#knotting my pearls was practice for this!! i got quite a bit better at it the next day and even the little moonstones werent too bad

[grubloved]

moss agate, rainbow moonstone for my beloved ^_^

[permanentcrossfics]

Twelve Hours In Miami // h.s.

You looked at the alarm clock next to your bed. “It’s 6:15.”

He had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed. “Yeah, but… it’s my last day here. And I haven’t seen you once.”

“You were busy,” you said automatically, a familiar excuse that had become rote at some point. “We were--”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. Busy, busy, always busy. “But my flight’s not until this afternoon, so I thought… my morning’s free, and if you want to….”

“What time is your flight?”

Eleven, twelve, one…?

“Five.”

“Five!?”

“Thirty,” he confirmed. “That’s when I leave for the airport, anyway.”

He was not serious. He couldn’t be.

“You’re seriously--”

“Going to spend the next twelve or so hours with you, yeah,” he said in one quick breath. “If you’ll let me.”

Read NOW on Patreon // Tumblr // Wattpad

This took a minute (yes, I hate italicizing from Google and making a Wattpad cover that much. Yes, I will avoid it like the plague. Yes, there was a lot else going on, as well). Thank you to all of you who were patient! I hope you enjoy xx

The knock on your door was too loud, insistent, and rhythmic for it to be an accident, but it was too early for it to be anybody you’d want in your room. 

Whatever it was in the Miami air, it’d absolutely drained you of all energy. Every night since you’d landed, you’d passed out at 11:00pm, sharp, and slept until around 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, and the only reason you got out of bed then was the only reason you were even in the city to begin with. 

“Work trip? To Miami?” 

Harry had brightened considerably when you mentioned when and where you’d be going for a quick turnaround, and you hadn’t understood why until he told you what wasn’t quite public yet. He’d be working, too, and his calendar was full (he’d absolutely deserved the ribbing you gave him when he told you that), but, “‘S’nice sometimes, y’know? To have a friend around?” 

Friend. You hadn’t seen your friend in the three days it’d been since you landed. Even despite being in the same hotel. Even despite having pockets of time in both your schedules that worked, and while part of it might be your fault and your inability to stay awake, part of it was just… timing. 

So much of what was between you could be boiled down to timing and lack thereof. Why would a weekend be any different? Why, on this weekend, would you be able to make it work when he had meetings and events jammed in and you had obligations of your own? Why would now work any better than the other opportunities that had fizzled despite every hope, effort, and intention? 

The knocking continued and you groaned, throwing the blankets you’d been huddled under down the bed as you twisted to look at the hotel alarm clock. 

Six in the morning. Six! And they were still going! They’d better be telling you something extremely good or extremely awful to be trying to break down your door this early, but when you glanced through the peephole, your annoyance was tempered with shock and a shot of elation. He was looking up and down the hall, suitcase on the ground next to him and already dressed for the day, and it was then you became aware of how little you were dressed. 

“Hang--” You cleared your throat and tapped the door. “Hang on, I’ll be right….” You scrambled back to the armchair you’d thrown your robe on last night to have something on over the camisole and underwear you’d crawled into bed with before twisting the locks and opening the door. “Is everything-- what are you doing here?” 

His shoulders rose and fell with his deep breath and you swore you thought his eyes took a quick trip up and down your body. “Morning,” he said, his own voice miles smoother than yours. How long had he been awake? “D’you mind if I…?”

You shook your head and stepped back and he and his baggage disappeared into your room as you closed up. When you rejoined him, he’d deposited his suitcase next to the luggage rack that held yours, and he’d taken off the tinted sunglasses that he had no business wearing so early in the morning, anyway. “Did they kick you out?” you asked, still struggling to grasp for real words that meant anything. 

He smiled halfway and shook his head. “No, nothing like that.” Now that he was in your room, you could pay attention to him. His hair looked like it still had a little bit of leftover product in it, but not in a dirty, greasy way. His loose-fitting trousers were fastened snugly right above his hips, but it was the t-shirt that made your mouth go dry and your mind wander. Tight and tucked into his trousers, gloves wished they could fit hands like this fit his torso. It was close, and you could see practically every line and indentation of his stomach and chest. 

“Hmm?”

He laughed once. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Oh.” You took a deep breath. “Why are you here?” you asked.

“Figured I’d come hang out.”

You looked at the alarm clock next to your bed. “It’s 6:15.” 

He had the grace to look at least a little embarrassed. “Yeah, but… it’s my last day here. And I haven’t seen you once.”

“You were busy,” you said automatically, a familiar excuse that had become rote at some point. “We were--”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands together and cleared his throat. Busy, busy, always busy. “But my flight’s not until this afternoon, so I thought… my morning’s free, and if you want to….” 

“What time is your flight?”

Eleven, twelve, one…?

“Five.”

“Five!?” 

“Thirty,” he confirmed. “That’s when I leave for the airport, anyway.” 

He was not serious. He couldn’t be. 

“You’re seriously--”

“Going to spend the next twelve or so hours with you, yeah,” he said in one quick breath. “If you’ll let me.” 

His eyes were wide and hopeful but guarded, you realized, anticipating the possibility that you might say no. 

“I’ve been trying for days.” The quiet confession almost drowned in the deafening silence of the room, and in that moment, you remembered every missed call, every text, every visit to your door that he’d stolen just to see you before he had to run off to an event and you had to crawl into bed. You remembered every fleeting embrace, every missed kiss to the corner of your mouth, every look that had lasted a second too long to be normal and lacked the ability to make him stay. “But we just never… s’never a good time, so I’m making the time for you now. If that’s something you want.” 

“Do I want time with you?” You clutched the neckline of your robe like an old woman clutched pearls, and your throat felt tight, full of words you’d swallowed again, and again, and again. Did you want time with him? Of course you wanted time with him. Five minutes, five hours, five days, five years, you wanted anything he could give, but you’d given up on that a little bit. Not on him, but on you. 

“Can y’make time?” His throat bobbed and the smile he gave you was crushingly vulnerable even with its self-assured charm. “For me?” 

Yes or no. In or out. Carpe diem. 

You nodded and it was like a pin had pricked the bubble around both of you, tension easing out in a whistle. Harry shuffled closer and you stood, glued to the carpet in your bare feet, as he lifted his hands. He hesitated for a moment and you saw a glimpse of his tongue held between his lips in thought before he cupped your cheeks. Together, you exhaled, and your eyes closed, heart racing uncontrollably. His hands were warm, sturdy, and soft in their own way, and your lips parted when he drew his thumbs along the apples of your cheeks. 

Days after weeks after months after who knew how long, and now he was standing in front of you in a hotel room of all places with less than twelve hours before he had to leave for the airport, but if it was all the time in the world you had…. 

He kissed you, then, and what little time you had left stood still. A distinct sensation of relief flooded through you, like a geyser that had been waiting to gush, and you sighed through your nose, leaning into his mouth. He’d shaved, but you could still feel the sandpaper of his chin against yours, and it was a sharp contrast to the soft sweep of his tongue into your mouth. For all of five seconds, you couldn’t think, or move, but when he groaned -- deep, throaty, and in a way only he could -- it snapped something in you. 

His chest and stomach were firm under your roaming hands, although you liked the softness around his hips best because of the way he sucked in a quick breath. You curled your fingers into the cotton and swayed when he stepped forward and tipped your head back to deepen the kiss further, showing both his hand and his greed, and it was your turn to whimper when he slipped one of his hands down your neck and over your shoulder underneath the robe you’d thrown on. Not anything like the friendly pats and lingering squeezes he’d given you in the past and that you’d returned in kind. There was intent for skin, skin, and more skin in this, and you’d no sooner put your hand on the knot around your waist than he’d joined your fingers with his to pull what you hadn’t realized you’d tied so well. 

You shivered when it dropped to the floor, but stretched yourself out against his body when he wrapped his arms ever so carefully around your back. It was like despite having his tongue down your throat (don’t think about it, or you’ll laugh and ruin the moment, you reminded yourself), he still wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch you or where he could put his hands. It was sweet -- funny, but sweet, and respectful in a way you hadn’t anticipated but could have, maybe, expected? He was only a man, and common decency was a low bar, but if the situation were reversed, you didn’t know if you’d think or be able to do the same. His arms were crossed over your back at his forearms, but you could sense his palms hovering out to the side even as kisses grew increasingly frantic with nicking teeth and off center meetings of your mouths. Focusing very hard on not losing those, you clumsily squeezed his bicep until he relinquished his hold a bit, but before he could finish his mumbled question, you grabbed his wrist and, without preamble, placed his hand on one of your breasts. 

Despite not wanting to lose the kisses -- they were good kisses, needed kisses, kisses you’d waited a long time for -- you both broke and stood there, nose to nose, chests heaving with his hand cupped over your breast. This was….

“S’different,” he rasped and you nodded. Not just friends, not just kissing. You ran your thumb along the back of his hand, over tendons that were struggling not to flex and to squeeze and feel. He must’ve taken the pause as hesitation, because he started to pull his hand away, but you shook your head and held his hand in place before bearing down on it with gentle pressure. 

“Ok,” you whispered breathlessly, nodding slightly, and when he kissed you again, he caught your chin, then your jaw, your neck -- all the way down -- and then across your shoulder. You were glad he was holding onto you when your head tipped back as he pulled the strap of your camisole to the side to sponge eager kisses any and everywhere you’d let him, because honestly? If he didn’t have his arm slanted between your shoulder blades, your legs would’ve crumpled from underneath you. 

As it was, you both nearly tripped on your robe when you moved backwards towards the bed, and you landed harder than he did. Your laughs were welcome in the moment, though, and did nothing to alter the mood, and you were still giggling when he resumed his kisses. They only quieted when he reached your chest, and for some inexplicable reason, you tried very hard not to breathe as his own and his lips and the tip of his nose dragged and tickled your skin, but when he slipped his fingers under your neckline to tug it down, there was no need to try at all. 

“Holy shit,” he uttered under his breath in faint disbelief. You didn’t even have time to process the fact that he was in awe of you, before his lips were on your breasts, moving between them in a very careful, very attentive, almost laughably even way, like he didn’t want to miss anything. Your back arched slightly when he settled against you, body warm and mouth hot between your breasts as he nuzzled, kissed, licked, and sucked, taking his time to learn how they felt and what made you moan. As he explored, you did, too, if less so, but your hands found his hair, and petted his face, and ran up and down his shoulders, arms, and back. It was when his own reached between your legs that you clamped your thighs down over his wrist and he lifted up.

“Ok?” His eyes were dark and his hair mussed -- partially thanks to you -- and the pink flush in his cheeks had nothing on the color of his mouth. His forehead was damp and you belatedly realized your chest was, too, and you could feel yourself quivering with the heat of his hand pressed so intimately against you. 

“Yes.” You pressed your hand to his cheek and he turned into your wrist, breathing deeply and kissing your pulse point. 

“Is this…?” He swallowed. “I don’t-- we don’t have to do anything more, I only--” 

“No,” you rushed to say. “No, I just… wasn’t expecting--”

“I’m sorry, I should’ve--”

“It’s ok,” you said. “I’m ok. I want to, it just felt--” New, different, good, so fucking good, and it’d surprised you. 

“Sure?”

Wordlessly, you nodded, and forced your legs to open despite how tense with anticipation they were. You nodded again and let out a slow breath, but he watched you until your eyes closed and your body melted into the mattress. When he finally ran his thumb down your slit through your underwear, you clenched and bit your lip to muffle a sound, lips twitching. This felt… nice. Better than nice, this care and intention stoked something in you that you didn’t remember feeling since you were a frustrated and hormonal teenager raging out of control. He was going to fit the minutes and hours from days and months that had been squandered into every second of the twelve hours you had left, wasn’t he? 

Harry pressed his thumb into your clit and rubbed smooth, warm circles over it, and you touched the back of your hand to your mouth. “That’s good,” you mumbled, heartbeat quickening, face crumpling when he increased the pressure slightly. It was when he kissed your abdomen that you whimpered and pushed your hand into his hair, but he kept kissing along the waistband of your underwear, and your belly tensed when he took a deep breath. You weren’t quite aware of when or how he got them off you -- let alone how he’d managed to do so seamlessly and without awkward wriggles or kicks or knees to his face -- but you were very aware of when he finally had you spread open and he was on his stomach between your legs. You were very aware of how hot his breath was on your cunt, and you were very aware of the sound of that first delicate, velvety lick in dead silence. He got through three, maybe four, careful, languid strokes of his tongue in, with his eyes closed in steadfast concentration and his hair falling over his brow before he licked up your slit and finished it with your clit firmly suctioned into his mouth. 

Your jaw dropped in awe. “Oh my--!” His lips fluttered and your whole chest opened with your breath. “Ah…!” 

He groaned and your eyes watered, and you watched, unable to tear yourself away. He was ravenous -- eating you out like his life depended on it while simultaneously holding back and never giving or taking as much as either of you wanted. Each glide of his tongue was deep and smooth, and each suck hollowed his cheeks for only a moment. You whimpered and pulled your fingers through his hair uselessly to quell the jitters and need to do something. Every time you thought he was going to suckle for a little longer, a little harder, he’d break off abruptly and the inch you’d gained climbing would be erased by your backslide. You were sweating from the effort and duration it was taking -- your breasts and stomach had a sheen on them, and your thighs slipped against the side of his head. His roots were damp and hot, too, to the point where the air conditioner may as well have stopped working, but for all the world he looked like he’d never been happier or more content than he was to be eating your pussy. 

“H-Harry….” Your breath hitched, a muted cry caught in your throat when again he released the toe-curling suction too soon for it to matter. “Please, please,” you begged, fingers combing through his hair as your pelvis rolled under his mouth. “I can’t… I wanna cum.” Straight to the point, unable to wheedle or dance around the subject -- it wasn’t like he didn’t have his face pressed into your cunt right then or anything. “I wanna cum, I really--” 

His eyes, which had been closed up until that point, slowly opened and locked on you, darker than you thought you’d ever seen them. One of his hands unstuck itself from your thigh and he reached up your stomach and you clasped it in yours, fingers laced tightly with an almost crushing intensity between his as you nodded encouragingly, desperately, mouthing please, please to him. He shifted against the mattress, then, and, still holding your gaze and your hand, he puckered his lips.

The ugliest sound ripped from your chest, but you laughed in almost hysterical relief because he wasn’t stopping -- at long last, he wasn’t stopping, and the pressure and tension tickling your abdomen grew tighter, promising to live to its full potential. “Holy shit!” you breathed, smiling despite yourself. “Oh, God, I’m gonna cum… you’re gonna make me cum, I’m-- oh!” 

You cried out when he pressed his mouth closer, rutting his face against you in a steady rhythm. The last thing you saw before you closed your eyes were his, and you wheezed and whimpered your way through convulsions with their hunger burned into your eyes as you called out for him. You’d never felt an orgasm like this -- so thorough, deep, and full bodied, and entirely draining. 

“Fuck!” 

It wasn’t the guttural swear that made your eyes fly open even as the room spun, but the sensation of his teeth against your thigh. Not hard, but sharp, and when you looked at him you found his face screwed up against your leg, rutting against the mattress. Belatedly, your brain put the pieces together -- it wasn’t just his face in your cunt, it’d been his whole body, the whole time, driving himself against the bed in search of his own relief with his mouth full of you and your thigh when he wasn’t whimpering breathless apologies and confessions of how hard he was (“M’sorry-- oh, shit, m’so-- m’hard, m’sorry, love, m’so-- hurts, I just need--!”). He squeezed your thigh with bruising force, letting out keening moans as his shakes turned to shudders, and you knew he was finished when he let out a noise so deep your hair stood on end and he came to a sudden stop with his face still burrowed against your leg.

“Fuck,” he rasped. “F-fuck, s’so… sorry, that’s….” He pressed his forehead into your skin. “That was incredible,” he said, voice thick and unevenly pitched. “You were….” 

He picked his head up and wiped his mouth and the tip of his nose with his thumb before slipping it past his lips and sucking lightly, forehead lined in agony. With weak fingers, you tugged the back of his t-shirt, and he crawled on even weaker hands and knees up your body. It was a struggle to get it untucked from his trousers and even worse to get it off his torso from how damp it was, but eventually you did, and you threw it away with a whoosh and a thud. He kicked his worn in white Vans off his feet and they landed with a thunk off the side of the bed, and his trousers were next, and when they were gone, you flattened yourself against him, mouth on his shoulder and leg between his, desperately seeking skin on skin. 

“Alright?” He cupped the back of your head. “Ok?” You nodded and he kissed your forehead. “You’re ok,” he mumbled. “You’re good, honey.”

“Are you?” you asked against him. Because he couldn’t stop trembling -- his muscles kept jumping under your touch and his heart was giving its own big band performance in his chest. 

“L’be fine,” he said. “Be ok, just need… need a minute.” 

Gradually, his heart and yours both slowed and heavy breathing evened out. And the last thing you saw before you closed your eyes for good and slipped under was the time.

6:52. Ten and a half hours to go. 

[love-toxin]

a/n: in which tamaki needs a little help with some unexpected side effects.

warnings: pro hero! tamaki, gn! reader, established relationship, quirk kink, lactation, cumming untouched, nipple play, overstimulation, praise.  

word count: 1.8k

"Nngh.."

The sound that greeted you as you entered your apartment was not just unexpected, but concerning. You'd only just dropped your bag and kicked off your shoes, and the name of your sweetheart hadn't even graced your lips for you to call out to him that you were home. Tamaki always got back before you did, either to make sure he had food ready for you or to hold you the minute you arrived, so you had grown used to the quiet shuffling of his feet as he moved from room to room until he poked out his head to see you. 

But not…whatever that was. If it was somehow a fluke and a villain had attacked you at your address, you would have no doubt in your mind that your boyfriend could send them packing with ease--but if he was unwell enough to not even hear you when you walked through the door, then something was seriously wrong and you feared the worst. At a hurried pace, you rushed down the hallway and crossed through your tiny living room to step into the bedroom, where you could only guess the noise had come from. 

And what a sight it was, when Tamaki turned to see you standing in the doorway with a flush that burned his naked, sweaty body. The noises he was making before couldn’t compare to the shriek he let out when your eyes met, and by the time he frantically scrambled to pull the covers over himself, you’d already caught sight of what you hadn’t suspected he would be up to. He had straddled one of your pillows underneath his thick runner’s thighs, and you only caught a glimpse of his cock hanging heavy between them before he dove into hiding, the tips of his ears still peeking out from the edge of the blanket. The trembling of his body nearly shook the whole bed, but it was so endearing you couldn’t stifle the heat rising to your cheeks and the smile you managed to hide behind your hand. 

So cute. Whether he meant to or not, seeing Tamaki embarrassed was like having a gift plopped into your lap on your birthday--and with a careful touch, you reached down towards the bed and tugged gently on the blanket, your voice a soft whisper as you began the process of coaxing your sweet Tamaki out of hiding.

“P-Please don’t look!”

Your boyfriend squeaked, and by the rustling of the covers it looked as though he was trying to bury himself even deeper into a hole. This certainly wasn’t new to you, though--Tamaki was awkward and shy at the best of times, and despite being intimate enough with each other to share an apartment and a bed, he still acted as though the world was going to end if you ever saw him nude. Much less…tending to his needs while you weren’t around. 

“Tama...c’mon, Tama. I’m not mad or anything, I’m just happy to see you...oh.”

With a tug of the covers to catch a cheeky glimpse of Tamaki's handiwork, the blanket swept off of his lean body like a sheet over a piece of art--and once it fell to the side in a heap and pooled around the dip of the mattress where he was perched, you had to swallow back your shock at what you found underneath. 

At first glance it seemed like he'd been injured, his chest flushed and the skin looking irritated around it. But upon closer examination your breath hitched as you realized they were swollen, his pecs having gained at least a few centimetres as if he was starting to grow breasts. Not only that, but you noticed that something was leaking in little pearls of white from his nipples, and streaking down his belly to contrast his fair skin and thick, flared cock that trembled under the weight of its own rigidity. Your pillow cushioned his balls softly as he'd clenched it between his legs in his hurry, and by the spots of dark, fresh stains that had soaked into it, you had a sense of how he'd been using it while you were out. 

"Oh, Tama...what happened?" 

Even as he spoke, and despite the shame that filled him all the way up to his ears, he still rocked and jittered slowly into your pillow, his neediness leaking out just like the precum that dribbled down his swollen shaft.

"I-I had some beef...a-and…I tried to...to use my quirk, but...I-I couldn't stop thinking…"

He nuzzled into your touch when you brushed his bangs aside, but could barely move when you leaned down to peck him on the lips, the embarrassment pulling his body taut and making him even stiffer than he already was. 

"Were you thinking about me, Tama?" 

Tamaki bit his lip and you just knew. He wouldn't be able to bear the shame if he said it out loud, but you knew about those dark little corners of his mind that very seldom came out into the light. 

"Well, we can fix this, ok? Just lay down for me, baby boy." 

With a firm tug, you managed to yank the pillow out from beneath him and earned yourself a whine as he squeezed his legs together, but he obeyed once you pressed your fingertips to his chest and pushed him down until he laid back against the sheets, already covered with the sweat that beaded down his body. 

"We're gonna milk you, Tama...that's the only way we can cool you down." 

You swore his heart stopped in that moment. Tamaki blubbered and stumbled over his words, tears wetting his cheeks as he tried to pull his arms over his chest. 

"I-I can do it myself! I can-"

"No you can't. Look at yourself, Tama--you can barely keep it together as is. Besides, it's my job to make you feel better." 

Just to prove your point, with one hand you grabbed his wrist to move his arm out of the way, and with the other you lifted it up and flicked his exposed nipple, the swollen little bud twitching and releasing a spurt of milk at once while Tamaki moaned and jerked against your hold. He could pretend like it was shameful all he liked, but the gleam in his eyes as he bit his tongue so he wouldn't cry out for more was obvious. You'd seen him do it so many times it couldn't be anything else. 

“Do you wanna feel better, baby boy?” 

He squirmed under your gaze, the pressure mounting not just in his body, but in the room as well...he knew exactly what he wanted, but admitting it was something he just couldn't do out loud. So instead he relaxed his shoulders slowly and let his arms fall to his sides, his fingers already digging into the sheets as he huffed a shaky breath and readied himself for what was coming next. 

"That's my good boy. Just relax…"

With a practiced hand from working out the knots in your beloved's shoulders after a long day, you pressed the heels of your hands down into his pecs, each one firm and swollen and leaking even more as you kneaded them gently. Your tongue lolled out of your mouth in preparation, and once he started whining again and little pearls started beading at his nipples, you lowered your face to his chest and latched on to relieve him of that terrible itch he needed scratched. With each press he arched his back off the bed, fluttering gasps flying from his lips as spurts of milk flooded your mouth--and you nearly lost your grip on him when his body reacted to your touch. What you expected to taste was nothing like what you got, his milk impossibly creamy and warm and melting on your tongue with each new stream that you sucked out of him. Below you, his stiff cock twitched and strained under its own weight, Tamaki unable to keep his hips down and stop them from rocking painfully into you--but you really didn't mind, especially not when with a quick glance you could see him trying to stave off his oncoming orgasm. Poor thing must have worked himself up so much while you were gone, but it was more than worth it to take care of him now. 

"You make such a cute cow, Tama." 

You purred as you pulled off of his nipple, your mouth still buzzing with the aftertaste as you leaned over and laved gentle kitten licks over his unattended one, just begging to be relieved by all the milk that dribbled from his peachy little bud. Not one to leave anything behind, you dipped your head down and kissed those little streaks of white away, and somehow that seemed to be his undoing as a cry ripped itself from his throat and his shoulders plunged back into the soft sheets. Doe eyes made way for glazed over numbness, your hand just barely hovering over the tip before he painted your fingers with a frantic buck of his hips, his cum like a magnet to your skin as it stuck and refused to come off easily. And he certainly didn't stop for that, his body overwhelmed to the point that he had no control and emptied himself into open air, each wave of pleasure resulting in an arc of messy, sticky fluid that splattered where it landed and soaked a few wet spots into your work clothes. 

"Making such a mess, Tama...I didn't even have to touch you.." 

You watched with a bit of wicked glee on your face as the veins that had swollen as he came closer to his end thinned out, his cock growing softer until the moment you brushed your sticky fingers down the underside that was still so sensitive. At that moment he perked back up, and with an experimental squeeze using your other hand, you could feel Tamaki's pecs filling up and swelling again with more milk. Just pinching his tender, sore nipples was enough for them to start leaking again, and even though you knew he would be aching by the time you had finished tending to him, the feel of his body trembling with need and the tears spilling down his rosy cheeks was too much for you to resist. You just wouldn't be able to help yourself.

"..Still hurts, Tama? Does my little cow need another milking?" 

You wasted no time in choking up his cock with your hand, squeezing him hard enough that a gasp caught in his throat and a few pearly strands of cum dribbled down his slit and lubed up your grip. But with a fresh set of tears as he blubbered and moaned something you couldn't quite catch, you reached up to stroke his hair and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Being gentle was what always drew him to you, especially when you nuzzled in close and whispered just low enough that his ears twitched, and Tamaki melted into your embrace without even a modicum of resistance. 

"Good boy. That's my good boy." 

[loversandantiheroes]

Can. Can we talk about how dexterous and clever Whiskey’s hands are. Can we talk about how strong and nimble and skilled they are. Can we.

(Hands anon) And honestly I’m a Frankie and Mando girl as well, you KNOW they hands are just as good 👌🙌

I want you to know I have tried to come back to this ask I don’t know HOW many times, but I always get incredibly distracted and just kind of stare into space with my eyes glazed over for like forty-five minutes.  Can’t imagine why...

1.8k words of pure hand-related yearning featuring Din, Frankie, Whiskey, and a bonus Ezra bc I was compelled.

Din’s hands are exactly what you’d expect in some ways - broad and strong as vise-grips, but meticulously deft when it comes to things that require care, whether that’s stripping down his weapons to clean them or patching your wounds (a surprise in and of itself given the impatient, almost flippant way he tends to the holes in his own hide).  What is surprising is just how soft his hands are under those ever-present gloves.  If you ever bring it up he’ll only huff a laugh, insisting his hands are as much a part of his toolkit as his weapons and his armor, and he wouldn’t be much of a Mandalorian if he didn’t take care of his tools.  Unpainted beskar needs to be cleaned and polished frequently, his guns need to be maintained, and the leather of his gloves need oiling to stay supple.  And his hands, too, need maintaining.  And well, hide is hide, and the oil he uses on his leathers goes a long way towards making sure his hands don’t crack or chap.

He’s a man of opposites, especially once you start to get past his defenses.  He can be absolutely unyielding and also shockingly gentle.  With the armor on he can be almost brazen about the way he touches you, particularly if what’s between you is purely physical.  Just scratching an itch?  Oh, he can do that, that’s easy.  And those hands can lock you down better than any binders.  But if it becomes more than that, if he starts pulling you close when he’s just down to his flight suit and there’s no cold press of metal between you, and finally works up the courage to pull those soft-worn gloves off?  It’s hard to imagine this is the same man.  He’s hesitant.  Nearly timid, you think at first, until you realize his hands aren’t trembling just from nerves but from the effort of control.  Touch is a luxury Din has never been afforded, something new to learn in the dark of his bunk with you pressed up against him with your back to his chest, overwhelmed by the simple contact of his fingers curling hesitantly around your own.  Give him time to breathe, to process, to touch without fear that it will overload him or that he might by some pure accident of excitement touch too hard and hurt when he doesn’t mean to (it is, he still thinks on his more rueful days, what he is built for; not this tenderness).  Your patience will absolutely be rewarded.

Frankie’s a bit of a different story, bless his heart.  His nails are starting to look a little less ragged these days - the nicotine gum has gone a long way towards both helping him back off the cigarettes and keep him from chewing them ragged when his anxiety’s off the rails - but given when he’s grounded he tends to go for more hands-on jobs, his hands can take a horrible beating.  If he’s not seeing anyone he doesn’t bother much trying to take care of them beyond pumice soap and the occasional application of vaseline or bag balm in the winter time when they get chapped.  But if that should change, suddenly he’s blisteringly self-conscious about his hands.  The spots where the skin is rough and peeling, the calluses that he’ll never be able to file down and the ones he is only just beginning to see fade (index finger, between the first and middle digits - his thumb still worries over it absently, as if trying to rub it out).  He buys a nail brush, starts using balm every night, trying to work the coarseness out of his hands before he ever dares to touch you with them. 

And god he wants to touch you.  Touch is a grounding thing for him, a much-needed anchor to keep him in the here and now.  If he’s near enough you’re almost certain to find his hands on you - snaking his fingers between yours, or resting his hand light and warm against your thigh when you come along for a drink with the boys, or pressing his palm flat and solid against your back to keep you steady when he walks you to the car after.  And that’s maybe the thing that clings to your bones the strongest: how safe those hands make you feel.  He’ll learn your body until he knows every dip and curve, knows the paths to skate his fingertips along, where to press in deep, where to only graze until he’s got every nerve singing.  But it’s that sense of safety that overwhelms you, that feeling when his hands cup your face or settle gently on your hips or close warmly around your own that there isn’t a force in the world that could hurt you as long as he’s there. 

Tell him so.  Fold his hands up in your own, brush your lips over his knuckles, and tell him that you know you’re in good hands - in the best hands.  It’ll nearly crack his heart in half to hear it.  He knows what those hands have done, no matter how hard he’s tried to wash them clean of it.  But if they can make you feel safe, then maybe they’re worth something after all.

Whiskey is too vain not to take care of his hands, let’s be honest. Though there is a bit of practicality to his vanity - there always is, somehow, like the grain of sand that spawns a pearl.  He learned early enough that if he was fool enough not to take care of his hands it played hell with his ability to use them properly, and much like Din, he fully recognizes that his hands are as much a necessary tool as anything Statesman could provide him.  Decades of experience with his lasso, whip, and guns have left the palms of his hands thickly callused (his right only slightly more so than his left), but careful attention has assured they’re never outright rough.  The way he uses those hands, though, that’s a different story.  They’re strong and shockingly clever, and just as greedy as the rest of him.  Whiskey has a permanent case of Roman hands and Russian fingers, all too likely to have his hand dangerously high up your thigh in public (and far higher still if you’ll let him), but always just out of the view of the people around you.  He’s a menace, through and through, but rest assured, he won’t be putting his hands on you unless he’s sure you want that (and if you do, he will absolutely make every second count - he is as greedy for your pleasure as he is his own).

If he’s managed to get himself in a state where there’s more than just his libido involved, well, it’d be disingenuous to suggest that tactile greed ever goes away, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of that, but it does change.  He still wants to touch you (there isn’t a second in the day this man does not want to be touching you, somehow in some way), but it’s different.  It’s smaller touches among the big ones, almost innocuous.  Fixing your necklace when it’s crooked.  An idle stroke of his thumb along your wrist, or a brush of his fingers along your forehead to sweep the hair out of your eyes.  Helping you in or out of your coat, or taking a knee to do up the laces of your winter boots, or nuzzling ever so briefly into the back of your neck while his clever fingers cinch up a knot into the new apron you bought while you were on a baking kick.  The man’s got twenty years of latent domesticity stored up and he can’t quite help it if you bring it out in him.

When you meet Ezra, he’s down to just the one hand, though you don’t quite notice at first.  You're making your introductions - new dig crew, small, but seemingly well-seasoned, even counting the young girl that keeps a nervous orbit around Ezra - not quite clocking the way his right arm moves just a little different under the thick fabric of his suit until you close your hand around his and feel the hardness of metal under his glove.  If anyone is bold enough to ask how he lost the arm, he’ll just give a grin and insist it is not lost: he remembers exactly where he left it.  His remaining hand is striking somehow when you first see it without the thick gloves on.  Wide palm, thick fingers, a prominent thumb joint.  A small black target tattooed there in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.  But his right hand, his new hand, he never takes the glove off of that one.  It’s accident the first time you see the thing in full, poking your head in his tent to let him know breakfast is running a little late on account of a brief problem with the water pump.  You find him sitting on his bunk in a battered thermal shirt with one sleeve cut off, his suit shoved down to his waist as he wrestles the prosthetic into place as Cee adjusts the harness over his shoulders.  It’s by no means top of the line, but it’s no cheap thing, that much you can tell.  The fingers, you know by now are fully articulated, and you can see now the digits and palm are thickly padded with silicone grips.  Ezra’s face hardens at the intrusion, Cee freezing behind him like a startled deer.  But then he sees it’s only you and the tension drains, his face softening, and he assures you they’ll both be out in a tick, just as soon as he’s made himself presentable.

It’s weeks later that you realize he’s only ever touched you with his right hand once.  Just the handshake that first day.  It’s tough to notice, honestly.  He’s not one to crowd into your space if you don’t want it, unless of course he’s trying to make a point.  You remember the floater that had wandered into your camp trying to make trouble, and the way Ezra had put a seemingly amiable hand on the man’s shoulder as he talked, smiling big and broad, and it wasn’t until the man cried out, dropping to his knees and clutching uselessly at his shoulder that you realized the full strength he carries in that prosthetic.  But every time Ezra is close enough to you to touch, it’s his left that finds you.  He makes a point of it, even going so far as to stay to your right when you walk together, but you don’t fully notice until one day he turns to you with an awkward twist to take hold of your arm with his left rather than his right.

It’s later, much later, in the dim quiet of your own tent, when the small touches finally snowball into something larger and more urgent and finally you feel that hand on you, bare and broad and warm as he cups the back of your neck to draw you close, and he almost laughs into your mouth when you suddenly ask him why he does that.

“Dear heart, if I am to touch you, I mean to feel it.”

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[wafflesandkruge]

have your way with me until you go (zoyalai)

Nikolai and Zoya's morning routines are like clockwork. She wakes him with a drop of stimulant. He makes a witty quip. Neither of them acknowledge what's between them.

So when Zoya shows up late, it's reasonable to assume that nothing else will go as planned.

@grishaverseonline mission 06: free for all

a/n: it’s literally just 2k of pining, pls take it, it’s all i have to offer. meant to be a parallel to the carriage scene at the beginning of kos but it got a bit out of hand 😔 big thanks to @storm-dog-pirate and @mareshes for helping me beta!

ao3

---

When Nikolai woke, it was less surfacing gently from the sea of sleep than being abruptly spat out onto dry land by a monster. He inhaled sharply, his mind instantly assaulted with his surroundings. He was on his bed at the Grand Palace. Chains were once again fastened around his wrists. And an unfairly lovely face was hovering above his, her dark curls brushing his bare chest.

“Zoya,” he greeted with a groan, “how kind of you to grace me with your delightful presence this fine morning. I feel healthier already.”

She barely spared him a glance as she leaned over him to unlock the shackle on his right wrist. He caught a whiff of her hair, the same strangely familiar wildflower scent as always.

“Getting a head start on the flattery, are we?” Her voice was rough, strained. He could see a near imperceptible tremor in her hands as she fitted her key into the lock. It took her multiple tries to get the stubborn thing to turn. Odd, when she’d practically perfected the technique of unchaining a king from his bed months ago. 

He shifted to get a closer look at her. Dark shadows bloomed under her eyes, her brows furrowed as she attempted to unlock the last shackle. Her hair was in sore need of brushing. Saints, had she really emerged from her rooms looking like that? Perhaps she was human like the rest of them after all.

“Late night?” he attempted. “Fun night?”

“Only you would think of fun while facing war on six fronts, my king.” She moved away as soon as the shackle sprang open as if she didn’t want to be near him for any longer than necessary.

He sat up and watched her retreat into the sitting room, rubbing at his sore wrists. Had he done something to offend her recently? Besides daring to breathe the same air as her, naturally. He pondered the question as he washed and dressed mechanically.

When he emerged from his room, he found Zoya hovering in front of a gilded mirror with a ribbon in her hands. As he watched, she attempted to pull her hair into something more manageable than its current frazzled state, but each time she’d miss a strand or the knot would become undone as soon as she dropped her hands. His eyes met hers in the mirror. The dark smudges under her eyes only seemed to make them bluer than ever. An untold secret seemed to lurk behind their depths, but she’d probably sooner jump out the window than confide in him.

“You’re a mess, Zoya.”

“Says the man who was just chained to his bed.” There wasn’t nearly enough venom in her voice to reassure him of his general’s wellbeing. He crossed the room and plucked the ribbon from her hands. She made no move to stop him.

“You know, I once had a promising future as a hairdresser,” he remarked idly as he took a strand of her hair in his hands after a moment’s hesitation. It was impossibly silky, and if he’d been wearing his gloves, he was sure it would have slipped right out of his hands. The dark scars on his fingers were hidden among the loose curls, and for just a moment, he could pretend he was just another man. But Zoya would never be just another woman to him, would she? He used his fingers to carefully comb out the worst of the tangles. 

“Is that so?” The words were a challenge, or perhaps an invitation. He could never quite tell with her.

“Girls would line up at the door when they heard I was in town just to get the newest styles done by me,” he boasted. It was true, to an extent. By “girls,” he’d meant Dominik’s two little sisters, Faina and Polina who had adored their brother’s mysterious friend. They’d forced him to arrange their hair just like the ladies at court, and because he never did anything only halfway, he’d bribed one of his mother’s servants to teach him just so he’d have something to delight them with. For a moment, he could hear Dominik’s warm laughter as his sisters eagerly showed off their pretty braids. 

Some prince you are, he’d said with a grin as the two of them tore into his mother’s sweet pastries. All you’re good for is making the ladies happy.

Not just the ladies, Nikolai had wanted to say, but Dominik had already turned to yell at his sisters for playing too close to the river.

But now Dominik was gone, and all he had left was the broken country that had failed him. And Zoya, always Zoya. 

His fingers skimmed the warm skin at her neck as he pulled back another strand of hair. Zoya was barely moving, only letting out the occasional hiss when he accidentally pulled too hard. As he plaited her hair, his eyes wandered down to the collar of her kefta. It was slung unusually low this morning, and from his vantage point, he could see the tip of one of her scars, the paler strip of skin just visible beneath the fur collar. He couldn’t help thinking about how easy it’d be to lean forward and press a kiss to the back of her neck. Would she pull away? He swallowed and averted his eyes. Saints, this had to be some game of hers, didn’t it? Sometimes he wondered if the little things she did- sending looks his way that from anyone else, would have been a reason for scandal, or letting her fingers linger on his as she handed him something- were on purpose. But he'd heard the stories of the people she’d toyed with when she was younger and crueler. She played for the sake of the game, not the prize, and if the stories were true, she had yet to lose. He was never quite sure if she was playing the same game with him, but if she was, her winning streak wasn't going to be broken. He blinked and focused on Zoya’s reflection again.

“Zoya.”

“What?”

“What’s wrong?”

As expected, she crossed her arms and scowled into the mirror. “Nothing. Hurry up so we can be on our way, or people will talk.”

“People already talk. Why do you look like you stayed out drinking with Genya and didn’t get a wink of sleep?” He pressed the issue, not sure if she would tell him anything at all. Even after three years of rebuilding a country together, there were still some lines Zoya refused to cross. 

“Maybe I did go out drinking with Genya.” Her voice was curt, clipped. He didn’t believe her for an instant.

“Without inviting me? How treasonous.” 

“You were unwanted.” 

At least her poisonous tongue was back. He supposed it was better than nothing. His braid finished, he tied it off with a neat bow. “There,” he said softly, admiring his handiwork. He let his hands linger in her hair for a moment longer before pulling them back. “Now you look a fraction more presentable.”

In the mirror, Zoya’s lips quirked upwards. “What an excellent valet you make.”

He was instantly reminded of that night in the carriage, Zoya snug in his arms as they played the role of sated lovers. She’d seen him at his worst, and yet she was still here every morning to wake him and face the country together. He supposed he ought to have returned the favor somehow, but what did he have left to give? Somehow, Zoya didn’t seem like someone who’d have use for his eternal gratitude or respect. 

“Your buttons are done wrong,” he muttered as he caught sight of her kefta in the mirror. Either she’d had a very good night, or a very bad night, but he couldn’t decide which was worse. He spun her by the shoulders and hesitated for a moment before kneeling. Vasily’s voice echoed in his head as he refastened the first of the pearl buttons. A king never kneels, brother. But his brother had never met Zoya Nazyalensky.

He glanced up at her, but her gaze was faraway, her arms crossed over her chest as she worried at her bottom lip. 

“A king’s kneeling in front of you, shouldn’t you be a bit more excited?” he quipped, somewhat desperate to get a normal reaction from her. 

She raised a brow. “I’ve had plenty of men kneel before me in the past. Why would a king be any different unless he offers me a country as well?”

He moved on to the buttons over her stomach. “If I recall correctly, I already did. You weren’t thrilled.”

She stiffened. He rose to his feet again as he finished the buttons over her chest. The pearls gleamed in a neat line down the front of her kefta, nestled in the whorls of silver embroidery. He could spend hours tracing the patterns with his eyes, and he often did during particularly trying Triumvirate meetings. He resisted the urge to trace one of the spirals with a finger. Finally, he got to the buttons at her neck.

"Do take care next time to not look like..." His voice trailed off as his eyes left the saints forsaken buttons for a moment to find Zoya's exquisite face entirely too close to his. Even exhausted, her features still spoke of regality and poise, her blue eyes bright and defiant as they stared right back at him. Nikolai's eyes tried to return to the task at hand, but they met a distraction on the way, namely, her lips. Saints, her lips. He swallowed hard and tried to force his fingers to move. 

"Like what?" she demanded. 

"Like..." 

A girl in need of kissing. 

"...a toddler who tried to dress herself," he finished weakly. Then, as if his hand had a mind of its own, it drifted upwards and swept an errant lock of Zoya’s hair back behind her ear. His palm brushed her cheek and hovered there. He could scarcely breathe as if her closeness had sucked all the air from the room.

Zoya peered up at him from under her lashes, her gaze inscrutable. Then she sighed and let her cheek rest against his palm for the briefest heartbeat. Her warmth had barely registered before she was stepping back again, her general’s mask firmly back in place as if nothing had happened. Nikolai tried not to let it sting too much as he tucked his hands into his coat pockets. 

“Anything else for me to fix? A broken shoe? A lonely heart?”

The last one was a jest, but Zoya’s lips pursed as if he’d caused a problem she’d have to fix later. “No. Let’s go. The Triumvirate has been waiting long enough.”

She turned to go, then paused halfway to the door. A foolish seed of hope took root in Nikolai’s heart, only to be trampled with her next words.

“Don’t forget your gloves.”

She swept out of the room without another backwards glance, the scent of wildflowers and thunderstorms left in her wake. 

He would play her game, he decided as he found his gloves and slipped them on. Having his heart broken by Zoya Nazyalensky was still preferable to the impossibility of staying away from her. 

[thedeviltohisangel]

He’s A God, He’s A Man: 10

You can’t have me.

masterlist is my url/writing

smut warning

“I bet he said you could have me while he had her.” Tommy had been staring intently at Kimber’s house which he was parked in front of. He was trying to put a bit of distance between Lydia’s arrival and his. He couldn’t go in there guns blazing and light the entire business deal on fire.

“Something like that,” he mumbled in response.

“I was a milliner when he found me. A good one. I made this hat.” 

“It’s a very pretty hat,” he obliged. It made him think about Lydia. About all he had watched her accomplish while in France. The countless lives she had saved including his own. And now she was a barmaid in a dirty town being dragged to shady events on his arm and volunteering to be alone in rooms with slimy men because she loved Tommy. He flicked his cigarette out the car window. He was not going to be responsible for her giving up on her dreams.

“Is she a prostitute?” 

“No. She’s an angel.”

----

Lydia had to admit that Billy Kimber’s house was nice. Apparently the race business was more profitable that she could have ever dreamed of. He led her into a grand room with a gramaphone in the corner. Eagerly he helped her out of her coat and put on one of the slowest songs she had ever heard.

“This is too slow to have a fun dance to. Put on a Charleston,” she said with a forced smile as he grabbed at her waist roughly. She had grown accustomed to the smell of cigarettes that followed Tommy wherever he went. Had grown to love it and seek comfort in it. But on Kimber it made her stomach flip into nauseous knots. Made her arch her head as far away from him as it would possibly go.

“I want to be close to you. Have you ever been in a house this big? I bet you have. Look like a bloody film star I bet all the men want a piece of you.” She watched his eyes close as he leaned forward with puckered lips.

“May I get some air, Mr. Kimber?” she asked politely as she pushed her hands against his chest. He took one step back with a roll of his eyes and went to the glass of whisky he had poured for himself. After he finished it, he dropped his glass onto the floor and watched as it broke into tiny pieces.

“Pick it up.” She froze. This was a power play. He got off on belittling women. “I want to watch you bend down and pick it up you little slag.” 

“I’m off the clock. I don’t clean up after adult men when they aren’t paying me to,” she spoke through gritted teeth. Where on earth was Tommy? Surely the agreed upon time she had to spend alone with him was nearing to an end. Lydia walked over to the table to pick up her purse and gloves. She’d wait out the rest of her time in the restroom.

“Listen here. I tried to be nice, but if you don’t do what I ask when I will force you.” She felt him come up behind her but she wasn’t quick enough to turn around.

“What-No!” she screamed as she felt his hands wrap around her thighs and begin to travel under her skirt. Lydia grabbed a shard of glass from the table she was bent over and swung her arm wildly, Kimber falling backwards just as the door banged open and Tommy came running through.

“What the fuck are you doing? I still have time on our deal!” 

“I was going to let you go through with it but she has the clap. She looks good from the outside but believe me…” Tommy trailed off and let Kimber’s mind go wild with what he could possibly be talking about. “I thought I could use her but call it my conscious getting the better of me. Couldn’t let you go through with it.” Lydia dropped the piece of glass she had been prepared to use as a weapon and squared her shoulders before marching towards the door. She walked right past Tommy without even a look. God did she feel stupid. She knows she put herself in that position but how stupid of her to do so. To believe accompanying Tommy on this excursion would be any sort of positive experience for her.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Just start the car and drive,” she instructed as he slid behind the wheel and turned to talk to her. He respected her wishes and kept silent as they drove back to Birmingham. She didn’t even take his hand once they pulled back into Charlie’s yard to return the car. Even Curly kept quiet when he saw them. He could sense the tension between the two though he was happy to see that both returned in one piece. Physically at least.

“Will you talk to me now?” he asked quietly once he had shut the door to his bedroom behind them. Lydia sat down at the desk by his window and began to remove her gloves and pearl necklace. It had been her grandmother’s. And she had whored herself out in it.

“Can I have a drink first?” Tommy stood quickly and poured her one, kneeling next to the chair she sat in before handing it to her.

“At least just tell me if I made it before anything...happened.” She tipped her head back and felt better as the alcohol burned down her throat.

“Yes. I would’ve killed him before he had the chance to do anything.” He wanted to touch her but didn’t want her to reject him. He thinks that would’ve killed him. “But I can still feel his hands on my thighs,” she whispered like it was a secret. She lifted the skirt of her dress ever so slightly. Tommy knows it was his mind playing tricks but he swears he could see Kimber’s hands on the sacred skin of her legs.

“What can I do to make it go away?” He placed his hands where he thinks Kimber’s had been in the hopes she would feel his touch instead.

“I need to feel you. All over. I need you to claim me so I will never even be looked at by another man like that ever again.” He nodded as a lump appeared in his throat.

“You’re mine and I’m yours,” he said as she knocked her forehead against his. 

“Make love to me, Thomas.” She needed to feel every inch of him against her. Needed to come together with him as one in a way they hadn’t since their last night together in France. In a way that she would never experience with man other than him after tonight. Breathlessly, Tommy began to oblige her request. He parted his lips against hers and tried to convey all he could in the gesture. He was trying to show his love for her, his appreciation for her, his commitment to her. But he was also telling her how sorry he was that her love for him put her in this predicament. That he was sorry he couldn’t promise there wouldn’t be more days like today.

He moved from her lips to the curve of her jaw, sucking on the skin behind her ear that he recently learned was a sensitive spot. “I love learning about you,” he mumbled as he trailed down her neck. Tommy hoped he would always be learning about her. That Lydia would always be surprising him and growing with him and showing new corners previously unseen.

“Are you making a little map in your head?” she breathed, tilting her head back so Tommy had unfettered access to her skin.

“I thought  had an accurate one from France but it’s in need of updating.” She giggled but then frowned when he pulled away from her completely and stood. Tommy offered her his hand which she took. He pulled her against his chest in the name of simply admiring her for a few moments. “I never want to forget how you look right now. How I feel right now.” 

“Life will bruise us, Tommy, but never break us.” Lydia was sure of that. They didn’t go through what they went through in France and find their way back together just for an angry bookie or temperamental copper to ruin things. She moved her fingers down the buttons of his shirt with ease, helping him slide it off his shoulders before kissing the freckles that were now exposed to her on his pale skin.

“Please tell me this is not one of those complicated dresses I will never be able to get off you without tearing it,” he muttered as she turned around for him with a smile.

“Just a little bow on the top but the undergarments…”

“Jesus, the undergarments,” he exclaimed as the dress pooled at her feet but her brassiere and underwear remained intact. To Tommy they actually looked quite constraining. “How did you dance in these?”

“Years of breathing practice. While you were out learning to shoot, I was learning the art of short breaths and bladder control.” He appreciated that she looked quite proud to have mastered the skills of a traditional, upper class lady. But he remembered her stunt with the revolver in the kitchen. She knew how to shoot too. 

She kissed him, bringing him back to the task at hand. As Tommy’s fingers found the front laces of her corset, her fingers brushed over the front of his trousers. He sucked in a breath at the fleeting moment of contact. “Your touch is dangerous.”

“I’d prefer to touch you without this nuisance,” she replied with a snark as she pulled the waistband of his pants and let it snap against his skin. Somehow that felt even better for Tommy. He obliged her request, removing his bottoms and undershirt while she fiddled with the laces of her corset and finally freed herself. They kissed more fervently now. Both of her hands were on the back of his head and holding him to her. One of his hands pressed against her back and the other hitching her thigh around his waist. 

She was warm and willing and needed him. And it felt good to know that, after today, she wasn’t repulsed by him. That was still here. Still interested in having a future with him. No matter what that might entail. “Shall we lie down, Mr. Shelby?” she whispered against his lips. Tommy twirled a strand of  her hair around his finger.

“One day you’ll be Mrs. Shelby,” he replied, taking her hand from his cheek and kissing the inside of her wrist.

“You’ll have to earn me.” She said it with a smile but she meant it. Just because she loved Tommy does not mean that he had her forever and without question. He’d have to prove himself every day. That he could be the man she deserved. 

Lydia pulled away and lied down on the bed, using her elbows to lift her back off the mattress so she could watch Tommy approach her hungrily. He went for the insides of her thighs first. Touching. Kissing. Biting. Lydia wasn’t one for begging but he was on the verge of bringing her to that point. “Tommy, please.”

“Almost done.” He hadn’t been kidding earlier when he mentioned needing to update his map. Every mark he left in his wake was a tether point. For the future, he knew exactly the keys to play for the melody to sing throughout the room. But the natural perfume of her was too intoxicating for him to avoid any longer. He gave into his most carnal desire and brought his lips to where she was dripping with need for him.

His hands pressing against her hips weren’t strong enough to control the writhing of her hips as he worshipped between her legs. He had wanted to watch her but the feeling was all too consuming of himself as well. Her moans and pants and gasps of his name were enveloping him in a warmth he hadn’t known existed until this moment. He drank from her like it was nectar. Lapping up every slick drop that rolled down her thighs as she crashed over the edge of pleasure into his waiting mouth. “Fuck, Thomas, why didn’t we do that last time?” Lydia had a hazy smile on her face, the one you get when in the presence of someone you’re deliciously in love with.

“I distinctly remember trying and you telling me that proper ladies weren’t to be seen down there by strange men.” Tommy clambered up to hover over her. Her cheeks were flushed and the tiny hairs around the perimeter of her face were stuck to her skin. She looked like a goddess. And she was all his. And he was all hers.

“Good thing I’ve gotten over that proper lady phrase.” Tommy dropped so he could kiss her. Lydia moaned at the new taste on his lips. It was feminine and masculine and made her feel like she was dancing among the stars. Previously all her sexual encounters had felt ritualistic. Like they were a necessary step in the progression of her evening. This felt like a puzzle finding it’s last piece. She saw the whole picture once Tommy slid inside of her. They didn’t bother themselves with trying to be quiet. It felt like they had been suppressing these feelings since they last parted. Nothing was going to stop them again. 

“Fuck, Lydia, you feel like heaven.” Tommy knew there was no place for him up there. But perhaps he could experience it down here, with her, while he had the chance. He ducked his head and sucked her nipple into his mouth, her back arching to meet his touch.

“Faster.” She could everything building up inside of her and teetering on the edge of eternal bliss. There was something about experiencing this with him that made her believe it might all actually work out. That if they had this place to retreat to at the end of the day, they’d be safe. They’d be okay. “Stay inside me, Thomas,” she whispered as his moans began to grow longer and his hips tightening with each thrust into her.

“Lydia, I-”

“Give it all to me, Tommy. I can take it.” She meant it. In every sense that it could be construed. She wanted to shoulder his burdens. His pain. The nightmares that visited and the ones that wouldn’t leave. She wanted his love. Wanted his affection, no matter how sparingly he deemed it safe enough to dish out. She wanted his future. Wanted to be his future. Forge their own path of the family tree. 

He stilled with his mouth agape, fighting every urge to keep his eyes open to gaze into hers. He would never know the words to explain what was dancing inside of him but he thinks he could show her. He thinks her heart and soul could read his without a map. In his eyes was love and promises that if he said allowed, he’d be too sad when he broke. There were secrets in his hands and on his lips as he kissed her again. There were apologies in his chest as they tangled together, sweaty and blissed out and too warm to even need a quilt. There was hope in his breath as he whispered his love and she whispered it back. And that night, there were dreams. Not a nightmare on the horizon.

@flecksphoenix​ @girl-w-a-quill​ @odetostep​ @itsilvermorny​ @shadow-of-wonder​ @lemmyjelly​

[alma-berry]

Kit’s Secret Fire Message #14

Masterlist  

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

Kit hated running.. there was no other way of putting it - he just hated it. Not that it mattered, he did it anyway. 

During the years that passed since he first learned of his angelic heritage, he forced his body into an excruciating training regiment. If he was being honest with himself, a practice Kit made a point of keeping to a minimum, he didn’t hate all forms of training. He liked the feel of a dagger in his hand, how the hilt fit perfectly into his grasp, like his family ring. He still had the Herondale dagger Jace had given him, and he always wondered if there was a special magic to it, a reason for why it’s touch calmed him and why he fought best with it than any other weapon. 

There was something in the physical pain that felt like a safe place for him, a place to let loose and feel the things he didn’t want to feel, without having to acknowledge them. He put his infinite anger, for himself, for his father’s betrayal, for the mother that was taken from him, for the familiar ache of rejection and longing that came every time the moon became just as silver as Ty’s eyes, and poured them with every bit of force that he had, which was now a considerable amount, into his training. Into that pain. Into sweat and bone grinding bone. 

He hated running, but he needed the pain of it. It sharpened his mind, it helped him clear out all of those blurred moments that weighed so heavy on his heart. 

He slowed down just before the entrance to the institute, spotting a dark figure leaned on one of the massive stone pillars that decorated the massive building. 

For some reason, Kit wasn’t surprised to see that it was Ty. He felt that confusing assortment of excitement and hesitance he was growing accustomed to whenever Ty was around. Though Kit wished he didn’t catch him like this, sweaty, disheveled and sleep deprived. 

“Hi.. what are you doing here?” he asked as soon as he got close enough for Ty to hear him, but stayed far enough for him to feel in control. 

Ty seemed to dismiss that idea, and took a step towards him, a blunt defiance in his moves.

“I was waiting for you.” He said in a tone that indicated his annoyance with having to state the obvious. “Do you like running?”

“What? No, I fucking hate it” Kit felt a bit dizzy from the sudden question, “I just had to.. work out some.. things.”

It felt like such a lame explanation, but what was he supposed to say? I was trying to figure out if you even care about me at all, and then there’s the question of how do I stop myself from being a goddamn bomb waiting to explode when I’m around you?

Ty looked like he was seriously considering his words, and said “I understand.”

“You do?” Kit felt weird. He didn’t know much about Ty’s new life.. maybe he developed a habit of jumping out of extremely tall trees whenever he was troubled, though Kit doubted it was the case.

“Yes.. I do.”

A silence fell between them. It wasn’t awkward so much as it was.. charged. Kit felt completely aware of how hard his heart was beating, of his flushed cheeks, and scavenged for something to say.

“So… you never told me, Mina didn’t vandalize Irene, right? She’s pretty bossy for a three years old. We once found Church with a pink bow glued to his head. Best day of my life.”

He was rambling, but Ty only laughed, a soft, honest laugh that lit up his face. 

A light wind caressed them, and his black hair was blown away from his face, revealing his eyes, as they rested on Kit’s jaw.

He was so pale, and the opaque sky of the London morning made his skin shine like porcelain, a delicate, stark white spot in the almost colorless picture that surrounded him. There was still a softness of morning in him, his lips slightly swollen, but when Kit looked at them he could feel the tight band of control he was holding onto with dear life slipping out of his hands like he was trying to hold down water. He ripped his gaze away from the dangerous bow of Ty’s lips to the safety of his own treacherous, callous hands.

“No, actually.. Irene seemed fairly content with her. I admit it was a bit disconcerting.”

Ty lifted his hand and traced a long finger down the curve of Kit’s neck, at the juncture point that connected to his collarbone, where he could undoubtedly feel the war raging on the inside of his skin, fighting desperately to break free. There was no air left in Kit’s lungs, but he couldn’t make himself breath. The touch of Ty’s finger, as slow and deliberate as it was, felt like a sudden blow.

A drop of sweat trickled down in between the softness of Ty’s skin and Kit’s hammering pulse. 

Ty lifted his finger, slim, elegant and wet with Kit’s sweat, and put it to his mouth. 

Kit felt his eyes widen in shocked surprise as Ty said in a measured voice, “You should get a shower”.

“I.. what?” 

Was he hallucinating? Did something in him truly snap, and he was floating unconscious through the Thames? Because this didn’t make sense. It hardly made sense in Kit’s dreams, though it didn’t stop him from dreaming them.

“There’s something I need you to do”

Kit couldn’t utter a single word, he just gaped at Ty, uncomprehending.

“For the investigation, we need your.. special area of expertise”

“My area of expertise?” Ty nodded.

Even in his state of haze, Kit didn’t need to think about it. There was only one thing he knew better than any other Shadowhunter. 

“You need me to go to the shadow market”

Ty flashed his brilliant, mischievous smile, something Kit remembered rarely seeing on him.

“Exactly, Watson. Now do get a shower, it’s rather distracting when you’re all covered in sweat”

At that, he turned and walked towards the institute.

Kit wanted to call after him and ask why was it distracting, but by the time he found his voice, Ty was already inside, leaving Kit shaking all over.

That shower, Kit thought while trying miserably to catch his breath, is going to be a long, long one.

**

Kit was fast, faster than Ty remembered. It was to be expected, he was a grown Shadowhunter, not the scrawny boy who had a hard time keeping up with Ty as they ran down the golden sand of the beach. But he was even faster than other Shadowhunters Ty knew, fully trained Shadowhunters. Someone must have trained him very, very well.

The night was brightly illuminated by a strand of glowing lights, floating all across the busy rows of the shadow market. When Ty decided to follow Kit, he took into consideration that the market he remembered had probably changed quite a bit, but it seemed to be almost unrecognizable. 

Three years ago, there was a menacing, almost feral air to it. Now, the market felt alive. Aisles of cramped stalls stacked with shimmering crystals and colorful tincture bottles labeled with the delighted promises of an eternal love, a failure free luck, and even one that Ty thought was supposed to be a natural stamina boost. 

Kit walked around the narrow path, lingering to greet some of the merchants. A young looking fairy girl with hair as purple as the petals of a Morning Glory that cascaded down her slim figure rushed to her feet as soon as she saw Kit. She eyed him with an interest even Ty found obvious. Her voice was high pitched, animated, and her hands kept twirling the curled of her long hair. Ty never liked purple, but something about the sight of her made him hate the color completely. 

It was obvious Kit knew her. He grinned his deep, unravelling grin, and touched her shoulder lightly in response to something she must have said.

The whole situation felt unsettling to Ty.. and it wasn’t the purple of the girl’s hair, or the tight knot that fastened in his stomach from the sight of the familiarity between them. It was that she was a fairy, and from what Ty had gathered from Jem’s words - the reason Kit was threatened involves fairies. So why wasn’t he taking more care?

Come to think about it, as much as Kit seemed at ease in the market, it was odd that he didn’t even try to keep a low profile. He was, in a way, on a mission. Kit was visibly a Shadowhunter, even with his sleeves down and no marks showing, Ty thought as he pushed between two heavily perfumed vampires, trying follow Kit’s progress without being noticed. 

He wants to be noticed, Ty realized. Clever, allowing the one he searched come to him in his own terms, or her, in that matter. Clever, and dangerous. 

Kit paused near a wide table, a richly embroidered banner spread on top of it, displaying glittering glass jars that changed colors every few seconds. 

Ty took a deep breath and tried to focus his gaze on Kit. It was hard, walking through the crowds like it didn’t mind him, like his head wasn’t about to explode from the pressure of their voices, their steps, their nearness. But he didn’t dare to put his earphones on. He had them on his neck, their weight a small comfort, but he had to be able to act fast. If Kit was in danger, he needed to be able to react. If someone said something to him, or about him, he needed to be able to hear it.

But Kit just stood there, frowning to the the large, mirror like glass. 

He seemed to be debating where to turn, as if he wasn’t sure if to continue where he was headed, or take a different road. 

Abruptly, he took a sharp turn to the left, where the crowd quickly thinned into an obviously, much less populated part of the market. 

Ty was grateful, even though he feared the lack of hiding places meant he might be seen, he still felt the strain loosen in him. 

A tall woman approached Kit, who was studying a handwritten glittered sign that advertised a vintage looking book stall. Ty heard the clicking of her heels before he got a full view of her face - Hypatia Vex. 

She wore an elegant looking, pearl white, split sleeved cocktail pantsuit. It hugged her tall figure and dark skin down to her ankles, shining with every move she took like it was studded with tiny diamonds. A sheath of golden metal caged the narrow of her waist in a way that made Ty wonder about the uncomfortable lengths that people went just to look a certain way. He could appreciate her beauty, but it meant little to him.

“Herondale! Why are you making me look for you around the market?” She asked Kit in a clipped tone. Ty was right, Kit did make her come to him, and it seems he didn’t plan to take that strange turn to this almost abandoned part of the market. Ty wondered why.

“I needed a.. quite surrounding this evening. Less noise, less prowling eyes.”

Kit seemed unsurprised to see her, and he made an exasperated face at her sulky expression. 

“Common Hypatia, don’t be vexed wit-“

“You know perfectly well I don’t appreciate that joke, Kit Herondale. Really, you should work on some new ones. Your reputation is already questionable ever since you had that nightly adventure with the werewolf boy.. what was his name?”

Now Kit did seemed alarmed, “It wasn’t an adventure, nothing happened,” Ty almost thought he looked straight at him when he said it, but a second later a mocking smile crawled to his lips and he was glaring at Hypatia with a defiant expression, “And my reputation is impeccable.” 

“If it was really nothing, than you should definitely have a word with the boy.. because he’s going around for months, saying that you took him to-“

“Hypatia,” Kit’s voice was slightly shaking. Whether it was from anger or something else, Ty didn’t know. He only knew that the knot in his stomach now felt like a massive tangle of twisted thorns, hurting his every breath, his every movement. He wasn’t sure what nightly endeavors meant, but he could make a calculated guess.

“I’m here on business. I need the assistance of the owner of the shadow market.. I need your help.”

“Well..” Hypatia gave him a measuring look, “You don’t usually cut straight to point. What is it that you need, Shadowhunter?”

Kit took a deep breath, looking relieved that he got her to stop talking about his personal life, and told her about the Moloch demons attack, of his suspicion that a sacrifice might be made, and finally, about the danger that could come to a large group of mundane children.

“I need to know if they were seen around downworld. They usually come in groups, which is hard to disguise, especially because of the whole empty eye socket spitting fire thing.”

She gave him a long look before she answered. 

“I don’t like giving information to Nephilim.. but you are different, aren’t you, boy?”

Kit didn’t answer, a shadow darkening his clear sky eyes. 

What did she mean by different? Different in his behavior? Because he was raised at the shadow market?

“Alright,” Hypatia put her hands together in a loud clap and took a step towards Kit.

“There is a warlock named Marvin. Unpleasant sort of fellow, moved here from New York a while ago. He mostly keeps to himself but I had reasons to know him in the past. He goes around in circles that might know of what you seek. You should ask him.”

Hypatia made a tiny flick with her right hand and a golden piece of paper appeared out of thin air. She handed it to Kit, who nodded at her.

“There's no need to mention me, of course. But, if you may, please send my regards to Ragnor Fell, next time you see him,” her starry eyes glittered under the dark silky sky.

“I didn’t see him in years, not since his impressive performance on the imperishable fields. He is kind of hard to get a hold on, since..”

Kit left before she could finish the sentence, leaving Ty alone and confused. He made his way hurriedly back towards the institute, questions rushing through his head like a lightning storm. As he breathed the cool air of the night, a long forgotten memory lingered on his mind. It was something Barnabas Hale once told Kit, in a Los Angeles market;

“We tolerated you because the Shadowhunters hadn’t found you yet. But now they have and it’s a hop, skip and a jump until you find out who you really are“

**

Ty was sitting in the parlor, trying hard to steady his breath. He managed to outrun Kit and sneak back into the institute before the rain started to fall. Though he could have explained his wet hair by claiming he took a shower, or taken a walk out in the rain. Not that Kit would have any reason to question him.. but Ty liked to be prepared.

When the main door creaked open, he sprang to his feet and went out to greet him. He knew he might be better at seeing him only in the morning, but he wanted Kit to know that he waited for him. He planned every move he made since their conversation in his room, specifically to make Kit understand how much he cared for him. 

He rested his hand on the chipped wooden door frame to steady himself, and called for Kit.

“How did it go?” 

Kit gave him a strange, curious look. His hair was wet, glistening with sparks of what seemed like fireflies. Ty remembered how he looked this morning, sweaty and flushed and unbelievably attractive. But now, as beautiful as he was, Kit looked exactly like the mystery that he was. The dimmed lights above them made his skin shine like dark brass, smooth metallic. Ty focused his gaze on an old tapestry depicting the angelic rune that hung right behind Kit.

“Good. I got what we need.”

“Oh, great. Than.. tomorrow at breakfast. You can tell us tomorrow at breakfast.” Ty felt the words cluttering as he tried to speak them. Kit cocked his head to the side and studied him in silence. 

“So good night,” Ty breathed and turned towards the staircase. 

“Ty..” Kit’s voice was low, almost a whisper, but there was a steadiness in it that made Ty feel a hum of uneasiness. 

“I am going to give you the opportunity to explain yourself.” He said it slowly, deliberately. There was no anger in his voice, which calmed Ty by just a fraction, but there was a careful wariness to it.

“I’m.. I don’t know what you-“

“I know you followed me.”

Kit let his words hang between them, clearly waiting for Ty’s response. But Ty didn’t know what to say. How did he see him? He concealed himself from head to toe. 

“I can assume for myself why you did it, but I want you to hear it from you. My assumptions night not be so positive.” Ty risked a look into his eyes, and regretted it immediately. 

There was wistfulness in it, and hurt, but that wasn’t what caught at Ty’s heart. There was hope there. Kit truly wanted Ty to reassure him, to give him a reason that wouldn’t mean a betrayal of his trust. But Ty couldn’t give him that, he couldn’t say the truth, not that the truth would be much of a reassurance. He couldn’t just tell him that he listened on his and Jem’s private conversation about the big secret that he’s hiding, and that he followed him to the shadow market because he guessed there might be a clue there to his mystery. The second reason, him wanting to look after Kit might not be a improvement, but Ty was terrible at lying. He went for the second option.

“It was just a backup. In case something happened.”

Ty looked up into the almost invisible ends of the ceiling, clasping his hands so they won’t show his agitation. 

“You’re either lying to me, or you don’t trust me at all. I honestly don’t know which one is worst.”

Kit’s voice was strained, a thin thread of anger hidden between it’s layers.

“It’s not-“ Ty started, not even knowing what he was about to say.

“It’s not what I think it is? It’s not what you meant? It’s not what it looks like? Come on, Ty.. I’ve seen that movie. I know how it ends. You don’t trust me, so you follow me to the market to see that I don’t mess up your investigation.” Ty opened his mouth to protest but Kit was far ahead of him. “And don’t tell me that you went there to have my back. You’ve seen me take down at least half a dozen Moloch demons with one seraph blade and two daggers, while you guys were chilling in the back. You know what I can do. And you know I don’t need anybody’s help in the shadow market. Isn’t that why you asked me to go there to begin with?”

Kit breathed heavily, and Ty felt the quick rising of his chest like blows handed down upon his heart.

“So tell me, Ty. Am I wrong?” Kit hissed through gritted teeth. Ty searched for words but none came.

“I see. I guess some things never change, right? I remember, you see, what you told me once. Watson is backup.”

There was an immense pain in his voice, steel and stone as it was. Ty lifted his hand towards Kit, but he took a step back, shaking his head.

“No. You don’t get to do that, Ty.” His voice cracked at his name, and Ty felt the slow sting of tears forming in his throat. 

How did he manage to mess this up so badly? And how, how did Kit figured out he was there?

He couldn’t help himself, and the words slipped out of his mouth before he could think better of it.

“How did you know-“

Kit let out a hard, pained laugh.

“How did I know you were following me? Of course that’s what you want to know.. I saw you, Ty. I saw your reflection in the color changing glass jars. I noticed the white band of your headphones poking out of your black hood. You should really consider earphones next time.”

He walked to the entrance door and stopped with his back to Ty. 

“I’m going out now. Please, do not follow me.”

And without looking back at him, he left, slamming the door with a loud bang that Ty felt down to his bones.

[journal-of-an-outlaw]

Price to be Paid - Chapter 15

A Truth Universal Acknowledged - AO3

Words: 5,901

Your eyes fluttered as you awoke, the unfamiliar surroundings blinked into focus. A side table holding a satchel, some photos, and a flower in a glass jar were blurry in your sights. Arthur’s journal, haphazardly thrown, took up most of your vision and you remembered where you were and what happened the night before. 

“You awake there finally?” 

Arthur snaked a hand around your waist as you snuggled back into his warmth. Both of you were still fully clothed but you could tell Arthur had more on his mind than how far things went from the night before. To be honest, it didn’t go much past kissing as things were still fresh between you, but quickly you felt yourself falling for this cowboy with a secret heart of gold. 

“Morning, Arthur. Sorry if I took up all the bed.” 

He leaned over and kissed your temple, “Ain’t nothing to apologize for. I probably kicked you in my sleep or something.” 

You laughed and rolled over to your back, looking up at the handsome man above you. “I hate to admit how long it’s been since I shared a bed with another person...but that was nice. Kept me warm and don’t think I’ve slept that well in a long time.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t be too opposed to it happening again sometime. Preferably sooner rather than later.” 

Laughing you pushed yourself up, ready to sneak back to your tent and get ready for the day. “Oh, not too opposed that’s good to know.” You stretched the muscles in your back, a happy warmth still lingering after you left the sheets. Standing exposed you fully to the chill of the morning and you wrapped your arms around yourself, wishing you could spend all morning in bed with Arthur, but knew you both had responsibilities and things to do. 

“Meet for breakfast in ten minutes?” Arthur agreed, and you quietly walked towards the flaps of his tent. It was still early, surely no one would be walking around.

You pulled the tent open to meet a very surprised looking Javier. His face broke into a smile as his eyes darted back and forth from you to the partially exposed bed with Arthur in it. It was clear what he was thinking and he opened his mouth to comment but you rushed forward and placed your hand over his lips. 

“You didn’t see anything.” He held his hands up in fake innocence, but the laughter he was trying to contain slipped out between your fingers, his whole body shaking. 

“Ah, to be young and in love. I won’t reveal your secrets, but you should hurry most everyone is waking up now.” 

As if to prove him right, you heard Dutch and Molly stirring in the tent next to Arthur’s. You quickly darted back to your own tent as Javier chuckled and continued on with whatever he was doing. With the ties finally knotted, you threw yourself onto your bed and breathed a sigh of relief. Javier wasn’t a braggart, he wouldn’t talk. But you and Arthur had wanted to keep things under wraps and enjoy the secret bubble you were living in a little bit longer. 

The camp quickly came to life and the sounds filled the air around you. You dressed in a long skirt, a long sleeved shirt, jacket, and high socks and boots to fight off the chill of the early mornings by the water. It was still your favorite place to be, but damn if it wasn’t chilly before the sun burned the fog away. 

Hosea waved a greeting as you passed him at a table and you smiled back. Javier was shuffling cards for the two of them to play and cast you a wink, but you chuckled and rolled your eyes as you continued on to meet Pearson for some food. 

Who knew rolling around a bed and kissing like young teenagers would use so much energy? 

John and Abigail were bickering about something as you approached the main campfire so you steered yourself over to where Charles was sitting and placed your bowl of cooked oats and berries on the table. Pearson had done some bartering in town to get a special order and first thought about baking the gang some pies, but settled on making a week of breakfasts that varied from the usual eggs or biscuits. 

Charles grunted as a greeting when you joined him. He didn’t drink that often so you assumed he wasn’t hung over but he was especially quite this morning. 

“How’s it going, Charles?” 

Bloodshot eyes met yours. “I was stuck on guard duty all last night. Never got relieved.” 

“Who was supposed to head out? That’s not right you had to stay so long.”

Rubbing his face Charles replied, “Arthur. He’s never been late before, better have a damn good excuse for leaving me out there last night.” Guilt flooded your face and you couldn't look up to meet your friend’s eyes. Of course, you knew the reason why Arthur was distracted and forgot about his turn on guard duty. 

You could feel Charles’ eyes heavy upon you as you stirred your breakfast. “That’s too bad, maybe he, uh...was busy,” you mumbled quietly. He didn’t reply to you, but greeted someone who sat down next to you with a thump. 

“Arthur.” 

The man in question scooped up oats and took a bite, smiling at Charles and knocking your knee under the table. Arthur was radiating with happiness in a way you haven’t seen in awhile, completely oblivious to the situation brewing before him. Charles looked between the two of you, and something clicked. He chuckled but didn’t berate Arthur in the way you thought he would, instead continuing to eat his breakfast and rub the exhaustion harboring behind his eyes. 

Eventually Charles excused himself and went to sleep, leaving you and Arthur alone again. It felt like no one else was around. The morning was heating up and you chatted easily to pass the time. It wasn’t long before Ms. Grimshaw found you and dragged you off to do chores, but you felt invigorated and happy to scrub shirts and dishes for the first time in, well, forever. Arthur chopped firewood not too far away, and you could admire the way he moved from this distance. The muscles in his arms and back showed through his shirt as he swung the axe over and over. 

You and Arthur orbited around each other, sneaking off for private moments but jumping apart as soon as someone drew near. It was exhilarating to carry this secret around and your heart felt like it was going to burst.It was easy; you fell into a nice routine that continued on like that for another few weeks. 

The dance Hosea planned on attending was quickly approaching and he had been running over and solidifying his plans with you, Karen, and Charles. Mostly how you and Karen were ‘related’ and what your backstory was. It was easy to slip into character and you enjoyed being in on a plan. 

“One, two, three, one two spin,” Hosea instructed as you practiced moving around the grass with Kieran. He had been wandering by and was just tall enough that you could dance with him, even if his face was flushed the entire time. Karen danced about with Sean who took the opportunity to whisper dirty words in her ears and watch her blush and giggle. 

Kieran was sweet but seeing the other couple made you wish Arthur could be spinning you around instead. Of course, everyone in Rhodes would recognize him because he was deputized so tagging along would ruin the whole story Hosea had concocted. 

“Spin once more, good, and stop!” 

Holding Kieran’s hand up in the air, you faced Sean and Karen who were mirroring you. That was the first time you had nailed the whole dance and Karen grabbed your hands and twirled you around in victory. Hosea chuckled to himself as he shuffled Dutch’s records to find the best one to practice with next. 

“I’ll go attend the horses if ya’ll don’t need me.” Hosea waved Kieran off in a friendly matter, and he bowed his head at the rest of you. Sean lit a cigarette and relaxed for a moment. 

“What do you think we’ll get the most of, YN? Watches? Earrings? Pearls? I always fancied myself lookin’ real good in a set of pearls,” Karen asked you. 

Before you could answer Sean chimed in. “Ah, you’d do better in emeralds or sapphires, love. Something with a bit of color to bring out that sparkle in your eye.” 

Karen turned to him, one hand on her hip, the other feigning innocence batting a pretend fan to cool herself off. “Why, Mr. McGuire, I’d almost think you’re flirting with me! What do we do with men who flirt but don’t back it up, YN?” 

You snorted and crossed your arms over your chest. “Make him show us what he’s playing with, see if it’s any fun.” Karen laughed and bumped her shoulder into yours, eyes never leaving Sean’s face. 

“I knew I liked you, YN. See, Sean? You just gotta show me what you’re playing with.”

 Sean sauntered over to where you two stood and placed one foot on a box, elevating himself ever so slightly. “Miss Jones and here I thought you liked me! Once we were young and shared puppy love, Miss Moore. But now she berates me! Everyday, I wait for her to call me an arse or set my soul on fire, all depending on her mood. Fire, Miss Moore! She’s a tough one, our Karen Jones, and I’ll chase her until the day I die. But if you won’t have me, maybe Miss Moore will take pity upon old Sean and give this dog some love.”

Laughing again you replied, “Oh Sean, as much as I would love to leave Arthur for you, I just don’t see that happening anytime soon.” 

Two sets of eyes fell upon you as you realized what you had just confessed. Sean and Karen both had their mouths hanging open, your own trying to form words but no sound coming out. Karen finally squealed but you shushed her as embarrassment flushed your chest and face. 

“Oh god, oh my god I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Please, whatever you do, don’t tell anyone!” 

The two shared a sly look, then Karen spoke. “Why, YN, whatever are you talking about. Just a casual conversation between three friends.” 

You knew it would get out eventually, but being the source of the rumor you were trying to hide didn’t look too good. You and Arthur would have to talk that night. 

Hosea finally found an album and got it started. “Alright, break it up! Back to your starting positions. This one is new and may take some practice. It’s got some spins in it so remember to focus on only one spot. Yes, Karen, I’m looking at you.” 

That night as Arthur rode in from town you tried to be one of the first he spoke with. Zeus was getting extra attention as he and Kieran discussed what kind of care was working out best for him, which was fine and all, but it didn’t stop how fast your leg was bouncing as you watched them intently. 

“Jesus, YN, you’re gonna bounce this table into next week! Watch my beer or it’ll spill.”

“Sorry, Bill. Just nervous.” He muttered something that you didn’t hear, for Arthur had started walking your way and you jumped up to meet him. 

"Arthur! Can we talk?" His face broke into a smile at the sight of you but fell slightly from your own expression. You could feel the tension pulling your eyebrows together and was sure you looked frightful. 

Arthur took your elbow and steered you to his tent after making sure no one watched you leave. “What’s going on, darlin’? Everything okay?” 

Your heart leapt in your chest at the pet name, hoping he would understand what had happened earlier. Deciding it would be best to get it out of the way you dove in headfirst. 

“So...I know we discussed keeping this thing between us secret, and I would never want to break your trust. But, I think one or two people may have found out one way or another. Not on purpose but, I’m rambling now, ain’t I? What I’m trying to say is, it’s my fault and, ugh…” you put buried your face in your hands and avoided Arthur’s eyes until you could think of a better excuse. 

Instead of anger, you heard a laugh and felt warm hands wrap around your wrists gently. “What’re you talking about, YN?” 

“I accidentally told someone! About us!” You wailed, thinking you had failed in the one task that mattered to you. Throwing your arms up you stood, facing Arthur head on. 

Again, Arthur laughed and rubbed his own face with his hands. “I, uh, have a confession to make myself then.” He scratched the back of his neck as he usually did when nerves overtook him and laughed again. “I went out hunting with Hosea, and told him. Made him swear not to breathe a word, but still.” 

You stared, nerves starting to melt away as you realized how silly you had behaved. What had seemed like the biggest deal in the world suddenly was just a small hindrance that could be explained easily, and it seemed you weren’t the only one with something to tell. It made you smile at how similar you were to the man in front of you; overthinking and critical, taking someone’s word as a blood promise, and a secret romantic who was bursting to tell everyone about what you two shared. 

“You tell anyone but Hosea?” 

“No,” Arthur didn’t hesitate to answer. “Well, yes. Maybe Mary Beth, too. Who did you tell?” 

“Javier saw me coming out of your tent one morning. Then, Charles later when he saw us at breakfast. Oh, Sean and Karen today which is why I wanted to talk in the first place.” Thinking, there wasn’t anyone else who came to mind.

You snapped your fingers and spoke at the same time as Arthur. 

“The Marstons!” 

John and Abigail had found out twice then, but it seemed they learned first from your drunken exposure. Wondering when Arthur blabbed, you asked what had happened. 

“Well, I was getting on to John again about how he treats little Jack, and he started asking about my future and what I wanted to do about all of this,” he waved his hand gesturing at the camp. “I got annoyed and may have mentioned that I would rather be somewhere else with someone else and he asked if it was you. I never was any good at keeping secrets from John, he’s known me far too long. So that one only half counts because he guessed before I could say anything.” Arthur moved and took your hands in his once again before continuing. “YN, I mean it. You...I ain’t felt this way in a long time. Don’t mean to overwhelm you cause it’s only been a few weeks, but I don’t want to lose you. This gang is my family, and they will always have my back. But you? You have my heart.” 

You stood on your toes to kiss Arthur, your heart swelling at his words. The way he crafted speeches was an art, a masterpiece made just for you. You only hoped you could convey half of the emotion he did and somehow show him you cared that deeply, too. 

His arms wrapped around your waist as he greedily deepened the kiss with his tongue, pushing past the barrier of your lips. Your hand gripped the front of his shirt, feeling the muscle underneath and contributing to the fire building in your belly. Arthur groaned into your mouth as you pulled the top buttons of his shirt open to expose his chest, your own heaving as you drew in breath. He moved toward the bed but you stopped him with a laugh, realizing how quickly you two got carried away. 

“Woah, cowboy. I think it’s dinnertime, we should go out.”

Pulling you close again, his words sent shivers down your body, “I’m hungry for something, YN.” 

A few minutes later you joined the gang for dinner, sitting with Arthur and Sean at an otherwise empty table. You and Sean conversed about the dancing lessons earlier that day. 

“Should have seen it, Morgan! Dancing around like a regular old fiend. YN needed a better partner though, poor Kieran nearly had a heart attack any time she touched him.” 

Arthur chuckled through his bites of dinner. “I’m sure, Sean. How did you and Karen fare?”

“Ah, you know. Miss Jones is pricklier than a cactus and has the same amount of love. Nothing like, ah, you and,” Sean rhythmically raised his eyebrows as you chucked your last bite of bread at him. He ducked and laughed, leaning in close. “Is it still a secret, you two?” 

Sighing and ready to answer, Arthur spoke before you had a chance to say anything. “No. Just wanted to enjoy it before you lot went gabbing.” 

Standing on his seat Sean called out to Karen, who happened to be on the complete opposite site from of camp and across every other person you knew. “Oy! Karen! Did you hear about Arthur and YN finally getting together then?” 

Your face had never been redder. 

The news seemed to strike everyone differently; the girls beamed at you and laughed at Sean, Dutch gave Hosea a very surprised look and nearly dropped his bowl of soup. Javier and John looked bored, and the rest simply sent their happiness through a few words or a smile. Truth be told nearly everyone in camp knew before Sean exposed your secret. 

“Sean, remind me to beat you later when the women ain’t looking.” Sean ducked as Arthur playfully lunged at him and left to go find a drink. You sighed and relaxed your head on Arthur’s shoulder, content that you could finally do simple things like this around the others. He squeezed your knee under the table and you two relaxed. 

“Alright folks! We are heading out. Dutch, we need anything from town while we’re gone?”

Dutch stood the small group of you, Hosea, Karen, and Charles as you prepared to go to Rhodes as the day of the country ball had finally arrived. “No! Enjoy tonight, drink, dance, and rob to your heart's content!” Karen let out a whoop and you all climbed into the wagon, finally ready to roll out. 

All day you had been slightly nervous to leave. It was all anyone had talked about and you didn’t want to let them down. Mary Beth had pinned your hair up with beads and it sat precariously on top of your head. The old blue cloth the two of you had found way back in Valentine was cut into a stunning dress, perfectly your color. White lace trim was sewn around the cuffs on the sleeves, with a black and gold colored belt and black boots. You felt beautiful for the first time since arriving at camp. More often than not you were slightly dirty and wearing clothes that hadn’t been washed in a while, but tonight you were sparkly and clean and ready to perform. 

Karen was dashing in a full red dress with white trim. Her boots were higher than your own and she had polished them so she could see her own reflection in the shiny surface. A pink flush was on her cheeks, and you couldn’t tell if it was from the excitement of being included or the little bit of makeup Molly had unwillingly parted with. 

Charles gave you both a hand up into the carriage and stood proud in a black suit. It fitted him well, but he seemed uncomfortable to be out of his normal clothes with the weight of his guns on his hips. He smiled back at you as you stepped in and took a seat. Hosea joined you shortly, and waved out the window as the crack of the whip signalled your departure. 

For a moment you thought you saw Arthur standing in camp, but you remembered Dutch had sent him and John off to finish some tasks for the Braithwates. Or was it the Greys? You couldn't keep the two rival families straight as they both had issues far beyond what you considered normal. Not that you had much ground to stand on. 

Rolling along the dirt road made your nerves increase with each bounce or dip. Hosea leafed through some papers he had brought along and Karen hummed a tune, tapping her hand on her knee. 

“Ladies. One more time, run through your new identities with me.” 

Karen groaned but went first. “I am Gemma Glen, traveling with my father and sister on our way to Saint Denis. Our family is in the oil business, but being a woman I am not interested in such things and focus on men and beauty...things.” You laughed at her monotone delivery but Hosea gave her a glare. Shuffling his papers once more he turned to you. 

“Alright, YN. And you?”

You cleared your throat. “My name is Caroline, and I, like my sister, am not interested in the dealings at your oil mill. I like to read and write and forgo the wild parts of society. Our mother died years ago in a sad and tragic way.” 

“Saying you think my work is boring is the easiest way to avoid questions. I’ll handle that, your job is to keep folks busy while your hands are in their pockets. I have bags hiding here, and Charles can be the go between so just find a good place to hide things and he will pick them up and bring everything back. In about a week I’ll pawn it off and give you your share.” You both nodded and a light out the window caught your attention. 

“Look...Netherfield Park is let at last.” 

“Huh?” 

“It’s from a book, Karen. Jane Austen.”

“Oh right, forgot you actually like to read.” 

Hosea smiled at the reference and took in the sight. Rhodes must not have many dances for they held nothing back. The barn was a ways off the main street, the path way illuminated by  hanging lanterns all the way up. Carriages lined the road waiting to drop off their passengers, and from the looks of it there must have been almost 200 people. Large bows adorned the front of the wooden building and string music floated out across the driveway, rising and falling with the melody of conversation mixed in. Maybe you were in a Jane Austen novel, for Rhodes felt like a far away place, an illusion of a time gone by. 

As Charles pulled the carriage up two attendants approached and helped you down. They were dressed a bit more casual, and you saw the other drivers standing and talking off to the side wearing less formal attire than Charles had on. Hosea stood and offered one arm to Karen and the other to yourself as he escorted you in. Over your shoulder you waved goodbye to your friend who nodded back.

Rhodes was behind in its progressiveness and was still steeped in racism and other nasty things. You sometimes overheard Charles or Javier or Lenny discuss what things were whispered as they walked past and your stomach would drop. You understood why Charles didn’t want to come into the hall, but it felt entirely wrong. 

“Welcome to Governors Ball, sir and madams. May I take your coats? Refreshments are over to the left across from the band, and before you proceed please take a mask matching the color of your attire.” 

A table full of handmade masks of every shade laid before you. Some were designed to cover the whole face and required to be tied twice, while others ranged to flimsy black cloth with holes simply cut out. The sea of people before you all adorned the accessory and no one could be recognized. 

Karen shook off her coat and grabbed a red mask that tied back behind her head, handing you a blue and white painted one with golden strings. It was simple but the details of leaves painted on the edges made you wonder how long this took to make. Hosea chuckled under his breath. “This...could not go any better. Truly. It’s like they’re asking us to rob them, how can we miss out on an opportunity like this?” Picking up a deep emerald green mask and tying it behind his head, he motioned for you to head out onto the floor. “Let the games begin, ladies.” 

You walked out into the crowd and admired the decorations covering the interior of the old barn. Like outside, large bows were attached to the walls and lanterns hung in formations around the ceiling. 

A voice from your left startled you. “And how are you on this fine evening, miss?” A tall, dark haired man extended his hand and you smiled and accepted as you moved to the dance floor. A large space had been cleared for people to move around, and you saw Karen and Hosea take place not too far away. 

The stranger cleared his throat. “What is your name?” 

“Caroline. Pleased to meet you.” 

From under the mask you saw his eyebrows pull together for a moment before he responded. “Do you not recognize me, dear girl?” 

“Josiah!” Truth be told you never spent much time with the man, but his accent was somewhat familiar. “How would I know you wearing that mask?” 

He laughed and stepped forward as the dance began. “True. You and I never really spoke, did we? Last I saw you was at Horseshoe Overlook, but I got swept up working with Arthur again and he speaks of you often. Only good things, of that I can assure you.”

You blushed and twirled around him, matching time with the women in line with you. It was one of the pieces you had practiced with Hosea and you were thankful for his relentless lessons, even if they seemed silly at the time. 

“Is he here tonight, Caroline?” Trelawney emphasised. 

“No. He was deputized and would be too easily recognized if he came. Why are you in town?” 

As Trelawney made a square around you he replied, “Invited by a woman I met in Saint Denis, no less. She and I have an on again, off again relationship but she needed an escort coming all the way out here and I had heard rumblings that a certain gang had taken up a local residence so I decided to try my luck. Seemed to play out in my favor.” 

You held your right hand up and out as he came to a stop next to you, signalling the end of the number. Politely clapping you took his hand and moved over to where Hosea and Karen were standing, watching a man in a suit get progressively more drunk. 

“Look who I found!” 

Hosea greeted Trelawney warmly, and Karen nodded at him with a smile. He gave the same story about how he ended up here and questioned why you all had decided to ‘slum with the local dogs’ in town.

“You see these folk? Jeweled up and ready to be robbed? Soon they’ll be drunker than Reverend Swanson on a Sunday and that’s when we move in and make a pretty penny,” Karen leaned in and whispered. Nodding you glanced around the room to see who should be your first target. 

A woman wearing a bracelet made of pearls dunked her cup into the punch bowl for a third time and swayed near your position. You took a slight step back. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry, let me help you.” She had tripped over your foot and into Trelawney, who caught her drink before it spilled on him, too. Your hand moved over her wrist to lift the jewelry and carefully pocket it before anyone noticed. The woman straightened herself up, thanked you, and moved on. 

“See? Easy as pie.” You looked up innocently at Trelawney and he chuckled. 

“I see why Arthur likes you so. Charming, funny, and light fingered? Truly the perfect woman.” 

Karen put up a bit of a protest at being left out, but it was all in good fun. The night continued on as you two made your way around the room, strategically planning what to take and where to hide it for Charles. He had picked a spot by the window with a flower basket and would scowl at anyone who got close, scaring them off. 

The lanterns burned through the night, the candles slowing melting into wax puddles or reedy formations. Your feet ached as you moved through dance after dance. Most with Josiah, but you took up a few with Hosea who danced with more ease that you thought he could. The rest were reserved for unsuspecting strangers who left the floor a little lighter than they arrived, leaving you with quiet the haul towards the end of night. 

Dances in Blackwater were nothing like this. There were no decorations in the main assembly hall downtown and the light always seemed harsher, nothing like the soft glow surrounding everything the candle light touched here. The people in Rhodes were rougher, sure, but even they had cleaned up and acted their best, if a little drunk, for the one night. 

An announcement was made that only a few dances remained. You stood from your chair and moved to the floor as a hand caught your elbow. 

“Miss? May I have this dance?” 

Standing behind you was a tall, well dressed man in a black suit and a blue mask. It brought out the color of his eyes as he looked up and down the way your dress hugged your body. 

“You shouldn’t be here!” you hissed, moving closer to his chest.

“I know,” Arthur chuckled and placed a hand on your lower back, pushing you out to the floor, “but I couldn't miss a chance to dance with my girl. Dutch said you’d already left by the time I got back. Rode like hell to find this place.” 

“Well, if you get caught I am leaving you in the dust, Mr. Kilgore.”

Arthur laughed and stood at the ready, apparently knowing of what this dance was. Everything had fallen perfectly into place that evening; the stars seemed to sparkle above and light the night, your handsome man surprised you, and you got to dance which was secretly one of your favorite things to do. Nothing could steal the memories of that evening away from you. 

That dance was a slow one and you were grateful. Arthur had a look in his eye that you wanted to admire and you knew if he moved too quickly you couldn’t memorize it. It was a yearning that you hadn’t felt affect you that strongly in years, since the last time you were with Henry. As he spun you around him, Arthur’s hand was warm against the small of your back and he whispered in your ear, “I didn’t know that color looked so good on you. Should buy it more often.” 

You laughed lightly. “Why, thank you. Although Karen is the one who really shines tonight, you should have seen Hosea go after some man who was getting too handsy. Like a switch flipped, he was downright horrifying.”

Arthur swept you around again, “Darlin’, can’t you just take the compliment? You look wonderful.” A blush crept up your cheeks at his words but you smiled and thanked him. The next part of the dance took you to someone else’s partner so you couldn’t respond. 

Even though he was two people away you couldn't take your eyes off of him. The woman he was currently partnered with reacted about the same, and even though jealousy began to course through your veins you didn’t blame her. 

The music ended and you began to move back to Arthur, but the short blonde hadn’t left yet. She was drunk and trying her best to convince him he needed to go home with her, much to his horror. 

“Sir, I swear it’s broken and I need help! What is a small little thing like me going to do without a big man to fix my bed?” 

Arthur looked like a trapped animal that its prey was playing with. His eyes were wide beneath his mask as he searched the crowd for your rescue. You gave it a few more moments then walked over to save him out of pity. 

“Excuse me, miss, but I must steal him away. We’re leaving soon.”

She huffed and put her hands on her hips. “Well I don’t see a ring on your finger! What claim you got anyways?” 

Arthur grabbed your hand and politely tipped his head. “She got plenty. Have a good night, madam.” 

Stifling laughter you started to move to Hosea and Karen and Joiah but Arthur pulled your hand. “For the sake of being a deputy it’s best I’m not seen with them. I’ve had my fill of dancing, so why don’t you meet me outside and I’ll take you home?” 

“I’m hungry, does the saloon still have a kitchen open this late?” 

Arthur laughed and kissed your forehead. “I’ll head that way and see what I can find. Don’t take too long, many fools in here have been eyeing you in that dress all night.” You watched him walk out the door and sighed. 

While Trewlawny had plans at the hotel in town with his mysterious woman who was nowhere to be found, Karen and Hosea were ready to leave. “Oh good! Caroline, we’re heading out, the bags are full and I’d like to leave before someone notices missing items.” 

“Actually I’m going to meet Arthur at the saloon. Thanks for the evening, father. See you back at camp.” Hosea tipped his hat and you walked out of the barn doors, removing your mask and setting it back with the others. 

“That’s her. The girl who danced with the deputy.” 

Somewhere behind you a low voice whispered to another but the crowd was too large to tell who said it. You glanced around briefly but shrugged, hoping it was nothing more than idle gossip. No one had confronted you about pick pocketing or Arthur so you tried to shake off the strange feeling lingering around your shoulders as you neared the saloon. 

“YN! Over here.” 

Arthur’s warm greeting made you forget any off putting emotions that lingered and you smiled back, feeling your whole body glow in the warmth of everything that was purely him. He had ordered you a drink and a meal, pulling back the chair for you and resting his hand on your knee while you talked and laughed and drank the night away. Again the two of you were in your own little bubble, unaware of everyone and everything nearby, simply enjoying the stolen moment in a town that had other plans brewing.

[kamen-rider-zed]

Artiste et Muse Ch4

Okay confession time: because depression sucks and my job is eating me alive, this is the last complete chapter of this fic. I'll try to have this done by the end of the week, but I can't make any promises. Just know that I appreciate all of the amazing comments, and I've been so glad to get even a bit of my writing mojo back after so long.

AO3

Chloe groaned and forced her eyes to open against the massive migraine sitting on her skull. She reached out and felt the sheets she’d slept in the previous night; somehow, she made it back home. She closed her eyes again and focused through the pain. How did she get here? What did she remember? The wedding album, crying, lots of crying, the cafe down the street, more crying, and Nathanael holding her.

Her eyes snapped open and she flinched against what she assumed was afternoon light slicing into the room through the thin crack in the drapes. Nathanael holding her? Comforting her? Why would he do that? He hated her, right? But then...why? She sat up, pressing a hand to her temple, and noticed her heels sitting next to the bed. He must have guided her back home, into bed, and even taken her shoes off. Her heart thumped harder in her chest but she shook the feeling away. Why was he having this effect on her?

She slipped out of the bed and out into the living room where she found Nathanael with a sketchbook on one knee and the wedding album on the other.  He lifted his head when he heard her enter the room, and Chloe could have sworn there was the faintest smile on his face when he saw her.

He cleared his throat and whatever smile there had been disappeared. “You’re awake.”

A rude and snarky retort sat just behind her teeth ready to tear into him, but there it sat. Whether it was the migraine or her new and confusing feelings directed at Nathanael that held it back she couldn’t tell. Instead, she pressed her fingers into her temples and asked, “How long was I asleep?”

“A few hours. It’s just a little after one.” He pointed his pencil towards the kitchen. “There’s some pain pills on the counter if you need them. I would have made some coffee, but…”

“But you don’t know how?” She rounded the island in the kitchen and spotted the tiny red bottle. A quick search through the cabinets and she finally found a water glass.

“I know how to make coffee, but…” He turned his eyes back down to the album. “There’s nothing but whole bean in there.”

“Of course, I refuse to live under the same roof as pre-ground bullshit.” She found the beans and a grinder, paused, then turned back to Nathanael. “Get in here, Red. I may not like you, but everyone deserves to know how to make a decent cup of coffee.”

When she saw Nathanael blush at her invitation, she had to fight against the word ‘adorable’ crossing through her mind. He set the books aside and joined her in the kitchen. She taught him the proper proportions of beans to water, the proper grind settings, then set a kettle on the stove. As they waited for the water to boil, she asked, “What were you doing with the album?”

He was quiet for too long to Chloe’s liking. He finally said, “References. I thought I’d...practice drawing a wedding.”

Chloe moved across the kitchen to stand in front of him and crossed her arms. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that? You have the internet, a window into the next ten years of fashion and design. Getting to see that before literally anyone else? And you choose our...the wedding album?”

Nathanael matched her glare for a few seconds before he rolled his eyes and looked away. “Okay, I got curious too. I didn’t get that good of a look at it this morning, so I started flipping through it and...wanted to draw a few things. There, happy?”

“No. What about that book could have piqued your curiosity?”

A subtle movement dropped her gaze to his hands, where she noticed him twisting his wedding band about his finger. “I guess...it’s like I said to Marinette and the others last night; I want to know how this happened. How did we go from being bitter enemies to…” He lifted his left hand, fingers still playing with the ring.

Chloe stared at his hand for a long while. The Chloe and Nathanael of this world obviously had a strong relationship, but where had it come from? Sure, ten years was a long time, time enough for her to move on from Adrien and possibly to...but that was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. There was no way she’d choose someone else over Adrien...except she had. Or this world’s version of her had. And the Adrien of this world seemed happy with Marinette. Her thoughts flashed back to what Nathanael had said about the Akuma. Fairytale was supposed to make people live their happy endings. Did this mean that her happy ending wasn’t with Adrien?

The low whistle from the kettle broke her out of her thoughts and she finished showing Nathanael how to properly use a coffee press. Chloe found herself inexplicably smiling as he took his first sip of properly pressed coffee and melted into his mug. She raised her own mug to her lips to hide the smile, but had the slightest suspicion she hadn’t been quick enough. The damnedest thing was that she didn’t care. Maybe it was because he’d seen her at quite possibly the lowest she’d ever been in her life, but she wanted him to see her smile.

“Do you want to go through the album together?” Chloe looked to him and raised a brow. “You know, actually take a good look at the photos now that you’re…umm...” He turned away and bit his lip.

“Now that I’m not obsessed over my mother. That’s what you were going to say, right?”

“No!” Chloe stared at him. “Okay, kinda. You know what? This was a bad idea.” He squeezed his way past her and made his way back to the couch. “I should probably just-”

“Sure.”

Nathanael whipped around and gaped. “Wha?”

“Sure, let’s look at the album together. It’s not like I have anything else to do until Ladybug gets us out of here. Besides, if I do get all weepy over my mother, I have…” You, she was going to say, because he had been her sole source of comfort since waking up in this strange world. As much as she hated his guts, having him around, that sense of familiarity, was better than nothing. She bit the inside of her cheek and reminded herself exactly who he was, who he worked for, and continued, “I have to get over it eventually.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but soon shrugged and slid over on the couch to make room for her. Okay, not what she expected. She grabbed her coffee and sat down beside him, then turned her attention to the album on his knee.

An outdoor wedding. Flowers everywhere, rows upon rows of chairs set in...Chloe reached over and flipped another page, searching for an identifying landmark. Ah, there. The Jardin du Luxembourg. A nice venue. Several women in yellow sundresses. Marinette, Alya, Kagami, and...Sabrina. Chloe pulled the album into her lap and ran her fingers over Sabrina. When had they made amends? How long after Sabrina walked out on her, tired of Chloe using her superhero status to shove more and more schoolwork onto her? More tears pricked at the corners of Chloe’s eyes, but she wiped them away and turned another page.

She blushed at the picture of Nathanael, wearing black slacks, a purple button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a black kippah. Somehow the purple worked for him, and...was he wearing a bee charm bracelet? He looked...really nice, especially with his hair tied back like thaaaa-no. No, she wasn’t going to think about him like that. Focus on something else, Chloe. He wasn’t wearing a jacket or a tie, so maybe they were going for a more casual wedding? Which didn’t make sense, if one of Paris’ superheroes were getting married, it would be a huge event, right?

On the next page...ah, her dress. A black lacy bodice with a low-scooped neckline, halter straps, and pearl adornments dangling from the front. From the waist down, a pure white sheath skirt with gold embroidered hem and a pale yellow sash tied about her waist, the knot somehow tied in such a way to resemble a flower. Lace fingerless gloves in the same yellow as the sash. A simple diamond and pearl tiara with her veil flowing from the back, her hair tied up with a plain white ribbon, and a bouquet of yellow dahlias. She squinted and looked closer at her necklace. Stones of purple, blue, and green. Paon’s colors. Now that she got a better look at it, it was subdued, but still spoke to her color pallet. Light fabrics to let it breath in the heat of summer. Marinette outdid herself.

“Are you nervous, Nath?” Chloe turned to the laptop at the sound of Nino’s voice. It was a shaky video of Nathanael buttoning up the shirt she had just seen, and another blush crept up on her face.

“Nervous? No. Relieved that we’re finally here? Yeah. Relieved that all of the planning and prep is over.” He chuckled. “Not that Chlo let me do much. She insisted on doing almost everything, including pay for all of this.” He turned to face the camera. “You know, her original budget was over a hundred thousand euros? Do you know how long it took me to talk her down from that? I mean, she justified it as a ‘charitable donation’ to expand the gardens, but that was still a bit much.”

“Well, Queen Bee is the face of the international ‘Save the Bees’ movement,” Nino said from behind the camera.

Nathanael smiled again. “Yeah, she is, however accidental it may be.”  He leaned over to grab something off of a nearby table. “I didn’t even really want a wedding if I’m honest, but the moment I mentioned the word ‘elope’ to Chloe, she became a living nightmare until I relented.”

“Yeah, that sounds like you,” Chloe heard from her left. She elbowed Nathanael in the ribs, but kept her eyes on the video.

Nathanael stood back up stuffing whatever he searched for in his pocket. “But I’m glad we’re here. I’m glad she’s…” He turned his gaze to a nearby door and somehow, Chloe knew she was...no. Her alternate self was beyond that door. “If you’d told me ten, fifteen years ago that I’d eventually be married to Chloe Bourgeois, I would have laughed in your face. But I’ve never felt this way about anyone. Not Marinette, not Marc. She…” He chuckled. “She’s come so far since we were in lycee, and I’m so happy…” When he turned back to the camera and smiled, Chloe felt her heart skip a beat. “I’m so happy she’s about to be my wife.”

The screen faded to black, and when color bloomed back in, Chloe stood in the center wearing her wedding dress, her hands fidgeting and her eyes trained on a mirror in front of her.

“Chloe! Stop squirming!” came Marinette’s voice from just off frame.

Chloe looked down and mouthed ‘sorry’, then looked back into the mirror and sighed, her frayed nerves evident in her eyes.

“Don’t know what you’re so nervous about, girl,” Alya said behind the camera. “You’re Le Grand Paris’ chief event coordinator so you obviously know what you’re doing and you’ve triple checked every-damn-thing. This is probably going to be the smoothest wedding ever, granted Mayor Bourgeois doesn’t break down into tears like M. Dupain did.”

“Okay, just because my dad sobbed so loud the priest had to start over three times, that does not mean our wedding didn’t go smoothly.”

“It’s not the ceremony!” Chloe stomped, eliciting another swear from Marinette. Chloe apologized again and wrung her hands together. “I’m...kinda waiting to wake up.” Marinette’s head lifted into frame, a couple of pins hanging from the corner of her mouth and an inquisitive look in her eyes. “I treated Nath like shit for years, treated all of you like shit, and now look at us. Marinette made me a custom dress, Alya and Nino are handling our album, Sabrina agreed to be my maid of honor, and Nath…” She turned her eyes down to her left hand, her engagement ring sparkling in the light. “He proposed. After eight years of probably the rockiest relationship ever, he...chose me. Chose to spend the rest of his life bound to me. Me.

“I feel like this is a dream. I feel like the moment I say ‘I do’, I’ll wake up, I’ll be a teenager again, and Paon and I will be back to kicking each other’s teeth in.” She turned down to Marinette. “Did you ever go through this whole ‘too good to be true’ thing with Adrien?”

The camera lowered to Marinette, who huffed and flashed a wry grin before returning to her work on Chloe’s dress. “When he agreed to date me after two years of stalkery pining, kind of. After I found out he was Chat Noir, definitely. I thought there was no way the guy I loved and the cat who loved me were the same person. Even on our wedding day, I expected it to be some kind of Akuma spell, but here I am, six years deep into marriage with a pair of five-year-olds, and I couldn’t be happier.”

She smiled up at Chloe. “I assure you, this isn’t a dream. You deserve to be happy. After everything you’ve gone through, you deserve this.”

“Especially after all the bullshit you went through with The-Bitch-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

“Alya!” Marinette scolded, but the smile on her face betrayed her true feelings.

“What?” The camera shook in time with Alya’s laughter. “Chlo put the kibosh on mentioning her name, so how else are you supposed to know who I’m talking about?”

“You’re right.” Marinette and the camera refocused on Chloe. “You’re both right. I deserve this. I’ve changed so much since I was a stupid kid, and Nathanael sees that. He believes I deserve to be happy, and you know what?” She turned back to the camera and the smile on her face was bigger and brighter than Nathanael had ever seen. “I believe it too.”

That particular video file ended and Nathanael turned back to Chloe, who had her eyes down on the album in her lap. She seemed focused on a picture of her dress, which was strange since she described it as ‘lackluster’ earlier. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Chloe ran her fingers over the picture, and when she spoke, she spoke with an odd mix of wonder and sorrow in her voice. “I...she was right. It feels like a dream. This is me. I know this is me but it still feels like I’m looking at someone else’s life.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and all Nathanael could make out was, “I’ve never seen…”

“Never seen what?”

She shook her head and blinked at him, his voice jarring her from her stupor. “N-nothing.” She looked down at the album, stood, and held it out to him. “I’m done for today. You can look through it if you like.” When Nathanael accepted it, she collected their empty coffee mugs and strode into the kitchen, seeming all too eager to put distance between herself and him. Or maybe the album.

Nathanael looked down at the photo Chloe had been looking at. The Chloe in the photo wore the same smile she had in the video. Judging from the background, Nathanael guessed this photo was taken moments after that segment of the video ended, when Marinette had finished her last adjustments on the dress. That smile...he’d never seen Chloe smile that big or that bright. He’d never seen…

He paused and looked back up at Chloe, slowly realizing what she’d whispered.

“I’ve never seen myself that happy before.”

[jungdrizzydraco]

Short-Story Slam 2019 Day 13 (Tonight, We Dance!)

WARNING: DEATH, GORE, AND WITCH-STUFF ENSUE

Clarisse looked over herself in the mirror for the sixth time, trying to drown out the loud music and shrieks and howls of laughter from the other girls outside her cherrywood door. The other girls in the dormitories always got rowdy on a full-moon, and Clarisse looked down on them for it; what kind of basic-witch over the age of 16 can’t control themselves during a full moon? Clarisse splayed her hands over her lavender dress, a simple slip, and admired the ritual prayer beads that hung around her neck. The old beads looked more like fossils, perhaps the first pearls man has ever discovered, but the energy they could hold and manipulate was nothing to fart at. Before she could finish insuring her presentability, a hard knock pelted her room door. Her green eyes flickered angrily at the sound, and with a flick of her neck & head the door flung open violently. A dark-skinned girl with finger waves and matching ritual beads, stood in the doorway, unimpressed with Clarisse’s rather apparent anger.

“Claire-bear, hurry your sweet ginger ass up! The dance is starting, and your Virgo ass is in here, looking over yourself for-”

“The sixth time, no thanks to any of you merciless bitches out there.” Clarisse said, stomping her feet into an unassuming pair of combat boots.

“It’s what I’ve always wanted: To be a merciless power-bitch.” Donna replied grinning proudly.

“Besides, it’s not our fault your OCD ass needs to look over yourself six times: one for every limb, and an extra two for your head and forehead.”

“My forehead is attached to the rest of my cranium, smart-ass.” Clarisse said, near-instantly regretting her comment.

“Yeah, but your forehead is so big, I’m sure it runs on it’s own time so-” a snickering Donna was interrupted by a hastily thrown hairbrush, which froze in mid-air right before hitting Donna in her expensive nose. A wrinkle of annoyance crossed her face.

“Bring your pasty ass, we’re not gonna wait for you all night!” Donna huffed from the doorway threshold.

“What? Literally no one is ready, everyone is out there yelling like fucking illiterate sociopaths-”

“Girl, no one is in the dorms at the moment.” Donna said rolling her eyes.

“Now how is that possible, there’s music playing as we speak?” Clarisse said, marching out to the hallway. Then, silence…you could hear a pin drop.

“Who. The fuck. Hexed my fucking room?” Clarisse growled to herself.

Yeah, everyone left a half an hour ago. Maybe if you bothered to actually be nice to folks, instead of looking down that pointy-nose of yours-”

“Careful Donna, years of pent-up frustration is very quickly coming to a head, and I can’t guarantee I won’t set you on fire if you say another wrong thing to me.” Clarisse said, storming back into her noisey room. She bit down on her thumb hard, causing a cut that could bleed, and smeared the blood on the faux-marbled floor. She muttered a command in a language lost to normal civilian ears, and the room was swiftly enveloped in a vacuum of silence.

“Good for you. But I know you’d better drop that shit attitude of yours, a bitch doesn’t wanna get eaten by some 3-headed dog demon that pops up because you can’t take a joke. Now bring that ass, let’s go hunting.” Donna said, before twisting away and making her way down the corridor.

The duo traversed the nearby woodlands expertly, they’ve been through these woods a thousand times before they had even kissed their first boy, it was a witch's responsibility to connect more with nature than people (especially men). They came upon the rest of the coven, young ladies shimmering in the bright flame of a bonfire, dancing around in a frenzied circle. With a closer look, one could see that there were three people tied up, sitting on the ground (and quite possibly shitting themselves).

“Goddammit! They already caught the sacrifices, fucking with you!” Donna said, scoffing at her demi-friend’s tardiness.

“So you like getting all sweaty and shit? It’s better for us anyway, and your edges won’t have to suffer, we all know they need as much support as they can get.” Clarisse snickered under her breath.

“Watch it, Clair, I might charm yours to strangle you in your sleep.” Donna said, dusting off her distressed skinny jeans. The girls joined their coven mates in the circle, and began the ceremonial dance; a series of frenzied yet purposeful movements, meant to maximize energy output and reception. It may look like ecstatic flailing to some, but it was a science to the girls, and it took years to master and perform properly. One of the dance’s most important components was a clear mind, which Clarisse definitely did not have, she was still upset with whomever messed with her room. Clarisse never suffered fools well, especially when she was made the fool. Her curly mane practically twisted with vengeful thoughts, but she soon found out they weren’t her own: an ominous feeling bunched her stomach up into knots of squirming millipedes, and her eyes seared with heat and bold blotches of colors, some of which could never be found in any light source of this world. Something blunt and hard smacked Clarisse in the mouth, and the warmth and iron of fresh blood soon filled her bottom lip. She looked up to see who had the big idea of punching her mid-dance, only to find that the circle had come to a complete halt. The expressions on all of the girls had faded, now left only with dead fish-eyes staring into the abyss of what used to be the base of a sizable bonfire. Clarisse found herself fixated on the pit as well. She wondered if the pit beguiled Donna as well. And she could swear she saw something staring back. The boys were traumatized, both by all the events of the evening that led to this moment as well as the current moment in question. One took this as an opportunity to try and make a break for it: he squirmed desperately against his bindings, and eventually freed himself of one hand. Of course the bindings weren’t too tight, the witches liked to give occasional chase to the really brave and smart boys, and untying themselves was a good indicator of that. The blue-eyed boy frantically began pulling at the ropes at his ankles, the other boys mumbling loudly for help, but there muffled pleas fell on deaf ears. Clarisse felt her stomach un-knot, and her vision returned to normal, simultaneously, a long tree branch erupted from the base of the pit and ran straight through the would-be escapee. Clarisse lurched backwards in shock which gave way to disgust and pure horror as she took notice of the “branch”: it was no branch at all actually, but instead a long, malevolent forearm, aged raw by wickedness and hatred. The boys panicked again, one fainted the other soiled himself. A very tall and slender figure slowly arose from the pit, the bile of the underworld tumbling off of it like soil off a groundhog, and the figure stood nearly nine-feet tall. The smell of rotting flesh and sorrow and mold filled the air, the boys sat at the beings feet, frozen or unconscious from fear.

“You summoned me, sistren?” The tall figure spoke in Clarisse's mind. The intrusive voice scratched like nails from a black cat onto a chalkboard, but there was a familiarity to it. It was like a much louder version of thoughts she’d had only a few minutes ago.

“W-what?” She whispered meekly.

“Your thoughts called unto me…ever so loudly…even the fog of Death could not block you-”

“I didn’t…I never…I don’t even know what you are…” Clarisse said, tears streaming down her face.

“Hekate’s dance…is not to be taken with a child’s grasp…of knowledge…you danced with forces far greater than your own. Beloved…I am your vengeance. I am Madame Nemesis…and you were a fool to bring…a darkened mind into…Lady Hekate’s purity circle…now your coven will pay your burden with you.” Nemesis said, raising her absurdly long arms into the air, and like a satanic choir conductor, all the witches screamed at the highest pitch they could muster…and that’s when the heads began to explode. First the two boys, then every witch in a counter clockwise formation, skipping Clarisse including Donna. Then, in the reverse order, every cadaver caught fire, lightning up like tiki torches. The scene horrified Clarisse, who couldn’t even move her mouth to scream or her tear ducts to produce anymore tears, let alone run away. The tall, wicked woman that stood before her, took something of a kneel and outstretched her hand towards Clarisse.

“Take responsibility…beloved…it is you who brought this upon your coven…come quietly…suffer no more.” Nemesis whispered in the darkest corners of her mind. Clarisse only found the strength to sob again, before the knots came back and the heat blotches skewed her vision. A yell of great pain and agony jumped out of her throat, as she joined her sisters in death.

[thelionshoarde]

For the prompt-a-thon I have a cheesy idea: What about Obi proposing to Shirayuki at the christmas tree? *-*

Uh. I would just like to say that I am not really a marriage person, but I did my best. Have a little angst with your cheese, tho?

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS PROMPT-A-THON, DAY 2

read here on ao3 if you prefer :3

“Hey,” said Shirayuki, tugging Obi to a stop on the busy sidewalk. Someone snarled something rude under their breath, bumping into Obi’s shoulder, and Obi tilted his head back, reminding himself to let it go. That a snide remark or left hook or clever pick pocketing rebuttal was not worth it, not anymore.

Instead, he ushered Shirayuki to the side, next to the storefront that had caught her eye. A bakery, full of many-tiered wedding cakes, exploding with iced roses and edible pearls. Obi eyed it, askance. For her part, Shirayuki merely raised a mittened hand up to rest against the window, the pom poms that dangled down catching on the intermittent breeze.

“You have zero situational awareness,” Obi chastised, resting his chin on the top of her head. The wool of her knit cap itched, but Obi ignored it. “Hey what?”

“Do you…”

“Honey,” Obi drawled, “if you want a cake we’ve got some sort of fudge monstrosity at home. I can bake it in a flash. No reason to go speechless with hunger. Though if you want iced flowers you’ll have to give me a day to practice, you know. I’m good, but I’m not a baking god.”

That got a laugh out of her. “You’re terrible at baking, don’t even. And – that’s not… Well. Hm.”

Standing there, laden down with bags of early Christmas shopping, the city a whirlwind of traffic, and chatter, bodies in bulging coats pressing all around, the sky as gray as the pavement – snow began to fall.

Obi jerked his head up, delighted, to watch it. Gentle, minuscule white flakes of biting cold to dust the rust red of Shirayuki’s hair where it spilled out from beneath her cap.

Then Shirayuki asked, “Have you ever thought about getting married?”

* * *

He needed – eggs. Right, eggs. And vegetable oil, probably. Sugar? Milk? Hot water?

Obi held the measuring cup in both hands, fingers slipping against the thick glass, and stared at the closed door of the refrigerator. Behind him, Shirayuki said gently, “The recipe is on the back of the box, Obi.”

“I know that,” he said. “I – yeah. I know. I was just thinking – pecans? Or walnuts? Which would you prefer? Maybe both? None? Coconut? I think we still have caramel drizzle somewhere. How about some caramel?”

She sighed. “Obi.”

“It’s just a question, Shirayuki,” Obi snapped, before he could stop himself.

In his chest his heart pounded, rabbit-fast. It still made his skin crawl, sometimes, fighting with her – but it was okay. They were past the point where he thought a fight meant the end. Were instead at a place where Obi could just get petty, and not feel like the world was closing in on him. Usually.

Obi set the measuring cup down onto the counter with a clatter, reaching for the pantry door, and the box of cake mix inside. “Just – let me make the cake,” he said into the cluttered shelves. “Please? Give me a bit, all right?”

He heard the shuffle of her stockinged feet on the floor. The hesitation at his back, barely enough space to keep from touching. He fought down a flinch, holding perfectly still, waiting, relieved when she didn’t touch. When she read the tensed lines of his body, maybe, or heard in his voice the things he was carefully holding in, and knew better than to push.

“Okay,” she agreed, and was gone.

When Obi heard the door to their bedroom shut, he let himself fall, hunched down between his knees, hands over the back of his head. It was just a question. Had he thought about getting married – had he thought about it – marriage – with Shirayuki –

He –

He hadn’t.

He hadn’t, but apparently she had. Shirayuki had thought about marriage, and him, at least enough to ask him about it. Which meant… What? That she wanted a proposal? That she wanted to tie the knot? Make it official? Happily ever after, and all that? Like he was – like he could –

Groaning, Obi squeezed his fingers into the tense muscles at the side of his neck, jaw working. His stomach felt like lead, like cement snakes weighing him down. The shopping bags were still on the floor by the entrance way, where they’d dropped them without care. Outside, snow fell, a languid flurry of silent white to blanket all the ugly things beneath.

It would have been nice to go outside, let each snowflake kiss his skin, his scars, numb him from the outside in. Hide him, at least for a time.

Instead he stood, grabbed the box of cake mix, and got back to baking.

* * *

When he opened the door it was two hours later, he’d burned the base of his thumb, and there was egg yolk on the ceiling.

Shirayuki was curled up in their bed beneath the throw Ryuu had knitted them last winter with Hana, their tortoiseshell monster, sprawled across her shins and purring like a finely tuned motor. Obi leaned against the door frame for a moment, hesitant to intrude. They looked peaceful, calm – a safe haven as pure and cleansing as the snow outside.

Shirayuki’s eyes flickered up to him from her book, and she crooked a timid smile his way. Obi saw the way her body language shifted open in welcome for him, reeling him in, instant and gratifying. Somehow, it dislodged his heart from his throat, allowed his feet to move again.

“Hey, there. Nothing exploded, so… one of your better ventures, I’d say.”

“You would think,” Obi agreed, grin just as crooked but far more sheepish. “And yet, I present to you – burnt, soggy fudge stuff. Your fork, milady.”

“Oh, my,” Shirayuki said, voice faint and face a curious puzzle of dismay and fondness. She took the plate and fork, setting her book aside. Hana opened one amber eye and twitched her tail before subsiding. Shirayuki prodded the cake, which oozed. “It looks…”

“Horrifying? Like an occult nightmare? Possibly Lovecraftian?”

“…delicious.”

Obi laughed, a sharp, wild thing. Shirayuki looked up at him from beneath her fringe, pleased, and Obi sat on the edge of the bed, taking the fork from her hand before she could quite dare be brave enough to try a bite. “Your stomach would murder you, and then me. Trust me – it tastes terrible.”

“You’ll get it right one of these days.” Setting the plate aside on her bedside table, she insisted, “You’re too good a cook to be this bad a baker, Obi. I have faith!”

“Mm,” Obi hummed, tilting the fork back and forth across his knuckles, watching the light shine along the tines, marred here and there with a touch of fudge. “You do. And –”

Shrirayuki’s fingers – tough with calluses, nails clipped short and painted a glittering purple, familiar and strong and kind – just brushed Obi’s wrist. A barely there graze of assurance. “You don’t have to answer,” she murmured. “You never have to answer, Obi. So long as I’m with you, I’m happy. You – us? We don’t have to –”

When the words tripped over his tongue Obi thought they would taste like acid, or scrape the inside of his mouth like metal – but in the end they were just words, and it was almost easy. “I never considered myself the marrying type, so I never really thought about it, no.”

This time, Shirayuki’s fingers hooked over and around, a gentle pressure rubbing against the vulnerable skin on the underside of his wrist. Her thumb curled around to form a circle, holding him. “What do you mean?”

He raised his free hand in the air, then dropped it, shrugging.

“You know me,” he joked, even knowing that she would be able to tell that he wasn’t. That she could read between the lines by now, after all these years, and would hear the truth even where Obi couldn’t help but try and hide it. “Bad boy through and through. Juvenile delinquent, felon. Scruffy and handsome, sure, but – not the type to stick around, or be – be kept, I guess.”

Did that make sense? He wasn’t so certain. But Shirayuki kept silent, waiting, so Obi kept going.

“It wasn’t a big deal. I mean, I never thought about marriage when I was younger because I never would have wanted it. Being tied down? Ha! And later… Well, I knew no one in their right mind would want to marry me,” he laughed, and tried to ignore the hollow echo in it, the way Shirayuki’s thumb dug in just slightly, in protest or kindness or empathy, Obi didn’ t know.

But it reminded him where the border of his skin was, and how he fit inside of it. His breathing steadied, and he explained, “I don’t think I ever bothered thinking about it again, to be honest. There never seemed to be any point.”

Eventually, when Obi was silent long enough that the words had settled, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders, Shirayuki tugged gently at his wrist.

Obi went to her, laying out on the edge of the bed atop the blanket, fork dropped carelessly to the floor, Hana a purring cocoon wiggling in between them. He kissed Shirayuki’s cheek, her eyebrow – she caught his lips, and held them, before pulling back. Hey eyes were green, clear and bright, and without expectation.

“Thank you for telling me,” she whispered.

Obi quirked his mouth, not quite a smile, but almost. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Sure.”

* * *

Three weeks later in Zen’s office Obi was pacing. “I can’t get it out of my head,” he admitted. “I mean – marriage? Me?”

“You,” Zen agreed, flipping through his planner, sounding distracted. “More surprising things have happened. Why shouldn’t you get married? Izana did. And I never thought I’d see the day.”

“This is true,” Obi realized. “Izana got married. Anything can happen. I should – Should I –?”

“Aha,” Zen cried, looking up finally and grinning as he caught Obi’s gaze. “Tomorrow at 4pm I’m free for an hour and forty-five minutes. Meet me out front, got it? Don’t be late!”

Obi blinked, pacing halted. But he still felt the nerves in his veins, bubbling like champagne, and his heart was a restless wandering thing, something that ceased to stay still now that it had a glimpse of a new horizon. “For what?” he asked, exasperated.

“Ring shopping,” Zen said.

“…What drugs are you on and why aren’t you sharing?”

Sighing, Zen leaned back in his stupidly plush leather chair, looking smart and mature and infuriating behind his desk. “Obi, I hate to break this to you, but – you haven’t stopped talking about this for weeks. So tell me, is it that you can’t stop thinking about it because it freaks you out? Or does it freak you out because you can’t stop thinking about how much you want to marry Shirayuki?”

Obi squinted, tilting his head. “Stop it,” he complained, hand clamping down on his shoulder and squeezing. “You resemble your brother far too much in this moment. This is unacceptable. I will not allow it! Where is the drunken asshole I once carried home on my back at three in the morning? Where is the idiot who took me to the hospital that time I –”

“We promised never to speak of that,” Zen interrupted, turning faintly green. “Also: don’t avoid the question, Obi. You deserve to be happy. And someone should make an honest man out of you. May as well be Shirayuki, since you’re stuck with her regardless. She’s not letting you go, in case you were under any delusion otherwise.”

“Ugh,” Obi said, a giddy warmth suffusing him in a way that was positively embarrassing. “You brute. Four tomorrow, then. I hope you’ll have your smelling salts on hand, because I’m going to swoon. It’s going to happen.”

* * *

Obi didn’t swoon, but he did have a mild panic attack when he found the perfect ring and realized, without any lingering shred of doubt: he wanted to be Shirayuki’s husband so badly it hurt.  

* * *

Christmas Eve was utterly cliche, but Obi was – something. Something impossible, and reckless, and overflowing. He was all sharp angles and weak knees and a heart that wouldn’t quit, beating and jumping and breaking at every sleepy smile, too-loud laugh, or casual touch that Shirayuki gifted him with.

He was going to ask her to marry him.

He was almost certain she would say yes.

It was funny, he thought. Trust wasn’t something he had ever come to naturally. It was a prickling, ferocious opponent, something that had hurt him more often than not. He had never expected to ask someone to marry him. Had never anticipated wanting to. Yet here he was, dressed up in a cable knit sweater, his nicest pair of jeans, and his fuzziest socks. Ring in his pocket, plan reformulating every half-second in his fevered brain.

Because he –

He trusted Shirayuki.

And he trusted their relationship. Had more faith than he’d ever known his entire life in this thing that they had built together, through every awkward misunderstanding, every halting, inching step forward, every bump in their path that they surmounted because it was worth it.

Whatever her answer, Obi knew he wasn’t going to – to ruin anything.

Everything was going to be all right.

Wiping his sweating palms on his thighs, he just wished that meant he was less nervous. “You ready for spiked eggnog and A Muppet’s Christmas Carol,” she called from the kitchen, sounding distracted.

“Yep,” he called back, trying not to shiver with nerves.

For some reason he couldn’t look at her, as if seeing her in front of him would chase all his courage away, or knock him stupid. So he stayed standing in front of their Christmas tree, the bright multi-colored lights and goofy ornaments Obi could never resist buying, the shiny packages beneath. He rubbed his fingers against the ring in his pocket, and listened as Shirayuki set their glasses down on the coffee table.

Nothing fancy, he thought, trying to get his heart to calm down. Nothing impressive. Just honesty. Shirayuki would understand what this meant, what he was saying; and besides, he didn’t know if he could get through anything more than the most basic of questions – will you marry me? – without puking.

“Obi.” He heard her take a deep breath, like she was bracing for something, and a muffled thud. Her voice came again, insistent. “Obi, I have something to ask you.”

Right, Obi had to stop staring at the tree. He had something to ask her as well, after all. It was time. He could do this.

When he turned around, there was Shirayuki – knelt on the floor by one knee, a little red velvet box being turned nervously in her hands. And – oh. Oh, that was – that had to be –

A ring box, like the one in his pocket.

For just a second the whole world swam, vision dipping with the excited thrum of his pulse. Obi felt like he’d been kicked in the solar plexus, all the air rushing out of him at once and sending him reeling. She couldn’t – Was she actually –

“What are you–”

“Obi,” she started, and it was the tone she got when she was choked with nerves, but determined, and yet softer somehow, soft like the way she whispered to him at night in bed, when a nightmare woke him. “Obi, I–”

This was happening. Obi was being proposed to.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

Maybe Obi should kneel, too, or pull her up from the floor? Do – something other than stand there like an idiot. The ring box was burning a hole in the pocket of his pants, and this was too much, too much. But somehow he couldn’t quite do anything at all, save stare, heart in his throat, waiting.

He hadn’t known how much he could want, how it could take him over and make him fragile, and how he would still feel perfectly safe, regardless.

Shirayuki took a deep breath, and met his eyes, steady and fierce, a little wet with the force of her emotions. Distantly, Obi realized his hands were trembling.

She said, “You can say no, Obi. We don’t need this. But I – I want you to know how much I love you. I wanted to show you with more than just – just words. That I have no intention of ever leaving you. That I absolutely think you’re the marrying type.” Pausing, she laughed a little, cheeks turning rosy. “I love you more than I ever knew was possible, you know? I just… I never really understood it, before. The idea of a single person changing the way you – you see things, how you think, you live. But now I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you. I don’t want to. I want – you, Obi. Only you. I want –”

She flicked the box open, revealing a gold band, beautiful and shining in the low light.

“Obi, will you marry me?”

He didn’t mean to, but he started laughing. A snorting, helpless kind of snigger that had him clamping a hand over his mouth, eyes wide. Shirayuki’s nervous, hopeful expression shifted into raw panic, and Obi went down onto his knees in front of her, graceless and eager, hands clutching at her forearms and forehead pressed to hers.

“Yes,” he gasped.

She whined, “Then why are you laughing.”

“It’s just,” Obi tried to calm the bubble of euphoria in his chest, and explained, helpless, “traditionally, aren’t I the one who’s supposed to propose? You even – on one knee, Shirayuki!”

“Well,” she said, grinning shyly. “Like I’m going to let something like that get in my way. I just… I wanted you to know that I choose you. Forever and always.”

“So you decided to put a ring on it?” Obi asked, laughing, and was glad this was private, glad this was just the two of them in the home they’d made together, because his voice was thick with emotion, eyes smarting with unshed tears, and his grin was so wide it almost hurt.

“I decided,” Shirayuki sniped, “on a symbol of my commitment to you, a – a promise. And a request, that you – that you will allow me the honor of marrying you, Obi. And – well, yes, basically. I decided to put a ring on it. Speaking of…” Shirayuki fumbled the ring from the box, holding it up towards him. Her eyes were wet, too, and shining, and beautiful. “May I?”

“You better,” Obi managed to squeeze out, throat tight. Both their hands were trembling a little, but Shirayuki managed to slide the ring onto Obi’s left hand, the band a snug, perfect fit. Tiny, tasteful diamonds flashed in the light, and Obi admired the way it looked, a physical claim, a declaration of intent.

Then Shirayuki took his hand in hers, and kissed the ring on his finger, a sweet, tender thing, and that was better, that was –

“I love you,” she whispered.

Obi had always, secretly, tried not to drown. Tried not to go so deep that he couldn’t survive it; but he’d fallen faster and deeper than he’d ever expected, a whole world opening up in front of him. One where he was wanted, and desired, and where Shirayuki had no intention of ever, ever letting him go, and wanted everyone to know it at a single glance. Wanted Obi to know it, that she trusted him as much as he did her, that they were in this together for the long haul.

He said, “I love you, too. In fact, I – I have something for you, as well.”

[cutiecrates]

Cutie Reviews: NMNL June 19

“This June we’ve curated a box filled with Japanese and Korean beauty and makeup products that will come in handy for your morning beauty routine. Wash your face, style your hair and apply your makeup: Get ready for your day with nomakenolife!“

Prize

For this months contest, the featured brand is Peripera (which I can’t even type without being reminded of PriPara). 2 grand prize winners could receive a Peripara Ink Writing Eyeshadow Peach Palette. 5 runner-ups received the Peri’s Ink Velvet no. 12 peach Lip Tint.

Meanwhile, for the

Glam Gift

subscribers were automatically enrolled to win a set of various cosmetics from the brands Makanai and Vecua.

Horoscope

This month, the Horoscope suggests Treating Yourself by getting the following:

Aries - a new hairstyle

Taurus - pizza

Gemini - a car

Cancer - a new lipstick

Leo - a spa day

Virgo - a new dress

Libra - chocolate (I love chocolate, and as a Libra I approve~)

Scorpio - a new perfume

Sagittarius - a new pair of heels

Capricorn - a sheet mask

Aquarius - a new bag

Pisces - a new phone.

(I like the concept behind this, but don’t some of these seem a little unbalanced?) 

Okay, so without further-ado, let’s get started with the review ;3

Juicy Bottle Mask

These face masks by Sizena are catered for a quick morning job. Each one only takes 10 minutes and they come in several scented varieties, each with its own properties; for example, mine is Lemon, and as you can see it says it focuses on Firming and Refining the skin.

If you’re curious like I was, here are the other varieties I could find on the Japan Haul website:

Green Tea - Firming + Health

Pearl - Moisturizing + Convergence

Shea Butter - Firming + Mild

Aloe - Soothing + Nutrition

Tea Tree - Transparent + Health

Hyaluronic Acid - Firming + Mild

Manuka Honey - Nutrition + Refining

Rice - Moisturizing + Health

Pomegranate - Moisturizing + Mild

The packaging says the mask is an airbag type? Which I guess means its a large size? I’m not really sure, but it smells really good :3 like lemon dish soap.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As nice as it is to relax when using face masks, I kind of prefer the ones that don’t take as much time because I’m forced to sit back or lay down to keep the mask on. I can’t really do anything when I use them (unless I use one of those covers I got from a past box to keep it on), so a ten minute mask is pretty decent. I didn’t use this during the morning, but I did use it after a particularly painful experience (see further in the post) and I felt so much better afterwards. It was a great distraction and my face feels cooled and refreshed.

If you’re interested in checking these out, here’s a link to the Japan Haul website. You can also use the search box on the page if you’re interested in any other item.

My Beauty Tool Eti Hair Band & Oshima Tsubaki Hair Cream

Our next item is this hair band by Etude House, themed after an adorable white pair of cat ears. It’s very soft and has a stretchy band on the back to help it fit most heads. These are ideal for those days when using facial products or applying makeup, but if you can tolerate the feel, I think it’d also be a cute sleep mask.

Rating: ♥ ♥

It’s very well made and I like how it feels, the problem is that it’s a little too tight for my head. I know masks are supposed to be firm-tight, but not squeeze your head like rubber-bands on a watermelon or pumpkin tight. It’s uncomfortable to wear, and while I can get it on to use, I find myself sliding it further up to lessen the pressure.

It does however, make a cute bracelet. But in terms of head wear, I don’t think this would be the first thing I reach for...

-----------

Made from Japanese camellia oil to moisturize the hair, our next product will add a healthy-looking shine and smoothness. This can be used on damp or dry hair and it has a typical hair product scent, it’s not overbearing or flowery in my opinion.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

It definitely delivers as promised, I’ve used it a few times, testing it on someone’s full head of hair, and then a portion of mine prior to writing this for comparison. I can see a difference right away, it’s very shiny, smooth and condensed, giving it the appearance of just being washed. It dries and returns to normal fluffiness over time, but I’d suggest using it after a bath if you’re in a hurry and don’t want to leave with a wet head look.

Oh M’Eye Line Liquid Eyeliner

I don’t know if these boxes are trying to help me, or if they’re making fun of me by giving us so any eyeliners; but as I’ve said before I’m always up for trying. It comes in a cute, sleek bottle that reminds me of a skinny nail polish, or maybe a vase and has the name written in light pink cursive.

Rating: ♥ ♥ 

The smaller the tip is, the higher my hopes are, and sadly this one didn’t really do much for me. It has a lot of product, even after I wiped it off a little, and it just came out the same as usual, a huge sloppy, spotty, mess; as this rate I don’t think I could even use a needle-sized tip.

But I will say that it seems to dry quickly, and it was very stubborn to come off. I used two of my cleansing wipes I got a few boxes back, my makeup removal stick (both of which usually works wonders), and a tissue; and I still have a small amount of it there. It flakes off with a bit of scratching but who wants to do that? I lost a few eyelashes in the process too so there’s that.

I think for now I’m going to be sticking to eyeshadow eyeliner <_<

Lip Moist Oil

Besides the face mask, this was the item I was excited for :3 I love lip products and it looked really promising. This is available in cool lime and mellow orange and comes from the brand Crayon Touch-Me, a brand that we’ve been seeing a lot of lately haven’t we?

Like most products, it can be used as a standalone or on top of another lip product.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

I was right, this is great! I smells like yummy lime jello/gelatin, but the scent only lingers on your lips for a few minutes. It does a good job moisturizing and gives you a very noticeable shine that lasts for a while. As an oil it does stay wet, but it isn’t sticky and goopy at all.

Angel Heart Cheek, Eye & Lip Cream & Choonee Water Lip Tint Balm

Our next two items are also lip products, again I see no problem in that cause I love lip products x3 especially cutesy ones like these.

First up we have a cute, lip-shaped lip, cheek, and eye product that was available in several pink and red shades, the one I got is Coral Apricot (if I translated that right). The product is made from minerals to ensure the skin its applied on stays smooth and moisturized. I feel like i pick up a tiny scent from it, but I’m not sure what it is.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

The color is a bit too-coral for my skin tone, but I think it’s quite pretty. It’s a little more vibrant on my face than on my hand, but it blends out to a more natural shade on the cheeks. It’s light and feels very nice.

-----

Next up is the cute Choonee Water Lip Tint Balm, which was also available in several shades and includes ingredients like shea butter, jojoba seed oil, sweet almond oil, and grape seed oil. In the booklet, I only see raspberry and grapefruit, and I got raspberry. Like our previous 2 lip products, this one also moisturizes.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

It goes on very easily, the color is a pretty raspberryish magenta and it feels really nice on my lips. Even after wiping it off, my lips feel pretty good.

Lucky Trendy Hair Curler Set

This item is the reason why it took me a few days longer than I would have liked to write this. I couldn’t find my blow dryer (its somewhere in our mess of a hall closet) and I was trying to wait, but I gave up.

This is a set of hair curlers, and it was available in 2 sets... I’m not sure what the difference was, other than it seemed like the smaller size set came with more?

Anyway, this seem really easy to use. All you do is pop open a curler, then wrap a segment of hair, then you roll it up and shut it. You’re supposed to use a hair dryer/blower on them for a few minutes (supposedly 5) then when you take it out they should provide you with gorgeous wavy curls.

Rating: ♥

That didn’t happen!

I got the idea “hey, because I can’t ind my hair blower why don’t I just try to put them in for an hour or so, then take them out?“ BIG MISTAKE. I did that and you know, a first I thought “wow I’m impressed, this is a lot of fun! They don’t  feel heavy or anything, the hairstyle is even kind of cute!“

So then, about an hour and a half later, I go to remove them... it HURT extremely bad and probably took me ten minutes per-curler to remove and each one hurt. I only put in 2 and by the time I was done I had a hairball next to me and several BIG knots, and I brushed my hair before putting them in so you can’t say its my fault.

I had a lot of high hopes for these and I don’t know if they would have come out better if I blow dryed them like instructed or if it would have happened regardless. I don’t know if I want to try these again.

I will say that while I did notice a slight curl where I used them, it wasn’t worth it because my hair is already a little curly and I could get the same effect just braiding my hair before bed with better results.

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Content - 4 out of 5. I loved all of the items, except for the eyeliner, hair curlers, and the head piece. The eyeliner and head piece would fit for some people, I admit, but those hair curlers are pure torture devices!

Theme: 5 out of 5. Yeah, I could see how people would use these items more towards the morning. I kind of feel like that wouldn’t be a practical summer theme though cause don’t most people like the idea of relaxing during summer? But if you had plans or work or something, it’s fine.

Total Rank: 8 out of 10. I liked the theme and thought they did great nailing it, and I really liked the items I could get to work, I’d say it was worth it.

♥ Cutie Scale ♥

1. Lip Oil - It’s not as decorative as the other items, but I’m in love with its scent~

2. Juicy Bottle Mask - I like the unique bottle shaped package and it smells wonderful, I’d recommend this :3

3. Choonee  Lip Tint Balm - It’s very pretty, even though it’s bright, I didn’t think it looked bad. I also like the packaging again.

4. Cheek, Lip, Eye Cream - I love the lip-shaped container, it’s so cute in a silly kind of way. The color is lovely and feels nice on the skin.

5. Hair Cream - I like how it makes my hair feels, but as I said above it takes a while before your hair returns to normal. It might just be because I used a little too much...

6. Hair Band - very cute and soft, but too tight <_<

7. Eyeliner -  It’s very neat looking but I won’t use this again, it just didn’t work for me.

8. Hair Curlers - It should be obvious right...?

[diddlesanddoodles]

DUMPLING (GT/Fantasy)

Author’s notes: Where has this chapter been, you ask? Well, between some really hardcore adulting, swimming through bouts of depression, general laziness, and trying to put too much into this chapter, I finally got it down. I went back and forth so many times on how I wanted this bit to go because out of all the characters I have devised for this story, Keral is one of my favorite. And I hope after reading this chapter you like him too.

CHAPTER 15

She had taken the simple leather strap and metal medallion for granted, Nenani realized as she ran. And now, as her feet flew down the giant hall, she regretted it all the more. But there was also the near certainty that regardless of the marker, she very much doubted the ranger would care or mind the wordless command it represented.

But none of that mattered.

She was painfully aware of how futile her efforts were. The ranger was a trainer tracker along with being tall as a house. A human house, but still a house. Even for a giant, he was tall. Just like Farris. His brother. And yet none of those feeling she held for the kitchen master translated to his brother. She knew she had met him at some point many years ago when she was still small. Her family had been running from him. What reason could there be other than the plain old truth of it? They were human, he a giant. And many giants – though not all she had grown to learn – ate humans. She could not count on Farris’s brother being anything like him.

This day was not going well for her. Even as she ran, the words from the catacombs echoed in her head.

The flesh taken will be paid in blood and the dead walls will rise with gold.

Ever since coming to Vhasshal, she had been having odd dreams and for much of them she believed them just that. Dreams. She was in a strange place. Strange dreams should only be expected. Surely. And yet something was telling her that she needed to be paying attention. She could not know for sure or with any clarity, but…

...something was happening.

What kind of fire created light, but no heat? Why were there human tombs in a giant’s castle? Where the hell did her marker go? Whatever thoughts on these subjects her mind may have supplied in that moment, they were abruptly washed away with surprise when the light of the hallway was all at once cut off and Nenani’s vision was cast into shadow. Heavy, fowl smelling shadow. The bastard ranger had tossed his dirty coat over her like a net. The weight of the fabric pulled her down and she tumbled forward, landing hard and painfully onto her knees and slamming her palms onto the hard floor. She cried out in equal proportions pain and alarm, but wasted little time and was already pushing her way under the dragging weight of the wool.

“Fast lil’ buggar,” laughed the ranger, his voice incrementally muffled. “Don’t have much energy at th’moment to be chasin’ ya ‘bout the royal apartments, though.”

Nenani, feeling as though her options were dwindling and fast, decided to take up the piece of advice Farris had bestowed onto her after her last encounter with a ranger. So she filled her lungs until she felt her ribs creak and -

The world pushed down onto her, breaking her scream before it was more than a high pitched squeak. The fabric shifted and pushed in all around her and she could feel the large hands gathering up the coat and her along with it.

“Ah-ah-ah, nah ya don’t. Won’t be havin’ any a’that now,” said the ranger flatly. It was stifling inside the wrapped coat and Nenani pushed back and kicked as much as she could. “Just get nice n’ comfy in there, aye?”

It had been a long while since she had felt afraid of a giant. But between Craeg and now the ranger, Nenani was good and scared. No more bouts of bravery. Her confidence escaped her like the yolk from a smashed egg. And she felt tears well in her eyes and her chest heave. She gave up her exhausting struggles and settled into the confining folds of the fabric. And trembled.

She was a baby again. Alone. Snatched up by a giant with unknown intentions and behind her lips, she held the pitiful plea for her mother.

………………………………

“Oi there! Keral my lad, when did ya sorry arse get dragged back here, eh?” Nenani had gone quite and still after the ranger had caught her and began to walk off to wherever it was he was going. He had begun to climb a long set of stairs when she heard the muffled voice that she recognized and perked up. 

That was Verhn. She knew him! He was the brew master, maker and manager the castles supply of beer, ale, and wine. He wasn’t kitchen staff, but he was often seen around and though Nenani had never actually held much of a conversation with him, she knew of him. And more importantly for her purposes, he knew of her.

“Just a bit ago,” replied the ranger. “Wont be stayin’ fer long though. A ranger’s work is never done.”

“Ah, well. Should’ve taken up my offer all them years ago t’be my apprentice, boy,” Verhn’s voice was filled with good humored admonishment. “Then ya wouldn’t be treking across half of creation fer no good reason months at a time. That whiskey a’yers is a big hit with the boys. Could’a been a master.”

“Could’a been a lot a’things, old man. But, what can I say? I wanted to be a knight,” laughed the ranger.

Verhn laughed too and Nenani’s wool clad world buckled as he slapped Keral’s shoulder. “How’s that workin’ out fer ya, eh?”

“Kinda lost its flavor when I realized they were all pompous assholes.”

“Still not clear on why ya passed the Captain’s role fer the rangers, though.”

“Rheil’s a fine Captain, Verhn.”

“Oh, aye. He is just that. But anyone would’a looked better after Baynor.”

“I had my reasons,” replied Keral, the humor gone from his voice. “Baynor was a lot of things, but he was good at his job. Not much else though.”

Nenani shifted and waited for a lull in their conversation, having no notion of how muffled her voice would be or if Verhn would heard her or see her struggled. As the ranger’s last comment lead into a somewhat awkward silence, Nenani took her chance and began to thrash and cry out. The hands beneath her and the fabric immediately shifted and pressed down on her.

“What’s wrong with ya now?” Keral asked her in surprise.  

“What in th’seven hells ‘ave ya got there?” Verhn asked, but before Nenani could call out to him, Keral spoke.

“Ah, just Farris’s lil’ squeaker,” he said, catching Nenani by surprise. So much so that she stopped her struggles and was still. Struck dumb by such revelations, Nenani allowed for the small spark of hope that maybe...just maybe...the ranger did not mean to hurt her.  

“Caught ‘er wanderin’ round the royal apartments by ‘erself,” Keral continued. “And no marker t’be seen.”

Verhn released a short bark of a laugh that fadded into a twittering snicker. “No place fer that one, I’m sure. Though I bet ya can thank the King’s ward fer it. Them two ‘ave been scamperin’ all over the place since she arrived. Doubt she would’ve founder ‘er way there without ‘im.”

“That,” Keral replied with a barking laugh of his own. “I ‘ave no doubt. Haven’t seen the brat though. Might ‘ave to teach a few things about chivalry.”

“What would you be knowin’ about chivalry?”

“Oi, I’m plenty chivalrous. Look, I’m even ‘elpin’ a damsel in distress.”

“Not entirely certain it counts if yer the one causin’ the ditress, Keral,” Verhn said with a smile in his voice.

“Oh shut up, ya weasely old git. Don’t ya have some grapes to mash ‘er somethin’?”

“Aye, suppose I do, suppose I do,” Verhn replied. “I’m a busy man, m’boy. We all can’t be gallivanting around looking fer shadows and bandits now can we?”

……………

Keral continued up the stairs after saying his farewells to Verhn and Nenani remained very still and quiet. She listened instead and counted the steps he took in an effort to give her mind something to do other than panicking. After the 47th step, things seemed to level out and after perhaps a dozen or so steps, Keral paused and shifted his bundle of coat and human. As everything shifted and moved around her, Nenani blindly grabbed for the fabric, but her grip continually slipped as the fabric was pulled away. She tumbled head over feet and a sudden rush of cold air met hr before a calloused hand snatched her around her middle. She bit down on her cries and instinctively grabbed onto the giant’s wrist for stability.

“Yer alright, m’girl,” Keral chuckled. “No harm then.”

As her spinning vision returned to normal, she felt something solid press against her feet and the hand around her loosen its grip and pull away. She wobbled unsteadily, reaching out for balance and stumbling onto her already sore knees. She sat atop a small table, not unlike the elegant ones lining the royal apartments. However, this one was not of any comparable quality to those deeply rich dark wood, polished to a sheen and inlaid with mother of pearl and gold leaf. This table was a hard used, rough surfaced piece of furniture of practical use rather than decorative. Their only shared trait was their general shape and size. The hallway was bare and significantly colder than the other. There were no carpets of tapestries. Only a stone walled hallway and a frosted window that provided just enough of the gray day’s light to come through.

Keral was slinging the blue dyed coat back onto his shoulders, straightening it with a firm tug, before he turned his bright eyes down to Nenani. Her breathing consisted of short burst as her heart thundered in her chest and her hands wrung themselves into knots. The ranger regarded her quietly and Nenani struggled to maintain any sort of eyes contact.

She finally looked away and took a deliberate step back. “I...um...I don’t...”

“Know who I am, lil’un?” he asked, cutting her potential ramble off at the quick.

Nenani nervously licked her lips and nodded.

“And who am I?” he asked, the smallest of smiles on his lips.

“K-Keral,” she mumbled, wringing her hands so hard it hurt. “You’re the captain of the rangers. And y-you’re...F-Farris’s brother….”

He broke out into a grin that was surprisingly friendly and she found herself staring. “Aye, that’d be me.” Keral bent down without warning, startling her badly and she scrambled back. “There’s no need to be scared a’ me, lass. Mean ya no harm.” He paused, seeming to consider something. “I know who ya are, Nenani.”

She blinked stupidly up at him.

“H-how do you know who...” She trailed off. He straightened up and shrugged, a gesture so reminiscent of Farris that for a second, she could almost believe it was him under that coat, wild hair, and unkempt beard.

“It’s my business to know everything,” he replied with a sly grin. “But it’s nothing so special as ya might think. Seein’ as yer the only lil’girl ‘mongst our humans here.”

“But what about my marker? How’d you know I wasn’t trespassing or...” She belatedly realized this was a terrible thing to suggest, but before she could even finish her idiotic sentence, Keral was laughing.

“I just know,” he replied. “What I don’t know, however, is why in the blood hells were ya wandering around down some place ya had to business. By yerself. Without ya marker. Not pleasant to think about the Queen’s man findin’ ya. He’s a bit prickly.”

Nenani shivered at recalling her and Jae’s encounter with that very man, replying, “We did see him. Craeg. Jae and me, I mean. We were looking for the missing blackberry bush...”

The ranger rolled his eyes. “Still on that one, is he? Th’brat’s never gonna find it.”

“He might...” she replied, feeling oddly defensive.

“Nah,” Keral shook his head with a wicked grin. “’Cause I found it three months ago and it’s been sitting in a’cup on the window sill in m’room ever since.”

Nenani’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “But...that’s mean!”

“Mean?” Keral echoed in amusement. “Nah. That’s tame. I’ve done worse. So’s the brat. The lil’ wanker spiked my ale once with a red dragon pepper. Ever eat a red dragon pepper?”

“No...” she replied, a little confused.  

“See that ya never do,” he advised. “Hurts going in, hurts comin’ out. But anyway, I took my time gettin’ ‘im back fer that one. Kid never could handle strong drink.”

“The wedding?” she asked. There was a certain twinkling of great amusement in Keral’s eyes. He did not have to say anything. “But that was awful!”

“Awful? I dunno ‘bout that. I thought it was quite funny,” he replied. “A lil’ gravy never hurt anyone.”

Her anxiety was forgotten and indignation rose up instead. “It was mean,” she insisted sternly, getting to her feet and pointing an accusing finger at the red haired ranger. “The Queen’s been mad at him ever since and Jae won’t talk to the King about it. He hasn’t slept in his own room for weeks! And then Craeg made it even worse and telling him that because the Queen’s gonna have a baby that the King didn’t need Jae around anymore and...and...”

She trailed off when she noticed the odd expression on Keral’s face and for a moment she was afraid she had made him angry. He was not looking directly at her, but seemed to look through her at something beyond.

“That so?” he asked, voice low and contemplative. She nodded nervously. But the seriousness of his expression faded back into one more genial with a sly title. He studied her for a moment, grinning. “Awfully defensive of ‘im there, lass. Ya sweet on ‘im, are ya?”

From the nape of her neck to the tip of her ears, Nenani blushed a fierce scarlet that she felt as a deep rush of heat spreading upwards. “No,” she replied. But Keral just laughed at her.

………………………..

[rustleandeddy]

Chapter 6

Rustle flitted and darted about the room, his voice raised in a squealing cacophony as he looped around irregular columns of ice.

“What do I do! I killed him! I killed my friend and I’m trapped in a strange chamber in a strange tunnel in a strange cave in a strange mine in a strange rift at the bottom of the sea! I’m going to die here. Why did I do this! I should have known better than to try anything like this! I should have stayed near my pond. That’s what the males are supposed to do!”

“C-calm d-down!” Eddy said. “This isn’t b-bad.”

“It is bad. You’re frozen! You’re going to die! Only the best water fairies can survive freezing.”

“It is different for us. Th-the ocean gets cold. W-we have to not freeze, so we d-don’t.”

“So you’ll be fine?”

Eddy blinked again, slowly. “W-what?”

“I said you’ll be fine? Tell me you’ll be fine!”

“I’ll b-be fine. I just… Can’t breathe much… So I’ll s-sleep…”

“Until when!?”

The merman blinked again, even more slowly. “Until the ice is g-gone…”

“But that could take forever! The water is warm but it’s a lot of ice! And the bag with the food is frozen in there with you! Eddy? Eddy!”

The merman’s eyes fluttered shut as he drifted into a trembling doze. Rustle flitted up to his face and grabbed him by the ear.

“Don’t fall asleep! You’re strong! Break the ice!”

Eddy didn’t stir, too far into the slumber now.

For a moment, Rustle let the panic have complete control. He buzzed in tight circles, tugged at Eddy’s hair and slapped his face. He flipped back and forth between desperately trying to wake his friend and simply darting about like a lunatic.

“No! No. This helps no one,” Rustle said, placing his hand on his chest to try to steady a heart that was buzzing faster than his wings. “You caused this, you can fix it.”

He looked about. Encased in the mound of ice along with Eddy was most of their equipment. The pick—not that he could lift it—was sticking out the top of the mound a bit behind Eddy’s head. The bag was practically it its core. On the floor of the chamber, however, his ‘claw’ had been jostled free at some point. It had a crust of ice, as almost everything in the chamber did at the moment, but the warm water had already fractured it. Rustle darted down and tugged at the ice, hauling free big flakes of it until the sharp gauntlet Eddy used for scraping and shaping rocks was free.

Rustle gave the tool an experimental tug, grabbing hold of one of the rubbery hide straps that held it together. He found that by working his wings and his legs for all they were worth, he could lift it. He placed his tiny feet on the floor of the cave, crouched down and hefted the glove over his head. Without a hand inside it, the thing flopped down over him. In fact, no mount of shifting or juggling could maneuver the glove into a configuration that didn’t either block his vision, foul the motion of his wings, or leave the glove dangling uselessly below him.

His frustrated search for better handholds did, however, dislodge one of the pointed teeth that extended from one of the fingers.

“No! Now I broke it! I’m spoiling everything!” he muttered, throwing the tooth aside. “I was the careful one. I was the one doing everything right, everything the cautious way, just like the elders teach, and look at the mess I’ve made! Think… What else do the elders teach? A fairy is small, but a grove of fairies is big. A job is big, but the pieces of the job are small. With enough fairies, a job is only as big as its smallest piece, and any fairy can handle the smallest piece of a job.”

He huffed and kicked one of the glove’s straps.

“All of our lessons are only good if there are lots of us.”

Rustle turned aside and eyed the bit of glove he’d thrown. It was lodged in the bottom of the mound of ice that held his friend. He buzzed over to it and levered it back and forth. The motion not only dislodged the tool, it caused a chip of ice to float free. He hefted the single tooth and looked at the veritable mountain of ice.

“The job is still made of small parts…” He mused. “Parts small enough for one fairy.”

He tugged at the straps that had formerly held the tooth to the glove and, with a bit of effort, managed to tie them into a loop he could grip with his hand. The single tooth was half as tall as he was, but quite light. Holding it by the strap, it looked as though he were equipped with a vicious and barbaric-looking shield. He flitted back, angled its angled tip, and darted forward to drive the tip into the ice. With all of his weight behind it, it bit considerably deeper, and a few shoves and yanks fractured a larger chunk of ice free.

“I don’t have a lot of fairies once…” he said, tightening the loop and buzzing back for another blow. “But I’ve got the same fairy lots of times. I guess today I’ll learn if that’s just as good.”

#

Quite far to the southwest, Mira was patiently waiting just below the surface. It was tempting to give up and leave, as she’d lingered for several hours without so much as a glimpse of a boat, but she knew better than to do that. Reliable, consistent, and fair contacts among the surface people were vanishingly rare these days, and having developed a mutually beneficial trade relationship with a Tresson woman, she wasn’t about to risk it by letting her impatience get the better of her.

She peeked her head above the waves and shook the water from her hair, scanning the horizon and squinting at the brightness of the sunset. A smile lit up her face as she saw the distinctive patchwork sail of her trade partner. She ducked beneath the waves again, worked her tail, and breeched, sending a sparkling cascade of water into the air to catch the attention of the enterprising mariner. The sailor dropped her sails and Mira swam eagerly to the edge of her tiny, single-person fishing boat.

“I am so sorry to have taken so long,” remarked the Tresson woman in a thick accent.

“You need not apologize, Disaahna,” Mira said. “I am only happy that we didn’t miss one another.”

The woman pulled back a flowing hood to greet the mermaid with a smile. Mira had met precious few humans in her time—it was seldom wise to linger near them, lest she risk encountering some of the more unsavory aspects of the species—but those she had met all had the same dark skin baked darker by the sun. Some of the other merfolk of Barnacle had a similar complexion, but none of the humans seemed to be as fair skinned and fair haired as she.

“I had a very hard time finding what you wanted, but I think I have something you will like,” Disaahna said.

She carefully tugged a small bag from the deck of her boat. A bit of fiddling with knots and rummaging through the contents revealed a small, sun-bleached skull. It was perfectly white, with the distinctive, wedge shape of a lizard of some kind.

Mira gasped and tugged at the edge of the boat to pull herself higher. “It is gorgeous… What sort of creature is it?”

“A rock gecko, or so the shaman in the neighboring tribe said. I have three of them, and many other bones besides. Take it, see if it is what you wanted.”

Mira reverently cradled the intricate skull and swam back from the boat, holding skull first where a pendant might hang, then against her head where a bow would normally sit.

“I can think of dozen ways to use it. And that’s assuming there isn’t just a collector who wants to have it.”

“So strange,” she said, shaking her head and holding out the bag for Mira to return the skull. “No gold for you. No silks. None of the things everyone else trades for. You want bones.”

“They are so exotic, Disaahna. And there simply isn’t any other way to get them. Besides, is it really so different that you want these?”

Mira offered up the small sack of pearls. At the sight of it, Disaahna’s eyes widened and she eagerly traded her bag for the pearls.

“You want the little impurities from our oysters and clams, I want the skeletons of your desert animals.” Mira sifted through the bag and turned up a tiny snake skull. “Imagine it… these things live in a place with no water at all… It is almost mythical.”

“I suppose for you that may be… Oh, there are some lovely ones here… It is good you had so many, because I warn you now I may not be here for a week or two?”

“Why?”

“There was an earthquake in my village. Three houses fell, the church is badly damaged, and also the well. We must do what we can to rebuild quickly. And also the terrible waves did much damage to the pier. I am lucky my boat was spared.”

“Really… Disaahna, does that happen often? The shaking of the earth?”

“Sometimes. But never so often as this and never nearly so badly.”

“We have had trouble with such things as well. My home has always been coping with such things, but I’d never heard of it reaching the land…”

“There are those who say it is an omen. That we have angered forces beyond us.”

“But how? I cannot imagine anything that those of the surface and the sea would do to bring the wrath of the gods upon us both.”

She raised her hands. “We cannot know the intention of the gods. We can only pray for their mercy and thank them for their bounty. Oh! As I speak of their bounty!”

She shuffled from the edge of the boat into the small bit of shelter beside the till.

“You spoke of your brother and his appetite. If you are so fond of things we have only here on land, I thought perhaps he would like this.”

Disaahna emerged with a strange, leathery coil.

“Oh? It looks like an eel.”

“No, no. Dried sausage. Most dishes call for it to be soaked for three days before using it.” She held it out. “I think, for you, that will not be a problem, eh?”

Mira took the sausage, but the sailor’s words stirred something in her mind.

“Something wrong, Mira?”

“No… No… The tide is ready to turn back, and so should I. Two weeks, you say? Until we meet again?”

“Two weeks, from this day. A friend of mine tells me he can get a good price for more of the shell bracelets you made. And that bone knife fetched a fortune.”

Mira nodded. “I shall see if I can have more of each for you.”

“And as for you?”

“I wonder… Have you heard of this thing… a… Ki-oh-tay?”

“A coyote, yes. Not so rare.”

“Excellent! I had a chat with someone from Deep Swell and they said they had the most beautiful bones. The teeth especially.”

“You have a buyer?”

“No. This one will be for me.”

“I shall do my best to find one with all of the teeth then. But as you say, the tide shall leave soon, and I have more fishing to do.”

“Until next time,” Mira said.

She plunked down into the water, sausage in one hand and heavy bag of bones in the other. The return trip at this time of day would be a simple one, the flow of the sea taking her out with little effort if she let it, but nevertheless she worked quite hard to quicken her pace. All of the talk of the trembling ground had brought terrible thoughts to mind. Every day her brother toiled in the mine, in the same stretch of the sea that had claimed their father when the sea shook. Eddy was skilled, alert, and resourceful. But he was also clumsy and foolhardy. There was no reason to suspect anything had happened. The sea hadn’t shaken since she’d seen him last… but all of this talk of damage and collapse had made her eager to see him again, and soon.

#

Rustle stopped to catch his “breath,” if such a word applied in his curious situation. He’d been chiseling at the coating of ice for longer than he thought possible. Flakes of ice lifted away and melted quickly in the warm water, leaving an oddly smooth little crater in the crust that held his sleeping partner. His efforts thus far had been dedicated to exposing Eddy’s other hand. Rustle wasn’t entirely sure what he thought he would achieve by doing so, but it seemed as good a target as any. He was tantalizingly close.

With a final, mighty charge, he launched himself into the carved divot and drove the tooth home. It shattered through the last of the ice and, to his dismay, nicked the back of Eddy’s hand. He pulled back and bit his lip in concern as a thin ribbon of blood curled forth, but to his his relief it was only a tiny nick. After a moment or two the bleeding stopped.

Having achieved his task of the last few hours, Rustle took some time to consider what to do next. At this rate it would take days to chip through enough of the ice to free Eddy, even with the warm water helping melt it away. But what other choice did he have?

If his mind had not been so through twisted up in uncertainty, he might have been struck by the odd motion of Eddy’s blood. Thickened a bit by the cold, it clumped together into a curling, undulating orb rather than spreading and mixing with the water. The dark red blob drifted slowly downward until it finally plopped against the stone of the floor.

Or more specifically, the stone of the dish in the center of the room…

The effect was immediate. Mystic energy, the same focus that had drawn Rustle here, intensified. Rustle flitted back and took shelter behind his sleeping friend’s ear, tossing his tool aside as though it were evidence of some crime.

All around him the gems pulsed and intensified. The water was crackling and alive. The columns of ice that still hung in the water around them fractured and burst. Even the mound of ice that held Eddy cracked, though not sufficiently to free him.

Rustle shut his eyes, but there was no use in doing so. The things he was seeing weren’t the most terrifying. It was the things he was feeling. The strange thing about this place had been the focus without a mind, without a will… But he felt the will now. It was powerful, crystalline in its clarity.

He opened his eyes again. The glow of the room was blinding, and rose, it had been joined by a radiant form in the center of the chamber. This glow was independent of any gem. At first it was simply an indistinct haziness, but before his eyes it became more defined. Arms resolved out of the light. Then a lashing, fish-like tale. Finally a piercing pair of eyes opened.

The figure before him was a merperson… or at least the general shape of one. It wasn’t defined enough for him to know if it was a mermaid or a merman. All he knew for certain was it was a figure of terrible power. Power that persisted even in death.

Its eyes swept across the walls, and previously unseen lips curled to reveal the fainter interior of a mouth. It looked to be admiring the carvings that had so enthralled Eddy upon their arrival.

All Rustle wanted to do was escape. It was precisely what he had been taught to do in times like this. It was the wise thing to do, the safe thing to do. But two things stopped him. The lesser of the two was his curiosity. As a creature of magic, this figure was a being of awe and wonder. The most important factor in keeping him from fleeing was Eddy. It was his fault Eddy was trapped here. He didn’t know how he would protect the sleeping, frozen merman, but it was his duty to do so.

If he couldn’t run, and he couldn’t hide. That left just one option, something that went against everything he’d ever learned or felt.

With a hard swallow and a final moment to steady himself, he flitted forward.

“H-hello…” he said.

The radiant figure turned to him. Little more than bright eyes and a dimmer mouth, it was difficult to read its expression upon seeing the fairy. Interest, certainly. But was it the interest of a scholar presented with a fresh curiosity? Or the interest of a predator presented with fresh prey?

“I… I am sorry that we invaded your… home?” he continued.

It did not answer, its eyes now sweeping slowly to the sleeping, frozen figure of Eddy. Rustle felt a sting of concern and darted in front of Eddy, placing himself in the creature’s line of sight again.

“We didn’t mean any harm. We were just… We were having an adventure,” he said.

Its eyes focused on him again. The tail curled and it darted forward, but before it could reach either Rustle or Eddy, the chains carved into the relief pulsed with light and the figure was drawn back to the center of the room.

Rustle gazed at the smoldering chains in the relief, then thought back to the the heavy door with its complex lock. A lock that was fastened from the outside.

“This isn’t your home…” He said, realization and fear flavoring his voice. “This is your prison…”

[spektijim]

Hello everybode!

A month ago I ran the Derby 10k for The Trussell Trust, who run food-banks in the UK.

A little more than a month ago I posted a blog about the fact that I would be dressing as a Unicorn to do it.

Well, never let it be said that I let my public down, because that’s exactly what I did, and here is the picture evidence!

1. Ears and Horn

The ears were the first thing I made, using some felt I had acquired during a mad felt-buying spree (fellow craft addicts – you know how these things happen) several years ago.

Nearly finished ears!

Being me, a lot of the felt was pink, and so it was an easy start.

Next was the horn – I decided early on that the basis of this, the most important part of the costume, should be an alice band, as many people on Pinterest had shown the way with their own unicorn horns – onto this would fit a ‘head-dress’ with horn and ears.

I used the time-honoured cereal box and toilet roll tube as a base. There really should be some kind of tribute – a poem or song – to these crafty stalwarts which have saved many a parent (and even more so their children) every end of term, Halloween or birthday party.

These were covered with tissue paper (first white, then pink) and decorated with acrylic paint and plastic gems. The inside was painted purple and eventually it was hot-glued to the alice band – hooray! My horny head-dress was my pride and joy.

Getting shiny…

Grumpy, craggy unicorn.

My pink horn. Ooh err missus!

I was just putting some extra gems on two days before the race when I realised…I nearly forgot to add the ears!

Because I’d started on them so early they had completely passed out of my memory – sadly the full ears were a little too big to work with the head-dress, so I trimmed them in half and glued them on. A sad fate but the result was pretty good, if I do say so myself!

2. T-Shirt

This T-shirt was one I bought last year for a costume, but I ended up using a long-sleeved on instead- it seemed perfect for this task, just needing some careful applique. This was my first time using applique and I have to say I am now hooked. It was much easier than I first thought and produced some great results.

I cut the pieces I wanted out of paper first, then ironed a rectangle of the bondaweb on a piece of material, slightly bigger than I needed, then traced around the original paper and cut out the shape. This worked well because, like interfacing, the bondaweb makes the material slightly stiff and easier to cut through. Then I ironed each piece onto the t-shirt – it looked pretty darn good. Sad to say I think I spoiled the perfection by securing each piece with some stitches, as it cause the fabric to ruck up in places, but I suppose it was worth it knowing they wouldn’t fall off mid race.

The lettering was in the always unpredictable 3D Pearl paints – it work eventually but the mix kept on going wrong and sinking into the fabric, hence why it’s not quite as neat as it could have been! I added extra stars with some acrylic paint and it was all ready for running!

The colours might also give a subtle clue to something. Maybe.

3. Tail

The tail was a relatively easy build – using strips of felt sewn together and then sewn into a tube (and sealed), I more or less cut of random sections of gauze to put in – finished off with a couple of hot-glued gems, of course!

On the day of the run it was attached using that age old tail-attached- safety pins!

At this point in the making I got a chance to visit the local Trussell Trust food bank in Sawley to make a food drop – a wonderful friend of mine very kindly drove me there and took some photos of the nearly-finished cozzy…

My donation to the trust!

Posing with a lovely volunteer at the foodbank!

Posing with Twilight Sparkle!

  4. Finished Article

The finishing touch to my look was, of course, makeup.

I have been getting pretty good at day-to-day makeup recently (though I don’t actually wear it day-to-day, more’s the pity) but I thought I should go one better for this unicornage. Of course, sparkly was the order of the day with the majority of the leg-work being done by eyeshadow (isn’t it always?).

I used four different colours, starting with a dark blue in the corner of the eye, working through purple into pink, with silver below the eye, topped off with liquid eyeliner and mascara. So sparkle, much glitter!

5. The Race Itself

The Derby 10k took place on the morning of a lovely sunny day – thankfully it started at 9am so it wasn’t roasting (as it became at midday) but mild. I have to be honest, I wasn’t at my best – my right knee had been giving me some problems after my last 10k practice and  I hadn’t run in about a week – that is a sensible part of the ‘tapering’ process common to running but it meant that I’d had no opportunity to test my leg, and was worried it might go wonky at the starting pistol or – even worse – halfway round!

I arrived a little late (thanks to putting on my makeup – damn my vanity!) and had to join a queue of about 10 million to put my bag into safe storage, as I would be starting all on my own.

The moment I dropped it off I had to hot-foot over to the starting line which was already bustling the four top tiers of runners – A-D. I was group B – as I’d waited to put my bag away I’d found myself worrying if I’d been perhaps a bit ambitious – perhaps even hubristic – as I saw much more keen looking runners in groups C and D.

It was barricaded all along the side with such a press of people I had no idea how to get over and into the fray. Eventually I was naughty and hopped over the barricade, there being no wardens around to either advise me or prevent my scandalous behaviour.

Although 10k is enough distance for you to find your pace by about mid-way and join the runners who are your natural speed-mates, it is frustrating to have to start in such a tightly packed knot that you lose valuable seconds at the off.

Still, all this aside, I tried to give it my all – I smiled at the wardens and the cameras, gave high fives to a couple of kids, waved at people pointing to ‘the nice lady dressed as a Unicorn!’ and kept up a decent pace. As I drew in they announced my time but I was wearing headphones (safe ones, I promise!) and missed it – all I knew was they were calling 58 by the time I’d collected my bag and gone to meet my friends.

I had to wait until that evening to discover that I had come in 892nd of 3208 at a time of 49:57 – my goal of being under 50 minutes was reached, if only by a hair!

I sadly don’t have any pictures of me actually running in the 10k (there were some by a professional photographer by I haven’t got the money to buy one right now – maybe another time!) but I do have one right after – as you can see, I was quite tired. Most of my makeup melted.

6. The Aftermath and What’s Next

Thanks to the generous support and donations from friends and family, my running with a pink sparkly horn managed to raise (drum roll please)….

£365!

Not too shabby! Way off my target of £1000, but I knew that goal was over-ambitious anyway. So, what’s next? Well, I plan to continue supporting the Trussell Trust in whatever way I can – I haven’t had a chance to volunteer for them yet but I have got my papers so I will be signing up soon!

If you feel that my banging on about it for ages has made you care about people who need food-banks and more, please do start a monthly donation for the trust or bring stuff for a food parcel – trust me (groan) it’s worth it! Depending on the result on the election on June 8th, we may sadly find ourselves needing them more and more.

On the running side I am planning to do the Wilne 10k in September, a nice break before a new challenge, and am also signed up to my local Park Run at Markeaton parkMarkeaton park – join us there every Saturday at 9am! Although I won’t be dressed as a unicorn there, sadly.

Thanks once again to all my lovely pals who contributed, you are awesome and I love you.

Spekti out!

Flight Of The Unicorn Hello everybode! A month ago I ran the Derby 10k for The Trussell Trust, who run food-banks in the UK.