#perhaps I’ll make a longer post in the near future

[twelvedaysinaugust]

I always love how you express your thoughts, so i cannot wait for you to make a detailed post on your feelings about today! I hadn't felt so alive in a long time. Very very overwhelmed, cannot wait to hear what you’ve got to say!!

I love him. And I love Halloween for this exact reason; it blurs the boundaries. I know we were just talking about how Larry probably wasn’t the relationship we thought it was, but tonight it felt like it was that relationship. And it was nice to feel that way again. I thought it was a very romantic gesture. It felt like a nod to the good old days.

Sometimes I look at what fans take as “proof,” like the blue-greening and numerology-type stuff, and think: I doubt it’s intentional, but even if it is, why would Harry and Louis care that the other one is doing that? But Danny Zuko felt meaningful, special, and personal.

[endofradio]

PROVE MY LOVE

WARNINGS: NSFW (but like… it’s 🌽 with feeling. they start smashing towards the end 💀)

RELATIONSHIP: FRANK / ORIGINAL CHARACTER (SYLVIE)

NOTES: this is a draft of a scene i’ve got planned for a future fic! i’ll probably be posting more drafts along the way because this is fun tbh. also, this scene takes place in frank’s apartment.

SUMMARY: frustrated by the fact sylvie seems to be questioning his reasons for saving her life, frank decides to tell her — and show her — how he really feels about her.

WORD COUNT: 4,032 (yeah it’s long)

TAGS: @reclaimedbythesea @creelmalfoylaufeyson69 @blackwolfstabs @shawsfinalgirl @atcarpenter

likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated! helps keep me motivated <3

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“Why are you being so nice to me?” Sylvie asked the question carefully, a sense of confusion flickering in her gaze. “Why did you choose to save my life? You… you tried to kill me, and now…”

As she looked up at Frank, she could see him look away from her for a moment. When he looked back at her, his already-cold gaze had hardened. “Well, I suppose I had a change of heart, huh?” He shot back, a bitter smile curling at his lips. “Sure, maybe I hurt you, and I am a piece of shit, but… did you really think I was gonna let you just fuckin’ die like that?” He was getting closer to her now, practically staring into her goddamn soul.

Sylvie swallowed nervously, taking a couple steps backward. “You tried. To fucking. Kill me.” She repeated, stopping at every couple of words to let them sink in. “You could’ve just let me die, but you didn’t. Why?”

Why? That question repeated over and over again in Frank’s mind. He could feel the wall he had built around himself slowly crumbling. He couldn’t be vulnerable. Vulnerability was a weakness. Yet, this woman standing in front of him was fucking breaking him. There was a much deeper reason he had chosen to save her besides “having a change of heart,” but of course he wasn’t going to fucking admit that, not yet. Trying to mask his emotional turmoil was only proving to be becoming significantly more difficult for him right now.

So, Frank just shook his head and let out a bitter chuckle. “You really don’t fuckin’ get it, do you?” He snidely asked, taking a step closer towards Sylvie. He let out a bitter scoff. “God, you really are a stubborn little brat, aren’t you?” Yeah, he was being an asshole right now, but it was just a front. He was desperately trying to hold back from just fucking saying it.

“What is there to get?” Sylvie questioned, narrowing her eyes at Frank. As for her, she was experiencing her own tumultuous whirlwind of emotions and thoughts.

“What is there to— oh, Jesus. If only you fuckin’ knew what goes on inside my goddamn head.” Frank knew he wouldn’t be able to hold back for much longer. Jesus Christ, he needed her to understand. When he looked at Sylvie, she seemed only more confused, and it was pissing him off. He continued to walk towards her as she backed away from him, until her back was nearly pressed against the kitchen counter. He could tell she was getting nervous. Afraid, even. The idea was almost physically painful to Frank.

“You have no clue, no fuckin’ clue what you put me through.” Frank hissed, his eyes narrowing. “Wouldn’t you just love to know?”

“Yeah, I would like to know.” Sylvie answered, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. Frank picked up on the way her breathing was quickening, how her heart rate was accelerating ever so slightly… why was she so afraid? Yeah, perhaps he knew he was scaring her, but he couldn’t help it. He was a jackass. She was occasionally avoiding eye contact with him, her eyes darting in different directions. Frank couldn’t handle it.

Maybe a little too roughly, he reached to grab Sylvie’s chin, tilting it so she was looking directly at him. “You truly, truly piss me off sometimes, you know that?” He asked, his voice lowering. “You make me confused. One second, I wanna just… I don’t know, snap at you. Taunt you. Get under your skin as I usually do.”

Frank paused for a moment, allowing his words to sink in. Then, he continued.

“But then, I…” His eyes briefly flickered down to Sylvie’s lips. Shit. He looked back into her eyes, suddenly feeling as though he couldn’t speak. “I… wanna kiss you until you can’t. Fuckin’. Breathe. Until all you can think about is me. Until you forget your own goddamn name. Until…” Frank tried to shake the thoughts out of his head, but they were just spilling out of his mouth. Now, all he could think about was kissing her, tasting her. Snap out of it already!

He looked away from her for a moment, tightly shutting his eyes. Even then, the thoughts only persisted, getting stronger with each second. He just wanted to have his hands all over her.

Frank tightened his grip on Sylvie’s chin just a little, and when he looked at her… god, the way she was looking at him, with her soft, brown eyes all wide, and… was that a tear glistening in her left eye? Why did she look beautiful like this? Fucking hell, he was fighting demons.

“How do you feel about me?” He then harshly asked. “Don’t lie, either. I’ll know if you are.”

Sylvie drew in a deep, unsteady breath. How the hell was she supposed to answer that question? It wasn’t an easy one. She didn’t know how to phrase what she was feeling, what she was thinking. She didn’t know what the fuck to say.

“Answer me.” Frank hissed through gritted teeth. Part of him felt guilty for acting like this, but he just couldn’t help it. He was just… frustrated.

“I don’t… I don’t know…” Sylvie weakly whispered. “I mean, I… I feel like you…”

“Like I what?”

“Like you only want to use me.”

Frank rolled his eyes and stepped away from Sylvie, taking a deep breath. He began to pace around the kitchen like a caged animal, running his hands through his hair. He knew he was an asshole, but for some reason he couldn’t handle Sylvie thinking of him as that much of an asshole. He had tried to push down his feelings for her, tried to seem like he didn’t care. Now, Sylvie was truly under the impression that Frank didn’t give a shit about her, and for some reason… he didn’t like that.

“You seriously fuckin’ think that?” He asked, before approaching Sylvie again. He placed both hands on either side of the kitchen counter, trapping her. “I mean, sure. Maybe I am a heartless bastard, but… fuck. You’re so goddamn oblivious.”

“What…?” Sylvie’s eyes were glazing over with tears even more. Fuck. “What are you… trying to say?”

Frank could feel his heart pounding in his chest, his breathing getting faster. He was desperately clinging onto the self-control that he did have.

“You drive me fuckin’ crazy. I hope you realize that.” He whispered, a sardonic half-smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You make me feel like I’m about to lose my goddamn mind. You’re… you’re like a fuckin’ parasite.”

Sylvie could feel her breath getting caught in her throat. Wait… so did he feel the same way she did? She thought he didn’t, she thought her feelings were completely one-sided. He had drained her of so much blood and could’ve just left her to die, but… he didn’t. All her life, Sylvie had never experienced even just a little bit of compassion that was directed at her. Of course she was in denial. Coming from someone like Frank, it was even more difficult to comprehend.

Frank got even closer to Sylvie, their faces now inches apart from each other. He could feel her warm breath and the fiery tension that was crackling in the air.

“What am I… to you?” Sylvie quietly asked.

That question just about did it for Frank. As irritation built up within him along with a flaming desire, he swiftly reached to grab her face, claiming Sylvie’s lips in a kiss that was full of both frustration and passion. She was caught off-guard by the suddenness of the kiss, her eyes widening for a moment as her breath hitched. Then, she slowly relaxed into it, her eyes gently fluttering shut.

The kiss was slow at first, but as Frank felt his self-control slipping further, it became more intense. He moved a hand away from Sylvie’s face to grab at her waist, suddenly feeling a surge of possessiveness. He felt her reaching to touch his face, and that really sent him over the edge. Frank frantically began to place kisses along Sylvie’s jawline, down her neck… and then he swiftly lifted her up, placing her on top of the kitchen counter. That was when he realized just how small she really was in comparison to him — he was nearly a foot taller than her.

Frank’s lips met Sylvie’s again, and his hands were practically all over her as he urgently deepened the kiss. He could feel her slowly melting into him and letting go, and it was only adding fuel to the fire. The way she wrapped her arms around his neck, combing her fingers through his hair… it was the kind of thing Frank only thought he could dream about. This was different from the first and only other time they had done something like this — there was passion, genuine passion. Frank’s mind started to wander to that particular moment. He could just hear Sylvie quietly whimpering his real name, how good it sounded. He couldn’t get the image out of his head of the way Sylvie had looked underneath him with her cheeks all flushed… and the way she looked when she had been on top of him— alright, Frank. That’s enough. That can all happen again later.

“Why do you let me… do this…?” Frank quietly asked in between kisses. “Y’know I’m not… good for you…”

Sylvie’s heart was beating out of her chest. She just wanted to say those three words that she’d been trying to hold back from saying… but she couldn’t. Part of her was scared to, still afraid that Frank didn’t really feel the same way and only felt lust for her, nothing else. She had lived a miserable life of rejection.

“I… I know…” She whispered, her breath shaking.

“You just can’t… pull away, huh? You’re just… wrapped around my finger… aren’t you?”

“M… mhm…”

Frank smirked a little against Sylvie’s lips. “That’s what I thought… you’ve got me wrapped around yours, too.”

He started roughly kissing her again. He just couldn’t keep his hands or his mouth off of her — she was like a drug to him. He pushed Sylvie’s shirt up just a little, just so he could feel her skin, and the sensation of Frank’s cold hand on her bare waist was sending chills down her spine, and her breath hitched just a bit.

“You remember that… one time we slept together?” Frank murmured, his kisses now trailing down to Sylvie’s neck again, specifically the side where the scarred-over bite wound was — the one he had inflicted. The realization gave him another surge of possessiveness. The scar was a reminder — a reminder of how Sylvie belonged to him.

“I didn’t want that to end.” Frank quietly continued, his hands continuing to gently caress her body. “I was… disappointed… when I woke up and… and you weren’t there.”

“Really…?” Sylvie asked. As she felt Frank kissing her neck, she shivered just a bit. She couldn’t believe how good he was able to make her feel.

“I wanted that moment… to last forever…” Frank continued, murmuring against her neck. Slowly, his hand began to travel up Sylvie’s skirt, his fingers gently grazing her thigh. As he felt a sudden wave of desire come over him, Frank left a gentle bite on her neck. “You felt… so good…” His voice had started to get rougher, huskier.

Frank heard a small gasp from Sylvie, and he quickly moved his head away from her neck to look down at her. Quickly, he kissed her again, his hands roaming back to her waist and grabbing at it desperately.

Before Sylvie could even say anything, Frank lifted her up off of the kitchen counter. Being in his arms like this, so high above ground… it was making Sylvie’s heart race even more, perhaps from a combination of anxiety and also desire. With his newly-obtained abilities, Frank could easily pick up on any emotion Sylvie was feeling. If she was afraid, he could practically smell it — right now, he could. He looked up at her, brushing a dark strand of hair away from her face. On the other hand, he could also sense the desire she was feeling. It was only encouraging him.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

Sylvie slowly nodded. “Afraid of heights, I guess.” She answered quietly. “You’re just… really tall.”

“No one’s ever done this to you before, huh?” Frank asked, a small smirk forming on his face. Sylvie shook her head in response. All of this that she had experienced with Frank — genuine passionate kissing, sex that made her actually feel something… she had never experienced it with anybody before, and to think it was her former worst enemy making her feel all of these things…

“Well, you’re not gonna fall.” Frank quietly spoke, before taking her lips in another deep kiss as he carried her off towards his bedroom.

Once they got to the bedroom, things became progressively more heated. They were on the bed within moments, Sylvie quickly straddling him as they roughly kissed once again. As they did, Sylvie felt Frank shift underneath her as he moved to unbutton his pants, before she heard the sound of him unzipping them. Moving his hands back to her body, Frank began to slowly move them down Sylvie’s slender form, before slipping a hand under her black lace skirt, sliding his hand slowly up her thigh, pausing once he had reached her panties. He let his hand linger there for a moment, before hooking his fingers around the waistband. With a slow, gradual movement, he pulled the material down to her legs. Sylvie finished the job for him, breaking the kiss and freeing herself of the fabric, tossing it on the floor. She adjusted her position, hovering above Frank’s undone pants just a little. She looked down for a moment before her gaze met Frank’s again.

By now, his hands had wandered to her hips, keeping a firm grip on them. He looked into her eyes, his own having darkened with desire. “Don’t keep me waitin’…” He whispered roughly, pulling Sylvie closer against him as he claimed her mouth in what was close to probably being the hundredth kiss of the night so far. He truly was just that desperate for her, especially right now.

Just as Sylvie was about to take things further, there was the sudden sound of thunder outside. Frank broke the kiss for a moment to smirk against her lips, looking up at her.

“Ever fucked to a thunderstorm?” He slyly asked. “It’s quite nice, really — makes it all the more… intense.”

Sylvie chuckled sheepishly. “No, I… I haven’t.”

“Well… would you like to know what it’s… like?”

Sylvie slowly nodded, and that was when Frank pulled her into yet another hungry kiss. She slowly lowered herself a little more, and with a single motion, rocked her hips just a little, gently brushing against Frank but not enough to completely take him in. The sensation was enough to cause her to quietly gasp against his lips.

As Frank’s tongue slipped into her mouth, Sylvie felt him suddenly press his hips upwards into her, and she let out another gasp. He gripped her hips again and slowly began to guide her into a gentle rhythm, thunder continuing to crackle outside.

Then, those three words slipped from Sylvie’s mouth. “I… I love you…” She quietly murmured against Frank’s lips.

The admission hit Frank full-force like a goddamn semi-truck. Part of him wanted to deny it, but the way she said it was so vulnerable.

“Say it… say it again.” Frank pleaded. “So I… know it’s… real.”

“I’m in… love with you… Adam…”

The way she said his name… goddamnit. It was making his stomach do somersaults. How the hell was he supposed to control himself now?

“You’re… you’re serious…” He murmured. Frank honestly hadn’t expected Sylvie to actually be in love with him. In his mind, he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Hell, he didn’t even think he was capable of being loved by anybody. Choosing to save her was the only act of compassion he had ever displayed towards her, and part of him still wanted to question why he had done it.

“Love” normally meant nothing to Frank, but now that he had heard Sylvie say those words, he just wanted to hear them over and over and over again. He wanted to say he was in love with her too — because he most likely was — but that one emotionless, cold side of him couldn’t bring himself to admit it. The idea of actually loving somebody was terrifying to Frank — he only knew how to discard somebody and move on to the next. He had abandoned his family without a care in the world to dabble in the criminal life. How was he capable of being in love? He wasn’t a nice person. He wasn’t a good person. Yet, for some reason, he was now suddenly obsessed with the idea of Sylvie being in love with him.

“Why…?” Frank quietly asked. “You’re too… good for me.”

Sylvie reached to gently cup Frank’s face with her hands. “I don’t… care…” She whispered in response. “I can’t… stay away from you…”

“Why…?”

“You’re the… only person… who’s made me feel this way.”

Frank’s eyes widened at Sylvie’s words. “You’ve never…?” He couldn’t grasp the idea that he might’ve just been the only person Sylvie had ever loved.

Sylvie shook her head. “No…”

“We’re just a couple of fuck-ups, aren’t we?” Frank chuckled sardonically, planting another kiss to Sylvie’s lips. “You used to tell me to go fuck myself, y’know… now you love me?”

“Change of heart, I guess.” Sylvie responded half-mockingly, before wrapping her legs around Frank’s waist, trying to be even more physically close to him.

As the thunder outside intensified, Frank felt a sudden jolt of pleasure hit him, and he leaned back a bit, his head resting against the headboard of the bed, his eyes fluttering shut as his grip on Sylvie’s hips tightened even further. Sylvie took the opportunity to unzip Frank’s jacket, sliding it over his shoulders to reveal the white tank top he wore underneath. Then, she leaned forward and began to place feverish kisses along his neck and jawline, just as he had previously done to her. In response, he breathed a sigh of pleasure, giving Sylvie a sudden rush of confidence.

The sensation of Frank gently matching her rhythm underneath her caused Sylvie to feel a sudden shockwave of pleasure shoot throughout her body, and she threw her head back, gently closing her eyes in ecstasy as she let a quiet moan fall from her lips.

Following a sudden crash of thunder, Frank abruptly snapped his hips upwards, grabbing Sylvie’s hips impossibly tighter and pulling her further down onto him. She let out a yelp at the feeling, trying to keep herself stable by gripping onto the headboard with one hand, her other firmly placed on Frank’s chest. “Oh my god…” She whimpered as Frank guided her into a more urgent rhythm, the bed quietly creaking. “I… oh, Jesus…”

Sylvie’s breathing was slowly turning into panting, and she didn’t know how much longer she could continue at this point. Gasping and whimpering, she was slowly unraveling before Frank’s eyes.

Frank was desperately fighting the urge to just flip them over and show Sylvie just how much she really drove him insane. As he opened his eyes, he looked up at her with a wide-eyed gaze of adoration. The way her lips were parted, her eyes closed. Frank didn’t think he had ever seen something so beautiful, until now. It was an image he never wanted to get out of his head, and the sounds she made — they were heavenly.

That was when Frank decided he couldn’t take it anymore, and he quickly pushed Sylvie down onto the bed, quickly climbing on top of her as though he was a predator trying to capture its prey. Sylvie let out a slight gasp of surprise, and seeing the predatory gaze in Frank’s eyes was making her feel something… was it desire?

Without any hesitation, Frank quickly grabbed Sylvie’s chin, tilting it upwards as he began to hungrily kiss her. With his other hand, he firmly grabbed at her, pulling her as close to him as he could as he started deeply rocking his hips against hers. The whole time, he kept a tight grip on her waist, almost as though she’d disappear from him if he let go. Sylvie was so small, so fragile — Frank realized how easy it would be to just manhandle her.

“I love you…” Sylvie whispered against his lips. Now that she had said it once, she couldn’t stop saying it. “I can’t… I can’t get enough of you...”

Sylvie’s vulnerability was ripping Frank to shreds. She really did mean what she was saying, and he couldn’t believe it. Even though he was a piece of shit and had done nothing to earn anything from her, she still loved him. Honestly, he felt… bad for her. There were probably so many people who would be better for her, yet she chose him.

Frank’s kisses wandered down to Sylvie’s jawline, neck, collarbone… he was kissing her all over. Desperate to feel more of her skin against his lips, he quickly pulled her shirt over her head, admiring her body before trailing kisses down her chest. “Why me…?” He murmured against her skin.

“I’ve never… loved somebody before…” Sylvie quietly answered.

“Me neither…” Until Sylvie, but of course he couldn’t bring himself to admit that just yet. Deciding to be a little humorous, Frank smirked against her chest. “You just have a thing for jackasses, huh?”

He wasn’t entirely wrong, either. Sylvie was more drawn to the wrong type of guy — she only knew cruelty, not love.

“Do you… love me?” Sylvie then asked.

The question caught Frank by slight surprise. His eyes met hers, and then he pulled her impossibly closer to him as he continued to slowly move his hips.

Just say it, goddamnit. It’s not that hard.

The way Sylvie was looking into his eyes wasn’t helping. She looked so hopeful. Jesus, how fucking hurt was she to the point she wanted him to love her… out of all people?

Swallowing, he nodded, suddenly at a loss for words. Frank loved her, but in a way he didn’t understand. It was too complicated to explain.

At Frank’s nod, Sylvie pulled him into another kiss, and that was enough to pull Frank out of his inner turmoil, even if just for a little while. He groaned quietly into the kiss, furrowing his brows as he felt his desire for her take hold. His pace gradually became more urgent, and he buried his face in the crook of Sylvie’s neck. She arched her back a bit, nails digging into his back through his tank top as she held onto him. Judging by her gentle whimpers and gasps, Frank could tell she was getting closer to the edge… and he was determined to get her there.

“Mine…” He murmured against her neck, leaving a trail of small bites and desperate kisses once again. “Only mine… only… mine…”

Frank knew he couldn’t hold much longer, either. His movements became more desperate, his nails digging into her hips. He suddenly realized he needed to see Sylvie coming undone on top of him, and he quickly flipped them over again, desperately pulling Sylvie onto him.

Sylvie was just about seeing stars at this point, feeling that familiar tension building up within her abdomen. “I can’t…” She whined. “I… oh my god…”

There was another crack of thunder as the storm grew more intense, and Sylvie frantically kissed Frank to muffle her moans as they both finally let go, continuing to slowly move together as they rode out their intense, shared high, the storm outside only adding to it all.

[climbthemountain2020]

Hope of Spring - Chapter 9

Also posted on my Ao3!

Find Ch. 8 here :)

The first things Penny heard when she woke up were male voices she didn’t recognize, blurred on the edges of her consciousness.

She tried to take stock of her body. The cut on her arm felt tender, but no longer felt like an open wound. Her ankle seemed mostly back to normal. Her head was absolutely pounding and her mouth felt dry as though she’d swallowed ash.

Am I in a hospital? The memories of the fight came back to her rapidly, and she was struck with terror that perhaps everything had been a dream, and she was back in her own world, waking up with some sort of traumatic head injury. The thought made her want to burst into tears. I should have kissed him stupid every chance I got.

She heard Tamlin’s voice across and almost sobbed with relief. “She’s going to be okay, though?”

A soft female voice, then. “Yes, she’ll be okay. Let her rest. Her arm has been patched, and her ankle is already healed. The panic attack took a lot out of her, but there’s no reason to think she won’t be perfectly fine when she wakes. She used a large amount of strong magic very abruptly, and from what you told me, it wasn’t one she’d accessed before. She will need to replenish her strength. Lots of rest, and make sure she’s eating.” She could hear Tamlin’s sigh of relief and his agreement from across the room. More voices swam in and out. She could make out Azriel’s voice there, too.

“...But it was the power of my siphons. I would recognize it anywhere. She used it after I helped her up.”

A voice she didn’t recognize. “How is that possible, Az? That’s not something you’ve ever seen, is it?”

Tamlin’s voice responded, tight with irritation. “The claws came out after I grabbed her arms to hold her up. It’s almost like the panic kick-started it. I don’t think she had any idea…”

Penny cracked an eye open and immediately groaned, though the only light in the room came from a few solitary candles. It had been at least six hours since she’d passed out, then, if night had already fallen. When she cracked open her eyes and turned, she was greeted with the sight of Tamlin rushing over to her bedside to grab her hand.

“Hi. Penny, hi.” He sounded breathless as he pressed her knuckles to his lips in a surprisingly intimate gesture that took the breath straight from her chest. He brushed her hair off her forehead, and if she hadn’t felt woozy before, this surely wasn’t helping.

“Hi,” she croaked out. “Is everyone okay?” He grabbed a pitcher of water and a cup from the bedside, poured it, and held it to her lips. Penny struggled to lift her head, but thought it might be the best water she’d ever tasted. She laid her head back down and looked back to Tamlin, the worry still etched across his face.

“Everyone is fine. You used some new magic, and then had a panic attack. We brought you back to the manor. This is Madja. She came from the Night Court to make sure everything was okay.” An older woman with lines carved into her beautiful bronze skin smiled in a way that could only be described as motherly, and Penny’s heart momentarily clenched. Madja sat on the bed, hovering her hands over Penny, and asked “May I?”

Penny nodded, and Madja’s hands began to glow. She ran them up and down, inches above Penny’s body, a feeling like warm water coursing through her. A soft light reflected down from her hands into Penny’s body, but it felt lovely and kind, leaving her with a sense of safety and comfort.

“Everything appears fine. Your arm should be entirely healed by tomorrow. I want you to rest for the remainder of tonight, then take it easy tomorrow. No more backyard battles for a while, hm?”

Penny nodded. “I’ll tell all the terrible ghoulies in the forest that I’m on strict bed rest for the foreseeable future.” Madja smiled at her, and Penny heard chuckles from over by the windows.

It was then she took notice of the owners of the other two voices she’d heard before. Azriel stood near the door with someone who looked incredibly similar to him, save for the missing shadows and violet eyes.

She turned her eyes to Tamlin in shock, not believing for a second he’d let Rhysand inside his home. But Tamlin was only looking at her, relief shining through his eyes so clearly that she would have stumbled if she’d been standing. He pressed his forehead to her hand and closed his eyes.

“I was so worried about you.” He whispered, low enough that it was barely audible. Azriel and Rhysand shared a look with each other before Rhysand cleared his throat. Tamlin’s eyes shot open with an ire that could have killed a lesser being.

“Do you need something, Rhysand?” He snarled through clenched teeth without looking back at the men behind him. Rhys smiled, shoving his hands in his pockets and stepping forward.

“Now, now, Tamlin. No need to get testy. I brought Madja to help, and now I just want to get to know your guest. Penny, is it?” She could tell Tamlin was using every ounce of willpower to not turn and throw him out of the house himself. She pulled herself up to sit against the headboard, a little embarrassed to see she was still wearing her crumpled tunic and pants from earlier, but relieved that no one had tried to change her, either.

“Yes, I’m Penny. Thank you for bringing Madja.” She turned to Madja, who was cleaning up her supplies. “And thank you for taking such good care of me. I will not forget your kindness. Please, if you haven’t already, help yourself to the kitchens. I know it’s late and the staff might have already gone home, but anything you please in there, you’re welcome to.”

She saw Madja and Tamlin both smile. “The High Lord already offered me a delicious dinner.” She shot a look back at Rhys. “We may need to borrow the recipe for that hazelnut cake for the Night Court.”

She finished packing up, and left the room with a look towards Rhys that said you’re treading thin ice. Azriel chuckled under his breath. “I assume, if you’re here, Lucien and Azriel have told you everything you need to know about who I am and what I know.”

“Yes. I am aware of the circumstances. I was hoping that perhaps we could talk.” He said, lightly. She looked to Tamlin, who was intentionally looking at the wall away from Rhys, grinding his teeth, but still holding her hand in his. It was warm against her skin, his fingers clutching hers in a way that left warmth curled up in the cavern of her chest like a sleeping cat. The calluses on his skin pressed against the pads of her fingers and sent a subtle thrill skittering down her spine, leaving goosebumps peppering her forearms. She could feel relief, and fear, and hope, and frustration. She wished he would hold her hand, among other things, like this more often.

A chuckle brought her out of her reverie and her eyes shot up to Rhys, who was looking at her, amused with lifted brows. It occurred to her then that he was, in fact, someone who could read minds, and her cheeks flushed. “Get out of my head, Rhysand, or you can get out of this house,” she all but growled at him.

The amusement in his eyes didn’t fade, but he held his hands up in a gesture of peace. “It was not intentional, my lady. You were shouting your thoughts loudly enough that I didn’t have much of a choice,” he said with a laugh. “On that subject, though, I was hoping that you might let me look and see what you know. It might be easier and more efficient than us trying to ask questions and trade information back and forth.”

Penny was opening her mouth to agree that that probably was the better course of action when Tamlin sprung up from next to the bed and whirled on Rhys. She felt the response to his power rise in her veins like a tidal wave, her power writhing in her and pulling like a beast on a chain to rise with it. The pain in her head was sharp, and she choked the magic back down.

“She has just been attacked,” he roared across the room. “You’ll stay the fuck out of her head until she recovers and gives you explicit permission. Am I clear?” Penny moved to grab Tamlin’s clenched fist from the bed.

“It’s alright, Tamlin. I do want to help, but perhaps we could do this in a few days? I am incredibly tired, and Madja did tell me to rest.” She smiled innocently up at them. After a deep breath, Tamlin turned back to sit on the side of the bed again, unfurling his clenched fist and winding his fingers back around her own. Another shared look between Rhys and Azriel didn’t escape Penny’s notice.

“Of course, Penny. We’ll come back in a few days. We appreciate your willingness to help.” With a short incline of his chin and a smug grin, he and Azriel stepped out of the room, and Tamlin’s entire body relaxed.

She released his hand, but scooted back over on the bed, patting the spot where she’d been when he raised his head to look at her. He pulled himself up, untied his boots and took them off, then climbed to sit next to her, leaning back against the headboard. She found herself immediately missing the warm comfort of his hand. She took him in–he looked as rumpled as she did. His shirt was wrinkled as though he hadn’t left her bedside in the hours they’d been here, his hair mussed like he’d been running his hands through it. He spoke without opening his eyes.

“I was so scared when I rode up to you fighting them today. I was terrified I would be too late. But you…you were incredible. I have never seen anything like what you did today, Penny.” Without another word, he moved so that their shoulders were touching, and he pulled her hand back into his. Butterflies erupted in her chest and stomach, and she closed her eyes and pressed her lips together to keep a giggle from bubbling out of her throat.

“I was scared, too.” She admitted. “Seeing them trying to hurt you…I have never felt terror and rage like that. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to help you. That I'd gotten into this mess and that you would die because of me.” He lifted her hand to his mouth again and placed the gentlest of kisses against the back of her hand. A shudder went through her body at the touch, and she knew there was absolutely no way he didn’t notice.

“Thank you for listening to me. Trusting me. Knowing your history with them, you have no idea what it means to me that you are still choosing to take my side and let me make my own choices.” She felt him exhale a deep breath. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to have them here, in the manor.”

“Penny, I don’t think you understand the lengths I would go to to make you happy.” Her breath caught in her throat, and she dared a look over at him. His head was tipped back against the headboard, but now his eyes were focused solely on her. The absolute devotion in them was enough to undo her entirely. “It isn’t easy, and it never will be to trust them. But I trust you. You make me want to be different–to be better. I can’t make you trust me, and I won’t make you stay. But I would like for you to. I would like it if you'd consider this your home.”

She took a deep breath, remembering the sour regret she’d felt burning through her more than once today, and decided to make the jump. “What if I told you that I was the most afraid that I would die in this world without ever having kissed you?” she breathed out. His eyes widened, but before he could stop himself or she could second guess, his hand was at her jaw tipping her face up to meet his.

“Thank the gods.” He whispered, closing the space between them.

With his thumb along her cheek, he brushed his lips against hers in the lightest caress, and Penny thought someone might as well have been setting off explosives for the shock of electricity that she felt rip through her. She leaned in and let his hand slide to gather the hair at the back of her neck as she deepened the kiss.

It felt like every cliché movie she’d watched and book she’d read. Symphonies could have been going in the background as her tongue glided along the seam of his mouth and he opened for her. She shifted her body towards him, her hand dancing lightly along his collar, serving to anchor her to this earth. She thought that maybe nothing had ever felt so perfect, so right, until this moment.

They pulled apart to breathe, and he pressed a firm kiss to her forehead. “You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that,” he chuckled. She couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled from her throat this time.

“All this time I’ve been so afraid to ruin this. I should have kissed you before a near-fatal situation.” They pressed their foreheads together as they laughed and shared breath.

“Stay with me tonight? I don’t want to sleep alone,” she asked, grabbing his hand to pull around her waist as she lowered herself down into the bed.

“I will stay with you as long as you want me, Penelope Briggs.” He murmured back, turning to blow out the candle and curling into the space behind her back as though he’d belonged there all along.

________________

In the morning, Penny woke to the most delicious warmth she’d ever felt. It was as though she’d been cocooned in the glow of the sun. She felt well-rested in a way that she hadn’t in maybe years, her body coming awake without hesitation. She could hear the gentle drumming of a heartbeat, and each pulse echoed and danced with her own. Without opening her eyes, she smiled, remembering that she’d asked Tamlin to stay with her, and he had obliged.

In the night, she’d rolled to press her face against his chest, the muslin of his tunic bunched beneath her cheek, surely leaving lines in her skin. She couldn’t bring herself to care. He smelled like the forest after rain, like the first, earthen blooms of spring. He smelled like the days after a long winter when she would stay out from dawn to dusk, until her parents all but begged her to come back inside. He smelled like home.

“Are you just going to sniff me all day, Sunshine?” He asked, and his voice, rough with sleep, shot a curl of arousal all the way down to her toes.

“I am not sniffing you, stupid. I am breathing slowly and waking up peacefully. Or, I was, until you opened your big mouth,” she said with a smile. He chuckled in response, craning his head to place the softest kiss on her crown of her head. “You stayed with me.”

“You asked me to.” He responded, as if it were the most simple thing in the world.

“Thank you.” She turned to place a kiss on his chest as she sat up, stretching. “I don’t feel injured at all, really. My arm is a little tender, but nothing like I was expecting.” Tamlin sat up too, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Not that we spent a lot of time leisurely catching up, but Rhysand seems to think that you’re immortal. Not quite fae, but definitely not human. You heal like we do. And you wielded Azriel’s powers, then mine.”

“I suppose that’s something we’ll need to address.” She was interested to learn more, but the thought of the previous afternoon and the stress of seeing the man she cared about in danger had her absolutely reeling and exhausted again. She dramatically flopped back against the bed, landing with her head by his lap. “Can’t we just stay here?”

He leaned down to kiss her gently on the lips. The kiss was sweet, but the words he whispered in her ear were not. “I can think of a great many things we could do if we stayed here.” Penny blushed about ten shades of red as Tamlin rose from the bed. “Come on and get dressed. Let’s get something to eat and we can see what your magic can do.” He winked at her before he exited the room and closed the door behind him.

______________________

After plying her full of food and ensuring repeatedly that she wasn’t going to collapse, Tamlin and Penny went out to the hills beyond the garden to see if she could use her magic again. After the previous night, something vital had shifted between them. Every touch brought what felt like literal sparks between them, every too-long glance had the breath burning through Penny’s lungs. When he grabbed her hand to see if she could harness his magic, she never wanted him to let go.

Penny was having trouble focusing long enough to make anything happen. Since she’d already made shifting happen once, they tried to start there, but simply willing it into existence wasn’t working for her like it had when she’d tried with the candle.

“Try thinking of yourself. Visualize how you look in your body right now. Now take that image and change something small about it. Really just focus on that one small change.” Penny thought about turning her hair blonde like Tamlin’s since she could visualize it easily, especially since tangling her hands through his hair had been on her mind all morning.

She could hear Tamlin cackling before he croaked out “What on earth were you imagining?” She cracked an eye open long enough to see her hair was falling in a tangled mass above her eyes. Fantastic. She flopped down to sit on the ground dramatically with a great huff of breath.

“This is a lot harder than it was yesterday.”

“Well, you were under massive amounts of stress yesterday. Big emotions can bring heavy magic out of us, but it’s not controlled or safe. You can’t rely on big bursts of emotions to use your magic, or you’ll always be out of control with it. Trust me, because I did this for far too long and it only served to ruin my life and hurt those around me. You must learn to operate your magic outside of your emotional response, or you’ll never have a handle on it.” Penny nodded resolutely, hearing the message he was allowing himself to be vulnerable and covey, and tried again.

She opened her eyes to his beautiful smile through a sheet of purple hair falling over her eyes. “I did it!” She screamed.

“You did it,” he echoed, kissing her again on the brow. “Soon, this will be second nature, and you’ll be able to shift larger aspects of yourself. I’m not sure how much power you borrow when you do this, but I don’t feel depleted at all. I will be curious to see how much you get and how far you can extend it.”

“Will you train me?” She asked, hopeful he would be willing to keep doing this. She trusted him, and this felt like something where trust was paramount to success. Plus, he knew what he was doing, and it didn’t hurt that she already enjoyed spending time with him. “I know you’re busy, and I know that you’re already helpful me with training, but–”

“Of course, Penny.” He must have noted the surprise on her face, because he walked over to grab her hands. She looked up to him, feeling again like she might run the risk of getting distracted by the colors of his eyes. “I don’t ever want you to be in a situation again where you feel you can’t defend yourself. I will do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen. And I would love to train you. Gives me an excuse to spend more time with you.” She noted the gleam in his eyes a second before he reached out and hauled her over his shoulder as she shrieked.

“Put me down, you great beast!” She cackled, as he began walking them back towards the house. She half-heartedly whacked her fists against his back while he chuckled.

“I’m sorry, what?” He yelled, pretending to cup his ear. “I can’t hear you from all the way up here, you’ll have to speak–” His whole body tensed as they rounded the corner of the front of the manor.

One face, lilted with unhidden amusement, and three others, absolutely mired with shock. Lucien, Azriel, and Rhysand had come back, and they’d brought Cassian with them.

[dcbbw]

In Progress

Hello, fellow tumblrs! I know I haven’t been around as much, and for sure not as engaged as I used to be. Can I just say that since 2019, my professional and personal lives have been filled with next-level adulting and living the consequences of other folks’ life choices. Add on that 2020-3 has been a major Groundhog Day cluster, and that’s my life now.

Maybe I’ll return to my Good Daughter WIP and write it ALLLLL out. Maybe I’ll discover I’m not alone with my frustration, anger, and innermost thoughts. Or you all will find out just who I am when I take off my masks and allow myself to be vulnerable in front of God.

We’ll see.

In the meantime, I have been working on some writing and hopefully in the very near future, I’ll be posting some things for your reading pleasure super soon (if you’re interested; I know you guys have options).

Snippets and synopses are below the cut. Everything is in a form of draft, and final editions may vary.

 Trudy Sloane (#Sloane Washington Appreciation Week)

Song Inspo: Closer, Gaopele

Sloane Washington sat on the side of her bed, running her palms over her face. A twinge of pain in her shoulder caused her to roll her neck in an attempt to alleviate the hurt. She exhaled a quiet sigh as her eyes opened; they blinked as they adjusted to the darkness.  

The quiet in her domicile sounded … different. Despite having shared her space with not one, but two people for months, it was no longer a temporary thing. Sloane extended her left hand, feeling the heaviness of the engagement ring on her third finger permeate her entire body.  

Gertrude Sloane Washington was engaged. To be married. The permanence of her answer changed everything. Or perhaps nothing. Time would tell. Naked, she rose and padded silently across the bedroom floor to a rocking chair that sat in a corner of the room. There was just enough moonlight eking through the closed blinds for her to make out her robe laying atop the pile of unfolded laundry that sat on the chair’s seat.  

Her hair, normally plaited in an elaborate coronet braid, was twisted into two thick ponytails, one hanging over each shoulder blade. She lifted the tresses while black polyester fabric whispered against soft, almond-colored skin as she shrugged into the covering. Sloane glanced over at the still-sleeping body in the bed; it heaved slightly and rhythmically, in sync with slumber-filled breath.  

Khaan Mousavi. The man who would be her husband.  

Sloane walked over, feeling the stickiness from their earlier coupling between her honeyed thighs before scooping her cellphone from the end table and exiting the room.  

 The Poisoned Apple (Birthday Fic for @bebepac)

Song Inspo: Somewhere in the Universe, Pity Party

“Nico,” she called out in an authoritative voice.  

No answer.  

She jiggled her wrist and forearm, causing the handcuff tethering her to the bed’s guardrail to rattle. “I know you hear me,” she taunted.  

Pain, disgust, and desire coursed through his blood as Nico tensed at her words, at the very sound of her voice.  

He hated her. She had murdered his son. His only child.  

He loved her. He had loved her mother first, and as with her mother, Nico found himself vying with another for her affections, her attentions.  

The Brooks/Rys women were trouble. Difficult, messy, drama magnets.  

Dangerous.  

“I’m not guilty of Nicolai’s death yet, and I never will be. The hand-picked congress my dear father is pulling out of his ass as we speak to ensure my innocence will make certain of that.” 

Nico finally turned away from the windows, a disdainful expression on his face and a smirk on his lips. “Oh, is that why the King of Cordonia has placed you in a psych ward under a 72-hour hold? Because you’re so innocent? Or is it because of your true lineage?” 

The girl’s eyes narrowed threateningly. “Mind your words and your tone, Guard. I am still the heir to the Cordonian throne.” 

“Are you?” He moved slowly, deliberately closer to the bed. “Being a royal, there may not be actions taken against you for taking my son’s life, but there will be consequences.” 

For the first time since Crown Princess Eleanor had been admitted to the facility, uncertainty flickered in her chocolate-brown eyes and a frisson of fear licked at her belly. No one saw her with Nicolai; no one saw her push her him off the cliff’s edge.  

Everything hinged on her story, and as the only witness to her boyfriend’s death from an “accidental fall”, her story was the truth.  

Her eyes followed Nico’s movements as he drew closer to her: the stealth-like way he walked, his shoes making no noise against the floor; the rigidness in his broad shoulders; the blank expression on his face, as if Ellie were an everyday object.  

“Nicolai fell! He lost his footing and fell.” 

Nico shook his head slightly. “Too convenient. My son, a King’s Guardsman, lost his footing on dry land the day after he discovered us naked together? You killed him, and you owe me the why, Eleanor.” 

 Partner Knows Best (Ask from @peonierose)

Song Inspo: Rollin’, Blessing Offor

Who knows who best? That is the question, and hopefully I can provide some answers. Debating between using the Him & Her crew (Mermaids, Riam, SGL x Riley B., UnRomance Liam x Riley) and the DC AU crew; leaning towards Him & Her because I have ideas/plans for DC.

Below are their questions; let me know in the comments if you have any better ones!

·         Who’s the early riser? 

·         Go-to breakfast? 

·         What’s their love language? 

·         Sun, snow, rain? 

·         Who initiates sex? 

·         Who loves harder? 

·         First to apologize? 

·         One must-have if stranded on a deserted island? 

·         Who’s the better communicator? 

·         Who’s the better driver? 

·         Who’s needier when they’re ill? 

·         Who’s more likely to walk away from the relationship? 

·         Where do you see the relationship in five years? 

 Hell to the Hail (ask from @peonierose)

No song inspo yet

The DC AU gang celebrate a belated Valentine’s Day together (I call it PALentine’s), where Leo gloats over the Kansas City Chiefs’ 2nd Superbowl win, much to a salty a.f. SGL’s dismay.

Also, working on updating next chapters of Mermaids, Discontent, Platinum AU; a Commoner’s Wife one-shot; and quite possibly some Liara for Kiara Theron Appreciation Week.

Thanks for reading, and sticking with me during this ongoing, long-running trying time. Your support, encouragement, and care mean the absolute WORLD to me!

 Tagging:   @jared2612 @ao719 @marietrinmimi @queenjilian @indiacater @kingliam2019 @bebepac @liamxs-world @mom2000aggie @liamrhysstalker2020  @neotericthemis @twinkleallnight @umccall71 @superharriet  @busywoman @gabesmommie1130 @tessa-liam @beezm @gardeningourmet @lovingchoices14 @mainstreetreader @angelasscribbles @lady-calypso @emkay512 @jovialyouthmusic @princessleac1 @charlotteg234 @queenrileyrose @alj4890 @yourfavaquarius111 @motorcitymademadame @queenmiarys  @burnsoslow @lizzybeth1986

[4noki-vns]

Consummation Proof of Concept: Post-mortem

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It’s been a little over two weeks since the release of my proof of concept prototype demo for Consummation ~wind above the dragon sea~!

Since I’ve been a little sloppy with the marketing (marketing…?), if you haven’t checked the game out yet, I’d be happy if you’d spend an hour playing through the slice of a chuuni yuri visual novel that I’d been wanting to show the world for about forever (a few years really).

You can play it on itch.io @ https://4noki.itch.io/consummation-prototype

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Now onto the post-mortem! In this piece, I’ll be discussing how it was like to solo dev a short demo for the Battle Action Fantasy VN Jam (BAF Jam), making most of a game alone for the first time since Draw No More in 2021.

I’ll talk about what was the same, what was new, how the scope had to be managed, and my take on solo dev as well as some clarification on future plans for the game.

I’ll write a separate post about fun facts regarding the story and its history later.

What I usually do

In the games that I direct, I prefer to handle the scenario writing (story), character design, and scripting (stage direction). Although for a solo project, while I would have to cover other areas as well, I’d certainly still be writing, drawing, and scripting.

scenario

Fun fact: there is no outline for this game! (yet)

This has less to do with the fact that I solo-ed the demo but more to do with the fact that it’s a prototype of a story that’s been sitting around in my head for ages. I’ll be filling out that outline a bit more eventually…

The majority of the script was written in May thanks to the relatively loose schedule restrictions given by BAF Jam.

I wanted to have the script written so that I could spend more time on everything else, including tasks that I do infrequently and thus knew would take longer.

As the release is an incomplete story, I didn’t know quite how far the story would go in this demo while writing. I initially envisioned it ending at the end of day one, perhaps cutting off after the prophet’s speech.

However, this is a chuunige—battle action fantasy!

Despite reaching my goal, I realized that day one didn’t have a true fight scene (does beating up a guy and assassinating someone in the prologue count?). Thus, I extended the script to the start of the first fight scene. Really, the start.

By that time, June began, so I unfortunately had to turn my attention to other tasks.

character art

The first item was character art.

For my recent projects like Who is the Red Queen? and Lachesis or Atropos, I drew the character design sheets and left the in-game art to the master artists on my teams.

For the prototype of Consummation, being solo, I decided to forgo the character design sheets for now and get to drawing directly. It helped that many of these characters had been frequent visitors in the corners of my notebooks during high school and so on.

One of the perks of doing sprite art yourself is that you can add expressions as you script!

scripting

I tend to do scripting near the tail end of a project, once most assets are in place.

Given that I was in charge of assets here, I decided to plop the story script in a bit earlier than usual. Alas, actual scripting had to wait until I had art or at least some placeholders!

The last things to go in were the music (thank you, Peritune) and sound effects.

What I don’t often do

Everything I haven’t mentioned yet falls under things I don’t do often.

bgs

God Minikle.

ui

I didn’t have too much time to work on UI, so I followed a little heuristic. If you’re changing anything, do the parts that the player will look at the most:

Textbox (main)

Main menu (lesser)

cgs

The last time I drew a CG was probably for Moon Archer Shooting Stars. Due to time constraints, the CGs in Consummation’s proof of concept can be considered more sketches than fully rendered graphics.

Haha, maybe they’ll be useful as references.

Prioritization

You can probably see a mild tonal difference between talking about my typical work and talking about the work I prefer to delegate.

In the land of solo dev, there is no such thing as delegation unless you mean using asset packs or delegating to future you who will curse past you for watching K-pop survival shows for a whole week. (Kim Seonyou is very impressive…!)

With a team, the schedule of things can’t be broken down linearly because tasks overlap. Ideally, everyone has most of a jam period to work.

Solo, you have to do it all. Hence, you have to make sure you prioritize the right tasks and make sure to start other tasks in time since you don’t quite have the whole jam period for each item.

While I began smoothly, finishing off the script early, collecting background art, and putting down flats in sprites, life hit.

Starting a new job mid-June (future visual novel funds?), I slowed down the dev work. Before I knew it, when I finished the sprites (a nice 6), only a week remained.

Hello, CG grind.

While I could have decided there and then to drop a number of CGs, I ultimately wanted them to exist.

Making visual novels is a balancing of wants.

In exchange, the CGs had to be a bit rougher and I let go of a few other wants such as: a main menu key visual, more cut-ins (Qin… my beloved, your phone calls…), and more polish in general.

Alas, tis solo dev, eh?

(Two days remained in June when I marked the prototype as done. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to do much more in 2 days, so it was time to chill.)

The “s” in solo is for small!

Most of the other visual novels I made by myself were visually simpler and games of smaller scale (shorter than this prototype demo).

To be a successful solo dev, you have to be a jack of all trades. I prefer to focus on my favorite parts of visual novel development: writing, character design, and directing.

While I find making a game by myself fun once in a while, I think I’m happy to stick with only doing so for small games and prototypes.

Q. Why was this game solo dev-ed?

Most of the visual and audio content in the game will have to be replaced in the case that Consummation becomes an active project. I use the terminology “proof of concept” and “prototype” a lot when talking about Consummation because it is not an active project and may not be one for a long time.

As such, I found it better for me to handle the work that will inevitably be replaced.

Q. Why make a proof of concept prototype?

While I could have left Consummation in the ideas bucket, I really wanted to write it. I really want to write it. At the very least, I wanted to show the world a sneak peek at one of the handful of stories that I’ve wanted to bring to life for a long time.

Unfortunately, I do not have the bandwidth to work on two large (huge even) projects at a time.

That’s right, big yuri visual novel…! To be announced.

shino

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[thewhitefluffyhat]

Concluding Thoughts

Nona the Ninth liveblog complete! …Which also means I can’t put off writing my usual review-like thoughts post any longer.

And so: in the end, what did I think of this book?

Well. I’d say my personal ranking of the series goes something like HtN > GtN > NtN. But that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy Nona!

Things I Liked

-Once again, Muir’s unique writing style is a highlight in and of itself - a wonderful blend of humor and horror that enhances both modes. As evident in the liveblog, I found this book just as much an engaging page-turner as the previous two. I was able to put it down, but only just barely, and only because I didn’t want the quality of my notes to suffer toward the end!

-While in hindsight I’d argue GtN’s strength was in its tighter plot and HtN’s in its ambitious structural experiments, NtN’s strength was in its worldbuilding. I’m hardly the first to make this observation, but the combination of Nona’s shameless love of life as a narrator as well as the more reality-adjacent setting of a non-Empire planet led to a book that feels tonally very different from the previous entries. In a series about death, Nona is a fascinating burst of life between the cracks. It’s jarring in many ways, but not wholly unwelcome.

-My favorite new addition to the cast was probably Hot Sauce. I was impressed with how well the narrative built her up as a figure to be respected (even in spite of her name)! And in the end, she really seems deserving of that respect. Kid’s barely hit double digits and she had the guts to try to attack the most powerful zombie in the universe! And even more importantly, the maturity to accept Nona anyway despite her suffering at the hands of the Nine Houses. I’m not sure I’d want Hot Sauce to make any future appearances (her plot ended on a nicely conclusive note), but I suspect her actions will have echoes even if she isn’t physically present to shape events.

-I’ll also call out the writing of the child characters in general. They reminded me - in a very good way - of how children are portrayed in the Discworld series. They felt realistic rather than pwecious, simpler in their concerns but not in a way that implied they’re stupid. And they managed to actually hold my attention, which is no mean feat given that I am very much not a kids person.

-My favorite of the returning cast was… ooh, this is a toughie. Pal and Cam were great as always, as were Gideon and Harrow in their brief appearances. However, in terms of the character I most enjoyed here, I think I have to give the crown to Ianthe! Really, she’s been on a roll ever since that ridiculous villain speech she gave near the end of GtN. I fully expected her to keep getting worse, and I was not disappointed. Her genre-savviness continues to be a delight, and the reveal that she’d somehow managed to become BFFs with Gideon might be my favorite moment in the book!  Friendship bracelets and secret handshakes. My god.

-Speaking of God, and the subject of characters being entertainingly terrible: I thought the John backstory came together surprisingly well! An extended flashback to the modern world (or as close as this series will get to it) narrated in a rambling, self-justifying monologue doesn’t seem like it should work, but here it does. Despite the initial premise being absolutely stock - the environmental catastrophe, the uber-wealthy choosing to damn humanity so they could save their own skins, the looming threat of thermonuclear war - the addition of John’s burgeoning necromancy and the morbid hilarity of him acting like he just ~accidentally~ fell into founding a cult, you know, as you do - kept events fresh and interesting enough that I was never bored and never quite sure where this bizarre story was ultimately going until it ended.

And what an end! John Gaius is as awful as he is eerily believable.

Mixed Feelings 

I feel really bad saying this, but I thought Nona as a character was… fine. Just fine. Despite the hype (or perhaps because of too much hype?), I didn’t especially love her. (I’m sorry!)

I guess I felt the same about her as I did with Isaac and Jeannemary. She’s a sweet kid who 100% deserved better. And I wasn’t particularly annoyed by the blindfold of naivete she placed over the story. Indeed, I thought her sincerity, confidence, and amusing quirks made her a very endearing narrator to read. And I thought the story-wide challenge of picking out the places where Alecto shone through her, or where I had to rely on my past knowledge of the series to understand what was going on made the book more fun and immersive rather than less.

But at the end of the day, Nona was blatantly around just to die tragically, and… I just didn’t really get attached. I wasn’t even especially sad when she died, the moment got kind of lost amid all the other zillion important things happening around her. And as much as I enjoyed the active analysis required to parse Nona’s narration, I suspect it may have had a subtle effect that made me engage with Nona as less of a person and more of a puzzle to dissect and solve.

(Would I have been more sympathetic to Nona if I’d been seeing her from an outside perspective? I can wonder, but I’ll never know.)

Also, I can guess at why Nona exists from a thematic/structural perspective - to endear the reader to Alecto while having Alecto experience love/forgiveness/death which will almost certainly be relevant later. But in-universe, the mechanics of Nona’s existence are utterly opaque, which doesn’t do her any favors in the emotional impact department. How and why did Alecto lose her memories in becoming Nona? Why does Alecto lack Nona’s memories and experiences when returning to being Alecto?  These are the driving reasons behind Nona’s tragedy being a tragedy, and yet, even after finishing the book, I didn’t understand them. And it’s difficult to be affected by a tragedy that can’t even be clearly explained.

.

Like Nona, I also didn’t have any strong feelings either way about Paul. (I mean, aside from being thrilled to have more nonbinary representation in TLT, from that angle they’re awesome!) They seem cool and very competent. They’re a touching end to Cam and Pal’s characters. But they barely had any time to show off what makes their personality unique because the second they arrive, the plot kicks into high gear. I suspect Paul will probably grow on me once we see more of them in Alecto, but for now, I don’t really know what to make of them, if that makes sense?  

I’ll be curious to see how they get used in fanfics. And that actually goes for Nona too! The circumstances that allow both characters to exist seem like they’d be hard to plug into the Modern/College AUs that are extremely popular in this fandom. They also don’t have one obvious pairing that springs to mind - you could argue for a lot of different ships, especially for Nona. As a result, I can’t see either of them making much of a dent compared to the oodles of Gideon and Harrow fics, but who knows?

Things I Didn’t Like

I’m almost tempted to leave this review wholly positive, just lop off this section and leave the top two. But that feels dishonest. The truth is that while I greatly enjoyed NtN in the moment-to-moment of my read, the more I think about it afterwards, the more I find aspects that give me pause.

-I mentioned in my Day Four comments that NtN feels in many ways like a retread of HtN’s structure. Except in NtN, the extra voice in Nona’s head is just another part of her, and the dream sections really do take place nonlinearly with no(?) relation to Nona’s unconsciousness. “What if the previous novel, but the twists are red herrings that go nowhere?” seems like an idea that probably looked great on paper, but it didn’t make for very compelling reveals in practice. It just invited comparisons to some of HtN’s standout moments, which can sometimes work, but here it only made me remember that I liked HtN more.

-GtN and HtN are very intimate stories of Gideon and Harrow’s relationship with a space war going on in the background. Nona is a story about a space war, with Gideon and Harrow’s relationship and even character development pushed to the background. This was something I fully expected, but in execution it was more disappointing than I had braced myself for nonetheless.

In particular, the tease in the Epilogue - Gideon and Harrow are both in the same room and then Harrow gets teleported out before they can even acknowledge each others’ presence - is edging right up against the specter of tedium. I’m used to initially convoluted narratives and slow burns that eventually do pay off in the long run. But for those already frustrated by the leads’ total separation in HtN, having to wade through another 500 pages of essentially the same thing only to end on another “better luck next time! ;P” …probably wasn’t very funny. It makes the series overall just a smidgeon more difficult to recommend without caveats.

-Compounding with the above “this was certainly A Choice, but I’m not convinced it was a good one,”  NtN’s ending was… not an ending. There’s cliffhangers, and then there’s a lack of closure for basically anything or anyone. We don’t even get the ramifications of Nona being Alecto! Or Nona fully understanding what is happening to her! It felt like the book just abruptly stopped when the narrative finally felt like it was progressing after so long in stasis.

Obviously, a large reason for that can be chalked up to NtN’s origins as the first act of Alecto the Ninth, but it’s not a very encouraging pattern. In hindsight, I’d really only consider GtN to have a satisfying ending, one that genuinely feels like the conclusion of a character and plot arc (even if it is a wholly tragic conclusion). After that, I was willing to take HtN’s ambiguous, symbolism-overdosed ending on faith. But NtN repeating the same issue? That makes me just a little bit worried.

-Much like some of the other series I discussed on this blog, TLT demands more trust than usual from the reader given the loaded tropes and grueling events it plays with. And when that trust is deserved and the themes and the plot and the character arcs all tie themselves off with a bow, the result can be incredible. But sometimes that trust isn’t deserved. Sometimes the author just keeps writing emotional and narrative checks that their conclusion can’t cash. And as fans, we will follow them right up to the brink… only to realize too late that the story has fallen apart, and that the catharsis or satisfaction or even resolution that we all craved is nowhere to be found.

Whether the Locked Tomb  series can end on a strong note was always going to make or break it, but after Nona, the series looks to be resting on Alecto (the Ninth)’s shoulders more than ever before.

Conclusion²

TL;DR: Nona the Ninth is a very good book, and one I’m very glad to have read. It has some delightful moments from both new and old characters alike. However, in my opinion, it doesn’t come together quite as neatly or pack quite the same emotional punch as the previous books in the series.

GtN left me intrigued. HtN left me inspired. NtN leaves me… indecisive. Do I trust this author and this series, or do I not?

[ezisregrettinglifedecisions]

Cupid - OP81

Fem!British Olympic Archer! Reader x Oscar Piastri This is a part of my F1 x Olympics series! My main Masterlist is here And my F1 x Olympics Masterlist is here Hope you enjoy it! 🧡

All pics are from Pinterest

(If you saw this when my phone glitched last night and posted it while it was not even half done, no you didn't. I didn't even notice until I got the notification someone liked it. I have never deleted something so fast in my life 😭😭)

y/n_archey

liked by teamgb, olympics, oscarpiastri and 329,348 others

y/n_archery Had a nice week of weather for a change and got to go back home and shoot in the field for a while. (We don’t talk about slide 3, I’m still annoyed, they were new arrows as well) Ft. new bow after my previous one died recently, rip Legolas you will be missed :(

view all 3940 comments

username1 Not the robin hood with the new arrows I would be so devastated 😭😭

username2 Rip Legolas, we will all miss you 🪦

username3 Her old bow was called Legolas? username4 @ username3 Yes and it's so iconic

username5 Oscar Piastri what are you doing here?

username6 Babe he’s been here longer than most of us. He’s followed her since 2020 when she was going insane in lockdown. username7 @ username6 During that Prema video with Logan when they were in F3, Osc went on about how funny he thought Y/n was and how relatable she was.

teamgb 😉

y/n_archery 😉 username8 Queen I can't wait to see how you do in Paris! username9 I sense a y/n and team GB medal hope in the near future at Paris username10 @ username9 Yessss let's hope so

oscarpiastri

liked by landonorris, mclaren, y/n_archery and 1029374 others

oscarpiastri Good weekend overall at Spa, got good points secured for the team at a circuit that many drivers enjoy racing at. Hopefully more points in the years to come the next time we race at Spa.

P.s Love you Cupid, thanks for being there to support me even if it was over a facetime. ❤️❤️❤️

view all 409583 comments

username14 Oscar….OSCAR! WHO IS THAT?!

username15 Kindly what in the fuck?

username16 @ username15 Do you perhaps mean WHO in the fuck?

username17 Congrats on the great drive this weekend Osc!

mclaren Well done Oscar, brilliant points for the team! 🧡

liked by oscarpiastri ❤️

username18 Not Oscar soft launching his gf after being promoted to P2 because of George’s disqualification.

username19 @ username18 I feel so bad for George though he drove so well.

landonorris 👏 well done mate

liked by oscarpiastri ❤️

username20 His little message to his gf is adorable

username21 I want someone to write me little love notes in his posts the way Oscar Piastri does

username22 @ username21 The standards have officially been raised for all relationships

y/n_archery Great weekend Oscar! Have a lovely summer break and keep racing like a star! 🧡🧡🧡

liked by oscarpiastri ❤️

username23 Oscar x Y/n when? username24 @ username23 Girlie in this case delulu is not the solulu. Osc already has a gf let's not make it uncomfortable for them now. They've followed each other for a while, they're friends.

y/n_archery has added to their story

oscarpiastri replied to your story

I love you too Cupid 🧡🧡🧡

you

Love you more Osc 🧡🧡🧡

username25 replied to your story

Girlie did you just soft launch a man?!

username26 replied to your story

When did this man appear?

username27 replied to your story

Orange hearts for someone special? Like say…a certain Mclaren driver…

y/n_archery has added to their story

caption - Missing my bf while I’m in Paris so here’s a photo of him being adorable. I guess you could say he’s very ‘Polite Cat’ sometimes.

oscarpiastri replied to your story

I miss you too, and I think people might figure out that we’re dating quite quickly now. 🧡🧡🧡

you

Yes I think they might, not many people I interact with frequently online are called polite cat. Love you 🧡 I’ve got to do some practice before my event 

oscarpiastri

Go get that gold

you

Thanks Osc, I’ll do my best!

oscarpiastri

Wouldn’t expect anything less. Talk later?

you

Yeah of course

oscarpiastri

🧡🧡🧡

you

🧡🧡🧡

oscarpiastri

liked by landonorris, y/n_archery, teamgb and 1914859 others

oscarpiastri I am beyond proud of Y/n, my amazing girlfriend (yes the secret is out), for taking a gold medal in the women’s individual competition for Team GB in Archery. 

It is an honour to spend every day knowing you are by my side cheering me on when I race and so getting to post a congrats on an olympic gold medal post is one of the best feelings because it means I get to support and cheer you on for being so amazing at what you do.

I love you so much and you deserve so many congratulations more than I can give you in a post. I miss you while you’re away in Paris but you’re doing great things and you’ll always be my Cupid. 🧡🧡🧡

P.s I guess I will never be able to fend off the ‘Polite Cat’ allegations. I fear they will haunt me forever.

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landonorris Congrats on the Gold Y/n looking forward to seeing you in the Mclaren garage more often!

liked by oscarpiastri and y/n_archery❤️

username46 She won Gold!!! That’s amazing! Well done Y/n!!

username47 Oscar is adorable when he’s talking about her. They are so sweet together!

liked by y/n_archery ❤️

y/n_archery Thank you so much Osc. I guess naming my bow Katniss worked. The wound of losing Legolas is still fresh however 🪦 rip my child fly high hope you’re having fun shooting at targets or whatever it is bows do in heaven

username48 Y/n’s naming skills are elite when it comes to her bows. Also ‘hope you’re having fun shooting at targets or whatever it is bows do in heaven’ 😭

username49 @ username48 Yesssss I know, OGs remember Hawkeye. He was the first…rip Hawkeye we will never forget you.

username50 His smile when he’s around her. My heart is melting

mclaren Can’t wait to see Y/n in the garage after the Summer break. (This is a threat Oscar. She had better be there)

liked by y/n_archery ❤️

y/n_archery Looking forward to it already. See you in Zandvoort? mclaren @ y/n_archery It’s a date. 😘 y/n_archery @ mclaren 😘 oscarpiastri Um excuse me? username51 Not Y/n flirting with the Mclaren admin in Oscar’s comment section username52 Plot twist they’re the actual ones who are dating and Oscar x Y/n is the coverup.

liked by y/n_archery and mclaren❤️

y/n_archery

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant, teamgb and 509827 others

y/n_archery I understand that, without my agreement Oscar Piastri (@ oscarpiastri) has put out an Instagram post late this afternoon saying that we are dating. This is true and I LOVE YOU SO SO SO MUCH 🧡🧡🧡

However, to make up for the fact that this would have been a sappy love post, I enlisted the help of Logan Sargeant (@ logansargeant), my darling boyfriend’s best friend, to find some of the most iconic and relatable pictures of Oscar (the last one is me every second of the day). Thank you Logan, you are now my favourite.

Jokes mostly aside, I could not ask for a better partner in life right now. Osc I love you so much and I hope that we continue to share milestones and happy memories together for the rest of our lives. I love you 🧡🧡🧡

view all 309817 comments

logansargeant You’re welcome Y/n it was a pleasure plotting Oscar’s downfall with you

liked by y/n_archery ❤️

oscarpiastri ?????? username53 Oscar is going to be fighting for his life

username54 I think I love them your honour

username55 Best relationship on the grid right now. I love them so much even though I've only had them for a day

oscarpiastri I love you 🧡

liked by y/n_archery ❤️

y/n_archery I love you more oscarpiastri I love you most

Thank you for reading!

This is a part of - F1 x Olympics Fics Masterlist for that series is found here

[certifiedcopyunderscore]

update

i said i would use tumblr more but i can never get the hang of it. also i got locked out of my account due to my subpar html skills lol don’t even ask. i do plan on using it more in a not so near future, i’d love to sketch more often but i got caught up on some stuff and i have started and not finished so many personal projects that it’s making me anxious, and i don’t think i can blame it all on my adhd.

tbf i feel more comfortable posting in english here than i do on twitter, perhaps because it allows me to edit posts and there’s no character limit. so i might use it to write longer posts and practice not only my english but my writing skills in general (and maybe another language in the future!), because it’s all getting rusty. i feel like my vocabulary is shrinking and it’s making me feel self conscious, like i’m dumb or something. i was thinking of starting a newsletter a couple of weeks ago but i’m writing to a non-existent audience so i don’t think anyone would subscribe. this is better imo. i might write about what’s going on in my life and a little bit about my interests in a comprehensive way and not just via screencaps and a silly caption. i’ll think of a title for it.

well then, in case it wasn’t clear at the beginning of this text i am procrastinating, and i should probably get back to what i was doing. i just got excited that i recovered my access to this account. see you soon, though (hopefully).

[stinaisluminous]

It’s been a long time since I wrote down how I felt. This sentiment keeps cropping up every time I sit down and actually write down my thoughts, it seems. I guess, at some point, writing became something that was associated with my livelihood and it became more loaded, more difficult to do when it isn’t directed towards some sort of academic goal. Not that I’m prolific when it comes to academic writing either. I just tend to overthink all of it, and I end up… not writing. It has become harder and harder to just do things for myself, over the years. But I need this. I need to write to hear my inner voice.

To be honest, I feel more lost than perhaps ever. When I was a teenager I was at least able to aspire towards a post-high school future where I would be financially independent and gain some sort of agency and freedom. Maybe I have or had that already, but at this present moment it is very difficult to feel it, to perceive it as a reality. Do I really have freedom? Why does my world still feel so bounded and small? Why do I still feel the weight of so many others weighing on me? I just want to take flight. I want to feel free. I don’t know what that looks like anymore. What kind of future would that entail? I don’t have a specific job or vocation in mind that would satisfy me. I feel like I’m just bumbling along, and hopefully I’ll be able to get a PhD out of it (my most tangible and yet difficult goal to achieve in the near future).

What do I derive joy from? How can I make it a sustained presence in my life? Is taking medication the only way that I can achieve that?

I don’t really know what life would look like without depression looming over me. I feels like it is always there, and you just need to scratch the surface a little bit and it will readily reveal itself. Is it really true that there’s a kind of existence without that? Somewhere in the multiverse, is there a version of myself that is actually happy?

I do genuinely want to feel happy. I think about moments I’ve shared with friends, where I’m just laughing with abandon. Rooftop nights at IFC, taking over the entire basement area at a Tsui Wah that no longer exists in Central, raucous Christmas parties in high-rise apartments that I could never afford. It seems like all of my happiest moments are behind me, not ahead of me.

What do I hope for?

I don’t have an answer for that right now.

[djarrex]

So I was wondering, how was rex and reader first kiss, and also the first time they’d slept together? I loved that story about how they met!! I’m genuinely curious

!!Yessssss :’)

Ok, so for anyone who hasn’t read their first meeting/first date, I’ll link it here. Previously, I had included a little bit of their first date in one of the main installments/chapters as a flashback scene during Priya’s birth and you can find that here.

Find the rest in the Post-Order 66 Rex ML

I’ll pick this up from when they’re riding in the taxi on the way to reader’s apartment (from flashback scene found in second link)

18+ only! dry humping, heavy makeout sesh, groping, non-descriptive sex, piv sex, maybe just a hint of ‘first time’ awkwardness but... y’know. overall, Rex is a caring sweetheart. about 2.9k words #Carried Away

<<<>>>

The back of Rex’s hand, the gauntlet plate, that is, lands on your bare thigh - his gloved palm upright and waiting, fingers relaxed. You can’t help your wide smile that grows upon noticing the gesture accompanied by his unsure, yet confident expression as you gladly lay your hand within his - fingers locking into place. 

"Is... this okay?"

So considerate, appropriately cautious, cute.

You lock eyes with his, making it a point when your tongue barely darts out to wet your lower lip while giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. His lips curl at the corners - a little chuckle seeping through his nostrils before turning his head to watch the streaks of lights fly by outside the transparisteel. The ride isn’t very long, but it’s nearly silent. It must be late enough for the driver to have long surpassed the point of wanting to engage in light conversation, thankfully so, and the music is turned down to the lowest volume - just light pulse of a beat coming from the tiny speaker. The whir of the vessel gliding through the air lanes hums throughout the interior, along with the heavy beat of your heart in your ears. Your fingers stay intertwined with Rex’s the entire time. At one point, briefly, his thumb started to absentmindedly brush back and forth over the thick knuckle of yours, and caught himself when the the taxi slowed to halt as it pulled in front of your complex.

Rex scoots out first - extending his hand towards you and helping you out of the seat and onto the duracrete. As you lean into the taxi’s opening to toss the driver some credits, Rex watches the way you move - the way even the miniscule muscles flex underneath your form-fitting dress and with the movement of what skin is exposed. A sudden breeze catches him off guard when that familiar scent of lavender coming from your hair hits him just like it did back on the dancefloor. His own heart is pounding uncontrollably beneath the protective shell of plastoid, though he’s sure you can hear it. Your hearts mirror one another’s tonight - anxious, eager, sure, ready. 

It's quiet after the taxi speeds off. It's late, and the two of you stand just outside the complex entrance in silence, facing one another and staring deep into each other's eyes. There’s a whole bunch being said, without any words actually being spoken. It’s insane the way Rex is just pulling you in without laying so much as a finger on you right now; his gravitational pull is far too strong for you to resist, not that you’re trying to resist. You want to get dragged into his orbit, burn up upon skirting through his atmosphere. That connection... it’s so noticeably there and it’s making your legs weak - weight settling in the back of your head, pushing you forward and closing the space between your faces. You know it’s affecting him just as it’s affecting you. There is no escape, though neither one of you is trying to flee. 

“Is... this o-” 

Rex is unable to echo his question from the taxi once the remaining space between the two of you quickly vanishes. When your lips meet his for the very first time, something just clicks - like two missing pieces from a puzzle that you didn’t even know were absent have just come together and completed it, effectively ending its drawn-out hiatus. You’re sure there are better analogies out there with deeper meaning but it’s hard to think with how wrapped up in him you’re becoming with something as simple as a ‘first kiss’. Your arms flying to wrap around his neck, Rex pulls you closer - his fingers gripping the fabric at your hips and holding you close. A heavy breath escapes from him and you take the opportunity to poke your tongue out to be immediately greeted by his own. It’s medium-paced; not desperate nor casual. The dance you share with the light clashing of teeth, the rhythm that’s set with every little movement of the muscles in your mouths - it’s just right. 

When you move to break away, panting, your eyes quickly dart to the building standing tall to the right of you before they quickly return to his. An overt cue... 

“Do you wan-”

...One of which Rex takes swift action.

“Yes.” Rex didn’t need for you to finish that line; he was already way ahead of you, and was somehow starting to believe you’d never ask. Any nerves of his have long since vanished, as well as any notion of sleep - other, more exciting things urging him on. He knows where he’ll be waking up in the morning, and it’s not on that bedroll in the barracks that he was practically dreaming of back at 79′s before he’d laid eyes on you. For once, the clone captain will allow himself to indulge in what this night holds. 

The two of you are unable to keep your hands to yourselves during the brief ride in the lift up to your floor. Rex holds you impossibly close, hands pressed into your lower back and practically carrying your floating body through the corridors until arriving at your front door; you’d murmured the directions into his lips along the way. With your back pressed against it, your hand swings behind to blindly input the access code. After a few incorrect entries before hearing the musical awarded access, the door slides open, and your fingers wrap around the dip at the top of his cuirass - pulling him to follow you in. You make it as far as the couch, pushing him down to sit as you descend with him, your mouths staying connected in the process. Rex sinks into the cushions, and his hands begin rove your body experimentally from where you’re straddled over his armored lap. You’re melting into his touch, rocking yourself over the hardness of his codpiece, letting the curve of it rub into your clothed heat as his lips trail wet hot down your chin and jaw.

Never had you previously allowed a night like this to get as far with anyone else. 

“I don’t...” Rex pauses as soon as the words leave you - lifting from your neck and meeting your eyes with a flash of concern sinking in his own. “I don’t usually do this, uh, sort of thing,” you elaborate quickly, your hands gesturing to the current situation - nervous, for some odd reason, even though your mind is very made up. His expression softens and a sweet smile creeps on his lips as he traces your own with the pad of his now bare thumb - the touch featherlight, admiring. “I just- just thought I should clear that up.” You’re not sure what it is exactly that you’re clearing up; perhaps you’re afraid that Rex thinks you’re one of those clone groupies, a woman who frequents 79′s to show her appreciation for the brave soldiers of the Republic. Or maybe that you’re someone who often fucks on the first date, just to be casted aside in the morning or the one who does the casting aside. The look he’s giving you, though, as he gazes up at you with something within his eyes that you can’t yet translate, is leading you to believe that he doesn’t put you into any of those categories - didn’t, from the very moment he’d laid eyes on you.

“Mesh’la,” he breathes against your jaw - the foreign-sounding word completely unknown to you but making you clench all the same - the shape of it forming on his lips and pressing into your tender skin. “The same goes for me. I... don’t wanna do anything that’ll scare you away.”

“And here I am thinking that I’m the one coming on too strong too fast,” you jest. Sure, it has only been a single, incomplete night of knowing him, but as silly and cliché as it sounds, it honest to Maker feels like you’ve known him forever. Normally, you’d conclude that allowing yourself to think that would more than likely end up biting you in the ass in the near future, but you truly don’t think that would be the case this time. Not with him.

“Rex...” Breaking from his lips for a breather and cradling the curve of his cheekbones within your hands, you look deep into his kind eyes, searching for the answer to the question you have yet to ask. “Have you ever...?”

“Yes, yes. It, uh, was always quick... when I did.” Rex chews his cheek - his brows pinching together in unwarranted contrition. “I’m sorry,” he sighs.

“For?”

“I don’t want you to think-”

You cut him off with the hard press of your lips to his - grinding yourself down on his lap with a little more purpose. Anything he was about to say, any inhibitions, dissolves like sugar inside your mouth. Minutes crawl by. Maybe longer, you’re unsure; too lost in this milky euphoria to give a damn about something as complex and currently unimportant as time. Your body is on fire; the heat that radiates from his flesh even from under the armor envelopes you in a different kind of warmth. You find your own hands mapping out the parts of his body that aren’t shelled by a plastoid exterior, landing on the piece that you’ve been grinding yourself on since arriving.

“Can I take this off?” Rex peers down at your hand laying over his codpiece; his perfect pout glistening, eyes darkening - the black orbs nearly swallowing the warm honey they reside in as he begins to look you over. 

“Please.”

If it wasn’t already a known fact that you’d never done this with someone like him before, then the way your fingers fumble around the plastoid in a blind search for the clasp - or whatever is holding this Maker forsaken thing in place - sure as hell gives it away. Sensing your evident struggle, Rex’s hand brushes over yours and the hindrance is unfastened in an instant. You raise a brow at him, and he only grins as you lean down to kiss him again.

Rex stands - your arms and legs squeezing him as he walks you to the bed, his erection teasing with its firm press against you. Laying you down on your back, he watches as you shimmy off the rest of your clothing. His breath catches in his throat upon your removal of your bra, eyes widening and fingers drumming at his sides, and you have to urge him to unfreeze so he can finishing undressing and join you.

“I... really want this,” he informs through heavy breaths - a hint of sheepishness engrained within the gruffness - finally moving to climb on the bed between your legs after stripping nearly everything from him and stacking it all in a neat pile. “You. Really want you.” You smile - the gleam reaching your eyes - and grab his arm to pull him on top of you. He’s still wearing his under-armor bottoms, and your hand shamelessly trails down to palm at the hard bulge from above the skin-tight material. 

“I want this too, Rex. You.” He groans - husky and deep - taking a few moments to relish the way your hand feels as you massage him before making quick work to remove the only thing that’s left covering his beautiful body.

It takes you by complete surprise - his extraordinary size. The way it was trapped within the compression bottoms was totally misleading. You swallow a clump of dry air - your tummy tingling and heart racing at the sight of him now completely nude and in the process of climbing back into position. 

“Maker...”

You say the most prominent and immediate thought out loud, causing him to stop in his tracks.

“What? Is everything okay, is- is this okay?” Rex becomes mildly frantic, concerned - just about to climb away but you grab at his shoulder, fingers pressing into the toned, corded flesh where it curves into the base of his neck at the back. 

“Yes,” you sigh - astounded. “I just... you’re, um...” Your eyes remain glued to the erect, throbbing appendage standing at attention between his legs, noting how it curves slightly upwards at the tip and is aimed at your clenching heat. “You’re big, Rex.” When your eyes flicker back up to his, his brow is raised and his lips are pressed into a thin line. Like he doesn’t already fucking know how well-endowed he is. 

Shutting your eyes and sighing quietly, your face stings from the sound of your breathy voice uttering out such truism. He shifts his weight between the arms that are caging you in on either side and looks down at himself - considering. 

“I - uh-”

“It’s okay,” you chuckle with a quick nod of your head as you spread your legs wider with a slight roll of your hips. Your mound briefly brushes the hot, velvety skin along his shaft when you lift your hips again. Your abdomen involuntarily tightens upon noticing the length of him hovering over you, practically marking how deep inside he’ll be.  “I need you, Rex.”

You learn quickly that you needn’t repeat a thing to an esteemed captain of his merit. 

He prepares you, like any true gentleman would, getting your body ready to accept him fully. Licking, touching, sucking, prodding; it’s all so exquisitely slow, intricate, surprisingly good for someone who has had little to no experience in the arena of foreplay. Thick fingers work you open in deep, pleasant strokes - his knuckles knocking into the most tender and pleasurable tissue with every pass. Rex’s lips go from attending to your breasts and trailing along nearly every inch of your skin before reuniting with your own. He inadvertently works a mild orgasm from you from his delicate tongue and purposeful touch alone - the build-up a soft crescendo until you’re moaning his name in the most breathy voice you’ve ever entertained.

You’ve never felt so safe and cared for during moments like these; now is a whole different experience than what you’d encountered in the past. You don’t have an extensive list of previous partners, but all of the ones who had made your short list were boys. Immature, needy, desperate boys. Boys who could never compare to the man who’s currently breaching you with a very gentle roll of his hips laced with all the care in the galaxy. Not to mention, his size. In that alone Rex is unmatched. 

Your lips barely disconnect; the soft whimpers and moans shared between the two of you are breathed into one another and swallowed. You’ve never experienced anything so tender yet deliberate at the same time - the combination of soft meeting its opposite making your head spin and toes curling. Nails forming small crescents indenting into his skin, you hang on to Rex’s broad shoulders as he rocks into you. It’s a steady pace he sets right from the get-go and he keeps that all the way up until your second orgasm flows through you, consequently causing a hint of resistance put up by your clenching walls, affecting his length’s repeating reentry. Not much is said, but a lot is spoken through eye contact. Neither of you want this to end, but when it inevitably does, you’d want to do this again. You want to do more than this; you both want to see each other again. When he finishes, it’s the gravelly, drawn-out groan falling out of his throat that causes you to see the stars from where they’re hung outside Coruscant’s orbit as if you’re sitting directly in front of them, just an arm’s length away. 

You’re cleaned up in such a meticulous and tender way that only Rex could provide. He falls to your side - taking you with him as his strong arms wrap around your torso. It’s insane; the way you fell into each other earlier this evening is comparable to fate itself. You think you’re going crazy, that you’re feeling all these things only after having known Rex for less than several hours, that you’re diving into something too hard and too quickly.

“Do you feel it, too?” 

You don’t know what possessed you to ask him instead of keeping it locked up in your buzzing mind, still keyed up from the best sex you’ve ever had, but it’s out there. Unable to see his face from your position, your heart starts racing with nerves, and in the several moments of silence and lingering regret, you mentally curse at yourself for being so forward.

“Yeah,” Rex says with a soft smile evident in his tone - a huge weight being lifted from your shoulders and tossed aside. “I do.”

With that, his arms hold you just a little tighter and he places a chaste kiss on your temple. It’s not long before the sound of soft snoring fills the otherwise quiet bedroom, and minutes later you’re right there alongside him - content, fluttering heart and all.

<<<>>>

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[drabsyo]

I was wondering...I was always confused about Narcissa’s hair. It’s been a while since I read the books. Did she color it blonde to show her now belonging to House Malfoys. Or was it naturally blonde? Movies confused me a bit I guess.

Yes, this had me confused too! I've agonized and toiled over it, more than I probably should, about how I should draw her hair because people have generally different views, which is totally understandable! 💕

And I've always wanted to discuss it, so now that I've been given a reason to... Well.

If you take a look at some of my Narcissa fanart, you'll notice the different ways I'd color her hair. I was so confused. Is she a light blonde? Dark blonde? A mix of raven hair and blonde hair? If she has blonde hair then why does her family have (mostly) dark hair? And WHY does she have blue eyes?! This woman is absolutely confusing! (Which is kind of, you know, fitting because Narcissa always loves to be a mystery to literally anyone lol)

So I did my homework, asked around, and scoured every bit of information, canon or otherwise, that I could find about her. It led me to this:

In canon, this is what the Black sisters look like. You can find the page here. Narcissa is a child here, and already has blonde hair. So we can go ahead and safely assume that she was born with natural blonde hair. But in the films, Narcissa has black and blonde hair. I don't actually know why they gave her that hair color, maybe so that the audiences wouldn't question her blood relations with the Blacks--I don't know. I really don't. But now we have a book version Narcissa, one who has full blonde hair. And a movie version Narcissa, one who has raven and blonde hair. At least, that's how the different hair colors started: a movie version, and a book version.

So... here's where it gets confusing.

To my knowledge, it isn't actually explained why her hair color is the way it is in both the movies and the books. Having blonde hair does raise many questions, how is she the "only" blonde in a family of dark hair and dark eyes? To top it all off, it gets even more confusing, because fanon writes and draws her either as a full blonde or a mix of raven and blonde hair. We just have this large pile to sift through of her having either hair color. No one actually explains anything. She's just... infuriatingly there. She's either blonde or raven haired and blonde. BUT fanfiction writers, as I've observed, give their own reasons why Narcissa's hair color is the way it is in their respective stories. And it's actually pretty creative and interesting! It adds even greater depth to her character, and it fits the narrative of the story even better. Remember, the character we're dealing with is Narcissa Black. One of her main traits is "she won't do anything unless there is a clear purpose behind it." This character is deliberate, meticulous, and she makes sure to plan ahead at all times. And so, some fanfiction writers decide to play on that.

You can skip this part if you want to avoid spoilers but I've compiled a small list of instances in (Cissamione) fanfiction where Narcissa's hair is mentioned.

🔹 In Extinction by rubikanon in Chapter 10: Build and Break, Hermione asks Narcissa about it. Here, Narcissa has black and blonde hair. She explains that she only decided to dye it blonde to "fit in with the Malfoys." We can gather two things from that alone, which resonates with her character perfectly: 1.) Narcissa is loyal and 2.) Narcissa purposefully wants to show the rest of the world how loyal she is by committing to having blonde hair. The woman has some serious commitment, and it shows. But now, the way that it's slowly growing back into her natural black hair color, hints that perhaps Narcissa no longer wishes to fit in with the Malfoys. However, if we take an even closer look, we can safely assume that Narcissa isn't the kind of person to just leave her hair color "unattended" like that. Remember, she's meticulous. And this is a big deal for her, the fact that she's just kind of letting it grow back instead of either fully dyeing it back to black, or dyeing it back to blonde. It suggests that perhaps she's a little unsure this time, perhaps it is her uncertainty that is the reason why it's now a mix of both. Another grey area? Or maybe it's actually something more deliberate? Maybe now, she likes that it's a mix of both. That other half now being solely for Draco, and not to fit in (completely) with the Malfoys any longer. Who knows why Narcissa does things the way she does? We can speculate to the ends of the earth, or be as smart as Hermione Granger (or with the case of Extinction, see Hermione's thoughts), but something tells me we'd still be a good step behind.

"Which one is your natural hair color?" I wondered aloud.

(Narcissa) She glanced up at the unexpected question. I was relieved she hadn't sensed my attention yet. It's not like I meant anything by it, I told myself. She was so beautiful, one couldn't help but notice. And feel physically drawn to her. And want to see her two-toned hair fanned across her back, slipping over the bare skin, silky beneath my fingers...

"Why do you ask?" Her query brought me back to reality, and I hurriedly corrected my imagination to include a pretty dress covering the rest of her.

"I don't know." I chewed the inside of my cheek, suppressing my other thoughts. "I'm just curious."

Her gaze returned to the fire. "You've seen enough of my relatives to guess which color is genetic. The blond is something I added to fit in with the Malfoys, after Draco was born." She was quiet for a moment. "He looks so much like his father. I suppose I wanted to share some resemblance."

🔹 In Killing Me Softly by Looktotheedges in Chapter 4: Nagging, Hermione suggests that perhaps Narcissa is part Veela because of her blonde hair and very attractive features, like Fleur. Which is this whole other theory/plot that's very interesting, but won't be discussed in this post. Narcissa tells Hermione that Sirius has always been blonde, and that it isn't out of the question for her to be blonde either. Sirius Black. A blonde. I know! Maybe it's there because it's funny that Sirius is actually blonde like Narcissa. Prissy, haughty, lady-like Narcissa. Arguably the 'girliest' cousin that he has. No, no, no. He doesn't want to be anything like Narcissa. Anyway, if that's the reason, I think that's hilarious and cute.

Narcissa turns away. 'I am aware my appearance is frightfully drab. Work has been…'

Hermione holds back a disbelieving scoff. 'Narcissa. You always look beautiful. And you’re talking to the witch with grass in her hair who practically lives in her office all week.'

Narcissa just leans further over the crib. 'A blonde little boy. It has been so long since… I can almost imagine…'

Hermione stands next to her. Looks down at the peacefully sleeping Louis. He does look remarkably like Draco. 'Are you sure there’s no Veela blood in you? You weren’t secretly switched at birth?'

'Like a changeling?'

'It would explain your blonde hair.'

'Sirius was also blonde, it is not completely out of the question for us Blacks.'

What?!

(...) 'I know. But it is the truth. He was blond until he was about seven… then it began to darken. Mousy. Dull. He wanted to look cool and brooding instead, so he got his hands on some kind of charm right before he set off for Hogwarts. A new, edgy Sirius. It was around then he forbade us from calling him Siri. Said it sounded too girly.'

🔹 In Fixed in Time by TheWorldsaBeastofBurden in Chapter 9: Sisters and Saviors, it's also tackled a little humorously. Andromeda let's a little comment slip while they're in the middle of trying to heal Hermione. Something funny, something that suggests Andromeda and Bella, when they were children, have always wondered why Narcissa is blonde unlike them.

The first words spoken occurred after they’d risen and attempted their casting. Andromeda’s preparedness to take on their task had been clear in her mind so Narcissa rose with her sister, wrapped an arm around her waist and held her near as the woman raised her wand to draw up the rest of the injury she’d dropped, half a slash across Hermione’s hip bone…

That remained half, as Andromeda growled out, “...it isn’t working.” she looked to Narcissa, “Why aren’t you powering me?”

What nonsense? “I am!” she insisted. She was! Or “I- I am trying to!” Her magic was active and alive, pulsing to rise from her skin and transfer into Andromeda’s but it- it wasn’t working! “Could...could it be that you were disowned?”

“Disowning doesn’t take away the fact that we share blood, our magic is directly related. Ugh, Bella always said you were adopted!”

“Oh ha- oh.”

“...oh?” Andromeda returned.

“...it’s not an issue of power. It is what I intend to aid in casting,” Narcissa slowly worked out. Oh, it was most blessed Mister Goyle could be brought to assist the present Hermione. If her present self had been brought to aid Andromeda? “...I cannot harm Hermione.”

Andromeda sighed with some frustration. “I understand you are so tenderly in love-”

“It isn’t- I’m avowed! I- when we arrived from the future we had to escape Malfoy Manor, I couldn’t bring Hermione through the wards without...I couldn’t add her directly, that would be visible. I had to...attach her permission to mine.”

🔹 In Glass Silence by Zarrene Moss (Menzosarres), which probably gives one of the most interesting backstories for Narcissa's hair, for why it's blonde. I can't put a clip of the scene here without hogging up a huge chunk of space on your dash, so I'll try to explain it as best I can instead.

Understand that these come with serious 🛑spoilers🛑 so please do read it at your own risk.

In Glass Silence, Narcissa's hair and eye color was black at birth. But after an accident with raw magic, something Bellatrix wasn't able to control when they were children, Narcissa almost dies. Bellatrix, using even more raw magic, tries desperately to pull Narcissa's "life force" back, but at the cost of losing the eumelanin that made Narcissa's eyes and hair black. Narcissa survived, but now has very little eumelanin left, which is why she's so pale, blonde, and has blue eyes. Every time Narcissa looks at a mirror, her reflection is a reminder of the day she almost died. Bella, on the other hand, is reminded of that day every single time she looks at Narcissa.

So! These are only a few fanfictions I could think of at the top of my head that tackles the issue of Narcissa's hair. In the books, to my knowledge, she is described as having blonde hair and very pale skin.

But let's take another deep dive, if you're up for it.

These are mostly theories, which are largely unconfirmed, but I think they're interesting to think about.

There's this description in the wiki:

"Narcissa Malfoy is described as tall, slim, "nice looking", and very pale, with blue eyes, long blonde hair, and a clear, cold voice. Her hair colouring thus differs from most of the House of Black, who generally have dark hair, though Narcissa does possess the arrogant good looks characteristic of her family."

There's also this pinterest photo of the Black sisters being compared to each other side by side, descriptively and physically. I'm so sorry, I don't know who drew it, but here's a link to the post on pinterest.

"Narcissa threw back her hood. She was so pale she seemed to shine in the darkness... long blonde hair streaming down her back."

Which is interesting because this hints that she's... different. It's a bit literal in this sense--she comes from a pureblood family, arguably the most influential and notorious one, the Blacks, who mostly have dark hair and eyes, and yet her physical appearance directly contrast that. There's also the matter of her namesake. She's the only Black to be named after a flower instead of a galaxy or a star. We aren't really given any explanation why she's the only one who's different. Even Sirius, who fought and died for the side of the Light, is named after the brightest star in the sky. Even Andromeda. It's been said that this is actually meant to be a parallel of some sort to Lily Evans. Narcissa and Lily are both named after flowers, even Petunia (Lily's sister). And I know there's this thing where it's a tie up to how Harry was ultimately saved by a mother's love: Harry lived at the beginning because of his mother's love, and Harry lives once again at the end of the books because Narcissa, a mother who wanted to save her own son, saved him.

If you read that scene in the books where Harry is saved by Narcissa, the whole scene is actually... pretty soft? There's that sort of disarming softness about Narcissa in that moment, where Harry expected to be callously dragged and prodded for a heartbeat. Instead, he gets a surprisingly gentle touch, a curtain of long blonde hair shielding him from the darkness, and the kind of tenderness he wouldn't expect from his enemies, "Is Draco alive?"

It's almost like Narcissa's appearance is something of a "tell". With Andromeda, she's described to have kind eyes, open, unguarded. She inherited her family's dark eyes and dark hair, and she even looks like Bellatrix's twin. I suppose we could say, Andromeda wants to fight that in any way she can by being openly kind. Narcissa is quite literally the opposite--guarded eyes, stoic expressions, cool and calculated emotions. We're veering into this fine line between fanon and canon in terms of their characterization (but only due to lack of canon materials) but personally, I think Narcissa having blonde hair and blue eyes is somewhat more fitting for her character. Again, this line:

"Narcissa threw back her hood. She was so pale she seemed to shine in the darkness... long blonde hair streaming down her back."

It's like that one glaringly obvious hint that everyone overlooks simply because... because it's the most obvious one. "Me! I'm different! I'm the last person you'd expect, but it really is me!"

Anyway. I've rambled on long enough. Hope this clears up some of that confusion, anon. Hoping it didn't ADD even more confusion... 😂 At the end of the day, this is just me speculating, gushing, and being One Big Fool™. So.

But either way, blonde hair, dark hair, mix of both, I adore her. Pretty much.

[omgrachwrites]

Her Prince - Prince Hal

Pairing: Reader x Prince Hal (The Hollow Crown)

Summary: The man that comes to visit you at your woodland cottage - the man that you’re falling in love with - is a mystery. When you discover what he’s hiding from you, it turns your whole world upside down.

Warnings: fluff, angst, ooc Hal probs, mentions of blood

Words: 2569

Disclaimer: So, I know that none of this would ever happen but I’m a hopeless romantic?? Characters will be ooc probably

A/N: I promise that I will be getting back to my usual fics but I had a really shitty day in work and I had to make my self feel better. The Hollow Crown was one of Tom’s superior looks! Hope you guys enjoy and please let me know what you think, I love you all! xxx

I've been living to see you Dying to see you, but it shouldn't be like this This was unexpected, what do I do now? Could we start again please?

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

The day was swelteringly hot and you were in front of your woodland cottage, tending to your herb garden. You were the best healer in the village and the townspeople ventured out of the safe confines of their stone walls to come and seek an audience with you in your forest cottage. As you were tending to the thorned plants, your hand slipped and you near enough sliced your hand open.

You gasped out into the silent air as thick scarlet blood blossomed on your palm but before you could do much about it, you heard the gallop of horse hooves in the distance, getting closer with every breath you took. Then, he called out to you and your heart fluttered with anticipation.

“Good afternoon, Y/N,” he beamed as his horse came to a stop.

You blushed as you looked at Hal’s handsome face, he was handsome enough to be a Prince with his honey brown curls and sparkling blue eyes, “hello, Hal,” you smiled as you sat on your little stone wall, your legs hanging over the edge, “it’s nice to see that you’re not half dead this time,” you laughed, recalling the first time you met him. He’d been injured and if you’d waited longer to heal him then he’d be dead.

Hal sighed, teasingly as he dismounted from his horse, “must you always mention that every time I come to visit you?”

You laughed as you reached a leg out to lightly kick at his knee, “of course, I’m never going to let you forget it,” you smiled and he rolled his eyes. By the look of his flushed cheeks, he’d been riding a long way today and you thought that he might care for some refreshment, “would you like some water? Or milk and honey, perhaps, to cool you down?”

Hal smiled and opened his mouth to reply but he hesitated when he caught sight of your slashed palm. He tutted and reached out for your hand, running his gentle fingers over the cut, “you’re hurt,” he lifted his concerned eyes to meet yours and you bit your lip as your eyes dropped down to his lips for a split second.

“It’s alright,” you breathed, “it’s just a cut from some thorns.”

“Here,” Hal smiled as he reached into his satchel bag and pulled out some fresh smelling cloth, “I don’t think that my healing skills are quite up to the level of yours, but I always keep some with me, just in case,” he chuckled and wrapped your hand in the bandage.

It was so courteous of him that you couldn’t help but stare at him, flustered and searching for something – anything – to say, “I’ll go and fetch you that glass of water,” you laughed nervously as you turned away, grimacing when his pleasant laughter followed you into the cool interior of your cottage. It was such a relief to be out of that heat, if only for a couple of minutes.

Quickly, you poured him a tankard of water before walking out into the scorching sun again.  Hal gave you a grateful smile as you handed him the water and he drained it in one swallow, gasping as he smacked his lips before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. You had to fight back a giggle.

“By God, I needed that, thank you, Y/N,” he smiled as he sat beside you on the small wall, his leg pressed against yours. Your cheeks flushed at his close proximity.

Over the few months that he had been coming to see you, you had grown to care for him, in fact you were falling in love with him. You wondered who he really was, “have you got an outing planned for tonight? I know that you prefer to collect your ingredients at night,” it was so nice that he’d remembered.

You bit your lip nervously as you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You could hardly tell him that you were going to the Royal Palace, Hal had already expressed his distaste for King Henry and the Prince of Wales, you didn’t want him to think any less of you. The King had heard of your skills and he’d invited you to court to speak to you about taking the post of physician when his current one retired. You were very grateful that word of your skills had reached the King’s ears.

“No, no outings tonight,” you felt your cheeks grow hot and the lie tasted bitter on your tongue.

Hal sat on your stone wall with you, keeping you company for a little while longer, and when he took his leave, you sent him off with raspberry tartlets which you had drizzled with honey and baked golden brown. For as long as you lived, you would never forget the way he smiled at you so sweetly as he cupped your cheek, before he brushed his lips against yours, as gentle as a whisper.

When he pulled back to look at your reaction, your heart pounded so loudly in your chest that you were afraid that he’d heard it and you felt pleasant tingles all over your body. When he found no sign of hesitance – you would have to be a fool to reject him – he pulled you closer and kissed you deeper. You stood on your tiptoes to meet his kiss as you allowed your fingers to run through his curls as you kissed him in the peaceful little clearing. Long after Hal had left, your lips still tingled from the memory of his intoxicating kiss.

Later on that evening, you were being escorted down the never-ending hallways by a Palace guard – how people found their way around this castle, you had no idea – you were dressed finely for your audience with the King, a dress from green silk that you’d made yourself. You were so nervous and the guard must have sensed it because he gave you an encouraging smile.

“Everyone has is worrisome before meeting the King,” he chuckled, “the common folk prefer the Prince.”

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise, “they do? I have never met him; will he be at court today?” you asked with interest.

“I think not, he’s been in the tavern often, of late.”

You grimaced to yourself, spending time in the tavern was not wise for the future King but you kept your thoughts to yourself. As you entered the Throne Room and saw the old proud King on his Throne, you wanted to bolt out the way you came in but you forced yourself forwards until you were kneeling at his feet.

“Your Majesty, thank you for seeing me,” you kept your head bowed as was the custom.

“Please, rise my child,” with a small smile, you got to your feet and looked at the King, “Miss Y/N, I have heard great tales of your skills and accomplishments. I believe you’ve healed quite a few soldiers in my army?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, they often come by my cottage, it’s the quickest path to the castle.”

“Quite,” the King nodded, “I thank you for your service, my physician has grown old and his methods are not what they used to be. If you would, return three days from now and we can truly see what you can do.”

A slight sting of annoyance shot through your body but you would never let it show on your face, you would rather show him now but to argue with the King was to wish for death. Before you could accept, the door to the right of you opened and the King sighed as he shook his head, you were too nervous to see who it was.

“Finally, my son, you need to extend your apologies to our guest for being late.”

“My apologies,” a soft distracted voice came to the right of you, the King gave the Prince a sharp look and the Prince of Wales sighed as he walked in front of you, “please accept my apologies, my lady,” when he looked at you, his eyes faltered and his mouth opened in surprise.

Tears sprang to your eyes as you practically felt your heart crack as you stared at Hal – your Hal – he was the Prince? Words couldn’t describe how you felt but if you had to use one word, it would be ‘betrayed.’

Keeping your voice steady, you looked back at the King, “may I have your leave to go, Your Majesty.”

“Of course,” the King inclined his head.

As soon as the King replied, you bowed once more and escaped from the room as quickly as you could without actually running. You heard Hal say something to his father before you heard his quick footsteps follow you, “Y/N!” you shook your head and kept walking, refusing to look back at him, you wouldn’t let him see you cry, “please!” his voice broke and you couldn’t help yourself, you had to stop and look at him.

Well, you didn’t look at him, you kept your eyes on the floor, “Your Majesty,” you mumbled as you saw Hal’s feet walking closer to you.

You felt a warm gentle hand on your chin and you allowed yourself to look at his face, he looked so apologetic and his eyes almost looked wet, “we should talk.”

“As Your Majesty wishes.”

Hal looked sick as he rubbed his thumb against your cheek, “please don’t call me that, nothing’s changed between us.”

“Nothing’s changed?!” your sadness quickly turned to anger and you momentarily forgot where you were, “everything’s changed!  Why didn’t you tell me? By God!” you gasped as you slapped a hand to your forehead, “I’ve been rude to you! And you’re the crowned Prince! I kissed you!”

Hal bit his lip as he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to treat me any differently, and technically, I kissed you,” he chuckled.

“Why?” you asked, holding back the tears, “why would you kiss me? Was it for something to laugh about with your noble friends,” your eyes went blurry as a wave of sadness washed over you.

“No, Y/N! Angel, no, I kissed you because I love you!”

Your heart stopped in your chest but it wasn’t from happiness, it was from overwhelming sadness, you would have longed to hear that just a few hours ago but now, you would rather that he didn’t say anything, “you can’t say that,” you shook your head as you backed away from him and Hal’s face fell, causing you to look away as you felt a stab of pain shoot through your heart.

“It doesn’t make it any less true,” he mumbled.

“I have to go,” you sighed as tears slid down your cheeks and ran over your lips, “goodbye, Your Highness,” walking away from him was the hardest thing you had ever done – especially when he was calling after you in that broken voice – but you had no other choice. He was the future King.

A year later, you were in your chambers at the palace, you hadn’t seen Hal since you had said goodbye to him. He’d been staying at his castle in Wales, though it wasn’t far away enough to make you forget about him. It was a particularly rainy day when your apprentice came bursting through the door with a shocked look on his face.

“Y/N! Y/N! Have you heard the news?” he was out of breath from running and it made you laugh.

“Calm down! What news?”

“The Prince is back, he’s in the tavern in the village, the word is that he’s abdicated the Throne for a peasant girl.”

You were so shocked that you dropped the empty beaker you were holding, letting it shatter across the ground, “are you,” you cleared your throat as you tried to gather your thoughts, “are you sure?” when Arthur nodded, you gulped and looked at him nervously. He’d probably abdicated the Throne for a pretty girl that he’d met in Wales but he used to love you and there was a sliver of hope in your chest, you had to go and see for yourself, “can you keep an eye on things here?”

“Yes, but where are you going?” Arthur frowned at you as you grabbed your cloak but you shook your head without another word.

Your riding had got much better while you were staying at the castle and you got to the tavern in a surprisingly short amount of time. You hoped that Hal was still here. As you opened the door to the warm tavern a hushed silence fell over the patrons as they stared at the newcomer. You didn’t have to search far for Hal because he was in the middle of everyone with a pretty blonde woman perched on his lap. His eyes widened as he looked at you, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. Hal had seemed to become even more beautiful in the year that he’d been away. He looked like an angel.

The woman sneered at you and you realised that he hadn’t abdicated the Throne for you at all, you were such a fool. Offering Hal, a sad smile with tears sparkling in your eyes, you turned to leave, walking out into the cold evening air again. You had barely mounted your horse before you felt a strong arm wrap around your waist from behind and a warm hand came to brush your tears away.

“Why are you crying petal?” he whispered.

You could feel the fissure in your heart widen and your knees almost buckled at the sound of his soft voice, “because you’re you a fool,” you sniffled as you turned to face him, “abdicating the Throne for that woman.”

Hal let out a surprised laugh as he shook his head, “I haven’t abdicated the Throne for her,” he jabbed his thumb in the direction of the tavern, “I’ve abdicated it for you.”

Your heart soared as you gasped, searching his face for any deceit, instead you found nothing but love, “me? Why?”

Hal grinned as he cupped your cheek, “isn’t it clear my dear? Because I love you, I would rather give up my future rule than lose you.”

Tears sprang to your eyes again but for a completely different reason and you rested your hands against Hal’s firm chest, “was your father angry?” you couldn’t believe that this brave handsome man had given up everything for you.

“Furious,” Hal rolled his eyes, “but I don’t want to live without you, I love you, Y/N. I would like nothing more than to live the rest of my days with you by my side.”

You smiled as your fingers curled through his hair as you gazed up at him, “I love you too,” you pulled him into a passionate kiss and at the first touch of his lips, you gasped, it felt like coming home, “I’m going to have to find a new post,” you laughed, you couldn’t go back to the palace now.

Hal only chuckled as he pulled you in for another kiss, for the first time in your life you had no idea what was coming next. However, you couldn’t find it in your heart to care, you had your Prince and that was all that mattered.

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

@smiithys​

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Gavin’s Spreading Wings Date

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date, 展翼之约, which has not been released in EN! 🍒

It is very important to read his birthday R&S before this!

[ This was released on 24 July 2021 ]

[ PROLOGUE ]

While heading home after work, I receive a call from Eli.

I’m guessing there’s information regarding the matter I asked of him from before.

MC: Hello? Captain Eli? Since you suddenly called, does this mean there’s a solution to what I asked about the other time?

Eli: That’s right. I personally made a trip to the municipal administration last week and retrieved the item for you. I’ve already asked City Express to send it over to you.

MC: That’s great! Thanks, Captain Eli!

Eli: It’s no problem. Although it took a little effort, it was retrieved eventually.

MC: I really have to thank Captain Eli. This item is pretty important to me, so you’ve helped me out big time.

Eli: Ah, it’s nothing. Oh yes, the STF is leaving tonight. Gavin just left the bureau and should be heading towards your place now. I shan’t disturb the both of you. I’ll hang up now. Watch out for the delivery.

MC: Mm, I’ve got it. I’ve troubled Captain Eli this time. When our TV station has a matchmaking show in the future, I’ll definitely recommend you!

I hang up. Sure enough, I receive a parcel from the STF not long after reaching home.

Tearing open the packaging, I see a dark coloured square box with the municipal administration’s logo engraved on it.

After removing the cover, a badge sits quietly among the flannel.

A cold light glints on the surface of the coiled design. The flag and peace dove clearly declare the rules of justice and protection.

It silently conveys a certain dignity that can make one hold their breath.

During an awards ceremony organised by the municipal government a few months ago, Gavin wasn’t able to attend in person. As a result, they didn’t manage to give him an honorary badge.

Although the municipal administration made several calls, the STF has been busy with missions, and Gavin hasn’t had the time to collect it.

This matter is something which I’ve always kept in my heart.

I feel that this honour, which represents an “acknowledgement”, shouldn’t be treated so flippantly and hastily.

Hence, while preparing for Gavin’s birthday, I asked Eli way in advance to retrieve this from the municipal administration using the name of STF.

This is an “acknowledgement” which belongs to him, and I wish to hand it to him personally.

All of a sudden, there are knocks at the door. Knowing that the person outside is Gavin, I quickly hide the badge and the box into a cupboard before opening the door.

Then, the person outside wraps me in a full embrace. His scent overtakes my senses.

MC: Are you leaving tonight?

Gavin responds with a “mm”. After nuzzling his head gently in the crook of my neck, he releases his hold on me.

In the short span of half a minute, he seems to have already derived all the strength he needs, and the light in his eyes is very bright.

MC: There’s no need to worry about me, but you have to take care of your safety.

Gavin: I’ll do my best to rush back. Don't worry.

The both of us speak at the same time. Gavin can’t help but laugh. Taking my hand, he pulls me outside.

Gavin: Let’s go and have dinner. We’ll eat outside today.

MC: Okay!

-

Walking along the street, I look at Gavin’s calm and resolute figure. Recalling the badge which is sitting quietly at home, I secretly purse my lips into a smile.

This year, my birthday plan is a secret which Gavin doesn’t know about. I’m looking forward to the day the secret is revealed, along with his reactions.

[ DATE ]

The faraway snow-capped mountains are reminiscent of a fog coloured outline. They stand at the end of the horizon, faraway and reticent.

On a road not too far from the border, I disembark from the car, standing underneath a street sign while staring ahead.

Approximately half a month ago, Gavin was sent to this city for a mission. Today is the day he wraps up the mission.

It’s also his birthday.

At this moment, my phone rings. I answer it quickly.

Eli: MC, have you reached the location I gave you?

MC: Mm, I’ve reached. Captain Eli, when will you guys be dismissed?

Eli: We’ve already been dismissed and are heading your way. Just stay where you are, and you’ll definitely cross paths with Gavin. Don’t worry.

MC: That’s great. I’ll thank Captain Eli in advance then~

After hanging up, I tap open my memo and verify its contents once more.

MC: The aviation park, guesthouse, cake, and presents. Mm, no problem at all!

I turn my phone off, thinking about how aside from celebrating Gavin’s birthday, I’m also shouldering a very “heavy responsibility”.

Since Gavin wasn’t personally present for the awards ceremony conducted by the municipal government, there’s a medal which has yet to be given to him.

After learning about this piece of news not too long ago, I’ve remembered it in my heart, and specially asked Eli to retrieve this medal from the municipal government in the name of STF.

With a really huge and hidden personal motive, I wish to personally hand this important honour to Gavin on this most special day.

The sudden chirping of birds pulls my train of thought back to reality.

I look at the time. It’s still very early, and the first glimmer of light has just appeared in the sky.

After waiting for a while longer, I spot a group of uniformed men appearing at the end of the road. My heart, which had been dangling in the air, immediately settles.

The person leading the group is wearing a combat uniform. Strands of brown hair curl up in the breeze, and he currently has his head turned towards a squad mate behind him as he says something.

Although they appear to have experienced a fierce battle, the atmosphere is very light-hearted.

Looks like this mission successfully reached its end.

Likely sensing my gaze, he suddenly turns his head, staring afar off towards my direction.

After he getting a clear view of my figure, those amber eyes suddenly freeze. The strands atop his head curl up in a silly manner, as though he doesn’t know how to react.

The early morning mist has not yet dissipated. The world is enveloped in a tender and pale greenish blue, and the chirping of birds occasionally grows faint and near.

The whirring of a helicopter drifts from overhead as it circles in the sky. It’s the aircraft which is here to send them back.

Seeing that Gavin is slightly at a loss, I can’t help but chuckle, waving at him.

Gavin immediately walks over to me, his pace much faster than before. The squad mates follow behind him in a leisurely manner, not planning to disrupt this early morning meeting.

Gavin stands in front of me. He sweeps a glance over my white denim jacket, his gaze a little astonished.

MC: How is it? Does it look good?

Gavin nods, responding in a straightforward manner.

Gavin: Looks good.

MC: I specially prepared a matching set~

While speaking, I pass him the bag in my hands. Gavin receives it and takes a look. With a chuckle, he puts on the exact same jacket deftly. 

Although it’s just a simple white demin jacket, it makes him look refreshed and cool.

The early morning mist dyes his eyes, giving them a tender coolness. When his eyes meet mine, they instantly melt into a warm gaze.

At this point, Eli and other squad mates walk over as well. A rope ladder descends from the helicopter, and Eli arches a brow at us.

Eli: This rascal was so anxious to see you that he almost flew back to Loveland City directly. This is good. He doesn't have to fly now.

He pats Gavin on the shoulder.

Eli: Captain Gavin, enjoy your birthday vacation. We brothers will head off first.

One by one, they climb up the rope ladder and board the helicopter. Tang Chao whistles, and he’s grabbed through the hatch by Eli.

Gavin doesn’t bother about them. He removes his half finger gloves, revealing his dry yet soft finger pads. He entwines all ten fingers with mine.

He lifts his eyes to look at me, and they are filled with an insuppressible brightness. He asks a question that he clearly knows the answer to.

Gavin: Why did you come here?

The helicopter circles into the distance, accompanied by a deafening roar. I grin while bringing my left hand to my mouth, curving it into the shape of a trumpet.

MC: It’s clearly to... wish you a happy birthday!

-

The public bus brings us to the entrance of a park in the outskirts of the city. I pull Gavin off the bus, and we stand at the entrance of the park together.

Turning my head, I scrape Gavin’s palm.

MC: May I know if Mr Birthday Boy is ready to spend a day of surprises with me?

The hand that’s intertwined with Gavin’s moves forward decisively. The smile in his voice is unambiguously clear.

Gavin: Of course.

When I was planning the birthday route a few days ago, I unintentionally chanced upon information pertaining to this park.

As compared to other parks, there doesn’t seem to be anything special about this aviation park.

It’s just another slow-paced venue to relax in within the city. It has a pond which can’t be considered large, and a few willow trees grow along it.

Magazines are displayed on the counter of a small stall, and a child is standing on his tiptoes, selecting a popsicle from the freezer beside it.

If I had to mention the biggest difference, it would be that this park was transformed from an airbase.

In order to remember that it was once an airbase, there’s a white statute of an aircraft in the middle of the park.

Similarly, in order to be in line with the theme of “aviation”, all the shops in the park display miniature aircraft models.

Akin to colourful birds, they carry a yearning for the unconstrained sky.

Perhaps due to it being the summer vacation, a teacher has brought children to visit this ex-airbase.

The children wear yellow hats while chattering away. They surround the aircraft models, debating on which one looks the best.

Gavin and I walk along the shade of trees unhurriedly. When passing by the aircraft statue, he suddenly asks me a question.

Gavin: Did you bring me here because this used to be an airbase?

His gaze flits past the aircraft statue, then pauses on my face.

I nod in acknowledgement.

MC: I heard that this used to be one of the first airbases. In the past, many aircrafts were studied here. It’s a place with lots of commemorative value, and bears the weight of the years when people headed into the sky. Since I’m celebrating your birthday in this city, I felt that I should pick a location which is slightly more special. Otherwise, it wouldn’t leave much of an impression when we recollect it in the future.

Gavin chuckles, then reaches out to pinch my face.

Gavin: Seeing you appear early in the morning while dismissing the squad was already enough to leave a deep impression on me.

I laugh in embarrassment, then continue the earlier topic.

MC: But the airbase is only half of the reason.

I pause, my sentence ending on an upward lilt.

MC: There’s another half.

Gavin arches his brows, as though wondering what other surprises I could have hidden in this small park.

Tugging on his hand, we turn into a small path on the left, a confident smile on my face.

MC: Come with me.

The small path extends forward, and the sound of our footsteps mingles with the rustling of leaves.

After making a turn, everything becomes clear.

Before us, there’s a spacious and empty patch of land. Green grass grows wildly, covering the runway which was once used for aircrafts.

The wreckage of a plane remains on the ground, the rust on its body akin to a brown coloured decorative pattern.

Everything reveals the creases of time, but certain lingering aspirations can still be felt from it.

Gavin: Is this the other half of the reason?

He looks at me, his brows arched slightly.

MC: This was the original location of the airbase. I heard that this abandoned plane used to have the most excellent workmanship. I felt that if you knew about such a place, you’d want to take a look. Also, this is quite a nice place for a hidden scenery~

Gavin suddenly reaches out to brush dust off the body of the aircraft, revealing a series of numbers.

Gavin: Y2251. This used to be an air freighter.

Gavin pauses for a moment. As though he grasped at a fragment from his memories, his eyelashes stir gently in slight disbelief.

Gavin: A very long time ago, I made an aircraft model. This was the aircraft I referenced and modelled it after.

MC: ?!

I’m stunned for half a second. When I see myself in Gavin’s calm and composed eyes, I can’t help but chuckle.

MC: I suddenly feel as though this world might actually operate in a circle. We might move and turn around, but there will come a day when we become part of the circle.

Gavin responds with a “mm”. He gazes fixedly at the set of numbers, as though patching up fragments of memories bit by bit.

Gavin: I used it to participate in a competition and won a prize. Back then, the officer who gave out the award came from this base.

MC: What kind of a competition was it?

Gavin: An aeromodelling competition. The prize was a small aviator badge.

We walk past the propeller of the aircraft wreckage with very light footsteps.

In my mind, a face even younger than the one right now surfaces before my eyes, along with a pair of clear amber eyes.

MC: Wow, that sounds really incredible!

I suddenly see the introductory plate next to the plane, which has a picture of how it formally looked like.

Smooth contours, blue wings, floating cloud patterns on its tail... just like a beautiful flying bird.

MC: How pretty. When you referenced this plane, did you make an exact replica?

Gavin nods. He looks at the plate, his gaze very serious.

Gavin: It was more or less the same as this.

He hesitates slightly, then adds on.

Gavin: Erm... it didn’t look as good. But it was very practical and could fly.

He gestures with his hands, pointing towards a faraway ginkgo tree.

Gavin: Around here to over there - the distance of half a field.

We walk over to that ginkgo tree. Its leaves are luxuriant as it stands next to the side gate of the park.

Since it’s summer, the leaves are lush and green.

A swing is swaying gently and quietly under the tree, and a few ginkgo leaves have fallen onto the wooden seat.

Tugging Gavin over to the swing, we continue our earlier conversation.

MC: We probably walked around 500 metres to get here. An aircraft model which is able to fly 500 metres is so incredible! You must have really liked it in the past in order to do such an amazing job.

Gavin holds the rope of the swing. He nods after hearing this, and his voice is certain.

Gavin: I did like it very much.

Seeing from my expression that I’m about to burst from curiosity, he can’t help but chuckle before going along with me and speaking.

Gavin: Back then, I bought many atlases related to planes. While studying them slowly, I conducted test flights too. I spent almost half of my summer vacation on this. Although the process was very fulfilling, there were times when I faced setbacks. Once, I got into a huff and tossed all the spare parts into my drawer and went to bed. 

MC: What happened next?

A nostalgic smile flashes in Gavin’s eyes.

Gavin: I couldn’t fall asleep, so I got up and took all of them out of the drawer. I fumbled around and managed to construct the extending and retracting mechanism of the wings. The next day, I slept till late in the afternoon... My mom didn’t wake me up.

MC: Pfft.

I can almost envision a youth who is sound asleep under the covers, a prototype plane laying quietly on the table.

A breeze enters through the curtains. It’s tender and light-hearted.

MC: Looks like it really isn’t easy to construct an aircraft model successfully.

I’m a little awed.

MC: I remember when we were doing handicrafts in school, the teacher would always say that the final step is to engrave our names as a marker. If I were you, I’d definitely paint my own name at the most conspicuous spot, and tell everyone how incredible I am.

Gavin gives this some thought before he shakes his head.

Gavin: I didn’t engrave my name back then. It was on the small aviator badge, but it got lost after I sent it to my father’s squad.

The way he says this so naturally causes my slightly flinched expression to reveal complicated emotions.

Gavin: Now that I think about it, it wasn’t anything special.

He chuckles, his tone as light as a breeze.

Gavin: They’re all in the past.

He narrates this calmly, as though these memories have long since been shut behind a dusty door.

I think of a 14 year old Gavin. I think of that aircraft model he made personally. I think of the past he had to experience...

A sense of discontent rises from my heart, and I wish to smoothen these regrets.

I stand up, and Gavin lifts his head towards me in slight puzzlement.

Gavin: What’s wrong?

MC: How could we not eat popsicles in a park during summer? I saw a stall selling popsicles earlier. I’ll buy two sticks.

Gavin nods. Just as he’s about to stand up and follow me, I press him back onto the swing.

MC: I’ll buy it. You can just wait for me here.

Gavin arches his brows slightly as he looks at me. As though seeing through my thoughts, he nods.

MC: What flavour do you want?

Gavin: I’ll go with whatever you like.

I nod. Just as I prepare to leave, someone grips my fingers.

I turn around to see that Gavin is looking at me.

Gavin: Be safe.

After a pause, he continues.

Gavin: I’ll be waiting for you here.

MC: Mm, I’ve got it.

I nod, giving him a smile.

-

I’m standing at a shop near the entrance of the park. Numerous aircraft models of various styles are displayed on the counter.

However, I instantly spot one particular style exhibited in the middle. With its white body and blue wings, it looks exactly like the plane in the original picture from earlier.

When the boss sees me staring at it, he enthusiastically introduces it to me from the side.

Boss: This is a bestseller from our shop. It’s a replica of the plane in the park, built in a 1:400 ratio. This is the only piece left today.

Without hesitation, I purchase it.

Even before waiting for the boss to package it in a box, I pick up the miniature plane and store it into my bag. Then, I quickly jog into the park.

When I hurriedly weave through the crowd and make a turn at the small path, I suddenly halt in my footsteps when I spot Gavin.

He’s sitting on the swing in the park, sunlight from the summer afternoon filtering through the crevices of leaves and descending on him in specks.

A few ginkgo leaves have fallen, scattering at his feet. A few bellflowers are suddenly blown by the wind, releasing a clear and rippling sound.

Gavin watches the bellflowers quietly, and all his sharpness has been retracted.

In an instant, along with the descending ginkgo leaves, I think I see the youth who is encased and hidden by layers of solid armour.

It’s as though he has found a wound which has yet to heal completely but was forgotten with time. When he faces that scar, he waits in quiet solitude.

Akin to an instinctive reaction, I sprint towards him and take his hand.

The moment Gavin lifts his head and looks at me, I see brilliant rays lighting up his eyes.

It seems that he has grown accustomed to waiting. But this time, the person he’s waiting for has arrived as planned.

MC: Sorry, I had to queue for a long time to get the popsicles.

Gavin shakes his head, his brows arched into a smile.

Gavin: It wasn’t very long.

I stretch out my hand, waving the two popsicle sticks in my hand.

MC: Here. The other flavours were sold out, so there’s only lychee left. Give it a try.

Gavin takes one stick. I sit beside him and take a bite of the popsicle, the clear and sweet taste spreading from the tip of my tongue.

I turn my head and ask Gavin a question.

MC: Why aren’t you asking me about what gifts I prepared for you this year?

Gavin: If I said that your appearance here is already the best gift, you definitely wouldn’t be satisfied with this response.

He pauses, his tone bringing with it an unhurried upward lilt.

Gavin: So... what did you prepare for me this year?

Heading out of the park via the side gate, we make a turn at a sloping path. In front, there’s a pretty large lake.

The source of water from this lake comes from the faraway snow-capped mountains. Since there aren’t many tourists, the water in the lake is clean and pure blue.

This patch of blue is reminiscent of a gigantic jewel. It’s deep and tender, adding radiance and beauty to the snow-capped mountain, as though extending to the horizon.

There’s a tranquil guesthouse next to the lake. Gavin and I push open the gate of the courtyard together.

There’s a gigantic tree in the courtyard. July happens to be its flowering season, and the tree is layered with cloud-like petals.

I guide Gavin to the second storey. After lifting the portiere made of colourful cloth, a meticulously decorated room appears before our eyes.

Sprigs of a blossoming plant have been inserted into a vase, and a simple and unsophisticated wind chime hangs by the window.

A birthday cake stored in a transparent box is displayed on the table, and there’s a blue ribbon on it which has been tied into a bow.

Ever since we entered, I've been secretly observing Gavin’s reaction, wanting to know if he fancies such a surprise.

He doesn’t say anything. He simply looks at everything quietly, as though he doesn’t want to miss out on anything.

Then, he walks over to the window, fiddling with the wind chime gently. He sits at the edge of the window casually, and stretches out his hand towards me.

Understanding this immediately, I walk over, placing my hand in his unfurled palm. Sunlight from outside the window envelops this square inch world, and it is tender and tranquil.

Gavin: A very long time ago, somebody told me that I can’t be unhappy on my birthday. 

Gavin: Because this day doesn’t just belong to me. It also belongs to everyone who loves me, and the people who have prepared and looked forward to this day for a very long time. 

Gavin: Celebrating my birthday with you for the fourth time, I think I truly understand the meaning in those words.

He lifts his eyes, looking at me quietly.

Gavin: I’m very happy. Not because it’s my birthday, but because there’s someone who wishes for me to be happy.

The wind chime that I hung up at the window jingles, akin to a song with an unknown melody.

I had prepared many, many things that I wanted to tell him at this moment. But right now, I swallow these words back.

MC: The person who told you that must have been looking forward to this day very much, just like me. Looking forward to giving you well wishes, and looking forward to you being happy because of the surprises I prepared.

I wink.

MC: Since the atmosphere is just right, it’s time to unwrap your gift.

Very carefully, I retrieve the miniature plane that I purchased earlier from my bag, handing it to Gavin under his watchful gaze.

MC: This aircraft model is a belated gift from MC to 14 year old Gavin. I hope he remembers to engrave his name on it when he receives the gift.

Gavin brushes the body of the plane with a finger pad. He suddenly releases a muffled chuckle, then reaches out to draw me into his arms.

His voice enters my ear, mingling with the rustling of leaves outside the window. It’s very soft, and very close by.

Gavin: If 14 year old Gavin received this gift, he’d have definitely remembered to say thank you on that day.

I wrap my arms around his waist, feeling our overlapping breaths in this moment. After a long time passes, I speak up.

MC: Each time I celebrated my birthday when I was small, I always loved to make many wishes. 

MC: Thinking back, many of those wishes were really childish and even greedy. 

MC: After growing up, I experienced many regrets, and faced many situations where I had to compromise and give up. 

MC: Gradually, my birthday wishes became smaller and simpler. It’s as if I no longer had the same courage as before. 

MC: But you’re different. No matter what I want, you’ve always been willing to fulfil them all. 

MC: You made me realise that if I’m properly loved by someone, my wishes can be fulfilled no matter how childish they are.

MC: So no matter what Little Gav’s wishes are, I want to fulfil them for him.

Gavin embraces me, and he doesn’t say anything for a long time.

I pat him on the back gently, chuckling as I continue speaking.

MC: Okay, since Little Gav’s present has already been received, it’s time for yours.

I leave from Gavin’s arms, reaching out to cover his eyes. His eyelashes flutter in my palm, and it’s ticklish.

MC: You’re not allowed to open your eyes in secret.

With the greatest of care, I retrieve the honorary badge belonging to the Commander of STF from my breast pocket, putting it in front of his chest personally.

Gavin doesn’t open his eyes. Rays of sunlight outline his face and figure, immersing his entire self in brightness.

Sunlight lands on the badge, and the golden rays reflected off it give a brief summary of the storms and severe winters in this person’s past.

MC: You didn’t participate in the awards ceremony the previous time, so this medal couldn’t be passed to you. Now, I can finally hand it to its owner.

I observe how it looks on Gavin’s chest, and my voice is very soft.

MC: This is also the most important gift of today.

Gavin: The most important gift?

The entire room is filled with a tender glow. Lifting my head, I meet Gavin’s quiet gaze as he stares at me.

MC: Because I’m a witness to every single reason that resulted in you obtaining it.

I’ve personally witnessed how he has used his own body to block off all sorts of dangers, and can clearly remember how many injuries he has sustained.

But he also experiences pain. When he doesn’t sleep for several days and nights, he also gets fatigued.

It’s only today that I vaguely surmise that the reason why he never mentions anything is because since a very long time ago, he learnt that he shouldn’t anticipate any reciprocation from others.

That aviation badge which was forgotten in a corner had once sustained the weight of a youth’s pure gaze.

Afterwards, it was covered by a thick layer of dust. Nobody held it with a heart filled with anticipation ever again. Just like that, it vanished into the depths of time.

Later on, the youth grew up and decided on a correct flight path. He stepped on dark shadows, walking on the path of justice.

He saved so many people, but the only thing he didn’t know how to do was to allow himself to receive a little reciprocation.

Fortunately, I can now stand before him and take his hand. I can tell him that he has done very well, and that he’s the Gavin I like the most.

I wish to give him the most resolute response.

MC: Gavin, you’re worthy of all the honour. You’re worthy of all the recognition. I... am extremely convinced about this.

After hearing this, Gavin blinks slowly. He lifts his hand and touches the badge on his chest.

I lean forward slightly to take his hand. Looking directly into his eyes, I recite the words that I’ve drafted multiple times in my mind.

MC: There’s someone I’ve known for a really long time.

MC: I’ve seen his valiant and heroic side, and have also seen his fierce and decisive side.

MC: He always doesn’t care about how many injuries he sustains, but gets anxious and blames himself whenever I get hurt.

MC: He has brought me to see many magnificent sights, and enabled me to appreciate many stories that I wouldn’t have been able to experience on my own.

MC: He has handed his gentlest side to me without holding anything back. But he doesn’t ask for me to reciprocate in any way.

MC: I wish to keep looking at him like this.

And I also wish to... have him forever and ever.

A breeze from outside the window brings with it a floral fragrance. I watch as Gavin stares at me without blinking, his gaze blooming with tenderness.

Gavin: MC, I remember everything that we’ve experienced together. These experiences are so wonderful, and they’ve filled this space.

He points at his heart.

Gavin: Because this space is full, I can continue to walk on the path that I want to with resoluteness, and do the things that I want.

He pauses, his tone wilful.

Gavin: I’ve decided on today’s wish.

He draws closer to me, and I'm able to catch a whiff of his breath.

Gavin: MC, you are the one who gave 14 year old me a gift. You are also the one who grabbed the hands of both Gavin from the past and the Gavin of right now.

Gavin: You’re the person I was waiting for.

Gavin: So your wishes are also my wishes.

Gavin: From now onwards, keep looking at me. 

A floral fragrance fills the room. I stare into his bright eyes, as feel as though I’m embracing the warmth of an entire midsummer.

✈️ Epilogue: here

✈️ Video call: here

✈️ Phone call: here

✈️ Moments and Text: here

✈️ Support the cafe by dropping by the tip jar!

[random-thought-depository]

Continuing from my last post about science fictional “hyperspaces” (wow, I think that might be the most viral original post I ever wrote; it’s amazing what being reblogged by @argumate can do for a post!):

As a science fiction writer, these are the features I find attractive about “hyperspace” that incline me to favor it over other explanations for “fast” interstellar communication and travel:

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Hyperspace lets space still feel big. Wormholes/portals and instantaneous “jump drives” tend to make space feel small (though wormholes lend themselves nicely to space outside the wormhole network feeling big and to a feeling of sharp discontinuity between “known” or “civilized” space within the network and “unknown” or “wild” space where the network doesn’t reach). Start-anywhere go-anywhere jump drives without serious limitations have the additional issue that they’re more-or-less equivalent to teleporters, so they create the ultimate MAD setting where defending multiple fixed locations from a peer adversary is very difficult, and they minimize the strategic advantages of sustainable stationary banditry over unsustainable hyper-exploitive mobile banditry, and since the likely implications of that are very depressing I prefer to avoid it (except maybe if I was deliberately setting out to write a dystopia or explore the idea).

I want space to feel big in my writing, to give the reader some feeling of the vastness, grandeur, and inhuman scale of the universe. For my main science fiction setting, I think I’ll give hyperspace travel an effective “speed” of something like 5-10 c in Sol’s local neighborhood. That way interstellar journeys are more manageable than they’d be with journeys through our space, but journeys to other inhabited solar systems usually take at least a year or two (Sol to Alpha Centauri may be less than a year in hyperspace, but add in travel time to and from the Sol and Alpha Centauri hyper-limits, which is probably going to be at least a couple of months for each leg, and it’s probably about a year).

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Hyperspace feels more like the sort of thing that might plausibly be useable to almost hairless apes with near-future-ish technology. With warp drives and wormholes and jump drives and so on I get the niggling feeling that’s the sort of thing you should probably have to be on approximately the level of an Orion’s Arm Archialect to do. Real theoretical warp drive and wormhole proposals tend to involve stuff like exotic forms of matter and energy and very large amounts of energy. Hyperspace would be a natural phenomenon, so it’s easier to explain it in terms of people exploiting natural phenomena we just don’t know about now, no weirder than being able to travel faster than rowing would allow by building a sail to catch the wind.

You can say that there are some rare atoms that naturally have a structure that extends into hyperspace. With human senses and 2020s technology they just look like ordinary atoms of silicon, iron, etc., but with the right kind of machinery you can detect them, sift them out of the surrounding 3D atoms, and concentrate them. Once you’ve got enough of them, you can make them the core of a pair of transmitters that you can use to send and receive radio messages through hyperspace. With more energy, you can “push” on these structures and “push” those atoms into hyperspace, and then if those atoms are part of a larger solid object the rest of the object and anything touching it gets dragged along with them (with a certain size limit, perhaps related to mass being “pushed” and energy used, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally sending the whole Earth into hyperspace the first time you try this - that’d be one heck of an oops; maybe a later disproven small theoretical possibility of that happening would go down into the history books along with “before they exploded Trinity they were worried it might ignite the atmosphere”); thus you can send a whole ship into hyperspace instead of just information. When you want to leave hyperspace you can reverse the operation and “push” the ship back into our space.

That gives you a nice highly valuable “handwavium” that can be a hook for various plot and worldbuilding points, e.g. there’s not much obvious economic reason to colonize Mars IRL except maybe tourism (anything you could mine there you get more easily from near-Earth asteroids, and it’s too inhospitable to make much sense as a settler colony), but maybe there’s a huge mother lode of these hyperspace-touching atoms somewhere on Mars. These hyperspace-touching atoms would be especially valuable if the process of using them for communication or in hyperdrives “strained” these structures and at some predictable rate caused some of them to “snap,” causing the atoms to become ordinary 3D atoms of silicon or iron or uranium or whatever. Then there’d be a continuous need for (relatively) large amounts of new ones even in a steady-state economy; you couldn’t just keep recycling them and recycling them and just do a little mining to make up for recycling inefficiencies. This would also be an interesting limit on use of hyperspace; using hyperspace radio or doing a hyperjump involves destroying a small amount of a precious resource, so people wouldn’t want to do it frivolously. This might augment that sphere analogy limitation on hyperspace communication I talked about in my other post; even if a hyperspace radio message from Saturn to Earth got there a little ahead of a radio message through our space, you’d probably send a radio message through our space for anything that isn’t time-critical, because the message arriving ten minutes sooner usually just isn’t worth the predictable cost in “snapped” hyperspace-touching atoms.

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Hyperspace would be an environment, so you can do interesting things with it.

Since hyperspace offers a short-cut because it’s more compact than our space, I like to pull on the idea that it’s like our space but in a more compact state, so it’s similar to what our space looked like when the universe was younger and smaller. Going to hyperspace might be a little like time travelling back to a few tens or hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang, before the first stars formed. The environment of hyperspace might be a little like the inside of a giant molecular cloud, but “warmer” and extremely impoverished in heavy elements. The gas density might be a few thousand to a few billion atoms per cubic centimeter (by comparison, sea level air is about 10^19 molecules per cubic centimeter while the interstellar medium averages around 1 atom per cubic centimeter). The gasses and plasmas in hyperspace would be almost pure hydrogen and helium. The cosmic microwave background temperature in hyperspace might be around 50 K; that’s warm in comparison to what it is in our space (around 3 K), and warm enough to probably be a big part of the reason hyperspace has no stars (present day star-forming giant molecular cloud regions have gas temperatures around 10-20 K), but by human standards it’s deeply cold; it’s upper atmosphere of Uranus temperature. With no stars, I’d guess hyperspace would be a place of more-or-less total darkness outside the range of any lights humans passing through might bring with them.

Alternately, if I want hyperspace to have a murky and mysterious quality and be a place where visibility isn’t good and sensors don’t work well (so a vibe a bit like B5 hyperspace), I could say the Big Bang nucleosynthesis era lasted longer in hyperspace and there produced a substantial amount of heavy elements, some of which then condensed into dust (probably more like smoke if it’s similar to interstellar dust in our space - nanometer to micrometer particles). This dust would probably be pretty insubstantial on human scale distances (again, if it’s like the interstellar medium matter in hyperspace would be about 99% mostly hydrogen and helium gas and plasma and 1% dust, and even a relatively “dense” hyperspace with billions of atoms per cm^3 would have less than a billionth the gas density of sea level air), but over AUs it would scatter light and that effect might add up. This would make hyperspace similar to a dark nebula.

If I want to take the “hyperspace is a scary place” further, I could add sources of energy that might further confuse sensors and add dangerous radiation and other dangers to the mix. Maybe hyperspace has a few large black holes or something, with energetic accretion disks and polar jets fed by all that relatively dense gas and adding turbulence to it. Or maybe spacetime in hyperspace is “lumpier” than spacetime in our space and hyperspace has weird “rivers” formed by something related to whatever force drives cosmic expansion and some of the gas/plasma gets caught in that and accelerated to large fractions of the speed of light and then slams into the low-velocity material in the “still” parts in places, creating lots of turbulence and various other interesting and scary things (powerful magnetic fields, radiation, locally intense heat, maybe some of these collision zones are even giant naturally occurring inertial confinement fusion reactors; maybe that’s where the heavy elements in the dust come from). Maybe hyperspace has a lot of cosmic strings; it makes a certain intuitive sense that, hyperspace being more compact than our space, its cosmic eggshell might be densely veined with cracks.

This gets into another interesting aspect; hyperspace might have something equivalent to terrain; hyperspace travel may be easier in some directions than others. And there’s lots of worldbuilding and plot hooks you could hang from that idea.

For example, let’s look at that idea of hyperspace having “rivers” formed of exotic spacetime structures and filled with gas/plasma streams moving at high fractions of the speed of light. If the edge of these “rivers” has a gradual enough velocity gradient and the plasma in the “rivers” is ionized, with enough skill a spacecraft pilot might be able to catch that “current” with a magsail and ride it, then when they’d gotten about as far as they needed to go they could leave the “river” and do magsail braking against low-velocity plasma in the “still” areas. Just gotta be careful to stay well away from the dangerous collision zones! This might be a huge part of the short-cut offered by hyperspace travel! It could be that distances across hyperspace are only modestly shorter than distances across our space (say, Alpha Centauri is 1 light year away in hyperspace), but the really big savings is you can catch one of these hyperspace “currents” and use it to get up to large fractions of c without expending any fuel. A set-up like that does raise some awkward questions about conservation of energy, but I could say something like “the hyperspace ‘rivers’ are areas where dark energy is being converted into kinetic energy, slightly slowing down the expansion of the universe in the process.” It’s not like we know much about how dark energy works, or even what it is, so for all we know that’s a thing that might happen under certain conditions.

Those collision zones would generate substantial radiation, including light, so unlike a calm hyperspace a turbulent hyperspace with energetic “currents” would probably have light. Don’t know how bright it would be; all that dust (made of heavy elements built up over the eons by inertial confinement fusion in collision zones, I like that idea!) would absorb a lot of light over cosmic distances, and stars are pretty bright but most of our space is pretty dark.

That set-up would make hyperspace travel kind of like sailing; there would be “currents” or “winds” you want to catch, and travel might be a lot faster along directions where the currents are favorable. Travel times in hyperspace might only loosely correlate with distance; Alpha Centauri might take longer to reach than Zeta Reticuli. There would also be hazards you’d need to avoid, e.g. the collision zones.

Maybe part of the explanation for the Fermi Paradox might be that Earth is in the middle of a big “still” part of hyperspace; few ships went here because we’re in the middle of a cosmic doldrums that takes years to crawl across.

With a set-up like this, hyperspace may have “weather” that influences interstellar commerce, and “climate change” on historical timescales that influences the trajectories of interstellar societies. Ages when hyperspace is particularly turbulent might cause Dark Ages as hyperspace travel becomes very dangerous. Ages when hyperspace becomes unusually calm might also cause Dark Ages as there are no fast hyperspace “currents” to ride and hyperspace travel becomes relatively slow. In one age hyperspace “currents” may be arranged such that a world is isolated; a few thousand years later the hyperspace “currents” might have shifted and that previously isolated world might be much more accessible and back in the mainstream of interstellar civilization.

One wrinkle: a turbulent, energetic, opaque hyperspace such as this probably wouldn’t be good for sending radio signals across. Maybe the universe actually has multiple “basement” levels, hyperspace is just the one that’s “closest” to our “living room” level and the only one that’s “close” enough that ships can travel to and from it, but there’s a clearer layer that’s “farther away” but still “close” enough that you can send radio signals through it, and that “deeper” clear layer is the one used for interstellar communication. Bonus idea I like: the deep clear layer is even more compact than hyperspace (by orders of magnitude) so it’s overall a much better short-cut in every way except being “too far away” to send ships through it, so finding a way to send ships through it is a huge potential breakthrough that tantalizes generations of scientists and engineers who so far have not managed to figure out a way to do it.

Really, on that note, I like the idea that the universe is analogous to an onion with many “layers,” and hyperspace and the deep clear layer are just the layers that are most easily accessible from our space. There are a lot of “basements” below the deep clear layer, and generally as you get farther “down” the “basements” get smaller, denser, and hotter; going “down” is a little like time travelling to eras closer and closer to the Big Bang (though this isn’t a completely reliable rule - the deep clear layer is smaller than hyperspace and perhaps warmer, but seems to be a lot emptier; maybe most of its matter has been sucked into black holes?). Maybe the whole thing is a bit timey wimey wibbly wobbly and if you go “down” far enough you eventually hit what 2020s science knows as the moment of the Big Bang. As well as “basements” there are also “attics,” but they’re less accessible because going “up” is harder than going “down.” If going “down” into the basements is a little like time travelling to the early universe, going “up” into the attics is a little like time travelling to the deep future, to places that look kind of like what our space may look like in the deep future black hole era (assuming the Big Rip doesn’t destroy our universe before that deep future proton decay story has time to play out). The “attics” are vast, empty, and deeply cold; cosmic microwave background temperatures a tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero and precious little else to generate energy, maybe one atom in every cubic kilometer of space. They probably expanded too quickly for stars to ever form there. The total number of layers might be large; maybe hundreds or thousands, maybe billions, maybe a number so big it would need to be expressed in scientific notation. I like this idea because it makes hyperspace feel less implausibly convenient for humans; we’re just taking advantage of a particularly convenient part of a big macrostructure that’s mostly inaccessible to us.

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Hyperspace is a natural phenomenon, so it probably isn’t going to be neatly quarantined to just being a thing humans can use for communication and travel. Hyperspace-related phenomena are going to show up in nature, and this offers a neat explanation for any exotic soft SF-ish natural phenomena you may be interested in incorporating into your setting.

Hyperspace (and other “basements” of our universe) also gives you a built-in parsimonious explanation for any other bits of soft SF technology your setting might feature. Want your setting to have e.g. Star Trek style forcefields? You can say they work through interaction with one of the “basement” layers of the universe.

On that note, I have an idea for a more hard SF version of the Babylon 5 “going beyond the Rim” thing or Stargate ascension, based on the “onion universe” concept I described above, which might serve as a partial explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Maybe some “layers” of the “onion” are “superhabitable” to advanced machine intelligences (though not to primitive flesh and blood beings like us). You know the aestivation hypothesis? If advanced machine intelligences could move to an “attic” they wouldn’t have to wait billions of years for our space to cool down; the cosmic microwave background temperatures in many of the “attics” would already be some tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Maybe they could move to a nice big cold “attic” and live there and “mine” a nice compact “basement” that is rich in matter and energy, getting the best of both worlds. Most of these “attics” and “basements” would be completely inaccessible to humans, but beings with better technology and more resources might be able to access many more of them (or maybe even get beyond the “onion” and search the entire multiverse for universes with conditions more to their liking). So the universe’s most powerful and most enduring civilizations might usually leave our space and move to another “layer” or universe that has conditions more ideal for them, and thus be mostly undetectable to us.

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See: the concept of hyperspace is loaded with potential plot and worldbuilding hooks if you use a little imagination, and I like that!

[lady-starbind]

POKEMON LEGENDS ARCEUS RANT

So um... before we begin, Imma warn u dudes ‘n dudets that my rant will NOT be spoiler free so um, ignore this post once you’ve been spoiled OR proceed if u don’t care about being spoiled or not. SO FIRST THINGS FIRST... I HAVE ANCESTOR OCS THAT I’VE CREATED, WHICH I’LL BRIEFLY EXPLAIN: Anne Rose (my persona’s ancestor, sister of a grandparent on her paternal side): Fiery Scottish woman from Galar, has come to Hisui in search of gold.... Instead of gold, she finds Pokemon friends and learns the art of a tailor from Anthea (who becomes her mentor) ...Anne was originally going to be the MC I played as, but I’ll explain later why that is now SCRAPPED. (Rose is her middle name btw, her real last name is my last name which is none of y’all’s concerns lols) Angus Rothes (Timothy’s Very Great Grandfather, a direct ancestor from his Paternal side): Best friend of Anne’s and helps her with her studying for the Pokedex and such. Unlike his descendant, Angus is not near as timid and is pretty social and brave. Probably doesn’t look up to Anne as a mother figure, but she’s definitely his bestie. Angus is around 13 during this timeframe ig Bramble (Fan Ancestor of Thorton, he’s likely related as a Great Uncle of sorts): Bramble is a highly curious boy who loves tinkering with machinery! (...well, whatever machinery can be tinkered with in Hisui ig), Unlike his Atheist nephew, Bramble likely practices Shinto and worships his Bronzong. Bramble is also around 10 years old in this timeline. He has a crush on Anne that is never reciprocated. THERE WE GO, HAVE A PICTURE OF... HISUIAN GROWLITHE AS WE GO ON TO THE NEXT SECTION:

RELATIONSHIP CHART THINGY FOR MY OCS WITH THE CANON CHARACTERS: Anne: Angus = Best friend, Bramble = Close friend and study buddy, Melli = MORTAL ENEMY (lmbo deep down they at least respect the other's abilities.... and do care about the other... at least somewhat? In an odd twisted way perhaps?) Anthe = Mentor, probably teaches Anne how to make clothes? Two are close ...close-ish,

Angus): Anne = Best friend, Bramble = friend and study buddy... lowkey jealous of Bramble's friendship with Anne, Melli = Acquaintance ...he's not a big fan of the guy, Anthe = Probably friends or acquaintances,

Bramble: Anne = Close friend and study buddy ...develops a crush on Anne that is never reciprocated, Angus = friend and study buddy ...can sense Angus' jealousy and he's lowkey jealous of Angus's friendship with Anne,

Melli: Anne = MORTAL ENEMY (mutually respects one another's abilities... though would rarely be humble enough to admit it. Cares about her as well... just another human being ig, human decency if you will. His rivalry with Anne has left him with a scar where she bit him once, and has helped him be more physically tough... might come in handy for protecting his sweetheart/future sweetheart.) Angus = Annoying friend of Anne's ...at least he's not as obnoxious or barbaric though. NEXT SECTION

I HAVE LEARNED THINGS ABOUT THIS GAME I WAS NOT EXPECTING 1# Ingo in Legends Arceus is NOT Granpa/Uncle Ingo... No, he’s THE Ingo! The same fricker that you take on in the battle subway! I knew his clothes looked a bit too much like Ingo’s... I never counted on him being THE Ingo though... Hope he and Emmet can get a reunion soon :’( ....I MUST LEARN MORE ABOUT HIS BACKSTORY IF I CAN!

2# MC-CHAN IS NOT FROM HISUI?! THEY’RE APPARENTLY YEETED FROM A DISTANT FUTURE!? (Hence why my lovely fictional ancestor Anne will likely no longer be our MC rip ;w;) ...I’ve read online that said future is a future beyond the Modern Sinnoh we all know and love?! SO DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME MC-CHAN IS LIKE, BOTW LEVEL INTO THE FUTURE BEFORE THEY ARE YEETED BACC IN TIME BY ARCEUS!? GAMEFREAK AT LEAST LET THEM BE FROM MODERN DAY SINNOH... I COULD HAVE AT LEAST YEETED MY BOI NESTOR BACC IN TIME AND MAYBE HE AND INGO COULD BECOME BROS!!! (Nestor is like... from normal Modern day ig?) I may just say “frick u” and yeet normal modern day Nessie boi bacc in time to Arceus, I believe he’d have lotsa fun exploring a freaking new TIME PERIOD I just love the idea of Nestor’s cousin Neoguri and Ingo’s bro-bro Emmet going back in time in search of their kinfolk. Give them all a happy ending... TwT Ig I need to verse myself with the lore more before I go and make more fanlore but... ig any of u guys who have played, y’all think it too farfetched for a character from normal modern day to be yeeted back in Hisui? Or can I frick the story and yeet a modern day Nessie boi? OH AND HAVE A CURSED HEADCANON BEFORE I LEAVE YOU LOVELY PEOPLE

SO PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TALKING LIKE THIS FRICKER (Melli) IS AVERY’S ANCESTOR... WHICH HAS ME THINKING... DOES HE MARRY A POKEMON?! Now, before you guys throw off at the absolute absurdity of this headcanon, hear me out lol. Avery’s family naturally has like, Psychic powers... You know what else has naturally occurring psychic powers?! POKEMON Remember that lovely scene in DPPt where the player read about people in the olden days, MARRYING POKEMON?! THEREFORE, I HEADCANON THAT MELLI LIKELY MARRIED A PSYCHIC POKEMON, MAYBE A GARDEVOIR AND HAD A FAMILY WITH IT... THUS LEADING TO ALL THE WEIRD PSYCHIC PEOPLE THAT IS FREAKING AVERY’S FAMILY... Now look... I don’t really fancy the idea of Pokemon x Human couples persey but.... I mean, there is canon grounds that this cursed event could have happened. Yes you guys, y’all are very welcome for the nightmares I have bestowed upon you lol.

one thing I do appreciate about Melli, and Imma bet that this is a thing most of the dudes in the Avery family has went through: I honestly thought Melli was a girl before I found clarification that in fact, he was a guy. The same situation happened when I was first introduced to Avery... The men in this family are feminine and elegant no?

[littlemisspascal]

Death and an Angel part 9

Helmetless + Death!Din x Cupid F!Reader

Summary:  You make a promise to Din before you leave to meet with your superiors, but will you be able to keep it?

Rating: T

Word Count: 2,976

Warnings: fluff, the angst is back people, protective and possessive Din, your superiors are assholes, overuse of italics, swearing, plot plot plot

Author Note: All the love to every single supporter out there! Don’t hate me too much for this segment please.

Links to Part 1 and Part 8 and Part 10

Cross-posted on AO3.

Photo Inspiration:

“I’m going with you, angel.”

In exactly one hour, you’re due to report back to headquarters. You’ve been loathing this meeting from the get-go, but now, after being matched with Din, the mere thought of leaving him is as painful as a physical blow. You wish you had more time to revel in his heated kisses, the touch of his hands against your skin, the low growls he elicits when you run your nails through his curls.

Deep down, you know as immortal beings you will have an eternity to experience all of these thrills together. But right now the bond you two share as soulmates doesn’t care about the future, only the present. In your mind, it resembles a sapling soaking up every ounce of affection it can from you and Din, craving more and more intimacy in order to become stronger. Just thinking about being separated from him, even for only a short while, makes your chest hurt something fierce, as if a bundle of thorns has become wrapped around your heart.

Din is not immune to the effects of the soulmate bond either. Since his return to Arvala-7 he has not let you out of his sight for longer than thirty seconds. Anyone else, you would have been annoyed by the incessant staring, but with Din you only feel desired and, as sappy as it sounds, cherished in a way you’ve never felt before.

Which makes it all the harder to meet his gaze right now, frowning as you shake your head at him.

“Din, you can’t,” you say quietly, praying your voice doesn’t break because you know it will trigger his overprotectiveness and then you’ll helplessly melt into a puddle of warm emotions. “Only Cupids are allowed at headquarters. No outsiders allowed, not even Death.”

His jaw clenches, displeased by your rebuttal, but his fingers are gentle as they trail across your cheeks. That’s another thing you’ve noticed since he’s reunited with you: his gloves have yet to make a reappearance. It’s like now that you and the universe have assured him of your requited feelings, his iron walls of self-control have crumbled to dust, revealing a lonely, touch-starved soul who has long been told he could never physically connect with someone without the risk of killing them and is now desperate to make up for the lost time.

With this in mind, each time he initiates contact, you always make sure to return the gesture with as much affection as you can muster, whether that be by deepening his kisses or by intertwining your fingers tightly with his when he reaches for your hand. Or, such as in this instance where the two of you are lying together and cuddling on Kuiil’s bed, you take advantage of him having removed his full suit of armor to curl closer against his chest, nuzzling your head beneath his chin.

The Ugnaught had taken Din’s return in stride when he and IG-11 had paused their farmwork outside to check up on you about twenty minutes ago. Upon seeing them, Din had started to untangle himself from you so he could stand to greet them. His lack of urgency to conceal his face surprised you initially, but then you recalled Kuiil already knew Din resembled a human male, meaning at some point during their friendship Din had become comfortable enough to not wear his helmet around him. Petty jealousy swirls inside of you, upset you’re not the only one who knows Death’s true face, but you squash the ridiculous emotion not even a second later. If anyone is worthy enough of seeing Din’s true self, it’s Kuiil.

Before Din could get to his feet, Kuiil had merely shaken his head, saying he didn’t want to interrupt your time together when he knew you had to leave soon. Which is what prompted Din to insist upon himself accompanying you to headquarters.

“I don’t want you anywhere near those bastards,” he mutters darkly, lines of frustration forming ridges along his forehead. He still hasn't forgiven Hess for causing you to have a panic attack.

You wrap your fingers around his wrist, not with the intention of stopping his soothing ministrations, but instead grounding yourself in the moment using the skin-on-skin contact. Perhaps, you acknowledge privately to yourself, he’s not the only touch-starved soul in the room. I don’t want to be near them either, you want to tell him. Let’s fly away together on the Crest, somewhere far, far away...

Instead, you force yourself to say with the same carefully even tone, “The meeting should just be an hour or two, then they’ll make me take a reassessment test about Cupid regulations which I’ll pass easily.” You lift your head to peck the bridge of his prominent nose before holding up your pinky finger. “And by later this evening, I’ll be right back here in your arms. Pinky promise.”

Din stares at you for several heartbeats, stubbornness lingering in his gaze before at last he exhales a quiet sigh of surrender. He wraps his pinky around yours, squeezing tightly.

“I thought leaving you behind here was the hardest thing I’d ever have to do, but this—letting you go face them alone and knowing I can’t intervene—it’s a pain I’d only wish upon my worst enemies.”

You want to say something lighthearted, a teasing remark to ease the heavy tension in the room and make that stunning smile of his light up the space instead. Maybe, if you’re funny enough, you can make his precious and lone dimple appear in his cheek so you can press your lips to it. But your words get trapped in your throat, forming a lump that won’t go down no matter how hard you swallow.

You are equally as surprised as you are grateful when Din continues to speak.

“You’re my soulmate, angel, so when I swear these next words to you, I want you to have no doubt I mean them with absolute sincerity,” he says, a possessive and darkly seductive note creeping into his voice that has you instinctively biting your lip to keep yourself from moaning embarrassingly. “If anyone dares to keep you from me even a second longer than what is strictly necessary, I will stain the ground with their blood and reap their soul from their body so slowly they’ll weep for damnation.”

~~~

Headquarters is kriffing freezing.

That’s the first thing you notice when you step inside, goosebumps immediately rising along your arms and a shiver racks your spine as you navigate the maze of hallways towards the center of the building where the conference room is located. Every footstep reverberates off the black marble floors, but the sound isn’t loud enough to prevent you from overhearing the whispering voices of other Cupids watching you pass by, gossiping about your impending interrogation. You’d be angry at them, except that would make you a hypocrite since you’ve also spread a rumor or two about your coworkers in the past. You can feel an increase of anxiety rush through your bloodstream, making you stuff your hands into your pockets lest anyone sees them trembling and laughs.

Your three superiors are already seated and waiting in the conference room when you arrive. You make eye contact with each one, bowing your head as both a greeting and sign of respect. Lang, a dark-haired man who is known for shooting first and asking questions later, offers you a jaunty salute before lacing his hands behind his head as he balances his chair on its rear legs, the image of relaxation. Morgan Elsbeth, the only female of the trio, elects to ignore you in favor of boredly drumming her fingers on the glass tabletop, looking as if she’d rather be anywhere else in the galaxy than here. Hess returns the nod with a leering grin, further convincing you he was half-womp rat in his mortal life.

You reach for the chair closest to you, planning to pull it out to sit, when Hess’ low, gravelly voice has you freezing mid-motion. “Cupid 1-1-7, you are to remain standing for the duration of this meeting.”

“Yes, sir,” you say, clasping your hands behind your back.

Hess turns in his seat towards the holoprojector that is set up on the table. He presses several buttons and a holographic figure flickers into view, dressed in dark armor with a long black cape. You recognize the seraph immediately, never able to forget the first face you saw when you woke up as a Cupid. Moff Gideon is the supreme leader of all Cupids, imposing and sharp-witted with violent powers you’ve often heard described as barbarically ruthless. Everything about him terrifies you and you’ve done all you can to avoid being in his presence.

Only now there is no escaping him. You can’t even teleport to save yourself. When headquarters was initially built, Gideon infused his powers into its structure with the intent of protecting the building from being discovered or, worse, attacked. (Though who would want to battle a bunch of Cupids, you have no idea). However, to the detriment of all Cupids currently inside headquarters, Gideon’s enchantment also blocks any of you from using your abilities. According to him, it’s to prevent any power-sensitive beings from detecting your aura signatures and you’ve never wanted to risk being murdered to try and find a flaw with that logic.

To put it bluntly, you’re a regular human in every sense except you get to keep your immortal youthfulness. Which is literally the least helpful perk you could ask for right now.

“Cupid 1-1-7,” Gideon says, dark eyes peering at you with such focused intensity you feel sweat begin to form along your hairline. “You were granted forty-eight hours to determine your client’s soulmate. Tell us, were you successful in finding his match?”

“I—” you cut yourself off, noticing his use of a gender specific term.

He chuckles at your dumbfounded expression, a quiet huff of air that you quickly deem the scariest sound you’ve ever heard. “You may have been able to conceal Death’s identity as your client from my associates, but few incidents occur in the galaxy without my knowing about them.”

Your three superiors each display unique reactions to the reveal. Morgan’s drumming stops, attention now hooked by the present conversation and she gives you a once-over, clearly reconsidering her overall impression of you. Lang nearly falls backwards onto the floor, barely managing to correct the chair at the last second to balance himself. Hess props his chin on top of his interlocked fingers, observing you in a similar fashion as Morgan, but there is an eerie glint in his gaze you don’t like the look of.

You swallow thickly, feeling sick to your stomach. “What do you want from me, sir?”

“The full and honest truth.” There is a brief pause, increasing the tension in the room. “Were you successful in finding Death’s soulmate?”

You don’t understand why he’s asking you the same question twice when he’s admitted he’s practically omniscient. And the way he’d paused just now, makes you start to worry he’s baiting you into a trap, but you have no viable means of escaping to avoid giving him an answer.

Your voice comes out meeker sounding than you’ve ever heard it. “Yes, sir, I was successful.”

When it becomes apparent after a long beat of silence you are not going to admit any further information, Gideon levels you with a stern look. “I strongly urge you to reveal their identity to us, Cupid 1-1-7, so we may make note of them in our archives as is customary for all matched pairs.”

Well now that makes you definitely feel cornered. Your thoughts are a jumbled mess inside your head; half of you is convinced he already knows you are Din’s soulmate and is toying with you, while the other half believes he actually has no idea at all and is trying to scare you into revealing the truth.

Kriff. What do you do?

You stare over their heads at the far wall, uncomfortably aware of how the silence stretches on as they wait for a name. Your name. Maker, why do you keep ending up in these horrible scenarios? Who did you piss off in your mortal life?

“If your tongue has failed you,” Gideon says, tone deceptively light and airy. “Might I suggest that an alternative way of answering would be to show us your hands.”

He knows.

Kriff. Kriff. Kriff.

You continue your staring contest with the wall, refusing to let them see any indication your blood has turned to ice or that your lungs are on the verge of collapsing. Think, you rack your brain frantically. For Maker’s sake, think of something .

“You’re already in hot water, Cupid 1-1-7,” Lang says. His southern accent softens the words, but you still manage to detect the warning laced within them. “Don’t make it worse for yourself by being stubborn.”

As much as you loathe to admit it, Lang has a point. By continuing to resist, you’re only hurting yourself by increasing the time spent separated from Din. You don’t want to break your promise to him. Or, that little voice in the back of your mind chips in, cause Din to destroy Kuiil’s farm out of a panic-induced rage when you don’t show up tonight like you promised you would.

Inhaling a deep breath to steady your nerves, you hold out your marked hand, palm facing up to clearly display the soulmate marking. The little black heart almost seems to glow at being the center of attention.

“That is impossible,” Morgan murmurs, looking from your hand to her colleagues and back again. “No one can have two soulmates.”

“And yet here we have living proof contradicting that belief,” Gideon answers, gesturing towards you grandly with both arms. There is something in his voice—awe, you identify a second later—that has your body instinctively stiffening.

“That belief is the natural order of the universe.” Morgan’s voice is snappish, but outwardly she is her calm and collected self, not a single strand of hair out of place. “She is a deviation of the norm. A glitch.”

“If other Cupids find out about her,” Hess begins, pointing a finger at you like the others have no idea who he’s talking about. Like you’re not able to hear every word. “They’ll start thinking maybe there’s a second soulmate out there somewhere for them too, someone to replace the one who rejected them in their mortal life. They’ll start questioning the natural order, the foundation of our galactic society, and all those questions will only lead to one thing: unrestrained chaos.”

“In order to prevent that unfavorable outcome, I would like to encourage a moment of observation.” Gideon looks to someone out of range of the holoprojector, nodding his head once in confirmation. “Take one last long look for Cupid 1-1-7 is a unique anomaly you may never have the chance of seeing again.”

You blink, heart going still as the implication registers. “What?”

Before anyone can answer or scold you, a purple-skinned twi'lek Cupid you don’t recognize casually enters the conference room, like she isn’t guilty of intruding on a private meeting. Almost as if...someone had summoned her. Your gaze darts briefly to Gideon, suspicions confirmed when you see his smirking face, before looking back at the twi’lek drawing closer.

“It’s time for your reassessment test. I’m here to take you there,” she tells you, baring her fanged teeth in what you think is supposed to be a smile, but it lacks any warmth or friendliness. You can only stare back at her, every cell in your body screaming this isn’t right. You shouldn’t need an escort to the testing room.

“I can go by myself,” you protest, holding your ground.

She lunges forward with lightning-quick reflexes, seizing your elbow and leaning disturbingly close into your personal space. “Pity,” she says, feigning a pout. “I thought we could become friends.”

Something sharp pricks your arm. You first notice the mischievous gleam in her dark eyes, and then when you look down, you discover a needle being pulled out of you arm. The room starts to spin, fuzzy black spots appearing in the corners of your vision, and you sag against the wall, balance failing you.

Closing your eyes, you try to focus on your soulmate bond, calling out to Din as the numbing sensation spreads to your feet and you collapse onto the floor without an ounce of grace.

Then, distant and distorted, as if it is coming from somewhere underwater hundreds of miles away, you hear a responding cry, “Angel!”

Din. Oh, thank the Maker, you think hysterically. The delicate line between reality and imagination shifts and blurs, as if it also is succumbing to the drug’s influence. You feel his hands clutch at your face, then move to your shoulders, shaking you in an effort to force your eyes open. You want to see his beautiful face, even if it is merely an illusion, but your eyelids feel as if they suddenly weigh a hundred pounds each.

“Tell me where you are,” he demands, tightly gripping your arms to the point of pain. “I’ll come save you, just tell me where I can find you.”

The answer is on the tip of your tongue, only your mind starts to drift again, pulling you away from him towards unconsciousness. Your bond's strength wavers, unable to keep the connection stable across the lengthy distance separating you and him, and it begins to curl in on itself.

Din must notice this, too, screaming so loudly it verges on roaring, “Stay with me, angel! Please, just stay with—”

The last thing you think of before everything goes black is how much you hate breaking your pinky promise to him.

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