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land-of-classpects-and-analysis · 4 years

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Mage of Life

There is a beginning to everything, as well as an end. The classic tale of how Life creates these wonderful gifts and then sends them away to eventually reach their beloved: Death. Much like how Seer September had its own mysterious beginning before ending within the vastness of Space, why not begin Oculus October with an Aspect almost as important as Space? While Space may represent new beginnings, Life is an Aspect that represents positivity, good health, and survival. Of course, there are other things it also represents, but it truly depends on the Class it is connected to. With it being a new month and therefore a new beginning, it would only be fitting for the first analysis regarding Mages to be that of the Mage of Life.

At first, the Mage of Life may seem to be quite the puzzle to wrap one’s head around. Life is a warm and positive Aspect, is it not? How then, pray tell, does one somehow manage to suffer in their pursuit of knowledge about this Aspect? If Mages are meant to begin their journey with a horrific introduction to their Aspect, what does a horrific version of Life look like? To put it simply, and to lay out the groundwork for the rest of this; the Mage of Life would most likely be someone who could be deemed as the “Therapy Friend”. As noble of a title this may seem to those who have never been in such a predicament, it is oftentimes far from it. To be the “Therapy Friend” is, more often than not, being the friend who everyone goes to about their problems. The Mage of Life would listen - truly listen - and they may try to give their best advice that they can muster. However, when it comes to their own problems, they are often met with disinterest, apathy, or rudeness and belittlement.

Due to this, the Mage of Life would most likely be one to bottle up their emotions rather than seek out anyone who may actually want to listen. This can cause quite a bit of tension and stress not only in the Mage of Life’s, well, life, but also within their social circle. As more problems and emotions the Mage bottles up, the closer they get to having a complete and utterly destructive meltdown. It is a horrible habit of the Mage of Life, but it’s one that they unfortunately have deeply ingrained into their way of life. However, this volatile and unhealthy practice will not always leave an aftermath of a simple and easy pick-up. There will be at least one moment where, in the midst of one of their breakdowns, the Mage of Life will commit an act of such a horrible nature that they cannot undo it. No apologies can make it better, and chances are they have no clue how to even go about healing the wounds that they wrought. The Mage of Life has never actually had to do much healing in their life, instead only having to listen and provide words of comfort, encouragement, and reassurance. After the final straw has broken their own back will the journey for the Mage truly begin.

The Mage of Life would be one who has to actively seek out the knowledge of their Aspect and its properties, but they could also actively seek out knowledge through their Aspect. No matter which path calls for the Mage of Life, though, it is most certain that they will face many struggles and hardships throughout their journey. Do not be fooled by the unassuming nature the Life Aspect presents itself to be - it is an Aspect just as capable of bringing about suffering as any of the others. After all, haven’t we all experienced the pricking of a rose thorn, the itchiness of poison ivy, a tree falling atop a house or car, and, for a select few, aren’t seasonal allergies simply the worst? While those bound to Life are known for being on a constant march towards positivity and progress, the Mage of Life is one of the best examples of this. After witnessing the true harm and damage their role as a Therapy Friend has not only brought onto others, but also themself, it will be what truly pushes the Mage towards the true nature of their Aspect and what it means to be bound to Life.

For the Mages of Life who seek out the knowledge of their Aspect, they will soon find that the answer isn’t all that simple. To some it may seem obvious and quite simple; go to therapy, get rid of bad friends, make more positive and healthier choices in their life, and more. However, that isn’t exactly the case, if only because the Mage of Life’s journey can be rather slow. They don’t immediately learn everything about their Aspect by capturing once and taking the knowledge from that. It’s far more like following a trail of breadcrumbs until they finally discover a proper piece of bread from a much larger loaf. These pieces of bread, though, aren’t often found by simply walking down a pleasant forest path or city sidewalk. Heavens, no. Rather, it would be far more like having to crawl under, or perhaps even through, barbed wire at one point, running from a pack of ravenous wolves at another, and so much more torment and turmoil. If anything, the Mage of Life may have one of the hardest journeys out of all the Mages. Their journey is not only meant to teach them how to become a proper healer so that they may make amends with the harm they have caused, but it is also meant to teach them how to be humble and kind to themself.

One thing that may pose itself to be the biggest issue for the Mage of Life is having to learn that their needs sometimes are required to come first. They have only known self sacrifice for most, if not their entire life. In fact, it may be difficult for the Mage of Life to even perceive their way of life as harmful to themself, and may be overwhelmed at the thought of having to put their needs before others. This is not to say the Mage of Life is a pure, sweet, innocent soul - not at all. However, they are most definitely a victim of people taking advantage of their ability to listen and the patience that comes with it, all while allowing their supposed friends to walk all over them. The Mage would have to face these facts head-on if they ever wanted a fighting chance against their Aspect and the journey ahead of them. For some, or perhaps even most, of the Mages of Life would be terrified to admit that they allowed this to happen to them. Mages can be quite stubborn at times, after all, and having to face the fact they aren’t as strong as they present themself to be can possibly shatter their entire world. Over the course of their journey, though, would they come to learn and realize what true care, towards them specifically, looks like, and by design they will also see the harm that they have allowed to come to them for so long.

The journey of the Mage is meant to bring them to many places, as well as meet twice as many, if not more, people to help them learn and make their discoveries. Mages often prefer working alone, as one of the last things they’d hate to admit to is that they need someone, but they are also sometimes quick to give up in trying to push someone away if said person is especially stubborn. In the beginning, the Mage of Life wouldn’t know anything about proper self-care or how to go about truly fixing things. During their journey, though, they may slowly learn what it means to heal, forgive, and take care of themself by the places they go and the people they meet. Mages have a knack of being at the right place at the right time - even if such a place results in them becoming harmed. The Mage of Life may gain this knowledge by becoming hurt and having to tend to their own flesh wounds, learning from the mistakes they make along the way. They’d most likely be drawn towards places and people involved with healing, or at least things that promise knowledge on the topic. These things could range from various hospitals, libraries with books, various religious groups and buildings, people who may be official doctors, spiritualists, or as simple as an elderly person who has seen the harshness of the world while also seeing the good, or they may seek out fellow Life-bound in general.

As for the Mages of Life who wish to achieve knowledge through Life itself, this can become a far more abstract process of gaining knowledge and, as is often the case, a far tougher challenge to take on. While it may sound like the easier option - acquiring knowledge through the process of healing - it is most definitely anything but. The Mage of Life would have to allow themself to become hurt, sometimes in more ways than one, so that they may find ways to heal from it and gain such knowledge. However, even if they don’t actively seek out these opportunities of pain, the world around them will still see to it that the Mage of Life experiences enough hurt that they will have no choice but to heal. Through each scar they acquire, though, they gain more knowledge of what it means to live, heal, and move on. If they can survive all of these moments of pain and suffering, then they can survive anything. Not only that, but they can use the knowledge they have acquired to come back as a better person and an even better healer. One might even argue that Mages of Life who pick the latter option are the better healers of the two paths, though that is not always the case.

Some Mages of Life who pick this path may come back having more knowledge on healing and how to remain positive in the face of suffering, ready to give more aid and care to those they care about. Then there are those who may try to use the knowledge they received as a means to silence others - play the card of “well, I suffered a lot more than you have, and I turned out just fine. You have nothing to complain about.” Indeed, being a Life-bound does not guarantee that person to be one of kindness and positivity, especially if they begin to believe the world around them is doomed to be void of such things. On their journey, some Mages of Life may fall for this trap and as such believe that the world is beyond fixing, much like themself and everyone else around them. Some of these Mages of Life could be those who failed their journey; finding what was expected of them and their recovery too extreme and terrifying, and so they hid away and eventually came to resent their Aspect and what it stands for. As such, they could become a rather bitter and venomous person to be around - perhaps even becoming like that of the people who hurt and mistreated them in the past. It is hard to tell if those who failed journey have a higher chance of acting hostile due to lack of knowledge or from the fragments they were only ever able to collect before giving up. Either way, though, a Mage of Life at their worst is someone willing to play the long game, so long as they finally get to dig their claws into someone by the end of it.

While the journey for any Mage is daunting, dangerous, and sometimes downright terrifying, the Mage of Life is one who has to live a life of self-sacrifice before they can finally stand up, pack their things, and start their journey. Healing is not always a pretty process, but it is especially not pretty when you are a Mage of Life. As tempting as it may be to give up at times and allow this pain and injustice to continue, if the Mage of Life were to keep going, if only for a little while longer, they could become a valuable ally to have on someone’s team. By the time they have fully realized and captured the true knowledge of their Aspect, they will finally be able to realize their worth as a person and what it means to be a healer to not only those around them, but also to themself. A well-adjusted Mage of Life is one who is most often at the top of their game - full of energy, love, and happiness for everything and everyone around them. While they can’t heal via magical powers, they can most definitely heal their friends and allies through the special means they learned during their journey.

In a way, the Mage of Life committed the ultimate self-sacrifice by putting themself through a horrible process of trial and errors, bruises and cuts, and so much more, if only so that no one else would have to go through what they did. To those who stayed true to themselves, though, were able to come out of it a better and stronger individual. They may not truly understand their self-worth just yet, but they still would be far quicker to realize when someone is not a good fit for them and as such would be as quick to slice them out of their life. They’ve had their battles, and they’ve gained their scars because of it, but the Mage of Life does not look upon them with shame or anger. Instead, they look at them as marks of progress in their journey. After all, to the Mage of Life, there is no such thing as failure, but rather a chance to learn and grow into something better. That is what the Mage of Life strives towards.

#Mage #Mage of Life #Homestuck #Hiveswap #Mage of Life Analysis #Life Aspect #Oculus October #Life

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drun-in-a-million · 4 years

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@egan-first-of-his-name

The journey to Madej was not easy. There didn’t seem to be a real path or road of any sort. The woods were thick and dark, littered with sharp, thorny vines and bushes. Not to mention he was pretty sure the trees would shift here and there, making him get turned around several times. He huffed. He typically had such a good sense of direction. This was ridiculous.

“Okay...I think this is new?” He muttered to himself. He was still quite a ways from the actual town. In fact, it seemed like he’d been sent in almost a semi-circle around it. “Ugh. I’m glad no one from home is around. The joke about being like Dad wouldn’t stop.”

He continued walking, barely avoiding tripping over a large stone. There was a river over here that Rejika had warned him about. Sometimes the water would do...strange things, she said. Besides randomly flowing backwards. “There’s honestly too much to really explain,” she’d told him.

He would have to cross that river eventually. Madej was partially surrounded by it. It seemed it wasn’t too far now. Just a little further and it would be visible.

Suddenly, a noise caught Drun’s attention. A low, dangerous growl. His antennae shook, his whole being telling him that there was danger nearby. He swallowed, as he looked around, planting his feet. A small flurry of ice appeared in his hand, ready to fight. “Hello?”

The growl became an echoing snarl as a huge beast barreled in from the trees. Drun couldn’t tell what it really was. At first glance it looked like some kind of giant cat except is also had feathers? And six eyes? What was this thing? However before he could search through his memories of things the various Dibs in his life had told him about, the creature was charging at him.

Drun yelped, tumbling out of the way of the attack. The beast had huge paws that could easily slam him into a tree or two. He scrambled to his feet, sending tons of ice and snow at the huge adversary. The beast, mildly irritated, was hit once by the small blizzard before dodging the rest of Drun’s attack and charging again.

‘Shit!” Drun yelped, activating his PAK legs to help him scurry up the nearest tree. The creature roared, wasting no time unfurling a giant pair of wings and following him up. “Oh, come on!”

The beast swatted at some of the branches, which sent Drun crashing back to the ground. He thanked his PAK legs for catching him, stabbing the ground as he caught himself to keep from getting too injured. He’d come this far. He was not about to fuck it up by getting injured but some overgrown chicken cat!

The chicken cat, however, seemed determined to tear him into itty bitty shreds. It snarled, this time flying at Drun at a speed he didn’t think could be possible for a creature of that size. Drun brought up his hands, a huge wave of ice aimed at the creature. It hardly seemed fazed.

Just when Drun thought he was doomed, something bright and warm shot between him and the beast. The beast stumbled to a sudden landing, snorting in agitation. Drun’s eyes widened as the fire reappear again, this time aimed directly at the creature. The beast gave a growl before taking off. Drun’s brow furrowed. Where had…

The flames, which were slowly disappearing, could be followed to a hard to see figure. As the person became more visible, Drun could see it was a boy possibly around his age. Maybe a little younger? It was typically not easy for him to tell since he was pretty tall. This boy came to his chest, and had messy black hair. He had...one eye? Blue skin? Wait, hadn’t the Mefni not wanted to come here? Brix hadn’t seemed to want anyone coming here…

“Are you alright?” The boy asked, looking up at Drun with concern. Even in the dark woods, he could tell that the boy’s eye color was not the same, startling green as the other Mefni. He’d have to wait for better light to figure out the actual color, though.

“Uh...yeah. Um...thanks.” Drun brushed himself off and cleared his throat. “Thanks, by the way.”

The boy shrugged. “Not a big deal. I ran into that thing twice in here, I think.” His eye flickered around the trees before looking back at Drun. “You look...familiar by the way.”

Drun sighed. Great. Another person to know him for only one thing. “Um...I’m a prince of Lazuroth. That might be how you know me.”

The boy’s eye widened with recognition and then he suddenly took a step back. Well, Drun was used to that too. They were either to intimidated or they only wanted to be his friend for clout. “Look...um...please don’t make a big deal out of this? I’m just a person like you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Can I ask your name? And why you’re out in these woods?’

The boy shuffled his feet but he nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He cleared his throat. “My name is Egan. As for why I’m here...well…”

Ah ahh ah ahhh~

Both boys froze, looking toward where the sound of that voice had come from. Drun’s sydark pounded. He was so close. He could tell.

It then occurred to him that Egan had reacted as well. “Wait...did you...did you hear that too?”

Egan looked up at him, appearing just as shocked that Drun could hear it. “Yeah. I’ve...I’ve been hearing it for a while. My mom, too.”

Drun’s brow furrowed. “...Wait, just your mom? I thought the whole clans were hearing it?”

“Oh...I’m not from here…” Egan explained. “I’m from the Galactic Alliance. It’s how I knew who you were.”

Something was tickling at the back of Drun’s mind, like he should be putting two and two together. But he could make the connection right now. Not with that voice singing louder than ever before.

Ah ahh ah ahhh~

“Well...I guess I won’t be doing this alone after all, then,” Drun said. He offered Egan a friendly smile.

Egan’s smile was shaky but just as genuine. “Yeah...good to know.” He pulled out a tablet which seemed to have the same coordinates that Drun had on his phone. “It’s not too much further. We just have to cross the river.”

“Right,” Drun agreed as the two trudged forward.

.00000000000000

Besides discovering that the river in question was floating above the bed it typically flowed in, the rest of the journey was without incident. The two boys made idle conversation here and there. Drun had nearly forgotten about the twinge of familiarity he’d felt earlier. Now he was feeling something else entirely. Something...strange and deep. Something that stirred more the closer they got to Madej.

He should not have been surprised when they found the town and it was literally a dark and barren wasteland. Not a single building remained, and the ground appeared permanently singed even after all these years. The air was dead quiet save for his and Egan’s footsteps. A cloud of ash and soot seemed to grip the entire place in a tight hold.

“My mom told me that the story of the Ignited Bride is why fire Mefni are treated so differently,” Egan suddenly said, idly creating little flames on his fingers. “They were already viewed with caution, but after what happened people see them as something to be feared. Dangerous.”

Drun shook his head. “My sister has fire powers. She told me there was a time where she was scared of herself. But she’s not anymore. And she only uses them when it’s truly needed. Well..unless she’s lighting a fireplace like a show off.”

Egan snorted. “If you’re talking about the sister I’m thinking of, I feel like she’s kind of the exception to a lot of rules.”

Drun shrugged. “To be fair, people on Lazuroth get scared of me. And we’re surrounded by ice and snow.” He makes a littler flurry before making it disappear. “People fear what they don’t understand. Fear makes us do stupid things.”

Egan looked deep in thought for a moment, but also sort of comforted. “...My dad has said the same thing.” He gave a laugh. “Path to the dark side, am I right?”

Drun couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah. For sure.”

As both boy shared a laugh, the voice returned. It sounded like the singer was right there next the them, singing at the top of their lungs.

Ah ahh ah ahhh~

Ah ahh ah ahhh

AH AHH AH AHHH~

“Ah ahh ah ahhh~” Egan sang back without missing a beat. Drun looked at him strangely for a moment, only to met with the other boy’s one eyed gaze. Drun didn’t think a look could look challenging and encouraging all at the same time.

“Ah ahh ah ahhh!” Drun sang loudly, matching up with Egan and the mysterious voice that had called them here.

It was like an explosion, a loud rush of light and magic. The soot and ash cleared a swirled. The three voices filled the air, swirling with the sudden wind. Egan yelped as his shoulders and arms erupted in flames. Drun was about to express his concern when his own powers came forth, a small blizzard of snowflakes shooting around them. The boys were suddenly surrounded by a cyclone of fire and ice. It should have been terrifying. And yet...it wasn’t. In fact, combined with the voice it was almost comforting. It was like finding what you were looking for, reaching for it but it’s still just barely out of your reach.

Drun turned back to Egan. It was like something had tied them together and was trying to pull them closer. Judging by the strange look on Egan’s face, he felt it, too. Tentatively, they both reached out for one another, taking each others hand in a firm hold.

AH AHH AH AH AHHHH~

The swirling got faster, lighting up the surrounding area around them. It was then that Drun noticed the color of Egan’s eye. Ice blue. He’d seen that color before, hadn’t he? Why was it so hard to think of now?

They found themselves surrounded by figures, shadows of memories appearing in the flurries and flames. Drun’s mother and father meeting on Lazuroth. Addie traveling back in time. The first revolution. Addie meeting Chance… Chance. Wait a second!

That when Drun saw the other shadows that appeared. A man with dark hair and icey eyes. A past wrought with pain and blood and regret. Egan even looked a little afraid at some points. But then a change of heart. A shutting of a door left opened for far too long. His mother. A fire Mefni. An Ozynite.

No wonder he was so nervous around Drun.

Drun could be dense sometimes, but he knew a person was not their parents, that they could not be faulted for a past they weren’t even a part of. He gave Egan’s hand a squeeze. The short boy looked up at him. There was that strange, binding feeling again. What was it? What did any of this mean? However, the questions didn’t stop Drun from taking Egan’s other hand.

Another eruption of magic happened, and the ground gave way under Drun and Egan, plunging them into darkness.

#[Denivar Dynasty]

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celsidebottom · 4 years

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Rambling about my OCs, Take One

Starting off with Mikah, my orc dragonborn!!

Mikah knew very early on that ze was not a girl. At first, in orc strongholds, there’s not much difference in how the children are raised, so it wasn’t an issue. Ze worked in the mine and learned to work with the orichalcum zir community so dutifully withdrew from the earth.

But as Mikah grew older, ze soon realized that the expectations laid out were foolish. Ze was one of the best warriors in the stronghold – every orc knows how to fight, granted, but ze was strong and skilled. In each hit that ze took and delivered came along with the disgust at being called a girl, she, her, woman, words that ze knew didn’t fit, even if ze didn’t know why.

It is customary in strongholds that a man is chieftain, and he is allowed to take as many wives as he chooses. It’s supposed to be an honor to be chosen to bear his child, to carry on the will of Malacath and the strength of his delegate.

Mikah watched a few chieftains come and go during zir time in the stronghold and saw them destroy themselves and the entire community bit by bit with claims to tradition that led them to starvation and suffering. They were weak. There were so many others that were better suited to lead, but they weren’t warriors or they weren’t male, so their advice was overlooked.

But Mikah was never a woman. Eventually, enough was enough, and ze took their chance. Ze prepared to challenge the current chieftain, fully ready to die for the future of their stronghold; ze wasn’t the best choice as leader, but ze was willing to listen and learn and anything was better than what they already had.

Ze never got the chance to fight for the stronghold though, as zir challenge was immediately discarded. No woman could stand a chance, it wasn’t her place, she was to become one of the chieftain’s wives and that would be that. When Mikah refused and insisted on the challenge, the community agreed to exile zir. Ze had never left the stronghold before, and now ze was completely alone.

There were few opportunities for a young and naïve orc. Ze wandered Cyrodiil before finding a position as a miner – ze had experience and strength over many of zir coworkers, but the job was more like slavery, an intense form of indentured servitude. The miners were beaten when they didn’t deliver enough ore and were kept in miserable conditions. Looking back, Mikah figures that ze wouldn’t have lasted another two years working in that mine.

The only reason ze managed to escape was because zir freedom was bought by a passing merchant, who was interested in acquiring the strongest miner among them. Mikah was offered a position as a bodyguard for this merchant of illicit items and ze willingly accepted, eager to do anything that would get them out of the cavernous coffin in which ze had recently worked.

Ze served this merchant and their associates for several years, even as the tasks required of zir became more illegal and violent. Ze didn’t mind protecting the merchant should someone mean them harm (they had rescued zir, after all), but when ze was sent out to beat missing funds out of an innocent and struggling civilian, the guilt became too much to bear.

Mikah saved up as much money as ze could and made a break for Skyrim in the middle of the night.

And that’s when ze was captured and taken to Helgen to be executed beside Ulfric.

Because of Mikah’s past experiences and loyalties, ze is eager to help those suffering from the war or the harsh environment. But ze also has sticky fingers, and has been known to pick a pocket here and there and, if someone really ticks zir off, ze will break into zir house and steal everything they own, just to leave a message. But ze won’t steal from the innocent, or those ze sees to be innocent.

Ze is part of the thieves guild, but doesn’t participate much in their activities and slowly detaches zirself from it, because ze is trying to leave that part of them behind. The Mage’s College in Winterhold is much more agreeable to zir, and ze strikes up an easy camaraderie with zir fellow students. Magic was always a fallback plan when melee didn’t do the trick, but ze is eager to learn and to teach others how to defend themselves in other ways when their magic fails them.

Mikah visits the college soon after entering Skyrim, and it’s the first place that feels like home. This is no small part due to the friendship struck up with Brelyna Maryon. Mikah is very closed off and skeptical of everyone around zir, but Brelyna is able to break through that hard outer shell, and together they leave their past expectations behind and work to forge their own path. The pair steal moments together when they can and Mikah soon opens up as ze falls hard for Brelyna. Brelyna is one of the main reasons Mikah decides to leave behind zir life of crime, to stop thieving, because ze wants to be a better person for her, if not for zirself.

Brelyna may not be the most traditional dark elf, but Mikah wants to impress her and let her know how beloved she is to zir, so ze winds up asking around about the usual Dunmer courting customs in Windhelm, and soon picks up on the plight in the Grey Quarter and the rest of the city. Ze does what ze can for zir new Dunmer friends, but more often than not, the best help ze can provide them is to share a few drinks whenever ze is in town and tell them of zir latest adventures. In turn, they help her forge a traditional brooch for Brelyna, a token for Mikah to leave with her whenever ze is gone on a quest, that is decorated with the pattern of the stained glass in the room of the college where the two of them first kissed. Brelyna wears it constantly, and it shines brightly on her dress when she and Mikah get married.

Mikah joins the Legion readily. The war isn’t zir place, but ze grew up in Cyrodiil, the heart of the Empire, and believes that unity is stronger than the discord the Stormcloaks have wrought. Especially after seeing how so many people suffer under Ulfric’s rule in Windhelm. Enough Stormcloaks have spat “Orc” at zir in passing, that the choice was easy, even if ze will support the right of anyone to still worship Talos.

Though Mikah wants to help anyone in zir path and is generally of a calm disposition, this all breaks when they are thrown in jail in Markarth. All of zir memories of slavery as a miner come flooding back to zir; ze refuses to work, refuses to even pick up a pickaxe, and demands that the guards would be better off killing zir outright. Ze is beaten, whipped, and zir pinkie is cut off, and is left to bleed until ze changes zir mind. Killing Madanach wasn’t a statement on the Forsworn issue. He had the way out of the mine, and Mikah would do anything to get it. When Thonar greets zir at the exit, he is killed too, thrown off the edge of the Dwarven ruins until his head smashes on the stone, retribution for the selfish pain he caused Mikah and so many others. When Ze leaves the city, blood on zir hands, ze has no intention of ever going back.

Ze crawls back to Whiterun and cries to Brelyna, who nurses zir back to health as best as she can. There is no way to make right what happened, but at least Mikah isn’t alone this time.

And that’s as far as I am in the plot right now, so I’ll probably be back to ramble some more later, but here we are.

I just *clenches fist* love my orc child so much and I’m definitely not projecting on zir at all

#combat skirt out #rambling about my ocs #Markarth makes me irrationally angry they all suck lol #Mikah just wants to help people and occasionally steal from the people who piss zir off #it is also entirely possible that I named zir Emeka in game #because I couldn't come up with a name when I started #BUT

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Seventy-Nine: Community ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

It’s been quite some time since Sasuke’s felt any sense of community. The last he can truly remember was when his clan was still alive. Even if they had been a bit...ostracized, despite his lack of knowing, he at least had felt like he belonged among them. As both an Uchiha, and a son of the clan head, Sasuke was recognized and treated well. Their clan was close-knit, and though he’d often been easily jealous of Shisui, and his father had been standoffish, Sasuke was rarely left feeling a want for attention.

And then...well, that had been taken from him over the course of a single night.

From then on, Konoha had felt like a barren, lonely place. His classmates all looked to him with with a mixture of superstitious fear, and a kind of pity...which he never wanted. Suddenly he wasn’t just a person...he was a spectacle. The famed last Uchiha...besides his murderous brother.

...a commodity.

His Academy years were spent in a painful loneliness. Of course, it was, in part, orchestrated himself. He didn’t need anyone, didn’t want anyone. He had one goal...one purpose. Anything else was merely a distraction. A waste of time. He shunned the others as they shunned him. The boys all thought he was trying too hard, a stick in the mud. And the girls - most, at any rate - thought he was alluring with his darkened mood and want for solitude.

And all that did was annoy him further.

There was so little left in Konoha to consider worthwhile. His goal now stood at the horizon, far beyond the village’s walls. His only vision was that of Itachi slain, vengeance assured for his clan.

And when Konoha didn’t give him what he needed...he left, no longer tied to the place of his birth. Without his family...it was no longer home. No...he carried home within his heart: all those he’d lost. And until they were given justice, that home was a turbulent, darkened place.

Oto no Kuni - Orochimaru’s various lairs - were hardly a place he’d call home. It was just a place to be. To live, to train, to await the day he would come into his own and defeat Itachi.

Then, and only then...could he rest.

Once Orochimaru was slain, he gathered his useful pieces, and headed out to find his brother. He could almost feel it: the peace at the end of the battle, once all was said and done. Once Itachi lay dead, cryptic words spoken...Sasuke collapsed.

Is this...the end? Did I come so far just to fall? But maybe...it’s better this way. I can see them all again...I won’t have to know life without them any longer. Maybe…

...but that was not to be. It would be many more months of torment, lies, manipulation, and struggle before Sasuke could ever begin to find peace. Again and again his plans were foiled, forced to change...and then...he ended up right back where he started.

Konoha.

It was...odd. The village looked completely different. But then again, he’d heard of the destruction wrought by Pein of the Akatsuki. Though he’d not seen it for himself, the aftermath - the scale of the change - was telling enough.

...and the village itself wasn’t all that had changed.

Even after the war - even after stopping the entirety of humanity from being turned into mindless plant monstrosities - Sasuke was looked upon with mistrust, hate, and disdain. In a way, he couldn’t blame them. He’d gone to whatever lengths necessary to do what he thought was right. But nor could he bring himself to regret any part of it. It all led him to this moment.

...but what was left? His brother was dead, his clan still unavenged as Konoha was left to continue on untried for genocide. He still wanted to fix things...but how…?

His answer, as it turned out...was risen from the dead.

With Itachi’s return, they had all the evidence they needed. Speaking to the other clan members in his year, he managed to create a truce: for the clans to come together, to confront the council of Hiruzen’s era...and bring light to the massacre at last.

Among their first allies in the confrontation were the Hyūga, Hinata agreeing to help talk to the other clans and keep them calm. Revealing a village-ordered massacre, after all, was sure to be a...tender subject. And afterward, it was they who approached with an official alliance. After all, the Uchiha were so few...to have numbers behind them would surely only benefit them...right?

Though his pride was stung for it, Sasuke eventually agreed...if, for nothing else, his brother’s sake. Itachi was still recovering from his revival...and they had other weaknesses to account for. As powerful as they both were...they were only two.

...until Shisui revealed his falsified suicide, but...that was an entire other tale.

To Sasuke...it was a gift he’d never expected. A living brother, cousin...and his brother’s children. Four Uchiha beyond himself he hardly dared to pray for. Even if only a fraction...his community was back.

...and it was expanding.

Reparations with those of his year were...slow. But among the first to truly welcome him back had been Hinata. And the more he ended up spending time with her - through clan business, mutual acquaintances, and just...bumping into her - the more Sasuke realized...he actually enjoyed her company. Unlike most other young women he knew, she didn’t feel the need to fill every moment with noise or words. She, like him, seemed to value peace and quiet. She, like him, was content to linger in the background, more a listener than a speaker. They could, when left mostly to themselves, just sit in a companionable silence and feel perfectly content.

...she was, in all reality, his first friend coming back to Konoha. She helped him feel like he...belonged. His sense of community had been broken long ago, but...she, alongside his family, helped it begin to heal.

“...thank you.”

Startling from what was certainly a daydream, Hinata looks up to him, blinking. “...w...what?” She glances around, a bit confused. The pair are walking from a gathering of their peers: a night out for barbeque that only just ended. Living in the same general direction, they’ve just...ended up on the same path. “...um...what for, Sasuke-kun?”

For a moment, he doesn’t answer, eyes trained ahead. But by now, she’s grown accustomed to his thoughtful silences before speaking. “...for...stuff like this.”

“Like...this?”

“Just...normal things.”

Considering him for a moment, Hinata can’t help a small wilt of her brows. “I’m...not sure I know what you mean…”

“How you treat me. Like...a regular person. Everyone else is still...not. I get it - I know why. But...I appreciate what you do. For me. So...thanks.”

Understanding then brightens her expression. “...oh! Well...you’re certainly welcome, Sasuke-kun. I know, um...I know we didn’t really k-know each other before you...left. But...I’d like to think we’ve become...really good friends since you came back!” She gives a beaming smile. “...I guess I’m sorry we didn’t really...have a chance to do this...before.”

“...not sure it would have worked before,” he replies quietly.

“...maybe you’re right. But...I appreciate it now.”

“...yeah? Me too. It’s...helped me settle back in. Slowly, but...I’m getting there. There’s still a lot to...adjust to.”

“Oh, I’m sure...but...I’m glad I can help.” A soft pink graces her cheeks. “...that makes me very...h-happy to hear that. I think...you’re a very good person, Sasuke-kun. You, um...you made some mistakes. But you were trying to reach a good goal, I think.”

“...good person, huh…”

“Mhm. And...it’s good to have you back. I know it can’t be easy to just...f-fall back into a community like that. But I’m glad you’re trying. And...I’m glad I’m making that a little e-easier.”

Sasuke gives her a glance. “...you are.”

Another smile, and with a turn they reach the street of her clan’s gate. “...well, I guess I’ll see you...later.”

“Yeah...have a good night.”

“You too, Sasuke-kun.” Waving, she turns into her family’s land, soon disappearing from view.

For a long moment, he considers her words, lingering just outside. Friends, huh? Good friends...that should make him happy. And yet...there’s an underlying...frustration.

Unable to puzzle it out, he instead heaves a small sigh...and keeps on his way back home.

.oOo.

Guh, this is...very late, and honestly not what I wanted, but I had a VERY long day, so I only barely managed to eek this out, I'm sorry @~@ I really tried, but I fear a tired brain is a little lackluster. Tomorrow, I hope, I won't be so rushed. Not everything you do for a daily challenge, sadly, can be a winner lol ANYWAY! This is, actually, a prompt I like. Sasuke's sense of community is a complicated, many-times-broken thing. And in ALAS, rebuilding that for what will HOPEFULLY the last time isn't easy. But Hinata is one of the few who help make that process a bit less painful n_n But on that note, I REALLY need to get to bed, aha~ Thanks for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #a light amongst shadows [ canon verse ]#365daysofsasuhina

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jasonstaylortx · 3 years

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Heroin Detox South Florida - Transformations Treatment Center

How To Naturally Detox From Heroin

Table of ContentsHow To Help A Person Detox From HeroinWhat Is Medical Assistes Detox For Heroin LikeHow To Detox From Heroin On Your OwnHow To Detox Off HeroinHow Long Does It Take To Detox From HeroinHow To Use Suboxone To Detox From HeroinHow To Help A Heroin Addict DetoxHow To Detox Heroin With MethadoneHow To Help Heroin DetoxHow Long Is Heroin DetoxHow To Deal With Fatigue From Heroin DetoxWhat Medication Is Used For Heroin Detox

“Prophet of evil I ever am to myself: forced forever into sorrowful auguries that I have no power to hide from my own heart, no, not through one night’s solitary dreams.” The above quote comes from the 19th-century novel “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater” by Thomas De Quincy. Although the book is largely an unrealistic and rosy description of someone in the midst of opiate addiction, the above passage is one of the few examples of De Quincy discussing the hell wrought by the withdrawal symptoms of the drug.

I heeded his warning and have only had my aversion to the substance bolstered by the myriad of folks I have seen suffer while in the grip of their addiction as well as bearing witness to their struggle to free themselves from it. The common claim held by De Quincy, my father, and all the people I have helped in my career, is that opiate withdrawal is one of the most difficult challenges they have ever faced.

How Should Suboxone Naloxone Be Taken For Heroin Detox

In general, most will begin experiencing withdrawal symptoms as soon as 6-12 hours after their last dose, their symptoms will peak 2-3 days later, and will decrease over the next week for most people - how to detox from heroin at home. For some who used large amounts of heroin over long time periods the physical symptoms of heroin addiction can last up to a month and the psychological effects persisting for a year or longer.

Due to the persistence of these cravings, as well as the potential health risks of the withdrawals, the CDC suggests anyone considering quitting heroin seek medical treatment by entering an addiction treatment program. The question, “Can you die from heroin withdrawal?” is often posed to me by clients. The short answer is no; an addict will not die due to a lack of heroin in their system.

How To Help A Heroin Addict Detox

Specifically, folks can potentially die from the withdrawal symptom of dehydration or electrolyte imbalances caused by diarrhea and vomiting. The other major risk of death in heroin withdrawals is suicide; many will experience extreme anxiety and depression during withdrawals and because addicts often have impaired (or a complete lack of) impulse control, these symptoms can lead to fatal decisions.

The factors that impact the intensity of one’s symptoms depends largely on the duration of use, potency, average amount used, and method of ingestion. Regardless of these factors most who detox from heroin experience, anxiety, depression, sweating, dilated pupils, insomnia, vomiting abdominal aches, bone pain, muscle soreness, and diarrhea. I write all this to say: heroin withdrawal, like war, is Hell.

How Long After Taking Heroin Does Detox Start

An easy way to understand heroin withdrawal is to say that it is the opposite of heroin use; because of this, the relapse potential for someone trying to detox from heroin on their own is extremely high. Coupled with the very real mortal threat the symptoms of withdrawal pose, the need for medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is paramount - how to detox from heroin.

How Does A Person Going Through Heroin Detox Act

However, like most hard things, heroin detox cannot be solved simply by taking a series of pills. Anyone wishing to detox from heroin should seek a treatment center to ensure that they are detox in a safe and therapeutic manner in order to avoid the pitfall of trading one addiction for another (how long detox heroin).

How To Detox From Heroin With Suboxone

On their own, heroin addicts will constantly find themselves struggling against their own mind that is trying to continue down the path of substance abuse so it may maintain the homeostasis it has become accustomed to - how to survive first 7 days of heroin detox. The only way to overcome the darkness of one’s own mind is to offer themselves up to the higher power of recovery.

As Prime Minister Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through Hell, keep going” and we will gladly walk by your side.Learn more about the Pacific Crest Trail Detox center or give us a call for immediate help.

How To Detox Heroin Hospital

Withdrawal symptoms like muscle aches and anxiety make quitting heroin difficult. Doctors are available to help treat these side effects. Start the road to recovery.

If you have been using heroin for a while, whether as a regular pattern, in binges, or if you have become dependent, you may want to know what to expect if you stop taking heroin and start having heroin withdrawal symptoms. Verywell / Cindy Chung If you have become addicted to heroin, you are likely to experience withdrawal when you quit, but withdrawal symptoms can also appear following heavy use.

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How To Help A Heroin Addict Detox

People often experience nausea, diarrhea, runny nose, achiness, tremors, fatigue, chills, and sweats. More severe symptoms can also occur such as difficulty breathing, depression, anxiety, and insomnia. The initial comedown of heroin withdrawal can vary in time and intensity. Typically, withdrawal symptoms will begin 6 to 12 hours after the last dose, peaking within 1 to 3 days, and gradually subsiding over 5 to 7 days.

Using heroin is a bit like taking out a loan—you experience some borrowed good feelings during the high, but then you have to pay back that debt as you go through withdrawal. It is only after you have paid back the "debt" that you can return to normal and feel better again naturally.

Why Do My Legs Hurt So Bad When I Detox From Heroin

Body temperature varies from one individual to the next, as well as factors like time of day and menstrual cycle, but generally, a temperature of 99–99. 5 F (37. 2–37. 5 C) is considered to be a fever in adults. A fever is one way your body fights illnesses or infections, but when you are going through heroin withdrawal, the fever is not serving a useful purpose in fighting infection, so there is unlikely to be harm in taking steps to control it.

Most people who are withdrawing from heroin experience a strong desire to take more heroin. This is known as experiencing cravings and is common among people withdrawing from many addictive substances. Part of the craving is driven by the wish to reduce the symptoms of heroin withdrawal, and part of it is the desire to re-experience the pleasure of the heroin high.

What You Need To Know Detox From Heroin

Even without a traumatic past, these mood changes would be expected, but many people who use heroin experience long-suppressed feelings related to past trauma or abuse when they come off the drug (how to detox from heroin). This is one of the reasons it is important to have emotional support while you are going through withdrawal.

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If you are withdrawing in a treatment facility, make the most of the support offered, and try and have support arranged in the community when your stay is over. If the feelings of depression or distress do not pass, you should see your doctor for appropriate treatment. Part of the way heroin works is to block the body's pain pathways.

How To Safely Detox From Heroin At Home

As you go through heroin withdrawal, you may experience an overproduction of bodily fluids, such as sweat, tears, and a runny nose. You may also notice your hairs standing on end. As with other physical withdrawal symptoms, these responses are part of your body bringing itself into balance. Diarrhea or loose, watery, and frequent bowel movements are also common with heroin withdrawal.

How Long Does It Take Your Body To Detox From Heroin

The discomfort of diarrhea stomach pain and fears about having "accidents" may make it difficult to go about your regular routine. Although these symptoms are distressing, nausea and vomiting are normal aspects of heroin withdrawal. It wears you out, makes you feel very uncomfortable, puts you off your food, and keeps you close to the bathroom.

How To Detox Heroin

Heroin withdrawal often causes sleep problems, particularly insomnia (having trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep). Yawning is also common. While heroin withdrawal can be intense and uncomfortable, the worst of the symptoms usually pass within a week. During this time, there are some things that you can do to help yourself feel more comfortable.

Having someone with you can ensure that you are safe and have someone to talk to about what you are experiencing. Because the withdrawal process is usually accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea, it is important to make sure that you are taking in enough fluids to avoid becoming dehydrated. Make sure that you have a way to stay occupied during your withdrawal.

How To Detox From Heroin While Pregnant

If you have a friend there to help, you can even plan brief activities outside of the house as you start to feel a little better. Over-the-counter pain relievers and antidiarrheals can help keep your fever, pain, and diarrhea in check, but always be sure to only take the indicated dosages.

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Transformations Treatment Center 14000 S Military Trail, Delray Beach, FL 33484 FV9H+MC Delray Beach, Florida https://www.transformationstreatment.center/delray-beach-fl/drug-rehab/ Heroin Detox Programs in South Florida Find Transformations on Google Maps! More information: https://transformationstreatment1.blogspot.com/2020/12/heroin-detox-south-florida.html

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from Transformations Treatment Center https://transformationstreatment1.blogspot.com/2020/12/heroin-detox-south-florida.html

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londontherapy · 4 years

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Find A Work Stress Counsellor In Mortlake To Help You Deal With Stress And Take Charge Of Your Life Again

Over time, much research has been done on the link between stress and job performance. Stress is a relative term with many different definitions about which therapists and counsellors have little to agree upon, but what most agree on, is that work stress is a concerning situation that negatively affects people in occupations, to such extent that they may require work stress counselling.

Work stress is generally based on a person’s ability or inability to connect with the work environment and how such a person adjusts to the associated demands of the work required. Distress, which is a synonym for negative stress, describes the unhealthy, negative, and degrading outcomes of a stress response.

Therapists often describe distress as an intense emotion and long-term distress causes excessive stress which may eventually lead to mental, physical, and emotional disorders if not treated by a professional. This adversely affects the employee as well as the organisation and therefore a company may refer an employee to seek advice from a work stress counsellor.

The other extreme represents people who have worked too hard for too long and which ultimately resulted in them burning out. In this case, especially ambitious, aggressive, and impatient persons found in top management positions who are not aware of their limitations, wrought their own downfall. They become irrational problem solvers, exhausted from all the hard work, dissatisfied with the results they achieved and desperate due to a lack of self-esteem.

If you seek less stress and more peace in your life, you are not alone. Millions of people across the globe feel overwhelmed at work and they constantly wonder how to relieve their stress. If you are a UK citizen and live or work near the area of Mortlake, finding a work stress counsellor is easy and with a quick internet search, you will soon be on the path to taking control of your stress levels.

The key to a successful stress management plan is not only to have several techniques in place that can help you manage stress on many levels but sometimes it requires assistance from a professional. The following tips can show you how to relieve stress in several ways; explore one type of stress relief, put it into practice in your work situation and move on to another, or use a combination of approaches starting today.

When you experience a stressor or a perceived threat to your well-being, your body is designed to respond to the stress response. It involves several physiological changes in your body that can prepare you to fight or run. The problem is that many people experience stressors throughout the day at work and their bodies never fully return to a non-tense state. This situation is known as chronic stress and it may have dire consequences if not addressed appropriately.

Learn to relax in your pre-stress state and save yourself. This often begs the question; how do I relieve stress at work? There is no simple answer but try different techniques like breathing exercises and other quick stress relievers for instant relief, but if the feeling persists, you may want to seek therapy from a work stress counsellor.

The difference between work stress and complete burnout is that a person who experiences work stress could go on holiday and come back fully rested, while a worker who suffers from burnout will continue to feel stressed.

Not many corporate professionals fully grasp the effects of multitasking, impractical demands, and a lack of privacy due to the unfair work-life demands that are sometimes placed on them. These challenges contribute to anxiety in the workplace, which in turn can affect health, quality of life and efficiency at work.

Common sources of work-related stress include minimum wages or compensation, unrealistic or a demanding workload, limited opportunities for growth and development, lack of assistance from colleagues, family members or friends and unrealistic expectations to name a few examples.

Some of the indicators of stress include headache, insomnia, high blood pressure, stomach pain, irritability, and concentration problems. In turn, this leads to the advancement of conditions such as depression, obesity, a weakened immune system, and other harmful conditions.

In case of extreme stress, it is advisable to seek professional guidance and advice and sometimes, medications to reduce anxiety and stress may possibly be prescribed. Do not just complain about the anxiety you are experiencing - take control of it and be pr-active so that you can be happy again and do your job with joy. There are many specialists across the therapy spectrum in London that can help you deal with stress.

About Us: London Therapy Foundation is the trading name of London Therapy Ltd which was established to provide the highest level of service to mental health in the London area. As a collective of specialists across the therapy spectrum, their mission is to provide peace of mind to all those mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in distress - at affordable prices, without long waiting times. Their aim is to provide a sense of community, both within the centre and online, for our member therapists, who also benefit from a range of professional services and very reasonable therapy room rates. To find out more, visit their website at https://londontherapyfoundation.com.

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childrenofhypnos · 7 years

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Chapter 29: Snowfall

Stepping into Emery’s own dream did feel unsettlingly like stepping inside her head. As they moved through the window, there was a feeling in her mind like something had just been slotted into her head, not painful, just strange, like something stuck between her teeth.

The dream itself was crisp and well-formed, like Klaus’s had been, and like his, it was night. But unlike his, there was no forest to be seen. They stood on the sweeping lawns of an old palace beside a wide river, and on the other side of the river was Moscow.

The view took the breath from her lungs. Seeing the palace through the window had made her suspicious; it looked far too similar to the Grand Kremlin Palace to be coincidence, but she hadn’t expected to get here and for the city of her childhood to be waiting for her across the river. It sparkled in the night, skyscrapers and onion domes, pastels lit from below and glass reflecting the stars. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Federation Towers. The rounded top of Moscow’s own Hypnos State training center, the Cradle. Though there were no clouds overhead, snow fell on the city, dampening its sound to nothing.

Emery took a step toward it and knew immediately that she would not be allowed to cross the river, no matter how badly she wanted to. Her dream did not take place there; it happened here, in this imitation-palace, on this estate that existed nowhere in the waking world.

“Is that the Kremlin?” Wes asked, looking toward the horizon.

“It’s Moscow,” Emery said. “A little dream-warped, but that’s it.” She tried to keep the longing out of her voice as she tore herself away from the view, but both Jacqueline and Wes became strangely silent.

The lawns dipped down before them, giving them a top-down view of the mazelike hedges that framed the wide stone path to the palace. Ornate wrought-iron lampposts, crafted to look like sinewy arms spearing out of the ground and holding their lanterns aloft, lined the path, which had been cleared of snow. It looked like something more out of War and Peace than modern-day Moscow, and as Emery, Wes, and Jacqueline started down the path, the hedges and the lampposts rose up around them, much taller than they should have been. Thick flakes of snow fell from the cloudless sky, but the drifts on the ground never got any higher. None clung to their clothes or their hair. When Emery held out her hand to catch a flake, it touched her skin and popped like a soap bubble.

Closer to the palace, the hedge walls gave way to hedge sculptures. They were twenty feet tall, covered in snow, and more detailed than any hedge sculpture had a right to be. On their left: a rearing horse not unlike the horses that framed Jacqueline’s gateway. On their right: The symbol of the dreamhunters, a sword thrust upward behind the closed eye of Hypnos. They walked past, and the next set came up. The left: Clint Eastwood in a poncho and a cowboy hat. The right: Fabian Fenhallow waltzing with a dolphin. Jacqueline scowled at that one.

The final set of hedges came up, and these two flanked the staircase to the palace’s entrance like sentinels. One was Grandpa Al, one hand holding his cup of tea, the other hand resting on the pommel of his dreamform sword, the sword’s tip balanced on the ground. The other hedge was Edgar, arms at his sides, hands empty. There was no expression on his face, but as they climbed the steps into the palace, Emery had the distinct impression he was watching her.

Up close, the palace’s walls were eggshell blue, and the windows and doors trimmed in lavish gold. Russian words curled across the large front doors in gold script.

“What does it say?” Jacqueline asked.

“Find home here,” Emery replied, fighting her strongest urge to run back the way they’d come. It had been a mistake to bring others into her dream when she herself didn’t even know what was inside. No one was supposed to see these things but her. No one was supposed to know. Was this how Klaus felt when they’d been sneaking around in his dream? Was this how anyone felt when they thought about dreamhunters stepping into their heads whenever they visited the Dream?

It was too late now, anyway. There was probably a way for her to get them out of her own dream—or Jacqueline could make another gateway—but the only way Emery knew to escape it now was to finish out the dream itself.

Her fingertips brushed the words on the palace’s front doors, and the doors creaked open.

Candles blazed in every corner of the entry hall. The marble floors gleamed; the ceiling arched high overhead, covered in paintings of angels and demons clashing in flight; and like the hedge sculptures outside, large paintings stood guard every few feet on either wall.

Every painting was Emery. In each one, she sat in a wingback chair, wearing a deep purple gown hung with pearls and sapphires and crystal netting. And in each one, she was missing part of herself. Eyes. Nose. Mouth. A hand. An ear. In one she was bald. In another, skinless. Wes and Jacqueline said nothing as they went down the hall, though their expressions said enough: there was something wrong with her. There was something wrong with her if this was how her subconscious manifested.

Emery ignored the paintings, especially the skinless one, and forced herself forward. To find her doppelgänger, she’d have to stay sharp. There were sounds floating from the far end of the entry hall, through a tall set of oak doors; voices and feet and, faintly, music—a small orchestra. Emery pressed on, and just like the front doors before them, the oak doors opened at the slightest touch.

Inside was a ballroom. Fenhallow Manor paled in comparison; it could have fit inside here four times over with room left to spare, and where the Fenhallow ballroom had an old-world America beauty, this was grandeur on a scale of kings. The floor had been polished to a mirror shine, inlaid with designs of claymore swords laid in beds of bursting wildflowers, cannons wrapped with vines. Doors of frosted glass led the way to a dark courtyard outside where the snow still fell. Columns between each window appeared carved from gold, and each one was a woman with curling hair covering her like a dress, a waterfall cascading to her feet. In one upraised hand she held a revolver, and the guns of all the columns pointed to the grand chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The ceiling of the room had been painted to look like the roiling purple clouds of No Man’s Land.

An orchestra played softly, but there was no band in the room, and all the voices and footsteps Emery had heard in the entry hall outside were gone now. There were only two people in the ballroom, turning slowly together in the center of the room, like dancers inside a music box.

“Oh,” Jacqueline said.

It had been a year and a half since the last time Emery had seen her parents, and the punch of it left her breathless. Her father was the taller of the two of them, long and lanky, dull brown hair falling over his forehead and his glasses shining in the light so his eyes disappeared behind them. A sly smile and high cheekbones; thin hands with long fingers that Edgar would one day inherit. Clamped between his lips was the cigarette Emery remembered from her childhood, the end glowing orange but never growing shorter, and every few seconds he puffed out a cloud of purple smoke that flashed with Dream-lightning before disappearing in the air.

Her mother looked like her, only bigger. Stockier. Her hair fixed back in heavy braids instead of let loose. She had an arch to her eyebrows and a coldness to her eyes that Emery aspired to. That look said Challenge me. She always left her collar open to reveal the thick scar across her neck, and it was open now and she held her head high. Emery had once been small enough to hide behind her legs, though she could probably still do so if she curled up tightly enough. The only strange thing about her mother was that her mouth was closed; if she was awake—and she always was—she was talking.

Liam Ashworth and Zoya Volkova danced in their hunting armor. Both wore the long black coats of the dreamkillers, with the fan of swords and Hypnos’s closed eye on their backs.

Emery wanted to step closer to them, but didn’t. Not with Jacqueline and Wes so close. Not when her parents might turn to her and say something straight from her subconscious, something too personal to share, some deep-seated fear or desire. She was lucky enough already they’d gotten through the rest of her dream without some metaphorical representation of her questioning her own sexuality. She didn’t need them both to know how deep the cracks of the Insanity Prime ran.

“Do you have to talk to them to progress the dream?” Wes asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember having this dream.” But it did feel like what she had to do. Like in all the other dream-windows they’d gone through, the logic of the dream tugged at her, willing her to follow the path for which it had been made. Her dream wanted her to approach her parents. It wanted her to speak to them.

It wanted her to ask them if they would stay.

“We should look around before we try that,” Jacqueline said. “Doppelgängers live inside their dreamer’s subconscious before they become active. Maybe they leave behind an imprint, or a trail we can follow.”

As she’d torn herself away from the view of Moscow, Emery looked away from her parents and began scanning the room. Both with her eyes and with her sense of the Dream, though it didn’t seem to amount to much here. In the waking world, the Dream was like a thin layer of atmosphere, perceptible but easy to forget. Some places had a higher concentration than others—like Fenhallow Woods—and dreamhunters, dreamkillers, and nightmares gave off auras of it, almost like they were generating it themselves. But here in the Dream it was everywhere, highly concentrated, pressing down on her. She felt it in her temples, in her ears, even in her joints. If it was any thicker she’d be swimming in it.

The three of them split up. Wes walked one direction along the wall, Emery and Jacqueline walked the other. Emery brushed her hand along the hair of one of the columns along the wall and the gold flaked away under her hand, turning white and drifting to the floor.

“It’s made of snow,” Jacqueline said. “Did you know it was going to look like this?”

“No. I don’t remember this at all.” Emery looked up into the face of the long-haired woman. It was herself, again. Peacemaker raised. “I’ve only slept once a month for the past six years, and I don’t remember the dreams I have.”

“Is it strange not to sleep?”

“Haven’t you asked Veronica all of this before?”

Jacqueline shrugged. “We don’t really talk about it.”

“It just makes the days seem long, sometimes. Gives you lots of time to think. Probably too much time.”

“And is it weird to be in here now?”

“Mostly uncomfortable. The Dream feels like a blanket pressed over my face.”

Jacqueline made a noise and glanced out the darkened window into the courtyard. Snow blurred past.

“Do you feel it?” Emery asked.

Jacqueline shook her head. “It feels normal to me. It feels real. I can sense there are boundaries on this place, but it’s not uncomfortable or strange.”

“Do you ever think it’s weird,” Emery said, “that dreamseekers are born and dreamhunters are made, but dreamhunters can do more?”

“No.” Jacqueline reached out at the next window they passed and tapped a pane of glass. It burst into sparkling snow and fluttered inside, but the wind and snow from outside didn’t start coming in. “You can do more, but we don’t have Insanity Primes. We aren’t weak to the Dream. Hopefully I never get attacked by a nightmare, but that’s what you all are around for.”

Emery snorted.

Then something pinged on the edge of her senses. It was like sensing Klaus in the warehouses, where he was a spot of the Dream in the waking world, but this was an empty space in the Dream. Like Jacqueline drawing up her gateway in No Man’s Land, a space where pressure could escape. Had escaped. And Emery had only felt it after Jacqueline popped the window.

She stopped and brushed her hand over the window, popping the other panes of glass until she could look outside. There was nothing there—only a stone patio that stretched out into darkness and snow—but in the darkness the emptiness took a shape in her senses, like a hole cut in a piece of paper. A human-shaped hole.

An Emery-shaped hole.

Her stomach sank to her knees. She swallowed hard.

“Wes,” she called back across the room.

Wes was already at the far end of the ballroom and jogged along the wall until he reached them.

“Do you feel that hole?” she asked both of them.

They both stopped and turned to the window. Wes was the first to nod.

“It’s shaped,” he said.

“Klaus was telling the truth. It’s active. And it’s not here anymore.” Emery’s own voice rang hollowly in her ears. She’d believed Klaus and not believed him; known he was telling the truth but also clung to the hope that he’d been wrong, that he thought he’d seen something that hadn’t really been there.

Emery pushed her hair back, rubbing at her throbbing temple as she went. “We have to find it. I don’t think it’s in here—I would have felt it.”

“Where else do we look then?” Jacqueline asked.

“Klaus said he saw it in No Man’s Land,” said Wes. “But No Man’s Land is everywhere out there. It wouldn’t go far, not if it’s still so weak it can’t leave the Dream. If anything, it’d want to hide until it’s strong enough to leave. It’d want to stay close to you in case it got an opportunity to attack.”

“We might be able to find some clues,” Emery said. “Klaus’s notebook. In his nightmare. He had her drawn in there, it was because he saw her. Maybe he wrote down where he saw her, or under what circumstances. Hell, maybe there’s more in there since the last time we were there. If he can squirrel information away in his dreams like that, he might have put more in since he was captured.”

“Or taken more out,” Wes said, “or put in false information. To throw Ares off.”

“You think Ares was rooting around in his dream?”

Wes’s expression darkened. “I know he was.”

“Do we have a different plan?” Jacqueline asked. “Because if not, I say let’s go there. You both look sick, and we haven’t even been here that long. If we don’t find anything in his dream, we leave and come back another time.”

Wes didn’t look happy about it, but shrugged and said, “Fine.”

“We need to get out, then.” Emery turned to her dream-parents. They still turned slowly in the center of the room, looking unblinkingly at each other. Pulling herself together, she marched across the floor to them.

She had no idea if this was supposed to be a good dream or a nightmare, but she didn’t have the best feeling about it. They always had new scars when they came home, and Emery had grown up with the expectation that one day, one or both of them might not come home at all. Dreamkillers were powerful, but many of them were sent to fight powerful nightmares, and not all of them came back in one piece—or alive.

“Dad,” she said, calling to him first because he was the gentler of the two of them, the one less likely to spring to action just at the sound of her voice. “Mama.”

They separated and turned to her at the same time, like they’d been waiting. Emery stopped and looked at them for a long moment, taking in their faces, their expressions, every wrinkle and scar and freckle. On a good day she could describe in general what they looked like, but she had no idea she’d kept such a detailed memory of them inside her.

“What is it, my sun?” her mother said. It took Emery a moment to realize she’d said it in Russian, and when she did, the Dream slammed into Emery hard, wriggling in through the cracks of her mental armor. She gasped, clutching her head, forcing herself to remember—teacups, sweaters, Edgar firing the Peacemaker, Wes’s eyebrow furrow, the scent of Joel’s pillow—and when she caught her breath, Jacqueline and Wes stood on either side of her.

Wes’s fingertips brushed her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“You shouldn’t stand there, biscuit,” her father said.

“What?”

His glasses still impossibly reflected the light, hiding his eyes, but both his eyebrows rose. His finger rose, pointing upward.

“You shouldn’t stand there,” he said.

The room groaned. All around them, the golden women with the cascading hair that formed the columns of the room shifted, stone features scraping, to shift their bodies sideways and extend their arms up, Their revolvers flashed in the light. Their golden fingers curled around the triggers.

Emery grabbed Wes and Jacqueline’s collars. “DOWN!”

The bang echoed in Emery’s ears as all twelve guns went off at once. From their barrels poured the purple clouds of the Dream, and their bullets ripped through the chandelier’s chains. It fell so slow, Emery had a moment to look up and see it dropping, crystals rising upward, the delicate metal singing in the air. Her parents stood exactly underneath it.

“No!” She scrambled forward, reaching for their boots.

A hand grabbed her belt and yanked her back. Wes. With a heave, he dragged her back across the polished floor just as the chandelier crashed, sending metal and crystal in all directions. Emery ducked her face into her arms, and when the chaos had stilled, she looked up again.

Her parents were gone. Not dead beneath the chandelier, but gone, as if they had never been there at all. The dream dissolved into the barren plain of No Man’s Land. Wes pulled her up under one arm, Jacqueline under the other, and though her legs were steady, her chest felt hollow.

She’d never get to see her parents dead. One day they just wouldn’t come home.

She would have preferred dead bodies beneath the chandelier.

(Next time on The Children of Hypnos -------> More Old School Horror)

#children of hypnos #nightmare hunters #francesca zappia #dreams #nightmares #free #reading #books #ya #wattpad #made you up #eliza and her monsters

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whatdoyouexpectthistime · 7 years

Text

Client Report: Subaru Ichiyanagi

Miho was grateful to be busy, mostly because it was keeping her out of Jazz’s path. The woman needed time to get her shit sorted, and well, if she ultimately decided to hide her feelings like a coward, rather than take another chance at being happy, then it wasn’t something Miho could force upon her.

Only encourage to a point.

It wasn’t as if Miho didn’t understand why Jazz refused to edge close to that precipice again, after all, Miho too had lost love, and family, and it had caused her so much pain she up and left her home and moved countries.

And before you go and start mumbling about how Miho is a hypocrite given her encounter with Goto, it’s not even close to being similar. He had done all the nudging, all the investing, and she just allowed it for the sake of the date scenario.

Shut up.

Do as Miho says, not as she does.

In an expensive car, her next client picked Miho up outside of MJS headquarters. He leaned over and pushed open the door for her from the driver’s seat, the car engine still running, and grinned as he issued his instruction.

“Jump in,” he said cheerfully, and Miho complied.

“Good evening, Subaru,” she greeted once she was comfortably belted in.

In their preliminary sessions he had insisted she refer to him by his first name all the way through, which was of course fine. For the date scenario especially, it added a sense of familiarity, made it seem as though they had known each other much longer, and for many clients that made the ‘test drive’ easy to enter into.

Miho knew, however, that Subaru had no issue with attracting beautiful and successful women – his issue was choosing the one out of many. His father was also a consideration she had to factor in; Subaru’s wife had to be the kind of woman that would befit the son of a police superintendent.

There was no risk at all in this date scenario: pure analysis with a heaping helping of enjoyment. And there was nothing wrong with enjoying one’s work. Subaru was fit, handsome, highly educated, witty-if a little arrogant – the kind who liked to pinch, and bite, and spank, and whisper dirty things in your ear to affirm his masculinity; the kind who wouldn’t be satisfied until he could hear, and see, and feel the gratification he’d wrought upon his partner.

A little shiver tingled through Miho’s body. Yes, this was exactly what she needed.

“Cold?” he enquired, attentive enough to notice, and he hit a button that caused his window to close over completely.

“Nope, just looking forward to tonight,” she admitted openly, smiling at him.

“I sort of expected to see you with a clipboard and a checklist, or a tablet to take notes on or something,” he chuckled.

“You want me to pause mid act to scribble dot points about your performance?” she enquired with a smirk. “Oh goodness, imagine the interesting things Siri would record if I asked her to take dictation during.”

Subaru joined in her mirth.

“I don’t know,” he chortled. “Hearing Siri try to articulate the sounds you’re going t be making might make for an interesting memento.”

“Confident you can get me to sing, are you?” she sniffed, feigning sudden disinterest and looking out the window, following the flow of the city even when Subaru placed his hand against her thigh.

“Haven’t had any complaints so far,” he asserted, squeezing lightly.

Getting started early – nice.

“So, how do you think you’re going to cope with a monogamous relationship?” she asked, and though the question was serious, her tone of voice was actually a little patronising.

“If you’re as good as the reviews say you are,” he answered, tapping his fingers rhythmically, “you should be able to provide me with a match who’ll never want to make me stray.”

“Good point,” she acknowledged. “But, it will be a big change nevertheless. How’re you going to deal with all those women chasing after you?”

“What women?” he asked in reply. “Hey, if I love a girl, I’ll be so busy making her happy it’ll be like there are no other women around.”

Miho blinked.

“An incredibly romantic ideal,” Miho noted, biting her lip a little and rolling her eyes upward just a touch as she filed it away.

“Ahh, so that’s how you do it,” he declared with a satisfied nod.

“Do what?” she frowned lightly.

“Take notes,” he clarified. “I wonder what kinds of stories you have stored away in there.”

“Your job isn’t wo wonder about what, or who, came before you,” she smirked, “only to leave a lasting impression of your own.”

“It’ll last,” he assured he, leaving what exactly the ‘it’ was completely ambiguous.

“That’s what I like to hear,” she laughed. “So are you going to tell me where we’re going, or is the interior of this lovely car going to require detailing in the not so distant future?”

“Too awkward,” he replied. “Bonnet isn’t bad though.”

“Favourite look-out then? The beach? Lately I’ve grown to appreciate the outdoors a little more.”

Jeez, I wonder why Miho.

“Nope,” Subaru quipped. “Tonight I show you I’m perfect husband material.”

“Well that isn’t really necessary,” she pointed out, shifting in her seat a little when his hand slid up a little more, fingers pressing inward between her legs. “I’ll find your match no matter who or what you are.”

“Not the point,” he countered. “If you’re going to do something, or someone, do it right.”

“More points for a positive attitude,” she grinned, looking at him sideways. “So what does the perfect husband do on a Thursday night?”

“We need to make a quick stop off at the grocery store,” he announced. “There is something oddly special about shopping with a woman.”

“I’ll have to add that to your profile,” Miho smiled. “For a hotshot bodyguard with a prestigious pedigree, you’re surprisingly domestic.”

“It’s important to take pride in all aspects of life,” he affirmed. “It’s not good enough just to focus on one thing and half-ass the rest.”

“So I can expect all over attention then?” she enquired, and he smirked confidently.

“You may have to cancel any clients you have for the next week or two,” he declared, “because you’re not going to be able to concentrate on anything but thoughts of me after what I do to you.”

At this, Miho grabbed his wrist and truly sandwiched his hands between her thighs, pressing his fingers right up under her skirt and against her panties.

“You’re going to want to be pretty amazing to back up that claim,” she told him frankly. “Most of our clients aim to impress.”

“Damnit woman,” Subaru growled, glancing back and forth from the windshield to her, while his fingers wriggled against her folds, struggling to burrow. “If I wasn’t driving right now…”

“Awkward spaces remember?” she grinned cheekily, before gently forcing his hand away. “Hmm, now I’m actually hungry.”

“You and me both,” Subaru muttered under his breath, taking another left turn before parking the car.

Together they acquired a shopping cart, and Miho trailed behind Subaru as he collected various luxury food items, the kind most people enjoyed on a rare basis.

“This is couply, right?” Subaru half questioned, half stated, looking back over his shoulder at her.

“Yes dear,” Miho snickered, and he paused to allow her to catch up, scrutinising her with narrowed eyes.

“Was that sarcasm I heard just now?” he questioned, standing very close to her, so close in fact a little old lady unsteadily pushing her own trolley nearby, gave them a somewhat disapproving look.

“Me? Sarcastic? Oh no, I am the height of seriousness,” she grinned, not backing down from his challenging invasion of her personal space.

Suck it up granny.

“It’s like that is it?” he sniffed, placing his hand on her hip – she still did not recoil.

“It would seem so,” she volleyed quietly as he stepped against her. “Okay, this is couply.”

“So it’s within your purview to teach me what it is to be part of a couple?” he asked, leaning a little over her shoulder.

And granny with her cart stopped, and glared.

“I’m just trying to ascertain if you need teaching or not,” she responded, seeing grandma out of the corner of her eye, even as Subaru’s lips approached hers. “If she has a heart attack, you’re the one giving her mouth to mouth.”

Subaru paused for a split second, just long enough to let the granny know he’d seen her.

“It’ll be worth it,” he said, before bringing his lips to Miho’s firmly.

It was important that Miho felt every part of his kiss, encompassed it, allowed it to sink deeply. Behind closed eyelids she envisioned she and Subaru as if from some observer – the way he pulled her in at the waist; the way he cradled the back of her neck with his fingertips half obscured by her hair; the way she relaxed against him and allowed him to lead; the way she seemed to be smiling, even though her lips could not truly be seen.

Then there was a loud clatter that drew both Miho and Subaru from that haze toward where the granny had been standing.

But she was gone.

Several cans of peas rolled away from where they had been knocked off the shelf by a clumsy basket, and tumbled until they hit Subaru’s polished shoe. With her eyes Miho retraced their path until she found pinstripes, and looked up into the face of the last person she wanted to see in that moment.

Because the deus ex machina says so.

“Pyjamas?” Subaru scowled, not moving away from Miho. “The hell are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Rosemary?” Goto responded, his voice clear by the time he uttered Subaru’s nickname – but he wasn’t looking at Subaru as he spoke. “Ishigami’s the only one who doesn’t need to eat.”

This, of course, did not escape Subaru’s notice, and he looked between them.

“Jealous?” he smirked after a few seconds.

“Of you?” Goto sniffed, finally looking to the other man, grey eyes dismissive. “Not likely.”

“Of her then,” Subaru snickered, but he noted Goto seemed distracted, not at all as engaged in their friendly-caustic banter as he usually was.

Again, he looked between Miho and Goto.

“No way,” he dropped when it came to him. “Seriously? He’s a client?”

“Shut up, Subaru,” Goto snapped, stooping to pick up the can closest to him, perhaps to hide the colour in his cheeks, or maybe just to give himself something else to focus on other than Subaru’s hand on Miho’s waist.

“Well this just got a whole lot more interesting,” Subaru grinned, his hand falling away as Miho crouched to pick up the can by his shoe.

The narrator had some dirty line about Subaru not being pleased about sloppy seconds, but it was too far outside of Subaru’s character for her to work in it effectively – you get the idea though.

“Here,” Miho said, her first word since Goto’s surprise appearance.

Tone even, lips smiling.

And nothing failed when their fingertips brushed during handover, no gasping, or dropping the can, or sudden flashes of guilt. What could or should there be? An incontrovertible desire to leave Subaru standing there with his trolley of expensive items, and go and eat peas with Goto?

You don’t even like peas.

You don’t even like…

“Thanks,” Goto nodded.

For what else could he do? Grab her possessively and hide her from Subaru? Demand she leave her job immediately because it pained him to see her with, not only another man, but that man? Try, this time, to be more explicit about how he felt given all the time they’d spent together, and not just during the date scenario?

Of course not.

“What the?” Subaru frowned, the absence of something more telling than a something itself being present. “I bet he didn’t live up to expectations, right?”

“I shouldn’t have to school either of you on the binding nature of confidentiality agreements,” Miho declared, her expression stern, all the playfulness of their flirting a moment ago completely gone. “I apologise Mr. Goto,” she continued, offering him a shallow bow, “but I’m working.”

“No, no don’t let me interrupt,” he rushed, dropping the peas into his basket though he didn’t even want them.

Nothing about his face said, actually, I really want to interrupt. He was apologetic, genuinely so, and Miho was professional, genuinely so.

And Subaru was totally and utterly perplexed by the robotic nature of their display.

“Shall we continue, Subaru?” Miho then smiled, nudging him lightly with her hip.

Only then did Goto flinch, just the slightest bit – but neither Miho or Subaru were looking at him.

“Later,” Subaru waved to Goto, as with one hand on trolley each, he and Miho rolled away.

Miho stared forward, trying to absorb the warmth of Subaru’s shoulder against hers, but somehow, the eyes on her back sucked it all away.

“That was way more awkward than sex in a car,” Subaru muttered when they were out of earshot.

“I didn’t realise you were that sensitive,” Miho mused, pleased by how nonchalant her voice sounded. “You seem almost threatened by him.”

“Me?” Subaru balked. “Not likely. There isn’t anything that pinstripe wearing dork can do, that I can’t do better, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

“Perhaps,” she nodded, continuing to walk along beside him, “but you’ll never know for sure.”

“Yeah yeah, confidentiality,” he sniffed.

“But that doesn’t stop me from asking about this obvious rivalry you have,” she went on, knowing she shouldn’t dig, but the words from her mouth before she could stop them.

“We used to work together,” Subaru answered with a shrug, casually placing certain items in the cart. “Before he moved up in the world.”

“Jealousy?” she queried.

“Are you kidding me? I’ve passed up promotions, and I’m a regular guest instructor at the Public Safety Academy,” he responded. “They ask me, if I’ll help them out.”

“I see,” Miho nodded. “And the pet names?”

Subaru coughed.

“They’re not pet names,” he refuted.

“Uh huh,” Miho teased, getting back into her groove. “Smells like a bromance to me.”

“Just for that I’m telling you nothing,” he sniffed, digging her I the ribs lightly with his elbow.

“Okay,” she accepted, “but by denying me information only hurts yourself.”

“A compelling argument,” he agreed, but certainly looked as if he wasn’t going to divulge much more.

“Suit yourself,” she shrugged. “But close male relationships can, and do, impact upon romantic relationships, especially bonds that have deep history and affection.”

This caused Subaru to splutter a little.

“Affection? For Goto?” he coughed.

“I see,” she murmured, openly studying him then nodding her conclusion. “You’re not nearly as self-assured about your masculinity as you’d like people to think.”

And now he frowned at her, but Miho grinned and patted his cheek.

“You’re allowed to love the guy,” she declared.

And now she frowned.

Subaru’s expression shifted and he peered at the odd curiosity that was her sudden change in countenance.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and in response Miho shook her head.

“Distracted by the hollow of my empty stomach,” she responded, flawlessly covering a truth he couldn’t know.

You’re allowed to love the guy.

She hadn’t exactly told Jazz that, but it’s sort of what she’d meant to convey – that just because they were in the business they were in, didn’t mean they couldn’t change their plans and create their own happily-ever-afters without ruining the business. Not that that was really what was getting in Jazz’s way at all.

“What’s stopping you?” Subaru asked, and Miho blinked at him in shock – he couldn’t have been in her head.

“Huh?”

“You’re just standing here with a look of… I don’t know, quandary, on your face,” he elaborated.

His vocabulary choice offered her an unintentional lifeline.

“Quandary? Really?” she chuckled.

“Hey, I’m a Harvard graduate you know,” he bristled, puffing out his chest in an exaggerated fashion. “Don’t underestimate me.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she smiled, allowing her other thoughts to be buried by the immediacy of Subaru’s proximity. “Come on, I’m starving.”

Subaru’s home was what one might expect from a bachelor from a wealthy and successful background, except perhaps that it was absolutely spotless. There was not a single speck of dust, nothing seeming out of its place, not one piece of unwashed clothing dumped haphazardly in a corner.

In his space, her mind became focused, and she allowed him to take her coat, hang it, then lead her into the well-appointed kitchen.

“What would you like to drink?” he asked when she was settled on a cushioned bar stool at the counter.

“What kind of wine am I?” she asked, leaning her elbows on the countertop and placing her chin on her hands.

“Hmm,” he mused, putting the pink apron he’d acquired from its place, down on the sink, so he could approach and appraise Miho empty handed. “Well, you’re certainly bold, so I could easily pair you with a cab-sav,” he began, turning her slowly to face him and placing his hands on her shoulders. “Full bodied,” he went on, smoothing down and slowly across her collarbones, “persistent, and high potency.”

“Interesting assessment,” she offered in the way of feedback, staring up at him approvingly.

“But, you’re a bit smoother than that,” he continued, tracing fingers from her collarbones, across her chest until his thumbs lightly circled her nipples hidden behind red fabric, “so maybe a merlot?”

“So I’m definitely a red?” she questioned, plucking at the tip of his tie, flicking it with her fingertips while he stepped closer.

“Absolutely,” he nodded, snatching one of her wrists and pulling her to her feet. “Shiraz maybe – intense, peppery.”

“What is peppery supposed to mean?” she laughed, draping her arms around his neck and sifting her fingers through his hair.

“That you’re bitey, feisty,” he explained, thumbs curled over the waistband of her skirt and sliding the circumference until he found the button in the small of her back. “You don’t back down from a challenge.”

“Guess you’ve got me all figured out,” she purred, turning her face this way and that as he tried to kiss her, and in response, the way he shoved her skirt down over her hips was a definitive statement of retaliation. “Leave it to a Harvard grad,” she added with a smirk.

“How hungry are you exactly?” he asked, abandoning the chase for her lips in favour of punishing her neck with a nip that left a small red mark.

“For food?” she sighed, lolling her head back to look into his face properly. “I could eat. The better question is – how hungry are you?”

“Dessert first,” he declared, taking her by the waist and lifting her to sit up on the counter before kissing her eagerly.

Truly one of the pleasures of being an adult, deciding to partake of one’s meals in any order, Miho indulged in the heated exchange of their tongues entwined while she loosened his tie and began on shirt buttons. Work or not, a confident partner was intoxicating; he filled her head with murmured encouragement, and with the echoes of her own engrossed sighs, while their groceries sat behind them untouched. And the moment the cool of the room touched the bare of her chest, fire from his lips was there to enflame the skin. Teeth tugged at her nipples, crimping impressions that threatened to draw blood but fell just short, and the sound of his belt buckle hitting the tiles promised punctuated the increasing rapidity of their breaths.

“Tell me what you want, Subaru,” she hissed into his ear before sucking the lobe between her lips and pinching it firmly.

“I want,” he growled, looping a hand under her knees and turning her sideways on the bench-top, laying her back with his discarded apron cushioning her head, “to taste every part of you.”

The marble counter was cool, slow to warm even beneath the inflamed expanses of her body, and she squirmed a little in just her lovely burgundy underwear.

“You’re not particularly attached to this lingerie are you?” Subaru enquired, smirking with one broad palm against her stomach as if to hold her down, the other suddenly holding a pair of scissors.

“Better out than in,” Miho replied, eyes on his to ensure he could see the trust she was placing in him.

Sharp implements, burning, anything that would leave lasting injuries was a no go for clients, even if that was their kink, and that was clearly outlined in policies provided in the early stages of proceedings. Miho might have pushed the limits to that here and there, allowing some to go far further than the other girls might have been prepared to, but she didn’t think this was one of those instances.

The flat edge of the bottom blade touched lightly against her abdomen, cold metal used for destruction causing a small shudder to raise goosebumps on her skin. Painfully slow, he guided the blade beneath the scalloped lace, and the scissors closed to the sound of Miho exhaling and the clear tear of elastic.

“I like that face,” Subaru smiled, his free hand sliding up her throat, thumb brushing over her lips. “Don’t move now.”

Despite his warning, Miho tensed as the scissors glided further, material giving way easily, bottom edge slipping just slightly into her crease – grazing the hood of her clit, and slithering all the way between her legs.

“Jesus,” Miho breathed, when Subaru cut the rest of her panties away from her thighs, surprisingly aroused by something so little.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been mistaken for someone’s saviour,” Subaru grinned, a whole lot more aggressive in slicing between her breasts and spilling them from their confinement.

“God complex huh?” she sniffed, moving to sit up, but Subaru pressed her down again.

“No, stay right there and close your eyes,” he instructed, his chocolate brown meres sparkling with mischief.

The scissors had been discarded – Miho was naked and laid out - though not tied up, she was still vulnerable.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

“Talk to me, Subaru,” she prompted, her voice thick with honey.

Honey, now there’s an idea.

But it wasn’t honey that next touched her skin.

The refrigerator had opened and closed, and though – as instructed – Miho kept her eyes shut, Subaru said nothing until she felt a tickle against her left breast.

“What are you…?” she gasped as the soft sensation began to circle her nipple, a gentle wetness leaving a standing trail.

“A proper dessert,” Subaru told her, brushing over her eyelids in an upward motion, and she opened her eyes.

As she lifted her head just slightly, Subaru placed a pitted cherry over her nipple on a bed of stiff, whipped cream.

“Just something you had in the fridge?” she queried, reaching toward his pants, but he took her wrist, and with a click of his tongue placed it back at her side.

“I wasn’t entirely unprepared for tonight you know,” he muttered, drawing a thin line of vanilla scented cream from the back of her hand, lazily up her arm and along her shoulder, before winding neat scrollwork across her collarbone.

“I think this actually constitutes torture,” she muttered, biting her lip. “I’m adding that to my report.”

At this, Subaru paused, and leaned over her face to study it carefully.

“Go ahead and get up if you want me to stop,” he told her seriously, dragging the plastic tip of the piping bag from between her legs, back up to her belly button, though there he left no trail.

At least he knew better than to put that down there.

“Give me something,” she very nearly begged, consciously suppressing the urge to squirm as he created a ridged white line of swirls across her. “Subaru,” she growled, glaring when he added cherries in various places.

“My bet is, you’re usually the one in charge,” he assessed, decorating her other breast. “Someone who doesn’t like to relinquish control, won’t be told, stubborn and vicious in defence of her beliefs.”

Yet she remained motionless but for her measured breathing.

“But you’re so still,” he noted, with a triumphant smirk.

“Who’s profiling who here?” she hissed, narrowing her eyes, and in them Subaru saw that though he was very much correct, she was enjoying his sweet ‘torture’.

“Nothing wrong with a little role reversal is there?” he asked as he straightened, cherry between his fingers upon which he created a little rose of cream.

“I suppose that tells me something about you too,” she noted, watching as he placed the cherry between his lips and leaned toward her.

His eyes were alight with restraint – Miho saw it – as much effort as it was taking for her to play the submissive in their soft little kitchen scenario, he too was holding back.

Cream smeared across her mouth as Subaru offered her the fruit, until Miho allowed him to pass it to her. As she chewed slowly, he traced the outline of her lips with his tongue, maintaining eye contact until he bit firmly over the cherry on her right shoulder.

“Stay,” he told her, voice stern, laced with challenge, following the line he had earlier created, lapping the trail of cream down her arm until all that remained were traces of his saliva.

When the cherry covering her nipple was consumed, Miho closed her eyes and exhaled a long, slow breath, visualising herself from above – the lost smile on her face, the arch of her fingers against the dappled marble counter, the broad stretch of her partner’s shoulders, eyes in smoky overcast, smouldering with passion barely held in check…

Huh?

And she verbalised her surprise in a sharp gasp, her eyes flinging open to find Subaru peering along her body at her in question, tongue poised above her navel.

“Don’t stop,” she hissed, lolling her head to the side and forcing her tensed shoulders to relax. “You know my patience does have limits.”

“Push them,” he commanded, digging his thumbs into the inner creased of her thighs and drawing downward and prying her legs apart.

A pithy retort gathered momentum in her throat and made a dash for freedom, but Miho snapped her teeth closed when Subaru’s tongue touched just below her entrance, tickling with just the very tip, daring her to give in.

“Really? You think that’ll do it?” she whispered harshly, fixing her eyes on the halogen light above – for more reasons than one.

“Then do as you’re told,” he chuckled, before flattening out his tongue, pressing it firmly between her lips and stroking upward.

His fingers followed, spreading the slick of Miho’s anticipation, up over her clit, before sliding back down to the point where she’d even dripped onto the bench. And his index swirled circles around the tightness of her asshole, testing her resolve perhaps.

“You think that’s in my profile?” she breathed, staring, still just staring up though her body begged for her to roll against his persistent stimulation.

“Surprised it’s in both our profiles?” he answered, looking toward her face and licking his lips slowly, pressing insistently until Miho flinched – just her eyebrows, maybe her lips, as he pushed in.

“It’s not in your profile,” she told him, otherwise motionless, watching him watching her over the sickly sweet mess of her breasts.

“Well maybe,” he smiled cockily, as he deliberately he dove deeper, thumb of his other hand pulling back the hood of her throbbing bud and rubbing it ever so slightly with each pass. “Maybe, that’s the difference between he and I – I’ll search out the hidden kinks of my…”

“You and who?” she blinked at the unexpected mention of another man.

And there was only one other man that sprang to mind, and this caused Miho to sit suddenly upright, forcing Subaru to withdraw and straighten.

“Seduction 101,” she coughed out, suddenly very much alert, all trace of heady arousal fled. “Don’t bring another man into the bedroom or… kitchen… unless he’s a prearranged participant with big red bow tied around his cock.” (That may or may not now be nicknamed ‘Domo’ –cough-)

Vigorously she shook her head, baffled.

“Why on Earth would you bring up Goto when you’re just about knuckle deep in my…”

“I didn’t,” Subaru interrupted, stepping forward between her legs that dangled over the edge, and lacing his fingers together behind her ass. “You did.”

“You’re denying your man-crush isn’t who you were referring to?” she grated, barring her teeth as he dragged her right against him, residual cream transferring to his chest.

“I’m not denying anything,” he retorted, his thumbs brushing the top of her crack. “Are you?”

“This isn’t about me,” she volleyed, hands still on the counter either side of herself.

“Right, this is about us,” he agreed. “Two people, who are here, enjoying one another’s company.”

“Then enjoy me,” she hissed into his face, glaring angrily – though she was not angry at him.

Something in his eyes told her he knew that, and his expression softened.

“You’re sticky,” he noted, dragging his thumbnails up her spine and back down again, and Miho rubbed her breasts purposefully against him.

“So are you,” she noted, glad he played along, glad he offered her an opportunity to refocus.

And Miho shoved Goto into a box and closed the lid tightly.

With her legs wrapped securely around her waist, her arms around his neck, Subaru carried Miho out of the kitchen, but he stumbled when she bit into his lower lip, and she found her back up against the wall.

“Ah… you want to get clean or not?” he growled when she released him, wincing when she dug her fingernails into his shoulder blades.

“Dirty is good,” she grinned, and was not disappointed by the ferocity of his reciprocation.

It was hard for her to draw breath, such was the crush of his body against hers – but it had purpose. As he filled her mouth with renewed lust, he wriggled out of his trousers, and not long after, his briefs joined them on the floor.

“Much better,” he announced, gripping her once more and allowing her to come up for air.

“Can’t disagree,” she murmured against his shoulder, scraping teeth across skin. “You’ve tasted plenty of me – put me down and let me return the favour.”

“To get even dirtier?”

“You saying no?” she challenged, perfectly aware he wasn’t.

“No way your profile on me says I’m that crazy,” he laughed, and continued to carry her to the bathroom.

The water thrummed against the glass screen, steam wafting in feathery waves before being drawn away by the silently working exhaust fan. The rhythmic streams splashed sideways as Subaru moved beneath it, warming his back as Miho crouched before him, knees to the swirled black marble shower recess. Resting one hand against the pane, he looked down as she took his shaft between her fingers.

Wordlessly she put it to her lips, kissing softly, softly up its length, and no more – and she was pleased how he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and pursed his lips impatiently. In answer she licked a single line, outlined the head, then kissed again.

“So it’s torture for me too?” he grumbled, wry in his pained expression.

“You reap what you sow,” she smirked up at him, water spray catching in her eyelashes. “And I just want to make sure you last the distance.”

“Last?” he choked out indignantly, placing his other hand lightly against her head and smoothing his fingers through her hair.

“Why don’t you beg me?” she asked, her touch against his balls so light as to barely even register – except his was watching her with such painful scrutiny every slight and glancing touch she afforded him… oh he registered. “Come on, Subaru, talk to me, tell me what you want me to do with this tongue, with these lips, this mouth.”

“I want…” he began, but she cut him off.

“Don’t be crude about it either, Harvard grad,” she grinned, holding his cock delicately, though awkwardly, between just two fingers, barely even touching him at all. “Use your big words.”

“Oh, you’re far meaner than I am,” he sniffed, shaking his head.

“Meaner, is the biggest word you can come up with?” she laughed, pushing up against his hand like she was trying to rise.

“Hey, give a guy a ch… oh mhmm.”

His sentence crumbled in his throat as Miho sucked his cock between her lips and pulled as much of it into her mouth as she could without getting ugly.

Glancing upward, she was pleased to see the way his head hung, the way his eyes had closed, and the slight part of his lips that allowed just enough of his enjoyment to be audible.

“Yessss. Just… like… that,” he encouraged, the pressure of his hand in her moist hair was little more than its weight as she slid him into the hollow of her cheeks, caressing with her tongue as she withdrew him and then licking all the way to the base firmly.

Those sounds were gratifying, affirming, arousing; Miho thought this, every single time she performed oral, and this was no different. She stole his breath, built tension in his muscles, expectation in his mind and anticipation of final satisfaction, and that, was powerful.

Even as he moaned her name to the continuous hiss of the shower, however, leaves crunched beneath her kneecaps, and the wind sighed approvingly against the shadows that concealed them.

“Jesus Miho, stop… stop,” Subaru groaned, trying to tilt her head back and interrupt her far too effective cadence, and Miho blinked back into the bathroom.

“Haaaa,” she exhaled, unable to tease him a little more by grazing her teeth ever so lightly against his head. “Problem?”

“The best kind,” he chuckled breathily, his eyes a little bit hazy, as he stooped to help her to her feet.

That look.

“Don’t tell me you’re ready to pop so soon?” she smiled with infuriating smugness, and in response he spun her around and sandwiched her between his body and the cold tempered glass.

The mirror beyond was clear, and in it Miho was privilege to an unobscured view of herself as Subaru took her hands, and placed them above her head.

“Now we can both watch the faces you make,” he told her, nuzzling his body in behind hers, and this caused her chin to lift in alarm. “Relax,” he crooned, his cock rubbing between her legs, but making no attempt to dig within, “I know the rules – bend, but don’t break, so trust me.”

She didn’t think he was stupid, but with penis involved, there was always a chance for rational thought to take a vacation.

He waited until she looked directly into the mirror, could see she was looking at him over her own shoulder, before sliding his fingers down her crease. As he assailed her clit, he roughly took her left breast and squeezed.

“Soft, or hard?” he hummed, pinching her clit and holding as he awaited her answer.

“Oh, I’m a little of both,” she admitted, her jaw tightening as both hands increased the pressure.

“Masochistic tendencies,” he whispered, biting into the skin just below her right ear. “Sorry, I’m no sadist.”

“Bullshit,” she spat, then cried out when pleasure crossed that threshold, but the moment she moved like she’d lower her arms, he smoothed down with the flat of his hand. “Case in point,” she huffed, leaning her head back against his shoulder.

“Just look at you,” he instructed, resuming circular motions. “You can barely keep your eyes open.”

“Maybe you’re putting me to sleep?” she jabbed, and for her troubles he clamped down on her nipple.

“No crying out this time,” he told her, watching her lips quiver, seeing the muscles in her throat tighten, and delighting in the clench of her thighs as he slid himself between them.

The burn began to spread from her nipple outward, from her clit inward, until she had to clench her eyes shut tightly in order to comply.

Then, with a tingling rush, the pain was replaced by pleasant, comforting warmth, and the light euphoria of endorphins.

“I know criminals and police alike who’d have screamed at less,” he commended, reaching up, and sliding his hands down her arms, turning her once more and nudging her back.

“I’d let you practice your interrogation technique on me, Subaru,” she smiled, as he kissed down her throat, “but Jazz beat you to it.”

“Miss Mann and you, in an interrogation scenario?” he mused, eyes rolling upward, clearly imagining it. “Hot.”

“Not with me, idiot,” she chided, coiling one leg around him and grinding against his thigh. “But since you’re imagining it,” she went on, then spoke the next thickly into his ear, “I wouldn’t tell her no.”

“It’s not too late to call her you know,” he pointed out, testing out the willingness of her rear entrance again with his middle finger. “For scientific purposes of course.”

“Oh, she doesn’t need a re-evaluation,” Miho laughed. “Come on now, enough teasing – if you’re going there, and you really seem like you want to, then you’re going to need more than a finger or two to get me off.”

Really, Subaru didn’t need much more encouragement, quickly dousing her beneath the water’s stream to rinse away any remaining cream, before bundling her out of the shower.

“Have I told you how gorgeous you are?” he suddenly marvelled, wrapping a large, lavender scented bath towel around her. “You know, maybe you should just dump me as a client and marry me.”

Miho shook her head wryly.

It would never get old being told how nice she looked, how great her body was, how it felt, but even off-hand, tongue-in-cheek proposals felt awkward.

And she suddenly wondered how Goto had felt when she’d posed her solution to his hesitation.

“I could do worse, I suppose,” she answered after a few seconds, shuddering when Subaru suckled just momentarily at her clit as he dried up her legs. “And better,” she added cheekily, and he stood, folded the towel over her head and bundled her effectively blindfolded to the bedroom.

“Better?” he snorted as if truly offended, and he gave her a shove onto the bed.

Miho tumbled, flailing for a few seconds while she attempted to untangle herself from the towel, and by the time she’d tossed it aside, Subaru was looping an arm around her middle and pulling her to end of the bed, bending her summarily over several pillows it appeared he’d taken from beneath the comforter.

Allowing herself to be positioned, Miho relaxed – had to relax – and tucked one hand between her legs.

“Money, occupation, education, breeding,” he snorted, tearing across the condom packet with his teeth, watching with ever increasing want as she worked her fingers in and out, spreading the faint gleam of moisture from front to back in clear and open invitation. “Body,” he added, putting one hand on her ass. “What more could you ask for?”

Miho’s answer came as soft, slightly ragged breathing against the fabric softened comforter. In the dimness he could see her eyes were closed, her lower lip caught between her teeth, her brow slightly furrowed.

“Hey,” he prompted, giving her ass cheek a solid slap. “I asked a question you know.”

“I’m waiting, for what more I could ask for,” she told him as she opened her eyes, and pushed herself up onto one elbow. “Unless you want me to…”

“Actually,” he interrupted, suddenly in thought, “you should do that.”

“Hmm,” Miho sighed, rolling onto her back, making a point of sucking on the fingers that had been, moments ago, buried inside herself. “Keeps a tidy house, but makes her do all the work.”

“I just want to watch you squirm without other distractions,” he argued, slowly stroking his rigid shaft, tossing the unused condom accurately into a waste paper basket before lying down beside her. “I want the perfect view of that moment when Miss Control, has absolutely none.”

“If that’s what you want,” she smiled with a slight shrug. “But don’t be mad when you can’t make me cum half as well as I can myself.”

“Ha, no comparison,” he snorted, kissing up her neck to in behind her ear. “Now get to work.”

“So demanding,” she muttered, turning her head to the side, burning her gaze into his as she pulled the hood back over her clit and resumed its zealous fondling.

“I want you to picture me, pressing the head of my cock against your opening,” he told her breathily, and Miho closed her eyes. “I want you to tense in anticipation of that stretch,” he continued, rubbing the pulsing tip of his erection against her outer thigh, “feel it in your stomach boiling and bubbling and building, and moan as you swallow me, gradually, deliberately.”

Subaru’s erotic whispers floated into the dark behind Miho’s eyelids, and as intended, they heightened the ever burgeoning desire in her flesh to feel pleasure at its peak. He’d teased her for far too long, almost as long perhaps, as Yuasa Chiaki – fuck that guy.

But neither were in the image she’d formed. Subaru had told her he wanted to see her with control relinquished, and so she let her mind take her where it wanted to most.

The hands smoothing up her legs were not Subaru’s, the shadow cast over her, not his shape. Fine, inky strands of hair hung slightly over twilight eyes, pools of aching affection flickering lambent strokes against her skin. The faint touch of lips fluttered across her breasts, gliding like the brush of satin, while the unhurried, polish of fingertips explored to the very deepest reaches of her body.

Though it was Subaru who inhaled the word she uttered as her mouth opened, he who engaged the sinuous search of her tongue’s for another, it was those black locks she felt brushing against her forehead.

“Imagine my whole body, pressing you into the soft, sheets,” Subaru suggested, glancing down at the way Miho’s hips had begun to rise to meet the motion of her fingers, “a delicious, heaviness, slick with passion, and sweat, and the most indescribable completeness.”

The weight against her was a familiar one that dragged her deeper into recollection, the nibble at her lips woven with sweet exhales of her name.

“Oh…” she gasped, her jaw locking with the backward tilt of her head, and Subaru had to fight the urge to take her. “Yes…ah…ahh…”

“Right now, I just want to make love to my gorgeous wife,” she heard him say, the impossible friction of him inside her, carrying away the last of her will to resist.

Her orgasm roared like a typhoon, her lungs held in ecstasy’s vice like grip, her body arching up off the bed until Subaru pulled her back down.

“Definitely worth it,” he grinned into her face, but she was still obliviously locked in breathless trembling, hands buried between her legs. “No more holding back,” he hissed into her hair, awkwardly rolling a fresh condom into place and settling himself in behind.

“Oh God,” Miho finally vocalised, swallowing over and over to wet her dry mouth, though the roughness of her breathing made that difficult. “Ngh… ahh…” she moaned, when Subaru bent up her leg and pressed firmly against her asshole. “About fucking time,” she growled, leaning her head back to meet his lips.

And he filled her with such intense pressure she very nearly came again, even before he curled his right arm over her body and stroked across her swollen nub and in between the dripping wetness of her folds.

Slowly at first he dove into her, giving her just enough time to catch her breath before he stole it away with more powerful thrusts. Soon, the room was filled with lustful panting, and moans as firmly entwined as were their writhing bodies.

“Subaru I’m…” Miho whimpered, helpless to say much more in warning before she came a second time, her body staunchly fighting against the stiff buck of her body away from him.

“Again,” he commanded, biting down on her nipple hard, assaulting her clit so mercilessly, Miho actually shrieked against the drowning wave that slammed into once more.

Light-headed though her body felt so heavy with physical rapture, Miho really had to force herself to concentrate – to roll her hips back against him as he pushed forward into her ass, to contract all those internal muscles until the sudden inconsistency of his respiration warned her he was close.

“Come on Subaru, you call this fucking?” she taunted harshly, using all her strength to roll onto her stomach, dragging him part ways with her.

“You’re a glutton for punishment,” he snarled, wrapping both arms around her middle, drawing her up and back against him, while thrusting upward powerfully against the undulation of her pelvis.

“Reward time,” she grinned, grinding him into her with what was left of her energy.

Suddenly Subaru tensed, clamping his arms across Miho’s chest, heaving in great breaths as he came intensely. In that embrace they remained locked, until Subaru’s lips pressed to her shoulder and he pulled her down onto the bed again.

In a comfortable spoon they rested, Miho’s mind drifting to the sensation of other arms that did not wish to let her go.

Drifting.

It was sunlight tickling her cheek that roused Miho from slumber – not the feeling of Subaru pulling back the doona, or covering her back up; not the light swipe of his fingertips smoothing hair away from her eyes; not the sound of the curtain rails rattling.

Sunlight.

“Uhh, what time is it?” she murmured drowsily, but her thoughts were in disarray.

She had not meant to fall asleep – hell, she never even heard her alarm go off at midnight.

“I don’t have to leave for another hour, so you can sleep a little longer if you like,” Subaru told her, pulling on a pair of striped pyjama bottoms, smiling over at her. “I’ll fix breakfast.”

“No, no need,” she said quickly, fighting back the pleasant ache of her muscles to sit up and put her feet to the cold floor. “I should get going. Damnit, I have appointments.”

“You should at least grab a shower before you run: some coffee?” he said, then grinned widely. “Shall I lend you a pair of my briefs?”

“You’re going to be billed for that underwear you know,” she sniffed, shaking her head. “It’s not my usual shtick, but, this won’t be the first time I slink home commando.”

“You’re going to ride the train like that?” he chuckled.

“Yup,” she answered flippantly, fearlessly.

“Hmm I suppose those molesting perverts know better than to target you.”

“Like I said,” she shrugged, padding across the room, “this isn’t my first rodeo.”

He followed her to the kitchen, watching the sway of her hips, noting the red marks on her back, shoulders and neck, some of which might still be visible even when she was dressed.

“So what happens now?” he asked, his hand touching to his crotch almost unconsciously when Miho bent over to retrieve her skirt and blouse.

“I will write up my final evaluation, we meet to discuss it, and following that I provide you with clients I believe best match both your criteria, and my evaluation of you both,” she answered, turning just in time to see him run his hand through his hair.

There was no mistaking his morning desire, however, clearly reaching out toward her.

“A week or two maybe,” she added, beginning to button up her shirt, glad she’d gone for a bold, solid colour.

“Come on, stay for breakfast,” he tried to encourage when she headed for the front door, her heels tapping quietly against the polished wood.

“It’s not breakfast you’re craving,” she smirked, pausing to press her palm flat against his bare chest. “Someone from MJS will be in touch with you soon.”

“Back in control I see,” he observed wryly.

“Exactly where I need to be,” she told him with a nod, curling her hair into a bun and knotting it there.

“You called his name you know,” he offered, tone offhand, but it was a targeted strike no doubt.

“Whose name?” she questioned – no play, no false innocence – just perfectly crafted denial.

“Doesn’t matter,” he chuckled, shaking his head before leaning toward her a little. “You screamed mine louder.”

She left Subaru’s property and headed in the direction of the station, his parting words and the recollection of the night’s activities in perfect focus.

Yet what to do about it was still so blurry.

@hifftn @nitelotus @smile-smile-ichthys @smutmylifeup @mirandaflamel @ladystar0710

#voltage #voltage inc #voltage games #@voltage smut #voltage angst #msb #msb smut #my sweet bodyguard smut #her love in the force angst #hlitf #subaru Ichiyanagi #seiji Goto #MJS

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welcometophu · 7 years

Text

Ghosts 2

Twinned Book 1: Commit to the Kick

Ghosts 2

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“I feel like I’m cheating on Teas Please,” Nate complains. “The gods of desserts are going to smite me.”

“There are no gods of desserts,” Sera tells him.

“Besides, Teas Please is lacking in ice cream,” Trish adds. “It’s okay. You’re on a journey to get something new. Entering places unknown for treats untasted.”

“Poetic,” Nate says.

“Please tell me you’re not writing a song about going for ice cream.”

Trish glances at Thorne. “Why not? I wrote a song about iced tea once. And it was popular. I bet if you and I teamed up, we could write something about ice cream that the whole world decided was actually about sex, and it’d get great airplay.”

Thorne tilts his head, tucks his hair back behind his ear. “I might take that challenge, but not tonight.”

It’s an even larger group than usual walking together, and Alaric can see the ways different groups seem to overlap. Corbin sticks close to him on one side, Chris bumping Alaric slightly as he tries to stay on the sidewalk on his other side. They trail behind Drea, Cass, and Dax. Sera, TJ, Pat, Nik, and Jackson are a clump moving faster than the rest, while Rory, Trish, Mac, and Thorne take up the middle space.

Rory glances back at Alaric, raises an eyebrow, and Alaric tries to make a face to show that he’s fine.

It all seems okay right now, anyway.

Dax slows, Cass and Drea slowing with him. Alaric stops walking before he bumps into them, following when Dax takes a step toward a wrought iron fence alongside the road.

“Fuck,” Dax mutters, and Rory turns back again, brow furrowing.

“Hey, guys,” Thorne calls out, and the entire group slows, looking back where Dax stands, visibly holding himself still.

“Go on,” Dax says quietly. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“I’m not leaving,” Cass says flatly, her arms crossed. “Go on, tell us what’s going on here?”

“Cass….” Drea’s voice trails off.

Trish touches Cass’s shoulder. “Come on. We’ll go get seats. Dax’ll be there soon enough.”

Cass shakes off Trish’s hand. “I’ll wait here,” she says. “You go, we’ll be fine.”

Alaric isn’t sure he wants to just walk away, either. Dax looks pained, hands clenched by his side. There’s a faint smell of citrus in the air, and Alaric meets Drea’s gaze. He shakes his head, and Drea nods.

They’re staying.

Dax starts walking toward the fence, hitching himself up to climb up and over, jumping down to the other side. Alaric spots a gate and heads toward that, Drea and Nate close behind him. He can hear the soft rush of conversation behind them, but he doesn’t worry about it, putting on a burst of speed and knowing Drea will be able to keep up. He’s only a little surprised when Nate lopes along next to him, meeting stride and speed with ease.

They enter the graveyard through the gate, then follow the path, veering off when they spot Dax standing in front of a freshly dug grave. Dax slowly sinks to his knees, presses one hand in the dirt for a moment. Dax’s shoulders rise and fall with a heavy breath, and the scent of citrus floods the space, stopping him in his tracks.

Empath.

“What would you have of me?” Dax asks, voice ringing clearly. He sits back on his heels, then comes to his feet, standing with his arms crossed over his chest.

Heavy breath and footsteps behind them. Alaric’s nostrils flare; Chris, Mac, Rory, Thorne, and Cass. He suspects Corbin’s in a tree somewhere. Drea’s fingers brush Alaric’s, and he takes her hand, squeezing lightly.

“It’s okay, take your time,” Dax says. “I know it’s not easy.” Slow inhalation, exhalation, then the same words all over again. Quietly. Softly. Formally spoken, as if Dax has said them a hundred times before. “What would you have of me?”

Nate takes a step forward, feet sliding in the grass, leaves crunching under his toes. Dax doesn’t even twitch.

“Let him be,” Cass hisses, her fingers wrapping tightly around Nate’s wrist. “Let him do whatever he’s going to do.” Her body tilts toward Dax, her attention avid.

There’s pain in the air, and Nate shakes her off. “Does he look bewitched to you?” Nate whispers back. “What’s going on?”

“Empathic Talent.” Alaric can’t help the way he twitches when he says it. His beast is calm; nothing’s directed at him, but it still pricks under his skin. “I can smell it.”

“Ritual,” Rory says, glancing at Thorne, who nods his agreement.

Dax steps forward, puts both hands on the gravestone and bows his head. There’s a twist of pain threading through the citrus hanging in the air. His fingers curl over the stone, and Alaric catches a faint scent of blood. “What would you have of me?” Dax repeats for the third time, breath hissing out in a sigh when he finishes.

Dax steps back abruptly, like he’s been punched in the gut, his hands dropping to his stomach. Alarm flares in the air, then recedes quickly. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Can’t, really. I just need you to tell me what you need,” Dax says.

“We’re not supposed to be hearing the other side of this conversation, are we?” Nate asks quietly.

“Pretty sure, no.” Mac knocks her hand into his shoulder. “Hush. Let him be.”

Dax closes his eyes, shoulders slumping. “Are you sure you want me to call? I can go there—” He cuts off, takes a step back. “Slow down.”

Dax raises his hands, holds them out as if placating someone. “Slow down, slow down. I can’t understand a word of—yes, I can call. I promise. I’ll call. But if you’d rather I go—” Dax sidesteps, swings one hand out as if he’s blocking a blow. “Hey! I’m trying to help here. You reached out to me.”

Dax spins in place, and the scent of dead earth rises in the air. Alaric pushes at his nose, wishing he could get rid of the odor. It almost looks as if Dax is fighting, every line of his body reluctant until he manages to hold his hands out, fingers curled around something that isn’t there. Dax stands steady, his arms shaking slightly with the effort.

“You need to give me the number,” Dax says softly. Gently. He cocks his head, listens, and speaks numbers as if repeating them back to someone. Nate tugs his phone out of his pocket and when Dax repeats them for the second time, Nate notes them down on his phone.

Dax sags after the numbers are said, his voice tired when he asks, “Just a phone call, then? That’s all you need?”

He listens intently, murmurs, “Third brick from the left, fourth row down, seriously?” Nate taps every word Dax says. Dax straightens up, pushes his fingers through his short hair until the curls stick up. “I hear your words,” Dax says solemnly. “I accept your charge. It will be done.”

The scents of earth and citrus fade into the breeze.

“Well, that was unique,” Corbin murmurs, and Mac jerks back.

“Where the hell did you come from?”

“You’re not the only one good at sneaking.” Corbin grins. “Just flew in from a bird’s eye view.”

Dax turns slowly, sees the group standing there. “So. You saw that.”

“You might need this.” Nate holds out his phone. “I mean, I’m guessing your memory is good and that wasn’t the first time something like that happened, but you also looked like you were half in a trance. So, notes.”

Dax’s laugh is dry. “Yeah, definitely not the first time. You guys should’ve gone on to the ice cream place.”

“Of course I waited for you.” Cass’s tone is light, concerned, but there’s anger in her scent, mixed with a hint of fear. “I wasn’t going to leave you standing in a graveyard, talking to….” She waves at the grave.

“Newly dead person,” Dax says. “Her name’s Tiffany, and she’s still unsettled by the entire experience, and she’s worried about her kid, and this….” He rubs at his forehead. “Okay, yeah, Nate, mind if I borrow that for a second?” He takes the phone in one hand, uses his other thumb to tap numbers into his own phone. He hands Nate’s phone back to him, holds up a hand to Cass when she takes a step toward him. “I’m not done yet. Let me do this, then we can go get ice cream. Okay?”

Dax walks away, far enough that he’s out of Alaric’s hearing. When Corbin twitches, Drea reaches for him, holds him in place. “Let him be,” Drea murmurs.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I am not thinking ice cream after that,” Thorne says quietly. “I’ve never seen a Talent like that. Didn’t Dax say he’s Lineage?”

“Yeah, but he never talks about it,” Chris says. “We’ve known each other since football started before our freshman year and he’s never said a word.” He glances over at Cass, who shakes her head, lips pursed.

“Don’t look at me. Obviously he didn’t confide in me.” Anger and hurt in her scent, her arms crossed tightly like a shield. “I’ve never seen him do anything like this.”

“It might be private,” Nate points out.

“We’ve been together two years,” Cass snaps back. “You’d think we’d know intimate details.”

Rory twitches, and Alaric would lean into him, but he’s not close enough. He looks over, and Rory’s attention is entirely on where Dax stands curled around the phone, his words muffled.

“Give it a rest, Cass.” Thorne manages to slip between her and Nate, getting an arm around Cass’s shoulders. “Some of us are open about our Talent, some have no choice, and others like keeping it private. Unless you’ve had the I’ll show you mine and you show me yours conversation and he lied, leave it.”

“I don’t have a Talent,” Cass hisses. “And yes, I knew he had one. But Empathic? Talking to ghosts? Whatever,” she waves a hand at the gravesite, “that was?”

“Maybe it’s personal.” Rory’s words are soft and slow, echoing Nate’s sentiment. Nate gestures at Rory, as if he’s agreeing, while Rory continues, “Not everyone likes to have their Talent public.”

“You’re a Mage. Everyone knows you’re a Mage.”

Rory’s expression is even as he looks down at her. “I wasn’t talking about me. Give him a break. And maybe try listening to his explanation before you go off on him. If you’ve been together two years, why blow it up over this?”

This is exactly why love isn’t worth it. This is a mess. Alaric takes a step back, as if he can separate himself from the intensity of the emotions and charged scents thick in the air around him. Cass’s anger chokes him, and he raises a hand to his throat as if he can clear it somehow.

There are shoulders on either side of him, familiar scents to cloud the air around him. Corbin on one side, Chris on the other.

And footsteps through the leaves as Dax returns.

“You’re an Empath.”

Dax stops at Alaric’s blunt words, his phone held loosely in his hand. He lowers it slowly, tucks it into a pocket. “Sort of,” he says. “But only for dead people, and only if they’re lingering around, needing to get something done. And when it happens, I don’t exactly have a choice about it, either. It’s not the kind of thing that comes up all the time.” He spreads his hands, “Unless I pass a graveyard at the wrong time, like tonight.”

“So what happened?” Thorne sounds as curious as he ever is. “You literally hopped the fence to get in here.”

“It’s urgent, when I hear someone calling. I can’t ignore it,” Dax says. “I felt her, and I had to come in and that was the quickest way. I just wanted to get it done, and I figured you’d all go on to get ice cream and I’d catch up.”

Cass makes a soft sound of disbelief, her lips pressed tightly, scent sour.

“We weren’t going to abandon you,” Nate says.

“Well, now that we’ve all taken a detour so I could phone someone’s mother in order to let her know where her daughter hid the cash she’d been paid under the table while working, so she can take care of her granddaughter, can we go on?” Dax pauses as he walks past Alaric, puts a hand on his shoulders. “I can’t do anything to you,” he says quietly. “I can’t even do anything to them. All I can do is listen, and promise to help, and it’s more like they control me than the other way around. But I won’t get in your head.”

“I know.” Alaric’s beast can tell the difference. He claps Dax’s shoulder, nudges him to keep walking. “I’m okay with it, not going to let the dragon out just because you reek like an Empath.”

Dax slides an arm around Cass’s shoulders, tugs her close and kisses her forehead.

“We’ll talk later,” he murmurs, and she makes a displeased noise.

Alaric glances at Chris as the group begins to move again, heading out of the graveyard. He doesn’t smell surprised, but he doesn’t smell settled either. Concern, confusion. When his gaze shifts, Alaric realizes that Drea’s looking right at him. She tilts her head, asking a question and it takes him a moment to follow what she’s thinking.

When her gaze flicks to Dax, he catches on.

Oh.

He’s going to need to think about that.

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sarahburness · 6 years

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How Creativity Creates Mindfulness, Happiness, and Peace

“Mindful and creative, a child who has neither a past, nor examples to follow, nor value judgments, simply lives, speaks and plays in freedom.” ~Arnaud Desjardins

No human being lives without experiencing the duality of life.

Good and bad. Love and hate. Life and death. Acceptance and rejection. Success and failure. Joy and jealousy. Compassion and judgment.

So why do we spend so much time trying to pretend that it’s bad to experience all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly?

Even our weather men and women tell us it’s a going to be a bad day because it’s raining or snowing. I mean, come on! The earth rejoices when it rains; snow is a natural part of our eco-system.

Why do we try so hard to suppress the difficult feelings and experiences in our lives? Because our brains are wired that way? Because we were traumatized? Because our parents, teachers, and God knows who else told us to?

Does it really matter, as we heal, who, where, and why?

I remember the first time I heard the quote “Thoughts are things.”

I knew instantly that if that was true, I was in trouble because I had a lot of thoughts I wasn’t proud of and never voiced out loud. I was taught at a very young age not to “rock the boat” or be “too dramatic” and the worst, “Your mom is unhappy because of you kids.” Yikes!

So, when things got bad at home or at school or at church, they got stuffed. In me. In my heart. In my gut and in my head.

On the outside I looked fine. Cute, bubbly, artistic, smart. But on the inside I was scared, confused, and anxious, and did not have a clue how to interact comfortably with people.

I tried really hard (unsuccessfully) to fit in.

Luckily, I had the outlet of art. I drew, I painted, I sewed, I made batiks—whatever I could get my hands on in the art department at the Catholic High school I went to, or whatever my mom would let me touch at home. She was an amazing seamstress, but, with eight kids, had neither the time nor patience to teach me. Luckily I’m old enough that we had “Home Ed” in high school, so I learned to sew well enough that my mom would let me use her sewing machine.

Being creative got me through high school and into college with no major consequences. I wasn’t insecure, lonely, or in need of an outlet. I didn’t drink too much, I wasn’t promiscuous, and I didn’t do drugs.

Fast forward a couple decades and I can tell you that eventually, I did experience the consequences of trying to drink my thoughts and feelings away.

I stayed pretty creative as long as I could, but, as life goes, I grew up, got married, had kids, and started to work.

The turning point was when I lost my family of origin after some dramatic, painful events that I've chosen not to discuss publicly. (I learned the hard way that going over and over painful past events is not helpful to my healing.)

I could not deal with what was going on inside of me.

I started to drink more and more to squash what I was feeling.

Within a few years, the addictive gene in me eventually cried out “GOT YA!” and I was lost.

And this is what led me to the finding peace through being creative again. My crisis. My breakdown.

An intervention with beautiful, sober women, who didn’t know me but wanted to see me find myself again led me to being creative again.

These women had been learning how to draw and paint from a friend who eventually became my sponsor.

When I saw what these women had painted, with no artistic experience, it triggered something good inside me—the memory of being creative. (Yes, people, we can have good triggers!)

“Whatever this is, I’m in!” I said, and I was on my way home. Home to my true self.

They introduced me to an art form I had never heard of before, mandalas. I had no idea what a “mandala” was. Never heard of it and didn’t care. The mandala teacher had a studio full of every art supply you can imagine and space for many women to create. I was in heaven!

As I drew and painted my first mandala, my creative mind took over and the crazy thoughts in my head stopped.

I didn’t realize it then, but being creative again forced me to be what we all strive for when we think of being mindful: calm, serene, awake, and aware.

My goal was to have fun and be creative again, but what I got was far more than that.

I reactivated the divine creative energy we are all born with.

When I’m engaged in any creative activity, my “monkey mind” settles down. My inner critic has little to say. I’m not regretting the past or fearing the future. I’m in the here and now. I’m centered, relaxed, and rejuvenated.

I got really curious—what’s was going on?

Why had engaging in creative endeavors become so significant in my life? Why did it feel like that had been the single most important thing in my healing (after being sober, that is)?

The Interconnectedness of Creativity and Mindfulness

So began my research into creativity and mindfulness.

I discovered that Carl Jung used art therapy with his patients. He encouraged the spontaneous drawing of mandalas. He believed that by just letting his patients draw with no interference, they would heal things in their psyche without even knowing it.

“Most mandalas have an intuitive, irrational character and, through their symbolical content, exert a retroactive influence on the unconscious. They therefore possess a “magical” significance, like icons, whose possible efficacy was never consciously felt by the patient.” ~Carl Yung

I stumbled upon a new book about the power of doodling called The Doodle Revolution, by Sunni Brown. In the book, Sunni cites a lot of very famous people who used doodling to help them think better and retain information. She challenges all the parents, teachers, and bosses who say, “Stop doodling! Get serious! Grow up!”

“There is NO SUCH THING as a mindless doodle,” according to Sunni.

CNN reports creative activities impact the body in a way similar to meditation. It’s like yoga for your brain.

This was also about the time that “adult coloring” became a billion-dollar industry. Why are millions of adults coloring, I wondered?

The more research I did, the more obvious it became.

Our society is craving sanity. Coloring reminds us all of the days of childhood when it was okay to pick up crayons and zone out for a bit. Having “adult” coloring books has given millions permission to stop, color, and find peace.

What I personally experienced while being creative was mindfulness; my brain was quiet yet active brain while painting, collaging, sewing, drawing, coloring, baking, and crafting.

Being creative somehow taught me the skill, if you will, of paying attention to me, of being mindful.

As it turns out, when you are being creative, you are using both your creative self and your analytical self, your left and right brain hemispheres at the same time. This not only quiets your mind, it engages it.

You are creating without angst. It kind of just happens.

My creative self was reawakened. I was allowing myself to be me, to feel me.

Having something creative “in the wings” became important, something to look forward to. Downtime became fun instead of something I dreaded.

This is not say that being mindful instantly became an easy process for all the other times when I was not doing something creative.

Having gone through some pretty traumatic years, it was “normal” for thoughts of dread, unworthiness, sadness, and shame to rumble through my mind, like the undercurrent of a river when I was engaged in mundane activities.

Being alone cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, doing bills, and working was still wrought with angst and despair.

I began to yearn for that calm, serene mindfulness I felt while being creative at all times in my life. So I engaged in more creative activities and hung out with people who were on the same path of healing. I began to create a new “family” of people who supported and loved me.

I found and became active in a spiritual home. I started to naturally attract friends on the same path of becoming more creative, more mindful, more spiritual, more compassionate and successful in all areas of life.

I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and learned how important it is to notice it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.” ~Eckhart Tolle

Wow, it’s okay to have “bad” thoughts. It’s actually normal. It’s hard. And I learned that it’s my responsibility alone how to handle it.

I’ve subscribed to helpful blogs like TinyBuddha.com and mindful.org.

I started doing Bikram (hot) yoga.

Ninety minutes in a hot room doing yoga brought up a lot of difficult memories. But I stayed with it. I stayed in the room even though I was terrible and even though I would sometimes cry during the thirty-second rest periods between poses as I processed memories of hating my body and feeling ashamed and remembered being teased for being fat.

I began meditating.

At first I could only meditate with music or a guided meditations for five to ten minutes. I meditated like this sporadically for years.

Just recently I started meditating in the morning and before bed at the suggestion of my life coach. She suggested two to five minutes, silently, in the lotus position. I said, “I can do at least ten I’m sure.” Much to my surprise, ten minutes was easy so I progressed to fifteen, then twenty, then thirty.

I am now meditating for thirty minutes, alone, no music, sitting in the lotus position (as best I can) twice a day. This I consider a miracle. Meditating like this has also allowed more memories to gently come up and dissipate. Wow.

Being mindful is not always an easy road, but it’s a much better path than trying to stuff painful memories, feelings, and thoughts down.

It’s much easier than trying to drink them away.

I know this to be true.

Being mindful has helped me be comfortable with my thoughts. Okay, that’s not always true—I still sometimes get angry and want them to go away, but I don’t dwell as much, I don’t lash out as much, and I am most definitely a happier, more peaceful person.

The Process of Being Creative Triggers Memories—Good Ones

If you activate your divine creative energy, you are activating the positive, shiny aspects of yourself. You remember happier times. You feel accomplished. You’re happy with yourself. You smile more (and people smile back)!

As you then become more mindful, perhaps through yoga and meditation, the difficult thoughts and feelings are balanced with the positive, creative, and happy aspects of you.

You take responsibility for your life. It’s fun to be with you.

You realize that you are the person you’ve been waiting for.

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from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-creativity-leads-to-mindfulness-happiness-and-peace/

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