#and give them a respectable and special burial

[randomness-is-my-order]

something about wei wuxian and wen qing’s relationship is so profoundly heartening and i think it’s because, in that first life, they were each other’s confidants in the sense that they voluntarily allowed the other person to see them at their most vulnerable and trust the other to take care of them. wei wuxian trusted wen qing to carry out the golden core transfer and trusted her when he was helpless on that bed, his core cut out from him. and wen qing could think of no one else but wei wuxian to help her when she was in her most dire circumstances, trusting him to help her and her family out when no one else would.

“all that pride–all gone.”

at her lowest, wen qing went to wei wuxian and allowed him to see her that way. partly because her family was so much more important than a game of saving face and partly because if there was someone who would see her in such a state and not think ill of her and continue to respect her, it was wei wuxian. because he’s also been at his worst, circumstantially, and it was exactly in those days that their initial bond/friendship was forged.

there is alot of talk about debts when wwx and the wens are concerned but i think the way they helped each other transcends the obligation of debts. of course, you simply cannot overlook who was owed what, given the setting but it’s interesting that we have this passage to make us reflect on the true nature of wei wuxian and wen qing helping each other:

when wei wuxian had bid her farewell, carrying jiang cheng on his back, wen qing had told him this: “no matter how this war ends, we do not owe each other anything from now on. our debts are cleared.” her haughtiness was clear as day in his memory. but last night, she had clutched his hand in a death grip and almost dropped to her knees as she pleaded.

“wei wuxian…wei wuxian…wei-gongzi. please help me. i have no one else to turn to. you have to help me save a-ning! i really have no one else, i can only come to you!”

it’s the way that following wen qing’s refuge of wei wuxian and jiang cheng, there was a sentiment of: oh the wens did this to you and now we, also wens, have helped you just to compensate a little. let’s settle these debts and leave them behind. and this is despite wen qing clearly stating that the wen clan’s actions do NOT reflect her own and that she’s only ever saved lives, not taken any. and yet she declares “our” debts as cleared as if she had taken some accountability anyway. it’s part that and part her attempt to obscure what her actions towards wwx and jc truly were: an unconditional show of support and help. and wei wuxian knows this and it is only reasonable and honorable to still see the help as a debt owed later down the line.

and the same thing repeats itself when wen qing comes to wei wuxian and explicitly asks for help. there is a sense that this isn’t about some give-and-take or reciprocation of prior debts. it is simply a person reaching out to someone in their most desparate times, hoping their hand will be held. and wei wuxian does hold her hand and they remain each other’s staunch supporters through the rescue and the hellish survival in the burial mounds that follows.

wei wuxian trusts wen qing with his wounds and wen qing opens up her most loved ones to wei wuxian’s care. for two people who spent their lives looking after their loved ones, shouldering massive burdens and going through the destruction of their respective clans, their intrinsic understanding of each other makes their bond so special, so grounded. they both took massive risks to help each other out and they both did what was right over what was easy to extend that help to each other.

despite my fair share of problems with the cql, i appreciated that scene with wq and jc where wen qing made it clear that she couldn’t pursue anything with jiang cheng because he wouldn’t stand by her. he simply didn’t have the guts. and this is reflected in the novel canon, in the sense, that if debts owed are the metric to measure who could have helped wen qing, jiang cheng was also on the list and he was obligated to aid her as much as, if not more than wei wuxian (and i say this because the whole reason wwx ended up staying under wen qing’s extended care was because jc was injured. he would’ve left as soon as he was discovered had he been alone). and yet wen qing doesn’t ever approach jiang cheng. her only option is wei wuxian because she knows, deep down, that he would truly help her and go to greater lengths for her than any debts would warrant. that he would understand.

and thing is, despite being the outliers of their clans, they both (+wen ning) embodied their mottos. “attempt the impossible”/“knowingly do what you know you cannot do” for the jiangs and “every kindness should be returned” for the wens (very hilarious ik) and that is just one amongst the hundreds of commonalities they shared.

and all of this doesn’t even account for the fact that they basically died for each other. if this isn’t platonic love at its best, most brutal, most beautiful, then what is?

[pandora-writes-one-piece]

The Ghost From The Barrow

Source for pic

Word Count: 6049

Tags: Fem!Reader, NSFW - Oral - you giving and creampie, alternate universe - Scotland, 13th century - cursing, angst, angst without happy ending, gore, blood, death, MDNI!!! 🔞

Special Warning: English is not my first language, I apologise for any possible spelling or grammar mistakes.

Summary: You are the daughter of a clan chief in the Highlands, though you are more trouble than you are worth. Some thugs capture you and attempt to demand a ransom, but things don't exactly go their way when their leader, Kid, discovers what you are truly made of.

Notes: This was heavily inspired by the song “The Ghost From The Barrow” by Paddy and the Rats. It was going to go in a very different direction, much similar to the lyrics of the song, but the story took its own turn and I liked it like this! I hope you do too. Also, the research I did was very shallow, so if you're from Scotland and I got something wrong, I'm so sorry! Also, I had to go with Kilt wearing Kid. 🥴🤤 Have fun! 

Tag List: @rosidaze @beachaddict48 (if you don't want to be tagged for other stories other than the meet-cute, please tell me!)

Sidenote: I used a real sigil for the reader’s clan: Clan MacKenzie. 

Terms: 

Barrow - An ancient burial mound;

Tartan - A woolen cloth with a specific design associated to a specific clan;

Laird - A lord, someone who owns a large estate;

The early morning mist left a familiar dampness upon your hair. Rolling hills of verdant expanse stretched lazily before you. Ancient stone markings of softly defined borders marked one pasture from another, the neighbours, practically family, not caring if the cattle meandered from one side to the other. Heavy tendrils of fog still permeated the mountains and mounds above and you had to cut your morning walk short. You knew those barrows like the back of your hand, but the legends of ancient restless souls still lurked freshly in your mind. 

Turning back around, you gathered the skirts of your woollen dress, which hung loosely over your chemise, so you wouldn’t wet the hem of the dress this early in the day. You wore the clan’s tartan over your shoulders to protect you from the earlier chill. The blues and greens of the plaid fabric contrasted heavily with the simple brown you chose to wear. Your mother would be sick to her stomach upon your sight, once more. You were the unruly daughter, the one that could not be tamed and you knew your parents cursed the day you were born. 

As wild as the Highlands, as stubborn as a mare. Your father used to jest that no man would ever want you for a wife because you were not docile enough to be domesticated. Respect came with a heavy price in your household and you held your tongue back from lashing at him. But the sting his words left upon you was enough to completely destroy the bundle of hay you used to practise your archery shots. 

Your father was a laird of the most prominent households of the Highlands, and the current head of the clan. You were the daughter of the chief. You were supposed to act with the status that your lineage carried. Except you very rarely did. And you had the nagging feeling your father wished to have killed you at birth, as they do with unwanted kittens. 

This was a day like any other. You fled your castle without the consent of your family, escaping through one of the many passages you knew by heart, so you could absorb the peace that the morning brought you. The eerie quietness of the barrows, the rustles of the leaves from the forest and, here and there, the lonesome call of the ravens. 

Your father had warned you a million times not to leave without guards.

Your mother had forbidden you a million and one times from walking out the door at all. 

Your older brother had always counselled you to take your bow anywhere you went.

You heeded none of them.

Yet, it was still with some surprise and with a heavy pounding of your heart, that you realised you were being surrounded. Four mighty horses as black as the night approached fast, their nostrils flaring and smoking. You didn’t even try to outrun them for it would have been an impossible task. The men mounting them surrounded you quickly, using the horses to keep pacing a tight circle around you. There were grins on their faces, each taller than the last, each scarier.

Scars and untreated wounds, long unkempt hair, one even had a rudimentary mask over his face. They were terrifying. You searched for a tartan but the plaids they wore belonged to no clan. You had never seen the yellow and black in any of your father’s gatherings and the sigil they wore was clearly one of outcasts and thieves: a burning skull with the same yellow and black plaid tied to the head.

“What do we have here?” The one in the mask asked, his voice thick with delight, a hint of a mischievous smile you were not privy to. 

“A little lass, eh?” The tallest one replied. He was the only one without a smile on his face, his voice thundering around you.

“She seems sweet.” The one with hollow eyes and scars on his mouth spoke softly.

Your hands shook and the shiver that coursed through you had nothing to do with the biting wind of the Highlands. The red-headed man pursed his lips as he looked you over. If they found out you were the chief’s daughter, you would surely be used as ransom bait.

Or worse. 

Inhaling deeply, you fought to find your voice. “I am a mere villager, good sirs. I was going to collect some herbs for healing, nothing more. Some lavender and calendula. Chamomile to soothe aches. Please let me return to my home. I have young children to care for.” You tried your best to lace your voice with humility and sweetness, fighting against all of your instincts to spit at their feet and demand their heads for this outrage. 

The one who spoke with a soft voice smiled at you. “Poor thing, she looks scared, Captain.” He was looking at the redhead. He was the leader then. So he was the one you had to reason with.

“Yes, Captain, I am so very frightened. Please, I just want to return home.” Trying your best to look terrified - which wasn’t that hard since you were frightened - you warmed your features and fell to your knees, adding dramatics to your reaction. 

“Maybe we should let her go.” The one with the mask replied, tilting his head to one side. “She does look like a commoner.”

The captain dismounted his horse and you gulped as he approached you. He was tall and bulky, with an impressive figure. His lips were tinted red and he wore a piece of cloth on his head to keep the hair out of his eyes with the same yellow and black plaid of their sigil. His kilt was of dark brown plaid, resembling dried blood, and his legs were as thick as logs. 

“Sir…” You whimpered and tried to appear small. His face kept drawing near and you held your breath as his cloak slipped and you realised he was missing an arm. “Please…” Another whimper.

His lips pursed further as he raised an eyebrow and he sniffed you.

A gasp left your lips at the outrage and your cheeks flushed crimson. How dared he? His hand darted forward and he pulled the tartan off your chest, revealing the brooch you had on your dress, the one with your father’s sigil: a mountain in flames with the words ‘I shine, not burn’ engraved.

His lips pulled back to reveal a frightening set of sharp canines and he finally spoke. It was akin to a roar and it managed to bristle all the hairs on your body. “Take her, ya fools. She smells clean. She’s highborn, for sure.”

You made sure the whole of the Highlands heard you screaming and you wouldn’t go down without a proper fight. You bit and sank your nails into flesh, you kicked and punched all while sputtering curses upon curses over the group. Vile words, not fit for a lady of your status, filled with hate, brimming with rage.

And they all laughed at you.

Your efforts were for naught. You were easily captured.

-*-

You were held like a sack of potatoes, hanging limply over the masked man’s shoulder. They had subdued you easily and tied your hands behind your back. You were still kicking, so with more rumbling laughs, they tied your feet for good measure. 

They rode with you on their horses for the entire day, placing a blindfold over your eyes to disorient you to where their hideout was. You were passed around from mount to mount - never to the leader’s horse, though - as if you were a plaything and a new toy for them to play with. 

You should be trembling with fear, yet all the trembling came from pure rage. You wanted to punch something, claw, bite, anything! This feeling of helplessness was overwhelming and intensified by the second.

The masked man set you down ungracefully by a fire and removed the blindfold, making you blink to adjust your vision. 

“Here we are, lass. Make yourself at home.” He chuckled low and you gritted your teeth. They hadn’t roughed you up, but you were still sore from the daylong horse ride. Your throat was dry and your lips were cracked. 

“Can…” You cleared your throat to find your voice again, but it was raw from screaming. “Can I get some water?”

He tsked and turned his back on you, leaving you slumped and looking defeated. Your wrists and ankles were sore from the tightness of the rope and you were pretty sure there was blood as well. 

They left you alone in that position for a while, until the man with the scars on his mouth approached you slowly. Using a knife, he cut the ropes from your ankles and then the ones on your wrists.

Whimpering you brought your hands close to your chest and rubbed your wrists softly. You were right, they were bloodied and bruised. 

“Here.” He extended a wooden bowl filled with water, which you immediately downed with a heavy sigh.

“Thank you.” You mumbled noticing your voice was less coarse now. 

He smiled softly and took out some mashed herbs from a leather pouch, applying the mixture to your wrists. You could smell lavender, calendula and yarrow in the mixture. Someone knew what they were doing, for they were healing herbs. 

“You did this?” You asked softly. Clearly this man was the one you could easily approach since all the others were too closed off. He nodded proudly and you patted his hand. “Thank you. What’s your name?” You gave him your name as well so he felt more confident in sharing his.

“I’m Heat.”

“That is a lovely name. Thanks for helping me, Heat.” Another smile. Maybe you could work him well enough to flee.

“Get away from her.” The leader’s orders made Heat stiffen up and he got up with a slight jump, leaving your side without looking back.

“I know what yer doing, lil’ lass.” His thick accent became more enunciated because he was angry, you noticed. So you decided to make him angrier and see where that would get you. Crossing your arms over your chest, you offered him your best annoyed look.

“I’m afraid I do not know what you mean. Thug.” You finished with a smirk.

Grunting, his lips curled upwards, drawing that dangerous smile that made your heart pound.

“Ya want to domesticate my men, lil’ lass, ya can’t! They obey my command.” His figure towered over yours and he was intimidating you. Wincing in pain and discomfort, you got up, still nowhere near his face, fists clenched into tiny little balls of fury as your eyes sparkled with rage.

“What do you want from me? A ransom? Well, send the letter! I’m sure my father will be more than happy to pay you scoundrels to get me back! Or do you not know how to write?” You stomped your foot right in the middle of his parted legs and stood almost flush to his frame, a snide crossing your lips, taunting him. “I’m not afraid of you!”

Yet, you were. Pretty scared, actually. Even more so because you doubted your father would care enough about you to pay a ransom. 

You could feel rage seething from his body in short waves. His orange eyes flaming like burning fire, the same fire you felt coursing through your veins in defiance. He gave no warning as his hand wrapped around your throat, tight enough to prevent almost all of the air from coursing freely, enough to leave a bruise, but not enough to truly hurt and cut your air supply.

He lifted you up to his eye level easily, as your nails scratched and clawed at his forearm, leaving red angry trails on his skin, yet he showed no signs of being hurt by your flailing.

“Ya should be. Ya should be pissin’ yer pants.” His jaw kept clenching and unclenching as his eyes raked over your body. He took out his long, wet tongue and licked a stripe from your neck to your ear, making your insides burn and your legs clench together with want. “Tasty.” He grumbled as your eyes bore into his.

“Taste this, then.” You grunted between gasps and, clenching your own jaw, you bent your knee and hit him right in his balls, making him grunt and bend forward, letting go of your neck at the same time as he curled, his hand holding his dick tight.

You coughed and wheezed for air, falling on your knees and taking deep gasps to try and steady your breathing. Your hands pressed and soothed the burn in your throat. 

“You lil’ whore!” He grumbled as he strode towards you again.

“I’ve been called worse!” You grinned with bravado you didn’t have, waiting for the blow to come, for his hand to strike, or his feet. Whatever he wanted to use, and you knew it would hurt. Your eyes shut in anticipation as your heart created its own insane rhythm in your chest.

Yet the blow didn’t come.

All you heard was the leader’s rumbling laugh echoing in the forest as he paced away from you.

-*-

Days passed and you remained a prisoner. They left you unbound because there was no way you could ever escape their watch. Heat brought you food and water and sometimes talked with you, when the leader wasn't around to scold him. 

You learned that the letter had been sent to your father, yet he still hadn't responded. So they sent another one. 

There was a feeling of dread coiling around your stomach. What if your father didn’t want to pay your ransom? You had more brothers and sisters. What good would a bratty child who obeyed no orders do in his household? Perhaps it was better for him to say that you lost your life to the whims of thieves.

It might even grant him more support. 

You spent a restless night worrying about this and you cried your heart out. Heat noticed your forlorn expression and defeated demeanour in the morning and returned to you with clean clothes. A plain dress and a worn out man’s shirt. You looked at him warily until he grabbed your hand and led you to the forest.

For a moment you thought he might be setting you free. A rush of happiness spread its tendrils across your heart and you grinned. Until you realised he was only taking you to a lake.

He seemed so happy, though, that you still smiled softly at him. “You can bathe.” He whispered your name softly. “I’ll keep watch.”

His offer was tempting. There was grime under your fingernails, caked blood on your wrists, knees and ankles and your hair… you didn’t even want to get started on your hair.

So you thanked him politely and he turned to give you some privacy, leaving a bundle of soapwort in your hands. A plant that, if wet, creates a lather that can cleanse grime and leave a nice herbal scent behind. You were sure he would turn around as soon as you took off your clothes, but he was still the sweetest of the thugs and you had warmed up to him. You doubted he would try something with you. 

Leaving your stained clothes in a pile so you could wash them later, you dipped your toes in the water. It was ice cold, despite the warm weather outside. Still, you really needed to bathe. So, closing your eyes, you dove gracefully, emerging only once the burn settled against your lungs from lack of air. 

Letting out an unbridled laugh, you splashed a bit of water before using the soapwort plant to cleanse yourself properly. You used it on your hair as well and, after a little bit, you started to make your way back so you could wash your clothes. You didn’t want to take too long in the lake because you didn’t want to cause any trouble for Heat. 

However, the sight that greeted you when you turned around made you freeze as your eyes widened and your breath caught in your throat. The leader, the captain. He was staring at you, his back leaning against the trunk of a tree and his lips pursed. Heat was nowhere to be found. He must have discovered both of you here and sent Heat away. 

You swallowed a lump in your throat but made no motion to cover yourself. Your breasts were out of the water, nipples erect from the cold and goosebumps all over your skin. He was close enough to see the way you were shivering and the way your chest rose with each gasping breath. 

He pulled away from the tree and with nimble fingers began to untie his kilt. First the knot over his shoulder, then he started untucking the sides until it finally fell down in a heap. The shivers that shook your body now had definitely nothing to do with the chilliness of the lake. He took a long stride forward and with one swift movement of his arm, the shirt came off. 

Biting your lower lip you took in his muscular form. He was bulky and heavy, built like a strong bull. His chest was made of ripped muscles and heavy scars. Lowering your eyes, you couldn't stop your thighs from clenching together, seeking some friction. His cock was big, girthy and already half hard. It would be monstrous at full length. 

He took off the cloth holding his hair back and finally entered the water with a hiss. His eyes never left you nor did yours leave him. 

You were no stranger to desire and intercourse. You were the chief's daughter, but you were no maiden. And what you felt for your captor now was true, unbridled desire. And you could see that he felt the same toward you. 

Would either of you act upon it? 

Shaking your head and gulping, you strode forward, aiming to leave the lake, perhaps? Yet he blocked your path easily. The water hit him around the knees and a quick look down told you he was now standing at full attention. 

Screw it. 

You were wound as tight as a rope and release would probably do you some good. Besides, he seemed like a good lay. 

You approached him, slowly climbing out to the shallow part of the lake, the water lowering until he could see your mound. His lips curled up and he licked them at a leisurely pace. 

“Kneel, lil’ lass.” He grunted and, for once, you obeyed him willingly. 

Falling forward on your knees, you wasted no time. Using your hands to pump his cock a few times, you gathered the precum at the top and then used your tongue to lather it around his girth. He hummed low when you brought your other hand to cup his balls and squeeze. 

“Fuck. That's good.” 

His praise made you mewl into him as you hollowed your cheeks and fought against the gag reflex to take all of him inside your mouth. It was a stretch, but you could do it. 

Hissing, he tangled his fingers in your wet hair, holding your head in place as he took over and fucked your mouth with relentless thrusts. Tears gathered at the corners of your eyes when his tip bullied the back of your throat. Heat began pooling in your abdomen, its tendrils spreading slowly and steadily, burning at your core, demanding attention. 

You used one hand to grab his thick, hairy thighs for purchase, and another to friction against your throbbing clit, moaning into him, the vibrato of your mewls making him fasten his pace with sloppier thrusts. “Fuck, fuck. Open wide lass.” And that was all the warning you got before his thick, salty cum dripped down your throat as you swallowed and he pulled out, a small string of saliva connecting him to you still. 

He stared at your face, swollen lips, teary eyes and jaw standing open as your hand continued to press and circle against your clit, small moans leaving your parted lips. 

“Fuck. C’mere.” Resting his large hand on your chin, he motioned for you to stand up, and you obeyed. He pried your fingers away from yourself and pressed your hand so you could spread them open. A string of your own slick connected your index and middle fingers and you blushed. The Captain chuckled and swirled his tongue around them, collecting any remaining drops of your juices as you gasped and stifled a moan. “Hmm, none of that lil’ lass. Yer going to scream my name. Don't ye dare hold back.”

“I don't know your name.” You said, your eyes sparkling with mischievousness. 

Curling his lips back, he grasped your wet hair again, pulling you for an open mouthed kiss, combining your juices with the lingering taste of his cum until your head was spinning and begging for air. “It's Kid.” He panted as he pulled apart from you. 

“Fuck me, Kid.” Your hand found his cock already hard again and you had no doubt that this man had the stamina of a horse. 

“Will do, lass.” His fingers dug into your mound and you moaned as they descended to your swollen clit. “Let's see how ready ye are for me.” His fingers were long and thick and as he inserted one inside you to collect some slick, you arched your back and rolled your hips against his touch. “Hmm, needy, are ye?”

He rolled his wet finger against the bundle of nerves and then inserted two digits, stretching them and then letting them go further, deeper. Your nails dug into his chest as your head fell back in abandonment. “Kid!” You panted, his fingers filling you up deliciously. A gasp left you breathless as he inserted a third finger, using his thumb to press against your clit as he stretched you further. “Gods! Kid!”

“I know, lass, I know.” He grunted near your ear and the deep rumbling that came from his voice made you snap as you came in his hand. Arching your back and clawing his chest you moaned loud, repeating his name in a crescendo as you reached your high. “That was a good one, lass.” He sucked at your neck and bit hard to bring you back but you mewled again as you leaned into him, too dazed out to do anything else. 

But he was not done. Using his arm, he lifted you up and with a swift motion, impaled his cock inside your slick hole, making you scream as you clenched your legs around his waist. 

“Hold on, lass, this will be a rough ride.” His digits dug into your flesh as his arm circled your hips holding you in place as he pounded relentlessly, his pace brutal, and you didn't know how he could stay standing up because you could barely open your eyes, let alone stand. 

The pleasure built in waves that kept crashing and chasing away your sanity. You had never been fucked like this before. Captain Kid was fucking you senseless. Your pants increased in fervour as you felt yourself getting closer and closer to coming again. His dick filled you perfectly and hit spots inside you that made you see white. 

“Kid, fuck, gods!”

“Scream louder!” He growled and thrust faster, making your toes curl as you crushed him in a hug, thighs clenching tight against him and nails drawing blood from his back. You did scream. Loud as a banshee and you were positive his entire camp heard you scream his name like a whore.

His release was not far behind, and you knew that because there were beads of sweat on his temples, his thrusts were sloppier and he was grunting heavily. But you were so close again. “Harder.” You begged against his ear, your fingers circling your burning and overstimulated clit, trying to chase that last high. 

“Lil’ whore.” He growled and gave you what you wanted. Three fast thrusts that made you shake and come with a flash of white as he followed suit. You felt his release inside you, filling you up and dripping down your legs into the lake in soundly, heavy plops. 

You were still clinging to him like he was your lifeline, both panting and sweating, chests heaving and legs trembling. 

“I'm putting ya down, now.” He said between pants and you whined when he pulled out of you, leaving you empty. You were not steady on your legs so he still held your waist. 

“Fuck.” You muttered, still catching your breath, a wave of dizziness overcoming your senses. 

“I thought maidens didn't curse.” He chuckled. 

“Yeah? Well, maidens don't suck cocks either. So why do you think I'm one?” His genuine laughter made your heart tingle and constrict against your chest and you were not quite sure what this foreign feeling was. What you did know was that you wanted to hear it again. 

-*-

Days passed, yet you didn't really think you were a prisoner anymore. You slept with Kid every night and he took you whenever he felt like it, making good on the claim that you were his good little whore. You couldn't care less. You felt free. 

One night, after screaming his name until your throat was raw - you've come to realise he loves it when you scream his name - you asked him bluntly. 

“My father refused to pay the ransom, did he not?” The scoff that left your throat was meant to be dismissive and aloof, yet there was also the bitter taste of tart tears in your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. 

“Aye.” He grunted as he pulled your naked body closer to his. “I'm sorry.”

You didn't want his compassion, it wasn't what you were looking for. Yet, it felt nice. As if you meant something more to him than just his prisoner whore. 

“I was never good for anything but to cause trouble for him, anyway. Like this he doesn't need to find me a husband.” You snorted. “You know what I did to the last one he tried to set me up with? The one who said I couldn't be ‘domesticated’?” Kid's gaze fell on yours, an amused expression wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “I bit off his balls when he tried to fuck me into submission.” Shrugging, you threw out your tongue as Kid burst into a fit of laughter. 

“Aren't ya a feisty lil’ lass?” His chest heaved until his laughter died down. You felt droopy and your eyes started to close, drifting closer and closer to sleep. “Maybe ya can be my wife. We'll see if I can domesticate ya.”

You didn't quite know if he was kidding or not, but sleep claimed you with a smile on your lips at the thought of being Kid's wife. 

-*-

You were woken up in the middle of the night by loud screams and the clangs of swords and axes. Kid wasn't by your side when you rolled over and got up, hastily dressing in your chemise and dress. It sounded like a battle, so you grabbed the bow you kept by your side of the bed. Kid made you that bow once he realised you were very good with it. 

You had been by his side for over a year now. He made you his wife, as he said he would, and there were more nights when you actually made love instead of just fucking. 

You had come to love him. Deeply. And you were positive he loved you back, even though he wouldn't admit it to a soul. He would say love made you weaker or something like that. Times had been kind for your new clan and you had all found peace. 

Yet that thought was quickly swept away once you stepped outside of your hut and were greeted with the sight of burning buildings, slaughtered people and Kid and his men fighting. 

Gripping your bow harder and tighter, you found a secluded perch by climbing onto the roof of the hut and started to take out man after man. They didn't even realise what happened until they were left bleeding on the floor, meeting their final demise at the hands of one of Kid's men or Kid himself, who saw you immediately when an arrow whizzed past his ear. 

It wasn't until the tenth body hit the floor that you realised that these men belonged to your father's clan. Their tartan was clearly the pattern you were so familiar with. That realisation gave away your location and in a heartbeat you were being dragged by your hair, your body hitting the ground with a loud oof, as the air was sucked out of your lungs. As the assailant grabbed his sword, ready to pierce you with the blade, you kicked him hard in the shin and you heard the sickening crunch of bone breaking before he screamed. 

Getting up with a pained grunt, you realise that you must also have broken a few ribs as you were pulled down from the roof, because it hurt to breathe. Still clutching your bow to your chest, you made your way forward, shooting arrows as you went, aiding people in their escape. All the while your eyes were searching for Kid as your heart hammered against your chest. He was nowhere to be seen and that left you anxious. 

And distracted. 

A sharp pain travelled from your thigh to your groin and shot everywhere in short stabbing bursts of pain. There was a blade protruding from your leg and hot droplets of tears threatened to escape your eyes. “Fuck.” You grunted as you turned around, searching for whoever was responsible for this, bow stretched and arrow already in place. 

“It's true, then.” The familiar voice of your brother left you breathless for a moment, making you lose your focus. “You really have become that scoundrel’s whore. I couldn't believe it until I saw it.”

Your jaw clenched as you inhaled short breaths, trying to focus on something other than the throbbing pain in your thigh. He was standing too close for a proper arrow shot and your vision was getting blurry. You would never make the shot even if you wanted to. 

“I'm not his whore. I'm his wife.” You spat at him, rage making your voice tremble. 

Your brother's cackles were like another knife piercing your heart. 

“That's precious. You're still dying. You're no longer family.”

And he lunged forward, sword raised in the air in a stance you'd known your whole life as you'd watched your brothers learn how to fight in the shadows. You knew when to duck, when to move away, and when to jump. He was predictable and his moves were still the same after all these years. You could win this. 

If you weren't bleeding and your movements weren't impaired. 

He struck forward and you knew you had to move left. It was all you had to do, really. But your leg gave out, and he stabbed his sword into your sternum. 

You had never felt pain like this before. It started slowly, in the middle of your chest, but then, as if in waves, it began to spread, leaving you numb and cold. As you fell to your knees, you could see the snicker spreading on your brother's lips. Until it turned into a grimace and blood started to sputter from his mouth as he grunted. 

There was a heavy blade sticking out of his chest, followed by a pained grunt as the sword climbed up his torso, ripping him in two right before your eyes. 

You saw the panting figure of Kid behind him, his breaths coming out in shaken gasps as his face contorted into a pained frown when he laid eyes on you. “No! No, no, no!”

He rushed forward, letting his blade fall to the ground, and his arm circled you desperately. 

You were dying. You knew that. 

A smile found its way to your blood-stained lips as your eyes locked with bright orange ones. Caressing his cheek left a red streak of blood on his skin, but it was quickly washed away by a stream of tears from his eyes. 

“Hey, no crying.” You whispered slowly. The pain was drifting away. “Thank you.”

“No, no. Ye can't leave lil’ lass! I didn't give ya permission!”

Your chuckle turned into a coughing fit, blood spurting everywhere as Kid cradled you in his big arm. Around you shouts were heard, soldiers sounding the retreat. The threat had been thwarted for now. 

“Kid.” Your voice could barely be heard, but you needed to get his attention. “Kid, please. Don't hold a grudge. Please.” You whined and closed your eyes as the numbness relented and gave way to the pain. 

He pulled you against him, trying to hold you carefully but, at the same time, holding you firmly as if it were the last time - it was the last time - his kilt was now completely soaked in your blood. 

“Promise me.” You said firmly, your hand trying to find his cheek again, but failing miserably as you could barely find the strength. “Grudges create lost souls. I can't have you away from me in the afterlife. Promise.” You admonished him. 

He nodded against your face, taking your lips with his, trying to stifle a sob as his shoulders heaved and rocked with the effort. 

“I love you…” Your whisper got lost somewhere in the limbo of eternity as the sparkle of life burned away in your eyes. There was a moment of stillness, Heat, Killer and Wire gathered behind Kid, still as logs. The forest ceased its rustling, and even the animals stopped their sounds. The world stopped spinning when you left it, and Kid lost a piece of himself. 

It was his piercing agonising scream that brought the world back, crashing into rotation, but never the same. 

-*-

Kid didn't really promise you not to hold a grudge. He just nodded. And even if he had made a promise, he was a thief and a scoundrel. Lying was a part of him. 

He did hold a grudge. 

A huge one. He hunted down every single member of your family and slaughtered them all. No one associated with your clan was left alive to tell the tale. Be they elderly or children, Kid was merciless. 

He would not rest until his vengeance was fulfilled. He had never felt love the way he did for you. He had never felt affection the way he did for you. 

And he had never grieved harder. 

If he was suffering, those that caused that suffering should be put to the same misery. 

And he fulfilled that vow. Until he was caught and sentenced to hang in the gallows. 

Yet, he would hang with a smile upon his tainted lips. He had avenged you. None of your clan was left alive to tell the tale, he had made sure of it. And he was hopeful that once his body turned cold and lifeless, he would meet you, in the afterlife. 

So you could spend eternity together, as it should have been. 

The clock struck the hour and Kid was hanged. Killer, Wire and Heat stood watching, heads low and hidden behind cloaks, as their captain paid the price of vengeance. 

Killer was proud of his fearless friend. 

Wire was saddened that it ended this way. 

Heat was worried, because he knew vengeful spirits could not find rest in eternity. 

Heat was right. 

The spirit of Eustass Captain Kid roamed the Highlands. A ghoulish spectre haunting the barrow, searching for his lost wife, forever aiming to find her in the eternity of the afterlife. 

Yet she had warned him. 

Grudges create lost souls. 

So if you find yourself roaming any barrow in the Highlands, whether at night or during the day, know that the wailing you hear is that of the captain, grieving his lost love and the life he was denied. 

Though he avenged her in the end. 

But at what cost? 

[julietasgf]

SOTR — MY THOUGHTS

I finally finished SOTR and I wanted to give some opinions. I already warn I didn't like it much (and I'm going to explain why), but I didn't hate it. just... meh. this is probably the first and last time I'm going to talk in deep about it besides making one face study or other :) as always, this is just my opinion and pls remember to respect each other's opinions! if you enjoyed the book, good for you! and if you didn't read it yet, read the book to have your own opinions on it!

I want to be fair and start with what I liked in this book:

wyatt and maysilee are great characters! wyatt honestly became my favorite in this book lol (love my little neurodivergent guy) and maysilee was written so funny! to me they honestly carried the book, I was so entertained by them

burdock and asterid 💖 they were so cute, and mind you, I was never invested in everlark or interested in katniss' parents

the little cameo of tam amber and clerk carmine raising a girl was adorable! clerk carmine in general was lovely ngl

beetee's plotline was amazing, despite heartbreaking, and I deeply enjoyed how it was written

wiress' games were SO interesting??? maybe it's me focusing on such a minor detail but I loved it

the whole plot of louella and lou lou was disturbing, maybe the most disturbing I've seen in the whole franchise, and it really struck out to me as a horror element

I understand and appreciate the attempt of trying to pass a political message for a younger audience, because let's be honest, this book was indeed written for a younger audience and there's nothing wrong with it! it's quite simplistic in the way it tries to pass it through, yes, but I recognize it was not written for me and that's okay

before going into what I disliked, I want to point out that I put the blame a bit on myself bc I had some expectations and it's natural to be disappointed when they don't happen (even if I tried a lot to NOT have expectations, I talked about this before in my blog). so read this with a grain of salt because I'm not a casual reader.

this book felt cheap. and when I say cheap, I mean that it doesn't bring new things at all. not thematically, not in worldbuilding aspects. I was already concerned when the book was announced and it was haymitch's pov because this meant it would be too much like the original thg book: a kid in D12 from the seam is reaped and goes through horrific events in the games. and in this case, it feels like a mix between THG and catching fire. and the thing is that I'm not completely against narrating the 2QQ, but there would be other ways to do it with other characters that didn't feel so overused tbh;

still on worldbuilding, it's so disappointing this book doesn't bring anything new to the table regarding panem or the districts' cultures, except for some interesting burial traditions in D12. it's confusing to me that the hunger games are still that undeveloped when it's just 25 years before katniss' games. it seems like such a short time for the efficiency of the capitol change so much. same for characters. I expected this book to have so many interesting characters (specially since we were going to have 48 tributes lol), but we have almost nothing except cameos, and the ones we have (like wyatt and maysilee) felt underused by the narrative;

I know a lot of people say that this book was a bridge between tbosas and og trilogy, but then the bridge was made out of really bad quality wood and it's about to fall at any minute. the connections felt forced and for some reason now half of D12 is covey or related to them (and I say this as someone who loves the covey). some of the connections established here make the og trilogy interactions seem a bit odd;

this book, to me, paints an idea of katniss being some sort of chosen one in thg that made me quite upset. and I don't say that for the covey relations, but oh! she actually reminds haymitch of louella, and oh! she was also the daughter of his best friend, and oh! haymitch also had a private talk about president snow not trusting in birds! the charm of katniss to me, at least, was that she was never a chosen one. she was the right person at the right time. she was a kid used as a tool. but anyway that's just me;

I know the cameos and fanservices are controversial because this book is very on the nose with it. and yeah, it's annoying, but not as annoying as the goddamned snowbaird fanservice on the sheer year of 2025. compared to the og trilogy, snow felt ooc. in tbosas it's justifiable because he's a kid, he's a teen, but here he's pushing 60. why is he telling things like this to a D12? why is he letting so many rebel discourse pass in front of his nose? in thg it felt justifiable that he wouldn't kill katniss because it would clearly turn her into a martyr, but in this, nothing really justifies why he didn't kill haymitch;

if I had the energy, I would do a whole post on lenore dove and why her character is deeply disappointing and honestly shallow (it's specially disappointing when her character is written by a woman, and still, she feels like the trope of the dead girlfriend that doesn't get depth and it's clearly there to haunt the boyfriend). there's an attempt to paint her as a strongly opiniated girl that really didn't work for me because we never get to know lenore dove outside of how haymitch talks about her. her personality felt like mixing sejanus and lucy gray, but without really caring about the nuances of both, and she's clearly an attempt to make lucy gray happen again but without what made her special;

the parallels between katniss and haymitch felt forced imo and it felt like SC was trying so so so hard all the time to convince us that actually he's just katniss but male version. and it's specially sad to me because haymitch, the main character of the whole book, was the most uninteresting one;

how do you make a book about propaganda and hume and doesn't approach career tributes at all? here, they feel exactly how they were in 74th hunger games. WHAT happened? how did they go from scared children trying to run from the arena in the 10th to this?

the writing didn't feel good. the dialogues were too expositive and didn't make sense for some adult characters (like beetee and plutarch) to talk in the way they did. I'm not going deep into this because I didn't read her other saga of books like TUC, but I have friends who pointed out exactly that this doesn't feel like how SC writes.

I want to finish this saying that I've seen some takes around saying that if you dislike or criticize this book, then it's because you didn't focus on the political message regarding propaganda and the characters were used as tools to get the message through. and I'm going to hold some people's hands and tell them to go read political books outside of the hunger games. a book's political message can be valid, but I'm not going to say it was well done or well written just because of it. after all, in the end, a book is still a book, and a book is a work that gets to be judged by its writing and structure.

this book felt like a movie script, and when I say it, I mean it was written structured like one. the way things happen, the amount of quick name drop, the chronology of events. and I say this because books and movies are different medias and are narrated in different ways. I'm going to say that I already thought it was a red flag that when the book was announced, the movie was already confirmed for 2026, but I didn't expect it to be so clear about being written for a movie. bc that's what this book is. it's a book written for lionsgate to produce a new hunger games movie. I've said it before, and I'm going to say it again: the feeling I had is that lionsgate wanted a new movie after tbosas being such a hit in 2024. but oh no! when the book came out, it was so badly received... SC, can you do a safer and much more comfortable for the audience book? one that they for sure will love. and here it is.

I didn't find it downright bad, it's enjoyable at times (the first two chapters were genuinely good imo), but it's at best 2.5 to me. it doesn't work as a standalone work, it doesn't work as part of a trilogy. this may be an unpopular opinion, but I feel like it's being so praised rn bc ppl are still hyped with it coming out (like when you eat too much sugar, yk what I mean?) and it has a lot of cameos and familiar faces. but, in some months, I def think some people will start to change their opinions once more debates rise up.

it's specially sad to me that the og saga proposed itself to criticize the death of children and the issues of entertainment industry, and people spent years saying there wouldn't be a haymitch book because it would go against the point of the trilogy, just then to... get another book about children dying in the most brutal ways (this one in specific is so much more brutal than the others, I have to say, specially with the amount of 12-13 yo tributes that appear).

suzanne collins always writes when she has something to say, but in this, she really only told us she had to pay her bills.

[milliesfishes]

꣑ৎ౨ৎSwan Song꣑ৎ౨ৎ

[fem reader] contains: death, blood pairing: billy the kid x fem reader summary: billy thinks you're gone forever author's note: :) hope this is alright. Had another vampire idea after doing some research Pinterest Board Spotify Playlist

He needed to tear away. Tell himself the figure beneath the wrinkled white sheet was not you, but rather something void of your spirit, of everything that had ever made you special. But Billy couldn't help loving it. He'd loved every part of you.

The candle was a nub collapsing in on itself, dripping into the brass holder. Though the glow was faint, he could see the outline of your face beneath the thin fabric. His girl. His beautiful girl, even when death masked you.

The sickness had been rapid, claiming you quick. Billy had hardly left your bedside in the duration, his prayers taking a new form. He'd called the doctor into your small home and begged him to save you, but the man's hopes hadn't been high.

Still, Billy had nursed you, mopped your sweaty brow, pleaded with you to drink water and broth, held you when the fever caused you to cry out in the dark. Every time you opened your eyes and he saw the beautiful glimmer that told him you were still fighting, he became a little more convinced that it would all be okay. That in a month, he would look back at this as merely an incident and nothing more.

But in the early hours of the morning, your clammy hand clasped in his, you slipped from mortality, disappearing into the afterlife's pocket.

The doctor, grim-faced, had pronounced you lucky that the fingers of death hadn't wrapped around you sooner. Billy waited until he left to cry, tears like rain dripping down his cheeks.

Now you were laid out stiffly on a table, shrouded in white. He had made sure to tuck the sheet under your heels- you hated when your feet were cold. Billy slouched in a chair dragged from the kitchen, hand covering his mouth as he stared at what was left of you, one pale hand dipping from the table and clasped in his other. He'd been motionless for hours, mind traveling lengths and showing him the life he would never have with you. All the things he'd wanted to say, wanted to give you.

He saw imaginings of the children you would have had, of watching you grow older; a luxury he hadn't ever thought he would get. A roughened outlaw, any dreams he'd had of a normal life were forced to be shattered by his own hand. When he'd met you, he found himself putting them back together, with every smile, every time you said you loved him.

It was the only music he wanted to hear, and its artist had been silence.

Fish circled his ankles, letting out a tiny questioning meow. Wordlessly, Billy dropped his free hand to his back, stroking his dark silky fur. Your beloved pet had been in a state of distress for hours now, and Billy felt a pang of guilt for not paying more attention to him.

He wondered if you were watching right now and immediately hoped you weren't. If you were free from this life, you deserved heaven, not long years being forced to view his misery. He knew he would wear it without shame. You were the greatest love he ever knew, and now he'd lost it. The pieces of his heart had trailed behind him like bread crumbs as he carried your limp body from the bedroom to the table, laying you out.

Recalling the death of his mother and brother, Billy knew about viewings and customs. But he knew that though you had been kind to all you met in your life, his tarnished name had sullied yours as well. Nobody would come to pay respects to the lover of a former outlaw. As much as he hated his reputation's muddied tendencies, he was grateful for it now. There wasn't any way he could have accepted condolences or politely thanked anybody for coming now.

Bowing his head, Billy shifted in his chair. There wasn't any way in hell he was leaving your side until the burial. He wasn't sure if he'd even be able to sleep without you pressed into his side, ear over his heart. Fish leapt from the ground onto his lap, making himself comfortable, a regular practice for the cat. Billy swore his whiskers were drooping, a forlorn look in the little animal's eyes.

Settling one hand on the cat's side, Billy breathed in, shutting his eyes. Maybe when the morning came he'd find it a little easier to start saying goodbye.

The last thought he had before falling asleep was one of truth that pierced the jagged remains of his heart. He would never say goodbye. Not truly.

Fish was meowing. Billy grunted, slowly lifting his head upright. His neck was aching from the angle it'd lulled into somewhere in the night, and he gritted his teeth as the soreness pounded. Early sunshine was poking through the curtains and knocking at his eyelids.

The warmth of the cat in his lap was absent, and he figured the little animal was hungry. He tried to remember if there was any chicken left from when he'd canned it last. Stretching out his legs, Billy yawned, rolling a shoulder back. Instinctively, he flexed his fingers, still feeling the weight of your hand in his.

Your cold hand.

It all came rushing back like the current of a river out to drown him. Billy took in a breath through his nose, trying to suppress it for now. Later. He could deal with that later. Right now, the cat was hungry.

Wearily, he cracked one eye open, the fuzzy outline of the world greeting him. The house was still fairly shadowy, although lighter than last night. Fish darted past his legs, and he hummed, rubbing an eye with his free hand. "Alright...alright, I'm comin'."

Instinctively, he turned to look at you. Maybe it was a habit he wouldn't ever shake, always checking first to make sure you were well.

No matter the reason, he was shocked to see you sitting up, staring right back at him.

Panic shot through Billy's body, and he stood so rapidly that the chair was knocked backwards. Chest heaving, he searched the length of you, positive he was dreaming.

The sheet was bunched around your waist, a corner flung away to reveal part of your thigh. You were still in the nightdress you had passed in, one shoulder bare where the strap had fallen down. Hair loose, your skin was as pale and cold as it had been yesterday. In fact, most everything about you looked the same.

It was your eyes that had changed, now an icy lightened blue that reminded him of death. You blinked at him like a doll, and he was terrified by the entire scene. Were you a spirit? A ghost he'd conjured from the throes of his own grief?

"Baby..." The breathy word fell from his lips like a prayer, and his teeth nearly chattered when he saw the old glimmer flash across your irises.

Your voice was raspy. "Billy."

It hit him right then that this was real. You were here, somehow conscious and sentient. A ragged cry tore from him, and he surged forward, bringing you into his chest and squeezing you tight. Your arms were solid around his back, and the detail of it bloomed an overload of relief in his chest.

"How're you...what're you...?" Every question went unfinished as he pressed his lips to your hair over and over again, mind racing.

You fisted his shirt, face buried in his chest. "I don't know. I don't know." He pulled back, and you looked as though you would cry. "All I know is that it was so dark...and I woke up and Fish was on the table next to me."

Cupping your cool cheeks in his big hands, Billy smiled in disbelief, looking over you again. "You're here...you're-" You smiled, lips parting, and he froze, eyes glued to your teeth. It seemed your eyes weren't the only thing death had changed.

The pieces began to connect.

Smile dropping, his mind caught on a certain part of what you'd said, a flood of memory washing over him. The tales his mother used to tell filled in blanks tentatively, and his heart pounded. No. It was impossible. That sort of thing wasn't real.

But you had been dead hours ago.

"Did you say Fish was beside you?" His voice was a whisper.

"Here." Kathleen deposited the kitten that had snuck in Billy's hands and returned to her task, stripping the petals of lavender from the green stem. It had been a flurry of adults running in and out of the house all morning, tending to the icy figure of his aunt Rosalie in the next room.

"Take her outside," his mother commanded gently, pinching another stalk of lavender. "Isn't good to have an animal around a body. If they walk over it they'll turn a person to something like Abhartach."

A vampire.

Now Billy's heart was beating double time, and he looked back at you, everything clicking. His mind raced- was there anything to do? Fish was purring and circling his legs once more, blissfully unaware of his actions.

You whimpered, a hand flying to your throat. "Billy...it hurts...I..." Opening and closing your mouth, fear struck your eyes like lightning. When you looked up at him helplessly, the conditions of your new form unknown to you, any modicum of doubt or hesitation he'd had disappeared. All he knew was that you needed help.

Admittedly, Billy had very limited knowledge, but of one thing he was sure. There was a singular substance you needed to make the pain stop. And you'd never had any. Protection blurred every protesting thought as he stood, one objective clear in his mind.

Securing an arm around your waist, he moved you slightly on the table, planting one of his legs firmly on the ground and putting the other on your opposite side. Gently, he pulled you in to rest against his chest, fingers rubbing your hip. When you began to protest, he murmured, "Shh...it's okay. 'm gonna help you feel better."

Lifting his free wrist to your mouth, he whispered, "Bite down on it." You began to turn in his arms, but he held you firm, sensing your confusion. "Trust me, angel. You'll feel better."

There was a moment in between when he wasn't sure you'd do it. He could see how odd of a request it was, especially when you weren't sure why. Slowly but surely, you closed your mouth around it, and the sensation of your fangs cutting through his skin was evident. Your body's instincts seemed to kick in, and you began to suck, relaxing into his body.

Billy held back any grimaces at the pain, trying to keep any worries at bay. He wasn't sure how much blood you would need, hell, he wasn't sure if you knew. But he'd be damned if you went hurting without something his body could just make more of.

Your hand grasped his wrist after a moment, teeth withdrawing and leaving two little dots like a constellation on his skin. Billy breathed in, grateful that your thirst had been satiated and that he'd been deemed worthy by some higher power to keep living. If he was meant to die, by all means he'd let you drain his body into nothing but skin and bones.

When you turned to look into his eyes again, any explanations died on his tongue. You knew. There was no discussion, though he could see guilt in your eyes. That was something for another time, when he'd tell you as many times as you needed that his blood was yours for the taking. Thumbing the crimson from the corner of your mouth, he gave you a little smile.

Without speaking, Billy found his footing and scooped you up into his arms, walking the few feet to the sofa and sitting there with you between his legs once more. This would be more comfortable for the long term. He knew you didn't need as much rest anymore, but that didn't mean he couldn't hold you.

Your eyes were trained on the wall, lips forming the names of numbers as you started from the first board and tried to count your way to the top. He watched you for a moment, feeling you tense when you kept losing track.

"Easy." He splayed the hand belonging to the wrist you'd bitten out, guiding your grasp to the palm. "Why don'tcha count these instead?"

You smiled sweetly up at him before your eyes fell to his fingers, mouthing as you counted over and over. One two three four five.

Satisfied, he held perfectly still, enjoying the feel of your icy skin against his. Fish leapt up beside you, nestling at Billy's feet. He'd have to give the cat extra chicken for the rest of his life now for what he'd done. Recalling how sad he'd looked sitting below your corpse, Billy wondered if he had known what he was doing. He couldn't help a smile at the thought.

For you were in Billy's arms again. You curled into his empty space, making him whole.

[ghoulangerlee]

gonna post this real quick before I go make dinner but; after seeing the movie Saturday, I went to bed, woke up and felt the urge to write this little thing.

RITE HERE RITE NOW SPOILERS - please do not read this if you haven't seen the movie and don't want to be spoiled

takes place shortly after the movie ends, a quiet moment with Copia and his ghouls.

---

“Frater,” Aether’s voice cuts through Copia’s haze of thoughts—he's staring down at the ornate desk in front of him, large and grand and all imposing; it had been Sister’s, her paperwork still neatly stacked on top of it—the dust barely settling before the cogs of the church shuffle him into her place.  

Copia blinks a few times, clearing his thoughts and turning to face the doorway; Aether’s there, just beyond the frame of it, and Dew behind him, both in uniform but sans masks, “Ah, you know there’s no need for the title—” he says, and the words sound harsh to him, “I’m just Copia.”  

Aether smiles, something soft and brittle as he comes further into the office, the one he’d been in numerous times before, previously, when Sister had been here still. “And there’s no doubt about that,” he says gently, stopping barely a foot away from Copia, “But, you also deserve the respect of the title.”  

He scoffs, tries to deflect, but Aether grabs his hands and pulls him closer until they’re standing toe to toe, “Don’t sell yourself short, Copia,” Aether says, firmer this time, a frown gathered in the corners of his lips.  

With a heavy sigh, Copia deflates just a little, turning his hands in Aether’s grasp so he can tangle their fingers together instead, “You’re right,” he says, it sounds wooden to his own ears, but his emotions have been all over the place since that night, since watching Sister collapse, since her... 

He doesn’t want to think about it, squeezes at Aether’s hands before finally letting them go and stepping back, putting space between them even though he wants nothing more than to fall into Aether’s arms and allow himself a moment to mourn.  

“I need to...clean things up in here,” Copia says softly, hesitantly, looking around at the packed shelves of books, the knickknacks spread around, small little hints at Sister’s own personality among the stuffiness of the church. “They’ll expect me to move offices, give mine to the new guy...” he trails off, feels a helplessness sort of settle in his stomach. 

He holds absolutely no interest in his current office, there’s nothing special about it beyond it being a room with four walls and a window that looks out over the courtyard. In his later years, he spent most of his time doing paperwork in his own room or in the ghoul den with his ghouls, or occasionally among the pews during services.  

It just feels wrong in a way, to move from one room to another with very little time to mourn the person who used to sit at the desk he’ll be placed at soon. Sure, there had been a service, a funeral, a proper burial, Sister Imperator laid to rest with the higher-ranking members of the clergy—with Nihil and his sons, just as she had wanted.  

It still settles sourly in his stomach.  

“Let us help,” Dew says, stepping up to the desk, running a delicate fingertip along the edge of it, “She was...different, from the others, you know. I dare say she actually respected us at the end,” he then picks up a pile of paperwork, shuffles through it, pausing a long moment before he admits, even quieter, “I miss her too.”  

Copia feels his heart clench tightly, an ache settling deep within him as he recalls the way all of the ghouls had gathered around her at the end, growling and hissing at anyone that had tried to get near her body, even as medical personnel loaded her onto a stretcher, the way Dew had pressed a kiss to his hand in the moments after, once he’d cried over her for several long minutes, murmuring how he and Rain would go with them to see that her body be properly taken care of.  

In that moment, Copia didn’t think much of it, the ghouls were his, they all shared a bond and knew what he needed intrinsically as if the very fiber of their beings were melded with his own—he didn’t think they were mourning her in the same way, just protecting her body because they knew what she’d meant to Copia.  

“Dewdrop,” Copia murmurs, and it’s all he can say as he slides an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into a side hug; he bows his head and rests it against Dew’s, eyes closed.  

Dew hums a bit, shifts in his hold until he can wrap both of his arms around Copia’s middle, still holding tightly to a handful of paperwork, typed neatly with Sister’s looping scrawl at the bottom.  

“I’m not sure when the shift happened, when I stopped resenting her for things and when I started caring about her instead,” Dew mumbles into the still somewhat stiff fabric of Copia’s new jacket.  

Copia laughs, somewhat wetly as he holds Dew tighter, pressing his face into his hair, “Probably around the same time I forgave her for leaving me to grow up alone,” he whispers, “She did her best, with what she had, I think. Raising me from afar. She didn’t want to be seen as weak. With her leading the church. I think. After becoming Papa and seeing how things were, that’s when I sort of got it. Understood why she did the things the way she did them.” He admits quietly, “She was a terrible mother, but an amazing leader.”  

Dew hums quietly in agreement, squeezes Copia just as tight, “She knew the church would be safe with you.” he whispers, sniffling softly, rubbing his cheek against Copia’s jacket, “Just like she knew the Papacy would be safe with you. Like she knew we would be safe with you.”  

He swears softly, closes his eyes tightly and tries not to think about the implications, all those years ago, of assigning three almost broken ghouls to his care while simultaneously making him the defacto leader of the Ghost project—she couldn’t have known then that he’d end up where he is now, back then, when she was still speaking to him in a clipped and firm tone.  

He doesn’t quite have it in him to dwell on that now, and he’s sure that later on, he’ll start looking back, overthink all of it until he’s worked himself up—old habits die hard, even with the new title and new responsibilities.  

“This has turned into a reminiscing session instead of a cleaning session,” Copia eventually mumbles, rubbing his own cheek against Dew’s hair before he pulls away, allows a moment to straighten himself out. “I think we should go through the paperwork first, it’ll be the easiest,” he tries to switch over to professional again, even though he still feels raw and painful inside. “We’ll worry about the rest of it later.”  

The silence settles over them for a moment as Copia’s direction sinks in, and Aether moves to collect some paperwork off of the desk, artfully bypassing Sister’s chair and taking a seat in one on the other side of the desk instead.  

A knock, a gentle rap of knuckles against the door frame and Copia looks up— 

The rest of the pack stand there, gathered just outside the door, as if waiting.  

“My ghouls, what is it?” He asks, briefly feeling concerned that something would bring them all to him. “Is something happening?”  

Swiss and Cirrus share a look but Cumulus is the one who steps forward, lets herself into the room, “We came to help,” she says, there’s a quiver in her voice as she speaks, one of pain and loss, “What can we do?”  

Copia’s eyes track from one ghoul to the other—Mountain, Cirrus, Cumulus, Rain, Sunshine, Swiss, Aurora and Aeon all standing there, waiting for their orders.  

He seems to snap out of it, shaking his head and motioning for them to come in, “Come to the desk, we’re working on sorting this for now,” he says—mountains of paperwork stacked everywhere on the wooden top.  

(Sometimes he wonders if this was the reason she seemed so stressed. He wonders what it means for him.)  

Quiet chatter fills the room as the others file in, standing close to talk while they sort through it all, piling all the things that can be filed away in one of the empty corners of the desk while the rest of it gets thrown into a trashcan to be shredded later.  

As they work, Copia glances up from the frankly concerning amount of tax forms he’d been tasked to sift through, doing a double take when he catches sight of her.  

In the furthest corner of the room, near the ornate fireplace stands Sister Imperator, her arms crossed over her chest as she watches the bustle of the room, the corners of her lips curved upwards in a small smile.  

Copia blinks several times, almost tempted to reach up and rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things—but then Sister, she looks over at him, her smile softening into something fond.  

I love you, she mouths, and then, flickers out of existence.  

[allislost-writes]

Burial Ground- Part 1

A first fic for me, SOTR spoilers in the story but not this chapter.

Haymitch Abernathy x reader, slow burn. Mentions of death. A lot of them. Let me know if you like it, it will encourage me to keep it up. Sorry if the formatting is bad I'm writing this on mobile

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Its been... interesting since everything ended. People are happier than ever, with no more games and no more oppressive ruler. Yet there's this feeling of loss that underlines every happy moment, memories of friends and family, all gone. For many people, there's nothing left at all. People were killed by peacekeepers, by capitol bombs, collapsing structures, and even other citizens if you weren't on the same side of the war.

The main focus right now for everybody is rebuilding. Building new homes in place of those that burned down, and trying to build a strong supportive community with each person, formerly Capitol or formerly district all united.

The only trouble with all the rebuilding is all of the bodies. Bones trapped under the rubble of houses and shops, with trinkets and memories of who they were left around them in their charred former homes. This is why you were called into district 12, to bury the dead. You don't mind the job, it's the same as usual for you. It's what you'd done in the Capitol, not as a citizen with fancy clothes and a house with enough food to feed an entire district, no. You were a child of rebels, young enough to not know anything but old enough to be useful. So you buried the dead if the Capitol, you doubt anybody besides the highest ranking Capitol citizen had anyone of actual importance bury them, very few Capitol citizens ever wanted to get their hands dirty or deal with such macabre work. So you did. In the sidelines, taking great care burying the very people who put you in that position, but it wasn't a bad job. Being able to give respect to people even in death felt like you were doing something special and important, even if you got nothing in return. So you kept doing it after the rebellion and fall of the Capitol.

As of now, you're on a train to district 12. From what you know, the only remaining buildings are in the victors village, which house the districts only living occupants. Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch. You know the names, everybody does. These are some of the people directly responsible for the fall of the Capitol and the freedom everybody has now, but they keep to themselves. You don't blame them. If you did everything they did, you'd just want to lay low and nap all day. Commander Paylor had you shipped off to 12 instead of having the victors clean the town, knowing how painful it would be for them to bury all of their friends. It's painful for you, too. Seeing death like this. But its work that needs to be done, and you'll do it.

Getting off the train, unescorted and only having the vaguest idea of where to go, is not for the faint of heart. It's weird, being somewhere just to clean up a mess. You wander, coming across buildings, charred and collapsed. Pieces of wood crunch under your feet, but you move carefully as not to disturbed anything. It's obvious that district 12 got the worst of the capitols assault. It's bad. From where you stand, it's hard to imagine what this town even looked like in its prime. Children played here once, running through the town. People slept, and lived, and loved. And now it's nothing.

Well, you can look closer tomorrow. It's almost night, and you were told to take an unoccupied house in the victors village. Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch have been told to expect you. You doubt you'll have any reason to talk to any of them really, you're here to find and bring the dead to their final resting place, and you will.

The victors village is the only place completely untouched. Walking up the gravel road, it's easy to forget what horror the town of district 12 was left to. It's peaceful here, the lights are on in 2 of the houses, and you smell something sweet in the air as you move closer to where the cluster of houses sit.

"Oh fuck, not another one." Followed by a front door of one of the houses slamming, is your first introduction to the inhabitants of the victors village. What a warm welcome. You weren't even able to see who said that before retreating to their house, but judging by the fact that soon after a man you recognize as Peeta comes from the house opposite, you can assume that was Haymitch.

Peeta waves you down from in between the houses, speaking as you get closer. "You must be the one coming in to clean up the town! I can show you to your house if that's alright?"

Your house. How weird it is to have a house in a town you know so little about, next to people you've never met. You don't say that of course, you at least try to match Peeta's friendly demeanour, but you fear that isn't the easiest thing for you to do, so you just try your best.

"Yup, I'm your new neighbour for the time being. Hope I don't bother you guys too much while I'm here." He smokes as he guides you to the front steps of a house, next to Haymitch's, smiling.

"You can't bother us anymore than he has," he points to Haymitch's house, "It'll be nice to have someone new in town. Just knock on my door if you need help with anything, me or Katniss will try to help out where we can." He laughs softly before adding, "not so sure Haymitch would take on that task, but if you want booze and bad jokes, he's your guy." Peeta places a basket you weren't even aware he was carrying in to your hands, "and here's a housewarming gift! I'll see you around I'm sure!" And then he's gone.

You're left alone on the front step of a house- of your house, holding a basket that has something inside. Whatever it is, it smells amazing.

The sun is going down in the sky, and there's nothing to do but open your front door and walk in to your new life.

[woodblxssomcrowned]

Are there any special funeral/death rites in the Senju clan (if it was even possible)? Did those change when Konoha was founded?

The Senju preferred to bury their dead whenever possible, but cremation is more common and still seen as valid. After a battle it is rarely an option to bring all the dead to a suitable place and give them a proper burial, in which case they are usually just gathered, and burned at the site. In such cases, some of the ashes will however be carefully collected, and brought back home. Sometimes when not even cremation is possible and the remains will have to be left behind, pieces of hair, clothing or belongings may be retrieved. Once home, the ashes will be spread or buried within one of the memorial groves, where all passed Senju are honored and given remembrance regardless of how they died or if their remains were buried, cremated, unrecoverable or lost. In the cases where a proper burial is possible, the remains will be cleaned and dressed in plain white, then placed into a simple coffin. Burials are not done within the memorial groves as there would not be enough space, and even once interred graves are not marked. It is not typical to revisit the site of a burial, and they are usually quickly reclaimed by nature, as is the intention. Their remains simply become a part of it once again.

The Senju lean into ancestor worship, with veneration and respect for the spirits and memory of the dead being an important part of their upbringing. Burials and moments of remembrance often include prayers to both the dead in question but also other ancestors, such as hoping for them to protect and guide their soul to the afterlife, and to look over their surviving kin.

The memorial groves however are considered very sacred and respected spaces, and frequently visited and are well cared for. q Pretty much every Senju have been given the task to look after one of the two groves at some point in their life, usually childhood, and it is seen as a very important task even if it is simply to clean up ashes from burned out incense, clean the statues, or pick up fallen branches from the paths. While a burial/interment is typically a very simple and reasonably quick affair, which is usually just observed and prayed over with reverence and respect, it is in the memorial groves that people spend time to leave offerings, pray, cry and share in the memories for their past family, friends and named and unnamed ancestors. There are no real headstones or markers, but like the rest of their forest there are statues of Jizo and the Buddha, as well as shrine-like formations set up where lanterns can be lit, incense, offerings, and such can be placed. These are reasonably large moss-covered areas among towering pines, so there is room for privacy should one want it, but as mentioned this is not a space where anyone is buried beyond perhaps their ashes.

Once Hashirama started to move the Senju from their forest into Konoha, many realized that leaving their forest meant leaving these groves, and there were a number of Senju who did refuse to leave. Instead, they decided to stay and look after the groves and the memories of their honored ancestors within. Their forest, those groves, was what connected their generation to the past of their clan, and someone needed to protect it. Without their ancient and traditional groves, and Hashirama's desire to not separate his clan from others, he did not set up a new one in Konoha, instead the Senju's dead would be cremated and/or buried within the new graveyard, and given a marker alongside everyone else. Instead of the communal memorial grove, they instead started turning to smaller shrines within their own homes. That has been a thing prior as well, but those small at-home shrines had been used mostly to honor immediate family, not the clan's shared ancestry.

[purple-eyesgreydragon]

In the fertile lands of the Evergraves, live the oxen. Unlike other gods who ruled tyrannically, more for themselves, taking what they want from the world and those who live in it. Rather than maintain and govern it fairly for the sake of its inhabitance. But Morossa the God of Burial, didn't just judge mortals fairly after death, but also ruled the living of his land in fairness. Besides a sense of respect for a god of course, their followers didn't have a lot to fear from them. The oxen have always been his most faithful followers.

Those of the Evergraves needed to live their lives right, for the sake of Morossa's judgement after death. Morossa's ghostly followers, who rather then passing on after their judgement, chose to remain in the living realm and continue to serve them in death. Morossa would also have the skeletons of the wicked souls he judged, deciding they did not deserve burial, move to their will and use them to protect the Evergraves. The ghosts and skeletons' undead presence might be unsettling for the Evergraves' living locals. But Morossa would never hurt them with them. The Evergraves are lush fertile plains, filled with much food, vegitation, graves (hence the name, and being ruled by the god of burial.), and especially PUMPKINS. Some of which are humongous! Morassa's followers have a custom of carving out a pumpkin, everytime a soul decides to stay in the Evergraves, the jack-o-lantern would serve as the spirit's home.

The Ox was special from the moment they were born. Ox came into the world with a dead left eye. Which intrigued Morossa, given the Evergraves living and undead ways. Morossa decided to give the Ox a special ability, to see the spiritual citizens of the Evergraves with their dead eye. After excelling in Morossa's faith teachings, the Ox was made his high priest and head funeral mortician. Truly being Morossa’s right hand and second in command was easy being able to see and talk to the spirits as they could. After hearing tale of the Lamb in the Lands of the Old Faith. Morossa sent the Ox as an emissary to reach out to the Lamb, hoping to give them an offer, a fair one.

The Ox returned to the Evergraves with the Lamb. Morossa told the Lamb, unlike the other gods who were threatened by them and sought their destruction. Morassa welcomed their ascension, and was willing to finally step down from their godhood. Centuries of godly responsibility is admittedly taxing. Seeing as what was once and vessel, excelled and achieved greater heights in a shorter amount of time then the Bishops or any god for that matter. There was continuous conflict among numerous gods. Morossa thought the world would know greater peace if there were was only one god and one faith, the Lamb. Morossa in their fairness wanted to test the Lamb first. Have them prove they are truly worthy of relinquishing their power too. Morossa gifted the Ox as a convert to the Lamb. Should the Lamb or the Ox following the Lamb's example, successfully crusade the Evergraves, and defeat Morossa in combat. The Lamb will have pass the test and Morossa yield to them. Truthfully Morossa will look forward to godly retirement, and a peaceful life in the Lamb's Cult. Trusting Morossa's judgement, the Ox committed themselves completely to the Cult of the Lamb. Starting their own division of the Cult in the Evergraves, consisting of living and undead followers. Given a crown copy to wield, and with their ability to see the dead. The Ox is truly an exemptional missionary of the Lamb.

I’d like to think since the Goat has a purple crown identical the Red Crown. Maybe its power could be copied and divided for the number of the Bishops of the Old Faith. The Lamb being the leader with the main crown, the Goat has a purple copy (purple like Shamura), the Gazelle has a yellow copy (yellow like Heket), the Ox has a green copy (green like Leshy), and the Yak has a blue copy (blue like Kallamar).

[the-nectar]

Body in the Woods AU!!!

From the title you can probably tell that this is a murder mystery AU, just one of several I have cooked up. Also I know it’s not the circus AU that I said I was going to post lol but it’s not entirely ready yet so here’s a peace offering.

- Four high schoolers who don’t know each other wake up in the woods after a huge party the night before.

- They recall seeing each other every now and then because of how small the town they live in is but they’ve never talked to each other before.

- All of them don’t remember much of the night (drinking, drugs, etc) before so when they wake up in the woods, they’re all confused.

- That’s until they realize that among them is a dead body. They recognize her from around their schools halls but they don’t know her that well. The girl is Maya.

- While they don’t remember how or why they’re there with a dead girl, they feel pretty certain that they all had a part in her death.

- The four teens have to work together to hide the body and keep the secret as the police start sniffing around.

- They try to get rid of any evidence of them being at the scene of the crime.

- Meilin is a crime mystery enthusiast and basically leads the group on how to get rid of the evidence.

- They try to pay their respects to the girl by attempting to give her as good a burial as they can with what they had on them but it was a shoddy job.

- The Greencloaks are cops who start an investigation when the body is found a few days later after a missing persons notice goes out.

- Tarik is Rollan’s adoptive father so the four of them get really nervous with how close a cop is to their whole situation (they’re under the impression that they either killed her while under the influence or they didn’t do it but they’re scared that they’ll be arrested for murder, the opinions are split among the group.)

- Meilin is terrified that she might’ve committed the murder while under the influence because of her obsession with true crime.

- Conor is scared that he accidentally killed her while under the influence.

- Abeke doesn’t think that she wouldn’t killed her but she also thinks she was involved in some way since she was there at the scene of the crime.

- Rollan firmly believes that they were set up but he can’t figure out why it would be the four of them, after all they barely knew each other.

- After that night, the main four have been meeting up in secret to help alleviate the weight and guilt of keeping that night a secret.

- After several weeks of investigation, the police start looking into other students at their high school to see if any student had a connection to her death. They believe that it could have been an extreme case of bullying.

- The main four get more paranoid as the investigation gets scarily close to investigating them.

- When the police find out about the party that Maya attended, they start to search for the other kids that attended the party.

- After realizing that they’re going to get involved one way or another, the main four start to do their own investigation to see if they really did kill Maya that night.

Sorry to do my girl Maya like this but it just made the most sense to me. The main four would be aged up to match her but for a guesstimate of their ages in this AU, I’d probably say 15-16. They’d most likely be in their sophomore year of high school. I wanted to have the victim in this be someone the main four know from canon but not someone they’re explicitly close with, hence why it’s not Shane.

Shane will play more of a side character part in this AU. My rough idea for him is to be Abeke’s best friend who starts getting suspicious of her weird behavior. He’s start to question why he’s seeing her talking to these 3 other kids that he knows she didn’t know that well.

The main four would have their own kind of character cliches that you’d see in typical teen tv. Meilin is the valedictorian who has a secret special interest that she’s kind of insecure about (true crime). Abeke is the jock who’s well known around school but she prefers to only have one close friend at the moment (Shane). Conor is that one kid who’s decently smart but not overwhelmingly, but he’s somehow known by all the teachers (who not-so-secretly favorite him). Rollan is the not-so-good kid that backtalks the teachers he thinks deserve it without care for suspension or detention.

The four of them don’t share any classes together, don’t typically see each other in the halls, and wouldn’t spend time in the same area normally so it weirds Shane out that Abeke just started hanging out with them. He eventually starts doing his own digging after realizing that Abeke won’t tell him what’s going on.

Um that’s it everyone! I have my own ideas as to what happened and how but I’ll leave that to when I actually write this into a fan fiction. I kinda like to leave some details open for you guys just in case you want to put your own spin on it. Once I start writing these fics, I’ll let you guys know. I’m under “The Necter” on AO3 if you guys wanna check out the fics that I’ve already written/started, a whole total of 3 so don’t worry. (And before you guys figure out that Necter is spelled wrong, just know that I know and it’s an inside joke.) Please tell me if you guys enjoyed this idea!

[morganaseren]

So I started a second run of Baldur's Gate 3 this week. To no one's surprise whatsoever, I decided to throw my Niamh Cousland into the mix mostly with the hope that it would help nudge my muse into letting me write more. I'm also playing with mods on for this run, which explains why Niamh and her crew have access to armor and weapons not normally seen this early in the game.

As expected, she is a Storm Sorcerer with a Sage background whose expertise lies in both history and the arcane. I've often mentioned that if Niamh hadn't spent much of her life imprisoned as a mage in Kinloch Hold per her canon Dragon Age worldstate, she'd likely thrive as a scholar of some sort. Honestly, you can't tell me she wouldn't just love immersing herself in all that knowledge.

Like, I can see her getting a little smile on her face when someone mentions some obscure thing in conversation that she immediately has the context for or just idly noticing something about the other person (a pin on their outfit for instance) and being internally like, "Oh, I know exactly whom you work for." And from there, she can just work them over until she gets the answers she needs with little to no violence involved even in some of the most tense situations, much to the continual bemusement of some of the members of her party.

Them: HOW?!

Niamh: [blinks] I asked?

She's quite charismatic for being someone so soft-spoken. 🤣

In keeping with her Necromancer specialization in Inquisition, she also has necromantic abilities, such as speaking with the dead. Rather useful for getting clues that would've otherwise left others at a dead end (pun intended) even if it did startle her companions the first few times she did it. She's very respectful about the whole thing though. She gives them a burial afterward with the proper funeral rites.

Of course, while being remarkably intelligent, that's not to say that she doesn't get herself into trouble, especially when her curiosity gets the better of her. For instance, she managed to get herself into some hidden laboratory that had a tome bound in human skin sealed inside a booby-trapped room...

Yeah, she probably makes any lover of hers go grey so quickly with antics like that.

Speaking of which, she's romancing Shadowheart. 😌 Considering the parallels between her and Dragon Age's Leliana, it was no surprise that I was going to pick her. 😂

But, yes, Niamh's having a grand ol' time in Faerun while also looking like she and her companions never got out of their Hot Topic phase.

[psalmonesermons]

Top 3 posts of 2024 No.1

Are all your tears in God's bottle? Has he recorded your tears?

Psalms 56:8 "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."

None of us enjoy experiences that cost us tears and often the enemy tries to use these experiences to discourage us and tell us what a mess we've made of everything.

Have you been there?

Well, God reminded me of these verses, whilst sharing with a friend who is going through a hard time.

It’s so encouraging to see how the Psalmist turned it all around and instead of letting the enemy gloat over the situation he was able to see what God was accomplishing through it!

What a blessing that the Psalmist shared these things and how we can read ourselves into the same victory that God intends for His children because Jesus has paid the price already for our victory!

The enemy IS already defeated!!

PSALM 56

A Prayer of Trust in God

"1 Be merciful to me, O God,

because I am under attack.

my enemies persecute me all the time.

2All day long my opponents attack me.

There are so many who fight against me.

3When I am afraid, O LORD Almighty,

I put my trust in you.

4I trust in God and am not afraid.

I praise him for what he has promised.

What can a mere human being do to me?

5My enemies make trouble for me all day long.

they are always planning how to hurt me!

6They gather in hiding places

and watch everything I do,

hoping to kill me.

7Punish them, O God, for their evil.

defeat those people in your anger!

8You know how troubled I am.

you have kept a record of my tears.

Aren't they listed in your book?

9The day I call to you,

my enemies will be turned back.

I know this: God is on my side —

10the LORD, whose promises I praise.

11In him I trust, and I will not be afraid.

What can a mere human being do to me?

12O God, I will offer you what I have promised.

I will give you my offering of thanksgiving,

13because you have rescued me from death

and kept me from defeat.

And so I walk in the presence of God,

in the light that shines on the living."

Hallelujah! We can be people of victory!

Pastor Colin Urquhart loved to remind us:

"There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!”.

If we are "in Him" we can live in His victory through every experience!

He used to demonstrate this using a book, and if you have something enclosed in the pages of that book you are included wherever the book goes and in whatever happens to the book.

We are secure in Him! Hallelujah! Amen

Prayer

Further information: A short history of tear bottles

Tear bottles were prevalent in ancient Roman times, when mourners filled small glass vials or cups with tears and placed them in burial tombs as symbols of love and respect. Sometimes women were even paid to cry into "cups", as they walked along the mourning procession.

In the Old Testament of the Bible, a reference to collecting tears in a bottle appears in Psalm 56:8 when David prays to God, "Thou tellest my wanderings, put thou my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy Book?" David is referring to the belief that God keeps a record of human pain and suffering and always remembers our sorrows.

Tear bottles reappeared during the Victorian period of the 19th century, when those mourning the loss of loved ones would collect their tears in bottles ornately decorated with silver and pewter. Special stoppers allowed the tears to evaporate. When the tears were gone, the mourning period would end.

In some American Civil War stories, women were said to have cried into tear bottles and saved them until their husbands returned. Their collected tears would show the men how much they were loved and missed.

The tear bottle tradition has endured for more than 3,000 years. Tear bottles, or lachrymatory, were common in ancient middle Eastern societies. Even today they are still produced in that region. Tear bottles were prevalent in ancient Roman times, when mourners filled small glass vials or cups with tears and placed them in burial tombs as symbols of love and respect. Sometimes women were even paid to cry into "cups", as they walked along the mourning procession. Those crying the loudest and producing the most tears received the most compensation, or so the legend goes. The more anguish and tears produced, the more important and valued the deceased person was perceived to be.

Today, lachrymatory tear bottles are given on many occasions - to show joy and delight upon the wedding of a friend or the birth of a new child. To convey love and admiration between a mother and daughter, representing the tears that have been shed between them. To express sympathy upon the loss of a loved one. Tear bottles communicate feelings that few other gifts can. And what's so wonderful is that unlike flowers, a tear bottle will last for years and be a precious and powerful reminder of your love.

Guest author/blogger Helen Draye

[rabbitcruiser]

Visit A Cemetery Day

Visit a Cemetery Day is a holiday that takes place every last Sunday in October. This year it falls on October 29. It is a day that allows us to honor the life of those who are gone. It is a chance to admit that, though they’re no longer physically with us, we still have them in our memories. It is a day when people go to the gravesite of friends and families who have left this world. On Visit a Cemetery Day, many choose to redecorate the gravesite of their loved ones. Many other activities give life to this holiday as well.

History of Visit A Cemetery Day

The culture of visiting gravesites and cemeteries predates most modern cultures, and it has been a way of life of humans since ancient times. A cemetery is more than a collection of gravesites and headstones. It is a place for deep reflection and connecting. It is not a lonely place where you can’t learn anything. It is a place of meditation, where you get to reflect on the memories you shared with those who have left us. The headstones also contain messages about the people we cherish and are worth reading. It is usually a wisdom quote that captures the essence of life, and it can be inspiring.

Visit a Cemetery Day reminds us that we’re not entirely disconnected from those who have left this physical world. The memories they left remain with us, and we can cherish them as much as possible. We can also reminisce on the times we spent together and how they have helped us get to where we are today.

Visiting a cemetery is also sometimes a gathering affair where people come together to honor the departed. This is done for soldiers who died in battle and also victims of casualties. The essence of it all is to remember them for the good they’ve done and honor the memory we have of them. This is why cemeteries are generally known as memorial parks, emphasizing the memories left behind by the dead.

Visit A Cemetery Day timeline

7 A.D. Burial Under Church Control

The church handles burial services and takes charge of burying the dead in Europe.

1797 First Chartered Burial Ground

The State of Connecticut incorporates a new cemetery in New Haven.

1800s Company and Municipally Owned

Cemeteries not owned by the church become more popular and accepted.

1860s Tribute to Fallen Soldiers

Americans visit the graves of fallen soldiers to place flowers and honor them.

Visit A Cemetery Day FAQs

Can you observe from a private gravesite?

Yes, you can observe this solemn holiday from a private graveyard.

How can you decorate a gravestone?

The gravestone can have carvings and inscriptions. Also, you can bring flowers occasionally to beautify the place.

What if the gravesite is far away?

You can observe a solemn time with friends to honor the dead, even when their resting place is far away.

How to Observe Visit A Cemetery Day

Visit the burial place of loved ones

Decorate the gravesites

Have a picnic with family and friends

On this solemn holiday, you can visit the burial place of dear ones who have departed. It helps us honor the memory they left behind.

You can bring flowers and other ornaments to beautify the burial place of the departed. By doing so, we remind ourselves that the dead deserve respect too.

You can have a quiet time with family and friends. It is a time to reflect and share stories about those who have left us.

5 Facts About Cemeteries

Epitaphs are a great source of knowledge

Most gravestones face east

Meaningful carvings are common

Cemeteries are sometimes multipurpose

Number of graves on an acre

Apart from being words of hope, epitaphs are also known to convey vital information.

Many gravestones in the world face east, mostly to acknowledge the rising sun.

Several gravestones have very meaningful carvings.

Sometimes, cemeteries feature other things like art, historical artifacts, and museums.

An acre of land can occupy close to 2,000 graves.

Why Visit A Cemetery Day is Important

To honor the dead

Understand life better

Helps to remember the dead

On this special holiday, we get to honor those who have gone before us. It is good to cherish the memories they left behind.

When we visit the cemetery, we get a better insight into life and appreciate that we must cherish it.

On Visit a Cemetery Day, we get to recall the times we spent with departed loved ones. We remember all the things they’ve done for us and the memories we shared.

Source

[leah-halliwell92]

Marionette

Summary: The kidnapping of His Eminence Papa Emeritus III and essential calls are made.

Disclaimer: This book is rated 18+! If you are a minor DO NOT interact! Book contains depictions of violence, dismemberment, age gap relationship(s), and includes themes that revolve around religion and darker themes that maybe uncomfortable for some readers.

Chapter 1: The Kidnapping

Secondo stood by the door that led to Primo’s private garden arms crossed keeping guard and a somber eye on his family as they and their respective ghouls paid their respects to their husband, friend, and brother. He watched as Primo led a small service in honor of their fallen brother, Terzo’s wife, and Prime Mover Jenesis sitting between Rosie and Copia as she tried to keep a strong front as they laid Terzo to rest. He watched as their youngest brother fought to keep his tears at bay. And no matter how hard, bitter, or angry he may be, Secondo had a soft spot for his two youngest brothers. And now here he stood, witnessing the burial of one of them. He fought the urge to flee to his father’s office and confront him on what in Satana’s name he had been thinking in allowing such a thing to come to pass. How could he have allowed them to kill his own son? But he wasn’t a naive little boy anymore, he knew better. 

Special stood beside him offering his silent support and reassuring nod. Secondo didn’t know what reassurance he needed but nonetheless appreciated the ghoul’s efforts. 

“No one comes in,” he told the ghoul, voice gravely and deep in barely restrained grief.

Special nodded and took his place resisting the urge to sigh. He wished he could somehow comfort his charges but knew now was not the time.

Meanwhile, Secondon took a seat next to Copia offering his fratellino as much of his silent strength as he could while trying to keep himself afloat. Copia had yet to look up at anything but his fisted hand on his lap, while his other held onto Jenesis’ hand offering her all that he had in that gesture. Primo looked decades older than he should, though the eldest of their hellish foursome, he’d always kept himself healthy. It was a necessity in order to successfully raise two brothers and run the church.

The family ended their service and wandered back to Primo’s suit in the Papal wing. 

“How can we be sure it was him?” Copia quietly asked, no unkindly the disbelief and shock still very evident through his grief. 

“ Nostro Padre said there was physical proof delivered to the church,” Primo stated, voice bleak.

The family shuddered at the thought, each thinking around the same thing…a body part had been delivered.

In this case, Secondo thanked Satanas he had not decided on bursting through his father’s office. He had no idea what he would have actually doneshould the proof of his brother’s murder be present. 

Jenesis looked to her family, a hand firmly on her still flat tummy, and resolutely said, “She better keep her distance from me and mine or there will be consequences.”

Secondo had to give it to her, Jenesis had balls of bronze to openly declare anything against Sister Imperator. No matter how much they all knew she was at fault. Turning his gaze to Copia he noticed his fratellino’s shoulders drop further and his complexion pale even more at the possibility that his own mother could be behind this. He shared a look with Primo who took their baby brother aside. No sooner had this happened, Copia practically fell into their eldest brother’s embrace sobs shaking his wiry frame. The combined emotions of their brother’s murder on top of there being a very likely chance his mother was behind all of it too much for him to carry.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Meanwhile a week prior in Sweden…

Omega sniffed at the air before taking to the shadows and following after the van they had shoved Terzo into. The faster he approached the van the clearer the argument the kidnappers were having got.

“Papa! That’s who we were sent out to fuck up!” Dickhead one yelled, incredulously, “For the love of everything that is unholy Sergio please tell me that you didn’t just accept a job to kill the fucking leader of our church!?”

Once the van slowed to a stop at a stop light, Omega used the shadows to sneak into the van. He saw Terzo bound and gagged on the bed of the van, a sigh of relief was quietly exhaled as he noticed that had been all that was done to Terzo.

“She said we’d be rewarded,” Sergio replied, voice shaky as the implications of what he’d agreed to do started setting in.

“We’d be ostracized and maybe even be executed, you moron!” Dickhead one yelled angrily, “Did you stop to think what the other Papas could do to us if they find out we did this to their brother?”

Sergio remained quiet and stepped on it once the light turned green. It had been late enough in the night that no one was out, giving them the advantage of stepping on it and getting out of the city.

“If you were going to step on it why even bother with the stop light?” Omega asked, voice cold as ice as he released Terzo from his bonds.

Luckily, they’d been far enough away from that city that when Sergio did push on the breaks nothing and no one was hurt…yet.

Omega growled ready to pounce.

“Omega stop,” Terzo spoke.

Though shaken to his core, the order was clear. Terzo the popstar had disappeared and in his place was Papa Emeritus III.

Dickhead One noticed the change and made quick work of opening the van.

“What are you doing Matthew!?” Sergio asked in disbelief.

“You agreed to this so-called job for me without thinking through anything,” Matthew stated, voice hard, “You took the easy way out thinking there would be glory behind taking down Papa. It would have made more sense for God himself to kill him than us. What in the seven hells were you even thinking Sergio!? Glory? Recognition? We’d finally found a home dammit!”

Omega watched as Matthew broke down, recognizing the heart that one had.

Through this tirade, Sergio stood still with a shame-filled resentful sneer on his face. Matthew stared at his brother embarrassment and shame riddled into one as he waited for his brother to say literally anything to justify the taking of a life.

“We wouldn’t have been nothing anymore man,” Sergio said through gritted teeth.

“Did you ever stop to think that I was happy doing what I was doing? No matter how big or small or insignificant you think it might have been I was happy just being a part of something?” Matthew asked, his voice thick with tears.

This clearly had not been something that Sergio had taken into consideration. The fool had been thinking of himself at that point in time and only included his brother to keep him close and share in the glory. But never had he ever thought that finding a place to call home and belonging would have been more than enough for Matthew to find peace.

Terzo and Omega watched the exchange with interest, Terzo feeling for the eldest of the two brothers as he saw true regret. Things could not just be left alone now though, answers were needed to make calculated plans come to fruition. 

“Who sent you?” He asked plainly.

“Sister Imperator,” Matthew answered directly, head bowed and hands balled into fists at his sides.

Sergio looked at his brother in shock, how could he give it all away just like that!?

Omega saw this and stepped in, “You’re dead anyway. You were going to die anyway and one way or another answers would have been obtained.”

Sergio swallowed heavily at this and remained silent.

“We don’t know why exactly, I swear,” Matthew continued, “My idiot brother took the job thinking he’d find glory in ending the line but as for the why on her part I, or we, don’t know.”

Terzo nodded at this and gave a thoughtful sigh.

“Boss, this means the end goal was for you to turn up dead or not turn up at all,” Omega pointed out, “This means that you need to make a full disappearing act sooner rather than later.”

Terzo nodded at his ghoul’s sage knowledge.

“Which means she’ll want proof of death,” Terzo added, an unidentifiable edge in his voice that put Omega on his own edge.

Without much warning, Terzo reached into the van, dug around until he found a small wood ax, and walked away until he came across a fallen log.

“Boss–” 

The trio of men looked on in horror as Terzo placed his empty hand on the log fingers spread as wide as they could go before relentlessly letting the ax fall.

The scream that was heard was deafening, the pain that it came laced in indescribable. And yet here was the proof of death needed for Terzo to make his escape.

“You do realize that no act can go unpunished, si?” He breathlessly asked the brothers, “Omega if you would.”

Matthew’s eyes widened at what the statement implied and nodded in understanding at what it meant. He’d threatened Papa’s life, there was no forgiving this.

“No please!” Begged Sergio as Omega drew him deeper and deeper into the tree line. 

Matthew’s lips quivered as he heard his brother’s screams as the ghoul ruthlessly ended his life.

Terzo meanwhile had taken what was left of his glove and covered the stump where his finger used to be.

“Do not mistake I left you alive as a mercy,” Terzo grimly stated, “Your punishment will be this, the death of your brother for his own actions. You are alive as a lesson, whether or not you learn it is not up to me.”

Matthew nodded regardless of the tears that fell from his eyes. 

“Take the finger,” Terzo ordered, “...and should Imperator ask what happened to your brother…”

The latter looked in the direction Omega went with the other man, Terzo’s comment revealing what it was Matthew was going to say upon returning to the States.

Omega returned, corpse thrown over his shoulder as he made his way back to the van.

They all piled into the van, Matthew on the wheel as Omega made quick work of tarping up Sergio’s body.

Matthew drove on hoping he’d wake from this living nightmare but knew the nightmare had only just begun.

/////

Let me know what ya’ll think! Tag list open and all feedback is welcome! Don't forget to comment, reblog, and do all them good things.

[recusantchicky]

esp bc how eager to validate the hornsent-deserved-it lore ppl have been i try to avoid ER videos now unless they're ER fights or model detail/out of bounds.

in one fight vid, the only npc from base game to be able to beat an enir ilim divine bird warrior was bernahl, my boy. this influences my perception of the lore. shabriri had a good run because frenzy was melting DBW.

"h*rnsent are evil because they think they're special and they're not and everything they're obsessed with is wrong"

horns objectively have more spiritual power

the spiral is objectively structurally stable

death and life do need each other

one should leave behind the material world after death and leave your remains to benefit others

respecting burial rites is essential to the worlds functioning

enough dead stuff piled together starts coming to life

hrnsnt are actually strong and independent and don't want marika's erdtree or her eternal purgatory. that's plenty of reason to purge them.

around shaman village gives us 3 items in the environment:

blessedbone shard

golden firefly

hornstrewn excrement (the most dangerous of horned beasts hung other horned beasts)

human bones used in golden vow, sunwarmth stone, festive grease

golden firefly used in gold pickled fowl foot

hornstrewn excrement makes fetid pots

"Throw at enemies to cause a large buildup of deadly poison.

Beware though; those who carry these pots will slowly accumulate poison in their own bodies.

Push someone in a privy; expect to get dung on your hands."

jar innards are poisonous, their raw meat drops are poisonous, their meat wads they throw at you inflict poison, malenia and mirandas and trina are poisonous flowers.

fowl foot increases runes gained. festive grease increases runes gained. sunwarmth stone boosts indiscriminate healing including boosting frenzy stone.

anyway they're pointing us back over and over to cannibalism and dominula village, which is where the fucking shaman went lol.

"have mercy for the spirited away shaman" then why is that in an empty room for an empty town with a healing tree for no one while the jars are in a specimen lab rotting in open air and still in the gaols if they're so loved.

gold without order

gold chaos

[lacamorte]

~ Life and Death

(no fandom)

Typical apocalypse setting, where one farmer girl has no skill for battle and instead resolves to give all fallen warriors a proper burial. She writes autobiographies and learns their culture's funerary rites. The big bad kills so many people for so many years and approaches her to kill her, asking for her final words. She asks to bury her comrades; big bad shrugs and allows it. She also digs herself a grave and asks to be killed over it so she just falls in and big bad can just dump dirt over her body or summ. When she dies, turns out she was the last body she needed to bury to unlock a special class — Death. like fr. she's not a necromancer, she's just death. and also, she really was the last survivor of her world, and thus the final death.

When she wakes up she's in a garden. she's greeted by a cloaked figure with white hair spilling over his shoulders. ("It's you. I've waited for you for so long, I'd begun to doubt your existence. My dearest little sister.")

Basically they're the only two with the special class of Death, but had different awakening conditions. Hers was put to peace the souls of 100 people; his was kill 100 'evils' (bad ppl). They both came from the same world, but he died much earlier than her and had ages to get accustomed to this new world. Now, their job is to guide the souls to the afterlife/resolve their woes and collecting souls respectively. For a killer, the first death is a very good brother.

Understandably, if there is Death, there is also Life. They all came from the same world as the Death.

Those with the Life class so far are Birth, Regression, Reincarnation, Transmigration and Afterlife.

Birth is the oldest. She was an authority in the apocalyptic world in a big company, and a renowned prophet came and told her that she would give birth to the savior of their world, and that the child would have pure white hair. Thus, she began to ask every man with considerable skill and power for their sperm. You can see where this is going — she gives birth to many, many children. All of them are powerful, but none of them are the savior. The best healers attend to her and ensure her body doesn't deteriorate from the birthing. At one point, she seeks out powerful people at bars in the hopes that one day, the savior will come.

The savior never comes. She dies from the strain.

One thing she failed to consider was that the prophet was someone she had once been close with but at one point hurt, and had taken vengeance upon her by giving her the responsibility of saving the world. In the end, she had birthed all those children, suffered all those labors, for nothing.

When she wakes up in the garden, her hair is pure white.

One thing to note — there was once a child in the apocalyptic world who was praised fervently for his fighting prowess and power and rumored to be the world's hero.

She finds him. She covers his face and does what she thinks she has to do, and ensures the child never remembers. She never forgets.

When she awakens as the Birth, she also meets the First Death. It's him — grown up and jaded and still as skilled as she remembers.

She can never look him in the eye.

Birth's awakening condition was, as you suspect, to give birth to a hundred children. Because of her wealth, she sustained all of them and they all lived well. She knew them all by name, and gave them as much of her time as she could. She loved them dearly, and they respected her greatly because they were taught to. But she neglects them, too busy with her mission, and in the end, it's her staff and hired hands that raise her children.

When the garden calls her, she finds there, perched at the base of the tree, the Regression. He's one of her children.

The other Life classes are also her children. Regression's power was time reversal (exclusive to himself), and his awakening condition was to perform it 100 times. Reincarnation's was to die, then miraculously come to life again, then die of old age. Transmigration's condition was to perfectly assume the identity of another person and essentially 'become' them, to the point of almost forgetting one's self. Afterlife's condition was to rehabilitate a hundred people.

They spend much time together in the new world. The First Death is kind of jealous that the Life gets to be a family, and the others keep reassuring him that he's a part of their family too. Understandably, the First Death is ecstatic (as he expresses it, anyway. At one point in his childhood, he'd lost his ability to unabashedly express himself, and no one knows why) when the Second Death arrives.

When Birth sees her, everyone is nervous, knowing how rocky her relationship is with the First Death. But Birth runs up to her and embraces her tightly, crying.

(The Second Death is the only person that she herself had not sinned against.)

[kazesauce]

TWD:DD Rewatch Recap Ep 2

I'm rewatching the first season of TWD: Daryl Dixon to look for anything that stands out now that we know all the characters and how the season ends. The second episode was more fun on rewatch. The second recap is even longer than the first, so strap in or scroll on.

Mork and Mindy

The scene of Mork buying Mindy hideous clothes because he wants to take her dancing is from the series finale called The Mork Report. The plot of the episode is Mork sending a report to Ork about what it takes to have a happy Earth marriage. (His answers were honesty, respect, romance and compatibility if anyone is interested.) It makes Daryl's melancholy line “you can't miss what you never had” punch a lot harder. There's no doubt in my mind he was thinking about Carol, the only woman he's ever exchanged “I love you”s with.

Daryl, Isabelle, Laurent and the kids at the school

There's an interesting theme about lying in this episode. Isabelle, Daryl and Lou (the leader girl at the school) all lie, but for different reasons and handle the consequences differently. Isabelle lied to Laurent about who his father was, causing him to embarrass himself when he repeats the absurd tale to the kids at the school. She also lied to Laurent about Asterix the mule surviving after Daryl has to cut him loose for being loud and uncooperative. Laurent finds Asterix dead being chowed down on by 2 dogs (one of which looks a lot like Dog). Laurent yells “you lied to me!” at Isabelle and runs off. You see him later banging a stick against a contraption the kids set up in the yard, and he stays mad at Isabelle for the rest of the episode. Isabelle never apologizes. She only says that she babies him because he's special.

Lou lied to the other kids about the fate of the two boys she took with her to the castle where the peak “ugly American” trope lives. She told the other kids they were still on a mission, which isn't completely untrue because she didn't know their fate when she ran off to save herself. When Daryl returns with her, they rescue one boy and find the other a walker. She tearfully takes responsibility and puts him down. Lou is so mature and loving as a teenager being thrust into an impossible position.

Daryl lied to Lou about medicine being able to save their severely ill teacher. He knew she was too far gone, but needed the horse from the ugly American so he could hold up his end of the bargain with Isabelle and make it home. When they came back to the teacher having passed, Lou is crushed they're too late. Daryl confesses to lying about the medicine so he could get the horse and apologizes. Lou gives Daryl a nod of forgiveness. (Nobody mentions this, but the kids have access to everything in that castle now that the ugly American is dead, so Daryl did them a huge favor) Daryl gives Lou words of encouragement about what a good leader she already is and will continue to be, then offers to put down the teacher for her, but Lou declines and Daryl gives her privacy. The camera cuts to a mystified Isabelle, who apparently has never apologized in her life and doesn't understand how sincere human interaction works.

Codron

He's barely in the episode, but it's an important scene. He finds the map of their route, and because of Isabelle's detour, has time to heal from his multiple gunshot wounds and catch up to them in Paris. He also cries again as he finds the bodies of his compatriots rotting in the courtyard of the abbey while the nuns have all been given proper burials. Poor tender-hearted baby. I almost hope Carol has to mercy-kill him so they can cry pretty together.

Isabelle, Quinn and Lily – Flashback

@silver-shana-fox noticed a poster for the ballet Orphée behind Isabelle in the metro station. She explained that it's based on the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice and the story has parallels to Isabelle and Quinn. The original myth is that Eurydice (Izzy) dies from a snakebite and Orpheus (Quinn) makes a deal with Hades that if he leads her out of the underworld without looking back she can live, but Orpheus turns around right at the end and Eurydice is sucked back into the underworld, meaning Quinn and Izzy's relationship was always doomed. The title of the ballet is the same as a 1950 movie that adds extra characters, death and a pregnancy, so it might also be an easter egg hint that Quinn was Laurent's father.

At the abbey you meet little student Sylvie whose parents never came to get her. It's revealed that Lily was bitten after Izzy stole Quinn's car. She dies in childbirth and turns, forcing Father Jean to perform a c-section. He proclaims the baby's survival a miracle, so Isabelle takes the baby into a room and names him Laurent after the first statue of a saint she sees. I'm still undecided on where the show will go with how “special” Laurent is. Lily was having pregnancy complications before she was bitten, and likely died from those complications and not the fever. Everyone is already infected, but the virus was activated in her hours before Laurent was born. Science wise, how the baby reacts to maternal disease during delivery depends on the disease and whether the baby passed through the birth canal, so it's impossible to know how a made-up virus with no real-world analog would behave during a c-section. Lore wise this is also uncharted territory, so the show could do anything, but I suspect Laurent won't be the cure.

Odds and Ends

Isabelle is an inveterate liar and thief. There was no reason to say Daryl was a priest, and it put him in the awkward position of having to say grace later. As a southern man that lived with an Episcopalian priest, there's no way he would be that rusty on the rules of not eating before saying grace, or being so in the weeds about what to say. Shades of him suddenly not knowing how to drive a stick shift so Denise could make fun of him. However, I respect that they wanted to show Daryl's childlike innocence in that situation and have him give that painfully earnest blessing.

Knowing what we know now about Quinn being Laurent's father, it makes sense that he would be hesitant to take Lily with them. He deserved to be puked on, but did it have to go in his mouth? Gross. Quinn proved himself to be resourceful, unafraid and decisive, so it makes sense that he would survive and be the head of an underground club a decade later.

The bed scene was even more tense than I remembered. Daryl is laying on the bed and offers to leave when Isabelle comes in. She says the bed is big enough and Daryl stays because he ain't sleeping on the floor for the likes of her when she didn't offer to do the same. Isabelle gets on Daryl for lying to Lou, and he throws her “the truth can wait” line back at her. She says a mule is different than their teacher and Daryl is visibly agitated. He says they just need to find a radio and Isabelle sounds irritated when she replies “So you can go home.”. Daryl, still agitated, says “Yes, so I can go home.” What is she doing acting possessive of him when they've known each other a few days at best? Back off, lady. The whole episode highlights that Isabelle is a terrible person.