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fleckcmscott · 3 years

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Coffee & Donuts

Summary: Arthur’s thrilled to be part of a crowd. Though the evening doesn’t go perfectly, Y/N’s flirtations make it sweet.

Warnings: Smut

Words: 4,602

A/N: Alright. After the heart wrenching angst of my last piece (which I love, by the way; don't get me wrong! 😂), I had to write another story in which Arthur and Y/N are happy and together. It's inspired by one of Arthur's visions during their kiss. I hope you all like it! Special thanks to @jokerownsmysoul for beta-ing!

If you have any thoughts or questions, please comment, feel free to message me, or send me an ask. Requests for Arthur and WWH are open!

Parties and celebrations weren't foreign to Arthur. He'd worked plenty, enough to make him realize what he'd been missing out on. He was well-versed in pin the tail on the donkey, musical chairs, and balloon animals. But as an adult, those activities didn't satisfy. He wanted to be included rather than paid. Connect with people, introduce himself. Discuss his experiences and pursuits. Feel sufficiently at ease to loosen up a little and have a good time.

Now he was a guest - a certified guest - at Patricia Gorman's fifty-sixth birthday party. The first party he'd been invited to since being the weird kid in class who'd rotated between three worn out sweaters and could never afford a gift.

He'd been a tad apprehensive about going to Burnside. Gotham's nicest borough had a reputation for high rents and low tolerance. When Y/N and he had entered 2E, however, Patricia's greeting ("You made it!") and the apartment were thoroughly welcoming. Crocodile brown walls and forest green shag carpet made the spacious living room a cozy hideaway. Marigolds leapt across the polyester of the T-cushion sofa and its easy-chair companion. The floor lamp's amber, crimped glass shades cast the spacious living room in a glow borrowed from warm autumn days.

Patricia's husband, Robert, was out on an emergency call. An HVAC had gone haywire in a residential building in Hinckley. Her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson had been by for lunch. That meant the only other guests were Matt - Y/N's old boss - and a bottle-blonde in a black halter dress and spike heels, who Y/N introduced as Laura. ("She's Matt's ex-wife," Y/N later disclosed. "He's been trying to win her back since I moved to Gotham.") Both shook Arthur's hand when he offered it, and he felt a little thrill whirl his stomach when Y/N laid claim to him by telling the woman, "This is my husband."

A collection of appetizers served as dinner, a fun and novel menu. The slow cooker meatballs Y/N and he had lugged over on the subway were a bit tangy; he still couldn't believe the recipe called for grape jelly. The deviled eggs with paprika, a pleasant mix of savory and sweet, was a dish he'd heard about on television. Cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches were light and airy, a good match for his iced tea. Only the artichoke and spinach dip gave him pause. Its beans and hot sauce made his taste buds wince.

That unpleasant flavor was quickly forgotten when Y/N pulled him to sit next to her on the sofa, so Patricia could open her presents. She proudly showed off the orange, clay ashtray her grandson had made for her. Arthur, having successfully kept the secret of her light smoking from Y/N, chuckled at Patricia fibbing she'd put candy in it. She thanked Matt and Laura for the champagne, wrapped in a silver bow with a simple "Happy Birthday" tag. The bottle wasn't popped. Upon peeking into the large giftbag Y/N placed on her lap, she made a soft sound. The Dazey whirlpool bath, which attached to the side of the tub and had three strength settings, was a hit. She announced her plans to try it in the morning. The dark blue Rexbuilt briefbag was intended to replace her cracked, leather briefcase, Y/N explained. Patricia ran her fingertips along the expanding inner compartments, the personalized planner that included the credential "CLA" after her name, and flipped through the included steno pads, eyes brimming.

She sipped at her cocktail and put an arm around Y/N. Melancholy tinged Patricia's voice. "At my age, the people in your life tend to stay the people in your life. Whether you like them or not." She reached further and patted Arthur's knee. "I'm glad an old dame like me gets to call you all friends." His throat clenched in gratification, though he wasn't daring enough to squeeze her hand and thank her for deciding he was a friend.

Still on top of the world an hour later, Arthur sauntered to the red and white enamel dining table to serve himself a second slice of upside-down pineapple cake. The evening had gone well, better than a guy with a natural inability to mingle could've expected. He bobbed his head to the beat of "Come Fly with Me." It was a happy coincidence that Patricia's taste in music aligned with his. She'd regaled him with tales of seeing Sinatra and Count Basie on her and Robert's honeymoon in Vegas. Arthur took a bite absentmindedly, wondering how long it would take for him to save the money to surprise Y/N with plane and concert tickets.

The daydreaming didn't last long. Matt's plodding footsteps preceded him, followed by a long sigh as he propped himself on the beige stone of the dining area's accent wall, across from the u-shaped kitchen. He held out a Budweiser and smirked. "Marriage is a hell of a lot of work."

Pleased that he was being treated like one of the guys, like a regular husband with a regular relationship who got to speak about his regular wife, Arthur accepted the beer and considered the comment. Matt's sentiment was hard to grasp. Dr. Sally had said marriage could be difficult, and Y/N's first hadn't survived the ripples of her life. But it didn't feel like work with her. Their arguments were minor. Her nagging him to find a primary doctor for annual check-ups, even though he'd survived this long without one. Or back in Missouri, when he'd told her to stop shielding him and trust he could take anything she had to give.

Arthur adopted a similar nonchalant posture and jutted his hip against the table's edge. "I like it. It's easy to take good care of her." He wasn't able to completely erase the smugness of success from his tone.

"You're what? Two years in with the most headstrong woman in Gotham? She's great and all, but she spikes my blood pressure." Matt slapped Arthur's back and let out a hearty guffaw. "Give it five more and you'll be in my office trying to avoid alimony."

"Don't. Say that." Arthur crinkled the can in his grip and glared up at him.

"Hey," Matt started, withdrawing even as he tried diplomacy. "It was just a joke. I didn't mean anything by it."

Flinching, pulling at the cuffs of his red sweater, Arthur fought the surge of anger in his veins. It wouldn't do to lose control and cause a scene. Of course Matt's comment about them splitting up was supposed to be a joke. But Arthur didn't find it one bit funny. Even with his complete faith in her and his firm belief that they were meant to be together, the possibility that she'd stop wanting him hurt. It didn't occur to him that the implication of the punchline could be that he'd get sick of Y/N.

With a muttered apology, Matt walked to the others in the kitchen. Arthur glanced over to see her laugh tipsily, until she grabbed her stomach and swatted Patricia's shoulder, a stark demonstration of how much he and Y/N differed. She always knew how to respond to people, the right comebacks. Appropriate timing and levels of interaction. It seemed she was in her natural element, the loveliest swan on a lake. Whereas after years of therapy and practice with her, he was still a fish out of water, flopping around on the shoreline in hopes some stranger would take pity on him and throw him back into the sea.

Maybe that was the real punchline. Eventually their contrasts would no longer complement each other and instead become a chore.

Scowling, he ambled towards the record player stationed before two double-hung windows. Increased the volume to drown out the intrusive notions. It didn't really work. He settled on a grounding technique he'd practiced, all the while lamenting that he couldn't handle a party without needing it. His attention went to the spinning LP, the needle following its grooves. The bright blue album cover, where Ol' Blue Eyes beckoned him, the scuff marks on the cardboard's corner edges. He acknowledged the spider plants sat on the windowsill, worried a papery leaf until it broke off. He stared out the window, taking in the whole of the city. Pinpricks of light dazzling in the darkness.

"Gotham's beautiful at night," Y/N said from behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to watch her approach. Her cheeks glowed with alcohol and good cheer, the collar of her ivory blouse unbuttoned. "There's a life behind every light out there. Ten million of them. Here. Try this." She offered her hurricane glass, filled with an off-white slush.

He sipped the pina colada with cautious skepticism and grimaced as soon as it hit his tongue. The blend of pineapple and coconut tasted of cheap sunscreen and tropical imitations, the kind advertised in smudged brochures for bad cruises to islands with made up sounding names. "No, thanks."

Snorting, she shrugged and embraced his back at the waist. "How are we doing?" she asked, curling into his side. After a few seconds, she prodded him. "Had your fill of Matt?"

"He was just joking." Arthur rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. She set the drink next to the record player and brought her hand to his, trailed it over the inside of his wrist, up his forearm. She pecked his chin and nudged him until he turned to her. As soon as their gazes met, the concern in hers told him she'd continue to pepper him with questions. But he wasn't about to let his misplaced doubts spoil her evening. And he knew the perfect way to distract them both.

A new song started. An oldie that sang of Jupiter and Mars, playfulness among the stars. He cupped her cheek, thumb sweeping the corner of her mouth. "Dance with me," he said. Before accepting his proffered palm, she laid a sloppy kiss on him. With a flutter of her eyelashes, she grinned, and his smile grew to match her own. As he held her side, led her in a slow, swaying circle, he marveled at her. At her ability to soothe every molecule, every lingering ache. Self-assurance welled in him, chased away his earlier dejection. He cradled her to his lanky frame, trembled and felt himself blush. She was the only woman for him. That was as certain as his cigarette habit.

Despite Patricia's reassurances she was fine, that Robert working late wasn't unusual, Y/N insisted on staying until he got home. Though Arthur would have preferred they take their leave an hour earlier, being allowed to smoke inside blunted his grumbling. The disarming flirtations she bestowed on him also didn't hurt. She'd pour herself a drink (four in total, if he counted correctly), help Patricia make a plate of leftovers for her husband, then throw him a wink. Whisper and cackle while cleaning, then kiss his temple.

Around midnight, Patricia put her foot down. Ushered them out with a promise to call and a hug fierce enough to crush his ribs. She raised a brow at Y/N's unsteady gait, grasped Arthur's arm, and said with a wry, tired smile, "Make sure you put that woman straight to bed." His dark brows shot up and held. Had she intended a pun? Or had Y/N's spare caresses caused the interpretation? Either way, he liked being trusted to take care of her. And the hint of arousal that flared in his belly.

By the time they stumbled into their apartment, that arousal had reduced to a dull exhaustion. She kicked off her heels on the way to the bathroom, calling a slurred "night!" as she closed the door. Yawning, he put dish soap and hot water in the crockpot, scrubbed burned bits of sauce from its rim, turned it upside down on a towel to dry. Once he'd brushed his teeth for one minute rather than the recommended two, he tossed his sweater, trousers, briefs, and socks in the hamper, and went to the bedroom. He found his blue pajamas in their usual spot, the chair in the corner, and slid them up his skinny but toned legs. Tucked in next to her, he was carried to sleep on waves of fatigue and her quiet, wet snoring.

~~~~~

A tickle threatened to rouse him. Whispers along the waistband of his bottoms. Heat snuggled his back. Delightfully drowsy, he cuddled deeper into cozy, cream-color sheets, already returning to a pleasant, dreamless slumber. But a rumble of exhaust, likely from a bus that needed a new muffler, dragged him to consciousness. Arthur grumbled and tucked his arm under his pillow, not ready to transition to a world of overcrowding and concrete, commotion and bad jokes.

Yet, Y/N's insistent grazes continued, luring him with promises of placid pleasure. Her toes wiggled at his heel until he made space for her to slip her foot between his ankles. The corner of his mouth quirked. He was reminded of last night's playfulness, her endless teasing. The way he'd held the crockpot as a shield to fend off her advances on the train home, her forwardness to the point that he would've preferred having a laminated card to present on her behalf. Forgive my wife: she has a condition. It causes frequent and uncontrollable displays of affection.

Nimble fingers edged lower, loosened the tie of his pajamas before dipping beneath the loose elastic to lace through his dark brown curls, darker than the chestnut hair on his head. Her knuckles ran over him, lazy caresses full of intent. Up and down, up and down. Delicate. Deliberate. The blood racing to his groin, the pleasant swelling, made his abdomen twitch. Soon full and heavy, the sensitive tip straining the cotton seams, he pressed his lips together. When she skimmed the tender skin resting on his inner thigh, he flexed the muscle at the base of his erection. It bobbed and hit her wrist and she let loose a girlish giggle, more intoxicating than wine.

With her left leg draped over him at the knee, she undulated against his rear. Plush lips brushed the boney knobs of his spine, damp breath fanned the nape of his neck, labored, needy. Pebbled nipples grazed his back through the thin nylon of her nightgown, taunting and compelling. He made up his mind to throw an arm around her, to yank her on top of him. To eagerly take part in her seduction.

But she withdrew from his bottoms to palm his stomach and plant a gentle kiss to the shell of his ear, whispering, "Sleep tight." The mattress shifted and she rolled away from him. He furrowed his brows. She rarely relented this easily - other times he'd awakened, hard and aching, enveloped by the captivating wetness of her mouth. What was she up to?

Covers rustled. Her calf bumped his. And the opposite of what he'd assumed occurred. Instead of light footfalls leading out of the room, there was silence, silence that seemed to stretch on and on...

Until a hitched gasp gave her away.

Touching herself. She was touching herself. She'd just been all over him, acted like he was some sort of model on the cover of Vue magazine, and now she was touching herself. Right beside him! Ecstatic to have inspired such brazenness, he grinned and fisted the pillow. Her fleeting, stifled moans tangled him in knots, implored him to give her what they both burned for.

He flipped in her direction, his hand shooting under the sheet to grab hers. "Gotcha."

Eyes wide, she gaped at him in surprise. But adoration softened her expression as she entwined their fingers. "How long have you been awake?" she asked.

"Long enough."

He stretched to rewind the shades, the diaphanous curtains staying in place. Sunlight diffused over them, wrapped around her face, lent her disheveled hair a warm luster. He twirled a feathered lock and pecked her eyelids. "Finishing what you started on the subway, hm?"

"Me?" Y/N brought his knuckles to her mouth. "You're the one who came to bed without any underwear."

"Well, it was a late night." The pad of his thumb tugged at her bottom lip to reveal the pink tip of her tongue. He bent to claim it. "I was lucky to find my pajamas."

Chuckling, she broke their connection. "Did you have a good time?"

"Yeah. The cake was good. And the music. Everyone was nice."

"Patricia loved having you there. She thought you were very sweet." A pause as she mapped a dimple. "Matt said he'd upset you. Something stupid about breaking up?"

Vague shadows of discomfort flashed through Arthur, a frustration he'd mostly moved on from. He did his best to ignore it, waving her concern away. "Don't worry about it."

"He was just jealous, you know." Her nails ran along the small of his back. "He wants Laura to look at him the way I look at you."

Arthur had spent so much of his life yearning for change, to understand his purpose in the world and improve himself. The idea that a man with a good education, a successful career, and no disabilities could ever be jealous of him was, frankly, bizarre. But he didn't correct Y/N, instead locking her praise within his heart, preserving it for when he needed it most. He boosted himself on his forearm and fiddled with her V-neck, traced its button loops as he slipped the plastic knobs through them. "And how's that?'

A hint of scandal glimmered in her irises. She arched into him as he eased a strap down her upper arm to reveal her shapely breast, the lilac fabric momentarily catching on its taut peak. "Like I can't get enough of you."

He huffed at that, fondled her faintly before his lips met the velvety skin of her chest. A tonic comprised of the musk oil she'd dabbed on before the party and distinct sexual wanting wafted to his nostrils. He licked at her nipple, the bumps on her areola, and drew it between his teeth. She whined softly and lifted the bottom of her nightdress to her waist.

Hurriedly, he yanked on the waistband of her cotton panties, pushed them past her knees. She kicked them off while he knelt to lower his bottoms. Straddling her, he pumped himself back to hardness and opened the drawer of her nightstand. He searched haphazardly until he retrieved a small, glass bottle of lubricant. (She'd ordered it from a mail catalog, both of them a bit too bashful to walk into an adult shop, even together.)

She snagged it from him and poured half a teaspoon in her hand, then palmed herself. He moved between her legs and she grasped his length, coating him with the warm, slippery liquid. He pushed forward into her. Gradually, slowly, savoring every millimeter of her enticing heat. He noted the stretch of her mouth, the jut of her jaw, the lifting of her upper lip. "Mmm..." she breathed and begged him to keep going. When he did, her head tilted back into the pillow, eyelids falling shut. A smile cut across her cheeks as she purred her satisfaction. "Arthur, I love you."

His touch wandered down the curve of her thigh. At the sight of her subtle writhing beneath him, the sway of her slightly uneven breasts in time with his languid thrusts, he pushed her knee into the mattress, splayed her wider. He grunted lowly. "Look at me."

Their gazes met but didn't hold for long; hers dropped to where they were joined. She caressed right above his pubic bone. "I love seeing you like this." Her fingertips walked a line up his sternum to his chest. "And touching you like this." She wrapped her arms around his middle and drew him to her, locked their lips in a greedy kiss. "And making love like this."

He snorted. "I think this is the only reason you married me."

"Well, not the only reason. There's your good hair, too."

"I've been thinking about cutting it. Trying something new."

"Don't you dare." She tugged at his loose curls, wore her best pout. "What else would I hold onto when we're doing this?"

Laughing lightly, he bumped his nose to hers. Falling into her was like falling into his old fantasies, the ones that'd sustained him through years of isolation. Dates at diners, at comedy clubs, at donut shops, at home. Their shapes had changed as he'd matured, his role in them, his aspirations and infatuations. But they'd remained a warm comfort nonetheless, a place that felt like belonging. And now he belonged with her. Hunger filled him. Happiness. And love. So much love, more than he'd ever believed he'd carried in him. He bucked a little harder. "You feel so good," he murmured. "You make me feel so good."

A strained cry left her and her pelvis answered his steady rhythm with demands of its own. Her calves rose to squeeze him closer, encircle his narrow hips. They were pressed together so tightly; it felt like they were one flesh. He never wanted it to stop. But a dizzying euphoria had ignited, one that eclipsed the romantic yearnings of his heart, twisting his desire to last all morning into the desperate drive to possess her. Gasping, Arthur raised himself to his knees, delving deeper with each push. Their foreheads met and he grit his teeth at the scald of her, the texture of her walls. She fit as though she'd been made for him.

He supposed she was.

Pressure began in the base of him, building and building in terrific torment. The muscles of his inner thighs contracted inward. Tingling climbed his shaft, his tailbone, his spine. He wove his fingers into the sheet, his grip a vise that wrested its corner from the mattress. She kissed the spot where his jaw met his neck, all the while murmuring encouragements for him to let himself go.

Bliss shot through him, from the tips of his toes to the follicles on his scalp, and his back stiffened as he whimpered and poured into. Fever engulfed his frame, sublime in its frenzy, leaving him in a heady stupor. Aftershocks made him tremble. Once, twice. Until, sated and spent, he landed on top her. He closed his eyes, ribs rising and falling as he forced air into his lungs.

A minute later, he swallowed and looked down at her. "You didn't come."

She carded through his sweaty locks. "It's all righ-"

"Shh." He slid out of her and settled at her side, reached between her legs to swipe at her core. "I'm not done," he declared, tracing the edges of her entrance, slick and swollen. One of his favorite things about getting her off was demonstrating his prowess in bed, how well he'd learned with her. His thumb met her plump clitoral hood, and he felt her throb beneath his ministrations.

Nails biting his bicep, she rocked upwards. A bewitching blush crept up her breast, her neck, spread across her cheeks. Shallow pants hit his face, short puffs suffused with high-pitched whines, utterly irresistible. He circled her nub at a steady cadence, tapping when she'd shiver, and she clasped the back of his hand. He swirled his tongue around her nipple, sucked the pretty peak, and lowered the other strap of her nightgown to bare her completely. A hushed plea fell from her lips. "Please, please..."

Suddenly, her vulva grew white hot and she seized, her hips stuttering with each flutter of his touch to her folds. She thrusts her breasts towards him, a sharp moan caught in her throat. Liquid pooled against his fingers, proof of her rapture that made him wish, with mild amusement, that he could be an unmedicated young man again. He would've gladly taken her a second time.

Giggling and rubbing her temple, she released a long exhale and opened her eyes. He brushed her hair back and grinned, completely smitten, like the first time he'd heard a joke and understood the punchline. The light brown picture frame on his nightstand caught his attention, and he regarded the wallet size photo in it, one of the shots of Y/N from the booth at Amusement Mile. The last thing he looked at before turning in each night. He lay his head her shoulder and hummed, listened to the drum of her heart.

She smooched his hairline and wriggled out from beneath him to stand. Her nightie had been reduced to a crumpled stripe of lilac cinched about her waist. It felt tawdry and shameless and he wanted to see her in it for the rest of the weekend. But she peeled it down her legs, wrinkling her nose when it got stuck on her thighs, and stepped out of it one foot at a time. She dropped it on the floral bedspread and retrieved her bathrobe from the closet. "Meet you in the kitchen," she said, opening the door.

The sun had risen higher, its beams slanting across the covers. He basked in it, catlike, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. He pulled on his pajamas, got a new pair of socks from their dresser, and made his way to the kitchen. He washed off the remnants of Y/N's arousal from his fingers, popped open a prescription bottle and took a tablet. He poured water into the coffeemaker, grabbed the can of grounds from the second shelf, added three scoops to the paper filter. Their three-tone brown mugs sat in their spot next to the machine, waiting to be filled.

When the glass coffeepot was half full, Y/N emerged from the bathroom, chuckling to herself. She opened the breadbox on the opposite counter and took out a wax paper bag. "Do you have any idea how dull this morning would have been if we'd never met? I'd have read the Sunday paper, had a drink. Probably worked on a file." He handed her a couple dessert plates, watched her put a donut on each one. "I wonder where you'd be. What woman you'd have breakfast with, what jokes you'd be writing, what magic tricks you'd have learned."

"Um..." At first he wanted to ask where this speculation had come from, if Matt had let her in on exactly what he'd said. But the confident slant of her smirk told Arthur she was teasing. He tried to play along but winced. No matter how appealing, how extraordinary she found him, his gut told him there wouldn't have been another woman. There'd be no more stand-up routines, no more Carnival. He certainly wouldn't be taking care of Penny. He'd likely be locked up in the hospital, maybe even dead. Without an anchor, his life would have lost what little sense it had.

Y/N was one of his anchors now, hooked into the sand alongside his material, treatment, the ability to pay bills. He seized her hand and squeezed it tight, unaware he was squishing her fingers. "I don't wanna think about it," he said quietly.

She sidled up to him and pulled him to her side. Rubbed his flank soothingly and pecked the corner of his mouth. "Don't worry." She took his chin and guided him to look at her. The intimate comfort of her smile helped him believe her next words, even before she spoke them. "I'll always be here."

~~~~~

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aiweirdness · 4 years

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How to begin a novel

Last year for National Novel Writing Month I trained a neural net called torch-rnn on 10,096 unique ways to begin a novel. It came up with some intriguing possibilities, my personal favorite being “I am forced to write to my neighbors about the beast.” But many of its sentences used made-up words, or had such weird grammar that they were difficult to read, or meandered too erratically. (“The first day of the world was born in the year 1985, in an old side of the world, and the air of the old sky of lemon and waves and berries.”) The neural net was struggling to write more than a few words at a time.

This year, I decided to revisit this dataset with a larger, more-powerful neural net called GPT-2. Unlike most of the neural nets that came earlier, GPT-2 can write entire essays with readable sentences that stay mostly on topic (even if it has a tendency to lose its train of thought or get very weird). I trained the largest size that was easily fine-tunable via GPT-2-simple, the 355M size of GPT-2. Would a more-powerful neural net produce better first lines?

One of the parameters I can tweak when I’m getting a trained neural net to generate text is temperature - this controls whether the neural net chooses the most likely next bit of text as it writes, or whether it’s permitted to use its less-likely predictions. At a default of 0.7, a relatively conservative temperature, the neural net’s first lines not only make grammatical sense, but they even have the rhythm of a novel’s first line. This is DRAMATICALLY better than torch-rnn did.

I am, or was.

At the mid-day meal the sun began to set and the quiet dragged on.

There was once a man who lived for a very long time; perhaps three thousand years, or perhaps a thousand million years, maybe a trillion or so, depending on how the scientists look at it.

He had the heart of a lion, and the fangs of a man-eater.

"I am Eilie, and I am here to kill the world."

The old woman was sitting on a rock near the sea, smoking a pipe.

I have just been informed, that the debate over the question 'is it right or wrong to have immortal souls' has been finally brought to a conclusion.

When I was a boy, I was fond of the story of the pirate god.

He had a strange name, and he was a very big boy indeed.

The purple-haired woman came to the clearing in the plain, and without looking up from her book, said, "It's too late to be thinking about baby names."

The village of Pembrokeshire, in the county of Mersey, lies on a wide, happy plain, which, in a few years, was to become known as the "Land of the Endless Mountains."

I don’t think the neural net plagiarized any of these? They are so good that I’m suspicious. But others of the neural net’s lines are even weirder, yet in an effective way that opens with an intriguing premise.

The moon had gone out.

I was playing with my dog, Mark the brown Labrador, and I had forgotten that I was also playing with a dead man.

The black stone was aching from the rain.

The short, dirty, and dirty-looking ship that weighed three tons and was three feet in diameter landed on a desolate and green plain.

How many times have I had the misfortune to die?

The first black dog in the park had been captured alive.

Behold the Sky Rabbits!

In the belly of the great beast that was the bovine Aurore there lived, upon the right hand of the throne, the Empress Penelope; and she had, as it were, a heart of gold.

The moon stood on its own two feet.

The reeking maw of the blood-drunk ship, the enemy's flagship, was silent and empty.

The first day I met my future self, I was aboard the old dirigible that lay in wait for me on the far side of the moon.

The child of two cats, and a tiger, a clown, a horse, a bird, a ship, and a dragon, stood on either side of the threshold of the Gatehouse, watching the throng of travelers who came in from all around the world, before he had any idea what was going on.

I think it’s probably doing this accidentally, stringing likely words and phrases together without understanding what any of them really mean. It’s not that it’s good at science fiction or magical realism; it’s that it’s trying and failing to predict what would have fit in with the usual human-written stuff. Some of the neural net’s first lines really betray its lack of the understanding of the laws of physics. It really likes to describe the weather, but it doesn’t really understand how weather works. Or other things, really.

The moon was low in the sky, as though it had been shipped in from the farthest reaches of the solar system.

The first star I saw was a blue one, which became a scarlet one, and then a gold one, and green, and finally a yellow one, which for some years afterwards seemed to be an ebony one, or even a bubbling mass.

The sun rose slowly, like a mighty black cat, and then sank into a state of deep sleep.

The sea of stars was filled with the serenity of a million little birds.

The great blue field was all white, swept away by the blue-gold breeze that blew from the south.

The sky was cold and dark, and the cold wind, if it had not been for the clouds, would have lashed the children to the roof of the house.

The morning sun was shining brightly, but the sky was grey and the clouds aching.

The night that he finally made up his mind to kill the dog, the man was walking home from the store with his wife and child in the back seat.

Arthur the lion had been pretty much extinct for some time, until the time when he was petted by Abernathy the old woman, and her son, Mr. Popp.

One of the disadvantages of having a neural net that can string together a grammatical sentence is that its sentences now can begin to be terrible in a more-human sense, rather than merely incomprehensible. It ventures into the realm of the awful simile, or the mindnumbingly repetitive, and it makes a decent stab at the 19th century style of bombastic wordiness. I selected the examples above for uncomprehending brilliance but the utter tediousness below is more the norm.

The whites of my eyes shimmered, as if my mind were dancing.

I once went to a party where the dress code was as strict as a chicken coop with no leggings and no boots.

A black cloud drifted by, a mottled mass of hydrogen, a black cloud of hydrogen, with the definite characteristic of being black.

I say I am at sea, because I am standing upon the ocean, and look out across the barren, vast throng of the sea.

It is, of course, a trifling matter in the ordinary course of things, if a certain writer were to write a novel, which is a book of stories, which is a book of characters, wherein every detail of the story is stated, together with a brief description of the theme which it concerns.

There was a boy with blue eyes, with sandy hair and blue eyes that looked at all times like he had been pushed through a million compartments.

The Sun, with its rolling shaft of bright light, the brilliant blue of the distant golden sun, and the red glow of its waning corona, was shining.

The man who was not Jack the Ripper had been promoted four times in the last two years.

Felix the Paw was sitting at the table of his favorite restaurant, the "Bordeaux" in the town of Bordeaux, when his father, Cincinnata, came in to say good-by to the restaurant.

It, sir, gives me the greatest pleasure to hear that the Court be not too long in passing away: but that I may have leisure to prepare a new work for the publication of my friend and colleague, the renowned Epistemology, which is now finished; and in which I shall endeavour to show, that this very point is of the highest importance in the subject of the philosophy which I am about to treat of.

It was a rainy, drizzling day in the summer of 1869 and the people of New York, who had become accustomed to the warm, kissable air of the city, were having another bad one.

Repetitiveness is also common, especially at this conservative temperature setting. Once the neural net gets itself into a repetitive state, it doesn’t seem to rescue itself - it’s a problem that people have noticed in several versions of this algorithm. (It doesn’t help that I forgot to scrub the “title” that someone submitted to the dataset that consists of the word “sand” repeated 2,000 times)

The sky was blue and the stars were blue and the sun was blue and the water was blue and the clouds were blue and the blue sky was like a piece of glass.

At the end of the world, where the tides burst upon the drowned, there exists a land of dragons, of dragons, which is the land of the dragons.

It's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, it's the end of the world, you're dead.

There was once a land of sand, and sand, sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand sand

Increasing the temperature of the sampling would help the repetitiveness problem, in theory, letting the neural net venture into more interesting territory. But at a temperature of 1.0 the text tends to venture out of everyday surrealism and into wordy yet distractible incomprehensibility.

The praying mules on the top of the hills sounded the final klaxon, lifting their spiked front hoofs as they crept the last few feet of desert landscape past the crest of the enormous swathe of prehistoric sand.

In the glen of the Loch is a ladder that winds way up through a passage to a ledge with soft, moss-laden environmental standards.

Someone whipped a dead squash gibbet across the room, like some formidable war lord unleashing a heavy hunk of silver at home.

One blue eyed child stood up and cried out: "Douay, saurines, my Uncle – Fanny Pemble the loader!"

Jud - an elderly despot, or queen in emopheles, was sitting across the table from the king, looking very thoughtfully into the perplexions of the proceedings.

Oh, you're a coward little fool, as if you couldn't bear to leer at a Prunker or white-clad bodyguard quickly emerging from a shady, storm-damaged area of the city.

Hanging presently in his little bell-bottomed chamber on the landing-house, early in the morning, the iron traveler sat on a broad-blonde sandbricksannel blanket outside the gate of a vast and ancient island.

Long, glowing tongues trailed from your mouth as you listened to what was being said across this kingdom of ours, but growing a little more somber since the week that caused us to proclaim general war.

The night I first met Winnie the Pooh, I had sat in the Tasting-House and heard the Chef unpack the last of the poison upon his quiet dinnertable.

There is, of course, no perfect setting at which the neural net churns out sensible yet non-repetitive first lines. There are just varying shades of general awfulness, interspersed with accidental brilliance.

No matter how much you’re struggling with your novel, at least you can take comfort in the fact that AI is struggling even more.

I generated all the neural net sentences above using a generic “It” as the prompt that the neural net had to build on (it would usually go on to generate another 20-30 sentences at a time). But although the sentences are independent in my training data, GPT-2 is used to large blocks of text that go together. The result is if I prompt it instead with, say, a line from Harry Potter fanfic, the neural net will tend to stick with that vein for a while. I've included a few examples as bonus content for subscribers.

Update: I now have a few thousand unfiltered examples of neural net-generated first lines at the GitHub repository where I have the original crowdsourced dataset. Themes include: Harry Potter, Victorian, My Little Pony, and Ancient Gods.

My book on AI is out, and, you can now get it any of these several ways! Amazon - Barnes & Noble - Indiebound - Tattered Cover - Powell’s

#neural networks #you look like a thing #nanowrimo #gpt-2 #writing #first lines #gpt-2-355m

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blackholeofprocrastination · 3 years

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20, for arthur x lyanna :)

KISS PROMPTS ( ˘ ³˘)♥

#20: a kiss on a scar Arthur x Lyanna

They have lingered in Lys too long.

The last of Lyanna’s jewelry was sold two moons ago. A single hairpin studded with small onyx stones.

Pretty but not much, by the merchant’s assessment.

Arthur had begrudgingly taken the man’s price. It was enough to pay their debt to the midwife. To fill their bellies a few times over. But it was not enough for passage away from this place. For that, Arthur must find his own way.

All around him men shout and hiss. His Valyrian is clumsy, but he understands them well enough, when an apple core is tossed at his head. He dodges it, letting it fall on the red-stained dirt below.

Once, he lived by vows. Served his prince. Now, his blade provides entertainment for foul men with too much coin. Arthur does not care, so long as some of that coin makes it into his purse.

Wine and wagers are passed around, as men curse him and praise him.

He does not heed them. He only watches patiently as his opponent, a rather brutish looking Ghiscari, closes in.

The Ghiscari swings wide, his flail as ineffective as an apple core tossed from the crowd.

Arthur grins, the split skin at his lip pulling too tight.

There is a horrible part of him, deep down, that knows it is not just coin that brings him here.

He is often so wrong-footed in this new life he must lead across the Narrow Sea, but here, with a blade in his hand, he is himself. (Or at least some glimmer of himself)

There is a thrill in victory. It happens more often than not. Even without Dawn in his hand, Arthur is formidable.

The Ghiscari does not miss his mark a second time, the flail striking Arthur painfully on the shoulder.

Arthur bears against it and with an elegant arc of his blade, he cuts the Ghiscari at the back of the legs.

The man roars as he falls to his knees, quieting only when the pommel of Arthur’s sword meets the back of his head.

Arthur cannot tell if din surrounding him is made up of boos or cheers. It matters not. He shall have his winnings either way.

It is late when he make his way home.

His shoulder is bloodied and aches and there will be new bruises on his face by morning, but he is too drunk with his victory to mind. It sets his blood buzzing, restless and wound tight.

He needs another fight. A fight or…

He turns onto their street and catches a glimpse of lilac eyes peering out from the doorway of the neighboring pillow house.

Arthur can already smell the perfume that spills out from the establishment. He draws closer and a bedslave with silver hair smiles for him.

The pillow house shares a wall with the tiny room they rent, two coppers every sennight. When he lies beside Lyanna at night, he can hear whores at their trade through the thin plaster that separates them. It makes his skin feel too tight. His blood too hot.

Sometimes, it sends him back out into the night. Back to the fighting pits where his blood is put to better service.

He could turn back now. It’s not too late.

Instead he enters their lodgings, barring the door behind him.

The babe is asleep on the single bed they share. It is too much to hope that his mother might be there too.

“It’s late.”

Lyanna is by the dying fire, standing over a dented kettle.

“Sit,” she orders, kicking out their only chair from the rough-hewn table.

Arthur obeys, watching as she dishes out his supper with a clumsy hand that borders on petulant.

He sets the coin he’s earned on the table. A conciliatory offering.

“Did you win?” She asks as he toes off his boots.

“Some.”

He does not know if that answer pleases Lyanna, but there is a touch less tartness to her when she sets a dish in front of him.

Just as his birth has ill prepared him for this life, so has Lyanna’s. She is a lady. A princess. Not a kitchen maid.

Most days, the best her stew has to recommend for itself is that it is warm. Tonight, it is so late not even that is true. There is a film of grease over top, and onions and broth have grown tepid.

Arthur makes no comment, heartily soaking hard brown bread into it and ripping off chunks in greedy bites.

He reaches for the winecup she sets at his place, and cries out when it pulls at his injured shoulder.

“You’re hurt,” she is looking at him properly for the first time since he walked in through the door.

“It’s nothing.”

Lyanna scowls.

“Off,” she commands, pulling at the hem of his jerkin.

Once, he might have balked at such a thing, to sit stripped to the waist in front of a lady, but there is no place for shyness between them. Not anymore.

He removes his jerkin and then tugs his shirt free of his breeches and pulls it up overhead. He winces when the cloth peels away from where it’s become sticky from the pulpy mess of his shoulder.

He hears Lyanna hisses through her teeth when she sees the wound, fingers gingerly touching where the bruising already feels bone deep.

She makes quick work of it. Fetching the bucket of water they use for washing and an old cloth.

Her touch stings. Arthur welcomes it. It distracts him from feel of Lyanna’s breath on his skin, her skirts brushing too close against his legs.

“I’m sorry,” he says as she finishes, knotting a bandage around him tight. “For making you worry.”

Lyanna hums, her hands drifting lower on his chest, pressing over where a bruise from his last fight has yet to heal.

She bends down and kisses his shoulder. It’s the same motherly way he’s seen her soothe Jon’s tears with a kiss, and yet…

“Come to bed,” she bids, with a second kiss to a scar on his cheek.

That night, it is not the lingering edge from fighting in the pits nor the sound of the whores through the wall that keeps Arthur from sleep.

Send me a Kiss Prompt ( ˘ ³˘)♥

#mini fic #arthur x lyanna #lyanna x arthur #essos au #set right after they arrive in essos and jon is born #i am cruel #i keep adding to this au and yet i never let these two bone #there's just a lot of thirsting and a lot of guilt #but mostly thirsting #🤷‍♀️

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cardest · 3 years

Text

Solar System playlist

Look up! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s....the Solar System playlist. Click play here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC18LD_V5saMr7QzWS1Q3VAU6

What’s out there beyond our own planet? A mystery at every turn. Mercury to Pluto. The Sun and the Moon, even Phobos gets a mention here. So come by the Neptune Towers and enjoy this Solar System playlist.

SOLAR SYSTEM

001 Amorphis - Far From The Sun 002 The Beatles - here comes the sun 003 Swans - Song For The Sun 004 Mastodon - Once More 'Round The SunStiff Little Fingers 005 Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun 006 Isaac Hayes - Driving In The Sun 007 Tom Petty - dark of the sun 008 DREAMTIME - Sun 009 Circus Diablo - Red Sun Rising 010 Tiamat - The Sun Also Rises 011 Covenant - Bringer of the sixth sun 012 Agoraphobic Nosebleed - hung from the rising sun 013 Alice in Chains - When the Sun Rose Again 014 Lindemann - Children Of The Sun 015 Paradise Lost - Return to the Sun 016 Popol Vuh - Morning Sun 017 Spiritual Beggars - Blood Of The Sun 018 Queens Of The Stone Age - My God Is The Sun 019 TREMENTINA - Kisses in your eyes (Almost Reach The Sun ) 020 Voivod - Divine Sun 021 Blues Pills - Little Sun 022 Neurosis - Enemy of the Sun 023 Extol - Behold The Sun 024 Septic Flesh - Infernal Sun 025 Lamb of God - Straight For The Sun 026 Ensemble Economique - Red For The Sun 027 Black Sabbath - Under The Sun 028 Jesu - Opiate Sun 029 Orchid - Into the Sun 030 The Young Gods - Kissing The Sun 031 Iron Maiden - brighter than a thousand suns 032 Swans - I Am the Sun 033 Therion - Son Of The Sun 034 Sun Ra - Sun song 035 Pink Floyd - eclipse 036 Mike Patton - Eclipse Of The Sun 037 Bonnie Tyler - Total eclipse of the heart 038 God Is An Astronaut - First Day Of Sun 039 Elton John - Don’t let the sun go down on me 040 Eddie Fisher - Sunrise, Sunset 041 Hopscotch Songs - The Planets of our Solar System Song 042 Michael Schenker Group - Blood Of The Sun 043 Iron Maiden - total eclipse 044 Solefald - Sun I Call 045 Man or Astro-Man? - Antimatter Man 046 Kreator - when the sun burns 047 Creedence Clearwater Revival - bad moon rising 048 George Harrison - beware the darkness 049 Heretoir - To Follow The Sun 050 Cat Stevens - Moonshadow 051 Hypocrisy - Adjusting the Sun 052 Rush - Between Sun & Moon 053 Manfred Mann - blinded by the light 054 Sevendust - Black Out The Sun 055 Sunbeam Sound Machine - Real Life 056 Bill Withers - Ain’t no sunshine 057 Gwar - They Swallowed the Sun 058 Katatonia - Ghost Of The Sun 059 The Beatles - I’ll follow the sun 060 Sammy Hagar - little eclipse/sunshine 061 Stevie Wonder - you are the sunshine of my life 062 Pink Floyd - fat old sun 063 Sun Ra - Sunology 064 Mystic Sunship - out there 065 Cream - sunshine of my love 066 Diesto - High As The Sun 067 Sunwølf - SOlar 068 Kyuss - Molten Universe 069 Moonspell - Shadow sun 070 Neurosis - A Sun That Never Sets 071 Therion - An Arrow From The Sun 072 Candlemass - The Killing Of The Sun 073 Xandria - Kill The Sun 074 Morgoth - Drowning Sun 075 Primordial - Wield Lightning to Split the Sun 076 Lake of Tears -When My Sun Comes Down 077 Jackie DeShannon - Where Does The Sun Go 078 Peter Criss - Down With The Sun 079 Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore 080 Devin Townsend - Midnight Sun 081 Sigh - Midnight Sun 082 Black Label Society - Dark Side of the Sun 083 AMORPHIS - Moon and sun 084 Cynic - Moon Heart Sun Head 085 Sun Ra - Planet Earth 086 David Lynch - Sun Can't Be Seen No More Sarah No More 087 Opeth - Moon Above, Sun Below 088 The Eternal - A Quiet Death of The Sun 089 High On Fire - The Sunless Years 090 The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Third Stone From The Sun 091 Bruce Dickinson - Navigate The Seas of The Sun 092 Voivod - Mercury 093 Melechesh - Of Mercury And Mercury 094 Gustav Holst - Mercury, the Winged Messenger 095 Clutch - Mercury 096 Soilwork - Mercury shadow 097 Satyricon - Mental Mercury 098 Moonspell - Moon in mercury 099 Poisonblack - Mercury Falling 100 Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane & Don Cherry - Venus (Vond) 101 Boney M - Nightflight to Venus 102 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Subway To Venus Nihal Chahdi 103 The Nefilim - Venus Decomposing 104 Electric Wizard -Venus In Furs 105 Popol Vuh - Venus Principle 106 Bananarama - Venus Venus Mosquera 107 Apocalyptica - The Shadow of Venus 108 Archgoat - Sodomator Of The Doomed Venus 109 Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio - Phosphorus Ascending Anthem of Venus 110 Gustav Holst - Venus, the Bringer of Peace 111 Billy Idol - Venus 112 Boyd Rice - Between Venus and Mars 113 Dee D. Jackson - Venus, the goddess of love 114 Therion - Dark Venus Persephone 115 T-Rex - Venus loons 116 Television - Venus 117 Paul McCartney and Wings - Venus and Mars & Rock Show - 118 Theatre of Tragedy - Venus 119 David Bowie - Space oddity 120 The Byrds - Spaceman 121 To-Mera - Earthbound 122 Borknagar - Inherit the Earth 123 Devin Townsend - Earth 124 William Shatner - Planet Earth 125 Clutch - Earth Rocker Jen Rocker 126 DEVO - Planet Earth 127 Misfits - Earth AD 128 Les Baxter - Earth light 129 Louis and Bebe Barron - Come Back to Earth with Me 130 Tristania - Tender Trip on Earth 131 Joseph Arthur & The Lonely Astronauts - Lonely Astronaut 132 Voivod - Target Earth 133 Samael - Son of Earth 134 Billy Preston - Space race 135 Alice Cooper - Last Man On Earth 136 Agalloch - ...and the Great Cold Death of the Earth 137 Deep Purple - space truckin 138 Steve Miller Band - space cowboy 139 Crowbar - Liquid Sky And Cold Black Earth 140 Jesu - Mother Earth 141 Devin Townsend - Earth Day 142 Animals as Leaders - Earth Departure 143 Amorphis - Enchanted by the Moon 144 Goatsnake - House of the Moon 145 Elton John - Rocket man 146 Cramps - Rock On The Moon 147 The Stranglers - Rok It To The Moon (Bonus Track) 148 Frank Sinitra - fly me to the moon 149 Blood Ceremony - Drawing Down the Moon 150 Elvis Presley - flaming star 151 Les Baxter - The other side of the moon 152 In Flames - Moonshield 153 Ozzy Ozbourne - bark at the moon 154 Fields Of The Nephilim - Moonchild 155 Iron Maiden - Moonchild 156 Blue Oyster Cult - stairway to the stars 157 Voivod -Moonbeam Rider 158 The Black Crowes -Black Moon Creeping 159 Grand Magus - Silver Moon 160 AC DC - next to the moon Craig Norman 161 Manilla Road - fires on Mars James Daniel danke 162 Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane & Don Cherry - Marz (Esla) 163 Entombed A.D. - Down To Mars To Ride 164 Grateful Daed - dark star 165 Orange Goblin - Return To Mars 166 Ascension of the Watchers - Mars becoming 167 Styx - come sail away 168 Faith No More - Woodpecker From Mars 169 Kreator - Mars Mantra 170 The Misfits - Mars Attacks 171 Gustav Holst - Mars, the Bringer of War 172 Judas Priest - invader 173 Electric Wizard - Priestess Of Mars 174 Queen - Flash Gordon 175 Stone Temple Pilots - First Kiss On Mars 176 Hoodoo Gurus - mars needs guitars 177 War Of The Worlds ~ The Eve of the War 179 Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool - Mars Needs Women 180 Alice Cooper - Might As Well Be On Mars 181 Total Recall Jerry Goldsmith - First Dream (Total Recall) 182 Laibach -Mars On River Drina 183 Lantlôs - Neige de Mars 184 The Misfits - Teenagers From Mars 185 Voivod - Phobos 186 2001_ A Space Odyssey Theme Song (Also sprach Zarathustra) 187 Covenant - Planetary black elements 188 Killing Joke - Asteroid 189 Kyuss - Asteroid 190 Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane & Don Cherry - Jupiter (Clen) 191 Blues Pills - Jupiter 192 Samael - Jupiterian Vibe 193 Earth Wind & Fire - Jupiter 194 Tumbleweed - Jupiter Aje Morris 195 The Cure - Jupiter Crash 196 Devin Townsend - Jupiter 197 Gustav Holst - Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity 198 Celestial Season - Jupiter 199 KATAKLYSM - EMBRACING EUROPA 200 David Bowie - I Took A Trip On a Gemini Spaceship 201 Isao Tomita - Space Fantasy 202 The Misfits - Lost in Space 203 Gwar - Lust In Space 204 Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane & Don Cherry - Saturn (Sal) 205 Älgarnas Trädgård - Rings Of Saturn 206 Electric Wizard - Saturn Dethroned 207 Les Baxter - [ Saturday night on saturn 208 While Heaven Wept - Saturn And Sacrifice 209 Ash Pool - On The Rings Of Saturn Adam And Eve Conceive Cain 210 Scott Kelly - Saturn's Eye 211 Gustav Holst - Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age Ximenenes Y. Zeroth 212 Samael - Born Under Saturn 213 The Devil's Blood -Everlasting Saturnalia 214 Stevie Wonder - Saturn 215 Circle - Saturnus Reality 216 R.E.M. - Saturn Return 217 The B-52's - There's A Moon In The Sky (Called The Moon) 218 Fu Manchu - Saturn III 219 National Geographic Space Kit - The Eerie Sounds Of Saturn 220 AYREON - To the Solar System 221 Voivod - Meteor 222 Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane & Don Cherry - Uranus (Berg) 223 Klaatu- Anus Of Uranus 224 Arcturus - Kinetic 225 Gustav Holst - Uranus, the Magician 226 Cathedral - Suicide Asteroid 227 Movie Moment - Contact (First Contact) OST 228 Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane & Don Cherry - Neptune (Axon) 229 Lisa Gerrard - Neptune 230 Neptune Towers - To Cold Void Desolation 231 Fu Manchu - Neptune's Convoy 232 Altar of Plagues - Neptune Is Dead 233 Lenny Breau - Neptune 234 Gustav Holst - Neptune, the Mystic 235 Darkthrone - Neptune Towers. 236 Neptune Sounds - Celestial Love Songs (NASA Voyager Recordings) 237 Jimi Hendrix - Valleys Of Neptune 238 Vista Chino - Planets 1 & 2 239 DEATH - Vacant Planets 240 Black Sabbath - Planet Caravan 241 ZZ Top - Planet of Women 242 Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ronald Frangipane & Don Cherry - Pluto (Lute) 243 Alchemist - Brumal - A View From Pluto 244 B 52s - Hallucinating Pluto 245 Charlie Hunter - Astronaut Love Triangle 246 YES - Arriving by UFO 247 Ramones - Zero Zero UFO 248 Jefferson Airplane - Have you seen the saucers 249 saxon - watching the sky 250 Devin Townsend - Planet smasher 666 Voivod - Moonbeam Rider Hit play: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC18LD_V5saMr7QzWS1Q3VAU6

#solar system #solar system playlist #songs about space #songs about planets #uranus #phobos #venus #planet songs #space music #planets

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amaximumtastemakercollection · 4 years

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Dany, Catelyn and the Seven Colours of the Rainbow.

RED:

"We will have it all back someday, sweet sister," he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. "The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King's Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back." Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

(Daenerys I, AGOT)

Catelyn found her husband beneath the weirwood, seated on a moss-covered stone. The greatsword Ice was across his lap, and he was cleaning the blade in those waters black as night. A thousand years of humus lay thick upon the godswood floor, swallowing the sound of her feet, but the red eyes of the weirwood seemed to follow her as she came. "Ned," she called softly.

(Catelyn I, AGOT)

ORANGE:

The heart was steaming in the cool evening air when Khal Drogo set it before her, raw and bloody. His arms were red to the elbow. Behind him, his bloodriders knelt on the sand beside the corpse of the wild stallion, stone knives in their hands. The stallion's blood looked black in the flickering orange glare of the torches that ringed the high chalk walls of the pit.

(Daenerys V, AGOT)

Flickering torchlight danced across the walls, making the faces seem half-alive, twisting them, changing them. The statues in the great septs of the cities wore the faces the stonemasons had given them, but these charcoal scratchings were so crude they might be anyone. The Father's face made her think of her own father, dying in his bed at Riverrun. The Warrior was Renly and Stannis, Robb and Robert, Jaime Lannister and Jon Snow. She even glimpsed Arya in those lines, just for an instant. Then a gust of wind through the door made the torch sputter, and the semblance was gone, washed away in orange glare.

(Catelyn IV. ACOK)

YELLOW:

The trickle he started soon swelled to a flood. Trader captains brought lace from Myr, chests of saffron from Yi Ti, amber and dragonglass out of Asshai. Merchants offered bags of coin, silversmiths rings and chains. Pipers piped for her, tumblers tumbled, and jugglers juggled, while dyers draped her in colors she had never known existed. A pair of Jogos Nhai presented her with one of their striped zorses, black and white and fierce. A widow brought the dried corpse of her husband, covered with a crust of silvered leaves; such remnants were believed to have great power, especially if the deceased had been a sorcerer, as this one had. And the Tourmaline Brotherhood pressed on her a crown wrought in the shape of a three-headed dragon; the coils were yellow gold, the wings silver, the heads carved from jade, ivory, and onyx.

(Daenerys III, ACOK)

As the long fingers of dawn fanned across the fields, color was returning to the world. Where grey men had sat grey horses armed with shadow spears, the points of ten thousand lances now glinted silverly cold, and on the myriad flapping banners Catelyn saw the blush of red and pink and orange, the richness of blues and browns, the blaze of gold and yellow. All the power of Storm's End and Highgarden, the power that had been Renly's an hour ago. They belong to Stannis now, she realized, even if they do not know it themselves yet. Where else are they to turn, if not to the last Baratheon? Stannis has won all with a single evil stroke.

(Catelyn IV, ACOK)

GREEN:

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stone rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords

(Daenerys I, AGOT)

In the south the last weirwoods had been cut down or burned out a thousand years ago, except on the Isle of Faces where the green men kept their silent watch. Up here it was different. Here every castle had its godswood, and every godswood had its heart tree, and every heart tree its face.

(Catelyn I, AGOT)

BLUE:

. Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . . Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

(Daenerys IV, ACOK)

"Lady Catelyn, you are wrong." Brienne regarded her with eyes as blue as her armor. "Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it's always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining."

(Catelyn II, ACOK)

INDIGO:

Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise. The man had her brother's hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. "Aegon," he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. "What better name for a king?"

(Daenerys IV, ACOK)

The eastern sky was rose and gold as the sun broke over the Vale of Arryn. Catelyn Stark watched the light spread, her hands resting on the delicate carved stone of the balustrade outside her window. Below her the world turned from black to indigo to green as dawn crept across fields and forests. Pale white mists rose off Alyssa's Tears, where the ghost waters plunged over the shoulder of the mountain to begin their long tumble down the face of the Giant's Lance. Catelyn could feel the faint touch of spray on her face.

(Catelyn VII, ACOK)

VIOLET:

"A gift from the Magister Illyrio," Viserys said, smiling. Her brother was in a high mood tonight. "The color will bring out the violet in your eyes. And you shall have gold as well, and jewels of all sorts. Illyrio has promised. Tonight you must look like a princess."

(Daenerys I, AGOT)

And they told how afterward Ned had carried Ser Arthur's sword back to the beautiful young sister who awaited him in a castle called Starfall on the shores of the Summer Sea. The Lady Ashara Dayne, tall and fair, with haunting violet eyes.

It might be interesting to note that Dany and Catelyn are the only two POV characters, (as far as I can tell, I only had a quick check, so I could be wrong) who have all seven colours of the rainbow referenced at least once in their chapters.

#daenerys targaryen #catelyn stark #asoiaf meta #daenerys appreciation

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ellaofoakhill · 3 years

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Oak and Stone, Part Two

Oak and Stone was a bustling town, with fey and creatures briskly going about their business. There were mice like Jasper here, as well as voles, weasels, ground squirrels, tree squirrels, stoats, a few bats, and many other creatures Ella knew.

As well as a few she didn’t.

Creatures like the lizards Ella had encountered on Gaea, or a bit more commonly on Fey. But no lizard she’d heard of had four arms. The smallest of these was a head taller than her. Tusks twisted down from their jaws. Their bodies were a uniform grey-brown or mottled green, with frills on their jaws and crests on their heads, which many had painted or tattooed or pierced with rings and studs. According to Meline, they called themselves drakles, and most of those in Oak and Stone were sailors.

What most surprised Ella about this place—unknown beings were really to be expected—was the abundance of elves. Well, relatively speaking; abundance was not a word that fit well with elves. But there were more of them here than Ella had ever seen outside of Fey. To be fair, impeccable manners and upturned noses aside, elves were known more than anything for their love of the sea. And the sea Oak and Stone did have in abundance.

Meline showed her down to the shipyards, where vessels from across this world—the drakles called it Nidd—docked and unloaded their goods. These went to the seaside market, a paved square by the water with a stream running through. The stream allowed smaller boats to paddle or pole into town and drop their goods right by the stalls.

There were fabrics Ella had never seen, some softer than velvet, others smoother than silk, still others so strong Ella’s knife couldn’t cut them; according to Meline, those needed crystal-edged scissors to cut into shape. There were spices alien to Ella’s nose and tongue, including one somewhere between lemon and banana that she particularly liked; Meline laughed at the incredulous delight that flashed across Ella’s face when she tasted it. There were strange rocks and shells, scales shed by massive beasts, and gems that seemed commonplace here which Ella had only read about. There was a wood here, one a fairy could mould with her bare hands while it was green—or, more accurately, orange—and once it seasoned became like fairy silver. Ella shaved the hair from her arm with a knife made from it. There were metals as well—the mayor had banned the import of iron for all but a few specialized purposes—but this claywood, as it was called, was so easy to work hardly anyone used any metal not found as a nugget.

The moonbeams were strange too. Nidd had four moons and two suns, and each moon made beams different not only from Gaea’s moon, but from Nidd’s other moons as well.

Beyond the market were shops. There was a shop bordering the market that sold crepes filled with berry and honeyed cream; Ella laughed at the white moustache on Meline’s upper lip. Another sold kebabs of sweet and spicy fruits, of roots savoury, sweet, and spicy, and of the spiced meats of different fish and insects, or whatever the equivalent was here.

There were shops that sold fine berry wines, cordials, and ciders, and shops that sold candied chocolate mixed with granules of nuts and dried fruits. There was stronger drink as well, but Ella had hardly more than a sip of a spiced liqueur that made her fingers and toes tingle. Too much made a fool of anyone, and Ella was in a town she didn’t know, in a world she didn’t know, surrounded by fey and creatures she didn’t know.

And Meline knew a great deal about this town in another world. Many shopkeepers and stall-owners in the market waved or greeted her by name, and she knew not only them, but their families, and how business was doing. And she presented it all masterfully.

After they were quite full, Meline led Ella across the bridge and out of the square. Ella had heard the sounds of industry from this section of town for some time, but she suspected Meline had been building toward this.

Ella worked a wide variety of metals, woods, and some fabrics, but would have freely admitted her grasp of other materials was lacking. She saw a water fairy weaving six different materials into one cloth, a mole and a frog setting gemstones into a brooch, a squat, spiny

local—they called themselves ekidnes, according to Meline—throwing a clay pot, and a squirrel blowing glass.

Meline led Ella around a corner, and Ella’s fingers thrummed to the melody of hammer on metal. A shop with a sign depicting a hammer and anvil drew her. Beneath a slate lean-to, a drakle so green he was almost yellow held a bronze bar in two pairs of tongs while his upper arms operated a hammer and punch. Ella watched as he twisted and worked the cherry-red metal into a whorl of vines and leaves. He’d already finished the central portion, which had what looked like three vines braided around each other. He had two trays of tools in easy reach, and the fluidity and precision with which he picked up and set down tools—hardly taking his eyes off his work—gave Ella to know this drakle might have plied his trade as long as she had.

Finally he set the piece on a frame and stood, reaching for the ceiling. His crest and frills were bright red. He wore a thick apron, and heavy trousers with a third leg for his tail. He wore a grey sleeveless shirt with two wide armholes.

His eye wandered in their direction. “Ah, Meline,” he said, stepping out from under the awning, “good to see you again.” He had a thick, unfamiliar accent, with something of a lisp.

Meline went forward and took his hands—well, two of them, anyway—with a bow. “And you, Art.” She turned to Ella. “Ella, this is Arthur Bronzemonger, the best metalworker in Oak and Stone.”

Ella bowed. “It’s always nice to meet another of my kind.”

Meline turned back to Art. “Art, this is Lord Ella of Oakhill. She recently did me a great service, and to repay her I’m showing her around town.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Her smithing might give you a run for your money.”

Art raised a pair of scaly eyebrows as he took Ella’s hands and bowed. A forked tongue flicked out of his mouth. “You smell of metal, charcoal, and wood—mostly oak, but also willow and poplar—but you have overlaid it with lavender.” Ella reflexively moved back from the tongue. Art’s eyes widened, and he sucked it back into his mouth. His frill reddened more. “Forgive me. Fairies are new to Nidd, and your ways do not always come easily.”

“I could forgive a smith of your caliber far worse than a small eccentricity,” Ella said. She felt a flush creep up her neck. “Could you… would you honour me by showing us around your forge?”

Art’s eyes gleamed. “I would be delighted to show another smith my work.”

“Then lead on, good sir!” Ella said.

Arthur reached for a clay pitcher by a sturdy door leading into what was probably his house. “Would you like a glass of ice water?” he asked. “Smithing is good work, but hot.”

“How do you keep your ice?” Meline’s ear-points wiggled. With interest, as far as Ella could tell.

“Carters bring the ice down the mountain packed in crates with sawdust,” Art said as he opened the door to his cellar and hopped down. He came back up with several finger-sized chunks of ice, dropped one in each glass, and put the rest in his pitcher. “and I put it in my ice

box downstairs.” He took a long draught from his cup. Ella noticed his frill start to pale. “You can also have a water fairy freeze some water for you. But the genuine article tastes better. Now,” he rubbed two of his four hands together, “let me show you some of my projects.”

Hanging from the ceiling was a bronze-bladed scythe. On two hooks on the far wall were a pair of axes, one with a silver head, the other copper. Tools of various kinds hung on the wall, including a number Meline was unfamiliar with; the only one that stumped Ella turned out to be a set of scale clippers. A pair of silver shields shaped like gigantic scales intrigued her.

Art, unsurprisingly, proved a fount of knowledge regarding his craft. There were a few points he was unable to clarify for Ella, though she suspected this was due more to a slight want in his vocabulary than a lack of understanding. He’d no trouble making silver and gold as hard and strong as any fairy.

“I have a question,” Meline said, as she examined a set of caterpillar shears. Art and Ella both raised their eyes from the minutia of a serpentine-handled camp knife (which had a blade below the municipal length limit).

“What is it?” Art said.

Meline looked around the shop. “You have a lot of high-quality items here.”

Art’s eyes lit with understanding. “You are wondering how, in a busy port town, I keep thieves from walking away with my wares.” Meline nodded. Art looked between her and Ella. Ella felt her own eyes widen as a thought occurred to her.

“We’ve just met,” Ella said, “so I understand if you’re uncomfortable talking about the security of your forge. I don’t tell strangers about mine, either.”

Art smiled; Ella hadn’t realized a drakle’s grin split its head in two. He gave a coughing, raspy laugh. “From anyone else, I might have taken the question amiss.” He shook his head. “I will not go into details,” he lowered his voice. “But it stems from my kind being dragonkin.”

Ella felt the blood drain from her face. She remembered from long ago the whump of colossal wings, a roar that shook the bowels of the world, a column of flame so hot it burned white. A pair of eyes larger than she was, a five-part pupil so huge it could have swallowed her, slamming shut as the flame poured out. And a voice, so deep Ella felt it in her bones, howling fire and blood.

“Ella?” She jumped at Meline’s touch on her shoulder. Judging by her and Art’s concerned looks, she’d been elsewhere for a while.

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said, handing the knife back to Art. “Dragons have occasionally wandered into Fey.”

“And massacred and extorted everyone they could, I would guess?” Art asked. Ella nodded. “It is good to know, I suppose, that they are consistent.” Art hung the knife back on the wall. “They have been exacting the same cruelty on us since before our most ancient writings.”

He refilled their cups. “I have set foot beyond Nidd thrice in my life. Once to visit Gaea and learn a special technique for forging steel.” He held up a hand. “I have not used it in Oak and Stone, if anyone asks. Twice I visited Fey; yes, I visited your home world. Once when I was

still in my father’s care, and much later with my wife.” He sipped his water. “And it seems to me both worlds are less wild than mine. Though still full of dangerous creatures, I’m sure.

“Dragons are the worst, though wyverns and drakes are plenty vicious. Wyrms cause serious problems, though they usually stay deep underground. Sea wyrms are actually good to deal with; we give them baubles," he gestured to the silver shields, “and they leave our fishing vessels in peace. And the lung are kindly creatures.”

Ella leaned back. “So… this is where the lung come from?”

Art and Meline both stared at her. “I mean, yes,” Art said. “But they are rare on Gaea, much like the dragons, yes?”

Ella nodded. “I saw one once, shortly after I left Fey.” She sipped her water. “It danced on the clouds, even though it had no wings. And it conjured rainclouds as it danced, weaving in the sky like a glittering ribbon.”

She met Art’s eye. “They’re so different from dragons, I never made the connection before.”

Art shrugged. “Understandable. Take away the long bodies and scaly hides and there is hardly any similarity.” He looked at his own scaly hide. “But kin we all are.”

Ella did not ask which drakles were closer to, dragon or lung. Maybe they didn’t know. Either way, it seemed an unpleasant topic.

#the fairy tales of ella and meline #TFTEM #oak and stone part 2 #chapter 7 #my original work #fantasy #lgbtq+#fairies #iyashikei #healing #fairy tales #romance #all ages #fey #fae #magic #family #strong female protagonists #backyard fantasy

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galadrieljones · 4 years

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The Lily Farm - Chapter 42

AO3 | Masterpost

Rating: M (Mature) - sexual content, violence, and adult themes

Summary: To help her process Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. He agrees, and on their journey to the north, they find quietude and take comfort in their easy bond. They’ve been friends for a while now, but life, like the wilderness, is full of uncertainty and complications, and as they embark on their desperate search for meaning together, they endure many trials, some small, some big—all of which bring them closer to one another, and to their future.

Chapter 42: Hello, Friends and Enemies.

That night, Arthur had been summoned to a big, fancy room full of heavy furniture and mahogany bookshelves up on the river boat’s second floor. He had been asked to leave his table by a man named Jean Marc Mercier, who looked and seemed like a squirrel. Initially, he thought that it was because he had swept, suspiciously so—$11,000 in total winnings—but he was allowed to cash in his chips with little question. Despite some grumbling amongst the patrons as the games went on, he was frisked for aces up his sleeve only once, by a huge pit boss with one prominent gold tooth. Everybody believed that he had won fair and square, and by the laws of nature, he had. Was it truly cheating to outsmart the rich? He reckoned that, for this skill, he was thankful. It was about the only thing his piece of shit father had given him that he would not trade.

After a couple minutes of waiting and thinking he was perhaps being tested, Arthur finally learned who this boat belonged to, and whose party it was. Mayor Lemieux of St. Denis came in through another door, behind the long desk at the top of the room. The door had been hidden and just looked like part of the wall, and this did not unnerve Arthur but it did surprise him.

“Mr. Mayor?” he said.

“Mr. Kilgore,” said Lemieux. “Thank you for meeting me. And for attending the festivities tonight. It is...dare I say...an honor."

“What—I mean, how you keeping, sir?”

“I am well,” said Lemieux, his hands clasped judiciously. “I heard you made out quite impressively at the tables tonight.”

“Yes, sir.” Arthur patted his left lapel. "Quite impressively."

“Very good. It is about time somebody won around here who was not raised by the silver spoon.”

He had got the expression nearly right, thought Arthur. He nodded and went along. “So what’s this about?”

“I have a proposition for you, Mr. Kilgore,” said Lemieux. He was short and he wore a schlubby French-cut suit the color of sea water. He poured them each a little whiskey into a crystal high ball glass. “I hear you’ve got a child on the way. I thought you might be in the market for some…security.”

Arthur gave him a look. “Where the hell’d you hear that?”

“Evelyn Miller,” said Lemieux, his thick accent. “We had lunch the other day. He let it slip.”

“I see,” said Arthur. He felt weird. He looked around. The little squirrel man Jean Marc was gone, and they were alone. “What sort of proposition you looking to make?”

“I’d like you to take care of something for me,” said Lemieux, leaning against the desk, crossing one leg over the other. “Or, someone, rather.”

“You want me to kill somebody?”

“I prefer the term redistribute, but of course, I am French.”

“That, you are.” Arthur sipped his whiskey. It was Kentucky bourbon, but an expensive label. It was like warm weather, soaking his insides. “I ain’t a hitman, Mr. Mayor. You ought to know that before we begin the proceedings.”

“Yes, I figured you would say as much. Though I thought perhaps I could convince you otherwise.”

“How so.”

“I am close associates with Leviticus Cornwall," said Lemieux. "Though I despise him. He is a filthy fucker, but he is good to know.”

“Leviticus Cornwall," mused Arthur. "The oil guy?”

Lemieux gave him a wise look. “The oil guy, yes.”

“I hope you ain’t asking me to kill Leviticus Cornwall, Mr. Mayor.” Arthur chuckled. “Because even if I was a hit-for-hire, that sort of job is too big for me.”

“I would never ask after such crassness.”

“Well, good.”

“I am asking for you to kill Angelo Bronte.”

Arthur almost choked on his whiskey. “Angelo Bronte?”

“You heard me,” said Lemieux. He changed his tone then, but he did not change his posture. He was sharp. He did not show his hand, nor did he communicate any hint of it in his face. He was a nightmare sort, a politician. “I owe that guappo piece of shit far more than I care to repay, and I want him dead.”

“I ain’t sure that’s how debts work, Mr. Mayor. At least not in polite society. Then again, I sure ain't speaking from experience.”

“He has made a mockery of me and of my city,” continued Lemieux. “I am through entertaining mafiosi thugs in St. Denis. I want him out. Of course, I cannot ask him to leave. He must be…removed.”

Arthur swigged his whiskey. He felt warm around his collar. He wanted to get the fuck out of there and was getting annoyed. “That is quite the sob story, Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry to hear it."

“I thought, perhaps, you’d consider, given that you have now stolen from me, and from Mr. Cornwall. Two powerful men of powerful means. Given the trajectory of Cornwall’s Pinkerton attack dogs, and your...what is it called...outlaw gang? It is possible you wish to remain free, no? I can give this to you, if you are willing to reciprocate.”

"How the hell do you know I stole from Cornwall?”

“The men at the Heartlands run-off saw you,” said Lemieux, smiling. “And the Pinkertons, they know who you are, what you look like. You're a recognizable man. Plus, upon some questioning, Mr. Miller confirmed this for me. He is easily persuaded these days. All it took was for me to threaten further withholdings from his dear natives to the north.”

"Withholdings?"

"Vaccines. Surely, you've heard of them."

Arthur shook his head, disbelieving. "You ain't got that sort of power," he said. "You're a goddam mayor. Ain't no senator, no army general. I may be me but I wasn't born yesterday. You can't deny vaccines to a native tribe in Ambarino territory."

“Power by association is just as effective as power itself,” said Lemieux, adjusting his spectacles. “In any case, all that matters is what Miller was willing to believe. He sold you out. Granted, he felt badly about it.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Arthur. “Are you threatening me?”

“Of course not, Mr. Arthur,” he said, sipping his whiskey.

“Then what the hell is this about?"

“I just thought that, since there are Pinkerton detectives currently on this river boat, you might wish to slip away, in secret of course, with your pregnant wife, safely back to shore. Now, if you wish to be difficult, then that is another story.”

“Why the hell would there be Pinkertons here on this river boat.”

“Because they received a tip, from me.”

“What sort of tip?”

“That Dutch van der Linde was in St. Denis," said Lemieux, removing his hat, "and that one of his associates would be here, gambling, tonight.”

Arthur stared at him, hard, trying to see if he was bluffing. “You got to be kidding me.”

“All I need is for your word,” said Lemieux, still unmoved by the conversation, cold as a stone.

“My word.”

“That you will redistribute Bronte to a higher—or lower—plane. I have no interest in your religious or other affiliations per the aftermath of death, Mr. Arthur. Kill him. As soon as possible. And I’ll change my story with the Pinkertons. Off you'll go.”

Arthur set down the heavy-bottomed glass on the desk. He set it down so hard, the whole desk shook. He looked at his boots and where they stood upon the heavy wood of the floor. It had been a long time since he’d felt this sort of anger. He was sick with it, sick of people like this, threatening those and all he held dear. “I ain’t gonna do that,” said Arthur. “I kill Bronte, you got me on the hook for life. The answer is no.”

Lemieux sighed, blinked, almost startled, like he was waiting for Arthur to change his mind. “That is too bad.”

"Maybe. But if I’m the sort of outlaw who would kill Bronte, what makes you think I won’t kill you? Right here, right now. For threatening me, for threatening my wife. This is a very bad choice you're making, Mr. Mayor.”

“Because,” said Lemieux. “You’re not the sort of outlaw who would kill Bronte. I know this about you. I just thought, perhaps, with a child on the way, you’d be more desperate.”

“You don’t know nothing about me.”

“Clearly. You know, I meant for this to be Dutch,” he said. He straightened up off the desk, began walking toward the door. “I gave Bronte’s thugs that false tip about the trolley station. I thought Dutch would rob the place, and upon realizing the set-up…react. Poorly. Kill Bronte of his own accord, out of some ill-advised revenge. Of course, I underestimated him, and you, for that matter. I did not know outlaws conducted reconnaissance.”

“All due respect, Mr. Mayor, but fuck you.”

Lemieux shrugged. “How it goes, sometimes. I'll have to find another means."

When the gunshots broke out below then, both men looked at one another. Surprised. Arthur didn't know what the hell was going on, but it was nothing good. It was not happening this way. He took advantage of the uncertainty and put Lemieux's lights out with one single blast from his fist. It was satisfying. He swore, shook out his knuckles, left the mayor heavily unconscious on the hard wood.

Doing his best to evade the chaos, Arthur ran into LaBoeuf in the stairwell on his way down to the boiler room, and he nearly lost his shit with fear.

"Where the hell is Mary Beth?" he said, his voice echoing through the stairwell, collar loosened.

"She's safe with Woodrow," said LaBoeuf. "One riot, one ranger. They're getting off the boat as we speak."

"What's going on?" He was undoing his cufflinks, tossing them to the floor. "Did you see Pinkertons?"

"We did," said LaBoeuf, reloading his piece. "Though it's unclear who started the shoot-out in the ballroom. Either way, when them bullets started flying, Mary Beth would not leave you behind. A good woman, she is. In any case, we got to go, Mr. Morgan. There will be time for mystery-solving later. If you would be so kind as to stay behind me now. I am armed and ready to roll."

Mary Beth felt her stomach dissolve into pieces as she followed Call over the rail on the far end of the deck where he and LaBoeuf had yoked their vessel in the dark water below. LaBoeuf had gone back for Arthur, had promised to do his finest to get him back safe. We will see you at the rendezvous point, he said. Keane's Saloon of Valentine, triangulated per their emergency protocol. As she and Call jumped ship now, some people called after them, wondering who they were. A man in a tall hat approached them aggressively. Call tossed him to his ass and threatened him with his pistol. After they were in that boat, he cut the rope with his knife and wasted no time. He proceeded to paddle, headed west.

Call’s efficiency as a Ranger was brute and akin to Arthur's. He spoke little as they went. He and Mary Beth were a ways off from St. Denis by now, tossing in the calm waters of the Flat Iron Lake. Call paddled them to their destination in about thirty minutes. The whole time he paddled in utter silence, Mary Beth perched with her back to him, glancing occasionally, but facing the river boat most of the time and watching it get smaller and smaller on the horizon. She kept waiting for it to explode, or for a meteor to come and drop them all from existence. Nothing happened like that, but she did take notice of how far that boat had got from the nearest shore. It must have been a couple miles. She didn’t think Arthur or anybody could swim that far, but she tried not to worry. She tried to remember what Arthur was, what he could do, all these qualities that once had enchanted her so, even just months before, when she seemed, in her own mind, to be younger and dumber to the dull edges of life. She prayed to god for his life.

They tied up the boat in a dusty little fishing complex south of Blackwater, called Quaker’s Cove. It was empty, though the jetty was stocked with barrels and nets and looked like it entertained serious fishermen on occasion. Up above the stars were obscured by a hazy overcast, and she imagined that soon it would give way to some light rain. As Call helped her to her feet on the pier, she looked around and wondered what was going to happen next.

“What do we do now?” said Mary Beth, realizing now how uncomfortable she was. Her dress was tight. She was tired and hungry and cold.

“We’ll wait out the night,” said Call. He lit a cigarette, smoked it, looking exhausted. He took off his hat, smoothed the thinning hair on his head, and then put his hat back on. “Get some sleep, maybe in one of these structures here. I’m sure we can make it work. Then first thing in the morning, we’ll paddle up to Blackwater, maybe get you some new clothes, something more comfortable.”

“Blackwater?”

“I am led to believe that you have no name for yourself there,” he said. “That it’s just Dutch and his lieutenants caught the ire of the law.”

“That’s true,” said Mary Beth, trying to smooth her hair in the back. “What are we gonna do tomorrow then?”

“We’ll then travel to the rendezvous point.”

“And how are we gonna get there?”

“We’ll take a train, Mrs. Morgan.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling stupid. “I suppose that’s sensible.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

Mary Beth sighed. She hiked up her skirt and looked around. There were some huts and things. It didn’t look in total disrepair. She then glanced to Call who seemed very stressed out all of a sudden. The bags under his eyes were so defined, they seemed carved from stone. She had not known him that long, but still, she could tell there was something going on. "Thank you," she said.

"For what, Mrs. Morgan."

"For listening to me on the boat. For LaBoeuf going back for Arthur. I know that wasn't the plan."

"Plans change. You were right."

“Are you worried?” she said, staring at him.

Call glanced at her curiously. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes,” she said, bracing herself. “I been living my whole life in uncertain circumstances, Mr. Call. Please. Don’t lie to me. I ain’t a child.”

He smoked his cigarette, looking at her with one hand on his pistol. “I am mighty worried, Mrs. Morgan. Yes.”

“Why.”

“Because I do not like Pinkertons,” said Call, wiping his head with a handkerchief from his pocket. “I do not like Pinkertons, and I do not like bullets flying. Now I trust that LaBoeuf will be able to find your husband and that the two of them will bust out of there. They are specialists and experts in the art of escape, but I do not know where escaping will find them. If they are able to commandeer a boat somehow, that is the desired outcome, but we have to assume that will not happen. We are mighty close to Blackwater, and I know your husband’s situation here. If they swim, Mrs. Morgan, any guns they got will flood and break, and god forbid one of them get injured in an exchange on the river boat—this is a precarious situation. We accounted for the possibility of a fast escape, but we are further from the harbor of St. Denis than I thought we’d get, and there’s weather up there in the atmosphere, and we still have no idea why the hell there was gunfire on that goddam river boat in the first place. Could be it was Pinkertons. Could be it was something else. Now, you are safe, and that means my mission has been accomplished, but my partner is back there amidst all that crass uncertainty, and so is your husband, and you are with child, and that, Mrs. Morgan, is why I am worried. Mighty worried.” He finished his cigarette, taking one last determined drag, and then he tossed it to the weeds.

She just stared at him. She remembered briefly how Arthur had told her once of his nightmares about waking up real old and alone inside the hollowed out carcass of a polar bear. At the time it had sounded strange and kind of ridiculous. Of course she didn’t tell him that, but either way now, she understood. "I appreciate you not lying," she said.

“Let’s find somewhere to sleep, Mrs. Morgan,” said Call, looking around. “It’s a big morning in the morning.”

They found a couple cots for sleeping in one of the huts right on the water. Mary Beth stripped to her underclothes while Call lit a fire in the stove and then sat outside, keeping watch and smoking cigarettes and cleaning his volcanic. She had a view of the full moon from her window. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, listening for werewolves, staring up at the moon and how it glowed like a lazy lantern up there in the mist. Where were the werewolves? Were they coming? She did not have her books or her journal or anything to distract her. There was nothing to read in there but old cans of carrots and peas. She tried absorbing into her maladaptive daydreams. Knights in armor. But then she was just thinking about Arthur. The place reeked of freshwater fish and burlap. When she could no longer hold her head up she curled to a ball beneath the simple canvas covers and tried to sleep. Call still had not come inside. She understand why he didn’t come inside, but still, she wished he would.

All said and done, Arthur and LaBoeuf dragged to their salvation. They had jumped ship after escaping through the gunfire and swum east for a while till they hit a little island off the coast of Braithwaite Manor. There, they stumbled upon an abandoned paddle boat and got the rest of the way back to shore. Neither of them had any idea of what had gone down on that river boat. They didn't know who the shooters were. They knew there had been Pinkertons, but they didn't know when or how the fight had broke out, and there had been no time to talk about anything—the mayor, Bronte, it was just a blur.

Now, when they paddled up to the shore, they were wrecked, exhausted, soaked. It was the dead of night, and they lie on their backs, heaving. When LaBoeuf sat up and made a long, groaning sound, Arthur rolled over to see. LaBoeuf peeled his jacket off, and they both gazed then what had become of him—shot in the side. The wound was dark and must have happened all the way back on the river boat, and either he had just now noticed or he was just now saying something. He was clutching himself and breathing with his eyes closed, and he was whispering over and over again, Sweet Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Sweet Jesus.

“Shit,” said Arthur. “You’re bleeding, LaBoeuf.”

“I know.”

“Let me see.”

Arthur helped wrestle him out of his shirt so he could get a look at what was going on. It was just a graze on the flesh, but deep enough. The bullet had come and gone elsewhere.

“How bad is it,” said LaBoeuf.

“You’ll live,” said Arthur, assessing the damage, “but we need to close this up, lest it fester.”

“How shall we do that.”

“I got my methods, but you ain’t gonna like it.”

“I been in the field fifteen years, Mr. Morgan,” he said, breathing heavy. “I believe I can hack most anything.”

“I need matches and gunpowder. The gunpowder can be got from your volcanic there, but everything I’m packing is soaked through, matches included.”

“We ain’t far from Rhodes,” said LaBoeuf.

“That is true,” said Arthur. He got to his feet, looked around with his hands on his hips. “But they pretty much hate me in Rhodes. Plus, if I leave you here, you’re dead meat. There’s panthers in these parts.”

“What about the manor,” said LaBoeuf. “The Braithwaites—they’ll have matches.”

Arthur chuckled to himself. “They don’t much like me neither, Mr. LaBoeuf.”

“I thought you mentioned you had helped one of them once, not long back. When we was up in the Roanoke Ridge. A woman.”

Arthur thought on it. He had forgotten about Penelope. “Can you walk?”

“I reckon,” said LaBoeuf.

Arthur took his hand, hauled him up and dusted him off. LaBoeuf leaned on him heavily. The bleeding wasn’t life threatening, but LaBoeuf was beat up, and the wound needed help closing or he was gonna lose too much blood. Arthur removed his coat, used the knife he kept at his side to rip the seams, then he split the back panel in two and tied the pieces together to make a strip long enough to wrap around LaBoeuf’s ribs. The graze was just along the bottom two, on the left side. “This’ll stay the bleeding,” said Arthur. “You been shot before?”

“Only once, in the leg,” said LaBoeuf. “A long time back. Call’s old lady, she dug out the bullet for me, stitched me up good.”

"His old lady, huh,” said Arthur. “Would that be the one who died?”

“Yes, sir,” grunted LaBoeuf. “She had been a prostitute, but they was on track to get married. They had a baby out of wedlock, sixteen years ago.”

“I think I remember him mentioning that.”

Arthur took many deep breaths as they got to trudging. He had no idea where Mary Beth might be. He tried not to think of it. The night was pretty, not too cold, but the stars were covered like it might rain. The moon was muffled, too, and so the land was dark.

Along the gleaming shoreline, Arthur and LaBoeuf soon began to close in on the Braithwaite property line.

“I should say,” said LaBoeuf as he limped along and looked up at the sky. “I would like to get married some day, Mr. Morgan.”

Arthur found this amusing. “You got a woman?” he said, steadying LaBoeuf. “Anybody in mind? That would be a good start."

“No, sir,” he said. “Never thought much for it. Until now.”

Arthur smiled at this. “You scared of dying? You ain’t gonna die, LaBoeuf.”

“I know,” he said. “Or, I mean, I do hope so. And it ain’t so much I’m scared of dying, it’s just that now I think I’d prefer not to die alone.”

“Nobody has to die alone,” said Arthur. He wished badly for a cigarette, stopped to reach down and pluck a willow from the earth, which he proceeded to chew. “That is something I have learned very recently.”

“I get that,” said LaBoeuf. He was earnest. He moved slowly, but he was doing okay. “Mary Beth is—I’d be lucky to do half so good as that. She sure is something.”

"Yes, sir. She is,” said Arthur. His boots were wet. His feet were sloshing around inside them, and as they walked, their feet made squishing noises. He was not used to being the envy of men. He wasn't used to that at all. “Goddammit," he said.

“She’s okay,” said LaBoeuf, nodding. “I told you. They got off okay. This was her idea, and Call don’t make mistakes.”

“I know,” said Arthur, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. His head was pounding from all the gunfire. “I know.”

Some egrets took off up ahead of them then, which put Arthur on his guard. But it was only a stray coyote.

When they finally got to the back end of the Braithwaite property, Arthur stopped them both. He still had all his money, the winnings, half stuffed down the front of his pants, half in his right boot, since he had torn his coat to shreds. He was not letting this fucked up night go to waste, no sir.

“This is it,” said Arthur, sensing the gazebo up ahead. They took a knee. LaBoeuf was winded, and they were both dirty and covered in mud. He glanced back to the moon. It was almost eleven. Still too many hours to sunrise, considering. He wondered if it was too late. He wondered if maybe she was out there. “She likes to hang out in the gazebo,” he said, scrubbing at his chin, still chewing that willow.

“Who does?”

“Penelope Braithwaite,” said Arthur. "Otherwise known as our only hope."

“Oh, right. Penelope."

“She reads out here, all day sometimes she said once.”

“You think she’s out there now?”

“Maybe,” said Arthur. He took a deep breath. If she wasn’t there, he was not yet sure what he was going to do. Raid some of the fishing cottages down on the water. Kill one of the guards, or maybe just knock him out, but killing would be safer. “You stay here.” Arthur got on his tip-toes. He couldn’t see the inside of the gazebo from here. It had high walls. He’d have to get up close. “I’ll be back.”

"Sounds good."

Arthur nodded and made his move. He had to wade back into the water up to his waist, and once he got out again, he could see some of the Braithwaite guards idling in the distance with their lanterns, way back by the manor, which was half-burned to the ground. There were wagons of timber everywhere and it looked like work was already being done on restorations. He snuck up alongside the gazebo and went around and climbed up and entered over the side. When his feet dropped, he heard her gasp. She was there. He heard a man’s voice, too, and then he saw both of them, locked up in an embrace: Penelope and Beau, stealing time together. Arthur sighed with relief, shook out his hair and his shirt and was dripping wet. But they didn't recognize him at first. Beau was on his feet in an instant. He didn’t have a weapon or anything so he just sort of stood there in a funny kind of stance with his fists up, ready to fight.

"Stand back!" he said. It was almost comical.

Arthur eyeballed him and put his hands up to surrender. “You got me,” he said.

“Arthur?” said Penelope.

Beau looked at her, and then he looked back at Arthur. “Arthur?”

“Yes.”

“What the heck are you doing here?” Penelope seemed ecstatic. She was happily surprised. She got up from the bench and rushed him, but she paused when she saw how wet he was. “Good heavens,” she said. “Do you know how soaked you are?"

“Believe it or not, I do."

“What happened to you?” said Beau. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” said Arthur, clasping his hands in front of him. “I’m afraid it is not. I was on a river boat, playing cards, and it got raided by the law. My friend and I had to jump ship. We swam to shore, and he is shot in the side. Needless to say, I came here, looking for assistance.”

“Oh my god,” said Penelope. “That’s terrible. Where is your friend?”

“He’s back on the shore,” said Arthur. “I might need some help getting him here. You got anywhere safe we could bunk up for the night?”

“Yes,” said Penelope. “Ever since you all burnt the place to the studs, everybody but the guards and the farmhands’ been staying in our second home in St. Denis.”

“Your second home?”

“It’s dreadful,” she said, dramatically. “I'll tell you where it is, maybe you can burn it down, too." She looked at Beau then and batted her eyelashes. “I sneak out every night to meet Beau. We are still so grateful for that time you helped us.”

"Well, you're welcome."

“The fishing cottages are all vacated," said Beau. "A little rundown, but you’ll be safe till morning.”

"That will do fine. Thank you.”

“How are you, Arthur,” said Penelope. She put her little bird hand on his arm. “Are you doing all right?”

Arthur smiled. “I’m real good, Miss Braithwaite. Current circumstances aside. Thank you for asking.”

She noticed then, the ring on his finger. “Mr. Morgan. Is that a wedding ring?”

“It is,” said Arthur. He kind of fit it to his finger, a reassuring touch. “And I will tell you the whole story, I promise, once we get my buddy to safety.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, like she had forgotten. “Beau, go with Arthur and help him bring up his friend. I’ll prepare the cottage—go to the red one, just over thataway. It’s by far the nicest. I used to play jacks out there with my cousin Lucinda. Before they shipped her up the river to Minnesota of course. For gallivanting with a woman.”

Arthur gave her a funny look. "Minnesota?”

“She preferred the company of girls.”

“No, I got that part. But why did they ship her to Minnesota?”

“Weren’t acceptable, I suppose," said Penelope, fluffing her dress and proceeding to lead Arthur down the stairs to the foggy lawn. "Of course we marry our cousins by the Braithwaite family way, but girls kissing other girls, that’s where the good lord draws the line.” She spoke angrily. But she dropped her anger as quickly as it had come and smoothed her smoky gray dress with her hands. “Oh well. You know my family, Arthur. Animals. Every last one of them. And hypocrites to boot.”

"I got no argument there," said Arthur, thinking back to Lemieux. "Now just lead the way, Miss Braithwaite."

"I owe you my life," she said. "I mean that. Anything you need, you just ask. You're a good man, Mr. Morgan."

He looked away. "I try."

That night in the fishing cottage on the Flat Iron Lake, Arthur fixed up LaBoeuf, not dissimilar from how he had fixed up himself while incarcerated by Colm O’Driscoll. The pain was bad, but it was over fast, and LaBoeuf was stoic. Plus, there was an abundance of moonshine out here. Beau had brought them some dry clothes stolen from the guard barracks, and he and Penelope hung out for a little while, catching up, until the hour got too late. Once they were alone, and cleaned up and dry, LaBoeuf had drunk himself to a right stupor, leaning against a table leg by the fire and slurring his words poetically by the orange light of the flames.

“We gonna get you back to Mary Beth real soon, Mr. Morgan,” he said, his head lulling, his body bandaged and his eyelids heavy like lead. He was swigging off the moonshine from a glass flask, sounding heroic and Arthur was thankful for him and for all he had done and sacrificed that night. “Miss Mary Beth, and your unborn baby. The two of you will be…will be just fine. Where you gonna get to, by the way? When this is all over? By the—by the way.” He smiled, real lazy like. "Where you gonna get to?"

Arthur smiled. He was poking the fire on the stove, loosening the embers. The little red cottage made him think of Deer Cottage. “Wisconsin,” he said. “That’s where we’re aiming.”

“Wisconsin?” said LaBoeuf.

“Yes, sir. You ever been?”

LaBoeuf did not clearly answer. He did not seem to know. He just continued to smile and sway. He said, “Mighty pretty country up there, Mr. Morgan.” He was dropping into sleep as he said it, the flask tipping from his hand. "Mighty pretty."

"Thank you," said Arthur. He meant for everything. He did not know what else to say or to do, but without LaBoeuf, he would probably be dead now. In any case, LaBoeuf was sleeping. He had not heard. Arthur could not sleep. He stayed awake, too keyed up and hardened to his resolve, tossing things in the fire, smoking cigarettes gifted to him from Penelope.

***

Side note:

My take on Mayor Lemieux is based on his real-life historical influences. Quoted from the fandom wiki:

Henri Lemieux likely takes inspiration from the real-life mayor of New Orleans at the time of the game’s events (1899), Walter C. Flower. Flower himself had been a member of the 1891 lynch mob that executed eleven Italian-Americans accused of killing the city's police chief (an event alluded to in the Saint Denis Times), whose murder was long-rumored but never proven to be a Mafia-directed assassination.

Though it's not overtly addressed in-game, Bronte is clearly meant to communicate as a high-ranking member of the Sicilian Mafia, which, along with Lemieux's period-typical anti-Italian sentiment and king pin levels of diabolical corruption, is something I wanted to explore. Personally, I always believed that Bronte was harmless at best, a red herring, and Lemieux was behind it all.

Thanks for reading ^_^

-gala

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x mary beth gaskill #arthur x mary beth #the lily farm #rdr2 fanfic #this one is a little long #hence the numbered sections #so if you gotta read in chunks #you can keep track!!#^.^

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silence-burns · 5 years

Text

I'd drown you in a spoon //part1

Fandom: Aquaman/DC

Summary: Based on: "Imagine Arthur bringing King Orm to you as a safe place before his trial." by @thefandomimagine

A/N: Hehe you wanted Orm, I gave you Orm.

How did you end up in here? Well, that one was easy - you drove down a very well-known road to one of Bruce's mansions. This particular one was perched on the shore and had an amazing view of the sea and even a private beach. It was definitely something that overly wealthy Bruce Wayne would buy at some point and then forget about. It'd be a good deed if one made good use of it once in a while, right? Even if the beach was currently drowning in garbage.

The question of why you ended up there was a tricky one, though. You didn't have any obligation to. Sure, helping a friend sounded good, but still not good enough to calm your nerves and let you enjoy the evening.

The sun set the sea on fire, making it a thousand shimmering colors. Last lonely fishermen boats were coming back to the shore in the distance as the village was slowly preparing to finish the day. Birds screamed over your head, circling monotonously, hopeful to see a treat worth diving at.

How come you could ride into battle without fear and now, when everything was perfectly, utopian peaceful, you kept fidgeting on the pier, making the old boards creak under you.

You could still walk away and no one would see a thing. No one would judge you for leaving the place, despite all its beauty.

But you stayed. You stayed like the dumbass you surely were, still unsure of your own reasons.

You didn't wait for much longer. First you heard a splash of water and before you registered it, two men were standing in front of you, completely drenched.

“I hate you,” you said clearly to Arthur. The words escaped your mouth before you thought about them.

He laughed, not bothered a bit. He patted the back of the other man.

“No, you don't. You wouldn't’ve agree if you hated me.”

“I hung up on you.”

“And yet, you still came. I knew I could count on you,” Arthur smiled, turning to the man on his left.

You’d already heard the news, despite not being a part of the events in Atlantis. You'd known Arthur for way too long for him to leave you out of something this important.

Eyeing his brother, you couldn't help but look for any similarities. He was visibly uncomfortable, but held his head high and returned your gaze unwaveringly . Now you could understand him as a king. He was born to rule.

“Yeah, about that… Are you sure it's a good idea, Arthur? I'm not saying your ideas are usually plain stupid and not properly thought-out, but… that's exactly what I'm saying.”

“Don't worry, The Council approved it. My brother must stay out of Atlantis for a while, at least for as long as it takes to clean up all the mess and call a proper court meeting. The safest place for him to avoid getting into more trouble is to stay on land for a while.”

You noticed how Orm flinched at his last words involuntarily.

“I know. I'll do my best, but remember you owe me,” you teased out of habit.

“Sure,” Arthur winked before facing his brother. “This is a great opportunity and I deeply hope you won't throw it away. My friend here agreed to let you stay with them for a while, and I hope you appreciate this alternative to rotting in a prison cell. Behave.”

“I'm not the one whose manners you should worry about,” Orm answered coldly.

“Right. Nice chat, see you later,” Arthur patted his shoulder before backing off towards the sea. He shot you a bright smile before diving into the deep.

Awkwardness hit you twice as hard, but it faded quickly. It was just a few days, come on. Arthur wouldn't have called you if he had a better choice.

Orm looked at the sea too, with a mix of emotions on his face. You noticed melancholy and resentment, which were understandable in his situation. Being a cast away from his own home, where he was once a king, must have been difficult. Especially if it was his own brother to inflict all those changes.

“Did he even ask if you wanted to come here, or did he just drag you with him?” you asked out of curiosity.

Orm eyed you before answering, carefully choosing his words.

“A little bit of both.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him. He's a good friend, but sometimes I want to drown him in a spoon.”

He shot you a strange look. “What does that mean?”

“It's a saying.”

“I've never heard it before.”

“‘Cause I'm the one using it. Come on, it's getting dark.”

Orm watched you walk off the pier and head towards the house made of stone and glass. He wasn't sure what to think about you. He'd heard a lot of strange stories about land dwellers, but now that he’d finally met one of them, he wasn't sure how to react.

Casting one last glance to the sea that's been a part of him for so long, Orm turned towards the land. His silver-blue armor caught the setting sun, the metal clattering quietly as he moved. It felt heavier than it used to.

#aquaman #king orm #orm #orm marius #orm x reader #orm marius x reader #orm marius x you #orm/reader #orm/you #orm marius/reader #orm marius/you #orm imagine #aquaman imagine #arthur curry #orm x you #king orm x reader #ocean master x reader #ocean master

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historia-vitae-magistras · 2 months

Note

10 for Arthur and François <3

10) How they deal with pain.

Arthur: Stark, stoic denial. He's kind of a control freak and that primarily manifests itself in his own inability to just admit things. The only thing to fear about the English is a good percentage of them could have a limb hacked off, and they'd still be stiff upper-lipping it and he's certainly one of them. Absolute fucking mental case about it if I'm being real.

François: He has two modes. Repose or Rage. He tries to go for that sort of angelic look of calm, the saintly figure of a martyr's allegory. The Dying Gaul, straight-backed and dignified, sweating and pale but artistically rendered. The artistic subject. Save that, when he's out of sight or just so far past, its pure rage. He gets so fucking mad when he's in pain. He will have one pint of blood left, and he's raging to the point someone should sedate him just on principle.

#the ask box || probis pateo #francois || temperee par des chansons #arthur || stone set in the silver sea

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blankdblank · 4 years

Text

Anaticula Pt 64

Out in the back gardens of your hidden home extra vines of flowers were encouraged to grow by you and Neville while Draco saw to the gazebo with Ginny’s aid. Luna helped to arrange the seating with Cho and Angelina in tow. The twins helped Katie to add the bows to the end of the waist high lanterns down the color changing carpet laid down for the aisle. Right on top of the glass gazebo in the center of the fountain there the ceremony would take place. Their tries to keep it simple had left to the family planning everything. In a pink shimmering one shoulder dress covered in a layered wrap draping from the one shoulder around you and hanging to your waist keeping you warm and obscuring a clear view of your figure. You joined Hermione in helping Tonks into her purple dress coated in raised woven ribbon flowers across the middle of it with the skirt layered in varying colors shifting in the light.

In the sea of gathering friends and family members you took your place at the piano. The words had been spoken and adorable matching crescent moon rings traded, the simple band cover would rotate as the month went on to show the phase of the moon in bright opals through the shifting onyx band.

Softly in their first dance as a couple a memory triggering song began to play. It had been played for Lily and James, your parents and now Remus and Tonks. The Marauders clan was growing and shifting in membership.

Timidly Remus began the dance and Tonks steadily drew him out of his clenched stance to relax into the rhythm in a series of awkward twists and spins between their jokes and giggles at being the focus of the room until others joined in.

The second song began to play on its own and a grin eased into your lips as you noticed Barty was extending his hand for yours to lead you into the floor. An opening spin and he stepped closer laying your raised arm around his shoulders while his other hand claimed yours and the free one draped around your back. Cake and pictures flowed between courses of food and as approved by Remus, Regulus and your father in a turn of his head Barty asked, “Is that a ballon?”

Turning your head hoping the balloon bag hadn’t busted yet with the final surprise your brows furrowed and you asked, “What balloon?” Looking forward again your lips parted not seeing him there but a stunned squeak from Fleur had you glance downwards to find Barty there.

“I wasted so much of my life, and you were a beacon of hope for me. Please do me the honor of being yours.”

“I, will.” The stroke of his thumb over the back of your left hand and the adoring gaze in his eyes had you nodding and up he popped easing the ring onto your finger and leaning in for a kiss to melt around you in a tight hug through the whistles and cheers.

Remus chuckled saying, “Now, if no one else-,”

A shriek made you all turn to look at Fleur in her own tackling hug she induced on Bill, when he had just barely brought the box from his pocket. The mishap making Arthur lean forward to catch the box he eased open so when she released him he could claim it and ease it on her finger in the sea of chuckles and claps. True they were already engaged for a few months but the ring she had designed was finally ready to be given to her replacing the solid silver band.

Ron and Harry however decided to try and be funny lifting tiny lizards to gasp and trade before a big hug making everyone erupt into laughter as the lizards bit the opposite person’s ears in their tight hug ensuing their mini panic and getting them free with Molly and Narcissa’s help.

In all it had started a bit tense but a threat of lighting Harry on fire if he tried to ‘protect’ her again brought the young couple right back together again and into the dance floor with everyone else.

Seated at your table you claimed another helping of sliced fruit to keep from drinking at another glance at the pear shaped champagne sapphire ring in a rose gold setting coated with smaller matching stones around the band. Shifting your focus from that in Barry’s chuckle at Ron being led around by his mom pretending he didn’t love how big it made her smile. “Can I ask why you proposed without being rude?”

Smiling at you he said, “Other than my undying devotion to you?” You nodded and he shifted in his seat turning to face the table on his outward turned chair and lowly said, “I planned on telling you later and let you enjoy the party. But I want you to be clear, I have explained all this to your dad and uncle.” Making you nod and rest your arms on the table, “Bellatrix is heavily pregnant.”

“Lovely.” You answered sarcastically, “It’s-?”

He nodded, “Yup. And she’s been going round telling the others from Noble houses to ‘do their duty’.”

“Oh great…”

He wet his lips and leaned in, “I knew it was coming, she’s been harping on that Riddle’s calling you our Queen now. So, it sort of slipped, that we were engaged, and you were heavily pregnant..”

His brows sunk expecting you to shout but your fingers rose to brush your bangs back behind your ear in a sharp inhale as your wide eyes locked on his then shrank to normal again. “So, heavily?”

He nodded, “Said it’s a matter of weeks.”

Your hands shifted into the air for a moment in a quick flail, “Clearly I’m not!”

Leaning in more he grinned again, “See, but that’s the brilliant part! Because, you remember before Christmas, that one nighter I had?”

You nodded, “She wanted her boyfriend to join you?”

He nodded, “Yes! Well, they’re married now. However, she’s pregnant and she doesn’t want the baby so I convinced her to keep it through to the birth and I would take it after her husband learned about it, he’s clipped you see. She’s been staying with me and Severus for the night, hoped we could keep her in one of your safe houses. So all you would have to do is fake a-,” his eyes rose as you stood, “Where are you going?”

Your hand was offered to him and you said, “I can’t just fake a pregnancy, even as a disguise it doesn’t work like that. There are ways they could tell… I have to get pregnant.” You glanced at him teasing, “Excuse me, heavily pregnant.”

Turning to your father you crossed and saw his smile grow and he asked, “I take it Barty filled you in?”

“Yes,” holding your grin you said, “If you’ll excuse us, I have to go get heavily pregnant. We’re going to drop by Newt’s.”

In your turn away Regulus leaned in asking, “Did she say Newt? As in Scamander? What can he do?”

Sirius shrugged and in your path through the house Barty asked, “Just how is Newt going to help you with this?”

“He asked me a favor a few months back, now it seems I’ll be taking him up on it.” Pointing up at him at the enchanted doorway you said, “And you are not allowed to laugh.”

“Of course, but now I am curious.”

…

Three telling knocks sounded and Newt grinned as he let you both in looking you over, “Well don’t you two look ready to paint the town red?”

You grinned saying, “Yes, well we just came from a wedding, and I happen to need to get heavily pregnant. Is your doctor friend available?”

Newt smiled brightly at you, “Yes! Tina will put on the kettle and you just go on in and see them. I will be down shortly after I fetch the Doc..” he said darting off as he wrangled himself into his trench coat and scarf.

Down into the habitat basement you went and led Barty to the Boa Red Panda exhibit where he looked between he creatures cooing as you drew closer making him gasp, “No! We are not having Pandas?!” He asked elatedly making you roll your eyes.

“You said heavily pregnant. This is how that happens validly for a good reason and not just faking it pissing her off more.”

A handshake from the equally as eager Doctor made her curls bounce along with yours as she said, “I am so thrilled to finally meet you! Mr Scamander talks so much about you and all your achievements with magical creatures I feel as if I know you already! He did mention he’d brought up the offer but never said it would be this soon, not that that’s a problem! We just get you into some comfy clothes and I can get this all settled.” You nodded and she guided you to choose a pair of sweats and a tank top then had you lay back on a couch with Barty’s lap as your pillow.

The largest of the Boa Panda males neared your side and a gooey ball was released into the hidden pouch on his belly brought out as the Doc tapped her fingers over your belly measuring the right spot before she pressed it onto your skin and your eyes closed feeling it soak through. Sharply your side clenched in a knot making her and Newt secure your hips until the full spread out ball had seeped in easing the knots with it. Around your wrist a pregnancy crystal band was secured and you were kept still on the bed while the panda stroked its head along your belly secreting scentless oils from its fur helping to quicken along the conception triggering a hot flash in you. Half an hour you fought against the heat and finally calmed when the band flashed from clear to a darkening blue confirming you were pregnant making the pandas bound around the room giddily knowing more of their kind were coming.

Snacks and special teas were given before you were let up and allowed to head home again. A tight hug from Newt came with his assurance to keep checking up on you and into the street Barty led you draping his arm around your back smirking in the shift of your gaze to him. “Have I told you how marvelous you are today?”

“Thank you for not laughing.”

After a stunned scoff he replied, “Saving a nearly extinct race of creatures while fooling one of the darkest bunch of people in the Wizarding world. Far from humorous.” In your glance up at him he let out a weak chuckle and said, “I cannot wait to see how adorable your little ones are. All tiny and fuzzy,” your giggles sounded making him chuckle again.

Back to your home you went and feeling the weight of the day you stole one of the last brownies left smiling that Remus and Tonks were still dancing alone in the moonlight, the moment captured eternally on film by the camera still floating through the house catching the guests in varying stages of relaxation before bed. Off to share with your father what your plan was Barty watched you head up to your bedroom to answer your physical urge to sleep. The early morning stop to answer Lucius’ request to make a double of his home and shrink the real one for protection would find you extra rested before heading off to your shop.

Warm light filled your room with the sunrise and in a rub of your face your eyes opened to inspect the still blue crystal bracelet and engagement ring you were still wearing reminding you of your eventful day. In a deep exhale you shifted onto your back off your numb shoulder and used your feet and conscious hand to brush the covers down to sit up. At the edge of the bed your eyes sank to your belly and in a lift of your shirt your lips parted in the drastic change over night.

Onto your feet you climbed and hurried into the bathroom to look at yourself in the mirror already looking like you had swallowed a quaffle. Exhaling sharply your hands settled on the counter of the sink when a stroke of your belly stirred a group of wiggles inside you making you mumble, “Okay, that’s not odd at all…” again you stroked your belly saying, “You all behave in there.”

Looking at your reflection again your eyes rose from your stomach to your arms up to your face, clearly now you were glowing almost, well, not glowing but glittering. A common trait of Veela women who are expecting adding to their allure, a trait easily explained as missed with certain potions, of which you had none ready. But at least being an eighth Veela it was only noticeable up close and in low light, almost forgettable when you switched the lights on. Turning around you sighed and went to look in your closet mumbling, “Thick tights it is.”

Changing out of your father’s old jersey and your shorts you picked a pair of underwear, nice comfy pair you made certain to add pads to just in case of anything embarrassing happening after hearing so many stories from Molly on accidents that came up in her various pregnancies. Carefully you settled the soft bra around your noticeably swollen chest making you huff at how badly your back was going to take these new changes to your figure. Sitting on the stool you eased the black leggings you had found on one of the shelves from your last shopping trip in Hogsmeade, coated in soft grey clouds and shimmering stars you eased up around your hips under your belly.

Nipping at your lip you eyed your shirts and decided on a royal blue blouse reaching to the middle of your thighs. The baggy shirt with a low dipping neck had you reaching for a small vest you added covering your chest and helping to ruffle up the rest of the shirt to disguise your belly. Socks and your boots were next to be added with your wand sheath and pouch you slid in the hidden pocket on the vest. A jacket was grabbed and set on the counter to the sink when you went to brush your teeth and undo your loose braid you fluffed around you hoping to disguise the glittering of your skin.

Still down you went and flashing a grin at K in passing, whose eyes traveled over you knowingly in heading to the kitchen for some more juice for you and took your seat at your father’s side. Even groggily his eyes landed on you and a wide grin settled onto his face you answered with a quick grin then turned to the full plate Regulus set in front of you.

“Oi.” Across the table your eyes rose to Ron as he said, “What’s wrong with your face Jaqi?”

All eyes shifted to you with Fleur’s along with them stirring a loud gasp from her making you turn to Ron saying, “Subtle, very subtle.”

Fleur hopped up on her feet saying in French as she rounded the table, “How did I not notice this? You are dazzling!” At your seat she claimed the one beside it and squeaked seeing your belly more apparent making her extend her hands causing the teens across from you to stand open mouthed at her hands settling on your belly after an approving nod.

Harry, “When did that happen?!”

Ron, “Must have been that wrap thing! Does Mum know?!”

Molly came into the room asking, “Does Mum know what-?” Her eyes scanned the room and naturally fell to you dropping her mouth hurrying her shuffle over to you, “Jaqi!”

Flashing a quick grin you said, “False negatives on the tests put me off.” Watching her hands replace Fleur’s as you said, “Sort of popped up at once.” In a group shifting under her hands telling of the odd pregnancy making her eyes catch yours in a flicker of silver trading the memory of learning what Barty had told Riddle and how you had gotten pregnant spreading a grin onto her face to keep from giggling at the creatures you were carrying.

Molly, “I’ll start the prepping then, for our little bundle on the way.”

Fleur dug through her purse left hanging on her chair saying, “I know I have some in here…Mama sent me some just in case.” With a grin she pulled the powder compact she carried over to you unwrapping to crouch beside you, “I can always get more. This will help with the shimmer.” A few taps of the puff inside to the powder later and she adoringly helped to dab the muting powder on your face and neck she folded shut again and pressed into your palm smiling at you, “There, stunning as ever. Have you told your great grandparents yet?”

“No. Not yet. Not really certain, how to…”

Her hand waved and she said, “They will be ecstatic!”

Straightening up Molly said, “I’m going to fetch you some extra fruit today. You’ll need ample fruits, and all the right juices, oh I’ll get started on a list.” She said hurrying off as Fleur turned to her seat again leaving you staring at Harry and Ron sitting wide eyed staring at you still even through Ginny and Hermione’s tugging them back to their seats.

Hermione flashed you a grin, “You’ll be a wonderful Mum.”

Ginny nodded and said, “Can’t wait to see a baby morpher!”

Softly you giggled and glanced at the smirking Twins taking their own seats for the breakfast you all got back to as Harry and Ron asked questions trying to come to terms with the stunning news, all mainly critiquing the Quidditch finals on how safe you had been in each match soon sending themselves up to rewatch the matches carefully. In the mix as you rose to head off to the Malfoy Manor with the twins the rest of the teens came down and heard in the shuffling of stunned adults adjusting to the news as well.

Sharing grins over your head Fred and George asked, “Do we get to help name them?”

Giggling to yourself you brushed your hair from your face in their joint reach out to rub your belly and George said, “Can’t wait to see their fuzzy faces.”

“Well he just sprung it all on me. He told them all I was heavily pregnant. Heavily! I can’t just potion my way through that without dipping to a baby snatching spell and I am not dipping into that pit of lava. And me mimicking the belly brings up a whole heap of problems in making that convincing.”

Fred, “Ya, that is troubling, only thing is,”

Both, “Where’s the baby coming from?”

George, “Percy might accept an infantile potion if we ask nicely.”

You giggled again saying as you stepped through the enchanted doorway to the driveway outside the locked gate and said, “Barty’s one night stand ended fruitfully.” They looked at you open mouthed, “She doesn’t want it, Barty does, we do, so, baby.”

Fred sheepishly asked, “What about, I mean, you can’t hide morpher in a baby..”

George nodded, “Or fake it, bit hard to..”

“She is, Barty mentioned her asking what he wanted her to look like after they were alone.”

Both of them grinned saying, “Ah, how convenient.”

You giggled again, “If I didn’t know better he’d have chosen her for it.”

The door opening behind you again bringing Draco up to you open mouthed asking, “You’re pregnant?! I mean, I know what Barty said to Bella, but, you’re actually, pregnant?!”

With a sigh you said, “For now, I have to say that I can’t tell you everything, I will explain things after the birth.” In his stolen glance at your belly he came closer and your hand guided his onto it making his brow inch up at the kick under his hand, softly in latin you whispered, “I wasn’t pregnant at the wedding.”

Softly he asked back, “Is it illegal?”

You shook your head and the twins giggled to themselves and said, “They’re adorable.” Draco’s brows inched up and they said, “You’ll see.”

Draco’s hand pulled back and he looked to the manor saying, “Dad pulled all we’d need out. Some of the new numbers from the South keep talking about sacking the 28’s houses.”

In you and the trio shrinking and duplicating the shielded manor Draco kept watch around you then cradled the orb. At your speaking again he met your gaze, “Has Astoria asked for shielding on her home?”

Draco, “Her parents seem to be leaning towards it. Brought up possibly heading to a vacation home out near the Netherlands. But they don’t want to abandon the fort.”

With a nod you led the way through your door to the shop for you to start readying to unlock for the day. “Well keep letting her know we can help with both if they decide it.”

“Ok,” with a sway of his hand the orb was sent to his parents’ room in your home, “I will.” Turning to head to his own tasks while you handled yours. The doors were opened and in your chosen task of keeping displays filled you wove through bursts of people trying not to draw attention to your ring or belly, though thankfully for you it was the ring that drew attention and questions of who you were marrying.

Home again with a sigh you entered the kitchen and charmed the kettle to fill and set on the burner you lit, cocoa powder was added to a large mug you brought out marshmallows for. From the hall K entered asking, “Would you like a grilled cheese, Mistress?”

Catching his gaze you grinned saying, “Yes, please.” Stroking a hand over your raised shin to fix a fold in your sock, “It’s a tricky situation, but thank you for not thinking less of me.”

His hand outstretched to cradle yours, “Mistress has treated Kreacher like family. Kreacher would never think less of his Mistress. This baby will be much loved and protected. My kind do not trouble with weddings for our young. Mistress is having a child and Kreacher will never allow harm to the child.”

Softly you replied in removing the kettle, “Thank you.” Filling your mug to the brim you stirred with a swirl of your finger above it with a flurry of marshmallows adding to it.

K spoke again, “Kreacher will ready your sandwiches, go and relax Mistress.”

“Thank you.” You replied raising your mug to sip on heading to your room, in passing the library you caught Hermione’s gaze from the library door and you sighed entering the room mentally calling for a certain book. Easing into the chair on her right that scooted out for you she shifted in hers eyeing you in your next sip. “No laughing.”

“What would I laugh at?” In the landing of the book on the table you flipped it open to the right page and slid it closer to her making her lean in with brows furrowed in focus reading the contents softly to herself. “Boa Red Panda…” Down three paragraphs she read still confused until she got to the triplet sisters ‘attacked’ by the creatures they had discovered in their family purchasing a remote island parting her lips. Reading how they were just barely managed to a hospital in time to see the female cubs being born booming the population by twenty until their maturation then it would explode hundreds of times over.

Looking up at you she listened as you said, “I needed to be pregnant, and they love morphers,”

“But,”

She leaned in and you continued, “Barty had a one night stand, there is a baby. We just have to juggle a bit.”

“Where’s she at?”

“One of our safe houses out of sight till after, then she agreed to have her memory wiped about it.”

“And you’re, okay with this?”

Sighing again you turned the page showing pictures of the adorable cubs making her grin and lean in at their picture bouncing around in the pen they were placed in at a week old. “They’re breed is dying. Some of the raids left them to three females,” parting her lips, “Newt gathered as many up as he can to hide and if I can have 15 that could be thousands more, morpher born females have more daughters than natural born ones. I can’t just fake a pregnancy, and there are spells, but only dark ones to have a baby of my own this quickly. It’s only a matter of weeks and I could do so much good from it.”

“How, how did you even get pregnant? Turkey baster?”

With a chuckle you said, “They have a pouch they release a bundle of, it’s like a ball of gooey, sperm really, and they rub it on your stomach and it soaks in, and they rub on your stomach adding oils to help conception along, had some teas and snacks came home had a nap and boom, belly.”

“Wow, have you told Molly? She seemed in a frenzy earlier.”

You nodded, “Now I just have to find a way to tell the Pears without their demanding to come out for it all.”

“Well, if we have to we could explode some pipes to keep them away when you, how is the birth-,”

“C section. Newt’s got a doctor for it, can’t go to Mungo’s, and we might have to handle the other birth here to keep it hushed.”

“Well you certainly can’t keep it secret forever.”

You shook your head and took another sip of your drink calling a sheet of paper and pen from your room perking up your owl on his perch along the wall before his flight over to the table to wait for it to be passed over to him. Wetting your lips you eyed the paper and simply wrote that a series of false negatives had come out to be wrong and now you were indeed confirmed to be pregnant. There was no need for them to rush out here and that you were being well cared for and after the birth in a matter of weeks they could drop by to meet their Great Great Grandchild. All tailed with a request of keeping it hushed until then.

It was all ridiculous and still you blew the ink dry and folded the letter you sealed shut and passed over to the owl mumbling, “Enjoy the flight fluffball.” In a gleeful screech it claimed the letter and flew out through a window you opened feeling Hermione’s hand on yours, “This can only end well.”

Softly she chuckled in your weak giggle just relenting to the situation knowing that it certainly would take something drastic to keep them quiet and at a distance until the birth.

…

Anxiously at the breakfast table in your focus on the book in your hand Barty was on his way to buttering his toast a second time making Snape grab his wrist and shake his head drawing his eyes from you back to his toast he took a large bite of. Lowering your glass from a sip of your juice you asked Barty, “What do you think of Ophelia?”

His brows popped up and he pushed his mouthful to the side mumbling from behind his raised hand, “I thought we decided on Emmeline.”

Your eyes rose and you said, “For a middle name.”

His nod broke and he glanced at your father in his saying, “Mmm, lovely name. One of the moons of Uranus,” with a smirk he asked, “Expecting a rebel are we?”

You smirked back, “New beginnings call for rebels.”

“Touche,” he replied raising his coffee for a sip.

Barty’s lips parted after he swallowed, “Oh, for the star name, Ophelia is lovely. Were you thinking of a second middle name as well?”

Releasing your lip from a nip you said, “Any names you want?”

“Could we use Rose too?” You nodded and he said, “Always wanted a little Rose. Emmeline Ophelia Rose Tennant-Black.” You couldn’t help but grin at his using your mother’s middle name.

Regulus, “Hyphenating?”

Barty nodded, “I would love to pay tribute to her mother’s line as well as mine.”

Sirius, “I for one cannot wait to meet our little girl.”

Lowering the book of possible names you set it aside to finish your drink smoothing a hand over the long sweater dress resting over your rounded belly over your black leggings. Down your back a long braid swayed in your stand signaling the pop up Barty and Snape made with Regulus right behind you. Draco, already digging for his coat in the closet by the door passed you yours with a grin and took his place at your side for the walk to the enchanted doorway that opened for you outside the hidden Manor Riddle dwelled in. Already inside Lucius and Narcissa arrived and helped to calm Bellatrix from the barrage of questions she had planned to corner you with.

Down the long drive you strolled taking Barty’s hand to calm his deep inhales and exhales stirring a grin from him in your glance up at him, “You’ll be fine.”

He nodded and leaned in to steal a quick kiss on your knuckles on the hand locked with his he lowered to cradle with his free hand, “I know. Nothing will happen. Nothing will happen.”

Keeping his gaze forward he missed your calming grin you gave Draco, who grinned back and inhaled himself and stepped back to let you and Barty through the door two Death Eaters opened when you took the first step to them. Up and in you went to the same path ending at those same wing back chairs in front of a roaring fireplace with Riddle wide eyed on his feet looking you over with a spreading grin. “My Queen, you are radiant.”

“Thank you.” You replied in a weak chuckle and took the seat his hand motioned you to that Barty eased into at your side.

Shifting his gaze to Draco his hand outstretched and Draco’s folded inside it for the back of it to be patted in his smirk, “Well done in cornering Dumbledore. If not for that Phoenix you would have had him. Excellent job in leading our group inside the school, is the pathway still open?”

Draco quickly replied, “There was a bit of a mishap with one of the doors, won’t close the seal now.”

Riddle grinned saying, “No matter, there are other ways.” He looked to you, “I trust you have a way of removing the cabinet to erase suspicion?”

You nodded, “Of course, it will be dealt with.”

Widening his grin before his wand was drawn and he eased Draco’s sleeve up and in a momentary flinch the Dark Mark was burned then vanished into his forearm, “Well earned. I have big plans for the Ministry and your places in Hogwarts would prove in handy for me.” For all her tries to speak Bellatrix was ordered back to bed and get off her swollen ankles he asked if you had troubles with and smiled hearing you didn’t get to stay on your feet long enough for them to swell with how the men circled around you. Hours he asked you your impressions on the Minister from your various sources and shared his own plans for Hogwarts.

“Now that Dumbledore is out of the picture Severus will take his place as Headmaster, and you my Queen, shall be leading those young shapeable minds in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Much more than being limited to the untested Potions years, with a much greater audience. And, I have several ideas to raise this reputation of yours, carefully laid plans, there are certain members of ours requiring to be, contained for a time to be released later.” In a sweep of the room he said, “Normally I would lead Fenrir to this, however he seems to have taken into the wind again leaving his wolf companions less than accountable. Until his return of course they can prove useful in these new plans, and quite useful in breaking any doubts this new Minister could possibly have for you.” Leaning closer he smiled at you saying, “You will be untouchable, and no one will see you coming.”

With a smirk you replied, “They never do.” Between your close thighs Barty’s thumb stroked against your fingers in an unnoticed sign of pride knowing fully your plans and history supporting he had no clue what was coming his way.

Pt 65

#Remus and Tonks Wedding #Saving Dying Breed #Fake Engagement #Fake Pregnancy #Newt Scamander #Tom Riddle

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sadoeuphemist · 4 years

Text

A Catalogue and Comparison of Common Elements Found in Three Different Boys’ Detective Stories:

Being,

Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators in: The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot, by Robert Arthur Harvey’s Wacky Parrot Adventure, by Eth Clifford Private Eyes: Adventures with the Saturday Gang, by Lee Kingman

(spoilers for all to follow)

1. The Mystery-Solving Gang:

Stuttering Parrot: Bob Andrews, Pete Crenshaw, and Jupiter Jones

Harvey’s Parrot: Harvey Willson and his cousin Nora

Private Eyes: Teddy Tibbets, Fizzy, Normie, Pokey, and Clud

2. Ages:

SP: Deliberately left ambiguous, but not old enough to drive

HP: Both eleven years old (Harvey to be twelve in three months)

PE: Twelve, thereabouts

3. Expensive Vehicle Improbably Available to Transport Children:

SP: The use of a gold-plated, vintage Rolls Royce, complete with the services of a chauffeur ferrying them wherever they want for the next thirty days, a contest prize won by Jupiter Jones

HP: None

PE: A Turnabout sailboat ominously christened The END, gifted to Teddy the year before by Mr. Sherburne as a reward for recovering his chess set

4. Smug Rival / Potential Ally:

SP: Skinny Norris

HP: Harvey and Nora, to each other

PE: Randy Russell

5. Talking Parrot that, if Prompted Correctly, Will Utter a Clue Pointing Towards a Hidden Treasure:

SP: Not one, but six different parrots, each named after a literary character, plus a mynah bird to round them all out

HP: Sinbad, an African gray, former pet of Captain Corbin and left with Uncle Buck due to seasickness

PE: Despite the story taking place in Clam Cove, and having a ship called the Jolly Pirate, and a character called Pirate McGob (legally having changed his name), no parrots, talking or otherwise, appear in this story

6. An International Art Smuggling Ring:

SP: Yes

HP: No

PE: Yes

7. Secret Passageways:

SP: Four different passageways hidden amidst the junk of the Jones Salvage Yard, leading to their Headquarters

HP: Various hidden passages and underground tunnels throughout Uncle Buck’s historical home, the house having served as a station on the Underground Railroad. Notably, a secret doorway in the back of the wardrobe in Captain Corbin’s room

PE: No hidden passages, but their clubhouse consists of a chicken coop with a doorway too narrow to squeeze through for anyone much larger than a child

8. Grown Adult Threatening a Child with a Gun, Which After the Situation is Resolved is Revealed to have been Fake:

SP: Mr. Claudius brandishing a “large, old-fashioned pistol” revealed to be a novelty cigar lighter

HP: Mr. Singh herding the children around using a water gun (“Naturally,” he told her. “Real guns are dangerous.”)

PE: Jackson attempting to kidnap Teddy using a “shiny, tin, water pistol” kept largely concealed in his coat pocket

9. Foreign Accents & Ethnic Stereotypes:

SP: Multiple. The English accents of Mr. Claudius, and Worthington the chauffeur, and all of the parrots. Art thief Huganay’s slight French accent. The “liquid Mexican accent” of Carlos Sanchez (“The au-to, it is where? May I see it?”). Hans’ and Konrad’s husky Bavarian ‘Hokay’s.

HP: The “Indian singsong” of Ranvir Singh, and the “lilting speech” of Paddy O’Gowan

PE: Though the painter Heironomous Brinker is identified as a Dutchman, and his syntax is somewhat odd, accents are never noted in the story

10. Historical Engravings:

SP:

Here Lie 13 Nameless Travelers Struck Down by Indians June 17, 1876

HP:

Free at last Aaron 1859

PE: Though a bronze marker exists designating part of Clam Cove as a Public Landing, the marker was at some point pried loose from its stone, and the engraving was never recovered over the course of the story

11. The Treasure:

SP: A painting of a shepherdess tending to a lamb, by “one of the great masters of painting.” Estimated to be “not worth less than one hundred thousand dollars”.

HP: Various jewels, namely “a large diamond, a huge blood-red ruby, a black pearl, a luminous opal, a blight blue sapphire, and a brilliant green emerald”. Said to be worth enough to retire rich

PE: Nine lost paintings of David Pringle, done between the period of 1850-1855 and featuring a hesitant shift towards lyric realism. Appraised to be worth approx. $45,000 all together

12. Meals Enjoyed Over the Course of the Investigation:

SP: “[B]aked cup custard with a nice brown crust on top”

HP: Pancakes, “drowned in maple syrup”. Peanut butter sandwiches, one with jelly, one with banana

PE: Lobster. Four peanut-butter sandwiches (in one sitting). A three egg omelette. Fresh hot pancakes drenched with butter and some jam. Cookies and tea with crushed ice. Two more eggs, scrambled. Potato chips. A tall glass of iced ginger ale. Cream cheese and crackers. Hamburgers and hotdogs roasted over hot ashes, with buttered rolls. Ketchup and mustard and pickles and relish. Baked beans. Coke. Boiled hotdogs, wrapped in buttered pancakes. Hot tea. A big beef stew.

13. Occasionally Antagonistic Older Sister:

SP: None (among all three boys)

HP: Georgeann

PE: Jean

14. Loyal Canine Companion:

SP: None, but one of the secret entrances is marked by a painting of a dog named Rover (”Red Gate Rover”)

HP: Butch, “big and fat and real old”. The same age as Harvey. Lazy and cowardly. Spends most of the story begging for food and napping

PE: Hans, a beloved mongrel owned by Mr. Brinker. Adopted by Teddy when Mr. Brinker was assaulted and hospitalized, getting around his mother’s refusal to let him have a dog

15. False Identities & Aliases:

SP: Retired actor Malcolm Fentriss, revealed to have actually been desperate art dealer Claude Claudius impersonating the man

HP: Ranvir Singh, revealed to have been Paddy O’Gowan in disguise

PE: Local fisherman, Windy, revealed to be Benjamin Jackson AKA El Greco, registered as having bought the shore rights to Clam Cove from the Clam Cove Pier Company

16. Eccentric Mastermind who Assembled the Treasure Hunt:

SP: Otherwise unemployable puzzle-maker and art purchaser John Silver (pseudonym)

HP: Jack Corbin, captain of the Seven Seas, Uncle Buck’s best friend and possible life partner. Presumed lost at sea

PE: None. Pringle’s declining self-confidence during this period led him to develop a smaller, almost unnoticeable signature, leaving behind his paintings as payment for rent without record of their sale

17. Villain Making His Departure, Having Graciously Accepted Defeat:

SP: Yes (”’You outmaneuvered me,’ said Mr. Huganay. ‘Few people have done that. If you boys ever come to Europe, look me up. I will show you the French underworld and perhaps you may have a chance to try your wits on some mystery there. No hard feelings on my part, if there are none on yours. Agreed?’“)

HP: Yes (”Meanwhile, Patty O’Gowan scooped up his turban, placed it firmly on his head, walked to the front door, gave us all a brilliant smile, and was gone.”)

PE: No

18. Reaping the Windfall - Returning Home:

SP: Mr. Claudius, having retrieved his painting, paid Carlos and his uncle Ramos the promised one thousand dollar reward. Ramos Sanchez used the money to return to his native village in Mexico to recuperate from his illness, while Carlos got a job washing cars at the Rent-’n-Ride Auto Rental Agency. He is studying to be a mechanic in his free time.

HP: Captain Corbin dedicated his savings towards the restoration and preservation of Uncle Buck’s home as a historical landmark. Aside from maintaining it together, he and Buck plan to extend their home to other retired sailors, constructing a neighboring building to provide their fellow ex-seamen a safe harbor on land.

PE: From the proceeds of the sale of the Pringles, Mr. Brinker returned to his native village in Holland and his two sisters. As it was too hard to take a dog along, he left Hans behind with Teddy. All ends well.

#books #racism

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taiyang-too-long · 5 years

Text

For Old Times Sake

[ This is my first attempt at an Noir AU fic.This could end up being a one shot but I may keep it going if folks seem interested. A big thank you to @ozcarpin @ask-raven-branwen and @firebluevixen who helped me come up with this idea and workshop it]

Remnant City police department

1947

9:22 pm

“Fourteen murders” I said slamming the thick folder on his desk. “Fourteen. In just five months”

Captain Ironwood pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed them. He spoke with that same no nonsense, matter of fact tone that always kinda chafed me.

“Its a big city, Tai” he said. “We get a lot of crime. Further more, there isn’t anything in these cases linking the deaths together. It’s just as likely that these are all separate unconnected crimes.”

“That what I thought too” I said “but Qrow was sure there was something here and now...c’mon Jim...he’s been missing for weeks..”

Ironwood leaned forward, interlocking his hands as he spoke. “Qrow could have just skipped town, it wouldn’t be unlike him.”

“Jim-“

“Captain” he corrected. “Now I know you’re concerned but you’ve got your own cases. Now I suggest you get to them. You’re dismissed.”

I opened my mouth to object but his stern look told me I was wasting my time. With a curt nod I gathered the files and plopped back into the chair at my desk.

Ironwood was good man. He could make the tough calls when others couldn’t or wouldn’t. He ran a tight ship and was the only bastard tough enough to keep all these boys in line...but dammit he could be a real heartless son of a bitch sometimes.

I’d known Qrow most of my life and sure he was a bit of a wild card but he wouldn’t just drop off the map like that. I wondered if Jim was just still sour over the big blow out they’d had.

I looked over the case files for the dozenth time. There had to be something. None of the victims knew each other. None of the deaths were similar. The victims themselves had seemingly nothing in common. So what? What was it that Qrow latched onto? ....and who thought he was looking to closely..

I heard the muffled whispers from some beat cops not too far from where I sat.

“Old bad luck Branwen eh?”

“Yeah, still no sign of em’ probably owed the wrong guy money”

“Who cares? I heard that guy was crooked anyway-“

I don’t remember getting up. Next thing I knew I had the punk up against the wall, slamming my fist against his jaw.

“Say it again” I shouted “SAY IT!”

I felt several arms pulling me back, I struggled against them as the loud mouth cop was being held back by his friend.

“What the hells the matter with you?” he cried.

“You say another word about Qrow Branwen, you’ll spend the rest of your life eating through a straw!” I spat back

Ironwood charged out of his office, positioning himself inbetween us.

“What the hell is going on in here?” He snapped. “You. Edwards. My office. Tai? Take a walk.”

“Captain-“

“I said take a walk!” He yelled “and if you got a problem with that, you can leave your badge at the door.”

We held glares for a few seconds, but I shrugged off the arms that held me and grabbed my jacket, marching my way out. As I left I heard a few murmured conversations before the Captains voice raised again.

“Oh I’m sorry? Is this a sowing circle?” he said “No? Then cut the gossip and get your asses back to work!”

Outside the precinct I stood in the rain. The light drizzle was steadily picking up into what was sure to be one hell of a storm as I tried to collect my thoughts. I had only been out there a few minutes when an expensive looking black car pulled up in front of me. It’s rear window rolled down slightly, revealing a pair of jade green eyes.

“Detective Xiao Long?” A woman’s voice asked.

“Whose asking?”

“My name is Glynda Goodwitch. My employer would like to have a word with you.”

“And who would that be..?”

The woman didn’t answer. She simply looked forward as the window rolled back up.

I looked around at the empty street. Not a soul around to witness but something told me this was an opportunity I shouldn’t pass up.

With a sigh I walked around to the other side of the vehicle and climbed in. The car drove off into the night and towards the strangest case of my life.

*****************************************

Mount Glenn estate.

10: 49 pm

After a quiet and lengthy drive we arrived at Mount Glenn estate. A large castle like mansion that bordered the edge of town.No one knew who owned it just that it had been around for as long as anyone could remember.

Walking through the halls of the darkened manor, I couldn’t help but feel incredibly small. It’s high ceilings and wide hallways filled to the brim with paintings and baubles of all shapes and sizes perhaps was suppose it give an air of openness. Instead it felt more empty, like a long abandoned museum.

From deeper within the estate I could hear the quiet sounds of music, getting louder with each step that drew us closer.

“My employer is something of a collector” Said Ms. Goodwitch. “Some of the rarest treasures can be found within these walls”

“Well I certainly can respect a man that appreciates beauty enough to surround himself with it” I said, my gaze lingering briefly on her.

If I didn’t know any better I’d say she’d almost smiled.

We stopped at a large set of double doors, the music was at its loudest. She opened the door and ushered me inside. Before exiting herself and quietly shutting the door.

Across the room, his back to me, only partially visible from the light of the roaring fire place, stood a man playing the violin.

He faced the enormous windows on the far wall, staring out into the vast expanses of ocean being rocked by the storm.

The melody he played was solemn and slow. It’s haunting notes seemed to reverberate off the walls, coming at me from all directions.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there enraptured but eventually something snapped me to my senses. I cleared my throat.

The music stopped instantly. The man held his position for a moment as if he wasn’t sure that the noise hadn’t simply been a figment of his imagination.

The pause in the music seemed to embolden the storm. Thunder rumbling loudly and the rain finding new ferver amidst the silence. The man lowered his instrument, placing it into its case beside him with almost lover like gentleness.

“Detective..” he said still looking out the window, his hands folded behind him. “I’m so pleased you could join me this evening.”

“Well, a beautiful woman asks me to go somewhere. I tend to listen”

“So I’ve heard” he said.

Before I could ask what he meant he continued, still facing the darkness of the sea. “Please. Have a seat”

Next to the fire place where to high back black leather chairs. I made my way to one, almost immediately sinking into the seat. The man could afford the best it seemed.

There was another long stretch of silence. After a moment or two the man moved from his scenic view and took the seat opposite of mine, crossing his legs and resting both hands over his knee.

His soft honey eyes betrayed the youthful features of his face, stained with sights of things far beyond his years. Despite his polite demeanor I could feel his gaze picking me apart bit by bit.

“My name is Arthur Ozpin” he said finally finding his voice once more.

“Why am I here” I said, becoming alittle unnerved by this whole situation.

“Because you chose to be”

“I beg your pardon?”

He didn’t stop to clarify. Instead he adjusted the small green spectacles he wore and moved right along.

“Does the name Jonathan Katch mean anything to you?” He asked

The first victim. I could feel him trying to gauge my reaction but you don’t spend as long as I have on the force without a mean poker face to keep the civilians content.

“Mr. Katch, was found dead in his home five months ago” I said using what Qrow used to call my ‘cop voice’.

“How dreadful” Ozpin said calmly. “What was the cause of death?”

“That’s under investigation”

“Savanna Martin?”

Another victim. One of the more recent ones. I started to become incredibly aware of the pistol holster against my side. What was this all about?

“....also under investigation.” I said eyeing the man.

From beside his chair he retrieved a cane. It was simple in design. Flat black with the odd ring of silver here and there and atop serving as the handle, a green gemstone smoothed into a vaguely ovate shape.

His pale fingers traced over the stone, which almost seemed to glow in the fire light.

“And what of.....Qrow Branwen?” he asked quietly.

I jumped to my feet, gun in hand. asking about the murders. Asking about Qrow. The whole thing had just set my nerves to max.

Who was this man? Was he responsible for Qrow disappearance? Was I next for looking to closely into the matter?

Despite the barrel in his face, Ozpin made no noticeable change in expression.

“Now, now” he said “there’s no need for all that.”

“Who are you?” I demanded

“I am, I suspect the only person in this world who is as interested in finding Qrow Branwen as you are” he said

“What do these deaths have to do with Qrow?”

“That, Detective” he said rising from his seat, a burning intensity sharpening his stare. “Is precisely what I intend to discover”

#story taime #rwby #taiyang-too-long #strq #taiyang xiao long #qrow branwen #team strq #ozpin #for old times sake #rwby au #rwby fanfic #rwby fic #strq fanfiction #rwby fanfiction #strq fanfic #strq fic

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sublimegentlemanalpaca · 4 years

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A Current list of Eldritchicians those developed and under developed.

I will list the Currently thought up Eldritchicians. This might be repetitive but ah well. Will have their name, what Eldritch topics they’re familiar with, any particular interesting bits about them like if they’re part of a Splinter group or what have you. Hope you find this interesting, and if you have any questions be they important or otherwise...please ask away! Please? Alyss Violet Eldridge: First Eldritchician. The Arch Overseer, Founder and leader of the FoE. Adopted daughter of Alvis Vadim Eldritch. Raised by Alvis and the rest of his Fellows. Has learned a little of everything from the each Eldritch Fellow (even Alastor) Skilled in the Rapier, Carnwennanian Dagger, excellent persuader and diplomat (when necessary). Always has a book on her person. Has an Awoken Shadow. Is Dark skinned with unnaturally white hair. Wears three Rings. Her Overseer and Arch Overseer Rings on her left (An Iron Ring set with Amethyst and a Silver Ring set with Lapis Lazuli), and a Ring gifted to her by the Eldritch Fellows which is visibly made of Orichalcum with a brilliant blood red stone of some sort (a very philosophical sort). Immediate superior to all Eldritchicians. Will occasionally not wear her Overseer Rings and go about business as a simple Eldritchician, usually teaming up with Tomomi and Charles Williams. Overseer Secundus Sinbad Al-Amin. A Cartographer and Blacksmith from Damascus. Knows how to make Damascus Steel. Has learned from Alvis(Wisdom) Albus(Ghosts and Sea Creatures) , Algimantas (Items and Objects and Allan (Demons and things considered Demons and such). Vice Chancellor of the Academy for Eldritchicians. An avid Cartographer of Strange and unusual Locales. A friend to Alvis. Wears two rings. One is his Overseer Ring, the other is a Agate Ring which to my knowledge is a custom of Muslim men. If this is incorrect, please correct me. Overseer Morgan Maddox. A Scottish (or Welsh? I’m not sure yet) Warrior. Friend of Alyss. Heads the Saint Alyss Academy for Eldritchicians. Skilled in Spear, and Carnwennanian Dagger. The Overseer who ...oversees the paperwork for the occasional necessary extermination and such? Monster hunting and the like. Learned under the Legendary Scàthach before meeting Alyss and the Eldritch Fellows. As an Eldritchician Studied under Alvis, Algimantas, Albus, and Alaire. Her Spear is made by Albus from The bone of a Sea Monster, Silver, Cold Iron, Meteoric Iron, And Orichalcum. Has a Prosthetic Arm of Magic Silver made by Algimantas. Wears her Overseer Ring on her left hand. Overseer Runa. A Norse Elf who along with her sister Huld followed Alvis around for a month or two certain that he was Odin. When the two realized Alvis was in fact not Odin they stuck around all the same. Runa joined the founding Eldritchicians while Huld helps in managing the Archives alongside Sophocles. Runa is basically the Bard (or Skald I suppose) of the Overseers. Has studied under Alvis, Algimantas, Albus, Alaire (for storytelling). Wears her Overseer Ring on his left hand. Overseer Cosmin The Solomonar: as the Title suggests, Cosmin is a (former?) Solomonar. A Wizard (?) From Romanian Folklore (Mythology?). Controls the Weather and rides a Dragon. Runs the Grey School, modeled after his own Education as a Solomonar at the Scholomance. Already knew a whole lot but has studied with Alvis, Algimantas, Albus, Alaire, and studied with Algernon even. Wears his Overseer Ring Overseer Archimedes: A Mothman. Tall black winged thing . Best friend to Alaire. In charge of the Fellows In Grey, a Splinter group in the Fellowship that deals with Cryptids, Aliens, and so on. Does not wear his Overseer Ring nor any of his pins. He leaves all the stuff which denotes him as an Eldritchician with Alaire. Alaire being the only Eldritch Fellow to actually kinda sorta join the FoE. Sophocles of Alexandria: Head Archivist for the Fellowship. He is not really an Overseer....he is imprisoned in the Archives for having tried stealing a book from Alvis...this did not end well for Sophocles place of Employment, The Library of Alexandria (books were sparred, rest was destroyed). Can not leave the Archives. Medusa: Former Priestess of Athena, Gorgon. Studied Alvis’ Wisdom, Algimantas’ stuff (who she hates), Alpheas, and with Albus. In a Trio with Ismene and Prioska. Studied shapeshifters and transformation with Alphaes (spelling?). In a relationship with Ismene. Her serpent locks are Golden. Ismene: Former Priestess of Athena. Also a Former Statue. Still has some Statue characteristics. Studied with Alvis, Algimantas, and Albus. In a relationship with Medusa. Prioska Lakatos: A Vampire from Hungary. Skilled in Clockwork. Has a Coat she stole from Albus. Calls Albus Alucard. Studied under Albus, Alvis, Algimantas, and Alaire. On a Trio with Ismene and Medusa. Also a part of Alyss’ Intelligentsia (keeping track of other secret Societies and Spy things). Loves teasing Quincey. Quincey Johnathan Jack Harker: Eldest son of Johnathan and Mina Harker. Vampire Hunter. Studied with Albus (Ghosts and stuff), Algimantas, Alvis. Duel wields Bowie Knives (one belonging to his Namesake, the other made of Adamant by Albus). Is Bi...not always the brightest...Can see Ghosts. On a Trio with Horatio and Runa. Might be in a relationship with Huld? Lucius Abraham Arthur Harker: Second Harker Son and Younger brother to Quincey. Is not an Eldritchician. He is a ghost though and is haunting his Brother (‘To keep an eye on my dummy of a Brother so he doesn’t get himself killed). Will regularly set up Hauntings so as to set up his brother with Eligible Bachelors and Bachelorettes and so on. Huld: Norse elf who followed Alvis for months thinking he was Odin with her sister Runa. Might be in a relationship with Quincey? Learned from Alaire, Albus, Algimantus, as well Alewar (Eldritch Horrors In a Extra Planetary Or Lovecraftian sense), and Alwin (Fae and Elves). In a relationship with Quincey? Leader of her Trio? Horatio aka ‘Doctor Faustus’: A Danish Man recognized for dressing in all black. Wields a Rapier. Known as Doctor Faustus since he’s studied Demons with Allan and he studied at Wittenberg. Studied with Alaire and has an Awoken Shadow. It is named but he always says it so quietly, only Horatio and Alaire know the name. Quincey has been able to catch that the name of Horatio’s Shadow starts with an H...followed by an A. Horatio has put all his Eldritch studies into Shadows, Demons and Ghosts. It is rumored he gave his Soul over to Allan V Eldritch. Wields a Carnwennanian Dagger Or a Bespoked Bodkin. Leaving his own Shadow...Lighter for lack of a better phrase . In a Trio with Quincey and Huld. Aeschylus Adams: A Werewolf Ranger, and one of Alyss’ Intelligentsia. Think of a mix of Aragorn and Halt O’Carrick. Excellent Thief and Pick pocket. Studied with Alaire (Cryptids, Shadows, and Folklore), Albus, and Algimantas. Studied Druid craft and stuff with Alfr. In a Trio with Midas Little and Murdann. Dr. Mercury Little: one of Four Little Brothers (three of whom are a part of the FoE), differentiated From his brothers by his Seemingly unnatural Silver hair. Studied Angels and Alchemy with Aldread, Albus, Alvis, and Alaire. Murdann Eldritch: A Finwife From Orkney. First Wife of Albus Viggo Eldritch. Joined after having been with Albus for some years. Knows what Albus has to teach, learned from Alvis, and Alfr. An exceptional Healer. Regularly has Weaving Contests with Ismene and Medusa. In a Trio with Dr Little and Aeschylus. Open relationship with Albus. Dr. Hermes Little: Same as Doctor Mercury Little. Only he has white Hair. Eldest of the Little ‘Brothers’. Studied all the same stuff. In a Trio with Charles Williams and Clarissa Williams. Charles Williams: Once an Editor now an Eldritchician. Tried repeatedly to join the FoE and finally managed it after trying forever. Studied Alchemy and Angels with Aldread, Magical Items with Algimantas (specifically Relics), Ghosts with Albus, and a bunch of others (Alvis, Alwin, and Algernon). The Left hand of the Arch Overseer. Go to diplomat between other Secret Societies. One of Alyss’ Intelligentsia( occasionally answers to the Codename Walsingham). Also, I should mention he’s an ESPer....Telepathy, Telekinesis, and Pyrokinesis for fun ;) . Clarissa Williams: Alternate Charles Williams. ESPER, Can see Ghosts Naturally. Intelligentsia member (Code Name Francis). Dr. Midas Little: same as the other Doctor Littles except that his hair is Golden. In a Trio with Tomomi and Dr. Leeds. Tomomi.: a Kitsune, friend to Alyss since she (Alyss) was young. Expert on Yokai and things. Studied with Alaire, Alvis, Albus, Algimantus and Alpheas (because shapeshifting). Just decided to be the guardian of Alvis’ Bookshop when they were in Japan one time. In a Trio with Dr. Midas Little and Dr. Leeds. when not going on solo missions for Alyss. A part of Alyss’ Intelligentsia (Code Name Dee, because she wasn’t fond of Kit Marlowe as a Codename). Doctor Mary Leeds: 12th Child of the Leeds family and the immediate Elder sibling and Caretaker to John Daniel Leeds...aka...the Jersey Devil. A Medicinal Doctor. Studied with Albus, Alvis, Algimantas, and Alaire. Stood up for her baby Brother when he killed one of the Night Crawlers working for Archimedes. She keeps track of Her Brother to make sure he doesn’t cause trouble (otherwise Archimedes and Alaire will need to deal with him). Learned medicine from the Black Doctor Ghost. One of the Fellows In Grey. Developed the spray they use to wipe memories and things. Mr Erland Ranswell: A Grey Alien in a Grey Suit. One of Archimedes’ Fellows In Grey. A Linguist and Cartographer. Has endeavored to learn the Whooping language of the Fresno Nightcrawlers Employed by Archimedes and Alaire. In a Trio ‘officially’ but not really with Dr. Livesey and Dr. Mercury Little. Dr. Yorick Roger Livesey: Once a Ship’s Surgeon now an animate Skeleton (rather than a Ghost like most who stay at Albus’ Lighthouses). Dressed in Piratey clothes and wears one of Albus’ old Coats when not doing Surgery or what have you. Has studied with Albus, Alaire, and Alvis. As well as Algernon. Can not speak and communicates In two ways. Either sign language or a horrible creaking noise that has an echo of bone saws. The first is interpreted by a Talking Raven Named Apollo Teach, the second by a Talking Snake Named Asclepius Hands. Asclepius’ Voice is supposed to serve as an auditory Balm after hearing Yorick Speak. Dr. Livesey gets along with Murdann and Prioska. He works closely with Albus ( being his First mate in a way?). Teaches medicine at Sinbad’s College for Eldritchicians. When out and about he will wear gloves and a mask to hide the whole...being a Skeleton thing. Dr. Mercury Little: Same as the other Little’s his hair is Silver and he looks younger than Hermes Little. Miss Calista Flatwood: Archimedes Second in command for running the Fellows In Grey. Is the Flatwoods Monster.... Mister Ray Green: A little green Alien. Astro Cartographer. Teleportation technology? I don’t know. Just thought to have a little green man. One of the Fellows In Grey. Let’s see am I forgetting anyone...ah right. Rosemary: A Fairy, once Royal Retainer to King Alberich (who is now Alwin) V Eldritch. Corrupter of Words. A Member of Alyss’ Intelligentsia, Rosemary keeps his eye on the the goings ons of The Fae Courts since his Master has had to abdicate. Is ultimately Loyal to Alwin, but works for Alyss under Alwin’s orders. The expert on Fae among the Eldritchicians. The Nightcrawler Corp: A bunch of Fresno Nightcrawlers that act as Scouts and Recon and things. They are Archimedes’ Eyes and ears for all the goings ons of Cryptids and whatever else they’re asked to look into. They answer to Archimedes only or those who relay things from Archimedes. They communicate in a series of Whoops and Kicking. Only Archimedes and Alaire are fluent in their language. The Hide Behind Network/ Erebus Hyde: A Hide Behind was stalking Alaire once...only to get caught by Aldjoy (Alaire’s living Shadow). Alaire befriended the Creature, and gave it the Name Erebus Hyde. The Hide Behind Network is all Hide Behinds being in a sort of Hive Mind (A Hide Mind?) they are many....They are not Shadows as Alaire originally thought. But they are something...something Old...perhaps only younger then the Eldritch Fellows themselves. Certain Eldritchicians (Dr. Leeds, Horatio, Overseer Morgan and others) know when a Hidebehind is behind them, and they will be sure to make people who they’re giving messages to know they’re there. They all answer to the name Erebus Hyde...all address Alaire as Friend, (and Address all the other Fellows by that title)...others they’ll address by their relation to Alaire. Okay..I think that’s everyone! And in Trios to! Be sure to ask any questions about any of these Fellows you might have. Stuff subject to change. Make of this what you will. Al, the Chronographing Cottager and Prince of Naming

#FoE #The FoE #OCs #My OCs #Eldritchicians #the Fellowship of Eldritchicians #Make of this what you will #My Writing

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michaelromance · 5 years

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Ao3 Bingo

A slightly more detailed list of the recs I've posted on twitter here.

A fanworks challenge

Not In This Land Alone

Fandom

: Merlin (TV)

Ship: Arthur/Merlin

Modern AU. When Merlin Emrys gets a summer job at Buckingham Palace, he doesn't expect to even meet King Arthur, let alone become involved in protecting him from a plot to overthrow the monarchy. Fanwork challenge: Merlin Big Bang Challenge

A podfic under 30 minutes

holi holi (holiday) Fandom: SVT/PTG

Ship: Jun/Yanan

“So,” he begins, casually, “Why are you looking for a mattress, anyway?”Yanan furrows his brows a little bit. “To sleep on. Is that not the usual?” Podfic length: 16:26

A comment you left on a fanwork

City of Trees

Fandom: BTS

Ship: Jungkook/Taehyung

Against his better judgement Jungkook falls for the art college kid from one apartment up.

A fanwork over 50 000 words long

Acte de Foi

Fandom: Seventeen

Ship: Wonhui

Wonwoo leaps into the air and his jumps take him up, up, and up. Even when Junhui stops practicing his pirouettes, his head spins, spins, and spins. Those two things may or may not be related, but Junhui’s too busy trying to survive his third and final year of high school to notice.

A ballet AU, of sorts.

A fanwork from a small fandom

Ashes

Fandom: The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Ship: Goodnight Robicheaux/Billy Rocks

Present Billy Rocks with his path set in stone, and he’d probably just reach into his belt for a knife and carve a new destiny right out.

A canon-divergent fanwork

as to the river, so to the sea

Fandom: Black Panther

No ship/Gen

“I’m your favorite sister!”T’Challa nods. “She has a point,” he tells Erik, who flicks a chip at him.“And I’m your favorite cousin!”“Mm, debatable. I have many cousins,” T’Challa says and this time Erik throws an entire handful of chips.

Scenes from a life hypothetical.

Free square! Your favourite fanwork

A Change in Energy (The Force over Distance Remix Project)

Fandom: Stargate

Ship: Nicholas Rush/Everett Young

A remix of cleanwhiteroom's Force over Distance (which it's not necessary to have read). Rush gets psychically linked to Destiny. And to Young.

A fanwork with a colour in the title

Red Sky in Morning

Fandom: BTS

Ships: Namjoon/Taehyung, Jungkook/Yoongi

Captain Namjoon's cursed crew searches the Caribbean for a ship that can save them, and Namjoon's own men have more magic than they let on.

A podfic over 1 hour

Maggie Fitzgerald and the Salt Water Dip

Fandom: The Amazing Spider-Man

Ship: Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy

Google politely tells her there are no poisonous spiders in Manhattan. Judging by her symptoms -- fever, superstrength, newfound desire to shove herself into small dark spaces, and sudden reputation as a masked vigilante -- Gwen would beg to differ. [Spider!Gwen AU.]

A fanvid

Loves Like This

Fandom: Black Sails

Ships: James McGraw | Captain Flint/Thomas Hamilton, Miranda Barlow/James McGraw | Captain Flint, James McGraw | Captain Flint/John Silver

Thomas's death drove Flint to destruction in his name. Miranda's death drove him to destruction for its own sake. In Silver, Flint has found a partner who meets him in the darkness.

What kind of man loves like this?

Set to the song What Kind of Man by Florence + The Machine.

#tmi #text #ao3bingo #ficrec #this isn't finished #but i'm so tired #i will continue later

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ariabauer · 6 years

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100 Carmilla Stories - RunWithWolves Masterpost

Missing Hollstein? Already re-watched the series dozens of times? Need some Carmilla in your life? Then I have the fics for you. Seriously. I’ve written 100 Carmilla stories and categorized them here for your convenience (some stories fit into multiple but i did my best)

If you want...

Fake Dating/Marriage - i just really love this trope

Politician Carmilla has to get engaged to someone for her campaign and ends up with her long time best friend Laura. Marriage of Convenience

When Laura hears that actress Carmilla is fake dating her ex, she has some words for her best friend. A Rational Irrationality

Princesses Laura and Carmilla told the world they were dating to get out of arranged marriages. It’s easy til they fall in love. Not Really a Royal Romance

Laura wakes up in the hospital to find ex Carmilla at her side after they apparently got married a decade before. The Girl Who Got Away

As far as anyone knows, pHd candidates Laura and Carmilla hate each other. Lab Manager Laf is onto them. Worst Lab Partner Ever

General Fantasy - Supernatural beyond just vampires

Hollstein are dragon riders and Carmilla is not taking the responsibility seriously enough for Laura. Just A Girl and Her Dragon

Vampire Carmilla never expected to find old roomate Laura working a magical flower store in Diagon Ally. Lophii’s Blooms

Carmilla never wanted magic and Laura can’t unlock her own, they’re stuck together until they figure it out. circle of magic au Magic of My Own

Movies at Silas come to life and drag Carmilla into the role of Prince Charming while Laura gets sleeping beauty. Silas Movie Night

Werewolf Laura and Vampire Carmilla don’t get along and Carmilla doesn’t understand why Laura doesn’t turn her over tot he hunters. Like Cats and Dogs

Carmilla’s the best surgeon in the hospital but she swallows her pride and asks Dr Hollis for help when she gets an unusual sickness. Paging Doctor’s Hollis and Karnstein

Laura is angry because Carmilla thinks her blood tastes gross and spits it out instead of killing her. False Advertising

Clockwork Au: Laura and Carmilla to each have creatures made of clockwork (dragon and cat respectively) that represent their souls. Silver and Gold

Myths and Fairytales - sometimes you need a Hollstein happily ever after

Sassy Laura barges into Carmilla’s castle with a rose and demands a curse be lifted from her father. Beauty in A Beast ft Catmilla

Cupid Laura is determined to find vampire Carmilla’s soulmate even if Carmilla doesn’t want her too. Stalked By Cupid

Totally-in-love Laura and a tiny kitten Catmilla. Princess and the Frog twist, The Princess and the Kitten

Goddess of Spring Laura is accidentally kidnapped by Lord of the Dead Carmilla. Hades/Persephone AU. Queen of the Underworld

Carmilla goes overboard into the ocean during a storm and never expected a mermaid to pluck her from the sea. Kissed a Mermaid

War is over and shepherd god Carmilla can’t wait to go home to her wife. Sumerian god au. The Shepherd God

Orphan Laura falls in love with witch!Carmilla and chases after Carmilla when she runs. King Arthur au. Sword In My Stone Heart

The gods disappeared and Greek demigod Laura demands Sumerian demigod Carmilla help her save them. Daughter of Love and War

Science Fiction Fun - time travel and space and oh my!

Carmilla’s time machine keeps taking her to a small human child. When Carmilla stops coming back, grown up Laura stows away. Time Travel Malfunction

After graduation, bffs Carmilla and Laura take their spaceship on a roadtrip with definitely no pining. Roadtrip To the Stars

Captain Hollis is forced to let cocky co-pilot Carmilla join her starship crew as she tries to stop black holes from devouring the universe. Star Filled Memories

Cops or Superheroes Au - nothing like a good bout of crime fighting and a mystery to get flirty Hollstein roaring to life

Laura as a detective and Carmilla as the flirty annoying writer following her around as they try to solve murders. Write Me A Murder

Laura who doesn’t have superpowers trying to navigate a school for the superpowered featuring asshat with superstrength Carmilla. Powerless

FBI agent Carmilla trapped in a bank/bomb heist and sending flirty notes to the hostage negotiator Laura. Don’t Let Go

Supervillain Carmilla and superhero Laura being arch-enemies and yet their alter egos are roommates. Beneath the Boots and Leather

Special Agent Hollis would have an easier time getting through the laser field if her annoying partners wasn’t so flirty. Mission Flirtable

Vampires know there’s no such thing as superheros. Laura didn’t get the memo and she’s now Carmilla’s problem. Not a Superhero

Fire Princess Carmilla has flames at her fingertips and still isn’t ready for her air-powered roommate. atla au Fire In My Veins and Air in My Lungs

Star Reporter Laura is determined to get an interview with Superwoman if only her incompetent partner Carmilla stopped getting in the way. At The Daily Planet

Batwoman doesn’t have time for dating even if Wonder Woman ‘call me Laura' makes her heart flutter. No Dating For Batwoman

Could Be During Canon? - Trying to fit stories inside the world we love

Reincarnation AU where Carmilla's vampirism allows her to die and then come back to life 9 times. Nine Lives to Die

Carmilla plans a date after Laura asked her to the Zeta party. s1 Date Like it’s 1698

Each episode written in an extremely snarky tone in Carmilla’s diary. Dear Creampuff

Countess Karnstein is looking for the partner who dances in step with her. The Right Partner

Laura is the girl who cares and Carmilla doesn’t know what to do when she stops. s2 story. A Question of Caring

8 times Laura uses a Bandaid and 2 times she doesn’t. Stick an Apatosaurus to My Heart

Even though Laura’s dead, alt-Carm keeps hearing her heartbeat everywhere she goes. Floating Through A Stone Wall

Laura breathes until she doesn’t. Carmilla doesn’t breathe until she does. With Human Breath

Hollstein gets trapped in the s2 cellar with a magical snowstorm raging upstairs. Cuddling for warmth. Colder Than Our Hearts

Hollstein says hey a lot. It’s kind of their thing. A look at all seasons and the movie and what that word means. Hey

Canon Alternatives - twists on the way it went

Carmilla dies from the Dean’s sword and Laura brings her back, binding them together forever. The Golden Heart of Paris

Laura gets her heart back but doesn’t wake up so Mattie comes to her with a deal. Hold Her Hand

Danny is dead and the the campus is gone and Laura Hollis has had enough of people dying in her name. An Explanation for Deification

Laura saved them all from Vordenberg but paid a price Carmilla wish she hadn’t to channel a god’s power. Behind Your Ancient Eyes

Laura had meant to do romantic things for Carmilla, she’d just thought they’d have more time. I Meant To Do That

LaFerry fic where Laf is a ghost and keeps stealing substance from Carmilla so that Perry can touch them. Define Death

Saving Laura to be the only reason Carmilla would ever willingly get back inside the coffin. Coffin of Starlight

Barely friends Carmilla and Laura literally glued together including obligatory shower scene. The Sticking Incident

Mircalla’s doesn’t remember her past but her next client looks familar and, instead of taking her ‘services’, just wants to talk. Find You In the Dark

One Carmilla was bad, Laura has no idea how to handle 2 version of her ex girlfriend when they’re stuck in the library. Split Personality, Literally

Laura has amnesia but is thrilled to find out the hot vampire by her bed is her wife. Absolute jackpot Wake Up With a Hot Wife

Carmilla’s soul is trapped in the pit and Laura and the scooby gang have to figure out how to put her back together. Colours of A Soul

After Canon Ends - what could happen next

Post Movie Hollstein and their daughter go looking for the fountain of youth. Retcon the retcon. Family Trip to the Fountain

Papa Hollis gives a speech at a Hollstein wedding that gives all the feels as he tells Laura’s life story. That’s My Daughter

Vamp Laura going through a photo album and telling stories about her adventures with Carmilla. A Live Well Lived

Laura, her father, and eventually Carmilla leave letters on Laura’s mother’s tombstone. Until We Meet Again

Mortal Laura and immortal Carmilla trying to figure out their lives and how to handle forever. Dandelion Promises

Vampires can’t go inside churches but Carmilla still likes to listen to the bells. Laura follows her. post movie. Monstrous Grace

Laura leaves a letter for Carmilla to give to all of Laura’s reincarnations over the centuries. The One Who Loves Her Next

Pregnant Laura has weird 2am cravings for Carmilla to try and fill. 9 Months of Mustard

Musical Hollstein - Trying to write melody with words

Tired world class musician Carmilla gives beginner Laura lessons and falls a little bit in love with her and the music. Teach Me to Play

Carmilla’s sent to interview her ex, pop star Laura. It’s been years and Carmilla can still see the brokenness her mother put on Laura’s face. To Hope Beyond an Unfinished Melody

Coffee Shop and Cooking Hollstein

Laura moves in with the hot coffee barista she has a crush on it’s both the best and the worst. Coffee Cupcake Crush

Laura can’t make coffee but she can set up all her customers with each other, the only person she can’t find a match for is fellow barista and ‘cupid-in-crime’ Carmilla. The Ultimate Coffee Shop Au

Angsty chefs Hollstein run a cooking show but when things get hot in the kitchen, they become secret exes with benefits. Cooking With Hollstein

Human Hollstein - Nothing supernatural. Just our girls being cute.

Billionaire playgirl Carmilla can’t bring herself to be a playboy when it’s Laura she’s taking as her date. Read The Carmilla Karnstein Special

Laura sees a girl on the subway but couldn’t speak to her so writes a ‘missing person’ ad instead. Missed Connections

Aggressive salesman Laura sells girl scout cookies with tiny Laf and knocks on Carmilla’s door. Just Buy the Cookies

Adorable sticky note conversations between broody Carmilla and the girl on the day shift who stole her mug. The Mug Thief

Drunk Carmilla comes into Laura’s tattoo shop and demands a tattoo on her butt. Tattoos and Bikinis

Laura literally falls into Carmilla’s lap on the bus and a spunky older gentleman gives love advice. Strangers on a Bus

Laura’s not very good a camping and the night’s cold when your tent collapses, might have to share sleeping bags. To Build A Tent

Librarian Karnstein enjoys annoying Professor Hollis by rearranging the books to see her scrunched nose. Librarian Hottie

Laura signs up to be a toymaking Christmas elf but gets a grumpy partner who hates making toys. Christmas Trains

Hockey player Laura is determined to get concessions booth worker Carmilla to love the skating rink. Cookies Cupcakes and Hockey Captains.

High School Hollstein Stories

Nerd Laura becomes the quarterback and only reluctant cheerleader Carmilla doesn’t change around her. A Classic High School Love Story

Laura is desperate for cookies and Carmilla ate them all after high school home ec. How to Avoid Kale

Hollstein neighbours shoot nerf guns and marshmallow guns and water guns at each other. War of the Windows

Hollstein becoming friend in kindergarten and then grow up together while getting into all kinds of trouble. Loving Trouble

Hollstein with Animals - Fluffier than fluff because animals are fluffy

Reluctant dog walker Carmilla can’t say no to vet Laura’s requests to walk various animals so they get exercise. Puppy Dog Eyes

Pet Store worker Carmilla saves Laura after she kills Laf’s fish. Again and again. One Fish Two Fish

Carmilla’s cat to keep bringing home some mysterious girl’s underwear. Drawer of Lingerie

Carmilla’s cat gets Laura’s cat pregnant and Laura demands Carmilla co-parent the kittens. Bonus unexpected canoe. Kitten Kisses

Carmilla rescuing Laura from evil spiders in the laundry room. For Fear of Spiders

Playing With Words - Hollstein examined in a story

The story on campus before Carmilla reached room 307 told like Welcome to the Nightvale. Welcome To Silas

Writing the movie plot before the movie came out with Hollstein engagement and Ell closure. It’s Not About the Plot

Laura’s a baker, Carmilla’s a firefighter. An examination of what a Hollstein story really is. A Generic Carmilla Story

Detailing the 100 little ways Hollstein fell in love over the seasons. 100 Ways They Fell in Love

Soulmates - because who doesn’t love some soulmate Aus. Usually twisted from the typical soulmate version or an original idea

Tiny literal hearts to pop up every time Carmilla looks at Laura and all Carmilla wants is for Laura to NEVER SEE THEM.Love is Orange

The scars from one person to show up only on the body of their soulmate featuring a Carmilla who is scarless for centuries and a Laura who will only wear long sleeves. Scars Inside

Timer soulmate au where Carmilla meets a tiny five year old Laura on her first day of school and suddenly finds her timer has started counting down to the moment they fall in love. A Broken Pocketwatch

A mirror will let you see your soulmate every year on your birthday but everyone is convinced there’s been a mistake when 21th century Laura sees 17th century Carmilla in the mirror. The Mirror Between Us

Fairy Laura follows her soulmate compass through a jungle only to find a panther. Carmilla’s not interested in soulmates. Follow Your Arrow

Everyone is born with a soulmate marker to write the name of their chosen soulmate on their skin. Vampires don’t have ink. s1-3 We Chose Each Other

Child countess Carmilla wished on stars for a best friend and got an imaginary lion. Centuries later, child Laura makes the same wish and finds a panther on her doorstep. Wishing On Imaginary Stars

Carmilla has never seen color until the world starts flickering when a kid can’t find their mom. A Hint of Colour

You can hear the music of your own soul and your soulmate but vampire Carmilla can’t hear the music. After Ell separates them, can Laura find her again and again? In Every Universe You Are My Symphony

This has been a 3 year labour of love. The stories vary in length from about 2k to over 100,000k for a total of more than half a million words. Have suggested stories? Let people know! It’s a big list!

Hope you enjoy them and thank you for all of your support creampuffs! <3 Aria

#carmilla #hollstein #laura hollis #carmilla karnstein #runwithwolves #aria bauer #long post #masterpost

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