#nadya hollow

[woaddragoon-nadya]

Five Character Associations Tag

Thank you very much to @coldshrugs for the tag! Answers are for my WoL, Nadya Hollow

Emotions

Exhilaration

Fatigue

Yearning

Wrath

Grief

Colors

Cerulean

Sage

Crimson

Ice

Mauve

Scents

Ripe Aloe

Green Coconut

Fresh Espresso

Dried Rose Petals

Faint Copper

Objects

Reused bandages

Half finished embroidery hoop

Salve tins

Mended plant pots

Early education manuals

Body Language

Hugging herself

Rolling on her feet

Balled up fists

Awkward heart hands

Rough attempts at smiling

Aesthetics

Early spring, frozen dew on sprouting plants, stars still barely visible in the dawn.

Bandaged fingers applying salve, winces and shushing.

4am, voice hoarse from talking, empty drink in hand.

Humming a half forgotten nursery rhyme, pavement hard against boots

A city crowd of noise, and the peace of anonymity

Tags (Absolutely no pressure, but I'd love to learn more about y'all's WoLs!!): @dial-this-dial-that @xsummoner-kuro @mrlarkstin @spotofmummery

[books-of-the-great-leviathan]

Chapter 17- Luca

***

Sunset arrived like an armada in full splendor, a clash of scarlet and flame made brilliant by the volcano's smoky haze. The tide rose, washing clean the wrecks of An Gholam's bay, booming in their hollow hulls. Luca watched the sun sink below the horizon, spilling shadow as it went.

Across the darkening sea came ships.

Dozens, hundreds, until the bay of An Gholam became a sea of running lights and signal lanterns, shouts carried on the wind like birds, the water groaning under the weight of countless hulls. Luca had never seen such variety since Valeris's bay at the swollen height of summer, traders coming from all across the Inner Sea. Square sails, and triangular, and pleated like a fan. Twin-hulled ships slung low over the water's surface, skimming the waves like a landing seabird. Crews dressed in lightlock armor, made to float, or wearing strange leather masks, or painted jet-black and silently slinging ropes as they guided in their vessel. Massive ships, four-decked and carved with menageries of legendary beasts. Sea-orks in duskwood snarled from bows, sails of midnight blue and rust-red reflecting the sunset so they seemed to glow in the gathering darkness. Small vessels, sleek-sided and quick, pointed sails and rigging fluttering with countless pennants.

"See those?" Matteo said, pointing the vessel out as it sailed by. "Each one taken from a ship after her captain's slaughtered the whole crew."

Luca was only half-listening. A dinghy had been lowered over the side. In it crouched a cloaked figure, shimmering with shadow. Luca had asked Nadya on the matter, and the third officer had told him Sirin was taking a few supplies, a pistol or two, and booking passage on a supply ship leaving An Gholam that night. She'd be gone by the dawn, vanished into the Inner Sea. Where she was going only wind and ghosts could say.

He'd been too much of a coward to go to her, to catch the dinghy's rope before it was too late, to say a proper goodbye. She deserved more than their last argument. She deserved more than that by far.

Maybe this was what she'd always wanted. She had her freedom. No chains, no debts. She certainly didn't owe him anything. She'd saved his life, after all. She'd thrown her shadows and caught him before he could sink beyond reaching. She'd twined her darkness into him, had brought him back into the light.

Her hands, gripping his.

Her eyes, bright with the Leviathan's light.

Luca shook his head and turned away. When he looked again, the dinghy was gone, and Sirin was gone with it.

Puppy gave a soft whine. Luca looked down at it, and it gazed up at him, eyes round.

He scratched its chin. "I know," he murmured.

The ships gathered around the Fishcutter, their numbers becoming denser, ropes thrown from vessel to vessel and pulling taut, so that by the time the moons rose the bay was an island of ship decks and sails, masts thick as a forest, flags snapping at moorings and filling the sky with the billow and creak of canvas. Seabirds descended in flocks, carnivorous and clamoring, nesting on riggings by the hundreds. The smell of cookfires rolled in on the wind, roasting meat and fruit sap and the tang of rum. Songs, and howls, and music, too, the twangs and melodies of strange instruments battling for supremacy.

He heard gunshots, too, but neither Captain Irene nor Atana seemed concerned.

"There are always scuffles when the pirates of An Gholam gather," Atana said, standing by Luca at the Fishcutter's bow. "They're resolved amongst themselves."

"How many are there?" Luca could barely see the ruins of An Gholam through the thicket of masts.

"Too many ships to count," Atana told him. She turned, her eyes settling on an approaching ship. "Oh! Look!"

Avenues had been left between the vessels, broad pathways of water wide enough to allow two ships to sail abreast. This one took the entire avenue, a floating fortress, its triple masts jutting almost twice the height of the Fishcutter's. Its hull was black and crimson, glossy as lacquer, crusted in ornate patterns rendered in gilt. Its sails were red, too, each one webbed like a fin. Three levels of cannons glistened along its flanks, mouths shaped like snarling jaws, and its crew wore crimson sashes and waistcoats bright as its sails. Instead of a figurehead, a massive sea-ork's head rendered in gold jutted from the ship's prow, maw open wide as if to swallow down whatever crossed its path.

The magnificent ship cruised closer, swinging alongside the Fishcutter. Luca made out the massive man standing at its bow, one hand on the hilt of his blunderbuss.

"Lord Sabat!" Atana called. "It's good to see you again."

"Atana." Lord Sabat's voice boomed like a cannon. His red greatcoat was as gilded as his ship's hull, and on him, it was magnificent. His skin was so dark it shone blue, his oiled muttonchops curling in abundance from the sides of his square, brutal face. Silver rings glittered on his hands, and each fingernail was silver, too, not paint but steel, the metal pushed through some bizarre alchemy into his living flesh.

The gangplank was lowered between ships, and Sabat crossed, trailed by two of his crew, watching the crew of the Fishcutter like a pair of pit-hounds.

Lord Sabat approached Atana and bowed, sweeping off his enormous tricorn before sinking to one knee. "You've grown tall."

"You inspired me, Sabat. It's good to see you well."

"And you." He took her small hand. "I am sorry to hear about your father."

Atana nodded, looking down. Sabat rose, slowly, and faced Luca. "Is this the man who saw the Leviathan die?"

"Luca Valere," Atana said. "Prince of Lapide."

Sabat approached, his step quiet for such a big man. He prowled around Luca. "Never much liked Lapidaeans," he said.

"Never much liked pirates," Luca said, with a shrug.

Lord Sabat stared down at him, then barked a laugh. "You've a funny one, Atana."

"Not as funny as you think you are, Sabat," said a cold, hoarse voice.

Luca looked; so did Atana and Sabat. A second crew waited on the starboard deck. Luca hadn't heard footsteps, hadn't heard the approach of a second ship. It drifted alongside the Fishcutter: a battered schooner, its sails faded gray canvas, its hull much-mended.

Sabat drew back. So did Irene and Matteo, glancing at one another, Matteo's fingertips dancing over his pistol grip. The trio of newcomers was led by a white-haired old woman leaning on a cane, small and hunched and dressed in ragged shawls. Her crew wore light armor made of fish-skins, glimmering in the smoky haze.

"May I present," Matteo whispered to Luca, "The Eel Queen."

"Welcome," Atana said. She and the Eel Queen exchanged nods, and spoke quietly for a moment before the Queen turned her eyes on Luca. They were pale green, like the glow of some deep-sea fish, and they rested on Luca and Puppy for a long time before she spoke.

"I can see why we've gathered," the Eel Queen said. "This is...rare."

"Rare," scoffed Sabat. "Heretical, more like. Look at the creature." He advanced on Luca, reaching for a heavy hatchet at his belt. "I say we strike off its head and spill whaleblood into the sea. Free the Leviathan from the shackles of-"

"Touch Puppy and it's the last thing you'll ever do," Luca said.

"No one's striking off anyone's head," Atana commanded, her voice ringing over Sabat's. "Not yet."

Luca swallowed, his mouth at once dry. Niive approached from behind him, standing at his left side. Wind swelled at her approach, and Luca felt a charged crackle pass over his skin. Cereza stepped forward to his right, slipping his hand into hers.

"Stand down, Lord Sabat," Atana went on. "We're not yet gathered."

"Then hurry." Sabat eyed Niive, then turned on one heel. "I didn't come here for polite conversation."

He strode away, back over the gangplank. The Eel Queen retreated too, crossing back to her battered little ship without another word.

"They're afraid," Cereza said. "All of them."

"They're right to be. I don't think there's a soul alive who's stood in our circumstances. Sirin," Luca said. "Do you suppose-"

He cut off. Cereza's hand tightened around his. No one answered. Because Sirin wasn't there. Sirin was gone.

Luca let out his breath. Wherever she was going, he only hoped she'd be at peace. That was all he could give her now.

The pirate lords assembled one by one, ships circling the Fishcutter like sharks around a dying sea-ork. Sabat's, and the Eel Queen's, and two more besides. The next to come was a triangular-sailed caravel, elegant and maneuverable, its hull daubed deep cobalt. A pair of flat painted eyes stared from either side of its bow, and its crew were blue-skinned Isozi, each warrior woman competing with Lord Sabat in height. Its captain wore a headscarf round her long white braids, her bare arms rippling with muscle and pale blue scars.

"Noor," Atana greeted, and they held hands, Noor bending down to press her forehead to Atana's.

The last to arrive was a black Buyani icerunner, its hull reinforced with a spellforged steel plow for cleaving through sea-ice. Its sails billowed, each one vivid orange-gold; its flag carried the device of a roaring blue and red flame. Its captain, when she vaulted easily onto the Fishcutter's deck, was a young woman, a sheet of red hair swinging down her back. She wore an enormous hat with a red feather, her pointed face set in a grin. She approached without invitation, looking Luca over with a flick of her eyes.

"Well," she said, her Buyani accent thick and rolling. "At least he's handsome."

"You look a little young to be a pirate lord," Luca said.

"Looks can be deceiving. Who knows. I could be hundreds of years old and simply be wearing a youthful skin. Some witchborn have such gifts, after all."

"You're witchborn?" Niive said, doubt dripping from her voice.

The Buyani woman raised her hand and clenched her fist. Flame erupted from her skin: a crackling sphere of pulsing fire, blue at its core, flickering red where it licked at the night air. She opened her hand and the fire extinguished itself. Luca still felt its heat radiating from her.

"Careful," she said, with another flick of her eyes. "Don't get too close."

"Captain Anoshka Safi," muttered Matteo, as Anoshka sauntered away. "Really. Don't get too close. I've seen her cut a man's fingers off and feed them to her hounds."

"Sounds like just your type, Luca," Cereza said sweetly. Luca elbowed her in the side.

"My Lords," Atana called. "Let's get this started."

The pirates gathered on the deck. A table had been dragged from Irene's stateroom, scarred and battered. The lords assembled around it, sinking into carved wood chairs set with shell, armrests wrought in the shapes of reclining sarkyvors.

Sabat and Anoshka exchanged whispers; the Eel Queen sat on her own, pale, veined hands pressed to the wood. Noor leaned back in her chair, her chin lifted, her blue eyes set on Luca. Irene picked at her nails with a flensing knife.

Luca held Puppy. The little creature sat silent on his knees, paws on the table, eyes shining in the lamplight. The lords surveyed them like they were antiquities on display in the Royal Library of Valeris Palace.

"May we see the creature?" the Eel Queen asked at last.

Luca stood, lifting Puppy onto the table. It gave a small whine; he stroked its back as the pirates leaned forward to get a better look.

"Sweet little thing," the Eel Queen crooned. "Look how its fur shines."

"You can't say you believe this is some part of the Great Leviathan," Sabat growled. He waved a hand through the air. "Some exotic beast, perhaps. Some creature culled from an unknown island, brought here like a taxidermy chimaera to fool us pagan believers. Not the Leviathan."

"What's your story, Valere?" Anoshka asked, leaning back in her chair. "Surely a man as pretty as you with a nose as broken as yours must have a good one."

"How's this for a good story?" Luca said. "I was there when the Leviathan died. I watched it burn, heard its death-song. I was thrown overboard, and when I was, I spoke with it."

Murmurs broke from the assembled, from the crews watching at the surrounding ships.

"And what words did you pass with our god?" asked Noor, her eyes bright.

"I told it I was sorry. That I would carry it. Make this right." Luca's jaw clenched. "I might not have been the one to fire on it, but I'd brought its killers to its seas. I enabled the Witchhunters to find it, just like I enabled them to find An Gholam and burn it down."

"We have a tale where I come from," Sabat said. "A tale of the Korag Magra. The Ork Mother." He gestured to his own figurehead, the snarling golden sea-ork. "She is a goddess so dark no insect dares to gnaw her bones, no maggot brave enough to tunnel her flesh. The seas themselves conspire to hide her, the sun to steal the light from her presence and conceal her from sight. Only at the world's end, when all grows too dire for other options, does she return, coming to us in our hour of greatest need."

He set his eyes on Luca, gaze heavy as a blow. "I know prophets, Valere, and you are nothing close. How do we know you're not lying, too?"

"My sister, Princess Cereza, and our witch companion can attest to that," Luca said. Cereza nodded, and after a pause, so did Niive.

"He's not lying," she said.

"No," Atana said. "He's not. We found them in the middle of the Great Blue, clinging to a wreck, with this creature in their company. Would you care to suggest I'm lying, too, Lord Sabat?"

Sabat looked away. Irene stuck the knife deep into the tabletop.

"Seems the damage," she said, "has been right well done, don't you fine folks think? The Great Leviathan as we know it is gone, and we've all seen what damage that did. Our friends and comrades missing, the seas thick with dying fish. This plague of crystal."

"When the Leviathan is gone, all things suffer," the Eel Queen said. She curled her knotted old hands over her walking-stick, her long black nails biting deep into the bone handle. "The Leviathan is the world. The world is the Leviathan. The deep currents of the universe are as the godsblood that veins through its flesh. Its absence skews the turn of the firmament, the rise and fall of the tides, the pulse of life and death within us all."

Luca's hands tightened in Puppy's fur. "I'm sorry," he said, but his voice was crushed small.

"We don't want your apologies," Irene said. "We want a solution. I worshipped the whale just like you all did. I jammed its crystal into my own eye socket."

She tapped her whaleglass eye with one fingernail. "I felt it go, just as we all felt it. Heard its song in my dreams, just as we all did. Felt it die."

"It's not dead," Luca said.

"What?"

"It's not dead." He stood, lifting his voice. "Irene's right on every point, save one. The Great Leviathan isn't dead. Its body might be gone, but it's more than that, more than a sea monster or an overgrown whale. We all know that much. It's why we're here, isn't it? If it agreed to my bargain, if a part of it is still alive here in this form, then it must know there's a way out."

"Did it share this...way out?" Noor asked, her voice cool as rain.

"No," Luca said. "There wasn't time. I wish..." He trailed off, tracing a gash in the tabletop, then sighed.

"No," he repeated. He straightened his spine. Under his palm he felt the gentle pulse of Puppy's heart, the little creature's warmth leaching into him in turn, giving him strength. "I may have found the beginnings of a solution."

"Have you now?" Anoshka said, her eyes glittering with interest.

"Beneath the rubble of the temple are ruins. Ancient ruins." Luca reached in his waistcoat pocket and brought forth the broken chunk of whaleglass. The silver that bound it was spotted with tarnish, but no amount of centuries could dull the starlit glow of the crystal. "Witch ruins."

"Witches?" the Eel Queen echoed.

Luca nodded, and together he and Cereza explained as best he could what they had seen on the Leviathan's island, in the caverns beneath the temple, mummies and magic, whaleglass forged and broken, ancient wars and ancient bloodshed.

"They weren't what we think, not at the beginning," he went on. "They had power. Magic used in ways I can't comprehend. That knowledge was lost when they fell. I don't know how. I don't know why they lost their power. But I intend to find out, and I intend to use it. And to use your help, if you can give it. Your knowledge, your reach. Please." He ground his knuckles into the tabletop. "I have to make this right."

"We all have to make this right," Cereza said.

"You want our help," Lord Sabat said.

"Yes."

"And what are you prepared to give us in return?"

Luca glanced at Atana, then put on his best smile. "Lapide has vast fortunes-"

"I don't want your Lapidaean gold or your Lapidaean promises," Sabat snarled. He stood, knocking the table back. "None of us do. You see our city, Luca Valere? You hear the ghosts calling to you from the ashes?"

He swept a massive hand toward the ruins of An Gholam, the smoke drifting over the faces of the full moons. "We want justice. We want vengeance. We want blood. And we know you have the blood we're hungry to spill, onboard this very ship."

Luca blinked. "Wait. No-"

"Bring him out," Atana called, her voice icy.

Luca whirled toward her, but before he could speak, the hatch leading belowdecks was thrown wide, and Nadya shoved Azare onto the deck.

Shouts, jeers, howls and curses filled the air, a storm of sound: pirates beating on decks, gunshots, the clang of sword to sword. Sabat snarled, hand clenching his pistol. The Eel Queen drew her lips back from sharp canine teeth, while Anoshka's eyes flashed to flame. Only Noor didn't move, but the hatred in her gaze was enough to wither Luca's resolve.

"Atana," he called, but his voice was lost in the clamor.

He pushed away from the table, toward Atana, but Matteo swung in front of him, stiletto drawn. Luca fell back against Cereza.

Niive advanced, flickers of blue-white lightning crackling through her hair. "Shall I shatter these fragile little ships and send them all to feed the sharks?"

"No," Luca urged.

Niive shot him a look, but the sparks died down.

Nadya shoved Azare, and he stumbled forward, chains rattling from his collar and fetters. Blood streaked his face from a bruising gash over one cheek. Nadya's face was stony as she cracked her knuckles.

Atana rose and approached Azare.

"This is Captain Severin Azare," she announced. "Royal Witchhunter of Estara. The man who murdered my father, Remi Bateleur, and who commanded the spellfire that destroyed An Gholam. Tonight I sentence him to die."

Another wave of shouts and jeers lifted from the other ships. Azare stood straight-backed and rigid, his face betraying nothing.

"Nadya," Atana said. "Draw your pistol."

Anoshka stood. "No," she said, and the sparks glimmering from her fingers brightened to flames. "He burns."

"Luca, he can't," Cereza begged.

"Wait," Luca called. "Triune, Atana-"

"Enough, Luca," she said. "He burns."

Azare closed his eyes. Anoshka advanced. The flames flickered up her arms and neck until her torso was engulfed in a shifting, living wreath of fire. Swords beat swords, and feet pounded a hammer pulse from deck after deck, so hard Luca felt it in the backs of his teeth.

Desperation lit his nerves. He started forward again, but Matteo pressed his stiletto point into Luca's chest.

"One more move, pirate," Niive snarled.

"One more move, witch," Matteo drawled in return.

"Anoshka," Atana cried. "Burn-"

"Stop!"

The clamor fell silent. Waves whispered. Atana whirled, staring at Cereza as she burst from the crowd.

"Do you have something to say?" Atana said. Her eyes were bright with tears.

"Yes," Cereza said. "I do."

She lifted her eyes to the congregation. "I demand a trial by duel."

Atana's mouth dropped open.

"No!" Sabat roared. He shoved the table aside, so hard it skidded; Noor sprang to her feet and stepped smoothly out of its way. "No, no, no-" "How can you know about trial by duel?" Anoshka asked, her fire fading to a shimmering glow over her skin.

Cereza lifted her chin. "I've read all about your laws, despite what all of you might think. Azare, do you accept?"

"Princess, you can't do this," Azare murmured.

"Yes, I can." She pressed her hands to his chest, gripping his shirt. "Listen to me, Azare, you have to accept. If not for me, then for Alois."

A long moment passed between them. At last, Azare nodded. "Then I accept your trial."

Sabat ripped his enormous blunderbuss from his belt one-handed and leveled it at Azare's chest, cocking it with a sharp snap. "One more word, Witchhunter-"

Atana pressed her hand over the gun's muzzle. "Lord Sabat. She's invoked trial by duel. To kill him now would violate our most concrete laws, the laws my pa died to defend. Stand. Down."

"The girl is no pirate-"

"She doesn't need to be a pirate to invoke trial by duel," the Eel Queen rasped. "You know that as well as I do."

"Damn you all," Sabat snarled, but lowered his blunderbuss.

"Who by the Three are you going to have fighting your duel?" Luca said, shoving past Matteo and catching Cereza by the arm. "Either of you?"

Azare didn't look at him. "I am."

In his periphery, the crowd of crewmen and pirates on the Fishcutter's deck parted, as if pushed out of the way. People stumbled, shouting, cursing. Darkness snapped and coiled: a column of shadow, standing just out of the reach of the lanternlight.

Luca couldn't breathe. Cereza grabbed his hand again, her palm slick against his.

The shadow fell like a cresting wave, sweeping away to fade in smoky coils against the Fishcutter's railing. Sirin stood in its place. Her eyes were hard as black glass, their depths flickering with the remnants of her shadows.

The crowd stared, silent, shifting, hands going to weapons. Sirin paid them no mind. She stepped into the moonslight, and the shadows came with her.

She lifted her hands.

No, she said. I am.

[angstyaches]

okay one last :

🗝 for lilith about their family / childhood 🍄

Ask Game

"Oh, we're doing this? Alright." They sit up a little straighter and take a deep breath. 

“If I had to choose a word for my family and my childhood, it’d be conflicted. Conflicted between magic power and physical power. Between parents who all had different ideas of how my life would pan out. Conflicted between being in constant danger at school and in public, or feeling safe - but unbearably hollow - by pretending to be something I wasn’t. Conflicted between reaching my full potential, or protecting Nadya.” 

Their eyes flash darkly. “Eventually, at some point, I realised that everyone around me was forcing me to make these choices, fit myself into these... boxes.” They shake their head, a soft, sad smile drifting across their face. “It’s cost me, but I don’t deal in boxes anymore.”

[multifandomfix]

Agatha Hannigan (Annie 1982)

Alexandra Medford (The Witches Of Eastwick)

Alma Peregrine (Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children)

Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack)

Blanche (The Ladies)

Blanche Devereaux (The Golden Girls)

Bonnie Plunkett (Mom)

Carol Aird (Carol)

Catherine Cawood (Happy Valley)

Cathy Brown (Mrs. Brown’s Boys)

Christine Campbell (The New Adventures Of Old Christine)

Cruella DeVil (101 Dalmatians)

Doris Miller (Hello My Name Is Doris)

Elvira (Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark)

Frank N. Furter (Rocky Horror Picture Show)

Izabella Barta (Documentary Now!)

Jack Frost (The Santa Clause 3)

Jack Griffin (A.P. Bio)

Joyce Brewster (The Guilt Trip)

Julia Harris (Horrible Bosses)

Katherine Newbury (Late Night)

Lady Maria Byrne (The Making Of A Lady)

Lady Van Tassel (Sleepy Hollow)

Laszlo Kreizler (The Alienist)

Laura Willis (Hard Cell)

Leah Franklin-DuPont (Our Kind Of People)

Lisa Benner (All Rise)

Lizzie Borden (Lizzie Borden Took An Axe/The Lizzie Borden Chronicles)

Lorraine Warren (The Conjuring)

Lucy Ricardo (I Love Lucy)

Margaret White (Carrie 2013)

Martha May Whovier (How The Grinch Stole Christmas)

Miranda Priestly (The Devil Wears Prada)

Miss Gribben (Cracks)

Nadya (Muppets Most Wanted)

Nancy Stokes (Good Luck To You, Leo Grande)

Norma Bates (Bates Motel)

Olivia Baker (13 Reasons Why)

Olivia Benson (Law & Order: SVU)

Queen Anne (The Favourite)

Queen Narissa (Enchanted)

Reba Hart (Reba)

Rebel Bello (Rebel)

Rhoda Chesterfield (Jessie)

Rose O'Reilly (We're The Millers)

Rozalin Focker (Meet The Fockers)

Sapphire (Sapphire & Steel)

Selina Meyer (Veep)

Stella Gibson (The Fall)

Steve Kemp (Fresh)

Tess (Burlesque)

Victoria Chase (Hot In Cleveland)

Viola Fields (Monster-In-Law)

Willy Wonka (Charlie And The Chocolate Factory)

Winifred Sanderson (Hocus Pocus)

Yentl Mendel (Yentl)

Zelda Spellman (Sabrina The Teenage Witch)

[keingleichgewicht]

WERE YOU KIDDING ABOUT THE ASK GAME if not i dont have any specific lyrics in mind but i always thought the lyrics to the mill were so cool and maybe you could get some thoughts out of them? :0

YEAH GOD OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT THE MILL. LET’S TALK ABOUT UHHHHHHHHH [THROWS DARTBOARD]

this line. this MIGHT go on for a while so i will............  readmore

so the mill feels kind of notably different to the rest of the pafl songs, which tend to be unusually literal for lyric, either straightforward retellings of events (punch it, punk!) or character piece monologues set to plot visuals (strike 3) or both (all of them, but for instance particularly comfort zone, which is just dmitry’s horrible manifesto until it gets hijacked by a death sentence in the second verse.) the mill is a lot more like what we expect from poetry these days, which is to say it’s heavy on imagery, low on clarity, and fucking confusing!

I’ll draw a circle in the sand, drive myself around the bend in a desperate attempt to hold on to your battered hand Rocked to sleep beneath the snow, she is bathed in youthful glow ‘Strong enough to let it go,’ he says, but darling, I don’t know

a lot of the mill is about circles. this is in the name: a mill is something which turns. a waterwheel is a circle, a grindstone is a circle. it’s even in the melody: the chorus is a cyclic, pentatonic four-note riff that keeps going up and down and up its own ladder, chasing its own tail, not really reaching resolution. and then it’s also in, you know, the story:

the meat grinder!!!! everyone’s favorite fucking hellhole!!!! it is only semi-explicitly identified in the song but that’s because it’s a concept from the source material - both tarkovsky’s stalker and roadside picnic feature the meat-grinder, as a location nicknamed thus by stalkers because it is even more fucking deadly than the rest of the zone, all of which is already ridiculously fucking deadly, and if you’ve seen the movie:

it is more or less instantly recognizable in the mill as well. so here we have a circle! here we have a mill (the title has about seventy double meanings but this is certainly one of them,) and as it turns out, this mill at least will absolutely kill you. and horribly too. interestingly though, in roadside picnic (the book) the meat-grinder is not a tunnel, and it’s not round - it’s just a nondescript patch of ground which will wring you out like a dishcloth and kill you extremely dead if you walk into it. on the other hand what we have in the book in terms of circles is the golden ball, which is the equivalent of the movie’s the room, which is, well,

in short both stories ultimately hinge upon the idea that there is a something in the zone which can give you your heart’s desire. anything you want. everything you want. whatever you want. it is infinitely powerful; it is infinitely capable. the catch is that it will only give you what you want. the catch is that giving you what you want is not the same as giving you what you are asking for. the other catch is that in both cases you have to get through the meat-grinder first.

(so, by the way, what the fuck, right? does pafl’s zone have a wish-granting factory? is it also behind the grinder? where were the original trio going when they got themselves fucked up? and did they get there?)

but the point is: the golden ball, the wish-granting factory, is also a circle. it’s just sort of a sphere. it’s a big round fuckin yellow thing. you know, sorta like:

which is THE ONLY TIME yellow is used in occam’s razor not counting the full-colour shots, and it drives me CRAZY, but it is also me going full conspiracy board so let’s not even worry about it. THE POINT IS.

the circle is the death-machine and the wish-machine. neither of these things are really.... very good. the circle, or at least the arc, is also very closely associated with death:

(розовая дуга предрассветного, ‘rose arc of pre-dawn’. if i’ve fucked up that nominative please feel free to stone me to death!) 

in the gdoc notes to message lost ferry briefly refers to the dawn as if it were a good thing, the dawn of hope, which is a usage that sort of agrees with the desolate and deathless hope of strike 3′s ‘everything will pass / a day will come,’ but on the other hand it really is very closely associated with dying. nikolai bites it; nikita bites it; sergei and olga left significant chunks of themselves behind. and the thing about ‘this too shall pass’ is that it’s always true, as is ‘everything ends’, but of course that’s ‘cause the thing that ends might be you. and as we know

dawn is an ending. so that seems concerning!

i think the circle, the arc, the bolt falling back to the ground, is not a good thing. i am getting a little conspiracy board here in general but forgive me, i cannot make you a wholesome answer, my wit’s diseased. i think the circle is an enclosed space. it’s an unbroken cycle. it’s the grindstone. it’s the mill. it’s about what pafl’s always been about: about being trapped, about having no chances, about being bordered upon. the circle’s the geometric figure of equidistance from a given point, and you can walk on it forever, and nothing will ever change; you will never get closer, you will never get further away, you will never get out! the sun rises, the sun sets, and you are no closer to anything you wanted. it’s worth noting that anya’s borderline city, the zone-edge port town she complains is trying to crush all her dreams, her mill

is a circle. (a cog in a machine! a grind-wheel! a cage!)

and yura, whose dreams have already been burned out of him, who starts the series already resigned to never getting out of here, calls it ‘this dire deja-vu’, i am specifically resisting putting the accent marks back onto that, which is to say, it’s a repetition that haunts him. it’s going round and round and getting nowhere.

so if we bring it back around: drawing a line in the sand, as the phrase is generally used, means setting a border, means saying this far and no further. often it’s yourself you’re setting the border for. you hit some divide you can’t abide crossing so you say this stops here, it may be too early or too late, but i say it stops here. so logically: drawing a circle in the sand means you’ve locked yourself in completely.

I’ll draw a circle in the sand, drive myself around the bend in a desperate attempt to hold your battered hand

the whole first half of this song, i think, is olga promising to grind herself down in a hundred ways if it means she won’t be left alone. how hard can it be to never let it overflow? she may feel lower than the low, she may wish she could just disappear out here, into the postindustrial rust, but though it gets harder all the time she will keep pretending. she isn’t going to burden sergei, or indeed anyone, with her problems, her fears, her scars. she is hurt, but she’s used to it, she’s gotten used to being haunted long ago. she keeps her bad eye covered. she stays within her circle she has drawn. she keeps going round and round. she will take the smallest sliver of human connection and be happy, she promises she will be happy, she promises she won’t ask for more, she will take just the ‘hello.’

but you knooooow it’s not true. you know it’s grinding her down, that she’ll be milled to nothing pretty soon, and really she knows it too.

i am perhaps seventy percent sure that this line is a reference to the windmills of your mind by michel legrande, which features such lines as

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind

which on one hand seems sort of obscure to be a purposeful reference but on the other hand would be a hell of a coincidence if it wasn’t, wouldn’t it. either way it characterizes circles ambiguously, but definitely unsettlingly. going around in circles is chasing infinity, but what in god’s name would you do with it if you caught it? what are you even hoping to accomplish? and: 

the second half of this song is bitterer, sharper - staring down the mouth of the meat-grinder she’s a little more willing to admit to herself that this is going nowhere. she is running out of cages to keep herself in. she is very tired. it’s easy to say why don’t you leave it all behind, it’s easy to say, she’s strong enough to let it go, it’s easy to say, too strong to die. it is a lot harder to actually live.

this is also where the flashbacks admit to us how badly hurt they really were - sergei with his whole side in shreds, she still hides her eye but at least we get to see it’s bleeding. this moral compass is forever misaligned, she says, so there is damage, and it is lasting. and she can’t settle for hello, she can’t live like this, she needs someone by her side. the trouble is whether she can believe she has any hope of getting that

as for who ‘her’ is, or the ‘she’ of ‘she is bathed in youthful glow’, i figure there’s two possibilities: either it’s nadya, who haunts olga too, because nikita’s abandonment of nadya represents exactly what she most fears for herself, or it’s olga’s younger, unbroken, binocular self - both of whom were so young, and so easily hurt, and are now unfindable.

and then there’s this conclusion: ‘the sun will rise, until then / i’ll be waiting for you on the other side.’ which maybe is a sort of hope after all? she’s reached no real conclusions in the zone - she knows there must be hope but she can only barely believe in it - she thinks she is destined to self-destruct. but on the other hand she still has that, a version of sergei’s own ‘a day will come’

you may be hurt, but if you can hold yourself together, you can hope for a dawn someday. an ending. a change. but the trouble’s that there’s more than one kind of ending. and there’s more than one meaning for other side. there are cages, and then there are cages. and you know what else looks like a tunnel, a circle?

staring down the barrel of the gun.

[rcmvncv]

PSYCHE | /ˈsʌɪki/

The intellect. The human soul. The mind functioning as the center of thought, emotion, and behavior and consciously or unconsciously adjusting or mediating the body's responses to the social and physical environment.

Much of Alexei’s decision making revolves around his family. He takes ( or used to take, hmm, we do not know ) his role as the head of the family seriously. It’s sort of drilled into his head that he has to know what to do, he has to be able to carry the rest, he has to be understanding. In that sense the role of the czar is less prominent in his life because being the czar doesn’t affect his personal relationships as much as the role of a big brother. 

For a good amount of time, Alexei has existed for two things: his family and Russia. It, in the long run, hasn’t been very rewarding. His siblings have more going on with their lives and because he struggles to make time for them, he ends up feeling like a spectator rather than a participant. He joins his family for dinner: Nadya and Kostya talk about what they did the previous afternoon, Irinka laughs at something that happened with Vasya and Anya. Had he been invited? He can’t remember but what he remembers is the feeling of not being there. It shaves off parts inside his chest and he feels cold hollowness. These sort of moments build up... but then it’s all wiped away when one of them comes by to talk about something that’s been bothering them. He feels important again and remembers that maybe it’s not his place to see the most mundane moments of his family. He just needs to do what he’s been doing his whole life: be the reliable understanding older brother. 

There’s this constant fear that he’s not being good enough. If he’s a poor older brother then they’ll stop needing him, won’t they? They already have each other to seek support from, if he doesn’t offer something more then... It’s definitely one of the things keeping the walls up. He doesn’t want to burden the rest because it’s just not what he does. It’s not what he’s there for. Besides, if he did... would they even understand what he’s trying to say? It sounds like a horrible situation to end up in, not only would he not feel accepted, he’d appear less like the person he’s supposed to be. His loneliness is very much self-cast sentence. The walls stay up.

He cares about his family, the decisions he makes in his personal life are considerate and empathetic. When it comes to politics... he doesn’t care quite as much. If a person is not within his inner circle, his compassion hits a wall very quickly. It easily feels energy wasted. If he worried about everything and everyone, his head would end up filled with smoke. It’s why he would have been able to discard Vanamo so easily — he doesn’t necessarily think he owes strangers anything. Yes, he owes Russia good leadership, but he doesn’t owe some cunning duchess his loyalty. And being a good czar and being a good person are two very different things. 

To people outside of his inner circle, he really owes nothing — basic respect is given to most people but nothing more. He knows his position on the board and it really leaves only a handful of people for him to bow to. His apathy towards manners comes from two things: to him, they are frilly fancy rules that are just meant to hide people’s real intentions, and he doesn’t need to put in the effort. He’s at the top of the food chain, he doesn’t need to bother with such things. So he’s blunt and rigid. He doesn’t entertain people. And he believes there’s certain type of fairness in his bluntness. Honesty will always be more valuable than politeness in his mind — he wishes more people would see it that way.

Alexei is also on the older side. He has life experience and he has had quite the eventful life. He has had his ups and downs. He has seen a good number of events fold out, he has seen disappointments, he has experienced them as well. At the moment he has sort of come to terms with the fact that most things proceed at their own pace. People are very powerless to stop the world from turning. This thing with Anneli is almost unprecedented! It’d be more like him to stay seated in his chair, waiting for time to go by. It’s hard for him to picture an exciting future. What he said to Anya about milestones, how there are none left for him, ties into this. He has turned eighteen, he has done his military service, he has graduated, he has been crowned — what’s the sort of thing left anymore? He won’t retire, he doesn’t have children, he has his title and his work that has felt redundant and meaningless for quite a while. His mind is very heavy and at the moment this heaviness steers him quite a bit. He looks for easy solutions, quick effortless solutions. He dwells on problems less nowadays and has hung his excessive cautiousness. Because at the end of the day, he can go through a situation a dozen times in his head and think about the possible outcomes and still... still things can go astray. It’s almost easier to react than to plan. 

[anxiouspotatorants]

I can’t let go of that Literati Russian Doll AU so here are some ideas I have:

- The loop takes place during Last Week Tights, This Week Fights. However, in this AU Jess never got shipped off to Stars Hollow and was estranged from his mother until she and Luke physically dragged him over to Stars Hollow convinced him to be part of the wedding. So him and Rory have never met before.

- And in this AU Rory was on and off with Dean throughout high school until they broke up over Rory’s perceived lack of commitment to their relationship in the long run. Dean married Lindsay over the summer and has had a similar dynamic with Rory as on the show during season 4.

- Rory’s reset-song is «It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)» by R.E.M. She starts her loops in front of the mirror of her dorm bathroom getting ready for the date.

- Jess’ reset-song is «Amsterdam» by Coldplay. He starts his loops looking into the rearview mirror of his car, getting a breather from the wedding celebrations happening in the square.

- Personality-wise Rory is more like Alan (moral, inquisitive, in denial), but she views the loops like Nadya (must be science/something with specific rules that they need to figure out). Meanwhile Jess has Nadya’s personality (evasive nihilistic mess) but with with an Alan approach (the loops are divine punishment and he finds an odd comfort in the routine).

- The two do spot each other in their first loops but don’t actually meet and connect the dots until almost 10 loops in, during a death that has the same vibe as Nadya and Alan’s official meeting on their show.

- In one of Rory’s loops she dies from choking on fast food takeout.

- In another loop Jess dies from being beaked to death by the swan in the lake.

- Some of the deaths are related to the people in the wedding reception. And by people I mean ren-faire people (because let’s face it the possibilities for creative deaths are endless with ren-faire people).

- Jess crashes Rory’s date in one of the loops and it gets very passive aggressive.

- Rory dies from traffic accidents by driving in her car so many times that she gets terrified of driving (kind of like Nadya fears the stairs). She finds different ways to get to Stars Hollow without driving for almost each loop.

- Instead of «Emily of New Moon», Jess is attached to «Kaddish» by Allen Ginsberg.

[persimmonsimmer]

round 3 postscript II: memorial

Many families in Panorama had suffered losses, and in a community as small as theirs, each loss had affected almost everyone in some way. As her very first act as mayor, Nadya organized a day of remembrance for those they had lost, a day to gather at the graveyard to pay respects and to strengthen the ties between the living.

Three graves marked the resting places of departed loved ones. In one corner was Max’s grave, for a companion as faithful as he deserved to be honored.

On a slight rise beneath the shade of an oak tree was Wilson’s grave.

And just a little off to the side was the humble plaque marking Joseph’s grave, already becoming overgrown.

For some, the day of remembrance was a somber occasion; for others, a chance to share stories and celebrate lives well lived; and for others, it was an opportunity for reflection. Anna, looking down at her father’s resting place, couldn’t help but remember some of his last words to her: What is it you really want? It’s never too late to make a change.

For some, it felt incomplete. There was one loss that wasn’t represented by any gravestone, that couldn’t be so neatly defined and mourned. For those who’d been most affected by Griff’s disappearance, the day was a reminder of the still-raw edges of their grief, the hollow place left in their lives that would remain empty until they got an answer about what had become of him.

[shinagawa-division]

Ritsuko’s Thoughts on Minato Division

Nadya Kuromiya

She’s silent for a while, merely staring at Nadya’s picture with cold, dead eyes. If she’s angry, she doesn’t show it. If she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it. There’s nothing but a hollow numbness in her expression, there’s…nothing. It’s quite terrifying. After nothing but silence, she finally opens her mouth to speak. “So..” She starts. “I guess the dead really can come back to life, is what I like to say but you’ve never been ‘alive’ so to say haven’t you Nadya? No matter how hard you tried, there was something missing wasn’t there?”

“Even now you look more dead than ever. Really, you only have yourself to blame for that, maybe if you were more smart, you’d be able to prevent all this but I guess there’s no use on reminiscing about the past, what’s done is done, I have no regrets.” She narrowed her eyes. “But I suppose this raises an opportunity, I should have known the clones wouldn’t get the job done so I’ll continue where they left off and don’t worry…” Her mouth split into a serpent-like smile, eyes glinting with sadistic cruelty. “I’ll be more than happy to put you in that empty casket, where it so rightfully belongs.”

Meari Miracle

She looks at Meari’s picture before shrugging. “A death metal vocalist hm? I’m not interested in such music, gives me a irritating headache and I don’t care much for her, however, her affiliation with Kuromiya might be the only thing that has my interest peaked for now. That and Sumire seems to be a fan of her music, I had to stop her one time from playing it in my lab.”

Aika Yumi

She barely spared a glance at Aika’s photo. “Either Kuromiya was desperate for a teammate or she is one of the people who joined this battle for the ‘thrill’ of it.” She rolled her eyes. “Either way, it matters very little to me, her association with Kuromiya is the only thing that has caught my eye, only time will tell if she really becomes a threat.”

Oculus

“Minato Division, Oculus…” She frowned as she trailed off. “For fuck’s sake, Otome. It’s like you want to see Chuuoku burn down, honestly, it’s just my luck. Why is it that the past can’t just stay dead?” She growled. “As much as I would love to take a gun and go visit Nadya myself, such an occasion needs proper planning…and a perfect execution.”

[woaddragoon-nadya]

Testing the new Gpose studio!

So I posted that I built a Gpose set in my apartment. I don't love it but a lot of people recommended making one while learning gpose so I went for it!

Totally getting murdered by compression! but I don't really have any more expensive photo editors that won't do that. I don't think I'm liking the dark background either because most of her fits are pretty dark. Just gotta remember it's a learning process!

[olycnkov-moved]

Nadya knows the moment Zina dies - it wakes her, a snapped tether, a sudden hollowness. In that moment, she believes in Saints, in afterlives, in the making at the heart of the world. There is no other way to explain how she knows without a shadow of a doubt, half a world away, that her sister is gone. When news of the siege on the Little Palace finally reaches Ketterdam, she’s unsurprised to learn it’s the same date as the night she woke.

[thepokeduck]

Masks 02 - The Robbery at Cash N Go

CW: graphic violence

What am I doing here? Nadya thought to herself, as she jogged across the parking lot shared by a hair salon, a Hawaiian food restaurant, and the Cash N Go: Checks Cashed. She could see a masked figure inside the Cash N Go. The man was pointing a handgun through the plexiglass, as a clearly underpaid teller pulled bundles out of cash out of each register. I'm just a kid, and I don't know what I'm doing.

"Get in there, nab the bad guys, and then a big smile for the camera. These guys are amateur hour. You got this," Softy had said earlier. And then shooed her out of his office.

She took a deep breath as she reached the front doors. Dark swirls of shadow formed a thick cloud bank fully encompassing her body about a foot in every direction and at least 3 feet above her head. Like the handful of other times when she'd been about to get into a fight, it churned violently, like a choppy ocean, with occasional tendrils spawning in random directions, striking and grabbing at nearby objects. Nadya felt her heart slamming in her throat as tendrils shot out of her cloud, grabbing the handle of the glass and aluminum door and pulling it off its hinges. As her power flung it into the parking lot, she shouted "Surrender peacefully, and no one needs to get hurt!" She wasn't sure that they could hear her over the sound of the door smashing to pieces on the pavement.

Stepping into the Cash N Go, she took in her surroundings. Unlike others, Nadya had no difficulty seeing through her own darkness. The masked man was pale, with light hair and a white beard, and had snapped around at the sound of the door being torn off. His mask was white, and he wore a black shirt with a white S on it.

"What the fuck are you?" he shouted, unloading his firearm in her direction. Most of the bullets went wide, but one bullet, momentum dampened only slightly by the malevolent smoke around her, clipped off one of the light kevlar plates she wore on her chest, arms, and legs. The distraction of her entrance allowed the teller to duck behind the counter.

Nadya's leg gave away beneath her, and she fell to the ground, grasping her thigh with her hand. A tendril reached out and knocked a nearby display over, scattering pamphlets across the room, and another wrapped itself around the neon sign on the inside of the window, cracking the tubes and causing the room to be lit with a flickering, sparking light. Panting with the pain, she focused on the image of her power shrinking, and the tendrils withdrew, remaining only in a cloud around her body. She looked at her leg. The plate had absorbed the blow, and her leg was intact at least, despite the fiery pain.

The man took a moment to shoot a bullet through the plexiglass, creating another hail of glass in the small room. He carelessly scooped up a few bundles of bills that the teller had pulled out and shouted, "Pepper, we gotta get outta here! Some freak-show is busting up the place!"

A door in the back wall banged open and another man in a black mask leaned out. This man was broad and tall, with prominent white hairs visible throughout his black beard and afro. His white shirt had a large black "P" on it and slung over his shoulder was a heavy duffel bag. "The back way, Salt. I got the cash from the safe. Let's go!" said the second man.

Nadya gritted her teeth and clambered to her feet, as the two men vanished out the back. Her thigh throbbed painfully and her shadows were threatening to tear up the rest of the window display. She looked around but couldn't see the teller behind the counter. "Nab the bad guys," echoed in her ears, and she dutifully limped out the back door.

The alley was narrow, and the sound of sirens were blaring in the distance. The brick walls of buildings surrounded the alley on 3 sides, and at the far end, there was a tall chain link fence with a gate. It must have been locked because Salt and Pepper were still there, trying to pile up trash enough to climb over it. Salt was standing on top of a pile of trash bags on a small barrel, both hands on top of the fence, unsuccessfully trying to pull himself up. Pepper was trying to hold the trash in place with one large arm, and simultaneously push up Salt's bottom with the other hand.

Nadya didn't see the gun anywhere, so she made her way down the alley slowly, darkness spilling before her like an unrolling carpet.

"Please, just return the money and give up," she called to them when she was a couple dozen feet away.  At the sound of her voice, which sounded hollow and echoy from inside her cloud, Pepper gave Salt a final shove with one hand, allowing the smaller man to pull himself up on top of the fence. Salt reached a hand down to Pepper, but the larger man said something to him and turned around to face Nadya.

He grabbed a large piece of broken wood from the trash pile and with a sudden shout and a burst of movement charged down the alley towards her. The sound of sirens growing louder filled Nadya's ears, and her power lashed around her. She focused on the mental image of a dark shield, heavy and solid, and her power billowed out in front of her. Pepper collided with it and for a moment she felt her power hold firm as she pushed him away from herself.

The noise from the sirens reached an apex. Her control faltered, and the shadow dissipated as if cleared by a gust of wind.  Pepper charged again and suddenly he was right in front of her, swinging the huge beam at her head.

At the same moment the red and blue lights appeared on the other side of the fence. Faster than she could think, a tendril sprung out and caught the man around the wrist, halting the swing of the makeshift club. Two more tendrils wrapped around his neck and his knees. From his wrist came a loud snapping sound, and the hand began to turn around backwards, bones and tendons breaking and ripping.

"No, please, no!" Screamed Nadya, trying to imagine the shadows retracting and and shrinking. She gestured frantically at them.

Someone was screaming, "Keith!" with such a fierce panic that Nadya's heart, already hammering, skipped a beat. The cloud rose up in front of her and wrapped the man from head to toe in roiling shadows and there came a stomach-dropping cracking sound of ribs being crunched together, even as ligaments were being torn apart, accompanied by the gasping sound of air being squeezed out of lungs.

Nadya felt the man's body go limp in the hold of her power. She could feel the blood trickle from the tears in his body as if her darkness were an extension of her own arms. Her voice was caught in her throat, unable to choose between screaming, crying, and calling for help.

In the background, megaphones emitted unhurried pronouncements of "Put your hands up" and "You have the right to remain silent." But Nadya could only stand rooted in place, staring at the body limply suspended inside of her shadows, the awful crunching sound playing on a loop in her head again and again.

[blurrypetals]

Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan - blurrypetals review

originally posted oct. 27, 2020 - ★★☆☆☆

I don't know if I have ever been so disappointed that something wasn't as much of a ripoff of a thing I love as other reviewers had indicated. I like to poke at spoiler-free reviews of books before I take the plunge and spend a credit on it on Audible, and in each of the reviews I came across on there said it was too much like The Grisha Trilogy, that it was just like Alina and The Darkling all over again, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get Sara St. Taylor to read your book! Unfortunately, this book has a lot of issues. It isn't even the comparison to Grisha that has me so disappointed, but the poor pacing, shallow characterization, and a pretty extreme failure to raise and enforce stakes. I really didn't hate this book. I know there are books I've rated 2/5 that I hated more, but because my hopes were up, it was easier for it to let me down. And I can see why it was compared to Grisha, but Shadow and Bone took its time letting us learn who our characters were, what they wanted, and withholding secrets until the best possible moment for a roundhouse kick of a payoff. In this book, we are instead thrust into a first chapter where we have 0.02 seconds to get to know Nadya before her world is turned upside down. It actually reminded me of Rogue One, how all of a sudden our main character's status quo is disrupted before we even understand quite who they are or what that status quo even was before it went boom. Next, we are introduced to our prince character and, between the fact that he's hunting our main girl at the beginning, I figured he was our analogue for The Darkling, but nope! He is instead a side character (at best) who has been promoted to main POV character in such a boring, tiresome manner that it was giving me war flashbacks to A Heart So Fierce and Broken. Also, this is not Duncan's fault, but his narrator sounded like Chris Parnell and I kept picturing Jerry from Rick and Morty, so that was fantastic for my immersion! Finally, Nadya meets our actual Darkling analogue, Malachiasz, and, just like with Nadya's status quo, she is infatuated with him immediately with no setup as to why she feels drawn to him, what their connection is, and everything all feels vapid and hollow from moment one. We are also told over and over again that he is a monster, but there is never any substance to it, we never feel how awful we are told he is. I know this is partially because he is not actually the villain in the same way The Darkling is, but that is also why we all like reading about The Darkling. So, even though this is technically a Grisha ripoff, it doesn't even have that much behind it, as it doesn't even manage to understand what we all like about Grisha. Duncan saw that it was a bit of a villain-heroine romance and paid no mind to the rest of why we all liked that other Russian-inspired fantasy book. This shit was lame. Next!

[n0-eyedtaissa]

Your Love Song (Fangs Fogarty x OC)

Summary: Fangs kisses Ari’s palm and that’s the end of it. They sit comfortably in the car for a little while, side by side as they basked in the warmth that felt a lot like love. 

A/N: Many thanks to my friends for encouraging me to post, special thanks to my editor/beta reader/graphic maker/script-supervision, @thebetterjonesboy​

Word Count: 4,383

I want to be awake / I want to stay awake with you / I want to say your name / I want to hear you say mine too

“Are you still awake?” It’s a 1am whisper into the phone receiver, with heads ducked under sheets just to make things a little quieter. Ari yawns and turns over in her bed, hugging her pillow just a bit tighter to her chest. She had been on the phone with Fangs since after her mom went to bed (much earlier that evening). There’s a rustling on the other end and she thinks that Fangs might have fallen asleep on her. 

“Still awake…” Fangs mumbles, low and sleepy, the sound enough to make Ari’s stomach erupt in a flight of butterflies. “But barely”

“You can go to sleep, Fangs, I’ll literally see you in a couple of hours.”

“That’s so long, though,” He pleads. “Talk to me”

“What do you want to talk about, mon trésor?” Ari asks with a quiet laugh. The two of them had been on the phone for so long that she couldn’t help but run out of things to talk about. There’s a beat of silence as Fangs thinks for a moment. 

“How was your day?” He asks, plain and simple, like it was reflexive. Ari liked that he checked in with her; he always asked how her day was going, or how it went; if she was okay, what was on her mind. 

“I already told you about my day” She replies with an eye roll, though Fangs can’t see it.  She cradles her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she picks up a tightly rolled joint from the crevice in the windowsill. Ari lights it and drapes her arm out of the crack in the window, letting the smoke billow and twist around her ring-covered fingers. She’s overcome by a wave of warmth and she knows it’s Fangs, not the steady stream of THC running through her system. It’s the quiet part of the night, when everyone and everything had startled to settle down. Ari can hear her younger brother Gus snoring through the wall, loud and even. There’s a certain kind of stillness about the Katz household that was welcoming and sort of uneasy. It felt like time was suspend in molasses, moving slower than it should. Usually this feeling would creep up over Ari’s shoulder and lay cold at the pit of her stomach, but for now she was okay with being suspended in time with Fangs.

“No, you didn’t. You told me about your day yesterday. It’s officially—“ Fangs trails off and Ari can only assume he’s checking the time, “—it’s officially 1:23 in the morning. It’s a new day.” He’s so matter-of-fact about the whole thing, Ari’s holding her hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles.

“So,” Fangs starts again, “Cariño, how’s your day?” He hums as he sits back with a squeak of his mattress, tucking himself back under his flannel sheets. Fangs lays his phone next to him on the pillow and listens intently until his eyes flutter closed and his breathing evens out. It takes Ari a moment to realize that Fangs really had fallen asleep this time. She was too busy narrating the events of a dream she had the night before, and usually Fangs would laugh and comment about how impressed he was that Ari could remember her dreams a day after she had them, let alone remember them at all. 

“Fangs?” She whispers his name and is only greeted with a small snore. The clock on Ari’s bedside table reads 2:05 a.m. in it’s harsh, red-lit numbers. She squints in the harshness of the light  and can feel the fatigue enveloping her. Knowing that she didn’t have the heart to wake the boy after he had just fallen asleep, Ari rolls over and lets herself be lulled to sleep by the static sound of Fangs’ breathing.

forget everything / forget everything but you 

When Fangs meets up with Ari at her locker after school, it doesn’t take much to realize that something’s wrong. She’s too quiet, quieter than usual at least, and when he asks her about it she brushes it off. But he knows Ari better than she thinks he does; Fangs can see through her hollow smile and he knows what her real, true laugh sounds like. He doesn’t push on the subject for too long, just offers to carry Ari’s physics textbook and locks his fingers with hers as they bound down the front steps of Riverdale High. They don’t say much as they weave their way through the students getting on their bikes or into their cars. Ari always parks her car in the staff parking lot (no matter how many times she had gotten in trouble for it), she tugs Fangs by the hand and the two of them throw their backpacks into the backseat before getting into her junky old car. He can tell that Ari’s hands are shaking as she fumbles with her tape deck.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Fangs keeps his eyes trained out the window, watching the grid-work of neighborhoods and local businesses give way into the sparseness of Midtown. 

“Not really” Ari reveals. Fangs can’t help but be shocked at the sound of her voice and how much he seemed to miss it in her silence. 

“Well, if you want to, you know…I’m here” He shrugs and reaches for Ari’s hand over the gearshift. 

“I know” She answers, her thumb rubbing small circles over the back of Fangs’ hand. When she was ready to talk about what was weighing so heavy on both her heart and her mind, he would be the first person to know. He was the only one who seemed to understand her these days. 

Ari turns her car into the cul-de-sac of houses that seemed so far away from the parts of town that really mattered. When she pulls up in front of the Katz household, she puts the car in park but doesn’t get out. She looks at Fangs and then looks away, wringing her hands nervously around the steering wheel. "What are you supposed to do when you’re so painfully aware that no one is listening to you?”

Fangs doesn’t need an explanation to know what she’s talking about, it had been a point of contention between Ari and her best friend Nadya for a while now. Ari understood that her best friend had been through a lot recently, and that the road to healing was full of bumps and detours, but Nadya wasn’t the only person who was going through a rough time. She tried her best to take things in stride, to not get upset when the conversation fell flat, when Nadya’s mind was someplace ugly and far, far away:

“How’re you?” Ari would ask, hoping that today would be better for her friend and that slowly but surely things could have the ability to feel normal some time again soon. 

“Oh…you know” Nadya answers, her voice soft and guarded as she stared out the window, giving her friend a broad, half-hearted gesture. 

Ari feels foolish for hoping that the conversation could turn to her now, because there were times when a girl needed her best friend to check in and make sure her head was on right. She wanted Nadya to ask her how she was doing, how her day was going or how it went; if she was okay, or what was on her mind. When Ari realizes that this was as far as their conversation was going, she picked up her backpack from the desk next to her and slings it over her shoulder, walking out of the French classroom without bothering to say goodbye. 

“Forget her” Fangs says, tethering Ari back to reality. She looks over at him with a quirk in her eyebrows, squinting her eyes from the rays of late afternoon sun that glowed bright against Fangs’ silhouette. “Forget everyone! Who needs ‘em?” 

“Forget everyone” Ari responds in tandem, though lacking the same enthusiasm. She tries her best to laugh but it’s a feeling that’s too dry in her throat. She gives Fangs a convincing enough smile that he’s appeased for the moment and the two get out of the car.

If I could only preach what I practice, I'd be on the other side / Hoping when you hear it, you lap this up, you laugh at every line / After all, it's your love song, not mine

After school on Fridays, Ari and Fangs made it a habit to go to Pop’s for a milkshake and some fries. They would pay with sweaty, crumpled pocket-change and smile at the waitresses who told them to have a nice weekend. Ari would pull a joint out of her glasses case and would pass it back and forth between Fangs and herself as they walked through the brush that led over into Midtown. It was light and easy, usually. Ari would walk on her toes, balanced carefully on the train tracks that led shipments from the Blossom Family Maple Farm in and out of town. They’d talk about everything and nothing at all: weekend plans, funny anecdotes about their friends and family, but today things were different. 

“Are you really going to be mad at me right now?” Fangs looked over at Ari incredulously as she walked a few paces ahead of him. He sighs, tightening his grip on his messenger bag and speeding up to match her stride. 

“Actually yes, I am” Ari scoffs, tossing the comment over her shoulder. The two had been walking through the brush-line to go hang out by the train tracks, a makeshift clubhouse and safe space for Ari and the small population of people who were in the know. Ari holds back a wiry tree branch as she ducks under it, letting go of it as she passes under instead of holding it back for Fangs. 

“Now that’s just wrong…” Fangs mumbles, swatting the leaves away from his face and scrambling to keep up with her. His footfalls kick up little clouds of brown dust that make Fangs cough as he catches back up to Ari. “You know I didn’t mean anything by it, right?” He pleads, stopping dead in his tracks. 

“If you didn’t mean anything by it, then you would’ve waited for me to talk to her like I planned to…” Ari rolls her eyes, still refusing to look back at Fangs as she continued her walk down to the tracks. 

Things got tense at lunch that day.

~

It was the first time in a long time that things seemed somewhat normal, until they weren’t anymore. Nadya seemed livelier then usual, her feet kicked up on the desk next to her as she whispered something to Sweet Pea. The Serpent boys looked out of place in the French classroom, with Fangs keeping one eye out the door for Ari, who was usually tasked with watching over her mother’s class during the lunch period. 

“Might as well make yourself comfortable, she’ll be awhile.” Nadya smirked knowingly as she unwrapped herself from Sweet Pea. 

Fangs raised his eyebrow at Nadya, unsure of what she meant. The two of them weren’t friends, but they weren’t not friends either. It was a slippery slope, trying to navigate a sort of relationship with their best friend’s significant other. 

“Thursdays she has ballet class” Nadya tried to explain, her manicured brows knitting together as she watched a smirk form on the corner of Fangs’ mouth, like he knew something she didn’t. “She probably did so many plies that her legs are broken” Nadya laughed uneasily, looking from Fangs, to the still-closed classroom door, back to Fangs again. Nadya was accosted with the feeling of white hot sickness that came with not being in on the joke; she knew something is wrong but she doesn’t know what exactly. 

Fangs shook his head. Nadya stiffened up like she was bracing herself for impact, her outer shell becoming as hard as she could make it to prepare her defenses against whatever was coming next. 

“She quit dance, like, a while ago.” Fangs remarked, with enough bite that Nadya couldn’t help but recoil. “But I guess you wouldn’t know that, would you?” 

Sweet Pea frowned at the comment, his large hand coming to rest protectively on Nadya’s shoulder. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean, man?” 

Just as Fangs was prepared to sink his teeth into Nadya, just as Nadya found herself wishing to be anywhere but in her own body, the door to the French classroom was opened abruptly by none other than a very winded-looking Ari Katz. She bursted into the classroom on a wave of swear words, cursing her English teacher for making her late and apologizing profusely. The energy in the classroom was so tense that Ari could feel the hairs on her arms standing up as she looked between her best friend and her boyfriend, confused as to what had happened mere moments before. She looked over at Nadya, who suddenly seemed so small and fragile under the washed-out lights.

“What’s wro—“ Ari started to ask (something that was second nature to her at that point) but was only met with Nadya’s raised hand, stopping her from continuing.

“How long ago did you quit?” Nadya asked the question so matter of factly that Ari knew that there was no getting out of this one. 

To anyone else, this might have seemed like an overreaction, but Ari knew it was an origin story coming to an end. It was their origin story. The Riverdale Recreational Center was a place of solace for a freckle-faced girl in a house full of little boys; in the ballet for beginners class, she made a friend in the small blonde in the front row, liked that the girl didn’t sound like anyone else that Ari knew. They would sit in butterfly position for hours and Nadya would re-tell all the old stories from her homeland, holding Ari’s chubby fingers as she applied a too-thick coat of pink glitter nail polish. The two girls grew up and Nadya eventually lost interest in dance, but it was Ari who really had the grace and skill for ballet. Sure, Ari would complain about going to class, or the tape that was constantly around her bloodied toes, but she loved it, right? Nadya couldn’t believe that she had become so far removed from her own best friend’s life that Ari had made such a serious decision without even mentioning it to her. 

Ari gulped, staring down at a scuff mark on the tile floor. “Three weeks”

With that, all of the color drains from Nadya’s face and she scrambles for her schoolbag before storming past Ari out of the classroom with Sweet Pea hot on her heels. If Ari could quit ballet so easily, without a second thought, what could that possibly mean for the fate of two of them? 

~

“I was going to talk to her, you knew that!” Ari voice gets a bit higher, her throat constricting with emotion. She hadn’t wanted Fangs to be involved in the process. He was supposed to be her salvation from the bad things but this time, he was the one bringing trouble.

Fangs chuckles haughtily, low and venomous and humorless. “You were gonna talk to her, really? Do you know how many times I’ve heard you say that? Nadya’s been making you feel like shit for a long time now, all you do is rant and rave about the fact that you’re the one putting in all of the work lately!” 

The two of them stop in a clearing that’s free of trees and tall grass, not too far away from where the old train car had derailed all those years ago before the Midtown kids could make it their second home. That was supposed to be their Friday evening plans: a late lunch at Pop’s, a smoke and a walk through the woods, where they would proceed to hang out in the tin-can train car, smoking weed and making out until it got dark. Fighting wasn’t on the radar today, or ever, really. 

“But that’s not your job to tell her! It’s mine. Things are, they’re complicated, Fangs… More than you really get. I should have been the one to bring up how I was feeling, and I was going to!” Ari tries her best to defend herself, though she can feel the tears threatening to spill over. Her first instinct is to wrap herself tight around Fangs, let herself melt into the comforts that he usually gave. But this time was different. He was so quick to preach about Nadya not being mindful of Ari’s feelings, that he was completely unable to realize that he was doing the exact same thing.

“Whether it be on my own time or what, I was going to talk to her about how she was making me feel, and you took that away from me! And to make things worse, you made her feel like shit about it too”

“You couldn’t do it, so I did. I’m sorry that your friend got upset in the process, but I won’t apologize for defending you.” Fangs shrugs off his actions arrogantly and stomps out what was left of the soggy joint they had been sharing. 

Ari lets out a frustrated sigh and can feel hot tears starting to stream down her cheeks. She’s frustrated because he’s right, but he’s also oh so wrong. “Just…” She takes a breath, trying to compose herself more. 

“Just go home, Fangs” 

I woke up today / In a twin-sized without you / I guess I'll go away / If that's what you want me to do / I’ll just disappear, just disappear

Fangs was always a firm believer that Sundays were the worst days of the week. If it wasn’t because of the fact that he had to get up early, put on his starchiest dress shirt, and sit at mass with his Abuela, it was because Sunday led into Monday, beginning the vicious cycle of days all over again. Fangs had been thinking a lot about time recently. He didn’t have to wonder who influenced him in that. He noticed how slow time seemed to go by when the world around him felt stagnant. Most of his weekend was spent in his bed, sick with worry that he had just fucked up one of the only good things that had happened to him in quite some time. When Fangs checks his phone, he hopes that there would be a text from Ari, but he knows that there isn’t. But it’s been almost three days of the full silent treatment and he was starting to go crazy. He sits back on his bed with a deep sigh, running a hang through his already-tousled hair. 

‘Read 5:48 PM’ 

Fangs pops up from his bed suddenly, feeling the need to occupy himself and distract himself from the worry of the waiting game. All of his homework due Monday was done earlier that weekend. His brother smacked him upside the head, calling him a nerd under his breath as he walked out of the house, actually having plans that weekend and not sulking around at hime like Fangs was. He has the first page of his midterm essay on the Salem Witch Trials done and was waiting on the library book he needed to pick up at school tomorrow in order to finish it. He was running out of ways to distract himself. He ducks his head out of his bedroom door and looks out into the hallway, seeing if anyone was in the kitchen because his assistance was always needed there. 

“You need me to do anything?” He asks timidly, looking at his mother as she clutched at her sore lower back. She had been feeling okay lately, the medications were working but flare-ups were inevitable and Fangs always could tell when Jaimina was hurting more than she was letting on. 

“What, you lookin’ for things to do around the house? Cause I got a whole list I can get for you right now, mijito” Jaimina pokes at Fangs’ side as she walks past him, flicking the dishtowel over her shoulder. Her intuition knew that something was wrong. She knew her sons like the back of her hand and could recognize that something was weighing heavy on Fangs’ heart, but she didn’t want to pry. The boy smiles in jest and its enough of a response that she knows he’ll be all right in time. He takes the dishtowel from her, pushing up his sleeves and standing at the sink as he tackles the pile of plates and forks. 

It’s almost 10PM on Sunday when Fangs finally had enough. It was late enough in the evening that all of the members of the Fogarty family had retired to their respective bedrooms, leaving Fangs to be alone with his thoughts (which was what he had been avoiding this whole time). Time seemed to move too slow, like he was the one controlling the speed at which it moved. Fangs tried to go to bed early; he tossed and turned until he got the bright idea to listen to some music, but all of his favorite songs were Ari’s favorite songs and that made him sad because there was a part of him that didn’t know if things between them would be salvageable. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He digs the backs of his hands into the his eye-sockets until he’s seeing stars. It wasn’t his place to intervene between two friends and he knew it, and his sense of loyalty came off as both condescending and controlling, which wasn’t what he meant at all. He tucks his hands behind his head and gazes absent-mindedly at the ceiling, counting the cracks. Not wanting to lose any more time that he already had, Fangs sits up with a huff and unlocks his phone, beginning to compose a text. 

In a different part of town, Ari Katz wasn’t doing too much better. She spent most of her weekend in bed, worried that she lost her best friend and her boyfriend in the span of a few hours. Her pink-lit bedroom was cold with the breeze of outside air that slipped through the gauzy curtains and Ari finds herself pulling up the hood of the puffy sweatshirt she had stolen from Fangs ages ago. It still smells like him and it feels like him and Ari is accosted by a melancholy wave of missing Fangs and everything about him. She bites at her thumbnail and thinks for a minute before unlocking her phone and opening up their text thread. 

And that’s when she notices it. Three little grey dots. He was typing. With a soft gasp, she tosses her phone to the other end of her bed where she can ignore it until she hears it buzz with the promise of an incoming text notification. Ari’s pink-polished fingers are shaky as she reaches for her phone and unlocks it (her passcode was Nadya’s birthday, but she tried not to think about that in the moment). 

[10:08 PM]: I’m sorry that we fought… that was so stupid of me

[10:10 PM]: I care about you a lot, you know that right?

Ari watches the little grey dots disappear and for a minute she thinks that Fangs has given up. 

[10:15 PM]: Can I see you?

Without a second doubt, Ari taps the ‘call’ button and lifts her phone to her ear, letting it ring as she grabs her keys and puts on her shoes. Fangs answers on the third ring and doesn’t say anything but that’s okay. “Will you come pick me up? I’ll sneak out my window.” It’s less of a question and more of a demand, but Fangs gives in easily, relieved that she even wanted to see him. The two make a quick plan and Ari throws the rest of her things in her backpack, stepping up onto her windowsill clad in her pajama shorts and her boots, body engulfed by Fangs’s old sweatshirt. It’s a calculated maneuver that Ari had mastered over the time, how to duck out her window, where she needed to catch her leg in order to push herself onto the garden trellis. She knows where her brother kicked a hole through the old wood, uses that to her advantage as she climbs down low enough to jump, landing gracefully on the grass. Ari sits on the curb as she waits for him, sweatshirt tented and pulled over her bare legs. She hears his car coming; he cuts the lights and the engine. 

“What’re you doing, it’s cold outside” Fangs points out, noticing Ari’s bare legs. It’s instinctual, how easily he finds himself caring for her. He opens the car door for her and turns the heater on full blast. An awkward silence settles over the car and Fangs is hit with a pang of anxiety because usually a silence like this was nonexistent. 

“Do you hate me?” He asks in earnest.

It takes Ari a second to formulate a response. “I could never hate you, Fangs” She looks over at him, sliding her hand towards his over the gearshift. “I just wish that things didn’t go down the way that they did.” Honesty is a bitter pill to swallow and Ari knows that there's plenty of damage control that will need to be done, but it was better to address things sooner rather than later. 

Fangs shakes his head softly. “I’m sorry that I made things worse.”

“You were standing up for me when I wasn’t” Ari tries to shrug, knowing that he his intentions were pure.

“I’m still sorry”

“I know you are”

Fangs kisses Ari’s palm and that’s the end of it. They sit comfortably in the car for a little while, side by side as they basked in the warmth that felt a lot like love. 

[werewolfdays]

Comforting kisses for Jayde and Nadya?

Man sorry I take forever to answer prompts, but I will always eventually answer them! Anyway here have some comfort fluff with a good song to set the mood -

There was a strange bustle coming from inside the clinic when I walked by. I could practically sense the bad energy from where I was standing outside of its doors. Thinking that something was terribly wrong, I didn’t hesitate to go in. My first instinct was to look for Nadya to make sure she was okay. Please, please, don’t let this be her. I thought to myself when my mind went to the worst case scenarios. If someone hurt her, I had no idea what I would do. 

She was nowhere in sight, which made my heart start to pound. I went straight to Malcolm, who usually helped Nadya at the clinic, for answers. His expression was solemn and I felt my chest constrict. “What happened, where’s Nadya?”

He was scribbling something down at the desk, but looked up at me and pursed his lips. After a heavy sigh, he shook his head, “A patient died today. There was nothing we could do. Nadya left to take a break.” 

I blinked at him incredulously, “Nadya lost a patient for the first time?”

Malcolm nodded and I could see that he was extremely disturbed by it, but that didn’t matter to me right now. I felt my heart drop into my stomach and my face flush in annoyance. 

“And no one thought to come find me?” I growled. 

I couldn’t imagine how much Nadya must be beating herself up for this. She was always so hard on herself for little things, this had to be a crippling blow to her. Dealing with it alone was the very last thing she needed right now and I was furious with everyone that just simply let her go. 

“No offense, Jayde, but we were a bit distracted with the fact that someone died.” Malcolm retorted flatly. 

I knew he had a point, but his tone only made me angrier, “Well, no offense, Malcolm,” I took a step closer and glared at him, “But I would think the person who puts everything she has into this clinic, and just went through something devastating because of it, would be a little more important than someone who’s gone.” 

He opened his mouth to reply, maybe even looking somewhat empathetic now, but I turned around and left before he got the chance. Nadya was my only priority. She needed me and I had to find her. 

I was pretty sure she wouldn’t try to hide, only go someplace quiet, or perhaps she went looking for me. Either way, I started towards our room first. For the whole walk back, I contemplated what I could possibly say or do to make this better for her. Would she even accept any comfort? Or would she feel the need to punish herself? Maybe she would even try to separate herself from me if she felt that way. My heart already ached at the prospect. I wouldn’t let her do that.

Nadya was home when I opened the door. She was just sitting on the bed, her head in her hands, and when she heard me enter, she looked up. The guilt and grief on her face, dampening her cheeks with tears, made my heart start to crack and her composure crumbling when she saw me made it completely shatter. I shook my head and went to her as she began to fall apart, kneeling before her in front of the bed and reaching for her hands. 

“No, no,” I cooed softly, bringing her hands up to brush her knuckles with my lips, “Nadya, it’s okay.” 

That didn’t seem to be the right thing to say. She pulled out of my grasp, but not because she was angry with me, “It’s not okay, Jayde. He died. Someone died.” 

“I know.” I carefully replied and set my hands on her legs because I knew she needed the contact, “But you can’t blame yourself.” 

“I was supposed to save him.” Nadya insisted hopelessly, “That’s my job, I’m supposed to save people.” 

“Nadya, do you have any idea how many people you’ve helped since you’ve been here?” She still looked so defeated, so I stood and cupped her face, directing her gaze up to me, “You’ve saved dozens that would’ve died without you. Hell, I would’ve died without you. On multiple occasions.” My thumbs gently wiped her tears away, “Sometimes you can’t save everyone, but that doesn’t make it your fault. You did everything right. It was just… too late.” 

Her hands came up to hold my forearms and she shut her eyes for a few long beats. “You didn’t see his face, Jay.” she said in a hollow tone and shook her head, “He was scared. He was in pain. And he wanted me to help him so bad.” 

I bent down to plant a kiss to her forehead, keeping my lips there while I inhaled her scent, heavy with sorrow. Then I moved them down to between her eyebrows, keeping them there for another prolonged moment. Everywhere my lips rested next, the bridge of her nose, both of her salty cheeks, the corner of her mouth, silently willed away this darkness. I desperately wanted to banish it from her. Take in inside myself if I had to, to give her any relief. I wasn’t certain if it was actually working or not, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop trying. 

“It’s not your fault.” I told her when my lips finally pressed against hers. 

It took Nadya a second to allow herself to kiss me back and when she did, I could still feel the defeat in her weary cadence. So I kissed her slowly and delicately, trying to ease her into it. Trying to make her feel some relief and help her forgive herself. I knew it couldn’t be a magic fix, but I was hoping it would be a start. Letting her know just how much I loved her no matter what was the easiest thing I could do for her. Reminding her that she wasn’t a failure would be harder, but I knew it wasn’t impossible. 

After we pulled away, I offered a small smile, letting go of her to climb on the bed and lean my back against the headboard, “Come here,” I motioned, and Nadya sheepishly crawled her way over to me and rested her head on my lap, clinging to me tightly. 

She cried, letting herself feel the weight of what happened, and hopefully helping herself let it go as a result. I ran my fingers through her hair and caressed her arm and back, giving her any kind of comfort I was able to while she rode out her painful sobs. My chest ached every time I heard her audible cries of anguish, but I was still glad she let me hear them. Holding back can be more painful than just letting yourself feel it all. 

“I’m here.” I promised over and over again. “I’m right here with you.”

[coeurvrai]

He smiled, then turned to go. “We’re not enemies, Nadya.”

“Not right now, you mean.”

He paused, glanced back at her, then nodded. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

Yet. Nadya heard it in his tone, even if he didn’t mean it—even if he never meant it. He was a Tranavian mage and they were enemies by default.

She followed him.

At least she hasn’t called him a “Heretic” for once. Yet.

The lack of follow-through in this book is reminiscent of Celaena’s constant inner monologue of murder and statements that she could do this or that in the first ToG book, but she doesn’t go through with it but don’t give good enough reasons on why she doesn’t do it, especially when we’re supposed to believe she’s an accomplished assassin and hates them and wants to kill them all.

It’s like we’re supposed to believe that Nadya hates the Tranavians, right? Especially the blood mages. 

She regards them as her sworn enemies, people who have waged war against Kalyazin and turned away from her beloved gods. They’re the people who have ruined the Monastery, the only home she’s ever known, and for all she knows has killed everyone she cares about. They have killed and experimented on countless innocents, slaughtered the previous Clerics with their abominable Vultures. Marzenya had chosen her specifically and part of her devotion to her divine patron involves taking down the enemies of the Gods, of Kalyazin, and of Nadya - the Tranavians.

She met and immediately expressed distrust and suspicion of Malachiasz because he comes across as a very dangerous and powerful Tranavian blood mage, (and by extension Parijahan and Rashid because they travel with and associate with him).

What we’re told does not match what Nadya actually does. It’s all hollow words.