carverrsteve

[kisi-kavi-ki-kalpana]

i am tired of identities.

for a month now i have been thinking of pronouns and gender but mostly a purpose of life. and i am afraid i have none. i don’t resonate with the stars that align to form my birth chart, or the daily check-ins with co-star, or the tarot i turn to when everything falls apart. everything tells me i am better off alone, that there is meaning to the silence i have with others, and the infamous individualism i am accused of having like it’s a crime i commit, that it is a part of who i am. that this existence is supposed to be one without companions. but i am so terrified. and tired. and alone. and i just want to know that my friend, yes that one who hasn’t responded for weeks now, is doing okay, that they are alive. i want them to know i am grateful for them, even if we would never meet each other, even if they don’t think of me as much as i think of them, even though loving a friend as a friend is never quite enough to fulfil the emptiness they carry which looks so much like the hollowness you carve out of yourself and serve to others who get a little too close. i really want to have someone but i don’t want to give parts of me away, i just want to take parts of them that they have grown out of and hold it for them in case they change their mind. i stay up at nights, waiting for texts from this friend, who isn’t really a friend, in case they need help, or someone to talk to, because life isn’t kind to them, but they are really kind to me, so i hope i can be kind to them too. but none of that is enough, somehow, somewhere, always, forever, at the end of it all, i am alone, mean, coward, rude, all at once. self absorbed. distant. broken off. clingy. attached. to parts i shouldn’t be. 

/listening to jee le zara after aaj ke naam really brings out my thoughts uwu. hope i make it through this year. hope i run fast enough. hope i can be a better friend, and less selfish, and not always make everything about me, hope i can apologize at the right times. 

[ficsnroses]

Irreplaceable  - Keanu Reeves x Reader

Summary : You find yourself in bed with your ex, Keanu, which resurfaces old feelings.

Prompt : “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.” requested by anon.

Warnings : nsfw, smut. unprotected sex. angst. fluff.

Word Count : 2k. 🤡 im not even calling them drabbles anymore lmao, feedback and comments are so so so appreciated! This is prompt fic #24. Enjoy:)

also we’re going to ignore the fact that as I was editing this I realized this is basically a softer and sweeter version of my last fic and we’re not gonna @ me because I was half way through editing and didn’t wanna edit a different fic :))) im just a tired uni student tryna write sometimes pls be kind ily

His fingers rub feverish circles to your sensitive clit, exasperated groans and breathy moans fallen suit off your pleasure drunk lips. Keanu hovers over your bare body, throbbed cock swollen to a rosy hued tip, gliding effortlessly in and out your soaking wet folds. Proving imperative, his thrusts hit deep, profound, pounding severely through stifled breaths and skin sticking together through thin layer of damp. Whimpers and soft moans flee through tender breaths, encapsulated by his full lips on yours; breasts bouncing relentlessly to his demanding pace as he hovers above; your fingers clawing mauve marks bedecked into his toned biceps.

Keanu knows how to work you; how to treat you so well. Tonight, he’d invited you to his home in desperate need of relief, long composed history between you both had established ground for meetings such as today. “I need you tonight.” He rasped over the broken telephone line. “Please.”

Each time he calls, each time you return, his words crawl up the deep howls of your mind, your throat swallowing dryly as your heart yearns for another meeting. His hair ruffles in espresso hued fluffs tonight, falling ragged in his clenched eyes, complimented beautifully by the rasp of his tender sighs when he moans to the feel of you,

so warm. So snug for him. You wonder if he’d been running his hands through it as he awaited your arrival, if he’d bit his lip with the curve of his sharp jaw clenched; if he absentmindedly fiddled with the base of his sturdy ring finger as he did in deep thought. You remember more of him than you’d care to admit; than you’d want to admit.

Long ago, Keanu and you almost made it. Almost pledged to the bond that held you together; almost made it to the brink of promise. But it wasn’t meant to be. No matter how hard you and Keanu tried, you weren’t meant to be. The agonizing dissolve of your love was hard. The sky never worked in your favour, the fairy-tale ending never chanced.

The weight of his body holds you down, held close in his arms as he pumps into your inviting sanctuary fiercely, holding so dearly. His hot breath kisses the skin of your neck and you feel a wave of warm, moaning, leisurely whining, whimpering, and whimpering-

“Don’t stop, please,”

“I’m close, Y/N.” He chokes through a tensed jaw and gritted teeth. His erection is stiff, splitting your tight cunt inch by inch as his veiny bulk pounds, friction excruciatingly blissful with your sex starved bodies moulding together so naturally; fluently.

On evenings like this, Keanu and you would be reminded of what could have been. Find comfort within each other, release the months of built up crave that would reside deep, condensed within your dreary longed hearts that yearned for each other, still.

Keanu and you died a long time ago; but the love didn’t. You still loved him, and he still loved you. Unspoken, yet holding of pure truth. White lies, deep-rooted in a smokescreen only sufficed so long. Pledges of being “just friends” were far from the truth. Despite how long, how far and how often you’d both recited the prayer off your lovesick tongues; Keanu and you were not just friends. You couldn’t be.

You could never be.

“Cum for me sweetheart, together.” Keanu moans through broken exhales, chasing his high, yet desperate to bring you to the strongest of releases. He dwelled, thrived off making you feel good. He’d called you here tonight because he needed you, needed your body to feel something. Nonetheless, that didn’t mean he didn’t fully intend of making you see the heavens on earth.

He was always an amazing lover.

Amazing at far too much to not fall so deep for him.

Searing tears threaten in the corners of your dismissive orbs, wailing, yelping as his cock relishes, grinding inside your tight, pulsating pussy, creamy releases coated slick to your thighs as he thrusts. The thuds of his skin slapping yours enfold the room, his sizable length rams into your cunt, balls smacking relentlessly as if mould just for you to delight. With his lips placing a soft kiss to yours, he whispers shakily, your orgasm bubbling boils inside the pit of your mid.

“I’m so close, Ke. Please don’t stop.” You sob, fingers clenched into his rosily flushed shoulder blades. “Please don’t…fuck!” You gasp when he rocks, rotating his hips to hit that sensitive plush of nerves inside your velvety walls, encouraging praises and whispers into your ears.

“Come on sweetheart, let go for me.” Within seconds, Keanu spills his succulent load deep, deep inside you as you release, riding cloud nine of your high into oblivion as he works you through your orgasm. Through heavy palms holding your hips close and his tongue lapping, gently sucking your sensitive nipples, Keanu kisses you sweetly, hands gently kneading the soft of your breasts in a soothing marvel, leaving peppered kisses to your neck, your collarbone, your cheeks.

The love was still there. Plain to see. The love had never left; only now, years later, it suffocated you. Killed you when he’d make love to you like this. Destroyed you when he’d hold you so close, reminding you of how you couldn’t be.

Is it easier for him? You wonder.

You ponder.

Cock still sheathed deep inside, Keanu’s chest rumbles a deep baritone, palm of his stocky hand shifting to cup your cheek. “Feel good?” He asks, a final kiss to your forehead as he slips out, landing firm on the bed, your frail, weakened body pulled securely into his chest. In a delicate wrap of arms, he holds you close, your head rested to his broad as you stare, and stare, and stare daggers to the crème ceiling above.

It must be easier for him. You ponder.

You guess.

But it wasn’t easy for you. None of this was easy.

None of this would suffice much longer.

Keanu’s hand stations on your skin, chest heaving up and down softly as you live out your highs, returning to reality. During these meetings, these encounters where you’d steal a few hours away together, the world seemed to melt into oblivion. As if you’d held his hand as he took you to another dimension, soared the stars, drifted away for a sweet while together. These moments with him held a safe harbour away from reality. Away from the cold, harsh reality.

This embrace, this hold, this affection. It held the same sincerity from all those years past, the light pad of his fingers soothing over your skin delves goosebumps peppering over your silky skin.

Bare, naked in his arms, you’d never felt this vulnerable before. And you never thought you would; especially with the man that surprisingly made you feel safest.

Warm, wet.

The familiar, distinct saltiness of silent tears threatens to loom your lips, head still pressed to his flushed chest. Daring, barely above a confident whisper; you finally spill. Quiet. Harsh. Desperate to defend.

“We’re not just friends, and you fucking know it.”

Unmoved, your bodies still lay entwined. Connected. Fiercely connected, as your souls.

Your lost, overdue, lonesome souls.

“Friends don’t…call each other when they need a fuck. Friends don’t kiss each other. Friends don’t visit each other late into the night when they’re feeling alone.” You fight. Your voice raises. The hurt surfaces. “We’re not just friends. We’ll never be just friends. We’re fucking stuck. We’ll always be stuck and I don’t know if…” Words ceasing, the tears threaten to spill. The ache becomes intolerable.

Deadbeat silence. Stillness, cold. All around, the only feel. He stays silent, holding you, eyes still focused to the ceiling above. He’s hurting,

He’s been hurting too.

Quietly, through a hoarse of gruffed tone, Keanu speaks. He wonders if you know the sincerity of his declaration, the weight his pledge holds. “I still love you. I still love you so much, it hurts. Every single day.”

There’s never been pity in those deep cocoa depths, never confusion, resentment, aggravation. Only old understanding, old love, attachment that never died; even when the roots withered. When the skies caved.

You listen, you process, you absorb. You absorb his words, so wholly.

Sitting up slight, Keanu draws your body up as well, never letting your frail frame leave his toned arms. Biceps engulfing, you practically drown into his bare chest; your exposed skins melting together adding tremendously to the connection. “Y/N, I’ll always be in love with you.” He whispers into your hair, soft kisses stippled with strokes to your glossy locks, drawing the silk sheets higher, closer to tuck them around you. To protect you,

-from the cold. Or perhaps something else. Something so unforgiving, a harsh reality you’d both been compulsory to endure.

“But,” He breaks, yet stays composed, calm and confident, for you. “We’re no good together, sweetheart. We can’t be.” He whispers, hold tightening to soothe your plight. “It’s above us. No matter how hard we try, we can’t.” He reasons, voice saddened, yet explanatory. “You know that right, princess?”

The piercing, cold truth. Your lives are far too different, far too many complications come into play. For you and Keanu, a life together would always, forever, remain a distant dream. “We’re not just friends.” Taking hold of your hand, he presses a small kiss to your palm, eyes looking down into your softer, fragile ones. “You’re…you’re the best thing I have. Even if I don’t really have you.” He shakes his head, unable to face the realism. Because the cold, sour truth would always remain.

Keanu and you would rather be this way, than not at all. You’d rather meet this way, feel each other this way through scarce, secretive meetings, than not have each other at all.

Time held too much history. And history isn’t easily forgotten.

You and Keanu, couldn’t be forgotten. You were bound. Bound by something so special, so real. Something that would always stay, never fraying with the passage of a lifetime. Quelling his own emotions, Keanu kisses your lips again, tasting the salt of your dewy tears.

He’d always remained the stronger one. The one that would provide assurance. The one that would remind, even if it was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do. But he’d do it. He’d do it, every single time, for you. He’d do anything for you.

Through the softness of your skin, Keanu relishes, loses himself in how familiar, how right it feels to be so close to you. How badly he wanted nothing more, than to always be close to you. To have you, through sickness and health. To hold you this way forever, steadily, safely within him.

Yet, it would never be. The harsh, cold, truthful reality. Each time you’d depart, a little piece, a part of each other would let go. Stay with the other until you’d meet again. It all hurt, the same way it usually did. Through a soft sniffle, you tighten your hold around him as well, sinking into the deep, radiating warmth of his skin. Sinking away into your escape, your piece of oblivion that was all too well to be real.

All too good, to ever be.

If soulmates existed, if happy endings were real, he was yours, and you were his.

You knew it all too well, all too true. And through a heartbroken mummer, you declare. Declare to him, as you both always did when you’d meet this way.

“I still love you too.” You return to his earlier statement, whispering. 

        “And I always, always will.”

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

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[teen-content-queen]

Title: Cold Hands Square: Crackship Ship: Van Der Stoffels  Rating: General - all fluff baby Trigger Warnings: None Created for @skamevents  “I’m just saying that it wasn’t my fault.”

Jens turned to Lucas, cheeks pink in the cold winter air. Lucas was trying to convince him that he hadn’t been the one to convince them to shave Jayden’s eyebrow the night before. 

“You were the one who gave Moyo the idea. You know you can’t trust him.”

“Kes is the one who found the razor. Yell at him!”

Jens laughed, pulling open the cafe door, waiting for Lucas to slip in before pulling it closed behind them. 

“I’m not yelling at anyone. But if his mom comes looking…”

Lucas laughed, eyes already scanning the pastries in the glass display as they waited in the short line. Jens pulled off his gloves, shoving them into his pocket, before lacing his fingers into Lucas’ hand beside him. Feeling his icy skin, Jens recoiled for a moment before grabbing his hands a little more forcefully and cupping them between his own. He could see the white tips of Lucas’ delicate fingers and rubbed his palms along the soft skin on the backs of his hands, trying to warm them up. 

“You’re freezing.” He muttered, eyeing Lucas. Lucas just shrugged. 

“My hands are always cold.”

“So why aren’t you wearing gloves? There’s snow on the ground Luc.”

"I think I lost them. I don't know."

Instead of offering any more explanation, Lucas leaned in to kiss the tip of Jens’ nose, pulling his hands away in order to slip them up and under Jens’ coat and sweatshirt, fingers still frozen against the warm skin of Jens’ lower back. Jens tried to wiggle away but Lucas pulled him in tighter, kissing his cheeks and finally his mouth. Jens finally had to pull away when they reached the front of the line. After ordering their drinks and a pastry from Lucas, they found two comfortable chairs in the back of the cafe, next to the fireplace. Jens watched Lucas clutch his mug with both hands, close to his chest as if he could absorb the warmth through his skin. He texted Robbe and put his phone on the table between them. 

“Do you want to help me with a photography project later?” Jens asked, pulling Lucas’ focus from the fireplace. 

Lucas’ eyes shined under his long eyelashes as he looked at Jens, nodding.

“Sure. What do you need me to do?”

“Just some basic portrait shots.”

“Your professor is gonna get sick of you always using the same model for these assignments.” Lucas said, raising an eyebrow at him. Jens laughed.

“She hasn’t complained yet. At least you’re more interesting to look at that Moyo’s dog.”

That got a snort of laughter from Lucas, who had to steady the mug in his hands as his body rocked with the full bodied laugh.

“At least I’m cuter than a dog.” 

“I said you were more interesting. The dog’s pretty cute.” Jens teased, not even trying to dodge the hand Lucas flung at him in retaliation. Instead, he grabbed the other boy’s fingers before they had moved from his chest and pulled his hand into his lap. 

They sat in the quiet for a few minutes, drinks finally cool enough to drink without burning their tongues. Jens had just finished his mug when his phone sprung to life on the table and Robbe’s picture popped up on the screen. Jens picked up the phone. Lucas moved to chug his drink but Jens waved him off. 

“You haven’t even eaten your croissant. I’ll be back in two seconds.”

He sealed his departure with a kiss on Lucas’ forehead and slipped out the door of the cafe to take the call on the street outside. 

“All good?” Robbe asked, in response to Jens’ text to call him.

“Yeah, just needed an excuse to sneak away from Lucas for a minute.”

“You okay?” Robbe asked, concern laced in his voice now. 

“Oh yeah, no no we’re good. I’ll explain later.”

“Okay…” Robbe said, unconvinced. 

Jens ended the call, and looked in the cafe window. Lucas was back to looking at the fireplace, pensively sipping on his hot chocolate. Jens turned from the cafe and walked one block over. 

The bell jingled over his head as Jens walked back into the cafe, the scent of chocolate and coffee enveloping him as soon as he emerged from the cold street. It had only gotten colder in the short while they’d been here, and he wasn’t prepared to face the walk back to their apartment over by the university yet. Lucas turned, the bell pulling his attention to the door. He smiled at Jens, grin widening when Jens blew him a kiss and pointed towards the counter. Lucas nodded and held up his empty plate. Jens rolled his eyes but nodded. His boyfriend’s sweet tooth was no secret to Jens. He got to the front of the line and ordered more drinks and the berry cheesecake that he knew Lucas had been debating over earlier. 

When he got to their spot, he saw that Lucas had moved to the couch, a little further from the fireplace but certainly more private. Jens sunk into the cushion next to him, resting the two mugs and plate on the table in front of them before wrapping an arm around Lucas’ shoulder, pulling him in to kiss him on the forehead. 

“Robbe okay?” Luc asked, scooting into Jens’ side.

“He’s good.” Jens promised, sliding so he could reach into his pocket. “I’d actually texted him to call me so I'd have a reason to sneak out.”

Lucas moved at his side, looking up at him from under Jens' arm, eyebrows furrowed. Jens just smiled and pulled his hand from his pocket, handing Lucas the gift he’d gotten him. Luc examined the soft navy gloves and then looked at Jens, eyes searching for an explanation.

“I noticed a shop around the corner when we were walking here. I couldn’t let you walk around with no gloves Luc.”

Jens watched a few expressions flit across Lucas’ face before it finally settled into what Jens assumed was fondness. Lucas smiled at him and leaned in, kissing him deeply. He tasted like chocolate and smelled like laundry detergent and his cologne. It was Jens’ favorite scent in the world.

“Thank you.” Lucas whispered into his lips and kissed him again before pulling away to look closely at the gloves. Jens had picked them because they complimented Lucas’ winter coat and the smell flecks of light blue in the yarn on the outside matched Lucas’ eyes. 

“Now I don’t have to worry about your fingers freezing off when I’m not around to hold your hand.” Jens said, smiling softly at his boyfriend. Lucas kissed him once more and then picked up his mug, settling into Jens’ side. Jens grabbed his own mug and settled down. 

“What exactly was the thought process behind shaving Jayden’s eyebrow again?” He asked, feeling Lucas laugh beneath him as he launched into his story.

[dcschain]

HIGH NOON OVER CAMELOT. | not accepting.

@cllgood​ said: Recognise, believe and embrace the White.

What difference a week can make, dry like sand in his teeth. What difference and none, here. What difference manhood makes. He feels it all, this weight. A weight, impossible to swallow, from his shoulders to his throat to his chest, in the depth of him.

The difference is this: he is an adult, now, and so terribly a child his father spent a few moments simply looking at him, and at his face, that jaw that hadn't found its sharpness yet and the stubble that was barely growing in. Two years younger than when Steven Deschain had driven his dagger into Cort's calf and nearly severed the vein there for good, and Cort had yielded. But he had limped. For the rest of his days, Cortland Andrus had worn the Deschain's victory in his gait. Cort, whose skin more starkly than any book of genealogies held the names of all the gunslingers who had proven the worth of their blood.

Gilead welcomed him differently now back from Mejis. After the flags were raised back to their full height and the tears – of grief now unspent of joy of relief at their safe return – had been dried, he had caught himself alone for a moment in the Great Hall, which until then had been a terrible mystery and a space of relative power.

Gilead knew. The stones knew, and the earth knew, even if the words of ritual had not yet been spoken in the Great Hall, though they had been spoken on the Proving Grounds, and the blood spilt, and the bird buried. All acts of terrible significance. All acts that recognised Roland for who he was and is, an instrument, the last one to be left. The land knows, the city whispers, the men inside it do not understand the rituals they so mechanically perform. A thing lost that will never be found again. The power crackling and terrible, and left without teeth, left with too many teeth, left with violence.

Words, words, are what give places their meaning. Words of speech, of gesture or of legend. Words of gazes, and of touch. Spaces that absorb the different meanings and change their faces like a magis changes names. Westr'd Hall. Hall of the Grandfathers. Rendezvous.

Secret, secret, sacred.  

In an empty Great Hall they had told their tale to Steven Deschain, and Robert Allgood, and Christopher Johns. Steven with the thoughtful silence and Robert with the arms crossed and the thumb to his upper lip, and Kit with the clicking of needles and the illegible expression, focused on his knitting.

They had told the whole tale save for the most important part. The Bend, still safe in Roland's room, safe to prey and tease and eat. Eat to its rotten heart's content. So much suffering to drink from. So much pain to nourish and nurture into anger and into hate. So much of it.

Because of it, because of it calling and waiting and needing, he had been the last to leave the room, even after his father had stepped outside. He had stood, and were he someone else perhaps the walls would have bled some truth to him. But the walls, and the marble busts on each shorter side of the great room, were silent. Perfectly still.

Only Steven Deschain had not left immediately as Cuthbert, Alain and their fathers filed out, wanting to celebrate in earnest the return, but he had stopped just past the doorway. And Roland certainly had known this, because the footsteps on the wooden floor behind him had stopped and then stilled, and the sentence Steven's footsteps had been spelling had breathed for a semi-colon, and Steven in that space had turned, and looked at his son's shoulders, and thought him a man at last. And the pride was indescribable. And the terror was indescribable. And seeing his own death reflected to him. Seeing the shape the land's soul will take, once his blood has stopped flowing.

Steven knew then that his blood was more likely to spill in great waves, rather than thunder to an end under the yoke of old age. A hunch. One of the many, the same hunch that told him Roland had not said all of the truth, but had been leaving parts of it still unaccounted for, strewn along the trail in chunks of drying driftwood. Water where there was none. Trees soaked to the bone in a desert that rarely if ever knew rain. White rock. Water where Gan willed it, and water where it was not a natural thing. Steven had parted his lips to speak and then had closed them.

All princes are their father's deaths. That was a truth he had learned from Henry the Tall's cracked, wheezing lips.

“Come now, Ro. Your mother be waiting for supper.”

His father's voice which called him away from this empty, cold room. Not a kind voice. A voice of tired nights and even more tired days. A voice smeared with blood and mud, caked with sand and the bitter saltwater.  

“Be kind to your mother,” an afterthought.

The same mother he can't help but look for, now, in the crowd. She stands to the side of the old cracked throne, her hands tight in each other and nobody beside her.

His father stands in front of the throne of the Eld, which has not been used in many and many-a years and still is kept, old and decrepit, like a terrible omen of what is to come. A reminder for all kings and queens of Gilead that this is where it ends, this is where the power truly lies.

The wood will rot. The wood will always rot.

History unfolding, he the speck of dust at the centre of a tapestry so big it eludes any definition of size. The width of it, the length of it, the miles of it: stretching beyond and behind him. From the centre, tall and terrible and dark, to the end of it, a Perfect Circle. Time began at the Tower, and time ended there. The speech his father had given him the evening before in his office in the cold in the quiet, where he had given him the Bend and his father in return had given him his birthright and his legacy, the knowledge of the Tower.

He is slow, but he is not stupid. And while he perhaps cannot understand the far-reaching, endless implications of what moments like these hold, even in such solemn silence, he knows enough to know that something is decided here, every time a new ceremony happens in the footsteps of the previous ones. Like when he stood at the top of the same hall he is standing in the centre of now, above with the eyes of a newborn hawk babe, the dances underneath intricacies his mind could not see clearly. But he understood: when Gabrielle Deschain moved from her lover to her husband, she did so with Power, and its passage, coiled tight inside her. Marten Broadcloak who had brought the death of Henry Deschain and in time would bring the death of his son also, and the death of the woman he had danced with, Gabby o'the Waters, Marten who had watched beneath the flickering candles as ka walked relentlessly amongst them, crimson-robed. And he had smiled that thin bloody-eyed smile of his, sharp like a knife. Gears moving at the relentless, maddeningly-slow pace of the patiently cruel.

He stands at the other end of this hallway of people. The other gunslingers, the distant family, his maternal uncle and grandfather come from Arten, his tet-mates, Vannay. Cort still lies agonising in his bed, Roland is the first, and only, gunslinger the teacher will not be able to see take the mantle of the title.

And at the end of it all, Steven Deschain, tall and still, with his big irons, and his blue eyes. It is only them, and the mother slightly behind Steven: chained, trapped, burdened and saved by one another. The room could be as empty as it was after the palaver they held with the Tet of the Gun. The room could be as cold.

Steven Deschain gestures to his son.

“Hile, Childe.”

Gabrielle inhales sharply. He does not hear it, but he sees it behind his father's shoulders.

Roland cannot call this fear. But when he slowly walks forward towards his dinh his father his king his feet feel barely on the ground, each step he crosses a precipice, a rickety bridge, a boy pleading for his life and knowing his death all in one breath and a father knowing the taste of the most terrible price.

Other worlds.

His gaze low, his breath tight. His body does what he cannot be aware of: it breathes, swallows, sweats, pumps blood through him, walks. Everything else, is this: the shape of the wood beneath his knee, the soft murmuring that's now turned to silence in the Deschain's booming voice that beckons his son and his destiny to him.

He kneels before his father. In the flickering electric light Steven Deschain is all things and none, the true soul of the land, and his son is nothing but the avatar of his own pride. Roland closes his eyes and exhales.

“Tursa-thea para pan, dinh-soh?”

He swallows again, and then opens his eyes, to voice his answers as he's learned them.

“An dria eld, an para eld. An para childe.”

“Pan-childe?”

“Kes-kas-ma’sun.”

“Pan-childe?”

“Kes-kas-dash-khef-okvi.”

“Pan-childe?”

“Visa-dinh-sai-kas.”

“Tursa-thea pa?”

“Kian epissin dinh cha albion cha dinh-sai.”

“Pai-thea?”

“Gilead-Roland ka, Dinh Steven-dinh-soh, Dinh Henry-dinh-soh, Dinh Arthur-ka-dinh-soh, Gilead-dinh. Afe albion Gilead cha Eld hedro ka. Afe Cam cha childe-dash-khef hedro ka.”

Maybe he answered too fast. Maybe an inflection was wrong. Maybe he forgot the words. Maybe. Maybe. His father has paused, paused longer than he ought to, and Roland's neck aches with the need to look up, to him.

Another second passes, longer than a century. Then, the clinking of Steven Deschain as he unbuckles his gun belt. Gabrielle Deschain sinks her nails into the flesh of her palms. On the other side of the throne, Kit Johns and Robert Allgood exchange a look.

Roland knows what this sound means. He knows it as well as those who see the gesture, the brief low murmur that ripples across the crowd. He does not understand it, but he knows it.

And he looks up, to meet his father's face. His father holding the guns of the Eld, and meeting his eyes, and nodding slowly.

“An-eld-gansa-thea, dinh-soh. Rise, first bondsman to my bosom. Recognise, believe and embrace the White, who holds above us all.”

Roland does as he is told. In the silence, the dumbstruck silence, of a Great Hall that should be embracing a city's joy, and instead must bear witness to history unfold. Definite. Terrible. Destruction, beginning. Destruction, that here begins to crush lungs.

Steven fastens the belt, and the holsters, and the guns, around his only child's hips. His hands come to Roland's shoulders. Then he pulls him in, to kiss him twice on each cheek, and Roland feels his father's lips wet where they press against his skin.

When Steven turns his son, his heir, around, to face the crowd before them, to lift his arm high, hand around his wrist, in triumph, the cheer erupts as sudden as the thunder, becomes deafening. In a glimpse, Roland catches Gabrielle Deschain over his shoulder, who smiles as she weeps.

“Do you understand, then, what you’ve done?”

Where there’s rustle of pages there cannot be words. Words have no room here. Words have no weight, no colour, no conscience. Words are what breath is not: meaning. Meaning, beyond the arbitrary significance of ribcages lifting lowering, catching oxygen, keeping alive.

Words cannot be denied. Words are a sacred, terrible thing. Words unlike breath have finality, for breath is gone by sunset, and with them heart. But words demonstrate the true futility of time. Where breath fails to ensure eternity, the poets have already won.

“Steven. I be talking to you.”

“Bob, if I no longer had command of my own faculties, I’d make sure you’d be the first to know.”

“That ain’t what Handsome's saying, Steve. Come now.”

Come now. Steven arches an eyebrow -- because either Kit picked that up from him or he from Kit. That brief consideration pressed to the wider still plane of his thoughts. How often they’d all shared words, broken them amongst each other with their crumbs on their hands, wiped the red stains from the cup of shared wisdom. What point is there in defining this vocabulary of blood? It’s been so long, anyway. Where did the first word originate between them, how can that even be quantified? In the womb, in the web, in the heart of the Tower. Perhaps there. Impossible to know with any surety, impossible to deny when presented with the facts, the true witnesses of hearts. Like the great first breath of Gan, so the cycle repeats itself even in small bursts, of mannerisms and friendship. Whoever made the world made them, too, and made them in its image. To repeat is to share. To share is to break bread, be holy with love. An act of creation with every shared glance. So the web tightens. So it always, always tightens.

“The boy’s been given the guns, Steve. There ain’t no turning back from that.”

“Yes. I know, Kit. I believe I am aware of the implications. I was the one who made the decision, after all.”

Robert scoffs and moves, away from the slit window he was leaning his back against, with his arms crossed. As he walks towards Steven’s desk, the light drips through to frame him as he is, tall and barrel-chested, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His ceremonial cape’s folded neatly on one of the chairs in the study. The glint of the rings on his hands taps against the bridge of Steven’s nose and trembles across his forehead, as Robert splays his palms on the wood to lean forward. He throws shadows onto Steven’s workspace, and Steven pulls back, pen still in hand, to frown.

“All things can be read two ways,” Robert says, ignoring Steven’s furrowed brow and the way he caught his breath about to protest, “and by Gan’s sake, Steve, the first reading of it is clear to me. Word will reach Farson soon, if it hasn’t already, now she’s back.” Too far. In the blue glint under Steven’s brow, Robert swallows and corrects his course, “and all I can see is him and his mongrels saying that this be you renouncing dinh-ship in all but name. That you recognise you're unworthy of the Eld’s guns. That a boy, no matter how fucking talented, be more worthy of those guns than the dinh of our own fucking city.”

“When my father, Clearing take him, bequeathed me the horn, ’twas not seen as an act of cowardice.”

Kit’s turn: he rolls his eyes. “Now you’re just being deliberately obtuse. The horn ain’t the guns, no matter the siguls that’re written on it. And Henry didn't have Farson to contend with.”

They know that twitch, imperceptible, that comes with the jaw clench, the way it circles the right eye, the way the mouth twists slightly, the way it is like the shadow of something unknown and terrible, terrible, underneath the edge of the water. They know it. He sets his pen down, and exhales hard enough to make his upper lip tremble.

“You could’ve at least discussed it with us, Steven. Before making the decis--”

“Here is my second reading, Robert. Thee’s said it yourself, there’s always two sides to all things. All world is prophecy to thee, ka-mai, and riddle. You’ve given me one reading, and damn those who choose to read it that way. But I won’t have you two clucking like hens or courtiers. I carried thee, Robert, didn’t I? When the poison was making you vomit your own fucking blood, didn’t I promise thee I’d have you see our white spires once more, and the Lady Louise? Didn't I hold fast to that promise? Was I not dinh to thee then, as I am now?”

Robert steps back. The desk creaks when he lets it go, the sound dusty, dry. Old. He and Kit exchange a look. The look of children. At times the truth is in Steven Deschain's eyes a brilliant silver, ice-cold. The truth of fathers, and of kings.  

He’ll have them beside him, and he’ll have them behind him, but to have them in front of him, three angles of a shape, is as difficult now as it ever was. With an exactness Steven understands as thin as the sharp edge of his hunting knife, Robert speaks the truth that ka tells him, which is not the truth of kings but the truth of fools. One side, another side, one base. Reality made dim when all can be read, even the things beyond its shimmering veils, and nothing extrapolated, and its truth, as always, a matter and manner of perspective. What else can they do? Their very language an ocean of meanings, branches holding words that are everything, and nothing as a consequence. Under the yoke of their roles their skin trembles a terrible colour. Not black nor crimson-red nor white. A person can get lost in these winds of meaning. Where the holiness of their roles ends is where the true unknown begins, where beyond the meaning of their power, White-keepers, lies something that raises much too much dust and is unclear and therefore cannot be read. In the West slowly does the low hum of war welcome violence. And it will be a wave soon enough. And it will be thunder.

DA. DATTA. DAYADHVAM. DAMYATA.

“So here is your damnable second reading. The guns be instruments of cam, and they be forged from the Eld's sword.”

“We don't need a history lesson, Steven.”

“I won't take kindly to being interrupted right now, Kit.”

Kit opens his mouth to retort. And Kit closes it.

“And Roland be of my blood. Of Eld. And no matter what storm is coming, blood don't lie. It never has. Sometimes it be the last thing we have left. I gave him the gu--”

“You gave him the guns because you ain't stretching the power thin, but you're reinforcing it. Spreading it out, so it covers more ground. Like a girdle. Because if ka let Ro pass his test of manhood so early, it means there be greater things in store for him yet. And blood don't lie.”

Robert knows then from the expression Steven pulls that Steven had not realised that, either. He barks out a laugh, at Steven's startled eyes, at his slow blinking.

“Yes. Yes, Bob. I suppose you're right.”

He marvels. It is something the barracks never took from him and never will. Robert Allgood marvels, in the simplest ways, at the simplest things. And he marvels now when the reasoning behind Steven's gesture unravels in his and his dinh's hands, and he marvels not at the riddle solved or at the the way power tonight has been vested, transformed and transmitted, but rather at the web of meanings that he can see, now, beneath all the things, beneath the truths they've shared. Where the water flows, the rock breaks. Where the wind blows, the tree yields.

But it is not Robert who names it. It is Christopher.

“Aven kas.”

Where ka dictates, the wind follows. Here now real more than ever, more than anything. More than them and their words and their guns, and their eyes and their father's faces. A strength that breathes in everything there is. In another world, it is called synchronicity. A thin dim border, trapped between coincidence and fate.

“Ai. Aven kas.”

Kit uncrosses his arms to say something, but the knock on the door interrupts him. Steven furrows his brow. None of them expected interruptions, this evening, when he is about to seek Roland and bring him for his first night at the Club. His Roland, his Ro-darling. A boy of only fourteen.

And besides, those who know him and his character know not to disturb him when in a meeting with his tet, and they would be the only ones to seek the Gilead-dinh out at this hour.

“Who is it?”

“Rosalie, dinh-sai.”

Especially Rose. But it barely sounds like her. A tremble that's never there in the way she says dinh. The three of them exchange a glance.

“What is it, Rose?”

“Sai, may I come in? It-- it's urgent.”

He opens the door to wide eyes, and a face that still hasn't understood in full what its mouth will have to say now. When Steven sees her, Rose doesn't speak for a few seconds. Her jaw is trembling.

“What fashes thee, girl?” Kit asks from behind Steven, a sentence he's never had to say to Rosalie who told them of their sons' death with a closed jaw and cold eyes. But now, past her dinh's shoulder, she barely knew he was there, knew it but only on the surface level of things. What is inside her knows nothing but how to speak the words and then everything else, perhaps, will return after the shock has slipped back from outside of her to inside of her.

If Cort saw, he'd beat her black and blue. But Cort no longer holds Power over her. The Deschain does.  

“Rosalie.”

Her dinh calls her terror to order.

“It's... it's the Lady Gabrielle, sai. I don't know how to say it. Belle found them, I-- and Ro', and, and... the boy, and--”

Steven allows for no more room for her tongue. He grabs her shoulder, and the grip is tight enough it kills the sentence dead. What's left of it wheezes in her speechlessness.

“Where?”

“Her rooms. But sai, sai-- She's dead, she's already dead.”

If he hears he doesn't listen. Robert stops in front of her, and touches her where Steven gripped her. She blinks under water.

“Go find Joe, Rosalie. Lock down Lady Gabrielle's apartments. We ought to keep this as tightly under wraps as we can. Can thee do this for us, Rosie? Hm?”

She nods, swallowing hard. Robert pats her shoulder once, turns to follow Kit and Steven, turns around again.

“Was it Ro', then?”

“Yes. He's already admitted to it.”

Admitted. The word leaves bitter ashes, makes his lips curl in a snarl.

“Ay-yi. Poor boy. So we dance to the song, don't we all? What a rotten song it be, sometimes.”

He inhales very slowly, and halfway down his throat, the air breaks and cracks against the tears he didn't know were there. Robert swallows hard.

Kit and Steven didn't wait for him, and he has to quicken his pace to catch up.

[the-archlich]

The Red Crow Campaign (241)

The Red Crow Campaign was Wu’s largest military mobilization during its Chiwu 赤乌 era[1]. While that period saw many raids on Wei’s border territories, none were on the same scale as the campaign in 241, which saw perhaps more than 100,000 men at war. This was Wu’s last major offensive in Sun Quan’s 孙权 lifetime and the first significant invasion that he did not personally oversee. In this context, and given Sun Quan’s advancing age, it can be viewed as a test of how Wu would function without him at the helm.

This campaign is best understood in the context of two operations conducted years earlier, in 237, which saw the same Wei positions under attack by the same Wu commanders. In light of the much larger campaign to come, these can be understood as probing attacks, testing Wei’s defenses and gathering information.

GEOGRAPHY

In the east, operations focused on the regions of Lujiang 庐江 and Huainan 淮南, which were divided between Wei and Wu north of the Huai River 淮水. Lujiang controlled the region between the Huai and Changjiang 长江 rivers, providing the most direct land route from north to south. It also controlled the intermediate reaches of the Changjiang, from the city of Huan 皖,[2] giving it significant strategic value. During Western Han the princedom of Lu’an 六安[3] also existed in this region, but it was absorbed into Lujiang under Eastern Han.[4] This princedom was originally north of Lujiang, bordering Lake Quebei 芍陂.[5]

Control over Lujiang was in dispute since the death of Yuan Shu 袁术 in 199. Many of his followers fled to Liu Xun 刘勋,[6] who Yuan Shu had appointed as his executor of Lujiang. Sun Ce 孙策 defeated Liu Xun to seize Huan[7] and appointed one Li Shu 李术 as the new executor.[8] Li Shu soon killed the Inspector of Yan appointed by Cao Cao 曹操 and gathered local forces against him, although these efforts were stymied by the new inspector Liu Fu 刘馥.[9] After Sun Ce’s death, Li Shu refused to accept Sun Quan’s authority and revolted. Sun Quan requested that Cao Cao let him deal with the rebellion, offering to kill Li Shu as an apology for Li Shu’s earlier aggression. Li Shu asked Cao Cao for assistance against Sun Quan, but Cao Cao sent none. Sun Quan quickly defeated Li Shu and again conquered Huan.[10]

Subsequent years saw a series of small campaigns in the region as Cao Cao and Sun Quan grappled for control. Most of the area was abandoned as the populace fled from the frequent battles. The final result of these conflicts was that Cao Cao and Wei still claimed much of the commandery. Their control extended almost to the very south of the commandery, as far as the city of Juchao 居巢. However Sun Quan and Wu always maintained control over Huan and, from it, the Changjiang.

The region originally known as Huainan became called Jiujiang 九江 during the Former Han dynasty. When Yuan Shu made himself emperor at Shouchun 寿春 he restored the ancient name of the region. Although this change was initially rejected, it eventually gained acceptance. By the time of Wei’s founding, Jiujiang was again known as Huainan. This region contained the eastern end of the land crossing between the Huai and Changjiang, as well as two significant lakes: Lake Chao 巢, divided between Lujiang and Huainan, and Lake Quebei. These lakes and smaller rivers provided a significant routes of transportation and communication between the Huai and Changjiang, and these routes were controlled by the cities of Shouchun and Hefei.[11] Cao Cao and Wei controlled the majority of Huainan after receiving the submission of Yuan Shu’s former officers in 199.[12] However Sun Ce took control of the strategic Liyang 历阳 crossing when he revolted against Yuan Shu in 197[13] and the family appears to have maintained this position.  

In the south, the campaign focused on the area of Xiangyang 襄阳 in the northern part of Nan 南 commandery. This included the twin cities of Xiangyang proper and Fan 樊.[14] Although Cao Cao received control of Nan from Liu Zong 刘琮 in 208, Sun Quan’s forces under Zhou Yu 周瑜 and Cheng Pu 程普 seized the majority of Nan over the next two years, with Cao Cao’s influence limited to the Xiangyang region. The commandery was subsequently granted to Liu Bei 刘备, who tried but failed to extend his control to Xiangyang. After a falling out between Liu Bei and Sun Quan, the Sun family again took control of Nan in 219, though Cao Cao still held Xiangyang. This situation persisted until Jin’s conquest of Wu in 280.

One other position of significance was Zuzhong 柤中. It was located some 150 Han furlongs from Xiangyang, at the border of Shanghuang 上黃. Little is recorded about this location, and it was evidently obscure enough even by the time of Eastern Jin that the Sanguo Zhi commentator Xi Zuochi 习凿齿 included an annotation about its location and the pronunciation of the character 柤.[15] It was attacked by Wu forces in 237, 241, and 246, after which point there is no further mention of it in Sanguo Zhi or Jin Shu.[16] I suspect that it was a military agricultural colony 屯田 established to support the Xiangyang region. It was likely abandoned after the third assault in 246.

PRELUDE

In 237 Wei’s registrar 主簿 of Lujiang Lü Xi 吕习 secretly contacted Wu and offered to go over to them, betraying Lu’an from the inside if they brought an army to claim it.[17] In winter of that year, Sun Quan dispatched Quan Zong 全琮 to take the city.[18] He and Zhu Huan 朱桓 marched on Lu’an, but word of Lü Xi’s plan leaked out and the Wu army had to retreat. Through a rearguard action by Zhu Huan, they were able to withdraw without pursuit.[19]

In the same year, Zhu Ran 朱然 led an attack on Zuzhong, defended by the Wei generals Hu Zhi 胡质 and Pu Zhong 蒲忠, each with several thousand men. When Zhu Ran advanced on Zuzhong, Pu Zhong occupied advantageous terrain, planning to cut off his rear, while Hu Zhi provided support. At the time, most of Zhu Ran’s army was dispersed in raiding parties. Rather than gathering his full strength, Zhu Ran took some 800 soldiers and made a surprise attack on Pu Zhong. Pu Zhong resisted but was quickly defeated, so he and Hu Zhi retreated.[20]

Between these operations and the Red Crow Campaign, there were a number of noteworthy changes in personnel that helped shape the course of events, some of which likely influenced the timing of the campaign.

Wei’s chief commander in the east was Wang Ling 王淩, a long-time veteran. During Cao Pi’s 曹丕 reign he was made inspector of Yan province 兗州刺史 and distinguished himself at Dongpu 洞浦 under Cao Xiu 曹休 during the Great River Campaign (222-223). For this service he became a marquis and a general. Wang Ling then spent some years as inspector of Qing 青州刺史. In 228 he again followed Cao Xiu in attacking Wu and again distinguished himself by helping Cao Xiu fight his way free at Shi’ting 石亭. Afterwards, he was made Inspector of Yu province 豫州刺史. At the start of Cao Fang’s 曹芳 reign, he was made General Who Conquers the East 征东将军 and Marshal of Yang province 都督扬州, in charge of all the eastern armies.[21]

The other Wei commander of significance in the east was Sun Li 孙礼. Another long serving Wei official, he joined Cao Cao’s staff after his capture of You province 幽州 in 206. He held a series of local and commandery appointments over the next several decades and, during Cao Pi’s reign, became a member of the Secretariat and was known for his excellent advice and good sense. When Cao Rui 曹睿 was deathly ill, he chose his close friend Cao Shuang 曹爽 to be regent as Grand General 大将军 and he assigned Sun Li to be his adjutant 长史. However, Sun Li’s strict nature made Cao Shuang uneasy. Cao Shuang soon had him transferred away as Inspector of Yang province 扬州刺史 and General of the Hidden Waves 伏波将军.[2]2

Wang Ling’s counterpart in Wu was Quan Zong. The Quan family was a wealthy clan in Wu 吳 commandery, and they were early supporters of the Sun. This earned Quan Zong appointment as a colonel under Sun Quan, and successful campaigns against the hill tribes in Danyang 丹杨 saw him made a general. Like Wang Ling, he too distinguished himself at Dongpu and Shi’ting. In 229 he was made General of the Guards 卫将军. Quan Zong was also married to Sun Quan’s daughter, Sun Luban.[23]

Also of note was Zhuge Ke 诸葛恪, son of the famous Zhuge Jin 诸葛瑾. From 234-237 he conducted a campaign to pacify the tribes of Danyang which had troubled Wu since the days of Sun Ce. Upon the successful completion of this campaign he was made a marquis and General Who Dominates the North 威北将军, stationed near Huan.[24]

In the south, Wu’s forces were commanded by a number of famous veterans. Most relevant to this campaign was Zhu Ran. His father Zhu Zhi 朱治 served under Sun Jian 孙坚, and Zhu Ran was a childhood friend to Sun Quan. Originally made a minor magistrate, he earned his way up through the ranks and was made a general for his role in defeating Guan Yu 关羽 in 219. On Lü Meng’s 吕蒙 recommendation, Zhu Ran replaced him as the defender of Jiangling 江陵. He distinguished himself against Shu during the Yidu 宜都 Campaign (221-222) and against Wei in the Great River Campaign. In 229 he was made General of the Chariots and Cavalry 车骑将军 and was one of Wu’s highest ranking commanders.[25]

Also participating in this portion of the campaign were the esteemed ministers Zhuge Jin and Bu Zhi 步骘. Zhuge Jin held the title of Grand General and operated out of Wu’s military headquarters Wuchang 武昌,[26] while Bu Zhi was General of the Agile Cavalry 骠骑将军 and stationed in Xiling 西陵.[27]

At the time of the campaign, Wei’s inspector of Jing 荆州刺史 was Hu Zhi, the same man Zhu Ran defeated at Zuzhong in 237. He joined Cao Cao with his friend Jiang Ji 蒋济 and held a series of local and commandery appointments over the next several years. Known for his excellent governance, he was eventually made Inspector of Jing and General of Rousing Might 振威将军 not long before the Red Crow Campaign.[28]

Of arguably the most significance is Sima Yi 司马懿. In terms of military experience, he served as one of Cao Cao’s staff officers for a number of years. He remained in the capital during Cao Pi’s reign, overseeing the government while Cao Pi was on campaigns. Sima Yi saw his first battle against Wu in 226, at the start of Cao Rui’s time. Xiangyang was under siege by Zhuge Jin; Sima Yi led reinforcements to the city and repelled him, for which he was made a general. In 228 and 229 he pacified rebellions in the area around Shangyong 上庸, becoming Grand General. Starting in 230, he shifted his focus to Shu. In 231 he replaced Cao Zhen 曹真 as the commander of the western defenses, defeating invasions in 231, 234, and 235. After this he was transferred to be Grand Commandant 太尉, though he retained military command in the west. In 238 he was transferred to the north and led a successful campaign against Gongsun Yuan 公孙渊 and his fledgling kingdom of Yan 燕. Cao Rui died in 239, only days after Sima Yi’s return from the north. He was given command over the government along with Cao Shuang. Not long after this, he was made Grand Tutor 太傅, though he again retained command over military affairs.[29]

The base of this map came from Rafe de Crespigny’s Generals of the South. I have guessed at likely routes of advance and the locations of Zuzhong and Sanzhou. This map is best understood as a visual aid than a strictly accurate representation.

THE RED CROW CAMPAIGN

In summer of 241, Sun Quan ordered a large invasion of Wei on multiple fronts. Quan Zong led the eastern wing, marching on Huainan. Zhuge Ke was sent to support him with an attack on Lu’an. Zhu Ran led the southern wing, attacking Fan, while Zhuge Jin struck at Zuzhong[30] with Bu Zhi.[31]

Quan Zong’s attack was well-timed. Many soldiers of Yang province were on leave when the invasion began so Wei’s defenses were weak. Quan Zong attacked with an army tens of thousands strong.[32] The exact number is not stated, but Quan Zong commanded 50,000 men in an attack on Lu’an in 233[33] and a similar number in 241 seems likely. The Wu forces enjoyed early success in the field. Quan Zong was able to destroy the government offices in Ancheng 安城 and capture a portion of the population. On this momentum, he advanced to Quebei, where he destroyed the dam.[34]

Quan Zong may have continued to march all the way to Shouchun were it not for Sun Li. Despite his depleted troop numbers, he gathered what few soldiers he could muster and met the Wu army at Quebei. Furious battle ensued and the two fought from day to night. Over half of Sun Li’s officers and soldiers were killed or wounded in the fighting. Sun Li personally charged the enemy lines and beat the drums, engaging the Wu soldiers without any thought of his own safety. It was only through Sun Li’s desperate efforts that Quan Zong’s army was halted.[35]

Sun Li’s heroics bought enough time, and reinforcements from Shouchun soon arrived led by Wang Ling. In the face of these reinforcements, Quan Zong withdrew.[3]6 However, retreat would not be easy for the Wu army. Wang Ling pursued them and was able to trap and kill a general named Qin Huang 秦晃 along with several others.[37] After this, a detachment of Quan Zong’s army led by Zhang Xiu 张休 and Gu Cheng 顾承[38] managed to halt Wang Ling’s pursuit. A separate force under his son and nephew Quan Xu 全緒 and son Quan Duan 全端 forced Wang Ling to retreat entirely.[39]

There is no mention of how Zhuge Ke fared at Lu’an. It is clear that he was not able to capture the city, but his attack may have been a holding action intended to prevent Lu’an from sending aid to Huainan. It can be presumed that retreated at the same time as Quan Zong without incident.

The campaign in the east was short. It began in the 4th month of the year and was ended by the 5th. Though a brief struggle, it was a bloody one. Wei’s casualties were heavy, but it was a loss the state could afford. Matters in the south were not so easily settled.

Zhu Ran surrounded Fan in the fifth month of the year with an army of 50,000 while Bu Zhi and Zhuge Jin engaged Zuzhong.[40] His forces enjoyed initial success in the field, with the subordinate generals Lü Ju 呂据 and Zhu Yi 朱异 capturing the surrounding cities.[41] Hu Zhi feared that Fan would fall, so he gathered lightly armed troops and advanced quickly to relieve the city. Although his officers feared that Zhu Ran was too strong to be defeated, Hu Zhi pressed on. He caught Zhu Ran by surprise and was able to break through the encirclement and enter the city.[42] Through Hu Zhi’s efforts Fan was assisted but far from saved.

When word of the siege reached the capital, Fan had been under attack for a month. Despite being the Grand Tutor and no longer an active general, Sima Yi elected to lead the reinforcements himself. Sima Yi did not believe that a drawn out campaign would be advisable due to the climate, so he brought a elite force of light cavalry rather than a large army. He arrived in the sixth month and quickly began enacting plans to rescue Fan. While some of his soldiers rested from the journey, he selected volunteers who would scale the city walls to assist the defenders inside.[43]

Seeing that Sima Yi was determined to attack, Zhu Ran chose to retreat in the night. Like Quan Zong in the east, though, he did not make it out unscathed. Sima Yi gave pursuit and caught the Wu army at Sanzhou 三州,[44] where he killed and captured many.[45]

As with Zhuge Ke and Lu’an, nothing specific is recorded about the operations at Zuzhong or what became of Zhuge Jin and Bu Zhi. Again, it is likely that theirs was a holding action intended to prevent Zuzhong from rendering assistance to their primary target at Fan.

The Red Crow Campaign was the largest of Wu’s operation since the great campaign of 234 and it was the last major offensive of Sun Quan’s lifetime. It would not be until Zhuge Ke’s invasion 12 years later that the Wu army would mobilize on such a scale again. Subsequent battles between the two rival empires were much more limited, each struggling to gain an advantage over the other with no significant results.

Perhaps the most significant observation from this campaign is a more subtle one involving Wu’s route of advance. In Wu’s previous major offensives (in 215, 230, 233, 234) Sun Quan followed the same route in the east. Beginning from the great harbor at Ruxu, he sailed up the Ru River to Lake Chao. This water route allowed for rapid movement of troops, supplies, and communication. Lake Chao was defended by the great fortress at Hefei, and all of these attacks were stopped by its stalwart defenders. During the Red Crow Campaign, the Wu army abandoned this riverine path and instead followed a land route through Huainan, avoiding Hefei. This proved largely successful, allowing them to approach Shouchun with little opposition. It was a route they intended to use again in 243, and did use in 255, 257, and 263. By contrast, the riverine route was used only twice more, in 253 and 268, to no avail. The Red Crow Campaign proved that the land route was viable and completely shifted the battlefield of the east from the area around Hefei and Lake Chao to Shouchun and Lake Quebei.

Despite seeing an estimated 100,000 or more soldiers on the march the Red Crow Campaign is often overlooked. Many of the Sanguo Zhi biographies of the primary commanders don’t even mention it. This is likely because it accomplished little. Wu’s victories in the field were temporary ones, as were Wei’s in pursuit. No territory changed hands and nothing was truly accomplished. That, however, is exactly why the campaign is important. Over two bloody months, it exemplified the stalemate that had developed between Wei and Wu. Subsequent wars between the two great kingdoms would end the same way, with no significant changes of territory, until Jin’s conquest of Wu nearly 40 years later.

NOTES

1.  238-250 2.  This character is frequently pronounced wǎn, but the period correct reading is huàn. 3.  The character 六 is traditionally pronounced Liù, but in the case of the ancient princedom it is pronounced Lù. 4.  Generals of the South, p. 43 5.  The characters 芍 and 陂 have several alternate pronunciations. In the context of this lake they are pronounced as quèbēi. 6.  Jiāngbiǎo Zhuàn 江表传, SGZ 46.2 7.  SGZ 46.2 8.  Jiāngbiǎo Zhuàn 江表传, SGZ 47 9.  SGZ 15.1 10.  Jiāngbiǎo Zhuàn 江表传, SGZ 47 11.  Generals of the South, p. 44 12.  Jiāngbiǎo Zhuàn 江表传, SGZ 46.2 13.  SGZ 51.6 14.  This city is also called Fancheng 樊城; 城 being the generic word for a walled city or town. 15.  The character 柤 is traditionally pronounced zhā.  However, Xi Zuochi’s  Xiāngyáng Jì 襄阳记 states that it should be pronounced zū. 16.  Xiāngyáng Jì 襄阳记, SGZ 56.2 17.  SGZ 56.4 18.  SGZ 47 19.  SGZ 56.4 20.  SGZ 56.2; Chen Shou dates this operation in 242 (Zhengshi 3/Chiqu 5) but Sun Sheng’s commentary to Zhu Ran’s biography makes the convincing argument that the correct year is 237 (Jingchu 1/Jiahe 6). According to his Yìtóng Píng 異同評, the Wèishū 魏書 and Jiāngbiǎo Zhuàn 江表传 both date this attack to 237, as does the Wei portion of the SGZ, while the biographies of Cao Fang and Sun Quan mention no such operation in 242. 21.  SGZ 28.1 22.  SGZ 24.4 23.  SGZ 60.2; Quan Zong’s biography only says that he married a princess but SGZ 50 clarifies the situation. 24.  SGZ 64.1 25.  SGZ 56.2 26.  SGZ 52.3 27.  SGZ 52.4; Xiling was also called Yiling 夷陵. 28.  SGZ 27.2 29.  JS 1 30.  SGZ 47 31.  SGZ 4.1, JS 1 32.  SGZ 24.4 33.  SGZ 60.2 34.  SGZ 47 35.  SGZ 24.4 36.  SGZ 28.1 37.  SGZ 47 38.  These were the son and grandson of the famous minister’s Zhang Zhao 张昭 and Gu Yong 顾雍, respectively. 39.  SGZ 52.2-2 40.  Jìn Jǐ 晋纪, SGZ 4.1 41.  SGZ 54.4, 56.3; These were the sons of Lü Fan 呂范 and Zhu Huan, respectively. 42.  SGZ 27.2 43.  Jìn Jǐ 晋纪, SGZ 4.1; JS 1 44.  Also called Sanzhoukou 三州口. 45.  Jìn Jǐ 晋纪, SGZ 4.1; JS 1

[musicallisto]

Hey! Can I please get shipped with a female from ES and ILITW? I'm 5'6, blond (shoulder length), female with blue green eyes. I like swimming, playing videogames, working out, listening to music (BlackBear,ChaseAtlantic), binge watching shows and making lame jokes. I'm shy until comfortable with someone (then I never shut up), kind, witty, oblivious at times, strong-willed, opinionated, honest, a perfectionist and a nerd when it comes to my grades. Thank you so much, have a great day/night😆

here you go Anon! Hope you like it!

I Ship You With…

E S T E L A M O N T O Y A

(faceclaim: Lucy Vives) • She would be intrigued by you as soon as she meets you, wondering what could be hiding underneath all those layers of shiness. Once you warm up to her, you start showing your true self without any mask on, and Estela is very impressed by your strong, determined mind, and your stubbornness when it comes to your projects.

• Okay so this is a v random headcanon but I actually see you starting a band together with a few of your other friends in Hartfeld, after La Huerta or like if nothing of it ever happened? I don’t know why, but I can really see Estela’s musical taste being close to yours, and you would jam to the same songs and artists. So maybe you could make your own indie/alternative band with you on the guitar or the bass and she would sing, because I can imagine her having a really good voice.

• Estela never was one for commitment, but it completely changed as soon as she met you. She was quick to realize that you were one in a billion and that letting you go would be plain stupid. It really hit her when you were lazily playing videogames with her in her living room, and she was so content with you, surrounded by your peaceful breaths. She had never felt so simply happy, doing nothing in particular, stopping and relaxing for a second, and you were the only one who brought her that kind of quiet. That’s when she promised herself that she had to make you hers for the rest of her life, one way or another.

S E A N G A Y L E

(faceclaim: Broderick Hunter)• Your kind and strong-willed nature strongly suits Sean! He would be the most amazing best friend in the world, and the most supportive person you’ve ever known. He would always encourage you to outdo yourself and go out of your comfort zone, and he’s also the number 1 fan of your band with Estela like he’s there at literally every gig and at this point he’s basically a honorary member and has written half of the songs

• You two would have kinda “best friend dates”, where you would hang out in downtown Hartfeld, grab ice cream and then spend a few hours on the field, where you would watch Sean practise, run around and try to improve his passes. He loves asking you for feedback because you always tell him the truth, with a little bit of harmless of teasing. You basically always end up playing tag you’re it or another child game on the field, and he always wins, because have you seen those legs?? he’s a giant he could literally catch you just walking?? and it’s a mess of laughter and muddy hair and clothes but none of you care, you’re just so caught up in the moment and it’s amazing

• He’s also your Netflix buddy when Estela is in class or just can’t spend time with you for some reason. He’s more of a movie guy, rather than TV shows, but you were so persuasive (cough, try desperate) that he finally agreed to watch your favorite show with you. He expected to just watch the few first episodes but you ended up watching the entire first season in one night, slumped on the couch and drowned under several packets of potato chips.

S T A C Y G R E E N

(faceclaim: Gigi Hadid)• You two are badass females who know what they want and are determined to get it whatever it takes! You would be a very sporty couple I think, always taking part in very different sportive activities, and alternating cheerleading, swimming, running. I can see you both getting very cheeky and competitive when it comes to those fields! Literally any activity where you two are together can be transformed into a date because you are so creative and always find ways to have fun, but your favorites are undoubtedly coffee/diner dates! You often go to this diner after school to the point that the waiters know you and don’t even have to ask for your order.

• At first Stacy was super oblivious and didn’t see at all that you had feelings for her, because she was too absorbed in her own self-loathing and the blackmailing problems with Britney. Fortunately, you managed to steal Britney’s phone from her locker and delete the video while she was doing her routine in the gymnasium, so Stacy was freed from all that pressure. When you announced her the news, she had the hugest smile in the world; she couldn’t believe it, started to jump and dance around, giggling, until she stopped in front of you and exclaimed “oh wow, I could kiss you!”. She stopped dead in her tracks when she realized what she had said and blushed lightly; you took it as an opportunity to kiss her softly, and since that day you two have been inseperable.

• You are Stacy’s favorite shoulder to cry on, especially because of her family/mother trouble. She gradually starts to gain more confidence as days pass and thanks to your prep talks and reassurance, and was more and more able to stand up for herself. You also helped her confront her mother, discuss openly and calmly with her, and she felt much better after affronting her thanks to your advice. You’re so happy that she’s starting to feel more confident because she’s absolutely gorgeous and awesome and you wish she would see herself the way you see her. Luckily, after lots of work, she’s almost stopped feeling self-conscious and you quickly become THE Power Couple™ of Westchester High, both being Homecoming queens because you are, indeed, queens.

L U C A S T H O M A S

(faceclaim: Brandon Arreaga)• So you would meet because you’re both on the student council, being very good, responsible students, who somehow had never talked to each other despite being very alike, personality wise. You found out that Lucas was - or more precisely, used to be - one of Stacy’s closest friends, which intrigued you, and you couldn’t help wondering why they weren’t in touch anymore. Lucas amazed you; you didn’t expect him to be that intelligent, thoughtful and friendly. You had to admit you thought he would be a little-bit of a stuck-up, but turned out he wasn’t at all. Stacy thought it was very funny that you progressively became best friends with the guy who used to be hers as well - it showed that you lived in such a small town that everyone basically knew each other.

• There would be a ton of disagreements between Lucas and you. I don’t necessarily mean really violent fights or anything, but since you are two strong minds with firm beliefs, it often leads to differences of opinion. Neither of you is willing to back up from their position and your pride can lead you to give each other the cold shoulder for days… Until Stacy gets tired of your endless whining and complaining about your best friend and how stupid and stubborn he is, and forces you two to apologize and make peace. tbh you’re usually very bored during those periods because you can’t share anything with Lucas so you thank Stacy for putting up with your obstinacy.

• You’re also there for Lucas all along his drug use recovery. He was afraid you would runaway or despise him after learning that he had a past with drugs, but you were particularly worried and disappointed. You didn’t want him to relapse, so you helped him by throwing his pills away when he asked you, distracting him when he felt the urge to take them, forcing him to go to sleep early instead of killing himself on a paper… it was a lot of work, but you were ready to make efforts if Lucas was willing to do some too.

Moodboard

bigger version

Playlist

Fifth Harmony | That’s My Girl

Kings of Leon | Waste A Moment

Ke$ha | Woman

Elle King | Good Girls

R.E.M. | Losing My Religion

[ultraanopenmind]

Bollywood gives a thumbs up on arranged/forced marriage (huhhhhh!!!!!)

Have you watched the movies like “Dhadkan”, or “Rab ne banadi Jodi”, “ Dum lagake haisha” and most importantly “Namastay London”? 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255111/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1182937/mediaviewer/rm1305905664

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3495030/?ref_=nv_sr_1

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795434/

Has the theme ever left you with a kind of weird feeling? Well it definitely did that to me!

“Dhadkan” is a movie where a father forces his daughter to get married to some guy he has chosen as her life partner instead of her long-time boyfriend, because he thinks the boyfriend is a nut-job. 

In ”Rab ne banadi Jodi”, a pretty girl has to marry  some random guy because that was her father’s last wish. (Whaaaaatttttttttt???) “Dum laga ke haisha” is something similar where the theme of male and female protagonists are changed. (So its an equal opportunity bitch- not only women but also men are forced into relationships under the sheer force of the family. Great!)

But the movie that unnerves me the most is “ Namastay London”. The story begins with an Indian guy whose daughter is brought up in London. (So basically its a story of a British girl. If you spent living in a country for more than 20-25 years and hold a passport recognizing you as a citizen of that country, aren’t you then supposed to blend into the culutre? Especially if you like the freedom which your parent’s claustrophobic culture is incapable of providing you. And that goes for everyone, Indian, Pakistani, Malaysian, all the middle-eastern countries. But coming back to the point, in the movie “ Namastay London”, the father takes the family on a “ Holiday” to Punjab ( a very macho state in India- my personal opinion) and gets her “married”. And the whole movie is based on how this forced marriage ends up being good! How optimistic!!! Doesn’t Bollywood watch enough documentaries on social problems, like child marraige, forced marraige? Or is it just me who feels that patronizing such a theme is wrong in the first place? 

I have a problem. This is not an age where a woman living without a man will succumb financially or emotionally. Then if a girl or woman says that she wants to continue with her education, get a job, wants to enjoy her life, go out with friends, or travel before she settles down or decides never to settle down; why is it so difficult for the family or the extended family to digest it? Its her life not theirs!!! ( (That’s it! Said that!!!)

Here is one more thing that bothers me. Most of the parents and extended family who support their ideology on arranged aka forced marriages (whaaaatttteveerrrrrr) are more inclined on maintaining their culture and religion. (huh!!!)

 Here’s the deal this concept makes you an “ethnocentric (partly racist)  douche-bag”. We are extremely lucky that we live in the times where travelling from once country to another is so convenient.  By chosing to live in a different country and having friends from different cultural backgrounds, we are trying to defy xenophobia. Period!! Why do we need to disturb the growing foundation of a globalized world by holding prejudice against other cultures? Parents, uncles, aunts, grannys how do you even know that people from other countries and ethnicity find your kids attractive? Maybe they are ugly ducklings to them? 

Keeping aside, the ideology of these not so mentally stable people, here is the question, why does Bollywood continue to make movies and invent love stories out of social crap like forced marriages? Its wrong! You have to agree that the present era is the era of “the Media”, movies, television, radios, internet and blogs. These things define us, make us absorb what they are selling or providing and provokes us to stage our lives accordingly. If you show to a group of people that forced marriage is a good thing, then people will look over, the heinous  rape, assault, mental harassment and think its fine. Hey! Didn’t a 15 year old boy in Bihar just committed suicide, when he was forced to marry his widowed sister-in-law? (Look up if you don’t believe me.)

https://www.google.pl/search?q=indian+guy+killed+himself+when+forced+to+marry+his+widwed+sister+in+law&oq=indian+guy+killed+himself+when+forced+to+marry+his+widwed+sister+in+law&aqs=chrome..69i57.21512j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 Also, I want you to go through the links below and tell me how you think forced marriage ended up for these people in real lives?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAyIRA7Xa9Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPeepNAD4fM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hObICnCK-Fc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5T-P7tbiVE

 There is no romantic end. None! And our mediators have to stop patronizing these unwarranted and unhealthy practices for the benefit of the society. 

If we continue to consume the lovey-dovey awful thing based on a social wrong as provided to us by our media, there are chances that our humane morals will go down-hill even more than now.

[raksha-bhediya-blog]

With Grief and Love || A Ramsha Love Letter

Task: In the first-person voice, write a love letter from one character to another. 

Trigger Warnings: None this is just sappy and depressing af, but like in a beautiful sappy depression if that makes sense at all?!?! It’s also LONGG. I guess Raksha had a lot to get out. 

Mere hee pyaar karane ke lie,

I have yet to decide if this letter should ever reach your hands, nor have I decided what the lines of this paper will hold across its margins. All I know is that I have found myself within a cross roads that has placed me in the mercy of this pen and the thoughts that have been plaguing my mind. 

Perhaps this would be a letter of love, or one of anger, and sorrow.

Maybe so of apologizes many of which I owe to you because there are truly so many. A ceaseless list that continues to grow in height because I have not been the woman you had fallen in love with. 

I have not been your wife. 

I have not been your mate. 

I remember her, a warm soul that had never been aware it lived a barren existence until it touched yours. She would steal hidden moments to catch the warmth in the depth your dark eyes, the way the sun kissed your skin and was absorbed by the unruly waves of your hair her fingers always craved to lace within. They constantly sought your touch, the tender molding of your fingers intertwined with them folding into a completed puzzle piece matchless and seamless. They would whisk you away under the gentle light and guiding of the stars pulling you into the secret crevices of the jungle so that only your arms, her fortress, and the soft wash of the moonlight were what embraced her, were the only entities that filled her. 

She’d crave the sweet taste of your kisses she stole from you. Delightful bouts of laughter she’d work to pry from out of you if only to immerse herself in your joy, and the tender jolts of teasing banters she’d shared with you she always coveted and treasured. She knew you. Knew your desires, your thoughts, those deep and hidden secrets, was able to finish your sentences before you could do so yourself. They had become hers as much as they were your own. She sought to grant you all of your desires, and to become your every waken thought when the sun would touch the horizon.

You were her protection. The only fortress in whom she felt safe in, her happiness. In your presence she was treasured, cherished, felt a love she knew she would never be able to fully express nor ever comprehend. You were her completion.

Your wolf called to hers as hers did to yours. One made solely for the other, and I have taken her from you. 

I wasn’t strong enough to stop this grief from shattering her into mishaps of torn figments. I have become the empty product of a sorrow that seems unending and one that I have not shared with you. I denied you to grieve along with me reached for the comfort of my own barren solace rather than the strength of your arms and the repercussions of that has ripped you of your wife. My lack in strength has kept me frightened from acknowledging my own pain with anyone, frightened that I will not be able to stay standing if faced to do so and that has taken that woman from you. 

I have never wished to cause you pain, to be another added reason for your despair, nor has she and I know my own retreating has stole you of the woman you have loved. 

Your son was taken from you and now I have taken someone else. 

I still cannot tell you what this letter is whether it was made to seek amends or maybe something more, or if it will even reach your hands instead of the demise of flickering embers but I need for you to know, that she is still here. The remnants of those figments still resonate. I have not cease in loving you, Rama. I know that I have not breathed those words to you as often as I once have, and that I have not been able to piece that woman back together. I cannot even promise you that I will be able to do so, or if it can be done if that same woman would be returned to you as she once was, as how you knew and loved her to be. 

All I know is that amidst the loss of our son, and the slow burning ache of my grief for the life that was cruelly taken from us, I still continue to love you. As I write this now, I have come to see that that love has been the only constant through this torment of a storm. Know that it has been the reason I have been able to wake in the mornings, and continue another day, my purpose to try and bob my head above this ocean of pain. You’re my fortress, and I still love you.

If this were to ever reach your hands, that is all I ask you take from it that my love still belongs to you.

Pyaar se,

Raksha.

[mesmerizedchronophantasmalm-blog]

Fix Yourself

     My mentality was doomsday. I thought I was past the point of no return. To keep the family that I once lived with save I just disappeared. The lifestyle I was living had no place with them in it. I was a monster, I had no place in normal society. I just wanted to feel okay, and not be judged for my lifestyle.

     I was too self-absorbed in trying to numb the pain I felt inside. I stayed up for days, I’d watch the sun rise into the sky. I felt dead inside. Was this how I was going to feel for the rest of my life? I never felt okay. I’ve died twice technically. I couldn’t stand my own company let alone his. At one point, everything I knew in my life was a lie. It was hard to trust family, I isolated myself. Self medicating was the only thing that made me feel better. That self medicating eventually turned into getting a fix just to feel normal.

     I eventually found myself among the company of many people who flipped product. I felt normal around them. They understood my pain, however none of us were in the right. Along the way I was staying at this guy’s house. We’ll call him Barney because he’s a clown. Not a good one either. Barney’s been abusing substances for six years now. Some of our mutual friends started referring to him as my boyfriend in front of me.

     This was news to me, evidently he’d tell anybody and everybody we knew behind my back that we were in a relationship. If anybody flirted with me he freaked out and stormed off. Eventually he tried isolating me from everyone and everything so he got the silent treatment from me. I spent my days in silence thinking about what I could do. Barney liked ripping people off to get his fix. I wasn’t about that. He was pretty hateful and racist too. His obsession with me was unhealthy and unnatural.

     It was like dealing with a child, if I tried to go do something all hell would break lose with him. He even threatened to call the police on me once because I told him I was going to do something without him. This living situation was not going to work. He knew what I was going through with myself. I was at a war with my mind, and he allowed his obsession to isolate me from the few people I fucked with. This living situation was not going to work. Barney and I have been friends for a long time, and I was being patient with him in hopes that he’d realize what he’s doing to me is wrong.

      Why was I putting up with this though? This living situation wasn’t worth it, but abusive situations were my forte. They were engraved in my upbringing and my state of mind saw nothing wrong with it for a long time. My patience was running thin, I called my only friend at the time who Barney happened to know to come get me. He found out what was happening. I getting my belongings together and I was getting ready to leave. I didn’t know where I was going, and I didn’t care.

     He called the friend I called up behind me back and threatened them, so she never showed up, and then walked in his room which had a deadbolt on it with a key lock on it, no door knob. He locked the door and told me that if I’m going to leave he needs a reasonable explanation for why I’m leaving. This was my last attempt to reason with him on peaceful terms. I felt like a caged animal. This didn’t help my state of mind at all.

     I didn’t need a reason to leave someone’s residence, Barney was past the point of reasoning with. Anything I told him he shot down and refused to unlock the door allowing me to leave. I ripped the key out of his hand so I could try to unlock the door. He then jumped on my back and I lost it. With all my weight I slammed him into the ground then punched him in the face. As my fist planted into the side of his right cheek his phone flew out of his hand and ricocheted off the floor, screen cracked, and mid bounce I grabbed the cracked phone and clocked him in the forehead with it. Blood was running down his forehead and he unlocked the door to run to the bathroom.

     I don’t understand him, and I don’t care. I ran out into the cold November rain, and ran out the door he chased me down the road but couldn’t keep up. I’ll never forget the disgusting gut wrenching way he screamed come back while he chased me. I wasn’t scared of him honestly, he was never the fighting type. I’m not saying I am, but he’s definitely not. I just knew if he caught up with me I would have destroyed him. There’s no coming back from that. I didn’t know where I was going, it was a long cold walk in the November rain to the only place that was open which was the casino. I didn’t have a phone at this time, however I did have a tablet. I dried off and got in contact with an acquaintance, we bounced from casino to casino every night. Different hotel room each night flipping product and being unproductive.

     I realized this was no way to live eventually. I was a hypersexual damaged addict. I was a ticking time bomb. I didn’t want too, but I had to clean my life up. I voluntarily put myself in rehabilitation. My first night in rehab down the hall from my room there was two guys getting into a fight, one of them stabbed the other one with a knife he wasn’t supposed to have. They took one look at me and booked me with a really cool roomate. She was trans, her name was V. She was a character. We shared stories, we shared scars, she looked out for me, and I looked out for her.

    Unfortunately she relapsed two weeks into my treatment. I was sad to see V go. There was a community leader everyone looked up too, he was fine as fuck I’m not gonna lie. Tatted head to toe, gorgeous, approachable, and respectable. I wanted to be like him. I became community of the rehab after him and the man who took his spot moved on with their life. It was hard opening up to a group of strangers at first and taking initiative to make people comfortable around you. It was some work too. We were all in there for different things, and have all experienced many crazy things in our life. Physical abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse and substance abuse.

     The councilors there helped me identify the source of why I abuse. Alot of it was just because I couldn’t deal with the traumas of my past, shit like that fucks you up. It wasn’t easy facing my demons, the community leader of the female dorm really helped me alot with it. We’re still friends to this day. The rehabilitation program was an eye opener, however it didn’t save me. I had to save myself. I re-created myself, changed my legal name, cleaned out my closet. I’m currently working on making peace with my past and letting go of it. I’m far perfect, I am a work in progress.

      I never want to feel this way again though. The despair, the loneliness, the fights, the crimes. It was nice to see Our Sanctuary when I came back from all this. If you’re reading this, thank you for taking the time to do so, and do ke a favor, and love everyone including yourself unconditionally. Life’s too short to live the way I did. I regret it, I was introduced to a lifestyle at a young age and my life was flipped upside down, if I could go back in time and change it I would, but I wouldn’t be the person I am today. It’s crazy to say, but a year ago today I thought I’d be dead in a ditch somewhere, but I’m here and I’m alive. I’m making peace with myself, and I’m looking for brighter horizons.

[delhistreetfood-blog]

Top 5 Street Food in Delhi

The ultimate guide for the best street food in delhi. In any event that you ask a Delhiite what are the two things that’s best about delhi? The appropriate response would be none other than the rich history and the mouth-watering Street Food in Delhi. It is intense being in a city which offers such a huge scope of tasty food. Since I'm a Punjabi and we Punjabi’s live to eat.

You would be following these great nearby nourishments like Jerry pursues his cheddar. The allurement is all over the place, and it's difficult to stand up to. So perused on to make your next Delhi trip marvelous by having the best of what Delhi brings to the table. 

1.Chole Bhature

Believe me no other place but Delhi can offer you with the best chole bhature. The additional care and less pop guarantee cushy bhature making it the best road nourishment in Delhi.

Snatch the best at: Giani's di Hatti in Chandni Chowk, Roshan's at Karol Bagh, Sita Ram at Paharganj, Nand ke Chole Bhature in Sadar Bazaar, Baba Nagpal Corner in Lajpat Nagar and Chache di Hatti in DU.

2. Golgappe

Attempt this road sustenance in Delhi, and you will overlook Mumbai's pani-poori and Kolkata's puchka. Alternate varieties of golgappe essentially can't beat the flavor that Delhi brings to the table.

Snatch the best at: Local market in Chandni Chowk, Rajouri Garden, and Lajpat Nagar Market.

3. Natraj Dahi Bhalle Wala

It's a notable shop to eat if you are in Old Delhi. Set up in 1940, the Natraj Dahi Bhalle Wala is the most renowned food corner  in Old Delhi. It serves Dahi Bhalla (veggie lover) for Rs. 80. They are known for their copyrighted talk masala they sprinkle on Dahi Bhalla. For the individuals who are unconscious of Dahi Bhalla, it's an Indian chaat, arranged by absorbing vadas thick yogurt (dahi).

4. Paranthe Wali Gali

Situated in the Chandni Chowk of New Delhi, the Paranthe wali gali as the name says is prestigious for the tremendous number of shops offering paratha that is a singed Indian bread. Note that the parathas are entirely veggie lover!  

5.  Shree Balaji Chaat Bhandar

One of the best chaat puts in Old Delhi, Shree Balaji Chaat Bhandar is mainstream among everybody. The variety of snacks is very broad and at a normal cost RS. 80 for two, this place is too great. The papri chaat is an absolute necessity strive for everybody who visits here.

Also Read :  The ultimate guide for the best street food.