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woodelf68 · 4 years

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Mornings

A loosely connected series of scenes throughout Loki’s life, from infancy through a future diverging from The Dark World. 9118 words.

(Note: Loki’s age in each scene is as follows, with the years being the Midgardian equivalents -- scene 1, less than a year old. Scene 2, 5 yrs. old. Scene 3, 10 -- picture kid Loki from the movie flashback. Scene 4, about 15. Scene 5, close to 20, canon Loki as seen in his cell in The Dark World. Scene 6, between 25 and 30, it’s reader’s choice as to how much time they wish to have passed between the last two scenes.)

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The querulous cry of a newly awakened baby rang out in the quiet of the room. From her position with her head comfortably pillowed on her husband’s chest, Frigga held her breath, hoping. Perhaps he -- The cry came again, more demanding. She huffed a resigned laugh and started to push herself up. “At least he waited until we were done.” Odin slid out from under her. “Stay; I’ll fetch him.” Pulling on the robe draped over the end of the bed, he padded across to the cradle on the opposite side of the room and smiled down at his seven month old son, who immediately reached for him. “Hello there,” said Odin, ridiculously pleased, as always, when Loki quieted as soon as Odin picked him up, laying his head against Odin’s shoulder and putting his fingers into his mouth to suck on them. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” He pressed a fond kiss to Loki’s silky black curls, cradling the boy against his chest as he automatically checked his diaper. “Yes, you are. You don’t keep fussing once you’ve got someone’s attention. Now Thor -- well, let’s just say that your brother was always a bit more fond of the sound of his own voice.” While he was more than happy to leave this particular task to Frigga or the servants during the day, Odin was not so incompetent that he could not make quick work of changing Loki into a dry diaper, as he did so now. That taken care of, he picked Loki back up and returned to the bed. “What do you say? Are you hungry? Do you want your amma?” He sat down on the side of the bed and passed Loki into Frigga’s waiting arms. “Hello, my sweet son,” Frigga cooed, bringing Loki under the fur with her and guiding him to her breast. That first day, when a hungry baby had been placed in her arms, there’d been no time to look for a wet nurse, and when Loki had taken the goat’s milk she’d sent for without any problems, she had been reluctant to seek out one, selfishly not wanting to hand him over to another woman every couple of hours. If he was to be her son, she wanted him to look to her for his needs, for comfort and nourishment both, and she knew well enough that there were herbs to bring in a woman’s milk, and had soon found a spell to hasten their effects. They had told the court that she had hidden her pregnancy with magic, lest word of her vulnerable state reach Laufey’s ears and make her more of a target for foul play with Odin and most of Asgard’s warriors away fighting in the war. It had been easy enough to add, to those in her retinue close enough to express concern, that the magic had delayed her milk coming in. She could still remember the fierce rush of satisfaction a few weeks later when she had been able to nurse Loki herself for the first time, her heart whispering “mine ”, that feeling of him becoming really and truly hers. Not born of her body, but nourished by it, and he had thrived and grown apace ever since. If there had been the inevitable whispers that Odin had brought home a war bastard, most died away quickly enough as all saw how she doted on Loki, and Odin had, fortunately, come home for a brief visit around the time that Loki would have been conceived. Loki turned into her now and she felt her milk let down as he began suckling hungrily, his eyes fixed steadily on hers. She relaxed into the comfort of the pillows and furs, running a gentle finger down his snub nose and smiling as his eyes crossed as he tried to focus on it. Odin lay back down beside her and gently took hold of one of Loki’s feet, smiling as the tiny toes curled in response to his stroking thumb and Loki’s eyes cut briefly to him before refocusing on her. “Who’s that?” she asked softly. “Is that your pabbi?” She glanced at Odin and Loki followed her gaze, his small hand starfishing against her. “Yes, it is! And do you know how you can tell, hm? Because you called and he came. There are not many who can command the king of Asgard like that, you know.” Odin chuckled and slid back under the fur, coaxing Frigga’s head onto his shoulder so he could wrap one arm around wife and son both and use the other to run his hand through the long, heavy waves of her hair, shining golden in the gentle early morning light that illuminated the room. “Very true. And two of the three people who can are in this room.”

Frigga made a contented noise and relaxed even further, letting her eyes drift half shut in pleasure. The duties of the day would claim the king soon enough, but in that moment, he was simply her husband, and a father, and she cherished every second of such times.

--------------- “We’re about to be invaded,” Odin murmured, hearing the patter of four small feet and the whisper of hushed voices outside their door. It was his favourite time of the day, that early morning hour when he lay relaxed and comfortable with Frigga and they talked about their plans for the upcoming day.

“One of the perils of having children.” she said, smiling.

“But perhaps also one of the pleasures?” he suggested, smiling back. “Admit it, you will be sad when they have grown too much to come tumbling in like overexcited puppies at the break of day on occasion.”

Frigga laughed. “You are quite right. I shall no doubt be proud of the fine young men they grow into, but I shall miss my little boys.”

"Should I knock? Maybe they’re still sleeping.”

"Knock softly!”

A subdued knock sounded on their door, and Frigga called “Come in!”

Thor and Loki burst into the room, still in their sleep clothes. “Happy Name Day!” they chorused. Thor held up the jar he was carrying. “We got you some flowers.”

“And we drew you some pictures,” Loki added, coming over to the bed with some papers clutched in his hand.

“Oh, thank you, the flowers are lovely! Place them right there on that table, Thor, and come show me your drawings.” She took the papers from Loki and patted the mattress beside her. Promptly Loki climbed onto the bed to snuggle into her side, a small, soft warm presence, while Thor scrambled up next to him and crawled over her body to plop himself down on her other side. Odin sat up and leaned over Thor to see the drawings as well. The top one was done in coloured chalk, perfect for capturing the texture of fur, and Frigga smiled as she recognised the black and orange patches on the rounded white shapes in the center, one large and three small.

“It’s Runa and her kittens!” She’d taken both boys to visit the barn cat and her litter a few days ago, instructing them to sit still and quietly and let the kittens approach them if they wanted to. Thor, ever boisterous, had kept fidgeting and whispering, but Loki had sat perfectly still, enraptured by the three small shapes, and had been rewarded when one of the exploring kittens had wobbled over on unsteady legs and had determinedly pulled itself up onto Loki’s lap, where he’d gently stroked it until it had started purring remarkably loudly for a creature of its size.

“Yes!” He beamed proudly. “Do you like it?’“I do indeed, and I love the flowers you drew around the border; they’re very bright and cheerful.” She moved his picture underneath the other one and saw what Thor had drawn. “Oh, Thor, this is really very good.” She admired the dragon rendered in Thor’s careful pencil work. “I should have you design a tapestry for me.”

“Really?” Thor sounded delighted by the idea.

“Why not? Where is this dragon flying to, for instance?”

“His cave, in a mountain,” said Thor. “And it’s filled with his treasure horde.”

“I hope he’s a peaceful dragon,” said Frigga. “I’d hate for anyone to want to hurt him.”

Thor’s face fell at that, as if he’d already been dreaming about slaying the dragon and winning some glory for himself. “I suppose he could be, if you wanted.”

“I do,” said Frigga firmly. “And perhaps he could have a younger dragon brother to fly by his side?”

“Me and Loki!” Thor enthused. “We could be the dragons! And we live in the cave together and go out and have adventures.”

“That would make a very nice tapestry,” agreed Frigga. “You boys could have it for your room.”

“I’ll start sketching it later today,” Thor promised.

“What about us?” Odin asked. “Can your mother and I live in your cave while you boys go out flying around on adventures?”

“Yes! I’ll draw you two lying at the entrance with just your snouts sticking out. You can be a gold dragon, Father, and you a blue one, Mother. What about you, Loki?”

“Green,” said Loki promptly.

“Well, I shall look forward to this epic picture,” said Odin, ruffling Thor’s hair. “It’s a very good likeness of a dragon, Thor. And I like yours as well, Loki.”

“How big should I make the drawing, Mother?”

“We’ll figure that out after breakfast. Speaking of which, why don’t you two go get dressed and ready for the day and we’ll do the same, and we’ll come collect you for breakfast when we’re ready.” She leaned first to the left and then the right, kissing the tops of her sons’ heads. “Thank you for the presents; they’re beautiful.”

“You’re welcome.” Loki knelt up on the bed and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing tightly. “Happy name day, Amma.”

Frigga hugged him back, smoothing a hand over his tousled curls. “Thank you, my darling.” She released him and he slid off the bed, giving Thor room to climb over her and follow suit. He leaned over to give her his own hug once he was on his feet.

“Happy name day,” he echoed. “I’ll help Loki get ready.”

“Thank you, my sweet.” She gave him a squeeze and let him go, watching as he took Loki by the hand and led his little brother from the room. She turned to Odin, beaming. “I think we have the best boys in the entire Nine Realms.”

The skin around Odin’s eye crinkled up. “I’ll remind you of that the next time Thor lets his temper get the better of him or Loki’s curiosity leads him into trouble.”

“I didn’t say they were perfect ,” Frigga said. “Perfect would be boring. And we both know who Thor got his temper from.” She looked at him pointedly.

“I feel like I should be offended but I know you’re right,” Odin admitted. “But if he can learn to channel it, it’ll prove a great asset in battle one day. And at least he got your sweetness of heart to counter it.” Odin leaned over and kissed her.

“Flatterer,” she said fondly. “And what of Loki? What does he have of us?”

“He has your sweetness as well, and your cleverness, and your sensitivity to magic.” Odin looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure what he has of me. My eyes, perhaps,” he joked. “Or my eye; he only ever saw the one.”

“He has your watchfulness,” said Frigga, after a moment of thinking. “He knows how to sit and listen quietly, and remember what he hears. And how to choose his words with care.”

“If he picked that up from me, then I am well pleased,” approved Odin. “Let us hope that he grows up with a taste for politics; those traits will serve him well.” He rolled out of bed. “Come, we had best bestir ourselves before our hungry young dragonlings decide to go foraging for themselves and leave nothing but crumbs and wreckage in their wake.”

Frigga laughed -- but she could picture the scenario all too well. She bestirred herself. ---------------

Loki woke with his heart pounding. Just a nightmare, he told himself, but telling himself that and truly believing it were two different things entirely. It would have been easier if he had been able to simply look to his side and see Thor asleep in his bed, but they had recently been given separate rooms, and he wasn’t sure, at the moment, that he liked it. He sat up, throwing back the covers and swinging his feet down onto the floor. He slipped from his bedroom and made his way across the common room that connected his and Thor’s chambers, the sky outside the windows lit with the brilliance of the stars, and quietly looked into Thor’s bedroom. Thor lay sprawled out on his bed, motionless, but Loki could hear his soft breathing from where he stood and was reassured. He retreated and made his way out into the hallway, and crossed over to his parents’ rooms, feeling the light tingle of the wards that, he knew would permit no one other than himself or his brother to enter once his parents had retired for the night. He passed light-footed through his mother’s weaving room and paused, hovering in the doorway of their bedroom, looking and listening. His parents lay back to back, his mother nearest to him, and after a minute he was sure of the slow rise and fall of the blanket covering her. He moved further into the room, just needing to be sure that his father was all right, too, before he could go back to bed.

“Loki?”His mother’s voice was quiet, sleepy, but Loki nearly jumped out of his skin and couldn’t help letting out a squeak of alarm.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Are you all right?”

“Nightmare,” whispered Loki back. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Want to come in?” Frigga held up the blankets invitingly, scooting back away from the edge of the bed to give Loki more room. She bumped back against Odin’s solid form and he grunted and woke.

“Hmphm?” he murmured, still half asleep.

“Scoot back.”

Odin obliged, but lifted his head, confused, when Frigga followed after him and spied a black head silhouetted against the dim light of the room. “Loki?”

“I’m sorry, I just had a nightmare and needed to make sure you were all right before I tried to go to sleep again,” Loki apologised again. “I’ll go now.”

“Are you sure?” Odin moved back further on the wide bed, putting space between him and Frigga, and wished all parenting decisions were as easy as knowing what to do when your child came to you upset in the middle of the night. “You could come in between us, safest place in the Nine Realms."

Frigga smiled and moved back towards the edge of the bed, creating a perfect Loki-sized space in between them and lifted the covers higher. “Come on, sweetheart.”

Loki hesitated a second, then his feet carried him forward and he scrambled over his mother’s body. Up close, his father looked strange with his eyepatch left off for the night, but he had seen the scarred socket before, and he only glanced at it for a moment before nestling down between his parents and feeling his father’s arm drape comfortingly over him.

“That’s it,” Odin pressed a kiss to Loki’s hair. “I’ve got you; you’re safe.”

Frigga turned over and curled around Loki from the other side, letting the covers fall back down over them and reaching out to rub his shoulder. “Do you want to tell us about your dream?”

“I wasn’t in any danger ,” said Loki. “I was just...alone, here in the palace. It was completely empty; I couldn’t find anyone. But then finally, I found you. Except you were lying like you were laid out for a funeral boat, and I knew you were dead.” He took a deep breath, filling his nostrils with the scent of her, and felt the lingering dread from the nightmare dissipate. “And then I woke up.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Frigga stroked his hair soothingly. “I’m sorry, what a terrible dream. But I promise you that I am very much here and alive and have no plans to go anywhere anytime soon.”

Odin’s heart ached for his son. It was a common theme that ran through Loki’s nightmares, that of being alone and abandoned. Sometimes he was someplace cold, and crying for help that didn’t come, and Odin knew the source of that one. Sometimes Loki was surrounded by fire, and Asgard was burning around him, and that one worried him. This one...well, he knew how close Loki was to his mother; his mind probably couldn’t think of a worse scenario. “No more do I,” said Odin, hugging Loki just a little bit tighter. He thought of saying something serious, about how he still had a good many years left in him yet despite his age, but decided instead on levity. “You won’t get rid of us that easily.” He tickled Loki’s stomach.

Loki giggled and grabbed at his father’s hand. “Good,” he said firmly. His father turned his hand, slotted his larger fingers through Loki’s own, and left his hand there, covering Loki’s reassuringly. Loki relaxed, feeling warm and safe and most definitely not alone. “You don’t think I’m a baby for not wanting to be alone after a nightmare?” he asked hesitantly, just to make sure.

“Of course not, sweetheart,” Frigga reassured him. “I expect you’re still getting used to waking up alone in a room of your own, aren’t you?” She had often enough, through the years, looked in on the boys at night to find them snuggled up together in one bed to suspect that they had found comfort in each other after bad dreams. Certainly Loki hadn’t sought their bed in a while.

“Yes, exactly,” said Loki, grateful that she understood. “I used to be able to wake up and see Thor sleeping in his bed and know that it had just been a dream and that everything was all right.”

“Your mother and I are lucky,” Odin pointed out. “If we have a bad dream, we have someone right here next to us to say that everything is all right and that it was only a dream.”

“I never thought of that,” said Loki thoughtfully. “Do you have bad dreams, Father?”

“I do, sometimes.”

“What about?”

“The usual, I think. Losing someone that I love, being lost. Finding myself in front of a crowd of people and realising that I don’t have any clothes on.”

Loki’s eyes widened and he lifted his head, twisting around to look back at his father. “You have that one, too?”

Frigga laughed. “I think we all have, at one time or another. I used to have that one when I was younger, but no more. I seem to have grown out of it, thank the Norns.” Odin had handled that question well, she thought. Loki didn’t need to be burdened with the details of his father’s nightmares. She heard the first birds begin to call outside, but since the birds had gone to bed hours before she had, she felt justified in ignoring them. “Go back to sleep, little one,” she told Loki softly. “Morning will be here soon enough.”

Loki closed his eyes obediently, and she began to sing softly, the words of the lullaby unforgotten through the years. Frigga watched him, his lashes lying dark against his cheeks, his breathing growing slow, and even, until she was sure he was asleep, and quietly finished the last verse. She glanced at Odin then, to see him watching her, the expression in his eye soft. “I half wish Thor were here as well,” she confessed in a whisper. “Perhaps he’ll come hunting down his brother in the morning. Then I could have all my boys snuggled in safe around me.”

Odin looked amused. “Are you implying that I am one of your boys as well?”

“You are.” Frigga’s tone of voice dared him to say otherwise. “Mine to love, mine to care for.”

“Good,” he said with satisfaction, sounding remarkably like Loki had but a short while earlier, and closed his eye, a contented smile on his face.

Frigga watched her husband and son with a heart full of love. She should suggest that Odin spend some time with the boys tomorrow; both Loki and Thor were always hungry for more of their father's time and attention. And they were old enough now to learn more of the behind the scenes work of ruling the realm; perhaps if she framed it as an educational opportunity, Odin would agree it was worth carving out the time from his schedule. She found Odin's and Loki's joined hands under the covers, and laid her own atop them. falling asleep to dream of the day when her sons would stand side by side and lead Asgard into a bright and prosperous future.

---------------

“Loki! Why are you still abed? Did you forget that we were going to go hunting this morning?” Thor came bursting into Loki’s bedroom with all of his usual exuberance, undeterred by the fact that his brother was still, obviously, asleep, or had been up until a moment ago.

Loki groaned and buried his head under his pillow. “Changed my mind. Tomorrow’s better. Go away. I’m sleeping.”

Thor spied a familiar-looking book on Loki’s nightstand, the same one he’d been reading last night at supper. “Were you up all night reading?”

“What if I was? Some of us wish to improve our minds.” Thor was quiet for a moment, and Loki had the vain hope that Thor would go away and leave him in peace. Then he felt his covers yanked back, and squawked in protest.

“And some of us wish to go hunting with our brother,” said Thor cheerfully. “Come on, the fresh air will wake you up.” He took hold of Loki’s legs.

“Thor, don’t you dare, I’m warning you --”

Thor pulled.

There was a flash of green. It was followed by a startled croak.

Loki peered over the edge of his bed at the large green frog sitting on his floor. It looked back at him mournfully. “I warned you. Now hop along and stay out of trouble and I’ll change you back this afternoon. If you want to go hunting then, fine, if not, I promise to go to bed earlier tonight and we’ll go tomorrow morning.”

The frog tried to walk, one webbed foot at a time, towards Loki’s bedroom door, before figuring out how to manage his long legs and gave a short hop, then a longer one, and presently disappeared from sight. He was going to be in so much trouble when he changed Thor back, Loki thought, but some things were worth it. He wondered if Thor would brave going to their mother, or if he would have the sense to simply wait the morning out in his rooms. The first option would restore him to his own form faster, if he made it into Frigga’s presence and could convince her of his identity, but it also risked him being seen by a member of the staff and deposited outside in a pond. Grinning at that mental image, he pulled his blankets back up and let his head sink back into his pillow. He reclosed his door with a wave of his hand and sank happily back into slumber.

---------------

Loki lay in bed and watched the dim lighting of the cell brighten. Morning, he assumed, though really he had no way of knowing, would never see the sky again. How early was it? he wondered. Was the sky still pink and gold from the sunrise, or had it already turned to blue? The constant white glare of the cell bothered him more each day, made him long for the shaded green places in his mother’s gardens (he could not think of her as anything else in his heart), or the dim recesses of the library, lit by the warm glow of lamps, or the muted light filtering in through the curtains in his rooms. At first it had been enough to have a place where he knew he was safe, where he could simply let down all his defenses and rest without fear or pain. He had slept for long stretches of time, those first weeks, while his body healed, waking only to eat ravenously of the food that was delivered to him. He heard the rattle of a meal tray being delivered now, the curt “Breakfast” spoken by the guard before they disappeared again. He rose and went to collect the tray.

It had not escaped his notice that his meals weren’t standard prison fare, that there was usually at least one thing on his tray that was something that he particularly liked. There was always fresh fruit and juice for breakfast, and today, a veritable feast of a mushroom and cheese omelette and hot buttered toast and the spicy sausages his mother knew he liked, because of course it was her doing, he knew that much. There was even, astonishingly, a bottle of elven wine. the explanation for which was in the new book that had accompanied his breakfast tray. He opened it and read the inscription on the flyleaf:

My dearest son,

It seems cruel to wish you a happy name day, but I hope these small tokens of my affection will give you some pleasure on this day nevertheless. I tell myself it is better than last year, when I still thought you dead, and if you are kept apart from me, at least I know that you are alive and well. And I let myself hope that next year will be better yet, that something will have changed, for I refuse to believe otherwise. I will find a way to force it to change myself, if I have to. If you would only tell us what happened to you, give your father a reason to trust you again -- But this is not the time or the place to chide you for that, only know that when you are ready to talk I will be here to listen. And know that I will never stop loving you, nor celebrating the day you arrived in our lives, for you are one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. As always, I remain

-- your loving Mother

He cried bitter tears then, tears of longing to feel her arms around him again, and tears of regret for his lost life. He wanted, desperately, to see the sky, to breathe fresh air, to walk without coming up against a wall after more than a few paces. Would it change anything if he told? He tried to remember why he hadn’t, that first day when he’d been brought back and paraded before Odin in chains. Spite? Anger? Shame? To show his parents how it felt to have a secret kept from them? Yes, all of those, he knew, but were they worth it? Did he want Thanos to come upon an Asgard unwarned, and unready? He thought of the palace littered with bodies, of the palace empty of life save for the slaughtered bodies of those who had had the chance to fight, and remembered, with a sudden chill, the nightmare that he had had more than once as a youth. He thought of his mother dead, and not knowing until one day a meal tray arrived with plain prison fare, no special treats. No more books. Of never seeing anyone again except the guard who delivered the meals, of never being able to have an actual conversation with anyone again. Alone, forgotten. Except no, Thanos would not forget him. Panic rose up and engulfed him, and he reached for the wine, uncorking it and taking a healthy swig.

The wine helped a little, but he couldn’t truly relax until his mother’s projection appeared in the afternoon and the relief that swept through him almost made him giddy. He thanked her for the gifts, and was ashamed at how the basic courtesy made her face light up like the sun.

“I only wish that I could do more.” Her hand rose, as if she would cradle his face. Loki fought the urge to turn into the touch, lest the contact shatter her illusion, and allowed himself to imagine he could feel the warmth of her hand upon his skin. “Tell me what it’s like outside today,” he said impulsively. “Is the sky blue?”

“It is, clear and blue with a few puffy white clouds floating around. It is just past midday, and the garden is full of the scent of the roses in bloom.”

She seemed to know what he craved, and painted a picture of the gardens with her words that invoked all his senses. And when he didn’t stop her, she continued on with all the everyday details of life in the palace lately, what she was doing to fill her time and then what was going on in the greater Realm, slowly expanding his world. She took it as a good sign, that he was finally expressing an interest in the outside world.

Loki knew her time for him was up when she glanced behind her, as someone obviously came into the room where her body stood.

“I must go now, but I’ll be back tomorrow,” she promised. “Imagine me giving you a kiss and a hug, and I swear that I shall one day do so in fact.”

“Mother,” Loki said quickly, before she could vanish, the careful “Allmother” that he sometimes used never having become easy or comfortable on his tongue. “Thank you for coming. And what you asked of me -- in the book -- I will consider it.”

Her face lit up again. “I am glad to hear that. And I will never, ever stop coming to see you, not until the day that you are able to come and see me .” She held out her hands to him, letting him be the one to dispel her illusion in the little ritual they had developed, and reluctantly, he brought his hands down on hers, an almost physical pang running through him when there was no solidity of contact and she vanished in a shimmer of gold.

“Husband,” Frigga said cooly, turning to face her visitor. “What brings you here at this time of day?”

“Do I need an excuse to come see my beautiful wife?’ Odin asked, a challenging glint in his eye.

“Well, if you have no matters to bring to my attention…” She trailed off, then squared her shoulders and lifted her chin as she faced him. “I wish to see Loki.”

“Do you not already see him?” he countered.

Frigga froze, had he seen or was he only guessing? His face was that inscrutable mask which served him so well as king but which she hated to see on her husband.

Odin sighed. “I know you send your projections to him, you need not worry about that.”

Frigga relaxed. “Ah. I had wondered, but it seemed better not to bring it up if you were willing to overlook it,” she confessed.

“After that first time, when you didn’t press me further to allow you to visit him, I surmised that you had found your own way of seeing him. I know your abilities, and I know you would not let anything keep you from either one of your children if you thought they had need of you.”

“I would not,” she agreed, steel in her voice.

Odin dropped his head, half turning away from her. “I had no right to forbid you from seeing him in the first place. It was wrong, and it was cruel, and I am sorry for it. I wish that I had a better excuse, but in the moment, I was simply angry that he, too, had chosen to attack what he had sworn to defend. Jotunheim I could understand, to some extent, but Midgard?” He closed his eye briefly, feeling the weight of his years, and admitted the ugly truth about himself. “And I spoke what I knew would hurt him most.”

“Yet not sorry enough to take it back once you had spoken.”

“It would have been seen as a sign of weakness.”

“It would have been seen as a sign of compassion!” Frigga snapped, then shook her head. Anger would not get her what she wanted, she knew that much. “So alike, the two of you are, always knowing the words that will wound deepest."

Odin fiddled with a paperweight sitting on a table, a simple, smooth stone with a design on it that had once been painstakingly painted by a young boy. “I remember asking once, what of me you saw in Loki. I had hoped for a better legacy than ‘cruel’ and ‘obstinate’.”

“It is not too late to fix things, Odin,” she urged. “A wise king knows when to admit he is wrong, and to correct his mistakes instead of letting them continue unchecked because he is not man enough to face up to them. When has Loki ever responded well to harshness? Perhaps he would not have stayed so recalcitrant in his refusal to speak of what befell him if you had showed some sign of kindness when he was returned to us. Who knows how long he spent in the Void, unable to think of anything but the fact that he no longer felt that he had a family? That his entire life was a lie? Small wonder he emerged mad, if that is all that happened, but I do not think it is. He did not just stumble onto an army of Chitauri and decide to invade Midgard because he wanted a throne. You did not see his face when I had Gungnir handed to him; he did not expect it, he did not want it. He did not desire rule, only respect, to be seen as Thor’s equal, to make you proud. Would it have killed you to have welcomed him back as his father before you pronounced judgement as his king?” Frigga could not help her voice rising again in condemnation.

“Invading another realm was not the way to gain that respect, nor trying to completely obliterate one!” Odin protested, turning back to her in anger, then his defiance dropped away. He did not want to turn this conversation into a fight anymore than Frigga did. “Never mind Jotunheim, not now. As I said, I understand something of what drove him to attack it, and though I do not condone such an extreme action, it was within his rights as ruling king at the time to retaliate for Laufey’s attack on Asgard. But it is what followed after that complicated matters. I could not simply banish him to another realm to learn a lesson as I did with Thor because I do not know what lesson he needs to learn, and I do not know if that realm would be safe, and most of all, I do not know whether Loki himself would be safe, or whether he might attempt to end his own life again.” Odin looked at her bleakly, the memory of Loki’s face as his son let go of Gungnir and let himself fall into the Void one that still haunted his nightmares. “What else could I have done, other than what I did? And what would you have me do now?”

“It was not what you did but how you did it,” Frigga allowed, for Loki had been a threat that needed containing at the time, even she had to acknowledge that. “But as for now -- be his father! If you want to get him to trust you again, you have to show him that you deserve it. And you can start by letting me visit him, in person.”

“Why now?” he asked, stalling a bit but also curious. “Why have you waited this long to ask again?”

Frigga pursed her lips. “To be honest, until today, I have not been sure if he would welcome my actual presence,” she admitted.

“And today?”

“It was a good day; he was quieter, more settled.”

The corner of Odin’s mouth turned up. “Perhaps we should have sent wine long before this.”

“Do you know everything?” she demanded in exasperation.

“I wish I did. I would give much to know what happened to Loki in the year that he was gone. But do you not think I look in on my son every now and then? I know what today is as well as you do.”

“I don’t think it was just the wine. It had been opened when I arrived, yes, but not enough was gone to influence him in any way. I think he is just...coming back to himself.”

Odin thought of the way Loki had sat quietly and listened to his mother today, as he had watched from Hlidskjalf for a while before withdrawing his Sight and giving them their privacy, no longer the ranting, rage-filled man who had come back to them. It had been a slow change, but a steady one, and he thought longingly of the possibility of one day having his son back. Loki was not Hela, he reminded himself, despite their remarkable physical similarity. The Norns must have been laughing at him when they had sent him Loki’s way. A second chance, to raise a raven-haired child right. And he thought he had done so. Loki had not been molded for war, had not grown up without the softness of love. A succession of memories flashed through Odin’s mind. A baby, smiling and quieting as soon as he was picked up. A small body nestled against his. A boy trustingly slipping his hand into Odin’s. A young man walking with his mother’s hand tucked securely through his arm, love and pride in every line of his bearing. A son grown tall and strong, a son any man would be proud of. Had he told that to Loki often enough, or had he simply assumed that he knew, that that was what Odin had been saying whenever he laid an approving hand on Loki’s back or shoulder, whenever he trusted him with some matter of state, some diplomatic mission? Somewhere along the way they had lost that closeness which Loki and Frigga still had, and Odin had never regretted it more than when Loki had learned of a heritage which did not matter in the slightest to him, but had driven Loki to such despair that he had no longer seen a reason to go on living.

“Odin?” Frigga’s voice broke him out of his thoughts.

Odin cast back to the last thing she had said, and remembered, Loki coming back to himself. “I pray that it is so.” He paced across her room, thinking. He was going to agree to Frigga’s request, he knew, but he wondered if he could get something more out of it. Loki’s refusal to talk of what had happened to him during the year he was beyond all their sight irritated him in more ways than the simple defiance of it. Nothing about Midgard made sense; was that simply because Loki had not been thinking rationally at the time or was there a huge puzzle piece there that they were missing? His instincts said the latter, and he wished not for the first time that Thor had managed to bring home the weapon Loki had wielded along with his brother, wondered if there might not be a clue there. If the Bifrost had not been shattered, he would have gone and demanded it of the mortals himself, and not taken no for an answer. Or was he simply looking for a reason which would justify Loki’s actions, that he might give him a chance to redeem himself, as he had given Thor? He nearly growled in frustration as he came up once again against his complete lack of knowledge.

“How much do you think he wishes for your company?” he asked. “Enough to finally tell us what happened to him in exchange for it?”

“I don’t know,” Frigga admitted. “But he did say he would consider talking about it when I mentioned it again today.”

Odin brightened at that. "Considering" was not "agreeing to", but it was the first time that Loki had even given them that much. “Then perhaps we should wait until he comes to that decision. If we give him something that he wants before he does so, it might remove the impetus to give us what we want."

“Odin,” Frigga pleaded, allowing all of her yearning to come through in her voice. “I have not been able to hold my son in over two years. Have not been able to offer even the comfort of a single touch.”

Odin hesitated, then gave in. “A week. We will give him a week, and if he does not say anything more about it, then I will go to him with my offer.” It was hardly any time at all, when Loki had held out this long, but he was tired of being at odds with his wife, and hoped this would help mend the rift between them.

“And if he refuses it?”

Odin looked at her face, saw the fear that she would be further denied the chance to visit her son, and felt shame that he was the cause of it. If Loki scorned him as weak for this, then so be it. He would make this one thing right. “Then you may visit him anyway.”

Frigga’s face lit with joy, and the next thing he knew she had her arms around him. He tried to get his arms up to embrace her back, for he had not been favoured with such attention for a long time, but she was already stepping back, her hands lingering on his shoulders for a moment while she beamed at him.

“Thank you,” she said with heartfelt fervour.

“Am I forgiven?” he asked hopefully.

“Ask me again when I have held my son in my arms,” she said, but she was still smiling, and Odin’s heart felt lighter than it had for a long time.

As it turned out, they didn’t even have to wait a week. ---

----------

As if thinking of the old dream conjured it back into existence, Loki was haunted by it again that night. Running through the empty palace, looking for someone, anyone, only to find, at last, Frigga, laid out and lifeless and waking to his heart pounding in panicked dread. And for the first time in his life, he could do nothing to reassure himself of her safety other than wait for her visit. When she arrived, he took a deep breath of relief. Only a nightmare, he told himself. But it was harder to dismiss when he woke from the same dream the next morning, except this time he had heard Thanos’s laughter when he had come upon his mother’s dead body, and impossible the third. He was too agitated to eat breakfast and paced restlessly until Frigga finally showed up.

“Tell the Allfather,” he said, having made up his mind that he had to do something, that if the Norns were sending him a message he could not risk ignoring it. If he could not be free to guard his mother’s life, then he must give up what knowledge he had that would allow her to be best prepared to defend herself if and when Thanos broke into the Nine.“That I will answer any questions he may have in return for you being allowed to visit me in person.”

Joy swept through Frigga. “He will be hearing petitioners now,” she said. “Shall I interrupt him or wait till he breaks for the midday meal?”

“Better wait." He didn't want his mother to leave when she had just arrived, and it would give him time to prepare what he was going to say, how much he needed to reveal. "But do it today."

“I will,” she promised.

------------

A couple of hours later, Loki came to his feet as he heard approaching footsteps and stood facing the front of his cell, his hands clasped behind his back. He tensed as he saw Odin, but his heart leapt when he saw his mother following behind him.

“Loki,” Odin greeted. “I understand you wish to strike a deal.”

“I do. I will answer any questions that you have in exchange for mother being allowed to visit me whenever she wishes. Inside my cell,” he stressed. When Odin didn’t respond immediately, he swallowed his pride and added “I swear I will not hurt her, nor attempt to use her in any way to escape this place.”

“I never thought that you would hurt her,” Odin admitted after a moment, and glanced at Frigga, then gestured towards the cell. “Very well. Go ahead.”

Two long strides forward and Frigga was deactivating the energy barrier that formed the front of the cell, one more and she was pulling Loki into her arms. “Loki,” she breathed out fervently. “My son.”

It had happened so fast, Loki hadn’t been prepared for it, and flinched back for a second, from the shock of being touched after so long without it, and because for so long before that, touch had always meant pain instead of comfort. He didn’t know what to do for a moment, but then her scent hit him, the smell of herbs and flowers and fresh air, that whispered ‘home’ and ‘safe’ and ‘loved’, and his arms came up instinctively as he wrapped her up tight in his embrace and buried his face against her neck. “Mother,” he said desperately, and then quieter, for her ears alone, “Amma .”

“I’ve got you,” Frigga whispered, burying her hand for the first time in the new length of his hair. “You’re safe.”

Odin heard them both, and relief and remorse swept through him in equal measures. Their son was still in there, still reachable, but looking at Loki’s face was almost painful. Whatever happened today, he vowed he would not keep them apart again. Belatedly he realised he had not reactivated the energy barrier and stepped forward to do so.

Loki heard the faint hum crackle back into life and glanced up, a faint smirk on his face. "A bit slow there, weren't you? I could have teleported right out of here in a second."

Frigga tightened her grip on him. "If you had tried, you would have had to take me with you."

"What an excellent idea, Mother," Loki said brightly. "Where would you like to go?"

She gave him an admonishing shake. "Don't tempt me, you."

"And yet you didn't," said Odin. "Perhaps I am simply choosing to trust my son to keep his word, that he will not try to use his mother's presence in an attempt to escape. Am I wrong to do so?"

Loki shook his head, and raised his chin a notch. "You are not."

For the moment, the mask was gone from his son’s face, Loki’s eyes wide and vulnerable in a too gaunt face, and Odin was reminded of just how young Loki still was. "Good,” he said approvingly. “In return, I ask you to trust me, Loki. Tell me what happened to you. Let me help you, if I can."

“I will save you time and tell you the only thing that you need to know. Thanos the mad Titan seeks the Infinity Stones, and a way into the Nine. Asgard must prepare her defenses and stop him from finding them all.”

Odin's mind instantly flashed back to the conversation that he’d had with Thor on his return to Asgard, when he had grilled him about everything that he could remember Loki doing or saying on Midgard, seeking some clue to his youngest son’s behaviour.

He had a sceptre, with a blue stone, with the ability to control the minds of others.

He was not like himself at all. He looked unwell, and afraid at times, and the manner in which he attacked was so unlike his usual style that I thought he must be in league with someone else.

I thought I was reaching him, when I asked him to stop and come home. For a moment I could see the brother that I knew in his eyes, but then he said that it was too late to go back, and he shook it off and went back to the attack.

A picture was coming together in Odin’s mind, and it was not one that he liked. Loki, his mind already broken, falling into the hands of a being of incomparable power, one who wished to escape his exile outside of the Nine. Thanos discovering that Loki had the ability to walk the shadow paths between worlds. Had the scepter truly borne a blue stone, or had it been a yellow stone concealed in a blue housing? Were the mortals the only ones it had been used upon? The Tesseract. Mind stone and space stone. One risked to gain a second, a ploy that had failed. If Thanos could break into the Nine, it would not only be the Stones he came after, Odin guessed, it would be Loki, for failing to deliver what he had been sent for. For he had no doubt now that Loki had been sent. A year gone, beyond Heimdall’s view. How much of that time had been spent in the Void, how much being broken until his proud, powerful son had been turned into a tool to be used? Had Midgard been offered as a reward for service, or had Loki wanted it as a sanctuary, a bulwark against the Mad Titan when he felt he no longer had a right to claim Asgard as his home?

Oh, Loki, Odin thought, his heart clenching for his son. What did he do to you? He reached out and deactivated the force field at the front of the cell again, and walked in to join his wife and son, meeting Loki’s startled gaze steadily. He had failed his son once, he was not going to fail him again.

“On the contrary, I think I’m going to need to know a great deal more than that.”

Loki, still standing within the circle of his mother's arms, stared. Odin had set the barrier to re-form behind him, effectively trapping him inside the cell with Loki. He would need to call the guard now to let him out. "Was that wise? Locking yourself in with a dangerous criminal? I only promised not to hurt Mother, you know."

"if I have been so poor of a father that I need fear attack from my own son, then perhaps I deserve it." There had been no threat in Loki's voice, though, merely a pointing out of facts, and Odin grinned mischievously. "You can try, though."

Unexpectedly, Loki felt the corner of his mouth quirk up, feeling oddly reassured instead of offended that his own strength and skills were being dismissed. He wanted his father to still be strong, he realised, wanted to feel that childhood certainty that Odin could fix anything, that he could handle any problem brought to him and make everything all right again. He knew that wasn't the case anymore, but still, if Asgard were to stand any chance at all against Thanos, she would need the strength of all her warriors, led by a strong king. And that king needed to be armed with knowledge as well as weapons, knowledge that Loki was tired of bearing alone. If nothing else, Odin could share that burden.

"I would not wish to upset Mother," he said diplomatically, and heard Frigga huff beside his ear.

"No more would I, yet I fear I have done so for far too long. But I am trying to make amends. To you and to her," Odin stressed. "Talk to me, Loki, please. Let me be the father I should have been when you first returned."

For a change, Loki did not feel the need to deny that Odin was his father, knew he could not do so with any conviction at the moment. If not Odin, then who? Certainly not Laufey, who had left him to die. At least Odin had been there, and was here now, apparently still willing to call Loki his son. Perhaps one imperfect father willing to admit his mistakes was better than none. The anger that he had nurtured for over a year fizzled out, and he swallowed hard. "What more do you wish to know?"

"Everything."

His mother's hand gripping his tightly, grounding him, Loki took a deep breath and began to talk.

-------------------

“Amma.”

Sif woke to a small hand tugging on the sleeve of her nightshirt. A pair of clear blue eyes beneath a head of tousled black curls peered at her from just over the top of the mattress.

“What is it, Ullr?”

“I had a bad dream.”

Sif yawned sleepily. “Do you want to spend the rest of the night with us?”

Ullr nodded. “Yes, please.”

He held up his arms to her, and Sif saw that he had his much-loved stuffed bear with him, a present from his Aunt Jane. She sat up and reached down, lifting Ullr up onto the bed and scooted back. Loki, who was always a light sleeper, woke with an inquisitive noise as she bumped into him.

“Mhm?” He rolled onto his side, automatically reaching out to drape an arm over her and draw her close, and came up against an unexpected shape. He woke a little more. “Sif?”

“It's just Ullr. He had a bad dream.”

“Put him between us, then.” He moved back, making room.

“Go on, Ullr.” Sif held the covers up. “You heard your father.” She smiled as Ullr promptly scrambled over her body and was instantly gathered in close by Loki.

Loki nuzzled Ullr’s hair, breathing in the sweet scent of his son and wrapping an arm securely around him as Sif turned to face them, letting the covers fall back over them, enclosing them in a soft, warm cocoon. Ullr didn’t seem visibly distressed, so either the dream hadn’t been too bad, Loki thought, or the memory of it was already fading. Still, there were words which had to be said.

“I’ve got you,” he said softly. “You’re safe.”

#ficwoodelf #loki #frigga #odin #thor #sifki #a bit at the end #marvel fic #mornings

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sxfterhearts · 4 years

Text

20. [9:40 am]

28A… 29A… Ah, 30A! You thought to yourself as your eyes glanced over the seat numbers slightly above your line of sight, your feet finally coming to a stop beside your reserved seat.

Much to your dismay, it was a window seat, facing in the opposite direction of the train’s movements. It was also one of the few face-to-face seats on the entire KTX train, with a table between the two pairs of seats which were facing each other.

You groaned internally. As much as you liked having a proper surface for writing or doodling in your journal, you didn’t like sharing. You much preferred having your own privacy while glancing out the windows, watching the greenery and the countryside pass by in a colourful blur, with soft tunes to accompany you on your journey. It’s fine, you reminded yourself, trying to stay positive, it’s only two hours, no big deal…

You hauled your backpack over your head and into the overhead compartment with practiced movements. Pulling out your travel necessities, which included your fully-charged phone, a pair of wireless earphones, a large, ice-cold Americano and your trusty journal, you settled into your seat for the rest of the morning. A part of you wished that the seat in front of you wouldn’t be occupied, while another part of you contemplated whether it was better to just try and fall asleep for the remainder of the train ride to Gangneung.

You quickly dismissed the latter thought, as the scenery throughout the train ride was too good to miss. You could deal with a couple of awkward silences and accidental glances with the unlucky stranger who reserved the seat opposite yours. Besides, it was your first time visiting your parents in two months – you weren’t going to let anything sour your mood.

The last-minute trip to Gangneung, your hometown, was planned just two days ago, as you were graciously granted two days of paid leave by your manager. After finally submitting the last tax return for your clients, your manager had treated the entire team to a congratulatory dinner and gave everyone a few days of leave to make up for the never-ending client meetings and late nights spent slaving away at the office desk during the tax busy season. You were overwhelmed with joy once your manager announced the news, pulling her usually stoic self into a tight embrace under the yellow glow of the pojangmacha, a tent bar selling alcohol and street food, due to the heightened levels of alcohol within your system.

Giggling to yourself at the memory, you reached out for your phone and typed a message to your mother to inform her that you were about to depart Seoul. It was a message that she read and replied immediately with her usual “Be careful, dear, and have a safe journey.”, which you missed dearly during the busy season. On off-periods, you would make the effort to visit your parents once a fortnight. You moved to Seoul for university a few years back and found a job in the bustling city, leaving your parents and the family’s bicycle store behind in the coastal neighbourhood. Sometime in your early twenties, your father experienced a mild health scare and had to close the store during his month-long recovery. This made you realise that as the years went by, your parents were not getting any younger. With that in mind, you tried to clear your hectic schedule to spend as much time with your parents as possible.

“This is the 10:01am number 811 KTX train bound for Gangneung. The train will be departing shortly.”

The familiar female voice flooded the carriages of the train and distracted you from your thoughts. The seat in front of you was still unoccupied. You held on to the tiny glimmer of hope that it would remain that way for the rest of the journey, despite knowing very well that the summer holidays were approaching, turning Gangneung into an ideal weekend getaway for tourists and locals alike. The prospect of spending the next few days basking in the summer sunshine, helping out at the bicycle store and frolicking in the sea excited you to no end. After long hours cooped up in the office, you were looking forward to spending your break in the great outdoors.

“28… 29… 30, 31! Here it is, Mark, 31A and 31B. Dibs the window seat!” A cheerful voice spoke in English, pulling you out of your delightful daydream. Before you could turn your head to face its owner, a bright streak of reflected rainbow dancing across the table caught your eye.

“Okay, Bella,” A deep chuckle originated from the man standing beside your seat. “Wait a sec, pass me your bag, honey.”

Your eyes traced the source of the deep timbre notes of the American-sounding voice. What you found was a man, dressed in an oversized white shirt and black ripped jeans, who was placing the girl’s pink Barbie bag into the overhead compartment. Even though he was wearing a cap, you could make out his cherubic features and the gentle smile he directed towards the girl.

The thought that he was a bit too young to have a daughter crossed your mind for a split second, but you quickly shook it off to return the little girl’s excited smile with a polite wave. She was wearing a cute pink dress and looked to be about six or seven years old. The pair got comfortable in their seats, just as the announcement informed the passengers the doors were closing.

The man sitting diagonally opposite of you took off his cap to reveal a head of blonde hair. He met your gaze, and you watched as a surprised look flashed across his face. As the two of you exchanged polite greetings, you couldn’t shake off the thought that you had seen him somewhere before.

A phone chirped, signalling an incoming call. It was a call for him. He answered it, and you looked out the window to give him some privacy and not seem too nosy. You wracked your brain for answers. Did he work at the café I frequented? Or was it the Chinese restaurant that I ordered takeaways from? No… You mused silently. Maybe he’s the cashier at the convenience store near the apartment… But that doesn’t seem right either. Wait, is he-?

“Bell, your Mummy wants to speak to you.”

“Yes, Mummy! Mark said…”

You drowned out the rest of the conversation to refocus your thinking. You sneaked another glance at the man in question, only to find half of his face covered by his laptop screen as he tapped away furiously. It seems like it’s him… You adjusted your position several times to get a better look at his face without seeming too suspicious. Blonde hair and shiny helix piercing, it must be him.

The person you were referring to was someone you’ve only ever seen from afar. There was usually a safe distance between you two on your morning subway ride to the office, with him leaning casually against a pole and you standing steadily in the middle of the crowd. The closest you’ve been to him was when you were running late, and you happened to share the elevator with a blonde-haired man from the eighth floor of your apartment. He always had the top button of his crisp button-up undone, a tie hanging haphazardly over one shoulder and his headphones sitting snugly atop his blonde head, while munching on a piece of burnt toast. You had never encountered this strange gentleman until mid-May, so you assumed that he had recently moved into the floor below you. The two of you never exchanged words either, as he was always busy shoving down his breakfast, but you would always bow politely to each other. Unbeknownst to him, you were intrigued. Not many office workers were brave enough to sport such a striking hair colour, and you had to admit, it suited him perfectly.

You just never expected him to have a child.

“Mark!” The girl, Bella, whined while grabbing his hand. Your ears were still getting accustomed to hearing English after so long. The last time you were surrounded by native speakers was during your six-month-long secondment to the New York branch of your company. “Do my hair, pretty please! I want two braids.”

The man, Mark, sighed in fake annoyance, playfully poking her cheeks. “Yes, Your Highness. Hand over your other hair tie.” A part of you wasn’t used to how the girl didn’t address him with honorifics, but you busied yourself with your phone, pretending that you weren’t eavesdropping on their conversation.

“I thought you took them for me when we left your house.” She huffed, clearly unsatisfied.

“Nope, I only have one with me.”

Your fingers reached for the simple, black hair tie around your wrist. “Here, you can borrow mine.” Smiling, you handed it over to Bella, who accepted it with a grateful smile.

Mark leaned down to whisper in her ear, unable to hide the surprised smile on his face. “Thank the pretty eonnie in Korean.”

“Thank you, eonnie!” Bella chirped, so excited that she was practically bouncing in her seat.

“You’re most welcome.” You said in perfect English, intrigued at Mark’s earlier interaction with the girl.

He proceeded to divide her hair into two even halves, combing her dark locks with long, thin fingers. Expertly, Mark separated the first half into three parts and began to braid. He stuck out his tongue cutely in concentration, trying his best to not mess up.

“Don’t move so much, Bell.” He scolded lightly when the girl pulled out her colouring book and painted the sky a light shade of blue with large strokes of her coloured pencil.

“You’re pretty good at this. Mark, right?” You commented.

“Yeah, guess it comes with practice. I’m Mark, by the way. We never got to introduce each other properly. Your name is…?”

“Y/N.”

“Ah yes, Y/N. It suits you well. Always so prim and proper in your blazer and kitten heels. I must seem like a fool to you, with my tie undone and all.”

You laughed at his self-deprecating humour. This man is funny, and he can braid hair. His wife sure is a lucky woman, you thought. “No, not at all. Where do you work?”

Light conversation regarding your respective careers ensued. You found out that he was also working at a company close to yours, which explained the frequent encounters on the train. He moved in about a month ago from another side of the city because of his new job. When the conversation about work dwindled, you shifted the topic to the girl.

“How old is she?”

Mark secured the first braid with your hair tie, smiling to himself, satisfied. “Bella, how old are you?”

“I’m six, Mark! How could you forget?” The girl sat up from her position to shoot daggers with her eyes at him.

“I’m sorry, kiddo. Come, turn to the other side so I can finish this up.” He moved her to sit facing the window instead and starting on the second braid. “She’s six,” Mark turned to you and answered with a sheepish expression. Before you started to wonder what kind of father would forget his daughter’s age, he continued, “Bella doesn’t visit very often.”

Your eyebrows quirked upwards in response. Does that mean he was… divorced?

Mark saw your confused expression and hastened to add, “She’s my niece.” You let out a breath that you didn’t even realise you were holding. “My sister and her family came over from LA to visit me.”

It all made sense to you now. “Right…”

“Her parents wanted some alone time so I’m taking her to Gangneung for a day trip cos she wants to visit Jumunjin beach and take some pictures.” He paused, and went on to mouth, “She loves BTS.”

“The bus stop near the beach? The one on their album cover?” You wondered, knowing exactly which photo spot he was referring to. “It’s about a bit of a drive from my parent’s bicycle shop. I took a couple of days off to visit them.”

“You’ve seen the bus stop? That’s so cool!” Bella’s ears perked up.

“Sit still, honey.” Mark reminded sternly as he got closer to the end of the braid.

You nodded eagerly. “Yup! They’ve got a map of a BTS bus route with their album names as the bus stops.”

“Don’t encourage her, Y/N…” Mark groaned as he tied the second braid. He inspected his handiwork and seemed very proud of himself.

“Well, I have a suggestion,” You started carefully. “How about this? I can be your local tour guide for Gangneung today. I can show you the best photo spots, the most popular places to get your daily coffee fix and even get you a discount for bike rentals so you can cycle around the beach and the lake!”

The two of them nodded eagerly at your proposition.

It was a long, eventful day. The three of you had visited a hanok café, took way too many pictures at the Jumunjin bus stop and breakwater where they filmed Goblin, dipped your toes in Gyeongpo Beach and cycled around Gyeongpo lake. Your parents had immediately taken a liking to your new friend Mark and his cute niece, even insisting on packing them a container full of kimbap and banana milk for their journey back to Seoul.

“Thank you so, so much for today, Y/N.” Mark whispered as the three of you sat at the train station, waiting for their train. Bella had already dozed off with her head on Mark’s lap. It was an adorable sight. “We both had a lot of fun.”

“Not a problem at all. I enjoyed showing you around and visiting touristy places. I got to see my hometown in a different light.” You faced him, giving him a sincere smile.

He returned you with an equally bright smile that showed off his cute, pointy canines. “Let me take you out for dinner or something. You know, to make it up to you.” Mark’s ears began to heat up and were painted in a faint tinge of red. “Let’s exchange numbers.”

“Sure!” You replied. Was he asking me out on a date? You wondered. “I’ve been craving sticky barbecue ribs since I left the States.”

“I know a good place. How about next Saturday night?”

“I’m free.”

“Great, it’s a date.”

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

Photo

Nightlights in the Deep

At last, I can finally show you guys what's been with the tree fever in my last couple of posts (Terrarium Nova and WIP Wednesday: Oops all Trees)

So the art supply company Arteza madea post on their Instagram a few days ago where they announced a contest to make art featuring trees and post it on Instagram with all the appropriate tags, open until September 26th (with prizes of course) and I thought it would be fun, especially since one of their suggestions was to design a tree.

And I also decided to add a little extra challenge to myself to stick primarily to the Arteza supplies that I have, since it's their contest. That meant I had their watercolors, colored pencils, and woodless watercolor pencils to pick from and play with. Although I did end up using quite a bit of gel pen (Sakura gelly rolls and a little of my white Uni-ball Signo) to get the bright pops of color I just couldn't get with the other supplies. The gel pens felt fairer to supplement with since I usually accent pretty much all my work with gel pen in some form or another.

Naturally, after I gave myself a few minutes to ponder how to stand out among a crowd of trees but also fit right in, my imagination ran wild with my own fictional tree species.

I pretty immediately landed on the idea of an underwater/deep-sea/bottom-of-the-ocean tree and also something with bioluminescence (things that naturally glow in the dark) and from there I starting searching for various tree and water-themed things on Pinterest to flesh out my ideas. From that, I very quickly arrived at the idea of a winding, twisting trunk like you might find on a bonsai tree. And while originally I really liked the idea of having wispy drooping petals and/or leaves like Wisteria or willow trees, after a few tests that didn't turn out as nicely as I wanted (as seen on the WIP Wednesday mentioned above) I decided maybe it would be best to go without this time around.

So the final concept I've ended up with for my trees here goes roughly as follows, although I'm no botanist or marine biologist so there's a good chance a lot of this doesn't check out scientifically:

The Nightlight tree, named for its bioluminescent fruits--called "moon fruits" for their whiteish glow, pale bluish color, and spherical shape--is a species of aquatic tree that is found growing anchored to rock formations and cave systems in the greatest depths of the ocean. As these trees exist in oceanic depths with minimal or no sunlight, they perform chemosynthesis rather than photosynthesis to make their own food until they reach maturity and can produce their own artificial light as a food supplement. Nightlight trees root systems can reinforce and stabilize the rock formations they anchor to in order to grow, which provides a more sound home and environment for the species of fish that will eat the "moon fruits," attracted by their bright glow, produced by the tree and aid in the tree's reproduction. Because of this, nightlight trees may grow in clustered groups or may grow so closely together that multiple trees twist and wind around each other, which can put strain on the trees' root systems and may cause development problems and may cause the younger of the trees to die. The bark of mature nightlight trees may also have a faint glow where the tree is thickest, as the bark is stretched more thinly around the nutrient carry "veins" found within the trunk of the tree, where the chemical process that causes the tree's fruit to glow begins. Nightlight trees attract and feed a variety of deep sea creatures and other bottom-dwelling vegetation, many of which feature bright flourescent colors or bioluminescent traits and may camoflodge with the moon fruits or the few brightly colored flower-like leaves that the moon fruits emerge from four times a year, peak season typically being in the spring. This provides these other species with a largely safe place to settle and reproduce while the tree is at its most forthgiving. Moon Fruits once detached from the tree will retain their glowing properties for approximately 7-10 days. Fruits that in that time find themselves on or around suitable growing conditions may then begin to take root and grow. Fruits that are not in suitable growing conditions within the time frame will then begin to decay and detoriate. Certain deviations or subspecies of nightlight trees may also be found in the depths of brackish or freshwater, but the most common sigular variety is the "White Light" variety found in oceanic saltwater.

Excuse me if that's a little all-over-the-place for a faux "knowledgable source about trees" article, but I think I managed to get the bulk of my ideas for how these trees work in there.

For a while, I also had the idea that if one of the trees ever did grow tall enough to reach the water with plenty of sunlight and/or poke out of the water that the exposed parts of the tree would die and/or become sicker with more sunlight exposure, so you'd have this really tall tree that's dead at the top but as you follow it down becomes progressively healthier until you reach the bottom and find this beautiful natural undersea garden with all these neon plants and animals it's supporting in its ecosystem. And while I do still like that idea, I don't think it's terribly realistic and I definitely couldn't fit all that would entail into this one artwork.

That said, I think you can probably see my reasoning for a lot of the artistic decisions I made here, so hopefully, I won't have to stop every five seconds to explain how the tree works while I go through what my artistic process was.

After some sketching to think through my ideas of the tree structure and possible fruit/foliage things and the practice/failed attempt pieces, I decided my best bet for the pseudo-vision I had in my head would be to make lines from the sketches I'd done as a base (as in my practice pieces where I attempted to free-hand everything things really got away from me pretty easily), and so I lifted the lines for the two trees, the caves, and some of the ground/sand from my sketches and transferred them to a piece of Canson XL watercolor paper, since I knew I wanted to work primarily with the Arteza watercolors and maybe (at the time but this ended up not being the case) the woodless watercolor pencils too.

And if I may, I'd like to take a moment here to say that while on some levels I do understand why some more versed in watercolor than I absolutely loathe the Canson XL watercolor paper, to me, it much like the premise of cheaper watercolors is not strictly terrible--it's a matter of what you're used to and what you learn to work with. If you can learn to work with what you've got, and that's what you get used to, then to a point it the quality almost doesn't matter. This paper does work differently from the more expensive/nicer watercolor papers I've tried, but it's so much more accessible that I have more of it, so I use it more, and by now I've learned a lot about how to work with it to get the results I want, so I'm less likely to encounter some of the problems other people seem to have with it. It all just depends on you, your taste, and how you work.

But enough of my paper mini-rant. Back to the artwork:

I knew from my practice pieces that part of the mistakes I kept making was not laying down layers further in the background first so that I wouldn't have to attempt to paint around/right up to them later, as well as layering up more would help me better achieve the darker, moodier undersea look I was aiming for. So after taking a picture of my lines and very quickly and sloppily doing a color mockup in one of the few drawing apps that still work with a Gen 4 iPad to figure out which paint colors to squirt onto a palette, I went in with an all-over layer of a darker blue for the background first, and I layered that up 2 or 3 more times to get it to a darker intensity.

It's still a little bit brighter than I was originally hoping for, but it still came out pretty nicely. Though I couldn't tell you how much of the ocean-ish texture is just textural properties of the particular paint color and how much of it was how I laid down the paint between all the strokes I did to even out the coverage and the additional layers.

After that was dry, I made a faux-pas (in that I would have to paint around them a little later) and moved on the stars of the show; the trees themselves.

The trees were probably the slowest and most methodical part of this piece. I very carefully went in and would do lines and then blend them out slightly when possible, trying to use the transparent nature of watercolors to my advantage. This was a slower process, especially as I would work my way up the trees and get to smaller branches (especially with the smaller tree) and had to switch to a smaller brush just to make sure I was staying within my lines. But I and my dark, moody purple did eventually get through it, and even with only the trees the background painted, I was really pleased with how they turned out.

Then I moved on to my little rock-cave things and the ground. The caves started out as a lighter ultramarine color, but it looked kinda weird so I did even up going back and adding a couple of additional layers and shading to try and add more depth, as well as I tried to stick with a dark blue only for the insides of the caves, but they ended up really seeming to need the addition of some black. The end result is a little too close in value between the trees, the caves, and the caves' insides, but there wasn't really a better way to remedy that beyond starting over, and after everything I'd been through to get to this point, I did not want to do that. So it stays as is.

The ground was actually relatively simple. Since I already had a blue background and I had decided a greenish color would be the best route to go, I just layered some yellow paint in the areas I wanted to look more like sand/ground and did the same kind of semi-blending as I did on the cave rocks and trees. And it worked just as well when I added the sand/ground moving towards the back that I hadn't pre-drawn in.

Now, I was trying to hold off doing the little moon fruits (which at this point were just bioluminescent orbs to me, I did all the naming after I finished the piece so I would know exactly what I was trying to name) until I had all the painting done, since the plan was to do them with the colored pencils, and I just kinda wanted to be able to say I was done and put all the painting stuff away before I moved on to that. That's how I usually work with my mixed media projects; I prefer to have a plan and get the majority of one medium or section done before moving on to something else. (Usually to have more desk space available but it also helps me keep things organized.)

And it was at this point that I realized my plans didn't look very under-water-ish. It kinda just looked like a moody dry-land landscape painting. Which is fine, but that's not what I wanted/was going for.

To remedy this, I started by adding some seaweed/kelp like plants to the ground. Which still looked largely just like funny grass or weeds.

It was at this point that I deviated from the actual artwork and moved back to my watercolor sketchbook to do some toying around. The main thing I did was practice trying to make coral or coral-like plants since I figured that might help with the whole ocean thing. And on the page where I ended up doing a lot of the practicing, I actually ended up taking a little extra time, later on, to make into kind of a bonus art piece, which I'll be posting by itself at some point in the future.

But I also practiced making bubbles and some other details we'll get to in a moment.

I tried doing the coral a few different ways but ultimately went with the way I see coral in my mind when I think of the word; this rounded cartoony kinda thing, even though that's not what real coral usually looks like. (I looked up pictures during the process out of curiosity) I don't know where this very specific imagery got implanted into my brain other than maybe Spongebob, but that still doesn't seem quite right, so I don't know.

And I have to say that the Neon Pink Arteza watercolor continues to be a favorite of mine, while we're here. It held up over the dark colors and compared to the gel pens infinitely better than I thought it would. Arteza, if you see this by chance, this is my plea--please make more neon watercolors if you can make them as good as this pink one!

*Ahem* Anyway...

After all that, I did step back from the watercolor and come in with the colored pencils. I didn't think I was almost done, but at the moment I didn't have much else in mind for the watercolors and figured it would be best to move to the pencils and then I could come back to the watercolors if I felt like I needed to.

I'm not sure if the Arteza colored pencils just don't like watercolor paper or something, but I had kind of a hard time applying the pencils and getting them to pop the way I wanted to, particularly in areas that had thinner paint coverage. This was the most notable in the bare ocean areas where I was trying to do the moon fruits, as the pencils worked a little better when I hit those darker patches of blue, and they liked working over the truck bark a lot better. To be fair, I know some of this is because most colored pencils have a hard time going over darker colors, as even my Prismacolor and Polychromos can have a hard time over my toned gray paper sometimes, but it still seemed like these were falling more flatly on that front than I had anticipated.

Either way, by this point it was late and I was exhausted, so I finished up what I wanted to do with the pencils--finally coloring the moon fruits, adding some additional texture to the sand, caves/rocks, coral, and trees--and decided to leave it until morning.

As I was cleaning up for the night, I was looking at that bonus art piece/practice page I talked about earlier, and I noticed a spot where the paint had done a kind of texture thing again (this time definitely more from how I applied it and less from the paint itself) and the shape, combined with me thinking of things I could do to continue to play up the "ocean" imagery and make my seascape look more lived in, made me think of sting or manta rays. More specifically that one would look really good in that spot, and about the time I completed that thought was when it dawned on me the key component I had been missing the whole time:

It's an ocean life scene. Where's the life part?? Do you know what lives in the ocean? FISH!

And I still couldn't tell why that just hadn't occurred to me until then.

So I went to bed knowing exactly what I was going to be looking up and practicing the next day to add to and hopefully complete my tree painting.

The next day, after many minutes spent prowling Pinterest for marine life silhouettes and having added a few rays to my practice piece, (and some nonspecific fish to the other couple of failed attempts since the practice-piece-turned-art was getting a bit crowded) I was off and added a manta ray, a small school of fish, and two other fishes just hanging out. Then I couldn't help myself and added a smaller ray in the leftover space that was just kind of begging for a little something more behind the other ray.

And I could have very well stopped there, but it was bothering me in the fresh daylight just how much the colored pencils had seemingly sunk back into the artwork. My bubbles I added the night before were so hard to notice! And the moon fruits...they just weren't popping at all the way I wanted them to.

I tried not to; I really did. I wanted to stick to just using the Arteza supplies that I had and maybe some white gel pen. But I had to do something to get the color to pop more, and the alternative was to pull out the white and neons from my Prismacolor pencils and between the two options, pulling out my Sakura Gelly Roll Moonlight pens, as I said earlier, felt less like I was deviating from the challenge. And for all I know, the Prismacolor pencils might not have popped as much as I wanted either, even if they popped more than the Arteza pencils. So gel pens it was!

I used my white Uni-ball Signo for the actual moon fruits themselves, and the gelly rolls for their little leaf-petals and some extra dots/texture on the coral. I also used the white gelly roll to add some additional "glow" to the tree bark and to revive the poor bubbles that had gotten so lost before. And then I went back later at different points to add the two moon fruits that fell, partly to fill in space and partly because it just made more sense to my brain to have at least some that weren't still on the trees.

Also, I'm not sure how well it reads, but I did go back and try to add more of a proper "glow" effect to the moon fruits with the white colored pencil, but I feel like I lost a lot of the minimal pigment I was getting by the time I used a blending stump to soften the edges.

It's funny to me; this was one of those pieces where I spent so much time with it and meticulously going over the details that at first I actually wasn't sure it was finished. It's one of those where I had to step back and let it settle in that I had seen my vision through to the end before I could properly "accept" it.

And you know, for as many challenges as I had with trying to invent my own tree species and the problem-solving I had to do throughout the process, I am really proud and happy with how the final piece turned out.

It's different; it's out of my comfort zone because I don't do landscape type things, and it challenged my creativity in a different way. And I feel like I was able to achieve what I set out to do with the piece.

And thanks to my hesitance to dive right into the final piece without testing, I also got a bonus art piece out of it, so yay two birds with one stone?

This may have started out as just another contest entry, but in the end, I'm really glad for the mini art journey this piece took me on, and even if I don't win anything in the giveaway (which realistically I probably won't), I'm happy just to have made the artwork. And that's kinda the most important thing, right?

Now, I have some commission work to do, but I also have a certain supply that's been sitting on my desk all week just begging to be used, and some other pieces in the works, so stayed tuned for that and that bonus art piece I keep talking about that came out of this piece.

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Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

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Where to find me & my artwork:

#artfortrees #arteza #trees #underwater #ocean #sea #marine life

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anal-2-aristotle · 3 years

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The Hero’s Bane- Chapter 2

5,000 years after The Fall...

Adam hoisted the buck's carcass off his steed with a humph.

"Ya been busy today, Ads?" Morgan the butcher greeted the young man, wiping his spoiled hands on his already bloody apron. "That's the first buck I've seen this winter!"

"Yeah, I got lucky. Almost crossed into the Ash Woods before I napped him."

"Ash Woods? You were hunting near the creek?!" Morgan lowered his voice, leaning closer to Adam. "You know what lies in those woods..."

"Forgotten bedtime tales, I know. I was careful." Adam dropped the animals body on the butchers counter. "Besides, I said almost."

Morgan stroked his beard, and began rummaging behind the counter. He pulled out a small coin pouch, dropping it next to the carcass. "I'll give you forty gold, only because you brought me a buck. "

Adam nodded in agreement, snatching the pouch. "Understandable, thank you Mr. Morgan!"

"Yeh yeh, get on with ya life. Tell that Dash kid that he needs to show his face a little more! I only saw him once this week!" the butcher hollered as Adam mounted his speckled bay mare.

"Of course, sir!" Adam called back, turning his horse to the outskirts of the village. "You take care as well!"

Dashiell scribbled furiously, scratching out the previous paragraph of writing. Throwing the journal across the room, Dash chewed on the end of the pencil, standing to pace. "If the gods don't kill me, I swear, I'll do it myself." he said to himself.

"If you're going to kill yourself, please do it over something more washable than a white fur rug." Adam's voice said from the door way. "...That was a joke, Dash."

"I'm sorry, I was so caught up in my angst, I forgot to laugh." the younger of the two brothers turned to size up the older one. "Did you get any velvet holly-dew?"

Adam stared down into Dashiell's bright, mossy green eyes. "I don't know, did you look up Mother Natures skirt?"

"You know that I was blessed by her, not cursed, for doing that." Dash pushed his brother back playfully. "I was also a baby, so it wasn't crude."

Adam ruffled Dashiell's dirty gold hair, chuckling. "And she was disguised as a hag."

Dash shoved Adam's hands away, fixing the messy hair. "Back to the pervious question..."

"No, I didn't get the holly-dew. Can't you just, y'know-" Adam wiggled his fingers. "-magic it?"

"It doesn't work like that and you know it!" Dash huffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. Adam sighed, unclipping the sword from his belt. His younger brother sat in the kitchen, coaxing a basil plant to grow a little extra sprout.

Ever since Mother Nature had blessed the Griffin family by dousing the youngest child in magic powers, things hadn't been easy. There was the usual harassments for consoling with dark magic, sometimes Dash came home with bruises and cuts. There were calls for false prophesying, even rumors that the Griffins had sold the original baby to the fey in exchange for power. This, of course, was all false. Dashiell Griffin prided himself in being righteous, being able to see the difference in good and evil, as if it were black and white. He helped anyone he could, almost to a fault.

Adam lowered himself next to Dash's chair, watching him interact with the plant.

While anyone should be grateful for a goddess's blessing, Adam always felt like she could've given more. Dash was self-taught. No mage wanted to teach him how to use his abilities, and no college would provide him with books so he could study magic forms. For this, Dash had taught himself little cantrips and growing spells, often accompanied by him soothing the plants with a song. He spent so much time out in the garden, that Adam looked pale and sickly in contrast to Dashiell's olive, sun kissed skin.

The older brother smiled to himself as a little bud sprouted from the pot.

Even though Dash had no teachers, he was still powerful with his magic. When he was happy, the house was usually decorated in Natures Glory's, a rare, glowing flower that was rumored to be touched by Mother Nature's lips. When he was angry, Adam would find himself pulling out thorns from the Sword Rose bushes that covered the bedroom. When he was sad, Adam would see Weeping Ivy dripping its sap onto fresh laundry. The plants lived in tune with Dash and his emotions, going as far as to protect him from hungry tiller wolves, rabid beasts that would eat their own pups if they were hungry enough.

"You're staring again."

Adam was snapped from his thoughts, focusing on his younger brother. "Oh, sorry, I was thinking."

"That's dangerous." Dashiell jested lightly, picking off some basil leaves. "Are you worried?"

"Worried?"

"You're 25 this year."

The hunt. One of the greatest ways to die, one would say. All hunters of the age 25 or older were to be lined up every 10 years, in every village, for the gods to choose who was worthy of joining the dead. It was never part of the plan, to die. It just happened when you send mere mortals after a fallen god. Only one person ever made it back alive, and she hadn't said a word since.

Adam felt his stomach drop. "Oh, yeah."

"You think The Victor of Heroes will pick you for the hunt?"

"You think they won't?" Adam scoffed playfully. "I'm one of the best hunters this north of Dalem! I'd be wounded if they didn't!"

"Yeah." agreed Dash slowly. "You think your party will get the fallen Bane of Heroes this year?"

"I'm sure of it. With the eons that have passed, and the silvron cuffs that drain him, I know he will be too weak to even put up a real fight!"

When the younger of the two didn't respond, Adam shook his shoulder. "Hey, I'll be fine if they pick me."

Dash looked away. "Yeah, I know that but... I just, it feels wrong."

"What does?"

"I've been having these dreams-"

"Not the dreams again, Dash." Adam stood up from his chair, shaking his head.

"But listen! I keep seeing someone, this- this man, wounded and beaten, begging for mercy and justice-"

"It's the Bane of Heroes trying to get in your mind! You know he does dark magic like that!" Adam raised his voice, shoving off Dash's outstretched arm.

"I do know, but what if Grandmother Moon is trying to convey something to me-"

"Dashiell, they are just dreams of doubt! I will hear no more of it!"

"Adam, please listen-"

"No! Everyone knows that The Bane of Heroes is a monster, and I will not hear you defend him again!"

"I'm not defending him! I just think-"

"Enough Dash!" Adam slammed his fist on the counter, knocking over the potted basil. With a startling crash, the pot shattered, and Dash was quiet. "If you really are so swayed by dreams, why don't you cross the creek and ask the fallen god yourself?!"

Dashiell opened his mouth, then closed it, defeated. Adam turned to walk up the stairs, when a small voice said; "I will."

Anger and frustration weaving into his words, Adam spat: "Then do it."

With that tension left in the air, Adam excused himself to bed, unaware of his brother stealing his sword and cloak.

Finding the creek was easy for Dash. He had wanted to cross it for so long, curious about the forbidden forest that laid out of his reach. The moon's belly was full, shinning reflectively on the creeks soft running water.

Now that he was here, now that there was nothing stopping him from crossing the water, he couldn't move. The ashy colored trees across the creek beckoned to him with their thin, naked branches, swaying in the winter wind. Snow began to fall, dressing the ground in white. It was now, or never.

Dash splashed quickly to the other bank, the cold water pushing him to move faster. Once on the other side, he pulled his stolen cloak around his lean figure and trudged forward. Unsurprisingly, there were no animal sounds as he noisily clunked through the snow. Dash's breath steamed the air, the cold biting his lungs. Stopping to lean on one of the grey trees, Dash felt a tingly sensation of being watched.

He stood up quickly, hand on the swords hilt. "Hello?!"

His voiced echoed, slowly dying out. There was no response, so, like a fool, he tried again. "I'm looking for The Bane of Heroes?!"

This time, he was met with a low growl, followed by a chorus of howls. A thin, malnourished wolf stalked out of the undergrowth, followed by another. And another. And another.

Soon he found himself surrounded by a pack of tiller wolves, each of them eying him like he was the fattest, juiciest cow they had ever laid eyes on.

Gods above, he was going to end up as wolf shit.

What a way to go.

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Hi! Thank You so much for reading. If you enjoyed it was be great if you could share and leave a follow! I'm currently working on a web comic so stay tuned for that!

-Ari

Ao3 Wattpad

#TheHerosBane #writeblr #story #my writing #to be continued #gay story

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lifesinterest · 7 years

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How to Start a Journal for Cheapos

I’ve always wanted to write this little (life changing) tip.

I’ve been looking at journals/bullet journals/planners on tumblr, instagram and pinterest for quite a while because they’re so aesthetically pleasing! I follow like 20+ blogs because they are sooo nice to look at. The color schemes, the handwriting, the stickers, the washi tape, their clean white backgrounds - it makes everyone so jealous. BUT AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!

Respect to those who make their journals/notes and their edits so pretty because they’re honestly eye candy. But their community is so small, you know? Not everyone can post pretty pics of their notes and actually have time for other important stuff (like actually study and not take 50 pics and spend 10+ minutes on each pic to edit, in addition to liking everything from other studyblrs).

That’s why I’m gonna give you some life hacks(?) for those who want to start a journal that's aesthetically pleasing without having to empty your wallet to buy the exact same materials they use. Please note, this is more of a Canadian hack because the US dollar is killing us.

The Book

The most important part of this hack is the book. Many people use the Happy Planner, Moleskine, Leuchtturm1917 (I had to Google the spelling), or any journal that’s dotted/grid. That’s too expensive for me ($20-30+) and other dotted journals are like…$15 CAD for 60 pages. Where’s the bargain there? I mean, sure dotted journals are cool but do you really need the dotted journal? I went down that route at first so I printed out my own dotted journal using my computer and printer. At first I was pretty excited, but when I started to write across the page, I just felt like the dots were confining me to where and how big I could write. I placed my dots so that it matched the measurements of any regular dotted notebook (so I could feel cool) but it didn’t work out like I wanted to. Keep in mind that there are days where my handwriting is excellent and others times where it just looks like my younger brother decided to scribble in it. You need small handwriting and if you write outside the dotted box, your inner perfectionist comes out and you just feel like your whole life is ruined because you couldn’t keep yourself inside the line dot.

I’ve made my own notebooks (which I still use) and bought a couple others to find which works for me. I find that a blank pages work best. I have two DIY notebooks and the one without the any lines/dots is basically at the end of its use. I can sketch, write notes - basically anything and it doesn’t look bad. The other one on the other hand, I have to keep myself inside the box and it just drives me crazy when one stroke goes over the line. I also bought a Muji 2017 planner at the end of December. It was ~$12 + tax and it was on sale. It was a smart buy for a simple weekly planner but you know what would be a smarter buy? The same planner layout from Dollarama for $4+tax. Why did I buy something from Muji you ask? Because the pens are cheapish and good quality and there was a sale on planners (duh). I think Muji stores have sales at the end of the year or around a large holiday where notebooks are on sale. I haven’t bought one so I can’t say for sure about the quality but I know for sure the quantity does not match with the expensive price (for Canadians). The planner I bought is not recycled paper and is of good quality.

(http://empfire.info/my-favourite-planner-from-muji/)

My other notebook is one I just bought and I’m in love. Guess where I bought it from? Dollarama! For $3.50 + tax. I’ve been eyeing it for a month and when I tried to look for it at a different Dollarama, it wasn’t there! I freaked out so I went back where I first saw it and there was only one left (phew)! It’s labeled as a sketchbook but I originally planned for it to be a journal. Also, if you do decide to buy a blank journal, I recommend sketchbooks because they come in different color, thickness and texture of paper; it all depends on what you want.

This is what it looks like. And obviously, I didn’t edit it because AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT (with my dusty ass table). I don’t know if the paper is recycled or not because it doesn’t say but it sure is recyclable! There’s no coils or anything, just a piece of fabric and a wad of glue that basically holds everything together. The cover is chipboard. And I love it! It’s got that recyclable paper look so I can be cool and say I’m saving the world. The paper quality is pretty thick. I tested the paper with a Sharpie and it didn’t bleed through though you could see it from the other side. I’m not too sure it will hold a watercolor portrait but it does feel like it won’t bleed through if you use it sparsely. So for those in Canada, I highly recommend this book as something on your To Buy list - good quality and quantity for a cheap price.

Writing Utensils

The second most important must have for a journal because what’s the point of a notebook if you can’t write in it? There are many out there that your favorite studyblrs use: Mildliners, Muji pens, Staedler Fineliners, Microns, etc… But hey, guess what? You don’t need any of those! Those are all just over hyped. You can totally go old school and use Crayola!. I recently bought a pack of 25 Crayola Supertips for $3 + tax. And that my friends, is a steal. They usually retail for ~$7. I once saw a pack of 50 for $3 in a flyer which is twice the deal. And honestly, with Mildliners, I don’t understand what the hype is all about except for the fact that everyone uses them…because everyone else uses them (y’know what I’m sayin’?). It’s basically a double ended marker retailing for $7-8 for a pack of 5. Where’s the bargain? As for Muji pens…I have no complaints. I’m lucky enough to discover it and live close to a Muji store. Their gel pens are the only ones that don’t stop writing in the middle of a word. Don’t you hate that? I only go for the dark blue color though because I feel like regular ballpoint pens do such an amazing job at…you know…writing! I go to college, and as all you college students know, there are free pens everywhere and some of them are really good with pigment and the smooth flow. ATM, I’m using a Paper Mate pen I got from Tylenol (I swear). The only complaint I have for Muji Pens is that it smudges real easily. I currently use a dark blue color in 0.7 if you were wondering. I feel like that smaller the size of the pen is, the more unstable my hand writing is. I write quite big.

I also see the Pilot erasable highlighter around in pastel. I was tricked into buying these suckers and honestly…I may or may not regret it. I regret it because they don’t function very well. I looked into reviews and everything and they all say they’re amazing with a 5 star rating but I would say so otherwise. I bought it for the functionality of it during school instead of just journal use. I highlight a sentence I wrote but then I go a bit too far and when I do this cool pen twirl thing to use the other end to erase it…the ink smudges. It freaking smudges and guess what? The ink is NOT erasable. The highlighter basically erases its pigment but leaves a nasty ink smudge on my paper. Why…did nobody talk about this? I’m pretty darn sure it’s not only me. The only reason I bought it was because I don’t like the neon colors (I also bought it because it looked cute). This highlighter didn’t work very well (it died on me the first month) so I started looking at other highlighters and found something called a gel highlighter usually sold and on sale by Sharpie. When I did some research though, I found that it had the exact same look as a pencil crayon or even a crayon. It was just a neon color. So, I pulled out my 64 pack of Crayola crayons I didn’t use since grade 5 and used it to highlight my notes and can I tell you how pretty it looks? Since your paper have different grains, the crayon looks different when drawn on the paper (how much white space is covered). So my recommendations are Crayola Supertips and crayons. I don’t have a recommendation for fineliners but there are many alternatives that do not cost $7-10.

Stickers and Washi Tape Decoration

Ohh the glory. Don’t they look so nice when they’re color coordinated? Well, honestly though, AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!!!! How do you find the time in your schedule to sit down for an hour (or more?) and plan your week with stickers and washi tape? And I’ve seen videos of planners who “switch” to the bullet journal because they don’t have time to plan their life with stickers and washi tape anymore. I mean, for sure it’s nice to look at but do you really want to spend your time doing it? For you creative people out there, could you plan your week in one day and not touch your stickers again for the entire week? I don’t think so. I know I would be rearranging stickers, and adding additional ones throughout the week because my hands won’t sit still. Plus, the nice stickers are expensive (especially from Etsy). Sorry but I don’t have any sticker alternatives. If I did, I wouldn’t share them because I wouldn’t even use it anyway. I’m a sticker hoarder so there is no way I’m using any stickers in my books. As for washi tape, you can’t go wrong especially if you buy it on ebay. The only thing that can go wrong is being a washi tape hoarder. Some have drawers and drawers of washi tape and I’m like…really, girl? Really? I only have 2 tubes from Michaels because it was BOGO free and I feel that it’s plenty. So, as for decoration, I recommend you skip the stickers and just use the washi tape. The tape can go a long way and it has multiple creative uses.

The Cheapest Alternative

Almost everyone has a phone or tablet. Well, guess what? There are a bunch of free apps that allow you to write down journal entries. If you just want to look at a bunch studyblrs, studygrams and Pinterest posts like me, just write your entry on your phone before you decide whether or not you’ll actually be able to continuously write in your journal. Again, this is a beginner’s guide to journaling, planning, etc. So, there is no need to go expensive right away - you may never know if you like it or not and if you’ve found your own writing style. Just buy a cheap notebook first before heading out to buy a $30 notebook from Moleskine. You have all the time in the world, so be patient and find out what works for you!

#studyblr #journals #bullet journal #cheap monday #guide for cheapos #stationary review #journaling for beginners #mypost

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celebratorypenguin · 7 years

Text

Fic: A Little Folding Of the Hands

Rating: PG-13 for language and MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS Genfic

Summary: Five movements and a coda about hands, men, friendship, love, death, and everything in between.

1. 1957: George, Paul, and Louise Harrison 2. 1962: John, George, and Astrid Kirchherr 3. 1976: John and Paul 4. 1995: Paul, George, and Ringo 5. 2002: Paul and Ringo Coda, 2030: Paul

Note about this story: Louise Harrison has been my spirit animal since I heard about her inviting George's poor bedraggled fans into the house for a cup of tea.

A Little Folding of the Hands

"A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest." --Proverbs 6:10

First Movement: 1957

One thing Louise could be certain of was that she'd be hearing music at her home before she even put her key in the lock.

George was mad for his guitar, cheap, sad little thing that it was, and for a long time the whole Harrison family had worried because George would spend days on end alone in his room, practicing until his poor fingers were worn raw.

Then he'd met Jim McCartney's oldest and the two boys couldn't have been more alike if they were peas in a pod. Always practicing, always trying to one-up each other, and becoming - if Louise said so herself, which she did - quite good at their music.

Today, she was surprised not to hear anything when she brought the shopping in. Paul's bicycle was leaning against a tree, so she knew the boys were together, but why was the house so still? Had they worked so hard they'd just nodded off? It wouldn't be the first time, Louise thought as she tiptoed up the stairs.

She tapped lightly on the bedroom door, then walked in to find both boys sound asleep. George lay on his back atop top the clean bedspread; Paul was curled up in a chair next to the bed, his arms looped around his shins. When Louise came closer, she noticed gauze bandages wrapped around the fingers of George's left hand.

"What in the world?" she whispered, leaning over to get a closer look. Sure enough, each fingertip was tidily bandaged. A spot of iodine stained the gauze on George's index finger. Louise leaned over her son and kissed him lightly on his warm forehead. He stirred but didn't wake, just nestled further into his pillow.

Louise turned to Paul. Her kindly heart ached to see how much he had grown in the months since his mother's passing, how his jeans hung a bit loosely on his slimming frame, how far his wrists were sticking out of his jacket. She shook her head. She always felt such pity for the McCartney boys, poor motherless lambs, raised by a kind father who meant well but was such a bloke when all's said and done. A boy needed his mum, but the world wasn't a fair place, that's for sure.

As if he could hear Louise's thoughts, Paul opened his eyes, blinking hard in the confusion of a sudden awakening in a strange place. He struggled to sit up - Louise suspected he'd been in that position for hours - and immediately cast an anxious glance at the bed. "Is he running a fever? Is his finger infected?" Paul asked breathlessly.

"He's resting," Louise said softly. "It's all right, Paul, he's fine, you did a wonderful job patching him up."

Paul blushed, but his wide-eyed gaze stayed on Louise as he whispered, "I do this for our Mike all the time." He paused, swallowing hard. "My mum was a nurse."

Louise heard how Paul's voice, stuck in that aching place between soprano and tenor, cracked a bit at the past tense. "Well, she'd be so proud of you today, I can tell you that. Now, up with you." She held her hand out to Paul and pulled him out of the chair. "Let's have the jacket, please. I'll let the sleeves out while you have a kip in Peter's bed."

Looking doubtful as he removed his jacket and handed it to Louise, Paul said, "My dad'll be expecting me home soon."

"He won't, not when I call him and say you've worn yourself out with worry. Now get into that bed, young man, and not another peep out of you until teatime."

Paul toed his shoes off before climbing into the twin bed opposite George's. Louise noted the state of his socks and tutted, but decided to leave that for another visit. She carefully tucked a blanket around Paul, who looked up at her with so much mother-hunger in his sad eyes that she sat down next to him and drew him into her arms. Paul hugged her tightly as she held on to him, rocking him back and forth, telling him what a good boy he was, what a good son, what a good friend, while ignoring the hot tears that dampened her shoulder.

When Paul's tears were spent, he lay back on the bed and covered his red, swollen eyes with his right arm. Louise cleared her throat, then took Paul's hand in hers. She opened the fingers, examining the nascent calluses and the ragged, bitten nails. "I used to do this with the children, when they were younger," she said softly as she pulled Paul's hand to her lips and gave the palm a gentle kiss. She folded his fingers again and whispered, "Keep it tight throughout the night."

Letting his fist drop to his chest, Paul nodded and turned his cheek into the pillow. Louise stroked the unkempt black hair for a moment, then went to check on George.

Compared to her other children, her youngest son, this long-legged, fine-boned colt of a boy, often seemed like a changeling to her. Louise wondered if Jim McCartney felt the same way about his Paul: if he knew, as she did, that both of these boys were destined for something far beyond the boundaries of working-class Liverpool.

Satisifed that George's face was cooler and he was sleeping peacefully, Louise gave his forehead a gentle kiss before walking to the doorway. She paused with her hand on the light switch, drinking in the sight of the two budding artists as they slept. Perhaps they would have happy dreams, perhaps they would even share the same dream where they drew energy from one another as their music swirled around them, enveloping the whole world in its charm.

She smiled at the mental image while shaking her head at her own lofty ambitions. All she really wanted was for them to be healthy and happy. As she turned out the light, Louise whispered a quiet, heartfelt prayer to Saint Cecilia to look after her beloved boys.

***

Second movement: 1962

It seemed impossible.

George knew, of course, what death was. It was something that happened to grandparents and soldiers, or in twin twists of cruel fate, to your mate's mum. Not to someone he knew as an equal.

Not to Stuart.

"Christ, he wasn't even twenty-two."

It wasn't the first time John had said that in the days since they had arrived back in Hamburg and received the terrible news, but George shuddered every time he heard John's raspy voice saying the words. To make matters worse, John was saying them to Astrid as he perched on the arm of her sofa.

"I know, John, I know," she said soothingly, patting him on the arm. She had invited them in, hugged them warmly, offered them strong coffee. She was consoling them.

George struggled to wrap his mind around it.

Astrid's face was pale, her eyes ringed with dark circles just as John's were. She was dressed in black from head to foot, just as John was. They were both mourners. George assumed that John would be more accustomed to grief while Astrid's misery would be more acute, but it seemed to be the other way around.

This visit had been a sudden impluse of John's, announced over a quiet breakfast. Brian had never met Stuart, and Ringo had only marginally known him, so they hadn't been expected to follow along. Paul, whose relationship with Stuart had been frosty at best - and George wasn't willing to hazard a guess about exactly why - had quietly requested that John "send his love" but didn't get out of his seat. After a morose silence fell on the group, George stood up and grabbed his jacket without a word of explanation. He accompanied John partly because he wanted to offer condolences to Astrid, but mostly because he was worried about what John might do in this state of mind.

It wasn't like any condolence call George had ever known. They didn't talk about Stuart, didn't trade stories, just sat and sipped their coffee as the afternoon sun warmed their faces. Out of the blue, John asked to see the garret where Stuart had been painting only days before. Astrid took John by the hand and led him up the stairs, George following on their heels. There was too much light streaming through the windows, making the dust motes sparkle through the faint, lingering haze of cigarette smoke.

Astrid stepped back and let John wander through the disordered, chaotic room full of art that would never be completed. George couldn't swear to the quality of the paintings. His preferences ran to John's art, as it did to John's music and nearly everything else about the man, but he had to admit that there was a certain raw energy in the clusters of colors.

John stood in pensive silence, his body utterly still. Even his hands, which were always fiddling with pencils, cigarettes, guitars, or girls, were limply clasped and motionless. George had never seen John so immobile. It was disconcerting.

He heard the faint click of a camera shutter and the sound of the film advance lever being cocked. From the corner of his eye he saw Astrid looking down the viewfiender of her ever-present Leica. She was photographing John as he mourned Stuart.

Christ, artists were weird.

John turned toward the camera, unsmiling, as Astrid took another photo. She pulled a chair up behind him and gently pressed his shoulders down. Unthinking, obedient, John slumped into the seat. He held his right hand loosely in his left and stared off into an empty corner. George couldn't fathom what John might be seeing, since he was half-blind without his glasses even when his eyes weren't dangerously full of tears. John made no movements when Astrid's camera clicked again in the heavy silence of the attic.

This time, George understood why Astrid wanted to capture this moment. Caustic, sarcastic, witty John had never seemed so vulnerable, so fragile. Suddenly nervous, George pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and opened his lighter. The smoke calmed George's anxiety somewhat, covering as it did the smells he would forever associate with Stuart: Jalousies and turpentine. He fleetingly wondered if Astrid would object but she smiled wistfully at him and motioned for him to stand behind John.

George stood directly behind the chair at first, then Astrid directed him to stand slightly off to the side. He wasn't sure if being in John's peripheral vision was the best thing to do, but John was a million miles away. George inched a little closer. He was startled to realize that John wasn't still after all, but trembling very slightly, struggling to control himself.

Carefully, George inched his hand along the back of the chair until it very lightly pressed against John's spine. Touching John Lennon was usually something one did at one's own peril, but George's desire to keep John sane was stronger than his instinct for self-preservation.

Astrid took a single photo at the moment George followed along John's line of sight. There was a footprint in the dust, a lonely reminder of the young man who had stood there. George was remembering Stuart in a series of mental snapshots when Astrid took a couple of steps closer until she was able to reach out and stroke John's hair. "He loved you, you know."

"Yeah," John said, almost choking on the word. He cleared his throat, then repeated, "Yeah." Rousing himself, he stood up and stretched, bumping his back against George's. It was as close to thanks as George was likely to get, so he let John rest there.

Astrid took another picture.

"I'm knackered," John said, scrubbing his hands over his face as if to rearrange his features. "We've got a show tonight, so we'd better..."

"Of course." Astrid walked them back downstairs. John gave her an awkward hug and then darted in the general direction of the Star Club, leaving George behind. He felt Astrid's hands grasp his, and he looked down to find her peering up into his face. Her eyes were haunted.

"You understand now. Life, and death." It wasn't a question, and George nodded because she was right. He wouldn't be able to put it into words, not yet, but he would muse on the ephemeral nature of life during the long walk back, during their sets at the Star Club, and into the night in the little room he shared with his friends.

***

3rd Movement: 1976

***

"Please hold for Mr. McCartney."

Those were the last words John wanted to hear. He prowled around his kitchen like a caged jaguar, tugging at the shaggy hair at his nape.

As if this hadn't been fucking hard enough, swallowing his pride to Do The Right Thing and track down Mr. Wings-At-The-Speed-Of-Sound, now he was on fucking hold?

"Come ON," John muttered into the phone. His bare feet slapped against the cold kitchen tile. Tea, there needed to be tea and lots of it, so he tucked the phone under one ear and fiddled with the tea canister. His hands were shaky with nerves and his fingers slipped on the lid, which popped off at the perfect angle to spray loose tea leaves all over the counter, the floor, and a very surprised cat. "Shit! Shit!"

It was, because that was how things always went for him, the precise moment at which Paul's world-weary voice crackled over the line. "Hello?"

"Shit!"

"Nice to hear your voice, too."

"No, not shit to talk to you, shit to spill the tea. Is tea bad for cats?" John asked as he swatted a dish towel at the leaves clinging to the disgruntled cat.

There was a moment of silence, then Paul spoke again. "Did you really call me in the middle of the night to ask a veterinary question? 'Cause I'm really only good for sheep. And dogs."

Wait, that had to be wrong. "Middle of the night?"

"It's..." John heard Paul fumbling around, probably to find his watch. "It's almost two in the morning here."

"In Texas? I thought you were two hours earlier."

"John, I'm in Copenhagen."

"There's a Copenhagen, Texas?" John gave up on cleaning the cat and instead grabbed a dustpan and started getting the tea off the floor.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." More noises, the rustling of sheets and a closing of a door. "Texas is in two months. I'm in the bathroom of our hotel in Copenhagen, DENMARK, trying to talk softly so I don't wake my wife at what is now definitely two in the morning."

John got a sudden mental image of Paul in a hotel bed with Linda clinging to his side, naked. It didn't do anything to lighten his mood.

"Denmark. Well, that explains why your answering service was so shirty when I called half an hour ago."

"I can't believe they put you through to the hotel," Paul sighed.

"You should fire them. Absolutely fire them." John started wiping the counter, spilling more tea on the floor. "Oh, fuck."

"Is this about the cat, or something more sinister?" Paul asked. His voice was thick with sleep and overuse.

It finally dawned on John why he had made the call in the first place, why he had spent half an hour on hold with various irritated secretaries. "No, nothing of either sort. I just wanted to say..." He trailed off, not having practiced being nice to Paul for the better part of a decade. "That is, I heard about your dad." There was no response. Grow a fucking pair, for God's sake, John told himself. He took a deep breath. Best to spit it out all at once. "I'm sorry, man. I know how much you loved each other."

Paul cleared his throat. "Yeah. I mean, thanks."

"He was a good guy," John said, wincing at how stupid he sounded. "I'm sorry, I should've come up with something better to say. It's just...I was on the phone with Ringo a while ago and he talked about it as if I should've known. And I should've known, Paul, why didn't I know?"

Another sigh. "It's not as if we've communicated a hell of a lot, lately, you and I."

John slumped to the floor and switched the phone to his other shoulder. The truth hurt. "I'm still sorry," he said quietly.

"And I'm still grateful." Even across three thousand miles of telephone wire, John could hear the ragged quality of Paul's breathing. "I'm always grateful to hear from you, but especially now."

As John opened his mouth to ask another question, he heard Paul put his hand over the mouthpiece. "I'm on the phone."

"At this hour?" Linda. "Paul, I need to pee."

John snickered. "Ah, a slice of married life."

"Shut it, Lennon." Paul uncovered the phone. "I'm letting Linda in and then I'm going on the balcony. Gimme a few seconds."

It occurred to John that he should pass along some sort of greeting to Linda, but he didn't want to press his luck. Instead, he went to check on Sean, who was sleeping soundly in his crib. Yoko was at a business meeting so John was alone with his son, his miracle baby who he loved more than his own life.

"Okay, I'm back," Paul said, breaking into John's train of thought.

"Just a moment, okay?" John tiptoed back to the kitchen. "Sorry. I was checking up on Sean and didn't want to wake him."

"How is he?" Paul asked, sounding as if he really wanted to know.

"He's amazing. Were you head over heels over your kids, too? Did you count their fingers over and over?"

"Still am, still do. All of the kids, all the time."

That was surely a dig about Julian, and on another day John might have taken the bait. Instead, he said, "I do that thing George's mum used to do, the kiss in the hand and 'keep it tight throughout the night.' Yoko thought I was mad, but I swear it helps him fall asleep."

Paul chuckled, low and warm. "I still do it to our Stella. I don't know why it works, but it does. I wish I'd thanked Louise for that." He sighed again. "Fucking cancer, eh? And you know George's dad has it now, too."

"No, I didn't," John said, not sure why he was shocked. He and George spoke even less than he and Paul, and much more acrimoniously when they did. "You're in touch with George?"

"Not often, but he phoned yesterday. Told me how much he'd miss Dad's custards, if you can believe it, then said we'd all meet again someday because death is just temporary, which I KNOW you will believe. He'd gotten the news from Ringo. And before you ask, Ringo told me he found out from Maureen because she still subscribes to the Liverpool Echo."

Frustrated, John banged his head against a cabinet. "Fuck, Paul, we couldn't have a more complicated communication system if we used fucking smoke signals."

"That's true." Paul hummed a fragment of a tune under his breath, which John knew was a sign that he was thinking. A moment later, Paul murmured, "I miss just being able to talk to you. To all of you. But mostly you."

GOD, ME TOO, John thought. "We should phone more often. And you should get your ass on a plane and come see me. Us. Me. Whoever."

He could imagine Paul's smile, the one that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and took ten years off of him.

"Anyhow," John continued, "I really am sorry about your dad."

There was a moment in which John was sure he heard a sob, then Paul whispered, "Thank you, Johnny."

"You're welcome, Paulie." John swallowed against the rising lump in his throat. "Now get to bed, or you'll disappoint your adoring fans on the morrow."

"Can't have that. G'night, John, and thanks."

"Night, then." When John hung up the phone he realized that he'd twisted the cord into figure eights that would take Yoko half an hour to untangle, but he didn't care because he remembered what he'd wanted to say, what he would say the next time he talked to Paul.

"I owe your dad so much," John said to the ceiling, or to heaven. "Because he gave me you."

***

Fourth Movement: 1995

For being outside on such a gorgeous day in his own garden, George was remarkably tense.

At least, Ringo was remarking on it.

"George, relax, would you? We've already done the hardest bit. This shouldn't have you as...weirded out as it does."

Ringo was right. The "hardest bit" of the whole Anthology ordeal had been months ago, when they were in the studio, listening to John's disembodied voice on the demo tapes. Ringo had broken down more than once before they even started talking about which songs to use and how to arrange them. Paul had been pale but stoic, the only sign of his distress showing when his voice utterly shattered when he demonstrated the middle eight he'd written for "Free as a Bird."

George had done what he always did: played his heart out while keeping his head down and his mouth shut.

Now that they were finished with the project except for this one last little jam session on the lawn with ukuleles. It should be a piece of cake. And yet George had been puttering around the kitchen all morning, shooing Olivia and Dhani away as he tidied the room that really didn't need any tidying at all. Ringo had openly laughed at him when he realized George had re-strung three different ukuleles - "even our Paul can only play one at a time, you know" - and that contributed to the inexplicable anxiety George was feeling.

Even now, stretched out on the lush spring grass, George felt as if something should happen, something extraordinary. He just couldn't put his finger on what.

He looked over at Ringo, who was sitting tailor-fashion, tipping his face toward the sun with a giddy grin that made him look like the youngest instead of the eldest. Then there was Paul, all smiles as usual, but with graying hair and that look of unfathomable sadness in his wide eyes when he thought no one was watching.

Oh, Paul, thought George, they're always watching.

Only two cameras were on them, both at a respectful distance. An assistant came out with the three re-tuned ukuleles and fanned them out in front of Paul. Paul picked out a beauty and had his hand on a tuning peg to remove a string when he realized that it had been done for him already.

"Ta, George," Paul said, and for an instant he was the cool older kid on the bus, the boy as mad about guitars as George himself, not the aging hippie who would go to his grave burdened with so many regrets that he'd be reborn a dozen times before getting it right.

Maybe that's what was burdening George on this project, his own regret. Ringo had stayed friendly with everyone, Switzerland with long hair and peace signs. After years of painful (and yet, George had to admit, sometimes hilarious-in-a-schadenfreude-kind-of-way) public sniping, Paul and John had patched up the frayed cord of their friendship. But George had taken pains to alienate himself from Paul, possibly to keep from being hurt by him again, and his relationship with John had hit the skids over the "I, Me, Mine" book and had never recovered.

Would never recover, not in this life.

Oh, John.

He heard Paul tuning up. Music. Yes. George began to strum a few simple chords. Paul joined in, looking at George's hands for guidance while Ringo tapped out patterns on the rough denim of his jeans. It felt so right, yet so weird, to be together after so many years but with John's absence darkening the edges of the sunlit sky.

"Just a couple more minutes, guys, then we're done," said an assistant director.

All three men looked at each other.

Done.

Christ.

Paul's hands, usually so sure, skittered along the instrument and he stuttered to a stop. Ringo nudged his arm, but Paul just shook his head and laid the ukulele down carefully in the grass. "You play us one, George," he said softly, that LOOK in his eyes again, the one he tried to hide when he saw that the cameras were about to roll.

George started a gentle old song he'd heard his dad sing to his mum a lifetime ago. Paul smiled as he recognized the beginning of the old familiar tune, and chimed in with his gentlest voice. "Ain't she sweet?" he crooned.

Then there were harmonies, and Ringo stopped drumming on himself so he could listen. Paul flubbed a lyric, recovered with a self-deprecating grin, and ended on George's cue.

Ringo got sentimental on them when he thanked George for having them over, as if they had been a burden on him, and George lobbed a terrible joke that they didn't need to see one another for another forty years. He saw Ringo's shoulders slump a little, and the slight tremble of Paul's lips, and he hated himself.

Another flat tire on the Karmic wheel. Well done, Harrison.

The crew filed out quietly afterward, leaving the three of them alone. George heaved himself upright, dusted off his trousers, and sat down in the middle of the bench that had been behind them. He patted the empty spaces on either side.

Ringo, of course, came immediately and sat at George's right hand, leaning just a little against his arm. "You didn't really mean that forty years stuff, did you?"

"Nah." George's voice sounded rough even to his own ears. He cleared his throat. "Tried to lighten the mood."

"Failed," Ringo said, but his smile was warm and forgiving.

Paul stood up slowly, picking up the ukulele and sitting with it on George's left. He began to remove the E-string. George stopped him with a gentle hand on Paul's wrist.

"Leave it," he whispered. Paul didn't answer, but his eyebrows went up. "For when you drop by," George continued.

Suddenly Paul's arms were around him, and Ringo's arms were around them both, and they were all holding onto one another for dear, dear life.

"Why does being an ex-Beatle have to be so complicated?" George murmured into Paul's hair.

"There's no such thing as an ex-Beatle, son," Ringo said in a suspiciously shaky tone. "Being a Beatle is something that sticks to you, like DNA."

"DNA doesn't--" George began, then he started to laugh, because a wise man had once said that if you love each other, it's all you need.

***

Fifth Movement: 2002

Some would say that it was too cold a November night for a couple of aging men to be sitting on a London balcony with only a flickering candle for warmth.

Ringo couldn't have disagreed more. There was no place he'd rather be after singing his final goodbye to George. He was in the perfect spot, looking out over the city that had been his home during the crazed Beatle years, sitting with the only other man on the planet who could possibly understand how he felt at the end of the concert. "God, the energy, the LOVE in that place," Ringo mused, sipping his soda. "And Dhani, man, what a trouper!"

Paul nodded. He followed Ringo's line of sight for a moment then turned his gaze back to him. "But can you imagine how much George would've cringed, being the center of that much attention?"

"He'd have fucking hated it," Ringo chuckled. He could see George in his mind's eye, making himself as small as possible as if he could hide from the crowd, shaking his head and making sarcastic comments at the outpourings of affection. Yet George had, in his way, been the most affectionate person Ringo had ever known, and Ringo would never, ever, get over this loss.

Paul took a long swallow of his champagne. His face had a drawn, pinched quality that worried Ringo. Sure, Paul had a pregnant wife - whom Barbara had instantly disliked, which was censure enough for Ringo - and his kids were unhappy with this second marriage, but Ringo knew it wasn't his domestic problems that weighed on Paul tonight.

When Paul lowered his head and sighed, Ringo saw a few rose petals were still clinging to his hair. "Here, lean over a bit, you've still got flowers in your barnet." Ringo plucked the petals out and put them on the little table. "It's like George didn't want to let you go."

To his horror, Ringo saw tears start to track their way down Paul's face. "Shit, Paul, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"No, it's okay," Paul gasped, his voice coming out in little hiccups. "I haven't been able to cry over him much, but I need to, I really NEED to."

"Ah, Paul, c'mere." Ringo opened his arms and let Paul sag against him. He knew that Paul hadn't been able to weep about John for a year after his murder, and that Paul had been struggling valiantly to hold himself together during all the rehearsals and hubbub surrounding the concert for George.

"I did love him, I always loved him, ever since we were kids together," Paul sobbed into Ringo's shoulder. "But I did such shitty things to him, to you, to John, and I didn't mean them, I was scared about losing the band and so I just started lashing out..."

"Ssh, ssh, I know. We all knew." Ringo patted Paul awkwardly on the back. "The shit we do is just the shit we do. It's not who we are. George sued me once, y'know, and I still loved HIM, and I know he loved all of us." That thought brought tears to Ringo's own eyes, which he didn't bother to wipe away. The art of existing became less unbearable when he allowed himself the luxury of expressing his grief, still scalpel-sharp a year after George had left this life. "Don't dwell on anything but the love. Remember all the times lately where you'd drop in at his house, and the two of you would grab ukuleles and sing all night? He loved when you did that, he told me so. He loved YOU, and he forgave you even when you couldn't forgive yourself. I promise he did, Paul. I promise."

A gust of winter wind blew across the balcony, scatting the rose petals that Ringo had placed on the table. He pulled away from Paul long enough to retrieve two of them. He held one out to Paul, whose fingers trembled as he touched it.

Ringo held the petal to his lips, then put it into the candle's flame. He looked over at Paul as the petal sizzled to ash. Paul mirrored Ringo's gesture but lingered over the flame as if reluctant to let go of this final connection to George. Ringo smelled the singing flesh and grasped Paul's hand, pulling it to safety and examining each finger for possible damage.

"Happens all the time," Paul said, unconcerned. "It's the calluses - I can't feel much on my fingertips."

"All the same, mate, that's not too bright an idea." Ringo relaxed his grip on Paul's hand and was pleasantly surprised that Paul didn't pull away.

Paul's eyes, dark and heavy, were focused on their joined hands. "Funny, I'd known George over fifty years but apart from bandaging his fingers when he practiced too long, I never really TOUCHED him until just that last day when I held his hand."

Ringo had heard the story before but he knew that Paul needed to tell it again.

"And he held mine," Paul continued, "and I could feel how weak he was, and oh GOD his hands were cold, they were so fucking cold..." Paul ran his thumb across the back of Ringo's hand. "He said he forgave me, and he asked my forgiveness, too, then we just talked about Liverpool and meeting John and stealing you away from Rory, and all the good parts of the madness." Paul's eyes met Ringo's, begging for absolution. "And there were good parts, weren't there?"

Not trusting his voice, Ringo just nodded and squeezed Paul's hand tightly. Ringo hated crying, hated that his nose was going red from tears and cold, but he made no move to go indoors or even to distance himself from Paul. It was just such a comfort to have this moment, this contact, painful though the reason was.

After a few minutes of silent contemplation, Paul managed a wobbly smile. "Look at us, crying like a pair of teenaged girls."

Ringo snorted a laugh. "Can you imagine what John would say if he could see us now?"

"'Christ, Macca, you're worse than the sodding fans.'" Paul mimicked John in a reedy voice that sent chills of memory up Ringo's spine even as it made him laugh from the heart.

"Very good impression, that," Ringo said, squeezing Paul's hand again. "But seriously, we've got to stop meeting like this."

Paul's face drained of color.

"What?" Ringo asked.

Paul opened his mouth but nothing came out. He was shaking, not with cold but with fear.

"We won't meet like this again," Paul said after taking a long, ragged breath, "because the next time a Beatle dies, it'll be you or me."

Fuck.

Desperate to re-route this conversation, Ringo quickly waggled his eyebrows and countered with, "Well, I sure hope it's you."

He expected a good-natured argument, but Paul simply tilted his head and looked at Ringo as if memorizing him. "I hope so, too," Paul whispered as he started to rock back and forth in the chair, his exhausted voice tearing through the cold night air. "I don't want to be...I CAN'T be the last one!" Just as Ringo was certain that his heart couldn't take any more, Paul spoke again, softly, pleading. "Ritchie, please, don't leave me all alone."

That plea broke the last strand of Ringo's reserve. He jumped out of his chair and knelt in front of Paul, taking Paul's trembling hands between his own and willing them to become strong and capable again. "It's okay," he murmured as he ran his thumbs over the fragile skin of Paul's wrists. "I won't leave you, Paulie," he murmured.

Paul looked at him, color returning to his pale face. "You'd better not," he said half-jokingly even though his voice was thick with tears. "'Cause if you leave me behind with Yoko, I swear to God I'll fucking end you."

There, that was Paul coming back to life. Ringo stood, his cold joints protesting loudly, and tugged Paul to his feet. He planned to make a big pot of tea to warm them up and he knew Barbara would insist that Paul stay the night. In the morning they would hug goodbye, and try not to think of what it would be like to be the Last Beatle.

***

Coda: 2030

"I'm old, not fucking deaf," Paul barked to the people who were whispering outside the door of his New Orleans hotel room. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, all performing variations on the same theme: Is it safe to leave him on his own, you know, after today?

Paul considered flinging the door open and telling his nearest and dearest to fuck the hell off, but moving from his comfortable chair was simply not going to happen. Not after today.

After today.

What a fucking, fucking awful bugger of a day.

The day that marked the last time a Beatle would play at another Beatle's funeral.

Ringo had died, unexpectedly but peacefully, in his sleep just a few days after his lavish 90th birthday party. Unlike John's and George's departures, which had been followed by quick cremations and private dispersals of their ashes, Ringo's was a far more showmanlike exit from this life. When Paul had first heard that Ringo was to have a full-on New Orleans jazz funeral with a service at the St. Louis Cathedral, his only thought was that Ringo would be sorry to miss the spectacle.

All along the streets people had lined up to say their farewells, to offer signs of peace and love, peace and love, as the black-clad band played "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" and "Didn't He Ramble" in lush, mournful harmonies. It had always been music that left the greatest imprint on Paul's soul, and today, with the last of his Beatle companions gone, music was all that gave him the courage to keep looking out of the limousine window and wave solemnly at the thousands of fans standing in the muggy July heat.

Paul had come close to tears twice: once as he got out of the limousine and bent over to accept a single red rose from a tiny girl whose spun-gold curls reminded him of Linda, and again when he stopped to pay his respects at Ringo's polished mahogany coffin.

"You promised not to do this to me," he had whispered as he patted Ringo's cold, stiff hand, "but I love you anyway."

Advancing age had long since robbed Paul's voice of sweetness but not of pathos, and he had gratefully accepted Barbara's invitation to sing "Let it Be" at the end of Ringo's service. Against the advice of his doctors, his family, and pretty much everyone in the world who had seen his arthritis-afflicted hands, he had given the grand piano his all. Every stroke of his gnarled fingers on the keyboard had sent spikes of pain through his entire body. Even so, he had been determined to do this last ritual, no matter what it did to his aching bones for the rest of the day.

This fucking, fucking awful shitfest of a day.

Now Ringo's body was on a plane back to England, and Paul was - finally - alone in his hotel room, longing for peace and quiet after the agonizing stress of the past week.

The room was silent where normally music or news would be playing. Paul had diligently avoided reading or watching any broadcasts since hearing of Ringo's death. He was holding his dignity together with the finest of threads, and the sight of the inevitable "Moptop Mourns!" and "And Then There Was One!" headlines would have snapped it like a soap bubble. As for hearing the Beatles songs that were surely crowding the airwaves, Paul knew that he would shatter into a million pieces before the middle eight.

In speaking of Ringo, Paul had chosen his words carefully and granted interviews only to a few trusted journalists. To this day (this godawful shitbucket of a day), fifty years after John's murder, Paul still feared being cornered in a moment of grief and sleeplessness and saying "the wrong thing" about a Beatle's passing.

Although that wouldn't be an issue anymore.

Well, fuck.

The pain, which had started in his hands and had been radiating all the way to his shoulders, was now in his back. His body finally, finally hurt more than his heart. With a heavy sigh, Paul worked his way out of the chair and began rummaging around in his flight bag for the medication that did precious little to comfort him anymore. The bottle was nowhere to be found.

Rolling his eyes, Paul shuffled to the door and flung it open to see who was sitting on Dad Guard. Sure enough, it was Mary. She looked up and gave her father a guilty little smile.

"My pills," Paul said. "They're not in my bag."

"I have them," Mary said softly. She pulled the bottle out of her handbag and dispensed a single pill into her father's palm.

He chuckled. "That's just to give me something to do while I wait to pass out from the pain." Mary dropped a second pill in his hand. "I didn't sleep last night and I'm too knackered to keep getting up every four hours. Just give me the bottle."

"Dad..."

"Mary..."

With a shaking hand, Mary passed him the bottle, then gazed at him with such terror in her dark eyes that Paul's next breath was ragged.

So, the McCartney brood thought he was planning to off himself.

"No, no," Paul whispered. "Mary, love, I'm not gonna..."

She launched herself into his arms and held him tightly around the waist. Paul stroked her long gray hair, breathing in the scent of his first-born the way he had when she was a baby.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Paul said as he lifted Mary's chin and looked deep into her eyes. "Your old Dad's body is hurting, that's all. I promise."

Mary nodded. She dropped a kiss on the back of Paul's hand, then caught herself mid-yawn. "I'm going to bed, then," she murmured.

"Good night, sweetie."

"Good night." Mary started to walk down the hall, then turned around again. "I'll see you in the morning, Daddy."

He smiled at her, understanding that he was making a vow to be there in the morning. "Absolutely."

After a searching gaze, Mary smiled back and went to her own room a few doors down. Paul swallowed his two pills dry, coughing slightly as the rough surface abraded his tired throat, then closed his door and went back to the big chair to rest.

He thought about checking his phone, but he knew that there would be a hundred "Are you okay" messages that he didn't trust himself to answer without a hefty dose of John's razor-sharp sarcasm.

Oh, Johnny.

He made a mental note to call Olivia in the morning. Years ago he had told her she was the only "Beatle Widow" he felt close to, and she had countered that the choice between her and Yoko surely couldn't have been all that hard. She had learned a lot from George, about patience and about facing the world with humor.

Oh, George, my little brother.

And poor Barbara, who had seen Ringo through thick and thin and loved him every minute of it, Paul would talk to her tomorrow as well. She had been composed and quiet at the service today, but Paul knew all too well the rush of fresh grief that came once the flurry of ceremonies was completed. Despite many rocky moments, Barbara had loved Ringo, had grounded him and helped him stay the cheerful, loving lad that the whole world was mourning.

Oh, Ritchie.

Paul wiped away a stray tear and leaned back in his chair, "closing his eyes for a minute" as he often did these days. The metallic air conditioner noises were lulling him into a doze when he suddenly recognized familiar scents that were so out of place here and now.

Sweet, heady pot. Sandalwood and garden soil. Expensive cologne and green vegetables.

His eyelids fluttered, only to be kept shut by a hummingbird wing of a touch. "Don't open your eyes, Paul, or we'll have to go," said the deep growl he'd heard just a few weeks before. Ringo. "We knew you'd be lonely, so we just wanted to let you know that we'll be waiting for you."

"We'll watch out for you, the same way you've always done for us and ours," George murmured, and Paul could feel George's feather-light fingers in his hair.

Senses alight, Paul tried to find John. At first there was nothing, then Paul felt a tiny, cool diamond of a spark on his wrist where an ethereal tear had fallen.

"Ah, Paulie, your poor hands," John lamented.

Even with his eyes closed Paul could visualize John's slim, strong, perfect hands. He winced at the idea of his misshapen talons alongside those elegant fingers.

"It'll be okay, you'll see. God is everywhere, Paul, and there's so much love. You'll be whole again when you're with us." George's voice was mild and encouraging.

Paul sighed and let himself sag deeper into the chair. "I want to go with you."

"No, you don't really, not yet," John said gently. "You're just tired. We should let you rest."

"But you'll come back? Sometimes?"

"Don't you know?" George asked, leaning so close that Paul could feel a ghostly hint of breath on his face. "We never left."

Paul nodded, his head heavy with the need to sleep. There was so much to say, but he was so tired, and he felt so protected and loved, that he could only smile and hope that his friends knew how deeply he felt for them.

Ringo pulled away, then George, but John lingered. Paul felt a warm sweetness brush across his palm, then his fingers were gently shaped into a firm grasp.

"Keep it tight throughout the night," John said, and Paul could hear the emotion behind the familiar words as he drifted, at long last, into painless sleep.

*** END ***

Thank you to everyone who reads this. While it was written in a dark place, there is eternal hope to find the light.

#Beatles fic

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