#but i like to think it looked into the seas of wrath and caught a glimpse of her. then looked away and looked back to see nothing there..

[sorrcha]

sometimes i wonder if v1 ever thinks about v2

[aezuria]

*ੈ✎ xoxo, gossip girl!

content: leo valdez x reader, percy jackson x reader, jason grace x reader

╰┈▸ back cover: how would gossip sessions with them go?

warnings: cursing, rude humor??

librarian's annotations: doing this instead of requests um

*ੈ LEO VALDEZ

SASSY MAN APOCALYPSE

god hes probably talking shit more than u

"oh her? yeah she was such a bitch like no way she looked at you like that when i said i was so obviously taken!"

"and her hair? has she ever heard of a brush? like, if you're gonna come at my girlfriend, at least make yourself look better so you don't embarrass yourself. oh wait, you can't!"

probably laying on you as he does this, and starts squeezing you tightly

"because my girlfriend is the prettiest girl in the world!"

awww that's cute right?

WRONG this man is so quick with his comebacks its actually insane

does NOT think before he speaks

doesnt hold back, even against you (booo why did ur gf privileges not apply to that)

"leo! can you like, move your fat ass off me?" you groan under him as he lays down with his dead weight on top of you.

"like the fat ass you don't have?"

were you silent or SILENCED

everytime you think he wouldnt take it that far?? oh he will go THERE (but he always makes sure u know hes joking)

doesnt want to invoke your wrath so he apologizes IMMEDIATELY

"fix your hair-"

"fix your face- IM SORRY I DIDNT MEAN TO-"

*ੈ PERCY JACKSON

guys. we cant forget abt the OG SASSY MAN

also talking shit a whole lot more than he should

"uh, she needs to get her act together before she can start coming at others; like-" rolls his eyes for EMPHASIS "who does she think she is, talking to you like that?"

damn, who taught this man sass?

bro was BORN with it or smth

even outsasses you sometimes

if you tell him to get like a snack or something and hes in the mood to just lay down with you, he will huff SO loudly

"ugh, fine!"

gets you extra snacks anyway in case you want more (and drinks obviously)

SO SO INVESTED like he has the WHOLE story down

but sometimes mixes up the ppl if its been a while

"wait wait, so the library girl and the jock are dating?"

"the nerd and the library girl are dating, but the jock wanted library girl."

"that makes a lot of sense, actually."

has tea of his OWN because the sea knows everything apparently

"tobias told me-" percy started.

"who the fuck is tobias?"

"the turtle, duh. anyway, he said that this guy always takes girls to the beach on their first date, to make them fall in love with him or something. like, every single girl he's dated."

"...does that count as a manipulation tactic?"

*ੈ JASON GRACE

will be on your side no matter what

like if you end it with an "it is what it is"

um??? it is NOT what it is hello?

doesnt look like hes listening but hes paying attention to EVERYTHING

like hes "reading" a book but hes been on the same page for the entire time youve been talking

tries not to laugh at your rather creative insults, but sometimes you get a soft chuckle out of him

you take that as a win

once, you caught him listening through the door as you gossiped with piper over the phone

he was SO embarrassed omg

after that, you made sure to tell him all the tea as soon as you have it

"—and he cheated on her with her SISTER. who's like, three years younger than him! like, what the fuck? that's not even all he did!" you sit up, hands playing with the blanket. you think you see him lean a bit closer, as if wanting to hear more. "she fucked his brother in his room, like, her ex boyfriend's room for revenge! okay, that was a bitch move, but was it deserved?"

jason shrugged. "i'd say no one deserves to be cheated on, but he kinda did deserve it."

"exactly!"

[mochinomnoms]

Does all of Coral Sea know of Floyd and Jades future mates? Cause I was wondering if they made a public “announcement ” of them to where maybe others know now not to get too close or else potentially suffer under their wrath. Or is it a more only family friends/family know like in Tony, Azul and Aspens case?

-🧀anon

Hmm, I'm assuming this is referencing PTM right? No, they don't announce it. Really, they don't mean for the people closest to them to be aware of their feelings. But it's quite noticible when one of the twins gets a crush.

Floyd will talk a lot about something once it's caught his interest. My people with the tism will understand, it's like when you get a hyperfixation and can't stop thinking or talking about it? Floyd's like that. When the others hear him gush about Riddle, about how funny he is, how small and cute he is, how Riddle kicked his ass their first meeting, everyone just assumed he would lose interest within a few weeks. Maybe months even. But Floyd's interest in Riddle has persisted…much longer than anything else he's ever been interested in. And his comments become less teasing and more soft, talking about how cool Riddle looked riding his horse, how he changed his tie into a bow, how he's been eating more sweets like tarts as of late. Then it turns into, "didja know that Goldfishie really likes strawberries? He just eats them up!" or "Goldfishie's real smart, I bet I could get away with asking him to tutor me to hang out. Nah I don't need it, I just want to mess with him." or even "I saw Goldfishie in the infirmary the other day, he was sleeping. He looks really pretty, peaceful like that." But the real thing that made everyone realize that there was something more is when he started referring to Riddle by name in his comments. Actual names are reserved for people he actually cares about, people that he would want to make an effort for to know them and their names. Just like how Azul is Azul, not Lil Octy, Riddle is Riddle, not just Goldfishie in his eyes.

Jade is surprisingly less subtle. It might be because be doesn't normally rant to people about his fixations, only going off in tangents once in a while. So when he starts talking about Yuu, it's immediately noticeable. More so when he doesn't shut up about them. The difference between Floyd and Jade is that Jade is aware that the others know, Floyd thinks he's being slick with it. It's why Jade can take teasing from the others relatively well, he knows they know and is mostly fine with it. At least until one of them attempts to get involved for his sake. Floyd and Azul have offered to fabricate scenarios, make comments, and help push Yuu to him. Usually in exchange for him doing something, or to stop growing his mushrooms in certain areas of the dorm. Aspen and Tony are the opposite, Aspen especially willing to get Yuu into scenarios that would make them unattractive or unavailable in Jade's eyes. Most recently, this we see this in the last chapter when Aspen is pushing Wynfred to go out with Yuu. Jade's not happy about it, Yuu is embarrassed, and Aspen is just trying his best to get Jade for himself. Tony eventually gets dragged into any trouble that Aspen gets himself into, willingly or not. Though, he is prone to gossip with Floyd and listen to his rambles about Riddle. He's surprisingly insightful, though that would require Floyd to listen to his advice.

[nethhiri]

Marooned: Chapter 17

Kid x FemReader x Killer

Warnings: violence

Ensnared

Killer was working in the galley prepping lunch, when Heat burst through the doors. He didn't need to say anything for Killer to know something was deeply wrong. The look on his face said enough. 

"Killer, it's Captain. H-he," Heat couldn't finish before Killer was out the door. 

The first mate was on the deck, scanning around for Kid in a panic, gaze briefly landing on a group of people dogpiled on Mini to keep her restrained. It wasn't hard to find him with the amount of screaming he was doing. Kid was grabbing his flesh forearm with his metal hand, flapping it around. He was gripped with terror as his eyes met Killer's. It wasn't quite the same, but it was eerily similar to the look he had when he lost his arm. Killer rushed to his captain's side to see that Kid couldn't move anything below his wrist.

"THAT BITCH THAT FUCKIN BITCH! SHE FUCKED UP MY HAND."

Killer grabbed Kid's shoulder and turned him so they were facing each other. "KID! Slow down. What happened?"

"ROTTEN! THAT LYIN BITCH MADE ME THROW HER IN THE OCEAN AND NOW MY HAND'S FUCKED!"

Killer's eyes widened under his mask. There was a lot to unpack in that sentence. "What lie?! Made you what? KID! She can't swim!" 

"OF COURSE SHE CAN'T. SHE DID THIS WITH HER DEVIL FRUIT!" Kid yelled, flapping his limp wrist in from of Killer's face. "SHE'S A FUCKIN MARINE, KIL!"

Heat appeared next to Killer, or maybe he had been there the whole time. Killer had been completely focused on Kid. "She said her name was F/N L/N." Heat explained. "Killer, I think that's-"

Killer's eyes widened. "The Sea Snake, yeah I know." He would revisit that discovery later. Killer turned his attention back to Kid. He wasn't the first mate for no reason. He handled high-pressure situations well, reading them and formulating a plan in seconds. "Kid, listen to me. She's not a marine. She kills marines. And I think she can reverse whatever she did to your hand." Kid started to yell again and Killer cut him off. "KID! In about 2 more seconds, I won't be able to reach her and your hand might be like that forever." Killer paused to catch his breath. "If I'm wrong, you can throw her back over and I won't stop you, ok?" Killer didn't make a move until he saw the slight nod of Kid's head. Then he was diving into the water, hoping he could still pry you from the ocean's grasp. Or they would all suffer Kid's wrath, like they did the first time one of his arms was maimed. 

At this point on his career, Killer had dove in after Kid more times than he could remember. If he wasn't such a practiced, strong swimmer, there would have been no way he could have caught up to you. In the murky darkness, he had to use observation haki to pinpoint where you were, making contact with your chilled skin just as his lungs started burning. He wrapped his arm around your middle and swam back to where the light filtered through the water's surface. 

With an agonal gasp, you were suddenly back in your body, rolling onto your elbows and knees to violently expel ocean water from your lungs. This was somehow worse than throwing up, the sensation of warm liquid coming from a place it should not be coming from, salt burning your windpipe, followed by dry heaving. Your eyes and nose burned, too. A mix of tears, mucus, and saliva were coming out of your face as it forced the salt from your system. Blinking into focus, you saw that you were on a wooden deck, on a ship. Fear inched into your mind, thinking you were back in the custody of Von Kossa until you felt around for the bullet wounds and the melted flesh and found that they were long healed. After a few deep breaths, you remembered what had happened and the fear slipped away.  

Why the fuck were you back here? Why the fuck did they bring you back here? Maybe Kid changed his mind and wanted to make you die slowly. There was no where to escape but the sea, and that got you nowhere. You coughed up some more water, strength slowly seeping back into you as the ocean lost its hold. You doubted that the deal to let you off at the next island was still in effect, if you lived that long. And now your secrets were out. What do I have to lose? 

A slow grin stretched across your lips. You had always wanted to fight a supernova. 

You didn't make a move, taking account of your current surroundings. You heard Minerva in the background squealing. At least someone has my back. Killer was the closest to you, there were scattered people on deck, and the familiar vibration of Kid's heavy steps came ever closer. When his shadow moved into your view, you tucked your leg underneath you and sprang towards him with a fist full of armament haki. It nearly met its target, catching Kid off-guard, but was blocked by Killer. You thought you heard a grunt on impact. Killer wasn't expecting that either; you could tell by the way he became unbalanced the more you forced your fist against him.

"MOVE, KILLER!" You and Kid shouted simultaneously, eyes locked fiercely with each other. Killer jumped back behind Kid, not willing to argue with his captain.

"STAY OUT OF IT. SHE'S MINE," Kid growled. The purple energy of his devil fruit crackled around him, pulling pieces of metal together around the hand you disabled. 

You tilted your head to the side, "You sure? Looks like you could use a hand." You sneered at him, the two of you circling each other. It wasn't lost on you that the deck had cleared and those that remained were taking cover. Several pieces of metal flew in your direction without being able to hit you. It seemed like he was testing your abilities, how fast you were, how agile you were. Plucking some of the smaller pieces from the air, you enclosed them in your fist, willing them to become non-metallic, small, cylindrical. Dodging shrapnel, you loaded your gun blade with the only thing you could think of at the time, glass bullets. If they didn't completely explode in the chamber, maybe you could do something with them. At the very least, you could be annoying. 

"YER DEAD, ROTTEN. DO YA HEAR ME? FIX MY FUCKEN HAND OR YER DEAD!" Kid swiped at you with a giant metal arm. It was big, therefore it was clumsy and slow, compared to you, that is. 

This was not going to end well if he had you tucking, rolling, and running around the deck. Stamina was finite and it was already depleted from using your power on him and being soaked with saltwater. "Can't!" You darted around to get an angle on some of the rigging, thinking back to the poor quality knots from earlier. "Used my fruit too much today!" You were still using it, touching the things he threw at you, and turning them into an element he couldn't control. "Oh yeah! AND I DON'T FUCKING WANT TO!" This was the most you had ever used your power, but it was slowly dwindling down the things he could fight you with, increasing the time you had between avoiding each object and allowing you to take aim properly. With a few shots, which actually went off, you severed the ropes holding one of the sails. Kid was momentarily distracted by swatting away the remaining shots, but it was enough. 

The instant Kid was engulfed in the canvas of the sail, you took off sprinting towards him. You licked your lips with satisfaction at the feeling of warm, wet fluid dripping down your blade, over your hand. It was supposed to be firmly nestled between Kid's ribs. Instead, it was stopped just before breaking his skin, coated in purple electricity. But your hands hadn't stopped. The blood was your own, your grip was no longer on the handle and had been forced over the sharp edge. You caught only a brief glimpse of the damage, and even that was obscured by the amount of blood, before the air was knocked out of you and you were crushed against Kid's chest by his two metal arms. You struggled to wriggle out from his grasp until the pressure increased and you felt a few cracks in your ribcage, nearly passing out from the deep, aching pain. You didn't need to look at him to know the smugness written on his face. He had led you to that opening on purpose. All the remaining air in your lungs was stolen by a gasp when Kid squeezed you even harder. 

"Look," Kid demanded, turning you slightly so that you could see Mini, trapped by a scrap metal vice. "Yer gonna undo whatever ya did, for the sake of yer pig. Understand?" 

That was low. You could have easily taken a hostage yourself, however dishonorable it was. It was stupid not to. This was a pirate ship. The Kid Pirate ship. Not a crew known for honor. You could only nod as your grasp on consciousness quickly faded.

[bringthekaos]

You know that phrase, " There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.'"

The first time Jayce experimented the third one was the first time he actually feared Viktor. Like, cold sweat, paralized, mouth dry kind of fear.

(Also a little horny)

Hahaha Jayce be like

FR though, Jayce being torn between mortification and hornification is like… my bread and butter. That knee-jerk reaction of just… “oh my god!!! …. oh my god, am I into this? Oh god, I’m into this…”

And I don’t think he’ll truly experience Viktor’s anger, I’m talking fire-breathing rage, until he’s the Machine Herald. I think in the events that lead up to his exile, Viktor will still be reeling. He’ll be numb and in shock that this is happening, how could this happen, how could Jayce turn on me like this? There just won’t be room for the wrath yet, he’ll still be processing it.

And it’s a strange thing, witnessing the Machine Herald… an angry Machine Herald for the first time, because it doesn’t translate like most people’s anger would. His emotions are suppressed, so instead it reads as cold, detached, and almost inhuman. He bears down on Jayce like a runaway freight train, doesn’t slow down, doesn’t hesitate. He truly tries to hurt Jayce in that first confrontation, might even be trying to kill him. And Jayce is caught off guard, thinks surely he wouldn’t, not Viktor, not my Viktor…

But he’s not Jayce’s Viktor anymore, he’s something new and haunting, and Jayce doesn’t know what he feels anymore—it looks like anger, sounds like it… but it’s almost like Viktor feels nothing at all as he fires the Hexclaw right at Jayce.

And that’s the first time he’s truly afraid of Viktor. He’s never been before, he’s always held out hope that somewhere, deep down and buried beneath layer after layer of metal, that same soft, kind man is in there. But when the Hexclaw singes through his flesh, cauterizing as it burns; when Jayce screams in agony and stumbles back; when Viktor doesn’t react at all and just stomps closer, aiming the Claw again…

In the moment, there was only room for fear, for self-preservation. For the grief of realizing oh my god, what if my Viktor really is gone? But later on, in the privacy of his own home—bandages on his skin and on his ego—something awakens that he doesn’t quite understand. He finds that thinking about the fight, thinking of how truly dangerous Viktor was… it makes him excited. It makes him want to do it again, and he’s not sure if it’s just his bruised ego wishing for a rematch, or if it’s… something else. Something forbidden and primal, something that yearns to be stoked but can’t be spoken of in Piltover society. It consumes and confuses him, this obsession with that feeling—I was scared, so why do I want it to happen again? He could kill me as easy as breathing, why… why do I want to let him? And he knows there’s probably some psychological explanation a therapist could give him, something about wanting to be punished for his mistakes, and wanting said punishment to come from the person he hurt the most. But he doesn’t think too hard on that, after all introspection is the luxury of a younger man. Now he just tries to accept that this is the way things are now, best just try to come to terms with it.

And he does. He fabricates reasons to fight Viktor, seeks him out and antagonizes him. Because if he can’t defeat the beast within himself, he might as well feed it.

[mlmxreader]

Nightmare Wrapped in His Shirt | Sierra Six x gn!reader

Anonymous asked: So we're both bored and the second heatwave is getting to us so how about some Six comfort fics. I've picked a few prompts that I like the look off, so have fun.

"That's my shirt, can you not steal it?"

summary: by pure luck and without much thought to it, you end up wearing Six’s shirt, and the way he reacts to it is something that you didn’t quite expect, as pleasant as it is. 

tws: swearing, mentions of smoking

word count: 1670

Despite the heat, so horrid and so humid and so fucking sweltering that it was hard enough to move from the sofa, you did need to go shopping; mostly to pick up some things that Claire needed, but also because you and Six were running out of certain things. Mundane things, mostly, like tobacco and energy drinks and coffee. It was sweltering, though, and you weren’t really thinking when you grabbed the nearest shirt and tugged it on, running a hand down your face and groaning when sweat stuck to your palm, wincing as you wiped it on your jeans and shook your head; you took a look at the empty bed, smiling a little at how Six’s side was left pristine, and your side had half the sheet pulled up from the mattress, pillows in a wreckage, and the blanket crumpled and scruffy. You sighed, grabbing your shoes and heading to the door; Six was out in the garden with Claire, hitting the ball on the string back and forth as they talked. You figured it best not to interrupt the moment of sibling bonding, and grabbed the shopping bags before heading out of the door; you smiled a little to yourself as you got in the car, chucking the bags onto the passenger seat and plugging your phone into the aux cord. 

You went through your music library, humming a little to yourself as you found what you were looking for, your playlist made up of entirely Sabaton songs, you clicked the shuffle button and turned the volume up as ‘Race to the Sea’ came on; you started the little drive to the shop, singing along loudly to the song as you did so, even when you got caught in traffic, a hardly ideal situation in the middle of a heatwave, you still sang along. 

“For king and for country, we are flooding the river, our stand at Yser will be the end of the race to the sea, the last piece of Belgium’s free, we’re keeping a sliver, a cog in the war machine, October of nineteen-fourteen! See a king and a soldier, fighting shoulder to shoulder, see a king and a soldier, fighting shoulder to shoulder, he overruled his commanders, he made a last stand in Flanders, we see our king and a soldier, they’re fighting shoulder to shoulder to keep the last piece of Belgium free, all the way, onto triumph or to judgement day, we will follow and we will not be led astray!” 

You were quick to find somewhere to park when you got to the shop, even quicker to grab a trolley and to go down each aisle to get what was on your list, grateful that they at least had air conditioning and that you could walk a little slower down the freezer aisles where it was cooler; you figured there would be no harm in grabbing some ice poles and some other little frozen treats, after all, it was hot and such things would be a fucking heaven send. You didn’t hang around, though, grabbing what you needed and finding a till that was a little less busy, quickly unloading everything onto the conveyor belt and packing it into the bags once it had been scanned; you paid as soon as you could and made quick work of getting back to the car, loading up the bags, and taking the trolley back before getting into the car. 

This time, ‘Dreadnought’ played, and you couldn’t help but to grin as you made your way back to the safehouse, you were certain that some people gave you less than kind looks when they saw you singing along at such a loud volume, but you didn’t really care. 

“Ahead the sea lies calm awaiting the storm, displace the water in its path, reveal the cannons, align the guns, unleash their wrath! Unopposed under crimson skies, immortalised, over time their legend will rise and their foes can’t believe their eyes, believe their size as they fall, and the dreadnoughts dread nothing at all!” 

You weren’t entirely sure how, but you had a feeling that it was probably because they had heard the music and your singing, but when you pulled up to the driveway, Six and Claire were waiting for you; they helped you to get the shopping bags in, but as he was about to grab the last one, Six stopped you. 

“That’s my shirt.” 

“Uh, yeah,” you shrugged. “I grabbed the first one I got to before I left.” 

Six clenched his jaw, grumbling to himself as he grabbed the bag and huffed; he wasn’t sure how to explain it, but the thought of you going out wearing his shirt… it made him feel just a little bit possessive. The fact that you were wearing his shirt, and that he knew it smelled like him, it was like somehow he still had claimed you as his even though he wasn’t there; he shook his head, dumping the bag on the counter as he helped Claire to put it all away while you parked the car across the road. 

It took longer than usual to find your normal parking spot, mostly due to the fact that it seemed as if some of the neighbours had been hosting guests, but you eventually managed to park near the end of the road; you made it back in one piece at least, helping the siblings to put the rest of the shopping away before Claire grabbed an ice cream lolly from the fridge and bolted outside so that she could have it, leaving you and Six all alone. He smiled at you, tilting his head to the side. 

“That’s my shirt, can you not steal it?”

“You want it back?” You chuckled, gripping the hem and starting to tug it up when Six pinned you against the counter, clenching his jaw and grumbling to himself. “What? You don’t want me to steal it, but you don’t want me to give it back, either.” 

Sighing, he shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “I bet everyone in the shop knew it was my shirt.” 

You shrugged. “Why would that matter?”

“Don’t make me say it,” he breathed out, getting in your face so that his lips were just close enough so that you could feel the words against your mouth, hot and a little bit harsh. 

You smiled, humming softly as you squinted a little bit, almost like you were smug about getting him so fucking riled up, almost as if you wanted him to know; sure, it had originally been mere luck that you had wound up wearing his shirt, but as you looked at Six now, as you saw how fucking riled up he was and how you had definitely pushed a button you didn’t know had existed before, you couldn’t help but to want to play a little game with him. To see how far you could push the trained killer until he eventually snapped. To press any other unknown buttons that laid beneath the surface. 

Reaching out, you put your hand on his chest, watching him swallow thickly as he sucked in a harsh breath, lowering your hand and trying not to laugh at how he grumbled quietly, feeling him shiver a little when you snuck your hand under his shirt, slowly moving your hand up until it was resting right next to his heart; you leaned in, so close that your breath mixed with his, and you grinned. 

“You gonna say it now?”

“Fuck,” he grumbled, sighing heavily and grabbing at your belt, trying his best to remain at least a little calm despite the overwhelming urge to drag you upstairs and lock the door and show you how he was really feeling. “You’re gonna play this game?”

You chuckled softly, shaking your head as you bit at the inside of your lip. “Originally, I wasn’t going to, it was just… luck that I happened to put your shirt on but… fuck, seeing you like this… yeah, I’m gonna play this game.”

“I hate you,” Six breathed out, daring to move his hand up to your jaw as he growled softly, his thumb on your cheek as he let two fingers rest just behind your ear, forcing you to keep eye contact with him. “I bet everyone in that shop could fucking smell me on you.” 

“Probably,” you mused. “But I was sweating quite a bit so… maybe not.” 

“They all knew you were mine,” he snarled, his breathing getting a little heavier as he thought about it more. 

Everyone knowing you were his, and he didn’t even have to be at your side to prove it or to show it; he shook his head, biting at the inside of his lip as he groaned softly and let his hand fall to the base of your throat. Fuck, more than anything, he wanted to claim you with a kiss right there and then, but he pulled away, running a hand through his hair as he cleared his throat. 

“I better go make sure the grounds are safe,” he muttered, staring down at his shoes. 

You licked your lips, getting in his face and gently tracing his jaw, even daring to laugh softly as how his beard tickled your fingertips when you got to it. “At least kiss me before you do… for good luck, or whatever.” 

“Later,” he grumbled. “And don’t take that fucking shirt off.” 

“Oh, I won’t,” you beamed, daring to kiss his cheek. “Not until you tell me to.” 

Six grumbled, sighing heavily as he swallowed thickly and turned away from you. “You’re a nightmare, (Y/n).” 

“And yet, you’re here with me,” you pointed out. “And you’ll be cuddled into me later, if it’s cooled down enough.” 

“That’s a big if.” 

“Well, so is me taking off your shirt without your say so,” you mused. “But we’ll just have to see which happens first, right?”

“Nightmare.”

if you liked this fic, REBLOG IT - you SHOULD reblog it; if you don't wanna reblog, then you'll get blocked; reblogging is the BARE MINIMUM. don't just "like", REBLOG

[demonichikikomori]

Twinsies

Cater Diamond and GN!Reader

Word Count Tumblr: 2.3k+

I think Cater is one of those people where they have matching everything with a partner or close friend. And with his Unique Magic: Split Card, doesn't it make even more sense? I love Sanrio and think that he and Reader should have matching charms, specifically the new KoGal Sanrio release. Okay, last note. So, I actually love Gal/Gyaru fashion. It’s so wild and fun and cute and I love the big hair and wild colors and the long long acrylic nails. I love the history behind the subculture as well and seeing how they came to be. I would gush over the Gyaru subculture more if it didn’t fit my current aesthetic. Hehe, I’m supposed to be a scary demon <3 <3 <3

SUMMARY:

Sam is selling something new today! So you and Cater head to his shop to check it out. The cutest charms you've ever seen is something Cater starts to fawn over, and he asks you to match with him. But, not just for MagiCam likes. But because he wants to be 'Twinsies'.

Tags: Fluff, Reader is referred to as ‘Babes’, it's not what you think

You felt a set of arms slither around your shoulders from behind. You had just left your final class of the day among the sea of students fleeing the wrath of the Professor in charge. You stopped and grazed your fingers over the person's arm with a smile, inhaling the familiar scent of cinnamon cologne as a wavy piece of orange hair playfully tickled your cheek. His chin rested in the crook of your neck as you caught an image of you and Cater Diamond reflected on his phone screen. “Say, cheese!” He winked and you threw up a quick peace sign with a sheepish grin as his thumb pressed the familiar circle icon. 

The screen flashed with white film and he freed you from his grip with a toothy smile as he looked over the photo. “That was the best one so far this week babes!” He chirped and began swiping his finger over the picture. He was adding stickers and signing the corner with hearts, diamonds, x’s and o’s. “Lemme see it.” You requested and began walking alongside him through the clearing hall, peeking over to see him decorating your hair with little red and orange hearts. 

You and Cater have become… Close. Surprisingly close. You felt as if the bond between you and the social butterfly was platonic, but other times felt a little more romantic than you expected. The way he was able to locate you in a sea of people during mixed school events never failed to amaze you. How casual you guys have grown between one another to share the same drink or bag of spicy chips. How he would come over to the Ramshackle Dorm, just to lay between your legs with his head on your chest while you were resting in bed or laying on the couch. Simply because he missed your company. The thing that made your heart flutter and sing the most was when he walked alongside you as the two of you talked. Especially when he would allow the fingers that weren’t clamped around his phone to graze yours. When he was confident in you returning the sentiment, you walked together with your pinkies hooked together. Neither of you said a word while it happened, and you remained in paired silence until you or Cater broke away to attend classes. Grim thought the casual acts of PDA were not as casual as you thought. Which led you to how you think of Cater now. You didn’t do any of this with Ace or Deuce, and they were your friends. So why was Cater the exception? Why did it feel like you were dating? 

Why was it unspoken information that you probably are dating? You just were the last one to receive the memo.

The both of you strolled through the courtyard, passing the blooming apple blossoms high above your heads and the fluttering petals at your feet. “Now that I’ve made my ‘Perfect Prefect Post of the Day’ or, ‘3POTD’ for short, I can finally show you,” He appeared excited as he swiped his thumb over his screen to sort through his many open tabs. You closed in on the phone with curious eyes as he turned his phone to show you the screen. “This!” There were plush characters wearing school uniforms, piled up in a small wicker basket. Each one had colorful pastel gems stamped on their cheeks, holding little flip phones in their pawed hands. You recognized the fashion as your world’s equivalent of ‘Kogal’. The subculture was resurfacing in current times but you didn’t think that Twisted Wonderland would have anything like that. Although… Cater sometimes felt like the male equivalent of what was known as ‘Gal’. 

“Aren’t they soooo so cute? Apparently Sam got a mix up in his usual shipment and he posted these, hoping they’ll sell on campus. I wanted to grab two for my sisters, and of course a matching pair for us to help him out.” He beamed, clearly hopeful that you would agree to go with him. A warmth bloomed in your chest and you imagined how it would look to have a matching charm with Cater. Grim would definitely call you dense if you just viewed this as a friend thing. “These two, don’t they look like a matching pair?” 

You asked as you pointed to the photo. There was a white rabbit wearing a baby pink colored hat nestled right beside the one wearing a black hat with a pink skull printed on the front. The design choice looked as if they were meant to be the two sides of a similar coin. “I think you’re right. Maybe they’re sisters?” He suggested and you slowly narrowed your eyes. They looked… Familiar. But you weren’t sure how you recognized them. Were they cartoon characters? “It’s weird that I’ve never seen these characters before anywhere online. I searched them up like crazy because I wanted to show you but, nothing came up.” He sighed and turned off his phone with a frown. 

“Even if I don’t know their names, I can’t deny their uniforms are like major league adorbies.” It was clear he didn’t want to buy something he didn’t know anything about, but the wrath of not sending his older sisters a souvenir like this outweighs everything else. 

But these rabbits matched more than the dog and the cat. You wanted to match with Cater. “They are super cute… Let’s get those two rabbits then!” You suggested with a cheerful expression. You would have to silently apologize to his older sisters when you officially met them. The two of you walked side by side to Sam’s shop, passing other student’s as Cater took an occasional photo of his day to day. You could feel his free hand brushing against yours and you locked your pinkies together like always. The walk there was filled with Cater venting about how boring classes were without you and how Riddle had been all over him after scoring lower than usual on a test. “He needs to seriously chill sometimes.” Cater grumbled and used his free hand to scroll through his phone as you walked alongside each other. “It’s because he’s a Virgo Male. The stars really let him down.” The student rolled his eyes and began observing himself in his phone camera with a scowl. “I wonder if you and I are compatible. I’ll have to check later. Oh, but even if the stars say we aren’t, I can make it work out.” He laughed as you felt your ears start to burn. 

He would make it work out. Even if the stars said there was zero chemistry between you, he was willing to make it work out.

As you reached Sam’s shop, your pinkies became unlinked the moment Cater pushed open the creaky wooden door. You admired the small decorations from outside the shop as you followed after him. Soft jazz music was playing overhead as Sam waved you in with a wide smile. His white makeup was absent today as he sat on top of his counter, one leg crossed over the other. “My little Imps, welcome in! What are you looking for? I know I have it in stock.” He purred as Cater pulled up the photo of the strange animal characters in school uniforms. “Where did you put these guys? I saw you posted them earlier and honestly they are to DIE for.” Cater beamed and Sam squinted his eyes at the phone as if to get a better look. “Oh, the strange toys that came in shipment! I wasn’t sure where to actually put them, they’re over in the corner.” He motioned to the far depths of the shop where shrunken heads were kept in jars and bizarre jewelry hung from the walls. You followed Cater past all the strange things, sticking close as you marveled at everything around you. Then you reached the basket where the stuffed animals resided. Fashionably dressed in school uniforms with their colorful flip-phones stitched to their paws. There were other things as well. Hair charms, school bags, stickers, and rhinestone phone cases. You marveled at the colorful sight of things that felt so familiar, but you weren’t sure how. You grabbed the matching rabbits and held them beside each other. 

They looked… Not very sisterly. Something told you that maybe there’s a reason they looked so similar yet so different. “Are they…?” The rabbits looked more like ‘friends’ than sisters. Cater admired the pair in your hands and pointed to the pink one with a smile. “Ohh, can I have this one?” He asked and pressed his shoulder against yours. You nodded and quickly handed it over, your thumbs brushed over each other as he held the pink rabbit in his hands. Her surprised expression complimented the smirk of the more mischievous looking rabbit between your now sweating palms. “Cuuuute, wow I love their outfits so much. If we were officially co-ed, I’m asking the Headmage to make our uniforms look like these.” He chirped and held the plush toy out to you, bumping her face against the smirking characters. 

As if they kissed.

Cater was scrolling through his phone again and snapped a quick picture of the stuffed animals beside each other. Most likely for a later post once the two of you left. “Ugh, I seriously can’t get over these. I guess my sisters will like the other two. I hope they don’t get mad that you and I are taking these two.” He snorted as you looked at the cat and dog laid in a basket among other duplicates. They were an odd pair. You could understand why Cater feared his older sister's frustrations. But it’s not like they knew where the characters even came from. But even though he was worried over the opinions of his siblings, he put you first. You could feel something swell in your chest, a newfound confidence to hear what Cater might say if you popped a question. 

“Why did you want to match with me in the first place?” You spoke up as your heart fluttered in your chest. You refused to look at Cater as you awaited his response, you trained your eyes on the stuffed toy in his hands instead. The scenarios played through your head over what he would say as you stood together in silence. The cold jingling chain draped itself over your knuckles as you gulped. Because he wants to be more than friends? Because he wants everyone to know that you two are a pair? Because he loves you?

“Oh, because we’re friends Babes! Why else?” His response was innocent and you felt your chest start to ache. Friends? Was that really it? You forced a smile as you fiddled with the thin chain attached to the rabbit wearing a black hat. "Well, yeah we are... But-" You cut yourself off, wondering if maybe you would have interpreted his affections wrong. The air fell dead between you two. You felt a sour taste in your mouth. “Do you still want to match with me? We don’t have to if you don't want to. I mean, I just thought since we're so close you'd like to.” He sounded concerned now as you were crushing the plush character in your hands now. Her little face had become contorted from the strangulation. You didn't want Cater to worry. You looked up and nodded quickly. Blinking back tears that had welled in your eyes, threatening to spill down your cheeks. You refused to cry. Especially over a misinterpretation that could have been avoided. “I would love to, twin.” You smiled, trying to fight back the urge to sob. Cater seemed even more worried now as he pulled out his phone. “Can we take a picture?” He asked and inched closer, noticing other students had pooled into the small store, far away from the corner the two of you were tucked in. You nodded again, feeling foolish that you were the only person viewing his affections as more than just friendly skinship. You wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. “Here, I have an idea for a pose, hold your plush towards me.” He suggested softly, but he wasn’t smiling. His expression looked serious as you lifted your arm weekly. Your grip on the rabbit had tightened and you sniffled, fighting back any distressed sounds and Cater pulled you closer, tucking his arm around you for only a short moment. The action made your eyes widen and he leaned in to kiss the stuffed character crushed in your palm. He bumped his mouth against her smirk, while the rabbit plush he held was pressed delicately against your lips. 

And there was the flash of a camera.

Your bashful and shocked expression was captured and frozen in time. Forever living in the storage space of Cater Diamond’s phone until he sent it to you. 

Cater was staring down at you, leaf green eyes held a familiar softness as you felt yourself start to crumble. The tears rolled down your face, but the two of you remained still. “I’m sorry…” He apologized and pulled away from you. A curled piece of orange hair tickled the skin of your face, akin to a farewell kiss. His plush was gripped tightly in his hand as well now as he frowned, looking over the photo. Your eyes were glistening with tears, it was almost like Cater had teased you to the point of sobbing and dared to snap a picture. "Listen Babes, I think maybe we should-" You shook your head quickly and let out a sound of distress to silence him from continuing. With tears streaming down your face in furious rows you sniffled back dripping snot and pulled a smile onto your face. “It's just allergies, Twin.” You let out a weak laugh, and choked back a wail as Cater thumbed your tears away with a pout.

Twinsies is good enough.

Twinsies is close enough.

[tar-maitime]

talking to the air

Rating: T Characters: Maedhros | Maitimo Relationships: Maedhros/Fingon, fem!Maedhros/Fingon, Maedhros & Sons of Feanor, Maedhros & Maglor & Elrond & Elros (mentioned) Additional: post-Nirnaeth, 2nd & 3rd kinslayings, War of Wrath, grief and mourning, background kidnap fam and gil-galad russingonion for flavor WC: 1.5k

Four times Maedhros talked to Fingon when he wasn't there...

“Why did you do it, you mad, mad fool?”

Maedhros half-shouts it through gritted teeth, pacing back and forth in her room in Amon Ereb. Her brothers can probably hear her ranting, but they know to leave it alone. They’re not who she’s talking to, anyway.

If she keeps the bed out of her line of sight, she can almost trick herself into believing that he’s sitting there actually listening. He’s not, he’s gone, gone, gone, and the gaping dark place in the back of her mind proves it, but she can pretend.

“Why were you on the front line to begin with? Have we not lost enough kings that way? Why couldn’t you have commanded from somewhere safer? Why couldn’t you have run, at least tried to run, when we knew we couldn’t win? Why did you have to be the hero?”

She knows why, of course, even without him here to tell her. Fingon was good and noble and would never ask his people to spend their lives without his being right alongside them. It is horrible and selfish of Maedhros to wish otherwise, to wish he had let just a few people lay down their lives for his instead of...

“You left me,” she spits out bitterly. “You left me, Finno. How could you do that? How could you expect me to forgive that?”

She sobs, and her knees go out from under her. “How can you forgive me for leaving you first, for retreating? I’m sorry, Finnonya, I’m so sorry.”

- - -

“I miss you.”

She says it almost casually, looking out from Amon Ereb’s battlements in the early morning. “It still hurts, every day - so badly some days, Finno - but I’m learning to live with it.”

It’s barely dawn; no one else is around. Maedhros has made sure to do this absolutely alone ever since the time, a few months ago, when Maglor had caught her at it and ventured to ask if Fingon was haunting her as a houseless spirit, tethered to her somehow. She’s snarled at him, spat that she could never be that selfish, that Fingon’s spirit was safe in Mandos and if he couldn’t have lived, then that was best.

There’s no one actually here that she’s talking to; she is sane enough still to know that. But it brings her comfort even so.

“It doesn’t feel like I should be able to. It doesn’t feel like we should still be living at all, sometimes, when so much is lost. But if we just stop, then Morgoth wins again, and I don’t know that I’m capable of that.”

She looks out over the mist that’s slowly parting to reveal the shape of the land, and leans on the parapet. She pretends, just for a moment, that she can feel the warmth of a familiar body leaning next to her, on her left where her vision’s never been quite right since Angband. 

“I think we’re settling in here, as much as we can settle in anywhere,” she comments. “It’s strange, to have a home that I’ve never gotten to show you. Everywhere else I’ve lived, you got to visit. I almost wish we’d come down here sometime, before the Bragollach, just so that I could have known you saw it with me.”

She pauses. “And no, watching the tapestries in the Halls doesn’t count. If you are.”

On her more self-loathing days, she thinks he couldn’t possibly want to waste more time being bothered about her. On her more cynical days, she thinks the Valar would never allow him the kindness of remaining informed about events on this side of the Sea. But this morning is neither, and she indulges in the pleasant thought that Fingon might know she’s talking to him, even though he isn’t here.

She spends a handful of minutes telling him the news of Amon Ereb, and the small doings of her brothers, before she has to begin her day in truth.

- - -

“I can’t do this. I can’t - I can’t do this.”

Maedhros sits on the edge of her bed, hunched over. She drags her fingers through her hair - still shorn close, all these years later - and tries to control her breathing. 

“I don’t know what to do, Finno, I - the Girdle’s gone, and Lúthien’s dead, and Tyelko and Curvo won’t listen to me anymore. They’re going to Doriath with or without me - they’re going to get themselves killed. And the Oath - ai, it claws at me for even thinking of trying to prevent them.”

She’s held the Oath back for years already - truly impossible circumstances will lull it to sleep for a time, and she’s been very good at convincing herself and her brothers that Melian and Lúthien constitute impossible circumstances just as much as Morgoth currently does. Before, long before, Fingon had kept it almost unnoticeable at times, her older vow easing the bonds of her later one.

But he’s gone, and there is no starlight in her mind, only the Oath and the waiting darkness and the raised voices of her brothers screaming at each other.

“I wish you were here,” she says desperately. “I wish you would come and help me with this. Somehow. Any way at all. Just by being here, even.”

She lets her hand drop, grips the stump of her wrist until her nails dig in.

“Or maybe,” she adds more quietly, “maybe it’s best. Maybe I would just drag you along with us.”

- - -

Sirion is burning around her. The soldier dead at her feet is wearing Fingon’s colors and sigil.

An escape from the Nirnaeth, some corner of her mind notes with detachment. Perhaps he went with Turgon’s retreating forces to Gondolin, and then here when that city fell. Only to be felled, after all that, by his former king’s disgraced kinslaying wife.

A dark, bitter chuckle seeps out of her. “Do you see?” she rasps. “Do you see what I have become?”

There is no answer, of course. Maedhros doesn’t even try to pretend that he’s there with her. 

He would not deign to give her even a scrap of his attention now. Not that she deserves it.

- - -

They’re camped somewhere in the middle of the wilderness, picking their way back to where Amon Ereb is hopefully still standing. Maedhros looks over at where Maglor is stretched out asleep, his arm over the tiny peredhil twins that are curled up against him. Against all sense or wisdom, he’s been stubbornly attached to them ever since he stumbled on them in the ruins of Sirion, and (displaying even less good judgment) the twins seem to have decided to overlook his sacking of their home in favor of latching onto him as the one safe thing in a world gone mad.

It can only end in tears, but Maedhros has had even less luck than usual persuading Maglor of that.

She tilts her head back, looking at the sky.

“What do I do now, Finno?”

The only starlight that answers is that which she can see above her.

- - -

...and one time when he was there.

The battlefield is chaotic and nightmarish, and Maedhros feels right at home.

Finally, finally, she has a chance to do something unequivocally right, to extinguish Morgoth’s creatures in as great quantities as her strength will allow. Perhaps she may even be permitted an honorable death in battle, one of these days, but until that occurs, she is going to be as much help as she can.

They have an unspoken agreement, her and Gil-galad and Finarfin. She will keep her forces well away from those of her once-adoptive-son and her uncle, and help the war effort however she can, and they in return will let her alone to do so rather than pursuing the issue of the kinslayings.

Someday, she might let them do so. Maglor has talked of it. But first, they must lay hands on the two Silmarils still in play, and raise the not-quite-grown twins (and keep them firmly off the actual battlefield), and also do something about the great number of orcs and other monsters that never seem to stop coming.

There is a gap, for a moment, a breathing space. Some of Finarfin’s forces are fighting nearby, though per usual they have not made contact. Maedhros glances their way as she moves towards the next wave of the enemy, and--

--stops. Catches the briefest impression of something, someone familiar. 

Finarfin’s fighters wear cloaks the color of elanor, and Gil-galad’s wear a blue that’s almost gray. But the warrior at the head of the pack is cloaked in deep, deep blue, and she swears she sees dark braids woven with gold escaping from under his helm.

He twists, and dark eyes meet hers.

“Finno?” Maedhros says, barely aloud, half without knowing it.

She doesn’t even register the orc chieftain coming up behind her.

[themoonlitsojourner]

“What brings you here, anyway?” He tilts his head. “Who are you?”

“No one,” she says without thinking. Pulse spiking and palms going clammy, a moment later.

His eyebrows shoot up. “‘No one?’ Huh, your parents were certainly creative. I’m Gar.”

Flustered, she shakes her head. “Tara. My name is Tara. It’s just…” She folds her arms. “I’m not exactly supposed to be here.”

“But of course, the price of resources has skyrocketed. Our product, in turn, has been forced to…”

“How is your mother? Ever since I caught word of her illness…”

“I do relish the caviar. I believe our gracious hosts have opted for the Beluga sturgeon variety. It has a certain note of…”

It’s… It’s huge. Huge, and bathed in gold and silver, half-filled with whirling reds, and greens, and blues fanning out in full, elegant skirts. Spotted with crisply tailored tuxedos in shades of black and charcoal and white. Tables laden high and heavy with more kinds of food than she could imagine.

A shoulder hits her back.

Tara stumbles and flushes and catches her balance and turns around, but there’s no one there. Er– there’s lots of people there. People looking her way, wondering about the underdressed, unaccompanied, and awkward girl gaping like a waif off the street–

Tara forces one foot forward. The next. Step by step, and she’s ghosting across the edge of the echoing ballroom. Avoiding the tide. Struggling not to get pulled adrift into the sea of well-dressed, well-mannered bodies. But she can’t keep her eyes from wandering the room.

They’re all so tall, and confident, and dressed in silks and shades she’s never even heard of, talking about things strange enough to be another language, about owning companies, and kingdoms, and ships, and–

Tara freezes. Her heart lodges in her throat.

Gregor stands tall and proud, talking eloquently and energetically with a couple dripping with… diamonds. Those are diamonds. Gregor makes a point, tilting his head and lifting his eyebrows, and the red-handkerchiefed gentleman nods. An impressed smile graces his mustached lips. The lady next to him, color-coordinated with the handkerchief, looks ready to adopt Gregor. And Gregor, he… He isn’t looking this way.

Tara breathes out and shuffles a few steps back. She turns and ducks behind a pillar, careful to keep her movements casual and– and normal. This is normal. These things happen every day, she attends these things every day, she– she knows what she’s doing.

With long strides, she walks away from her brother. Ha, brother? Who? What brother? Don’t mind her, just keep talking, don’t look back…

Tara stops in the corner. A vantage point, where she can see– well, not everything, but most of it. But a lot of it. And…

She sags back against the cool, marble walls.

No sign of Brion. No sign of… of anyone else she knows.

Which is good, right? No one she knows, then no one who knows her. No one who can recognize and tell on her, no one who can get her into… trouble.

Seas, and seas drift by. Dress, after suit, after dress. Talking. Laughing. Back and forth, and all around, and no one– No one looks her way.

Why was she worried?

Tara curls her hand around the bruises on her wrist, squeezing her eyes shut as the pressure wells in her head. T–this was dumb. She’s risking Elodie’s wrath for this? Why did she even–

Rippling, care-free laughter rides the air. Above the clamor, above the static of nonsense. It rolls over her ears like a message, light and musical like a– like a river stream or something. Nothing like the false brass of forced belly laughs, or the broken glass chitter of a mouth-covered giggle…

It rings in her head. Bouncing off the walls of her skull long after it’s finished. Tara bites her lip and lifts her head. She pushes off the wall. She lifts onto her toes, peering over a hundred heads of perfectly coiffed hair…

There. A boy halfway across the room, dressed in a sea green tuxedo with his dark hair neatly slicked, his head tipped back.

Face still quirked in laughter to the amusement of the handful of adults stationed around him.

How old is he? About… could he be twelve? He… seems to be having fun. He seems to know how these things work.

He seems to belong here.

The boy opens his eyes. It’s too far to really see, but she thinks they might be green. And he… looks directly at her. And scrunches his nose in another smile.

Tara drops onto her flat feet. She checks over her shoulder.

No one in particular. No one looking his way. No one he could be… smiling at.

She looks back at the boy. He is looking at her, and he tips his head to the crowd around him, whose focuses have all shifted back to each other. And he rolls his eyes.

Tara’s heart thuds in her chest. A slow grin spreads over her face. She lets the tip of her tongue poke out, just for a second.

The boy crosses his eyes.

The sound of her own laugh under her breath startles her. Tara sets her finger on the skin beneath her eye and pulls it down, zombie style, and he…

Oh. He’s turning away. Nudging the shoulder of the man next to him, deep in conversation with a sharp-eyed, clean-shaven monolith. The boy says something. The man dismisses him with a gesture, never tearing his eyes or his attention from the conversation. The boy makes a face.

Tara glances around. She takes a step back, toward the balcony. It’s, um, it’s quieter out there, and less crowded, and there aren’t nearly as many people, or as much chance of getting spotted, and–

Surprise ties her in place as she takes one more glance. One more look over her shoulder that she shouldn’t. And sees the boy slip past the adults. And begin making his way across the floor to her.

Her drum of a heart takes up a pulsing rhythm again at the sight. At his hands in his pockets. At impossibly green, gold-flecked eyes gazing out beneath perfect dark hair, and perfect dark lashes. They are locked on… on her. And they sparkle.

He stops a few feet away. “Hey.” He rocks back on his heels. The smile never left his face. The best Tara’s ever seen, boyish and charming and shy, all wrapped up in a gap-toothed grin. “Where do cows go dancing?”

Something in Tara’s brain stutters. She blinks. “Excuse me?”

A sparkle. And a mischievous glint. “The meatball.”

There is the strangest, longest, briefest second, between his joke and her understanding, before the gold-inlaid floor fills her vision as she doubles over laughing.

When she straightens, it’s a new grin gracing his lips. Delighted. Relaxed.

“You came all the way over here to tell me that?” Tara shakes her head.

He shrugs, shoulders nearly touching his ears. “I–uh… Wanted to hear you laugh up close.”

Warmth floods her face and arms. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she lets out another laugh, this one nervous and not by choice.

She has never heard anyone say anything like that before.

“What brings you here, anyway?” He tilts his head. “Who are you?”

“No one,” she says without thinking. Pulse spiking and palms going clammy, a moment later.

His eyebrows shoot up. “‘No one?’ Huh, your parents were certainly creative. I’m Gar.”

Flustered, she shakes her head. “Tara. My name is Tara. It’s just…” She folds her arms. “I’m not exactly supposed to be here.”

Danger. Slipping from her lips. She checks over her shoulder, no one around, there’s no one around, right…?

Gar’s grin catches and pulls her attention back to him as it turns crooked, tugging on one side of his mouth. Revealing neat, white teeth. “A stowaway!” He holds out his hand, nodding to the doorway behind her shedding moonlight. “Let’s hide on the balcony.”

Tara stares at the offered palm. Her blood clamors in her veins, an uncertain marching band composed entirely of drums and cymbals.

“They’ve asked for my help upstairs. Just stay here.” Elodie had tied and untied the apron around her waist with a faraway look in her eyes. “Don’t go anywhere, and don’t talk to anyone. They’ll all be up there. Dukes, and earls, and countesses… And the last thing we need is you meeting the prime minister.” Her hand on the doorknob. Her mind on the dance floor. “Stay here.”

And she forgot to lock the door.

…But that doesn’t have anything to do with Gar. He won’t know unless she tells him, she won’t tell him, and everything will be fine. And the ‘don’t talk to anyone’… That wouldn’t even mean him, would it? Not Gar, with the beautiful eyes and the gentle smile. Not a boy her own age, just looking for some… Company? Fun? What is he looking for?

…It doesn’t matter. She’s knee deep as soon as they find out, anyway.

So Tara fits her fingers between Gar’s. And together, they escape into the crisp night.

The polite din of a party nearly two hundred strong fades into static. Tara hears her own breath, slow and shallow.

“Do you like constellations?”

She tears her gaze away from her hand, wrapped up in the secure, warm brown of his. He sees her looking and quickly lets go. Immediately, the North wind turns her hand cold.

Tara rubs it with her other hand and swallows. What was his question? “I– yeah. I love them.”

Gar looks at her like it’s a secret. Like the commonality is a shared shred of soul. “Me too. Show me your favorite.”

She folds her arms across the top of the banister, searching the skies for what she knows isn’t there any more. “Hydra. The sea serpent. But you can’t see it after May.”

“Funny.” Gar huffs a laugh. “We get that one in the southern hemisphere too.”

From the corner of her eye, Tara steals a glance. “The southern hemisphere?”

“I live in Africa. My parents are scientists.”

Her heart twinges painfully. “They’re here for the charity ball.”

He nods. “Why the sea serpent?”

Tara swallows. “I don’t know. I guess… Well, it’s the largest constellation in the sky.”

“Cool,” Gar says softly. Not good enough. He already knows that.

“It takes hours to rise at night,” Tara blurts out. “And…” She hesitates. His question ringing in her head. Why, why… “I like… how it does its own thing,” she finishes lamely.

“I like the Jewel Box cluster.” Gar hops up onto the railing. Like, actually sits on it, dangling his tuxedoed legs off the side and revealing rumpled black dress socks falling down his ankles. “It looks like four stars. Until you get a telescope and find out it’s hundreds.”

Tara bites into her lip. She steals a glance over her shoulder.

Half open doors, hesitantly admitting the night. It’s immediately drowned out by dozens of chandeliers and a ten piece instrumental band. There is no sign of her brothers.

Tara breathes out. And she turns back toward the stars, taking Gar’s hand and swinging herself up onto the bannister next to him. She pushes her hair out of her face. She asks, a little breathless, “What else do you like, Gar from Africa?”

His eyes shine stranger and deeper than the gaps in the galaxy. “Dude, so many things.”

“Tell me.”

Hours fall by, sand in an hourglass. The magnetism of his smile, his laugh, his casual attention draws her ever nearer. A black hole of infatuation. A night sky of potential.

It is worth every silent, locked-in hour that follows.

[frau-kali]

Trick or treat!

Treat! I am so sorry this is late, anon, but I am hope this sneak peak of sort of Halloween inspired Silverflint fic I didn't finish in time for Halloween lmao. This is set between S3 and 4, their happiest time.

I tried to do some actual historical research for this, but I couldn't find any good weaknesses for vampires I could use so I just rolled with crucifixes, even though I don't think that was a thing until Dracula.

But anyhow, hopefully I'll finish this soon. Sorry for any typos. Hope ya all enjoy!

"Mr Davis scrambled from the hold, utterly terrified, and out onto the deck. There, hanging from the mast, were the leaders of the mutiny. There came another loud bang--" Silver stomped down with his good leg, rather pleased at how half the men around him jumped. He caught sight of Flint, smirking at him from the quarterdeck, leaning over the rail. The rest of the men all stood or sat assembled around the chair and table where their quartermaster regaled them with his second ghost story of the night.

"Lightning filled the sky, and that was when Davis noticed it - written in blood on the sails were the words," he raised his voice a little to accentuate the message, his tone dark: "Death to Mutineers and Traitors!

"Mr Davis didn't dare tempt fate after that, not that he'd seen the power of whatever supernatural thing had taken hold of his ship. He was sure it was Captain Creedy's ghost, returning to take out his wrath on the crew who'd robbed him of his chance to see his sick wife in their greed. So, he ran for the nearest launch and, packing what rations he could, he set fire to the ship, and got away as fast as possible aboard his launch. He told me he drifted for two days before he was picked up by another merchant. And he was also certain that Captain Creedy's ghost continues to haunt the sea to this day, searching for his vengeance, and intent on killing all mutineers he finds."

Silver leans back in his chair now, his eyes meeting Flint's again, and now he caught the captain's frown there.

"Now, is this story even true or was Mr Davis just some miserable fuck who'd been paid a little extra coin by the merchant captain to keep the rest of us too scared to stand up to him? I think that's a more likely explanation, if I'm being honest."

He downed the rest of the rum on the table beside him. "Well, I think that's enough for now. I hope none of you idiots will be having nightmares tonight. And if you do, I suppose it's a good thing I'm not peddling gossip anymore." That got the laugh he desired, so he heaved himself up and made for the quarterdeck. The crew parted for him, wandering away to either make for their berths or return to whatever duties were required of them. They should reach Maroon island by the morning, so the men were all quite eager to be off the ship.

Flint's lips were still turned downward when Silver moved up to stand beside him. "If you're going to start complaining, I'd much rather hear it now," he said, though he cannot quite keep the playfulness from his tone.

"I was wondering how you intended to deal with having a ship full of men who are out of their minds with fear of Captain Creedy's ghost," Flint's tone was also playful, though John could tell he was also being serious.

"Have you ever considered having just a little more faith in them? And I did try to tell them it wasn't true."

All at once, one of the men--Mr Morrisey, Silver recognized him as a new recruit--came scrambling over nervously.

"Mr Silver, sir, sorry, but uh. Me and some o' the lads was wondering about ways we might ward off the ghost tonight, should he come calling."

Silver caught Flint's knowing smirk from over Morrisey's shoulder. Smug bastard.

He hesitated, just long enough for Flint to step up. "A wooden crucifix, affixed above your hammocks, should be good enough," the captain said.

Morrisey cast a surprised look at Flint, then met his quartermaster's gaze. Silver gave him a nod. "And try not to spread your worry around about this to the men," he added, "the captain's suggestion should keep any supernatural entities at bay, so no need to worry the others about it."

"Aye," Morrisey nodded, turning the walking away, his step more sure now.

Silver turned to look at Flint, who gave him a little smile now. "You were saying?"

Silver neatly side-stepped the question with, instead asking: "Crucifixes, captain? I thought those were meant to ward off vampires."

"It reassured him, didn't it?" Flint turned and began to walk toward his cabin, glancing back, clearly making sure Silver was following.

John fell into step beside him, able to move a little better on his iron leg because he'd been sitting for the past couple of hours. And because Flint and Madi both mother henned over him so much now he was forced to take care of himself, lest he incur either of their wrath.

"You seemed to enjoy the story," Silver said, following Flint into his cabin--their cabin? Perhaps it was now. "I saw that look on your face."

Flint glanced back at him, and Silver thought maybe he could spot the flush that crept from his cheeks down his neck. 

And ah, so that's how it would be. A thrill went through him at the thought, and pushed the door closed behind him, bolting it seconds before Flint shoved him right back against the wooden surface, kissing him hard.

[yiiyiiwrites]

Please do a summary of the older sisters like you did with the boys 🤔 gifs and all if you can.

ok ok...I have done headcanons for the older sisters here, but will do a little summary like I did with the guys. shall I do seperate headcanons for the brothers too?

Popes older sister is the complete opposite of him values her creativity and intuition more than logic. Makes decisions on how she feels. Artistic, has her own jewellery bis and a small studio above the local surf shop (searches for sea glass on the beach for it). Cool girl, her vibes are kind and nurturing, plays guitar in a band which plays at kook events every now and then. Secret septum piercing that she flips up around her parents. Close with Pope and he regularly helps her with tech stuff etc. helps her do her taxes. Loves the Pogues and how connected they are, reminds Pope to check in with the boys as she knows they are alone. Headcanon here.

Would have long braided hair accessorised with shells/beads with coloured tips or colours weaved in. Crochets her own tops, shimmery body lotion and smells like vanilla.

JJ's older sister (Melissa 'Missy' Maybank). Works a lot to try and get money to give her and JJ some stability. Tries to take on more than she can and JJ gets the brunt of her bad moods (but nothing serious, more like snappy remarks). Good at talking them out of trouble, can convince her dad or distract him from throwing a punch, but this can make her get luke's wrath later on. Works whatever temp jobs she can. Soft spot for Pope and likes to listen to his random facts and bizarre knowledge. Reminds JJ to be careful instead of good. Pulls rank and reminds JJ she's older. Bit of loner as she doesn't want everyone knowing what her home life is like. Does have an on/off relationship that lets her crash at his whenever she needs a place. Headcanon here.

Over plucked eyebrows, cuts her own hair and you can definitely tell.

Side note: Why am I thinking of uptown girls?? 😂 older sister looking after bratty JJ whose a kid.

John B's older sister doesn't know what he's up to half the time and doesn't ask. "As long as you don't get caught." The least she knows the better. Works at the kooks hotel in laundry room, JJ gives her a lift when they the same shifts, also does her washing there. They split everything 50/50. Close with Kiara, nice to have another girl around as the boys can get on her nerves. Heavy sleeper so John B takes advantage of this and does whatever he wants. When she does have down time she likes to sunbathe on the beach, doesn't surf but does longboard. If they argue its pretty calm and they don't raise their voices. Not interested in the treasure talk as she saw the way it changed her father. smaller than her brother, nicknamed Smalls. Headcanon here.

Long thick curly hair that is box dyed, wears a signature brown lipstick when not working. Got the same leather jacket that's a bit battered since high school.

Kiara's older sister (Kaya Carerra). is well put together, enjoys fashion and is influenced by her sisters environmental views (tries to shop sustainable/vintage mostly). Has a turtle charm that Kie gifted her, sends her little sister animal postcards from her travels. Sticks to the Kook side, dated Rafe in college before he dropped out. Acts as peacekeeper between her parents and sister. Has her life planned out. Had her nose stuck in the books during school and is living a little in college (but within her reasons). Only knows the Pogues from what Kiara has told her. Met Pope once though as he was delivering groceries, both awkward rambling acknowledgements. JJ avoids her at all costs. Headcanon here.

Keeps it natural but loves a bold lip, long curly hair that she styles different depending on her mood. Accessory girl and loves a co-ord.

✨ The girls, just some inspo and what I think they kinda look like - Yiiyii If you have anymore requests send them in, I'm still answering a few but saw this and had to do it.

Please do not take and post my creations, you may reblog/like but do not take and claim as your own.

[deathdxnces]

❛ just sit there and look pretty and let me handle this. ❜

» — IF YOU SEND ME ASKS I PROMISE TO REPLY. ONE DAY.

— @vulpesse

Irelia doesn't like Bilgewater.

The dancer had decided as much the moment the port city came into view clearly enough to be more than a vague shape on the horizon. She did not mind the journey itself, though, after days on the ship, she had started to grow restless, the confinement to such a restricted area getting on her nerves. Or maybe it was the increasing distance from home; Irelia never left Ionia for long, much less traveling so far. The one exception had been to fight back the Ruined King's forces... and back then she had been too concerned with trying to save her home to allow herself to dwell on how much she missed it.

The first impression only further settles when they disembark. Looking up, it's clear how the city sprawls itself among cliffs and wooden bridges; out of need, however, or at least a desperate attempt to climb higher and avoid the sea's wrath. But it isn't done naturally, following the paths of stone and adapting to its shape, or even influencing it to give way and serve as foundation for the buildings. It is crowded and graceless, a pile of buildings one atop the other, naught of natural or even practical to be found in their designs.

The port was worse, with the remains of slain sea monsters and the smell they left behind; the tavern they spent the night at a small but blessed improvement, nevertheless. The next day, Irelia finds herself lacking enough rest, unable to reach a state of peaceful slumber the night before; she is eager to get to work, however, and soon enough they do — first pursuing information about the dangerous cargo Ahri had caught word of, a necessary precaution, to ensure the matter would be dealt with in its root.

The vastaya is a natural at it, the dancer thinks, after Ahri easily charms the third or fourth person they encounter in their little investigation. No magic is needed for her to lure them in, nor for them to spill needed information until, droplet by droplet, a solid lead takes them to a higher part of the city.

The tavern they were told to find is nicer than the one they had been lodged in; more crowded, as well, serving as some sort of middle ground between the different levels of Bilgewater, in the physical sense as much as in what concerned status. Irelia doesn't mind it; with so many people around, others are less likely to pay attention to them — or so she thinks, until she catches one of the pirates stealing glances at them.

Ahri sits opposite her, demeanor utterly at ease, or so most would seem. The dancer can see more beneath, eyes shining with the gleam of the predator Irelia knows the vulpine woman to be. They do not hunt for blood, not yet; but it is a hunt, nevertheless, and Ahri seems quite invested in tracking down those who might be able to finally give them more concrete responses about the operation that has Ionia as its final target.

No warning is needed for the she-fox to notice the glances, much like Irelia had. Ahri seems to glean more than the dancer had, nonetheless; realization subtly softens the edge of the huntress, only to return a heartbeat later, as her eyes notice the piece of jewelry that marks them as the one the Ionian duo had been looking for.

❛ just sit there and look pretty and let me handle this. ❜, @vulpesse says, mirthful enough Irelia could almost be annoyed at her for it, were she not peeved by being relegated to sitting there and looking pretty. There may be something else in Ahri's gaze, as well, something Irelia can't quite name; something she does not bother with naming, reaching for the vastaya's hand to prevent her from leaving.

"If someone needs to stay and look pretty, I'd say you're the better choice," Pretty is too simple a word to describe her; Irelia's point still stands, however. One would need to be blind to not consider the vulpine woman the more beautiful of the duo. Despite the protest, she knows Ahri is probably right in that she should do the talking. The dancer isn't simply unfamiliar with the place and its people; she has made little to no effort to approach them at all. Out of her element in every way — but still, she would rather they go together than be left behind. "If you would have me wait here, I'd at least know why before you go."

[pessimisticshapewithablog]

Who was Ratoo's lost love?

There is an optional side quest involving Ratoo where if the lamb has a follower become the demon Hathor, it given can be given to him for a health upgrade.

Considering how hidden and easy to miss this interaction is, it got thinking about somethings. Like how did Ratoo lose his heart, how is he still alive, how did his heart become a demon? Who or what is Hathor, what exactly are demons in COTL. After some research and alot speculation here is my interpretation of it all.

(This headcanon is incomplete because I lost inspiration halfway through but already put alot of time into it sooo, here. I didn't want it to live in my drafts...)

Demons in COTL

I will expand more on this later but this is a small exert of what I learned. Demons in COTL are all named after IRL gods, as in, NONE of the demons are named after actual demons, of which there are many. I found this odd since there are characters that are named after demons, like Baal, Aym, and Forneus, the bosses at the end of crusade dungeons and all the witnesses. Why then would the only creatures specified as demons in this world be named after IRL gods? Irony, maybe? We'll come back to this.

Who is Hathor?

The IRL namesake of the demon Hathor is an Egyptian Sky Goddess of music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care. Her nature was multifaceted as she could also be wrathful and bloodthirsty.

"Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, a cobra, or a sycamore tree."

"Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife."

This aspect may be relevent later.

In game the demon Hathor will fly away and returns with red hearts. If you are at max health then you will have no use for the heart it has brought you. In this way it acts very similar to The Hearts II tarot card. And the many hearts Ratoo has pulled through his summoning circle. Like Ratoo, it seems as though Hathor is also looking for hearts, for you, the player or for someone else...

Ratoo's Dialogue about Her...

"My love took my heart to the sea, the sea, she took my heart to the sea... 'Tis where my heart will be, will be, in her bed at the bottom of the sea"

"Welcome crusader, take a moment to join me in my search. I look for the heart that once beat in my chest. That is until it was taken by... her. I have been sitting here for so many years, even her face has faded from my mind, yet I keep searching. Always searching. I've a dozen hearts you see, but none of them are mine. They are yours if you wish to have them, crusader. They are worthless to me. I care only for the heart that was once mine... so that I might look upon her face one last time... sigh."

A moment of respite in the eye of the storm!"

"I'll trawl the depths, for the heart she took from my chest!"

"Crusader you have come to join me! I am glad for the company, for this can be such a lonely place."

"I need only find it and I will see her again. I have waited here for so long and all I want is but a moment together once more."

"Oh! Oh! I am happy and I am sad, I weep and I laugh, and I love! Thank you, crusader, for what you have done."

My analysis.

Ratoo seems to be under the notion that his heart is in the watery depths of... somewhere. Not the ocean though as we don't every find him near the piers. Instead Ratoo has etched a summoning circle to someplace unknown where lost hearts can be found but, not his. The circumstances surrounding the loss of Ratoo's heart must be different from the others that he caught if it could not be found by this method. Not that he knows this. The fact this his heart has been very obviously removed from his body could be a factor as to why it can't be found.

I feel as though Ratoo's situation is a metaphor made manifest. His heart was, physically and metaphorically, taken by someone he considered his lover, we do not know if these feelings were reciprocated. Ratoo's memories of his lover are seemingly kept in his heart, which he needs to remember her. His heart has somehow become a demon that finds hearts and brings them to it's summoner. The two are able to be reunited but nothing really changes. The player is still able to summon Hathor at the Demonic Summoning Circle (this is very likely just a game mechanic though).

Because of how open-ended and indefinitive theory crafting is, I couldn't settle on any one in particular that could explain who Ratoo's lover was so, these are the ones I liked best:

My theories

1.

Ratoo's lover was once the goddess, Hathor, that he worshipped dearly. In an act of devotion he gave his heart to her, literally. Some time later, Hathor came into conflict with the old faith and was killed. Now all that remains of her is Ratoo's love for her in the form of the demon Hathor.

11.

111.

Demons in this world are remnants of deposed gods, Hathor being one of them. In this world Hathor is/was a goddess if love and preserving it. Hence Ratoo being drawn to a Hathor, demon of hearts.

Ratoo's in his feeling of love and longing for his lover, elevated his lover to godhood status after her death. Now empowered, she manifests hathors out of love for him. When we give him one in game it's like he is given a love letter from beyond the grave.

[dapper-shipping-forever]

Little snippet thinking of flower goddess Gill and sun god Vash. A mini story lmao

The water god Lyric was a possessive god, and when he discovered the flower goddess and the beauty she brought, he sought to make her his. Your petals are too delicate to be unsheltered, he told her, I can make certain you bloom in safety with me. He kept her secure, isolated, on a remote island within his seas; it was a place no other gods could reach. There she grew her flowers across each spare inch of the island, upon the mountains and in the fields and valleys, the island filled with colors. Lyric kept her flowers watered, but they never seemed to get as bright as she tried to get them. Alone but for Lyric, who would occassionally leave her there on the island, she sung amongst her flowers.

But as remote as Lyric tried to ensure this island had been, one god was able to find it. It was the color that caught his eye.

The sun god Vash, spreading warmth and light from the clouds, flew amongst them. He saw the beacon in the sea far below him, catching his eye. Millions of colors and flowers of all sorts dotted the island. Never before had he seen something quite like this. He decided to take a look, and as he got closer he heard enchanting singing drifting from the flowers. They echoed the voice of the goddess.

She had been started by the appearance of this stranger, having never interacted with anyone besides Lyric, but he reassured her that he was a friend. Vash told Gill he was drawn in by her flowers, and she became excited. She started showing him her island, teaching him about her beloved flowers of all sorts. He stayed for hours, and the longer he stayed the brighter her flowers became. They thrived with Vash's light, and Gill herself also seemed to take on a new shine, her gold spun hair sparkling as it reflected his radiance.

He left before Lyric returned, and when Lyric left again then Vash returned. He visited Gill whenever he could, ensuring she never had a lonely day since they had met. From his warmth, his kindness, and his light, Gill quickly fell in love with Vash. From her love, she created sunflowers, which, like how she seemed pulled towards Vash, the flowers knew to turn their petals towards his rays.

Lyric, perceptive as he is, eventually realized she had a secret frequent visitor; he saw the sunflowers growing and felt the love within their bloom. Enraged, he flooded the island, crushing under the waves each flower.

Vash found her alone on the ruined island. She cried for her flowers, knelt on the muddy ground that once was lush.

The island was completely absent of its vibrant colors. Gill's hair itself had become heavy and dull. Vash had also fallen in love with Gill. Unable to watch her filled with sadness, he came with his light and it brought the shine to her hair. The warmth dried the soil and her clothes. He could not regrow her flowers, but he did fill her with his love.

Wanting to be together, knowing the wrath of Lyric, he resolved to release her from the island prison. He used the sun's warmth to boil the seas and create a path of dryness for her to cross the sea to reach the next shore, and inland they escaped where Lyric's waters could not harm them.

But that's not the end of the tale. Water and flowers are forever hand in hand, always.

[105nt]

Norfolk reads - David Copperfield

I finished listening to David Copperfield, read by Martin Jarvis via Audible (it's included, which I find extraordinary, because it's an astounding good piece of work - he is so in character with every word spoken that it is practically a dramatisation (but without all the annoying mood music in the background) and supplemented with my hard copy - this beauty, of which I only have volumes I and II.

My memory of reading this in my early teens is loving Betsey Trotwood and Wilkins Micawber, but being frustrated by Little Em'ly (the fallen woman) Dora Spenlow (the "child-wife") and Agnes Wickfield (the ministering angel), who all seemed so insipid and limited to me next to the literary heroines I admired - Jane Eyre, Maggie Tulliver, Anne Shirley.

Reading it now with the advantage of several decades, I wonder that I didn't appreciate the minor female characters more, because they are truly wonderful - Rosa Dartle with a scar every bit as expressive as Harry Potter's, Jane Murdstone's fine example of an oppressor in the Simone de Beauvoir mode, and Miss Mowcher - what the hell I made of her when I was 12 I can't think - but there she is, a procuress in plain sight.

I still love Micawber and Aunt Betsy best, but characters I would have hated without reservation are now nuanced to me - none more so than Uriah Heep, who is physically as repulsive to me as he ever was, but now I feel he might have had a point when he says that Copperfield always hated him. The book now reads to me as if he wasn't suffered to rise at least partly because he wasn't of the right class. Like Milady in The Three Musketeers - eventually I must have reached an age when I was less concerned about his crimes and more that he was surrounded by a bunch of entitled snobs.

The description of the storm at Yarmouth and the wreck is as fine as I remember:

As we struggled on, nearer and nearer to the sea, from which this mighty wind was blowing dead on shore, its force became more and more terrific. Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. The water was out, over miles and miles of the flat country adjacent to Yarmouth; and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers setting heavily towards us. When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings. When at last we got into the town, the people came out to their doors, all aslant, and with streaming hair ...

The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. As the high watery walls came rolling in, and, at their highest, tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf the town. As the receding wave swept back with a hoarse roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white–headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces before they reached the land, every fragment of the late whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rushing to be gathered to the composition of another monster. Undulating hills were changed to valleys, undulating valleys (with a solitary storm–bird sometimes skimming through them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and shook the beach with a booming sound; every shape tumultuously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; the clouds fell fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and upheaving of all nature ...

One mast was broken short off, six or eight feet from the deck, and lay over the side, entangled in a maze of sail and rigging; and all that ruin, as the ship rolled and beat—which she did without a moment's pause, and with a violence quite inconceivable—beat the side as if it would stave it in. Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But a great cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge.

Last words to my favourites:

Ilsa is as sharp as Betsey Trotwood, if not as discreet:

'I think Agnes is going to be married.'

'God bless her!' said I, cheerfully.

'God bless her!' said my aunt, 'and her husband too!'

"And now, in short, I proceed to devour that inestimable volume, The Shrieking Pit by Arthur Rees, and if any remain to accompany me on this literary pilgrimage, in due course here shall be found such ruined vestiges as yet

Remain

Of

A

Fallen Tower"

105 (with apologies to Wilkins Micawber)

[shayoranwriting]

The Selkie of Port Mo Chalmaig

Summary: It's been months since selkie, Catrìona, was taken captive and she still can't understand why the locals see her and her people as the problem.

Word count: 992

Content warnings: Domestic violence, mentions of trafficking, mention of war, mention of death

-

Many people would say that a young lass shouldn’t be out on her own this late. But, with me, they know better. I’m not what I appear to be. And I’d much rather face whatever may lurk on these dark streets if it keeps me from the house a little longer.

I came to the surface months ago to avoid the conflict between my people and the Ceasg, who wanted to exterminate all our men but weren’t above slaughtering our women and children too. It was supposed to be temporary, just till the worst of the conflict had died down and I could feel safe again. But someone found my skin and they’ve been holding me here ever since. My ma always warned me about that. A lot of selkies have been caught the same way, though, so at least I know I’m not the only fool. There are even people that make a career of it; they go out and collect loads of skins at a time and keep all the selkies in a big house, then sell them on to folk. They make the selkies do all sorts… It doesn’t bear thinking about.

I suppose I’m one of the luckier ones. My captor brought me to his home in Port Mo Chalmaig. It’s a fairly small coastal village where everyone seems to know each other, but there’s also a larger town nearby. I haven’t seen my skin since that time. He stashed it away upon our arrival and I’ve been unable to find it.

He’s much older than me. Sometimes, when I’m running errands, I hear the elderly townswomen gossiping about us, wondering why he couldn’t get a woman his own age. And species. To be quite honest, I agree with them! So I don’t understand why I’m the one that gets all the dirty looks and vicious whispers. Sometimes they even openly harass me and other people will join in or cheer them on, jeering at me. I haven’t done anything wrong so I don’t know where this hostility comes from. All I can do is rise above it and not sink to their level. That’s the way my ma raised me.

Nevertheless, this is the life I’ve landed in and, with a heavy heart, it’s time for me to return to him. The last light is gone and there’s not a soul left on the streets. I just know he’ll be waiting for me, nursing his wrath to keep its embers smouldering. So, I make my way back along the main street, with the shore on my left and the village on my right, before heading up the winding roads that lead to his old, stone house. I open and close the door as softly as I can, then hold my breath and wait. Did he hear me?

“Where have you been, Mhairi?” he asks darkly from the sitting room.

That’s not my name. It’s the one he chose for me. My real name is Catrìona and I like it. But, sometimes, it’s easier to simply co-operate.

“Just a walk,” I answer after a moment.

“Why?”

“I needed some fresh air.”

“You better not have been at the shore,” he says, with a clear threat behind the tone.

“I wasn’t,” I lied.

I often go there just to be close to the sea. But, more than that, I go there to help my people as best I can. I don’t want them to end up like me or like the others in the “selkie houses”. I would give anything to stop another from suffering our fate. So, I warn anyone that comes ashore and I hide any skins I find. It’s not much, but it’s the best I can do.

I’m not supposed to go down there, though. I’m not supposed to interact with my people at all. It’s better if I “assimilate” is the way he puts it.

I hear him push himself up from his chair, followed by the thud of his footsteps as he crosses the sitting room and, when he steps out into the hall, I shrink back involuntarily. He’s taller than me, though not by much, but he has plenty of meat on him. A great hulking beast of a man. Wild and hairy too. All in all, he paints quite an intimidating picture.

“Don’t lie to me, woman!” he spits the last word. “Where else would you go for so long?”

He’s in a worse mood than usual and it puts the fear into me. I decide to cut my losses and tell the truth.

“Alright, I was at the shore. But I don’t see the harm! I like it down there.”

“You shouldn’t be down there,” he declares. “You’ll get ideas. You should be at home.”

The words are out before I can stop them: “The sea is my home!”

Before I can react, his hand is in my hair and I’m being dragged. Down the hall, through the kitchen, and to the much dreaded door. He opens it and throws me down into his coal cellar. A regular occurrence when I don’t toe the line.

“You need to think long and hard about how lucky you are to be here, my lady,” he tells me.

I watch the light from the door above me narrow into nothingness as it closes, and I am left in pitch darkness.

Sometimes people tell me I should go back where I came from. I never understand why they say it with such hostility. I’d love to go back to the sea. I’d love to see my family and know that they’re safe and well. I’d love to be safe, myself, and feel like I belong again. But I can’t. Things would be better if people understood that the selkies aren’t the problem; it’s the people trapping us here. We share the same enemy and we could stand together against them. Wouldn’t that be simpler?