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valhallasubstitute · 3 years

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Pleasure

Edward x F Reader

The reader teaches Edward a thing or two about pleasure

REQUEST: Can i request a *smut* with Edward from TLK?

Maybe a dane reader that absolute rock his shit like nobody before 😂 she can be Finan Or Sihtric sister maybe?! Thank you!

A/N: Evidently, I don’t think much of the English as lovers lol, I blame my first bf – Tom if you find this, thank you for the inspo. Also, if anyone’s interested in a dom reader then please let me know, I think there’s a real lack and that makes the switch in me v sad

WARNINGS: SMUT 18+. Unprotected sex – it’s the ninth century they have an excuse, you don’t. M!Sub/F!dom undertones, brief female masturbation, male receiving oral

WC: 1654

Tags: @flowers-in-your-hayr @geekandbooknerd @mariaenchanted @solinarimoon

You could honestly say you never expected things to turn out this way.

How many Danes could say they had discussed the boy King’s sex life with him? If you counted yourself then it would be three. Sihtric, your brother, and Uhtred sitting either side of you. Add in the Irishman that started it all, the baby monk and a vaguely uncomfortable looking Lady of Mercia and the number of people looking unimpressed rises to six.

You sat around the fire; ale pouch being passed between you after another successful battle, but your good spirits were beginning to dwindle as you listen to Edward describe his other conquests.

There were more than you had expected, but you supposed his title and pretty face made it hard for young maidens to deny him. You hadn’t denied yourself the pleasure of admiring him either, long blond curls that grazed his broad shoulders, and light blue eyes, usually set in a frown. You found yourself believing his words before battle, letting his passion seep through you as you lost yourself in the sight of him, arm outstretched with a sword in hand, strong thighs gripping the saddle and a ferocity that one might overlook upon first meeting Edward.

It had the foundations of a fantasy that would have kept you warm.

The conversation moved slowly, Edward relaxing and his words becoming freer. You forced yourself back to the present, preparing yourself to hear another depressing confession.

‘The last was a girl from the camp just outside of Lundon. She was wild.’

‘Wild? Now this I can get behind.’ Finan leaned forward, a new sense of interest washing over him as Edward nodded. You had already heard of the ‘daring’ places Edward had fucked, the palace guest room, the stable, and who could forget his royal tent! Wild, you decided, was something Edward had never come across.

‘She took me out to the woods and laid herself bare before me.’ You watched the interest of the group peak, even your brother raised a brow. ‘She started touching herself.’ He motioned to his chest. ‘I’ve never seen a woman so bold. How is a man meant to control himself?’ Uhtred nodded lightly, taking the ale from a grinning Finan. ‘I laid her on the ground and had my way with her.’

Finan’s face fell. ‘That’s what you call wild? Christ have mercy.’

That was when it hit you. It wasn’t that the King was a bad lover necessarily, it was that none of what he had experience had anything to do with pleasure. Not real pleasure.

‘With respect my Lord, none of your exploits deserve the praise in which you speak of them.’

Aethelflaed’s eyes snapped to you as your words settled over the group. You watched as Edward straightened himself, his hands dusting his thighs before he looked at you. The ease was gone from his denier and for the first time that night you felt like you were speaking to the King of Wessex.

‘How so?’ His voice was calm, interest peeking out from behind his pride.

‘What you have described is the way all Saxon men are. You lie a woman on her back, slip inside – she’ll make a few noises, to hurry you up.’ You shrugged sympathetically. ‘Maybe she is feeling particularly generous, or bored, and will wrap her legs around you, pull you deeper so that she might feel something and coo in your ear a sweet encouragement. It’ll last all of five minutes before you’re lying on your back, satisfied, and she’ll tell how good you were before slipping away. Am I wrong, Aethelflaed?’

All eyes snapped to the Lady of Mercia, the way she looked down and the uncharacteristic blush on her cheeks told everyone everything they needed to know.

‘The thing is, Edward, is that you never had sex for pleasure.’ The King opened his mouth, but you kept going, ignoring the baffled looks from Saxons around you. ‘Only for release and they are not the same.’

Finan was the first to agree. ‘I like the way you think Y/N.’

‘Many men do.’ You stood as you spoke, smiling at your friends but staring pointedly at Edward before retiring to your tent.

It was around an hour later when you sense that you were not alone. In just your tunic you glanced at the dagger at your side before addressing the presence.

‘It’s not very kingly to lurk in the shadows, my lord.’

‘Your words have left an impression.’ The candlelight danced on Edwards features, and you almost missed the reservation in his steps for the soft curve of his mouth. You stood, walking towards him slowly, a small smile encouraging him. ‘After you left, I thought about the things you described, and myself in relation to them. You were right and … and I would like to experience it.’

You could sense his nerves despite the way Edward held your gaze, it was unwavering but as you circled him you noted the way his hands fidgeted behind his back.

‘Experience what my king?’ You stopped in front of him, your chest nearly brushing against his.

‘Pleasure.’

His lips crashed into yours, demanding but soft. You let yourself melt into it, tasting the ale on his tongue before pulling back completely. You laughed as Edward frowned, as a prince he was spoiled, it was clear to see, but you intended to ruin him as a king.

You lead him to the furs of your bed, telling him to sit with a light push on his chest. His eyes were already trained on you but darkened as you removed your clothing, leaving your body exposed. You took delight in how he didn’t know where to look, his eyes darting from your face to your sex with his bottom lip tugged tightly between his teeth.

You let your hands roam around your body, swaying gently till you palmed at your breast, rolling your nipple between your fingers. Your eyes fixated on the growing strain in Edwards breeches as your other hand travelled south, your index finger slipping between your thighs with a gasp.

‘Y/n…’ The sound of your name on his tongue made your stomach flutter, he sounded demanding.

‘Pleasure is the pleasure of your partner.’ You moaned quietly as you slipped another finger into your heat, keeping the pace steady.

‘Show me.’ He sounded desperate.

You took your fingers from between your thighs and brought them to your lips, smiling as Edwards own lips parted in want. You moved towards him slowly, enjoying the growing sweat forming on his forehead and the way he licked his lips.

He reached for you, but you knelt before him, your hands running up his thighs before you began untying his trousers. He lifted his hips and you focused on ridding him of the fabric before turning your attention to his erection.

It stood proudly before you, the tip red and already leaking precum. You breathed in deeply before pursing your lips and blowing cold air directly onto his member. Edward inhaled deeply, a smile coming to your lips when it jumped in response.

‘You are teasing me.’

‘I am pleasuring you.’ Edward opened his mouth to argue but the words died in his throat. Your lips wrapped around as much of him as you could fit, your hands finding the rest. You bobbed your head once, twice, flattening your tongue as you went down then curling it as you came up. Edward’s left hand bunched in the sheets, grounding himself while his right tangled itself in your hair, his grip creating a delicious burn.

Breathing through your nose you took him as deeply as you could, your throat contracting around him as your vision blurred. The way Edward moaned kept you there for longer than you had any man, quickly finding yourself obsessed with the way his eyes fluttered and his throat bobbed as he tried to hold back the noises. You only stopped when your lungs demanded it.

‘God … Please, Y/n.’

You kissed your way from his balls to his tip, giving it one last lick before kissing up the rest of his body, undoing his shirt as you went. You let your hands roam around the tight muscles of his thighs and abdomen, your tongue following your fingers until you were sat in his lap, your hands tangled in his hair and your lips branding his neck.

‘I want you Y/n.’ You pulled back, lips tingling and bruised, your core brushing against his erection.

‘You want me Edward, but do you desire me?’

‘Yes.’

You smiled at him, the darkness in his eyes and his grip on your hips making you ache. You sunk down on him slowly, enjoying the way he stretched you. You stilled as your hips met his, grinding your clit against his body. The tiny jolts of movement began to pick up speed, Edwards lips discovering the slope of your neck and your hands digging into his shoulders. You wanted it to last forever, to feel the hot ache of him between your legs but you knew he was close. His hips jutted up to meet yours, one of his hands finding its way to your clit as his breath grew heavy in your ear.

His fingers were skilled, rubbing in time to his thrusts while you clawed at his back, your knees beginning to give from beneath you. You came with a call of his name, the tightness in your stomach snapping into white pleasure that washed over your body, wave after wave. Edwards’s pace didn’t slow, and your walls gripped him tightly, convulsing around him until he came with a deep moan. His fingers slowed and both his hands come to rest on your hips. He was smiling.

‘From now on, I think I will always choose pleasure.’

‘A wise choice my lord, I’ll always be happy to comply.’

#tlk fanfic #tlk #The Last Kingdom #tlk Edward #tlk edward x reader #tlk edward smut #tlk edward x reader smut #edward the elder #inga writes

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sweetaesuga · 4 years

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in your heart | halloween

pairing: jungkook x female reader

genre: fluff, lil smut, fratboy jk, ex-fuckboy jk, bookworm reader! established relationship!

warnings: language, jk is horny😐 but she lets him hit it🤠, annoying kids

word count: 2.1k

synopsis: halloween with jungkook and his cousin.

timeline: takes place after the events of in your eyes

↳ in your heart; masterlist

a/n: this is late but EYES WIDE OPEN IS A BOP. i need to start writing my next fic and stop writing drabble skdjdjd

"Fuck, you look so good. Lets just go to your place and spend the night there. Fuck them kids," Jungkook's hands disappeared under your purple dress that he adored and despised at the same time. He wasn't complaining but he didn't want any other person possibly looking up your dress to catch a peek of his favorite pink panties.

"We're not ditching Hyun. You promised him last time that you wouldn't miss out again," he groaned as he instantly knew what you were referring to. Last Halloween, he ditched the both of you for a girl he was wanting to mess around with. Jungkook wasn't going to let this opportunity pass up so last minute he notified you that he wasn’t coming.

"Stop reminding me of my shitty mistakes," he sighed. His face was buried into your green scarf that tickled you every five seconds. His slicked back hair brushed against your cheek constantly. His hands slipped under your underwear causing you to yelp and push him away. "What the hell is wrong with you? It's Halloween and there's kids around."

He pouted, his lower lip pushing out. "What's wrong with me? Not my fault, you look incredible," his eyes lingered on your purple gogo boots that he seemed to be obsessed with. Even imagined you bent over with them while he was behind you, pounding into you. You looked so angelic with them on. He wasn't sure how long he can hold himself back for. "Why would you wear this if you know how I am?"

"It's our costume, dumbass," you pointed at his white pollo shirt with the bright red tie in between. His dark jeans which tightly enclosed around his thick thighs. "I'm Daphne and you're Fred Jones," you turned away from him, waiting on his cousin to burst through those doors anytime soon so you could avoid Jungkook’s stare.

"Why couldn't we be Shaggy and Velma?" he leaned on the hood of his car, watching a child trip over his own feet. He was close to bursting out in laughter but you shot him a glare just in time. "I wasn't gonna laugh. Seriously though, we're better off as them. Appearance wise—well actually Daphne could've suited you more than Velma but whatever."

You rolled your eyes and stood next to him. His arm came around your shoulder to hold you close. His Victoria's Secret perfume was strong but you don't comment on it."Hyun wanted to be Shaggy. It would make way more sense for him to be, he has a dog."

The second you finished your sentence, a brown Great Dane puppy came running down to you from the house his owner was in. Her steps are big as she leaped to make it to Jungkook and you fast. You squealed, throwing your boyfriend's arm off of you. Jungkook would whine about it but how could he, when it's a cute puppy.

"Nala! Hi girl, how are you doing?"she wagged her tail around as you bent down to caress her fur. A red harness around her chest but no sign of a leash on her. "You don't have your leash on, go put your leash on!" she ignored you and jumped on you again.

"We should get a dog," Jungkook thought out loud from thinking about it too hard. His ears flushed a tint of red from the tip. He turned to see your reaction but you don't appear to be bothered from his suggestion. He released a breath he didn't notice he was holding in. His stupid mind wondering the impossible. There was no way you would want a dog with him.

Luckily his aunt and cousin saved him from any more trouble. He rolled his eyes when Hyun came running to your arms instead of him, his cousin. His brown hair was messy to fit the role of Shaggy. Honestly, Jungkook still thought that he would've made a perfect Shaggy.

"Aww, you look so adorable Hyun! I haven't seen you in almost a year," you hugged him tightly. Ignoring the way your boyfriend was glaring at him, he kissed your cheek. "I can't believe I missed your birthday, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," he reassured you as his mother came from behind him. She greeted the two of you, mentioning how she was happy when she found out the news of the two of you being together.

"It was about time," she muttered under her breath, taking a glance at Jungkook when she bent down to hook the leash on Nala. He looked away, ashamed of previous actions. If Jungkook could’ve been with you over sooner, he would've stopped fooling around with other girls. "Alright, you got everything?" Hyun nodded and gave his mom a kiss. "Behave good for Jungkook and Y/N," she turned to you, handing over this pumpkin basket. "If anything happens please call me. Have him home by ten please."

"We will, come on Hyun," you held your hand for him to take. He hugged his mother again before grabbing your hand. The contrast between the two was cute, your larger hand engulfed his. Jungkook made sure that he rubbed the top of Hyun’s head gently so he wouldn't fuss about Jungkook being extra vicious with him.

Hyun waved at his mother as Jungkook clutched his free hand, watching her figure shrink. He tightened the grasp around your hand. Nala walked in front of you, sniffing all the areas. She became annoyed at one kid, dressed as a witch, coming to pet her harshly. Jungkook was close to telling the child to fuck off but you warned him.

"You're not dad material," you followed Hyun to a house. Jungkook's hot on your trail and ready to defend himself but Nala ran towards a plant to piss on it. "Seriously, don't bother trying to get me pregnant, I do not want your babies."

"Oh shut up. You told me I'm daddy material."

"I thought we agreed we weren't into that too," Hyun ran up the house with the minimal decoration. There were really no other Halloween decorations besides the basket outside with a note on it and a pumpkin on the right. Talk about being in the spirit. "It says to take one," you pointed at the basket filled with bags of candy.

"Take all of them."

"No! Just take one."

"Take all of them, who cares?"

"I care!" you turned around to give him a dirty look. He was already smiling at you, apparent that he knew that he was annoying you. "Take all of them, one of the kids are eventually going to," he shrugged when you continued to stare at him. "I'm speaking facts, bubs—oh! Nala's pooping, did you bring a bag?" he asked while having a stare down with the puppy. Her eyes stared simply at Jungkook as she continued her business on the freshly mowed grass.

"Why would I bring a pooping bag?!" you turned towards him and away from Hyun. He picked up handfuls of candy, nearly putting it in his basket before he noticed something.

"Well shit," Jungkook laughed, looking around to see if any other kid heard him. There's a group of kids coming for the house you're standing at. "My aunt didn't give me one."

"I'm not leaving the poop here," you pointed to the sign that clearly said to pick up after your dog. Jungkook groaned before becoming aware of what was in Hyun's hand. He handed him the poop bag, small poop emojis imprinted over it.

"That's so cute," you gushed over the stupid bag and the puppy too. You don't listen to the basket of candy being emptied into Hyun’s pumpkin basket, too engrossed into Nala. Jungkook shot a thumps up to Hyun, satisfied with his cousin.

Even if you do seem to notice how full his basket was despite only being to five houses, you don't mention it. His collection of candy for the night was becoming so full, Jungkook had to carry some in the pockets of his blue jeans until they eventually became stuffed. He also filled up a takeout bag of Burger King where Jungkook took the two of you to eat.

Nala's on his lap, sleeping from the almost two hour walk. Jungkook picked her up after the first hour and was pleased with how sweet she was in his arms. She clearly enjoyed his warmth the most out of the two of you. The evidence was her snoozing in the middle of noisy fast food place. Hyun was somewhat tired and ready for bed. His bedtime was nearing and the signs of exhaustion were lucid.

"Is Y/N like your girlfriend?" Hyun asked, his chicken nuggets being sloppily dipped in the ketchup. His feet swung high since he was unable to touch the ground.

"Sadly, yes," Jungkook sighed and looked over at you. He smiled at you as he watched the grin grow on your face. "We're dating now. No longer am I a free man, Hyun."

"If you marry her then does that mean she's like part of the family?" Hyun blinked. A bit of ketchup sliding down the corner of his mouth before you wipe it for him.

"Yes—actually I don't what she'll be to you but yes she'll be apart of the family," Jungkook grabbed a fry before pointing it at you. "So if you want her to become apart of the family, tell her to start proposing to me."

"Isn't it the other way around?" he asked, innocently. His curious eyes make your heart flutter.

"No," Jungkook and you respond at the same time. He kicked your boot lightly underneath the table, smiling like an idiot. "Y/N will be proposing to me, we would like to break stereotypes. I want an expensive ring too and I expect you to take care of me."

"Can I be your boyfriend too?" Hyun almost cut off Jungkook to ask his question. You could practically see the steam rushing out of Jungkook's ears the second his cousin finished. You giggled and nodded. Jungkook kicked you underneath the table, trying to persuade you to glance over at him. Hyun hugged you, eyeing your boyfriend. The glint of the sinister in there from your response.

"Well if I marry her, she's my wife," Jungkook jabbed his pointer finger into the boy's chest. "And you're just her boyfriend so you would be nothing compared to me," he leaned back. His arms crossed over his chest, his biceps flaunting out of nowhere. You mentally rolled your eyes at his competitiveness emerging. "Besides she said she wanted a big strong man not a little boy like you."

"That's not true, right?" Hyun turned to you. His eyes begging to you that you truly did not say that. You were prepared to disagree but Jungkook spoke again.

With a playful smug on his face, he rubbed the end of his combat boot against your exposed skin. "That's not she told me last—"

You kicked his leg harshly, earning a cry from him. He grunted as his small jump away from you awakened the puppy. "Be quiet, we're literally in a public place," your cheeks are warm from the information about your intimacy he was spilling out. "We should get going, it's getting late," you slid out of the booth and ignored the protests of the boys who wanted to stay longer. You poured water into Jungkook's hands for Nala to drink outside before departing.

Jungkook carried Hyun on the way back. Slumber made up its mind and took over the exhausted kid. He had poured his energy out running from door to door. Jungkook offered to also carry Nala on his other side but you didn't want to force him to bear all that weight so you suggested for him to take the basket. Once you returned to his aunt’s home, his uncle removed Hyun from his arms before thanking you for looking after him and wishing you a good night.

Jungkook's ready to doze off too tired from the events of tonight to even go to his own place. His ascot tie undone by the time he reached your small apartment complex. He almost missed it if he didn't stop to stare into the mirrors to make sure he wasn't parking on the red line. Your fingers hooked around the ends of your pink lacy underwear before pushing it down. He doesn't grasp how in a blink of an eye, you're on top of him with your buttons from your dress undone.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his hands already on your hips to direct them. Jungkook fidgeted as he watched you pull the straps of your bra down slowly. He was on the verge of taking you right then and there in the backseat of his car as you teased him.

“Giving you your sweets too.”

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vikingqueer · 3 years

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music recommendations because i have some thoughts™

i don't wanna be that person who's like "my music taste is so weird lol" but i find that very often most of my friends don't really care for the music i like so i thought i'd just make a long ass post about it on tumblr instead. Fair warning, I'm very passionate about MIKA and The Mechanisms and so this very quickly got VERY long because it is part of my ongoing campaign to convince people to listen to mika and the mechs.

1) MIKA in general, but especially My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019) and No Place In Heaven (2015) (especially the Deluxe version!!)

MIKA is a kind of British singer (half Lebanese, grew up in France blabla), and you probably know him for Grace Kelly and Relax, Take It Easy from his first album Life In Cartoon Motion from 2007. He writes a lot of FUN music, interspersed with the occasional slightly sadder song, especially when looking at an album like No Place In Heaven, which contains a lot of songs with gay themes, resulting in some songs that are just a little bit ouch. He's originally classically trained and has a frankly RIDICULOUS range and idk he just writes very good pop music. Also I have so much respect for that time he talked about how a lot of pop is very fake, with like expensive cars and stilettos and mini skirts in the snow and said "Because I walk down the street, and I don't see any of that. I see fat women and gay men. I don't know... That's real". He's written 5 albums; My Name Is Michael Holbrook (2019), No Place In Heaven (2015), The Origin Of Love (2012), The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009), and Life In Cartoon Motion (2007).

For starters, I recommend listening to Last Party, Origin Of Love, Grace Kelly, Blame It On The Girls, Blue, Happy Ending, Pick Up Off The Floor, Last Party, Underwater, Tomorrow and Tiny Love (yes this is a long list but i REALLY love MIKA). If you want a slightly broader palette that's not just my favourites, I recommend the Mika starter pack on spotify.

2) The Mechanisms. I warn you. I am making this a thing. I have been obsessed with the mechs since last march.

Boy, where to start? The Mechanisms were a British 9 member space pirate story-telling cabaret that "died" in January 2020. They rewrite songs to fit retellings of various stories. I don't even know what genre I'd describe them as, but probably folk but steam-punk?? Their 4 "main" albums are concept albums, and I honestly just recommend listening to the from beginning to end in chronological order. A good way to get into the mechs is also to listen to UDAD and then watching the live show on youtube or alternately try giving Death To The Mechanisms a listen, to get good quality live show audio of TBI and various other stuff. Also, it was streamed on YouTube and someone combined the footage with the album audio and it rocks. Really, I think the mechs' best selling points are honestly just their concept albums:

Once Upon a Time (In Space) Their first album from 2012. I'd say this is the most "easily digestible" for the general public, since it's a retelling of various fairytales. So, what if Old King Cole was in fact not merry, but rather a cold-blooded dictator, intent on colonising as much of the galaxy as possible. What if Snow White was a general, looking to avenge what King Cole did to her sister, Rose. What if Cinderella was to be wedded to Rose the day that King Cole attacked in order to kidnap Rose? But y'know, In Space and also like every other mechs album it's a beautiful tragedy. Fave songs are Old King Cole, Pump Shanty, and No Happy Ending.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn You guessed it, it's a story about Odysseus, or Ulysses because I guess Ulysses is easier to rhyme or fit in the meter or something, idk. Ulysses is a war hero of unknown gender who is said to keep something that could take down the corrupt Olympians, meanest families in the City, in a vault to which only they know the passcode. Oedipus, Heracles, Orpheus, and Ariadne have been hired by Hades, who happens to be The Mechs' quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, to get into Ulysses' vault. I didn't care much for udad at first, but honestly it's got some real bangers and the story is really good. UDAD weirdly stands out as the only of the concept albums to not feature any gay relationships, per se. Fave songs are Riddle of the Sphinx, Favoured Son, and Underworld Blues.

High Noon over Camelot This is my favourite mehcs album. So basically, this is Arthurian legend, but it's a space western and Jonny D'Ville does a bad southern accent. This is the story of the cowboy lovers Arther, Lancelot, and Guinevere searching for the Galfridian Restricted Acces Interface Login, or GRAIL, in order to stop their world from falling into the sun. Meanwhile, Mordred and Gawaine are ruling Camelot, and Mordred has convinced Gawaine to try to establish peace with the Saxons by whom Mordred was raised, but Gawaine hates viciously. If you love getting your heart broken and songs by a fucking off the rails batshit preacher I HIGHLY recommend hnoc. Fave songs are Gunfight at the Dolorous Guard, Blood and Whiskey, and Once and Future King. Honorary mention for Hellfire because it awakens something animalistic in me.

The Bifrost Incident TBI is the frankly only good adaptation of norse mythology I've ever known of, and I say that as Dane who was literally forced to learn things about norse mythology in school because it's my heritage or whatever. I've been listening to TBI a lot lately because it's VERY good. It's definitely the most refined of the mechs' albums (because it's the newest) but also I just love a little bit of cosmic horror. 80 years ago, Odin, the All-Mother, ruler of Asgaard, launched a train through the wormhole Bifrost that would reduce the travel between Asgaard and Midgaard from 3 months to 3 days, but things didn't go quite as planned. Lyfrassir Edda of the New Midgaard Transport Police is trying to solve the case of why suddenly the train has arrived 80 years late; to figure out whether it was accident or maybe it was sabotaged by Loki, who was allegedly sentence to death her murder of Baldur, by the Midgaardian resistance led by Loki's wife Sigyn, or maybe by Thor, who was to take over after Odin, and who holds quite the grudge because he used to be a friend of Loki's. You might've heard the song Thor from this album, it's apparently quite popular. Fave songs are Loki, Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting, and Ragnarok V: End of The Line. Yet again an honorary mention: Red Signal because while Lovecraft was a bitch, his invocations are fucking RAW.

Basically, the Mechanisms do all of their performances in character as captain first mate Jonny D'Ville, quartermaster Ashes O'Reilly, pilot DrumBot Brian, master-at-arms Gunpowder Tim, science officer Raphaella la Cognizi, doctor Baron Marius Von Raum (neither a baron, nor a doctor), archivist Ivy Alexandria, engineer Nastya Rasputina, and The Toy Soldier, who is, as usual, present. You can find very obscure lore about the crew of the Aurora here, tidbits on Tales To Be Told and TTBT Vol. 2, such as One Eyed Jacks, The Ignominious Demise of Dr. Pilchard, Gunpowder Tim vs. The Moon Kaiser, Lucky Sevens, and Lost in the Cosmos.

If you feel like listening to a full 40-50 minute album to find out if you like a band is a bit much, I recommend listening to one of the mini stories Alice, Swan Song, or Frankenstein, which are about 12, 5 and 9:30 minutes respectively.

3) The Amazing Devil You know that guy who played Jaskier in the Witcher? I got into The Amazing Devil from spotify recommending them because I listened to the mechs, and apparently Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil is the same Joey Batey who was in the Witcher. Both him and Madeleine Hyland are VERY talented singers and songwriters and their second album The Horror and the Wild makes me go out into the forest and SCREAM. I listened to it on repeat for like a month straight. I guess they'd also be considered folk, but like. New Folk. Also yes, this is another British artist, I don't know why I'm like this. I've never really gotten that into their first album, Love Run, but King slaps. As I understand there's this whole lore about the Blue Furious Boy and Scarlet Scarlet, Joey and Madeleine respectively, but unlike the Mechanisms it's actually possible to find out things about the actual real people and harder to find the obscure lore? I'm open for people to please help me. Fave songs are The Horror and the Wild, Farewell Wanderlust, and That Unwanted Animal, which is literally a third of their second album, but again. I haven't really listened to Love Run that much, and I just LOVE the harmonies on THATW. (also im gay and dramatic leave me alone)

4) dodie I have so much love for this woman. Like many others, I first knew dodie as doddleoddle on youtube. I think I first stumbled across her in probably 2015, because I distinctly already knew her before she released her first EP Sick of Losing Soulmates in 2016. I think I watched probably every video she's ever made in the span of a few weeks. I just loved her quiet sound and was absolutely HOOKED. Also she's actually the reason I got into MIKA originally, so thanks for that. Dodie just realeased her first album Build A Problem (in addition to her three EP's; the one mentioned above, You, and Human) and it slaps. Yes dodie is also British Fave songs are probably Monster, Rainbow, and In The Middle.

5) Cladia Boleyn Unfortunately, Claudia Boleyn only has three singles and that's it. She's been making content on youtube for quite a while, and that's how I first discovered her. I don't know what genre her music is, but I like it. The songs are Celesta, George, and Mother Maiden Crone, of which the latter is my favourite. I'm not saying Claudia Boleyn invented women in 2017 when she released Mother Maiden Crone, but she did. Also you guessed it, Claudia Boleyn is British.

6) Hozier I'm not about to tell you about Hozier. You know who he is. Listen to Nina Cried Power, Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene, and Shrike. Also Hozier isn't stricly British in that he is definitely from A British Isle, but Ireland is not part of the UK. Give me a break.

7) Oh Land Oh Land IS DANISH. I like her early music best, because I'm not that into the electronic sound. I guess Oh Land is just you regular old pop, but with the occasional weird vibe? Oddly enough, I like her first album Fauna best. Unfortunately I haven't really listened to her newest album Family Tree much, but it seems good? Fave songs are Frostbite, Love You Better and Family Tree. I cried on the bus, first time I listened to the Danish version of Love You Better, Elsker Dig Mer because my mother tongue always just hits harder. Also Frostbite is Oh Land doing a duet with herself which is pretty cool.

8) Oysterband This is a live recommendation. I mean they're a decent folk band and all, but they're a fucking experience live. If you like folk and you ever get the opportunity to see Oysterband live, do it. Unfortunately, yes. They are British. Either way, they are incredible on a scene and I think they deserve a mention for that.

9) Ben Platt Honestly don't know much about this guy, but he's not British and he was in Dear Evan Hansen. He released an album in 2019, Sing To Me Instead, and I just think it's a good album, there isn't really not much more to it. Fave songs are Grow As We Go, Bad Habit, and In Case You Don't Live Forever.

and thats all for now. this has been a ramble. shout out to you if you actually read all of this, especially the mechs part.

#music stuff #amalie.txt #music recommendations #mika #the mechanisms #the amazing devil #dodie #claudia boleyn #hozier #oh land #oysterband #ben platt

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jinxedpanda4life · 4 years

Text

Criminal Investigator AU HC

I would first like to start off by saying thank you to everyone.

I honestly did not expect the response I got to my Damirae Hospital AU HC list.

When I first woke up and checked tumblr ~13 hours after posting I had a holy shit moment.

I felt powerful, should I? Probably not.

But! Since I am noticing a lack of AUs in the fandom, whether on Tumblr, AO3 or FanFiction.net, whatever AU comes to my mind I shall jot down some hcs for!

Thank you all once again!

(Also trying format changes for easy reading)

(Also Also, I am thinking the story is less fluid but more episodic)

Let’s get started:

- So I’m thinking this is some FBI, SVU, and FBI BAU mixture or whatever. Basically all the great shows we know in love shoved together. From Bones to Criminal Minds and everything in between.

- Special Agent (Dr.) Raven Roth is a lead interrogator and is the resident psych consult.

She’s been educated in interrogation, behavioral science, psychology, forensic pathology, and criminology.

She has combat training (hand to hand), she carries (for her job) a gun and at all times has a knife/dagger on her person (people have stopped trying to figure out where she keeps them).

Her father was/is crime boss T. Trigon who is currently imprisoned.

Was born in the states but fled with her mother to Romania when she was a newborn.

When Trigon found them he killed Arella and took Raven, she was abut 9 - 10 years old.

She took her mother’s last name when she turned 18.

Knows two languages besides English; French, Romanian, Romani (various dialects but knows multiple), Greek and Latin

On more than one occasion some goon of her father’s tries to recruit her, every time she kicks their ass. (Damian was there for the most recent (he was still green though))

Lives by herself in a decent sized apartment, has a gun safe (gun safety is important!), a cat (Nevermore), and is a regular at a 24/7 bookstore &/ cafe

Can usually be found wearing some kind of jacket, sweater, cardigan

She once helped save some kids (Melvin, Tommy & Teether) and is now their surrogate aunt, she has photos of them at her desk @ work. (Damian assumes/ed that they were her kids)

She also, when she can, hangs out and babysits them on occasion.

Raven is part of a team consisting of Dick Grayson (unit leader), Kori Anders, Garfield Logan, Jaime Reyes, and very recently Damian Wayne

- Special Agent Damian Wayne is a lead investigator (he is still a bit fresh to the unit), translator, sniper and combat coordinator

He’s been educated in martial arts, explosives, hand to hand combat, close range combat, and combat (basically he knows how to kill you 9 ways to Sunday), also, behavioral science, computer science, criminology, linguistics and language.

He can easily translate (into English): Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Bengali, French, Polish, German, Spanish, Portuguese, he can also learn any language you put in front of him and know the basics within a day

(Having lived in many places around the world he needed to be able to speak and understand in order to survive) (wow dramatic much?)

His father is currently the director (or deputy director, whatever floats ya boat) of the FBI.

His mother was essentially a secret agent who worked for various agencies around the globe. (deceased)

His grandfather was the leader of a, um, well to be honest, terrorist agency. (deceased)

Was sent to live with his father when he was 15 (when his mother died) and has been in the states ever since

Lives alone, he has an upscale apartment that he truthfully spends little time in, has multiple locations in the home where various weapons are stored, his place has a very cold atmosphere

Is either in proper work attire or in work out clothing, there is no in between

Tries and fails not to take work home with him

He sees a therapist (who says he should probably try investing in relationships with the people at his job)

His only “friend” (he hates calling him that, more like close acquaintance) is Jonathan Kent who was in his class at the FBI Academy, Jon works in a white collar crime department in Metropolis

The only person he actually kind of sort of doesn’t dislike is in fact Raven Roth, she’s a no bull shit person, he likes that

He may know Grayson because of how he’s Bruce’s kind of son but it does not mean he likes him

He finds Logan annoying as all hell, even if he is somewhat useful

He picked a fight with Reyes first day and regretted it (he will never admit that), he respects him

Anders is overly friendly in his opinion, kind of acts like a secretary with all that positivity and grates his nerves, he tolerates her

(Unlike last time I am not going in detail about the rest of the team, this will be brief)

- Supervisory Special Agent Dick Grayson (Unit Chief) is basically Dick Grayson with a big fancy title but all the same skills

He is also obsessed with Slade Wilson and Red X (who is Jason in this)

- Supervisory Special Agent Kori Anders is a lead investigator and is also a go to for undercover work

- Special Agent Garfield Logan is a lead interrogator, is head of the unit’s K-9 unit and kind of has a thing for Roth (which she does not reciprocate)

- Special Agent Jaime Reyes is a tactical analyst, tech analyst and is head of the unit’s SWAT team, he does not do well with talking with people, or change

The Scarab is a computing program that Jaime created himself

STORY START:

- When Damian first joins the team there is another member, Special Agent Terra Markov, she is revealed as a sleeper agent but she aligns herself with the team and sadly is shot and killed in a fire fight

- A couple weeks after Agent Markov’s death everyone is talking about what they are doing for an upcoming holiday, Damian says probably nothing, Raven invites him to spend it with her and her “niece” and “nephews,” he declines

- About a day after the holiday Damian is home looking through case files when someone knocks on his door

-- It is Raven. He asks how she knew where he lived, she says she asked Dick, she also says that she knows how it feels to be alone and that he may be insufferable but it doesn’t mean he can’t have a friend

-- His response is saying he isn’t the kind to make friends with co workers

-- “I’m not asking to be your friend Damian, I am asking you to be his,” She reveals a small black great dane puppy “I know that other people aren’t really your thing, but having someone in your corner and waiting for you is always nice, even if it isn’t human.”

-- Damian invites her in, names the dog Titus and thanks her

-- “Just make sure no one tries to kidnap and kill you, we don’t need you to go full blown John Wick.” Damian has no idea who that is. Raven tells him it is an action movie series that he should watch. She leaves. He does watch them that night with Titus on his lap. (after having gone to the local pet supply store to get everything he needs) The action is inaccurate but he enjoyed the movies none the less, and decides that he probably would go into John Wick mode if someone hurt Titus.

- SA Roth and SA Wayne are sent to a high security federal prison to interrogate a prisoner, who refuses to speak

-- When they get into the interview room the prisoner does start to speak, but not in English and not in a language Damian is fluent in

-- Raven on the other hand immediately responds to the prisoner (shocking the prisoner and Damian) “He is speaking Romani though not the dialect of those overseas, he learned it here.”

-- Damian is fascinated by it and they are essentially switching roles the entire time

-- They leave having successfully interviewing the prisoner, and Raven leaves behind a written list of common words in Romani so that they can possibly communicate with the prisoner better

-- As soon as they are on the plane back Damian asks her a myriad of questions from “How many languages do you know?” to “When did you learn that?” and even “Are you a spy? Sleeper agent? Part of a terrorist cell?”

-- “Not as many as you, when I was a child, if I was part of any of that you wouldn’t be asking.” The rest of the trip is spent with her teaching him Romani and even some Romanian

- Dick & Kori eventually get together and after a while they break up. Kori takes some vacation time. At the same Dick has been temporarily reassigned to another unit.

-- Chaos ensues

-- Garfield thinks he should be the interim unit chief, Jaime thinks the same, as does, you guessed it, Damian (Raven doesn’t want to she is comfortable with her role on the team)

-- In the end they are assigned an interim unit chief, SSA Jason Todd, who usually works overseas on covert op missions (not gonna lie this could easily flow into a Jayrae thing)

-- Everyone kind of falls into line, except Damian, Damian doesn’t like him for two reasons

1) He doesn’t act serious about the job 24/7

2) He has been flirting and hitting on Raven the moment he stepped into their sector

-- Damian hates the names he gives her; “Little Bird,” “Sunshine,” “Princess,” “Rae,” (no one calls her Rae, not even Garfield, at least not after the incident) etc.

-- (Little does Damian know, Jason and Raven have worked together before and are actually friends)

-- This all comes to a head when Damian and Jason are the only ones still in the office after a tiring case.

“You shouldn’t do that you know.”

“Do what? All I am doing right now is contemplating where Grayson keeps the liquor.”

“Call Raven all those names, she doesn’t like it.”

“Really? Because if you haven’t noticed she hasn’t exactly asked me to stop.”

“She gets uncomfortable, maybe not to the extent of asking you to stop, but she tenses up and her body language becomes slightly more agitated.”

“You seem to pay a lot of attention in how she reacts to thinks baby brat. Seems to me that you like her.”

“Of course I like her, she is a good friend and reliable teammate.”

“No, you like like her.”

“That presumption is juvenile.”

“But you don’t deny it.”

“Tch.”

-- If anything after that conversation Jason seems to doubled his advances. Which confuses both Damian and Raven. Damian because it is inappropriate and HR will be hearing about this. Raven because she was under the assumption that she and Jason were just friends. (Jason actually does have genuine intentions but is like 60% just egging Damian on)

-- Eventually (far too long for Damian’s tastes), both Dick and Kori return. At first it is sooooooo awkward. Like mom and dad divorced have shared custody but don’t hate each other but also cannot look each other in the eye. ((Was that a mouthful? Good)) No one can really look at each other the same? Though they do have a meeting to sort it out, get everything out in the open.

- Raven’s annual kidnapping/attempt to convert her/torture comes almost exactly one year after Damian joined the team (this is his 2nd time dealing with this)

-- This time Damian is prepared. By prepared I mean Raven doesn’t even leave her apartment before she is taken to safety.

“Damian what is going on?”

“Christmas came early this year that’s what.”

“Christmas? What in gods name are you talking about.”

“God has no dealings in this matter.”

“You do realize you are sounding like a bad action movie? It is not even 6 am and I am in your car going somewhere, I have had little to no sleep and I am barely dressed. What is going on?” Damian hadn’t payed attention to what clothing Raven was wearing. His mind was on one goal. Find Raven, keep Raven safe. His eyes glanced off the road enough to realize she was indeed not properly dressed. Her body was merely adorned with an oversized tee-shirt, tiny barely there shorts and a pair of fluffy socks.

“I apologize, it appears in my haste I did not leave you time to properly clothe yourself. As to why you are here, it seems your father and his people have shortened their waiting time this year from one year to a little more than ten months.” Ravens hands fisted her shirt. “This time I was prepared,” last time he was still new to everything, last time he made mistakes, this time there will be no mistakes. “Since our last encounter with your demon, so to speak, I have been setting in place precautions and safety measures to ensure Nevermore and yours’ safety. I have also been tracking the movements of his big players. If any came close I would mark it down. Multiple are entering the city at this moment. Seeing as you we taken last time I have made plans to ensure that will not happen again.” The car made a snap turn down an unfamiliar street pulling Raven from her clouded gaze.

“So I am going to be okay this time?” Her voice was faint and restraining against hope.

“You’re going to be okay.” His hand lightly held hers. Only to stop the shaking, they told themselves, only to make everything better. “Nevermore is with Titus at my place being watched by a friend of mine. I have already walked Grayson through everything we will not be expected at work this week, but we can work remotely.”

“We?”

“I’m not going to leave you. Ever.”

-- ((Sorry for the blocks of text))

-- As Raven finds out they are at one of Damian’s safe houses. The one least likely to be tied to her. It is fully stocked with food, has security cameras and if needed weapons. The only problem is that the only clothes there are Damians.

“Thought of everything huh?”

“I was following their pattern, I expected to have more time to acquire clothing for you.” (he was looking away and blushing, you cannot tell me he wasn’t)

-- Raven just resigns herself to wearing Damian’s clothes, yes his brain does stop working for a hot second when he sees her in only his clothes.

-- All attempts to try and retrieve codename: Gem of Scath are foiled (like some good math)

-- So many bonding moments happen. Cuddling (pure accident *rolls eyes*), eating together, inside jokes, etc. At one point Damian answers her phone (he disabled and disconnected the tracer) to one of the mob guys after them.

“Hello?”

“You can hide the gem but we will find her.”

“I’m sorry, is there a jewel you are looking for? I don’t think I have and any jewels that I am coveting.”

“We know you are with her! It is but a matter of time until we collect her.”

“I hope you do eventually find whatever you are looking for sir, but I haven’t the slightest idea the gem you speak of. If you could give me a physical description? Is it a ruby, diamond, onyx? Is it round or more of a pear shape?”

“...”

“Well, I will look for it here, but I do not believe I possess what you speak of. Will you give me your number so I can call you back?” (The line cuts dead, and Raven can be seen laughing in the background, the phone was on speaker)

-- Once the team tracks down, arrests and interrogates all of the parties working for Trigon; Raven and Nevermore can go home. Though both are reluctant in their own way. Nevermore has grown attached to Titus, and Raven well Raven has feelings. Sadly, as Raven knows, feelings are dangerous to have in their line of work.

-- Look at Dick and Kori they were together and then they fell apart and the team almost imploded.

-- What about Trigon if he finds out about Damian and how she feels towards him? What kind of danger will he be in then?

-- Like all of her feelings Raven puts them in a box and locks the box away. Not just figuratively, in her safe there is a box with: post its, torn papers, journals, etc. That box has a lock on it. Whenever she has a new feeling that she cannot ignore, like her feelings towards Special Agent Wayne, she takes out the box and writes her feelings down. They can range from a single sentence to pages worth. (Her feelings towards Damian fill a small notebook she has on hand). Once she has written all of her feelings out she places them in the box, locks said box and then places the locked box in her safe, which she then locks.

-- Is this a healthy way to cope with her feelings? Maybe not. But, it is way better than how Damian deals with his. Violence. Also art but violence comes first.

- At this point both Damian and Raven have caught the feelings (highly contagious I hear), which makes this a little awkward and a little not awkward. For one everyone but Raven knows how Damian feels towards her. He does things for her and with her that no one else gets the privilege to.

-- To list a few:

--- He brings her tea whenever he gets himself coffee or tea

--- He talks to her about what he does outside of work, even about his kind of friend definitely not enemy, Jon.

--- They socialize outside of work. Watching bad movies (some of them are not that bad), going to the park with Titus (they once got Nevermore in a leash and walked her), meeting each other before and after work to get breakfast or dinner.

--- He doesn’t glare at her

--- He allows physical contact between the two

--- He worries about her (hello he created an entire plan so that she wouldn’t get kidnapped, with contingencies and everything, garfield would be lucky to get a plan)

--- His eyes light up when she talks, or enters a room, or you know exists in his vicinity

--- He actually smiles around her (Dick caught him smiling once at Raven and he though Damian was having a stroke)

-- Even though everyone knows Damian likes Raven, very few know that Raven likes Damian back. (this only includes; Kori, Dick, Jason, Titus, Nevermore, and Melvin) She does do certain things that give herself away just like Damian.

--The list:

--- When Damian gets frustrated or angry she puts a hand on his arm, or holds his hand

--- She laughs at things he does (light chuckles, or little giggles)

--- She will talk to him about his interests and actively tries to have conversations with him about things unrelated to work.

--- She blushes when he does something unexpected (like a compliment)((Mostly she tries to hide it until he isn’t looking at her))(((Kori has caught the blush before)))

-- Luckily for them it does not take some cliche ‘One suddenly becomes in danger and the other one saves them only to be close to death and then they admit their love for one another and promise to go on a date when the other is healed’ situation.

-- Damian actually asks Raven out after being tipped of by Jason and Dick that she may like him back. Damian finds out when they have days off at the same time and asks her while leaving work.

“Raven, you have this weekend off correct?”

“Yeah I do. I wasn’t planning on doing anything though. Did you have something in mind?”

“Um, yeah, heh, I was wondering if you would do me the pleasure of going to dinner with me tomorrow.” *Awkwardly rubs back of neck*

“Like a date or two friends going to dinner?” *Thinks she sounds harsh* “I am honestly fine with either since we are friends.” *nervous smile*

“Like a date if that is okay with you of course.”

“Yeah, yeah totally that is totally okay with me.” *Starts sounding like a teenage girl who only knows about 10 words, because she’s nervous*

“Good, I’ll be by your place around 1830, if that is okay?” *nerve central, the central nervous system could never*

“Yup that is totally fine with me.”

“Great.”

“Good.” The elevator opens in the knick of time.

“See you tomorrow evening Agent Roth. Have a good night.”

“You too, Agent Wayne, you too.”

-- When Damian does pick her up he feels like his brain is going to explode. She looks absolutely breathtaking. This is just like all the other times they’ve gone to dinner, except this restaurant is slightly fancier and they are on a date.

-- Raven feels as though all her emotions are leaking out at once, she has no idea what she is doing.

-- In the end they have a good time and decide to do it again. Damian does bring up that all of the breakfasts and dinners they regularly do could now be considered dates. Raven does not oppose that switch at all.

- Fast forward a handful of years (like 3?), Damian and Raven are moved in together (Nevermore and Titus are happy about this, they even allow the humans to adopt another pet, a cat named Alfred). Damian is now Supervisory Special Agent Wayne and is in charge of their unit. Raven has retired from field work and now works at the FBI academy and at Virginia State University. In about 6 months Damian is going to propose and Raven will say yes. Their wedding will be small but happy and full of life.

Once again I would like to thank everyone and all the support the previous post got.

Like last time if anything is disjointed, out of place or seems wrong, please go ahead and tell me. I have been working on this since the last one, but have finally had the time to finish it.

I hope the new year will bring us all some good. Possibly more head canons to come.

#damirae #Damian Wayne #raven #Rachel Roth #damian x raven #Teen Titans #Headcanon #How do tags work #dc #demonbirds

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lingthusiasm · 4 years

Text

Transcript Episode 49: How translators approach a text

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 49: How translators approach a text. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 49 show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about the relationship of the translator and the text. But first, we’re heading into Lingthusiasm anniversary month! This is our fourth anniversary of doing Lingthusiasm, and we’re really excited that we’re still doing this four years later.

Lauren: We love a bit of reflection and nostalgia. The month of November is always an opportunity to be grateful that we have another year of Lingthusiasm. We have a whole 12 great main episodes. We have 12 more bonus episodes. As with every year, if you want to share a link to your favourite episode, November is an especially nice time to do it.

Gretchen: There are still people in this world who don’t know that they could be listening to a fun podcast about linguistics that makes them feel like they’re at a linguistics party instead of doing the dishes. You could help people find them. Most people still find podcasts through word of mouth. Every year we’ve done this in November, we see a big spike in people listening to the show and finding the show. If you wanna share on social media, we are very happy to thank you if you tag us in things.

Lauren: If you want to share off social media, please accept our deepest gratitude non-publicly for sharing shows as well.

Gretchen: Or, if you share Lingthusiasm privately and you still wanna be thanked, feel free to tell us about it on social media. We will still give you a little heart thank you comment. Yes, thank you already for all of the support that you’ve given the show over the years.

Lauren: If you like things additional to podcasts, because we are coming up to the holiday season, it’s also a good time to think about some Lingthusiasm merch or a copy of Because Internet. It’s a pretty great book. I like it. It’s available in paperback now. These things make great gifts.

Gretchen: We now also have annual memberships on Patreon. That could make a great gift to gift somebody to listen to more Lingthusiasm episodes as well as access to the Discord for an online linguistics community.

Lauren: Our most recent bonus episode was about honorifics as a way of being polite to someone either through the title you choose or a variety of linguistic strategies.

Gretchen: You get access to the honorifics bonus as well as 43 other bonus episodes and new bonus episodes every month by going to patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

[Music]

Gretchen: So, Lauren, I’m gonna talk to you about Beowulf.

Lauren: I know this because you have been messaging me for weeks about how we have to talk about Beowulf.

Gretchen: There’s a new translation of Beowulf. I’m really excited. This made me want to build an entire episode around the translator’s relationship to the text because this new translation of Beowulf does a really cool job of it, and I wanna talk about it.

Lauren: I don’t think you’ve been this excited about a translated text since Emily Wilson translated The Odyssey. I’m pretty sure that’s what motivated our 18th episode on word translation.

Gretchen: You are not wrong about this. I think there’s a similar excitement that I have which is old texts – texts that are a thousand-plus years old that have been translated so many different times by so many different people – it feels like it’s hard for someone to do something new with a translation of them. And yet, here people are doing that, which is exciting to me. This is the new translation of Beowulf by Maria Dahvana Headley. She’s done some really cool things with translating Beowulf as a feminist text. It’s a text that uses very modern style language in this thousand-year-old epic poem of Old English literature.

Lauren: I feel like when it comes to translating, before you even translate one single word, there’s all these decisions that a translator has to make. In Episode 18, we looked at translation, but we looked at word-to-word translation. And that’s definitely one part of a translator’s job, but they have so many more decisions to make. It is such an impressive job, and it’s why it’s as much an art form as it is a technical skill to translate something well. So, what are some of the big decisions that Headley made before even starting to translate Beowulf?

Gretchen: One of the things about Beowulf is, as an oral poem, it has this intricate rhyme scheme. The Old English rhyme scheme is based on half lines. Each line has two halves and there needs to be an alliterative bit in one half that is repeated in the second half.

Lauren: So, Old English is way more interested in alliteration compared to our modern English obsession with rhyming. That’s one of the stylistic features you find in Old English.

Gretchen: It’s all about the beginning of the words rather than the ends. Trying to figure out, okay, how much am I gonna use alliteration? How much am I gonna try to represent – because we can do alliteration in modern English – how much am I gonna try to represent the existing rhyme scheme? Where am I gonna try to put it in actual rhymes like you would do in modern English – if you’re writing a poem, you might rhyme it? What am I gonna do with the metre? She’s produced this really oral text that uses a certain amount of modern slang as well in ways that are really effective. One example is there’s a dragon in Beowulf, and the dragon at one point is described as “Putting the world on blast.”

Lauren: Nice.

Gretchen: To some extent, this is modern slang, but it’s also a very literal thing that a dragon can do. It’s not using modern slang for gratuitous – like, there’s no “lols” or “omgs” in this text. It’s not like here’s this facile text-speak version of Beowulf. It’s what are the bits here that actually work with the metre and the rhyme scheme but also not shying away from using a modern idiom where a modern idiom really works.

Lauren: It’s interesting to put this in contrast to the other most famous version of Beowulf in translation that I know of which is Seamus Heaney’s from somewhere in the middle of the 20th Century where I feel like he tried to capture the mythical grandeur of Old English and chose very stoic, solid sounding Old English words. I don’t think he would’ve had the dragon “putting the world on blast.”

Gretchen: Well, I don’t think he would’ve – I think it came out in 1999, this translation. In some ways his translation is fairly vernacular, but he tries to do that in a different sense. Can I read you the first bit of the Headley translation and the Heaney translation?

Lauren: Yeah. This is super fun.

Gretchen: Okay. A big thing about Beowulf translations is the first word which in Old English is “Hwaet.” That has gotten repurposed as a meme, which we’re not gonna get into much detail about. Some people translate that as like, “Lo!” or “Hark!” or “Listen!” or something like this. Heaney translates that as “So,” which has already got a certain level of vernacularity to it. His first three lines go, “So, the Spear-Danes in days gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness. We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.” This is very stately and like, “Here’s this thing you’re gonna do.” If you compare that with the first three lines of the Headley translation, the new one, she translates this “Hwaet” as “Bro.”

Lauren: Hm, that’s a very different tone.

Gretchen: It’s a very modern tone. I mean, you could pick a whole bunch of very modern things like “Yo” or “Hey all,” but specifically the reason she picks “Bro” is because she wants to highlight the bro culture-ness of this entire story. You can see that in the next couple lines which is, “Bro, tell me we still know how to speak of kings. In the old days, everyone knew what men were – brave, bold, glory bound. Only stories now, but all sound the Spear-Dane song, hoarded for hungry times.” It just leaps off the page in a way that really excites me.

Lauren: Yeah, no “princes” there.

Gretchen: Right. “Kings who ruled had courage and greatness” – “The men were bold.”

Lauren: The thing I always love about Beowulf is that it’s a millennium-old oral poem that happened to be written down, and a millennium ago people were like, “Let me tell you about the olden days.” [Laughter]

Gretchen: Right, it still takes place in this semi-mythic space, and it uses a certain stylised language that we even think was stylised at the time. You’re always picking between some kind of stylisation. There’s no neutral choice that exists. All of the choices are recreations at some level.

Lauren: I mean, it is kind of weird to think you’re translating from English into English, but it just shows how much the language has moved on because reading Beowulf if you don’t know Old English is an incredibly uncomfortable attempt to just guess some words that have retained some familiarity. I always find it interesting that you have to translate. And then because English went through enough changes by Shakespeare, we kind of put up with all of the features of Shakespeare that aren’t immediately obvious to us.

Gretchen: Right. But Beowulf is really this alien text. Like, “Hwaet. We Gardena” – and “Gardena” is “Spear-Danes,” but we don’t have “Spear-Danes,” and “Gardena” is not obviously related to those. There’s this great miniseries from The History of English Podcast that does a very in-depth line-by-line reading of Beowulf which I enjoyed a while back.

Lauren: My one semantic anecdote from that series is “Gar-Danes” as in “Spear-Danes” – garlic is the “spear-leek.”

Gretchen: Yes, it is!

Lauren: Because it’s like a little spear.

Gretchen: It’s like a little spear-leek. I love that anecdote. It’s interesting to be reading Beowulf at the same time that my book club is actually reading The Tale of Genji.

Lauren: Ah, from like a similar – Genji’s also a millennium old, yeah?

Gretchen: Yeah! In some sense it’s like Beowulf and Genji are kind of contemporaries.

Lauren: But they’re very much not contemporaries. Beowulf is about warrior bro culture in the Old English setting, whereas Genji is a Japanese court drama.

Gretchen: I don’t think they would’ve gotten along. I think they would’ve just found each other completely incomprehensible. Genji’s also one of those classic texts that’s been translated a whole bunch of different times in a whole bunch of different ways. For one thing, you’re translating from a much older version of Japanese. There are modern Japanese translations of The Tale of Genji as well. And then you’re also translating into a different cultural context. But the cultural context for Beowulf is also very weird. Like, I don’t do going and fighting monsters under lakes any more than I do writing haikus about the moon. In fact, I’m probably more likely to write a haiku about the moon than I am to go fight a monster under a lake if we wanna talk about relatability.

Lauren: Everything I know about Genji is because one of my colleagues in the Languages Department at La Trobe is a Genji studies scholar. It’s one of those pieces of work that is so big and so canonical that it has its own literary studies tradition associated with it. I also really love my colleague because the other part of her expertise is cosplay studies. I think it’s such a great combination of Japanese cultural experience there – Genji and cosplay.

Gretchen: I mean, what more do you want? The neat thing about reading Tale of Genji at the moment is because I’m reading it as part of a book club through Argo Bookshop – which is a bookstore that did the book launch party for Because Internet and I really like them – they’re having this Tale of Genji book club, and we’ve been reading it throughout the year a few chapters at a time because it’s over 1,000 pages. It’s huge. So, we’ve been reading it section by section, and different members of the book club have picked different translations into English of the same work.

Lauren: Ah, cool! Are there radical differences between the translations? Or do they all try and go for a literal approach?

Gretchen: They’re really different. One of the big things with Genji is at the time in 11th Century Japan it was considered very rude in the court to refer to people by their actual names. None of the characters in the original Tale of Genji manuscript have names, except for maybe Genji. So, you can imagine reading a thousand-page book where none of the characters have names is a bit of a feat of the imagination.

Lauren: Yes.

Gretchen: Different translations – and a lot of them have conventional names that literary scholars have used to talk about the characters. For example, Lady Fujitsubo lives in the Fujitsubo, which is the western pavilion, and so she gets called in the tradition “Fujitsubo” because that’s where she lives, and this kind of stuff. Or Murasaki gets called that after a flower, I think, the character. In some translations, they just use these conventional use names as if they’re the actual names of the characters. In some translations, they just use descriptions like the original text did, and they don’t really refer to characters by even pretend names or use names.

Lauren: So, one of them is trying to strive for cultural authenticity, and the other one is trying to just help the poor confused reader a little bit more, and that’s choices that each translator has decided to make.

Gretchen: Exactly. You also have other types of decisions like, “Are you going to try to” – because it’s a court drama, you have all these court positions. Are you going try to map those positions onto a western court so that people understand what a chancellor is? Or are you going to try to use those as a more direct translation of what the specific terms were at the time? That’s just different decisions that different translations can use.

Lauren: When you meet as a book club, is everyone following along, or is there a lot of clarifying across translations? Such an interesting little exercise.

Gretchen: Well, the nice thing is, is the division into different chapters is very constant, so we can be like, “Okay, we’re reading Chapters 6 to 10 now. We’re gonna talk about what happens in those.” But sometimes you do pull something up, and you’re like, “Okay, so this bit where this thing was said, do we think Genji is kinda misogynistic here?” And somebody will say, “Well, in my translation, it doesn’t actually seem like he’s misogynistic.” And here’s what’s going on in this particular translation versus that particular translation. And how much of it is the translator bringing their own preconceived notions of how people relate to each other? Because some of these translations are from the 1920s or something. People may have had different politics there. And how much of that is in the original text which was composed by a woman who we don’t know that much about? But it’s the first modern novel. It’s an interesting like, “How much are you going to try to westernise this book for a western audience?” Which some of the older translations do a bit more with the westernisation adaptation because people in the west hadn’t heard of Genji very much before. You do all this adaptation for your English-speaking readers. Whereas, more recent translators, people tend to have a higher degree of expectations of fidelity when it comes to a more modern translation. Sometimes they try to do that. And, you know, how many footnotes do you have? How much do you try to explain additionally? How much do you try to just make the text stand on its own as a story?

Lauren: So many choices to make as a translator. I’m eternally grateful to people who do this and make it appear so effortless while doing so much work bringing all of this context together.

Gretchen: It’s really neat. I’m not gonna read this 1,000-page book five different times in five different translations, but being able to experience portions of those translations vicariously through other people talking about, “Oh, here’s what happened in this one, here’s what happened in this one,” it does let you do this interesting comparative textual study.

Lauren: I’ve been thinking about translation in practice a lot lately because having worked with P. M. Freestone on their Shadowscent books, “The Darkets Bloom” and “Crown of Smoke,” these books have gone into translation in a whole bunch of languages, mostly European languages to date – Spanish, German, French, Russian, and Polish. I’m very excited about the upcoming Hungarian translation which will the first outside of the Indo-European language. But these translations involve a couple of things that are really interesting in that, in these books, I worked on creating the Aramteskan language, and for this language to work across different languages, sometimes it gets technically transliterated, or you need to add a different type of plural. For example, Russian has a different alphabet to English and so you need to fit this language into the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

Gretchen: You’re not trying to pretend that Aramteskan is always written with the Latin alphabet. Even when the book itself is in Russian, you’re like, we’re gonna transliterate it into Cyrillic?

Lauren: No, translators have very much done what they think is most appropriate. I have a habit of buying these translations now and checking out what they’ve done because they’re not just translating from English into another language, they also have to translate this completely fictional language and this fictional world into that language as well. It’s one thing to maybe study in-depth Old English warrior culture or Japanese court culture and decide what to bring across, but with a fantasy world, there’s all kinds of choices you have to make as a translator as well.

Gretchen: Yeah, like what are you gonna do with the magic system? Or if you’ve invented all of these words for different scents or something, then they have to figure out some sort of equivalent of inventing those words for the other language.

Lauren: There’s a lot of scent vocabulary even in the English that P. M. Freestone has written in, so really taxing that part of the translator’s repertoire. One thing that’s been particularly interesting and that there’s been some discussion on how to manage is that in this world, both in the historical part of the world and the contemporary part of the world, the culture and the grammar allow for gender neutral third person like the English modern use of “they,” which Kirby Conrod gave a great interview about how that works in contemporary English. In fact, I did a little historical evolution of the pronoun system that fits with the story of the world where originally there was no gender distinction in the pronoun system, which fits with the old religious system of the world. And the religious system evolved younger gods that are all gendered, and the pronoun system evolved genders at the same time while still having that scope for gender neutral. Without spoiling too much, but a character that pops up in Book One and is much more a part of Book Two is gender fluid within the world. That works for current English because we have gender neutral singular they, but there are some languages like Czech or like Russian that the book’s being translated into where there isn’t that flexibility in the linguistic system. So, decisions have to be made about how that is negotiated in the translation.

Gretchen: Do you know what they did?

Lauren: I don’t know what they did for Russian yet, but I believe the solution in Czech is at various times this character is overtly identified using masculine and at other times using feminine – being much more flexible about the duality of their relationship with gender.

Gretchen: This reminds me of a thing that I heard Ada Palmer talk about at a conference panel with her book “Too Like the Lightning” and the sequels, which are set in this far future of English – well, far future and they’re written in English – in which singular they is used for everybody except when you’re writing in this faux-archaic style with “thous” and “thees” and “hes” and “shes.” It’s very marked at that point. Ada Palmer was talking about how this was translated into French where in modern English the progressive thing that people do is like, “Oh, we can use singular they. That’s very progressive.” In modern French, the progressive thing that people do is they make feminine versions of all of the professions.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: You have feminine versions of “professor” or “doctor” or these kinds of things to try and make the gender more visible. And so erase the gender in the French version wouldn’t have the same effect – where you’d end up using the default masculine or something in the French version – it wouldn’t have the same effect as using singular they all the time in the English version. There are modern French pronouns like “iel” that have been coined to solve this problem of using a gender neutral third person pronoun, but it wouldn’t work to use them in this particular case because the style is supposed to be faux-archaic. What the translator ended up doing was digging out this French pronoun “on,” which in the modern form “on” is used like “we” or like “one does this.” It’s related to like, “One does this.” There’s an older usage of “on” which is like a non-specific third person pronoun as well that – I speak French, but I didn’t know about this archaic form. And the translator went and looked for what other historic pronoun things could I do and ended up doing with “on” thing, which is a really interesting adaptation.

Lauren: The thing I find interesting is if you were – 50 years ago, you didn’t have the grammatical resources in English to use singular they for a specific person. It’s something that’s really only emerged in the last couple of decades. I think the translator has felt frustrated to not have – you know, you sometimes feel like you’ve got this road block because you don’t have resources in one language that you have in another and you have to innovate. I did have a colleague in Italian studies tell me that they read a whole novel once where the gender of one of the characters was deliberately written around and avoided in a way that was an incredibly artful, thoughtful translation. It is possible that you could maybe do this with this character in the Shadowscent books, but it would be such –

Gretchen: But you couldn’t do it with the whole world in the Terra Ignota books because all of the characters would have to have that.

Lauren: Yeah. And you could do that amount of heavy lifting at the cost of some other things, but when you’re doing an efficient translation for a commercial novel, you don’t have the resources to really max out your art and strategy in that way. It’s interesting that, you know, translation is a really resource-intensive activity even to just do a good translation, let alone an incredibly strategic and thoughtful translation.

Gretchen: Even translating one word, like that word at the beginning of Beowulf, involves thinking about, “Okay, what kind of relationship do I want this word to have to the rest of the text? What am I trying to set up here in relationship to the whole text? Where do I see this attention-getting word as going?” Like, what the text as a whole is doing, which is this interesting question. I should say, speaking of translation news, this is very hot off the presses, but I have received news that there are gonna be translations of Because Internet into Persian, Chinese, and Japanese. So, all – well, Persian is an Indo-European language, but it has a different writing system, and then two non-Indo-European languages. I don’t know anything else about the details yet.

Lauren: This is news that I didn’t even know. This is very exciting.

Gretchen: It’s very recent, yes. It’s not – I dunno. I will have official links when they exist. They won’t exist for, I dunno, probably a couple years. I dunno how long it’ll take them to do. I know nothing.

Gretchen: The surreal thing about translation means that you will see you work and not be able to read it. There’s something so amazing and magical about that, that words you have created are finding new audiences – you know, there’s a lot of trust in the translator in those contexts.

Gretchen: Yeah, and I don’t know if I’m gonna get to have any say in who they get to translate it and how much they know about the internet or things like that.

Lauren: Translating non-fiction is an entirely different process because you’re not translating an internal narrative world as much as you are potentially translating something that explains how this world that we live in right now exists, or how a set of historical realities existed. That also takes deftness and skill.

Gretchen: And you’re potentially trying to translate technical vocabulary between one language or another, which isn’t necessarily the same as, “Okay, we need to keep the characters’ names consistent. It’s like, “We need to use this word that has a technical meaning in its technical sense.” Speaking of non-fiction translation, I dunno if you’ve been following in translation news relatively recently, there’s been a lot of things going on with the Scots language Wikipedia.

Lauren: Yes, I did read about this. So, Scots language is a language in the same family as English. It has a lot of similarities with English but is considered its own “variety,” using that very deliberate linguist term where you don’t commit to just how much it’s a dialect or its mutual intelligibility with other varieties that its related to. And it has its own Wikipedia.

Gretchen: Scots is kind of like, as an English speaker, I’ve always been kind of jealous of people who speak Dutch or German or something because they can kind of understand each other a bit. Or Spanish and Portuguese and Italian because they can kind of approximate understanding each other to some extent even if they haven’t formally learned the languages. I’ve always been like, “Why doesn’t English have some closer neighbours?” But I hadn’t been thinking about Scots when I was thinking that. Scots is probably English’s closest neighbour but is still a distinct language and, especially, there are grammatical differences and there are a lot of political reasons as well why people consider it its own language. However, [laughs] the Scots language Wikipedia, which has all of these articles written in Scots, had apparently been being edited for the last seven years by an American teenager who didn’t know any Scots and was just looking up the English articles in a Scots-English dictionary word-by-word and just picking the first word of the translation and subbing that in for the Scots word.

Lauren: This has been such a difficult story to read because everyone throughout this process has acted in the best faith. This teenager wasn’t doing this for any reason other than a passion for sharing knowledge on Wikipedia and a passion for seeing the Scots Wikipedia grow but with a really uncritical approach to translation. You can see where translation really does require this understanding of vocabulary choice and style choice and how it can all go really, really wrong.

Gretchen: Yeah, it’s really painful because this person started when they were, like, 12, and we have all believed very foolish things about the world when we were 12. It’s just many of us didn’t write thousands of Wikipedia articles in a language that is just really not the way anybody who actually speaks this language actually writes because it’s cobbled together badly from a dictionary. It’s this very painful, “Oh, no! You thought you were helping.” And yet Wikipedia is used as the basis of a lot of machine translation, and language detection, various natural language processing tools, and so this has been potentially sabotaging the efforts to try to create other machine tools in Scots because they’ve all been in this weird dictionary-a-fied version of English.

Lauren: It’s been really heartening to see the Scots language community and the Scottish Wikipedia community come together to figure out a strategy for how to approach cleaning house – I guess it’s the biggest spring clean ever, right – how to approach this, like, thousands and thousands of articles with this very strange approach to translation.

Gretchen: It illuminates one of the issues with smaller language Wikipedias in general which is that they may only have a few active editors because to be a Wikipedia editor is to be a volunteer. It takes a long time to translate things or to write articles. If you’re a language like English, you can have tens of thousands of editors. But if you’re a language like Scots which has many fewer speakers, you may only have a dozen active editors of which maybe one of them is a well-meaning but very clueless American teenager.

Lauren: We’ve both done lots of Wikipedia editing. We have run LingWiki events to improve linguistics content on Wikipedia. It’s challenging enough to write these articles in one language that I am proficient in. I’m always in awe of people who choose to translate and support content in their second or third languages because it is a non-trivial task to translate really complicated information in a way that is really clear.

Gretchen: Translation is a technical task that is one of those things that looks at all of the different levels of language where you have some things at the individual word, or even sound, or if you’re trying to translate poetry and you wanna make it beautiful in a very aesthetic sense with the physical properties of language, all the way up to words and sentences and structure and these discourse-y particles like “Hwaet” at the beginning where you’re trying to picture a whole framing device for the structure of an entire tone of a narrative. Or if you’re trying to pick, “Okay, how are we going to treat technical vocabulary that maybe has been borrowed from English?” because its scientific vocabulary that was invented from English, how are you gonna treat that when it gets borrowed into Scots? Trying to figure out how to make these technical decisions is non-trivial. It’s this very interesting train wreck. It can go spectacularly right when you have this very clever decision for a dragon to put the world on blast, and it can also go spectacularly wrong when you just say, “Okay, I’m gonna look through a dictionary and then pick the first word I encounter.”

Lauren: One of the great things about appreciating a good translation is that language never takes a break. Culture continues to change, and we move further away from the era of Beowulf. We move into new cultural settings and new cultural expectations. It means that there is space for new translations that bring new approaches, or try something different, or aim for really capturing something about the language of the era it was created in, or set an old story in a radically new setting. Even when you find a really satisfying translation, you know there’s still possibilities for finding other interesting ways to engage with the text.

Gretchen: I think that’s a thing that’s exciting about both the translations of these thousand-year-old texts, whether Beowulf or Tale of Genji, where they go through lots of different authors who put their own spin on the translation. And also thinking of Wikipedia as a place for translation where you have multiple authors working together on the same shared text, and a bunch of different people – like Scots Wikipedia has been having these Wikipedia edit-a-thons to try to clean the place up. You have a whole bunch of contributors that are finding out about this need because of this story and coming in and working on the text together and contributing to the shared text. In many ways, even though each of these editions of the translations are published as their own book for book-length ones, it’s this very intimate relationship that you can have with a text when you’re trying to render it in a different language or in a different textual interpretation.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves, IPA ties, and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and my book about internet language is called Because Internet.

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Gretchen: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, and our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

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#language #linguistics #lingthusiasm #episode 49 #transcripts #translation #translations #beowulf #tale of genji #maria dahvana headley #shadowscent #p m freestone #wikipedia #scots #japanese #old english #scots wikipedia

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gottawriteanegoortwo · 4 years

Text

Modern AU - Get the Mayor a Damn Dog

What started as me trying to explain to some friends why I’m giving Mayor Damien in a Modern AU a dog ran off and had a life of its own.

For context, Modern Damien (as I write it) is part of a failed ‘second cycle’ of the WKM events. When the barrier broke after the ‘Damien’ short, pieces of the characters trapped within were sent out to be ‘reborn’ in a modern world. This means that while Damien exists because Dark is made from pieces of the twins, William doesn’t since Wilford is him. But since there were enough differences, Damien (and Celine, don’t worry!) gets the peaceful life he deserved all along.

This, coincidently, is the first time Wilford has met Damien (in some time, he thinks). What better way to do so than by deciding Damien should get a dog?

Word Count: 2,259 (hence the read-more)

If there was one thing to know about the city’s mayor, it was that he wanted a dog.

(And a family, but one thing at a time.)

It came up in several interviews, and various photoshoots included him posing with dogs. Some well-meaning patrons tried to gift him a dog - in other words, drop a dog at his door without any warning - but Damien was fortunate enough to have interceded before anything actually happened. For Damien, this would be a massive decision, and he wanted the choice in when and how it happened. In fact, it was why he didn’t have a dog to this point. With how busy the City Hall was, he couldn’t justify having a dog cooped up in an apartment all day. It might be spacious, it’d be heartless, and why have a dog for the bragging rights? What about the pet’s own life?

It made the days lonely and quiet sometimes, but Damien knew it was for the best. At least it started a running gag of friends giving him dog themed items for birthdays and other occasions that were dotted around his home. One such afternoon had him dusting some items, only for a porcelain dog figure to be dislodged and fall to the ground.

“Whoa there! Don’t wanna lose this pretty thin’, eh?” Damien could only watch with a bewildered expression as a man with a pink moustache who wasn’t there before caught the figurine and neatly returned it to its place. “Looks as expensive as everythin’ else here. Musta cost a pretty penny!”

“Uh, I - hold on a moment. Where did you even come from?” Damien knew the front door was locked. The balcony would be an option for only the fool who would want to climb seven stories. The intruder mimicked Damien’s action of blankly looking around like he was also looking for an answer.

“Yer totally Mark’s friend, right?”

“Answer my question. How did you get in here?” Damien put the duster down, glaring at the stranger. When nothing happened, he gave a slow sigh. “I don’t know. ‘Mark’ is a common name. I know a few people with that name. Can you give better clarification?”

“Good answer! He’s a little shorter than you?” No reaction. The stranger pursed his lips, making his moustache wiggle in thought. “He makes videos fer th’ internet?” That, luckily, helped Damien put the pieces together.

“I’ve been friends with him for years, nearly since we were kids. So now can you please tell me who you are, how you got in here, and what any of this has to do with Mark?”

“Wilford Warfstache, reporter extraordinaire at yer service!” Wilford gave a dramatic, swooping bow. “I actually went ta yer office, but ya weren’t there. Th’ security fella that found me informed that it’s actually Sunday an’ no one works in th’ buildin’ that day. So then I came here, an’ here ya are! Well done fer not working!” He finished with a dramatic ‘ta-dah’ pose, complete with jazz hands. But when Damien didn’t clap, Wilford’s pose deflated (complete with sound effects that came out of nowhere). “C’mon, Dames, I didn’t even get lost. That’s a good thing fer me.” Damien pressed two fingers against his temple as he tried to follow what was going on.

“I’m going to let most of that slide, but why did you call me ‘Dames’?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“For one, it’s a nickname that only my oldest friends use.”

“Aren’t we?” Damien opened his mouth to refute the bizarre question, only to notice the genuine confusion on the other’s face. One moment, Wilford acted like they were strangers, and the next gathered they were old friends in his mind? It was a rather worrying state of affairs, but it was better to not correct him just yet.

“So, Mr Warfstache, what brings you here?” Damien clasped his hands behind his back, steeling himself for some terrible news. He had heard rumours of Mark being linked with some malicious, shadowy entity. Was this related to that? What rabbit-hole had he been pulled into? Wilford appeared lost at the question, looking around until -

“Oh yeah! It’s ‘cause yer cooped up in here all th’ time. Ya need ta get out more, talk ta people, see more things! But most of all, ya need some sorta company, an’ - wait!” Damien had turned and stormed off to find his phone. “C’mon, Dames, y’ve been like this fer years! It’s not gonna kill ya ta live a little fer once.”

“And what do you know about that? You don’t know me as well as you think you do.” Damien held the phone up as a warning. “I will call the police if you keep this up.”

“Poppycock. I’m tryin’ ta help. What part of that aren’t ya seein’? Yer a man who’s obsessed with puttin’ himself last. Anythin’ that can pull yer attention from work for a split second is somethin’ ya don’t get involved with! How long are ya gonna keep not livin’ fer?”

“What I do is none of your damn business! I know the importance of my work!”

“An’ what other man in yer position would throw his life away? Any other Mayor would have a romantic partner or family who’d be there no matter what. They’d juggle everythin’ because that’s what people do! Yer not ‘sposed to be some machine who works an’ does nothin’ else!”

“But that is what I want to do! I promised to give this city my all. I’m not backing down on this.” Wilford’s hand twitched, like he was about to grab something, but he forced himself to stop. Instead, he took a heavy, slow breath. The moustache was peppered with short, black strands of hair.

“An’ neither am I. I’m not lettin’ ya throw yer life away again because yer a fuckin’ moron. No. We’re goin’. Now. Get yer fuckin’ coat.”

“Are you listening to yourself right now? You break into my home through whatever illogical technique, complain about how I choose to live my life, and now you’re trying to bring me somewhere? You’d be mad to think I’d go anywhere with you!” Damien took a nervous step back as Wilford gave a resigned laugh.

“Mad, ya say? Wouldn’t be th’ first ta say that, an’ ya won’t be th’ last.” His head lowered at the confession. A few seconds passed before he returned his gaze to Damien with a sigh. Unlike before, it was a more sober look. “I’m not seein’ ya waste away ta be nothin’ again. All I ask is that ya come with me ta look at dogs. That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. Ya always said ya wanted one an’ never got one ‘cause of work. But folks love dogs! Bet we could find a little one that’ll be great in an office an’ a small apartment. Like… Like one of these!” Wilford hurried to the couch to snatch up a cushion and excitedly point to one of the printed dogs. Whatever black was in the moustache had disappeared when he turned to Damien.

“You… Do realise that’s a Great Dane, yes? The complete opposite of what you just said.”

“An’ that’s why I didn’t pick a dog! Yer th’ expert outta th’ two of us! C’mon!”

Despite the tense first meeting, Damien found Wilford to be a surprisingly pleasant companion. Eccentric, yet bubbly. He had a colourful view on the world, and it wasn’t long before Damien could see why Wilford was confused on knowing Damien. They got along like a house on fire, or like friends who were simply catching up after years apart. Wilford told him about his reporting job in a TV studio, various other quirky friends he had (though photographs were needed to remind Wilford of names), and the connection between himself and Mark.

Time seemed to pass both too quickly and slowly by the time the pair arrived at the local pound. Damien had tried to talk Wilford out of this idea, but the other was indeed too stubborn to change his mind. The staff welcomed the pair in and allowed them to see the dogs that were looking for forever homes. Damien had to remind Wilford twice that a small dog was what he wanted.

(“But Dames! Look at her pudgy face!”

“Wilford, she’d need a garden as big as my entire apartment to run around in.”)

They eventually split up so Damien could walk around and see if there were any suitable candidates to bring home without running commentary from Wilford. So many dogs were lively and friendly, but far too energetic for an apartment life or would be better suited to homes with children. Despite coming to the realisation that this was the wasted trip he knew it would be, he let himself have the chance to enjoy meeting some dogs. He was reading the information on some spaniel puppies when he felt eyes on him. Damien lifted his gaze to the corridor to find he was alone. As he turned to determine where the feeling of being watched came from, he found a dog in the den directly behind him staring attentively in his direction like it was on guard. It was a corgi, and Damien guessed it was a tricolour: predominantly black with sharply defined tan markings around his shoulders, eyes and muzzle. Unlike most corgis Damien saw on Crufts, the fur was longer and fluffier.

“What’s got you on high alert, buddy?” Damien lifted the information clipboard to skim for a warning on a vicious temperament. To his relief, it was the opposite. The corgi was approximately two years old, had high stamina but was mainly calm and observant. True to the notes, the dog approached the perspex door, sitting in front of it as he watched Damien. “Or are you making sure I don’t cause trouble… Soldier? An unusual name.”

“He’s a stray,” one of the volunteers explained as they closed the storage door with the back of their foot, arms laden with a large sack of dog food. “He was found at the local army base after trying to herd some of the soldiers that were training, which is where we got the name from. It’s strange… He’s a purebred, yet there’s no chip, no alert of a missing dog anywhere in the state or in neighbouring states… Nothing. Anyone that wanted to adopt him couldn’t get him to come anywhere near them. Aside from any of us who bring him food, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Soldier get this close to anyone.”

“That is… Rather unusual for such a social breed,” Damien hummed in agreement. “I read up on them before when first checking what breeds might suit an apartment life, yet... I wouldn’t have expected to find one here.”

“It might be fate, Mister Mayor. It’s happened a few times here before. Why don’t you say hello?” Without waiting for an answer, the volunteer skirted around Damien. There was a little struggle with the weight of the sack, but they successfully opened the upper half of the door. For a moment, he considered refusing the offer, but decided otherwise. A hand was cautiously lowered to pet the dog on the top of the head. Instead, Soldier pulled back so he could sniff the hand like he had the final say in whether the interaction was allowed. Once satisfied, he bumped the top of his head against Damien’s hand.

“Oh my God. That’s the first time he’s let anyone pet him without a bribe of food,” whispered the intern. “This is like a Disney movie. You need to take him home with you. I don’t think you’re gonna find a better suited dog. Soldier is always watching and paying attention to what goes on. We have a kit that’d help you care for him, if that’s a worry. But you spend time with him and make the choice for yourself. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” The volunteer hurried off with the sack in their arms, leaving Damien alone. Once the coast was clear, Damien sighed and knelt down.

“This is all quite a rush, isn’t it? We’ve barely met and now I’m being told to bring you home. I’m sure you don’t want to be stuck with a boring man like me. I work in one room nearly all day, and I don’t have a garden. I’m sure you understand that I’m not the home you deserve.” Soldier cocked his head to the left as Damien spoke, responding with a low bark. “I’m not entirely sure whether that’s in agreement or disagreement, I’m afraid. I don’t speak dog. And I doubt you can speak human either.” To Damien’s surprise, Soldier gave another bark, before rising up and crossing his space to pick up a chewed-up teddy bear. Upon his return, he placed his front paws on the perspex to offer the bear to Damien.

“Is this for me? She’s a pretty little lady, isn’t she? Even if her dress is a little tattered.” Taking the toy, Damien once again attempted to pat Soldier’s head with the other hand. This time, Soldier accepted, allowing Damien to properly pet him.

This was how Wilford and the shelter volunteer found them several minutes. The volunteer was mid-brag about how they knew it was a match made in heaven, and Wilford was quick to agree.

“He’s a handsome little fella, huh? Ya look fairly smitten, Dames.” Wilford slapped Damien’s shoulder with a grin.

“I think I might look into the adoption process… But if I do, I’m changing his name. ‘Soldier’ doesn’t suit him. He deserves a name that’s more intelligent. I’m thinking… Barnum. It rather suits such a bright-eyed fellow, don’t you think?”

#writersofmark #mayor damien #Wilford Warfstache #(I mean I'm not expecting anyone to actually read this)#(it's a long-winded headcanon story but I'm sure someone will enjoy my attempt to write a dog xD)#Blue Soul (Damien)#Rose Petals (Wilford)#(read-more is for tidiness! :D )

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sirensmojo · 4 years

Text

“Returned” - Reader x Hvitserk x Ivar The Boneless

Summary: Imagine being the lover of Ivar until he disappeared during a raid, two years later, he reappears out of nowhere and is acting as if nothing has changed between the two of you, but now you’re married and have a child with his older brother Hvitserk.

Warnings: fluff, smut, angst

Word Count: 2,358

*Masterlist*

You were in the kitchen with the thralls, preparing a plate your husband was crazy about, truth to be told Hvitserk was obsessed with food in general, but whenever you took the custody to cook, he was excited beyond measure. The spoon in your mouth, you were leaning above the cauldron, tasting the mixture you made. "Hm, something's missing" You mutter to yourself. Two arms suddenly embraced your waist, without you panicking, you knew exactly who it was. "You're never tired of sneaking in the kitchen, my love?" "I do not even surprise you anymore, what a regret" Hvitserk teased with his nose tucked in the hollow of your neck. A shiver came down your spine feeling his fingers stroking the end of your back, you were very sensitive to his touch "You're scaring the thralls..." You managed to say as you gasped for air, his touch became more and more greedy. "Do I scare you?" "Of course not Hvitserk how-" You began but couldn't finish as his lips crash on you. You smile against his mouth before voraciously kissing him back. He managed to hook your leg around his hips and bunched up your dress to your waist with haste as your moans echoed in his mouth. "May I grab something to eat before you make another child?" Sigurd asked, standing right in front of you both. You frantically duck your hair and your dress with it as the brother of your husband grab and bite into an apple. "Brother" Hvitserk smile as if all of this was normal, "I'm gone, you can continue" Sigurd let out as he disappeared beyond the door. You shook your head "All of this only an apple, a damn apple" Hvitserk exclaimed, and that made you laugh. You turned back and add some herb to your dish, no need to say you were turned off.

***

Later on, you were finally eating, all around the table; King Ragnar, Queen Aslaugh, Sigurd, Ubbe, and Margaret. Even though the queen didn't quite get along with Margaret, she was now married to her son. She had her place into the family. "Mommy! mommy!" "Yes, Frida" You hold a hand to your daughter as she sneaks her way under the table to you, her little face appears on your knees, her plump cheek lean into your palm. "There are boats...I saw them with Floki and Helga from the cliff" Frida lets out her little finger embracing your hand on her cheek. You directly look up to Hvitserk that frowned and glanced at Ragnar. "Are we waiting for anyone?" Queen Aslaugh asked, looking at her husband, but nobody responded to her. Ragnar motioned to his son, and you understood you needed to get safe. We didn't know if they were allies or enemies, and you couldn't risk the life of your daughter. Hvitserk cast a glance at you, and you nodded, "I'll come to you soon enough, don't worry" He added, and you smiled at him. You grab Frida and hold her in your arms, making your way to your chamber. Once you were in, you told her to hide in the wooden floor while you take your knives: one in each hand and stand by the door, ready to fight whoever may enter.

After a brief moment, the door opens and you jump on the back of the figure without knowing who that was, the cutting edge of your knives on both sides of its neck "Y/N, it's me" Hvitserk breathe his hands up to ease your sudden bloodlust. You chuckled and kissed his lob before biting it "Oh yeah, nice to see your husband" You speak, he shifts you to his chest and kneads your legs with his fingers before pressing his lips to yours. "Stop being so eager, our daughter is here" You murmur inches away from his face and you motioned to the wooden floor. "Frida, my little warrior, you can get out. You have Nothing to worry about" He slowly says with a high pitched voice. He drops you on the ground, and you smile while you see your little one get out of the hole you made in the parquet. "Daddy!" She ran in his arms that he immediately closed around her body as if it was an eternity since they last saw each other. "Who are they?" You managed to ask, and he got up with your daughter still in his arms.

"Vikings, it seems it is our boats" "You're sure we can go safely Hvitty?" "I am" He nodded, and you got to the docks. You left your daughter with Aslaugh as she would always love to spend time with her grand-child and joined the crowd. "Y/N" You heard a familiar voice. You weren't sure who that was yet but when you turned around, your eyes opened wide, "Ivar!" You shouted before scrambling into his arms. He embraced you with one arm as the other was holding his crutch "It's been so long, we all thought you were lost with the ships!"

"There was a bad storm, indeed, but we made it, a little far from here, I must admit, but here we are now" "What took so long?" "We had to make new boats and prove we were not a menace to the king there. He didn't trust us and made us prisoner for quite long" He shrugs, "Prove ?" "We have a reputation, you know. Pagans, Danes that do not negotiate nor that are friendly..." "Oh", "I never had the chance to raid, I'm not quite a warrior nor anything in that style, but I remember you would always tell me about your raids without missing one single details". "As details are important and are making the big picture," You both say together. Both of you chuckle, but in your case, it was more out of nervousness. Ivar cupped your cheek with his palm with a silly smile. He was more than happy to be with you again, to feel you back and just be able to hear your laugh in real life, and not in his mind. He strokes your jawline with his index finger, and you closed your eyes at his touch. He was never touchy with nobody but you, you remember as if it was yesterday... But it was years ago, two years ago now. "It is good to see you, yet it feels like you're a ghost" You manage to speak with a tiny smile. You looked downward, running low on words. "Things changed here, I see" Ivar continues seeing the conversation weren't going anywhere. "Yes... Yes!" You responded, "I'm still a bit upset about your presence, Ivar. I thought that you were lost, that you were dead. Two years its..." "Yeah, I know. For a moment I thought I was too" He sharply let out. You kneed your brows at him, but you were soon called by Aslaugh herself to head to the great hall.

***

"We shall feast for at least an entire week" Sigurd joyfully said, and all the head turned to him. "I didn't know you were so fond of Ivar" You snickered, and he winces at you "It's okay. We are a family after all" Aslaugh retorted, playing with Frida. "is that baby too?" Asked Ivar, and your smile dropped a little. Ragnar and Aslaugh looked at each other a brief instant, and she nodded. "Yes, it seems time didn't freeze" "You're still looking like trash" Sigurd curtly said, shrugging "You were the one that missed me the most, weren't you?" Ivar responded as he throws a dry fruit on his brother. Hvitserk was intently looking at you, you smiled at him in the way of making him know everything will be okay as you could decipher a bit of angst in his pout. You excused yourself and decide to go for a shower, you needed to do it earlier because you're daughter had to sleep early, it was not because you were a mother now that you had to neglect yourself, that will never happen!

Once the thrall put the hot water in the bathtub you let your dress pull on the floor and sink beneath the water, you didn't really have any grime to take off, but the smell of what you cooked that seem to have stayed into your dress and stick on your skin. After rubbing your skin, you decided to stay a little bit longer as the water was still boiling. Your head falling back on the wooden edge and your eyes closed, hands started to rub your shoulders. As always, you assumed it was Hvitserk that sneak into your room, he was always so greedy when it comes to you, you ever wondered how on earth the gods only gave you one daughter... His huge callous palm went down your chest, meeting with your breasts that he took into his palms. He teased your two little buds that grew harder at each of his touches and pinched one of them, making you squeal, still, you didn't open your eyes, too impatient to feel him play with the body of yours. You breathe were sharp and heavy, your lips slightly open. His hands went down your belly, slowly and tenderly, it was as if he wanted to take his time with you, which started to make you go crazy. Seeing how patient you seemed despite your body screaming for more, he made his way down and pulled apart your folds with the tip of his fingers teasing your clit. Your moans started to fill the room, but his free hand came on your mouth to muffle them. You erotically suck on his middle finger as your back grew hollow, for he finally worked on your clit with his thumb. You let out a gasp when he abruptly inserts two of his fingers inside of you before standing still. He was letting you some time to breathe when your hips began to move on his fingers, he started to follow the move twirling inside of you and stroking your sweet spot again and again. You were about to release when he bites your neck and that was enough for you to clench around his fingers as your body was intensely shaking. "Fuck" You heard and your eyes snapped open. You leaped and you turned around and gasped at the sight of Ivar that look you within confusion. You were still a bit dizzy from the work he had done with your body but somehow succeed in getting out the bathtub and reach for a piece of fabric in which you wrapped your body. "What is it with you?" A frowning brows Ivar asked. "What are you doing here? Was that you the whole time?" He tilted his head closing his eyes for a second and exhaled loudly. "Have you expected someone else?" "My husband!" You shouted while throwing your hands in the air, you couldn't believe you didn't notice it wasn't Hvitserk. "You're... married?" "And I got a daughter. Yes." You say solemnly but without anger this time. "Who is the father?" He asked with disbelief, he wasn't looking at you at all; instead, he zoned out. "Hvitserk" You lift your eyes to where he was as he stood up. He looked at you with an eerie look, bringing shiver down your spine but not out of pleasure, it was more out of fear... "Hvitserk huh" Ivar repeated to himself as a smile appeared at the corner of his lips. You didn't want to arouse his anger, so you stayed silent, but then you thought what if my silent was the thing that will bring him to be snappy and you decided to open up to him "It wasn't an easy thing to swallow that you were lost in the sea. When your father came back without you, I felt abandoned, but I didn't show it, you know me!" You chuckled, and his eyes finally met yours. Your heart missed a beat and you harshly swallowed, "I am scared, right now. Because I don't see anything I used to see in your eyes before, and because I am mad at you for what just happened because I am married and I have a daughter, and I must tell Hvitserk about that but I should also tell him that I am again with a child" You began to swoon. "You're with a child?" "Yes" "I thought..." "I know Ivar, you don't need to say it. But as you mentioned, things have changed, and so I have" "Nothing changed for me, I hoped for that day for so long. It is the reason why I'm here, or else I would've let myself die on the ship during the storm" "Don't say that, I'm... glad to see you alive, you still have a place in here" You patted your chest where your heart was "It's just not as a lover" "Not as a lover" He repeated chuckling. "Do you love him?" "With all my heart" "What's the name of the girl?" "Ivar..." "Just answer me Y/N" "Frida" "This is what I wanted my girl to be named, rememb-" "Of course I remember, that's why Frida is called Frida" His lids fluttered. "I thought you reached Valhalla, I wanted to honor our bond" "By fucking my brother" "By calling my daughter with the name you wanted to call yours with" You gave him a smile as you get dressed. You were paying attention to where his eyes went, having to tell Hvitserk another man touched you was enough for tonight...

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

I wanted to try something different, I'm sorry if it is crap... :/

Ivar TAGGED: @youbloodymadgenius

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aadmelioraa · 4 years

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headcanons for your aethelred/aethelflaed/aldhelm ot3 thing u got going on? it honestly intrigues me a lot! also i dare to make u choose between aethelred/aethelflaed and aethelred/aldhelm <3 since they're both fascinating dynamics

Ohhhhh you’ve unlocked the next level of my weird trash obsession here @marv-llous. I have so many (scattered and disorganized) thoughts on these three. They’re less of an ot3 and more of an oh-no-why-am-shipping-these-3-in-various-combinations (that’s a thing, right?). I have a couple WIP that explore their dynamics in various AUs (sometimes canonverse, sometimes not). Often it’s more about their interactions in pairs (Aethelred/Adlhelm, Aldhelm/Athelflaed, Aethelflaed/Aethelred) but sometimes it’s about their dynamics all together.

Any scene of the three of them is an automatic fave, such as in 3x07: ”I was briefly thinking, Lord, that you too look like a Dane” ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? The way Aethelred picks up on the shift in dynamics based on the laugh Aldhelm and Aethelflaed share KILLS ME.

I maintain that he’s unsure at this point if Aldhelm is just following his advice to get close to Aethelflaed or if they’ve developed a rapport on their own. I almost love that brief exchange better than the bit that comes next (”I’m to make you like me....shall I sing you a song?”)...almost.

The fic I’m working on most right now started as an Aethelflaed/Adlhelm fic and while that’s still the endgame and the majority of the development, I ended up delving into her relationship with Aethelred quite a bit. Basically I was rewatching the show and the way her attitude towards him changes in s3 absolutely intrigued me.

This scene in 3x05:

where she semi-confronts him about his plan to have her killed (thank you, Aldhelm) and he realizes he doesn’t have the control over her he thought he did....gahhhh I love it so much. They’re talking in thinly veiled metaphors here (”appetites,” stabbing knives into the table, etc) and while Aethelred eventually rallies (picking up his own knife) and continues to be his conniving, snarky, bullying self, she definitely took him by surprise. She’s no longer the naive girl he married (I love s2 Aethelflaed too but girl had a rough time in a rough situation). I think it’s during this scene he realises she hasn’t been that girl for a while. I would contrast this scene with the bit in the s2 finale where he watches her kill Sigefried, who at that point is very much a stand-in for Aethelred himself, and (imo) that definitely does something to him.

Another WIP that is still in the very early stages is from Aethelred’s POV (which I never in a million years thought I would be writing from) and that one is extremely entertaining to me because he starts out thinking he’s in control of his life but gradually realizes Aethelflaed and Aldhelm essentially run circles around him and don’t need him--and he might actually almost like it (he doesn’t fully realize this as much as the reader will since his narcissism prevents that, to be fair). It genuinely started out as a crack fic but I don’t think it is anymore…

I have yet another idea that’s sort of a gothic romance (loosely inspired by Crimson Peak) that I may or may not write for them, I just feel like the aesthetic and the dynamics fit so well. I am not 100% sure if I’m going to do a more straightforward take with Aethelflaed’s POV or explore a variant of the trope using Aldhelm’s POV but once I figure that out it might happen. I also have toyed with using Eardwulf and Eadith in this AU so it’s a mess conceptually right now.

Honestly I would have expected to find Aethelred just a useful plot device (the villain, the partner who doesn’t treat the heroine well, the thing standing in the way of the characters we want to get together) but he’s more fun to play with than I initially thought.

For your second question: if I had to choose, I would pick Aethelred/Aldhelm purely because I’d like to explore the backstory there, canon or AU. How did they get to where they are, who approached who first, what did they see in each other initially? Aldhelm’s s3 development is a big part of why I am intrigued by these three characters, it’s a major shift but it happens so gradually that I think it leaves a lot of room of fan works that fill in the gaps of what we see onscreen.

(soft screenshot of our bowlcut fave for good measure)

#kat replies #marv-llous #the last kingdom #aethelflaed #aethelred #aldhelm #aethelflaed x aldhelm #aethelflaed x aethelred #aethelred x aldhelm #aethelflaed x aethelred x aldhelm #ask games

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kawennote09 · 4 years

Text

He left me

Sihtric x Reader

Helloo! I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted anything but this has been sitting in my drafts for forever soo here we go.

After the battle you had with Haesten, all of Uhtred’s men and you had been brought to Droitwich, Lady Aethelflaed Estate in Mercia.

You had settled into the hall and sat next to Finan and your soon to be husband, Sihtric, and started drinking Ale and ate lightly.

You had decided to ask the one thing that had been bothering you, you probably wouldn’t have asked but you were drunk.

“Sihtric?” he turned towards you ”why are you so obsessed with Skade?”You asked. He looked at you surprised.

“What do you mean? I am not obsessed with Skade.” he all but hissed, you shake your head at him

“You know what I mean. It seems that all you have been talking about is how we are all cursed, and Skade this and Skade that. Do you want to fuck Skade?” He turned away from you, and started talking with Finan again. You huffed and kept drinking.

You had tried to talk with Sihtric again and he just kept ignoring you and you didn’t want to start another argument with him. But it really annoyed and pissed you off that he was so sure that we were all cursed and that we shouldn’t follow Uhtred to retrieve Skade, but you were loyal to Uhtred and you had faith in him that he will get Skade and take care of this curse she placed on him. So when Uhtred came back into the hall and came in straight to the table you sat at, you were annoyed and kept sipping your ale

“How’s Osferth?” he questioned, you look at him and answer

“Sleeping. As we all should be.” You answer, he nods and sits across from you.

“Just as soon as he’s recovered we should attempt to recover Skade.” Finan sits up. “Once again.” Sihtric retorts “So long as she is free, Lord, you are cursed.” Finan ignores Sihtric. Uhtred sighs “Skade is with the Danes. We cannot reach her.” He looks down “We will not chase her to our deaths.”

“Death will find us regardless.” Sihtric speaks up and Uhtred looks up at him. You glare at Sihtric. “Shut up, Sihtric.” You say harshly.

“No, no Y/N. Do you have something to say, Sihtric?” You shake your head at him and look to Finan. “He does not.” Finan says lowly

“Except that enough of us have died already.” He continues

“You are a warrior. Death is a hazard.” Finan continues to try to diffuse what Sihtric said. Uhtred looks appalled and it was quiet for a few seconds before Uhtred changes the subject.

“I’ve decided to go to Ragnar. I must help him find peace.” But Sihtric wouldn’t let it go.

“All you will find at Ragnar’s graveside is ghosts.” Uhtred looks between the three of you then looks to the fire. “You will keep watch of Aethelflaed and you will rest.” Uhtred gets up and is almost out the door.

“No man who serves Uhtred can rest, not until Skade is reclaimed.”

“Sihtric” you and Finan say at the sametime as Uhtred turns around.

“you are drunk and you are tired.”

“Yes, I am tired…” he turns to Finan then looks at Uhtred “of marching north and then south, being called a traitor, what about me and Y/N!? We are to be married. For what?” Uhtred walks back to the table. “Then leave, boy.”

“Uhtred, you do not mean that.” You try to stand but Sihtric pushes you back.

“If you are unhappy in my service, leave!” Sihtric quickly stands up “I have fought for you!” you go to stand up again but Finan pulls you back and goes to stand between the two.

“You fight because you enjoy it.” Uhtred chuckles. Sihtric gets more in his face “And you would dismiss me as easy as this?” you finally are able to get up and stand behind Sihtric.

“Stay or go, I do not care.”

“He does not mean that. He does care.” Finan looks to Sihtric than Uhtred.

“Now, let us all sit.” you quickly say and try to pull Sihtric back.

“Stay or go, Sihtric Kjartanson. It is your choice. Make it!” Sihtric slightly flinches and backs away. He looks to Finan then back.

“If you wish to make the square, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, let us do it.” You pull Sihtric back “No there’ll be no squares made, no fighting, just sleep!” Sihtric quickly looks at you and continues to stare at Uhtred.

“Sleep! Jesus!” Finan shakes his and turns away. “Get the prisoners back with the pigs, bound.” Sihtric turns away listening to Finan.

“Sihtric!” Uhtred says sharply “I will leave first light.. But I will return. And if you are here still then I will kill you.” You look to Uhtred with wide eyes as he makes his way out the hall. Sihtric inhales sharply. Finan shakes his head “Why?” and Sihtric hits his cup on the table. “He has cursed us all!” he yells in your face and you turn away from him.

“She has cursed you all and Uhtred allows it.” Dagfinn says smugly.

“Shut your mouth” you harshly say and sit back at the table

“Abandon him, boy. It’s your only chance.”

“Your a Dane, first and last.” Finan says dismissively. And a guard comes and smashes Dagfinn’s face into the table.

“I’m going to bed.” You say to Finan “Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupider.” He nods his head, you stand and make your way to your bed, a hand grabs your wrist, you pull away knowing it is Sihtric, you turn to him.

“What?” You ask bitterly. He looks at you nervously but he hasn’t spoke.

“Look what you have done! You’ll be killed before he even worries about that damn curse. It all goes back to Skade though. Where will you go? What about me? Did you even think about me?” He steps back, so you turn and walk away to your hut.

You lay in bed waiting for Sihtric but he never comes. You toss and turn, but you can’t sleep without talking to him, you need to know what he is going to do. You get out of bed, put your shoes on and you grab your sword out of habit. You see that it is almost daylight as you walk out of the hut you and Sihtric were supposed to share. You head to the hall, but Finan and the other men that were there were passed out but you didn’t see your man. When you couldn’t find him anywhere you figured he went to clear his head, so you went back to the hut and tried your best to rest.

You here knocking at your door and you get up quickly to answer, hoping it will be Sihtric but find that it is Finan. You nod your head and let him in the hut.“Is Sihtric here?” You shake your head and furrow your brows.

“No, I left him with you last night.” Now it was his turn to look confused.

“He said he was coming here before we all went to sleep in the hall.”

“Well he never was here, and this morning I couldn’t sleep and went to talk to him and I couldn’t find him anywhere.” You sat there thinking, when one of the men yelled for Finan. You both quickly walk to the man and looked nervous.

“What is it?” the man looked between us “The prisoners escaped. And they took horses as well.” you and Finan looked at each other. “How?” Finan asked looking at the man.

“We don’t know, Lord, we went to go give them food and they weren’t there.” You looked to Finan then back at the man.

“We cannot find Sihtric either.” They nodded knowing what you implied.“We won’t look for them. Tell the others.” Finan says the guy nods and walk away.

Finan looks at you. You heart is racing and you don’t know what to do, you thought he loved you, you never thought he would leave like this. You never thought he would leave you.Looking up at Finan all you had wanted to do was cry. Your eyes watered, and you turned away.

“Lady,” you turn to him “Are you alright.” You shake your head.

“He left me.” a tear falls down your face. Finan walks to you and pulls you into a hug.”I love him, and he left me.” You wrap your arms around him and cry into his shoulder.

Days had passed when Uhtred came back. Osferth was better and you sat playing games with him and Finan.

“I need ale, slave.” Osferth said

You stood up laughing and giving him more ale when I looked out the window and there was Uhtred, you looked to Finan and he came over seeing Uhtred.

“What is it?” Osferth asked

“You mean, ‘who is it?’” you replied, Finan looked excited.

“Osferth” Finan walked over to the door to greet him. You stayed by the window.

“You’re back” you rolled your eyes at Finan

“I’m back.”

“That’s good” They laughed and hugged

“I am back.” they pulled away. “Sihtric?” Finan looked to you.

“Uh, gone. Long gone and, um, with the prisoners, Lord.” Uhtred nodded “Good journey, then?”

“It was.” Osferth stood up, Uhtred not looking yet. “I know what I must do now.” he turned around seeing Osferth.

“Osferth”

“Lord.”

“You’re still alive?” he joked

“Of course.” Uhtred brings him into a hug. He then turns towards you.

“Y/N” you nod your head at him.

“Lord.” Then Aethelflaed came in.You sat at the table and they all joined you, Finan on you right and Uhtred had sat to your left. They started to talk of when and how to get Skade back but you didn’t listen to them and kept drinking you ale. You couldn’t look at Uhtred, you knew why he did what he did, but that doesn’t stop the anger and hurt that you’re feeling.

“Uhtred, Sihtrics departure.-” you start to listen hearing his name.

“-Betrayal” Osferth interrupts, Finan looks at him, then back to Uhtred.“It has disturbed the men. They feel that you are to share the blame. You and your quest for Skade. Some may not want to go looking for her all over again.” Him and Uhtred look to you but you pay them no mind, “think on it.” Uhtred nods his head and takes a deep breathe. He gets up and says he is going to see Aethelflaed.

When he comes back he has a man from Winchester, and you leave the hall not wanting anything to do with it at the moment.

The next morning you were all readying to head to the Danes. You were standing by you horse when Uhtred and Finan were almost out the door and Osferth came up behind them.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Finan asks him.

“Did you believe you were leaving without me? Not a chance.” Osferth replies and walks towards you. The two men follow after them, mounting they’re horses you start ahead of them.

“You better hurry up, or do you wish a lady to beat you?” You tease the guys as you pick up your speed, you can hear hooves coming hard and quick.

You arrived at a village the next day, Crowland, You hadn’t received the warmest welcome but you sat in the alehouse for the day, it had reached nightfall when Osferth had seen that the ealdorman had men outside surrounding the building. You laughed thinking that they were going to kill us, when they were the ones most likely not getting out of this alive.

Uhtred set fire to the Village and killed the ealdorman. To say the least we made it on the outskirts of the Dane camp the next day.

Uhtred, Finan, Osferth and a few men crouched near the tree line, while you had leaned against a tree a couple feet away from them. You had watched Cnut and his army head away from the camp. You had all stayed there till dusk, when someone had started to approach.

“It is Sihtric” Osferth says. You quickly turn to see that indeed it was him. You stand fully waiting to see what Uhtred would do.

“You have something to say to me, boy.” You knew then it wouldn’t end well.

“I do” Sihtric pulls out his sword and points it towards Uhtred “Yield to me.” Uhtred raises his hands and drops his knife. You move towards them readying yourself for anything to happen, but you didn’t expect to see Sihtric put his sword in the ground and hug each other and laugh.

“You were playing us. My goodness, they were playing us, Y/N, Finan. Why?” Osferth laughs. Uhtred laughs “If you had not believed it Osferth, nor would others.”

“I fooled you” Sihtric said happy.

“No, I knew.” Finan said, not giving in. “No, you did not. Was I good?” They hugged

“I’m telling you, I knew.” They all laughed and then Sihtric turned towards you. You looked at him then and nodded your head, turned and walked back towards where all of the men were. You could hear Finan

“I hope it was all worth it.” You looked back and he was looking at you. Sihtric nodded

“I hope so, too.” You turned around and went back to camp. Just minutes after they joined me. But you were too lost in you thoughts to care what they were talking about.

We stood off to the side as Uhtred met with Skade along with Sihtric at the tree. You heard Dagfinn start yelling to Haesten. You had all started to run towards ships that Sihtric was telling us to go to. When you had all made it safely to the boats and Uhtred got in, we had made it out safe with Skade this time, and we were headed to Coccham.

Your home, and you were almost scared of going home. Home you knew that you would be able to relax, you would be able to make love to Sihtric and now you didn’t know what was going to happen. You didn’t know where you and Sihtric stand. You didn’t know, and it scared you.

Tagging the fellow Danes: @whenimaunicorn @laketaj24 @oddsnendsfanfics @tephi101 @princessofthalia @fandomfic-galore @equalstrashflavoredtrash @geekandbooknerd @medievalfangirl @errorcosplay67

Also I’m think a part 2?

#let's be danes ⚔️#sihtric kjartanson #sihtric x reader #The Last Kingdom #the last kingdom imagines #finan the last kingdom #finan the agile

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skeletonwoman · 4 years

Text

J is for Jacket

A little something different now! I’ve always loved Jason Todd best but recently i’ve actually started to learn more about the entire batfam and Jay himself, so here’s the inspo from that

Edit: i created a second/alternate POV part called Jay is for Jacket

This city is damn terrifying.

You’re a little crazy obsessed with it, the damn crazy terrifying bit.

Like its truly damn crazy terrifyingly sick.

Just a little though, right here on the corner of your buildings roof, with the moon hidden by the clouds above, and the lights sprawled before you, its incredible.

Four different people land on the roof behind you, coming from some other building somewhere, and you try not to move. This high up its usually some kind of hero running around trying to stop something bad.

Funny that, the heroes on the rooftops and the villains in the basement.

I wonder if that’s a metaphor…

Usually, if you keep still, the heroes move on quickly enough without even noticing you.

This time, you’re so zoned in on the lights and being still and quiet that you don’t even notice it until those 4 people sit themselves beside you on the ledge.

“Oh, oh!” You jump, hands gripping the edge so tightly as you wobble. None of them move to touch you, and you’re unsure if that’s good or bad.

What if you’d fallen?

“I’m not going to jump,” you offer to your visitors but they remain silent.

A quick dart of your eyes left, shows you a mop of red hair and a bat mask, and right, shows you a red almost ski mask hood. You can’t tell who’s beyond the two immediately on either side of you. Ignoring the non-gothamite voice in your head, you settle in with your guests and just watch.

It’s a long hour before they leave and you wonder how many people got mugged while they sat with you.

Then you go back downstairs and to bed.

“You’re such an ass!” You shout, kicking out at Dick, who dances away from you with a laugh. “You’re always bullying me!”

Dick laughs harder at that and you scowl. “You’re the worst.”

“I’m the best,” he promises, a twinkle in his eye and your heart thuds hard. He’s so romantic.

“Hey, Dicky,” you say softly and he pauses grinning to himself to look at you earnestly. “I think you’re wonderful, and you’re the most handsome person I’ve ever met, and I love that I got to know you.”

A bright blush fills his cheeks as you speak and he beams at you.

“I freaking wish we were in love, we would be so good at it,” he bemoans, gazing at you, eyes full of love, and you cackle.

“You couldn’t handle this, baby boy, I’d break your sweet heart.”

He nods, eyes serious and lips twitching.

Ahead, your building looms and as you step onto your stoop, you turn to your best friend. “Really, Grayson, you’re my best friend and you’re special.”

“And you’re mine. I suppose you’re special too, but, y’know, I’m extra special.” He grins at you charmingly and you ruffle his wind-mussed hair.

“You going to your class tomorrow?” The two of you both have classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and usually walk to and from campus with each other, even if it means getting there an hour early or leaving an hour late, just so you can spend some time together. Of course, sometimes you, or he, just don’t go to class.

“I don’t know, I’m hanging out with Jay tonight and you know how he is,” he says and shrugs.

You do know. You’ve been hearing about Jay for the past year, since you’d met your platonic soulmate in Dick Grayson on campus. Jay his baby brother, Jay the maniac, Jay as an idiot, broken Jay, stupid Jay, Jay his favourite sibling, Jay the best.

“Well, tell him I say that its time for bed and give him a Fredo kiss for me, throw him off his game.”

Your words bring another smile to Dicks face, your intent, and you trot up the steps and through the door of your building, offering him a last wave before you shut it. The plan is to make, eat and clean up dinner, then hunker down with your assignments.

That’s the plan.

It’s 10.48pm, you’d just checked the time on your phone, and you hear a distant explosion.

There’s no flash of light or mushroom of smoke so you figure its just another Gotham night, though you wouldn’t be too shocked if there was.

An hour later, a hero lands on your buildings roof and sits down beside you. He’s alone, the red hooded guy, which is odd but not suspect.

Your ass is cold, you should be doing your assessments and yet…

You shiver and startle when the man beside you moves- you’d both been so still for so long you’d forgotten he wasn’t a statue.

He sets his jacket over your shoulders and you whisper a soft, “thank you.”

“No problem.”

His voice is startling as well. It’s not rough and unused like you’d expected from someone so comfortable sitting in silence for so long. It’s actually- hell, what’s the word?

One minute he’s there, the next he’s gone.

Without his jacket.

Pulling it tighter around yourself, you’re glad. It smells nice, if a little smokey, and the residual warmth when he’d placed it on your shoulders had felt like nothing else. It lingers, fighting a losing battle with your body heat.

You’re never taking this off.

Unless he asks for it back.

Not even then.

“Where’d you get that jacket?” Dick asks, his eyes squinting and suspicious. “And when?”

“I stole it, obviously, and last night.” You don’t want to tell him you consort with superheroes, it’s a little weird, maybe braggy, definitely not something you should advertise. “I found it hanging over this,” you pat the round ball at the end of your stoops stone railing, “and now it’s mine.”

Dick stares at you for a long minute as you both walk toward campus. “Are you sure?”

“What do you mean, am I sure, Dicky? Obviously I’m sure.” You bite your lip. “I didn’t steal it, if I thought it belonged to someone in my building I would’ve asked around, you know that. I don’t want to get beat up by some angry guys girlfriend.”

Dick grins at the image, momentarily distracted and you bite out a quick question about Jay and their night last night, and he takes the bait.

He does look at the jacket strangely several times though.

It’s 6pm when a banging knock hits your door. For a second, you’re terrified.

More than a second.

Checking the peep hole, your breath whooshes out of you at the sight of a red mask.

Damn!

Unlatching your locks, you pull open the door and stare at him. He’s got to say it if he wants the jacket back. He has to ask.

“Can I have it back?”

Damn!

Your lips curve upwards even as you sigh loudly. Leaving the door open, you head across your tiny apartment to your armchair and pick up the discarded garment. For a moment, you hug it close and catch a teasing whiff of that just… Something scent.

“Here,” you say, crossing back to where he stands in the doorway and holding it out. “I’m sad to see it go, its amazing and I’m very jealous you own it. Where’d you get it?”

“No,” he says and you frown.

That’s not fair. But you don’t argue, since he’s totally capable of killing you and hiding your body.

“Thank you for lending it to me, I appreciated it, and have a wonderful night, Red,” you call after his retreating back and you watch him pause at the nickname before continuing back to the stairwell.

The next morning, rushing out the door for work, your feet tangle in material and you catch your falling self on the wall. There, waiting on the ground outside your little apartments door is the jacket. The jacket!

Grinning from ear to ear, you snatch it up and shove it over your arms and run for work.

Midway through the day, a shockingly good looking guy enters the store and you watch him browse the leashes and collars section for a long time before he wanders to the dog toys, then to the cat toys.

Your supposed to go ask if he needs a hand but he’s a bit rugged and controlled and intimidating and handsome and you’re unsure if you can move from this spot.

The shock of white at the front of his hair would be his most striking feature if he didn’t look up at that exact moment and lock eyes with you. Pretty, pretty, pale blue eyes.

This is what you were supposed to have with Dick.

This is love.

Or lust.

Both work.

Seizing on the eye contact, you head toward him with a customer smile. “Anything I can help you find today?”

For a second, his breathing seems to pick up as he stares at you and you force your smile brighter.

Oh boy.

Then he clears his throat. “Dog toy, great dane.”

His voice is weirdly deep and curt but you push past the strangeness. He’s a customer and they just be like that.

Beaming a smile, you gesture to a durable and hot pink stuffed elephant. “Some customers have issues with the colour but this guy is really the best on the market right now for dogs like great danes. It’s tough, light weight, machine washable and there’s a squeaker inside.”

He snatches it off the shelf, his eyes on you before they drop to the elephant and his lips tip up in a small smile. You wave him after you and check him out.

“Thank you,” he says, just as gruffly as before and you smile a goodbye. He turns, then pauses before turning back to you. Clearing his throat once more, he nabs a pen from the pen cup beside your till and your hand in one move. Quick as a flash, you feel the end of the pen tickling over your skin and you look down to see a number forming.

“Text me,” he says before rushing out the door in a flurry of movement, stealing your pen in the process.

Something about his voice at the end there, vaguely familiar.

i assume i’ll be writing another part but i also might not, my mind is a fickle SNAKE

Edit: Part 1.5 is noted above but here’s part 2!

#jason todd #jason todd fic #jason todd fanfic #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd imagine #jay todd #batfam fic #batfam imagine #batfam fanfiction

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just-a-dreamer23 · 4 years

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Animagus

There are many areas of magic that are fascinating and intriguing that can be studied at Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For Danae Martin she was fascinated by magical creatures, animagi and werewolves. Before going to Hogwarts she was previously studying at Castelobruxo which is the wizarding school at Brazil. Back when she was studying in Castelobruxo she had began investigating about magical creatures and werewolves. Sadly, that investigation didn’t last long since her parents moved to London to work in the ministry of magic.

Little did she know that her investigation was about to become more fascinating and deeper when she was enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; she got sorted into Hufflepuff. During the first few months at Hogwarts she spent most of her time in the library reading about magical creatures and werewolves. However, she found information about animagus and started to focus her studies on them along with her classes at Hogwarts. During this time she got close to a fellow Hufflepuff named Belinda Riviera, Remus Lupin a Gryffindor and Hagrid the gamekeeper, she would share details of her investigation and they would encourage her to keep going.

Being Remus friend meant that she would have interactions with the Marauders which is a group of four Gryffindor boys: Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and ... Potter...James Potter. These group was famous for the pranks and troubles they would get into together. Even though Remus told them to not prank Danae, James Potter would prank her every now and then, causing her to dislike him. However, there was a moment in which Belinda and Danae were at Honeydukes buying chocolate frogs on a Saturday. After doing so, they were heading back to the castle without knowing that Bellatrix Black was keeping her eyes close on them to hurt Danae.

Before getting inside of the castle, Belinda and Danae heard a “Stupefy” but before either could react, Danae was on the floor in pain. Subsequently, Bellatrix laughed and conjured “Levicorpus” leaving her victim upside down. Belinda got angry and conjured a “Expeliarmus” to Bellatrix but she dodge it. Before Belinda could prepare herself to do conjure something else, James Potter got in between and started dueling Bellatrix. However, they got separated by Slughorn who separed the two and got them into detention.

As they were on their way back to detention Bellatrix said “You filthy halfblood, I’ll get back at you for this” and James said “If you dare to do so, you are going to wish you had never being born at all”. Belinda helped Danae get back up and took her to the hospital wing to get her checked up. Danae was embarrassed to say the least as she could not defend herself but at the same time she was grateful for Belinda and James. Of course, Belinda took this opportunity to tease her friend about how James fancy her. Danae rolled her eyes and told her “He was just being a good friend” to what her friend replied “Sure, a friend that teases, stares at and protects you...not to mention that he never stops talking about you when you are not around”.

After that incident with Bellatrix, James had gotten over protective of Danae which was a little bothersome to her since he would not keep quiet while she was investigating the animagus. Ironically, he had become intrigued by them as well, in fact, he would say that he knew certain animagus that were friends of his. That would make Danae very intrigued and asked him a lot of questions about his friends without knowing that he was referring to Peter and Sirius; oh and of course...himself. Turns out that the sneaky Gryffindor said “I would only answer your questions if you go on a date with me”. She rolled her eyes and chuckle saying “Clever, aren’t we? you’re lucky that I fancy going on a date with you”.

A few months went by, James and Danae started officially dating and would go on double dates with Remus and Belinda; who had started dating a month before Danae and James. At this point, Danae knew that three members of the marauders were animagus except for Remus who was a werewolf. Of course, Danae asked them many questions to which they all replied to eagerly after James told them that he would pay everything they wanted in their next Hogsmeade trip. Danae would write everything down in her notebook saying that it was just part of her investigation. Even Belinda was shocked and intrigued by them and asked them to show us their transformations which they did; except Remus.

As time passed, Danae started doing the processed of becoming an animagus after thinking about it for the longest time. The only person that knew about this was Belinda and she swore that she was not going to tell anybody; not even James. After all of the process was done, Danae and Belinda sneaked to the forbidden forest without anyone noticing. In that night, Danae first transformation took place. She wanted Belinda to be with her so that she could witness what animal or creature she would turn into.

All of a sudden, Danae disappeared and a big dog appeared... a Gran Danes...

Belinda gasped and started petting her friend, who had positioned herself to get belly rubs. “Oh my God, you are a dog!! just like Sirius, this is so cool!” said Belinda as she was petting her friend and was giggling. Subsequently, a deep voice came from behind them “Belinda, what are you doing here and who’s dog is that?”. As she turned around, she realized that the voice came from James Potter and gave him a nervous look. He raised his eyebrow and then asked “Did you lose the ability to talk” as he got on his knee to start petting the dog.

Danae looked over at her friend and gave her a look that said “Don’t reveal it” to which Belinda nodded while sighing. She is Hagrid’s new dog, I was playing with her but then she ran off to the forest and that’s why we are here. James looked at her and smile saying “Danae would love her as she loves animals so much”. Then he asked “Have you seen her? I’ve tried looking for her everywhere but she’s nowhere to be found”. Belinda said that she hadn’t seen her friend and that she might be in their common room studying for the upcoming charms test.

James seemed to believe his girlfriend’s best friend, that was until he saw Danae’s clothes and bag behind the dog. He went over to where it was and grabbed it to examine it with confusion. Then he looked at Belinda and asked why was Danae’s stuff there to what she was speechless and couldn’t answer. Subsequently, he stared at the dog’s eyes realizing how familiar they were and as he was doing so the dog began to whine. He grabbed his face with his hands and said “You have got to be kidding me babe”.

Belinda said that she could explain but James was not having it at the moment. He grabbed Danae’s things and asked his girlfriend who was in her dog form to follow him; told Belinda to get back to the castle safely. Both of the girls did as he told them, one went to the castle while the other one was about to get scolded by her boyfriend. They both got into a secret passage and ended up at his common room in which he led her to his dorm making sure nobody was there but them. After doing so, he conjured the door to get locked up and the room so that nobody could listen to their conversation.

He turned to his girlfriend who was back to her human form and was biting her bottom lip nervously.

“Before you say any-” she started saying but got cut off by him

“How could you be so reckless. I knew you were up to something when you asked us about the procedure but it never crossed my mind that you would actually do it. The three of us did it for moons so that we could be there for him but we are not register and could get into Azkaban. Now you are facing the same danger if you’re not careful enough. You did not have any damn reason to do so other than just be bloody obsessed with animagus. Couldn’t you stop that obsession for a bit and think rationally or are you too blinded by it? You can’t be that dumb can you” he shouted

At that moment, Danae got silent and looked down then she looked up at him with tears threatening to get out. Then she stood up and looked at him dead in the eyes “Has it ever crossed your mind that I am Moons friend too and that I want to be as much help as I can be for him as all of you are as well? Do you think that I would not take this decision without knowing all of the risks there are? Really? After all the studying I have done of them?” she chuckled then said “En tus ojos solo soy una loca obsesionada que no piensa antes de actuar. That’s very rich of you to say”.

“What? Bloody hell? what did you say in that other language, you know that I can’t understand it” he said placing his hand over his hair. “Look, I am sorry...I just got worried and disa-”

“Save it Potter” she said as she was walking towards the door. “Alohomora”...

After that she went left to her common room and he followed her in order to apologize and come to an understanding. However, he was a little late at that and tried to get into the Hufflepuff common room which ended up with him being covered in vinegar. “Bloody hell... I deserve it though”

“En tus ojos solo soy una loca obsesionada que no piensa antes de actuar”= In your eyes I’m just an obsessed crazy girl that does not think before doing stuff.

*Tag: @bl597

#jamespotter #jamespotterimagine #Harry Potter #fanfic #marauder #prongs

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creek-weasel · 4 years

Text

i’ve been constantly scrolling through my photos of this year. it was the longest and shortest year of my life. the best and the worst. the most rewarding and the most disappointing. what a fuckin wild ride it’s been

January

I started 2020 dressed up, drunk, and in a ballroom in GR when I wanted to be drunk in the woods.

I spend the rest of January getting drunk in the woods or in dive bar booths.

February

Erich and I go to Detroit for Fat Tuesday and we eat and drink our way across the city. I decide I’m going to move to Detroit.

Sarah and I go out every chance we get. We’re at every hockey game. We’re at every happy hour. We accept every invitation. 2020 was our YES year.

I decide if I’m moving to Detroit, why not kiss that cute bouncer from The Bird.

March

Continuing our year of YES, Sarah and I start a podcast and buy spitting distance ring-side tickets to Smackdown in Detroit. We get a hotel and plan on stumbling around the city and talking about all the things we’ll do when I live there.

The morning of, it’s cancelled due to concerns about the virus. I drive to Pittsburgh instead. Katie not-so-jokes that I should move there. I laugh it off.

April

I have a health crisis that I gave everyone entirely too much information about. My doctor isn’t seeing patients and diagnoses me over the phone. Sarah has to bring me medicine because I can’t walk.

I leave my doors unlocked at night because I am convinced I am either going to a) die or b) the EMT responders will have to break down my door if I don’t.

I didn’t die. But I don’t think Josh will ever recover.

May

Me and the boys go disc golfing a lot. I have outdoor movies and fires for myself once a week. I work from my hammock most days.

While walking in the county park I stop and realize the next place I live needs to have trees and water and parks like this. Detroit isn’t for me. Right there on River Loop, I decided move to Pittsburgh instead.

June

Marcus visits often and we do a lot of Molly and play Resident Evil. (Okay, he makes me play and I scream and he laughs at me)

In between I become obsessed with getting the house ready to sell. I learn electric and plumbing work from YouTube. I put a lot of lipstick on that pig.

I go kayaking with my boys and drop my phone in the river. I feel like I deserve that.

July

I list the house on the 2nd and go to my mom’s for the holiday weekend so people can view the house. By the 4th, it’s sold. Independence Day.

Sarah and I take a very spur of the moment trip to Pittsburgh to see an apartment I want. I don’t get it, and I’m devastated.

I respond to a random ad on Craigslist for the *perfect* apartment. I don’t have time to go back to the city so I immediately send in a signed lease and security deposit without ever setting foot in it. I spend the next month sweating that it’s a scam.

Me and the Salty Crew go to Beaver Island and explore the deserted island by ourselves. We get really high and look at stars. We see a rare comet with our bare eyes. We find a levitating tree while we look for a mysterious old growth forest. I think maybe I should move to Beaver Island instead of Pittsburgh.

The day after we come back from the island, I have my final divorce hearing over a Zoom call.

The next day I turn 31.

August

The house is packed up. I stay with the cute bouncer from the Bird and he makes me dinner and tells me how pretty I am every night. He cries the morning I leave town.

On closing day, the buyer makes me so frustrated and sad that I have a complete breakdown in my car before going in to sign the papers. I cry into my mask. I accidentally break a vase in the parking lot. This makes me cry into my mask more.

I pick up my keys and am relieved to find out the apartment isn’t a scam, and it is perfect after all. Very, very dirty. But perfect. Katie drives all the way from Virginia to help me unpack.

September

I take a lot of walks. I get lost often. I make Helga go to beer gardens with me so I don’t look crazy drinking alone. I meet my first people.

I open my online shop.

October

I drive back to Michigan to be with my family at our yearly cabin reunion. We walked around and pointed out all of our favorite memories. We throw Dane a bachelor party and he elopes the following weekend.

I decide on a whim to go to a brewery with Helga. There’s another woman there with a bulldog. We hit it off immediately.

I become suspicious that maybe my apartment is haunted.

November

Walking. Working. Crafting. Walking. Repeat.

I start to find a groove and make a lot of sales in my new shop.

I visit my mom for Thanksgiving. We eat mac and cheese for dinner and get too drunk talking and laughing in front of the fireplace.

December

After a date night with Amy, drunk on wine and charcuterie I decide to download bumble. It doesn’t last long.

We get a downfall of 9″ of snow and I walk for 6 miles in the thick of it around the city and admire how pretty my new home is.

I don’t want to be anywhere else.

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danetobelieve · 4 years

Text

Standing Vigil || Ricky, Rio and Winston

Location: the beach beneath the cliff’s which the Roommate Squad lives on.

Timing: the morning of the 18th of June

Tagging: @3starsquinn, @ricky-corderbro & @danetobelieve

Description: Nell and Luce liberated some selkie skins which they gave to Kaden who in turn gave to Ricky. The boys (and Winston) give their fallen friends a proper farewell.

Warnings: no official warnings; this is as close to a funeral as we’ll probably write though so bear that in mind.

Everything about this was wrong, and that ate at a small sheltered core of Ricky’s heart that sounded and smelled like the waves off Rinn Mhaoile. It should have been elders. It should have been all selkies. There should have been names, clan members standing in the shallows to recount stories, give benedictions, request boons from the waves for safe passage. But instead it was a single selkie, a magician, and a repentant hunter, and Ricky only hoped it would be enough to grant the souls passage to the Deep Tides. He’d woken up early enough to give himself some time to get read; traditionally burials happened at sunrise as the tide ebbed back into the ocean deep, and he’d given himself time to shower and have a cup of coffee and take some time to think. He tied his hair back with a ribbon that his mom had used, slid the silver ring on his finger that bore her mark, and gathered up the skins from where they had been sitting on a chair in his bedroom, making his way downstairs clad only in a swimsuit to start to head towards the beach, his own skin draped over his shoulders. Even though they were both human, or at least more human than he was, Ricky deeply and fervently appreciated that both Winston and Rio had agreed to help with the burial, “It’s uh…. It really means a lot to me that you guys agreed to do this.” He managed to keep his voice from sounding too choked as he hugged the skins close, “Tide should start going out soon so we should uh head down to the beach.”

Winston hadn’t slept. They knew that they were going to have to be up early and they’d tried to get an early night’s sleep but they were still trying to work out if and how they would be able to get rid of the eye in their hand, their research had dragged on into the night and before they knew it the alarm they’d set to wake them up had been blaring and they decided that it was time to get ready. They could sleep later, it wasn’t like they had work for a while. Heading down and outside of the house with their friends, Winston shivered in the cold morning air. But they were dressed equally appropriately, though they wore a hoodie to keep them warm and still felt the early morning chill in the air. “Of course Ricky,” Winston replied, looking up at Rio. He looked- Winston forced themselves to look away, this wasn’t the time to be obsessing over Rio. They had work to do. “We’re always going to be here to do these things, especially after what we have learned about this … person,” Winston could hardly comprehend a being so evil that it would do this, “they deserve to be given a proper funeral.” Winston set off, their sandals crunching through the gravel and loose sand as they wound their way down the cliff path to the beach.

Orion was out of place. He didn’t deserve to be here. It was because of people exactly like Rio that Ricky has to do this funeral in the first place. Rio didn’t know the whole situation. Hunters had to be involved with this, right? Weren’t they always? And Rio was just like them. But as sure as Rio was that they didn’t deserve to take part in such a bittersweet ceremony, how could he say no? This wasn’t about what Rio thought he should or shouldn’t be a part of. Ricky wanted him there. So Rio needed to be there. Even if he didn’t deserve to be. And even if Winston was there, the sombering mood of the morning making it even more obvious that the two had too much going on between them. But Rio was dedicated to not making this awkward. Even if he was about to be knee deep in water wearing a long sleeve shirt and track pants. He figured he could at least roll the track pants up a bit to avoid getting too soaked. “Just let us know what you need from us.” Rio agreed with Winston, offering whatever they could to help Ricky out.

Ricky made most of the trek down to the darkened beach in silence, fingers carding over the smooth skins he held in his hands. As he crunched down the path he struggled internally with his own worthiness to complete this ritual. He was thousands of miles from his clan, he was too young, he just wasn’t the selkie his mother had been. How could he send these poor men and women off to the deep when he hadn’t even been able to do that to his own mother. “Not much.” He muttered quietly as the path gave way to the silent beach, the crash of the ebbing tide the only sound, “I can say everything that needs to be said. There just needs to be three people. To stand for them in death, and to watch over their ashes as they join the sea.” He hadn’t bothered with shoes as he’d left the house, so the transition from beach to wave he could make without stalling. Barely feeling the frigid cold of the waves he strode out until he was almost waist deep in the water, turning back to his friends “You guys don’t have to come out this far. Knee deep is fine. Just within earshot and spell-shot. We uh…. We can start whenever.”

Winston had been feeling slightly better about everything with Rio after the night they’d spent with Skylar watching Cell’s at Work. It had been a good way to diffuse the tension, though it remained ever present. “We can of course do that, it’s an honour even if we’re not the ideal candidates,” Winston couldn’t help but feel out of place. But the fact that Ricky trusted them to do this meant more then anything else right now. Slipping out of their sandals and tossing their hoodie and t-shirt down with it, they left them in the sand and made their way forwards. The waves foamed up against their toes, greeting them and guiding them towards the sea. Wading in so they were only a few feet away from Ricky. Shivering slightly in the early morning air, Winston kept as silent as they could. “Just give me one second, I want to do this properly.” Winston took a moment to center themself, taking a long breath and exhaling before repeating the motion once more and exhaling a thin tendril of fire that they caught between the index finger and thumb of both hands, holding it there as a tight ball, Winston looked at Ricky, “tell me when you’re ready and I’ll light them.”

Orion was more of a placeholder than anything else. Unlike Winston, Rio had no real purpose to be here. It was better that way. Too much involvement wouldn’t feel right considering the situation. His eyes were glazed over and he felt empty inside. If Rio felt this away about the senseless death of these people, people he didn’t know and had no kind of connection to, he could only imagine how awful Ricky must feel right now. He watched Ricky curiously, trying to decipher what was going on in his head right now. He was so ridiculously strong. He never let fear or sadness show up on his face. Because he always thought he needed to be strong for everybody else. It was noble, but stupid. Rio wished that Ricky would break down with him once in a while. It might help Ricky process whatever he was going through. Rio shot a glance over towards Winston, carefully studying their face as the fire they was holding illuminated it. Rio didn’t need the light to see them, his hunter sight took care of that. But he did like the way their face looked through the ambience. Though the weather didn’t bother Rio much considering his attire, the water was freezing cold against his feet. The cold continued as Rio followed in deeper, nipping at his ankles and following up to his shin, where the prickling sensation finally ceased when the water found his track pants and favored that over his knees. Here they were. At this point, Rio didn’t have much to offer to the group aside from his support. He smiled at Winston, nodding in acknowledgement of the moment before turning his focus back on Ricky. Time to get started, it seemed.

Nodding as Winston conjured an impressive ball of fire in his hands, Ricky turned his gaze back out to see, towards the pale peach fingers of a rising dawn, holding the skins out towards the sun as it peaked over the horizon, their cool weight draped over his arms. “You deserved better than this.” His voice cracked sharply and he took a brief moment to collect himself as he felt a few tears roll down his cheek, “You died far from clan and shore, from those who knew and loved you, and were deprived your chance at rest. We stand your vigil now to try to fix that.” He cast his gaze over his shoulder to look at Rio, standing cold in the water behind him, “Behind me Orion Quinn stands vigil for your past. As the light from his namesake is already long-past history by the time it reaches us, he stands in the ebbing tide to honor the life you lived.” He gave a weak smile and turned back to face the sun. “I am Ricardo Cordero, son of Clan Muirgen, and I stand vigil for your present. For the span of life you were supposed to live and was robbed from you. For the light you were meant to bring into the world, and the strength we were robbed of by your absence.” Turning to look at his best friend he wiped tears from his face with his shoulder, “And Winston Dane stands vigil for your future. The cleansing fire, not born of earth or sky, that will return you to the Deep Tides and the clans that swim in the calm and dark. We do not know your names, and cannot tell your clans that you have been rescued from bondage. But a recollection of you will be carved in the Tidestone of Clan Muirgen. Six unknown souls laid to rest. May the Deep Tides call you home, may your ancestors welcome you into those hidden shoals, and may you rest in peace knowing your vigil has been kept.” He barely managed to make it to the end of the sentence before his voice broke entirely, and he held the skins out in front of him, gripping the tops as he nodded mutely to Winston.

It was a sobering moment. Winston was so new to all of this. The idea of all of this, of everything that was going on, it was hideous. Winston hated it. The apparently hidden and silent war that raged beneath the surface of the supernatural world. Hunters butchering werewolves, vampires killing slayers, wardens hunting fae, it was all so violent and Winston hated the amount of it that they had already seen. Standing vigil now was a bittersweet privilege. They were lucky that they were never really involved unless they stepped up. A cold bead of sweat trickled down their back as the waves of the ocean lapped against their body. Taking a deep breath, Winston slowly willed thin ribbons of fire to expand off of the surface of the ball, they hovered for a moment before weaving together and darting forward. The tendrils of flame colliding with the skin. For a moment they blazed across the surface before slowly, yet surely the skins took the flame and began to pass it along their surface. It devoured them with such veracity and hunger that Winston let the magic go and slumped in the water for a moment. The cold quickly brought them back to awareness and they watched as the skins truly caught alight. The fire growing now, greedily swallowing the pelts up.

Orion wasn’t sure when he started crying. It had been teetering there for a while. He was familiar with the sensation, the heavy feeling weighing down his eyes as they decided whether or not the tears would fall. At some point, they had given up the fight. Probably when Ricky’s voice broke, which may have been the most heartbreaking thing he had ever heard. Rio forced his palm over his mouth, afraid that the sniffling would interrupt Ricky’s flow or ruin the ceremony. Tears rushed down his cheeks now and he was full on blubbering, the sounds of his gasping breath mumbled slightly by the hand he held tightly against his face. When Ricky spoke his name as part of the ceremony, Rio used his free hand to give a slight wave out into the ocean. Did Selkie’s believe in spirits? If they were real, were they watching over the three of them now? Once it was done, Winston set the pelts on fire. The sight was beautiful, but sad all at once. But Rio understood why they did it. What a way to go out.

The sound of the crackling flame at once stood in opposition to and in harmony with the waves crashing around his waist, and Ricky held onto the pelts until the very last possible moment, until the flames had started to lick blisters and angry red wounds onto his hands. As he released them to the dawn sky, the flames were so voracious that not a single hair fell to the waves before it was ash and he heaved a deep and rumbling sigh as he watched the twisting motes of black make their way out to sea. Turning his back onto the sunrise he trudged his way slowly through the waves back to where his two friends had been standing in more shallow water, pulling them both into a tight hug. “Thanks.” He managed to get out as he squeezed them both, “I couldn’t have made it through that without you two.” Wiping at the tears drying on his cheeks with the back of his hands he released them both and steadied himself, trying to put the face of jovial control he usually wore. “Come on. We’ll dry off and I’ll buy you both breakfast. Raise a mug of coffee in a toast. We’ve done all we can for them now.”

#wickedswriting #p: orion #p: ricky #para #chatzy para #chatzy #standing vigil

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squidbatts · 5 years

Text

your funny mouth to the clouds

Or: Fabian stresses, confesses, and gets some kisses in

((The last couple of Fantasy High episodes have been Buckwild but IN THIS HOUSE we ignore current canon happenings to write about fabian wanting to kiss ragh and then getting to kiss ragh!!! because i crave ragh/fabian content even if i have to Do Everything Myself))

{ao3}

Fabian Aramais Seacaster, son of Bill Seacaster, knows he’s hot; it’s kind of his whole thing, being a charming, roguish pirate, as dangerous as he is dashing. So, obviously, it makes complete sense that he and Gorgug would be Ragh’s dream makeout partners. They’re all hot athletes and they spend a decent amount of time together, he gets it.

It shouldn’t even be a thing.

Except that Fabian can’t stop thinking about it. When Ragh lances a demon through the eye and then turns to grin at Fabian, manic, muscles straining his letterman jacket, he thinks about it; when Fabian’s trying to teach the party literally anything about the sea and Ragh slides in right next to him, body a point of warmth on Fabian’s left side as he points at completely the wrong part of the map, he thinks about it; when Ragh tears off his shirt and leaps into the water with Fabian, throws a glistening and sea-wet arm over Fabian’s bare shoulders, tugs Fabian into his sculpted chest as he laughs-

The point is, Fabian keeps thinking about it.

Which is why he thinks he should be excused for asking Kristen for advice; she is, after all, their “token gay friend"; the rest of his close friends are straight, so she’s really the only one he can ask.

“Kristen,“ Fabian starts one afternoon when it’s just the two of them on the roof, “You know about gay stuff, right?“

Kristen lights up. “I don’t know if you know this-“

“I do, you say it all the time-“

“-but I’m gay!“ Kristen finishes like she doesn’t come out over breakfast every morning. “So yeah, I do.“

“Awesome, great, listen, I have a question. Have you ever- hm.“ Fabian cuts himself off with a hum as he attempts to word it correctly. He decides to try another route. “Do you think Ragh is attracted to me?“

“Oh, for sure,“ Kristen says and, even though he already knew that, Fabian chokes on air in surprise at her surety. “He’s really into the whole ’straight boy jock’ thing and, I’m a lesbian, but even I know that you’re objectively the hottest person in our party. You and Fig are the hot ones.“

“Obviously,“ Fabian replies, kneejerk.

“Yeah, so, duh. Why do you ask?“ Kristen asks, and Fabian-

Fabian falters because, obviously, he wants to get to the bottom of why he can’t just forget about Ragh’s proposition like Gorgug has, but the idea of talking about it, of telling Kristen makes his stomach twist. Something about it makes him feel weird, the same way he feels weird whenever he thinks about Ragh wanting to kiss him.

“He just said something and I-“ Fabian waves a hand dismissively. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter.“

Kristen’s eyebrows furrow and she places a hand on Fabian’s arm, firm but still kind. “If you’re uncomfortable with a gay man simply being attracted to you, you’re the asshole here. But listen, Jawbone has some pamphlets about it and we can totally work this out-“

“I’m not uncomfortable, I just wanted to know if he had said anything to you,“ Fabian says, the words quick and awkward in his mouth. Maybe I am uncomfortable, He considers. Maybe the twisting how of his gut and the heating of his face are merely symptoms of his discomfort. He’s always been fine with Kristen and Tracker, he was fine with Ragh when he told them about Dane, but maybe he just thought he wasn’t homophobic until it directly affected him.

Kristen stares at him silently for a second, tilting her head as her eyebrows raise. “Huh. Never would’ve guessed that.“ She says, then, “Well, actually, I maybe would’ve because you’re like, supernaturally obsessed with your appearance, but stereotyping is bad and all that.“

“What are you talking about?“ Fabian snaps, irritated with her vagueness. He realizes that he should’ve just gone to Adaine for help, she reads books and knows about a great many things, not to mention that it certainly would’ve been less of a tax on his patience than dealing with Kristen at her… Kristen-est.

“I think… I think you should talk to Ragh,“ Kristen says, and then continues on quickly before Fabian can get the horrified Absolutely not out of his mouth. “No, listen, this is really something that would go best if you just, like, talked to Ragh about it, I think. And like, I rolled a seventeen on persuasion, so you kind of have to.”

Fabian, not blessed in wisdom, fails his saving throw and has to admit that Kristen’s point is pretty compelling. Still, “I don’t even know where Ragh is right now.”

Kristen gives him a look that clearly says We all live in the same vanboat, you have to know that he’s less than three minutes away. She leans away from Fabian and, still holding eye contact, yells into the van, "Hey, Ragh, Fabian wants to talk to you!"

"Kristen, no," Fabian hisses. Kristen just grins back at him.

"Kristen, yes!" She says, "You will so thank me for this."

Fabian is still cursing Kristen's name when Ragh climbs up to join them on the roof. He's wearing his normal jeans but has elected to leave his letterman jacket in the van. Probably a good idea, Fabian thinks, eyes involuntarily drawn to the sheen of sweat over Ragh's biceps as Ragh stretches before he sits. It's been hot all day, but Fabian would bet gold that it's gotten hotter in the past five minutes. He certainly feels rather feverish, suddenly.

"What's the problem, bro?" Ragh asks when he settles down. Kristen makes a face at him from behind Ragh's back and mouths Take my advice!!!! When he pretends not to notice and instead stares pointedly at the sea, she huffs loudly.

"Well, I'm going to go back into the van, I'm real tired," She says, obnoxiously obvious. Fabian makes a face back at her when Ragh turns towards her. "I'll, uh,see you guys later. Don't even worry about everyone else, I'll keep 'em down there."

Fabian tries to infuse enough That is absolutely not what I want! and Don't leave us alone! into a single glare to make her stay, but she just winks at him, like she's a bard or something, which of course makes Ragh turns back to Fabian, puzzled.

"What was all that about?"

"It's nothing, really," Fabian says, forcing lightness into his voice as he waves a hand, as though all this awkwardness could be as easily dispelled as Fig's cigarette smoke. "Kristen is just being dramatic."

Ragh frowns, his dark eyes are stormily serious. Fabian's heart skips a beat. "We're bros. And bros don't have to lie about their feelings, right?"

"... Right."

"Dude." Ragh says as he punches Fabian's arm, clearly about to get started on the Jawbone taught me emotional vulnerability and now I think everyone should do it spiel. Fabian's already heard it at least one time apiece from Kristen and Adaine, and he still thinks he's good on the emotions front, thank you very much. Still, his stomach flips even now with nerves, and he thinks of how Kristen thought that talking with Ragh would sort him out. As truly awful as he imagines it will be, he wonders if Kristen has a point, just this once.

"Alright, alright!" He concedes, "I suppose we can talk about my feelings."

"Awesome!" Ragh grins lopsidedly, shifting to sit lotus style, his full attention on Fabian. "Now, what's up?"

A feeling rises in Fabian's chest, like his ribcage is stuck in a vice, and he feels nearly sick with guilt. Here Ragh is, so kindly and sincerely devoting his attention to Fabian, and Fabian's body can't even relax enough to appreciate it.

"I think I owe you an apology," Fabian says, and before Ragh can respond, he rushes on with, "I think I might be homophobic, but I'm going to work on it and be a better friend for you and Kristen, and I'm very sorry."

Ragh's opens and closes his mouth wordlessly a few times, tusks catching on his upper lip. "I- what?"

Fabian sighs huffily and explains, how he's felt weird and off-kilter since Ragh's proposition and Kristen's offered explanation. Ragh listens thoughtfully, brow furrowed and a hand on his chin. He's still frowning as Fabian finishes his tale and Fabian fights the urge to fidget under the scrutiny.

"I don't think you're homophobic, dude," Ragh says, eventually. He sounds like he's choosing his words carefully, like he's walking on eggshells, and Fabian aches to think that he's made Ragh think that he has to do that.

"Of course I am, what else could it be?" Fabian asks, and Ragh screws up half of his face. "See! I made you uncomfortable with my- weirdness. I'm sorry."

"No, no, I'm not uncomfortable, I'm just trying to… Reconcile some things. Sort stuff out in the old noggin." Fabian tries not to look too doubtful but Ragh must've aced his insight check because he sighs and continues, "Listen, this has got to be weird for you too, I mean, obviously it is if you think you're a homophobe, but I think there's a pretty easy way to figure out what your discomfort means."

"And what would that be?" Fabian asks snipily, turning away. He doesn't like apologizing in the first place, much less when the other person won't just accept it.

"Feel free to say no, but I figured you could just try kissing me." Ragh says, and Fabian’s head whips back to him. Ragh lifts up his hands defensively. “Full disclosure, I think you’re super hot so I'm definitely getting something out of this, but if you can't stop thinking about it… It couldn't hurt, could it?"

Ragh shrugs as he lays his offer down and Fabian-

Fabian's heart pounds like he's in the middle of a Bloodrush play as heat pools in his face and his stomach. He hadn't ever considered actually kissing Ragh, but now that it's on the table, something deep within him twists with want.

"One kiss?" Fabian asks, trying to will away his blush, "I wouldn't be… Opposed."

"Uh-uh, none of that. I need a definite yes or no, bro," Ragh says, "I don't want to pressure you into this."

Fabian feels his flush flare hotter and squeezes his eyes shut. The deep buried part of him has rapidly expanded and spread throughout his body, leaving his fingers twitching towards Ragh and his lips tingling with anticipation. He can't imagine saying no, but to say yes also seems almost insurmountable. He opens his eyes, sees how softly Ragh smiles and the patience in his eyes, and it feels like someone's reached into Fabian's chest and twisted. Fabian nods, excessively, embarrassingly, then says, "Yes, yes, I'd like to try it-" before Ragh is upon him like the tide on a beach.

It's different from kissing Aelwyn; there's no bitter taste of alcohol or sticky-sweet lipgloss, no, Ragh's lips are chapped and he tastes of salt from days at sea, but it's still so much. Ragh cups Fabian's head, gentle, but presses his mouth insistently forward, easily leading Fabian through the sweeping movements of a makeout. Fabian's heartbeat still thuds in his ears, but he can also hear Ragh's slow and steady breaths, feel how he nips Fabian's lips and smiles against Fabian's mouth. When it's over, when Ragh pulls back and Fabian embarrassingly chases after him for half a second, Fabian is breathing like he's been near-drowned.

"Still think you're homophobic?" Ragh asks, teeth flashing in the ocean sunlight, lips slick from Fabian. Fabian burns brightly.

"I have," Fabian clears his throat awkwardly. "A few other theories now."

Ragh laughs, full and perfect, throwing his head back. Fabian looks at the vast muscled expanse of his neck, realizes that the twist of his gut just means that he wants to press a kiss to the juncture of Ragh's jawline and neck, and thinks, Huh.

"Well, that was super fun," Ragh says, clapping Fabian on the back, "Always down to help a fellow Owlbear with a sexuality crisis, dude, just let me know if you wanna do that again."

Ragh heads back into the vanboat, whistling cheerfully, and Fabian waits until he's absolutely out of sight to raise a shaking hand to his lips. He feels a smile giddily crawling over his face and he buries his face in his hands rather than risk someone seeing him like that. He wonders, in a corner of his mind that's not fully busy simply rejoicing over getting his kisses in, if having a boyfriend is much different than having a girlfriend.

#fantasy high #ragh barkrock #fabian seacaster #fabragh #One shot

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