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tyrantisterror · 4 years ago

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THE A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!!

YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE SAFE! YOU THOUGHT THAT THE TIME OF MONSTERS WAS AT AN END! BUT YOU WERE WRONG, FOR NOW YOU MUST WITNESS…

THE A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!!

That’s right, it’s back! Celebrating the publication of The Atomic Time of Monsters Volume 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth! (which in turn completes The Ballad of Tyrantis arc for this series), I’m holding another monster design jam. The third of such jams, in fact!

Like the first A.T.O.M. Create a Kaiju Contest, the aim of this contest is to create kaiju that would fit within the setting of my big kaiju story series, The Atomic Time of Monsters. Think of it as me letting you into my sandbox to play with my toys for a bit, or like you’re being put in the director’s chair of a new ATOM-verse kaiju movie. That means your entry does have to fit into ATOM’s world, which in turn means that yes, there are limitations to your creativity here. But limitations can be good sometimes - they can make us explore options we wouldn’t consider when given completely free rein to do what we want!

(also you don’t have to make a three dimensional image or anything, the title’s just a pun on how the third movie in a monster movie franchise will often be a 3-D film)

Read below the cut to learn the rules and whatnot:

THE RULES:

1. You are limited to one entry per person. Work hard and make your entry count!

2. Your kaiju must have some sort of description of its physical appearance and its personality - you can submit a drawing or a written description (or both!) for the physical appearance depending on what you’re most comfortable with. Using the same template/format as my official ATOM Kaiju Files (https://horrorflora.com/monster-menageries/atom-kaiju-files/) isn’t required, but it was cool when people did it in the last contest, so feel free to do so this time too!

3. The kaiju you create must specifically be created for this contest - no repurposing characters you made for other, wildly different stories. This is not “trick TT into drawing/canonizing my main OC” time.

4. The kaiju must fit the setting and aesthetics of ATOM. I’ll explain this in more detail down below.

5. The kaiju should add something meaningful to the world of ATOM. The more unique and interesting your kaiju is, the more likely you will win the contest.

6. Don’t make your kaiju too dependent on pre-existing ATOM characters - no “Tyrantis’s long lost evil brother who’s the strongest kaiju in the world.” These should be to Tyrantis’s story what War of the Gargantuas is to Godzilla’s movies – heroes (well, monsters) of another story in the same world.

THE REWARDS:

I will make pencil sketches of the top 5 entries in the contest.

I will then make fully rendered illustrations (lineart, colors, & shading) of the top three entries.

The winning entry will be made into a model ala the ones I’ve been making for ATOM’s core 50 monsters, which can then be shipped to the person who created it (should they be able to cover the shipping costs). That’s right, your kaiju could be brought to life in THREE GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR DIMENSIONS! (Hey, we worked the gag title in to the prizes!)

THE DEADLINE: All entries must be submitted by July 3rd, 2021. You can submit it here on tumblr, via the horror flora e-mail, or any other channel you know how to reach me through. I’m in a lot of places.

THE GUIDELINES (TO HELP YOUR ENTRY FIT THE RULES AND WIN):

The smartest thing you could do if you want to win this contest is familiarize yourself with the world of ATOM by, y’know, reading all the material I’ve published on the subject. In addition to the many kaiju files that are free to read on horrorflora.com, there are now TWO, count ‘em, TWO novels in this series for you to peruse, both of which establish many of the rules of the setting as well as its general themes and tone! You can get them in either paperback or e-book formatting (I’d recommend the former over the latter since I lack the technology to make a really nice ebook, but if money is an object, the kindle version is only $1). Here’s the links again if you missed them:

Vol. 1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us!

Vol. 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth!

However, since I know reading a bunch of stuff is, y’know, not something everyone is inclined to do, I’ll jot some good bullet points for you in an attempt to outline how ATOM works in a brief, easily digested way:

ATOM is an homage to the monster fiction of the 1950’s and 60’s (i.e. the Atomic Age), and is set in those two decades, albeit an alternate universe version of them where, y’know, monsters and space aliens exist. If you aren’t familiar with the monster fiction I’m referring to, there will be some reference material provided at the end of this post along with some recommendations for further research.

Kaiju/giant monsters in ATOM work under very specific rules. There’s a full description of those rules at this link, but here’s the jist:

ATOM Kaiju are created created by the radiation of a mineral called Yamaneon, which naturally converts harmful radiation into its own unique energy. In natural circumstances, it takes hundreds of years of exposure to Yamaneon radiation for a creature to become fully transform into a kaiju (luckily, Yamaneon radiation slows the aging process while speeding up the healing process). However, an explosive burst of energy - such as the geothermal and kinetic energy released by an earthquake, or the blast of a nuclear weapon - can speed up the process, turning a normal animal into a kaiju within a matter of seconds.

All ATOM kaiju can heal grievous wounds within minutes or even seconds, are supernaturally strong and durable, and can convert harmful radiation to harmless energy that they then feed off of. Kaiju do not have an equivalent of old age, and can theoretically live forever (though their violent lifestyle means that few do).

ATOM Kaiju generally don’t need to eat unless they are severely injured, getting most of the energy they need from solar or geothermal radiation - but many still have instincts that drive them to seek out food from time to time.

Most ATOM kaiju stand roughly 100 feet tall (depending on their body shape), i.e. smaller than the original 1954 Godzilla. There are exceptions to this rule - younger kaiju can be smaller, while exceedingly old kaiju can be significantly larger, but these are rare.

In general, ATOM kaiju are significantly more intelligent and emotionally complex than people expect animals to be, though most are incapable of speech or complex tool use. There’s a reason ATOM Kaiju Files have a “personality” section.

Most ATOM Kaiju are tooth and claw fighters - ranged weapons are a rarity in this setting.

While the terrestrial monsters in ATOM look strange, they are intended to fit within the taxonomy of animals in reality - reptiles, mammals, fish, arthropods, molluscs, etc.

ATOM’s mesozoic era was dominated by a fictional clade of crocodile-relatives called retrosaurs, which are based on the outdated paleoart that one would find in the 1950’s/60’s fiction - i.e. when dinosaurs were viewed as trail dragging lizards instead of strange birds. You can learn more about retrosaurs here (https://horrorflora.com/2016/11/15/atom-kaiju-file-bonus-a-guide-to-retrosaurs/).

Kaiju appear on every continent in ATOM, but certain areas tend to be dominated by different types.

North America is mainly besieged by retrosaur kaiju and giant arthropods.

East Asia is technically also mainly plagued by retrosaurs and big arthropods, though they tend to look more fantastical and mythic - and, often, oddly well suited to being portrayed by a person wearing a monster suit.

Russia is beset by prehistoric monsters that seem to come from the Cenozoic, particularly the Ice Age.

Western Europe is plagued by creatures that vaguely resemble creatures from myth, if they were also prehistoric. Dragon-y lizards, fiery birds, etc.

Towards the mid-way point of ATOM’s timeline, earth is invaded by a coalition of aliens from different solar systems called the Beyonder Alliance, and as a result a bunch of alien monsters can be found on earth.

Mars and Venus both host (or hosted in Mars’s case) animal life. The surviving Martians colonized Venus, and sent some of their kaiju guardians to earth to help us fend off the Beyonders (who are responsible for the destruction of Mars’s ecosystem). Martian and Venusian kaiju have specific anatomical quirks, which you can see by looking at these kaiju files:

Venusians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/03/atom-kaiju-file-29-karamtor/

Martians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-39-kemlasulla/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-40-podritak/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-41-sombarvot/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-38-ullawdra/

Giant robots exist in ATOM, but are big, bulky, and incredibly expensive. Fancy beam weapons also exist, but are similarly clunky - there are no sleek, elegant machines in ATOM.

Since the fiction ATOM takes inspiration from was made at a time when interplanetary travel was only just beginning to be possible, its scope is significantly smaller than modern sci-fi. Alternate universes/dimensions were pretty uncommon because the idea of alien planets still held a lot of wonder to it. So, as a general rule, don’t try to go farther than the one galaxy.

ATOM is a setting for stories that are focused on humanity learning to coexist with monsters, rather than humanity destroying them. A certain level of sympathy is put into almost every creature of its canon, even the ones that are meant to be villains.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

Here is a playlist of 1950′s monster movie trailers.

Here is some reference material from various monster comics of the 50′s and 60′s.

Good movies to track down to understand ATOM’s inspiration and tone include Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Them!, The Black Scorpion, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Gamera, The Giant Claw, and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

And here’s the intro cutscenes for all the different giant monsters in the PS2 videogame War of the Monsters.

#The Atomic Time of Monsters #The ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest 3D

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doexoeyes · 4 years ago

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Of Finches & Firsts

In case you wanna read ahead:

Archive Of Our own link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26707513

Wattpad link:

https://my.w.tt/ZoUHpu1e59

Summary: “A Hufflepuff? Crushing on a Slytherin? Sounds like the start of a terrible joke to me, but ok.” You’ve harbored feelings for Draco Malfoy since your first year at Hogwarts. Secretly, of course, and very much from afar. But when you’re finally taken out of your role of being a background character in his life, will it be what you always wanted, or what you wish you never knew?

Chapters

Chapter 1 ♡ Chapter 2 ♡ Chapter 3 ♡ Chapter 4 ♡ Chapter 5

Chapter 4: Dirty Pants

Your latest run in with Malfoy had consumed your head for the majority of that week, even, unfortunately, during the tournament.

You were, of course, over the moon at Cedric’s success at capturing the golden dragon egg (Harry’s too, however you would keep that to yourself for the time being until the tension between him and your house blew over), but you just couldn’t shake off the feeling of having had Draco be so close and how he decided to take something of your’s for himself.

It sent you through an overwhelming spiral of thoughts and confusion and you so desperately wanted a friend to talk to, but you knew that Mauve and the others would immediately disapprove.

Anything Draco did was a red flag to them.

Still, that did lead to your most important question; why did Draco do what he did? He couldn’t seriously have had any real interest in your ribbon. It just all seemed like he was...toying with you, but if so, why would he waste his time toying with you in the first place ?

All of these questions received no answers for days until you had finally deemed your endless hours anxiously dwelling on it enough and decided to find your own answers.

Thinking back to the first day you had interacted with Draco, you grabbed your sketch book and pencil pouch and headed to the astronomy tower after dinner, waiting to see if you would run into the Malfoy boy.

Thankfully the universe seemed to be in your favor, because you did.

“Finch,” he greeted upon seeing you, his infamous smirk on its proper place. “Been running into each other more lately. I think you’ve become a bit obsessed,” he teased as he made his way towards you with slow steps.

You clutched your sketchbook to your chest, silently pretending it was a shield of sorts to encourage you to hang onto what little courage you had.

You then took a breath and began.

“We need to talk,” you stated cautiously, not knowing how this would turn out. “I need you to be honest with me.”

Draco frowned, clearly not a fan of your words. “Talk? About what?”

“About what happened a couple days ago. About the umm...” you weren’t sure why, but the words you were looking for escaped you so you chose to point to the top of your head where your hair was done up in a ponytail once more.

Draco stared at you, confused, before giving out a scoff, eyes twinkling in amusement. “Oh, your ribbon? Why, want it back? Has no one taught you about sharing, Finch?” and you clutched your book tighter as he once again placed himself inches away from you.

He really wasn’t a fan of personal space, it seemed.

“Why would I have to share my ribbon with you?” you questioned, feeling silly and small in his presence.

“Because I wanted it. Simple as that,” he answered, eyes looking at you as if to challenge him in saying something else about the subject.

You had no plan to do so.

“Ok...” you said, disappointed that that was all he had to say on the matter.

This was definitely not going according to your plan. Then again, you weren’t even sure you had one in the first place.

His eyes then flickered to the sketchbook you were holding to your chest. “What’s that you’re always bringing up here with you?” he asked nosily and your cheeks immediately flushed.

“It’s, umm...it’s a sketchbook. I like to draw in my free time.”

“Oh really? Well then you’re going to have to share that with me,” he said, moving as if to grab the book but you immediately stepped back, shaking your head with wide eyes.

“Oh no, absolutely not,” you blurted out, taking Draco aback at your sudden outburst.

He frowned once again. “And why not?” A ghost of realization then hit his face and he smirked knowingly. “Oh, I get it. It’s filled with drawings of me. Am I your muse, Finch?” he taunted, lifting his brows.

You unfortunately couldn’t control a small laugh from escaping, nerves setting in as you knew now that you had to explain. “No, actually, I’m...quite terrible at drawing and I’m terrified of you looking at them because...well, they’re really bad,” you confessed, and placed a hand over your mouth to contain the rest of your nervous giggling.

Draco eyes you now like you were completely mad.

“So, you’re telling me you spend your time doing something you’re horrible at?”

You bit your bottom lip, trying to figure out a way to explain it to him best. “Well, yes. Have you never done something not because you’re good at it or you have to, but simply because you enjoy it?” you asked, and the very blonde boy remained starring at you oddly.

“No, actually, that sounds bloody ridiculous and like a terrible waste of time.”

You subconsciously pushed your bottom lip out, your expression resembling a small pout, as you stood there awkwardly, eyes avoiding his. Feeling the weight of the book on your chest, you looked at it for a moment before handing it towards him, wondering what was possessing you to do so.

He looked at your offering with furrowed brows, eyes asking you the same question.

“Just pass through it. No point in not letting you see it now that you know that I’m awful at it. You might find some amusement in it. Just, please, be prepared. I wasn’t being hard on myself, I really am crap at drawing.”

He snatched the book from your hand then, an action you thought was a bit too dramatic, and opened the book, eyes analyzing every page as he flipped through it.

You stood there, watching him pass through the book as you chewed on your bottom lip nervously. You were never usually this bold, letting someone (especially someone like Draco Malfoy) go through your sketchbook knowing very well how terrible your sketches were. Yet, you felt that the only way the tension between you two would dissipate was to be honest and open with him, like how you wanted him to be with you. Maybe then he’ll tell you the real reason why he took your ribbon...

How silly of you to still be hung up on such a little thing.

“Wow, you weren’t wrong. You really are shit at drawing,” he commented midway through his flipping.

You blushed, embarrassed, but also found his blunt honesty amusing, and couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “I know. It’s a good thing art isn’t part of our curriculum. I would absolutely fail, without a doubt,” and you felt your chest swell up at hearing him laugh along with you.

“Honestly,” he said, handing the book back to you once he finished. “You know, you’re very strange.”

“And you’re very judgmental,” you quickly threw back, causing Draco’s eyes to widen slightly, not expecting your response.

You raise a brow at him, lips forming into a soft smile. “You only think I’m strange because you don’t understand what I’m talking about,” you elaborated before leaning down to sit on the floor.

You patted the spot next to you, looking up at Draco as you did so, but the boy shook his head with a frown.

“Are you mad? I’m not sitting on the floor. I’ll get my pants all dirty,” he said in disgust.

You playfully rolled her eyes, looking up at him from your lashes. “They won’t be, but if they are, I promise I will clean them for you. Just...please sit with me?” you asked, eyes silently pleading with him.

He stood there stubbornly, arms crossed against his chest and you were sadly made aware of what his answer would be. Just as you were about to tell him to forget about it, however, he sat himself on the floor next to you with a huff.

“There. I’m sitting. Now what?” he asked begrudgingly and you had to keep yourself from grinning.

You opened up your sketchbook to an empty page before handing it over to him, along with a pencil. “Take this and just...go with the flow,” you instructed.

He looks at you like you told him the most insane thing possible.

“You want me to sit here and draw?” he questions in disbelief.

“Mhm,” you said, smiling sheepishly at him. “Just one drawing. It could be of anything you want. A bird. A flower. Even a stick person. I just want you try it out for yourself.”

“I’ve drawn before, you do know that right?” he scoffed, finding the task you had assigned him to be entirely ridiculous.

“Doodling while taking notes in class doesn’t count,” you pointed out.

With a heavy sigh and a roll of his eyes, Draco took the book and pencil from your hands and began to do as he was requested.

It was a funny sight, you admitted to yourself, seeing the boy draw with a frown etched on his face. He looked very unamused at first, but as he continued moving his pencil throughout the page, the frown on his face softened and a more concentrated look falls on his features. You smiled softly to yourself, trying to keep your eyes away from the page he was working on, wanting to see it only when he finished.

After a couple of minutes, Draco cleared his throat and handed the book back to you.

“Personally, I don’t think I did too bad,” he admitted, eyes on the page you were now able to see.

A snake graced the middle of the once empty page and you were surprised to find that it was a very well drawn one. Lips slightly parted in surprise, you noticed he had even shaded in the scales.

“Don’t think you did too bad?” you repeated, eyes taking in the details he was able to add from memory.

Draco immediately frowned once again, taking your tone the wrong way. “Well it’s at least loads better than your pitiful attempts,” he spat out.

At that, you immediately looked up at him, shaking your head. “No, I mean that in a good way. As in you did way better than just ‘not too bad’. You actually did a wonderful job,” you admitted sincerely.

You were aware of Draco’s infamous temper. The way he’d snap at the drop of a pin, especially if it was dropped in a way he didn’t like, had him labeled as a simple hot head by others. And although that could be true, you understood why he reacted in such a way; he was taught his whole life that people could be cruel, so he needed to be cruel first.

You knew all about the Malfoy family, namely Draco’s father, Lucius. You remember the day you went back home after your first year at Hogwarts, how you gushed to your father about your new school and your new friends and the new boy you really wanted to befriend.

You father had recognized the name ‘Malfoy’ immediately, and frowned as he looked at you in concern.

“You have to be careful with that boy. I can’t judge him, because I’ve never met him personally, but if he’s anything like his father, then he’s not someone you want to surround yourself with.”

You were snapped back to reality when Draco spoke once again.

“Really? That good?” he asked, looking his drawing over.

You nodded. “Yes. I guess you found something you’re naturally talented at.”

He looks up at you, expression unreadable. You feel your face warm up at the sudden intimacy you felt, realizing how close he sat next to you and how you could notice the different shades of gray in his eyes.

Clearing your throat, noticing how flustered you were becoming, you closed your sketchbook and put your pencil away. The sound of the pouch zipping fills the silence and you feel even more awkward until Draco finally speaks up.

“Are you going to go on the trip to Hogsmeade tomorrow?” he asked, causing you to turn your attention back to him.

“Oh, umm...yeah. I am,” you answered, attempting to play it cool despite your still blushing self.

“Perfect. You’ll join me then,” he said, standing up and dusting his pants off. Your eyes widened but Draco didn’t acknowledge it, simply stating “I’ll see you tomorrow, Finch,” before exiting the tower.

You remained staring at the spot Draco had been, processing the entirety of your latest exchange, feeling your heart race a little at the realization that he had just formally asked (well, demanded) to hangout tomorrow.

.....

What in Merlin’s beard just happened?

♡

Tag list: @sadgirlnumber92899, @yea-that-potato, @avellanas-nutty-empire

#draco malfoy #harry potter #hufflepuff #slytherin #draco x reader #draco fanfiction #draco imagine #draco x oc #imagine #draco lucius malfoy #draco x y/n #draco x you #draco x hufflepuff!reader #wattpad #aoo3 #harry potter imagine #harry potter fanfiction #draco malfoy fanfiction

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diorchitect · 5 years ago

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Serpentine Pavilions

As you know, since the year 2000, the Serpentine Gallery in London invites a different architect from around the globe to design an annual pavilion set to be built at the entrance/garden of such place. The gallery gives them a budget and total freedom of design, however, it does require them a sitting area to have lectures, eat, contemplate the gardens and so on.

Since I wanted a justification and say why my personal favorite is the best, I decided to rank every one of them. Listen, I have my personal preferences when it comes to architecture but I tried to be a little bit more neutral here.

So here they are, from worst to best:

20. The lounge (2010). Jean Nouvel.

Sir, you were commissioned to design a pavilion; this is a sports bar/lounge area, visitors are feeling excluded. Please, leave the room.

19. The mountain (2004). MVRDV.

These architects ignored their budget and their pavilion was never built; they wanted to cover the gallery under a huge mountain but, why would you persuit that artistic idea when Christo already exists?

18. The tunnel (2015). Selgas Cano.

This tunnel simply goes to nowhere. You enter and there’s not so much to do in there... then you go out.

17. The stone hill (2019). Junya Ishigami.

Half of Ishigami’s idea was borrowed from SAANAS’ pavilion from ten years earlier. But the hillside effect outside and underneath were kind of cute.

16. The theatre (2007). Kjetil Thorsen & Olafur Eliasson.

This was just so… over designed…

15. The chapel (2016), Bjarke Ingels.

This is a great entrance hall to the gallery, I give him that. However, Mr. Bjarke “idea” was not something new, Sou Fujimoto had a similar aproach three years earlier.

14. The old school roof (2005). Alvaro Siza & Edoardo Souto de Moura.

These two were like, “just call the engineer”.

13. The balloon (2006). Rem Koolhaas.

This was one of the few pavilions that didn’t require a huge effort to be built, but it did have an effective impact on the landscape. Take a note, MVRDV.

12. The terrace (2003). Oscar Niemeyer.

Somehow, Oscar Niemeyer made a pavilion about himself… but it was great. A little bit less of its “wine tasting room” vibe would have been great.

11. The donut (2014). Smiljan Radic.

Playful, useful and family friendly.

10. The structure (2002). Toyo Ito.

Toyo Ito said “I’m gonna give you structure, I’m gonna give you views and something for the architecture students to copy over and over again”.

9. The garden (2011). Peter Zumthor.

Zumthor decided that the gallery garders were too sterile, so he gave then an actual garden to contemplate.

8. The mirror (2009). SAANA.

Sejima and Nishizawa know western architects are too invasive, so they tried to deliver the less possible: a roof that hiddens with the reflection of the garden.

7. The Maya ball field (2008). Frank Gehry.

He really paid respect to the gallery behind by making it the pavilion’s focal point. Not to mention the grandstand was used for a great variety of activities.

6. The origami (2001). Daniel Libeskind.

This structure just has so many posibilites. You bring your kids, they play around; you have a conference, you have a shelter, you want a sculputure for your gallery, you got it.

5. The 3D sketch (2013). Sou Fujimoto.

Fujimoto sketched a bunch thin lines for his pavilion, then he explained it to his team and said “I don’t want any strange structural elements to appear and fuck my idea”. And they made it happen.

4. The tent (2000). Zaha Hadid.

This was the first Serpertine Pavilion ever. Actually, the gallery only wanted a tent to celebrate their 30th anniversary but they wanted Hadid to design it. She had a very limited budget but that didn’t interfere to make a statement of her work.

3. The tree (2017). Francis Kéré.

Unlike other architects, Mr. Kéré had a very personal aproach for the pavilion; unlike Ingels, Kéré did have a concept. You see, since he was a child, he and his neighbors use to gather around a big tree and, underneath its shade, do a lot of different activities; social and school activities, even medical. That’s what he wanted the visitors to experience.

2. The excavation (2012). Herzog, de Meuron & Ai Weiwei.

The only pavilion underground, covered by a water mirror, a fountiain; as if they were trying to do a newer version of a classical garden. Just brilliant.

1. The celosía (2018). Frida Escobedo.

Unlike many of her predecessors, Frida Escobedo doesn’t have a particular “style” and her work isn’t very much known outside México. Her pavilion isn’t about her but it shows how great designer she is. It really has every requirement the Serpentine Gallery expects from the commisioners; it’s a bridge to the gallery, it’s a place to be in, it’s an object to be contemplated and to contemplate its sorroundings, it’s an imaginitive montage of simple materials; it is a great piece of architecture.

#architecture #this was fun

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httpheh · 5 years ago

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five times they had an unresolved tension, and that one time it got resolved part 1/? —

Tom is a household name in the modeling industry. Graduated from the prestigious Hogwarts School of Arts, he signed an exclusive contract with the renowned designer Salazar Slytherin, and started walking on London’s Fashion Week.

Ever since then, the model’s face would regularly grace Prophet’s cover, showcasing designs fresh from Slytherin’s sketches. He became everyone’s favorite in less than a year, even Cedric Diggory, who debuted in Ilvermorny’s Winter Collection paled in comparison.

Harry skimmed through the glossy pages of Prophet’s newest issue, barely listening to Hermione’s ramblings about the company’s work ethic. "Really though, Harry. The pressure’s really high. I have to stay until seven in the evening every day to clean up after the photoshoots. And general meeting starts at seven in the morning.”

Despite her protests’, Hermione seemed to be proud of herself for being able to get accepted as an intern in Prophet, which is her lifelong dream ever since she was eleven.

“He’s everywhere I swear.” Harry remarked, staring at Tom’s face on the magazine. Hermione hummed, “He’s Slytherin’s favorite. Shows up in every season of Mosmordre’s look-book,“

"Everyone likes him; Prophet’s sales doubled when he was featured on the cover. Something Slughorn took a mental note of. Our director’s practically head over heels for him.”

Letting out an amused laugh, Harry slide the magazine across the table, giving it back to Hermione.

“Well, at least you got a stable job.” He remarked, mumbling a thanks as a waitress puts his drink on the table. She snorted, “Well, It’s not my fault you decline to intern at Prophet together.“

"My speciality is with nature, not people.” He retorted, pouring too much sugar into his tea.

“And how’s your application to Fantastic Beasts and— What’s the name?“

“Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. Still haven’t got the news. they probably rejected my pictures again.”

Both went silent; Hermione flipping through Prophet and Harry drinking his hot tea, cursing silently as the tea slowly burnt his tongue. “Anyways, how’s Sumatra?” Hermione asked, changing the subject. “Its exotic. My memory card’s full of shades of green up and brown below.”

Harry unzipped his camera bag, revealing a few of his best shots in the tropical forests. Hermione’s mouth gaped in awe, remarking that the view reminds her of the forests’ in Amazon. “With this, Fantastic Beasts have absolutely no reason to reject your pictures. Look at them! I’ll pay for them!“

"Thank you for the mental support, Hermione. But only three freelancers got featured in each issue. I can’t set my hopes too high.”

Hermione made a dismissive gesture, “Nonsense, I would hex anyone who rejects this masterpiece.”

“Neville helped me in most shots though, he ought to get credit for that too.”

“Neville? I heard his pictures got showcased in last month’s exhibition.” Harry’s eyebrows perked, “Really?”

Hermione stared at him, “This is why you got to pay more attention on what’s happening around you. Yes, Neville Longbottom is now an accomplished photographer, probably in process of being a professional and setting up his photo studio. So why don’t you start by interning at Prophet?”

“Like I said, Hermione–”

“I get it,” She interrupted, “It’s a matter of preference, but can’t you start by taking pictures of people? You could imagine them as trees or something.” She suggested.

Harry knew their conversations are always going back to this matter. “People are different, Hermione. I simply prefer nature better.”

“Yes, but one must settle with less if the situation calls for it.”

Hermione has always been a persistent person; he couldn’t blame her, it was what made her top of the class, graduating with perfect scores. “I’ll think about it.” He finally replied dismissively.

Hermione looked as if she wanted to say something, but refrained as she took a sip of her tea, which has been left on the table untouched for a bit too long.

It was seven fifteen in the morning. Harry rubbed his eyes, his hands searching for the familiar thin object resting next to his nightstand.

Wait, he thought. His alarm doesn’t ring until eight-thirty.

Peering at the phone screen, Harry groaned. “’Ello?”

“Harry! Are you free today?” Hermione’s voice resonated across his messy flat. “What?” Yawning as he got out of bed, Harry leans against the wall for support while searching for his spectacles on the floor.

“Prophet’s photographer got sick, the usual fill in is out of the country. Can you fill in instead?”

“Found it!” He mumbled, adjusting his spectacles on his nose. Hermione’s groan could be heard from the line, “You just woke up didn’t you?”

Harry shrugged, “My circadian rhythm is not like the others.”

“Anyways,” Hermione continued, “Can you fill in instead?”

Sandwiching his phone in between his shoulder and his ears, Harry opened the fridge rather hastily, scanning for a bottle of orange juice inside.

“So, I’m a fill in for a fill in?” He confirmed, pouring his orange juice on a tea cup. There was a pause. “You don’t seem delighted.”

“Outstanding deduction, Mr. Holmes” His sarcastic remark earned a light groan from the other line.

“Just a shot, and you’ll be free.” Harry took a shot of his orange juice, wondering how she will react to the new pun he just discovered.

“Interesting, just tell me the time and I’ll be there.”

Harry swore he could hear Hermione giggling. “Brilliant! I need you to be here at seven forty-five.”

And he wondered why he agreed.

Prophet’s headquarters is located in the heart of Diagon Alley, which also happens to be the place where the bloody traffic is. Slamming the taxi door behind him, Harry struggled to get past the sea of people, bumping into at least a dozen of people and more curses being directed at him ( in different languages too!).

The entrance to Prophet requires a thorough body check; his bag was scanned, he had to walked through the x-ray at least three times before he remembered to put his Iphone 4 into the x-ray machine to be scanned.

In the end, the security gave him the Visitor’s ID and told him to wait at the lobby, despite his reason of being the fill in of this fill in for this certain photoshoot. Harry couldn’t blame him; the fact that his reasoning has too few of an information has made him looked suspicious.

“Harry!” A familiar voice shouted, and Harry turned to see his saviour Hermione running towards him. “Quick!” She yanked his wrist, dragging him across the lobby to the elevator. Hermione punched the floor, waiting for the doors to close before saying anything. Harry, who has earned a Doctorate in Reading Hermione’s Body Language, braced for the future attack.

“Fucking Goyle. He must’ve mistaken you as a bloody model up for casting. Now we’re late!” Harry raised his eyebrows.

“A model?” He asked, knowing that Hermione doesn’t like to be interrupted.

“Yes, a model. Look at you, your body is so… petite.“ She retorted. The elevator made a ding! as the doors opened, revealing the busy photoshoot scene.

Harry ignored her last statement, tailing her as she made her way to the casting director, who introduced himself as Armando Dippet and to the Head designer, Salazar Slytherin.

“Now, Mr. Dippet and Slytherin, may I introduce you our new photographer intern , Harry James Potter.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dippet, Mr Slytherin.” Harry said, extending his hand for a handshake.

“Wildlife photographer, are you, M’ boy?” Dippet asked, shaking his hand firmly. Harry froze, “How did you–”

“Miss Granger has referred us to you.” Slytherin supplied, shaking his hand as soon as Dippet lets his hands go.

“It’s not everyday we get a wildlife photographer. I think we could flirt with the idea of having a wildlife photographer in charge of today's photoshoot. What are your thoughts, Slytherin?” Dippet’s voice was calm, yet there was an authoritative aura behind it, Harry observed.

“That would do. After all, I am impressed with how he captures the Sumatran tigers with such precision and beauty. I am looking forward to how he will capture my designs.”

Before Harry could muster a word, Hermione decided to speak up, “Harry is a dear friend of mine, Mr. Slytherin. You do not need to worry, Mosmordre’s look book will surely be a work of art.”

“Then, we will leave you to familiarize yourself to the studio. We will do Polaroid casting first, then Tom at one. Consider yourself part of Prophet’s family now.” Harry forces an awkward acknowledging smile as Dippet patted his back, leaving him with Hermione to check on the designs.

“You could’ve told me the truth!”

“I’m very sorry!”

Both shouted at the same time, ignoring everyone’s curious stare. “I’m very sorry, I’m just so desperate and showed them a couple of pictures you sent me last night and they just.. liked your style?” Hermione’s voice was softer than before, as if trying to not hurt his feelings.

Harry snorted at the thought, “You could, you know, not lie to me.”

Hermione lets out a frustrated groan, “Just help me out, this once. Please.”

#tomarry #model au #harry: nature and wildlife photographer #tom riddle: famous model and rumored to be Slytherin's heir

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meteora-writes · 5 years ago

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We Could Be Perfect One Last Night ch.6

Fandom: Hannibal Pairing: Hannibal Lecter x Will Graham Warnings: Mild Angst, Silly Accents, Snark, Original Characters, More Snark Chapter: 6. We’re Not Celebrities Description: Six days after they arrive at the cabin Hannibal takes a trip to gather more supplies and reaches out to Chiyoh for assistance. Authors Notes: So I was going to add a scene with Jack in this chapter, but it was running long and I scrapped it for now. Hope you all enjoy. Read on AO3

~~~~~ Read Ch.1 ~ Ch.2 ~ Ch.3 ~ Ch.4 ~ Ch.5~~~~~

“You’re sure you want to go alone?” Will asks for the third time since Hannibal announced he would be taking the motorcycle and heading into town to purchase a disposable phone at one of the mini-marts they passed on the way to the cabin six days prior.

After two days of snow and another four days of low temperatures, the weather had finally warmed enough to melt away the majority of the snow and ice that covered the dirt road that connects the cabin back to the highway. It’s a three-mile stretch. And another four to the closest shop. So they’ve had to wait for the weather to be on their side before either of them could attempt to go anywhere.

“Will, you know as well as I that the authorities are likely looking for us. If only one of us goes out at a time we are far less likely to be noticed. I should only be gone a half-hour at most.” Hannibal looks a touch amused by Will’s worries as he buttons the cuffs of his leather jacket. There’s a hint of mirthfulness in his eyes that’s hard to miss.

“Maybe I should go instead. You do have a fairly distinct accent. If you speak around the wrong people they could call the police,” Will finds himself suggesting. In truth, he doesn’t want either of them to go. But they’re running low on food and they need a phone to reach out to Chiyoh sooner than later.

Hannibal chuckles and shakes his head as he finishes buttoning his cuffs and quickly zips his jacket. “I am perfectly capable of concealing my accent when the situation calls for it,” he informs Will in an almost perfect British accent. “Or would you prefer I try to sound more like you, perhaps?” he tries in a more Americanized pronunciation. It doesn’t quite work, though. One would almost think it was a New England accent, except the vowels still sounding too European in pronunciation.

Will can’t help himself when Hannibal tries to imitate an American accent, the urge to mess with the other man is just too strong to resist. “Not bad, cher. Sept I don’t tink you got dem vowels quite right. Might get people askin’ who dat if you not careful now.” The slightly over-exaggerated thick Cajun accent gets a look of clear surprise from Hannibal that has Will trying hard not to bust out laughing by the time he finishes speaking the words. “Mo chagren,” he adds with a grin that pulls painfully at the stitches in his cheek before going on. “I’m from Louisiana. I speak as clear and concisely as I do exactly because I knew no one would take me seriously if I spoke in that dialect or even just that accent this far east.”

“Shame. I would love to hear you speak French more often,” Hannibal laments with a small smile that’s all teasing. It earns him a hint of pink in Will’s cheeks that only makes his smile grow.

“Unfortunately my French is abysmal at best,” Will informs him before clearing his throat a bit awkwardly. “We only ever spoke it when visiting my grandparents and cousins for the holidays, and that was over twenty years ago,” Will adds with a shake of his head as he avoids looking Hannibal in the eyes. “Just, be careful. Okay?”

“Of course.” Is all Hannibal says in return before he heads out the door.

Will watches him take off, not looking away until the motorcycle is out of sight. He knows Hannibal going on this run is necessary. That they need food and that phone. But that doesn’t change the anxiety he feels at Hannibal going without him.

They’re both recovering slowly. Hannibal still can’t stand for too long, but he can do so for long enough that this run shouldn’t be a problem. Part of Will worries it’ll be too much, but he trusts Hannibal to know his own limits. As for Will, he still can’t get up from a horizontal or even a sitting position without his head feeling like it’s going to explode, which is apparently common for skull fractures. He’ll take that over the irritating feel of stitches in his mouth any day.

The only thing that’s helped him stay sane, aside from talking with Hannibal about nothing important, is the tackle box of fishing supplies he found in the rafters on the second day of the storm. There were enough supplies inside for him to make a dozen lures with plenty of odds and ends to spare. He would have made more, but without his glasses or a magnifying glass to help him work on the smaller details, he’s been working at a snail’s pace.

He eyes the lures where they rest on the wooden table in the center of the room. Hannibal had taken to watching him work from the couch more often than not, usually with that notebook in his lap as he continued to sketch. Will didn’t ask what he was sketching after the first day. He figures it’s a toss-up between Will being his continued subject, or he’s drawing places he’s been or other people he’s seen.

The notebook rests beside the tackle box. It’s open. Page showing a half-drawn landscape that Will doesn’t recognize. Curiosity gets the better of him after a moment and he picks the book up to get a closer look.

It’s a meadow by a stream. Dozens of tiny flowers stretching out over the page until they meet a rocky riverbed. The rocks and pebbles have the most detail so far. The flowers only faint outlines. The detail of the river is what really surprises Will. It has shading to it that in the right light makes it look like the water is moving.

After a moment, he flips the page back, wondering what else Hannibal could have been drawing these past few days.

Sure enough, there are a few sketches of Will in with various cities and landscapes. Not all are finished, like his inspiration shifted mid drawing and he had to move on to something else until later.

The drawing Hannibal made their first night in the cabin has Will sitting down and studying it in awe. It’s the most detailed of the ones in the book. Capturing even the smallest details of the setting. The wrinkles in the shirt Will wore that was too big for him. The bit of torn leather on the back of the couch he had been tugging at mindlessly. The shadows cast by the firelight to his back. Even the faint bruises and scrapes on his hands and arms are there.

Despite it being a portrait of himself, Will feels like he’s invading Hannibal’s privacy looking at it like this. He flips the book closed and sets it down beside the tackle box once more before running his hands through his shaggy brown curls. He suddenly feels like the cabin is too small. Like he needs to get out.

He throws on his boots and jacket quickly, not bothering with gloves or any other layers to help him keep warm in his rush to just get up and go.

It’s early afternoon. Sun warm in the sky above. But it’s still only in the forties out and there’s a bit of a breeze that makes it feel just as cold as it actually is. Will feels like the wind cuts right through him the minute he steps out into it. It’s a welcome sensation. Letting him draw a deep breath in through his nose that fills his lungs and calms his nerves.

There’s a shed behind the cabin. Hannibal had moved the motorcycle in there before the storm hit. Will hasn’t taken a look inside before now and he’s a bit disappointed by its contents. There isn’t much to be found. Some old tools, metal buckets, a large hatchet, and a rusty jerry can.

Eyeing the hatchet a moment, Will grabs it and turns to the stack of wood beside the house. It’s mostly down to larger pieces. Ones that need splitting. Hannibal had said they would be fine for a while with what was already broken down. But Will doubts it, eyeing the pile now for himself.

It’s stupid, he knows it is. But he needs to do something with himself. So, he grabs a piece of wood, gets it set out on a nearby stump that’s clearly where the previous occupants of the cabin cut wood before, and swings.

His shoulder protests the action. Arm twitching at the use of muscles and tendons that aren’t ready for this kind of movement. The pain it causes is grounding, though. So, he shakes the ax free from where it stuck in the wood, fixes it’s position on the stump, and swings again. This time cutting the wood clean through the center. The pieces fall to either side of the stump, clattering on the frozen ground.

“Still got it…” Will mutters to himself before he picks the pieces up and tosses them onto the short end of the pile beside the house. Hannibal will likely give him hell for this when he returns. But that’s a problem for later. He sets up the next piece of wood with a small smile to himself and gets ready for a workout.

~~~~~

The mini-mart is busy when Hannibal pulls up and parks on the far side of the lot. It’s a relief. Busy shops mean less likelihood of being noticed unless you act out of the ordinary. One of the things he prides himself on is his ability to act normal even in the most unusual of circumstances.

There are a few old bikers in the lot. Talking outside the front door as they smoke cigarettes and stand around their bikes. One spot Hannibal as he sets his helmet on the handlebars of his bike and grins.

“Nice ride,” the older man calls out as he nods to the motorcycle beside Hannibal.

“Thanks,” Hannibal calls back, taking care with how he pronounces the word to make it sound more Americanized. “Nice jacket,” he adds when he notices the various patches on the jacket denoting the man as being part of a group that he’s read about in news articles that helps protect children that were victims of abuse. He may find the culture to be crude, but what they do with their time is admirable.

The biker grins at the compliment, sporting a few missing and broken teeth that look like the guy might have lost in an accident at some point. Other than that they don’t say anything and neither does his buddies as Hannibal walks past.

The shop is a decent size on the inside. Sporting a liquor section and impressive deli and fresh food area. It’s almost all junk. But it has vegetables and fruit, of which Hannibal is grateful. He grabs a basket and makes a b-line for the small aisle with the disposable phones and other odds and ends first.

He scans over the tops of the shelves as he walks, observing his surroundings and the other patrons as he starts filling the basket with goods. There are three cashiers working. Half a dozen other customers milling about, two more talking by the soda fountain in the back of the deli area, and another three at the registers buying whatever it is they came to buy.

Nobody pays anybody else any mind. Even the workers seem disinterested in everyone else. It’s reassuring. As is the fact that he only sees a single security camera and it’s pointed at the registers. He can easily stand so that his face isn’t in view and just make it look like he’s simply distracted.

There’s a stack of newspapers by the case the freshly made sandwiches are kept in, and Hannibal grabs one of each along with a few days worth of fruit and sandwiches. He’s already grabbed them some more drinks, not trusting the water from the well and not wanting to have to boil it every time they need some. And much as he dislikes it, he also grabbed some more cans of soup.

Thankfully, though, this shop also had a dairy case with eggs and breakfast meats inside, which means he can cook a real meal for a change. In the end, he has much more than he intended to buy. But he wants to be able to make at least a few meals that aren’t made from cans and boxes or were pre-made by someone in a hairnet.

“Feeding an army?” the cashier asks as she begins to ring up and bag everything. She’s in her late teens, clearly bored and not even really paying attention as she works. For a second it strikes Hannibal how much she looks like Abigail and he has to shake the thought off before he can say anything.

“Lost power in that storm. Need some things to hold us over until they get it up and running again,” Hannibal explains in as dismissive a tone as possible while maintaining the accent he’s going for.

“You must live pretty far out if you don’t have power back yet,” she notes, still not really paying him any mind.

That makes Hannibal huff a laugh and he almost turns to face her fully but stops himself so his face isn’t in view of the camera. He doesn’t answer her, and the girl doesn’t say anything else until everything is run up and bagged.

He pays her and hooks the various plastic bags over his arms before heading back outside.

The bikers are still standing around chatting, several looking over to give him a nod of approval for his choice of a ride once more as he heads to his bike and gets ready to leave.

The ride back is faster than his ride out. Anxious to get back to Will and to take a look at the papers he picked up. He also grabbed the more expensive disposable phone the shop had on the shelf. It’s a smartphone with internet capabilities. One he hopes will still have a decent connection this far from town. He would very much like to see what Freddie Lounds has written about himself and Will at this point.

The sight he arrived back to is an unexpected one.

Will is outside. Jacket off and sleeves of his dark red flannel shirt rolled up his forearms as he chops wood beside the cabin. He’s been at it for a while. Damp curls sticking to his forehead with sweat. He doesn’t pause in his work even as Hannibal pulls up a few feet away and parks the bike.

“You’ll tear your stitches,” Hannibal chides gently as he removes his helmet and studies Will with a tilt of his head.

“My stitches are fine,” Will huffs out as he swings the ax once more. He cuts clean through the log in one swing. His face is a mask of focus as he grabs the next piece and prepares to swing again like he isn’t recovering from multiple stab wounds and likely in a great deal of pain.

“Feeling a bit of cabin fever?” The question makes Will stop and tip his head back as if to look to the heavens and ask why he’s chosen to be with this man.

“I just needed some air,” Will explains with a shake of his head before laying the hatchet beside the tree stump he’s been using as a chopping block. “I take it your shopping trip went well?”

Hannibal nods as he finally climbs off the bike and grabs the plastic bags from where he had slung them over the handlebars. “It did,” he agrees as he holds a bag out of Will to carry. He takes it readily and follows Hannibal inside the cabin a moment later.

“Did you buy every paper in the store?” Will asks as he looks inside the bag. There are four different major newspapers, three local printings by smaller companies, and a single tabloid tucked under the cellphone and international phone card Hannibal had grabbed.

“I was curious to see what has been going on for the past several days,” Hannibal notes as he sets the two bags containing groceries on the small sideboard by the stove. “And I thought the reading material might be appreciated.”

Will snorts a laugh at that but says nothing as he steps up beside Hannibal, shooing him away to sit while Will puts things away.

Part of him wants to protest and assist in putting away their things, but he already feels his energy leaving him, so Hannibal goes and hangs up his jacket before taking his usual seat at the table. The bag with the phone and papers sits on the floor next to his chair, and he picks it up, pulling the phone from inside to begin removing it from its packaging.

“Is there anything in particular that I should ask Chiyoh to acquire for you while she’s making preparations for us?” Hannibal asks once he has the phone powered on and is waiting for the activation signal to go through.

Will glances over his shoulder at Hannibal from his place kneeling in front of the mini-fridge. “A pair of glasses? It’s going to be hard to read navigation charts without them,” It’s a minor inconvenience, but still one he would rather not deal with. He gets a migraine if he tries to read for too long without his glasses. He’s already got a near-constant one thanks to the fracture in his skull from being stabbed.

Humming his understanding, Hannibal looks back to the phone in his hands. He was never a fan of mobile phones. Too easy to track a person by or interrupt one's plans. At the moment, however, he sees it as a necessity they have to hold onto, at least if he’s able to contact Chiyoh.

The number he calls once the phone is activated is one he’s had memorized for ages. It goes to a small shop in England that an old family friend of his aunt owns. It’s run by her granddaughter now. She’s well aware of who Hannibal is and what he’s done. She only owns the shop now because of an unfortunate incident with her grandfather some ten years ago that left him comatose and her and her grandmother free of his abuse for the first time in their lives.

“Lorelai’s Sweets, how can I help you?” A familiar, warm alto voice answers after two rings.

“Hello, Lori,” he greets back, his own tone just as warm. She was always a kind girl and it seems that hasn’t changed in the years since he saw her last.

Will pauses in his putting away of their supplies to look over at Hannibal as he speaks on the phone. Clearly a bit confused by Hannibal greeting someone that isn’t Chiyoh.

“Hanni! Oh, thank goodness you’re alive! They said on the news that you and that former special agent friend of yours had drowned after escaping and killing the Red Dragon!” The relief in her voice is oddly comforting. “Are you alright? What can I do for you, love?”

A small smile tugs at his lips over her concern. “A bit inconvenienced, but otherwise alright, thank you for asking. I’m calling because I need to reach Chiyoh, have the two of you stayed in contact?”

“Chiyoh? Oh, yes! She started coming round to visit just after you turned yourself in to the authorities. She was here for one of her visits just last week, in fact. Left the day you escaped. I believe she’s in Maryland right now,” Lori explains as she shuffles about the shop, no doubt in the process of closing for the evening since there is a five hour time difference between the east coast and London.

“Wonderful. I suspect I know where she is, then. Thank you for your help, Lori. I’ll call again if I require any further assistance in locating her.” He doesn’t think that will be necessary, though. If Chiyoh is in Maryland waiting to hear from him, she’s likely in the small house he set up in her name by Snow Hill. It’s over two hours drive from where they are now. Neither he nor Will is up for that in their current condition, so he’ll have to hope she answers.

“You’re welcome, Hannibal. And please, give me a call to let me know how you’re doing once in a while, would you?”

“I will. Thank you again for your help, Lori. Goodbye.” She says her goodbyes in return and with that, they both hang up.

Will is watching him when Hannibal turns his head, and Hannibal raises an eyebrow in question as he dials the number to where he believes Chiyoh to be located. The line rings once then goes to an automated voicemail box. “Hello, Chiyoh. Please call me when you receive this message.” he doesn’t leave the number because he knows she has callerID setup and the cheap mobile phone isn’t a private number.

“That’s it?” Will asks once Hannibal has hung up and set the phone down on the table.

“That’s it,” Hannibal reiterates before reaching for the first of the papers he had purchased. “We made international news, it would seem. It was reported that we drown together after killing our Dragon,” he informs Will as he unfolds the paper and skims the headlines.

“Seriously? Somebody higher up in the FBI had to have made that call. There’s no way that Jack would declare us dead without physical evidence,” Will balks as he closes the mini-fridge and moves to join Hannibal at the table. He ends up grabbing one of the other papers and starting to skim for any articles about the two of them as Hannibal starts reading his own paper from the beginning.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps they declared us dead in the hopes we would become careless and slip up in the belief that they are no longer looking for us.” He doesn’t honestly believe that. But it wouldn’t surprise him if somebody other than Jack was pulling the strings in the hopes that would be the case. “Either way it seems a bit foolish on their part.”

By the time Will has checked the last paper, Hannibal has finished reading the first one in its entirety. He quirks a brow at Will upon seeing the papers strewn haphazardly across the table.

“All these papers and there were only two articles about us,” Will notes as he folds one paper over to show a small article about how the search for their bodies is to be called off if they aren’t found the following day. The other article being in the paper Hannibal read, which was more substantial. Talking about the Chesapeake Ripper and former professor from the FBI academy at Quantico who took on the Red Dragon and lost their lives in the process of ending his murder spree.

“We’re not celebrities, Will. We spark and fade into obscurity, just as everyone else does,” Hannibal says as he folds his paper and sets it atop the messy pile Will has made of the others.

“That’s not as comforting as you think,” Will says with a sigh as he slouches in his chair a bit. His gaze drifts over to the fireplace, which needs lighting soon. The sun is starting to set and the cabin is growing colder.

“Operating under the assumption that neither of us survived so soon after our fall would imply that they found some kind of evidence to suggest as much,” Hannibal suggests as he watches Will get up and move to get a fire going.

Will pauses in front of the fireplace, hand hovering over a piece of wood as his brow furrows. He lets his hand drop to his side and closes his eyes in a way that Hannibal hasn’t seen in years but recognizes immediately. He’s recreating the scene in his mind. Using his memories of the night to reconstruct the scene.

“The camera,” Will eventually says. “It fell over sometime after he attacked me and left you alone inside the house. It was on the floor facing outside when we were fighting Dolarhyde. It likely caught most, if not all, of the fight. That combined with the sheer amount of blood we both lost at the scene and the bloody footprints we left leading up to the edge showing we fell from the bluffs would give enough evidence to suggest we didn’t survive.” His eyes are closed the entire time he speaks, head tilting and brow furrowing further as he relives the event in his mind. Blood spraying behind his eyelids as they move in almost a dance with the other man before it ends in his death.

“I knocked the camera over while getting to my feet,” Hannibal clarifies, causing Will to open his eyes and look over at him.

“You wanted it to record us,” Will realizes then, eyes going a bit narrow as he studies Hannibal. “You wanted there to be evidence of what happened with him.”

“How else would we prove you were defending yourself?” Hannibal counters easily. “I confess I had initially thought you would take out your gun and shoot him when given the opportunity. Play the part of the special agent doing his duty to stop a madman.”

Will snorts indignantly at that and turns his attention back to getting a fire started. “After everything we’ve been through, you really thought that was what I would do?”

“Three years is a long time to be apart from someone, Will. People change. You’ve changed, in some ways. I hold no illusions of knowing who you are anymore,” Hannibal says almost softly as he reaches out and grabs his notebook and pencil. He flips the book open to the half-finished meadow, eyes roaming over it a moment before he starts working on the flowers.

Will’s shoulders visibly sag as he lets his head drop forward. His eyes closing as he takes a deep breath. “I’m exactly who I’ve always been, Hannibal. Who you helped me to become. The only difference is that now...Now I’ve stopped fighting my true nature.”

When Hannibal looks over, Will is looking back. Blue eyes locking with amber brown in the faint light of the newly lit fire. “And that nature would be?”

To his credit, Will looks only momentarily annoyed by the question. “The nature that drives me to gut a man with his own knife rather than shoot him like any ordinary ex-cop with a firearm on him would have.”

Hannibal can’t help the genuine smile that breaks out at Will’s choice of words. “Do you regret your actions that night?”

“No.” Will doesn’t hesitate in answering. “I don’t regret anything about that night,” he adds before turning his gaze back to the fire.

Hannibal almost doesn’t believe that. Almost. The look in Will’s eyes as he turns away is clear. He doesn’t regret that night. He might be struggling with leaving the life he had and the family he built. But he doesn’t regret letting himself be who he really is for once. It leaves Hannibal feeling reassured. Content even. Knowing that Will isn’t running away from this. From him.

They’re finally beginning to see one another as Hannibal had once hoped they always would. As equals who share an understanding of one another and a taste for the beauty of blood and the suffering of those who are less than they are.

His mind wanders to Bedelia and Jack. To what kind of beauty he and Will could create from them. It sends a pleasant shiver down his spine imagining Will gutting Jack like he had gutted their Dragon. He’ll have to share that thought when the time comes for them to pay the man a visit. But for now, he’s content to simply imagine and enjoy the glow of the fire while Will feeds the flames and hums softly to himself. Now is a time for rest and recovery. Bloodshed and revenge can wait until another day.

Reach Chapter 7

#hannibal #hannigram #hannibal lecter #will graham #hannibal x will #will x hannibal #hannibal lecter x will graham #will graham x hannibal #we could be perfect one last night #angst #snark #humor #murder husbands

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whatdoesshedotothem · 4 years ago

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Saturday 26 May 1838

12 ¼

fine morning F61 ½° at 8 ½ am A- went to the cathedral about 8 or after to sketch the interior and returned at 9 35 – I sat writing till 10 – then breakfast – changed our room – from the small one to the next adjoining a large very good room and breakfasting and moving our things till 12 – our garçon Paul Voisin a nice civil good countenanced unmarried aetatis 31 man from Lyons – does not like here – would be glad to be in a private house again – would be glad to go with us – lived 15 years with la marquise de Montague – was then in the army – then not getting a good place at Lyons came to Paris and from there here – in bed at 12 or 2 and up at 4 – so hard a place, nobody could stay long – he makes 800fr. a year – but would rather have less in a different place – had 350 fr. a year with the marquise de M- and livery – she lived in the r. de la université, but is not now in Paris – lives in the country – A- and I out at 12 35 – took a commissionaire to shew us the way, and then sent him home – Mr. Mumm or somebody, a very civil young man, protestant it seemed, and speaking English very fairly – a German shewed us over the cellars, and afterwards shewed us into a large good salon, and gave us champagne and biscuits – the wine Mousseux and very fair but not so good as Moets’ of Epernay in 1833. should I have as good of Moet at 3/. a bottle? ordered a dozen of his 1ere qualité at 4/50 per bottle to be sent off on Monday and would be in Paris on Tuesday or Wednesday to my address rue St. Victor n° 27 à Paris – thought we might get this dozen over to England for Lady Stuart – en petite cadeau – about an hour at the cellars (at Mr. Mumms’) underground and above – 3 stories of cellars to the depth of 36 to 40 ft. ventilated by grates communicating from the bottom cellar to the top – each story divided into separate vaults perhaps the loftiest 7 or 8ft. high in the centre – perhaps 4 or 5 yards wide and 20+ long – in the lowest story 3 men corking – one filling up the bottles – another putting in the cork, and driving it down with a machine (has only had it about 15 months) on the principle of a corn or button-stamping machine, and the 3rd man tying down the corks, (the tightness gained by a small steel thing round which the string is turned and held fast while the other end is pulled tight) – It is not long since everybody left off gaudon (rosin) and covered the corks with lead-paper – a great improvement

Monday 28 May 1838. no good wine in champagne says our landlord of the Ecu at Epernay since the year 1834.

asked for champagne tranquille – cannot have it now – not till next year – not ripe enough now – that of 1834 will not be ripe till next year – taken with the double-incline clearing racks the bottles ranged in an angle = about 25°? require turning twice a day for 2 or 3 weeks till all the sediment has sunk down to the cork – then the cork taken out (a difficult operation saw it done) and with the cork out gushes the sediment in the froth that escapes and the bottle being refilled is immediately re-corked – vintage in October – wine remains in cash till April May or June – about 6 months – Mr. Mumm has no vineyards of his own – buys the grapes – shewed us his great ton = 19,000 bottles = 70 such casks as we saw lying about – sends wine to America in boxes containing 12 bottles and 50 ditto has a house in London, Francfort and Cologne – Inquired respecting the ventilation of cellars – he said wine should have good pure air – Madeira should be kept warm and may do without air, but good air cannot do it any harm if the temperature be attended to – the breakage of champagne = 50p.c. the time of year now coming on – best to order champagne for a years’ consumption – should not be kept too long – he owned that the Bordeaux wines (Claret) for the English market were mixed with hermitage and brandy – on leaving Mr. Mumms’ at 1 55 sauntered in the little Jardin des Plantes – nothing particular in it – 2 or 3 little serres, not much in them – then to the Cours the very nice shaded promenades – then Champs Elysées of Rheims – very pretty cool and pleasant (hot and very fine sun today) sat there writing in pencil in my rough note book all the above of today till now 2 ¾ - and then to the cemetery close by – i.e. close by the Porte de Mars leading to Flanders (the gate by which we entered yesterday) and the ‘Mission’ i.e. croix de la mission erected in 1825, and now turned to a monument to the memory of the brave who died fighting for the liberty of France (viz. the revolutions of the 3 days of July 1830) – sometime in the cemetery spite of boiling sun – among the tombeaux and epitaphs one of the latter by a father to the memory of his daughter, Marie Antoniette Sophie l’Inglois decêdée Thursday 5 December 1822 dans sa 21me année – after 10 foregoing lines ends thus

‘ô mon chere enfant, attends en paix

ce père malheureux ! attends-le sous cette terre

Qui d’après un homme religieux et sensible,

‘n’est que la cendre des morts pétrie avec les larmes

de vivans’ pretty idea

not aware at this moment that the ancien porte de Mars (arc de triomphe of the Romans) was so near

from the cemetery thro’ the streets and marché to the palais archiépiscopale

the archbishop M. le cardinal de Couci set off to Paris a day or 2 before the outburst of the revolution of July 1830, and has never been here since – at Goritz with the ex-royal family – the bishop of Numidie does the duties of the archbishop – the archbishop much regretted – a very good man – did a great deal of good –the palais worth seeing the grande salle surrounded by the pictures of the king crowned here from Clavis downwards very handsome – pity that damp is spoiling some of the pictures e.g. Louis XVI. at the end of the salle – Charles X. taken away – the picture still in the palais but his place in the salle vacant, and several fleurs de lis here and there defaced – (as also the fleurs de lis on the shield of Louis 15 in the Place royale – how puerile!) – the grande salle 130x36 pieds and height = about 36 pieds up to the square – ceiling domed – large poutres (beams) across the room partly gilt with 2 rings in each beam towards the side of the room for suspending 2 chandeliers – 4 windows on each side the great entrance door by flight of steps from without – 4 doors on the opposite side of the room – the great fire-place at the end of the room and over it St. Remy crowning Clovis – shewn into what Charles x intended turning into the chapel – the painted glass windows put in – but all stopt by the revolution – this place was the palais de justice after the revolution of 1789 and 3 stories of prisonniers were in this very spot – the duke of Orelans was lately at our hotel (the Lyon d’or) but did not see the Palace – no! said I, he is still a Bourbon, and the sight could not be agreeable – from here went home at 4 ½ for A- to have wine and biscuit and then out again at 4 52 and off to the church of St. Remy – a 20 minutes walk and there at 5 ¼ - under repair – expected to be done in 2 years from this time – very curious old church – the whole of the nave boarded off – had been new roofed and now full of workmen – 2 stories of double aisle round the apsis and choir and a narrow gallery above the upper story immediately under the painted windows – do not remember to have seen this sort of 2 storied double-aisle – went up to the upper story – same dimensions apparently even as high as the story below – the vitreaux – (painted glass) – very ancient – date not known – supposed to be as old as the church – evidently very ancient – all the ceilings of aisles and choir stone-work plastered and painted in imitation of brick-work – the new vaulting (new roof of the nave) done in wood – the old stone roof too heavy on the walls – the 2 stories of double aisle run all round the nave too – see as we return, that the new roof is not quite so steep as the old one – as seen from the old walls of the town the eves are all in one line but the ridge of the old roof of the choir is about 3ft. higher than the ridge of the new roof of the nave – just peeped into the nave after having seen the high altar and chasse containing the relies of St. Remy – the chasse of solid silver before the revolution of 1789 – now of cuivre argenté – the relies exposed to the faithful

SH:7/ML/E/21/0110

for 9 days in October every year – the figures round the high altar not finished sculptured at the back because stood originally against a wall – done under the orders of a cardinal of Lorraine 300 or 400 years ago – interesting as representing in marble statues the 6 ecclesiastical and 6 lay paises de France and their officers who assisted at the sacres (coronations) of the kings of France – looking towards the altar

the left

‘Duke de Bourgogne’ holding the crown

D. de Normandie – a standard

D. de Aquitaine – a standard

Comte ‘de champagne’ – a standard

C. de Flandre – the sword

C. de Toulouse – the spurs

the right

archduke de Rheims holding sa croix

Ev. duke de Laon – a crosier et l’ampoule

Ev. d. de Langres – a crosier et containing the oil and sceptre

Ev. comte de Beauvais – a crosier

Ev. c. de Chalons – a crosier and the ring

Ev. c. de Noyon – a crosier et la selle the kings’s saddle

immediately at the back of the altar in the space between the last Evêque and last court is a St. Remy seated in his archiepiscopal robes and mitre teaching Clovis kneeling at his feel and a Diacre or assistant holding the cosier and an open book – Left the church (much interested) at 6 20 – sauntered back along the boulevard very lately planted with young elms – cart road in the middle and 2 allées (promenades) (old rampart) the Vesle river running close along its foot on the other side the old wall – on our right towards the town, great deal of garden ground – pépinières and sale vegetable gardens – delighted with our walk back – nowhere such good views of the exterior of the cathedral – too short – too lumping as a whole – wants the lantern tower the lengthiness of York minster, and its freedom from flying buttresses at the east end which look like steps to graduate the high roof gently down to the ground – the effect of this is bad – as if the building could not support its height at that end – never travel without a view of York minster – take it all in all, has it an equal in the world? when very near our hotel at 7 the light so beautiful on the cathedral turned into a courtyard for a better view – the gentleman of the house civilly asked us in and the wife shewed us in the garden – she said the effect would be still better in about an hour – she regretted the great numeros of pigeons jackdaws, crows etc that inhabited the exterior of the building – to us these birds give life to the scene and improve the picturesque – she said the crows assembled on the wire all along the ridge of the roof so as sometimes to form an almost continuous line from end to end, and all regularly flew away to les champs at 9pm – as good as a clock for 9pm we inquired about Mr. Mumm as to the street in which he lived – she did not know the name – supposed we had seen the cellars of Mr. Muller or Mr. Roeder (a German we said he spoke English well and was a protestant) – asked who was really the most renommé négociant en vins in Reims – Madame Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin- I said the town was full of dyers – yes! but only 6 or 7 great dyers in the town – It turned out her husband was a dyer and also a wine merchant – she said we ought to see les filatures en laine (woollen spinning mills) – it seems they have power looms here – she says trade has been very bad, but is now reviving or revived and pretty goof again – Had ordered dinner at 7 – not in till 7 ½ - dinner immediately but the lateness an excuse for a bad dinner – no épinards – nothing left – I sent for one mutton cutlet for I had literally nothing but cold fish not eating the bit of beef or the little redone overdone poulet or asparagus – sat over dinner and dessert till 10 – then wrote till 11 – very fine day – F67° at 11 pm

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aridoesart · 5 years ago

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Love Yourself Challenge

Tagged by awesome @marvilus73, thank you so much for thinking about me and my stuffs!

Rules: Time to show yourself some love! Link or post 5 of your favorite works (art, writing, edits…whatever!) from the last year below. Then share the love and tag some of your favorite creators.

I’ll tag my these awesome people: @guidethisonekalahira, @iawv, @shaiandra, @forevervobla, @maxrev, @lavellanlove, @greyias. Please share whatever you’ve created and proud of, no limits. If I didn’t mention people, and you’d still like to do it, please do, and tag me as well)

I have a bad case of OCD, and don’t draw nearly as much as I’d like to, but here are some of my favorites. Oldest to newest.

1. Another Baldur’s Gate piece - Ari Throne of Bhaal portrait. There are couple of things I am proud of in this: 1. getting her to look exactly how I wanted - face, armor, hair, badassery. I am also using it in the game and it fits imo. 2. Trying a slightly different painting method and adding back light, shading front, making it slightly more... solid. 3. I’ve used a brush that I’ve created myself based on one of my favorite comic artists, and I really like the results. Come to think of it I need to recreate it as I’ve lost it when switching PS versions.

2. Miraluka twins painting for SWTOR. My two twins that I love and that got me to complete two of my least favorite stories. Couple of things of pride: 1. Same brush as above that I really enjoy the style of. 2. Completing full characters for the first time. Technically my Sith Warriors were first, but this style/painting is one of the two styles I strive for. 3. I think they just look really cool. 4. Lightsabers!! :3

3. My first SWTOR commission. I am not too fond of the comic-style with lineart, but I am happy with the amount of time and detail I’ve put in it - I’ve basically first sketched all the details, then drew line art, then colored with flat colors, and THEN added the highlights, shadows, and other colors. Tumblr kills the resolution but I’ve spent a looong time on this painting and it paid off. Currently the person who commissioned it has it on their lockscreen. <3

4. This was done just yesterday actually - An Ergo Proxy screencap repaint. Things I am proud of: 1. My first even screencap repaint. 2. I’ve done a full-scale background. 3. One of the two styles I am trying to get better at. 4. One of my favorite anime of all time and I am happy I was finally able to give it due love, now its only up from here :3. 5. Took me about 5-6 hours instead of days that these things normally take me. 6. I eyeball everything from colors to composition and I think it turned out fairly close.

5. Some of my Arcana fan art. This is unfinished and I am planning to add/fine tune a lot of things, but I am proud of it being an original piece, no repaint, and also a full background. Also its been a while since I’ve drawn any kind of romantic couple so its been liberating. :3

#my art #love yourself #challenge #love yourself challenge #art #long post

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missholoska · 5 years ago

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Have you ever considered making a YouTube channel? I would love to see the process of making your art!

I do think it’d be nice to make speedpaints but I currently don’t have any kind of video recording or editing programs with which to make them, ahah… also I can’t imagine anyone wanting to watch a speedpaint without some music on said video, and there is the small issue of youtube and copyright and all the songs I like presumably being Very Copyrighted

so it’s not a possibility I’d write off forever, but I don’t know how I’d make it happen right now :’>

but if it’s my art process you’re interested in, I can at least go through that step-by-step with some screenshots!

step 1: draft! usually either a very tiny chibi or barely more than a stick figure, my art always starts like this so I can figure out the pose without spending like an hour on a full-sized sketch that doesn’t even work in the end

this then gets resized to whatever size I want the final picture to be:

drawing at that size usually means the anatomy is pretty wonky though, and the lines are too thick and blurry to be much help for the actual lineart. if a background is vital to the whole piece it’ll get drafted here too, but with space backgrounds like in this I can just fit it in around the characters. (that’s generally terrible art advice though, please do not do as I do :’D)

step 2: sketch! still very rough, but a lot easier to work with later. I do anatomy sketches as I go but there’s rarely any need to keep those layers

I don’t usually “colour” sketches like this but knowing I’d be sharing this I wanted to make it more readable, since this is still what I would consider an unpresentable mess not worth posting uvu;;

(also if I’m doodling, this part sorta gets skipped in favour of just letting the lines be a bit sketchier and rougher than usual)

step 3: lineart! literally the worst part always.

it’s worth it in the end, but… yeah this isn’t ever the point where I’m like “yes this is a Good Picture that I Will Be Happy With :)”

(I do lineart with SAI’s default pencil brush at a size of 3 to 5, opacity around 75%, if that’s of any interest)

step 4: flat colours! I have probably the slowest possible way of doing this, but after how tiring lineart is I find it pretty relaxing taking my time filling each colour in under the lines. every individual colour gets its own layer so they can all be shaded individually too

if I’ve drawn the same character in that same outfit before this is also where I’ll do the line colours, but those rely on being darker than the shading of each colour, so for a character or outfit I’ve not drawn before that can’t be done until after the shading. fortunately not the case here!

generally shading would be next, but there also comes a point where I have deal with the background now or I’ll be even more frustrated by it later, so - step ???: background! whether I do it lined or lineless pretty much just depends on if there’s any straight lines involved

…backgrounds are kinda too individual to explain in general, but for this specific one all the starry details are luminosity layers. stars are done with this brush but I do quite a bit of erasing and hand-drawing stars too, and I use SAI’s default brush set to spread for galaxies

step 5: shading! aka the best part, the point where I go “oh hey this looks decent actually. when did that happen”

my usual shading style is every colour gets 2 darker shades and 1 lighter shade, each shade getting its own clipping layer attached to each colour. this was more obvious when I used to cel shade but soft shading makes my art look so much better ahah

step 6: layer effects! multiply and luminosity layers have been my go-to for the past 4 years, but I can’t believe I only realised how good overlay layers are in the last year and a half. they’re so good

here’s the specific effects being used here:

aaand step 7: final touches! usually consists of any glowy outlines, text or things that need blurring in photoshop, a final luminosity layer at around 10 to 20% opacity for extra highlights (especially needed for dark scenes like this, those darker layer effects tend to make the regular highlights from the shading less vibrant), slap a watermark on there and call it done

and then you’re ready for step 8: spend an hour staring at every pixel for mistakes, before spending another hour fighting the anxiety about posting it

bonus: even though I can’t make a speedpaint I can throw all those screenshots into a poor quality gif for you to watch, at least!

one final thing I can mention: not including the draft and sketch layers or all the parts of the advent calendar windows, just the finished art itself - this is made up of 102 layers. and that’s with me merging a lot of layers because SAI has a layer limit and takes an eternity to save if there are too many. people who can draw a whole piece on a single layer confuse and frighten me

#anonymous #holoskart asks #holoskart rambles #honestly my art process is just a bunch of weird habits I wouldn't recommend imitating :'D but I hope this is interesting enough??#also sorry for taking a while to answer this! I probably could've used a piece I'd already finished to explain all this #but it seemed better to work on something with the intention of showing each part of it #long post //#wip

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yuumi0035 · 5 years ago

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Yuumi’s art process (with pics!)

This is how I go about doing the art palettes, and generally how I do art (specially on lose, not so long pieces such as these). I’ll breakdown the process under the cut so I don’t spam people’s timelines (´･ω･`)

I was going to put these final advises at the very end but someone else might make use of these instead of going through the whole thing so here:

Important things to keep in mind in case you’re learning and actually think I’m worth being listened:

References are GOOD. No one is perfect and no one knows how to draw stuff from their memory so go google weird things, Google-sensei won’t judge. Hopefully. (else set your navigation on private).

Brushes and whatnot don’t make the artist, but it sure as hell help you feel like you’re doing what you like or not. I can’t stress enough how many times I’ve just not finished works because my brushes felt “off”.

Posemaniacs is very good for both anatomy and speed practise (I’m aware I’m really fast compared to my fellow artist friends but by no means it’s a standard, I just got used to work fast uwu)

Be careful with your wrist!!! use your whole arm when drawing!! and also T a k e · b r e a k s.

Art block is a bitch and strikes anyone. I’m usually artblocked but if you find something you’re passionate about go draw that, whatever it is. (I hadn’t consistently drawn in p much 5 years after college and thanks to MLB season 3 here I am LOL)

And now for the actual breakdown:

Step 1: Sketch

My first step is the sketch, which some of you might think “but it’s SO CLEAN!!”, yes, sometimes I leave my sketches as lines and polish them a bit. Anyways, these is what my sketch looks like and next an important thing:

...which is the 2/3 rule! Photoshop blabbery ahead, tl:dr how i made the grid

I’ve been doing this small trick by filling a layer of any color, lowering the opacity to 50% and transforming it to 33,33% it’s height duplicate and place on each side of the canvas and then merge, and then another layer doing the same but doing 33,33% width instead of height. Then I merge both layers, set the opacity to 30% and the result is that perfect 2/3 rule.

If you don’t really know what the rule is, I kindly suggest this instead of my explanation bc words are not my forte.

Step 2: Lineart!

Nothing to say here other than cleaning the lines from earlier with a different (or the same in this case) brush as the sketch one. Opacity varies from day to day.

I have several styles of lineart and they all come with the mood I feel on that day, so don’t be afraid of experimenting and finding what you like most! I personally like thin lines a lot but also thick lines too! i’m constantly looking for the perfect line™ and to give an idea this is what my brushes look like:

in summary, practise with as many tools you can find around and see which ones you like most uwu

Step 3: Base Color

This is probably the part where I give up the most bc it boooooores me LOL. I try to spend as little time as possible in order to overcome this step. These are usually colors I use in 99% of my pics, since... idk years. If you look in my old arts in twitter you’ll see them haha.

Something important I’d like to mention here is ✨LAYERS✨:

This is how my layers look like in the base color part. I tend to do 1 for skin color, 2 for hair / eyes, 3+ for clothes and stuff. I tend to separate them in colors so they don’t merge! I go with numbers because... I think it’s faster to type and I’ve been using this way of naming for years so it works for me, what matters is that you group your layers and keep them organized uwu (specially if someone else has to look at your psd files >>)

Step 4: Shading!

Normally, I shade every single layer with a proper shade but on the case of the palette challenge I’m doing just the skin because I want to stress the light mood. Liiiike if I want to go with a softer light I’d use lighter shades or a stronger light = stronger shades. To pick colors, I usually go with that brown from Chat Noir and Marinette’s jacket as my universal black (I don’t like working with black, I’m weird), and most of the colors I just eye pick from the Color Picker on Photoshop. In the right you can see my swatches:

To choose the shade tone (in this example we’ll use Chat Noir’s hair), I picked a Yellow -Adrien’s hair is specially hard to color ugh- And then with that same tone I’d choose its shade going diagonally looking for a darker tone. This way you can find interesting colors! On this pic I did that for Adrien’s hair and... the rest I did the following:

I did my lazy shading™ : which consists in a layer set to Multiply with 50% opacity (this varies depending on the light, again), and I shade everything with the same tone (my to go is purple, but sometimes I use other colors too). This gives a sense of uniformity and the resulting shades are way nicer in my opinion.

Step 5: But Yuumi... where are the palettes???

I take that people straight handpick the palettes and use them to shade all the way and I respect them for that. I instead decided to do whatever floats my boat so I color regularly but add the palettes over the whole thing to change the overall mood and colors of the illustration. I randomly use the Gradient Tool and use the palettes’ colors around and then set that layer to Screen, Multiply, Focal Light, Overlay... etc etc, whatever I feel like doing in that moment, and so the magic happens! :’D

I don’t usually do this on my works but this is a new way to experiment for me and I’m having fun with it!

Step 6: Finishing Touches

Here is where I use the palettes the most, adding random highlights in whatever way I feel like. Yep, I pretty much Ladybug my whole coloring process: Wing it and go with the flow™. I’m still learning about lighting and whatnots but I really don’t care at this point LOL

To which you’ll say: But Yuumi?? In art school they told me that---

To which I say: shhhhhhhhhhhhh assigntments are over for me. go watch some Bob Ross (I am serious). Do whatever you feel like. Be happy. No one is going to judge you, and if they wanna judge they better be paying for your work first. so. whatever you do: BE HAPPY. or don’t do it. unless it’s a school assignment, in that case go do it or i’ll kick your ass.

✦ Finishing Notes ✦

So yea, that’s my art process in how I’ve been doing these Miraculous Color Palettes and generally how I go about my illustrations most of the time. For more complex illustrations, I need to remember how I did those (oops). And actually, do them. These illustrations usually take up 2 or 3 hours to make, on other pieces i’ve been working on them for up to 8 hours, it really varies from piece to piece, but I hope this was helpful!

Please let me know if you have any questions, commenting in this very post will help me -and others?- keep track of things and learn together! My asks are also open and I’ll reply as fast as I can uwu (my requests are still waiting there, don’t worry).

aaaaand that’s all, folks. Stay Peachy!

#tutorial?#art process #miraculous color palette #digital art #photoshop #tutorial #ym0035art

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weeklyfangirl · 6 years ago

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Frat Boy Pt. 13

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (1), part 7 (2), part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12

HI WOW TIME HAS SERIOUSLY FLOWN BY FOR ME - enjoy your fratty frat boy in all his angsty glory ;) Let me know what you guys think I miss you!!

“Down to watch Hocus Pocus and pass out candy to wee ones? My parents invited me down.”

Renny’s eyes softened, imagining the cuteness of last year when a toddler showed up dressed as a magnet with an attached note card saying “chick.”

“Okay, usually, yes, but the-”

“DG’s,” I groaned.

Midterms were creeping up and I was slowly dying between late night grading biology tests and the stress that’d been building up wondering about what in the fuck Harry had going on in his mind. He was hot, he was cold, and I wasn’t sure if this was all a massive game to him. It’d been relatively silent on the Harry front ever since the day of island paradise. The memory of his penetrating eyes examining me on the pier, and the twinge of electricity between us had inspired my wandering fingers more than once. I wouldn’t admit that to him, hell, I could barely admit that to myself.

I’d been too stubborn to text him, but not too stubborn enough to wear his sweatshirt out this morning. If we were friends, wearing his sweatshirt wouldn’t be weird. Technically he’d just invited me to meet his dad, which I admit, stung a bit, but a part of me couldn’t give up that he wasn’t into me. Could eyes lie so easily?

The ball was technically in my court to tell him whether or not I’d be going, so…

I slurped a scalding sip of tea, cringing at the inevitable. “Welp, if you’re going to ditch me for the DGs then I might as well go to Harry’s.”

She smirked, “I know.”

I smacked her arm. “Is that why you’re ditching me?!”

“Hey, I’m not ditching you. It’s a thing for new recruits. You were invited, too.”

My ear still ringed with my mom’s shrill scream on the other end of the line when I’d told her - though I’m not sure if she’d be more excited by the fact that her daughter was going to visit the Styles residence or a sorority party.

Renny continued, “And please, as if you’d really go hang out at your parent’s alone when you have an offer to play co-host with Mr. Hunky Mystery Man. We’re sad sometimes, but we’re not that sad. Actually…”

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just… I’m surprised Harry isn’t going to be at the frat’s party.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “He said it was a family tradition.”

Renny’s brows rose at the F word.

“Okay, but their house is also huge, I doubt it’s going to be an intimate affair.” Truthfully, I was excited to see how their house would be decorated. When I told my mother I probably wouldn’t be coming home to pass out candy, she’d told me not to worry. The neighbors were coming over and they had a couple of cheap wine bottles to drain. I’m sure not telling her I was going to the Styles's house wasn’t going to be that big of a deal.

“Are you kidding me? If Harry hands out a grand to cabana men then I can’t imagine what they’re going to spend on this party. Honestly, I’m kind of jealous.”

“Wait- what? He gave Ben a thousand dollars?”

“Is Ben the cabana man?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes. Or about a grand, I mean I didn’t count it myself but it was a thick. Stack.” Renny’s brows shot up. “You seriously didn’t see that?”

No wads of cash were in my memories. I was too busy retreating away to the golf cart to notice any grandiose money exchange. Ben’s words when he was saying goodbye to me at the golf cart suddenly flashed in my mind - tell him thank you for me.

Thank you.

I hadn’t even assumed the reason why. Probably because out of all things, I wouldn’t have guessed that.

Renny tapped on her lips, signalling to mine that I painted a nice neutral. “Like the shade. What’s it for?”

I looked to my watch. “Zayn. And I’m actually going to be late.”

“Ugh, not fair!! Why can’t I have an artist draw me?”

“Please, Felix was practically drooling over you last year, and he’s a graphic designer, right? I’m sure he has some sketches of you locked away in a cabinet somewhere.”

Something that resembled a blush spread on her cheeks.

“Oh my god. Does he?!”

“He probably got rid of it by now.”

I shook my head, scooping up my tea and 50 pound school bag with me. Leave it to Renny to have a collection of men up her sleeve at any given time. Even the beautiful brainy boy.

“Tell Niall to try drawing,” I called back. The mention of the frat star turned a few heads at the crowded campus coffee shop, and I bit my lip at the scene, skirting across campus to the art studios where people wishing to escape found their haven.

---

“A little to the left,” he murmured. His golden brown eyes peered over the white canvas, tirelessly scrupulous as they focused on each feature, and I felt my heart beat faster at the intensity of attention. “A little up.”

My head tilted to his command, my exposed neck feeling even more naked as I noticeably swallowed.

Did he hear that? Did the music need to be played louder?

“Beautiful.” He reached for another charcoal pencil in his kit. “Have you been in here before?” His voice gently rose over the Coldplay softly playing from the speaker system.

“No, not yet,” I admitted. “I was going to take a ceramics class, but I dropped it the first week. Not exactly the sculptor type.”

“So you’re not the artist, more the painting?”

My brows furrowed. “What?”

“I’m taking ceramics,” he said, not bothering to clarify.

“Yeah? You like it?”

He didn’t answer, sweeping his pencil across the page - the aesthetic lulling of the way it scratched along the paper making me realize that yes, he’d definitely heard me gulping earlier.

The soothing noise didn’t stop, and he didn’t answer for a time that seemed much longer than a minute. I wonder what Harry was doing right now? Was he in class? Practice? Not that I should even be thinking about him.

The little smug version of me was dancing in my brain, delighting in the fact that somebody else was paying attention to me, that there were other people who found me desirable besides Harry. Sure, this was solely for Zayn’s assignment, and yeah, Harry could easily have any number of women he merely glanced at - but me? I could get by without him just fine, and-

“Your face comes across so soft on paper. Gentle,” he said, glancing first at his work, then up to me, as if trying to see if the reality mirrored the copy.

I shifted nervously, but the swivel chair was more sensitive than I’d thought and I almost went flying off the other side. He laughed a bit, before taking his top lip between his fingers.

“Look, I’ve nearly got this one finished right. I’ve got your basic outline to finish the rest on my own, creative liberties ‘n that, but I’ll need a few more still lifes from you if that’s…”

“Yeah! That’s fine.”

“Might be a longshot with the holiday, but do you mind coming in this weekend?”

Plans of the Styles’ Halloween bash rang as a reminder, and it buzzed throughout my entire body. “I can’t, actually. I’m going to a party, I think.”

“Really!” he set down the pencil dramatically. “Am I going to see you in a plaid skirt up your bum again, missy?”

“Ouch, no! But fair. Cringeworthy, but fair.” I slid down the chair, crossing my arms. His eyes didn’t change in their intensity even if he wasn’t holding a pencil. “It’s the Styles’ Halloween bash Saturday. I’m guessing it’s a family-friendly affair so no, I will not be in anything showing any skin, anywhere. I guess they do it every year.”

Realization sunk in, but it seemed a bit of a show. “Harry, yeah, that’s right. Are you two…?”

I shook my head, thinking of what Harry must say when (or if) he got asked the same question. There was no doubt in my mind.

“No.”

It was some weird “in between” with us, but no was a much easier answer.

“Right, well, that’ll be interesting then.” He bit his cheek, mulling over something he wasn’t quite sure he should say.

“What?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again. “Nothing, it’s just… I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a part of that family. It’s got a lot of history.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Let’s just say there aren’t that many British boys that get adopted by Americans.”

I tilted my head back, put off at the slight arrogance in his tone. There was a protective side of me that wanted to rear its head and bristle whenever somebody talked down to Harry, and I wasn’t sure how to put it away.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“You can look up the story, but-”

A knock at the door, and a petite black-bobbed Asian girl peered her head in.

“Hi, I have the room at 5:30.”

I glanced to the clock on the wall, just a little past.

“We’re finishing up,” he said. She nodded, not budging. A little territorial over the studio space. Which, I completely get. Once midterm season hits, the library starts to resemble a refugee posting with people camped outside cubicles and “quiet rooms,” hoping for the prior group to leave a little earlier if they didn’t have reservations of their own.

“Yeah, we’re done.” I picked up my bag, and put my beanie over my head.

“Well, I’ll be in touch then. Sometime next week?” He followed me to the door, and placed a hand to my lower back. I stopped, trying to discern if there was something else behind his eyes. Maybe this hadn’t just been for a project.

But his hand was removed just as quickly, and with a little “See ya,” he closed the door behind me.

-----------

Lines of vintage cars parked outside the Styles’s home wasn’t what I’d been expecting when Harry had shot a text that it was a masquerade gala. Maybe it should’ve, but it wasn’t. I squinted my eyes at a woman in a neon vest waving around her flashlight to the approaching cars and signalling them to available spots along the street.

How was I meant to find him in this madness?

“Here is fine,” I told the Lyft driver. I’d bit the bullet (or rather, my wallet) to get a ride. I thought I’d bypass the embarrassing “car dying” scenario again and just play it safe. Not that I was expecting to spend the night again… the toothbrush I’d stuffed in my purse screamed otherwise, and seemed to burn a hole into my thigh.

But still, totally not expecting to spend the night.

Totally …. not ….

The sound of the Uber leaving made me realize I was doing this. Again. Willingly walking into the lion’s den simultaneously with at least ten other well-dressed individuals.

Expect me tonight, I’d sent. It was a little bold. I had to refrain from sending any emojis, but I’d done it. Played it cool.

Wear a mask, he’d replied. And I felt my stomach drop a little bit. He hadn’t said-

Cool! Gee, thanks for letting me know! Wow that’s so nice to hear! You made my day!

No.

Just a simple three word request. Actually, more like demand. I bristled the same moment my phone buzzed.

Please.

I sighed. I guess it was four words.

Of all the themes to pick though… I rolled my eyes at “masquerade.” Renny had done the opposite, and flew to her dresser, opening a drawer full of toys and masks and - oh my gosh was that a leash? She handed me one, black lace over the eyes that could lift up and over the cat headpiece. I didn’t ask any questions for why she had this so readily available, because guessing from the other contents in the drawer, I already knew the answer.

“You look-” Renny kissed her fingertips- “Bellissima.”

Older, sophisticated silver foxes arm-in-arm with their wives took the time to glance at the young woman approaching the estate.

I blamed it on the deep red dress Renny stole from the theater department (or borrowed as she insisted). It fanned out with dramatic flair like an 18th century production of Shakespeare would - or how our school’s production of Much Ado About Nothing would (which was now short one costume).

The doors opened to the tinkling of a piano.

Amidst cocktail waiters weaving between the masked strangers, someone was actually playing it. He had brown curly hair and I practically raced to his side to avoid standing in the foyer alone any longer.

“I didn’t know you could play.”

The man quirked his face, his hands not stopping.

Even with the mask I could tell it wasn’t Harry.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, stumbling back.

Hands gripped my shoulders, as lips went to my ear-

“Not well.”

Twisting in his grasp, the familiar curve of his smirk appeared. His green eyes were highlighted by golden flakes etched into a black mask, and my breath quite literally caught in my throat. Somehow, each time, I forgot the magnetism they held. And somehow, each time, I forgot that I was absolute putty in his hands.

“I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

Something flashed in his eyes and I knew it didn’t come out right. “The house looks… amazing.”

I was floundering, FLOUNDERING.

His nose crinkled the same time he placed a hand to the small of my back. “Too many cobwebs.”

And without a word, he started leading me through the crowded rooms. Cobwebs over the banister and scary paintings of haunted people replaced the usual art in their home - except for the centered family portrait, intimidatingly framed in gold. The cobwebs were a fitting touch. I wondered how many secrets these walls held, how many years things have been kept in the dark, or swept under the rug.

Every family had them, but something told me this place had enough storage in all its rooms to hold more than I could imagine.

We passed a room set-up with aisles of empty chairs and a projector screen that read “Jane Foundation.” Pamphlets and envelopes were lain on each of the chairs, but we walked too quickly for me to get a closer read.

“What’s that for?”

“Later. You don’t know?”

I shook my head. He slowed to a halt in the hallway.

“My parents put on a fundraiser every year for the children’s hospital. It’s how we end the evening.”

My mouth opened and again- floundering. He scratched behind his ear.

“Yeah, I thought.. I don’t know, I thought everyone knew. But I shouldn’t assume I guess.”

I just shrugged my shoulders, accepting that his family had the capacity to pull something like this off. That the were pulling this off. That I was even here. Clearly living ten minutes away was certifiably living under a rock.

He paused, a slight quirk in his lips. With the distraction of the music and the people, I hadn’t had the chance to really look at him. Or him, at me. If anyone ever asked, I’d call him shameless, but I wouldn’t even call it that as he drank me in. It didn’t seem as intentional as that. It was instinctive.

I drank him in as well, and even if it was just a brief moment facing each other in the hallway with masked strangers streaming through, it felt like it was just him and I. How long had we been like this? Broad shoulders in a nice suit, a tall frame that could cover and protect, brown curls that looked so soft to touch, and eyes that spoke of scary pasts and a soft heart that locked me still in place. He was walking poetry and as much as it made me sick, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted him closer, to lean in closer...

“Come on,” he murmured, but this time he was in front of me.

I followed, straight to the dining room.

“Oh, you are trying to get me to not fit into this dress,” I said. It was full of catered food from the nicest restaurants in Coast Hills. Last time I’d been in this room, it hadn’t been the most comfortable encounter. Now that the corset was digging into my ribs and I was a little short of breath, I predicted I was in for Awkward Dinner Part II.

“You aren’t hungry?” He faltered, turning to face me.

I gave a coy smile. “Well I didn’t say that…”

“Hey! So good to see you.”

Gemma burst through a small cluster of people, Charlie right behind her. His navy suit matched her slip dress, tapering off at the ends like the foam from a wave.

She embraced me, Charlie soon after. But it was the same side-hug squeeze that made me remember him. Harry noticed my grimace. Charlie noticed Harry noticing me.

“All good?” Charlie pulled back.

“My brother did that all the time,” I said. Harry handed me a glass full of champagne, and I took it, happy to have something else occupy my mouth. I hadn’t expected to say that at all.

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Harry said.

“You don’t know a lot of things.”

Gemma perked up. “That’s right, put him in his place.”

“He’s not around much so, I don’t think to talk about him much.” I left it at that, a slight offering to make Harry feel less offended. His expression was impossible to read, and I wasn’t sure if my words had actually helped or hurt.

“I have a sister like that. Moved to Lisbon with her boyfriend. We see her on holidays though.” Charlie jumped with a chill. “Jiminy- it’s cold in here, isn’t it?”

“Have more wine babes, it’ll cheer you up,” Gemma said. And just like me, a champagne flute was suddenly in his hands.

“Well we were just headed to get some food,” Harry mentioned, eyes slightly widening when they locked with mine - a silent plea to take his cue.

“Wait! Let me take a picture really quickly.”

“Gemma,” he sighed.

“Just a little one! Just a quick...second...” She dug in her purse, struggling to juggle the wine and the mini plate of couscous and falafel.

I took a step to the side as soon as she pulled the camera out.

“Hello? Where do you think you’re going? Get back in there.”

Harry raised his brows to me, both in annoyance and apology. I stood next to him, and he placed an arm around me. It was just for a moment, but I still felt him. Always.

Gemma smiled at her phone. “Aww, this is perfect. I’ll send it to mom, too. She’ll like it.” She said the last bit cautiously.

Harry’s face turned unreadable, his eyes complete stone.

“One for me now,” she said, reaching down for something else.

“I swear, she can hide an elephant in that bag and the only reason someone would know is because it’d trumpet during the previews.”

She pulled out a polaroid camera. Somehow, in the past five seconds, he’d gone from mildly annoyed and embarrassed to deadpanned over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually growled.

She held up the camera so I smiled, but as the flash went off and I looked beside me - he was gone.

“Oh! Harry,” she scolded, but he’d already walked too far away. I saw him weave his way towards the windows of the house and look out.

“You shouldn’t have mentioned her.” Charlie kicked his shoe. He saw Harry too, looking vigilantly out the window. A second longer and he turned on his heel. He stood taller as he made his way back.

“Well, at least it’ll be a good picture of you. I’m creating a little collage of the evening.” Gemma put the camera away in her big bag. She reminded me of a mom on prom night and suddenly I felt like I should send that photo to someone, too.

“That’s so cool! I’m sure it’s going to look so… cute.” Through the crowd, Harry motioned to the food. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood to say brief goodbyes to his sister.

“We won’t keep you. Get the pasta pops though. To die for,” Gemma said. “Charlie and I were going to take a stroll by the pool if you want to join us after.”

“Yes! Oh, and would you mind sending me the photo, too? My mom wants proof I’m alive tonight.”

“God, of course. Here.” She gave the champagne flute to Charlie, typed in my number, and sent it off.

“We’ll see you later,” Charlie said.

“The pasta poppers!” she exclaimed, flute in the air as they weasled their way out to the patio.

Before I could wonder where Harry was, he met me by the Sprinkles cupcakes stand.

“Going for dessert first?”

“Looking for the moon?” I picked one of the mini cupcakes and plopped it in my mouth to spite him. He bit the inside of his cheek and looked away for a split second before looking back. His smile grew.

“Damn it.”

My heart picked up its pace.

“You caught me.”

He held another cupcake to my lips but I shook my head. “I’m hungry for real food right now.”

He nodded, and without me saying another word, he took my elbow to bring me to his side. It was comforting to have his hand at my back as we walked through the spread of food. Even if it was lightly placed, in a crowd full of people I didn’t know, at least I had a place with him. My eyes widened when I saw them. The glorious, innovative Pasta Pops. AKA rolled up ball of pesto pasta on chopsticks… I grabbed four.

“So, when am I seeing your dad?”

“What?” He piled more food on top of the mountain already growing on his plate.

“Your dad. The reason why you invited me.” I didn’t believe it. Not anymore. The host of the party wasn’t going to sit down and talk about a potential internship at his own full-fledged party.

I put a Pasta Pop in my mouth. His attention broke and he watched my lips go over the ball, puckering as I pulled it to the tip. It’s when my lips came off with a “pop” that he sucked in a cheek, smirking.

“You won’t be talking with Lionel long. Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself in the meantime.”

But when I reached over someone’s arm to grab a slider, they stopped me.

“Hey, you.”

His eyes lit up and instantly I was drawn in for an awkward hug. Behind his back, I mouthed did you plan this?

He shrugged his shoulders and looked away with a sly look.

Lionel pulled away from our quick embrace and looked to my pile of food. It was my turn for the awkward shrug.

“No, it’s good! Keep going! We have enough food here to feed a small country. Are you still thinking about medicine?”

“Yeah, not much has changed in the past couple of weeks. Same old, same old.”

He paused, raising a finger. “I gave you my card, right?”

How could I forget the card that’s been burning a hole through my dresser…

“Yes. I’ve been meaning to call you, but I’ve been so busy studying with these midterms, and work, too...” I let my voice fade.

“What do you do for work?”

Harry slowed as he picked up a napkin, and I knew he was listening in even if he wouldn’t stop and join the conversation. I watched his eyes skirt across the table close to where my hand toyed with the serving spoon.

“Well, I’m a T.A. right now, but I’m also working in the physical therapy room on campus. It’s pretty easy for the most part, blood doesn’t scare me.”

“Good. You’ll need a strong stomach for most cases.” A man tapped him on the shoulder, stealing his attention. “Give me a call when you can, we’ll set something up at the practice.”

He leaned in behind Harry, both hands on his back. “Take care of her tonight.”

Harry stiffened. I’m not sure why. Lionel had such a warm look in his eyes, I automatically trusted him. As he left with his friend, he flashed us one white smile, and I felt loved.

What the heck was in this family. What kind of beauty steroids did they take?

“Penny for your thoughts?”

The quip sounded weird coming from Harry, the Vogue Italia model, leaning against the table. But then again, I was looking after his father with a dazed look on my face that was screaming “I wish I was 40 and you weren’t married.” I snapped out of it and mimicked his pose, equally skeptical.

“If I hadn’t seen your dad here just now, I swear I wouldn’t have seen him at all. I barely recognize the place with so many…”

“People?”

I nodded.

“I promised that you’d talk to him.”

“Riiiight.”

“You don’t trust me?”

My brows rose. “That’s a loaded question.”

A spark of indignance puffed up his chest. “What? You actually have to think about that?”

“I’m just saying. Communication is usually the key to building that up. Just, you know, a friendly tip to help you with those future relationships.” I tapped his chest, and he reached for my wrist. A bold move, sober. He thought so, too, for he dropped it a second later. I was waiting for a, “You can trust me,” but instead he turned serious.

“Smart girl.”

He looked at me that way again. A little too deep, a little too long, and I cursed myself for not knowing what to do. He took a bit of his bottom lip between his teeth.

“I didn’t know you worked in the therapy room.”

“That’s because you never noticed me before.”

“Ah, ah,” he raised a finger like his father. “That’s because I’ve never been injured before.”

I let out a short laugh. “You’re an arrogant thing, aren’t you.”

“Just honest.”

Honest.

But would you answer if I asked, Harry? Would you answer if I asked you what in the heck we were doing? Did I even want to know the answer?

“I’m really glad you’re here,” he said. And it looked like there was something more swimming behind those eyes.

“I am, too,” I said. “Much better than a sorority party...” My eyes narrowed. “What in the-”

“Y/N?”

Clearly, Viv was just as surprised to see me. Mary Styles was beside her, and she raised her glass to me in a distant hello before giving Viv a kiss on the cheek, excusing herself.

“What are you doing here?” The silver blue dress she wore was glued to her skinny frame like snakeskin. Harry shifted his feet as she came closer and I wonder if he noticed how tight it was.

“I followed the noise and traffic directors and decided to hop the gates,” I said.

“You didn’t get the initiate invite?”

An almost pitiful look befell Harry. “You had somewhere else to be?” His puppy dog eyes confused me.

“Technically, yes. I just, um” - I looked to Viv - “decided to spend my evening somewhere else. You didn’t care to go either?”

“Oh, I come every year. I practically live in the guest room anyways.”

I pictured Viv laying poolside during summer barbeques, coming around for Christmas parties, and waking up in her silk pajamas to Sven handing her delicious pastries.

“Well this’ll be fun anyways. We’ll have our own little sorority party here.” She turned to Harry. “Can I speak to you for a second?”

“Yeah.”

She looked at me apologetically, then back to him. “Alone.”

His eyes narrowed just the slightest, but he didn’t even have to think about it. He placed a hand at my back. “I’ll just be a second.”

Viv gave me a half-smile as she interlinked her arm through his, and they left, abandoning me in a swarming crowd with cold sliders. Without him beside me, I fought the ever-present urge that I didn’t belong, but wandering to the glass doors, I saw the red gown in the reflection, the black lace of my mask. I didn’t look like regular ‘ol me tonight. Nobody knew me tonight. A rush of confidence ran through me.

I was somebody. With, or without Harry.

A twinkling bell carried through the halls the same time I stood a little taller. The piano music died down and everyone quieted.

“I hope everyone is enjoying their evening,” the shrill voice of Mary Styles carried higher as she placed herself atop the spiral staircase. Some people clapped a little prematurely and she smiled at them graciously. “If everyone could please begin filing into the foundation room, we are about to begin the programme.”

I stole another flute of champagne. Programme.

The twinkling sound rang again and people began handing their plates over so they could grab their wallets. Several men apologized as they bumped into me, trying to move around the cocktail waiters. Wherever Harry was, he’d just have to find me later. I followed the crowd when my blood ran cold.

There was something sweet in the air.

The air around me seemed thinner. I looked around, quickly, but all I saw were masks. Even if they didn’t have them on, their faces were starting to blur in my mind.

But that too-sweet scent would never.

It was the man from Kean’s.

I inhaled again, but it was gone, carried away and overpowered by Dior perfume and Gucci cologne. Were they here? Were they watching me? Were they waiting to get me alone?

They’d done it before. Maybe it’d be easier this time...

My mind went to horrible places, and suddenly I was running against the sea.

I scanned as I ran, but it was futile. I burst through the kitchen doors and froze. There, Mary Styles was heaving over the trashcan spitting out strands of pesto pasta.

She looked up at me with the emptiest eyes I’d seen.

“I’m-I’m sorry.” I bumped into the counter, stumbling out the way I came. Her glossy eyes were haunting. Had I just seen Mrs. Styles eject the contents of her stomach?

Alone, I shook it off, trying to calm my breathing. They couldn’t do anything to me here. Hell, Mrs. Styles was on the other side of the door. I would scream. People would hear me.

“Hey, you okay?”

And even though I recognized the voice, when his hands were placed on my shoulders I flinched.

“I smelled them,” I said, looking over my shoulder to the kitchen.

“Who?” Harry’s eyes followed my gaze. He took a step toward the kitchen.

“I wouldn’t,” I said.

He stopped, confused. “I mean, you can, but I think your mom is sick,” I continued.

My tone wasn’t convincing. He bit his cheek. “Right.”

And even though we both knew that his mom didn’t have food poisoning, that was a conversation for another time.

“They’re here, Harry.”

“What are you talking about?” He paused. His eyes saw the panic in mine and he swallowed, hard.

“They can’t be. There’s security.”

“I walked through the door, no one searched me or checked my name off a list.”

“You’re a girl, it’s different. The security has a list of faces to watch out for, and trust me, they’d stand out.”

“No- Harry,” I stammered. He wasn’t get it. “Their cologne. I haven’t smelled it since Kean’s.” The name tasted bitter on my tongue. “I was there- and your mom was talking and I was following these people but I smelled them. And it was so crowded so I ran and she was in the kitchen, and I don’t- I don’t know how, but they’re here. I didn’t imagine that. And no one else would be wearing that. No one else could smell like that.”

I gasped for air, not realizing that I was on the verge of sobbing until Harry’s arms came around me.

“Hey,” he soothed. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

I let him hold me, but I wasn’t sure if I believed him. Their living area was too empty now. Too quiet. And even in his arms, even knowing what he’d done to them before, I didn’t feel safe. What was the point of having a massive castle if you couldn’t defend it? Your wealth just made you a sitting duck. A giant target.

“Why would they be here?” I asked.

“They wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here,” he reassured me.

“You probably think I’m crazy.”

“No, don’t do that to yourself.” He pulled back just enough. “You’re not crazy.”

And with no one to see, he took my hand, leading me past the foundation room. A part of me actually wanted to see the auction, but my mounting paranoia was stronger. We passed by the bar on the way to his room. It’d been empty for my last visit, but now the caterers were taking full advantage of its liquor storage capacity.

“Let’s see,” his voice drawled as his fingers shifted through the bottles. He didn’t ask before pouring us two cocktails.

“After you,” he said, nodding towards his room. By the time I’d sat down at the foot of his bed, he shut the door behind us with both drinks, and the vodka handle in the crook of his arm.

“Is the foundation for your sister? Jane?”

Harry avoided eye contact as he set the bottle down, pushing his hair back, brows raised.

“Uh, kind of. I never knew her.” He turned to me finally, shrugging with an apathy that had taken years to perfect. “I mean it’s sad, we don’t have to talk about it now.”

“Is it ever a good time?”

He looked at me, giving me the chance to take back what I did. I didn’t.

“She died before I was adopted.”

“Oh.” My stomach dropped. There was so much I didn’t know, but I hadn’t been expecting this. His eyes didn’t hold any sadness, but guilt still pricked my heart. “I’m sorry.”

He looked out the window again, distracted.

“Again, I didn’t know her. It’s sad, but I don’t…” -he tried to find the right words, loosened his tie- “It’s not my grief.”

I nodded; that made sense. It was his parents. The Styles. But the legacy of that pain couldn’t have had zero repercussions on their second child. There was more to the story than he was sharing, but I didn’t press. I walked closer, slowly toying with my drink.

“So you find it hard to miss something you never had,” I clarified.

He took a deep breath. “Cheers.” He raised his glass to me and I mimicked him, cringing at the stiff drink.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Warm.”

He nudged me, growing serious. “You know what I mean.”

How was I feeling? The inner me cleared her throat and yelled from a soap box.

Jealous.

Scared.

Confused.

ANNOYED at how many windows this house had. I looked at Harry’s dark mask, the swirling madness in his emerald, the way the suit fit snug against his toned body… we were very much alone.

Add turned on to my emotional cocktail.

“I’m feeling a lot.”

“Hm,” he hummed. “I’m feeling a lot too.” And it was so quiet. So bizarre to hear him say something even remotely close to feelings that I stood completely still. Was his drink as strong as mine?

Our eyes were locked, but he didn’t turn away. I fought every fiber in my screaming to break the intense spell.

He leaned in closer, tilted his head lower. Our noses brushed.

Panic.

“Are you and Viv…?”

“I’m not up here with her am I.”

Relief.

But I didn’t have the courage to say she’d probably been up here before.

“You know” - he pulled me closer, waists closing in - “I’m going to need a lot of help with that midterm,” he mumbled.

Elation.

An almost laugh that just lasted for a moment, because school seemed so trivial for what was happening in this house. There seemed to be split parts of me - the one I’ve always known and the one with him. Which one was more real to me now? I wasn’t sure if I was the same person that I once was - happy alone, solely immersed in school or netflix nights in. I’d been fine. I’d been safe. Maybe a little bored, but I hadn’t known there was more. With him there was a chaos that burned off his shoulders, that simmered in his eyes, and I drank in the warmth like a person frozen from snow.

His hands squeezed my sides, and my eyes fluttered closed. “How are you feeling now?”

“Good.”

He didn’t say anything more, but our breath was now in sync. It didn’t matter what he couldn’t say. What mattered was him, and the fact that when he looked at me, I felt everything he couldn’t say.

Eyes couldn’t lie. Not like that.

So I lifted my lips, and he went in for the kiss.

It was like I’d been starved of oxygen when his soft lips encompassed my own. Oh God, I’d missed this buzz. I’d missed him.

His hands cradled my face as he backed me up to the edge of the bed, lips never parting. A greedy hand shifted lower and he gripped the curve of backside. I whimpered a little, lips parting to allow his tongue to sneak in as he marked what I was so willing to give. He wasn’t pulling away this time. He wasn’t telling me no.

I sat at the edge of the bed where he’d placed us, and leant back, his body falling atop mine. His delicious weight pinned me down, and he kissed down my neck, nibbling, biting. With a particularly hard suck, I moaned and when I looked down I saw him paused, hooded eyes looking up at me from the sound. His hands travelled down, slowly, from my waist to the ends of my dress. He was heavy but not crushing, deliberate but with respect. He waited for an answer.

I nodded.

He bit his lip in a smirk as he hitched up my dress. One hand clutching the soft skin of my hips, as the other supported him above me, Harry rolled his hips against me.

Oh.

Against the thin fabric of my underwear, I felt him harden between my folds. Gentle kisses were peppered along my chest and I pulled him closer.

“Harry,” I whispered, lifting my hips against his. He groaned into my ear, a playful bite at the lobe.

I shivered the same time his fingers travelled lower against my stomach. He stopped at the band of underwear, my breath catching when he cupped my sex.

“Is this okay?” he whispered.

I nodded, hummed, as his hand slowly rubbed against me. I could feel him watch me intently, but mostly I could feel him. Up, down, up... the friction against my bundle of nerves made my lips part. Again, and again, my breathing deepened and soon I was rutting against his hand. The damp patch he created was evident as he took several fingers and ran them against it. He applied pressure at my center and I wanted him to do more.

He kissed my neck and a “please” stumbled out of my mouth. He smiled, letting out a small breath. He kissed my lips as his fingers pulled aside the lace. The cutest gesture of reassurance when there was nothing to reassure.

I’d dreamt about this too many times for me to back out. This time I wouldn’t shy away. I took his bottom lip between mine. Go.

But a glass shattering scream carried up the stairs.

The commotion from downstairs grew louder, and I didn’t need to say anything.

I’d already known.

His hand retracted, and as quickly as it started, he’d rolled off to his side, my comforting weight gone.

“What the fuck,” he muttered. He stood dead still at the edge of the bed but when he heard someone coming up the stairs, he lunged for the dresser, reached for the top drawer -

From outside, “Harry! Harry, are you up here?”

The door flew open.

His arm fell to his side.

Gemma stood at the doorway, slightly out of breath.

“You need to come downstairs. Now.”

I pulled my dress down, but Gemma wasn’t paying attention to me. There was a wild look in her eye only Harry could understand.

He didn’t look back to me as he barrelled past her, she followed suit. I sat at the edge of the bed; alone, dishevelled, disoriented. I was scared to follow.

Everything could change in a moment.

There were footsteps at the door again and I looked up just in time to see Harry striding across the floor to me.

“What are you-”

His lips crashed into mine, and my breath was suspended again. There was an urgency in the kiss that hadn’t been there before. Deep, hard, a hand tangled in my hair when another hitched up my skirt. His fingers swiped at my entrance once and before I could kiss him back he pulled away.

He let out an exasperated breath, and leant his forehead against mine.

“I have to take care of this.”

Unflinching, he drew the fingers that’d just pressed against my center up to his parted lips before swiping them against my own.

He stood tall as he walked away, broad shoulders subtly moving beneath the suit as he drew a key from his pocket and closed the door behind him.

There was no way in hell I was staying here.

I shot up, running to the door - but it was locked. I pounded against it.

“Harry? Harry let me out this isn’t funny!”

I jiggled the handle again. Nothing.

I wanted to scream, debated about screaming as I paced around the room. My eyes went to the top drawer of his dresser. I stopped. He’d reached for something there.

When I pulled it open it was just some old band t-shirts, but my hand hit something in the back. Pushing aside the shirts was a black box.

I quickly undid the clasp.

A black handgun.

I shoved the box to the back as quickly as I’d opened it.

Fuck no.

Frickity fracking fuck no.

He’d been reaching for a gun.

What kind of threats was he used to that he needed a gun?

I took a bobby pin from my hair, and with an expert skill that only growing up with a sibling could teach you, the lock was picked.

It took me at least five minutes, but the door opened. I booked it downstairs, a flounder of red dress heading into a quiet commotion.

I didn't see him when I made it down the stairs. There were too many confused bystanders huddled around their phones and switching social circles, whispering frantically about the scene before them.

I didn’t need to see anything in the crowd. For up on the wall, between collectors’ paintings was a vacant space.

The family portrait was gone.

And in its place was a snake that matched the one I’d seen tattooed on skin, the same snake that had been wrapped around my neck.

part 14

#posted a day after april 13 coiNCIDENCE I THINK NOT #harry styles #frat boy #Harry styles fic #harry styles fanfiction #fratboy!harry #one direction #onedirection #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #fratboy! harry #1direction #one direction imagine #one direction one shot #harry styles preference #harry styles blurb #harry fic

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pernatius · 5 years ago

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Lost in Space Part 2: Ch 1

Summary: After returning to Earth, an unnamed Space Explorer must face the consequences of going past Quadrant 5.

Attempting to write 10k words for part 2 by the end of the week.

Part 1:

Ch 1

Ch 2

Ch 3

Ch 4

Ch 5

____________________

I sigh. I watch my breath move away and disappear before my eyes. I shiver, but instead of hugging myself to keep in what little warmth I have, I look down at my shaky hands. I imagine my blood dripping down my fingertips. I then lay them down, hoping to paint the cold floor beneath me. I know full well it’s all in my head, but I try to anyway. I try until I can feel the skin underneath my nails tear. When that happens, I grip either shoulder. This isn’t because I now know it’s best to keep warm. I did so because of how trapped and lonely I feel.

My eyes move up towards the wall I’m leaning against. I imagine a window and the rich blue sky waiting on the other side. I then go on to imagine how long I’ve spent here. By this point, I could’ve already stayed here for days, weeks, or even months. Time has lost its touch on me. The walls haven’t changed. No cobwebs or even a speck of dust has touched them. Even the door right across from me doesn’t have a sliver of time’s touch. Its knob hasn’t moved an inch since I got here. Even the air vent above lacks any indication of how long I’ve been here. There’s no sound coming from them, especially no voices. It strengthens the lack of hope, though. It causes my head to lower.

Because of this, I scoff. I scoffed at how lucky I was back then. At least back at the Tauvoxes’ ship, I felt alive. Even if it was fear it’s better than feeling dead.

Light touched me. It blinded me. I tried covering my eyes with my hand, but with his hand wrapping itself and clutching my wrist it became impossible.

He led me. I walked by his side and took note of the many doors that stretched from both ends of the hallway. They’re all closed, which meant many others are facing the same torment I had just been released from. I imagine the hundred or so helpless others sitting at the very edges of their rooms with their heads down. Most hug themselves to keep warm or what little hope they had left. Some just lean against the wall, hoping for death to take them away from the mind-numbing torture. Sure, maybe some deserved to be here. Maybe they broke out of the limits of humanity, but no one deserved this. No one deserved the drain. Whatever they had done to get themselves here it couldn’t have been enough to forget they’re human too. They have families. They have friends. Maybe a pet at home like a dog. Maybe that dog used to wait at their front door until they got home from work. Maybe that dog now has their head down and is whimpering because they were promised a walk too long ago. Whatever the case they have memories. They have lives, or at least they had lives before being sent here. True monsters could be on the other side of those doors, but it’s not like they wanted to be one. Life just forces people to become one. I might not be called a monster to most, but it doesn’t matter what most think because in their eyes they see me as one. In his eyes especially.

He sat right across from me and just like with The Director shades covered his eyes. They showed me the helplessness sketched on my face. “It doesn’t take much to realize you aren’t handcuffed. You can try to run out of here. Hell, you can try to sock my nose. However, if you’re smart you wouldn’t do something so rash. We attached a chip on the back of your neck not too long after your court case. So, if you try to do anything other than answer me you will be electrocuted.”

“Does it matter? Whether or not I answer I’ll just be sent back into that room to be left to myself. To be tortured.”

“Rightfully so. You had disobeyed direct orders, caused the death of your entire crew, and nearly brought all of humanity into another war. Thank God for that band of Space Pirates…”

His words faded from my hearing. Instead of sitting in the interrogation room, I’ve bent down in the middle of a farmers market. Underneath a small rock, a flower sways before my eyes. My hand pushes the rock away, grabs the flower, and plucks it out of the ground. I then ran over to my mother. Well, it was more like scrambling to her as I tried not to trip because at that time my shoes were somehow always untied. Once I’m next to her, I tug her baggy pants. When that doesn’t get her attention, I call out her name. Still, her attention is directed towards the woman running the little shop. They’re laughing as the owner places my mother’s purchased fruits and vegetables into a bag. Because I was just another selfish child, I kicked my mother. This gets her attention, but not the type I wanted. She turns and lowers her head as the owner is talking to another customer. My mother mouths, “When we get home-”

“Here’s your bag,” the owner interrupted her with a soft voice.

With that, my mother’s demeanor shifted right back into its lighthearted self. She smiles and says her thanks, but that’s the end of that side of her. Once we get home she scolds me. With the flower crushed in my hand, I can feel my throat tighten. I’m crying in front of her as she points her finger and shouts at me. She could’ve scolded me for at least another hour, but a phone call cuts her off mid-sentence.

I threw the flower down and continued to cry into my pillow. I don’t know how long I cried. Maybe a few seconds. It could’ve been five minutes. An hour possibly, or maybe even two. How long it was doesn’t matter. I calmed down eventually. Well, the crying portion of my emotions ended. From being a tearful mess I then turned to frustration. “You’re always making me cry. I wish something made you cry for once, mom,” I shouted.

It wouldn’t take long for me to regret that statement because what had come next was an explosion. My childhood home was swallowed up in a blaze of fire. I tried looking for my mom, but I was too late. A piece of the roof punctured right through her, but she was still alive. Her body twitched and I saw tears in her eyes. I wanted to help her. I tried to, but I was too weak. So, I ran. I pushed past some crops and ran until I slipped and fell in some mud.

As I tried wiping off the mud from my face, I cried. I cried until I saw something appearing in the mud, it reflected something. It reflected something unworldly. Looking up, I see a spaceship.

The trudging soon began. My shoes were covered in mud, grass, and sewage. They smelled and were on the verge of breaking apart. I’ve worn the same clothes for days. We’ve been trudging for days. Blisters sat underneath my feet. Scars scattered throughout my ankles and some even managed to get to my shoulders and chest. The others and I haven’t eaten much. Our rations ended a week ago, so we’ve been surviving on whatever we’re able to find whether that means killing a fox or going dumpster diving.

It was supposed to end about a month ago, but the hideout was found out. The people that made it there first were either killed by the blast or, if they managed to escape before it hit, became their prisoners.

“Go west? Are you insane,” our group leader questioned.

She stood in front of him. She’s about my age, two years older. Her name is Ashley. I, of course, didn’t know it at the time, but she would become the one I risked everything for about two decades later. “Can’t you see they already know we’re heading south?”

We’re all young. Most of the group barely hit puberty. He was the oldest, so it was only natural for us to make him the leader. However, other than me he was the most stubborn. “Even if they do, what other choice do we have? Five hideouts have been discovered in the past month. If we go back west we’ll be shot down as soon as we step foot there, or worse we’ll become their prisoners. Let’s say you’re right. At least south we have some cover.”

“They’ve been hitting in one unit. There’s no way they’d split up in two separate directions.”

“And you know this how?”

“I’ve been watching them from afar. I haven’t seen any of them-”

“Wait. You’ve been splitting up from the group,” he yelled.

“Yes,” she muttered under her breath.

He steps closer to her and lifts her by her collar. Because of the huge height difference, her feet are seen dangling. She begins to cry. The others either just watch or look away. “You’ve been sneaking off from the group? For how long?”

Her crying causes my heart to drop and fists to shake. I wanted to do something, but I was just too scared. He was older, taller, and way stronger.

“I-I don’t know...a few weeks?” The last word in her answer is spoken with a squeak.

“You could’ve been caught for these past few weeks,” his grip tightens on her collar, “You could’ve given away our location these past few weeks.”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

Seeing him move his hand into his pocket, I already knew what he was planning to do. So, I didn’t waste any more time. I buried down my fear towards him and instead replaced it with the fear of that knife making it into her chest.

“Stop.” It was my turn to get in front of him. I looked at him with begging eyes, but he ignored me. He pulled the blade back and swung.

He cried out and let her go. I caught her before she hit the ground. As she and along with the rest of the group tried to process what just happened, I grabbed her hand and led her away from there. The last thing I see of them is them trying to help him pull the branch out of his ankle.

For months we all struggled. For months it was all about survival. It was about becoming a hunter rather than the hunted. It felt like years, but the years I’ve spent with her felt like hours. She made me happy the first time in a while. It’s the type of genuine happiness that causes your cheeks to cramp from all the laughing. I hadn’t felt that happy since before my father’s death. She was my first in just about everything. She was my lover. We’ve been together for basically my whole life. Until everything crumbled down. It crumbled because of me.

“And you did it all for her,” he broke me out of my memories.

“Yes,” I said confidently.

“One life isn’t worth the lives of millions.”

My eyebrows furrowed. One twitched. The space between them scrunched up. “What are you trying to say?”

“What do you think I’m trying to say?”

“You think I would let her die? You think I would just sit back on my ass and let my wife die?”

“You were the one that caused her predicament. It’s only deserved you-”

Before he can finish I punch his nose. He stumbles out of his chair and clutches his now crooked nose. Blood dripped out of the site, but I didn’t get to savor his pain for long because the consequences he described earlier began. An electric shock hit me. It went up and down my spine, causing me to stumble out of my chair as well.

Knees bent and shaking, I cry. I cry for it to stop. It does, but I still feel it. It’s over, but I still feel my spine burning and head pounding. So, I fall to the floor and try to dig my nails in it. I watch my tears splash onto it as well.

He moves in front of me. He bends down so that my eyes can meet with his shades. “Was it worth it?”

#180 #lost in space #writers on tumblr #creative writing #spilled ink #wlw #fiction #my writing #space

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sara-scribbles · 5 years ago

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Fae (Part 2)

Pairing: Ulquiorra/Orihime (UlquiHime) Theme: First Glance or Desire Word Count: 1,468

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

@ulquihimeweek

From then on Ulquiorra sneaks into the woods to meet her. She’s always there when he comes. She talks about plants and how beautiful they are. She describes their medical properties and symbolism. She discusses her brother, who is busy with other things, so she’s often alone. She talks for the both of them as he often keeps quiet.

Sometimes he does talk about himself. He tells her how he moved to the remote village because of his parents. He doesn’t tell her about them or why they made him move. He mentions how his grandmother knits for everyone. He talks about his favorite books and promises to bring one to read with her. He explains color theory to her as best as an eleven year old can.

Other times he brings his sketchpad and charcoal with him. He draws the various plants she points out. Sometimes when she’s not looking he’ll sketch small drawings of her. Of course he keeps those drawings a secret and won’t let her look past certain pages. She’s fascinated by his drawings. Even more so, she’s intrigued when he shows her his watercolor work. Her compliments bring a warm flush to his face. She’s sincere in her praise; it’s easy to tell.

As seasons come and go, Ulquiorra spends his time with this strange girl. His grandmother continues to keep an eye on him. However her scrutiny relaxes when she notices that he’s happier. Winter passes and he’s unable to visit her as often. However the few times he does see her, he teaches her the joys of building snowmen. Things he decided were too childish for him, he does with her.

Soon the twelve year old boy is sixteen. And things change once more.

~o~O~o~

Summer brings the humid and suffocating heat. Ulquiorra spends as much time as he can in the shade. His fair skin burns easily in the sun. The grass is cool under his bare feet as he walks through the silent forest. His satchel bumps against his side. His black hair has grown a bit too long for his liking. He’s gathered it, as best as he could, into a small ponytail. A lot of hair still hangs around his face. Pant legs rolled up, he wades through a shallow river.

Finally he comes to his destination. A small clearing in an otherwise tree populated forest. A large tree provides shade as he sets his bag down.

He ignores the the ring of mushrooms in the center of the clearing. Logically they could be poisonous and who knows what kind of animals were there before. However, a small part of his mind, which sounds much like his grandmother, warns of another reason to stay away. Ever since Hime showed him this area, they made it into their usual meeting place.

He leans against the tree and closes his eyes. His white shirt clings to him as the humidity is still strong. Even the forest with its thick trees and foliage can only do so much. He can hear the river in the distance. School has been keeping him busy, so he hasn’t seen her in a while. Somehow she seems to know when he’s coming to see her. Perhaps he should be more wary about her. Yet his logical mind tells him not to worry. She’s just another girl.

Standing up again, he stretches. Dark green eyes wander back to the mushroom circle. His grandmother warned him to stay away from those. She always said never to step into one or risk being taken to the fae realm never to return. Ulquiorra scoffs at the memory. His grandmother is just another superstitious fool.

His vision is blocked out as two hands covering his eyes. “Guess who!” Her voice is filled with mirth

His mouth pulls down into a frown. “Release me.” The hands are gone in an instant. He turns to her, ready to scold her for her childish games, but his words are caught in his throat.

Her copper hair is much longer than he remembers. It sweeps down almost to her waist. Turquoise colored flowers adorn either side of her head as usual. Her eyes still hold that familiar spark of curiosity. There’s fondness in there as well. She wears a sleeveless dress of yellow-green. Flowers are dotted here and there, and her feet are bare. Yet there’s something he can’t describe that makes her more radiant than usual.

“You’re no fun, Ulqui!” She pouts, which just draws more attention to her lips.

He turns away from her. “Saying “guess who” is ridiculous when we are the only ones out here.” He sits under the tree again and pulls out his sketchbook and charcoal. She follows and sits next to him.

“Hmm...I guess you’re right.” She wiggles her toes. “I missed you. Do you enjoy your classes?”

He flips through the sketchbook. “They’re okay. Nothing is really much of a challenge. Though the commute can be too long.”

Having to travel to the closest town for school meant he had to get up early. The only transportation left at six. He would come back home by eight and just do his work while having dinner. Even on the days he didn’t have classes, he spent a lot of time studying. His grandmother encouraged him to study hard so he could get a good job. His parents hadn’t sent a word to him since he had arrived. However there was always money sent to them the first of the month. School left little time for him to visit her, so summer vacation is a welcome time.

“What’s that?” She points at one of his watercolor works.

“It’s the town center near my school. They usually change the flowers every month.” This month they have sunflowers. They add a brightness to the area. The fountain in the middle has been turned on from the start of spring. Many students spend their lunch times there, Ulquiorra being one. Most lunch times are spent drawing what is around him or studying for classes.

“How interesting. Though I prefer flowers in their natural habitat. I guess there is something beautiful about how fleeting picked flowers are…” She trails off in thought. Leaning closer to him, she inspects the drawing with deep concentration.

Her hair brushes against his face. She smells of something floral and earthy. Again, his heart beats a bit faster. He has the sudden urge to run his hands through her hair. Her locks look so silky, he wonders if they feel just as such.

These sudden and strange urges to be closer to her started a while ago. He denies his growing attraction to her because he just can’t comprehend his feelings. Ulquiorra has sworn off any feelings like this because all they have caused are problems since he was young. Yet he feels closer to her than anyone in his life.

She moves away causing him to break from his internal musings. “You have an amazing eye for color and detail, Ulqui.”

“Thank you…” She smiles at him with unabashed wonder.

Without thought he reaches out and gently runs his hands through the ends of her hair. They are as smooth as he imagined. He pauses as he looks at her. Her cheeks are stained a light pink.

“You’re...beautiful,” he mumbles. His complement makes her face tinge a bit darker. Brushing loose strands behind her ear, he leans closer. Sketchbook and charcoal forgotten, his gaze falls to her lips.

Everything is silent and still. She doesn’t move away as she watches him beneath her half-lidded eyes. Cupping the side of her face, he leans closer. Her eyes flutter shut as his lips barely brush against her own. He pulls away a bit before leaning down to kiss her fully.

He kisses her gently, afraid to scare her away. Yet when she threads her fingers through his hair, pulling the small ponytail out, he presses for more. His lips glide against hers before he gently nips her lower lip. She opens her mouth eagerly to let his tongue slip in.

Somehow she slides onto his lap. Both his hands cup her face as his tongue explores her mouth. She’s sweet like nothing he’s ever tasted. Finally he pulls away to catch his breath. She’s breathing just as heavily as he is. He presses his forehead against her own as he stares into her eyes. Her pupils are blown wide with desire and she looks ready to devour him. He wonders if he looks just the same. He wants to draw her like this.

“Hime, I-”

There’s a sharp cry and gasp of horror that makes them pull away. His grandmother and a few of the male villagers stare at them from the clearing.

#ulquihime #ulquihimeweek2019 #ulquihime week #UHweek2019 #ulquiorra x orihime #ulquiorra cifer #orihime inoue #bleach imagines #scenario

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