told your mom yet?!" Steven yelled.

"Told me what?!" Priyanka started yelling as well.

"It's not your fault Connie!" Steven tried to assure Connie amidst his growing stress. "But I still think you need to leave!"

"I refuse to leave your side!" Connie's mom fiercely declared. "This is a medical emergency!"

"Hey, you know one of us can take over!" one of the doctors watching Steven called from outside.

"No, he needs to be alone!" Connie stated. "I think anyone else being in here with him is making things worse!"

When Steven's height increased to the point of ripping his hospital gown, breaking the ceiling over him, and causing alarms to sound, the doctors took it as their cue to leave. "Point taken." That same doctor who suggested one of them take care of Steven realized before rushing away.

"Oh no!" Steven was in full-on panic mode now. If he grew any larger, the hospital would surely be destroyed. "Please, just go!"

"Steven!" Connie yelled sorrowfully.

"I just…" Steven began to cry before starting to get angry. "I CAN'T BE AROUND YOU RIGHT NOW!" The Maheswarans braced for impact as Steven's screaming broke the window behind them when suddenly, Greg came barging into the office.

"Steven!" Greg called his son's name while Connie and Priyanka turned to notice him.

"Dad?!" Steven exclaimed while finally beginning to settle down at the sight of his father.

"I'm here for you kiddo!" Greg declared as he ran up to his giant son, turning to the Maheswarans who took it as their cue to leave the area as well.

"Come on Mom, let's give them some space." Connie said to her mother as they abdicated the office.

"Alright." Priyanka agreed and took her daughter's hand while Greg took Steven's side.

"How did you know I was here?" Steven asked Greg.

"Connie called me an hour ago." Greg answered comfortingly. "Plus, I was the only one she could reach since she told me the Gems were off in space today."

"Connie?" Steven called for his friend when she and her mother were outside. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Connie beamed and spoke to him through the broken window. "I'll come when you're ready."

"I'm so sorry Steven." Greg apologized to Steven. "If I had known, I definitely would've been a big help."

"It's alright Dad," Steven sighed. "you were super busy and I didn't know what was going on."

"Come on Steven, talk to me," Greg suggested. "Just you and me, father to son."

"I, well, um," Steven stammered before tears began welling up in his eyes again. "I tried proposing to Connie!"

"You what?!" Greg yelped in alarm. "Steven, aren't you a little too young to think about marriage right now?"

"I know." Steven kept on crying. "That's one of the reasons why she said no."

"Oh, Steven." Greg sighed.

"My body, it keeps reacting like it's always the end of the world." Steven kept on complaining tearfully. "I think I've nearly witnessed the end of the world so many times now, that everything that goes wrong for me just feels that extreme! I should be feeling happy these days, Earth is at peace and it's Era 3, but Black Rutile is still out there saying I'm a bad person and I'm swelling up over all these third-era problems! What do I do now?! How do I move on after every horrible thing that's happened to me?! How can I still live my life when every day it feels like I'm going to die?!"

Despite Steven being overcome with trauma to the point of sobbing, Greg was there to lend a hand like he always did. "It's going to be alright Schtu-ball." He said while holding his son's giant finger. "I'm here for you till the end of the line."

At long last, Steven finally calmed down and began to regress to his normal size, and he only had one request for Greg. "I just want to go home."

"You bet." Greg obliged, and Steven began to fetch his clothes while Connie and Priyanka stepped back into the office. "So, what's up doc?"

"This has certainly been an eventful appointment," Priyanka stated shakily. "Real eye-opener. As I'm sure your son has already told you, he has been through more stress than is normal for a human. I suggest finding ways to monitor these breakdowns."

"I'll see what I can do." Greg nodded while Steven returned to his side fully dressed when Connie gave Steven a big hug.

Outside the office, the doctor in the sunglasses from earlier peeked from behind a corner and spoke into an earpiece. "Giant boy crisis averted." He spoke in a deep voice to someone on the other end. "Yes sir, retrieving copies of the Gems' X-ray scans as we speak." Looking around to see if anyone had caught him, the man then took off his doctor's coat to reveal a black suit underneath and walked away with no one the wiser.

That night, Steven had been returned home and taken to bed, where Greg had prepared him a warm cup of tea and a sympathetic ear to his son's plight.

"I guess I thought I could follow Connie to college." Steven explained to his dad while sipping the tea. "Like, if we got married, I'd know what to do with myself for once. But turns out I still gotta figure everything out on my own."

"Cut yourself some slack, kiddo." Greg smiled earnestly. "It's okay to be worried and make mistakes when figuring out what to do with life, nothing unusual. Okay, maybe turning pink and the swelling is kind of unusual, but I'm sure the Gems will know what to do. And if you want to be a giant boy, I can lend you the carwash to take a shower in."

"Yeah, that's the thing." Steven revealed calmly. "I haven't told the Gems everything yet because I don't want them to worry so much, just like the old days when I was just some little kid who was way over his head." That was when he made a realization and spat out his tea. "Wait Dad, your tour!"

"Don't worry about me." Greg assured his son. "Shep and Sadie will be fine on their own. Just get some rest Steven; you can't just solve every problem in one night. Speaking of the Gems, where are they?"

Just then, the father and son heard the Warp Pad activate from Steven's conservatory, and the Crystal Gems marched into his room utterly exhausted from the trial they had just returned from.

"If I meet another Gem like Cat's Eye ever again, I swear I'm going to freak!" Pearl yelled with her hands buried in her face when she noticed Steven and Greg in the same room. "Oh, good evening you two. How was your day?"

"Nothing really special you guys." Steven fibbed. "Nothing at all."

So ends Growing Pains. Have to say, this might be one of the longest chapters of Alternate Universe yet, probably because of the B-plot. How hateable did you think I made Cat's Eye? I specifically wrote her with Cruella de Vil and Franziska von Karma in mind. And speaking of despicable characters, next chapter has Steven facing quite possibly his greatest challenge yet: making Kevin a better person. Oh, this should be fun.

#steven universe #steven universe future #fanfiction #steven universe alternate future #steven quartz universe #garnet #amethyst #pearl #connie maheswaran #priyanka maheswaran #greg universe #lapis lazuli #peridot #bismuth #holly blue agate #morganite #navy #yellow diamond

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zargsnake · 3 years

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Knightkiller: Anakin and Obi-Wan’s First Adventure

Chapter 10: Gafia Chumpi

Word Count: 1493 Links: Chapter 1, Table of Contents

* * *

With all five lightsabers hidden in a case, Zlinky takes Jane up the elevator from the bottom floor to the arena floor. There is another crony already in the elevator, a Devaronian, whose horns poke out of poorly-broken holes in his helmet. He looks at Jane with unease, but addresses Zlinky in a friendly tone.

“Did you get any fried fluunies?”

“Uh... I'm allergic,” she replies.

“Oh. Okay. Sorry about that.”

“It's not your fault.”

“Right, I know, I meant ‘sorry’ as in, uh, I'm sympathetic.”

“Er, okay.”

“Not, as in, uh, I'm guilty.”

“Yeah.”

“Great. Uh. Sorry.”

The elevator door opens and Zlinky turns toward the arena -- then she pivots and walks with the crony instead, against the tide of people. They've already got a conversation going; she might as well get some information out of him.

“Hey!” she calls.

“Ah! Uh, hello.”

“What's your name, anyway? I'm new here.”

“Oh, um, I'm Gafia Chumpi. What's yours?”

“Zliiiiiiisl Watl.”

“Zlisl Watl?”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh. You must be very new. I haven't heard of you at all.”

“I am. So!” Zlinky clears her throat. “Uh, what made you go into the, uh, Jedi-killing business?”

“Oh, uh, well, I never really meant to. It's not that great a story.”

“Tell me.” She practices her mind-trick; against this guy, it’s fairly easy.

“Uh...well, I aged out of an orphanage on the fifty-thousand-ish-layer of Coruscant. It’s about in the middle. And I had a kinda hard time finding a job there. Plus, it's really not that great a planet, if you're not on the top layer.”

“Oh, I know. I'm from Coruscant too.”

“Really? Where?”

“You first!”

“Er, okay. Well. So I got a ticket offworld, to a place called Dantooine. Cuz I read a book, once, about some guys who, uh, sort of, herded kath-hounds there, and they had these great hats in the illustrations, and I thought, ‘Well, hey! I could do that!’”

“Uh huh,” says Zlinky.

This is nothing. I should go...

Gafia can tell he's boring her. “Uh… Well…” He speaks faster. “So, I got to Dantooine, which is a really nice place to live, but uh, unfortunately, I wasn't really that great at kath-herding either. Still, I was set on getting that hat. So I was staring at this one hat in the store window, wondering how I would ever afford it, when these big goon-type guys approached me and asked if I wanted to make some money. Uh… That's, I guess, when things really started to go downhill.”

“Well. There's a universe where you said no, and then there's this one.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind,” Zlinky mumbles.

“Er. Yeah. Uh. -- Well apparently, and I didn't really figure this all out until later, but they picked me out cuz I'm a Devaronian, and at the time I looked a lot like this other Devaronian, who was a Padawan at the Dantooine Temple. So they gave me a script and made me record this holo, saying I was in big trouble and all this stuff. And they sent the holo to the Padawan’s Jedi Master to lure her out, and I hid in this cave, and when she came to, uh, quote-unquote ‘rescue’ me, the whole cave turned out to be a ship and they blasted all of us off into space. Which … hadn't, really, been part of my plan. Such that I had one…”

“What happened to the Padawan Devaronian and his master?”

Gafia starts to turn into a busier hall, but Zlinky turns more confidently into an empty one, so he follows her.

“Well, I think the Padawan Devaronian is still on Dantooine. But her master ... I mean, Knightkiller gets what she wants, doesn't she?”

“I thought she only had the Lollian, the human, and their Padawans.”

“Huh? Oh, well, for the tournament, yeah, those are the only knights we've rounded up so far. But before that. Before Senator Dinv of Raktu gave us his sponsorship, and we got this big and legitimate.”

“This is hardly legitimate.”

“I mean, compared to what it was.”

“What was it like?”

“I've only been here, like, a year -- er, I guess, two years -- three, almost -- eesh -- but back before we got this station, we had a real dinky ship, a Corellian something-something with a big warehouse glued on top for fighting. Knightkiller would go toe-to-toe with any Jedi we could find for her. She used to do all the fighting herself. We went all around the galaxy to avoid detection, but that also made it harder to, uh, advertise, of course. I mean, those in the know, were uh... in the know. But that was only the top two-percent of death-match fans, the people who go to every game, who devote their lives to it. To casual fans, we were really unknown. We did get a bit of extra income from selling the lightsabers.”

Zlinky feels like there is ice in her heart. “How many Jedi have died?”

“...Er... I'm not... a hundred percent sure... usually we couldn't get a real Jedi; usually we'd just dress someone up, and give them a lightsaber, if we hadn’t had to sell it yet... How many real Jedi? ... Ten, I think...Twelve? Since I've been here.”

“How can you stand it? How can you do this?”

Gafia stops in his tracks and stares at her. “Well how can you stand it? You work here, too.”

“I -- I didn't know how awful it would be. I -- I had nowhere else to go.”

“... Well... Same with me, sister.”

She holds his arm. “We should both run away.”

“Run away? We can't. No one will forgive us. Everyone loves the Jedi.”

“Not everyone.”

“The courts certainly do. We'll be executed.”

“But maybe that's the right thing to do. We turn ourselves in, accept the consequences -- but we help the authorities track down this awful station and stop this awful sport.”

“...This sport is a lot bigger than you think it is, Zlisl,” Gafia says, more solemnly, taking his arm from her. “That's the first thing you learn in the biz. We can bring down one station, but it'll continue somewhere else. The corporations who sponsor these fighters -- they're household names.”

“But this--” Zlinky points at the ground, “-- is the only death match station killing Jedi.”

“Er ... As far as I know, yeah.”

“Why? Why's Glag-- I mean -- why's Knightkiller doing this? What's she got against Jedi?”

“That's the big question, isn't it? You wanna ask her?”

“Yes, in fact, I do.”

“Well, you won't. She'll kill you before you open your mouth. She can read insolent thoughts.”

“Why do you think she's doing this?”

“I…”

“You must have a guess. Tell me!”

“Alright, alright.” He keeps walking and speaks quietly. “Uh, well the rumor among us guards is that she used to be one. One of our lightsabers, we never sell. The rumor is, it's hers.”

“She never uses it?” Zlinky walks close beside him.

“Never.”

“But what happened?”

“Nobody knows.”

Zlinky grits her teeth. “Yeah, I get that. But what's the rumor?”

“Er... Well, they must have wronged her, right? Maybe they kicked her out. Or maybe she just got sick of their stupid rules.”

“Our rules are sacred.”

Gafia freezes, lifts up his comlink and presses a button. Zlinky can’t see his face under his helmet, but she senses his anger at being tricked.

“Jane!” says Zlinky.

With a loud cranking sound, Jane aims her arm-blaster at Gafia’s chest and neutralizes him.

Zlinky had led Gafia far from the crowd; the few people nearby stop and stare at the scene.

“Death match business! Carry on!” Zlinky insists in her deepest voice. She waves at them to continue walking, then she picks open the closest broom closet with her trusty screwdriver and drags the Devaronian inside. She checks his pulse; it isn't exactly steady, but it isn't completely still.

“I really, really need to talk to Tila...”

“ᴀᴍ ɪ ꜱᴇʀᴠɪɴɢ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜱᴀᴛɪꜱꜰᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ, ɢᴜᴀʀᴅ?”

Zlinky pats Jane’s tall shoulder plate. “You're doing a great job, Jane. I'm sorry you're still missing parts.” She props up Gafia and takes off his helmet so he can more easily breathe. He’s very handsome, which affects her more than it should. “I’m missing parts, too,” she says and instantly regrets how dramatic that sounds.

“ɪ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀɴ ɪɴꜱɪɢɴɪꜰɪᴄᴀɴᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴄᴋ ɪɴ ᴀ ᴍᴇᴀɴɪɴɢʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴠᴏɪᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴘᴜʀᴘᴏꜱᴇ ᴏʀ ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ,” says Jane, with no such compunction.

Zlinky pats her shoulder again. “The Force connects everything.”

“ᴛʜᴇ ᴡʜᴀᴛ?”

“The... Look, you're not going to remember, so I'll just explain later. You've got a purpose now, anyway, you're protecting me. I'm sure I'd be dead without you.”

“ᴇʜʜʜʜʀr҉r҉r҉g҉g̴̣͆̀̔g̴̨̭̗̠̱̩̖̙̽̓̈́̒͝,” Jane says, unsatisfied and anxious.

Zlinky reaches up, grabs Jane’s face, and pulls it down so they are eye to eye. Jane's neck moves with a clicking sound.

“Thank you,” Zlinky says earnestly.

“ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ, ɢᴜᴀʀᴅ.”

“It's Zlinky.”

“ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ʙᴀʀᴇʟʏ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴊᴀɴᴇ, ꜱᴏ ᴇxᴄᴜꜱᴇ ᴍᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴘʀɪᴏʀɪᴛɪᴢɪɴɢ ᴛʜᴀᴛ.”

“You're excused. Come on. My master is in that arena. I'm gonna try to get her lightsaber to her. The human in the tan armor -- that's the other Jedi. And Anakin is somewhere, too…”

“ɪɴꜰᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴄᴀᴘᴀᴄɪᴛʏ: ꜰᴜʟʟ.”

“Nevermind. Just follow me and do what I say.”

They head toward the arena. Zlinky's mind races for a way to get the lightsabers to the two Jedi masters. It's the only real goal she has right now. The only purpose, as Jane would say. After that ... the real knights can figure out something.

Chapter 11: Revenge

#my story #my art #knightkiller: anakin and obi-wan's first adventure #zlinkgwal zalt #gafia chumpi #jane #scifi #dramedy

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the-pen-and-the-stethoscope · 3 years

Text

So while Six of Crows has been on my to read list for a while now when I saw that Shadow and Bone was coming to Netflix and realized they were all part of the same little universe I was like *rolls up sleeves* K guess it’s time to read five books in one month to prepare for this new series drop. (special shout out to @darklesmylove because it’s mostly your blog posts that convinced me I had to read this series...I give you this as a gift...)

And now I present to you (in the order which I read them) the events in the Shadow and Bone/Six of Crows books that made me go ABSOLUTELY FERAL (wow there’s a lot more of these than I thought there were).

- “The problem with wanting,” he whispered, his mouth trailing along my jaw until it hovered over my lips, “is that it makes us weak.” (unfortunately the last time I was seduced by the Darkling - NEVER AGAIN BAD SIR! But this was fucking hot)

- THE. FIGHT. OVER. THE. STAG. (Just...Alina not killing it, the Darkling is here, now he’s going to kill it. NOW ALINA IS IN FRONT OF THE STAG SAVING IT. NOW SHE WANTS MAL TO SACRIFICE HER. NOW THE COLLAR IS AROUND HER NECK AND NOW SHE’S UNDER HIS POWER AHHHHH) Bonus: “Shhhh. Quiet now, or I will let Ivan kill him. Slowly.”

- When Alina figures out the dream and TAKES THE POWER BACK!!! (yaaaaasss queen!)

- When the Darkling finds Alina and Mal in Cofton and that whole fight scene and her getting bit and then I had to WAIT UNTIL THE REST OF THE BOOKS CAME IN THE MAIL

- “From what I know of the Ice Court, whoever stole my DeKappel is exactly who I need for this job.” “Then you’d be better off hiring him. Or her.” “Indeed. But I’ll have to settle for you.” (I’m 50 pages in and in love with Kaz Bekker, someone help me)

- “Not just yet, Inej.” The rasp of stone on stone. Her eyes flew open. Kaz. (ugh my cold cold heart is awake and beats only for them!)

- Because I’ve been looking for an excuse to talk to you for two days. (literally like......)

- When Jordie and Kaz get tricked. (I mean all of Kaz’s back story but that was...ugh..........)

- It was because she was listening so closely that she knew the exact moment when Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, the bastard of the Barrel and the deadliest boy in Ketterdam, fainted.

- When Nina runs into the guards and the alarm goes off and I realize that I’m an idiot and OBVIOUSLY THINGS WERE GOING TO GO WRONG.

- WHEN INEJ TOUCHES KAZ’S FACE. His eyes were nearly black, the pupils dilated. She could see it took every last bit of his terrible will for him to remain still beneath her touch. And yet, he did not pull away. She knew it was the best he could offer. It was not enough.

- He slammed his fist against the window. “Do not speak my name.” Then he smiled, a smile as cold and unforgiving as the northern sea. “Welcome to the Ice Court, Nina Zenik. Now our debt is paid.” (like FUCK MATTHIAS GOT ME TOO. WHAT A GOOD ACT!)

- I have been made to protect you. Only in death will I be kept from this oath. It was the vow of the druskelle to Fjerda. And now it was Matthias’ promise to her. (OMGGGGGG)

- “This is going to sting a bit,” said the druskelle holding the whip. His voice was rasping, familiar. His hands were gloved. “But if we live, you’ll thank me later.” His hood slid off, and Kaz Brekker looked back at them.

- The sun was out for once, and Inej had turned her face to it. Her eyes were shut, her oil-black lashes fanned over her cheeks. The harbor wind had lifted her dark hair, and for a moment Kaz was a boy again, sure that there was magic in this world. (YEAH OKAY. AND THIS IS HIS LAST THOUGHT BEFORE DROWNING.)

- WHEN THEY STEAL THE TANK. THE TANK. AND THEN DRIVE IT THROUGH THE FUCKING TOWN.

- Nina on parem.

- “I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.” (SCREEAAAAMS. BANGS HAND AGAINST BOOK. DIES.)

- “Kaz knew the instant he made his mistake...in that moment of threat, when he should have thought only of the fight, he looked at Inej.” (asdlfkasgkjasglk;sdfjl)

- I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl. (YEAH BITCH!)

- When Alina first sees the Darkling while they are traveling the fold (I froze, I read it like four times, I couldn’t believe what was happening)

- When Mal suggests they go to that stupid party and then Alina actually agrees (I literally was like...well something bad is going to happen and I hate it here)

- When the Darkling shows up after Alina and Mal kiss. “Another otkazat’sya, Alina?” the Darkling mocked. (sdflkajd)

- “I can’t decide if you’re an idiot, or an idiot.” (ugh Nikolai, marry me)

- two pages later: “You’re a spectacular actor,” I said drily. “Do you think so?” he asked. Then he leaned in and whispered, “I’m doing ‘humble’ right now.” (FUCK ME)

- “I want to kiss you,” Nikolai said. “But I won’t. Not until you’re thinking of me instead of trying to forget him.” (Am I the only one who found this cute??? Why did Alina get upset??? Do I have Nikolai-colored goggles on??? Maybe...)

- When the Darkling came to Alina in her sleep and then PRETENDED TO BE MAL SO HE COULD HAVE HIS WAY WITH HER?!?!?!?!?! (ahhhhhhhhhh) “I missed you too, Alina.” That voice. Cool and smooth as glass. (AHHHHH)

- Nikolai stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the parquet floor. “When did you lift the blockades? How long have the roads been open?” (LSDAKLFSDLFDKASLDKLSKLKLL)

- “Not bad looking?” said another voice. “He’s damnably handsome.” Luchenko scowled. “Since when - “ “Brave in battle, smart as a whip.” Now the voice seemed to be coming from above us. Luchenko craned his neck, peering into the trees. “An excellent dancer,” said the voice. “Oh, and an even better shot.” (And then I damn near died.)

- There’s a whole three pages (that I will not re-type here) after they arrive at the Spinning Wheel of Nikolai just being *chef’s kiss* flawless. Some great lines include: “Everyone needs a hobby.” “I thought yours was preening.” “Two hobbies.” “Should I be offended that he doesn’t want to dine with us? I set an excellent table, and I rarely drool.” “What a filthy mind you have. I was referring to puzzles and the perusal of edifying texts.” “Last chance to run.”

- “Alina, I’ll be back to fetch you for dinner, but should you grow restless, do feel free to run screaming from the room or take a dagger to her. Whatever seems most fitting at the time.” (asldjkasl;dkfs;lkd NIKOLAI)

- Okay gunna skip ahead - you can assume any time Nikolai said anything I screamed.

- Nikolia’s second proposal (THE EMERALD!!! JUST HOW HE PUTS IT ON TOP OF THE WALL)

- Nikolai’s third proposal. Nikolai’s skin was warm, his grip gentle. I’d wondered if I would ever feel something so simple again or if the power in me would just keep jumping and crackling. (THIS is why he is perfect for her - no jolt of electricity, just warmth and comfort!!!)

- SERGEI!!!!

- When Nikolai gets fucking taken over by a nichevo’ya (I HATE EVERYONE)

- When Baghra sacrifices herself

- When we finally FINALLY find out what makes Mal so special (I mean....his tracking was OTHERWORLDLY I can’t believe people weren’t more fucking freaked out by him)

- “The Darkling marched on Keramzin.” (Literally screamed: “MY HEART HURTS.” I was crying. I nearly threw the book down. “BUT THE CHILDREN!” I say with my fists in the air. I am become a blade.)

- Nikolai visiting Alina while he is the monster and trying to make himself better (ahhhhh tears!!! THE EMERALD!!!) The words died on my lips. Nikolai turned my palm over and slid the ring onto my finger. (FUUUUCK. PAAAAIN.)

- When Nikolai comes back and FIGHTS FOR THEM IN THE FOLD!!!! HE MAY BE A MONSTER BUT HE IS NOT THE DARKLING’S MONSTER, BITCH!!

- “Please,” I sobbed. “Bring him back to me.” (lkadsflkj this was actually devastating even though I’m not a huge Mal fan)

- “We need more light,” he said. A choked laugh escaped me. I held up my hands, pleading with the light and with any Saint who had ever lived. it was no good. (UGHHHH. MORE PAIN.)

- Tamar sobbed. Toyla swore. And there it was again: the thready, miraculous sound of Mal drawing breath. (and also the first time I breathed for an entire chapter!)

- “Alina,” he said and kissed the scar on my palm, “I remember everything.” (Literally the last like twenty pages of this book I just gave up and was like actually Mal is adorable and I need to protect him at all costs.)

- “Really I just wanted to look at the words.” (ughhhhh)

- Once a man arrived with a fleet of toy boats that the children launched on the creek in a miniature regatta. The teachers noted that the stranger was young and handsome, with golden hair and hazel eyes, but most definitely off. He stayed late to dinner and never once removed his gloves. (NIKOLAI SIGHTING IN THE EPILOGUE MY HEART GOES ON)

- When Van Eck thinks Kaz is coming to get Inej and then he tells Inej and then she is WILLING HIM to not show up and then it is revealed he wasn’t there all along (BOOM BITCH THAT’S HOW KAZ BREKKER FUCKING WORKS.)

- “Those were my mother’s favorite flower.”

- “Why the net, Kaz?” I couldn’t bear to watch you fall. (POETRY OKAY?)

- Jesper and Wylan going to see Wylan’s mother and just fucking everything about that chapter.

- When Inej almost FALLS INTO THE FUCKING SILO AND IT’S THE END OF THE GD CHAPTER

- “Pick up the pace,” Kaz said, eyeing his watch. “If I spill a single drop of this, it will burn straight through the floor onto my father’s dinner guests.” “Take your time.”

- “We’ll fight our way out together,” Inej whispered. Nina glanced from Inej to Kaz and saw they both wore the same expression. Nina new that look. It came after the shipwreck, when the tide moved against you and the sky had gone dar. It was the first sight of land, the hope of shelter and even salvation that might await you on a distant shore. (AHHHHHH)

- Wylan’s first thought was that this boy had the most perfectly shaped lips he’d ever seen. His second was that his father had sent someone new to kill him. (Wylan you are so adorable it’s adorable)

- Inej was moving before she thought of it. She couldn’t just watch him die, she wouldn’t. They had him down now, heavy boots kicking and stomping at his body. her knives were in her hands. She’d kill them all. She’d pile the bodies to the rafters for the stadwatch to find. But in that moment, through the wide slats in the banister landing, she saw his eyes were open. His gaze found hers. He’d known she was there all along. Of course he had. He always kew how to find her. He age the barest shake of his bloodied head. (THESE TWO!!)

- “My leg! My leg!” “I recommend a cane,” Kaz said. (cackling)

- When Sturmhond (aka Nikolai ***swoons***) showed up in Crooked Kingdom. (What actually happened: me reading a description of a “fox-like” man with Genya and Zoya and screaming and saying to myself “OMG WHEN I TURN THE PAGE IT WILL CONFIRM THAT NIKOLAI IS IN THE BUILDING I CAN’T” (did I mention I’m in love with him??? already??? k))

- When Jesper and Wylan FINALLY kiss FOR REAL (this was a big chapter for me) This was the kiss he’d been waiting for. It was a gunshot. It was prairie fire. it was the spin of Makker’s Wheel. Jesper felt the pounding of his heart - or was it Wylan’s? - like a stampede in his chest, and the only thought in his head was a happy, startled, Oh.

- CHAPTER 33 - just everything, everything about the reveals in this chapter. The money being funneled to the Shu, not being able to trace even the RANSOM NOTE back to Kaz. WYLAN SHOWING UP!!!! “ARE YOU SURE THEY WERE PEKKA’S MEN?” !!!!!!!!

- “Do something,” Matthias growled at Kaz. “This is about to turn ugly.” Kaz’s face was as impassive as always. “Do you think so?” (bahahahahaha)

- Nina’s just complete glee over the chaos she creates!!! “She was the Queen of Mourning, and in its depths, she would never drown.”

- Jesper using his fucking power!!!!!!

- She stared up at him. He was going to miss that look of surprise. (HE’S GOING TO LET HER GO. HE KNOWS HE IS GOING TO LET HER GO.)

- KAZ’S PLAN BECOMING CLEAR IN IT’S BRILLIANCE AS EACH CHAPTER GOES BY.

- Inej frowned. “I thought you and Nina chose four outbreak sites on the Staves.” Kaz straightened his cuffs. “I also had her stop at the Menagerie.” She smiled then, her eyes red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again. (AHHHHHHHHHHHHH)

- “A sedative,” said the medik. “Is that safe for a pregnant woman?” “For me.” (This is just FLAWLESS in its depiction of people who don’t do OB care regularly.)

- Matthias saw the anger there, the rage. He knew it well. But he was still surprised when he heard the shot. (NOOOOOOOO!!!)

- “Has she at least done it before?” said Kaz. “For this purpose?” asked Sturmhond. “I’ve seen her do it twice. It worked splendidly. Once.” (NIKOLAI I BEG YOU!)

- When Matthias DIES?!??! (I’M SORRY WHO LET THIS HAPPEN??)

- “You will meet him again in the next life,” said Inej. “But only if you suffer this now.”

- Wylan getting all of his father’s money because KAZ HAS BEEN PLANNING THIS ALL ALONG??!

- Jesper leaned in and said, quietly enough that no one else could hear, “I can read to him.” (alksdflk;jasfl;jkd that was hot)

- “Well hopefully the medik will be here to fix my ribs soon,” he said as he headed back into the parlor. “Yeah?” “Yes,” said Wylan, glancing briefly over his shoulder, his cheeks now red as cherries. “I’d like to make a down payment.” (OMG WYLAN?!?!?! IN FRONT OF MY SALAD?!?! IS THIS ALLOWED?!?!)

- At some point, Jesper realized Kaz was gone. “Not one for goodbyes, is he?” he muttered. “He doesn’t say goodbye,” Inej said. She kept her eyes on the lights of the canal. Somewhere in the garden, a night bird began to sing. “He just lets go.” (TEARS.)

- She felt his knuckles slide against hers. Then his hand was in her hand, his palm was pressed against her own. A tremor moved through him. Slowly, he let their fingers entwine. (I gasped so loud i literally woke my cat up from a deep sleep.)

- “Wait,” he said. The burn of his voice was rougher than usual. “Is my tie straight?” Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair. “That’s the laugh,” he murmured. (THAT’S THE LAUGH. THAT’S THE LAUGH. AHHHHH)

Okay done. Gunna go stare at the ceiling until tomorrow night/whenever I finally get King of Scars and Rule of Wolves in the mail (BECAUSE YOU KNOW MY SORRY ASS IS DYING AT THE THOUGHT OF TWO BOOKS ALL ABOUT NIKOLAI)

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not-poignant · 3 years

Note

You've included the sign language but would you ever write a new/existing language into your stories? Where we see the word(s) said in that language (i.e. Spasibo vs thank you)

I’ve done that with Welsh and Gaelic in a couple of stories, especially Unbound, and The Ice Plague (which I’ll talk about in a sec because I literally use your example lmao) but otherwise probably not, mostly because the risk re: margin of error is just so huge, and access to folks who speak the languages I’m sometimes looking for is like... not always easy.

It’s funny because I travelled to Orkney to research the Orcadian dialect for a book, and what I realised was if I wrote a book in Orcadian, no one would be able to read it except for (some) Orcadians. So I can drop bits and pieces of the dialect (you can see them all through Game Theory and The Court of Five Thrones with Oura’s dialect), but I couldn’t write an ‘authentic’ Orcadian voice and still have a book largely accessible to most audiences.

And sometimes you have to be careful with mixed languages like that. I’ve seen so many authors criticised for making an attempt and getting it wrong, and a lot of the critiques fall back on ‘if you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.’ But unless you’re fluent in that language yourself, you can’t always get it right, because even when working with someone else who is fluent, they don’t always understand exactly what tone you’re trying to get across, and suggest translations that aren’t always accurate. I remember talking to a friend for about four hours, trying to find the right kind of words for Gwyn and Augus, and they are fluent in Welsh, and we both still don’t feel like we found exactly what we were looking for, and they know the language.

So yeah I think... like I have planned to write more dialect-heavy stories, because the Orkney trip was a research trip, but it was actually a really hard lesson in thinking about general accessibility in stories written in the English language, when writing different dialects and languages within that story. Like, fantasy stories that are heavy with conlangs, I find deeply alienating and hard to connect with. Even though I love conlangs in theory and have worked on a few.

But yeah we’ve seen existing languages written all through Fae Tales, even Mosk and Gille Dubh speak Gaelic to each other (though not Welsh Gaelic from memory), so I have done that. We’ve seen the equivalent of a ‘Spasibo’ instead of ‘thank you’ already - maybe you missed it or haven’t read The Ice Plague but it happens here:

‘So you say,’ Gille Dubh said, ‘but I can’t agree. Either way, go get yourselves clean.’

‘Mòran taing,’ Mosk said, bowing his head.

They turned, and Eran caught Luridan waving a cheerful goodbye, and he lifted his hand automatically. They walked around the lake until they found a green grassy space leading down to shining pebbles. It was secluded from the main path, and seemed to be well fitted out for people who used it for bathing, including some drying frames made from willow wood.

‘What did you say to him? At the end?’ Eran said.

‘I just said thank you,’ Mosk said. He was stripping off slowly, as though his body pained him, or the actions were difficult.

So, lol, I have literally written thank you in another language in Fae Tales already. And that’s an existing language.

So yeah when it’s relevant, I will do it. I’m just wary of doing it too much and I’m aware of the margin of error.

But not only have I done it with sign language, I have done it already in pre-existing stories, both in oneshots and in the main canon.

#asks and answers #fae tales verse #fae tales #memey goodness #mosk manytrees #eran iliakambar #gille dubh #luridan speaks in dialect as well #and mosk translates for him #and that's also a *legit* language #and not made up #in fact there's *way* more real languages in fae tales #even when eran is teaching mosk his language #he's teaching him a *real* language lmao #and the word he uses for fire is from a real language #maybe it's just been easy to miss?#or maybe you're not reading the ice plague?#Anonymous

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haikyuu-fics-and-aus · 4 years

Text

How Haikyuu Characters Reject a Confession

@avylee Hi!! Can I please request how Daichi, Suga, Noya, and the Miya twins would reject a confession?

Hi!! This was sooooo fun to write! Sorry it took me so long -_- My computer broke in the middle of writing it so I had to send it in. If anyone has anymore requests feel free to send them in!

Daichi:

Your heart was beating out of your chest as you gripped the note in your hands so hard you thought it was going to disintegrate. Calm down, you thought, your going to be fine, the worst thing he could say is no, right...?

You didn’t realize the final bell had rand until someone tapped you on your shoulder. “Hey, are you alright?” It was Kiyoko

“Oh yea! I’m fine. I gotta go.” You quickly gathered your things and ran towards the door.

Once you were outside it was very easy to spot your him: Daichi Sawamura. He was talking with some other third years with Suga right behind him. God he was beautiful, you thought.

You did a nervous half-run-half-walk thing over to him, it must of looked ridiculous but that didn’t matter, it was time. “Um- Daichi, hi.” You tapped on his shoulder (having to stand on your tiptoes to reach.)

“Oh, your the girl from my English class, Y/N right?”

“Yeah...um, here!” You shoved the envelope in front of you, he took it, confused.

The envelope was purple with white writing on the front of it with the word “Daichi” on it. He tore open the top and pulled out a folded up piece of paper.

You waited apprehensive as he quietly read the handwritten letter, his friends standing behind him trying their best to read the page for themselves.

Maybe you were looking too close into things but the further he head down the page the deeper his frown seemed to get. And finally, after countless awkward minutes of waiting he finally said something.

“Um Y/N, this is a sweet letter and all but... I’m not really looking for a relationship right now.” He was blushing at this point. “I’m really sorry-it really was cute! I’ve never received something so nice from someone before I just- I have a lot going on in my own life right now I just can’t handle a relationship. I would love to be friends though and we can go from there!” He smiled which you returned to hide your disappointment.

“It’s ok, I understand!”

Suga:

It was valentine's day, the most romantic time of year, it was time. You couldn’t wait any longer, you had to tell him.

The hallways of the high school seemed to be filled with love, everyone was either holding hands with or at least gawking over their boyfriend/girlfriend. You made your way over to the science classroom during free period, that’s where Sugawara Koushi spent most his time when he wasn’t in the second gym.

He was sitting in his usual spot next to the sink, reading a book. He looked so adorable in those reading glasses, he should wear them more often. He smiled when he noticed you approaching him. “Hey Y/N, what are you up to?”

“Nothing much, I-um...I just wanted to tell you something.” You played with your fingers nervously.

“You can tell me anything, what’s up?”

You sucked in a deep breath, why was this so hard? You talked to him everyday so why was this any different? Just say it, you thought.

“Suga, Umm...I don’t know how to word this so I’m just going to go out and say it. I have liked you since first year. You are such a nice person and one of the sweetest and most empathetic person I know. I don’t know if you feel the same way or not- I bet you have a lot of girls who are coming at you like this...I thought I would just give it a shot.” That was probably the most awkward thing you have ever said. There had to be a better way to say that.

He looked at you with sad but compassionate eyes, “Oh Honey, I’m very touched, thank you. You are very smart and peppy and one of my favorite people to see everyday when I come to school but...I’ve been dating someone for almost a month now. I thought you knew-if you didn’t that's ok. But I couldn’t ditch my partner like that. I hope you understand.”

Tears welled up in your eyes, you put your hands to your mouth, “ I’m such an idiot...I’m sorry I didn’t know. I shouldn’t of said that.” The tears fell from your eyes, you couldn’t help it.

“Hey, it’s alright, I’m not mad-I’m rather touched actually.” He pulled you into a hug, you let him.

Even though you couldn’t be his significant other he would always be your best friend who was always there for you. No matter what.

Nishinoya:

You watched as the smallest person on the court dug the ball out of the court. Noya was surely amazing, he was the only person you have ever known who could move like that.

Karasuno won the set 15-24, one of the best games they’ve ever played. It was time now, you thought.

You followed the team out to the main lobby, looking for the boy in the orange jersey. He was standing next to Tanaka and Ennoshita (Who was trying to keep the latter under control)

You made your way over to the group, “Hey guys” You said nervously, even though you were in the name class as the Libero you have actually never attempted to talk to him.

Tanaka looked at you in awe-struck, “Oh hey....person.” He didn’t even know your name.

“Y/N!! What’s up!” Noya interrupted his friend.

“Hi Noya, Um- I just wanted to say, you played really well today.”

He slung his arm around you, “Awe! Thanks!”

“I-um, wanted to-um ask you something. I really like you, you are an adorable kid who I wanted to be friends with the first day I saw you. You are really nice and I want to be closer to you-”

You were interrupted by Tanaka’s and Ennoshita’s laughing. “What’s so funny?” You asked, tears building in your eyes.

“Umm, Y/n I’m flattered but...” He started laughing even harder. “You are not my type.”

“What?” You said confused. “I don’t understand why that's funny...”

Tanaka took his chance to answer, “Y/N, it’s because your a she, not a he.”

You started laughing hysterically, “Well shit, I guess I had no chance in the first place.”

Miya Atsumu:

He sat next to you in class, his locker was right next to yours, your heart belonged to him... but he didn’t know it yet.

Miya Atsumu was probably the most popular person in your high school, there was no way you’d have a chance with him, but it was worth a shot.

It was almost perfect, you had on your best skirt, it was navy blue with white buttons just off-centered and a button up white shirt. Your makeup was beautiful, now all you had to do was work up the courage to say how you feel.

There was a huge crowd of people around him during lunch, boys and girls alike. He seemed to be enjoying all the attention, unlike his brother.

“Hey Atsumu.” You smile, trying not to blush through your makeup. “C-can I sit here?”

He barley even acknowledged you, “If you can find a spot.” You did.

The other girls at the table glared at you, almost like they knew what you were going to say. You went on anyways. “Hey Atsumu....I-um...I like you.”

All he did was smirk, “I know honey.” Osamu slapped him on the shoulder. “Oh-oh! You’re being serious!”

You nod, trying to hold back tears. “Yeah...um- sorry...” You say before running out of the lunch room.

Atsumu’s eyes widen, “What the hell did I do?!” Osamu slaps him again, “And why do you keep hitting me Asshole!!”

“That was rude Atsumu... you don’t have to be such a jerk all the time. She just tried to ask you out you know.” Osamu rolled his eyes.

“Shit not your making me feel bad”

“You should! No go apologize to her you dickhead!”

“Right right...” Atsumu stood up quickly and went to go find you.

Miya Osamu:

You walk into your Home EC class, not expecting the sight you see in front of you. Miya Osamu, the new student who transferred a few days ago.

“He’s kind of hot- in a mysterious way I mean” Your friend said a few days ago, you agreed- obviously.

Of course with your luck you were paired with him on the first day, it was a cooking class. He looked you up and down with a slightly disgusted look, you decided to ignore him.

“Hi...My name’s Y/N, what’s yours?” You knew his name of course, you just needed an ice-breaker question.

“Osamu, do you know how to whip eggs?”

“Y-yes?” You didn't. “I’ll get to that right now.”

You start “whipping” the eggs, it definitely wasn’t going well- egg whites were flying out of the bowl and hitting your face. Once Osamu saw this his eyes immediately widened, he quickly came up behind you and helped steady the bowl. “No no no, not like that- you gotta use a whisk.”

He grabbed a whisk from the jar behind you and puts it in your hand, wrapping his around yours. You let your arm go limp as he guides it in circles through the bowl. You could feel your face going red.

After a few minutes, he lets you guide the whisk yourself, “Like this?”

He smiles, “Yep.” His smile drops when he sees your face, “Are you feeling ok? Your face is flushed.”

This immediately made your face blush harder, “Oh- I’m fine, I’m just not used to working with cute boys.” You immediately clip your mouth shut. For the love of god, stop talking.

He chuckles, “Thanks, I wasn’t expecting that.” He pours the whipped eggs into the pan, “But just so you know, I’m not interested in a relationship right now.”

You knew it was coming but it stung a bit. “Oh, I know. I didn’t mean for it to come off that way.”

“It’s alright.” His smile was almost angelic, “Let’s get back to cooking.”

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slapshot-to-the-heart · 4 years

Text

Breakable Heaven (pt. II) - p.l. dubois

Part I

Part two is here! Things start to heat up in this chapter, exciting stuff’s happening! I hope you guys like reading it as much as I’m loving writing - please slide into my inbox, let me know what you think! Reblogs are amazing too, it’s how we know people are liking what we’re putting out and helps to reach more people! (Plus it’s one of the joys of my life to read the tags. Seriously, so much fun.)

Part II (7.2k)

June 18 (fri)

“If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to sell it,” Laurel said, running a hand through her hair. “The fewer people who know the truth, the better.”

Pierre nodded. “Agreed.” He sat back in his chair. “What do you think your parents will say?”

Laurel laughed. “Uh, they think I’m seeing someone, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “it was easier to just say I had a boyfriend than deal with their endless pestering, you know?”

“So they’d buy it if you just told them you were getting married?”

She shrugged. “I think so. You know we’re not particularly close, they haven’t met any of my boyfriends since I was in high school. So if I told them I was engaged, I don’t think they’d bat an eye, if I’m honest.” Pierre could sense there was more to the story, more that she wasn’t telling him, but he didn’t want to press. “What about yours?” she asked.

“Well, we’ve got a couple options,” Pierre said, cracking a smile and leaning back into the cushions. “It was a drunken mistake.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Then they’d just tell us to get a divorce.”

“We fell in love after the first date.”

“Even less believable,” Laurel said, the corner of her lip twitching.

“Or…,” Pierre said, kicking his feet up on the ottoman, a wicked grin on his face, “I got you pregnant and want to do the right thing.”

Laurel snorted. “Little issue there.”

“What?”

“I’m not pregnant.”

Pierre ducked his head, blushing. “Right. There’s that.”

She nodded. “There’s that.” She tapped her fingers on the coffee table. “I’ve got it.” Pierre looked up. “We’ve been friends for a long time, couple years or something. Madeline went to York, so we met when you and Patrice came to visit. We realized we had feelings for each other a few months ago, everything moved super quickly since we already knew each other and had that foundation.”

“So we thought ‘why wait,’” Pierre finished.

“Exactly,” Laurel said. “Why wait, if we already knew.”

“It’s a classic friends-to-lovers story, a tale as old as time,” he sighed wistfully.

Laurel slapped his shoulder. “This is serious,” she said, but she was smiling all the same. “Okay, so we’ve at least got that worked out. Madeline and Patrice will obviously know, but other than that…” She trailed off.

He nodded, and an understanding passed between them. “It’s a need-to-know basis.”

“It is.” Laurel shifted her laptop on the coffee table, squeezing closer to Pierre so he could see the screen. “So, we have to go down to the courthouse for a meeting with the court clerk who will perform the ceremony, bring birth certificates and ID, and —”

He glanced over at Laurel, her tongue caught between her teeth. “And?”

“You have to publish a declaration of intent to marry twenty days before the wedding. Online. In public.”

Pierre looked oblivious. “So?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “So, it has the date of the wedding and our full names and our whole entire addresses. And in case you’ve forgotten, you’re kind of a professional hockey player.”

He shrugged. “All due respect, Laurel, but,” he glanced at the website, “who actually checks these things?” He had a point there, she thought, but she wasn’t about to let him win.

“But your address, you’re not worried about that getting out there?”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “But my building’s got a receptionist and I’ve got locks on my doors. And plus,” Pierre added, “I’ve really never had much of a problem flying under the radar here. When I go back home, back to the suburbs, sure. And a little bit in Columbus, obviously. But there’s what, two million people in Montréal? I’m not on the Habs, so even the hockey fans here really couldn’t care less.”

She laughed. “Fair enough. Also, uh, living situation. We should probably talk about that.”

“You’re moving in with me?” He said it like a question, but not as if it was something that would surprise him, or something he was opposed to. He said it like it was something he already knew the answer to. “I’ve got three rooms, plenty of space, Phil and Georgia would love to have a new sister. You and Piper would fit right in,” he said, reaching down to scratch her behind the ears. “Plus it’s got a great gym in the lobby, you can cancel your membership to that seedy place downtown with that trainer who always stares at you when you do weights.” Laurel’s ears perked up; she was surprised he remembered. She did have a gym downtown that she tried to make it to a few times a week, and there was that one creepy trainer, but she had only mentioned it to him once in passing. “Plus it has hot yoga once a week, and I know you’ve been dying to try.” That much was true.

“At least let me help pay for rent,” she tried to bargain.

“Nope!” he said, wincing a second later. “I didn’t mean it in like a patronizing way, I know you’re perfectly capable of pulling your own weight. I meant like I bought it outright, so there’s no rent to be paid. I’ll let you pay the electricity bill if you want?”

Laurel grinned. “That would make me feel better, thank you.” After looking at her computer for a minute, she spoke again. “How long have you had the apartment for?”

Pierre scratched his chin. “Couple years? I bought it after signing the contract this year. Some guys buy a Lamborghini, I bought an apartment. I don’t own the place in Columbus though.”

“How come?” Laurel asked, though she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

“Even with the contract, so much is up in the air. I could get traded in the middle of the season, or in the summer or whenever, and I don’t want to have just bought a house when I’ve got to move to Vancouver or wherever when the ink hasn’t even dried on the papers.”

This time, it was Laurel’s turn to leave with an unsaid question. “Is tomorrow good? To go down and get everything squared away at the courthouse?”

He bobbed his head. “Yeah, I’ve got some off-ice training in the morning, but any time after noon or so is good for me.”

Laurel nodded, making a few taps on her computer. “Okay, I’ve got us booked in at one, that good?”

“Yeah,” Pierre said, nodding in affirmation. “Now I’ve got to come up with an excuse to drive to my parents’ and get my birth certificate.”

---

It didn’t actually turn out to be all that difficult for Pierre; he made the drive back to Saint-Agathe-des-Monts later that afternoon, telling his parents he needed it to renew his health insurance card. He wasn’t sure they actually believed him, but his mom didn’t bat an eye before handing it over. Pierre spent the rest of the evening at home, cooking pasta, petting the dogs, and wondering what in the hell he had agreed to. He wasn’t second-guessing himself, not by a long-shot, but when she clicked that button to book their appointment, the gravity of the situation finally started to hit him. In less than a month, he was going to be getting married.

June 19 (sat)

Laurel met Pierre on the steps of the Montréal courthouse at a quarter to one the next day, clutching the straps of her tote like a lifeline. “Woah, Laurel, you’re holding that like you’ve got a bomb in there,” Pierre said.

She flashed him a nervous smile. “No bomb, just very official very legal documents. Don’t want to lose it.”

He held out his hand. “You ready?”

Laurel was surprised at the gesture. Not shocked that he was being kind, but that he was cognizant enough to recognize that she was nervous, and wanted to do something about it. She took his hand. “Ready.”

It only took a minute to find the office, and a few more before the receptionist called them back to the clerk’s office. She introduced herself as Juliette Bergeron, congratulated them on their engagement, and asked to see the paperwork. Passports and birth certificates were handed over, signatures were signed on dotted lines, and half an hour later, they walked out of the courthouse with an appointment for a wedding on July 10.

“Well, there’s that crossed off the checklist,” Laurel said, leaning up against the handrails as they stood on the courthouse steps. They had actually made a real checklist, a series of tasks on a shared Notes page of everything that needed to be completed before the wedding. Book the ceremony and post the public notice were done, but there were still a dozen-odd tasks left before they actually could get married. Starting with telling their parents. While they had developed as airtight a cover story as she supposed one could when they were committing what would charitably be referred to as citizenship fraud, they had agreed it was going to be far less messy to “come clean” as fiancés than after the wedding. Laurel had wanted to text them the news, or call so early they’d still be asleep and she could just avoid the conversation altogether, but Pierre had convinced her to FaceTime. “I know you guys aren’t super close, but I think they deserve that much, Laurel,” he had said, and he was right. Deep down, she knew he was right.

“Ready?” Pierre asked, rubbing her back soothingly.

Laurel flashed him a tight smile before pressing her mom’s contact. “As I’ll ever be.” Three agonizingly long rings later, her mom picked up.

“Laurel? What are you doing calling, honey? Is everything okay?”

She let out a nervous giggle. “Does something have to be wrong for me to call my parents?”

“No,” Cheryl clucked, “but to be fair, you don’t call often.”

Laurel rubbed the back of her neck in discomfort. “That’s true. Uh, anyways, is dad there?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” her mom said, starting to catch onto the fact that maybe this wasn’t quite your run-of-the-mill check-in call. “What’s this all about, pumpkin?”

The old term of endearment, one she hadn’t heard in years, brought tears to the corners of her eyes. “Can you call him in? I’d rather tell you both at the same time.”

Cheryl nodded, worry crossing her brow. “Doug? Laurel’s on the phone, she’s got something to tell us. Sounds important.”

“Coming,” Laurel heard her dad say in the background. A moment later, he padded into view. “Hey, Laurel, Mom said you’ve got some news?”

Laurel nodded. “Yeah, just something I thought you guys should know. It’s not bad, you’re just going to be surprised, so I need you to keep an open mind, okay?”

“Who is he?” Doug asked, rubbing his forehead with an exasperated expression.

She blanched. “He? Who’s he?” There’s no way he guessed...right?

“The jackass who got you pregnant, who else?”

Laurel almost choked on her own spit. “Pregnant? Who said I’m pregnant? I’m not pregnant!”

Both of her parents let out an audible sigh of relief. “Well, Laurel, what conclusion did you expect us to jump to when you called us out of the blue and said you had important news?”

Laurel bit her lip; they had a point. “Fair. But, uh, rest assured, I’m not pregnant. I’m smarter than that.” She paused, steeling her nerves. “Remember that guy I told you I was seeing a few months ago?”

Her mom squinted like she was looking into the sun. “Vaguely? You didn’t really tell us much about him. Just that he was tall, nice, you met through friends.” It was a believable enough explanation back then, and Laurel was beyond grateful it dovetailed perfectly into the story she and Pierre had conjured up. “You didn’t even tell us his name.”

Laurel reached out her free hand, the one that wasn’t holding the phone, and made a grabby motion for his hand. He interlaced his fingers with hers. “Well, his name’s Pierre-Luc Dubois—”

Doug interrupted. “Very French.”

She grimaced. “I do live in Québec, Dad. But anyways, his name’s Pierre-Luc Dubois and we’re getting married.”

They sat still on the other end of the call, so still that if it weren’t for her mom’s rapid blinking she would have thought the call had been dropped. “Married?” her mom asked softly.

“Yes, married.”

“How long have you even been seeing each other?” Doug asked, dumbfounded.

“A little under six months. I know it’s not long, and I know it seems sudden, but we’ve known each other for a long time, you know? We met when I was still back in Toronto at university, Madeline introduced us.” Her parents nodded; Madeline, they knew. Madeline, they had met. Madeline, they trusted. “And we finally realized a little bit after New Year’s that we had feelings for each other, and it’s sort of been zero to a hundred ever since. We thought, if we knew we loved each other and we knew we were done looking, then what was the point of waiting for a year or two for it to be a ‘socially acceptable’ time to get married.” Laurel finished.

Cheryl wrapped her hands around her mug of tea, eyelids still shooting rapid-fire blinks at the screen. “But, Laurel, we haven’t even met this boy, we barely know anything about him!”

Pierre squeezed her hand. “Actually, he’s just off-camera. Want to say hi, P?”

He walked into view, waving politely at the screen. “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Klerken, it’s so nice to finally meet you. Laurel’s had nothing but wonderful things to say.” A little flattery never hurt anybody, he thought.

“Lovely to meet you, Pierre-Luc,” Cheryl said. “Forgive us if we’re still a little shocked, Laurel’s not normally one to spring things on us like this.”

He laughed. “Perfectly fair. I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to meet until now, but we’ve been trying to get used to the idea ourselves.”

Her dad leaned forward from his spot in the couch, giving Pierre as much of a once-over as he could from nearly 1500 miles away. “I’m not able to give you the normal talking-to I have with any of the other boys Laurel or Maggie have introduced us to, so this is going to have to do.” Maggie? Laurel had primed Pierre for the inevitable grilling, telling him that if it was anything like it had been in the past, it would be all bark and no bite. “So what do you do for work, Pierre-Luc?”

“I’m a professional hockey player in the NHL, I play for the Columbus Blue Jackets.”

Doug’s eyebrows went up. As much of a front as he tried to put up, he was still a middle-aged man from Minnesota, and there were few things that impressed middle-aged men from Minnesota more than their daughters being suddenly engaged to NHL players. “NHL, huh? That’s very impressive. So you’re from Québec, then?”

“Yes, sir,” Pierre answered. “My hometown’s a little outside of the city, but I live in Montréal now. My mom’s from Georgia, though, so I’ve got dual citizenship and some family still down there.”

Her parents didn’t take too kindly to the news that the wedding was in three weeks, since it was too tight a fit to be able to get time off, but promised to visit later in the summer to make a proper introduction to their new son-in-law. Her father continued to pepper him with questions about his hobbies, family, and how he takes his steak — according to the Doug Klerken rules, any man who orders anything above medium is not to be trusted — until Laurel mercifully cut him off, telling her parents they were late to meet up with some friends. “That wasn’t so bad,” Pierre said as Laurel slipped her phone into her purse, immediately plugging it into her portable charger as the FaceTime had drained all but 18% of her battery.

Laurel made a face. “They’re good people and they care about me, but…” She trailed off. “They never really understood why I’d want anything more than I was given. Anything more than the status quo. And it’s just caused a lot of friction between us.” Her eyes flashed as she remembered something. “One more thing.” Pierre’s ears perked up. “If and when you ever talk to my parents again, just...don’t bring up politics.” Laurel grimaced.

“Republicans?” he asked sympathetically.

She nodded. “Trump-supporting Republicans. It’s another one of the reasons we don’t talk much anymore. I’m liberal, I’d probably be NDP if I could vote here, and we just don’t share the same values on a lot of things.”

“That’s got to be pretty rough on you,” Pierre said.

“Yeah,” Laurel admitted. “Probably more than I want to let on, but I think it helps that I’m able to get some distance.”

Pierre took a deep breath in. “Your, uh, your dad mentioned something that I wanted to ask you about.”

Shit. Laurel had been able to avoid the conversation for long enough, but she was beginning to push her luck, and she couldn’t run forever. “Maggie?”

He nodded. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but I thought I should ask.”

“Yeah, no, I get it,” Laurel said. “Um, long story short, Maggie’s my sister. It’s July, so…” she did the mental math in her head, “she’d be almost 31. Total free spirit. She left town pretty soon after she graduated, came back every so often but not nearly enough. Last I heard, she was an au pair in Italy.”

“And when was that?”

“Two years ago.” Pierre figured that was as good a time as any to drop the subject, so he did. They had decided that, while they were still downtown, it would be a good opportunity to get the ring shopping out of the way. Pierre looked up the highest-rated jewelry store on Yelp, and they set off on foot.

Pierre opened the door for her as they stepped inside, greeted by a slightly over-enthusiastic salesman. “You paid for the ceremony fee, so I’m paying for the rings, okay?”

Laurel scoffed. “Hardly a fair trade, don’t you think?”

“I’ll live,” he said, smirking.

Laurel had been wandering around by the solitaires for a few minutes when Pierre walked up behind her. “I know this isn’t going to be the wedding you’ve always dreamed of,” Pierre said, “but we’re going to make it the best we can.” He looked down at the cases, Laurel’s fingers dancing over the edge of the glass cover. “When you were in high school, or university, did you ever think about what kind of wedding you wanted?” Laurel gave a small nod. “And what kind of ring did you have?”

“I’ve always liked halo cuts,” she said softly.

Pierre inched his hand towards hers, wrapping his fingers around hers. They tensed for a second, but then relaxed into his grip. “Then let’s go get you that halo cut.”

There was no one else in the store aside from the salesman, so the couple was enveloped in a comfortable silence as they browsed. Her eyes stopped on a beautiful floral halo ring with an oval diamond. Pierre nodded to the salesman, who carefully took it off of its stand and handed it to Pierre, who carefully wiggled it onto Laurel’s fourth finger. If she closed her eyes, she was almost able to pretend that it was a proposal. Laurel brought her thumb to the ring, delicately running it over the pavé band with the ghost of a smile on her face. “What do you think?” Pierre asked, as if he couldn’t already tell her answer from the look on her face.

Laurel looked up at him. “I love it. It fits perfectly.”

“Like Cinderella’s slipper.” He turned to the salesman. “Combien ça coûte?” (How much does it cost?) Laurel heard a number that made her swallow hard, more than anything she’d ever have bought for herself, but Pierre insisted it was a non-issue as he handed his card over. “He said that they’ve got another sample one in the back, and you’re welcome to just wear that one out if it fits.”

“Sounds good.” The salesman handed over the bag with Pierre’s ring and her matching wedding band, thanking them for their purchase before opening the door back into the sunny Montréal afternoon. Laurel craned her neck to try and sneak a peek inside the bag. “Don’t I get to see yours?”

Pierre cracked a wry grin. “Gotta wait until the wedding, babe. Can’t a man have a little mystery?”

“Fair enough,” Laurel said, not missing his use of the pet name but brushing it off as simply a spur-of-the-moment choice. “Do you want to do the honors?” she asked, referring to the all-important checklist.

Pierre opened his phone with his spare hand, deftly navigating to the app and tapping twice. “Four down, seven to go. We’re on a roll.

June 24 (thurs)

Surprisingly, telling Pierre-Luc’s parents hadn’t been nearly as intimidating as breaking the news to her own, at least for Laurel. They were shocked — and confused, and had a lot of questions — but were welcoming nonetheless. Patrice was almost like a second son to them, and the fact that she already came with his stamp of approval went a long way into calming them down. “He’s always been quite the romantic, the type to wear his heart on his sleeve. And he cares deeply about the people in his life. That’s you, now,” his mom had said. They drove up to meet them that Sunday, having brunch in his childhood home. That was, in essence, their first real “test” as a couple. They had never had to sell their relationship to anyone before; even when going out with Madeline and Patrice after their “engagement,” nothing ever seemed like it had changed. This time was different. This time had to be different.

His mom fawned over her engagement ring, asking her to spare no details in retelling the story of the proposal. Lucky for her, however, Laurel was the former president of the University of Toronto improv club, and coming up with background stories with exactly zero minutes to prepare was something of a specialty for her. Laurel immediately gushed about how unexpected it was; she was just expecting an evening walk through downtown until they turned down one of the piers by the basilica, reached the end overlooking the river, and Pierre dropped down on one knee. “I think I knew that he was the one way sooner than that, but it’s nice to finally have it be official,” she had said.

Laurel shook herself out of her memories, turning the door into the locker room. She grabbed a pair of scrubs out of her shared locker — she had never met Alice, the other nurse who used it, but they had made a habit of leaving each other Post-it note greetings — and stripped off her t-shirt and jeans. Shimmying on her scrub pants, she tied them, leaning back into the locker to get her bag as the door shut behind her. She glanced over to the door, waving to Claire. Claire was sweet, a transplant from Vancouver who had lived in Québec as a child and decided to come back to work. She was sweet, having just started working at the beginning of the summer, but she was young, even younger than Laurel. And while her perky and energetic nature lent itself well to the dynamics of the floor, it was a lot for her to get used to. “Hey!” Laurel said, waving as she pulled a chain out of her purse, trying to discreetly unhook it.

“Hey!” Claire responded, perky as ever. “How has your week been?” She worked Mondays and Thursdays with Laurel, but had the Saturday night shift as well.

Laurel threw her hair up into a bun. “Good, good, busy. Met up with some friends yesterday, so that was nice, but not much. Took Piper to the dog park.” With my fiancé, she neglected to add. She twisted her ring off, trying to slip it onto the chain without Claire noticing. Like most of her married colleagues, Laurel had taken to wearing her engagement ring on a chain around her neck while at work instead of on her finger. It was under her scrubs most of the time, keeping at bay the questions she wasn’t yet ready to answer, and made it much easier to pull on and off gloves when the occasion called for it. But Claire was eagle-eyed, catching the sparkle of the diamond just as she slid it onto the chain.

She audibly gasped. “Is that an engagement ring?”

Laurel had to think fast; once again, her improv skills were called up to bat. “No? It’s, uh, it’s a family heirloom, it was my grandma’s. Guess I didn’t think too much about which finger I put it on.” She could tell Claire didn’t quite believe her side of the story, but thankfully, she didn’t press.

“If you say so,” she said, giving a not-so-subtle wink.

June 27 (sun)

Laurel was sat in her living room, her TV on in the background as she scrolled absent-mindedly through her phone, savoring her last few hours before she had to go to bed for her 5:30 wake-up call. On a whim, she opened her Twitter. It wasn’t an app she used all that often — mostly just to keep in contact with the handful of high school and college friends who didn’t use Instagram — and she was well aware that she’d probably have to limit her use for her own sanity when she and Pierre went “public” after the wedding, but she liked being able to keep up with everyone. She followed her friends, a handful of celebrities and a few journalists, but her timeline wasn’t flooded with updates. Then she saw the little blue alert on the bottom. One new message. Clicking to her inbox, Laurel saw that it had been sent by Madeline four minutes earlier, a link to a tweet that just had the caption: “you should probably see this.”

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Laurel pressed the link. What could be so important that Madeline would have sent a message with that kind of urgency? And why didn’t she just text it? God, I hate puckbunny blogs, Laurel thought as she read the handle. Her eyes raced across the screen. So I was looking up the address of my friend’s wedding earlier since I lost my invitation and didn’t want to tell her, and saw this under??? I know he can be a private guy, but tell me you guys don’t think this is for PLD. Her eyes froze as soon as she finished reading, praying that somehow they were talking about a different PLD, that they hadn’t been found out and their cover hadn’t been blown and she wasn’t about to have a panic attack for the first time since junior year — and then she saw the screenshot. Of their wedding announcement. Their public wedding announcement that not only had their full names and places of birth, but the location of the ceremony, the time, and their addresses. God, this is exactly what Laurel had been worried about. She immediately reported the tweet for exposing personal information, then made the poor decision to look at the comments section. Some people insisted it was legitimate, some convinced it was just photoshop, some were convinced that it couldn’t be Pierre-Luc even it looked like him, because he was training in Columbus for the summer, right? Thank God, it didn’t seem like anyone had done a deep enough dive to figure out who she was; there weren’t any screenshots of her accounts or photos of her in the comments section. It was eight minutes from the time she reported it to when it was taken down, and while Laurel was grateful for the quick response, she felt like she was on a cliffside, one foot off of the edge, until it had been deleted.

Her phone lit up with a text notification from Pierre. Funny thing happened today.

Oh God, Laurel thought. Had he seen it? He hadn’t.

My mom asked what you were planning to do about flowers and got very upset when I said we didn’t have any plans. She let out a tense breath. Flowers, she could do. She wanted to get your number to send over the names of a few florists she knows in the area, but I thought I should check with you first to make sure that’s okay.

Laurel smiled, her right hand draped over the side of the couch to scratch Piper behind the ears. That sounds great, P.

As promised, his mom texted Laurel soon after, coming armed with recommendations of Montréal florists. She echoed her son’s words almost identically; You deserve to have the wedding you’ve always dreamed of even if the circumstances are different, she had written. Her eyes pricked with tears as she fell asleep.

July 3 (sun)

It was a week before the wedding, and Laurel had started to pack up her apartment. It seemed much more practical to do it in stages then try to finish everything the weekend of the wedding. So she sat with Pierre on the floor of her bedroom, moving boxes between them as they packed away into the next season of her life. Some things, she obviously couldn’t put away yet — she still needed clothes and toothpaste, and they hadn’t been able to get all of her pots and pans down to the Goodwill yet. But books and keepsakes could be boxed up, and unless there was a snowstorm in July, she didn’t need her parka either.

“Oh, what’s this?” Pierre asked as he pulled a few more volumes off of her bookshelf. Laurel groaned when she saw what was in his hand.

“The 2013 Cloquet Senior High School yearbook. My sophomore year.”

He burst out laughing. “This, I’ve got to see.” He opened the cover. “Your mascot was the Lumberjacks?”

Laurel ducked her head, her cheeks heating. “Regrettably, yes. That’s what happens when your whole area used to be milling towns.”

Pierre’s brows furrowed. “I thought you said everything was about the mines, doesn’t your dad work in the mines?”

“He does,” Laurel said. “They had to figure out something to do after all of the trees had been cut down, you know?”

Pierre got the feeling it was really more of a rhetorical question. “What was your school like?”

She placed one of her old Harry Potter books into the box. “Small is the first word that comes to mind. My graduating class couldn’t have been much bigger than 150 or so? We’d get snow days a couple of times a year, most of the time if it wasn’t a blizzard everyone would end up going down to the school anyways, we’d all have big snowball fights on the football field. Actually,” she said, pulling out her phone from her back pocket, “I think I might still have a clip of one.” She pulled up her videos, scooting over to Pierre and leaning into his side so he could see the screen. Raucous laughter filtered through the speakers; the only things in sight were snow forts and the tiniest bits of beanies peeking over the top.

“THIS. IS. WAR!”

Laurel snickered. “I think that sounds like Nicholas, he was the varsity quarterback for a few years. Usually was the one leading the sieges.” She put her phone away a minute later after the clip ended. “But other than that? There were actually a lot of pretty interesting elective classes, I got to take photography, work in the preschool on campus, take a class on Anishinaabe studies.”

“Anishinaabe?” Pierre questioned.

“There’s a Native American reservation in town, the tribe’s Ojibwe so that’s the language family we studied. A lot of kids at the school, including one of my best friends Kristen, live on the reservation, so I think they wanted to not only have the class available for Native students who maybe wanted to learn more about their culture, but also for non-Native kids like me, so we’re able to gain a respect for whose land we’re living on,” Laurel explained.

“Makes sense,” he said, flipping through the pages. He snorted. “This photo might be the best thing I’ve ever seen.”

Laurel peeked over his shoulder, cringing at her school picture. “I really couldn’t have dressed any more 2012 if I tried, Pierre. Aggressively off-the-shoulder top, one of those godforsaken hair feathers, I bet you’d find dark wash skinny jeans if you could see from the waist down.”

“Hey, don’t talk about my fiancée like that,” Pierre said. “I like the look, I swear. You were such a cute kid, oh my God.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know. What happened to me, right?”

He looked at her from the side. “Nope.”

June 9 (fri)

It was the day before the wedding, and Laurel was trying to find a dress. She had been planning on wearing one — even if it was a courthouse wedding, she still wanted to look nice — but then she had spilled red wine onto the light blue one she had been thinking of wearing as she ironed it in the living room, and she didn’t want to put all of her eggs in one basket if the Oxiclean didn’t end up working. She called Madeline in a panic, who promised to be over as soon as she could with a few dresses of her own to see what she could do. There was a knock on the door, and Laurel practically flew across the room to fling it open, gathering Madeline in a hug even before she had crossed the threshold. Madeline patted her clumsily on the back. “There, there, Laur. It’s going to be okay, we’re going to fix it.”

Laurel ran one hand through her hair, her curls as frazzled as her mind. “It’s got to be. Half of my stuff’s already over at P’s place, what, do you want me to wear a,” she opened up her dresser, eyeing its meager contents, “bralette and lacy thong to my own wedding?”

Madeline shrugged. “I doubt Pierre would mind,” she said casually.

Laurel almost choked on her own spit. “What do you mean?”

“Men are visual creatures, and you’re hot as hell, Laurel,” she stated matter-of-factly.

“Still,” Laurel said, opening her closet and grabbing every single left over dress from its hanger, trying to distract herself from Madeline’s words, “I’d rather not be arrested for public indecency. I’m trying to stay in the country, remember?”

Madeline rolled her eyes. “I remember.” She thumbed through the dresses on Laurel’s bed. “You’re not wearing a black dress to get married,” she said pointedly.

“It’s pretty?” Laurel tried to reason.

“It is, but it’s a wedding, not a funeral.” She moved onto the next one. “Bright red bodycon is great for the club, but not sure coquettish seductress is the look you’re going for.” The next one was a striped sweater dress; it was the middle of summer, so according to Madeline, that meant it was out. There was a navy shift dress that “could work, but it’s a little too much work and not enough play,” her friend had said. Laurel tried on Madeline’s dresses, but seeing as how she had three inches on her, the hemlines weren’t exactly in her favor. Madeline pulled out the last of the stack, gasping softly. “This one’s beautiful, where’s it from?”

Madeline looked at it, a knee-length ivory lace dress, rolling her eyes good-naturedly at Madeline. “It was for Aurélie’s bachelorette party last year, probably explains. You were drunk off your ass that night.”

“I’m hurt by that characterization, but I don’t remember enough to correct you,” Madeline said. “It’s perfect though, why didn’t you choose this one in the first place?”

Laurel rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m not sure?” Madeline gave her a look. “Fine, it just seems...It seems too much like an actual wedding dress. It’s white, or close enough, anyways,” she noted, fingering one of the delicate straps, “and gorgeous, and formal, and I’m worried if I wear it it’ll seem too real, and I’ll start thinking this is more than it is. Because all it is at the end of the day is a friend doing me a really, really big favor,” she finished, huffing and falling back onto her mattress.

“At the end of the day, it’s still a wedding,” Madeline corrected, laying down next to her. “And you’re still a bride and he’s still a groom and you deserve to feel beautiful and cherished and special on your wedding day, no matter its circumstances. And who knows? Maybe you two stay married, and fall in love, and you live happily ever after with your half-dozen dogs and 2.5 kids on some farm out in the suburbs.”

Laurel snorted. “As if.” But two hours later, long after Madeline had already left, she sat back on the bed, hand ghosting over the lace of her now-wedding dress, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Madeline had a point.

June 10 (sat)

It was the morning of the wedding, and Laurel was pacing her room in her sweatpants, Piper looking at her in confusion from the doorway. It was just past 7 and the appointment wasn’t until 10, but she still had to get dressed and do her hair and makeup and pick up the flowers and eat and — her internal monologue was interrupted by the doorbell. Still half-asleep, she ambled over to the door, pulling it open without even really checking to see who it was.

“Surprise!!” Patrice shouted, walking through the door, followed by Madeline and Pierre. “Madeline mentioned that you seemed a bit overwhelmed yesterday, so we thought we’d come over and get ready over here!”

Laurel shuffled out of the way as Piper jumped on Pierre, who laughed and calmed her down with a few scratches on her chin. She had really taken a liking to him and his two dogs, which had initially been a point of nervousness for Laurel. But they got along great, shared space well, and she seemed to love her new brother and sister. “That’s really nice of you guys, I appreciate it,” she said sincerely. “Um, I don’t have much food left because of the move, but I think there’s some cereal in the cupboard?”

“Silly you,” Pierre said, holding out a paper bag. “Did you think I’d leave my bride hungry on our wedding day? I got you sourdough french toast, should be on the top.” They had gone out to brunch once and she had ordered it, audibly moaning at how incredible it tasted. He remembered.

“And raspberry mochas!” Madeline said, presenting her with a cup.

Laurel took it, wrapping her spare arm around Madeline and kissing Pierre on the cheek. “This is incredible, guys. Really. I didn’t expect anything like this.”

“Exactly!” Madeline said, a perky expression on her face. “It’s a surprise!” She drifted into the kitchen, pulling out plates from Laurel’s cabinet and forks from her drawers. “Breakfast is served!”

Laurel let out a laugh as she grabbed the box with her french toast, taking a sip of her mocha. “I think the credit goes to the chefs at the restaurant, but whatever you say, Madi.”

Madeline rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but we ordered it.

By the time they had all inhaled their breakfasts and cleaned the kitchen — Laurel and Pierre tag-teamed the dishes — it was almost eight, and Madeline whisked her into her room to get ready. “There should be a couple beers in the fridge, help yourselves!” Laurel shouted out the door as Madeline tried to wrestle her into the ensuite. For the most part, Madeline was good at listening to Laurel’s pleas against a dramatic makeup look. Muted rose lipstick, filled in her eyebrows, delicately pulled back her hair into a twisted bun. “Where’s your setting spray?” Madeline asked, rooting through her makeup bag.

“Top drawer on the left. Are you finally going to let me see?”

Madeline pulled the drawer out, uncapping the bottle and spritzing it over Laurel’s face. “Go for it.”

Laurel turned around, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. “Oh my God,” she said, turning her head so the glimmer of her highlighter caught in the early-morning sun streaming through the open window. “You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Don’t say that until you’ve put the dress on,” Madeline said, pulling it off of its hanger and draping it across the chair. Sweats came off and the dress went on, Madeline carefully pulling up the back zipper and straightening out her hem. Laurel bent down to put on her shoes, threading the silver straps through the tiny metal clasp before giving her leg a good shake. Madeline looked at her sceptically.

“What?” Laurel asked innocently. “I don’t want it to fall off halfway down the aisle.”

There was a knock on the bedroom door, Patrice’s voice floating in from the other side. “It’s 9:20, you two about ready to head out?”

“Coming!” Madeline called back, pulling Laurel up from the bed. “You ready, Laur?” Laurel gave a nervous nod. “Let’s go get you married.”

She stepped out into the living room, reaching up to her neck and fingering the silver filigree of her grandma’s wedding necklace, one of the only things she had left to remember her by. If she wasn’t able to complete the whole rhyme, at least she’d have her something old. “Who’s driving?” she asked.

Pierre wheeled around, mouth gaping like a fish when he saw her. Laurel immediately looked down to her dress, wondering if she had spilled one of her pre-wedding mimosas. “What is it?” she asked frantically. “Is there something in my teeth?”

He shook his head, tugging at the sleeves of his navy blue suit. “No, there’s nothing in your teeth, it’s perfect. You look beautiful.” They were in the car five minutes later, picked up the bouquet from the florist five minutes after that, and were outside of the courthouse by 9:50. Laurel took a deep breath, looking up at the glass doors of the Palais de Justice. Pierre threaded his fingers between hers, giving a reassuring squeeze. “You good?”

Laurel nodded, nervous but determined, sure that she was making the right decision. “Ready.” She barely remembered signing in, barely remembered going back to the clerk’s office, barely remembered her reading the mandated articles of the civil code. She gripped Pierre’s hands, giving him as much of a reassuring smile as she could, as the vows were read.

“Pierre-Luc Dubois, do you take Laurel Elizabeth Klerken, here present, to be your wife?” Juliette asked.

“I do.”

“Laurel Elizabeth Klerken, do you take Pierre-Luc Dubois, here present, to be your husband?”

“I do,” Laurel said, voice steady.

Juliette continued. “By virtue of the powers vested in me by law, I now declare you, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and you, Laurel Elizabeth Klerken, united in the bonds of marriage.” Patrice passed over the rings; Laurel slid Pierre’s onto his ring finger, he gently twisted hers to rest on top of her engagement ring. “You are now legally married. Allow me, on my own behalf and on behalf of all those present, to offer you our best wishes for your happiness. You may now kiss the bride.”

Laurel panicked for a moment, before looking up and meeting Pierre’s eyes. In the span of a second, she communicated her unspoken agreement with the tiniest nod of her head, and his lips were on hers. His arms were against the small of her back, hers wrapped around his neck, and even enough it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, it felt like hours. It felt like coming home.

#pierre-luc dubois #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #hockey smut #nhl writing #pierre-luc dubois imagine #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #nhl smut #nhl #hockey #hockey fanfiction #hockey fic

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ftmfandomfics · 4 years

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What I think the male characters of mha smell like

Izuku: Greenery and that smell just before it starts raining. Like when you’re walking through the woods and you get a deep breathe of fresh air.

Bakugou: Nitroglycerin smells like burnt sugar (not caramel), and I think he would wear way too much expensive cologne in an attempt to cover it. It doesn’t work now he just smells like if a candy store and Aeropostale joined forces.

Kirishima: I think he smells like sweat and axe. It’s not that he doesn’t shower after working out, he just smells like sweat. You can decide if that’s a good or a bad thing.

Todoroki: I think hes worn the same expensive cologne since middle school. Probably something called ice lake or glacier. He also smells like ✨daddy issues✨

Kaminari: He smells like a Spencer’s. I can’t pin down what smell it is but specifically the body jewelry area. All of them smell the same. There must be like an air freshener they all use or something idk.

Tenya: Beef stew. I fully head cannon that he’s autistic and that beef stew is his safe food. This bitch smells like beef stew and control issues.

Shoji: Shoji is a minimalist so I don’t think he would use cologne or anything, but I think he would have an essential oil diffuser in his room so he smells like a mixture of herbs and citrus fruits.

Oijiro: I’ve seen other people say he smells like vanilla and I agree, but I also think he would have an earthy smell too. Like pine and vanilla, very unique but it smells amazing.

Tokoyami: Black pepper and papyrus, you can’t tell if he naturally smells that way or if it’s from the old books he reads. When dark shadow comes out the papyrus smell dissipates and is replaced by the smell of damp earth.

Sero: Dragons blood incense, Apollo axe body spray, and just a wiff of marijuana

Aoyama: He smells like setting powder, body glitter, and a VERY sweet perfume. Is almost hurts your nose.

Koda: He smells like his bunny, and bunnies smell similar to cats. I don’t mean their poop or anything, their fur. When he’s in his room he’s always holding or playing with his rabbit so he ends up smelling like it.

Sato: He smells like pastries which isn’t really surprising. But somehow he always smells like fresh baked bread and cherry pie. He even seems to radiate the warmth too.

Mineta: piss, desperation, and grape cough syrup.

Shinsou: Coffee and lavender, he also has an earthy musk that smells almost spicy.

Tetsutetsu: I know he uses old spice wolf thorn. Or like KrackenGaurrd or whatever. Something with a name that makes him feel manly 😭🥺

Inasa: He smells like old leather, parchment, and paprika. When he uses his quirk the paprika smells gets stronger. A very mild but spicy smell.

Mirio: He smells citrusy and warm, like fresh baked lemon bars. He also wears the bourbon body spray from bath and body works.

Tamaki: Tamaki doesn’t like drawing attention to himself so I don’t think he would purposely have a distinct smell, and you can’t really place his natural one. He smells like how it feels to take a deep breathe of cold air, it’s almost addictive.

All might: Clean linen and oak wood. I just think he would smell very fresh and warm. Like when you wake up before your alarm so you get to roll back over and go back to sleep.

Endeavor 🤢: Expensive cologne and ass. I don’t believe that this man wipes his ass, that’s gay. Also you can’t convince me that he showers purely because I don’t think he would fit. He thinks no one notices, they’re just too afraid to say anything.

Gang Orca: Orcas have really sensitive skin so I don’t think he could use any scented products, including cologne. But I feel like he might have a very faint smell of saltwater.

Aizawa: He wears a cologne that’s very spicy and musky but he won’t tell anyone what it is. He naturally has a very earthy smell that the cologne enhances.

Present Mic: Stay with me on this, I think he would wear a very sweet sugary perfume. I feel like Hizashi naturally smells very tangy and spicy, so adding that sugary smell makes him ever more irresistible.

Hound dog: I think he smells like a clean dog. He’s a person, just with a dog quirk, so he’s fully aware that dogs smell. He’s pretty self conscious honestly, he doesn’t smell he’s just really really worried he will.

Rock Lock: I think he smells like a cave. If you’ve ever been in one you know what I mean. That damp earthy smell with just a tiny hint of metallic or salt in the air. I’m not picking this just because of his name idk he gives me really strong but calm vibes.

Tiger: I can’t decide if he would wear cologne or not. If he did I think it’d be fruity or cinnamon. Maybe like spiced apple cider.

Keigo: Fried chicken. Not because of his quirk he just eats a lot of fried chicken. Also the type of guy to wear old spice with a really “epic” name.

Fatgum: He smells like the food court part of a carnival, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing. He smells really good, like a mixture of sweets, spices, and fried foods.

Tensei: I think he smells clean with a tiny bit of musk cologne as well. Doesn’t seem like the type of guy to wear really strong cologne.

Natsuo: He would also wear a cologne with a name like glacier because something like that would piss Enji off.

Overhaul: He smells like a doctors office. It’s not pleasant. Does he spray himself with disinfectant or does he just use so much that he smells like it?

Kendo: He smells like sweat but not body odor. He works for overhaul so I don’t think Kai would let him get away with smelling bad.

Tomura: The shiggy stans are gonna come for me, but he smells like a rotting fucking corpse. When’s the last time he showered? Also not to mention he’s an incel so he probably also smells like piss and cum. You know it’s the truth.

Touya: He also smells like rotting flesh but it’s not as bad. Fire kills bacteria. He can’t wear cologne because so much of his body is skin graphs, but maybe if he took care of them properly he at least wouldn’t smell like a morgue.

Twice: Ciggarettes and borderline pedophelia gin.

Spinner: Honestly I think he’s the only member of the league (other than Magne)that would actually have some type of self care. He doesn’t smell like anything, which in comparison to his partners is amazing.

I think I got everyone that people would want. I’ll do the girls later and I’m thinking of doing the atla and lok characters too. If I forgot someone you want just tell me and I’ll add them :).

#I absolutely hate endeavor but also ✨daddy✨😩🙌#mha #bnha fanfiction #ftm fandom fics #headcanon #this is mostly a shitpost lmao

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clolikescloquetas · 4 years

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THINGS I HOPE TO SEE (OR NOT) IN ACOTAR4

Nesta NOT STAYING AT THE ILLYRIANS MOUNTAINS for long, and travelling to other courts or the continent instead so she sees the world just like she wanted to do before the war. I think sending her away to a cold mountain surrounded by misogynistic warriors who hate her and are scared of her was a stupid af decision. Especially when it's a war camp and war triggers her PTSD. Oh and let's not forget there's a revolution about to take place. I see it as a very forced way of the narrative to make cassian and nesta interact. I understand an unexpected turn of events was needed as a beginning for acotar4, but going to the mountains shouldn't be anything more than a beginning that quickly leads us to another location. We've been told many times that nesta is "illyrian at heart" but I don't buy it. She isn't such thing, and her character is way too complex and interesting and has too much potential to just make her fit into a culture she doesn't belong to and has nothing in common with (it's stupid to think a place that reveres war and bloodshed will help her heal).

Besides, after all the places the previous books introduced I think it would be boring to stick to the same court. I loved Velaris but now that Feyre's story has ended it's time to move on. Not to mention that the Night Court is the worst place for Nesta, it reminds her of all her trauma and its high lord is a male she despises. Nesta needs to go somewhere else where she can recover her spirit and independence, and be free of the commands of a male that gives her orders as if she were her subject (she is not).

Hopefully, knowing how much sjm loves plot twists and given how she's already told us where nesta is supposed to go, it won't stay like that for long.

NO TRAINING. Maybe learning self defense techniques but that's as far as I'll go. No training to turn her into an almighty warrior. Nesta has power from literally the mightiest magic device in the world, and you're telling me getting beat on a ring will empower her?? Even when she's previously stated her refusal to train and said fighting isn't the only thing that makes someone strong?? And we're talking about Nesta, whose powers make her lethal. Making Nesta train would butcher her character and istg if they pull the "fighting helps her go back to her old self and empowers her" I will lose it. Enough with making that troupe work for everyone. We've seen it before and it has worked out well for other character, but in this case it wouldn't feel right and would be boring af.

I've seen a few people say they want Nesta to command the Illyrians, and help with the whole misogynist issue they have, or that she should do the Blood Rite I don't know if the name is correct, I don't remember it to gain the respect of the warriors. How should I put this: NO. This is more of the "Nesta is Illyrian at heart" bullshit Rhysass likes to pull, when what he actually means is that she is proud and stubborn. She, and I can't stress this enough, is not Illyrian. She shouldn't be participating in traditions she doesn't understand and doesn't engage in (she doesn't want to learn how to fight for fuck's sake) and we certainly don't need nesta to pull a white saviour behavior. I don't want her to come and solve a centuries old problem of a culture she doesn't belong to. And I don't see how she could do that in a credible way either, given how they all are terrified and wary of her. This also applies to the rioting issue that is looming over the illyrian camps.

Nesta healing and improving her mental health with cassian at her side to support her, without making him the reason why she gets better. And showing the effects war has on a veteran as Cassian too.

Someone, preferably Nesta, calling out Feyre, Rhysass and the rest of the IC on their shitty behavior and actions, and the narrative finally acknowledging their mistakes and portraying them as the deeply flawed characters they are. Now that we don't have Feyre's POV anymore there are no excuses for condoning their shit.

Cassian realising he has judged, ignored and said cruel things (like he doesn't know why her sisters love her are u kidding me) to Nesta and how he hasn't stood up for her before his friends. Oh and how he ignores her when Mor is present. I'm a sucker for nessian, but before they are a thing, he should apologize. I don't like how he treats nesta poorly and then expects her to love him, when she doesn't owe him shit. It's selfish of him to expect her to fit into his family even when they all hate her. I hope acotar4 handles well these issues. And I can't wait too read Nesta's POV and know why she didn't want to be close to Cassian after the war.

Nesta making new friends on her own, people who respect her and love her. I love nessian but I don't want their relationship to be the only deep interaction and relationship Nesta has. I would LOVE to see her and lucien become best friends (they were supposed to be lovers after all, and although a romantic relationship has been dismissed I'm sure their friendship dynamic would be amazing), or get acquainted with Helion or even Azriel. She needs to meet new people, and preferably not from the night court.

We've read many times how Nesta's powers are described as great and terrible. The source of her power is the fucking cauldron, used to create the world. Even tho no one knows yet what those powers are exactly, she has used them to turn hundreds of soldiers to ashes and even the bone carver, a death GOD, has spoken of the way the earth trembled at her power when Nesta was made. I want these powers to be a huuge part of the plot in this book. I want Nesta to master them fully, and for us to see the process. I don't know if I'm the only one who thinks like this, but when Feyre discovered she had powers from all the high lords, it seemed to me that she mastered them too quickly. I was hoping to get more attention on that issue, but it got dismissed quite quickly. Now that it's Nesta's time, I want the book to fully focus on these powers. Oh, and what I want the most is my baby to become the most powerful creature in the continent. More mighty than Rhysass and the other high lords by far. You can't give us a whole book preaching how nesta is really powerful, and how she took something from the cauldron that made the earth tremble, and then turn her into a common witch or something similar. I mean you can't expect me to believe the high lords have more power than the cauldron.

Although I find that to be another plot hole, bc the cauldron was supposed to be almighty but then Rhys and Feyre restored it when it broke?? Does that mean they are more powerfull than the object that created their world?? If that is so, they why didn't they win against hybern sooner??

Anyways, I want Nesta to never have to bow to anyone. Ever.

Well that is what I'd like to see in the next book. Which, based on the information we have, is basically the opposite of what will happen. As far as we know, sjm said there would be a lot of training in this book (I assume she was talking about Nesta) so there goes the chance of her not been a warrior. We know she'll go to Illyria, and although it's my hope she leaves soon or that she never goes in the first place, I know that's not what's going to happen.

And then there's the sex. Sjm said she had to delete some of the sex scenes bc her editor said they were too much and unnecessary. Which means there are still plenty of sex scenes in the books, as sjm confirmed. Don't get me wrong, smut is fine if handled correctly. But I don't think it will he handled correctly.

In fact, I think acotar4 will be placed on illyria the whole book or at least a huge part of it, and that we'll have lots of unnecessary and meaningless sex scenes inside of Cassian's cabin in the mountains instead of a well written and interesting plot, a well developed and complex relationship between the characters and a well handled depiction of PTSD and trauma healing.

In my mind it'll go like this:

Nesta arrives in the mountains. She and cassian are mean to each other for a while and the sexual tension is pretty obvious between them. Nesta starts training. At the beginning she hates it but over time she ends up loving it and excelling. Sex. Nesta makes a few friends between the illyrian female warriors she trains with, whose characters are shallow and totally secondary. Sex. More sex. Maybe something about Nesta's powers. A scene where cassian and nesta have an openhearted conversation about their relationship. Cassian never acknowledges how he treated Nesta, but she will apologise to him for how she kept him away. This leads to more sex. Nesta makes up with feyre, and apologies to her for being mean or whatever sjm comes up with. Feyre doesn't apologize back, or it's a shitty apologize for sure. Sex. Nesta stablish a cordial although cold relationship with Rhysass and Mor bc apparently she and Az are not destined to interact (even tho Az would totally oppose Nesta's situation of being sent to the illyrian camps). Sex. Nesta does the Rite. Sex. Sex. Something about the illyrian rebels. Cassian gets hurt. Nesta goes feral and gets a hold on the illyrian people. They respect her and answer to her now. Sex.

Or something along these lines. Oh and I have the impression sjm loves her main characters too much to write any scene showing how the decisions, actions or behaviour regarding Nesta of Feyre and Rhys were wrong. Acknowledging this could make it seem like they are flawed people like the rest, and apparently that's not possible.

I pray to be proved wrong once the book is released. Only time will tell.

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