#if anyone ever needed an in-depth character study of liam

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Texas relief, @doilycoffin donated $100, and requested Liam & Cordell Walker. Thank you for donating!

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(read on AO3)

One of Liam's earliest memories is the time Cordell dropped him on his head. Not actually accurate at all to the way it went but that's how it's told in the family mythology. He was really little, three maybe or four—for some reason that part's indeterminate—and Cordell was climbing the stable and playing adventurer, or maybe just showing off and the adventurer part was a good excuse. Liam was following Cordell around like he always did and he tried to climb up, too, on the fence that kept in the horses when they were let out for their run, and Cordell told him no and that he was too little but Liam was determined to try. Cordell climbed back down and tried to steady him where he'd made it up to the top rung of the fence, and Liam lost his balance anyway, and fell straight backwards and landed headfirst on the dirt. There was a little rock and then a lot of blood, and then stitches, and Mama fussing and their dad ripping Cordi a new one—Liam doesn't even remember that it hurt—but the part that sticks it as a memory is how they all rode together in the truck back and forth from the doctor and Cordell held his hand in the backseat and he was crying, the whole way home, a silent seeping kind of crying that made his face a shiny mess. Liam thinks about that weirdly often. Cordi looking out the window and crying.

When the story gets retold for new friends, or the kids, or Cordell's buddies from the Rangers come around for coffee and Mama's pecan pie, they tell it that Cordell's so clumsy he dropped his baby brother on his head. Liam sort of hates it, every time. Cordell laughs and does the aw shucks routine he's so good at, relaxed with his beer and shrugging embarrassed apology. When Liam was about to head off to college, his eighteenth birthday dinner, Daddy told the story again as a kind of miracle survival, and Liam got up from the table real fast and went out onto the porch, annoyed for some reason beyond measure. It was Cordi who got up and came after him and said, a little cautious, "What's up, Stinker?" and Liam said to him, mad, "Why don't you ever tell people it was me? I was the one climbing up after you. It's not like you did it on purpose."

Cordell just blinked at him. "What does it matter?" he said. "You were the baby and I was a dumbass kid. So what?" He hooked his arm around Liam's neck and he smelled like sweat and Old Spice and that laundry detergent Emily bought that wasn't anything like the one they used at home. Liam pushed at his side but didn't try hard to get away. Not that it would've worked. "It's how we figured out how hard that head was, right? Come on. Mama's gonna wonder if you didn't like the brisket."

Liam let himself be dragged back into the house, and Cordi pushed him down into his chair right between him and Emily, and Emily smiled at him easy, and passed him the potatoes. "One month 'til the dorms," she said, very quiet so no one else could hear under Cordell telling some awful lie about Liam having gas, and Liam laughed, surprised, and it just happened that it was the same time everyone else laughed so that was okay. He always liked Emily. Cordell punched his thigh lightly on his other side, and gave him a warmer more real smile, and Liam dropped it, and he didn't complain about the story again.

*

Seven years between them. Liam always wondered if he was an accident, even if Mama said that with Cordell going to school she was ready to have another baby around the house. Cordell was always the one who was getting into trouble. Rambunctious, loud, falling headfirst into things and getting dragged out covered in mud. Liam learned from his example what not to do. Do not: run along the bleachers at the football stadium and vault the handrails until your foot gets caught and you fall and snap your wrist clean in two. Do not: get caught drinking beer with your high school girlfriend behind the horsebarn, and make Daddy give the most mortifying sex talk in the world afterward. Do not: make friends with the most delinquent-ass kid in the whole hill country and wind up explaining every other week why, really, he wasn't that bad, give him a chance—

Somehow even then he was the golden child. Not the best grades, not the most obedient. That wasn't what their dad cared about. Cordell was good on a horse, good on his feet. Respectful when it mattered and devil-may-care when it didn't. In high school he was the quarterback, of course he was, and Liam was right there in the stands with their parents every Friday night, cheering his lungs out. Weirdly boastful with his fourth-grade friends: his older brother was the star of the football team. His older brother could ride a bull for ten seconds and get off hardly winded. Bookish, kind of short, he needed the borrowed glory of Cordell's success to be proud of. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it got him pushed over on the soccer field while some bigger boy went, gawd, William, who cares?

Liam never got in trouble. Never broke a bone. After bringing Cordell back from the hospital with a fresh new cast on his ankle and a dopey slightly-drugged smile on his face, Mama settled him in bed with Liam's help and turned off the light and then, in the kitchen, sighed and said, "Liam, you are a real relief to the mind, do you know that?" He was proud of that, too, in that moment. It wasn't until later that it nagged at him. A therapist asked him, much later in a sleek Manhattan office that smelled faintly of sage, "Do you think your predilection for being contrarian results from that time?" He went home annoyed with her, and was more annoyed when he told Bret the story and Bret didn't even turn around from the carbonara he was making and said, "Babe, you're the most contrary person I know."

He wasn't. He didn't—think he was. He… was, he realized, after a week of sitting with it, and a week after that it made sense. He didn't pick fights, and he didn't make waves. His rebellion was quiet. His hard head, forcing him to make his own space in the world. Not able to live up to Cordell and knowing instinctively that it would be awful even to try—and so taking the opposite turn, every time. It was better than being compared, even if he knew there was no chance but to be compared.

He studied hard. He read, all the time. He liked math and literature equally and did equally well in both. He hated P.E. but he did what he could there, too, and he learned to ride even if he didn't actually love horses the way the rest of the family did, and when Daddy asked if he wanted to join up with the little league baseball Liam asked to play soccer, instead, and Daddy frowned but Mama said, "Why not, I've seen enough boys drop foul balls for a lifetime." So, soccer, and most of his games were during the day or on Saturday mornings, but Cordi came to a lot of them anyway, and when Liam's team won Cordi would jump down onto the field and grab him up by the waist and crow David Beckham, right here! Little David Beckham for sale! Liam would struggle and then he'd be slung headfirst over Cordell's shoulder like a potato sack and his face would get so red from laughing that it hurt.

*

On September 12, 2001, Mama and Daddy were gone from the house when Liam got home from school and he was glad for it. That was a Wednesday. He was in sixth grade. The teachers weren't even trying to hold normal lessons and everyone was talking about what had happened the day before. Melissa Kettering was out that day and the rumor was that her dad had been on a business trip in New York. Liam had raised his hand and asked the social studies teacher if there was going to be a war, like there was after Pearl Harbor, and she sat down on her desk and shook her head and didn't answer.

He was trying to read his book for English when the phone rang. Cordell, calling from his apartment in town. Hey, buddy, he said, over the line, and Liam sat down on the floor by the phone table and closed his eyes, unaccountably almost about to cry. Is Daddy there? Liam told him he was home alone. Lucky, Cordi said, you can totally throw a rager, and Liam didn't laugh, and neither did Cordell, even though he always laughed at his own stupid jokes. Hey, um. I shouldn't—I don't know if I should tell you this but I've gotta tell someone, and Em's in class, and I just have to—I did something, and I need to—

He interrupted himself and Liam could hear him breathing over the line. He didn't want Cordell to say anything. If he didn't say anything then Liam could pretend that he was going to tell a story about some party they'd gone to at Emily's sorority, or that Hoyt had come back into town and they'd seen a show at ACL, or that he was gonna come stay that weekend, and maybe he and Liam would go riding. Anything but what he was about to say. Liam could hear it, in his head. He could hear it like it had already been said and it was echoing, now, inside, like a verse from a song he'd always, always remember.

Cordell graduated from the Marine boot camp on a Saturday in the middle of December. Liam went along even if he wasn't allowed to attend the actual ceremony and Daddy complained about the cost of the plane tickets until Mama told him to shut up. Liam sat between them on the flight and it was the first time he was ever in the air. Over the top of Mama's crossword book he watched the clouds go by over New Mexico, Arizona, with complete wonder. San Diego, then, different to Austin—palm trees, and the air so wet, and even the parking lot at their hotel smelling like warm flowers.

Mama gave him fifty dollars before they left for the graduation. They were bringing Cordell back, after, because they got one night with him before they had to give him back to the military. "Order a pizza," she said, "at 4:30 exactly, and we should get back at the same time the pizza comes so we can all eat together." Liam watched American Pie on the hotel tv while he waited, something he would never have been allowed at home. He made the call when he was supposed to, and when the girl on the phone asked him what toppings his mind went completely blank because he was never allowed to make that decision. Cordi liked ham and pineapple and none of the rest of them did. Liam ordered it with extra pineapple.

When a knock came on the hotel room door Liam jumped up to open it, cash in hand. The one holding the pizzas was Cordell, grinning at him with Mama and Daddy standing behind. "Pizza delivery," Cordell said, and Liam crashed into him for a hug so hard that Cordi almost dropped the boxes and said whoa, Stinker, soft and laughing.

His hair was cut off, an inch on top and shorter on the sides, so he looked like those pictures of their grandpa when he was in Korea. He was skinny, too, which Liam didn't get, because he thought boot camp was all about building up muscles. "Mostly running," Cordi said. He was tired, dark circles under his eyes. He was stretched out on one bed with his strange starched blue pants and the awful khaki shirt that made him look washed-out pale even if he'd been running around San Diego for thirteen weeks, and Mama was sat next to him squeezing his arm like he'd evaporate if she looked away for a minute, and even Daddy was hovering. Proud but worried. Liam sat by Cordell's boots and tugged on the laces, wanting to ask more questions but not daring to.

Cordi fell asleep before six o'clock. Daddy turned on the television real quiet to the news. More stuff about the invasion. Liam hoped it'd be all over by the time Cordi got there. Mama boxed up the remaining pizza, shaking her head. "Don't know why you picked pineapple, kiddo," she said, and Liam shrugged, sitting at the table, watching Cordell's face, turned away a little on the pillow. Liam wanted to shake him awake but of course he didn't. For his whole life, after, he gets a little sick to his stomach when he smells pineapple.

While Cordell was in Afghanistan Mama and Daddy had Emily over to the house a lot. She was sweet. Respectful of Mama, calling her ma'am half the time, and charming to their dad even though Liam knew that she and Daddy probably disagreed on more than things than not. She liked that Liam played soccer and asked if he ever watched the Premiere League. Liam didn't even know what that was. She helped Mama cook supper and went out and took pictures of the horses which made Daddy smile, and one time when Liam went outside after dinner to read she was there crying, on the porch, quiet with her hand over her mouth, and Liam hung back and didn't know what to say. "Sorry," she said, dashing at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. She licked her lips and nodded at his book, sniffing. "That's a good one. You should read the sequel, too." He did, and told her about it, and she smiled like a sunrise, the way she always did, and he felt like—he didn't even know, what he felt like.

Liam was the best man at their wedding. He felt and looked ridiculous. Fifteen in a tux and he didn't know how to tie a bow-tie, but Cordi didn't either, so Daddy had to do it for both of them, grumbling the whole time that they should've learned this by now. "Not a lot of bowties in Kandahar, Daddy," Cordell said, winking at Liam, and Liam—blushed. Ridiculous, and embarrassing, the way the whole affair and the lead-up had felt, but Cordell didn't seem to care or notice, so—there was Liam, blushing in a bowtie.

Cordell had only been back for a year and somehow things were off. He was serving the rest of his contract out in the reserves but he wasn't finishing up his degree like he'd told Mama he would. He'd entered the training program for the state troopers and was set up to be a highway cop, of all things. He'd rented a house in Austin with Emily and they lived together the whole year before the wedding—an argument with Daddy about that one, which Liam listened to from the hallway with his heart pounding—and they weren't even going to be married in the church because Emily didn't want a wedding mass and, Liam suspected, Cordell didn't either. Daddy lost that argument, too.

The wedding was tiny. Liam the best man, Geri the maid of honor. Emily's aunt that raised her on one side and Daddy and Mama on the other, and a handful of Cordell and Emily's friends making up the numbers in the little rented hall. Afterward they had a bigger barbecue out at the ranch and in front of the crowd Emily fed Cordell a dainty forkful of the lemon cake and Cordell responded by dotting a tiny bit of frosting on her nose and kissing it off, and Mama's best friend Sue-Ellen sighed and said to Mama, where Liam could hear, "Well, Abilene, maybe they're atheists but I daresay you raised that boy right every other way," and Mama said something dry back but Liam was watching how Cordell cupped Emily's cheek in his hand, smiling down at her like she hung the moon, and he thought, yeah. Yeah, Cordell was just about perfect, wasn't he.

"High school in the fall, right?" Emily's aunt said, later. "Emily says you play soccer. Going to try out for the team?"

Cordell and Emily were dancing, swaying in the grass, the bonfire leaping up behind them. His hand still on her cheek. "I'm quitting soccer," Liam said, without even realizing he was going to. "I'm going to try out for wrestling, instead."

*

He figured out he was gay relatively early. His friends at school got hold of a Playboy in fifth grade and didn't really know what to do with it beyond blustering. This was before anyone but nerds was on the internet, and Liam was a nerd but did a decent job of hiding it. Scott beckoned Liam over while they were waiting for the buses and showed him the top of the magazine, the bold logo and the girl with her boobs pushing up out of her bra—the group of them snickering, saying how hot she was—and that they were going to look at it at Scott's house later if Liam wanted to come over—and Liam said, "No, my mom's making me go to the store with her." The lie came out effortlessly.

They did have a computer at home, and dial-up internet it had been very, very hard to argue Daddy into. He hardly knew how to find anything but he did some careful searches while Daddy was out with the horses and Mama was cooking, singing bad over the stove like she tended to. Made Liam's face hot to see some of what he was seeing. Hoyt came over, once, while Cordi was away in the war, and he helped Liam and Mama dig out a bunch of tomatoes that hadn't grown in right, and afterward they sat on the porch drinking lemonade while Mama asked Hoyt all about the oil field he said he'd been working in and Liam watched how Hoyt's legs sprawled out on the porch, how his jeans hugged up against his calf muscle and how the sweat had made his white shirt nearly transparent, and he had to sit very careful on the bench with his knees drawn up to hide the effect it had on him.

When Cordell came home from Afghanistan they threw a huge party. Everyone came, Daddy's friends and Mama's, and Emily and their friends from college, and even Hoyt, magicked up out of somewhere (for the promise of free beer, Daddy said), and then Liam, the youngest person there, watching from the corner of the porch as always. Cordi was very tan and finally bulky with muscle and his hair had grown out, just a little, from that military buzz, and he barely detached himself from Emily the whole time, his arm always around her shoulders or hers around his waist, and when they did step apart his eyes followed her and she watched him right back, smiling at the most random times. Liam was fourteen and a little more aware of the world and he wondered abruptly if they'd had sex yet. Cordi had only been home one day and he'd slept at the ranch and not at Emily's apartment. How would they have found the time?

He was chewing his thumbnail over it when a sweaty weight crashed down on his shoulders, arms trapping his in. Hoyt. "Hey there, Stinker," Hoyt said, and Liam shrugged fretfully and said, "Don't call me that," and Hoyt laughed at him but stood up and ruffled Liam's hair completely backwards instead.

"Still pretty shrimpy," he said. He was grinning, like he had some big secret. "You planning on growing up anytime soon, champ?"

"Don't you have a sketchy job to get to?" Liam said, annoyed. He tried to fix his hair and gave it up as a lost cause the second Hoyt's grin got bigger. Asshole.

Hoyt sipped his beer. Twenty-one—he was allowed, although Liam had noticed that Mama was being a little free with handing out drinks to Emily's college friends. "Glad big bro's home, I bet," Hoyt said.

Liam didn't dignify that with a response. Hoyt laughed, under his breath, and held out the beer for Liam to take, which he did because he didn't know what else to do. "Go on," Hoyt said, nodding at it. "I won't tell your mama. Not fair that everyone else gets to celebrate while little Liam's sober. And boring."

"I'm not boring," Liam said, although he knew he was because half the kids at school clearly thought so. He took a sip of the beer, anyway, not knowing if Hoyt would snatch it away. Nasty, and he made a face that made Hoyt hoot, and then he took a bigger gulp, determined at least to get something out of it.

"There he goes," Hoyt said, weirdly delighted, and he clapped Liam on the shoulder the same way he would Cordi when they were in high school, and the bit of warm in Liam's belly went lower. "That's a welcome home."

Liam kept the beer, curled against his chest. He felt dumb holding it and also weirdly adult. "He's not even here," he said. Sort of scoffing. "Doesn't matter."

Hoyt curled his arm around Liam's shoulders again and ignored how he went stiff, and nodded out at the party. Music playing from a radio Daddy had set up on a truck-bed. Emily and Cordell, dancing in the firelight. Same as it would be for the wedding reception a year from then, although of course Liam didn't know that at the time. "Aw, he's here," Hoyt said. He squeezed Liam's shoulders. He smelled strange, like—skunk, and Mama's compost bin. It was gross but also kind of appealing and Liam shifted, hoping his dumb body wouldn't react. "He's just with his girl, and who could blame him. No call for getting jealous."

He wasn't jealous. Not—exactly. That night after Mama and Daddy went to bed the party kept on, and Liam went to his room and watched from the dark window, the bonfire still going and all the college kids still going, too. When he finally fell asleep he had a strange, blurry dream about Hoyt—building a bonfire together, and Hoyt smiling at him and being a jackass and then touching his face, the same way Cordell touched Emily's face, and then Hoyt touching his stomach, low—and then the dream shifted, the weird way dreams shift, and it was Cordell, touching his stomach, and smiling at him, and leaning in close—with his hair longer like it was before he enlisted—but wearing for some reason the dumb khaki shirt of his uniform—and then Cordell's hand—

When he woke up he was soaked and it was bright morning. He washed his underwear out in the sink, feeling like his head was screwed on to someone else's body, and then he hid the underwear in the hamper, and showered, and tried not to think about it. He had that dream or one like it on and off for years, until he finally lost his virginity to Michael in college and it went away. He never told his therapist about it, or Bret, or anyone. He could rationalize it but he couldn't ever acknowledge it out loud because of what it—felt like, to think about it. To make it real in a place that wasn't just his stupid, crazy, dreaming head.

He had the dream again the night before he came out to his parents. January 2nd, trying out his new year's resolution of honesty. He figured in a ruthless sort of way that if his parents kicked him out or hated him or tried to change him then at least he had early acceptance at UT for the fall and a full scholarship and it was just eight months where his life would be completely over.

Cordell was at home on the ranch and Liam figured that's what triggered it. A couple days of vacation, since he'd worked over Christmas, and he and Emily and baby Stella had stayed up for ringing in the new year, and everyone had taken turns kissing Stella's forehead when midnight struck. Liam had been allowed a glass of champagne, Mama not even fussing about it since it was a holiday and the house was full—so he had two glasses—and when he went to bed he could still hear Cordell laughing from the front room, telling Daddy some story about a bust on the highway, something about stolen Santa suits, something light.

He dreamed they were swimming, up at the lake, and Cordell was naked. Laughing, that same too-loud booming laugh, but just because he was happy and not like he was making fun. Being kind to Liam. Holding him from behind with his arms around Liam's chest, their legs slipping together in the water. Liam could imagine what it would be like for a man to do something to him, he'd seen porn by that point, and he'd seen Cordell naked too because of the vagaries of living in an old house without a lock on the bathroom door, but somehow there was still a disconnect in his head. He was turned on beyond belief but nothing—happened, just the vagueness of Cordell behind him. His big hands.

Mama took Emily and the baby in to town, that day, for shopping. Daddy said they'd just bought half of Macy's and Mama shushed him so Daddy was up at the barn, checking over the new foal. Liam sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and watched birds come to the new feeder Mama had got from Emily and he tried to rehearse it, in his head. What to say. He'd seen it in movies but it didn't feel possible to come out of his mouth.

Cordell sat by him, on the bench swing. "Since when do you drink coffee?" he said. Then, less casual: "Is that my mug?"

"Yes," Liam said, and didn't protest when Cordell took it out of his hands. He rubbed his palms on his jeans. He had a hard time talking to Cordi after he had one of those dreams and so it was a relief that most of the time Cordell wasn't around, that he was in town at the house he shared with his wife. With his wife, Liam reminded himself, as though that could help. Another thing to make Liam different. Wrestling instead of football, reading books instead of riding, and now—this, on top of everything.

"Whatever's going on," Cordell said. Liam blinked, came back to the world. The cold, and the swing barely rocking from how Cordi had set his boot on the porch and pushed, and Cordell looking at him very steadily. "You know you can tell me, right?"

Liam swallowed. "Even if it's—" Bad is what came to his mouth and he shook his head. He prayed about this, he resolved. It's not bad. "Weird?"

"If it weren't weird you probably wouldn't be being so weird about it," Cordi said, frank, and Liam shoved his shoulder. The dream dissipated just like that. How could he possibly be crushing on his brother when his brother is this much of a jerk. Cordell swayed, grinning, letting Liam push him even if Cordell outweighed him then by fifty pounds, but then he set his hand on the back of Liam's neck, more serious. "Whatever it is. We can figure it out."

Liam licked his lips, and nodded. He knew then that was going to tell Cordell the one secret, if not the whole of it, before they left the porch that morning, and Cordi would—back him up, with Mama and Daddy, even if he didn't get it. "Give me back the coffee," he said, and Cordell raised his eyebrows but passed it back, so Liam could take a gulp. The caffeine probably wouldn't help but maybe it wouldn't hurt, and it felt nice to hold the mug. "Promise you won't freak," Liam said then, even if he was—mostly, ninety percent, pretty sure—and Cordell said, immediately, "I promise," and Liam believed him. That was the thing, with Cordell, in those days. It was easy to believe him.

*

It's Mama who calls, when Emily dies. Liam's already in bed because he's got court in the morning and Bret shoves at his shoulder, says, "Oh my god answer it and then change your ringtone, I hate that song," and Liam's still fuzzy from sleep and doesn't quite process that there's no good reason Mama would be calling him after nine o'clock in Texas because she always thought that was bad manners, it had been drilled into him all his life, and he says, mumbly, still waking up, "Hey, Mama," and there's a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line before she says, Honey, I'm sorry, but I have real bad news.

He flies out the next day. Bret tries to dissuade him. "There's nothing you can do right now," he says, as though that's the point. JFK to Austin-Bergstrom is four and a half hours and he spends the whole time with his chest this weird achy knot. It doesn't feel real but it is. He texted Mama his flight plan and she says that Daddy will pick him up at the airport, and when he gets into the truck Daddy shakes his head and says, "Good to see you, son," but without any truth to it. Liam doesn't take it personally.

Cordell's not at the ranch when they get there but the kids are. "Hi, Uncle Liam," Stella says, remarkably clear, until he hugs her, and then she curls his hands into his shirt and cries silently, her shoulders shaking. August doesn't get up from the couch, sitting there with one arm crossed over his chest and the other over his mouth, and he looks—Liam's always shocked by it—so exactly like his mother. Stella's a copy of her grandmother, to the point that Mama set her prom picture side by side with Stella's first dance photo and the only real difference was the dress—but Auggie always took after Emily, from coloring to temperament to those long straight eyebrows, that mouth that curves up into a wide, easy smile. Not smiling now, and not for a while, and when Stella pulls away and wipes her eyes Liam sits down next to Auggie and sets his hand on the back of his neck and Auggie just folds over, quiet, like whatever was holding him up just isn't there anymore.

"Where is he?" Liam asks Mama, in the kitchen later. The sun's going down. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours.

Mama's eyes are red-rimmed. "Where do you think?" she says.

Liam takes the truck. Lady Bird Lake is officially closed at night but of course that makes no difference. He parks and walks, up to the lookout, and Cordell doesn't hear him coming. He's sitting on the steps to the gazebo, his elbows braced on his knees. The light hitting his hair. Long again. Liam doesn't know how he's always skirting regs and getting away with it, except of course Cordi gets away with everything. Golden child.

He regrets the thought as soon as he has it. "Cordi," he says, and Cordell looks up in complete surprise. Liam smiles at him, as much as he can, and comes and sits on the step. He tries to think of what to say and can't come up with anything.

"Aren't you in court tomorrow?" Cordell says, after they sit there for thirty seconds. His voice sounds thick and distant.

Liam shakes his head. "Today," he says, and Cordell nods and huffs and says, "Right," and then looks down at his hands again. They're twisted together, his thumb rubbing hard and repeatedly at the mount of his other palm. Liam reaches over and puts his hand over the knot of Cordell's fingers and Cordell's jaw flexes but he lets Liam do it. "I'm sorry," Liam says.

"Everyone is," Cordell says, halfway bitter. Liam squeezes his hands and Cordell makes a rough low noise, some sound Liam has never heard him make. "Jesus. They won't let me go in to work."

"Of course they won't," Liam says, and Cordell pulls his hands away, pushes them into his hair. "Cordi, they have to—they're going to be looking for who did it and it has to be by the books so it'll stick. They're not going to risk screwing it up."

"I just want to—" Cordell cuts himself off but Liam can imagine what goes there. He touches Cordell's back instead and the muscle flinches. Set to fly off the handle any second. Fight or flight, but Cordell never used to run from anything and Liam can't imagine he's going to start now.

He stands up. "Wrestle me," he says.

Cordell looks up. "What?"

Genuine surprise. At least it's not misery. "Come on," Liam says. "See if you can pin me." These jeans are nice, were a gift from Bret, but he'll sacrifice them. He holds out a hand and Cordell lets himself be pulled upright, and it's a shock like it always is when Liam's been too long away, how much taller Cordi still is. Liam always was the shrimp. He pushes Cordell's chest, lightly, and Cordell slaps his hands away. "Cordi," Liam says, coaxing, and pulls at Cordell's wrist. "Let me take your mind off it."

Stupid thing to say and he knows it as soon as he says it. Cordell gives him an ugly look and shoves him for real. "Take my mind off it?" he says, while Liam's staggering backwards. Liam sets his boots in the dirt and braces, and when Cordell pushes him again Liam grapples, and they are wrestling, then. It's sloppy, bad holds, both of them in too-slick boots for this ground. Liam manages to swing Cordell around and get his back on the ground but Cordi's always been stronger and shoves him off, and then they're just—flat-out scrambling, Liam's hand sinking into a patch of mud and both of them breathing hard, Cordell twisting out of his grip and getting an arm over his chest, tight, before Liam eels over and flips them—gets Cordell on his back on the dirt—his leg over Cordell's—and then Cordi drops his head back against the ground and taps out, panting.

"You been practicing?" Cordell says. His eyes are closed.

Liam sits up, says, "Class at my gym." Cordi nods and Liam gets off him, kneels next to him in the dirt. The gazebo's bright and the skyline's pretty, on the other side of the lake. Liam looks at that instead of at his brother, so he won't have to see the tears seeping down Cordell's temples, wetting his hair.

"It's not okay," Liam says. He sets a hand on Cordell's chest. At the DA's office in Manhattan he's comforted widows, widowers, orphans. Some of them seeking justice but most of them knowing it won't really be found. Cordell, he thinks, is one of the latter type, but Liam tries out the lines he's learned anyway. "It's not okay and it's not fair. I can't pretend I know what you're going through but I'm sorry." He swallows, his throat trying to close without his say-so. "Jesus. I'm so sorry, Cordi."

"Yeah," Cordell says, rough, and grips Liam's wrist. When Liam looks down Cordell's eyes are still closed. They stay there for a while, by the lake, long past when it's uncomfortable.

When they finally get up, Liam's knees creak like an old man's but Cordell doesn't make the joke he should. He leaves Cordell's truck and drives them both back into town, and gets drive-through Whataburger that Cordell picks at instead of eating, and says, "Do you want to go back to the ranch?" and isn't surprised when Cordell shakes his head, no. They get a hotel instead, two queens and a respectable mini-bar, and Liam calls Mama from next to the ice machine in the hall and says that he's got Cordell, and they're fine, and they'll be back in the morning. She clearly wants to object but doesn't know how and Liam hangs up before she can figure it out.

He gets back, with the ice. Cordell's sitting on the end of the bed watching the news like it's the Superbowl. "I was thinking about the funeral," Cordell says, when the door closes behind Liam. "I have to plan the funeral and I don't even have her body."

Liam sets the bucket on the bar and sits on the other bed. "We'll help," Liam says. Cordell's cheek sucks in on one side. "You don't have to do any of this alone."

"Yeah," Cordell says, remote, and Liam looks at him. Weird hollowness in his stomach and he realizes only after a second why: it's the first time, all his life, that he can remember Cordell lying to him.

*

The Rodeo Kings operation is supposed to be quick. Three months, is the estimate: to get in, to learn the operation, to get out. They need an agent who can be convincingly skilled as a traveling rider, who knows a ranch operation, who can act. There's a depressingly short list and one name at the top of it. Everyone thinks it's a bad idea except for Graves, and Cordell.

"It'll give me something to think about that's not this," Cordell says, when Liam's trying to talk him out of it. They're on the back patio of his and Emily's house in town. The kids are still staying out at the ranch. It's two weeks after the funeral and they haven't gone back to school. Cordell hasn't shaved in a few days and the sound as he scratches his jaw is loud. There's no music playing from the kitchen window, like there used to be. The plants out here are already dying. Liam wants to grip Cordell's shoulders, get in his face and yell, but doesn't dare to. He gets a deep sigh, instead, and Cordell flipping a poker chip between his fingers like a restless card shark, and then a smile, fake as fake. "Anyway, who do you know who can ride a bull better than me?"

"No one," Liam says, and Cordell nods, like damn straight, and in the morning Liam goes in to the Travis County DA and announces he'd like to transfer offices, due to a family emergency that's going to keep him here in Texas, and it's only afterward when some calls are made and the paperwork's signed that he calls Bret, back in Manhattan, and leaves a voicemail that he's going to be staying a lot longer than he thought.

It isn't three months. As the operation drags on, Liam sweet-talks his way into being one of the assistant attorneys on the case and he tries to alleviate how Graves is getting more and more suspicious. Cordell's old partner James gets promoted to captain, six months in, and he vouches for Cordell, too, not that it seems to matter either way. Cordell's the one who's embedded with the rodeo and he'll either finish the job or he won't. They don't have another agent to send in, not without compromising the work that's been done so far, and nothing else will do but to wait.

The kids ask Liam for updates every week when he comes for dinner at the ranch. "I can't tell you everything," he says, like he does every time, and Daddy's quiet at the head of the table, and Mama quieter on the opposite side. Cordell has a rendezvous every Monday when the rodeo takes the day off with a burner cell phone and an agent waiting impatiently for his call, and his reports are terse: still trying to get them to trust me. They're suspicious of newcomers. The ring seems really tight and I can't figure out an opening. Give me time. He's allowed to call Liam the same day and Liam answers every unknown number on Mondays, giving hope to spam callers nationwide. Cordell usually sounds tired but he still calls and they have a dumb, simple conversation—about how the Rangers beat the Angels, how he's breaking in some new boots and has a blister the size of Indiana, how he's craving, inexplicably, sushi. "Sushi?" Liam asks, trying to imagine when Cordell ever tried it, and Cordi says, with rare humor, "Hey, I'm not a big fancy New York lawyer but I've had my share of raw fish," and when Liam hands the phone over to the kids they lean over the speakerphone and talk over the top of each other about a class project Stella did, and a history paper Auggie got an A+ on, and Liam watches with his hand over his mouth for the moment when Cordell has to interrupt and say, tired-sounding still, "Sorry, guys, I have to go," and the goodbyes have to be quick, and then that's it, for another week.

The first time Liam sees him when he's Duke it's a shock to the system. Seven months in and the reporting agent says that Walker missed his check-in. Walker—that's what they all call him, even when Liam's in the room with them. There's a small frenzy in the operation office. Graves calls for Cordell's head, predictably at this point. James, trying again to calm her down, but looking a little like he agrees. Liam leaves the office unnoticed and walks outside to feel cold air on his face and feel less—how he feels—and there's a text, on his phone, from an unknown number. The Alibi, Driskill ST, thirty minutes. Come alone.

Ridiculously illicit. Liam takes off his suit-jacket and tie and ruffles his hair into something unprofessional and goes. It's hard to park—Monday night football—and inside is the opposite of his scene but he finds a seat at the bar. A girl in a too-tight orange t-shirt gives him a once-over and he smiles tightly, ignores her, drinks a watery beer, and almost exactly on the thirty-minute mark someone sits down next to him and it's—not his brother.

Duke Culpepper was the fake name they picked. Originally from Texas but had some misdemeanors that made Texas unfriendly so he'd been hiding out in Tucson for a few years, working the rodeo there. Not dangerous but willing to get up to something that was, and he looks the part. He smells like sweat and horse manure and hay and some shitty, awful aftershave, and there's a bruise on his jaw like someone suckerpunched him, and he doesn't look at Liam but smiles sweet at the bartender and says, with a fake low drawl, "Darlin', I wouldn't mind a shot of bourbon, when you have a chance."

Jesus, Liam thinks. The bartender has an expression like Cordell slid a hand down the front of her jeans and made her the happiest woman alive—the shot takes about ten seconds to arrive, when Liam's been waiting for a second beer for five minutes. Cordell knocks it back in one motion and says, "Again, and—" and he turns, like he noticed Liam for the first time, "another round for my friend, here. We're celebratin'."

She blinks, notices Liam's empty glass. While the next round's being prepared Liam raises his eyebrows and plays his part. "What are we celebrating?"

"Got a new job," Cordell says—but no—it's Duke, who's saying it, Duke who's drawling lazy and has his hat cocked at an off-angle and who's got a bandana tied around his wrist which for some goddamn reason is working the whole, hot-ass look.

"Congrats," the bartender says, and Duke grins wide and winks at her and downs the second shot, letting out a little whoop. "Another?"

"Better make it a double this time, sweetheart," Duke says, and Liam puts his hand on the warm lean stretch of thigh knocking against his under the bar and squeezes, very lightly, a warning, and sees Cordell's eyes tighten just slightly, and sees how his shoulders round out, like he's ready to get in a fight. Cordell takes a deep breath and toasts the bartender, but turns to look at Liam, face a grinning glad mask. "Got a new girl, too. Real pretty."

The bartender's disappointment would be funny, any other time. "Your lucky day, then, huh?" Liam says. Cordell's knee presses hard into his under the bar. "Girl got a name?"

"Miss Twyla Jean," Cordell says, almost crooning it, and Liam raises his eyebrows—he thought they had embarrassing Texas names—and then Cordell downs the double-shot, grimacing at the sting, and then says, much quieter so that only Liam can hear: "All it took was me making it eleven seconds on a bull and she took me straight to bed."

Liam takes a deep breath. Cordell's jaw flexes, in the silence, and he puts the empty shot glass on the bar. "Thanks for celebrating with me," he says, and slides off the barstool, backwards. He grips Liam's shoulder so hard that it actually hurts. "Gotta get back. Job won't do itself."

"Godspeed," Liam says, toasting with his beer, and Cordell gives him a tight smile and tugs his cap and walks out of the bar, taking with him the smell of the stables and his too-tight jeans and this sensation under Liam's gut that's murky and dangerous, unsettled. His shoulder hurts. It's only after he's written down Twyla Jean's name and texted it to James, and gone home to the apartment where Bret's still bitching about the décor, and taken a shower, and pressed his forehead against the cold tile, that he realizes that Cordell was wearing a fucking Texas Rangers cap. The absolute bastard.

*

The night he hears from Cordell again he has a fight with Bret. The same fight, worked over the same way. Bret hates Texas. He hates being away from his friends. He hates the politics and the food and how Liam's always with his family. He doesn't want to go to family dinner at the ranch because he's sure Liam's dad hates him. "He doesn't hate you," Liam says, for the fifth time, but to be honest he's not sure. Daddy never seems to like Bret that much, either. Cordi's never met him and Liam wonders, like he's wondered many times, if they'd get along, at all. Wonders if that'd be a dealbreaker and then wonders, washing dishes while Bret watches MSNBC in chilly silence, if the fact that he's wondering if it would be a dealbreaker makes it a dealbreaker, after all.

The text comes as a relief. Annunziata's. He dresses down more carefully than the first time. It's a weird spot, on the outskirts of town where it feels less like Austin than like a suburb. Karaoke and Italian food and mostly-fake cowboys slapping their knees to the absolutely horrific song being sung—very suburb. And there, at a table right by what passes for a stage: Cordell. But, no: Duke, Duke Culpepper, with his arm slung around the shoulders of Twyla Jean and his lips on her ear, grinning, wild. It catches Liam's breath like it did the first time. Duke, confident in his body and happy and having a good time, easy. Hot. Jesus, Liam doesn't get how it's so hot.

He waits in the backroom and watches Cordell shoves his face into the water. It's disturbing how panicked he is, once he's Cordell again and not Duke. "You have to," he's saying—babbling—"You have to tell them, they're going to kill people, you can't let them go through with it—" but of course that's not either of their decision and Liam can't help. It's awful, an awful awful feeling. His big brother looking to him for an answer he can't give. Cordell pushes his hair back from his face and puts his hat back on and looks miserable but he goes back, he sits right back down with that girl and lets her slide her hand down his thigh up the inseam of his jeans and Liam watches from the corner of the bar, where he won't be seen, drinking a beer he doesn't want, seeing his brother be someone who's not his brother. Maybe someone his brother could have been. They're going to sleep together, tonight. Liam knows it. They've been fucking for three months. Is it easy, he wonders. It shouldn't be, for Cordell, but maybe for Duke it is.

He goes home to Bret and wakes him up, and apologizes for the earlier fight, and kisses him, and gets Bret on his belly, and fucks him that way, a little hard, kissing the back of his neck, making Bret gasp and flinch and groan, delighted. "Where did that come from," Bret says, lazy and satisfied, and when he falls asleep Liam takes a shower and then only then calls James, from the hall outside their apartment door, leaning with his forehead against the wall. The bank location has been obvious since Cordell reported about Twyla Jean; the only thing that wasn't certain was the time. It'll be fine, James says, firm, and hangs up on Liam to coordinate with the rest of the team now that Agent Walker has finally come back in from the cold, and Liam stands there with his eyes closed in the hall and thinks, yes. Yes, it'll be fine.

After the bank—after the clean-up—Graves debriefs Cordell for a long time. It borders on unlawful interrogation at a certain point but Liam doesn't dare intervene when she's this furious—he can't risk being taken off the case. It takes James making a call to her supervisor at the field office, who then calls her and pulls her out of the room, for Cordell to be given a reprieve, and Liam goes in to the conference room and finds Cordell still in the stupid black hoodie stained with Crystal West's blood, his head in his hands, breathing with his mouth open like he can't get enough air.

"Cordi," Liam says, and Cordell shakes his head. Liam licks his lips and checks the hall. No one's guarding them—they wouldn't, because Walker's one of their own—and he says, "Get up." Cordell looks up at him, finally. "Come on, quick before she gets back. Come with me."

Cordell follows him. Down the hall, left to go through the atrium instead of the bullpen, then through the glass doors to the hall to, at last, the men's room, and Cordell stands in the middle of the tile blinking until Liam nods at the sinks and says, "Do it."

He's sloppier about it, this time. His hair hangs dripping in front of his face. He pushes it off his forehead and looks up at himself, in the mirror, panting a little. Water drips off his nose.

Liam brings him paper towels and he dries his face. "You should take that off," Liam says, and Cordell looks down at his clothes like he has no idea what he's wearing and only just realized, and tears off the hoodie in an awkward tangle. Underneath his t-shirt is black so Liam can't tell if it's stained. The big silver cross swings from his neck.

"What happened," Cordell says. A croak.

"Graves didn't tell you?" Liam says, and then bites his tongue. Obviously not. "Clint and Crystal are both dead. Clint at the bank. Crystal crashed the car. They think she passed out. Blood loss." Cordell nods, tight, looking away. These are his friends, Liam reminds himself. These are the people he knew, the only people he really talked to, for almost a year. "Two more people died at the bank. Twyla wasn't there and we don't have information to tie her to the job. I don't know where Jaxon is but we have people looking. They're still trying to recover the stolen money."

"Graves did tell me that much," Cordell says, and turns around, leaning his ass against the sink. It's slowly draining, behind him. "I think she wants to arrest me since she can't arrest them."

"I think so, too," Liam says, and Cordell smiles a little. He looks like he hasn't slept all year. "You did your job. It's over."

"It's not over," Cordell says, immediately. He drags his hand through his hair. "Graves made that clear. The money's still missing and Twyla and Jax are in the wind."

"And Duke's being sent to jail," Liam says. "So his part in the Rodeo Kings gang is over."

Cordell wipes his fingers over his mouth. He's still wearing that bandana around his wrist. Liam wants to take it off of him. Throw it away, burn it. "Duke Culpepper, common criminal," Cordell says, drawling it a little.

"Never liked him anyway," Liam says, and Cordell smiles, dropping his head. Liam touches his shoulder, grips his neck. "Hey. Means you get to come home. The kids will be over the moon."

"Yeah," Cordell says. He brackets a loose hand around Liam's wrist and nods. "Yeah. Can't wait."

His smile faded, as soon as Liam said it. Liam thinks about that, for that whole night, and for the whole next day, after, when James tells him that Cordell put in for one week's leave. "You talked to him?" Liam says, and James shakes his head, says, "He called Connie. I think he still doesn't even know I'm the captain."

He tells Mama and Daddy that Cordell will be home next Wednesday. Stella's frowning, not eating her dinner. "I saw that bank robbery on the news," she says. Auggie's big-eyed, watching, next to her. "Was that Dad's big case?"

"It was," Liam says, and Auggie's eyes get bigger. "But there's a debriefing period. We need to make sure his undercover identity doesn't have any loose ends that'll tie him back to his real one."

Daddy's eyes narrow and Mama's quiet. Liam got pretty good at lying, over the years, but he never was quite able to fool them.

He calls Cordell the next day. "Tell me where you are," he says, and Cordell doesn't answer for a long moment, letting the silence stretch out over the cell line. Liam considers it a victory that he even answered the phone.

He has a room at the Fairmont, on the fifteenth floor. Liam knocks and it's a minute before the door opens. Cordell's in bare feet, jeans, an ACL t-shirt. Liam follows him in and the room is—nicer than Liam's current apartment, that's for sure. King bed, outstanding view. "Wow," Liam says, and Cordell says, "Better than the Super 8 in Kermit," sort of sarcastic, and then sits down on the bed like he can't stand up anymore.

Liam doesn't sit. He doesn't think he's really invited, even if Cordell let him in the door. "I told them next Wednesday," he said. "Mom and Dad, and the kids. A week. Do you think that'll be enough time?"

"Honestly?" Cordell says, and doesn't elaborate.

There's a table, with four chairs, like a dining area. On it a box, like one of the evidence boxes from the office. Liam walks over and tips back the lid and: there's Duke Culpepper. The striped shirt he wore when Liam met him at Annunziata's. That was—god, only three days ago. A plastic bottle of aftershave. The cross necklace. The gun. Liam picks it up and checks the revolving chamber—that one bullet, still ready. It makes him nauseous just like it did the first time.

"I know you're probably not okay," Liam says. Understatement, he thinks, of the century. He closes the box and pushes it away, toward the center of the table. When he turns around Cordell's holding the beer in one hand and playing with a poker chip, in the other. "I know you're going to need some time. But when you're done, we need you back. The kids, and Mom and Dad. And me."

"C'mon, you don't need anybody, Stinker," Cordell says, with the barest thread of levity. "You climb right up to the top of the barn all by yourself, when no one's around to stop you."

Liam pauses, confused by the subject change. Surprised, then. "You were there for that?" he says, and Cordell shrugs, one corner of his mouth lifting.

When Liam was eleven, and Cordell was at college, and the world hadn't yet turned over on its head. It was early August and his school hadn't started, and Daddy and Mama had gone over to the feed store to pick up a truckload for the horses. He was bored, and tired of reading, and he'd gone out to the barn and looked up at it and thought about how Cordell had done it, at his age or maybe even younger, and if Cordell could then Liam could, too, if he set his mind to it. It wasn't even all that hard, once he was looking careful for the places to set his feet. He sat down on the top of the barn and looked out over the ranch—and further, over the where the road into the ranch pushed out into the hills, down toward the town. He wondered how far he could really see, to the horizon.

"Swung by to pick up my football stuff," Cordell says, now. "Em parked on the other side of the house and I didn't think anyone was home, until I looked out the back. You were up there just—taller than anything." He shrugs. "See? Didn't need my help after all."

"I wouldn't have climbed it if you hadn't dropped me on my head," Liam says, and Cordell snorts, shakes his head. Liam bites the inside of his cheek and crouches, and Cordell's forced to look at him or be ridiculous and so Cordell looks at him. Liam reaches out and gets his hand, the hand with the poker chip, and squeezes it, and Cordell swallows and squeezes back. The edges of the plastic bite into Liam's hand. "Come back," he says.

Cordell takes a deep breath. "I will," he says. "I promise, Liam."

Liam stands up and hugs him, around the shoulders, and walks out of the room. He takes the elevator back to the lobby and steps out into the sunshine, and takes a deep breath, and calls Bret to arrange lunch. Cordell's promises.  Fifty-fifty, anymore, that it ends up being true. Liam decides to believe him. He's hardheaded. He might as well be hardheaded and optimistic about it.

[cordonian-literature]

Forever Mine

chapter six

❦ summary — The time for Princess Riley to step into her role as queen fast approaches and finding the future king is Cordonia’s top priority. Commander Liam is aware of that, and has plans to make sure the princess ends up with someone suitable.

➺ chapter warnings: smut, manipulation, slight degrading (??)

❦ catch up here!

➺ word count: (+/-) 2120

*all characters belong to Pixelberry, except those unique to my story*

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Walking to the Commander's office alone was a bad idea. Even worse considering that it was past midnight. But Riley couldn't help it; nor could she hear the voice in her head telling her to stop over the thundering in her ears.

Maybe she should have gone to Drake instead, or even Maxwell. Even Olivia would have helped.

She wears slippers and a gown, one that wasn't appropriate in case someone saw her. The lights of the guest bedrooms she passed were on, she could hear some maids and guards in the distance; there were too many chances of her getting caught, yet her feet still led her down the cold hallway.

Leo had sent her a text an hour ago, telling her that he finally came back from his day's activities and that their father was upset. She could walk to her father's office and say what she needed to tell Liam. Or she could even walk to Leo's room, her older brother wouldn't push her away, would he?

But her feet kept moving. She had put on the wrong shoes before leaving her room: she hadn't worn these in more than a year, and they were a size too small. The cold floor stung the heals of her foot every time she took a step. Riley longed for the warmth of the library fireplace, the softness of Liam's fingers, his gentle embrace.

But that wasn't what she was going to him for. Yes, she was lonely, and yes, she wanted some company, along with some validation that she had done a good job today, but she was going towards the Commander's office to complain about one of her suitors. Riley knew that out of all the people she'd tell about her grievance, Liam was the one who would take action.

She doubted that Leo wanted to help her with anything that had to do with the season, and she knew that her father would tell her to bear it and stop complaining. Drake and Olivia's intimidation tactics wouldn't work to drive away someone she didn't want around, and Maxwell's family was slowly losing significance, so he couldn't help either.

But Liam, Liam could. Riley knew. Out of all the people in her circle, he had the most power. He wasn't self-absorbed like her father, he didn't avoid responsibility like her brother, he isn't afraid of the spotlight like her. He'd be the one to take action.

Since before the season began, she had dreamed up hypothetical situations in which she, in a flurry of emotion, didn't wish to marry any of the men who presented themselves to her, and she would run to Liam to tell them to go away.

It would be perfect for both of them, wouldn't it? There wouldn't be another power-hungry man near Constantine trying to take Liam's position away from him, and there would be no one controlling Riley. It would be perfect for both of them.

The belief that Riley was doing the right thing, not only for herself but for Liam, too, gave her the confidence to open the door to his study.

Her eyes land on unruly hair that had been perfectly styled this morning, hunched over stacks of papers, pen in hand with ink staining his long fingers.

She didn't move from the entryway, forgetting that there was an open door behind her, listening to the pen scribbling away on paper. The Commander had missed the day's festivities and was still working? Riley couldn't imagine the stress he carried on his shoulders, visibly weighing him down.

"Commander?" she calls as quietly as she can.

He looks up at her, but she cannot make out his eyes from such a distance. She walks up to him slowly, remembering why she came. Tears form in her eyes from the frustration, though her voice is steady when she says, "I wish to talk to you about—"

"Princess, please," he soothes, standing up to brush tears from her eyes. He leans closer to her, and Riley shivers when she feels his breath on her cheek. "I'm busy right now, darling." Another shiver shakes her spine. "I'll meet you in the library in twenty minutes."

He sits back down and she is left staring at the top of his head again. Riley only moves when she hears footsteps from outside the room, prompting her to dash towards the library.

When she reaches the library, Riley makes sure that it is empty. She checks her phone and finds messages from her brother and Drake asking where she is. Her heart thunders in her chest, running wild with excitement that Liam will join her shortly. She doesn't want anyone interrupting them, so she tells Leo and Drake that she's reading a book in the library, and warns them not to bother her.

She takes a seat on a desk near the fireplace, thinking of how to introduce her complaint to Liam. How would he react to her words? Would he call her childish, think she overexaggerated or misunderstood? Would he laugh at her? She loved making Liam laugh but knew that if he ever laughed directly at her, she would cry in front of him.

And even though she doesn't want to show Liam any tears tonight, a dull sense of dread rises in Riley's chest and stops her breath. How much longer did she have to endure this? Why did she have to suffer through unsolicited comments, not only by the men and nobility who participated in the season but all the reporters who spoke to the world?

She wanted it to stop, it was too much. She felt disgusted with herself that she prefered to go back to the life where she didn't have to worry about anything; other people would do that for her. She wanted to go back to the sweet noble life.

The library door opens and she spins around. Liam's hair is still out of place, and his military coat unbuttoned. She can see the shirt that usually stretched under his muscles, now hanging untucked and lose from his slouch.

She doesn't want him to see her tear-stained face, so she wraps her arms around him and buries her face in his chest, pleasantly surprised by the smell of lime and jasmine.

His calloused fingers come to rest at her hips, and she can feel the depth of his voice in his chest as he says, "Tell me what happened."

"Lord Michael..."

She only manages to utter his name before he speaks up again, "Say no more, I'll get rid of him."

"Please don't do something rash."

"I won't, darling. I'll make sure he's gone by morning."

She feels his attempt to move away from her, but Riley wraps her arms tighter around him. "I missed you today," she states, without realizing the weight of her words.

Liam doesn't respond. He looks down at her, the scent of lavender shampoo filling his nostrils. His fingers tighten their grip. Riley gives a soft whimper but doesn't protest.

Should he let go? Leave and return to his office? Stay and comfort her? What type of comfort did she need? He was stressed enough as it is, but he didn't want to leave his darling alone.

"Come here," he says into her locks, leading her towards a reading chair. There was only one chair, and when he sits down she continues to stand, looking around for another seat.

Liam, lacing his fingers through her's, gives Riley's hand a gentle pull, motioning her to sit on his lap. He expected her to pull away, every voice in his head told her that she better do the proper thing and move away, go grab another chair.

But after a moment of hesitation, Riley sits between his knees, taking the time to wrap her legs and arms around Liam's back. She tucks her head into his neck and takes a deep breath, while Liam's breathing quickens.

"You had all those men around you," he reminds her, feeling her breath catch in her throat, "and you still missed me?"

He hears a soft hum in his ear and continues, "Cordonia's greedy little princess."

Riley's face heats up from those words, but she doesn't move. Nor does she stop the Commander from moving his hands below her gown or grinding his hips against hers.

Through all that, the princess slowly lifts her head to let her eyes meet Liam's. Their breaths getting faster as they stared into each other, trying to find an answer or queue.

Liam wanted her to pull away, while Riley, unsure of herself, wanted him to continue. She had no idea what she was doing, but her heart had never moved this fast or felt this warm, she never before had wanted a man to tell her that he loved her. So she let him continue.

With his hands on the underside of her thighs, Liam stands and walks her over to a desk, lifting her gown off of her as he places her down. Riley doesn't want the Commander to look at her body, so she gently pushes her lips against his.

Liam instantly regrets his decision, but she doesn't pull away so he continues.

Riley's insides burn with shame, but he doesn't scold her, so she moves to help him undress.

Pain and pleasure break through her as Liam tells her to lie on her back and greedily thrusts into her. She holds her hands against her mouth, forbidding any sounds to escape. Meanwhile, Liam's filthy words feed the pleasure and shame inside Riley.

He grabs her wrists and holds them over her head. She struggles to hold in moans and tears, wanting to scream from the way he was pushing into her with the intensity of a man who had long been deprived of sexual gratification.

Panic and fear build in her chest after a knock at the library door. Liam doesn't turn his head or slow his pace.

"Princess?" a voice comes from outside the door. Riley hopes that they cannot hear what's happening. "The royal secretary has been searching for you." Riley recognizes the voice, it was her handmaid, Maria.

"Princess Riley," the royal secretary speaks out. "Your father is requesting your presence. He understands that it is late, but the issue is urgent. Prince Leo told me you would be here."

Frantically, Riley turns to Liam and squirms, wanting to release her hands from his grip and push him off of her, but his fingers tighten around her wrists.

"Go on, princess," the hulking man prompted in a hushed, sultry tone. "Answer them."

"I... I'm okay!" she manages to belt out, just before his thrusts increased tenfold.

Riley felt blood on her tongue from how hard she bites down on it. She tries desperately not to release the hot flurry of moans that wanted to spill from her lips. The metallic taste flusters her more.

The pleasure Liam causes is enough to make her head spin. The way he curves toward her cervix, hitting a spot just near it with every pound, made her see stars. Riley fears that she may soon give away her and the Commander's compromising position if he didn't stop.

"Please," she sobs quietly, to which he responds with a dark chuckle in her ear.

Liam had been waiting so long for this. Why would he stop now, when he had her exactly where he wanted her since they had first met? She was enjoying him. She was accepting him.

"Does my little girl want to cum?" he taunts. "After teasing me like a little whore for years?"

It was what she needed that moment, but she was more concerned about the people outside the door entering and seeing her like this. She wanted the release. She wanted this. She wanted Liam, or at least in this moment, she believes she does.

Nevertheless, she didn't want anyone to witness her in such a vulnerable state beneath him. She didn't know what would happen. Worst of all, she didn't know what Liam's fate would be, once her father discovered his treachery.

"Ah... ah, the... d-door."

"Do it before they decide to check on you, because I won't stop.

And she believes him, because this isn't the sweet, caring man she knew. This is someone who wanted nothing more than to dominate her. This was someone who had been wanting to do this.

All those fleeting glances and touches, had they been precursors to this? But the thought was lost as he brought her to climax around him, and only then did Liam begin to worry about who was still at the door.

✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧✦✧

a/n: okay y'all i've never written smut before and i know this is really bad so please don't judge. I told myself i would never write smut. but i had to do it for the plot🤌🏻 anyways i hope y'all enjoyed this lol

@twinkleallnight @gkittylove99 @sweatyrysconnoisseur @kingliam2019 @queenrileyrose @royalromancer @princess-geek @mom2000aggie @claireloutoo @tessa-liam @21-wishes @yourmajesty09

[mrswalkerwritesagain]

no. 50 from the cliche prompt for Liam x Bea. Maybe liam is the one who is scared, i think that suits his character. But do whatever you want to do tbh, everything you do is great and i will support and appreciate that! ❤️

Hello, Nonny! This fic explores an idea I’ve had for a while about the future of Cordonia and King Liam and Queen Bea. I hope you like it! 

“What a day,” Bea mutters to herself as she walks down the long palace hallway. She carries her heels, swinging from the tips of her fingers, in one hand and uses the other to open the door to the Liam’s private study. 

The press conference was hours ago, though it feels like an eternity, and she’s been fielding requests for interviews and comments via her harried assistant ever since. Liam’s day could only have been 1000x more difficult than hers. They both knew today was going to be very long, but Bea is utterly exhausted as she steps into the study and looks for her husband. 

Liam is sitting on the leather sofas that sits across from the river stone fireplace. His handsome features are cast in shadows from the dwindling firelight and it accentuates the sharp lines of his jaw and cheeks. He’s staring blankly out the window at the gardens, his mind clearly elsewhere. His hand is curled around an empty glass that rests on the chair’s arm. He doesn’t seem to notice her approaching until she softly calls to him.

“Li?”

When he looks up at her, Liam tries to smile, but it’s empty and there’s deep sorrow in Liam’s dark eyes. It’s a look he’s sported often in the last months, but that does little to lessen the way Bea’s heart clenches when she sees it. She knows better than anyone how hellish the last few months have been for him.  

Standing in front of him, Bea runs her fingers through the graying hair at Liam’s temples. It usually lends an especially dignified air to his countenance, but tonight he just looks tired, weary and worn down. Liam wraps his arms around her waist and brings her close to him with a heavy sigh, resting his head against her stomach as she continues to try and soothe him. 

“It was the right choice,” she says quietly. 

Today was the day they’d announced to their people and the world that going forward Cordonia would become a constitutional monarchy. It was a decision that had been years in the making. They’d enjoyed a long stretch of peace and growing prosperity after their wedding, but it hadn’t been long before there were rumblings in the kingdom. The people of Cordonia wanted, had demanded democracy and eventually it become clear that they would have it by any means necessary. 

It had been a long fought battle with the council and the nobles to make this happen. Liam had worked so hard and he’d wrestled with this every single day as he’d tried to juggle what was right for the monarchy, what was right for the people, what was right for their nation.

“Was it right, though?” Liam asks, lifting his head to look up at Bea. His eyes search hers for reassurance. “I’m not so sure. The reactions in the media have been mixed to say the least and the council…”

“The council,“ Bea interrupts him gently, “only cares about the fact that they’re losing their power to the people. You know that. They’ve made it abundantly clear that, with very few exceptions, they’re only out for themselves. This was the right move.”

“I hope you’re right,” Liam sighs again. He pulls her down into his lap and buries his face in the curve of her neck. The slight stubble on his cheeks scratches her skin and the scent of his cologne wafts up to her. Bea presses a kiss to his forehead as Liam intertwines his fingers with hers, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. 

“I’m just afraid that I’ve left them all down. I’ve...I’ve...“ Liam hesitates, voice dropping to a broken whisper. “I’ve lost the crown, Bea. Generations of Rys monarchs stretching back to the age of Queen Kenna herself ends here with me. I’m the one who couldn’t hold our country together. My legacy is the king who failed them all.” 

“Hey,” Bea chastises him gently and lifts his head until he meets her gaze. There’s a sheen of tears in his eyes, unshed but there nonetheless. She doesn’t know when she’s see him so despondent.

“You haven’t failed anyone,“ Bea tells him firmly. "I know and I understand how it might feel that way, but, Liam, you’ve led Cordonia through some of its most tumultuous times - through usurpers to the throne, through terrorist attacks, through so much. This choice isn’t you failing…”

"It is though,” Liam smiles sadly. “You don’t have to patronize me, darling. I know that I let this happen. If it was my father or my grandfather…”

“Your father and your grandfather wouldn’t have had the strength to make the choice you have,” Bea says even as he looks back down. She raises his head again, refusing to let him look away and desperate for him to understand, “It wasn’t failure or weakness that led you here. It was strength.” 

”That is your legacy, Liam,“ Bea cups his face in her hands, running her thumbs over the faint lines that crease his skin. A glimmer of light sparks in the depths of his eyes. "Your legacy will be the courage to preserve your country and let it grow and change. You took yourself out of the equation. Do you know how amazed I am by you? You didn’t let your position or title or anything else stop you from doing what’s best for Cordonia. If you’d fought them like the council wanted or waited too long, all you would have done is thrown Cordonia into a civil war. I know you may not feel like it right now, my love, but you saved Cordonia.”

Liam slides his hand up to cradle the back of Bea’s neck, bringing her forehead down to meet his for a moment before he kisses her soft and slow. Bea sinks further into his embrace, returning his kiss with no urgency, only comfort and all the love she can. When they part, Bea curls up in Liam’s embrace and he holds her close until the drowsy pull of sleep starts to overtake her. 

“Thank you,” Liam whispers and Bea tilts her head back to look at him. A faint smile plays at his lips. It doesn’t quite meet his eyes, but it’s there and Bea feels a bit of hope that they’ll find their way back to a peaceful, contented life even if it looks a lot different than what they’ve known. 

“I may need more reassurances over the next bit of time,” Liam says. “I hope you’re up for the challenge.”

“Being there for you is never a challenge, my dear king,” Bea tells him honestly.

“That’s another thing. I won’t be a king except in name. You came across the world, left your country and your family, weathered threats and dangers to marry a king…”

“I married Liam,“ Bea tells him and Liam smiles fondly at her. "I married the man I love and I have never regretted a moment of the last 20 odd years and I won’t regret a moment of what happens after today or tomorrow or any other day in the future.” 

[fatedroses]

Faustus’ Story

Alright, because @lunarpaps asked for me to go into more detail behind the changes I’ve made for this characters story.

I’m going to make one, albeit long, post going through the timeline and actually have this written out for anyone curious on this characters story and how at least for my canon he fits into the world as a whole.

Alright, starting off are the major changes I’ve made in terms of the story I’ve already written and posted on here, or may have referenced. I may end up linking on an oc page or something similar to this post, and after I get this posted I will most likely end up drawing snippets of the events, cause this also inspired me to do so anyways.

Changes, and anything that I forgot will be added in a reblog later on:

With Liam returning for this version, Hugrim, and most of the decisions involving him, is going to be with and between him and Sarath. This is better just because him and Sarath have better chemistry with each other, and I’ll eventually get around to their stories after I get them more solidified. I’ll admit that writing the initial relationship between him and Faustus just didn’t seem to flow the way I wanted it to, and that I’m more satisfied with this direction, and it lets all of them get a happier ending.

Faustus is more of an emissary and ally to the Vanguards rather than an outright leader, I want his position as a Greyguard to be more relevant to his character and therefore Felicity is going to take his older role in the council of the Vanguards, a better fit considering her role in the Kirin Tor and her relationship with Praeragos. I guess Faustus technically takes the role as one of the adventurers due to his interactions with Genn and his tasks often delivering messages and running errands, but whatever.

Because Faustus would in turn be spending more time both between Darnassus and Stormwind, and later Kul Tiras, when he isn’t on any assignments because of his position, I plan on him having more interactions and development with Anduin, Mathias, Varian, etc. I’ve been able to affirm to myself that it’s alright writing dynamics between these characters, cause I’m a dweeb and steered away from that for whatever reason. 

In turn I get to explore his reaction and interactions to the events that happened, both that he was and wasn’t there for. For example him traveling to Northrend with Felicity and a few others to learn of what happened as a person alongside his team, from a bystander’s point of view in his off time with the Vanguards. To then participating in the search for Anduin during MoP, as an active member of the alliance and as someone who would’ve went searching for the missing prince regardless of his allegiances or not. By originally putting him in a situation where he had to be in a consistently neutral environment it made him going out into these new situations difficult to write for, as it made trying to get the information for these places hard to actually write in a way that made sense.

Now seen with the “Dynamic Duo” piece that was posted before this post, Faustus’ affinity for magic and the situation with being a spellblade/mage-rogue combo is going to be something that took effect far earlier in his story. With him and his brother, and in turn his mother and his father respectively, the boys took after their parents, with Faustus showing traits of magical prowess while Pheles showed traits of druidic prowess at an early age. After the fire Faustus then later gets training on magic from Felicity, her parents, and Ashton, and he specializes in Ashton’s practice of magic which is close ranged, portals, and enchantment. However in most cases he’s on active duty he tends to focus on using it for teleportation and avoiding the long ass boat rides when he has the ability and energy to. Speaking of Pheles, I’m leaning towards making the two twins, just because the year difference really doesn’t make too much of an impact and this fits a bit better.

Krennan takes Faustus in as an adopted son rather than having him just kinda stick around the castle like it was previous planned/implied. It gives me an excuse to give Krennan more attention due to the fact I was already interested in the character beforehand. It also gives Faustus the opportunity to build his relationships with the royals and Felicity more organically than it was before.

The story behind Faustus losing his arm has been tweaked, but that’ll be explained more in depth during the story section of this post. I also plan on redrawing the pieces that went with it as well. Hex is still the main antagonist of that arc, and it’s still a decisive sacrifice Faustus makes, it’s just the events beforehand and afterwards are a bit different.

————

For the sake of having this all in one place, I’m also going to have the entire story written out. When I tagged this as a long post, I meant it. I might tweak a few things in the future, but this is what is what I’m running with for the time being. This also includes the story of his parents due to their relevance in setting up the events that happen later on.

Story:

Parents and Childhood (Ages 0-10):

Born to Ilaise and Cedius Erthwal, Faustus and Pheles’ life started out rather average, and they were planned to be raised in Gilneas. Ilaise, born and raised in Gilneas herself met her husband Cedius during a trip to Boralus. The druid was taking his monthly trip to the market for supplies to aid in his research over the cycle of regrowth and decay, driven by his fascination with the Cenarion druid circles spurred on by an encounter with Sarath as well as other traveling druids. Ilaise herself was working alongside Ashton Wythers, another mage of the Kirin Tor, in finding the limits of their magical ability, and was known in her own town of Emberstone as a rather renowned hunter that earned her a friendship with Mia before the would be queen was courted by and got married with Genn. In learning of each other’s studies they hit it off, eventually leading to Ilaise offering to bring Cedius to Gilneas, which he heartily agrees, wanting to get away from Drustvar due to some history, and family, the druid wanted to get away from. 

However Cedius, in his move across the seas, was still going to need a decent size of land to continue his studies. Thanks to Mia granting them a closer audience with both Genn and his father, they were granted a section of land, a farm estate that was to be built by the two north of the city, given their own resources of the forest and whatever land they needed, so long as any food and lumber grown was produced in benefit to Gilneas and her people. Cedius took this offer gladly, as the efforts of mass regrowth of crops and ensuring that it didn’t negatively impact the areas surrounding it was a part of his research. Genn, in his curiosity in seeing that if this plan would work, brought him to investigate it frequently, eventually leading to his cordial friendship with Cedius.

As the years went on in this arrangement, in both his relationship with Ilaise and the regrowth project on the farmland, went well. Him and Ilaise got married after Ilaise returned from aiding the other human settlements against the first horde, lending her duties over to her colleague Ashton who took her place fighting so that she could settle down and eventually have Faustus and Pheles with Cedius, an act she was greatly thankful for. Genn and Mia, busy with raising their own children, and with the situation regarding the surrounding kingdoms, found themselves being able to visit their friends less and less, though they were able to visit each other during the birthdays of their children.

The brothers themselves found friendship in each other and the other children of Emberstone, which was nearby. They had met the Greymane siblings beforehand, but due to the distance and the ever nearing conflicts they didn’t really have the opportunity to get to know each other well. Faustus found at a young age that he had an affinity for the arcane trying to save a vase that tipped off the table. This was much to his father’s amusement having to leap after his son and the vase to actually save the situation, only for Ilaise to run in with a very confused dirt covered Pheles from their trip to their own private garden, discovering that the boys had the affinity of the opposite “preferred parent”, a joke among the two. This led to the boys getting some rather rudimentary training alongside their education, turning the rather mischievous pair even worse in their tricks as it helped Faustus honed his ability to blink short distances, which made him almost impossible to catch, and Pheles had a rather special focus on growing roots that often led to Cedius tripping and landing face first in the dirt, as well as jumpscaring both parents as he found his natural talent in the bear druid form.

Unfortunately Cedius’s history ended up catching up to him as his brother, known only to others as Hex, had hunted him down to Gilneas alongside several members of the cult. With Hex’s intention to either force his brother to use his druidic prowess in strengthening the reach of the blighted lands back in Drustvar and bringing about the return of Gorak Tul, or die. He started a fire at the base of the house, which was first discovered by Pheles, who ran to get his father to alert him about it. With the aid of his accomplices the fire spread quicker than usual, making it difficult for Ilaise to try and put it out as everything she tried to do only seemed to come back tenfold. This only got worse as the roof started to collapse, which ended pinning Faustus under a beam. Cedius had went off to try and find the source up until he encountered his brother, refusing his offer almost immediately and trying to call upon some wicker constructs to defend himself, and while Ilaise had managed to keep the fire from burning Faustus, he was too panicked in his young age to try and blink out from the debris until Ilaise was able to lift the beam a bit and Pheles pulled him out. As they tried to escape the house Ilaise pushed the boys away from more falling debris, sacrificing herself and getting herself pinned so that the two could escape by Faustus blinking both of them away, and they started to run to get help. Hex elected to leave his weakened brother to his colleagues to chase after the boys, believing that if they were in immediate danger Cedius would agree. Instead Cedius watched on as Pheles tripped Hex with roots along the dirt path, knocking his mask off so that they could both run away and so that Faustus could nail Hex in the nose with a rock, catching him off guard so that Pheles could attempt to carry his brother off on his back. One important piece that both Ilaise and Hex didn’t realize was that Pheles had taken his father’s very important research journal with him as well.

This only enraged Hex more, knowing that even if his colleagues succeeded in their attempt to now assassinate Ilaise and Cedius that the brothers would become issues later on. So he gave chase. Pheles found that drawing the pyromancer into the city was a bad idea, and threw Faustus off his back, electing to attempt to maul Hex’s legs before running off in another direction, while Faustus ran off in another direction. Hex went after Faustus however, as he was still injured by getting pinned. Pheles ran off towards the harbor, catching the attention of one of the Kul Tiran vessels that had their own druid working up in the crows nest. The crew took Pheles in, and sent their druid to go help his brother. This druid, Silvio, managed to catch up to Hex, clawing at his face in his bird form and giving Faustus enough time to run into the city of Gilneas and hide before Silvio himself flew off, leaving Hex to deal with his wounds and return to the burning home before he could manage to get caught by any city guards sent his way.

Hex and his colleagues made sure that Ilaise and Cedius were dead before returning to Drustvar, not knowing however that before their deaths they had bound themselves to the hearth, making their spirits remain on Azeroth and defeating their purpose of making them useless in death. Pheles joined the crew on their voyage back to Kul Tiras, much to the captain’s chargin but that aside he would eventually be taken to Ulfar by Silvio to learn the ways of the Thornspeaker, and gave Pheles an opportunity to learn more about his father from his old teacher before eventually returning to that vessel to join the captain in learning to become one. Finally Faustus went into hiding, becoming paranoid that Hex would be able to find him again, or that those around him could give him up to him, and isolated himself, finding his life as stealing food from stalls and blinking away before anyone noticed and hiding away in the empty unused water pipes that surrounded the city. Genn was alerted to the fire by his guard, leaving Liam and Tess in the care of Krennan before they went to investigate, only to find the home and farmland in ash, all of Cedius work was gone, and the now-king himself found Ilaise and Cedius inside the home, hand in hand with each other, and realized as because he couldn’t find the boys that they were still out there somewhere.

Adolescence and the Greyguard (Ages 10-25):

Faustus spent a couple months in hiding, avoiding anyone he deemed as untrustworthy, which due to his paranoia from the entire situation beforehand and being separated from his parents and brother, was just about everyone. Genn, Mia, Krennan, and Krennan’s charge and family friend Felicity would try to go looking for him after getting a letter from Kul Tiras stating that Pheles was found and safe. Felicity herself found that she could get glimpses of Faustus and the directions he went off to, but due to him using his arcane abilities to get away, and for him himself discovering he could hide himself using magic, making him difficult to hunt down.

After awhile, as Genn, Mia, Tess, and Liam were taking a trip through the city, Liam finds that the bracelet given by his mother was gone from his wrist. Knowing that it hadn’t had fallen he looked around, spotting Faustus backing up and running away from the group. Offended at the theft of his heirloom, Liam went after him, Tess immediately following her brother and making Genn and Mia panic for a moment before running after them. The siblings managed to chase him into an alleyway, and nearly succeeded in cornering him had he not tried to blink away. He was quickly caught by Genn when he and Mia caught up, and with Mia’s help they managed to calm him down enough to be able to bring him to Krennan. There the siblings and Felicity stayed with Faustus as the adults talked, and for the first time in a while, thanks to three cracking small jokes trying to get Faustus to at least laugh, they actually succeeded, and while they couldn’t get him to talk he at least accepted staying close to them. Faustus gave Liam his bracelet back as a silent apology, and after a bit of discussion Krennan came to him offering to take him in and adopt him. Faustus gave it some thought, grabbed Felicity’s arm and nodding with a quiet yes.

Faustus had a relatively normal rest of his childhood, though he continued to have paranoia and nightmares about Hex. This also started his and Felicity’s close friendship after they started living in the same house, Felicity thought that she was basically chosen after Faustus agreed to stay, and they bonded over their studies in magic, which Felicity was able to share her resources about it with him. They both also bonded with Krennan, often helping him around with his alchemy by going to the market to get herbs and having him teach them both their general education and alchemy. These two also spent time with the royal siblings thanks to Krennan often visiting Genn for both personal and professional reasons, Tess herself found it fascinating that Faustus was able to pickpocket Liam without anyone noticing, and Liam himself wanted to learn about Faustus more, as he often remembered seeing Cedius come to the manor once in a while but never really got the chance to talk. Felicity herself already knew the siblings well due to the amount of time she had already spent with Krennan beforehand.

As time went on, with Faustus reaching his teens, the four became a very tight knit group. Liam trained under his mother in becoming a hunter, finding after a good amount of training that he was quite a remarkable marksmen. Felicity decided not to focus her studies towards the offensive uses of magic, and instead aimed to one day improve the kingdom itself through her own inventions and such. Faustus found that he had a mark for design and engineering, often helping Felicity with her plans, but he also aimed to become a Greyguard after having an opportunity to watch them train, as well as him watching Genn and Darius train with each other several times before. Genn agreed to help Faustus train, as well as introduce him to some of his spymasters so that he could learn the ways of a rogue, considering how he was built he was suited for it. This also led to Faustus passing off the knowledge he had to the younger Tess, helping her start down her path of roguishness without, for the most part, Genn knowing, until she started training down that path as she got older.

Faust devoted himself to earning his place among the Greyguard, as with the more time he spent with them he found his own purpose with them. As the Greymanes had given him their time and effort to look for and out for him, he found that the only way to repay that in a way he would be satisfied with was to devote his life to giving them the protection that he was never able to give his parents and brother because of his inexperience and young age, In that way he could set aside the feelings and failures he felt as a child and instead had the opportunity to spend time with those he really cares about and be at peace with himself. His devotion eventually earned him the position of being Liam and Tess’s retainer, passed off by his main mentor Sibran, and it gave him the ability to just hang out with them while helping his superiors out on their duties when he could as a decision made by Genn so that the boy could still have a generally normal youth without having to worry about issues that brought him into constant danger or away from those close to him. Liam and Faustus also started getting even closer around this time, often found training with each other, working together to create new weapons and rifles, or were out hunting and patrolling around Gilneas.

There were issues however, as after Genn made the decision to secede from the Alliance and wall off Gilneas from the rest of the other kingdoms issues began to arise that actually called Faustus’ attention, starting with an event that happened not long after the construction of the wall started and in an attempt to get everyone's mind off of it they held a winter banquet, where an angered objector tried to get retribution for losing his land to being on the other side of the wall by attacking Liam, as he was the first Greymane he saw. Faustus managed to take the hit instead, earning him the scar across his eye and a scar on his left shoulder. This started the trend of Faustus having to watch around him more often than before, especially after the rebellion started taking more of a hold and the scourge started attacking the finished north gate wall. In addition due to his talents Faustus was also tasked with trying to root out the rebellion members and finding out who was leading them, in which his attempts tended to get him in a lot of trouble when he got too close.

Though despite all the struggles that came with this era Faustus and Liam found solace in each other, a couple close calls including the attack on at the banquet pushed Liam to actually admit his feelings to Faustus, feelings Faustus shared and that they had both developed from the time they had spent at each other’s side. At first they kept it hidden, in one part knowing that if any of the opposition knew it would be easy for them to use Faustus against Liam, and by extension the other Greyguard and Genn, in another part due to general royal upbringing Liam wasn’t entirely sure how his parents would really feel about the relationship due to the standard of marrying for political benefit and the state of Gilneas’ political climate was difficult to read at the time. However, Genn and Mia are neither foolish or oblivious, and were quick to understand their situation, leading to Genn having to pull Liam aside and quell his worries that he had married Mia out of love, not out gain or political pressure, and that if he truly found that he loved Faustus that he should go with it, especially since with Gilneas isolated there wasn't really much to get political gain for. Even if their relationship didn’t become public, some still found the pair as quite an intimidating duo, as Liam was a natural born leader and a major inspiration to those who came in contact with them, and Faustus became known as a creative inventor with a knack for detective work, who got the title of being an anti-assassin.

The scourge continued to become more and more of a problem, more so than the rooted rebellion as attacks would get collectively worse, leading Genn to call in Arugal for a solution, which came to be reawakening the worgen. Faustus, Sibran, and the other greyguard found themselves as the last line of military defense against the undead. An experience Faustus almost immediately regretted when he first came in contact with an abomination, but when the worgen came to aid them, and ended up turning against the front line, Faustus ended up getting bitten in the process. Not knowing that the curse was spread by the bite, he was cleared by Sibran to return back into the city, only to fall ill and turn once he got home. Felicity was able to restrain him, and Krennan was able to make him drink a potion to knock him out, but they only had a little time to bring him to Stormglen and restrain him, away from the city in a way to keep him from hurting other people or getting himself killed by the guard or hunters. Felicity had to keep a close eye on him, and after admitting to Genn why Faustus had gone missing the three worked towards trying to find a cure or aid to the curse, their working going double time once Genn was also bitten, but with the help of Krennan and Belyrsa found ways to keep him from turning. 

Faustus was thought dead due to his absence and the fact that if they couldn’t restore his will and mind he would basically be such anyways. Liam, though distraught, wasn’t entirely convinced, and had a hope in his mind that he was still somewhere out there. Instead he put on a brave face and told others that Faustus had instead fallen very ill, which many of the Greyguard were skeptical about, but kept quiet for the sake of their prince. One day however, Tess and Liam trailed Genn and Krennan to Stormglen, waiting until they left the abandoned building they were frequenting to try and find what they were hiding, only for them to get tracked down by feral worgen. Faustus, upon hearing Felicity call out for the siblings, as well as hearing them yell out, broke from the chains keeping him from escaping. He managed to intercept the worgen before he could attack the three, holding them off until Genn was able to handle it himself. They found that after the attack was deterred, that Liam and Tess could actually calm Faustus down enough to get him to focus on them, though even if he could focus and understand what they were saying he had no way of communicating back with them. Liam and Tess, however, were relieved to find Faustus alive, even if this experience changed him in the long run.

Eventually Sarath, Hugrim, and Drulos came to investigate Cedius and Ilaise’s disappearance, as Sarath and Drulos hadn’t heard from them in a while. They found the farm, and Ilaise’s spirit ended up guiding them to Faustus where Cedius was already waiting in Stormglen. After gathering enough energy due to the direness of the situation, Cedius and Drulos were able to call upon and bargain with Goldrin. If Faustus managed to prove himself to Goldrinn, and Cedius and Ilaise agreed to act as agents of Goldrinn as they continued to traverse the mortal plane, the wild god would agree to aid Faustus in returning to being himself. As Goldrinn tested Faustus, though the man had a strong will, he found himself unable to keep his own fear and rage in check when faced with visions of Hex and the Scourge. Sarath pleaded to Goldrinn that they didn’t just leave Faustus to himself like this, and though the wild god wasn’t going to do so in the first place, he instead allowed Ilaise to separate Faustus’ rage and fury into another section of his mind and make it temporarily dormant, giving Faustus control over himself again and allowing him to return to his human form, as well as letting him have a more intimate control over his worgen form. However, as a side effect Faustus had to constantly manage his rage, as due to this separation this feral anger could manifest in both forms instead of only his worgen form, which when he was armed made him highly dangerous. The solution wasn't perfect but it gave Faustus the opportunity to one day, possibly, be at peace with himself and learn to control that fury where it mattered, rather than letting it control him.

Before going on their way to hold their end of the deal, Drulos and Sarath were able to say their final goodbyes to their old friends, the three remained to help care for Faustus as reverting from worgen form, as well as the general exertion he went through over this period of time, left him rather weak and disoriented. After they made sure their technical ‘charge’ was cared for, Sarath flew the two out the way they came, but not before Faustus came to, learned of the situation, and made Sarath promise to one day teach him orcish due to meeting Drulos and learning what the druid and two shamans did for him that day, out of respect and thankfulness.

Felicity found him not long afterwards, surprised to see him suddenly back to himself, and was in fact rather skeptical about it at first. But after finally getting himself situated, and Felicity retrieved him some clothes for him, he was finally able to return to Gilneas, luckily being able to pass off his disappearance as an illness he had to be taken to Dalaran/be under Felicity’s family’s care for. As time went on he understood how this other side of himself started to manifest, namely that it tended to appear if he couldn’t control his emotions in general, or if he went too long without giving it control. He struggled to keep it under control at first, and knowing that he was struggling with it he found himself both talking less and keeping himself away from anyone that wasn’t the royals, Sibran, or Felicity and Krennan.

Liam was a major factor in helping Faustus get back to normal, and it helped that the other side of Faustus was still Faustus at the end of the day, and even as ferocious and hard headed the beast was he still cared deeply about the same people, and will take control if he feels the way Faustus acts normally is ill-equipped to handle protecting them. Liam was commonly the person Faustus was able to vent to besides Felicity, and when Liam knew it had been a while since a manifestation he and Faustus would often go hunting, whether it would be deterring worgen or just hunting normally to bring resources to the market. It also helped that the other side also respected Liam and his ability to remain calm in the face of adversity. Eventually Faustus started meeting with Sarath and Hugrim out in the old abandoned far, and from there he started to build connections with the Vanguard, and he learned to start meditating as a way of communing with himself and starting to pull himself back together.

Years went on, and the north gate rebellion came and went, Faustus did what he could to prevent as much bloodshed as he could, but the uprising and battle took a heavy toll on both sides. Faustus himself was heavily injured when he came into contact with two of his old childhood friends from Emberstone, Elicia and Jean, who had sided with Crowley, and though he was heavily injured, he was able to get them to put down their weapons and let him help them leave the battle under the promise that he wouldn’t get them arrested, and learning that though Faustus didn’t agree with all of Genn’s actions, that he understood the king was stuck between a rock and a hard place due to his pride, his stubbornness, and the pressure of the surrounding events. This injury, an axe wound to his side, did end up restricting him for a while. It required a lot of bed rest and he was designated to playing messenger while Sibran took his role as retainer back for the meantime. Afterwards, besides the small scale worgen attacks, things went back to normal and Faustus was able to return to his duties. That was until the large scale attack on Gilneas, and as the city fell and anyone not turned was pushed back into the outskirts, it took a heavy toll on everyone involved.

Faustus was tasked with helping the Greyguard get back on track, and as Krennan actually put together the potion that was meant to aid the feral worgen, he was also tasked to aid in capturing what many came to realize as their own friends, family, and peers. Liam however took the fall hard, feeling as though he had failed his people, and with Faustus’ near constant absence, he turned to drinking away his problems (as seen in the game, holy shit Liam why), something that Faustus and Tess tried to steer him away from but the prince was too caught up in his own head to listen. Felicity herself was occupied and gone from Gilneas from helping Dalaran alongside Ashton where she could during the events in Northrend and the ensuing aftermath, and the start of the cataclysm. After the Horde’s attack on Gilneas, and Liam’s subsequent bounce back onto his feet after being in a position to help his people again, Faustus stayed by his side and supported him where he could, the future of their city looking up. Until Liam took the arrow for Genn.

Losing Liam twisted something within Faustus, and though he and the separated side of him came together enough to cooperate, he gained this silent rage and ferocity that took a while to ever go away. The anger at the attackers, and the anger at himself turned him into a ruthless machine, pushing him to retaliate hard against the forsaken not long after the initial battle. He found refuge in Tess’ sympathy and hope, and with Felicity gone and busy elsewhere she was all he had left to bring him back down to earth. It was under her guidance that he came to focus his anger towards what mattered, pushing him towards the path of becoming one with himself again. He also had help during this journey thanks to his encounters with Anduin Wrynn, who he had initially met before the summit of the alliance in Darnassus. They got along, and were able to bond over learning about the events that had happened that they were unaware of. Anduin found that Faustus was a person he could vent his worries to without judgement of ability, and Faustus found Anduin as someone he could both look up to and protect. Though Faustus struggled with the loss of someone so close to him, and the loss of his homeland, he was able to find others that would help guide him back onto his feet, and push him to keep fighting for was he thought was right.

The Alliance and Azeroth (Ages 25-Present):

Faustus mostly found himself at Genn’s side after joining the alliance, and when he wasn’t, he was running messages and errands thanks to his affinity for teleportation and portal creation. He busied himself, and almost never gave himself a break initially in order to keep his mind off the events that had happened prior. Upon some of these errands he came across people who he would aid and build connections with. He reconnected with Elicia and Jean during and after the battle for Gilneans, helping them come to terms with the worgen curse. He met Baltor, a priest known for aiding the lost and wayward spirits, when they encountered each other in the rest area of an arena ring, after Faustus was captured by pirates during a trip back to Stormwind with some of the other soldiers. Finally he met Tyraanas, a Draenei paladin, on the front against garrosh’s horde in Ashenvale. This was also the time Faustus was introduced to the Vanguards, their leader Enahlien, and the figures that led the multiple sectors of the settlement. The era of the Cataclysm was primarily providing rushed aid to the front fighting Garrosh’s horde, protecting Stormwind when needed, and providing a connection of the alliance to the Vanguards as a defacto emissary.

It was around this time that Faustus started to form his own squad, with himself, Tyraan, Baltor, Elicia, and Jean. This team was some of the first sent to look for Anduin during the start of Mists, mostly due to personal request on Faustus’ behalf (because he was both incredibly worried and anxious know that Anduin could have been in danger). It was in Pandaria that Faustus was forced to pull himself together, as at that point he risked being consumed by several of the sha, and due to his determination to work alongside his anger and be at peace with it, rather than wrangle and control it, it gave him better control over himself in general and let him aid his team in combating the influences of the sha as well. The only time this nearly fell apart during the expeditions was when he discovered Anduin’s injuries after being crushed by the bell, his doubt and anger nearly getting to him until his team was able to, in payment for him helping them in the first place, help him calm himself to prevent the sha from manifesting.

From there Faustus and his team continued their work while Anduin was recovering, but knowing that Varian was already fretting over his son Faustus instead decided to support his decision to continue to encourage his people and his allies, being overbearing was likely only going to be a detriment anyways. As the events in Pandaria progressed, Faustus bounced between aiding the front with his team where he could, and introducing his team to the Vanguards and beginning to integrate himself with them more afterwards, building connections with Adonis, Hugrim, Hugrim’s family, as well as his crew aboard the allegiance who offered to aid the efforts in Pandaria so long as they weren’t caught up in the war itself in the process.

The issues in Draenor and all the events that take place during that time was actually the period where Faustus takes a break from the front and works on his connection outside of the horde and alliance. He was able to meet the horde emissaries, a forsaken monk who merely introduced himself as Ederi, and a goblin shaman named Glekkle. A lot of what this community was working on combating was the rising influence of Hex’s cult, as well as the threat of the Legion invasion that was starting to be known as an inevitable event. Hex wanted to pull apart the Vanguards, knowing that the cult would be destroyed upon them learning of their efforts to extend the reach of Thros. This issue for Hex became even more apparent when he discovered Pheles had started working with Felicity, Sarath, and Hugrim to combat the reach of the cult, and Tul’s own covens, in Kul Tiras itself. 

So, taking this opportunity now that several of the major Vanguard leaders were absent from the citadel itself Hex waged an all out attack against the citadel, catching everyone within off guard and forcing a large scale evacuation that drove the citizen’s living within to Dalaran, and brought Faustus, Ederi, Enahlien, Verelyn, an undead priestess that constantly worked with Sarath and Hugrim known as Ainade, to stay behind and attempt to prevent the cult from taking over the citadel. The position within Arathi and the research that could be used to breach the blighted lands into Azeroth was far too important to the vanguards to just give it up. After the five were swarmed with aberrations and found themselves in a losing fight, Ederi and Ainade locked themselves within Hugrim’s garden/research building, and did what they could from keeping the thankfully fireproof building safe, the other three were urged to leave and gather their strength until they could reclaim the citadel once more. In their attempted escape the three were captured, Hex himself was the one to do so personally as his members were tasked with raided the other buildings and preparing themselves to settle there. Hex’s use of fire and wicker abominations gave Faustus little time to get the other two out before they were seriously injured, and knowing that the Vanguard needed their leaders he elected to use most of his strength to break out of the construct’s grasp, and sacrifice his arm in Hex’s attempt to behead Enahlien so that Enahlien and Verelyn could gather enough of his strength to break free and run away.

Faustus used whatever time he had thought he had left, as he was bleeding out and knew that he likely wouldn’t have enough time to escape, was able to take his pistol while Hex was distracted by the two running and shot him in the knee so that he couldn’t chase after the two, before killing him for killing his parents, ruining a large part of his life, and attempting to break apart a people whose entire foundation came from pulling together through the turmoils of separation, loss, and exile. He knew, from the fact that his father persisted after his death, that this wasn’t going to be the last of Hex, but he was dying knowing that he was either going to combat him himself if he was unable to move on, or that he had broken the Cult’s leadership down enough to give both his team and the rest of the Vanguards enough time to regroup and mount a full attack against them to get the city back.

But it wasn’t like the Vanguards to leave their allies behind, and as Praeragos and Sarath managed to temporarily drive the cult from the citadel, giving them enough time to let Sarath rescue and take Ederi and Ain to Dalaran, Praer brought the remaining three to Stormwind where there was just a slim enough chance that Faustus could be saved. After magically locking the gardens, the mage tower, and the keep so that important information that was already guarded by other means couldn’t get tampered with further, Praer had carried and flown them back by opening a portal after he broke free of the cult’s vain attempts to restrain him with briar thorns. Baltor had felt the surge of energy from the portal from his room at the old town inn and from Praer’s spirit, and urged the rest of the team to follow the dragon as he landed in the fields not far from the keep, the team keeping the guards from targeting the blue dragon as they found they had to prioritize stabilizing Faustus and figuring out what the hell had happened to have caused this in the first place.

Thanks to Baltor’s, and later some assistance of Anduin’s, healing, Faustus had survived. However his injuries had forced him to retire from his position in the greyguard, as he had to focus on his recovery, and any extensive use of magic was out of the question due to his weakened state. He instead found himself staying in Stormwind, using the empty barracks next to the embassy to organize his own team on their missions, giving them aid in the only way he was able to at the time. This barracks was also used as a temporary gathering place for the Vanguard leaders, who either worked to be granted pardon or disguised themselves so that they could walk around the city easily. From here on Faustus, his team, and the vanguard’s worked to reclaim the citadel and also prepare for the impending legion invasion once they got word of Gul’dan’s freedom. Under Faustus’ and Enahlien’s planning, the efforts towards reclaiming the citadel was a success and they were able to start pushing their efforts towards rebuilding and reinforcing their position to prevent anything like this from happening again.

About a month before the invasion several of Faustus’ peers, a gnome named Lania, Felicity, a dark iron mage named Yvena, and Ainade proposed their latest work, which was a prosthetic arm meant to be attuned to his own abilities with magic, most of which he was able to use due to actually taking the time to recover and then train himself, making sure that he was still on par in that way while also learning to defend himself with only his left hand. While it was difficult, Faustus was lucky that he was left hand dominant anyways, and after giving it some thought he accepted getting the prosthesis. He also accepted the risks of getting it, as there was a chance that his body would reject it, and the impending realization that it would hurt, and he would have to give himself time to recover again. He trusted his team however, and he had gone a long way to trust Ainade, giving that she was known within the Vanguards for her research and talent with prosthetics and replacement given her situation as an undead.

Faustus played a similar role to before after he did what he could to aid Anduin’s ascension to the throne, ignoring his own feelings to losing Varian until he was away and able to express such without impacting others. His primary contributions came from sending aid to wherever him and his men were needed, and he spent a lot of his time fighting the legion in Stormheim, while working alongside Genn during that campaign for multiple reasons, Val’sharah, aiding the druids, his brother, and Sarath against the emerald nightmare, and on Argus, fighting demons head on once he firmly established his ability and the improvements granted to him by his new arm. Faustus proved to be an accomplished leader among his friends, and his ability alongside Enahlien’s own tactical prowess made their group a force to be reckoned with against the Legion. Upon the legion’s fall and things started to settle down, Genn welcomed Faustus back into the greyguard now that Faustus was back on his feet, and he proved to be more open, happy, and out there than he was before. 

Yvena, Tyraanas, Baltor, and Elicia urged Genn to name Faustus as the commander as their slowly growing team started to expand into a small army, and as the war with the horde started to pick back up, he considered it. It wasn’t until the war of thorns, and Faustus and the Vanguard’s efforts to aid in the evacuations, that Genn considered it and accepted it once the Vanguard’s pledged their aid against, and see specifically, Sylvanas’ path of destruction. 

Getting off the topic of Faustus briefly, it was also around this time that Liam was resurrected by Alonsus after Calia herself was resurrected. As Alonsus was standing on neural ground, but saw what Sylvanas had done during the gathering, he saw it fit to send some of his priests, Baltor, Ainade, Jean, and several others, as well as several aiding paladins, to recover Liam’s body to prevent him from being used against his own old friend and the alliance as a whole due to Jean’s accounts of the prince’s marksmanship itself. A pleasant surprise however came in the form that for one reason or another Liam’s body had not decayed since his death, and whether it was true or not, Jean had proposed that it may have been from the extent of the prince’s faith in both his people and the light, while Ainade proposed that like Calia, it may have been for the purpose of the light still needing them, and that his faith itself powered that. Liam went into a form of hiding after Faol had him ensure that he would return should anything go wrong, he rejoined the alliance, making himself known to aiding the soldiers as just merely being ‘the traveler’, a masked bowmen who seemed to appear in a time of need.

Back on topic, Faustus led said group during the battle for lordaeron, offering routed support as well as acting as the extraction soldiers for the horde prisoners. They also led the retreat once the main group had went to go confront Sylvanas. Upon returning to Stormwind, Faustus set out to help set up the Vanguard’s outpost with his friends, and they were organizing their supplies and working up until Nathanos had set fire to the city and the group had to turn their efforts towards putting the fire out. An attempted assassination on Enahlien turned into a near death experience for Faustus, as he had taken an arrow meant for him by one of the diversions, but due to the amount of aid the worgen were giving to the alliance, the most arrows in the assassin’s quiver was tipped in wolf’s bane. The assassin got away, and Faustus made his team focus on putting out the fires before he almost succumbed to the poison, narrowly getting saved by Liam as he had worked with Baltor beforehand over the possible issue of wolf’s bane being used against his friends and family. Liam left Stormwind for a while after that, getting too close to being caught before his evaluation of his situation was complete. The last thing he wanted to do was give those he cared about a false hope of his return if something suddenly went wrong.

Faustus instead went with Genn to Kul Tiras as he recovered, reprising his role briefly to work as an advisor to his team, to Genn, and to his brother as the alliance worked to bring the admiralty back into the faction. After a while after the incident and Liam was cleared to be alright for the time being, he returned to Faustus and his family to reveal his resurrection, Faustus being more than ecstatic to have an old friend and long time love back, and Genn quite frankly just being glad that he can, in fact, hold his son at least one last time before anything else happened. From there Faustus and Liam became a rather terrifying due who worked together to help clear the turmoil where they could, and Liam joined the Vanguard’s and became a major inspiration and leading force against the darker reaches of the time, working instead to fight against Azeroth’s deterioration and against the horrors of the deep.

———

So, there is everything I have so far, anything else as the story progresses will be updated onto this document, and I’ll have works, stories, and art pieces to go along with all this. If the read more didn’t work, I’m sorry, but I just wanted to have this all in one comprehensive place for my own reference as well. Thank you for reading :D

[innerpostmentality]

Missing You

A TRR AU Fanfic Featuring King Liam X Hyclea (OC) All rights to Choices Characters and setting belong to Pixelberry Studios   This is set at the Bachelor / Bachelorette party in Las Vegas of Drake and Stephanie.  This is the third piece of this series. Links to the other pieces are on my masterlist. Word count: 2300 or so                          Rating: PG - 13 Warnings: None I can think of Tags: @tornbetween2loves @stopforamoment @hopefulmoonobject @kennaxval @carabeth @darley1101 @custaroonie @gardeningourmet

Yeia sas, Liam I am sad that I must decline your invitation to join you and your friends in Las Vegas. Your invitation was most kind and delighted me that you should wish me there. I simply have too many deadlines at the moment to make adequate arrangements to allow me to accompany you. Perhaps when you return we may play hooky again and you can tell me of your adventure? I should like that very much. All best wishes and joy to you and your friends,

Hyclea   Liam read the note again. He felt very strange reading it. He wanted her there with him. He’d thought about walking the strip hand in hand with her, holding her watching the Bellagio fountain show, having her blow on his dice for luck, kissing her at the top of the High Roller as the sun set… Now, now he would have a weekend of watching Stephanie and Drake be happy together. He was happy for them. But he knew he would rather be running off to Tevi’s to sip coffee and get lost in violet eyes.   The next day they were on their way to Vegas. 

  Drake had been watching Liam who had been very quiet and distracted ever since he first saw him that morning. He kept pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket and fiddling with it before putting it back in his pocket and looking out the window. He’d pulled his phone out several times and texted or started to text before putting it back. Finally Drake leaned over and whispered to Stephanie, “Watson, something’s up with Li. I’m gonna go take him a drink and see what spills.” She nodded and looked in Drake’s concerned chestnut eyes before kissing him sweetly. “I agree. Good luck.” A glass of Scotch appeared in his peripheral vision as he was staring out the window and Liam looked up to see Drake handing him the drink. “Hey, mind if I join you?” Liam motioned at the seat across from him and gave his friend a smile as he took the drink. “Your company is always welcome.” Drake smiled at him. “You okay, Li? You seem really distracted this morning.” He nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes. My apologies. I didn’t mean to ignore people.” “You don’t need to apologize. We’re fine. Are you okay? You’ve been really quiet and.. Well I know this has to be hard.” Drake sipped his drink, dropping his eyes. “I…” Drake trailed off. He couldn’t say he was sorry. He wasn’t sorry Stephanie had picked him. 

Liam’s eyes got wide and he grinned as he realized what Drake was attributing his quietness to. He shook his head and chuckled sipping the Scotch. “It’s not what you think Drake.” Their eyes met and Drake could see Liam was being completely honest with him. He nodded, relieved. “Okay. Well then what is going on Li?” Liam gave him a small smile. “I met someone.” Drake nearly dropped his drink. “What?!” Liam shook his head. “Well she said no to joining us on this little excursion.” “What?!!... Wait. She knows you’re the King right?” Liam grinned and nodded. “She’s aware.” “Let me get this straight. You met a woman you liked enough to invite her along to Vegas with us and she turned you down? And she knows you’re the King? And she turned you down? Take your crown and private jet and toddle off fly boy, turned you down?” Liam nodded one brow raised. “I think you are too amused by this.” Drake shook his head. “I’m fuckin’ speechless about this. So are you going to see her when we get back? Is that who you’ve been texting? When do we get to meet this enigma?” Liam was blushing. He knew there would be a reaction. He just wasn’t quite prepared for this now. “I don’t know, Drake. I know I want to see her.” He shook his head. “She’s not like anyone else I’ve ever met. I know that sounds cliché. But it’s true.” Drake’s eyes narrowed as he studied his friend who was completely smitten as far as he could tell. “Okay. Has Bastien run a background check on her?” Liam’s eyes went wide, “Drake!” “He has, hasn’t he?” Drake sipped his Scotch continuing to study Liam like a bug on a pin. “Did she answer your text?” Liam shook his head. “I won’t know before we land.” “Okay. Well how did you meet?” “Is this going to be twenty questions? Listen can you do me a favor? I want you all to meet her. I do. But I really don’t know all the answers right now Drake. And I really, really don’t want to spend your whole bachelor party answering questions about my possible relationship. You know how this goes. I’ll wind up like a duck on a roasting spit with my friends; each pulling me aside for a private conversation that will have me answering the same questions that I don’t have answers to with each of you.” Drake nodded, and sipped his Scotch. “Fair enough. But I want to meet this lady of yours. And congrats man.” Standing he returned to his seat next to Stephanie. Liam pulled his phone from his pocket to sneak a glance.   1 New Message He quickly opened his messages, Liam: Wish you were here.

You are most kind. Thank you.   :Hyclea He quickly texted her back:  Drake was worried about me. I told him I had invited you but you couldn’t make it. He sent the message off and waited a few minutes before putting his phone back in his pocket. When they landed in Vegas he checked his phone again:  1 New Message There was a short video attached. The end of a one inch diameter piece of pipe with a brightly glowing blob of molten glass that moved like jello was pulled from the glory hole of the furnace. The blob was deftly rolled across a metal plate that had small pieces of colored glass scattered across it picking them up on its sticky surface before being put back in the glory hole for a moment. Then it was pulled back out and the pipe was braced in a V on a stand where it was turned constantly as it was blown. A wet wooden block was used to shape the glass. It was returned to the glory hole for a few moments then pulled out again and a pair of what looked like huge tweezers was used to detach the glowing hot piece from the blow pipe. Then deftly the top edge was fluted out like a lacy collar, before the whole piece was carefully rubbed with thick pads and smoothed out before being put in an annealing oven to cool. 

Then the camera pulled back and Hyclea waved with her thick gloves and leather apron on, just lifting the furnace goggles enough he could see her violet eyes. “It’s all work here. Hope you’re having fun!” She waved and the video cut out.

Liam grinned and quickly texted: It would be more fun if you were here. Then he watched the video again as they were riding to the hotel. The evening went well he thought. The magician was nearly as entertaining as watching his friends on stage. The scavenger hunt was fun.

There was one awkward, cathartic moment with Olivia. Since Stephanie had picked Drake, Olivia had been trying to comfort him. He’d resisted the temptation at first because he knew what an emotional mess he was. And he did love her; but only as a friend. He knew she wanted more. He knew even though she didn’t, that she deserved more than he could ever give her. She deserved someone who chose her above all others not use her selfishly as a consolation prize. The night he’d been drinking in the bar overlooking the capitol he’d been contemplating exactly that when Hyclea walked up to him with a glass of Glenfiddich and turned his world over.

 So after everyone had enjoyed multiple rounds of their favorite libation and Olivia’s hand had slipped to his thigh he took her hand and kissed the back of it and stood. He stroked her cheek and smiled at her; then leaned in and whispered softly in her ear. “I’m fine, Olivia. And I will always love you as one of my best friends in the world. But that is how I will Always love you, as my friend. I need you to be my friend, not my lover, not my mate. In my heart you are my sister. And I cannot give you what you deserve.” He pulled back and looked in her glorious eyes, tilting her chin up his voice was a gentle caress, “You are going to be okay, Olivia.”

He started to leave and Stephanie came up to him. “Hey. Have you got a minute?” Nodding, he offered his arm. “Would you like to take a little walk? I thought I would catch a little fresh air before turning in.” She slipped her arm through his and walked with him outside where the desert breeze held a distinct chill and the millions of lights on the strip obliterated the stars from the sky. They walked along the strip in silence for a few minutes and he could tell that Stephanie was working through something she wanted to tell him. “You’re the very best you know. And I’ll always love you.” She finally blurted. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t find the way to tell you before, before you proposed to me that I’d fallen in love with Drake.” She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to. But it happened. And you’ve been so wonderful. It’s just I love you more like a friend than a spouse if you know what I mean? I just wanted to apologize for hurting you, Liam. You really deserve everything.” He smiled softly and patted her hand on his arm. “Stephanie, I’m okay.” He put his finger under her chin and lifted it so she was looking in his eyes. “Seriously. I’m not sure I could have honestly told you that last week. But as I stand here now it’s true.” She searched his eyes and saw a beautiful serenity in the dark depths. She nodded and stretched up on her tip toes to kiss his cheek. “Good!” Liam walked her back into the casino and left her with Drake, shaking Drake’s hand and kissing Stephanie on the cheek before bidding them good night. At the penthouse suite he nodded to his guards bidding them good evening and telling them he was retiring for the night. He stripped down and slipped on black silk pajamas bringing his phone to the bed with him. His phone said it was two in the morning. It was going to make the 8am departure in the morning brutal. But he couldn’t help himself. He knew that it was noon back home; he smiled as he called her. He smiled even wider when her velvet tone caressed his ear. “Ya, Liam! What’s up?” She laughed softly, “Besides you, that is.” There was a whole flock of butterflies doing the Cordonian waltz in his stomach. “Hey… I was just wondering if I might make a breakfast date with you? If I’m calculating correctly I think I may be home just about the right time for catching some coffee and Orange walnut sticky buns at Tevi’s with you. If you want, that is?” Her laugh was like cool water to a man dying of thirst and he thought if he could just lie there listening to it all night it would be hours well spent. “Liam, it must be what, 2am there? And you’re calling me about sticky buns?” He chuckled. “Well when you put it that way it does sound a bit inappropriate. Honestly I’ve just been missing you all day. I was about to go to sleep and realized that it would be around noon there and thought I’d take a chance on calling and perhaps catching you when you were at lunch.”

 “Umm, well you managed. How was the party?” The next several minutes, well maybe more than several he spent telling her about the day. The antics of his friends and the beauty and bizarre nature of Las Vegas. He got up and walked over to the picture window that looked down across the glowing strip and took a picture and sent it to her. There was silence for a minute then she breathed, “Beautiful.” He was quiet for a moment then softly. “I do, truly, miss you. A dozen times, no more, there were so many times today I wanted to hear you tell me what you thought of something. I wished you had been there to dance with me. To sample the brandied halibut I had for dinner.” There was silence on the other end of the line and he knew, could actually feel her violet gaze penetrating him, knew her brow was lifting as she thought about what he told her. Her voice was even lower than usual when she spoke, “And now? Were I there, this very moment with you. What would we share Liam?” Desire ignited the word drawn from his heart. “Dreams.”

[takingcourage]

While You’re Dancing

Pairing: Drake x MC

Word Count: 1,157

Summary: During the Ball at Lythikos, Drake and MC consider their early impressions of one another. (Set in Book 1, Chapter 8)

Author’s Note: I’m about halfway through writing a multi-chapter story about these characters and I’ve been working on some oneshots along the way to help get inside their heads. If you’re interested in this pairing, consider this a sample of what’s to come. 

Also, in case it matters to anyone, this is set in a different universe from the other stories I’ve posted. I play on two devices, so I have MCs for both Liam and Drake. My obsession with this app is not healthy, y’all...

Drake pushed the bowl of cold soup to the center of the table, reaching for a glass of water to chase down what had been a very disappointing meal. He had known better than to expect a hearty reception from Olivia, but he’d thought at least that she had the self respect to provide her guests with decent food and drink. Luckily, he’d already discovered the staircase that led to her wine cellar, and if he hadn’t planned to raid it before, he certainly was committed to the idea now.

In the midst of the ballroom, he found himself alone with his thoughts. Hana had left to waltz with some man he only vaguely recognized, and Maxwell had accompanied Jena to the dance floor. In spite of Maxwell’s lack of preparation, Jena was performing admirably well -- at least as far as Drake could tell. Her easy smile and self-assured aura made up for any steps she might have missed. With heat rising in his cheeks, Drake realized that he’d been staring and turned his attention to the stark tablecloth before him. He picked at the grain of the fabric absentmindedly as he thought about the woman in question.

She’d come to Cordonia three weeks before, and Drake still wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing there. Jena didn’t strike him as the kind of woman who needed to chase after powerful men. In fact, she was remarkably capable of taking care of herself, save for when horses were involved. Drake smirked as he remembered her attempts to talk down the horse she’d spooked at the derby. It was the first time he’d seen her out of her depth.

He understood things from Liam’s perspective, of course. His best friend needed a woman at his side who could bear the responsibilities that came with ruling a country. If worst came to worst, he needed a queen who could lead Cordonia alone. Jena might not be the most conventional suitor, but she could certainly hold her own.

Drake drained his glass and snuck another look at the dance floor. Even from this distance, he could see that her eyes were sparkling, radiating from a smile that displayed two rows of perfect white teeth. Jena’s face was flushed from exertion and the press of people around her, and the flowing dress clung to the swell of her hips as Maxwell spun her in a circle. For the first time in his life, Drake felt something like jealousy toward the young Beaumont.

The two figures parted and Jena was whisked into the arms of...Liam.

Damn it. Breathing in through his teeth, Drake cursed silently and forced his eyes away a second time.  For just a moment, he’d forgotten who it was she’d come to Cordonia for. It wasn’t that anything inappropriate had happened between the two of them, but he was coming to like her far more than he ought to. If he was honest, he liked her as more than just a potential future queen.

Fingering the flask in his pocket, he determined that it was time for him to sneak out for a breath of air. He was going to need more than lukewarm bisque and glasses of water to get him through the night. That wine cellar was going to come in very handy indeed.

Jena shifted her weight to her back foot before taking a decisive step forward. She knew she lacked the grace that ballroom dancers ought to have, but if she failed, she wanted it to at least look somewhat intentional. Even with Hana’s instruction the night before, this felt completely foreign to her.  She and Liam managed to fall into a kind of rhythm, but she had no delusions about the fact that his skill was the only thing making her look like she knew what she was doing.

As they switched partners, she caught Drake’s retreating profile out of the corner of her eye. Her brows furrowed momentarily upon the realization that he was leaving. Maybe he just needs to use the restroom or something, she assured herself as she took the proffered hand.  

Her mind wandered as she repeated the series of steps for a third time.

She’d come to Cordonia with the distinct impression that doing so would likely change her life. Beyond just intriguing her,  Liam made her feel valued -- something she’d sought for a long time after her father had run off while she was still in grade school. Yet, there were so many other factors to consider if she was going to pursue something with the Crown Prince. First and foremost was the matter of becoming queen. Jena knew that she was capable of many things, but being a member of the royal family? She wasn’t even sure that was something she would want if it was offered to her.

It wasn't like the life she'd left behind was anything all that special. Her mother had been nagging her to quit that dead-end job at the bar practically from the moment she'd scheduled her interview. Jena had kept it for the past couple of years because the tips were good and it gave her a chance to meet interesting people. Even so, when the opportunity presented itself, she had been quite willing to switch to a new set of subjects. Jet setting around the European countryside with a bunch of nobles provided endless chances to observe human nature, for better or for worse.

Drake was the most intriguing of her current studies. She had certainly meant what she said when she’d told him that he was “more her type” than Liam was. Her boyfriends over the years had tended to be the dark and brooding variety. Only recently had she been able to convince herself that nothing good came from dating such men. She’d wasted too much time trying to see through their veneers only to have them push her further and further away. She hadn’t spent all of those years in therapy only to find a man who was as emotionally repressed as her father had been.

Initially, she’d written Drake off as yet another one of the grumpy men she was determined to move beyond, but she kept seeing glimmers of something else. Last night, he’d told her about Savannah and he’d been completely open -- if only for a few moments. What's more, he'd taken responsibility for his sister's wellbeing, whether or not it was warranted. That combination of vulnerability and loyalty was rare, and she'd fallen asleep contemplating whether any man had ever looked out for her in the way that Drake looked out for his missing sister. If she was honest with herself, she thought it might be nice to know what that felt like.

Jena didn't have a firm opinion on the man yet, but she was certain of one thing: she’d be taking him up on that drink.

[woodsens]

The 12 Worst Types best beginner keyboard piano

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens music that she wrote more than a decade back, the lady who arrived to get recognised only given that the piano teacher available what, in hindsight, seems like an eerie glimpse of her personal foreseeable future.

Im moving absent nowadays to a location so far-off, the place nobody knows my title, she wrote from the lyrics of a song referred to as Shifting.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano teacher and freelance audio writer who liked Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Appears, lengthy walks and every little thing about The big apple.

On a kind of beloved walks, via Central Park in the bright Sunshine of the June day in 1996, a homeless drifter conquer her and tried to rape her, leaving her clinging to life. Once the assault, the terms to her music came legitimate. She moved absent, away from Ny city, outside of her outdated lifestyle, and all but her closest buddies didn't know her title. To the rest of the environment, she was — like the much more well known jogger attacked in Central Park seven yrs before — an anonymous image of the city nightmare. She was the piano Instructor.

Now, within the 10th anniversary of your attack, she is celebrating what seems to be her total Restoration from brain trauma. She is forty two, married, with a little baby. She is Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano teacher, and he or she hopes to explain to her Tale, her way.

Her medical professional explained to her it will take ten years to Get well, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I come to feel my everyday living continues to be redefined by Central Park, she claimed a number of days in the past, her voice delicate and hopeful. Just before park; following park. Will there at any time certainly be a time Once i dont think, Oh, this is the 10th anniversary, the eleventh anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch household in a very wooded subdivision inside a The big apple suburb. She sat inside of a eating area strewn with toys, surrounded by images of her cherubic, darkish-haired 2-yr-aged daughter. A Steinway grand stuffed 50 percent the room, and at a single position she sat down and performed. Her playing was forceful, but she seemed humiliated to play various bars, and shrugged, as opposed to answering, when asked the title from the piece. She requested that her daughter and her city not be named.

She calls that day, June 4, 1996, the day when I was damage.

Hers was the very first in a string of assaults by precisely the same man on 4 women about 8 times. The last sufferer, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was crushed to Demise as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in jail.

Still the assault over the piano Instructor would be the one particular people feel to remember probably the most. Part of the fascination must do with echoes in the 1989 assault over the Central Park jogger. But Additionally, it frightened men and women in a way the attack within the jogger didn't simply because its situations have been so mundane.

It didn't happen in a very distant part of the park late during the night, but in close proximity to a well known playground at 3 inside the afternoon. It could have occurred to anybody. The stress was heightened by the thriller with the piano teachers id.

For three times, as law enforcement and Medical doctors experimented with to see who she was, she lay inside a coma in her clinic bed, nameless. Her moms and dads were on trip and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Last but not least, among her pupils regarded a law enforcement sketch and was able to detect her from the clinic by her fingers, mainly because her face was swollen beyond recognition. The law enforcement did not release her name.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is offering a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Road, then Placing her very long hair inside of a ponytail and going out to get a walk. She won't try to remember the attack, Though she has read the accounts from the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its similar to a actuality I learned and memorized, she said. Just as if I have been a pupil in school studying record.

She won't take into consideration The person who did it. I may need been angry for any minute, although not much longer than that, she mentioned. How could I be offended at John Royster? He was declared not crazy, but I assume by our expectations he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her health care provider at Ny Healthcare facility-Cornell Healthcare Heart, as it was identified in 1996, informed reporters that she experienced a 10 per cent possibility of survival. Medical practitioners experienced to get rid of her forehead bone, which was later replaced, to produce home for her swelling Mind. When her mother manufactured a community attract pray for my daughter, countless numbers did.

Soon after 8 times, she arrived outside of a coma, to start with inside a vegetative state, then in the childlike state. As she recovered, she slept minor and talked consistently, sometimes in gibberish. I used to be having mad at folks after they didnt reply to these words and phrases, she claimed.

Like an Alzheimers affected individual, she had very little brief-term memory and would ignore guests once they remaining the space.

More than various months, she had to relearn the way to walk, gown, examine and produce. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, frequented every day to Perform guitar for her. He encouraged her to Engage in the piano, in opposition to the recommendation of her Bodily therapists, who believed she would be pissed off by her lack of ability to Enjoy just how she at the time had. Mr. Scherr performed Beatles duets with her, participating in the still left-hand portion though she performed the correct.

That was my best therapy, she said.

In August, she moved again residence to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She visited outdated haunts and named friends, striving to restore her shattered memory. I used to be pretty obsessed with remembering, she mentioned. Any memory reduction was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists believed her development was fantastic, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she experienced lost the opportunity to cry, just as if a faucet within her brain had been turned off. A person evening, 9 months just after she was harm, she stayed up late to look at the John Grisham Motion picture A The perfect time to Get rid of. Just immediately after her father experienced long gone to bed, she viewed a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on trial for killing two Gentlemen who had raped his younger daughter.

The faucet opened, plus the tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought about my mom and dad, my father, and what they went by means of, she explained. Minimal by tiny, my experience returned, my depth of mind returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back to highschool and acquired a masters diploma in tunes schooling.

Not every thing went nicely. She and Mr. Scherr split up 5 years following the assault, even though they continue to be good friends. She dated other Guys, but she usually instructed them regarding the assault straight away — she couldn't aid it, she mentioned — they usually hardly ever known as for the second date.

We have to uncover you anyone, her Mate David Phelps, a guitar participant, said four yrs ago, in advance of introducing her to Liam McCann, a pc technician and amateur drummer. For once, she didn't say just about anything with regard to the assault till she acquired to grasp Mr. McCann, and after that when she did, he admired her strength.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had normally frequented her at her bedside when she was inside the healthcare facility, married them in his Times Sq. office. She wore a blue gown and pearls. Whilst she was pregnant, within a burst of creativeness, she and her mates recorded Even though Were being Youthful, an album of childrens songs that she experienced prepared ahead of the attack, including the tune Transferring. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, developed the CD. On it, her partner plays drums and she plays electric piano.

Is her life as it absolutely was? Not accurately, nevertheless she's unwilling to attribute the discrepancies to her injuries. Her previous two piano college students still left her, without the need of calling to explain why, she stated. She has resumed taking part in classical new music, but simple pieces, for the reason that her daughter would not give her time and energy to exercise. As for jazz, I dont even attempt, she claimed.

She wish to generate far more, sensation stranded within the suburbs, but she is definitely rattled. She tries to be articles with staying dwelling and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a medical professor of neurological operation at what is now identified as New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Clinical Center, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann after the attack, said last week that her amount of recovery was rare. Shes basically usual, he said.

Other specialists, who're not personally accustomed to Ms. Kevorkian McCanns case, are more careful.

Regaining the ability to play the piano might contain an Practically mechanical method, a semiautomatic remember of what the fingers ought to do, mentioned Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of scientific rehabilitation medication at New York College School of Medication. When brain-wounded, you happen to be always brain-injured, for the rest of your lifetime, Dr. Ben-Yishay stated. There's no overcome, There exists only intensive compensation.

The greater telling Portion of a Restoration, in his perspective, is psychological, and on that rating he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and kid as a major victory.

For her aspect, the piano teacher understands she has changed, but she has designed her peace with it. I was type of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a Type A, but I was bold, she claims. Why was I so formidable? I used to be a piano Trainer. I dont really know what the ambition was about. I actually did return to the person Im purported to be.

[emilyl-b]

12 Reasons You Shouldn't Invest in best keyboard for beginners

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens music that she wrote greater than ten years in the past, the lady who arrived to become known only because the piano Instructor provided what, in hindsight, looks like an eerie glimpse of her very own upcoming.

Im moving away these days to a place so far-off, the place no person understands my title, she wrote while in the lyrics of the music named Shifting.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano teacher and freelance audio writer who beloved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Seems, lengthy walks and every thing about New York.

On a kind of beloved walks, by Central Park in the bright Sunlight of the June day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and attempted to rape her, leaving her clinging to daily life. Following the assault, the terms to her tune came real. She moved away, out of Ny city, outside of her old lifetime, and all but her closest close friends did not know her identify. To the rest of the environment, she was — just like the additional renowned jogger attacked in Central Park 7 several years before — an anonymous image of an urban nightmare. She was the piano Instructor.

Now, about the tenth anniversary of your attack, she is celebrating what seems to be her complete recovery from brain trauma. She's forty two, married, with a little boy or girl. She is Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano Trainer, and she wants to explain to her story, her way.

Her medical professional informed her it would acquire 10 years to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I really feel my lifetime has actually been redefined by Central Park, she said numerous days back, her voice comfortable and hopeful. Before park; right after park. Will there at any time be a time After i dont Assume, Oh, This is actually the tenth anniversary, the 11th anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch household in a wooded subdivision within a Big apple suburb. She sat within a dining place strewn with toys, surrounded by images of her cherubic, dim-haired 2-yr-previous daughter. A Steinway grand loaded fifty percent the home, and at just one point she sat down and performed. Her taking part in was forceful, but she seemed embarrassed to play quite a lot of bars, and shrugged, instead of answering, when requested the identify of your piece. She questioned that her daughter and her town not be named.

She calls that working day, June four, 1996, the working day After i was harm.

Hers was the 1st in a very string of assaults by a similar guy on four Girls above 8 days. The last victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was overwhelmed to Loss of life as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to existence in prison.

Still the attack around the piano Instructor could be the one particular people today look to keep in mind by far the most. Section of the fascination should do with echoes of the 1989 attack around the Central Park jogger. But In addition it frightened folks in a method the attack within the jogger didn't mainly because its situation ended up so mundane.

It did not happen inside of a distant Component of the park late in the evening, but in close proximity to a well-liked playground at 3 while in the afternoon. It might have occurred to any individual. The tension was heightened by the secret of the piano teachers id.

For three times, as police and doctors tried using to see who she was, she lay within a coma in her hospital bed, anonymous. Her parents have been on holiday vacation and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Eventually, among her students recognized a law enforcement sketch and was ready to discover her from the healthcare facility by her fingers, for the reason that her confront was swollen over and above recognition. The police didn't release her name.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is providing a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Avenue, then putting her extensive hair inside of a ponytail and heading out for just a walk. She will not don't forget the assault, Despite the fact that she has heard the accounts of the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its just like a fact I learned and memorized, she said. As if I were a scholar in school studying record.

She would not think of The person who did it. I might need been angry for a second, although not a lot longer than that, she said. How could I be angry at John Royster? He was declared not insane, but I suppose by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical doctor at The big apple Healthcare facility-Cornell Healthcare Center, as it was recognized in 1996, told reporters that she had a ten per cent chance of survival. Doctors experienced to remove her forehead bone, which was later changed, for making space for her swelling Mind. When her mom built a community appeal to pray for my daughter, thousands did.

Soon after eight times, she arrived out of a coma, 1st in a vegetative condition, then in a childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept tiny and talked continually, at times in gibberish. I had been having mad at persons if they didnt respond to these text, she stated.

Like an Alzheimers affected individual, she had minor limited-expression memory and would neglect site visitors as soon as they remaining the room.

Above a number of months, she had to relearn ways to stroll, costume, read through and publish. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, visited every day to Engage in guitar for her. He inspired her to play the piano, towards the recommendation of her Actual physical therapists, who believed she might be annoyed by her inability to Perform how she after had. Mr. Scherr played Beatles duets together with her, actively playing the left-hand section when she played the ideal.

Which was my most effective therapy, she said.

In August, she moved back dwelling to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She frequented old haunts and known as mates, hoping to revive her shattered memory. I was very obsessed with remembering, she claimed. Any memory decline was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists imagined her development was wonderful, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she were.

What bothered her most was that she experienced misplaced the opportunity to cry, as if a faucet inside her brain were turned off. One particular night time, nine months just after she was hurt, she stayed up late to watch the John Grisham Motion picture A The perfect time to Get rid of. Just soon after her father had long gone to bed, she viewed a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on demo for killing two Males who experienced raped his younger daughter.

The faucet opened, as well as the tears trickled down her cheeks. I considered my mothers and fathers, my father, and what they went by, she said. Little by minimal, my sensation returned, my depth of brain returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went again to highschool and received a masters diploma in new music schooling.

Not every little thing went well. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years once the attack, though they continue to be mates. She dated other men, but she constantly instructed them with regard to the assault without delay — she couldn't enable it, she explained — they usually hardly ever referred to as for any second date.

We have now to locate you anyone, her Buddy David Phelps, a guitar player, said four a long time ago, just before introducing her to Liam McCann, a computer technician and newbie drummer. For at the time, she didn't say nearly anything concerning the attack till she got to be aware of Mr. McCann, then when she did, he admired her energy.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had frequently frequented her at her bedside though she was in the medical center, married them in his Times Square Workplace. She wore a blue costume and pearls. Though she was pregnant, in a very burst of creativeness, she and her buddies recorded Though Were being Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she had prepared prior to the assault, such as the music Shifting. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, manufactured the CD. On it, her spouse plays drums and she plays electrical piano.

Is her lifetime as it was? Not precisely, however she is reluctant to attribute the dissimilarities to her accidents. Her final two piano students left her, without having contacting to elucidate why, she claimed. She has resumed playing classical new music, but straightforward pieces, because her daughter would not give her time for you to practice. As for jazz, I dont even consider, she explained.

She would want to travel extra, experience stranded while in the suburbs, but she is definitely rattled. She tries to be articles with keeping residence and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a medical professor of neurological surgical procedure at what on earth is now referred to as Big apple-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Heart, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann following the attack, stated last week that her amount of Restoration was exceptional. Shes mainly ordinary, he stated.

Other professionals, who are not personally aware of Ms. Kevorkian McCanns circumstance, tend to be more cautious.

Regaining the ability to Participate in the piano may perhaps entail an Nearly mechanical system, a semiautomatic recall of exactly what the fingers must do, claimed Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at Ny University Faculty of Drugs. After brain-injured, you happen to be generally brain-wounded, For the remainder of your lifetime, Dr. Ben-Yishay said. There isn't any remedy, there is only intensive payment.

The greater telling Component of a Restoration, in his perspective, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and boy or girl as a significant victory.

For her element, the piano Trainer is familiar with she has changed, but she has made her peace with it. I used to be form of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a Type A, but I used to be formidable, she claims. Why was I so formidable? I used to be a piano teacher. I dont really know what the ambition was about. I actually did come back to the individual Im speculated to be.

[homestuckcanonconfirmer]

Will best keyboard for beginners

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens music that she wrote more than ten years in the past, the girl who arrived to generally be recognized only given that the piano Instructor supplied what, in hindsight, seems like an eerie glimpse of her very own future.

Im shifting away currently to a location so far away, wherever no person is aware of my name, she wrote during the lyrics of the song known as Shifting.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano Instructor and freelance new music author who liked Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Seems, extensive walks and every thing about The big apple.

On one of those beloved walks, by Central Park in the bright Sunlight of a June working day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and made an effort to rape her, leaving her clinging to existence. Following the attack, the words and phrases to her music came real. She moved away, out of New York City, outside of her outdated daily life, and all but her closest good friends did not know her title. To the rest of the entire world, she was -- like the far more well-known jogger attacked in Central Park seven several years previously -- an nameless symbol of the urban nightmare. She was the piano Trainer.

Now, about the 10th anniversary from the assault, she's celebrating what is apparently her comprehensive recovery from brain trauma. She is 42, married, with a small baby. She's Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano teacher, and she or he really wants to tell her Tale, her way.

Her medical doctor advised her it would just take a decade to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I sense my everyday living has long been redefined by Central Park, she reported various times in the past, her voice soft and hopeful. Prior to park; soon after park. Will there ever certainly be a time After i dont Assume, Oh, Here is the 10th anniversary, the eleventh anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch dwelling within a wooded subdivision in a very Ny suburb. She sat within a eating space strewn with toys, surrounded by pictures of her cherubic, darkish-haired two-year-old daughter. A Steinway grand filled 50 percent the place, and at a single level she sat down and played. Her participating in was forceful, but she appeared embarrassed to Engage in quite a lot of bars, and shrugged, rather then answering, when asked the title of the piece. She asked that her daughter and her town not be named.

She phone calls that day, June four, 1996, the day After i was hurt.

Hers was the very first inside of a string of attacks by exactly the same man on 4 Females more than 8 days. The last victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was crushed to Loss of life as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleaning store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to existence in prison.

But the attack over the piano teacher is definitely the just one people today appear to keep in mind by far the most. Portion of the fascination has got to do with echoes in the 1989 attack within the Central Park jogger. But Furthermore, it frightened folks in a method the assault around the jogger didn't simply because its situations ended up so mundane.

It did not happen inside of a distant Component of the park late during the night, but in close proximity to a preferred playground at three inside the afternoon. It might have happened to anyone. The strain was heightened from the thriller with the piano teachers identification.

For three times, as police and Health professionals tried out to find out who she was, she lay in a very coma in her healthcare facility mattress, anonymous. Her mothers and fathers ended up on vacation and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Last but not least, certainly one of her college students identified a law enforcement sketch and was in a position to discover her inside the hospital by her fingers, for the reason that her confront was swollen further than recognition. The law enforcement did not launch her identify.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is offering a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Avenue, then putting her extensive hair inside of a ponytail and heading out to get a wander. She does not keep in mind the attack, Even though she has heard the accounts with the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its just like a point I realized and memorized, she claimed. Like I have been a college student in school studying record.

She won't give thought to The person who did it. I might need been angry to get a instant, although not a lot longer than that, she reported. How could I be indignant at John Royster? He was declared not crazy, but I guess by our specifications he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her health care provider at The big apple Clinic-Cornell Health-related Center, as it absolutely was acknowledged in 1996, told reporters that she had a 10 per cent potential for survival. Physicians experienced to eliminate her forehead bone, which was later replaced, to generate home for her swelling Mind. When her mother designed a public attract pray for my daughter, hundreds did.

After eight days, she arrived outside of a coma, initial in a vegetative condition, then in a childlike point out. As she recovered, she slept minimal and talked constantly, sometimes in gibberish. I had been obtaining mad at individuals whenever they didnt reply to these words and phrases, she said.

Like an Alzheimers individual, she had little short-expression memory and would forget about people when they left the room.

Over a number of months, she had to relearn the way to walk, costume, study and publish. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, visited every day to Enjoy guitar for her. He encouraged her to play the piano, against the recommendation of her Actual physical therapists, who thought she might be disappointed by her incapacity to Engage in the way she after experienced. Mr. Scherr played Beatles duets along with her, playing the still left-hand section whilst she performed the correct.

That was my most effective therapy, she claimed.

In August, she moved back again property to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mom, a schoolteacher. She visited aged haunts and called close friends, striving to restore her shattered memory. I used to be very obsessive about remembering, she said. Any memory decline was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists assumed her development was great, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she experienced dropped the ability to cry, as if a faucet inside of her Mind were turned off. A person evening, nine months just after she was hurt, she stayed up late to look at the John Grisham Film A Time for you to Eliminate. Just just after her father had long gone to mattress, she watched a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on trial for killing two Gentlemen who had raped his youthful daughter.

The faucet opened, and also the tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought about my mothers and fathers, my father, and whatever they went by way of, she explained. Minor by small, my experience returned, my depth of intellect returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went back to high school and acquired a masters diploma in new music schooling.

Not almost everything went well. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years once the assault, however they remain mates. She dated other men, but she often instructed them about the assault instantly -- she couldn't help it, she mentioned -- plus they never ever referred to as to get a next day.

We've to search out you an individual, her Good friend David Phelps, a guitar player, stated four yrs back, before introducing her to Liam McCann, a pc technician and newbie drummer. For after, she didn't say just about anything in regards to the assault right until she bought to learn Mr. McCann, and after that when she did, he admired her toughness.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had often visited her at her bedside whilst she was within the hospital, married them in his Times Square office. She wore a blue gown and pearls. While she was pregnant, in a burst of creativity, she and her mates recorded When Were Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she experienced published ahead of the attack, such as the music Shifting. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, made the CD. On it, her spouse performs drums and she or he plays electrical piano.

Is her daily life as it had been? Not specifically, however she's reluctant to attribute the differences to her injuries. Her last two piano pupils still left her, without calling to elucidate why, she stated. She has resumed enjoying classical tunes, but uncomplicated items, for the reason that her daughter doesn't give her time for you to follow. As for jazz, I dont even try, she stated.

She would like to generate extra, emotion stranded while in the suburbs, but she is easily rattled. She tries to be articles with being property and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a scientific professor of neurological operation at precisely what is now known as NewYork-Presbyterian Healthcare facility/Weill Cornell Professional medical Middle, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann once the assault, stated past week that her level of Restoration was scarce. Shes mainly normal, he mentioned.

Other professionals, who are not personally informed about Ms. Kevorkian McCanns situation, are more cautious.

Regaining a chance to play the piano might entail an Practically mechanical procedure, a semiautomatic recall of exactly what the fingers have to do, mentioned Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of scientific rehabilitation medicine at Ny College School of Drugs. The moment Mind-wounded, you're generally brain-wounded, For the remainder of your daily life, Dr. Ben-Yishay said. There is not any cure, There may be only intensive payment.

The more telling Portion of a Restoration, in his perspective, is psychological, and on that rating he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns marriage and youngster as a substantial victory.

For her part, the piano Instructor appreciates she has adjusted, but she has manufactured her peace with it. I was form of a hyper ---- I dont know if I used to be a kind A, but I used to be formidable, she states. Why was I so formidable? I used to be a piano teacher. I dont really know what the ambition was about. I really did come back to the individual Im designed to be.

Correction: June thirteen, 2006, Tuesday An post on Thursday about Kyle Kevorkian McCann, a piano teacher who was overwhelmed and sexually assaulted a decade in the past in Central Park, misstated the title of her album of childrens songs. It can be Even though Were being Young, not When Have been Young.

[becky-helene]

Random video game wondering. Long post, sorry mobile app doesn't allow for "read more" and I'm too lazy to post this via means that do have ability to insert "read mores".

I have a question for people who play rpg games (specifically Dragon Age and Mass Effect since those are the particular games I’m more so thinking of, not to mention the only ones I’ve played….or played a bit of and plan on playing more of in ME’s case…but question also applies for Fallout, Skyrim, or any sort of game that allows for character creation and multiple playthroughs so as to experience different story outcomes)

Do you generally consider your first go through of the game/first created character as your main or “canon” game/character? Or do you hold off on really thinking about canon or main until you’ve found the “type” of playthrough (character, romance, story choices, etc) you like the most? (Or don’t think about canon/main at all and are just like “hey, chill, you’re overthinking”, which is a valid avenue to take too lol).

----(cue contemplating own Ryder options, feel free to scroll past if uninterested)----

I’m all bouncing in my seat waiting for Andromeda, and in that excitement I’ve been contemplating on my Ryder. For now, all I’ve really come up with is that I know it’ll be sisRyder, most likely she’ll embody the “precious cinnamon roll, with the occasional snark” archetype since I tend to gravitate towards that a lot, if hairstyle options include any curly or at least wavy options I'll most likely be using them, cause well duh lol, and….that’s kind of it. Well, there’s also practically a folder full of possible names that I either need to trim down or at least settle on some finalist for first Ryder while holding onto the rest for future sisRyders.

I’m still flip flopping on who she’ll romance. Partly because we don’t really know who is romancable by sisRyders…..but mostly because I can’t decide between Liam and Jaal (assuming they’re romancable at all, let alone by sisRyder). Liam is adorable and my Death in Paradise and Downton Abbey fan self is all “yes plz!” at Gary Carr voicing him (though good god I was not prepared for full Brit accent Gary/Liam. Oh god send help I’m dead).

And Jaal….well, Iron Bull is my #1 Video Game Boyfriend, and I’ve developed serious Garrus love even without playing the whole trilogy for myself. So, clearly large nonhumanoids (and sporting some sort of eye covering apparently, since they’ve all got that in common….oh, and scarring of varrying degrees) that invoke feelings of “fuck, I’d climb him like a tree” is my video game boyfriend type. I’m not discounting the idea of Vetra being my video game girlfriend for a later Ryder regardless of who she’s romancable by, but for now my indecisive ass can only handle two candidates.

A part of me is wondering if I should come up with in depth character study, personality, and what not, and really make Ryder to be like….the best and most (at least to me in my own head) fleshed out as she can be, as I've seen other people doing in preparation for their Ryders. But then another part of be is like “why are you obsessing? She’ll just be your first Ryder, who knows if she’s your main”. Which is true. None of my “main” Dragon Age characters have been my first.

---(long drawn out oversharing of Inquistors/Hawkes/Wardens, again, feel free to scroll past if uninterested)---

For Inquisition, what would be come my canon type of game (f!Adaar mage romancing Iron Bull, mage allies, Wardens stay, I think Orláis outcome that would later become my canon was first used here being reuniting Briala and Celene, Inquisitor drinks from Well, Leliana as divine) was my second ever playthrough.

But it wasn't until I'd played through different characters, romances, choices, etc, before I realized that was my absolute favorite. And it wasn't until my I think 20th/5th (if counting both current games and the games I lost when my PS3 had a meltdown and I lost all my save files/only counting that which I've played since upgrading to ps4) game in total that I declared Yasema Adaar (I think 13th/3rd of f!Adaar mage Bullmances) as my main/canon. And the only reason she beat out previous f!Adaars for "canon" title was because she was the first character (f!adaar and otherwise) I stuck through the entirety of all dlcs with, as supposed to giving up on JoH and/or Descent halfway through and moving on to Trespasser. So, that feat alone deserved the title of main/canon character.

As for my main Warden and Hawke, Hawke is somewhat similar---my favorite "type" of Hawke (f!Mage Fenris rivalmance) was maybe my 2nd or 3rd ever DA2 game (2nd was maybe mage and Fenris friendshipmance, 3rd was when I was like yeah I'm kinda liking the rivalmance). The particular Fenris romancing mageHawke that inevitably became my canon Hawke was just the one of many other mageHawke Fenrismances that I happened to have used in putting together Yasema's world state. So she became canon by default.

Ditto on my Warden. My first ever DAO playthrough was an f!Cousland rogue romancing Alistair and became his queen, my second was f!Amell romancing Alistair and became his mistress when he became king. My Amell became canon because, again, by default due to making the Yasema world state triple dose of mage ladies.

Although, if going by what type played most often.....I guess DAO stands apart from DA2 and DAI in that while those two my most played type became canon, I only have 1 Amell playthrough verses like....3 or 5 Couslands, if counting one that I was in the middle of when playstation had its meltdown and I lost saves thus incomplete game, and another that's from me trying to recently revisit DAO on a computer and I gave up on and is therefore also incomplete unless my console gaming preferring self returns to it at some point.

If we're counting only complete plays, then it's about 3 Couslands, 1 Amell, (also have half of an f!Aeducan that was meant to serve as the third Alistair romance outcome of the two remaining Wardens together, but that got cut short due to PS3 having a second and this time fatal meltdown halfway through playing).

And as for Mass Effect, well I'm still in the middle of attempting to play the original trilogy on PC. It's slow going due to my aforementioned dragging my feet when it comes to PC gaming. So, my Shepherd will automatically be my canon since she'll be the only one most likely lol.

----(okay, enough blather, back to the actual point)----

Okay, this got a lot more long winded and ramble-y than originally intended. Sorry about that.

Anyway, so yeah, just curious about anyone who does declare specific portags as their canon/main in any of these sort of games. Is first automatically canon to you, or do you take a wait and see approach before declaring what is your main play through?

Oh and somewhere in all my rambling I think I lost the reason by I started this post in the first place, which is that I'm treating my first Ryder as if she'll be my main/canon, when really my history has shown first ever play through=\=main or canon down the road. Isn't it fun when your ADHD makes you easily distracted *and* hyperfixated? :/ lol

[innerpostmentality]

Replanting

This is NSFW Based on the PixelBerry owned The Royal Romance series.

Features the characters: King Liam, and Sophia (MC)

Set after the burning of the Cordonian apple orchard at the crown estate of Applewood.

Relationship: +

Moonlight streams though the open window as you open your eyes and try to figure out what awoke you. Then you hear your name called softly from the window.

It's almost dreamlike as you lie there for a moment before "tat", a small stone hits the window, then "tat" another bounces off the sill. Grabbing your lace silk dressing robe from the foot of the bed you wrap it around you before going to the window. Looking out at the infamous photographers tree you see Liam perched precariously on the limb right outside your window! You can't help but chuckle at the King of Cordonia hanging in a tree outside your bedroom window.

"Romeo????" you snort and shake your head. "Your Majesty please come in before you injure yourself."

Liam smiles and shakes his head, "Sophia... you are truly beautiful, a goddess in the moonlight... Actually though, I was hoping you would join me." He holds his hand out to you.

"You want me to climb out there?" You look down at the good twenty foot drop to the ground and raise your brow at him. "Hasn't anyone ever taught you that gravity is a harsh mistress?"

Liam looks down then back up at you and smiles. "And still, I would ask you to climb out on a limb with me."

You get the bench from the foot of your bed and use it to climb out onto the windowsill. You reach out and take Liam's hand and see there's not more than a few feet from your windowsill to the heavy branch that Liam is standing on. And as you hop across to the branch and wrap your arms around him to steady yourself you realize that he is in fact wearing dark blue silk pajamas and is barefooted. "Liam?" He kisses you, and you taste the sweet wine he's obviously been drinking. "Love, are you drunk?"

He smiles, "Not very. Yet. I need you. Come with me... Please?" He looks deeply in your eyes before he starts to climb down being careful to help you.

Visions of him falling and injuring himself and you trying to explain, dance in your brain as you follow him down and sigh with relief as both of you finally have both feet on solid ground.

"Liam, Promise me no more climbing trees tonight." You tug his hand.

 He turns and tugs you into his arms and kisses you again. "You came to me." He murmurs this as he studies your face and his hands roam your back pulling you against him. "There's something we need to do." He lets you go but keeps your hand and leads you off toward the hedge maze.

You follow him silently a bit bemused as he stealthily makes his way across the Applewood grounds and into the hedge maze. A few turns in he stops pulls you against him again and kisses you passionately. He breaks the kiss and looks deeply into your eyes. "Sophia... my love... my queen..."

"Liam, I love you but I'm very confused at the moment."

He smiles and traces your lips with his finger tip before leading you further into the maze.  Finally he stops and bends down and crawls through an opening in the hedge you hadn't noticed before. You follow him and find yourself in a short stone work tunnel lit by a single torch in a sconce at the end on a solid wall. He reaches into the brush pulling out a couple of bottles of wine. He hands you one keeping the other one for himself before going to the wall. He pulls the sconce straight out from the wall and then pushes on one of the stones in the wall and it slides quietly in and then a narrow section of the wall rotates outward allowing passage to the outside of the wall and you realize you are in the remains of the burned apple orchard. Liam leads you very carefully and quietly through the burn and finally to the small tree you planted together earlier in the day. He pulls the cork from his wine bottle and takes a sip from the bottle before offering the bottle to you. "Drink beloved."

You look at him a moment and his face is very serious as you take the proffered bottle and sip the wine which is a zesty honeyed chardonnay with notes of apple and vanilla. "Liam what are we doing?"

He looks at you a long moment, hope, love, and naked passion all grace his countenance. He takes your hand and traces your fingers with his thumb playing with his ring sparkling on your finger. Finally he smiles, "Actually it's an old ritual. Very, very old. Do you know the tales of Dionysus?"

You look down at your hand in his and the ring of your promise to Liam on your finger before you answer. "He was some sort of Greek God? God of wine? I'm not sure."

Liam smiles at you and nods. "He was one of the Olympian twelve. Born a mortal. Given immortality for his gift of wine. He was a god of wine, passion, and fertility." He strokes your arms as he speaks then kisses you again. "You remember the Apple Blossom Festival?"

You nod and stoke his cheek and then kiss him again. "Of course. It was the first time you called me your Queen. It was the first time you kissed me in public. It was the first time I realized that I really had seriously fallen in love with you."

He smiles and looks in your eyes and traces your lips with his finger. His voice is low, "The origin of the Apple Blossom Festival is much older. Legend says it started as a Dionysian Mystery. A ritual of liberation, spring, and fertility. In the past the Queen and the King would celebrate spring with dance and revelry and insure the bounty of the harvest by mating in the fields and orchards."

You look at him carefully and slowly smile. "Liam.. do you want to mate with me here?"

His eyes are fiery with passion as he caresses you with his dark eyes from your bare feet up to your night tousled hair finally meeting your eyes. His voice is low and intense. "Sophia... there is not a moment, anywhere that I don't want to mate with you."

Your womb contracts and you feel the ache of need for him in your core as he says this. You keep your eyes locked with his as you bring the bottle to your lips and slowly sip. Then you offer it to him. And he curls his hand around yours on the bottle as he leans in to gently sip a kiss from your lips before sipping the wine. He looks in your eyes as he confesses, "My heart was already yours. I think from the moment I first saw the Statue of Liberty with you at my side. Though I'm not sure I admitted it to myself until you came to me in that ballroom; my angel sent to rescue me."

You smile and kiss him. "So how does this ritual go?"

"First we must purify ourselves." Liam smiles as he removes his pajamas to stand naked and already aroused before you. He pulls the tie of your robe and strokes your body as he helps you out of your robe and night clothes. He deftly opens the other bottle of wine and then carefully dribbles it over you. First he sips then shares it with you as he kisses you deeply. Then he pours a little more over one breast and then the other which he licks and then suckles off.

You moan as your nipples respond and ache with his kiss.

He takes a mouthful of the wine and kneels before you to lave it over your stomach and navel with his tongue. Another mouthful and he holds your butt while he carefully, thoroughly licks every fold and crease and the very core of you until you are mewling with passion and your legs tremble. Then he stands before you and you see how hard he is, his voice is rough with his need as he hands you the bottle. "Sophia, make me worthy."

You follow his lead sprinkling the wine over him then licking and suckling it off him. He groans with his need and restraint, watching you intently with trembling desire as you circle his nipples with your tongue then pour a rivulet down the center of his chest which you follow down to the base of his towering cock with your tongue. You take a mouthful of the wine and then ever so gently lave his balls with your tongue then measure his throbbing cock with your mouth before swirling your tongue around it's tip. 

Gasping he pulls you up and kisses you deeply before closing his eyes to steady himself. He takes the bottle you have been using for the purification and holding you beside him pours it solemnly around you both in a circle. You hear him murmuring but the language is not familiar. Finally he hands you the bottle, "Now you Sophia. This is the invocation. You say 'may it please the gods' as you pour the wine around us."

As he did, you pour the wine in a circle around you softly repeating "May it please the gods." When you close the circle he pulls you to him kissing you fiercely. Breaking the kiss his voice is hoarse with need, "My Queen" He slowly kneels before you kissing then fondling your breasts with trembling hands as his mouth moves lower. He explores your navel with his mouth kissing down your abdomen til he finds your swollen clit with his hot mouth to suckle. And you cry out your need as he drives you to the edge of ecstasy. You hear him murmur, "This is the Offering. Open for me." His hands grasp you securely even as your legs tremble. "Bless me with your bounty. Give me the sweet nectar of your body. Accept my seed and joy. Bless us with your bounty." He plunges his tongue into your wet depth and you cry out even as your orgasm crests nearly taking your consciousness.  Before the waves of your pleasure have even subsided he pulls you down and kisses you deeply and you taste yourself on his tongue. "Sophia... I need... First seed must go to the earth," Liam gasps. And you realize his restraint in this ritual has transcended the line of pleasure and pain. You see his huge erection pulsing his need. 

You kneel down before him taking his tip in your mouth to gently suckle him. He arches his back crying out and pulls your mouth from him even as you see the first powerful spurt of his ejaculation go to the ashy earth you kneel on. Instantly he lifts you with one arm and thrusts his still throbbing cock deep into you moaning his need, "Sophia, take me."

You cry out to him as his passionate invasion takes you over the heights again. And somehow you feel the mouth of your thirsty womb descend on the tip of his pulsing manhood as though drinking his seed from the fountain of life itself. And you know in that moment with a certainty beyond question that you hold a new life and that Cordonia will prosper. You look into Liam's shining eyes and you kiss him with all the love in your heart. Tears stream down your face and mingle with his in joy.

You look at him in wonder and see the same knowledge in his eyes. He hugs you tightly to him and you feel him shaking. Then he pulls away from you just far enough to put his hand over your abdomen. He whispers reverently, "I love you."

Giddy with joy you cant help but tease. "I am sooooo glad I won that contest." You rub his hand over your womb. "And I'm sooo glad our wedding is in a few weeks." You shake your head. "Love, I know it's silly to think that we just made a baby. But I..." Liam presses his forehead to yours and murmurs, "I know." He kisses your forehead, and your nose, and your mouth. Just as he kisses you a drop of rain falls on your nose. You laugh. He smiles and grabs your clothes and his handing them to you before sweeping you up in his arms to carry you back through the orchard and into the stone passage where he sets you on your feet and kisses you again smiling. He helps you dress gently kissing your neck and shoulders. You help him dress, stroking his skin and leaving kisses across his chest even as you cover him up with his pajama shirt. "Liam, shall we go walking in the rain together. I'm seriously not wanting to climb that tree in the rain." He laughs and offers you his arm. "Sophia my love, shall we?"

You stroll through the maze in the rain arm in arm. By the time you get to the front door of the palace you are both soaked though. The guards look surprised as they bow to you. You both manage to keep straight faces as you pass the guards at the stairs and at your room door. Liam escorts you right into your room closing the door behind him and then you both break out in giggles. Liam goes over to close your room window and pulls the bench back over to the foot of your bed. You peel off your wet clothes and dig in your drawer for a dry night shirt. Slipping his arms around you from behind Liam presses his naked warmth to you kissing your ear. "Come to bed Love. I'm staying here tonight."

Looking over your shoulder you lift an eyebrow in surprise. "Are you sure?... I thought we were waiting for our wedding or something." You chuckle and shake your head.

Liam turns you in his arms and kisses you. "Sophia, I don't think of myself as a particularly religious man. But I will not deny what I felt tonight. I believe our love was blessed this night." He takes your hands in his and kisses them and looks in your eyes. "You are my love and my life. Do you know there has not been a night since we met that you have not graced my dreams? Not a night that I have not wakened aching with the need to hold you in my arms? I know that our duties will at times demand that we be apart. I will concede our occasional separation to the duty of the crown, but not to convention. It is a folly to think that any of our guards do not know that we are intimate." He grins and sips a slow deep kiss from your lips searching your eyes.

You smile and laugh. "Oh Liam, you make me so happy. Though I'm not sure we will get as much sleep as we should." You raise a brow and squeeze his naked butt cheek. He bends down and sweeps you up in his arms and carries you to the bed. He sets you down just long enough to turn the covers back and then sets you in the bed and climbs over you  to join you tossing the covers over you both and pulling you against him. "I am certain any sleep lost for being together will more than be made up for with the quality of the peace I have with you safe in my arms."

[woodsens]

12 Companies Leading the Way in fire inside music

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens songs that she wrote over a decade ago, the lady who arrived being known only since the piano Trainer made available what, in hindsight, looks as if an eerie glimpse of her own future.

Im going absent right now to an area so distant, exactly where no one is aware of my identify, she wrote while in the lyrics of the track known as Shifting.

When she wrote that track, she was youthful and vivacious, a piano Instructor and freelance new music author who liked Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Appears, very long walks and anything about Big apple.

On a kind of beloved walks, via Central Park in the brilliant Sunlight of the June day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and made an effort to rape her, leaving her clinging to existence. Once the attack, the phrases to her track came real. She moved absent, outside of Ny city, away from her outdated lifestyle, and all but her closest mates did not know her title. To the remainder of the entire world, she was — just like the additional well known jogger attacked in Central Park seven years earlier — an nameless image of the urban nightmare. She was the piano Instructor.

Now, on the tenth anniversary on the attack, she is celebrating what seems to be her total recovery from brain trauma. She is 42, married, with a small kid. She is Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano teacher, and she wants to notify her story, her way.

Her doctor informed her it could consider 10 years to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I experience my existence has actually been redefined by Central Park, she said many days back, her voice delicate and hopeful. Prior to park; just after park. Will there ever certainly be a time when I dont Imagine, Oh, Here is the tenth anniversary, the 11th anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch house within a wooded subdivision inside of a Ny suburb. She sat in the dining place strewn with toys, surrounded by photos of her cherubic, darkish-haired two-12 months-old daughter. A Steinway grand stuffed half the room, and at one particular point she sat down and played. Her actively playing was forceful, but she appeared humiliated to Participate in more than a few bars, and shrugged, as an alternative to answering, when questioned the name of the piece. She asked that her daughter and her town not be named.

She phone calls that working day, June 4, 1996, the day After i was damage.

Hers was the main inside a string of assaults by the identical guy on four women around eight days. The last sufferer, Evelyn Alvarez, sixty five, was overwhelmed to Loss of life as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleaning store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to existence in prison.

However the attack around the piano Instructor would be the a person men and women appear to be to recall the most. Portion of the fascination has to do with echoes from the 1989 attack around the Central Park jogger. But Additionally, it frightened people in a method the attack about the jogger didn't for the reason that its circumstances have been so mundane.

It didn't take place within a remote Component of the park late at nighttime, but near a popular playground at three while in the afternoon. It could have transpired to anyone. The stress was heightened via the mystery in the piano lecturers identity.

For three times, as police and Medical professionals tried to see who she was, she lay in a coma in her clinic mattress, nameless. Her moms and dads have been on trip and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. At last, considered one of her learners acknowledged a police sketch and was capable of detect her inside the healthcare facility by her fingers, since her encounter was swollen outside of recognition. The police did not release her title.

The last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is giving a lesson in her studio apartment on West 57th Avenue, then putting her very long hair inside a ponytail and heading out to get a stroll. She won't keep in mind the assault, Even though she has read the accounts of the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its similar to a reality I realized and memorized, she mentioned. Just as if I were a college student at school studying background.

She would not give thought to the man who did it. I may need been offended for the second, although not for much longer than that, she said. How could I be offended at John Royster? He was declared not crazy, but I guess by our criteria he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her health care provider at New York Healthcare facility-Cornell Healthcare Center, as it was known in 1996, informed reporters that she experienced a 10 % prospect of survival. Physicians experienced to remove her forehead bone, which was later changed, to help make home for her swelling brain. When her mother manufactured a public appeal to pray for my daughter, countless numbers did.

Soon after eight days, she came out of a coma, initial in a vegetative state, then in a very childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept very little and talked continuously, at times in gibberish. I used to be finding mad at individuals whenever they didnt respond to these words, she said.

Like an Alzheimers affected individual, she had minor limited-phrase memory and would neglect people once they remaining the space.

Above quite a few months, she needed to relearn the best way to stroll, dress, read through and write. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, frequented everyday to Perform guitar for her. He inspired her to Engage in the piano, towards the advice of her Actual physical therapists, who imagined she could be frustrated by her inability to Enjoy the way she as soon as had. Mr. Scherr performed Beatles duets with her, enjoying the remaining-hand section when she played the right.

That was my greatest therapy, she said.

In August, she moved again property to New Jersey, along with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She frequented outdated haunts and named mates, attempting to revive her shattered memory. I was pretty obsessed with remembering, she said. Any memory reduction was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists imagined her development was wonderful, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she had been.

What bothered her most was that she experienced dropped a chance to cry, as though a faucet within her Mind had been turned off. Just one evening, nine months right after she was hurt, she stayed up late to watch the John Grisham Motion picture A Time for you to Eliminate. Just after her father had absent to bed, she watched a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on demo for killing two Guys who experienced raped his young daughter.

The faucet opened, and the tears trickled down her cheeks. I thought of my mothers and fathers, my father, and whatever they went as a result of, she stated. Minor by minor, my emotion returned, my depth of intellect returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went again to school and bought a masters degree in new music training.

Not everything went very well. She and Mr. Scherr split up 5 years once the attack, although they remain buddies. She dated other Guys, but she often informed them in regards to the attack without delay — she could not assist it, she reported — and so they under no circumstances termed for just a 2nd date.

Now we have to discover you a person, her Mate David Phelps, a guitar player, mentioned four many years in the past, in advance of introducing her to Liam McCann, a computer technician and novice drummer. For at the time, she didn't say everything with regards to the assault right until she acquired to learn Mr. McCann, and afterwards when she did, he admired her power.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had typically visited her at her bedside though she was during the healthcare facility, married them in his Moments Square Place of work. She wore a blue dress and pearls. While she was pregnant, in a very burst of creativeness, she and her mates recorded Although Were being Youthful, an album of childrens songs that she had published ahead of the attack, such as the song Shifting. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, made the CD. On it, her partner plays drums and she or he plays electric piano.

Is her lifestyle as it had been? Not specifically, while she's hesitant to attribute the variances to her injuries. Her very last two piano college students left her, without the need of calling to clarify why, she said. She has resumed playing classical new music, but easy parts, due to the fact her daughter doesn't give her time and energy to follow. As for jazz, I dont even attempt, she mentioned.

She wish to push far more, sensation stranded during the suburbs, but she is easily rattled. She tries to be articles with being house and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a clinical professor of neurological surgery at what's now identified as Ny-Presbyterian Clinic/Weill Cornell Clinical Heart, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann after the assault, stated previous 7 days that her degree of recovery was scarce. Shes mainly normal, he reported.

Other industry experts, that are not personally acquainted with Ms. Kevorkian McCanns situation, are more careful.

Regaining a chance to Participate in the piano may well include an Just about mechanical procedure, a semiautomatic recall of what the fingers really need to do, said Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of medical rehabilitation medication at Ny University College of Medicine. As soon as Mind-injured, you're normally brain-injured, for the rest of your life, Dr. Ben-Yishay mentioned. There isn't a overcome, There is certainly only intense payment.

The greater telling Component of a Restoration, in his check out, is psychological, and on that rating he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and boy or girl as a big victory.

For her part, the piano teacher is aware of she has altered, but she has produced her peace with it. I was type of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a sort A, but I used to be bold, she suggests. Why was I so formidable? I was a piano Trainer. I dont know very well what the ambition was about. I actually did return to the individual Im imagined to be.