#could it be...

[traditional-with-a-twist]

li. Beauty and Her Beast

<<Previous || first arc || second arc || third arc || AO3 || Next>>

Torou rises from her seat and passes so near that Obi feels the heat from her body.

Pausing with her back to him, she looks over her shoulder. The robe has slipped down to show the warm curve of her skin.

She holds his gaze as she reaches out and pushes the door shut behind him.

...

At different stages in her career, Torou has both posed and worked as a street dancer. Flashing skirts and whirling ribbons will tempt gold coins in many quarters, or draw unwary eyes away from a partner slipping through a door that ought to have been locked.

Her costume is more muted, but she is dancing now: a lithe, teasing display.

He can see that she is enjoying every step.

...

Torou turns to face him, leaning against the doorframe. One eyebrow arches inquiringly.

She has set the stage. 

Now it is his turn to act.

...

'Hey, Torou…’ he says, answering her unspoken question with a tone of mock confusion, ‘you would have any man, wouldn't you?' 

'Not at all!’ She lifted her nose, answering him with haughtiness. 

A sly smile disrupts the aristocratic air when she adds, ‘He would have to be good-looking.' 

...

Obi half-smiles. She had a tongue like a knife, this one, and she used both willingly.

‘Is that so?’ he asks softly.

Instead of answering, she melts back into the wood, tipping back her head to expose her neck and regarding him from under her lashes.

Obi steps into the space she has opened between them, accepting the invitation. He stands looking down on her.

She is all curves and coy smile, tempting as a ripe peach.

...

He sets a hand on the wall beside Torou's face, studying her with that now habitual flatness in his slanted eyes.

Could she drive out the ghosts for him? 

Could she free him from the unrelenting pain of memory, of regret?

...

She has done it for many men before him, he is sure of that.

The solitary room, the flickering candlelight, the musky scent perfuming the air, all attest to her skill.

She has waited for him, welcomed him in, even spared him the trouble of walking across the room to her.

...

Obi is a step from losing himself in her arms, drowning out conscience in animal instinct, surrendering his will to sensation.

His body is bruised, aching; his soul even more so — everything in him cries out for relief from the awful pain that dogs him everywhere.

Why hesitate? Thinking comes sluggishly, this late at night, after not enough sleep, too much drink.

...

There is something inevitable in it, in his finding a familiar face here — someone who knows him and yet expects nothing, would not begrudge him a mercenary exchange, would think no less of him for using her and letting her use him.

She is ready to devour him, and he wants her to do it. 

He wants anything but to endure another night of emptiness, another hour of facing his failure, another moment of knowing himself worse than useless to the one he had cherished most.

...

Torou watches him with that hungry curiosity of her half-wild nature. She likes the uncertainty, he knows, relishes the suspense.

Obi pauses on the brink, the possibility of oblivion yawning before him, and then he leans in.

Her lips part.

A breath away from closing the kiss, he turns aside. 

Torou’s questing lips meet only air; Obi’s forehead thuds against the wall.

...

It is worse, not better.

...

Somewhere in a dusty archive, locked away in the castle vaults, lies a paper with two names scratched out in ink.

Nothing remains on his person of their vows to each other — no ring, no token, not even a mark like the one he bears for the late master.

There is nothing to see or touch, yet the owner of that name has marked him more deeply than flesh, than blood, than bone. 

...

He has wronged her in most ways imaginable, but not this one.

She might have been standing right behind him, looking over his shoulder with the look of solemn compassion she wore when in the presence of something despicable.

The closer he came to another woman, the nearer he felt her.

...

Her voice has been weaving through his thoughts, plaguing his dreams, but just now she might have whispered in his ear.

The roughness of the wood, the brush of Torou’s loose hair against his skin — it all feels insubstantial as mist compared with the sense that she might be a moment from laying her hand on his arm.

Even the heady perfumes have somehow faded; all he can smell is that unmistakable mix of fragrance and medicine, flowers and earth. 

He could almost taste her.

Obi’s body slumps, folding in on itself, as the tension drains out of him. Inside there is nothing but a bleak and blighted waste.

...

Torou’s shoulders quiver. She makes a sound, low in her throat.

Obi jerks back, eyeing her warily.

She shrugs at him, grinning. “Can’t blame a girl for being curious.”

...

No sign of offended feeling or even irritation shows; she regards him not with hostility but a nonchalance bordering on amusement.

“You’re not even surprised,” Obi accuses her.

She shakes her head, grin widening.

...

He drags a hand down his face, searching for a well of anger to draw on, to show some resentment that she has played him like a fish that she always meant to throw back into the pool.

He finds only exhaustion.

Coming here had been pointless, like everything else.

...

“Going so soon?” her mocking voice follows him, as he crosses the room in a bound. Obi doesn’t pause on the windowsill. 

He doesn’t look back.

Throwing up the glass, he releases himself into the night and lets the darkness swallow him, for what little relief it brings.

*****

Torou straightens and stands with her arms akimbo, frowning after him. 

She had rolled the dice to see how they would land, not to win — but she couldn’t call herself satisfied.

The reports had not overstated the case. 

He was half-mad and running amok. All her tricks had barely slowed him down for less than a night.

...

Torou walked to the dressing table and began pulling the sleeves, shifts, pads, and skirts of her usual costume from the drawers, attiring herself in a more practical sort of a battledress.

She pursed her lips as she worked, weighing her training against her inclination.

There was no money in following Obi — clearly, he would be no good for a job, even. That made it a waste of resources.

She knew that, yet still she found herself wanting to.

...

Tugging her own laces tight, in a show of strength and flexibility that would have impressed a circus performer, Torou turned from the mirror.

She has always liked Obi, but it is not just nostalgia for old times making her restless in the wake of their encounter.

The night before, while sniffing out Obi’s trail, she had encountered a rumor. 

Someone dangerous was on the loose, it was whispered — someone who had a bone to pick with the royals of Tanbarun and Clarines.

...

She had thought it meant Obi. He was dangerous; he had crossed swords with one or even two princes, if the gossip could be believed.

After seeing him tonight, though, she wondered.

No one could mistake a man like that, crazed with his own memories, for a hunter questing revenge.

...

If not Obi, then who?

[nudityandnerdery]

I want you to remember:

The fascists hate you too and they just will pretend otherwise until after they've killed the rest of us, before they turn on you.

Edit! It's been blazed by now. Thank you, though!

[victusinveritas]

By the way, It Could Happen Here and Behind the Bastards are great podcasts by Robert Evans and friends.

[skulandcrossbones]

it's so wild to me that you absolutely cannot force a hyperfixation to happen. like you'll watch the most perfectly tailor-made-for-you content that everyone says you'll love and feel absolutely nothing, and then the thing you watch on a whim to fill time will reach through the screen and put its damn fingers in your brain and start rearranging the neurons right in front of you and every single time you're like THIS??? THIS??????? and this happens like every 6-12 months forever

[snaxle]

I DONT WANNA PAY BILLS I WANNA USE MY MONEY FOR FOOD AND LIL GIFTS FOR MYSELF AND MY LOVED ONES

[beaft]

me when someone abruptly asks me if i want to go and do something fun together but the fun thing wasn't part of my daily plan:

[sunflowermp4]

ITS DOECHII BITCH MISS D-O-E DON DADA BITCH YOU NOTICE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[swedenis-h]

Wife lovers till they die

[lrndvs]

compliments from girls go hard

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

This song has single-handedly taken over my life and it’s only been like a week

[hug-your-face]

via @swatercolour here on Tumblr and also on [insta]

EDIT: I do not interpret "just managing" as "just suffering, just enduring, curling into a fetal position and waiting for it to be over." Managing is an active process.

So I'm using this post as a platform to make the reminder that "the power of the people is greater than the people in power," and we all are cordially invited to:

Take good care of ourselves. Mental, physical, emotional health. Hydrate. Move if we can, get outside if we can.

Keep up a routine. Remember quarantine and we all had to find a routine? This is the same.

Be intentional in our news consumption. Let's not stick our heads in the sand but let's not doomscroll either. Get an RSS aggregator. Subscribe to WTF Just Happened Today, Yoour Local Epidemiologist, Fix The News (for some inspiring hopeful news!). We'll check our feeds a few times a week, but no more than once a day.

Connect with friends and loved ones. Remind ourselves that while SOME people are horrible, for the most part people are awesome... if complicated. Share our fears but also our hopes. Eat together.

Now that we're keeping healthy, safe, sane, and hopeful... now we also fight. Quietly if we prefer, loudly if we prefer. But sustainably. I hate that I had to live through three rounds of this nonsense where a few people use half of us as tools to fuck over ALL of us, but here we are again. So let us take just one moment every week or so to...

Use 5calls to keep blowing up our reps phones. Tell them to either break ranks with the Orange Administration, or to stand up louder than just matching outfits and signs. Or to THANK them for standing up.

Use Vote411 to find elections before the midterms. A lot of villages, cities, townships etc have local elections that will affect where we live... and more importantly, the people in office there will affect things upwards too.

Use Ballotpedia to know exactly what's on our ballots ahead of time.

Protest, because it actually works.

Use Vote.org to make a plan to vote in the midterms. Make a plan that is immune to voter suppression tactics. Get our documents in order. Reach out to our friends to go to the polls as a group. Plan to livestream our visit, up until the point we have to turn our cameras off.

Make and share memes that promote hope, organizing, solidarity, and/or resistance.

Get involved with an action network like Indivisible, MoveOn, or Working Families Party.

Go to a local town hall meeting. Speak up.

Heck, start our own local activism networks, letter campaigns, call campaigns, or fundraisers with Action Network.

And we will remember our self-care. We will remind ourselves and each other that they want us scattered, focus is how we resist.

It IS coming back. Things ARE going to get worse. The world has become a place where a very few people are pulling levers and pushing buttons that are actively destroying much of what is good about living in a society where people care for each other.

Many others are in shock, sputtering "but can they do that?" MANY many others are waiting for someone to come save us.

But there are those who are actively, loudly, opposing.

And there are more people speaking up, acting up, every day. More people saying it's time to get scrappy. It's time to get into some good trouble. The shock is wearing off.

Yes, it's gonna get worse before it gets better (the long-term damage of the acts of the past momentum of all the damage that has been done will take that long to be felt -- but it WILL get better.

If WE will it.

[sadgirlautumn]

“kids spend too much time on their devices” well what else are they supposed to do? there’s no corner shops with pinball machines in them on every corner anymore. there’s no malls or stores in small towns for teens to hang out in without being suspected of shoplifting or kicked out for loitering. sidewalks are too broken for them to ride their bikes and there’s no bike lane in the street to make it safe for them. i just don’t understand where they expect these kids to go when they keep taking places away from them. and yes having no safe public places for them is what leads a lot of teens into addiction if they end up at a place where people aren’t truly looking out for them.

[yardsards]

but i stay silly! *←said in the most world-weary voice you ever did hear*

[beholdthemem]

My fellow bitches under 5'5. Whatever the money, do not take a job working at a middle school. A fellow adult tried to put me in detention last month and would NOT give up until I showed her my badge proving Yes, The School Hired Me To Work Here. It's not meant for people our height.

[noodles-and-tea]

Last one from the archives