#i do think he would keep things polite but distant in the early days post pacifist because tori doesn't want anything to do with him

[carlyraejepsans]

sans undertale would not make i fucked your wife jokes. people want to make jokes about sans fucking asgore's wife but sans the character would NOT do that r you kidding me. you can cut the secondhand embarrassment with a knife every time they're in the same room together, sans likes the guy, i bet he feels genuinely kinda bad for asgore. he'd be like sorry about the dating your ex wife thing. to be fair she's a really cool ex wife. and asgore would be like (rescue shelter dog sigh) She is.

[sadtraumatizedlonely]

Chapter One—Am I an Asshole? (Rhetorical)

My boyfriend got invited to play baseball this evening. One of their usual players was sick, so a friend asked him if he could fill in for that other player. He texted me in the late afternoon to ask if we had any plans (i.e. he was seeking my approval) and all I could muster was a simple “You’re an adult, you can do whatever you want”. A sentence that boarders on sassy, but still allows me to vent my hurt feelings and frustration covertly, without him thinking much about it. We had playful banter through out the rest of the afternoon.

The issue was: we had just received an email from our new landlord confirming that we could move in early, however, we would need to prepare some paperwork. All of which he said we would do tonight during that short text exchange. I scoffed at his answer as I knew that it would take the back burner to the exciting plans he had with his friends, and I went back to work feeling a profound sense of loneliness.

That feeling was made worse when he told me, upon arriving home from work, that they had also invited him to go swimming after the game. A great way to cool off after a game on this terribly hot day. I couldn’t help but feel that sense of loneliness swallow me whole as I saw him packing his swim trunks in his sports bag. I stonewalled him, but not wanting to seem difficult or irrational, just played the “tired” game. Like always, he gives me the benefit of the doubt, kisses me goodbye, and leaves for his night of fun and excitement that he desperately needs and deserves.

“How to feel less lonely”

A statement I shamefully type into Safari as tears start streaming down my face. This Google search (not surprisingly) gives results such as: Join a Sports Team, Volunteer, Practice Self-Care. But those answers are unsatisfactory. The deep, intense loneliness is something that comes from an intrinsic feeling of unworthiness and shame. I have attempted to mitigate these symptoms with art, hiking, dancing, volunteering; all which work for a while, until I become too exhausted to handle them, and I crawl back in bed still lonely and empty inside.   

“Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and loneliness”

My second Google search of the evening. If you haven’t noticed by now, or couldn’t guess from the title of this...whatever this is, I suffered a lot of childhood trauma and have been in therapy for years trying to heal from my childhood experience of living with a narcissistic (mentally ill) mother and a father who is ruled by his own trauma. Those experiences caused me to have great dysfunction when it comes to relationships, closeness, and connection. Many of these things, I’m too ashamed of bringing up in my (very expensive but necessary) therapy sessions.

So there I was, overweight and crying, in my PJs ordering takeout on UberEats, watching my childhood trauma therapy Youtube videos that make me feel less alone and crazy, while my partner was having a blast, making new friends, and having what would probably be (in my opinion) a better night than being home with me and completing the “sorta but not really” urgent paperwork for our new apartment, smoking weed, and spending time in separate rooms until it was time to meet up again and hang out just before bedtime.

Inside, I know that alone time is important for all relationships. And it’s not necessarily the fact that he was invited somewhere without me that made me feel so absolutely alone. I feel alone because unlike my very popular and extroverted boyfriend, my phone remains vacant of incoming messages or calls (unless it is Statistics Canada asking me to complete their survey). Even still, infrequent messages come from distant relatives or acquaintances who (in my opinion) either want something from me, or have for some reason taken an interest in me out of some underlying duty to be polite and to keep in touch. No one is texting me to make plans. All the plans I have I’m only invited to because of my partner.

And I do not reach out to anyone. The fear of being “left on read” or ignored is too painful, which further fuels my loneliness.

“Does life insurance cover suicide?”

My final Google search, as I’m considering the fact that this loneliness may end of killing me with how deep and profound it is. My partner has a $300,000.00 life insurance policy in my name that he will be entitled to if I die. I want to make sure that he is taken care of, especially in this economy, if this did in fact lead to me taking my own life, which I know is a real possibility.

It would mostly be an inconvenience for me to kill myself. A mess to be cleaned, a 230lb body to cart to the morgue. I mostly think about ways that require no clean up—launching myself off a bridge, going “missing” in the woods and dying of starvation, going to the most turbulent ocean and drifting innocently into a rip tide.  All of which could be covered under my accidental death policy. My self view is so horrendous that I can only think about how inconvenient it will be for those left behind to clean up the mess I make. How absolutely fucked, eh?  

Funnily enough, the first search result is the Canadian Prevention for Suicide website screaming DON’T DO IT, GET HELP. But what if I don’t want help? I’m an adult, I pay a third of my paycheque to taxes (and I probably pays for that initiative), I have an education, career, and home. Why can’t I decide if I live or die without so much judgement or people telling me not to do it?   

“Life is sacred”

But what if I do not feel like mine is? What if I feel that I do not belong, like an alien in a human’s body. I’ve always felt that way. A burden, not good enough, ugly, fat, just wrong in all sorts of ways.

My life isn’t sacred. My lack of social relationships proves that. No one can stand to be my friend after they get to know the real me, or they just put me on the back burner while they find closer connections with less damaged people. Ones that are not too exhausted by their lives that they can text first and often. Ones that aren’t filled with shame and find agony in reaching out and making plans. Ones that can afford to spend the night and will be there for you no matter what. I cannot offer those things. My trauma will not allow me. It is too exhausting for me to take an active role in someone else’s life. Which is why my friendships fizzle out and die.

I’m too ashamed of my appearance to reach out to my old co-worker who I used to spend time with every summer drinking and tanning in the Quad. I was a lot skinnier in college, and she works hard to keep her body tight and strong. I couldn’t help feeling shame and pain the last time we hung out because of my appearance. “Why would she even invite me over?” “Was it to make fun of how fat and ugly I’ve gotten?” Those thoughts circled in my head, and that was the last time I was invited to hang out with her.

Embarrassment and Shame rule everything I do, and it keeps me lonely. So, am I an asshole for feeling so strongly about my boyfriend having exciting plans when I can’t even get my best friend to prioritize a phone call with me? I think the answer is complicated, not unlike like my complex trauma.    

[niseamstories]

10 Lessons on Realistic Worldbuilding and Mapmaking I Learned Working With a Professional Cartographer and Geodesist

Hi, fellow writers and worldbuilders,

It’s been over a year since my post on realistic swordfighting, and I figured it’s time for another one. I’m guessing the topic is a little less “sexy”, but I’d find this useful as a writer, so here goes: 10 things I learned about realistic worldbuilding and mapmaking while writing my novel.

I’ve always been a sucker for pretty maps, so when I started on my novel, I hired an artist quite early to create a map for me. It was beautiful, but a few things always bothered me, even though I couldn’t put a finger on it. A year later, I met an old friend of mine, who currently does his Ph.D. in cartography and geodesy, the science of measuring the earth. When the conversation shifted to the novel, I showed him the map and asked for his opinion, and he (respectfully) pointed out that it has an awful lot of issues from a realism perspective.

First off, I’m aware that fiction is fiction, and it’s not always about realism; there are plenty of beautiful maps out there (and my old one was one of them) that are a bit fantastical and unrealistic, and that’s all right. Still, considering the lengths I went to ensure realism for other aspects of my worldbuilding, it felt weird to me to simply ignore these discrepancies. With a heavy heart, I scrapped the old map and started over, this time working in tandem with a professional artist, my cartographer friend, and a linguist. Six months later, I’m not only very happy with the new map, but I also learned a lot of things about geography and coherent worldbuilding, which made my universe a lot more realistic.

1)  Realism Has an Effect: While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with creating an unrealistic world, realism does affect the plausibility of a world. Even if the vast majority of us probably know little about geography, our brains subconsciously notice discrepancies; we simply get this sense that something isn’t quite right, even if we don’t notice or can’t put our finger on it. In other words, if, for some miraculous reason, an evergreen forest borders on a desert in your novel, it will probably help immersion if you at least explain why this is, no matter how simple.

2)  Climate Zones: According to my friend, a cardinal sin in fantasy maps are nonsensical climate zones. A single continent contains hot deserts, forests, and glaciers, and you can get through it all in a single day. This is particularly noticeable in video games, where this is often done to offer visual variety (Enderal, the game I wrote, is very guilty of this). If you aim for realism, run your worldbuilding by someone with a basic grasp of geography and geology, or at least try to match it to real-life examples.

3)  Avoid Island Continent Worlds: Another issue that is quite common in fictional worlds is what I would call the “island continents”: a world that is made up of island-like continents surrounded by vast bodies of water. As lovely and romantic as the idea of those distant and secluded worlds may be, it’s deeply unrealistic. Unless your world was shaped by geological forces that differ substantially from Earth’s, it was probably at one point a single landmass that split up into fragmented landmasses separated by waters. Take a look at a proper map of our world: the vast majority of continents could theoretically be reached by foot and relatively manageable sea passages. If it weren’t so, countries such as Australia could have never been colonized – you can’t cross an entire ocean on a raft.

4)  Logical City Placement: My novel is set in a Polynesian-inspired tropical archipelago; in the early drafts of the book and on my first map, Uunili, the nation’s capital, stretched along the entire western coast of the main island. This is absurd. Not only because this city would have been laughably big, but also because building a settlement along an unprotected coastline is the dumbest thing you could do considering it directly exposes it to storms, floods, and, in my case, monsoons. Unless there’s a logical reason to do otherwise, always place your coastal settlements in bays or fjords.

 Naturally, this extends to city placement in general. If you want realism and coherence, don’t place a city in the middle of a godforsaken wasteland or a swamp just because it’s cool. There needs to be a reason. For example, the wasteland city could have started out as a mining town around a vast mineral deposit, and the swamp town might have a trading post along a vital trade route connecting two nations.

 5)  Realistic Settlement Sizes: As I’ve mentioned before, my capital Uunili originally extended across the entire western coast. Considering Uunili is roughly two thirds the size of Hawaii  the old visuals would have made it twice the size of Mexico City. An easy way to avoid this is to draw the map using a scale and stick to it religiously. For my map, we decided to represent cities and townships with symbols alone.

 6)  Realistic Megacities: Uunili has a population of about 450,000 people. For a city in a Middle Ages-inspired era, this is humongous. While this isn’t an issue, per se (at its height, ancient Alexandria had a population of about 300,000), a city of that size creates its own set of challenges: you’ll need a complex sewage system (to minimize disease spreading like wildfire) and strong agriculture in the surrounding areas to keep the population fed. Also, only a small part of such a megacity would be enclosed within fantasy’s ever-so-present colossal city walls; the majority of citizens would probably concentrate in an enormous urban sprawl in the surrounding areas. To give you a pointer, with a population of about 50,000, Cologne was Germany’s biggest metropolis for most of the Middle Ages. I’ll say it again: it’s fine to disregard realism for coolness in this case, but at least taking these things into consideration will not only give your world more texture but might even provide you with some interesting plot points.

 7)  World Origin: This point can be summed up in a single question: why is your world the way it is? If your novel is set in an archipelago like mine is, are the islands of volcanic origin? Did they use to be a single landmass that got flooded with the years? Do the inhabitants of your country know about this? Were there any natural disasters to speak of? Yes, not all of this may be relevant to the story, and the story should take priority over lore, but just like with my previous point, it will make your world more immersive.

 8)  Maps: Think Purpose! Every map in history had a purpose. Before you start on your map, think about what yours might have been. Was it a map people actually used for navigation? If so, clarity should be paramount. This means little to no distracting ornamentation, a legible font, and a strict focus on relevant information. For example, a map used chiefly for military purposes would naturally highlight different information than a trade map. For my novel, we ultimately decided on a “show-off map” drawn for the Blue Island Coalition, a powerful political entity in the archipelago (depending on your world’s technology level, maps were actually scarce and valuable). Also, think about which technique your in-universe cartographer used to draw your in-universe map. Has copperplate engraving already been invented in your fictional universe? If not, your map shouldn’t use that aesthetic.

9)  Maps: Less Is More. If a spot or an area on a map contains no relevant information, it can (and should) stay blank so that the reader’s attention naturally shifts to the critical information. Think of it this way: if your nav system tells you to follow a highway for 500 miles, that’s the information you’ll get, and not “in 100 meters, you’ll drive past a little petrol station on the left, and, oh, did I tell you about that accident that took place here ten years ago?” Traditional maps follow the same principle: if there’s a road leading a two day’s march through a desolate desert, a black line over a blank white ground is entirely sufficient to convey that information.

10) Settlement and Landmark Names: This point will be a bit of a tangent, but it’s still relevant. I worked with a linguist to create a fully functional language for my novel, and one of the things he criticized about my early drafts were the names of my cities. It’s embarrassing when I think about it now, but I really didn’t pay that much attention to how I named my cities; I wanted it to sound good, and that was it. Again: if realism is your goal, that’s a big mistake. Like Point 5, we went back to the drawing board and dove into the archipelago’s history and established naming conventions. In my novel, for example, the islands were inhabited by indigenes called the Makehu before the colonization four hundred years before the events of the story; as it’s usually the case, all settlements and islands had purely descriptive names back then. For example, the main island was called Uni e Li, which translates as “Mighty Hill,” a reference to the vast mountain ranges in the south and north; townships followed the same example (e.g., Tamakaha meaning “Coarse Sands”). When the colonizers arrived, they adopted the Makehu names and adapted them into their own language, changing the accented, long vowels to double vowels: Uni e Li became “Uunili,” Lehō e Āhe became “Lehowai.” Makehu townships kept their names; colonial cities got “English” monikers named after their geographical location, economic significance, or some other original story. Examples of this are Southport, a—you guessed it—port on the southernmost tip of Uunili, or Cale’s Hope, a settlement named after a businessman’s mining venture. It’s all details, and chances are that most readers won’t even pay attention, but I personally found that this added a lot of plausibility and immersion.

I could cover a lot more, but this post is already way too long, so I’ll leave it at that—if there’s enough interest, I’d be happy to make a part two. If not, well, maybe at least a couple of you got something useful out of this. If you’re looking for inspiration/references to show to your illustrator/cartographer, the David Rumsey archive is a treasure trove. Finally, for anyone who doesn’t know and might be interested, my novel is called Dreams of the Dying, and is a blends fantasy, mystery, and psychological horror set in the universe of Enderal, an indie RPG for which I wrote the story. It’s set in a Polynesian-inspired medieval world and has been described as Inception in a fantasy setting by reviewers.

Credit for the map belongs to Dominik Derow, who did the ornamentation, and my friend Fabian Müller, who created the map in QGIS and answered all my questions with divine patience. The linguist’s name is David Müller (no, they’re not related, and, yes, we Germans all have the same last names.)

[jaskiersvalley]

Could you do some witchers brothers and hurt/comfort please? Maybe with vesemir or jaskier. I love your blog (sorry for my English it's not my mother tongue) and I really enjoy each ficlet you post. Take care and thank you! :)

Nonnie, fear not about your English, it is perfect. As one non-native English speaker to another, I think it’s fantastic we have this common language to communicate in!

Every winter all wolf Witchers returned to Kaer Morhen whether they wanted to or not. Some years Jaskier could have sworn Geralt was silently pleading with him to be given an excuse not to return but the one time Jaskier actually asked Geralt to stay, he was given a small, almost remorseful shake of head. It took another couple of years before Jaskier tried again.

“I have to go back to Kaer Morhen,” Geralt said, staring into his empty bowl at the tavern. They were due to go their separate ways from there and, as time went on, they left later and later just to have a few more hours or a day in each other’s company.

“Then let me come with you.”

The request from Jaskier had Geralt blinking, as startled as a Witcher ever got. He seemed reluctant in a way that Jaskier hadn’t actually seen before.

“You won’t like it.” The problem was, it didn’t even sound like an excuse. “There’s not much to do.”

That was something Jaskier wanted to judge for himself. Plus, he could think of ways of spending a whole winter if Geralt was amenable. So he smiled.

“I don’t mind. I’d rather spend months with you in your company, doing nothing but staring lovingly into your eyes than a winter without you by my side.”

It took a bit of convincing, Geralt’s resistance and resolve wasn’t all that strong to start with. Jaskier could see him at war with himself over the matter, all he did was help settle it. He was going to Kaer Morhen.

The climb up was exhausting. It was cold, the kind that signalled that snow was going to fall all too soon. Jaskier just had to hope they would make it before it properly started coming down. They didn’t.

By the time they got to the old keep, snow was clumped on Jaskier’s shoulders and hood, even the hair that stuck out from under it was like an icicle on his forehead. Opening the door, Geralt led them through and Jaskier almost whined in disappointment. There was no wall of warmth to walk into, no greeting from other Witchers. In fact, it was cold and barren, not even a torch on to light the way. Only a hand on Jaskier’s arm helped guide him through the corridors until they got to a door. Geralt thumped on it twice before opening it the smallest crack and slipping though, dragging Jaskier along before closing the door again.

The room was likely a smaller dining hall attached to the kitchen once upon a time. Not the grandiose halls Jaskier had dreamed of. However, the walls were all lined with fur, the floor piled high with it and there was a roaring fire to bring light and heat to the room.

“You brought company.” There were three figures in front of the fire now that Jaskier looked, all of them in a pile, looking rather cosy. He had no idea who had spoken.

“Hello, I’m Jaskier, the renowned bard.” Introductions were always polite.

“Don’t care.” That had to be Lambert talking. “Just dump your stuff and get in here.”

Quite the upfront invite and Jaskier glanced to Geralt to assess his reaction. However, Geralt had already started stripping, his snow coated cloak was hung on the back of a chair while everything else went clattering. Taking his lead, Jaskier did the same. It was only when they were down to their smalls that Geralt stopped and stepped towards the pile. He slipped in and gestured for Jaskier to follow too. Under the furs, it was surprisingly warm and, tired from the trek, Jaskier couldn’t really blame himself for falling asleep.

For the first few days Jaskier relished the quiet, relaxed atmosphere and the fact that there was nothing to do other than rest. Sure, it was a little weird to lounge around sharing body heat but maybe it was a wolf thing. However, by the third day he was getting a bit bored.

“When do you start training? Or doing anything?”

“I told you-” Geralt replied, “-there isn’t much to do.”

Not much didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to do, at least, that’s not how Jaskier interpreted it. He was proven wrong by the end of the first week. They had done nothing other than sleep, eat and huddle under the pile of furs. Going out to relieve himself was a special kind of torture, it was so cold, Jaskier was surprised he didn’t just piss icicles.

After the first week it seemed that the others lost some of their hesitance around him. It was early one morning when Jaskier woke up to noises he was no stranger to but didn’t expect to hear so close. In the far corner of the room, Lambert was above Eskel, fucking into him without a care for their audience.

“If you keep staring you’ll be invited to join in,” Geralt grumbled from under the pile of furs behind Jaskier. On his other side Vesemir muttered something darkly before settling back down.

“Do they want an audience? Isn’t this a bit weird?”

Geralt shrugged at the questions. “We’ve got needs, nothing we haven’t all seen or done before. Just ignore them, they’ll be done soon.”

Jaskier supposed he ought to be grateful the two had taken themselves to the other side of the room as least. It didn’t mean he still wasn’t treated to a full show filed with soft grunts and what sounded dangerously like murmurs of love declarations. The kissing sure helped drive that one home. Resolve hardening, Jaskier determined he wouldn’t put on such a show for everyone else.

“We could go somewhere more private,” he propositioned Geralt. It was quite the matter of need now, he hadn’t even had the privacy to jerk off. His balls were starting to ache.

“Where? It’s too cold anywhere else.”

Which was true enough. Jaskier had tried to think of anywhere they could go for a fumble without an audience. The stables were his best idea but Geralt snorted dismissively.

“Not in front of Roach.”

The determination to find somewhere, anywhere else lasted all of three more days before Jaskier caved in. He all but dragged Geralt to the most distant corner and demanded he be ravished. It was so good, he could even forget the three other Witchers in the room. They didn’t forget him though and, over the course of the week, Jaskier found himself propositioned by all other residents of Kaer Morhen. When he asked Geralt, he got a shrug in return. “Do what you please. I don’t mind sharing as long as you know I still love you.”

After that, winter seeed somewhat more bearable. Jaskier loved to learn what made the other Witchers moan and squirm. It was like discovering a whole new book to memorise and refine. Lambert liked his hair being pulled, Eskel preferred soft kisses while Vesemir would rumbled the filthiest things in Jaskier’s ear. In short, Jaskier was thoroughly entertained. There was still one thing on his mind though.

“Why do you even come back?”

They were sat around the fire, eating. The silence and shifty looks didn’t really help.

“It’s impossible to survive a winter up here alone,” Geralt began.

Much more kindly, Eskel took over. “Vesemir doesn’t go out on the Path anymore. He keeps as much of Kaer Morhen in one piece as he can and prepares stores for each winter.”

So it was a matter of duty. Jaskier couldn’t imagine how awful it would be alone up in the old, crumbling keep. Even worse, a winter alone.

“The whole keep is nothing but holes and crumbling stone. We can’t keep it warm over winter, no matter how much we fuel the fires,” Lambert interrupted his thoughts. “So we heat one room, next to the kitchen. Sorted for food, we keep each other warm. Guests are always welcome though few ever would want to winter with us like this.”

“Just bring your damn cat next time,” Vesemir cut in with an eye roll. “I can hear you telling Eskel about him almost every day.”

Jaskier listened, pondering over everything he heard. By the sounds of it, the Wolves returned to Kaer Morhen out of a sense of duty, to keep Vesemir alive through the winter. It was noble but also stupid as fuck.

“Come spend winter with me in Oxenfurt next year.” The offer was made without much consideration. It seemed obvious to him. “I could probably even get you a couple of hours of work a week, teaching history and the like to students.”

No more worries about freezing to death, no more obligations to each other. Jaskier liked the idea of his free Witchers hanging around because they wanted to rather than had to. It would mean the opportunity to train during the winter, resting too if they wanted to. Plus, if they wanted to bring guests, there was more to do than just lounge around and fuck. Though they could still do that, Jaskier was very much into the idea of that. But next time, next winter, there would be beds and privacy for whenever they wanted it.

[ultraintrovertedgryffindor]

hello my favorite writer it is me again i was wondering if i could have another will imagine (gn as usual) and could it be about a reader who feels insecure about being wills partner because they’re still working on being famous and feel like they’re mooching off of wills fame and end up pushing him away slightly and it’s angsty, but ends in fluff with will finally telling them he loves them and reassuring kisses <3

Favorite writer?? You flatter me, darlin', but thank you!

Also, so sorry this took so long! I've been really unmotivated/lazy lately and I wanted to write this as perfect as I possibly could. Also also, ya know how the Powerpuff Girls were made? Sugar, spice, and everything nice but Chemical X was added accidently? Yeah, this is that, but replace Chemical X with a lot of angst. My bad.😬

WARNING: Depressing themes throughout

~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't often you felt insecure, but you figured it was just one of those days.

You hadn't been in many blockbuster films or tv shows, you were still working hard on your career. You loved the indie projects you worked on, you loved any job where you could act. It was your passion, after all.

You couldn't help feel a little bit insecure when your partner, Will, was where you aspired to be your whole life. He was brilliant, working with amazing people like Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio. So early in his career too. You looked up to Will so much, praying that you'd be just as talented as him one day. But you knew it wouldn't be easy, acting isn't exactly the easier job in the world, you knew it would take a lucky break.

You always joked that maybe you should work as a waiter in some restaurant, knowing that Edward Norton got his first movie role while working in such a place, only to move on to work beside the amazing Richard Gear.

It was just one day you felt bad about your career, but then it started to snowball into anxiety and depression. It got to the point where it was all you could think about, especially when you were out with Will. And you could tell that he knew something was up, the thousand yard stare that you often had was something that couldn't really go unnoticed.

But for the most part, you acted like everything was fine.

You hated that you let your insecurity pile on and on like this, it normally was something you could handle. You don't know what came over you, but you found yourself scrolling for hours looking at comments on any of your posts. Most people were supportive of you and Will's relationship, and you were thankful for that. But of course, there are always a few bad apples.

The wonderful and lovely, supportive comments were many, outweighing the hate by miles. But just one negative comment could throw you off, ruining your day.

You wished you could just focus on the positive, but unfortunately, that's not how brains are designed. It always has to point out a flaw, find that one odd man out, find the error in the system. Usually, most of those errors can be fixed. You spent your entire life trying to get people to like you, being somewhat of a pushover and a people pleaser, disregarding your own self in favor of praise. So seeing people online hating you for no other reason besides being with Will, seeing that they might never change their minds, it was devastating.

You knew that the hate would usually come from obsessed fans who must've been jealous of you, and you could understand that and it was fine. You remembered the younger years of being jealous of a person who dated your crush, it was something that most people grow out of thankfully. You could get over those comments, saying you weren't good looking enough or not fit enough, any comments about your appearance. The ones that really got to you was the comments about your "horrible" personality.

It was odd, people saying awful things about you when they didn't even know you at all. Most of the contradictory was were amusing. There was a point in time after your relationship with Will was made public, where you'd feel to nervous about going to red carpet events with him. The comments would say, "Y/n's not there with Will? What an unsupportive partner they must be!" or anything similar. But when you started to go with him sometimes, the comments would shift dramatically.

"Y/n's a gold digger."

"They're just using Will for his fame."

"He deserves better than that snake."

It hurt, more than you'd admit. You told Will it didn't bother you that much, just wrote it off that it's normal. Then, you never talked about it again.

You felt awful, every single day. Thoughts of self doubt clouding your brain constantly, thinking, "Am I really deserving of such a kind person like Will?" No matter how you looked at it, the answer was always no.

You started to feel like you shouldn't even be with Will anymore. There was most likely someone else out there, an actor with more talent and more self-sufficient than you were.

You and Will had been together for a couple years, you loved him so much, but when he asked you to move in with him, you said you weren't ready. The biggest lie you ever told, and you instantly regretted it when you saw the disappointed look on his face. But being the gentleman that he is, he said it was completely okay and that there was no pressure.

You absolutely didn't deserve him.

Every time Will asked you to go out with him, you always came up with an excuse to stay home. You felt too anxious about being out in public, the thought of a fan seeing you with Will brought you to the verge of a panic attack. You became distant, trying to distract yourself by throwing yourself into your work. You rarely saw Will anymore, and you knew if you kept up with how you were acting on your insecurity, you'd lose him. But you couldn't bring yourself to try and talk to him about it, you felt too embarrassed.

From Will's point of view, he thought you were becoming distant because of him. He wracked his mind trying to think what was it that he did to make you spend less time with him? At first, he thought, maybe you just needed some space. There were times where he needed to be alone, just like everyone does. But it felt like it was going on for too long. Every time he wanted to take you out somewhere nice, you'd politely decline and you'd opted for a night in.

There came a point where enough was enough, Will was determined to find out what was going on with you.

You stared at your cellphone, the screen lighting up with a picture of Will along with your set ringtone. You sighed, you really didn't feel like answering. You knew you should, but you couldn't bring yourself to. A feeling of dread washed over you, you didn't want him to think you hated him, yet you still couldn't. You rang your fingers through your hair, anxiously scratching your scalp harshly.

Your screen darkened, following with a notification, voicemail and text. "Y/n, what's going on? I've been trying...", you couldn't listen anymore.

"I'm sorry, Will..." You whispered to yourself, wrapping yourself up tightly in a blanket.

You almost screamed when you heard a rapid knock on your door, quickly tensing up when you heard Will call out from outside. "Y/n?"

You wanted to fucking scream.

"I know you're in there, just, please, talk to me."

The desperation in his voice forced you to get up from your couch, tossing away your cozy blanket with a huff. You shakily reached out and opened the door, Will's concerned face filling your view. "...hi."

Will chuckled bitterly. "Hi? That's it? You haven't talked to me in days. What's going on, love?"

"Nothing!" You explained, plastering on a fake smile with a chuckle.

Will smiled sadly. "You're lying." He said simply, pushing his way past you into your home.

"Will, please, I'm not up to talking right now."

"You know, I want to respect your wishes, I really do. But I feel that I've been patient. I've been trying to support you in any way that I can, but I can't help if I don't know what's going on." He sat down on your couch, pleading for you to sit next to him with his eyes. "We used to be open and honest with each other about everything. Tell me what's going on so I can help you."

You huffed, running your hands over your face. "It's not that simple..."

Will casted his gaze to your wooden floor, squeezing his hands together and taking a deep shaky breath. "Is it...is it because it's something I did?"

"What?"

"You're shutting me out. It's because of me, isn't it? I did something-"

"No." You quickly exclaimed, rushing over to his side when you heard his voice waver, taking ahold of one of his hands. "No, it's not you, I promise."

"Then...why? Why are you pushing me away?" Will sighed, biting his lip to keep himself from crying. "Do you not love me anymore?"

"I love you, Will, more than I can express." You chuckled bitterly. "It's hard to talk about."

Will brought a hand up to your face, gently brushing a freshly fallen tear off your face. "You can tell me anything, Y/n, anything."

You smiled weakly, bringing his hand you were holding up to your lips and kissed his knuckles softly. "Okay..." You took a deep breath.

"Take your time, love."

"Being with you, brings me so much happiness that it feels like I'm dreaming. You're so...amazing, and honestly the best and most kind person I've ever met. And I? I feel like I'm nobody."

"Y/n..."

"Compared to others, I'm no one. Just another person trying to live out their dreams that are so far fetched that it doesn't even seem possible to even come close to achieving them. You're so self assured that acting is what you were born to do and you're so talented. I envy you, and I feel so guilty feeling that way. Sometimes I feel like I wasn't meant to be an actor. I feel like...I'm trying to run towards my goal, but every time I make progress, the goal moves farther and farther away until I can't even see it anymore."

"Y/n," Will started softly, "I know how you feel. I've felt that way about my career too. I always wondered if there was going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, you can work as hard as you humanly can, but it also takes luck. You just have to be at the right place at the right time sometimes. That's why they call it a lucky break, ya know." He smiled, making you giggle tearfully.

"I know, but that's not all." You frowned. "I know you said, it's just better to ignore what the internet has to say, but...I was looking some of our comments a few months ago. And...I just went down a fuckin' rabbit hole. I know I always say that hate comments don't bother me, but...they do. They really do, and I let them get to me. I'm sorry."

"No, darling, I'm sorry. I didn't see what was really going on when I should've."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Will. I thought I was stronger than this."

Will quickly brought you close to his chest, wrapping around your torso with one arm, the other gently cupping your jaw. "Hey, you are the strongest person I know, okay? Don't think you're weak just because you're feeling something that every human on planet earth feels. Whatever those comments said, there's no one I'd rather be with than you." He leaned forward and kissed you gently, pressing his forehead against yours.

"I felt so embarrassed, Will. I wished I had talked to you sooner."

"It doesn't matter now. You opened up and I'm proud of you for that. I love you so much. And I promise to try my very hardest to never let you feel that way again."

~~~~~~~~~~

hope you enjoyed, @fcvcritecrime ! 🖤

[shihalyfie]

Daisuke and Ken’s dynamic, and what Ken does for Daisuke in return

Everyone in the main 02 cast can be said to be a little surface-deceptive in some way, and so, even with Daisuke and Ken as the relationship at the forefront of 02′s story, there’s still more going on behind it than first glance would initially make you suspect. It’s all too easy to just take the surface reading and decide that Daisuke is some kind of saint whom Ken is singularly dependent on for his happiness (which would really be quite the unhealthy relationship), or, worse, shove them into the stereotypical BL tropes just because they’re the two at the front, even though the story practically went out of its way to depict them as unusual characters who don’t fit into those kinds of boxes as easily.

Even though it wasn’t stated outright in words, Ken did a lot for Daisuke in return, and there’s a lot of layers to their relationship to each other both in the series and in going forward after it.

What Daisuke does for Ken

That Daisuke and Ken have very “complementary” personalities goes without saying, but this applies to both their surface demeanors and what lies beneath them. Daisuke has an abrasive surface demeanor and a tendency to get defensive, but isn’t actually very assertive at all; on the other hand, Ken is more polite and ostensibly “soft”, but is significantly more assertive than Daisuke is. This also means that, while it would of course be foolhardy to pretend that Ken could easily shrug off all of his trauma, it’s also conversely reductive to shove the two of them into boxes where Ken is a constant crybaby angsting over everything bad that’s happened to him while Daisuke’s the only ray of sunshine who can get him out of it. A lot of Ken’s strength in the series is self-supplied; he of course does end up needing the others’ support at times, but extreme readings like this really don’t give the kid enough credit for how good he is at gritting his teeth and pushing on without anyone prompting him.

The initial problem, however, is that Ken is too assertive about the wrong things at first. Like, say, in 02 episode 26, when he assertively says that he’s going to...recklessly chuck himself into an exploding reactor! For the third quarter of the series, Ken deliberately tries to keep his distance from others, and is very clear and open about his reasons why: in his mind, it’s his responsibility, and the others shouldn’t have to be involved. He doesn’t want their friendship, he doesn’t even think he deserves their friendship, and here’s Daisuke going “okay, yeah, but that’s stupid, shut up and let us help you.”

Adventure and 02 have a strong thread of driving it home that “doing things on sheer principle eventually becomes pointless when it gets in the way of being practical” -- and Daisuke, being a simple-minded and “straightforward” person who doesn’t overthink things, is basically there to keep Ken’s focus back on the proper picture. Because yeah, Ken can attempt to do things like frame things in terms of whether he “deserves” all of this, or “whose responsibility” this all is -- but the fact of the matter is that Daisuke and his friends want to do something and help instead of being sitting ducks about it, Ken’s practically not going to be able to do this alone, and, well, that’s the base of their first Jogress in 02 episode 26! Ken says outright that his goal is to do something to help, but then decides that “helping” should involve suicidally chucking himself into an exploding reactor, and Daisuke, hearing out Ken’s troubles, reminds him that him dying there won’t actually help the way Ken wants to help, because it won’t leave him alive to do all of the other things he wants to do and will hurt his family even more just when he was starting to repair things with them -- and as much as this extremely suicidal plan might temporarily spare the others from dying in an explosion, Daisuke would have to live with the guilt of letting Ken go off to die like that, so it won’t make him happy either.

So in other words, while Ken’s trying to sort out his complicated feelings of guilt, shame, and sense of responsibility, Daisuke’s there to keep his head on straight and remind him when he’s about to run himself in mental circles. Ken would have easily spent the rest of the series trying to make up for what he did even without Daisuke’s help, because he’s such a strong believer in “the right thing to do”, but his way of going on about it would have involved him staying in isolation out of a perceived sense of responsibility, endangering himself out of a sense of self-sacrifice, drowning himself in self-blame and feelings of regret, and, eventually, not addressing the very gaping hole in his life that he very much needs emotional support from others right now.

One thing particularly interesting about the Japanese version of 02 is that, for nearly the entirety of the second half of the series, Ken only refers to Daisuke as “Motomiya”, which is surprising given the fact that he employs given-name basis with the others quite quickly. Ken eventually does commit to “Daisuke” after the series in almost all post-02 material, and this image fits the two so well that pretty much every doujinshi artist has caught onto it despite it not being there all that much in the actual series, but it really took him a while; what gives? (Daisuke himself committed to “Ken” from surname basis “Ichijouji” starting in 02 episode 39.) Well, the important distinction is that Ken dropped the honorific with him from very early on -- meaning that he did want to approach Daisuke with a little bit of casual bluntness in a way beyond the distant respect he treated the others with, but at the time, going straight to buddy-buddy on given name with no honorific at all would have been a bit too much for him, and it comes off as him almost deliberately giving off a sense of distance. Why?

Ken didn’t have too much of an opinion on each individual kid in the group until 02 episode 8, when he developed a particular hatred for Daisuke for “ruining his pride” and decided to emotionally torture him a bit. Then, come 02 episode 25, this same kid approached him with no sense of grudge whatsoever, and presents him with a completely different way of seeing things: “whatever you did in the past, you’re clearly trying to help now, which means we’re now on the same side, so we should work together.” It’s pragmatic; it’s extremely pragmatic, and it’s not like Daisuke was working off of blind optimism and trust as much as he observed, very practically, that Ken was clearly trying to do better now and that therefore they should work together and make use of it. This kind of thought pattern is completely alien to Ken’s “I deserve/don’t deserve this” mentality at this point of this series, and by all standards of his own logic Daisuke should be one of the people who hates him the most, and yet -- nope!

By the time of their Jogress, Ken of course understands that Daisuke’s trying very hard to communicate with him, and thus they develop a sort of rapport -- but they’re not quite friends yet at the level of truly being “comfortable” with each other, because most of the second half of the series involved circumstances where Daisuke was helping Ken through a very emotionally hard time. It’s only at the point of the Christmas party in 02 episode 38 when Ken can really think about having these kids as real friends in terms of socializing and not just people who are willing to work with him in his penance journey. It’s enough that Ken’s able to admit that he wants the help of Daisuke in 02 episode 44, when beforehand he’d been trying to keep everyone out of what he’d perceived as his business. And, as Ken’s slowly more exposed to Daisuke’s way of life and its influence on the rest of the group around him, he comes to understand that maybe having a “close friend who can support him” isn’t that bad after all, since it’s not like these friends are just being “open-minded” towards him; they really are there to support him and his actual feelings and welfare, not just “cutting him slack” because he’s helping.

And so, with that, once the crisis is resolved and all is said and done, Ken finally truly accepts Daisuke as his friend and moves him up to given-name basis (no honorific!). This is most prominently shown in Diablomon Strikes Back, where their interactions are now removed from the question of Ken’s former actions and his emotional problems, and it turns out, they’re still good friends in the sense that friends are. As in, people who laugh together, hang out together, converse with each other casually; even if they are working together on the same thing for the duration of the movie, it’s not such an emotionally tense situation that you could chalk their interactions up to sheer necessity. With Daisuke’s help, Ken was able to move on from all of his past hangups, and the two of them became able to enjoy the moment of “now” like normal children.

What Ken does for Daisuke

Daisuke may be simple-minded enough to not have deep-seated concerns that eat at him every day, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a bit socially maladjusted during the early parts of the series. Namely, being really insecure and prone to getting defensive whenever he felt he was being made fun of. Those kinds of things were what was most likely to get Daisuke to “lash out” at others, because he slips into his worst bouts of these whenever he’s lacking in validation.

Daisuke was, undoubtedly, improving over the course of the series, with him slowly starting to become more assertive by the time of 02 episode 20. It’s incorrect to say that Ken was the only person who could truly help him with this; 02 is a series about a group dynamic after all (even if the Jogress pairs are the most instrumental in helping each other), and it would be a pretty unhealthy relationship if one person were so dependent on another to even remotely function. But starting in 02 episode 22, when the crisis is momentarily resolved and everyone’s not sure what to do, Daisuke’s feeling of being third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari shoots up right at the moment everyone’s feeling a bit lacking in purpose. Two episodes later, Miyako immediately stages an intervention to help keep his mind off of things, and she’s arguably even the most comfortable with him at this point in time.

It’s not that Daisuke isn’t improving, nor that his friends aren’t trying to help, but, well...emotionally sensitive as Miyako can be, she’s also a bit all over the place herself and sometimes needs restraining; Hikari may be assertive, but she’s pretty obviously apprehensive about shutting Daisuke down too bluntly, and Takeru being so hard to read and evasive about everything means that Daisuke can’t really tell what he’s thinking or understand his intentions; Iori is younger and is restraining himself, so he still won’t cross certain lines with Daisuke. So as you can see, they’re all doing their best, and they’re not doing a terrible job of it either; hell, the rest of the series involves them maturing into people who can better interact with and support each other, so their own relationships with Daisuke are likely to improve even well after the series ends. It’s just that, especially at this point in the series, there’s definitely room for an extra person to fill a certain niche that’s got a gaping void here, begging for someone who’s assertive and put-together enough to regularly keep Daisuke in check, yet also willing to be properly straightforward with him to the extent that he doesn’t have to feel insecure about their intentions. Hmm, who could that be?

Although “the priority of reaching out to Ken” eventually becomes enough of a distraction that it certainly takes Daisuke’s mind off potentially feeling insecure, as we start to see more “casual” interactions between Daisuke and Ken, we see that Ken actually fills in a lot of the gaps that had been so sorely missing in this group dynamic for a while. Forward-thinking as he is, Daisuke’s simple-minded way of going at things has its drawbacks in that he’s not very smart or good at thinking, but Ken is the opposite, being intellectually analytical and much more thoughtful overall, and since Daisuke is the kind of person who defers to others when they’re better than him at something, Ken being right next to him means that he can give him a hand in making important decisions he can’t by himself. This is especially so in Diablomon Strikes Back, when Ken’s role is largely keeping an eye on Daisuke and making sure he’s not a loose cannon -- something he’s very capable of doing -- but also simply being there as a springboard whom Daisuke can comfortably approach and talk to, since Ken is such a mild-mannered, straightforward person who won’t set off his overly defensive tendencies as easily.

That doesn’t mean that Ken is completely above teasing him, of course -- a lot of post-02 material in fact makes sure you understand that he’s not just some soft-hearted saint and can be quite the snarker when he wants, since his increased comfort level with Daisuke means he’s now able to poke at him here and there, even doing something as mean as dumping all of the Christmas shopping on him (the character songs and other related in-character material lie in questionably canonical territory, but that kind of punchline is not unreasonable to imagine given their respective personalities). But, overall, he sets the right tone for Daisuke to have a friend he’s able to be around regularly and receive support from, and to fill in that niche of his casual interactions so that Daisuke can have some more solid grounding in his life.

It’s also a testament to how much Ken himself had changed in terms of becoming the kind of person who could handle Daisuke like this. When the two of them first “met” in 02 episode 8, while Ken was still fully under the influence of the Dark Seed, even if we were to put the part about him being the Kaiser aside, this sort of person would never be able to become a good friend to Daisuke. This episode had Daisuke put him on a pedestal -- someone he’ll never be able to be as good as, whom he looks up to as an “idol”, much like the way Daisuke has a tendency to instinctively put himself down in uplifting others. Thus, it was a negative relationship for both of them; Ken being put on a pedestal that ultimately made him uncomfortable, and Daisuke contributing to putting him there in the first place, and taking it extra personally when that pedestal was shattered. But then, Daisuke himself (and, ultimately, the rest of the group) became able to treat Ken like the “normal person” he wanted to be, with no pedestals, simply considering him as a friend with his own feelings and needs; as a result, being this sort of “normal person” making friends through his true personality and desire to support others meant paved the way for him becoming the one person who was best equipped to deal with the very difficult-to-handle Daisuke.

Incidentally, in terms of Kizuna: considering how 02 was such a series about everyone becoming people who could fundamentally interact and communicate better with others, it stands to reason that everyone’s relationships with each other would uniformly improve even after the events of 02, and you can see better interactions between everyone that go beyond just the Jogress pairs. Ken’s clearly able to interact with more of the people in the group in a much more casual manner than he did in 02 itself, and it’s made an important point in the drama CD that Daisuke took everyone’s incidental advice to heart, not just Ken’s. However, advertising material still prominently features the two as a pair, and although part of this is of course due to marketing, Ken is also the one who gets the final words in extracting his “promise” from Daisuke in the drama CD; the official website also calls special attention to him being the one to accompany Daisuke on his ramen outings, even though the one depicted in the drama CD and movie was planned to involve everyone in the group. There are multiple indications that Daisuke himself has learned to become somewhat less defensive and prone to insecurity compared to himself in 02, and it seems that this was accomplished via Ken still actively putting himself in a role of checking on him and making sure he feels properly supported in all of this.

[thefallenbibliophilequote]

The Other Ending

You Tried To Change the Ending- Alternate Ending

Bucky x Reader

"I knew you, stepping on the last train, marked me like a bloodstain;

I knew you tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy"

Summary: You love him, but he made it clear he didn't want anything to do with you. Can a trip to the future give him a new perspective about the present?

Read the ACTUAL FIC first with the actual real ending, you can't read this without it!

Word count: 1,274

Warnings: angst, character death

A/N: I felt the need to write this one down, especially after Evermore came out. With how much you talked about this ending and how you feared it… I just had to write it. It was a little hard and I cried while writing it but I hope I did this other, much sadder ending some justice just as I did the first one. I just had to find out what would have happened if he didn't go back to her room.

A/N: I tagged all those who commented on the fic, and just a reminder that you do not have to read this, this is not a follow up, this is just a whatif I decided to post, the happy ending is the real ending.

--

 James wept the minute you disappeared in front of him, he decided to pick up flowers before going to visit you. It was almost the two year mark anyway.

"I saw you today," he talked to you. "Well, it wasn't you, not mine at least. My own past flashed before my eyes, I got to hug you again…"

He trailed off, remembering your touch, you were warm.

"He was there with her, he was stubborn but you'd know that, you know me." James thought back about how he was so distant with you, how he denied his love for you. He will always hate himself for that.

"I saw you again, you were alive and breathing and you smiled at me-" his eyes brimmed with tears now. "I never thought I'd get to see you, to feel you again."

"He was there and I realized that it was right after she told him. He tried to hide it, but I saw the way he looked at me after I hugged you. I wanted to keep you- to keep her with me, to ask her to stay, to give her the love she wanted. But she wasn't mine.

I did try though, I talked to him, I told him everything that happened to you. I told him about the foolish mistake I made. I gave him all the knowledge I wish I had known, if only I could've saved you. I hope he did. But I don't know if it was enough, I don't know if I did enough for him to save her, if I didn't then-" he tried to catch his breath, wiping the tears from his face. "If he didn't listen to me, if I didn't do enough to save her, then I let her go for nothing. I just let her die. I could have kept her here with me. Do you think she would've said yes? I know she is not you, but I couldn't bear to know that she died too.

I hope he listened to me, I hope she is okay. I'd do anything to bring you back, I hope he won't have to get to this point. I hope he did everything to keep her with him.

I couldn't save you, but I hope I was enough to save her."

 You didn't say anything when you walked to the elevators with Bucky. He cleared his throat when the door closed behind you.

"So," he started a conversation with you to your surprise. "What are you doing this weekend?"

"Oh, I'll be out on a solo mission, so nothing much"

His face turned pale when he looked at you- head forward as you tightened your ponytail before exiting the elevator to your floor.

Without a goodbye.

It was a different timeline, right?

He went back to his room, sitting down on the bed, forgoing showering he took off his armor and laid his arms on his thighs, head falling down.

He knew what was going to happen before he even felt the sting behind his eyes, he knew his look would match the look of his future self.

He was scared as hell, more scared than he'd been his entire life. He couldn't help the frustrated breakdown, torn by the knowledge.

Knowledge could be such a horrible burden to have, but he didn't know, not really. It was a different timeline, this could be just another mission.

He was used to sleepless nights, so this one wasn't hard. It was different than the rest where he pondered about himself and all the horrible things he had done, now it was for another- now it was for her.

If he went to her and welcomed her in, would it end up being another addition to his hurt and pain? Would he break her as well? He didn't need that guilt. He didn't need her.

It was a different timeline.

 It was a few days later when he made his coffee in the kitchen. He watched as you hugged your friends, they wished you good luck and you wished them goodbye. He didn't get a goodbye.

Two days later, it was radio silence from you and so he was on the quinjet heading straight to where you should be. He had to go hide from everyone, trying to suppress the panic in his chest that took every bit of oxygen he tried to breathe in. He remembered the look on James' face.

Soon enough the quinjet landed and they got out to see the building in ruins.

 Bucky moved his hands through his now short hair.

He decided to pick flowers, he decided to go visit your grave a few days early. It was almost the two year mark.

 He sat there in the graveyard wondering where you could be now. He talked to Strange a hundred times, both to see if he can bring you back, and to try to calm the guilt in his mind.

Different timeline, different ending.

He wondered if he could've changed this awful ending of your life, instead to give you an ending with him, where the two of you would be older with gold rings on your fingers just relaxing at your house out in the country.

But he pushed you to the edge and you, you were too polite to leave him and his heart behind you, so you kept him in your heart.

Did he freeze you over?

He never got to say goodbye.

He tried to tell himself that he couldn't have known, but it was two years ago and he couldn't even forget the look on James' face when he saw you, so full of love- he wished he could see you again. He couldn't shake what he saw in that old collapsing building. Blood covered his hands as he searched for a pulse. It took both Steve and Tony to pull him away from you, he threatened Wanda from using her powers on him, he didn't even care when he saw she had tears too.

All he saw was you. From the moment the quinjet touched the ground, he ran inside, gun ready as he searched for something he didn't want to see, but he saw it anyway. Between the ruins of the building, there you lay with your eyes closed. He dropped his gun and ran to you, screaming your name, trying to coax you out of your endless sleep. He saw the blood on your stomach through your suit, he didn't care when he clung to you, taking your wrist, and then the side of your neck, but he didn't find anything to calm his racing heart. He couldn't find your beating heart. He couldn't find any shred of life in your now cold body. You were too cold, unaware of the tears and the heartbreaking sobs that Bucky let out all in the open. He didn't even notice the others behind him. He mumbled to you endless apologies, countless wishes for you to come back to him, thousands of love confessions.

But words like that mean so little when they are a little too late.

 He stood now, two years later, next to your grave, staring at the tombstone with your name on it. He put your favourite flowers down and leaned against the cold stone as he sat on the ground.

It was getting colder and colder now as the sun started to set in the distance. But he wouldn't leave you. He won't leave you.

"I loved you too, Y/N. I still love you. I always will love you." He closed his eyes.

 Tags:

@lehuka123  @americas-ass-assins  @ayybtch  @spideyxstarks  @oogabooga-ooo  @gearhead66 @roserose26  @naomiiiiiiiiiii04  @onceupona-happilyeverafter-love  @chase-your-dreams-away  @delicatetimetravelarcade  @princess-and-the-super-soldier  @callmeluna @bucky-the-thigh-slayer @je-suis-prest-rachel  @distinguishedgardenroadbonk @justagirlinafandomworld  

[moonwaif]

So I've been thinking about some CQL crossover ships for Xie Wang, and one of them is XieWang/Lan Xichen. Long post with headcanons under the cut.

Also, like. I guess all of these take place within a xianxia/cultivation universe? More high fantasy than the universe of SHL. And none of this is based on novel universe for either fandom--both are strictly SHL and CQL universes.

Xie Wang/Lan Xichen (aka Zewu-jun can have a murder boyfriend, as a treat.)

The Dynamic.

First off . . . there’s no age gap. Both of them are adults. I’m not sure how old either of them are exactly in their respective canons, but. I just want to make that clear.

Both have been deceived/manipulated by people they care about. Interpret it how you want to interpret it, but they gravely misunderstood one of the most important people in their lives and paid the price for it.

The, "No matter what you've done, I can't kill you" one is dating the "But I can!" one.

Also, like? Pipa and xiao jam sessions? Matching outfits? Sign me tf up.

The early stages.

I’m not sure how they would meet. Perhaps Xie Wang is on an undercover mission in Gusu. Meanwhile, Lan Xichen has finally left seclusion so that his brother can go on a honeymoon with the Yiling Laozu.

When Lan Xichen and Xie Wang meet, I think it would be nice for there to be instant attraction. This can be on a physical level, but also on an intellectual level. They both have silver tongues, are intuitive, and are excellent communicators. I think these two kings would recognize that in one another just after one interaction.

However, they don’t trust each other. Xie Wang is probably operating under some kind of alias. Lan Xichen is more guarded now. I’m sure he still wants to believe the best of people, but life has scarred him. He feels like Xie Wang may be hiding something. Xie Wang, meanwhile, thinks Lan Xichen is just “too good to be true.” Someone with such a peerless reputation must be corrupt on the inside. I mean, just look at the Venerated Triad and how they ended up. Could the only surviving sworn brother really be THAT good?

But as time goes on, they see more sides of each other. It gets harder and harder to believe the worst about the other person. Xie Wang probably falls first, and falls hard. He likes Lan Xichen’s balanced outlook on life, his willingness to overlook rumor and reputation and make his own judgments on a person’s character. In an unguarded moment, Lan Xichen might imply that this has been one of his flaws or weaknesses in the past. Xie Wang just smiles at him and says it’s a strength. (Lan Xichen’s heart flutters, but so what? He doesn’t feel like he can trust his heart yet.)

Anyway, back to Xie Wang. He is impressed by Lan Xichen’s acceptance of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian--particularly considering Wei Wuxian’s less than pristine background. I think there is a lot of good material here for some intimate conversations in which Xie Wang asks Lan Xichen about his opinion of Wei Wuxian, but he’s not actually talking abou Wei Wuxian--he’s really asking about himself.

The ordeal of being Known.

Nevertheless, Xie Wang doesn’t completely trust Lan Xichen yet, and he’s terrified of what will happen when Lan Xichen finds out who he is, but . . . Xie Wang still cares about him. He enjoys Lan Xichen’s company. He craves Lan Xichen’s praise and attention, and resents anyone who tries to steal it away. He wants their time together to last as long as possible. And inevitably, he wants to do whatever he can to help Lan Xichen succeed in his goals. Which, to Xie Wang’s surprise, have less to do with personal gain and more to do with making a positive impact on the cultivation world. As more time passes, it gets harder and harder for Xie Wang to play it cool and hold his cards to his chest.

Lan Xichen is touched by Xie Wang’s earnesty, enthusiasm and loyalty. It softens his heart. He finds himself growing fond of Xie Wang’s company, looking forward to his visits, indulging in conversations about music and art and calligraphy and politics. At the same time, he witnesses instances of violence and cruelty from Xie Wang that disturb him. It reminds him of Jin Guanyao--the red flags that in the past Lan Xichen either rationalized or ignored. It puts Lan Xichen in this awkward position of growing closer to Xie Wang, opening up to him, only to pull back suddenly. Rinse, wash, repeat.

Xie Wang, of course, doesn’t really know what’s going on in Lan Xichen’s head. Fortunately, he’s perceptive. As he does more digging into Lan Xichen’s past, he probably puts two and two together and realizes that Lan Xichen is trying to protect his own heart. However, he’ll also wonder if Lan Xichen knows more than he’s letting on--if he is perhaps aware of Xie Wang’s true identity, and that’s why he won’t open up to him. Or perhaps it’s just Xie Wang’s personal flaws. He’s always been too impulsive, too selfish, too distracting. Someone of Lan Xichen’s calibre may find these characteristics distasteful.

I actually think Lan Xichen may put the pieces together and begin to suspect Xie Wang’s true identity. If Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are around, they would probably do the same and accelerate this realization. However, I am not sure that Lan Xichen would act immediately on it. He may instead try to give Xie Wang opportunities to come forward with the truth on his own.

Xie Wang will dodge all of these opportunities like “lol nope.”

Cat’s out of the bag.

Anyway, after lots of like. Cute moments, and moments of camaraderie, and moments of yearning and angst, things finally come to a head. Perhaps Lan Xichen finds himself caught up in a scheme that involves the Scorpion and a rival group. Xie Wang ends up having to take Lan Xichen captive in order to protect him. In this moment, Lan Xichen is able to see another side of Xie Wang--one that he’s only caught glimpses of before. Xie Wang is cold, domineering, calculating, and cruel. It’s sexy but also terrifying. Lan Xichen hardens his own expression and is quite distant to Xie Wang, which of course just breaks Xie Wang’s heart. But Xie Wang can’t show it just yet, not while they are still surrounded by onlookers. It wouldn’t be wise to reveal any weaknesses to those who are constantly at the ready to take advantage of any vulnerable bits.

As soon as Xie Wang can find a moment to be alone with Lan Xichen (truly alone, with no spies or eavesdroppers), he would sit down and speak honestly with him. He tells Lan Xichen that he harbors no ill intentions towards him or the Lan sect (or perhaps he does, at least with concern to the latter--it’s up to how complicated you imagine this kind of AU). And against his better judgment, the more Lan Xichen hears . . . the more he finds himself believing Xie Wang. In fact, he’s relieved that they can finally reach this point of honesty with each other.

Lan Xichen is terrified he’s making a mistake, but . . . he wants to believe Xie Wang. He wants to believe him so, so badly. After some difficult conversations and lots of promises exchanged between them, Lan Xichen relents.

Xie Wang is just absolutely delighted to the point of tears. All of his softness and sweetness comes back.

From this point on, I think we can see a power couple at work. Both of them are intuitive, intelligent and nuanced. They can work together to solve whatever scheme is happening. Collaborating brings them closer, honestly.

Xie Wang is reluctant to let Lan Xichen go, but does so. (He’s mostly worried about Lan Xichen’s safety.)

(If you want to make things really painful, you could have Lan Xichen temporarily reject Xie Wang. This would probably be motivated by Lan Xichen’s past experiences, when he continued to support and defend Jin Guangyao despite all evidence to the contrary. Terrified of making the same mistake--of letting people he cares about become hurt because of a temporary lack of judgment--might actually lead him to betray Xie Wang and reveal his true identity to the Lan clan. This would lead to a temporary and very angsty “break up” arc. The irony could be that Lan Xichen actually regrets NOT trusting Xie Wang or supporting him down the road. I would like to see something like this culminate in Xie Wang being injured/narrowly escaping a dangerous confrontation with an enemy, and Lan Xichen rescuing him, holding him close, and whispering, “I’m sorry.” GOD Xie Wang would just fall apart. The hurt/comfort potential. My word.)

Hurt/comfort potential.

At some point, Xie Wang might be injured or suffer some kind of loss. Perhaps he went after someone who was a threat to Lan Xichen in some way, and got himself in a pickle. He makes it out, but is the worse for wear. Lan Xichen, who is normally so polite and intentional with his words, finds himself losing his temper. How could Xie Wang make such a rash decision? Isn’t he supposed to be the Scorpion King for a reason?

These words push Xie Wang over the edge. He snaps back that yes, he knows he’s reckless--that he’s too impulsive--too demanding--that he’s always letting his emotions get the best of him, again and again. But he was scared for Lan Xichen. What was he supposed to do, just sit back and bear it?

Lan Xichen’s anger dissipates. He consoles Xie Wang, tells him that he’s not any of those things. Xie Wang is shocked speechless. He’s even more shocked when Lan Xichen admits he was wrong for speaking harshly and asks for Xie Wang’s forgiveness. “It was only that seeing you in this state unnerved me. I would not want any harm to come to you on my account. I’m sorry.”

Xie Wang melts.

Xie Wang drinks vinegar.

Being together means that Xie Wang and Lan Xichen are more intimate. They are moving physically closer, becoming more familiar with one another’s spaces. Xie Wang is very greedy for this closeness, and probably starts to become a little possessive about the things in Lan Xichen’s room. Keeping things tidy, adding decorations, sorting through things, etc.

Anyway, one day he comes across Jin Guangya’s hat by accident.

“Gege :+) who’s hat is this? :+)”

He begins to engage in a recurring fantasy where he slices the hat to pieces.

It’s just that, well. Xie Wang is intensely jealous of Jin Guangyao’s hat. He is intensely jealous of Jin Guangyao’s memory. Just hearing his name is enough to make Xie Wang lose it a little on the inside, like, “Not this b**** again.” But on the outside he is very calm.

Most of the time.

Look. It’s already hard enough knowing that someone like Xie Wang, the leader of a shady group of assassins, will probably never be accepted as a suitable partner for Lan Xichen. And this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. He’s been used before by Zhao Jing, the person who was supposed to be his yifu, the person who kept Xie Wang in the dark and only brought him into the light when it was useful. So Xie Wang can’t help but feel nervous that Lan Xichen will just want to keep him in the dark, too. Like logically, he knows Lan Xichen wouldn’t do that. Lan Xichen is a better person than that, he wouldn’t take advantage of anyone in that way, especially not Xie Wang! Lan Xichen cares about Xie Wang! But Xie Wang also knows he’s miscalculated in the past. He can’t help the nugget of uncertainty that weasels its way in.

You can play this up as angsty if you want, or you can play it for comedy. Maybe Lan Xichen receives a gift from a potential suitor. Xie Wang sees it and asks who it’s from. On his best day, he smiles calmly and says something like, “How elegant and thoughtful. I know just the place to put this.” (That place is the trash.) On his worst day, he wines and says, “How tacky! Gege, why do you continue to even meet with that old cow?”

Lan Xichen is exceptionally understanding and patient, although he does need to set some firm boundaries from time to time.

Jin Guangyao causes drama from beyond the grave.

Eventually Xie Wang is going to have a very off-day. And on this off-day, he talks about a topic that he should definitely have avoided, which is Jin Guangyao.

Basically, Xie Wang is not going to understand why Lan Xichen feels guilty for what happened to Jin Guangyao. Or rather, he does not believe that Lan Xichen SHOULD feel guilty. And he tells Lan Xichen this, very insistently. Lan Xichen, who has been coping through the good ole Lan technique of Repress And Don’t Express, becomes frustrated. His frustration builds when Xie Wang basically says that no matter what Jin Guangyao may have suffered, he shouldn’t have betrayed Lan Xichen--that Jin Guangyao even deserves what happened to him (and perhaps Xie Wang believes this last part, or perhaps he’s just being petty--it’s up to you). Lan Xichen almost loses his temper--almost. But then he just. Shuts down, completely. Like very coldly and calmly says something to the effect of, “I expected you of all people to understand me. I see I was mistaken. Excuse me.” And just. Leaves.

Xie Wang is a MESS. Honestly he would have preferred being yelled at. This calm reaction is disconcerting and makes him worry that he’s lost Lan Xichen for good. He’s also shocked at himself for being so purposefully wilful and obstinate. He was trying to be good!!

Making up.

Instead of pulling away, Xie Wang waits an appropriate amount of time for things to settle (lmao like 12 hours), then shows right back up acting like nothing ever happened. He’s very talkative and sweet, chatting peacefully about unrelated topics. He probably flits about the room, straightening this and that, then perches beside Lan Xichen. His heart sinks when he sees Lan Xichen’s expression.

Xie Wangs cautiously begins speaking. “About yesterday . . . I shouldn’t have contradicted you. I was being difficult and impetuous. Gege, please forgive me.”

And like, what is Lan Xichen supposed to do with that? Say “no”? Lmao.

Fortunately, Lan Xichen has taken some time to self-reflect. He’s a bit dismayed that he continues to act out of character with Xie Wang. Normally, he is so good at maintaining his composure. With Xie Wang, however, he continues to get caught up in his own feelings until he fumbles.

Anyway, Lan Xichen actually takes this opportunity to reflect and open up to Xie Wang about his friendship with Jin Guangyao. He tells him about what happened between him and his sworn brothers, where he believes he made mistakes, how he wishes things would have worked out differently. He also says that he sees it as a weakness of his own that even now, he isn’t able to completely blame Jin Guangyao. It’s not like this is Xie Wang’s first time hearing about any of this, but it IS his first time hearing the information directly from Lan Xichen.

Xie Wang takes his hand and says that kind of loyalty and kindness is what makes Lan Xichen dear to him, and is its own type of wisdom. Lan Xichen doesn’t completely agree with this assessment, but he doesn’t argue against it, either. He merely asks Xie Wang if there is anything else he’d like to know.

Xie Wang is a bit hesitant. Without meeting Lan Xichen’s gaze, he observes that Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen were very close. He wants to know what place Jin Guangyao still occupies in Lan Xichen’s heart.

To be continued . . .

(Lol I ran out of steam for a minute)

[tundrainafrica]

Title: Passion Project (2/4)

Summary:

“Ignoring Hange Zoe had become a little passion project he allowed himself to indulge in, in between expeditions and quietly mourning unnecessary deaths in the battlefield.”

Levi tries to ignore Hange but it never seems to last. A ficlet detailing the development of Levi and Hange’s relationship before canon.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Link to other chapters: 1 3 4

A fractured ankle, fractured ribs... for a month....

The important thing is he's alive. Fighting thirty titans… death for most soldiers.

It would be a shame to lose him… We don't get soldiers like that everyday.

The voices were distant but they were the first coherent sounds Levi made out as he adjusted to the waking world. His first instinct after making sense of it was to sit up, only to be greeted by a dull pain and a taut sensation around his chest.

He looked down to see bandages woven tightly around his chest, leaving him almost completely immobile on the bed. Even if he did get to sit up, his numb ankle would have made standing up a tall order.

"You're finally awake."

Levi settled for turning his head to his right. The lights in the room were dim and his vision relied on the faint light emitting from the room to make out the shape of the person by his bedside. "Hange…How long…"

"You were asleep for three days and you'll probably be here for a month." Hange was quick to answer his questions.

Levi was grateful for it. His throat was dry and just the first two questions had already left him burnt out.

"I’ll call Erwin and Commander Keith in.” Hange stood up and turned towards the door. “You woke up at a good time. They’ve been busy with preparations for the next expedition so they’ve only had time to visit for an hour a day.”

After engaging in conversations in hushed voices just outside his hospital room, Hange reentered the room, their two superiors following behind her. The conversation was short and formal and only served to repeat what Levi had overheard outside just a second ago.

One month in the hospital.

Forget about the next few expeditions.

You did a good job against 30 titans.

Levi had attempted a nod the first time, only for his head to protest that subtle movement.

The two were possibly being understanding or were just a little too busy that day. Regardless, as soon as they deemed Levi updated enough of the current events, they left and once again, it was just Hange and Levi in the room.

Hange spoke up. "I thought you were amazing out there."

Her praises were nothing new. Levi found himself more surprised by the fact that the young brunette's voice was much softer than usual as if it was her way of adjusting to the natural silence of the sick room.

Levi kept his eyes trained on Hange and the latter looked to be aware of it. She moved the stool by the bedside and sat on it.

"I managed to count them before their bodies dissolved. Thirty titans…" It was as if Hange had run out of air at those last two words. "You're really something else..." Her voice was definitely softer, but the tone was the same as it always was. It was that same tone that rang so painfully in his ears that first time they met. Oddly, it was starting to sound like music to his ears then.

"But you used too much gas. Maybe I should be giving you a lesson on that." And just like that, with one sentence and one smirk, Levi witnessed the return of that grating tone.

“And how often did you visit?” Levi asked, in an attempt to digress from that topic in particular. The last thing he wanted while stuck in bed was a lecture on carelessness. That ordeal was more than enough of a lesson.

Hange smiled. “I left a few times?”

“You left a few times? You mean you left this room a few times?”

“Yeah?”

“So you don’t visit. You just stay here and…” Levi let his eyes finish that sentence for him.

Hange made no attempt to deny it. She put one hand behind her head and sheepishly looked away. “The hospital room gets pretty quiet and it’s easier to focus here.” She explained.

Levi looked to the side table to see what looked to be books and documents, quickly shifting his attention elsewhere before she saw what could have been disappointment in his eyes. He shouldn’t have been disappointed though. He should have been relieved that her hanging out in his hospital room wasn’t at all motivated by some complex short of what one would see in a stalker. Despite that, he wished she had been there for him.

“Have you showered since then?” At that point, Levi was just looking for ways to take out his own frustrations. He was sure of her answer before she even said it.

Or chose to avoid saying it. “I didn’t have time…”

“You’re fucking disgusting. This is a hospital, you’re just gonna get everyone here sicker with your shitty hygiene habits.” Levi painfully turned to his side, biting back in the process. “Go home and shower,” he managed to say. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Hey! I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and now you’re going to kick me out like this….”

Somehow her annoying protests had made that painful movement all the more worth it. He managed to unearth some scraps of amusement from her momentary fit that fizzled out to a quiet disappointment that had her leaving the room grumbling.

A combination of foot stomping and whiny protests were enough to get Levi's lips curled up and into a subtle smile. She couldn't see that at least from where she stood.

Depriving Hange of those little things she visibly wanted turned out to still be as satisfying as it had been before. And with nothing much else to think then, surrounded by plain white walls, Levi couldn't help but remember the passion project he had started so many months ago.

And it still burned strong, strong enough for him to feel a glimmer of victory at having to hear hushed hissy monologues and footsteps too heavy and loud to have been anyone in a good mood.

The glimmer dissipated faster than Levi had expected and he was immediately reminded that he was alone with just his thoughts.

And he couldn't help but reflect on the fact that Hange's presence would have made his thoughts all the more interesting to engage in.

She'll be back. He told no one in particular. It was a difficult pull to swallow. Alone with not much to do but stare at the blank white ceiling, Levi reflected. And with that reflection came a begrudging realization.

He preferred her there.

                                    Passion Project

The recovery didn't take a month as the doctor said it would have. Within a few days Levi was sitting up. Within another week he was walking, if not limping out of the room. And within two weeks of waking up, Levi was back in the barracks, finding a way to make himself useful among the bustle of preparations for the next exhibition.

Erwin wasn't letting Levi near ODM gear any time soon though. Although Levi was sure he could have gone through a lot of the training on land with at least bearable pain, flying through the air, while keeping one's balance through only cables and gas was another story.

The prospect of exposing their best soldier at an injured state to the danger of titans seemed a little too excessive for Erwin and despite Levi's quick healing, he was still barred from joining the next expedition.

"Why don't you join the research and logistics team for now? I'm sure they'll need some extra hands since they've been working on new anti-titan weapons."

That meant spending all the more time with Hange.

Levi shouldn't have expected any different. Yet somehow he was surprised. The shock possibly only appended by the fact that while he was still in the process of accepting this new arrangement, he had encountered Hange in the lab in the wee hours of morning. No one really expects anyone in the lab at 2am.

He had gone there in particular to survey his new environment without having to exchange pleasantries with anyone from the research and logistics team. He had expected a thirty minute visit at the most to just see what experiments they have been working on and any records to make the process of a first meeting them a little more bearable.

The room wasn't empty. To make it all the better, the only person there at two in the morning wasn't someone he would have explained pleasantries with anyway. Her presence never implicitly demanded that level of politeness after all.

In fact, it tended to naturally elicit the opposite reaction from Levi. "Why the fuck are you doing here so early in the morning?"

He had said it too more roughly than he had intended. She had been a little too focused on mixing a colorful formula on a glass beaker and he had so quickly assumed he wouldn't have gotten her attention any other way. Or possibly, he had just been in the process of stifling a little frustration when he had said that which manifested in that rough tone he had called her out with.

It turned out, she didn't even notice that greeting he overthought.

"Hey four-eyes!" Levi hissed, as loudly as what would have been socially acceptable in the wee hours of morning

To only further add to his frustration, Hange's gradual shift to reality had been slow. When she looked up at him, Levi was sure she wasn't even looking directly at him.

"Oh… Levi!" She managed to say, a few long seconds after they first made eye contact, or at least the first time Levi initiated what should have been eye contact. "It's been a while."

It had been a while. Three days before he had been discharged, Hange had stopped visiting. He had only been discharged two days ago. Which put their last meeting to more than five days ago, a long time when compared to the fact that she had spent every day in the hospital with him.

WIth the sudden shift in Hange’s behavior, Levi put himself through unnecessary torture of attributing it to that one night he decided to ignore her so she could shower, despite the fact that she still had come back every day since then. Erwin had visited after that, even Commander Keith and even the squad he had saved in the last expedition. He had been tempted to ask where Hange was, ultimately deciding against it. His emotional investment in Hange seemed one secret he would rather have kept to himself.

But, by god it was torturous. Although at face value Hange seemed like an open book with the way she was constantly flitting between emotional extremes, Levi eventually realized she wasn't.

Surface level emotions were open for the world to see. With the amount of time he spent overthinking every action she had ever made back in the hospital room, from those long tirades about new experiments to the new black tea her parents would be sending over to the plans for the next expedition , Levi realized there was still a layer of Hange he hadn’t peeled back yet. Behind the heart she wore on her sleeve were emotions, motivations and desires she hadn’t shown anyone yet or possibly did not understand herself. He felt it in every single tirade of passion she threw at his face. The passion seemed true, the words seemed authentic but there was a nagging feeling inside him that he still had a lot to learn about the crazy brunette.

Because of that, Levi had found her to be incredibly unpredictable, only further supported by the fact that she had failed to visit him his last three days in the hospital, not bothering either to have greeted him after he had settled back in the barracks. It wasn’t like she was obligated either.

Either way, he found himself having to seek comfort in the predictability of watching Hange go through the motions of mixing chemical after chemical. After their too casual and maybe too brusque of an exchange, Levi had settled on a stool and quietly watched. She had been too focused to kick him out anyway.

"You know how signal flares have this tendency to malfunction in the rain?” It was Hange who spoke up first despite having been too focused on her little experiments.

“Yeah?” That was all Levi could say. Maybe if Hange had started with any other topic, he probably would have said anything more. That question had reopened old wounds, and it was constantly rubbing salt on them as he waited for Hange to continue. He had always suspected the malfunctioning of signal flares to have caused the death of Isabel and Farlan during their first mission outside the walls.

“I think I found a way to get the signal flares to show even during rainy days. Maybe, if we could get this working, we might be able to prevent unnecessary deaths in future missions.” Hange went for a beaker, mixed a few chemicals together which incited a mini green explosion in front of him. “This could save lives…”

Despite the water Hange had sprayed all over the green of the air, the green remained glowing and strong and the whole show had him speechless.

She shouldn't have known. The way she had so gracefully gone through all the procedure so methodically yet so deftly, in the way Levi never would have been able to replicate had him only staring, his mouth agape.

The color green had never looked so comforting until then. The whole time the green smoke stayed in the air before dissipating into anything, Levi felt like he could have been in a dream.

It had him forgetting whether or not she had eventually probed on the unfortunate deaths of his two best friends.

He ended up opening up about it anyway.

                                       Passion Project

Levi still wasn't allowed to do combat training but Hange was.

And Hange had enough enthusiasm about ODM gear for them both. In that one moment after long hours in the lab, an hour before the sun was to set, that enthusiasm was what had her pulling Levi back into the woods as if the day had just started.

There was less reason to hide behind the excuse of "I'm too tired" given that Levi couldn’t actually train and he never had much to contribute in the lab aside from odd jobs. It's not like he ever employed that excuse anyway.

With his lack of reason to be tired, Levi resigned himself to spending days after training watching Hange go through ODM drills.

"Your cables are everywhere. A titan can just grab onto that if you're not careful.” Levi said. “As soon as your up in the air, just use your gas. It gets you to your target faster than with the cables."

"Should you be telling this to me after you ran out of gas and almost died?"

That was enough once of a comment once again to silence Levi momentarily. Hange didn't stop to assess the effects of that one comment though, having busied herself trying to mimic Levi's ODM movements. Hange had taken for her own one of the larger oak trees in the forest where they practiced. The tree trunk was gnarled and branches stuck out so randomly, Levi had to agree it was a good way to practice.

Even unmoving, the tree was an unpredictable target. It had numerous branches surrounding it that only twisted and turned so wildly that Levi could feel the beginnings of a headache as he attempted to follow each one. If he squinted a little harder, he could even pretend it was a titan.

Hange probably did have a swell time pretending it was a titan. He could hear it in the loud and swift whizzing of chords, the characteristic explosion that came with the release of gas and of course, the excited screams.

You were amazing out there. Hange had said, while a little breathless only a few weeks ago. Levi was never one to take in compliments and had clocked that to a little bout of maybe asthma on her side. Or maybe she had forgotten to take in some oxygen before she said it.

At that moment though, he understood the breathlessness that accompanied amazement. The branches grew so close together that Hange only had the luxury of gaps small enough for maybe only one person to pass through. Hange had whizzed past each branch, dodging them so gracefully, while barely leaving an opening big enough for even an insect to squeeze through.

With the chaotic pattern ---or at least lack of pattern--- at which the gnarled branches spread out, Levi couldn't help but see an artistic dance in it all, and a rhythm to follow. The art, the spectacle that only he that late afternoon had the luxury of witnessing, had him forgetting to breathe.

And he only did breathe when Hange plopped back down on the ground and Levi was quick to notice the deafening absence of the familiar sound of the cables whizzing back into the gear.

Her face was flushed, her skin glistened with sweat. The sunset illuminated Levi’s view and he saw shades of orange and purple reflect on her. She approached him. She entered the shade and within a second, he had lost the view of her he had been so gingerly enjoying.

“I think I get it,” Hange said.

“Get what?” It would have been a ridiculous request for Levi to tell her to stay back so he could enjoy the reflection of the sunset on her eyes. So he kept his response brief, a little penalty for that part of him that even suggested that Hange had been a joy to watch.

“You might be right, I think I’ve been using my cables too much. It’s much easier to move when they aren’t constantly pulling at me.”

Levi stifled a smile. He wasn’t going to show her how sweet it had been to be proven right. Also, a part of him had been a little disappointed she hadn’t denied him that luxury of being correct. He was in the mood for a little argument after all.

“But it doesn’t change the fact that you still used too much gas.” The opening for an argument was introduced soon after Levi lamented that wasted fuel.

Levi opened his mouth ready to mouth off. He hadn’t decided what to say it, ready to leave it to his sharp experienced tongue to discern the best comeback at that moment. He had wanted to insult her movement, the little dance around the trees. Her performance was perfection though and despite being able to come up with shitty jokes within seconds, nothing in her performance had been worth poking fun at.

To his relief, she interrupted him. “You know what though, I figured out something which might be just as useful for you.” Hange unfastened her gas canisters. “Try carrying it.”

Levi held one of them to see that it was still much fuller than what he would have expected from watching her only a few seconds ago.

“I found a way to conserve gas. I notice you used to carry yourself, you’d let the gas pull you. What if you bend your body a bit and curve your back, to make yourself easier for the gas to carry you through? It helped a lot for me, I definitely felt lighter, like I wasn’t resisting as much as I used to. Probably won't be able to maneuver as well as you though."

Levi did not bring his gear then so it had been a little difficult to imagine. By what could have been a silent agreement, Hange unfastened her ODM gear from the cables to the canisters and dropped them in front of him. “ Why don’t you try it?” She offered.

It had only been a few weeks since he woke up to diagnoses of internal bleeding and broken ribs that would have taken months to heal. At Commander Keith’s orders, Levi had stayed in the sidelines, no intention on trying anything with ODM for a while, especially with ODM gear which wasn’t his. ODM gear was custom fit for every single soldier after all.

It had only been a week but as Levi stood there, trying on the gear that should have been a few pounds too heavy for him, his body did not protest the weight. Jumping onto the tree with the help of the cables had felt a little awkward but it could have been the unnatural weight of ODM gear a few sizes too big.

Regardless, it was enough to see the difference. Hange had suggested he curves his back as he bent over and that he moves with the ODM gear. Don’t let the gas pull you.

He kept focused on Hange as she repeated the tips from the foot of the tree. The change was almost instant. The breeze was stronger, the air colder and the rustle of the leaves around him only louder as he moved.

Hidden among the sounds of the blowing wind, the rustle of leaves and the explosion of gas, he heard it. He had been too high up in the air for it to be any louder but it was definitely there, distant cheers, gasps and avid screams. They were the only two there so it could have only been from her.

He never found out how long he had been up there zipping among the branches. He called it a day when the sun was dark and his ribs started to whimper a little, manifesting in the form of a stitch on his right side.

As he landed back down on the roots of the tree, Hange was already there waiting for him. The dim light made it difficult to see the smile on her face. But it was there. Levi found himself wishing for at least some natural light to make it all the more visible.

“You might just be humanity’s strongest soldier,” Hange said as she moved to unfasten the gear for him. “Maybe that’s why you recovered so fast?

                                         Passion Project

“Tea?” Hange asked.

“Tea,” Levi answered

Just like before the injury, they were back to drinking black tea.

Levi was grateful for their history. On his end, he did not need to verbalize any of that. It had slipped into their routine after training to seek comfort in the malty yet astringent taste of black tea.

Somehow, Levi was relieved to realize she hadn’t forgotten that. It had been months since their last tea date after all. They had been occupied by preparations for the expedition, the actual expedition and the recovery that followed, to have continued that mini routine between them.

With the rations of before completely consumed, they had to get their fix elsewhere. They had silently made their way to that specific hole-in-the-wall tea shop Levi would frequent along the corners of Trost district. The exhaustion at having practiced the ODM gear after a long days work finally did catch up to both of them. The only exchange they did comfortably manage while taking the almost one hour long detour to the shop being the mention of that one common luxury between them.

Only after they settled down on one of the benches in front of the shop, when Levi finally had the tea in front of him and the luxury to enjoy the illuminated streets in Trost did he realize one crucial thing.

“Did you know this was my favorite shop?”

Hange gave a light shrug, careful not to jostle and spill her own tea.

“There are bigger shops in Trost. This isn’t really anyone’s first destination” It suddenly felt weird that he was the one a little talkative at first.

Hange took a sip before answering. “I did my research.”

“What kind of research? For someone who forces me to listen to rambles about other research, you’re awfully quiet about this one.”

The brunette sighed. Not one of defeat, but seemingly one of comfort and maybe a little amusement. “I saw you here in Trost during a few days off and I kinda followed you.”

Levi didn’t reply and only waited for her to continue. Having to carry the conversation of a few minutes ago with the last two lines had him a little tired.

“I was a little curious, wanted to see what a strong yet quiet soldier did in his free time so maybe I could learn a bit. I thought that maybe I could actually get stronger if I followed some of your habits.”

Why didn’t you ask me? Levi couldn’t blame her for stalking though. As he recalled pretty quickly, he hadn’t been the friendliest person in the beginning either.

“When you enter the shop, you'd order the exact same thing every time and you had this sparkle in your eyes when they serve it to you… Just like now!”

Levi suddenly felt self conscious of that spark in his eyes. Instead of looking away though, he found himself looking at her eyes, searching for a reason to point out how pathetically her own eyes probably sparkled. As he locked eyes with Hange though as she said it, he saw the way her own eyes sparkled under the dim street lights, only complemented by that wide smile on her face and the music in her voice.

“I guess you really love tea huh? Even the most emotionless soldiers have to have some passion somewhere to keep living.”

A Passion for tea? The way Hange had said it, had Levi almost spitting out his tea at the outrageous claim. The strong passing thought of not wanting to waste that good cup of tea or destroy the mood that accompanied it was enough to hold it back in his mouth.

"Relax, Levi.” Hange said. Levi wondered what kind of face he was making for her to look at him in an almost patronizing manner. “I have my own passions too.” Hange continued. But it’s a relatively new one. Not as old as your obsession with tea probably.”

“What is it?”

“I wanna do lots of research on titans. I‘ve already prepared five project proposals to submit to Erwin already and I think I’m gonna end up writing ten more before this month ends."

Levi had to note that it was the third week of the month already.

[shirewalker]

ok hi veronica i need to ask you cause you’re the grishaverse tumblr on my dash but why do you ship nikolina? also why do people ship darklina and what’s the most popular ship in the shadow and bone (not including six of crows)? why nikolai and not darkling? i’m thinking of reading the books before the show cause i searched it up and it seem confusing without watching.

hello there, anon!

ok ok we got here a complex ask haha. 

let’s do this by separate questions! (also, please be aware that everything I’ll say will be spoilery on some level, including the links I send, I don’t know how much you know of the story, the ending, etc, so yeah ^^)

1.

gosh, I’ve shipped them for so long it now feels like a natural thing xD

but I guess the TL;DR could be: because he saw her as a whole person and treated her with the respect she deserved. whether he started out wanting just a political match or not, the thing is, nikolai always treated alina as... well. alina. not just as a weak childhood friend, not just as a powerful grisha. 

when interacting with him, alina was herself. she was snarky, she was clever, she was grumpy, she joked, she made her own decisions. being the sun summoner was part of being herself but it wasn’t the sole thing that ruled their interactions.

I love their banter and the way they can talk to each other so easily without either having to give in or keep parts of themselves secret. and well, they had two of the most romantic scenes in the trilogy so xD

ultimately I love the trope of royal x non-royal and how they could have easily gotten a slow burn romance with a marriage alliance for political sakes but slowly grew closer. you know, a slow burn aksldjalsjkd

linking a few posts (from me and others I agree with; they’re older so they also feel fresh on fandom feels and some salty opinions too haha xD) for further reading: one, two, three, four, five, six

-

2.

Most folks I know that ship alarkling (sorry, I cannot take serioulsy the other name, throws me back to 90s anime villains aslkdjalsd), ship it for similar reasons as I do: their dynamics, light and dark, hero and villain. they had really great scenes throughout the whole grisha trilogy, and they had an intriguing bond. more than that, you’d have to ask others, anon. I can only tell you what drew me in. These days I’m mostly nikolina, but in early tgt days I loved alarkling a lot and I still do love them, I just grew distant from them/the fandom for various reasons I’d rather not disclose.

-

3.

I honestly don’t know anymore what’s the most popular ship in the grisha trilogy fandom anon xD I don’t really interact with the general fandom xD But it was always alarkling or nikolina. if you go deep enough in the tgtedit tag, etc, you’ll start to see that.

-

4.

ok now your last question... I think it’s ultimately a matter of preference, of tropes you enjoy the most in your ships. Some people will give you x reasons why they prefer the darkling, others why they prefer nikolai, etc etc. Personally, I always leaned more towards nikolai, because for me, alarkling would only work once the darkling did some inner work. dude’s ancient, he’s got a lot to atone for and to deal with and also gotta learn how to be a person again xD and nikolai... well, like I said, he was the one who cared for alina as a whole. whether she had magic or not, it didn’t matter for him at the end of the day.

-

and regarding your plan to read the books before watching, I had already mentioned this in a pre-post but I’m not sure if you saw it so I’ll say it again ^^, I agree! I usually prefer to read a thing before watching the adaptation, even if it takes me time to watch the thing. I usually end up having a much better experience enjoying both mediums than if I did it the other way.

anyway!! this ask has gotten LONG so I hope it was worth the wait dear anon! and I hope I made enough sense with my rambling alskdjaklsd

thanks for sending this! <3

[deliquescentnightmare]

Character Introduction

Hello! my first little character sheet so you all can meet Delila, the main protagonist of my still untitled story. Most- if not all- of my characters are blatant self-inserts, and Delila is no exception. I identify as GF so she's kind of the embodiment of my very fem moments, and my soft cottagecore side. Anyways, here's all you need to know about her! I'll post newer versions of her character sheet later on as certain events happen in the story so I don't give you guys spoilers.

Name: Delila Amelie Lestrade

Age: 24

Hometown: Born in Atlanta GA, moved around a lot as a child.

Occupation: Forensic Psychologist. FBI agent.

Sexuality: Asexual, questioning.

Talents/Skills: Writing. Playing Uke. Can't cook at all. Great skill of falling down or bumping into things. Hands are steady in times of crisis and is very levelheaded.

Siblings (describe relationship): Theodore 'Theo' Grayson Markham. 35, older half brother. Second son of Alana Markham(nee Ramses) and Fredrick Markham. Lives in NY. Jameson Albert Markham, 36, oldest half brother, and firstborn son of Alana Markham and Frederick Markham. Lives in rural North Carolina with his wife and kids. Gwendolyn 'Gwen' Beatrice Markham (deceased). Born 1980, died at 26) Killed in a car accident in St Louis in 2006. Very close to Delila and Jameson. Entire family mourned after she passed, and Alana became very different emotionally.

Mother (describe relationship): Alana Elizabeth Markham (nee Ramses). 54, lives in Ojai, California with Frederick Markham. They talk intermittently, but Alana isn't very responsible and Delila refuses to interact with her too much because it's emotionally draining. Alana refuses to acknowledge Gwen even existed.

Father (describe relationship): Gregory 'Greg' Lestrade. 49. Their relationship is close, and Greg would often visit Delila, or fly her out to see him during school holidays when she was a child. They call often (when he actually picks up or calls her back) and email back and forth. She loves him more than life itself even if he often forgets to call her because he's busy.

Significant Others (describe relationship): Struggles to remain relationships due to lack of intimacy, but had a long-term relationship for 2 years that recently ended for undisclosed reasons.

Pets: none yet. had a childhood snake named Jonathan.

Friends: Li Huang (will be introduced in the next chapter or the one after), John Watson, Molly Hooper, Sherlock Holmes (tentative), Theo, Mycroft Holmes(eventually).

Height: 5'2" or 157.5 cm

Weight: 135 lbs. or about 61 kg

Race: Caucasian, British-American

Eye Color: Blue in Original Fictions. In this AU, however her right one is Purple. her left is Pink. (I like pink and purple very much)

Hair Color: Naturally brown, dyed pastel orange.

Distinguishing features: Constantly has scrapes and bruises, often topped off with band-aids on her fingers and cheeks. Her wild orange hair and round gold-rimmed glasses. (they're bigger than Harry Potter's, before you ask). She wears a black pea-coat often, and it's worn from years of use. (it was her sister's)

How does he/she dress? Black pea-coat when it's colder. Likes to wear slightly-too-large clothing. Often wears stolen shirts, sweaters and button ups. Flowy, flowery dresses and skirts and occasionally ripped jeans. She did go through an Emo phase and dyed her hair white in her late teens/early 20's, and has some clothing left over from that phase that she occasionally wears.

Hobbies: Writing romance fiction and crime. Reading, often James Patterson or fantasy. Playing ukulele, and singing. She likes to dance but isn't very good at it, so she often does it when she's alone or it's dark (or both). She likes to go for walks with John in the park, and used to go for walks with Theo.

Greatest flaws: She cares too much too fast, and becomes attached to people within a day or so of meeting them. She can be slightly needy and clingy if she doesn't have a lot of friends, because she thrives off of physical affection. She's very stubborn, and will do things even when she's been given explicit instruction not to because she thinks she may know a better way. (sometimes she does, but other times she just is too strong headed to stop). She can either be unabashedly arrogant or filled with crippling self-doubt dependent on the situation as she's experienced a lot of respect and praise for her intellect. She also puts a lot of pressure on herself to succeed and it can lead to devastating burnouts.

Best qualities: Very loving and openhearted. She will put others' needs above her own nearly every time. She will make sure her friends and those she cares about are taken care of, and are taking good care of themselves. She is extremely intelligent and knows an array of weird and sometimes useful facts, and has a large span of knowledge thanks to her time at uni. She also has a way of making friends wherever she goes, which leads to a large web of connections and sources whenever she needs them.

Introvert or Extrovert? Ambivert, it's dependent on the situation. For example, if she's forced to be in isolation then she's going to be more extroverted when she's around people again. She enjoys talking to people, but after a certain amount, she can become worn out and need alone time. I think it would be good to note she is much more socially adept than Sherlock, though he is better at other things socially. (she has Asperger's and therefore he picks up on certain cues or details she may miss)

How does the character deal with anger? Delila can either run hot or run cold in terms of temperament. When she runs hot, she is often so overcome with emotion that she 'loses' words, struggles to speak and gets really flustered. (not in a good way) she never really says anything unkind when she's like this but she will be very dismissive and tell people to leave her alone. She is prone to shouting or crying to voice her frustrations and get out her emotions. The best way to calm her down is to let her rant about it, and she often calls Theo- who lets her rant. When she runs cold, she is eerily calm. She becomes sharp-tongued, cold and calculating. She will destroy whoever has angered her in this way and feel no shame. Sometimes she will spend days like this, and will be snippy and distant to anyone who tries to talk to her. She is vengeful and fully of unabashedly cruel remarks. It takes a lot or something particularly bad to get her this way.

With sadness? Delila tends to cry when she's sad, and is most comforted by physical affection. She listens to sad music, curls up under a blanket, and will write, whether it be in a journal or creatively. She will occasionally vent, but usually keeps it to herself as to not burden people around her with her issues or emotions.

With conflict? Delila can be rather argumentative and stubborn, but if she cares about the person she will do her best to listen to their side of the argument or disagreement, even if she feels as though they are wrong. When it comes to other peoples' conflicts, she will try and take the side she feels is most correct, or try and be an unbiased judge. She will defend her friends if there is a conflict in which they are being attacked in some way.

With change? Delila isn't a big fan of change but she will try her best to adapt and overcome by setting goals and new routines.

With loss? Delila will self-isolate. She will spend a lot of time re-consuming media that reminds her of what she has lost, and will go through a period of denial. Eventually, though she will come to honour the memory and move on.

What does the character want out of life? Fulfillment. Delila has spent a lot of her short life searching for something she is truly passionate about, but once she finds things that make her happy she becomes hesitant to follow them. She longs for fulfillment in ways other than reproducing and relationships, but one day she wouldn't mind having a family.

What would the character like to change in his/her life? Delila wishes she'd spent less time worried about how her mother perceived her and hoe those around her viewed her and her achievements. She is quite successful now and has learnt better but she wishes she hadn't let her doubts hinder her in the past.

What motivates this character? Delila doesn't excel because she longs for success, but because she fears failure. She refuses to be a burden, and will be independent almost to a fault.

What frightens this character? Delila is terrified of her family being hurt in any way, or losing someone she loves again. She also despises spiders and rejection.

What makes this character happy? Music. Her family, her friends. The rain. Tea. she loves to dance, but she only does it when she's alone.

Is the character judgmental of others? Delila's job required her to profile people, and because of that it has become her nature to psychoanalyse or even try to make assumptions about people from the get-go. She will often alter this perception of people later on depending on how she sees them interact with their environment, and people around them.

Is the character generous or stingy? She can be overly generous when it comes to those she loves, but also hesitant to share other things. It all depends on the item or person's emotional and sentimental value to her.

Is the character generally polite or rude? Unless given good reason to be rude, Delila is generally kind.

[fuckinuchihas]

Emergency request! Around valentine day I requested an emergency request where male reader felt lovable and lead to sugawara confessing. And it was really comforting so I know it's weird but I've want a part 2. I just went to a wedding and it kinda hurts seeing people be in so much love. I was think just a part 2 where reader is like " do you really love me" and suga tells him yes and then proposes please and thank you , your work is amazing.

Okay so this came spilling out, apparently I really wanted to write this too! Well I hope you enjoy and while it does start off with insecurity and sad thoughts, I promise you its 100% happy ending, the happiest of endings so no worries please <3 

Something has changed, shifted...and you’re not sure where you went wrong but you can feel him pulling away. 

It’s been a while since this beautiful man came into your life and turned everything on its head by actually wanting you. Sometimes you still wonder if it’s a dream but then you’ll wake up with a feathery silver strand of hair stuck to your lips or his arms wrapped so tightly around you that it feels like he’s just as terrified to let go as you are that he’ll want to someday. 

That day seems to get closer and closer with every breath. 

It started with his jacket. 

He’d been leaving it at your place for a while now but when you opened the small closet off to the side of your bedroom the familiar navy blue was gone, as was a couple of his shirts that had managed to make their way into your laundry. 

You told yourself he probably just needed them because it was getting cooler, but then he wasn’t...wearing them. 

Then there was the early Saturday morning spent with a friend, which by itself wasn’t a big deal, but he’d never intentionally left you out of his plans, not-not even as a friend. 

You rack your brain trying to find anything that you could have done to change things...were you too clingy? Too insecure? Too...overwhelming? 

Every insecurity you could think of suddenly rose to the surface and made it hard for you to breathe. 

No...No, you forced the thoughts back down. Sugawara wasn’t perfect, not nearly as much as you’d initially believed but he wasn’t a coward or deceitful. If he wanted the relationship to end, he’d tell you outright. Even if it was a difficult conversation. 

You sigh to yourself as you change from your slippers into actual shoes so you can check the mail. You shake yourself out of the funk as much as you can on your way down to the small mail office in your apartment complex.

When you open the box you feel a moment of soft surprise before your heart sinks back to your stomach. 

Yet another wedding invitation. 

You don’t mind spending money on a gift or even dressing up for the occasion when it’s someone close to you but the more weddings you attend the more disheartened you become. 

Maybe that’s it…

Maybe Koshi has picked up on your wedding fever/depression and got scared away. You hadn’t really thought about it when mentioning your future plans that you had in mind. You didn’t need all the fancy stuff, not into the large crowds or dove releases, or any other number of shenanigans that normally turned out to be disasters.

Even if it were just you and him, a couple friends to witness and someone to officiate…that’s all you cared about. 

*sigh* 

Your phone buzzes in your pocket just after you step back through your front door and you glance down to see a text from the man himself. 

Message from Koshi: You free this Saturday?

You narrow your gaze down at the phone. 

Message to Koshi: You ask that as if I’m not always free on Saturdays….

Message from Koshi: Well it’s only polite to ask, otherwise I think it would be considered kidnapping...adult napping? Personnapping 

You chuckle under your breath despite it all and smile down at your phone. 

Message to Koshi: I’ll try to pencil you in. 

Message from Koshi: Okay, I deserved that one...still, don’t make plans. 

Message to Koshi: Well I can’t make any promises...if Kakashi sensei shows up I don’t know if I can hold back. 

You know wherever he is right now he’s rolling his eyes at you but that’s okay, because he’s smiling too...or at least you hope he is. The old Sugawara would have smiled and laughed…

Message to Koshi: Is Saturday the next time I’ll see you? 

You were almost too afraid to send it, not wanting to see the affirmation of that given it’s only Wednesday and you’ve gotten used to not sleeping alone. 

Your mind goes through a variety of scenarios for the thing Saturday, is it a breakup thing? Is he going to explain why he’s been so distant? Is it...no, you won’t get your hopes up. It’s better to deal with worst case scenarios so you know how to handle yourself with whatever comes to pass. 

Finally your phone buzzes again and you let out a low sigh of relief. 

Message from Koshi: Of course not, I’ll be over for later...want me to stop and get food? 

Message to Koshi: No, I’ll take care of dinner. You just bring yourself. TTYL 

Message from Koshi: TTYL 

That’s another thing that’s changed lately….he still says he loves you, it’s still there and it feels nice to hear it. But it’s changed somehow, like it’s as if he has to push it out rather than it flowing naturally. He gets this odd look in his eyes sometimes when he says it and if you didn’t know him better you’d worry he didn’t mean it at all. 

But Sugawara isn’t insincere or deceptive. 

Saturday comes and you wake up alone, it’s...not a great feeling. 

You blindly reach for you phone waiting until your vision is actually useful before you check your messages. 

Message from Koshi: Went for breakfast, bbs.

Well...that’s not so bad. 

You check the clock, it’s a little earlier than you usually get up… maybe an hour or so. You contemplate going back to bed but if he’s getting you something warm to eat and drink, it might be worth staying awake. 

When that hour passes alongside another, you start to worry. 

Message to Koshi: Everything okay? 

Almost immediately you have a response. 

Message from Koshi: Yes, sorry I got caught up with something but I’ll be back in 10. 

You try not to focus on the long absence instead, moving to get dressed. Something about still being in bed half naked leaves you feeling vulnerable. 

When he enters the apartment a few moments later, as promised, he’s wearing a warm smile, flushed cheeks, and holding out a bag of piping hot food and a warm drink that heats your hand when you take it. 

Things aren’t adding up… how has he been gone so long, gotten caught up in something unplanned, and still carrying hot food and drink when he returns? 

Something dark and ugly curls in your belly. 

“Suga…” you start, wanting to bring it up but part of you is also terrified that this will spur the impending talk ahead even faster. 

“Yes?” 

“Nevermind,” you say, taking a sip of your drink. “This is good thank you.” 

“Of course. Anything for you, Love.” 

It almost hurts more than it heals. 

It’s nearly time to get ready, he mentioned wanting to leave around seven so you start to ask questions. “Where are we going? What should I wear? Etc…” all the accompanying answers are vague at best, but you don’t push. Despite the logical part of your brain knowing you need to confront this, something that feels protective, or like a defense mechanism, is screaming at you not to push. As if holding your tongue will make him want to keep you around, even for just a minute longer. 

When he shows back up at your apartment after leaving to get dressed, you feel completely lost. He looks good, well he always looks good but...fuck you were not prepared for the sight of him in dark slacks with a crimson button up and a silver vest that hugs his form. 

“I am-I’m completely underdressed...why didn’t you tell me…” you say, feeling both frustrated and emotional because wouldn’t it just be your luck that the man you love looks his most beautiful on the night he breaks your heart. 

“You look amazing, don’t worry… there’s not going to be a crowd, c’mon.” he says, offering his arm and though neither of you usually engage in pda, there’s something that seems so inherently romantic about it that you can’t stop yourself from taking it. 

“Are you willing to tell me where we’re going...now?” you ask, but he just winks at you and shakes his head. 

You try to hide your frustration, it must not work too well because he just laughs, “Don’t worry, I’m not personnapping you, if you don’t like it we can leave.” 

You move together side by side for a while until a familiar path comes into view. 

“The pier?” you ask, blinking at him. 

“Surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner.” 

“Why did you get all dressed up for the pier? Wait when did they put lights up? Is this new?” you ask, glancing around at the countless strings of fairy lights hung from the posts of the nearby shelter and all along the handrail of the dock. 

“I’m not sure, I think it’s a recent addition…” he says, and you can hear a slight quiver in his voice. 

“Oh okay,” you say, as you let him lead you to the small picnic area. 

On the table there’s a huge basket filled with food and a bucket with a bottle of wine chilling.

“Koshi this is- this is-” you want to say sweet, romantic, amazing… but the words get caught in your throat. 

Surely he wouldn’t do all this, make this amazing picnic just for you, only to dump you...right? Like there’s such a thing as too amicable at the end of a relationship…

“You don’t like it?” he asks, rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. 

“No! No that’s not it at all,” you say in a rush, the volume a little loud in your hurry to reassure him that it’s amazing. “I just...can we sit and talk for a minute first?” 

“Yeah, of course…” he says, though he’s still clearly very nervous. Maybe he knows you’ve caught onto him…

“Sugawara-” 

“Koshi-” he says, with insistence. 

You nod, “Koshi, I just-I’ve noticed that you’ve been pulling away lately...It’s not that I-I mind I guess, I just, I want you to know that if I’ve done anything or...or you’ve just changed your mind-” 

“I haven’t,” he says firmly, reaching his hand out to pull your chin up so he can look directly into your eyes. There’s a soft whisper of your name but then he’s smiling and shaking his head, tears forming at the edge of his eyes. “I guess there’s only one way to prove it to you though.” 

“What?” you ask, a little alarmed that he seems so close to crying and this close you can watch it happen. 

He says your name, like a whisper like a prayer and then he drops to one knee in front of you. 

Your brain, the one that’s constantly overthinking everything, goes still in that moment. All whirring brought to a quick, silent stop. 

“For me it wasn’t immediate, though sometimes I like to think it was because it makes me look a little brighter, but falling for you was a slow progression of events to the point that I didn’t even realize how deep I was until you told me that no one would ever want you... I just sat there staring at you thinking you were the most fascinating, most hilarious, most warm human being I’ve ever known,” he says, hand shaking as he reaches into his pocket. 

Your pulse spikes but you’re still struck frozen, speechless. 

“Every day your smile, your laugh, the way your nose pulls up when you’re angry, all of it...it makes you even more gorgeous than you were the first time I saw you...I haven’t been pulling away, I’ve been trying to surprise you with this,’ he says, opening a small bright red box up and holding it out to you.

You gasp when you see the minimalist band, gems embedded into the metal to give it a smooth finish rather than the traditional engagement rings that stick out like a sore thumb. 

“Koshi I-Are you sure?”

“I’m absolutely certain,” he says, “The question here, is are you? Will you marry me?” he asks, a soft whisper of your name shakily coming out after the question but you barely even heard it over the loud pounding of your heart in your ears. 

“Yes! Yes yes, no takebacksies,” you say, feeling and maybe sounding like a damned kid you’re so gleefully happy. 

“Not even if Kakashi shows up?” he says, raising an eyebrow at you. 

“Not even then,” you say, pulling him in closer until he gives in and gives you what you want.

You get lost in the kiss for a bit, long enough that you’re grateful none of the food was meant to be served hot. 

“I kinda thought you were going to break up with me…” you confess softly, a little while later while lazily plucking grapes from the bunch and passing them over your shoulder to your boyfr-fiance...your fiance. The word itself gives you a rush of excitement up your spine. 

He splutters a bit but eventually just decides to chide you a little, “What do you take me for? An idiot?” he says, “Only an idiot would leave you...I was umm, I was planning this and I was slowly moving some of your things over to my apartment. You didn’t notice?” 

“No...I noticed your stuff missing but not mine…”

He sighs, and pats you on the head. “Of course you did. I’m sorry, Love. Next time I’ll just ruin the surprise and tell you.” 

You laugh, “Oh so you plan on proposing again?” 

He shrugs, “You never know.” 

You do know...two weeks before your tenth anniversary, Sugawara stops grading papers to look up at you while you’re drinking your morning cup and says, “I’m going to propose to you in two weeks...so don’t get any crazy ideas like I’m leaving you again.” 

You choke on your drink and glare at him when he laughs at you for it. 

“You’ll be lucky if I say yes, Sugawara Koshi!” 

“Yes I will.”

Thanks so much for reading!! 

Masterlist

[has-gilgamesh-doneanythingwrong]

I meant a foreign Princess from some other Kingdom like say Egypt for instance and he maybe meets her at some banquet or her father the King visits Gilgamesh and brings her along. How do you think he would behave around her?

Hello, anon. Thank you for getting back to me. I wasn't sure of this request at first, but I get it now ^^

TIME FOR ME TO UNLEASH THE BIG GUNS!!!!!!!!!!

Gilgamesh's Banquet with A Princess From a Distant Land

- Today, Gilgamesh was going to host a banquet with a King from a distant nation. Together, they would procure an influential trade deal; which would not only bolster the prosperity of Uruk, but also help the other nation with their food shortages.

- Although Gilgamesh was up until his very ears with work and assignments, he was a little bit excited for today (not that he'd admit it, mind you). In particular, Siduri took note of the buoyant cheer lurking beneath his steely exterior.

- 'I hope this goes well...I haven't seen him look this excited in a while.' As Siduri chuckles softly, she congregates with the other staff and servants to prepare for tonight's massive feast. If the guests weren't to Gilgamesh's liking; who knows what havoc he'll wreak?

- Hopefully they'd be able to keep him entertained over mugs of beer and talks of politics.

- The moon glows splendidly within the midnight black night sky, Uruk enshrouded within an effervescent pale light. The banquet was finally ready. Dancers twirl around the palace, as glowing lights illuminate their glistening bodies. In the very center is an enormous feast, with Gilgamesh situated right at the very helm.

- He is incredibly bored from the waiting, and even threatens to scold the other king. Luckily, before Gilgamesh loses his patience; the king arrives!

- Once the King from the other nation arrives- decked in an array of glowing amber robes and a crown of laurel- he bows politely before the entrance to Gilgamesh's palace.

- "You certainly tarried about, didn't you?" Gilgamesh is rather put-out by that. The correct decorum was to arrive early; in order to highlight one's gratitude towards their benefactor. By arriving just on time, this king had more or less acted as if they were equally benefiting from this trade deal. "After all we have done to regale you and greet you as one of our own, I would assume that you'd have the decency to arrive when I expect you to."

"I apologise, dear King. I offer you the very best of our treasures as an apology..." Lifting up an ornate box that contains an delicately sculptured gem, Gilgamesh orders one of his servants to take the package.

"No matter. Your offerings shall suffice for now." Clapping his hands, Gilgamesh orders him to rise; as the king's own band of servants, soldiers and staff troop behind. "Now let us dine together, post haste."

- As they carry on their way, Gilgamesh briefly looks back and is surprised to see a young woman trailing behind; glittering gems sparkling all over her body, as she walks proudly behind them. "Hoh, to think you'd bring a mongrel donning enough jewelry to corrode the entirety of the gem trade industry; yet not introduce her to me? What folly!"

At this, an expression of anger briefly shoots across the king's face until he finally caves in. "That is none other than my very own daughter, a being that is worthy of wearing all of the gems in the world. I would rather you do not refer to her with such malice, dear King."

As Gilgamesh's lips part with amusement at the king's response, he turns to grin rather ferociously at the princess; who bows politely in response- the light of her gems radiating from her body like an angelic light.

- 'It seems like tonight will be even more entertaining than I originally anticipated it to be...' He certainly was going to tease this princess; and push her buttons as far as he possibly could. Hopefully her reactions wouldn't bore him...

THE BANQUET!!!

- The banquet is rather merry, as the trade deal is successfully signed. Somehow, the King had managed to pass Gilgamesh's standards. Now that the most difficult part of the day had finally ended, everybody was free to enjoy themselves!!

- As soon as the king busies himself by dancing alongside the beautiful dancers as he grabs some drinks, Gilgamesh spins to face the princess; passing her a golden canister of beer. Now was the perfect opportunity to attack?!!

- Gilgamesh had been looking forward to doing this all night. He was going to challenge the princess to one of his most favorite endeavors of all time: A BATTLE OF WITS.

- He tries to catch he off guard by testing not only her knowledge- but by also saying things that would certainly get underneath her skin. However, he is taken aback by her sharp and witty responses.

- In other words, I believe that he would certainly give this princess a very hard time; and depending on the types of assumptions he'll make based on her appearance and demeanor, he may be quite harsh at first towards her. "Who do you take yourself to be, wreathing yourself in such imperial attire? A primordial goddess of creation?"

- Despite this, the princess responds to his malice with an even temperament. "I must thank you for your rather lofty, if not absurdly magnanimous praise. However, I would declare myself to be more of a goddess of studying, rather than the kind of divine being that you contrast me to."

"Oho, is that so..." Almost as if he is testing her; Gilgamesh asks her a rather difficult assortment of questions, yet she responds at ease and is not afraid to speak her truth, giving him no choice but to finally respect her status as a princess. "How unexpectedly humble of you, princess. I must profess that I am actually quite impressed."

- A night of mind games ensues between the two; and the Princess is relieved once her father states that it is time to go home. 'I'm not sure I can take this for much longer', the Princess sighs as Gilgamesh challenges her on geographical knowledge. 'This feels exactly the same as if I'm being challenged by my tutor, except this time it's as if my tutor wants to see me lose my temper...'

- Once everybody gathers at the gates to say farewell, Gilgamesh gives the other king a friendly smile. "King. Not only have you provided me with ample entertainment, but you have also raised a fine daughter. I shall praise you appropriately for your efforts today."

- As the king looks between Gilgamesh and the princess in shock, he bows deeply. Afterwards, Gilgamesh stares the princess square in the eyes. "You have done well today, princess. If you shall ever require the assistance of Uruk, or require any more gems to add to that rather ridiculous collection of yours; then you shall be granted permission to lay your feet within my lands. Now, be off!"

- The princess is astounded by this. SHE HAD SURVIVED!!!

- Once the two of them return home- the skies twinkling beautifully overhead- the princess turns to face her father; her expression eager.

"Father, I did it! I survived this night's ordeal!"

"You certainly did...Good job."

And thus, the night ended well.

THE END

[goonlalagoon]

We start small || Leagues and Legends

A series rewrite AU for @ink-splotch​‘s fantastic Leagues and Legends books.

Spoilers for the whole trilogy below!

Read on Ao3

 When George was fifteen, her village left her out for a dragon. The blacksmith slipped a knife up her sleeve as they went, and in the press of bodies she couldn't ask him why. She could only guess at what mercy he was handing her. The villagers would live with shame under their tongues for the rest of their lives, but they would live. The dragon ruled the hillside, great and golden, scales bright against the purple lupins that bloomed there every year, and they pretended it was fear that made them shudder at the sight.

Maybe Jack still survived the bandits who attacked the merchant caravan he was travelling with. Maybe he travelled on with them, bounced from place to place until he found a cause to throw himself into, on some distant shore far from the Forest where he had grown up. Maybe he didn't, one fourteen year old boy with no training and no battlefield experience, just a big heart and a bit of luck on his side.

There was no Dragon Slayer. It would be years before someone earned the old title Giantkiller, and it wouldn't be a red headed forest boy who tried to stand tall under the weight of that history.

Liam Jones powered the towns and villages of the mountains for weeks. The Seeress was almost blind with the burning light that drifted up through the floor, and the afterimage it left behind when it finally winked out was almost worse. There were no tales in the mountains of the Pied Piper.

Beatrice Tanner would never know any of their names.

On the day when in another life she might have opened her door and let a third soul into her shuttered heart, Bea woke as always before the sun to put the bread on to rise, and while the ovens warmed she rolled her dog eared map out over the old wooden table and traced her fingers over hidden paths and scant shelters. She had a network, small but growing, owed petty favours and moments of kindness. She had a list of lives saved, and a list of those she knew were at risk and could possibly be convinced to leave. She had a list of losses, a bitter sting under her tongue and a cold motivator to keep trying.

People still didn't believe her warnings, most of the time. They hushed her for telling children to be careful, to be hidden, and she did it anyway whenever she saw gold glittering in the corner of her eye, when she saw children play with sparks that didn't burn. Maybe they wouldn't believe her, but maybe they'd check over their shoulder anyway. Maybe the children would curl their hands into little fists and ignore the skin of the world pressing in on them, scared by this woman who hissed nightmares at them in the street. She didn't want children to be afraid, but she wanted them to be safe, and when there was a monster on the loose fear was what kept you alive.

She said as much, one day at a market, snapping warnings at children and glaring at the uniformed man who'd asked her what she was scaring children for. She had no patience for coddling, and she had little for the Bureau either. But this one blinked at her, and scratched at his clean shaven chin. 

"Stealing mages? Say, d'you mind repeating all this to Sarge? He's the boss of our League, and this sounds like something we should know about." Bea eyed him suspiciously, but the possibility of getting more people to help outweighed her faint distaste for the Leagues. 

It was only a few weeks later that May told her that it was really just May, not short for anything despite what the Bureau paperwork said. Bea wasn't quite sure whether this was a sign of trust or of just how much May wanted to get out of her padded armour and into something that didn't chafe quite as much on the healing gash down her side.

Sarge had sent coded reports back to headquarters, and was glaring at the responses. Flash was twisting his fingers, safe with his training and his league, staring sleepless at the ceiling with visions of those who weren’t keeping him awake. They couldn’t give themselves wholly to this cause; the Rangers had a job to do and it was one that badly needed doing - but part of their job was to keep people safe from monsters, so when they left they took some of her gathered information with them, and kept their eyes open. 

They sent her news, dropped by the markets they knew she liked to give her the names of people who had helped, people who believed them when they whispered warnings. They sent people to her, frightened or angry or numb, but always desperate, and she sent them on. She didn't ask anyone to be a hero, because heroes were for stories and legends, for Bureau badges and official postings. She just asked people for a little bit of help, and then they offered it again and again. 

It was over a year after she met them that they sent her the Giantkiller. 

Kay had thick ropes of scarring over his side and arm, the pockmarks of claws pressed deep into his shoulder. He was a child when rocs tried to carry him off, struggling and screaming. He was lucky - the Rangers heard the commotion and brought the beast down, two arrows in its heart, a net of golden fire to catch him as he fell, to pour into gaping wounds and knit flesh back together. When they had to stay camped out for a day while the mage weathered an Elsewhere storm, their Guide showed him how to mix a paste to help the scars heal out of ingredients he could find within an hour’s walk of home.

His father's fury when he said after they left that he wanted to be a Leaguesman too was a burning thing, a bitter thing. He jerked his head down the road the Rangers left by, and listed every time they could have been of use before one lucky day. Kay fiddled with his spoon, because it was true - but that was the point of joining up, wasn't it? To be the person who was there when he was needed. But his father was bitter, furious, so he held his tongue. 

When his father was out working in the field and Kay was supposed to be chopping wood, he fenced the air with a stick for a sword the way he'd watched May and Sarge practice in the early morning, as they let Flash sleep late to regain his strength and they kept a wary eye out for any returning rocs. He stumbled over his own feet and knew he was no good.

When he was younger, he'd practiced with his sling until his fingers blistered, and his father smiled over the small game he brought in, the crows he scared away from the crops with a sharp stone to the claws. Kay practiced still, every day, and now he imagined bigger targets.

The rocs came again, as they did every year, and one tried to carry off not a child but the neighbours' sheep. Kay sent it crashing back to the ground. Its neck snapped as it landed and he stood over it, shaking and fierce and frightened. The men arrived at a run from the barn, and Kay's father looked proud and scared and bitter. 

"You see?" He said, later, when they’d butchered the carcass and he was watching Kay sort the feathers he'd asked to keep. "Rocs every damn year, and no Leagues here to help."   

Kay hummed, non-committal, thinking but I was. 

He was too young for the Leagues anyway, he knew. But he wasn't too young to help, so when there were rumours of Things haunting the woods nearby he slipped out his window in the grey dusk and went hunting. He had a handful of mage spelled stones, even if they were spelled for gentle warmth not damage, a gift from Flash to help ease the ache in healing limbs. The Things shrieked like the stones burned, and he was sick behind a bush afterward but the nest was gone, and Things shriek but he'd heard the families who’s homes were closer to the woods than his weeping too, and he knew which he'd choose. His father was pacing when he got home in the soft light of dawn, and he knew without asking where Kay had been. He knew what Kay was making himself into and he was furious and so scared, but Kay couldn't go back to waiting for someone else to save his people. 

Kay set out the next morning, when his father was already out in the fields, working off his anger on the weeds. He packed a satchel of food and clothes, his sling and pouches of stones. He slipped the little carved flute his father made for his last birthday into the side of his bag, and set off down the road, refusing to look back.

When he met the Rangers again, it was in the shadow of a giant, the wreckage of a village. They were too late to help bring it down, but they found him digging through the fallen buildings for survivors. Sarge glanced at the sling at his hip first and Kay tensed. They were already whispering about him, the survivors, about the Giantkiller and his sling, and he knew the price of being a vigilante. Sarge said nothing, just gripped the other end of the beam he was trying to lift, hauling it up so Kay could drag the wounded boy underneath into the light.

They had a hushed conference, the Rangers and the Giantkiller, carefully out of sight because they could only shirk this particular duty if no one knew. May shook her head over him but bullied him through a basic staff work drill. Sarge watched, and nodded thoughtfully when Flash muttered "think the Baker could use a field agent?"

His story rolled ahead of him, growing as he went. He cleared a nest of Things in one village and took down another roc in a narrow pass, had a brief run in with bandits that he barely survived. He helped stock a woodpile for a hot meal and repaired a fence for another. There hadn't been a Giantkiller in the memory of anyone younger than his grandmother, and he listened to the old stories that were being dusted off. He hoped no one expected him to live up to all of them. 

Bea heard him out, polite but not friendly, and he tried not to shuffle in his seat under her level gaze. She shrugged, eventually, and let him tag along as she smuggled a woman and her sister through the checkpoints in her cart. Kay tucked his sling out of sight and played a sullen teenager for all he was worth so that she could scold him loudly and the guards would shake their heads over the disruption instead of searching through the carefully stacked flour bags.  

Someone wrote to her a week later saying they had a wyvern problem - people had long since started writing to the Baker for any help they needed and couldn’t afford from official sources, to see if she knew someone who could help. She sent Kay as a response, and he came back with a burn on his leg and pockets full of scales, scrubbed clean - but he came back. She grew to expect it, became used to keeping his room ready and leaving space at the table for him.  

The first time he broke into the Graves' keep, he slipped out of the bakery after she'd gone to bed. They hadn't reached these ones in time, and he'd watched the way her shoulders fell and her lips thinned when he came back too soon, no rescues in his wake and no stories about how he'd helped them escape. He'd looked at her map, and thought but I'm still here.

The keep was easy to break into, because no one else was fool enough to try, and the Seeress was still working her way into her father's toolkit. He'd never held a lock pick but he knew how to remove hinges from a wall so he opened the doors that way, until one of the terrified mages shook off the stupor and started melting through them for him. They fled, and he scrawled the ward diagrams Flash had sent to Bea in the dirt for his rescues to copy with the sparks of power that were left to them. They had suspicions, Bea and the Rangers, dark thoughts about how their foe was finding prey so easily. They had wards that would cloud them from the sight of a seer, briefly, enough to break a trail, and they worked.  

Kay led them to the bakery, where Bea fed them and sent them on, and when the house was empty again she wrapped her arms around Kay and hissed don't you dare do that again, don't you dare Kay, you don't disappear on me. He nodded and promised, but they both knew he meant he wouldn't slip away in the night. Kay was young, true, but he wasn't a fool. He could promise not to go without a word, but he couldn't promise he'd come back. 

There was no Dragon Slayer, no Piper, a different Giantkiller - but it had never been just about those three friends. They were the ones whose legends were told, but theirs had never been the only hands buried in this war.

In a different village, there was a girl with the Elsewhere pulling gently on her bones. Kay took a warning, because if he and Bea had heard of her then so would the Graves’, and her sister narrowed her eyes at him as she went pale with fear. For all that he was the messenger not the threat, Kay took an instinctive half step back. "If anyone thinks they're taking my sister, they're going to get what's coming to them."

Rosie and Susie had friends, and those friends had already lost people to the machines, vanishing in the night and dropping out of contact. When Kay warned them, told them what he knew, they listened. They planned. When slavers came in the night, Elsewhere cracks tucked in their pockets, they thought this would be easy. The Seeress had seen an orphan girl with magic. If she had seen anything else, it had been shadowy faces with nothing to make them stand out. This is the peril of a Seer; you fall into the habit if thinking that if you don't see something it can't matter.

Slavers came in the night, and never left.  

They started calling them Snow White and Rose Red, these sisters with deep roots in the mountain soil who grit their teeth and refused to run, refused to hide. Theirs was a mountain village, no Bureau-sanctioned guard and no walls to defend them, so they built their own. Bea smuggled out every person unwilling to become a civilian soldier, who wanted safety not defiance, and the rest built a fortress.  

Kay helped, hands familiar with hammer and nails, the cost of freedom. He made friends, not just with the sisters but with Doc and his sons, the taciturn blacksmith and his two apprentices, the cheerful woman who ran the inn and the cynical one who presided over the fledgling community garden, with a few scattered kids his own age with fire in their veins and fear in their eyes.

(Or was it fear that ran in their blood, twitching at shadows and hearts pounding when they woke at night, and fire in their eyes, a stubborn, worn down fury?)  

They named it Challenge, carved it deep over the main gate, a name and a purpose. 

Their first siege had been a holding action in the mines, Doc and his sons collapsing tunnels and digging new ones until winter came on and forced the Graves' soldiers back to their own walls. The vigilantes stayed in the mines, huddled together for warmth and comfort, elated and terrified at their own victory. Rosie and Susie roamed the passages, after, speaking to everyone and inviting a selection to a council - Kay was invited too, and sat awkwardly listening to them lay plans for rebuilding, how to build sturdy walls the moment the snows cleared enough. Their second came days after they carved Challenge over the gate, while Kay was still getting all of the sawdust out of his hair.

He went back to the bakery afterward, to pour over maps with Bea and be sent out on missions. They couldn't save everyone. They couldn't save most people, but some was better than none. Kay stared at the ceiling through long, sleepless nights, trying to convince himself that it was okay that he couldn't work miracles. People knew him by sight, now, and some days he didn’t feel he should be looking over his shoulder whenever they called out Giantkiller!

It was a long, slow war, their quiet campaign against the Graves family. Bea’s network grew and grew, despite their heavy losses - mages who escaped and ones who didn’t, the non-magical casualties who weren’t quick enough with a lie or a dodge, or were simply unlucky. Susie and Rosie were a fierce pair, exchanging razor sharp letters with Bea to plan out strategies and contingencies.

(It wasn’t until after his third siege at Challenge that Kay would realise that Bea had never actually met either of the sisters; she had never met Marian, either, but they had never communicated directly so it was easier to recall. The sisters and the Baker sent word back and forth for years, but barely knew anything of each other outside of their shared plans besides what he could pass on - for all that Bea would like to see Challenge, there was bread to bake and travel could be dangerous. Better not to give the Seeress any reason to look again at this sleepy village that she and hers had already gutted for fuel.)

Kay was no natural physician, but he helped to wrap bandages in Doc Frederickson’s infirmary whenever he was in Challenge, between meetings and sentry duty. In the streets and villages people expected him to be a hero; in the infirmary, Doc just expected him to be useful. He cracked bad jokes as distraction, fetched water, and peered over a bewildered man’s shoulder at a neat formula that someone had stumbled through the gates clutching. She didn’t remember where she’d found it, but it had been tucked into the lining of her coat. There was a note on the front in her own handwriting, for all she didn’t recall writing it - My first rabbit was called Snowball, and this is real, not a joke.

Doc’s hand shook so badly that he had to put the unfolded note down before he dropped it. Kay clutched the edge of the desk hard enough to hurt, looking between the message and the woman sat on the edge of an infirmary cot, gold dripping sluggishly from her fingertips to pool on the fabric. It would stain, leaving smudged hand-prints on the sheets and faintly in the mattress below, but they would consider it a miracle not a nuisance. She was sitting, fingertips trembling but no worse this morning than they had been any day of her journey north. She had been dragged from the cells, away from the machines that should have killed her, and rather than dying grateful for a final view of the sky she had found herself weeks to the South, in a town she hadn’t known and a recipe in her pocket in handwriting she didn’t recognise.

It wasn’t a cure, but it was still something no-one had thought to hope for. It was a medicine, true, but it was also a message: somebody, somewhere, was trying to save their mages too. They weren’t the only ones resisting this blight.

This, too: after that first midnight venture of Kay’s they had never been able to rescue anyone from the Graves’ keep. They had fought to prevent people being taken, rescued people from mage warded wagons, hissed warnings to make people hide or flee. They had built a town, walls and watchtowers, a beacon of resistance. But they had never managed to make their way into the keep itself undetected a second time, for all the desperate families who had tried, for all the curses the Seeress and the Mayor hissed when they found the doors open and cells empty. Kay and Bea would exchange long looks over the bakery table, and wonder who on the inside was setting people free and laying the blame at their convenient feet.

(In a lab none of them had never seen, Jillit Chu was saving life after life of people who she knew would never remember her name, secrets written in invisible letters on her skin when she went home at night. Thorne was pouring over reports, Jill’s own records, Jeremiah’s much less successful and yet officially far more vital analyses, the dispatches from his spies in the mountains. He wanted the Graves family dealt with, of course - but he wanted their secrets, too. Thorne was a Bureau man, and while Mayor Graves was always careful not to upset the Bureau, he was no more affiliated with them than the vigilantes that plagued his operations. It had never been the means of production that Thorne objected to, or the Graves’ would have been out of a business years before.

Spider didn’t know this; Andrew Molina had given years of his life to bring the machines down, weaving a web to tear it all down. He was trying to find a gap in his plans to let Sandry slip through; he knew where Sam had gone even if she didn’t, thought if he could get her out too then there would be a life for her away from the wreckage of her father’s dreams. If he had to, he knew he would let her fall with it and take the regrets, but he was an excellent Bureau agent - he liked his odds for achieving both. He wasn’t reaching out to Sam just yet - they were working to weaken the system, but it was slow work. The Baker and her resistance were an irritation, but they weren’t yet causing enough of a disruption to have materially disrupted production, to have strained the system, to be convincing the less dedicated that this was a fight they were going to lose.

Thorne had other agents, he knew, and they heard things the Spider didn’t. Reports that when put together said that this was going to be the work of more cold years - he measured them in people lost, and tried when those the Seeress saw were children to make sure he was spotted on the road, that whispers spread before him, warnings. He couldn’t let everyone slip away, not if he wanted to bring it all down, but he tried to save as many as he could - he felt every mage who burned for other people’s light as a weight on his shoulders. He kept walking, the Seeress’ right hand man, and did not stumble under that burden.)

Robin Hood died on an otherwise unremarkable winter’s day, stumbling back to the treeline with them, held up as much as their rescues. Marian’s hands didn’t shake as she lit the pyre, and Kay wondered if she would stay that cold for the rest of her life. She left with a handful of the Merry Men, the ones who’d been thinking of warmer pastures or those like her couldn’t stand to be beneath the trees without Robin. Kay wasn’t sure if she was angry at him or the world - Marian wasn’t, either. She had fought sieges at his side, before he begged Robin’s help for the last time; she knew his history, this mountain born boy who became a legend. She wouldn’t write to him or the Baker, but Little John would drop mentions into his occasional messages, and some days she was glad for the news.

When Kay had first stumbled into the Woods, an injured mage leaning on his shoulder and pursuit on his heels, it had been Marian who coolly shot down the armed guard and guided them beneath the trees. She had helped bandage up his rescue, and Robin had dropped down next to him at the fire. Kay wasn’t sure he had ever felt as safe as he did that night, curled up beneath the towering trees with their cheerful assurances that he didn’t need to worry about any armed followers tracking him here, dozing off in a borrowed bed roll on the hard ground. The Merry Men weren’t all kind to outsiders, but they loved Robin and respected Marian - if they were told he was a friend, he was a friend. Kay watched the smoke rise, the snow melting around them, and wondered if Robin would still be alive, if Kay hadn’t thought of him as a friend.

The remaining Merry Men stayed out of the fight, after that, nursing wounds physical and metaphorical, but Little John made it clear that the paths through the trees were still open to Kay and his rescues. More than one trembling mage and their shaken family were escorted safely south by the Merry Men after a night or two beneath the trees.

It was a long war, and Kay measured it first in months rather than days, then years rather than months; the Seeress was spreading her gaze further afield as the mountain villages became wary, as anyone with sparks at their fingertips fled before they needed warning. Kay gained scars from vicious brawls with guards, with the long limbed Spider, a bullet wound in the shoulder that would ache in the cold for the rest of his life from Spider’s deputy.

Kay was by no means the only person fighting this war, but he had become one of the lynchpins, the one who most often acted directly against the Graves’ network - his was the face the Seeress saw most in the wake of plans dissolving like smoke. She had a bespoke curse tucked in a pocket, and one vindictive day she set it loose. Bea watched the Giantkiller turn pale, shaky on feet that a moment before had been steady, and crumple. She caught him before he could hit the ground, and carried him gently to his room. She sent out frantic messages through her network, looking for healers, looking for anyone who could help. After three nights of fever, Little John crept into the bakery, cradling a pouch in his large, gentle hands. He was no trained healer, but he knew old stories, knew how to walk into the shadowed trees on a full moon night and ask for help for the deserving. He did not know what he had done, to mix this medicine, but when the sun had risen it had been in his hands.

Kay spent another three nights tossing and turning, but he woke with the sun on the seventh day. It would take weeks until he felt fully rested, and Little John warned him that full moons would make him restless for the rest of his days. He spent his time sorting Bea’s correspondence and helping her in the bakery, until she declared him fit for field work again. Even then they were wary, cautious. They had no doubts who had sent a curse to strike him down, for all they sneered at the hypocrisy - they watched for any sign that the Seeress had known where to strike, but found nothing amiss.

One morning, Kay woke to the sound of shattering crockery in the bakery below; he was wary, fresh bruises on his knuckles and sleeping light, recently home and still listening for ambushes. He crept downstairs, and found Bea pinned to the wall of her own kitchen with strings of golden fire, the butter dish broken on the floor. The slingstone he pitched through the door landed, but its target had moved in time and took a glancing bruise to the arm rather than a blow to the head. She held up calloused palms, but he could see the gun at her hip and the gold holding Bea in place: he wasn’t fool enough to think that she was anything other than ready to take him down if he moved. She smiled, a precise and practiced thing. “Hello. Apologies for breaking in, but I needed to speak to the Baker and the Giantkiller, and I believe this is the right address?” Her smile turned feral, a fierce grin that looked more at home on her lips. “I’m an agent from the Bureau quiet branch, and I thought you might want to know we’re planning to bring the Graves’ down in a few weeks’ time.”

Bea made a scoffing sound, the gold fire glittering off her eyes, and the woman flicked her fingers to twist the fire into nothing again. Kay itched to go to Bea, check that she was alright, but he knew better. There were two of them and one armed intruder - better to keep her looking in two directions, for all that she seemed to think she was on their side, for all that he had no doubt which of them would win, if it came to a fight. Kay had years of experience, true, but you didn’t make it to being a field agent with the quiet branch without a fearsome skillset to your name.

She eyed their distrust with amused, approving resignation, and patiently laid out the bones of the web she and Spider had been steadily weaving, the tipping point that was coming. Kay frowned at the hints, puzzling out tactics, and Bea traced her fingertips over her map - the markers of lives saved, the ones of lives lost. There was an empty room upstairs she still couldn’t bear to use, years later. Kay did not and would never know that sometimes when Bea woke from nightmares these days they had been about waking to find the house cold and the curtains in his cosy room billowing in the night air, for all that he was no more a mage that she was. She eyed their guest with as much professional disregard as the woman had shown her, breaking into a house warded over the years by careful, grateful hands as though it was nothing.

“And why now? Why are you and yours only tearing down the Graves’ now? We know who you are, Agent, and for all I’ve heard of you you’re in the Graves’ pocket, the Spider’s precious protege.” She curled a lip, a mountain woman from a village that couldn’t afford walls, that had begged and begged for Bureau protection and been told to come back with gold in their pockets. “Why have the Bureau decided that now they can deign to get involved? Why are you here, breaking into my home, to tell me you’ve finally decided to care enough to stop it?”

"They killed my brother," snapped Laney, an old, bitter hurt - and the Baker looked back at her coldly, as though that didn't explain anything at all.

"They've killed a lot of people." The sharpshooter stiffened, hand twitching as though she might have gone for a gun if she hadn’t needed them alive. Bea didn't flinch from the movement, expression hard and unforgiving. "How many have you helped them kill? I could tell you, I think, because I hear almost everyone's story about the ones they lost, sooner or later. Do you know what we call you, when we whisper warnings? What legend did you think you were building, in your brother's memory?"

The Ballad of Agent Jones

Laney Jones had stumbled at her brother’s beloved heels for years, until he left the desert in search of new horizons. Years later, she had followed in his footsteps once again, Academy papers in her pocket and a handful of hard-won fire clutched close to keep her warm on the journey. She was planning to find her big brother, one day. She was going to show him what she could do, what she had made of herself, and she was going to see the pride in his eyes once again. It was a warm thought, one she had clung to through cold nights of hidden practice and long days of doubting her worth.

In her second year at the Academy, armed men broke into the fish shop where her study group were having their first meeting. When Thorne took her aside in the days after, to have a private chat with such a promising young woman, he glanced over her skin tone and the name in his file, and paused. He asked, carefully, if she had any connection to a Liam Jones, another powerful mage he had heard of. Laney beamed with familial pride, and a certain quiet joy that she had been put on the same level as Liam. "My brother, sir. He whistles up his magic, though I never had the knack for it."

Thorne called her in again a week later, for another chat, but his face was serious and even the glint of his glasses seemed subdued. There was a thin file on his desk, L. Jones scrawled on the outside. Laney's heart froze, because she knew there was no reason for the Bureau to have files on her, not yet.  

"I am sorry, miss Jones, but Liam Jones died almost seven years ago, in the mountains." He pushed the file towards her, sympathy but not pity in his voice. "There are people there who - deal in mages. It seems that there was no one to warn him to hide." He pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand and went to fetch water for the kettle. He could have called for someone to bring them tea, but Thorne understood that people sometimes needed a moment alone with their grief.

The contents of the file had been heavily redacted, because the work of the Bureau quiet branch investigating the trade in mages was an ongoing thing, and a sister's grief didn't give you rights to all of the carefully gathered details. But there were a few stark lines that were intact - a description, a date of capture. A short summary of a doomed escape attempt that made her smile with fierce, pained pride. A date of death.

What had she been doing, that day? Where had she been, when her brother's song vanished from the world?  

Thorne made her tea and made no comment on her damp eyelashes, told her she could speak to him at any time if she felt she needed someone who was aware of the situation to listen. He asked for her family's contact details, so that he could write to tell them the terrible news personally. He straightened the papers on his desk and promised to tell her when he sent it, in case she wanted to write as well, but he said that it shouldn't be her job to break it to them unless she wanted it to be.

Laney signed the quiet branch's letter of employment before the week was up.

She would never run the backstreets of Rivertown with Rupert; he would perhaps have trusted Sez, Bart and their secret, steady work to fellow Academy students, if a bit warily, but not to someone with Thorne looking over her shoulder from the beginning. Laney spent her spare hours at the Academy in the library or out on the firing range, and felt trapped, burning in her own skin.

When the battle of Driftwood Island came, when she realised that the monsters of fire were slipping in from the Elsewhere, it was Thorne she went to, to say she could help; she stitched the rift closed while the Rangers held their own in the wreckage above. She didn’t tell Thorne how she’d done it, exactly, but she agreed that they shouldn’t tell anyone it had been her - no point in making her a target, after all.

(Laney wouldn’t remember any of this for years;  until then, so far as she could recall she’d spent the whole battle helping to shield sections of lower Rivertown from fire damage. If there was a gap in her recollection - well, it was so easy to lose track in your first real battle, for everything to blur together. The Rangers couldn’t recall exactly who had stitched the rift up while they bought time, and it nagged at them for years, too)

On her first day at the Bureau’s quiet branch as a junior agent, Laney made her way to Thorne's office, shoulders carefully square and chin held level, and asked him what she would need to do to become part of the group working on the mage slave trade case.   

Thorne had known her brother's name, his description; not just the dates of his disappearance but those of his escape attempt and death, the clinical numbers documenting how much power had been wrested from his bones. Laney had known, even in the midst of grief - these were not things you could learn without someone on the inside. These were not things you knew, the shadowy quiet branch of the governing powers, unless you had plans to do something with the information.

Laney had her own plans; she had always intended to use the Bureau just as much as Thorne had planned to use her.  

When the Seeress saw her, Spider’s newest potential recruit, she smiled slightly in recognition, sinister and small. She asked Laney why she was applying to a role with the Graves' network. Laney had looked her dead in the eye, shoulders relaxed and everything gold around her shining true.

"My brother was a mage, a powerful one. I grew tired a long time ago of being a shadow because I don't have gold dripping from my fingers."

Neither Kay or Bea trusted the Agent and her casually mentioned ally - Spider had been a nightmare in the mountains for longer than Kay had known of this fight, and had never slipped into the Baker’s net to whisper secrets to her deputy. In another life, the Baker’s right hand had been a girl who saw nothing but blood and ash on her palms, who had once let a whole village die, unseen, because she wanted to live; in another life, the Spider had been confident that the Dragon Slayer would understand the price he was paying. He would have offered himself as an informant, trusting in her pragmatism to take his information and keep the source to herself. In another life, Bea had years of listening to George talk haltingly about the place she had once called home, the dragon they had given her a legend for, and would have listened to her, taken the information even if reluctantly.

But the Giantkiller had no such weight on his shoulders, and Spider had spent too long working himself into the Graves’ good graces to risk his position on that kind of gamble.

They didn’t trust Agent Jones or the Spider, let alone the Bureau man with twinkling glasses who slipped into Challenge with a promise of information and a cheerful litany of all of Kay’s illegal activities, but they couldn’t afford not to take their warnings. Challenge prepared for another siege, hunkering down to withstand whatever the Graves’ threw at them, and Kay decided when the Rangers arrived to support the defenders that his life was worth the gamble and followed two shadowy spies into the Keep, a decoy captive.

He’d been here just once before; after that, the Mayor had finally listened to Sandry’s murmurings about weak points in their security, and no-one had broken into the keep since. Spider let them in through a side door, and Kay shuddered as it clicked closed behind him. They burned the machines, Agent Jones lighting the mage blasts, but the engineer wasn’t there, the careful blueprints and plans stored somewhere other than this cold office. Kay turned a corner and ran into the Seeress, the first time he had seen her face to face. They stared at one another, frozen; she was frantically figuring out how the Giantkiller had made it into the keep unnoticed - and he had no idea who he just run into, unsure if he should tell her who he was and hesitating to use force on someone he thought might be an innocent.

Spider stepped up behind him, and the Seeress’ cold mask slipped, fractured as she looked between them, Sandry feeling her steady ground shift beneath her feet. Spider’s hand settled warningly over Kay’s shoulder, yanking him back and cuffing him to a stair-rail to keep the boy in place as the recognition dawned, while he frantically whispered at Sandry - telling her to leave, to slip out of the side door and hide, that she could join her brother and start over. The Seeress snapped out sharp retorts, demanding to know what exactly the Bureau knew of her baby brother, and Kay felt an abrupt, unwelcome fellow feeling - he knew what it was, to fear the extent of the Bureau’s files, to want the names of you and yours kept secret. The Seeress was trembling, torn between drawing herself up and in, hurt and terrified of showing it, and wanting to trust, for just a little longer, that the Spider was on her side.

Mayor Graves turned the corner, calling for the Seeress, his useful little monster, because someone had been in his office, burned his papers to ash. He was clutching a weapon that pulsed gold (in the cells below, there was a trembling body, the magic in their blood ripped free and pushed into a new vessel), concerned but not frantic. He spied Kay, and his face broke into a smirk. Spider stood with a relaxed stance, hand on his holstered gun, face a mask while he weighed options. The Seeress straightened her spine. Her father had told her all her life that mages were selfish, hoarding power, that their work was a sad necessity for the wellbeing of the many.  He was holding a gun that took that power and put it in his own two hands - Sandry had made Spider teach her to shoot years ago, on the quiet, because she wanted something she could do, to defend herself and her brother, something to hold onto that would give her power that didn’t rely on words. She knew that this was a power he had made for himself to cling to.

The Giantkiller was a child, still, and almost as young as her brother had been when she pressed a bag into his hands and told him to flee. Her father was pointing a gun at a boy barely older than his son, and everything in him was twisting gleeful with it. She murmured, dispassionate, that the boy might have useful information. That Spider should take him downstairs for questioning, to find out about the gaps in their defences - a security breach such as this must be investigated carefully, for all their sakes. Spider could dispose of the pest, after. Mayor Graves had never been in the habit of listening to his daughter, and she wanted to scream it at him as he dismissed her again without even a word.

The Mayor took an experimental shot at the Giantkiller, burning the ground by Kay’s left leg to cinders, and crumpled to the ground. Agent Jones slipped out of the shadows behind him, ash dusting her fingertips, pistol held steady and familiar in her hand. She glanced down at the body, cold, and wondered if she would regret never getting to tell him exactly why she’d taken aim, a sniper’s precise shot under cover of his own.

Spider stepped casually in front of Sandry, and with a glare Agent Jones holstered her gun before striding briskly by both her mentor and the Seeress to release the bindings holding Kay in place.

“C’mon, Giantkiller. Let’s get you back to your friends at Challenge, and the boss in here to sort out everything else.” She slid her eyes sideways towards Spider. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you have the Seeress in your custody, sir.” Spider gave a resigned sigh, but made no other objection. Kay felt he ought to protest, to argue against leaving the Seeress unchained, to snap that it should have been him who took down the Mayor, but this had never been just his fight, for all his was the name the Seeress had hissed in the wake of foiled plans. He let himself be guided out, Agent Jones brisk and efficient, a polite smile pasted on her face.

Thorne was waiting for them outside, cheerfully confident in his Agents and the Giantkiller. He told Kay that Challenge had withstood the final siege, but couldn’t tell him the cost. Kay, seething, bit his tongue at the man’s oily reminders that in the quiet branch’s service, any messy rumours about illegal activities would be swept under the rug. The Giantkiller jerked his head back at the keep. “The mayor is dead, but the Seeress is still alive in there.” Thorne pursed his lips, nodding. “Good, good. The mayor had to be removed, though alive would have been…preferable. Young Cassandra can take over, however, to maintain consistency - with supervision, of course, before you say anything.” Kay scowled. “She fed mages into his machines for years.” Thorne smiled at him, condescendingly, shaking his head like a kindly grandfather.

“We cannot simply remove every political figure we disagree with. She is young. She will be managed. You should be making your way to Challenge, however. I’m sure your friends will want to hear the good news.” Agent Jones watched the boy stalk away, carefully keeping her face neutral. She was an old hat at manipulating people, after years of practice - she could see that Thorne was trying to collect another recruit. She could also see that he was going about it in entirely the wrong fashion, but she didn’t think it was worth pointing that out.

Thorne glanced at her sideways. “The mayor is dead, Agent Jones?” “Yes sir. An unfortunate necessity to avoid further loss of life.” He heaved a sigh, but didn’t question it. “Very well then. Let us go and debrief Spider, and explain the new order of things to Miss Graves.”

Even with the Mayor gone, the keep was still hostile territory; Agent Jones was on high alert, so when she heard a door click softly closed as they walked through the entry way she waved Mr Thorne on ahead of her, waiting until Dadlus thought it was safe to emerge again. She tackled him to the ground, and had him cuffed and cursing by the time Thorne, Spider and the Seeress made their way back down the stairs. Thorne’s face turned gleeful when he saw her captive. He rubbed his hands together. “Excellent! Good work, Agent Jones.” The Seeress’ head snapped toward him, eyes widening fractionally in surprise before he spoke. “I have a Bureau engineer who desperately needs to pick your brains, particularly as it seems the Giantkiller was able to burn all of the blueprints. You're going to be very valuable to us.”

Spider was staring between Thorne and Dadlus, ice slipping down his spine as he put the pieces together, discovered the game Thorne had been playing all along. He had spent years working in this keep, shoulders weighed down by so many lives he had been unable to save, who he had sacrificed to ensure he could bring it all to an end. He took three long steps forward and slid the knife he always carried up his sleeve between the engineer's ribs. "I didn't let children die for years so the Bureau could turn around and do the same thing all over again." Dadlus slumped to the ground, blood pooling under him. Thorne went for his gun, but Agent Jones was quicker - in a different life, it would have been dragon’s fire that killed Gerald Thorne, but in this one it was handfuls of Elsewhere fire that Laney had been carrying around her wrists for years, hidden even from the Seeress.

Cassandra stared at them both over the cooling body, shaken - she had always seen everything, every secret and every weakness, and here she found both: her lieutenants had been hiding secrets upon secrets, tucked carefully away where she hadn’t found them, and so she was weak where she’d thought her back was guarded. She wondered if it would be a bullet or a blaze that came for her, whether Spider would help or if he would pull her out of the way.

Agent Jones didn’t glance her way: she and Spider were eying each other, weighing up their priorities and potentials. Spider wanted Sandry to go free - she had barely been an adult when he arrived at the keep, for all that it had taken him weeks to discover she wasn’t cold years older. He had realised within those first months of working his way into her network just how young she must have been, when the Mayor told her she was a monster and turned her into a tool.

Laney had always wanted revenge for her brother, justice for the other victims. She had burned the machines with glee and felt no guilt for shooting the Mayor down. She felt no guilt for burning Throne, either - she wanted the machines gone as much as Spider. But she knew who it was who had found her brother, who had sent armed thugs with Elsewhere cracks in their pockets after Liam. She had told herself she would feel no guilt for shooting the Seeress, either, even when she saw the date of birth in the briefing files.

But Laney had spent a year now with Sandry and the Spider; she remembered the squeaky sage in her second year study group, the one she still sometimes met in the University library to chatter over Elsewhere theory. She had heard Sandry talk about Sam, but she had heard Grey talk about Sandry, too. She thought she talked about Liam the same way, sometimes.

“Thorne said we would leave you in charge,” she spoke softly, as though the words were of no importance. “So we will. But you do not re-start operations, and Spider and I will make sure of it.” Agent Jones holstered her gun, turned to the Seeress, and raised an eyebrow. “But the people around here will freeze in winter, without help. Your people, now. So, I’ve a challenge for you - I know you’ve studied how the machines work, how to make them more efficiently. But have you ever tried to figure out how you can wrest this power from thin air and turn it into something useful?”

Laney Jones pressed her hand up to the skin of the world and broke it; in the glow of the Elsewhere she was radiant, and Cassandra would have shielded her eyes if she’d been able to bear looking away. All her life, she had been told that what they did was the only way, only fair.

She stared, eyes stinging, and thought I have never seen a mage burn so bright.

Kay spent the weeks after at Challenge helping to shore up the damage; Bea left the bakery to help, bandaging the wounded and scolding him for taking foolish risks. They knelt side by side in the community garden, repairing damaged trellises and trying to see which of the fragile growths could be coaxed back into health and which needed to be turned to compost. One water break, surveying the rows they’d managed to restore, he idly turned a stone over and said, “What are we going to do now? What’s next?” She didn’t pretend he was talking about the garden, though she didn’t reply until they were carting the next load of dug up plants to the compost heap.

“I don’t know. It’s been so long since I didn’t have -” And he put his arms around her and let her cry into his shoulder; Bea had turned herself to stone in so many ways, over the years, since she woke to a cold house and an empty bedroom, and now her war was won. There would be pieces to pick up, rebuilding that would take years. The Seeress was still in the keep, and for all that Agent Jones assured them she wasn’t going to be a problem it still sat bitter under both their tongues. It would take months for the mountain villagers to feel safe, for a child with sparks flicking between fingertips to inspire joy not terror. It would take years, a lifetime - several lifetimes. There was work for Bea to bury herself in still, but for now there was sun on her shoulders and there would be no mages lost in the night. For now, she could realise they were safe, as safe as you could ever be, and weep for all those who hadn’t been.

Later, shoulder to shoulder in the crowded inn, Kay would rest his head on her shoulder, quiet.

“I think I should go back to the farm, for a bit. See my dad, yeah? Make sure he knows I’m okay.” He nudged her with an elbow, gentle. “I’ll come back, though. But I promised I wouldn’t leave without telling you, so I am. I’m going to head back to the farm and get shouted at, so you aren’t even going to be the only one nagging me about taking risks, then I’m gong to come back to the bakery and chop wood for you.” She laughed softly.

“That’s your life plan?” He grinned, and it was a younger face that looked back at her than she’d seen for years. He was still a child, really, for all that he was growing tall and gangly. He shrugged. "For now. I’d like to go a few weeks with no-one trying to kill me, it’d make a nice change. Later - well. Maybe I’ll go get myself a Badge, I'm almost old enough. Sarge told me plenty of times he reckons I could do it, and I’ve daydreamed about it for years, you know? Be a proper Hero, join the Rangers as an intern. Agent Jones told me Thorne is dead - I didn't ask for details, I thought she might shoot me - and that I didn't need to worry about my name being in any paperwork with the Giantkiller, so long as I say Thorne was tragically killed in the fight with the Mayor. I could do it, if I wanted.” They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the crowd. After a while, Bea ruffled his hair gently. “Maybe you should go to the Academy, get yourself a career lined up. But if you’ll take an old baker’s suggestion - I think you’d make a better Guide, all things considered. You've had enough practice at being a hero.”

In the morning, before he set out for the old farm he hadn’t been back to in years, Kay climbed up the flights of stairs to the uppermost platform of the wall that surrounded Challenge. The wooden posts were riddled with marks, from flung weapons and the sooty streaks left by stolen mage fire, idle carved graffiti left by bored sentries - names and old in jokes, defiant records left when they knew they were all inviting battle to their doorstep. He stood looking out at the surrounding peaks as the sun rose, thinking about the Leauges and Bureau policy, about a roc digging claws into his shoulder and long summer sieges, the machines burning and Mayor Graves crumpling lifeless to his plush carpet, and dug out his pocket knife.

We were here.

[theawkwardterrier]

An Alliance with an Earl

Here’s one for @lavellenchanted​. It’s no Steggy AU of A Song for Summer (although what is?) but maybe Regency Jily will suffice, Sarah...

Read on AO3 here

I am going to have to buy Frank Longbottom a very nice bottle of brandy, Sirius thought to himself as he looked down at the letter in his hand, but what he said casually aloud was, “It seems we’ve been invited to a house party.”

James finished whatever he was scribbling, taking care to sign his name with the full flourish before he looked up. Light from the wonderfully sunny day, the kind they would never have been inside for a mere year ago, caught his spectacles as he did. James had worn a pair from the time he and Sirius first met as boys at Eton, but when light used to flash across them, it paired with the grin he once wore nearly constantly and his foolishly infectious laugh. Now Sirius half expected James to take his glasses off and massage his eyes, the way their old headmaster used to do.

Instead he set down his quill and gestured to the letter in Sirius’s hand. “If it’s any of your cousins, I shall have to respond in the negative. Well, perhaps we should have Lupin draft the letter - he is less likely to phrase it as rudely as either of us might.”

Sirius tossed the letter opener he had been using on the day's post back onto the very edge of James’s stupidly massive mahogany desk and barked out a laugh. “As if any of my cousins would allow me to darken their doorway. No, it’s the Longbottoms - it seems that old Augusta has allowed Frank and Alice use of the country place and they’ve invited us to come for the week after next.”

He tipped his head to the side, slouching further into his chair. He had once only done such things in the parlor of Grimmauld Place, his parents’ London residence, because in their view posture, like wealth and good breeding, was one of those things which mattered and he made a point of not allowing such things to matter to him. But the habit was so ingrained in him now that every time he sat, he tended to perch himself with a leg slung over the chair arm or his back placed on the seat and his head allowed to hang. “Not having access to that all-important family tree of my mother’s, however,” he said, “I really couldn’t promise you that I’m not cousins with either of them somewhere along the way.”

“Aren’t we all? I think between the two of us, we must be related by blood or marriage to half the ton.” James stretched his arms back and above his head, rotating his wrists and making a slight groaning sound. “Not, however, closely related enough to stop plenty of mothers from shoving their most eligible daughters into my path at every turn.”

Sirius nearly responded as he once would have, with a jibe about that sort of thing being unavoidable for such a catch as the future Earl of Gryffindor. Two years ago, however, after the deaths of first his mother and then, weeks later, his father, James actually became the Earl of Gryffindor, and seemed to think nothing in that line of humor at all funny anymore.

Quite a lot had become unfunny to James, actually. Some days, Sirius worried that his friend’s shoulders would simply break from the responsibilities settling there. Oh, James still came out with them in the evenings, still made them laugh and could manage to charm nearly any woman in a given room. But his old self, the one who loved racing on the fastest horse or placing the highest bet, the one who thought duels were daring instead of a measure to be undertaken only under direst circumstance, who snickered with Sirius around the corner after they had placed a tripwire across the school corridor...Sirius suspected that boy to be gone for good. In his place was a nobleman who inherited too early, whose indulgent father had thought to have more time to teach him how to grow into the man he needed to be, and who was now struggling to meet the expected role under the weight of who he had suddenly become.

Which was why, Sirius thought, eyes scanning the invitation from the Longbottoms again, this would be perfect. Balls and parties around London brought with them some degree of diversion if not enjoyment, but also held a reminder of responsibility. A playful lack of interest in marriage had once been the subject of jokes between James and his mother, but finding a wife, having a child, had now become a grim and acute duty. Sirius hoped that this more simple gathering, merely a few friends out in the country air, would allow James some desperately needed socialization with much more limited pressure - not to mention that it would tear him away from the deadly dull work which seemed to pile endlessly upon his desk at Gryffindor House in London and at his estate of Godric’s Hollow.

“Anyway, Longbottom’s always done us a good turn,” Sirius said, forcing a bit of a yawn to keep his manner as informal as possible. James went tense at the littlest things these days, at the merest suggestion that he might lay his duties to the side for just a moment or any hint that Sirius thought he might need to relax. “And Alice is a fine girl from what I remember. It’s only polite for us to join them, since they asked.”

James looked over toward the window, the drapes drawn back to reveal the bright, busy Mayfair street outside. The sunlight caught the lenses of his glasses again so Sirius couldn’t see his eyes; still, something seemed to grab at his mouth for a moment and twist it in pain. But the next second, he was turning back to Sirius looking like himself again, or at least like this new self. He picked up his quill once more and said, “You know that I am only ever polite.”

It was a lie, or at least Sirius hoped that it was. Either way, however, it was an affirmative response, which was exactly what he had hoped for.

“I’ll inform the Longbottoms, then,” he said, still maintaining his nonchalance. “My handwriting has always been better.”

This was true, but he mostly said it because being bested at something always made James a bit disgruntled and this time was no different. Without looking up from whatever document he was currently taking careful notes upon, he crushed a piece of paper with his other hand and tossed it toward Sirius’s head.

So there is something of you left after all, Sirius thought with relief as he caught the crumpled ball. Let us hope that some time in the country is enough to bring you out again.

Having known Alice since her own first season four years previous, Lily was quite familiar with her friend’s sweet, detail-oriented, and slightly nervous personality. She had received numerous letters in the weeks leading up to the house party filled with particulars of the menu, questions regarding the ideal number of guests, or worries that there would not be sufficient entertainment, and had tried to send back her reassurances that Alice’s first instance of hosting such an affair would surely be a resounding success.

Yet, as her carriage came to a halt on the wide drive in front of the house, she was unsurprised to see Alice wriggling a bit and twisting her hands as she stood with her husband’s arm over her shoulder.

She alighted from the carriage and went over to greet them, trying to infuse a bit of levity into the way she said “my lady” to Alice, though it didn’t seem to work. Alice linked her arm with Lily’s under the premise of leading her into the house and whispered, high and trembling, “Frank’s mother insisted on joining us and bringing friends of hers, which has my numbers entirely off, and you know what Lady Longbottom is like besides.”

“You are Lady Longbottom as well,” Lily reminded her, but before she could say something else bracing, she saw, striding across the grounds with Sirius Black at his heels, another person who would apparently - and unfortunately - be joining them.

She successfully avoided him over the next several days, making certain to keep at least five people between them even when they were in company. The odd thing was, however, that he didn’t seem to notice her very much at all. No, that wasn’t right. He clearly noticed her, his chin dipping in recognition if their eyes happened to meet across a room, but he did not pursue her in the way he once had.

He did not, in fact, act similarly to the way she remembered in general: his remarks, when he made them, were astute and his sense of humor not at all mean-spirited, he tended to spend most of his time at the edges of the room rather than the center of it, and every time there was dancing he took at least one turn with Hestia Jones, who everyone know was very nearly on the shelf. The whole thing was the slightest bit confusing, though, Lily reminded herself, it was a perfect relief not to be approached. Their paths had crossed less in the past two years or so, but she remembered sharply their prior interactions.

On the day before they were to return to London, the gentlemen were called to a hunt while the ladies attended to their correspondence. Lily had just finished and sealed a letter to some distant cousins in Sussex when the footman brought the morning's post. It did feel a bit Sisyphean, finishing the last of your responses only to have more required, but Lily was certain that none of it would be for her; Alice had invited most of their close friends, after all, and Lily's family was not large.

However: "Oh, here is one for you, Lily," Mary said, picking it up from the tray and passing it over. "From your sister."

Lily swallowed. "How lucky." She stood, tucking the letter in her pocket with fingers that fumbled despite her best efforts. "Do you know, it looks as if it might begin to rain this afternoon. I would like an opportunity to spend some time out of doors before the weather turns. Would anyone like to join me for a walk through the gardens?"

Though Alice looked as if only her duties as hostess kept her inside, the mention of a potential storm made the rest of the group demur, as Lily knew that it would. Within five minutes, she had her cloak on and was making her way alone into Lady Longbottom's lush and splendid garden. She walked until she found a small seat to perch upon and, after taking in a few deep gulps of the air (it seemed that she had not been wrong: there was a tinge of moist heaviness to it that spoke of an oncoming storm) forced herself to open the letter.

She read it through once, then a second time to see if she had misunderstood. She had not. She wanted to cry.

In person or in writing, Petunia never said anything that Lily wanted to hear. They had been friends of a sort when they were small, but Lily had long since given up on her sister understanding her or even loving her despite not doing so, and she no longer sought her approval. If they could have stuck to basic pleasantries or the dutiful exchange of sentiments, that would be one thing, but in the last year, Petunia had turned nasty, and this latest letter...

"Da-Deuce it," Lily said aloud, leaning over to scoop a handful of pebbles from the ground. She pitched one toward the bushes, then threw the next one harder when it seemed not to alleviate any of her upset. Even that did nothing; she flung the full handful. "Damn it!" she shouted, disregarding all propriety, then placed her palms over her eyes, pressing down as if surrounding herself with darkness might help.

"Lily? Er-My apologies. Miss Evans, are you quite well?"

Her hands flew from her eyes. Standing before her, uncomfortable but certainly there, was the Earl of Gryffindor.

The first time he saw Lily Evans, James Potter was standing on the balcony of Lady McGonagall's home with Sirius and Peter. They had left Remus below distracting their hostess; she had been widowed several times longer than she had been married, but it seemed to suit her well and she ruled every occasion hosted at her home, and in the ton generally, with an iron fist.

"She's quite fine," Peter had said, jabbing a finger toward a lady in a pink gown who was being helped from a recently arrived carriage.

"Too fine for the likes of you, Pettigrew," Sirius said carelessly, though James did not get the sense that he was joking. Peter forced a laugh anyway.

"There's plenty of girls here tonight for all of us," James responded, scanning over the street. Most people seemed to have already arrived. "With the season just starting, no one's begged off for the evening or tired of each other's company yet."

Sirius snorted. "That's your opinion. I believe I tired of the company of most everyone here before I was past my dear father's knee."

"Well, there's always—" James started, but did not even complete his thought, much less his sentence. Instead he said blankly, "Her," leaning forward a bit over the rail as if this would help him take in each detail of the new girl who had just stepped from her carriage. She was followed by a slightly older girl wearing a most unattractive expression and a woman he would guess was her mother, but James did not pay them even a moment's mind. His mouth had slackened as he studied her hair - it looked dark from this height and in the barely lit street, though not dark enough to be brown - as he imagined her eyes, and took in each nuance of her expression, excited and just a bit forward, her shoulders thrown back as she stepped toward the party.

By the time James got downstairs and escaped a lecture about etiquette from Lady McGonagall, her dance card was full, but he at least found out her name. The next day, armed with the largest bouquet from the most expensive florist in the city, he stopped at the house that she, her mother, and her sister were renting for the season. There were several other gentlemen in the room already as he was announced, but he paid them no mind as he walked over to her, knelt, and said, "Miss Evans, I would like nothing more than if you would agree to become my wife."

Later, his father would berate him for this, for going about it without asking permission, for being too hasty, introducing himself and proposing marriage in the same breath. But he knew that this would not have made the difference. Because there was a look in her eye, as if she had been expecting this and had prepared her answer, when Lily Evans said, quite coolly, "No, thank you, my lord."

And now here she was, sitting in the garden before him, looking far less collected than she had that day. She had lost the aspect of the ingenue - she was near his age, making her at least two and twenty - though she was no less lovely for it. The deep red of her hair, the arresting green of her clear eyes, were familiar to him by now, though he did not typically see those eyes looking so startled.

“My apologies, Lord Gryffindor. I had thought you had joined the other gentlemen.” She hastily made as if to stand and curtsy, but he gestured at her to keep her seat.

“I had some business which necessitated my return to the house,” he said, trying to hold himself straight, the way his father would have done, but it did not work. He shrugged his shoulders, sagging a bit back to himself. “Well, that is not the truth of it. It is what I said when I begged off, but to be frank with you, I wanted a moment with my thoughts. And they were planning on shooting deer besides, something I have never quite been able to stomach. The Potter crest features both a doe and a stag, you know, and the deer are truly beautiful when they run - it always seems such a terrible thing to do, killing them.”

Fool, he thought despairingly, refusing to allow himself to collapse with his face in his hands. The first time you have spoken with her in years and you come off as a blibbering fool who is unmanned by the thought of a hunt. Not to mention using her given name - even if it is how you address her in your head.

But, strangely, instead of regarding him with even her usual disdain, she was watching him with a slight smile: the first, he thought, she had ever directed toward him.

“Do you refrain from eating venison then, my lord, in honor of your family crest, and the sight of the deer running?”

The lightly teasing sound of it, as if they were any sort of friends at all, made him grin far wider than the comment meritted. “I’m afraid that by the time I find myself at table, my stomach does not have such high minded ideals.”

She actually laughed now, and it made him comfortable enough to gesture to the place beside her. “May I sit?”

“Oh, of course.” She glanced over and saw her letter still there, crushed at the edge, and snatched it up. All traces of laughter left her face as suddenly as they had come.

“Have you received bad news from home?” he asked as carefully as he could, seating himself a decent distance from her, even on the small bench. “I know that you have a sister - is something amiss with her?”

Her mouth pinched inward, though not, he thought, as if his question had angered her. She swallowed and then said, “I would not say that something is amiss with her, no, though she certainly seems to think something is amiss with me. Or, I suppose, she thinks that I am still too much a miss.”

“I’m sorry?”

“As am I.” Her laugh now held no lightness nor humor, and he valued the true one she had given him all the more for it. She glanced over at him, seeming to examine his face closely; he did not have time to shift his expression, but whatever she found there was apparently correct, for she began, slowly, to speak.

“My mother passed this last autumn and since then I have been living with my sister and her husband, an arrangement which suits none of us. In their view, I should have been long since married and of no concern to them. My sister has hinted before, but she writes now that her husband has determined that I should be married before the end of the season, and if I have not found a match myself by that point, he has selected one for me.”

He watched her sit up straighter, the wind catching a strand of her hair and whipping it from her coiffeur so it lay in beautifully vivid contrast to her pale throat. She stared out into the gray bluster of the day as she said, “It is well known that Lord Snape has expressed his interest in the past. My brother-in-law did not initially view the match as advantageous enough, but it seems that given the lack of other prospects, that avenue has become sufficiently promising.”

James felt his fist clench atop his thigh before he truly thought to clench it himself. Severus Snape had been heir to his nearly insolvent barony through merest coincidence - all closer cousins were female, a fact which had led Sirius to remark that Edward Christian might have had the right of it in Blackstone’s ten years past and perhaps women should be allowed some latitude in inheriting. And yet, those with whom Snape chose to consort closely were the most disagreeable sorts of snobs, people who believed anyone without generations of nobility behind them to be worthless.

He seemed to think it a great compliment that he would single out Lily as someone meriting his particular attention despite her own father having been only Mr. Evans. One of James’s few consolations after Lily had rejected his proposal had been that she had apparently rejected Snape’s as well. He, however, had not taken it with good grace or even James’s own dazed acquiescence; instead, he had stated publicly that it was merely a sign of her low breeding, that someone of a more elevated bloodline would have been happy even to have been approached by him. (James had run into Snape one evening shortly after hearing of this, and would have called him out on Lily’s behalf had Remus not intervened - and had James not already been so foxed he could barely string the words together discernibly.) Still, in the years since, Snape had made it plain that he would be willing to consider her were she to humble herself enough.

“Surely there must be other options,” James said, a bit awkwardly. For the rest of the season following his initial proposal and even into the next, he had arrived at her residence with regularity, though he had not approached her so directly again - too humiliating, and impolite besides to press when he had been so clearly declined. But although it had been some time since then, he knew, even when he did not want to, that she was often called upon by others.

She hesitated, seeming to choose her words carefully. “I was, perhaps, not as wise as I might have been. Not as wise as I thought myself to be.” Her gaze drifted to her lap, where her hands were folded carefully over the letter. “I was not waiting for a love match, I truly was not. I simply hoped to find someone who was not on the hunt merely for looks or for a biddable wife, with whom I might find conversation and companionship, someone who truly saw me. I allowed myself to believe I had time to be selective, and while my mother lived she indulged me, perhaps even enjoyed being able to keep me close for some time longer. But now she is gone, leaving my keeping in the hands of another who is not so lenient, and it seems that I have waited too long. Those who were once interested have moved on to women who are prettier or younger or lighter-hearted, women with larger dowries or who do not seem as fussy as I, and I cannot blame them.”

I have not moved on. It came to his throat readily, nearly voiced before he stopped himself. He did not want a wife right now, he reminded himself, and he especially did not want a wife who was cornered into the marriage, and it did not matter if that wife would be the one woman to whom his eyes turned without his control anytime they were in the same room.

But if he could at least help her, just a bit, even if it would mean tormenting himself, well, it was not as if he were not in torment already.

“I wonder—” He cleared his throat. “That is, I wonder if you would consider...It is rather unconventional, of course, but if you were amenable…”

“Have you something to say, my lord?” she asked, turning to him with just the barest hint of amusement touching her mouth.

“I could, perhaps, affect as if I were courting you,” he finally spat out.

His breath held for a moment in his lungs, and he was certain that she would gasp or dash off or even strike him, but instead, though the humor had gone from her lips, she tipped her head to the side and asked, “And what would be the object of such a ruse?”

“Well,” he said, voice a bit too eager now that she had not reacted with outright negativity. “The season settles into such dull rhythms after a while that any new story always gathers interest. Considering our...history, I suspect that a courtship between us would have tongues wagging, which would certainly remind people of your charms. And of course, not to generalize regarding my sex, but men are always particularly roused by the idea of rivalry. Were I to pose as a serious suitor, it would surely spur others to emerge as alternative contenders for your affections.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit at this last piece, but she only said slowly, “And what would you gain from this arrangement?”

James forced himself not to cross his arms. “My own parents passed not long ago…”

“I had heard,” she said. “My sympathies,” and from her it did not sound at all rote. He nodded.

“Thank you. And mine to you, on your mother. But in any event, it has left me with quite a lot to learn regarding my position, and I have found the continued attention of certain mothers and their unwed daughters to be an extremely inconvenient distraction. Were I to be seen as having my affections already directed toward another young lady, I believe they would leave off, and I would have some reprieve to attend to the management of other things.”

She looked away from him once again, squinting out absently into Lady Longbottom’s hedges. One foot tapped a bit, and her finger ran around the edge of her letter, though he suspected that she did not remember exactly what paper it was. They were the sort of gestures that he would have taken for granted in another male of his acquaintance or in his mother, but young women were always on such perfect behavior around him that simply being allowed to see these common mannerisms made Lily seem filled with an extra bit of color, of brightness. He swallowed, unsure once more that making this offer had been in his best interest; then again, he had never been known to be hesitant or particularly calculating. Diving headfirst was always more his style, and he had rarely looked out for his own interests with any real care.

Finally Lily said, “I would, of course, not want to take you from your other responsibilities, but if this were to work, I would require a certain amount of attention to ensure that others truly believed that you found me of interest. Would three evening occasions and three daytime meetings per week be reasonable to you?”

“Perfectly agreeable,” he said, even as his heart began to pound in a manner so uncontrolled, he might as well have been running. “Let us say two dances together when we are in attendance at the same ball. I believe that expresses the right amount of interest while still indicating that there is a chance for others.” Traitorously, his mind began to slip into wondering about holding Lily’s body against his own in a close dance, how he might feel her laugh rippling over his skin during a more energetic reel, her face alight as she returned her hand to his.

She nodded slowly. “Thank you. That should do quite nicely. And, of course, if I at some point become affianced, I could spread word on your behalf regarding your broken heart if you would like - that should grant you a bit of extra time before the interest begins again in earnest.”

At her mention of becoming engaged to someone else, the wind, which had been pleasantly brisk a moment ago, seemed to cut through his riding coat, his skin, right to his heart. “I would certainly appreciate it,” he managed, keeping his voice as steady as he could.

“Well, I am very appreciative of this,” she returned. “I had not expected...It is most kind of you, my lord, even to offer such a thing.”

“Think nothing of it,” James replied, knowing all the while that he would be able to think of nothing else.

When they returned to London, the talk was all of what a success Alice Longbottom’s house party had been. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mary Macdonald would certainly be announcing a wedding soon; Hestia Jones, several years older even than Lily and practical, was allowing Peter Pettigrew’s attentions; and - pigs might fly - James Potter seemed to have caught Lily Evans at last.

They had agreed to walk together in Hyde Park as a first outing, and for all her thought that a secret might bind them together and smooth over any lingering awkwardness, Lily was hard pressed to think of a more uncomfortable stroll she had taken in her life, and she had certainly been on her share of contenders.

Part of the problem was that she could hardly believe she had even agreed to such a scheme in the first place. It was ridiculous, unheard of, completely foolish of her regardless of the situation Vernon and Petunia might have placed her in. Even more difficult to conceive: she had agreed to it with James Potter of all people. The same James Potter she had rejected without remorse, who she had sniffed at when hearing of his later reckless exploits, counting herself blessed she was not attached to him in any way. Well, there were few people she was attached to more closely now.

“Have you told anyone?” she asked abruptly, the first either of them had spoken in some minutes, after the pleasantries regarding the return journey to London, how they had each fared so far that day, and the state of the weather had been exhausted. “Have you told anyone about our…?”

He cleared his throat, though whether from discomfort or disuse she could not tell; either seemed entirely feasible. “Our arrangement? I’ve told Sirius. Remus and Peter as well.”

“Ah.” She attempted to transform the critical press of her lips into a smile as she nodded to the passing Bertha Jorkins, though she could practically already hear Bertha dashing off to tell whoever was closest that Lily Evans had been walking alongside Lord Gryffindor with a most unattractive expression. “I suppose I might have expected, considering your closeness. I had heard that his lordship, at least, has rooms in your home.”

“Yes, Sirius has had a strained relationship with his family for several years now.” Lily, though no gossip, was aware that this was an understatement. It was well known that, had it not been for the scandalous reflection on the family, the marquess and marchioness would have disowned their elder son years ago for what they considered his lewd behavior and unseemly friendships; as it was, they rarely mentioned each other in public, and pretended the other did not exist when they were present at the same function. “Even when my parents were alive he had free run of Gryffindor House, and the place has only become emptier since so there is plenty of room for even one as untidy as he.”

Lily glanced at him, unable to help hearing the sadness in his voice although he tried to give the words some degree of levity. She did not comment on it, however, saying instead, “It is rather unconventional, though of course utterly reasonable.”

He shrugged. “Were Sirius my brother by blood, he would always have a place in my home. As he is my brother in all but that, I see no reason that he should lack such a place merely because of an accident of parentage. I have offered Remus and Peter as well - there are probably a dozen bedrooms going unused, and perhaps even more which I have not discovered - but they have both declined.”

“The decor is not to their taste?” Lily asked, winning her a laugh.

“No, Peter’s mother still has a residence in London and prefers he stay with her, and Remus…” He sighed, his mouth shifting a bit to the side, as if this were a problem he was well used to mulling over. “He has his pride, and a part of that is insisting on keeping his own lodgings. But he does join us for supper several times a week, and as Mrs. Pomfrey, my housekeeper, nursed him through many a childhood illness and injury, he cannot well refuse when she tells him we have food going spare and he must take some home.”

It was this comment which forced her to fall silent. Somehow it was even more shocking than the way he had seemed to her transformed in the Longbottom’s garden, smaller and more human instead of filled with that overconfident persistence she had remembered and hated, more shocking than when he had suggested this ruse in the first place. She could not help but think that when Lord Gryffindor sat in his office or attended a session of Parliament, some part of his mind was distracted by wondering how he could best take care of those closest to him, even if it made others about the ton think him odd for it. There was not even anything to be gained from his solicitousness: Lupin’s father, if she recalled correctly, was a missionary only distantly related to some minor viscount, and Pettigrew’s hope of becoming a baron rested on two uncles and seven purportedly hale and hearty cousins meeting untimely demises.

“It is most kind of you,” she finally said, but he merely shrugged.

“As I said, Gryffindor House is altogether too large. My father actually decided that two sitting rooms was quite enough and turned the third into a space for experimentation - he was a bit of an amateur natural philosopher.”

“Truly?” The grin taking over her face felt a bit silly, but she found the idea of it a bit silly, and entirely delightful.

“Truly. In fact, he enjoyed having such a room so much that he had one of the bedrooms turned over at our country home as well so he could continue with his discoveries there. He actually was fairly successful at it. His tonics and ointments might remain family recipes, but there is a pomade of his invention which is only growing in popularity.” His smile tinged a bit sad at the edges. “I think he would have been quite tickled to hear that.”

“I’m certain he would have been.” Familiar with the propensity for jollying people away from their remembrances, as if the sorrow of it was too much for polite conversation to bear when perhaps a moment of dwelling would be welcomed by the one grieving, Lily remained silent for several paces and kept her tone neutral when she said, “These experimental rooms of your father’s sound most entertaining. I wish I could see them myself sometime in the future.”

“Of course, why don’t I—” But he was too smart a man, to finely bred, to allow his tongue to run away with him and simply invite her over. They wanted to build a gentle interest in her from suitable parties, not ruin her reputation entirely. Instead he said, “I’m certain I shall entertain at some point during the season. My mother was well known for her gatherings, and I could never let down her reputation. I shall, of course, have an invitation sent for you, and we will make sure that there is a tour.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” Her arm had been resting on his as they walked, but she allowed her hand to press a bit more heavily against him in gratitude. She had meant it to be a momentary gesture, but he turned to her then, his dark brown eyes catching hers from behind his spectacles, and she found that she could not look away. They were still walking, she was nearly certain, but how many people they were passing, what everyone might be observing, she had no idea.

It was he who cleared his throat and took his gaze from hers. “I suspect that was sufficiently convincing to anyone watching,” he said, and cleared his throat again.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.” Although, if she were truly forced to consider, she thought she might find that it had been somewhat convincing to her as well.

If the training on proper behavior that James’s mother had tried to instill in him had one benefit, it was the ability to keep a brilliant smile on his face even as he asked quietly, “Is there something I can do to make you more comfortable?”

The cotillion offered little chance to speak privately - one was constantly being forced to circle or line up beside other dancers - so it was not until their next brief whirl as partners that she was able to reply. “I am perfectly comfortable.”

“Forgive me for saying so, but you do not seem entirely to be enjoying yourself,” he said hurriedly at the next opportunity. “You have barely smiled.”

Many women of his acquaintance and most of the gentlemen would have lost track of the conversation as they stepped and wove and traded partners before rejoining, but she merely said, “Perhaps you are more accustomed to dancing with those with silly looks on their faces. Here, I shall make you more comfortable.”

The expression she pasted on was of such exaggerated adoration that he nearly burst into laughter straight into the face of his new partner. As it was, he returned to Lily grinning and found her doing the same.

A whisper seemed to start at the edge of the ballroom (they were quite definitely not displaying the usual polite smiles reserved for these events) but James barely noticed that their plan was coming to some success.

“Well played, Miss Evans. Clearly I should have left it all to your capable hands.”

“See that you do next time,” she responded with a regal nod, and the thought of next time filled his mind with such sudden brightness that his grin stretched anew and did not stop when the music did.

“Unacceptable!”

At her sister’s hiss, Lily looked up from the embroidery in her lap, but did not need to ask what was causing Petunia’s upset. She was altogether too familiar with the expression that came with minor household imperfections, and by the glare being leveled at one of the teacups, she suspected that some nigh invisible spot had been detected.

“All our visitors have gone,” Lily hastened to say. “I’m sure there is no need to disturb—”

But it was too late. Petunia had taken the cup and stalked from the room, undoubtedly to berate the poor housekeeper or whichever maid came across her path.

Shaking her head in sympathy, Lily nevertheless allowed her gaze to wander over to the place behind the curtain where she had hidden the novel she had been reading before the callers had started arriving. Petunia barely allowed such pursuits in privacy; reading in front of gentlemen would certainly have earned a reprimand.

There had been a goodly number of callers, enough that Lily found herself hopeful for the first time in a while, but she would be glad to have a chance to relax, a few moments to just be in her own mind. She was standing on soft feet to go retrieve the book when the butler arrived and announced, “Lord Snape.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she was not at home. Over this one thing she had control, and it would be so easy to exert it; she could nearly feel the relief of avoiding him. But something, a wisp of remaining affection for a childhood friend or a desire to see whether she would be able to bear him should the worst case scenario come to pass, made her nod and say, “Show him in, and please inform my sister that he has come.”

The butler stayed after bringing Severus in, standing guard beside the doorway for the sake of propriety in a way which made Lily feel protected rather than surveilled.

“Won’t you take a seat?” she asked as she did the same, but he did not seem even to take heed of her words.

“You danced with Lord Gryffindor last night,” he said. His riding gloves, held as a pair in one hand, smacked lightly against his thigh, and Lily held herself back from flinching.

“Yes, we recently discovered that we have much in common with each other, despite past differences. I found him a most amiable partner,” she responded, her tone not as cold as his but not particularly warm either. She reclaimed her embroidery and began to work on it as she added, “I had not realized that you were in attendance at the ball.”

He gave a short, sharp laugh, and she could not help but notice the difference between it and the one Gryffindor had given the night before. “It was not the sort of affair that I would take interest in. I was in attendance at the Selwyns. The company was a bit less...mixed.”

And there it was once again, this idea that could not seem to be purged from him, this idea her old friend seemed to have no interest in overcoming. “I find that with such an attitude, I cannot regret not having received an invitation,” she said, making three flawless and focused stitches in quick succession.

“But—” He began to surge forward, until the butler let out a loud and pointed cough. Jaw tight, he stepped back once again and said, “As my wife, you would have received such an invitation and would have no fear as to the attitudes shown you. There would be only deference. You would be under my protection.”

Her hands fell still in her lap. She looked up at him directly and spoke with precision. “I have no interest in engaging with people who would only tolerate me were I under your protection, and I have equally little interest in marrying a man who believes that it is deference and a shield from petty remarks which I seek in a marriage.”

There was a twitch of anger in his face which he covered over quickly. Severus had always masked things so easily; it had once seemed natural to her, a part of him, but now she found it slightly frightening, not being able to tell his true thoughts or feelings.

“Very well,” he said. “That is your opinion. Only remember when Gryffindor has thrown you over for the next pretty thing which comes his way, that I will still be here.”

Lily swallowed. Steadfastness was an admirable trait, but being the sole focus of someone like this felt more like being a hunted animal, a butterfly trapped behind glass, only meant to flutter prettily at the one who had caught it and locked it away, stolen from nature.

“Ah, Lord Snape,” Petunia said from behind him. Her voice was not pleasant - she and Severus had never liked each other - but it was polite, and Lily realized how much her sister and brother-in-law were depending on Snape to take her if no one else did. “May I offer you some refreshment?”

“I shan’t be staying, Mrs. Dursley,” he said, with equally cold politeness. “I merely wanted to ensure that Miss Evans is well. Good day to you both.” He gave a short, sharp bow, and walked past the butler out the door.

Lily rested her hands on her lap for a moment, then forced herself to pick up her embroidery. Even if Snape were no longer in the room to see, she did not want to give him the power of her anxiety.

She cast her mind once again to the plan. It had seemed a longshot at the time, slightly foolish, but she needed it to work. Unbelievable as it seemed, she had placed her trust in the Earl of Gryffindor, and she needed him to have been worthy of it.

“I must say, Miss Evans,” James said, “that you are quite the most stubborn woman of my acquaintance, possibly the most stubborn in the whole of England.” He kept his tone fairly low in deference to the fact that they were surrounded by dozens of other pairs of dancers, but he knew that his amusement came through regardless. She was arguing her point with the focus and diligence of an experienced barrister, which was entirely annoying while also being entirely too much fun.

“Well, England is not particularly large, so I shan’t worry overmuch,” she responded pertly.

“I rescind the comment. You are surely the most stubborn woman in all the world.”

“Merely disagreeing with you regarding the best type of pie does not make me the most stubborn woman in the world, my lord. It only makes me someone who knows her own mind, and I should hope you would be aware of that.” He thought that she might break away from him to place her hands on her hips and wag her finger in the scolding so familiar to him from his time in the nursery, and he held on just a bit tighter, not out of any ridiculous concern for propriety, but simply because these moments when he was allowed to touch her were outlined with such care and detail that he did not want to miss a single second.

She did not even attempt to move from him, however, a smile breaking its way across her face instead. “And regardless, I have complete certainty in the superiority of the apple pie, as any right-thinking person would.”

“Lemon pie,” James responded staunchly, nearly gritting his teeth even as he grinned back. “On the day that you try the lemon pie we eat at home, you shall eat your words along with it and beg my forgiveness.”

“I shall certainly sample it when offered, if only in the spirit of open inquiry and because I am absolutely secure in my own opinion, although I’m doubtful that I would ever beg anything from you.”

“Expect one at your home tomorrow afternoon, then. I do not retreat from a challenge any more than you.”

They were standing close enough that he could see the precise way her eyes flashed as she said, “I take your challenge gladly.”

“I say, is there to be a duel?” Benjy Fenwick, a longtime friend of James’s, seemed taken aback as he came alongside them. James felt similarly taken aback, shocked that the outside world had managed to intrude, shocked that it even still existed; without their having realized it, they had completed the steps of the dance and the next set was starting.

“Of course not.” Lily blinked, then adjusted her tone. It was not precisely fawning, James decided, nor coy, but there was a polite feeling to it, as if she had tucked away some of her warmth or her particular character. He wanted to bring it back, to make certain that the world did not lose that sparking magic of hers, but at the same time he found himself oddly relieved that Fenwick, who she had been so excited to add to her dance card, was not worthy of her true self. “A simple debate between myself and Lord Gryffindor. My apologies, my lord. It is terribly good to see you. Shall we rejoin the floor?”

Fenwick offered his arm and they took their places for the quadrille, while James retreated to the corner where Sirius was observing everything.

“Fenwick’s a nice fellow,” said the man who had only a moment ago been James’s best friend.

“Hmm.”

Sirius sipped at his cup, which James doubted contained only lemonade. “I’m certain Miss Evans would be delighted if he were to further his attentions toward her.”

“He isn’t—Fenwick is fine. He never excelled in a single class to my knowledge nor has he grasped sarcasm, he seems entirely content to be an unassuming third son without particular purpose, and I have beaten him handily every time we have fenced, but he is fine. However, Lily—Miss Evans needs more than fine. She needs more than nice,” James said, exasperated. “We’ll simply have to keep this up until she finds someone else. Someone better.”

“Indeed.” Sirius sipped again, a damnably amused shimmer in his eye. “I suppose keeping up your arrangement would be the only way of achieving that.”

“Of course it is,” James said.

“Of course it is,” Sirius echoed, but he was smiling, almost as if in relief. James turned away, even though he was fairly certain that he did not want to watch Lily dancing with someone else, smiling at someone else.

No, not fairly certain, absolutely certain. But if she was the most stubborn woman in the world, he was the most stubborn man, and he forced himself to keep on. The whole point of this was to find Lily a husband, and she had made it perfectly clear that she did not consider him to be a contender. He would have to become accustomed to seeing her with someone else. He would simply have to.

“Not only pie but ice cream as well?” James asked, licking chocolate from his spoon. “How does one manage to have so many wrong opinions?”

“Unbelievable as it might seem to you, an opinion is not wrong simply because it is not yours,” she responded, taking a dainty bite from her own dish. “Although, to tell you the truth…” She looked this way and that before leaning across the table just slightly. He mirrored her at once; apparently it was lucky that he was a part of the plan because he seemed more eager for gossip than any ten ladies of Lily’s acquaintance. “I actually only order the maple because it seems the least popular. It’s terribly sad to think of it simply melting away for lack of interested customers.”

He gaped at her for a moment. “But then you miss out on the chocolate,” he said, with a sort of implacably simple logic that belonged in childhood. She laughed.

“The maple isn’t actually bad. It simply isn’t as popular because it is overshadowed by the other flavors. Even the lavender gains an audience simply because it sounds sophisticated. But…” Her voice lowered even further. “Sometimes I finish my serving and then ask for a dish of chocolate as well.”

“Gluttony, Miss Evans?” he said, eyes glinting. But where she might have once reminded him sharply that he certainly had more experience in deadly sinning than she, now she merely raised an amused eyebrow and said, “Enjoyment, my lord,” before sitting back and picking her spoon up once more.

He seemed to watch her more closely than the simple movement deserved. “Enjoyment indeed,” he said, and his low voice was not as one telling a secret, but one who had forgotten he was speaking aloud. She glanced up at him sharply, but before she could say anything more, he too had started on his ice cream again.

“One thing I do miss from my travels is getting to try the local delicacies,” he remarked. “There is quite a bit more to the world than the traditional menu would lead you to believe - although I will confess that I was glad to come home to lemon pie and chocolate ice cream.”

“Oh, yes, you mentioned that you had traveled. Where did you go?”

He waved his spoon. “All sorts of places.”

“Please, you must give me something more particular than that. I have never been even to Scotland and might never, and so I may only read about other places in books and listen jealously to stories such as yours.”

“Well, most people start off in Paris, but we - Sirius and I - went to the Netherlands first, then throughout Prussia, then down to Italy and Greece, and across the water to the Ottoman Empire. We even got a chance to see Egypt and some of North Africa before…” His mouth had clearly been coming up with the words before his mind was ready for them. When he realized what he would have to say next, he seemed to take a steadying breath, sliding the ice cream away from himself as if it no longer held appeal. “Word reached me that my mother had taken ill. We cut things short.” He swallowed. “Unfortunately, it made no difference.”

The urge to reach across the table and touch his hand came to her quite suddenly; she was nearly surprised into giving into the impulse. Instead she folded her hands on the table and said softly, "That must have been quite difficult, moving so quickly from a time meant for freedom and adventure and frivolity to one of urgency and then of mourning.”

“I wonder if mourning should always feel sudden, even if one were expecting it,” he said. Once she would have thought it shocking if not impossible for this man to take such a serious tone or speak such a profound thought aloud, but she was finding that there was quite a lot about him which was unexpected for her but no less true.

He cleared his throat. “Regardless, you needn’t be jealous: our travels were not as full of frivolity as all that even before we received the news from home.”

Perhaps if she had not spent the last several weeks so often in his company, with such an awareness of his every expression and how it would be perceived, she would have mistaken the charming smile he gave for a true one. As it was, she said simply, “Oh?” and waited with patiently folded hands for him to continue.

His eyes observed her keenly for a moment before dropping to his lap. Slowly, he said, “I thought that merely reading in the newspapers about the ruin Bonaparte made of things on the continent was enough. I thought I understood. But it was nothing to actually seeing everything that people needed to rebuild, hearing from the locals all that they had lost.” His expression turned self-deprecating. “I had once thought that had I not been the eldest and only of my family, I might have been a soldier, but I could barely stomach even the aftermath years later.”

“I think you could have been a soldier had you the opportunity,” she said. “I believe it can only be for the good to have soldiers who fight not because they enjoy the battle or out of a desire for glory, but to bring peace, to protect the innocent. And of course we have determined that you can come up with an innovative strategy with haste, a quality I’m certain would have served you well.”

That actually made him smile truly, and she could nearly see him trying to brush away his unfortunate mood. “I thank you for your compliments,” he said. “And of course, all of that was no more painful than what you had to bear. You have lost your mother more recently than I did my parents. If anything, I should be comforting you.”

“There needn’t be a competition between us regarding our suffering,” she pointed out. “And taking a turn at being comforted simply because I am next in the queue is not how I like to remember my mother.”

“How do you like to remember her? I confess, we—” He gave an uncomfortable cough. “We had little opportunity to speak.”

She wondered if he remembered that, although they had indeed spoken little on the occasion, it had been her mother who had guided him gently from the room after his ill-fated proposal. She suspected not - he had seemed quite dazed in the moment.

“I have rarely enjoyed simply being in company with someone as I did her,” Lily said instead. “Our minds seemed to work quite similarly. I miss so many things about her - her quiet humor, her independence although even as a girl I could tell that she wished my father had not passed so young, and how she always seemed to know exactly the solution to any problem in the household, any social faux pas - but more than anything, I don’t know that I will ever find someone who seemed so often to echo my same thoughts. I’m afraid it left my sister a bit isolated at times. She engages with the world so differently. It was Mama who always encouraged me to continue reaching out to her, trying to allow some understanding between us.”

Now it was her turn to glance down at her lap, although she forced her eyes back up toward him mere seconds later. “I imagine these last months would have been easier if Petunia and I did have some sort of understanding, even an imperfect one. I am not speaking of my...situation, although I am certain that would have been different had we been closer. But there are so many memories which only we two now share, and I wish we had closeness enough to recall them together.”

He nodded. “I was lucky to be able to spend a few weeks remembering my mother beside my father before his passing. Perhaps that time would have been better spent in discussion of our holdings or my responsibilities, and had he known what was to come he might have insisted upon it, but I find that I cannot make myself regret those times. And now I have been lucky to have Sirius nearby to share with me his memories. He spent so much time in our home, with my parents, that he can easily recall to my mind things I did not even realize I had forgotten: the way my mother ordered a new perfume for each season, or how my father would sit alone with a cup of hot milk when he was particularly pensive.”

His throat seemed nearly to catch as he swallowed. “I suspect it is always easiest to bear these sorts of things when you are with people who will listen, even if they cannot share experiences with you. I am sorry that you do not have the same.”

“Well,” she said, “I wonder if perhaps I do.”

She had not known she would say the words until she did, but she had felt them all the same. She had her own friends, it was true, and yet no one seemed to want to discuss her mother’s passing the way he did, no one even seemed willing to try beyond platitudes or small embraces. And he seemed overwhelmed by the comment, his lips falling open just a touch, eyes large and bright behind his spectacles as they caught hers.

“Miss Evans.”

She very nearly fell from her chair, and her only consolation was that he nearly did as well, although he recovered more quickly, his from-the-cradle training pushing him to rise and bow smartly. She had forgotten, somehow, that they were in the middle of Gunter’s, that their object for the day was to be seen in public laughing together and enjoying each other’s company in order to rouse the notice of others, that being with him - pretending to be with him - was only meant as a waystation on the path to the man with whom she would actually spend the rest of her life.

Somehow, as she sat at their small corner table, she had only been seeing him.

“Miss Lily Evans,” Lady McGonagall said again, and Lily remembered to stand and curtsy. The countess looked her over closely, then turned and said, "You could hardly do better, my boy."

In their limited interactions, Lily had rather liked Lady McGonagall and she suspected that she was liked in return, but she was still surprised at her warm and roundly approving tone.

The countess continued: "And James Potter. Earl of Gryffindor, Viscount Peverell, cousin to the king, heir to the Potter fortune..:” She glanced him over and tilted her head to speak directly to Lily. “I suppose you could have done worse." She turned back. "See that you're worthy of her," she said, in that way of someone accustomed to being obeyed without question.

And while Lily could feel her eyebrows practically springing into her hair, he merely smiled and said, "I am trying my best.”

He really was remarkably good at pretending - for a moment, even Lily nearly believed him.

Having already attended the agreed upon number of occasions for the week, James could easily have begged off of the Weasley’s supper party and spent the evening at home or at his club or out with his friends (up to less savory pursuits, if Sirius was allowed to be in charge). He told himself that his reason for accepting the invitation was simply because he liked Molly and Arthur - regardless of their financial status, they were actually enjoyable company, unlike many in the ton - but that did not explain why he had not cited another engagement following the meal instead of sitting through the gentlemen’s retreat and then their return for cards and socializing. Overall, as he watched Lily set her face fiercely across from him at the whist table, he found any excuse less and less convincing by the moment.

Sirius elbowed him. “It seems as if you have a tiger for a partner,” he remarked in a low tone, somehow managing to lounge in his chair while holding his cards properly before him.

“If you are referring to my demeanor, you should well address me directly so that I may tell you just as directly that I have rarely lost and do not intend to do so tonight,” Lily interrupted, running a fingernail casually across the top of one of her cards. She faced Sirius directly, and James suspected that he was the only one who would be able to detect the hints of humor in her face. “And if you were referring to my hair, my lord, well, perhaps you should retire once again in order to refresh your arsenal with more creative comparisons.”

Grinning, James watched Sirius and Remus staring at her in astonishment. They had exchanged pleasantries before, but this was the first time his friends were spending time with Lily, and she was certainly leaving an impression.

“Goodness, Sirius,” Lupin finally said, a chuckle building in his throat. “If you do need to retire after such a carefully aimed attack, I can certainly replace you as a partner.”

“No need.” Sirius sat up straighter, staring Lily down with good-natured ruthlessness. “I have talent enough to come up with my riposte as we play.”

Lily said, “One might say that if there has not been a response within the first moment, there is not one forthcoming,” then bowed her head politely to Sirius, adding, “Not, of course, that I am referring to anyone in particular.” She faced across the table once more and said, “Now then, shall we play, my lord?”

“James,” he blurted before he could think better of it. "You should call me James."

It meant something, giving her leave to call him by his given name, and he wondered if he had been holding himself back from this particular development, one which now felt inevitable, as some sort of protection. The thought of it felt quite tangled about in his mind, but regardless, he needn't have said it in front of his friends.

He could tell that they were gaping at him - well, Remus had his eyebrows raised so high that they were practically on the moon and Sirius's expression had defaulted to arch surprise - and he even thought that Molly Weasley might have looked over instinctively from her own whist table to ensure that nothing was amiss, but his eyes were for Lily alone.

"James, then," she murmured comfortably, though he seemed to see a touch of something like nervousness, even fear, in her eyes as she said, "And you may call me Lily, of course." But it was gone the next second as she said to the group at large, "Shall we play, then?"

"I like her," Sirius declared as they sat in James's study later that night having a brandy together. "I like her quite a lot."

"As do I." James tapped a fingernail absently against his glass. Lily was indeed a champion whist player - he was willing to lay the lion’s share of their team’s victory at her feet - and her dress tonight had been a most fetching shade of blue which offset her hair quite startlingly. Obviously she wore green beautifully, and he had once seen her in a gown of deep purple which redefined the shade for him, but the blue in the candlelight as she laughed and schemed over her cards…

"I can tell," Sirius said, and his voice was sober enough to break James from his thoughts and look over at him. "I can tell that you like her. It has been some time since I saw you smile with such frequency." His own smile returned and he said, "Although I would wonder if she would consider you worthwhile after tonight. You should call me James, indeed." He repeated it, voice lower and more pompous than James believed his to be, then in an oily, seductive way, then with a shy blink through his lashes, until his impressions were apparently so hilarious that he fell into laughter and could not continue.

Dear Miss Evans,

Dear Lily,

Madam,

I hope this note finds you well, and my apologies for leaving without a proper goodbye - or truly any goodbye. I had an early letter regarding a fire near one of my estates which necessitated a speedy departure. Luckily the damage appears to be less serious than feared: there are no severe injuries, it seems that only minimal repairs will be required, and the harvest will not be affected.

I spent the morning helping to clear some of the wreckage, and then was deemed competent enough to swing a hammer and so was able to help with some repairs. In the afternoon, I assisted with a foaling, although to be frank, I'm not certain that I was truly any help at all. If I recall, I mostly spent the time asking the farmer whether it would truly work and flinching away as I wondered whether that amount of fluid was normal - which it apparently is. (If any of this should happen to make its way to Sirius, I'd like it to be impressed upon him that he would certainly have done no better in the circumstances, and if he doubts it, he may come try next spring.)

I shall likely be staying another two weeks at least - now that I am here, there is some business it would be wise to take care of - but I hope that my absence gives opportunity to those perhaps not bold enough to come forward while I am about. Only recall, of course, that you do not have to give in to such gentlemens’ attentions if you do not want to...unless you desire a husband over whom you can take charge. It would, after all, be only natural for you to desire someone whose stubbornness will not outmatch your own. But if you are waiting for something else in a man, please recall that you are a most excellent catch and quite eligible on your own, and someone with the highest qualities to recommend him will see that in due course.

In the meantime I remain,

Yrs &c

James Potter

Dear Gryffindor,

It is quite a relief to hear that things were less dire than initially believed - although I suspect that they might be a bit dire still if they are allowing you near hammers or any other tools. I shall, however, refrain from sharing my opinion on that with any of your friends or acquaintances, as it would likely spoil the illusion of our deep affection for one another (to my knowledge, most ladies do not express their ardor by pointing out the flaws of their supposed beloved). Nor will I mention the incident with the foal - unless I am severely provoked to it.

Since you bring up potential suitors who might be suffering from attacks of nerves at the thought of crossing the formidable Lord Gryffindor, I did dance twice with Mr. Davey Gudgeon at the Abbott ball evening last. In the first dance he was anxious but quite sweet, but in the second he mistimed his cross-step during the Duchess of Devonshire's Reel, knocked into Miss Vance (or as he put it “nearly had his eye taken out by her!”), and seemed to desire me to spend the rest of the evening fetching him cool cloths and telling him that the redness was not visible. It depressed things quite considerably, I must say.

I shall be waiting with bated breath for these gentlemen of highest quality who you allege to be on the horizon. My criteria remain, I believe, modest: kindness, someone who will be a friend to me, and who will be open to conversation. (Degree of stubbornness matters not at all, regardless of your inferences to the contrary...) Hope with me that they come soon: if my need for air becomes too pressing, I shall be left gasping at the feet of Lord Snape, and there is more than one reason I have worked for many years to avoid such a fate.

With best and most sincere wishes,

Lily

Dear Lily,

I shall keep in mind not to provoke you, although I should ask that you grant me some amount of latitude in what is meant by provoking lest I blunder into it and you are forced to cast aspersions on my reputation as an iron stomached lord of the domain.

Although by your description, Mr. Gudgeon has set the standards quite low in this regard. If these are the men of the ton, I believe my reputation would remain intact even should my inability to assist in live animal births be revealed. (My reputation with Sirius in specific would, of course, never recover.)

I hope that whoever you partner with at the next occasion is more suitable, and that it is certainly not Snape. Forgive me for asking, but I wonder if I misunderstand your comment regarding him. Has he caused you insult or injury further than is commonly known? I give you my assurance that I shall refrain from rash behavior, regardless of your answer - although you must know that I might countenance a considered, planful vengeance upon my return.

James

Dear James,

Your reputation remains intact here in town, although Lady Bones did frown most ominously upon your absence at her party two nights past, even with your other friends present. (Mr. Pettigrew seemed a bit downcast, despite my efforts to cheer him; it seems that Miss Jones has been engaged to another.) Apparently you have a habit of slipping from your promises of attendance. It is a lucky thing for you that it was I with whom you entrusted your secrets, or she might be casting aspersions in revenge even now without you here to defend yourself. (I suspect, however, that she would not, regardless of her pique - she is quite dignified.)

Regarding your own revenge, there is no need. Lord Snape and I were acquainted as children, prior to his inheritance, and he believed that our past friendship and certain areas of mutual interest were enough to assure his suit. However, in the intervening years, I found his choice of friends to be quite reprehensible and his values not to match with my own. I care little regarding his insults toward me, but he was similarly disparaging to those for whom I care, or stood by and listened while others acted similarly. For those reasons I refused him, and while I have the choice, I will refuse him still. You are already doing quite enough in allowing me to continue to have such choices, and for that I must thank you once again.

Yours,

Lily

Dear Lily,

I avoid Lady Bones because she is so intimidating that I perpetually fear that simply being near her will result in unintentional confessions. Even Lady McGonagall, who is quite shrewd and can devastate with her tongue lashing, has a sense of humor beneath it all; Lady Bones seems all mind and sharp eyes.

Perhaps this observation is another which can remain between us? Although if I encounter her again, I might find myself revealing it regardless.

As for Lord Snape, I still find that I would rather confront than avoid him, but as this is your battle, I shall defer to you. (If his path and mine were to cross, however, I wonder at my own control.)

I am to journey home in two days’ time, and while I do not find myself anticipating my arrival back in the social whirl, I hope that you will have some time free to walk with me at least. We must remind everyone of our affections most publicly, after all, as the attention of the ton is short - and besides, it has been quite too long since last I saw you.

Yours,

James

Her drawing room did not lack for suitors these days, her dance card rarely had an empty place, and surely someone would offer for her soon, but as they walked through the park together, even given the gloomy weather, Lily found herself overwhelmingly glad that James had returned.

He was speaking of a visit he had taken to the school in the village, his manner proud as he described the recitation that the students had performed for him - although he turned sheepish as he described how, when one boy had asked him to show them his own skill, he had needed to make up an excuse and flee in order to avoid embarrassment.

“Truly, you could not have been such a terrible student that you cannot remember a single thing,” she admonished, laughing slightly. He really was quite intelligent, as determined as he sometimes seemed to act otherwise; they conversed often on literature and current events, and his friend Lupin had once let slip that James had received a first at university.

James tapped his head. “I’m certain there is some passage or poem lurking around up here, but what if I had erred in front of them? I could never have endured the shame. And, being frank with you, I was never a particularly engaged student. That crop I saw was all much better and they deserve the credit for it.”

“I had not realized that you would be so involved in the education of your tenants,” Lily commented, lifting her skirt a bit to avoid a puddle which had collected in a dip in the path.

“Many are not, but my family has seen it as a responsibility of ours for some time. Not everyone will find themselves at university, but there is no reason that we cannot help to ensure that there is instruction beyond the most basic of reading and sums.” He said this all very staunchly, brow furrowed, but he relaxed a bit as he added, “My father would often send books down for the schooling of the boys.”

“And what of the girls?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Her sister would have hissed at her in shock and shame, both for the impertinent tone and for even bothering to ask the question, but James just grinned. “That was my mother’s pet project, actually, a schoolhouse educating the village girls. Whenever she had heard that my father had provided more materials or hired on a new schoolmaster, she would do the same for them. She was quite an admirer of Wollstonecraft.”

“Really? I had not heard,” Lily said. It was not altogether surprising, as she had never interacted with James’s mother in life, but gossip did travel far and fast. And Lily was sure that if she had known this about the late Lady Gryffindor, she would not have forgotten; although she had hidden it from not only Petunia but their mother as well for fear they would be scandalized, Lily had read both Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and Vindication of the Rights of Woman and considered the ideas within them often.

“It’s likely fairly common knowledge in that corner of the country but she kept it a bit quiet in London. She always said that it was easier to change people’s minds when they did not know your opinions well enough to start bracing themselves and preparing their counterattacks without having even heard your points.” Strangely, it was not the smile on his face which spoke more to Lily of his love for his mother, but the gruff clearing of his throat as he said, “She could likely have worked for the War Office, my mother. Napoleon would have been dispatched much sooner.”

“I wish I could have met her,” Lily said honestly. “I wish I could have met both of them. They both sound quite lovely, quite special.” She had one arm resting in his, but she drew up her other hand and covered his fingers lightly, trying to communicate the truth of her sentiment.

James nodded. “They were, to me and to each other. I was terribly lucky to be able to watch their partnership for as long as I did.” He squeezed her fingers back.

His hand, Lily realized, was warm beneath hers, warm and very strong and somehow comfortable. She did not know how it had happened or when, but she had grown to adore walking alongside him, hearing his thoughts and having him listen to hers, watching the way his face crumpled a bit with concern over his friends or his tenants or news from the continent or some issue in Parliament, seeing his concern turn into determination, registering the degree of his every smile and laugh, especially when they were for her.

She thought of the things she had told him she wished for in a husband, comfort and companionship, someone who truly saw her, and she knew that she had that in James, and that she had more too. He had told her that he had arrived back in London near twilight the previous evening, and that after so long in the carriage he had wanted to stretch his legs so he had walked part of the way to Gryffindor House. She had not mentioned that she had been at her window as he passed, that she had involuntarily drawn in a breath at the sight of his undone cravat, of the leanly muscled forearms beneath his rolled up sleeves, of the hair that she once thought foolishly messy but which now seemed dashing as he brushed it carelessly from his eyes.

Neither had she told him that she had run down to receive the post each morning that he had been away, and not only because she had feared Petunia withholding his letters from her if she got to them first. She did not mention that she had read them over more than once, conjuring up his awkward little gestures and his seriousness and his enthusiasm, imagining him swinging a hammer beside his tenants, rubbing a finger against his lips as he read her own correspondence the way he did when he was particularly engrossed in something. She did not speak of the way, when she lay in bed, she thought of his eyes lighting up behind his glasses as he returned to see her, nor of the way she would fall asleep smiling just from the thought of being with him once again.

Oh, she thought with polite surprise, even as it felt as if a rock were sinking into her belly. Oh, God. I’ve fallen in love with him.

She had never questioned her refusal of his proposal all those years ago. There was no doubt that he would not have suited her at the time, that after a short time he would have realized that she did not suit him. Only, if they had turned into who they were now and they had already been married…

She allowed herself a moment to imagine it, being married to James, being a friend to him over the years not only at a distance or because of some scheme but in true partnership as his parents had been. To have all that they did now, but also to be able to touch each other, to be alone together.

But she could allow herself only that moment. He had made it more than clear at the outset that he was uninterested in marriage at present, that he now found the idea a bothersome distraction. She had missed her chance, and she would simply have to live with it. Fenwick had danced with her thrice two nights past, tantamount to a proposal. She would live a fine life with him, and James would be happy, one day, with someone else.

Swallowing against the tears in her throat, she squeezed his hand once more and let him go.

When Remus came running into the room two days later, James thought he must be falling ill once more. His friend kept his condition quiet, but he had developed malaria as a child after time spent abroad due to his father’s work; attacks of the illness came on periodically, bringing with them terrible fevers and pain which James hated to watch and could do little to stop.

“Shall I call for the doctor?” he asked desperately, forcing his thoughts straight as he rose from the table where he had been having a late breakfast and shoved out a chair for Remus to collapse into. “You’re meant to have that quinine remedy, aren’t you? Have you run out?”

But Remus only shook his head frantically, finally rasping out, “A drink, please.”

James hastily poured him tea, remembering only after he had handed it over that it would likely be cold by now. He had come down to breakfast late already, and then had lingered quite a long time absently eating through progressively more tepid eggs and fish as he read over reports from his solicitors. But Remus took it down in a gulp, making a face only after he had finished and returned the cup to the table.

“You’ve been found out,” was the first thing he said.

James slowly regained his seat. He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I was at the stationers,” Remus continued as his breathing calmed slightly and his color began returning to normal. “And I was approached by Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange - those bounders married to Sirius’s dreadful cousins, you remember.”

“Of course.” If James had not already known and disliked the men in question, he would have pitied them, Lestrange especially. “But I don’t see—”

“They said that they knew that Lily had been having one over on everyone,” said Remus grimly. “And they know of your part in it too. It’s apparently already being spread all over town. According to them, as soon as Snape found out, he went to go see Lily’s brother-in-law: he seems to think that Dursley will simply give Lily over now that there are even rumors about her being duplicitous or what have you, and having only met the man once I’m inclined to think he’s right.”

James stood from the table so quickly that he didn’t unbend his legs in time, hitting both knees on the tabletop and needing a moment to straighten himself. Fingers fumbling with his cravat, he called for his coat and hat, only pausing after he had done so to ask, “Did they say how they found out in the first place? I don’t expect that Lily was spreading it around, and I only told you three.” There was an unpleasant turn in his stomach at the thought of Sirius’s unbound tongue when he was in his cups. But surely even then, he would not have revealed the information? If Lily’s life was ruined because of this…

“It was Peter,” Remus said.

“What?” James said, his thoughts still on how Sirius would have to grovel, but then the words made it through. “What?” he said again, so shocked that he sank back into his chair. “Peter?”

Remus said, with the air of a doctor giving a fatal diagnosis, “He was trying to ingratiate himself to them, I think, but they kept needling him about Hestia Jones throwing him over. So he struck back by letting them in on the most sensational secret that he had.”

“I’ll have to—” James began weakly, but then his anger took over. “I’ll speak with him later,” he said, rage bristling through him, pushing his shoulders back. He found himself wishing that the morning had never started, but it was too late for that. He took a fortifying breath as the butler returned and set his jaw. He would need to handle things regarding Peter, but for now he had somewhere else to be.

Fifteen minutes later, he was nipping at the heels of another butler as he walked through the hall to the drawing room of the Dursley house.

“No callers all morning?” came the voice of Lily’s entirely unpleasant sister. “It seems that the bloom has quite come off the rose. I caught Vernon in my second season, you know. It seems that once again you will not be so lucky.”

“The bloom coming off the lily would have been the more apt reference, Tuney,” Lily replied. “And I am quite grateful that you were the one to catch Vernon. But regardless, perhaps everyone somehow divined that I would prefer some quiet time with my thoughts this morning.”

“And what thoughts are—”

“The Earl of Gryffindor, madam,” the butler announced, mere seconds before James entered the room.

Petunia Dursley rose and curtsied. “My lord,” she said, although with a turn of her lip as if she would prefer to call him something else, or even to comment on his lack of manners in barging into their home. If James had not been so distracted, he might have even appreciated her lack of ingratiation: too many people began positively groveling as soon as they heard the title. As it was, he was distracted by the sudden realization of the flaw in his plan. For all that the ton relied on rules and propriety, Mrs. Dursley clung to the concepts with a martial gleam that put most others to shame. She would never leave them alone and unchaperoned, not for a moment. Perhaps he could trip her, and in the chaos, whisper something to Lily…?

“Would you like to sit down?” That was Lily now; he focused enough to watch her gesture to a chair across from the sofa which she and Petunia shared, and even to follow her direction, although he was still distracted by the necessity now of coming up with a plan.

“Would you like something to eat or drink, my lord?” Lily again. She had set her embroidery aside and was eyeing him oddly. He had the feeling that this was not the first time he had been offered a refreshment.

“Tea would be lovely,” he managed. Maybe her sister would go to arrange it…

But no, Petunia Dursley simply rang for a maid, then picked up her own embroidery and began conversing about the weather as if she were being forced into niceties with a pistol at her back. He was able to manage answers for several minutes, sipping tea occasionally, even as Lily looked at him in a way which clearly showed she thought him mad.

“The weather is indeed lovely,” he finally interrupted a bit desperately, although he knew that firstly, it was not, and secondly, Mrs. Dursley had been asking whether he believed that there would be more rain this month than the same time last year. “Perhaps I might take Miss Evans on a walk?”

“Fresh air would certainly be wonderful,” Lily said swiftly.

Petunia glanced between both of them suspiciously. “You walked only yesterday, Lily, with Mr. Fenwick. I’m afraid you will become too dark and hearty-looking if you step out so often.”

James Potter had never even considered being rattled by an exam, a fight with a fellow gentleman, or an upbraiding by his mother. The slightest sweat broke out on the back of his neck now.

And then, several things happened, if not at once, then in very close succession: the front door burst open followed by a stream of unintelligible invective; Petunia rose, calling, “Vernon, is there some trouble, darling?” and began to cross the room; and James, spotting an opportunity, upended his teacup onto her skirt with a barely believable, “Oh, my apologies!”

Instead of causing her to leave the room at once to put herself to rights, this clearly non-accidental dousing simply made Petunia eye him stonily, mouth agape. James ignored her, turning and starting, “Lily—” before being cut off.

“Thought you could pull one over on us, eh?” Vernon Dursley had arrived in the room, impressively red in the face. The color became even more impressive as he spotted James, and he barked out a “You!”

“We’ve been found out,” James said rapidly, returning to face Lily alone. “It was my error. I should not have—In any case, I have heard that Lord Snape has already tried to finalize things, but if you were to marry me, I believe that you would be…”

She was looking at him with the same vaguely curious expression that she had all the way back in the garden at the Longbottom house party. The arguments he was about to make - that the power of his title and standing would offer protection to her reputation, that it was only honorable that he make amends in this way considering it was his lack of discretion which had allowed their secret to be known, that he would trouble her as little as she liked within their marriage - died on his tongue.

All he could remember was Lily making conciliatory faces to Alice Longbottom behind the back of the redoubtable Lady Longbottom, Lily’s small and capable hand against his arm as they walked, the feeling of her assured steps, of her warmth against him when they danced. Lily’s look of concentration as he explained something dull regarding crop rotations, her careful gestures as she offered some solution. The gleam in her eye when she won at cards, the way she gave Sirius as good as she got and spoke with Remus about literature and was kind to Peter even when he stepped on her toes. Lily, choosing the maple ice cream because it was the least liked, looking fascinated at the idea of his father’s old work rooms, conceding a point only after he had presented his best arguments, teasing him that he allowed his hair to stay in such disarray because he did not want to seem shorter than Sirius, speaking so lovingly of her mother and tilting her head in welcome as he spoke of his own parents. Lily’s smile, her laugh, her mind, the way he felt such joy whenever they spent time together…

He had thought himself in love with her years earlier, but that had been mere infatuation, an enjoyment of her appearance, her outward manner. He had been drawn to this one woman who had not been charmed by him, who had offered novelty through her rejection, but that was not love. This, knowing her and wanting to be known by her, always, this was love.

The teacup was empty, but he placed it politely on the side table before he slid from his chair and knelt before Lily. He took both of her hands in his and held them near his mouth. Surely this was allowed? Hands were allowed, he had kissed many of them, although not ungloved like this and not with this precise level of intimacy. The Dursleys certainly seemed to take offense: Petunia gasped in nearly all the air in the room, although she left enough for Vernon to bellow out an “I say!” James ignored them both, watching those spectacularly green eyes of Lily’s instead.

“I have no flowers,” he said softly, “and I have no ring, although I can obtain both very soon, but if you would have me, I should like to marry you. Not because you must, and not because of what my name can offer, but because you are my friend, because I adore you, because I want you to be my partner in every dance, today and for the rest of my life, because my favorite times are when I am with you, because I want to spend each one of my days with you beside me.” He swallowed. “Will you have me?”

And just as he had known the first time he had asked what her answer would be before she said it, he knew now too.

Two years later…

Sirius was not certain whether it was his sighing or his constant checking out the carriage window, but a few miles from Godric’s Hollow, Remus had apparently had enough.

“Please,” he said, faintly begging. “Borrow a horse and ride ahead.”

“It would not be polite to leave you alone,” Sirius pointed out dutifully, glad that his mother was not there to see him acting in such a manner.

Remus countered, “It would, in fact, be more polite than what you are doing now.” He gestured to the manuscript atop the travel desk on his lap. “I have much to keep me occupied, and you are merely a distraction from it. Now go.”

And so, less than an hour later, Sirius directed his commandeered horse up the neatly maintained path to the house. A servant was already hurrying out as he swerved to a stop by the front door (Lily had been welcomed easily as countess, and her staff always rose to exceed her expectations), and Sirius tossed over the reins and bounded up the steps two at a time.

He was recognized immediately by the butler and footmen and maids, but he only nodded in acknowledgment of their bows and curtsies as he strode through the entrance hall and made his way to the main staircase.

Barely had he reached the upstairs landing when he heard a door thrown open and saw James barrelling toward him.

“Sirius,” his best friend shouted, nearly knocking him over when he couldn’t manage to come to a stop quickly enough. Without apology, he grabbed Sirius’s hand and hauled him further down the hall. “The baby’s here.”

“I know,” Sirius said, laughing. “You wrote to us, that’s why we came.”

But James didn’t seem to hear him. “Come see the baby,” he said, words nearly toppling over each other in his excitement. “Come see Lily. Come meet my son!”

His spectacles were falling down his nose and he looked as though he hadn’t slept in the days since the baby was born and there was a large, unpleasant looking stain on his waistcoat over his ribcage, but Sirius had never seen him so happy.

And as he allowed himself to be dragged for his first glimpse of the future Earl of Gryffindor, Sirius realized that the best friend of his childhood was well and truly gone. Or perhaps not gone, he decided, but transformed. James had left behind old habits and made way for new. He had laid aside the roles of rake and man about town and had taken on others, earl and husband and now father. They would no longer challenge each other dangerously or act below their age and rank, and that was no pity. James had happiness here, a different kind than Sirius had once expected, but no less true for it.

“Let’s go see your son,” Sirius said, and James laughed a wholly exhilarated sort of laugh, running his hand through his hair and beginning to describe the baby as though Sirius wouldn’t see himself in only a moment.

Two weeks later, Frank Longbottom received two bottles of extremely fine brandy alongside a note from Sirius Black.

Congratulations on the birth of your son, and my belated thanks for the invitation.

“What invitation?” Alice said, rocking their new baby Neville as he read the card aloud to her. “I should hope that you have no intention of inviting people around for months yet.”

“Not even—”

“Especially not your mother,” Alice said with exhausted vehemence.

“Well, I have no idea what he’s talking about, regardless,” Frank said, hefting one bottle to eye level. “But it’s a jolly nice gift anyway.”

“I would have preferred some chocolates, and Neville might have liked another blanket, but I suppose we shall make do.”

“Oh, Nev will like this perfectly well one day.”

“One day quite a long time from now,” Alice remarked, but she smiled as she did.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Invitations

Nasch’s attention flickered from the tiny girl seated on the throne to his left hand to the door, then over to the knight who stood to his right.

“Everything’s working fine,” Durbe told him, voice pitched low to avoid being heard by anyone who wasn’t the King. “All of the invitations were delivered properly.”

Nasch’s eyebrows narrowed ever so faintly. “Including the one to Vector?”

“Yes,” Durbe nodded. He’d been in charge of seeing to that particular invitation, while common heralds and messengers managed the others. The effects of their work showed here and now.

As did the effects of his – there wasn’t any sign of Vector anywhere, nor had any of the guards posted sent a warning of any sort. Perhaps the false celebrations they’d set up elsewhere would be enough to keep him distracted.

Tiny Princess Isis – a child Nasch and Merag found after a harsh battle in a distant land and brought back with them – sat on the finely carved throne, her hands resting on her lap, glancing nervously about. This party celebrated her official adoption by Nasch and Merag, bringing her into their family.

Neither of them were inclined to marriage or offspring. Merag had pledged herself to the God of the Ocean and while it wasn't forbidden for her to wed if she’d met someone, everyone knew that the odds of her meeting someone she’d choose were slim to non-existence. Nasch had other reasons for not wedding – reasons that Durbe knew very well indeed.

Almost all of the guests had arrived. Emperor Leonius arrived early, along with his favorite gladiator Alit. Rumors ran that Alit was far more to him than a mere gladiator – a common arena fighter wouldn’t be brought along on this sort of trip. Nasch didn’t question. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know the teasing allure of those who weren’t born to a royal title.

Someone new entered the chamber – two someones, in fact. Nasch glanced up to see who it was. Durbe knew them at once, of course.

“Mizael!” Durbe moved over, smiling. Nasch recognized the name as that of a famous dragon tamer who protected a land to the north and east. Someone he didn’t know stood next to Mizael, glancing around, a bit uncomfortable here. “Who is your friend?”

“This is Ryou,” Mizael said, nodding towards him. “We met a few months ago. I thought he would enjoy visiting here too.”

The stranger nodded politely. “It’s as lovely as I was told.”

After a few more words, Mizael and Ryou moved on, while Durbe returned to his position at Nasch’s right hand. He didn’t move away from it except to greet another famous guest, a general who’d won great acclaim on the battlefield and appeared here with his newly wed wife, an accomplished singer and musician. Not every guest deserved to be greeted by either the King or his Knight personally.

Nasch considered having a meal brought. It had been a very long day and his stomach rumbled. He started to gesture for one of the servants, when a noise came from the entryway, and Durbe stiffened at once.

“He wasn’t invited,” Durbe muttered. Nasch’s eyes narrowed as whoever it was moved closer.

“Who is it?” He demanded to know. Durbe glanced back at him.

“Do you remember the sorcerer Arclight?” the knight asked, his attention returning to the approaching figure. Nasch nodded; he’d heard many tales of the sorcerer and his three sons. “That’s Thomas, the middle son. I know no one invited him. But he’s here.”

Nasch’s lips thinned at that. It looked as if he wasn't going to be getting his dinner as soon as he hoped he would be. But he wasn’t going to allow anyone to ruin tonight’s celebration. He could see Merag also glaring at the approaching sorcerer – or whatever he was.

“Does he share his father's mage-talents?” Nasch asked. He’d heard a few things about how the youngest of the three was a skilled swordsman and the eldest took after his father in mage-craft, but not very much about what this middle child could do.

“He’s a fire-mage,” Durbe murmured. “Very talented with them, too.”

Fire-mages were rare and hadn’t appeared often in his realm, which was far more dedicated to the ways of water magic than anything else.

“What are you doing here, Thomas?” Merag asked, standing next to Iris and glowering with all the fury of the ocean at the newcomer.

The fire-mage laughed, tossing his mane of red and gold hair, sunlight glinting off of it. “Well, hello, there, Merag.” His eyes glittered hungrily. “I suppose I should have expected to see you here.”

“Considering this is my realm too, yes,” Merag snapped back. “No answer me. You weren’t invited.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Thomas crossed his arms over his chest. “You invited all of them.” He waved one hand to where Emperor Leonius and Alit, Mizael and Ryou, General Gilag and Sanagi, and everyone else. “So why can’t I show up if I want to?” He smirked. “Not enough golden plates to eat off of?”

“We don't’ eat off of gold,” Merag replied flatly. “You weren’t invited because no one wanted you here.”

Silence fell. Thomas’s lips thinned before he looked past her to where Nasch began to rise to his feet.

“Well, if it isn’t His Majesty.” Thomas smirked, waving one hand, tiny flames dancing on the tips of his fingers. Nasch tried to tell himself that the sight wasn’t attractive and failed rather miserably.

You have Durbe already. But there stood Thomas, blazing bright, with gleaming dark red eyes.

“What do you want here?” Nasch asked, fingers twitching. He knew his guards watched carefully; if Thomas made a move that he didn’t like, then he’d be a pincushion inside of a handful of seconds.

Thomas smiled. It was much like the smile of a shark. Normally Nasch liked those, but this gave off a different feeling.

“I’m here for the same reason as everyone else is.” Again he waved one flame-tipped hand. “This is a party. I even brought a gift for the new little princess there.”

Merag moved closer to Iris. It had been her idea to adopt the little girl, who now wrapped one hand around Merag’s, trembling. Nasch stood next to his sister, glaring sharply at him.

“What kind of gift are you talking about?”

“Why, just this.” Thomas twisted his hands and then held out a small gem to Iris. “This is a sunstone – a gemstone connected to the power of fire. It will always keep you warm, no matter how cold it is around you.”

“We don’t get cold weather here,” Merag said. “Why do you want to give her that?”

Nasch wondered the same thing. It never got that cold here. So what was he thinking about?

“She might not spend her entire life here,” Thomas pointed out, doing his level best to appear innocent, and not being very good at it. “But it also carries a powerful protective spell in general. You can throw it in the ocean if you don’t want it. But it’s hers – shouldn’t it be her decision if she takes it or not?”

Nasch glanced at Iris, whose attention focused on the sunstone. Thomas flicked his fingers again and now a silver chain hung from the gemstone. He offered it to her, and she reached for it slowly.

“Thank you, sir,” she murmured. “It’s beautiful.”

Thomas smiled. It was probably the most genuine expression that Nasch had ever seen on his face. “It’s yours, then. Slowly he moved forward. Nasch found himself tempted to alert the guards, but he didn’t. Maybe the fire-mage actually meant well. He was just an ass – it wasn’t as if Nasch himself wasn’t the same way sometimes.

He slid the chain over Iris’s neck, then stepped back, glancing at Nasch and Durbe. “I didn’t just bring presents for her.”

Again his hands flashed with fire that coalesced into two polished gemstones, both of them a reddish-brown, a great deal like Thomas's own eyes, along with flashes deep inside of red, orange, and gold. It reminded Nasch thoroughly of fire itself.

“I brought these for you two,” Thomas said. “They’re fire agate.” A twitch to his lips. “Would you like to know what these gems mean?”

Nasch started to open his mouth, but Durbe beat him to it. “They increase physical energy and stamina. Or so the stories say.” He rested one hand on Nasch’s shoulder, and Durbe suspected there was something more to those gems than just stamina.

“That they do,” Thomas agreed. “But I also added something else for them. When you want to see me, all you have to do is touch them and call my name.”

“Why would we want to see you?” Nasch wanted to know. None of the tension had faded since he’d entered the chamber.

“Oh, who knows. You might want to talk. Or something else.” Thomas smirked. “Now, I came all this way. I want something to eat. You do have refreshments, don’t you?”

Nasch crossed his arms. “I could use something myself.” And he would definitely want to make sure that Thomas still didn’t cause any trouble.

He wasn’t sure of where those gemstones vanished off to. Perhaps Thomas just made them disappear again. But perhaps it didn’t matter, as for the moment, the fire-mage seemed content to accept a plate of food and settle down to eat. Durbe and Nasch picked up their own food, while Merag had a couple of plates brought to her and Iris.

Thomas nibbled on one of the finger foods and sipped from his wine cup. “This is a very nice party,” he said. “Let me guess, you didn’t invite Vector either?”

Nasch didn’t question how Thomas knew Vector. Everyone knew Vector, whether they wanted to or not.

“Of course we sent him an invitation,” Durbe said, a quick smile over his lips. “It just didn’t invite him to this party.”

“Clever.” Thomas leaned backwards. “I’m surprised you didn’t try the same trick with me.”

“We didn’t know you’d even want to come,” Nasch admitted. The Arclight family had been considered for the guest list, but Merag hadn’t wanted to. Nasch suspected that she knew more about the scar on Thomas’s face than either of them were ever going to talk about.

Thomas rested one hand over his heart. “I should feel wounded. Why wouldn’t I want to come? Now, my brothers – Christopher is busy with Prince Kaito. I think they’re sending a present of their own. Michael is busy somewhere else. I couldn’t say where – he’s trying to collect some ancient treasure or something. His lips pursed. “I think he teamed up with the son of an adventurer. They’re probably going to be busy for a while.

He shrugged and nibbled more of his food. “But I wasn't doing anything and if you’d sent me the invitation I probably wouldn’t have bothered.” Again that fiery glint in his eyes and Nasch tried to avoid thinking about it. He knew very well he was doing a very bad job of it. “But you didn’t – so I did.”

Durbe took a deep drink of his own. “So you just showed up because you weren’t invited.”

“Yes.” Thomas admitted without a care. He tilted his head up. “I probably won’t stay long. Too wet around here.” He caught Nasch’s eye and grinned. “But you can always invite me back with those gemstones. They’ll only work if you both use them at the same time. I wouldn’t want to break the two of you – up.”

The pause between words had to have been deliberate. He licked his lips slowly, eyes still fastened on Nasch and burning with an intensity fit to evaporate the ocean. Nasch didn’t look away, not even when he felt Durbe’s hand closing around his.

He’s offering – is he? Nasch wanted to think he knew but this was the first time Thomas had ever stood face to face with him. Why would he make an offer like that? He couldn’t possibly mean it.

Durbe’s thoughts ran in the same direction. “You hardly know us. Why would you claim that?”

“Claim what?” Thomas needed a lot of practice if he were going to sound innocent but he certainly gave it a good attempt. “I said you could invite me back. What do you do with guests to your kingdom?” He waved both of his fire-tipped hands again. “Really.” He also tried to sound offended. He was much better at that.

Nasch refused to commit himself and concentrated on getting his dinner finished. The other party-goers ate as well, mingling and chatting amongst themselves. Nasch could hear a few whispers that seemed more or less wondering exactly what Thomas was up to. No one else dared challenge him, and Nasch wanted to believe they thought that he could handle the matter if necessary.

Once Thomas finished, he rose to his feet. “It’s time for me to go. But as I said, invite me back any time. Perhaps I could get used to your realm if I see it often enough.” He glanced to where Merag glowered towards him. “And a good day to you as well, Highness.”

In between one breath and the next, a column of fire erupted from his feet, and when it faded away, Thomas wasn’t there anymore. Nasch glanced at Durbe, who looked more than a little relieved at his departure.

“Later,” Durbe murmured. “After the party.”

Nasch agreed; this was something far better discussed behind closed doors. The party didn’t last much longer after that; everyone finished their food, bid Nasch, Merag, and Iris good night, and retired to their quarters. The celebrations would go on for another three days, and Nasch expected everyone would be exhausted by the end.

He hadn’t been in his room long before the expected quiet tapping came, and Durbe followed a breath afterward. He moved over to embrace his lover for a few seconds.

“Do you think he was serious?” Durbe wanted to know as they settled down on the bed. Nasch brushed his fingers through Durbe’s wind-roughened hair. He’d probably gone on a flight with Mach before coming over.

“I doubt it. But we can test him to find out if he is. He claimed he’d be a guest. Let’s show him what the real hospitality of the realm is.” Nasch smiled his own shark-like smile. “He’s a fire-mage. He should know it’s not wise to play with water or air either.”

Durbe regarded him for a few moments before he laughed. “You’re right.” He slid one arm around Nasch and pressed a kiss against the king’s lips. “But we can talk about that later, too.”

Nasch definitely agreed. Planning how to turn the tables on Thomas could wait until after he and Durbe relaxed enough to truly enjoy it.

On the table next to the bed, two fire agates gleamed.

The End

Notes: I couldn’t resist sneaking my new OTP in there (Ryou x Mizael) and I’m beginning to like the idea of Durbe/Nasch/Thomas as well. The sparks would fly in every direction!