#and no i cannot whittle it down

[b4kuch1n]

pre-holiday leave crumbs

[pooklet]

uuuuUUgh *lies down and dies the death of a jump bug that can’t be replicated outside a specific family that has something to do with traits but trying to load the family without them in just causes the game to hang on the house loading screen indefinitely thus making it impossible to find out what the fuck is actually causing the bug RIP to me plant nice flowers over my grave pls*

[valsyr]

yes this is a freya blog .  no y’all are not exempt from me talking abt odin

[carlytayjepsen]

ended up really liking the monopoly cards so figured i'd make a set that's just taylor, was like "yeah 20 or so i guess will be cute". ended up with 95 of them sjnksgadv

[righteousruin]

carnation, chamomile, hollyhock

botanical headcanons || accepting

carnation :   what is your muse’s relationship with their gender ?how do they express or not express this relationship ?

Bane doesn’t have much relationship with gender. He wasn’t raised in a world that praised masculinity as much as it did strength and power. He was completely isolated from human life throughout his entire puberty phase, the only woman he’d ever met before 30 was a mother who died when he was 6. Venom did so much damage to his system that he’s had to undergo hormone therapy just to restore his body’s ability to perform baseline physiological functions without it. He was assigned male and he identifies as male, but his gender is an outlier to all things. Even Batman said he was neither god nor man. He is more. He is Bane.

chamomile :   what is your muse likely to take away from a painful experience ?are they one to be haunted by adversity ,   or to use what they’ve gone through to become stronger ?

Bane struggles to identify painful experiences, because his pain tolerance -- both physical and emotional -- is very high. The weak points in his armor are deep enough to bleed him out, but they are difficult to find without help, and Bane only acknowledges a small percentage of them exist. He deals with his pain in both ways. Bane does not acknowledge when adversity haunts him, he only expresses an experience as an objective event -- clinical context for his actions. But his subconscious makes dark work of it, and if he is struggling with something, he will have vocal night terrors. He will not explain them. Typically, Bane uses all of his experiences to become stronger. He is a strategist and a tactician, who was long ago told by an enemy that his impressive understanding of theory can never compensate for his lack of experience. Since then, he has sought to gain experience and destroy any insecurities (or weaknesses) that may have derived from recognizing he was in unfamiliar territory. He is still learning, but at least now he can admit that he is still learning.

hollyhock :   how strong is your muse’s sense of ambition? what’s something they strive for in life ?

Bane's sense of ambition started as a delusion of grandeur -- a dream of being ruler of all things -- a fantasy to keep him alive. He once thought defeating Batman and taking his city from him was his spiritual gateway to that end. After his defeat, he realized that his enemies ran much deeper than Gotham, and his ambition became to find his father, and make him pay for the sentence Bane served in his stead. He did get distracted meeting and gaining favor with Ra's al Ghul, and briefly pursued world domination again, but was again defeated, and again realized there was more work yet to be done on himself, and returned to seeking his father. After he regretfully succeeded, for a time, Bane strove for righteousness. He proclaimed innocence, and so he would be a man who only did what he knew was right. This did not look like Batman's no-killing law-based justice -- Bane cannot will himself to put faith in a system that took half his life for nothing -- but it did help him understand his own morality and stand by it. After learning that he was hellbound despite his self-appointed righteous morals, Bane is now at a point of true neutrality. His current goal is simply to survive while he figures out how to live without certainty in his own path. He does not know what he wants, and so he wants nothing.

[shorthaltsjester]

trying to be so, so normal about thinking about a half-orc with whittled down tusks and another man’s voice without a home running into a blue tiefling seeking out adventure and a place in the world who asked him if they could “walk together a bit”. and now a half-orc who is an admiral with a home port and a family who loves a blue tiefling who helps her friends fight undead and trauma (and on occasion both) who has a godfriend she can drag through a gate spell and ask to do her a favour once a week. trying to not lose my mind about jester growing up reading about whirlwind romances and teasing fjord about them but confiding in yasha that one of the things she values most in her relationship to fjord isn’t all the things that come from her understanding though her mother and romance novels, it’s that she feels comfortable with him. and like, even decked out like the most romance novel cover versions of themselves, they are still both kinda goofy and awkward and charming about their relationship in a way that fulfils jester’s big silly romanticizing heart but also is very, very genuine to who both the characters are and how they go about the world.

like i know a lot of people talk about the laura and travis of it all a lot and it is a very sweet aspect of fjord and jester but i cannot emphasize how much jester and fjord as characters who meet and then grow around and because of each other, who see beneath one another’s masks and support each other is something that is so compelling and well done and built towards regardless of the ever present claims that it only happened because laura decided to romance travis in their dnd game.

[cordeliawhohung]

Touch Me 'Till I Vomit (pet!au) [12]

pet!au | ghoap x fem!reader | tag list

gentle

cw: angst, non-con touching, dub-con sex, smut, hate fucking if you squint

Click. Click. Click. 

Johnny won’t stop messing with his pen. Repetitive clicks echo in the small space in his art room as he hunches over his journal, shading away at some image just beyond your view. It’s distracting. That slip of plastic against plastic. It’s not as acidulous as a firing pin striking metal — nor is it nearly as dangerous — but it’s enough to get the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. Enough to make you remember the weight of an empty gun biting into the palm of your hand. It’s unforgiving, like a bad dog. 

Brain too perforated to properly concentrate, you tap the eraser of your pencil against the notebook in your lap. The scrawlings of a madwoman taint the paper between its faded blue lines. It’s a gift from Johnny. Shoved it into your hands the other day because he said you looked bored. Told you that you fidget too much without something to busy yourself with, and he needs you to sit still in order to draw you properly. It was unusually astute of him to notice something so small about you. You’ve descried something more than just a lowering haze over the sapphire of his eyes, but you’re unable to put it into words. 

He’s different these days. You don’t know why.

Either way, you are grateful for the escape. You’ve repurposed this old, fading notebook into a diary of sorts. Some place to pour your thoughts out to something that has no other choice than to listen — something that cannot bite you. For so long you have carried so much inside of you; not just the pain and fear, but the little things, too. You nearly cried when you realized you finally had a place to put it — that weight — down. 

It wasn’t until you flipped to the first page that you realized you don’t know what the date is. Your passage of time has been warped again and again. A tablet dissolving in your drink made you lose days. Johnny taking you on the floor while a football game droned in the background made you lose years. You try to count the time in other ways. The length adding to your hair. Golden leaves catching fire on the fringes of the forest. An algid whisper on the wind dancing through the open window. The way summer dies with a sputtering pule. 

These days, you measure the turn of the earth by feel. Months. Hours. It doesn’t matter to you how long you have been trapped here; you only care about how much life you have left to live when you escape. 

Johnny. John? Soap. Like the bar. Never feels clean. Never makes me feel clean. Scottish. Tattoo on forearm. Coat of arms? Military? Wannabe? Scar on head. Shot? Simon said so. When? Who? Matching scar. No. Never. 

Simon. Simon. Just Simon. English. Manchester? Guns. Hunter. Big guns. Fucked up nose. Fucked up everything. Scars. One on ribs. Butcher? Smells like blood. Hate him. Animal. Lots of tattoos. Took me as a pet for Johnny. Mad man. Bad man. 

Me. Not Bonnie. Something else. Someone else. Bartender. How old am I? Need haircut. 

Miss my jumper. 

Miss my mum. 

Miss ice cream. 

Had an interview before I was taken. What day? Missing since… June. June. Summer. Hot. Did they ever call back? Needed better job. Wonder if they’re looking for me. Is anyone looking for me? Always called mum on Sundays. 

Does her phone ring now that I’m gone?

No. Not gone. Not yet. Not ever. 

I hope her phone rings.

Scribbles muddle the margins between fractured words and thoughts. You can conjure nothing more than empty, uneven eyes and dried flies lining burnt window sills. What creativity lingers in the fringes of your mind stays in the mess of grey matter; never something to brand the off white paper in your hands. Masterpieces cannot be created in a cage. You save what little energy you have for dreaming. You dream of a day when your teeth grow long enough they don’t whittle down to sand when you try to sharpen them. 

“Bonnie?” 

Johnny moves quietly. Or, your ears are growing old. Too busy trying to recall sounds you used to love; unable to make sense of the cacophony that constantly surrounds you in this tomb. He’s already eye level with you by the time you look up. Crouched next to your plushy chair, a wide hand sits on the armrest that props your elbow. He’s got his journal in hand, and you are very aware of the way he curiously eyes your own. You slam it shut with the pencil between the pages before setting it aside. 

His eyes follow your hands with question, but he says nothing as he turns his journal for you to see. Truly, Johnny has a talent you’ve rarely seen others show off. Meticulously crafted sketches brand the paper, etching your likeness in grey graphite. He captures every curve of your body as you lean in the recliner, eyes narrow with concentration. You’re drawn with a smile on your face, but those muscles in your cheeks have been dormant for so long you’re not sure you could conjure the expression if you tried. 

“That looks lovely,” you compliment. It’s not a lie, but it rolls off of your tongue like it is. 

“You’re lovely,” he fires back. Playful. Light. 

There it is again. That look. Heavy lids threaten to smother the blue hue of his eyes — heavy with a concupiscence so thick it’s palpable in the air that separates you from him. You hope one day it solidifies — turns into some protective barrier — but it never will. 

It starts like it always does. The slicing of the threshold, brittle like eggshells and bones. You don’t think about it as he presses his lips to yours. You keep your mind full of other thoughts because if it’s empty, there’s more room for worse things. Bitter things. A man can only stare at a meal for so long before his hunger consumes him. You are liquid. A flowing being molding into the shape of his body as his torso pinches your legs against the recliner. It’s easier to give in. Hurts less. Angers Simon less. Even with that monster gone you behave because the walls have eyes. Dark brown irises that do nothing but stare and smirk. 

“Ow!”

But you still have your limits, and your body aches more often than it is numb these days, and Johnny’s hands haven’t grown any softer. He paws at you with claws that can’t retract and you wince. Your breasts are sore from weeks — no, months — of abuse. They’re silent wounds that will not heal and always, always scream. 

Then, it stops. 

Johnny’s hands retract from your body at the same time as his lips do, leaving you breathlessly dumbfounded. Blinking away the confusion, your eyes settle on Johnny who retreats back to sitting on his haunches. Blue eyes shimmer in the late summer sun as he shifts. For once, you are the one above him instead of the other way around. He looks up at you as if you’re an angel—

—as if he’s begging for forgiveness. 

“Did Ah hurt you?” he asks. 

“Uh… a-a little bit,” you admit stiffly. 

“A’m sorry.” 

There’s something in his eyes that unsettle you. You think back to that night when his body thrashed and squirmed next to you on the bed, fear reverberating through the mattress. Panicked and screaming; unable to rip himself from some nightmare. How he screamed about wanting to go home. Your stomach twists at the very thought, and it only gets worse when you realize that — for once — he looks more human than mutt. 

“It’s okay. I… I know you didn’t mean it,” you whisper. 

“Never. Ah would never hurt you,” he concurs. A breadth of stillness freezes the room and for the longest time you hear nothing but the chatter of birds. Johnny reaches for you with a singular hand, and rests it on top of your leg, heavy and warm. “Bonnie, are ye afraid of me?” 

Vocal chords turning to stone, your throat seizes as you attempt to answer. “No,” you lie. Cautious eyes flicker to the walls around you like they’ll crumble at any moment. Something slices through the prostration in your chest, and a strange cogitation flickers in the back of your mind. It’s as strong as it is terrifying, but you find your body executing it before you’re able to stop it. “But… Simon does. He terrifies me.” 

Johnny’s mouth fills with well meaning mirth. “He’s scary alright, but he won’t hurt ye. Simon’s not like that.” 

“I’m still worried he might,” you admit. A hesitant hand reaches out and rests over Johnny’s. The smile on his face quickly melts away into surprise as he stares up at you with parted lips. “But you wouldn’t let that happen. Right?” 

“Never.” His response is quick. Sharp and eager as he leans closer. His other hand comes up to rest upon yours, sandwiching you into a small embrace. “Cannae ever let anythin’ bad happen to ye.” 

Something shudders in your chest. Your diaphragm, maybe. It quivers and quakes as if you hold a bird’s nest within yourself. Foreign words begin to scratch at the back of your tongue, tickling your throat. You know well enough to bite them back, but as you stare at Johnny’s smile — lips pulled wide — someone stronger chokes the words out for you. 

“You’re so good to me, Johnny,” you whisper, voice whiny as you scoot forward in the recliner. Slipping your hand out of his grasp, your palms instead reach up to cup his face. His smile fades into parted lips and bated breath as your thumbs rub against abrasive stubble. You don’t think you’ve ever seen his eyes dilate so wide before. “Such a good boy, aren’t you?” 

“Ah try tae be,” he swallows. 

“I know you do.” 

It takes an eternity for your lips to meet his. Just when you think you’ve halved the distance, it only grows, and you’re unsure if it’s because of the scream of betrayal in your chest, or something worse. He groans when your bodies finally reunite, and you play into the fantasy his sick brain is infested with. Precious Bonnie. So supple and pliant in his hands. If only he knew you were this soft because muscles cannot properly tense around broken bones. 

You pull Johnny onto the recliner by his collar, but you ensure you’re the one to land on top. Legs spreading wide to accommodate his thighs, your knees squish into the sides of the arm rests, sending journals and pencils flying to the ground. When he paws at your chest again, you bite back the urge to push him away. To slice your nails through the back of his hand. Fingers pressing into tender flesh, he stares up at you like he’s finally able to feel the heart beating beneath his palms. 

“You wanna fuck me?” Those words sting on the way out, but you attempt to distract yourself from the pain as you grind down onto Johnny’s lap. He nods, hips pathetically bucking up. “Yeah? Ask me, then.” 

Thick brows pinch together as he parts his lips. It’s as if his request is on the tip of his tongue, but his hands have a mind of their own. Wandering. Grabbing. Pinching. 

“No,” you chastise. “Use your words, Johnny.” 

“Please. Please, Bonnie.” It’s pathetic. He says the words like he’s speaking to Simon. 

“Good boy,” you coo. “Gentle now. Gentle, Johnny.” 

He fumbles with the fly of his jeans, all too eager. His cock hardly has time to spring free before he’s already making a mess. Precum drips everywhere, staining the band of your shorts as his reddened tip slaps against you. Too worried about keeping your power, you don’t bother to properly remove your clothes. Instead, you move the gusset of your shorts and panties to the side before sinking down onto him. This has to be quick. You promise yourself it will be. 

All the while, you remind Johnny to be gentle, gentle, gentle.

Even when you’re in control, it still hurts. There’s that stretch and sting as you split yourself open, but you take it slow. Steady. Unlike Johnny, you allow yourself to adjust. He’s panting beneath you by the time you fully take him. You feel so full of rot it upsets your stomach, but you try to mask your trembling with a gentle rock of your hips. His moan is cacophonous, and your fingers itch to dig into his throat and render his vocal chords useless, but you relent. 

Always, always relenting. 

There is an intense appetency for blood that itches in the back of your mind. Even as you fake your moans and rock your hips, you want to take your hands and dig. Fingers piercing through flesh, cutting through bone; you wouldn’t stop until Johnny’s heart is in the palm of your hands. Still beating. Still fresh. You could squeeze it for an eternity and it still would only be a fraction of the pain you’ve been made to endure. 

You hate him. You hate him like a mother hates her daughter. Like how eyes hate mirrors. How the sun hates flesh. 

“Johnny?” you choke out. “Do you love me?” 

It takes him a moment to catch his breath, mouth stuck open as he stares up at you. “Aye. So much, Bonnie.” 

“Yeah? So you’d do anything for me?” you challenge. You try not to wince as he butts up against your cervix, but you know you can’t afford to stop. 

“Aye.”

“Anything I ask?”

“Anythin’ ye ask. Fuck, Bonnie A’m-” 

“I love you, Johnny.” It’s acid. Pure bile on your tongue. You nearly choke on the words, but you repeat them again. “I love you so much.”  

You hide your face in the crook of his neck when he comes. Thick fingers dig into your hips as you hold still, allowing him to spill his seed inside of you like he always does. His pulse throbs against your lips and you restrain the urge to take the artery into your maw and bite down. There’s nothing in your mouth but pathetic, brittle teeth. You don’t even think you could break through his skin. Still, you dream of it. Running the tips of your fingers along Johnny’s jaw, you yearn for a day when you have the weapons and tools to free yourself. It’s a long, agonizing process. One you’re not sure you have the patience for. 

And so, when you lean back to look at him, you stare at his lips. Soak up the way the delicate skin parts as he smiles up at you, allowing you to catch sight of his teeth. You might not have sharp canines, but he does. You know first hand the way they can dig into your lip and draw blood from skin. Fingers twitching, you yearn to pull the canines from his mouth, to wield them for yourself, but you know you’re not strong enough. 

But maybe, someday, you can be the guiding hand. Point a finger and say go fetch and have Simon’s head delivered to you. That day is too far over the horizon for you to view, but the vision of it is so clear in your mind that it’s enough for now. Right now, you’ve taken the first step.

“Good boy,” you croon as you thumb over his bottom lip. “Good boy, Johnny.” 

You’ll just have to keep walking.

[createandconstruct]

I will NEVER be okay about izuku and toshinori's relationship. Like, THEY SAVED EACH OTHER. THEY LIVE FOR EACH OTHER.

THEY CANNOT BEAR TO LOSE EACH OTHER

A MAN WITH THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD ON HIS SHOULDERS. WEIGHED DOWN BY INJURY AND SELF-IMPOSED ISOLATION. WHO HAD RESOLVED TO WALK FORWARD, WHITTLING HIS BODY AWAY UNTIL HE REACHED A HORRIFIC AND LONELY DEATH. WHO FOUND A REASON TO AGAIN LIVE IN A QUIRKLESS, FRIENDLESS BOY

A BOY WHO ONLY HAD HIS MOTHER. WHO DESPERATELY NEEDED JUST ONE SINGLE PERSON TO BELIEVE IN HIM. WHO FOUND THAT PERSON IN THE HERO HE ADMIRED THE MOST. A HERO WHO SWORE ON HIS LIFE THAT HE'D RAISE IZUKU. THAT HE'D D I E FOR HIM. AND THEN, EVEN HARDER: THAT HE'D L I V E FOR HIM.

LIKE THAT'S TOSHINORI'S PRIDE AND JOY. THE REASON HE IS S T I L L HERE. BUT ALSO: VICE VERSA. WHEN IZUKU THINKS BACK ON OFA HE THINKS BACK TO THE UNCONDITIONAL BELIEF AND SUPPORT. THE "YOU CAN BE A HERO." THE ONE THING THAT LONELY 14 YO BOY NEEDED MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE.

All Might IS the father figure in Izuku's life. He IS, definitively, the most important adult in Izuku's life RIGHT NEXT TO THE BOY'S MOTHER. HE IS TO IZUKU WHAT NANA WAS TO HIM. Life flashing before his eyes, faced with death, Izuku cries out to the two of them. His PARENTS.

I can't sleep, I can't eat. I will think about these two forever. Beyond the end. All Might the hero who was shown how to be just a man by being a father. Izuku the fan, who discovered his worth through the support of his hero, who came to love & raise him as a father does a son

[tomatopers]

Childe who spends every waking moment tracking your killer, ignoring everything else to find the culprit, the one who had the audacity to think they could take you away from him and escape with their lives. He travels all across Teyvat, yet cannot bring himself to stop and see any of it though he knows you would've wanted to- hell, he can't even bring himself to sleep, instead passing out in alleys when he can no longer escape his own limits.

Childe who follows every clue, who ensures every dead end has no gaps, who finally, finally tracks down his target. They are stronger than he expected, but even without the rage boiling in his blood he could still beat them. He jumps into the fight without hesitation, fighting like a feral dog out for blood.

Childe who is sloppy with his attacks, not sloppy enough to miss but enough to leave openings for his opponent. He knows its on purpose. He wants to hurt. He fights and he fights, drawing it out, sustaining more and more injuries until, in a whirlwind of steel and anger, weapons meet their marks.

When the dust settles, your murderer lays dead on the ground. Childe stands, victorious, but the win brings him no joy. His opponent's dagger is embedded deep in his chest, and he had seen it coming. He couldn't bring himself to dodge it. This is a blatant betrayal towards you, towards your memory and your love. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "Don't be mad."

From his pocket, Childe holds a wooden fish; A trinket, the product of your first attempt at whittling. It doesn't look like a fish at all, but holding it is the closest he can get to holding you. He's so tired, and the ground looks so inviting. When he succumbs to the temptation, he can almost feel your warmth, as though you are lying beside him. "Did I do good, Angel? Are you... proud of me...?"

[avale-reves]

if this "no news/trailers/whatever at all until the year leading up to release" is the new normal for KH i think fandom is going to like, have to massively restructure the way it works, the things it celebrates and engages with, the stuff it values and considers 'high worth', because otherwise it's just going to be years and years and years of the same discussions repeated over and over with nothing new for us to even chew on in the meantime.

i find that the kh fandom massively undervalues fanworks. maybe as a side effect of how important 'word of god' and 'canon' are to understanding the series, idk, but like i think there needs to be a real shift in fandom perspective to champion them more, and making them far more central to what "being active in kh fandom" means. And I think this both because of just the practicality of keeping fandom alive in an era where the devs are more tight-lipped than ever, but also I think it's something that KH specifically needs to do.

Kingdom Hearts is always going to be a series of "missed/unfulfilled potential". There is no way it cannot be. The concept is just too expansive, the cast so wide, and there are endless ways to spin off of what they've given us, or endless ways to imagine where it could go. Even something as simple as a Disney world has all of this "potential" in how it could be explored, how it could be utilized, how it could play or look or feel, what themes it could have, what character development it could give certain characters etc. And the games will always have to take that infinite possibility and whittle it down to a single thing. KH itself will always have to contend with right/legal issues, Disney oversight and rules, the realities of game development and budgets, etc and so in that sense, it will never be able to reach the potential. But like... we can? We as fans can take all of the potential and use it as an endless playground for us to enjoy and engage with.

Idk, I just think back to, for example, Kairi and Lea training. A concept that has a ton of potential! Very interesting fertile ground for character dynamics, fighting scenes, mentor scenes, etc etc. Obviously, in KH3 this amounted to only a couple of core scenes where the devs put the focus on just their character relationships. Many were disappointed by this, by how little we see, but like, it was always set up as a "thing that is going to be happening off-screen", that's the whole point of 'merlin made a special place where time doesnt matter and they can just focus on training'. And when we think of KH3 with its endless things it has to juggle, its huge cast, etc. it makes sense that Kairi and Lea training can only be a tiny part of it. They have a budget. They have resource constraints. They even have disc space constraints to worry about (it's why their scenes are CG even! They literally did not have any room on the disc to actual make in-game environments for them!).

Like we can look at that and be very disappointed. We didn't get to see any of that stuff. But like, idk, at the same time, the fact that we didn't see a lot of it means that almost any fanwork about that time can "fit with canon" and be "something that might've happened". Like, we can look at it as a disappointment it wasn't more defined by KH3, but we could also look at it as a fandom gift. To borrow a phrase from iconic kh fan translator goldpanner: It is a crack in the concrete sidewalk of KH canon where fanworks can grow and thrive.

Idk. I know for some, fanworks will just never count the same as canon. But, I do feel like if people in general grew to appreciate them more, and have fun with them and engage with them, and share them and make them themselves, then it could do so much to smooth out the feelings of 'missed potential' that is inherent with this series and always will be through no fault of the devs themselves. And perhaps we would find, if, for example, we had spent the 4-6 years between MelMem and KHIV having a blast as a fandom exploring 'Kairi and Aqua training' through fics, art, comics, vids, fangames, music, graphic design, etc etc. We'd probably feel that by the time it was 'defined' by canon into a single thing it has to be for the story they're telling, even if that thing is nothing that we thought or wished for, we might end up feeling the 'potential' of the idea wasn't wasted, because we explored it.

[see-arcane]

Before the journal opened

Before it saved his life

Before Hell staked a claim

Before he swung his knife

A storm rolled in with the spring

And hope paved his long way

Through monsters and their red wants

He takes step one today.

WARNING: Contains some grisly imagery towards the end.

PDF Version

Chapter 2 Preview is available here

Harker

C.R. Kane

March to April

Spring rolled in more grey than green that week. It dribbled rain through morning and noon, pondering to itself whether it would save an encore for evening in the way of a proper storm. The songbirds and the street noise went on as best they could between showers. They made up the only true din in Jonathan Harker’s corner, not counting the hammering of the typewriter or an occasional rustle of sheets. The usual low cacophony of the firm had been whittled down immensely due to the cough that had been shared at the start of the week and sent the greater part of Peter Hawkins’ small legion home to hack and sniffle in private.

This left Jonathan somewhat abandoned, not counting Hawkins’ presence behind the office door. It was just as well. He’d been splitting his attention between the eternal tower of logistical and legal chores that ruled his desk and the shorthand notes made in preparation for his exam. Such had been his constant state for the past two months. There had been ribbing from all directions, some bemoaning the imminent loss of a load-bearing clerk, others saying now they could draw lots and boot someone else out the door, and still more wheedling about whether or not they could still drag him in place as a shield when clientele of a certain incendiary temperament came around. Please?

Jonathan had remained ominously mum. Groans and lamentations ensued.

This was a joke, of course. Young Mr. Harker was nothing if not dedicated to the task of transmuting Hawkins’ charity to a whipcord child fifteen years prior into a proper investment. Case in point, using a lull in his own workload to get things in order for those bedridden solicitors who had the nearest deadlines pending. Bentley idled through with his tea as he did and shook his head.

“Don’t know what it is that comes with your kind, Harker, but it’s a busier thing that any of us idle English have. We’re down two thirds of the building and here you are doing three-quarters of the work. Get the examination out of the way and you may as well tell the old man to retire.” A thoughtful sip came from behind the porcelain. “Must be something they teach you Gurkha sorts, eh? Some kind of discipline our doughy little English schoolboys never get knocked in their heads.”

Jonathan weighed the decision of whether or not to give Arnold Bentley his bimonthly reminder that he was, in fact, English by birth. His parents as well. But the reminder would likely fall into the same pit between the man’s ears where all the others had gone. Worse, it might risk a tally mark against him in whatever invisible score was kept by peers. The one that determined whether the combination of Jonathan’s physiognomy and disposition really were enough to pardon his status or not. He finished this measuring of scales in less than a blink. A smile was summoned.

“Not at all. Just helping where things can be helped.” He straightened a sheaf of forms back in order. “That, and I cannot go a day without productivity, or else I shall have to go home and carve my hand with the kukri knife in penance.”

Bentley paused halfway through his laugh when Jonathan held his gaze. He gawped over his cup.

“God. Really?”

“No, not really. My penmanship would suffer terribly.”

This spurred a louder guffaw from the man, likewise a rattling clap of his open palm to Jonathan’s shoulder. Then he was out like a breeze to carry on with whatever it was he had drifted from in his own territory of the building. Jonathan resumed his interrupted rhythm. Read. Check. Write. Type. Read. Check. Write. Type. So he went for another hour before his watch told him it was time to check the post.

He stepped out during a lull of rain. The thunder talked with itself in the slate-dark clouds, debating whether or not to turn the spigot on the moment the wad of envelopes was out in the open. Jonathan applauded himself on dodging the first drops of the deluge by seconds. Peeking through the window, he saw there were even a few fitful winks of lightning hopping through the sky. What few pedestrians were left went running for shops they had no interest in, restaurants they had no appetites for, and cabs that turned frustratingly scarce within the minute. Jonathan grimaced in premonition of the dash he and Mina would have to make under the umbrella once she was free of her students.

But that was for later. For now, he flipped through the day’s heap and dealt them out to the waiting desks, occupied or not. The last in the stack was a familiar packet and one of extraordinary make. It was patterned with the stamps of myriad countries with ornate flourishes in the writing. A thick crimson seal sporting a rearing dragon marked it as the second delivery from the same foreign estate that had written to Hawkins in February. A castle set in the backdrop of the Carpathians.

Jonathan had felt his heart twist the first time he’d handled a parcel from the address and it twisted doubly hard now. There had been time in the interim to start combing through Exeter’s libraries for any beginning details to have ready should Hawkins want some background to aid one of the solicitors, especially in the case of a potential trip. If the latter came to pass, it would mean a visit to London and a perusal of denser material. A fine enough excuse to wander the superior bookcases and the British Museum on its own. But the luster of the errand was already gone in his mind. The first glimpse of the prospective client’s territory in the first book he’d cracked open, wrought in illustrations and sparse photographs as it was, sent a spear of longing through Jonathan’s chest that still hadn’t left.

Why would anyone living there want to trade such a place for England?

Jonathan was not oblivious to the advantages of the country. He understood his good fortune in access to modern works, from amenities to entertainments; at least in theory. With cautious budgeting. But all his life had been spent in cramped rooms or congested streets. The presence of a park, a farmer’s field, a distant beach, or a picturesque cemetery were the nearest he would ever come to the broad and chainless beauty of places not yet stomped flat with bricks and smoke.

Imagine! Meadows and hills, valleys and forests, all topped with the great serrated crown of the mountains. Cities and villages worn smooth with generations going back through centuries.

Imagine being there with her. Seeing sunrise flood over the peaks, walking old roads and footpaths, tasting and seeing and playing and breathing in a place without its laces drawn like a noose around throat and purse. The trains alone would be enough for her, true, but we would find somewhere to stop. Somewhere in every swatch of the countryside. At some point, as she became lost in a view, in a meal, in a walk, she would see me on my knee and what I held in my hand, and the wedding could happen right there in an ancient chapel, and then…

But the fantasy turned to dust before it could finish.

The required funds were cudgel enough to smash the whole daydream to atoms. At most they might manage a trip someplace other than their usual heights of hedonism. That was, a brief trip to Piccadilly and back. Maybe a bit of theatre. Possibly a picnic. Perhaps even some further place in the Isles. Somewhere rich with quiet and history of its own, but likely not across the Channel. Never a locale so far and mythic as the place Hawkins’ new client seemed interested in abandoning. Jonathan pictured Hawkins writing back to the noble on his behalf, wailing at the stranger not to forsake his fairy tale castle for the doldrums of a Londoner’s garish crate of a manse, no matter how crusted in filigree.

Save yourself! Do not trade your mountains for an English molehill!  Turn back, turn back!

But that would be a poor way to run the firm, wouldn’t it? Resigned, he brought the packet to Hawkins’ office and knocked at the door.

“It’s open, Jonathan.”

Jonathan ducked in with his smile already nailed in place. It was an expression he now had to work at as recent months plodded on and Peter Hawkins’ complexion failed to improve. The man behind the broad desk was only half as rubicund as he’d been the year before. He had insisted to everyone who dared ask that he was merely suffering from a particularly ugly attack of gout and that he would be fine in a week or so. As it stood, Hawkins could still sit up straight and bellow thanks when Jonathan came by with his delivery. He even turned a shade ruddier upon seeing the dragon’s seal.

“Well now,” he said through a grin. He turned the packet over and pointed it at Jonathan. “Have you taken lunch?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Go on and fill up quick. If this is what I believe it is, I expect I’ll need your ear within the hour.”

So saying, Hawkins slit the packet open and began to read. Jonathan dismissed himself with his fingers crossed in his pocket. Perhaps the British Museum wasn’t too far off after all. That and the London libraries. It would be too brief a visit for anything more extravagant than what Lucy referred to as his and Mina’s ‘academic holidays,’ but it would make an interesting exercise just the same. Plotting the trip was a pleasant enough distraction to eat to.

He finished just as he heard the tell-tale grunt and shuffle that meant Hawkins was hefting himself up to trudge around his desk. Jonathan flew to the door first, only just recalling to swat his knuckles against the wood before opening it. Hawkins looked up with a shock before gratefully flopping himself back into his chair.

“You have a dog’s hearing and cat’s feet. Ought to have a bell on you to give an old man some warning.”

“Apologies.”

“Nothing to apologize for. Saved me dragging myself around unduly.” Hawkins thumped a hand on the desk as if patting a horse. “I suppose I need to throw this out and trade desks with you. I can make it past that little square of yours in no time.” He thought further on it. “Less than a minute, anyhow.” He made a face that couldn’t decide itself between a smile or a grimace. “My doctor, who only seems to tell me what I already know, declares that I am not fit for any arduous travel. In his terms, that includes going further than the street corner on foot. Even a train ride is apparently a gamble, being that I should be in bed resting and rotting like a good patient rather than hobbling my way to and from the cab to work. Already I press his orders and my luck. Which means this,” he held up an envelope, “is out of the question for me.”

Jonathan recognized the torn envelope and scarlet seal. What held him up was the recognition that it was the first of the two packets. The February delivery.

“That’s unfortunate. Who was the client?”

Hawkins grinned in earnest now, purposefully turning the envelope so that the address was hidden.

“You tell me.”

Jonathan offered half a smile back. It was an old game that had begun years ago when he was still just a bookish boy underfoot, helping around the office for whatever could be spared for a child’s wage. Even then his eyes had been hungry things.

“Count Dracula, from the castle of the same name, of Transylvania. The address is from a Bistritz postal service situated in the Carpathians.”

“True and true.” Hawkins set the envelope on the desk and tapped it with a thick finger. “Curious taste in property, this one. Likely has the cravings of a renovator. No trouble on our side but for the hunting. But the esteemed gentleman is so damnably far into the Continent that I couldn’t rightly offer myself up in the way he’s asking. I ought to say, the way he insists upon buying. The way our Count puts it, he would rather pay every fee of travel for his English solicitor to and from his keep in the mountains, and play host on top, rather than, he says, ‘Suffer bartering land through stationery.’ In short, he’s willing to ship a solicitor to his door rather than play at this back-and-forth for all his questions, all out of his own pocket. He wants someone who’s not just going to find and sell the manner of place he’s after, but someone who can play encyclopedia if he’s unsure of something.” 

“Hence him being prepared to rent out the owner of the firm for an in-person visit,” Jonathan finished. Hawkins gave a nod.

“And the owner might have been up for it a decade or so ago. But time marches and gout outweighs gold. So I fear that leaves me out of the picture.” Jonathan watched Hawkins fold his hands with a calculated laxness on the desk. “Your examination is coming up.”

Lightning flickered outside. More danced across Jonathan’s brain.

“Yes, sir. It is.”

“You have been my clerk since you were old enough to rent a flat,” Hawkins went on. “My apprentice and professional living plaster to this place well before that.”

“Yes,” Jonathan breathed more than spoke. He feared his vocabulary was leaking out both ears while his heart tried to climb his throat.

“And,” Hawkins half-leaned over the desk, “you have been holding onto her ring since last year. Haven’t you?”

Heat rushed up to Jonathan’s face as he got out, “…Yes. I have. Sir, are you—,”

Hawkins brandished the packet Jonathan brought through the door an hour ago. This he laid beside the February envelope so that the pair of them seemed like strange square eyes staring up at him.

“I need you to understand: This is not an offer as much as a prayer. If there’s no chance with you, that means Bentley is the next choice. He’s my longest running man here and is liable to set up his own firm before the decade’s out. But for all that, and for all that he is a trustworthy one to patter with most Englishmen, I would sooner trust a cat with a lame canary than Bentley to not choke on his own tongue with a foreigner. Clients of noble lineage included. The man can barely toe his way around an Irishman let alone anyone from across the Channel. And, since the door is shut and no one is around to cry nepotism, I can speak the unvarnished truth.

“You could do with one week what anyone else here could manage inside a month and have it done better. That is not me being rosy about the past or present, that is me having eyes that work and a basis of comparison between how things ran before you began working here and after. The after is smooth as silk compared to the pre-Harker gravel. Stable gravel, I allow, but not nearly as easy a burden as things became once you were attacking the paperwork. And the footwork.” Hawkins raised a caterpillar brow at him. “Any good finds in the local bookshelves?”

“Not as many as I hoped,” Jonathan thought he heard himself say. It was hard to tell as he seemed to have relocated to some remote island in his skull and could only register what was happening as if from across an ocean. “I wanted to stop by the options in London if I had the chance. Just to gather some background on the client’s location if it was needed.”

“I’d say it is,” Hawkins hummed. “Supposing you can tell me you have your schedule open for some traveling come May.”

Jonathan told him it was. Hawkins told him to go to the corner cabinet and move the bust of Alexander off the high shelf. Then to bring down the bottle and two tumblers. There were toasts and there was talk and there was a laughing chide from the older man as he shooed Jonathan’s pocket notebook back from whence it came. No notes today, young man. At least not right now. Actually, perhaps one for later. Did he have time open to visit a tailor? There was a travel budget that was about to go unused if the Count was to have his way. It may as well go toward a good cause. Hawkins could hardly send his best solicitor to a noble’s door without looking his best, and it was for the firm’s image, really, so it could hardly be helped, and the doctor couldn’t grudge him such paltry exercise as going to harangue a suit seller…

Jonathan’s eyes burned and his face ached with smiling. He was mortified to find himself close to a sob before turning the sound into a coughing laugh. Hawkins told him to drink, not inhale. That turned the next sound into a true chuckle. He couldn’t tell whether it was an effect of the liquor or his own imagination that made it seem as if the thunder was laughing too.

“Transylvania,” Mina said for the dozenth time.

“Transylvania,” Jonathan echoed. He turned to face her rather than cling to the charade that either of them were focused enough to continue their mutual study. His pile included the texts that had come to haunt his subconscious with its rules and rites of property law, now with the hypnotic temptation of the library books waiting just an arm’s length away. Mina, who Jonathan knew was as much or more a pillar of solid focus than himself, had not a mote of attention to spare for the papers taken from the realm of educational etiquette or her personal project of mirroring and translating his shorthand. The latter made a certain gleeful anticipation turn over in his stomach. It left him floundering between elation and anxiety with equal force until he thought he might lose his last meal on the floorboards.

Which would be a shame, as he and Mina had combined their efforts into a delightful result in Jonathan’s narrow kitchen. Jonathan had only half-jokingly implied that they were making a child’s ideal feast because he was, in fact, giddy as a boy who’d just shaken hands with Father Christmas. Mina had declared this was nonsense.

“A supper made of breakfast is an entirely sound culinary decision.”

“Yes, Miss Murray,” in his best schoolboy tone. “Did you want crêpes or toast?”

“Crêpes. Extra cream.”

They had giggled like children over their respective plates. Just as they did over the rapidly ignored chores they had planned for themselves after. It was the frightful intoxication of feeling the future unrolling into a new smiling mystery before them. One that whispered, yes, yes, this is real, this is coming true. A future that might include…

Jonathan gulped down a heavy lump of air as his gaze flicked again to the sheet of shorthand messages he had scribbled out for her to translate. She had stopped halfway through. Close, close, close. But he didn’t let his stare linger. Instead he found her face again, still glowing. Jonathan was forever surprised that he had not dreamt her up as a boy and continued dreaming her until now. It surprised him more that he had managed to earn her love and dumbfounded him entirely to think that she regarded herself in the same terms. More, that she insisted she was the luckier half of their equation. He did not follow her meaning then, nor did he think he ever would.

“Mina, anyone with a sliver of sense in their head would feel the same for you,” he had insisted more than once. Each time she had smiled and shaken her head. Her eyes forever bright with a sweet-somber knowledge he couldn’t decipher.

“There is plenty of sense to spare. Loving hearts as well. But there is a different lens that women see the world through and it shows things men shall never have to see. It shows so much to watch for. To be wary of, or to hope for, or to know not to expect because life has made it clear that so much of what’s dreamt of only exists for a few, while the rest make do with storybooks and stage plays.” Her hand had held tight in his. “You were not meant to exist outside the borders of a fairy tale, Jonathan Harker. That you cannot see as much for yourself makes me wonder if someone really did peel you off a page and if you will vanish back to a fair princess somewhere when I wake up.”

“That implies I am either a prince or some clever farmhand. I’m cut out for neither. I am a squire at best. Though I would not settle for a mere princess either way, however fair.” He had dared a grin at her. “Or have you already forgotten Mrs. Westenra’s unique stance on the matter?”

Memory had nettled Mina out of her glumness with a sputter that tried and failed not to turn into shamefaced laughter. She had improved somewhat in the years since the incident itself, back when the whole ring of persons involved had flamed with embarrassment over the misunderstanding of Jonathan’s presence when spotted with Miss Lucille Westenra and her companion Miss Mina Murray now that all of them had stretched out of childhood and into the far end of adolescence. Followed by the ensuing inquiry as to why Mr. Harker had been baffled at the very concept of seeking to gain Miss Westenra’s affection as anything more than a friend.

Jonathan remembered sitting in one of the gilded rooms of the Westenra estate, sat across from Lucy’s increasingly rose-faced mother as she came to the belated realization that Mina Murray’s young man was not trying to court anyone other than Mina Murray. Worse, it had been left on his shoulders to steer the conversation out of potential wreckage by thanking his hostess for clearly being concerned on Mina’s own behalf, as there were too many people in the world who took the notion of seeking out a secret paramour behind another’s back as a matter of course. He was heartened to know that Mrs. Westenra cared enough to be mindful should an actual cad come into the orbit of her daughter or her friends.

Still flushed, Mrs. Westenra had chased agreement in this, poured on apologies for the mistake and had thankfully never brushed the topic since. Though Lucy had words enough to spare on the matter for months afterward. She had languished at them in the garden about it, the image of woe in peach blossom tailoring.

“Jonathan, I fear we must become enemies,” she’d intoned gravely. “You must walk with a cane in hand and I must brandish my parasol so that we keep our distance and never risk breathing the same air. We cannot even deafen poor Mina’s ears with the Bard or eavesdroppers will take us knowing the lines of Hamlet and Ophelia as proof of a tryst. Perhaps we should go around with our hats pulled down over our eyes, lest we give into temptation and acknowledge each other’s existence while being the opposite sex. It is our only chance of salvation.”

“Miss Lindon again?” from Mina, her smile placid. Jonathan knew she wore the same callused shell he did when it came to the patter that trickled down from higher tiers than theirs. Those tiers were many and their squabbles almost alien in what they deemed worth sniping about behind their fans and cigars. The infamous Miss Lindon was apparently a thorn too serrated even for Lucy’s compassion to withstand.

“Very much Miss Lindon again. ‘He would just do for you, Lucy.’ As though she thought I would be doing a charity by going behind my friend’s back and she were doing a charity by her sneering compliment. At least nature was kind enough to spare me having to think of a similarly charitable rebuttal, as a beetle helpfully flew into her hair a moment later and she went running. One must take silver linings when they come. Unrelatedly, Jonathan, when you do become a solicitor in full, should Miss Lindon and her future beau ever approach you for a house..?”

“I shall do what I can to find them a lovely estate,” Jonathan assured. “In Northumberland.”

“Next door to an entomologist?” Mina asked over her cup.

“Of course.”

Jonathan blinked the recollection away, wondering whether it was the dizziness of the day or the ticking of the clock between Mina and the final line of shorthand that was making his mind slosh. Perhaps it was simply the subconscious’ effort to dodge the weight of the evening and what it might promise. His thoughts were fleeing to hide from hope and worry. But Mina knew him too well. She caught him with her eyes before pulling him back into the headiness of the present.

“You will do fantastically, Jonathan. Tell me you know it as well as I do.”

“I will not say I know it. Too much confidence risks laziness. I will only say that I shall give all of myself to the task. It must be done so it will be done. If I think any further than that simple fact, my head will burst.”

“If you do, I promise to sweep you up and put your pieces back in order.” Her smile softened an increment as her hand settled in his. “I mean it.” She squeezed. He squeezed back.

“The same goes for you. We are neither of us allowed to hold ourselves together with string and brittle smiles once the door is between us and,” Jonathan flapped his free hand at the rain-streaked window, “all of that. No acting when it’s us alone.” He flashed her a decidedly less-than-brittle smile. “I promise not to tattle to your girls.”

“You were bad enough today, Mr. Harker. Half the classes were watching.” Her voice tutted, but the grin showed in her eyes. Jonathan had arrived at the school with the umbrella in one hand and a bouquet in the other. A bundle of her beloved lilies that he’d used as a screen behind which to steal a kiss and drop the announcement of Hawkins’ assignment in her ear. Forgetting her audience, Mina had kissed him back, forgetting to mask herself behind the petals. They had absconded to the cab to the sound of a dozen girls cooing their farewells, Miss Murray, see you tomorrow, Miss Murray, has he got a brother, Miss Murray?

“Hardly a terrible thing. If you are one of their examples, mustn’t they have something to look forward to at the end of all their practice?” He assumed a pose of scheming innocence, lashes batting. “I could be especially nefarious come Valentine’s Day. Take a holiday from Hawkins and show up toting chocolates and train tickets and a florist’s worth of flowers.”

“You will do no such thing.”

“I can hire an orchestra to follow us around. Have them play waltzes the whole day.”

“Jonathan.”

“No, of course, an orchestra would be too cumbersome. A singer and a violin, perhaps. I can hire a paperboy to throw rose petals after us. Or else I could send them up to the classroom to follow you in procession out of the building…”

The typewriter hammered back to life. Its keys were struck with more force than they needed.

“Sorry,” Mina sang above the din, “no hearing you over this. You will have to be a foul minion of Eros a little louder.” Jonathan bit his tongue against a reply. Yes, she was typing again. Yes, she was reading the last of the shorthand. Tap-tap-tap, clack-clack-clack. So far it was all the lines of a love note—a common enough surprise, if one that fished more than the usual dimpled grin out of her tonight—and she had not caught on yet to the conclusion. “How long will the client need you over there?”

“Between the travel to the estate, the stay, and the return trip, the whole thing should be over within early May. I shall have time to hoard you a while before you and Lucy have your summer escape to the coast. Was it Whitby?”

“Yes, quite near the landmark Abbey. I mean to harass the townspeople with demands for any ghost stories they might spare about the place. Perhaps Marmion is but a single drop in a sea of waiting legends.”

Tap-tap-tap.

“Then I shall try to collect what I can abroad in turn,” Jonathan said from behind a fan of notes. He kept only the corner of his eye pinned on the swimming lines. “There should be spirits in abundance along the route.” 

Clack-clack-clack.

“I would think so. But don’t settle for ghosts alone! I shall happily adopt any devils or revenants or folkloric fiends the locals can share—,”

Her voice died mid-key.

Jonathan looked over the top of his pages. Mina sat frozen as a sculpture. Her hands still hovered at the typewriter, lax and immobile. But her eyes were in motion. Flicking back, forward, and back again between Jonathan’s shorthand and the five words they had translated to in plain ink.

Will you marry me, Wilhelmina?

By the time she finally turned her head back to face him, he was already on the floor, swift and silent at her hip. The box sat open in his hand. Set inside was a petite gold band whose stone gleamed like a fleck of starlight.

Mina looked from the ring to its holder with eyes that were already spilling.

“Yes,” Jonathan heard a dozen, a hundred times in the ensuing night. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand, a million times, yes. Between kisses, between tastes, between touches and takings that skirted the furthest edge of propriety between unmarried bodies. Yes.

“We are engaged. We must prepare for the wedding night as one must study ahead of an examination. Isn’t that right, Miss Murray?”

“It is, Mr. Harker.” Then, furtive despite her position over him, she grew a smile both shy and sly. A lure surrounded by the hanging curtain of her hair, “…Can you say it? For practice’s sake.” He did not have to ask her meaning.

“Mina Harker.”

Her teeth bared in a white moon.

“I didn’t quite hear you. Say again?” As she asked, her hand moved. He gasped in the trap of it.

“My pronunciation must be off. How is this?” His own hand moved. Her eyes went wide and dark. “Mina Harker. Mina Harker. Mina Harker.”

More practice unspooled. Harker, husband, wife, I do, I will. Around and around again until their tongues ran dry and they were left folded into the tangle of each other, their last fig leaf still reserved for the nuptial night itself. As midnight rolled past, the storm slipped off with it and left the moon to throw its rays through the edges of the curtains. Mina’s ring trapped its glow on her knuckle. He almost wept to look at it.

Real. This is real. I am awake and this is real. God, God. Thank you.

“Thank you,” he murmured into the top of her head. Her hair massed into a perfect curling cloud under his chin. The cloud tickled there as she lifted her gaze to him.

“For what?”

“You know.”

“If I must say, ‘You’re welcome,’ so must you.” Jonathan held his tongue. “Exactly.” Her hand cupped his cheek as she went on, “I feel much the same. Like a lottery was won and the prize is an unfair gift by dint of how precious it is compared to the recipient. By how that prize refuses to acknowledge their own value. But there is time yet to filter that all down into something better. We will have our vows to smother each other with and neither of us will be able to shush and insist, no, no, I am the luckier one. All while the pews roll their eyes. For tonight I ask that we have a truce. No deprecation, no hoisting onto pedestals. Just for now, we will pretend we each feel equal to the blessing of the other. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Good.” Mina lifted herself high enough to find his lips with hers. “I love you, Jonathan.”

“I love you, Mina.” He mouthed the words to himself long after she had fallen asleep atop his heart. I love you, Mina. I love you, Mina Murray. I love you, Mina Harker. I love you. Thank you.

Jonathan faced the covered window and the sliver of pane visible at the cloth’s edge. He spotted the moon hovering in a split among the breaking rainclouds. As sleep finally found him, he could not shake an unpleasant certainty that he was looking at a great glowing eye. And that it was staring back. 

Jonathan discovered Carfax Abbey on a clear blue day. His immediate impressions of the place ran in quick succession. First, that the location was so precise in its accommodation of Count Dracula’s specifications that it might have been commissioned. Second, that it looked like a place meant only to exist after dark on a sinister moor. This remained true despite the brilliance of spring stubbornly budding along the edge of its high stone fence.

He sent back a late thanks to himself as he’d been that morning, when he had tossed a coin on whether or not to bring the Kodak with him for the day’s hunt. Though the cab would be trusted to take him to the general area, it would be down to more literal footwork to inspect the properties he hoped to survey as far as he could without increasing the fare. Which would not bother him too much if he were going light. He did have a fondness for a run when it could be gotten away with sans pedestrians. But there would be no jogging with the camera to mind. Only a steady trudge.

Yet even that predicted march was trimmed down to a mere amble by dint of the cabman’s suggestion. He had heard out Jonathan’s description of his ideal quarry and first assumed him to be a tourist who’d gotten lost in a search for haunted houses.

“The area hasn’t much in that way, lad. Only place that comes close is old Carfax. Used to be an abbey, but looks more like a hideaway for the Dark Ages’ ghouls.”

“Do you know if it’s for sale?” This had earned him an odd look before the cabman admitted he had seen a sign staked out front that might have claimed the place was available. Supposing one cleared away the accumulated grime.

“I have to wonder if your buyer will bother with such a place. Ghosts can be dealt with, but it has more unsavory living neighbors to deal with.”

“Who are they?”

“Can’t say I know them personally, thank God, but I know for certain they’re perfectly mad.”

“Really?”

“Well, they’d not be in a private madhouse otherwise.”

The cab passed said lunatic asylum en route to the site. Jonathan was happy to note that it was at least a stately building, clearly a former domestic estate that had been expanded into suitable proportions for the inmates and staff. Better still, it was so far from Carfax as to be invisible through the facility’s wall of tended trees even when standing outside the latter’s stonework border.

Seeing the composition of said fence’s rough stones had plucked at Jonathan’s boyhood itch for play. If it were not for the cabman as a witness, he might have clambered his way up and walked along the edge as he’d done around his aunt’s home before he was declared too old for such nonsense. Still musing, Jonathan thanked the man again for the find and paid for the ride, promising another fare if he would return in an hour’s time. The cabman hesitated even after he had taken the first half of the pay.

“You’re certain you’d rather not go up the whole road first? There aren’t many houses, but they’re each of them empty and all far less a stain on the eye than that evil heap of rocks.”

“Do any of the rest have a chapel attached?”

“Don’t believe so. But if your buyer’s so keen on his prayers he ought to make do with a trip to church like the rest of us.”

“I imagine he means to refurbish it for that very purpose.” Jonathan offered a smile. “I’m certain whatever spirits might be lurking will have to clear out once he’s put the place in order.”

“Or torn the bloody thing down,” the cabman muttered not quite under his breath. He huffed and checked his watch. “An hour, you said? Just to wander around the place?”

“To wander here and across the neighboring grounds. I need to take note of the full landscape as well as the estate.” The cabman snorted at this in time with his horse.

“I hope your buyer is paying what you’re worth, lad. Any more on his list and he’d have you mapping out all of Purfleet to be sure it suits his fancy.” When the cab pulled away Jonathan began the photography. As much as he could manage from outside the fence. But then, because there were no witnesses, and because there was no way of opening the gate without ruining the rusted lock, and because it really wouldn’t be a thorough survey of the property without a glimpse of things on the inside of the towering stone walls, Jonathan shouldered his bag and scaled the rock as blithely as a spider.

He landed in the shade under one of the sundry trees that crowded the interior grounds. Jonathan marveled at how the trees’ shadows and that of the hulking abbey combined to hold a permanent dusk in place. So much so that it was a challenge to find any well-lit spots in which to take pictures without losing details. Up close the chapel was no less imposing than the abbey. It stood apart in its overgrown gothic solitude while the abbey puffed itself out with late additions to the structure. Jonathan made a note to reserve some pictures for Mina once he’d set aside an album for the Count. Sadly there was no letting himself indoors without becoming a full intruder, and so he satisfied himself with touring the rest of the land. A tour he was happy to make at a run.

The camera and his bag were set carefully aside with the chapel to manage this—for he must manage it, seeing as the grounds seemed to cover no less than twenty acres—and sent another belated thanks to his morning self for donning more active shoes than his workplace pair. While the place was no forest, it was an easy enough copse to imagine as such. A private patch of woodlands in which he had no one to be mindful of on a trail or blush over as they gawked at him, wondering what his hurry was. Here the exercise even bore fruit in the form of revealing a pond set at the estate’s southern end. A pool clear with spring water and trickling a faint stream through a grate into denser growth beyond the rear gates. Another run and a returning walk ensured this too got its photograph.

It was as he took these pictures that he saw the place even had some refreshment in the way of brambleberries snarling their way along the masonry. They were still some months away from being in season, but the desire to steal a piece of their thorny nest to plant his own shrub gnawed. At least until he reminded himself it would be hopeless with his current lodging. A mint tin of a flat slotted wall-to-wall with the rest of the street. Mina’s was worse still, he knew. When they married, they would pool their funds to find somewhere with a little girdle of a garden around it. Or else they would have window-boxes to grow things for the kitchen. Or both. Just a wedge of greenery to tame and taste for themselves.

 For now, he satisfied himself with adding it to the marital itinerary and took out his notebook to jot the impressions of Carfax Abbey as he had for half a dozen other estates, all of them falling short on one preference or another. Too new, too near to the hub of a city, too compact, too bright, and, most damning, not a single chapel to spare among them. At least, none that were not in use by the general public. He would likely run around for another couple weeks to check on other prospective options, but he held little hope for a finer match than Carfax.

Carfax, Carfax. I wonder…

The notebook was tucked away in exchange first for his watch, which showed he’d somehow burned only twenty minutes, and then a compass. A minor note from the Count had mentioned a desire to have, ‘an open sky with which to see all the night and day, the dusks and dawns, without men’s brick and smoke in their way.’ Jonathan could not fault such a wish and so had brought the compass to see if he might happen upon a house with the view clear for the east’s sunrise and the west’s sunset. The compass revealed he had done even better with the abbey.

‘Carfax.’ Quatre Face. A four-sided house with its walls facing the four cardinal directions. All clear of any rooftops and their belching chimneys. I’m sure it will please you, Count.

The thought sank his joy like a stone. Jonathan looked again at the abbey. Haunted and a relic of dead centuries, true, but a place of dignity and grand dimensions all the same. A voice rose up in him with smiling malice as he stared at it.

You will never have such space. You will never have a home so broad that Mina can have rooms all for herself and more for the daydream of children. You will live close to all the fruits of a metropolis, as near as the gutters themselves, and only ever know what it is to skim them, to borrow them, to daydream without laying your lesser hands on them except to use them for another. You will have neither the sprawling beauty of nature or the boons of modernity. Not for your entire life, Jonathan Harker.

And, because he could not stop the flow once it was running:

She should have found someone better. Someone with more than your scraps to offer.

He ground the heel of his palm against each eye until they dried.

“What would she say?”

Something kind you do not deserve.

Jonathan shook his head and marveled at the paradox that still found its way to nettle him even with the ring on her finger. Perhaps because of it. It was the miserable uncertainty of the hours preceding his examination turned up a hundredfold. Time, experience and evidence all stood in favor of him passing his tests on the professional and romantic fronts, yes, yes, he knew it…

…But what if he didn’t? What if he had somehow fooled himself and Mina and Hawkins and peers and the world itself into thinking he was more than what he was? What if?

What if you stop wallowing and get out before the cab returns?

Jonathan stopped long enough to skip a stone across the pond before following his route back to where he’d clambered over the wall. With half an hour to spare, he began walking at a healthy gait across the spread of land between the abbey and the asylum. If only to say he knew how many paces it was between the properties. One, two, three, four, five…

The pacing turned irregular once he had to cross through the border of trees that stood for a property line between Carfax and its company. Jonathan was stunned to discover there was no proper fence hidden behind the picturesque rows. Only a walled and gated section at the rear of the asylum that suggested an area for outdoor excursion or perhaps a private kitchen garden. He hoped it was the former. Even the insane needed leave to stretch their legs beyond the borders of a cell. As he mulled this, he heard a shout. It sounded like it held the weight of every expletive known to the English tongue and several more beyond it.

Following this was the same livid voice grating seemingly out of thin air, “Idiot! Fool! One damned page and you do this?” Jonathan heard a clatter of hollow things against a wall. “Imbecile!” He stepped fully beyond the wall of trees and saw the voice’s owner pacing back and forth inside a barred window set at the foot of the asylum’s wall.

“Sir? Are you alright?” Jonathan was almost as surprised as the man in the window to realize he had not only spoken, but come closer. There was an instant in which the man tensed. The picture of one who’s realized someone of influence has caught them in a bad moment. Yet upon actually seeing Jonathan and recognizing his lack of import, he relaxed enough to smile. Albeit sourly.

“Apart from this most inconvenient stint of homemaking, courtesy of concerned friend and kin, I am quite fine, young man. Ebullient, ecstatic, elated.” The polite rictus hardened. Jonathan thought queasily of wild dogs. “Apart from the fact that I have lost the last of my stationery to an overfilled glass. My cup runneth over. My cup ruins days of work and turns the remaining space to so much waste. Just look!”

The man thrust something up to the gaps in the bars, stopping just short of throwing the spoiled pinch of paper out onto the grass. For it was spoiled. Jonathan saw the stationery was really little more than a large cut of butcher paper folded and refolded until it made a sort of accordion-book. The whole thing was so waterlogged that Jonathan could barely tell tally marks from letters as the crayon bled together and the pages sagged.

“Ruined,” the man punctuated with what was either a sneer or a sulk. “At best I can try to mash and dry the thing out as a new sheet. But the stuff was already muddy enough to write on and I shall have to reduce myself to the penmanship of an infant with the bluntest marks just to make anything legible. And I had just started to make progress.” He cocked his gaze more fully at Jonathan. His look was one accustomed to giving brisk appraisal. “If you are a journalist, you are quite tardy with your pen. You’ve not even set up your camera’s tripod to record the travesty.”

“I am no journalist, unfortunately,” Jonathan admitted as he unearthed his notebook. “But at least that leaves some of this to work with, if you’re amenable.” Covering the shorthand of the last full page, he showed the man in the window the remaining blank sheets. Not a great many pages left, and certainly not of impressive size considering it was a pocketbook, but it would be a fair amount of writing space for a careful script. The man’s expression did not change, but his eyes brightened.

“I may be. Supposing I know the price at the other end of such a trade.”

“No price, sir. You would do me a kindness in taking it as I shall have to start a fresh one for another project soon. The predecessor would be left unfinished and forgotten in the meantime.”

“Ah, a worse fate than a journalist. An author. How many poor diaries have you left abandoned in their pretty bindings for the sake of a new volume?” The man clicked his tongue through a grin. “I jest, of course. You do not seem the sort to waste what he has.” The grin, still genuine, flattened an increment. Bloodshot eyes gleamed. “I fear I wasted a great deal of what I once thought mine on the other side of these delightful accommodations. Never make such a mistake as mine, young man. Do not doubt for an instant that what you trust today cannot turn on you tomorrow.”

“I won’t, sir.” Jonathan thought of adding that he had lived under that knowledge since the day he attended the funerals which ended his childhood. He swallowed it back. “May I..?” He held the notebook up, his shorthand sheets pinched between thumb and forefinger.

“I would be most grateful.”

Jonathan tore his filled pages neatly out. The remaining clean pages were barely thicker than a pamphlet, but clung sturdily to the little spine. Jonathan knelt low enough to lay it within reach on the grass. He noticed a small dusting of white powder at the window’s edge. A crowd of ants whittled away at the mound.

“Ants,” the man scoffed as he followed Jonathan’s line of sight. “Pitiful company. I had hoped the thaw would bring in something heartier. Flies, ladybugs, perhaps some early butterflies. But the real trouble is keeping them around. Ah, apologies, might you bring it a little closer?” The man raised his forearms into view. “I haven’t the best angle from where I stand.” Jonathan scooped up the notebook and brought it an inch nearer.

The man’s hands were abruptly out through the bars and clapped around Jonathan’s. Tight. Short of hurting, short of breaking, but locked as firmly as a vise. Jonathan tensed without pulling back. Again he thought of wild dogs. Of things that only seemed to be dogs until they closed in. Creatures that chased once they saw something run.

Jonathan was still. The man was still. Grasping Jonathan’s hand and the notebook in a pantomime prayer.

It’s my left hand. Smart enough for that, at least. I can still do my paperwork with the right intact and the other broken. Will the fingers heal in time for Mina to slip the band on? How mortifying to have to explain it all to her. I wonder if the asylum would make up a cast without charging for it…

“There is no need to shake upon it, sir,” Jonathan heard himself say. “The book is yours.” The man regarded him with less of a smile now. His lip still curled, but it seemed only to hold on by sheer will. It dropped entirely with the gust of a sigh.

“The book and a lack of tact, I fear. Even if I were not mad, I would still be a churl.” The hands relaxed and a set of fingers drummed once on the back of Jonathan’s wrist. “Though I suspect you are a soul used to them. I would tell you to be more wary on your way, but it is only a simpleton of a preacher who would bother teaching his flock wariness in a world where they must interact each day with wolves. Though I will advise that it is rather foolish to go around making conversation with confirmed lunatics up close. I am confirmed, you know. The facts are printed and signed all over by professionals. I saw the document myself.” The man’s look floated away from Jonathan and into a distance he couldn’t guess at. “Printed on far finer paper than what we settle for.”

One of the gripping hands came away, leaving only the one folded over the notebook and Jonathan’s palm. They shook. The notebook was collected in the same gesture.

“My thanks,” from the window.

“Quite welcome,” as Jonathan righted himself. He surprised himself with his own steadiness. The rote pitch of the office and a life’s worth of reflex steered his tongue while mind, heart, and stomach rattled where they hid. Because he had to do something with his freed hand rather than clasp it in its brother, he fished out his watch. Only now did a ripple of worry manage to rise to his face.

“Some trouble?”

“I fear I may have lost my ride.”

“You came from the by-road, yes? It hardly sees traffic. If your driver’s gone on without you, go around the front here and see if you cannot bribe our beloved head doctor into lending out the wagon. Just say you have managed to wring a whole quarter of an hour’s worth of nattering from his friend R.M.”

“R.M.?”

“Short for Mr. Rig R. Mortis.” The man chuckled at Jonathan’s look. “Pseudonym, young man. Can hardly have the family being shamed under my real title. He will know who you mean. Though I do hope you manage your ride instead.” With that, the man ducked back from the window and was gone. Jonathan had made it three strides away when the voice called behind him, “Here!” Something small struck the back of Jonathan’s heel. He turned and saw gold winking up at him. A sovereign. “It is not payment. You are merely ensuring the attendant who lost it when I had my last room search never gets it back.”

“Sir—,”

But the window was already abandoned. Jonathan picked the coin up. It was partially obliterated on one end, erasing part of Victoria’s face and the rider on the reverse. This was because the edge had been ground to a sharp edge that nicked his thumb open as he turned it over. Blood smeared Saint George, his steed, and the dragon hissing up at the sword and hooves.

Cold fingers seemed to walk up his spine as he examined it. Shaking the chill away, he tucked the coin in his pocket alongside the notebook’s harvested pages and dashed back the way he’d come. He made it to the waiting cab just as it was pulling up to the gate.

“Well, lad? Is it what your buyer’s after?”

“I believe so.” Jonathan smiled as he said it and held the expression admirably until the cabman turned his gaze back to the road. He gloved his hands despite the balmy weather, sheathing his thumb as it traced the thin impression of the cargo sitting against his breast.

“If you keep up with that you shall tear the whole cheek off,” she said at his shoulder. “You are awake, I promise.”

Jonathan stopped pinching at himself and split his attention between Mina’s face and the clock’s. The magic circle of Roman numbers seemed to shake a phantom head. No, it said, not yet. But soon.

“This is happening, then?” he asked as he turned fully to Mina. Mina, here at the last moment together until mid-May. Mina, wearing the ring he had saved a year for on her finger. Mina, who had clasped and kissed and kept him from collapsing outright in stupefied relief upon the announcement that he had passed his examination, her fiancé now a solicitor. Mina, who held his hand and kept him from floating off through the ceiling and into the sky. “This is really happening? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.” Jonathan’s eye traveled to her neck and the glimpse of a cord peeking from her shirt collar. She caught him and spared her free hand to tuck it out of sight. “Just as I am sure you will not fly off with my treasure, you magpie.”

The treasure being Jonathan’s own plain gold band now worn as a necklace. He had been the one to slip it over her head the night before, mesmerized by the soft shine as it landed over her heart. It was done by mostly mutual agreement. Mina wished to hold a scrap of tradition close and leave his hand bare until they reached the chapel. And, though Jonathan suspected this was mere theatre, she said she wished to hold onto it as proof to herself that she was awake and that the engagement was a reality. Besides, it was practical! If he were wearing the cord on his trip, what if he should lose it in any number of countries as he traveled? It was one thing to risk forgetting it at the office or leaving it at home. Quite another to imagine losing it in a hotel in another nation. Even with all this logic at her disposal, Jonathan donned his best moue. Mina covered it with her hand.

“That is unfair.”

“I am not above unscrupulous tactics, Mrs. Harker.”

“Like trying to break me by calling me Mrs. Harker?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, you are foiled. My will is too great.” She brought her hand away to brush a strand of hair from his brow. “There is no need to scheme anyway. You shall have the thing back soon enough.”

Jonathan pretended not to hear the slight tremor at the word ‘soon.’ Yes, it was only a few weeks’ separation. A month at most if there were delays in train or coach. But even in this zenith of excitement, knowing unequivocally that this was where their future began—a future where they were taking their first steps up rather that walking the same flat circle in the dust—it felt strangely like waiting to leap into a chasm. A gorge that required endless paperwork to keep track of, plus what was required for the travel itself. Documentation, letter of credit, passport, polyglot dictionary, and, carefully packed, the first new suit he’d had in three years.

Mina had insisted on his modeling it before packing it away. After, she declared she must send a letter of gratitude to not only Mr. Hawkins, but to the tailor. They would have to see him again about the suit for the wedding. Lucy had already written back in response to Mina’s last letter with the announcement, erupting with insistence that, while she was not the sort of girl to live and die by fashion plates, she wanted to know the very instant she began hunting for a dress.

In the present, however, the only new attire was the coat Jonathan wore. A companion piece Hawkins had insisted join the suit before Jonathan could escape the tape measure. Jonathan’s hand drifted up to one of its pockets now and found it unexpectedly light. Worry spiked for a moment before his mind caught up to what it was he’d been feeling for. He almost laughed. Mina canted her head at him, searching. She never missed even the most minute shift behind his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Only I’ve realized I was so adamant about packing everything for the needs of the trip and the client that I forgot the one item I meant to bring solely for me.”

“Your books?”

“No, the law texts are there. A bit of Dumas as well. But I have forgotten my book.” He offered a bashful smile. “Ours, I mean. For your assignment.”

Her brow furrowed a moment before she recalled, “The journal?”

“Yes. I meant to grab one of the spare pocketbooks from my desk, but it’s not in its place. Maybe I bundled it in the case without thinking.” If not, he could shave out a little of his emergency budget for something en route to the castle. But Mina was beaming at him.

“An ordinary pocketbook might suffice for a clerk, but not a solicitor. Especially not when I’ve held onto this since you turned your back to peruse the dictionaries two months back.” She brought out her reticule as she spoke. From the reticule came a slim leatherbound volume with supple pages made to resist the traitorous smudges and tears of its precursor’s flimsy leaves. The whole thing was tied with a white ribbon that pinned a matching pen to its cover. “All shorthand. Promise?”

“Promise,” Jonathan nodded as he took the book gingerly from her hand. It fit so perfectly in the coat that it failed to even dent cloth. “Though I don’t believe the same applies to the recipes. Which I shall collect in abundance and inflict upon us both once I return. Is there anything specific you want me to bring back?”

“You know my tastes already.”

“Other than the cuisine, I mean.”

“Nothing comes immediately to mind. A good story or two would be nice, but,” again her hand found his face, cupped against the angle of his cheek, “as long as you come back, I will be satisfied.”

“I suppose that can be managed.”

The clock tolled and the call went out to the station. All aboard, come along. Mina’s eyes flicked with brief wonder to the train itself. Locomotives and their railways had been one of her chief interests for as long as Jonathan had known her. She regarded her copy of Bradshaw’s Guide with the same reverence as some did their Bible, to say nothing of the clipped articles she had collected concerning new routes and models being laid out within various countries. In sum, Mina loved the practicality and potential of trains. To her they were proof that their world was not limited by whether or not they could hail a hansom or how far it was willing to take them. But now her smile dimmed.

“It had better bring you back on time,” she said as they walked arm and arm up to his car. “I shall be standing in this very spot with my watch out.”

“I’ll warn the conductor.” Because they were among strangers, she had allowed him to hold her arm rather than the reverse. He gave a gentle squeeze first to her arm, then her hand. The lump of the stone stood out under her glove. “If it runs late, I will simply run ahead.” Her laugh did little to hide the dew in her eyes. It matched the mist in his. Their hands held tight.

In that moment, an absurd impulse leapt up in him. An animal-twitch of fear that went deeper than mere anxiety, deeper than love, deeper than concern of career or separation or wandering in unknown lands. It was the needling of a sense he had no name for. A thing that smelled or heard or tasted some imperceptible sign that bodily and mental awareness refused to acknowledge. It whispered:

Do not go. Do not do this. Go home. Go now. Before it’s too late.

The whisper froze him. Mina appeared to freeze with him. Her eyes reflected a feverish glimmer of his own disquiet. They stood locked in that second like a hart and doe with their ears pricked toward a huntsman’s tread in the wood.

But then they blinked. Mina’s gaze lightened and the uncanny sensation left Jonathan as quickly as it came. Only a shudder of nerves disguised as a portent. Really, he could hardly bow to it even if it had meant anything beyond a hiccough of his own fretting. Fact outweighed fear and the fact was he had a job to do. A job that began here, now, with the release of Mina’s hand so he might grab his other bag from her.

Thus unburdened, Mina abruptly trapped his face between her palms. Jonathan bent down until his mouth met hers. Here was the plush press of her lips on his, feeling so much like a reverie he thought once again that he must be asleep. He would wake any moment and the fantasy would fall away into foam. Now. Now.

“Now, I don’t mean to intrude, but there is a train waiting. I’m afraid you must save the rest of the young man for his return trip.” They both snapped up at once to see the uniformed man at Jonathan’s back. He was eyeing them with a look that spoke of a career forever encumbered with similar scenes. The man peered at Jonathan over his spectacles. “You are boarding?”

“Yes, sir. Apologies.” But an apology not even fractionally meant. He turned back to Mina who now steamed from the neck up as she avoided the gawking of an older couple taking in the show. The wife gestured at the sight of them, muttering something in a tone of mingled mirth and query in her husband’s ear, to which the husband rolled his eyes. Jonathan spared them only a mote of attention. “Mina.” She looked to him. “I love you. I’ll be back soon.”

“I love you, Jonathan. I’ll be right here.”

He found his seat at the window and did not turn his head away from the glass. Not while the train idled. Not while it pulled away in its hiss and puff of turning wheels. Not while Mina stood there waving after him, her feet tugging her forward a few unconscious steps so that she might see his window longer while he craned his head to keep her in view. Only when the station itself was a speck in the distance did he turn back around. Off to the future to lay an invisible track for them both. To collect countries as keepsakes and bring them home on paper like pressed flowers.

Jonathan tried to imagine what he might cross on his travel to and from the castle that would be a worthwhile souvenir. Images of books and baubles were conjured as he traced the edges of his journal. So he went on musing until excitement burned out to exhaustion and the first doze of his trip dragged him down into sleep.

A dream came and went.

He was still on the train, still at his window, but the seat facing his was no longer empty. A face he knew was there. One harvested from the far end of his school days and the nascent career as a clerk. So he believed.

It was a familiar countenance in the way that the sight of a stranger always seen in the same place amounted to vague acquaintance. Known enough to nod at in passing. Jonathan had nodded at this one and been given a nod back in student years. He’d thought of introducing himself once or twice, only for the young man to flush and hurry off like a frightened stray. Jonathan had never quite understood it.

Now here was his anonymous acquaintance again, finally sedate in his seat and hidden in his newspaper. While he was not Jonathan’s senior by more than a year, he looked to be in a more professional state of dress. Pressed and tailored and relaxed in that way men can be when they know they have a wardrobe full of similarly fine ensembles waiting at home. But it was his choice of accessory that gave him away as being on a similar pilgrimage to Jonathan’s. The unoccupied portion of his seat was taken up by the paperwork of a sale, carefully weighted by a discarded hat. His companion spared it no attention, having his gaze pinned on the newspaper open in his hands. It blocked the view of him from the whiskers down. Jonathan was still wondering whether to announce himself when a voice came from behind the newsprint:

“My way goes through Munich. Yours as well?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said. “Though I fear there will be no real stop there. At least, the Count did not pencil a hotel stay in the route.”

“Hm,” his companion nodded. “I suppose he would not gamble it twice. Even if he did set it right the first go around.” The newspaper rustled and the young man’s eyes finally lifted above the print to find Jonathan’s. They were bottle glass-bright. “What all have you packed?”

“Necessities, mainly. Everything for the sale, some changes for the overnight stays and—,”

“And what haven’t you packed?”

“I…” His hand traveled again to his chest. “Mina saved me at the station. I forgot a notebook, but she had one ready. I should be fine.”

“No. You are still missing something. Rather, I expect you will be missing it quite soon.” There was a sigh behind the paper. “All that practice and you go and leave the damned thing under your bed.”

Jonathan straightened in his seat. His right hand clamped reflexively, as if palm and fingers were dreaming of a hardwood handle. 

“I’m not going to the jungle.”

“There are worse things than animals to worry about. If you cannot cut them down, what will be left to you?” Another page turned. The bottle glass eyes slid to look out the window. Jonathan followed his gaze and saw that the world had gone black and white under a skull-faced moon. “But then, you might make do without the steel. You handled the worst of our schoolmates well enough back then without even raising your voice. Whatever you may lack as a full-blooded Englishman you make up for in softer stuff. Enough that one or two of the lads confessed over drinks that they wished you were a girl. I was not one of them. You gave me trouble enough as a boy. 

“All that said, you have skills that will help. Appealing attributes. Ones I could have used myself.” The unblinking eyes slid back to Jonathan. It was a greyer stare now. Almost filmy. “I had nothing to sell. Neither in English property or my personal wares, so to speak. I could not even muster charm enough to be worth an extra hour’s chat.” Jonathan watched his companion’s hands crumple the paper in two fists. He saw for the first time that those hands were red. They left dry maroon stains across the gazette. “Who is waiting for you, Jonathan Harker? Who at home? Your Mina, old Hawkins, and who else? Any names come to mind?

“Of those friends, are there any who will know to worry when it goes wrong? Anyone to ask questions? To watch the calendar and the post and wonder how you are? Because I thought I did. I even knew the difference between friends and amiable acquaintances, unlike you. Fellows in and out of my firm. Even a girl who understood my needs and was willing to play her part. They all said they expected letters from me. Said they’d be on watch if I was not back within half a month. That was a year ago. And still they do not know where I am. Nor have they cared enough to look.

“But you would have, I think. If I had ever gotten over my cowardice. If I hadn’t wasted boyhood cringing, so afraid I would give myself away. If I had not made a ghost of myself rather than a friend. I was so proud of myself for not daring at the time—I fear I would have made a wretched scene when I first realized you and the pretty schoolmistress were serious. Instead I took my wine and my pain in silence. Told myself how wise I had been not to try. Ha.” Jonathan watched pallid lips peel open on a smile glazed pink with bleeding. Red rivulets trailed out between the young man’s teeth and into the trimmed beard. “Not that it would have mattered in the end. If we had been friends, if we had been more, if we had been anything at all, there wouldn’t have been much for you to find.”

Jonathan leaned forward. It took an effort. A growing stench was starting to waft from the opposite seat. The stink of copper and rot.

“Please, just tell me what this is. Tell me how to help. What’s happened?”

His companion’s grisly smile wilted. The bottle glass eyes ran like his mouth.

“What’s happened is you have climbed onto the same train I took. You will ride on plenty more. The same coaches too. Perhaps that will help. They never caught on to the truth of things when it was me. After all, he does have work to do, being what he is. People must have made it to and from that place before in official capacity. They must have thought it would be the same for imported goods. Hopefully they will know better now. But then, so will he. Soon all you will have to rely on is yourself. Use what you have. All that you have. Play the game as best you can. As long as you can.” Red tears and dribble flowed in a thickening cascade. “I could not last a week and so lost everything. Or nearly so. I am restless, true, but it could have been worse. Much worse.”

“I don’t understand,” Jonathan almost rasped. Fear choked him like a noose.

“I know. And I am very, very sorry to say that you will.” His companion sighed, releasing a crimson haze of spittle into the air. “Well. This is all I can manage as I am. I suppose I shall not need this anymore. Here.” The newspaper was shut and held out for Jonathan to take. “Somewhat out of date, but well worth the read.”

 Jonathan spared barely a mote of attention for it. There was no headline or story that he could make out. Only a flash of what looked like the stanzas of a poem, though he couldn’t say for certain. He was too gripped by the sight of the young man below the neck. Seeing the fullness of it hooked something in Jonathan’s stomach and drew it up to the very edge of his teeth. He wasn’t sure if it was his breakfast or a scream.

That was when the hand fell on his shoulder.

Cold. Just as cold as the lips now pressed at the side of his neck.

Whatever sound he might have made was cut off as something sharp drove into his throat and the train went as dark as the world beyond it.

“Sir?” Jonathan fell against his seat as if thrown. The uniformed man started back himself, taking his hand away from Jonathan’s shoulder as he did. “We’re coming to the station soon. Can’t have you sleeping through your stop.”

“No. No, of course. Thank you. Sorry.” The man glanced at Jonathan’s lap with a look possessed by every father who has ever known better than his progeny.

“You could pick lighter reading to nod off on. You’re only setting yourself up for sour dreaming if that’s what you skim beforehand.” He didn’t loiter long enough to explain what he meant. Jonathan looked down.

He had picked a gazette to stuff into his things before he and Mina reached the platform. He’d had an idea that he was reserving his books for the far end of his travel and so would make do with some final updates from his native soil. At some point he had turned all the way to the obituaries. His hand rested on one describing the tragic loss of a young man at sea. A sailor fallen overboard in a storm, presumed dead.

They could be wrong, Jonathan thought with sudden desperation. Perhaps he lived. He made it safely to an island or some distant beach. They could find him alive and well. Couldn’t they?

The newspaper was shut, folded over twice, and tucked back in his luggage. Jonathan did not touch it again until he left the final station that spat him out by the shore, feeding it to the first wastebin he saw. He almost laughed to himself when it came time to board the ship. It would be May by the time he cracked open the journal and wrote anything of interest.

“I shall do better on the return trip,” he promised the naked pages. “I’ll record a view of the sunrise on the water, I swear.” And he meant it. But for this first voyage across the water, Jonathan stayed shut in his room. If he dreamt of a black tide coming up to swallow him, he was happy to wake without recalling it. 

[catbatart]

CW: Pet death

Phoebus took a dramatic turn for the worse the past two days. He cannot keep food down even with the anti-nausea meds, which is a sign that the lymphoma has gotten really bad. He's lost a significant amount of weight and is clearly in immense discomfort. We're making the gut-wrenching decision to say goodbye to him today. We're working with Lap of Love to do at-home Euthanasia in about 5 hours, and we've both been crying all morning and all last night. Even then, he chose to cuddle on the bed with us rather than hide.

Grief is exhausting. It's been whittling away at me since last December when he was first diagnosed, but it's really coming to a head. I haven't slept more than a couple hours in the past 3 days and my head is pounding from how hard I've been sobbing. To the folks who have bought stuff off my etsy this past week- you have been so helpful. I wish the funds could go to getting him tasty treats, but they will still be put to amazingly good use in helping us cover his after-life care. We'll be getting him cremated so we can keep his ashes in our family room where he can hang out with people.

Phoebus has always been a little celebrity everywhere he goes. When we got him neutered as a kitten, the nurses were all over him. Even this year, his whole oncology department at the vet knows him and adores him.

The world is going to be a little less bright without him in it.

[ransprang]

Can I request headcanons for bg3 (basically the whole party) for the holiday seasons? (Fem aligned pronouns) Where reader was isekai'd from our world and she asks the party about holidays and is kind of bummed out theres nothing really similar to Christmas since its one of her favorite holidays. So When it gets cold out reader buys everyone a gift and wraps it with birch bark to surprise everyone? If you dont want to do the holiday thing maybe just reader who gets Isekai'd and has zero idea what to do and is really scared of everything because she has no idea whats going on?

hii thank you for the request, and have a happy holiday season!

BG3 x Christmas HCs

Astarion

looks at his Christmas gift “what in the hells is that?” “Is it poisonous or does it explode?” He just can’t fathom you’re just giving him a present. No ones ever been kind to him let alone share festive gifts. Eventually he will show up at your door naked “Is this a ‘Christmas’ enough present for you?”

He can’t stop laughing when you convince the rest of the camp to wear Christmas hats, “Clowns.” He calls them. You have to nudge him hard for him to stop ruining the festive spirit.

⁠”Is this Santa of yours a vampire? I mean..if he only comes out at night and punishes the naughty ones,” he gives you a smirk

Withers

"Ah the annual rite of gift-giving on the solstice. I do not value such material possessions but the sentiment is not lost on me." He will accept your gift but you will never see him use it.

Will show up at camp wearing a small Santa hat on his bald head. Will not answer any questions about it.

Sometimes you think if you hear him humming jingle bells but you can never make out the words because it's in some archaic dead language.

Laezel

touched your present with a stick “What is that? Are you trying to kill me?” She has a disgusted expression. Why would you spend your time getting her a gift instead of finding a solution for the parasite?

After a while of convincing, she’s ready to open it. She has a soft smile and doesn’t let it show that it actually made her warm even for a second.

After you sit her down and tell her the Christmas lore she rolls her eyes “Your kind disappoints me.” You tell her about the magic of Christmas as she smirks condescendingly “Whatever go do your thing, I’ll watch.”

Once she learns the carols and traditions there is no stopping her. She’s a woman who believes in long-standing institutes and traditions and she will uphold yours with pride too when she gets used to it.

Halsin

the way this man would hug you after receiving a gift ugh. you cannot tell me gift giving isn't one of his love languages, so he'd really really appreciate it

he keeps a very open mind while listening to you talking about Christmas and the traditions you practice. Being a druid he has his own rituals and beliefs which others judge so he is open

whittles you a wooden figurine of your favorite animal or of your pet from your world if you can describe it in detail

he would love the gift exchanging part of the tradition. he’d get everyone a gift, not as intricate as the one for you though. Maybe more so around herbs, flowers and potions

Shadowheart

"oh my, a present.. for me?" she'd be surprised that you even thought of getting her a gift

when she unwraps the gift she'd have a small smile on her face, "thank you y/n. this is very thoughtful of you. i'll remember this."

she’d be tad jealous that your beliefs are so fun. she’d lowkey wish Shar/Selune had celebrations that got people together

Gale

"A present? for me?", being locked up in his tower for so long he is quite taken aback.

"Why, where are my manners, thank you y/n. I do wish you told me about this tradition of yours. I'd have gotten you something. No matter, once we get the guests in our brains out, I'll make sure to get you something."

he'd use his magic to try and conjure up snow no matter where the party is camping

Minsc

Minsc gets very excited by whatever you get him since it's the thought that counts. "Look at what y/n got us Boo"

he sees how your eyes light up as you talk about Christmas so he gets equally excited for you

Minsc would dress up Boo in a red hat and green jacket (don’t ask how he got them)

nooooooot the best gift giver. he isn’t crafty, so he may end up making you arrows and a bow. but his smile is so big and bright that you’ll have to pretend to really like it

Wyll

He surprises you with a thoughtful gift before you can even give him one. His noble upbringing covered the strange Christmas customs of your land.

"To have you in my life is gift enough, my love. You didn't have to get me anything, your smile alone would have sufficed." Nonetheless, he accepts your gift with an elegant bow.

You both do a slow waltz to every single Christmas song you hear, no matter what the tempo or the lyrics are. You are simply too lost in each others' eyes to care.

Karlach

"Presents! For me? You're kidding!" She would run around camp like an excited toddler with her gifts. You would have to remind her to calm down so she wouldn't burn down the place.

"Thank you, soldier. I love it so much," she would grin at you. She would ask a lot of questions about Christmas and fall in love with the holiday. Gifts, food and wine, all of it would sound amazing to her after spending so many years in Avernus.

She would get really into the celebrations and her joy would be infectious. Watching her bust out her hip-hop moves during Silent Night would be the highlight of your evening.

Jaheira

"Oh, you got me a gift? How nice. See you can be kind to your elders." She would make fun of you in the moment but appreciate the gift nonetheless.

"It's not a knitted blanket for grandma, is it? I'm not ready to retire just yet."

Being a druid, she's not interested in the religious elements or traditions but joins in heartily for the eggnog and anything else booze-related.

your gifts,

admins sar, san & sav

[twi-liight]

Hello gorgeous! I love the way you write Astarion :) could I please request a fic where the reader (female or non-binary your choice!) has a nightmare and comes to our favorite vampire for comfort? Love you work, I totally understand if this doesn’t spark inspiration!

Phantom Heartache ❣

Brave, sad Alfira. All she yearned for was to carry Lihala's legacy to Baldur's Gate, but thanks to the Dark Urge, the furthest she went was to Tav's camp. That was all she could ever amount to. Slay a thousand enemies. Be pierced by a million blades. Nothing ever compares to the pain of her loss at their hands. ❥ DarkUrge!Tav spoilers for Act 1. ❥ Astarion/Tav. ❥ They/them pronouns for Tav. ❥ Tav is the nickname for the oc/reader insert. Their real name is up to you!

At the crest of their slumber, when inky tendrils drag them gently into the arms of deep sleep, Tav comes home to her.

Dreams cannot fool them easily. Too many have come and gone with promises of power and blood for them to dismiss them as simple yearnings of the mind when they are fast asleep. They know, on a shallow, muted level that this is a dream, that this isn't reality. That none of this is real and it doesn't mean anything.

But there Alfira stands, nothing like the day she left this world. Her purple locks drift in the waters around them. Despite the depths of the ocean, sunlight pierces through the darkness and glitters on her.

"Alfira," they croak out. They speak her name into existence and their heart splits in two.

"Tav," Alfira whispers. Her brows furrow the same way she did whenever she thought too hard. Her lips pucker and set like she's recited these words too many times before. "You have to know something. Something important. I-... Please, just listen."

When they reach out for her, she takes their hands. They wander the ocean depths with no true purpose or destination. It hurts so much. The guilt could crush them before the inevitable dooms along the horizon. It takes all of their strength to say, "I'm so sorry, Alfira."

She shakes her head. Sunbeams catch tears welling up in her ocher eyes. "I know you are. I know you." Alfira clasps their hands tight, warm and comforting, filled with assurance. "You've done so much for us. Thank you, Tav."

Silence overwhelms Tav at that moment, crushing their neck in one fell swoop. They can't breathe. It hurts, and they can't breathe.

"I'm sorry, too. For all the love you gave me that I can't repay, I'm sorry." Alfira whispers, her voice breaking in too many places. The warmth from her hands disappears, and they realize she's letting them go.

"Tav," she says one last time, their last image of her reaching for them as the distance grows wider and wider.

Tav. Tav. Tav. Tav. Tav. Tav. Tav!

"Tav!"

Astarion breaks the connection. Suddenly and all at once, they've surfaced from the waters back to reality, where air is shoveled into their drowned lungs.

All at once, faces and voices. They heave, doubling over as they push themselves upright. Nausea hits them fast and hard but they don't care. Shadowheart, Gale, Karlach, Lae'zel, Wyll - a few paces behind them, Jaheira and Halsin gaze down at her with a somber expression. Closest to them, with his hands closed around their inner elbow is Astarion.

"Tav," he says, softer this time.

Tav, Alfira chokes out. Tav. I'm so sorry.

No. "No." No, no, no, sorry for what? Come back, Alfira. What are you apologizing for, I was the one who-

The vision tightens around their skull like molten iron. The tadpole squirms, receding from the shameful memory of Alfira's corpse, defiled and destroyed. In her eyes, they see themselves.

They were her friend. And they let her die screaming and alone.

"Away," Tav breathes out. It's so weak that it's just a whittled breath, but the strength behind them gives pause to everyone around.

Astarion's hands flinch back, but by then it's too late. It's too much. Their tadpole activates a defense mechanism and power crumbles from the depths of their mind. They struggle away from their companions, roaring out, "I commanded you!"

Waves of ilithid energy break through their portcullis - Karlach audibly yelps in pain, struggling against the barrage of mental energy. "Tav-- damn it, we're trying to--" Wyll's hand lashes out to steady her, only to recede as it flies back to clutch his head in pain. "-- Help you!"

"Gale!" Shadowheart cries, nearly buckling to the floor as the full weight of Tav's prowess pours into her mind, threatening to snap it in two. "Can you-- is there a--"

They lock eyes with Gale, who shoots them a pleading look. "Enough," he begs, holding up his shaky hands as a sign of surrender. "Tav, enough. It's alright."

"It's not," they whisper. It's hard to speak when their breaths are too fast, too raggedy, too stuttered to be anything but a cornered animal floundering for air. They don't notice it. They choke on lungfuls of breaths as they wrap their arms around their waist.

"It's not," they repeat again. Something shifts in the air. Power. Arcane power snapping to Gale's fingertips. Their tadpole twists with alarm. He's trying to hurt you. He doesn't want to understand. None of them understand, they're just using you.

Gale points his finger out, aiming for something behind them.

Enraged, they reach deep into the recesses of their mind for the reservoir of power. To sink their fingertips deep in it feels so alien but familiar. Like pushing their hands into a pool of thick blood, warm and fresh.

Wait. No. No, this is not the tadpole's power. This is...

Kill them, Tav. Before they hurt you. Before you hurt them.

Like what you did to me, Alfira whispers in their ear.

Something inside them breaks into two. It shatters into pieces and pulls out everything they have been hiding; the misery, the weight, the guilt, the howling wail that rings in the air as they crumble in on themselves. Hot, wet tears run down their cheeks, and it's too much.

They can't bear it. It's too much.

"Hey hey hey hey, shh shh shh," Astarion's hands cup around their ears. The remnants of Gale's magic outline him in a misty purple. When had he gotten to them so fast? They don't know. They don't understand. "Look at me, sweetheart."

They can't. Everyone around them is looking at them like they're a stranger. Shadowheart's shell-shocked expression sends a ringing ache down their spine; she is looking at them with pity and concern and fear.

"Let them breathe," Jaheira commands. When no one moves, her voice comes out sharper. "Go! Now. Ready yourselves for a long rest and give them space. You will only make it worse for them. Astarion-"

"I can handle this," Astarion murmurs. Jaheira nods, leading the companions away from the bedrolls.

"Please," Astarion pleads, rubbing circles into their cheeks with his thumbs. "Look at me. Why the tears? You know I hate tears. It is unbecoming of you to tarnish your otherwise candid expression with that face. You go from beautiful to an ugly little duck in less than a second."

"I can't," they choke out. Sobs push in between breaths and words, and they shake their head, suddenly just as afraid as the rest of them.

"You can," he murmurs. "What are you so afraid of, darling? It's just me."

It is just Astarion.

Tentatively, they lift their eyes. When they gaze into him, they find no fear or judgment. There is no anger, either, despite what they had just done and what they were going to do. His stare is forlorn and quiet. His noble brow furrows slightly, contemplative, trying to find something in their eyes.

"There you are," he says, his voice so gentle it could have been a trick of the wind. "Tav of mine."

An aching, dull pain spreads across their chest, and their body seems to understand that the only way to relieve it is to cry. Their shoulders shake, and their lungs are sore, but it doesn't stop the biting sobs from pushing out.

"Astarion," Tav begs, hands catching his wrists and holding onto them tightly. "I hurt her, I-- hah-- hurt, Alfira-"

"I know," Astarion croons.

"I killed her."

"I know."

"She was my friend and I--"

"And you betrayed her." He kisses their knuckles tenderly. "I know. Shh, shh. Oh, gods below. I dreaded the day I'd see you cry. You know why?"

"Because I'm ugly?" They hic-sob, pathetically.

He scoffs, but it sounds oddly fond. "No." Pause. Slight amusement in his wine-red eyes. "Well, yes, in this moment, you are a travesty."

They sob.

"Oh, but don't take that the wrong way, you know I can't stand to see you so hurt. What am I supposed to do, hm? Hold you until the morning comes?" His hand guides their head to the crook of his neck, where he hides them from the rest of the world.

No prying eyes can find them, now. No judgment. No words to say about the hell that they unleashed. Into the shadows, where they're safe in his embrace, where he will keep them until they decide it is time to go.

"You know I will," he murmurs into the crown of their head. "I would hold you through it all, my love. You could become the most hateful monster, covered in the blood of the undeserving, your ledger as red as an apple..."

Astarion shuts his eyes.

"... And still, I would hold you and vow to never let go. Shed your tears for the wrongs you have committed. The blood you have spilled. I don't care. So long as are my Tav, that is all that matters."

They close their eyes, tears spilling down their cheeks. Their dreamless sleep is peaceful. It is empty.

❥ Additional links: kofi | ao3

[riacte]

Martyn being "pretty pissed" about the Rendoc marriage

Ren in chat: I tickle ye from the grave me laddy!

Ren tells chat to send Martyn some love from "his king"

Ren thinks about Martyn as he lays in his grave

Ren looking for an opportunity to roleplay with Martyn [Twitch]

Martyn asks the Tumblr blog who posted the above clip what Ren means

Martyn watches a clip on False's Twitch bc it's titled "Where's Ren"

Martyn reacts to Treebark Week edits by kishdoodles (yes the whole thing) (I don't know how I can whittle this down) (help) [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Martyn somehow pauses on the Treebark TnT duo edit

Martyn imitates Ren and jokes Ren saved the TBW edits to his computer

Ren dramatically complains about Martyn ghosting him (+ cricket sounds)

Ren sings "joy to the world, Marteen has replied"

-

I would've added more but I literally ran out of options 😭😭 next time fellas. Also this is like the most insane batch since November's Decked Out burning box I swear. Also shoutout to @orangeocelotmartyn for clipping most of these 🫶🫶

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the asshole for not wanting to go out for dinner with Granddaddy?

CW: long post

My (43, FtM) husband's (39,M) family experienced several very grievous losses, including my husband's stepdad and his maternal grandmother, in 2022. MIL is not taking things well, which is to be expected, but she has a tendency to use hubby's deceased dad against him if he can't or does not wish to do something (e.g. bursting into tears and going "I wish your dad was still here, he would have known how to fix the chainsaw and trimmed the trees!" "I wish your dad was still here, HE wouldn't have told me to call a plumber for the toilet!" Also going on utterly unrelated rants that upset everyone in our home and blaming it on her grief.) Worth noting she hasn't ever pulled these tricks with hubby's younger brother (27M) despite him living with her. Also worth noting that she has said some really nasty things about me, my gender and sexuality over the last few years simply because I encourage him to stand up for himself, and has apologised to him but never to me. Nonetheless, we are family and we abide. (This is relevant backstory, I do not need to be told she sucks, we been knew.)

PRESENT! Since Grandmother (hubby's grandmother, who hated me even more openly than MIL does for being trans and turning her grandson gay, and always played her kids, grandkids and great grandkids against each other) died, Granddaddy (84M, hubby's grandfather) has been a bit at sea. "NTA!" i can hear you shouting, but Granddaddy is actually a solid dude-- has never misgendered me, is unfailingly kind to me and has always made me feel like part of the family in a way *no one else* in hubby's family does. He's lovely, funny, intelligent-- used to work in aeronautics and loves that i love his sci fi books, and adores exchanging silly cheesy jokes with me when we hang out. He's *great!* 10/10 Granddaddy.

MIL is of the opinion that Graddaddy needs to be taken out to dinner *every night*. He can never have a night alone; he can never call an uber to go out by himself; and we certainly cannot make a meal and take it to his home to eat in. He MUST be taken out to dinner EVERY night because it's the only social interaction he gets.

It's killing our wallet, y'all-- we aren't poor, but we have three kids. We've whittled it down to us taking him out twice a week, but he doesn't want to go to McDonald's, he wants to go to the local Italian or fish place, and it's *not* cheap, especially when paying for six! MIL "takes him out" five times a week (which usually means dropping him off and going to the gym while he makes waitresses uncomfortable because he's from a different generation), but she has decided two days a week are on us (we aren't just going to drop him for play dates because that doesn't make him OR the waitstaff happy!). Mind, we never agreed to this-- she just decided it, and if we argue against it we get hysterics about hubby's dad.

I am autistic and truly do not like going out more than a couple times a month at most. I have urgently suggested that I could make dinner at Granddaddy's a couple times a month, but this is NOT acceptable according to MIL. We HAVE to go out, he's GRIEVING and LONELY, isn't he?

No, no one has actually asked Granddaddy how he would feel about this, and I am a monster for even asking them to.

AITA?

What are these acronyms?