#and the gods of the East and west getting along

[yeyayeya]

Quan Yizhen and Lang Qianqiu should be besties

[florencemtrash]

The Shadowsinger & The Inkbird: Chapter Twenty

Summary: Y/n's clairvoyance is a gift from the Mother, but it feels more like a curse. With the power to gain knowledge through touch alone, Y/n holes herself up in The Alcove and hopes her powers and parentage will remain a secret. But things will change after the Summer Solstice ball and a chance encounter with a certain Shadowsinger.

Warnings: Canon typical graphic depictions

The Shadowsinger & The Inkbird: Masterlist

Masterlist of Masterlists

You were running on coffee and willpower, and both were in short supply. You cradled what you promised would be your last cup in your hands, feeling your fried nerves inch closer to bursting into flames with every bitter sip. 

Azriel had one arm looped protectively around your waist, propping you up against his side like an overworked bookend. You both sat huddled over the map you’d spent the last day and night laboring over until you could picture every stark line pressed behind shuttered eyelids like an afterimage. Until your cramped hands shook while clutching the mug like a vice. 

Feyre, Rhys, Mor, Nesta, Lucien, and Cassian similarly hovered over the innocuous sheet of paper. Pale parchment glow flickering over expressions of intense thought. 

You traced the outline of the lake, its form vaguely star shaped and pointing abstractly towards the north, south, east, and west.

“Here.” You tapped the northeast edge where a greyed out huddle of shapes formed the forest and a collection of scribbles marked the Death god’s home close to the waters. The lines swirled in your mind like a thousand snakes locked in battle, swallowing each other whole and getting eaten alive in an endless, vicious cycle. 

Koschei’s portion of the continent lay flat and unassuming, seemingly vulnerable with the flatlands peering at his back with limitless entry points for enemies from the Continent. But the seductive ease of access through that region was a guise. Koschei was a death god, and a powerful one at that. Magic grew in and out of the soil there and what walked those woods had a strange habit of toeing the line between life and death.

The western corners swam in seas of grasslands, flat and open and unprotected save for the expanse of water a mile wide. 

And the lake. The lake was the most curious thing of all. A black shape on paper, still and foreboding. 

You knew from Andrian’s memories that enchanted swans flocked there — women layered with curses that kept them bound to the region in animal form — but nothing else. No creatures floundered in the salty dark. No animals came to drink from it as if they could sense the power that tainted it with decay. 

“The boundaries of the Koschei’s power lie somewhere along here.” You pointed to the lazy line sketched down. “But I wouldn’t trust it. When Andrian was first sent off from the lake he crossed the plains towards one of the harbor towns on the coast and he felt that Koschei’s influence scaled with the distance away from the source of his power.” 

“Any weak points? Places we could slip in unnoticed?” Feyre’s eyes scanned the page, reimagining your weak swirls of ink into something more layered. Something with more meaning that could only come about from the mind of an artist and a warrior. 

You pointed to one of the star points and then to another toward the south. “Here and here. Don’t ask me how and don’t ask me why but these are the only two blind spots. Andrian used to sneak away from Koschei’s house to these two places.”

“To do what?” Cassian asked. He lumbered towards the back of the war room, easily peering over everyone’s shoulders to the flattened parchment and eyeing the wooden pieces strewn across the map, his own piece being tipped with a glistening red stone. 

“To plan his escape.” 

A hush fell over the room, thick and suffocating. 

The boy had never succeeded.

Feyre’s lips flattened to a pale line, the air around her reverberating with heat as the temperature in the room rose — a drop of Autumn’s power magnified. She nodded to the second map, this one gathered from Azriel’s contacts on the Continent. Whereas your map had laid out Koschei’s land in detail, Azriel’s was suspiciously empty where the lake was concerned. The two fit together like puzzle pieces. “What’s the nearest harbor town?”

“Tournnes.” Azriel replied without needing to look down. You’d memorized one map, he’d memorized the other. “It’s a small fishing village located twenty-three miles to the southwest. Most of the inhabitants are men that come and go with the season and travel west from Slairn and Friesieg. It will be empty this time of year.” The fish would have gone south in search of warmer waters. Even here the Sidra had turned frigid, crusts of ice lapping up against grey sand shores. 

Cassian shook his head, examining the map with a scowl. “There’s poor coverage getting from Tournnes to Koschei. And an abandoned town’s too obvious a place to hide any soldiers. It’d be better to come in from the east, through the woods.”

“Then we’d need to take the long way around Koschei’s territory.” Lucien argued back, “Our soldiers would need to trek through foreign lands for weeks and we’d lose any advantage Tarquin could give us by staying close to the coast.” 

“You can’t trust those woods,” you gasped, your eyes flashing with fear that didn’t wholly belong to you. 

Never enter those woods. Henna had once warned her Andrian. Never. Do you understand me?

Azriel tightened his hold on you, pressing his lips into your hair to brush against your ear. “Breathe, my love. Breathe.” 

You hadn’t realized you’d stopped. 

It was a heavy burden carrying the memories of others. Like a weight tied around your belly that hadn’t been properly woven into flesh. Something both part and apart from you. And you’d been feeling too many of Andrian’s memories in the past week since his death. 

Silence flung itself over growing irritation and anxiety as everyone circled back to the same conclusion. 

They wouldn’t be able to bring their armies abroad. And with limited numbers, brute strength would only go so far when forced to bring a fight to a foreign land against a foreign god. This would be decided by few. It would be as intimate as lovers. As ruthless as enemies. 

“There’s still the other plan.” Nesta reminded them, glancing first at Feyre and you with the faintest of nods. 

“I hate that plan, Nes.” Cassian gripped the back of her wing-backed chair and she reached up to take his hand in her own. She looked like a queen in her own right — harsh, pragmatic, unwavering. And he her mirror — a roguish knight, rough and wild and raw. 

“I know. Unfortunately for you, it’s the best one we’ve got.” 

“It’s the only one we’ve got.” Mor said with a sigh, rubbing her temples to alleviate the ache there. “We’re asking for a blood bath one way or the other.” 

“Ione is still with us.” Rhys squeezed his cousin’s knee. “Without her, he can be killed.” 

“But for how long, Rhys? How long until he finds someone else? Some other way?”

The question hung in the air like an ax ready to fall. An invisible clock ticking its way towards doom. Koschei had read the book’s contents. He had to know the secret to freeing himself was sheltered in Ione’s veins. So long as she was alive and breathing she was a threat as much as she was a tantalizing prize for him to tear his teeth into. 

Feyre’s fingernails clicked on the glossy tabletop, eyes narrowed in on that splash of black on paper. Through the golden string tied to her lower ribs, she felt the tug of her mate’s silent agreement. Her eyes flickered upward for a brief moment, as if she could see through the layers of the House to the skies above. “For as long as we have Ione, we have the upper hand. But we can’t rely on it forever.” She looked at you, “ We go with the first plan. It will have to be enough.” 

You shivered. 

Four years ago, when the Day Court had first opened its borders to foreigners from other Courts, you’d encountered a male in the market. He’d been young and reckless and glamoured himself to live amongst the humans for six months. In that time, he’d learned their version of magic — the sleight of hand tricks and elaborate games of misdirection humans played on one another. Caped entertainers bedazzling crowds with obvious moves, while the real work happened just out of frame. 

You thought of him now. You pictured him in the marketplace as he made a hand-painted playing card disappear from his hand into the fold of his suit jacket, only to reappear under an overturned teacup. 

Yes. 

It would have to be enough. 

The crisp blade flashed in the dull light as you moved your feet back and forth in a practiced dance. 

Left, left, right, duck, keep your wrist straight and slice up. Just like Azriel had instructed you. He stood off the narrow mat, hazel eyes tracing every slow movement of yours with a critical gaze. 

“Practice makes permanence.” He’d reminded you earlier. “Get it right first, then we’ll worry about speed.” 

Magic hovered over the House of Wind’s training gym, warping the air like a soap bubble as it shielded you from the frigid rain. Even so, the scent of petrichor and the cleanliness of frosted wind hung close to warn of the storm churning its way down from the north, carrying with it the promise of rainfall or the first true flakes of snow. 

How poetic that winter should come with death chasing its heels while you were learning a dozen ways to kill a man. 

“Here.” Azriel took your wrist in a loose grip, arching your arm and sticking the point of the knife into the training dummy’s jugular. Hay crinkled and burst out from the burlap covering instead of blood and you stepped away, locating the points in the liver, the lungs, the heart, the throat, under the arms, and more. Gruesome things made digestible by the motionless, fake body propped up on wooden poles. 

You didn’t need to imagine what it would feel like for your blade to meet flesh. 

Your arms ached. Hot, unfamiliar stretches of muscle trembling while slick with sweat. You could taste salt on your tongue as Azriel repeated himself. 

“Be precise. Be quick if you can. Then run like hell.” 

Incapacitation and speed. Those were the only two things you could rely on if things went south on the Continent. 

Precise. Quick. Run.

“Emphasis on run,” You muttered beneath your breath. You adjusted your feet to match Azriel’s stance, feeling the strength of his muscles close to your body and imagining some of that power seeping into the ground for you to drink up. 

The corner of his mouth twitched, then rose in a smile. “Exactly.” He stepped in, hands twisting your hips to be straight and then drifting up to your wrist. “Too much.” He corrected your bones with a feather-light touch. He wasn’t smiling anymore. 

It should have been romantic. Him touching you like this with his front pressed against your back and his breath sliding over your skin as he taught you to wield a knife. Instead his insides churned relentlessly. Visions of you, blood-splattered and motionless on the ground, flashed through his mind. He’d be damned if he let that happen again. 

You practiced on him next. Blunt, stone knife gripped in your hands as he moved in slow-motion. Azriel must have had everything custom made for you. The balance felt right in your hands, the movement as fluid as your awkward limbs could manage. 

You clasped a hand around the back of his neck, dragging him forward as you swung up. 

Where the head goes, the body will follow.

He didn’t so much as grunt as the stone wedged itself into his ribs. 

You locked eyes with him and saw his pupils blown wide as a doe’s. “Good.” He murmured. “Again.” 

On and on you went for hours, Azriel’s panic fueling the training he put you through, as if he could fit a hundred years of combat into a handful of hours. 

You grunted when Azriel easily flipped you over onto your back, a scarred hand catching the nape of your neck so your head wouldn’t slam into the floor. The knife slipped out from your sweaty fingers, skittering away and disappearing beneath one of the weapons racks along the wall. You breathed heavily beneath him, feeling the grit of the ground and the sweat sliding into your hair and the leather brushing your chest with every breath he took. 

In a real fight, Azriel would have killed you a thousand times over and he knew it. There was not a single moment where you could have saved yourself. 

You saw the tell tale flicker in his eyes, the tensing of his jaw before he gritted his teeth and swore beneath his breath. 

You felt shame seep into your stomach again. “Az—”

“I want you to take my memories,” he said. “Everything I’ve learned over 500 years.” 

Metal whispered against leather as a tendril of shadow retrieved the knife and slid it into the thigh sheath Azriel had tied around your legs only hours ago. It felt strange to have such an unfamiliar weight against your thighs. To know that only leather kept the wicked blade from slicing you to the bone. 

“We’ve been over this before, Azriel. I can take however many memories I want from you until I can picture every way to take down an enemy in my mind’s eye. But that doesn’t mean my body will obey or follow through correctly. Knowing things mentally isn’t the same thing as knowing things physically.”

Azriel huffed in frustration, dropping one hand to your waist like he often did and gripping the flesh there to ground him. 

“If we had more time—”

“When this is over we’ll have more time.” 

If I make it. 

Because if there was anyone who would survive what was to come. It was Azriel. And you could find a great deal of comfort in that.

Azriel must have read your doubt because his eyes hardened and his hands came up to cup your jaw. “We will have more time. We’ll have time for everything, do you understand me?”

“Like what?”

“Whatever you want. We’ll travel the Courts. I’ll take you dancing and—”

“You’ll teach me a dozen new ways to kill someone?” 

“Exactly.”

“Should I start keeping a tally?” 

“If that would help, then yes.” He dipped his head down, kissing you firmly on the lips, the taste salty and warm to the touch. Kissing you came easy now. Touches were a comforting drug he craved daily. 

“If things go wrong—” He whispered, flicking a strand of hair out of your eyes. “Promise me you’ll find me.” 

You blinked up at him, tracing fragments of gold in his eyes. 

“Find you,” you echoed, your voice tinged with sadness. “You’re not going to convince me to run?”

He laughed bitterly. “I know you too well, my love. You wouldn’t listen even if I did. If anything, it would make you want to stay and fight even more, just to prove me wrong.“ “Then is this some reverse psychology? You tell me the opposite of what you want, so I end up doing what you intended all along?”

“You’re thinking too deeply about this.” He slid his arms around the small of your back, dropping his weight until you were flush against him. Until you could feel his heart beating beneath his skin in time to yours. “Find me, so I can protect you. And so if anything happens, we won’t be alone. I want you to promise me.” 

You caressed his cheek, the coarse bandages he’d wound around your wrists and knuckles scratching the skin of his jaw and the faint stubble that had grown there over sleepless nights. “I promise I’ll find you, Azriel. We’re better together anyways.” 

He could never disagree with you. He lifted you back onto your feet, kissing your forehead. “Three more drills, then we’ll be done for the day.” 

He made you run five. The bastard.

You’d dreamed of what might come. Nightmares filled with glassy-eyed children and skeletal forests where the dead roamed free. A black lake with stones of bleached bone to fill your lungs and choke the life out of you. 

You wanted to make Azriel proud. You wanted to be the kind of warrior who could match him physically, not just mentally. The kind of female he’d never have to worry about protecting in that way. But violence had never been beaten into your bones and you could only hope that the skills you did possess would see you through to the end. 

You and Azriel would make it. You’d all make it. 

Some way. 

Somehow. 

Then there would be time for everything you had ever wanted and everything you’d never had the courage to ask for.

You woke up to a world shivering beneath a dusting of snow. Frost creeped up the windowsill, trying to slither inside before the House’s magic burned it away. A grey, ashen sky hung low over the mountains, mist blowing over and gathering in valleys until they were transformed into pools of smoke. 

So this is it. You thought wearily, tasting the change in the air. Winter’s finally here to choke the world into submission. 

You burrowed further under Azriel’s wings, chasing the heat that rolled off his skin. When you looked up at his eyes they were already trained on the weather, some similar tangle of thoughts running through his mind that had his grip around your waist tightening. 

“The other death gods. Have you met any of them, Az?” You whispered your question into the hollow of his neck, feeling the blood rushing beneath your lips until he answered.

“I’ve met a fair few. The Bone Carver, Stryga, and Bryaxis joined our side in the final battle against Hybern and Nesta was equivalent in power when she first emerged from the Cauldron.” 

“Nesta?” You asked questionably. 

She was a collection of sharp edges wrapped in silk and cunning, but a death god? 

Azriel smiled ever so slightly. “You didn’t know her then, but she was a terror to behold. You could feel her presence in a room like a knife in your back or a flame licking at your heels so hold it starts to freeze. Only Cassian was foolish and lovestruck enough to approach her at the time.” 

You tried to imagine it — Cassian’s wild, borderline arrogant mannerisms going toe-to-toe against Nesta’s magnified sharp grace. “That sounds about right.” 

“Feyre knows the most about the death gods. Has come face to face with the most. Rhys sent her into the Weaver’s cabin to retrieve her engagement ring — don’t give me that look, my love, I don’t understand it either — and she’s the one who convinced The Bone Carver and Bryaxis to fight for us.” 

“Feyre has a penchant for endearing herself to monsters.” 

Azriel smirked, pearly teeth flashing. “You have no idea.” Then he said something that stuck with you. “The Bone Carver was especially close to her.” 

Anytime the Bone Carver — Thanatos — was mentioned, you could only think of Bethsevah. The one person who had ever looked upon his true face and never flinched.

“How so?” 

Shadows swarmed around his ears, as much a sign of his thinking as it was a sign that whispers beyond your own understanding were reaching him. 

“When Feyre met with the Bone Carver, he made a bargain that he’d only fight for her if she could descend into the Court of Nightmares and bring back an enchanted mirror without going mad. Feyre said she saw her true form when she looked into her reflection, and that it was only by accepting this form that she was able to keep the madness at bay. The Bone Carver was impressed with her and pledged his loyalty to her from then on.” Azriel shook his head, wings flaring out in another sign of his thinking. “It never made sense to me why a being like him would even make that bargain to begin with.” 

“Even death gods can be surprised. We should consider ourselves lucky.” 

“It wasn’t just that though. I was watching when he died. He… he turned his face up to the field at Feyre and he smiled at her. It felt like a bittersweet ending to a story I didn’t know. Like he was saying goodbye to more than just this world.” 

You draped your arm over his chest, tracing the black ink swirling across his chest and over his shoulders like ocean waves. The Bone Carver was more myth than legend to the few fae that had known of his existence and you knew with each passing century his story would be steadily wiped from the earth like wind shaving down stone. His name would become a whisper. His story, and Beth’s, a tragedy for no one but the stars to weep to. 

But you were still here, and your time with Bethsevah’s book had left you with no small amount of fondness for him. For now you would still be able to whisper his true name. 

“Thanatos.” You said. “He loved this world and the people in it. He sacrificed his life for it. I think he had many things he wanted to say goodbye to.” 

“To Thanatos then.” Azriel raised an invisible cup towards the ceiling of his bedroom, silk sheets sliding down his arms.

“To Thanatos,” you echoed. 

You eventually went through the morning motions together —Azriel helped lace up the back of your dress, and you buttoned up his shirts, careful to avoid the fragile membrane of his wings as you stood at his back.

He tugged you away from the bedroom door at the last moment, your questioning eyes softening when he cradled your face in his hands and stole one last kiss in the privacy of your room, murmuring "Beautiful," against the crown of your freshly brushed hair.

"Do the others know you're such a hopeless romantic?" You asked, finally opening the door and breaking the spell of privacy.

Before Azriel could answer, Cassian blew past the room, shockingly quiet for his mountainous size. "Yes, we all know," he shouted before disappearing down the hall.

Ione stood proud and tall in front of the windows, grey eyes narrowed at the Sidra as it wound through the valley like a snake. Cassian slid into the space beside her and handed her her cane. She knew instinctively where the warrior stood and where his hand reached out towards her. She took the cane without the second glance. A golden lion’s head roared from atop its wooden post, Ione’s fingers resting squarely between its glistening teeth as she leaned experimentally on the new device. Cassian had ordered it custom for her and she knew that hidden within the sleeve of glistening redwood was an iron rod forged in enchanted flames that rendered it near unbreakable. 

“Careful.” She reminded Cassian when she caught him staring for too long. “This body may be different, but I can still bring you to your knees.” 

Cassian chuckled, “I don’t doubt that.”

She slammed the cane against the ground once. Twice. Testing its strength and finding it worthy. “Do you think it will happen soon?” 

This waiting — it was beginning to grate on her nerves. This foreboding calm that threatened to fall away into chaos and bloodshed. She almost wished she were living three years into the future, when she was finally done healing from her wounds and the future had faded into the background of her life once more.

“If I could see into the future, I would not be here right now waiting.”

“And yet here we are.” Ione sighed, shoulders rising and falling elegantly beneath a wrinkled but slender neck.  

Cassian would have said more had Feyre and Rhys not entered the room together, bruises layered beneath their eyes as they plastered on bright smiles for their family, tension visible through the cracks in their porcelain teeth. 

The Inner Circle had assembled in their entirety at the request of their High Lord and High Lady. There was no holiday to be celebrated. No birthdays or anniversaries or special occasions. The fare that had been laid out on the table was simple and everyone filled their plates before spilling out across the sofas and the armchairs or carving out a space on one of Rhysand’s expensive hand-woven rugs. There would be no special meal around the new table devoid of scratches and watermarks and the passage of time and love. This was their family, and for their family it was the company that put finery to shame. 

Elain was a flutter of movement in and out of the kitchen, shepherding pots of tea and fruit tarts before Lucien finally caught her around the waist and made her rest. The House was equally restless. The lights strung above the fireplace mantle flickered like lantern flies. 

Mor sat with Emerie’s wings draped around her shoulders like a cape and Gwyn sat on the floor, hugging her knees close to her chest as she rested her head against the Illyrian female’s knee. To no one’s surprise, you and Azriel clung to the corner of the room, content to watch everyone’s laughter with your arm subtly looped around his. 

He still hasn’t told her, I see. Emerie noted, watching your smile stretch into place when Azriel leaned close to whisper in your ear. 

Does it matter? Mor teased, kissing Emerie’s nose reverently. The Illyrian’s cheeks turned warm. Emerie had not been granted the freedom to explore romance to the same degree as Mor, something she’d worried about when they first started their courtship. But if anyone asked the blonde, she’d tell them it drove her wild to see how such simple gestures could reduce the fearsome warrior to a puddle, even now. Mor tucked herself into Emerie’s side, throwing her long legs over the armrest. It’s probably a good thing. If they could speak to each other like this, we’d never hear from them again.

Emerie laughed into Mor’s golden hair. 

Conversations rose and fell. Plates emptied and clicked as they were laid out on the coffee table.

It was a simple peace they welcomed with open arms. 

They didn’t hear the faintest thud coming from above their heads. 

You smiled when one of Azriel’s shadows wove themselves into your hair, tickling the sensitive skin behind your ear and along your neck. 

“Sorry,” Azriel whispered, trying and failing to draw them back to him for the nth time that day. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them.” They’d been especially touchy as of late, nipping at your heels like a litter of puppies vying for attention or hiding in your pockets. It was a mixture of Azriel’s own feelings that spurred them on and their own desire to protect what they’d claimed as theirs. 

“It’s alright, Azriel. I like having them around.” 

They hummed amongst themselves, happy to see you so pleased. Sometimes, Azriel wondered if you’d be able to learn to listen to them as well. To tease apart that secret language he couldn’t begin to describe. 

Maybe you were listening to them now without even realizing it.

Maybe that’s why you and Azriel were the only ones whose eyes snapped towards the hallway before the first creak of wood sounded throughout the House.

The shuffling of a new, unfamiliar set of feet down the stairs had the hair on the back of your neck rising and crackling with energy.

It wasn’t Jurian. It wasn’t loud enough to be Jurian. He so rarely descended from the attic that he made a habit of making his presence known, tired feet shuffling along the rugged staircase with measured drags. 

You walked over to your brother and tugged on the back of his shirt. “Jurian—”

“That’s not Jurian.” Lucien said with bated breath. He was the third person in the room to hear the sound.

He’d checked on his friends less than a handful of hours ago. Jurian had been as he always was — weary but hopeful as one hand had clenched the bundle of morphine and the other had leaned against the food cart Lucien had carried up to the top floor. 

And Vassa… Vassa had been uncharacteristically quiet, slouching against the wall of her gilded cage, raw skin and thin feathers trembling with her haggard breath as she slept. 

“You should come down.” Lucien had said. “You deserve a break.” 

But Jurian had only shook his head and flashed a tight smile. “As much as I would love to bless you with my presence, I won’t leave her like this. But one day, my friend, we’ll both walk down those steps together and have a proper celebration. I promise you.” 

Vassa came down the steps. 

Alone. 

Naked.

Shivering.

You eyed the window where the mid-afternoon sun beat down on a frosted city. 

It was the middle of the day… and Vassa was human. 

You clutched Lucien’s arm, fingernails digging through his cotton shirt before he could take another step forward. Silence suffocated the room. There was something deeply wrong with the cursed queen. She trembled like a newborn fawn unceremoniously dumped into the world, her skin puckered and pock-marked from where she’d picked at old scabs and opened new wounds. The whole array hung from bones so thin they may as well have belonged to a bird. 

“Vassa…” Lucien’s voice broke on her name. 

A path of bloody feathers trailed behind her.

She grasped at strands of her fiery red hair and tugged. Hard. You focused all your energy on keeping the food in your stomach when strands fell through her bloody fingers and saliva rose in your mouth. 

“I’m so sorry, Lucien. I can’t… It won’t stop.” Her voice, which had once been beautiful, grated your ears. “My skin. It feels like I’m crawling out of it.” 

“Vassa.” Lucien held out his hands, showing her they were empty. “Where’s Jurian?” He would come down. He would help her in ways only he was capable of. 

“I don’t… I don’t know…”

“Where’s Jurian?”

At the second mention of her lover’s name, Vassa broke down crying. Fat, ugly tears streaking down tan cheeks that had turned sallow and grey. She wiped them away, fingers dripping. There was a deep, unyielding hunger evident in every stutter of her body as her eyes raked across the room. You flinched when those milky, teal eyes passed over you… and landed on Ione. 

Elderly, painfully human, Ione.

Vassa’s left eye twitched and Azriel had only enough time to tackle you to the ground and cover your body with his own before the mortal queen burst into flames.

<- Previous Chapter Next Chapter ->

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Author's Note:

^^ Visual depiction of how I've felt the last week like what in the world? I'm getting enough sleep I swear but every morning I feel like I'm dragging a two ton boulder behind me until I get a sip of that bitter goodness. Ugh. Hope y'all are resting better than I am.

Anyways, I know it's been a while since I posted, but the chapter is here! Whoop! And I hope you enjoyed :) As always, feedback is appreciated and welcome if you have burning things you need to get off your chest (doesn't even have to be SSIB-related honestly my inbox is there).

[thewolvesofthenorth]

Prologue

Prologue to Man of Honor

Series Masterlist ❖ Main Masterlist ❖ House Of The Dragon Masterlist

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 400+

Summary: How were you to know that words spoken as children would one day come back to haunt you?

Warnings: Angst angst angst, language, fluff, slow burn

A/N: Coming back from a three year hiatus to start a new series, and hopefully finish the other ones, so please bear with me!

Next Chapter ⟹

Snow.

It covered everything as far as the eye could see.

From East to West, and North to South, it blanketed the whole of the land as far as the eye could see. You were used to the familiar bite of the cold. You were always strange and had basked in the way the crisp air tickled your nose and turned even the warmest of fires into a dwindling warmth. You were a true Northerner, born and bred in the vast lands of white, and no stranger to the unforgiving winds of winter. You were never one to shy away from a challenge, often times seeking one out and getting yourself into trouble along the way.

However, you were never alone in your endeavors. You were always accompanied in your ventures by your best friend, Cregan Stark.

You and Cregan had grown up together since you were babies, with Cregan being just a few months older than you. You had been the daughter of his mother’s best friend, and when your mother passed in childbirth, followed shortly after by your father in a hunting accident, the Starks had gladly taken you in and raised you alongside their son. You and Cregan grew up like siblings; you argued like siblings, wrestled like siblings, and confided in each other as only siblings could. At the tender age of ten, you and Cregan had been each other’s first kiss, curiosity pushing the bounds of your innocence. At fourteen, on an especially cold and snowy afternoon, the two of you were quietly sitting beneath the heart tree, and Cregan had spoken so softly that you almost missed it.

“One day, we’ll get married, right here under this tree, and you’ll become the Lady of Winterfell,” he vowed.

Your heart had leap at his words, and you had pulled him in for an embrace and placed a kiss on his cheek.

“You promise?” You asked.

“I swear it, by the old gods, and the new.”

That day you had realized that your feelings for Cregan had changed.

You no longer felt the love one would have for a sibling. 

No, this was something else entirely, something more.

At least for you.

How were you supposed to know that those feelings, and his words, would take you both down a path that neither of you knew how to navigate?

Next Chapter ⟹

[bootleg-nessie]

Things that will happen in the future (based on my own experiences with time travel):

***FAQs at the end***

*All of these observations are copied directly from my notes in roughly the order I took them in

*Don’t ask about the interchanging use of past/present/future tense, you know how that stuff is with time travel

Women just started all growing three boobs instead of two. Scientists baffled

Genetically engineered catboys (no literally)

The great pyramid of Giza has been converted into a Bass Pro Shop

The entire state of Rhode Island was bought by some rich tech CEO who promptly dug a 500 foot wide trench around the entire state so that it could in fact be an island. It was soon converted into the world’s largest parking lot

Pollution has gotten so bad that fresh oxygen is now delivered straight to most homes via a subscription service

Basic necessities such as food, water, and housing are now provided for free by the government, but only for the top 1% of wealth holders

Insulin now costs twice as much as rent. “Get fucked,” say pharma companies

92.6% of new electronic appliances now have smartphone integration and require a monthly subscription to use

Most billionaires have real estate on earth’s moon

As an ongoing film experiment, Taika Waititi successfully convinced a Nebraska man that he’s been raptured and is now in heaven. He actually got Truman Show’d and now millions of viewers tune in every week to watch God (played by John DiMaggio) manipulate Robert into confronting his own views, battle cognitive dissonance, and face the realization that he might not have been as good of a person on Earth as he thought he was

Carrots have gone extinct, as have highland cows

Species of extinct animals and plants now are being posthumously renamed after the billionaires and elites most directly responsible for killing then off

Researchers discovered a sentient colony of fungus off the coast of Chile, it prefers to go by Fleebo and appears to have a incredibly complex intelligence far greater than any other observed organic being

Nobody knows where Ireland went. It literally just disappeared off the face of the earth one day and nobody bothered to question it. The story couldn’t compete in the news cycle with the recent news about a company in China that made the first real life pokemon. An entire civilization of people gone and I’m the only one who seems to remember it or even care

Fleebo and its offspring have annexed Madagascar and are threatening any retaliation with nuclear warfare and “making The Last of Us a reality.” Nobody knows if Fleebo actually has the capabilities to do this, but after the Lovecraft incident we’re all TOO goddam scared to fuck around and find out

Large snails have replaced cats and dogs as the most common household pet. Snail culture has largely taken over the world, especially Japan

The president of the United States is now decided with an oiled up twerking competition. Most people were hesitant at first but this has produced vastly more competent leaders so now everyone just kinda goes along with it

With the cost of living crisis only worsening with time, selling tattoo space on your body to advertisers has become common as people struggle to afford rent and pay their bills

North and South Korea have reunited into “Korea 2.0”

Germany has split up into East and West Germany again

Belgium and France have been annexed by West Germany and renamed “Wester Germany” and “Westest Germany” respectively

The entirety of Florida is now underwater. Most of Kansas is too for some reason that scientists refuse to explain because they’ve “sworn an oath to the eldritch gods” and that “much worse things would happen” if they did

The melting ice caps in Antarctica unveiled a lost civilization of intelligent creatures descended from a species of lungfish, predating human civilization by millions of years. They planned on hibernating for another 10-15 million years to observe the course of evolution on Earth and are very very angry at humans for waking them up prematurely and ruining all of that with global warming

The politically correct term for lungfish people is “Dipnoid” but most people refer to them by a variety of slurs, such as “finwalker” and “kelp muncher” (not that they even eat kelp)

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has now increased to nearly half the size of what was formerly known as Canada and has been colonized entirely by pirates (the flag is actually pretty cool). The pirate nation has the 17th largest economy in the world and is projected to surpass the United States in GDP

Africa is about 2% smaller. Nobody knows why. Most people point to Fleebo, who denies having any involvement

All human-Dipnoid interaction was promptly banned by most world governments, except for the GPGPRP (Great Pacific Garbage Patch Republic of Pirates), whom the Dipnoids rely upon extensively for trade

Scientists have used DNA from fossils to recreate other species of humans. We now live alongside them like we did for thousands of years before everyone besides Homo sapiens went extinct. Racism is at an all time high

Class C and above robots are now legally recognized by most progressive countries as people

The United States government has been exposed for secretly funneling billions of dollars into the GPGPRP and using it to fund terrorist operations all over the world.

A new major religion revolving around Dave Grohl has skyrocketed in popularity. Grohilsm is now the world’s largest religion, second only to Fleeboism

Scientists discovered a new continent in the Pacific Ocean, and then promptly lost it again. Most people are convinced this was just an elaborate practical joke, but scientists “swear it definitely happened”

For a brief period of about 30 years, everything in George Orwell’s 1984 happened almost exactly as written in the book. Literally 1984

It was revealed that Jeff Epstein didn’t kill himself. He actually faked his death and spent the next few years in a drug-fueled episode of psychosis making sock puppets in a cave in Italy and then molesting said sock puppets until he died from a sock puppet related illness

Bigfoot was discovered off the coast of Georgia doing cocaine with a congregation of alligators. When questioned, he said he normally lives in Montana and was only there on vacation. He is now a celebrity, and has been featured in a number of tv shows and films, two of which he won an Oscar for. Last I checked, he was a washed up actor living in Hollywood with a reanimated Neanderthal woman

The GPGPRP raided most of England’s museums with the object of “doing exactly what they did for the last few centuries” England was understandably furious, but the rest of the world found it rather amusing

England declared war on the GPGPRP, which it promptly lost after hackers brought down the entire country’s military overnight. Much like in the 21st century, England is the world’s laughing stock

The entirety of Luxembourg relocated itself to the moon

Russia attempted to take over most of Eurasia. In retaliation to the full global effort to stop them, they launched nukes at the world’s 600 most populous cities outside of its current territory. Most of the warheads were stopped in time, but a few major metropolitan areas got hit pretty badly, including Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Mexico City, and Istanbul. Japan was understandably super pissed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki got nuked for a second time

In the wake of the nuclear holocaust, Canada assumed control over what was formerly Russia and assimilated many of its citizens and leaders into its own society and government. Under the new rule of formerly Russian leaders, Canada became a puppet state for the second coming of Russia. It annexed much of the United States, Mongolia, China, and a handful of other countries, becoming “the world’s first megacountry.” Crungolaska now controls a majority of the northern hemisphere

As part of a practical joke by Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks was actually marooned on a desert island like in Castaway. He lasted less than a week before he died. When I left this era of the future, Adam Sandler was serving a lifetime sentence in prison for murder

Fringe groups of crows with above-average intelligence have started popping up around the world. So far they have been observed forming small communities, crafting relatively complex tools, using rudimentary speech, performing rituals, and creating music

Aliens visited earth and had a formal meeting with many of our world leaders, but decided to leave us alone for a few thousand more years because humanity is “not yet mature enough to handle the responsibilities of interstellar travel.” They have incentivized us with a the blueprints for an Alcubierre Drive and a means to produce the exotic matter to fuel it once they deem us as being ready

The original colony of settlers on Mars has declared independence, officially becoming the first country not on Earth

We sent Tom Cruise back to space but this time we just left him there

The tether for the space elevator broke. The town known as Vatorville, famous for being the location of the takeoff point of the elevator shuttle on Earth, was completely decimated as tens of thousands of miles of steel cable came crashing back down. There were no survivors

Most people in first and second world countries have mandatory microchip implants that serve as a personal ID

Last Thursdayism has been largely denounced by quantum physicists. Current theories now revolve around “Next Thursdayism,” the belief that the entire universe was created in the future and that we all exist as a memory in the past

Synthetic organ farms for transplants and research have become a massive industry worth billions of dollars. However, there is still a huge black market for organically grown human organs, as they’re much cheaper to acquire and aren’t taxed at the exorbitant rates that lab-grown organs are

China dug a hole all the way to the center of the Earth. Turns out it’s hollow and there are people living inside. Who knew?

A university reconstructed the entire city of Rome as it was in its early days during the Roman Empire. It’s actually pretty historically accurate, except for the fact that there’s a lot less sex because it’s run by a bunch of sweaty history nerds

After Rome 2 resulted in the creation of a cult revolving around the Roman god of the dead that gained traction as a minor religion, Pluto was officially reinstated as a planet by NASA when cultists picketed their headquarters every day for nearly 3 years straight. “Fine, we’ll give these fucking virgins what they want so they’ll finally shut the hell up,” said NASA’s administrator in chief

In a display of the biotechnical prowess of Disney’s Imagineers, all the animatronics in Disney’s Hall of Presidents were replaced with clones of the originals, which went about exactly as well as you’d expect. After reports of the presidents hurling a series of racial slurs and other obscenities at the first black family to enter surfaced, the project was shut down almost immediately after it had opened. Minority admission to Magic Kingdom plummeted to 2.3% of its numbers from the previous year, making it the second whitest place on earth after a taylor swift concert

Plastic now makes up about 3% of every organism on earth by weight

Public officials are now required by law to take shrooms before running for office

Trees are considered a rare and highly sought after commodity, and are usually only owned by public institutions and the rich (the vast majority of oxygen farms use algae to produce oxygen)

FAQs:

FAQ: What time period(s) did you go to?

A: I have no fucking clue. The world stopped using the Gregorian calendar in 2063 after a gamma ray burst hit the sun. The GRB led to stellar ablation, which changed the length of a year on Earth. The sun would continue to lose mass at an accelerated rate for several more years, with the length of the year changing slightly from year to year. The world adopted a variety of different calendars which kept being updated frequently and were often super confusing and contradictory. I traveled to about a dozen different points in time, which based on my best estimates spanned within a few millennia of the current date.

FAQ: How did you obtain a time machine?

A: I think it was the 17th or 18th of June, 2055? That night, a large sci-fi looking box thingy roughly the size of a VW Bus appeared a few hundred yards away in the open field in front of my house. I tried to take a picture of the box, but for some reason the closer I got, the more the image on my camera started to become fuzzy, and by the time I got close enough to take a decent picture, the camera had stopped working altogether. I pulled open a door to reveal a corpse inside that was charred beyond recognition, who appeared to have suffocated and/or burned to death during a fire that damaged most of the interior. I also noticed a number of strange tumors and growths on the body. I pressed a random button on the remains of what I believed to be a control panel, expecting nothing to happen, but the door closed automatically and I suddenly lost consciousness. When I came to, I exited the box, expecting to still be in the field in front of my house, but instead found myself a ways outside of a small snowy village that based on my best estimates, was somewhere in northern Asia around 2-3 thousand years ago. The villagers started coming after me with spears, so I quickly ran back to the box and pressed another button, hoping it would return me to from whence I came. This time, the people I found (who were thankfully much nicer and spoke a dialect of English that I could mostly understand) told me that it was the year 506 of the PGRB-Δ4 calendar (the calendar that the United Territories was using at the time). I repeated this maybe a dozen more times trying to get home until I landed in 2023, which as far as I could tell, was the closest I had gotten back to my original time so far. It was at this point that I decided to stay and seek medical attention, as I was rather concerned about some nasty new growths on my arms and legs similar to that which I had seen on the corpse.

FAQ: Where is the time machine now?

A: No idea. It disappeared a few days after I landed in 2023. My best guess is that some poor sap found it and ended up sometime else.

(I never ask for likes/reblogs but I literally spent fucking WEEKS on this one so if you liked it pls show me some love <3)

[emporiannee]

more additions to the xianxia au!

once again, idea dump under the cut:

Madara:

A prodigal talent who excels at fighting. He has both skill and luck so he's expected to ascend as a matter of course.

Unexpectedly, he has no charisma. When the Uchiha follow him into battle it's because he's the strongest and is their recognized leader. He sucks at actually inspiring people to follow him outside of that.

i think he probably does ascend sometime in the AU, but even in heaven amongst many other great heroes and warriors, he still picks fights and gets himself nearly banished sometimes. He's just got that kind of hubris lol

He likes to collect weapons imbued with special powers. Since he's already capable with regular weapons, he's looking for new challenges (perhaps like something from a dragon's treasury?)

I think he should also be good with animals. When i imagined him doing archery, I imagined he would do well on horseback. I think his falconry hobby also carries over from canon. If he ever gets to go on a long adventure i think he'd go on a quest looking for cool new weapons and mystical creatures.

Hikaku:

A scholar and Madara's (and Izuna's) tutor. In this AU, i imagine him a little older than Madara.

He's talented in divination and magic. His martial arts aren't bad either. He makes many specialized talismans and charms for his clansmen.

His role as the brother's tutor probably gives him gray hairs. Izuna up and left one day. Madara's attitude is bad and he doesn't kneel before gods unless it's literally his own ancestors so Hikaku is worried even if Madara is able to ascend (more accurately, he's worried about how the heavens will end up.)

To keep himself calm he took up transcribing buddhist sutras (this is important to me bc i think hikaku's 'good end' would be either he dies peacefully like a normal person or he becomes a bodhisattva bc if he ascends to godhood, i think he ends up with a job like ling wen from tgcf and that would be tragic for him lmao. Although, there might be a place for him in a more Journey to the West type heaven where maybe he ends up tending to fruit trees for alchemy reasons or something.)

Mito:

jesus h christ i struggled with her designs. sry queen, it's still kinda iffy. I wanted her to be a dragon but it was difficult to design her with horns while keeping her usual design intact and not too cluttered. It did not help because i also wanted her to wear fancy jewlery

This is because I wanted her to be the the princess of the south sea palace. While i characterized the senju/east sea by a wood element affinity and their trove of treasures and weapons, I think the south sea for this au would be characterized by monsoons and typhoons. It protects and isolates them, not unlike Uzushio. It also makes them pretty wealthy since the people and merchants in the area try to appease them for protection from disasters.

i wanted her to be a diviner/astrologer with a talent for talisman-making similar to Hikaku. However, the area of her work is still very different. Her talismans aren't meant for human use and she doesn't divine for individuals either

I think it'd be fun if she was still 'betrothed' to Hashirama. But dragon's age very slowly and in this AU I wanted them to act like it so neither of them are rushing to get married.

she probably gets along well with tobirama. She very graciously refrains from calling him younger brother because he's sensetive about his age.

[essentiallyleaf]

day 24. car sex. with. ningning.

1286 words.

tags.

kinktober ‘23, idol x male reader, car sex, Z O O M I N, deepthroating, semi-public sex, a bit of classic existential dread.

notes.

it is so fucking late i gotta go. speedily, leaf.

It’s at times like these that you want to treasure the most precious resource you have. The sun just sank down the horizon of Alpha-Earth, giving the sky this vibrant, electric aura, from the golden and pastel blue West to the indigo East. Hundreds of headlights leave long trails of yellowish white and rusty red all along the highway, almost as if the lines were already there, and the cars just following their predetermined paths. Your right foot pushes down, getting closer and closer to the asphalt. They can call you old-fashioned, but you love the growl of the rear combustion engine, the sound of rubber on tarmac. Time. They say it gets slower as you approach light speed, you’re far from it, but it’s almost like the clock’s hands move slower as the speedometer needle reaches new peaks. Nothing feels as close to God as this. The car takes a life of its own, and you wish you could simply close your eyes and, feel. The thrill you get when you’re on top of a tall building, and part of you wants to take a step. Those are also just passing moments, you think as you lift and return to cruise speed.

Ningning is beside you like she, sometimes is. Her hand falls on your pants-clad dick and starts rubbing like it does almost every single one of those times; the other times you’re already naked. Not the first time this happens in the car, even at high speed, so you simply turn auto-pilot on (they forced everyone to install it even on cars built before 2035) and let your head fall back in pleasure as she reaches inside your underwear to caress your bare length. Your right hand naturally goes to her almost naked back, needing to feel her skin under your finger pads.

She doesn’t dress to impress; sometimes she doesn’t dress at all. And the navy skintight rags she’s wearing today, well, those almost qualify as the latter. You’re in your usual attire, combat boots, cargo pants, the ones that tighten at the ankle, a close-fitting long sleeve shirt and a windbreaker. She needs your help to lower your pants and underwear, then goes back to stroking your cock, spitting on it for lubrication and reaching down to fondle your scrotum from time to time, causing you to moan up towards the roof of the car.

“Mmmh- Ning?”

“Huh?”

“Mind speeding the process up a little?”

Ningning likes to take her time, you learned that long ago. To make you look at her as she pulls the little lever on the side of your seat to move it backwards, positions herself between your legs, and stamps one long wet kiss on your tip. Or to observe people strolling at the night market, mothers buying their sons balloons, couples eating tanghulu (“You can tell if they’re good kissers just by looking at that” “Want to try with me?” “There’s a more hands-on way”; that was your first shared kiss, and it was more than just hands, on one another’s bodies after that). Right now her blue-tinted eyes are on yours, as her mouth surrounds more and more of your cock and she starts to feel her eyes watering and her lungs lacking air. She resists for almost fifty seconds this time - a good one, though not in her top five - drawing more than a groan from you before she has to back out and seek for oxygen.

“Are you okay?” She nods quickly, her hands cleaning up some of the drool that has accumulated on the sides of her mouth. “I need you right now, Ning.”

Ningning smiles and snorts lightly like she has you in the palm of her hand, and at the same time she has to concede this one to you. You stare at her open-mouthed as she somehow rids herself of her clothes, revealing her supple breasts and thick outer lips to you, and only thanks to your tinted windows not to any car around yours. She straddles your lap and wraps her arms around your neck to kiss you deeply while you grab onto one of her plump thighs with one hand and align your shaft with her already wet slit with the other. Her eyes are finally closed as she focuses on the feeling of your tip swiping up and down her vulva, brushing on her clit at every passage.

She’d been looking outside for almost all the trip, scrutinizing every detail of the gray and neon skyline of Nu-Seoul. Ningning has always had her own, unique wide-angle lens on the world. She has a little plant shelf right below her window in her apartment. It’s in one of those old, gray, samey buildings they were plopping one next to the other back when a growing world population wasn’t just a myth; the place is small and the plaster falling apart. One day she was sitting in front of the window, staring at the new little blossoms on the orchid, or at the bland, shiny neons on the skyscraper behind it, you couldn't really tell.

“Do you ever feel like the world is moving too fast for you?” She asked, sounding dispirited.

“I try to stay on pace”

“I feel… impotent. Like there’s nothing I can do, to change it”

“Do you think it’s on you to change it?”

“I think it’s on me to try.” She turns her gaze towards you, you let out a little sigh.

“When it’s just the two of us,” You sit beside her and wrap your arm around her back. “We can make what we want of our time. Make it speed up, slow down… It’s just ours. No one will ever take that away from us”

What you’re making of it now is pumping your dick in and out of her pussy while gripping onto her full asscheeks while she whimpers in your mouth at the sensation of her hole being stretched. She loves that feeling like she loves the feeling of wet grass on her feet when it’s raining, though meadows are but a distant memory in a city eaten by cement and desolation. Her soft, tight walls squeezing you in a humid embrace. You were wrong; this is what makes you feel like you’re touching the Infinite, reaching Eternity. Ningning moaning in bliss on your lips, on the crook of your neck, on the headrest of the driver’s seat. Her hands not finding rest, switching between your pecs, your jaw, your hips, and her own heat, digits circling at frenzied pace on her clit. You speed your thrusts up, time slows down. It’s a race ending in a photo finish; you can see the end, it’s close for both parties, but you never seem to reach it. Take a look at her pleasured state, savor the moment. Savor her tits as well, feast on them, then slap her ass once, twice. She wasn’t expecting it, her instinctive reaction is to drag her pelvis forwards towards you, giving you a different angle to attack. Exploit that to hit every crevice, every little patch you weren’t able to before, and as she contracts around you in one long, then multiple short and rhythmic flexes of her lower abdomen, each accompanied by a scream that fills the entire cockpit, you have your own release. Spill cups and cups of milky substance into her womb, every spurt coinciding with an upwards thrust and a small bite on her shoulder, as you continuously groan in complete bliss. Then it’s silence, a second, or an eternity, it doesn’t matter anymore, before she talks again.

“Back seat for round two? I want it from behind”

-

footnotes.

now i can’t unsee the asthma periods. you cursed me @erospandemos. gaspingly, leaf.

[oldguardleatherdog]

The Night Before the Tribute In Light September 10, 2003

I.

One month ago today, this long-forgotten photo suddenly popped up in the photo app on my laptop. I took this photo with my Sanyo clamshell phone on September 10, 2003, 21 years ago tonight, from Hudson River Park in Manhattan.

Don't ask me how it survived all these years or where it's been stored all this time or how in the world it could have found its way to me from the long-dead storage servers of a long-defunct cell phone carrier. We're in the penumbra of The Anniversary, and time is out of joint.

I had been back in New York for about a month (after getting violently run out of the place I was staying by a fellow who is now one of my closest friends), homeless and living in that roach-infested HIV crack-house shelter at 96th and Broadway that I describe in "The One Decent Thing I Ever Did" (it’s archived on this blog), and you can imagine my state of head and spirit at this moment, the night before the 2nd anniversary of the terror attacks on the World Trade Center that drove me from my home in Lower Manhattan, four blocks east of the site.

I was sitting on a bench in Hudson River Park on the West Side of Manhattan, somewhere near Houston Street, maybe ten or fifteen blocks north of World Trade. I hadn't noticed these beams of light as I walked, and I think they might have just been activated while I was sitting there. As I recall, it was a full moon in Virgo, and I was positioned just right to snap this shot. I had *no* idea what this was all about, as I recall, but I thought the image was so striking and affecting that I wanted to capture it.

As it turns out, this was the tech run-through for the first September 11th installation of the “Tribute In Light”. Here’s Google’s AI summary of this remarkable memorial:

So there I was, just two years after the blast, stunned by this sudden, mysterious apparition rising from just south of what was still a giant, messy hole in the ground. I was still not fully myself at that time and would not regain my full memory or sense of who I was until the following January (therein lies a tale!), and as I recall I was just numbly stunned, not knowing what to make of it.

As I write, I’m getting the physical sense memory of that moment: the dog in me (my medulla oblongata speaking) feels his hackles rise, it’s not what I expect to see filling the hole in the sky, is it another attack? Do I bark at it, sound an alarm, run towards it, away from it, why is there light there, is this some unholy ruse, another trick being played on me from that big smoky hole where nothing but poison has spilled out for the longest time?

My phone rang. It was a fellow that I had met and hung out with in San Francisco while I was stranded there, and I was stunned to hear from him, especially at that moment. “Hi Dave… well, right now I’m on the riverfront looking at the damnedest thing… [I just wanted to make sure you were ok] hey, thanks for checking in… yeah, take care bud.” I closed the phone and started walking south along the riverfront, toward the light beams.

When I got there, I saw the massive banks of klieg lights assembled in their arrays, a strange and unfamiliar (unwelcome) echo of the shapes and the placement and the footprints of the place I loved so well.

The faces of the artists who surrounded the lights were intense, focused, sober. I still didn’t quite know what was going on, but there was profound reverence in the air, on those faces, at that place, as the beams of pure white light soared upwards, past the point of naked-eye discernment, unending, likely petering out tens of thousands of feet off that spoiled piece of ground, perhaps piercing the ionosphere, did they get clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration for this? Are pilots being disoriented by these columns at 45,000 feet? Do they touch the feet of God?

II.

And I kept walking south, my back to the light,

Down to the oldest part of the civilized island,

Past the Battery, the bronze bull, the buttonwood tree,

The Port of New York dead ahead,

The Staten Island Ferry terminal, ramshackle, ancient,

Entry restricted by terror tape and armed sentinels

No two uniforms alike, a panoply of enforcement,

Heavy weapons at the ready, so jarring in my neighborhood,

And the working dogs with the keen snouts, the trained muzzles,

Jumping up to paw at the brown bag in the soldier’s hand

Is that peanut butter? Apple? Hunk of cheese?

Let’s play! You’ve been so serious, so worried,

You smell sad and scared, are you lost? Let’s play!

Even Cerberus needs break time, belly rubs, treats!

For the first time in weeks, I smile to myself

As I round past the ferry, those strange lights at my back.

Hope I can sneak past the turnstile downstairs,

I won’t have to hike back up three hundred blocks

To that awful low place. Did you know roaches bite?

They shit on you too. Try to sleep, fully dressed,

Watch cap pulled low on my head, long sleeved shirt

Buttoned up to the collar, heavy pants tucked in boots,

Gloves on my hands, one more night without food

Half-bag of speed takes my mind off the pain

Sleep comes in fits if at all. – On the train

Dreading the stop: ninety-sixth street and Broadway.

Tomorrow, this city will jack itself off

In performative weeping and gnashing and cursing

Oh, how we loved them! I snort in derision,

You didn’t lose nothin', you pieces of shit!

Let the dead bury the dead. Beams of light

Don’t feed this refugee reeking of ashes -

What, do I smell bad? So sorry to stink up

The place where you’ve laid out the feast for your friends

Who still have their jobs, their high homes in the towers

Behind the glass doors where your larders are stocked

With the food that you bought with your government money

That flooded your midtown Manhattan apartment

With all the new clothes, electronics, the sausages

Fresh from Enrico’s, Zabar’s, D’agostino’s,

Bought with the Victim’s Fund money you stole

When you filed your claim. “OMG, it was awful!

“I couldn’t get up to the fifty-fourth floor,

“I had to find shelter on Upper Park Avenue.

“Power was out. I was homeless that night!

“So glad that my friend who was shopping in Gramercy

“Gave me the number to call for my claim

“September 11th was horrid! I told them

“I couldn’t go home for two nights! Oh, thank God

“The claim got approved with a wink and a nod

“And no one’s the wiser – I’ve never been south

“Of the Plaza Hotel! That all happened on Wall Street,

“Who goes down there? Jesus Christ, are you kidding?

“That’s four miles away! Christopher, are you coming

“Or what? Reservations at Nobu won’t wait

“For you or for me, so quit primping!”

The pain

In my stomach, relentless. My gorge won’t stop heaving.

Am I gonna make it? Damn, *ouch!* What the fuck…

The tooth that I hoped would hold out just gave way,

Fuck me. Another huge hole in my grille.

When I made six figures and lived in a high-rise,

Fuck buddies laughing on Saturday night,

Nobody told me that one hundred minutes

And two hijacked jet planes would make such a difference.

No one will laugh with me now – my best friends

Are yelling and angry, how dare I show up

Sweaty and toothless, a walking reminder

Of September tenth. No, I’m not gonna feed you.

III.

Now, twenty years later, they’ve retooled their memory:

“Animal! Damn, dog! We’ve missed you, you know,

“Wow, you’re alive! You look fabulous! Listen,

“I never gave up on you. Give a call

“When you come to the City. I want you to meet

“My beautiful husband – he remembers you too!”

IV.

Twin beams of light where the Towers were anchored,

Okay, not exactly precisely those spots,

But who’s gonna criticize? Look and recall

How majestic they were. Yeah, the new One World Trade

Is cool, I suppose – no one mentions the absence

Of Two World Trade Center. Insurance, you know.

Not enough money or civic ambition,

And Bloomberg discouraged it. Why add a target?

“Don’t you think sixty or seventy stories

“Are more than enough? Hell, let’s just get it done.

“The sooner we finish construction, the better.”

V.

*There will never be lumens of adequate volume

Sufficient to seal that hole in the sky,

But the hole in my heart I will finish, I tell you.

Walk with me as I go forward. Tomorrow

I’m back in the studio. Tonight, we can play!

You smell like apples and – damn, is that chocolate?

(our light beams shine upward forever)

"Good boy!"

Animal J. Smith San Francisco, California September 10, 2024

[saturnville]

snow lands on top.

pairing: young!coriolanus snow x linnea lowtower warnings: fluff. jealous!coriolanus. allusions to sex. possessiveness. 18+ steam. content: linnea and coriolanus attend a gala in the capitol where she becomes the center of attention, and coriolanus is not pleased with it. feedback is appreciated 🤍

Galas were frequent occurrences in the Capitol. The wealthy and elite sought after ways to flaunt the money that burned their pockets like the arrogant creatures they were. Most of them being the parents of students who attended the Academy. The most recent Gala was to celebrate the Fetsus’ parents on their new partnership with the University. Coriolanus could see through the nonsense like glass cleaner. They bought their son’s way into college. Even a child could see through it.

Regardless, it allowed the students of the Academy to experience such luxury and nauseating arrogance firsthand. A clear example of what their lives were destined to be like. However, unlike them, Coriolanus’ future wasn’t set in stone. Still, he scrambled for food and clothing—speaking of, he hoped no one would notice that the suit he wore was crafted by Tigris’ slender fingers. It was beautiful, but he knew Capitol kids; they were attentive and worked overtime to find something wrong with the next person.

Coriolanus pushed his thoughts to the side as he entered the home. The Creeds had outdone themselves. Music played on overhead speakers as servers waltzed the marble floors carrying drinks and food upon their shoulders. A plate with a slice of chocolate cake caught his eye. In one corner, he saw a group of young women pointing at a girl for her choice of dress, and in another, a group of guys deciding which girl they were trying to take home. Coriolanus’ lip twitched.

Coriolanus prepared to walk toward his friends but was stopped by an arm linking itself with his. He looked to his left and his eyes met hers. She brought her lips to his ear to whisper, “You’ve got to learn how to manage your facial expressions.” His features softened and he smiled.

“I’ll let you teach me,” he said while leading them toward their classmates who were downing flukes of champagne like it was water. He wondered how they would make it to lecture in the morning.

“Coryo, Linnea! Did you get here at the same time?” Clemensia asked with a tilted head. Linnea removed her arm from his and shook her head. Coriolanus fought the urge to frown.

“I got here a few minutes ago. Grabbed him when I was walking by. Oh—“ Linnea grabbed a fluke of champagne from a waiter’s tray and downed it in seconds, which earned a few cheers from the group.

“You came right on time. Cause they—“ Livia pointed at a group of guys behind them. Coriolanus’ eyes followed her finger. Disgust settled within him. Another group of obnoxious Capitol boys who couldn’t tell East from West but managed to have almost every Academy girl on her knees. Except for Linnea, God, he prayed it was never Linnea. “They’ve been looking over here all night. Let’s go!”

Linnea had no time to protest before she was whisked away by Livia and Clemensia. Her eyes caught his and seemed to whisper an apology only he understood. A hand dropped on Coriolanus’ shoulder. Festus and Sejanus. “And then there were three.”

Coriolanus did not want to make it obvious that he sought Linnea like a hawk while she interacted with the group of men. It was a sickening sight to see. She seemed happy with them and he hated her. Her full, red lips were peeled back and her beautiful smile was on display. She even laughed at their jokes. It wasn’t a soft giggle, either. No, it was a laugh that bellowed deep from her being. What could those morons have said that was so funny? The icing on the cake was when one of them touched her waist. His nasty fingers danced along the small of her back like they belonged there. She flinched and pulled away. Coriolanus’ nostrils flared in distaste.

Linnea backed away from the man in attempts to keep his hands away from her, but, in a drunken haste, he proceed with his advances. Livia and Clemensia were in lala land with the jocks and hadn’t noticed. But, Coriolanus did. In the blink of an eye, he stood behind Linnea and pulled her back by her waist. His hand planted firmly on her hip, his thumb close to the seam of where her underwear sat beneath her dress. It was an act of of possession. She could feel his heavy breaths against the crown of her head. “Is there a problem?”

The handsy individual went by the name of Fabio. His parents were of the highest class in the Capitol and his reputation as an asshole proceeded him. Fabio jokingly raised his hands in faux surrender, muttered an apology, and walked away.

“Are you okay?” Coriolanus asked. Linnea turned in his arms and nodded. “I’m fine. I want to leave…my parents are gone for the weekend.”

Music to his ears. Linnea stepped aside to speak with Clemensia and Livia. “I’m not feeling well. Coriolanus will escort me home.” They bid their farewells and Linnea and Corniolanus exited the Creed home swiftly, escorted to a car by the valet service.

The ride to the Lowtower residence was tense. Coriolanus couldn’t stop replaying the interaction in his head. Had she really enjoyed their company? What so fucking funny, and how did that idiot think he could touch her? Nobody could touch her.

Linnea noticed his demeanor but chose not to acknowledge it until they entered her bedroom and the door closed with the lock of the door. Coriolanus unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat on the edge of her bed. His eyes were glued to her as she floated to her vanity, where she began plucking off her jewels one by one. Her dainty fingers pushed her locs away from her ears to unclamp her earrings. She slid off her bracelets one by one.

“Will you take my necklace off please?” She looked over her shoulder at her lover. He stood to his feet and grounded himself behind her. He moved her hair to the side and ran her finger along her shoulder blade. She shivered. His fingertips danced along her neck and the hairs there stood at attention. With one pluck, the necklace slid down the valley of her breasts and into the deep cup of her dress. It was beautiful—made by Capitol designers. A bright red gown covered in sparkles. A slit down the right side and a heart-shaped neckline that plunged just beneath her breasts.

“You looked beautiful tonight,” Coriolanus said lowly. His warm breath fanned her ear. Linnea’s breathing became heavy as she leaned into his embrace. He lowered his head to bring his lips to her neck. Brown and warm. Slowly, he unzipped the dress that covered all his eyes burned to see. It slipped down her waist and fell at her feet. The necklace landed on top.

“Thank you,” she managed to muster.

“It seems I wasn’t the only one who thought so, hm?”

“Coryo…” She had a feeling she knew where he was headed. “They were just being friendly.”

Coriolanus gave a dissatisfied chuckle. Friendly his ass. He was a guy, he knew how they operated. Fabio looked at his girl like he was ready to eat her alive! He wouldn’t stand for her it. And then when he touched her? It ignited a fire deep within his loins.

“Yeah…I didn’t like it. They’ve wanted you for a while, did you know that? Talk about you in the hallways, in the restrooms, wondering what it’d be like to have you pressed against them…to touch you…to hear you cry out…to take yet another thing away from me.” His thumb hooked in the band of her lace underwear and he pulled it back with a pop. Linnea cried out his name and gripped the edge of the vanity. “Take them off.”

Linnea stepped out of her underwear and kicked them to the side. Coriolanus drank in their reflection, drunk off the sight of her bare body on display. Her eyes were closed and her head rest on her shoulder, chest heaving in anticipation of his next move. He could smell her arousal as her body warmed.

“I can take you right here. Mark up that pretty little body of yours and let everyone know you’re mine…” His tongue grazed her neck and he bit it softly. Linnea moaned lowly. His hand cupped her chin and forced her to meet his cold eyes in the mirror. “And that Snow always lands on top.”

[unidentifiedly]

Eventful Morning

Micah Bell x reader

- In which Micah almost scares the reader to death. Or at the very least, scares them enough for it to have consequences.

"Tip, tip, tip" Soft sounds of rain droplets made their way into your ears.

"No, no. Just a few more minutes." You thought to yourself, unable to open your eyes just yet. Slowly but surely you adjusted to the idea of waking up and opened your eyes. The off white canvas tent filtered the morning light beautifully. Glancing around yourself, looking for your favourite blouse and overdress, your gaze fell on the small dusty mirror in front of you, perched atop a trunk and supported by a stack of hardcover copies of romance novels.

In the mirror, yourself staring right back. You glanced at the intricately engraved brass pocket watch by the side of the bed. The watch itself was a birthday gift from Arthur a couple months back. The arms reaching toward four and twelve, it was way too early to get up and start one's day. Yet, here you were.

Softly humming to yourself you tied your hair up lazily with a ribbon, deciding to spend the hours of the morning organizing your safe haven. The gang had only recently arrived at the new spot, Horseshoe Overlook they called it. Far too east for Arthur's liking, but to you about anything sounded better than heading back up those cold mountains toward Colter. You were used to it at this point, the constant moving around. It was a way of life that held you tightly in its grip.

That being said, the new camp was still unorganized and there was sure to be work around that needed doing. This was a chance to have some private time, peace and quiet for yourself.

Sorting through the mementos and trinkets from throughout the years was quick, you wiped the dust off of the little mirror with the corner of your nightgown. Gathering up the few clothes you had laying around and neatly folding them up you realized the growing pile of fabric by the end of your bed was clothes and linen that needed washing, not something that should just be sorted back into the trunks right away. "I think it was Charles who mentioned there was a river just west of here?" Mumbling to yourself, you picked up the dirty clothes and put them in a basket, not bothering to dress up all the way. "Everyone will be asleep at this hour anyways, and if not, it'll be Miss Grimshaw awake. It's nothing that'll bother her too much." Pulling on your trusty leather boots you untied the strings holding the fabric flap door of your tent shut. A prompt walk to your horse, a beautiful paint mare, and you were off along with your basket of laundry. With the carelessness, soft hums and the skip on your step you failed to notice a pair of eyes watch you leave the camp. The observer finished smoking his cicarette, let his legs fall from the log they were resting on while chucking the cigarette butt over his shoulder, and rubbed his hands together. What on on God's green Earth were you up to this early in the morning, and barely dressed to boot?

The sound of a running stream reached your ears fast. Charles had of course been right, even a blind man would notice the Dakota River from this close by. Hopping off your horse and tying the reins to a nearby tree you swung the basket on your elbow and kicked the boots off your feet, walking straight into the cold running water. Oh how sweet the feeling was! In a low point of the river, a rock stood taller than the surface of the water, so you took a seat and began the chore.

"Eeeasy there boy" Micah huffed to Baylock, staying well hidden in the trees, observing you from afar. A smirk spread on his lips as he saw your boots and gun belt scattered on the riverbank, and you sitting on a rock in the middle of the water, with your back facing him. Dismounting with an agile leap, he slowly but surely started making his way toward you.

Completely lost in your activity and the sweet warm sunshine of the spring morning you were singing to yourself, getting ready to leave. Looking at the last blouse, and squeezing the extra water out of it a surprisingly strong wave hit the rock and splashed water all over you, soaking your thin white linen undergarments. "Fuck!" You stood up and turned around, screaming out loud.

"Mic- Mr.Bell! What the fuck are you doing?"

Keeping his eyes locked on your body, his smirk widened, his arms reaching out toward you. "Just call me Micah, and I could ask ya the same thing, sweetcheeks. Now come on here." He beckoned with his hands, but you refused.

"No, I don't think so, you can't just creep up on me like that Mr Bell. I could have dropped my laundry basket, or worse, fallen down and then drowned out of shock!"

You took a step back, lifting the now heavier basket full of wet clothes up to rest against your hipbone.

For every step you took back, Micah took one forward, and the man had both the advantage of longer legs and facing the direction he was going. It didn't take long for things to go south.

"I'm warning you Mr Bell, I'm going to tell Arthur about this, and you know he is not going to be happy!" You tried in vain.

"Hrmph. The cowpoke ain't got nothing to do with how I conduct my business with a lady such as yerself."

You were taken aback, "what did you just call me? You never- Ah!"

Slipping on a rock and falling back, you reached out to Micah for support, and closed your eyes in anticipation of the cold hard surface of the river. The sensation never came.

"Gotcha." Eyeing down at you was Micah, who effortlessly supported your almost naked body by your waist and left arm. "Now how about ya let me show you a good time as a thanks?" One of his eyebrows rising up and his face forming a seductive expression.

You, however, were too occupied to notice or care. "Micah you idiot! All of my clothes are fucking gone!"

And indeed, the river was decorated with the various pieces of clothing running merrily downstream, way too fast to catch up to.

"Well, ya won't be needin' any of those for th- Ow!" "Shut the fuck up and help me get dressed before anyone else notices!"

The ride to the camp was one of the worst you had ever experienced. For Micah, it was the opposite. A prideful smirk on his cocky face, throwing you the occasional remark about the curve of your waist and ass, and how good you looked in just his jacket as you rode, and making no attempts to be quiet and discreet as you arrived in camp. You tried your best to ignore him and get away from the situation as quickly as possible. Hopping off your horse, not even bothering to tie the rains to the hitchpost, you walked briskly toward your tent only to run straight into Sean.

"Oi, watch where ya- Y/N, wow, let me tell ya, could not see this one comin'!" A smirk instantly grew on his face, and he slapped a hand on Micah's jacket, on your shoulder.

"Sean it's NOT what it looks like, and don't you dare mention this to anyone either!" You whisper yelled while taking off the jacket, exposing your still wet and thus transparent garments. Sean blushed bright red, poor guy, and you stomped right in to your tent.

Not being able to face the rest of the day, the longer you stayed in your tent the more intimidating the prospect of leaving felt. Surely Sean had told everyone about what he saw, and you'd be mocked til eternity.

No, there was no way you'd ever leave that tent again.

A few hours later you were starving for a snack and stuck your head out to find the main area empty. Great! An opening. As soon as you stepped out, a voice rang: "Y/N!" You turned around, mouth open to start defending yourself, only to face a very noticeably beat-up looking Sean. "Listen, sorry about the earlier, I never saw nothing, alright?" You nodded in confusion and he smiled, thanked you quickly and scurried off. You got the food you were after, and returned to your tent to eat it. There, on your cot, rested a shirt and a dress, folded in a way which looked like a very bad attempt, with a piece of paper on top. There, in barely legible rough handwriting:

"The idiot won't bother ya about it. M"

You smiled to yourself, feeling the fabric of the clothes. Both of good quality fabrics, a white undershirt and a red simple dress. Just like the ones you usually wear every day.

Observing from a distance as you emerged from your tent in your red dress, Micah Bell smiled to himself as he sharpened his knife, softly murmuring to himself: "Gotcha ta call me by my name at least. That's a start."

note: Yay! My first ever piece of writing I've published online :) do suggest if you get any good ideas and like my writing style.

[callimara]

Ok, I have a lot of things to say. Am I am the only one who is getting so fucking tired to see white queers and right-winger politicians weaponize queer identities to justify the whole genocid3 everytime someone who is queer/leftist/i-dont-fucking-know demands a ceasefire?

I can't truly understand and believe it. Yes, I know that an amount of extremist Muslims would despise me because of me being a bisexual and trans man, but for the love of god, does that justifies the assassination of newborns, children, teenagers, woman and etc? Sorry for worrying about the innocent ones who are going through all this unnecessary suffering, I guess.

Sorry for the long ask and the venting, seeing latinamerican right-winger dudes talking about this + queer people makes me so angry. Hope you're alright!

Thanks so much for bringing this up because pinkwashing is a very real thing and is part of Israeli propaganda. It's meant to dehumanize and paint Palestinians as backwards, bigoted monsters that don't deserve sympathy.

For anyone who doesn't know what pinkwashing is, here is the definition:

"Pinkwashing, also known as rainbow-washing, is the strategy of promoting LGBT rights protections as evidence of liberalism and democracy, especially to distract from or legitimize violence against other countries or communities."

And tbh, it's such an outlandish argument that if you apply it to any other situation, it would be completely unacceptable.

For example, if it's the USA that's being indiscriminately bombarded and having civilians massacred on a large scale on the daily without any aid or access to basic needs, and you said that it's completely okay and that they deserved to be bombed and massacred because of the existence of the conservative south who are notoriously homophobic, you'd sound like a genocidal maniac.

But because it's Muslims and the Middle East, it's so far away and stigmatized that people in the west are more willing to go along with it.

"But there are lots of LGBTQ people living in the US!" Yea, well, LGBTQ Palestinians exist too. Do they not matter?

No matter how you slice it, it's Free Palestine.

[peterparkersnose]

Needy

Part 2 to Give In

pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader

word count: 3.4k

warnings: smut (f receiving oral), broken leg, pain, depression, anxiety, longing, needy joel, reunion of sorts, cringe nickname from maria, malnutrition, descriptions of not eating and weight loss and physical changes due to that, brief grief

a/n hi i wrote smut. god help me, i hated writing it. i hope you guys like it, i tried to make it somewhat good. this takes place after the first game, or when the series ends. spoilers definitely. the middle where you don’t see ellie and joel for the four years there just living in jackson, right when joel comes back from saving ellie.

summary Y/N gets invited to Jackson by her Aunt Maria

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read time: 12 mins 25 seconds

After a few days you realized Joel wasn’t coming back. The sad realization sink in and really took its toll on you. FEDRA officers came to make sure you weren’t dead in your apartment, and with that made you go back to work.

Same day, over and over again once again. Take care of the babies in the QZ. Watch people get hung in the square. Eat the same, boring, disgusting meal FEDRA gave to you. Live in the empty memories that lingered all over town.

Tess was gone too. You figured they were both dead in a ditch or moved on to something better and bigger than this damn QZ. Part of you wondered if Joel just wanted an out; if he was sick of having you as a responsibility and left because of you. And it ate you alive.

It had been a month. You were still trying to reach your Aunt over the radio, just as Joel had been trying to reach his brother. It’s something the two of you bonded over the last few weeks he was here. Your Aunt Maria was located somewhere out west. You weren’t really sure where, but you knew she was still alive. You felt her spark. Ever since your mom and your uncle died when you were small, she had watched you until she was promised a ‘better life’ somewhere in… Wyoming? Montana? Idaho? You weren’t sure. She left you in the QZ because she thought it would be better for your safety. You were a preteen at the time, and for what it was worth it was probably a better idea than to track across country.

Sitting, scrolling through channels you hopelessly looked for Maria’s signal. She always used the lower frequencies, usually this specific one you were listening to. Just as you were about to click the machine off, you heard it.

“Lovebug?”

You gasped and cheered. Lovebug is what she called you when you were younger, a nickname of sorts.

“Auntie?” you called back, hoping this wasn’t one of your delusions seeping back in. “I’m here!” she called. You could hear a group of people cheering in the back.

She gave you a quick set of coordinates and cut off communication. It was brief and that hurt, but life finally had its purpose back. No more Joel, no more overthinking, no more hurting from how he left you.

-

You basically crawled towards the gate of Jackson. Unsure if this was even the right place, you hoped your topography skills were as good as you thought they were. From stealing four cars, foraging for gas (which there was barely any of) and walking over three thousand miles, you prayed this place was anything close to heaven. You had avoided getting bitten or scratched, but killing countless infected on the way. At least you would get to see your Aunt one last time.

The people had their guns pointed at you as you expected. “P-please.” you pleaded with your hands up. You were sure to be almost unrecognizable. Hair was greasy and matted, you had lost a significant amount of weight, and your clothes were tattered. Even in the apocalypse you liked to stay neat, but at this point in your journey you had stopped caring.

“Maria—she’s my a-aunt.”

“I’m going to need Maria at the east gate along with a medic. Stat.” a person called through the radio. The doors opened slightly.

“Y/N?” you heard your Aunt cry. You raised your head enough to see her run towards you. She held you in her arms and cried. The medics were weary behind her, letting this sweet family reunion continue.

You hugged her and tried to hold on to her shoulders the best you could. There was something different. Blinking a few times to get the icicles out of your eyelashes that had formed you realized she was pregnant.

“Y-your pregnant?” you asked. She shook her head and smiled. “I have a lot to explain. I’ll come with you to med.”

They had a makeshift stretcher with a thick piece of fabric held together by two refined pieces of wood. A blanket was placed over you as they carried you across this town. From what you could see, you were in heaven. Dead, no longer here. This whole thing was a mirage.

“It’s real, I promise you honey.” Maria assured you. “H-how?”

“I can explain once your stable. You’ve been out in the cold for too long.”

You closed your eyes, praying it wasn’t for the last time.

Awake. Is what you were. You weren’t sure where, or how, but you were awake. It was dark outside. The little log cabin you were in had a curtain hanging to divide you from other stations and medical supplies. You tried to move.

Your leg was stiff. A large groan escaped from you as you tried to move it.

“No,” you heard from your side. A man sat there. He had dark hair that was longer than the usual cut. His thick black mustache sat upon his lip. He had a tanned skin tone and from what you heard, a thick southern accent that reminded you of Joel. What was a southerner doing so far North?

“Try not to move it. You got a small fracture. Nothing serious, but you will be in the boot for a few weeks.”

His eyes darted to the medical walking boot that sat against the wall. “Who are you? Where is Maria?”

He chuckled at your enthusiasm. “I’m Tommy, Maria’s husband.”

It started to click. “Oh,”

Didn’t Joel mention his brothers name was Tommy? Or was it Timmy. You couldn’t remember. A southerner out west, you doubted it was the brother Joel was looking for. God, why are you still thinking about him? Even now, after you nearly died crossing the country? Sneaking out of the QZ? You were ashamed that your first thought after a brush with death was Joel Miller.

“I let her get some rest, she was here all day. It’s a lot of stress you know…”

Tommy was baiting to see if you knew. “For the baby.” you confirmed.

He shook his head. “Crazy, isn’t it?” he said.

Tommy explained Jackson. How it was functional, safe, and everyone was happy. Maria was right, this was heaven. He explained that there wasn’t any availability in Jackson at the moment, but Maria insisted of inviting you after she found out she was pregnant. Tommy explained something about jealousy and families, but it didn’t make sense to you. Apparently he had just gotten some family back, and Maria wanted hers back too. Since there was no availability, you were going to be staying with a girl in her house. Her name was Ellie. She was quite a few years younger than you, but Maria thought your personalities would get along well. You trusted your Aunt’s judgement, but was concerned when you found out you were to be living with a fifteen year old.

“Get some shut eye. I can help you move in tomorrow. It’s gon’ be difficult on that boot.”

-

It was early morning and Tommy was walking back to his house. Jackson was almost silent, besides for the early birds chirping in the trees and the sounds of the chefs getting ready for breakfast in the nearby mess hall. He stopped in front of Joel’s house and sighed. The large, two story garage behind the house is where Ellie lived, and where you would be staying until they could build you a house. But building a house took time and resources. He prayed that you and Ellie got along. It was either living with Ellie or Joel—Ellie definitely seemed like the safe choice in that situation. Joel wasn’t too friendly to strangers.

Slowly, he entered his own home. Maria was asleep on the couch, cradling her stomach. Tommy watched his beautiful wife for a moment, watching her chest rise and fall. She seemed so peaceful in that moment. Maria was due in a few weeks, and Tommy knew he wouldn’t have the luxury of this for much longer.

“Maria,” he whispered, stroking his hand over her hair and gently waking her up. She jolted awake, like most people did in this world, and was at ease when she found out it was just Tommy.

She put her coat on and grabbed the one she had gotten for you and followed her husband to the medic ward.

“Good morning,” Maria announced, dropping the coat on your stomach. This woke you. Groggily, you looked up at your Aunt with a displeased face. Tommy reached for the boot in the corner. You slowly moved your legs off the bed, groaning in pain. “Are you sure you don’t have anything for the pain?” you gasped. “Not for pain like this, I’m sorry.” Maria assured you. Tommy slowly guided your leg in to the medical boot and tightly strapped it close.

All night you had prepared for the depression that was going to follow with this damned boot. Not being able to move around, depending on others. It hurt too much to start to care about someone else, let alone have them take care of you. You hated to admit it, but this town could be gone within the span of a day.

“Now, you won’t need crutches. Give it a go.” Tommy said, extending his hands to you. They were coarse and dry, and that was a bit off putting to you. The second you put pressure down on your leg it felt like fire was streaming in your veins. Maria noticed your face tense and your hand grip harder on her husbands forearms. You sat back down on the bed, subduing your pain somewhat. “Shit,” Tommy sighed. “Do you think it was worse than we thought? Could the doctor have measured it wrong?” Maria whispered to Tommy. You heard bits and pieces of their conversation after that, but all you could focus on was your leg throbbing.

Ultimately, the two of them decided to get a wheelchair for you to use temporarily and be on strict bed rest. Yay.

“I dunno how I’m supposed to…” Maria said, grunting as she began to lift the handles of your wheelchair. “Don't!” Tommy yelled, stopping his very pregnant wife from potentially harming herself or the baby. “You wait here, lemme get Joel.”

Ice seemed to jolt through your veins when he said that. “Joel?” you asked suddenly in an alarmed tone. Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, he can help us get down the steps.”

You froze as Tommy began to walk away. You looked up at Maria.

“What’s his last name?”

“Miller. He did spend some time in the Boston QZ… maybe you’ll recognize him.”

No no no no, no no no. This cannot be happening. This is a fever dream, you convinced yourself. This isn’t happening. This isn't real.

“You alright?” Maria asked, looking down from behind you. She was concerned at your lack of response. As she asked that, Tommy began to return. And along side him walked the man you had to convince yourself you weren't in love with.

Maybe he wouldn't recognize you.

You had lost a significant amount of weight. You sliced off half of the length of your hair while you made your journey just simply because it was annoying. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize you. You prayed he didn't. Oh god, what if he thought you were the weird stalker girl who followed him here simply because she wanted to be with him? That’s terrifying. Stalkers existed in the fungal world, but you weren't one in the real world.

“This Ellie’s new roommate?”

His voice filled your skin with goosebumps. Not looking up, you kept your eyes glued on your feet in the wheelchair footrests. “Yup, she’s all yours.” Maria said chipperly, giving Joel jurisdiction to the wheelchair handles. Tommy counted down from four as the two men struggled to make a clear way down the wooden steps of the medical ward. Hearing Joel grunt brought back to many explicit memories, it honestly made your core begin to warm. Joel wheeled you all the way to a house. “Your gon’ have to build a ramp,” Tommy teased Joel. Joel sighed, picking up the wheelchair once again in synch with Tommy as they struggled to make sure your wheels didn’t bump the old, cracked wooden stairs of the house.

As they wheeled you inside the house, the two middle aged men were out of breathe.

“You know…” Joel said, catching his breathe by holding on to the side of his wall. “Those damned brick stairs are gonna be hell. If she wants, she’s welcome to my couch until she’s well enough to walk.”

As Tommy spun around your wheelchair, your eyes met with Joel’s for the first time in over five months.

And he recognized you. Oh, he totally recognized you. His facial structure seemed to shift as he realized that the girl he just offered to live on his couch was you.

“Alright,” Tommy said, not realizing what was going on. His smooth voice luckily interrupted the longing look you and Joel were sharing. “I’m gonna go fix you up some breakfast from the mess hall. You good from here?” You nodded your head slowly.

“Don’t bother, I got plenty here.” Joel offered. Your eyes widened, realizing he wanted to get you alone with him. “You sure?” Tommy questioned. “Go find your wife, take her to a nice breakfast.” Joel suggested. Tommy agreed and promptly left the house.

Joel sat in an old recliner across from you. Your finger scratched at the old medical sticker stuck to the wheelchair’s arm.

“How did-” “Are you-”

The two of you let out an embarrassed scoff. “You go,” he offered. “No you-” you insisted. After bantering for a few seconds, Joel broke the awkwardness.

“How did you find me?”

You sighed. So you did come off as the stalker-ish, jealous girl. “It’s not like that, I promise you. M-Maria is my aunt, the one I was trying to find when…”

“When I was searchin’ for Tommy, yeah.” Joel finished your sentence. “She invited me here, gave me coordinates. I didn’t know you were here until five minutes ago, Joel.”

His name sounded weird coming off your lips after filling your head for so many months. Joel let out a sigh of relief. “You look different,”

“Yeah, well two months across country with almost no food and no ammo can change a person.”

He sighed. “And you…?” he asked, gesturing for you to ask your question.

“Are you mad?”

Joel chuckled.

“Your wondering if I’m mad?”

“Well yeah, I mean we didn't necessarily end on good terms.”

“Good terms?” Joel laughed. “I thought about that damned kiss for months, Y/N.”

A smile sparked to your lips, but slowly left when you remembered. Tess.

“And where is Tess? I’m sure she would be happy to see me.”

Joel’s eyes darted to the floor.

“She didn’t make it,” he said bluntly.

Memories flooding back of the good times you and Tess had made you sad. She was gone. The closest thing you had to a friend was Tess.

“Well,” Joel said, breaking the awkward silence. “Would you like some breakfast? Better than those sardines…” You chuckled a bit.

“Will you help me?” you asked, looking now up at Joel. He nodded, reaching out for your hands. He pulled you up, and the wheelchair rolled backwards. As you tried to steady yourself, the movement of the wheelchair put you off and you began to slip. “Shit,” you yelped as your boot hit the floor. Joel them promptly picked you up under the armpits and held you up unnaturally high. Naturally, your good leg wrapped around his waist, as the other one did its best attempt at following your other leg. His hands rested under your butt, one hand grasping on to it. You now looked down at him as he held you. “Giving me flashbacks,” you chuckled, a hand coming to steady yourself on his back. The other hand traveled just below his hairline on his neck. It was within seconds that Joel’s mouth was on yours.

He was eager. He hadn’t been with you for a good seven months. He needed something, even if it was just a taste of you.

“Fuck,” he muttered, pulling away. “I missed that.”

Your hand had traveled up his head, now grasping his graying hair. Both of your breaths were heavy. “Joel,” you whispered. “Please.”

He nodded and slowly put you down on the couch. Your leg hit the ground with an oompf. He stood in front of you. The bulge in his pants was very prominent.

“May I?” he asked you, coming down to his knees. Joel was never this respectful back in Boston. He would take what he wanted when he wanted, with your consent of course. He never asked for permission because he was always confident that he had it; and he did. Something in him had changed. It was very obvious that it did. You weren't sure if it was Tess’s passing, the brutal crossing of the country, or the argument the two of you had before. But something had definitely changed.

With the confirmation he was granted, he slowly lifted your butt off the sofa to remove your pants. Once your pants were by your thighs he yanked them off. One leg stayed trapped over your boot. There was the Boston Joel coming back, seeping through this new shell of a man he was. Your panties were soaked per usual. “Always so wet for me,” Joel muttered, pushing your stomach back on the couch. He took his middle finger and pushed your panties aside, but also coming back and giving a quick swipe between your folds. A soft moan came from your lips. You adjusted yourself so that you were on full display. Your hips rocked back as Joel wettened his fingers from you. His other hand rested on your thigh, holding it firmly as his thumb made soft circles on your inner thigh, dangerously close. You stirred as he finally inserted two fingers. “J-Joel…” you moaned, clenching around him.

“Just like that,” he said, slowly pumping in and out. “Good girl.”

The praise was almost enough to send you over the wall. He never gave you anything like this back in Boston. It was always to satisfy himself. You feel like this time Joel really, truly cared. He moved his hand from your thigh to your lower back, moving yourself closer to his face. His thumb brushed circles around your clit. “Do you want it?” he asked you. You looked down to his eager eyes. They seemed to melt at the sight of you. You shook your head. “With words…”

Boston Joel’s dominance had returned. “Y-yes.”

“Manners?” he asked, giving another deep circle around your clit. “Please, Joel. Please.”

You knew he liked when you used his name. “Good job,”

His tongue softly darted to your folds. A plethora of slurred swears and moans came from you as he began to eat you out. The sucking and slurping noises were almost pathetic; Joel was so needy. Both of his hands rested on your thighs, tightly holding on. As he took a second to re gain some air, his lips moaned against your clit. That was almost enough to make you cum. He licked his lips, and went back in. This time he could tell you were close. You were already contracting and he could feel the release building up in your core. “Come on baby, beg for it.”

“Let me cum Joel, please! I-I… please!”

He pulled away and kissed your folds. “Since you asked so nicely,”

His tongue seemed to dissolve inside of you as your orgasm began to hit you. “So good, good job baby. Ride it out.” he said, moving away from you. His thumb delved into your clit that made your legs begin to shake. “It’s okay, you got it.” Joel re assured you, holding down your knee on your injured jeg so it wouldn’t hurt. Once you came down from your high, he helped you put your pants back on. Slowly, he helped you get up and pulled your pants back up to your waist.

Holding you in his arms, the two of you stood.

“God, how I missed this.”

“God, how I missed you.”

-

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[lesbiansforboromir]

I am sorry, but LOTRO is...like a LOTR game? The plot is good? It has which characters?

HAH you know that's such a good question, didn't even think to explain it properly.

LOTRO is an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game), think World of Warcraft-esque. It's about 15 years old so it's a little on the dated side graphics wise and it's gameplay is essentially landscape exploration and combat, with group content that goes from three-person dungeons to full 12-person raids.

BEING a 15 year old game the plot is... enormous. Like its hard to even talk about a 'plot' at this point, since there are about 30 different individual storylines for each zone strewn throughout a multitude of quests that see you talking to every character imaginable. Like 'which characters does it have'? all of them, LOTRO has all characters from lotr in it. LOTRO has characters you don't even remember in it. In LOTRO you get major questlines from Denethor's two unnamed elder sisters. In LOTRO they make you care about the men named amongst the dead in the song of lament after the pelennor fields, people you never speak too in the books.

You create a character and choose your race and begin to journey from the furthest west (Ered Luin, the Shire, Bree or Cardolan depending on choices) to the furthest east and act as a side character to the main plot of lotr. You cross paths with the fellowship at various points and develop relationships with all of them, up to and past the death of sauron (currently the game has expanded into Umbar, months after Sauron's defeat in game canon.) All of the game's story is told through quest dialogue, which you have to read, it's a hell of a lot of reading, whether thats reading what people are saying to you when you accept a quest or reading what NPC's are saying to you within quest instances and 'cutscenes'.

So there is an overarching plot, called 'epic book quests', which will take you on this journey, but it is dwarfed by the sheer number of surrounding tales going within each area you visit. Dunland is an excellent example, you have to travel through it to get to Rohan but what you're doing whilst you're there is investing yourself in the struggles, politics, dangers and cultures of the people who live in Dunland. And that is true for every area you visit, which inevitably makes LOTRO a massive worldbuilding and expanding project for middle earth. Like it's really hard to put into words quite how much 'plot' there is in this game. Some of it is good, some of it is not so good, some of it is so good it makes me want to bite the game, some of it is so bad it makes me want to bite the game, you will find 30 favourite plots and 30 hated plots and 100+ more in the middle.

Of course, this means LOTRO also creates it's own characters to fit into the world and get attached too, many of whom I now love and care for just as much as original canon characters. Like fucking Ayorzen. Oh my god. I love Ayorzen. You only meet him at level 110 in mordor and it takes you real life months of questing to reach that point. Not anything repetetive either, you do not grind exp in this game unless you actually want too, there are just that many quests and storylines between you and mordor that it takes you months to finish them all. Are some of the epic book quests kinda superfluous and make you run around way too much? Yes. I don't care about them, the point of lotro is in the smaller stories you find along the way. The game is about being able to walk, by yourself, no loading screens, from the Shire to Mordor and beyond and experience the minutae of middle-earth living whilst you do it. Hope that somehow answers your questions!

Oh it's also a dress up game, forgot to mention that, the lotro devs will disagree but this is a dress up game except you're dressing up TO journey through middle earth and you can unlock multiple outfit slots to customise that you can change your character into whenever you like, no restrictions on what you can put on your outfits regardless of levels or classes so long as you have wardrobe space. Unfortunately the game's armours are ugly as sin until level 50, though happily that's a shorter trip than it sounds, early game goes by much faster than the post-50 stuff.

[tylermileslockett]

Amazons# 6 Myrina: Conqueror Queen

South of Greece, across the Mediterranean Sea, exists an older race of Amazons Led by the Amazon Queen Myrina in the desert lands of Libya of North Africa. The Queen conquers surrounding tribes with her 30,000 Amazon foot soldiers, 3,000 cavalry, and shields and armor made of giant snakeskin. Their horseback archery skills were unmatched, and were masters of the Parthian Shot, (hitting targets behind, while riding away).

Invading the lands of the Atlantians, Queen Myrina treated the conquered cities savagely, slaughtering the boys and men, and enslaving the women and children, until the neighboring cities accepted Myrina as ruler. Myrina also defeat another neighboring race of warriors called the Gorgons, who Medusa later leads against Perseus. She continues her quest into Egypt, befriending the god king Horus, son of Isis. Journeying East she conquers the Arabians and Syrians and founds cities along the way. Myrina is finally killed in battle fighting Thracian and Phrygian warriors, and the Amazons, suffering high casualties, are forced to retreat back to Libya in defeat.

This episode of North African Amazons comes from Diodorus Siculus, in his book “The Library of History,” (1st century B.C.) Diodorus seems to be an outlier from other ancient authors in placing Amazons in North Africa. In addition, the Atlantian civilization he mentions is not the lost mythical island of Atlantis made famous by Plato, which authors place in the Atlantic ocean, just west of the Pillars of Herakles (strait of Gibraltar).

The Thracians, said to derive from a son of Ares, were considered a barbarian race which thrived on the west coast of the black sea in modern day Turkey and Bulgaria, and they were known as allies of the trojans at Troy.  The Phrygians resided in Anatolia and the Southern Balkans, and were said to have fought with King Priam of troy against the amazons. King Midas, cursed with his golden touch, was a Phrygian king.

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[foxilayde]

Taking a break from Thanksgiving thots to ask how you envision OTTR Leto meeting reader?? I haven’t given it much thought before this moment and now I’m desperate to hear your thoughts on the beginning of their relationship

I think about this one all the time.

You met Leto in Venice. Ocean Front Walk Venice, CA.

It gets hot in the Valley.

So hot that when you’re getting off your shift one blazing afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, the prospect of sitting in dead stop traffic on the 60 to Jurupa Valley, in your busted Honda Civic, only to go home to a stifling house with no AC…. Is anything but appealing.

So you do something unexpected. You are going to cool down, and you’re going to treat yourself while you do it. You’re going to pretend your life is ab-fab (absolutely fabulous) if only for one evening.

You take off from the parking lot of your job and instead of heading east, you go west. You stop at Neiman Marcus and you buy a dress. One that is too expensive to actually keep. So you wear it out and tuck the tags with every intention to return the next day. The dress looks amazing tho, it’ll be a shame to say farewell. It’s a classy little black cocktail thing that goes well with your plain black work shoes.

You get a little touch-up at the makeup counter to refresh your lipstick and spray on some Diptyque, and you head back to your car. You google, “open houses ocean view near me” and you take off to the coast.

You park your car a few blocks away from the listing. If the agent sees that heap, they probably won’t let you step inside. I mean this house is listed for nearly 15 million dollars. You shouldn’t even be walking down this block. You feel almost guilty for parking anywhere near this neighborhood.

There’s about 5 or six other people in the house looking around. The agent smiles at you and hands you a brochure when you enter. A glossy embossed thing listing the amenities as well as her contact information. You feel a little overdressed. The men are in tommy Bahama shirts and the women are in Lulu Lemon leggings.

You get a glass of free champagne and you help yourself to the charcuterie tray, looking around the house with appraising eyes, trying to nod your head at the bannisters and balconies like “hmm yes, maybe this will do.” Truthfully the house is beyond gorgeous. It’s ocean adjacent and has it’s own deck, pool, hot tub rooftop lounge, bedroom balcony… the kitchen is a thing of ART. The whole open concept and glass everything makes you feel so utterly out of place.

But its not like buying it was ever in the cards or the intention. the AC works, that’s all you care about, and you step outside the living room patio balcony, the ocean breeze hits your face in the most cooling fantastic sort of way. You audibly sigh and close your eyes breathing in the air. A voice from behind you startles you.

“Refreshing, isn’t it?” You nearly drop your glass, surprised by the man’s proximity.

God. He is handsome. Slick backed hair, mirrored aviators, a thousand watt smile, movie star jaw, and a dark navy suit cut, sewn, and ironed by Giorgio Armani himself. He looks like a magazine advert for Ray Bans. Now this, this is the type of man who buys a 15 million dollar home. Not you. The way he’s smiling at you now seems like… like joke or something. Like he’s laughing at you. He can smell the Honda Civic on you, can clock your shoes as Margiela knock-offs… heat creeps up your face despite the cooling breeze.

You look down at the floor and smile politely. “Excuse me” you mutter and go inside to investigate another part of the house.

You run into him again in the closet. Literally, you bump into him in the grand walk in. He’s probably going to need a closet this big for his collection of fine Italian sartorials. “Sorry” you mumble, ducking out. God he smells good.

You head back down to the kitchen to grab more cheese and crackers. Another bonus of open house crashing along with the free AC and free sparkling wine. Free food.

You’re midway through shoving another Brie covered cracker into your mouth when you see him again, in the kitchen, examining something attached to the marble countertop. His glasses are hanging from the center of his undone silk shirt. Those eyes.

You cover your cracker-full mouth and gulp. He’s so fucking cute furrowing his brow at the contraption and he spins the lever of it with one hand and smiles. He looks up at you.

“Pasta maker.” He points to it before shoving his hand back in his pocket. “You ever use one like this? It’s old school.”

You shake your head, still swallowing cracker.

“Wonder if it comes with the house…” He muses, looking up at the recessed lighting. He points up. “They all come with this now, you notice that?”

You shake your head again.

He tsks and continues, “Can’t stand it. I like something softer, y’know. These are harsh. You get up at 3 in the morning to get a glass of water and you want to kill yourself.”

You shrug and take a sip of sparkling wine. You wish you could talk to him but you can’t. You can feel yourself on the verge of saying something fucking stupid and it’s best to just not speak at all. So you look up at the recessed lighting with a curious face, trying to see the harshness, as he put it.

“Something hanging, like right over here,” he indicates over the island. “Something with yellow light. Soft, capiche?”

You smile at the word. It makes you more comfortable for some reason. “What? Like the Tiffany lampshades in the pool hall?” You offer with a smile.

He grins the most dazzling smile at you, stepping a foot closer and nodding. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but keep talking.”

“I was thinking more Venini myself.” You offer, taking another sip. He nods at you with appreciation.

“Tasteful. And soft. I’m listening.”

Your cheeks hurt from smiling at this point and you take a few steps to the living room gesturing near the sofa.

“An Arco floor lamp in the corner right here.” You submit to him, looking back over your shoulder with a wink. He chuckles.

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

“And for the foyer,” you stride over to the front entrance, “A Sputnik. Right in the middle.”

“Gold or silver?” He asks.

“Bronze of course.” You reply with an affected air.

“How silly of me, dear.” He puts his hand over his heart.

The real estate agent makes a remark on what a gorgeous couple you are and how you just “fit the house”.

You start to protest but the man puts his arm around your shoulders and thanks the agent saying, “whatever baby wants, baby gets.” Winking at the woman and KISSING the side of your head. Which makes your face turn hot instantly.

He is… good at playing along, isn’t he. Well isn’t that what you were doing already? cosplaying as someone who could afford the house, and now you’re cosplaying a couple with this man whom you don’t even know the name of? Jesus—Just go with it, you suppose. Enjoy the pretending before you have to go back to the heat of Jurupa Valley…

“Now what about the dining room?” He asks into your ear in a deep voice, arm still over your shoulder.

“Hmmm,” You’re slowly running out of lamp styles, but you can’t let on. “How do you feel about Venetian glass, darling?”

“Inspired. Really,” he squints his eyes at the recessed lighting over the dining table. “We are in Venice after all.” He laughs with a toothy smile. “You have fine taste…” he leads.

You give him your name. He repeats it before telling you his. “Leto”

“I should have known you would have fine taste by the dress you’re wearing.” He compliments, picking up a glass of sparkling wine on the marble counter and gesturing your dress up and down.

“Thank you.” You blush. It’s not even yours. It’s on loan. You’re returning it tomorrow and you feel like a fraud.

Leto bites his bottom lip in contemplation then takes a step towards you, his hand making its way towards the nape of your neck with stern concentration on his lips. Oh fuck he’s about to kiss you. You make the split second decision to let him, closing your eyes gently, puckering your lips, holding your breath, and leaning in slightly.

But he doesn’t kiss you. You feel the slide of glossy paper down the back of your neck and the settling of it under your dress. He was tucking in the price tag of the dress for you. Jesus fucking Christ. You step back, embarrassed. He pats your arm. You cover your your brow, feeling your face get hot once again. So much for searching for that cool breeze by the coast!

Leto chuckles pleasantly. “Hey, hey, don’t be embarrassed. Happens to the best of us.”

God he’s probably giving you the benefit of the doubt. Probably thinks you just have so many new designer dresses that you innocently forgot to take the tag off… but if he had, would he have tucked it back in like he did? Or would he have just plucked it off?

“You like the house?” He asks, still jovial like the most embarrassing thing in the world didn’t just happen to you 5 seconds ago.

“It’s amazing. Perfect, really. The location, the style. It’s a dream. I have always wanted to live in Venice… the energy here is unbelievable.” You look around at the pristine grandiosity. The sun is close to setting now over the ocean and you sigh wistfully at the stunning view. “Whoever gets it is a lucky duck, I’ll tell you that.” You say, cheersing the sun itself before knocking back a sip of wine.

Leto watches you watch the lapping waves. “Let me buy it for you?”

You nearly choke on your drink. “Leto?! The house??”

Leto nearly doubles over in laughter, holding up his hand in apology, “No. No. I’m sorry, I— I meant the dress.”

Your face goes hot again. He knows! He knows you’re planning on returning it. Shit, he probably saw you pull up in your Civic!

“Please let me buy it for you. It suits you perfectly and it’d be a shame for anyone else to own it.” His eyes are so soft and kind and pretty and you almost want to cry.

“I… I can’t let you do that. It’s already on my card. I promise I won’t return it though, after that compliment, how could I?”

Leto nods. “At least let me take you out to dinner? Give you an excuse to show it off?”

Your heart nearly sinks. He’s probably the type to insist on picking you up. And he’s going to, what? Drive to the IE to do that?

“I live kind of far away…” you trail off, cringing slightly.

“I can send a car for you.”

“Leto, No, I—“

“Do you live father than a car ride? I can send a plane for you if you’d prefer?”

You laugh, but the returning stare isn’t a joking one. He’s fucking serious.

“I promise I won’t try anything funny. I just… want to pick your brain for more design ideas.” He grins and scratches the back of his neck, “It doesn’t have to be a date. Could be a business dinner? You would be my consultant…”

“Oh really? Consultant?” You cringe.

“Or it can be a date. A proper one. The best meal of your life. The Barber of Seville at the LA Operahouse, dancing, desert, a starlit walk on the beach outside my brand new house.” He grins. God what a fantastic smile.

“Sound like a 5 hour date.” You assess.

“What? You want longer? Because I will have a hot tub by the time this date rolls around and that can add up to 2 hours.”

“Two hours? Ambitious.”

“Agreed. But if done properly…” he winks and hands you a business card with his number on it. “Just think about it. I’ll be around.” He takes a deep breath, surveying the house and you, “I could stay and play house with you all day but I have a sudden urge to get ahold of my broker.” He takes your hand and kisses it.

“Nice meeting you Leto… Atreides.” You read off of his card.

“The pleasure was mine, gorgeous.”

Once he leaves, you have to go out to the balcony again for a breath of fresh air.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

Is there anything good (positive achievement) about the Valyrian/ghiscarian empires? I feel GRRM didn't bother giving them nuanced and interesting history beside mass slavery, rape and genocide, esp the ghiscarians they are mash up of the all the racist oriental tropes you can think of

Hi anon, this is a really good question. I think you can look at it two ways.

On the one hand, if we're analyzing the books from a literary perspective, GRRM's portrayal of the entire continent of Essos is pretty Orientalist and doesn't hold up that well. And we can blame this to some extent on GRRM being a white boomer who clearly did not think all that deeply about the stereotypes he was playing into when he created his "exotic" eastern continent. 90s fantasy was rife with this stuff (even my beloved Robin Hobb is not completely immune-- I'm looking at you, Chalcedeans), and at the time Orientalism was, much like critical race theory or decolonization, a grad school level concept, unless you ran in activist circles. You didn't have Tumblr and Twitter and TikTok and Youtube generating Discourse, you had to actively seek out different perspectives. And ex-hippie liberal white boomers often assumed that they already had the right perspectives, that they knew what traps to avoid, and so you'd get 90s SFF authors thinking they were very cleverly subverting these tropes by going, "I know, I'll have an intensely misogynistic culture of desert dwelling nomads who have harems and slaves but I'll make them white." It was pretty bleak. Luckily for all of us, fantasy has come a long way since then.

And yeah, once you see the Orientalism in ASOIAF, you can't unsee it. Lys is basically the fantasy version of the "pleasure planet" trope, the Dothraki are a stereotype of the Mongol armies without any of the many positive contributions the Molgols made, Qarth is like the Coleridge poem come to life with people riding camels with jeweled saddles and wearing tiger skins, with its women baring one breast and it's sophisticated assassin's guild, and Mereen has its pyramids. The entire continent is brimming with spices and jewels and pleasure houses and people saying "Your Magnificence." It is also a place of blood magic and dragons and Red Gods and shadowlands. It is everything exciting and "exotic," juxtaposed against what appears to most readers to be very mundane--septas and pseudocatholicism and maesters in the citadel. So yeah, it's an Orientalist's fantasy world, and the point of all this is not necessarily to cast it as evil per se, but to cast it as "Other" (and to be clear, Orientalism is harmful and GRRM deserves the criticism he gets for leaning into stereotypes). Valyria and the Valyrians are certainly included in that-- they are explicitly Other as foreign born ruling family in Westeros, and they are treated that way both in-world and by the narrative.

The question then becomes, although GRRM's depictions of Essos lean heavily and inelegantly into Orientalist tropes, why did he create these worlds the way he did? Why is Valyria an "Other" and what significance does it have to the story? And I think that some of this is GRRM's shorthand for something magical that is lost and forgotten and fading away, just like Valyria itself is in the memories of the Targaryen family. It is the Xanadu of Coleridge's Kubla Khan, not just the East viewed from the West, but the past viewed from the present, a nostalgic yearning for a place that only ever existed in the imagination. When the narrative does visit these places in person, rather than telling us about them secondhand, they become ugly and brutal, the jeweled facade hiding a rot underneath. In ASOIAF we have Dany ripping that facade off of Meereen and Yunkai, but she idealizes her own Targaryen heritage, and that is not insignificant, and as readers, we are invited to idealize it right along with her, in spite of plenty of hints that perhaps we should not (like the aforementioned slavery). We even hear Astapori and Yunkish slavers speaking to Dany echo sentiments about the even older Ghiscari empire, also lost, "Ours is the blood of ancient Ghis, whose empire was old when Valyria was yet a squalling child." Old Ghis and the Valyrians who conquered them are both long gone at this point, and yet their descendants are clinging to the legacies of cultures that would be wholly foreign to both of them. Because if Valyria is Xanadu, the Old Valyrians and Old Ghiscari are also Ozymandias, the mighty who have fallen, their once grand civilizations nothing but forgotten ruins. The Targaryens don't yet realize that they are that "half-sunk shattered visage," that they are yearning for something that is gone and never returning, something they never really knew in the first place.

Westeros is not immune to this either. I think it's a consistent theme that GRRM plays with is the ways which the past is glorified and distorted and romanticized. Even in a meta-sense, his entire medieval world is, in many ways, a half-remembered medieval fantasy, the medieval world as imagined by people who read Ivanhoe, rather than a medieval world as actually was. And GRRM simultaneously presents this romanticized world alongside the brutality of the past (and to drive that point home, George's medieval world is much more brutal than the real medieval world was), and so he asks us, just like Dany must ask herself at some point, is the past really all that romantic? Or are we simply yearning for something unnamable and Other? And if we yearn for that, why?

On the other hand, from an in-world perspective, if you are Westerosi, are there any redeeming qualities to Valyrian culture? And I think we can answer that question by asking ourselves, is there anything salvageable from the past, even if the past was terrible? Even if what we perceive of Old Valyria wavers between a horrific empire based on conquest and slavery, and an idealized homeland full of magical dragonriders, depending on who is doing the telling, if we accept it as a fully fleshed out world, then I think we can remember no cultures are monoliths. Old Valyria had art, architecture, fashion, music, literature, and I like to imagine that there were good freeholders, perhaps even Valyrian versions of the Roman Stoics and the Cynics, who raised moral objections to slavery. Certainly the Valyrian "freeholder" government itself, a kind of proto-democracy, similar to that of Athens, was innovative for its particular time and place, even if it was not as democratic as our modern democracies are, and that model of government is replicated throughout Essos, where strict hereditary monarchy seems to be relatively uncommon. Valyria also had a great deal of religious freedom, which persists throughout Essos as well. And as with any empire, it's important to keep in mind that the ruling class made up only a small percentage of actual Valyria, and we know there were Valyrians who were not dragonlords but just normal people, going about their lives who had nothing to do with the atrocities committed, and those people were telling stories, creating art, writing songs, and producing culture too. So I think, tying back into how GRRM uses Valyria and Essos in his narrative, we do not have to discard the past entirely, nor do in-world Targaryens, but it's the romanticization that's the problem, and I think that's something that both in-world characters and readers are cautioned against.

[lilac-5ky]

Roommates from Hell, pt.7 (Toji x Fem!Reader)

Chapter 7: Stockholm Syndrome

Chapter 6 | Chapter 8 | Story Masterlist | Masterlist | Requests | AO3

A/N: Sorry for disappearing, y'all! Hope this lengthy chapter compensates for my absence.

You were early.

You knew that, not because you’d been checking the time every two stops—doubting your being on the correct railway line even as the voice in the speakers called out Inokashira Park—but because it was still bright when you got off the train platform.

Normally, you were good with those things—time. Having juggled both school and multiple shifts across Tokyo at some point in your life meant you knew exactly how long it took to get from one district to the other, and under no circumstances did Shibuya to Kichijoji amount to three hours worth of travel time. You could’ve left home half an hour earlier and made it in time, but all sense of normality died the moment you agreed to go out with Toji.

It was 3:37 p.m., and you were indeed early. Two hours and twenty-three minutes early.

You’d gone out with him hundreds of times. As friends, as family—as people who dealt their meals and loneliness evenly, yet never as anything beyond that. You didn’t know what a date entailed—or rather, you pretended not to, because the possibilities made your head spin.

This was just an ordinary hangout, and that was why you’d opted for the unimpressive combination of your overworn jeans and cardigan, in spite of casting every article of clothing out of your closet and onto the floor.

The yellow ribbon in your hair—that was hope.

You were meeting at the park’s east entrance, which coincided with the railway’s west exit. The only thing you’d agreed upon was the time and place. Everything else was entirely up to him.

The tracks ended where the grass blades began, out-of-bloom hydrangeas paving the path toward Inokashira Park’s infamous pond. In the winter, the park looked like a shadow of its former self. Desolate and bleak, as opposed to the final spring you visited with your father.

The fragrance of the freshly bloomed cherry blossoms he’d help you reach atop his shoulders lingered ever so vividly in the air, along with the essence of humidity that clung to your skin after every ride on those enormous swan boats. But with the trees stripped bare and the waters stilled by the cold, your memories had also lost their vibrancy.

You felt no joy reminiscing about the past. It was more like an old wound you scratched open to test the pain, except the blood was all dried up. You’d mourned your father before he’d even passed and before your sister finalized the news a week ago. This was just killing time.

You had two hours to waste and were already considering phoning Toji to reschedule. He didn’t have much to do during the day. If he wasn’t at the diner, then he typically loitered around one gambling den or another. Unless he was caught up in one of those shady businesses that earned him entire briefcases full of cash. To think the day would come when you’d be dating a hitman—

—only you weren’t dating. Because this wasn’t a date.

Your plans were put on hold as an elderly woman shoved about a dozen shopping bags inside the public phone booth you’d been eyeing, and you decided not to wait around for it to be freed.

Two hours isn’t all that horrible.

A class of children returning from a field trip to the park’s aquarium passed you by, some of the kids clutching onto different types of marine life plush toys. You walked away from the procession. You weren’t keen on showing jealousy over the little girl with the cute turtle-shaped backpack, and thus you detoured to a quieter path away from all the jeers and cheers. You checked the time again. One hour and fifty-five minutes left. God.

The park’s visitors dwindled the further you strayed from the main attractions, until it was just you and a man who had his back turned all the while he stared off into the unknown. A man whose broad shoulders and discreet slouch seemed more familiar the longer you studied him, and when his jade eyes fell on yours, you reached an epiphany. This was a date.

“You’re early.” You gasped softly, your lips expelling a white cloud of heat.

His gaze hardened below his arched eyebrows—a mix of unfeigned surprise and borderline annoyance as he processed you from head to toe.

You regretted not going the extra mile. Toji wasn’t dressed to the nines either, but his choppy strands were somewhat combed, and the forest green of his sweater brought out his eyes. Even his usual sweatpants were replaced by a fitting pair of black jeans, and at that point, your palms began to sweat because Toji was an objectively good-looking man, and when he took care of himself, he was a real head-turner, while you were just… you.

“You’re the one who’s late.” He shifted the blame without second thought, tempting you to dig your beeper out of your pocket to prove your innocence, but you spared him the embarrassment. After all, he made no comments about your blushing cheeks or shuffling feet either.

One minute and countless beats of awkward silence later, Toji tugged himself from the wooden spikes that ringed the pond’s perimeter and moved closer, his attention instantly drawn to your ribbon’s loose ends.

“Your hair—”

“Looks weird?” You cut him off.

He shook off his scowl, the rough pads of his fingers making light contact with your skin as he flipped the string over your shoulder. “Nah. Just…” and it was no exaggeration to say you were hanging on his lips up until he grabbed you by the hand and dragged you forward—his calling you cute an uncertain figment of your imagination.

Trapped in a never-ending daze of billboard signs and city lights that faded past the passenger’s window, you miserably failed to make out your whereabouts. It’d been a while since you left Tokyo behind, and your last clue was your entering National Route 127 about an hour ago. You were well into Chiba prefecture—home to Japan’s biggest fishing industry, Disney-themed parks, and, of course, peanuts.

As for where in Chiba exactly, your best bet was connecting the passing exit signs in the hope of them helping paint the bigger picture. Kisarazu to Kimitsu. Kimitsu to Futtsu. Futtsu to Kyonan.

Since that final sign that read “15 kilometers to Minamiboso,” you’d gone off the map, and the closer you came to approaching the sparsely planted minka houses on the mountain side of the highway, the further your destination seemed. You didn’t expect this to be a kidnap in the literal sense, but while Toji hadn’t taken your ability to speak or look away, he still refused to let you in on his plans.

He drove quietly, his vision tunneling to the open road while his hand occasionally ironed out the knots of muscle around his neck. His mouth opened solely for his yawns, whose sheer number and frequency would’ve been concerning if Toji wasn’t the one behind the wheel. You trusted he wouldn’t kill you both off. He wasn’t the double-suicide type.

After your seventh unsuccessful attempt at prying out information, you brought out the big guns.

“What’s this?” Toji glanced at the 1000-yen bill you discreetly placed on his lap, his lips twitching into a slight smile. “Little low for ransom, don’tcha think?”

You rolled your eyes. “Just tell me where we’re going and why it couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

“Hmm.” He pocketed the bill. “Wouldn’t be a kidnap if I told ya, would it?”

You leaned against the window, bandages soaking up moisture from where you mindlessly drew figures in the fog. You’d think he’d be less frustrating to deal with now that he’d gotten what he wanted, but he’d instead turned shrewder. He didn’t even let you contact your sister or drop off Kenzo’s waffle cones. The two were left alone at your empty apartment, probably thinking you’d migrated to the North Pole for ice, when in reality you were off playing budget Thelma and Louise.

Maybe he really was trying to kill you—speed toward the next cliff and throw you both into the depths of Tokyo Bay, where you’d spent a comfortable eternity sleeping side by side with the fish.

You were spelling the words Save Me when Toji spoke again, this time on his own accord.

“Someplace we can continue where we left off.” You could hear the smirk rolling off his tongue.

Someplace we can continue where we left off, you mentally repeated. Someplace we can continue where we left off. Someplace we can—oh.

You quickly smudged your cry for help with your shoulder and fell back on your seat, cheeks as red as beets. If he wanted to take things to a love hotel, he should’ve just said so. It wouldn’t have taken much to persuade you to hit one in Roppongi. No need to waste all this gas and worry everyone sick.

Come to think of it, the phone hadn’t rung once since the beginning of your little country escapade—not from a call, and not from a text either. You were positive he hadn’t turned your phone off when he confiscated it, and his was still on him.

That crafty witch. Her lack of concern just about confirmed your suspicions. Your sister wasn’t searching for you because everything was moving according to plan.

“Can I at least make a call?” You batted your eyelashes and smiled at him with your eyes, watching his wariness dissolve instantaneously as his glance shifted to a stare. Men.

“A call, huh?” Relying on his inhumane reflexes, Toji lowered a hand from the wheel to your knee, rubbing his way higher up your thigh.

The part of you that wasn’t used to letting him touch you so freely almost flinched, but ignoring it was starting to become easier. You enjoyed the way his palm cupped your flesh. You liked how supple your skin seemed between his fingers, and you loved how firm his grasp felt—bold and reassuring. It took your mind off your question and his attention off the road as a honk from a passing truck forced you to recoil away from each other.

The unprompted filth that poured between the two rolled-down windows colored both your ears. He was the one in the wrong here. It was his fault that the car zigzagged into the fast lane, and while he wasn’t going to let it spiral out of control, the other driver didn’t necessarily know that.

Once he was done spitting nails, he turned back to you, impatience burning in his eyes to the point where you wouldn’t be surprised if he cut your destination short and pulled over to the nearest rest area for a breather.

“Can’t focus when ya gimme that look.” Toji huffed.

“What look?”

“Like you’re begging me to fuck you on the highway.” He answered with the same ease with which one would talk about the weather.

“Toji!” A red deeper than the one on your ears spread to your face.

He licked his lips together and tipped closer to your seat, audaciously asking, “What?”

You didn’t have a reason good enough to push him away anymore—at least not one that related to how you felt about him. Hiding behind your finger was useless when all your cards were laid out on the table. He counted on you staying still for his lips to brush over yours—a mere tingle of electricity before you remembered you were in a moving vehicle and swatted his face away.

“Eyes on the road.” You whipped out a smile, lest he misunderstand, but it was too late. Toji was already looking at you as if you’d committed an unimaginable sin; a frown riveted to his face even as his focus resumed on the highway.

“Just lost your phone rights.”

“Seriously? Cause I’m watching out for our safety?”

“You heard me.” He grumbled. “Now shut it.”

“Well, forgive me for not being up for a second near-death experience less than 24 hours after the first one.” You said as you fixed your shirt over your knees and coiled closer to the window.

His knuckles grew white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly, a deep exhale flaring his nostrils. Be it out of guilt or regret, he didn’t talk back, but you weren’t willing to call a truce just yet.

“You know, none of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t run off on your own last night. Or if you’d asked me whether I wanted to be stuck in a vehicle with your grumpy ass for hours. Putting up with you at home is enough as it is.”

The blinker flashed as he turned left to the next exit, whose name you didn’t catch until a second sign at the intersection welcomed you to Tomiyama. You weren’t even sure if that was your actual destination or if he pulled off the highway on a whim, and you knew next to nothing about the area other than hearing it mentioned in some politician’s speech about recreation.

The car slowed down behind a navy blue sedan, with Toji drumming his fingers against the wheel while waiting for the lights to turn green. You took the chance to look outside, unable to figure out a damn thing in the dark. There were trees on both sides of the road, but you couldn’t tell what kind of trees. There were more cars parked by the sidewalk, but you couldn’t determine their color, let alone their brand. There was a large body of water up ahead, but you could only make out the faint sway of the riptide under the moonlight, a light breeze teasing the pungent scent of the sea.

“Didn’t seem you were putting up with me last night.” Toji interrupted. “Or when ya sucked my face in the middle of the street.”

“Hey!”

“Not that I hated either.”

He didn’t sound half as mad as he seemed, and for a brief moment, you wondered what you’d started this for. You always gnawed at each other like beasts trapped in a cage, each getting a kick out of pushing the other’s buttons into madness, yet you rarely fought for a reason. It was more so out of habit than spite, because that’s what you did best, and it almost felt intimate—affectionate in a way others could never comprehend.

“Go on.” Toji prompted, definitely amused. “That can’t be all. What else ya got?”

“You ate my ice cream!” You almost laughed at your own absurd statement, biting down the chuckle Toji didn’t bother withholding. “You ate it in front of my face and didn’t offer me a single bite!”

“Poor baby can’t use her hands?” He cooed, curling a finger near your cheek.

You dramatically waved your reasons for being incapacitated. “Can’t even use them. Plus, they itch like hell.”

“Pft, don’t pin that on me.” He scorned. “Curse barely touched you, and you spent the whole night cryin’ like a baby.”

An exasperated sigh puffed in your lungs. “I can’t believe you drew a mustache on my face. You knew I was awake, didn’t you?”

“Did I?” He asked with a knowing smile. “So what? Think I’d pussy outta kissing that cute little face just ‘cause of two extra lines?

“Still got ‘em, by the way.”

You manically scrubbed your lips with the back of your bandaged fist before coming to terms with the spotless reflection in his rearview mirror.

“There’s a special place in hell for people like you.”

The car was again put into motion as Toji switched gears and accelerated—much to your delight—toward the seashore, with no intention of stopping even as the village houses got replaced by palm trees dug in the sand; your final accusation being, “What kind of psychopath drives without music?”

“This is just noise.”

His snide remark had you dropping the stack of cassette tapes back at the discount stand and rushing to his aid.

The store-provided headphones appeared comically small compressing his skull, with the metallic wire bent into a taut arc that promised to snap any minute now. Their wearer seemed displeased, which, honestly, he always did, but this time you could hardly blame him. He was out of his element, and if it weren’t for that sliver of curiosity ushering him into the record store by the station, then he wouldn’t be standing there like an absolute idiot, polluting his ears with… pirate metal?

You managed to withstand about ten seconds of incoherent German slurs and Arrrgh’s before you hastily ejected the tape and shoved it back in its case. An entire music library at your disposal, and he’d possibly come across the single questionable track. Even a sniffer dog would envy his ability to nose anomalies out.

“Must be ‘cause you aren’t used to it.” You glanced around the shelves for a gap. “For all we know, this could be a masterpiece.”

“Yeah, right.” Toji kicked at the rolling step stool. Your heel caught it before it had the chance to crash into the vinyl stand, which led to him scoffing. Again.

He was the one who insisted on this date yet acted the exact opposite of his intentions. All that gloating about his past conquests was plain rubbish. He’d planned nothing for your date—your first date—and was disagreeable toward your every suggestion. The new crepe stall was too flashy for his tastes. The regular sukiyaki place was suddenly too expensive. The attractions at the park were tourist traps. You’d purposely led him down the thrift shop packed-alleyway just so he wouldn’t have a reason to complain, but he exceeded your expectations.

If he was having such a bad time, then why bother asking you out in the first place?

You returned to your corner, rummaging through the rows for something even Toji could potentially appreciate, when it hit you: you had no idea what kind of music he liked. Two years of acquaintance, and you’d never discussed preferences.

“Hey, Mr. Nitpicker.” Your nails clicked against the plastic to draw his attention. “What’s your favorite song?”

He gawked at you as if he’d been presented with a complex quantum physics equation, furrowing his eyebrows and tilting his head from one side to the other like a metronome.

“It’s… that one.” You expected him to point at either a cassette or a vinyl, but his hands remained sheathed in his pockets.

“What one?”

“The one that goes like…” You again expected him to hum to the rhythm of the supposed song, but he didn’t. “Ya know, that one.”

Your eyes darted between the tapes in your grasp and the insistence in his expression. He didn’t sound convincing in the slightest. It was when he lied that he acted most certain.

The only argument working in his favor was the inconceivable notion that a person in the growing age of media and technology could do without a song blasting from their car speakers or one they recorded with all the ambient sounds of a cafe tainting the chorus—because you didn’t know how music was treated in the Zen’in household; how whatever didn’t feature a koto or a shamisen was outright rejected; how it was considered a women’s sport—an activity slightly more refined than idle gossip in the shadows of the shoji doors.

“That’s not very helpful.” You sighed.

“Whatever.” He frowned, reclining against the one wall that was equipped with neither shelves nor framed records.

The conversation was over, and you resumed your hunt for affordable hidden gems in the 80s section. They used the word vintage for songs you’d grown up with, which everyone knew was a code word for old. Your twentieth birthday was months away, and you were already deemed old—correction: vintage. In no time, you’d join the club of people who called those below their age kids and constantly reminisced about the golden days of their youth.

“What’s yours?” Toji caught you off guard with how he’d both peeled off the wall and hunched over you without you taking notice.

You hadn’t even opened your mouth, yet you already felt yourself stuttering. He was intimidating—not in a piss your pants kind of way, but in a way that tinkered with the distribution of fluids in your body. You didn’t want to answer his question. You’d rather he bent a little lower and kissed you, because sharing your second kiss at a record store sounded exhilarating.

But sharing that tidbit of information wasn’t.

Flustered, you flipped through the cassettes sorted by the letter ‘A’ to find Anri’s Timely!! mixed between the ‘C’s. You were supposed to ask for permission before trying out the non-samples, but the store clerk clearly didn’t mind, or else he would have stopped you four tapes ago.

You searched for the appropriate track and pressed play once the headphones were back on Toji’s head. He kept a serious face all the while Anri begged for her loneliness to stop, the upbeat instrumental contrasting—without concealing—the sobriety of the lyrics. You heard every word loud and clear, mentally repeating them down to the third chorus, where you got lost in the sentiment.

Love is like a small storm. Both friends and lovers get swept up by it.

The song went on about the end of a relationship, while yours hadn’t even begun. You were one step ahead of being friends, yet a lot more steps behind being lovers. You didn’t want to jinx the outcome of your date but couldn’t stop musing over the pain of a breakup. You’d only experienced loneliness in the form of missing—never in the form of losing. If you let yourself be swept up by this emotion, would you wind up hurting more than you did before he stepped into your life?

The music came to an end of its own, and Toji pulled the headphones from his ears, declaring with a victorious grin that this was his favorite song.

“You can’t be serious.” You snatched the Walkman from his hands. “That’s my favorite song!”

“And?” He tapped his foot against the tiled floor. “What’s yours can’t be mine?”

“We aren’t married.” You wished you could press rewind and write over your own words, replacing them with something far less embarrassing.

“Like I’d ever marry someone this bossy.”

You groaned as you traded the tape for one by Takeuchi Mariya. “Fine. When the time comes, you’re free to marry someone without any backbone, but now, we are finding you a song.”

He groaned back while you repeated the same process of skipping to a specific song, gauging his reaction, and then moving forward while he pig-headedly stood by his first choice. You tried more artists—Matsubara Miki, Akimoto Kaoru, Sugiyama Kiyotaka. You thought Hamada Kingo’s midnight cruisin’ would be it, but it wasn’t. The single thread your patience dangled from finally snapped, resulting in your rising to your toes and forcibly holding the headphones down against his head.

“You aren’t allowed to not like this one!”

You formed the words slow enough for him to read your lips over the climax of first chorus, the song feeling nothing sort but an unconventional confession with how you viciously stared into each others eyes.

Every time I wish, to monopolize your love/Every time I wish, that would you be mine/I want all of you.

There was a change in his expression, a flicker or a speck of something that convinced you to step back before the song reached its conclusion. You called a draw in your staredown, both turning to a different direction, and you weren’t sure if Toji was remotely capable of feeling shame, but his cheeks were tinted a subtle pink when your eyes next met.

“Okay.” He conceded. “Keep your stupid song. I like this one better.”

You walked around the shops hand in hand. It was for precaution, so you wouldn’t get caught between the hordes of starving office workers invading the local Konbini in search of nutrients—his words, not yours. Toji didn’t know lunch breaks were a common breadwinner’s luxury, considering most of these people overworked themselves until it was time to go, but you didn’t mention either. His hand felt too warm to let go, and whenever he spoke, heat radiated from his lips.

You wished he’d kiss you.

He’d missed his chance at the record store, but plenty of other opportunities had since turned up: the giant Christmas tree that sprouted in front of Kitaguchi station; at the back row of some B-rated horror movie screening; behind the arcades on Motomachi Street. Even right where you stood, he could trick you into thinking there was a rogue eyelash he meant to pinch from your cheek, only for his lips to land on yours instead.

It was a given that it would happen. It happened in every single Hollywood rom-com, without exception. You just didn’t know when or where.

The cassette tapes rattled like wind chimes in the paper bag you carelessly swung around. You didn’t intend to charge him with a bunch of impulse purchases, but he told you not to sweat it because you’d be buying lunch. It fascinated you how the richest and poorest people you knew met in Toji’s face. He could afford things beyond imagination, yet he never seemed able to afford the essentials. It was easy to write him off as cheap, but you didn’t want to be in love with someone cheap.

You wondered whether he’d ask you to be his girlfriend or if you already were.

You suffered through a much harsher rejection as you returned to the very same crepe stall that Toji previously dismissed with a simple “no,” this time demanding you treat him to an actual meal. You were more upset about not having crepes than you were about bleeding cash on him.

The sun retired prior to your food quest’s conclusion, parting from the sky in a murky shade of blue. It was getting too cold to be outside, and hiding your shivering came at a price. You clung to his arm as if he were a portable heater, but when he asked if you felt cold, you stupidly claimed to be fine. Really stupid.

Soon, the streets were emptied. Every sensible passerby holed up in the cozy izakayas that lined each side of the pavement. You were the last two sociopaths testing their courage at a UFO catcher outside a greasy Thai restaurant. The aroma of drunken noodles stirred something in your stomach that made you forget all about the crepes, and the Yoshi plushie Toji pledged himself to win on your behalf. You shouldn’t have told him he was your favorite. You’d be stuck here until the morning light.

“Didn’t you swear off gambling for the remainder of this year? Thought you were saving your luck for 1995.” You tried to dissuade him, eyes meeting through the hazy glass. He’d tasked you with inspecting the left side of the machine while he took stock of the prizes on the right. “How’s this?” You pointed at a Yoshi near the corner of the prize pit.

“That’s hardly gambling.” Toji slapped the glass with both his hands and forehead, reviewing your choice. “Nah, won’t do. ‘Tis too far from the center. Switch with me.”

You traded sides, with Toji focusing on the Yoshis while you focused on him. He seemed to know what he was doing, but he wasn’t fooling you. He’d lose, pin it on either the rigged machine or the maintenance guy, and then he’d have you drag the Thai manager out.

On second thought, maybe if he caused a big enough scene, you’d be compensated with a plate of warm food.

A smile of utter triumph emerged across his lips once he got his sights on a target. You still had your doubts, especially with how tightly the machine was packed, but refrained from voicing them. He wouldn’t listen anyway.

“Got any coins?”

You handed him your wallet, and his eyes almost widened as he shook it around like a maraca. “You work a side-gig at the mint or something? What’s with all these coins?”

“Many drops make an ocean.” You moved to the side for a better view. “Spend ‘em all, and you’ll be buying your own lunch.”

He pulled out a mere 100-yen coin and dropped your wallet on top of the machine. “Don’t need more.”

“Why do I feel like I’ve heard those words before?” Your sneer wasn’t enough to shatter his confidence.

“Ya say that cause you weren’t there in ‘87.”

“Why—what happened in ‘87? And where exactly is there?”

“Won three of these with a single draw.” Toji not-so-subtly bragged, at last taking hold of the joystick.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Anyone can win if they bribe a kid to loosen the thing for them.

“Better be if ya want me winning that damn turtle of yours.”

“Yoshi is a dinosaur…” Unsurprisingly, that earned you a glare.

You gestured a zipper over your mouth and gave him an encouraging thumbs-up as he slotted the coin in. The 15-second countdown began, with Toji maneuvering the claw over the plushie by the 10-second mark and Yoshi flying over the hole five seconds later. You watched with bated breath up until the claw unlatched from Yoshi’s nose and propelled him down the machine’s entrails, a series of metallic thuds promising Toji’s irrefutable success.

“You won?” Your gasp turned into a genuine shriek of excitement. “Holy shit, you actually won! Shit, I mean—wow, you’re good at this!”

He snorted, kneeling to retrieve the prize. “You sound surprised.”

“Well, I am.” You admitted. “Never seen you win before.”

“Don’t be. It’s annoying.” He pretended to bash your skull with the plushie, only to softly dab it at your wincing, hands raised in defense. Cute. “Have your big-head. He looks like you.”

A tight-lipped smile curved itself in place of his lips, the rest of his features also softening while he took in yours. Looking like a green dinosaur had its perks. You didn’t feel as cold anymore. All you felt was the tenderness with which he cupped your cheek like the most precious treasure—and he did treasure you. First with his eyes, and then with his fingers, though he treasured you the most when he was kissing you on your open mouth, your impatience dissolving into a wish come true.

“In my next life, I’ll buy myself a house here.”

Your toes sank deeper into the sand, struggling to remain hidden as the sea foam tickled away their concealment. Shards of the moon sparkled like stardust in the ocean, every ripple mirroring another star fallen from the night sky. If magic existed in this world, this was proof of it.

In the end, you were glad Toji brought you out there. Tokyo was smothered by water to the point where you feared it might swallow you whole, but things were different in the countryside. No skyscrapers blocked your view of the quaint horizon. No traffic sounds filtered the sound of the waves crashing to the shore. No exhaust fumes tainted the salty air that filled your lungs.

Even for a moment, you broke free from the shackles of everyday life and stepped into a picturesque world straight from a postcard. Your life could end then and there, and you’d jump to the next one without any regrets.

“What keeps you from doin’ that in this life?” Toji asked, seated a little further from where you stood. You didn’t understand why he’d chosen the beach when he wouldn’t dare dip his feet in the water, let alone feel the crunch of sand. His slippers would get dirty, one way or another.

“Money, for starters. Work, too. Life, maybe.” You mused.

“Bullshit. You can make money anywhere.” He retorted. “And anyone can do your job. Not like serving brick patties takes special skill.”

“Think I can do your job, then?”

“No fucking way.” You chuckled at his honesty. “You’d stab your leg right in front of your fucking target.”

“Right?” You glanced down at your fingers. He’d peeled off the bandages so you wouldn’t get them soggy, but you didn’t need them anymore. Your cuts would heal on their own as long as you didn’t get salt in them. “Then, you think we should only do what we are meant to do?”

“I think we should do whatever the fuck we want.”

“That’s easy to say…”

“Even easier to do. Now get your ass over here.”

You turned around, beaming with a smile he’d find irritating a minute later. “What if I don’t want to?”

“Then suit yourself.”

His apathy lasted until he sprung from his seat and scurried over to you, his arms seizing your waist before you could run away. Your back was pulled flush against his chest, with your ribs silently crying over the ridiculous strength of his biceps. You’d been subjected to more squeezing this weekend than your body could handle.

“That’s how ya do it.” Toji breathed in your hair, his chin comfortably propped on the crook of your shoulder. You were immobilized, but your heart still raced for escape, your cheeks shimmering a rosy pink.

“Actually, you wanted me to come to you, which means you just proved yourself wrong. Meanwhile, I wanted you to come here, which means I—ugh, put me down!”

Water splashed everywhere as Toji hoisted you high above the ground and carried you across the sand plains, your feet pedaling an invisible wheel until you were dropped off like a sack of potatoes. Non-organic at that. Organics received greater care and respect.

“Happy now?”

Choking on a miniature sandstorm, you fought to get your tangled hair off your mouth, inevitably tasting some of the very coarse grains you coughed out.

“How can I be happy when I’ll be shitting sand for days to come?”

“You’re just bein’ dramatic.” He brushed the hair from your face, giving your head a rough pat.

“And you’re being an asshole.” You sighed, recalling your words. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Wouldn’t matter if ya did.” Toji hurled one of the few pebbles at the sea, watching it detonate in a firework of water. “Heard worse.”

“But I really didn’t. You used to be more of an asshole; now you’re just a little bit. A tiny bit, really.” You smiled softly, leaning your head against his shoulder. “I’m glad we are here. And whatever your reasons for moving in were, I’m glad you did. I love our life.”

A wry smile appeared on his lips. “Better remember that next time you nag me about the dishes.”

“Water alone doesn’t remove grease. You need soap to—” You paused at his groan. “It’s fine. So what if there’s melted cheese stuck at the bottom of the pan and I can taste last week’s dinner in my glass? You are trying your best!”

“I got a job.” He cut in.

An unpleasant taste had you grimacing into his elbow. It’d been a while since you’d last cleaned up after his mess in the hall, but the foul smell of metal was unforgettable. Blood—and although it seldom belonged to him, you weren’t any more comfortable with the idea that the day would come when somebody else would scrub Toji’s blood off their clothes.

“When are you leaving?” You asked in a quiet voice.

“Not that kinda job.” Toji thought a title made a story, not details. He reached for another pebble to throw, but his hand turned out empty. Then he continued. “A shitty 9-to-5 job like all others.”

“Doing what?”

“Office stuff—how the hell should I know? Ask Kong; he’s the one who arranged it.”

“Shiu?” He shrugged rather than nodded. “But why? I never asked you to.”

“You think I’d get a job simply ‘cause you asked?” Right. That’d make no sense. “Can only off so many sorcerer brats per month to make ends meet. Rest of the year I’m left hingin’ on capital control.”

“So it is about me.”

You were dragged down against his body as Toji laid you both on the sand, his one hand draping over your shoulder while you rested your cheek on his chest. His heartbeat resonated like the sound of the ocean in your ear. Soothing and slow. A sound only you had the fortune to enjoy.

“Is that where you went last night?”

“Mhm,” he mumbled, combing through your hair to distract you from the palm that shamelessly climbed down your butt. “Interview.”

You felt his fingers burrowing into your shorts, his touch innocent as far as groping was concerned. “Does this mean I’ll get to see you in a suit?”

“Like hell you are.”

“But you’re gonna have to start wearing one if you wanna make a good first impression. At least a button-up and a tie.”

“Like I care about impressions,” he said, adding a beat later that he didn’t even have one.

“When do you start? We can go shopping on Thursday, I have the day off; we could hit that store in—what are you doing?” You questioned his flipping his phone open and typing something on the screen.

“Quitting.”

“Don’t you dare!” You slapped the lid with such force that the phone bounced away from his hands and wedged into the sand.

Dusting the sand off, he packed it back in his pocket, his arms falling at his sides with no intention of resuming their activities. “I’ll just do it later.”

Silence stretched thin as the two of you gazed at the sky, long enough for you to forget you weren’t astral bodies yourselves until your own mindless admission went through.

“In my next life, I want to be a turtle. They carry their houses on their backs and don’t have to deal with rent or taxes.”

“What a sly way to say ya want me off your back.” Toji quipped.

“Something tells me you’d still find a way to stick around. You are like gum in hair. I’d need to shave my head to get rid of you.”

“Turtles don’t have hair, stupid.”

“Shh, don’t ruin my analogy.” You protested. “And why do you always call me stupid?” Your chin rolled on his chest. “I went to college. I’m at least smarter than you.”

He let out a snort. “Goin’ to college doesn’t make you any smarter. It proves you’re a nerd.”

“But you’re also pretty,” he added once you were about to sit up, the smirk you mistook for a smile forcing you to drop your guard. “Pretty stupid.”

“That’s it—you’re not coming back alive!”

Planting both knees on each side of his torso, you attempted to smack the smugness out of him, only for your wrists to be pulled forward and your head violently brought down to his level—every thought of retaliation stripped away by the proximity of his lips.

“Scary.”

What was scary was how easily you were tricked into kissing him; your feud nothing more than a pretext for Toji to lure your tongue inside his mouth. Your hands slipped from his grip to his cheeks, gently thumbing at his scar, while his palms wandered behind your back and settled on your butt, making you feel just how hard the press of your thighs had gotten him.

To someone who only knew affection in the form of sex, kissing was merely the prelude to fucking your brains out in the sand—and when you started grinding your hips against his crotch, he was convinced he’d finally catch a break.

“T-Toji,” you breathed out, following the expanse of his arms down to where his fingers fumbled with the waistband of your shorts. “We are not doing this here.”

Your warning didn’t seem half as compelling as the little moans that spilled from your agape lips, the friction between your bodies clouding your judgment. “Toji…” You tried again, slotting your fingers in between his knuckles. “Don’t want sand in my vagina.”

“I’ll suck it out.”

It took a third Toji to kill his aspiration of having the entire city of Chikura learn your names. His frown grew in an instant—an improvement to all the previous scowls he’d worn, maybe because he’d gotten further than every previous attempt and had the confidence that success lurked right around the corner.

He retrieved his hands and pieced them behind his head, hooded green eyes having yet to rid themselves of the lust behind them. “Then stop grinding on my dick already.”

You parted from him with a peck he almost denied and sat up on your heels.

“What do you want to be reborn as, Toji?” You tried to change subjects.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“One life is enough to suffer through.” He shrugged.

“And you call me dramatic,” you mumbled. “Then you don’t believe in reincarnation? I thought the Zen’ins were all pious.”

He rolled on his side, staring at the parked vehicles. Yours was not the only car around, but you hadn’t seen a pedestrian since you’d stopped for gas in the previous town. People in the country had an actual bedtime, as opposed to those in Tokyo.

“They serve religion when it serves ‘em back. Not me. Don’t believe in any of that.”

“Why not?” You pressed.

“Cause I don’t wanna be reborn as a damn turtle.”

You took a moment to process what he’d just said, blinking between “He can’t possibly mean…?” and “No way he just said that” at least a dozen times before you scooted closer, nudging him to flip toward you with a hand on his shoulder.

“Ya think turtles fuck a lot?” Toji broke the temporary silence.

“I… haven’t had the chance to ask one,” his sigh prompting you to add, “They do have a lot of babies though, so maybe?”

“Yeah… maybe.”

You fiddled with the hem of your shirt, your eyes inadvertently drawn to the bulge in his pants. You felt less self-conscious about the damp patch in your underwear and the continuous pulsing between your thighs, both of which begged you to reconsider your answer. A few rounds of the most glorious sex you’d ever have were worth weeks of excruciating pain and gynecologist visits.

“I want my shirt back,” Toji suddenly said.

You peered away from all the dirty thoughts and shifted your gaze to his shirt on your body. “Now? You want me to take it off right now?”

His lack of response served as confirmation.

“But I’m not wearing anything underneath,” as if that could possibly dissuade him.

“Nobody’s looking.” He gestured toward the houses that surrounded the coastline, none of them with a light shining through their windows. “And I certainly don’t mind.”

The obvious choice was to dismiss his request as a corny joke and keep your arms pinned over your chest for the rest of the night. But with your mind so far gone and your heart (read: pussy) assuming office, you were pulling the shirt over your head before you could fully mull things over.

You shaped the cloth into a rough ball of fabric that you tossed at him, your adrenaline peaking to new heights as the realization of your breasts dangling in plain sight settled in. Toji didn’t even try to hide his gawking at them, his eyes blown with surprise. He’d underestimated your guts, and you’d overestimated whatever half-baked confidence carried you this far.

“I—I’ll just return it when we get home.” You hurriedly picked up the shirt from where it’d landed on his lap, trying your best to cover yourself up. “It n-needs a good washing too—my, look at all this—”

You halted as Toji caught your hands and slowly tugged them off your breasts, the shirt falling in an empty pool between your bodies. “Can’t believe you hid these from me.” He whispered, absolutely mesmerized by what was quickly becoming his favorite sight in the world.

His touch posed a question that a reluctant nod answered, your face burning hot and your heart thrumming loudly as Toji’s fingers made their way from your stomach to your chest, goosebumps erupting across every inch of velvet skin they traced. His palms stopped short of their destination while he sized up your reaction, half-expecting you to run off into the ocean and butterfly-stroke back home, but you remained uncharacteristically docile, bearing the intensity of his eyes for the sake of being touched.

Without any further delay, his fingers wrapped around your breasts and squeezed at them, feeling out the weight of the supple flesh in his palms before coming to a conclusion. This was worth the wait.

“You’re so pretty.” His thumbs rubbed your nipples in clockwork order, light pinches perking them up. “So damn pretty.”

“Not pretty stupid or anything?” Your smiles turned joint amidst a soft kiss.

“Nah, I’m the stupid one. You’re plain beautiful.”

“Don’t beat yourself over it.” Your breathing grew heavier as he began to kiss the corners of your mouth. “It’s the extra college years.”

“Fucking nerd. Come ‘ere.”

Toji pushed you to the ground and climbed on top, his knee parting your thighs while his hands kept true to their goal of kneading your breasts, playing with your sensitive peaks to draw the sweetest sounds from your throat.

“Y-You agreed to take things slow, remember? Only kissing.” You tugged at a tuft of hair, not minding that your actions contradicted your words—head tilted back and limbs closing around his waist as you rubbed your heat against his clothed cock.

“Relax.” He nibbled at your earlobe, his lips straying lower and lower with every word he mumbled across your skin. “Promise I won’t fuck any sand into your pussy. I’ll wait till ya beg me to fill it up with somethin’ else.”

A sly idea manifested as an equally sly smirk as Toji unlatched himself from your jaw to stare into your eyes. “How ‘bout this?”

He followed his question with a trail of kisses that led down your neck, searching for permission once his breath inched closer to your nipple, his tongue teasing its perimeter.

“This qualifies as kissing, right?”

“Is this seat taken?”

You lacked the willpower to lift your head from the untouched bowl of chao that lay before the vacant chair—the final chair left on the table aside from yours, all previous ones given away to those with an actual use for them.

The image spoke for itself. A girl who kept twisting her neck in the direction of the door, expecting someone who wouldn’t come, all the while dismissing the waiter’s discreet attempts to free the table. You got stood up, but instead of feeling anger, you only felt worry. Almost an hour had passed since Toji shoved you into this Vietnamese joint on the outskirts of Musashino and promised he’d be back after checking on something—and while Toji definitely was the type to leave without notice, he wasn’t the type to leave free food waiting.

You finally glanced at the young man, who patiently awaited your answer. He was more or less your age, stemming from a group of guys in baseball jerseys, all with a beer jug in hand. College athletes. The kind of people you both envied and avoided.

“You can have it.” You replied at the same time he asked whether you wanted to join their table.

He probably wasn’t a bad guy, and he wasn’t so hard on the eye either. At least that was your impression until he stated his reason for inviting you: because you were cute. There was room only for one sordid womanizer in your life.

Muttering an apology in a hushed tone, you pushed past him and walked outside, the cold wind inviting every hair on your body to stand in ovation. With your hands desperately trying to generate some degree of heat over your forearms, you dashed to the closest phone booth and shut the door behind you. You emptied a few coins in your palm and picked up the receiver, holding it to your ear while you dialed his beeper’s number and pressed 2.

“Hey, it’s me. I just left the restaurant and wanted to say, Hah! Your loss, loser. You really missed out. Don’t even think of asking me to pay for lunch again. That ship has sailed—you blew your chance.” A pause. One long enough for the voice in the speaker to ask you to deposit more coins to continue recording.

“That’s not all. What I wanted to say is, I—um, had fun today. I’m not mad that you went away—well, not that mad, anyway. I understand. There are things you can’t go into detail over, and—yeah, I guess that’s it.” You shook your bags near the phone. “Thank you for the Yoshi and the tapes. You should come over whenever you have time to listen to them together. Promise I’ll spare you the boring trivia.

“Actually, the trivia isn’t boring; you are the one who doesn’t appreciate it, and—damn, I’m ranting again. Just gimme a call, okay? Let me know you’re alive. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I really like your voice. If something bad were to happen, I’d miss hearing it. Maybe if my voice was as nice, you’d listen to me more, but I’m not complaining. I really like it, and I really like you.”

Your cheeks felt hot as you awkwardly chuckled. “You can’t laugh, okay? Don’t you dare laugh, ‘cause I know you like me too. I hope you do. Whatever. You’ll never hear me say this to your face, but I really like you a lot, Toji. Everything about you. I love every single thing about you. Thanks for being my friend and family.

“I’m running out of coins, so I’ll end this here. Talk to you soon. Take care.”

You placed the earphone back in its place and opened the door, banking on the negative fives to cool down your body’s elevated temperature. You managed three steps before the phone started to ring. Without second thought, you threw yourself back into the booth, apologizing as you realized the voice on the other line didn’t belong to the one you thought it would.

You were ready to hang up when the stranger’s words made your heart plummet in your chest. He wasn’t the owner of the beeper, but the device had temporarily fallen into his hands. He claimed to have found it in a manhole four kilometers away from Takaido station, and while there were a lot of gaps in his story, you agreed to meet up at a cafe a few blocks from your current location.

Meeting with a man whose face you didn’t know was risky, but the streets were filling up, and someone had to retrieve the beeper in Toji’s stead. It’d be fine.

“Alright, I’ll see you in ten to fifteen minutes, Mister Kong.”

Your footprints chased closely after you on the way to the car, two separate trails merging every few meters when Toji would lean down to press a kiss on your lips. His kisses tasted salty after that many hours on the beach, though you wouldn’t have it any other way. You wanted to cherish those moments before they crumpled and you woke up back on your couch with the memories of a dream you’d never truly lived.

In this dream, where a tomorrow had yet to dawn, he suggested that you one day return with a towel to finish what you’d started. You talked about trying out the local specialties and staying at a nearby ryokan—because in that dream, your shift didn’t start for five hours and you could afford to break the bank.

Your last stop occurred in front of the passenger seat’s door as you dusted the sand off your clothes. He wasn’t thrilled with your covering his artwork—little pink love bites and light purple bruises lacing your collarbones and breasts—but he let you wear his shirt indefinitely this time.

“Good?” You performed a small twirl, hoping that you’d gotten all the sand off your back.

Toji gestured for you to turn around again, his palm smoothing out the fabric until it landed a muted thwack on your butt. “Now ya good.” He grinned, walking over to his seat.

You held off getting in the car, stealing a final glance at the tranquil landscape before it faded away. You said goodbye to the sand, the pebbles, and the waves, leaving the trees for last, when the outline of something crawling among some rocks attracted your attention.

The creature in discussion had eight long limbs and a seemingly liquid head it dragged behind it, bits of seaweed sticking out of its coral complexion.

“Is that a curse?” You pointed at the horizon, forcing Toji to peek outside the window.

“That’s an octopus. Probably hitchhiked on the riptide.” He fixed the right-side mirror and closed the door. “Not everything’s a curse, dummy. Ya might not see another in your life—best forget it ever happened.”

He was right. You’d lived twenty seven years without a curse making a move. There was no reason to believe they’d suddenly start swarming you as if you were dipped in honey.

Once you were both inside the car, he twisted the key in the ignition, only for the engine to sputter and then immediately die. You knew the bare minimum about cars, so you assumed he knew what he was doing when he stepped outside and popped the hood to take a look at the machinery. You even thought the kick he gave the front wheel was part of some ritual to fix the failure, until he opened your door for you and, with an irritated smile, declared you weren’t going to believe this.